Jazz
“When you play with authority, then that’s what the music is about, like ooooh baby, and sing it.” — Cecil Taylor
Unlike musicians who operate on the surface and create a beautiful veneer, pianist Lennie Tristano’s music asks harder questions.
Unlike a lot of modern jazz releases, this isn’t so much about displaying virtuosity (though all the musicians are virtuosos) as it is about setting a mood and a groove and dancing on top of it.
Soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien’s new disc is deliberately, and satisfyingly, international.
The rewards of these and other recordings provide ample proof that, with its shape-shifting qualities, the string quartet will continue to be a powerful asset for talented jazz composers.
Whether playing together or apart, on this 1981 recording the two saxophonists couldn’t sound more gracefully inspired or more compatible.
The Cave of Winds and Breath By Breath amply confirm that, regardless of the stress of COVID, jazz’s life-force remains strong as we venture into a brave new year.
The trio shares Cecil Taylor’s love of rational freedom and adventure, but it doesn’t try to reproduce the pianist’s rip-roaring intensity.
Jazz isn’t an orthodoxy, a religion, a form of faith healing, or a tribal rite — you don’t have to be in the room with it the moment it happens to reap its benefits.
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