#chris speed

[stillunusual]

The Bad Plus - Live At KEXP (2025)

[culturedarm]

‘Materia’ hearkens back to Holter’s earliest forays with its baroque imagery and reverb which pushes her voice into the staggered background, a hall of mirrors. ‘Meyou’ – a simple closed compound like ‘Lovesong’ or ‘Notget’ – turns from its plainsong opening into a form of overtone singing in multiple parts, apparently influenced by Holter’s work with Laura Steenberge and Catherine Lamb as the vocal trio Triangulum, here after an impromptu studio invite featuring the voices of Ramona Gonzalez, Jessika Kenney, Maia and Mia Doi Todd.

https://culturedarm.com/julia-holter-something-in-the-room-she-moves/

[padovajazzclub]

Chris Speed

[dustedmagazine]

Chris Speed – Light Line (Intakt)

Solo reed albums used to be an uncommon commodity. Infrequent were the improvisers like Anthony Braxton who embraced the format as means of early trailblazing expression; his sea changing For Alto on the Delmark label set an early benchmark. Since that pinnacle it’s become a rite of passage that reedists reconcile at various points in their careers. Solitary clarinet ventures are historically even scarcer. The pandemic changed all of that, making in-person musical production outside of the immediate household a potentially hazardous prospect. Left largely to their own devices over the past sixteen-months, reedists of all shapes, sizes and proclivities have taken to the form. Solo projects from this period by Dave Rempis, J.D. Allen, John Butcher and others are in the pipeline or already in the public marketplace. Light Line aligns gamely and germanely with that esteemed number.

Chris Speed’s been around a good while as a bandleader, improviser and sideman. An early post in Tim Berne’s Blood Count and other projects demanded both chops and creativity that carried over into a dozen other contexts. Clarinet’s been an ongoing, if arguably secondary, concern across that through line. A pull quote from colleague Anthony Burr gracing the album tray copy distills the aegis behind the effort: “an undying commitment to melody in some elemental sense as the primary element in music.” Speed mostly eschews elaborate displays of technique, preferring instead to bask in the melodic properties of the meticulously chosen song list as filtered through the limpid aural idiosyncrasies of his instrument. The opening title piece is a bracing case in point and an endearing exercise in fluttering, flickering chiaroscuro.

Original pieces intersperse with the selections from Speed’s pantheon of influences. All adhere to modest temporal limits that make them worthy of jukebox consideration. Themes and associative variations dance by like colorful airborne acrobats. “Drifting” and “Sphasos Triem” borrowed from Speed’s colleagues Skuli Sverrisson and Andrew D’Angelo, respectively, display intervallic dexterity that’s by turns dizzying and grin-inducing. Eric Dolphy’s “Miss Ann” is similarly steeped in terpsichorean leaps, this time circling a more constricted tonal center. “Rites” by Julius Hemphill prefaces a four-tune succession of originals starting with the “Cat Heaven,” which harkens to Mingus’ “Canon” in its gently fibrillating theme. Speed arguably saves the best for last with the parting one-two punch of Coltrane’s seraphic “Sunship” and Paul Motian’s haunting ballad “It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago.”

Derek Taylor

[diyeipetea]

JazzX5#223. Broken Shadows: "Una muy bonita" [Broken Shadows (2021)] [Minipodcast] Por Pachi Tapiz

JazzX5#223. Broken Shadows: “Una muy bonita” [Broken Shadows (2021)] [Minipodcast] Por Pachi Tapiz

“Una muy bonita” Broken Shadows: Broken Shadows (Intakt Records, 2021) Tim Berne, Chris Speed, Reid Anderson, Dave King. Composición por Ornette Coleman. © Pachi Tapiz, 2021 JazzX5 es un minipodcast de HDO de la Factoría Tomajazz presentado, editado y producido por Pachi Tapiz. JazzX5 comenzó su andadura el 24 de junio de 2019. Todas las entregas de JazzX5 están disponibles en…

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[diyeipetea]

Tres discos de versiones: Tom Rainey Obbligato – John Wolf Brennan – Broken Shadows [Grabaciones de jazz] Por Pachi Tapiz

Tres discos de versiones: Tom Rainey Obbligato – John Wolf Brennan – Broken Shadows [Grabaciones de jazz] Por Pachi Tapiz

Si bien las versiones de temas ajenos es algo totalmente habitual a lo largo de toda la historia y del desarrollo del jazz, y por tanto no es algo que en la actualidad se pueda considerar como extraño en lo que se podría considerar como “jazz mainstream”, no es habitual en otros terrenos más alejados de lo que se podría calificar como la ortodoxia. Es lo que ocurre con el pianista John Wolf…

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[padovajazzclub]

Chris Speed trio

[padovajazzclub]

Padova Jazz Club, Chris Speed & David Binney

 Mar.26, 2012