Jazz Articles about Roscoe Mitchell

About Roscoe Mitchell

Liner Notes

Reed Rapture In Brooklyn: A Box Set Of Woodwind Duets With Ivo Perelman

by Hrayr Attarian
November 20, 2022

One of the 20th century's musical geniuses, saxophonist Charlie Parker said “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you that music has boundaries. But, man, there's no boundary line to art." This statement on unbridled creativity applies perfectly to saxophonist Ivo Perelman's oeuvre. Perelman, however, is not just a saxophonist. Although the tenor is one of his favorite tools of expression, he is an ...

Album Review

Sara Schoenbeck: Sara Schoenbeck

Read "Sara Schoenbeck" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
December 9, 2021

Sara Schoenbeck is cast against type in the world of bassoonists. The versatile double reed, broad-ranged instrument dates to the Renaissance and is commonly found in wind ensembles and chamber orchestras. But Schoenbeck has brought her classical-leaning instrument to creative music in an electrifying body of work. Her self-titled leader debut is the first such project of her career. A series of nine duets allows Schoenbeck to fully explore the scope of the bassoon in close settings. Not ...

Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell: Dots - Pieces For Percussion And Woodwinds

Read "Dots - Pieces For Percussion And Woodwinds" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 31, 2021

While Dots, a solo recording by Roscoe Mitchell, is divided into nineteen separate tracks, this entire hour plus recording might be best consumed as a single unit. Mitchell's use of silence here is as essential as the woodwind notes blown and the percussive objects struck. One track leading into the next might be marked by silence, but that soundlessness communicates the recurring themes of this outing. Mitchell, active since the 1960s, has performed solo both alone and as ...

Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell: Dots - Works For Percussion and Woodwinds

Read "Dots - Works For Percussion and Woodwinds" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
October 25, 2021

Roscoe Mitchell occupies a special place in the pantheon of music. He is a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and has taught at the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, the California Institute of the Arts and Mills College in Oakland, California. For all intents and purposes, the 2004 NYC concert, Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City: Live at the Iridium (Pi Recordings, 2006), was ...

Album Review

Archie Shepp: Blase And Yasmina Revisited

Read "Blase And Yasmina Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 23, 2021

The three albums tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp recorded in Paris for BYG Records during one week in August 1969 tend to get overlooked in the slipstream of the dozen or so he made in the US for Impulse earlier in the decade. More is the pity, for as Blasé And Yasmina Revisited so resoundingly attests, the BYGs contain some of the most audacious, many splendored and deep roots music that Shepp has recorded in his still-kicking career (at the time ...

Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed: The Ritual and the Dance

Read "The Ritual and the Dance" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 24, 2021

Though reedman Roscoe Mitchell has appeared as a guest with drummer Mike Reed's Loose Assembly outfit, captured on Empathetic Parts (482 Music, 2010), this compelling set unfurls firmly on Mitchell's improvisatory turf. On The Ritual And The Dance the representatives of two generations of Chicago's AACM combine in a single 36-minute outpouring recorded in Antwerp in 2015, likely during dates to promote an earlier duet In Pursuit Of Magic (482 Music, 2014). It begins with Mitchell's coiled squeaks, ...

Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell with Ostravska Banda: Distant Radio Transmission

Read "Distant Radio Transmission" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
March 22, 2021

Decisamente prolifico, in anni recenti, Roscoe Mitchell, e non ce ne rallegreremo mai abbastanza. Certo, con lui c'è sempre il rischio del prodotto non perfettamente a fuoco, centrato, in poche parole all'altezza del suo grande talento (e ormai, varcata la soglia degli ottanta, acclarato magistero, e da un po'), ma per fortuna non è questo il caso: in questo lavoro con la Ostravska Banda così felicemente articolato è in qualche modo raccolto, quintessenziato, il succo del suo sapere (e ardire) ...