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Jazz Articles about Peter Erskine
Judy Whitmore: Let's Fall in Love

by Jack Bowers
Polymath Judy Whitmore has taken time away from her busy and productive career(s) to record her fifth album, Let's Fall in Love, and like the first four, it is a smooth and delightful tour of memorable themes from the Great American Songbook, sung with radiance and heart by one of the leading exponents of popular song on today's scene. Whitmore does not sing jazz (no scatting or improvising here); she leaves that in the capable hands of ...
Continue ReadingPeter Erskine: Revisiting Weather Report

by C. Andrew Hovan
A standout drum prodigy of his generation, Peter Erskine began playing at the age of four. After honing his skills at Interlochen, he launched his professional career in 1972 with Stan Kenton. Four years later, he joined Maynard Ferguson before making a pivotal move, replacing Alex Acuña in Weather Report. In the spring of 2025, acclaimed vocalist Kurt Elling embarks on a new project celebrating the music of Weather Report. As the tour nears its end, Erskine ...
Continue ReadingFranco Ambrosetti: Sweet Caress

by Alberto Bazzurro
Il rapporto fra jazz e archi è sempre stato piuttosto tormentato. A ottant'anni suonati (è nato nel dicembre 1941 e l'incisione data dicembre 2023, quindi 82 giusti giusti) ci casca anche un musicista glorioso come Franco Ambrosetti, che confeziona un album che verrebbe quasi da definire pomicioso" (fin dal titolo), a dispetto dei musicisti coinvolti nella band in quanto tale (string orchestra esclusa, quindi). Otto i brani, per metà del trombettista (qui flicornista) ticinese, che suona ovunque benissimo, ...
Continue ReadingPeter Erskine: Vienna to Hollywood: Impressions of E.W. Korngold & Max Steiner

by Jack Bowers
From Vienna to Hollywood is versatile drummer Peter Erskine's ardent homage to the (mostly) film music of the renowned Academy Award-winning Viennese composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner, who wrote some of filmdom's most memorable themes during Hollywood's Golden Age in the decades from 1930 to 1960. To transpose their film scores to the jazz genre, Erskine uses a talented group of performers from Vienna's JAM Music Lab University (where he serves as artist-in-residence), supplanted on two numbers by ...
Continue ReadingPeter Erskine & The JAM Music Lab All-Stars: Vienna to Hollywood

by Peter Erskine
Hollywood called... ...and Max Steiner was the first of this dynamic duo to answer, arriving there in 1929, initially working for the RKO Studios as an orchestrator and then as a composer. This was not his first affiliation with Hollywood, however; he functioned as Fox Studio's musical director, adding live music to silent films presented in New York theaters where he had already established himself on Broadway. The call to come west must have triggered an urge as primal as ...
Continue ReadingEliane Elias: Time And Again

by Edward Blanco
Internationally-renowned Brazilian jazz pianist and vocalist Eliane Elias presents her third recording on the Candid label--and the 32nd release of her long and distinguished career--on the innovative and creative Time and Again, a collection of eight new original sambas, which feature her piano, keyboards and singing in both English and Portuguese. As Mark Wexler, head of Candid Records states, With each recording, Elaine proves she has no boundaries and showcases her mastery of song, musicianship and vocalese. She is an ...
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