Mimi Fox Expands Jazz Guitar from the Inside Out
MIMI FOX WAS A PRECOCIOUS YOUNGSTER, playing drums and then guitar before reaching her teens. She rapidly taught herself to play pop, folk, R&B, and other styles?but it was encountering John Coltrane?s Giant Steps that set her firmly on her current path. She relocated from New York to the San Francisco Bay Area around 1980, a time when there was a vibrant local jazz scene. ?I used... read more
4-STARS Dawn Clement, previously unknown to me, totally surprised me with her new album as an excellently swinging pianist who, together with the magnificent bassist Buster Williams and the outstanding drummer Matt Wilson, forms a fantastic team. Six instrumentals by the trio form the core of the album, including the wonderfully swinging Thelonious Monk's "Monk's Dream," Buster Williams' "Tokudo," and Julian Priester's "Elmere's... read more
Vibist Joe Locke and keyboardist Geoffrey Keezer have been working together for some time as the New Sound Quartet, which has released two discs in Japan. But while that group - clearly the precursor to this quartet - focused out of necessity on a primarily standards-based repertoire, Live in Seattle provides a far better and more accurate representation of its potential. Featuring three songs each by Locke and Keezer, it's also further... read more
Muscular-toned tenor saxist and composer Carlos Vega puts together a beefy post-bop quintet with Victor Garcia/tp-f, Stu Mindeman/p-key, Josh Ramos/b and Xavier Breaker/dr. He rotates between hip soul sounds with his Rhodes on pieces like the funky "On A Mission" and hip "Los Osos Grandiosos," and tongue in grove boppers like the title track and intricate "Curve Ball." Vega's tone his Rollins-strong, while Garcia is bel canto and with an... read more
5 STARS Ben Thomas and the Future of the Bandoneon: A Cultural Mirage in Motion.
Astor Piazzolla didn't merely master the bandoneon, he redrew its boundaries. In sound, in form, in phrasing, he etched into musical history an invisible yet indelible rulebook, shaping what the instrument was and what it could be. For decades, those contours held firm, as musicians followed the trail Piazzolla had blazed with reverence, if not... read more
A young vibraphonist couldn't wish for more in the way of plaudits than an endorsement from Gary Burton. In part it's a measure of how jazz vibes playing has divided roughly into two phases: first, it involved hitting the instrument's bars as a drummer might, then a generation later coaxing from them arabesques of sound by almost disguising how such sounds are produced.
The multi-mallet approach changed everything. The vibraphone became not... read more
Mark Zaleski (Boylston, MA), was born into a family that loved music. His parents were fans of rock and pop music from the 1960s and '70s, such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder. His friends were fans of 1990s punk and metal bands like Nirvana, Metallica, and Pearl Jam. His brother, Glenn Zaleski, and his music teachers listened to jazz artists such as Dave Brubeck, Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson,... read more
Pianist Hal Galper began his journey into "rubato" playing early on in the new millennium, after a quite vibrant career in the mainstream, playing and recording with the likes of all-star alto saxophonists Phil Woods and Cannonball Adderley, legendary trumpeter Chet Baker and guitarist John Scofield. It hasn't always been a smooth ride. At a show with guitarist John Stowell at Carlsbad, California's Museum of Making Music back in 2007, drawing a... read more
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