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Dave Meder: Modern Gothic
by John Chacona
Hymn tunes are having a bit of a moment with players such as Dave Douglas and James Brandon Lewis calling on these sturdy old melodies for projects that often wander far from their plain, homespun source material. On New American Hymnal (Outside in Music, 2023), pianist Dave Meder goes a step further by making the communal ...
Jacques Schwarz-Bart: The Harlem Suite
by John Chacona
Tenor saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart has lived in Paris, Senegal, and Switzerland as well as his native island of Guadeloupe, but his 18 years in Harlem were crucial to his life and career. It was there that he found himself at an inflection point in the dynamic music scene of the late '90s, playing with such transformative ...
Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached, 1957-1965
by John Chacona
Imagine if Sidney Bechet, Charlie Christian and Jimmy Smith were barely remembered and recordings of their music were long unavailable and known only on the geekiest corners of Discogs. That is essentially the status of harpist Dorothy Ashby. Like the three figures cited above, Ashby essentially created a language for her chosen instrument, the harp, where ...
The Nimmons Tribute: Volume 2 - Generational
by John Chacona
Anyone who listened to Canadian radio after the adoption of the so-called Canadian Content requirement in the '70s probably heard a lot of Phil Nimmons' music. To be sure, the clarinetist, composer and arranger had achieved some recognition south of the 49th parallel through his RCA recordings of the '50s but, by choosing to base his ...
3x3: Jazz Trios Playful and Pensive
by John Chacona
Can we finally retire the assertion that we are living in a Golden Age of the jazz piano trio? It seems like every month brings trio dates of such imagination and accomplishment as to render superlatives beside the point. These three recordings released in an eight-week period in Spring 2023 are a reminder that one of ...
Petros Klampanis: Tora Collective
by John Chacona
Some ideas work better on paper than on record. Take the attempts to fuse jazz and Greek popular music. There is, to be sure, a certain logic to the notion. Both traditions share an emphasis on virtuosic improvisation and a foundation in dance rhythms. Rebetika, the mournful songs of heartache, alienation and ...
Ken Vandermark: Returning To The Road With A New Band And New Energy
by John Chacona
For three decades, Ken Vandermark has criss-crossed the globe as one of music's most restless and exploratory improvisors. Yet as he embarked on a tour in Spring 2023, his improvisatory skills were put to the test--not as a musician, but as a bandleader and organizer. He assembled a new band, Edition 55, that includes ...
Ben Wendel Group At Bop Stop
by John Chacona
Ben Wendel Group Bop Stop Cleveland, OH March 22, 2023 For a long time, California has held a mythic place in the U.S. popular imagination as a fountainhead of new ideas in culture, technology, or in the case of the smartphone ("Designed by Apple in California") of both. So it makes ...
Choose Joy
by John Chacona
What should music sound like as the world emerges from the musical Ice Age of the pandemic years? An elegiac tone is an inevitable and perhaps necessary acknowledgment of the desolation of those years. Equally valid is an expression of joy and gratitude for the transformative power of music to heal and uplift. In their own ...
A Tasting Menu
by John Chacona
It says a lot for the current state of the music that some of the most interesting music hitting the market is being made by lesser-known artists who might never get a look from major labels. Here are four that have their own particular—and very different—charms. All are worth a spin for the sheer joy of ...
