Jazz

William Hooker Quintet | featuring Adam Lane | Channels of Consciousness | No Business Records

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William Hooker (born 1946) is an American jazz drummer and composer. Early in his career, he played with the Isley Brothers and Dionne Warwick, among others. In college, Hooker began broadening his musical vision: He wrote a paper on Alban Berg, and befriended some members of Funkadelic. A move to New York City in the mid-1970s led Hooker to the so-called “loft scene” of adventurous free jazz performers. While Hooker was active in music throughout the 1980s, he was little recorded until the 1990s. While most of Hooker’s output is rooted in free jazz, critic Neil Strauss has written, “William Hooker is a man determined to get his music ‘out there’, and he’ll cross any genre to do it.” His work has also crossed over into noise rock and free improvisation. He has worked with Glenn Spearman, Christian Marclay, Tomaas Proitsis, DJ Olive, William Parker, Sabir Mateen, Dave Soldier, and Sonic Youth founders Thurston Moore, and Lee Ranaldo. Continue reading →

Szilard Mezei Tubass Quintet | Canons – 2nd Hoisting | No Business Records

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I’ll say it straight-off. Szilard Mezei is one of the most interesting jazz composer-instrumentalist-bandleaders active in Europe today. If you don’t know of him much, it’s because his releases do not shout out their existence, exactly. They are mostly small quantity albums on important but hardly mass-marketed avant jazz boutique labels, which I often favor–as of course regular readers know. A near-perfect example of the sort of release I speak of is his new one on No Business, a fine label out of Lithuania. This one is an LP pressed in only 300 copies, Szilard Mezei Tubass Quartet’s Canons – Second Hosting (No Business NBLP 56). This one may not jump out at you right away. That’s probably in part due to the very unusual instrumentation: Szilard and three others on contrabass and a tuba player!

The sound is dark and burnished. The improvisation out front, the compositional motives typical Mezei in that they bear his autographic stamp–the way of irregular phrasing, repositioning tonal commonplaces so that they become unusual. This may not be one to start with if you want to know about his music. My blogs cover a good number of those so search here and on the Gapplegate Guitar blog and you’ll find others. But there nonetheless is the characteristic daring presence on this one that makes Szilard an artist to listen to closely. —Grego Applegate Edwards Continue reading →

Thomas Borgmann | Wilber Morris | Reggie Nicholson | Nasty & Sweet | No Business Records

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From the first few notes, it’s apparent that something special is happening on Nasty & Sweet. Perhaps it’s the way bassist Wilber Morris and drummer Reggie Nicholson sound so assured in their placement of the merest splashes of color. Completely unafraid to take their time, creating a powerful tension which isn’t released even when German reedman Thomas Borgmann joins with his breathily majestic tenor saxophone smears. There is a story here. — John Sharpe Continue reading →

Yehudit | Valentine | Edgetone Records

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This album is a valentine… Each of these classic songs is a valentine – a celebration of the joy and gift of love. I imagine that you might play them while you sit down to a quiet dinner with your sweetie, with flowers and candlelight. In recording these songs, I manifest my profound love for the great American traditions of jazz and songwriting, I am always astonished and delighted to be a small tributary to this great river of music. The album itself is a labor of love on the part of the musicians, engineers, and artists who contributed their skill, creativity, and heart to make it what it is. And finally, this album is a valentine from me to you, the listener. May your life be filled with love and music. Continue reading →

Yehudit | YL 101 | Edgetone Records

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Violinist Yehudit (pronounced “yeah who DEET”) is making a place for herself in the forefront of the jazz mainstream, demonstrating that the electric violin, in her hands, is a convincing and innovative jazz instrument. A classically trained player with a solid grounding in the jazz idiom, her extensive professional experience encompasses ensembles as diverse as the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and the jazz/blues band John Handy with Class. Performing on electric and acoustic five-string violins, she produces a varied sonic palette, ranging from boppish licks and wails to warm, singing melody. Her music is firmly rooted in straight-ahead jazz, spiced with blues, free improvisation, and a dash of funk. Continue reading →

Rent Romus | The Lords of Outland | You can sleep when you’re dead | Edgetone Records

