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Christian McBride Band at Chicago Symphony Center
by Paul Olson
Christian McBride Band Symphony Center, Chicago May 12, 2006It couldn't be done. There was no way that bassist/bandleader Christian McBride could be as tautly, thrillingly funky in the august setting of Chicago's Symphony Hall as he was last year in New York's tiny, olfactorily dubious Tonic nightclub. I wasn't at McBride's ...
Erik Friedlander: Complexity, Simplicity and Arc
by Paul Olson
Arguably the premier cellist in improvised music, New York musician Erik Friedlander has played with John Zorn, Dar Williams, Clogs, Laurie Anderson, Dave Douglas and Hole. His own groups have run the gamut from the chamber jazz--"chamber being a term Friedlander's come to loathe--of Chimera to the improvisational groove of Topaz. He's also a fine solo ...
Dave Douglas: Meaning and Mystery
by Paul Olson
Trumpeter/composer Dave Douglas continues his veritable deluge of fine recordings with Meaning and Mystery. After the one-off 2005 projects Mountain Passages and Keystone (Greenleaf Music), Douglas has returned to his eponymous quintet for a set of nine self-composed pieces. Strange Liberation (Bluebird, 2004) added guest Bill Frisell to the quintet; this is the first pure quintet ...
Donny McCaslin: Soar
by Paul Olson
Tenor player Donny McCaslin aims high on Soar and rather gloriously hits all his targets with this ambitious set of pieces of a decidedly Central and South American bent. McCaslin's other “new" record, Give and Go (Criss Cross), was released in February. The two CDs couldn't be more different, though--while Give and Go ...
Chicago Underground Duo: Two Voices, One Sound
by Paul Olson
Percussionist Chad Taylor and cornet player Rob Mazurek are the Chicago Underground Duo. Since the Chicago Underground collective expands or contracts with each project, they're also two-thirds of the Chicago Underground Trio and half of the Chicago Underground Quartet. Born in the 1990s out of the fertile Chicago improv scene, the group has, in its various ...
Dave Holland at Chicago Symphony Center
by Paul Olson
Dave Holland Octet Dave Holland and Trilok Gurtu Symphony Center, Chicago March 24, 2006The audience at Chicago's Symphony Center looked different than it has for this season's previous shows in its Jazz at Symphony Center series. While there were still plenty of the middle-aged subscription crowd, this crowd was ...
Gianluca Petrella: Indigo4
by Paul Olson
Trombonist Gianluca Petrella's got impeccable credentials, having played with heavyweights like Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Greg Osby, Flavio Boltro and Enrico Rava. His often electronically enhanced trombone sound is unique to the point of making him immediately recognizable. To his credit, he's interested in moving jazz forward by incorporating modern elements into a European jazz context ...
Marc Ribot: That's the Way I View It From New York
by Paul Olson
Guitarist/composer Marc Ribot's played with Elvis Costello, Arto Lindsay, John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Tom Waits, John Lurie, Wilson Pickett, Anthony Coleman, Don Byron and about a million other musicians. As a leader, he's led such groups as Shrek and the Rootless Cosmopolitans and written and performed a wildly varied body of work on his own recordings. ...
Samo Salamon Quartet: Two Hours
by Paul Olson
Next time you find yourself underwhelmed by a jazz recording on an indie jazz label, it might be entirely the fault of the artist--some people make bad records, after all. That said, the whole system might be the culprit: small labels offer musicians opportunities to do sessions, but don't (and usually can't) give them what they ...
Donald Fagen Band at the Chicago Theatre
by Paul Olson
Donald Fagen Band Chicago Theatre, Chicago March 18, 2006Steely Dan founder/vocalist Donald Fagen's concert at the storied Chicago Theatre wasn't exactly the sound of surprise--this isn't a jamband he's fronting and anyone who came expecting loose, improvisational flights of fancy was destined to be disappointed. But the full house knew pretty ...
