Since our last post, Pete Robbins record siLENT Z Live came out on the alto saxophonist’s own imprint, Hate Laugh Music. Pete had two consecutive CD release shows at The Tea Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn and at Cornelia Street Cafe in Manhattan which received nice preview coverage from The New York Times who called siLENT Z “a willfully progressive outfit” and Time Out New York who wrote “In saxist Pete Robbins’s siLENT Z project, highly developed harmony, complex meter and searing improv merge with a world of experimental loops, ambient soundscapes, hard beats and general abandon. The ’70s term jazz-rock doesn’t cut it, so the best description of this outfit is probably the artist’s own: Brooklyn prog-modern (post)jazz.”

A few nice things have come out so far for Pete.

- Pete was interviewed and played live in studio at WBGO by Josh Jackson for their new music program, The Checkout.

- There was a nice review by All About Jazz-New York’s Elliot Simon.

- There was a nice review by Derek Taylor on his new blog Master of a Small House.

- Phil Freeman reviewed the record for his excellent new webzine, Burning Ambulance in his 31 Days of Jazz Reviews series.

- also Pete will be featured in an upcoming issue of Down Beat Magazine – as a “Players” feature by John Ephland.

Stay tuned for more updates on Pete.  You can follow his goings-on with his new blog as well as through the regular channels: Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Release Shows Scheduled For
May 28 at Tea Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn
May 29 at Cornelia Street Cafe in East Village

Live recordings may be a cliché in rock music, but in jazz – as bandleader Pete Robbins notes – they are the very measure of the music. They reveal exactly what a group is made of, fully embracing the “first thought, best thought” Zen of improvisation and human chemistry that inspires electrifying moments on the bandstand.

“The concert is such a big part of the experience,” Robbins says. “You have great musicians who play the same songs totally different every time.” As the alto saxophonist discovered making his first live recording – siLENT Z LIVE (Hate Laugh Music) – featuring his stellar working ensemble siLENT Z, the experience opens up dimensions of sound and spontaneity that rarely exist in the studio. “My last record [Do the Hate Laugh Shimmy (Fresh Sound New Talent)] was very scripted. We spent a whole day in the studio, very tightly scheduled and the arrangements were predetermined I felt like I could keep tweaking it until I got what I wanted. But with the live record I can’t do anything.  Shimmy came out great but it lacked the intensity of our live shows. I thought the next logical thing was to record this band live.

And what a band it is. As New York audiences who have seen Robbins and his cohorts perform at venues such as The Cornelia Street Café and the Tea Lounge in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood know, the electro-acoustic quintet is one of the city’s best working outfits. “Pete has a surprising amount and type of creativity,” says Joe Morris, one of Robbins’ teachers during his formative college years and himself a brilliant, dogged composer and improviser on guitar, bass and banjo. “He’s a great and unique writer and alto player. He’s brave and his music is fun but also artistic.”

Critics also have been impressed.  “Robbins composes like a jazz musician but envisions a broader jumble informed by various indie genres,” wrote critic David Adler in Time Out New York. “Highly developed harmony, complex meter and searing improv merge with a world of experimental loops, ambient soundscapes, hard beats and general abandon. The ’70s term jazz-rock doesn’t cut it, so the best description of a project like siLENT Z is probably the artist’s own: ‘Brooklyn prog-modern (post)jazz’.”

siLENT Z features Robbins on alto, Jesse Neuman on cornet and effects, Mike Gamble on guitar and effects, Thomas Morgan on bass, Tyshawn Sorey on drums, and special guest pianist Cory Smythe. It’s a cross-section of young talents with remarkable verve, ideally suited to Robbins’ purposes as a composer.  “Even without the effects, Jesse is an incredible musician,” Robbins says. “His sense of melody is so strong he can play anything and make it sound beautiful. And he has such a great sense of what effects to use, when and how, that he never ceases to amaze me. I went to the New England Conservatory with Mike in the late ‘90s. He’s great with all the delays and effects. He lends that rock feel my tunes cry out for sometimes, but he can also play quote-unquote jazz guitar.”

Bassist Thomas Morgan is, simply, “one of the best musicians I know,” Robbins says. “He can sight-read anything and makes everyone around him better.” And Sorey, a drummer and composer who leads or participates in several celebrated ensembles, including a trio with Robbins and bassist Mario Pavone, is “a complete savant.”

