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Wycliffe Gordon: What You Dealin' With?

by C. Andrew Hovan
Privy to the entire history of jazz trombone via the technological age in which we live, Wycliffe Gordon seems to have utilized this information in such a way that his own playing displays elements from various periods and a technical competence that is indeed remarkable. I was most familiar, at first, with guys who played with ...
Lorraine Feather's Language Turns A Witty Phrase

by Ken Dryden
I got to know Lorraine Feather through reviewing several of her CDs, amazed by her gifts as a lyricist and singer, who was equally at home with witty songs and tender ballads. I first met Lorraine when she was performing at the late lamented Manhattan club Danny's Skylight Room with pianist Shelly Berg. We would chat ...
Zvonimir Tot's Jazz Stringtet: Sarabande Blue

by Howard Mandel
"On this record I'm trying to fuse two things I know something about: classical composition and jazz," says Zvonimir Tot, the Serbian-born, Chicago-based guitarist, composer, arranger, improviser and educator regarding Sarabande Blue, his sixth album as a leader. The debut of Tot's Stringtet, an ensemble several years in development, is a gift from a musical artist ...
Trio Da Paz: 30

by Howard Mandel
Only very special collaborations last 30 years, and rarely do they become more exciting and together over the decades. Trio da Paz, however, is one such long-lasting and still lightning band. The team of drummer Duduka Da Fonseca, guitarist Romero Lubambo and bassist Nilson Matta, all Brasilian jazzmen of New York City, is just as dashing ...
Michael Dease: The Other Shoe: The Music of Gregg Hill

by AAJ Staff
"Think of any big city," Greg Hill says, introducing the narrative armature of his composition, The Other Shoe," the denouement and title track of this stimulating collaboration with Michael Dease, who arranged each of Hill's 10 compositions contained herein. It's 2 in the morning, you're still awake, and your neighbor comes in upstairs. You hear the ...
Fela Kuti: Yellow Fever

by Chris May
Yellow Fever was originally released in 1976 on Decca's West African imprint, Afrodisia, and both its tracks were hugely controversial in Nigeria. The title track is one of Fela's greatest masterpieces. Sung in Broken English, the language Fela adopted in order to make his words understood beyond Yoruba speakers, the lyrics rail against women's use of ...
Sun Ra at Inter-Media Arts, 1991

by Howard Mandel
On April 10, 1991, the night of this concert at Inter-Media Art Center in Huntington, Long Island, Sun Ra was near the apogee of his earthly transit. Having led his transformative iterations of his Arkestra around the globe for an unlikely if not unimaginable four decades, the visionary composer, keyboardist, conceptualist and cosmologist was, even though ...
Lou Donaldson: Say It Loud

by C. Andrew Hovan
It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when the sound of jazz could be heard lingering in the smoky corners of neighborhood bars in every major city from New York to Los Angeles. These ghetto hangouts were on what was often called the 'chitlin' circuit,' a network of predominantly black operated venues that ...
Steve Davis: Correlations

by C. Andrew Hovan
Surely it must be considered a milestone to chalk up Correlations as Steve Davis' 20th session as a leader. Just contemplate how much the world has changed since the trombonist started turning heads as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers back at the start of the '90s. The record business in particular occupies a vastly ...
Paul Quinichette: Like Basie

by C. Andrew Hovan
Like any business concerned with making a profit, the record industry has often resorted to questionable concepts, tributes, or other hooks to lure more costumers to their product. Currently we find ourselves in an era where the quality of original music is arguably on the decline, thus it has become even more prevalent to use nostalgia ...