NEWS
December 24 2009
John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Eternal Interlude (Sunnyside Records)
Calling the drummer-composer John Hollenbeck a jazz musician is like referring to Thom Yorke as a mere rock and roll crooner. It seems a rather narrow description for someone with such prodigious talents and ambitions. Mr. Hollenbeck writes pieces for his large ensemble that are almost symphonic. They share a lot with the more ecstatic strains of contemporary classic music, the kind practiced by John Adams and the drummer’s longtime employer, Meredith Monk. And yet if David Binney is a jazz musician then so is Mr. Hollenbeck. They are both reinvigorating the art form with influences from the broader culture. Jazz needs more of this.
December 24 2009
NY TIMES
December 20, 2009
Notable Dispatches From the Edge of Jazz and Beyond
By BEN RATLIFF
1. VIJAY IYER TRIO “Historicity” (ACT) Those who admire a lot of jazz want historical synthesis like a child of divorced parents wants a family reunion. Why can’t there be a new jazz trio that does it all — one that’s flexible, intuitive and strategic, not lugubrious, arid or jammy-boring, and a repository of postwar piano-trio lessons, from Ahmad Jamal to free jazz and beyond? And why can’t it go hard into repertory, covering M.I.A., Leonard Bernstein, Julius Hemphill, Stevie Wonder and Andrew Hill? Well, there is, and it can, and it did.
2. BILL CALLAHAN “Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle” (Drag City) On a good day Bill Callahan can send a lot of lyricists to the showers, and this was a good day. Past his old bile now, he’s moved into tough love and pared-down insight over a beautiful, stubborn kind of post-folk, sweetened with strings.
3. MARCUS STRICKLAND TRIO “Idiosyncrasies” (Strick Muzik) A bright and sturdy saxophone-trio record — tenor, bass and drums — by a young musician who’s absorbed his Joe Henderson and Branford Marsalis yet never sounds overstudied.
4. WILLEM MAKER “New Moon Hand” (Big Legal Mess) Tempest-tossed slow rock and country blues, played in shimmers and drones, grunts and hollers, by a young but old-sounding southerner. Fans of “Beggars Banquet” and Charley Patton, take note.
5. STEVE LEHMAN OCTET “Travail, Transformation and Flow” (Pi) An almost scientifically precise kind of jazz, with influences as far apart as post-bop, hip-hop, and the “spectral” classical composers of the 1970s and ’80s, focused on timbre and the physics of sound. Don’t worry about what it comes from, though: it’s luminous, and easy to admire.
6. JOHN HOLLENBECK LARGE ENSEMBLE “Eternal Interlude” (Sunnyside) Profound, imaginative, well-developed pieces for 20 musicians, grown out of jazz and classical music, built around soloists but never subservient to them. As a big-band jazz composer, Mr. Hollenbeck was already good; now he’s become great.
7. NELLIE MCKAY “Normal as Blueberry Pie” (Verve). To look at its cover, you might assume this record has something to do with animal rights, 1950s fashion or Doris Day, to whom it’s conceived as a tribute. But don’t get it wrong. This ranks among the killer overhauls of American standards, with sharply original arrangements mostly by the singer-pianist-ukulelist herself.
8. DIRTY PROJECTORS “Bitte Orca” (Domino). David Longstreth’s falsetto isn’t very beautiful, and his distrust of the organic, continuous groove is almost tiringly up on stilts. But what a natural guitarist he is; what pleasure this group pulls out of harmony and counterpoint; and what a tense, powerful band it has become: the playing strains to match the ideas and just about does.
9. KURT ROSENWINKEL STANDARDS TRIO “Reflections” (Word of Mouth Music). When an improviser at this guitarist’s level turns his hand to the common jazz-musician repertory — Monk, Wayne Shorter, etc. — it’s an act of generosity. It helps you to understand both his original craft and intensity and the power of the old songs themselves.
10. RAEKWON “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx ... Pt II” (IceH2O/EMI). Here’s an argument against stylistic evolution in art, in the unlikely case you were shopping for one. It picks up where Raekwon left off 14 years ago, when he and the Wu-Tang Clan collective created a vogue for fractured, word-stuffed, street-scuffed hip-hop mind-movies full of primal fear and misplaced anger.
December 24 2009
Pop & Hiss
THE L.A. TIMES MUSIC BLOG
Solid choices in Grammy jazz nominations
December 2, 2009 | 8:28 pm
Allen Toussaint’s ‘Bright Mississippi’ is in the running in the best instrumental album category. The Bay Area’s Julian Lage is one of the contemporary nominees, as is veteran Mike Stern.
Grammy voters might have made some baffling choices this year (seriously, Hall & Oates?), but not when it came to the jazz categories.
Though there was speculation that Allen Toussaint’s “The Bright Mississippi” might sneak into the major categories with its rich, reverent take on the classic sound of New Orleans, the album instead was nominated in the best jazz instrumental album category.
