Benje Daneman's SearchParty - Light in the Darkness (August 31, 2018)

SearchParty's first album, "Light in the Darkness", a 6 movement jazz suite commissioned by Spark and Echo Arts, musically explores the age-old struggle between light and darkness in the world through Daneman's original compositions.

1. The Light 09:10

2. Eventide

3. Lamps

4. Dusk

5. Just a Little While Longer

6. Children of the Light

7. Twilight

8. (Our Fear of) Exposure

9. Darkness

10. You Are The Light

Benje Daneman's SearchParty: 

Benje Daneman - Trumpet/Flugelhorn

Ashley Daneman - Voice

Greg Ward - Alto Sax

Rob Clearfield - Piano

Andrew Vogt - Bass

Jon Deitemyer - Drums

Spoken vocals on “Children of the Life” by SearchParty

Recorded August 3rd, 2017 at Overneath Creative Collective, Kalamazoo, MI

Produced by Benje Daneman 

Co-Produced by Gordon van Gent

Recorded & Mixed by Gordon van Gent

Mastered by Garrett Gagnon

Album Artwork by Ashley Daneman

Steinway Piano in association with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra

All selections composed by Benje Daneman, except improvised tracks #2, #4, #7 and #9

“Light in the Darkness” originally commissioned by Spark & Echo Arts in 2015

Steve Swell - Music for Six Musicians: Hommage à Olivier Messiaen (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

From Stephen Rush's liner notes:

« What we have here is new music. Free music. Ellington and Armstrong were right in not wanting to call it anything else but Music. Why put it in a sub-category? This belongs with the best of any new music, period. And this new music is created (with the assistance of Swell’s scores and direction) by an ensemble that knows how to both play and listen geometric and mystical constructions: some preconceived by the skillful pen of Steve Swell and some spontaneously shaped and formed. Lean in. Listen again. And swim upstream and down with the band – it’s completely worth it. » 

Ann Arbor, July 2017

1. Opening 24:41

2. Sextet for the End of Democracy 12:26

3. Vautour Fauve 14:53

4. Joy and the Remarkable Behavior of Time 14:50

5. Exit the Labyrinth 09:27

Rob Brown alto saxophone

Steve Swell trombone, aerophone

Jason Kao Hwang violin, viola, electronics

Robert Boston piano, organ

Tomas Ulrich cello

Jim Pugliese drums, percussion

Steve Swell's Kende Dreams - Hommage à Bartók (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

From John Corbett's liner notes: 

« Trombonist Steve Swell's approach to a Bartók homage on Kende Dreams is a synthesis and it advisably leaves the encounter with the Hungarian a relatively loose and oblique affair, with specific points of convergence but an end product that feels more like it was inspired by the composer than obliged to adopt his methods. The seven tracks are creative music pitched at the highest level; as is that music's unalienable right, it absorbs and transforms things that it comes into contact with. So, unlike Milhaud's attempts to quote or characterize jazz, this is jazz eating and fully digesting modern classical music, turning it into something else completely. » 

Chicago, April 2015

1. Roswellian Folk Song 07:57

2. For Will Connell Jr. 07:51

3. After SQ4 09:59

4. Attack of the Mikrokosmos 08:12

5. Bartók Screams 13:40

6. Lent-Oh! 14:09

7. Ultima 08:34

Rob Brown alto saxophone

Steve Swell trombone

Connie Crothers piano

William Parker bass

Chad Taylor drums

Charles Gayle Quartet - Blue Shadows (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

When Keith Knox and I founded Silkheart Records in 1984, our main objective was to present the “new American jazz”, but also to record the lesser-known, under-recorded heroes of the seventies loft scene époque.

We got off to a brisk start with the latter category by recording Charles Brackeen, Booker T., Ahmed Abdullah, The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Charles Tyler et al.

About 1985 I had heard a tenorist playing in two separate locations in Manhattan, at the Times Square subway station and around Grand Central. His playing was challenging to say the least, but I didn’t pay too much attention at that time, unlike bassist Hilliard Greene whose attention was grabbed immediately (see his interview in Cadence, August 2006).

