Honest as the next jade rolling that stone
When I come knocking don't throw me no bone
I'm an old boll weevil looking for a home
If you don't like me, you can leave me alone
I can snap my fingers and require the rain
From a clear blue sky and turn it off again
I can stroke your body and relieve your pain
And charm the whistle off an evening train
Silvio, silver and gold
Won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold
Silvio, I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know
I give what I got until I got no more
I take what I get until I even the score
You know I love you and furthermore
When it's time to go you got an open door
I can tell you fancy, I can tell you plain (come on)
You give something up for everything you gain (come on)
Since every pleasure's got an edge of pain (come on)
Pay for your ticket and don't complain
And I say, Silvio, silver and gold
Won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold
Silvio, I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know
One of these days and it won't be long
Going down in the valley and sing my song
I will sing it loud and sing it strong
Let the echo decide if I was right or wrong
Silvio, silver and gold
Won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold (come on)
Silvio, I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know (come on)
Silvio, silver and gold
Won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold (come on)
Silvio, I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know (come on)
Last Saturday, I went on a road trip. I rented a car and made my way up to Port Jervis in New York State from my apt in Rahway, NJ. It was a long schlep indeed. I couldn’t get my Google maps Ap to work on my phone so I wrote out directions in a small notebook. Of course, I got lost a few times so the trip took 3 hours instead of two. I was on my way to meet with up with Ms. Kim, a friend of the late saxist Kali Z Fasteau. I had heard that Kim had Kali’s collection which I thought meant her LP collection. It turned out to be Ms. Fasteau’s CD (& cassette) collection from her own Flying Note label. I was glad to get the collection nonetheless since I always admired anything that Kali released on that label as well as the many times I caught her live. The good news is that the car I rented had an actual working CD player, something that new cars no longer have. I happened to bring 2 CD’s with me that I grabbed at the last minute before my trip: Donavon’s ‘Greatest Hits’ and the ‘Essential Bob Dylan’ 2 CD set. I listened to the Donavon CD twice on the way up and still enjoy all of his hits, especially “Atlantis” (written by Dory Previn?!?), “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (covered by the BH Surfers) and “Epistle to Dippy”. After picking up several large boxes of CD’s & cassettes, I had dinner in Port Jervis and made my way back to our store in Chinatown, NYC. This long trip through New York State & City also took nearly 3 hours. I listened to the entire Dylan 2 CD set which is in chronological order. I am a longtime Bob Dylan freak, having had to learn the words to “Blowin’ in the Wind” to sing in a group at day camp (at age 9) and then buying Dylan’s first Greatest Hits around the first year I started to buy albums in 1967. Listening to those 35 songs and driving through NY state was a great experience as I listened closely to the words and music of each song as it played in the car. Driving through a rural part of NY state worked well with the songs from the ‘Basement Tapes’, ‘John Wesley Harding’ and ‘Nashville Skyline’ era. Bob Dylan lived in NYC from 1962 until he moved to Woodstock around 1968. As many of us know, most of Dylan’s early songs & albums dealt with political issues and many folks referred to him as the spokesman for his generation. He never liked that tag placed upon him and he had to escape NYC with his family to Woodstock to get away from garbage-picking fans & fanatics. Each of those Dylan songs told a story or set a scene, getting the listener to consider Dylan’s point of view. Plus he wrote great melodies so I sang along to as many of those songs as I could. I got onto 5th Ave around 125th St and drove downtown music on 5th Ave. Two songs stuck out since they sounded like a soundtrack to driving thru NYC: “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Like a Rolling Stone”. I felt a rush when that first snare shot out on “Rolling Stone” and sang along loudly in the car. Over time Dylan’s songs went from being political on a grand scale to being more personal (as far as matters of the heart). He also went from writing protest songs about things that many of us can agree with to writing more sarcastic & honest sort-of love songs. Every song but one blew me away, the only one that didn’t move me was called “Jokerman”. I was very glad that this 2 CD set included the above song, “Silvio” as it is one of my fave Dylan songs. It can be found on a later Dylan album called, ‘Down in the Groove’ which I think is only half great, a couple of klinkers are included. The words to “Silvio” were written by Robert Hunter, who was Jerry Garcia’s main lyricist throughout the entire journey of the Grateful Dead (1965-1995). Check out this song if you can and read the words out loud. It sounds to me like Silvio is a god-like or Spirit character/force since he can summon the rain and knows something only dead men know. If I had put together “The Essential Bob Dylan” by myself, I would’ve added the song “Rank Stranger”, a gospelish bluegrass song written in the late 1950’s. Dylan’s version of this song is also on the ‘Down in the Groove’ LP. The sound of Dylan’s voice and the way he sings it here is beyond haunting and comes directly from the heart of the human condition. I still sing this song to myself when I am in a sad mood and want to wallow in despair. Friends of mine caught Dylan live last month in NJ and said what a great show it was. A special toast to perhaps the greatest songwriter/poet of our time, Bob “you can call me Zimmy” Dylan. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Still Down in the Groove here at DMG
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THE 33rd ANNIVERSARY IN-STORE CONCERT SERIES AT DMG CONTINUES WITH:
Tuesday, August 6th:
6:30: MUSIQUE LIBRE FEMMES: CHERYL PYLE -c flute / bass flute / AYUMI ISHITO - Tenor Sax / YUKO TOGAMI - Percussion
7:30: BEN GOLDBERG - Clarinet / JOHN HEBERT - Contrabass / HAMIR ATWAL - Drums
8:30: AARON QUINN - Guitar / DIEGO HEDEZ - Trumpet / DERIC DICKENS - Drums
9:30: KRIS GRUDA - Guitar / TOM WEEKS - Alto Sax / MIKE PRIDE - Drums
Monday, August 12th: DMG Guitar Fest Volume Two!
6:30: KILLICK HINDS and H R - Guitar Duo
7:30: EYAL MAOZ - Solo or Duo Guitar(s)
8:30: SALLY GATES - Guitar / SIMON HANES - Bass
Tuesday, August 13th:
6:30: TAKUMA KANAIWA - Bass / DANIEL CARTER - Winds & Brass / AYUMI ISHITO - Tenor Sax & Effects / JONATHAN WILSON - Drums
7:30: MAX ARSAVA - Sampler/Electronics / JAMES PAUL NADIEN - Drums
8:30: NICK FRASER - Drums / MAT MANERI - Viola / BRANDON LOPEZ - ContraBass
**********
THIS WEEK’S GROOVY DISCS BEGIN WITH A RARE JOHN ZORN VOCAL RELEASE:
JOHN ZORN // BARBARA HANNIGAN / STEPHEN GOSLING - Hannigan Sings Zorn Volume One (Tzadik 9311; USA) A remarkable meeting of two musical forces of nature finally available on recording! Barbara Hannigan is one of the most fearless and passionate performers in the classical world, and here she sings a challenging program of Zorn compositions with the virtuoso pianist Stephen Gosling. Featured here is the long-awaited recording of Jumalattaret, a song cycle in praise of nine Finnish Goddesses out of Sami Shamanism, and Split the Lark, Zorn’s tribute to the magical American poet Emily Dickinson. Using a variety of musical techniques and genres, the music moves from lyrical folk-like simplicity to more complex atonal and textural pyrotechnics. Included as a bonus is a rare piece of juvenilia: the charming surrealistic song Nazdar, Poupon, Nazdar. Composed circa 1971, when Zorn was about 17 years old, it is a very early example of Zorn’s multi-layered genre smashing. In its brief twominute duration it contains traditional, proportional and graphic notation, and touches upon tonality, atonality, Messiaen birdsong, jazz, cartoon music, lyricism, French recitativo, whispering, vocalise, and vocal noises.
CD $16
THE NEXT TWO TZADIK ITEMS ARE LIMITED EDITION LP REISSUES WHICH WERE RELEASED A FEW YEARS BACK IN A GROUP OF FOUR TITLES, TWO OF WHICH HAVE SOLD OUT:
JOHN ZORN / THE DREAMERS with MARC RIBOT / JAMIE SAFT / TREVOR DUNN / KENNY WOLLESEN / et al - Pellucidar: A Dreamers Fantabula (Tzadik 6006; USA) "A beautiful vinyl pressing of Zorn's most delightful and popular instrumental unit The Dreamers performing nine compositions inspired by the imaginary worlds of fantasy literature. Featuring some of Zorn's catchiest hooks and plenty of fiery solos from Ribot, Saft and Wollesen, Pellucidar blends soul, surf, jazz, minimalism, rumba, tango, samba, exotica and more in classic Dreamers style. Bathed in a fabulous gatefold jacket filled with colorful original art by Tzadik's exclusive designer Chippy, this long-awaited vinyl version of this modern exotica classic was lovingly remastered and is pressed on virgin vinyl."
