The world of jazz is mourning the death of Carla Bley. On Tuesday, Bley’s longtime partner and musical collaborator Steve Swallow announced that the jazz musician died at the age of 87 due to complications with brain cancer.
Bley was diagnosed with brain cancer back in 2018. “Sometimes I don’t know the answer to a question, so I think they must have taken something out by mistake, because ever since the operation I no longer have perfect pitch,” she said at the time, per The Guardian.
Bley was born Lovella May Borg in Oakland,...
Bley was diagnosed with brain cancer back in 2018. “Sometimes I don’t know the answer to a question, so I think they must have taken something out by mistake, because ever since the operation I no longer have perfect pitch,” she said at the time, per The Guardian.
Bley was born Lovella May Borg in Oakland,...
- 10/18/2023
- by Tomás Mier
- Rollingstone.com
In September of 2008, an unusual performance took place at downtown New York club Le Poisson Rouge. At stage right, opposite fellow six-string adventurer Marc Ribot, sat Lou Reed, conjuring clouds of free-rock energy from his guitar. Behind them, avant-garde mainstay John Zorn sent forth piercing, impassioned blasts of alto sax. And at the center of it all, churning with the fury of a whirlpool and dancing across his hand-painted drum kit with the control and flair of a flamenco master, was Milford Graves — the percussionist, healer, and interdisciplinary seeker who...
- 2/13/2021
- by Hank Shteamer
- Rollingstone.com
Music documentaries usually fall into a few limited categories, including glowing hagiographies, concert films and rise-and-fall tragedies. These categories persist, at least in part, because they provide foolproof audience-friendly templates for filmmakers to follow. Milford Graves Full Mantis goes down a completely different path and the results are magnificent. Milford Graves is a famed jazz drummer and percussionist who has performed with the likes of Albert Ayler and Paul Bley. Although Graves is justfiably regarded for his drumming, music is a single element of a personal philosophy that synthesizes art, physiology, alternative medicine and martial arts. Co-directors Jake Meginsky, who has studied under Graves for 15 years, and Neil Young eschew standard tools and techniques (e.g., linear biographical timelines, detached narration, multiple talking heads) to...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 3/15/2018
- Screen Anarchy
The death of the visionary pianist/ improviser Paul Bley leaves a big hole in the jazz universe. Bley, a fearless improviser with grace, bite, humor, and knowledge, will be remembered for the ability to empty his self of all preconceptions and impediments before sitting down at the instrument, and for the ability to take his own specific approach and language and to morph it into something that works with whatever the environment and/or musicians that are in the ambient -- and for the ability to sit at any piano [and they all have different personalities] and except for being extremely stylized, he could pull out the personality of that particular piano while still sounding like himself.
Paul, though studied, was completely naturalistic and organic in his musical conception. He had a mindset that was always in the moment, and if so-called history ever came through in his playing, it was more a function of the...
Paul, though studied, was completely naturalistic and organic in his musical conception. He had a mindset that was always in the moment, and if so-called history ever came through in his playing, it was more a function of the...
- 1/6/2016
- by Matthew Shipp
- www.culturecatch.com
The Uppercut:Matthew Shipp Mat Walerian Duo Live at Okuden (Esp-Disk')
In recent years, some of the most interesting and evocative jazz albums -- including Anouar Brahem's The Astounding Eyes of Rita and the Wolfert Brederode Quartet's Post Scriptum -- have featured someone playing the bass clarinet slowly and carefully in a way that recalls some of the most interesting and evocative jazz albums of all time, Fusion and Thesis by the Jimmy Giuffre 3 (later collected as 1961). Which may explain why, despite featuring the nimble, expressive, and yes interesting and evocative fingers of pianist Matthew Shipp, Live at Okuden really gets its mood, and thus its mojo, from the bass clarinet, alto sax, soprano clarinet, and flute playing of Mat Walerian.
Recorded live on May 15, 2012 during the Okuden Music Concert Series in Torun, Poland -- a gathering founded and curated by Walerian -- Live at Okuden is a moody masterpiece...
In recent years, some of the most interesting and evocative jazz albums -- including Anouar Brahem's The Astounding Eyes of Rita and the Wolfert Brederode Quartet's Post Scriptum -- have featured someone playing the bass clarinet slowly and carefully in a way that recalls some of the most interesting and evocative jazz albums of all time, Fusion and Thesis by the Jimmy Giuffre 3 (later collected as 1961). Which may explain why, despite featuring the nimble, expressive, and yes interesting and evocative fingers of pianist Matthew Shipp, Live at Okuden really gets its mood, and thus its mojo, from the bass clarinet, alto sax, soprano clarinet, and flute playing of Mat Walerian.
Recorded live on May 15, 2012 during the Okuden Music Concert Series in Torun, Poland -- a gathering founded and curated by Walerian -- Live at Okuden is a moody masterpiece...
