Jazz Articles
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Aila Trio: Shaped by Sea Waves
by Glenn Astarita
Norway-based Aila Trio's, Shaped by Sea Waves on Edgetone Records, offers an experience for jazz enthusiasts interested in the experimental side of the genre. While not groundbreaking, it presents a solid exploration and a genial journey. Bassist Georgia Wartel Collins is the guiding force behind the album. Her intricate and melodic bass lines function as narrative threads, weaving and flowing through the sonic landscapes. These lines occasionally evoke a dreamlike state, creating a sense of mystery and exploration. ...
read moreRent Romus' Lords of Outland: 25 years under the mountain
by Glenn Astarita
This Northern California powerhouse unit led by multi-woodwind ace Rent Romus commemorates 25-years in the business with a hard-hitting acoustic-electric jaunt featuring the core rhythm section and new addition, guitarist and violaist, Alex Cohen. Over the years, the collective has enjoyed a refreshing progression of shifting personnel. However, this album is grounded in avant-garde jazz fusion and free-form improvisation, where the artists enjoy ample space to engage in tumultuous dialogues and fluctuating currents during these energized performances. The ...
read moreRent Romus' Life's Blood Ensemble: Rogue Star
by Glenn Astarita
Experimental San Francisco Bay Area record label Edgetone Records states, this band “reflects the influences which make up their collective interest in storytelling, exploring expanded borders, and discovery." No doubt, this red hot ensemble doesn't stay content following a one-dimensional musical path, as they branch out on a recurring basis via these fluid and manifold works. The sextet features the dual bass attack of Max Judelson and Safa Shokari. In effect, the ensemble abides by a flexible but ...
read moreRent Romus: Deciduous/Midwestern Edition Vol. 1
by Glenn Astarita
This West Coast USA experimental record label always spreads its wings. Part of the fun is anticipating what comes next. Here, label head and distinguished multi-reedman Rent Romus and musical associates pay homage to the avant-garde jazz spirit of the Midwest, citing the birthplace for AACM and innovators such as Albert Ayler, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and others. Romus also advises in the press release that this is an ongoing project as the album title would indicate.Most of these ...
read moreNoertker's Moxie: druidh penumbrae
by Glenn Astarita
With his 9th album for San Francisco Bay Area-based Edgetone Records, bassist, composer Bill Noertker's Moxie ensemble is captured live during performances between 2011-2015. As a composer, he derives influence from famous visual artists, architects, poets and sculptors. Thus, his compositional impetus contains grounded jazz elements, yet his works feature lyrical mosaics of sound amid geometrical unison flows, whimsical overtones and a storytelling approach. Moxie consists of alternating personnel, spanning the various ensemble configurations of these live performances. ...
read moreSay Bok Gwai: Trio / Chinese Jesus
by Glenn Astarita
If you ever wondered what an angst-ridden, scaled back version of Sonic Youth would sound like if the musicians were overdosing on energy drinks, then the core duo of Say Bok Gwai may represent that notion rather mightily, and then some. Based in San Francisco, the unit is billed as a Chinese American hardcore rock band. Noted as a double EP, and the first time they've employed a bassist (Josh Martin), the musicians cover the social condition via an extremely ...
read moreRent Romus' Life's Blood Ensemble: Rising Colossus
by Glenn Astarita
Edgetone Records sent the LP edition of this album that is also available on CD and digital format. Yet I still maintain that most jazz albums are better served via full-bodied analogue productions often equating to a studio-in-your-room experience, coupled with a first-rate turntable and audiophile trimmings that may enhance the listening experience. San Francisco new-jazz saxophonist Rent Romus leads his Life's Blood Ensemble --which has been an ongoing coalition comprised of alternating personnel --through a program framed ...
read moreNashville Electric: Orson's Folly
by Glenn Astarita
This is not an ambient-electronic, celestial voyage or new age type gala. In fact, it's a scoring of actor, director Orson Welles' “Four Men on a Raft" sequence from his 1942 documentary It's All True. This was a film that the US Government expected to be sugarcoated as part of a cultural exchange program with Brazil. In turn, expectations were not met and the film's budget was severely hacked leaving Welles with black & white footage without sound. Therefore, Nashville ...
read moreJess Rowland: Spambots
by Glenn Astarita
San Francisco-based sound artist, synthesist and commissioned composer Jess Rowland assembles a freaky android-like aural fest via text-to-speech loops, cyclical narrations and perhaps modern era Beat poetry atop supercharged electronics and dissimilar tonalities. Running at LP length, Rowland and drummer Pete Stalsky don't overcook matters. Her overlapping narrations, sometimes built on short phrases and a mélange of effects ride above the drummer's staggered cadences. Yet the duo intersperses crunching distortion and electro-mechanical type sounds into the mix. Rowland ...
read moreReconnaissance Fly: Flower Futures
by Glenn Astarita
Vocalist, flautist Polly Moller concocted the premise for this album based on collections of Internet-based spam poetry, or as the press release states, “spoetry." It's quite kooky, yet thoroughly engaging. Slight comparisons to small ensemble Frank Zappa, largely from a lyrical standpoint, come to fruition as the band performs with a theatrical flair, and an ideology that could be framed on a soundtrack for a guileful Off-Broadway production. They merge a consortium of unruffled, breezy jazz passages amid brusque unison ...
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