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Wadada Leo Smith: Trumpet
by Karl Ackermann
In a half-century of recording, he has never stopped exploring the parameters of the form and instrument. Listening to composer/trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is demanding but rewarding. His inspirations are classical in the small 'c' sense: the AACM, Persian music, August Wilson, Stravinsky, spirituals, and so on. Before the masses woke, Smith's music had incorporated political, ...
A Different Drummer, Part 3: Pino Basile & Mizuki Wildenhahn
by Karl Ackermann
The Swish Knocker, And More Early on in his career, the late Milford Graves abandoned the snare drum, substituting the resonance of the toms for the snare parts. He believed music of the drum reverberated from within the drummer and the listener without the need for extraneous instrumentation. Tyshawn Sorey's approach to music speaks to contempt ...
Ches Smith / We All Break: Path of Seven Colors
by Karl Ackermann
For some time, drummer/composer Ches Smith kept his interest in the Voudou music of Haiti at bay. Recognizing himself as an outsider in that world, he researched, listened, studied, and after years brought a project to fruition. Smith's group We All Break released their self-titled, self-produced debut in 2017 and received less attention than deserved. Now ...
Wadada Leo Smith with Milford Graves and Bill Laswell: Sacred Ceremonies
by Karl Ackermann
As he approached his eightieth birthday, Wadada Leo Smith could have been content to sit out the year of nothingness that Covid-19 brought in 2020 and beyond. With his 2013 Pulitzer Prize nomination, a 2016 Doris Duke Award, and nearly one-hundred recording credits, the trumpeter & multi-instrumentalist has landed at the top of countless polls throughout ...
Billy Bang: Lucky Man
by Karl Ackermann
When he performed in Germany, they called him the “black devil violinist," his frenetic playing wrapped in a gyrating, trance-like state. For Billy Bang, who believed he had schizophrenia, the epithet bore a resemblance to his inner turmoil. He was born William Walker in Mobile, Alabama but grew up in the South Bronx. He studied violin ...
Instrumental Duos
by Karl Ackermann
The early days of jazz were not always harmonious. Converted dance orchestras often sounded like unbalanced acoustic junkyards; a single violin, cornet, trombone, clarinet, tuba, drums, banjo, and piano, all fighting for attention. The piano was meant to be the glue holding the shrill and boisterous elements together. In 1921 a prodigy pianist named Zez Confrey ...
Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp: Special Edition: Procedural Language
by Karl Ackermann
The art of the duo has been all but perfected in the virtuosic recordings of saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp. The two composer-improvisers have recorded a dozen duo albums and more than twenty other collections in larger formations. Special Edition Box is art on several levels with audio, a Blue-Ray DVD, and a book, ...
Hasaan Ibn Ali: Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album
by Karl Ackermann
The hard bop, Philadelphia pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali had a short, troubled life. On what was believed his only recording, The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan (Atlantic, 1965), the drummer placed Ali's full image front and center, his name in a larger font on the LP cover. Within the Philadelphia jazz community, he was ...
A Bu Trio with Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland: One Step East
by Karl Ackermann
Pianist/composer A Bu, whose given name is Dai Liang, has outgrown the “child prodigy" tag but not the attributes. A student at Central Conservatory in Beijing, and later at Juilliard, he was influenced by a meaningful meeting with Chick Corea at the age of thirteen. Corea performed in Shanghai, where he invited A Bu onto the ...
Nixon Mohohlo & The Collective Heads of Knuckle: The Queen of Complaints
by Karl Ackermann
For good or bad, drummer Nixon Mohohlo has worn his heart on his sleeve for most of his musical career. Following a brief experience with monastic silence he recorded an album-length version of John Cage's “4'33." It met with outrage and was pulled from the market. In 1999, he recruited Dutch percussionist Horst Van Clutter for ...
