DMG Newsletter for August 5th, 2016

The Great Deluge of Dynamite Discs Continues
  With Essential, Challenging and Transformative Music from:
Rare Anthony Braxton All-Star Quintet from 1979! Duck Baker & Eugene Chadbourne! Spontaneous Music Ensemble Reissue 1966-67! Kent Carter Riviere! Steve Lehman & Selebeyone! Cuong Vu Meets Pat Metheny/Stomu Takeishi/Ted Poor! Miroslav Vitous Tribute to Weather Report! 
Dominique Pifarely Quartet! Percy Jones MJ12 New Quartet! Abbey Rader QT + Kidd Jordan! Hedvig Mollestad Trio! Maja SK Ratke! Fire! Orchestra! Eivind Aarset! Hakon Kornstadt Trio! Penderecki/Rudnik! Gyorgi Ligeti/Tristan Murail! Helmut Lachanmann! Iannis Xenakis! David Shea! Herman Nitsch!
Plus Archival Discs from: Miles Davis - Tokyo 1973! Three Boxes from Cannonball Adderley! Derek Bailey/Joelle Leandre/George Lewis/Evan Parker! Tony Williams Lifetime Remix! Sun Ra & Peter Brotzmann Rare LPs! 
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The DMG FREE Weekly In-Store Concert Series Continues With:
 Sunday, August 7th - Rare Triple Bill: 6pm: NICOLAS LETMAN-BURTINOVIC & KYOKO KITAMORA! 7pm: SPLIT CYCLE: Samuel Blais - sax, Nicolas Letman-Burtinovic - bass, Akira Ishiguro -guitar & Chris Carrroll - drums! 8pm: XUAN YE - Voice & Electronics / SEAN ALI - Bass / Jason Doell - Laptop!
 Rare Monday, August 8th: 6pm: SUSAN ALCORN & TOTO ALVAREZ!
 Sunday, August 14th: 6pm: PROJECTION: ZERO: BLAISE SIWULA & CARSTEN RADTKE
 Sunday, August 21st: 6pm: BILLY MINTZ QUINTET: TONY MALABY / JOHN GROSS / ROBERTA PIKET / HILLIARD GREENE!
DMG is located at 13 Monroe St. (between Catherine & Market Sts) in a basement below a former Buddhist temple & beauty salon. Take the F train to East Broadway or the 6 train to Canal or the B or D to Grand, or the M-15 bus to Madison & Catherine.  Come on Down, the Sunday Music Series is Always Free & the Vibes are Cosy!
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JOHN ZORN’s BAGATELLES AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD - Next Week! 
15 virtuoso ensembles perform compositions from John Zorn’s book of BAGATELLES  Tuesday August 9th - Sunday, August 14th, 2016
TUE AUG 9  8:30PM - URI CAINE DUOS WITH JOHN MEDESKI & JON IRABAGON 10:30 - ASMODEUS - MARC RIBOT - TREVOR DUNN - TYSHAWN SOREY JOHN ZORN - CONDUCTOR 
WED AUG 10 8:30PM - CRAIG TABORN SOLO 10:30PM - JON IRABAGON - MATT MITCHELL - DREW GRESS - TOM RAINEY
THU AUG 11 8:30PM - BRIAN MARSELLA TRIO with TREVOR DUNN - KENNY WOLLESEN 10:30PM - THUAUG 11 - GYAN RILEY & JULIAN LAGE
FRI AUG 12 7PM - MATT MITCHELL TRIO with KIM CASS - DAN WEISS 8:30PM - MARK FELDMAN DUOS with SYLVIE COURVOISIER & CHRIS OTTO  10:30PM - PETER EVANS - JON IRABAGON - JOHN HÉBERT - TYSHAWN SOREY
SAT AUG 13 7PM - ERIK FRIEDLANDER-MICHAEL NICOLAS DUO 8:30PM - JIM BLACK TRIO with ELIAS STEMESEDER - CHRIS TORDINI 10:30PM - JIM BLACK GUITAR QUARTET:  KEISUKE MATSUNO - JONATHAN GOLDBERGER - SIMON JERMYN
SUN AUG 14 3pm: MATINEE - CHRIS SPEED TRIO with CHRIS TORDINI - DAVE KING 8:30PM KRIS DAVIS - MARY HALVORSON - DREW GRESS - TYSHAWN SOREY 10:30PM - MARY HALVORSON QUARTET - MILES OKAZAKI - DREW GRESS - TOMAS FUJIWARA

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Another Great Week of Phenomenal Releases Beginning with this Classic Session:

ANTHONY BRAXTON With MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS / GEORGE LEWIS / DAVE HOLLAND / BARRY ALTSCHUL - Live At The Rainbow Gallery '79 (Hi Hat 3027; UK) Anthony Braxton live at the Rainbow Gallery, Minneapolis in September of 1979. Having made his name as one of America's most uncompromising and prolific jazz modernists, by the late '70s Chicago-born saxophonist-composer Anthony Braxton had long since abandoned attempts to categorize his work, preferring it simply to be termed "creative music". Combining elements of minimalism, free jazz and modern classical with virtuoso technique and fiery intensity, he worked solo and with bands and orchestras throughout the '70s. This release presents the entire set originally broadcasted on KBEM-FM at the end of the decade. Digitally remastered. Presented here with background notes and images. CD $17

New from Emanem:
DUCK BAKER + EUGENE CHADBOURNE - Outside [1977-83](Emanem 5041; UK) Fingerstyle guitarist Duck Baker was influenced by Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, recording these solo original improvisations plus 2 Ornette Coleman pieces from '77-'83 in London, Torino & Calgary, plus 2 duos with guitar madman Eugene Chadbourne. CD $17
SPONTANEOUS MUSIC ENSEMBLE [JOHN STEVENS/BARRY GUY/EVAN PARKER + TREVOR WATTS/DEREK BAILEY/KENNY WHEELER/PAUL RUTHERFORD] - Withdrawal [1966/67] (Emanem 5040; UK) REISSUE. Featuring the earliest published recordings of Barry Guy & Evan Parker, percussionist John Steven's presents transitional sextet and septet performances of his groundbreaking free improv group from 1966 & '67 with Trevor Watts, Paul Rutherford, Kenny Wheeler, and Derek Bailey. CD $17
KENT CARTER With ALBRECHT MAURER/CHRISTIANE BOPP/KATRIN MICKIEWICZ/TEJEDA MARTIN - Oratorios and Songs (2010)(Emanem 5042; UK) The Riviere Ensemble led by bassist Kent Carter with Christiane Bopp (trombone), Albrecht Maurer (violin), Katrin Mickiewicz (viola) and Laura Tejeda Martin (mezzo soprano) recording original works in historic churches in France, blending classical, jazz, free improv & traditional musics. CD $16
TONY MARSH / CHEFA ALFONSO - Goodbye Red Rose [2008/9](Emanem 5043; UK) During her stay in London from 2004-2008, saxophonist Chefa Alonso developed a rewarding duo with percussionist Tony Marsh of great technical and musical value, as heard on these excellent recordings from Red Rose and Ryan's Bar in London, and Matadero in Huesca, Spain. CD $16

STEVE LEHMAN & SELEBEYONE with MACIEK LASSERRE/CARLOS HOMS/DREW GRESS/DAMION REID + GASTON BANDIMIC/HPRIZM - self/titled (Pi Records 66; USA) Featuring Gaston Bandimic on Wolof vocals, HPrizm on English vocals, Steve Lehman on alto sax & compositions, Maciek Lasserre on soprano sax & compositions, Carlos Homs on piano & keyboards, Drew Gress on acoustic bass and Damion Reid on drums. The saxist & composer Steve Lehman undertakes another ambitious blending of several streams of modern music for this disc, drawing from progressive jazz, hip-hop and other contemporary sources. This project/band is called Selebeyone which means “intersection” in the Wolof language (from Senegal & Gambia in Africa). The intersection here is between the Wolof and English words as well as the different styles of music. Although I do recognize some of the musicians here from previous collaborations: Mr. Homs with Peter Evans, Gress from Claudia Quintet & Dave Douglas, Reid from Rudresh Mahanthappa and HPrizm from the Anti-Pop Consortium, this disc doesn’t sound like anything these musicians have done before. I like the way there are several lines of voices and instruments intersecting and flowing together seamlessly. While the Philip Glass-line repeats slowly, both saxes and voices play a compelling counterpoint. There is a certain nervous, sped-up energy central to this, somewhat funky with criss-crossing rhythms and both voices trading and weaving righteously. Integral to the more mysterious side of this is the electric keyboards of Carlos Homs, inserting spooky synth seasoning most effectively. Considering that I don’t know the meaning of the words in Wolof, Mr. Bandimic’s voice still sounds as if he mean business, the urgency remains. Mr. Lehman has long been influenced by that M-Base like (bebop meets funk) pulse, hence many of these pieces take off from there, with different lines colliding tightly and intensely. We live in a time information overload and with that coffee-like neurotic energy fueling us. That vibrant energy runs throughout this wonderful disc. Another transformational treasure from Steve Lehman! - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG         CD $15

CUONG VU TRIO With PAT METHENY / STOMU TAKEISHI / TED POOR  - Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny (Nonesuch 554650; USA) “The concept behind this album is a simple one: Bring Metheny into the orbit of Vu's longtime trio and see what transpires. But nothing is ever really so simple when you're talking about musicians of this caliber. Desolate soundscapes, madcap encounters, deceptively structured dwellings, and shape-shifting environments are all part of the norm for the Cuong Vu Trio on a regular day. When you add a guitar-wielding X factor to the equation, be it Metheny here or Bill Frisell on It's Mostly Residual (ArtistShare, 2005), the permutations within and beyond those categories are endless.     Those who've heard Vu's trio before will still notice its signature blend of space and density in this music. The group continues to deliver atmospheric passages, create slow cooker grooves, and visit savage lands teeming with musical wildlife, so nobody need worry that Vu, bassist Stomu Takeishi, and drummer Ted Poor have abandoned what they've worked so hard to build. They've just allowed the borders of their being to expand and adjust to account for the inclusion of one of jazz's most creative and original spirits.     Precision and abandon manage to work well together here. Vu and Metheny bookend "Not Crazy (Just Giddy Upping)" with incredibly intricate unison lines that meet and join perfectly with a sinister rhythmic underbelly, but they throw caution to the wind during their fascinatingly frenetic solos. It's a beautiful marriage of musical exactitude and punk attitude that knows few equals. It's also one of several instances where this assemblage uses the act of intensification as a primary tool for expression. "Tiny Little Pieces," which develops and devolves all at once, and "Telescope," an icy-turned-molten vehicle with some hip groove work from Poor, are two others. These musicians are more than capable of keeping themselves in check—note "Let's Get Back," with its leaden beat, hypnotic strains, and relatively understated bearing—but where's the fun in that? These four make for a great combination throughout, but they sound best when they're in their collective element, slowly triggering the rising tides of (r)evolution.” - Dan Bilawsky, AllAboutJazz CD $16

