Author Archives: Mel Minter

Eric & Will: Unforgettably Unclassifiable

Eric Vloeimans and Will Holshouser. Photo by Merlijn Doomernik.

It isn’t jazz, exactly, though it lives in a jazz environment, nor is it classical. It’s not folk, rock and roll, or sacred music, either. Yet American accordionist Will Holshouser and Dutch trumpeter Eric Vloeimans combine elements of all of these and more in their compositions—sometimes all in the same piece—to articulate their compositional objectives. In the process, they have created sui generis music that is at once lyrical, playful, and deeply felt. The two will bring their music—and likely their new album, Two for the Roadto the Outpost on Tuesday, September 27, as part of the 16th annual New Mexico Jazz Festival.

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Three Plus One

After a summer overstuffed with seven-day work weeks, I am now trying to catch up on my listening. To speed things along, I’m limiting myself to short reviews. So here are reviews of new albums from the Tyshawn Sorey Trio, Dafnis Prieto (featuring Luciana Souza), and Steven Bernstein and the Millennial Territory Orchestra—plus a new single from Isaac Aragon.

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New Work from the Susan Holmes Brotherhood and from Chris Burton/Frederick Aragón

Musically Speaking runs, for the most part, on free time, of which I’ve had precious little in the last two or three months, primarily due to a heavy workload. The renaissance of the Baltimore Orioles, who require my constant attention to keep the wins coming, has further reduced my time for careful listening. I did recently manage to sneak in a listen to worthy releases from the Susan Holmes Brotherhood and Chris Burton/Frederick Aragón.

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Julie Christensen Gets to the Heart of Kevin Gordon’s Spellbinding Songs

Back in May, at the New Mexico Music Awards, bassist Terry Burns introduced me to vocalist/songwriter Julie Christensen, and although her name was unfamiliar to me, the fact that she was a former backup singer for Leonard Cohen, as Terry had told me in advance, was all I needed to know to take a listen to her latest album, 11 from Kevin: Songs of Kevin Gordon. To call it a “masterpiece”—there’s a word I try to stay away from—in no way overstates its quality.

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Three Times Three, and Three

Two splendid recordings, one from bass clarinetist Todd Marcus’s nonet and the other from cornetist Kirk Knuffke’s new trio, each bring to life the expressive intelligence of both the leaders and their colleagues.

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