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Tag: Marta Sanchez

For Versatile Max Johnson, There’s A Play At Every Bass

Max Johnson
photocredit: Aidan Grant

For something a little different today, let’s talk politics. Not electoral politics; we’ve all had enough of that. No, let’s talk musical politics, which can be just as divisive and irrational. Just ask Max Johnson. He plays bass in various jazz contexts, including a trio with saxophonist Neta Raanan and drummer Eliza Salem that makes stops at BLU Jazz+ and in Avon Lake this weekend. But he also plays and composes bluegrass and concert music. It could drive a gatekeeper mad.

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Marta Sanchez’s Music Is A Partner Dance Of Head And Heart

Marta Sanchez
photocredit: Larisa Lopez

“My music is kind of intricate,” Marta Sanchez admitted. Then she quickly added, “It’s not that I’m not attracted towards intellectual music, but I’m attracted to beauty–in music and in art–but both at the same time.”

Listen to Sanchez’s bracing, elegant pianism as you can do Saturday at BOP STOP, and you’ll learn that intellectual rigor wrapped in beauty are magnetically attracted to her, too.

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Roll Call: March 8, 2022

I get a lot of music for my consideration, already more than 160 new releases in 2022. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So, when I’m not previewing live events in Northeast Ohio, I’ll offer hot takes on recent releases. Like these.

Anniversaries and theme celebrations generally make writers groan, but editors love them. At let’s call this, I wear both hats, and this week I’ll give my editor side the benefit of the doubt. Thus today’s Women’s History Month roundup of notable new releases by women. There’s more than a common editorial conceit behind the post; these four recordings are outstanding by any measure and make a strong case for the increasing and long overdue prominence of women who play, write for and lead bands at the forefront of improvised music in the Black American tradition.

Julieta Eugenio JUMP cover

Looking at the cover photo for JUMP (Greenleaf Music), you might be forgiven for mistaking tenor saxophonist Julieta Eugenio for a teenager, but she is no kid. 

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