MARY HALVORSON

Avant-Garde Jazz / 21st Century Modern / Third Stream / Post-Fusion Contemporary / Jazz Related Improv/Composition / Eclectic Fusion • United States
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Mary Halvorson is a guitarist, ensemble leader, and composer who continually pushes against established musical categories with a signature instrumental sound and an aesthetic that evolves with each album and musical configuration. She melds deep jazz roots with experimental rock, folk, and other musical traditions, reflecting a wide range of stylistic influences. Halvorson began her recording career as a member of jazz-rock quartet Friendly Bears in 2002. Two years later, as a member of Anthony Braxton's group, she appeared on Quintet (London) 2004, and she established herself as a leader in duo with violinist Jessica Pavone on 2005's Prairies; they have continued working together. In 2008, after playing on projects by other bandleaders, she issued her debut trio offering, Dragon's Head, on Firehouse 12. Halvorson debuted her quintet on 2010's Saturn Sings, and followed it in 2012 with Bending Bridges.
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MARY HALVORSON Discography

MARY HALVORSON albums / top albums

MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson And Jessica Pavone ‎: Prairies album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson And Jessica Pavone ‎: Prairies
Avant-Garde Jazz 2005
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone : On And Off album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone : On And Off
Avant-Garde Jazz 2007
MARY HALVORSON Calling All Portraits (with Jessica Pavone, Devin Hoff, Ches Smith) album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Calling All Portraits (with Jessica Pavone, Devin Hoff, Ches Smith)
Avant-Garde Jazz 2008
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson Trio: Dragon's Head album cover 3.50 | 1 ratings
Mary Halvorson Trio: Dragon's Head
Avant-Garde Jazz 2008
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson, Reuben Radding & Nate Wooley : Crackleknob album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson, Reuben Radding & Nate Wooley : Crackleknob
Avant-Garde Jazz 2009
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone : Thin Air album cover 2.50 | 1 ratings
Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone : Thin Air
Avant-Garde Jazz 2009
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson Quintet: Saturn Sings album cover 4.00 | 1 ratings
Mary Halvorson Quintet: Saturn Sings
Avant-Garde Jazz 2010
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone : Departure Of Reason album cover 3.50 | 1 ratings
Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone : Departure Of Reason
Avant-Garde Jazz 2011
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson Quintet: Bending Bridges album cover 4.50 | 2 ratings
Mary Halvorson Quintet: Bending Bridges
Avant-Garde Jazz 2012
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson / Kirk Knuffke / Matt Wilson : Sifter album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson / Kirk Knuffke / Matt Wilson : Sifter
Avant-Garde Jazz 2013
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson Septet ‎: Illusionary Sea album cover 3.50 | 1 ratings
Mary Halvorson Septet ‎: Illusionary Sea
Avant-Garde Jazz 2013
MARY HALVORSON Reverse Blue album cover 3.98 | 3 ratings
Reverse Blue
21st Century Modern 2014
MARY HALVORSON Meltframe album cover 4.00 | 1 ratings
Meltframe
Avant-Garde Jazz 2015
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson & Noël Akchoté album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson & Noël Akchoté
Avant-Garde Jazz 2016
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson Octet : Away With You album cover 4.43 | 2 ratings
Mary Halvorson Octet : Away With You
21st Century Modern 2016
MARY HALVORSON John Zorn – Mary Halvorson Quartet : Paimon (Book Of Angels Volume 32) album cover 3.50 | 1 ratings
John Zorn – Mary Halvorson Quartet : Paimon (Book Of Angels Volume 32)
21st Century Modern 2017
MARY HALVORSON Code Girl album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Code Girl
21st Century Modern 2018
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson / Joe Morris : Traversing Orbits album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson / Joe Morris : Traversing Orbits
Avant-Garde Jazz 2018
MARY HALVORSON The Maid With The Flaxen Hair album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
The Maid With The Flaxen Hair
Post-Fusion Contemporary 2018
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson & John Dieterich : Tangle of Stars album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson & John Dieterich : Tangle of Stars
Avant-Garde Jazz 2019
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson's Code Girl : Artlessly Falling album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson's Code Girl : Artlessly Falling
Eclectic Fusion 2020
MARY HALVORSON Amaryllis album cover 4.50 | 1 ratings
Amaryllis
21st Century Modern 2022
MARY HALVORSON Belladonna album cover 4.00 | 1 ratings
Belladonna
Third Stream 2022
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson & Jamaaladeen Tacuma : Strings & Things album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson & Jamaaladeen Tacuma : Strings & Things
21st Century Modern 2022
MARY HALVORSON Cloudward album cover 4.00 | 1 ratings
Cloudward
21st Century Modern 2024

MARY HALVORSON EPs & splits

MARY HALVORSON live albums

MARY HALVORSON Opulence album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Opulence
Avant-Garde Jazz 2008
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson Trio : Ghost Loop album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson Trio : Ghost Loop
Avant-Garde Jazz 2013
MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson, Noël Akchoté ‎: Live In Strasbourg album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Mary Halvorson, Noël Akchoté ‎: Live In Strasbourg
Jazz Related Improv/Composition 2016

