Rolling Jazz Thread 2021

Thanks sund4r! Back on Friday with some sound poetry related shenanigans, while on Saturday we take a look at South African jazz at the Third Eye, with vintage footage of Brotherhood of Breath.

From Grandstand Media (grandstandhq.com):

Theon Cross is expanding the sonic possibilities of tuba playing, and is at the forefront of the thriving London jazz scene. The gifted musician, composer and core member of Mercury Prize-nominated outfit Sons Of Kemet will release new album Intra-I (meaning “Within Self”) on October 29th on New Soil / Marathon.

Intra-I is an uplifting celebration of Black music, synthesizing the diversity of his musical art and experience to deliver an essential message to a world gripped by tribulation. Across ten sonically divergent and bass-rich tracks, Intra-I explores themes of self-reliance, origins, identity and more. An exploratory and upful celebration of Afro-Diaspora Music, the album features songs that examine self-development, the importance of history and heritage and the strength in adversity shown by the first generations of post-war Caribbean immigrants to the UK. In addition to being entirely made from sounds taken from the tuba, it is his first music to feature guest vocalists adding a whole other dimension to his music: the album features Remi Graves, Shumba Maasai, Consensus and Oren Marshall, as well as Afronaut Zu and Ahnansé on “The Spiral.”

Theon Cross is an award-winning tuba player and composer who not only redefines what can be done with his instrument but also transcends traditional genre conventions with his heady brew of low end theory combined with strains of jazz, dub, hip-hop, soca, grime, and other sounds from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. In 2019, he released his acclaimed debut solo album, Fyah, and has collaborated with Little Simz, Stormzy, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Kano and others.

An incredible live performer who's constantly looking to push boundaries, Cross participated in SXSW Online earlier this year by playing both a live set from Abbey Road Studios and, using motion capture technology, as a 3D digital avatar in a VR showcase. His sets were highlighted by The New York Times as one of the “15 of the Best Acts” @ SXSW 2021, noting: “a virtuosic set by the tuba player Theon Cross… merged wah-wah funk with Caribbean carnival rhythms as Cross hopped between holding down the bass lines and joining the band’s brassy melodic crossfire."

Cross will also embark on an extensive UK & Europe tour this year in support of the album. He’s also confirmed a U.S. performance at the Big Ears Festival in March 2022 -- look for additional 2022 North American dates soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV-ZLfbyNHQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQKvTMucw50

Another vid, but can't get it to play, try the publicity site I guess:
xpost http://grandstandhq.com/

Nice, his record "Fyah" is really good.

Can someone on here who got the vinyl of the Love Supreme in Seattle let me know if there's a download code or not?

Oops, just now checked email sorry:

Tomorrow, four-time Grammy-winning pianist, composer, and producer Robert Glasper will air the second installment of his visually immersive livestreams presented in 4K UHD and Dolby Atmos in partnership with On Air. Dinner Party — a nod to last year’s critically acclaimed self-titled album — will stream tomorrow (October 29) at 8pm EDT, PDT, BST* & AEST* (*October 30) and will see the Robert Glasper Electric Trio lineup adding long-time collaborator, co-producer, and creative partner Terrace Martin, and renowned trumpeter and composer, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah.

Tomorrow’s show follows the first stream which aired earlier this month, Robert Glasper Electric Trio, with guests Burniss Travis, Justin Tyson, and Jahi Sundance taking the stage alongside Glasper. For those unable to make it to Robert’s ongoing residency at New York’s legendary Blue Note Jazz Club, the two streams provide fans across the globe with a rare opportunity to see one of this generation’s foremost artistic talents operating amongst state-of-the-art production design in a quality truly befitting of his music. Both streams will be available for On Demand viewing now until November 30.
More details via links in here:
https://mailchi.mp/girlie/robert-glasper-terrace-martin-dinner-party-global-livestream-tomorrow-livestreams-available-on-demand-until-1130?e=fdd9971b11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS9sNYwkHKo

So available for another month, yay.

https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/10-10-10

excellent last studio album by Kieth Tippett's Mujician get's a release, it was recorded a decade ago shortly before Levin passed.

I interviewed Terrace Martin for Stereogum. He's working on an album with Herbie Hancock.

Great interview!

I had a blast talking to him, and feel like I edited out another couple of thousand words before submitting it. He can really talk.

unperson that's a fucking wild interview!

Revisited Matthew Shipp's Piano Sutras from 2013 the other night. It holds up really well; I actually get more from it now than I did at the time.

