Whit Dickey - Morph (ESP-Disk’ Records, 2020) ****½

By Olle Lawson

Whit Dickey – Drums
Matthew Shipp – Piano
Nate Wooley – Trumpet.

Masterful free-drummer Whit Dickey appears to in the middle of a purple patch.

It’s not like he’s been short of work over the last few years (check out his tenure with Ivo Perelman, alone, for visceral evidence of that) but since 2016’s tremendous Vessel In Orbit project it appears a switch has been thrown.

His trio with Rob Brown and Brandon Lopez (on Dickey’s new label Tao Forms) dropped just weeks ago and this release on ESP-Disk’ – released with minimal fanfare – is the second double album within a year.

Working here, first in duo then trio, we have the opportunity to really hear the distillation of an evolving art form reaching a heightened level of self-awareness. There have been rumours of repeated returns to the studio to achieve this, but it is clear that this was in no way due to lackluster performance or lack of focus – but in hearing a deeply personal, spiritual inner-sound and attaining its manifestation to be captured on record.

Dickey and Matt Shipp have a near 30 year history between them, going right back to the David S. Ware Quartet and to my knowledge this is the first time we get to hear them at length, on record as a duo. There is a formal perfection here. Before one even presses play, we know the level of experience brought to this stripped-back project. What I hadn’t anticipated was the depth of subtlety and vast openness created here. From elliptical semi-song form to free abstractions that sound as though they are painted in mist, this is an album that requires meditative listening to be really heard.

Blue Threads opens events with deceptive accessibility and surprises with its quiet joyful dance, full of revolving circular movement; a pastoral dance of sorts.

Reckoning takes us into moodier, sparser territory, plucked piano innards creating chambers of space filled with suspended notes as Dickey propels the sound with bass drum and intricate ride cymbal.

Dice which carries the same name as a Right Hemisphere tune – and may in fact be a distant cousin – has Shipp playing high-end spider steps on the keys, as Dickey rolls an oblique swing.

Thick is the first disc’s heaviest piece, with Shipp appearing to lead the charge of huge weighty chords, really drawing out the intensity of this concentrated set up. At one point we even get to hear piano and drums hit in time, actually hammering together on the beat.

The heart of the album goes to Helix, the longest piece. Opening into a melody of mournful simplicity, Whit shuffles and props amongst the plaintive piano before subtly shifting the underlying mosaic – the tonal placement and intermeshing here is extraordinary. Even at its most stripped back and concise, this masterly duo demonstrates how this music permeates and fills every part – in every direction – of one’s consciousness and intellect, simultaneously. Not out of synch, but out of time: where is that time-space? Because it is a place – that we are transported to. This is Freemusic at its most subtle and refined.

The wonderfully titled Steps winds up with a piano bass-line of a kind. A collection of ascending notes build and subside, differing in form and intensity before revealing a deserted beach of stacked-stone towers.

The title-track Morph feature’s Dickey’s signature floating high-hat, displacing time – suspending movement, holding it in an idiosyncratic holding space – that draws in, stealthily evolving, whilst transporting the listener.

Closing this first disc is Firmament, a slow build replete with type writer rhythm and a dark, bluesy low end piano.

On the second disk the duo becomes trio as they are augmented by Pacific Northwest-born trumpeter Nate Wooley, which utterly changes the dynamic. Morph’s second chapter is capped by a connected suite: Noir (1-4). Alternately tempestuous, turbulent, sparsely atmospheric, urban and yes, noirish.

Wooley has an impressive array of extended technique: spitting split tones, vocalisations, scratched alien noises and drone that colour and shade every piece here in unexpected directions; Take The Wild Train is particularly nodal and expressive. At other moments the trio shift into more narrative led sounds and things grow hugely filmic in their evocation of space and event (To Planet Earth).

For me the key piece here is Space Trance. Extremes of light/dark, peace and intensity, all conducted – stoked and tempered – from the drums, providing the perfect example of Whit Dickey’s art, circa 2020.

Morph is a significant statement, with two albums worth of diverse material to delve into, ranging from diaphanous detailed sound spaces to darkly epic monuments, providing hours of listening. Intrigued to know where he’ll explore next.

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Whit Dickey/The Tao Quartets - Box of Light & Peace Planet (AUM Fidelity, 2019) ****1⁄2

By Lee Rice Epstein

Drummer and master improviser Whit Dickey has spent the past three decades working in various settings with Matthew Shipp, Ivo Perelman, David S. Ware, Mat Maneri, Rob Brown, Michael Bisio, Steve Swell, and William Parker. And for several years in the early 2000s, Dickey led a brilliant pianoless quartet with Brown, Joe Morris, and the late Roy Campbell, Jr. on trumpet. We’ve long been supporters and fans of Dickey’s art, covering dozens of albums and live performances . After a lengthy break from the role of bandleader and composer, Dickey returned with 2017’s Vessel In Orbit, an outstanding trio date with Maneri and Shipp . On this double album from AUM Fidelity, Dickey convenes two new quartets for some of the most ecstatic music of his long career.

Both sets are credited to what Dickey calls his Tao Quartets, a nod to the universalism at the heart of this music. There has always been a strong, spiritual center to his music. Now, nearly a decade after his previous albums, with an audible gap in the world of free improvisation left by Ware and Campbell’s ascensions, it’s clear just how vital a presence Dickey’s compositional voice is, when he takes on the role of bandleader. Much like Perelman and Shipp, with whom he’s never stopped collaborating, Dickey’s leadership is somewhat suggestive: each song has an overall shape and general destination, but the six performers collectively guide the music. The themes of lightness, darkness, inaction, growth, ascendance, and potential, all swirl around an almost mystical center, made tangible by the threads connecting the players to one another. The result is something close to a spiritual free jazz session.

A warm heartbeat in both quartets is the shared presence of Brown, one of the great free improvising alto saxophonists. Where players often adopt a particular style, Brown (much like Dickey) has developed a voice that seems more grounded in an overall aesthetic interpretation, as opposed to something signified by motifs or certain tonal ranges. Over the past couple of decades, I’ve come to think of Shipp in a similar fashion. And on the first set, Peace Planet, Brown and Shipp often play in a unified timbral space, giving the impression of composed unison lines. Dickey and Parker’s rhythms produce an esoteric space, where time floats apart and reassembles in new configurations, amoeba-like, signaling a cosmic gestation through which Brown and Shipp perform a cyclical harmonic rebirth. Four of the five songs—“Peace Planet,” “Seventh Sun,” “Ancient Monument,” and “Blossom Time”—are each about 10 minutes, with “Suite for DSW” running nearly 15. As a clear centerpiece, it highlights Brown, in particular, as he plays tribute to Ware in spectacular fashion. His performance sometimes evokes Ware himself, but Brown mostly conjures a deep longing and powerful testament to the love and respect they all share for each other.

