Home » Search Center » Results: Dan McClenaghan
Results for "Dan McClenaghan"
Samo Salamon: Dances Of Freedom
by Dan McClenaghan
Slovenian guitarist Samo Salamon released a top-ten-of-the-year masterpiece CD in 2022, Dolphyolgy: Complete Eric Dolphy For Solo Guitar (Samo Records). On this tribute to the late reedman who was always an unconventional, free-flying artist, Salamon examined every composition in the Dolphy songbook. Dolphy for guitar was a surprise and certainly must have been a challenge. Salamon ...
David Friesen: This Light Has No Darkness, Volume 1
by Dan McClenaghan
In 2020, David Friesen, an American jazz artist with Ukrainian roots, released his masterpiece, Testimony (Origin Records). The set was an orchestral, spiritual soundscape featuring Friesen's jazz quartet and the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine. Recorded in Kyiv, in December of 2018--about three years before Russia invaded Ukraine--the music was a majestic testament to Friesen's ...
Will Regnier: Traces
by Dan McClenaghan
Montreal-based drummer & composer Will Regnier's recording debut, Traces, paints an atmospheric soundscape. It could be a score for a science fiction Western movie, the accompaniment for scenes of a rider under an alien lavender sky, his mount a sturdy quadruped species, neither equine nor bovine, but something different. Low vegetation rises in prickly clumps in ...
Bob James: Jazz Hands
by Dan McClenaghan
Let us groove into a H.G. Wells mode and ride a time machine back to 1979 and revisit One On One (Tappan Zee), pianist Bob James' collaboration with guitarist Earl Klugh. The disc won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. It was a polished production, full of catchy rhythms and bright, memorable melodies--music that ...
Jim Snidero: For All We Know
by Dan McClenaghan
The cover photo on Jim Snidero's For All We Know features the saxophonist holding his horn out in front of his body as if he is offering it to us as a holy relic. Holy it is when he plays it; a relic it is not. The album is Snidero's first recorded offering in ...
Thriving Jazz Orchestras: 2024
by Dan McClenaghan
Jazz orchestras may not make much sense financially in 2024. They are most likely unaffordable as touring units. But in one-offs or the occasional studio efforts of established bands, some fine music can be found coming from the artistic minds of bold and adaptive composer/arrangers. Here are a pair of orchestral jazz outings that present modern ...
Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio: Jet Black
by Dan McClenaghan
The January 2024 release of Jet Black starts the year out right. It is the Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio's sophomore recording, presenting the Japanese pianist in one of her most compelling modes of expression: the piano trio. This is not foreign territory for her. She headed up a superb threesome with drummer Jim Black and bassist ...
Jean-Marc Hebert: L'Origine Eclatee
by Dan McClenaghan
Montreal-based guitarist Jean-Marc Hebert's third album, L'Origine Eclatee, sounds like something out of the ECM Records catalog. He is joined by trumpeter Lex French, bassist Morgan Moore and drummer Pierre Tanguay, forming a patient, subdued chamber jazz atmosphere that opens the first of the Hebert originals, “La Deteinte." The tune shimmers. Understatement is the plan of ...
Bill Anschell: Improbable Solutions
by Dan McClenaghan
Most fans of Seattle-based pianist Bill Anschell will not see this one coming. His comfort zone on his own recordings has been as a mainstream acoustic jazz artist, on albums like Shifting Standards (2018), a piano trio affair, Rumbler (2017) and Figments (2011), a solo piano outing. All of these were released on Origin Records.
Blaer: Pure
by Dan McClenaghan
Swiss pianist Maja Nydegger sounds like a musical first cousin to Nik Bartsch. With his groups Ronin and Mobile, pianist Bartsch create intriguing ritual groove music and Zen funk--descriptors Bartsch has used for his style--stirred up with modern classical sounds. Nydegger, with her group Blaer, crafts a similar mode of expression on her fourth album, Pure, ...
Giveaway
Days remaining: 7