MIROSLAV VITOUS With GARY CAMPBELL/ROBERTO BONISOLO/AYDIN ESEN/GERALD CLEAVER/NASHEET WAITS - Music of Weather Report (ECM 2364; Germany) “Bassist Miroslav Vitous was a founding member of Weather Report, making him one of the architects of the highly improvisational approach taken by the original band. On his earlier album Remembering Weather Report (ECM, 2009) he evoked the spirit of the old band and its collective improvisational style (characterized by keyboardist Joe Zawinul as "No one solos, everyone solos"). This time he works directly with Weather Report repertoire (plus a few brief new compositions). Both the instrumentation and the stylistic approach recall not only early Weather Report, but also the revolutionary Miles Davis fusion records that preceded it, especially Bitches Brew's (Columbia, 1970) dense textures with multiple drums, basses and keyboards.     The rhythmic foundation is provided by dual drummers Gerald Cleaver (returning from Remembering) and Nasheet Waits, plus the leader on bass. Vitous' distinctive arco bass playing often shares the foreground with dual saxophonists Gary Campbell (also returning from the previous album) and Roberto Bonisolo. Keyboardist Aydin Esen provides mainly electronic atmospheres and harmonic textures.     Two of the covers come from Vitous' contributions to the debut album Weather Report (Columbia, 1971). "Seventh Arrow" has a fast bebop-flavored theme (which Vitous reprises at the end of "Acrobat Issues" here). The new arrangement starts out very close to the original, then goes off into freer territory. "Morning Lake" closes the album in an atmospheric note (literally: it includes the sound of a thunderstorm at the end), with wah wah prominent on the bass—another period-authentic sound.     "Scarlet Woman Variations" comes from Mysterious Traveller (Columbia, 1974), the last Weather Report album with Vitous as a contributor. Odd that he didn't choose "American Tango" (which he co-wrote with Zawinul, and is the only track he played on), but the dramatic theme is well-suited to this larger group. "Birdland Variations" takes the hit from Heavy Weather (Columbia, 1977), reorders its thematic sequence, and places it in a free rhythmic setting, the two drummers each playing in a different time signature. It's a frequently dreamlike effect: maybe it should have been titled "Birdland Fantasy" instead. "Pinocchio" takes the arrangement of Wayne Shorter's earlier tune from Mr. Gone (Columbia, 1978) as its point of departure, but once again goes into more abstract areas (although there's some frenetic playing as well).     The three "Multi Dimension Blues" selections serve as atmospheric blues interludes. The multi dimensions of the title refers to the juxtaposition of two different tempos, which are not mathematically even. They're a simpler, more compact version of the approach taken to the Weather Report material. With Music of Weather Report Miroslav Vitous does justice to his old band, evoking the sound and the spirit while also taking the arrangements into fresh new areas.” - Mark Sullivan, AllAboutJazz CD $18

DOMINIQUE PIFARÉLY QUARTET With ANTONIN RAYON / BRUNO CHEVILLON / FRANCOIS MERVILLE - Trace Provisoire (ECM 2481; Germany) French violinist Dominique Pifarély has been a vivid influence in European jazz and new music since the late 1970s – and, like American violinist Mark Feldman, he has found a personal language that expressively adapts to orthodox jazz settings, cutting-edge improv, and contemporary classical music alike.    His last ECM release was a solo set, but this album reunites Pifarély with two long-time partners in bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer François Merville (a former Pierre Boulez percussionist), and introduces keyboardist Antonin Rayon – usually a Hammond organist, but a subtle acoustic pianist here.    Spacey free-improv bass-plucks and cymbal flickers shadow Pifarély’s plaintive, sitar-like skids and sudden gleams of mellow tonality, before pumping grooves spring up, and cello-like bass sounds dance with fragile violin lines until minimalist piano loops intervene. There are collective jazzy chatterings against surging drums, piano reveries that unfold over soft mallet taps, and slow laments such as the dolorous Vague (Pt 2) become ghostly mid-range violin meditations over punctilious bass and drum details. Everything a Pifarély band plays sounds as if it has a rich and reflective old and new music history to it. CD $18

PERCY JONES With DAVID PHELPS/CHRIS BACAS/STEPHEN MOSES - MJ12 (Gonzo 402; UK) Featuring Percy Jones on fretless bass, David Phelps on guitar, Chris Bacas on soprano & tenor sax and Stephen Moses on drums. Says Percy, "We took the name from Majestik 12, which was supposedly a group of 12 scientists and engineers assembled in the late 40's to investigate UFO's. There is an ongoing debate as to whether this group actually existed or not. Fretless bass legend, Percy Jones, has been living in the New York area for some three decades after his time as an in-demand UK bassist and founding member of Brand X & the Liverpool Scene, as well as his work with Brian Eno and Jon Hassell. Since moving here in the eighties, Mr. Jones has kept more of low profile, working with Bill Frisell, Elliott Sharp and later in a band called Tunnels. Percy does have a couple of solo recordings, but they are pretty rare.     This is Percy Jones first disc as a leader in a long while and he has chosen an inspired cast: none very well known but each just right for this session. I do recognize their names from a handful of previous collaborations: Mr. Phelps from Reut Regev’s R*Time, Mr. Bacas from Pete Davenport’s Bolide and Stephen Moses from his work with Eugene Chadbourne, Philip Johnston and Gary Windo. As someone who was weaned on the inspired jazz/rock (later fusion) of the early seventies, this quartet and disc breathes fire and life into what used to be a tired sound. Percy Jones’ distinctive fretless bass is at the center of these pieces and he still sounds great, nimble, crafty and filled with ideas. Unlike some of the more ego-leaden fusion of the late seventies, this music retains that earlier jazz/rock spirit at its best. Percy Jones always had his own, distinctive sound on his fretless bass, similar in there way the Jaco Pastorious’ tone/sound inspired many of his contemporaries. Listening to this fine disc reminds me of just how much I’ve missed that sound and his playing. On “Talk Time” Percy’s bass leads the way, outlining the structure of the piece with a long, superb soprano solo winding its way throughout. Although this disc has a certain looseness to it, it sounds as if this quartet has been playing together for a long while since they move from section to section effortlessly. I know that this band plays in Brooklyn from time to time, so I will have to check them out live at the next opportunity. In the meantime, this is the best electric jazz/rock effort I’ve heard in recent memory. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG             CD $15

ABBEY RADER QUARTET With KIDD JORDAN - Reunion (Abray 0072; USA) Featuring Kidd Jordan on tenor sax, John McMinn on alto & soprano saxes, Noah Brandmark on tenor sax, Kyle Motl on double bass and Abbey Rader on drums. Abbey Rader first jammed with legendary saxist Kidd Jordan at the Zeitgesit Arts Center in New Orleans in the early 2000’s when he was on tour with Billy Bang and Frank Lowe. They vowed to play together again which finally took place in Miami (where Mr. Rader lives) in October of 2012. The results of which are most impressive since this is the best free/jazz disc I’ve heard recently. Members of Mr. Rader’s quartet have worked with a few previous known sessions with: Mr. McMinn for Charles Austin & Joe Gallivan and bassist Motl played on a recent CD from long lost legendary saxist Peter Kuhn. I am a longtime fan of Mr. Rader’s playing after hearing him record with Dave Liebman, Davey Williams and Kenny Millions.     This disc starts off with just drums and sounds splendid right from the first eruption. Kidd Jordan had never played with the other members of the quartet but it is impossible to tell by listening. There is a sublime, slow-burning flame at the center here, building slowly. The recording is warm, clean and well-balanced. While one of thew saxists solo, the other one or two play with restraint underneath. Mr. Rader sounds as if he is using mallets and is a master, providing support, navigating the flow/rapids as the tides (spirits) rise and fall around him. All three saxists here sound strong, spirited and on target. As the first long piece escalates, all three saxes start weaving their lines together in a robust fashion, bringing things to a magnificent conclusion. each of the three long pieces start off calmly before building slowly to more grand conclusion. There are some occasional magic moments when the bowed bass, three saxes and drums all swirl together and move as one spirit/force. If anyone is silly enough to believe the “free/jazz is dead”, like they chant on the ‘I hate music’ blogsite, then I dare them to not be moved by this, one of the finest free music communions to inspire those of who still appreciate this side of the New Music Thing. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG          CD $10

PETER PONZOL / ABBEY RADER - It’s Time (Abray 0072; USA) Featuring Peter Ponzol on alto, soprano & tenor saxes & bass clarinet and Abbey rader on drums & percussion. The creative music scene in Florida is something we almost never hear anything about. There are a few musicians who either came from or migrated there like Sam Rivers, Ira Sullivan, Kenny Millions (a/k/a Keshavan Maslak) and Kramer. There is also the great Charles Austin/Joe Gallivan (sax & drums) duo, with some ten albums under their belt, all worth seeking out if you can find them. This duo sax & drums duo is also based there. Although Peter Ponzol isn’t very well known, I do recognize him from some early work with Buzzy Linhart, as well as his collaborations with the aforementioned Austin/Gallivan duo. According to the liner notes, Mr. Ponzol and Mr. Rader having working together since the mid-sixties. Drum master Abbey Rader has recorded a number of duos through the years: Billy Bang, Davey Williams, Dave Liebman and Philip Gelb.     This is a studio session with great sound. Half of the pieces were composed by Mr. Ponzol, the rest are duo improvs. The duo seem to explore a different mood or vibe on each piece, contemplative at times with occasion eruptions. Rader plays a lovely groove on hand drums for “Dervish Dance” with Mr. Ponzol of sly yet calm soprano sax. Perhaps the first well-known sax & drums duo recording was John Coltrane’s ‘Interstellar Space’ (rec 1967). This duo capture a similar sound on “Achievement”, with Ponzol’s tone on tenor very Trane-like: burnished and powerful, the duo at it most impressive, a quiet storm moving across landscape. Most sax & drums duos are often over-the-top and completely free, but here the duo know how to lay back and still exchange ideas, having a conversation without much if any screaming. Strong, spirited, focused and joyous throughout. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG    CD $10