MARY HALVORSON demos, promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs)

MARY HALVORSON re-issues & compilations

MARY HALVORSON Amaryllis & Belladonna album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Amaryllis & Belladonna
Third Stream 2022

MARY HALVORSON singles (0)

MARY HALVORSON movies (DVD, Blu-Ray or VHS)

MARY HALVORSON Reviews

MARY HALVORSON John Zorn – Mary Halvorson Quartet : Paimon (Book Of Angels Volume 32)

Album · 2017 · 21st Century Modern
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snobb
I was born eighteen years after the end of WWII and spent my early childhood in a downtown district, bordering with what during the war was a Nazi's established Jewish ghetto, one among the biggest in Europe. In the mid 30s one third of my hometown population was Jewish, at the end of the war there still were a few thousand of them survived by chance. Others were deported to German concentration camps and died there, those few who survived never returned back. Some were killed by Nazis right here, in the outskirts of the town. As a result, only three per cent of pre-war Jewish population stayed in town. Our closest neighbors and friends were Jews.

I can't remember I ever heard music coming from their apartment though. Probably, after the years of holocaust, there were not much place for music in their souls. One of the rare (still black-and-white) photos I still have from my childhood is a green sunny slope on the back of our building where 10 year old neighbor girl Rivka looked after me, a bit chubby blond boy, just started learning walking. And I remember her mum Rachele, she often feasted us flavorful dishes of unusual taste. There were a lot of partially ruined buildings around (the result of Russian bombing at the end of WWII), and plenty of abandoned too. Thousands of Jews that had predominantly inhabited the area, just disappeared, leaving the strange ghost town, which very slowly has been fulfilled with new inhabitants. Some buildings stayed ruined for decades to come, no one knew, where are the people, who lived there before the war, are they alive or not. Probably, everyone knew they will never return back though.

The main city's market square was not too far, just about 15 minutes by walk, I loved to go there with my grandma. On the way we always met people speaking loudly strange language I wasn't able to understand and sometimes there was a disabled old man playing an accordion, very catchy danceable and melancholic tunes, much different from everything I heard elsewhere. It was the Yiddish world of my childhood (I didn't know the world then).

Later our family moved to a brand new apartment on a green new district close to the city's center, and there our closest neighbors and friends were Jews. They were a two-generations family and I still remember the golden plate with their surnames engraved on their apartment's door - "Birshtein & Eidelman". The old lady (I called her "Grandma Sonia") was my grandma's best friend, and our apartments' doors have been never locked - we lived as one big family. It was her who introduced me to tasteful "Tzimmes", from her I learned what "Matzah" is. We started visiting a new market place buying meat and vegetables, and there another old Jewish accordionist played Klezmer for coins. All that has never been something big or important, better to say it was just an ordinary everyday life.

Many years later, one sunny day walking around already rebuilt Old Town, the former WWII-times Jewish ghetto district, I noticed the klezmer trumpet sounding from the small yard. It was a renown Nuyorican Frank London playing klezmer on the land where this music is born. He came to touch the roots of his music and his heritage. I was born and grew up here, listening occasionally to this music, but only found out that it's called "klezmer" in my mature age. We just called it "Jewish music", in a ghost town of Jews with a few Jews alive.

Another, more significant, popularizer of klezmer is with no doubt Nuyorican composer and trumpeter John Zorn. Thanks to him, his own sort of klezmer-jazz became well known and popular around the world. Some years ago he played in my hometown as well, during jazz fest, not on the streets, but anyway hereby klezmer returned back to his home again.

Zorn's "Book of Angels" is a series of klezmer-based compositions, performed by leading New York jazz scene musicians. Mary Halvorson Quartet's "Paimon", is the closing, 32-nd release.

With her regular drummer Tomas Fujiwara, capable bassist Drew Gress and second guitarist Miles Okazaki Halvorson dives into new for her waters. Zorn's composed klezmer-based music is tuneful very emotionally colored, tuneful and melancholic by its origin, not exactly what we know about Halvorson's own music.

The result is quite unusual - "Paimon"'s music is hardly klezmer or jazz. It's more "post-everything" take on Zorn's short well-structurized songs with catchy melodies. Halvorson's usually angular and abstract guitar sound is most successful in interplay with the more flexible (and traditional) guitar of Okazaki. Sentimental tune snippets are presented almost everywhere but not always are right in place. In best, the music flows as quite abstract and quirky take on very conservative material, in other moments there is a feeling that klezmer strict frames are suffocating for Halvorson, she tries to cross the borders, but responsibly returns back to the game's rules.

For me, Halvorson's music here on "Paimon" is a parallel universe klezmer, an interesting music with removed roots. An experiment which doesn't touch a heart. What is possibly very much my personal feeling - this sort of klezmer has nothing too much in common with my childhood's "Yiddish world". But, as with almost any of Halvorson's work, I like to hear her playing.

