By Martin Schray and Paul Acquaro
The final evening of the Vision Festival arrived. It was a bittersweet moment – memories of the past week of shows still lingered sweetly in the mind, but expectations were high for the stellar line up which included the highly anticipated New World Pygmies with Jemeel Moondoc, William Parker, and Hamid Drake …
The general consensus, as far as I could tell, is that this is a Vision to remember. So far, on this penultimate evening, the sets have been above average to stellar and a glance at the line-up for this evening suggested no radical departures.
The change of venue, from the past few years at Judson Hall in Manhattan’s West Village has been mos…
and Martin Schray
The line up of Friday night, squarely in the middle of the festival, seemed to showcase musicians at the top of their game – from the young (Irreversible Entanglements) to the established (Daniel Carter).
Irreversible Entanglements
And so, it was the young whippersnappers who began the evening. Philadelphia’s Irreversib…
Sonar is a mathematically oriented, rhythmically-based quartet from Switzerland, and recently, they’ve became a temporary quintet with David Torn adding a third guitar and his unconventional looping and sound manipulations to their newest recording Vortex.
The core group is comprised ofStephan Thelen andBernhard Wagner on guitars,Christia…
A few weeks ago, the blog explored a new release from Anthony Braxton chronicling his work on Charlie Parker’s catalog. Another titan from the Be-bop era whose music is always up for reinterpretation is pianist Thelonious Monk. Today I look at two very different approaches to the forward thinking compositions of Monk: solo guitar and organ trio. …
Starebaby was born from NYC drummer Dan Weiss’ desire to play a bit harder than usual. Weiss’s recent recordings includeSixteen: Drummer’s Suite and Fourteen, both in the modern jazz vein. However, a fan of metal growing up, here Weiss explores a jazz aesthetic informed by heavy grooves, crunchy guitar, searing synthesizer, and a fine layer of…
Our tribute to Cecil Taylor, who passed away on April 5th, through his discography continues.
On Cecil Taylor Segments II (Orchestra of Two Continents)—Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants) (Soul Note, 1985)
Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants)
is one of the central moments in my education in free jazz and
improvised music. I was born in E…
Guitarist Nick Millevoi has for some reason dropped his name off his most recent release – the last time we heard the group in 2016, the group was named after himself and title was Desertion, now the group is ‘Desertion Trio’ but with a prominent call out to band member Jamie Saft. So, what’s in a name? I don’t really know, but I can say what’s…
Pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach’s position in jazz is well secured. He was a founding/integral part of the development of the European avant-garde, leader of the highly regarded and long standing Schlippenbach Trio with Evan Parker and Paul Lovens/Paul Lytton, leader of the Globe Unity Orchestra, and a dedicated interpreter of the music o…
Last year, the Haus der Kunst in Munich presented FMP: The Living Music, an exhibition detailing the work of the renowned German record label from its establishment in the late 1960’s to its end in 2010. The imposing three room floor of the building was filled with posters, videos, display cases of letters, record covers, the famous Cecil Ta…
It’s difficult for me to imagine ‘Jazz’ without Charlie Parker. He, along with the likes of Monk, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, etc.re-fashioned jazz with the advanced harmonics, intricate melodies, and asymmetrical syncopation that is typically associated with the genre today. Inventing or discovering how extended scales could be…
I’m a little late to break this news, but Jose Lencastre’s Fragment of Always is a seriously good listen. The mid-2017 release captures a series of inspired improvisations ranging from quietly sublime to eruptively ecstatic. With half of the RED trio along, Hernani Faustino on bass and Rodrigo Pinheiro on piano, and Lancastre’s brother João …
