Jazz Articles
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Jacob Garchik: Assembly
by Hrayr Attarian
Trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik is versatile and restlessly inventive. His past work has ranged from a brass-only orchestra to a guitar-heavy ensemble as well as a unique take on gospel music. His sixth release, the provocative Assembly, evokes film soundtracks with a touch of fantasy. The nine originals make a cohesive whole with a creative momentum which does not slack. The opening track “Collage" has two distinct layers; in the background Garchik and soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome ...
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by John Chacona
Trombonist Jacob Garchik has an interest in musical subtraction. His 2012 release The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album (Yestereve Records) presented religious music stripped of religion. Clear Line (Yestereve Records) from 2020 featured a 13-piece big band with no rhythm section. Now comes Assembly, an inquiry into what a jazz quintet sounds like when added to itself. Garchik declares both method and intent in his song titles; the first three cuts are “Collage," “Pastiche" and “Bricolage." The ...
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by Mark Corroto
As a consequence of the global pandemic, we have been schooled in the science of virology. Under certain conditions viruses mutate and reorganize into something completely new. That is bad. Mutations can also be heard in the adventurous music of Jacob Garchik. That is good. His trombone leads his Atheist Gospel Trombone Album, his big band, plus Banda de los Muertos, a Mexican brass band. He can be heard in ensembles lead by Anna Webber, Henry Threadgill, Mary Halvorson, John ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Clear Line
by Dan Bilawsky
As strange as it may sound, sometimes the best way to break free is to simply box yourself in. Limitations obviously cut off certain possibilities entirely, but they open the mind to so many others in the process. Composer (and trombonist) Jacob Garchik has long subscribed to that line of thinking and he takes it to bold heights on this, the most original, least derivative big band recording to arrive in ages. Basically throwing out the rule ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Ye Olde
by Troy Collins
Ye Olde, the self-titled debut of Jacob Garchik's latest ensemble, has been described by the eclectic trombonist--who serves as in-house arranger for the Kronos Quartet, co-leads the Mexican brass band Banda de los Muertos, and is responsible for the Atheist Gospel Trombone Choir--thusly: “Imagine a 2015 cover of the soundtrack to a 1970's remake of a 1930's movie about the Middle Ages." Truth be told, Garchik's summarization is perfect; though nostalgic, this diverse effort (based on a whimsical tale involving ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Ye Olde
by Mark F. Turner
In Ye Olde, trombonist Jacob Garchik uses progressive rock, jazz and plenty of imagination to create what might be a mashup of Game of Thrones and 21st century music. He's performed with Henry Threadgill and Lee Konitz and produced the outstanding 2012 solo project The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album (Yestereve Records). These proclivities continue in his fourth date as a leader about an imagined faux-Gothic Flatbush/ Brooklyn architecture brought to fruition by a forward thinking band who handle ...
read moreJacob Garchik: The Heavens (The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album)
by Mark F. Turner
Brooklyn-based Jacob Garchik's The Heavens (The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album) recalls the prose of author James Weldon Johnson's famous 1927 book of poetry, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. where Garchik's stunning trombone work is likened to the poem's protagonist: a charismatic preacher with the ability to deliver awestruck messages. Garchik's trombone is the messenger, yielding powerful orations that are spirited and persuasive, like a sentence taken from Weldon's book that reads:“He intoned, he moaned, he pleaded-he ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Romance
by Laurel Gross
Jacob Garchik may be a trombonist but he marches to the tune of a different drummer. Although his compositions and playing on this new recording don't fall into an easy category, Romance is eminently likeable. While at first everything sounds unpredictable and free-spirited--imagine colors you haven't seen, combinations of sounds you haven't heard--it's soon clear that there is an organizing force behind these original offerings. Some sections are too pretty and melodic, even at times classical sounding, ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Abstracts
by Andrey Henkin
Music based in trombone, piano, and drums is full of round edges. It doesn't attack listeners with sharp points but rather envelops them, like a soft blanket or heat rays from the sun when it reappears from behind a cloud. Abstracts, Jacob Garchik's debut as a leader, presents the young but very veteran New York trombonist in a wonderfully pithy session with two equally young veterans in Jacob Sacks (piano) and Dan Weiss (drums). Eight pieces, entitled ...
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