Robbins offers an example: “Tyshawn can sit at the piano, and I’ll say, ‘Play the B section from the second track of my second record and he’ll just play it. He’s a genius that way. Like Mike, he can take any style and make it authentic.” Sorey’s impending “sabbatical” from regular live performance as he pursues an advanced degree in composition also was a motivation for Robbins’ to capture siLENT Z’s playfully complex mojo in a club setting. Robbins approachs each of the album’s tracks as a particular challenge. The opening number, “edit/revise,” started out simply enough.  “I really wanted to write something in 4/4. I haven’t done that in a long time,” he explains. “I guess I halfway succeeded.” But the piece shifts into a more complex second part that translates the influence of UK electronic pioneers Autechre, via Sorey’s astonishingly nimble percussion.

The touching “his life, for all its waywardness” is a prime slice of siLENT Z and its wide-open best. The piece opens with the bittersweet atmospherics of Gamble’s guitar and effects, seemingly drifting in a sublime manner before the mood shifts, crackling with a fiery dialogue between Robbins’ horn and Sorey’s fast-rattling stick-work. “Jazz these days can get so bogged down in harmony and the subtleties of chord progressions and to me, if I really want to analyze a song, then I can appreciate those things, but I feel like in my head that idea is very much tied up with the ivory tower of jazz consumption: musicians making music for other nusicians,” Robbins says. “So the idea was to make this really simple harmonically, just totally in the key of C. And all white keys pretty much. Keep it kind of droney and moody, but also substantial underneath with this guitar lick in 15/8 and also a 4/4 bass line. I can’t keep it too simple. My brain won’t let me do it. But I wanted to make it accessible and also interesting.”

As a young musician in 7th grade, Robbins tried his hand at other instruments, like the clarinet, but found his destiny one day when his father, a jazz and classical enthusiast, sat him down and played him three records. “Miles, Bird and Dexter Gordon,” he says. “Dad told me, ‘Trumpet, alto or tenor. Those are your options.’ Charlie Parker stuck out for me because he played so fast.” Later revelations came when, as a high school student, Robbins heard the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin at one of his final gigs. “It was a whole other way to play jazz, and it really turned me on.” Likewise, the discovery of the prolific altoist Tim Berne’s quartet Bloodcount proved a real turning point.

“I didn’t know what was going on the first time I heard it,” Robbins says, referencing the triple-live CD Unwound. “I knew something incredible was happening but had no idea what it was.” What it was, he now relates, was “Jim Black’s drumming and the way that he and [bassist Michael] Formanek played together. Their time together was like this giant monster brainy groove. The thing I’d been looking for forever. That and way they would go in and out of more abstract, semi-structured improv and very rock-heavy odd-meter grooves that are not really tonal. It was exactly what was appealing to me.”

Though the music Robbins invents with siLENT Z almost insists on evading easy definition, the bandleader gives it another shot. “Even now, that’s what I’m trying to accomplish, covering free stuff and odd meter like prog-rock influence jazz nerdy grooves … or something.”

Release Date: May 25, 2010

Links
Pete Robbins’ Website
Pete Robbins on MySpace
Pete Robbins on Facebook
Pete Robbins on Twitter

For more information contact:
Matt Merewitz
Fully Altered Media
215-629-6155
matt@fullyaltered.com

Jason Lindner's Now vs. Now (photo: John Rogers)

Tuesday 2/2 9PM – ROSE LIVE MUSIC’s 4 Year Anniversary w/ Jason Lindner’s Now vs Now & All-star Jam Session

It’s Rose Live Music’s 4 Year Anniversary and to help us celebrate, Jason Lindner’s Now vs Now will host an all-star jam session featuring a cast of heavyweights who have performed at Rose in years past. No cover.

Details:

Rose Live Music

345 Grand St (between Havemeyer St and Marcy Ave)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn | Map

718-599-0069

Subway: L to Lorimer St, G to Metropolitan Ave  | Directions

http://www.liveatrose.com

Tickets: FREE

]]> http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/02/02/rose-live-musics-4th-anniversary-cd-release-week-for-steve-colson-trios-the-untarnished-dream/feed/ 0 http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/01/27/rose-live-music-announces-drummer-series-lineup-for-febmar-2010/ http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/01/27/rose-live-music-announces-drummer-series-lineup-for-febmar-2010/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:11:28 +0000 Matt http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/01/27/rose-live-music-announces-drummer-series-lineup-for-febmar-2010/ Rose Live Music Announces Drummers and Details for 4th Anniversary & Drummers Series.