The second Tao Quartet swaps in Swell for Shipp and Bisio for Parker. On their album, Box of Light, the group is slightly more hard-driving. This is passionate music, fire music in Archie Shepp’s parlance—just don’t expect a throwback feel. Despite the historical precedents for a pianoless quartet, as with Dickey’s early 2000s albums, this is definitely a 21st Century album. Just like Brown, Swell is among the finest improvising players. His trombone sound is fearless, and he and Brown bounce off each other excitedly. Bisio and Dickey demonstrate their empathic connection with a vibrant, buoyant feel. Dickey pushes the group into a slightly brighter sonic space, reflecting the title and themes of the set. The first three tracks, “Eye Opener,” “Ellipse : Passage Through,” and “Ethereality,” form a nice suite-like combination. “Eye Opener” appropriately leaps off the starting block, with crisp, bold playing from everyone. “Ethereality” slides into “Box of Light,” which kicks off the second half with a lengthy, excellent improvisation. Dickey’s drumming is dynamic and percussive, and the group’s coda is a high point both quartets’ sets. “Jungle Suite” teases a bit of swing at the start, but quickly gives way to a riot of ideas. There are some folkish elements on display, echoing Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and the group ends at the tonal deep end, with staccato statements from Swell’s trombone and Dickey’s toms, before Bisio puts a final punctuation mark.

In the press for Peace Planet & Box of Light, the set was described this way:

A united pair of albums created this past Winter, the two works represent the Yin and the Yang respectively. Dickey chose Tao Quartets as the name of the groups for this work as the Tao wholly incorporates an understanding of this elemental dynamic of life, and that same understanding is here to be heard.

This is most definitely audible in the music, and I, for one, celebrate Dickey’s return to band-leading and the deep and meaningful artistic creations he inspires. AUM has promised there is more to come soon. I very highly recommend this and cannot wait to hear what’s next.

The double-album is available in a limited-edition two-CD set, as well as digital formats.

Order direct from AUM Fidelity.
 
Order from Bandcamp:

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Whit Dickey Trio - Expanding Light (Tao Forms/AUM Fidelity, 2020) ****

By Martin Schray

Drummer Whit Dickey is one of those artists who deserve greater prominence in the minds of free music enthusiasts. Although he’s a highly accepted player, especially in the New York jazz scene, he seems to be a bit overlooked. Frankly, his refined style should establish him among the greats of his instrument. His new album Expanding Light shows him with one of his long-standing collaborators, saxophonist Rob Brown. The two are augmented by the young formidable bassist Brandon Lopez, whose growing list of collaborators include Dave Rempis, Weasel Walter and John Zorn, for example.

Whit Dickey himself describes the experience of recording Expanding Light with his new trio (in 1998 Dickey and Brown released another album, Transonic, with Chris Lightcap on bass) as “incessantly and mightily grabbing the dragon by the tail, and not caring.” In other words: This is the good old free jazz tradition exploring musical territory the ensemble hasn’t examined so far, wherever it may lead. The result is both abstract and concrete, an overall experience influenced “as much by Nirvana at their finest as by the holistic experimentation of Dickey's mentor, Professor Milford Graves“, as the liner notes put it. That’s why Dickey himself calls it "free grunge."

Yet, one should not expect obvious grunge references here. The music on Expanding Light is rather characterized by different structural features. In all pieces the improvisation threatens to trickle away at least once, it almost seems as if the musical means are exhausted (which isn’t meant in a negative way). What is more, all pieces contain very differently worked out duo passages, both in terms of length and musical conception. Sometimes they introduce a track (“The Outer Edge“ or “Desert Flower“), sometimes they dominate its center (“Expanding Light“). Finally, on closer listening it becomes clear that it’s Dickey who controls the directions of the improvisations with abrupt changes from the cymbals to the toms (or the other way round), while the saxophone oscillates between bumpy riffs and straightforward runs. Most of the time one instrument gives the interplay a certain stability, either it’s a walking bass or the long balladesque tones of the saxophone that push against the dislimitation of the others.

A good example of all this is the title track, in which the saxophone starts playing crystalline melodies, however they are dissolved immediately. While bass and drums energetically challenge the sax to accelerate the tempo, it finally does that, but then it slows down again, tries riffs, levers them out and even stops. The structural motif of trickling down is used here, too.

Still, there’s the exception to the rule and that’s “The Opening“, ironically the piece that closes the album. Brown’s extremely overblown saxophone is actually reminiscent of grunge, with its vibrato-drunk lines and extreme distortions that meet a drone-like bowed bass. “The Opening“ is more of a bouncer, an encore, which eventually also seeps away with a little drum solo.

All in all, a promising relaunch of Whit Dickey’s new trio. Expanding Light is a very recommendable album.

Expanding Light is available as a CD and a download. You can both listen to “The Outer Edge“ and buy the album on the label’s bandcamp site. 

You can also get it from www.downtownmusicgallery.com .

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Whit Dickey Quartet - Astral Long Forms: Staircase in Space (TAO Forms, 2022)

By Kenneth Blanchard

Drummer Whit Dickey emerged on the Avant Garde, free jazz scene in the early 1990’s, and kept busy playing behind David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, Ivo Perelman, and Rob Brown. He began recording as a leader at the end of that decade. Two years ago he launched a new label: TAO Forms. One of the recordings issued by that label is James Brandon Lewis’ Jesup Wagon, reviewed here by yours truly . The Quartet includes Rob Brown on alto sax, Matt Manieri on viola, and Brandon Lopez on bass.

Much free jazz achieves maximum intensity by increasing the speed, volume, and density of the sound. That is no criticism, but it is not the only way to do it. On Astral Long Forms, Dickey and crew begin from a slow or even mournful pace. This allows them to achieve intensity without losing the articulation and texture of the various instruments. If you are looking for an abstract presentation that retains all the emotional tone of good jazz, this is a place to start.

The first and longest cut, “Blue Circuit” begins with a hollow drum beat and then bowed strings gradually cut in. Brown’s horn enters center stage with the drum justifying the text on the left channel and the strings on the right. The horns create a wave function like sound and then Lopez’s bass gets more percussive while viola and sax create parallel lines. Toward the middle, we get a nice four-way dialogue with some high, plucked strings. At about 13 minutes, the intensity I mentioned presents: power without any loss of individuality. The drumming is exquisite.

The second cut “Space Quadrants” opens with a string duet, both producing viscous surfaces. If stringed instruments could do no more than that in jazz (hint: they can) it would justify their inclusion. I like that feel, as of a washboard under a thin layer of velvet. Brown’s sax now deftly touches the music here and there, eventually producing short lines of color.

“The Pendulum Turns” begin with a nice minute and a half drum solo. The sound is muted, as if the drum is just upstairs, but articulate. Lovely horn playing follows, and then the viola plays over drums and bass, both of them providing punctuation. It is Brown next who gets to provide percussion. Is the title a mixed metaphor? Not for this music.

“Staircase in Space” is the most muted in both pace and sound, which makes the slow burn of horn and strings all the more searing.

The last cut, “Signify” is hymn to the manipulation of signal. Brown, for one, really cuts loose on the range of chirps and scrapes that his horn can produce.

This is fine free jazz. If you want more genius from the strings of Brandon Lopez’s bass, I suggest the trio’s debut recording Expanding Light (Dickey, Brown, and Lopez) and especially the second cut “Desert Flower.” You can find a beautiful review right here .

For something rather different from the trio, check out the double issue Whit Dickey Tao Quartets . “Peace Planet” joins Dickey and Brown with Matthew Shipp and William Parker. “Box of Light” has Dickey and Brown joined by Steve Swell on Trombone and Michael Bisio on bass. The above are available on Bandcamp (may its name be praised!) and you can read a review here at The Free Jazz Collective (may its praise be named!).

