Playlist for Tom Ossana – The Thin Edge – November 21, 2018 MST 7:00 to 9:00p.m.

http://www.kzmu.org/listen.m3u ~ Use this link to access the show online.

Marquis Hill - Modern Flows Vol. II (BLACK UNLIMITED MUSIC GROUP November 2018)

Trumpeter Marquis Hill Set to Release Follow Up to

Critically Acclaimed EP with Modern Flows Vol. II

15 Original Compositions Continue to Blur Genre Lines

and Celebrate the Distinct Black Creative Forces

That Are Hip-Hop, Blues, Rock, Gospel, and

Modern Perception of Jazz

Available November 9 on Black Unlimited Music Group

Album Features Core Band of Josh Johnson,

Joel Ross, Junius Paul, and Jonathan Pinson with

Special Guests M’Reld Green, King Legend,

Braxton Cook, and Rachel Robinson

On Modern Flows Vol. II, trumpeter Marquis Hill’s mission is clear: “I want to continue to blur the genre line between quote-unquote ‘jazz’ and hip-hop, because I’m a true believer that it is the same music,” he says. “their roots come from the same tree; they just blossomed on different branches.”

Hill— “a smart post-bop player who circumvents genre clichés by incorporating elements of hip-hop and contemporary R&B,” says the New Yorker—is uniquely and extraordinarily qualified for the job. He’s one of the most gifted trumpeters on the scene and arguably the finest of his generation—the victor of the 2014 Thelonious Monk competition, and the recipient of the Rising Star title for trumpet in the 2016 DownBeat Critics Poll. A Chicagoan now based in New York and barely into his 30s, Hill learned the jazz language during a thrilling period in hip-hop history and the golden age of neo-soul. In recent years, he’s developed a global reputation as a determined and tastefully innovative bandleader.

In shaping the 15 original pieces that comprise Modern Flows Vol. II, Hill assembled a group featuring other young masters—most of them raised in or near Chicago as well—who share his ability to blend virtuosity with a certain sonic rawness. The trumpeter tapped in alto saxophonist Josh Johnson for his highly personal sound and the positive challenges he presents as a frontline partner. “With a lot of players, you can tell they’ve checked out this person or transcribed that musician. When I hear Josh, I hear Josh,” Hill says. “I’m a firm believer that you should have people in your band who push you, and playing with Josh pushes the hell out of me.” In Joel Ross, Hill recruited the most buzzed-about and in-demand vibraphonist/marimbist currently in jazz. 

For “the young genius,” as Hill calls Ross, the gig marks the achievement of a long-held goal. “I remember Joel coming to shows in Chicago and saying, ‘I wanna be in your band one day,’” Hill recalls. “And his time is now.” Junius Paul, a deft acoustic and electric bassist who focuses on the latter throughout Vol. II, is “like a walking library of music, and when he plays it just all comes out,” Hill says. He has also informed the trumpeter’s composing, in profound ways. “The type of basslines he naturally improvises, I try to mimic those and write the music around them,” he explains.

On drums is L.A.’s Jonathan Pinson, whose versatility and willingness to invent seem tailor-made for Hill’s genre-bending music. “He swings hard, and the music comes from that,” Hill says. “But he’s from the hip-hop generation, so he has a limitless number of grooves and beats.” 

Of course, a fiercely talented and deeply interactive jazz band is only about half the story on Modern Flows Vol. II. Among the simmering intensity of instrumentals like “The Watcher” and “As I Am,” Hill and company provide elastic, organic backing for some of today’s most incisive spoken-word artists—poets who embody the hip-hop tenets that first attracted Hill to the art form. “I value the truth aspect of hip-hop,” he explains. “I’m a fan of music with a message.” On “Modern Flows II Intro,” emcee Brandon Alexander Williams lays down the project’s mission statement, flowing a through line that connects various corners of black musical culture; on “It Takes a Village,” he meditates on issues of black identity and family.

