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Jazz Articles about Mark Sanders
Paul Dunmall: Here Today Gone Tomorrow
by John Sharpe
Much improvised music may be ephemeral, but Here Today Gone Tomorrow, captures British saxophonist Paul Dunmall's long-standing quartet at a peak of collective lucidity. Featuring pianist Liam Noble, bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders, the ensemble works through three slabs of unapologetic free jazz that display the rare assurance of a band that has put in its time together. Over the years they have honed such rapport that, in a feature which distinguishes ...
Continue ReadingArkady Gotesman: Music For An Imaginary Ballet
by Ieva Pakalniskyte
Arkady Gotesman occupies a singular position in Lithuanian music scene, having performed across more than fifty international festivals and concerts as a percussionist, composer and interdisciplinary artist whose work spans jazz, contemporary classical repertoire, free improvisation, theatre, literature and film. Over four decades he has collaborated with an exceptional range of musicians--from Vyacheslav Ganelin, Petras Vysniauskas, Liudas Mockūnas, Anthony Coleman and Mats Gustafsson to Nate Wooley, Charles Gayle, Barry Guy and Dave Douglas, among many others--while also premiering works by Anatolijus Šenderovas, Osvaldas Balakauskas, ...
Continue ReadingNeil Charles Quartet: Dark Days
by Mark Corroto
In 2025, amid global unrest and political fracture, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom can feel like a distant dream, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream" speech like a myth from a gentler past. Has social media, with all its noise and manipulations, induced a kind of societal amnesia? Has King's “arc of the moral universe" begun to bend backward under the weight of cynicism and fatigue? If your glass is half empty, ...
Continue ReadingShifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders: Ecliptic
by Mark Corroto
Some books are divided into chapters--numbered, titled, and carefully structured. The musical equivalent is the tracklist: segmented, labeled pieces presented in order. But Ecliptic by the trio Shifa (شفاء, Arabic for “healing") rejects that format entirely. This 46-minute set of improvised music by saxophonist Rachel Musson, pianist Pat Thomas and drummer Mark Sanders unfolds without titles, track divisions, or breaks. It is a single, uninterrupted performance recorded live at London's Café OTO in February 2023. Like their previous ...
Continue ReadingGabriele Mitelli Three Tsuru Origami: Colapesce
by Mark Corroto
The second release from Gabriele Mitelli's Three Tsuru Origami ensemble shifts from the literal to the symbolic, expanding both in concept and personnel. Their debut, Three Tsuru Origami (We Insist!, 2022), was a meditation on birds and migration. This follow-up, Colapesce, draws inspiration from the 12th-century Sicilian legend of a half-man, half-fish who sacrifices himself to save his island. The tale, a fixture of Mediterranean folklore, resurfaced in pop culture through the 1964 film The Incredible Mr. Limpet, in which ...
Continue ReadingLarry Stabbins & Mark Sanders: Cup & Ring
by John Sharpe
Inspired by the 5000 year old Neolithic rock carvings pictured on the sleeve, Cup & Ring opens and closes with brooding, ritualistic pieces in which Larry Stabbins' breathy flute drifts like mist over Mark Sanders' deliberate, processional percussion. These atmospheric bookends, along with similarly spare interludes throughout, frame a set grounded more deeply in the language of free jazz--a realm both musicians know intimately. Stabbins, returning to performance after a lengthy hiatus, brings a layered backstory to this ...
Continue ReadingSergio Armaroli Quintet: Follow A Very Heavy Person
by Mark Corroto
Time, as a concept, transforms into an endless playground in the hands of Sergio Armaroli. In Follow A Very Heavy Person, the quintet expands upon the foundations laid in Introducing A Very Heavy Person, delving deeper into the sonic and philosophical dimensions of John Cage and Kenneth Patchen's 1942 experimental radio play, The City Wears A Slouch Hat. Emerging from the same recording session, this second volume extends and reinvents its predecessor's exploration of simultaneity, improvisation and the ephemeral nature ...
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