Photo from Delfeayo Marsalis’ MySpace page by Nick DeRiso For all of the many wonders of Duke Ellington‘s Such Sweet Thunder, the 1957 ode to the writings of William Shakespeare left plenty of room to tinker. Many of the compositions, which explored literary familiars from Othello to Hamlet, were but brief bursts of sound. That opens the door for an [...]
by S. Victor Aaron Since at least the fifties, many a jazz musician have made records of their live gigs at festivals. Some of the largest and most enduring ones have been a favorite location for cutting a record: Newport, Montreaux, Monterrey, North Sea and so on. And then there’s the Penofin Jazz Festival in Potter Valley, California. Nestled in [...]
by S. Victor Aaron Washington, D.C.’s Matta Gawa’s self-described “cinematic chunks of post-hardcore improvised sound” is, however else you might describe it, standing apart from the main body of whack jazz. Sounds created from more than forty guitar pedals generating loops, sample, octave altering, various synthesized noise effects created and layered all at once and rounded out by some mad [...]
by S. Victor Aron As I write this, two very talented bands from Italy specializing in the jazz of the whack variety are traversing the fruited plains looking to collect fans from the USA. The trio Neo and the quartet Tribraco are criss-crossing the country from August 23 to October 6, covering 37 cities, including Chicago, Philly, New York, Houston, [...]
By Mark Saleski Many years ago, while stuck in traffic during the evening commute, I heard a radio segment on microtonal composer Easely Blackwood. I had read about things like microtones, 24-note equal tunings, and the like, but somehow none of the music had ever made it’s way into my ears. Some of the pieces played that evening were so [...]
by Nick DeRiso Sam Newsome, who first came into wider notice as a tenor-playing member of the Terence Blanchard Quintet in the early 1990s, takes the soprano to places both familiar and new on “Blue Soliloquy.” Subtitled “Solo works for the soprano saxophone,” it’s Newsome’s tone-poem love letter to what makes his new instrument such a freeing experience. No longer [...]
by Pico As one of the seminal jazz-rock bands of the seventies, Weather Report has been plenty celebrated and covered. And yet, most of the recognition covers the 1976-1982 period in which the groundbreaking bassist Jaco Pastorious was in the band. Truth is, WR was a great band for the five-plus years it existed before his arrival, and it’s been [...]
by Pico Duck Baker has made his name over several decades as a virtuosic acoustic guitarist, one who prefers to play it solo. That might make him sound like another Leo Kottke, but there’s much more to Baker that makes him a compelling and interesting musician. Baker obviously craves applying his advanced fingerstyle guitar technique toward tackling a completely new [...]
by Pico As the seventies turned into the eighties, crossover jazz was rapidly morphing into what’s now known as “smooth” jazz (I once heard it described as “sprout” jazz, as in, the music preferred by “those who like that kind of music also like bean sprouts on their cheeseburgers,” but that’s for another discussion). Whatever you call it, one of [...]
by Pico Every enterprise that sets lofty goals for itself should have a yardstick for success and put forth a mission statement. You’ve probably been taught this in your high school or college business class. The creative music combo from Brooklyn, NY called Search has one. It goes like this: Search sets out to travel the globe spreading a message [...]
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