Jazz Articles about Sabir Mateen

About Sabir Mateen

109

Album Review

At one point on the title cut of Simple...Isn't It??, the latest CD by Earth People, the band's enigmatically-named singer, M, purrs, "Would you like...the usual? I didn't think so!" That contempt for the mundane exemplifies this vibrant work of spiritually driven, boundary-busting cadre music. The group's debut CD, Waking the Living, covered some of the same ground but with a slightly larger ensemble. On Simple their roster consists of four members, the music no less potent. ...

138

Album Review

Sabir Mateen: TEST

by AAJ Staff
June 1, 1999

In the purest sense, free improvisation is all about communication. When it succeeds, a group of individuals can speak with a single larger voice. New York City's TEST does exactly that: fuse four highly distinctive individual voices together to form one searing rollercoaster of musical experience. It certainly doesn't hurt that the members of this quartet collectively have well over half a century of experience playing in this tradition. And they've been playing together on the streets of NYC since ...