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Dino Duo: J.A. Deane & Jason Kao Hwang: Uncharted Faith
by Karl Ackermann
The idiosyncratic nature of Jason Kao Hwang's work lends itself to a broad range of collaborative possibilities. Uncharted Faith, a duo recording with electronics artist J.A. Deane, is unique because of both its experimental essence and its personal backstory. Deane (aka, Dino) lost his life-partner in 2019 and went into wooded seclusion to finish a book. The composer & violinist Hwang and Deane had discussed a project and the latter requested some Hwang material to improvise around. On only two ...
read moreWilliam Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World
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, ...
read moreJason Kao Hwang: Human Rites Trio
by Mike Jurkovic
Chattering dances. That's the first image that springs to mind when encountering Human Rites Trio, the fascinating new music from prolific violinist/composer Jason Kao Hwang and his rhythmic, shapeshifting compatriots, drummer Andrew Drury and bassist Ken Filiano. Building on a freneticism all their own, the opening two-part suite “Words Asleep Spoken Awake" is a hyper-active, many headed hydra of spontaneous interplay. Counterpoint groove and muscle memory all come into play with Hwang's sound moving from mournful strains to ...
read moreWilliam Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World
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 ...
read moreSteve Swell: The Center Will Hold
by John Sharpe
Unusual instrumentation inspires NYC-based trombonist Steve Swell to ever greater heights on the six compositions comprising The Center Will Hold. Pride of place goes to veteran drummer Andrew Cyrille, who certainly deserves the extra billing he receives on the cover. Beside him are a mixture of long time colleagues of the trombonist, violinist Jason Kao Hwang and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, and more recent collaborators, pianist Robert Boston, who fulfilled a leading role on Swell's accomplished Brain In A Dish (NoBusiness, ...
read moreJason Kao Hwang: Human Rites Trio
by Dan Bilawsky
Observance is at the heart of violinist Jason Kao Hwang's work, and no two musicians respect and fulfill the promise in his ritualistic art to the degree of bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Andrew Drury. The relationship between these three has traversed time and space(s), manifesting in a sea of strings for Symphony of Souls (Mulatta Records, 2011), playing to poetic notions on Lifelines (Innova Recordings, 2015), taking on a horn and harmonist in Sing House (Euonymus Records, 2017) and ...
read moreJason Kao Hwang & Karl Berger: Conjure
by Mike Jurkovic
There is an adventurer's appeal when two free thinkers just pick up mid-stream and let the river carry them. Without label or structure constraint, life-preservers and the chronic happenstance which bars so many back from reaching beyond themselves, music emerges shaded by emotional time, humor, awareness, and mutual respect for each other's untapped potential. So we have Conjure, a meeting of the minds of eighty-four year old vibraphonist/pianist Karl Berger (from the free school of Ornette Coleman, Don ...
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