Press
“Embers” is a tragic composition, beginning quietly but taking brutally melancholic turns. Hwang’s almost
prodigious command over his instrument is impressive and “Embers” is an elegiac conclusion to a story of
emotions that change so violently as to defy categorization… as the last note fades, tragically, the listener
is left with something enduring and beautiful.
-- Karla Cornejo, All About Jazz Read full article
…this is a full on version of shape shifting cross cultural jazz as opposed to world jazz. With an educators eye on the
music but a groovers ear to the sound, Hwang and his crew add yet another chapter to his diverse discography that never
fails to amaze.
--Chris Spector, MIDWEST RECORD Read full article
Jason Kao Hwang/Edge, Stories Before Within -- Composition and improv variations by under-acclaimed New York violin and violist Hwang,
who draws on his experience and individualism to cast microtonal studies, with splendid cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, thick-toned bassist
Ken Filiano and Andrew Drury, drums.
-– Howard Mandel, artsjournal.com. Read full article
It sounds like the conversations between our inner atoms as we grapple with life and those vibrations. It is provocative and precise…
-- D. Oscar Groomes, OsPlaceJazz.com. Read full article
His debut album Stories Before Within. Hwang—a violinist—is a fresh stream in Jazz.
-- Nuvoye Russkoye, Jan 26-27, 2008 Read full article
Composer and violinist Jason Kao Hwang and his group Edge return with a story to tell on each of the five tracks on Stories Before Within.
Hwang has long been a potent force in assimilating various styles of music, particularly Chinese, Korean and Japanese, with jazz.
The result has been a startling cornucopia of thematic dynamics.
-- Jerry D’Souza, ALL ABOUT JAZZ Read full article
JASON KAO HWANG/EDGE Stories Before Within JAZZ TOP 40 CHART #32 !
-- CMJ ISSUE 1045 JAZZ TOP 10 Read full article
Both the locale and the ling-go of Local Lingo come across as translocal and translingual when heard as the latest words of the tale
composer-violinist Jason Kao Hwangs been telling in his previous CDs, and the voice hes been training to tell it.
-- Mike Heffley, SIGNAL TO NOISE Read full article
Through the 1990s, violinist Jason Kao Hwang mined an exploration of East Asian music...
-- Kurt Gottschalk Read full article
Invention is in constant evolution, from the high notes of the violin to the percussive taps on the strings of the ajeng,
to the injection of the melody and its swift evaporation. Local Lingo is seductive and captivating.
Read full article
Certainly, having lived in Korea for 15 years, I have some understanding of "where this is coming from I enjoyed this, &
hope to hear more in the future - the CD gets a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED from us for listeners ready to experience something sonically
different!
-- Rotcod Zzaj, ROTOCOD Read full article
Hwang plays melodic yet textural compositions....
-- Aaron Leitko, Washington City Paper Read full article
In a class of its own, with a sound like no other group in the festival, was the Fifty Violins in dedication to the
much lamented Leroy Jenkins, led and conducted by Billy Bang and coordinated by Jason Kao Hwang.
-- Marc Medwin, ALL ABOUT JAZZ Read full article
This is something else, not like anything I've heard before.
-- Kjell, www.radioholstebro.dk.
Read full article
Jason and Sang Won played a totally magical, powerful, and fulfilling set.
-- Taylor Ho Bynum taylorhobynum.com.
Read full article
Both of these men are masters of their instruments and make a very special musical connection. The Asian influence
is present in many pieces but this is new modern music played at a high level.
-- Scott Heller, aural-innovations.com Read full article
This memorial piece was an extraordinary work that was coordinated by Jason Hwang and led by Billy Bang.
The music was breathtaking, beautiful, dream-like
-- Bruce Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery> Read full article
Both of these men are great soloists and love to push themselves into unexpected situations. This duo blended ancient
(sounding) songs with more modern improvisations and created something quite different.
-- Bruce Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery Read full article
Coming to terms with sound heritages that are neither European nor African-American is one of improvised music's newest
challenges. Yet violinist Jason Kao Hwang is one player who navigates the contradictions with ease.
