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ESPDISK 5110CD
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Volume 2. One might think that an album titled Louis Armstrong's America is a tribute to the famed trumpeter, and certainly he's a focus here, but a normal tribute would feature compositions by him, or at least associated with him. Allen Lowe doesn't operate in the realm of the predictable, though; instead, the concept -- powered entirely by Lowe compositions -- takes in not just Armstrong's influence but also the evolution of jazz starting with influences (not all jazz) on Armstrong and continuing to the end of his five-decade career in 1971 -- which means that even Albert Ayler is touched on in this wide-ranging album (heck, even indie-rock icon Steve Albini is referenced). In his liner notes, Lowe quotes himself: "I think that Louis Armstrong may have been the first true post-modernist, picking and choosing between a hierarchy of personal and public musical sources and tastes, but without any concern for the way in which hierarchy acted on all of this in terms of class and even, ultimately, race (e.g.; think of Armstrong's reverence for opera and the way it effected his broad and classically expressive method of phrasing). So he fits all the definitions of post-modernism, even as a kind of anachronistic vessel for so much that was still to come not just in jazz but in all of American popular music, in particular but not only through the mediation of black life and aesthetics. Black song, vernacular and popular, is amazingly flexible it its ways and means of expression, lyrically, rhythmically, and sonically." Personnel includes Aaron Johnson, Frank Lacy, Ray Anderson, Lewis Porter, Ray Suhy, Will Goble, Rob Landis, Brian Simontacchi, Rob Landis, Loren Schoenberg, Ethan Kogan, Ursula Oppens, Nick Jozwiak, Colson Jimenez, Kresten Osgood, Matthew Shipp, James Paul Nadien, Jeppe Zeeberg, Marc Ribot, Huntley McSwain, and Andy Stein.
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2CD
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ESPDISK 5109CD
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Volume 1. One might think that an album titled Louis Armstrong's America is a tribute to the famed trumpeter, and certainly he's a focus here, but a normal tribute would feature compositions by him, or at least associated with him. Allen Lowe doesn't operate in the realm of the predictable, though; instead, the concept -- powered entirely by Lowe compositions -- takes in not just Armstrong's influence but also the evolution of jazz starting with influences (not all jazz) on Armstrong and continuing to the end of his five-decade career in 1971 -- which means that even Albert Ayler is touched on in this wide-ranging album (heck, even indie-rock icon Steve Albini is referenced). In his liner notes, Lowe quotes himself: "I think that Louis Armstrong may have been the first true post-modernist, picking and choosing between a hierarchy of personal and public musical sources and tastes, but without any concern for the way in which hierarchy acted on all of this in terms of class and even, ultimately, race (e.g.; think of Armstrong's reverence for opera and the way it effected his broad and classically expressive method of phrasing). So he fits all the definitions of post-modernism, even as a kind of anachronistic vessel for so much that was still to come not just in jazz but in all of American popular music, in particular but not only through the mediation of black life and aesthetics. Black song, vernacular and popular, is amazingly flexible it its ways and means of expression, lyrically, rhythmically, and sonically." Personnel includes Aaron Johnson, Frank Lacy, Ray Anderson, Lewis Porter, Ray Suhy, Will Goble, Rob Landis, Brian Simontacchi, Rob Landis, Loren Schoenberg, Ethan Kogan, Ursula Oppens, Nick Jozwiak, Colson Jimenez, Kresten Osgood, Matthew Shipp, James Paul Nadien, Jeppe Zeeberg, Marc Ribot, Huntley McSwain, and Andy Stein.
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ESPDISK 5075CD
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Buck Curran says: "The foundation of this recording is the musical chemistry between Jodi Pedrali and myself. Jodi and I had been playing music together since 2017 and the band we assembled for this session, centered around the idea of having London native Dave Barbarossa play drums with us. Dave Barbarossa (Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant) was my favorite drummer during my formative years playing guitar in high school. Dave and I first met over a pint in London (in Soho) in April of 2022. We talked about fatherhood and life, but mostly about music. It was wonderful to discover that he shared my love for the music of Pentangle. Soon after that meeting, we started discussing the idea of recording a Live session in the manner of some of the performances of Pentangle that we had watched on my cell phone in the pub. And so, once Dave agreed to fly to Bergamo to record with me and Jodi -- to round out the session we recruited the brilliant Italian singer Adele Pappalardo and bass player Robert Frassini Moneta. 'Black Is the Colour' is quite a different arrangement of this traditional Scottish-American folk song and features Adele singing lead vocals. The arrangement started with the bass line I wrote (influenced a bit by Danny Thompson's work with Pentangle). This track is one of the cornerstones of the new record and was recorded mostly improvised in one take. The essence of what we documented on this record is the energy of a quickly assembled group who had never played together before, and due to time restrictions, we arranged parts and rehearsed for only a few hours the day before entering the studio. All the songs performed by the band were recorded in the studio by Marco Fasolo as a 'Live' session (4, 5, and 6 July 2022) -- the tracks we used were from first or second take performances (Jodi and I really wanted to capture the energy of playing music together Live in the same space). I can hear things got a little loose in places, but overall we were really happy with how we all played together and grateful for recording the energy of that moment during those fleeting summer days in 2022." This is a co-release by Curran's Obsolete Recordings and ESP-Disk.
