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Derek Bailey/Milo Fine: Scale Points on the Fever Curve
by Kurt Gottschalk
This is the story of a kindly old British turtle and a hotshot Minnesotan rabbit who perhaps didn’t embark on a race so much as spend an hour or so running laps around each other. The turtle had known the rabbit, who was about a decade younger than him, for a long time. ...
Michael Marcus: ithem
by Kurt Gottschalk
It's dizzying to think about the number of unreleased recordings that must exist in this town. Tapes rolling at the sound board and, controversially, microphones in the audience, are how the history of the music is preserved and, every once in a while, returned to the public. They're little time machines taking us back to when ...
Mark Dresser/Ray Anderson: Nine Songs Together
by Kurt Gottschalk
Despite a long association, bassist Mark Dresser and trombonist Ray Anderson make an unusual pair. The quintessentially New York Dresser is known for his deep, soul-stirring improvisations (his suite “The Five Outer Planets” here hints at his enormity of scale); Anderson, despite being born in Chicago and an early tenure in Anthony Braxton’s quartet, is more ...
Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core: The Neon Truth
by Kurt Gottschalk
Intentions don’t always dictate results, and in fact many great works have been the result of mistake or happenstance. So while it’s interesting to note what saxophonist Larry Ochs had wanted his Sax & Drumming Core to be, it doesn’t have a lot to do with the successes of their first record. In ...
In the Spirit: Alice Coltrane
by Kurt Gottschalk
Alice Coltrane walked out onstage, joining an ensemble led by her son Ravi on a recent and historic night at Joe's Pub. The bassist Darryl Hall played an immediately recognizable four-note line and the group (also featuring drummer E.J. Strickland) launched into the only reasonable song they could have chosen for the evening, if one that ...
Wes Montgomery: Boss Guitar
by Kurt Gottschalk
Wes Montgomery recorded Boss Guitar at age 38, near the end of his acclaimed Riverside years and just five years before his death. While the records that followed would give him some radio hits (and lose him some fans), the 1963 session was a time when he really could make the bold claim of the album’s ...
Cecil Taylor: Mr. Taylor's Filibuster
by Kurt Gottschalk
As adventurous jazz fans have known for decades, and less adventurous fans have lamented for just as long, there’s nothing easy about Cecil Taylor’s music. It’s fast and it’s furious. It’s very nearly incomprehensible and, quite plainly, genius. A close listener would be doing well to follow a quarter of the information shot out in a ...
Duke Ellington: Far East Suite
by Kurt Gottschalk
Duke Ellington's Far East Suite has never enjoyed the accolades lauded upon some of the Maestro's other major works. Black, Brown and Beige and Such Sweet Thunder are in the Ellington canon; Far East, it seems, was left behind.That may be due to its dated Orientalism. It was recorded in 1966, a strange few ...
Gebhard Ullmann: Variations on a Master Plan
by Kurt Gottschalk
It’s probably obvious to say that German saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann’s master plan is to keep jazz alive, but it’s hard not to draw such a conclusion from his new quartet record. The title seems an obvious take on the classic Pharoah Sanders piece and the music within follows Ullmann’s history of working the tradition like a ...
Sylvie Courvoisier: Abaton
by Kurt Gottschalk
It's a testament to pianist Sylvie Courvoisier's fine trio that the second half of her new two-disc set is as strong as the first. Violinist Mark Feldman, cellist Erik Friedlander and she have certainly logged plenty of hours together in different settings. The pianist's ear for composing for them shows through on the first disc and ...