VINNY GOLIA and KEN FILIANO - Elongation (Nine Winds/pfMentum 098; USA) Featuring Vinny Golia on saxello, sopranino & tenor saxes, bass clarinet, Turkish net, naval & djura gaida and Ken Filiano on contrabass & electronics. Vinny Golia has long collected odd reed instruments from around the world and here plays several of them: ney, kaval and djura gaida. I’ve heard of the ney (Persian flute) & the kaval (Turkish chromatic flute), but never the djura gaida, which is a Bulgarian bagpipe. This disc is a suite in six sections with a handful of added sections not named “Elongation”. Considering that Mr. Golia and Mr. Filiano have been working together for so long, on more than two dozen discs over several decades, they’ve developed a strong artistic bond. Golia opens the disc on the bagpipes (djura gaida) which gives the proceedings a special, spiritual introduction. He soon moves to the saxello, another rare reed made famous by Elton Dean, which also has a sly, rather middle-eastern vibe. Mr. Filiano is also a master acoustic bassist and plays quick, spiraling lines in perfect sync with Golia’s spinning web. Golia switches to a somber flute for “Section A”, while Filiano plays calmly underneath. The music is like a soft, thoughtful conversation between old friends. On “Section C”, the tenor sax, bowed bass and electronics play in a similar range, completing each other’s lines in a most hypnotic. Golia lets it rip on sopranino for “Your Final Call Arrives for Victoria Galli”, playing furiously in the first half and then winding down in the second half. The warm wooden sound of the bass clarinet and bowed bass on “Section D” blend perfectly. This disc ends with another splendid, hypnotic bagpipes and bowed bass “Epilogue”, a perfect conclusion to a mighty fine offering. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG             CD $15 

New from Rune Grammofon:
HEDVIG MOLLESTAD TRIO - Black Stabat Mater (Rune Grammafon 2183; Norway) Hedvig Mollestad Trio present Black Stabat Mater. With three albums under their belts in less than five years this explosive trio have gone from strength to strength gathering respect from both rock and jazz camps and receiving vivid praise from the likes of Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke and veteran writer Richard Williams, who started his report from the Berlin Jazz Festival with "a late-night gig last week persuaded me that Hedvig Mollestad Trio have found a way to make head banging feel good". Although there is enough riffing here to satisfy the head-bangers, with Black Stabat Mater the trio are venturing into more free and open landscapes, Mollestad truly comes into her own as a solo guitarist as well as a riff-meister previously compared to the likes of Tony Iommi and Jimmy Page. It´s also notable that extensive touring has given them a confidence boost, and once again the tracks have been laid down live in the studio with only minor overdubs. The last few years have seen a thrilling new progressive wave of Norwegian "avant jazz'n'rock" or free metal energy combos like label mates Elephant9, Grand General, Bushman´s Revenge and Krokofant, and not to forget the mighty Scorch Trio - led by Finnish guitarist Raoul Björkenheim - who can be said to have started it all some 15 years ago. But it could very well be Hedvig Mollestad Trio that defines it all with their ability to turn the full force of heavy rock and electric jazz to demonic purposes. Hedvig first picked up her mother´s nylon-strung acoustic guitar at ten, before discovering a whole new world through her father´s jazz and rock record collection as a teenager. She translated a biography of Jimi Hendrix for a school project and was given her first electric guitar and amplifier as a confirmation present. The members of the trio are from the districts, but Hedvig met bass player Ellen Brekken and drummer Ivar Loe Bjørnstad at the Music Academy in Oslo. Hedvig asked them to join her after she received the "Jazz Talent Of The Year" Award at Molde International Jazz Festival in 2009. They have stayed together since, and their previous three albums have all been released on Rune Grammofon, Shoot! (2011) (RCD 2115CD/RLP 3115LP), All Of Them Witches (2013) (RCD 2141CD/RLP 3141LP) and Enfant Terrible (2014) (RCD 2157CD/RLP 3157LP), all to wide international acclaim. CD $17

HEDVIG MOLLESTAD TRIO - Evil In Oslo [2 LP+CD] (Rune Graamofon 2184LP; Norway) If Black Stabat Mater (RCD 2183CD/RLP 3183LP, 2016) can be seen as moving into new terrains, then Evil In Oslo can serve as a summing up of the previous years, although there is also a clear link between the albums. While the nine live performances presented here all come from their first three studio albums, most are lengthy work-outs, again showing Hedvig as a very confident and accomplished solo guitarist. Recorded at Oslo clubs John Dee and Buckley´s, Evil In Oslo is simply a kick-ass live album, with a very high level of musicianship and a perfect balance between freedom and discipline. The hi-res recordings capture both the energy level and all the details in a marvelous way. Liner notes by Richard Williams. 2LP+CD $27

MAJA S.K. RATKJE - Crepuscular Hour (Rune Grammafon RCD 2181; Norway) ‘Crepuscular Hour’ is an epic, hypnotic one-hour piece for three choirs, three pairs of noise musicians, and church organ, to be performed in a cathedral or similar location with musicians surrounding the audience. The room fills with sound in an intense, but almost meditative hour, as the voices blend with the distortion, the noise sometimes takes over, and the organ eventually takes the music to a new level. The visual design of this concert is a play on the crepuscular rays -- rays of sunlight that appear to radiate through clouds from the point in the sky where the sun is located -- with the light filtered by the obstacles and musicians in the room. All texts are from the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of Gnostic texts discovered in Upper Egypt in 1945. These texts have provided a major re-evaluation of early Christian history. This recording of a performance of the piece includes a DVD of the whole concert, beautifully directed by Kathy Hinde (DVD is PAL format, region-free, with 5.1 and stereo audio). Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (born 1973) is quite a remarkable musician, singer, improviser, and composer. Her music has been performed worldwide by the Klangforum Wien, the Oslo Sinfonietta, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Fretwork, TM+, the Cikada String Quartet, the Mivos Quartet, the Quatuor Bozzini, the Quatuor Renoir, Crash Ensemble, The Peärls Before Swïne Experience, Torben Snekkestad, Marianne Beate Kielland, SPUNK, Frode Haltli, POING, and many more. Ratkje has been composer in residence at festivals like Other Minds in San Francisco; Trondheim Chamber Music Festival; Nordland Music Festival in Bodø, Norway; Avanti! Summer Festival in Finland; Båstad Chamber Music Festival; and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Ratkje is active as a singer/voice user and electronics performer and engineer, as a soloist and in groups such as SPUNK and BRAK RUG. Other collaborators include Jaap Blonk, Joëlle Léandre, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Stephen O'Malley, Lasse Marhaug, POING, and many more. Ratkje has performed her own music for films, dance, theater, installations, and numerous other projects. Visual art and text are often parts of her work, in installations or staged works. She has made large gallery works with SPUNK and made music for a radio play by Elfriede Jelinek, and in 2003, she played a part in her own opera, also based on texts from the Nag Hammadi library. CD+DVD $20

FIRE! ORCHESTRA - Ritual (Rune Grammofon RCD 2182CD; Norway) Fire! Orchestra follow their acclaimed 2014 album Enter (RCD 2158CD/RLP 3158LP) with Ritual, slimming the ensemble down from 28 of northern Europe's finest jazz and improvisational musicians to a mere 21. Since the release of Enter, this energetic and dynamic mass ensemble has gone from intimate jazz settings to the main hall at the Molde International Jazz Festival and a major stage at the prestigious Roskilde Festival. As brilliant as Enter is, with Ritual they have outdone themselves and produced a beast of beauty and power, extremely well executed, beautifully recorded, and produced from only two days in the studio. Free improvisations, spontaneous horns, keyboard frenzy, abstract electronics, and guitar mayhem, not to mention those glorious twin voices from heaven and hell. It's about mysteries and rituals in music and in life. Fire! originated as the trio of Swedish improv masters Mats Gustafsson (sax), Johan Berthling (bass), and Andreas Werliin (drums). None of them are what one would call jazz purists; they all play in many different groups and contexts, including The Thing (Gustafsson), experimental folk-electronica outfit Tape (Berthling), and skewed blues-pop unit Wildbirds & Peacedrums (Werliin). Those important singers, Sofia Jernberg and Mariam Wallentin, have been on board since the beginning, and the same goes for horn players Niklas Barnö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mats Äleklint, Per Åke Holmlander, and Anna Högberg. Basically a Swedish ensemble, the orchestra also counts Norwegian, Danish, and French players among its ranks. Members of Fire! Orchestra share a wide background, combining jazz, improvised music, contemporary music, rock, garage, psych, and more. CD $17

THE LAST HURRAH!! - Mudflowers (Rune Grammofon RCD 2171; Norway) In the young Maesa Pullman, The Last Hurrah!! mastermind HP Gundersen has found the perfect singer for this ever-developing project so dear to his heart. After exploring the possibilities of the drone guitar on their 2011 debut, Spiritual Non-Believers (RCD 2109CD/RLP 3109LP), and the slightly more song-oriented 2013 follow-up, The Beauty of Fake (RCD 2145CD/RLP 3145LP/RLP 3145LTD-LP), The Last Hurrah!! are back with a third album that dives straight into the heart of classical song traditions and vintage production values, blending elements from country and Americana, classic British pop, psychedelia, and blues, with a pinch of soul. HP Gundersen has been a central figure in the vibrant music scene of Bergen, Norway, for decades, as producer, composer, and mentor for many of the city's artists. As a producer he discovered and nurtured the career of a very young Sondre Lerche, one of Norway's most successful international exports. In addition to Madrugada's 2005 mega-hit "Lift Me" with Ane Brun, he has produced over 50 albums -- including Tim Rose's final album American Son (2002). Gundersen names The Beatles, early Stones, Tin Pan Alley, and cosmic American country as his life-changing musical epiphanies. Maesa Pullman comes from a very musical family and was brought to the attention of HP Gundersen through mutual friends. Also a songwriter, guitarist, and pianist, she performs frequently with different musical constellations in Southern California, and is a profiled presence in the local roots community. Her cousin, Rosa Pullman, sings lead on two tracks here, "You Ain't Got Nothing" and "Those Memories." The album's musicians include some of Bergen's finest, as well as American guests such as Marty Rifkin (pedal steel), John Thomas (Hammond organ), Kiel Feher (drums), and Jason Hiller (bass). CD $17

PHAEDRA - Blackwinged Night (Rune Grammofon RCD 2172; Norway) Phaedra's 2011 debut album, The Sea (RCD 2107CD/RLP 3107LP), received fantastic international reviews in magazines as diverse as The Wire, Uncut, Shindig, and Prog, which drew lines to Vashti Bunyan, Elizabeth Fraser, and Nico. The Chicago Reader said, "this is one of the loveliest, most striking albums, unlike anything I've heard in years." Blackwinged Night is the follow-up, and the second album in a trilogy, a lyrical and musical cycle with its own mythological structure. From the ethereal folk universe of the debut, Blackwinged Night dives into a darker dream-pop underworld, where acoustic elements of woodwinds, strings, and marimba are mixed with layers of analog synths, bigger drums, and darker basslines. Vocals are as crystal-clear and haunting as ever, with lyrics circling around themes like creation and collapse, time and falling stars. Phaedra is Ingvild Langgård, singer, composer, and artist. Educated at The Academy of Fine Art in Oslo, Norway, she composes music for the stage and screen in addition to her art projects with sound, video, and installations. In cooperation with choreographer Ingri Fiksdal and scenographer Signe Becker she created the acclaimed dance performances "Orchard Ballads" and "Night Tripper." "Night Tripper" won the Oslo Award in 2012, has since toured extensively in Europe, and had its US premiere in April 2014; The Guardian called it "an extraordinary piece, simple yet powerfully affecting." Blackwinged Night is produced by Langgård herself, with contributions from Christian Engfelt, who also mixed the album. There are contributions from Ensemble neoN members Kristine Tjøgersen, on clarinet, and Yumi Murakami, on flute. Last heard on Motorpsycho's En Konsert For Folk Flest (RLP 2170LP, 2015), Kari Rønnekleiv plays violin and Ole-Henrik Moe is on viola. Last but not least, there's Langgård's regular band; Gunhild Mathea Olaussen on violin, Jørn Tore Egseth on bass and keyboards, and Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen on drums, percussion, marimba, and vibraphone.  CD $17

