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Results for "Dan McClenaghan"
Chris Walden Big Band & St. John's Choir: Kurt Marti Suite
by Dan McClenaghan
The German-born composer/band leader Chris Walden pays the rent with his television and movie work, scoring over thirty feature and television films, in addition to his writing for a variety of musical artists, including--Christopher Cross, Michael Bolton, Sheryl Crow, Paul Anka and Olivia Newton-John. The art of his heart, though, must certainly be his big band ...
Helen Sung: Sungbird (After Albeniz)
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist/composer Helen Sung could have played it safe. After offering up two fine straight ahead jazz outings-- Push (Blue Moon, 2004) and Helenistique, (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2006), the expectation was more of the same." And that would not have been a disappointment. Though the New York based artist came to jazz late--during her college years, ...
Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: First Flight
by Dan McClenaghan
Trombonist/composer/arranger Pete McGuinness has twenty years on the New York jazz scene under his belt, playing with the Woody Herman Big Band (directed by Frank Tibieri) and the Maria Schneider Orchestra, alongside studies with trombonist Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Album. So it's no surprise that his first recording leading his Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra, First Flight, ...
Maria Schneider Orchestra: Sky Blue
by Dan McClenaghan
Maria Schneider says she takes great pleasure in making people sound their best. In an orchestral setting, nobody does it better. She proved that on Concert in the Garden (ArtistShare, 2004); and she raises the bar with Sky Blue. Schneider, like Duke Ellington before her, writes for her players, and on this disc she has incited ...
Balval: Blizzard Boheme
by Dan McClenaghan
Back in my teen years, when my listening tastes were somewhat limited, I read an interview of Frank Zappa in one of the rock magazines. He was asked what he was listening to, what type of popular music spun around on his turntable. He dismissed the popular sounds, saying they didn't interest him at all, that ...
David Sills: Green
by Dan McClenaghan
With tenor saxophonist David Sills, three big s" words come to mind: Swinging, soulful, and...surfing?"Check out the cover photo on his Green CD. You might think it a re-release of a forgotten Chantays--of Pipeline" fame--album from 1963. The guy on the surfboard--David Sills himself--is cutting into a bottom turn on a clean, overhead steel ...
Masha Campagne: Caminhos Cruzados = Crossroads
by Dan McClenaghan
Almost all jazz artists have an interesting back story, and vocalist Masha Campagne is no exception. Originally from Russia, she began her formal musical education in the classical European tradition with studies in cello and piano at Moscow's Gnessin State Musical College. She was introduced to American jazz via her grandfather's record collection that included albums ...
Mitch Marcus Quintet: The Special
by Dan McClenaghan
On The Special, San Francisco Bay area's Mitch Marcus Quintet--two saxophones with a high octane, guitar-driven rhythm section--go with a fiery gusto for a post apocalyptic jazz mood, sounding like a bunch of young musical toughs surviving the hard way in a not-too-distant dystopian world, hard-asses with instruments stalking a dark, Clockwork Orange alley.For ...
Ron Di Salvio: Essence of Green
by Dan McClenaghan
Essence of Green is pianist/composer Ron Di Salvio's nod to the music created by Miles Davis and his sextet on the classic album, Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). The sound that opens the album on Six Shades of Green" is unmistakable: that elastic, slow-loping rhythm from Davis' All Blues," with bassist Rodney Whitaker front-and-center here, backed ...
Fred Katz: Folk Songs for Far Out Folk
by Dan McClenaghan
Call Fred Katz a visionary, an iconoclast, a far-out Zen guy. Here's a quote from Katz that gives some insight into the mind of the artist: Tradition is a terrible tyrant. Memory, man. It's better to live in the moment. I am eating this sandwich. Know what I mean?"Katz possesses a long, strange resume: ...