A year or so later a friend sent Keith a tape of a tenor player, which he passed over to me. The sound quality was terrible and I didn’t think much of the music. I was told that the tenorist’s name was Charles Gayle and that he was homeless. I did not immediately drop the project and for some reason I was curious, so that when I visited NYC at some time in 1986 and learned that Charles was to play in a small apartment in Soho, I went there to hear him and realized...  more

1. Inside the Sun 03:00

2. Blue Shadows 11:30

3. Eternity Promised 1 17:13

4. Eternity Promised 2 02:08

5. Hearts to Jesus 17:49

6. Soul’s Time 03:09

7. In Sorrow 13:38

8. Snap 01:51

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone, viola

William Parker bass, cello, half-size violin

Vattel Cherry bass, kalimba, bells

Michael Wimberly drums

Matt Lavelle Trio - Spiritual Power (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

Over the years I've seen a lot of "new talent" come and go. Some are very young, some already over-the-hill. All eager to make it and to make the "SCENE." To be hip. Cool. It. Then there are those who come to play the music and to seek mentors and try to make it in the toughest possible scene there is. That being the world of so-called "avant-garde" or "free" jazz, where nothing is free but the music and even that comes at a high cost. No money. Few gigs. Lots of people to impress in a very small though widening community. Self sacrifice. Discipline. And above all finding one's own voice. 

Multi-instrumentalist Matt Lavelle (adept on both trumpet and bass clarinet) is the latter. He arrived in New York, to challenge and be challenged. To learn and take and give. And give he does with all his heart, soul, guts to the music and people he loves and...  more

1. Spiritual Power 08:48

2. Stars Like Fleas 07:12

3. Sí Se Puede (Yes We Can) 07:52

4. End Times 08:37

5. I Will Have Love in my Life 13:22

6. Hey Liduva 05:19

7. Seth Speaks 11:08

Matt Lavelle trumpet (3), flugelhorn (1), (5), (7), bass-clarinet (2), (4), (6)

Hilliard Greene bass

Mike T.A. Thompson drums

Heinz Geisser - Guerino Mazzola Duo: Someday (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"Someday" by percussionist Heinz Geisser and pianist Guerino Mazzola is a companion album to "Folia/The UNAM Concert" by the same duo. These recordings were made at the Someday Club in Tokyo and at Sala Carlos Chávez in Mexico City during their autumn 2000 tour of Korea, Japan and Mexico. It is by comparing the "Someday" performances with each other, and with those on "Folia", that the extraordinary beauty of the duo's extemporising becomes clear. This is music of great sensitivity and shared, instinctively attuned responsiveness, with details rich in information and highly nuanced. Only the third CD by the duo from its remarkable ten years of existence, "Someday" is a tremendous listening experience. One to be savoured. 

Contemporary free jazz and improvised music are afflicted - to comparably ruinous degrees - by a malaise of overproduction. Musicians of questionable repute are happy for their names to appear on four or five albums per calendar year; musicians of more established renown see nothing amiss in releasing as many as nine or ten. In the context of such heedless profligacy, the Swiss duo of Heinz Geisser and Guerino Mazzola are a refreshing anomaly. 

Now heading into their tenth year of collaboration...  more

1. Someday 36:34

2. Tormenta de tiempos 36:57

Guerino Mazzola grand piano

Heinz Geisser percussion

Heinz Geisser - Guerino Mazzola Duo: Folia / The Unam Concert (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

Swiss drummer Heinz Geisser and pianist Guerino Mazzola have worked together since 1994, dovetailing their considerable creative energies into an ever-closer musical symbiosis. This recording was made in Mexico City in October 2000 under the best possible circumstances. A CD was played in the limousine which drove the duo to this concert of Rachmaninoff’s 'Corelli Variations', a reworking of a theme that had appeared earlier in Corelli’s 12th Violin Sonata in D minor. Even at that time it was a found theme originating in the 'Folia' madness, a fertility dance from the late 15th century. Rachmaninoff’s 'Folia' theme became a crucial agent in the Mexico City performance. As Mazzola reported, 'You can in fact hear this short theme all over the concert and it turned out that it fits incredibly well in my own harmonic, melodic and rhythmic strategies.' Geisser and Mazzola decided to call this CD Folia for its spontaneous mixture of madness and control. 

