Rolling Jazz Thread 2023

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.

Borderline here but singer-songwriter / avant-vocalist Natalie Rose Lebrecht (if anyone remembers her excellent 2003 Warraw suite) has a new album out called Holy Prana Open Game which are long pieces of piano/strings/woodwinds. Her vocals retain the personality that made her first album so endearing. The music is on the ambient / spiritual side with any icy-warm quality. It's maybe not quite Promises but I enjoyed it.

Eric Lewis Fuck Yeah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gmdt4yCzrU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO8oKt2kvdg

There are moments in there that nearly reach seeing him with Elvin Jones, where I really felt like I was levitating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IfjLUe3SjU

Experimental Multi-Instrumentalist & Composer Vinny Golia To Release Massive 110 Track Second Movement of Even to This Day - Music For Orchestra and Soloists
--
Guest Soloist Appearances By Nels Cline, Susan Alcorn, Chas Smith, & More
--RIYL: Anthony Braxton, ICP Orchestra, Olivier Messiaen, Sam Rivers, Iannis Xenakis, Ken Vandermark

He brings a painterly discernment to the colours and textures inherent ineach of his insturments - The Wire
"an anchor and catalyst of the experimental scene in Los Angeles for some 40 years" - WBGO
longtime left-field hero - JazzTimes
Vinny Golia looms fairly large in the ranks of Los Angeles’ jazz scene, even from his perch outside the mainstream - LA Times
a MASSIVE musical contribution - Free Jazz Blog, on Movement One

Hi all - this is a wild one. I've been a fan of Vinny Golia's work for a long time, and as soon as I heard from him about this project I felt compelled to be involved. I love ambitious music, and Even to This Day is a truly enormous work in every sense. It was initially conceived as part of a 75th birthday celebration performance featuring 75 musicians, before COVID interfered, and it has only expanded in the face of that setback.

Volume two was recorded almost entirely by Golia and his collaborator/engineer Wayne Peet, with the help of some excellent guest soloists, and beyond the shocking length, the music itself is thrilling: constantly inventive, full of twists and turns and restless energy. Golia began his art career as a painter, and his use of texture in these pieces is so remarkable - "Follow the Tracks," for instance, is composed of overtone-laden breathy winds, scratchy percussive sounds, and something that could be bowed cymbals, multiphonic winds, twitching electronics, or a combination of all three.

Initially intended to be a short interlude between the equally large volumes one and three, volume two began with the suite for guitarist Alkis Nicolaides that you'll find scattered throughout. However, when Golia felt there was much more to explore in those ideas, it organically grew into the 110 track piece you now have before you.

Golia has been a fixture of LA's experimental music scene for decades, and he's the type of artist I admire greatly, resolutely pushing forward with the work that he believes in regardless of trends. But, notable for someone who has had to blaze their own path so extensively, he retains his faith in the positive power of music, and this work is his tribute "to our sanity, endurance, and patience." You can read more in his note below. It's no coincidence that his large ensemble work has always had a collectivist spirit, intended to unite the disparate music scenes of LA.

Please note that due to the length of the project it is stretched over two PJB "albums" - tracks 1-55 here, and 56-110 attached as "part two". That separation is not a part of the piece itself, and just reflects a technological limitation, the full second movement is all 110 tracks.

You can also see Golia perform some of the music from the first movement at Roulette with his large ensemble HERE

Hit me up with any requests/queries by replying to this email or writing to gabe at clandestinepr dot com
I know this is a lot to take in, but I really believe it's worth it. Incredible creative spirit here.

new matthew halsall very promising (if you like mellow nature spiritual hat jazz)
https://matthewhalsall.bandcamp.com/album/an-ever-changing-view

Listening to a bunch of Kurt Rosenwinkel after listening to an interview with him on Pablo Held's podcast. Really enjoying this year's Undercover: Live at the Village Vanguard record so far (great rhythm section of Greg Hutchinson, Aaron Parks, and Eric Revis).

His piano album from last year is real nice too.

And his solo baritone guitar release from last year (Berlin Baritone) is just gorgeous. It's nice to hear him play with a clean tone.

he was like the coolest new jazz artist around when I was in high school lol

glad to hear hes still at it

I'm reviewing Undercover and another album he's featured on, the latest from Brian Blade's Fellowship band, for Stereogum this month. I'm hot and cold on Rosenwinkel: he can really play, but he chooses some of the most obnoxious effects ever. When he doesn't sound like an electrified slide whistle, he's great.

I know what you mean, but way to bury the lede...*siren* new Brian Blade Fellowship record *siren*!

It's been out for a month, how did I miss this

Oh, because it's self-released. Apparently Blade also released a double album tribute to Bobby Hutcherson that has Jon Cowherd and Myron Waldon on it, and a live Fellowship bootleg from 2000. I've got some juicy catching up to do!

https://brianblade.bandcamp.com/album/live-from-the-archives

https://brianblade.bandcamp.com/album/volumes-l-ll-now-and-forevermore-honoring-bobby-hutcherson

Yeah, I bought two of those (the Fellowship and the Hutcherson, not the live thing).

My latest Stereogum column is up; I interviewed bassist Jason Ajemian about jaimie branch (they were friends and collaborators for more than 15 years), whose final album comes out this week.

Nice one, enjoyed the Brian Blade write-up.

I've been listening to that Pablo Held podcast and checking out some albums that get mentioned. There was a John Patitucci live trio album with Blade and Chris Potter that's nice, a bunch of Scott Colley records with Blade (and one with Nate Smith on drums), but what I'm really enjoying is this improvised piano & drums duo album from Kevin Hays & Bill Stewart, 'American Ballad' (from last year). Really really cool stuff.

genuinely not trying to speak ill of the deceased, but i simply don’t get what i’ve heard of branch. the energy and vision everyone talks about seems ham-fisted and the music is really dull, to my ears— is it one of those “you have to see it live” type of things that i will now, sadly, never experience?

Same, I try to hold my tongue because why trash something people are enjoying (especially now), but I've never gotten it or liked her playing. I figure it must be about the energy and maybe it's better to think about it as a theatrical performance/punk rock thing with jazz instruments and players, just not my thing.

Yeah, Branch was a had to see her live thing. The live album was also the key for me.

Yeah after I got over my "Jazz has to have long solos" prejudice I just enjoyed it for what it is. I have a feeling many people who are marketed as Jazz today are making "jazz-influenced, but not strictly jazz" and I have to recalibrate my expectations of like, George Coleman or something.

Yeah, the livealbum made me a fan of jamie branch too.

i had never heard of jaimie/fly or die but they opened for yo la tengo at one of the hanukkah shows and it was truly transfixing. i bought the live record vinyl and was sitting at the balcony bar holding it on my lap and she passed by and punched me in the shoulder and gave a smile & thumbs up and it was such a sweet moment. i wish i was able to see her/them many more times but sadly that was it. rip.