Jazz Articles about Ken Field

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Revolutionary Snake Ensemble: Serpentine

by Don Ball
April 16, 2026

Any jazz band, especially a brass band, that is willing and capable of taking on the erratic rhythms and wild fluctuations of a Frank Zappa instrumental is worthy of kudos. And the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble's take of “Son of Mr. Green Genes" on their release Serpentine demonstrates their immense musical capabilities. The group was formed by saxophonist, flautist and composer Ken Field in 1990, and the album documents their performance at the Regattabar in Boston as part of their ...

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Ken Field: Sensorium: Music for Dance & Film

by AAJ Italy Staff
April 23, 2013

C'è molta espressività, molta consapevolezza, molta anima, in questa musica dolente che sarà certamente utile al saxofonista e multistrumentista americano Ken Field per elaborare il lutto per la scomparsa della moglie Karen Aqua, dopo dieci anni di lotta contro il cancro. Karen era una animatrice che si applicava al cinema e alla televisione (per esempio producendo segmenti per la serie Sesame Street) e sin dagli anni ottanta il marito collaborava con lei per le parti musicali complementari alle immagini. In ...

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Ken Field & The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble: The Musical Road Less Taken

by Tod Smith
March 10, 2009

Saxophonist/composer Ken Field describes the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble as a “funk and street beat brass band playing New Orleans and other modern improvised celebratory styles." Playing original compositions and those of artists as diverse as Billy Idol and Ornette Coleman, the RSE was formed in 1990 to entertain a at a pagan women's ritual celebration. The project continued and today RSE is a fixture on the Boston, New York and New Orleans musical scenes. RSE's two discs--Year of the Snake ...

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Revolutionary Snake Ensemble: Forked Tongue

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 18, 2008

Il Revolutionary Snake Ensemble di Ken Field conferma con questo eccitante Forked Tongue la buonissima impressione che ci aveva lasciato col disco di esordio Year of the Snake (uscito per Innova nel 2003). La trama di fondo è sempre quella delle marching band di New Orleans ma gli sviluppi dell’azione ci portano inesorabilmente ben oltre i giorni nostri, in un futuro interspaziale dove Sun Ra è il presidente dell’Universo. Del resto basterebbe un’occhiata al repertorio di questo album per capire ...

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Ken Field: Under the Skin

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 2, 2007

La Bridgman/Packer Dance Company ha commissionato al saxofonista d’avanguardia Ken Field la musica per un proprio progetto multimediale che prevede un approccio molto disinibito alle meraviglie della coreografia e del materiale video, in continuità con le intuizioni di Merce Cunningham e John Cage che negli anni quaranta rivoluzionarono l’approccio sin lì piuttosto ingessato alle collaborazioni fra musicisti e danzatori. Ken Field approfitta con grande intelligenza dell’occasione e recupera materiali rimasti nel cassetto e li mischia con nuove intuizioni per poi ...

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Ken Field: Under the Skin

by Samuel Chell
March 15, 2007

The opening track's sounds of bass with alto saxophone improvising over a street beat are practically an invitation to dance, especially to anyone who's been a “second liner" in a traditional New Orleans funeral recessional. This music, after all, was composed by alto saxophonist Ken Field as “dance music," an integral component of a multimedia work, Under the Skin, combining live dance performance, original music, and visual technology. The technology used in constructing the musical pieces is apt to make ...

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Birdsongs of the Mesozoic: Dancing on A'A

by AAJ Staff
April 1, 2001

Dancing on A'A documents the improvising quartet Birdsongs of the Mesozoic early in their second decade. It's highly unusual for a group of improvisers to stick together for over 20 years, but this is hardly an average group. While other stable musical units might doggedly pursue the same style to perfection, Birdsongs aims for the anti-style. Anything that crosses genre boundaries is fair game for this group.

On Dancing on A'A, electric and acoustic instruments arrive at fruitful collisions. Birdsongs ...