The complete Cecil Taylor concert from Town Hall in November 1973 is being released digitally in February. The final third of the show was released at the time as Spring of Two Blue J's; 20 minutes of solo Taylor on Side A, 20 minutes of the full quartet with Jimmy Lyons on alto sax, Sirone on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums on Side B. But prior to that, they had played a single 90 minute piece, "Autumn/Parade," which was impossible to break up for vinyl. But the engineer held onto the original tapes, and has mastered the entire thing. For a four-track live recording it sounds pretty great. Sirone can be hard to discern at times, but the other three are going at it full bore on the previously unreleased material.

Hell yeah coked up CT I’m there!

New Jeff Parker advance track "Suffolk" is v pretty minimalism. Interested to hear how it will work in the album. It's the most I've enjoyed solo Jeff Parker, I think: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/forfolks

Enjoying Shubh Saran's Inglish. Nice guitar-based Hindustani/jazz/rock fusion.

my fave recent release is the Borderlands Trio's Wandersphere. I've been in a very Paul Bley mood recently and this fits in nicely with that.

New Stereogum column up. Wynton Marsalis turned 60 last month; I had some thoughts. Also reviews of Makaya McCraven, Matthew Shipp, Irreversible Entanglements, and a bunch of other artists.

https://thisisredkite.bandcamp.com/album/apophenian-bliss

new one from Norwegian jazz-rock supergroup Red Kite

Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few's Cosmic Transitions is a super Coltraney — it was recorded on the anniversary of his birth last year, at the Van Gelder studio ...

only just caught up with this, very nice!

Big announcement that kinda fits in this thread:

My site/label is putting on an online streaming event, the Burning Ambulance Festival, on January 1, 2022. It will begin at noon ET on our Bandcamp page and feature performances by the following (running order TBD):

• saxophonist Rodrigo Amado (Portugal)
• Code-Switch (JD Allen, saxophone; Eric Revis, bass; Nasheet Waits, drums) (USA)
• saxophonist Caroline Davis (USA)
• saxophonist Muriel Grossmann (Germany)
• pianist Karin Johansson (Sweden)
• organist Susanne Kujala (Finland)
• saxophonist José Lencastre (Portugal)
• Massacre (Anton Pomonarev, saxophone; Anton Obrazeena, guitar) (Russia)
• cornet player Rob Mazurek (USA)
• trombonist Peter McEachern (USA)
• guitarist Ava Mendoza (USA)
• bassist William Parker (USA)
• trumpeter Steph Richards (USA)
• Senyawa (Rully Shabara, vocals; Wukir Suryadi, instruments) (Indonesia)
• saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi (USA)
• drummer Tyshawn Sorey (USA)
• electronic musician Submerged (Estonia)
• pianist Lisa Ullén (Sweden)
• percussionist Shirazette Tinnin (USA)
• pianist Eli Wallace (USA)

Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased here; they include a download of the compilation I put out last year, Eyes Shut, Ears Open, which contains exclusive tracks from Mats Gustafsson, Burnt Sugar, Melissa Aldana, and a bunch of other people. Hope you'll watch!

Wow!

Hell yeah man. But it first I thought it was Fred Frith’s Massacre and got even more excited!

Cool, unperson!

The new Ava Mendoza record is pretty good, tho I haven't spun it more than once.

NYC Bassist Tyler Mitchell To Release Dancing Shadows CD Jan 28 Via Mahakala Music, Featuring Legendary Alto Player & Arkestra Director Marshall Allen

Tyler Mitchell and Marshall Allen go way back — and way out. Having worked together in the Sun Ra Arkestra in the mid 1980s, the two resumed their partnership again over the past decade, with Mitchell rejoining the Arkestra after exploring other paths. That group carries on the Sun Ra name today under the direction of Allen, now 97, yet what they have in common goes far beyond the music of one man. Inspired by their former boss, the two are finding new common ground, cross-pollinating their experiences with both free and arranged jazz, and harvesting a new album in the process, Dancing Shadows.

Joining Mitchell and Allen on the new Mahakala Music release are Chris Hemmingway (tenor sax), Nicoletta Manzini (alto sax), Wayne Smith (drums) and Elson Nascimento (percussion), and the sextet can deliver both horn arrangements and free passages with aplomb. In so doing, the album fulfills a vision that Mitchell has had for years.

