#matthew shipp string trio | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

northcountryprimitive · 4 years

Text

The North Country Primer #5: Nic Garcia, Saint Paul, MN

Originally published at North Country Primitive in May 2015

Our latest edition of North Country Primer features Nic Garcia, a St Paul-based player who arrived at guitar soli by way of several albums of Americana-tinged folk singer-songwriting. His latest two outings have consisted of a series of almost cinematic minimalist portraits, beautifully evoking a journey through the rural byways of his home state of North Dakota.

Tell us a bit about yourself and the musical journey that took you to a place where you concluded that playing an acoustic guitar on your own was a good idea.. I'm from the upper Midwest. I was born in North Dakota and currently I’m living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My musical journey began in the late 70s at the age of four, when I got some 8 track tapes from my uncle and ever since then it's been pretty much non-stop. I started plucking and banging on the guitar at around fourteen. In the early 90s I began to write my own songs and recorded a couple of lo-fi tapes as an acoustic songwriter and also with an indie band called Boy Sale. From the late 90s to late 2000s, I continued to perform both solo, doing the singer with an acoustic thing, and also with a louder project called Sin Horses. Sin Horses either consisted as a two-piece (guitar, drums and a heavy load of amplifiers) or as a three-piece with two guitars and drums. In that time I also released the music that is available on my website. At the moment I have taken the Guitar Soli path. What has influenced your music and why? Musically, there have been a few artists that stand out for me as influences in how I approach songwriting and playing: Nick Drake, Jason Molina, Simon Joyner, Paul Erickson (Vaz/Hammerhead), Matthew Shipp and John Fahey. When I began doing the singer-songwriter thing, I was floored when I first heard Nick Drake. For me, his guitar and voice was the perfect sound in acoustic music. I consider his music and playing to be the biggest musical influence on me. In 2008, I became spiritually and musically disillusioned. I got into this phase where I started to reject structured music and began to listen to avant-garde, free jazz, noise and sounds from the John Cage school of thought. During that phase, I still managed to play singer songwriter gigs and released two vocal and guitar based recordings – Kindling and under the moniker of Wooded Hearts, Metanoia. I had a spiritual conversion in 2010 and coming out of all that disillusionment I had been going through, I took notice of solo guitar music. There was a freedom I found in approaching music with just a guitar and nothing else that was incredibly liberating for me. The first solo guitar artists who turned the page for me were John Fahey, Michael Gulezian and Ralph Towner. I released a free form solo guitar two song recording called Trail County Phantasma, which was my first venture into solo guitar. My latest solo guitar release is called Rural Sketches,which consists of five solo guitar meditations on the rural landscape of eastern North Dakota where I grew up. Growing up in eastern North Dakota has influenced that desolate sound that has been in most of my music. What have you been up to recently? Right now my wife and I are raising our two children and are expecting our third at the end of July. I am playing some solo guitar gigs with a great community of solo guitar musicians here in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area. What are you listening to right now, old or new? Any recommendations you’d like to share with us? Right now I've been mostly listening to jazz and solo guitar music. Recently on my jazz listening list has been late period Coltrane, Jim Hall Trio, Bill Evans, William Parker, Andrew Hill and Anthony Braxton. For the recent solo guitar listening: Nick Jonah Davis, Nick Castell, Marcus Eads, Ralph Towner, Matt Sowell and Daniel Bachman. I just picked up and have been floored by John Fahey’s Fare Forward Voyager's (Soldiers Choice) release from ’73. The guitar nerd bit: what guitars do you play and what do you like about them? Is there anything out there you’re coveting? Man, I've lost so much money and gone through so many guitars through the years. I'm the type of guy who would trade a $1400 guitar for a $300 guitar, based on how it sounds - which I have done. I’m now down to three guitars which are considered beginner’s guitars: a Recording King ROS-06 with a K&K pure mini pickup installed, a Danelectro U1 (1st reissue) and a U2 (1st reissue). The Recording King ROS-06 is a great guitar for fingerstyle with the wide string spacing, and to me it sounds incredible for what it is. I have not recorded with that one yet. The two Danelectros have stuck with me the longest. They are chambered bodied electric guitars, which I love. I am a sucker for low budget oddball gear. Traill County Phantasma was recorded on a Loar LO-16 and Rural Sketches on a La Patrie Collection nylon string. Both The Loar and La Patrie came and went fast. I am dreaming of someday getting an American Guild M20. Banjos: yes or no? Only if Paul Metzger is playing one. What are you planning to do next? I aim to keep on playing local shows, make another solo recording and hopefully release it by fall, plant a garden and buy a new pair of cowboy boots. What should we have asked you and didn’t? Best action hero - Chuck Norris!

You can check out Nic's music on Bandcamp.

#nic garcia #american primitive

0 notes

opsikpro · 4 years

Text

Matthew Shipp String Trio - Symbolic Realty (RogueArt, 2019) ****1/2

Matthew Shipp String Trio – Symbolic Realty (RogueArt, 2019) ****1/2

[ad_1]

By Olle Lawson

Matthew Shipp – Piano. Mat Maneri – Viola. William Parker – Double Bass.

“True symbiosis” (Dalachinsky, liner notes)

The latest Shipp offering comes in the unusual formation of piano and double strings, and somehow evokes an American music older than the 20th century New Orleans inception, whist remaining utterly contemporary.

‘Central Flame’ bows open amongst spare…

View On WordPress

0 notes

newssplashy · 6 years

Text

Entertainment: Lil Peep's sweet gloom, and 8 more new songs

Lonely and sweet, Lil Peep’s voice is a tragic balm on “4 Gold Chains,” one of the few full songs released since his overdose death in November.

Pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos.

Lil Peep featuring Clams Casino, ‘4 Gold Chains’

Lonely and sweet, Lil Peep’s voice is a tragic balm on “4 Gold Chains,” one of the few full songs released since his overdose death in November. Over a spacey, lurching Clams Casino beat, Lil Peep sings with almost a 1950s girl-group sweetness: “Fame bring pain, but the pain make money.” The video features old footage of him walking down London streets, wearing Beavis and Butt-Head Doc Martens.

— JON CARAMANICA

Mitski, ‘Geyser’

A love song that sounds like rowdy ground warfare, “Geyser” is the first song from the forthcoming Mitski album, “Be the Cowboy.” Her punchy guitar shredding is gone, replaced with ethereal dream-pop cut with industrial tension. “I will be the one you need,” she sings, “and I just can’t be/ without you.” But she doesn’t sound happy.

