Results for "Julius Hemphill"

Julius Hemphill

Julius Hemphill - alto and soprano saxophone (1928 - 1995) For over thirty-five years Julius Hemphill earned a reputation as one who broke down boundaries and defied labels. A prodigious composer who wrote luscious and shimmering sonorities with the ever-present tang of the blues, Hemphill was as comfortable writing for full orchestra as he was for his Sextet or Big Band. He composed for theater and multi-media productions and worked with some of this generation’s most acclaimed writers and choreographers who sought his unifying consciousness for collaborative projects. An improviser of immense talent and saxophonist who could coax the best out of any musical unit, Hemphill performed in almost every major jazz festival and hall in North America and Europe, including the Berlin, Montreal, Kool, Rome, Paris, Den Haag (North Sea), and Warsaw festivals. Born in 1938, Julius Hemphill divided his attention between music and sports while growing up in the fertile musical environment of Fort Worth, Texas

The Volcanic World Of Pyroclastic Records

By MARK CORROTO

As listeners we so often typecast musicians and music labels. Artists are pigeonholed into silos: classical, jazz, rock, blues, pop, etc.. Go into any record store (if you can find a brick & mortar one) and this segregation, a forced separation, is also evident. Even streaming services are divided in this manner. Maybe it is just ...

Tim Berne: The Deceptive 4—Live

By MARK CORROTO

The difference between disc one and disc two of Tim Berne's Snakeoil release The Deceptive 4, two live recordings made eight years apart, might be the same difference between Miles Davis' first and second great quintets. Where Davis' The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions (Prestige, 2006) with John Coltrane from 1955-56 are stellar, they lack the complex ...

Alex Harding, Lucian Ban: Dark Blue

By NERI POLLASTRI

Duo estremamente longevo questo tra il pianista di origini rumene Lucian Ban e il sassofonista di Detroit Alex Harding, questo Dark Blue è il loro quarto album, ma esce a undici anni dal precedente. E la loro intesa è tangibile lungo tutto l'arco del programma, che include solo brani originali (sei di Harding e cinque di ...

Muse Records: Ten Smoking Hot Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Alone among the other great jazz labels of the 1960s and 1970s—Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Impulse!, Strata-East and Atlantic—Joe Fields' Muse is rarely anthologised, written about or otherwise celebrated. Yet like its peers, Muse was prolific, releasing over 200 premium-grade albums during the 1970s, its most active decade, alone. This relative obscurity is ...

Jazz from the Black Saint Label (1975 - 1989)

By RUSSELL PERRY

Ironically, the record label that most consistently offered an outlet for the American jazz avant-garde in the 1980s was the Italian Black Saint / Soul Note imprint. On All About Jazz, Jeff Stockton wrote, ..."from 1984 to 1989 Black Saint won the Down Beat critics poll for “Best Label" and “Best Producer" and established itself as ...

A Jazz Immuno-Booster: Part 5

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

Back to popular demand! Here's some more musical therapy for these trying times, the fifth installment of this popular mix-tape series, featuring selections by Tim Berne, Theo Bleckmann, Stefano Bollani, Tommaso Cappellato, Taylor Ho Bynum, Dominique Fils-Aimé, Mats Gustaffson, Maya Keren, Brad Mehldau, Aaron Parks, Rosa Brunello and Ben Wendel. Happy listening! Stay safe ...

New sounds from Postma, Gould and Shaw

By BOB OSBORNE

On this show new releases including: The seventh album from Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma. Her first since 2014,  a come-back album as a leader. Together with trumpeter Ralph Alessi, bassist Matt Brewer, drummer Dan Weiss and featuring pianist Kris Davis she has delivered an excellent set. A remarkable live album from Bill ...

Alexander Von Schlippenbach, Dag Magnus Narvesen and More

By MAURICE HOGUE

There are several new albums sampled in this episode, beginning with a pair of bands from Toronto--bassist Pete Johnston's See Through 4 which features pianist Marilyn Lerner, and drummer Ernesto Cervini's quartet. Avant-garde collaborators Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Dag Magnus Narvesen reunited for another duo session of very out-there explorations on Liminal Field. Revisiting his past ...

Jazz in the Time of Pandemic

By KARL ACKERMANN

The first week of April 2020: images crystalized the daily news reports; a dystopian Times Square; Piazza Navona in Rome, emptied of tourists, Barcelona's Basílica de la Sagrada Família standing like an abstract ruin, makeshift morgues in hospital parking lots. The jazz world is small but still a microcosm of society with interdependencies that run deep. ...