2 LP Set $45 [Limited Edition, a couple dozen left - 7/31/24]
JOHN ZORN // ALHAMBRA TRIO with ROB BURGER / GREG COHEN / BEN PEROWSKY - Alhambra Love Songs (Tzadik 6010; USA) In an easy listening mode, Alhambra Love Songs is Zorn's touching and lyrical ode to the San Francisco/Bay Area and the wonderful artists who have made it their home. Including tributes to artists as diverse as Vince Guaraldi, Clint Eastwood, David Lynch, Mike Patton and Harry Smith, the music is some of the most beautiful and soothing Zorn has ever written. Touching on the jazz/pop/funk trios of Vince Guaraldi and Ramsey Lewis, the music is scored for a remarkable piano trio of Rob Burger (Rufus Wainwright, Marianne Faithfull, Laurie Anderson), Greg Cohen (Ornette Coleman, Masada, Burt Bacharach) and Ben Perowsky (Uri Caine, Steve Bernstein, John Lurie). Evocative and endlessly listenable, this is perhaps the single most charming cd in Zorn's entire catalog, and will appeal to fans of Vince Guaraldi, Ahmad Jamal, Henry Mancini and even George Winston! - TZADIK ARCHIVAL SERIES
LP $40 [Limited Edition - a dozen left - 7/31/24]
NICOLE MITCHELL & BALLAKE SISSOKO - Bamako Chicago Sound System (FPE 060; USA) Renowned flutist, former AACM chair, Nicole Mitchell, and innovative kora player, Bamako's musical ambassador, Ballaké Sissoko have both defied conventions in their respective genres; Mitchell's Afrofuturist sound and cosmic ethic and Sissoko's integration of guitar progressions into kora compositions. Both push traditional forms into new spaces. Both bring a rich history of collaboration across various genres.
The magic began during a 2014 residency in the suburbs of Paris, France. Then, their host Frederic Duval suggested the rather awkward working title "Beyond Black". Three years later, with modest funding, Bamako musicians arrived in Chicago, and the project adopted a more fitting name inspired by a conversation between Mitchell and celebrated cultural critic/musician, Greg Tate: Bamako*Chicago Sound System.
Their musical collaboration echoes fusion artists like Foday Musa Suso and Herbie Hancock, yet it forges a unique path with a blend of depth and frequency more closely relatable to Alice Coltrane's lesser-known blues/'occidental' music, such as "Galaxy in Turia" and "Er Ra", along with the nuanced and celebrated Journey in Satchidananda. Like Coltrane, this album is transformative, taking listeners to other worlds through sonic transference. Ballaké's post-traditional innovative writing leaves ample space for interpretation and breath, complementing Nicole's layered, complex otherworldly compositions.
The entire album embodies the African griot traditions of call and response, rooted in the Black Amerikan blues/jazz lineage. Some songs arouse the feeling of Bamako serenading Chicago through Malian streets and home-grown stories, creating a traditional yet powerfully sensory experience, reflecting a rich ancient culture. Other times, it feels like Chicago is guiding Bamako on a similar journey, as when Mitchell's butterfly-like, pied-piper build leads us through sonic ebbs and flows, echoing Chicago's deep blues and jazz roots.
CD $17 [In stock early next week]
LUX QUARTET with MYRA MELFORD / ALLISON MILLER / DAYNA STEPHENS / SCOTT COLLEY - Tomorrowland (Enja ENJ 98452; Earth) The newly formed Lux Quartet features Myra Melford on piano, Dayna Stephens on alto, tenor & soprano saxes, Scott Colley on contrabass and Allison Miller on drums. All four members of this fine quartet are leaders on their own turfs and each member contributed compositions to this disc. The co-leaders are Myra Melford and Allison Miller. Ms. Melford was a longtime part of the Downtown Scene here, leading a series of strong bands in the eighties and nineties. More recently Ms. Melford has been touring with her own Fire and Water Quintet with two great discs out on Rogue Art. Percussionist/composer Allison Miller has also led a series of great bands (check out her Boom Tic Boom CDs) and also collaborated on a session with Ms. Melford and numerous other Downtowners for a DVD for the Firehouse12 label.
Things begin with Ms. Melford’s “Intricate Drift”, which features a tightly wound and played line for the sax and piano playing together. Throughout this piece, it is Ms. Miller’s drumming which so extraordinary, keeping the flow and rhythm on target while taking a few short expressive solos throughout the piece. On Mr. Stephens’ “23 Januarys”, Ms. Miller plays brushes with subtle grace, the sax and piano playing exquisitely together. Mr. Stephan has a an effervescent sound on his soprano sax and takes a spirited solo here with Ms. Melford also taking over for another expressive solo. Each of the songs are well written and are a challenge for the quartet who seem to do an effortless job. Ms. Miller’s masterful drums are at the center of “The Wayward Line”, taking a great solo midway before Ms. Melford’s piano takes up the next section of this piece. The interplay between the piano and the percussion is most impressive and on display throughout this entire disc. Ms. Miller does a fine job of embellishing the intricate parts that Ms. Melford has composed and plays astonishingly throughout. Ms. Melford sounds particularly inspired here, taking a number of furious solos. She also lays back at times and plays with exquisite taste, especially on the title track which closes this album. This piece sounds like a lullaby with some fine bass work bubbling underneath. This entire disc is marvelous from the beginning until the very end. Step right up to get your copy today! - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD $16 [In stock early next week]
HUBBUB with FREDERIC BLONDY / BERTRAND DENZLER / JEAB-LUC GUIONNET / JEAN-SEBASTIEN MARIAGE / EDWARD PERRAUD - abb abb abb (Relative Pitch 1191; USA) Hubbub features Frédéric Blondy on piano; Bertrand Denzler on tenor sax;, Jean-Luc Guionnet on alto sax, Jean-Sébastien Mariage on electric guitar and Edward Perraud on percussion. I am consistently fascinated by the underground music scenes where and whenever they pop anywhere on this planet. The various creative scenes in and around Paris have been evolving in waves throughout the 20th century in the visual, sonic, literature and philosophical arts/endeavors. In the 1960’s there were musicians like Barney Wilen and Francois Tusques who were experimenting and blurring the lines between genres. When the Art Ensemble of Chicago, other members of the AACM migrated to Paris in the late 60’s, they collaborated with and influenced a variety of French musicians. Various progressive forces erupted in the 1970’s with Magma, Lard Free and Urban Sax.
Hubbub were/are a French quintet that started out around 2000, releasing four discs between 2001 and 2011. I hadn’t heard of any of their members before they appeared on the scene but I did hear their discs plus I caught them at the Victo Fest in the early aughts and thought that they were one of the best new music ensembles to emerge from France in a long time. What I did notice was that each member of the quintet was involved in a series of different groupings of mostly French musicians and I’ve collected these discs as they are released. After 8 years, Hubbub returned with a new release, a download only released in 2019. And now five years later (in 2024), Hubbub return with their first new disc in more than a decade. The first piece on this disc is called “abb” and it is nearly 39 minutes long. The music is filled with suspense and what we hear is several drones pulsating together. It reminds me of hanging in a graveyard with several ghosts softly moaning (groaning? droning?) together. The music is somewhat stripped down yet every sound is carefully crafted. It seems to be that this music is coming from a post lower case exploration. What I like about Hubbub in general and this disc specifically is that the quintet have their distinctive sound which they work on with cautious grace and craft. It is not about solos but about creating their own sonic world for us serious listeners to submerge within. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD $13
ONCEIM / ORCHESTRE de NOUVELLES CREATIONS, EXPERIMENTS et IMPROVISATIONS MUSICALES - Laminaire (Relative Pitch RPR 1192; USA) Onceim is a French new music ensemble, established in 2012 by pianist Frédéric Blondy, and comprising over 30 European improvisers and members of prominent jazz, free jazz, free improv and contemporary classical groups. Through the in-depth exploration of improvisational practices, the Onceim musicians have developed a rich and unique panel of know-how. It’s as if each musician were one tool within a toolbox, all at the service of the project being undertaken. Without necessarily knowing where we are going, we go, we meet each other, we overlap, we manufacture, we shape, we listen, we listen to each other and we produce, together. The potential for serendipity is also ever-present and we aim to seize it and extract all its radiance. These discoveries only go to enrich the Onceim sound and sensory palette.