Finally, for a more classical feel, try Dickey’s work with Shipp and Ivo Perelman. I can recommend The Clairvoyant and The Art of Perelman-Shipp. Both are featured on Amazon Prime Music.

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Dickey / Maneri / Shipp – Vessel in Orbit (AUM Fidelity, 2017) ****

By Rick Joines

What we hear from the new trio formed by Whit Dickey is less a conversation than a meeting of minds—a collective intelligence engaged in executing a concept. The album’s title, Vessel in Orbit, invites the listener to imagine a narrative of Spaceship 9’s small crew as they journey through the darkness of space, encountering moments of danger, confusion, and sublime beauty, often in rapid succession.

Chief engineer is Matthew Shipp on piano. Shipp’s propulsive chording, sound clusters, and occasionally ornamental melodic lines drive this vessel outward. Sometimes, due to the impulsiveness of the captain, it is Shipp’s intuitive skills that keep it all together. Whit Dickey acts as the ship’s crew, constantly monitoring conditions, keeping systems humming. Riding a cymbal, he provides a sonar ping, a signal beacon. Rumbling the toms or snapping the snare, he updates the captain about unforeseen developments in the flight plan. The somewhat manic and unpredictable captain is Mat Maneri. Maneri’s viola, bowed and plucked, sometimes sings with the lonely throatiness of a mourning human voice, sometimes with the hectic derring-do of an explorer, and sometimes thrashes about like a mind disoriented and at war with itself, but it is always compelling.



The first half of Vessel in Orbit is full of excitement. In the first song, “Spaceship 9,” we imagine the spaceship as it begins its voyage. There are chaotic moments when the ship encounters difficulties as well as moments of sparse calm. In the second song, “Space Walk,” each instrument sounds tentative. There is plenty of space between each player as they float out on their individual lines, yet they remain tethered to one another and to the ship by a constantly evolving heartbeat of a nearly-melodic line. In “Dark Matter,” there seems to be a considerable amount of physical and psychic stress. The steadiness of the orbit grows unreliable as the crew attempts to make sense of the data. Finally, in “Galaxy 9,” piano, viola, and drums drift, calmly observing uncharted space, with no need for resolution.

I find the second, slower, more reflective, half of Vessel in Orbit less engaging, yet it has plenty of beautiful moments. “Turbulence” is somewhat static compared to the previous songs, but it seems to lead into the phases of mourning portrayed in “To a Lost Comrade.” There, Shipp’s piano sounds elegiac, Dickey taps a cymbal with the sad insistence of a fife and drum corps, and Maneri’s viola sings the through the stages of grief: haunting in denial and anger, almost silent in depression and acceptance. “Space Strut” marks a rather jaunty turn and features some pretty finger rolls by Shipp and some nice pizzicato from Maneri. The final song, “Hyperspatial,” sums up the voyage. It is a deeply felt expression of the wisdom that comes through experience, which finds expression in sheets of sound.

Whit Dickey, Mat Maneri, and Matthew Shipp have played together in various combinations for decades. The length and depth of their relationship is evident on Vessel in Orbit. In this trio’s incarnation, Dickey’s compositions reign in the sometimes wildness of Maneri and Shipp, not to tame them but to focus their endless inventive energies. There is hardly a moment of silence on the album, yet even at their most cacophonous, each instrument rings clearly in communion. Rarely does any musician perform anything akin to a solo, or play in rhythm, yet their camaraderie is deep, collaborative and never contradictory. This is a rewarding and evocative album. Anyone who has been a fan of Dickey, Maneri, or Shipp will marvel at their discoveries of new ways to improvise collectively and will find much to love listening to again and again.

More info http://www.aumfidelity.com/aum101.html, and available at Downtown Music Gallery.

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Whit Dickey, William Parker, and Matthew Shipp - Village Mothership (Tao Forms, 2021) ****½

By Jim Marks

Further proof of the inexhaustibility of the piano trio format, these long-time musical comrades offer up a new recording that is both adventurous and fun to listen to. Having played together in various combinations for decades, including (at times) forming three-fourths of the David S. Ware Quartet, on Village Mothership, they join forces as a threesome for the first time in nearly 30 years. A joyous session it is, too; in these improvised pieces, Dickey, Parker, and Shipp bounce off of each other, step back to let each other solo, and find numerous grooves.

All three are, of course, well known for producing prodigious amounts of high-quality music. Village Mothership complements such releases as Dickey’s pair as a leader a couple years back ( reviewed for the FJC by Lee Rice Epstein ) as well as Parker’s Painters Winter with Daniel Carter and Hamid Drake ( reviewed for the FJC by Kenneth Blanchard ) and Shipp’s latest solo outing Codebreaker, both also released this fall. Like Dickey’s and Parker’s records but unlike Shipp’s, most of these tunes are relatively lengthy, with three of the six topping ten minutes, so there is plenty of room for melodies and rhythms to develop and evolve.

The concept behind the title as explained in the liner notes is a bit vague (an “homage to the rich environment that fed the development of these artists”), as is the relationship of the cover photo and song titles to the music, which, appropriately, is left to speak for itself. Opener “A Thing & Nothing” and closer “Nothing & a Thing” bracket the proceedings and well represent them, the former a release of pent-up energy as the three enter almost simultaneously and the latter developing slowly from Shipp’s initial exploration of vaguely Monk-like harmonies. Both tracks then ebb and flow, often with one member of the trio hanging back while the others explore an idea.

The relatively up-tempo “Whirling in the Void” and “Down Void Way” seem similarly positioned to complement one another, being more dissonant and unpredictable than the surrounding tracks. Parker’s ability to provide simultaneous harmonic and melodic support (including some of his signature bowing on the latter track) is fully on display, his deep tones maintaining the forward momentum. Here, the jazz is especially free. “Nothingness,” by contrast, though its title shares the theme of emptiness, is almost a ballad though punctuated by occasional bursts of activity.

The centerpiece title track starts with a somewhat halting solo from Dickey, who locks in once Parker and Shipp enter. The interplay between cascading piano notes and cymbals perhaps suggests the mothership taking flight. Nearing the midway point, Shipp drops out and lets Parker ride the wave of cymbals for a while before establishing a walking pattern for Shipp’s reentry. The pattern repeats as the mothership, now in full flight, takes listeners through space where, to quote Dickey from the liner notes, “mystical stuff is happening” until the rhythm section brings the craft in for a gentle landing.

Unsurprisingly, then, Dickey, Parker, and Shipp have crafted another great record that will appeal to a wide range of contemporary jazz fans. Hopefully, the trio will not wait quite as long to reconvene again.

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Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp, Michael Bisio, Whit Dickey -- Soul (Leo Records, 2016) ****

By Colin Green

Many paths led to this album. It can be seen as the duo of Ivo Perelman (tenor saxophone) and Matthew Shipp (piano), who recorded the majestic Corpo a week before, plus the rhythm section of Michael Bisio (double bass) and Whit Dickey (drums); or the most recent Shipp trio with Bisio and Dickey, responsible for four outstanding releases, plus Perelman; the trio of Perelman, Shipp and Bisio, who’ve made one recording, plus Dickey, as has the trio of Perelman, Shipp and Dickey, plus Bisio; or the trio of Perelman, Bisio and Dickey, which have performed but not recorded, plus Shipp; or the combined duos of Perelman and Dickey, and Shipp and Bisio, both of which have released albums. There’s also the two previous outings by this quartet: The Edge (Leo Records, 2013) and The Other Edge (Leo Records, 2014).

