Reviews that mention Jason Yarde
May 12, 2015
For The Blue Notes
Ogun Records OGCD 042
Neelamjit Dhillon Quartet
Komagata Maru
No Label No #
Rudresh Mahanthappa
Bird Calls
ACT 9581-2
Rez Abbasi Acoutic Quartet
Intents and Purposes
Enja Records ENJ-952-2
Something In The Air: Varying Definitions of Ethnic-oriented Improvised Music
By Ken Waxman
When it comes to welcoming immigrants to North America, Canada and the United States have long had different policies. To Americans the ideal is the melting pot with all foreigners persuaded to become true-blue Yanks. Modern Canada, once it shook off fealty to Britain, has long promoted multi-culturalism, where immigrants become Canadians without giving up their homeland identity. Generalities should be avoided, but it’s informative to see these concepts played out in improvised music. Thus Neelamjit Dhillon, born in Vancouver of Sikh background, has created a notable CD based on the infamous 1914 incident when 376 mostly Sikh immigrants were refused entry to Canada. To do so he mixes traditional Indian instruments with Western ones. In contrast American performers, who are his contemporaries, and with similar immigrant roots, have recorded sessions exclusively linked to the un-hyphenated jazz continuum. MORE
April 27, 2015
4 Blokes
Ogun OGCD 043
Rarely is there a 67-minute CD that zips by as if it actually lasts 67 nanoseconds. But such is the level of elation raised by 4 Blokes that not only does it move with supersonic velocity, but you also which there was more of it.
Such is the universality of improvised music that this first recording makes it seem as if the 4 Blokes had been playing together forever. That’s a feat history makes impossible. South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo was born in 1940 and was playing professionally by the end of the 1950s. While saxophonist Jason Yarde and bassist John Edwards may have been working with the drummer since the early 1990s and pianist Alexander Hawkins and Moholo-Moholo now play in a widely praised duo, not one of this all-British trio was born when the drummer turned professional; the pianist in fact is 41 years younger than Moholo-Moholo. MORE