Concert Reviews

Review: Big Ears Festival

For years, I have been meaning to attend the Big Ears Festival which is held annually in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is one of the premier music festivals in the United States featuring cutting-edge, thought-provoking, and experimental music. This year was my first time at the festival and I was impressed by the range of music

Viktor Le Givens and Angel Bat Dawid at BRIC Jazzfest

Angel Bat Dawid and Viktor Le Givens Perform Suite Harriet at BRIC Jazzfest

After time spent visiting the estate of Harriet Tubman in Auburn, New York, Viktor Le Givens and Angel Bat Dawid presented a new work, Suite Harriet, on the main stage of BRIC Jazzfest in Brooklyn on the 21st of October. Le Givens’ work seeks to deepen and broaden our contact with the “etheric realm” through

Tilt Brass with Zeena Parkins at Pioneer Works

Tilt Brass managed to fill the Pioneer Works performance space with sound and people in Red Hook on October 12th. Their performance was the 12th in a monthly series called False Harmonics put on by Pioneer Works highlighting new improvisational music. Tilt Brass, an ensemble led by trombonist and composer Chris McIntyre, performed pieces by

Review: Cohen, Wallace, Wesely & Shea at Pine Box Rock Shop Feb 4, 2019

The Variousound Sessions series at Pine Box Rock Shop featured an improvised set by saxophonist Ben Cohen, Korg electronicist Eli Wallace, guitarist Drew Wesely, and drummer Kevin Shea. This ensemble pitted three younger artists who have emerged on the Brooklyn scene over the past few years–Cohen, Wallace, and Wesely–pitted with the veteran Shea who has

Review: No Land and Joanna Mattrey, Performances at LaMaMa and Spectrum

Poet No Land has surged onto the scene over the past couple of years, performing in duos, trios, or solo, mesmerizing audiences with her precise diction and incisive commentary. Joanna Mattrey has been performing in New York the better part of a decade in a number of contexts, including solo sets, and has worked in

Azumi Oe, Sean Ali, and Carlo Costa at Triskelion Arts, January 11, 2019

For the opening night of the Never Before Never Again Fest at Triskelion Arts on January 11, the regular duo of dancer Azumi Oe and bassist Sean Ali teamed up with percussionist Carlo Costa for a deep synthesis of sound and movement. Oe is an evocative movement artist who improvises her movements with incredible grace

VAX to the Future

VAX lit things up at De-construkt on Saturday night. The room was packed and, as always with a VAX performance, there was considerable chatter within the audience before they took the stage about what might occur. VAX events are more than a simple concert, they are an event, one that is a bit more of

Review: Anna Webber Solo at Spectrum, Jan 4, 2019

As the second set at Spectrum on January 4 (following the trio of Kate Gentile, Brandon Seabrook, and Matt Mitchell that I reviewed yesterday), tenor saxophonist Anna Webber played “five short pieces.” In the course of her set, she demonstrated the many different forms her music can take. The first piece opened with high-pitched repetition