Jonathan Starks

Biography
Articles

I reside in the Boston Massachusetts metropolitan area. I currently study at the New England Conservatory of Music. I have a passion for the complexity and challenge of traditional and current jazz music. I am always looking for opportunities to perform with other musicians with the same passion and appreciation so that I can continue to learn and expand my musical vocabulary.

Gear

2 Gretsch Catalina Club kits and various cymbals from Zildjian and Sabian plus hybrid cymbals I've made myself.

Phillip Golub: Partisan Ship

Read "Partisan Ship" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
May 31, 2026

In a lot off ways, it is a game of catch-up listening to Brooklyn pianist/improvisor/composer Phillip Golub once he kick-starts the oddly titled Partisan Ship into high gear with “Loyalty Oath," a piece of mad musical fiction that holds attention in place with its octopi rhythms and runaway melodies rushing in all at once. Partisan Ship is oddly titled because Golub, an unapologetic polymath far out on the progressive spectrum, and his juiced and jazzed up cohorts--clarinetist and ...

Album Review

Simon Hanes: Gargantua

Read "Gargantua" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 26, 2026

Two quotes come to mind in the wake of Simon Hanes' Gargantua. The first is from Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction: “Camera got them images / Camera got them all / Nothing's shocking... “ The second, often attributed to William S. Burroughs: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted." Taken together, they suggest a world where boundaries dissolve and meaning becomes fluid. Hanes both affirms and challenges that premise in this sprawling, provocative work. Gargantua is written for an ...

Album Review

Simon Hanes: Gargantua

Read "Gargantua" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero

by Vincenzo Roggero
May 25, 2026

Tre batterie, tre bassi elettrici, tre tromboni, tre corni francesi e tre voci, questo l'ensemble che mette in scena Gargantua, album proveniente dalla sempre più benemerita Pyroclastic Records. Inusuale, sorprendente, bizzarra strumentazione? Niente affatto, se in cabina di regia siede Simon Hanes, visionario artista, californiano di nascita ma residente a Brooklyn, che miscela le più disparate suggestioni musicali--siano esse polifonie rinascimentali, hard rock, noise, minimalismo, avant jazz, o colonne sonore italiane anni sessanta/settanta--con sorprendente nonchalance e altrettanto sorprendenti risultati.