Chicago’s M’Reld Green does impassioned work on “Prayer for the People,” probing such social problems as gentrification, substance abuse and racial disparities in policing; on “Herstory,” she illuminates the plight of minority mothers, because the media won’t. Another brilliant Chicago wordsmith, King Legend, closes the album with a message of self-empowerment on “Legends Outro III.” Along the way, Vol. II takes additional inspired detours. “Kiss and Tell,” featuring singers Braxton Cook and Rachel Robinson, is a soulful dip into old-school R&B romance. Using a strategy he picked up by studying Count Basie, Hill forgoes any improvised solos on “Stellar,” and instead encourages his band to savor the beautiful melody. A brief but potent exercise in Dilla-esque beatmaking, “Smoke Break” pays tribute to a controversial healing herb—one that can be “necessary to the creative process,” especially for musicians working a 12-hour day in the studio, Hill says, chuckling. 

For as long as Hill has been interested in the music of his community, he’s refused to entertain the notion of stylistic barriers. “It comes naturally; that’s the way I hear the music,” he says. “I was raised in a household where my mom played Motown, R&B, Isley Brothers, Barry White, Marvin Gaye… Then I received my first jazz record, by Lee Morgan, and that was added to the collection… I truly believe that the music is all the same.”

Hill grew up on Chicago’s South Side, where he began playing drums in the 4th grade before switching to trumpet in the 5th grade. He attended high school at Kenwood Academy, with its renowned jazz-performance program, and was mentored by Bobby Broom, Willie Pickens, Tito Carrillo and other Chicago greats through the Ravinia Jazz Scholars program. Hill earned his bachelor’s in music education from Northern Illinois University, and did his graduate work at DePaul University. Throughout college he made gigs and sessions around Chicago, jamming with and learning from the likes of Fred Anderson, Ernest Dawkins and Von Freeman, and making a name for himself as a stunningly skilled trumpeter.

By the time he won the Monk competition (and its Concord recording contract) in the fall of 2014, Hill was a known commodity in Midwestern jazz, having played in the Chicago Jazz Orchestra and self-released several projects—including, just weeks prior, Modern Flows EP Vol. I. A move to New York that same year helped him elevate his national profile, as did his Concord Jazz debut of 2016, The Way We Play, a fantastic postmodern standards record. “The groove-laden arrangements provide the perfect soundscape for Hill’s fluid improvisational style, which, with its glass-like lucidity, recalls the crisp elegance of hard-bop stalwart Donald Byrd,” DownBeat commented. Hill has also been a powerhouse sideman for Marcus Miller, Joe Lovano, his trailblazing Chicago peer Makaya McCraven, and other heavyweights.

Modern Flows Vol. II, which Hill is releasing on his Black Unlimited Music Group imprint, is in many ways the definitive statement of his musical life up to this present moment—as a player, composer, bandleader, collaborator and, perhaps most important, as an artist with something to say. “If you look at my past projects, there’s always been some kind of message,” Hill explains. “Because the greatest music, the music that lasts, has some kind of message. That’s what I try to aim for.”

Marquis Hill - Trumpet

Josh Johnson - Alto Saxophone

Joel Ross - Vibraphone

Junius Paul - Bass

Jonathan Pinson - Drums

Special Guests:

