All artists filed by last name under G, H and I :
This is dark and moody music, like a night time soundtrack to a desert landscape, where “blue” and “black” and the light of the moon surround you. These are sounds that will haunt your imagination and will get inside you like a cold chill when you walk out into the great wide spaces on silent nights. Continue reading
Rob Brown has a sound of his own one that you instantly identify, and it’s a wonder why his unique way of playing alto saxophone still hasn’t found the recognition it deserves. With “Radiant Pools”, not only does he confirm what a great musician he is, but he also shows how he can give life and soul to an orchestra… and what orchestra! Quite noteworthy is the way Rob Brown’s alto sax (hear his high notes) and flute, and Steve Swell’s trombone complement and enrich each other; respond to one another while Swell shows as much talent as a soloist than composer. The rhythm – and sometimes improvising – section is brilliantly composed of Joe Morris (who also wrote a wonderful piece) on the bass, although he gained a top-ranking reputation as a guitar player, and Luther Gray whose perfect knowledge of dynamics is a clear clue of how great a drummer he his. “Radiant Pools” also proves that written and free form improvised music can make a happy combination for the recipe of a consistent musical piece… as long as the service is first-rate! Continue reading
Someday someone will write a history of modern music that will free us of the false dichotomies such as high vs. low, improviser vs. composer, classical vs. everything else… …The written materials Joe passed out to the musicians for Red Morocco was minimal, sometimes more visual than musical, but always modest. Everyone was seated in the same room, in a circle. The music heard on this recording occurred late in the day, when Joe felt a certain clarity was occurring… …The results are an elegant, shimmering, ringing music, like colors spiking across the plane of a Monet canvas, or spinning like a piece of Calder’s kinetic art; a constantly evolving, deeply sonic performance, collectively improvised, and decentered; a self-organizing musical system, with minimal input or constraints from outside. Giardullo is willing into existence a music that occurs beyond his control. This means he has to surround himself with musicians who are accomplished, but also open, free to take chances, and willing to be themselves, no matter what. — John Szwed, excerpt from the liner notes. Continue reading
On one level, both music and poetry are very much the same, that being sound – at least the spoken word would be. Here in “Haunted House” is a sound design or shape being put forth with multiple meanings psychoacoustically, linguistically, musically that I can only say very little about in terms of meaning, since ultimately it’s meaning will be with each individual who experiences this work. This rhythmic engagement between these two art forms create a third reality of sound gestures and events that collide and integrate. Yet knowing these facts it still does not allow me to analyze or describe exactly what “Haunted House” is. Hopefully this experience will be a catalyst at some level for good. — Henri Threadgill, excerpts from the liner notes Continue reading
This trio is on a quest — in this case, to recover the core values of collective improvisation. They are not warriors but rather crusaders for freedom, and they understand that peace and freedom go hand in hand. “Free” improvisation or what is known as experimental music has increasingly turned into a relentless attack on the senses, while “jazz” has elevated individual displays of virtuosity. The soloist has become paramount, which is why we are more likely to hear an audience member shout, “That cat can play!” rather than to hear someone exhort, “That cat can listen!” Book of Three brings back the art of listening, the art of silence, the art of collective improvisation, the art of slowing down. These three artists possess a musical rapport that cannot be composed. It is improvisation in its purist form — a process of listening and responding in order to produce a multilayered yet singular voice. In place of ever-thickening density, the trio prefers long, measured, shapely notes, drawn from the entire range of their instruments. Whether it’s Hébert bowing in the high register (or under the bridge); Bynum pushing air rather than vibration through his horn, or Cleaver milking every rim, drum head, or the length and breadth of each cymbal, nothing is wasted. — Robin D. G. Kelley, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading
Nicolas Humbert and his co-author Marc Parisotto decided to make a further montage of the readings and songs for the album “Roots Run Deep”. There are short stories and poems set to music, beautifully interwoven with the music Yusef Lateef had played during the shooting of the film “Brother Yusef”. “I return as in a dream of a great American musician” says the old man in a great passage about Lester Young, as sounds and words melt into one song, drawing us closer to the aura of a great jazz era that he himself still incorporates. A true survivor whose roots run very deep indeed. “I’m always making sure that these sounds are coming from the core of my heart.” — Karl Lippegaus, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading
This was the period when the art world was fixated on graffiti artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring etc. But street graffiti was everywhere back then and much was written about the quality, form and the act of “tagging”. To me, graffiti contained a similar spirit of subversive messaging to that of the music I was making with Lowell and elsewhere. The idea of tagging messages anywhere without permission using a kind of proto-tribal imagery even if was merely a cryptic scrawl had artistic and cultural power to me. The symbolism of the other or indefinable—identified as a name or logo, but otherwise secret—reflected what I sought as a combination of modern and ancient codes in my music using this new material. Being aware of this I decided to organize a concert with the title “Graffiti in Two Parts” meant to display these qualities in sound. This recording is very special to me. It is only the second recording of Lowell Davidson to be released commercially. It represents a special period in my life and work and a unique community of musicians in Boston who did work that has gone mostly unnoticed, not unlike some encoded cryptic scrawl in an alley somewhere. If you listen closely you can hear street noise on the recording. Not planned, but welcome. — Joe Morris, excerpt from the liner notes. Continue reading
As for the penultimate phases of this polyphonic hirsutism, fortified by explosions, whirlwinds, chants, howls, bubblings and very high pitched sounds, everything happens as if the last cry recalled, as in a trance, a certain aylerien spirit – did not Robert Schumann write “Music is what permits us to speak with the heavens”. — Philippe Carles, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading
In the vibrant, searching solos of tenor saxophonist David Boykin, multiple-reed player Mwata Bowden, violinist Renee Baker, and Mitchell herself, we encounter a bright, buoyant sense of wonder. A breathless “oh!” set against the backdrop of her majestic, brilliantly textured themes. “We recognize the symbol of the ‘arc’ in the branches of trees, the shape of the sky, the passageways of thoughts moving through our brain, and the rivers and streams carved through sand and rock by water.” Mitchell’s is a deeply organic music, playful and joyous and wondrous, but also full of sophisticated layers of emotional complexity, a spectrum of human feeling, the same range succinctly captured in the simple exclamation: “Oh.” Board the arc, feel the curve, enjoy the ride. — John Corbett, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading
The German bassist Peter Kowald (1944-2002) was one of the major figures of Free Improvised Music. The film OFF THE ROAD was made on and around his extended tour of the USA in 2000. A journey around America in an old Chevrolet Caprice, the film is a “free improvised road movie” featuring encounters with many of the great names of Free Music, set against the background of “Off The Road” America. Continue reading