Having studied bass with Donald Rafael Garrett (John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Rahsaan Roland Kirk) and Malachi Favors (Art Ensemble of Chicago), Mitchell has always straddled the worlds of conventional and avant garde jazz. He was still in his mid-twenties when he made the jump from his native Chicago to New York and landed a gig with the Arkestra in 1985. While his restless nature soon took him elsewhere, he can be heard on two Sun Ra albums from that period. “Reflections in Blue and Hours After, we recorded both of those at the same time,” Mitchell recalls. “Sun Ra was doing a lot of standards and Fletcher Henderson arrangements.” Even then, he was exploring the possibilities of combining free jazz with less chaotic settings.

Indeed, Mitchell distinguished himself as one of the nation's premiere hard bop bassists in the years that followed. By 1988, he was adding his distinctive fat sound to Art Taylor's Wailers, and later he worked with Jon Hendricks, Shirley Horn, and George Coleman. By the turn of the century, “I went down to Mexico, Cuba and Central America for about ten years. And when I came back in 2010, 2011, I joined the Arkestra with Marshall. And Marshall's just such a great player. So I said, 'You've got to do a project with me one day!' I was just waiting for this moment to come. Oh man, it's beautiful, man! Everything just came so natural with Marshall. He's a master, man. He's from before be bop; he's from the swing era, you know?”

In fact, almost a century of music-making has given Allen an insight into nearly every facet of jazz. Leaving his native Louisville, Kentucky during World War II, he played clarinet and alto saxophone with the U.S. Army's 17th Division Special Service Band, spent the late '40s working with James Moody, then studied at the Paris Conservatory of Music. By 1951, Allen had returned to the U.S. and in 1958 joined Sun Ra's Arkestra, with whom he's been associated ever since. With James Spaulding initially being Ra's main alto player, Allen was encouraged to cultivate other talents over the years, including flute, oboe, piccolo, and EVI (a brass- and wind-based controller for synthesizer). Moreover, the Arkestra was the perfect ensemble for Allen to perfect his expressive, non-chordal approach, full of howls and birdsongs.

Nowadays, when Allen leads the Arkestra, Mitchell says he “covers all the different styles in jazz when we do a concert. It's not just swing, it's not just free. It covers a little bit of everything. We mix it all up, with some free stuff and old Fletcher Henderson stuff, to rhythmic songs with different kinds of layers. That's why this record has got a little bit of everything.”

The compositions of Sun Ra himself are the perfect vehicle for this eclecticism, especially those from the earliest years of the Arkestra, and the album includes “Interstellar Low Ways,” “Angels & Demons at Play,” “Dancing Shadows,” “Carefree,” “Enlightenment” and “A Call for All Demons.” Yet this is no slavish reproduction. As Mitchell points out, “Marshall was on all those records back in the day. But he chose not to sit and play the same arrangements. He preferred to put something fresh on top. A new line. He didn't want to just do his line again, like back in the '50s. He wanted to create on the spot.”

The set is rounded out with a Thelonious Monk tune, “Skippy,” two by the alto player Manzini and three by Mitchell himself. His contributions spring directly from his impressions of his fellow players. “Nico” and “Nico Revisited” refer to Manzini's nickname. “We did a couple of takes on the song, and they were so similar, yet so different. That's why I called the other one 'revisited',” says Mitchell. His third was inspired by Allen, but actually begins with only Mitchell's bass.

“I had him directing me,” says Mitchell. “He directed me so I could go off into it. 'Marshall the Deputy' is the title — that's what Sun Ra used to call him. It was a play on words: You've got the marshall and you've got the deputy. In fact there's a song called 'Deputy Motel' that he wrote for Marshall.”

All in all, Mitchell is pleased with the ensemble, which he put together with a particular kind of freedom in mind. “I thought the voicings from the horns would do all the chords I needed,” he reflects. “Sometimes a piano can really lock a person in, you know? It locks you up where you can't get out and be free. But when the piano and guitar are gone, I can play a lot of different notes. A lot of different things that ordinarily would clash with the piano.”

Mitchell was especially keen to try some of the Sun Ra tunes with a smaller band than the Arkestra. “The tenor player, Chris Hemmingway, joined the band just recently, and he turned out to be really good. Nicoletta is one of Marshall's proteges. She put a lot of arrangements together, and put in a lot of stuff to make it really happening. The horns kept things from really sounding too out there. The way they blew around the music really kept a cohesiveness around each song, where it wasn't just a soloist blowing. The shape of the song was always there. And then the drummer and the percussionist both play with the Sun Ra band, so they knew the music I wanted to do. It really paid to have somebody who knew the songs. I just did them a little different.”