Their musical and improvisational abilities as a duo are nothing short of sensational throughout this exciting session. 

Time's Ecstasy 

Folía: the UNAM Concert is a recording in which two accomplished improvisers, already deeply familiar with one another's work, fold chance and circumstance into their developed dialogue to...  more

1. The Man of the Sun 27:12

2. Sacrifice of the Dancer 25:27

3. Fiery Mirror 09:25

Guerino Mazzola Boesendorfer grand piano

Heinz Geisser percussion

'Kidd' Jordan Quartet - New Orleans Festival Suite (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

This live recording was made in May 1999 at the Dream Palace in New Orleans during the annual jazz festival. The session was improvisationally interactive to an explosive degree, even for these four musicians, and the recording had become legendary a while before it was released. 'Kidd' Jordan is from New Orleans and that is where he’s mostly played, but lately he’s been in demand in New York and Chicago, and Europe too.

Pianist Joel Futterman is a Chicagoan now based in Virginia and before he became a cohort of 'Kidd' Jordan he was a cohort of the late Jimmy Lyons. Alvin Fielder held the drum chair for the Roscoe Mitchell Sextet album, 'Sound' (Delmark DECD-408) when, in 1966, it signalled the appearance of new jazz activity in Chicago. He’s been on innumerable sessions since, including a number for Silkheart Records.

Bassist William Parker is just about the most central, and creative, figure on the New York new jazz scene and has been for twenty years or thereabouts. The quartet’s 'New Orleans Festival Suite' confirms what may or may not be common knowledge, namely that the 'Kidd' Jordan Quartet is not only the senior improvising jazz group on the scene but also the hottest and the most excitingly...  more

1. Decateur Street 28:10

2. Dream Palace 32:49

3. Ole Miss Lovesong 11:56

Edward 'Kidd' Jordan tenor saxophone

Joel Futterman piano, soprano saxophone, indian flute

William Parker bass

Alvin Fielder drums

Borgmann / Morris / Charles Trio - The Last Concert - Dankeschön (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

German born saxophonist Thomas Borgmann was the last of a long line of hornmen to perform to the accompaniment of the famous rhythm team of Wilber Morris and Denis Charles. Earlier hornmen fired and inspired by Wilber and Denis have included David Murray, Charles Tyler, Claude Lawrence, Booker T. Williams, Bob Ackerman and Marco Eneidi. The Borgman/Morris/Charles Trio appeared at the Jazz auf Reisen Festival in Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Germany on March 6th, 1998, and this became the very final date for Denis Charles who died very shortly thereafter. The CD is released in memory of Denis Charles, who played fabulously well on this his final engagement.

I was not present in Weiden in der Oberpfalz during the Jazz auf Reisen concert by the Borgmann/Morris/Charles Trio in Max Reger Hall on March 6th, 1998, on what I'm told was a very rainy day. There were two sets and the music for each set was quite different. The audience was extraordinarily quiet and attentive and evidently quite close to the musicians on stage. The improvisations were trancelike in their intensity, and it speaks wonders for the fine German engineering of the Bavarian Radio sound team that they were able to capture the music so well. When applause broke out it immediately became clear how big the hall was and how many people were there to...  more

1. Nasty & Sweet 35:05

2. Bird Bath 31:11

3. Dankeschön 07:12

Thomas Borgmann tenor / soprano / sopranino saxes, egyptian double flute

Wilber Morris bass

Denis Charles drums

Jazz at Lincoln Center - On Sale Now: 2018-19 Season

2018–19 Season On Sale Now

Be a part of our most diverse, inclusive, and ambitious season yet.

