Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: Chicago Now - Thirty Years of Great Black Music, Vol​.​2 (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"The music on Chicago Now! is dedicated to the 30th Anniversary of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians)." There was a sharp sense of pride in the voice of reedist-composer Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins. Leaders of one of the most exciting and adventurous working groups today; the New Horizons Ensemble, Dawkins has much to be proud of The accolades of media and audiences worldwide attest to its new found success.

Builders of new parameters in modern black music, the AACM'ers have placed a valued importance on capturing the social essence of history, its meaning and purpose. Hence the guiding credo of the grassroots organisation: Great Black Music Ancient To The Future. This is particularly fitting when discussing artists known for framing their social/political visions through their art. Ernest Dawkins and New Horizons are no exception.

They are a marvelous example of just how the music has richly absorbed the impact of history, events and the moment. These are men who could capture the passion and glory of an era - in just a fragment, in just a second of artistic virtue. 

This vision of tradition runs deep within the mind, heart and soul of Dawkins. The music has baptized and cleansed him. Part of a new generation of AACM'ers; among them Kahil El'Zabar's...  more

1. Monk's Temptation 10:58

2. Running from the Rain (alt) 09:35

3. Planet East 10:38

4. Zera (alt) 12:56

5. Improvisation #3 11:04

6. Looking for Ninny 04:34

7. Many Flavors 13:04

Ernest Dawkins alto sax, tenor sax, flute, percussion, vocals

Steve Berry trombone, percussion

Ameen Muhammad trumpet, percussion, vocals

Jeffery Parker electric guitar

Yosef Ben Israel bass

Reggie Nicholson drums, percussion

Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: Chicago Now - Thirty Years of Great Black Music, Vol​.​1 (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"Ernest Dawkins' Chicago Now (vol 1) is definitely in the category of lively, colorful music and is full of surprises and unpredictable music. He and his versatile sidemen perform a wide variety of originals. Improvisation #1 evolves from sound explorations to a riff section and back while Improvisation #2 is a lowdown but spacey blues. The longer pieces tend to be episodic and a little reminiscent of Charles Mingus in the way they reinvent the past a bit to form a new and uncertain future. Dawkins' fiery alto playing on Dream For Rahsaan is a tribute to Roland Kirk. The final three numbers are consistently exciting, trumpeter Ameen Muhammad adds power to the group, trombonist Steve Berry blends well with Dawkins' alto and the pianoless rhythm section is alert and driving. This is a highly recommended disc that keeps alive the Chicago AACM tradition." 

Scott Yanow, Cadence, December 1996 

Surprise. Of the three albums on which Ernest Dawkins has led his New Horizons Ensemble, this one presents the group at their most exciting, their most accessible and yes, their most surprising. In fact, "Chicago Now" may startle all but the most loyal fans of this truly contemporary sextet. With this outing, the level of their musicianship seems to have risen yet again. The musical and...  more

1. Improvisation #1 06:25

2. The Time Has Come 14:37

3. Improvisation #2 (My Baby Blues) 03:37

4. Bold Souls 07:44

5. Dream For Rahsaan 10:20

6. Zera 10:53

7. Flowers for the Soul 12:20

8. Runnin' from the Rain 06:04

Ernest Dawkins alto sax, tenor sax, flute, percussion, vocals

Steve Berry trombone, percussion

Ameen Muhammad trumpet, percussion, vocals

Jeffery Parker electric guitar

Yosef Ben Israel bass

Reggie Nicholson drums, percussion

Roy Campbell Pyramid - Communion (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"The music and perhaps also the recording technique, cause the sound to be utterly woven together and this promotes listening to the whole picture rather than to the details, which I find attractive. We hear how the group, tightly together, works itself forward. Campbell's impressions and influences come from different cultures and parts of the world, but this music is incontrovertibly modern American jazz." 

Leif Carlsson, Gränslöst, March 1995 

"That trumpeter Campbell is a part of New York's downtown scene is apparent in the fire and adventure of this trio session. Parker and Nicholson, two other major voices on the scene, are phenomenal, often keeping both melody and rhythm going while Campbell shows off out front. Together the three create beautiful work." 

Jerome Wilson, Option, July 1996

"At whatever point you hit on a circle, it's still a circle," says trumpeter Roy Campbell, whose Communion is his third outing as a leader and his debut recording with his Pyramid trio of Campbell on trumpet, pocket trumpet, fluegelhorn and various percussion instruments, William Parker on bass and Reggie Nicholson on drums.

