Results for "Phil Sparks"

Phil Sparks

20 Seattle Jazz Musicians You Should Know: Matt Jorgensen

by Paul Rauch
October 29, 2020

The city of Seattle has a jazz history that dates back to the very beginnings of the form. It was home to the first integrated club scene in America on Jackson St in the 1920's and 1930's. It saw a young Ray Charles arrive as a teenager to escape the nightmare of Jim Crow in the ...

Origin Records: Creating Opportunities and Community

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 30, 2018

Being a jazz musician sometimes seems like a life ruled by jungle law. Everyone fights for gigs and puts out music on “labels" with only one artist. However, it doesn't have to be this way. Origin Records is an example of a modern artist driven label that has grown through collaboration and community. As Matt Jorgensen, ...

Chamber 3: Transatlantic

by Paul Rauch
June 16, 2018

Chamber 3 began as a trio effort started by German guitarist Christian Eckert, and Seattle based drummer Matt Jorgensen, who forged a friendship while studying at the New School in New York in the early nineties. Over the years, they engaged in many projects and tours together, culminating in this project that includes German tenor saxophonist ...

2018 Ballard Jazz Festival in Seattle

May 3, 2018

The Ballard Jazz Festival returns with its 16th edition, May 16-19, in Seattle's historic Ballard neighborhood. Clarence Penn & Penn Station, a New York ensemble that includes pianist Geoffrey Keezer, saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, and bassist Yasushi Nakamura, will headline the festival's Mainstage Concert. Swedish trumpeter Oskar Stenmark will open the concert, which in turn celebrates the ...

Chamber 3: Transatlantic

by Dan McClenaghan
March 22, 2018

Seattle-based drummer Matt Jorgensen tattoos every recording he releases with a mark of bold, clean modernity--whether working with his group Matt Jorgensen + 451 on Hope (Origin Records, 2004) and Another Morning (Origin Records, 2008), or Tattooed By Passion (Origin Records, 2010). Add in scores of sideman slots. His is a distinctive sound, compositionally and instrumentally, ...

Rick Mandyck: The Return From Now

by Paul Rauch
February 3, 2017

It was a cold Tuesday evening the last week of December. 2016 was mercifully coming to a close, this evening, a final chorus of a long blues blown soulfully, and mournfully into the night. I sat at the bar at Seattle's storied jazz spot, Tula's, in eager anticipation of the evening's performance of a quartet led ...

Phil Parisot: Lingo

by Paul Rauch
January 10, 2017

Seattle based drummer/ composer Phil Parisot has straddled several 20th century musical traditions in his career as a sideman, and member of the eclectic big band, Big Neighborhood. His understanding of funk, Afro-Cuban, rock and symphonic music has influenced his approach as a composer, and more so as a drummer on numerous projects in recent memory. ...

John Coltrane Birthday Celebration: Harnessing The Coltrane Effect

by Paul Rauch
October 5, 2016

Richard Cole Group Tula's Jazz Club Seattle WA September 23, 2016 The calendar read September 23, 2016, the 90th anniversary of the birth of John Coltrane, and as in many cities in America, and around the world, the music of this master innovator is being celebrated in performance, ...

Brad Shepik / Ron Samworth: Quartet 1991

by Dan Bilawsky
April 9, 2016

Tony Reif is calling a mulligan here. Some twenty-five years ago, shortly before he founded and launched the Songlines imprint and long before he was known the world over for his work in the production and promotion of creative music, Reif went into a Seattle studio to produce a recording for a quartet fronted by guitarists ...