New and First Time Offerings from the Great Norwegian Jazzland label:
EIVIND AARSET - I.E. (Jazzland 4730724; Norway) 2015 release. Eivind Aarset is a musician who has succeeded in the difficult task of creating an immediately identifiable sound and marrying it to a will to investigate as many musical possibilities as he can find or imagine. I.E. is his arguably most accomplished album embodying these traits. The nine tracks that comprise the album are often diptychs or triptychs, structured with clear movements, shifting in tone, color and mood. Aarset's sound-world has always been one that could be mapped by those willing to explore it. Where Dream Logic (2012) was something of an unexpected side-step out of the kind of sound Aarset fans had grown accustomed to, this album is equally so, yet - as usual - feels organically connected to everything he has done. All the nuances, textures, gestures and signs that appeared on the aforementioned Dream Logic remain intact here, but now nestle amid beds of the "traditional" Aarset band sound. This fusion creates a completely new set of surprises, not only in terms of their juxtaposition, but also in terms of their sheer audacity. The album's recording methods and locations have been varied in numerous ways, but the majority of the album was recorded live in the studio with the basic quartet: Eivind Aarset, Audun Erlien, Wetle Holt, Erland Dahlen. The effect upon the sound is energizing, allowing a rawness to remain untouched. Of particular note are Audun Erlien's keyboard work (something for which he rarely receives enough credit, overshadowed as it is by his marvelous double-jointed grooving bass work), Wetle Holt, and Erland Dahlen's menagerie of struck instruments, particularly the dulcimers and glockenspiels that create many highlight moments here. The appearance of the full brass section, the sampling genius of Jan Bang, and the vocal stylings, hyper-elastic acrobatics and pyrotechnics of Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, also enrich the sound deeply, creating an utterly new dimension for Aarset's sound. Aarset's guitar remains the dominant force throughout, but never overpowers the music as a whole. His endless skill in finding the right notes to play, whether in a sparse ambient environment or a chaotic crescendo of polyphonic revelry, is a marvel to behold. I.E. marks yet another move upward in Aarset's ascent towards the summit of his powers. CD $15

HAKON KORNSTAD - Tenor Battle (Jazzland 4757114CD; Norway) "One of the world's finest saxophonists now reveals himself as an utterly unique and deeply personal singer. Rarely, if ever, has a performing artist managed to combine two vastly different musical expressions at such a sky-high level, and at the same time made the total output seem so clear and coherent." -- Ketil Bjørnstad. Dubbed by international jazz critics as poster boy for the new Norwegian jazz, Håkon Kornstad has been listed in the US jazz magazine Downbeat's "Critics Poll". He has been an inspiration for a generation young jazz musicians with his groups Kornstad Trio and Wibutee. He has performed live collaborations with both Pat Metheny and Joshua Redman, and was a central figure in Bugge Wesseltoft's New Conception of Jazz (JL 5372512CD). Kornstad has been nominated for the Norwegian Grammy several times, most recently for his unique solo saxophone recordings. Then, as his jazz career is skyrocketing, he decides to start singing opera. In 2009 he is in New York, and hears Cavalleria Rusticana at the Met. Six years later, he has a master's degree from the Norwegian Opera Academy. But the saxophonist is very much alive. In the '50s, the jazz saxophonists competed in playing fastest and loudest and called it a Tenor Battle. In Håkon Kornstad's new ensemble the expression takes on a rather different meaning, when he mixes his newfound tenor voice with his unique tenor saxophone playing. And the sound -- Caruso meets Coltrane? Björling meets Garbarek? On Tenor Battle, opera arias by Massenet, Gluck and Bizet, as well as classical art songs are mixed seamlessly with Scandinavian jazz. Håkon Kornstad sings in Italian, French and German, with a haunting, light Scandinavian tenor voice, bringing back memories of 78RPM era salon orchestras. And then he plays the saxophone, with his distinct warm sound. Sigbjørn Apeland's harmonium sounds like a blend between strings and wind instruments, and drummer Øyvind Skarbø plays nuanced percussion on arias that were never intended for drums. Harpsichordist Lars Henrik Johansen fits in naturally with his baroque instrument on romantic pieces, while double bassist Per Zanussi also plays the singing saw, without it ever turning circus-like. The musicians in Kornstad's ensemble have worked intensively with the freedom to improvise and arrange, be it instrumental numbers or classical arias - respectfully and playfully at the same time. CD $15

MOKSHA - The Beauty Of An Arbitrary Moment (Jazzland 3779142CD; Norway) Jazzland Recordings are proud to present Moksha's beautiful debut album, The Beauty Of An Arbitrary Moment which combines jazz, Nordic cool and Indian fire. This trio, featuring guitarist Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir, percussionist and vocalist Sanskriti Shrestha, and percussionist Tore Flatjord, produces a distinctly unique blend of jazz, Indian Raga, atmospheric improvisation, complex rhythms, textured expressionism, and spacious sonic architecture. Jonsdottir's guitar, whether electric or acoustic, fluidly digs, climbs, weaves, strikes, hums, and sparkles throughout, whether dancing across jazz chordal improvisation or rapidly chasing down what can only be described as Nordic gamaka runs. The layers of percussion provided by Shrestha and Flatjord drive the music forward, upward or quietly create changing dimensions and shifting soundscapes. Shrestha's vocal contributions range from sung melody to vocal percussion, adding unexpected coloring and textural transitions to these evocative compositions. The music is meditative and contemplative, each track making a journey that is emotional, intellectual, and spiritual in equal measure. It rarely sits still, yet feels elegantly unified. There is strength, fragility, drama, tension, serenity, and even agitation to be found amid structures that move seamlessly between the gently undulating and the angular. This is a confident and inspired debut. Jonsdottir and Shrestha's credentials are exemplary, and these have recently been augmented by their inclusion in Bugge Wesseltoft's New Conception of Jazz (JL 5372512CD, 2016) Flatjord has worked on many diverse projects, including Dr Kay, Kjetil Jerve Trio and Mongrel. CD $15

MOPTI - Bits & Pieces (Jazzland JL 4719919; Norway) Jazzland Recordings presents, Bits & Pieces, the second album from Mopti, and this time the group are taking things to a whole new level. Bendik Baksaas, turntablist and laptop musician, demonstrated through remixes of Mopti's album Logic (2013) that a collaboration might just be a great idea. In the summer of 2014, Mopti & Bendik Baksaas became a living reality at the Molde Jazz Festival. With Baksaas fully integrated into the band, they continued to explore the limitless possibilities the new combo had to offer, gradually mapping out a whole new world of their own. Bits & Pieces is an avant-garde album where the band have begun by challenging themselves, first and foremost, in the combination of contemporary jazz and experimental hip-hop, and this challenge is passed on to the listener in equal measure, a whole world of groove, mayhem, freedom, funk, soul, jazz, blinding lights and light-swallowing shadows to explore. There are moments of fanciful whimsy here, but also moments that feel downright dangerous. It's almost an album worth putting on safety gear before listening to! Personnel: Harald Lassen - saxophone, vocals; Kristoffer Eikrem - trumpet; David Aleksander Sjølie - guitar, vocals; Christian Meaas Svendsen - bass; Andreas Wildhagen - drums; Bendik Baksaas - DJ. CD $15

TORG - Kost/Elak/Gnall (Jazzland 4748261CD; Norway) Torg, featuring some of the finest emerging talent on the Norwegian music scene, proudly present Kost/Elak/Gnäll. The group explores an unbridled mix of micro-modular minimalism, desynchronized repetition, fractional maximalism, melodic deconstruction, variable repetition, and semi-thematic repetition and extrapolation: their findings are moody, atmospheric, unsettling, good-humored, menacing, ominous, jovial, and above all, original. Moments of pop merge with abstract jazz, classical art music structures fleet past as snatches of repetitive motifs fade and decay to be replaced by something altogether different and indefinable. The music never sits still, restlessly venturing forwards. Led by pianist Johan Lindvall, Torg consists of some of the finest emerging talent on the Norwegian music scene, with members of the original Torg (founded in 2012) alongside members from Pests, Monkey Plot, Karokh and Ich Nin N!ntendo. The album was recorded in August 2014. Produced by Bugge Wesseltoft. Mixed and mastered by Ulf Holand. CD $15

HEALING UNIT - Music to Run and Shout (Hote Marge 09; France) Personnel: Xavier Borenes on trumpet, Arnaud Sacase on alto sax, Paul Wacrenier on piano & vibes, Marco Quaresimin on contrabass and Benoist Raffin on drums. Earlier this week, a young French pianist named Paul Wacrenier left us with three CDs to check from his groups, the Healing Unit and Orchestra. I don’t recognize any of the musicians here although a couple of them have discs out on the Marge and El Gallo Rojo (Italian) labels. The liner notes by Mr. Wacreneir mention that their music is born out of a great love of tradition and developed over years of exploration. On the opener, “Dog and Cat at Play”, the quintet play the theme together then spin some freer parts in between the written thread. Mr. Wacrenier, who wrote 7 of the 10 pieces, does a great job of arranging complex lines for the trumpet, sax and piano or vibes frontline. When Wacrenier switches to vibes for a few tracks, he knows how to let them ring and resonate a sublime, harmonious cushion underneath the lilting horns. Aside from an older community of creative musicians in France like Joelle Leandre, Marc Ducret and Louis Sclavis, there is an emerging scene of younger musicians coming up, multiplying and exploring. The Healing Unit are one of the more impressive jazz groups I’ve heard in recent memory. I hope to review their expanded orchestra disc next week. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG   CD $14

Modern Classical Composers & Electronic Music Section:
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI/ EUGENIUSZ RUDNIK - Homo Ludens [2 CD Set] (Bolt ES20; EEC) In the 1960s Eugeniusz Rudnik and Krzysztof Penderecki used the Polish Experiential Radio as a laboratory for their experiments in electronic and tape music, here in a 2 CD release presenting these remarkable and forward-thinking works of great technical skill and creativity. 2 CD Set $24

