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Matt, Martin, and William: The Other MMW
by Matt Merewitz
The title of a recent AAJ interview, “ When Mays Plays, Musicians Listen ,” doesn’t fully fully tell the whole story about torch pianist Bill Mays. Not only musicians dig Mays. Non-musician audiences around the world enjoy his shows too. Perhaps this can be attributed to his versatility as an artist. The flexible pianist who spent ...
Joe McCarthy & The Afro-Bop Alliance
by Matt Merewitz
Not many Latin bands are making it these days without a singer. If you live in an urban area, you may notice the plethora of channels on your car radio playing salsa, meringue and cha-cha... they all feature a heaping dose of vocalists. Vocals may be an important part of the tradition, though it's the instrumentalists ...
Pianist James Williams Re-Opens Defunct Jazz Dive
by Matt Merewitz
Audience rapport is the true key for pianist James Williams. The Memphis-born Jazz Messenger alum has an urbane aura in his voice and his mannerisms that translate to his playing. He is a torch pianist much in the Ellingtonian tradition and fittingly has a special penchant for Strayhorn’s main d’oeuvre. What strikes me about Williams is ...
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: The Music of Slide Hampton
by Matt Merewitz
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra The Way: The Music of Slide Hampton Planet Arts Recordings 2004 As Mitchell Seidel points out in his liner notes to The Way, New York has grown accustomed to the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s presence at the Village Vanguard every Monday night for the past 38 ...
Ray Vega Quintet at the KC Jazz Club
by Matt Merewitz
It's usually a bad thing to review a musician's live show and not own at least one of his records. Especially when his discography as a sideman is easily accessible in most record shops. Unfortunately, I do admit this was the case for myself in going to review Ray Vega's Latin Jazz Quintet at the Kennedy ...
Jon Weber: Simple Complex
by Matt Merewitz
Jon Weber Simple Complex SecondCenturyJazz Records 2004 Jon Weber is a virtuoso, pure and simple. Weber delivers what amounts to a five star effort if only for his program of all original compositions, incisive in its compositional aesthetic. Just to set the record straight, we are not talking ...
Saxophonist Paul Carr: DC's Mister PC
by Matt Merewitz
Paul Carr is a saxophone and flautist deeply rooted in the hard-bop and blues tradition of jazz. He has a guttural “Texas Tenor” sound which stems from his childhood years growing up in Houston, Texas. While he has a stunning jazz improvisatory vocabulary, his ability to move an audience is his greatest asset. Arriving in the ...
Ron Blake's MUSIC T'REE Flourishes Across Genres
by Matt Merewitz
A radio host throws on one of Ron Blake's discs ' perhaps his latest effort for Detroit-based Mack Avenue Records, Lest We Forget. Chances are - you dig. But who was that? Many of you have seen or heard this saxophonist live or on record, but there is no name to go with a sound. Don't ...
Tim Armacost: Rhythm and Transformation
by Matt Merewitz
Tim Armacost talks about 'choices [he] made' that determined the path he has taken as a musician. His direction was not always self-evident and its constant evolution has taken him from the US to Japan, to the Netherlands, to India, and back to the US, where has been for the past decade. In his ...
Jason Marshall: A Bari to Watch Out For
by Matt Merewitz
There is a new saxophone star in the making. He is in New York as you read this article paying his dues on the scene where countless others before him have toiled in bars and clubs for decades often for little in return. In my estimation this will not be the case for baritone saxophonist Jason ...