MARY HALVORSON Amaryllis

Album · 2022 · 21st Century Modern
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snobb
Once a member of Anthony Braxton Group, guitarist Mary Halvorson today probably is the most renown female jazz guitar player in the world. For nearly two decades she demonstrates her very own playing techniques and aesthetics, releasing innovative successful albums and collaborating with many creative jazz forefront artists.

In her prolific discography, 2022's "Amarylis" is an apogee release. A six-song suite, written by Mary during the pandemic, perfectly illustrates her both strong sides - as a composer and as a virtuosic musician-band leader. Recorded with a capable sextet (incl. vibes player Patricia Brennan and excellent drummer Tomas Fujiwara among others), the album's music sounds like a modern orchestra played soundtrack with rich arrangements and a big sound. Opposite to long-lasting trends of such sort of music being melancholic, nostalgic and over-emotional, Halvorson's work radiates positive energy and demonstrates well-balanced optimism.

Halvorson's music is rooted in free-funk, modern classic music and prog rock, with atmosphere and dynamics one can remember from Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra from the late 60s. On three of the album's last songs, The Mivos Quartet come on to support the jazz sextet making the sound even more orchestral and partially chamber.

On many previous Halvorson releases, strong and more interesting compositions were sometimes mixed with less successful and more ordinary songs which often did not allow the whole album to sound perfect. On "Amaryllis", there is not even a single note which is not mandatory or out of place. At last, Mary released the album, demonstrating her talent and potential in full - the apogee.

MARY HALVORSON Mary Halvorson Octet : Away With You

Album · 2016 · 21st Century Modern
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js
On her latest CD, “Away With You”, Mary Halvorson expands beyond her usual small group format and utilizes a full octet, and the end result is one of the best albums of her still growing career. Mary is already well known as an interesting improviser and composer, but with this new mini-big band, Halverson shows she is also a superb arranger and manipulator of large ensembles. Many of the pieces on here morph and change in organic ways that are difficult to write out, instead, much like previous masters such as Ellington and Mingus, Halvorson has learned the fine art of leading an ensemble through abstract communication while the improvising process is taking place. The end result is an ensemble that can move together as one mind.

With so many musicians to work with, Mary achieves a myriad of tone colors on “Away With You”, and often breaks the group down into small duos and trios. The icing on the tone color cake is pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn, who often meshes with Halvorson’s guitar in ways that make it hard to tell which one is which. Fortunately the steel guitar is not used for ironic kitsch, instead, Alcorn is a serious avant-garde improviser on the pedal steel, and pulls some wonderful effects out of the snaky instrument. The group improvising on here is very much in a jazz vein, but the head tunes often draw on modern concert hall music, as well as marches and processions. Once again there is a possible parallel to Mingus here, but in all fairness, Mary’s music really does not sound much like Mingus, even though they have some similar approaches.

Like much of today’s jazz, “Away With You” can be a bit dry and abstract, but the band also produces some serious heat with blistering saxophone solos on “Spirit Splitter” and “The Absolute Almost”, which are also two of the best tracks on the album. Another interesting cut is the murky atmosphere of “Fog Bank”, which features Alcorn’s slowly meandering steel guitar. If you are looking for whats new in the world of jazz, “Away With You” is a great place to start.

MARY HALVORSON Reverse Blue

Album · 2014 · 21st Century Modern
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snobb
Mary Halvorson is with no doubt most popular modern advanced female jazz guitarist. With her new band (all members are still part of same "new American avant-garde jazz" cohort) she makes next step refining her usual very individual music.

Band's debut album, "Reverse Blue" opens with few winks of baroque dance but right after switches to rock-jazz distorted guitar's shred. Opener (as well as some other album's songs) is well composed and perfectly works as advanced jazz piece and avant-rock song at the same time.

One can say it's a feminine take on guitar jazz what makes Mary's music so personal. Not sure but it's really better illustrated by her heavier compositions where with no relation to hot-burning drama music in whole stays surprisingly very relaxed and well controlled.

Well-balanced and inventive quartet plays ten originals (half comes solely from Halvorson), all are well calculated and executed. Probably (as on some her other albums) main problem of the music still is that tranquil equilibrium - some injections of adrenaline here and there would save compositions from some appreciable sameness.

"Ego Man", central album's point, trims well-balanced but a bit too repetitive songs' series with Chris Speed's tenor soloing and opens a way for new music sides coming after. Second album's part is more diverse even if some dose of additional adrenaline would be probably desired as well."Really OK" is a beautiful elegant waltz and the closer "Resting On Laurels" sounds as dreamy tasteful miniature

Being a Mary Halvorson's music fan, I am familiar with almost every her album - and always waiting for new to come. Almost every of already released works contains some great moments and some not so great - and this rule is as sturdy as year's seasons change. A small step to being a really great album,"Reverse Blue" is intelligent and accessible listening opening new layers after every another spin.

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