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Results for "Thelonious Monk"
Jazz vs Racism
by Greg Thomas
Jazz saved me from becoming a racist. Back in the early to mid-1980s, while attending Hamilton College in central New York, I learned details about the transatlantic slave trade that sickened and angered me. I read about the history of the abolitionist movement in the 1800s, and the civil rights movements of last ...
Eric Reed: The Dancing Monk
by Greg Simmons
Every jazz pianist stands somewhere in the shadow of Thelonious Monk (1917-1982), and Eric Reed has embraced that shadow, with The Dancing Monk. Interpreting the near-mythic pianist/composer's music--let alone making an entire album of his tunes--poses significant challenges to any modern musician, and especially for a pianist. First, Monk's compositions are, indeed, challenging, in ...
Toots Thielemans: European Quartet Live
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Miles Davis never liked the use of the term “legend," to describe a living musician, but perhaps an exception ought to be made in the case of Toots Thielemans, who ranks with the great Larry Adler as one of the greatest harmonica players, one for whom music has specially been composed. On ˂em˃Live˂/em˃, together with his ...
Fred Hersch Trio + 2: New York City, March 5, 2011
by Victor L. Schermer
Fred Hersch Trio + 2Jazz Standard,New York CIty, NYMarch 5, 2011 Fred Hersch is one of today's most prominent jazz pianists, extending the limits of the jazz idiom with rare finesse and a sense of meaning and implication in every note he plays. This was one of five consecutive evenings ...
Benjamin Drazen: Inner Flights
by Bruce Lindsay
Benjamin Drazen has been on the New York scene for over 15 years, working with established players including Lew Soloff, George Garzone and Rashied Ali. The saxophonist cannot be accused of being in a hurry to get his name on a CD cover: a 15-year wait to release a debut is a lifetime in today's scene, ...
Blue Chunks and Friends: Oceanside, CA, February 26, 2011
by Dan McClenaghan
The Blue Chunks and FriendsAn Evening of Performing and Visual ArtsSunshine Brooks TheaterOceanside, CAFebruary 26, 2011 The Sunshine Brooks Theater hosted a stirred-up gumbo of entertainment, main ingredient jazz, on Saturday, February 26, in the old movie house that sits in the historical heart of the city of ...
February Forays
by Nick Catalano
February is one of those months when this New York Beat column could expand into a full periodical because of the plethora of jazz activity occurring in Gotham. I began my trek early in the month, when the city was buried in crystal mounds of snow from winter storms that had pounded the ...
Chick Corea / Gary Burton: San Diego, USA, March 1, 2011
by Robert Bush
Chick Corea / Gary BurtonAnthology,San Diego, CAMarch 1, 2011 Pianist Chick Corea and vibraphonist Gary Burton first met in the late 1960s, as Burton was leaving, and Corea was joining saxophonist Stan Getz's band. Together, they released one of the most astonishing records of the 1970s, Crystal Silence (ECM, 1973). ...
Benjamin Drazen: Inner Flights
by A. Lienhard
Alto saxophonist Benjamin Drazen has been plying his trade around Manhattan's network of small jazz bars--places like 55 Bar, Smalls, and The Garage--for over a decade. At long last, the New York native unveils his debut outing, Inner Flights. In a program of mostly original music, Drazen consistently delivers strong post-Coltrane fire, with a sound that ...
Joel Harrison String Choir: The Music of Paul Motian
by John Kelman
Joel Harrison has stretched the boundaries of form and freedom for over fifteen years, but Urban Myths (HighNote, 2009) and, in particular, the ambitious The Wheel (Innova, 2008), have represented significant evolutionary leaps. The Wheel married a conventional horn-led jazz quintet with a classical string quartet, its collection of Harrison originals pushing the limits of cross-pollination ...