And then there was Allen. “Marshall will improvise on the spot. And if a song's too nice and neat and clean and all too perfect, he'll come and just mess it all up. You don't want it to be all too perfect. He likes to have the chaos. Because he believes there are no wrong notes, you know? His philosophy is, you play one note, you make a mistake, and then say something right. Then make another mistake. Say something wrong. He hears the song like that. 'Play something wrong! Now play something right! Now play something wrong!' I just let Marshall do his thing. Everybody else had special things they had to play, arrangements to follow, but Marshall, I just let him do what he does. I really had no instructions for him except to direct us. We do a lot of free stuff, and use a lot of space chords and all that. I need him to direct us. Other than that, I just want him to fill in all the right places, and put his signature on it.”

The final product is the perfect synthesis of freedom and constraint, hard bop and pure sonic texture. The listener is never lulled into complacency. And this goes for Mitchell himself: “Each song's got a different vibe,” he says, “and I still listen to the music. I usually don't like to listen to what I've done. I don't like to keep hearing myself. But this particular record really holds my attention.”

SINGLES & RELEASE CALENDAR

January 11 - "Dancing Shadows" Single + Album Announcement

January 28 - Full Album

LINKS
Tyler Mitchell: Website
Mahakala Records: Website || Twitter || Facebook || Instagram || Bandcamp

ALBUM CREDITS


Marshall Allen – sax and evi
Tyler Mitchell – bass
Chris Hemmingway – tenor
Nicoletta Manzini - alto sax
Wayne Smith – drums
Elson Nascimento – percussion

CONTACTS
US Press: Gabriel Birnbaum, Gabe at clandestinepr dot com
Radio: Evan Welsh, radio at clandestinelabelservices dot com

Tyler Mitchell featuring Marshall Allen
Dancing Shadows

Release date: Friday, January 28th 2022

Airplay Date: Friday, January 28th 2022

1. A Call For All Demons

2. Angels and Demons

3. Care Free

4. Dancing Shadows

5. Enlightenment

6. Interstellar Loways

7. Marshalls the Deputy

8. Nico Revisited

9. Nico

10. Skippy

11. Space Travelers

12. Spaced Out

Newish William Parker, Mayan Space Station, is really really excellent. Gerald Cleaver is especially killing it on the drums.

That's the guitar-heavy fusion one? I remember liking it.

Yeah, Ava Mendoza on guitar. https://williamparker.bandcamp.com/album/mayan-space-station

saw Jeff Parker last weekend and he had copies of his new album "Forfolks" for sale.

it's very very good, very different from his recent stuff. it's all solo guitar, some loop pedal constructions, some more dronely stuff, some trad jazz verging on as close as he gets to wes montgomery, all very delicate and hypnotic. another triumph.

show was great as well.

Ill Considered sounded p good on first listen:
https://illconsidered.bandcamp.com/album/liminal-space

In the end, I wanted a bit more shaping of the noise in Mayan Space Station.

Forfolks sounding pretty nice this morning, more up my alley than his last one.

whoa, the Ill Considered album gets super heavy

Loving Forfolks. The solo version of La Jetee/Jetty at the end is a nice bonus.

Have we talking about the Roy Brooks "Understanding (Live)" record here?

It's a fucking scorcher, so good.

yeah banging album is that

speaking of shit hot drummers I've been listening to Ed Blackwell Trio - Walls-Bridges a lot recently, that's another good one!

jeff parker forfolks is so lovely

Yep. Fell asleep to it last night

"Fell asleep to it" isn't the ringing endorsement you think it is. It's about what I expected, though, and probably the main reason I haven't listened yet.

I was tired as fuck and not especially happy and it took me out nicely

It is questionable qua jazz, but this record (discovered from the Aquarium Drunkard list) is some lite-cosmic, dusty jazz piano stuff, I really like it. https://kafarimusic.bandcamp.com/album/blanket-of-black

That Roy Brooks record is HOT. Liked the Jeff Parker but can't really remember anything about it - must revisit.

Not heard of them before, but Web Web and Max Herre (Web Max) has a new album that is an ode to the spiritual jazz of Yusef Lateef:

https://webweb.bandcamp.com/album/web-max

Listening to two albums from 2000 and 2001, Boom Bop and Trance Atlantic (Boom Bop II) by guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, whose work I have never previously connected with — he's a sort of psychedelic blues guitarist who floated between jazz world and the Black Rock Coalition in the '90s, never fully putting one foot firmly in either camp. These two discs are sort of acid blues mixed with North African music, but Archie Shepp and Henry Threadgill are there, too, and Reggie Washington is on bass. Really good stuff, kind of Laswell-ish without Laswell. Both available on Bandcamp: http://bourelly.bandcamp.com

Yeah this Roy Brooks one is sick.