ROBERT CARL - The Geography of Loss (New World 80780; USA) Imagine, if you will, a busy, furiously humming beehive, and, within it, a calm, meditative bee. The image comes from only one work on this disc, and yet it seems curiously apropos to so much of Robert Carl’s (b. 1954) music. There is a still center in his music, even at its modernist rowdiest. In his music dissonance and rhythmic complexity do not connote anxiety, fear, violence, but rather the overflow of the exuberant noise that springs up from the ground of life. His music embraces extremes of simplicity and complexity, which in his vision interpenetrate each other.     Symphony No. 4 (2008), one of his best and most ambitious works, is a score often dense with polyrhythms and dissonant counterpoint. Its subtitle is “The Ladder,” and the ladder in this case is the harmonic series, the series of overtones that arises naturally as you move your finger along a piano or guitar string while playing it. Two pieces on this disc were born from the sense of loss following the deaths of both of Carl’s parents, in quick succession. The less obvious one is the Chamber Concerto for Guitar, subtitled “The Calm Bee in the Busy Hive” (2009–10). The ten-member ensemble includes a second guitar, and both guitars are tuned to a scordatura that facilitates a harmonic series on E: E–G#–D–F#–Bb–F. The other is The Geography of Loss (2010), whose form is an alternation of choral and instrumental movements with the chorus and instruments together in two movements and a baritone solo and soprano solo, respectively, in each of those movements.    Written considerably earlier than the other works on this disc, The World Turned Upside Down (2000) is somewhat in a different idiom, but Carl considers it a turning point in his output, and its coda the initiation of the harmonic-series practice. Overall, this group of pieces leads us through an enormous diversity of idioms, and Carl has never been one to cultivate a single well-defined style and stick to it. Yet if one listens with an ear for his procedure of shifting from one harmonic series to another, the underlying unity is perceptible, and the disc as a whole gives us a striking picture of one of the most remarkable of early 21st-century composers. CD $15

New from Neos:
GYORGY LIGETI/TRISTAN MURAIL/GEORGE BENJAMIN - Musica Viva 22 [CD/SA-CD] (Neos 11422; Germany) Performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano. When the first concert of the series founded by the composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann slightly later designated as Musica Viva took place at Munich's Prince Regent's Theatre on October 7, 1945, it marked the birth of an important new cultural event in post-war Germany. Up to the present day, this oldest concert series for new music still brings together the world's most important artists - conductors and interpreters alike - in the field of new and the newest music, also continuing to set new standards for the interpretation of new classical music with the outstanding Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The SACD presented here is a good example of this: Ligeti's "Lontano" - a classic!; Murail's "Piano Concerto" completed in 2012 - interpreted by Pierre-Laurent; Aimard and George Benjamin's "Palimpsests" of 2002. All three works conducted by George Benjamin. CD/SA-CD $16

HELMUT LACHENMANN/PIERRE BOULEZ/ALDO CLEMENTI/BRIAN FERNEYHOUGH/WOLFGANG RIHM/IANNIS XENAKIS / et al - Darmstadt Aural Documents - Box 4 [7 CD Box Set](Neos 11630;  Germany) Presenting the fourth box from the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt archives, collecting key works performed through the decades by the key ensembles that have appeared at that famous institution. Composers include: Mark Andre, Georges Aperghis, Hans Erich Apostel, Vykintas Baltakas, Mark Barden, Clarence Barlow, Bela Bartók, André Boucourechliev, Pierre Boulez, Sylvano Bussotti, Niccolò Castiglioni, Aldo Clementi, Pascale Criton, Hans Ulrich Engelmann, Franco Evangelisti, Reinhard Febel, Brian Ferneyhough, Luc Ferrari, Ernst Helmuth Flammer, Volker Heyn, Mauricio Kagel, Roland Kayn, Wilhelm Killmayer, Steffen Krebber, Christina Kubisch, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, Dieter Mack, Jean-Etienne Marie, Misato Mochizuki, Enno Poppe, Olga Rayeva, Wolfgang Rihm, Daniel Rothman, James Saunders, Arnold Schönberg, Salvatore Sciarrino, Roger Sessions, Simon Steen-Andersen, Ernstalbrecht Stiebler, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Yoshifumi Tanaka, Anton Webern, Stefan Wolpe, Iannis Xenakis, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Vito Zuraj. 7 CD Box Set $75
RENE WOHLHAUSER - Kasamarowa (Neos 11605; Germany) René Wohlhauser presents Kasamarówa, vocal chamber works performed by the Duo Simolka-Wohlhauser. René Wohlhauser is an internationally active and creative composer and interpreter. In 2013, the label NEOS began its CD series "Wohlhauser Edition". Wohlhauser (composition, piano, baritone, conductor) was born in 1954 and grew up in Brienz, Switzerland. Experiences as a rock and jazz musician, accompanist and improviser have accompanied and continue to accompany his principal activity as a composer of contemporary art music (including chamber, orchestral and stage works). He received his training at the Basel Academy of Music, studying with Robert Suter, Jacques Wildberger and Thomas Kessler, also attending composition courses with Kazimierz Serocki, Mauricio Kagel, Herbert Brün and Heinz Holliger. Duo Simolka-Wohlhauser, from Basel, specializes in the interpretation of contemporary vocal music and carries out annual tours of Switzerland and various major European cities (e.g. Basel, Bern, Zurich, Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Paris, Salzburg). Its fundamental concern is to bring current vocal works from the field of contemporary music to the stage, and thus give the genre new impulses for further development. CD $16

DANIELE LOMBARDI - divina.com [DVD](Neos 51601; Germany) This DVD is NTSC, region-free. A live recording of the 2004 world premiere of Daniele Lombardi's divina.com, a mixed media event in 36 parts for voice, ensemble, live electronics, and video. Daniele Lombardi is a composer, pianist and visual artist of international stature thanks to his extraordinary repertoire. For several years he has directed the festival Nuova Musica Italiana e Nuova Musica Internazionale in Rome. Daniele Lombardi has taught piano at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. Thirty-four plaques containing fragments of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy are dotted around the historical center of Florence. They were placed there at the beginning of the 1900s and were intended as a reminder of those people and places that had left their mark on the city and its history: a few lines from the boundless ocean of the poem floating adrift. Divina.com was written as a mixed media piece to be sung by David Moss and comprises ensemble, live electronics and video. It was premiered on July 5th, 2004 in front of Michelangelo's David at Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia. The current audio edition is the live recording of that event. Divina.com comprises thirty-six episodes, one for each epigraph and a further two, which refer to Michelangelo, who had written some of Dante's verses next to the sketches in two of his drawings. The various excerpts are in syntactical order linked to the unfolding of the composition. David Moss - voice; Ensemble Novecento e oltre; Antonio Ballista - conductor. DVD $30
DAVID SHEA - Piano 1 (Room40 476; Australia) David Shea presents Piano 1. From David Shea: "The piano has been an instrument that has woven its way in and out of my life since I was a child. I grew up listening to great classical and jazz players, prepared piano and electronic experiments, extended techniques and later the incredible works of Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Ligeti, Ferrari, Feldman, Xenakis and Scelsi. I had written for and worked with many great pianists and created ensemble works with piano and electronics where I was given the freedom to write complex pieces for gifted musicians and technical masters. Although I would often compose on piano and use simpler piano works in my own solo concerts I had never dedicated myself to a path of the endless intense practice of a single instrument that these pianists had. I always wanted to stay on the level of composing for the whole of a work and not potentially get lost in the maze of technical issues that these musicians excelled at. And then one day Lawrence English suggested that I put out a CD of piano works. I had recorded, on many of my other CDs, extended piano pieces with good pianists so I thought 'piano solo pieces, all acoustic'. A real challenge when so much has been written for such an iconic instrument, one so loaded with historical weight. What I didn't realize at the time was that Lawrence was asking me to be the pianist. This is not only something I never considered but although I've always played and performed on keyboards in my solo and ensemble works, I never took on the huge task of being able to play the technically challenging (at least by my standards) the type of scores I had written for others. So I spent the next year unraveling my past approach to composing for piano and explored my own physical technique. No preparations, no samples, no extended electronics or reliance on my past sample acoustic techniques. The result of this year of practice, writing, listening, exploring and recording is this CD. Whether or not it is significant that a work is purely acoustic, prepared or electro-acoustically treated, fully composed or improvised, extended or played traditionally, etc., were not the central issues for me, it was this time spent with the piano, the ritual of playing and this re-working of my own physical and conscious process that forms the core of these pieces." CD $18

PIERCE WARNECKE - Memory Fragments (Room40 479; Australia) "Reality is precise; memory isn't." -- Jorge Luis Borges, In Praise of Darkness. Based in Spain, composer and visualist, Pierce Warnecke has developed an elegant auditory hallucination with his debut edition Memory Fragments. Known widely for his collaborations, with Matthew Biederman, Frank Bretschneider and Ketev, this edition represents Warnecke's first solo outing. Recorded over the better part of three years, Memory Fragments ties together his interests in electro-acoustic sound, field recordings and harmonic incongruities. "A memory is a recording of senses with the mind as the medium," Warnecke explains "When a memory is recalled it is played back in the mind's eye, but the experience is never as exact as the original moment. This makes memory a volatile storage medium, subject to transience. Whereas digital audio/video recordings are theoretically immune to this decay caused by the passing of time, Memory Fragments explores recordings as memories by taking samples (sound, images, objects) of a physical space and then placing them in an imaginary process of transformation and transience that slowly erodes these digital memories until disappearance." Pierce Warnecke was in California but has lived most of his life expatriated in Europe. He studied electronic music at Berklee College of Music and computational art at Universität der Kunst in Berlin. His works are split between installations, compositions and concerts, with an equal focus on aural and visual mediums and the many types of relationships between them. He currently is a professor at Berklee College of Music's Master program in Valencia, Spain. CD $18

NEW ROME - Nowhere (Room40 478; Australia) New Rome, the latest project from Polish composer Tomasz Bednarczyk, presents Nowhere. In the late 2000s, Bednarczyk emerged with a trilogy of electronic records that set pastoral-tonality against grainy smears of pulse and rhythm. His previous Room40 editions Summer Feelings and Painting Sky Together were lilting, melancholic affairs, littered with a deeply personal approach to music making that felt as therapeutic as it did artistic. In hindsight, they were records that stamped out a virgin territory in Poland contemporary electronica community, deservedly earning Bednarczyk a revered standing amongst the emergent generation of Polish producers. Following a period of working across various other projects, including the lauded Venter duet, Bednarczyk has returned to his roots, issuing this latest album under the New Rome moniker. Extending the palette of his earlier solo works, New Rome's pieces sprawl outward with a graceful flow. Taking on a more rounded sensibility than previous projects, Nowhere creates a richness through interlocking layers of harmony. Still guided by a strongly emotive and melancholic thematic, the album transcribes the experience of falling into and emerging from winter. It matches icy melodic passages with a warm blanket of bass. It creates a sense of being simultaneously still and fluid. Nowhere's subtlety invites the listener to become submerged within the pieces and to be lulled within the record's weightless atmosphere of sound. This is an album that is unashamedly rooted in the concept of ambient music. It is music that invites the listener in and moreover creates a holistic space in which they are comfortably drifting. Ultimately, Nowhere creates a place that is concerned with absence and presence, framed through Bednarczyk's unique compositional methodology. CD $18

