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Matt Ulery: Mannerist
by Mike Jurkovic
There is a lilting magic to the music of Mannerist that is hard to deny or find fault with. The Bridge" starts and the whole day changes, eliciting, perhaps, a feeling of being lighter on the feet, lighter in spirit and, most importantly, lighter in the head. Suddenly all the information they want you to swallow goes away and its just you and the music. It is a beautiful thing. It is something bassist/composer/bandleader Matt Ulery sets out to do ...
read moreAmos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet
by Richard J Salvucci
The premise of this interesting recording may well be summarized in the old Roman proverb, Make haste, but slowly." Amos Gillespie is a Chicago-based composer and instrumentalist who has composed a nine-part jazz suite for a septet. In his own words, Unstructured Time is about capturing childhood focus, creativity and peace through unstructured time." The title is a bit deceptive. While there may be a variety of meters that frame the improvised solos, the recording is in no way formless. ...
read moreMatt Ulery's Delicate Charms: Live at the Green Mill
by Troy Dostert
One of the central figures of Chicago's thriving jazz scene, bassist Matt Ulery has cultivated fruitful relationships with a core of compatriots who embody the grit and beauty of the music coming out of the Windy City. He maintains a host of projects, one of the foremost being Delicate Charms, a group that released its self-titled debut in 2019 on Woolgathering Records; alto saxophonist Greg Ward, pianist Rob Clearfield, drummer Quin Kirchner and violinist Zach Brock assist Ulery in creating ...
read moreAmos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet
by Jack Bowers
Chicago-based composer/educator/alto saxophonist Amos Gillespie's CD, Unstructured Time, employs a variety of time signatures but is anything but unstructured--in fact, the opposite may reasonably be opined, as taut structure is clearly front and center on the album's four instrumental and five vocal numbers. In other words, unstructured" in Gillespie's lexicon bears absolutely no resemblance to free" jazz but refers instead to the struggle to find structure and balance in an environment wherein one is constantly bombarded with negative messages and ...
read moreMatt Ulery: Pollinator
by Mike Jurkovic
What a wonderful lift to an otherwise dismal year is Pollinator, Chicago based bassist Matt Ulery's unabashed revelry in swing jazz circa King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. Add a few pops, skips and other random surface noises to the sound of these eight unbridled, hothouse Ulery compositions and you'd swear you were sitting in and listening to the real thing. Because Pollinator sure sounds like your grandad's 78s. Those mysteriously heavy, black platters that set you on this beautiful ...
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