Home » Search Center » Results: John Kelman

Results for "John Kelman"

Article: What is Jazz?

Words and Music: Why Liner Notes Matter

by Jakob Baekgaard
September 19, 2016

It is said that we live in The Information Age, but perhaps, it would be more correct to say that we live in the Age of Too Much Information. If there is something you are looking for, you can often find it on the Internet, but the question is whether it is quantity rather than quality. ...

Article: Extended Analysis

John Scofield: Country for Old Men

by John Kelman
September 19, 2016

When guitarist Bill Frisell first began a more decided focus on roots music, bluegrass and country & western music with the release of 1996's Nashville (Nonesuch), despite being largely very well-received, jazz purists rankled when the largely bluegrass/folk-informed album began to garner awards like Downbeat Magazine's Best Jazz Album of the Year. While Frisell's oftentimes Americana-tinged ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Radical Action (To Unseat The Hold of Monkey Mind)

by John Kelman
September 10, 2016

Plenty has already been written about King Crimson's surprise reemergence in 2014 at All About Jazz, beginning when the now 47 year-old progressive/art rock band commenced its first tour since 2008 (and its first extensive one since 2003) with a new, expanded lineup featuring a front-line of three drummers and a back-line of two guitarists (one, ...

Article: Album Review

John McLaughlin & Paco de Lucia: Paco and John - Live at Montreux 1987

Read "Paco and John - Live at Montreux 1987" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 29, 2016

It's truly a shame that, all too often, artists with diverse careers become pigeon-holed, defined by the primary genre in which they first achieved notoriety. Take guitarist John McLaughlin, for instance. Ask most jazz fans about him and what will first come out of most of their mouths will include either the words “fusion," “jazz-rock" and/or ...

Article: Rediscovery

Mark Isham: Blue Sun

by John Kelman
August 24, 2016

Mark IshamBlue SunColumbia Records1995 Better-known, perhaps, for his work in the film arena as scorer for movies including 1986's The Hitcher, the 1992 reboot of Of Mice and Men and 1998's Blade, Mark Isham has, nevertheless, demonstrated his instrumental prowess as a trumpeter on albums including pianist Art Lande's Rubisa Patrol ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Levin Minnemann Rudess: From the Law Offices of Levin Minnemann Rudess

by John Kelman
August 21, 2016

It may look good on paper, but you can never really know how “super group" collaborations are going to work out until they actually get together and do something. In the case of the power trio named after its members--bassist/stick player Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Stick Men), drummer/guitarist Marco Minnemann (Steven Wilson, The Aristocrats, ...

Article: Album Review

Sinikka Langeland: The Magical Forest

Read "The Magical Forest" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 4, 2016

Some pairings seem, in retrospect, to be made in heaven; so inevitable that it's only when they actually take place that it becomes clear how predestined they were all along. Sinikka Langeland--a forward-thinking traditional singer and kantele (Finnish zither/dulcimer variant) champion garnering significant attention in her home country of Norway over the past two decades--has, since ...

Article: Rediscovery

Sweet Billy Pilgrim: We Just Did What Happened and No One Came [2016 Kscope Remix/Remaster]

by John Kelman
July 31, 2016

Sweet Billy PilgrimWe Just Did What Happened and No One CameKscope Music2016 (2005) My how things have changed. Upon first encountering Britain's Sweet Billy Pilgrim at the 2007 Punkt Festival in Kristiansand, Norway, funding was so diminutive that singer/songwriter/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/erstwhile leader Tim Elsenberg was unable to bring the full group; instead, he ...

Article: Album Review

Mats Eilertsen: Rubicon

by John Kelman
July 29, 2016

It's no news to learn that we're the confluence of our many experiences: life, love, music....everything that we are comes from where we've been, what we've done, what we've experienced. That said, it doesn't mean that we can't move in completely new directions or try something completely foreign to us. Still, it's almost impossible to do ...

Article: Live Review

Festival International de Jazz de Montreal 2016

by John Kelman
July 19, 2016

Festival International de Jazz de Montréal Montréal, Canada July 3-7, 2016 In many ways, the front of one of the festival's new T-Shirt designs said it all: swing blues soul improvisation latin gospel R 'n' B crossroads silence groove world ...