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9
Album Review

Henry Threadgill: The Other One

Read "The Other One" reviewed by John Ephland


Listening to Henry Threadgill's music, the bobbing and weaving doesn't maintain a continuity but can jump from one strand to another, one scene to another, as in a dream. It is tonal and not, just as dreams are, perhaps, rhapsodic or unkempt, the story or plot being as tangible, fungible as a summer breeze. Much is made of Threadgill's chamber-music esthetic. And rightly so. It is “so chamber music precise it must all be premeditated, right?" asked the ...

16
Album Review

Henry Threadgill Ensemble: The Other One

Read "The Other One" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Now that Henry Threadgill has begun receiving the accolades he has long deserved--the Pulitzer Prize he won in 2016 for In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Pi Recordings, 2015) being just the most prominent example--it is impressive to find him still relentlessly stretching himself as a performer and composer. Since his first forays into the jazz avant-garde in the 1970s, the maverick multi-instrumentalist has always made music that challenges listeners in exciting ways, but it is his uncanny ...

22
Album Review

Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Continuing

Read "Continuing" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Tyshawn Sorey listeners who were weaned on his Pi Recordings, The Inner Spectrum of Variables (2016), Verisimilitude (2017), and Pillars (2018), were probably unprepared for the swinging trio outing Mesmerism (Pi, 2022). With the multi-instrumentalist Sorey on drums, Aaron Diehl on piano and Matt Brewer on bass, the group delivered one of the best piano trio albums of the year. Later in 2022, they issued a live recording, The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (also on Pi), adding saxophonist Greg ...

20
Album Review

Tyshawn Sorey Trio +1 (with Greg Osby): The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism

Read "The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Even for a musician who thrives on unsettling expectations, Tyshawn Sorey's Mesmerism (Yeros7 Music, 2022) caught a lot of listeners by surprise. The inimitable drummer's recordings have long occupied that amorphous space between avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical music, and “accessibility" has rarely been the term of choice for his creative output. But utilizing a trio format including pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer, the album offered six remarkable renderings of classic jazz repertoire, including such time-worn standards as ...

15
Album Review

Steve Lehman & Sélébéyone: Xaybu: The Unseen

Read "Xaybu: The Unseen" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Alto saxophonist Steve Lehman debuted his Sélébéyone project in 2016 with a self-titled release on the Pi Recordings label. It was nothing short of revolutionary; an amalgamation of jazz improvisation and globalized hip-hop, it was an intrepid declaration. Originally a septet, Sélébéyone returns as a quintet on Xaybu: The Unseen. The five current members are from the original formation, with bassist Drew Gress and pianist Carlos Homs absent from the sophomore outing. Lehman is a renaissance artist; composer, ...

10
Album Review

David Virelles: Nuna

Read "Nuna" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Cuban-born pianist/composer David Virelles has never been far from the top of the jazz profession in his recording career. His initial appearance as a sideman was with Juno Award winner Jane Bunnett on her 2001 Blue Note release Alma de Santiago. Early in his career he studied with Henry Threadgill and played with Steve Coleman, Chris Potter and Mark Turner. As a leader, he has primarily moved back and forth between the prestigious labels Pi Recordings and ECM for the ...

10
Album Review

Miles Okazaki: Thisness

Read "Thisness" reviewed by Troy Dostert


A guitarist as freakishly talented as Miles Okazaki demands a listener's full attention. This is the case whether one is parsing his fiendishly complex compositions, or beholding his astonishing technique, or simply taking in all the shifting meters and grooves that permeate his music. From the remarkably ambitious Work (Volumes 1-6), his self-released solo document in 2018 of the complete works of Thelonious Monk, to his recent albums with his Trickster quartet, like Trickster (Pi Recordings, 2017) or The Sky ...

9
Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

Read "Idiom" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Award winning composer, saxophonist and flautist Anna Webber is a restless innovator and musical individualist. Her ninth release as a leader, the sublime and magnificent two-disc Idiom is an ambitious project which Webber pulls off brilliantly and with elegance. Five compositions from the “Idiom" series are represented here. Four are in a sparse trio setting while “Idiom VI," which fills the entire second disc, is with a large ensemble. Another one, “Idiom II," (not included here) appeared on Webber's Clockwise ...

7
Album Review

Jen Shyu and Jade Tongue: Zero Grasses: Ritual for The Losses

Read "Zero Grasses: Ritual for The Losses" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Calling vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu brilliant, and her style unique, underestimates both her ingenuity as a composer and the distinctiveness of her oeuvre. Shyu has forged her own path in creative music with an intrepid spirit and restless innovation. Her eighth release as a leader is the intensely personal Zero Grasses: Ritual For The Losses. A cycle of songs which is equally about bereavement and injustice as it is about solace and hope, its message transcends the individual, reaching ...

6
Album Review

Hafez Modirzadeh: Facets

Read "Facets" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Innovative composer and saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh has always pushed the idiomatic envelope in his work. His eighth release as a leader, the stimulating Facets is, as hinted on the cover art, a musical kaleidoscope. Consisting of 18 short tracks the album explores various time signatures, modes and tonal colors that fuse many musical traditions. Three equally idiosyncratic artists take turns for a set of solos and duets with Modirzadeh. “Facet Sorey," for instance, is a crystalline tune with ...


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