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Lenny White: Just Doing It
by Rex Butters
Miles Davis kicked the fusion door open in 1969 and some people still haven't gotten over it. Among the future jazz star innovators on Bitches Brew (Columbia/Legacy, 1969) was an unknown eighteen year-old Tony Williams fanatic named Lenny White, who found his recording debut making history. Now an elder statesman at almost sixty, White maintains a ...
Jeff Gauthier: Fiddling with the Future
by Rex Butters
With over three decades playing in some of L.A.'s most innovative and interesting musical projects, violinist/composer Jeff Gauthier threatens to succumb to the irony of being better known as the founder/CEO of Cryptogramophone Records. Now in their tenth year, Cryptogramophone has outgrown underground status, even meriting a feature in trendy Details magazine. Boasting a roster including ...
Azar Lawrence: Rising Like Atlantis
by Rex Butters
It's an uncharacteristically quiet Friday night at Los Angeles' World Stage, but that's about to change. Recent 2007 appearances here and up the street at 5th St. Dick's have served notice that saxophonist Azar Lawrence is back. One of the brightest young stars of the late seventies, Lawrence found regular employment with Elvin Jones, Miles Davis ...
Kidd Jordan: Messin' with the Kidd
by Rex Butters
Like many local legends around the country, Kidd Jordan is an immensely talented musician who resisted the urge to move to New York or LA. Based in Baton Rouge/New Orleans, Jordan became a renowned jazz educator with a long tenure at Southern University. So renowned, that his teaching has been documented by 60 Minutes and acknowledged ...
Odean Pope: Preaching With the Choir
by Rex Butters
After more than forty years of being a highly regarded musician's musician, saxophonist Odean Pope threatens to break out into mass consciousness with the release of his sizzling tour de force session with his Saxophone Choir, appropriately titled Locked and Loaded: Live at The Blue Note (Half Note, 2006). While he also works in trio and ...
Lou Donaldson: Lou's Boogaloo
by Rex Butters
2007 already has alto saxophone legend Lou Donaldson in a New York state of mind. He began the year receiving honors at Jack Kleinsinger's Highlights in Jazz series at the Tribeca Peforming Arts Center, also stealing the show with his quartet. This month he checks into Birdland for a short stay with his quartet including old ...
Steuart Liebig: Mentone Mentor Merges into the Fast Lane
by Rex Butters
On July 27th, LA new music mainstay Steuart Liebig curated a Cryptonight in Culver City dedicated to showcasing several of his many diverse compositional creations under the rubric, Steuart Liebig Concerto Night/ 50th Birthday Megalomania. Co-celebrants and performers included the southland A-List: woodwind multi-instrumentalists Vinny Golia and Andrew Pask, guitarist Nels Cline, trumpeter Jeff Kaiser, bassoonist ...
Nels Cline: Entering the New Monastery
by Rex Butters
Having recently shared a 50th birthday recital/jam with his twin brother, Alex, at Cryptogramophone label owner/producer Jeff Gauthier's Cryptonight, LA's Nels Cline shows no sign of slowing down. A musician of limitless range, he creates, among other sounds, noise using kitchen utensils on a heavily processed guitar, enhances Willie Nelson tunes with soulful ornamentation, rocks Wilco, ...
Industrial Jazz Group: Industrial Jazz A Go Go!
by Rex Butters
Andrew Durkin and the Industrial Jazz Group release a circus of musical styles on Industrial Jazz A Go Go!, with soloists flying through fiery hoops, arrangements making death-defying leaps, and Durkin himself flooring the clown car. They cover so much musical material, sometimes within a single piece, that they threaten to appeal to everyone. Yet despite ...
Herb Robertson and the Space Cadets: Sketches From the Other Side, for A.I.
by Rex Butters
Trumpet tornado Herb Robertson, a longtime mainstay on the New York Downtown and European improv scenes, has joined with Dr. Ana Isabel Ordonez to launch Ruby Flower Records. The first bloom from this particular garden features Robertson in a trio with reed great Frank Gratkowski and French phenom Julien Petit, known for his featured soloist status ...
