Jazz Articles about Pat Mastelotto

About Pat Mastelotto

Album Review

For a band that reinvents itself every decade or so, King Crimson has always treated New York as something closer to a proving ground than a tour stop. The city runs through the group's history, from the 1969 Fillmore East debut through the Larks' era sendoff at Central Park in 1974, six nights at the Savoy in 1981, later singled out as a high point, and a 2008 stand at the Nokia Theatre that marked drummer Gavin Harrison's arrival in ...

Album Review

Tu-Ner: Rendezvous Rodeo

Read "Rendezvous Rodeo" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
July 28, 2026

There is nothing Western-sounding about this rodeo--very far from it--but it does feel like a sort of rendezvous by virtue of returning to somewhat familiar territory. Granted, “familiar" also means wildly bizarre and occasionally terrifying, but anyone who knows these names should expect nothing less. Pat Mastelotto and Trey Gunn are best known as a beastly rhythm section in the King Crimsons of the '90s and early '00s, while touch guitarist Markus Reuter has plenty of the same musical DNA ...

Album Review

Tu-Ner: T1-Contact Information

Read "T1-Contact Information" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
August 8, 2023

After so many years crossing paths in the realm of experimental-industrial-groove-jazz-rock weirdness, it would have been more surprising if these three did not all join forces at some point. Pat Mastelotto and Trey Gunn build on a decades-long history in multiple King Crimson rhythm sections as well as their own duo called TU. Touch guitarist Markus Reuter plays with Mastelotto in the trio Stick Men as well as in their own duo called TUNER. (Gunn and Reuter have also performed ...

Album Review

Mata Atlantica: Retiro e Ritmo

Read "Retiro e Ritmo" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
January 10, 2023

Retiro e Ritmo is a love letter to Mata Atlântica, the coastal rain forest of Brazil, and a call to help preserve and protect this beautiful habitat. The music supports that goal not by quoting or referencing Brazilian music directly, but by building a complex musical ecosystem that evokes it, obliquely creating a sense of place. The album is the brainchild of co-producer Mathias Derer, motivated by a 2017 Brazilian visit. Although he does not perform, he composed ...

Album Review

Mata Atlantica: Retiro e Ritmo

Read "Retiro e Ritmo" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
November 19, 2022

The coastal rainforest of Brazil, otherwise known as Mata Atlantica, and “its beauty and vivacity" are the inspiration for Retiro e Ritmo. It is an album frontloaded with a varied cast of characters from hither and yon. Maybe that casting is behind a project seeking to draw worldwide attention to the ongoing shit-storm that includes not only the Amazon but the whole planet. Retiro e Ritmo is deceptive, calling attention to a source of worldwide calamity all the ...

Album Review

Stick Men: Tentacles

Read "Tentacles" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 16, 2022

In the early 1960s, before every teenage rock band wanted to be the Beatles, many of them (especially in Southern California) wanted to be the Chantays (1963's “Pipeline"), The Surfaris' ("Wipeout" and “Point Panic," both from 1963) or Dick Dale and the Deltones ("Miserlou," 1962). Those days were the short-lived peak of surf rock, and it was big. All of those mentioned tunes hit the pop record charts, something that became rare for instrumental music thereafter. For some, these succinct, ...

Album Review

King Crimson: Music is Our Friend: Live In Washington and Albany, 2021

Read "Music is Our Friend: Live In Washington and Albany, 2021" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
November 12, 2021

You probably know the old adage about assumptions. After seeing the current (slightly fluid) King Crimson lineup twice every time the perennially groundbreaking group made it to North American shores since 2014, with no Canadian dates available in 2021 and the COVID Delta variant running rampant across the United States, the decision was made to forego traveling south to the USA to catch the band. After all, with the band touring, for the first time, on double bills with the ...