Category: Concerts
Odean Pope Saxophone Choir
Thursday’s show opened with the Odean Pope Saxophone Choir. The Philadelphia-based band leader’s 10 piece band blasted open the doors to the evening with a hard hitting horn arrangement that played off big band tropes with visceral soloing that often ventured deep into free territory. Pope’s authoritative sound o…
Matthew Shipp, Matt Maneri, and Whit Dickey
The third night of the Vision Festival began with the Visionary Youth Orchestra, a volunteer orchestra or by Arts for Arts. Unfortunately, they started too early for me, but from what I was told, it was quite inspiring. Under the guidance of Jeff Lederer (woodwinds) and Jessica Jones (tenor saxop…
Yoshiko Chuma’s School of Hard Knocks
and Bruce Lee Gallanter
The motto of the Vision Festival is simply “For a Just Future”. A timeless mission, and in our current political state of mendacity, words more prescient than ever. Yoshiko Chuma’s School of Hard Knocks’ debut performance of “Dead End, Hey! Women” was a timely and kaleidoscopi…
Opening Invocation: Patricia Nicholson, William Parker, Hamid Drake
Here is plan: I’m attending as much as the 22nd annual Vision Festival as I can this year. In past years I have attended one or two nights, making tough choices on which night to attend. This time around, caution is thrown to the wind and the deciding factor will be just …
Ivo Perelman, Photo by Susanne Baltes
It’s a rainy Saturday here in New Jersey and I finally have a chance to sit down and think about last Sunday’s release show for saxophonist Ivo Perelman’s and pianist Matthew Shipp’s latest set of releases on Leo Records,The Art of Perelman & Shipp. I’ve cued up Volume 3, Pandora, which pairs Per…
Vijar Iyer, Stephan Crump, and Tyshawn Sorey at Miller Theater, Columbia University
It’s probably best to be forthright about this: while I have read all of the reviews of pianist Vijay Iyer’s releases on the Free Jazz Blog, and enjoyed the profile on him in the New Yorker before his appearances at the opening of the Met Breuer, aside from th…
Craig Taborn and Kris Davis @ Roulette
Pianists Kris Davis and Craig Taborn’s first night of a two-week tour in support of Davis’ new release Duopoly (review coming soon) at Brooklyn’s lovely Roulette was preempted by a critical piano tuning. Against the austere stage backdrop, the two concert grand Steinway’s on the theater’s stage …
Trondheim Jazz Orchestra & Kristoffer Lo
By Martin Schraywith a little help fromPaul Acquaro
In 2012 Louis Rastig and Karina Mertin launched the first A’Larme! Festival in Berlin, presenting a program of contemporary jazz and improvised music, both radical and polarizing. Free jazz legends met with a younger generation, which has more of …
Here’s a take on what happened at New Revolution Arts* in Brooklyn last weekend, where Boston’s Leap of Faith and NYC’s Steve Swellbrought their unique sounds to an intimate and appreciative audience.
Leap of Faith does not travel light, and if you have a chance to see them perform, you are in for an multi-sensory experience. From the inc…
