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Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble: Proverbs for Sam
by Troy Collins
Proverbs for Sam is dedicated to the late saxophonist Sam Furnace, a charter member of double reed master Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble. The majority of the album is culled from the 2001 Vision Festival in New York, while the majestic finale is drawn from the same 2001 Burlington, Vermont concert documented on Seasoning of the Greens (Boxholder Records, 2002). These live recordings feature some of Furnace's last performances with the Ensemble, who passed away in 2004.
Since the ...
read moreBill Cole & William Parker: Two Masters: Live At The Prism
by Chris May
Bill Cole and William Parker have much in common: belief in the healing and transforming power of music, respect for non-Western musical forms, and a commitment to free improvisation. Cole's Untempered Ensemble, which has included Parker in recent years, as well as Parker's prolific output with his own Little Huey Orchestra and a multitude of other lineups, have done much to challenge Western musical ethnocentricities and blow a fresh wind through creative jazz.
With all those credits behind ...
read moreBill Cole: The Path I have Taken and the Instruments I Play
by AAJ Staff
Submitted on behalf of Bill Cole. On October 11, 2002 I turned 65. To celebrate I took my ensemble the Untempered Ensemble into the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. At the beginning of the second half all the members of the Ensemble played double reed horns that come from Asia. After the performance Anton Reid, long a strong supporter of musicians, mentioned to me that when I first came to New York, playing the instruments I ...
read moreBill Cole: Duets & Solos, Volume 1
by Derek Taylor
Bill Cole’s debut disc for Boxholder described the myriad strengths of his Untempered Ensemble at full muster ranging through a handful of powerful and highly personal compositions. Comprising a formidable roster of improvisers including Cooper-Moore, William Parker and Joseph Daley, and adhering to Cole’s rubric of incorporating non-Western instruments into jazz-based improvisatory settings the group was an ingenious amalgam of new and traditionally grounded sonorities. The 2-disc set turned out to be one of the most original and thought-provoking releases ...
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