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ESPDISK 5099CD
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Frank London writes in his liner notes: "Spirit Stronger Than Blood pays homage to some of the recordings that shaped my musical-spiritual aesthetic: Charles Mingus's Changes 1&2, Booker Little's Strength and Sanity, Pharaoh Sanders's Peace and Love, Clifford Thornton's Gardens of Harlem, Alice Coltrane's Ptah, The El Daoud. Each of these artists, as different as they are from each other, shared a commonality of intention that set me on my life and career path. Their music is spiritual, political, romantic, at turns angry and peaceful, and inspires us to transcend and challenge the inequities of quotidian existence in order to make the world a better place, to heal the broken world (tikkun olam). Some of the songs are inspired by Jewish texts -- 'Let There Be Peace' from the prayer Oseh Shalom, asking the Almighty to bring us peace; 'Abundant Love' is in the Jewish prayer mode, Ahava Raba, acknowledging God's infinite love for all of us. 'Poem for a Blue Voice' is a poem by Davida Singer, whose partner Isabel Deconinck never let her blood cancer quash her indominable spirit. 'Resilience and Resistance' are attributes that we need to get through the trials, tribulations, and indignities life can throw at us. Healing of course from disease, but also from trauma, from blind obeisance to dogma. I was recently diagnosed with myelofibrosis, an extremely rare and fatal blood cancer, and dedicate this recording to my dear friends and colleagues who have passed away from blood diseases and other cancers -- Lester Bowie, Thomas Chapin, Adrienne Cooper, Isabelle Deconinck, Jewlia Eisenberg, Ron Miles, and my namesake, Frank London Brown. Check out all of their work and be inspired." --Frank London, April 2024
The Elders are: Frank London, trumpet; Marilyn Lerner, piano; Hilliard Greene, bass; Newman Taylor Baker, drums; Greg Wall, sax (tracks 2,3, and 4). Produced by Frank London. Recorded and mixed by Andy Taub at Brooklyn Recording in July, 2023. Cover photo by Anna London.
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ESPDISK 5071CD
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Creativity is theoretically infinite. Just as improvisors can play the same song every night and have it sound different every time, existing recordings can have their materials combined in different ways, re-mixed, re-ordered, re-everything'd. Some people prefer the comforting solidity of a single version, unchanging, but that is antithetical to the jazz spirit. The infinity of creativity is being explored in two upcoming projects by Thollem (McDonas). Worlds in a Life, Two is the second of two albums that Thollem created using samples from all of the six Thollem/Cline Trio albums as the primary sound sources (including double bass, piano, organ, electric guitar, drums, MIDI-accordion, and voice). The approach developed naturally out of the process of creating The Light Is Real with Nels and Terry Riley on Other Minds Records. In 2012 came Thollem and Nels' first trio collaboration was with William Parker. The following albums include the Radical Empathy Trio with Michael Wimberly, and with Pauline Oliveros (Roaratorio). Worlds in a Life, Two was recorded in real-time on a Wavestate, with no overdubs, in January and February 2024. This music is a celebration of the limitless palette of sounds and the infinite, known and unknown, revealing discoveries made through intensive explorations over two months. Personnel: Thollem (composer, Wavestate); Nels Cline (guitars); Pauline Oliveros (MIDI-accordion); William Parker (double bass); Terry Riley (vocals); Michael Wimberly (drums).
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ESPDISK 5085CD
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This group evolves in leaps and bounds. You've never heard a jazz piano trio sound like this album -- not even this band on its previous album, the much-praised World Construct. That said, there is a through line from the first Matthew Shipp Trio album, 1990's Circular Temple (ESPDISK 4082CD, 2023 reissue) to New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz. Says Shipp, "Yes, we went there with that type of title this time. To anyone who thought the trio had reached its apotheosis on World Construct, you are in for a surprise -- this is light years ahead of World Construct. Of course each CD is its own world and valuable for that, but I am in complete and utter shock at what I am listening to. New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz sounds completely thoroughly composed and yet completely spontaneously improvised at the same time. This is a major album in jazz history. Newman Taylor Baker is one of the most profound percussionists ever. Michael Bisio sounds like God's angel on this album. He has dedicated himself to working in my vision for years now and I think this might be the ultimate of how we can read each other and hook up. This is one of the greatest trio albums ever. While creating a whole new cosmos we manage to escape every cliché that exists in jazz and in avant jazz. This really might be the last trio CD because it really cannot get better than this."
