Till Bronner & Bob James –
On Vacation (Masterworks): “Together with jazz legend and Grammy award winner Bob James, trumpeter Till Brönner – Germany’s most successful jazz musician – has transformed holiday moods into a multi-layered sound painting. Close your eyes and dream: “On Vacation is first and foremost a feeling for me and we have transformed this feeling into music,” explains BrönnerVirtuosic, full of creative love for refined details and at the same time of the greatest possible nonchalance, Brönner and James create an imaginative and sonorous music for inspiration, reflection and daydreaming. Confirming the cliché “Unity is Strength”, German trumpetist and singer Till Brönner and the American pianist Bob James have cowritten On Vacation, a work of smooth, hedonistic jazz. Before becoming the king of smooth jazz who has been sampled by every rapper on the planet (his Nautilus has ended up on over 400 tracks by the likes of Public Enemy, A Tribe Call
By Adam Feibel Jimmy Katz / ECM Records
Emmet Cohen embarks on a trip through the long history of jazz piano with his latest album
Future Stride.
In his first album for Mack Avenue, the pianist and composer recruited bassist Russell Hall and drummer Kyle Poole his frequent collaborators for a trio recording that also features performances by saxophonist Melissa Aldana and trumpeter Marquis Hill.
Future Stride revisits the sounds of stride piano from as early as the 1920s and reimagines them with a modern ear, resulting in a mix of originals and vintage tunes that sound contemporary.
Below you can listen to
Steven Wine
This cover image released by Mack Avenue Records shows Future Stride by Emmet Cohen. (Mack Avenue Records via AP) January 26, 2021 - 9:13 AM
Emmet Cohen, Future Strideâ (Mack Avenue Records)
Stride provides a starting point on jazz pianist Emmet Cohen s new album. The opening cut, âSymphonic Raps,â is a New Orleans ragtime tune recorded by Louis Armstrong nearly a century ago, and Cohen plays it as though his piano is rolling downhill, accelerating until he leaves the rhythm section behind.
That momentum sends Cohen on an exploration of other jazz stylings, with stride as an antecedent and recurring reference point. Common threads on âFuture Strideâ include swinging, often unpredictable rhythms, inventive interplay and wit.
Review: Ragtime and much more from jazz pianist Emmet Cohen
by Steven Wine, The Associated Press
Posted Jan 26, 2021 12:13 pm EDT
Last Updated Jan 26, 2021 at 12:14 pm EDT
Emmet Cohen, “Future Stride” (Mack Avenue Records)
Stride provides a starting point on jazz pianist Emmet Cohen’s new album. The opening cut, “Symphonic Raps,” is a New Orleans ragtime tune recorded by Louis Armstrong nearly a century ago, and Cohen plays it as though his piano is rolling downhill, accelerating until he leaves the rhythm section behind.
That momentum sends Cohen on an exploration of other jazz stylings, with stride as an antecedent and recurring reference point. Common threads on “Future Stride” include swinging, often unpredictable rhythms, inventive interplay and wit.
Melissa Aldana is an award-winning saxophonist originally from Santiago, Chile. She was the first female musician and the first South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. Her newest recording “Visions” was released in 2019. In this interview, we’ll be discussing her story and how she got into jazz, her compositions, and more.
This interview will take place on Zoom and is open to the public.
Passcode: ccja
CCJA Sundays are curated by CCJA faculty and staff member Camilla Vaitaitis includes incredible interviews with jazz musicians and industry professionals (Instagram Live), CCJA Masterminds workshops over Zoom (free – suggested donation), and the CCJA Jazz Book Club on the last Sunday of the month.