There it will compete against the John Patitucci Trio’s “Remembrance” and a pair of solid if not entirely groundbreaking live albums from Gary Burton teamed with Pat Metheny, in addition to the Chick Corea and John McLaughlin reunion, “Five Peace Band Live.”
In the contemporary jazz category, veteran fusion guitarist Mike Stern earned a nomination for “Big Neighborhood,” a sprawling, adventurous record that featured such guests as Esperanza Spalding, Steve Vai and Medeski Martin & Wood. Vibraphonist Stefon Harris also earned a nomination for his hip-hop-friendly Blackout ensemble’s “Urbanus.”
A welcome surprise in this category was the inclusion of Bay Area guitar phenom Julian Lage, who earned a nomination for his contemplative, acoustic-leaning debut “Sounding Point.” But all will have a tough time competing against the Grammy tradition of honoring artists who recently died, in this case Joe Zawinul and the Zawinul Syndicate’s final live recording, “75.”
The John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble’s “Eternal Interlude” marked another unexpected choice by Grammy voters in the large jazz ensemble category. The drummer for the genre-splicing New York jazz group the Claudia Quintet, Hollenbeck delivers anything but a typical big band sound with the Ensemble—their music is full of swirling rhythms and classical-adjacent song structures.
Chris Barton
December 02 2009
John Hollenbeck and the Claudia Quintet with special guest Gary Versace
premiere new works from their Chamber Music America’s 2009 New Jazz Works Grant.
Commissioning and Ensemble Development program funded through the generosity
of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Claudia Quintet +1
John Hollenbeck, drums + percussion
Chris Speed, tenor saxophone
Matt Moran, vibraphone
Ted Reichman, accordion
Drew Gress, double-bass
Gary Versace, piano
December 6th Ars Nova Workshop Philadelphia, PA
December 7th Towson State Towson, MD
December 13th Douglass Street Music Collective Brooklyn, NY
December 31st Emmanual Church “First Night” Event Boston, MA
January 9th Winter Jazz Fest NYC Bitter End 9:45pm NYC
details:
December 6
Ars Nova Workshop Philadelphia, PA
International House Philadelphia
3701 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104 Map
http://www.ihousephilly.org
Price: $12 General Admission
Buy Tickets
http://www.arsnovaworkshop.org/events/claudia-quintet-1-12-06-2009
December 7
Towson State Towson, MD
Center for the Arts Recital Hall
Monday, December 7, 8:15 p.m.
The Bill and Helen Murray Jazz Residency Program
presents drummer and composer John Hollenbeck in the initial event of his week-long residency.
All proceeds will benefit the Bill and Helen Murray Jazz Residency.
Tickets: $13 general admission; $7 seniors; $5 students
http://www.towson.edu/artscalendar/music.asp
December 13
Douglass Street Music Collective Brooklyn, NY
295 Douglass Street
Brooklyn, NY
9pm (One Set)
$10 suggested donation
December 31
First Church in Boston “First Night” Event
66 Marlborough Street
set times:
9:00 PM - 9:45 PM , 10:15 PM - 11:00 PM
(with Trevor Dunn and Matt Mitchell)
http://www.firstnight.org/FirstNight2010/Events/Evening.aspx
2010
January 9
Winter Jazz Fest NYC
Bitter End 9:45pm
147 Bleeker Street NYC
http://www.winterjazzfest.com/2010nycwinterjazzfest/2010pressrelease.html
“This is a true ensemble from top to bottom, a sonic equivalent to a hand-woven tapestry…Impressive.” -DownBeat
This brilliant New York band led by drummer and composer John Hollenbeck - a leader of a new generation of musicians who have brought together many disparate threads of contemporary music to create a new sound - recasts jazz in shimmering new shapes inflected by classical minimalism, new music, progressive rock and post-rock. The Claudia Quintet embraces the textural freedom of electronic sounds and improvisation, the structural ambition of contemporary classical music, and most importantly, the joy of bodacious grooves and unapologetically gorgeous melodies. For this ensemble, Hollenbeck has assembled a group of the foremost innovators in this new sound to create a powerhouse band. The quintet’s one-of-a-kind “jazz and beyond” sound, with massive emotional depth, comes organically from the uncanny interplay of its virtuosos: Drew Gress (John Surman, Uri Caine, Ravi Coltrane), Matt Moran (Slavic Soul Party, Mat Maneri, Theo Bleckmann), Ted Reichman (Anthony Braxton, Marc Ribot, Paul Simon), and Chris Speed (Human Feel, Bloodcount, AlasNoAxis), accompanied by guest pianist Gary Versace, best known for his work with John Scofield, John Abercrombie and Maria Schneider. Their beautifully seductive work features propulsive grooves, catchy melodies and improvisation that is nothing short of telepathic.