Jazz in Elsewhere

WYNTON MARSALIS INTERVIEWED (2000): Once more, back to the future

9 Sep 2008 | 6 min read

To refer to Wynton Marsalis as a jazz musician is to unintentionally diminish him. Certainly he plays jazz trumpet, has released a couple of dozen albums in the idiom, was the catalyst for and focal point of a renaissance of jazz in the 80s and is musical director for the prestigious Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in New York.Yes, Marsalis is a jazz man and proud of it.But that hardly accounts... > Read more

ORNETTE COLEMAN, DAVE BRUBECK AND ME: A Song For Guy

2 Sep 2008 | 17 min read | 1

Ronnie Wickens was one of the last to leave my 50th birthday party at Portside. As I made for the door I looked back, and there he was at the bar chatting to -- maybe even chatting up -- a couple of girls in their 20s, friends of my sons' no doubt. Ronnie was somewhere past 60, but he still looked great. I don't recall what he was wearing that night but I always think of Ronnie in... > Read more

Frank Gibson's Parallel 37 (Ode)

27 Aug 2008 | <1 min read

Auckland jazz drummer Gibson has had a career that stretches back to the late 50s and he made his debut at age 8 on the stage at the Auckland Town Hall playing a duet with his drummer dad. Since then he's played with everyone from Leo Sayer to Milt Jackson, and everywhere from Abbey Road and the Montreux Jazz Festival to some of the least attended clubs in Auckland. Quite some career.... > Read more

Parallel 37: Black Orpheus (Frank Gibson and Emily Remler)

Mathias Eick: The Door (ECM/Ode)

25 Aug 2008 | <1 min read

On a blindfold test I doubt many who listen to Norwegian prog-rockers Jaga Jazzist would pick the trumpter leading this ECM set as the same guy from that big band. But Eick has popped up in many shapes:he has played alongside Chick Corea and in jazz orchestras, was a guest in the psychedelic rock band Motorpsycho and is a dab hand on guitar and vibes as well as trumpet. Here he pulls... > Read more

Matthias Eick: Porvoo

Grammaphone: Grammaphone (Thoughtless)

25 Aug 2008 | 1 min read

Got to say when I went to school it was a big deal just to be in a band and the thought of making a record was beyond our comprehension -- which made Nooky Stott, drummer with Larry's Rebels, something of a distant (if slightly overweight) god to us. But times change (for the better) and these students from Auckland Grammar not only recorded, but produced a very impressive double disc in a... > Read more

RAVI COLTRANE INTERVIEWED (2007): First rays of the new rising son

28 Jun 2008 | 14 min read

If musical talent is in the genes then Ravi Coltrane was twice blessed: his father was the legendary tenor saxophonist John Coltrane whose spiritual and searching bebop redefined jazz in the late 50s and 60s; and his mother was the gifted pianist/composer Alice who played in her husband’s group and whose own creative contributions have perhaps been unfairly overshadowed by his... > Read more

RECORD PRODUCER JOHN SNYDER INTERVIEWED: Ethics, soul and a conscience . . . in the music industry?

19 Jun 2008 | 5 min read

English rock-writer Charles Shaar Murray had a neat, if rather obvious, line about the band Pop Will Eat Itself. If it was only pop that was eating itself, says Murray, then there would be more grounds for optimism. But at a time when music is more an industry than an art form – as Noel Gallagher observed, some bands only release music for the ringtones – a lot more than pop gets... > Read more

Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden: Some Day (from Soapsuds Soapsuds on Artists House, 1978)

MILES DAVIS IN CONCERT REVIEWED 1988 : The Prince claims the crown

31 May 2008 | 3 min read | 2

For even the most devout Miles Davis follower, it was difficult to anticipate what the legendary trumpeter would pull out for his one-only Auckland concert. Recent albums weren’t helpful – they sport different line-ups to the seven-piece outfit he was bringing – and overseas concert reports were divided between hagiographies and outright contempt. Nothing could prepare... > Read more

Marilyn Crispell: Vignettes (ECM/Ode)

17 May 2008 | <1 min read

American pianist Crispell was a longtime member of saxophonist Anthony Braxton's often demanding quartet, and that alone tells you she knows what it means to be put on the spot under the spotlight. Braxton's was assiduously thoughtful improvised music which sometimes had the discipline of mathematical construction. But with sweat. The ECM label however often invites a more contemplative... > Read more

Marilyn Crispell: Valse Triste

Charles Lloyd Quartet: Rado de Nube (ECM/Ode)

2 May 2008 | <1 min read

The rehabilitation and resurrection of saxophonist Lloyd is outlined elsewhere at Elsewhere (see tag) but in brief it goes like this: he made huge selling album in the late 60s which was embraced by hip hippies, accusations of "sell out" from jazzers followed, the wounded Lloyd retreated from the public gaze, then slowly reappeared via ECM in the late 80s with a series of superb... > Read more

