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Nate Wooley

Nate Wooley (b. 1974) grew up in a Finnish-American fishing village in Oregon. He has spent the rest of his life trying musically to find a way back to the peace and quiet of that time by whole-heartedly embracing the space between complete absorption in sound and relative absence of the same. He began playing trumpet professionally at age 13 with his father, and after studying he moved to Colorado where he studied more with Ron Miles, Art Lande, Fred Hess, and improvisation master Jack Wright. His tenure with Jack began to break Nate out of self-imposed molds and into the sound world that he has embraced as his own.

Nate currently resides in Jersey City, NJ and performs solo trumpet improvisations as well as with his trio Blue Collar with Steve Swell and Tatsuya Nakatani. He has also performed regularly with Anthony Braxton, Bhob Rainey, Alessandro Bosetti, Fritz Welch, Herb Robertson, Kevin Norton, Tony Malaby, Randy Peterson, Scott Rosenberg, Matt Moran, Chris Speed, Andrew D’Angelo, Tim Barnes, Okkyung Lee, Assif Tsahar, and other improvisation luminaries.

" Nate has striven to blur the demarcations between tonality and texture, extreme sound and the protracted use of silence, nervous energy and an almost painful amount of patience. His trumpet playing is a obscene distillation of Booker Little, Leo Smith, Axel Dorner, and Bill Dixon. The scary part is how powerfully 'Nate' this distillation is. His solo shows have made me revisit all of my childhood fears while he has enough straight up jazz prowess to rival almost anybody in New York. "

" If you were to draw a graph of the dynamics of Nate Wooley's playing there would be no sudden spikes. Each peak and valley would be approached with a thoughtful curve. He plays with great timbral variety, but every sound is musical. "

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18
Album Review

Ches Smith: Laugh Ash

Read "Laugh Ash" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Ches Smith's Laugh Ash is not your garden-variety jazz concoction. Instead, it is a genre-defying, shape-twisting auditory escapade that does not just push the envelope--it sends it soaring into the stratosphere. It is both bewildering and bedazzling. These compositions stand as a towering testament to Smith's impressive acumen as a drummer, percussionist, and composer, a veritable Houdini of the music world who escapes the shackles of convention to chart a mesmerizing course through uncharted musical terrains.Right from the ...

1
Album Review

Ches Smith: Laugh Ash

Read "Laugh Ash" reviewed by Vic Albani


Dopo lo straordinario lavoro dedicato al Vudù haitiano del 2021 (Path of Seven Colors) anch'esso uscito per la straordinaria Pyroclastic Records di Kris Davis, il batterista, percussionista e compositore Ches Smith, acclamato dal New York Times come “uno dei batteristi più dinamici della scena sperimentale del pianeta," colpisce ancora con un nuovo sorprendente lavoro immensamente variegato, sorprendente (bisognerebbe scriverlo almeno due volte una dopo l'altra) ed imprevedibile sotto ogni punto di vista. La singolare visione musicale del musicista ...

9
Album Review

Ivo Perelman, Nate Wooley, Mat Maneri, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe Morris, Matt Moran: Seven Skies Orchestra

Read "Seven Skies Orchestra" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Ever the intrepid innovator, saxophonist Ivo Perelman takes his music in a new direction on the double-disc set, Seven Skies Orchestra. After a long series, primarily of duets, Perelman returns to a larger ensemble setting, a sextet in this case. That is not the only difference between this release and his previous output; the music here, although still entirely improvised and easily recognizable as Perelman's, moves in a more spacious, contemplative direction, less introspective and more outgoing. Vibraphonist ...

16
Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier: Chimaera

Read "Chimaera" reviewed by Troy Dostert


It says something about pianist Sylvie Courvoisier's current profile in creative jazz that she could assemble such a distinguished ensemble for her latest release, Chimaera. Augmenting her usual trio of bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen are trumpeters Wadada Leo Smith and Nate Wooley, and with the always interesting Christian Fennesz completing the group on guitar and electronics, one would expect extraordinary results. And so they are--worthy of a lengthy, two-CD treatment, in fact. Courvoisier's work with ...