Totally fun 2021 reissue from Downtown NYC '96,keeping me on my toes

Sleevenote 2
Working with Spanish Fly was an extraordinary experience for me as I most often work with classical music in my choreography. Their music, however, has the perfect pulse for a ballet. It's charged with an "in
Your face" attitude mixed with a sense of yearning. I began to see Images of characters right away. “Night Creatures” we called them.
Young people sliding up Avenue A, full of quirks and obsessions.We gave them names: the Snake Lady. the Sisters, the Lovers. These Characters became our guides. They lead us to Our themes and choices of style.
Lighting designer Mark Stanley created a set of massive Venetian Blinds which opened to reveal the dancers. This gave the work a
sense of spying, of voyeurism.
credits
released April 1, 2021

Steven Bernstein . trumpet, slide trumpet, cornet, crooning
Marcus Rojas : tuba, tubapercussion, tubasinging
Tronzo : slide guitar, cup guitar, prepared guitar
with Ben Perowsky : drums, percussion

FLY BY NIGHT" COMMISSIONED BY THE SAN FRANCISCO BALLET ASSOCIATION.
CHOREOGRAPHED BY CHRISTOPHER D'AMBOISE.

PREMIERED FEBRUARY 28,1996 AT CENTER FOR THE ARTS AT YERBA BUENA GARDENS.
BACKGROUND VOCALS ON TONGUE SANDWICH:
SPANISH FLY, HAL WILLNER, VICKI STANBURRY, LAURIE GALLUCCIO, AMANDA REISMAN
https://stevenbernstein.bandcamp.com/album/fly-by-night

Well, the dance was in Yerba Buena, yeah, but you know where the music is coming from---now I'm craving some Lounge Lizards, Jazz Passengers reissues---also something new from John Lurie World Orchestra.

Listening to two albums from 2000 and 2001, Boom Bop and Trance Atlantic (Boom Bop II) by guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, whose work I have never previously connected with — he's a sort of psychedelic blues guitarist who floated between jazz world and the Black Rock Coalition in the '90s, never fully putting one foot firmly in either camp. These two discs are sort of acid blues mixed with North African music, but Archie Shepp and Henry Threadgill are there, too, and Reggie Washington is on bass. Really good stuff, kind of Laswell-ish without Laswell. Both available on Bandcamp: http://bourelly.bandcamp.com

Boom Bop was wonderful. Thanks for the tip!

I can't say it better than this guy does on Bandcamp:
Philip Graham---Oh how I do love this stately, swinging tumble of harmony and melody. The album seems like a slowed down, trippy echo of Duke Ellington’s “The Second Line” from New Orleans Suite.It's not really all that slow: every track has satisfying internal dynamics, which go with the mixing of emotions, rhythms, incidents, shades of this and that--yeah, Ellingtonia and NOLA and Downtown hipsters have come this far:
'Tinctures in Time' is the first original music Steven Bernstein has ever written for the Millennial Territory Orchestra, which prior to this recording had exclusively been a vehicle for his arrangements of other people's songs, from Count Basie to Prince. Most of the album was composed in 2019, a tough period for Bernstein: Henry Butler had recently passed, and there was a series of serious injuries and death in his immediate family. Like a lot of people do, Bernstein got through it by working. "I was spending a lot of time on planes, going to visit people in hospitals," he says. "So what else am I going to do with my time? I ended up with all this music."

"The tincture of time" is a phrase Bernstein's father, a doctor, uses for when there's nothing to be done but wait for something to heal; the relevance of time as healer for Bernstein himself is clear. He altered the phrase so it makes a little reference to a favorite Sly Stone tune. And "tinctures," Bernstein says, also refers to "things that people take to give feelings of euphoria." It's why he also calls this collection of compositions "cannabis music." But it's not some foggy notional bank of sands through the hourglass: everybody's very responsive, just never hyper (a tad outcat at times).Enough funk in there, also a soul anthem, not oversold, and sometimes I think Ben P. is playing a tabla?
Steven Bernstein - Trumpet, Slide Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Curtis Fowlkes - Trombone
Charlie Burnham - Violin
Doug Wieselman - Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone
Peter Apfelbaum - Tenor Saxophone
Erik Lawrence - Baritone Saxophone
Matt Munisteri - Guitar, Banjo
Ben Allison - Bass
Ben Perowsky - Drums
https://stevenbernstein.bandcamp.com/album/tinctures-in-time-community-music-vol-1