Results for "Ralph Towner"

Albert Vila: Levity

by Dan McClenaghan
March 15, 2023

Levity in these times usually refers to a state of humorousness or lightness of manner. From the liner notes of guitarist Albert Vila's Levity, however, we read that levity was originally thought to be a physical force, like gravity, but pulling in the opposite direction. But consider a word grown from the same root ...

John Abercrombie: The First Quartet

by John Kelman
February 9, 2023

With the release of Arcade (1979), Abercrombie Quartet (1980) and M (1981), John Abercrombie's entire ECM discography as a leader is finally available on CD. Looking back at these albums and their position in his oeuvre, they are revealed as seminal documents of Abercrombie's arrival as a distinctive writer, improvising guitarist and bandleader, delivering on the ...

Yosef Gutman Levitt: Upside Down Mountain

by Jerome Wilson
November 24, 2022

Yosef Gutman Levitt's acoustic bass guitar serves as the lead instrument on this album. The music he plays with his trio here is full of simple melodic beauty and draws from several folk traditions. This work has a sparse, contemplative joy which bears kinship to the recordings of Ralph Towner. Levitt shows an eloquent ...

Guitars, Rarities, and New Sounds

by Bob Osborne
July 21, 2022

This time a dip into the archive for a couple of tracks featuring Wolfgang Muthspiel plus more guitar with a new solo album from Brian Citro. There's a preview of a stunning new album from Nate Wooley, which features two more guitarists, Mary Halvorson and Susan Alcorn. Plus new music from La Pompe Attack, classic British ...

Oregon: 1974

by Mario Calvitti
June 6, 2022

Tra le numerosissime pubblicazioni di materiale inedito che emerge dagli archivi rischia di passare inosservata questa preziosissima gemma, che riporta alla luce un concerto tenuto in Germania nel 1974 dagli Oregon, uno dei gruppi musicali più importanti dell'ultimo mezzo secolo per il loro approccio rivoluzionario a una concezione della musica senza confini o barriere create da ...

Josep-Manel Vega

Born: March 10, 1965

He began studying musical language and harmony with his grandfather (Josep Baiget),  classical guitar with several teachers (Jordi Belza, Mariano Capella, Guillem Pérez-Quer, William Waters, Danielle Kassner), contemporary music (Joan Munné, Xavier Prats) and flamenco (Manuel Castilla). However, it was by exploring on his own that he developed a personal musical language focused on improvisation, inspired by musicians such as Keith Jarret, Bill Frisell, Ralph Towner or Nguyên Lê.

ON A TIGHTROPE (2022 and beyond)

Caleb Wheeler Curtis and Laurent Nicoud: Substrate

by Paul Rauch
April 30, 2022

The duo, in jazz or any musical form, is an intimate conversation that requires a large degree of artistic courage. The participants must be willing to expose themselves emotionally as well as musically. It is brutally honest, a practice in individuality within the context of mutual respect and humility. In the case of Swiss pianist Laurent ...

Samo Salamon: un mondo di variegate esplorazioni

by Angelo Leonardi
February 28, 2022

In neanche vent'anni d'attività professionale, il chitarrista sloveno ha maturato un ampio e diversificato ventaglio di esperienze, che si riflettono in una nutrita discografia. Ha pubblicato 35 album con etichette quali la Clean Feed, Fresh Sound, Not Two, Spasch, Steeplechase [clicca qui per leggere la recensione dei suoi ultimi 12 album] in organici comprendenti molti protagonisti ...

Larry Coryell and Ralph Towner: First Videos

February 16, 2022

Late yesterday afternoon, I heard from Kristian St. Clair, a filmmaker whose work includes This Is Gary McFarland, a superb documentary on the composer-arranger (more here and here). Kristian tells me he is busy on a new film project about Seattle jazz multi-instrumentalist Chuck Mahaffay. In the process, he said, he came across what he says ...

André Carvalho: Lost In Translation

by Jerome Wilson
February 12, 2022

Bassist Andre Carvalho conceived this album around the concept of “untranslatable words"—words for concepts that have no equivalent outside of their native language. He has used this idea to create a cycle of amorphous composition, realized here by a trio of bass, guitar and saxophone with the occasional addition of trumpet. The words come from languages ...