M’Reld Green, King Legend, Braxton Cook, and Rachel Robinson

1 Modern Flows II Intro (feat. Brandon Alexander Williams) [Explicit] 1:53

2 Twin Flame 6:00

3 Ego vs. Spirit 8:13

4 The Watcher 5:52

5 It Takes a Village (feat. Brandon Alexander Willams) 2:16

6 Prayer for the People (feat. M'reld Green) 6:05

7 Moments of Flow 6:02

8 Smoke Break 1:55

9 Kiss and Tell (feat. Braxton Cook & Rachel Robinson) 4:51

10 It's All Beautiful 3:33

11 As I Am 6:03

12 Herstory (feat. M'reld Green) 2:57

13 Stellar 4:38

14 Law of Vibrations 5:34

15 Legend's Outro III (feat. King Legend) 2:32

Ricardo Toscano Quartet (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

The prodigal son of Portuguese jazz is finally on record. Since his teenager years until he became a young man (25 years old in 2018) we get used to only hear him on stage, improvising with the tunes of American masters like Charlie Parker, “Cannonball” Adderley, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, among many others of different times in the “jazz continuum”. Now, we can seat at our homes and listen to his superb alto sax playing his own compositions. With one exception: Herbie Hancock’s “The Sorcerer”. Ricardo Toscano managed to interpret the tradition simultaneously with the same authenticity of the originals (really? really!) and with a remarkable freshness of approach, as if an old standard was something completely new. He keeps doing it, but the inevitable (considering his superlative capacities) happened: he’s playing now his own inner world, born from Toscano’s many auditions of the jazz patrimony. Or patrimonies, because this force of life is a fundamental contributor to the avant / groovy music of Marco Barroso’s Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble, also known as LUME (Fire in English), at the same time dedicating himself to the compositions of the late Bernardo Sassetti and beginning partnerships with free improvisers like Rodrigo Pinheiro, Miguel Mira and Gabriel Ferrandini. Step by step, with no urgencies and refusing to be obfuscated by fame and success, Toscano oppened his space of action and is now a more complete musician. This CD, named after the quartet he founded with the like minded (and like aged, like talented) João Pedro Coelho, Romeu Tristão and João Lopes Pereira, marks a new beginning in his ascensional path. It’s impossible to know what the future brings to him, but one thing is for sure: it’s going to be great.

Ricardo Toscano   saxophone

João Pedro Coelho   piano

Romeu Tristão   double bass

João Lopes Pereira   drums

Recorded March 13th 2018 at Auditório de Espinho, Portugal by Mário Barreiros | Mixed and mastered by Mário Barreiros

Produced by Ricardo Toscano | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Cover photo by Madalena Meneses | Design by Travassos

The Way Ahead - Bells, Ghosts and other Saints (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

The title says it all: here is music conceived under the influence of Albert Ayler, author of seminal free jazz pieces like “Bells” and “Ghosts” and one of the most celebrated interpreters of a gospel hymn specially cared by the likes of Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino, “When the Saints Go Marching In”. The name of the band (The Way Ahead) has the same referential weight: the way to go is in front of us, and you’ll find it while walking, as the poet (Federico Garcia Lorca) wrote. On the back there is history, and beyond you have the unknown. Each direction feeds from the other. The procedure could describe the respect that the present day American jazz has regarding its past, but this septet is Scandinavian, reuniting some of the best musicians active in Norway and Sweden. This explains why “Bells, Ghosts and Other Saints” seems simultaneously so familiar and so strange: the connection to the American jazz tradition is solid, but it comes without a cultural vinculation. As Europeans, Roligheten, Alberts, Barnö, Äleklint, Ståhl, Høyer and Østvang don’t feel the obligation to reproduce the exact parameters of the chosen materials, preferring it´s re-creation. The free jazz paradigm is free from itself, not to refuse it on the process, but to face it with fresh ears. The results are as much intriguing as they’re astonishing.

André Roligheten  tenor saxophone and clarinet

Kristoffer Alberts  alto and baritone saxophone

Niklas Barnö  trumpet

Mats Äleklint  trombone

Mattias Ståhl  vibraphone

Ola Høyer  double bass

Tollef Østvang  drums

Tracks 1 and 7 by Tollef Østvang (TONO/NCB) | Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 by Andre´ Roligheten (TONO/NCB)

Recorded September 16th 2017 by Marcus Forsgren at Studio Paradiso, Oslo, Norway | Mixed and mastered by Mats Äleklint, Stockholm, Sweden

Produced by The Way Ahead | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

Drone Trio: Davis | Frith | Greenlief - Lantskap Logic (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

