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Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band: Landmarks
by John Kelman
Four records in 16 years may not be prolific, but clearly Brian Blade and his longstanding Fellowship Band aren't about quantity. While a seemingly scant two years separated the drummer's leader debut (and inspiration for the group name), Fellowship (Blue Note, 1998) from its even more impressive follow-up, Perceptual (Blue Note, 2002), the group's next record, ...
Zach Brock: Purple Sounds
by John Kelman
Virtuosity isn't defined by notes-per-minute; true virtuosity is instrumental mastery surrendering to the demands of the song. Sometimes that can mean shredding with furious intensity, yes; but the real deal also respects music that demands less, rather than more. Violinist Zach Brock is, indeed, the real deal, and Purple Sounds, his second release for Holland's Criss ...
Arve Henriksen: Chron | Cosmic Creation
by John Kelman
Despite the suggested evidence of 2008's Cartography (ECM) and 2013's follow-up, Places of Worship (Rune Grammofon), trumpeter Arve Henriksen's career has not only been about the intrinsic--and deeply personal--lyricism that defined those recordings, as well as the three Rune Grammofon recordings that preceded them--2007's Strjon, 2004's Chiaroscuro and 2001's Sakuteiki, those three recordings collected in the ...
Jaco Pastorius: Modern American Music…Period! The Criteria Sessions
by John Kelman
1976 was, for electric bassists, the year where everything changed. Jaco Pastorius hadn't quite emerged from nowhere, and the few prior recordings on which he could be found may have provided some hint of what was to come, but it was the quadruple punch of fellow legend-in-the-making Pat Metheny's leader debut Bright Size Life (ECM, 1976), ...
Nils Petter Molvaer: Switch
by John Kelman
Sometimes when forced into change, the best thing to do is toss what came before and shoot for something completely different. With Stian Westerhus leaving trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær's trio after three years of extensive touring and the sole, spectacular document Baboon Moon (Sula, 2011), Molvær's career--defined, since emerging in the mid-'80s with the acclaimed group ...
Joel Harrison & Anupam Shobhakar Multiplicity: Leave the Door Open
by John Kelman
If but a single word must describe guitarist/composer Joel Harrison it's restless; one look at his discography, from his “breakthrough" Free Country (ACT, 2003) to the 19-piece big band of Infinite Possibility (Sunnyside, 2013) and it's clear that this Guggenheim Fellowship Award winner isn't content in any one place for long. Leave the Door Open may ...
Tom Guarna: Rush
by John Kelman
With his five recordings on Steeplechase since 2005's Get Together, it's hard not to think of him as a dyed-in-the-wool mainstreamer, but Tom Guarna's extracurricular activities tell a completely different story. He may love big fat hollowbody guitars and the Great American Songbook, but Guarna's work with George Colligan on Realization (Sirocco, 2005) and the stylistically ...
Sonar: Static Motion
by John Kelman
At a time when more recordings are released than ever before, it's rare to find a group that not just changes the way music is made, but the way it's defined. That description could easily fit Swiss pianist Nik Bartsch and his longstanding group Ronin, its Ritual Groove Music jettisoning overt virtuosity and conventional form for ...
Miles at the Fillmore - Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3
by John Kelman
By the time Bitches Brew (Columbia) was released in April, 1970—and despite receiving a 5-star review in Downbeat Magazine—trumpeter Miles Davis was already under fire from mainstream jazz critics as having “sold out," despite the densely constructed, improvisationally unfettered music being as unapproachable to an audience looking for accessible music as anything he'd done with his ...
John McLaughlin & The 4th Dimension: The Boston Record
by John Kelman
Ever since guitarist John McLaughlin formed the 4th Dimension--his first electric fusion band in a decade--fans have been hoping he'd dig a little further into his back catalog. The wait is over with The Boston Record, a live album recorded in 2013 at Boston's Berklee College of Music. This isn't 4th Dimension's first live ...
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