Technical skill and spontaneity are essential in a strong jazz soloist, but the ability to listen and process information on the fly is just as crucial. Amsterdam’s aptly named ALL EARS embodies this talent: led by pianist Michiel Braam and tenor saxophonist Frans Vermeerssen, the sextet plays from a repertoire of pithy, carefully arranged themes […]
Tag: saxophone
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8 Bold Souls
Few bands have achieved so much recognition and respect from so little output as 8 Bold Souls. In 18 years Ed Wilkerson’s octet has recorded all of four albums, performing only occasionally in Chicago and less than that in New York. They’ve never toured this continent or any other; yet the group has inspired raves […]
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Active Ingredients
Before he split for New York last year, Chad Taylor, the drummer who anchors the various Chicago Underground groups, was one of the most elegant and open-minded percussionists in town. In every context, from one-off gigs with Dutch reedist Sean Bergin to playing pop behind the Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop to his regular work […]
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8 Bold Souls
8 Bold Souls don’t record much–a paltry four albums since their founding in 1985–but year in and year out, the octet remains one of Chicago’s best working bands. A prime reason is the composing of director and tenor saxophonist Edward Wilkerson Jr. He’s a master of recombination, grouping the players along various lines to good […]
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8 Bold Souls
8 BOLD SOULS Saxist and composer Edward Wilkerson’s longstanding octet 8 Bold Souls remains not just viable but exciting. Wilkerson’s open-ended compositions and detailed arrangements have always compressed jazz history, leapfrogging from its African roots to Duke Ellington’s small bands of the 30s all the way to postfreedom improvisation, but over the years he’s explored […]
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Akikazu Nakamura
Infatuated with progressive rock groups such as King Crimson while growing up in Tokyo in the late 60s, Akikazu Nakamura at first took up the electric guitar, but after being introduced to the shakuhachi–an elongated, end-blown bamboo flute dating from 14th-century imperial courts–he decided to devote himself to redefining the ancient instrument’s role in contemporary […]
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After-Fest Jam Sessions: HotHouse
Now that tenor saxist Joe Henderson has attained household-name status–at least in jazz households–one wonders if his contemporary Dewey Redman can lag all that far behind. Henderson’s late-breaking popularity, well-deserved as it may be, stems in large part from his affiliation with a major record label; but Redman has gained no little attention for fathering […]
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8 Bold Souls
No Chicago band has inspired more critical applause in the last decade than Edward Wilkerson’s 8 Bold Souls. That kind of attention stems in part from the rangy palette of Wilkerson’s arrangements and the refreshing solos and exuberant interplay of the instrumentalists, but even more from the brilliantly crafted audacity of the concept. It has […]
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8 Bold Souls
More than the refreshing solos and exuberant interplay of the instrumentalists–and even more than the rangy palette of the arrangements–it’s the finely realized audacity of their concept that sets Edward Wilkerson’s 8 Bold Souls above so much other modern music. Like many of their colleagues in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, such […]
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A.C. Reed & the Sparkplugs
Veteran saxophonist A.C. Reed is something of an anomaly among contemporary blues hornmen: his style seems to owe more to the raucous guitar sound of early-60s Chicago guitarists like Buddy Guy than to the roadhouse honkers who usually provide the inspiration for blues horn blowers. His repertoire consists primarily of straight-ahead Chicago-style burners interspersed with […]
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8 Bold Souls
8 Bold Souls is the most famous unknown band in America. They play mostly in tiny Chicago clubs, far from the center of the jazz world; nevertheless, when the Village Voice took a poll of jazz critics to determine the outstanding albums of the 1980s, 8 Bold Souls won second place–especially amazing considering the disc […]