Wonderful news coming from the Bay Area, even considering that the participants in this ad hoc trio originated from elsewhere—one from Detroit, another from Heathfield / England and the third from Los Angeles. The recording of Lantskap Logic took place at Mills College in Oakland—where Fred Frith directed the Improvisation program until he retired this year—and specifically at the Mills Chapel, both for reasons of sound and for the chapel’s pipe organ, the favored instrument of in-and out-side pianist, improviser, composer, vocalist, synthesist and teacher, Evelyn Davis. Like Frith, Davis works on multiple fronts, from alternative rock to avant jazz and experimental music, in groups like Frankenixon, Cheer Accident and Chiromancer. Frith was one of the founders, at the end of the Sixties, of the “rock in opposition” band Henry Cow, and established a reputation as one of the great revolutionaries of the grammar and the lexicon of both the electric and the acoustic guitars. They have a like-minded companion in Phillip Greenlief, a prolific composer and saxophonist whose biography includes solo performances and collaborations with figures as diverse as Wadada Leo Smith, Meredith Monk and They Might Be Giants, as well as fronting electro-acoustic ensembles and inter-disciplinary orchestras. What emerges from this partnership couldn’t be more Californian: the intensity of listening in response to space and sonority, the reconciliation of elegance with free expression, the ecstatic eclecticism. Yes, profane improvised music can be as beautiful as a sacred hymn.

Evelyn Davis  pipe organ

Fred Frith  electric guitar

Phillip Greenlief  alto and tenor saxophones

Recorded at the Mills College Chapel /February 25, 2013 by Karen Stackpole | Mixed at Guerilla Recordings, Oakland / March 9, 2017 / Mastered at Headless Buddha | Mastering Lab, Oakland, October 10th, 2018 by Myles Boisen

Produced by Davis/Frith/Greenlief | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Cover photo: Heike Liss

Zack Clarke - Mesophase (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

Mesophase is a term used in physics describing a state of matter that is neither liquid nor solid, sharing properties of both while defining a state unique unto itself. By extension, the concept can also apply to a reconciliation of emotional polarities or conflicting ideas. Zack Clarke leverages the idea of a mesophase as a vehicle for musical expression through the synthesis of disparate musical forces. His album “Mesophase” unites the natural and the human-made, bringing together acoustic and electronic elements in profound and unusual ways. The result is a music that is not defined by genre, taking essential elements from improvisation, electronic music and through-composed writing. With this combination of approaches, the pianist and composer from New York creates harmonic and melodic forms that translate through multiple mediums. Clarke refers to the process of creating the album as “feeling less like construction and more like a discovery and translation of something that is already there.” After the initial success and critical acclaim of his first Clean Feed release, “Random Acts of Order,” Clarke takes a bold and significant step forward with this record, as he expands his previous approach to electro-acoustic music through the incorporation of a score for an ensemble of musicians. Performed by some of New York City’s finest up-and-coming improvisors, the outcome is a vibrant palette of unique instrumentation and modern synthetic sound that delivers a powerful and thought-provoking listening experience.

Zack Clarke  piano and electronics

Chris Irvine  cello

Charlotte Greve  saxophone, clarinet, flute

Nick Dunston  double bass

Leonid Galaganov  percussion, waterphone, shakuhachi

1 Curtain 06:24 

2 Generative 08:14

3 Infiltration 02:00

4 Beggar 04:41

5 Tilted 04:48

6 Reticence 05:35

7 Frontier 04:14

8 Assimilate 05:48

9 Bridge 05:40

10 Bravery 05:37

All compositions by Zack Clarke

Recorded April 25th 2017 by Jim Clouse at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY | Mixed and mastered by Dave Darlington, Bass Hit Studios, New York, NY

Produced by Zack Clarke | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

Francesco Cusa & The Assassins meets Duccio Bertini - Black Poker (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

