In the band photo on the tray card of Force Majeure, (Delmark Records, 2014) a CD by Paul Giallorenzo‘s GitGo band, the leader stands front and center wearing a t-shirt bearing the image of the Great Lakes. After 30 years in Chicago, does the Long Island native consider himself a Midwest musician?
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Friendly experiencers,
Let’s just get this out of the way: jazz fans, the coming week is absolutely stacked. It’s so full of notable shows that it took two let’s call this posts to begin to cover it–and a third might not get to the bottom of the good stuff.
If the music calendar for the week were a dart board, you could close your eyes and hit a bullseye every time.
So as March goes out like a lion here’s your bulldog edition of Pull UP! Now have fun filling up that calendar.
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Friendly experiencers,
Remember this week well, NEO-phytes because you’ll likely never see an outdoor show with a bigger crowd as long as you live. Okay, it won’t be a music show, but who would want to fight a crowd of a quarter million people at an arena or a festival, right? And unlike Monday’s solar eclipse, you won’t need special glasses to enjoy the musical events below, though earplugs might be something to consider.
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If you’re reading this page, it’s fair to assume that for you, creative music is life. It certainly is for me, yet sometimes life intervenes. That happened last week when a veterinary emergency demanded what little energy I had after a mad dash to the April 15 tax finish line. I was whupped, and not even the crash-cart energy of a New Ghosts double bill of Dave Rempis’ Ballister band and the trio of Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley and Paul Lytton could rouse me to leave the house.
Fortunately, my colleague and fellow western Pennsylvanian Mike Shanley is made of sterner stuff. Not only did he make the drive from Pittsburgh, he blogged about it on his shanleyonmusic site. Mike and I have similar tastes, and if you like what you read here, his blog is well worth a follow (bless you, Mike, for enabling RSS).
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It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these, choosing to concentrate instead on previewing live music events in Northeast Ohio. With few of those on the horizon, and needing to get into a posting groove, here’s a look at some interesting new releases that dropped in the past week. Note: my review of Fred Hersch‘s “Breath By Breath,” will be published at AllAboutJazz.com. I’ll post a link when it’s available.
In jazz, bloodlines often count for something. Drummer Taru Alexander is the son of Boston-born saxophonist Roland Alexander. Though he was never a star and didn’t record widely, the elder Alexander has played with a wide range of high-profile musicians, the kind of player who forms the essential connective tissue of a vibrant scene. Alexander the younger (he’s 54) seems to be following in his father’s footsteps; All Music lists 11 sideman appearances with artists as varied as Fred Ho and Abbey Lincoln, but “Echoes of the Masters” (Sunnyside Records) seems to be his debut as a leader. Like a lot of debut recordings, it’s eager to make an assertive first impression, and shows off an athletic, hard-charging band. Behind the kit, Alexander throws down in forceful, post-Tony-Williams style. Antoine Roney is the only horn, but his dry, forthright tone on tenor saxophone gives this session a gritty, cinema-verité edge. Rashaan Carter is mountain-strong as always, but the revelation for me is pianist James Hurt, originally from Memphis, who summons Tyneresque thunder with his left hand while spinning florid runs with his right. He’s a postbop Phineas Newborn by way of Mulgrew Miller, and full of surprises.