Such a multiplicity of relations is reflected in the album as a whole – ceaseless activity but never crowded; four musicians entirely at ease with each other and comfortable with their own space and fit, sensitive to even slight changes in energy, mood and focus. There’s a relaxed feel to the date and an assurance which allows thinking in paragraphs rather than sentences, each piece a self-contained drama, from the cinematic scope of the opening ‘Metaphysical’ to Shipp’s intimate prelude which opens the title track and Perelman’s gorgeous lyric line later in the same piece, full of subtle inflections. There’s much to enjoy: the duo of bass and sax which opens ‘Joy’, later joined by piano and drums, the shifting balances of ‘Eyound’ and the pounding dance in ‘Crossing’ which resurfaces throughout the piece, a thought that can’t be shaken off.

A word about the recording. Like all the releases reviewed this week and many of Perelman’s recent albums, Soul was recorded at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, engineered by Jim Clouse. The acoustic is intimate, revealing the full range of instrumental textures: the sparkle and luscious resonance of Shipp’s fine piano, the delicate hues of Perelman’s tenor, Bisio’s weighty registers and the clatter of Dickey’s drums and soft decay of his cymbals. Such sound aids appreciation of the organic flow of a piece like ‘Fragments’ (a popular title among improvisers) in which an assemblage of darting phrases gradually coalesce and from which Perelman’s intensely expressive saxophone emerges.

What about the album title? Perelman’s recording prior to this was Corpo (Body) – do the albums form a complimentary pair, a rendition in music of Cartesian Dualism perhaps, or joined together, an allusion to the great jazz standard famously recorded by Coleman Hawkins? Probably not: as noted by Neil Tesser in his liner notes, each album has both body and soul, and the tune doesn’t put in an appearance on either. Maybe the title, and album cover, simply reflect the deep-rooted community of purpose shared by these musicians and the fluid discourse and free flow of ideas this enables. I’d be happy with five albums of just this quartet – a reasonable enough request.

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Vision Festival 2017 - Day 3: Pause and Reflection

Matthew Shipp, Matt Maneri, and Whit Dickey

By Paul Acquaro

The third night of the Vision Festival began with the Visionary Youth Orchestra, a volunteer orchestra or by Arts for Arts. Unfortunately, they started too early for me, but from what I was told, it was quite inspiring. Under the guidance of Jeff Lederer (woodwinds) and Jessica Jones (tenor saxophone, piano) , the students played off a graphical score, dug into charts from Ornette Coleman Haden, and David Murray, and a performed piece composed by Cooper-Moore. Coming from a family of music educators, and music a defining part of my youth, I can only imagine how exciting and eye opening playing for the Vision Festival must be for these kids.

Around 7 p.m., violist Matt Maneri, pianist Matthew Shipp, and drummer Whit Dickey took the stage. Vision Festival organizer Patricia Nicholson gave a very warm introduction to the band, expressing that she had known them for a long time and had seem them come to be the musicians that they are now. She exclaimed, “what a great evening, we started with the kids and now we have the grown ups ... sort of!" 

Their set was a release show for Whit Dickey's AUM Fidelity recording Vessel in Orbit. The trio kicked off with a clatter at the drums and then slowly worked their way into the music, this was a group planning to take its time. The rich sound of the viola, a quick sprinkle from the piano, and some light brush work on the drums, and the ground was prepared.  The music quickly tightened, Shipp introduced a circular pattern that he leaned into, Maneri contributed long single note phrases, while Dickey’s restrained percussion gave the others plenty of room to work. The music was serious, and while the tempo picked up and the tension grew, it also felt very restrained. Maneri’s melodies carried an Eastern European flavor, and at times blurred the lines of classical and free improvisation, Dickey's playing afforded a lot of space, and no matter how far from a straight beat he went, he never lost the pulse, and Shipp could easily bring the band to a sustain pedal driven peak - and he did. This group goes back a long time and even their simplest improvisations are compositions on the fly.

Next, dancer K.J. Holmes and drummer Jeremy Carlstedt performed an arresting piece of dance and rhythm. The drummer, on the stage, began with a quiet tense beat, and for a while, was alone. Then a shrill cry came from the left side of the audience and the dancer was upon a chair, arms stretched upwards, about to fling herself into the dance floor. Moving with incredible agility, Holmes was playing … objects became props, charcoal from the artist making live drawings went on her face, an audience member became a dance partner, and her approach seemed to be to break the comfort zone between the audience and the actor. It was fascinating.

Between the dance and the next act, violinist Jason Kao Hwang’s Burning Bridge, Nicholson came back to the stage and made the sad announcement that Bern Nix had passed away. Nix, a guitarist, was a member of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time and a long time Downtown New York artist. 

Jason Kao Hwang’s Burning Bridge

Hwang’s large group took the stage and worked their way into an incredibly effective piece titled ‘blood’, which was a meditation on the emotional traumas of war both personal and societal. A heavy piece, no doubt, rendered with emotion and precision by his extended group with Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet), Joe Daley (tuba), Steve Swell (trombone), Ken Filiano (bass), Andrew Drury (drums), Wang Guowei (erhu), and Sun Li (pipa). It was the latter two, playing traditional Chinese string instruments, who, along with Hwang, formed the center of the group’s sound. The contrast between Hwang’s violin and Guowei’s erhu (a two-string fiddle-like instrument) was mesmerizing as were the textures created between Guowei and Li. After a challenging start to the piece, the group picked up the pace as they launched into a lurching rhythm that offered the first of the solos, then into smaller improvising sub-units like Swell, Guowei, and Filiano and Bynum, Drury, and Filiano. The enormity of the piece did not truly settle in until it ended. Suddenly the feeling became overwhelming and the only thing you could do, was what many in the audience did, sigh and say “wow.”

Some last minute substitutions were made early in the evening, and pianist Vijay Iyer sat in with poet Tracie Morris, and Joe McPhee stepped in for Charles Gayle, who was performing with William Parker (bass) and Michal T.A. Thompson (bass). I couldn’t stay for these performances - so, I expect to hear about them during tomorrow's show.

---

Vision Festival #22, May 28th - June 3, 2017, reviews: 

• Day 1: Calling All Visions
• Day 2: The Resistance Begins
• Day 3: Pause and Reflection
• Day 4: Don't Let Them Take Your Joy Away
• Day 5: Letting the Music Speak
• Day 6: Seeking Optimism

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Trumpet & Drums

By Stef

Despite the simplicity of the line-up, the variations are endless, as is testified by the albums reviewed here. Four trumpet-drums duos, four completely different styles and totally different listening experiences.


Whit Dickey & Kirk Knuffke - Drone Dream (NoBusiness, 2019) ****

Drummer Whit Dickey and cornetist Kirk Knuffke bring their sophomore album, after "Fierce Silence" from some years ago. Knuffke seems to like small settings, with pianists (Harold Danko, Jesse Stacken, Karl Berger), reedists (Ben Goldberg), bassists (Michael Bisio) or drummers (Mike Pride, Whit Dickey), but with each of those other musicians, the music is different, from modern jazz with traditional influences to free outings such as this one. Despite my joy of listenting to Knuffke's playing, his music is not always the right fit for this blog, but this one surely is. Dickey is the initiator of much of the music here, offering the intro, with his typical lyrical open-ended playing, creating implicit rhythmic foundations for the horn to add the melodic element. Both instruments use the full sounds they are intended for: straightforward and authentic, direct and warm. Yet the music isn't. It's meditative at times, soaring at others, playful or with a deep moaning sound. Never violent, always intimate and fresh. Always free.

