Reviews that mention Joe Fiedler
December 13, 2021
Fuzzy and Blue
Multiphonics Music MM 006
Michael Vlatkovich
With You Jazz Cat
pfMentum PFMCD 142
They both may have toy-like fuzzy creatures pictured on their CD covers and be small bands led by American trombonists, but that’s where the resemblance between Fuzzy and Blue and With You Jazz Cat ends. Music director/staff arranger for Sesame Street at the same time as he works with his own Jazz bands, this is New Yorker Joe Fiedler’s second Open Sesame disc where he transforms kids’ show tunes into improvised music. Adding funk, Blues, Latin and other textures to the 13 selections his sophisticated arrangements resemble the beyond category feeling of some Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn projects for the Ellington band. Part of the West Coast contingent of advanced players, Michael Vlatkovich’s octet compositions suggest a contemporary take on the fluid creations produced by a California big band leader whose concepts were a large part of 1940s and 1950s Jazz, but whose name is more unfamiliar to anyone younger than 60 than Oscar the Grouch or the Cookie Minster: Stan Kenton. MORE
January 21, 2021
NPR 15th Annual Jazz Critics Poll: 2020
American Website
Ken Waxman’s Ballot
Ken Waxman (Jazz Word)
NEW RELEASES
1. Virtual Company, Virtual Company (Confront)
2. Edward "Kidd" Jordan-Joel Futterman-William Parker-Hamid Drake, A Tribute to Alvin Fielder: Live at Vision Festival XXIV (Mahakala Music)
3. Urs Blöchlinger Revisited, Harry Doesn't Mind (Leo)
4. Jason Kao Hwang, Human Rites Trio (True Sound)
5. Liquid Quintet, Bouquet (Sirulita -19)
6. ROPE [Frank Paul Schubert-Uwe Oberg-Paul Rogers-Mark Sanders], Open Ends (Trouble in the East) MORE
January 11, 2021
El Intruso 13th Annual International Critics Poll 2020
Spanish Website
Ken Waxman’s ballot
Ken Waxman
(Periodista canadiense, editor de JazzWord. Durante muchos años ha escrito para los principales periódicos canadienses e internacionales y realiza comentarios sobre música en diferentes programas de radio) www.jazzword.com
Músico: “Covid 19”
Músico Revelación: “Covid 19”
Grupo: Leimgruber/Demierre/Phillips
Grupo Revelación: Tonus
Álbum: Various Artists – New Improvised Music from Buenos Aires (ESP Disk)
MORE
October 1, 2020
Live in Graz
Multiphonics Music MM005
The Westerlies
Wherein Lies the Good
Westerlies Records WST 001
Established from the symmetry that exists among members of the same instrumental family, brass ensembles have a long history in many cultures, especially as military or marching bands. Yet the idea of transforming a brass quartet into an unaccompanied conveyance for notated or improvised interpretations is something that has only flourished during the past few decades. The Westerlies and Joe Fiedler’s Big Sackbut – both New York-based – represent contradictory adaptations of the form and not because one is a mix of trumpets and trombones and the other of trombones and a tuba. MORE
July 6, 2018
Jeff Lederer’s Shakers n’ Bakers
Heart Love
little (i) music CD107
Although the objective of most Jazz repertoire bands remains to pay respects to certain, usually deceased, musicians or musicians by interpreting the recorded work, very few do more than collect tunes for a tribute, play them in an expected fashion and move on. Luckily as the honorees have evolved past saluting big names, alternative sounds’ novel nuances are sometimes conveyed. Case in point is tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer’s Shakers n’ Bakers. For the past decade or so the New York-based academic, best-known for his work in Matt Wilson’s groups, has been working his way through the oeuvre of Albert Ayler (1936 -1970), linking it to the sacred songs of the Shaker religious sect, MORE
December 11, 2017
Like, Strange
Multiphonics Music MM003
Dan Phillips Chicago Edge Ensemble
Decaying Orbit
No label No #
Organized with identical instrumentation and recorded within a month of one another, these CDs are instances of two approaches to contemporary Jazz, New York and Chicago versions. Like eccentric mirror images of one another as well, each disc’s most notable players are a guitarist and a trombonist, with one player of either instrument taking the leadership role. Somehow though the compositions of a returning Chicagoan, guitarist Dan Phillips, matched with top-flight Windy City associates come across with more flight and individuality that the nine tunes composed by Manhattan trombonist Joe Fiedler. MORE
April 12, 2015
Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York
Shiki
Libra Records 215-036
Ananda Gari
T-Duality
Auand Records AU 9041
Tineke Postma
Sonic Halo
Challenge Records CR 73370
Ben Goldberg
Orphic Machine
BAG Productions BAG 007
SITA: Cutting-Edge Free Improvisation at The Music Gallery
By Ken Waxman
Major improvisers from elsewhere frequently play Toronto, but not as often do they appear with an all-star line-up. That’s what happens on April 29 when alto saxophonist Tim Berne’s Snakeoil is in concert at The Music Gallery. Berne, who has been on the cutting edge of advanced jazz for 30-odd years, arrives with three younger players who have distinguished themselves on the New York scene: fellow reedist Oscar Noriega, pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Ches Smith. This being the 21th Century and past the age of consistently working groups, each – including Berne – is involved in many other projects. MORE
April 7, 2015
I’m in
Mutiphonics Music/MM02
By Ken Waxman
