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Rempis / Abrams / Ra + Jim Baker: Scylla
by Mark Corroto
Avreeayl Ra sets the tone for this entire live set as his voice and mbira open Scylla, this is for all the survivors." According to Greek mythology Scylla was a beautiful woman who turned into a monster with four eyes and six long snaky necks with heads, each containing three rows of shark's teeth and 12 tentacle legs plus six dog's heads wrapped her waist. Recorded deep into the Covid-19 pandemic, in July 2021, at Chicago's Elastic Arts, one would ...
read moreJim Baker: More Questions Than Answers
by Germein Linares
A constantly introspective and inquisitive sound haunts More Questions Than Answers, Jim Baker's aptly titled solo debut. Baker is a Chicago-based musician who often ventures out with like-minded improvisers on projects like Ken Vandermark's Caffeine and Cornelius Cardew's Treatise. Here, Baker is left to his own devices, forging an interesting path for ten piano pieces and three synthesizer interludes.
Most of the offerings are a brief three to four minutes in length, with the acoustic pieces probing about ...
read moreJim Baker: More Questions Than Answers
by Mark Corroto
The liner notes to Jim Baker's first Delmark release are full of apologies. He writes that maybe he should have done an ensemble session with some of the musicians he has been working with lately, like Kent Kessler, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Michael Zerang, Josh Abrams, Steve Hunt, Brian Sandstrom, or Avreeyal Ra. He thinks these free improvisations" might not be entirely free from tune-like influence and says, If I were to do another one of these solo recordings, maybe I would ...
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