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Max Zenger
Kadi Vija Key Project: Roaming in the Contemporary Society to Make Peace With It
by Geno Thackara
Kadi Vija's voice often feels like some exotic Asian string instrument, particularly the kind with a resonant droning tone that flows and bends in the hands of an expert player. She uses her natural instrument in much the same way, almost always eschewing actual words for a nuanced vocalese that is every bit as expressive. The things she feels like conveying don't necessarily need to be spelled out in lyrics (or indeed at all). Her swoops and glides can paint ...
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by Troy Dostert
Although her album's title is a bit unwieldy, vocalist Kadi Vija's summer 2020 release does convey the artist's distinctive approach to living in challenging times. Rather than aiming for dramatic gestures or the boldest imaginable change, perhaps the more sensible strategy is simply to figure out how to keep goingnot resignation, exactly, but a willingness to yield, and to remain open to whatever new possibilities may appear. With a well-chosen quartet attuned to this vision, Vija's music has a lilting, ...
read moreMax Zenger: Chapter 2
by Troy Dostert
Finnish saxophonist/bass clarinetist Max Zenger's quartet, the Maxxxtet, shows on its sophomore release that there's a lot of room in modern jazz for an approach that puts harmony, intricate concepts and subtle rhythmic nuances ahead of passionate intensity and technical brilliance. This is not to say that the group lacks chops or ambition--but that these traits find their outlet in a less demonstrative delivery. The result is seven well-constructed compositions that unfold through unhurried, careful development: it's music that doesn't ...
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by Sacha O'Grady
From its inception more than a century ago, jazz has taken a long, strange and twisted journey. From folk-art to more avant-garde adventures, jazz has never sat in the same place for too long, like a sort of free spirit in search of the infinite. Throughout that journey, at least since the 1940's, a time when Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and other be-boppers were having a major impact on a new generation of musicians, Europe has also played ...
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