Tag: Free Jazz Blog
For some reason, I lost track of Sexmob after 2003’s Dime Grind Palace,and so aftercatching a show by another long-standing Steven Bernstein group “Spanish Fly” a couple of months back, I wondered why this was. Diving back in with Cultural Capital had me instantly a bit nostalgic for the late 90’s/early 00’s in New York when there were groups…
Ok, let’s not judge this one by its cover. These guys do not exactly look like happy jazzers, but crack the CD open and listen, this is intense music, vivacious, vigorous, and full of lively twists and turns.Happy Jazzdelves into free improvisation with zeal, electric guitar lines snake around expressive bass work while bass clarinet melodies…
Projected image by Bill Mazza
“We wish you peace and love,” said percussionist Kahil El’Zabar during saxophonist David Murray’s set, espousing the power of humanity globally to overcome difficult times. It’s an old refrain for sure, cliché perhaps, but in the depths of Judson Memorial Church’s great hall, a landmark of social activism and…
Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Gebhard Ullman, and Steve Swell
I contemplated a midnight coffee to keep me up to write this review as I walked past McDougal and eyed the green faded elegance of Cafe Reggio’s awning. It had been a long evening, and well into the night, at Judson Church. I had heard a lot of music, ate a couple of dumpli…
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 …
I’ve always enjoyed guitarist Bill Frisell’s duo work. His playing is always supportive, incisive, delicate, and persuasive, really everything a partner should be. Some collaborations that come to mind includehis 1998 meet up with pianist Fred Hersch (Songs We Know), a 2006 rendezvous with Jack DeJohnette(The Elephant Sleeps but Still Remember…
Shapeshifter Lab, tucked away in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, is an impressive 4,200 square foot venue. The stage area alone is the size of most venues catering to experimental music. The area is gentrifying quickly – in the few years I’ve been attending more and more bars and coffee shops have been opening up and I am pretty sure there was…
The core of the group Dálava is the husband and wife team of vocalist Julia Úlehlaand guitarist Aram Bajakian. They released the first Dálava albumin 2014 and like The Book of Transfigurations,it is an exploration ofMoravian folk songs collected by Úlehla’s great-grandfather,sung in Czech, and set to the more contemporary downtown NYC…
Drummer Devin Gray’s quartet with guitarists Ryan Ferrier and Jonathan Goldberger, and bassist Chris Tordini is a potent post-rock explosion – at least that how it begins.
The two guitarists twist distorted sounds around like they are sculpting with sheet metal. Legato melodies are stretched over the sharp angles and effect laden structu…
