Rolling Jazz Thread 2023

Also should be thanking unperson for writing up this Dan Rosenboom record, it really is kind of incredible how there are moments that are pretty FREAKED OUT and others that sound like a more tame bop group. Really dope.

https://danrosenboom.bandcamp.com/album/polarity

Mentioned it on the Sorey thread, but will be seeing him with Iyer and Steve Lehman in June. They're playing at what is fast becoming the only bar I regularly go to in Philadelphia, Solar Myth, a free jazz-themed bar, coffeeshop, and venue. It's vanishingly small, and so I have a feeling tickets are going to go very quickly.

There's another new Mark Giuliana album and so far this is my favorite yet, the most relaxed, just great playing & interaction:

https://markguiliana.bandcamp.com/album/mischief

Solar Myth, a free jazz-themed bar

this brings a tear to me eye

my eye*

sounds awesome!

it’s an excellent bar— beer, wine, and amaro. they also sell coffee, tomato pie, and have a small book and record section.

wow, I will have to remember that next time I'm there!

same

Kenny Garrett Tiny Desk, always a pleasure...the commitment to the groove is immense, Ronald Bruner is destroying (while also being restrained compared to what he could be doing, I'm sure).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IcrlAYyA_o

Hey where's the best place to find jazz listings in NYC these days? Asking for a friend.

New York City Jazz Record?
http://nycjazzrecord.com/

Mind-boggling but true: Ron Carter's website, roncarteruniverse.com, allows you to search every session he's ever played on, year by year or by searching for particular players. It's fucking amazing.

jazz listings in NYC these days

it's a subscription newsletter and it isn't strictly jazz, but dada strain's weekly "bklyn sounds" newsletter is an indispensable, fantastically curated guide to nyc (not just bklyn) live gigs, with jazz and dance music front and center. "Rhythm & Improvisation & Community" is his motto. very highly recommended.

https://dadastrain.substack.com/

thanks for that!

i'm also interested to hear about venues for jazz and experimental music in NYC. are there any free jazz bars like there are in philly? :)

I used to know a few but…

My latest Stereogum column is up. I interviewed the members of GoGo Penguin, who aren't really sure they're a jazz group

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, April 17, 2023 12:15 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just wanted to say I really enjoyed this - thanks

RIP Bill Lee, bassist, composer, and writer of "Mo' Betta Blues" (one of the last standards to really catch on?)

https://pitchfork.com/news/bill-lee-jazz-musician-and-father-of-spike-lee-dies-at-94/

Oh yeah---recently on Rolling Reissues:

The Descendants Of Mike And Phoebe
A Spirit Speaks
PURE PLEASURE
Pure Pleasure reissue of this classic spiritual jazz LP originally released on Strata East in 1974. Bill Lee’s family band is a must have album for all spiritual jazz fans, and includes killer tunes such as ‘Coltrane’ & ‘Attica’. A quality repress on 180g vinyl.

extremely lame response itt re: NYC jazz clubs

I sent them to see Nicholas Payton w/Bill Stewart on drums at Smoke, which I personally would love to see.

all the places I have seen the music broadly defined as "jazz" have been either in unprepossessing bars like Lowlands in Brooklyn or multipurpose venues like Roulette or Pioneer Works in...Brooklyn.

In my one weekend in Brooklyn this year lol

lowlands in brooklyn is precisely the kind of recommendation i'm looking for! thanks.

Tim Berne has a weekly residency there in Thursday nights, one of my main guys.

Henry Threadgill and Alexander Hawkins both have exceptionally good new albums out, making the world a slightly better place.

Fuck yes — 80 minutes of previously unreleased Coltrane with Eric Dolphy, recorded at the Village Gate in 1961, coming out in July.

Incredible news!

With Tyner/Workman/Jones, hell yeah. Preview 'Impressions' sounds great, just in terms of audio quality and vibe.

Also glad to see Reggie Workman is still with us

woah

Wow

Sounds great!

Also, that photo of the banner for summer '61: Coltrane Quartet, Art Blakey Quintet & the Horace Silver Quintet. Damn, what a time to be alive.

The Alexander Hawkins album is surprisingly electronic, but I like it.

I see Carlos Ninos got the coveted Andre 3000 flute cameo - https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/im-just-chillin-on-fire

Kick Out

New York City experimental/jazz metal quartet TITAN TO TACHYONS was recently awarded a grant from the Queens Art Fund, and a free show to tie into the award.

