Recording News

Matana Roberts - Live in London (2011)

Source: Something Else!
May 12, 2011

A few years ago when I sat down and took a stab at identifying some up and coming women in a world of instrumental jazz still dominated by men, one of those ten names that came to mind was avant-garde saxophonist Matana Roberts. After moving to NYC from her Windy City hometown she finally led a record, The Chicago Project, and created a lot of buzz in 2008. Count this writer as among one of the impressed, as I recounted ...

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Popa Chubby - Stealing the Devil's Guitar (2006)

Source: Something Else!
May 12, 2011

By Derrick Lord It has long been the first trap any musician must jump once they hit it big. A successful record means a lot of people hear your music and from that point on you have a decision to make: Do you stick with the tried and true formula and give the less discerning fans out there what they want (more of the same old thing) or do you scratch the itch most artists have and experiment, expand and ...

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You Say You Want a Revolution (We All Want to Change the World): Bitches Brew Live, or How Miles Davis Saved 21st Century Jazz

Source: Jazz (Jazzers Jazzing) by Carl L. Hager
May 12, 2011

Bitches Brew was recognized as the proverbial “shot heard 'round the world" within weeks of being released by Columbia Records in April, 1970. In his musical choices—particularly the electric instrumentation, radically new editing approaches, and recent personnel changes—Miles had set off a fiery explosion that continues to reverberate throughout jazz to this day. A good number of critics have spoken violently against it and still do. Whether they were annoyed or confused by his new direction in music, it's a ...

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Meredith Monk "Song of Ascension"

Source: ECM Records
May 12, 2011

Meredith Monk Songs of Ascension Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble Todd Reynolds String Quartet M6 Voices Montclair State University Singers “Songs of Ascension" is a major new recording from composer Meredith Monk and her vocal ensemble. Written in 2008, it is conceived as a continuous composition, a departure from Monk's earlier collaged or episodic extended works. In recent years Meredith Monk's been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet. On “Songs of ...

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Soulive's Al Evans Unearths "Crushed Velvet"

Source: Chris M. Slawecki
May 12, 2011

Royal Family Records has announced the May 24 release of the long lost 1970s' motion picture soundtrack The Big One by Crushed Velvet & The Velveteers. This never-before-issued soul music gem was recently unearthed by Soulive drummer Alan Evans when a family friend in Buffalo, NY put him in touch with the movie's director Cleo McBride. A 1974 Shaft-meets-007 Blaxploitation production, The Big One never made it to the big screen as the film was reported to have been destroyed ...

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Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble Comes Through with "The Prairie Prophet"

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
May 11, 2011

Chicago's Ernest Dawkins has been making some very goodly music for some time now (11 CDs so far). His New Horizons Ensemble has been a big part of the scene since 1978! On The Prairie Prophet (Delmark 598) Dawkins runs the mid-sized, seven-artist cast through in-jazz to out-jazz compositions that have plenty of latitude for the considerable improvising abilities of the players while emblazoning a distinctive stamp on the sound and thrust of the music. This is a well-paced set, ...

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William Hooker and Thomas Chapin - Crossing Points (Nobusiness, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
May 11, 2011

Multi-instrumentalist Thomas Chapin was one of my guiding lights when I started getting into jazz really heavily in the 1990's. His Knitting Factory releases are all stellar, and he could play anything from swing to bop to free, but was possibly at his best when combining all genres or dispensing with the notion of genre entirely.

This duet album finds him in the company of master drummer William Hooker for a two man blast off into the cosmos. Make no ...

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Forgotten Series: Paul Motian - I Have the Room Above Her (2005)

Source: Something Else!
May 11, 2011

By Mark Saleski You wouldn't suppose that most musicians would look favorably upon being compared to an old pile of rocks. How about an old, organized pile of rocks? This isn't some kind of clever reviewer trick. Honestly, it's just a coincidence. While giving Paul Motian's I Have The Room Above Her the first listen, I happened to have a nice view out the bedroom window. Through the maples and oaks beside our antique house, an old rock wall can ...

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