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Michael Musillami Trio: Dachau
by Paul Olson
There's nothing new about a jazz guitar trio, or, for that matter, a jazz guitar trio augmented with piano and horns. That said, guitarist Michael Musillami has done something truly innovative with this format on Dachau. Musillami, bassist Joe Fonda, and drummer George Schuller--augmented on four of the album's seven tracks with various combinations of tenor ...
Charlie Hunter: Living the Music
by Paul Olson
Eight-string guitarist Charlie Hunter has stunned audiences for years with his virtuosic ability to play simultaneous bass and guitar lines, sounding at times more like a Hammond organist than a guitarist. The Hammond sound's just one of Hunter's trademark tones, however, and his technical prowess shouldn't stand in the way of appreciating his considerable talents as ...
Free Music Ensemble: Cuts
by Paul Olson
The moniker of Chicago reeds player Ken Vandermark's Free Music Ensemble is somewhat misleading. Yes, the music of this trio of Vandermark, Chicago bassist Nate McBride, and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love is as improvisation-based as any Vandermark band to date. The very nature of the group's musical process ensures that every FME performance is a unique ...
Greg Osby Four at the Green Mill
by Paul Olson
Greg Osby Four Green Mill, Chicago September 10, 2005Altoist Greg Osby's fronted a lot of terrific bands over the years, but the quartet he brought to Chicago's Green Mill for a two-night stand on September 9-10 can be listed among the best of them. On the Saturday gig of the residency, ...
Miguel Zenon Quartet at the Jazz Showcase
by Paul Olson
Miguel Zenón QuartetJazz Showcase, ChicagoSeptember 6, 2005Altoist Miguel Zenón's recordings do a pretty good job of demonstating his fusion of Latin music--especially the rural música jibara of his native Puerto Rico--with the instrumentation and harmonic language of jazz. Looking Forward (2001, Fresh Sound New Talent), Ceremonial (2004, Marsalis Music) and the new Jibaro ...
Sonny Rollins: Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert
by Paul Olson
No living tenor player has added more to the jazz vocabulary than Sonny Rollins, and anyone compiling even a conservative list of essential Rollins recordings is going to have great trouble keeping it down in single digits. But as a concert performer, Rollins can be among the most frustrating of artists. Part of that is due ...
Cuong Vu: More Power in a Collective
by Paul Olson
No one sounds like Cuong Vu.Other musicians play trumpet in an effects-laden, rock-inflected environment, but a Cuong Vu album is immediately recognizable. Vu's music couples his trademark airy, bucolic melodies with a deep, churning density of sound and plenty of free improvisation. I spoke with Vu about his fantastic new CD It's Mostly Residual--his ...
Wallace Roney Sextet at the Green Mill
by Paul Olson
Wallace Roney Sextet Green Mill, Chicago August 27, 2005On the second night of a two-day stand at Chicago's Green Mill, trumpeter Wallace Roney blended acoustic post-bop and electronic groove over three deeply satisfying sets. It's not as if this sort of stylistic synthesis is unheard of these days, but it was ...
Peter Apfelbaum & The New York Hieroglyphics: It Is Written
by Paul Olson
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Peter Apfelbaum's It Is Written is his first recording with the East Coast version of his large Hieroglyphics ensemble. There's no denying the deep musicianship of the leader and his band, but what's most striking here is Apfelbaum's genre-mashing ambition as he blends jazz with a host of world music influences to form ...
Bill Frisell: East/West
by Paul Olson
Bill Frisell's new two-disc live album East/West is the guitarist's tenth Nonesuch release. While it must be stated emphatically that there's not a terrible album among those recordings--or, really, in all of Frisell's discography--a newcomer to his work might be at a loss as to where to begin. I'll go out on a limb here and ...
