Dave Douglas - Secular Psalms (April 1, 2022 Greenleaf Music)

Inspired by and dedicated to The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Jan and Hubert van Eyck - a polyptych originally painted for display in St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. Begun in the mid 1420s and completed by 1432.

Secular Psalms took shape over a medieval-seeming time span. The first messages from Wim date to July 10, 2018, when we began to formulate a plan to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Altarpiece with creation of new music. Research led to a few discoveries: elements of the polyptych were moved and/or stolen, then almost entirely recovered over the years. A restoration begun in 2012 discovered that the work had been mostly overpainted around 1550—removal of the overpaint revealed an almost entirely new contemporary vision of the piece.

The Van Eyck worked in the court of Philip The Good of Burgundy, speaking multiple languages. It’s likely they would have encountered composer Guillaume Dufay and writer Christine de Pisan in the same court. Bringing in elements of both these artists helped give me a connection to the atmosphere of those times. With a band and instrumentation in place, we were on our way.

Then all work came to a halt. Initially, like for so many of us, it was unclear how work would carry on. I kept writing. The meaning of the piece (and the title) took on a new scope as we dealt with the global crisis. Close communication with the assembled musicians, shut down in their own home countries, helped cement the message and the meaning of Secular Psalms: sacred songs for all of us as we are. We continued working. The first parts were recorded around May 2020. Over the course of a year and a half, my score came to life as I worked with each musician to create their performances. New techniques had to be invented to capture interactive improvisations. And new texts came in as I began to write them myself, in addition to the Latin Mass, Marvin Gaye, and Christine de Pisan.

Dave Douglas © John Abbott

This music came to life as a result of many forces: artistic, spiritual, pragmatic, physical, psychic, poetic, and interpersonal. In a visual sense, the piece begins in the space of the outer panels, with muted colors and dank interiors. Subsequent sections explore the inner panels, full of light, showing people from all walks of life. With Edge of Night, the piece returns to the mysterious and darker panels of the Arrival, where Van Eyck’s Gabriel and Mary play out this mystery for all eternity.

Very special thanks to Wim Wabbes of Handelsbeurs for staying with me through the long process of getting this piece made. Thanks to Keller Coker for talking me through the matrix of Dufay. Thanks to Tyler McDiarmid for being available to go through the countless sound and tech issues as they arose. Thanks to all the musicians for your patience, persistence, and belief in me. Thanks also to my entire family of loved ones, friends, colleagues, correspondents. We hung together through this and we will always have each other eternally. I am grateful for this most of all.

1. Arrival

2. Mercy

3. We Believe

4. Agnus Dei

5. Instrumental Angels

6. If I’m In Church More Often Now

7. Hermits and Pilgrims

8. Righteous Judges

9. Ah Moon

10. Edge of Night

Dave Douglas, trumpet, voice

Berlinde Deman, serpent, tuba, voice

Marta Warelis, piano, prepared piano, pump organ

Frederik Leroux, guitars, lute, electronics

Tomeka Reid, cello

Lander Gyselinck, drums, electronics

Production Credits:

Executive Producer: Dave Douglas

Produced by Dave Douglas

Recorded separately by each musician between May 2020 and August 2021

Berlinde Deman vocals recorded by Koen Gisen in Ghent, Belgium

Tomeka Reid recorded by Ralph Loza, Experimental Sounds Studios, Chicago

Marta Warelis piano recorded by Jasper Stadhouders at Splendor, Amsterdam

Ms. Warelis pump organ recorded by Marielle Groven at Orgelpark, Amsterdam

Edited and Mixed by Tyler McDiarmid and Dave Douglas

Mastered by Tyler McDiarmid

Altarpiece Photography / Images courtesy Sint-Baafskathedraal Gent, www.artsinflanders.be, Dominique Provost

Graphic design by Lukas Frei

All compositions and arrangements by Dave Douglas (Dave Douglas Music / BMI)

Commissioned by Handelsbeurs Concert hall (Gent, Belgium), in co production with KAAP/Concertgebouw Brugge; Jazzfest Berlin; November Music. With the additional support of the City of Ghent and Baloise Insurance.

