Results for "Jeff Williams"

Jeff Williams

Jeff Williams was raised in Oberlin, Ohio where he began playing drums at age eight. Self-taught, with the aid of his parents’ collection of jazz recordings as a guide, he started playing gigs with local professionals at age fourteen. Jeff’s mother, Ann Williams, moved to New York to pursue a jazz singing career when he was nine, introducing him to a number of musicians who would be his early mentors, including drummers Jo Jones, Herb Lovelle, Elvin Jones, and Oliver Jackson. In 1967 Jeff made his recording debut with the psychedelic group Ant Trip Ceremony (Cicadelic). In 1968 Jeff entered the Berklee College of Music and studied drumming with Alan Dawson

Whirlwind Recordings: Celebrating 10 years

By FRIEDRICH KUNZMANN

This year London-based label Whirlwind Recordings is celebrating its 10th anniversary and looking back at a decade, during the course of which the label has grown to become an important brand in the jazz scene and beyond, with over 140 top-tier albums released under its name so far. The distinguished mark, which Whirlwind has established over ...

Bloom

By JEFF WILLIAMS

Label: Whirlwind Recordings
Released: 2019
Track listing: Scattershot; Another Time; Short Tune; Scrunge/Search Me; Ballad Of The Weak; New York Landing; She Can't Be A Spy; Air Dancing; A Word Edgewise; Northwest; Chant.

Day and Taxi, Adam Rudolph, Harish Raghavan and More

By MAURICE HOGUE

First out of the mixed bag of audio treats this week (it's Halloween after all!) is a track from Oliver Lake's first recording 43 years ago Ntu: The Point from Which Creation Begins. I haven't played Oliver in a while and that seemed like a good place to begin catching up. Adam Rudolph's epic project, Ragmala, ...

Lookout Farm: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1975

By CHRIS MAY

Fasten your seat belt, please. Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach's club date with Lookout Farm barely lets up during an hour of ferocious jazz going on jazz-rock. It's in roughly the same bag as Miles Davis' post-Bitches Brew (CBS, 1970) electric albums, some of which had Liebman in the lineup. The tape lay in the vaults ...

Marc Copland: And I Love Her

By JOHN KELMAN

There was a time when Marc Copland was releasing multiple albums every year, sometimes as many as three or four, like in 2009, when the veteran pianist (who began his musical life as a saxophonist) released his second solo piano album, Alone (Pirouet); an intimate duo date with veteran bassist Gary Peacock, Insight (Sketch); and the ...

Eclectic and Electric

By MAURICE HOGUE

This episode of One Man's Jazz is kind of eclectic, what with music from the likes of Petter Eldh's European super group Koma Saxo taking jazz in a different direction, Reverse Winchester (rapper/poet Mike Ladd hooked up with the open tuning of guitarist Mathieu Sourisseau), a historical bit on the strange tale of Canadian drummer Claude ...

Mick Rossi, Le Rex, & Emile Parisien

By MAURICE HOGUE

Creativity must be recognized, particularly the kind endures. The AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) continues this day, just as it did over 50 years ago, inspiring, pushing forward, and setting the standard for creative music. Only the players change. The premier performing group of the AACM today is the AACM Great Black Music ...

Jeff Williams: Bloom

By ROGER FARBEY

In a new departure, Jeff Williams has forsaken the quartet, quintet or sextet configurations of his previous four albums for Whirlwind in favour of this very convincing trio format. In tandem with this slimmed-down enterprise, he's employed a pianist and composer who is undoubtedly a rising star of jazz. Carmen Staaf graduated with a joint degree ...

Brad Mehldau, Sarah Tandy, Billy Mohler & More

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

A catching-up session with gorgeous new and upcoming releases, featuring tons of fascinating debut albums that reassure us about the future of jazz (special mention for Billy Mohler's Focus, Sarah Tandy's Infection in the Sentence, Terraza Big Band's One Day Wonder and the Heartland Trio's eponymous album) hand in hand with new works by established masters ...