Results for "Peter Brainin"

Michael Eckroth Group: Plena

by Dan Bilawsky
December 21, 2021

Michael Eckroth had clear goals in mind for this project--"to create music that was lyrical, modern, true to its Afro-Latin roots, but never purist in its approach"--and he's accomplished his mission with gusto. Through Plena, this Grammy-nominated pianist/composer delivers a program of original music that, while acknowledging folkloric traditions, doesn't buy into their formal strictures and ...

Arturo O'Farrill: Four Questions

by Jerome Wilson
September 2, 2020

Surprisingly this set marks the first time Arturo O'Farrill has recorded a set of solely his own compositions. It was worth the wait because this music, played by his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, really demonstrates the cinematic sweep and variety of his writing. The set is constructed around two topical extended works. The first, ...

Peter Brainin

Ten on Cellar Live

by C. Michael Bailey
April 23, 2019

That crafty Canadian Cory Weeds was onto something with the creation of his Cellar Live and now Cellar Music label. He reveals himself as a man for all seasons in being a confident saxophonist, music historian, and archivist with his new label Reel to Real (in cooperation with that maestro of the catalog, Zev Feldman. With ...

Valery Ponomarev Jazz Big Band: Our Father Who Art Blakey

by Jack Bowers
December 23, 2015

Who is Russian-born trumpeter Valery Ponomarev's favorite musician? A clue may be found in the title of Ponomarev's first CD as leader of his New York City-based big band: Our Father Who Art Blakey. The first jazz recording he heard while still in Russia, Ponomarev recalls, was Blakey's Jazz Messengers with trumpeter Lee Morgan playing pianist ...

Jack Cooper: Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra

by Jack Bowers
September 23, 2014

Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954), one of the first American composers of classical music to earn an international reputation, derived his inspiration from themes he had heard while growing up in Connecticut: hymns, traditional folk songs, marching bands (his father led one), patriotic songs, parlor ballads, Saturday night dances, and especially the melodies of the great Stephen ...

Arturo O'Farrill and the Chico O'Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra: Final Night at Birdland

by Jack Bowers
August 15, 2013

On June 26, 2011, Arturo O'Farrill and the Chico O'Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra ended a fifteen-year run at New York City's Birdland, and--to our good fortune--had the foresight to record that very special event for everyone to hear and appreciate. The orchestra's scion, the great Chico O'Farrill, was still living when the ensemble made its ...

Soul Step

By Peter Brainin

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2011
Track listing: 1. Soul Step; 2. End of a Love Affair; 3. Deep Blue; 4. Inner Search; 5. Mingus; 6. Slipstream; 7. Castles Made of Sand; 8. Into the Night; 9. Talking Drum; 10. One for Op; 11. Gift Within.

Cecilia Coleman Big Band / Phil Norman Tentet / UNT One O'Clock Lab Band

by Jack Bowers
December 1, 2011

Cecilia Coleman Big BandOh Boy!PandaKat Records2011 Among the many pleasant surprises on Oh Boy!, pianist Cecilia Coleman's maiden voyage as leader of her own big band, perhaps the most eye-opening is that the band had been together for only eight months when the album was recorded by ...

Noah Haidu: Carving Out His Place

by R.J. DeLuke
November 21, 2011

New York-based pianist Noah Haidu came to jazz through the blues, listening to the searing, soulful guitar moans of Buddy Guy and Albert King. But his training, at the age of six, had its advent in classical music. He also likes to experiment with electronics.All these things go into the musical blender of one ...