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ESPDISK 5047CD
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Guillermo Gregorio has been exploring space and form and gesture in music for a very long time. In 1969, with composers Norberto Chavarri and Roque de Pedro, he cofounded the collective Movimiento Música Más, which for a while staged public interventions, performances, and happenings even as the political skies were darkening again. He finally left Argentina in 1985, living in Vienna, L.A., and Cologne through the end of that decade, before settling in Chicago for the next 25 years. Already in Vienna, he began his fertile relationship with the Hat Art label, which eventually put out half a dozen records under his name, plus other sessions playing the music of Anthony Braxton and Cornelius Cardew, as guest soloist with Ran Blake, and a piece he wrote commissioned by the Makrokosmos Quartet. The present record reflects a sort of pivot to his new home, New York, where Gregorio moved in 2015. For the trio that performed at Edgefest -- the festival's 22nd edition in 2018 focused on the Chicago connection -- he reached out to close associates from two decades earlier, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Carrie Biolo, neither of whom live there anymore either. That trio was the most productive and enduring group he ever played with, and their nuanced rapport, the fine weave of their sound, the mutual instincts, seem but a continuation without pause of their past work together. Chicago also proved highly receptive to the fruitful convergence of free jazz and twentieth-century European music that allowed him to flourish and become a recognized figure there in the nineties. Concurrently, by the time of the festival, Gregorio had been performing with Nicholas Jozwiak in different settings around Manhattan and Brooklyn, as they did at Downtown Music Gallery in 2020 just before the world locked down. DMG, Bruce Gallanter's friendly institution packed into a tiny space, has for decades seen fit not just to sell records but to host weekly concerts of improvised music and Gregorio has played there on many occasions since well before he left Chicago. On this late date, the trio was completed by one of his newest collaborators, Iván Barenboim, like Jozwiak a couple generations younger and like Gregorio a porteño (native of Buenos Aires).
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2CD
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ESPDISK 4084CD
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Look at those players Alon Nechushtan brought together for this gig! The late, great Roy Campbell; reed masters Daniel Carter and Sabir Mateen; mayor of the NYC avant-jazz scene William Parker; versatile drummer Federico Ughi. Then listen: they all live up to their reputations. And then there's Nechushtan himself, born in Tel Aviv and long a thriving presence in New York as both composer and improviser. This concert happened at a time of considerable ferment on the NYC scene, with established virtuosi meeting the next generation -- often, as was the case this night, in Brooklyn and specifically Williamsburg venues, of which Zebulon was one of the greatest supporters of the improvisation scene documented so well in Cisco Bradley's recent book The Williamsburg Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Sound on the Brooklyn Waterfront.
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ESPDISK 5083CD
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ESP-Disk presents They Tried To Kill Me Yesterday. Frequently lyrical, sometimes hard-hitting, nostalgic for jazz and R&B, proud of African-American heroes, Paul r. Harding has been around, has seen and heard things he reflects on and refracts to us with vivid words. Based in upstate New York, he's joined by bassist Michael Bisio (Matthew Shipp Trio) and, on half the tracks, by percussionist Juma Sultan (who played with Jimi Hendrix).
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ESPDISK 4082LP
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LP version. It has become clear that Matthew Shipp is the most interesting and important jazz pianist of his generation, the most continually evolving and pushing forward. Now that he's in his sixties and something of an elder statesman of the art form, he's overdue for a retrospective look at his catalog, and to help make that happen, ESP-Disk' will be reissuing some of his great early work that's gone out of print. The 1990 trio recording Circular Temple (originally self-released on Quinton, then reissued in 1994 by Henry Rollins on his Infinite Zero label) is now reissued in 2023. Circular Temple has marked many firsts for Matthew Shipp: his first CD release, first piano trio album, first of many times on record with Parker and Dickey, first album to be reissued, and on ESP-Disk's reissue of it, first CD-only album to finally appear on vinyl and first album to be released by three different labels. And, more trivially, the first Shipp album that current ESP head/reissue producer Steve Holtje acquired, back when the only choices were that and a 1988 LP-only duo by Shipp and saxophonist Rob Brown on the Cadence label.
