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Stephane Mercier: New Saxophone Talent
by AAJ Staff
This article was originally published at All About Jazz in December 2001. Belgian alto saxophonist Stephane Mercier tolerates no boundaries. “I listened to some cheesy things when I was young--I don't mind. If I like something, I just put it," he proclaims about his approach to music. A new talent in the jazz world, ...
Ugly Beauty: Jazz in The 21st Century
by Philip Freeman
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1, “JD Allen: Just Keep Going" from Philip Freeman's Ugly Beauty: Jazz in The 21st Century (ZerO Books, 2022). Queens, New York seems purposely designed to confuse travelers. It's January 2, 2020, a brisk but sunny day, and I'm to meet saxophonist JD Allen at Samurai ...
I Hear a Rhapsody
by David Caudill
We put out a call to visitors to AAJ to tell us their stories about how jazz has impacted, indeed shaped their lives. David Caudill heard the call. David has lived in Cincinnati for three decades and spent a long career writing, both in journalism and for a short while in corporate communications. He ...
Stephen Philip Harvey: Big Band Superhero In the Making
by John Chacona
There's a passage in “Party Song," the concluding cut on the Stephen Philip Harvey Jazz Orchestra's debut recording, Smash! (Next Level, 2022) where the band claps hands, whoops and cheers over a syncopated praise-band saxophone riff. It's pure, unbridled joy and just like the exuberance implied by the exclamation point in the album's title, it's an ...
Camilla George At The MAC
by Ian Patterson
Camilla George The MAC Belfast, N. Ireland June 25, 2022 It was a sell-out crowd for Camilla George's Belfast gig, the penultimate stop on a ten-date tour of Ireland. In part, this no doubt reflected people's hunger for live music after the socio-cultural privations of lockdown, but above all, it ...
Oded Tzur: A Thrilling New Saxophone Colossus
by Chris May
Oded Tzur's 2020 album, Here Be Dragons, the Tel Aviv born, New York based tenor saxophonist's first release on ECM, triggered an eruption of purple prose. Critics competed to see who could convey the most enthusiasm. A few even suggested that the Tzur quartet was the inheritor of the mantle of the classic John Coltrane quartet. ...
The Jazz Artist: Takao Fujioka
by B.D. Lenz
Although music is an auditory art form, for some, there has always been a strong visual component to it, particularly when album covers were at a high point. It's hard to imagine some of the most famous albums without simultaneously visualizing their iconic covers. At their best, they contribute to the ambience of the experience and ...
Jean-Luc Ponty: Imaginary Voyages, Part 1
by Peter Rubie
Part 1 | Part 2 Jazz is an art form that has been a singular hothouse of musical talent over the decades. There are, and have been, lots of not just great but brilliant players. But perhaps not unsurprisingly, there have been far fewer jazz originals. I mean by that, musicians whose playing has ...
Bayard, Hulett, Lomax: Trio Plays Mingus
by Karl Ackermann
In the year that would have been Charles Mingus' one-hundredth birthday, there is no shortage of reissues, tribute albums, and previously unreleased sessions such as The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's (Resonance Records, 2022). But for drummer & composer Mark Lomax, the musical legacy of Mingus has special meaning. His Trio Plays Mingus gives new life ...
Javon Jackson: Wading In Spiritual Waters
by R.J. DeLuke
Saxophonist Javon Jackson, he of the sonorous tenor tone and the inquisitive musical mind, embarked last year on a musical project with a different twist. Jackson, a follower of Sonnys Stitt and Rollins, is known as a a jazz fiend, one of the dauntless players of his era. His superb playing is marked by ...