A great sequel to a great predecessor.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Luis Vicente & Vasco Trilla - Bright Dark (Clean Feed, 2019) ****½

Even though this album has been reviewed before, I can only recommend it again. Despite the fun artwork, the music is dark. It emerges from nondescript and weird sounds emanating from both trumpet and drums. Vicente and Trilla treat us to a wonderful exploration of deep darkness and its emotional equivalent. At the same time, there is no element of doom in the darkness, but it's rather an element of surprise or quiet exploration that drives both artists forward. On the first track, Trilla manages to give a clock-like tempo, with dark industrial rumblings and piercing cymbal strikes, all at the same time, while Vicente delves deep into the rawest and darkest tones of his instrument. They create a fascinating sonic universe that evolves slowly and unhurriedly. It is at the same time intense and intensely beautiful. The aesthetic listening experience is unique, and possibly explains the album's title: despite the darkness of the sound, it shines brightly.

The liner notes describe the music well: "They found the Absolute, the invisible Other, in the music itself, the same way Aldous Huxley did and made this novelist write that «after silence, that which comes nearest to express the inexpressible is music»".

What more can I say? 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Verneri Pohjola & Mika Kallio – Animal Image (Edition Records, 2018) ****

From dark outer space, we move to the white landscapes of Finland, with its snow and its animals. The music, created by Verneri Pohjola on trumpet and Mika Kallio on percussion was originally made as the soundtrack for a documentary on the "intimate relationship between man and animal". You can watch a moment of this documentary on the video below. It is not your usual David Attenborough kind of nature movie, but a more poetic version, one that needs this kind of free and unbound music to reach its full effect.

I can imagine that the north of Finland is a daunting but beautiful place, where cold austerity, barrenness and life find a harmonious existence nevertheless. Pohjola and Kallio create a soundtrack that can stand on its own. You almost don't need the documentary to experience the vastness of the space, the mystery of life, and the hard to understand relationship between everything.  Even if most tracks are meditative, there is joy and playfulness to be found too, as in the short "Foxplay", or in the musical representation on the preying flight on "Goshawk's Dream". On the other end of the spectrum, you have the track called "Man" which starts more menacing and dark and ends with some of the most bone-chilling moaning trumpet sounds you will hear this year.

The album ends with the title track, which evolves from a dark and ominous gong sound to almost jubilant and optimistic multilayered sounds.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Peter Evans & Weasel Walter - Poisonous (Ugexplode, 2018) ****

What happens when you put two iconoclasts together? And what happens when these two are equally known for their ground-breaking explorations? And when they are equally interested by electronics and studio creativity? And with musical skills?

You can forget about the beaten track. Don't think about meditative moments or organised structures. You get sonic madness, but sonic madness with skills and artistic vision. There is not much you can do as a listener: either you are willing to succumb to an avalanche of sometimes painful sonic bites, or you run away as fast as you can. It is poisonous. Extremely poisonous. They push the limits of what is auditively tolerable. There are moments when drum sounds are recognisable, as are trumpet sounds. Some tracks consist primarily of noise generated by both instruments, with some vague - but very vague - traces of the original instruments left, because the only thing you can hear are dense waves of rolling and revolving sounds. What is happening here? ... is a thought that often comes to mind. I never managed to listen to the entire album with headset and closed eyes. Maybe I should have, but the question is whether such exposure to this level of toxicity would be advisable, or strongly recommended against because guaranteed deadly.

For sure, this is not "The Boring Duo Live At Who Fuckin' Cares". Fasten your seatbelts. Prepare yourself for a crazy ride into a very dense high energy musical hallucination.


Listen and download from Bandcamp.

And watcht the video: it's also something else ...

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Ivo Perelman: Leo Records Backcatalog Reissue

By Paul Acquaro 

 

With the reissue of Leo Records catalog digitally by Burning Ambulance, a total of of 68 albums that saxophonist Ivo Perelman released with the label will eventually be made available. To explore the bounty, or at least to get a taste, I asked the saxophonist to do the dubious task of picking out five recordings that he felt stood out in some way and to talk about his picks and what they mean to him. 

1. Sad Life (1997) 

 

Paul Acquaro: The first one is Sad Life from 1997 with drummer Rashid Ali & bassist William Parker. What struck me immediately is that this is the rhythm section from the FMP release Touchin' on Trane from 1993 with Charles Gayle. How did this recording come to be and what does it mean to you now?

 

Ivo Perelman: I used to see Rashied at Bradleys (an East Village piano bar in the 90s) but never dared talking to him as I was so in awe of his playing. One day, I bumped into him on 14th street and started to talk and couldn't help but ask if he would do a trio CD with me and William, with whom I had been playing for a while. He promptly agreed.

 

The studio session was transcendental! I traveled back in time when Coltrane was alive and felt that creative powerful energy that fueled many of his sessions with Rashied.

 

 

 

2.  Seeds, Vision and Counterpoint (1998)

PA: Next, we have Seeds, Vision and Counterpoint from 1998 with Dominic Duval on bass and Jay Rosen on drums. I suppose one thing that sticks out to me is that Duval and Rosen are a tight duo and with say Joe McPhee perform as Trio X among other configurations. On listening, I noticed that your tone is a little different here, a bit sharper and concise than on Sad Life, am I just making this up? Anyway, how did you get involved with this duo and what sticks out to you about the album?

 

IP: Seeds Vision and Counterpoint took place at a tiny rehearsal/recording studio in Long Island and the idea was to just get together with Duval and Rosen and play some since we had never played before. They had spoken to me a few days before the session and we decided to do it in Long Island near Duval s home.

 

This session was explosive from the get go and it started a long series of concerts and CDs. We had an instant, natural exchange and non-stop flow of ideas (the sharp tone of the sax was duo to a series of sound studies I was interested at the time). 

 

3. The Edge (2013) 

PA: Third, we have The Edge from 2013 with pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey. This is like the crème de la crème of the New York creative music scene. I couldn't help notice the explosiveness of the opening track 'Clarinblasen.' What was it like playing with these three and why did you choose this album for the short list?

IP: I chose The Edge with Bisio, Dickey and Matthew Shipp to be in this short list because it started a series of albums investigating Matthew Shipp in quartet situations. Whenever Matthew Shipp is in a quartet classical quartet with sax, piano, drums and bass, he turns it into a Matthew Shipp Quartet experience, and it's a beautiful thing. He plays slightly differently depending on the members of the quartet. That one in particular is the classic Matthew Shipp Quartet, I would say, and we did a second one because I felt that was very fertile terrain for further investigation and it was me testing my powers, I would say against, like you say, a classic creme de la cremecreative group of musicians in New York.

So, keeping up with the concept of Matthew Shipp and a jazz quartet, I changed one at a time. Instead of Michael Bisio, I had another bass player, and then instead of Whit Dickey, I had Gerald Cleaver and I kept moving around, but what triggered that investigative period was that first album, The Edge. 

