Word: jazzing
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...latest album “The Fall,” Jones denies her voice the limelight. In the process of musical experimentation, she appears to have forgotten her greatest strengths as an artist. In the past, Jones found her home in the sultry intersection of country and jazz, but unfortunately her first forays into the realm of rock meet with varied success on “The Fall,” where at certain points she completely drowns her silken voice in awkwardly abrasive electronic chords...
...Young Blood” also stands out as an example of a successful experiment; Jones balances heavier electronics with a simple drumbeat. The powerful melody, hearkening back to the best of U2 or Coldplay, is refreshing for a jazz vocalist, but it’s hard not to wonder if Jones could do the song better in her own acoustic way. The same goes for “Light as a Feather,” which comes off as a compelling tune with a worrying background whine...
Fred Ho ’79—baritone saxophonist, composer, band leader, political activist, and Marxist—is a pretty remarkable guy. He aspires to create multicultural and deeply political music by blending avant-garde jazz and African American music with Asian influences, and he actively fuses his roles as an artist and political activist to create a uniquely expressive identity for himself. Last Friday, Ho was honored with the Fall 2009 Harvard Arts Medal, which is awarded by the Office for the Arts to an alumni “who has made a special contribution...
Since his beginnings as a self-taught musician, Ho has been pushing the boundaries of jazz, which he calls “quote-unquote jazz,” referencing the term’s origin as a racial slur. He merges African American music with Chinese opera and uses Duke Ellington-style swing in musicals and operas featuring female vampires, mythical monkeys, and now, green earth monsters. His music is arresting, indefinable, and unquestionably dramatic, aggressive in its motifs but always expansive in tone...
...featured a consistently high standard of dancing. The most engaging pieces seemed to be those where the choreographer had a clear aesthetic vision of the dance formations from beginning to end, whereas the less memorable dances did not always effectively use movement to create a spatial narrative. Though Mainly Jazz achieved this ambitious comprehensiveness more consistently than TAPS, iDance admirably showcased the talents of both groups...