Boston Globe, August 17, 2006 Tania Maria has the soul of a rebel but peace in her heart. At 58, and with more than 20 albums to her name, the pianist and singer has accumulated the wisdom and discography of a senior musician. Brazilian by birth, expatriate by choice, she’s conducted a long-running and sophisticated […]
Tag: jazz
Still heading west
Boston Globe, August 11, 2006 Versatile, inquisitive, indispensable: The adjectives only begin to describe the career and contribution to jazz of the bassist Charlie Haden. From free jazz with Ornette Coleman, through decades playing with virtually every major figure, to recent work on Americana, Cuban, and Mexican sounds, Haden’s discography is one of the most […]
For Pyeng Threadgill, freedom to experiment
Boston Globe, June 25, 2006 The shimmering new album by singer Pyeng Threadgill, “Of the Air,” features eight original songs and two covers that, it’s safe to say, had never been juxtaposed before. One is “Close to Me ” by the Cure; the other, Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz.” They may seem like strange bedfellows, drawn […]
Coltrane tribute is a love supreme
Boston Globe, September 30, 2005 The commemoration of John Coltrane is never a casual matter. The saxophone titan, who died in 1967, left not only a body of work unequaled in creativity and technique but a legacy of constant spiritual exploration. The 1965 album “A Love Supreme” is the best known but far from only […]
Like his genre-bending music, pianist knows no borders
Boston Globe, June 26, 2005 If there is a jazz musician of the moment, Vijay Iyer may well be it. The Indian-American pianist has gone in the past year from underground favorite to emerging mainstream sensation with a gripping, thought-provoking sound and a body of work that includes straight-ahead post-bop efforts, avant-garde collective improvisation, and […]
When he conducts, the electricity flows
Boston Globe, June 12, 2005 NEW YORK—It’s a raw, damp Monday night in the midst of a miserly spring, yet inside Nublu, an East Village club devoted to edgy music, all is hipness and heat. Baton in hand, Lawrence “Butch” Morris is leading a 10-piece ensemble in collective improvisation, using the ambitious, unusual technique that […]
Metheny’s fare satisfies many tastes
Boston Globe, March 29, 2005 Like all artists, musicians are best approached on their own terms. Anyone who took in the Pat Metheny Group at the Orpheum Saturday night with the goal of answering the eternal question that bedevils the group “But is it jazz?” received their just comeuppance. For close to three hours, Metheny […]
Exhilarating jazz, spoken word take off in airport setting
Boston Globe, March 28, 2005 AMHERST—For all the talk about the emergence of global culture, art that successfully explores the emotional content of globalization remains rare. “In What Language?,” a project of jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and writer, producer, and performer Mike Ladd, is a triumph of a genre that doesn’t yet exist. The 80-minute […]
Restless
Boston Globe, January 28, 2005 To a younger generation of music fans, the rootsy multi- instrumentalist Olu Dara is better known for his progeny than for his output. The father of acclaimed rapper Nas, he has appeared several times on his son’s records, most recently on “Bridging the Gap,” an enthusiastic genre-crossing duet that vaulted […]
Sax Greats Heat Up Regattabar Crowd
Boston Globe, November 30, 2004 The legacy of John Coltrane contains multitudes, and when two of his devotees take the stage together, there is no predicting how their musical approaches will meld. The prospect of this creative interplay drew a sellout crowd to the Regattabar Friday night to watch saxophone masters of two generations, Pharoah […]
Siddhartha Mitter 