Our 2018–19 concert season is a fantastic selection of performances that bring together artists of all backgrounds. The artistic diversity of our lineup showcases how the versatility and inclusvity of jazz turns barriers into bridges. Join us as we swing into the 2018–19 season and celebrate America's music at its finest.

View the Season

OPENING WEEKEND

Spaces by Wynton Marsalis

Sep 13–15

8pm

Rose Theater

Wynton Marsalis' Spaces features the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra along with dancers Lil Buck and Jared Grimes. These opening weekend performances sold out in 2016, so get your tickets today!

Buy Tickets

Ella Sang the Blues with Brianna Thomas

Sep 14–15

7pm & 9:30pm

The Appel Room

Showstopping and souful vocalist Brianna Thomas reimagines Ella Fitzgerald's only all-blues album, These are the Blues. 

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Season highlights include: 

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Plays Miles Davis — The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis perform Miles Davis' groundbreaking works from the 1940s-60s.

Steve Miller with Marty Stuart: Music From Appalachia — Steve Miller and Marty Stuart will explore classica Appalachian blues and bluegrass styles .

Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks — Wadada Leo Smith brings us a multimedia concert experience including visual projections that blend real-time footage of the five-piece band with moving images which celebrate of America's National Parks.

Wynton Marsalis and Ken Burns: Country Music — In this collaboration bewtween documentarian Ken Burns and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, we'll see clips of Burns' new documentary Country Music, paired with the JLCO's reimagining of classic country music tunes.

Learn more about what we have in store for our upcoming season. Review our season highlights and purchase your tickets today.   

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MORE SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

2018–19 Season

View the full lineup for our 31st Season.

View the Season

American Roots: Mark O'Connor Band & Friends

Jazz, Bluegrass, & Folk

Oct 5–6

7pm & 9:30pm

The Appel Room

Featuring fiddle virtuoso Mark O’Connor with Maggie O’Connor and Kate Lee on fiddle and vocals, Forrest O’Connor on mandolin and vocals, Geoff Saunders on banjo and bass, National Flatpick Guitar Champion Joe Smart, and vocalists Alvin Youngblood Hart and Lizz Wright.

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Joey Alexander with Strings

Oct 19–20

8pm

Rose Theater

Pianist Joey Alexander headlines in Rose Theater for the first time. He'll be joined by a string section with parts written and conducted by Grammy Award–winning composer and arranger RichardDeRosa.

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Diane Schuur Sings Basie

Nov 2–3, 

7pm & 9:30pm

The Appel Room

Diane Schuur and the Riley Mulherkar Big Band celebrate Count Basie with performances from Diane Schuur and The Count Basie Orchestra.

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Big Band Holidays

Dec 19, 7pm

Dec 20–22, 8pm

Dec 23, 2pm

Rose Theater

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis celebrate the holiday season with special guest vocalists Vuyo Sotashe and Veronica Swift.

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Dianne Reeves

Feb 15–16

8pm

Rose Theater

2018 NEA Jazz Master Dianne Reeves returns to Jazz at Lincoln Center to serenade audiences with her annual Valentine's Day selections. 

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McCoy Tyner & Charles McPherson at 80

Apr 5–6

8pm

Rose Theater

Pianist McCoy Tyner and saxophonist Charles McPherson join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis to play brand-new big band arrangements of their iconic compositions.

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Jazz & Popular Song Series

Apr 10–11

May 15–16

Jun 5–6    

The Appel Room

Michael Feinstein directs Jazz & Popular Song for the ninth consecutive season, celebrating Peter Allen, the Great American Crooners, and Lerner & Loewe.

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Ellington Through the Ages

May 3–4

8pm

Rose Theater

Wynton Marsalis and bassist Rodney Whitaker lead an all-Ellington showcase with 16 of the best young professionals on the scene, many of whom came up through our Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band program.

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To Purchase Tickets:

Online

Visit jazz.org

By Phone

Call CenterCharge at 212-721-6500

10am–9pm ET, Daily

In Person

Visit the Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office

Broadway at 60th Street (ground floor)

Monday–Saturday, 10am–6pm

Sunday, 12pm–6pm