Brian Gilmore
Brian’s Contributions
10/15/09 Books
Ellington Uptown: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson and the Birth of Concert Jazz
John Howland
Anyone who has studied or read about the compositional output of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington always wondered how Ellington became so prolific in writing long form jazz compositions. Yet, more importantly, some (myself included) wondered why. John Howland’s...
10/15/09 Books
Stompin’ at the Grand Terrace
Phillip S. Bryant
Poetry collections about jazz, or in the jazz idiom are abundant and almost always special. (Full disclosure: your author published one in 2001, so I adore these efforts). Poet and English professor Phillip S. Bryant’s Stompin’ at the Grand Terrace is slightly...
10/15/09 Books
Subway Moon
Roy Nathanson
Subway Moon , saxophonist’s Roy Nathanson’s very engaging collection of poetry, begins in German. You will be taken a back by it at first if you don’t understand the language, but don’t fret; Nathanson’s accessible verse is forthcoming, Or as Jeff Friedman...
January/February 2008 Books
I Know What I Know: The Music of Charles Mingus
Todd S. Jenkins
Todd S. Jenkins’ I Know What I Know: The Music of Charles Mingus is the kind of book reserved for the best of the best. Few musicians can expect their musical output (excluding tales of lovers, spouses, money problems and children) to become the sole topic...
January/February 2007 Albums
Standards
Stanley Clarke
Last year when bassist Stanley Clarke hit the road with violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and banjo player Bela Fleck, it was another moment when you had to applaud Clarke’s aesthetic courage. Never one to fear the opportunity to move beyond the expected, the critically...
January/February 2007 Albums
Rip Tear Crunch
The Rempis Percussion Quartet
Rip Tear Crunch is from the creative mind of saxophonist Dave Rempis and his group, the Rempis Percussion Quartet. Rempis paid his dues on the Chi-town improvisational music scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s with such innovative and tradition-torching...
December 2006 Books
Footprints: The Life and Music of Wayne Shorter
Michelle Mercer
Looking at the cover of Natural Selection: Gary Giddins on Comedy, Film, Music, and Books, critic Gary Giddins’ latest book, you might laugh yourself silly. Giddins, the critic of all critics, is viewed sitting in the dark with a pen he seems uninterested...
November 2006 Albums
Mosaic
The Caribbean Jazz Project
The Caribbean Jazz Project has carved out its self-explanatory niche since vibraphonist Dave Samuels founded the group in 1993. Mosaic, the band’s latest release, is more of what CJP has been doing for years now, and some of the less faithful will not be...
November 2006 Albums
Consequence of Chaos
Al Di Meola
Al Di Meola, the Jersey-born virtuoso guitarist who starred in the fusion supergroup Return to Forever, has bounced back and forth between acoustic and electric music throughout his career. For his latest, Consequence of Chaos, Di Meola mixes electric-guitar...
November 2006 Albums
6th Avenue Romp
Chico Hamilton
In early 2006, drummer and composer Chico Hamilton dropped two marvelous albums, Juniflip and Believe. Both were brilliant offerings. Now, two more great albums, 6th Avenue Romp and Heritage, have hit. The 85-year-old legend is on a massive roll. 6th Avenue...
October 2006 Albums
Some Skunk Funk
Randy Brecker w/Michael Brecker
The Brecker Brothers, that brass-playing brother duo from Philadelphia, came on strong in the ’70s when all kinds of great horn sections exploded onto the music scene. The Average White Band once regularly showcased their legendary “Dundee Horns,” while...
October 2006 Albums
The Essential Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
No other artist in the last 45 years of jazz has remained on the cutting edge of the music like pianist and keyboardist Herbie Hancock: a musician with passion, an open mind and an awareness of history that constantly propels him forward into new sonic territory...
October 2006 Albums
Twenty Five
Yellowjackets
Twenty-five years ago in 1981, as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis attempted to return jazz music to its pure and glorious beginnings, the West Coast-based fusion band the Yellowjackets also arrived on the scene, but with different intentions. The Yellowjackets...
October 2006 Books
Considering Genius
Stanley Crouch
When writer and jazz critic Stanley Crouch was fired in the spring of 2003 from his gig as a monthly columnist for this magazine, the ultimate compliment to Crouch, as a relevant jazz critic, came from revolutionary poet and playwright Amiri Baraka. Baraka...
October 2006 Books
Running the Voodoo Down
Philip Freeman
“Everyone has their own Miles,” music critic Philip Freeman writes at the beginning of his new book, Running the Voodoo Down: The Electric Music of Miles Davis. Word is bond. My Miles wasn’t the Miles of Sketches of Spain, Kind of Blue or Porgy and Bess...
January/February 2006 DVDs
Make it Funky: The Music That Took Over the World
Various Artists
There is no better argument for rebuilding the city of New Orleans than this documentary. Director Michael Murphy lets acts like the Neville Brothers, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Irma Thomas do the "talking" from start to finish with snippets of their...
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ReportAbout Brian Gilmore
Poet, writer, and public interest attorney, Brian Gilmore is the author of two collections of poetry: "elvis presley is alive and well and living in harlem (Third World Press)" and "Jungle Nights and Soda Fountain Rags: poem for duke ellington (Karibu Books)." Currently, he is a contributing writer for ebony jet online, and a columnist with The Progressive Media Project.