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Matt Lavelle, Jonathan Backstrom, Rob Mazurek & Helveticus
by Maurice Hogue
NYC multi-instrumentalist Matt Lavelle finally gets to see a dream fulfilled with the release of Crop Circles Suite Vol .1 by his 12 Houses Orchestra. Lavelle has been carefully crafting this very interesting album with its references to numerology and metaphysics for years. Finnish bassist Jonathan Backstrom has probably been carrying around his own dream: his debut as a leader, and his first release is exceptional. Other new recordings heard for the first time include Our Way by Helveticus, the ...
Continue ReadingWilliam Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World
by Karl Ackermann
If multi-instrumentalist/composer William Parker's ten-CD Migration Of Silence Into And Out Of The Tone World suggests a cohesive, high concept plan, it is something more. The beautifully packaged clamshell box set is comprised of mutually exclusive projects—one dating back ten years—with some common themes. There is an overall dedication of the music to “all people of the world who are searching for freedom...." Pandemic downtime resulted in Parker's accumulating enough material for many of these albums. Viewed as a whole, ...
Continue ReadingWilliam Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World
by Giuseppe Segala
L'attività musicale di William Parker è stata copiosamente documentata da circa centocinquanta dischi, che spaziano in un caleidocopio di gruppi fondati dallo stesso contrabbassista, formazioni cooperative, omaggi, collaborazioni. Ma nessun singolo lavoro, fino a questo momento, aveva focalizzato l'attenzione su un ventaglio di ispirazioni così ampio e completo come si fa ora nei dieci CD del cofanetto The Music of William Parker—Migration of Silence Into and Out of The Tone World. In questo lavoro monumentale, che viene ...
Continue ReadingMatt Lavelle's 12 Houses: Solidarity
by Alberto Bazzurro
Nato a Paterson, New Jersey, nel 1970, un passato accanto a William Parker e a quell'autentico reincarnato che fu qualche anno fa Giuseppi Logan, Matt Lavelle dirige in questo apprezzabile lavoro, inciso nel novembre 2014, un ensemble di sedici elementi che denota, in prima battuta, un approccio vagamente mingusiano (tutti di Lavelle i temi), con avvio piuttosto concitato e conseguente assolo di sax tenore. Appena dopo arriva tuttavia un interludio squisitamente cameristico flauto/vibrafono/contrabbasso archettato che scompagina una prima volta quel ...
Continue ReadingMatt Lavelle, John Pietaro: Harmolodic Monk
by Alberto Bazzurro
Un album il cui titolo evoca simultaneamente due grandi iconoclasti come Ornette Coleman e Thelonious Monk non può che incuriosire. Le composizioni, poi, rimandano tutte al secondo, mentre ornettiano (armolodico, appunto) dovrebbe essere il trattamento. Matt Lavelle, che con Ornette ha studiato (e ha pure suonato con Bern Nix, chitarrista del Prime Time), appare strumentalmente più ferrato sul clarinetto (che tiene banco prevalentemente nella prima parte del CD) rispetto a flicorno e cornetta (protagonisti per lo più ...
Continue ReadingJazz Meets Death
by Matt Lavelle
There once was a great music. It was born in America and branded with the name Jazz. The music was later re-named madam Zzaj, by one of her lovers, the Duke. She grudgingly accepted the moniker of Jazz over the years. It was how she was bought and sold after all. Jazz had several intimate relationships over the years. Each one of these caused her to experience tremendous spiritual and emotional transformation. There was the great Armstrong, who raised her ...
Continue ReadingMatt Lavelle and John Pietaro: Harmolodic Monk
by Dan Bilawsky
Every time it looks like all the gold has been mined from Thelonious Monk's music, somebody comes along to prove otherwise. Harmolodic Monk finds multi-instrumentalist Matt Lavelle and percussionist John Pietaro applying saxophone icon(oclast) Ornette Coleman's freeing philosophical ideal(s) to Monk's oft-performed music. To some, the resultant performances may seem far more complex than the originals, complete with mind-expanding abstractions, reductions, and alterations. To others, this music may be very simple to grasp. In truth, both viewpoints ...
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