Pascal Niggenkemper’s Le 7eme Continent Talking Trash (Clean Feed, 2016) Players like bassist-composer Pascal Niggenkemper exemplify the fact that, while there is undeniably a New York jazz scene, creative music in the boroughs is about so much more than just geography. While he now calls Paris home, Niggenkemper, who is of French-German descent and studied
Drummer/Composer Tyshawn Sorey has made a significant impact on the improvised music scene for years. Spread across two CDs, his latest project The Inner Spectrum of Variables is a bold and ambitious piece of work that unravels throughout multiple movements, forging a working link between the worlds of composition and free improvisation. Toeing the line
Earth Tongues, a trio consisting of Joe Moffett (trumpet, other objects), Dan Peck(tuba, bells, tape), and Carlo Costa (percussion, other objects) released their second record, the double-disc Ohio, at the art gallery Happy Lucky no. 1, on Thursday night. All three members of the band displayed their sensitivity as listeners, their imaginative abilities as improvisers,
Just a handful of times in any given generation, there is a record that screams out with such overwhelming force, such a level of unwavering vitality, a product of the organic creative process made necessary by the social context of the artistry, that it demands we all stop what we are doing and give it
The Darkseid Recital AUM Fidelity (CD/DL) Personnel: Darius Jones (alto saxophone) Matthew Shipp (piano) Track Listing: Celestial Fountain 2,327,694,748 Granny Goodness Gardens of Yivaroth Lords of Woe Life Equation Sepulchre of Mandrakk Divine Engine Novu’s Final Gift Saxophonist Darius Jones and pianist Matthew Shipp shine in their second collaboration. They both deliver stellar performances on
Bobby Kapp & Matthew Shipp Cactus (Northern Spy, 2016) The art of ensemble is one of the most fascinating aspects of improvised music to me and any ensemble that includes piano seems almost doubly so. Why? The range of the piano is so large, both in pitch and timbre, and typically requires both hands, which
One of multi-instrumentalist and composer Taylor Ho Bynum‘s great talents is picking the right people to work together in an ensemble such as his long-standing sextet or his ambitious PlusTet. With Rank Sentimentalist, he has done it again–bringing cellist Marika Hughes, guitarist Evan Patrick (previously working under the name Evan O’Reilly, from Bynum’s first sextet
The decade-plus pairing of tenor saxophonist/bass clarinetist Keefe Jackson and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz has stood as a fruitful and prolific relationship. The Jazz duo is a unique and challenging undertaking, too often the duo format can leave even the most gifted players and composers in an uphill battle to push against the inherent limitation of
Our Earth / Our World (pfMentum) Personnel Peter Kuhn (alto and tenor sax, Bb clarinet) Dave Sewelson (baritone and sopranino sax) Larry Roland (bass) Gerald Cleaver (drums) Track List Our Earth 25:22 Our World 12:36 It Matters 11:07 Review This performance happened as part of the Arts For Art. The musicians on this record date
Guitarist Ava Mendoza has been part of the Brooklyn creative music scene since relocating east from the Bay Area in 2013, and rapidly became a vital part of a sub-category of musicians blurring the lines between rigorous composition, oddball rock and free music (think: drummers Weasel Walter and Nick Podgurski, bassist Tim Dahl, etc.). The
