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Ivo Perelman / Chad Fowler / Reggie Workman / Andrew Cyrille: Embracing the Unknown

by Mark Corroto
Let's explore the title of saxophonist Ivo Perelman's latest release, Embracing the Unknown. His quartet with fellow saxophonist Chad Fowler, plus jazz legends Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille embrace, or welcome, adopt, and maybe better stated, champion the unknown. This exercise in instant composing guides listeners through the mysterious, the new, the novel, the undiscovered, i.e. the unknown. But then again, doesn't every Ivo Perelman recording embrace the unknown? With his one hundred plus (and counting) discography, the ...
Continue ReadingNew York Art Quartet: New York Art Quartet Revisited

by Alberto Bazzurro
Questa preziosa (ancora una volta) riedizione di oltre un'ora e un quarto di musica riunisce i primi due album di uno dei gruppi più leggendari della stagione free, il primo intitolato semplicemente col suo nome e pubblicato dall'altrettanto leggendaria ESP fondata nel 1963 da Bernard Stollman (incisione del 16 novembre 1964), il secondo, Mohawk, di pochi mesi successivo (17 luglio 1965), edito su Fontana. Il gruppo è per tre quarti identico in entrambe le occasioni, allineando figure nodali di quella ...
Continue ReadingBill Dixon: With Archie Shepp, 7-Tette & Orchestra Revisited

by Chris May
If Bill Dixon is today, in 2023, less widely remembered than other New Thing warriors such as Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, it is partly because he had little desire for celebrity, devoting much of his energy to organizing on behalf of his fellow musicians and composers, and teaching. In 1964, midway through making the 1962-1967 recordings collected on this album, Dixon organized the historic October Revolution in Jazz at the Cellar Café in Manhattan, which ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: Evenings At The Village Gate

by Mike Jurkovic
All music is, as are all our greater gestures and pursuits--poetry, painting, literature, sculpture, dance--spiritual by nature. An outreach by the artist and thus, by extension, us, beyond the daily argot of the ordinary. But sometimes those instances are so far and in-between, so masked by the lawlessness of the present moment, that our higher selves are forgotten, or worse, denied. And sometimes the music is downright holy. Welcome to the church known as the Village Gate. Welcome ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: Evenings At The Village Gate

by Chris May
It is important to emphasize, at the outset of this review, that Evenings At The Village Gate is a John Coltrane album of headline significance. Recorded during a four-week run at the New York City club in August and September 1961, the disc is a snapshot of Coltrane partway through the most momentous year of his development. He is in incandescent form from start to finish, leading an astounding sextet completed by multi-reedist Eric Dolphy, pianist McCoy Tyner, twin bassists ...
Continue ReadingVision Festival 2023

by Frank Rubolino
Beginning in 1996, the Vision Festival In New York has been a mainstay for featuring both established and upcoming artists dedicated to playing music outside the boundaries of established mores. Now, some 27 years later, it is still going strong and is fully committed to its original mission. This year, at Roulette in Brooklyn, bassists Joelle Leandre from France and Reggie Workman from the USA were honored for their contributions to the music over the decades. During the six-day festival ...
Continue ReadingHeiner Stadler: Brains on Fire

by Howard Mandel
Brains on Fire fuels reflection on the past and response in the present. These eight extraordinary extended tracks, recorded in unusual conjunctions of master jazz improvisers instigated by composer/pianist Heiner Stadler for sessions held from 1966 through 1974, are alive with the passions of that era celebrating large, original works stretching the bounds of even the most ambitious music come before. As Stadler and his cadre of fully collaborative, creative interpreters brought immense smarts, skills and sensibilities besides ...
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