— JON CARAMANICA

André 3000, ‘Me & My (To Bury Your Parents)’

On Mother’s Day, André 3000 of Outkast released two tracks: an extended instrumental elegy for piano (James Blake) and bass clarinet (André) called “Look Ma No Hands,” and the song “Me & My (To Bury Your Parents).” The song is crooned, not rapped, mostly over piano chords reminiscent of Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” as André sings reminiscences of ordinary moments with his parents, both now dead: driving to the grocery store with his mother, driving to a football game with his father. “I was much happier when he was around,” he realizes. The chords keep going, as if they might offer solace; a full minute later, he muses, “Me and my mother, me and my father” and then “Me and my …” They’re gone.

— JON PARELES

Thomas Bartlett and Nico Muhly, ‘Festina’

“Festina” is from “Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music,” the new album of song-length collaborations by composers Thomas Bartlett (sometimes known as Doveman) and Nico Muhly. “Chaos beckons,” Bartlett gently sings, but he’s belying the orderly intricacy of the music’s minimalistic fabric of propulsive, gamelan-like bell tones, string-ensemble chords and pizzicati and wraithlike backing vocals, transparent yet rigorous.

— JON PARELES

Henry Threadgill 14 or 15 Kestra: Agg, ‘Dirt Part III’

Henry Threadgill, a Pulitzer Prize-winning saxophonist, flutist and composer, released two anticipated albums on Friday. “Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus” features tuba, saxophones, cello, drums and three pianos, all playing parts that feel balanced and spacious and give each other enough room to land a plane. On the other album, “Dirt … And More Dirt,” he is working with a bigger group, 15 pieces, conjuring denser movement and thicker harmony. It has the large scale and stubborn persistence of Walter De Maria’s “Earth Room” — Threadgill’s inspiration for the album — an installation of 140 tons of dirt at a gallery in Manhattan, New York, where it has remained since 1977, when Threadgill’s star on the New York scene was just emerging.

— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Sam Hunt, ‘Downtown’s Dead’

A melancholy number grand enough to reach the cheap seats in the stadium, “Downtown’s Dead” is the first song country superstar Sam Hunt has released since last year’s world-killer “Body Like a Back Road.” It is in the great tradition of country songs that understand that when the person you love leaves a place, the place all but ceases to exist: “As long as you’re still in my head/ There ain’t no way that I can paint a ghost town red.”

— JON CARAMANICA

Arturo Sandoval featuring Pharrell Williams and Ariana Grande, ‘Arturo Sandoval’

Cuban jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval earned countless well-known fans after he defected to the United States in 1990, and some join him on his pop-centric “Ultimate Duets” album, released Friday. Collaborators include American pop figures like Stevie Wonder and Josh Groban as well as Latin pop names like Juan Luis Guerra and Alejandro Sanz, but the most unexpected names on the roster must be Pharrell Williams and Ariana Grande. Williams wrote, and Grande sings, a song praising the trumpeter himself, and while the lyrics strain — “His melodies wash up on your mind just like seashells” — the music, a reggaeton-crisped update of a Latin big band, features plenty of Sandoval’s airborne trumpet.

— JON PARELES

Lil Baby, ‘First Class’

The new Lil Baby mixtape “Harder Than Ever” has impressive guest appearances by Drake, Gunna, Lil Uzi Vert and more, but this sprightly standout has no distractions. It is about the pleasures of transactional love — money might change hands, but that doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful, as is clear when Lil Baby coos, “Let’s have a baby and name it Dior.”

— JON CARAMANICA

Daniel Carter, William Parker and Matthew Shipp, ‘Seraphic Light, Pt. 1’

This new trio of longtime collaborators has achieved something special with “Seraphic Light,” a live disc titled after a performance by John Coltrane. Parker, 66, a quietly indispensable free-jazz bassist, does not play delicately. He is in the Charles Mingus tradition, a thumping perambulator, sometimes playing the instrument almost like a guimbri. And on piano, Shipp works in sharp shots and splatters, leaning hard into Parker, locking in with the bass but not embracing. Lain across the top, switching between saxophones, trumpet, flute and clarinet, is Carter, a picture of patience and warm power.

— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/05/entertainment-lil-peeps-sweet-gloom-and.html

#News

0 notes

matwalerian · 7 years

Photo

Something Else - EDITOR's PICK - review on the front - Toxic | Mat Walerian Matthew Shipp William Parker "This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People"- by S. Victor Aaron

"... a lethal trio aptly called Toxic ... This Is Beautiful kills not with kindness or brutality but by the three mentally meeting on some spiritual plane speaking a dialect that only exists in that moment."

"Shipp and Parker bring a whole lot of jazz history and a long partnership dating back to their time together in David S. Ware’s Quartet ... Walerian brings something naturally that many avanteers can’t: an innate feel for the direction of a song that comes entirely from within. "

"... a lot of moments where you don’t know what to expect, except that ingenuity will always be involved."

"The most interesting part comes when his sax conjures up ghosts of Lester Young and Johnny Hodges while Parker makes short, abrupt saws... Walerian’s alto leads the trio on a sometimes-tumultuous ride, and his one-on-one with Parker exchanging darting notes is a highlight."

A little more than two years ago, Mat Walerian didn’t have a single album to his name but now the Polish multi-reedist can boast a trio of ambitious, imposing recordings. This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People continues his streak of partnering with Matthew Shipp for his accomplice on piano and sticks with the fabled ESP-Disk record label, too. Walerian also calls up bass chief William Parker for his third project but this time, Parker isn’t writing the liner notes; he’s pulled right into the action.

Making up a lethal trio aptly called Toxic, Walerian, Shipp and Parker convened in a studio as opposed to the concert recordings of The Uppercut and Jungle. This Is Beautiful kills not with kindness or brutality but by the three mentally meeting on some spiritual plane speaking a dialect that only exists in that moment. Shipp and Parker bring a whole lot of jazz history and a long partnership dating back to their time together in David S. Ware’s Quartet to the Toxic mix. As a self-taught musician, Walerian brings something naturally that many avanteers can’t: an innate feel for the direction of a song that comes entirely from within.

Perhaps even more so than the other Walerian records, there doesn’t seem to be any prescribed roles for any of the participants; everyone plays multiple instruments assuming responsibilities that are fluid and based on intuition. That creates a lot of moments where you don’t know what to expect, except that ingenuity will always be involved. “Lesson,” in fact, is instruction on going against expectations: Walerian initiates the proceedings on a flute, accompanied by Parker not on bass but a Japanese shakuhachi flute. The Pole pushes and probes while Shipp and Parker say more with less. Eventually though, the bassist does migrate over to his bass, keeping his circumspect demeanor intact.

