Alana Macpherson Nonet - All or Nothing At All (August 15, 2018)

Join powerhouse saxophonist Alana Macpherson and her Nonet ensemble for the launch of their debut album “All or Nothing At All” on August 15th. Since 2014, the Alana Macpherson Nonet has been performing regularly around Perth, delivering their unique blend of intricate composition, and high energy improvisation.  Influenced by modern big band music, free jazz and post-rock, Macpherson’s music features dense textures, floating melodies and hard hitting grooves. Don’t miss your chance to see this ensemble in full flight before Macpherson moves to Graz, Austria to commence further study in jazz composition.

Alana Macpherson

Alana Macpherson: alto saxophone

Dylan Hooper: tenor saxophone

Jessica Beahan: bass clarinet

Ricki Malet: trumpet

Blake Philips: trombone

Jacob Mitchell: guitar

Austin Salisbury: piano

Kate Pass: bass

Alex Reid: drums

Priscilla Gardner: voice tracks 2,6

1. Blind Eye 08:55

2. All or Nothing At All 07:54

3. Collision of Clouds 08:29

4. Oikos 08:13

5. Swan 08:37

6. Solitude 05:44

FAB1 - FAB1.4 (2018)

In June 2017, two old acquaintances decided to play together.

Since none of the pair could afford renting a rehearsal studio, they gathered an audience on the go, and improvised on Vietinghoff's standards.

It went toward free improvisation later on, and unveiled what's kept in the both musicians' subconsciousness.

This improv gig took place on 5 May 2018 at Sound Museum

Araik Vietinghoff – piano

Alexander Belkov – drums

Recorded by Boris Shershenkov

Artwork by Ta Tatiana

1. Don't Be Pathetic 11:20

2. The Wet Shine of Our Eyes 07:23

3. You Keep Me in Suspense 07:13

4. Suicide Commited with Toy Cutlery 07:44

5. Infinity 08:15

6. Hyperballad 05:30

7. I Suck in Pursuing 11:49

8. Now, We Are Back to Concord 06:28

Sam Dillon - Out In The Open (CELLAR LIVE September 7, 2018)

Sam Dillon (tenor sax)

Billy Drummond (drums)

Yoshi Waki (bass)

Peter Zak (piano)

1 I Hear A Rhapsody

2 Peace

3 Out In The Open

4 Triste

5 Night And Day

6 Everything Happens To Me

7 Untitled

8 New Blues

9 Third Stone From The Sun

Recorded at Trading 8s Recording Studio in Paramus, New Jersey on January 13, 2018 by Chris Sulit

Trinom3 - Just A Bit Further (CELLAR LIVE 2018)

"Just a Bit Further", Trinom3's second release, brings together the various music styles that have inspired the band throughout their formative years. Masters of progressive rock, jazz, r&b/pop and film scores, Mike Clinco, John Van Tongeren and Kendall Kay are most certainly the musically eclectic gentlemen.

John Van Tongeren - organ & keyboards

Mike Clinco - guitars

Kendall Kay - drums & percussions

plus guests

Bob Sheppard - tenor saxophone

Walt Fowler - trumpet & flugelhorn

Danny Pelfrey - saxophones

1 Peter Lorre 5:33

2 Just A Bit Further 7:02

3 Jag 6:09

4 Daub And Wattle 6:25

5 Into The Dream We Go 8:51

6 Kashmir 7:49

7 Majorly 4:44

8 Feedin' The Meter 5:16

9 Anyway 6:20

10 Truth Be Told 6:14

11 Slice 4:45

Joani Taylor - In A Sentimental Mood (CELLAR LIVE 2018)

Vocallist Joani Taylor returns with a wonderfully melancholy set of songs.

After a series of serious life setbacks, Joani Taylor really didn't think nor was in the frame of mind to think about singing any of the beloved standard songs that were rooted deeply in her long music career. The prodding of Canadian legend, alto saxophonist PJ Perry paid off and the resulting album is a as honest a statement from a vocalist as you'll ever hear.

Features an all-star Canadian band including PJ Perry, Neil Swainson and Miles Black.

A beautiful collection of some Great American Songbook songs.

Some of the most honest, heartfelt jazz singing on record in many years.

Joani Taylor - Voice

PJ Perry - Alto & Tenor Saxophones

Miles Black - Piano

Neil Swainson - Bass

Executive Producer: Cory Weeds 

Produced by Cory Weeds 

Recorded at Warehouse Studios, Vancouver, BC, November 15, 2017 

Engineered, mixed, and mastered by Sheldon Zharko 

Photography by Ashley Gesner 

Design and layout by Perry Chua

1. This Can't Be Love 06:27

2. In A Sentimental Mood 04:57

3. Embraceable You 04:19

4. Alfie 05:24

5. Undecided 03:46

6. Sentimental Journey 03:14

7. Lover Man 07:01

8. Love Walked In 05:23

9. A Ghost Of A Chance / I Can't Get Started 03:57

10. More Than You Know 06:43

11. Be My Love 06:41

12. I Just Had To Hear Your Voice 05:19

Ben Paterson - Live at Van Gelder's (CELLAR LIVE 2018)

Recorded at the iconic studio of Rudy Van Gelder, Ben Paterson, Ed Cherry and Jason Tiemann get greasy! Live At Van Gelder's has a decidedly relaxed feel to it. The tunes were carefully selected, including some that are associated heavily with the organ and others that you may not expect to hear in this context. The band is clearly inspired by recording in the iconic Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey studio of the iconic Rudy Van Gelder.

