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New Releases from Ayler Records

From Ayler Records:

Snus – Niklas Barnö, Joel Grip, Didier Lasserre
This trio was first put together by Marc Fèvre, the active foreman of parisian dynamic wine and free music venue, l’Atelier Tampon, for the celebrations of legendary bassist Alan Silva’s 70th birthday. Ayler Records liked this, and decided to record and produce a CD with the group a few months later. The meeting between the two swedes, Joel Grip and Niklas Barnö, and the frenchman Didier Lasserre, is a clash of free minds, nestled up in improvisation, stating their now’s with a firm but gentle slap in your face. Free music it is, and energ(et)ic all the more. A special blend of free jazz and free improv, a sophisticated mix of talents that tastes different, fresh and highly addictive.

Free Unfold Trio – Ballades
(J. Le Masson, B. Duboc, D. Lasserre)
The Free Unfold Trio ventures, and we with them, where many would instead turn round and go back : to the edge of the unknown, to secret places where an underlying depth permeates every gesture; where it feels good to lose oneself now and again. On the razor’s edge, in the open air, wandering about between silence and what’s unplayed. Four stretched out ballads, their melodies in dotted lines, as if diffracted, of dazzling brightness – gleaming seen as an art form.

Nuts (B. Duboc, R. Siddik, I. Oki, D. Lasserre, M. Sato)
Symphony for Old and New Dimensions
These men are calling home. These men are crying for home. For many a home. France. United States. Japan. Elsewhere… When Benjamin Duboc gathered these four men around him, he knew he had to bring forth an underlying intuition that the gathering, the very act of gathering individuals was the key of music-making today. NUTS is a playground of gathered individuals caught in the act of meeting each other. Live.

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Performances

New York Winter Jazzfest

Also in NY this weekend is the Winter Jazzfest. A few select shows are listed below.

Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
Jamie Saft’s Whoopie Pie
Peter Apfelbaum and the New York Hieroglyphics    
Jenny Scheinman & Jason Moran
Vijay Iyer Trio
Bitches Brew Revisited
William Parker Qtet (Zim Ngqawana cancelled)
DJ Logic
Mike Reed’s People, Places and Things
Mary Halvorson
Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Indo-Pak Coalition
Tyshawn Sorrey: Koan
Elliott Sharp‘s Terraplane
The Claudia Quintet with Gary Versace
Todd Sickafoose Tiny Resistors

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General

Where Pat Metheny and Nachtmystium Overlap

Tomas Haake warming up before a Meshuggah gig ...
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From NYTimes.com, a comparison of the similarities of jazz and metal.

Jazz stages and metal stages are places where a certain kind of experimentation happens: brainy and cabalistic, with a hint of a smile. Both increasingly depend on educated virtuosos. In both genres you can develop curious harmonic worlds, warp the tempos, brush against folkloric or conservatory music, play many notes very speedily and engage sturdy American grooves or a more studied system of fitting odd-number beats into even-number meters. Pat Metheny, jazz guitarist, meet Paul Masvidal of Cynic; Jeff (Tain) Watts, jazz drummer, meet Tomas Haake of Meshuggah. Both forms seem to have a neatly divided audience: maybe two-thirds respectfully fixated on the music’s past, one-third concerned about building paradigms for the future.

Both have become increasingly local and international at the same time; they depend on the scenes of certain communities — whether Brooklyn; Chicago; or Savannah, Ga. — but their audiences are everywhere. As of the late ’00s both have been the subject of serious academic conferences. And aside from a few tanklike, old-favorite examples — Metallica and Keith Jarrett, say — if you want to keep up with either, you have to listen to cuts on MySpace pages and go to gigs.

Jazz and metal are both diversifying at a fantastic rate, feeding on their old modes and languages, combining them and breaking them down. (In both, the fans have become more suspicious of genre heresy than the musicians.) An album by a typically ambitious ’00s metal group — like Baroness, Isis, Krallice or Nachtmystium — might put a dozen kinds of metal in a supercollider, as well as kinds that lie outside the genre, spewing them all out in complicated, episodic song structures. So too with some of the better current jazz groups, including Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Marcus Strickland’s Twi-Life, Stefon Harris’s Blackout, Mostly Other People Do the Killing and the similarly named groups Bad Touch and the Bad Plus.

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Performances

Rare Degree and Others at Sonic Circuits

From DC’s Sonic Circuits:

Friday January 15
Doors 730pm Music 8pm SHARP
$8
PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
Free parking in gated lot out front
DIRECTIONS: http://www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org
INFO: dc-soniccircuits.org

Since their formation in 2006, rare degree has been active in commissioning, performing and presenting electroacoustic music throughout the United States and Europe. Comprised of saxophonist Michael Straus and bassoonist Dana Jessen, the duo frequently collaborates with composers, improvisers, dancers, and visual artists around the world.

