Category: General

AMN Picks of the Week: Francois Houle / SLD Trio / Vijay Anderson / Feinberg & Kolodij / Maria Schneider

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

Here is where I post, at a frequency of about once a week, a list of the new music that has caught my attention that week. All of the releases listed below I’ve heard for the first time this week and come recommended.

Because of current events, these postings may be coming more frequently than once a week for a while.

Francois Houle 4 – Recoder (2020)
SLD Trio – En Vivo en Estudio Libres (2020)
Vijay Anderson Silverscreen Sextet – Live at the Angel City Jazz Festival (2020)
Feinberg / Kolodij – Split (2020)
Maria Schneider – Data Lords (2020)

AMN Picks of the Week: Erik Wøllo & Michael Stearns / Nicol Eltzroth Rosendorf / Mount Shrine & Alphaxone / Hupata!

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

Here is where I post, at a frequency of about once a week, a list of the new music that has caught my attention that week. All of the releases listed below I’ve heard for the first time this week and come recommended.

Because of current events, these postings may be coming more frequently than once a week for a while.

Erik Wøllo / Michael Stearns – Convergence (2020)
Nicol Eltzroth Rosendorf – Big Other (2020)
Mount Shrine & Alphaxone – Dream Chambers (2020)
Hupata! – Microclimates (2020)

The Changing Nature of Protest in Jazz 

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

Source: JazzTimes.

On May 30, the Saturday after George Floyd’s death, hundreds of (socially distancing) people from the community where the killing took place gathered in Minneapolis’ Powderhorn Park. Among them were multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart and vocalist/composer/culture worker Mankwe Ndosi, who played music for the crowd as a duo. “I wouldn’t call it a performance,” Ndosi says a few weeks later in Minneapolis. “I would consider it closer to what we did as a hunter-gatherer species to energize people before the hunt, before they had to rise to address a challenge. That was a time in which, because of the nature of the atrocity of Mr. Floyd being killed by those who we as citizens of Minneapolis pay to protect us, and [because] this is just another example—an extreme one—of the abuse that Black people, poor people, go through on a regular basis, and because of the reaction, the police were either gone or gone—one way or another. I can’t say why. That was the weekend that the white people realized, and leaned into the idea, that the police don’t protect you.”

AMN Picks of the Week: Matthew Shipp / Cyanotype / Shifa / Isostatic / Michael Formanek

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

Here is where I post, at a frequency of about once a week, a list of the new music that has caught my attention that week. All of the releases listed below I’ve heard for the first time this week and come recommended.

Because of current events, these postings may be coming more frequently than once a week for a while.

Matthew Shipp Trio – The Unidentifiable (2020)
Cyanotype – Birdsongs of the Necromancer (2020)
Shifa (Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders) – Live in Oslo (2020)
Isostatic – Glacial Epoch (2020)
Michael Formanek Quartet – Pre-Apocalyptic (2020)

RIP Cor Fuhler 

~ Mike ~ Leave a comment

Source: Wikipedia. We are a little late on this one, but there has not been much talk of Cor Fuhler’s passing.

Cornelis William Hendrik Fuhler (3 July 1964 – 19 July 2020) was a Dutch/Australian improvisor, composer, and instrument builder associated with free jazz, experimental music and acoustic ecology. He played piano by manipulating sound with electromagnetic string stimulators like Ebows and motorized actuators. Fuhler also performed on guitar, turntables and synthesizer. He invented the keyolin, a combination of keyboard and violin.

AMN Picks of the Week: Nox / Clucas, Bishop, Smith & Crane / Patrick Shiroishi / Kyle Motl & Rhonda Taylor / Kamran Sadeghi

~ Mike

Here is where I post, at a frequency of about once a week, a list of the new music that has caught my attention that week. All of the releases listed below I’ve heard for the first time this week and come recommended.

Because of current events, these postings may be coming more frequently than once a week for a while.

Nox – Opus Unending (2020)
Clucas / Bishop / Smith / Crane – Universal or Directional (2020)
Patrick Shiroishi – (holy alone) (2020)
Kyle Motl / Rhonda Taylor – Sepulchers (2020)
Kamran Sadeghi – Between Us (2020)

Mutual Mentorship for Musicians Launched

~ Mike

Source: Mutual Mentorship for Musicians.

Co-founded in spring 2020 by vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu and vocalist-composer Sara Serpa, M³—Mutual Mentorship for Musicians—was conceived as an initiative that empowers and elevates womxn musicians around the world (including BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ across generations) in a new model of mentorship comprising four sessions per year with each session culminating in a performance of new collaborative commissions. With the aim of building new paradigms of mentorship, M³ encourages the reciprocal, intergenerational exchange of knowledge and experience; formation of new collaborations with musicians outside of one’s inner circle; and cultivation of new ideas and formats for solo and collaborative performance, whether live or virtual. The initiative was announced by its co-founders on Tuesday, July 21, 2020 during a Facebook Live event hosted by Larry Blumenfeld titled “What Mentorship Means Now,” presented as part of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem’s Jazz and Social Justice series. The event can be viewed at facebook.com/NationalJazzMuseum.