Here is a record of crossed challenges. A band (The Assassins) with a vocation to improvise freely is co-operating with a classical chamber string ensemble (Florence Art Quartet) specialized in the interpretation of written compositions, determining a very special way to combine two different musical worlds. Drummer Francesco Cusa assumed that task as a composer and an improviser and asked for an experienced partner in order to establish the necessary arrangements and applied strategies, someone who works either with jazz big bands and symphonic orchestras, Duccio Bertini. Italian creative jazz may not be widely known outside of its frontiers, but considering what “Black Poker” show us, we wonder why this happens. The music is organized by parallel planes and these frequently imply the gradual re-composition of the original ideas, in a constant renewal and adaptation of all the parameters. Always searching for the best combination of what comes from the two quartets, without “jazzifying” the strings or turning classical the jazz combo, what you find here is pure gold. That something which defines a good poker player «who deals with hazard and parsimony», to use Cusa’s own words.

Francesco  Cusa drums

The Assassins:

Giulio Stermieri  hammond, piano

Flavio Zanuttini  trumpet, electronics

Giovanni Benvenuti  tenor sax

Florence Art Quartet:

Daniele Iannaccone  violin

Lorenzo Borneo  violin

Agostino Mattioni  viola

Cristiano Sacchi  cello

Duccio Bertini  keyboards (on “Elegia”)

Timespine (Adriana Sá | John Klima | Tó Trips): Urban Season (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

The musical identity of this trio remains consistent with their eponymus debut album, released four years ago – exemplified by fluctuating tonal centers and the interaction made of convergences and divergences. And yet, its components are now more clear, because the music feels more transparent: it sounds an American folk music from another dimension in the multiverse, a folk music filled with twisted and bizarre – but very explicit – rock and jazz elements. No wonder: the guitar is played by one of the top rock musicians in Portugal, Tó Trips, founder and member of the country-fadorock-jazz band Dead Combo; the bassist is John Klima, an intermedia artist from Redondo Beach, USA, for some years living in Portugal, who in the past was involved with the pop-rock group later identified as The Presidents of the United States of America; the zither, the electronics and occasional field recordings are manipulated by a veteran of Portuguese experimental and improvised music, Adriana Sá. She has specialized herself in the interaction of her instruments and body with reactive software, and once again we see this in “Urban Season”: her playing of the zither, with hands or bow, ignite all the electronic processing and found sounds as if by magic. And magical, mesmerizing and mysterious the music is indeed, very different from everything else you heard before.

Adriana Sá  zither, reactive software, field recordings

John Klima  electric fretless bass

Tó Trips  electric guitar and percussion

Flavio Zanuttini Opacipapa - Born Baby Born (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

A trumpet (by Flavio Zanuttini himself, the mastermind behind “Born Baby Born”), an alto sax (Piero Bittolo Bon) and a drumset (Marco D’Orlando). Nothing more: no bass to deepen the rhythm and no harmonic instrument, be it a piano or a guitar. Just “meat and potatoes”, as Eugene Chadbourne states on his liner notes, dismissing in this meal the possible contributions of a fried egg, some buttered peas or a salad. And yet, you can hear a bass doing rhythmic and harmonic work, and this because the trumpet, the sax and the drums incorporate the bass parts, in a phantom-like way. The drummer do it naturally with the tom-toms and the bass drum, but you wouldn’t expect that from the horns. Or do you, considering that they’re played by superlative instrumentalists? A few years back, Zanuttini dared to play the music of Don Cherry, and he managed to get very close to the original trumpeter, while keeping his own musical personality. The Italian musician has a long curriculum as an orchestra player, in that context knowing that he’s an individual contributor of something bigger, but that’s what explains his will to go beyond the conventional roles when he’s a soloist in a small group. Curiously enough, the «bassless, pianoless, tuttoless» (Zanuttini’s words) trio Opacipapa puts themselves in the middle of two traditions, the free improvised one and the carefully organized of the great historical big bands. The music either swings, like if we’re still living in the Fifties, or go to the post-free jazz stratosphere. Frequently, it swings when visiting the other side of the cosmos.