Of the thirty plus musicians that make up Onceim, a handful of names like Frédéric Blondy, Bertrand Denzler & Jean-Sébastien Mariage (all from Hubbub), Benjamin Duboc, Xavier Charles, Franz Hautzinger and Stephane Rives. The three long pieces here were recorded April of 2018 and in January & October of 2020. Considering that there are some 30plus musicians in this orchestra, Mr. Blondy has devised a system to keep things from being too chaotic or unfocused. “Gorges Gard” is nearly 49 minutes in length and sounds like someone is directing the ensemble as the dynamics and volume sound carefully balanced or nuanced. The orchestra is moving in waves, expanding and contracting, becoming more dense at times and then calming down a bit. There are a series of droning tones which continue throughout this piece and shift somewhat tone-wise. What I find most interesting is the way things unfold slowly over time, always building or moving from one density or common point to the next phase. After some thirty minutes, the ocean starts to get more violent and intense, the waves rocking higher and higher, the turbulence more intense and disturbing and then slowly calming back down to a less disorienting current. At one point when the waves and density got quite thick, I had fallen asleep at my computer. The phone rang from the next room and startled me. I had awoken from a dark dreamworld and wondered where I was, had I fallen into a sonic quicksand pit?!? Hmmmmm. The second piece is much shorter at only 9 minutes and called, “A La Muse”. Things unfold cautiously once more with breath-like sounds, skeletal percussion and a slowly shifting layer of drone-tone(s). Patience is required to deal with this music since it often changes slowly, ever-shifting in different ways. This is one of the more challenging discs that I’ve listened to this week and well worth the work involved. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD $13
JANE RIGLER with JANET FEDER / SHOKO NAGAI / SATOSHI TAKEISHI - Rarefactions: Compositions via Improvisations (Neuma 450-113; USA) Featuring Jane Rigler on flute, piccolo, electronics & compositions, Shoko Nagai on piano, organ, other keyboards & accordion, Janet Feder on guitar & banjo and Satoshi Takeishi on percussion & electronics. There are a number of creative music labels that send loads of promos like: Innova, Evil Clown, Relative Pitch and Neuma. I can barely keep up with the large number of promos that we get in all of the time. There are several 1,000 in the back of the store that I hope to listen to when (and if) I finally retire. Over the last few years, we’ve gotten quite a bit of promos from the Neuma label which is run by Philip Blackburn who used to run the Innova label. I’ve been working my way through a stack of promos from Neuma and discovered this gem. I recognized the name of flutist/composer Jane Rigler from her work with or for Andrew Raffo Dewar, If, Bwana, George Lewis & Lei Lang. Janet Feder is a wonderful guitarist with a handful of great solo & duo albums and is a professor at a college in Colorado. Keyboardist Shoko Nagai and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi are a couple that often work together, you can hear them with Erik Friedlander & Marco Cappelli.
This is Jane Rigler’s first album as a leader/composer and it features a series of solos, duos and quartet pieces. “Pulsar 1” opens this disc and it features Ms. Rigler playing multiple piccolos. The varied layers of piccolos shift around one another, some with breath-like sounds, some shimmering or pulsating. Shoko Nagai plays accordion in a duo with Ms. Rigler again on piccolo for a piece called “Heir”. Both the piccolo and the accordion are playing notes tightly together which sound like one one or stream, with the accordion expanding its tone/sound as the piece evolves. “Rewind” is a quartet piece and it has a mysterious vibe with each musician switching off between different instruments & electronics. “Multiversed” has Ms. Rigler again layering several piccolos somewhat like dozens of bees buzzing around a hive. “Quiver” is a strong, spirited duo for flutes and prepared acoustic guitar. Both women are playing with extended sounds, carefully coaxing sounds from their respective instruments. The mysterious sounds flow through each of the quartet improv pieces, with each member having conversation with one another. When Ms. Feder plays solo prepared guitar on “Oscillation”, it is hard to tell exactly which instrument she is playing, still the sound is quite fascinating. This entire disc sounds like a suite with the solos & duos being short interludes for the quartet pieces. All of the music/sound here sound like they are consistently connected to each other and to those who listen closely as things unfold throughout this marvelous offering. I’m hoping to get Jane Rigler and Janet Feder to play here at DMG in the future so keep your fingers crossed. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD $14
THE GREAT ECM CD SALE OF THE SUMMER, 2024:
When I first started listening to modern jazz in the Fall of 1972, the first records I bought were from Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Miles Davis. I was soon an early jazz/rock/fusion fanatic since around the same period checking out Soft Machine, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever. After checking out Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra Arkestra & the Art Ensemble of Chicago around 1973, I became a big fan of avant or progressive jazz. My two favorite labels in the mid-1970’s were ECM and Arista Freedom. ECM was based in Germany and run by a former classical producer called Manfred Eicher. I bought many early ECM records from Ralph Towner, Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett, Anthony Braxton, Chick Corea. etc. ECM has released more than 1,000 releases since they started in 1969 and continue to release CD’s more than 50 years later. ECM has been though several periods and has recorded musicians from a variety of creative music scenes from around the world. A distributor of ours, recently had a sale of some ECM titles from the long history and most of these are box sets. I’ve chosen only the ones that I particularly like and still think are amazing. Each of the below discs are classics and essential to many of the serious listeners out there… Many of these titles are either out-of-print or at least hard to find since their distributor, Universal, will not deal with small stores like us. Oh well, their loss. I’ve included the links to several reviews which can be found on the DMG website or elsewhere…
BARRE PHILLIPS with JOHN SURMAN / STU MARTIN / JOHN ABERCROMBIE - Mountainscapes (ECM 1076; Germany) Featuring: Barre Phillips on contrabass, John Surman soprano & baritone saxophones, bass clarinet & synthesizer, Dieter Feichtner on synthesizer and Stu Martin on drums & synthesizer and John Abercrombie on guitar. Recorded March 1976. Review here: https://downtownmusicgallery.com/search.php?id=2010_12_15_23_09_20
CD $16
WADADA LEO SMITH with DWIGHT ANDREWS / BOBBY NAUGHTON / KENNY WHEELER / LESTER BOWIE / CHARLIE HADEN - Divine Love (ECM 1143; Germany) Featuring Wadada Leo Smith, Kenny Wheeler & Lester Bowie on trumpets, Dwight Andrews on reeds, Charlie Haden on contrabass and Bobby Naughton on vibes. Review here: https://downtownmusicgallery.com/search.php?id=2024_07_31_10_16_13
CD $16
TERJE RYPDAL / MIROSLAV VITOUS / JACK DeJOHNETTE - Terje Rypdal / Miroslav Vitous / Jack DeJohnette (ECM 1125; Germany) Featuring Terje Rypdal on guitar, Miroslav Vitous on contrabass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. “An otherworldly soundscape of aching beauty, this album is a must-have for aficionados of any member of this trio. Rypdal's guitar is hauntingly reverbed and distant throughout, though occasionally on "Seasons" he becomes too fond of caterwauling guitar synth. But this is truly an effort of trio fusion, with ineffable pieces like "Den Forste Sne" ("The First Snow") appearing and melting away without any tangible solos or structure. From the opening cymbal strikes of "Sunrise," this album is marked by DeJohnette's best drumming on record; his cymbal sound, pushed to the front and recorded with mic's both above and below the cymbal's bell -- "because that's how the drummer hears it" -- is nothing short of revelatory. Vitous' bass steadies Rypdal's flights of fancy, while his subtle electric piano lines float above. These elements combine most powerfully in "Believer," which builds from atmospheric shimmers of electric piano into a whorl of bass and plaintive guitar set against the dry rasp of resonating cymbals.” - Paul Collins, AMG
CD $16