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ESPDISK 4082CD
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It has become clear that Matthew Shipp is the most interesting and important jazz pianist of his generation, the most continually evolving and pushing forward. Now that he's in his sixties and something of an elder statesman of the art form, he's overdue for a retrospective look at his catalog, and to help make that happen, ESP-Disk' will be reissuing some of his great early work that's gone out of print. The 1990 trio recording Circular Temple (originally self-released on Quinton, then reissued in 1994 by Henry Rollins on his Infinite Zero label) is now reissued in 2023. Circular Temple has marked many firsts for Matthew Shipp: his first CD release, first piano trio album, first of many times on record with Parker and Dickey, first album to be reissued, and on ESP-Disk's reissue of it, first CD-only album to finally appear on vinyl and first album to be released by three different labels. And, more trivially, the first Shipp album that current ESP head/reissue producer Steve Holtje acquired, back when the only choices were that and a 1988 LP-only duo by Shipp and saxophonist Rob Brown on the Cadence label.
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ESPDISK 5041CD
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There are some jazz musicians long known by cognoscenti for a mere handful of recordings: Dupree Bolton, Earl Anderza, Hasaan Ibn-Ali, Alan Shorter, Dewey Johnson. Add saxophonist Mark Reboul to that list. Before the release of this album, his discography consisted of four tracks on three albums on which he was a sideman. On Higher Primates' Environmental Impressions (GM, 1987), he plays sax on two of the percussion-heavy album's five tracks: a fragmentary track, and a sixteen-and-a-half-minute improvisation; he has a percussion cameo (playing waterphone) on Bill Gerhardt and Cotangent's Stained Glass (SteepleChase, 2007); and on Gaelen McKenna's self-released 2004 album Woodbach, a Reboul improvisation is manipulated and looped. ESP-Disk is a label with a history of albums by under-documented musicians (Byron Allen, Lowell Davidson, Marzette Watts, Nedley Elstak) and thus the perfect label to redress the situation. The other musicians in the trio heard here have been more prolific in the recording studio. Piket, daughter of a classical composer and a standards singer, got a degree from the New England Conservatory, studied with pianists Richie Beirach, Stanley Cowell, and Fred Hersch, and was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk BMI Composers Competition. She has a baker's dozen albums as a leader, a smattering of collaborative projects, and work as a sideperson stretching back to a 1995 Lionel Hampton album. Mintz is Piket's husband (they married well after this recording was made). Three years ago, she made a solo piano recording of an entire CD's worth of his compositions. He also has a fascinating bio: already a gigging musician at the age of fifteen, and in his twenties recorded with Lee Konitz Nonet, Perry Robinson, and Gloria Gaynor, among others; during a period living in Los Angeles, he worked with an equally eclectic range of musicians, from Vinny Golia to Mose Allison to the Merv Griffin Show band. The style is free improvisation, but a quieter and more subtle form of free jazz than ESP is famous for. Reboul is a unique player, and that's why ESP considers this an important release that adds to fans' knowledge of the NYC free scene.
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ESPDISK 5062CD
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The most well-informed aficionados of NYC's jazz avant-garde speak of pianist John Blum with reverential respect, yet his discography is shockingly small for someone with a three-decade career: five albums as a leader, four as a sideman. Blum studied piano with seminal avant-gardist Cecil Taylor and ambidextrous master Borah Bergman, and it shows, yet his style at its most intense is more thickly textured than even theirs, and fully individualistic. Blum's left hand recalls James P. Johnson: energy, power, rock-solid rhythm driver of the improvisation's engine. And speaking of engines, some of Jimmy Yancey's locomotive motion is there as well. Blum is actually a very melodic player, but the melodies are short and fast and may not be repeated more than once, so that's not the quality that the average listener might take away from the experience. Nonetheless, in a 20-minute solo improvisation, he creates enough catchy motivic material that a dozen or more songs could be woven from it. Another of Blum's teachers was Milford Graves; they share the sense of music as a journey to a higher understanding and a life-altering and life-enhancing practice. Blum looks more like an athlete than a musician, but then, the way he plays piano is athletic and requires a lot of muscle and stamina. The power of the concert performance on this album (performed collaboratively with video) is a revelation. "Explosive Pianism!" --Nate Chinen, New York Times
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ESPDISK 5082CD
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Allen Lowe writes: "America: The Rough Cut is my statement not only on American music and American song, but also my commentary on the way American musicians of all styles handle that old-time music and those old song forms . . . The old things -- not just the blues, but gospel music and pre-blues shouts and language, plus hillbilly/minstrel song and medicine show irony -- reflect a disinterest in the polite trappings of (primarily but not only white) society, an implicit rejection of basic tonal, sonic, and harmonic rules. 