TITAN TO TACHYONS is led by New Zealand/New York composer and guitarist Sally Gates (ex-Orbweaver), joined by drummer Kenny Grohowski (Secret Chiefs 3, Imperial Triumphant, John Zorn), and dueling bassists Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, Tomahawk) and Matt Hollenberg (Cleric, John Zorn). The quartet instrumentally depicts the realms of surrealism and science-fiction through eclectic and improvisational passages, juxtaposed by fluid grooves and metallic flurries.

Following their second album, Vonals, which saw release through John Zorn’s eclectic Tzadik Records last Summer, TITAN TO TACHYONS now presents a new work, The Abolition Of Linear Time, which will be unveiled as part of a free concert for the public at TV Eye, Ridgewood on July 11th, joined by Editrix.

Gates reveals, “The piece explores the hallucinatory nature of perceived reality and time, inspired by a recurring phrase I kept coming across in various scientific, Surrealist, and philosophical works: “The abolition of linear time.’

“An inventive use of rhythm and form elicits that time is not linear, but cyclical, subjective, and elastic. Musical motifs portray a subjective, shifting reality, with themes warping and disintegrating, often stretching into psychedelic territory through sections of improvisation, experimental techniques, and effects pedals.

“On a visceral level, it incorporates a personal reflection of my experience returning to New Zealand after four years in New York, cut off and isolated from home by the pandemic. The relief and emotion of returning adds a contrast of exuberance and reflection to the music, combining the inspiration I have found through absorbing the world of jazz in NY with my roots of progressive metal and the ubiquitous sound of Pacifica music in New Zealand.”

Written for an instrumental quartet consisting of two bass players, guitar, and drums, the piece features sections of directed and free improvisation, allowing the expansion and variation of composed passages, and fostering presence and intuitive communication between the musicians.

This event is made possible with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts.

The day after the event, TITAN TO TACHYONS will play a show in Baltimore as well. See the confirmed live details below and watch for much more from the band to post shortly.
TITAN TO TACHYONS Live:
7/11/2023 The Abolition Of Linear Time Queens Art Fund show @ TV Eye – Queens, NY w/ Editrix
7/12/2023 The Crown – Baltimore, MD w/ Holy Fingers, Inc Inc Inc, and Overcalc [info]

Kenny Grohowski. Interesting. Been a year or two since I’ve seen him. Friend of mine played at TV EYE recently (don’t think he knew the origin of the name). Looks like it’s technically in Queens but might as well be In Brooklyn.

it's a place i'd like to check out. Sun Ra Arkestra played there back in may i think

I wrote about Peter Brötzmann's collaborations with Gnawa musicians, which are some of my favorite of his records.

New Matana Roberts Coin-Coin chapter coming out in the fall

https://matana-roberts.bandcamp.com/album/coin-coin-chapter-five-in-the-garden

Forgot to mention that the Fieldwork show I saw on Saturday was really wonderful— the whole set was really on point but lord, the second to last track was just an incredible 15 minute rager, all three in top form and just creating an incredible rollicking sonic experience. Solar Myth doesn’t have a green room so they were just hanging out after, got to say hi to Sorey and chat with Iyer for a bit.

or Immediate Release: June 13th, 2023

Over the course of his three-and-a-half decade career, Matthew Shipp has evolved from a radical outsider on the fringes of the NYC avant-garde to a position as, in the words of DownBeat magazine, “an elder statesman on the free-jazz scene.” He’s achieved such accolades without ever deviating from a single-minded exploration of his own inimitable sonic vocabulary, maintaining his own eccentric orbit around the jazz realm while steadfastly resisting its gravitational pull.

Two new releases bookending his storied career showcase both Shipp’s unflagging vision and the progressive maturation of his inimitable pianism. With his remarkable new solo album The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp, due out September 15th via Mahakala Music, the acclaimed pianist offers his most stunningly distilled statement to date, a compelling, intensely focused set of breathtaking improvisations that fastidiously refine Shipp’s prismatic language; meanwhile, ESP-Disk kicks off a new series of reissues also on September 15 with the 1990 trio outing Circular Temple, Shipp’s first album solely under his own name.

While these two albums provide a glimpse of the impressive consistency of Shipp’s voice across the span of his estimable career, the differences in the two albums spotlight the ways in which he has matured and defined his language over the decades.

