Articles by Pat Youngspiel
Lafayette Gilchrist: Undaunted
by Pat Youngspiel
On Undaunted Washington D.C.-raised and Baltimore-educated pianist Lafayette Gilchrist continues his idiosyncratically swinging trajectory with deep grooves, memorable lines and the gritty, unapologetic type of interplay that first brought him international acclaim on the 2004 recording The Music According To Lafayette Gilchrist. Few will have forgotten the catchy track “Assume The Position" off that album, used prominently in the popular David Simon-produced series “The Wire." Some of the funkier, more electric bits in his writing have been replaced with a ...
read moreJames Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia, With Love
by Pat Youngspiel
Moving on chronologically from George Washington Carver--the African-American musician and influential agricultural scientist to whom James Brandon Lewis' previous recording with the Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms 2021), was dedicated--For Mahalia, With Love continues the pattern of paying homage to influential Afro-Americans who, in their own way, changed the course of history. This album's dedicatee is the early gospel queen Mahalia Jackson, whose seminal performances lit a spark in the saxophonist's grandmother; she in turn carried the spark ...
read moreSpecial Clean Feed Records Edition
by Pat Youngspiel
For this Six Picks special, we're taking a closer look at selection of the fine recordings released by the Lisbon, Portugal-based Clean Feed label in 2023. There are many idioms in improvised music and the avant-garde today still leaves plenty of room for new discoveries, which is clearly in evidence here, Vine Leaf Tales Of Senses Clean Feed 2023 Try listening to the first couple of bars of “Tale One," the almost half ...
read moreOctober 2023: An Improvised Paradise
by Pat Youngspiel
The Angelica Sanchez Nonet Nighttime Creatures Pyroclastic Records 2023 One rarely gets to hear the contra-alto clarinet--an instrument mainly developed in the 20th century with a range extending downwards to the lower E-flat (concert G-flat), sometimes even a D or a C. On the introductory title cut of Nighttime Creatures, however, it is in plain sight, roaring through the stumbling avant-garde piece with its thunderous register like a bull in a china shop. Only here, ...
read moreBlankFor.ms - Jason Moran - Marcus Gilmore: Refract
by Pat Youngspiel
Electroacoustic music gains a new modern perspective with the sonic marvel that is Refract, a collaborative effort between degraded tapes artist Tyler Gilmore, aka BlankFor.ms, pianist Jason Moran and Marcus Gilmore on drums. An experimental series of sketched shapes featuring hovering loops turned sound- blankets, drum-set turned beat-machine and piano turned keyboard-impressionism, Refract's largely improvised fabric makes for one of the year's most adventurous and intriguing listens. Recorded with producer Sun Chung, the sonic properties are a focal ...
read moreMark Turner Quartet: Live At The Village Vanguard
by Pat Youngspiel
Mark Turner's Live At The Village Vanguard follows a year after the saxophonist's critically acclaimed second quartet offering for the ECM label Return From The Stars (2022) and features the same group, containing live cuts of the entirety of that record. The title track “Return From The Stars," “Terminus," “Bridgetown," “Nigeria 2," “Lincoln Heights," “It's Not Alright With Me," “Wasteland" and “Unnacceptable" are taken from the album and given new guises in these vibrant live renditions. Also included are “Brother ...
read moreAugust 2023
by Pat Youngspiel
PJEV-Kit Downes-Hayden Chisholm Medna Roso Red Hook 2023 With the third release on his Red Hook label it is becoming increasingly clear that producer Sun Chung isn't trying to box his label's musical output into any specific jazz styling or avant-garde field of experimentation, but rather that music can and should be regarded as exempt of any semiotic stigmatization. After the powerful piano solo statement of Masabumi Kikuchi on Hanamichi (2021) and the award-winning electro-acoustic ...
read moreRichard Glassby: Travels
by Pat Youngspiel
On his second recording, Travels, Scottish drummer Richard Glassby makes a giant leap forward from his debut Eclipse (self-produced, 2020), catapulting his take on the post-bop idiom to a whole new level, with a little help from pianist Pete Johnstone, tenor saxophonist Matthew Kilner and bassist Ewan Hastie. While his last album saw the drummer playing things rather safe, at times not quite able to muster the scope of vocabulary necessary to tread these harmonic waters, Travels proves a new ...
read moreMay 2023
by Pat Youngspiel
Isaiah J. Thompson The Power of the Spirit Blue Engine Records 2023 Since finishing second in 2018's Thelonious Monk competition, pianist Isaiah J. Thompson has established a particularly convincing profile as one of New York's most promising keyboard artists, while his recordings have been at home on Jazz at Lincoln Center's label ever since his 2017 debut, Handful Of Keys. The Power Of The Spirit can be considered the pianist's most original statement to date, ...
read moreThe Vampires: Nightjar
by Pat Youngspiel
Australian saxophonist Jeremy Rose's admiration for minimalist trio The Necks is of great depth, to the extent that he published an essay on the group, entitled “Memory and Mindfulness in the Musical Rituals of the Necks," examining musical ritualistic practices “beyond the African American realm capable of scaffolding transcendent experience." And he is not the only Vampire to have previously collaborated with a Neck. Besides his own ethno-improvisational endeavor with the trio Vazesh, featuring The Necks bassist Lloyd Swanton and ...
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