'Noise' has, over a long time, come to be an accepted creative strategy for many musicians, with diminishing results. What is missing is...funk? Maybe, but not in that slick, drum machine, '80s way (the 1950s and 1960s, not to mention the 1920s, are another matter). What is missing is the funk from Funky Butt Hall of New Orleans, the sweat of the churchgoing gyrations of white and black Holy Rollers and the eccentric movements and sounds of attendants of the Pentecostal Church; not to mention the religious screams of white and black folk in the throes of post-rational bursts of tongues and trembling worship; or the ecstatic eternal protest of the Church of God in Christ . . . I live in a musical world (mostly in my head) in which the sacred and the profane are two sides of the same coin, and in which the blues is more effect than cause. As for most revivalists and folkies, well, they tend to sound (like most but not only jazz musicians) overqualified; there are some very satisfying exceptions to these rules, and I have tried to reflect that in America: The Rough Cut. So here we have gospel formulations ('Damned Nation'), pre-blues ruminations ('Full Moon Moan'), a little bit of Hank Williams-directed honky tonk ('Cheatin' My Heart'), heavy metal ('Metallic Taste', 'Blues in Shreds'), 'Poor Mourner's Serenade' (hail, hail Jelly Roll Morton), 'Hymn for Her' (to my savior, and wife, Helen); a little bit of my own statement on the fallibility of free jazz, dedicated to a certain guitar player who shall remain nameless ('Blues for Unprepared Guitarist') in which, overdubbed on guitar, I make a personal appeal for a MacArthur, while daily sitting by the door, waiting for that envelope. There's also 'Old Country Rag,' an evocation of the old-time hillbilly rag; 'Eh Death,' a variation on an old fear; 'It's the End,' a bit of autobiography; 'Cold was the Night, Dark Was the Ground" (and I was the first, back in the 1990s, to reference Blind Willie Johnson in a jazz way; here is my update); and 'At a Baptist Meeting,' recorded in concert some years ago with the late, great, grievously missed Roswell Rudd.
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3CD
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ESPDISK 5080CD
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Allen Lowe writes: "In the Dark is a commemoration (sic) of the worst time of my life -- a period during which, having been operated on to remove a cancerous tumor in my sinus, I slept for only brief periods of time. Sometimes I made it as long as two hours continuously, but most often I dozed off for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe an hour -- encamped as I was on my couch, trying not to wake my wife as I wandered in the dark contemplating the long night ahead. Sometimes I turned the television set on and slept fitfully to the sound of the late news shows. Most often I slept most peacefully at about 5 am, only to be awakened an hour or two later by the light that flooded my living room, even with the curtains closed. I could barely breathe through my nose, or any other place; my face had been carved up by the surgeons who saved my life, and I sometimes did mad circles in the dark to see if I could exercise and avoid collisions with inanimate objects like chairs, doors, stairways, tables, etc. I have never before (or since) felt that desperate about anything. For a little while, in the late stages, I was able to breathe better, but then something called neuropathy set in, as what felt like a low-level electric current seething through my left foot. So -- at this point I would go to bed at 11PM, and at 1AM, like clockwork, that left foot began to vibrate, which it would continue to do for five or six hours, leaving me, at 6 or 7AM, with the very temporary relief of sleep -- all the while trying to ignore the sunlight that tormented me like a celestial alarm clock that never stopped ringing. At some point during this ordeal, I started composing again. To my surprise -- because I felt blank and near-death -- the music poured out of me, and the result is this recording (and its ESP companion, America: The Rough Cut (ESPDISK 5082CD)). I don't why it all happened like this, but I am reasonably sure that I will never be this prolific again, that I will never again produce this much good music this quickly. The music is sometimes structured, sometimes free-improvised, sometimes blues and American song form; Ken Peplowski is let loose to play free jazz on some tracks; Aaron Johnson shows himself to be one of the best and most creative saxophonists playing today; Lewis Porter is a phenomenal pianist, adept at all forms and musical structures. Anthony Braxton has said 'Allen Lowe is the tradition,' and I am honored to accept his recognition."
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ESPDISK 5058LP
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Normal Street is another salvo in ESP-Disk's drive to revive weird rock! Writer/musician/film maker Chris Shields says: "Near the DIY venue, cooperative, and punk/freak haven, The Firehouse, in Worcester, Mass, there's a street ironically named 'Normal St.' I was lucky enough to be playing a gig with Painted Faces there a few years back. Driving up the steep, labyrinthine roads we spotted the green sign, had a laugh owing to some solid riffing by all present, and then, moved on. The gig was good, the people great, and the memories, the stuff that makes time on earth meaningful. Little did I know Normal Street would return. Considering David Drucker's body of work and his unique brand of free form expression and clever pastiche, I shouldn't have been surprised. When you listen to Painted Faces what you're hearing is a mind at work. When Drucker begins to write and record, every dumb sign, bad horror movie, seemingly innocuous turn of phrase, petty embarrassment, transcendent joke, and musical influence are drawn together like iron filings to a magnet. What results is a document of a particular point in time for the artist. There are infectiously haunting hooks and raw atonal passages, cheap synths (and as time goes on less cheap ones), simple but effective chords, ramshackle percussion (a plastic toy maraca passed among audience members that refuses to die), and a host of other elements that all add up to something very special and deeply personal. It's a portrait of the artist as a freak . . . Normal Street is a fractured collection of songs, sounds, ideas, sometimes brief and other times delicately sustained; its stream of consciousness mischievousness bringing to mind Zappa and the Mothers filtered through the angst of bedroom pop and tape label minimalism. Many artists hope to embody Drucker's "Outback Steakhouse" approach ("No rules. Just right") but few have achieved such consistently fun results..."
