J – K – L

All artists filed by last name under J, K and L :

Sabir Mateen | William Parker | Matthew Shipp | Gerald Cleaver | Denis Lavant | Declared Enemy | Salute To 100001 Stars | A Tribute To Jean Genet | RogueArt Jazz

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It was by chance, during his short stay in Paris in 2000 that Matthew Shipp came across Rajak Ohanian’s photograph of Jean Genet. He instantly recognized the writer, saying “Our Lady of The Flowers is one of my favourite books.” And that’s how it all started. Four years later, he brought together Sabeer Mateen, William Parker and Gerald Cleaver to express what Genet meant to him. Then, Denis Lavant joined them to add Genet’s words to the project. In his lifetime, Jean Genet had no real connections with Jazz but he did share with past and present Jazz inventors the same source of inspiration: the life of the underdogs. From yesterday’s slavery to today’s prisons and ghettos, Afro-Americans know too what confinement means. Just like Genet’s works are a menace to the Establishment, Jazz always gets out of the clutches of any force in power, despite so many takeover attempts. And it so happens that Jean Genet’s path crosses the ones of Matthew Shipp, Sabir Mateen, William Parker, Gerald Cleaver or Denis Lavant. Therefore, Declared Enemy’s music can eventually meet Genet’s works. A dialog takes place between music and words, fierce or tactful, always respectful, never complacent. The recording took place on a December the 19th. Nobody knew it was Jean Genet’s birthday. There is no such thing as chance. — Michel Dorbon Continue reading →

Scott Fields | Thomas Lehn | Matthias Schubert | Xu Fengxia | Scott Fields Ensemble | We Were The Phliks | RogueArt Jazz

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It is my habit to set myself some rules for each project I compose. Otherwise the world is just too big for me. For my contributions to The Phliks book I made myself a rule that every tune would include traditional notation, graphical notation, and improvisation. (To counter misconceptions, perhaps I should mention that the guzheng and analog synthesizer required no special notation.) Like most of the material that I have produced over the last decade or so, in Phliks pieces I would blur the distinction between notated and improvised material. Any musical rules, whether those of Robert de Viseé or Iggy Pop, exist to allow something to happen that otherwise wouldn’t. Even an apparent lack of rules — no scribbles for the musicians to stare at, no chords for one person to strum while the rest watch and learn — can be just as deterministic. Unspoken mores lurk even in free improvisation; a free improvising sideman who insists on quoting Charlie Parker or Zakk Wylde at length will soon be a solo artist. — Scott Fields, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

William Parker Double Quartet | Alphaville Suite | RogueArt Jazz

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I first saw Jean Luc Godard’s Alphaville on American television in the early 1970’s. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Alphaville wasn’t just another science fiction spy thriller; it was really a wake up call to modern society to be vigilant… …It has always been my dream write to a piece of music inspired by this great film. The plan was to have a double quartet, one quartet made up of strings (Julia Kent, and Shiau-Shu Yu cello, Jessica Pavone viola, and Mazz Swift violin). The other quartet is the regular working band of Rob Brown, alto sax, Lewis Barnes, trumpet and Hamid Drake, drums. I read the films screenplay and bought the DVD of the film to refresh my memory. Then I began to write the music, ending up with 15 compositions each one capturing a different aspect of the movie. The concept was to create an alternative soundtrack that could possibly be used in the film. While at the same time have a life of it’s own as concert music. Due to time restraints we only could record about half the music. Eight musicians blending as one while at the same time not giving up their individuality. — William Parker, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

Joe Giardullo Open Ensemble | Red Morocco | RogueArt Jazz

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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 →

Larry Ochs | Miya Masaoka | Peggy Lee | Spiller Alley | RogueArt Jazz

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This music of exquisite sensibilities profound listening and genuinely laid-back cloth at first throws you; nobody is trying to do anything, just play as together as possible. Nobody gets in anybody’s face, including the listener. Nobody solos more than the depth they listen at; nobody never wanted not to be there…. Anyway if this ingenious blend of scents from Masaoka’s ancient koto, Lee’s middle-European cello and Ochs’ out of hock saxes is any indication, “musica da camera” – that old elite art of chamber music – is going to be around for some time yet. — Alvin Curran, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

Alexandre Pierrepont | Mike Ladd | Maison Hantee | RogueArt Jazz

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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 →

Michel Edelin Trio | Kuntu | RogueArt Jazz

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Flutists’ albums, in jazz, do not clutter up record stores. Michel Edelin is one of the (very) few jazz musicians, French on top of that, to have chosen the flute, in all its forms, as his exclusive instrument. For ages, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Eric Dophy, Jeremy Steig, James Newton, Dave Valentin and the likes have held a central position in his personal pantheon, he who was able to digest their teachings in order to feed his own syntax: a sound of a beautiful elegance, an angular phrasing where a propensity for melody and lyricism can be heard, a taste for certain instrumental audacities, the understanding of the collective… …This album of a complete openness, breathing onto the melody, is collectively constructed in real time around pretext-themes with great rigor and a radiant imagination. — Gérard Rouy, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

Kassap | Lavant | Lopez | Medioni | Tchamitchian | Ascension, Tombeau de John Coltrane | RogueArt Jazz

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…Questions: none of Coltrane’s albums bears this title. And somehow all of his albums do. All are clearly subjected to the ramified, plural, moving, exuberant, augmentative interrogation, that they left us, as if panicked or distraught. Such trust. A unique manner, always beyond and ahead of itself. A haunted, questioning manner. Inheriting a question is, in many ways, convenient; it’s called mysticism, and in the end, there’s something in it for everybody. To see oneself or live as the guardian of a range of questions certainly can’t be read on the same stave. It creates different obligations. Requires, in more ways than one, writing – taking part. As, here, Franck Médioni and Lavant’s voice, or Sylvain Kassap and Ramon Lopez, and Claude Tchamitchian… — Chrisitan Tarting, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

Joelle Leandre | George Lewis | Transatlantic Visions | RogueArt Jazz

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Léandre plays with Bailey who plays with Lewis who plays with Léandre. Lewis plays with Les Diaboliques and Günter “Baby” Sommer or Paul Lovens. Léandre plays with Lewis and Steve Lacy, with Lewis and Anthony Braxton. The good thing, in the unknown world of known improvisers, is that everything is crater and archipelagos……Then, and foremost, have no reason to wait. The improvisers are first and foremost sound modifiers or particle accelerators. The chain reactions they provoke aim at the amorous new world. — Alexandre Pierrepont, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

Nicole Mitchell | Joëlle Léandre | Dylan van der Schyff | Before After | RogueArt Jazz

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Never one voice above the others all voices fan-shaped in the presence of oneself and the other. To all that, one verb in all tenses – before, during, after – and for a thousand and one actions: to play, to make what has just been said, written, or dreamed play, always in a spirit of rapture. To make things play to bring out the beauty of things into a state of existence. — Excerpt from the liner notes, written by Alexandre Pierrepont Continue reading →