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Results for "Thelonious Monk"
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 ...
Jazz Takes To The High Seas
by Dan Bilawsky
Explorers, of the musical and non-musical variety, always seem to be fascinated by the bountiful bodies of water that cover the earth. Long before jazz ever existed, treasure hunters, adventurers, and those in search of the unknown would risk their lives and spend incredible amounts of time and energy traversing the globe, on a quest to ...
Anthony Davis Ensemble Live at Dizzy's San Diego, February 20, 2011
by Robert Bush
Anthony Davis EnsembleDizzy's, San DiegoSan Diego, CAFebruary 20, 2011 Composer and pianist Anthony Davis is a modern day renaissance man. Not only is he a master of multiple jazz disciplines, he also has composed several critically acclaimed operas. His classical works have often dealt with controversial subjects, such as Tania, ...
Noah Preminger Quartet, Boston, February 23
by Gordon Marshall
Noah PremingerScullers Jazz ClubBoston, Mass.February 23, 2011 To judge by his sophomore effort, Before the Rain (Palmetto, 2011), tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger's singular forte is the reinvention of the ballad. He does it so well, and so nearly exclusively, that it came as a pleasant surprise, during his performance at Scullers ...
Thelonious Monk: Let's Cool One
One of my favorite Thelonious Monk sessions took place on May 30, 1952, his last for Blue Note Records. There's a slippery urgency to the pianist's playing on this date, and the sidemen are both bluesy and martini dry. Joining Monk was Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Lou Donaldson (alto sax), Lucky Thompson (tenor sax), Nelson Boyd (bass) ...
Kit Downes Trio: Quiet Tiger
by Bruce Lindsay
The Kit Downes Trio's first album, Golden (Basho Records, 2009), won a Mercury Music Prize nomination and put the group firmly at the forefront of British jazz. Quiet Tiger finds the Trio eager to move forward, redefining its sound. Not content to rest on the laurels garnered by Golden, pianist and composer Downes has augmented the ...
Roberta Piket: Sides, Colors
by Victor L. Schermer
Roberta Piket Sides, ColorsThirteenth Note Records2011 Roberta Piket is a pianist with rich musical abilities who is making a name for herself as one of the best of her generation of keyboard players. Her 2011 release, Sides, Colors is a well-conceived recording, using her trio supplemented by strings and ...
Roberta Piket: Making a Difference
by Victor L. Schermer
Roberta Piket is a jazz pianist, composer, and arranger with an exceptional range of expression. In the same tune or performance, she moves fluidly between bebop, hard bop, blues, soft and mellow, up-tempo, contrapuntal, and advanced harmonic motifs, making it all come together in meaningful, coherent statements of ideas and emotions. She thinks hard when she ...
Benjamin Drazen: Inner Flights
by Dan Bilawsky
The peaceful, John Lennon-like face on the cover of Inner Flights is merely a mask. Behind that calm exterior is a musician with killer instincts and serious chops. Sure, saxophonist Benjamin Drazen can be calm and graceful when he wants to, as he is on Inner Flights' closing track, “Polka Dots And Moonbeams," but more often ...
Marty Williams: Long Time Comin'
by C. Michael Bailey
Bay Area fixture Marty Williams does not have a pretty singing voice. It doesn't need to be because it is a commanding one--readily identifiable, friendly, accessible and honest. and worth much more than being pretty. Doubly talented, Williams has a piano style right out of the righteous songbook of Junior Mance, Les McCann, and Gene Harris, ...
