Jazz Articles

Nathan Eklund: Trip to the Casbah

by David Adler
July 11, 2009

Trumpeter Nathan Eklund's first two CDs as a leader, The View from Afar and The Crooked Line, both featured pianist Joe Elefante as the harmonic anchor. Eklund's newest, Trip to the Casbah, finds guitarist John Hart playing that role, giving the music a bit more of an economical, riff-oriented flavor. The all-original program also includes Donny McCaslin on tenor, Bill Moring on bass and Tim Horner on drums, powerhouses all. The front and inside cover art shows Eklund with flugelhorn ...

Nathan Eklund: Trip To The Casbah

by Jerry D'Souza
May 10, 2009

Nathan Eklund is based in New York City, where he leads two bands: the Nathan Eklund Group and the Nathan Eklund Quintet. This gives him the leeway to cast his music in different streams and to interpret it in the manner that suits his compositions. Eklund has also been part of projects by Craig Yaremko, Eddie Daniels, Richie Cole, Joe Lovano, and Kermit Driscoll. This involvement calls for an approach that sits in with the wide ranging styles of the ...

Nathan Eklund: Trip to the Casbah

by Woodrow Wilkins
March 27, 2009

With Trip to the Casbah, his third release as a leader, Nathan Eklund is firmly establishing himself as one of today's prominent trumpet and flugelhorn players. A fixture on the New York jazz scene, Eklund has earned credentials as both a student and an instructor, with associations including Joe Lovano, Craig Yaremko's Sync, Richie Cole, Gerald Veasley and Chuck Loeb, and a guest appearance on Spyro Gyra's Grammy-nominated Wrapped in a Dream (Heads Up, 2006). Joining him ...

Richie Cole: The Man With the Horn

by Ken Dryden
August 6, 2008

Richie Cole mislaid the tapes to this 1981 session long ago, finally running across them in his basement while looking for something else a quarter-century later. His working band at the time included Philippine pianist Bobby Enriquez (whom the alto saxophonist gave the nickname “The Wildman" for his frenetic playing upon hearing him for the first time in a Hawaiian hotel lobby), guitarist Bruce Forman, bassist Marshall Hawkins and drummer Scott Morris. This session actually predates his Alive! at the ...

Craig Yaremko: Sync

by Michael P. Gladstone
March 20, 2008

Saxophonist Craig Yaremko's Sync, immediately brings to mind his other major appearance recently, as the multi-reed player on trumpeter/flugelhornist Nathan Eklund's A Crooked Line (Jazz Excursion, 2007).

While A Crooked Line was a structured attempt to revisit the early 1960s Blue Note period, Sync has some other ideas. The group here is a quartet featuring Eklund once again, along with bassist Bill Moring and drummer Steve Johns.

The liner notes make specific reference to the Ornette ...

Nathan Eklund Group: The Crooked Line

by Michael P. Gladstone
March 3, 2008

Trumpeterr/flugelhornist Nathan Eklund's The Crooked Line offers a pretty good measure of his quintet's capabilities. Anyone hearing much of this album, without any prior identification, would likely tab this to be straight out of the hallowed Blue Note era of the early-to-mid 1960s.

The title track is an attractive post-bop vehicle; the jaunty trumpet melody and solo insinuating the memories of Lee Morgan, Kenny Dorham and Johnny Coles. Joe Elefante's florid piano solo is right in ...

Craig Yaremko: Sync

by Woodrow Wilkins
February 9, 2008

Chemistry. The term can refer to a number of things. In music, it represents that just-right, often perfect, blend of sounds when musicians complement one another well. Chemistry is what you get on saxophonist Craig Yaremko's Sync.Yaremko is a fixture on the New York jazz scene. His experience has included live performances of classical, rock and pop music, as well as jazz. A short list of his stage and studio comrades includes Randy Brecker, Paquito D'Rivera, Bob Mintzer, ...

Nathan Eklund Group: The Crooked Line

by Woodrow Wilkins
January 22, 2008

Nathan Eklund may only have been recording as a bandleader for a few years, but he already belongs in the class of such artists as Randy Brecker, Rick Braun and, perhaps, the greats he counts among his inspirations. Born near Seattle, Washington, Eklund began playing trumpet at age eleven, and later added the flugelhorn. Interested in the music of jazz legends Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown, Eklund studied classical trumpet at Central Washington University. After ...

Abigail Riccards: When The Night Is New

by Michael P. Gladstone
January 16, 2008

One of the pleasures of hearing debut albums from aspiring jazz singers is to get an inkling of who the real talents are. In the case of Abigail Riccards, she clearly has a future.

Riccards has already accumulated several honors. She was the recipient of two awards from Down Beat Magazine for outstanding collegiate singer, as a student, in 2002 and 2004. She also earned a semi-finalist role in the 2004 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal ...

Nathan Eklund Group: The Crooked Line

by Troy Collins
December 10, 2007

The Crooked Line is New York based trumpeter Nathan Eklund's vibrant sophomore effort, following his 2006 debut, The View From Afar (Jazz Excursion Records). Joined by his erstwhile quintet, Eklund and company ply a subtly adventurous program of mainstream post-bop.

Joined by saxophonist Craig Yaremko, pianist Joe Elefante, bassist Brian Killeen and drummer Josh Dion, Eklund and company are typical of many young conservatory trained jazz musicians; technically proficient and highly accomplished, yet still finding their own voices ...