A third side of Parker is displayed on the second track: his furious bow launches “The Breakfast Club Day 1” and as he begins to draw out his notes, Walerian’s candied alto saxophone comes into focus. The most interesting part comes when his sax conjures up ghosts of Lester Young and Johnny Hodges while Parker makes short, abrupt saws. Later on, Shipp takes Parker’s spot with long, flowing, linear strings of notes. Parker’s bow scrapes also serve as the forward for “The Breakfast Club Day 2,” which are a little less caustic and a little jauntier this time. Walerian’s alto leads the trio on a sometimes-tumultuous ride, and his one-on-one with Parker exchanging darting notes is a highlight.

After a masterly Parker monologue, Walerian devises pretty, melodic fragments through his clarinet for “This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People” and Shipp responds with thoughtful expressions that blend in easily with Walerian and a bowing Parker. A bass clarinet brushes darker hues on “Peace and Respect” and Shipp’s surprising organ adds cool tones; Parker’s restless bass pushes against otherwise relaxed moods. But the terrain alters when the clarinet is replaced by alto sax and a plucked bass with a bowed bass and at the very end, the organ is dispensed with in favor of piano.

This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People is a set of performances that succeed because the Toxic musicians place all trust on instinct and the instincts of others. Composition is an end result not a means, instrumentation is dynamic not rigid, and music not bound by either becomes the order of the day.

read full review here :

http://somethingelsereviews.com/2017/06/21/toxic-mat-walerian-matthew-shipp-william-parker-beautiful-beautiful-people-2017/

#FatCatsDoItInBrooklyn #SupremeDreamTeam #TripleTrouble #EveryDogHasItsDayButItDoesntMatterBecauseFatCatIsGettingFatter #GiveItToYouRaw #matwalerian #matthewshipp #williamparker #steveholtje #espdisk #ThisIsBeautifulBecauseWeAreBeautifulPeople #valjeanty #victoraaron #somethingelse #somethingelsereviews #onthefront

