Results for "Gwen Laster"

Gwen Laster

Gwen Laster is a nationally acclaimed musician who has been the recipient of awards by the National Endowment for the Arts, Jubilation Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Arts Mid Hudson, Lila Wallace, and the Cognac Hennessey 1st place Jazz Search. She's a native Detroiter whose creative influences come from the Motor City's exciting urban and classical music culture. Gwen started improvising and composing because of her parents love of jazz, blues, soul and classical music and her inspiring music teachers from Detroit's public schools. Laster relocated to NYC after earning two music degrees from the University of Michigan

Living Sky

By Sun Ra Arkestra

Label: Omni Sound
Released: 2022
Track listing: Chopin; Somebody Else’s Idea; Day of the Living Sky; Marshall’s Groove; Night of the Living Sky; Firefly; Wish Upon a Star.

Love In The Form Of Sacred Outrage

By Melanie Dyer

Label: ESP-Disk
Released: 2022
Track listing: Baraka Suite (for Amiri Baraka): Mvt. 1 Meditation On Earth; Mvt. 2 In nThe Theater; Mvt. 3 Who? Who? Who?; Mvt. 4 Stride out And Dig; Mvt. 5 Few Worlds Ahead; Mvt. 6 There Me Go; Love in the Form of Sacred Outrage [for Fannie Lou Harner); Pretty Flowers; Propagating the Same Type of Madness, that uh... [for Fred Hampton).

A Different Drummer, Pt. 8: Ustad Zakir Hussain Talks Tabla

by Karl Ackermann
August 25, 2022

Origins of the Tabla The twin hand drum was developed in its current form about 300 years ago on the Indian subcontinent but the roots of the tabla may date to pre-Muslim, Arabia. The name comes from “tabl," the Arabic word for drum, and temple carvings of tabla-like double-hand drums date to 500 BCE. Tabla is ...

John Pietaro's Best In Jazz And New Music 2021

by John Pietaro
January 4, 2022

This year in which we celebrated the return of live performance and simultaneously foresaw a rise in virus numbers and the resumption of show and venue closings, the pervasive issue remains on the anti-vax know-nothings affecting the lives of the careful, caring and compliant. Health regs and advisories as simple as getting a lifesaving vaccine are ...

Blue Lotus

By Gwen Laster

Label: Self Released
Released: 2021
Track listing: Blue Lotus; Awakening; City Echos; Movement 1 - Cigarette; Movement 2 - Three to Eleven - Movement 3 - Entrapped

Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World

By William Parker

Label: Centering Records / AUM Fidelity
Released: 2021
Track listing: CD 1: Listen; Cosmic Funk; I’d Rather Be; A Great Day to Be Dead; Jenny’s Interlude; Blue Limelight (dedicated to Cecil Taylor); Bennie’s Tune; Recall; Kachina Song; All I Ever Want; Where the Angels Live; Old Tears.

CD 2: Malachi’s Mode; Malcolm’s Smile; This Sweet Land; The Golden Light (Hymn); Mexico; Broken Promises; Child of Sound; Sky Falling; Adobe House; Rez Sunset; Trail Of Tears I; Trail Of Tears II; Rez Sunrise; Ascending Earth.

CD 3: Baldwin; The Majesty of Jah; Freedom; Sun Song; Numbers; Letter to a Resurrected Slave Owner.

CD 4: Entire Universe; Cheops; The Map Is Precise; If We Play Soft Enough; Harriott.

CD 5: Dancing at the Savoy; Don’t Sell My Soul; Harlem Dances; Harlem Speaks; Paintings in the Sky; Shutters as Windows.

CD 6: Tilted Mirror; Mexico; The Bleeding Tree; It Is for You.

CD 7: Song to Lift Sadness (Morning); The Sky Is Always Beautiful; Morning Bird; Rocket Man; Essence Calling Out; Afternoon Poem; First Vision; Green and Brown; I Believe; I Will Die for You; Song for Patricia; My Cup; Silent Whispers; It Would Never Be Long Enough; Song to Lift Sadness (Evening); Cloud and Sea Fading as Rain Falls.

CD 8: Visconti; Fellini; Pasolini; Leone; De Sica; Rossellini; Gospel; Milano; Lights in the Rain; Antonioni.

CD 9: The Elders at the Edge of the World part 1; Cultivation; Deep Spirit; Family Voice; Listen to the Sky; Sacred Prayers; Host for the Anointed; Bamboo Village; Blessed; The Flute Reaches Out; The World’s Fastest Train; Joyous and Delightful; The Elders at the Edge of the World part 2.

CD 10: Charcoal Paragraphs; Khaen; Lakota Song; Manzanar; On Being Native.

The New Muse 4Tet: Blue Lotus

by John Pietaro
May 12, 2021

The New Muse 4Tet, led by violinist/violist Gwen Laster, is a post-modern, plain-speakng incarnation of the string quartet, augmented by tabla and voice. Laster has engaged in a series of such ensembles and has also served well under the leaderships of Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, the Sun Ra Arkestra, William Parker, Danny Elfman and others. ...

John Pietaro's "Test" Of 2020

by John Pietaro
December 22, 2020

It would be a fool's errand in a covid-damaged society to attempt a peaceably gathered year's end “Best of" list, in jazz or any other genre or medium. But artists of jazz and all avant gardes have been especially susceptible to the considerable financial ebbing and health concerns of this period. Discussing this concept with my ...

Akua Dixon: Akua Dixon

by Hrayr Attarian
February 22, 2015

Virtuoso cellist Akua Dixon is one of the few exclusive practitioners of the instrument in jazz. Whether in a supportive role or leading her Quartette Indigo she deftly fuses intimate chamber decorum and spontaneous ingenuity for an elegant and vibrant style that is hard to pigeonhole. She spices her eponymous release with Latin passion and an ...