Articles by Max Kutner
Billie Davies: 2455 (Music for the Future)
by Max Kutner
2455: Music for the Future features the telekinetic duo of drummer/percussionist Billie Davies and trumpeter Branden James Lewis presenting a series of dreamlike improvisations united under Davies' concept of No Boundaries, Music for the 24th Century. Davies' vision and designs allow the music to shape-shift and wander at whim between dub, ambient, free jazz, musique concrète, and more. By allowing for fluid stylistic ambiguity and employing a bevy of processed sounds in their arsenal--extensive synth layering and loops, for example--the ...
Continue ReadingMichael Eaton: Stygian Gates
by Max Kutner
Symbiotique Nonet is a unique and noble beast, living in a suburb situated somewhere in the unsung wilds between modern chamber music and free jazz. The group is co-led by NYC-based saxophonist-composer, Michael Eaton and Kansas City-based electro-acoustic improviser-guitarist, Seth Andrew Davis. Stygian Gates, penned by Eaton, is a multi-movement suite loosely themed around characters and scenes from Greek mythology, especially the underworld and its various rivers. While the concept may sound dry at first read, even an initial exploration reveals an ...
Continue ReadingLuke Bergman, Jason Burger, Martin Nevin: Luke Bergman, Jason Burger, Martin Nevin
by Max Kutner
Centering the theme of an album around the sum of its performers is hardly a new idea but one that nevertheless yields innumerable possibilities of expression as personalities will always be unique. The dynamic between Luke Bergman, Jason Burger, and Martin Nevin on this self-titled recording is no exception to that rule but speaks to the most positive aspects of serving the concept before the separate needs of each member. Together, they fuse minds and deliver a set of sweetly ...
Continue ReadingElijah Shiffer: City Of Birds, Volume 3: Fly By Night Blues
by Max Kutner
Few current composers are as restlessly inventive as saxophonist-clarinetist Elijah Shiffer. Over the past decade, Shiffer has led numerous ensembles and written an ever-expanding catalog of original music, all crafted and thematically tied closely to and informed by distinct aspects of his interests and tastes. Fly by Night Blues, the third volume in his City of Birds series, speaks to all those qualities. Like the previous two offerings, Shiffer uses meticulously transcribed songs and voices from birds native to the ...
Continue ReadingYoshie Fruchter's Pitom: Alive and Well
by Max Kutner
Yoshie Fruchter has been a presence within the Radical Jewish and Modern Klezmer music circles for nearly 3 decades. His ensemble, Pitom, showcases many facets of his deep knowledge in those scenes as filtered through the sludge-clouded lenses of grunge, doom, and just straight metal. The band has released three full length albums since its inception, including Pitom (Tzadik, 2008), a follow-up entitled Blasphemy And Other Serious Crimes (Tzadik, 2011), both housed on John Zorn 's Tzadik imprint--and now, Alive and Well ...
Continue ReadingDan Rosenboom: Coordinates
by Max Kutner
Coordinates is a fully realized mature statement from composer, arranger, and trumpet virtuoso, Dan Rosenboom. It is a massive effort in multiple senses. Through an immersive concept centered dually around sound as character and the abstract relationships between numerical structures as they apply to time and groove, Rosenboom has crafted a self portrait that bridges many unique aspects of his musical personality. The album features 28 of Los Angeles' finest musical artists, employed in a series of unorthodox combinations that ...
Continue ReadingMike Keneally & Beer For Dolphins at The Cutting Room
by Max Kutner
Mike Keneally & Beer for Dolphins The Cutting Room New York, NY October 14, 2025 Mike Keneally was making an especially rare NYC appearance with his long-standing band, Beer for Dolphins this Tuesday evening at The Cutting Room. For over 30 years, Keneally has established himself as a singular force of nature as a composer and songwriter as well as a freakishly facile singer, keyboardist, and guitarist--all qualities which were on abundant display throughout the ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline Consentrik Quartet at Littlefield
by Max Kutner
Nels Cline Consentrik Quartet Littlefield Brooklyn, NY October 1, 2025 Nels Cline's Consentrik Quartet returned to the stage to make a rare Brooklyn appearance at Littlefield. The formidable ensemble also included saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Tom Rainey. One of the most striking aspects of the group is how smoothly Cline's relatively wet, heavily effects-laden aesthetic fluidly integrates with the bone dry timbres of Laubrock, Lightcap and Rainey. If Cline's role in ...
Continue ReadingLex Korten At Close Up
by Max Kutner
Lex Korten Close Up Canopy Release Show New York, NY September 19, 2025 Pianist and composer Lex Korten has been an ascendent force in the modern jazz world for several years and his appearance at Close Up represented a milestone moment for the young artist. Korten was celebrating the release his first full-length album of original material, Canopy (Sounderscore Records, 2025). From September 18th-19th, he, alongside a formidable ensemble of likeminded artists ...
Continue ReadingPhillip Greenlief: Citta Di Vitti
by Max Kutner
An exponent of the Bay Area music community, saxophonist Philip Greenlief has few equals in terms of his prolific output and diverse list of collaborative projects since the late 1970s. His Citta di Vitti is a tribute to the films of Michelangelo Antonioni and the director's main actor and muse, Monica Vitti. Taken as a whole, the album showcases a facile and dialed trio with fellow Bay Area stalwarts, bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and drummer Jason Levis, who display a perfect ...
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