Steve Elman

Jazz Review: SF Jazz Collective at Berklee, 3/8/13—This Year’s Model

March 14, 2013
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The members of the Collective seem to have an understanding that their job is to make music that reflects a group identity as well as their individual personalities.

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Arts Fuse Appreciation / Commentary: DruidMurphy, There and Here

November 21, 2012
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The Druid, one of Ireland’s most celebrated stage companies, undertook the project to celebrate Tom Murphy’s work and to make the case for him as one of the world’s leading living playwrights.

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Jazz Appreciation: Mark Harvey 44, Aardvark Jazz Orchestra 40

October 8, 2012
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Mark Harvey and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra: It’s hard to remember what the Boston jazz community was like before Harvey came along. In fact, the term “jazz community” would have seemed far-fetched at best if anyone had used it.

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Music Review / Commentary: Surprise Packages — Marc Ribot, solo guitar / Mostly Other People Do the Killing

October 1, 2012
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Honesty is Best Policy Disclosure: I was in the hall to hear Mostly Other People Do the Killing. I’d heard the band on CD, and I knew that the only way I could appreciate them fully was to attend a performance.

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Jazz CD Review: Transcendence – Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Project

June 18, 2012
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If you’re a Gil Evans devotee, or even a casual appreciator, have I got good news for you: Ryan Truesdell’s Centennial, more than 70 minutes of Evans that we never thought we’d hear, 10 tunes realized so beautifully and brilliantly that they should win a Grammy for Truesdell and a second, posthumous Grammy for Evans.

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Jazz Preview / Commentary: The Alla Elana Cohen – Ran Blake Project

May 29, 2012
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It’s a worthy effort –- and, as a listener, how many times will you have the chance for real adventure inside a concert hall?

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Jazz Concert Review: An Evening with Kirill Gerstein at Berklee or, The Jazz Piano Concerto, Part 2.5

April 1, 2012
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Like other great artists –- Martha Argerich and Steve Lacy come to mind right away — pianist Kirill Gerstein approaches every note with a sense of how important that note is in relation to every one that has come before and every one that is to come after.

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Music Commentary: The Problem of the Jazz Piano Concerto – Side A

March 7, 2012
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When the jazz composer is the soloist, which is usually the case, he or she ironically revives one of the most venerable traditions in classical music.

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Jazz Review / Commentary: Chick Corea’s “The Continents” and the Problem of the Jazz Piano Concerto

February 22, 2012
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Chick Corea’s “The Continents: Concerto for Jazz Quintet and Chamber Orchestra” is filled with tuneful melody, shows off some superb playing by the soloists, breaks new ground in a number of ways, and achieves nearly all of its ambitions.

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Jazz Review / Commentary: David Sanborn at Scullers – The Craftsman Cometh

February 13, 2012
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Art with a capital A has been put on such a pedestal that Craft with a capital C has been downgraded to a shabby or rustic sort of activity of which the practitioner should be a little ashamed. ’Tain’t so.

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