JULIAN PRIESTER PEPO MTOTO with PAT GLEESON / HADLEY CALIMAN / BAYATE UMBRA ZINDIKO / NYIMBO HENRY FRANKLIN / NDUGU LEON CHANCLER / MGUANDA DAVID JOHNSON / KAMAU ERIC GRAVATT / RON McCLURE / BILL CONNORS - Love, Love (ECM 1044; Germany) This recording from 1974 is a still powerful historic artefact from the dawn of the so-called Fusion Era. Having just left Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi Band, Priester rounded up some of the most explosive talents in electric jazz, including musicians from Weather Report, Return To Forever, and the bands of McCoy Tyner and Bobby Hutcherson, and let them loose on his powerful riff-based compositions which suggest some new amalgamation of Afro-Funk, Jazz-Rock and Minimal Music. Featuring: Julian Priester trombones, horns, whistle flute, percussion, synthesizers; Pat Gleeson synthesizers; Hadley Caliman flute, saxophones, clarinet; Bayete Umbra Zindiko pianos, clavinet; Nyimbo Henry Franklin basses; Ndugu Leon Chanceler drums; Mguanda David Johnson flute, saxophone; Kamau Eric Gravatt drums, congas; Ron McClure bass; Bill Connors electric guitar. "My favorite reissue of the year!" -BLG
CD $16
JIMMY GIUFFRE with PAUL BLEY / STEVE SWALLOW - Jimmy Guiffre 3, 1961 (ECM 1438/39; Germany) Featuring Jimmy Giuffre on clarinet, Paul Bley on piano and Steve Swallow on contrabass. Tenor saxist & arranger for Woody Herman’s Herd in the late 1940’, Jimmy Giuffre also played clarinet and was one of more progressive musician/composers of the 1950’s and onwards. Mr. Giuffre organized a trio in the mid-fifties with Jim Hall on guitar & Ralph Ralph Peña on bass. He kept the trio going for a number of years with Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone replacing the bassist. Their music was often referred to as chamber jazz or third stream and by the early 1960’s, the trio included Giuffre on clarinet, Paul Bley on piano and Steve Swallow on bass. This trio recorded three albums, ‘Fusion’ (1961), ‘Thesis’ (1962 and ‘Free Fall’ (1963). The first two were released on Savoy and are long out of print. ECM reissued the first two in 1992 and this is what we have here. Both are essential and an early nod to the future of jazz. There is also a double live CD from the same era which was released by Hatology. Not sure if it is still in print. - BLG at DMG
2 CD set $30
JAN GARBAREK with BOBO STENSON / PALLE DANIELSSON / JON CHRISTENSEN / TERJE RYPDAL / ARILD ANDERSEN - Dansere (ECM 2146-48; Germany) A welcome return to the ECM catalog for three of the most striking of the early recordings which Jan Garbarek made for the label in the 1970s. In different but related ways Sart (1971), Witchi-Tai-To (1973) and Dansere (1975) brought freshly intelligent and invigorating perspective to bear on questions of dynamics, group sound, interaction and swing, the relation of improvisation and abstraction to the roots of jazz, and the relevance of archetypal yet freshly inflected folk forms to contemporary music. Two ensembles are heard here - Garbarek/Stenson/Rypdal/Andersen/Christensen on the exploratory Sart, and the spirited Jan Garbarek-Bobo Stenson Quartet, one of the most exciting groups of the era.
3 CD Box Set $40
JOHN ABERCROMBIE with RICHIE BEIRACH / GEORGE MRAZ / PETER DONALD - The First Quartet (ECM 2478-80; Germany) Featuring John Abercrombie on guitar, Rchie Bierach on piano, George Mraz on bass and Peter Donald on drums. After in a series of great fusion bands in the early 1970’s, guitar god John Abercrombie organized this fine quartet to show off another more lyrical side to his playing. I caught this quartet at the Bottom Line around this time and asked Abercrombie if this was his effort to show another side to his playing and he said, “Hell yes!”. Check out a review here: https://downtownmusicgallery.com/search.php?id=2015_12_24_17_58_47
3 CD Box Set $40
EBERHARD WEBER with RAINER BRUNINGHAUS / CHARLIE MARIANO / JOHN MARSHALL / JON CHRISTENSEN - Colours (ECM 2133-35; Germany) Eberhard Weber bass; Charlie Mariano soprano saxophone, shenai, nagaswaram; Rainer Bruninghaus keyboards; Jon Christensen drums. This three CD box brings together music recorded for ECM by Eberhard Weber's band Colours: the albums Yellow Fields (1975), Silent Feet (1977) and Little Movements (1980). Throughout the six years of its existence, Colours was one of the most popular ensembles on the European jazz touring circuit - although Weber has always stressed the group's conceptual distance from a jazz mainstream. Many idiomatic elements were combined in Colours' stylistic mix. The group's sound-world consciously extended the palette proposed by The Colours of Chloe, Weber's prize-winning ECM disc of 1974. As the innovative German bassist explains in the liner notes, there were various aspects to the [Chloe] session, from the reflective European or chamber music side of the writing, to some jazz-rock and a kind of pictorial play with minimalism. Eventually, all these aspects would be developed in Colours.
3 CD Box Set $40
STEVE REICH - The ECM Recordings (ECM New series 2540; Germany) Named “our greatest living composer” (The New York Times), “America’s greatest living composer” (The Village Voice), and “…the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker), Reich’s ardent, incisive work since the ’60s has been instrumental in consolidating the structures of numerous strands of far flung music, from west African tribal drumming to Indonesian gamelan with Hebrew cantillation (chanting) and Western Classical modes, in an unprecedented manner that has opened whole new worlds of possibility for any composer or musician working in his wake.
Reich’s use of phasing repetition could be said to predate and inform many of the genres and styles that we hold dearest today - from 4th world ambient to post rock and techno - and does so in way that rings true with his heritage: seeking to acknowledge commonalities between all things, rather than the differences; creating a new musical vocabulary which moved beyond the worldwide atrocities of the early 20th century, therefore placing him among the most astute, important, groundbreaking composers of his generation.
The ECM Recordings presents five prime examples of Reich’s pioneering work; covering perhaps his most expansive, best known piece, the breathtaking Music For 18 Musicians (1978) on the first disc; followed by the perpetual lift of Music For A Large Ensemble, the spiraling string helixes of Violin Phase and the brilliant light of Octet (1980) on the second disc; and the hypnotic Hebrew incantations of Tehillim (1982) in the third disc. - Boomkat
3 CD Box Set $40
KEITH JARRETT - Sun Bear Concerts Piano Solo (ECM 1100; Germany) During the 1970s, solo piano box sets were rare. When Keith Jarrett's monolithic, ten-LP solo box, Sun Bear Concerts, arrived from ECM in 1978, the only comparable collection was The Tatum Solo Masterpieces, a six-disc set of the pianist's '50s sides. Jarrett's five Japanese concerts from November of 1976 in Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, and Sapporo were completely improvised and gloriously recorded by engineer Okihiro Sugano. Most jazz critics greeted it as a seminal work that set Jarrett apart from his peers.
When he hits a mysterious minor ninth to open the first concert in Kyoto, all bets are off. For nearly 80 minutes he balances tension with release, the pastoral with the cosmopolitan. He asks harmonic questions and develops non-conclusive answers, and melds emotion, technique, and inspiration in a dazzling, deeply moving display of virtuosity and inexhaustible creativity. The Osaka concert commences with inquisitive lyrical ideas before spiraling off in several directions. He investigates swing, stride, blues, bop, vanguard modal interludes, folk traditions, and pop songs, and briefly evokes Aaron Copland. Jarrett creates cascading rhythmic pulses and expansive harmonies that elude genre and resist reduction. In Nagoya, classical motifs -- romantic and modernist -- are developed with a rich, inquisitive interior logic that never forsakes musicality, even when pursuing the Muse toward dissonance during the final third. In Tokyo, Jarrett meanders for a time, offering one musical ellipsis after another until 12 minutes in, when he slips through the boundary with a series of five-note clusters. Then he's off and running across jazz piano history, nodding at Vince Guaraldi, Dmitri Shostakovich, Lead Belly, Debussy, Jerome Kern, and others before stripping his process down to its essences. It's the most rewarding show in the set, though not necessarily the easiest to listen to. In Sapporo, Jarrett is effusive. He delves into non-Western harmonic approaches, explores the piano's lower-middle register exhaustively, and finds lyricism between empty and dissonant spaces. For over 75 minutes he punctuates these explorations with dramatic glee, and often hums along. The Sun Bear Concerts offers a pinnacle of jazz improvisation. - Thom Jurek, AllMusic.com
6 CD Box Set $50
MEREDITH MONK with THEO BLECKMANN BRUCE BRUBAKER / ALLISON EASTER / JULIUS EASTMAN / ROBERT EEN / ELLEN FISHER / KATIE GEISSINGER / CHING GONZALEZ / ANDREA GOODMAN / WAYNE HANKIN / BOHDAN HILASH / JOHN HOLLENBECK / URSULA OPPENS / ALLISON SNIFFIN / NURIT TILLES / COLLIN WALCOTT - The Recordings (ECM New Series 2750; Germany) “If Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek were the two improvising musicians who established the distinctive tone of the ECM label’s contribution to jazz over the past 50 years, the composers Arvo Pärt and Meredith Monk played an equivalent role for ECM’s New Series, the imprint under which the company’s founder, Manfred Eicher, gathers those of his artists who come under the loose heading of contemporary classical music.
