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Gregg Belisle-Chi
Henry Threadgill: Listen Ship
by Giuseppe Segala
As in other recent works, on Listen Ship Henry Threadgill appears solely as composer and conductor. No surprise there: his works vividly showcase a quest for a personal compositional dimension, one that reflects his drive for authenticity while engaging in dialogue, proposing a possible intersection between Black American musical traditions and other musical realms. This is eloquently detailed in his 2023 autobiography, Easily Slip into Another World. A Life in Music, a gem in the realm of autobiographies, where he ...
Continue ReadingGregg Belisle-Chi: Slow Crawl: Performing the Music of Tim Berne
by Mark Corroto
Guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi's story mirrors that of saxophonist Tim Berne, which makes Slow Crawl all the more compelling. Berne's own musical journey began when he was so moved by Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D. (Mbari, 1972) that he relocated to New York to study directly with the master. Decades later, Belisle-Chi had a similar experience in Seattle when he first encountered Berne's Science Friction (Screwgun, 2002). The album altered his musical trajectory, prompting him to move to New York to study ...
Continue ReadingHenry Threadgill: Listen Ship
by Giuseppe Segala
Come in altri suoi lavori recenti, anche su Listen Ship Henry Threadgill compare unicamente in qualità di compositore e conduttore. Nessuna meraviglia: sappiamo che il musicista di Chicago è tra i grandi compositori della contemporaneità. È evidente e ricchissima, nelle sue opere, la ricerca di una dimensione compositiva personale, che ne rispecchi l'impulso di autenticità e nel contempo si metta in dialogo, proponga un incrocio possibile tra musiche di matrice neroamericana e altre aree musicali. Come è dettagliatamente narrato nella ...
Continue ReadingTim Berne - Tom Rainey - Gregg Belisle-Chi: Yikes Too
by Glenn Astarita
Tim Berne's Yikes Too marks a significant expansion of the saxophonist's artistic vision, unfolding across two discs that showcase both his compositional architecture and improvisational dexterity. Berne joins forces with drummer Tom Rainey and guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi--a Bill Frisell protégé--to form a new trio that navigates intellectual complexity and gut-level musical communication with equal fluency. The studio sessions at Firehouse 12 yield ten compositions where Berne's characteristic dark alto tone weaves through mathematical labyrinths of sound. Standouts “Oddly ...
Continue ReadingTim Berne / Gregg Belisle: Mars
by Dan McClenaghan
Mars inspires. That blood-red eye orbiting the sun this side of Jupiter served as a muse for Gustav Holtz in the “Mars" portion of his Planets Suite (1916); H.G Wells conjured giant three-legged machines from Mars, wielding death rays and attempting to destroy the Earth; Edgar Rice Burroughs sent John Carter to Barsoom (Mars), where the protagonist met and fell in love with the lovely Princess Dejah Thoris; and Kim Stanley Robinson described a Red Mars (Spectra, 1993), as a ...
Continue ReadingGregg Belisle-Chi: Book of Hours
by Friedrich Kunzmann
"If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art." This opinion, from Arnold Schönberg, comes to mind when confronted with the first couple of minutes of New York-based guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi's third outing as a leader. Structure and tonality are absent from the get-go. The careful accumulation of intervals presented on the opening track is more reminiscent of the unsettling effect of twelve tone music, the invention credited to Schönberg ...
Continue ReadingGregg Belisle-Chi: I Sang To You And The Moon
by Angelo Leonardi
Vengono da Seattle e hanno meno di trent'anni i componenti di questo quartetto dalla fisionomia singolare: una cantante accompagnata da chitarra, tromba e contrabbasso. Come si può intuire dall'organico, il clima è cameristico e l'intimismo folk delle musiche di Gregg Belisle-Chi impregna tutto l'album. Anche se è scritto in caratteri microscopici sul retrocopertina, il chitarrista ha lavorato su nove liriche di Carl Sandburg, il secondo poeta nazionale statunitense dopo Walt Witman. Un chiaro modello di riferimento è il ...
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Music
Gregg Belisle-Chi
Instrument: Guitar, acoustic