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Mankwe Ndosi & Body MemOri - Felt /not said (2021 Auspice NOW)

Emerging from the body, these are intimate encounters from inside minds, bodies, and histories. From inside human landscapes, atmospheres, oceans, and molten cores. Voice/body/instrument meet sensation/memory/emotion without words. felt/not said

1. backmouthfindingpulse 10:13

2. slide/shift/shine 10:26

3. in mouth 01:13

4. underinside climbing 09:11

5. wide ending/beginning 07:30

Mankwe Ndosi - Vocals

Body MemOri:

Silvia Bolognesi - Contrabbasso

Tomeka Reid - Cello

Davu Seru - Drums and Percussion

Album Cover Art by Keegan Xavi

Cover Art Photography: Uche Iroegbu

Recorded and Mixed by Greg Schutte

Boom Island Recording, Minneapolis, MN

Mastered by Tom Garneau at Audioactive

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Dave Rempis with Tomeka Reid, Joshua Abrams, Tim Daisy and Tyler Damon - The COVID Tapes (June 2021 Catalytic Sound)

At the onset of the COVID pandemic in the US in winter 2020, I was on tour. First in Europe for 10 days with Michael Zerang’s Blue Lights, ending with a performance with Michael and Elisabeth Harnik at the ArtActs Festival in Austria on March 6th. I then flew straight to Asheville, NC to start a tour with Kuzu on March 8th. In St. Louis on March 11th, the severity of what we were facing was becoming clear. We finished our last dates in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison, and two days later the country was in lockdown.

As an improviser, it felt like my job to figure out some way forward artistically. So I did what I often do when “working” in this abstract art form feels too absurd; I put my head down and kept plowing ahead. And it worked for awhile. An early invitation to do an online solo performance on March 25th as part of the Quarantine Concerts organized by ESS in Chicago showed one potential way forward. Although online performances sure aren’t ideal in a music that’s based on live in-person interaction, they were at least something. I’d already been delving seriously into my solo playing since 2017 when I did a long solo tour and produced my first solo record, Lattice, so why not try to build on that further?

After another invite to do an online performance at Fulton St. Collective in early May, I really dove in. I launched a concept whereby I’d release a new digital album on Aerophonic Records each week, culled from the many recordings I had on hand of various working bands and one-off projects spanning roughly twenty years. Each new album would be accompanied by an online record launch performance on Wednesday nights, and all the proceeds from sales would be split evenly between the artists on each one, hopefully generating a small amount of revenue for some of my collaborators. Between the first week of May and the last week of August, I produced 15 of those digital albums. The broadcasts were done through Twitch using just an iPhone, all from my closet-sized practice space at Unity Lutheran Church in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. These concerts gave me the chance to work on new pieces each week, ranging from total improvisations, to tongue-in-cheek pop hits, to jazz standards. It also allowed me to talk somewhat extensively about my experiences in the music over the last 25 years, tying those into the music I’d chosen.

These solo selections make up about half the material on this two-cd set. Knox, by Joe McPhee, leads it off, because Joe is one of the most inspiring humans I’ve met through the music or otherwise. His early spring 2020 solo performances on the Quarantine Concerts made me think, “if Joe can do this, so can I!” We even traded some notes on technology and approach.

Other pieces were ones that I’d loved for years and finally took the time to really work on. I had included “B My Dear” by Dudu Pukwana in a solo concert I did at the Hungry Brain in January 2020, performing all ballads. A number of those pieces would continue to have life through these solo broadcasts, including ”Isfahan” by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington. That piece is dedicated to my partner Victor Wasserman, who likes to play the Far East Suite around the house on Saturday mornings when I’m cooking brunch.

“The Song Is You” was chosen as a tribute to Joe Segal, owner of the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, whose career as an impresario began in the 1940’s. He passed away a few days before the online stream when this was recorded, in August. I’d always loved this tune since hearing Charlie Parker’s version when I was 12 or 13. Nate Wooley did a fantastic version inspired by Lee Konitz on another early Quarantine Concert. Konitz’s 39-minute version on his 1976 album Lone-Lee is mind-melting.

“Just A Gigolo” was chosen since it seemed to sum up my new life begging online. Talking with musician friends it became clear how dejected we all felt as mid-career or veteran artists at having to hold out our hats to try to restore some portion of the meager living most musicians make in “normal” times.

Finally, “On Green Dolphin St” was done as a tribute to Von Freeman. One of the first times I saw Von play in the 90’s, he opened with it, cut the band out after the head, and did a 10-minute unaccompanied solo before bringing them back for the outhead. My young mind was blown away by his singular sound and approach. Years later when I tried to get Von to do a solo set on the Umbrella Music Festival, he demurred, saying that wasn’t really his thing. I still beg to differ!

