Posts by Kirk Silsbee
arts•meme contributor Kirk Silsbee writes about jazz and culture, as he has for nearly 40 years. He can be read in many publications including Downbeat, the Burbank Leader, the Glendale News-Press, Downtown News, and Jewish Journal. He makes a mean plate of pancakes and is known to be a terrific kisser.
Ornithology, at Piano Spheres special season-opener
Red-flanked Bluetail ed. note: We are pleased to re-enter life as we knew it, and feature, in this special post, writing by Kirk Silsbee and photography by Mark Levine As performing-arts presenters take tentative steps toward resuming full programming, the prudent path would mandate familiar fare to reconnect with cautious audiences. Piano Spheres is having ...
Broadbent & Mancio, a musical partnership by intuition & osmosis 2
One of the most sublime vocal albums of this, or any recent, year was released a few months ago. London-based singer and lyricist Georgia Mancio and pianist Alan Broadbent committed duets of nine of their own songs onto Quiet Is The Star (Roomspin). The collaboration is one of the all-too-rare instances where voice, text, piano ...
Tenor-sax somersaults & trampolines: Sonny Rollins in 1967 1
SONNY ROLLINS photography by John Abbott Each December, the marketplace offers up some must-have jazz-related item. A newly-minted LP collection, a CD or DVD box, or doorstop book—something that pushes aside everything around it. In 2020, that was unquestionably Sonny Rollins in Holland (Resonance). The two-CD compilation of previously unissued live performances by the tenor ...
‘Sittin’ In’ at golden-era jazz clubs 1
bird & friendscourtesy of jeff gold These days, every self-respecting college and civic performing arts center has a subscription jazz series. It’s no surprise, then, that many people see jazz as concert music. But it wasn’t always so. 1930s and ‘40s jazz musicians mostly worked in ballrooms with dance bands, but they stretched out and ...
Jazz serendipity: Alan Broadbent Trio’s ‘Trio in Motion’
The longstanding professional relationships of the Alan Broadbent Trio might indicate that the recording at hand is the result of a comfy, well-worn process. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each selection of their new album, Trio in Motion (Savant) is a journey, and the performances are travelogues that sometimes surprise the musicians as much ...
In ‘jazz quarantine’ with Josh Nelson Trio 2
For jazz musicians and their audience, the spring and summer months of 2020 have been, to paraphrase the rebel leader Don Jose in The Wild Bunch, the months of sadness. Musicians need to communicate, exchange, and create with each other. And most thrive before an audience. As clubs and music spaces shutter due to the ...
Jazz composer/pianist Billy Childs brings new ‘Acceptance’ to musical life
There have been two hallmarks—standards if you will—that have been a part of every Billy Childs album. The first is the journey he’s traveled as a composer. He has always written and, to great acclaim: he has received five GRAMMY ® awards and 16 nominations—many for composition and arrangement. Presently in continual demand for symphonic ...
Through the eyes of Milton Glaser 2
If you lived in America in the last half of the 20th Century, you saw the country, in part, through the eyes of illustrator and graphic designer Milton Glaser (1929-2020). So prolific and widespread was his visual sense that, for a while, almost all good design looked like his. He co-founded Push Pin Studios, the ...
Yo-ho-ho-liday recordings 2019!
Antonio “Tony” Covay, as “Singing Black Santa,” last week outside the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post) Holiday-themed recordings haven’t made much noise in recording industry cash registers for a long time. Yet Mariah Carey’s 1994 song, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” is number one on the ...
‘Disappearing guitars’ of Bill Frisell & Julian Lage @ CAP UCLA
Guitarist Bill Frisell has proven himself as one of the most interesting conceptualizers of the past twenty years or so in jazz. His albums are a continual source of delight and amazement, as he takes his audience down one musical rabbit hole or another. Whether he’s playing his own original scores to Buster Keaton’s silent ...