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Results for "Robert Spencer"
Walter Horn/Gary Kendig/Hugh Dickey: Screwdriver!
by Robert Spencer
“1. You are feeling so good. 2. Your entire body feels relaxed and wonderful." With these dictations begins Screwdriver!, a journey to the frontiers of improvisational music led by Walter Horn (keyboards and little instruments), Gary Kendig (drums, trumpet, little instruments), Hugh Dickey (guitar, clarinet, vocals, little instruments), plus Eric Hipp on tenor sax for one ...
Joachim Gies: Different Distances
by Robert Spencer
Joachim Gies plays soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones, as well as bass clarinet. This is a disc of 23 brief duos (the longest is four-and-a-half minutes; there's also a solo Gies piece that's just over seven minutes) played by Gies with, variously, mezzo-soprano Ute Döring; Alex Nowitz (male voice, live electronics); Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (alto sax); Thomas ...
Donald Harrison: Free To Be
by Robert Spencer
Donald “Duck" Harrison is an alto saxophonist of confidence and power, as this bold and enjoyable set abundantly attests. The first two tracks, “Free to Be" and “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" place his instrument's lyrical cry in a driving, straightforward setting, in which Harrison charges through the changes with complete authority. On these tracks ...
Gota: Let's Get Started
by Robert Spencer
Gota Yashiki is a percussionist, as well as a bass guitarist, producer and writer. His monster group Gota is electric guitarists Mark Jaimes and Kenji Jammer, bass guitarists Wayne Stobbart and Ernie McKone, saxophonist (and EWI operator) Ian Kirkham, percussionist Miles Bould, and keyboard men Tim Vine and Neil Cowley (who doubles on piano). Also on ...
Various artists: Smooth Jazz for a Rainy Day
by Robert Spencer
Smooth Jazz for a Rainy Day promises exactly what it delivers, and delivers exactly what it promises: shimmering smooth music, not a hair out of place, well-executed and solidly danceable. This Instinct collection kicks off with Joe Fuentes' “Slow Brew," on which his reflective, musing guitar easing out over an elegant funk beat; it's a smooth ...
Gianluigi Trovesi: Around Small Fairy Tales
by Robert Spencer
Around Small Fairy Tales is one of the most fascinating melanges I've encountered in a long while. Clarinetist Gianiluigi Trovesi (who also wields an alto sax on occasion) here fronts a 23-piece orchestra, the Orchestra da Camera di Nembro Enea Salmeggia, under the direction of arranger Bruno Tommaso. There are quite a few violins and other ...
Nite Flyte: Ascension
by Robert Spencer
Ascension ! What! Nite Flyte, smoothies extraordinaire, covering Coltrane's most ear-stretching avant-garde piece of all?? Fear not, friends of Mr. Smooth. Other than a loose album-long concept ("Lift Off," “Take Me Up," ), this smoothie document bears no resemblance whatsoever to Trane's fabled Sixties freak-out. No, Nite Flyte's Ascension is a freak-out for the Nineties, a ...
Libera Societ: Al m
by Robert Spencer
Voices: speaking, singing, orating, declaiming, singing. Singly and in larger groups of varying sizes. Sometimes singing and speaking in various overlays at the same time. Sometimes approaching the edges of today's vocal avant-garde ("E.U.E.," “Solotuè samosaisa," etc.) Sometimes mimicking some of the oldest vocal forms of the Western world, as on the gorgeously moving chantlike “Iesò ...
Dave Douglas: Convergence
by Robert Spencer
Trumpeter Dave Douglas' growing list of credits includes a star turn in the ever-increasing oeuvre of John Zorn's Masada, the celebrated quartet that turns Hebrew folk melodies into tremendous occasions of Ornette-flavored up-tempo jazz improvisation. Douglas himself has demonstrated, independently of Zorn, a flair for jazzing folk melodies that is at the forefront again on the ...
Nanette Natal: Stairway to the Stars
by Robert Spencer
That Nanette Natal is a genuine jazz singer in the grandest tradition of Ella, Sassy, and Dinah Washington (whose approach she recalls a bit), is clear from the first moments of her entrance on Stairway to the Stars. Back only by drums, she attacks “Fascinating Rhythm" with utter confidence and full-throated passion, tempered by a supremely ...
