Category: Interviews

Source: Memphis Flyer. I’ll do different things as a solo set. I’ve been on tour a bunch since August, doing a lot of solo shows, and I’m trying to keep them different. So I’m improvising, and it’s kind of heavy on the prepared drum aspect of it, maybe more so than a lot of other…

Source: The Wire. For more than 50 years – since founding The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in 1973 – Kahil El’Zabar has established himself as a leader in the development of Chicago originated Great Black Music, mixing Afrocentric traditions with contemporary sensibilities and options. A percussionist who vocalises, composes, arranges and collaborates with both established masters…

Source: Stereogum. Despite being 100% American, born in upstate New York to Indian immigrant parents, Iyer was often portrayed early in his career as an exotic novelty, for entirely superficial reasons. The genuinely interesting things about him — his degrees in math and physics, the fact that he was a self-taught pianist who’d shifted to…

Source: 15 questions . I was in a Christmas pageant at a very young age of the March of the Toys, as a clown. While coming into the auditorium, I heard the most beautiful sound from an instrument that turned out to be a Tenor Sax. I was hooked, and made it my mission to…

Source: 15 questions. Another big thing was my first encounter with Incus records. Derek Bailey, Han Bennink, Evan Parker and more and more. They were all my heroes.

Source: 15 questions. It was lucky that we had learned from many music improvisers, mostly Free Jazz players, around us. Japanese of course, US and European records too. Many great performers we respected, for example Patty Waters, Albert Ayler, Coltrane, Milford Graves, Miles, Dolphy, Masahiko Togashi, Kaoru Abe Etc.

Source: GBH. 2023 was an eventful year for acclaimed saxophonist, flutist and composer Anna Webber. She released her new album, Shimmer Wince, in October and was appointed New England Conservatory’s New Jazz Studies co-chair. Now, coming off of those successes, she’s gearing up to share her talents with audiences once again with two upcoming concerts…

Source: The Big Takeover. After I recently reviewed the reissue/restoration of Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s 1987 release Mesmerized by the Sirens I slipped down a Darkwave rabbit hole with Projekt Records. While sliding through hits of gothic rock, post-punked rhythms, ambient waves, and electronic vibrations, I realized that 2023 is a banner year…

Source: The Quietus. Miloš Hroch talks to composer and pipe organist Kali Malone about her astounding new album All Life Long, her relationship with mountaineering, creativity as athleticism and profanity.

This is about a year old but still nice to hear. For Episode #110 we caught up with legendary Canterbury prog keyboardist, Dave Stewart. We discuss a wide variety of topics, including his work with seminal prog-fusion groups like Bruford, National Health, Egg and more. We take a close look at his work with Barbara…

Source: 15 questions. Anthony Braxton said in an interview that math and music were really two sides of the same coin. And of course Western harmony just comes from dividing a string into different proportions. So I think the connection is there, but it’s up to the artist to decide what bearing that might have…

Source: 15 questions. Opera used to deal with that. But more and more, it seems, the new operas are about “historical celebrities”, like Einstein, Nixon, MaoTeSung, Malcolm X, etc. My point is that those characters are not interesting because the media has helped us to have made up our mind / opinions, whatever they are,…

Source: 15 questions. As far as I’m concerned, and I believe in the band in general, what motivates us is always the same thing: to experiment with new things. You never know what the next album is going to be like. We have desires, projections of what this new musical object could be, but we…

Source: 15 questions. Honestly, I think that my life experience planted more seeds in my connection to improvisation than my early musical experiences. I would hear the change in people’s tone of voice or sense a shift in their body language and adapt to that moment. It gave me a great sense of openness and…

Source: 15 questions. Any piece is effectively one shape, with its parameters as dimensions — pitch, timbre, dynamics, and time — a morphing sculpture — and one can incorporate more dimensions (especially in recording: stereo locus, acoustics of the space, various parameters of fidelity, etc.) as well as the sub-parameters within each dimension (pitch: intonation,…