0 notes

tinymixtapes · 7 years

Text

Interview: Matthew Shipp: Piano Phases

To participate in the life of playing creative music is to participate in what is, ideally, a very long course of study and refinement. While a collective music in most instances, the art often results in extended periods of solitary work, whether communing with an instrument’s truest sound and innate possibilities, or tracing the structure of an arc that will be buoyed by individual players. Pianist Matthew Shipp, born in Wilmington on December 7, 1960, is no stranger to solitude despite decades of collaboration. In 2016, I interviewed Shipp about what was next for him, following an extraordinary week at venerable Lower East Side performance space The Stone (which is closing in early 2018), and he answered, “If I had complete freedom to do what I want, meaning enough money, to be honest I’d like to become a complete recluse and hardly be seen in public — that’s my goal, just to keep practicing. I do like playing with people but I basically want to be a recluse like Carlos Castañeda. I’m going to be 60 in four years and there’s not much I’m interested in other than being a help to a few people, doing my music… If I could work when I wanted, and there wasn’t a minute that I had to be on the road, I might end up working in a soup kitchen and be happy.” Shipp’s current trio with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker has just released its latest disc on Thirsty Ear, Piano Song, on the heels of 2015’s The Conduct of Jazz. At 56, his recording schedule is still rather dense, perhaps akin to a finishing sprint. In addition to dates as a leader, he’s collaborated frequently on disc with Brazilian tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman; convened a duo with the veteran drummer Bobby Kapp; recorded with the Houston-NYC Core Trio; played the music of saxophonist/composer and historian Allen Lowe; and cultivated a partnership with the British-German duo of saxophonist John Butcher and electronic artist Thomas Lehn. All of this is far from ascetic activity, and speaks to broad-minded involvement in contemporary improvisational possibilities. Shipp’s music professes both restlessness and a great degree of calm through interlocking shapes that helm a rugged, continually shifting pool, whether solo or with other improvisers. On record, there often are vignettes or small chunks that break up ensemble flow into unaccompanied or duo statements, though in a live setting these emerge organically, signposts that jut and recede. These markers may be familiar Shipp compositions or standards from the books of Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, or John Coltrane: “That [variance] is the idea — you eat steak, eggs, and salad but you don’t necessarily want them all at once. You want to metabolize them — it’s the same thing, you eat Ellington or Monk but you digest it and want it to become part of your system.” Photo: Peter Gannushkin Shipp spent 16 years as part of David S. Ware Quartet, where the book was primarily credited to the saxophonist and leader, though the group operated cooperatively. First convened in 1990, the unit was filled out by William Parker on contrabass and a cast of drummers including Marc D. Edwards, Whit Dickey, Susie Ibarra, and Guillermo E. Brown. Touring frequently and cutting 18 well-received albums for labels like Silkheart, Homestead, DIW, Aum Fidelity, NoBusiness, and Columbia, the Ware Quartet helped ensure Shipp’s place in the international free-music community. The group itself posed a steely facade that joined brusque, post-Sonny Rollins tenor shouts with yawing rhythms and chordal-melodic planes. Here the pianist’s position veered between gospel, athletic pointillism, and crashing, splintered and allover clusters, and built on the instrument’s ensemble role qua Cecil Taylor, Jaki Byard, McCoy Tyner, and Herbie Hancock, calling home accessible anthems before chugging into the stratosphere. Though in terms of both personality and sonic stature Ware’s sublime leap might seem a tough act to follow, Shipp also worked in the bands of vanguard saxophonists like Roscoe Mitchell and Evan Parker, and has appeared with altoist Jemeel Moondoc, a somewhat lesser-known but crucial reedist in New York’s jazz underground. Curious in this light is his collaboration with Allen Lowe, who was until last year based in Portland, Maine, and this work resulted in several recordings culminating in Matthew Shipp Plays the Music of Allen Lowe (Constant Sorrow, 2015). “He’s a really idiosyncratic composer and his tunes are very strangely written, with a lot of craft, but they’re different and you’ve gotta really practice because they don’t fall into your hands,” Shipp says of Lowe. “I really liked working on those pieces and trying to develop a sound for them — they are really valuable.” If the piano parts are Monkish, Lowe’s music otherwise calls to mind the rigor of saxophonist-composer Julius Hemphill and the rough-hewn edges of Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop. At present the pianist is committed to playing his own music first and foremost, and that which, like Ellington or Monk, has formed his musical concept. As a composer, Shipp’s tunes exert themselves primarily as a function of duo and (especially) trio formations, generally in the classic format of piano, bass, and drums, a structure which supported the work of influential pianist-composers like Bill Evans and Ahmad Jamal. Treating the piano as a tool of synapse rearrangement through ornate and crushing polarity, Shipp has a special relationship with rhythm players — drummers like Whit Dickey, Guillermo Brown, and the more traditional freedom of Bobby Kapp, as well as recent partner Newman Taylor Baker. Baker is 18 years Shipp’s senior, and has an extensive history in the music. Coming out of the Philadelphia-Wilmington jazz milieu, Baker brings a loose, country-inspired drawl to the drums, linked partly to his “free” approach to the washboard (Baker’s roots are in Mississippi, Ohio, and Virginia), and his time is filled with shuffling detail. For the pianist, “When I was like 12 or 13 I would go out and see Newman all the time. I never talked to him then, but even when he was in Philly, I’d see him play gigs since it was 20 minutes away, with [guitarist] Monnette Sudler and other people. I started bumping into him later in New York; I played with him on the Jemeel Moondoc record on Relative Pitch [Zookeeper’s House, 2013] — that was the first time we actually played together — and from that I knew he’d be the next drummer in my band when Whit left.” Bisio and Shipp have developed their relationship into a taut game of resolute exploration and pure emotion, as the bassist digs in and dances with his instrument, nearly laying it to the floor as he grapples and gleams. Compared with the pianist’s lanky economy, they present a visual and sonic complement. “I’m not a control freak and that’s partly because my bands I trust so much,” Shipp says, “and that’s a part of an ensemble, the trust of the members. Given that I do trust them so much I don’t really try to control things other than what I can do as a leader, to some degree, from the instrument.” Whether joined by his regular trio or in other aggregations, Shipp’s performances land him in diverse locations, and he appears comfortable in Midtown jazz-club luxury such as Jazz At Lincoln Center or tiny Lower East Side venues like 5C Café. At The Stone in the summer of 2016 his working trio was the core of a week’s worth of music that focused on local duos and trios. Ivo Perelman and Darius Jones joined Shipp in saxophone and piano duets, and trios included longtime partners like William Parker, alto saxophonist Rob Brown, and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter; violist Mat Maneri; a reunion of the Gold Sparkle Duo with Shipp (who recorded one CD, Apostolic Polyphony, for the defunct Drimala imprint in 2003); and a trio with Bisio and trumpeter Nate Wooley. Brown is a key artist in Shipp’s development, as they began playing together in Boston in the mid-80s and shared studies with Philadelphian Dennis Sandole, one of Coltrane’s teachers. Shipp and Brown made their recorded debut in 1988 as a duo (Sonic Explorations, on Cadence) and have worked together over the ensuing decades. A dryly forceful player, Brown’s involved jounce created a spry foil for a stark, massed chamber of strings and wood, and his statements became more squirrelly and brittle the thicker Shipp and Parker’s demarcated weave got. Like several of the sets that week, a drummer was absent, but that did not stop the proceedings from skewing towards near-constant liftoff. Photo: Glen Tollington The studio is a place where Shipp has documented much of his work as a leader, though it is in a roomful of people — perhaps narrow, austere, and brick-walled like The Stone — where the music’s true evolution takes place. Piano Songs is likely not the last Shipp-helmed disc that will see the light of day but, the pianist is in the process of shifting his attention to more frequent live appearances and fewer releases, while maintaining status as jazz curator for Thirsty Ear. While it’s hard to say how long in this economy the label will last, Shipp brings an additional set of open ears to Peter Gordon’s long-running imprint. As Shipp puts it, “I want to exercise my choice in things, but I will be performing until I drop dead. But I am trying to wind down recording — I haven’t because when opportunities come up I need the money… Whatever that psychological need is to document oneself, for me it’s just a product of the opportunities that arise. To be quite honest I’m not touring as much as I should be, so I build time in the studio to compensate.” This isn’t really an abrupt change — the pianist has been increasingly visible onstage in the last few years, after a slight hiatus in the Millennium’s first decade — but a recalibration of energies in the basic art of live development. Of course, with the music industry in a state of upheaval when it comes to the notion of product, wherein physicality and the concept of an album that collects certain ideologic strands, perhaps now is the right time for renewed focus on the ephemeral — especially for an artist who built his career in part on releasing a copious amount of carefully conceived CDs. Thirsty Ear did give Shipp license to explore an interesting trajectory in the early 2000s within the Blue Series, a sub-label that in a number of cases joined improvisers with electronic and hip-hop musicians like Antipop Consortium, Spring Heel Jack, DJ Spooky, and El-P. Although Shipp hasn’t continued in this mode, he notes curiously, “One of my goals in doing that music was to play with Kool Keith — Dr. Octagon — because I love his music and I used to email him all the time, though he’d never return them… I used to want to play with Madlib a lot too and I’d email him but he never wrote back and I wanted to give a bunch of tracks to Amon Tobin to see what he could do with them, but we never met or got the chance.” Now, the closest he comes to electronic music is his work with Lehn and Butcher; the former has a pianist’s sense of orchestration, and their fall 2016 disc on Fataka, Tangle, is an aptly-named listen. At heart, though, Shipp is a jazz musician, even if the term is somewhat nebulous and ill-defined in the 21st century. “I think the older I’ve gotten, I definitely am much more interested in relating to a jazz phraseology than i was in the 1980s and 90s. It’s weird because I’ve listened to my old recordings and I can hear my thought processes — there are times I can tell that I didn’t want anything to do with jazz per se, whereas now I really relate to a swing feeling, even if the pulse is elongated. I don’t see that going away and I actually see that intensifying, unless I get into some post-jazz Satie realm or something… for example, I can’t relate to drums that don’t have that basic jazz essence. Maybe that’s why I like Bobby Kapp so much, because he’s such an authentic jazz drummer.” It makes sense to title a recording The Conduct of Jazz, for example, because as abstract as his music might get, there’s still a pulsative swing and a new language developed from forms as far-reaching as blues, a Latin feeling, the bebop idiom or pan-tonal exploration. None of these elements, solo or wrapped together, will be retiring any time soon. http://j.mp/2lJWtZb

0 notes

davidisen · 7 years

Text

NYC Music I Like Jan 18-24

...trad jazz, Gypsy, swing, bluegrass, choro etc. w/ folk roots & virtuoso ensemble playing... Explanation/disclaimer.

[Caution! Please verify with musician, venue, etc. before going. Send updata here.]

Allied music listings with overlapping tastes: Jim's Roots and Blues Calendar. Eileen's Lindy Blog - This Week in Swing.

Note: In these listings the three-valved brass instrument that Louis played will be called a cornet for the next four years (or as long as necessary).

