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Tom Christensen

Since his arrival in New York in 1989, Tom Christensen’s saxophone voice has set him apart. All Music Guide says, “Christensen possesses the goods to be a major force within the global modern jazz arena.” Jazz composers from Toshiko Akiyoshi to Darcy James Argue to Rufus Reid have found fuel for their musical visions in Tom’s dynamic solos. His mastery of double reeds, flutes and clarinets led the Detroit Free Press to describe his work as “fresh, intelligent” music that “honors post-bop improvisation without falling into clichés associated with bebop, modal jazz or the superficial exotica of world music.” Jazz masters from Joe Lovano and Paquito D’Rivera to Don Sebesky have featured Tom on Grammy winning recordings, and he’s performed and toured with the Maria Schneider Orchestra, the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, to name just a few. He can be heard with Cecile McLorin Salvant on her most recent project Ogresse and on Rufus Reid’s Quiet Pride, David Liebman’s A Tribute to Wayne Shorter, and on Ryan Truesdell’s The Gil Evans Project: Lines of Color. As bandleader and composer, Tom won a composition grant from Chamber Music America for an extended work based on the poetry of Frank O’Hara. Tom featured the piece on his third solo project, New York School (Playscape), a CD All About Jazz listed as one its Top Ten Jazz Albums of the year. Tom’s latest collaboration is Spin Cycle with drummer Scott Neumann. The band has performed at the Rochester and Toronto Jazz Festivals and garnered rave reviews in Downbeat magazine. Tom performs regularly in clubs and concert halls around New York City. He is also the author of several books on jazz pedagogy, the co-founder of Sound Footing Records, and teaches jazz at New York’s prestigious Fieldston School.

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3
Album Review

Spin Cycle: Spin Cycle III

Read "Spin Cycle III" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The quartet we know as Spin Cycle delivers III, the band's follow up to Assorted Colors (Sound Footing Records, 2018). Here, the compositional partners Scott Neumann and Tom Christensen exercise their omnivorous tastes on a broad --ranging spectrum of sound. Like their previous two albums, the pair employ guitarist Pete McCann and bassist Phil Palombi, two über sidemen to accomplish their insatiable need to explore multiple genres and eras. There is something here for everyone. The opening track ...

4
Album Review

Spin Cycle (Tom Christensen & Scott Neumann): Spin Cycle III

Read "Spin Cycle III" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Spin Cycle III, by the group Spin Cycle, co-led by drummer Scott Neumann and saxophonist Tom Christensen, opens in a high octane mode, via Neuman's sizzling drums, Pete McCann's stinging guitar and Phil Palombi's muscular, juiced-up bass laying down a precision foundation, with the crisp articulation of Christensen's tenor sax out front. The tune is “Churn," written by the saxophonist, and it has a fine focus of a hot fusion romp. “Drain The Swamp," another composition from Christensen, ...

863
Interview

Tom Christensen: Outside the Comfort Zone

Read "Tom Christensen: Outside the Comfort Zone" reviewed by Paul Olson


Reedsman Tom Christensen's third and newest CD, New York School, may be the best jazz album of the year, but he hasn't appeared out of nowhere; his years of sidework--for example, with the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra--and his two previous albums under his own name have steadily impressed people in the jazz world, converting them to his multi-instrumental virtuosity (he plays tenor and soprano sax, oboe, English horn and various flutes and clarinets, all well) and his unique and austere ...

165
Album Review

Tom Christensen: New York School

Read "New York School" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Modern jazz sometimes seems a bit schizophrenic, caught between the extremes of intellectual abstraction and spiritual seeking, and the more ambitious sort often fails because it can't find intuitive connections between the two. Horn multi-instrumentalist Tom Christensen's third release in six years is a pleasure from start to finish because it manages to simultaneously embrace thought and emotion, interweaving the two in constantly evolving, often unpredictable ways. Christensen is joined by percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, a veteran of his two previous ...

178
Album Review

Tom Christensen: New York School

Read "New York School" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


Art begets art. Tom Christensen composed the music for this record based on the work of a group of poets and painters from the fifties and sixties known as the New York School. Frank O'Hara wrote some of his poems inspired by the paintings of Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Grace Hartigan. In turn, some of their paintings were inspired by his poems. Christensen used not only these collaborations, but also a poem or painting as a reference point. And ...

251
Album Review

Tom Christensen: New York School

Read "New York School" reviewed by John Kelman


While woodwind multi-instrumentalist Tom Christensen has been making his presence known on the New York scene over the past decade, recording with artists including Joe Lovano, David Sanchez, and Toshiko Akiyoshi, he's been slowly, almost insidiously, emerging as a composer of remarkable depth and invention. His latest release, New York School, is one of those very rare recordings that manages to create its own musical universe. It's almost impossible to take this stunning disc out of the player.

Recordings that ...

216
Album Review

Tom Christensen: Paths

Read "Paths" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Like his previous release Gualala (Naxos 2000) where he plays a jazz oboe, multi-reedist Tom Christensen adds the French horn to his piano-less quartet on Paths. But this band's second outing with wood flutes, bass flutes, clarinets and hand drumming is not about eccentricity.

Christensen and company are all about making beautifully accessible yet adventurous music. Just as bassist Ben Allison has been doing in his own groups, Christensen expands the definition of jazz from a small group ...

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Recording

Spin Cycle, Co-Led By Drummer Scott Neumann & Saxophonist Tom Christensen, Releases Self-Titled Debut CD on May 6

Spin Cycle, Co-Led By Drummer Scott Neumann & Saxophonist Tom Christensen, Releases Self-Titled Debut CD on May 6

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

With its strong melodies, tight rhythms, intriguing textures, and sophisticated interplay, Spin Cycle has got everything covered. What makes the band special is how everything fits together—or, by intention, doesn’t. For listeners and band members alike, every tune is an adventure. Spin Cycle is the new quartet co-led by drummer Scott Neumann and tenor saxophonist Tom Christensen—and also featuring fellow veterans of the New York jazz scene Pete McCann on guitar and bassist Phil Palombi—whose self- titled debut CD will ...

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Recording

Tom Christensen's New York School (Playscape) Coming March 29th

Tom Christensen's New York School (Playscape) Coming March 29th

Source: All About Jazz

Playscape Recordings continues the celebration of its 5th anniversary with the March 29th release of Tom Christensen's New York School (PSR#J041504). Known for years as a respected double-reed specialist and valued sideman with the likes of Joe Lovano and Toshiko Akiyoshi among many others, Christensen has steadily established his leadership status since 2000 with his two previous releases, Gualala (Naxos Jazz), and his Playscape debut, Paths (PSR#J111601). He is joined on New York School by veterans Walt Weiskopf and Kermit ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Spin Cycle III

Spin Cycle Music
2022

buy

New York School

Playscape Recordings
2005

buy

Paths

Playscape Recordings
2003

buy

Gualala

Naxos Records
2000

buy

Guardians

From: New York School
By Tom Christensen

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