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Larry Grenadier

As one of the most admired, accomplished bassists working in jazz today, Larry Grenadier has been praised as “a deeply intuitive” musician by The New York Times and as an instrumentalist with a “fluid sense of melody” by Bass Player magazine. Grenadier has created an expansive body of work in collaboration with many of the genre’s most inventive, influential musicians – from early days playing with sax icons Joe Henderson and Stan Getz to what has been decades performing alongside pianist Brad Mehldau, from extended experiences working with the likes of Paul Motian and Pat Metheny to co-leading the cooperative trio Fly (with Mark Turner and Jeff Ballard) and quartet Hudson (with John Scofield, John Medeski and Jack DeJohnette). Over a performing and recording career that spans now three decades, it has been not only Grenadier’s instrumental virtuosity and instantly recognizable tone that have made him such an in-demand collaborator but also his uncommon artistic sensitivity, imagination and curiosity. In February 2019, ECM Records will release Grenadier’s first album of solo bass. Titled The Gleaners, it presents a brace of originals by the bassist alongside pieces by George Gershwin, John Coltrane and Paul Motian, as well as a pair of works written especially for Grenadier by guitarist, longtime friend and fellow ECM artist Wolfgang Muthspiel. Grenadier also includes an instrumental interpretation of a song by his wife, and frequent collaborator, the singer-songwriter Rebecca Martin.

Grenadier recorded The Gleaners in December 2016 at Avatar Studios in New York City for ECM with Manfred Eicher as producer and James Farber as engineer. Grenadier and Eicher mixed the album at Studios La Buissonne in France. In his liner note, Grenadier writes: “The process for making this record began with a look inward, an excavation into the core elements of who I am as a bass player. It was a search for a center of sound and timbre, for the threads of harmony and rhythm that formulate the crux of a musical identity.” Reflecting on the gestation of this first solo album, he talks further: “For years, I had been satisfied by collaborating with other artists, feeling that I had room for my own voice in the music. But Manfred planted the seed of making a solo album, and I cultivated it as an artistic challenge. Manfred is a former bassist, so he understands the instrument and its history, both in jazz and classical. Few people truly know how to treat the double-bass sonically in the studio, but Manfred concentrates on bringing out its special qualities. In making The Gleaners , he was important in the editing and the mix, really helping me shape the album.”

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Album Review

Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow

Read "The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


For a long, grateful while now the music of Charles Lloyd has rippled out from that rarified space where the ego does not prevail. A pool of depth and wonder which culminates in one masterful artwork after another, for example Wild Man Dance (Blue Note, 2015) and 8: Kindred Spirits Live from the Lobero Theater (Blue Note, 2019). Lloyd's eleventh Blue Note album, the double disc set  The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow is also his first ...

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Liner Notes

Peter Beets: New York Trio Page Two

Read "Peter Beets: New York Trio Page Two" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan


In its relatively short history, American jazz music has established a language that while having some ties to the European tradition is more fully rooted in the rhythms and folk melodies of the African slaves. What is even more significant is the profound impact that the music and musicians have had in breaking social boundaries such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Way before there were even the thoughts of equal opportunities for all individuals in the American South, Benny Goodman ...

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Read "Once Around the Room - A Tribute To Paul Motian" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Il magistrale percorso da leader di Paul Motian, esploso negli anni ottanta nel trio con Joe Lovano e Bill Frisell, ha avuto significativi tributi a partire dal 2011, l'anno della sua scomparsa: ricordiamo lo String Choir di Joel Harrison, il collettivo Motian Sickness di Jeff Cosgrove, il solo piano di Russ Lossing (Drum Music) e quello successivo di Jean-Marc Padovani (Motian in Motion). Rispetto a questi, il tributo del collettivo guidato da Joe Lovano e Jakob Bro ...

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Album Review

Jakob Bro / Joe Lovano: Once Around the Room

Read "Once Around the Room" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


The thrumming double basses of Larry Grenadier and Thomas Morgan initiate the conversation. Then the scattered insistence of rhythm by drummers Joey Baron and Jorge Rossy enters, pushing Once Around the Room into consciousness with all the anticipation and hushed intent of an orchestra tuning before a performance. Airy clusters of guitar courtesy of Jakob Bro and electric bassist Anders Christensen introduce Joe Lovano's aching call summoning the spirit to make known “As It Should Be," the first of the ...

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Album Review

Joey Alexander: Origin

Read "Origin" reviewed by Peter Jones


Pianist Joey Alexander was never going to spend his life churning out standards. You could tell from his reimagined version of “Giant Steps," the first track on his 2015 debut album, which begins with a dazzling two-minute solo introduction. The same album also features an original tune, the prowling “Ma Blues." It was clearly only going to be a matter of time before he came up with an all-originals album, and so it is with this, his sixth outing. Meanwhile ...

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Ethan Iverson: Every Note Is True

Read "Every Note Is True" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Oltre vent'anni dopo la cofondazione dei The Bad Plus e a quattro dalla sua fuoriuscita dalla fortunata formazione, Ethan Iverson ha approfittato della sosta imposta dalla pandemia per portare in studio due musicisti di assoluto spicco quali Larry Grenadier e Jack DeJohnette per registrare con un nuovo trio un album che andasse oltre quanto maturato nel lungo lavoro svolto con la sua precedente formazione. Ne è venuto fuori questo singolare Every Note Is True, primo disco del pianista per la ...

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A Bu Trio with Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland: One Step East

Read "One Step East" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Pianist/composer A Bu, whose given name is Dai Liang, has outgrown the “child prodigy" tag but not the attributes. A student at Central Conservatory in Beijing, and later at Juilliard, he was influenced by a meaningful meeting with Chick Corea at the age of thirteen. Corea performed in Shanghai, where he invited A Bu onto the stage to play an improvised duet. The Beijing native released his first album, 88 Tones of Black and White (Sennheiser Media, 2015), at the ...

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Recording

Lisa Hilton "Getaway" Release With Larry Grenadier and Nasheet Waits

Lisa Hilton "Getaway" Release With Larry Grenadier  and Nasheet Waits

Source: Lisa Hilton


Pianist/composer Lisa Hilton is one of the most distinctive and individualistic voices in jazz today. Her new album, Getaway (Ruby Slippers, #1016), is her fifteenth as a bandleader. Here she's joined in a powerful trio effort featuring her current all-star bandmates, bassist Larry Grenadier (Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter, Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny) and drummer Nasheet Waits (Jason Moran's Bandwagon, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Andrew Hill). This new album is a bold and exciting change of pace, Hilton bolstering her signature imagistic, lush, ...

February, 2019 JAZZIZ

2/9/19: JAZZIZ - SOMETHING ELSE  “Perhaps being acutely aware that this project would reveal more about the creative talent of himself than anything he’s ever done before, Larry Grenadier obviously invested a lot of thought into it, from choosing which of his musical heroes to honor to portraying each song in such a way that gets his essence across in the spirit of the song. I sense that essence, one of someone who’s elevated himself above ‘bass player’ to ‘complete artist.’“

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Adam Levy
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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Sky Will Still Be...

Blue Note Records
2024

buy

Every Note Is True

Blue Note Records
2022

buy

Origin

Mack Avenue Records
2022

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One Step East

Jz Music
2021

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