Ellery Eskelin - From the Archives: Ellery Eskelin, Matt Moran, Peter Evans (Live in NYC, 2012) January 2022

1. Improvisation 39:05

Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone

Matt Moran - vibraphone

Peter Evans - piccolo trumpet

The Hell's Kitchen Cultural Center / Rhythm in the Kitchen Festival

Church for All Nations, NYC, 2012

Photo © Jeff Burns

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The Claudia Quintet with special guest: Eileen Myles - Evidence​-​Based (September 3, 2021)

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

― George Orwell, 1984

The story of the album starts in 2017, when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) outraged many by apparently banning seven words from use in their official documents: "evidence-based," "transgender," "entitlement," "fetus," "diversity," "science-based," and "vulnerable." It subsequently turned out the words were discouraged rather than banned, but by then the onslaught of the news cycle had already pushed the story out of public awareness. Hollenbeck paid attention.

"The CDC has become very important," Hollenbeck said, "and we've seen the repercussions of politicizing the CDC during the pandemic. At some point I realized this story that everyone forgot about is relevant to what we're all dealing with right now."

Hollenbeck started out by using six of the seven words as the titles of new pieces. His musical transliterations of the terms range from punning ("Evidence-Based" contains rhythmic elements from Thelonious Monk's "Evidence") to direct ("Fetus" has a soundscape that sounds womb-like) to aspirational ("Transgender" takes a very loaded word and places it in a gentle, beautiful setting).

Hollenbeck met poet Eileen Myles several years ago when both were in residence at the MacDowell Colony artists retreat. He contacted Myles and asked them to collaborate. Myles described the process:

"The first thing I received was the vocabulary list," Myles said, "which ended up being the titles of each of the things I wrote. Some time after that John gave me rough cuts of the tracks. I liked the music a lot, so that was great news. I do a lot of things at once all the time, and so sometimes the way to focus is to get the hell out of town. So I went up to Provincetown [MA] for the weekend and listened to the music a lot and took a lot of notes and tried to create a reality in which these pieces had some meaning."

Myles's poems (or "talks" as they call them, to pair them with the music created by the band) are, for the most part, not direct statements about either the CDC story or even the usual meaning of the words themselves. Instead they offer yet another lens on language and its use, one that compliments Hollenbeck's music.

"A piece of music always has a vibe and a pace and a context and a momentum," said Myles. "So I wanted to imagine occupying that in a different way. Sometimes John would indicate 'from this moment in the cut to this moment is where i imagine you,' so that contributed to the size or the amount of language I was going to construct. Because the words refer to a kind of government, I felt like I had to be inventing a government in which these texts would occur."

The current membership of the Claudia Quintet is Hollenbeck on drums, tenor saxophonist Chris Speed, bassist Drew Gress, Matt Moran on vibraphone and Red Wierenga on accordion and piano. Gress and Wierenga also added an electronic score for "Fetus." The band has been together for a long time, though Hollenbeck notes that as they age and get married and have kids, the challenges mount for the ensemble. Despite those difficulties, or maybe because of them, the band sounds committed and cohesive and exciting on Evidence-Based.

John Hollenbeck

The new album is being released on Flexatonic Records, the label attached to Hollenbeck's nonprofit Flexatonic Arts. It's part of a plan to bring all of Hollenbeck's albums under one label.

"I've been gathering up all of my releases from various labels," Hollenbeck said. "Some of the labels didn't exist anymore anyway. We'll be releasing all these records on Bandcamp, the preferred platform for musicians at the moment. Our first release was Songs You Like A Lot. Evidence-Based is the second release overall and the first by the Claudia Quintet. We're going to simultaneously re-release two of our older records, Super Petite and our other poetry record, What Is The Beautiful."

Besides being a direct comment on a particular news story, Evidence-Based also tackles, by its existence, the idea of how the arts and politics interact.