Flavio Zanuttini  trumpet, compositions

Piero Bittolo Bon  alto sax

Marco D’Orlando  drums

All compositions by Flavio Zanuttini

Recorded by Fulvio Zafret in Trieste (Italy) at “Casa della Musica” during the concert organized by “Circolo del Jazz Thelonious” the 24th of January 2018 | Mixed and mastered by Alberto Armellini at ALARM Studio, Udine (Italy)

Produced by Flavio Zanuttini | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

Hamar Trio - Yesterday Is Here (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

Here is an example of a specially well succeeded co-operation between a notorious representative of the Norwegian scene (Klaus Ellerhusen Holm) and two of the Portuguese one (Hernâni Faustino and Nuno Morão), combining the recordings of live presentations in a couple of spaces dedicated to creative music in Portugal, Salão Brazil (Coimbra) and SMUP (Parede). If you’re a Clean Feed fan you already listened other titles documented in both venues, by the likes of Steve Lehman, Ken Vandermark’s and Adam Lane’s Four Corners, Fredrik Nordstrom Quintet, Daniel Levin Quartet, Zanussi 5, Angles, Harris Heisenstadt’s Canada Day and others. “Yesterday is Here” has the same relevance, and it equals what you know of Holm from the bands Honest John, Ballrogg and Abaft the Beam, of Faustino from Red Trio and of Morão from The Selva: music committed to «celebrate the moment», to paraphrase Derek Bailey, only answering to the appeal of spontaneity and intuition, in a very natural and even organic way. The framing is in jazz and experimentation, meaning that everything else that may happen disregard labels and any sort of categorization. A party for your ears, in short.

Klaus Ellerhusen Holm  clarinet alto saxophone

Hernâni Faustino  double bass

Nuno Morão  drums percussion

1. Yellow Plum 14:54

2. Sjøorm 08:52

3. Sour apple 13:32

4. Yesterday is here 06:26

All music by Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, Hernâni Faustino and Nuno Morão

Recorded November 2016 at Salão Brazil, Coimbra by José Martins and at SMUP, Parede by John Klima | Mixed and mastered by Nuno Morão at ScratchBuilt

Produced by Hamar Trio | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Cover photo by Magdalene Norman | Band photo by João Duarte

Frantz Loriot | Christian Wolfarth - The Call (LP) CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018

Welcome to the timbral world of violist Frantz Loriot and percussionist Christian Wolfarth. «An epiphany of sound», writes Jason Kahn in the inside cover, comparing the music pressed on the two sides of this LP with the myriads of noises he heard in a night of tempest when walking through it: «Cans and bottles skittering down the street; a street sign rattling violently; vague droning sounds appearing and vanishing suddenly as the wind seeped through cracks and crevices between buildings.» It’s his interpretation of what happens during the eight tracks – other pairs of ears can sense it differently, and that’s the best characteristic of the duo’s musical approach. Each individual perception changes it, as if it’s a living organism and you’re part of its existence. The harmonics and the blips and blops seem of electro-acoustic, even acousmatic, conception, but the only electronic devices used were the microphones and the recording machine. Everything is improvised and the configuration of these spontaneous pieces would seem derived from the reductionist school if there was less sounds in the flux of events and if those sounds were mere dots or brushstrokes emanating from silence. They aren’t, but you’re not going to listen to any thunder neither. This is a busy timbral world, indeed, but in a pleasant way. Afterall, Loriot is also a practitioner of soundmassages and for Wolfarth there’s no better measure than detail.

