Wayne Krantz

The much awaited studio album from Wayne Krantz after his last release, Good Piranha Bad Piranha (2014) featuring Gabriela Anders, Keith Carlock, Will Lee, Orlando le Fleming, Tim Lefebvre Pino Palladino and Chris Potter.

This is a group effort that finds Krantz in the company of young stars Lincoln Goines and Zach Danziger. This became a regular band for Krantz, who later put out a live recording with the same personnel. The tunes are all played with passion by all, and feature Krantz's penchant for extended and at times self-indulgent solos. Like most good jazz players, Krantz explores new territories and takes chances when he's playing. He is one of the few fusion-style players to emerge during the '90s who can improvise for long periods of time and make it interesting for the duration. This is more consistent than Signals, but it would have been an extra bonus to hear some more of his solo pieces.

Wayne Krantz - Greenwich Mean (1999) {Wayne Krantz 005}
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© 1999 Wayne Krantz | 005
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Modern Jazz / Fusion / Guitar

This disc documents improvised segments of shows from one of Wayne's long stands at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village (with Keith Carlock and Tim Lefebvre or Will Lee). Essentially many highlights are sequenced into a near medley over an hour long. Some are fairly short (hence the 24 tracks), a few are full length. As Wayne says in the notes: "Greenwich Mean captures playing from the Summer of 97 through the Spring of 98, with a hundred hours of tape screened for outstanding moments of spontaneity that form a CD." The leadoff track: "Infinity Split" is the bomb and in itself makes this disk essential.

Wayne Krantz - Long To Be Loose (1993) {Enja Records ENJ-7099 2}
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© 1993 Enja Records | ENJ-7099 2
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Modern Jazz / Fusion / Guitar

This is a group effort that finds Krantz in the company of young stars Lincoln Goines and Zach Danziger. This became a regular band for Krantz, who later put out a live recording with the same personnel. The tunes are all played with passion by all, and feature Krantz's penchant for extended and at times self-indulgent solos. Like most good jazz players, Krantz explores new territories and takes chances when he's playing. He is one of the few fusion-style players to emerge during the '90s who can improvise for long periods of time and make it interesting for the duration. This is more consistent than Signals, but it would have been an extra bonus to hear some more of his solo pieces.

Wayne Krantz - 2 Drink Minimum (1995) {Enja Records ENJ-9043 2}
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© 1995 Enja Records | ENJ-9043 2
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Post Bop / Fusion / Guitar

On 2 Drink Minimum, the same trio that created 1993's excellent Long to Be Loose is captured live at New York's 55 Bar, a little dive that remains Krantz's regular haunt as of this writing. Stylistically, the two records are quite similar, though Long to Be Loose is subtler and more polished. The tendency on these rough-edged live tracks is toward all-out funk assaults, extended solos, and high-speed ensemble riffing. Krantz's guitar playing is raw and heavily rock-influenced, yet his touch is extraordinarily precise and his compositions are derivative of no one. Bassist Lincoln Goines and drummer Zach Danziger can create rhythmic hurricanes when called upon, but they're also capable of great sensitivity. Essential listening for fans of gritty, non-commercial fusion music.

Though Krantz has utilized vocals in his music before - most notably on Krantz Carlock Lefebvre - on Howie 61 Krantz pushes this aspect of his artistry a step further by incorporating vocal content in his music in a manner that is more complete and tightly integrated than anything he has done in the past. “I’m very excited about this record.” says Krantz. “It’s another step in a direction that I’ve been making since Long To Be Loose really; Long To Be Loose was an instrumental version of this record. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get words into my music for the longest time, and it took so much trial and error just to get to the point where I could use just a few words on a song, and have it feel integrated with the music.

Various Artists - Abstract Logix Live! The New Universe Music Festival 2010 (2011) {Abstract Logix ABLX030} (John McLaughlin)
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© 2011 Abstract Logix | ABLX030
Jazz / World Fusion / Jazz Rock / Guitar

On the face of it, this live double-album is an expert genuflection to jazz-rock fusion, with five guitarists and a crop of punchy drummers (including Return to Forever's Lenny White and percussion virtuoso Zakir Hussain) to confirm it. But the playing of the seven bands is anything but predictable. The members sit in with each other here, and their embrace of risk and the pleasure they take in spontaneous performance are palpable. John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension have Hussain sit in for usual drummer Ranjit Barot in two fiercely vivacious pieces, including an infectious, choppy, 20-minute Hussein showcase, Mother Tongues. Barot leads a violin-dominated Indian-inflected sextet featuring the New York guitar maverick Wayne Krantz as a guest; Krantz also appears with an edgy avant-fusion trio. The chord-crunching, metal-inspired guitarist Alex Machacek opens proceedings with a fast-moving group extensively featuring electric bassist Neal Fountain.

Transformation is the first studio album by bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, released independently on 14 May 2007. The album was recorded when she was 20 years old, having moved to the United States from her native Australia.

On some level, saxophonist, composer, and arranger David Binney's Graylen Epicenter is a restless extension of the three previous recordings he's issued on his Mythology imprint. That said, it is also his most relentlessly ambitious, with his largest cast ever. Vocalist Gretchen Parlato appears on most of these cuts as another instrument in Binney's tonal and harmonic arsenal, as she sings wordlessly a great deal here. Binney's alto and soprano is also assisted by bassist Eivind Opsvik, guitarist Wayne Krantz, pianist Craig Taborn, percussionist Kenny Wollesen, drummer Brain Blade. Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and tenor saxophonist Chris Potter lend considerably to the diverse, intoxicating meld of textures and atmospheres found here.

Dan Tepfer — whom New York magazine dubbed “one of the moment’s most adventurous and relevant musicians” — has criss-crossed the globe over the past several years. The broad success of the pianist’s 2011 album Goldberg Variations / Variations — an improvisational exploration of J.S. Bach’s masterpiece — led to packed concerts from London’s Wigmore Hall, Chicago’s Ravinia Festival and SF Jazz in San Francisco to events in Berlin, Prague, Tokyo, Vancouver and Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge, with The New York Times declaring the latter performance “riveting and inspiring.” Tepfer followed that with Small Constructions, a studio-savvy 2013 album with reed player Ben Wendel, as well as his ongoing collaboration with sax icon Lee Konitz.