Home » Search Center » Results: Nicholas F. Mondello
Results for "Nicholas F. Mondello"
Luca Aquino: Chiaro
by Nicholas F. Mondello
With Chiaro trumpeter/composer Luca Aquino distinguishes himself as a creator/sound engineer extraordinaire. Following up on his Lunaria (EmArcy, 2009) and Icaro (EmArcy, 2010), Aquino again takes instruments in hand and integrates a beautifully lyrical, sensitive human musical approach within a dazzling and dizzying panoply of electronically generated textures and rhythms. Chiaro is an ...
Gary Grant: Don't Hold Your Breath
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Years ago, The New Yorker did a profile article on the appropriately named New York studio lead trumpet legend, Bernie Glow, depicting the daily rigors of studio recording life in the now long-gone halcyon days of that city's recording scene. Today, Los Angeles studios reign supreme, the trumpeting envelope surpassed daily as registers are pushed, rhythms ...
Jon Crowley: At the Edge
by Nicholas F. Mondello
There's a mysteriously haunting and melancholic presence to trumpeter Jon Crowley”s At the Edge. In a way, the elongated melodies, tonal shadings and ensemble colorings seem Impressionistic; there are layers of sound--textural gemstones, displayed via minimalist melodic segments, like a beautiful haiku. All thirteen of At the Edge's cuts are Crowley originals. His ...
Etienne Charles: Kaiso
by Nicholas F. Mondello
With Kaiso, trumpeter Etienne Charles revisits his robust Trinidad-Tobago roots, brilliantly exposing their beauty, mystery and fascinating flavors. The fruits of Charles and crew's labor blossom from multiple Caribbean grooves into a highly energized performance, with more jazz-tinged interpretations than his prior outing, the highly acclaimed Folklore (Self-Produced, 2009). The title tune, from ...
Organik Vibe Trio: Moscow
by Nicholas F. Mondello
The members of the Organik Vibe Trio bring highly diverse playing and recording experience--and writing talents--to Moscow. With a broad collective résumé, this empathic team drives hard--and quite beautifully--over ten highly inspired, enjoyable and swinging selections, with five standards and five originals. Al Dubin/Harry Warren's “Summer Night" kicks off the session, with vibraphonist/marimbaist ...
Chuck Weirich: You Don't Know Me
by Nicholas F. Mondello
The great trumpeter Arturo Sandoval once commented that Trumpet Evolution (Crescent Moon, 2003) was one of his most challenging musical efforts. In that tour de trumpet, Sandoval brilliantly performed selections made famous or associated with great trumpet players--from Louis Armstrong to Maynard Ferguson to Wynton Marsalis--with all the nuance, phrasing and sound of the original artist. ...
Daniel Smith: Bassoon Goes Latin Jazz!
by Nicholas F. Mondello
It's about that sound--that down there, frog-like bellowing encountered on cartoon soundtracks, novelty TV commercials, and that marvelously masculine sound heard in the greatest of orchestral and chamber music repertoire. Rarely is the bassoon heard blowing improvisation in the jazz idiom, athough with the works of Daniel Smith, Paul Hanson and others, that's changing.
Kenny Drew, Jr. and Larry Coryell: Duality
by Nicholas F. Mondello
The jazz duo affords its participants wonderful opportunities to stretch out creatively. Ideas, suggestions and negotiations of all musical kinds percolate back and forth. And, in the best of instances, they birth new nuggets for further development and exploration. At the same time, the duet framework can possibly limit, as competitive natures and stylistic dichotomies might ...
Ratko Zjaca / Simone Zanchini: The Way We Walk
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Jazz musicians are, in essence and practice, explorers and high-wire artists. The finest improvising players use their instruments to mine the dimensions of sound, rhythm and emotional perception, doing so without a safety net. Like its keyboard cousin the piano, the accordion as an instrument that challenges its players to explore the technical and harmonic universes ...
Nordic Connect: Spirals
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Spirals manifest themselves across art, nature and life in varied ways. The geometric spiral image might even be seen three-dimensionally, with infinite depth or point-of-view added or perhaps spinning in perpetual motion. There's movement and implied energy in the curling image. Engendering reflection, a spiral goes from and to somewhere. Like its namesake, ...
