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Melanie Dyer

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Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra: Living Sky

Read "Living Sky" reviewed by Stefano Merighi


Mentre la Enterplanetary Koncepts continua a sfornare inediti della Sun Ra Arkestra, il roccioso Marshall Allen--che va per i 100 il prossimo anno...-riesce a concepire di tanto in tanto nuove produzioni. Dopo l'apprezzato Swirling, ecco Living Sky, inciso a Philadelphia nel 2021, ancora sotto lo choc del COVID. E appare proprio come una seduta di musica dolcemente terapeutica questa raccolta di brani tenui, riposanti, deliziosi. Il gruppo raduna 19 elementi, che sotto la guida di Allen imbastiscono una ...

10
Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen: Living Sky

Read "Living Sky" reviewed by Mark Corroto


In 2022, Sun Ra has been gone nearly thirty years, but thanks to maestro Marshall Allen his Arkestra has survived. Allen had been a member of Sun Ra's band since the late 1950s and it has been under Allen's leadership since 1995. Fans that have enjoyed the Arkestra in concert certainly hoped for the band to record and it wasn't until the splendid Swirling (Strut) was released in 2020 that wish was fulfilled. The Marshall Allen-led the Arkestra's second offering, ...

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Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen: Living Sky

Read "Living Sky" reviewed by Chris May


When Sun Ra aficionado and Omni Sound Records founder Ahmet Ulug reached out to Sun Ra Arkestra leader Marshall Allen to commission a new album from the band, he gave Allen a tight brief. Ulug said that he wanted something: “Spiritual and hypnotic... down tempo, melodic and grooving... Music that is accessible and healing." Even though the crisis the world endured in 2020 and 2021 called out for such music, Ulug's directions to the veteran sonic-warrior may seem ...

6
Album Review

WeFreeStrings: Love In The Form Of Sacred Outrage

Read "Love In The Form Of Sacred Outrage" reviewed by Mark Corroto


History does repeat itself, violist Melanie Dyer draws from the same well of inspiration as Max Roach's We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1961). Maybe better put, history reveals Martin Luther King's arc of the moral universe has only bent a few degrees in the past sixty years. With Love In The Form Of Sacred Outrage, the ensemble WeFreeStrings follows up their debut Fulfillment (self released, 2018). Dyer, a classically trained violist, found inspiration in the music ...

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Album Review

William Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World

Read "Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


If multi-instrumentalist/composer William Parker's ten-CD Migration Of Silence Into And Out Of The Tone World suggests a cohesive, high concept plan, it is something more. The beautifully packaged clamshell box set is comprised of mutually exclusive projects—one dating back ten years—with some common themes. There is an overall dedication of the music to “all people of the world who are searching for freedom...." Pandemic downtime resulted in Parker's accumulating enough material for many of these albums. Viewed as a whole, ...

5
Album Review

The New Muse 4Tet: Blue Lotus

Read "Blue Lotus" reviewed by John Pietaro


The New Muse 4Tet, led by violinist/violist Gwen Laster, is a post-modern, plain-speakng incarnation of the string quartet, augmented by tabla and voice. Laster has engaged in a series of such ensembles and has also served well under the leaderships of Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, the Sun Ra Arkestra, William Parker, Danny Elfman and others. She has also featured as soloist with R&B performers including Aretha Franklin, Nona Hendryx, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez and Rhianna, as well as Shakira ...

5
Album Review

William Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World

Read "Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


L'attività musicale di William Parker è stata copiosamente documentata da circa centocinquanta dischi, che spaziano in un caleidocopio di gruppi fondati dallo stesso contrabbassista, formazioni cooperative, omaggi, collaborazioni. Ma nessun singolo lavoro, fino a questo momento, aveva focalizzato l'attenzione su un ventaglio di ispirazioni così ampio e completo come si fa ora nei dieci CD del cofanetto The Music of William Parker—Migration of Silence Into and Out of The Tone World. In questo lavoro monumentale, che viene ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Living Sky

Omni Sound
2022

buy

Migration of Silence...

Centering Records / AUM Fidelity
2021

buy

Blue Lotus

Self Released
2021

buy

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