Monk, born in New York City in 1942, is a singer, composer, director, choreographer and filmmaker who began to develop her extended vocal techniques with solo performances in the early 1960s before founding her own multi-disciplinary company, The House, in 1968.
Since garlanded with honours and awards, she belongs with Laurie Anderson and
Brian Eno among the ranks of musicians who emerged in the last quarter of the 20th century with music that took its inspiration from John Cage, Terry Riley and others but floated free of defined genres, retaining a trace of its influences in the repetitions, phase-shifts and slowed-down progressions associated with systems music, attracting an audience ready to engage with music that exists beyond established idioms.
A background in performance suffuses her music with a sense of ritual. Her writing for the human voice, whether solo or stacked, mostly uses non-verbal sounds in her search for “shades of feeling or even spaces between feelings, believing that the voice could delineate the mystery of the indefinable compared to what we label as emotions.” - Uncut.co.uk
13 CD Box Set $100
THE KALI Z. FASTEAU CD SALE:
I was shocked when I heard about the passing of Kali Z. Fasteau in November of 2020. I had spoken with her a month or so earlier when she offered to give the store an old drumset that she was no longer using after I put a note in the DMG newsletter that we had just lost a borrowed drum set for our weekly in-store concert series. I had spoken with and emailed Kali several times over the 30 or so years that we knew each other. Whenever I listed a song (lyric) at the top of the newsletter that I dug or mentioned that I still loved to dance to this music, she would call or write about how a certain song or music moved her to dance as well. I was long fascinated by her long story/journey through life. Zusaan Kali Fasteau was married to Donald Rafael Garrett, who played bass & bass clarinet on a couple of later-period John Coltrane records. The couple recorded as The Sea Ensemble and made a record for ESP in 1974, before the label closed down for a long while. Both Zusaan and Rafael spent time in France and in Africa, collaborating with other Spirit Folks and both were multi-instrumentalists playing dozens of instruments: various saxes & flutes, sheng, percussion, bass, piano, cello, tambura, ney and much more. After Mr. Garrett had passed, Kali moved to upstate New York from her place in Harlem. She organized a series of spiritual ensembles utilizing the talents of other elders and youngsters alike: Joe McPhee, Noah Howard, William Parker, Kidd Jordan, Bobby Few, Mixashawn Rozie, Sirone, Louis Moholo, Tyshawn Sorey and Okkyung Lee. She also started her own Flying Note label and released 3 cassettes and 15 CD’s. Whenever I listen to Kali Fasteau’s music, either on record or live, I smile since it makes me feel better, it has a healing vibration. We just got in seven of the CD’s on her label. These are most likely the last sealed copies found anywhere on the Planet Earth. Grab them before they disappear once more. - BLG at DMG
KALI Z. FASTEAU With WILLIAM PARKER / BADAL ROY / RON McBEE / RONNIE BURRAGE / OSCAR BROWN III - Prophecy: The Whale And The Elephant Trade Notes On The State of The World (Flying Note 9003; USA)
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With NOAH HOWARD / JOE McPHEE / BOBBY FEW / SONELIUS SMITH / WARREN SMITH / MICHAEL WIMBERLEY - Comraderie (Flying Note 9006; USA)
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With LEE MIXASHAWN ROZIE / OKKYUNG LEE / NEWMAN TAYLOR BAKER / MARVIN “BUGALOO” SMITH / RON McBEE - Oneness (Flying Note 9009; USA)
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With 'KIDD' JORDAN / BOBBY FEW / SIRONE - Making Waves (Flying Note 9010; USA)
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU / 'KIDD' JORDAN / MICHAEL T A THOMPSON - People Of The Ninth: New Orleans And The Hurricane 2005 (Flying Note 9011; USA)
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU / 'KIDD' JORDAN With NEWMAN TAYLOR BAKER - Live At The Kerava Jazz Festival Finland (Flying Note 9012; USA)
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With LOUIS MOHOLO / BOBBY FEW / WAYNE DOCKERY / STEVE McCRAVEN - Animal Grace: Live In Harlem/Live In The Alps (Flying Note 9014; USA)
CD Sale $10
HERE ARE THE SAME KALI Z. FASTEAU SALE DISCS LISTED ABOVE WITH REVIEWS:
KALI Z. FASTEAU With WILLIAM PARKER / BADAL ROY / RON McBEE / RONNIE BURRAGE / OSCAR BROWN III - Prophecy: The Whale And The Elephant Trade Notes On The State of The World (Flying Note 9003; USA) KALI FASTEAU: Composer, Soprano Sax, Cello, Piano, Ney, Kaval & Shakuhachi Flutes,Voice, Sheng, Moursin, Mizmar, Sanza, Synthesizer, Drums, Tympani & Gong;WILLIAM PARKER: Contrabass & Balafon;SOMALIA RICHARDS: Violin;RON McBEE: African Percussion, Djembe & Berimbau;NEWMAN TAYLOR BAKER: Drums;RONNIE BURRAGE: Drums;OSCAR BROWN III: Contrabass;BADAL ROY: Tabla. "Zusaan Kali Fasteau on this CD not only plays soprano sax, cello and tympani but such exotic instruments as a sheng, ney, mizmar, kaval, moursin, sanza and a shakuhachi flute. Assisted by the great bassist William Parker and various drummers and percussionists (in addition to violinist Sheila Somalia Richard), Fasteau engages in a wide variety of colorful sound explorations. She swings hard on several of the pieces (all 15 compositions are her originals) but also utilizes vamps and drones quite effectively and adds her haunting voice. Unlike most of the world music that appears on Billboard's charts, these creative performances are truly music of the world." - Scott Yanow, AMG
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With NOAH HOWARD / JOE McPHEE / BOBBY FEW / SONELIUS SMITH / WARREN SMITH / MICHAEL WIMBERLEY - Comraderie (Flying Note 9006; USA) KALI FASTEAU: Composer, Soprano Sax, Voice, Nai & Kaval Flutes, Cello & Sheng;BOBBY FEW: Piano;NOAH HOWARD: Alto Sax;JOE McPHEE: Tenor Sax;SONELIUS SMITH: Piano;WARREN SMITH: Drums;MIKE WIMBERLY: Djembe, Talking Drum & Percussion. "Multi-instrumentalist and composer Kali Fasteau plays an exotic array of free jazz and world rhythms for trio and quintet on Comraderie. Accompanied by such world-class players as Joe McPhee and drummer Warren Smith, She matches her male counterparts note-for-note on this exciting palette of musical experiences. A product of extensive world travels and excellent musical training, Kali Fasteau composed all 14 songs, which were recorded in a studio session and live in concert in 1997. Her trio session with Bobby Few on piano and Michael Wimberly on percussion feature her playing soprano saxophone, nai (a Moroccan end-blown reed flute) and Kaval flutes, sheng (a Chinese mouth organ), and cello. The quintet date with Noah Howard on alto sax, Joe McPhee on tenor sax, Sonelius Smith, on piano and Warren Smith on drums unite Kali Fasteau with highly evolved improvisations that approach her artistic freedom with wide open sounds and impressive ranges. The use of her voice as an additional instrument on "Whispersong" provides an unusual layer of aural energy to her sax and sheng spontaneity while providing an uncommon perspective of this concept. "Ethiopia" shimmers with spirituality, nuance, and African rhythms, as if the music is playing her. Fasteau reaches an ambitious pinnacle on Comraderie and displays great chops throughout this set." - Paula Edelstein, AMG
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With LEE MIXASHAWN ROZIE / OKKYUNG LEE / NEWMAN TAYLOR BAKER / MARVIN “BUGALOO” SMITH / RON McBEE - Oneness (Flying Note 9009; USA) This is legendary multi-instrumental improviser and world traveler Kali Z(usaan formerly) Fasteau's 2003 release for the Flying Note label. Here Kali focuses on piano, soprano & alto saxes, nai reed flutes, mizmars, drums and voice and is joined by Lee Mixashawn Rozie on tenor sax, flute & djembe; Okkyung Lee on cello and Newman Baker, Marvin Smith & Ron McBee on drums, percussion & djembes as well. Since co-leading the Sea Ensemble (an ESP record) with her late partner Donald Rafael Garrett in the early seventies, Zusaan has continued to explore ethnic instruments from everywhere and improvise magic music with other gifted musicians from diverse backgrounds. On 'Oneness', Kali continues to work with Native American sax legend Mixashawn Rozie, three fine percussionists and our good friend & local cello wizard, Okkyung Lee. 'Oneness' was recorded live at four concerts in 2001 and captures Kali's consistently magical improv spirits. Each of the sixteen tracks range from duos to quartet segments. Kali switches between some six instruments and is convincing on each, from playing the Cecil-like free-flowing piano on "Beyond Words" to the other-world sonics pulled from inside the piano on "Grand Kanun". From the riveting double reed of the mizmar on "Elephants' Dance" to the lovely nai flutes on various pieces here. The spirited drumming of all four percussionists (Kali included) is splendid throughout and gives much of this a ritualistic and organic vibe of being in a (global) village somewhere on mother earth. Nice to hear the wonderful Okkyung Lee add her special spice added to the longest track here. Soothing and spiritual music for troubled times. