Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Peter Knight & Australian Art Orchestra - Crossed & Recrossed (June 15, 2021)
Topsi Series / Cloud Reading Society (May 3, 2021 Umlaut Records)
Topsi Series / When Will Never Meet (May 3, 2021 Umlaut Records)
Solborg / Banke / Heebøll - Angels (2021)
Doug Sides & Daniel Cano - Duplexity EP (April 2021)
John Hasselback III - Entrance (April 2021)
Enrico Morello - Cyclic Signs (2021 Auand Records)
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Weird Box - Radio Paris (April 2021 Auand Records)
Franco Ambrosetti - Lost Within You (2021 Unit Records)
Nezelhorns - Sentiment (April 2021 Barefoot Records)
Ingrid Laubrock / Tom Rainey - Stir Crazy Episode 53 (April 2021)
Daniel Tamayo Quintet - Unjustified Paranoia (April 29, 2021)
The Dave Glasser / Clark Terry / Barry Harris Project (feat. Frank Wess, Benny Powell, Roy Hargrove) - Uh! Oh! (2021 nagel heyer records)
Almog Sharvit - Get Up Or Cry (May 28, 2021)
Monday, April 5, 2021
Eric Goletz - Into The Night (April 2021 CAP Records)
Mark Small - One Day
You’ve most likely seen him perform, be it Newport Jazz Fest, Village Vanguard Orchestra, or on a late night TV show with Michael Buble. Mark Small has been an award winning sideman for numerous groups in all genres, free jazz to pop, that have an inkling of improvisation to them. He has co-lead groups with fellow musicians such as Walter Smith III and Jeremy Udden. He has finally taken the plunge and released a record of his own titled One Day.
“I’ve been extremely lucky to have played with so many wonderful musicians for so long. I’ve gotten to fulfill most of my dreams such as playing at the iconic Village Vanguard, performing at Madison Square Garden, and traveling the world over. I felt it was time I made a statement of my own.” Small continues, “I thought it would be amazing to reconnect with two friends who both perform frequently together. I hadn’t had the opportunity to play with Matt Brewer and Damion Reid in years so this recording became the catalyst.”
Jason Moran / Milford Graves - Live at Big Ears (April 2021)
Preparation....
In 2016 I invited Milford Graves to perform at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. In preparation for his solo performance we spoke over the phone, and then in person as he visited the performance space, Veterans Room. He talked about transferring and transmitting energy through language, body and sound. I wanted to experience him pull the ear of the audience into his drums, the open vessels and gaping caverns. While he created a frame for his performance, he and Jake Meginsky created a new video. This video opened his performance and dove into his practice of amplifying the movements of the heart muscle and how those movements can render melodies. It was extraordinary, and his performance brought every aspect of his practice to peak.
At the end of his performance, he said "Thank You Jason....you know what's next.... we gotta play TOGETHER".
The festival producer Ashley Capps (Big Ears Festival) was in attendance that fateful evening, and two years later he invited Milford and I to his festival. Our duo had a date. I began visiting Milford at his home in Jamaica, Queens. On my first visit, I brought one of my sons and we sat in Milford's basement for hours. The basement is a laboratory. Thousands of wires, hundreds of vitrines, piles of books, stacks of drums, an enormous subwoofer, multiple video monitors. Everything that enters the basement is prone to be examined. Milford researches it all, from the voice to the pulp, and then he finds a way for those studies to exist in his music. He hooked my heart up to his computer and rendered a melody of my heartbeat. He added it to his archive of heart melodies. I'd return a few months later, we'd talk about sculpture, demand, and process. This was all in preparation for stepping onstage with him.
Milford reminded me of my teacher, the pianist Jaki Byard. Their stance and voice, their round sound and momentum, all of the history at play at once, never segmented into style, all living in the garden together. Milford spoke of gardens and how he planted species close to one another that might not otherwise meet, charging a new relationship.
This is how he approaches music.