Jazz Articles

Lisle Ellis: Sucker Punch Requiem: An Homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat

by Clifford Allen
May 1, 2008

Painter, graffitist and collagist Jean-Michel Basquiat was an unmistakable force in New York during the late '70s and into the '80s, certainly the latter decade's first American art stars and one of the art world's first black stars. Initially known by his tag SAMO (referencing both Sambo and “Same Old..."), he was championed by Warhol for his use of street language and vernacular elements in a proliferation of large, abstract paintings. He was also guitarist in the no wave band ...

Carla Kihlstedt / Satoko Fujii: Minamo

by Budd Kopman
March 13, 2008

For those listeners who enjoy free, truly spontaneous improvisation and the combination of violin and piano, Minamo with violinist Carla Kihlstedt and pianist Satoko Fujii cannot be recommended highly enough.Featuring two live recordings from performances at Rova Saxophone Quartet's 25th Anniversary Festival in San Francisco in 2002 and the Music Unlimited Festival in Wels Austria in 2005, this exhilarating record demonstrates the highest levels of musical interaction.Kihlstedt is known mainly for her work in the avant-garde ...

Lisle Ellis: Sucker Punch Requiem: An Homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat

by Troy Collins
February 26, 2008

Canadian born bassist and Renaissance man, Lisle Ellis opens a new chapter in his development with Sucker Punch Requiem. A tribute to the revered painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ellis' all-star septet offers a diverse program of musical ideas that mirrors Basquiat's idiosyncratic vision.

With ties across Canada, New York City and the Bay Area, Ellis has been a highly valued collaborator for almost three decades. A brief hiatus from performing in the late 1990s found him channeling his creative ...

Gustavo Aguilar: unsettled on an old sense of place

by Donald Elfman
November 4, 2007

The title is nearly perfect; this music is truly unsettled on--really--any place or sense of it. You can't nail it down other than as a series of sound portraits about the relationship between composer and listener. It does invoke a sense of somewhere that feels familiar and very new at the same time.

Aguilar hails from Brownsville, Texas, and one might find something of the kind of Texas/Mexican colors of the composer's background, but you won't be there ...

Sound on Survival: Live

by Derek Taylor
July 4, 2005

Coining a catchy sobriquet in synch with its '70s free jazz roots, the trio of altoist Marco Eneidi, bassist Lisle Ellis, and drummer Peter Valsamis has been making Richter-sized seismic waves for quite a while. The music financed by the fledgling Henceforth label as its first release exhibits the “road work of a short American tour that presaged the band's recording session for CIMP. That latter date registered on numerous 2004 year-end lists, my own included, as a serious new ...