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Conference Call: Prism
by Mike Jurkovic
During the roiling twenty years that Conference Call has willfully crisscrossed the broad Atlantic, the individual drummers haven't participated in all of the round trips. The pre-2020 drummer rotation was Matt Wilson, who left the band prior to its first tour in 2001 to prep for the delivery of triplets, Han Bennink, George Schuller, and Gerry Hemingway. But the core players remain. As does the key aesthetic: creative art as spontaneous geometry. So how you fit the individual pieces together ...
read moreBenny Golson, Joshua Breakstone and More
by Joe Dimino
This week we focus on avant-garde bassist Joe Fonda. We recently interviewed Joe, who has a new release with the OGJB Quartet along with a duo recording with pianist Satoko Fujii. We also feature the music of Wadada Leo Smith and move our way into a bright young cat with fresh grooves, Nikola Bankov. Legendary saxophonist Benny Golson came through Kansas City in mid-October 2019 and we got plenty from him during this hour. Finally, we catch up with a ...
read moreJoe Fonda: New Origin
by Mike Jurkovic
On New Origin veteran bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Harvey Sorgen—(Ahmad Jamal, Dewy Redman) boldly return to the passion that forged Dreamstruck (Not Two, 2018), their unstoppable trio excursion with Marilyn Crispell. Sworn architects of reverberant depth and the collective accord separating us from AI, the vets team this time with the equally free thinking European clarinetist Christophe Rocher —Paul Rogers, John Stevens—to unravel the Gordian Knot presented by the music of New Origin. “Read This," one of ...
read moreChristophe Rocher / Joe Fonda / Harvey Sorgen: New Origin
by John Sharpe
As the title implies, New Origin represents a fertile coming together, the principals in this case being the veteran American rhythm team of bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Harvey Sorgen, with French clarinetist Christophe Rocher. Fonda and Sorgen share a lengthy association, which encompasses the long-running Fonda/Stevens Group and a trio of more recent vintage with pianist Marilyn Crispell among others. Rocher, a generation younger, has risen on his native scene and also featured alongside the likes of flautist Nicole ...
read moreNu Band: Live In Geneva
by John Sharpe
Everything must change as the Nina Simone song puts it. That's as true in music as anywhere else, and changing one of the parts inevitably affects the whole. When NYC-based German trumpeter Thomas Heberer replaced the late lamented Roy Campbell in The Nu Band, it must have been heart-in-mouth time for colleagues bassist Joe Fonda, reedman Mark Whitecage and drummer Lou Grassi. Two years down the road, everything has fallen into place on the second album from the new line-up. ...
read moreGenerations Quartet: Oliver Lake/Joe Fonda/Michael Jefrys Stevens/Emil Gross: Flow
by Karl Ackermann
As the name would imply, the Generations Quartet spans the ages of its personnel. An off-shoot (of sorts) from the Trio Generations group, it's a semantic difference as saxophone legend Oliver Lake was a guest in the lineup that performed in 2015. From that same tour, we get Flow, a festive exercise of freedom and comradery that could only be realized by a team with the wealth of experience and talent gathered here. Recorded live (but non-sequentially) in Germany, it ...
read moreMichael Jefry Stevens: Flow
by Budd Kopman
Pianist Michael Jefry Stevens has been involved in many projects in his career over the past forty years. The Generations Quartet started out as a trio six years ago, consisting of Stevens with his long-time musical partner, bassist Joe Fonda and newcomer, drummer Emil Gross. The trio became a quartet with the addition of saxophonist (and Renaissance Man) Oliver Lake, perhaps best known for founding the World Saxophone Quartet with saxophonists David Murray, Julius Hemphill and Hamiet Bluiett.
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