It gives me great pleasure listening to any vibraphonist and marimbist, and though I’ve written about them a few times in my career, I feel that the quality of what I am learning in this new digital age is only getting stronger in terms of searching out new and rarely spoken about musicians. As someone
More than likely it’ll be January of 2021 by the time you read this. And while all of us have struggled to find ways to cope with the virus, loss of work, countless deaths, being stuck at home, breathing through masks, continued racial and gender-based violence, and the general feeling of impending doom, it must
South African artist and academic, Selby Mvusi, reflecting on the performance of sub-Saharan Africa bushmen, argued that there is a degree of precision inherent to natural vision and perception is something that can be learned. Put differently, our visualisation can be trained and by extension here, our visual sense in so far as it relates to sound can be precisioned. If sound is understood as a concrete visual sense, then we can begin to think infinitely about what we hear
Through the broader lens of sounds coming out of South Africa, the Wretched sit at the periphery. But when listening to the rage emanating through their debut album, they’re situated right at the centre of the chaos and contradiction of daily life in the country. The album captures the feeling of a generation dealing with
I recently had the opportunity to talk with saxophonist Sarah Hughes. Having released her second record as a leader, The Drag, in late 2019, she continues to experiment and explore new areas of her sound. This interview focuses on her creative process, her approach to experimentation, and where Ms. Hughes intends to go next. Cisco
Watching Aquiles Navarro establish himself on the New York music scene over the past six years has been fascinating. He’s a singular voice on trumpet and has been a transformative presence in every ensemble of which he is a part. His most well-known projects are a duo with Brooklyn-born drummer Tcheser Holmes and the collaborative
In the late 1960s, the Black Unity Trio exploded onto the free jazz scene comprised of saxophonist Yusuf Mumin, cellist Abdul Wadud, and drummer Hasan Shahid. Based primarily in Cleveland, the band toured in various parts of the United States, especially on college campuses with active Black student organizations. The band exemplified some of the
I had the oppotunity to speak with guitarist Lucas Brode earlier this month about the record, A Vague Sense of Virtue that he released with drummer Kevin Shea on September 25. I previously reviewed the band during a live performance at the Troost in 2018. The record is available on Bandcamp. Cisco Bradley: What was
Today, Heart of the Ghost releases a new record, their fourth, Live at Rhizome. Heart of the Ghost is a collaborative trio of alto saxophonist Jarrett Gilgore, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Ian McColm. I had the pleasure of booking them for one of their first gigs at my loft concert series, New Revolution Arts,
“The primary duty of an entertainer is to entertain. So he thinks first and foremost of making the audience happy. And in fact, the other thing about being honest to himself doesn’t have to enter into it at all. But I think when we enter into the realm of true folk music – which I
