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Results for "Mark Corroto"
Kenny Millions: Humanplexity/Mixed Nuts/Those Were The Days
by Mark Corroto
Imagine John Zorn with a sense of humor, or a least imagine him telling a joke not at your expense and you have an idea where Keshavan Maslak a.k.a. Kenny Millions is coming from. His outsider status in the avant community (probably self-imposed) comes from his utter lack of musical sobriety. Born of Ukranian ancestry, Keshavan ...
Rob Blakeslee Quartet: Last Minute Gifts
by Mark Corroto
There is a conversation going on in jazz these days, and I’m not referring to the debate as to whether Ken Burns is the anti-Christ. I also am not referring to apparent contention raised by the PBS wonderboy that jazz, although dead (since 1962), makes a nice museum piece. The conversation I am refering to is ...
Mike Jones: Live At Steinway Hall
by Mark Corroto
Pianist Mike Jones is throwback musician. His music is a vestige of a time when stride and swing piano co-existed in jazz. This record made at Steinway Hall in 1997 is about a man, just one solitary man working through some classic tunes. Played any other way, making this a duo, trio, or quartet record would ...
Ben Allison: Riding The Nuclear Tiger
by Mark Corroto
Like Charles Mingus, the bassist Allison has taken an aggressive approach to his music. Allison formed the Jazz Composers Collective, a musician-run, nonprofit with a mission to foster creative artists and new music. Not waiting for the jazz establishment to pick up on what he is laying down, he performs and writes for small ensembles and ...
Orrin Evans and Seed: Seed
by Mark Corroto
The sound of Orrin Evans’ piano is restless. His latest trio, Seed, features original compositions that have an unsettled quality. Like Horace Tapscott’s explorations of the 1970’s or Andrew Hill in the 1960’s, this band pushes an expansive enthusiasm for new jazz. Evans keyboard work reminds me of a very propulsive Thelonious Monk mixed with the ...
Mario Pavone: Sharpeville
by Mark Corroto
This reissue of bassist Mario Pavone’s self-produced 1985 session is an opportunity to hear creative music just as it was breaking into what we now call the ‘Downtown’ scene. Both Thomas Chapin and Marty Ehrlich were in their early thirties and had yet to make a name for themselves as leaders. As it appears that the ...
John Scofield: Works For Me
by Mark Corroto
Today’s lesson is you cannot escape your past. Like Jay Gatsby at a Hampton’s society party, John Scofield’s roots in rock and R&B show themselves in his self-proclaimed “straight-ahead record” Works For Me. But this is not all bad news, since most of Mr. Scofield’s audience was bred in the rock vernacular. Besides he is coming ...
Kenny Millions: Those Were The Days/Mixed Nuts
by Mark Corroto
Keshavan Maslak a.k.a. Kenny Millions believes that modern jazz must have a sense of humor. His outsider status in the avant community (probably self-imposed) comes from his utter lack of musical sobriety. Born of Ukrainian ancestry, Keshavan Maslak played in R&B bands in Detroit before moving on to New York’s loft scene and an eventually becoming ...
Mario Pavone: Sharpville
by Mark Corroto
This reissue of bassist Mario Pavone’s self-produced 1985 session is an opportunity to hear creative music just as it was breaking into what we now call the ‘Downtown’ scene. Both Thomas Chapin and Marty Ehrlich were in their early thirties and had yet to make a name for themselves as leaders. As it appears that the ...
Greg Foster/Joel Futterman: Alabama
by Mark Corroto
Jazz and poetry, poetry and jazz. The combination instantly recalls the Beat Generation and Jack Kerouac reading On The Road to Steve Allen’s piano or the best minds of our generations somewhere in San Francisco combining prose with bebop: both art forms that require dancing from the heart instead of the legs. Before there were Beats, ...
