Geoffrey Himes
Geoffrey’s Contributions
December 2007 Features
Herbie Hancock and Joni Mitchell: Music & Lyrics
Herbie Hancock has a confession to make: For the longest time, he ignored the lyrics of the songs he played on. Asked if he considered the lyrics when he assembled his poll-topping Gershwin’s World album, he says, “Not at all,” and spreads his hands before...
June 2007 Albums
Pilgrimage
Michael Brecker
Is it possible to disentangle the music on Michael Brecker’s final recording from the circumstances of its making? Probably not, but let’s try. As anyone reading this magazine must know, Brecker announced in 2005 that he would stop performing in public because...
May 2007 Features
Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau: Counterpoint
If you’ve ever hung out backstage at a jazz festival, you know that jazz musicians are always telling one another, “We should get together sometime and play.” It’s a friendly gesture, and it’s usually tied to a vague feeling that, hey, it would be nice to...
April 2007 Albums
From the Plantation to the Penitentiary
Wynton Marsalis
The infuriating thing about Wynton Marsalis is that he is so incredibly talented that you can never simply dismiss him and yet he is so wrong-headed about so many things that you can never wholly embrace him either. Nothing brings this dilemma into sharper...
December 2006 Albums
Memories of T
Ben Riley's Monk Legacy
There’s a brief moment in the new version of “Rhythm-A-Ning” by Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet where a descending line begins with Bruce Williams’ alto saxophone, is handed off to Wayne Escoffery’s tenor sax and is finished off by Jay Brandford’s baritone...
July/August 2006 Features
James "Blood" Ulmer and Vernon Reid: Harmolodic Blues
James "Blood" Ulmer and Vernon Reid share an interest in Ornette Coleman's harmolodic music that they've explored on three albums, including Birthright. Geoffrey Himes uncovers a bond forged by the blues.
July/August 2006 Features
Nonstandards Fare: Jazz and Pop
In the repertoires ofr some jazz musicians, Great American Songbook standbys are giving way to pop. Geoffrey Himes explores how jazz is reinventing itself.
January/February 2006 Features
Roswell Rudd: Song Styles of a Planet
Trombonist Roswell Rudd turned 70 last November. Among his presents was the reformation of his first (and unrecorded) band, which played in the Dixieland style he favored before falling for free jazz in the ’60s. Rudd’s story is classic jazz, from sharing...
June 2005 Albums
SFJazz Collective
SFJazz Collective
In the liner notes for the debut Nonesuch CD by SFJAZZ's resident troupe, Artistic Director Joshua Redman admits he considered forming a classic repertory band like the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Jazz needs ensembles like that, but it already has several...
May 2005 Albums
Joyous Encounter
Joe Lovano
Joyous Encounter opens with Vernon Duke's "Autumn in New York," introduced by a harmonic synopsis from Hank Jones' solo piano and then by a breathy statement of the melody from Joe Lovano's tenor sax. Paul Motian's light brushwork and shimmering cymbals...
March 2005 News
Fred Hersch: Piano Poetry
Pianist Fred Hersch first encountered the poetry of Walt Whitman as a 19-year-old student at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1976. "Whitman's 'Calamus' poems, which are about men loving men, were very powerful for me at age 19, when I was just coming...
March 2005 Albums
Same Mother
Jason Moran
Jason Moran got the title for his new album, Same Mother, from his wife's comment that jazz and blues share a common mama. That's true, but they have different daddies. Like any two half-brothers, jazz and blues are bound by family and divided by rivalry...
September 2004 Albums
The Lost Chords
Carla Bley/Andy Sheppard/Steve Swallow/Billy Drummond
Pianists with a sense of humor have always had problems in the jazz world. The most obvious examples are Fats Waller and Thelonious Monk, whose genius went unrecognized for so long partially due to their comic bent (in addition to being so forward-looking...
June 2003 Albums
Timeagain
David Sanborn
David Sanborn's new album, timeagain, is not a jazz album; it's a pop-instrumental record. But that's a description, not a judgment. There are good and bad pop-instrumental albums, just as there are good and bad jazz releases; one is not automatically superior...
May 2003 Features
Jacky Terrasson: Souirire de Francais
About 70 minutes into Bertrand Tavernier's 1986 film 'Round Midnight, Dale Turner, the character played by Dexter Gordon, picks up a soprano saxophone and plays the ballad "Tivoli." The year is 1960, and the place is the Blue Note, a brick-lined basement...
April 2003 Features
Christian McBride: Or So You Thought You Knew
The first thing you hear on Christian McBride's new album, Vertical Vision, is a hot-jazz tune that sounds like something Fletcher Henderson might have recorded in 1931. Beneath the crackling static of an old 78, you can hear a bouncy piano stranded somewhere...
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