The group pieces presented here all came from live outdoor performances in the summer and fall of 2020. I don’t usually like playing outdoors. There’s no natural reverb, so it generally sounds bad. I’m also always afraid that an old lady is going to hit me over the head with her umbrella for playing such unruly music. But when an invite came from Adrienne Pierluissi at the Sugar Maple in Milwaukee to play a Sunday afternoon concert on their outdoor patio to a generously distanced audience, how could I say no? Tim Daisy and I were able to do three of these events between July and September.

Soon after, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (for which I also work as a producer…) invited Joshua Abrams to present an outdoor concert as part of their “Postcards” Series. He convened our trio with Tomeka Reid for this on August 14th, and we scouted out a location at a park two blocks from my house in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. Seeing how well it worked, I continued this Friday evening series for the next two months. I mostly worked with Tyler Damon as a duo, sometimes adding Joshua on bass, and once adding Bill Harris for a double drum lineup. Matt Butchko, who I would refer to as a “superfan” of the music, generously came to each concert with the same portable mobile setup that he uses regularly at venues, with two small bud microphones positioned on top of his baseball hat. He managed to get good-sounding recordings, even outdoors. A huge debt of gratitude goes out to him for being there right up front for these and so many other concerts.

One of the interesting benefits of playing outside is evident on these recordings: all of the great background noises that play into the improvisations. Check out the overwhelming swells of sound from the chorus of cicadas, the punctuation of passing cars on Lake Shore Drive, and the cardinal calls at the end of the trio with Abrams and Reid for example. Or the truck beeping as it backs up at the end of the duo with Tim Daisy. Or the barking dog that passes through during the trio with Abrams and Damon. Those events all became a part of the music, and they’re presented here without any effort to filter them out, to give a better sense of what the experience of these concerts was actually like.

By late fall 2020, I felt burnt out from putting out so many records in what ended up being quite a busy year. I decided to take some space to further my artistic practice in other ways. With warm weather gone, case counts climbing, and venues slowing down even their online programming because of it, there weren’t too many options left for performances anyways. Going back to my practice space for more solo events felt somewhat played out after doing fifteen of them. As we move now into spring 2021, the future still remains uncertain. But with some luck, I hope to be involved in redefining what “normal” can be sometime soon. It’s clear that things can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t be the same as they were.

by Dave Rempis

1. Knox by Joe McPhee 06:46

2. Toron - Rempis/Daisy 17:18

3. B My Dear by Dudu Pukwana 03:40

4. Skin And Bones - Rempis/Abrams/Damon 22:58

5. The Song Is You by Jerome Kern 06:37

6. Just A Gigolo by Leonello Casuci 03:28

7. In The Wild - Rempis/Reid/Abrams 19:34

8. On Green Dolphin St by Bronislaw Kaper 06:52

9. Glitch - Rempis/Damon 17:29

10. Isfahan by Ellington/Strayhorn 04:19

Dave Rempis Solo (saxophones) and in duos and trios with :

Tomeka Reid – cello

Joshua Abrams – bass

Tim Daisy – drums

Tyler Damon - drums

All music recorded between May and September 2020 during the COVID era.

Solo tracks recorded by Dave Rempis at Unity Lutheran Church, Chicago

Rempis/Daisy Duo recorded by Dave Zuchowski at the Sugar Maple, Milwaukee

Rempis/Reid/Abrams, Rempis/Abrams/Damon, and Rempis/Damon recorded by Matt Butchko at Margate Park, Chicago

Mixed and mastered by Dave Zuchowski

Design by Johnathan Crawford

Produced by Dave Rempis

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Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM RECORDING October 26, 2018)

Paris-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In The Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced & re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation & experimentation In The Moment established a procedural blueprint that he has since been sharpening & developing. 

Honing this process on narrower sets of source material, Makaya followed up In The Moment with 2 mixtape releases – 2017’s Highly Rare, a lo-fi free-jazz-meets-hip-hop suite he made from a live 4-track recording, and June 2018’s Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape), which he produced using live recordings from London jazz hub Total Refreshment Centre (captured at a showcase called CHICAGOxLONDON). 