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ESPDISK 5081CD
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Bára Gísladóttir is an Icelandic composer and double bassist based in Copenhagen. She is an active performer and regularly plays her own music, mostly solo or with her long-time collaborator Skúli Sverrisson. Additionally, she is the double bassist of Elja Ensemble. Occasionally, she performs as a soloist with ensembles or orchestras, most recently in her own double bass concert, "Hringla," with the Copenhagen Philharmonic. Every sound on SILVA is of the double bass, processed to various degrees (with MAX/Live) and layered into a mass of noise. Gísladóttir describes SILVA as "a work for processed double bass built on the idea of a downward growing forest, living its own secret life of underground raves and meditative cohesiveness." She continues: "I like to think of different movement and direction in the musical form and was intrigued by the thought of something that would otherwise naturally grow upwards, in reach for light and surrounded by air, rather being drawn in the opposite direction where darkness and solid form serve as the source of gleaming luminosity and breezy surroundings. Both in my compositional and instrumentalist work, in every nook and cranny I've been driven to dig as deep as I've been able, with SILVA perhaps quite literally so. Although growing up in classical music and predominantly working and living in an environment of classical contemporary/avant-garde music, I've been very much into other genres as well; alternative, experimental, heavy metal, noise, drone, techno, and electronica, and I believe SILVA is the byproduct of all of that." SILVA is a joint release by Sono Luminus and ESP Disk'. Personnel: Bára Gísladóttir - double bass, effects, composition.
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ESPDISK 1023LP
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Limited restock; reissue, originally released on ESP Disk' in 1966. Frank "The Reverend" Wright was one of the most powerful saxophonists to pick up on Albert Ayler's freedom and ferocious playing. Born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, TN and then Cleveland, OH, he started in music as a bassist in blues bands but switched to tenor sax under the influence of his Cleveland friend Albert Ayler. Wright's "energy music" approach to tenor saxophone was influenced by Ayler but at the time in the '60s Wright's intensity was unmatched and utterly distinctive. He followed Ayler to New York City, arriving in 1964 and fitting into the scene right away John Coltrane offered him a spot on his album Ascension in early 1965, though Wright demurred. ESP Disk' owner Bernard Stollman signed Wright on the spot upon hearing him sit in with Coltrane, and on November 11, 1965, Wright went into a New York studio to record his debut album, considered a free jazz classic. Wright's influence can be traced down to Charles Gayle, Sabir Mateen, and other hard-blowing tenormen, but even so, he remains unique. Personnel: Frank Wright - tenor saxophone; Henry Grimes - bass; Tom Price - drums. "Wright was throwing together ideas in a spirit of jubilation." --Clifford Allen, All About Jazz "... easily recommended to open-eared listeners who enjoy hearing fiery sound explorations." --Scott Yanow, AllMusic
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ESPDISK 1053LP
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Reissue, originally released in 1967. Frank Wright returned to the studio in May 1967 to make his second album using a quintet of players little-known at the time but now legends to free-jazz cognoscenti. Trumpeter Jacques Coursil, who almost made an album for ESP-Disk' himself, went on to the greatest fame of the players besides Wright; alto saxophonist Arthur Jones was not recorded nearly as often as his talents deserved; Steve Tintweis's stint playing with Albert Ayler raised the young bassist's profile; Muhammad Ali was Coltrane drummer Rashied Ali's brother. Together they raise the roof on a free-jazz marathon that still stands as Wright's magnum opus. "Your Prayer finds Wright refining the bag his solos come from, yet maintaining a firm hold on the ecstatic free-blues shout that makes up most of his solo language... Your Prayer is a rather lengthy slab of high-energy grit, but its unified forward and upward motion make for a firmly rooted sonic liberation." --Clifford Allen, All About Jazz "Rather intense at times, these emotional performances... still sound groundbreaking three decades later." --Scott Yanow, All Music Personnel: Frank Wright - tenor saxophone; Arthur Jones - alto saxophone; Jacques Coursil - trumpet; Steve Tintweis - bass; Muhammad Ali - drums.
