Results for "John Nastos"

John Nastos

Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God

By ANGELO LEONARDI

Compositore e insegnante alla Portland State University, Ezra Weiss è professionalmente molto attivo in ambito locale. Per il suo debutto discografico ha riunito un'orchestra di 17 elementi per presentare il suo progetto in forma di suite e una coda col celebre “Footprints" di Wayne Shorter. Dei dieci brani originali quattro presentano lunghe narrazioni, esposte ...

Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God

By JEROME WILSON

In 2015 Ezra Weiss began to compose a suite that he intended would be a cautiously optimistic message to his young children about the world they were living in and the challenges and promise they would face as they grew up. By the time this music was completed and recorded in December 2018, its mood and ...

Charlie Porter: Charlie Porter

By HRAYR ATTARIAN

Trumpeter and composer Charlie Porter exhibits his innovative spirit and his brilliant musicianship on his self-titled debut as a leader. Working with a rotating cast of Portland (Oregon) area musicians, Porter performs ten of his originals and one cover with a refreshingly unique style and captivating spontaneity. Similar in concept to tenor saxophonist Benny ...

The Chuck Israels Jazz Orchestra: Joyful Noise

By EDWARD BLANCO

Veteran bassist, arranger/composer Chuck Israels has had the good fortune of performing and recording with some of the best jazz musicians on the planet including legends and icons from Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins to John Coltrane and Stan Getz among many others, though he is best associated with the Bill Evans Trio from 1961 ...

Ezra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]

By DAVE WAYNE

On Before You Know It, pianist / composer Ezra Weiss provides convincing evidence for the continued health and well-being of good old, straight ahead, gimmick-free modern acoustic jazz. The archetype for Weiss' beefy band and punchy charts would include Art Blakey's expanded Jazz Messenger lineups, some of McCoy Tyner's larger groups from the early-to-late 1970s, or ...

Ezra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]

By EDWARD BLANCO

Portland State University professor Ezra Weiss is a prominent pianist and composer in his own right who has several recordings to his credit and is a three-time winner of the prestigious ASCAP Young Composer Award. A traditionalist who prefers the straight ahead and modern jazz styles, Weiss delivers another gem on Before You Know It [Live ...

Gordon Lee with the Mel Brown Septet: Tuesday Night

By JACK BOWERS

For more than sixteen years, jazz fans in and around Portland, Oregon, have had the pleasure of seeing and hearing drummer Mel Brown's hard-blowing Jazz Messengers-style septet each Tuesday Night at Jimmy Mak's nightclub. Among its mainstays is pianist Gordon Lee who has been writing and arranging for the group almost since he enlisted shortly afterward ...

Christopher Parker: Full Circle

By JAKOB BAEKGAARD

Pianist Chris Parker is a musical explorer. He has travelled around the world musically and as his latest album Full Circle indicates, he has reached his destination and found an aesthetic where all the different aspects of his musical curiosity come together. While Parker travels a lot musically, he doesn't visit the melancholy ...

Christopher Parker: Full Circle

By DAN MCCLENAGHAN

Pianist Chris Parker's second CD release on OA2 Records, Full Circle, sounds like an exciting live set full of vigorous life, something that engages the crowd and gets them up out of their seat, dancing. It's a quintet--common enough in jazz--with the uncommon use of violin in the front line beside the saxophone, reeling out unison ...