Frantz Loriot  viola

Christian Wolfarth  percussion

The Call

Side A

#1 - Into the Primitive - 11'22"

#2 - The Dominant Primordial Beast - 09'02"

Side B

#3 - Refinement of the Thought - 06'35"

#4 - The Sounding of the Call - 02'44"

#5 - Closely Related - 07'19"

#6 - Slight Dizziness - 03'45"

All music by Frantz Loriot & Christian Wolfarth

Recorded, mixed & mastered in Zurich (Switzerland) in August 2016 by Philipp Schaufelberger

Produced by Loriot & Wolfarth | Executive production Travassos for Trem Azul | Graphic design by Travassos

Antonio Raia - Asylum (CLEAN FEED RECORDS November 2018)

A chuckle or a grimace of memento, a shiver of rage or the same, but due to a steamy game and, most of all, a urge. Let the whole world in, and turn it out into an exploration, a clash of fire with this crooked, wooden, coppery, galvanized sort of dragon.You cannot help but tailoring a path, especially if necessary to ultimately represent yourself, so you can either choose a so called neutral recording studio, in order to dry up and focus every shift, or seize live connections with people, a not-so-aware public capable of supporting the crystallization of that once-in-a-lifetime show.To build Asylum up I’ve gone for the 3rd option: me (and my instrument) and Renato Fiorito along with his 10 mics, aiming to portray 1000 m of mere space.In the very core of Naples, the whole Filangeri Asylum former dining hall played with us, in a harmony of wood and tuff, an everlasting patient background for the shifting valzer of thousands, a living, breathing, sizzling organism, bouncing notes and fragments of past and future lives, but also ticking together with leaving, stopping or passing by folks’ steps.Looking forward to welcome and share freedom with a world in need of it, now more than ever.

Antonio Raia   tenor saxophone

1. Torna a Surriento

2. Refugees

3. The lights inside scream

4. There is the wind among the rocks

5. Dicentencello Vuje

6. The sound of voices migled with scraps

7. Fire on heart

8. Follow the trail

9. Misty

10. The children in the yard

11. To Giulia

12. Lullaby

BUY

CD / LP

Liudas Mockūnas - HYDRO 2 (NO BUSINESS RECORDS November 2018)

Liudas Mockūnas – soprano, water prepared soprano and water prepared keyless overtone saxophones

Hydro 2 46:09

Music by Liudas Mockūnas (KODA)

Recorded at IMPRODIMENSIJA - concert series dedicated to improvised music, MAMAstudios, Vilnius October  2017 by Arūnas Zujus

Mixed and mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios

Cover photo by Rita Stankevičiūtė

Design by Neringa Žukauskaitė

Produced by Liudas Mockūnas

Wadada Leo Smith & Sabu Toyozumi - Burning Meditation (NO BUSINESS RECORDS November 2018)

Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet, koto, bamboo-flute, voice and percussion

Sabu Toyozumi - drums

1. Creative Music-1- Red Mountain Garden, Wild Irises and Glacier Lines 15:53

2. Burning Meditation – Uprising 14:30

3. Voices - Agano River Flow 10:32

4. Don Cherry, A Silver Flute Song 7:51

5. There are Human Rights Blues 8:27

6. Stars, Lightening Bugs and Chrysanthemum Flowers 5:28

All music composed by Wadada Leo Smith and Sabu Toyozumi, except otherwise noted

Recorded live on the 22nd March 1994 at C.S Akarenga in Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi, Japan by Takeo Suetomi

Concert produced by Takeo Suetomi

Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios

Front cover photo by Akihiro Matsumoto

Photos inside the booklet by Takeo Suetomi

Design by Oskaras Anosovas

Produced by Danas Mikailionis and Takeo Suetomi (Chap Chap Records)

Roy Anthony Hargrove Memorial Celebration :: Tuesday, Jan 8, 2019 at 7pm :: Cathedral of St. John The Divine, NYC

Roy Anthony Hargrove

(October 16,1969 – November 2, 2018)

Memorial Celebration at

The Cathedral of St. John The Divine

1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street

Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at 7pm

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown's Standard Sessions - CD Release Concerts November 23 & 24 at Birdland, NYC

CD Release Concerts November 23 & 24 at Birdland, NYC

Impromptu jam sessions are a crucial proving ground for young jazz musicians during their formative years - and for artists who thrive on spontaneity, they're also a heck of a lot of fun. While his increasingly busy calendar proves that saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown learned all the right lessons from those informal early gatherings, it also means that opportunities to enjoy such creative camaraderie have become fewer and farther between. So for his new digital-only release, Standard Sessions - now available via Sound Frame Records, available at www.chadlefkowitz-brown.com/music - Lefkowitz-Brown decided to make those opportunities happen. He invited some of his favorite musicians to gather together, blow on some familiar standards, and see what happens - just like in the old days.