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ESPDISK 5074CD
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After paying his dues with bluesmen Albert King and Bobby "Blue" Bland and jazzman Jaki Byard, Michael Marcus had his first album released in 1991, when he was 39. He's been much more prolific since then, co-leading Cosmosamatics with Sonny Simmons, SaxEmble with Frank Lowe and James Carter, Blue Reality Quartet with Joe McPhee, Warren Smith, and Jay Rosen, and Duology with Ted Daniel as well as Marcus's many albums as sole leader. Frank Lacy moved to New York in 1981 and soon established himself (primarily as a trombonist) as Art Blakey's music director, a member of the Mingus Big Band, sideman with Lester Bowie, David Murray Big Band, McCoy Tyner, and Roy Hargrove among others, and a leader in his own right. Tarus Mateen has worked with artists ranging from Christina Aguilera and OutKast to Betty Carter, Jason Moran, Hargrove, Greg Osby, and Terence Blanchard, to name a few. Jay Rosen of Cosmosamatics is also a member of Trio X with McPhee and Dominic Duval and Resonance Impeders with Chris Dahlgren and Briggan Krauss and has played with Mark Whitecage, Ivo Perelman, Gebhard Ullmann, etc.
Personnel: Michael Marcus - soprano sax, tenor sax, alto tarogato, G clarinet, bass flute, gong; Frank Lacy - French horn; Tarus Mateen - Marcoustico acoustic bass; Jay Rosen - drums and percussion. Recorded, mixed, and mastered on November 26-27, 2021 by Jim Clouse at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn.
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ESPDISK 5070CD
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The eighteenth duo album by Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp. "We believe it's our best effort so far," says Perelman. "Every rhythmic and melodic gesture [in 'Nine'] that tenor saxist and pianist feed each other in this remarkable duet is met with a musically and emotionally appropriate response from the other. And somehow or other, this entirely free jazz somehow coalesces and takes shape in a way that is absolutely perfect." And, "each track in this remarkable album is a highlight in itself and different from every other track. These two artists have played and recorded together so often that they do indeed almost seem to read each other's mind, and at this stage the psychic communication is so complete that it almost sounds as if we, the listeners, are eavesdropping in on a very personal and intimate conversation." --Lynn René Bayley "The music flows naturally from their fruitful exchanges, informed by mutual listening, skill and imagination. In the span of four minutes, ideas and images follow one after the other, become distinct then disappear, the players' energies converging into a single stream which one flees from as the other diverts it in a new and unforeseen direction; the passage from the known, what they have played in the past, to the unknown, instant creation. They propose forms, cadences, timbres, harmonic clusters, spirals of breath stretched to screaming heights, heartening melodies, curious ostinatos, elliptical flights, chords constantly shifting as new elements appear, by accident or by enchantment, compelled by the pair's instincts as improvisers. [...] Neither player is a soloist or accompanist; in their weightless, whirling ballads, both share the arduous, integral role of dialogist. The ego fades into the collective dimension, as the music demands." J-M Van Schouwburg (translated from French) Personnel: Ivo Perelman - tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp - piano. Recorded by Jim Clouse on June 25, 2021 at Park West Studios. Produced by Steve Holtje. Cover art by Yuko Otomo.
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ESPDISK 5073CD
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WeFreeStrings was founded in 2011. This is the group's second album. Leader Melanie Dyer (not to be confused with the Australian country pop songwriter of the same name) is a jazz viola player and composer based in New York City who currently performs with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Dead Lecturers, Heroes Are Gang Leaders, Baba Andrew Lamb, Gwen Laster's New Muse 4tet, William Parker, Tomeka Reid Stringtet, Janice Lowe/Tyehimbe Jess Millie & Christina project, and Patricia Nicholson's Women with an Axe to Grind. She's played and/or recorded with Henry Grimes, Makanda Ken McIntyre's Contemporary African American Composers' Orchestra, Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch, Nona Hendryx, Joe Bonner, Reggie Workman, Howard Johnson, David Haney, and many other notable musicians. She trained with William Lincer (principal violist, New York Philharmonic), Lee Yeingst (principal violist, Colorado Symphony Orchestra), John Jake Kella (NY Metropolitan Opera), and Naomi Fellows (Colorado Symphony Orchestra); and studied viola performance at the LaMont School of Music/University of Denver. "... an outstanding modernist violist" --Anthony Barnett, The Strad. Features Charles Burnham - violin; Gwen Laster - violin; Alexander Waterman - cello; Ken Filiano - bass; Michael Wimberly. Liner notes: William Parker. Mixing and Mastering: Alexander Waterman. Sound engineer: Jon Rosenberg. Recorded by Rene Pierre Allain on June 22 and 23, 2021 at Scholes Street Studio (Brooklyn, NY).
