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  • Susan Alcorn's 'Pedernal' Is a Chamber Jazz/Americana Blend

    13 days ago - By Pop Matters

    Too often, there is a divide between the dance impulse and the artistic impulse in creative music. Pedernal sounds beautiful and interesting, daring and ethereal, folky or Great Plains-y. But Alcorn, often enough, is attentive to the blues impulse on an instrument that, after all, has its roots in Hawaiian music and has found a critical footing in gospel music. She taps into more traditional jazz as well as free improvisation on "R.U.R.", with its hopping swing pattern and a peppy melody of short phrases that wander and mesh, just a bit like a Basie chart. However, the sense of tradition...
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