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Jazz Articles about Ben LaMar Gay
About Ben LaMar Gay
Instrument: Multi-instrumentalist
Modney: Ascending Primes
by Vincenzo Roggero
"Ascender" ti investe con la forza di un uragano. Poco più di sette minuti dove il solitario violino di Joshua Modney, collegato ad un pedale distorsore, scatena un'onda d'urto di emozioni che stordisce. Ingannati da un inizio che ha le cadenze di una ballata folk improvvisamente il suono si stratifica, ruggisce, deborda in rumore, rende lo spazio denso e grumoso salvo poi scivolare in una dolcezza apparente, strattonata com'è da dissonanze e armonici. È l'apertura di Ascending Primes, ...
Continue ReadingNatural Information Society: Since Time is Gravity
by Danen Jobe
The concept of trance is one of the oldest in the world. Many older music forms embraced trance for their rituals. One is the Gnawa musical tradition originating in Kano, Nigeria and Morocco, which uses double and triple notes repeated sometimes for hours to induce a religious state while the singer sings stories of spirits. It is played on a gimbri (aka sintir or hajhuj), a three stringed instrument featuring one short and two long goat gut strings over a ...
Continue ReadingBen Lamar Gay Ensemble a Firenze
by Neri Pollastri
Ben LaMar Gay Ensemble Firenze A Jazz Supreme Sala Vanni 11.11.2022 Appuntamento internazionale particolarmente atteso della stagione autunnale 2022 della rassegna A Jazz Supreme, venerdì 11 Novembre alla Sala Vanni di Firenze era in programma il quartetto di Ben LaMar Gay, cornettista, cantante ed eclettico polistrumentista, considerato uno dei più originali innovatori dell'attuale panorama jazzistico. Nato a Chicago e membro della AACM, Lamar Gay attinge a ogni genere musicale, da quelli più ...
Continue ReadingRedGreenBlue: The End And The Beginning
by Chris May
RedGreenBlue sound like they have emerged from the same synapse-snapping dope bunker that La Monte Young and Jon Hassell exited with their Theatre Of Eternal Music in the 1970s, whacked out on opium, hashish and mescaline, dazed but not confused. RedGreenBlue may or may not indulge in the same psychotropic self-medication as their Lower East Side ancestors, but their strange and beautiful debut album, The End And The Beginning, suggests they do, and that is what counts. ...
Continue ReadingDamon Locks Black Monument Ensemble: Now
by Chris May
Chicago-based collective Black Monument Ensemble's sophomore album was recorded in September 2020 at the intersection of various existential crises, as seen from a US perspective: the threat of Trump winning the presidential election, by fair means or foul; the rising tide of fascist ideology; extrajudicial murders of, in particular but not exclusively, black Americans; a galloping pandemic; economic chaos; and social isolation. Given the circumstances, it is no surprise that Now sounds apocalyptic. But it is also ...
Continue ReadingJeremy Cunningham: The Weather Up There
by Jakob Baekgaard
The complex landscape of human emotions is still vastly uncharted, but every true work of art adds a little piece to the puzzle. This can be done in many ways, but it is rare that an album connects emotion with complex layers of memory, interpersonal relations, politics and societal structures. Nevertheless, this is what drummer and composer Jeremy Cunningham's album does. In a statement, Cunningham explains the background: “I wrote The Weather Up There to confront the ...
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