- 4/28/2015
- by Paul Semel
- www.culturecatch.com
I have already discussed seven new releases and one compilation in my article on the Jazz Artist of the Year, Matthew Shipp. Here are my other favorite new albums from the jazz world in 2013. Most surprising for me is the number of vocal albums, because I'm very particular about jazz singers and dislike most of them. So coming from me, the praise for the jazz singers listed here is really saying something.
1. Andy Bey: The World According to Andy Bey (High Note)
Andy Bey is my favorite living jazz singer, and he's not recorded nearly as often as his talents deserve. Now 74 years old, he has only recorded 11 albums in the course of a 50-year career (one a concert album I've never actually seen). In comparison, Kurt Elling, 46 and active for 18 years, has already made 10. It had been six years since Bey's previous album, and he's been living HIV-positive since 1994, so I was worried.
1. Andy Bey: The World According to Andy Bey (High Note)
Andy Bey is my favorite living jazz singer, and he's not recorded nearly as often as his talents deserve. Now 74 years old, he has only recorded 11 albums in the course of a 50-year career (one a concert album I've never actually seen). In comparison, Kurt Elling, 46 and active for 18 years, has already made 10. It had been six years since Bey's previous album, and he's been living HIV-positive since 1994, so I was worried.
- 1/15/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Leo Records was founded in 1979 by Leo Feigin, a Russian who had emigrated to England. Early in its history, back before the glasnost era, it was most noted for releasing avant-garde Russian jazz at a time when government authorities discouraged the style. As Alexander Alexandrov of Moscow Composers Orchestra says, "What the authorities really hated was free jazz and improvised music – for the reason we loved it, because it was a powerful symbol of individual freedom." Although somehow the Ganelin Trio's first album came out on the official Soviet record label, Melodiya, it was the group's many albums on Leo that earned both the band and Leo world-wide reputations.
Eventually Leo expanded enough that it even had offshoots: Leo Lab for new artists, Golden Years of New Jazz for vintage material. Especially notable from the latter are four superb four-cd sets comprising a series entitled Golden Years of the Soviet...
Eventually Leo expanded enough that it even had offshoots: Leo Lab for new artists, Golden Years of New Jazz for vintage material. Especially notable from the latter are four superb four-cd sets comprising a series entitled Golden Years of the Soviet...
- 1/19/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
This is the point at which I'm supposed to ponder the immediate present and near future of jazz and improvised music. Not gonna do it. No matter how dire the straits of the music industry, changing distribution and presentation, etc., this music will continue to be made because it has to be made, and artists feel compelled to keep it going despite travails. It's all about the music and its amazing power for catharsis, its ability to lift us and inspire us. So without further ado, here's what inspired me most in 2011.
1. Richie Beirach: Impressions of Tokyo (Outnote)
I was going to call this a comeback, but Beirach (above) hasn't exactly been gone, certainly not as far as recordings are concerned -- he's had 18 released under his name in the past 11 years, plus collaborations (one of those appears further down this list). I guess I think of it as a...
1. Richie Beirach: Impressions of Tokyo (Outnote)
I was going to call this a comeback, but Beirach (above) hasn't exactly been gone, certainly not as far as recordings are concerned -- he's had 18 released under his name in the past 11 years, plus collaborations (one of those appears further down this list). I guess I think of it as a...
- 12/31/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Paul Motian passed away at age 80 yesterday after complications from the bone-marrow disorder myelodisplastic syndrome. In a career that exceeded five decades, Motian was one of the most respected drummers in jazz history as well as a superb composer and adept bandleader. Critic Art Lange called him "that rare commodity, an intimate drummer." And here's a bit of trivia: Motian played at Woodstock, in Arlo Guthrie's band.
Even music lovers largely unfamiliar with jazz have heard his work with pianist Bill Evans, whose trio Motian played in from 1959 to 1964. Other piano greats who availed themselves of Motian's subtly swinging sense of rhythm included Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Carla Bley, Lennie Tristano, Mose Allison, Martial Solal, Enrico Pieranunzi, and Marilyn Crispell.
On his own records (perhaps to avoid comparisons?) he favored guitarists instead, most notably Bill Frisell. After graduating from their '80s apprenticeships in Motian's trio and quintet,...
Even music lovers largely unfamiliar with jazz have heard his work with pianist Bill Evans, whose trio Motian played in from 1959 to 1964. Other piano greats who availed themselves of Motian's subtly swinging sense of rhythm included Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Carla Bley, Lennie Tristano, Mose Allison, Martial Solal, Enrico Pieranunzi, and Marilyn Crispell.
On his own records (perhaps to avoid comparisons?) he favored guitarists instead, most notably Bill Frisell. After graduating from their '80s apprenticeships in Motian's trio and quintet,...
- 11/23/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
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