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With 'KIDD' JORDAN / BOBBY FEW / SIRONE - Making Waves (Flying Note 9010; USA) Featuring Kidd Jordan on tenor sax, Bobby Few on piano, Sirone on bass and Kali Z. on soprano sax, synth, cello, voice, mizmar and drums. Making Waves consists of a series of mostly duets and a couple of quartets with our favorite cosmic queen of space-age, spiritual improv. Kali Z. has been around the world many times since her career in the sixties began, playing with some of the heaviest avant-jazz musicians known. She was once married to and explored the further realms with the legendary Coltrane collaborator Donald Rafael Garrett, so that wonderful free-flowing spirit consistently burns through her powerful playing, no matter which instrument she uses. On Making Waves she matches wits with three other strong musicians: Kidd Jordan on tenor sax, Bobby Few on piano and Sirone on bass. The quartet pieces are especially amazing, a little less synth might make this gem a bit more incredible for the synth snobs amongst us. Still, this is pretty cosmic music for times that could really use this spirit of exploration. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU / 'KIDD' JORDAN / MICHAEL T A THOMPSON - People Of The Ninth: New Orleans And The Hurricane 2005 (Flying Note 9011; USA) Subtitled: "New Orleans and the Hurricane 2005". Featuring Kali Z. Fasteau on piano, cello, soprano sax, nai flute & aquasonic, Kidd Jordan on tenor sax and Michael Thompson on drums & balafon. This dynamic trio features elder statesman saxist and professor, Kidd Jordan from New Orleans and was recorded on September 25th, 2005, soon after the disastrous Hurricane Katrina. Kidd Jordan's family lived in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans for many years and this recording is an attempt to capture the sounds and emotions Kidd experienced during this extreme situation. "Levees, Lies & Lives" opens with the spiritual swirl of tenor, piano and drums, rising and falling in massive waves. On"Rising Winds" Kali's cello and Kidd's tenor are bathed in cosmic echoes, like ghosts embracing each other and chanting together. Kali's saxes and cello and Kidd's tenor are perfectly balanced throughout, blending together as one voice or one spirit. Michael Thompson's drums also provide the perfect counter-balance between the two wind instruments. "What Once Was" is a sublime duo for (nai) flute and balafon (African marimba), with Kali's haunting flute dancing on top of the great balafon groove. Kali plays aquasonic or waterphone on "Whale's Advice", which evokes the cries of the whale most righteously. "Rescue Denied" has Kidd's sax crying out in the distance as Kali scrapes the inside of the piano to great effect.. Each piece seems to evoke another spirit, setting the scene for the natural forces, as Mother Nature puts us to the test. This disc is one of the heaviest and most dynamic of all. Each sound, each voice, reaches out to touch us and does an immensely wonderful job. You can not do anything while this music/story unfolds. You can only be transfixed and swept away. Hallelujah is all one can answer. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU / 'KIDD' JORDAN With NEWMAN TAYLOR BAKER - Live At The Kerava Jazz Festival Finland (Flying Note 9012; USA) Featuring Kali Z. Fasteau on soprano sax, piano, flute, mizmar, nai, cello, synth, violin, drums & voice, "Kidd" Jordan on tenor sax and Newman Taylor Baker on drum set & talking drum. You just got to love the unstoppable, spiritual sorceress, Kali Fasteau, as she continues to ride those cosmic waves. This is Kali's 15th disc as a leader and she and her trusty trio with the hard-blowing Kidd Jordan (New Orleans' finest) and one of downtown's best drummers, Newman T. Baker. Kali plays a mizmar, some sort of strange double reed thing, on the first piece, which sounds perfect along with Kidd's burning tenor and Newman's free-flowing drums. Kali scrapes her piano-harp on "Trancendance," giving this piece a more eerie sound as Kidd plays with more restraint and suspense. When Zali begins playing the piano keyboard, she sounds like McCoy Tyner with Kidd playing in more Trane-like tone. Most spiritually uplifting and ending in a sea of calm waters. Kali plays some fine echoed nai flute on "Reed Trance Plant" in a strong duo with Newman on talking drums. Kali plays some strong out cello on "Received Wisdom" which works perfectly with Kidd Jordan's more laid-back tenor, their warm, wooden tones overlapping in a most sympathetic way. Kali's synth playing is stunning on "Sibelius Suite" which again sounds so fine with Kidd's sublime, touching tone and Newman's splendid mallet work. What is so wonderful about this disc is that it is just a trio that approaches each piece with care, craft and a spiritual vibe at the center. I do find this music to be completely transcendent. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD Sale $10
KALI Z. FASTEAU With LOUIS MOHOLO / BOBBY FEW / WAYNE DOCKERY / STEVE McCRAVEN - Animal Grace: Live In Harlem/Live In The Alps (Flying Note 9014; USA) Live in Harlem was recorded at Big Apple Jazzspace on a warm Sunday, June 17, 2007. The synchronicity of Kali's duets with the great South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo is amazing. The last time they had played together was in the 70s with Don Rafael Garrett and others in Amsterdam. This spontaneous music shines with abundant energy and momentum flowing freely from these 2 Piscean musicians. Louis' smooth and inventive play with time perfectly complements Kali's contouring sleek waves of sound. Here Kali Z. plays mizmar, piano harp & keys, nai flute, voice, violin and soprano sax. Live in the Alps was recorded at the Uncool Festival of Jazz, Improvised Planetary and Cosmo Music at La Prese, Switzerland in a lovely outdoor setting by a mountain lake, on May 6, 2005. This splendid concert displays the excellent talents of Kali's longtime collaborator, pianist Bobby Few, plus spirited drummer Steve McCraven and bassist Wayne Dockery, both mainstays of Archie Shepp's Europe-based bands. Here Kali. Z. plays soprano sax, nai flute, voice, & drum set. "This magical, mystical disc features music from two different sets featuring the wonderful Kali Z. Fasteau on mizmar, piano, soprano sax, nai flute, violin, sanza, voice & drums. The first half is a duo with South African legendary drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo recorded live in Harlem. The second half was recorded at the Uncool Festival in the Swiss Alps with another legend - Bobby Few on piano, Wayne Dockery on bass and Steve McCraven on drum set. Drum master Louis Moholo finally returned to South Africa after more than forty years to reunite with family and friends, hence his double name since taking over his family. He comes to the US on rare occasion, just a few times over the past decade. Ms. Fasteau was able to get Mr. Moholo for one night in June of 2007 the same week he played at the Vision Fest. The mizmar is an Egyptian double reed instrument and the opening duo features mizmar & drums. The vibe & sound is exotic and compelling with Kali bending those notes inside-out and Louis outlining the rhythms in his own unique way. Although the sound is a bit ragged, the spirit is deep and immensely moving. Each duo piece features Kali on a different instrument and each one is special in its own way. I am reminded of those great loft gigs from the mid-seventies when almost anything could and did happen, the spirit that takes us along for a ride was always there. Kali plays nai, a wooden flute with some echoplex employed while Louis plays with brushes. The dialogue is stunning, as the notes swirl around one another in an endless cosmic stream. Kali's strange vocals and cerebral violin add an otherworldly charm the is a most hypnotic piece, while she saves the best for last by playing her soprano sax in the final piece with Louis. Louis Moholo-Moholo is in incredible form throughout this set, just listening to his distinctive drumming is a treasure hearing again & again. The quartet with Bobby Few, Wayne Dockery & Steve McCraven is equally magical, spiritual and even better recorded. Kali and Bobby work together so well with waves of notes flowing one over the other. The quartet has that later Coltrane quartet-like sound, freely flowing together in warm spirals. Whereas I remember Wayne Dockery's name from dates he did on the seventies with Art Blakey & Hal Galper, Steve McCraven's name sounds somewhat more obscure. Still all four members play as if they've been working together for a long time. Kali plays some superb nai flute on "Airstreams" and sublime sanza (thumb piano) on "Melting Ice". The double drums & bowed bass on "Jumping on the Drums" is especially strong while the final piece with Kali again on soprano is a righteous way to bring this devastating event to a dramatic close. Completely cosmic from start to finish!" - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
CD Sale $10
BACK IN STOCK:
MACHINE GUN with ROBERT MUSSO / THOMAS CHAPIN / JOHN RICHEY / JAIR-ROHM PARKER WELLS / BIL BRYANT plus SONNY SHARROCK / KARL BERGER - Machine Gun (MuWorks 1001; USA) Live at Court Tavern and CBGBs, 1986. Taking their name from the classic '60s European Free Music album by Peter Brotzmann, this band with stellar players Robert Musso, the late Thomas Chapin, Bil Bryant, Jair-Rohm Parker Wells, John Richey with special guests Sonny Sharrock and Karl Berger put on an over the top meeting of rock, jazz and noise. For fans of Last Exit and all outrageous improv, all recorded at live shows!
