Kenny Barron will release a three-disc set of duets with the late Mulgrew Miller on Oct. 18. The 76-year-old pianist and bandleader also has a trio project in the works with bassist Dave Holland and drummer Johnathan Blake. (Photo: Philippe Lévy-Stab)
Kenny Barron on Compatibility, Writing and Mulgrew Miller
Last year, Blue Note released Kenny Barron’s leader debut for the label: Concentric Circles, a tour de force for quintet featuring, for the most part, the pianist’s original compositions. Barron had recorded for Blue Note on other…
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In a piece on Trilogy 2, DownBeat writer James Hale says the “artistic breadth and technical facility” of bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade matches that of…
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Speaking with Anthony Braxton is much like trying to improvise alongside the 74-year-old reedist: You need to stay on your toes and keep your ears open, ready to react and respond…
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Composing can reflect the progression and transformation of a writer. And that’s particularly true when the music requires coordinating multiple people and artistic mediums.
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In July 1975, 39-year-old Harold Mabern took the stage at Carnegie Hall during a solo piano night at the New York City edition of the Newport Jazz Festival. Amid a lineup of eight…
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BY Dave Cantor
French saxophonist Barney Wilen’s a relatively unknown figure in the States; it’s perhaps his Zodiac or Moshi that obsessive diggers and avantists best know him for. But Wilen’s career stretched from the 1950s, when he recorded with Miles Davis and…
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BY Dave Cantor
In a recent Q&A with Wendell Berry, The New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich asks the poet and naturalist about his output being connected to the past, if “all new work is in conversation with everything that preceded it, that language itself is simply a…
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BY Bobby Reed
In the liner notes to his new quartet album, Slow Play, pianist Ben Markley proudly cites pianist Cedar Walton (1934–2013) as one of his key influences. The disc is a follow-up to the Ben Markley Big Band’s Clockwise: The Music Of Cedar Walton (OA2),…
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BY Ed Enright
On his Blue Note Records debut, veteran guitarist Bill Frisell documents his latest project, a reflection on the near-magical musical kinships he’s forged with various artists during his career. Produced by his longtime collaborator Lee Townsend and…
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BY J.D. Considine
The most compelling thing about the sound of Caroline Davis’ alto saxophone is the way it lingers. She doesn’t just play notes, but inhabits them. So, even the briefest of passing tones is given its due as it progresses to a phrase’s conclusion. It’s…
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BY Bobby Reed
On the bandstand, Zakir Hussain is an intense listener deeply committed to meaningful conversation. That’s true whether he’s performing with a septet edition of Crosscurrents or scaling the band down to a trio version with two other virtuoso musicians:…
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BY J.D. Considine
In the West, folk-fusion bands, from the Clancy Brothers and Fairport Convention to Mumford & Sons, have brokered their debt to the past by making folk melodicism conform to the norms of contemporary pop song structure. Black String, by contrast, prefers to…
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BY Dave Cantor
If it’s generally accepted that performers—at least those seeking some sort of artistic fulfillment—are engaged in a constant search for a language fit to dispense their ideas, Telepathic Band’s Electric Telepathy, Vol. 1 seems to find the Brooklyn…
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BY Bobby Reed
Fat Possum Records, the acclaimed, Mississippi-based label, has launched a new imprint devoted to gospel music: Bible & Tire Recording Company. The inaugural releases are a reissue of late-1960s and early-’70s material by Elizabeth King & The Gospel Souls,…
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Zoom has introduced the A1 FOUR and A1X FOUR multi-effects processors for acoustic string and wind instruments. Both pedals feature more than 80 effects—many of them engineered to perform optimally with instruments like acoustic guitar and bass, saxophone, trumpet, harmonica and violin. With a…
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From recording and editing tracks to mixing and monitoring in stereo or surround, Avid’s S1 eight-fader control surface provides integration with Pro Tools and Media Composer, plus native support for third-party applications, such as Logic Pro, Cubase and Premiere Pro. Users can connect up to…
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Hal Leonard has announced the Clarinet Omnibook for B-flat instruments. Similar to the Trumpet Omnibook Hal Leonard released in 2018, the Clarinet Omnibook compiles 43 of the most famous jazz clarinet solos transcribed directly from the artist recordings, so that anyone who plays a B-flat…
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Boss brings its latest guitar synth technology to the compact pedal format with its new SY-1. Equipped with a polyphonic engine, the SY-1 delivers 121 ready-to-play synth sounds. Leads, pads, organs, basses and more are included, plus a variety of sound effects and rhythmic synth patterns. The…
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Korg has launched the B2 series, a line of three new digital pianos designed to sound and feel as authentic as the real thing. The B2, B2N (pictured) and B2SP are embedded with expressive new piano samples in mono and stereo, plus electric pianos, organ, strings and more. The instruments feature…
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by John Diliberto // February/1993
Shards of sound scatter across the concert hall. Blips and bleeps, squiggles and snarls spew out from stage right, where a short, portly figure dressed in iridescent robes turns knobs and throws switches, orchestrating a sonic collision of satellites and asteroids. Suddenly, he turns from his Moog synthesizer and begins spinning around bodily,…
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