Jazz
The Matt Wilson Quartet prides itself on variety: the band can play ersatz Indian music, free jazz, and funky rhythm and blues, as well as an occasional touching ballad.
In nearly 78 minutes of intensely concentrated playing, Jane Ira Bloom’s album offers some of the greatest ballad performances I have ever heard.
Amongst the acoustic live sessions, listeners should be delighted with the Chick Corea-Herbie Hancock duets.
“Learning to Listen” is less about a jazz journey than it is about a prodigiously talented artist for whom music came easily while his own life was a puzzle.
“He’s someone who appears only once in a hundred years.”—Hermeto Pascoal
“I like singing live; I try to sing well live, I try to prepare myself for the audience, for that room. And I care a great deal about singing live, because I think that’s the experience of jazz. Even if I’m singing Brazilian music.”
One doesn’t come away from a Wayne Shorter Quartet performance merely raving about individual accomplishments: the set on Sunday night never felt like just a compelling sequence of solos.
Peter Pullman deplores (without bathos) the wreckage of Bud Powell’s life and mourns (without tears) the consequent loss of so much masterful music. And his story of Powell’s life is even grimmer than the one we have previously been told.
Jazz Review / Commentary: Brian Carpenter’s Ghost Train Orchestra and Some Notes on “Irony”
Brian Carpenter and the Ghost Train Orchestra are not about re-creating either hot jazz from the ’20s or novelty works from the ’30s and ’40s. They’re interested in capturing the spirit that they perceive to be inside these almost-forgotten pieces and using that spirit to make original new music.
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