Mindbreath Trio is an experimental ensemble consisting of Perry Conticchio (reeds), Daniel Barbiero (double bass) and Alan Munshower (percussion). The trio explores a spontaneous melodic prosody that translates thoughts and images from mind to breath to sound: Improvisation as exhalation of consciousness. Their approach fosters a conversational intimacy that combines the bodily presence and directness of jazz with the cerebral nuance of contemporary art music.

Trio O is Rich O’Meara (Silent Orchestra) on vibes and percussive textures , Kevin O’Meara (Videohippos, Blood Baby) on drums, crow bar and vocal textures and Gary Rouzer (Vector Trio, Nine Strings) on NS bass cello and amplified textures.

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General

Best of Best of 2009

I’ve already said my piece on the best of 2009, but here is an opportunity to present the opinions of others. Over the last month or so, I’ve collected some of the more interesting and relevant “best of” lists, that focus on music likely to be within the AMN scope.

So, welcome to the best of the best of 2009.

The Village Voice
Howard Mandel
NPR’s Take Five.
Jason Crane
Music and More
Stuart Broomer
Susanna Bolle
Laurence Donohue-Greene
Derek Taylor
Adam Strohm
Nate Chinen
Ben Ratliff
Francios Couture
Destination Out
Jim Macnie
Brett Saunders

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Fresh Sound Music Upcoming Concerts

Fresh Sound Music puts on some interesting shows in San Diego:

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 – 8 pm
Margaret Noble, sound design (San Diego)
Susan Narucki, voice and electronics (San Diego)

FRESH SOUND EXTRA – Ear, Nose and Throat
Monday, January 25th, 2010 – 8 pm

PERCUSSION SERIES – Steve Schick
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 – 8 pm
Mathematics of Resonant Bodies by John Luther Adams.

PERCUSSION SERIES – Scott Amendola and Wil Blades
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 – 8 pm

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AMN Picks General

AMN Picks of the Week

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.

Trayer – One Over Zero (2009)
Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore – Three Less Than Between (2009)
Nublu Orchestra conducted by Butch Morris – Live at Jazz Festival Saalfelden (2009)
K-Space – Going Up (2005)
Zao – Ethnic 3 Live (2008)
Yard – DDS (2009)
Neo – Water Resistance (2009)

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This Week at the Velvet Lounge.

Kahil El'Zabar at Chicago's Ethnic Heritage En...
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From the Velvet Lounge:

Saturday, 12/26 — Umoja (Unity) with the Kahil El’ Zabar Quartet featuring Kevin Nabors, Justin Dillard, and Junius Paul;

Thursday, 12/31 — Kuumba (Creativity)/New Years Eve party with Nicole Mitchell & the Black Earth with special guest cameo appearance by Fred Anderson ($25 cover includes party favors, snacks & Champagne toast);

Friday, January 1 – Imani (Faith)/New Years party with the AACM Experimental Chamber Ensemble featuring Dee Alexander, Ann Ward, Taalib-din & Saalik Ziyad, Douglas Ewart, Mwata Bowden, Tomeka Reid, Art “Turk” Burton, Avreeayl Ra, and more tba;

Saturday, January 2 – Holiday weekend finale with James Sanders & Conjunto featuring Willy Garcia, Kevin O’ Connell, Brent Benteler, Roel Trevino, Jean-Christophe Leroy, with special guest cameo appearance by Fred Anderson.

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9th Annual New Music Festival at Cal State Fullerton

From Los Angeles New Music:

The 9th Annual New Music Festival at Cal State Fullerton March 7th-13th, 2010 features works by composer/pianist in residence Frederic Rzewski and American Classics: Cage, Feldman, Carter plus works from American Women Composers: Augusta Read Thomas, Amy Williams, Pamela Madsen and Carolyn Yarnell performed by world renowned pianists specializing in contemporary music: Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens, Gloria Cheng, Kathleen Supove and the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo.

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Reviews

Jazz Times Reviews

From Jazz Times:

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010  •  BY DAVID WHITEIS
Fred Anderson
21st Century Chase
Delmark Records
The prototype here is “The Chase,” the 1947 Dexter Gordon/Wardell Gray workout that virtually defined “tenor battle” for succeeding generations. But this set, recorded at Chicago’s Velvet Lounge during Fred Anderson’s 80th birthday celebration, recasts that…

12/21/09
Transatlantic Visions
Joëlle Léandre/George Lewis
According to poet Alexandre Pierrepont in the liner notes of Transatlantic…

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