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Andrew Cyrille, Elliot Sharp, Richard Teitelbaum: Evocation
by Howard Mandel
Evocation is what all writing about music must be about and may be the mission of music itself. To create an impression, to summon a memory or tender a suggestion of presence using materials that are not substantially those of the endeavor's subject--isn't that the fundamental purpose of any art? Not to be pretentious or obscure the thing itself: It must be said that master drummer Andrew Cyrille, guitarist-reedist Elliott Sharp and Richard Teitelbaum, the pioneering electronic music ...
read moreEli Wallace: Pieces & Interludes
by Karl Ackermann
At his most experimental, pianist & composer Eli Wallace has sufficient preparations to obscure almost all the natural sounds of the piano. That has often been the case across a portfolio of half-a-dozen leader or co-leader releases, but Wallace's solo album Pieces & Interludes is a singular enigma. The California native, now Brooklyn-based, Wallace has a varied musical background which encompasses jazz, rock, and classical music. He studied under Jason Moran and Jerry Bergonzi at the New England ...
read moreMyra Melford, Zeena Parkins and Miya Masaoka: MZM
by Troy Dostert
Three world-class musicians whose long paths had yet to intersect, pianist Myra Melford, electronics wizard Zeena Parkins and kotoist Miya Masaoka finally team up for MZM. It's a potent, concentrated set of fully-improvised pieces that highlight the trio's ability to craft something wholly new while retaining each of their unique musical personalities. The album was first released by Infrequent Seams in 2017, but it's getting a reboot here. Most of the ten tracks range from three to six ...
read moreElliott Sharp: Port Bou
by Mark Sullivan
Composer/multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp chose a dramatic subject for Port Bou: the last minutes in the life of philosopher Walter Benjamin at Port-Bou (a town in Catalonia, Spain) as he was fleeing Nazi-occupied France. This is a man preparing to commit suicide, so the music is appropriately intense. I'm reminded of Laurie Anderson's performance piece about Difficult Music. Some will find this music hard to listen to, not because of the noisy avant-garde content (there's only a little), but due to ...
read moreSteve Buscemi/Elliott Sharp: Rub Out The Word
by Mark Corroto
Is it significant that Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) and William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) were born just one year apart? Maybe. Sinatra began as a teen idol, before developing into American's bon vivant and arbiter of cool, and finally a cranky old man. On the other hand, the writer Burroughs was born a cranky old man, and perpetuated that image throughout his life. We loved him for his irascibility. It tempered his truths, by giving a reader a passage into his junky ...
read moreSteve Buscemi/Elliott Sharp: Rub Out The Word
by Mark Sullivan
You don't have to follow Beat literature to have some familiarity with writer William S. Burroughs, especially in his spoken word role. Performance artist Laurie Anderson collaborated with him several times, notably on You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With (Giorno Poetry Systems, 1981) and Mister Heartbreak (Warner Bros., 1984). Bill Laswell's Material featured Burroughs reciting passages from his book The Western Lands to musical accompaniment on the album Seven Souls (Virgin Records, 1989). Actor ...
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