Category: Recordings
Tim Berne’s Snakeoil has already released two excellent albums on ECM. These efforts – the eponymous debut and the follow up Shadow Man were the works of an acoustic quartet and on the newYou’ve Been Watching Me, alto saxophonist Berne expands the group to a quintet and introduces electric elements to the mix, expanding the textures and possi…
I began listening to Matthew Shipp in the early 2000s, drawn in by the ambient and electronics on albums like NuBop and Harmony and Abyss, I soon discovered that there was little of Shipp’s output that I did not enjoy. Whether solo, in a duo or with his long standing trio with Whit Dickey and Michael Bisio, his playing is always striking, and…
The concert for Secret Keeper’s latest recording Emerge was at the Cornelia Street Cafe – and down in the cozy basement club space, it felt a bit like being in on a well kept secret itself. It was an intimate show as the duo of guitarist Mary Halvorson and bassist Stephen Crump captivated the attentive crowd for the evening.
Emergeis the pair…
I recently covered a duo recording of guitarist Dom Minasi paired with saxophonist Blaise Siwula. Last year, I wrote about onewith pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, and another with Hans Tammen. The duo format seems to be one that Minasi enjoys, and for that I’m greatful, as his latest with soprano sax player Chris Kelsey,Duets NYC/Woodstock, is a…
Saxophonist and clarinetist player Andrew Bishop’s De
Profundisis a neatly conceived recording that seamlessly blends the
composed and the improvised. For this album, Bishop looks towards composer Josquin Des Prez’s
(c. 1440 – 1521) motet ‘De Profundis Clamavi’ for inspiration.
The Renaissance composer was apparently quite
popular du…
It’s a rare and wonderful thing where you are so challenged as a listener that you are not sure of what’s happening, but you know you need more. This happened to me during the 2011 Vision Festival when on one of the nights when the power trio of Peter Evans (trumpet), Mike Pride (drums) and Tim Dahl (extremely electric bass) shredded the atmosp…
Will Guthrie is a percussionist from France who, in addition to his growing discography of solo recordings, also plays in the group Ames Room. Guthrie is a subtle player who is quite comfortable with space and texture, which is highlighted on a new solo recording Sacrée Obsessioncoming out on LP and tape in the fall.
Sacrée Obsession start…
Working with an impressive cross-section of (mainly) Chicago based woodwind players, clarinetist and composer James Falzone’sThe Room Isis a complex and lovely work. The group, The Renga Ensemble, is comprised of Ken Vandermark on Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, Keefe Jackson on tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, contra Bb bass cl…
Following a week of retrospective reviews of exemplary AACM recordings, it seemed a fitting coda to talk about this great new album from drummer Jack DeJohnette and otherwise Chicago related musicians, saxophonists Henry Threadgill and Roscoe Mitchell, pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and cellist Larry Gray.
For the most part, the members of this …
This is the last installment of the AACM retrospective- a highly subjective, entirely personal, and completely non-representative list of albums plucked from our own collections to represent what the recordings of the AACM and it’s musicians have meant to us as enthusiasts of the music. Today, the years between 2005 to 2015.
Note: a big thank y…
TheAACM retrospective weekcontinues today with our highly subjective, entirely personal, and completely non-representative list of albums plucked from our own collections to represent what the recordings of the AACM and it’s musicians have meant to us as enthusiasts of the music. Today, we present the years between 1995 and 2004.
ByColin Green,Mart…
The AACM retrospective week continues with our highly subjective, entirely personal, and completely non-representative list of albums plucked from our own collections to represent what the recordings of the AACM and it’s musicians have meant to us as enthusiasts of the music. Today, the years between 1985 and 1994.
By Colin Green, Martin Schray, M…
