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Kirk Knuffke

A native of Colorado trumpeter Kirk Knuffke made the move to NYC in 2005. Kirk currently works with The Matt Wilson Quartet, Butch Morris, Ideal Bread, Josh Roseman, Ideal Bread, Andrew D'angelo and Kenny Wollesen. Performance venues including Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium and Jazz at the Licoln Center’s Rose Hall, The Newport Jazz Festival, and The North Sea Jazz Festival. Kirk’s has studied privately with Ron Miles, Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis. In 2009 Kirk received a composers grant from the Jerome Foundation. Kirk leads or co-leads groups that have recorded for record labels; Cleanfeed in 2008 and 2010, SteelpleChase 2009 and 2011 and No Business. He has recorded as a sideman on labels: Sony/BMG, nublu, Cuneiform, KMB, and Loyal Label.

Awards

Jerome Foundation Composer's Grant.


Tags

4
Album Review

Frank Carlberg Large Ensemble: Elegy for Thelonious

Read "Elegy for Thelonious" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Pianist Frank Carlberg has been exploring the music of Thelonious Monk for some time, most specifically on his large group album, Monk Dreams, Hallucinations, and Nightmares, (Sunnyside, 2017). This new album has Carlberg returning to the large ensemble format for more Monk investigations, but this time approaching the work in a more splintered and abstract fashion. He does not simply interpret familiar Monk tunes. He writes compositions and arrangements which stitch Monk riffs and ideas into new fabrics, ...

15
Album Review

James Brandon Lewis: For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)

Read "For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)" reviewed by Chris May


Not since Oded Tzur's Isabela (ECM, 2022) has a comparably exalted tenor saxophone-led album come along, not until For Mahalia, With Love. Vaultingly great jazz and deep solace for the soul, For Mahalia, With Love was released in late 2023. An annual cycle for albums of this quality is actually a sufficiency, for there is enough in both these, and those that preceded them, to last a listener a lifetime. File next to John Coltrane's Crescent (Impulse!, 1964) and Albert ...

5
Album Review

Frank Carlberg Large Ensemble: Elegy for Thelonious

Read "Elegy for Thelonious" reviewed by Mark Corroto


There was a sardonic saying circulating a few years ago that observed, “It's Frank Sinatra's world, we just live in it." While that was a backhanded compliment, tailoring it to the subject of this large ensemble recording, we would call it a commendation. Pianist, composer, and conductor Frank Carlberg is telling us, “It's Thelonious Monk's world, and (thank god) we live in it." Carlberg has been a disciple of Monk for decades, recording his music in a piano trio format ...

Album Review

Todd Sickafoose: Bear Proof

Read "Bear Proof" reviewed by Vic Albani


Era dai fasti di Tiny Resistors (uscito nel 2008 per la Cryptogramophone dell'amico Jeff Gauthier e che invitiamo a riascoltare per la bellezza che lo ammanta) che il signor Todd Sickafoose non regalava al mondo un nuovo lavoro. Inneggiato da più voci quale coerente ed intelligentissimo musicista nonché compositore e produttore Sickafoose è stato talmente occupato da non avere avuto tempo per dilettarsi ancora una volta con l'idea che lo ha subito posto all'attenzione del mondo musicale sin ...

15
Album Review

James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia, With Love

Read "For Mahalia, With Love" reviewed by Pat Youngspiel


Moving on chronologically from George Washington Carver--the African-American musician and influential agricultural scientist to whom James Brandon Lewis' previous recording with the Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms 2021), was dedicated--For Mahalia, With Love continues the pattern of paying homage to influential Afro-Americans who, in their own way, changed the course of history. This album's dedicatee is the early gospel queen Mahalia Jackson, whose seminal performances lit a spark in the saxophonist's grandmother; she in turn carried the spark ...

10
Album Review

James Brandon Lewis: For Mahalia With Love

Read "For Mahalia With Love" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis has been establishing himself in various contexts for the last few years, but his main focus lately has been on his Red Lily Quintet. Their first album, Jesup Wagon, (TAO Forms, 2021), was dedicated to African-American scientist, George Washington Carver. On their 2023 release, the group's music focuses on the work of the legendary gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson. This tribute takes the form of interpretations of familiar spirituals Jackson often sang. The gospel-derived ...

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Album Review

James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia With Love

Read "For Mahalia With Love" reviewed by John Sharpe


The combination of James Brandon Lewis' impassioned tenor saxophone and songs associated with gospel singer and Civil Rights activist Mahalia Jackson is a match made in heaven. On For Mahalia, With Love by his Red Lily Quintet, Lewis retains the crack squad which made Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms, 2021) a success. Even though Lewis has a proven knack for crafting an affecting melody, he has chosen well as this repertoire has not only stood the test of time, but is ...

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158

Recording

Recent Listening: Kirk Knuffke

Recent Listening: Kirk Knuffke

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Kirk Knuffke, Amnesia Brown (Clean Feed). Knuffke's trumpet tone is notable for softness, fullness and evenness. The audacity of risk in his improvisational concept would be the envy of the Flying Wallendas. The contrast between his sound and the content of his work is a source of fascination throughout this collection of miniatures. Even though his collaborators number only two, Knuffke has plenty of company in 16 little art songs without words, all his compositions. Drummer Kenny Wollesen is a ...

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Recording

Kirk Knuffke - Amnesia Brown (Clean Feed)

Kirk Knuffke - Amnesia Brown (Clean Feed)

Source: Master of a Small House

Most familial histories include at least one black sheep forbearer, a member who marched to the beat of his own drum at the expense of his or her loved ones. Trumpeter Kirk Knuffke pays wry tribute to one such outcast of his clan on this latest Clean Feed release. The eponymous individual was a great grandfather who abandoned his family and started a new one in a neighboring town. Upon discovery, he cited the affliction as his reason for leaving ...

"Over the last couple years, New York trumpeter Kirk Knuffke has quietly emerged as one of the most exciting and flexible hornmen on the scene." Peter Marasak Downbeat Magazine

Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Elegy for Thelonious

Sunnyside Records
2024

buy

Lonely Man and His...

L&H Production
2023

buy

Bear Proof

Secret Hatch Records
2023

buy

Keep The Dream Up

Fundacja Słuchaj!
2023

buy

The Lighthouse

Self Produced
2023

buy

Up Jumped Spring

From: The Song Is You
By Kirk Knuffke

Hug

From: Hug!
By Kirk Knuffke

Videos

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