The Nels Cline 4 has released a new Blue Note album titled Currents, Constellations. The band includes drummer Tom Rainey (left), guitarists Nels Cline and Julian Lage, and bassist Scott Colley.
A Lunchtime Meeting Helped Spawn Nels Cline’s New Album
Thirty years ago, Nels Cline recorded his first album as a bandleader for the Enja label. Angelica featured an all-star combo that included the guitarist’s twin brother, Alex, on drums, trumpeter Stacy Rowles, bassist Eric Von Essen and…
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The Blue Note Jazz Festival, which began June 1 and is scheduled to run through June 30, includes a spate of national and international performers for its eighth edition.
On…
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Part of what’s remarkable about the contemporary London jazz scene is how the genre’s breadth is on display, filtered through disparate styles and cultural backgrounds.
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Abiodun Oyewole and Umar bin Hassan, two of the founding members of Afrocentric jazz collective The Last Poets, weren’t prepared to be in the spotlight again. Since announcing…
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For a decade, the Portuguese-born Sara Serpa has been crafting hauntingly beautiful composed and improvised music, utilizing her classically trained voice on jazz compositions.
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BY Ed Enright
Rocky Yera issues an invitation to exhilaration with the release of his debut album.
The Chicago-based tenor saxophonist whips up a whirlwind of excitement and mines the depths of sentimentality on Just Practice, a showcase for his formidable chops,…
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BY Dave Cantor
Sometimes the story’s better than the music, and sometimes the music’s better than the story. Rarely are they both gripping.
For The Malcolm Cecil Project, though, its namesake’s back-story is just as intriguing as this batch of stalwart bop…
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BY Bobby Reed
Michael Kaeshammer is the type of photogenic, multitalented artist who, a couple of generations ago, might have been tapped to host a variety TV show in the United States.
A native of Germany now based in Canada, Kaeshammer is a powerful vocalist, a…
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BY Bobby Reed
The all-original program on Shawn Maxwell’s Music In My Mind conveys the vision of a composer who’s confident in his artistic vision, and comfortable with the wide array of colors on his instrumental palette.
Maxwell—who plays alto saxophone,…
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BY Ed Enright
During the last several years, tenor saxophonist Jarod Bufe—long known in the Windy City for his expertise as a horn repairman—has developed a body of exquisite original compositions for the quartets and trios he leads at Chicago-area venues like…
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BY Dave Cantor
Heavy guitar chording opens Weiße Schatten, bolstering a flurry of flute lines and illustrating why Jin Jim is part of the ACT imprint’s “Young German Jazz” series.
If the intial aggression of the quartet’s second album intimates that cosmic…
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BY Frank Alkyer
Dave McMurray has a driving, propulsive groove behind his tenor saxophone playing—always. He’s a jazz musician rooted in the beat. He’s a jazz musician steeped in the groove. It’s that spot-on bounce that’s made McMurray a go-to sideman for the…
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BY Bobby Reed
In many ways, the Buddy Guy of 2018 is the same dynamic fellow who delivered a stunning, eye-popping performance in the rock documentary Festival Express, filmed in 1970. For a staggering 60 years, Guy has been dazzling fans with a potent style of blues that…
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BY Dave Cantor
Mary Lattimore criss-crosses the nation, harp in tow. She’s lugged it up flights of stairs to play smaller venues, trucked it out for much larger engagements alongside folks like Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore and brought it along for recordings by…
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by Ted Panken // October/2008
In 1993, four years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, Poland’s most prominent jazz musician, met three teenagers — drummer Michal Miskiewicz, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and pianist Marcin Wasilewski — who had recently launched the Simple Acoustic Trio. Having signed to ECM around this time, Stańko was working…
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