Not something you see every day; a review for a record that came out eight months prior. But well, here we are. I’d planned on reviewing Pardon My French months ago, but for several reasons, I could not bring myself to write it. Between dealing with pandemic-related whatever, reviewing records for The Wire Magazine, and
Ocelot is a collaborative trio featuring pianist Cat Toren, saxophonist/clarinetist Yuma Uesaka, and drummer/percussionist Colin Hinton. Their music is part of the increasingly prominent tradition of cross-pollination between jazz and 20th-21st century classical music, exemplified by composer-performers such as Tyshawn Sorey and Anna Webber. Though all three members of Ocelot are composers with distinct voices,
Mutual aid — a term coined by the Russian anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin in 1902 — refers to systems of social organization based on reciprocity and cooperation rather than competition. Though such systems are old enough to arguably predate human society, mutual aid has gained considerable visibility in the ongoing pandemic. As the capacity of state
The more I listen to BRAHJA, the harder I find it to describe. Its musical atmosphere is dark, mystical, and intricate, like a visionary ritual crossed with film noir. The band’s forces combine to form a tempered maximalism, recalling other masterpieces of jazz composition, ensemble playing, and production, such as Charles Mingus’ Black Saint and
On my first encounter with Lon Moshe & The Southern Freedom Arkestra, I was immediately drawn to the group’s 1977 album title, Love Is Where the Spirit Lies. The difficult task of dealing with a fringe, complex, and sought-after album feels like encountering a big tree with old roots and wanting to explain how the
The Underflow is a relatively new trio formed by veteran improvisers Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs, and Rob Mazurek in 2019. Their self-titled debut, recorded live in Athens at their first performance as a trio, has been followed up by Instant Opaque Evening, also recorded live during a string of European shows in early 2020. Instant
Ah sciamachy! My knot of mental shadows![1] “That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as it exists in every human, even if during waking state they may know nothing about it,” said the prophet and alchemist Paracelsus in 1531. We carry the shadow and with it, its possibility of alchemical transmutation.
The late 1960s was a white hot crucible of creativity in jazz. And much of the best was caught by Bernard Stollman’s ESP label. In addition to fairly well known work by Sun Ra and Albert Ayler the label was a treasure trove of the “second generation” of free jazz. And none was more deserving
In improvised music, the smallest moments can make or break an entire piece. Whether a satisfying payoff that legitimizes a meandering, ponderous development or a slight misstep that shatters an immaculately constructed soundscape, a few seconds of music is often all it takes to define the listening experience as a whole. On the newly released Brisk
As it opens with supple interplay between swirling soprano saxophone, droning bells and subtle percussion, the newest release by Saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Mike Reed, The Ritual and the Dance, is a testament to Mitchell’s rich musical language which has been slowly built through collaborations like this one for over 50 years. Roscoe Mitchell has always