HERMANN NITSCH - Orgelkonzert Berlin 2016 (Tochnit Aleph 143; Germany) Recording of Hermann Nitsch's pipe organ concert, Berlin, January 22, 2016. "Hermann Nitsch is looked upon as the true successor the great masters of symphony: Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler. He draws from Scriabin's, Schoenberg's and Webern's experience, however comes up with different conclusions than their (sanctioned) successors. That is to say: Nitsch disregards Webern's analysis of music. Unlike others he does not attempt to advance atonal music with methods that should be handed over to science and technical realms (e.g. Stockhausen). Nitsch ignores any attempt to investigate the core of the construction of Webern's music. He does know it well though and starts where others don't react at all; at lust, rot (disintegration) and death, poison and madness, fragrance and temperature, the fluid, the excess. To him the intricate structure of a symphony is not accidental play with traditional forms, its necessity. A symphony is s-o-u-n-d (and complete). Nitsch draws material from a number of epochs, mostly though from late romanticism and expressionism. Unlike those who don't want to let go of the past, Nitsch uses materials that pertain to today's interests rather than adhering to structures established before. Theater and music cannot be left in the hands of specialists only. A new generation has to grow. Nothing is gained by performances of some puny imbeciles. These warmed-up-versions of Dadaistic rage are no good if the goal is to leave the current stagnation in theater and music behind. The staging of a Nitsch performance require something that is completely missing in today's Karajans and Bernsteins: What is called for is rather exact knowledge of where liberation and expansion (really) take place? Few set out to work on Scriabin's fragrance and color prophecies. I see a legitimate expansion of Scriabin's mystery play in Nitsch's symphonic and theatrical work. Nitsch does not make the mistake to turn Scriabin's demands into dogma. He doesn't allow himself (run danger) to separate Scriabin from history like a fatherly patron the way it happened to Webern and his successors (epigons). Nitsch didn't run into Scriabin like a lost son but as somebody who clearly knew his own goals and was capable to integrate Scriabin's visions into his own work." -- Günter Brus, 1969 (translated from the Austrian by Hans J. Schacht) Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Full color six-panel digipak. Edition of 300. CD $18

VIEUX KANTE - The Young Man's Harp (Sterns Africa 1127; UK) Sterns Music present Vieux Kanté's The Young Man's Harp, a treasure nearly lost forever amid the vast wealth of Malian music. The blind kamalé ngoni virtuoso Vieux Kanté had many fans in Bamako, thanks to his electrifying shows in the city, but he was practically unknown outside of Mali. He had just finished recording an album that almost certainly would have launched him and his band on a brilliant global trajectory when he died unexpectedly at age 31 in 2005. This is the first time the album has been released. Vieux Kanté was an innovator. Having mastered the kamalé ngoni ("young man's harp") while just a teenager, he grew frustrated by the instrument's limitations, and so he added two strings to the standard six, enabling himself to reach notes beyond the traditional West African pentatonic scales. Eventually he graduated to ten and finally twelve strings, and extended his range still further by bending the strings like a blues guitarist. Exemplified on this album, his signature techniques also included popping the strings to accent beats, rubbing them to produce squeaks and moans, and lightly placing his fingers at just the right points to produce bell-toned harmonics. But for all Vieux Kanté's dazzling abilities, his music is enriched by the skills and sensibilities of his bandmates, especially his djembe drummer, his funky bassist, and singer Kabadjan Diakité. The Young Man's Harp is a musical revelation. The album notes are by the author of In Griot Time, Banning Eyre, who also contributes his unpublished photos of Vieux Kanté. CD $17

Reissues, Restocks and Historic Recordings:

MILES DAVIS With DAVE LIEBMAN / PETE COSEY / REGGIE LUCAS / MICHAEL HENDERSON / MTUME / AL FOSTER - Tokyo 1973 (Iconography 056; EEC) Radio broadcast recorded live at Shinjuku Koseinenkin Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan, June 19th, 1973. This is a long, well-recorded live/radio session from June of 1973. There have been upwards of two dozen live recordings of Miles Davis’ various bands from 1967 until his retirement in 1976. Half of these releases (singles, double CD & box sets) are/were legit (Columbia/Sony/Legacy) and the other half il-legit (Hi Hat, Jazz Door, Gambit & B-13). Like many of you, I collect these discs. More as an historian, to fill in the many holes, giving us a more complete picture of the ever-evolving Miles Davis Electric band, a band that remained relevant and inspired after the other fusion bands of that era started to suck.     This is a stunning, stereo recording and kicks of with that hard-charging drumming of Al Foster, the way all Miles gigs erupted during that era. The band is lean, super-tight, funky, rocking hard, and stripped down to just two horns, two guitars, electric bass, percussion and drums. That groove is just too much! The long, opening soprano solo from Dave Liebman is killin’! When Miles joins him on trumpet, burning those high notes like punches to the head, whoa!! While Reggie Lucas plays those spiraling rhythm guitar licks over and over, the rhythm team pumping hard. Miles uses a wah-wah pedal, which gives his trumpet an odd vocal-like sounds as he squeezes notes out carefully in one part and furiously in another section.  I love the way Miles strips it down to a sly, skeletal groove, so minimal yet so effective and then building it back up again. The set is mostly continuous, and everything moving organically, building up and calming down to a soft simmer. Considering that this disc is 83 minutes long (how did they do that?), it is my favorite live disc in eons. Grab one for yourself before disappears into the void, if you know what I mean!?! - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG  CD $15

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY With JOHN COLTRANE/MILES DAVIS/NAT ADDERLEY/ et al - Complete Albums Collection 1955 - 1958 (Enlightenment 9082; EEC) Cannonball Adderley remains one of the most respected and fondly-remembered saxophonists in all of jazz. With a sound that was uniquely his own and a repertoire that saw him support - and in turn be supported by - some of the greatest musicians and groups to emerge during the period, Adderley is the stuff of legend and his catalog of work is still today among the finest of any jazz master. 4 CD ser $18

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY With WYNTON KELLY/MILT JACKSON/PAUL CHAMBERS/PERCY HEATH/JIMMY COBB/ART BLAKEY - Complete Albums Collection 1958-1960 (Enlightenment 9083; EEC) Of all the hard bop players that exploded onto the American jazz scene during the 1950s, saxophonist Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley was among the most highly-respected. Often named the spiritual successor to Charlie Parker, Adderley's lightning-fast delivery and clear, upbeat sound appeared on some of the most important recordings of the era, both as a sideman and as leader of his own bands. 4 CD Set $18

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY With NAT ADDERLEY / BILL EVANS / YUSEF LATEEF / JOE ZAWINUL / et al - Complete Albums Collection 1960 - 1962 (Enlightenment 9084; EEC) The '60s would continue to be Cannonball Adderley's most fruitful period, recording no fewer than 28 albums under his own name by the end of the decade. Several of these would include saxophonist and flautist Yusef Lateef and pianist Joe Zawinul, the latter of whom would compose 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,' a signature tune for Adderley which first appeared on Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live At 'The Club' and would reach No. 11 on the Billboard chart. As the years passed, Adderley became increasingly enamored with the avant-garde elements of jazz, much like his former counterpart Miles Davis. He began to double on soprano saxophone on such albums as Accent On Africa and The Price You Got To Pay To Be Free, while also experimenting with new instrumentation and larger arrangements. With his exceptional talent and extraordinary catalogue over his tragically shortened career, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley will always be remembered as one of the finest American jazz alto saxophonists in history. Included on this four disc set are eight remastered albums - over five hours of music in total - of some of the finest work the man ever put to record, with Nat Adderley, Bill Evans, Yusef Lateef and Nancy Wilson all featuring. All in all, this compilation proves just how much of an impact this musician had on the genre that he held so dear, and how he is just as deserving of praise as many of his better-known contemporaries. 4 CD Set $18

CLARK TERRY With COLEMAN HAWKINS/BUDD JOHNSON/TOMMY FLANAGAN/EDDIE COSTA/DAVE BAILEY/ et al - Complete Albums Collection: 1961 - 1963 [4 CD set](Enlightenment 9081; EEC) A master in both bebop and swing territory, Terry lent his trumpeting talent to hundreds of recordings, as well as becoming the first flugelhorn pioneer in the genre. Making his name playing in the big bands of Charlie Barnet, Count Basie and Duke Ellington in the 1940s and '50s, Terry would go on to share his musical knowledge, mentoring younger jazz talents; not only fellow trumpet players such as Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis, but such diverse stars as Herbie Hancock, Dianne Reeves and Pat Metheny. Over his seven decades of service to music, Terry has been recognised generously albeit deservedly by receiving over 250 awards, including being inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame in 2013, getting the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, the 1991 NEA Jazz Master Award, sixteen honorary doctorates and even a German knighthood. Sadly, on 13th February 2015, Clark Terry entered hospice care to help manage his advanced diabetes, and passed away eight days later at the age of 94. There is little doubt that Clark Terry will be remembered as one of the most talented and versatile musicians to ever grace the jazz idiom, turning his hand to any number of styles and practices. This four disc collection contains his complete works as bandleader during the period that would mark his rise to international fame, allowing him to break boundaries and achieve accolades that few since have been able to replicate. 4 CD Set $18

Back in stock:
DEREK BAILEY / JOELLE LEANDRE / GEORGE LEWIS / EVAN PARKER - 28 rue Dunois Juillet 1982 (Fou Records 06; France) Featuring Derek Bailey on guitar, Joelle Leandre on contrabass & voice, George Lewis on trombone and Even Parker on tenor & soprano saxes. This long lost gem was recorded in France in July or 1982. It consists of two sets and cloaks in at some 78+ minutes. Derek Bailey and Evan Parker were close friends and consistent collaborators from the mid-sixties onwards, founding the Incus label together around 1970. At some point (in perhaps the 1980’s), the two had a falling out and no longer collaborated. This appears to be one of the last recorded concerts that they did so it is indeed an historic event. French contrabassist was a member of one of Derek Bailey’s Company sessions and has a duo disc out with Mr. Bailey. Founding member of the AACM (from Chicago) has worked/recorded with Mr. Bailey, Mr. Parker and Mr. Lewis as well. The quartet start off sparingly and slowly build info a more tense second half. There are some most memorable moments/sections here. The quartet hit the mark midway when things come together for cerebral/free/hypnotic epic/culmination. Eventually calming down for a stunning, dream-like section in the second set. This disc is very long so you must take some time to take it all in. It is well-worth the effort, rich in rewards. - BLG/DMG CD $18 