Now, after 4+ years of refining his approach, Makaya McCraven puts forth an ambitious new work – Universal Beings – a culmination of concepts conceived by In The Moment, and his most elegant & articulated work yet.

Spurred by a desire to connect with old friends & new collaborators in places where similar spirits & diasporic jazz innovations are thriving, Makaya worked with International Anthem across late 2017 & early 2018 to setup intimate live sessions in New York & Chicago, and pop-up “studio” sessions in London & Los Angeles. Though the contexts and logistics were D.I.Y. (as they almost always are with IARC), the friends & friends-of-friends that Makaya was able to enlist are top tier players across the board. Some might call them super groups of “new” jazz musicians from their respective cities, with Makaya as a common denominator. But more importantly, collectively they make an inspiring display of the organic global inter-connectedness of the Black American music tradition in 2018. 

Physically spanning national & international borders to create an album that musically spans deep spiritual jazz meditations, pulsing post-bop grooves & straight-ahead boom-bap, Makaya McCraven defies the simplifications of revisionism & regionalism while celebrating the sounds, settings & stories that define the provenance of his work. Universal Beings projects an all-encompassing message of unity, peace & power by embracing transcendence in all its expressions.

1. A Queen's Intro

2. Holy Lands (feat. Brandee Younger)

3. Young Genius (feat. Joel Ross)

4. Black Lion (feat. Dezron Douglas) 02:56

5. Tall Tales (feat. Tomeka Reid)

6. Mantra

7. Pharaoh's Intro

8. Atlantic Black 09:10

9. Inner Flight

10. Wise Man, Wiser Woman (feat. Shabaka Hutchings)

11. Prosperity's Fear (feat. Junius Paul)

12. Flipped OUT

13. Voila (feat. Daniel Casimir)

14. Suite Haus (feat. Nubya Garcia)

15. The Newbies Lift Off (feat. Ashley Henry)

16. The Royal Outro

17. The Count Off (feat. Carlos Niño)

18. Butterss's (feat. Anna Butterss)

19. Turtle Tricks (feat. Jeff Parker)

20. The Fifth Monk

21. Brighter Days Beginning (feat. Josh Johnson)

22. Universal Beings (feat. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson)

Tracks 1-6 (New York Side) recorded live @ H0L0,

Ridgewood, Queens, NY, August 29th, 2017.

Brandee Younger (harp)

Joel Ross (vibraphone)

Tomeka Reid (cello)

Dezron Douglas (double bass)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

Tracks 7-11 (Chicago Side) recorded live @ Co-Prosperity Sphere,

Bridgeport, Chicago, IL, September 2nd, 2017.

*Shabaka Hutchings (tenor saxophone)

Tomeka Reid (cello)

Junius Paul (double bass)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

Tracks 12-16 (London Side) recorded @ Total Refreshment Studios,

Stoke Newington, London, UK, October 19th, 2017.

Nubya Garcia (tenor saxophone)

**Ashley Henry (Rhodes piano)

Daniel Casimir (double bass)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

Tracks 17-22 (Los Angeles Side) recorded @ Jeff Parker's house,

Altadena, Los Angeles County, CA, January 30th, 2018.

Josh Johnson (alto saxophone)

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (violin)

Jeff Parker (guitar)

Anna Butterss (double bass)

Carlos Niño (percussion)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

*Shabaka Hutchings appears courtesy of Verve Label Group

**Ashley Henry appears courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited

Recorded & Mixed by David Allen & Dave Vettraino

Artwork by Damon Locks

Insert Portrait by Fabrice Bourgelle

Insert Design by Craig Hansen

Produced by Makaya McCraven

Executive Production by Scott McNiece

Nick Mazzarella & Tomeka Reid - Signaling (NESSA RECORDS 2017)

NESSA RECORDS

Cellist / composer Tomeka Reid and saxophonist / composer Nick Mazzarella have become valuable contributors to the Chicago music scene(s) for over a decade. This collection of duets demonstrates equally their instrumental skills and innate musicality. The saxophone / cello combination goes back to, at least, the '50s with the Chico Hamilton Quintet and recordings by Eric Dolphy and Ron Carter in the '60s. Most relevant here though is the pairing of Julius Hemphill and Abdul Wadud in the '70s and beyond.