Charles Lloyd Quartet: La Colline de Monk

Stephan Micus: Snow (ECM/Ode)

2 May 2008 | <1 min read

Multi-instrumentalist Micus first crossed my path about two decades back with his beguiling Wings Over Water album on which he played (among other things) tuned flowerpots. You don't easily forget someone like that. He has continued on his quiet and considered path adding unusual string things, choral singing, gongs and much more to his musical pool and while there is a New Age aspect to... > Read more

Stephan Micus: Madre

FRANK GIBSON PROFILED (2008): Long Distance Drummer

15 Apr 2008 | 4 min read

Early in 2007 I would get calls from Frank Gibson, who some say is arguably this country’s finest drummer. I would have thought that was beyond argument myself. Frank was asking what he could do, how he might capitalise on a playing career that had taken him around the world, won him numerous awards and the acclaim of musicians across at least two generations, seen him play... > Read more

Keith Jarrett Trio: Setting Standards (ECM/Ode)

15 Mar 2008 | <1 min read

Pianist Keith Jarrett's career and recent work has been well covered at Elsewhere so all that needs be said about this triple set is that it collects the two albums in his Standards series with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack deJohnette in which the trio explored with sensitivity and contemporary relevance the Great American Songbook, and their daring Changes album -- all recorded in a... > Read more

Jarrett/Peacock/DeJohnette: I Fall in Love too Easily

BEN WEBSTER AND ART TATUM CONSIDERED (2008): Genius loves company

27 Feb 2008 | 3 min read

In my experience, jazz people tend to live in the past. Radio programmes are more often about the greats of yesteryear than the living, jazz mags essay Ellington over ECM, and in any given year you get the clear message that record companies are more interested in reissues than recording new names. Jazz musicians too contribute to this: older hands are frequently sniffy about... > Read more

The Bad Plus, Prog (Do the Math/Universal)

16 Feb 2008 | <1 min read

This US jazz trio comes with formidable advance notices: Rolling Stone (not exactly a jazz journal) described their music as "action packed and totally schizophrenic -- in a good way". I don't hear it quite that way. They certainly pound up a storm sometimes (the thundering repeated piano chords and percussion in the nine minute Physical Cities here) but can also craft music of... > Read more

The Bad Plus: Tom Sawyer

Hadouk Trio: Baldamore (Naive)

16 Feb 2008 | 1 min read

For an issue of Real Groove magazine I wrote about how boring many New Zealand jazz albums are -- they simply don't surprise and are often retreads of standards which have been done better elsewhere. I like my jazz to have an element which makes me sit up and listen -- and this French/North African trio managed to do that, and more. I haven't air-punched to a jazz album in many years.... > Read more

Hadouk Trio: Baldamore

Marcin Wasilewski Trio: January (ECM)

1 Feb 2008 | 1 min read

If you go to the Thomas Stanko essay/review under Absolute Elsewhere (see tag) you may read at the end my cheap witticism about the names of these guys. That said, it works for me -- I took one look at the names here (pianist Marcin Wasilweski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz) and remembered them immediately. When you are teaching little ones to read they call... > Read more

The Marcin Wasilewski Trio: New York 2007

ORNETTE COLEMAN, LOVE REVOLUTION 1968: The Italian job

20 Jan 2008 | 3 min read

I thought I knew all about Ornette Coleman, a man nominally described as a jazz musician but among the most unconstrained musical geniuses of the 20th century. I’ve got a couple of dozen Coleman albums on vinyl and at least that many CDs. I’ve got bootlegs and biographies, and a photo of Ornette and me on a couch in a New York loft taken when I interviewed him in ‘96.... > Read more

WYNTON MARSALIS, FROM THE PLANTATION TO THE PENITENTIARY (2008): Wynton in the 21st century

20 Jan 2008 | 3 min read

Only a few jazz musicians have actually changed the course of the music: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis (twice, maybe three times) and Ornette Coleman undeniably reset the compass -- and Wynton Marsalis certainly did. However many would qualify Wynton with, “but not in a good way”. The trumpeter from New Orleans broke... > Read more

NEW ZEALAND'S iiii LABEL (2007): 20/20 vision into the past

20 Jan 2008 | 3 min read

In a remarkably short period in the mid 80s, maybe 18 months, Wellington’s Braille label released a swag of albums -- I have eight, there may have been more -- which were nominally “left-field improv”. There was a bit of free jazz, some faux-Dixieland and assaults on jazz standards, and too many unmemorable originals which noodled around to no great effect. Braille’ best... > Read more