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Results for "Eric J. Iannelli"
Frank Hewitt: Not Afraid to Live
by Eric J. Iannelli
Writing exactly one year ago about We Loved You , the first Frank Hewitt album to be released on the nascent Smalls label, I concluded my review by saying that the rest of the pianist's posthumous recordings couldn't come fast enough. This wasn't a matter of hyperbole or excessive enthusiasm. We Loved You was and remains ...
Jazz in Search of Itself
by Eric J. Iannelli
Larry Kart Jazz in Search of Itself Yale University Press ISBN 0-30010-420-0 2004 “In every case," writes Larry Kart in his preface to Jazz in Search of Itself , “the pieces collected here came to be written because other people asked for them." Those mysterious “other people" include ...
Gonzalo Rubalcaba: Paseo
by Eric J. Iannelli
Gonzalo Rubalcaba Paseo Blue Note 2004 Occasionally I like to take advantage of hindsight and see what appraisal I've given to an album long after the review has run and the disc has had time to remain or reappear (or neither) in my player. What I often find ...
Luna Quartet: New Standards
by Eric J. Iannelli
The Luna Quartet's “new standards" are, as one might infer from the album's paradoxical and punning title, all their own material. For the group's third album, pianist Steve Moon and bassist Damon Lee have divvied up songwriting duties, netting three apiece. Guitarist Ian Scherer, a new addition to the quartet, contributes one. The standout is “Miss ...
Andy LaVerne: Epiphany & Process of Illumination
by Eric J. Iannelli
When considering these two discs by pianist Andy LaVerne, it's easy to think that he has some kind of obsession with the revelatory experience. That may be so. But the similarity between the titles seems to be more coincidental than anything else. The first comes from the unusual inspiration to form a piano/organ (not one or ...
Dave Wilson Quartet: Through the Time
by Eric J. Iannelli
Through the Time is multi-instrumentalist Dave Wilson's first full-length recording. Although the ensemble bears his name, this is very much a collaborative effort--indeed, one reason why the songs all exceed eight minutes (the album itself is a hefty 72 minutes) is because each musician is given equal time and ample solo opportunities. Wilson makes no secret ...
Ron Surace: Trio City 2: The Return of the Trio
by Eric J. Iannelli
The title of this album, pianist Ron Surace's fourth for Chicago-centric Southport Records, sounds like a bad B-movie, a connotation Surace acknowledges with a grin: the cover art features the words digitally imposed on a downtown cinema marquee. And though it avoids the easy clichés and stiff performances found in a lot of second-rate cinema, the ...
Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts: Wake Up! (To What's Happening)
by Eric J. Iannelli
Wake Up! (To What's Happening) is drummer Matt Wilson's first album after realizing, thanks to the unintentional example set by his children, that he'd been going about things all wrong. Well, not wrong, exactly--just differently. “The more I play improvised music," he writes in the closest thing to an explanatory preface, “the less I ...
Jon Opstad: Still Picture
by Eric J. Iannelli
Twenty-one-year-old British drummer Jon Opstad's full-length début is a remarkably accomplished effort, heavily indebted to the ECM sound--atmospheric, evocative, sparing--but nevertheless supremely listenable and full of promise. Beginning with the introspective and melancholic “Fjord Song," the five tracks meld and blur into a unified sequence of sonic scenes and moods, fading and shifting like a photographic ...
Jack Wilkins: Ridge Lines
by Eric J. Iannelli
" Ridge Lines ," read the album's liner notes, “is Jack's second CD release, following Artwork , which was well received by critics, jazz radio stations, and a few normal people." This is a double loss--for the critics, who secretly crave the acceptance of the public while professing indifference, and the majority of “normal" folks, who ...
