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Wadada Leo Smith: Occupy the World
by Eyal Hareuveni
Great trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith's five epic extended compositions collected on the double album Occupy The World mark him as a major American composer with a musical language and artistic vision that transcends the boundaries of the Afro-American heritage of jazz. Smith wrote complex orchestral works before, most notably on the masterful, extensive 4-discs ...
Chris Kelsey & What I Say: The Electric Miles Project
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Trumpeter Miles Davis' post-Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970), pre-hiatus (1975-1981) electric music--dense, loud, dark, funky, vast--has posed problems for musicians. The Yo Miles! collective, led by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and guitarist Henry Kaiser, gamely approached it as a repertoire: these are songs, they seemed to say; let's just play them (and so they did, on albums ...
Taking stock, a year half over
by Mark Corroto
This month, at the halfway point in the year of music, we are taking stock, and there have been so many great discs released. Here is my list (in no particular order) of the best albums so far. I predict many of these will make final top ten 2013 lists. Sorry, I couldn't keep my list ...
Wadada Leo Smith & TUMO: Occupy The World
by John Sharpe
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith continues to challenge preconceptions. With Occupy The World, he exposes another facet of his orchestral music; more expansive than his stunning Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012) and less earthy than Hearts Reflection (Cuneiform, 2011), it's still part of a long lineage of large group works stretching back to Budding Of A Rose ...
Martin Archer: Making A Difference, Doing Things Differently
by Duncan Heining
Martin Archer is a one-man music industry. Saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, band-leader and label owner--Archer has made a virtue of doing things differently. From early beginnings in music forty years ago, he has built his label Discus into a catalog that is as fine in quality as it is eclectic in taste and content. Based in ...
Wadada Leo Smith and Tumo: Occupy the World
by Hrayr Attarian
Trumpeter, composer and multi-instrumentalist Wadada Leo Smith's career has been one of relentless exploration and bold innovation. His timeless works have always eschewed narrow categorization and shattered musical boundaries. Now, in the eight decade of his life his creative vision has matured without losing any of its youthful energy. On the heels of his epic Pulitzer ...
Jazz: A Blessed Obsession
by Mark Corroto
Jazz listeners travel some strange and beautiful paths. It might have all begun with collectors trying to find a legendary Edison cylinder that New Orleans trumpeter Buddy Bolden--some believe to be the very first jazz musician--may (or may not) have recorded in 1904. Fast forward to modern times, a quick scan of eBay and the exorbitant ...
Gunter Baby Sommer: Kommeno - A Threnody
by Duncan Heining
Seventy years ago, the small village of Kommeno in Greece experienced a tragedy from which it has never really recovered. What happened there on August 16, 1943 was not unusual in the context of a war pursued by an enemy determined to stamp out all opposition. Other towns in Greece and its islands, such as Distomon ...
Anders Nilsson / Joe Fonda / Peter Nilsson: Powers
by Eyal Hareuveni
This collective trio teams American bass master Joe Fonda, known for his collaborations with innovative musicians and composers such as saxophonist Anthony Braxton, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Carla Bley, with Swedish brothers a generation younger than Fonda-- guitarist Anders Nilsson, based in New York since 2000, and drummer Peter Nilsson, based in Malmö, Sweden. ...
Remi Alvarez/Joe Fonda/Harvey Sorgen: Trio 3D
by Jerry D'Souza
When drummer Harvey Sorgen met saxophonist Remi Álvarez at the International Musicians Meeting in Monterey, Mexico, he was “taken by his sound, feel and humanity." This is not surprising. Álvarez has cut a wide swath both on record and in live performances as an adventurer who is not afraid to take risks without losing focus. Sorgen, ...
