Jazz Articles

Reptet: Chicken or Beef?

by Elliott Simon
May 9, 2010

Remember in the high school band room, how the horn section would goof around like they were part of Parliament Funkadelic or James Brown or the Mothers of Invention? The super cool Mothers, with Napoleon Murphy Brock on sax, flute and vocals. And then the drums, all of them, would join in. Think if that horn section was actually as together and inventive as it thought it was, and bassist Bootsy Collins was in the neighborhood and dropped in to ...

Reptet: Chicken or Beef?

by Henry Smith
December 1, 2008

A sextet based out of Seattle, Washington, Reptet present a sound and message that, in its own words, aptly describes both the group's approach and its broader mission “to compose, interpret and improvise music that inspires growth through freedom and discipline." Working within a good-natured, party band atmosphere, the unit manages to stretch its genre's typical trappings on Chicken or Beef?, with both a broad array of stylistic capabilities as well as an adventurous, fun-loving attitude too often lacking in ...

Reptet: Chicken or Beef?

by Dave Major
November 30, 2008

Free jazz and the avant-garde form an interesting and self-conflicted paradigm. All too often it seems musicians perceive the “free" aspect to mean that they must completely reject traditional music and become trapped in the ether of ambiguity, rather than perhaps accepting a loftier goal: the freedom to both use, and move beyond convention. Reptet is an exciting group which, judging by the music contained on the critically lauded Chicken Or Beef? has accepted that ideal--but only after having poked ...

Reptet: Do This!

by Dan McClenaghan
November 7, 2006

I looked up “reptet" in the dictionary. It's not there. The words skip from “reprove" to “reptile"... no “reptet" listed. Maybe I don't have a big enough dictionary, or maybe the Seattle-based sextet made it up. And why not? The music on the group's second CD is all about spontaneity and improvisation, unfettered, exuberant energy and rubbery, loose-limbed grooves--on the one hand they don't sound like they're taking it all too seriously, while on the other, they make some very ...

Floss: Unwaxed

by John Kelman
August 11, 2004

For an artist who never achieved the widespread acclaim of, say, John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman, saxophonist Albert Ayler has had a surprisingly long-lasting effect on modern free jazz. Coming up as he did not through the bebop ranks, but from R&B, also lends credibility to more contemporary free artists coming to the genre through other forms of music, most notably punk, which clearly shares certain denominators with the more expressionist free playing of artists including Cleveland's Jeff Platz, whose ...

Reptet: Reptet

by Michael P. Gladstone
February 10, 2004

Reptet is a Seattle-based quartet that was dates back to 1999, when drummer John Ewing began to assemble its other members, a process that continued over the course of the next two years. The group prides itself upon their eclectic repertoire, featuring compositions by outside musicians such as Horace Tapscott and Misha Mengelberg.

Despite the above claim, I find the material to be largely right down the middle. There are two tracks earmarked as geared for “outside" radio ...

Monktail Creative Music Concern: Non Grata

by Jerry D'Souza
January 12, 2004

Creative music is a much bandied-about term. Creativity lies in the imagination of its creators. The Monktail Creative Music Concern comes out of Seattle with enough steam in its collective mind to gratify both in the depth of its intensity and the expanse of its musical ambition. The concern has around 20 musicians floating in its ambit, but it is a core eleven-piece band that fires up the interest on this, the MCMC’s debut album.

The music was ...