 

4. Reverie (2014)

PA: Now, we're looking at the expressive Reverie from 2014 with vibraphonist and pianist Karl Berger (who works only the piano on this album). You have at least one other recording with Berger, The Hitchhiker. Berger was a very influential figure in the improvisational music world, including with his organization Creative Music Studio which continues today under the direction of Billy Martin. What was it like working with Berger and what about this recording helped make this wonderfully subjective list?

IP: The duo with Karl Berger on piano disarmed, me, disarmed. I was ready for more notes, more harmonies, density, but his playing was so light and lyrical and beautiful that I dropped my guns and just gave myself to the music and surrendered to the simplicity, the lyrical beauty of his notes and phrasing. It led me, like never before, to a kind of a lyrical pursuit in that gorgeous doesn't mean corny or commercial. Gorgeous is just gorgeous. The melodies floated around like snowflakes on a beautiful, sunny winter afternoon. He was truly remarkable musician, very generous, very open minded. We just shook hands, said nice to meet you, and started playing. And there were some pieces, some of them were in C-minor that I still remember the feeling of and how they affected me. That particular session changed, changed my playing forever.

Whenever I feel a Karl Berger moment with whomever else I'm playing, I let it flow. I let it take possession of my playing, and I honor and cherish it. He taught me that, he was a great master and a great teacher even when he was only playing. 

 

5. Callas (2015)

PA: The album Callas from 2015 with Shipp is one of the many duo recordings you have made together. Our former contributor Colin Green wrote about this album when it came out, writing "There’s no doubt that on this album Maria Callas has inspired a heightened sensitivity to things that are often overlooked, providing a springboard for some truly remarkable playing. It’s a masterclass in the control of dynamics and subtle shading." Can you tell us about the importance of Maria Callas to your playing and what this album means to you?

IP: Callas played a very important role in my development as a musician because at the time I was suffering from uh throat problems, I was over practicing the altissimo register and doing it wrong.

I had the sessions with the therapist who suggested I start to study vocals and opera singing with someone specialized in opera singers who had the same problem. I did get rid of the problem, and I also learned a lot about music. I started to play Callas’ music and got into some various arias, and it added a lot of subtlety to my playing. So, I phoned my partner Matthew Shipp, who is always the best counterpart to share my discoveries with, because Matthew is so open to anything. He's such a wonderful wide-ranging musician, and his music covers the whole gamut from Maria Callas to Charlie Parker to everything in between.

So, this was the beginning of a very important segment of my career. Callas is remarkable because I was listening to her day in day out and even though I didn't exactly play the arias or the melodies, one is reminded of her pieces in someway. Somehow, I played like she sang. It is a truly remarkable album. 

 

 

While it is nice to have this chance to look back, Perelman is an artist always moving forward. Tomorrow, Sammy Stein will review his next release, Armegeddon Flower with the Matthew Shipp String Trio.

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Kirk Knuffke & Whit Dickey – Fierce Silence (Clean Feed, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

It wasn’t until I saw him live at the Lilypad in Cambridge, MA earlier this fall that I began to fully appreciate what Kirk Knuffke and his cornet bring to the scene. In that space, free of distractions, Knuffke’s playing revealed itself in all its earnest lyricism, eschewing shows of bravura for a reserved deliberateness that—like the work of Morton Feldman, or the friendship of a shy person—asks you to lean in a little closer before showing you why you won’t want to pull away.

True, there may be other aspects to Knuffke’s playing, but it’s this understated sensibility that the cornetist brings to Fierce Silence. Beyond drummer Whit Dickey, the invisible third member of this duo is—you guessed it—the negative space they invite into their improvisations. Yet the silences never feel staged, or used merely to heighten the playing when it resumes, because they’re integrated into Knuffke and Dickey’s overarching sensibility. Across ten pieces totaling just 45 minutes, for his part Knuffke favors sustained husky notes and miniature squeaks, rasping muted tones that shimmer in their metallic vibrations. His on-again, off-again melodies are like sweet hard candy rolled around the mouth, always dissolving. A perfect complement in this situation, Dickey can drum on the one hand with the freestanding melodicism of Max Roach or on the other with a net-like looseness, stirring up subtly swinging grooves that support without subordinating.

If you liked Row for William O., Knuffke’s duo album with Michael Bisio, you’ll want to hear Fierce Silence. All we can hope for next is a Knuffke/Bisio/Dickey trio…

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Matthew Shipp with Rob Brown, John Butcher and Thomas Lehn

Matthew Shipp and Rob Brown - Then Now (RogueArt, 2020) *****

John Butcher, Matthew Shipp and Thomas Lehn - The Clawed Stone (RogueArt, 2020) *****

By Gregg Miller

The piano/sax duo recording Then Now (RogueArt, 2020) captures Matthew Shipp and Rob Brown together at their assertive best. At the turn of the millennium, my CD copy of their Blink of an Eye (No More, 1997) had cracked unplayable. Then Now is their first duo recording since, and it’s remarkable how their playing today squares with my memory of them 20 years ago. The title, “Then Now,” seems less nostalgia than the realization that what was forward-leaning then feels right right now.

Though unrecorded as a duo since Blink of an Eye, Shipp and Brown have appeared together over the two decades since in many trios, quartets and other configurations. High marks include Right Hemisphere ((RogueArt, 2008) (where Brown and Shipp are ultra-sensitive over Joe Morris’s bass on “Red in Gray”), Magnetism(s) (RogueArt, 2017, a re-mastered re-release of a 1999 Bleu Regard disk with a bonus 2016 concert recording), and on the first disk of Whit Dickey’s double Tao Quartets release (Tao Forms, 2019).

Over a long career, Shipp has recorded with many extraordinary reed players: Roscoe Mitchell, Ivo Perelman, Joe McPhee, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, lately with Matt Walerian on ESP-Disk, and, of course, David S. Ware who perhaps outshines them all. To my mind, Shipp’s playing with Daniel Carter and Rob Brown stands out for just how hand-in-glove natural they feel together. (Favorites with Daniel Carter include Strata (Hat Hut, 2004), Cosmic Suite (Not Two, 2008 and Not Bound (For Tune, 2017)).

Rob Brown is perhaps less storied than Shipp, but he has delivered his fair share of wonderful, Lower East Side NYC music, a mainstay, we might say, and like Shipp, his sound and musical idiom is distinctive and idiosyncratic. When my multi-gig library of music is set to random, Brown’s sound is instantly recognizable. Notable is his work with bassist William Parker’s groups In Order to Survive and the William Parker Quartet (I recommend O’Neal’s Porch (AUM Fidelity 2001)), and various trio and quartet outings under Brown’s name with Parker aboard (my favorites include Crown Trunk Root Funk (AUM Fidelity, 2008), The Big Picture (Marge 2004), and the early, indelible Breath Rhyme (Silk Heart, 1990), multiple outings in different configurations with drummer Whit Dickey (I love Trio Ahxoloxha’s Prophet Moon with Joe Morris (Riti, 2003), and a handful of notable recordings with cellist Daniel Levin. Special mention goes to Unexplained Phenomena (Marge, 2011), his Vision Festival performance with Chris Lightcap and Gerald Cleaver featuring Matt Moran on vibraphone. Y’all might also check out on youtube the 2018 free-for-all performance of Brown with venerable bassoonist Karen Borca, Michael Bisio on non-stop bass, and two percussionists (Whit Dickey and Jackson Krall) from VisionFest 23. In other words, Brown gets around.