Said Myles: "I betray my politics all the time in my work. There's no way to keep the conditions of our moment out of the work. It's impossible. It's like using specific details of people's names and locations. You can choose to be abstract and not drop points on the map but why? Everybody knows you're on the map. It doesn't matter if I know the name of the tree but the name of the street might be nice. I think the specificity of politics is exciting and edgy to include. I don't have to but I can't help it. "

Hollenbeck is on the same page: "I think you can't avoid it and shouldn't avoid it. I don't want to come down on people but I find you can provide some information or a different way to look at the same thing. The music is aspirational. I'm not in a vacuum. I'm hearing all the news everyone else is hearing. Then I go into the practice room or the composing room and it's not like that stuff goes away."

In many ways, our current social, technological and political conditions have already left Orwell's 1984 far behind. As we grapple with this new world, we need artists to help us find our center, to assist us in navigating the minefield. With Evidence-Based, Hollenbeck offers us a compass and a map. We all end up feeling a little less lost.

Jason Crane

1. Evidence-based

2. Son of...

3. Transgender

4. Entitlement

5. Fetus

6. Diversity

7. Nice Tune

8. What is the name of this piece?

EVIDENCE-BASED THE CLAUDIA QUINTET

Special guest: Eileen Myles: “talk”

The Claudia Quintet is:

Chris Speed: clarinet/tenor sax

recorded in North Atwater Village, Los Angeles California.

Red Wierenga: accordions, electronics (on fetus)

Accordion recorded at his mother-in-law's basement in Toms River, New Jersey; piano recorded at his apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York

Matt Moran: vibraphone

recorded in the music room on Van Buren St, Brooklyn when no one else was home

Drew Gress: acoustic bass, electronics (on fetus)

recorded at Merriewold Lake Studios, South Blooming Grove, NY

John Hollenbeck: drums, percussion, electronics (on fetus), composition

Recorded in E-323 (Schulich School of Music) Montréal, Canada

Produced by John Hollenbeck

Mixing Engineer: Andy Taub, Brooklyn Recording

Mastering: Brent Lambert, Kitchen Mastering

Design: karlssonwilker

Compositions by John Hollenbeck - Grand Blvd Music ASCAP/GEMA

“Talk” by Eileen Myles (unpublished)

All rights of the manufacturer and of the owner of the recorded work reserved. Unauthorized copying, public performance, broadcasting and file sharing of this recording prohibited

© 2021 John Hollenbeck Flexatonic Records

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Nate Wooley - Mutual Aid Music (April 16, 2021)

Mutual Aid Has A History

It points to the concept of community action and the human drive to provide succor to our fellow humans. Mutual aid is the primary ethic of an anarchistic utopia in which each knows what they have, is honest about what they need, and is prepared to give and receive accordingly. Every human want is met by a commensurate surplus and all are lifted equally above suffering.

The music on this disc is, to a degree, about this political conception of mutual aid history but, rather than celebrating its primary act of what to give, it concentrates on the decision of how to give it. It asks the musicians to take stock of their gifts and to ask themselves, in each moment, how their use of that gift will affect the community (ensemble) of which they are currently a member. Will their addition provide:

1. A refined musical gesture that simply makes the group sound better

2. A raw idea that opens new sets of possibilities for the other musicians, or

3. The inspiration to others of making the difficult, selfless musical choice.

This set of eight ensemble concertos sprouts from a compositional system that asks musicians to question what they add to the ensemble as human beings first and musicians second. Rather than the traditional aim of faithfully reproducing a score through its mastery, the members of the ensemble are prompted to make decisions that purposely force the music away from facsimile and toward a spontaneity that may feel awkward and uncomfortable. Each supports each in the search for something new and interesting; a music that is not only greater than the compositional whole, but has the potential to recast the way we think about the balance of virtuosity and improvisational spirit in our practice. After all, if we, as an ensemble can enjoy jumping off musical cliffs together within the relative safety of this compositional system, then what’s to stop us from trying to find that same exhilaration in the other music we make?