Trombonist Joe Fielder’s day job is as arranger, orchestrator and trombonist for Sesame Street. In the most complimentary manner possible, I’m in; the fourth CD by his own trio is a bit like that kids’ TV show: it’s educational plus a whole lot of fun. Fielder, who besides crafting cues and arrangements for the likes of Elmo, Big Bird and Kermit the Frog, not only leads his own groups but is also first call for bands like Eddie Palmieri’s and the Mingus Big Band. That versatility is part of the educational element of this CD, since each track succinctly expresses a different mood or emotion. I’m in is also educational since Fielder concentrates on the plunger mute, demonstrating the versatility of the classic jazz standby in contemporary music. Like Sesame Street though, the CD can be enjoyed for the raunchy excitement Fielder, bassist Rob Jost and drummer Michael Sarin bring to the nine original compositions, without knowing which trope or technique is being exhibited. MORE
October 2, 2012
Big Sackbut
Yellow Sound YSL 566843
Johannes Bauer/Matthias Müller/Christof Thewes
Posaunenglanzterzett
Gligg Records 013
Giancarlo Schiaffini/Sebi Tramontana
Wind & Slap
Rudi Records RRJ 1001
Any one of these CDs could easily answer the question: “how many trombonists does it take to change a light bulb?” Substitute “improvise impressively” for the action and the answer becomes: “as many as needed”. At the same time, the four Americans, three Germans and two Italians represented on these sessions demonstrate that brass ‘bone creativity can be doubled and/or tripled. MORE
October 25, 2011
Sacred Chrome Orb
Yellow Sound Music YSL 566653
Michael Dessen Trio
Forget the Pixel
Clean Feed CF 222 CD
Perhaps there’s more than a kernel of truth in those clichés about energetic New Yorkers and laid-back Californians. How else could one explain the massive variance between performances on these discs, each featuring a bassist, a drummer and a trombonist-leader playing original compositions by the brass man? In a way it’s a difference between lively and listless.
It’s not that Forget the Pixel is that enervated. It’s just that a certain sameness seems to permeate the seven compositions by trombonist Michael Dessen. Dessen, an academic with an interest in new technologies as well as telematic performances in multiple locations, adds computer wave forms to this disc in order to enhance the low-key proceedings. The results curve and undulate nicely, but not enough to alter the air of lethargic moderation that permeates the disc. Besides some rapid capillary movements from Dessen in the JJ Johnson lineage however, the most affecting overall performance is the title track. Here at least brushes-directed ruffs and bounces, spelled with an occasional martial beat, from drummer Dan Weiss, coupled with speedy stops as well as sul ponticello slides from bassist Christopher Tordini provide back-up for the trombonist’s slurs, puffs and squeezes. MORE
August 11, 2008
The Crab
Clean Feed CF 092 CD
Slippery and slurpy, the nine tracks on this CD show that trombonist Joe Fielder has the chops to carry off a session backed by only bass and drums. The Crab is so memorable because it’s also no show-off’s technical exercise. The New York-based bone man invests each one of his bustling original compositions with emotion, humor and excitement.
A veteran of Latin as well as straight jazz bands, Fielder even brings Hispanic tinges to lines such as the title track and “A Frankfurter in Caracas”, which also pays homage to his mentor, German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff. At the same time, like the older brass man, his solos on these and the other tunes while lyrical, encompass bitten-off notes, double tonguing, low-pitched growls and snorts. Using a collection of mutes and multiphonics his solo on “The Crab” is particularly outstanding, since he doubles entire passages with both mouthpiece and his own mouth, while elsewhere articulating staccato runs as effortlessly as J J. Johnson. MORE
November 12, 2006
Triplicity
Skip SKP 9052-2
Joe Fiedler
Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff
Clean Feed CF 049CD
Generally credited as the first European trombonist who by the 1960s had talents that were equal to or superior to American jazzers, Frankfurt native Albert Mangelsdorff (1928-2005) evolved from being a top-ranked bopper to flirting with the avant garde and fusion in the 1970s, The result by the time of his death, was a matchless amalgam of all those styles in his playing.
Although acknowledged as a major stylist as early as 1962, when he recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet’s pianist John Lewis, this CD by New York trombonist Joe Fiedler is the first recorder tribute the German master of multiphonics. It’s no macabre cash-in either. For Fiedler, whose experience encompasses bands as disparate as Latin- Jazz group Timbalaye, pianist Andrew Hill’s sextet and Philip Johnson’s Fast and Bulbous, recorded the just-released session in November 2003. MORE
September 25, 2006
Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff
Clean Feed CF 049CD
ALBERT MANGELSDORFF
Triplicity
Skip SKP 9052-2
By Ken Waxman
Generally credited as the first European trombonist who by the 1960s had talents that were equal to or superior to American jazzers, Frankfurt native Albert Mangelsdorff (1928-2005) evolved from being a top-ranked bopper to flirting with the avant garde and fusion in the 1970s, The result by the time of his death, was a matchless amalgam of all those styles in his playing.
Although acknowledged as a major stylist as early as 1962, when he recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet’s pianist John Lewis, this CD by New York trombonist Joe Fiedler is the first recorder tribute the German master of multiphonics. It’s no macabre cash-in either. For Fiedler, whose experience encompasses bands as disparate as Latin- Jazz group Timbalaye, pianist Andrew Hill’s sextet and Philip Johnson’s Fast and Bulbous, recorded the just-released session in November 2003. MORE