There's much in the lineage of Campbell's music, from a lyricism reminiscent of Gil Evans' rich orchestrations for...  more

1. Communion 09:15

2. Vigilance 09:18

3. Chant for Don Cherry 12:04

4. Air Pockets 14:32

5. Blues for Albert and Don Ayler 15:22

6. One for Hannibal 14:10

Roy Campbell trumpet, fluegelhorn, pocket trumpet, cornet, percussion

William Parker bass, percussion

Reggie Nicholson drums, percussion

Fay Victor's SoundNoiseFunk - Wet Robots (ESP-Disk' July 17, 2018)

This is Fay Victor's first album as a leader released on an American label other than her own Greene Street Music, but she is already a star on the New York avant-jazz scene. 

from Bradley Bambarger's liner notes: 

"Few vocalists have the sheer boldness – the outright fearlessness – of Fay Victor as an improviser. The New York native has long been a creative force on the avant-jazz scene, as a singer, bandleader, composer, arranger, and teacher. She has worked on both sides of the Atlantic with the likes of Misha Mengelberg, Roswell Rudd, and Anthony Braxton, along with recording several distinctive albums as a leader. Reviewing her recent disc Absinthe & Vermouth, NPR declared evocatively that Fay’s original songs sound “as if Joni Mitchell wrote lyrics for a lost Betty Carter prog-rock album – and it totally works.” Fay has also recorded edgy blues in a duo with guitarist Anders Nilsson, and she is an inspired re-animator of vintage instrumentals as vocal material, in the spirit of Carmen McRae in Monk; to this end, Fay has performed with her In Praise of Ornette group and with her house-rocking Herbie Nichols Sung band. 

"Now we have on record Fay’s SoundNoiseFUNK quartet, featuring Joe Morris, Sam Newsome, and Reggie Nicholson – each an exceptional maker of music in the moment. Although Fay enjoyed a rapport with each of these players in various combinations, this foursome had never played together as a unit before the single summer day last year when Wet Robots was captured in a Brooklyn studio. If jazz is the sound of surprise, this album startles – a sonic funhouse of left turns. The band floats in its own space, untethered by a bass. Morris’s guitar moves like a snake. Newhouse keens, taps, sighs on the straight horn. Nicholson makes his percussion set-up a skittering, rattling thing. Then there is Fay – her voice primal and wild, as attuned to unfettered expression as Albert Ayler’s tenor." 

1. Funky Dunk

2. A Witness in the Wilderness

3. Information Highway

4. Police Lights and Sirens

5. Squeeze Bottle

6. The Blues Are Always Free

7. Creative Folks!

8. Textured Pines

9. Whistling on a Sketeboard

10. I Sing

11. The Ha-Ha's

12. Holding Back the Scream

Fay Victor, vocals, lyrics

Sam Newsome, soprano saxophone

Joe Morris, electric guitar

Reggie Nicholson, drums

Drawings by Diana Kinscher / Design & layout by Jonathan Granola / Liner Notes by Bradley Bambarger 

Produced by Steve Holtje / Recorded at Park West Studios on August 4, 2017 by Jim Clouse

Charles Gayle Quartet - Always Born (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"Charles Gayle is carving out a free jazz that is muscular, impassioned, clearly structured, and wonderfully volatile." 

Jon Pareles, New York Times

I met Steve Dalachinsky at the bar one night when we were both listening to the Steve Lacy Sextet at "Sweet Basil" in lower Manhattan and we agreed to write to each other once in a while. So one day Steve wrote a card to me with a couple of suggestions for artists likely to be of interest to Silkheart, and one of them was Charles Gayle. He said that if we'd cover his tape costs he'd send a tape, and in due course it turned up in the mail.

The music was pretty interesting, but I wasn't sure just how special it was and turned the tape over to my associate, Lars Olof Gustavsson, for his reactions. Some little while later Lars and I got together and talked about Steve's tape and about Charles Gayle. He was quite lukewarm about the whole thing, which is a fair indication of just how hard it can be to assess new music and new musicians when presented via low fidelity live recordings. I sounded out Lars again and he was rather concerned because, in principle, the project was just the kind of thing Silkheart should be working with and he wished he liked the tape more.

We left it on that note, but some weeks afterwards Lars was in New York on business and had the opportunity of hearing the Charles Gayle Trio at the "Knitting Factory" in East Houston Street. He came back to Stockholm shortly before Christmas full of enthusiasm for Gayle's music, having clearly heard things during the personal appearance that he hadn't ear on Steve's tape. It was agreed that Silkheart arrange to record Gayle with a trio, and it was also decided to record him as part of a quartet with John Tchicai alongside.

For some time, Silkheart had had the intention of recording John Tchicai in New York and Lars wanted to find a situation in which Tchicai could be featured with New York musicians who would push him into producing music of a different nature from that of his recent Danish and European efforts. The two of them had discussed the idea in a general sort of way and I was given the job of putting a session together. 

Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon met John Tchicai in Helsinki in 1960 and suggested that he move to New York. Tchicai was active on the New York scene for a large part of the sixties, with a celebrated background of performances and recordings together with the New York Contemporary Five, the New York Art Quartet, John Coltrane ("Ascension"), and Carla Bley.

He played at the Cellar Cafe during Bill Dixon's 'October Revolution' of 1967 and became a charter member of the Jazz Composers' Guild, a brave venture having much importance in retrospect. At the present time, he has not recorded in a new jazz Situation in the U.S.A. for more than twenty years, and the sad fact is that Tchicai has tended more and more to cease being the jazz visionary he once was and has become almost journeyman in his approach.

