Mercury News
Kenny Werner
December 1st, 2011
“Look at the pianists I’ve played with: George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans, Shirley Horn and Fred Hersch,” Thielemans said in a conversation shortly after Werner served as music director for a Carnegie Hall celebration of his 85th birthday. “Kenny Werner is part of that club. He’ll make a harmonic turn and push me over the cliff sometimes…”
Institute of Higher Learning
Audiophile
December 3, 2011
Kenny Werner is a shining example of the versatility and evolving mosaic of jazz. He is a talented inventive pianist, and has performed music in a wide variety of ensembles…
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AllMusic
November 3, 2011
Kenny Werner is simply prolific. After releasing the stellar live Balloons set earlier this year, he’s back in a studio setting, leading the Brussels Jazz Orchestra in a recording of four new compositions and a wonderfully inventive reading of a traditional number…
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Jazziz
November 5, 2011
This set suggests that the full extent of world class players simply can’t be measured, as Werner democratically makesInstitute of Higher Learning as much a feature for the Brussels Jazz Orchestra as it is the pianist’s own writing and performing…
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Balloons: Live At The Blue Note
Audiophile Auditions
May 6, 2011
…Kenny Werner – Balloons encapsulates a unique musical vision. Recorded over two days at the legendary Blue Note, Werner and his quintet perform four extended original compositions. The material is diverse and sufficiently complex to allow exploration of melodic themes and improvisation with equal import…
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Jazz Police
April 29, 2011
One of the most prolific composers and recording artists in modern piano jazz, Kenny Werner has proven over and over again to be a master of many ensemble configurations…
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Buffalo News
March 25, 2011
A spectacular 21st century jazz quintet..This is a very standard jazz quintet in instrumentation (if head-rocking in talent), but there’s nothing standard about the way moods are created and solos emerge from ensembles here.
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The Soundscape
April 4th, 2011
I can pretty much sum up Kenny Werner’s Balloons by quoting the last two words of Bill Milkowski’s liner notes: “inspired evening.”
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All Music
March 2011
As a composer, pianist Kenny Werner’s reach is vast: it encompasses not only the jazz heritage, but also the classical and folk traditions, Western and Eastern. Balloons is compiled from two nights of quintet performances at the Blue Note in April of 2010 with trumpeter Randy Brecker, saxophonist David Sanchez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Antonio Sanchez. These four long pieces reveal new traits in Werner’s compositional thinking and present complex, harmonic notions accessibly. Simultaneously, this group makes the most of improvisational opportunities presented by their combined dynamic and tonal possibilities.
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New York Love Songs
So Jazz
December 4th, 2010
The declaration of love for the city where he was born creates an intimate portrait, far from any cliché. As described by Alain Gerber in the sleevenotes, “the master of the pure, the immensely subtle, in its most direct expression.” Brad Mehldau’s teacher brings the art of poise and lucidity to a very high level. Rarely have ballads of the night sounded as sincere.
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No Beginning No End
Jazz Inside
October 15th, 2010
Kenny Werner once again, but with special profundity in this particular instance, makes the platonic ideal real for all of us. The process was hardly effortless. It is, however, by any measure masterful….
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All About Jazz
October 11th, 2010
Few albums have ever so clearly demonstrated the healing power of music. The titular commission—a five-piece suite for a 37-piece chamber ensemble that features Werner, tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and singer Judi Silvano—captures the emotional turmoil that ranges from sheer devastation and grief to reconciliation and peace, coming from Werner’s realization that, as Silvano sings in the tranquil and redemptive conclusion…
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All About Jazz Interview
October 11th, 2010
“For me, music is not the message, it’s the messenger,” he says. “If you don’t have something to express with the music, if your expression is ‘Here, look what good music this is,’ then It can only go to a certain level of depth. It becomes profound when the music is used to describe something that no other language can describe, that words can only hint at.”
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Jazz Times
October 6th, 2010
In listening to the very powerful music, one can’t help but hear that the vocal passages are offset by a singular voice of a different kind—the saxophone of Joe Lovano, whose playing is both powerful and expressive throughout…
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Phoenix
September 28th, 2010
Over the course of five movements, it alternates dissonant turbulence, the grace of a brass chorale, touches of jazz swing, and a vast array of color. Through it all Lovano laces Werner’s various motifs, and he wends his way in and out of the orchestration, moving imperceptibly from through-composed sections to improvisation.
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Kenny Werner and the Brussels Jazz Orchestra
Eye On the Arts
October 27, 2010
The first movement literally came out swinging before making characteristic shifts to rock and other rhythmic forms. As those familiar with Werner’ s work can attest, this is the kind of mélange that best engages his restless talent…
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New York Times
Kenny Werner at Dizzy’s
March 8th, 2007
Occasionally you hear jazz performed that’s so detailed, chiseled and compressed with energy that it’s hard to imagine the musicians doing it twice a night, six nights in a row. Such is the case with the pianist Kenny Werner’s quintet at Dizzy’s Club this week.
Mr. Werner’s career has been all over the place for 25 years: a long-running trio that never quite rose above the hedges, long-standing gigs with the harmonica player Toots Thielemans and the singer Betty Buckley. He is a radical melodic improviser and a strong, logical organizer of rhythm and harmony. He processes a lot, all the time, and often produces music that’s pleasant and easy on the outside, but rippling with incident: shifts in meter, tempo and tonality….
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Kenny Werner & Betty Buckley
June 1st, 2006
Mr. Werner’s elaborate arrangements expanded the songs’ fields of vision and enhanced Ms. Buckley’s intensely expressive readings. An elongated “Star Dust” sadly sifted through time and memory.
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Lawn Chair Society
All About Jazz
Februrary 27th, 2007
Werner has continued to grow at the piano for over thirty years. He is a spiritual person. As a composer, his music flows with a natural lyricism that harbors a deep-down blues sensibility. From this session, “Uncovered Heart releases that kind of emotion freely, and Werner’s musical partners feel it as well as he does…
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