Recorded April 17, 2015 Fox Hall Studio, Chicago

1. Blues For Julius And Abdul 6:37

2. Signaling 3:51

3. Like So Many Drops Of Water 3:58

4. Interstices 2:07

5. The Ancestors Speak 4:18

6. Topographies 7:27

7. Rediscovery Of An Age 4:31

8. Let It Be Known 5:14

9. Invoking A Spirit 2:12

Nick Mazzarella alto saxophone

Tomeka Reid cello

Rempis / Morris / Reid / Baker - Nettles (2016) AEROPHONIC RECORDS

present

Rempis / Morris / Reid / Baker - Nettles (2016)

Released May 3, 2016 

In the summer of 2013, guitarist Joe Morris decided to thoroughly acquaint himself with the vibrant Chicago creative music scene. Although he’d worked with plenty of Chicago musicians over the years, including regular collaborations with percussionist Hamid Drake and reedist Ken Vandermark, it had been many years since Morris had spent any significant time in the city. So he undertook a series of concerts, organized by Vandermark, which placed him in a number of different contexts alongside many of his Chicago-based counterparts, including this string-heavy date at Elastic Arts. 

From the start, this ad-hoc quartet took advantage of an unusual instrumentation to produce some austere and starkly beautiful music. Each member contributes quickly interweaving lines that occasionally burst to the fore, but tend more often to wrap themselves into one other, hiding in plain sight amongst the unified whole. Cloaking their individual timbres into a sinewy mass, the result is a tight and fascinating exploration of contrapuntal improvisation.

1. White Dead 23:14

2. Yellow Dead 09:31

3. Purple Dead 09:41

4. Spotted Dead 05:22

Dave Rempis, alto sax, baritone sax

Joe Morris, guitar

Tomeka Reid, cello

Jim Baker, piano

Recorded live at Elastic Arts in Chicago, IL 

August 8th, 2013 

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Dave Zuchowski 

Produced by Dave Rempis 

Special thanks to Ken Vandermark for his help in organizing this concert.

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DEMY

Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid & Mike Reed - Artifacts (2015)

By Lee Rice Epstein / freejazzblog

Artifacts was conceived by cellist Tomeka Reid as a way of rediscovering the vast songbook of the AACM (which, as this blog has covered extensively, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year), and the trio’s debut album brings together a second-generation AACM dream team, with Nicole Mitchell on flutes and Mike Reed on drums. 

The trio’s sound is a throwback to the great Air, and captures the free improvised spirit of that earlier group. The album is packed with classic and little-heard gems from the AACM library, including two Steve McCall-penned cuts from Air’s catalog, “B.K.” and “I’ll Be Right Here Waiting…” Reed had already recorded McCall’s “I’ll Be Right Here Waiting” on his 2010 Loose Assembly recording with Roscoe Mitchell, on which Reid also played. Here, however, with a lineup closer to the original’s, the fragility of McCall’s melody really shines.

Aiming to breathe life into these dormant compositions, the trio kicks things off with Braxton’s “Comp. 23B,” bringing a thrilling lightness to the proceedings. The trio follows Braxton with Roscoe Mitchell’s “Jo Jar,” a propulsive 50-year-old blues tribute to Joseph Jarman, brought to life here with shuffling drums and a fine solo by Reid. 

Fred Anderson, who passed 5 years ago this summer, is represented by “Bernice,” which is coupled with Jeff Parker’s “Days Fly By With Ruby,” itself an homage to Anderson. The trio combines both into a lengthy meditation on the AACM’s deep history. Mitchell steps to the fore with a jaw-dropping solo on “B.K.,” leaping and fluttering before handing off to Reed for a quick drum solo. It’s easy to forget how rare it is for Reed to take the spotlight, and his solo is an apt tribute to McCall. 

I can’t say exactly why, maybe it’s just hearing these three musicians cut loose in a free trio, but I absolutely loved this record from start to finish. Mitchell, Reid, and Reed, all highly democratic and collaborative players, have performed together for well over a decade. The three click seamlessly into a telepathic performance that both evokes and expands the AACM spirit. 

Nicole Mitchell, flute

Tomeka Reid, cello

Mike Reed, drums

1. Composition 23B

2. Jo Jar

3. Bernice / Days Fly By with Ruby

4. Clowns

5. Have Mercy on Us

6. BK

7. I'll Be Right Here Waiting

8. Munkt Munk

9. Light On The Path

BUY THIS ALBUM!!!

JAVI