Category: Artist Profile

The Chicago Reader expounds upon Dixon.

Now comes 17 Musicians in Search of a Sound: Darfur (Aum Fidelity), another large-group release, recorded live last year at New York's Vision Festival. The ESO album situates Dixon's abstract smears, blurts, and whinnies within a propulsive, dynamically rhythmic framework, but the group on 17 Musicians veers into more abstract territory– concise nuggets of improvisation generally emerge from either ominous clusters of long tone or pointillistic scatterings. The group is loaded with brass players–Graham Haynes, Stephen Haynes, and Taylor Ho Bynum on trumpet, Steve Swell and Dick Griffin on trombone, and Joe Daley on tuba–and the reedists and percussionists generally cede the front line to them, painting colors rather than tracing lines (though Warren Smith lays down some thumpin' tympani parts).

NPR Music profiles Bley.

Vibrant pianist Paul Bley has given much to the idea that outré jazz can be stunningly inside. A prolific yet low-lying innovator with to-die-for credits — he played with saxophonists Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins, and in 1953 made his debut as a bandleader in a trio featuring bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Art Blakey — he blueprinted a concept of the avant-garde that looked to romantic rumination over visceral, atonal tinkering.

Prolific pianist Fujii is profiled:

If there were an award for prolificacy, Japanese pianist/composer Satoko Fujii and her husband and musical partner, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, would almost certainly win hands down every year, or at least they would finish a close second to John Zorn.

Fujii has some 45 titles under her name, and with Tamura, since the beginning of the 2000s, including Japanese and American large ensembles, a long-standing trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black, her avant-rock quartet that includes Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, Tamura’s quartet Gato Libre (in which Fujii plays the accordion), and three recordings in duo with Tamura.

Just this month, they have put out three new albums on the Libra label: Trace a River by the Satoko Fujii Trio, Sunny Then Cloudy by Junk Box (a trio with Fujii, Tamura and percussionist John Hollenbeck), and Kuro by Gato Libre. Recording projects in the near future include her Min-Yoh Ensemble and another duo recording by Fujii and Tamura.

Fujii and Kihlstedt are profiled:

Improvising musicians are like kids: nothing’s more fun than a playdate with a new pal. And that’s exactly how Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii’s ongoing musical collaboration with Tin Hat Trio violinist Carla Kihlstedt came about, thanks to their mutual acquaintance Larry Ochs. The Bay Area bandleader wanted both of them to collaborate with his Rova Saxophone Quartet during its 25th-anniversary celebrations in 2002, and while he was at it, he also decided they should play a short set as a duo.

At that point, they’d never met. By the time their first encounter was over, they were each other’s new best friend.

An article reviews Ms. Fujii’s recent efforts.

From ALARM Magazine:

Rob Mazurek is a man of accomplishments. He is regarded as a master cornetist and conductor working in avant-garde, free-jazz styles. He has fronted numerous projects in his adopted hometown of Chicago. His collaborations have been with contemporaries and peers, but now Mazurek is working with a legend. Free-jazz icon Bill Dixon contributes as conductor for the latest release of Mazurek’s cosmic jazz ensemble, Exploding Star Orchestra.

One of the favorite DJ’s here at AMN central, El-P is profiled.

An article profiles a somewhat obscure jazz man who has been involved with great music for a long time.

If live, improvised music is happening in Philadelphia, there’s a good chance Elliott Levin is involved.

At 54, the West Philadelphia native has a long and accomplished record in the jazz avant-garde. He’s been involved with pianist Cecil Taylor’s large ensembles since the early 1970s. He’s worked extensively with Marshall Allen, the late Tyrone Hill and other members of the Sun Ra Arkestra.