Concert Reviews (851)
Nothing beats experiencing live jazz music as its being created right in front of you. Stop here for reviews of your favorite jazz artists live and in concert.
Much anticipation preceded the show. Getting an opportunity to celebrate the final night of Elvin Jones’ weeklong Birthday Engagement at the Blue Note is a blessing for any jazz fanatic. He has blazed a path over the last half century that has redefined the most essential aspect of the art form: rhythm. The evening started with a rendition of Hello Brother. Trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis’ New Orleans heritage was evident on this Louis Armstrong classic. He took the first solo and his eloquent p
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Lenore Raphael, Chris Colangelo, Tim Pleasant Michael D's Santa Rosa Jazz Club, Camarillo, Ca. September 27-28.. Lenore Raphael..Piano, Chris Colangelo..Bass, Tim Pleasant..Drums. September the 27th. was the anniversary of Bud Powell's birth, and Lenore Raphael's interpretation of the legendary Pianist's music was done with love and affection and swung nicely, despite occasional forays into Monk-isms. Raphael has a very strong style that can become reflective in an instant. Alluding to Mo
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The wonderful performances at this year’s Kettle Moraine Jazz Festival have proven that this festival is reaching world-class status rapidly.In Riverside Park, located in West Bend, Wisconsin, thousands gathered to listen to great Jazz. A huge tent covers the stage and main seating area, capable of seating 2000. Around the main covered sections are grassy seating locations for lawn chairs, blankets and picnic tables. Surrounding the entire area, artists and restaurants setup shop to keep ever
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Dianne Reeves is a vocalist with much more than just a great voice - she is an instrumentalist bearing the torch of her idols and keeping vocal jazz alive and well. Reeves along with her seasoned band, performed a diverse set of material throughout the evening - featuring selections from the Grammy- winner’s latest Blue Note release, "The Calling" (a tribute to Sarah Vaughan), while including varied originals. Ms. Reeves performed 12 powerful selections from her vast recorded history wh
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At first glance, one might take Garmarna to be just another band of alterna-rock 20-somethings, but as the Blues Poet Willie Dixon once observed, you can’t judge that chunk of reading matter by its superficial graphic design. From Sweden, Garmarna are five singers/players who take the traditional folk music of their land’s history and invest/interpret it with modern technology and edgy oomfp. They strive for a balance that treats their heritage with reverence but, thankfully, don’t try to
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On last Monday night, at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA, Branford Marsalis performed with his quartet: Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums, Eric Revis on bass and Joey Calderazzo on piano. Marsalis played both the soprano and tenor saxes. It is not surprising that the hall was packed to hear this quartet. The Marsalis name is almost like a magnet to listeners. I attended because I wanted to hear Branford, whom I believe has an edge to his playing that puts him in a category other th
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On Saturday, the 14th of September, The Fire in the Valley Festival in collaboration with the Boston Creative Music Alliance moved to the Institute of Contemporary Art Theater venue where over a dozen musicians collected in five groups took to the stage to perform from their hearts, their minds, their souls. I must have taken 50 pages of notes, sequenced with arrows & lines & drawings & words intended to coalesce my experience of six hours of music so that I could write a coherent, truth
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San Sebastián is the perfect atmosphere for seeing jazz. For the past 37 years, the city tucked away in Basque Country of northern Spain, has hosted the Jazz Festival. Many artists, such as BB King, Diana Krall, and Branford Marsalis, have brought their music to this town facing the atlantic ocean, surrounded by mountains. The Festival, recently sponsored by Heinekin, has brought fans and artists alike to this town for an extended weekend of jazz spanning all genres and musical times. Spanish cu
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As anyone who’s familiar w/ my review/rants, most jazz singers aren’t among my favorite things. Too many are either stuck in a Great American Songbook/confusing-masochism-with-love time warp, or they are "instrumentalists" who display (way too) much (numbing) technique but seem not to care one whit for the lyrics/content of the song. NYC-based singer Barbara Sfraga is a most notable exception an "exception" in almost all senses of the word. On a humid late-summer Tuesday night, Ms. Sfraga held s
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Exactly a year to the date, Indian tabla master Sandip Burman returned to Milwaukee’s Shank Hall with a new version of his East Meets Jazz group. Last year’s tour (cut short by the events of 9/11) featured a blistering all-star 6-piece ensemble. They navigated the twists and turns of Burman’s Indian music, creating a true fusion of genres. This year, he is taking a scaled down trio of himself, saxophonist Dave Pietro, and guitarist Paul Bollenback on a 40 date jaunt across the country.
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Drummer Ben Karetnick artfully drew together a quartet of seemingly out of balance proportions: the members of the group could be described with a graph that measured hyperbolic waves of maturity and experience of each individual. Joe McPhee played tenor & soprano saxes and pocket trumpet; Cliff White, a player from the Western Massachusetts area, was on alto & tenor; Joe Fonda, who has worked with Anthony Braxton among numerous other musicians, was on amplified double bass, and Karetnick, also
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The 15th Anniversary of the Long Beach Jazz Festival once again proved to be one of the most long awaited and successful event of the year. Jazz enthusiasts attended the festival in record numbers over the three-day weekend of August 9th, 10th, and 11th at the Lagoon Park in Long Beach, California. Friday night’s performances belong Al Jarreau, Alphonse Mouzon and Eugene Groove. Drummer/keyboardist, Alphonse Mouzon multi-talented musician dazzled the audience with his great creativity and uncann
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North America’s largest free jazz festival is one of the most heavily attended jazz festivals in the world. This year’s extravaganza is, typically, jam-packed with a Who’s-Who of internationally acclaimed jazz artists. Most notable are: Friday, August 30: Straight Ahead. The all-woman quintet led by bassist Marion Hayden is Detroit-based and internationally renowned. They recorded a trio of albums for Atlantic and served as a launching pad for violinist Regina Carter. Mavis Staples.