This Week

Wednesday, Jan 18, 5:30 PM: David Ostwald's Louis Armstrong Eternity Band, Birdland (most Wednesdays) 7 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli's 91st Birthday w/ Bucky (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Shanghai Jazz, Madison NJ. 7 PM: Jeanne Gies (vocals) w/ Jack Wilkins (guitar). Andanada. 8 PM: Rebecca Kilgore (vocals), Ehud Asherie (piano). Mezzrow. 8 PM: Lisa Liu (solo guitar). Our Wicked Lady (153 Morgan Ave, Brooklyn). 8:30 PM: Andy Statman Trio w/ Andy (mandolin), Jim Whitney (bass), Larry Eagle (drums). Rockwood Three. 11 PM: Avalon Jazz Band hosts Hot Jazz & Gypsy Jam. The Keep. (most Wednesdays)

Thursday, Jan 19, 7:30 PM: Musicians Against Fascism, hosted by Arturo O’Farrill w/ Claudia Acuña, Fabian Almazan, Lakecia Benjamin, Stephan Crump, Peter Evans, Mary Halvorson, Vijay Iyer, Amirtha Kidambi, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Roy Nathanson and the jazz passengers, Matthew Shipp, Jen Shyu, Somi, The Westerlies and more. Symphony Space. Info/tix. 8 PM: Robert Edwards Organ Quartet w/ Rob (trombone), Charlie Sigler (guitar), Jared Gold (organ), Colby Inzer (drums). The Hyatt Regency, New Brunswick NJ. 8 PM: Terry Waldo Quartet w/ Terry (piano), others. Black Tail. 9 PM: Bjorn Ingelstam's Hot 5. Radegast. 9 PM: Gypsy jazz jam, Fada. (Most Thursdays.)

Friday, Jan 20, 8 PM: Joanna Sternberg (bass, vocals, songwriting, etc.) and Joe Cohn (guitar). Jalopy Tavern. 10:30 PM: Fridays at Mona’s, 14th & B.

Saturday, Jan 21, 11 AM: Timbalooloo Duo Concert Series w/ Oran Etkin (clarinet) w/ Foluso Mimi (djembe). National Sawdust. 11:30 AM: Molly Ryan Quartet. Tanner Smiths Tipsy Tea Jazz Brunch. (Most Saturdays.) 9:00 & 10:30 PM: Tim Clement (guitar), Ryan Weisheit (clarinet), Julian Smith (bass), Dani Danor (drums). Cornelia Street Cafe. 1 PM: Garden Party Quartet frequently with Emily Asher (trombone). (Most Saturdays.) Fraunces Tavern. 2 PM: Lisa Liu (guitar), Koran Agan (guitar). Rosamunde Sausage Grill (285 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn). 4 PM: Roy Williams & Friends. The Shanty. (Most Saturdays, personnel varies). 7 PM: David McKay (vocals). SuperNova at Novotel, Times Square. (Most Saturdays.) 8 PM: Eddie Barbash (sax), Sam Reider (accordion), Roy Williams (guitar), Alex Hargreaves (fiddle), Joe Saylor (percussion). The Roxy.

Sunday, Jan 22, 1 PM: Glenn Crytzer Trio w/ Glenn (guitar, banjo, vocals), Ian Hutchison (bass), Mike Davis (cornet). Bocca Di Bacco, 9th Ave in Chelsea (not the one on 9th Ave in Midtown!). (Most Sundays) 1:30 PM: Koran Agan (guitar), Eduardo Belo (bass), others. Radegast. (Most Sundays.) 5 PM: Roda de Choro hosted by Regional de NY. Beco. 6:30 PM: Glenn Crytzer (guitar, banjo, vocals), Mike Davis (cornet), others. Delilah, 155 Rivington. (Think Pegu in a new place!) (Most Sundays.) 7 PM: Andrew Willens (bass), Lisa Liu (guitar), Amos Rose (vocals, guitar). Superfine (126 Front St, Brooklyn). 7 PM: Sam Reider (accordion) & FutureFolkMusik. Barbes. 8 PM: The EarRegulars w/ Jon-Erik Kellso (cornet), others. The Ear. (Most Sundays.) 8 PM: Terry Waldo's Gotham City Band w/ Terry (piano), others. Fat Cat. 8:30 & 10 PM: Koran Agan (guitar), Eduardo Belo (bass), Raj Jayaveera (drums). Cornelia Street Cafe. 10 PM: Baby Soda Jazz Band w/ Jared Engel (banjo), others. St. Mazie. (Most Sundays.)

Monday, Jan 23, 7 PM: The Brain Cloud, this week with Dennis Lichtman (clarinet, mandolin), Matt Munisteri (guitar), Andrew Hall (bass), Raphael McGregor (lap steel guitar), and Kevin Dorn (drums). Barbes. (Most Mondays.) 7:30 & 9:30 PM: The Spirit of Django w/ Sam Reider (accordion), Justin Poindexter (guitar), Roy Williams (guitar), Eddie Barbash (sax), Alphonso Horne (cornet), Dave Speranza (bass) and Arthur Vint (drums). Dizzys. Info/tix. 7:30 PM: Tara O'Grady & the Black Velvet Band w/ Tara (vocals), Michael Howell (guitar), David Shaich (bass), Dan Lipsitz (reeds). Artisanal Bistro. (Most Mondays). 8 PM: Vince Giordano & his Nighthawks, with an array of the best traditional jazz musicians in New York, Iguana. (Most Mondays). 8:30 & 10 PM: Anouman w/ Koran Agan (guitar), Peter Sparacino (saxophone), Josh Kaye (rhythm guitar), Eduardo Belo (bass). Cornelia Street Cafe. 10 PM: Mona’s Bluegrass Jam, Mona’s, 14th & Avenue B (Most Mondays). 10 PM: Terry Waldo & The Rum House Jass Band w/ Terry (piano), Jon-Erik Kellso (cornet), Jim Fryer (trombone), Eddy Davis (tenor banjo) and frequently Dan Levinson (clarinet) & Molly Ryan (vocals). The Rum House. (Most Mondays).

Tuesday, Jan 24, 8 PM: Glenn Crytzer Trio. Radegast. 8 PM: Vince Giordano & his Nighthawks, with an array of the very best traditional jazz musicians in New York, Iguana. (Most Tuesdays). 8 PM: Tara O'Grady & the Black Velvet Band w/ Tara (vocals), Michael Howell (guitar), David Shaich (bass). Winnie’s Jazz Bar. (Most Tuesdays.) 8:30 PM: Vitor Gonçalves (piano, accordion). Rockwood Three. 10 PM: Michael Daves. Rockwood One. (Most Tuesdays). 10 PM: Svetlana & The Delancy Band, w/ Dalton Ridenhour (piano), others. Brooklyn Speakeasy at Bedford Hall, 1177 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn. (Tuesdays until further notice.) 11 PM: Mona’s Hot Jazz Jam, hosted by Mona’s Hot Four. This week the Original Hot Four are back, to wit, Dennis Lichtman (clarinet, etc.), Gordon Webster (piano), Nick Russo (guitar, banjo) & Jared Engel (bass). Mona’s, 14th & Avenue B.