-- Ken Waxman, CODA Issue 329 Read full article
Violinist Jason Kao Hwang gathers a startling quartet to record Edge. With a flurry of recordings, Jason Kao Hwang
stands poised to break through both as an original composer and interpreter of considerable skill.
-- Rex Butters, ALL ABOUT JAZZ, California, 2006 Read full article
The four manage to meld their individual experiences into a group that can swing hard, evoke the pentatonics and
timbres of Asian music traditions or blues edge and push toward freedom.
-- Michael Rosenstein, SIGNAL TO NOISE, 2006 Read full article
This disc showcases Hwang's skills as a composer and improviser. Both aspects combine his distinctive fusion of the artful
and rustic… He's (Ken Filiano) one of the finest jazz bassists, period. The mercurial Bynum gets better every time
I hear him, and Drury is a receptive, agile percussionist. As an improviser, Hwang projects an almost naïve sense of
vulnerability – a quality that disappears whenever he's compelled to assert his mastery by letting loose his colossal
chops. …This is a compelling example of his work.
-- Chris Kelsey, JAZZTIMES Read full article
The compositions are also sweeping in content and breadth… Edge is a bid for serious jazz recognition. Jason Hwang's
crystalline violin tone and his obvious attention to compositional detail make him a successor to—and a step
beyond—out-jazz string players like Leroy Jenkins and Billy Bang.
-- Will Layman, PopMatters.com, August 18, 2006 Read full article
...other than its strong statements from Hwang, as player and composer, is his ability to attract such an excellent quartet
that beautifully interprets Hwang's emotionally charged stratagems. And what a group it is! Taylor Ho Bynum brings his cornet
and flugelhorn, Ken Filiano adds his splendid arco and fingers-busting pizzicato bass work and the massively unheralded drummer
Andrew Drury continually proves his personal touch with each stroke.
-- Jay Collins, Cadence Magazine, November, 2006 Read full article
Hwang is one of the more innovative American composer/instrumentalists of his generation… Edge lives up to its name in
that it provokes keen listening, which ultimately speaks to the interplay within the quartet.
-- Bill Shoemaker, POINT OF DEPARTURE 2006 Read full article
This is music of dramatic intensity, which makes sense coming from this particular free jazzer who has also penned an opera.
-- Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox.com, 2006 Read full article
Edge is Hwang's newest ensemble… within contexts framed by Hwang, but only limited by the imagination of the group's members,
and with these musicians almost everything is possible… sparks fly in this recording…
-- JAZZREVIEW.COM, Thomas Erdman, 2006 Read full article
Hwang's writing embraces freewheeling improvisation and rigid through-written composition in equal measure, allowing ample
room for interpretation. Balancing intuitive call and response ensemble interplay with rousing chart-driven passages, Edge
is an avant garde thrill ride, and a high water mark in Hwang's already impressive discography.
-- Troy Collins, ALL ABOUT JAZZ, June 23, 2006, Lancaster, PA Read full article
The album title could easily refer to the incisive sound of Hwang's violin. He also demonstrates a mournful, vocal cry on "No Myth"
and bittersweet lyricism on "Grassy Hills." Taylor Ho Bynum's work on cornet complements the violin effectively.
-- Jon Andrews, DOWNBEAT, Sept. 2006 Read full article
The violinist (Hwang) has created works that have the harmony of jazz, the structure of chamber music, and the freedom of invention;
all show an expansive, yet focused vision and use structure to varying degrees... Bynum is one of the most exciting exponents of
free jazz, and his horn continues to hail the praises of the form... Ken Filiano's bass slows the momentum and brings in a fresh
expanse of innovation; Andrew Drury's unconventional percussion accents help makes a compact whole... Hwang completes the
spell, his violin a sentinel for emotional power.
-- Jerry D'Souza, ALL ABOUT JAZZ, Toronto, Canada, May,2006 Read full article
Jason has chosen a perfect quartet to capture his vision, as this group has their own strong sound… "No Myth" opens with some
superb violin and cornet interplay, backed by Ken's throbbing bass and Andrew's hypnotic mallet work. This quartet played a great
set at the Vision Fest last month… a perfect disc.
-- Bruce Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery Read full article
…the music contained on this CD is intense and emotionally alive.