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[As Mr. Haden’s Saturday night show was covered on this very site a few days ago, just a brief intro/recap:] Composer/bandleader Charlie Haden has been one of THE jazz bass giants to come of age in the post-bop generation. Aside from his many recordings as a leader (of Liberation Music Orchestra and Quartet West) and a member of Magico, Haden has performed and/or recorded with a veritable Who’s Who: Chet Baker, Jimmy Rowles, Ornette Coleman, Pat Metheny, Ginger Baker, Don Cherry and even the min
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Composer/bandleader Charlie Haden has been one of THE jazz bass giants to come of age in the post-bop generation. If he did nothing but play in the groundbreaking Ornette Coleman Quartet (the 50s/early 60s), his place in history would be assured. Fortunately for us, he’s done MUCH more: aside from his many recordings as a leader (of organizations including Liberation Music Orchestra and Quartet West), Haden has performed and/or recorded with a veritable Who’s Who: Chet Baker, Jimmy Rowles, Hampt
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Sound Tribe Sector Nine is a pioneering 5-piece band that dives into thought provoking musical journeys with unpredictable improvisation and group interplay. While people like to put labels and categories on fresh new types of music, this bands ability to seamlessly blend Jazz, Ambient, Rock and Dance music subgenres such as Drum ‘N Bass and Organica makes them extremely hard to classify. They mix the earthy grooves of soul jazz with elements of free jazz, fusion, and even big band/swing.
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Composer/bandleader/multi-instrumentalist Gunter Hampel doesn’t get to these shores much, as European climes are notoriously more receptive to his brand of lyrical, swinging free jazz. Hampel has been at the jazz game since the 1960s he was among the first Euro-improvisers on the legendary ESP Disk label also he was of the generation of Euro-avant-jazzers who developed and defined a sound of their own, out of the shadows of the American giants. Like Charlie Mingus, many luminaries and then-to-be
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It can be argued that Linda Ronstadt’s best work was the music she made beginning in 1983 with arranger Nelson Riddle. The 1970s’ rock princess wrapped her big, soaring voice around a collection of impeccably chosen standards, showcasing her talents in ways that "When Will I Be Loved" and "Tumbling Dice," as good as they were, never could. Ronstadt, 56, recently revisited the work she did with Riddle during a concert at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Opening with "What’s New," s
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"THIS PERFORMANCE WAS QUITE LITERALLY A CLINIC IN THE ART OF ENTERTAINING AND SINGING" - A Musician -------------------------------------------------------------- Nancy Kelly-Vocals Chris Colangelo-Bass Tim Pleasant-Drums Dino Losito-Keyboard ------------------------------------------------------------- "Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory." - Sir Thomas Beecham
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A trio of musicians, Matthew Shipp on piano, Rob Brown on alto sax, flute, and clarinet, and Warren Smith on drums, excited the air on a stagnantly humid summer night at the Vermont Jazz Center in Brattleboro, Vermont. The group played two sets. Although the ornamentation in each was different, particularly with the change in reeds, both manifested serious dedication to the pursuit of resolving musical ideas. The truth simply put is that these three musicians are relentless. Each member
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The performance put on at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts by the group Bang on a Can manifested the pure meaning of the word synergy. This word came into use particularly during the period in the 60’s and 70’s when the design world of Bucky Fuller was in Biblical vogue. A word stemming from biology, "synergy", in the context in which I am applying it, addresses metaphorically how an idea can develop through a collection of elements which when put together create a larger idea or unit tha
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The sometimes dialectical and sometimes no so dialectical relationship between composition and improvisation has long been an issue of much thought for aficionados and performers of jazz. And yet while watching Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang perform their June 21 summer solstice concert I was struck by just how irrelevant the two made the issue seem. Drake and Zerang are Chicago based percussionists who are probably best known for collaborating together as members of the Peter Brotzma
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The Miles-ophiles that dug the Prince of Darkness’ electric period will surely recall the name of Pete Cosey, who was one of the guitarists that was a regular in Miles Davis’ mid-70s bands (circa the albums Agharta, Get Up With It and Pangea). Where he’s been since I don’t know, except that he once "subbed" for Bill Frisell in the jazz power trio Power Tools. Now, Cosey has assembled a killer cast of characters to pay tribute to the still-somewhat-controversial electric period. NYC’s Vi
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Dave Weckl put on a great show at a local club called "The Jazz Kitchen". It seats around 140 people, and is a club type atmosphere. We ordered dinner and ate during the show which was fun. Weckl's drum set is most impressive...it seemed to be designed to have many of the same drums on both sides of him to give him greater flexibility in playing. He had some out of the ordinary cymbal sets as well. He plays with such intensity and duration in some tunes that you're left wondering how he avoids c
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The prestigious Bluenote jazz club welcomes R&B legend Roberta Flack for a rare appearance from June 11-16th 2002. Singer/pianist Roberta Flack knows how to raise the roof and tear down the walls with her infectious and deeply emotional brand of R&B. Over the course of her three-decade career, Flack has earned a huge and intensely loyal following all over the world, with her exquisite piano playing and her passionate yet playful vocals. From the softest whisper to soulful dynamic voice and v
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