7
Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Seven Skies Orchestra

Read "Seven Skies Orchestra" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


In another reality, where the love one makes is what gets the headlines, the big money, the streaming specials, ceaselessly inquisitive saxophonist and downtown legend Ivo Perelman might just top the list of good guys. The guy who pushes for the better mind, the better heart, and confesses it all to tape or lacquer or binary code; chronicling one man's pursuit of the day. while hopefully inspiring others to cut the course the same. Even before the most ...

10
Album Review

Transatlantic Five: Transitions

Read "Transitions" reviewed by Mark Corroto


There is an expression in meditation for when an individual is concentrating on their breath, “it's a simple practice, but not easy." A similar statement might be made about Transitions by the Transatlantic Five. The music is not simple, but it is easy. Easy, at least for this quintet. The American duo of Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone, clarinet) and trumpeter Nate Wooley crossed an ocean (thus the name) to perform and record with the German trio of vibraphonist ...

5
Album Review

Ingrid Laubrock: Monochromes

Read "Monochromes" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Saxophonist & composer Ingrid Laubrock and her partner, drummer Tom Rainey self-released an ongoing series of spontaneous duets, the Stir Crazy Episodes, recorded during the pandemic lockdown. They were most likely a kind of pressure release mechanism for both artists. With Monochromes, Laubrock heads in the opposite direction by commissioning four musicians to pre-record tape pieces based on her notations, both conventional and graphical; these form the foundations for Laubrock and three different collaborations to improvise over. The single 40-minute ...

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1

Recording

Whit Dickey 2-CD 'Morph' with Matthew Shipp and Nate Wooley on ESP-DISK. Pre-Order Now.

Whit Dickey 2-CD 'Morph' with Matthew Shipp and Nate Wooley on ESP-DISK. Pre-Order Now.

Source: All About Jazz

Whit Dickey has been a quiet but brilliant presence on the New York avant-jazz scene since his discographical debut in 1991 on the legendary Matthew Shipp Trio album Circular Temple. In concert and on recordings in groups led by Shipp, David S. Ware, Ivo Perelman, Joe Morris, and Rob Brown, he built a reputation for distinctively space-filled, subtle rhythmic support, even as he was perfectly capable of muscling up when the music called for it. For some of the people ...

Performance / Tour

Jazz this week: Mike Stern & Kimberly Thompson, George Sams, Ralph Towner, Ikue Mori & Nate Wooley, Russell Gunn, and more

Jazz this week: Mike Stern & Kimberly Thompson, George Sams, Ralph Towner, Ikue Mori & Nate Wooley, Russell Gunn, and more

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

As you might be able to deduce from looking at the headline for this post, it's very busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis. Over the next few days, there will be a plethora of visiting performers on local stages, plus the opening of a play about one of the most famous jazz singers ever, free master classes from two guitar greats, and more. Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, February 15 Guitarist Mike Stern performs for ...

1

Video / DVD

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Ikue Mori & Nate Wooley

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Ikue Mori & Nate Wooley

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

This week's grab-bag of videos features electronic musician Ikue Mori and trumpeter Nate Wooley, who will be performing in a concert presented by New Music Circle next Saturday, February 18 at The Luminary. Mori, 63, is a Japanese native who first gained recognition in the late 1970s as the drummer for the NYC-based “No Wave" band DNA. She subsequently began working with drum machines and electronics, eventually abandoning the drums entirely for a laptop computer, which remains her preferred instrument. ...

96

Recording

Peter Evans and Nate Wooley - High Society (Carrier Records, 2011) *****

Peter Evans and Nate Wooley - High Society (Carrier Records, 2011) *****

Source: Free Jazz by Stef Gijssels

By Joe Higham Being a musician and playing a wide variety of music means that my family (kids and wife) are used to hearing wild sounds emanating from the hi-fi from time to time. But in certain cases I realise that maybe some music is not for wholesale consumption, and this .... is one of them! It's almost like a dream come true for a horn player (in this case trumpets) to be able to sound like Jimi Hendrix playing ...

