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Gustavo Cortiñas Inspires Unity and Empathy Through Music

by Dean Nardi
The renowned French writer Victor Hugo once wrote that music is noise that thinks." Hugo was highlighting the profound and intellectual nature of music, suggesting that while it may seem like disorganized sound ("noise"), it carries deep meaning and expresses complex ideas and emotions that can only be conveyed through this medium. Hugo also wrote of ...
Shuffle Demons: They Are for Real... Really

by Dean Nardi
On the Shuffle Demons' Are You Really Real (Alma Records 2025), the uncategorizable Toronto band knits together traditional jazz, modern funk playfulness, blues, rap and the sensuality of Prince. For an ensemble that has been a going concern for 40 years, they maintain an optimistic, let's-go-for-something-new outlook, reflected in their flamboyant retro clothing that resembles that ...
Tropos: Outer Space Chamber Music

by Dean Nardi
Upon first listen to Switches (Endectomorph, 2024), the remarkable album from the group Tropos, one could imagine being caught in the traffic circle at the Arc de Triomphe. The clarinet blares, the violin evokes the squeal of rubber, the drums maintain the churning sound of the motors, while the piano searches for a safe exit. Is ...
Matthieu Chazarenc Evokes Bel Canto, Singing and Celebration

by Dean Nardi
The music has its source in Matthieu Chazarenc's natal southwest of France. The Paris-based drummer has offered his unique blend of jazz, classical and multi-rhythmic versatility on Canto III (Bonsai Music, 2024), linked to his first two albums as a leader--Canto II (Cristal Records, 2021) and Canto I (Jazz Family, 2018). I like to be able ...
Michala Østergaard-Nielsen: The Poetic Vibrations of Drumming

by Dean Nardi
Michala Østergaard-Nielsen is a jazz drummer from Denmark, a country with a rich tradition of women playing drums. Once during a lesson with Gerald Cleaver, she was told you could either play drums upon sound or upon a pattern. That really opened the doors for me to not think just the technical things, but listen to ...
Jamie Baum: These Are Her Times

by Dean Nardi
Jamie Baum is a world-class composer as well as flutist, who smoothly balances woodwinds with horns, guitar, bass, piano and drums so that they are equals. Her compositions can remind you of a Gil Evans arrangement with several decades of development added to create a thoroughly modern milieu. She mixes high-energy with ballads and Western foundations ...
Julian Shore: Sharing Secrets Under The Rose

by Dean Nardi
Piano trios walk the thin line between exhibitionism and intimacy, and you can look no further than Bill Evans whose tones vibrated ever so slightly with the distant thrill of zeal. Despite insistent attempts to overlook its worthiness in contemporary jazz, the piano trio is alive and well, in good hands with pianists such as Kris ...
Tracy Yang Embraces Her Multi-Cultural Background in Composition

by Dean Nardi
Tracy Yang is intimately familiar with the significance placed on identity in music. However, this awareness has not stopped the Taiwanese American composer from embracing all of her musical gifts, regardless of style. It is a choice that in just a handful of years has led Yang to a number of awards and recognition for her ...
Lucian Ban: Following Bartók's Trail Through the Transylvanian Villages

by Dean Nardi
It is hard to re-invent where jazz can go. Players can eschew all the conventional methods they want, but a wheel is still a wheel. This is a reason why pianist Lucian Ban's efforts to bring to light the Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist Bela Bartók's works as a field collector of folk music in 21st-century ...
Sean Imboden: Communal Heart

by Dean Nardi
Sean Imboden's Large Ensemble Has a Communal Heart Sean Imboden was bitten by the big band bug early on. It is understandable. Both his parents were musicians, and his father taught him to play clarinet when he was in sixth grade. As a teenager, besides playing in middle school and high school bands, he sometimes sat ...