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The Lords of Outland present their latest black metal deth jazz sequel to Culture of Pain. In this day, this dawn, when privacy rapidly begins to dwindle…where the difference between inside and outside of one’s head or one’s house or one’s inbox are growing more blurred….we find ourselves in new territory, a no man’s land where everyone has fifteen hours of fame, whether they know it or not. There is no choice anymore in what is open to the electronic voyeur. The eyes of the world are upon us and we are all stripped naked on the internet, over the phone, in our email and in our very thoughts. Nothing is hidden from the watchful eyes of the ‘gods’. We are on display for their amusement. However, as the watcher watches so too do we watch him. So too do we indulge in voyeuristic fashion, in the analysis of his behavior. He is the wolf to our sheep, but we are the hunter to his wolf, and as the spiral turns so to the watcher and the watched become one in a dance, the pull eternal, between fascism and freedom. Continue reading →

Thollem McDonas | Rick Rivera | Everything’s Going Everywhere | Edgetone Records

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Everything’s Going Everywhere featuring pianist Thollem Mcdonas and drummer Rick Rivera bring to the jazz world a sonic journey bursting with excitement well needed in jazz and improvisation in the 21st century. Drawing from such diverse forms of inspiration as nuclear bombs, modern classical and Arabic music, to free jazz, punk, and traffic sounds, these two musical Iconoclasts transcend the past, and the limits of their influences, re-organizing traditional ideas into a sonic commentary about the space between rebellion, politics, and hummingbirds. Continue reading →

Positive Knowledge | Oluyemi Thomas | Wilber Morris | Ijeoma Thomas | Michael Wimberly | Live in New York | Edgetone Records

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Oluyemi & Ijeoma Thomas of Positive Knowledge has recorded & performed together for the past two decades, composing and sharing their joyful Creative World Music Systems with lovers of music and poetry around the world. Ijeoma Thomas – Wordsmith, spoken word artist, poet vocalist and teacher believes “all art is a gift of the Holy Spirit.” Composer, teacher & multi-reed musician (bass clarinet, saxophones) Oluyemi Thomas brings elements of life and work to the flow & he believes: “The musician’s art is among those arts worthy of the highest praise…” As a great enhancement to their compositional approaches, Positive Knowledge continues to perform throughout the United States, Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, Israel, Canada, and the Caribbean Islands which has resulted in a rich multifaceted vocabulary to date. They have recorded or performed with such artists as Cecil Taylor, Wadada Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Alan Silva, Peter Kowald, Henry Kaiser,William Parker, Miya Masaoka & Gino Robair, “Kidd” Edward Jordan. Continue reading →

Thollem McDonas | Poor Stop Killing Poor | Live in Detroit at the Bohemian National Home | Edgetone Records

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This live album delivers more pearls of wisdom by that magnificent lone wolf specimen named Thollem Mcdonas. This man’s ardent playing seems to be modeled after centuries of musical knowledge; helped by the peculiar resonance of Detroit’s Bohemian National Home, Thollem wanders helplessly in search of lost recollections, which he finally finds only to immediately neglect them to turn his attention towards the end of another rainbow. Mcdonas has a gift, the same that ancient bluesmen and griots had: he carries the past within himself, even the events that he didn’t live, and lets us feel them through chordal successions that fuse Stravinsky, silent movie soundtracks and what Zappa called “bionic ragtime” referring to Conlon Nancarrow; we can find Charlie Chaplin, Friedrich Murnau, our grandma’s photo and an ectoplasmic Charlemagne Palestine in the space of a single track. – Massimo Ricci Continue reading →

E. Doctor Smith | The Drummstick 2 | Edgetone Records

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E. Doctor Smith’s original invention, the Drummstick has a vertical design that enhances his ability to digitally tap, slap, flam, and roll. This CD showcases the versatility of his instrument and presents truly inspired left-the-box-way-behind music that smacks you up one side of your head while caressing you down the other. For the Drummstick’s 10th anniversary, Doc reassembled many of the musicians from the Drummstick’s debut release in 2000, as well as some great new ones. Rejoining Doc for Drummstick 2 are bassist and co-producer Celia DuBose; Jack Wright with his array of electric guitars and loops; Neil Mezebish on acoustic and MIDI saxes; trumpeter and Feat of Clay co-founder the “Mad Swede,” aka Eric Dahlman; and his long-time collaborator and K2 co-founder Seth “Elgie” Elgart on assorted iBooks, vintage synthesizers, keyboards and samples. Also joining Doc is bassist Mike Shea, who recorded with Doc’s latest ensemble, Robert Anbian and UFQ: The Unidentified Flying Quartet, featuring poet Robert Anbian, saxophonist Charles Unger, and pianist Sam Peoples. Continue reading →