1. Mutual Aid Music I

2. Mutual Aid Music II

3. Mutual Aid Music III

4. Mutual Aid Music IV

5. Mutual Aid Music I-I

6. Mutual Aid Music II-I

7. Mutual Aid Music III-I

8. Mutual Aid Music IV-I

Nate Wooley - Trumpet

Ingrid Laubrock - Sax

Joshua Modney - Violin

Mariel Roberts - Cello

Sylvie Courvoisier - Piano

Cory Smythe - Piano

Matt Moran - Vibraphone

Russell Greenberg - Vibraphone and Percussion

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Matt Moran Trio - Play Ball (2018)

The debut release of Matt Moran's organ trio featuring Gary Versace (Hammond B3), Tom Rainey (drums), and Matt Moran (vibraphone).

1. Play Ball 06:31

2. Fever Dream Blue Machine 08:00

3. Counterpoint 03:25

4. Dig Your Own Groove 13:51

5. Get Rich Quick 04:00

6. Try 04:04

7. That's What You Think 04:27

Peter Hess Trio - Falling (December 6, 2018)

First record from this trio of tenor saxophone, vibraphone, and drums, building towers out of scaffolds. Diskonife 002.

Peter Hess, tenor saxophone

Matt Moran, vibraphone

Jeff Davis, drums

1. Bluebells 06:06

2. Move to Mars 06:55

3. Falling 05:25

4. Subduction 03:44

5. Earlier 05:23

6. Gone Lights 05:09

7. Call Ahead 04:38

8. Follower 07:09

9. Everything Goes 03:27

Recorded 9/13/17 and mixed by Peter Hess at Fort St Marks

Mastered by Don Godwin at Tonal Park

Photo by Reuben Radding, design by Amy Saidens

Nate Wooley - Battle Pieces 2 (CATALYTIC SOUND 2017)

“Battle Pieces 2” is just a several days ago released avant-garde jazz album which was released by “Catalytic Sound Records”. Album was recorded by a group of masterfull  avant-garde jazz improvisers – Nate Wooley (trumpet), Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone) and Matt Moran (vibraphone). These four musicians have original and essential playing and improvising style. They had been improvising with othr famous contemporary avant-garde jazz masters and released plenty of albums. Their music has essential, expressive and contrastic sound. Fast and expressive solos usually are the bursts of energy there are mixed various playing techniques and expressions. The musicians improvising is dynamic and constantly changing – sometimes it’s sharp, aggresive and provocative, sometimes – very peaceful, quiet and soft. Through the years of their musical career the musicians had created original and interesting playing style and their own sound. As a quartet they also had been improvising many times already and their improvisations usually gently combine together in one composition.

Album compositions have dynamic and interesting sound. All of them are based on avant-garde jazz elements – collective improvisations, unpredictable and dynamoic rhythmic, free form ans structure and very colorful musical pattern – these elements are just a part of compositions. Improvisations mood is always changing – from soft and calm it can suddenly turn out to live, energetic, evocative and expressive improvisations.

Wide range of sounds, timbres and moods create innovative sound of the compositions. These compositions have very low rhythmical and melodic basement. It’s based on various sound experiments, combinations of different playing techniques which expand the comfort zone of the instrument. All these musical techniques, unusual sounds, separate timbres, short melodic elements are essentially combined together in one musical pattern. The musical pattern is also based on soft harmony, dialogues between saxophone and trumpet are one of the most effective and interesting episodes of the compositions.

This album music have extraordinary sound and a calm, soft, quiet and subtle mood of mostly compositions.

01. Battle Pieces 4

02. Battle Pieces 5

03. Battle Pieces 6

04. Battle Pieces 7

Nate Wooley: trumpet

Ingrid Laubrock: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Sylvie Courvoisier: piano

Matt Moran: vibraphone