CD Sale $10 // LP $6
THOMAS CHAPIN & BORAH BERGMAN - Inversions (MuWorks 1009; USA) Featuring Thomas Chapin on alto sax & Borah Bergman on piano. So, sometime in the late 80's, Borah Bergman, who I had become friends with, asked me to recommend some "intense" sax players for him to collaborate with. Players who could go the distance with Borah's powerful piano playing. I suggested Louie Belogenis, Elliott Levin and my pal, Thomas Chapin. Borah did in fact rehearse and play live with Louie & Thomas. Thomas Chapin and Borah Bergman went to record two discs as a duo, this the first one and it is a mind-blowing studio effort and later, near the end of Thomas' short life, they also recorded a much different live disc. There are a great deal of fireworks on this disc. It is one of the most intense duo efforts I’ve ever heard! - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
CD Sale $10
JAMES MARTIN / LYNN RALEY - Wide as Heaven: A Century of Song by Black American Composers (New World Records 80845CD; USA) "This collection of songs represents one hundred years of music produced by American composers and poets of color -- the best of us. Some identify(ied) as Negro, some African-American, some Black, some men, some women, and some insisted they were beyond classification, adamant that their work speak for itself. Unfortunately, too many of these voices have been stifled from inclusion in our American story thus far. But the time is right, and the fruit is ripe for the picking. The harvest has come in, and the first fruits of the fields yield a bounty of beauty so remarkable that silence is no longer an option. In fact, it is annihilated. Where once the famed halls of old lived on solely in black and white, they are now alive and brimming in technicolor, vividly representative of truth and creative vision -- Heaven. The songs collected here are a mere sampling of the finest of those neglected voices. Most are from our published archives. Some have been recorded from transcriptions of sound recordings. Are they 'art' songs? Are they popular songs? Is it jazz, Bebop, or blues? Is it 'classical' music? It is music, in all cases. Music to be enjoyed and reflected upon. Performed with integrity and informed enthusiasm by all who would approach it. Resist the urge to classify and segregate. Enjoy the creativity and savor the sounds of words and music dancing together as one in each singular work of art." - James Martin
CD $15
GEEZER/ISAAK - Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes (Heavy Psych Sounds 306CD; Italy) Geezer: "As the 'Interstellar Cosmic Blues' half of this EP, we consider these songs to be some of the best that we've produced. Songs that could all be 'singles' all on their own. And they better be because 'The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes' brought some savage riffage of their own! Put it all together with amazing artwork by Mirkow Gastow and release it on Heavy Psych Sounds, the BEST record label on the planet, and you've got all the makings of a great record! A modern classic right out of the box. Dig it!"
Isaak: "Art comes from change and experimentation. These three songs are exactly that. Three songs, three different souls. This recording session is born from the collaboration of some friends invited by the band, and these are: Fabio Cuomo from Gotho & Liquido di Morte, Fabio Palombi from Nerve & Burn the Ocean, and last but not the least, Levre from Ufomammut."
CD $16
OLIVIER CONG - Tropical Church (Someone Good RMSG027CD; Australia) With Tropical Church, Hong Kong based composer and musician Olivier Cong transposes the humid nights of the rainy season into a fluid audio postcard that speaks to contemporary life in his home city-state. His pieces dwell with a sense of intent, shifting between the sprawling cascades of human traffic, to the moments experienced alone in environments that maintain a strange familiar. Known for his work on film and theatre, Cong's approach is one of generous texture and minimalist forms, each of these contoured by a strong and deeply personal sense of harmony. Tropical Church is a recording that speaks to the emergent generation of new Hong Kong composers and sound artists. It is a gateway to a new audio vision of Hong Kong.
A note from Olivier: "In Tropical Church, you will experience music composed of piano, ambient electronics, shakuhachi, Chinese yuan, guzheng and spoken words, which I think represent my feelings for home -- Hong Kong. And to me, home is an old church that harbors a myriad of unspoken emotions, flowing from the West to East. Complex history hidden within the dampen pillars, the sounds of the city and the foot-steps of the everyday people that liven up the streets. Most notably in the first track, 'I am afraid of', voice recordings of anonymous strangers were collected describing their deepest fears. I'm most touched by the answers as they've shown me the same fears of death, love and being alone we all share."
CD $18
FREDERIC D. OBERLAND / GREGORY DARGENT / TONY ELIEH / WASSIM HALAL - SIHR (Sub Rosa 568CD; Belgium) After a few concerts/screenings improvised as a duo in Cairo and Beirut, as well as for the Rencontres d'Arles, the Lille photography center and the Belgian magazine Halogénure, Dargent and Oberland have teamed up with mavericks Elieh and Halal for a puzzling cross-border manifesto. The first sonic moves of this eclectic quartet, made in a bunker studio somewhere between Paris and Berlin, urgently took the form of a quest, that of a neo-folklore for troubled times, a music seeping with many kinds of atavism and experimenting in all directions. A fertile no-man's-land where trance and contemplation, jazz and electronica, acoustics and electricity would merge in a stimulating mystical magma. From the possible emergence of a Babelian language to the shared desire to rediscover music as a ceremonial act, this encounter took place over three days of improvised sound bacchanalia, the phases of which were all recorded by Benoit Bel (Zombie Zombie, Thurston Moore Group, Oiseaux-Tempête). A hallucinated and generous testimony, SIHR is a synergy of many different worlds and many different possibilities, the sonic vision of a present conjugated in a hybrid tense and exalted by too many tangos danced. Multi-instrumentalist and photographer, Frédéric D. Oberland has been leading the Oiseaux-Tempête collective for over ten years, lying somewhere between avant-rock and free jazz, repetitive music and electronics. Founding member of the bands FOUDRE! and Le Réveil des Tropiques, he's also performing solo and composing soundtracks for cinema and installation art. Electric guitarist, oud player, composer and photographer, Grégory Dargent cultivates his musical schizophrenia and identity through improvised music, trance music, jazz, hijacked maqam, repetitive music, pop, electro-acoustic installations and French chanson. Tony Elieh is one of the pioneers of experimental music in Lebanon. A founding member of the first post-rock group of post-war Lebanon, The Scrambled Eggs, he has since developed his unique electric bass skills in various groups and styles of music including collaborating with in groups such as Karkhana, Calamita, and Wormholes Electric. Darbuka player Wassim Halal can be found with Polyphème playing and co-composing popular-contemporary music with Gamelan Puspawarna, or next to the French bagpiper Erwan Keravec, with performers and drawers Benjamin Efrati and Diego Verastegui, with Gregory Dargent and Anil Eraslan in H, or composing pieces for ensembles.