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ESPDISK 5072CD
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Jones Jones is a funny name for an all-star band. To grant such distinctive musicians so anonymous, Google-proof a moniker is whimsical in the extreme. But, given its members' long and distinguished work in the service of music, this group should not be taken lightly or treated as a lark. There is humor in their work but also gravitas and depth and magic. Larry Ochs says: "The newest and I think Jones Jones' best recording, sonically speaking, was specially recorded in-studio just before Covid struck in 2020 and features beautiful artwork by artist Roberto Harrison made specifically for the band."
"Each of the mature talents involved boasts an impressive history. Dresser was the bassist in Anthony Braxton's classic 1990s quartet, while Tarasov was part of the Ganelin Trio, hailed as 'arguably the world's greatest free jazz ensemble' in their 1980s heyday. Ochs has been one quarter of the Rova Saxophone Quartet since its inception in 1977. But as noteworthy as their illustrious track records is the fact that they still nurture an adventurous streak. All the nous derived from these various groundbreaking escapades finds its expression in their work together." --John Sharpe
Personnel: Larry Ochs - tenor and sopranino saxophones; Vladimir Tarasov - drums, percussion; Mark Dresser - basses. Recorded January 16, 2020 by Andrew Munsey at Studio B, UC San Diego. Mastered by Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha Lab, Oakland CA. Produced by Larry Ochs. All tracks collectively improvised by Ochs, Tarasov, and Dresser. Cover art by Roberto Harrison.
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ESPDISK 5059CD
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Matthew Shipp's new album is titled World Construct. It's a fitting title, for in his career of over three decades, he has constructed his own world of jazz. This press release could be entirely built from the raves of critics. "As Matthew Shipp's catalog expands, so does our understanding of the depth and breadth of his genius." "A gateway to higher improvisation that is practically without parallel. Matthew Shipp is the connection between that past, present and future for jazzheads of all ages." He "has produced a recording of great beauty and logic, creating distinct performances that are simultaneously shocking and beautiful, equally classic and daring. Shipp has been able to create pieces out of thin air that seem utterly worthy of composition. The music seems to be pulled directly from the realm where mathematics and magic collide. What Matthew Shipp has done is a profound achievement." "Unleashed with the kind of power imparted to them by his supple fingers, these notes and this music becomes something living and breathing, dancers indeed. Each title is seemingly a trigger which causes the hands and fingers of the pianist to leap and fly, and defy gravity not only with notes that ascend, light as air, as if to a rarefied realm. This is clearly the creation of a major composer whose pianism also suggests great cohesion of form and function, and above all, lyricism that sets Mr. Shipp apart in the same way that it did for musicians such as Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor." "Matthew Shipp confirms he is one of the best pianists of his generation. A monumental work that befits a place of choice in the jazz piano pantheon." You won't want to miss World Construct, recorded during the pandemic with his trio of five years. It will soon be seen as an important piece of the jazz edifice that is Mr. Shipp's magnificent career. Personnel: Matthew Shipp - piano; Michael Bisio - bass; Newman Taylor Baker -drums. Recorded by Jim Clouse 4/15/2021 at Park West Studios, Brooklyn NY. Cover art by Yuko Otomo.
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ESPDISK 5051LP
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In a two-decade career, Raymond Byron Magic Raposa has recorded six albums as Castanets, another as Raymond Byron and the White Freighter, and has worked with musicians ranging from Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Matthew Houck (Phosphorescent), and Sufjan Stevens, to Liz Janes, Jana Hunter, Nathan Hubbard (Trummerflora, Cosmologic), and John McCauley (Deer Tick). Over the course of that time, his music has been called part of the new weird America movement, freak-folk, psychedelic folk, and indie folk. Bond Wire Cur is as surreal and desolate and haunting as anything he's done. Collaborators on the album are many (Cory Gray, Erik Clampitt, Pony Domer, Jason Stinson, Lauren K. Newman, Kimba Kuzas, Ron Burns, Paula Barry, Coty Dolores Miranda, Josh Cole), yet the sound of the record is stripped-down and stark. It is a crucial chapter in his career and in ESP-Disk's drive to revive weird rock.
"Strong and weird. Using ancient ingredients these little vignettes grow sneakily large and become some new kind of food. It's beautiful and Ray's finest record yet." --Matthew Houck (Phosphorescent) on Bond Wire Cur.
"Raposa's skill as a singer and a lyricist are inextricably linked. His voice has a drifting, spectral quality that's perfectly suited to his overlapping images. Like John Ashbery, he's able to sustain pointed ambiguity for the duration of a composition, talking all around the thing without saying it." --Brian Howe on Castanets' First Light's Freeze for Pitchfork.
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