Jeff Platz | Daniel Carter | Francois Grillot | Federico Ughi | Past & Present Futures | Glitch Records

PAST & PRESENT FUTURESThe future of improvised music, and or, for lack of a better term “modern jazz”, continues to thrive and evolve. To spite the drawbacks, lack of venues, media support etc, the music just keeps moving forward with a new generation of players carrying on the tradition of freely improvised music. The past meets the present and the future can only hold an even higher quality of musical interpretation and concepts. Past & Present Futures was recorded on a fall afternoon just outside of New York City. This was my first time meeting and playing with bassist Francois Grillot and drummer Federico Ughi. Multi reeds player, trumpeter Daniel Carter and I have recorded and played together several time over the years. The music and ideas flowed naturally. After a long and productive evening of playing the group walked away with several hours of recorded music. We were ail happy with the outcome and felt that some cohesive playing and improvising had been accomplished. After much consideration we selected here what I feel are the highlights of the session. I hope you enjoy the recording as much as well all enjoyed the project. Many thanks again for listening! —Jeff Platz Continue reading

Michael Marcus | The Magic Door | Not Two Records

The first album I heard with Michael Marcus was “Ithem” a sax trio with William Parker and Dennis Charles, and I was immediately charmed by this excellent musician. He has a very strong sense of melody and pitch when improvizing, a great sense of swing in his compositions, a clear respect for the traditional form which he recreates in a very open modern format. Whether he plays with Jaki Byard, the Cosmosamatics or in other bands, his core characteristics are always present as they are on this record. He sticks to his clarinet on all songs, with Jay Rosen on drums and François Grillot on bass on most tracks. Daniel Levin plays cello on three pieces and Rahsaan Carter and Eric Revis play bass on one track each, and Newton Taylor Baker drums on one track. Anyone interested in melodic free jazz with a great swing feeling, should look this one up.– Stef’s blog Continue reading