Future

Jan 25, 7 PM: Dan Levinson (clarinet), Mark Shane (piano), Kevin Dorn (drums). Shanghai Jazz, Madison NJ. 7 PM: Jeanne Gies (vocals) w/ Sandro Albert (guitar). Andanada. 8 PM: An Acoustic Evening with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt. Ridgefield Playhouse, Ridgefield CT. Tix on sale Nov 18. 9 PM: Danny Lipsitz & His Brass Tacks. Radegast.

Jan 26, 8 PM: Terry Waldo Quartet w/ Terry (piano), unknown others. Black Tail. 9 PM: Jason Prover and his Sneak Thievery Orchestra. Radegast.

Jan 27, 8 PM: The Brother Brothers w/ David Moss (guitar) and Adam Moss (fiddle) plus the Rad Trads w/ John & Michael Fatum. Rockwood Two. 8 PM: Joanna Sternberg (bass, vocals, songwriting, etc.) and Joe Cohn (guitar). Jalopy Tavern. 8 PM: Regional de NY. Barbes.

Jan 28, 8:30 PM: Trio Catarina. Forró from Northeastern Brazil. Bar LunAtico.

Jan 29, 7 PM: Eddie Barbash & His Orchestra. An upscale evening of music & food prepared by chef Andrew Carmellini. The Lafayette. Tix/info. 7 PM: Dennis Lichtman Trio w/ Dennis (clarinet, etc., etc., etc.), Jared Engel (banjo), Sean Cronin (bass). Superfine. 8 PM: Terry Waldo's Gotham City Band w/ Terry (piano), unknown others. Fat Cat.

Jan 30, 10 PM: Jim Campilongo Trio w/ Jim (electric guitar), Tony Scherr (bass) & Josh Dion (drums). Rockwood Two.

Jan 31, 9:30 PM: The Brass Tacks Trio w/ Danny Lipsitz (clarinet, sax). The Rum House.

Feb 7, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

Feb 8, 7 PM: Harry Allen Trio w/ Harry (sax). Shanghai Jazz, Madison NJ.

Feb 18, 11 AM: Timbalooloo Duo Concert Series w/ Oran Etkin (clarinet) and mystery guest. National Sawdust.

Feb 26, 1 PM: The Anat Cohen Quartet. Cole Auditorium, Greenwich Library, Greenwich CT. 6:30 PM: Frank Vignola (guitar), Olli Soikkeli (guitar), Jason Anick (violin). Sarah’s Wine Bar. Ridgefield CT. Call for reservations: 203-438-8282 7 PM: Al Dimeola, 40th Anniversary of Elegant Gypsy. Paramount. Peekskill NY.

March 7, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

March 9, 9 PM: Sam Raderman Quartet w/ Sam (guitar), others. Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

March 18, Rhonda Vincent. Ramapo College, Mahwah NJ. Info/tix.

March 22, Chris Eldridge & Julian Lage plus Aoife O'Donovan. Fairfield Theatre Company, Fairfiend CT.

March 23, 9 PM (unconfirmed time): Jon-Erik Kellso Quartet. Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

April 11, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

April 20, 9 PM: Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo (guitars). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

May 9, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

June 6, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

-------

1 note · View note

adrianoesteves · 12 years

Text

Matthew Shipp String Trio — Organs

#music #jazz #Experimental #matthew shipp string trio

0 notes

dustedmagazine · 4 years

Text

Dust, Volume 6, Number 3

Matthew Shipp and Nate Wooley

We shoehorn another Dust into the end of a wintery month, putting politics, a global pandemic, bad weather and the final season of Better Call Saul aside to concentrate on the ever overwhelming flow of new music. This month spans the usual gamut of obscure but worthy genres, from free jazz to crunk to extreme noise to yet another take on Pachebel’s Canon. The clear star this month, though, is Matthew Shipp, who gets two slots for two different collaborations, and so commands our cover image. Writers include Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Ray Garraty, Ian Mathers, Justin Cober-Lake and Jonathan Shaw.

Lao Dan / Paul Flaherty / Randall Colbourne / Damon Smith — Live at Willimantic Records (Family Vineyard)

youtube

It’s a long way from China to Connecticut. But this quartet bridges the distance so masterfully, you would not know that it’s not only the first time they’ve played together; it’s the first time that alto saxophonist, bamboo flute, and suona player Lao Dan played in the United States. The musicians bring a combination of deep knowledge and fresh potential to the encounter. Saxophonist Paul Flaherty and drummer Randall Colbourne have been playing together for decades, keeping the free jazz torch lit in times and places around New England where no one else knew what the fuck they were doing, let alone appreciated the fact that they were doing it. Lao Dan may be half their age, but since he’s spent his musical career playing in China’s major cities, he knows the experience of playing in an uncomprehending environment just as well. When he plays alto, he certainly sounds well acquainted with the conventions of free jazz, matching Flaherty’s growls and cries with aplomb. And while the moments when he plays traditional Chinese instruments sound distanced from free jazz convention, he finds space and rhythmic footing to make real contributions within the fertile matrix of force and rhythm laid out by Flaherty, Colbourne, and double bassist Damon Smith (at the time a Massachusetts resident, since relocated to St. Louis).

Bill Meyer

demitasse — Perfect Life (Bedlamb)

Perfect Life by demitasse

demitasse is the quiet alter-ago of Buttercup’s Erik Sanden and Joe Reyes. Though there are a couple of lo-fi rockers here, the main tenor is tremulous, emotive and rather lovely, with spider silk melodies that look wispy but turn out to have a fair amount of tensile strength. Take for instance, “Coming Out Wrong Again,” a gently delivered slip of a song framed in the barest frame of strumming, in a well-weathered voice with creaks in the corners. And yet, as it rolls on diffidently, the tune picks up momentum, and the chorus wreathes the title phrase in harmonies in a way that might remind you of Carissa’s Wierd or its successor Grand Archives. Which is to say, in a way that seems inevitable and right. In the more amplified parts, the singer picks up a bit of Jonathan Richman’s whimsied warble and drums kick through scratchier, more aggressive guitar playing. “Free Solo (for Alex Honnold)” (yes the rock climber) is perhaps the brashest and less constrained of these cuts, imbued with the muffled mania of its title character and approaching Chad VanGaalen’s whacked out tunefulness. The title cut, like most of the album, celebrates small lapidary moments – the singer’s dad cutting his hair— and their weight in memory. There’s a resonance to the smallest sounds here, and a significance in elliptical lines. demitasse is a small cup of wonder, just sitting there on the kitchen table in the midst of life itself.

