Results for "John Ephland"
Ran Blake: Gray Moon, When Soft Rains Fall and Northern Noir
by John Ephland
I'm a sucker for musical duets. Duets that make me feel like I'm in the same room with the two of them. Here we have three recent releases with the iconoclastic, legendary Ran Blake, now 83, in what is his most typical setting. Yes, to hear Blake paired up like this is to hear ...
ELLNORA: The Guitar Festival
by John Ephland
Krannert CenterELLNORA: The Guitar Festival Champaign/Urbana, IL September 5-7, 2019 It takes place every other year; every odd year. Going back to 2005, ELLNORA: The Guitar Festival, held in the University of Illinois' Champaign-Urbana' one-stop-shop Krannert Center, has been celebrating the works of an amazing array of plectrists from all walks ...
Paul Bley: When Will The Blues Leave
by John Ephland
Ornette Coleman recorded “When Will The Blues Leave" in early 1958, released the next year on Something Else!!!! (Contemporary). Paul Bley played Coleman's blues four years later on The Floater Syndrome (Savoy Records), a trio recording with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Pete La Roca. Both versions--Coleman's in a quintet with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Don ...
Spring Quartet at Dalton Recital Hall
by John Ephland
Spring Quartet Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI May 4, 2019 They had to add chairs. The 435-seat Dalton Recital Hall, on the campus of Western Michigan University, was filled with multiple generations of music fans from all walks of life. The alluring ticket, brought to town by ...
Sun Ra: Monorails & Satellites: Works For Solo Piano Vols. 1, 2, 3
by John Ephland
Sun Ra as a pianist could be in your parlor, entrancing you with all manner of wistfulness, star-gazing, even a dash of the down-and-dirty via some dusty blues or off-kilter, angular, jagged afterthoughts. In this two-disc solo piano set, the nine selections that make up disc two bring it all back home, the music coalescing in ...
Liebman, Rudolph & Drake: Chi
by John Ephland
Chi is another trio outing with saxophonist Dave Liebman and percussionist Adam Rudolph, the third leg on this stool being drummer Hamid Drake. It is a kind of follow-up to 2018's alternately serene and propulsive The Unknowable (RareNoise), on which Liebman and Rudolph were joined by percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. Unlike The Unknowable, Chi was recorded in ...
Stephan Thelen: Fractal Guitar
by John Ephland
A guitar lover's delight, the Swiss Stephan Thelen's Fractal Guitar reeks of the many splendid effects the instrument can bellow, belch, intimate, cry out and sing. And all within the narrow yet liberating, pattern-based corridors Thelen's ofttimes arhythmic funkfest conjures. With nods to David Torn, Robert Fripp, Glenn Branca and even Nik Bartsch, the aesthetic creates ...
Eraldo Bernocchi: Like A Fire That Consumes All Before It
by John Ephland
RareNoise is one of those labels, one of those rare (no pun intended) labels, where format and style have become irrelevant. A recent sampling of the soon-to-be historic label should suffice in telling their ongoing musical odyssey. Pit one against the other: 2018's Anguish, featuring among others, Nordic phenom Mats Gustafsson in a wild-haired hoedown of ...
Elio Villafranca: Five Islands & A Revolt
by John Ephland
The setting was Systems Two, a well-known, state-of-the-art recording studio in Brooklyn. The sessions, occurring over five days in May (7-11) 2017, were set up to record Cuban pianist/composer Elio Villafranca's sixth album, the elaborate and thoroughly rehearsed double-CD Cinque (artistShare), the music previously performed in shows at Lincoln Center in 2015. Present at ...
Gilmore Keyboard Festival
by John Ephland
Gilmore Keyboard Festival Kalamazoo, Michigan April 25 to May 12, 2018 Thursday night is always the second night of the biennial Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Thursday night is also the first night for jazz, the festival putatively a classical music rollout with jazz confections, albeit well-considered, strewn throughout this 22-day cultural jewel based ...
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