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Roscoe Mitchell / Jerzy Mazzoll / Sławek Janicki / Qba Janicki: Four Sure
by Mark Corroto
This quartet of legendary master musician Roscoe Mitchell and three polish players was recorded in Bydgoszcz, a city in northern Poland at the Mózg Festival in 2015. The genesis though can be found back in 1994, when a quintet led by clarinetist Jerzy Mazzoll released Out Out To Lunch (Muzyka Z Mózgu, 1994), their homage to the late Eric Dolphy. The band, which included bassist Sławek Janicki, was exploring the freedom of jazz as their country was completing a transition ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell Quartet: Come and See What There Is to See
by Mark Corroto
In a recent interview, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire related the story of when he first visited a jazz club; as an eighth grader in Oakland, he experienced a performance by The Art Ensemble Of Chicago. What a spectacle it must have been and, of course, he would have witnessed the maestro himself, Roscoe Mitchell. Decades later Akinmusire, some 42 years Mitchell's junior, dedicated a song, “Mr. Roscoe (Consider The Simultaneous)," on his release On The Tender Spot Of Every ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell: Splatter
by Mark Corroto
The special performances of saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell's Conversation Series with orchestra are cause for celebration. The logistics of more than two dozen players is demanding. Add transcriptions for each instrument, rehearsals, grant writing, and securing an appropriate venue. Mitchell has traveled many miles since his debut Sound (Delmark Records, 1966) and his work in the Art Ensemble of Chicago. These days he has the standing to realize his concepts, and our ears are better for it.
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell with Ostravska Banda: Distant Radio Transmission
by Mark Corroto
Sometimes music makes you want to become a better dancer, or maybe even a better lover. With Roscoe Mitchell's music, you can't help but aspire to be a better listener. The co-founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians creates sounds that transcend jazz, new classical, and avant-garde musics. With Distant Radio Transmission he presents music that he previously recorded (solo or in small improvising groups) and reworked for a 33-piece orchestra, ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell with Ostravska Banda: Distant Radio Transmission
by Karl Ackermann
Roscoe Mitchell, a co-founder of the AACM and Art Ensemble of Chicago, continues to discover new intersections of jazz, classical and avant-garde music with Distant Radio Transmission. As he approaches eighty years of age Mitchell has waved off time and tradition, reinventing the AEoC brand with the orchestrated--sometimes operatic--We Are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration (Pi Recordings, 2019), a project that bore little resemblance to the group's historical discography. On this album, he draws on past compositions to ...
Continue ReadingFour Masters and More
by Marc Cohn
After a segment of 21st century music from Andy Fusco, Matt Criscuolo, Wycliffe Gordon and Fred Hersch, we go into celebration mode--saluting Sonny Rollins (with Max Roach) because he IS Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck (with some gorgeous Paul Desmond on the rarely played 'Jazz Goes To College) on their centennial, and 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, Roscoe Mitchell! Along the way Dinah Washington, Henry Threadgill and Lester Bowie. Gifts & Messages, coloring both inside ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell Orchestra: Littlefield Concert Hall Mills College March 19-20, 2018
by Alberto Bazzurro
Roscoe Mitchell è sempre stato uomo di grandi appetiti creativi. Fin da inizio carriera, ormai ben oltre mezzo secolo fa, ha perseguito un'idea del jazz (e della musica in senso lato) molto aperta, innovativa, fortemente personale. Non ha mai disdegnato l'area cosiddetta “contemporanea" (che forse ha praticato meno di quanto avrebbe voluto, essendosi troppo spesso trovato in altre faccende affaccendato) e questo suo nuovo lavoro, realizzato alla veneranda età di anni settantotto (quasi: li avrebbe compiuti il successivo 3 agosto), ...
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