CD $17
LP SECTION:
MILES DAVIS QUINTET with WAYNE SHORTER / HERBIE HANCOCK / RON CARTER / TONY WILLIAMS - Stadthalle, Sindelfingen, Germany October 8, 1964 (WHP 1478LP; Italy) Miles Davis' historical second quintet with Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums). A perfect coalition of young, creative individuals under Miles' direction. A turning point in the whole history of American jazz. Recorded live in Germany in October 1964, this double album features hyper-adventurous renditions of classic tunes including Davis originals like "All Blues," "Milestones," and "Walking," as well as standards like Rollins' "Oleo" and Cole Porter's "All of You." A highly recommended document from one of the key groups in modern jazz.
2 LP Set $33
ANNETTE PEACOCK & PAUL BLEY with HAN BENNINK / MARIO PAVONE / LAURENCE COOK - Dual Unity (Cosmic Jazz 002LP; Italy) Here's the reissue of Annette Peacock and Paul Bley's Dual Unity album, originally released in 1972 on Freedom Records. Hailed as a pioneer and artistic genius by many, this album captures Peacock in her element alongside husband, Canadian jazz genius Paul Bley. Dual Unity is a landscape of aural vision captured on tape in 1970, during their first European tour. For 33 minutes and 21 seconds, the listener is absorbed by other spirits. Using Robert Moog's earliest synthesizers, Bley and Peacock apply the strategic use of silence to indicate its reflective nature with captivating results. A statement of immensity through synthetic minimalism and a milestone in the avant-garde, free jazz movement. Guest musicians include Han Bennink (drums) on "M.J." and "Gargantuan Encounter," Mario Pavone (bass) and Laurence Cook (drums) on "Richter Scale" and "Dual Unity."
LP $25
HANS KOLLER QUARTET with FRITZ PAUER / HANS RETTENBACHER / VICTOR PLASIL - Multiple Koller (L R Records 710719; Germany) 140gram vinyl with MP3 download included. Masterpiece from one of Austria's most famous jazz musicians! After the break-up of the Hans Koller/Oscar Pettiford group in 1959, Koller played with very few exceptions as a freelance musician with more or less good rhythm sections. During this time, he thought about new ideas of presenting his music, being very much under the influence of his second career as a painter. The result was a music very much of his own, very modern in style and without any parallel to anything that was happening in jazz then. Even today, this music sounds surprisingly up-to-date and unique. However, that these recordings sound more unique than any other collective improvisations with other musicians demonstrates a total identification of Hans Koller, the soloist, with Hans Koller, the composer.
LP $25
EMIL MANGELSDORFF with VOLKER KRIEGEL / JOKI FREUND / GUSTI MAYER / FRITZ HARTSCHUH / GUNTER LENZ / RAFI LUDERITZ - Swinging Oildrops! (L R Records 710818LP; Germany) 140gram vinyl with MP3 download included, plus printed inner-sleeves. "These days, where a young generation worldwide discovers good swinging jazz again, where Dexter Gordon returned after so many years in exile like a triumphator to New York and 'young swinging Scott Hamilton' becomes something like a 'super-star,' it is hard to believe that this album was recorded 13 years ago -- hard to believe by both artistic and technical standard. At this time, in the year of 1966, Beatlemania reached its peak and the beat and/ or rock wave ruled the world of music. Nevertheless, Emil Mangelsdorff and his friends went into the studio to produce good swinging music with the idea that any good solid jazz playing is still superior to the best rock albums available then. To dream up an idea, that young listeners would hear the album occasionally, we even went up as far to give it a name similar to that of rock groups, a fantasy name: Swinging Oil Drops. The masquerade didn't help much but the music was and is superb." --Horst Lippmann, 1979
LP $25
OUDI HRANT - Turkish Delight (Clear Vinyl)(Sowing Records 051LP; Italy) Blind musician Hrant Kenkulian (1901-1978), generally known as Oudi Hrant was a master of the oud (fretless lute) who was probably best known for his taksims. He was an Armenian born in Adapazar, a city close to Istanbul which had a large Armenian population before the Genocide of 1915. After WWI, Hrant's family settled in Istanbul. Hrant started out singing in the church choir, but soon moved on to the oud. He made his career in Istanbul, but he toured the US in 1950, and did a world tour in 1963 to Paris, Beirut, Greece, America, and Yerevan, Soviet Armenia. He was a teacher of many Armenian-American oudists including Richard Hagopian. He was the pride of the Armenian people, and many consider him to be the most soulful oudist ever to emerge from Turkey. Released in 1964 on jazz label Prestige, this record shows the stunning classical inspiration of the musician.
LP $25
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ATTENTION ALL CREATIVE MUSICIANS OUT THERE, Around the world.
If you have a link for some music that you are working on and want to share it with the folks who read the DMG Newsletter, please send the link to DMG at DMG@Downtownmusicgallery.com
THE STONE RESIDENCIES / MATANA ROBERTS / JULY 31-AUG 3
7/31 Wednesday
8:30 pm - TRIO: Matana Roberts (saxophone) Adi Myerson (bass) Rahul Nair (drums)
8/1 Thursday
8:30 pm - TRIO - Matana Roberts (saxophone) Fay Victor (voice) Rebekah Heller (bassoon)
8/2 Friday
8:30 pm - TRIO - Matana Roberts (saxophone) Pauline Roberts (vibraphone) Brandon Lopez (bass)
8/3 Saturday
8:30 pm - TRIO - Matana Roberts (saxophone) Tomas Fujiwara (drums) and a special guest
THE STONE RESIDENCIES / BRANDON ROSS / AUG 7-10
8/7 Wednesday
8:30 pm - FOR LIVING LOVERS PLUS - Brandon Ross (guitars, banjo, voice) Stomu Takeishi (acoustic bass guitar) Craig Weinrib (drums)
8/8 Thursday
8:30 pm - YET ANOTHER PLANE - Brandon Ross (guitars, banjo) Tomeka Reid (cello) Steph Richards (trumpets) Hardedge (soundesign)
8/9 Friday
8:30 pm - PHANTOM STATION - Brandon Ross (electric guitar, soprano guitar) Mauro Refosco (percussion, electronics) Hardedge (soundesign) Charlie Burnham (violin) Kevin Ross (bass guitar)
8/10 Saturday
8:30 pm - BREATH OF AIR - Brandon Ross (electric guitar) Charlie Burnham (violin) Warren Benbow (drums)
THE STONE is located in
The New School at the Glass Box Theatre
55 West 13th Street - near 6th ave
LIVE MUSIC
wed-sat - music at 8:30pm
ADMISSION - $20 per set
unless otherwise noted
cash only payment
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This comes from a friend and STEVE LACY Italian fan, Mauro Stocco:
www.stevelacymemorialscrapbook.org is a recent tribute portal dedicated to Steve Lacy, the great soprano sax genius who passed away twenty years ago, on June 4th, 2004. The website currently features contributions by Alvin Curran, Roberto Ottaviano, Gianni Mimmo, Zlatko Kaučič, Andrea Centazzo, Tino Tracanna, Vincent Lainè, Jason Weiss, and others will follow over time.
After having dedicated many years to collecting records, books and magazines about Steve, having met him several times and organized gigs for him in solo, trio, sextet and with Musica Elettronica Viva, I decided it was the time to create a simple, but heartfelt, tribute.
Steve Lacy was a genius of our time, a sort of Leonardo Da Vinci, capable of interacting with Dixieland, Monk, Ellington, free, Indian music, MEV, Giuseppe Chiari, dance, painting, sculpture, cinema, poetry, Living Theatre, philosophy, Tao, codifying the role of the modern soprano saxophone.
Anyone who feels they have a contribution to make to the site can contact the e-mail address listed.
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NEW VIDEOS from GUITAR MASTER HENRY KAISER:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWJ20KEHAdQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuKk7GFtGls
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CHRIS CUTLER
Formerly of HENRY COW, THE ART BEARS, NEWS FOR BABEL & RECOMMENDED RECORDS (ReR) has been creating an ongoing series of podcasts called the Probes series. I am often fascinated at listening to each of these as Mr. Cutler does an incredible job of showing a deep history of Creative Music in the 20th century & beyond. I usually listen to these on the train to NYC that I take to get to work each day. The most recent Probes (#37) was released earlier this year, here are the links:
https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/probes-37
https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/probes-36
https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/probes-362-auxiliaries
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ATTENTION TO ALL DMG CUSTOMERS: NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: downtownmusicgalleryofficial@gmail.com
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