Rolling Jazz Thread 2023

The new Matana Roberts is incredibly moving, album of the year.

Xp Quinn Kirchner. I saw him play drums with the comedian John Mulaney once. Just played drums while jokes were told at very large venue. One of the more interesting pairings.

Also, Budo Jeru, Quinn Kirchner plays on the Rob Frye record mentioned up thread

love the Kirchner record that begins with this excellent version of “Flowers for Albert,” also on Astral Spirits

https://quinkirchner.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-pro-musica

will check out both records, thanks

my favorite record on AS remains quin kirchner's "the shadows and the light."

Thanks for the tip on this, I sampled it last night and immediately placed an order.

I like the kirchner album I heard a lot then I saw him live and was like whoa ... this is AMAZING ... not sure why the album didnt sound more like this..

I love watching John Hollenbeck (looked this up after listening to their new studio album):

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

Higher quality video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_7JUrtTQaA

Although he has much less of a clockwork muppet vibe in that one

My latest Stereogum jazz column is up; I used the André 3000 album as a springboard to talk about Yusef Lateef, Bobbi Humphrey, Hubert Laws, and Nicole Mitchell, and reviewed new albums by Ambrose Akinmusire, JD Allen, Thandi Ntuli (with Carlos Niño), Lafayette Gilchrist, Myra Melford and others.

I either missed or forgot about Chris Potter's Live at the Village Vanguard album from this year (Taborn/Colley/Gilmore), it's fucking sick.

https://chrispotterjazz.bandcamp.com/album/got-the-keys-to-the-kingdom-live-at-the-village-vanguard

Yeah, that's a good one — his third live-at-the-Vanguard disc, and they're all worth hearing.

I got super-confused the other day because there is a music student studying guitar with Pasquale Grasso whose name is also Chris Potter.

Great column unperson, thanks.

(That said, whew the plethora of ads on Stereogum gives my browser a workout)

Yeah, meant to mention that I liked your column as well unperson. Although I guess I missed that Shabaka Hutchings was completely ditching all his other bands for the flute, I guess I thought that was just another additional stream for him, bummer that he'd abandon all of those.

yeah that's kind of a shocker. I like to chill out as much as anyone the rehabilitation of New Age music has IMHO led to more bad than good.

but the rehabilitation

I saw Hitchings just past May subbing on sax for an indisposed Roscoe Mitchell in the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, maybe his last hurrah on sax?

Hutchings.

The Marxist scholar and cultural critic Robin D.G. Kelley wrote a biography of Monk that looks pretty interesting, and the first part of this interview focuses on the bio and the socius that surrounded Monk. Pretty interesting.

https://black-ink.info/2020/01/16/solidarity-is-not-a-market-exchange-an-interview-with-robin-d-g-kelley/

Kelly's Monk bio is indeed amazing and compulsively readable, an absolute must-read

I'm sold, just purchased the e-book.

I need to read that Kelley Monk bio. I recently read Laurent de Wilde's book when I found it in a local used shop, but it was pretty meh.

By comparison, I'm finding Aidan Levy's Sonny Rollins bio a little slow going (got it last Christmas, only getting to it now, lol).

Haha yeah, I've had that on my shelf for a few months now but keep choosing something else, it always seems daunting lol.

I read the Monk bio, it's excellent. It really covers every documented gig he ever played and every record, and it was really a pleasure listening through along with it.

I seem to remember something about that book bugging me but maybe I should just try again.

Definitely took it in chunks with a long break in the middle, every now and then it felt relentless but found it largely compelling.

I started the Monk bio many years ago, put it aside, then picked it up a year or two ago and absolutely blasted through it.

The Rollins bio is indeed exhaustive. My own upcoming book on Cecil Taylor is nowhere near that granular. It covers pretty much every album, but I didn't feel the need to describe every gig, and I didn't do a whole lot of detective work in terms of tracking down former boyfriends and stuff like that.

thread favorite Dave Easley plays on Alex Sadnik's Charlie Parker album Flight and it's a joy, "Bird of Paradise" is a favorite
https://alexsadnik.bandcamp.com/album/flight

^ this is some cool shit although it does make me feel like i'm not quite smart enough to understand what they're doing

ok some of it is actually pretty straight ahead

Always a joy to watch Herlin Riley (only now connecting that Emmet Cohen is the piano in his regular NYC group for awhile now)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZK2blf-wvI

Loving that Alex Sadnik, ty (Jay Bellerose on there too, the sound of LA jazz of a certain stripe)

What’s the deal with Emmet Cohen? Was that his first mention in this borad? I’ve seen his name a lot and he’s on a record or two with some singers that I like but I’ve never actually seen him.