TONY WILLIAMS LIFETIME With JOHN McLAUGHLIN/LARRY JACK BRUCE - Turn It Over (Redux): Mix Translation By Bill Laswell (Yellow Jester 124C41; EEC) [Ltd Ed CD-R] Unabridged version of the complete album includes 4 UNRELEASED CUTS, AND 5 LONGER UNEDITED VERSIONS from album sessions - which was intended as a double LP but only released as an editied single LP; cover art by Russell Mills, liner notes by John Szwed. Thanks to Bill Laswell for rescuing, and finally giving a proper mastering to match William's original intentions, to this most seminal, groundbreaking recording, mixing jazz, rock, prog and metal years ahead of virtually everyone else! Review of the shorter LP version: "The better of the two albums the Tony Williams Lifetime recorded in 1970, Turn It Over, is a far more focused and powerful album than the loose, experimental Ego, and one of the more intense pieces of early jazz-rock fusion around. In parts, it's like Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys with much better chops. It's more rock-oriented and darker-hued than their debut, 1969's Emergency!, and the temporary addition of ex-Cream member Jack Bruce on bass and vocals alongside stalwart guitarist John McLaughlin [with whom Bruce recorded the instrumental album 'Things We Like' just before this] makes this something of a milestone of British progressive jazz. The album's primary flaw is that unlike the expansive double album Emergency!, these ten songs are tightly constricted into pop-song forms -- only a swinging cover of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Once I Loved" breaks the five-minute mark, and then only barely -- which reins in these marvelous soloists too much. This is particularly frustrating since pieces like the two-part "To Whom It May Concern" feature some outstanding solos (especially from McLaughlin and organist Larry Young, the group's secret weapon) that are frustratingly, tantalizingly short. Expanded to a double album [as originally intended, and as this CD edition finally reveals], Turn It Over would probably surpass Emergency! as a pioneering jazz-rock fusion release; as it is, it's an exciting but mildly maddening session. -- Stewart Mason, AMG CD $15
WAYNE HORVITZ & ZONY MASH HORNS With TIM YOUNG/KEITH LOWE/ANDY ROTH/DAVE CARTER/SKERIK/BRIGGAN KRAUSS/STEVE MOORE - Live At The Royal Room, June 2012 [2 CD set] (WH ; USA) In 2012, a decade after the 'Farewell' shows, the band got back together AGAIN to record a live CD at The Royal Room [co-founded by Wayne] in Seattle, with a horn section consisting of Skerik, Dave Carter, Briggan Krauss and Steve Moore. Absolutely amazing! 2 CD Set $18  (possibly last copies)   

LP Section:

SUN RA with JOHN GILMORE - Blue York (Jeanne Dielman 115LP; Belgium) Jeanne Dielman present Blue York, a collection featuring unreleased tracks from Sun Ra's Arkestra from 1963. Herman Poole Blount, better known to the world as Sun Ra, lived more musical lives in his 79 years on this planet (and others) than seems possible. In the '30s he was the most rigorous bandleader in Birmingham, heading the Sonny Blount Orchestra and filling every waking moment with music or philosophical discussions, by the '40s he had moved to Chicago and performed with luminaries such as Wynonie Harris, Fletcher Henderson and Coleman Hawkins. By the '50s he had changed his name to Sun Ra and began performing with longtime Arkestra bandmates John Gilmore and Marshall Allen. By the 1960s, Sun Ra's vision of spiritual free jazz was fully formed. This collection focuses heavily on the masterful tenor saxophone of John Gilmore. LP $22

PETER BROTZMANN/KONSTRUKT//HUSEYIN ERTUNC/DOGAN DOGUSEL/BARLAS TAN OZEMEK -Eklisia Sunday (Holiday Records 095; Italy) Eklisia Sunday was recorded live in front of a small audience on May 15th, 2011 at Eklisia - an old chapel built in the 17th century in Gümüşlük, a small village near Bodrum. This improvisation features the Konstrukt collective - which is Korhan Futacı (tenor & soprano saxophones), Umut Çağlar (electric guitar), Özün Usta (double bass, djembe, gong, bells), Korhan Argüden (drums) - incredibly enriched by the presence of Peter Brötzmann (on tenor), Hüseyin Ertunç (acoustic piano, küstüfon, gong), Doğan Doğusel (double bass, küstüfon) and Barlas Tan Özemek (electric guitar). The result of the combination is simply marvelous, because Brötzmann's unique phrases perfectly match with the sound of what confirms to be a well-coordinated collective. "The Turkish free jazz outfit Konstrukt might be considered the most evolved improvisational band working in jazz today. Founded, not in the hotbeds of jazz, London, New York, Chicago, Wuppertal or Krakow, their isolation is the key to their success. Well, isolation and observation." -- Mark Corroto, All About Jazz. Edition of 350. LP $25

IANNIS XENAKIS - GRM Works 1957-1962 (GRM 007; Austria) Originally released in 2013. Recollection GRM assembles Greek experimental composer Iannis Xenakis' works for Groupe de Recherches Musicales circa 1957-1962. "Concret PH" (1958) was assembled for the Brussels World Fair. The industrialist Philips commissioned Le Corbusier's famous "Philips Pavilion": "I'll create an electronic poem for you, he said. Everything will happen inside: sound, light, color, and rhythm." Iannis Xenakis designed the architectural blueprint and composed "Concret PH" meant to psychologically prepare the public for the show created inside, accompanied by a musical piece by Edgard Varèse. The 400 speakers that lined the inner shell were meant to fill the space through the sound sparkles of "Concret PH" and achieve a joint emanation of architecture and music, conceived as a whole: the roughness of the concrete and its internal friction coefficient found an echo in the timbre of the sparkles. "Orient-Occident" (1960) was originally composed for a film by Enrico Fulchignoni for UNESCO. The film describes a visit to the museum comparing artifacts produced by various cultures and highlighting their interaction, dating back to ancient times. From an abstract point of view, the composer regards this work as a solution to the problem of finding highly diversified means of transition, meant to link a type of material to another. One indeed witnesses a varied gradation of mutations, interplays, overlaps, cross-fading, sudden shifts, and hidden junction points. "Diamorphoses" (1957-1958) portrays continuity and discontinuity within evolution. Here are two aspects of being, whether in opposition or in communion. In "Diamorphoses" this antithesis was illustrated sections of sound strongly opposed to others, and particularly in organizations of continuous variations of average or "statistical" heights. "Bohor" (1962): Bohor (referring to Bors the Younger, Lancelot's cousin), is a character from the medieval cycle of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. "Bohor" is dedicated to Pierre Schaeffer. The author deliberately abstained from giving any descriptive information on his piece, letting the listener choose an imaginary route for himself. This release presents the 1968 version, revised by Iannis Xenakis himself and as yet not made available to the public. "Even though Iannis Xenakis never made 'musique concrète' in the sense given by Pierre Schaeffer, the GRM was a locus for experimenting with his ideas about sound and sound structures. These works, composed between 1958 and 1962, show a boldness as advanced as in his orchestral approach. The relationship between Xenakis and Schaeffer was often tense. It nevertheless entailed mutual recognition and respect towards each other's musical approach. Schaeffer found the piece disproportionate in terms of intensity but was indeed pleased by the dedication. The four pieces presented here, all produced at the GRM, undoubtedly demonstrate the experimental intent and the strictly 'physical' character of Xenakis' music, in that it provides the audience with a listening experience of a rare intensity." --François Bonnet & Christian Zanési; Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, January 2013. Layout by Stephen O'Malley. Executive Production by Peter Rehberg. LP $22

WALTER MARCHETTI - Concerto For The Left Hand In One Movement (Alga Marghen 100LP; Italy) The Concerto For The Left Hand In One Movement, for piano, is the last unpublished composition of Walter Marchetti to be performed in public before the death of the author on May 12, 2015. This performance by Reinier van Houdt was recorded on April 29, 2015, at Onder De Linden in Valthermond, Netherlands, and is presented with liner notes by Gabriele Bonomo, translated from the Italian by Philip Corner. Composed in 1994, the Concerto For The Left Hand belongs to a series of works written between 1994 and 1997 -- along with "Con vista sui suoni," "Eight or Nine Movements for String Quartet," and "La perdita del tempo" -- which develop from a preceding composition titled "Canonic Variations for Orchestra on Prolapsed Time From Development to Hiccup of Black Cherry Jam." In these works Marchetti made a systematic and assertive return to conventional music notation, while also not excluding performance and installation practices and the use of pre-recorded "concrète" sounds, which, since the '60s, had been his privileged field of action (a modality shared principally within the exquisitely iconoclastic and desecratory activities of the ZAJ group). What was particularly interesting to Marchetti in this recourse to musical writing was the weakening of the meaning of the rigid normative apparatus of a musical score with the purpose of annihilating the factual potential of his system of prescriptions. The title alone is used to hide a paradox in which the notes to the performer intervene to subvert the following paradigm: "The pianist is obliged to hold a black umbrella opened over his head in his left hand during the whole performance of this concerto." From here the performer is confronted with two conceptually convergent possibilities in de-potentializing the apparatus of signs in the score: on the one hand, the restrictive imposition of the paradox by which the music cannot manifest itself while respecting the letter of the enunciation, which leads to the impossibility of the music's "existence" (i.e. the obligation of holding an open black umbrella in the same hand) or, on the other hand, the transgression of this encumbrance in favor of the implicit possibility of playing the score with the right hand, leaving the music subjected to its own manifestation no longer able to coincide with its own realization -- "a magic made free from the lie of being truth." Limited edition of 300. Full-color sleeve with printed inner sleeve bearing photos and the liner notes. LP $25 
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Bruce Lee Gallanter’s Recommended Gig List for July of 2016:

THE STONE is located at the NW corner of Avenue C & East 2nd Sts.   THE STONE RESIDENCIES - MARY HALVORSON - AUG 2 – 7
8/5 Friday  8 and 10 pm - Thumbscrew - Mary Halvorson (guitar) Michael Formanek (bass) Tomas Fujiwara (drum)
8/6 Saturday  8 and 10 pm - Mary Halvorson Octet - Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet) Jon Irabagon (alto sax) Ingrid Laubrock (tenor sax) Jacob Garchik (trombone) Mary Halvorson (guitar) Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar) John Hébert (bass) Ches Smith (drums)
8/7 Sunday  8 pm - Mary Halvorson (guitar) & Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar) 10 pm - Mary Halvorson (guitar) & Weasel Walter (drums)

