Jazz Articles about Ben LaMar Gay

Natural Information Society: Since Time is Gravity

by Danen Jobe
May 11, 2023

The concept of trance is one of the oldest in the world. Many older music forms embraced trance for their rituals. One is the Gnawa musical tradition originating in Kano, Nigeria and Morocco, which uses double and triple notes repeated sometimes for hours to induce a religious state while the singer sings stories of spirits. It is played on a gimbri (aka sintir or hajhuj), a three stringed instrument featuring one short and two long goat gut strings over a ...

FAUVES Festival 2022 in Rome

by Luciano Rossetti
November 26, 2022

Ben Lamar Gay Ensemble a Firenze

by Neri Pollastri
November 18, 2022

Ben LaMar Gay Ensemble Firenze A Jazz Supreme Sala Vanni 11.11.2022 Appuntamento internazionale particolarmente atteso della stagione autunnale 2022 della rassegna A Jazz Supreme, venerdì 11 Novembre alla Sala Vanni di Firenze era in programma il quartetto di Ben LaMar Gay, cornettista, cantante ed eclettico polistrumentista, considerato uno dei più originali innovatori dell'attuale panorama jazzistico. Nato a Chicago e membro della AACM, Lamar Gay attinge a ogni genere musicale, da quelli più ...

RedGreenBlue: The End And The Beginning

by Chris May
August 7, 2022

RedGreenBlue sound like they have emerged from the same synapse-snapping dope bunker that La Monte Young and Jon Hassell exited with their Theatre Of Eternal Music in the 1970s, whacked out on opium, hashish and mescaline, dazed but not confused. RedGreenBlue may or may not indulge in the same psychotropic self-medication as their Lower East Side ancestors, but their strange and beautiful debut album, The End And The Beginning, suggests they do, and that is what counts. ...

Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble: Now

by Chris May
March 19, 2021

Chicago-based collective Black Monument Ensemble's sophomore album was recorded in September 2020 at the intersection of various existential crises, as seen from a US perspective: the threat of Trump winning the presidential election, by fair means or foul; the rising tide of fascist ideology; extrajudicial murders of, in particular but not exclusively, black Americans; a galloping pandemic; economic chaos; and social isolation. Given the circumstances, it is no surprise that Now sounds apocalyptic. But it is also ...

Jeremy Cunningham: The Weather Up There

by Jakob Baekgaard
February 22, 2020

The complex landscape of human emotions is still vastly uncharted, but every true work of art adds a little piece to the puzzle. This can be done in many ways, but it is rare that an album connects emotion with complex layers of memory, interpersonal relations, politics and societal structures. Nevertheless, this is what drummer and composer Jeremy Cunningham's album does. In a statement, Cunningham explains the background: “I wrote The Weather Up There to confront the ...

Gil Scott-Heron / Makaya McCraven: We're New Again

by Karl Ackermann
February 21, 2020

"All the dreams you show up in are not your own." With those words to an interviewer at The New Yorker, Gil Scott-Heron tried to explain a degree of detachment from I'm New Here (XL Recordings, 2011), his “comeback" and the final studio album before his death that year. The project was initiated by the head of XL and was the first album Scott-Heron released in the sixteen years he struggled with addiction and two drug-related terms in prison. The ...