Jazz Articles

Acid Mothers Temple and Melting Paraiso UFO: Son of a Bitches Brew

by Dave Wayne
November 17, 2012

One would have to be living in a cave not to know that trumpeter Miles Davis' electric music has become a bit of a cause célèbre amongst forward-thinking jazz artists. Love it or hate it, Davis' radical experiments with funk, acid rock, and Stockhausen-inspired sound painting has quickly gone from much-maligned to iconic over the past decade, with tribute recordings pouring in from all quarters. If parody is a valid form of tribute, Japan's avant-garde space-rock Acid Mothers Temple honors ...

The Thirteenth Assembly: (un)sentimental

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
July 9, 2009

The Thirteenth Assembly was founded as a touring collective that appeals to promoters' predilection for booking multiple acts on a single night. Guitarist Mary Halvorson, violist Jessica Pavone, cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and drummer Tomas Fujiwara have longstanding duo and trio permutations and to end their concerts, they convene as a quartet and have forged a distinct identity from the subgroups within. Halvorson's brief, wistful “Unfinished Ballad" opens the CD, but Pavone's “Army of Strangers" is a better ...

Anthony Braxton: Quartet (GTM) 2006

by Stuart Broomer
April 3, 2009

Anthony Braxton's Ghost Trance Music is a vast continent, a central preoccupation for the composer from 1995 to 2006 that would take in about 100 compositions. The first examples, “Composition Nos. 181-184," were recorded by a quartet. Each piece was characterized by the hypnotic continuous lines of equal length, evenly accented notes suggesting endless melody. The pattern remained but scale soon changed, resulting in larger ensembles and lengthy performances. In the decade that Braxton largely devoted to the Ghost Trance ...

The Thirteenth Assembly: (un)sentimental

by Troy Collins
March 30, 2009

Originally conceived as a touring collective consisting of smaller units sharing common personnel, the Thirteenth Assembly features some of today's brightest talent: cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum; violist Jessica Pavone; guitarist Mary Halvorson; and drummer Tomas Fujiwara--all notable band leaders in the new Brooklyn scene.

A fountainhead of creative improvised music, Brooklyn is witness to countless transitory ensembles and ad-hoc line-ups. What separates the Thirteenth Assembly from similar efforts are its deep roots. No less than three veteran units ...

William Hooker: The Seasons Fire

by Laurel Gross
March 13, 2008

There's that iconic story about Elvin Jones, the man who altered the course of jazz drumming by seeking new sounds. Once at a gig in a bar as a young man, a customer came up to him and said, “Hey, make some noise." Relating the incident to Lewis Nash in a 1977 interview, Jones added: “People never understood that the drum is a musical instrument." Anyone with open ears listening to drummer William Hooker's The Seasons Fire, ...