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The Most Exciting Jazz Albums Since 1969: 1998-2000
by Robert Middleton
The recurring theme in the fifth installment of 72 Jazz Thrillers is Middle Eastern music represented by John Zorn's Bar Kokhba Sextet, Either/Orchestra's Ethiopian Suite, and Mark Gross's Riddle of the Sphinx. Middle Eastern music often features complex rhythmic patterns, such as compound time signatures and intricate polyrhythms. Jazz musicians have drawn inspiration from these rhythms, ...
Autumn Jazz Weathers Well in San Francisco
by Arthur R George
Autumn is a special season for jazz in San Francisco. The weather at other times of the year variously drives one indoors for warmth, a good enough reason to seek shelter in jazz. But in the autumn, mostly gone is the bone-chilling summer fog that pours into the city from the cold Pacific Ocean. Not yet ...
Lafayette Gilchrist: Undaunted
by Mike Jurkovic
Barn-burning, barrel-housing pianist Lafayette Gilchrist may or may not be known by everyone pretending to be hip and attuned or even by the rather rarefied company he has been known to keep--David Murray, Cassandra Wilson, Andrew Cyrille--but Undaunted is going to get him some much deserved attention. Abundant with cajones and plenty of rhythm, ...
Salvation through rhythm: Max Roach—The Drum Also Waltzes
by Peter Jones
Max Roach--The Drum Also Waltzes Directed by Sam Pollard and Ben Shapiro PBS American Masters2023 Anyone who enjoyed the recent Wayne Shorter documentary Zero Gravity might also dig this--a more conventionally structured but equally fascinating look at the life of Max Roach. Filmmaker and interviewer Sam Pollard began making it in ...
Diva Jazz Orchestra: "30": Live at Dizzy's Club
by Jack Bowers
The “30" in the title of the superlative all-woman Diva Jazz Orchestra's latest album stands for 30 years, which, believe it or not, is how long the orchestra and its remarkable drummer and leader, Sherrie Maricle, have been up and running and making beautiful music at home and abroad. Among U.S.-based big bands, it would seem ...
October 2023: An Improvised Paradise
by Pat Youngspiel
The Angelica Sanchez Nonet Nighttime Creatures Pyroclastic Records 2023 One rarely gets to hear the contra-alto clarinet--an instrument mainly developed in the 20th century with a range extending downwards to the lower E-flat (concert G-flat), sometimes even a D or a C. On the introductory title cut of Nighttime Creatures, however, ...
Darrell Grant's MJ New: Our Mr. Jackson
by Jack Bowers
Anyone missing the artistry and elegance of the Modern Jazz Quartet will warm quickly to pianist Darrell Grant's MJ New, which pays homage to the great vibraphonist Milt Jackson and, through him, the legendary MJQ, on Our Mr. Jackson. The instrumentation is the same as the MJQ, with Mike Horsfall sitting in for Jackson on vibraphone ...
A Tale of Two Jazz Humbugs
by Con Chapman
"Humbug" is a little word of great utility that has unfortunately passed out of general usage. It means, according to Webster's Dictionary, “a person who does not live up to his claims; impostor." While it carries the connotation of deception or trickery, it was more generally applied to what we would today call--with less compactness--a pious ...
French Showcase at the 2023 European Jazz Conference
by Francesco Martinelli
Palais du Pharo/Théâtre La Criée European Jazz Conference Showcases Marseille, France September 14-17, 2023 The showcase program of the 9th European Jazz Conference (see separate article) was inaugurated in the comfortable Auditorium of the Palais du Pharo--the main venue of the conference--by the Orchid Big Band. Born inside the musical collective ...
Rob Luft: Dahab Days
by Chris May
In an interview with AAJ in 2020, Rob Luft was asked to name six all-time favourite albums. Number one on his list was Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset's Dream Logic (ECM, 2012), a duo project with electronicist Jan Bang. Said Luft: “It's an album that really sounds like dreams, it's wonderful how it floats for forty-five, fifty ...