The overall mood of Then Now is dry and fast-forward. There is very little use of silence. A singing sax over chunky chord progressions, gentle voicings, or vertiginous speed work, depending on the moment. Sliding patterns over sliding patterns. Brown’s sometimes piercing tone is pitch perfect. (For you sax geeks, I asked him many years ago and he said he plays a Ted Klum acoustimax. Sure sounds like the same mouthpiece on this recording.) Brown mostly plays it straight, allowing the natural pitches to do their work. The very occasional microtone or multiphonic. Otherwise he sings in a heartfelt, but reserved manner, and he takes the turns like how a professional skier might take on the black diamond slopes, wishing for just a bit more speed as the hazards effortlessly whoosh by. And damned if he doesn’t get it, mostly in the middle and upper registers. Brown plays squarely on the beat, and he doesn’t cheat. No swinging, but not mechanical either, with a subtle vibrato throughout. There is no flute on this record. I have loved Brown’s flute playing over many recordings: Orbit (Music & Arts, 1997) with Guerinno Mazzola and Heinz Geisser, and The Whit Dicky Quartet’s Coalescence (Clean Feed, 2004) (listen to the late Roy Campbell’s trumpet and Brown’s flute intertwine on “Steam”) come to mind. But that doesn’t show up here. Strictly alto sax.

Both Shipp and Brown play with intervals, goading each other into continuous alterations. Dance your way across a series of ladders lined up at different heights – no falling! Sometimes Shipp lays down heavy chord blocks, and Brown winds his way in and around them. Other times they are both running the numbers in, out and backwards—chasing bees weaving amongst the magnolias. Boxing and jazz seem like partners here, but they’re not trying to knock each other out; they spiral around each other like a double helix. Brown plays with a muscular assurance. Statement after statement. Nothing tentative. The patterns are under his fingers and his task is to sing out loud, select and edit, crop and extend. Shipp with his thick left hand clusters, and his right hand musical dance. Intimidating lower register stormclouds, and then descending intervals which set Brown off in a new direction. On track 5, Shipp plays solo as calm as calm; it stands in the center as a gentle respite from all of the jousting.

Moments on this record have more of a “new classical” feel than anything Shipp would have been willing to put out 20 years ago, more like some of his solo outings (c.f. One (Thirsty Ear, 2005) or Piano Sutras (Thirsty Ear, 2013)) or the quieter moments on Piano Song (Thirsty Ear, 2017) than the impeccable onslaught of Prisms (Brinkman ,1996). If I think about Shipp’s playing from Prisms to Then Now, the expressionism remains, it is his lyricism which has unfolded. Track #3 is a lovely free ballad, perhaps the stand-out track of Then Now, though they are all variations of the same vibration, fragments of a whole. Some fire; some burnt embers. Perfection---in the sense that free music is a chance undertaking, and these two have done it so well and so long together that it comes out as shared self-expression.

The Clawed Stone is a different animal. A trio featuring Shipp, John Butcher on soprano and tenor saxes, and Thomas Lehn on electronics. Where Rob Brown’s patterns on Then Now are typically analytical, Butcher’s musicality is filled with pathos, like sorrow songs, and where Brown plays it straight, Butcher here plays at the outer possibilities of the saxophone’s sounds. Butcher’s twitchy-ness (“Off-Kilter”), flutter bird calls, throat effects (“Re(as)semble”), and overtones stand in contrast to Rob Brown’s note-forward assertiveness. Brown is claiming full responsibility for his sounds, while Butcher wants to share that responsibility with sound itself.

The Butcher/Shipp/Lehn trio has met before, on Tangle (Fataka, 2016), a live 2014 improvised recording at Café Oto in London. Tangle’s first 3 tracks are each called Cluster. There is a certain formality despite the free playing. Shipp and Butcher in turn imitate and support one another, carrying pulse, groove and melody. Thomas Lehn is the wildcard with his idiosyncratic electronic beats, squawks, muffled fuzz noise, oscillating atmospherics and other unexpected insertions. Lehn is less playing with the other two then seeing the big picture and asking: what else could we be doing with sound right now? On Cluster III, Shipp’s patient sound blocks over Lehn’s deep-world-turning-dangerous, and Butcher’s sax/feedback entrance: Exquisite beauty performed live.

In a 2016 interview with Victor Stutz, Butcher describe his process/ethos: “. . . the interest for me in improvisation is making that kind of music which you couldn’t really imagine before you find yourself in the middle of it.” That feels fair. There is an aliveness to his playing which thrives in this trio setting, and which for Shipp in particular reveals new aspects.

Compared with Tangle, on The Clawed Stone Butcher more consistently emphasizes the outside of tone-making for the saxophone. (For more (with more natural reverb), seek out Butcher’s tremendous solo record Bell Trove Spools (Northern Spy, 2012).) On Stone, you rarely hear that distinctive tenor lushness which appears on Tangle. At first, Thomas Lehn’s contribution is just to add some ear fuzz and grit, but then his manipulation becomes more intrinsic—always at the edges, but subtly off-setting what is central—phasing, adding vibrating harmonics, feedback, clicks, bumps — just enough random to make it feel alive and unpredictable. Shipp’s rotating triads subtly sync with Lehn’s colored fogs and echo bursts. The added feedback electronics place Butcher’s trilling and vocalizations in an environment governed by forward-looking intention rather than tradition. The Shipp/Butcher/Lehn effort allows the accidents and incidental electronics to have their own say. Shipp in particular allows more space to let be what will be. From the listener’s perspective, I find my ears a bit more open, too, wondering how the sounds will fill out a home together– the smooth, the raucous, and the rough. “Links on Canvas” is lovely delicate, truly the plum of this outstanding record.

Many of Shipp’s recordings (I’m thinking of those with Michael Bisio (on bass) in duo or trio settings (from The Art of the Improviser (Thirsty Ear 2011) to Elastic Aspects (Thirsty Ear 2012) or Floating Ice (Relative Pitch 2012) to The Conduct of Jazz (Thirsty Ear, 2015)) feel like a working out of his personal vocabulary in public. In trio with Butcher/Lehn, Shipp is able to take the focus off of his sonic vision and interface with wildly different sensibilities. Maybe he has to listen more for the unexpected, so it arrives.

The Clawed Stone feels like a movement forward musically for Shipp, where Then Now feels like home-cooking. Both are beyond excellent. Depends on what you’re in the mood for.

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Free Jazz Blog's Top Album(s) of 2019

Sigmar Polke - Ohne Titel (Schallplatten)

Here it is, the long awaited top album of 2019! Culled from the top 10 lists of the collective, we then conducted a poll among all contributors over the past year and now we're happy to announce this year's winners.

The top spot goes to Matana Roberts' Coin Coin Chapter 4: Memphis. Roberts is not new to the blog, in fact she received the top album of the year in 2013 for Coin Coin Chapter 2: Mississippi Moonchile.

Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis (Constellation Records)

Martin Schray, in his review of the album, writes in his review:

The waiting has come to an end - Matana Roberts is back with the fourth chapter of her outstanding Coin Coin series, which has rightfully been praised as the most interesting long-term project in modern jazz. For those not familiar with the idea of the project: the first three Coin Coin albums, Gens de Couleurs Libres, Mississippi Moonchile, and River Run Thee, released between 2011 and 2015, were supposed to present history from a different perspective. Coin Coin has been planned as a 12-part magnum opus based on the life story of the former slave and later entrepreneur Marie Thérèse Coincoin, who lived in Louisiana at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century and was an ancestor of Roberts, whose parents moved from the South to Chicago and also used Coincoin as a nickname for their daughter. The project is therefore also a personal quest for one's own roots, but in the sense of an alternative historiography it’s much more than that. As a result, this album - like its predecessors - is both field research, political intervention, and sound event at the same time.

In second place, we are pleased to present for the first time NYC based percussionist Whit Dickey with his excellent double album release.

Whit Dickey / The Tao Quartets - Box of Light & Peace Planet (AUM Fidelity)

Lee Rice Epstein writes in his review:

Both sets are credited to what Dickey calls his Tao Quartets, a nod to the universalism at the heart of this music. There has always been a strong, spiritual center to his music. Now, nearly a decade after his previous albums, with an audible gap in the world of free improvisation left by Ware and Campbell’s ascensions, it’s clear just how vital a presence Dickey’s compositional voice is, when he takes on the role of bandleader. Much like Perelman and Shipp, with whom he’s never stopped collaborating, Dickey’s leadership is somewhat suggestive: each song has an overall shape and general destination, but the six performers collectively guide the music.

And in a tie for third place we have:

• Christian Lillinger: Open Form for Society (Plaist)
• David Torn, Tim Berne & Ches Smith - Sun Of Goldfinger (ECM)
• Eliane Radigue- Occam Ocean 2 (Shiiin) [review coming soon]
• Microtub - Chronic Shift (Bohemian Drips)
• Nate Wooley - Columbia Icefield (Northern Spy)
• Susan Alcorn, Joe McPhee & Ken Vandermark - Invitation To a Dream (Astral Spirits)

Our heartfelt congratulations and appreciation to all of the artists who we were able to cover, and everyone whom we wish we had the resources to cover. We all acquire and listen to much more than we would ever be able to write about, and there are many other recordings, artists, and labels that we hold in high regard.

So thank you to all of the contributors (the collective) who have given their time and energy to keeping the Free Jazz Blog alive. We've now reached the venerable age of 12 and as a volunteer organization  - which is how many in Internet years? 

Finally, thank you to all of our readers who share in the love of the challenge of improvised and experimental music.

There it is, 2019 is over, onto the next!

- Paul Acquaro

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Vision Festival 2017 - Day 6: Seeking Optimism

Projected image by Bill Mazza

By Paul Acquaro

"We wish you peace and love," said percussionist Kahil El'Zabar during saxophonist David Murray's set, espousing the power of humanity globally to overcome difficult times. It's an old refrain for sure, cliché perhaps, but in the depths of Judson Memorial Church's great hall, a landmark of social activism and change, a home to the organized labor movement in the 1930s, and supportive of the avant-garde arts throughout the 20th century (and now into the 21st), it felt reassuring. Another apparent terror attack just hit London, the current US administration had just shit on the future again, and yet some simple words at the end of a week of wonderful music seemed to offer a little bit of solace.

A wall of sketches by artist Jorgo Schäfer

The long night of music started at 6:30 p.m with the poetry and music of Postive Knowledge, Oluyemi Thomas (bass clarinet and soprano sax), Ijeoma Thomas (voice), and Andrew Cyrille (drums). While there was most likely some excellent words of poetry, the focus was the sound. Ijeoma's recitation swung dramatically between spoken words and scat, and Oluyemi and Cyrille locked into some enticing grooves. They set the bar high for the final night of the festival, and the rest of the evening was full of heavy hitters.

Matt Maneri, Daniel Levin, and Tony Malaby

Next up was violist Matt Maneri, cellist Daniel Levin, and saxophonist Tony Malaby. Setting up at the foot of the stage, on the floor with the audience, they forwent amplification and drew the crowd in. The trio had a decidedly classical approach, and as Malaby spun off a continuous set of melodies, the strings hooked into each other's rhythms, seamlessly building off the many musical ideas. The acoustic approach paid off, as did sitting front row, and even towards the back of the hall, the sound was quite good. All improvised, every sound was important, whether it was Levin's foot taping or whoosh of his bow slashing the air, or Malaby's colorful runs. The music grew intense at times, at one point Malaby threw in some smokey phrases on the tenor sax and Maneri's playing grew stronger, and with Levin, brought the music to a peak. The first thing I'm doing is going back to this trio's recent release New Artifacts (Clean Feed 2017), as this tough but delicate trio had just raised the bar even higher. 

Matthew Shipp, Michael Bisio, Ivo Perelman, and Whit Dickey

Following the trio, saxophonist Ivo Perelman's quartet with Matthew Shipp (piano), Michael Bisio (bass), and Whit Dickey (drums) took to the big stage. Amplified and charged up, the group of frequent collaborators projected an assured clear and strong sound. Not long into the set, Shipp and Perelman had found a syncopated up-tempo vein and began drawing musical blood. Seemingly endless ideas poured out of Perelman, sometimes sneaking up into the altissimo register, and let no musical sentence go unfinished, seeming to have banished the ellipses from his musical language altogether. Bisio was nicely amplified and his bass lines kept the music in motion, he is also a powerful player. His turn at a solo began with a smattering of carefully picked notes and ended with intense bowing. In contrast to the powerful playing by the rest of the trio, Whit Dickey's playing was subtle, and with great precision and drive. Overall, somewhat reminiscent of the previous night's set with Dave Burrell and Kidd Jordan, Perlman's quartet brought a real intensity to the music. The room exploded with applause at the end of their set.

Kahil El'Zabar, David Murray, and Carmen Rothwell

The penultimate act of the night was the David Murray Trio. With aforementioned percussionist Kahil El'Zabar and bassist Carmen Rothwell, Murray led the group through a slow burner of a tune, with El'Zabar on the amplified Kalimba. Murray took a solo that went from the deceptively simple melody into the stratosphere. Murray, a player who seems equally comfortable playing inside or out, plays with both approaches, connecting with the audience via plucky melodies, and keeping them interesting with his edgy solos. Bassist Rothwell stuck primarily to the low end in her first solo of the evening, but later in the set, was much more adventurous. El'Zabar is a colorful character, and wearing round wire-rimmed sunglasses, he looked incredibly like Sunny Murray's iconic ESP-DISC cover. Part way through the set El'Zabar switched to the Cajon, began singing, and told a story of South Africa and apartheid, and tying it to the divisiveness of today.

Murray is a powerful player, his tone is burly, and is quite inspiring. However, the flip side is that he seemed to loose himself in the music and his set went overtime, pushing later the final set with saxophonist Oliver Lake and William Parker leading a big band. Due to the train schedule, I couldn't stick around for this culminating moment of the festival. I waited hopefully as they set up, but as dancer Miriam Parker descended the stairs from the balcony, bathed in a golden spotlight, and heading towards the large ensemble assembled on stage, I made my way out to into the NYC night.

---

Vision Festival #22, May 28th - June 3, 2017, reviews: 

• Day 1: Calling All Visions
• Day 2: The Resistance Begins
• Day 3: Pause and Reflection
• Day 4: Don't Let Them Take Your Joy Away
• Day 5: Letting the Music Speak
• Day 6: Seeking Optimism

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