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Sun Ra: Monorails & Satellites: Works For Solo Piano Vols. 1, 2, 3

by John Ephland
Sun Ra as a pianist could be in your parlor, entrancing you with all manner of wistfulness, star-gazing, even a dash of the down-and-dirty via some dusty blues or off- kilter, angular, jagged afterthoughts. In this three-disc solo piano set, the nine selections that make up disc three bring it all back home, the music coalescing ...
Liebman, Rudolph & Drake: Chi

by John Ephland
Chi is another trio outing with saxophonist Dave Liebman and percussionist Adam Rudolph, the third leg on this stool being drummer Hamid Drake. It is a kind of follow-up to 2018's alternately serene and propulsive The Unknowable (RareNoise), on which Liebman and Rudolph were joined by percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. Unlike The Unknowable, Chi was recorded in ...
Stephan Thelen: Fractal Guitar

by John Ephland
A guitar lover's delight, the Swiss Stephan Thelen's Fractal Guitar reeks of the many splendid effects the instrument can bellow, belch, intimate, cry out and sing. And all within the narrow yet liberating, pattern-based corridors Thelen's ofttimes arhythmic funkfest conjures. With nods to David Torn, Robert Fripp, Glenn Branca and even Nik Bartsch, the aesthetic creates ...
Eraldo Bernocchi: Like A Fire That Consumes All Before It

by John Ephland
RareNoise is one of those labels, one of those rare (no pun intended) labels, where format and style have become irrelevant. A recent sampling of the soon-to-be historic label should suffice in telling their ongoing musical odyssey. Pit one against the other: 2018's Anguish, featuring among others, Nordic phenom Mats Gustafsson in a wild-haired hoedown of ...
Elio Villafranca: Five Islands & A Revolt

by John Ephland
The setting was Systems Two, a well-known, state-of-the-art recording studio in Brooklyn. The sessions, occurring over five days in May (7-11) 2017, were set up to record Cuban pianist/composer Elio Villafranca's sixth album, the elaborate and thoroughly rehearsed double-CD Cinque (artistShare), the music previously performed in shows at Lincoln Center in 2015. Present at ...
Gilmore Keyboard Festival

by John Ephland
Gilmore Keyboard Festival Kalamazoo, Michigan April 25 to May 12, 2018 Thursday night is always the second night of the biennial Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Thursday night is also the first night for jazz, the festival putatively a classical music rollout with jazz confections, albeit well-considered, strewn throughout this 22-day cultural jewel based ...
Norma Winstone: Descansado - Songs For Films

by John Ephland
Norma Winstone has had her current trio since 2001, long enough to have released five albums (four for ECM). Descansado, a celebration of cinema through the language of music, is that fourth CD, and it's a winner from start to finish. The album's title derives from a Armando Trovajoli composition, used in Italian director Vittorio De ...
36th International Tampere Jazz Happening

by John Ephland
36th International Tampere Jazz Happening Tampere, Finland November 2-5, 2017 They were the winner of this year's Europe Jazz Network (EJN) Award for Adventurous Programming. Receiving the award at April's jazzahead! conference in Bremen, Tampere Jazz Happening and Artistic Director Juhamatti Kauppinen celebrated what has become 35 years of top-drawer programming. The ...
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet's European Debut of Pat Metheny Commission Highlights Uppsala International Guitar Festival

by John Ephland
14th Annual Uppsala International Guitar Festival Uppsala, Sweden October 11-15, 2017 While much if not most of this year's Uppsala International Guitar Festival-once again held in the music-friendly Konsert & Kongress building-was devoted guitarists and music emanating from the worlds of classical, Brazilian, Tango and Flamenco, other musical strains were ...
Karuna at LaFontsee Gallery

by John Ephland
Karuna LaFontsee Gallery Grand Rapids, Michigan April 23, 2017 Flute loops were the first sounds heard. Part of a music arsenal, the inconspicuous electronics served to heighten what was a vast array of traditional percussion instruments on hand. The duet Karuna was ending their spring 2017 Midwest tour before a modestly ...