Articles by Mark Corroto
Gregg Belisle-Chi: Slow Crawl: Performing the Music of Tim Berne
by Mark Corroto
Guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi's story mirrors that of saxophonist Tim Berne, which makes Slow Crawl all the more compelling. Berne's own musical journey began when he was so moved by Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D. (Mbari, 1972) that he relocated to New York to study directly with the master. Decades later, Belisle-Chi had a similar experience in Seattle when he first encountered Berne's Science Friction (Screwgun, 2002). The album altered his musical trajectory, prompting him to move to New York to study ...
Continue ReadingBLINK: BLINK
by Mark Corroto
It bears repeating: collective improvisation is far more challenging than individual soloing. It demands discipline, trust, and, as musicians like to say, exceptional ears. Composer and alto saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra's BLINK demonstrates all three, bringing together five musicians whose listening skills are as sharp as their instincts. The project is built on Dijkstra's long-running Porch Trio, featuring electric bassist Nate McBride and drummer Eric Rosenthal. That core group previously expanded into a sextet for PorchBone (Driff, 2024). With ...
Continue ReadingEarscratcher - Rempis/Harnik/Lonberg-Holm/Daisy: Otoliths
by Mark Corroto
How do these four musicians--individually and collectively--manage to create music that is consistently compelling? Part of the answer lies in their versatility. Each is a formidable soloist, an accomplished bandleader and a sought-after collaborator in improvising ensembles. For Earscratcher, Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik joins forces with three longtime stalwarts of the Chicago scene: saxophonist Dave Rempis, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and drummer Tim Daisy. The Chicago contingent first forged their bond in the trailblazing Vandermark 5 and have since collaborated across ...
Continue ReadingMats Gustafsson / Ken Vandermark / Tomeka Reid / Chad Taylor: PIVOT
by Mark Corroto
Do not judge a friend for buying a lottery ticket when the jackpot climbs to some astronomical sum. The odds of hitting the winning combination may be just as astronomical, but the dollar spent buys something more valuable than probability: a few hours of dreaming, imagining another life. Speaking of combinations, the newly formed quartet Pivot feels very much like a winning ticket. Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark are no strangers to collaboration, having crossed paths in Peter ...
Continue ReadingTatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante: The Sound of Raspberry
by Mark Corroto
This LP may be the revelation of 2025--or a sonic ordeal, depending on your tolerance for noise and your grasp of history. Japanese drummer Tatsuya Yoshida and Mexican saxophonist Martín Escalante met at the perfect moment in December 2023 to record 14 tracks at Tokyo's Bar Aja. The result, The Sound of Raspberry, is the love child of punk rock and free jazz, fed through a grinder and pulverizer until nothing but raw nerve remains. The sound is head-spinning, in ...
Continue ReadingMiguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard
by Mark Corroto
The perfect sports analogy for saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón might just be baseball legend Roberto Clemente. Both were born in Puerto Rico, and both are revered as masters of their respective crafts. Clemente was a perennial All-Star, a World Series MVP, a Gold Glove winner and a National League batting champion. Zenón, for his part, has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur “genius" grant and a Doris Duke Artist Award. He is frequently recognized as alto saxophonist ...
Continue ReadingNeil Charles Quartet: Dark Days
by Mark Corroto
In 2025, amid global unrest and political fracture, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom can feel like a distant dream, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream" speech like a myth from a gentler past. Has social media, with all its noise and manipulations, induced a kind of societal amnesia? Has King's “arc of the moral universe" begun to bend backward under the weight of cynicism and fatigue? If your glass is half empty, ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Amado / Chris Corsano: The Healing
by Mark Corroto
Imagine the blank canvas that tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado and drummer Chris Corsano set out to fill in this live recording from Lisbon, Portugal's ZDB in September 2016. Between them, they have nearly three hundred recordings and three times as many performances--an arsenal of sounds, textures, and ideas ready for deployment. Their orbits often intersect: Amado leading his Motion Trio, The Attic, The Bridge and collaborating with Luís Lopes, Alexander von Schlippenbach, among others; Corsano sharing stages and studios with ...
Continue ReadingShifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders: Ecliptic
by Mark Corroto
Some books are divided into chapters--numbered, titled, and carefully structured. The musical equivalent is the tracklist: segmented, labeled pieces presented in order. But Ecliptic by the trio Shifa (شفاء, Arabic for “healing") rejects that format entirely. This 46-minute set of improvised music by saxophonist Rachel Musson, pianist Pat Thomas and drummer Mark Sanders unfolds without titles, track divisions, or breaks. It is a single, uninterrupted performance recorded live at London's Café OTO in February 2023. Like their previous ...
Continue ReadingOlie Brice Quartet: All It Was
by Mark Corroto
Bassist Olie Brice wears the title of Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside with remarkable ease. Equally adept in free improvisation and structured composition, Brice moves fluidly between extremes. His work with improvisers such as Tobias Delius and Mark Sanders on Somersaults (Two Rivers, 2015), or with Paul Dunmall on The Laughing Stone (Confront, 2023), exemplifie his outside approach. Meanwhile, his release Fire Hills (West Hill, 2022), where he composed material for both trio and octet, showcases his talents on the more structured ...
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