100

Recording

Nate Wooley / Scott R. Looney / Damon Smith / Weasel Walter - Scowl (Ugexplode, 2011) ****a1/2

Nate Wooley / Scott R. Looney / Damon Smith / Weasel Walter - Scowl (Ugexplode, 2011) ****a1/2

Source: Free Jazz by Stef Gijssels

By Paul Acquaro I wonder what would make music like 'Scowl' of interest to the 'lay' listener? I suppose this is a question that has been asked in varying ways many times before, and no doubt will continue to be asked as members enter and (dare I say?) leave the fold of avant-garde jazz. I don't pretend to have an answer, nor will I even posit a theory, all I can offer is that It is a compelling listen that ...

65

Recording

Nate Wooley Keeps On Getting Better: "(Put Your) Hands Together"

Nate Wooley Keeps On Getting Better: "(Put Your) Hands Together"

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

With Nate Wooley, and with his latest quintet album (Put Your) Hands Together (Clean Feed CF218CD), there is plenty to suggest that growth is a factor. Nate as an artist, trumpet-composer-bandleader, does not stand still. It's a very balanced album with a band that provides the freewheeling solo work you would expect from Nate's outfit, yet also has developed an ensemble sound, thanks in part to Nate's compositions-arrangements, but also thanks to the sensibilities of the players involved. Some of ...

146

Recording

Nate Wooley - Trumpet/Amplifier (Smeraldina-Rima 2011) *****

Nate Wooley - Trumpet/Amplifier (Smeraldina-Rima 2011) *****

Source: Free Jazz by Stef Gijssels

By Joe Higham This is one of the strangest records I've listened to in a while, and yet it's also an easy record to give 5 stars to simply because what you hear on this record defies any expectations of what a solo trumpet record, even with an amplifier, would or should sound like. It's this second element, the amplifier, which defines the outcome of Nate Wooley's sound explorations. I use the expression 'sound exploration' as what you hear on ...

366

Recording

Nate Wooley - (Put Your) Hands Together (Clean Feed, 2011)

Nate Wooley - (Put Your) Hands Together (Clean Feed, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Trumpeter Nate Wooley has played in a plethora of situations from relitavely straight post-bop to free improvisation. On this Clean Feed date, he combines all on these influences in a very well donce album where he is joined by Josh Sinton on bass clarinet, Matt Moran on vibraphone, Eivind Opsvik on bass and Harris Eisenstadt on drums.

The three part “Shandra Lee" shows the band that their most open and abstract. Part One has Wooley playing solo, spare and lyrical ...

110

Interview

Interview | Nate Wooley

Interview | Nate Wooley

Source: Ars Nova Workshop

On March 5, Ars Nova Workshop presents a performance at Vox Populi by trumpeter Nate Wooley, violinist and electronicist C. Spencer Yeh, cellist Okkyung Lee, and percussionist Paul Lytton. With expansive avant-garde affiliations – noise, jazz, free improv, downtown – Wooley assembled this quartet “to see if a collision of forward thinking practitioners of each of these histories will create something greater than a well-thought out musical fusion." This Philadelphia concert is the third stop on a Wooley-Lytton US tour, ...

143

Performance / Tour

Free-Jazz Manifestoes Declared Nightly

Free-Jazz Manifestoes Declared Nightly

Source: Michael Ricci

Nate Wooley, sitting and aiming his trumpet toward a microphone about four feet in front of him, played free improvisation almost without affect. On Monday, at the Lower East Side bar Local 269, he was a third of the band Crackleknob, the guitarist Mary Halvorson, the bassist Reuben Radding.

Mr. Wooley used a lot of extended technique, of which there's been a long history in free jazz: drawn-out tones decaying into hisses and pops, sucking air inward through the instrument, ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Transitions

NEMU Records
2024

buy

Seven Skies Orchestra

Fundacja Sluchaj
2024

buy

Laugh Ash

Pyroclastic Records
2024

buy

Polarity 2

Burning Ambulance Music
2023

buy

Monochromes

Intakt Records
2023

buy

Chimaera

Intakt Records
2023

buy

Returning to Drown Myself, Finally

From: Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes
By Nate Wooley

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