Jennifer Kelly

Duke Deuce — Memphis Massacre 2 (Quality Control Music)

youtube

After the viral hit “Crunk Ain’t Dead” Tennessee rapper Duke Deuce dropped a full tape which got endorsed by Lil Jon, Project Pat and Juicy J. These Dirty South legends jumped on the remix of “Crunk Ain’t Dead”, a song that is literally supposed to slaughter strip clubs all the way up from Memphis to Canadian border. Crunk’s been leading zombie-ish life, being if not fully then almost dead for years. It’s hard to predict if Memphis Massacre 2 will spur a wave of neocrunk but even if it won’t, it will remain a gutsy punch to the soft rap belly. The slower songs on the tape, like “Trap Blues”, are weaker efforts as they are lost among same-y Southern rap ballads.

Ray Garraty

Arto Lindsay / Ken Vandermark / Joe McPhee / Phil Sudderberg—Largest Afternoon (Corbett Vs. Dempsey)

Largest Afternoon by Lindsay/Vandermark/McPhee/Sudderberg

After decades of frequent partnership, Joe McPhee and Ken Vandermark have attained the level where they are being recruited for dream teams. Astral Spirits recently released Invitation to a Dream, a specially commissioned meeting between the two multi-horn players and pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn. And now comes Largest Afternoon, by a quartet comprising McPhee, Vandermark, drummer Phil Sudderberg (Marker, Spirits Having Fun, Vibrating Skull Trio) and guitarist Arto Lindsay (DNA, Ambitious Lovers, his own bad self) at the behest of the record label / art gallery, Corbett Vs. Dempsey. If you’re hoping for a combination of free jazz and Brazilian pop, keep your dancing shoes in their box; this CD documents a first-time, no-net encounter. On the rare occasions when Lindsay opens his mouth, it’s to emit strangled phonemes; by comparison, his utterances with DNA seem positively Dylan-esque. But if you want to hear feedback squaring off against soulful reed-song, valve-pops peppering amp-coughs and interactions between percussion, strings, and wind that verge on the tectonic, Largest Afternoon will make your day.

Bill Meyer

Jason McMahon — Odd West (Shinkoyo)

Odd West by Jason McMahon

Odd West delivers extremely soft focus (bordering on new-age-y) instrumentals plus effected vocals from a one-time Skeletons mainstay. The main instrument is acoustic guitar, pristinely recorded and glossed with a radiant glow. McMahon, a jazz-trained guitarist, learned to finger pick for this record, and there’s something a bit studied about these cascading bouts of iridescent sound, a bit too perfect, a bit too glassy and calm. “Ambisinistrous” ebbs and flows in minor key fret flurries, McMahon all alone with the guitar and sounding rather good at it. “Sunshine for Locksmith” floats “lahs” and “ahs” and lullaby “wooh-ooh-oohs” over its placid surface, tilting golden dust-moted rays onto all natural motifs until it seems too good to be real. By the end, I’d give a lot for a string squeak or even a stray false note. It’s like the old descriptions of heaven in Sunday school, too pretty to seem like somewhere you’d want to live.

Jennifer Kelly

Donovan Quinn — Absalom (Soft Abuse)

Absalom by Donovan Quinn

Donovan Quinn has been a mainstay of the Bay Area’s hand-made, lo-fi folk-psych-rock scene for almost two decades through the Skygreen Leopards with Glenn Donaldson, in New Bums with Ben Chasny (who also plays here) , in the one-off Fuckaroos with Sonny Smith and Kelley Stoltz and on his own in the 13th Month. Regardless of project, you can count on him for hazily soft-focus not-quite-rock, not-quite folk songs, that drone like VU outtakes wreathed in patchouli smoke, edgeless and adrift and whispery. That’s more or less what he’s doing here, with a variety of SF-adjacent talent in tow, not just Chasny and Elisa Ambrogio but Papercuts Jason Quever and underground songwriters Eric Amerman and Michael Tapscott. But it’s Quinn’s show, really, with Quinn’s soft unhurried voice, his loosely coalescing arrangements of guitar fuzz, drums and chamber strings, his subtly off center way with lyrics. “Satanic Summer Nights,” sings urgently of “a game with no rules,” but it’s not quite that; rather it’s a game where the rules are buried like power lines under enveloping clouds of free-form smoke, feeding structure and electricity into what seems like a passing daydream.

Jennifer Kelly

Matthew Shipp String Trio — Symbolic Reality (Rogue Art)

Pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker, and violist Mat Maneri have a lengthy shared history, but Symbolic Reality is their first recording as a trio in 20 years. In its early years, this combo was the chamber music outlier of Shipp’s constellation of ensembles. But now the classical and jazz elements mix in his music like the eggs, flour and milk in your best cake batter. While it’s true that Maneri’s microtonal bowing still sets this apart from any other Shipp group, giving the music a unique pungency, the viola’s lack of auditory bulk is at least as important in defining the group sound. The presence of a third musician who is neither loud and nor chord-oriented induces Shipp to throttle back his attack a bit, which makes Parker’s foundational architecture stand out in bold relief; and the vinegary slurs in Maneri’s playing elicit a blues feeling that doesn’t often come to the fore in Shipp’s playing.

Bill Meyer

Matthew Shipp and Nate Wooley — What If? (Rogue Art)

Pianist Matthew Shipp and trumpet player Nate Wooley know how to surprise, creating both compositions and tones that get to weird places. The two have worked together before, but recent release What If? marks their first work as a duo. Shipp provided the composition, but it's clearly a two-man answer to the question. The artists touch on some more typical jazz modes, trading leads or letting Wooley play a melody over Shipp's broad chords. More intriguingly, they feed off each other's moods. Wooley doesn't shy from abrasive sounds, and on cuts like “Ktu,” Shipp matches his grating approach. “The Angle” plays with jittery space; Shipp's chords largely traded in for flutters that go with Wooley's reserved blips. Highlight “Space Junk” puts all the musicality and the enjoyment of the odd together. The duo plays a few moments that sound trad, then go for something avant, then turn somewhere new as ideas and moods run away from them. At times Wooley sounds like he wants to soundtrack a casual night out, and at times he wants to smash it; both of them find the whole enterprise entertaining. The “What if?” question remains open-ended, but the answer comes very specifically from these two artists, and it's more than sufficient for whatever's been asked.

