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Other Minds 25, Day 2
by John Chacona
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 Taube Atrium Theater Other Minds Festival San Francisco, CA October 15, 2021 There are festivals for which centering the social aspect of music is the point of the exercise. Conceived, as founder Charles Amirkhanian put it in ...
Other Minds 25, Day 1
by John Chacona
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 Taube Atrium Theater Other Minds Festival San Francisco, CA October 14, 2021 When the organizers of San Francisco's Other Minds Festival chose Moment's Notice as the name of its 25th edition, it might have been with the hope ...
2021 Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland
by John Chacona
Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland Cain Park September 11-12, 2021 Witnessing the moment-by-moment interaction between musicians is one of the sublime pleasures of attending a jazz concert. There were plenty of opportunities to do just that during the Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland, but for me the sweetest such encounter didn't occur onstage. It happened between ...
Ben Goldberg: Everything Happens To Be.
by John Chacona
The music of Ben Goldberg seems to come from a place outside of time--or maybe it comes from several times simultaneously. Maybe it's the instruments he chooses; while the clarinet family has been on the comeback trail in jazz for a quarter century, it's a sound that invariably invokes the New Orleans of a century ago. ...
Jacques Schwarz-Bart's Afro-Caribbean Odyssey
by John Chacona
The saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart was born on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in the shadow of La Grande Soufrière, which is both an active volcano and the highest mountain in the Lesser Antilles. Both aspects of that peak get to the heart of Schwarz-Bart's career, which has been characterized by rapid ascents and explosive creativity.
Roni Ben-Hur: Stories
by John Chacona
Guitarist Roni Ben-Hur is an old soul. Uninterested in ostentation, the Israeli-born guitarist has been content to release a series of warm-hearted recordings that favor partnership over pomposity. Half his 12 leader dates have been duets or are co-credited. Stories isn't one of them, but it might as well be. This is an ensemble recording, patient ...
Miguel Zenón: Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman
by John Chacona
How do you hear Ornette Coleman's music? As an unlikely but logical extension of bebop vocabulary? As “free" chaos untethered from harmony? As a tributary of the great stream of Texas saxophonists? As jazz's purest melodism? The music of Coleman, who would have turned 91 years on March 9 2021, was all of those ...
Theo Bleckmann & The Westerlies: This Land
by John Chacona
Could This Land, from Theo Bleckmann & The Westerlies be the first great musical declaration of the Biden Era? If so, it's probably an accident. When they tracked This Land in August 2019, Bleckmann and the brass quartet entered the studio with a program of protest songs. But in degree and kind, they are ...
Camila Nebbia: Aura
by John Chacona
No one knows what the landscape for live jazz will look like in the near future, but it is fair to assume that New York and London will continue as centers of gravity with Johannesburg making a strong challenge. Here is a long-shot bet: don't sleep on Buenos Aires. If your idea of Argentine jazz is ...
Dayna Stephens: Right Now! Live At The Village Vanguard
by John Chacona
In his 2018 book, Playing Changes, Nate Chinen argues that the fundamental jazz dialectic of the 1980s and 90s, namely tradition vs. innovation, was ultimately a false choice. Two years later, Dayna Stephens' Right Now! Live at the Village Vanguard proves the point in the most eloquent way possible. In many ways, Right Now! ...
