Source: Paste.

Last year, a group of female and non-binary jazz musicians founded the We Have Voice Collective, an organization that aims to “foster awareness, inclusion, and the creation of safe( r ) spaces for all” in jazz and improvised music scenes. This arrived in the wake of #MeToo and following mass exposure to instances of sexism and misogyny in jazz. A year earlier, the Women in Jazz Foundation began their efforts to provide a voice for women and non-binary individuals within the historically male-dominated genre. As with other strands of #MeToo-induced activism across industries, it’s not as if women weren’t in jazz before now—they’re just finally being given a voice. This list was compiled not because these artists are women, but because they are talented players who are key to the futures of jazz and improvised music and deserve representation.

Source: Dangerous Minds. A little bit of humor to end the day.

If you like your music adventurous, you’ll probably get a huge kick out of Noise Park, a Tumblr that features South Park versions of many avant-garde, experimental, and generally out-there musicians. Whoever is making these charmingly made the decision to follow his or her own esoteric musical tastes, which is a nice way of saying that a good many of the subjects are a bit obscure (Blevin Blectum, Moth Cock, Rotten Milk, etc.), which has the effect of turning it all into an inside inside joke of sorts.

But a lot of the subjects are quite well-known, covering the more cerebral end of the musical spectrum (Kraftwerk, Beefheart, Residents). I spent a fair amount of time trying to come up with a plausibly minimalist South Park episode plot involving Terry Riley, but I failed. Then I switched to Throbbing Gristle and my brain exploded.

Source: New Music Scotland.

Dorico Award for Small / Medium Scale Work sponsored by Steinberg (1-10 performers)
James Dillon – Quartet No. 9
Claire McCue – I Regret Your Sex
Lisa Robertson – The Inimitable Brightness of the Air

Large scale New Work (11+ performers) sponsored by PRS for Music
Helen Grime – Woven Space
David Fennessy – Triptych
Ailie Robertson – Caoineadh

The Good Spirits Co award for innovation in New Traditional Music
Niteworks
Ailie Robertson – Seven Sorrows
Grit Orchestra – Bothy Culture

EVM Award for Electroacoustic/sound art work
Louise Harris – Visaurihelix
Alex Menzies – Other World Music Vol 1
Pippa Murphy – Breathe In Me

Community/Education project
Get Composing – sound
Incredible Distance – Scottish Chamber Orchestra / WHALE Arts / Fruitmarket Gallery / Scottish Society of Artists
Lost At Sea – East Neuk Festival / Scanner / Svend McEwan-Brown

The RCS Award for Contribution to new music in Scotland
Red Note Ensemble
Enterprise Music Scotland
Fiona Robertson

Prize for Collaboration
Anthems for Queer Youth – Patricia Auchterlonie / Gareth Mattey / Savage Parade / Robert Reid Allan
Simon Thacker’s Svara – Kanti Simon Thacker Neyveli/ B. Venkatesh/ K.V. Gopalakrishna/ N Guruprasad/ Farida Yesmin/ Raju Das Baul / Sunayana Ghosh
WEAR – Alistair White / UU Studios / Gemma A. Williams

Recorded New Work
ANNO:Four Seasons by Anna Meredith & Antonio Vivaldi – Anna Meredith and the Scottish Ensemble – Moshi Moshi Music
Out of Silence – John Mcleod / RSNO / Evelyn Glennie / Holly Mathieson – Delphian Records
softLOUD – Sean Shibe – Delphian Records

Award for Creative Programming
Counterflows
sound
The Night With…

The RCS Award for Making it Happen
Glasgow Experimental Music Series
Nevis Ensemble
Nordic Viola

New Music Performer(s) of the Year
BBC SSO
Drake Music Scotland
Garth Knox

Source: Tri-Centric Foundation.

Select bootleg albums will be republished as free or pay-what-you-want downloads. For starters, we now have available the two Big Ears Festival boots Trio (Knoxville) 2016 and 10+1tet (Knoxville) 2016, as well as Anthony’s solo album Solo (Kent) 1979.

Anthony’s research papers are now on our website, top right tab. This is a collection of his many eye-opening writings on various topic ranging from architecture style in West Africa to Shakespeare.

Please check them out, and please consider donating to our organization to help us keep going. We accept year-round contributions. No amount is too small. We thank you in advance, and a big thank you to the many people who have already donated. Your support is vital to our work.

Media wrap-up:

• New Braxton House’s latest box set offering, GTM (Syntax) 2017, has sold out on Bandcamp (retailers still have copies, and we will always have DLs). We received many great reviews, the most recent of which is a superb and detailed three-part analysis available on The Free Jazz Collective site.
• In February, Anthony Braxton and Tri-Centric were at the Edition Festival in Stockholm for an evening of his works, as described in this Downbeat Magazine article.
• An excerpt from Anthony Braxton’s solo performance at this year’s Sons d’hiver Festival is now up on YouTube, and a review of the ZIM Sextet is available on Citizen Jazz (in French, with photos everyone can enjoy).
• In March, Kyoko Kitamura collaborated with Japanese pianist/composer Masayasu Tzboguchi for a two-day workshop in Tokyo on the music of Anthony Braxton. Events were reviewed in JazzTokyo here and here (in Japanese, with photos for everyone to enjoy).
• The Wire Magazine April 2019 Issue 422 (which, at this point, would be the previous issue) contains a section on music education. Nate Wooley pens an insightful article on Anthony Braxton titled “The System Of A Down” where he examines the down beat in Anthony’s music (the “vibrational down”) to explore the composer’s holistic approach.

Braxton75 events coming up include two youth ensembles performances: our ongoing collaboration with Face the Music and our new involvement with the Visionary Youth Orchestra. Please stay tuned!

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.

Karris Adams Duo – Nothing Stays Buried (la la la la) (2019)
Elliott Sharp / Alvaro Domene / Mike Caratti – Expressed by the Circumference (2019)
Neraterræ – The Substance of Perception (2019)
RAIC (Richmond Avant Improv Collective) – Lamentations (2019)
Monocube – Substratum (2019)

Source: LISZTS. Xenakis, Cage, Glass…

Not too long ago, artists would often hold down day jobs. T.S. Eliot sketched out “The Waste Land” between the hours of seven and midnight, all while brokering foreign accounts at Lloyds Bank during the day. Ernest Hemingway famously worked as a reporter for the Toronto Star. Then something strange happened; the idea of being a successful artist with a day job disappeared.