Justin Cober-Lake

Sightless Pit — Grave of a Dog (Thrill Jockey)

Grave of a Dog by Sightless Pit

Sightless Pit is a collaboration among three significant names in contemporary heavy music: Lee Buford, of the Body; Dylan Walker, singer for Full of Hell; and Kristin Hayter, who records under the name Lingua Ignota. Made over two years at Machines with Magnets, the songs were shaped, executed and revised whenever one or two of the artists could get to the studio. It’s thus a sort of experiment in asynchronously generated music. Grave of a Dog (an unfortunate title) is likely best appreciated with that unconventional approach in mind —n ot a set of songs by a band so much as an ongoing, sonically mediated conversation among like-minded creators. Not surprisingly, the record really lights up whenever Hayter’s remarkable vocals move into the music’s foreground. She’s an unusual talent, with a big voice that can do drama, intimacy and lunacy to equal effect, and a compositional intelligence that grooves with Sightless Pit’s sound-collaging sensibility. “Kingscorpse” is a stirring combination of melody and power electronics, and the record’s solemn, fragile closer “Love Is Dead, All Love Is Dead” lets Hayter show off the full range of what she can do with her instrument.

Jonathan Shaw

Solar Woodroach — 7 Perversions on Pachelbel’s Canon (Nilamox)

7 Perversions on Pachelbel's Canon by Solar Woodroach

From the start of “How the West Was Won,” most music fans would be able to identify (if not necessarily name) the source material Solar Woodroach uses here even without the album title. Yes, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, one of the most overexposed pieces of music ever used, is getting dug up and sent shuffling our way again, this time from some enigmatic figure or figures known as Solar Woodroach. The best clue there, it must be said, is that the label is listed as “Nilamox,” also the name of whatever ex-Severed Heads man Tom Ellard is doing these days. But Ellard, or whoever, has more than just necromancy on their minds during these 7 Perversions; sometimes stretching and smearing the composition past the point of immediate recognition. But whether it’s the slow-motion glow of “Decomposition in D,” the mini-swarm of synthesized voice bits in “The Canonisation of St. Pachelbel,” or the eventual return of something like the original in the closing “The Pachelbel Spirit,” 7 Perversions proves, perversely enough, both that our takes on the Canon (or canon?) could be more inventive, and that there might be more life left in those standards than we give them credit for after an umpteenth listen. It’s a cheekily satisfying listen, maybe especially if (whisper it) you still enjoy the old Canon a bit too.

Ian Mathers

Rafael Toral / Mars Williams / Tim Daisy — Elevation (Relay)

Rafael Toral / Mars Williams / Tim Daisy :: Elevation :: (relay 027) by Relay Recordings

Interstellar Space. My Goals Beyond. Other Planes of There. The list of outward-bound jazz records that invite the listener to draw a bead on the furthest cosmic reaches is a long one, and despite the relative humility of its title, Elevation makes a similar request. The album’s three tracks are all named after cloud formations, and even in their most subdued moments the three musicians involved treat gravity as a negotiable notion, not an immutable law. Portuguese electronic musician Rafael Toral joined up with Chicagoans Mars Williams and Tim Daisy for just one day, during which they played one concert in a suburban library and the recording session yielded this CD. Daisy’s a highly accommodating drummer, and much of his playing on this record disperses beats and tones like a spray of cloud-born moisture. Williams balances incendiary blowing guided by the anything goes spirit he nurtures in Extraordinary Popular Delusions with little instrument forays that infuse this music with the spirit of A-list types like Sun Ra’s Arkestra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. And Toral draws pure electricity into flashes and stretched bolts that illuminate “Stratus,” “Cirrus” and “Altostratus” from without and within. Keep your eyes and ears on the sky.

Bill Meyer

Tribe — Hometown: Detroit Sessions 1990-2014 (Strut)

Hometown: Detroit Sessions 1990-2014 by Tribe

This disc collects post-break-up material from the long-running Detroit cultural collective Tribe, a pan-arts organization led by saxophonist Wendell Harrison and trombonist Phil Ranelin. During its 1970s heyday, the Tribe organization put out jazz records, published monthly magazine covering black culture, collaborated with dance and theater groups and taught music in Detroit schools. This collection picks up after Ranelin moved to Los Angeles and the Tribe name had been retired. Still Harrison continued to preside over multidisciplinary creative coalition, tapping into a vibrant Detroit scene for Afro-centric visual arts, theater, dance, music and literature. Handclapped, percussive “Juba,” for instance, documents Tribe’s connections to modern dance; you can intuit movement in its chanted, panted, grunted and foot-stomped rhythms. The two spoken word pieces, “Marcus Garvey” and “Ode to Black Mothers,” showcase the works of Mbiyu Chui, a poet, pastor and founder of the Black Christian Nationalist Movement. The music, too, is very, very good, from the swaggering big band swing of “Wide and Blue,” to the smouldery sleek piano grooves of “Hometown” (Harrison’s wife Pamela Wise on keys) to the Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms that animate “Ode to Black Mothers.” Detroit was in about as bad a state as a city can be during the period this music was recorded, but art and pride and resilience run through every track.

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists — Back from the Canigo: Garage Punks Vs Freakbeat Mods Perpignan 1989-1999 (Staubgold)

Back from the Canigó: Garage Punks Vs Freakbeat Mods Perpignan 1989-1999 by Various Artists

Perpignan is the southernmost French city, nestled in a curve of the Mediterranean just before it turns south into Spain. It also the unlikely headquarters of a Gallic garage rock scene centered around the Limiñanas, but incorporating another dozen or so bands represented on this compilation. (The Limiñanas themselves are absent, just to be clear.) The two oldest bands — Les Gardiens du Canigou and the Ugly Things — are the most vital, both rough-rocking outfits fond of wheedling organ fills and much indebted to the Troggs. “Baby I Don’t Want to Drive” from the Ugly Things has the grit and swagger of Wimple Witch’s “Save My Soul,” while Les Gardiens turn in a truly unhinged live cover of “Gloria.” Some of the younger bands follow this example closely. The Vox Men and The Feedback, for instance, pursue the exact same sort of screaming hedonism. However, others diverge. Beach Bitches take a day-glo, 1960s garage energy into joke-y surfy directions; their “Walking in the Jungle,” intersperses novelty record animal cries with banging drums and blasts of molten guitar. Les Buissons bustles and blares with a fully-orchestrated sound, James Brown doing battle with a community marching band and flop-haired psychedelia in “Buissons Theme I.” The whole comp is immensely enjoyable in a what-decade-is-it-anyway manner. It’s probably not what you picture when people say, “south of France,” but it rocks pretty hard.

Jennifer Kelly

9 notes · View notes