He's got a popular youtube channel now where he puts together different groups to perform in his living room, that's really boosted his visibility as far as I can tell

I think he's really good. Hear him on my local jazz station. Don't really know anything about him.

Oh yeah, did watch him a few times during the lockdown I think.

Spiritual soul-jazz saxophonist Muriel Grossmann has a new album out today, and it's coming out on Third Man in the US, so who knows? She might even get some press coverage. It's a 90-minute double LP and so far (I'm about 2/3 of the way through) it's pretty good — one of her more energetic, uptempo records, not so much meditative space jamming this time. The drummer's going off.

https://murielgrossmann.bandcamp.com/album/devotion-2

she's kind of a kook, isn't she? i've liked some of her music in the past

I listened to the JD Allen record that unperson mentioned in his recent column, it is phenomenal and moody, perfect for my bike ride on this foggy Sunday. big recommendation.

Greg Osby has made his first album in 15 years. There is some discussion, in the linked article, of the #metoo-ish accusations which led him to leave Berklee.

“I had a beef with a school in Boston where I was teaching, and I had to get legal. I had to let the lawyers do the talking.” This is how Osby broaches the subject of his dismissal from the Berklee College of Music, which followed accusations of sexual misconduct.

Osby had joined the faculty at Berklee in 2008, as a full-time professor in the Ensemble Department. At some point he began dating a woman who’d previously been a student, though she was no longer enrolled. After the relationship ended, she brought her complaint to Berklee administrators, claiming that he had pressured her for sex. Osby resigned in 2012, and at the time he decided not to contest the charges.

This is where the situation might have remained, if not for a story in the Boston Globe on Nov. 8, 2017, during the first wave of coverage around the #MeToo movement. The article, by Kay Lazar, a public health and accountability reporter, bore the attention-grabbing headline ‘Berklee let teachers quietly leave after alleged sex abuse, and pushed students for silence.’ Osby, having granted Lazar an hour-long interview, was damningly cited in the piece.

“Only an idiot would sleep with students, and I am not an idiot,” read the most egregious of his quotes. “I would not do that. But after they graduate, it’s open season.” Another quote implied that the former student wasn’t attractive enough to be a credible accuser. Osby was swiftly renounced on social media. At a moment when entire industries were beginning to reckon with systemic problems — most pointedly, the lack of consequences for sexual harassers and abusers — this was a story that resonated in jazz, and in the broader realm of music education.

...

Berklee, through its Office of Media Relations, declined to comment on Osby’s departure. But Osby — who says that during his four years on faculty, “I didn't write one new song, because I was that beat down” — spoke freely about the situation. Regarding his brief relationship with the former student, whose identity has not been disclosed, he says: “For better or for worse, she became obsessed. And I withdrew, which didn't sit well; the idea that I didn't return any phone calls or emails really infuriated her. It got to the point where I was almost a victim of being stalked. And the last time that I saw her, she more than inferred that I would pay for it.”

After the Boston Globe story, Osby sought legal action against his accuser for defamation. The case was settled in his favor. “I kept every email, and I kept every text message,” he says. “So that's how my case was won. Because I had hard evidence. It wasn't my word.” By contrast, he says Lazar had made no recording of their interview — a crucial factor, in light of the incendiary quotes at the heart of the story.

Osby says he issued a complaint to the Globe, which invited him to submit an open letter. He did, but it never ran. He also sent in a statement to the paper’s “Fresh Start” initiative, which allows individuals to appeal older stories that have had an adverse impact on their lives. Again, the effort led nowhere. Absent a defamation lawsuit against the Globe, which Osby deems a financially ruinous prospect, that’s probably where it stands.

There has to be a better way to phrase that.

“He has a great knack for picking amazing younger musicians and grooming them,” Carrington affirms."

Moor Mother has a new album coming out on Anti- next year and the first track has just been released — it's a collaboration with Nicole Mitchell on flute and Nduduzo Makhathini on piano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1OBIgFHFqQ

I'm in love with this brand new Ambrose Akinmusire album Owl Song, it's a trio with Bill Frisell (!) and Herlin Riley (!!). I've never been into him before, but I've had a big Frisell year and this fits perfectly with all the minimal, ambient Scandinavian jazz I've been listening to. And it's cool to hear Herlin in this mode (all the low end is left to the drums too, since there's no bass or piano).

Yeah, it's a really good record.

Heh glad you like it, I wasn't sure.

Also, I'd been ignoring these Youtube recommendations for a "StickPeople" podcast, but it turns out it's Lenny White + Mike Clark + David Garibaldi + Michael Shrieve + Greg Errico all interviewing another musician, which is really cool.

Also this Paul Motian documentary is on Youtube in full:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9DkKTbyobA