Sirone was chosen as the bassist for the Charles Gayle Trio and seemed also an appropriate choice for the quartet. Sirone has an impressive history in new jazz, beginning with his involvement in the activities of Bernard Stollman's ESP label during the sixties. Since then he has played with many of the artists active on the new jazz scene in the U.S., leading groups of his own on occasion, and co-leading the Revolutionary Ensemble for a number of years. Currently he is co-founder of The Group. Sirone is an astonishingly creative improviser with a style that is very much his own. To describe him as an individualist is an understatement and he is a good man to have on a session.

It was proposed from the outset that the quartet and trio sessions would have different drummers. It was decided that the Chicagoan, Reggie Nicholson, now based in New York, would perform with the quartet while Gayle's regular drummer, Dave Pleasant, would record with the trio. Reggie Nicholson is a young drummer with a bright future, who has already played with a good many artists including the Henry Threadgill Sextet, Amina Claudine Myers, and Wilber Morris' Wilberforce.

He was more than happy to have the opportunity of taking part in the recording session and played superbly; being more than a little responsible for the overall success of the proceedings.

The question of rehearsals was brought up, but Charles Gayle was quite adamant; there were to be none. Charles and John did speak on the telephone when Charles was in Germany a few weeks before the session, but they didn't talk about the same things. Charles was into energy and intensity and John spoke of colors, shades and textures. 

Gayle doesn't plan what he's going to play until he plays it, although it would as likely as not be high energy; It was in this spirit that he aimed to go into the studio and simply play his music. In retrospect, while this strategy can be seen to have worked perfectly well as far as the trio recordings were concerned, there were a few matters that required attention before the quartet began to produce real music.

To iron out the differences in musical philosophy between the two saxists, a public gig for the quartet was arranged to take place at "The Knitting Factory" before the recording. Charles was more than willing to appear with the quartet and, since the music was not notated, the session would have been particularly valuable. Although arrangements were made well ahead, the club got into a tangle with its dates and was unable to offer the quartet space until after the recording session had been completed.

Charles Gayle is extremely forceful when he needs to be and there were occasions during the early part of the quartet recording session when this was necessary. First of all, there was the matter of historical perspective which he had to clear up. Gayle explained that he could play many kinds of music and in specific circumstances he played what was appropriate. For a recording of his own music, he intended to play material of a kind that had not been played before. Otherwise why bother? Power was what his music had to offer and it would be of a different order from music that had gone before. A few quotations will best give the idea of what Gayle was trying to get across to the other members of the quartet. 

"All of my music is completely spontaneous 

I plan nothing and say nothing to the musicians." 

"If the building is still standing when we're through, we've failed." 

"What I play has to do with power, my father was a steelworker." 

"When I play I want to go through the wall."

As far as the quartet was concerned there was an additional vector to account for and John Tchicai put his finger on it when he said, "We only started to pull into shape when Gayle understood that the music had to be played as a cooperative endeavor by all four of us." What actually happened in the studio on those two days was fascinating in the extreme. At the outset there were several violent expressions of intent from Gayle and a fair number of musical upsets. Tchicai was simply magnificent, playing with the benefit of long experience as he worked on making the quartet into a group.

This realization appeared to come simultaneously from all four musicians partway through that first day; All of a sudden there was music coming out from the studio and, as time went by, it simply got better. In the end, the results were eminently satisfactory and a great deal of highly varied, fascinating, and exciting music was produced. Especially noteworthy perhaps is the extraordinary bass and drums duo, "Coming Together", between Sirone and Nicholson.

Gayle is heard elsewhere in the right channel, with Tchicai in the left channel where he can be easily recognized by his more staccato approach and his fruitier tenor sound. Gayle has a huge saxophone tone and a blistering attack, which is based on wide intervals and astonishing melodic turns. Two more contrasting musicians would be hard to find and they complement each other very well in a certain way. 

Gayle utilizes a variety of approaches to each piece he plays, with, as he puts it, "A different range and a different technique." When he speaks of variety, he is referring to the contours and textures inherent in a particular composition, not so much the melodies, and this aspect of his playing is exceedingly well organized. As a result, the form presented in a group performance is invariably very clear indeed and there is little doubt that, in this sense, Charles Gayle has taken a significant step forward in his presentation of free jazz.

Towards the end of the second day, John Tchicai and I were in the control room listening to playbacks and John leaned over and said with a laugh, "Dear me, what is this you and Lars have got me into!" I replied that I thought it hadn't been so bad and he agreed, very warmly, that he'd thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Finally he said, "I hope you can arrange to have a line on the cover saying 'featuring me'." I agreed. 

Keith Knox

1. Always Born 09:48

2. Needs 11:52

3. Sold Clouds 12:58

4. Coming Together 05:22

5. Rainbow's Praise 06:17

6. Then Offer All 10:31

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone

John Tchicai soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone

Sirone bass

Reggie Nicholson drums