Ben Paterson - Hammond B-3 Organ

Ed Cherry - Guitar

Jason Tiemann - Drums

Executive Producer - Cory Weeds

Produced by Ben Paterson and Cory Weeds

Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's in Englewood Cliffs, NJ

March 22, 2018

Engineered by Maureen Sickler, assisted by Don Sickler

Mixed and mastered by Dave Darlington

Photography by Aslam Husain

Design and layout by Perry Chua

1. F.S.R

4. Green Jeans

5. Enchantment

6. The Vibrator

7. I Remember Clifford

8. Hustler

9. Easy Time

10. Sweatin'

Ken Vandermark / Klaus Kugel / Mark Tokar - No​-​Exit Corner (CATALYTIC SOUND 2018)

No-Exit Corner, the second CD by the trio featuring the tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark, the drummer Klaus Kugel, and the bassist Mark Tokar, recorded during a 2016 Krakow club date, is a brilliant example of what I suppose might still be best categorized as free jazz—if only because no one has yet come up with a better name after almost sixty years of trying.

But free jazz of what specific variety? Following the mid-1960s, when free was taking shape in New York City and was sometimes also pegged “the new black music” (it was a musical analogue to that era’s black anger—at least to hear the most militant of its players and literary proponents), we’ve tended to classify its various offshoots more by point of origin than by race or ethnicity.

But despite the recording location, the label, and what it says on Kugel and Tokar’s passports (Germany and [Ukraine?], respectively), No-Exit Corner can hardly be tagged “Eastern European” or even the hopelessly amorphous “European.” 

For one thing, Vandermark—the trio’s only horn, to whom one’s ears turn first, sheerly out of habit, because that’s how we’ve been taught to listen to jazz—is a Chicagoan, the prime mover in that midwestern American city’s post-AACM ferment. But notwithstanding a few delayed thematic delineations and the frequent chime of Kugel’s cymbals, this music in no way resembles that of the AACM’s first and second waves.

It’s not marked by discontinuity, like the music of Evan Parker, the late Derek Bailey, and other early British from-scratch improvisers. Nor does it call to mind Han Bennink or other Dutch dadaists. Peter Brôtzmann might be closer to it, especially on the fast and furious “Left Sided Driver” and the convulsive final few minutes of “Message to the Past,” but not quite. You’ll hear echoes of all these approaches, but only because they’re all part of a common vernacular by this point, and these three musicians are serious students of the jazz past, able to draw from it whatever and whenever they feel need to.

Ken Vandermark

Along with being the form of jazz that most prizes individualism, free has also become the most international form of jazz—a beneficial consequence of being the style most independent of the blues (if that’s what a player or group of players choose). And witness their far-flung discographies, Vandermark, Kugel, and Tokar are committed internationalists. Vandermark, for instance, leads bands based throughout Eastern Europe as well in Chicago, and has lately been collaborating in New York with Jason Moran, another player who doesn’t believe in putting himself or jazz in a box. 

Tokar has played in Vandermark’s Resonance ensemble, and his and Kugel’s combined discographies include dates with Bobby Few, Roberta Piket, and Charles Gayle, as well as a good number of Eastern Europe’s leading improvisers.

Can there be such a thing as straight-ahead free? If so, this disk’s five as-it-happens improvisations would be it. Each achieves something remarkable, a seldom-realized free jazz ideal: the more these players achieve something remarkable, the more these players sacrifice themselves in support of one another, the more our attention is drawn to each’s individual merits.

Teasing his solos to climax on the album’s two longest performances, Vandermark shows he knows the difference between repetition and repetitiveness. This might be some of his best playing on records; it’s definitely among his lustiest. Tokar’s “extended” bass technique is astonishing, and worthy of special notice is the way he matches tones with Vandermark when the latter explores the lower reaches of his horn. Kugel is a model drummer, supplying both motion and combustion without so much as implying a steady beat. Only one modifier will do in further categorizing this free jazz: classic. - Francis Davis

1. Left Sided Driver 19:22

2. Everyday Fabric 13:59

3. Objective 49 04:51

4. Split Hinge 03:43

5. Message To The Past 14:42

All Compositions by Ken Vandermark [Twenty First Mobile Music/ASCAP-Cien Fuegos], Mark Tokar, Klaus Kugel [GEMA]. 

Recorded at The Alchemia Club in Krakow on December 12th, 2016. 

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Rafał Drewinany [dts studio] 

Design by Małgorzata Linińska