The Celestial Septet combines two institutions of California’s experimental and improvised music, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet and guitarist Nels Cline’s instrumental trio with bass and drums, ironically named the Nels Cline Singers. This music is rooted in the free-jazz revolution of the mid-1960s, the ROVA saxophones liberated by the driving presence of the Cline rhythmContinue reading “ROVA Saxophone Quartet & Nels Cline Singers. The Celestial Septet.”
Genre Archives
Kyle Brenders. WAYS.
Saxophonist-composer Kyle Brenders has assembled a sextet from among Toronto’s community of improvising musicians to perform an extended composition called Ways. Five segments of the work are heard here (Sections 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8) so the recording explicitly resists the notion of definitive performance, as does the music itself. While each segment, accordingContinue reading “Kyle Brenders. WAYS.”
Summer 2010
Diane C. Fujino, Editor. Wicked Theory, Naked Practice: A Fred Ho Reader.
Composer, bandleader and baritone saxophonist; theorist; revolutionary socialist, and Black-Asian-American, Fred Ho writes essays that are as uncompromising and defiant as his compositions. This wide-ranging collection elucidates the evolution of his philosophy from 1984 to 2006, while tracing his development “From Banana to Third World Marxist”—as he terms it. Although his essays on the twistsContinue reading “Diane C. Fujino, Editor. Wicked Theory, Naked Practice: A Fred Ho Reader.”
Robert Adlington, editor. Sound Commitments: Avant-Garde Music and the Sixties.
“If you remember the ’60s, it means you weren’t there” is a cliché with a kernel of truth in it—especially the insistence that rock sounds then subsumed other music. Yet the ’60s also saw mass acceptance of new and electronic music, while jazz’s most radical sounds divorced it from its role as entertainment. Sound CommitmentsContinue reading “Robert Adlington, editor. Sound Commitments: Avant-Garde Music and the Sixties.”
Saint Dirt Elementary School. Ice Cream Man Dreams.
This newest effort from St. Dirt offers the most vivid image of this Toronto-based “junkyard jazz” combo. Whereas their two previous discs offered a rawer live feel and catchier tunes, the overall sophistication and nuance of Ice Cream Man Dreams showcases both the compositional prowess of lap-steel-wielding leader Myk Freedman and the adept musicianship ofContinue reading “Saint Dirt Elementary School. Ice Cream Man Dreams.”
Quatuor Qwat Reum Six. Live at Festival NPAI 2007.
With textures and timbres often as inscrutable as the band’s name, four of France’s most accomplished improvisers explore non-idiomatic sounds. This continuous, though segmented, performance is not only tonally mesmerizing, it also negates, through the use of extensions and techniques, the differences between acoustic and electronic instruments. A self-described “outlaw in jazz,” baritone saxophonist DaunikContinue reading “Quatuor Qwat Reum Six. Live at Festival NPAI 2007.”
Marteau Rouge and Evan Parker. Live.
Devoting more than forty years to the painstaking development of an individual style doesn’t mean that British tenor saxophonist Evan Parker eschews new challenges and collaborations. Live is notable, however, because Parker manages, without altering his distinctive reed patterns, to seamlessly match his contributions to those of the Paris-based trio Marteau Rouge. And Parker doesContinue reading “Marteau Rouge and Evan Parker. Live.”
Fast ’n’ Bulbous. Waxed Oop.
Few artists have ever merged and transformed genres with the raw energy and freedom of Don Van Vliet, who under the alter ego of Captain Beefheart (and his Magic Band) merged Chicago blues, backbeats, free-jazz reeds, and lyrics that mingled science fiction, news stories, memoir, surreal folk humour, and free association. Fast ’n’ Bulbous isContinue reading “Fast ’n’ Bulbous. Waxed Oop.”
