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Jazz Articles about Ben LaMar Gay
About Ben LaMar Gay
Instrument: Multi-instrumentalist
Jeremy 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 ...
Continue ReadingGil Scott-Heron / Makaya McCraven: We're New Again
by Karl Ackermann
"All the dreams you show up in are not your own." With those words to an interviewer at The New Yorker, Gil Scott-Heron tried to explain a degree of detachment from I'm New Here (XL Recordings, 2011), his “comeback" and the final studio album before his death that year. The project was initiated by the head of XL and was the first album Scott-Heron released in the sixteen years he struggled with addiction and two drug-related terms in prison. The ...
Continue ReadingBen LaMar Gay: Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun
by Vincenzo Roggero
Clamoroso esordio discografico su International Anthem (etichetta evidentemente abbonata ai debutti con il botto, vedi Jaimie Branch l'anno passato) quello di Ben LaMar Gay. Multistrumentista, cantante, membro dell'AACM, da una ventina d'anni presenza trasversale tra hip-hop, avant jazz, indie rock, elettronica, musica brasiliana (risiede saltuariamente in Brasile), appassionato e specialista dell'overdubbing, decide di pubblicare come primo album da solista, una compilation. Anche se una compilation proprio normale non lo è. Le quindici tracce di Downtown Castles Can Never ...
Continue ReadingBen LaMar Gay: Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun
by Gareth Thompson
Within any given city you might hear birdsong and church bells competing with buskers, car horns and stereos. Within the realm of Ben LaMar Gay's debut album we run a similar gamut of sonic experience. A cornetist and composer from Chicago's South Side, Gay has worked with Jaimie Branch, Makaya McCraven and Joshua Abrams among others. Yet for reasons unknown, he has never made public some seven albums worth of his own recorded material. All that changes with the release ...
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