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Charlie Hunter: Gentlemen, I Neglected to Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid
by John Kelman
As ever, 7-string guitarist Charlie Hunter can be counted on to shake things up every couple of discs. After two trio sets with keyboardist Erik Deutsch, Hunter returns to the horn-driven breadth of Right Now Move (Ropeadope, 2003). On Gentlemen, I Neglected to Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid, however, Hunter trades Right Now's ...
Knut Reiersrud: Gitar
by John Kelman
So much has been written about the Nordic sound that it's easy to forget, for most Norwegians--like anyone else--that their roots don't lay entirely within the tradition of their own country. In the case of the normally far-from-reticent Knut Reiersrud and the aptly titled Gitar, there are trace elements of traditional British folk music, the blues, ...
Thierry Lang: Lyoba Revisted
by John Kelman
New sources of inspiration can sometimes be no farther away than your own backyard. Coming from Fribourg--a small, beautifully preserved old town in the west of Switzerland--the classically trained and jazz-savvy pianist Thierry Lang has long been drawn to area's endemic music, in particular that of Joseph Bovet, a priest who lived in the area from ...
Eberhard Weber: Colours
by John Kelman
As the jazz-rock fusion movement gained ground from its early years in the late 1960s through its glory days in the early-to-mid-1970sblending the more sophisticated harmonies of jazz with rock music's rhythmic power and high volumeall too often it was about muscular chops and complex writing for the sake of it. Little attention was paid to ...
L'Image (Mainieri/Bernhardt/Spinozza/Levin/Gadd): 2.0
by John Kelman
It may seem odd to take nearly 40 years to release a debut, but in the case of L'Image it's definitely a case of never-too-late. A collective formed by vibraphonist Mike Mainieri in the early 1970s, L'Image generated considerable buzz for its live shows before, on the cusp of recording its first album, circumstances forced the ...
Mike Mainieri: Man Behind Bars
by John Kelman
It's hard to imagine vibraphonist Mike Mainieri in his seventies. Not only does he look and sound like a man 10 years (or more) his junior, but a quick look at the projects he's been involved in over the past few years sound like anything but a septuagenarian resting on his not inconsiderable laurels.
Zevious: After the Air Raid
by John Kelman
Amidst a legion of guitarists for whom chops is the end not the means, there's an alternate group of players with unrelenting skill and an avoidance of the look at me" posing that seems endemic to the instrument, especially when it comes to more aggressive, rock-centric playing. Ben Monder's remarkable Oceana (Sunnyside), one of 2005's best ...
Larry Carlton: Greatest Hits Recorded Volume One
by John Kelman
Since emerging as a ubiquitous session ace--his sweet tone and lyrical bent creating some of the 1970s' most definitive guitar solos for artists including The Crusaders, Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell--Larry Carlton has combined unerring melodic instincts and stunning harmonic knowledge into a discography as accessible as it is deep. For some, he's veered too close ...
Ergo: Multitude, Solitude
by John Kelman
As jazz leans away from characteristics that so defined its earliest days, groups are emerging with unorthodox instrumental combinations, fleshed out by the vast potential of technological soundscaping. Ergo, at its core, seems as unconventional as they get--trombone, keyboards, drums--creating music that wouldn't have been possible before relatively recent innovations in sound processing and sampling/looping. Its ...
John Kelman's Best Live Shows of 2009
by John Kelman
It was a great year for live music, what with covering six festivals and a host of individual shows, from Canada to Germany to Norway. Perhaps most remarkable was just how consistently fine every show was, but of the 99 shows covered in 2009 for AAJ, 17 stood out as being especially memorable. In chronological order:


