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Interview: Dave Stryker, 'As We Are'
If there was an upside to the pre-vaccine pandemic of 2020-2021, it's that creative artists had solitary time to think about the road forward. For guitarist Dave Stryker, that period of confinement resulted in As We Are (Strikezone), a fascinating new album recorded in January 2022, featuring a jazz quartet backed by an inventive string quartet. ...
Lynne Arriale: A Suite Of Hope In Chaotic Times
by Anya Wassenberg
Pianist/composer Lynne Arriale's The Lights Are Always On (Challenge Records, 2022) is a suite of compositions that reflects on the tumultuous period of history we live in. Through the chaos, though, she offers a message on hope and the indomitable nature of the human spirit. “The theme of the album was inspired by an ...
Oded Tzur: A Thrilling New Saxophone Colossus
by Chris May
Oded Tzur's 2020 album, Here Be Dragons, the Tel Aviv born, New York based tenor saxophonist's first release on ECM, triggered an eruption of purple prose. Critics competed to see who could convey the most enthusiasm. A few even suggested that the Tzur quartet was the inheritor of the mantle of the classic John Coltrane quartet. ...
Pianist Joe Block: At the Start of His Big Bang
by Victor L. Schermer
According to cosmologists, our universe started as a tiny speck and within a fraction of a second exploded into a huge ever-expanding space with all the galaxies, stars, and planets condensing out of the dispersed matter within it. This picture of the origins of the cosmos provides an apt metaphor for the way in which some ...
Interview: Michael Abene
Michael Abene has always been a double threat. In addition to being a gorgeous pianist and accompanist, he's a towering arranger of big bands, orchestras, singers and instrumental ensembles. Fans of Maynard Ferguson are probably most familiar with his piano playing and arrangements for the band's recordings for Roulette and Mainstream in the 1960s. These days, ...
Federico Calcagno, fra Italia e Olanda
by Libero Farnè
Estremamente differenziato e incoraggiante si presenta l'attuale panorama dei jazzisti italiani emergenti, attivi in centri produttivi sparsi un po' ovunque, esponenti di diverse tendenze e rappresentati da varie etichette, nazionali o straniere. Senza dubbio in questi ultimi tre anni si è messo in particolare evidenza il clarinettista, leader e compositore milanese Federico Calcagno. Nato nel 1995, ...
Jean-Luc Ponty: Imaginary Voyages, Part 2
by Peter Rubie
Part 1 | Part 2American violinist Stuff Smith once said about the young, classically trained and self taught jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, “He plays violin like Coltrane plays saxophone." Born in 1942, Ponty has almost single-handedly taken jazz violin from the swing era into modern jazz, and beyond. At rock musician Frank Zappa's urging, ...
Brian Auger's Revolution In Jazz
by Jim Santella
This interview first appeared at All About Jazz in November 2000. Born and raised in London, Brian Auger came up through those crazy years in music. The 1960s were all about change. Things were being done in jazz that hadn't been considered earlier. Lifestyles and values were changing too, and that was affecting society ...
Jean-Luc Ponty: Imaginary Voyages, Part 1
by Peter Rubie
Part 1 | Part 2 Jazz is an art form that has been a singular hothouse of musical talent over the decades. There are, and have been, lots of not just great but brilliant players. But perhaps not unsurprisingly, there have been far fewer jazz originals. I mean by that, musicians whose playing has ...
Interview: John Scofield, Solo
John Scofield has one of the most distinct and fascinating guitar sounds in jazz. Notes are picked and bent, creating a pizzicato-like, jagged sound that meows in places and lingers in others. John and I have been long-time e-mail pen pals and he's a regular reader of this blog, just as I am an avid John ...