Of course, for Lefkowitz-Brown the "old days" aren't really that old. The saxophonist arrived in NYC just eight years ago, and was fortunate to settle on the bottom floor of a house in Harlem where the basement lent itself to musical gatherings. "There was a drum set and an upright piano, so every day I would bring people over to have sessions," he recalls. "I look back fondly on those days as some of my favorite musical experiences, and they came out of just playing tunes in the basement."

Over the ensuing years, however, Lefkowitz-Brown found himself increasingly in demand: touring the world with pop superstar Taylor Swift, playing with jazz greats from Dave Brubeck to Clarence Penn, and performing as a member of Arturo O'Farrill's Grammy winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. The friends he'd been jamming with were on their own career trajectories as well, meaning that none of them could spare much time for basement jam sessions.

"I started to miss it," Lefkowitz-Brown says, so he came up with the idea for the series of spur-of-the-moment recordings that became Standard Sessions. One thing that had changed since those no-pressure early days was Lefkowitz-Brown's diehard social media following. Using a few tricks that he'd learned from the media-savvy T-Swift and other observations of the pop music world, he has cultivated a worldwide fanbase numbering more than 70,000 followers across platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. For these jam sessions, those fans would become the virtual audience; each session was recorded and aired via YouTube, with 12 highlights now collected for this album, available via iTunes, Spotify, and other digital outlets (all 18 can be found at Lefkowitz-Brown's website).

Every session represented a unique first-time gathering, joining Lefkowitz-Brown with a rhythm section that had never played together before. The invitees represent a wide swath of the thriving Manhattan scene, cutting across generations, styles, and experience levels: pianists Manuel Valera, Carmen Staaf, Victor Gould, David Meder, Steven Feifke, Takeshi Ohbayashi, Adam Birnbaum, and Josh Richman; bassists Yasushi Nakamura, Jonathan Michel, Eric Wheeler, Tamir Shmerling, Ben Tiberio, Raviv Markovitz, and Ricky Rodriguez; and drummers Kush Abadey, Allan Mednard, Charles Goold, Michael Piolet, Bryan Carter, Chris Smith, Jeremy Dutton, and Darrian Douglas.

"There were people at the sessions that I'd known for 10 to 15 years," Lefkowitz-Brown says, "and then there were people that I'd known for 10 to 15 months. It was cool to see someone that I had known practically since childhood and someone I had only met recently playing together on the same session."

Two tunes, "On Green Dolphin Street" and "When Will the Blues Leave," feature Feifke, a pianist that Lefkowitz started collaborating with when both were teenagers, together with Piolet, a drummer he had met recently but never shared the bandstand with before that day. Then there were meetings between veterans like Cuban-born Valera, who has been in the city for nearly two decades, and newcomers like Tiberio, who had been on the scene for less than a year when they recorded their fiery take on "Alone Together."

To ensure the in-the-moment invention that he was seeking to replicate, Lefkowitz-Brown left the choice of tunes up to the assembled bands, decided on the day, just before they were recorded for posterity. Each piece was allowed a maximum of two takes, with most accomplished in one - or with the first one chosen for its raw vitality.

"Those first takes usually felt the best," Lefkowitz-Brown explains. "It's definitely harder to make things spontaneous when you have in your mind that this is actually going to be permanent, but I told everyone, 'If we don't like it, I'll trash it.' I think because of that everybody was able to go in there pretty relaxed and just feel like it was a jam back at my place in Harlem, which was my goal. I wanted to recreate what happened when people got together to just play tunes in a basement and have lunch together."

Information about Standard Sessions, here