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Kweku Sumbry
Emiliano D'Auria: The Baggage Room
by Angelo Leonardi
Dopo le atmosfere cantabili e un po' algide del precedente First Rain--registrato in Norvegia col suo stabile quintetto--Emiliano D'Auria va a New York e s'immerge nel tumulto jazzistico contemporaneo guidando una formazione col sassofonista Dayna Stephens, il trombettista Philip Dizack, il contrabbassista Rick Rosato e il batterista Kweku Sumbry. Anche se stilisticamente ha espresso affinità col jazz nord-europeo, il pianista e compositore marchigiano non ha smesso di seguire gli sviluppi di quello statunitense e in questo progetto ne ...
Continue ReadingMicah Thomas: Mountains
by Stefano Merighi
La prima traccia di Mountains, “Life," potrebbe suggerire un equivoco di fondo: un bel disco di jazz elegante, sgargiante nei colori, brillante nell'alternanza tra incedere orchestrale e voci individuali. Ma invece è solo l'incipit di un'opera ad alto tasso dialettico, che offre talmente tante soluzioni da frastornare. Micah Thomas (28 anni, ricordiamolo) ha già tutta la storia del jazz--e non solo--sotto le sue dita. E' un altro tra i numerosi pianisti e pianiste in grado di sintetizzare ogni ...
Continue ReadingMicah Thomas: Mountains
by Mike Jurkovic
It can never not be exciting and enthralling to listen to a young artist come into his or her own as pianist/composer Micah Thomas does on the very live, very rollicking, very palpable Mountains. Thomas' fourth disc as captain of the ship chronicles four hot sets in June of 2023 commissioned by The Jazz Gallery Residency Fellowship at New York's Jazz Gallery. The pianist and company get right down to it as Thomas delves headlong into ...
Continue ReadingLinda Sikhakhane: Iladi
by Mike Jurkovic
The music of South African saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane?does not so much originate from a particular point in time or space or history as much as it expands and accelerates forth from the sub-Sahara's heady mists. Billowing, charging. Seething, soothing. So ease back and let Iladi (a Zulu wisdom ritual) happen. Let the moves of diaspora move you. Let Iladi trace its heritage and bring all listeners home. Let it engulf the room like a fog. On his first ...
Continue ReadingLinda Sikhakhane: Iladi
by Chris May
It is beyond coincidence that the two most uplifting albums released by male saxophonists so far in 2024 were made by players who use their music, in part, to celebrate female wisdom. The albums are Linda Sikhakhane's Iladi and Oded Tzur's My Prophet (ECM). New York-based Tzur's My Prophet, like its immediate predecessor, Isabela (ECM, 2022), was inspired by Tzur's wife and is a semi-mystical portrait of her as, in Tzur's words, an all-powerful deity and the ...
Continue ReadingDerrick Gardner & The Jazz Prophets: Pan Africa
by Mike Jurkovic
A big man with a big plan and a boisterous sextet at his back, trumpeter Derrick Gardner and his razor-fine Jazz Prophets unapologetically and unflinchingly blow the walls down with Pan Africa. Hyperbole? Not really. Just let Gardner and company free on Jackie McLean's hopscotching “Appointment In Ghana" (from Jackie's Bag, his first for Blue Note in 1960). And feel the fever, fervor, and drive. Long time Jazz Prophet's alto/tenor saxophonist Robert Dixon, and trombonist brother Vincent Gardner ...
Continue ReadingImmanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand
by Mike Jurkovic
That we are free to think saxophone firebrand Immanuel Wilkins' 2020 Blue Note debut Omega served as a sign of hope amid a particularly hopeless year puts an awful lot of weight on the shoulders of a 25-year-old and, beyond doubt, colors the fate of The 7th Hand. Humbly and characteristically, Wilkins and company meet the challenge head-on. Searching for nothingness in a culture of excess, “Lift," the seventh and closing exhortation to empathy that guides The 7th ...
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