-- JAZZITUDE.COM, 2006 Read full article
The compositions are strong and the band, when they need to be, is tight. Drury makes smooth but drastic shifts to complement
the shifting cinematic pieces, Filiano is solid, Bynum burns and Hwang is inventive as ever. The disc blends to a whole.
-- Kurt Gottschalk, ALL ABOUT JAZZ, New York City, NY, March, 2006 Read full article
Hwang has a formidable musical mind and his more detailed passages demand close listening.
--THE WIRE Read full article
THE BEST OF THE YEAR. Our ten favorite full-length opera recordings of the year were Jason Kao Hwang's startlingly original The
Floating Box, its complexities untangled by conductor Juan Carlos Rivas (New World)
-- OPERA NEWS, January, 2006 Read full article
Originality spills out of every measure of The Floating Box, and the polycultural combinations of instruments produce a dizzying
variety of colors each of which has an acutely evocative impact.
-- OPERA NEWS, Sept., 2005 Read full article
Between them Jason Kao Hwang and Catherine Filloux have addressed the problem of combining Chinese and Western styles with
astonishing success here.
-- THE INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW, July/August, 2005 Read full article
The most remarkable work on the program was Bending Duration, Breathing Distance by Jason Kao Hwang, the only composer of
the five who was not born in China.
-- DALLAS MORNING NEWS, April 24, 2001 Read full article
Hwang is his usual virtuosity-on-sleeve self, sculpting crying, keening glissandi with his hummingbird bow and continuously
slicing through conventional notions of tempered tonality with voice-like inflections.
-- Derek Taylor, Bagatellan.com, July 27, 2006 Read full article
...the soaring lyricism of Jason Kao Hwang
-- Howard Reich, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Oct. 11, 2005 Read full article
Violinist Jason Kao Hwang is a source of electricity. Hwang applies sheets of sound to his normally linear instrument,
using every resource available to him.
-- THE BUZZ, September 1, 2005 Read full article
Indeed, what's striking about Mr. Hwang's music, a stirring blend of Stephane Grappelli's violin improvisations
and Morton Feldman's microtonal compositions, is that it makes traditional instruments sound contemporary.
-- THE NEW YORK TIMES, Nov. 23, 1997 Read full article
Chinese-American violinist Jason Hwang is one of New York's unsung new-music heroes.
-- The Boston Phoenix Read full article
three masterful improvisers who make music unlike anything else you've heard.
-- David Newgarden, CMJ Read full article
The deep jazz tradition of individualism and emotional truth.
-- In Motion Read full article
Unorthodox tonalities and a fresh compositional viewpoint to escape the geographical gravitational pull of "conventional"
ethnic music and jazz
-- Pulse Read full article
Jason Hwang played a mutated five-string electric violin with virtuosic intensity
-- Seattle Weekly Read full article
"Urban Archaeology" is a mind-grabbing set of atmospheres that reflects Hwang's aim of rooting his music in the
improvisational personalities of the musicians he works with. It sounds new.
-- The Wire Read full article
Jason Kao Hwang led the quartet through three untitled instrumental pieces, the third of which culminated in a
terrifyingly forceful electric violin solo.
-- JUGGERNAUT, 1998 Read full article
Jason Hwang's music was an evocation of colors and emotions in a wide spectrum from tenderness to the volatile,
piecing fragments, creating dances, in a dazzling, poetic way.
-- CODA MAGAZINE, May, 1988 Read full article
Commitment's integrated, thoughtful and deeply satisfying …originality and eloquence… Mr. Hwang's
violin tone suggests the eerie cry of Chinese opera singers.
-- THE NEW YORK TIMES, Nov. 8, 1982 Read full article
Jason Hwang's …Glass Shadows creates music that is taut, delicate and highly original.
-- THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jan 2, 1986 Read full article
Inspired by the inflection and tones embodied in language, Hwang has developed an incredibly original philosophy
and approach to improvisation on violin.
-- STRINGS, Sept/Oct, 1996 Read full article
Part poetry, part documentary, "Afterbirth" is a superb film.
-- Julie Semkow, Library Journal, 1986 Read full article
