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Jazz Articles about Karen Borca
Karen Borca / Paul Murphy: Entwined
by John Sharpe
Entwined pairs pioneering bassoonist Karen Borca with drummer Paul Murphy in an unadorned duet setting. It arrives hot on the heels of her leadership debut Good News Blues (NoBusiness, 2024). While the latter comprised archival concert tapes of sets from the 1998 and 2005 Vision Festivals, the former is an undated studio session which presents both in close detail. The seven cuts include four which were also featured on the live date and raise the possibility that this was recorded ...
Continue ReadingJimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea (Jimmy Lyons)
by John Sharpe
Alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons was underappreciated even at the height of his powers, but to those with ears attuned to the radical innovations of the loft jazz era, he was a galvanizing presence. That his legacy remains under-lit is due in part to his long-standing tenure in Cecil Taylor's incandescent orbit. Lyons was more than a foil; he was Taylor's most empathetic interlocutor, the tether to bebop logic amid Taylor's eruptive torrents. But a fatal cocktail of perfectionism ...
Continue ReadingKaren Borca, Paul Murphy: Entwined
by Hrayr Attarian
Bassoonist Karen Borca has impeccable credentials, both as an improviser and performer. She was one of the groundbreaking pianist Cecil Taylor's students, and a large part of her recorded output has been in collaborative settings with other Taylor disciples. Most notably, Borca has appeared on four superb discs by her late husband, and Taylor's side man, saxophonist Jimmy Lyons. Given her impressive résumé, it is surprising that she has not appeared as a leader until Entwined (Relative Pitch, 2024).
Continue ReadingKaren Borca: Good News Blues
by John Sharpe
Pioneering jazz bassoonist Karen Borca has had to wait a long time for her leadership debut. It arrives courtesy of the adventurous Lithuanian NoBusiness imprint, compiled from archival recordings of two appearances at New York City's fabled Vision Festival. But that is not to say that she does not have a weighty resume. An acolyte of Cecil Taylor, she played in his college ensembles at both Antioch and Wisconsin in the early 1970s. Through the pianist she also met alto ...
Continue ReadingKaren Borca, Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers, & Albert Beger
by Maurice Hogue
This episode finds itself in a lot of different nooks and crannies of creative improvised music; there's the bassoon of Karen Borca, often considered the pioneer of that instrument in jazz, on a never-heard-before album, there's meditative yet free collaboration between two long time friends and members the AACM, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Amina Claudine Myers, Dave King's Happy Apple's return to recording, the sympatico duo of clarinetist Francois Houle and pianist Benoit Delbecq, the power of the ...
Continue ReadingEarth People: Simple... Isn't It?
by Rex Butters
Characterizing themselves as “the psychedelic free music experience,” Earth People formed in 2001 after performing together in what would have been a one-time-only TV appearance. In addition to a core of André Martinez, Doug Principato, and Jason Chandler, the band also includes a who’s who of New York musicians, including Karen Borca, Daniel Carter, Sabir Mateen, Mark Hennen, and Francois Grillot. Vocalist M brings a flexible six-octave range that finds its way through thorny passages like smoke. Reed rioteers Carter, ...
Continue ReadingEarth People: Simple...Isn
by Terrell Kent Holmes
At one point on the title cut of Simple...Isn't It??, the latest CD by Earth People, the band's enigmatically-named singer, M, purrs, "Would you like...the usual? I didn't think so!" That contempt for the mundane exemplifies this vibrant work of spiritually driven, boundary-busting cadre music. The group's debut CD, Waking the Living, covered some of the same ground but with a slightly larger ensemble. On Simple their roster consists of four members, the music no less potent. ...
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