“A personal style happens when it happens,” Shipp shrugs. “I believe everybody is capable of it, but the conditions that allow it to happen have to be in place. There is a pure generating principle within anybody, but that doesn't mean that there's not input from the outside world in my music. It does mean that everything is thoroughly digested into my system and then thrown back out as my central nervous system interacts with other parts of the universal hologram, which could be a lick from Monk or a Bud Powell solo. Just like water becomes steam becomes ice, there's a central principle to the whole thing that's pure Matt Shipp.”

Shipp made his recording debut in 1988 with Sonic Explorations, sharing top billing with his duo partner, alto saxophonist Rob Brown. Circular Temple offered fans of jazz’s outer limits the first true glimpse of Shipp’s idiosyncratic concept, however, leading a trio with lifelong collaborators William Parker (bass) and Whit Dickey (drums), with whom he famously worked in the legendary David S. Ware Quartet. The album was initially self-released on Shipp’s own Quinton imprint, then reissued in 1994 on Henry Rollins’ Infinite Zero label; both have since gone out of print.

Through ESP, Circular Temple will not only return to circulation on CD and digital formats but make its long-awaited vinyl debut. Over the next year, the label will follow that with a reissue of Zo, a 1994 duo with William Parker, on all three formats; and a vinyl-only issue of Shipp’s 2018 solo album Zero. All three will be available on vinyl for the first time ever.

“At the time that Circular Temple was released, I don't think people really knew what to make of me,” Shipp says. “By the time it was released on Infinite Zero, which was just a few years after its first incarnation, it was the lead review in Rolling Stone. Listening to it now, I hear that I had a very distinct voice even in the early 90s, when the neoconservative movement in jazz was at its peak. My language is transcendental and doesn't fit into any easy niche or category, so it's interesting looking back to see an album like that arrive in an environment that would not have been able to make sense of it.”

In the intervening years Shipp’s work has achieved its fair share of study and acclaim while still existing far outside the jazz mainstream. His solo recordings have charted a sweeping arc through his prolific discography since 1995, when he recorded both live (Before the World) and in the studio (Symbol Systems). In 2002 he returned with a rare standards date on the disruptive Songs. The further clarification of his voice can be traced from 20015’s One through 2018’s Zero, his mathematical precision revealed in his most recent offerings, The Piano Equation and Codebreaker.

If those latter titles hint at an investigatory process, then The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp suggests a profound discovery, one that turns the pianist’s expansive, often cosmic vision inwards to find an equally expansive universe in his own essential being. The album’s ten stark, exacting inventions seem to have shorn away any superfluous gestures to reveal Shipp’s unadulterated inner life.

“I believe a pianist's intrinsic nature comes out in the solo idiom,” the pianist asserts. If that is the case, then the solo work of an artist as singular and visionary as Shipp must be viewed as creation in its purest form.

“When you're playing solo, it's a pure prayer to the instrument and to the vibratory field that the music comes from,” Shipp explains. “You're laid out naked in your full glory, for everybody to see. So the deeper I get into my career, I'm drilling further down to the bare essence of the facilitator that generates this music.”
For all media inquiries contact jake at rampglobalpr.com

My wife designed the cover for Zero, and a couple of other recent Shipp albums:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0082742188_10.jpg

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0938933033_10.jpg

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1396954279_10.jpg

wide range ov excellence!

Those are awesome covers!

This isn't a 2023 release, but I just got into Nduduzo Makhathini's album from last year, In the Spirit of Ntu. It's great, South African spiritual jazz. Need to listen to some of his previous releases.

I’ve really grown to appreciate Shipp these last several years and while I don’t collect every album I always try to see him live when I can (saw a great solo set at the French Embassy here in DC about 10 years ago).

That new David Murray quartet mentioned upthread in January, is going to be at Blues Alley in Washington DC shortly on June 29 and 30th

Marta Sanchez on the piano, Luke Stewart on the bass and Kassa Overall on the drums

What a pleasure to watch the master (Chris Dave) at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPIL8wsIuBk

And this show with Pino and Sharkey has been making arounds, I know someone who went to NYC just to catch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un7LPvH38xA

I did catch Kassa Overall btw, it was a lot of fun. Drums, percussion, keyboards, and bass with everyone triggering samples etc. Lakecia Benjamin sat in on sax for a couple impromptu jams.

New Yorkers should go see James Francis, Immanuel Wilkins, and Tyshawn Sorey at NuBlu tomorrow.

My latest Stereogum column is out. Talked about 70s Mingus, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, and some other stuff.