Results for "Kirk Knuffke"

Matt Wilson Quartet: Hug!

by Dan McClenaghan
August 12, 2020

Drummer Matt Wilson's quartet opens Hug! with Gene Ammons' “The One Before This." Saxophonist Ammons often used the tune as a showcase for tenor battles with fellow sax man Sonny Stitt. Wilson and company--featuring cornetist Kirk Knuffke, sax man Jeff Lederer and bassist Chris Lightcap--lay the sound down like a party. And this quartet parties hard. ...

Clean Feed’s Latest Releases

by Maurice Hogue
May 13, 2020

This episode digs into a number of fine new releases from Clean Feed Records. You'll hear tracks from the Simon Nabatov Quintet, the Scandinavian group Inland Empire (featuring Kris Davis), legendary singer Patty Waters, pianist Kaja Draksler, and the hard-nosed Luis Lopes Humanization Quartet (featuring saxophonist Rodrigo Amado). Also new is the Itaca 4et, a joint ...

Kirk Knuffke, Rick Countryman & Lakecia Benjamin

by Maurice Hogue
April 8, 2020

Saxophonist Ohad Talmor's new release, Long Forms, with his Newsreel sextet has just been released by Intakt Records and it's a must-listen; strong playing by some of the best musicians around, complicated but highly interesting tunes and arrangements, and a fully realized project. Another saxophonist, Rick Countryman, plies his trade in Manila in The Philippines now ...

Kirk Knuffke, Charles Lloyd, FIDOqrtet and More

by Maurice Hogue
April 1, 2020

This episode has several excellent contemporary trumpet/cornet/flugelhorn players scattered throughout the playlist: players like Brian Groder (new recording Luminous Arcs ), Dan Rosenboom, Kirk Knuffke, Nate Wooley (with Harris Eisenstadt), Ron Horton and Rob Mazurek (Chicago Underground Quartet). Those horns are staples of big bands too, so you'll hear plenty in the music from Sweden's Maluba ...

Kirk Knuffke: Brightness Live In Amsterdam

by Doug Collette
March 7, 2020

Kirk Knuffke's well-developed musical pedigree compelled the ever-so-astute drummer/composer/bandleader Allison Miller to recruit him for her forward-thinking ensemble Boom Tic Boom. It's the same premise upon which guitarist Charlie Hunter enlisted this man with the horns accompaniment for Everybody Has A Plan Until They Get Punched In The Mouth (Self-Produced, 2016). And in also assuming the ...

Leïla Olivesi, Charles Lloyd, Paul Bryan, Kirk Knuffke and Other New Releases

by Ludovico Granvassu
February 19, 2020

Here is the second part of this week's exploration of new releases [for the first part click here] by Kirk Knuffke and Paul Bryan as well as upcoming Blue Note albums by Charles Lloyd, and South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini. To top off Mondo Jazz's 100th episode, a celebration of Federico Fellini's centennial through his soundtrack ...

Kirk Knuffke

Reflecting on his guiding artistic impulse, Kirk Knuffke says: “I’m concerned with making beautiful music. Even when the music is free and avant-garde, I want it to reach into people’s hearts. I like to play fast and loud and high, but beauty is always first, though not in a precious way. It can be in a rough way, too.” A prolific, lauded record-maker, the cornetist-composer has made some 20 albums as a leader or co-leader over the past two decades. Knuffke’s 2022 release as a leader — Gravity Without Airs (TAO Forms/AUM Fidelity), featuring pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist Michael Bisio — fulfilled his poetic aims as well as any recording he has made to date, earning a review of 4 ½ stars from DownBeat magazine as well as a critic’s playlist pick in The New York Times. As an in-demand sideman, Knuffke also records and tours the world with some of today’s leading jazz musicians, from vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant and guitarist Mary Halvorson to drummer Matt Wilson and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis. Knuffke was a standout front-line foil for Lewis on the tenor man’s hit Red Lily Quintet disc Jesup Wagon, which JazzTimes named the top album of 2021. All About Jazz has aptly extolled Knuffke as “one of modern jazz’s most skilled navigators of the divide between inside and outside, freedom and swing.”

Brandon Robertson and The Quiet Temple

by Bob Osborne
September 20, 2019

This week new releases from Brandon Robertson and The Quiet Temple are featured there's also a host of recent albums with a mix of jazz and free improvisation..... Playlist Brandon Robertson “Stablemates" from Bass'd On A True Story (Slammin Media) 00:00 Pat Thomas, John Butcher, Ståle Liavik Solberg “The Solution" from Fictional Souvenirs (Astral Spirits) 07:34 ...

Whit Dickey/Kirk Knuffke: Drone Dream

by Alberto Bazzurro
September 11, 2019

Di duetti tromba/batteria, dai tempi dei due volumi-capostipiti (peraltro largamente polistrumentali) intitolati Mu e firmati congiuntamente da Don Cherry e Ed Blackwell (era il 1969, giusto mezzo secolo fa), ce ne sono stati svariati, pur entro una formula--un abbinamento--sempre piuttosto esclusiva, alla fin fine alquanto rara. Tornano sull'argomento Kirk Knuffke, trentanovenne trombettista di Denver ...

Whit Dickey/Kirk Knuffke: Drone Dream

by Mark Corroto
September 3, 2019

If the duo of drummer Whit Dickey and cornetist Kirk Knuffke were a baseball team, their signature style would be small ball, the opposite of towering home runs and 100 mph fast balls. They would win games like they sound here with tight efficient playing. They lay down perfect bunts and easily turn the double play ...