THE STONE RESIDENCIES - JEN SHYU - 6-day Ritual: Song of Silver Geese AUG 9–14
8/9 Tuesday  8 pm - Ritual Day 1: Song for Baridegi (Mother of All Shamans) Jen Shyu (composition, vocals, gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, piano) Mat Maneri (viola) Ikue Mori (electronics) 10 pm - Ritual Day 1: Korean Pansori (Simcheongga) and Gayageum Byeongchang Jen Shyu (vocals, gayageum) Hong Jinwook (soribuk)
8/10 Wednesday  8 pm - Ritual Day 2: Winged Rain in Diamond Light - Jen Shyu (composition, vocals, gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, piano) Mat Maneri (viola) Matt Mitchell (piano) 10 pm - Ritual Day 2 - Jen Shyu (vocals) Mat Maneri (viola) Val Jeanty (electronics)
8/11 Thursday  8 pm - Ritual Day 3: Song for Von Freeman (Letters to Von) - John Hébert's Rambling Confessions: John Hébert (bass) Jen Shyu (vocals) Andy Milne (piano) Eric McPherson (drums) 10 pm - Ritual Day 3 - Ben Monder (guitar) Jen Shyu (vocals)
8/12 Friday  8 pm - Ritual Day 4: “Solo Rites: Seven Breaths” in Tetum, directed by Garin Nugroho - Jen Shyu (composition, vocals, gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, piano) 10 pm - Ritual Day 4: Song for Ho’a Nahak Samane Oan (“Bibiliku Benai, Drum of Benai, a woman tricked a man and he did not know it…”) Jen Shyu (vocals) Mat Maneri (viola) Chris Speed (tenor sax, clarinet) Randy Peterson (drums)
8/13 Saturday 8 pm - Ritual Day 5: Chen Da — Song for Edward - Jen Shyu (composition, vocals, gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, piano) Mat Maneri (viola) Dan Weiss  10 pm - Ritual Day 5 - Tyshawn Sorey (percussion) Jen Shyu (vocals)
8/14 Sunday 8 pm - Ritual Day 6: Song of Silver Geese Movements 1 and 2 - Jen Shyu (composition, vocals, gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, piano) Jade Tongue: Mat Maneri (viola) Chris Dingman (vibraphone) Thomas Morgan (bass) Anna Webber (flute, alto flute) Dan Weiss (drums) PK Harris (1st violin) Erica Dicker (2nd violin) Christopher Hoffman (cello) 10 pm - Ritual Day 6: Song of Silver Geese Movements 3 and 4 - Jen Shyu (composition, vocals, gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, piano) Jade Tongue: Mat Maneri (viola) Chris Dingman (vibraphone) Thomas Morgan (bass) Anna Webber (flute, alto flute) Dan Weiss (drums) PK Harris (1st violin) Erica Dicker (2nd violin) Christopher Hoffman (cello); 
There are no refreshments or merchandise at The Stone.  Only music. All ages are welcome. Cash Only at the door. There is no phone.  There is no food or beverage served or allowed  just a serious listening environment. The Stone is booked purely on a curatorial basis.
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The CORNELIA STREET CAFE - 212-989-9319 29 Cornelia St in the heart of the West Greenwich Village, NYC
Friday Aug 05 9:00PM  IJSF: AMOS HOFFMAN TRIO  - Or Bareket, host  - Amos Hoffman, guitar; Eric Wheeler, bass; Eric McPherson, drums 10:30PM  IJSF: OR BAREKET QUINTET  - Yotam Silberstein, guitar; Nitai Hershkovits, piano; Or Bareket, bass; Keita Ogawa, percussion; Ziv Ravitz, drums
Saturday Aug 06 10:30PM  IJSF: SHAI MAESTRO - piano - A special solo performance for the Israeli jazz spotlight festival.
Sunday Aug 07 8:30PM  IJSF: YOTAM BEN-OR SEXTET - Yotam Ben-Or, harmonica;  Erez Feuer, trumpet;  Itamar Shaz, sax;  Gabriel Chakarji, piano;  Alon Near, bass;  David Jimenez, drums 10:00PM  IJSF: NITAI HERSHKOVITS TRIO - Nitai - piano; Or Bareket, bass; Ari Hoenig, drums
Monday, Aug 8th: 8:35PM  SALOME SCHEIDEGGER - piano 
Tuesday Aug 09 8:01PM  MATTHEW WARD TRIO - Michaël Attias, alto sax; Matthew Ward, guitar;  Satoshi Takeishi, drums 
Wednesday Aug 10 8:01PM  SOFIA RIBEIRO & JUAN ANDRÉS OSPINA DUO - Sofia Ribeiro, voice;  Juan Andrés Ospina, piano
Thursday Aug 11 6:00PM  YANIV TAUBENHOUSE QUARTET - Yaniv Taubenhouse, piano; Dave Glasser, saxophone;  Sam Minaie, bass;  Jerad Lippi, drums Yaniv Taubenhouse Quartet image 9:00PM & 10:30PM  LL4 - Lage Lund, guitar; Sullivan Fortner, piano; Matt Brewer, bass; Tyshawn Sorey, drums
Friday Aug 12 9:00PM & 10:30PM  LL4 - Lage Lund, guitar; Sullivan Fortner, piano; Matt Brewer, bass;  Craig Weinrib, drums
Saturday Aug 13 6:00PM  DORIAN DEVINS QUARTET - Dorian Devins, vocals;  Lou Rainone, piano;  Paul Gill, bass;  Taro Okamoto, drums 9:00PM & 10:30PM  LL4 - Lage Lund, guitar; Sullivan Fortner, piano; Matt Brewer, bass; Craig Weinrib, drums
Sunday Aug 14 8:35PM  DAVID AMBROSIO & RUSS MEISSNER, CD RELEASE: MOMENTS IN TIME - Loren Stillman, alto sax; Matt Renzi, tenor sax, english horn; Leonard Thompson, piano; Nate Radley, guitar; David Ambrosio, bass; Russ Miessner, drums
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I-Beam Presents - July  2016 Schedule:
Saturday, August 6th 8:00 PM  Liebowitz/Lyons, Kazzrie Jaxen, Dzurinko/Messina Set 1 (starts promptly at 8pm) Duo: Carol Liebowitz – piano / Nick Lyons – alto saxophone Set 2 - Solo - Kazzrie Jaxen – piano Set 3 - Duo: Virg Dzurinko – piano / Ryan Messina – trumpet
Friday, August 12th 8:30 PM Nick Fraser Trio feat. Tony Malaby and Kris Davis Nick Fraser: drums, compositions Tony Malaby: tenor and soprano saxophones Chris Hoffman: cello Eivind Opsvik: bass
Thursday, August 18th 8:30 PM Heavy Merge (8:30) Jason Rigby (Tenor Sax) Russ Lossing (Piano/Rhodes) Jeff Davis (Drums) Collective TBA (9:30) Brian Drye – Trombone Charlotte Greve – Saxophone Justin Carroll – Piano / Synth Simon Jermyn – Bass Stephanie Richards – Trumpet
Thursday, August 25th 8:30 PM Billy Mintz Quintet John Gross – tenor saxophone Tony Malaby – tenor saxophone Roberta Piket – piano Hilliard Greene – bass Billy Mintz – drums
I-Beam is located at  168 7th Street in Brooklyn, NY 11215 - Directions: SUBWAY:  Take the F or R trains to 4th Ave & 9th Street.  Walk down 4th ave to 7th street.  Make a left on 7th and walk past 3rd ave.  We are located on the ground floor, the grey doors to the right of the stairs of #168.
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Shapeshifter July Schedule:
Aug 5 Moonjune Presents:  An Evening of Uncompromised Cross-Cultural Progressive Music 7pm Beledo with a Special Guest 8:15pm XADU: Xavi Reija - Drums  & Dusan Jevtovic - Guitar
Aug 6  8:15p - Kinesis NYC
Shapeshifter is located at  18 Whitwell Place in Brooklyn, NY R train to Union stop
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BLACK AUGUST 2016 Thursday, August 11th 2016 - 7pm & 8pm Music Now! At The Brooklyn Commons:
Featuring: Ras Moshe Burnett - Reeds & Flutes Bill Cole - Hojok, Piri, Nagaswarm, Didgeridoo Baba Andrew Lamb - Reeds Larry Roland - Bass + Poetry Michael Wimberley - Percussion
At The Brooklyn Commons 388 Atlantic Ave (btwn Hoyt St. & Bond St.) in Brooklyn
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DISSIDENT ARTS FESTIVAL:  CULTURAL WORKERS SPEAK BACK TO TRUMP!  August 12th, 13th & 27 in NYC
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE:

Friday August 12, 8 - 11pm 5C Cultural Center   68 Ave C (at 5th Street) New York NY 10009 (212) 477-5993   www.5cculturalcenter.org  
8:00pm Trudy Silver’s Where’s the Outrage?-Trudy Silver-piano, word; Newman Baker - percussion, voice; Sanae Buck - Bhutto mime; Kentucky Parkis - bass; Shoshke-Rayzl - electric guitar, effects
9:00pm Ras Moshe’s Music Now! Unit presents “The Black Lives Matters Suite”-Ras Moshe Burnett - tenor and soprano saxes, flute; Lee Odom - soprano sax, clarinets; Matt Lavelle - trumpet, bass clarinet; Gwen Laster - viola; Emma Alabaster - bass; John Pietaro - percussion.
10:00pm Luis Toto Alvarez/Chango project-Luis Toto Alvarez- electric guitars; 
10:45pm finale: “Song of the United Front” by Bertolt Brecht & Hanns Eisler -performed by all musicians in the house  

Saturday August 13, 7-11pm El Taller Latino Americano  @ Artspace PS109   215 East 99 Street, New York NY  (212) 665-9460  www.tallerlatino.org 
7:00pm The Literary Warriors with special guest AMINA BARAKA – Amina Baraka- poetry, vocals; John Pietaro- spoken word, hand drums, percussion; Ras Moshe Burnett- saxophones, flute; Rocco John Iacovone- saxophones; Laurie Towers- electric bass
8:00pm Bernardo Palombo Ensemble - Bernardo Palombo- vocals, guitar; 
9:00pm  UpSurge! NYC – Raymond Nat Turner- poetry; Zigi Lowenberg - poetry; Ken Filiano - upright bass; Lou Grassi - drumset; Lee Odom - reeds
10:00pm The New York Free Quartet presents Steve Cohn’s “Abstract Meets the Fundamental” –Steve Cohn-piano, shakuhachi, trombone, percussion; Michael Moss-saxophones, bass clarinet, flute; Larry Roland - upright bass; Chuck Fertal-drumset
11:00 finale: “Song of the United Front” by Bertolt Brecht & Hanns Eisler  -performed by all musicians in the house  

Saturday August 27, 8-11PM 17 Frost Theatre of the Arts  17 Frost Street, Brooklyn NY 11211  (646) 389-2017   www.17frost.com
8:00 The Dissident Arts Orchestra performs a live score to King Vidor’s 1928 silent film classic, “The Crowd”, plus silent shorts; Featuring: Cheryl Pyle- flutes; Ras Moshe Burnett- tenor and soprano saxophones, flute; Matt Lavelle- bass clarinet; Javier Miyares-Hernandez - electric guitar Chris Forbes - keyboards; Laurie Towers - electric bass; John Pietaro - conduction, drumset, percussion.