8pm – doors
8:30pm – 1st set
10pm – 2nd set
$10-$12 cover

Schedule:

Feb 2 – Rose 4th Year Anniversary: Jason Lindner’s Now vs Now hosts jam session (No cover)

Feb 9 – Adam Deitch: Adam Deitch, Louis Cato and Yuki Hirano Trio

Feb 16 – New Languages Festival presents: Mike Pride: From Bacteria to Boys

Feb 23 – Dafnis Prieto: Proverb Trio w/Kokayi (vocals), Jason Lindner (keys)

Mar 2 – Search & Restore presents: Bobby Previte’s New Bump

Mar 9 – Billy Martin: Solo & Fang Percussion Ensemble

Mar 16 – Tom Tom Magazine: A Magazine About Female Drummers Presents a Night of Women at the Kit

WED Mar 17 – Jim Black: Pachora

Mar 23 – Search & Restore presents: Ben Perowsky’s Moodswing Orchestra

Mar 30 – Mark Guiliana & Zach Danziger

WED Mar 31 – Ryan Sawyer with Thurston Moore & Daniel Carter

The highly anticipated New York debut of Sam Sadigursky’s Words Project III: Miniatures, the NY-based saxophonist and composer’s third installment in the critically acclaimed Words Project series on New Amsterdam Records, will take place Friday January 29th at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO (16 Main St. at the corner of Water St and Main St. Brooklyn, NY 11201) as part of New Amsterdam’s ARCHIPELAGO Series. These releases mix modern and post-modern poetry with Sadigursky’s unique compositional vision that draws stylistically from both jazz and new music. Source material includes poems by Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg, Maxim Gorky, Léon de Greiff and William Carlos Williams sung by a range of New York-based vocalists including Michael Leonhart, Monika Heidemann, Becca Stevens, Heather Masse and Matt Kanelos.

Here’s what Sam has to say in his own words (from the Naxos blog at Sequenza21.com).

Here’s what the critics are already saying about Words Project III:

The highly respected veteran jazz journalist Doug Ramsey writes on his ArtsJournal blog, Rifftides:

“As we pointed out in a Rifftides posting two years ago today, jazz and poetry never really became a movement. Over the past 90 years or so, the hybridform has had a few peak periods and some embarrassing lows. On the strength of Sam Sadigursky’s work, we may be at one of the peaks.”

Fort Worth Weekly music scribe Ken Shimamoto captures the difference between Words Project III and other poetry-jazz hybrids.

“It would be wrong to call Words Project III: Miniatures a “poetry-jazz” record. To many folks, that description evokes a ’50s movie cliché of goateed beret-and-turtleneck wearers in a smoky basement, snapping their fingers to signify approval of some “Howl”-era Ginsberg caricature backed by stale bebop. What New York-based composer Sam Sadigursky’s up to here is something entirely other. The phrase that pays is “art song.” The record is as redolent of classical music as it is of jazz, while the vocalists’ delivery and Sadigursky’s setting produce a resolutely contemporary sound.“

Friday January 29th
8:00 PM – one set

Sam Sadigursky’s Words Project III: Miniatures Premiere/Release Party
New Amsterdam Records’ ARCHIPELAO Series

Galapagos Art Space
16 Main St. (corner of Water and Main)
Brooklyn, NY 11201 (DUMBO)

Personnel:
Monika Heidemann, Becca Stevens, Heather Masse, Michael Leonhart, Matt Kanelos – voice
Sam Sadigursky – saxophones
Pete Rende – piano, accordion
Nate Radley – guitar
Gary Wang – bass
Richie Barshay – drums/percussion

Sam Sadigursky’s website
Sam Sadigursky’s MySpace page
Sam Sadigursky’s Facebook Fan Page
New Amsterdam Records
Galapagos Art Space

For more information, please contact Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media / 347-527-2527 or 215-629-6155 / matt@fullyaltered.com

visionary crossover pianist Jason Lindner’s Now Vs. Now, featuring a cast of jazz heavyweights who have performed at Rose in years past.

Every Tuesday through March, the Williamsburg jazz haunt will turn the spotlight on varied masters of the backbeat — running the gamut from John Scofield Band timekeeper and vaunted hip-hop impresario Adam Deitch to the combustible Latin rhythms of Dafnis Prieto to eponymous Medeski, Martin & Wood stalwart Billy Martin. The series will also feature such kings of the kit as relative newcomer Mark Guiliana, a frequent collaborator of bassist Avishai Cohen, Ryan Sawyer, who has performed with such groups as Stars Like Fleas, Lone Wolf, and TV on the Radio, and high-octane drum maven Jim Black. Guest presenters will include an evening of female drummers curated by Tom Tom Magazine, an international publication devoted to female percussionists, as well as separate events presented by Aaron Ali Shaikh’s New Languages Festival and Search & Restore.

Despite its youth, Rose has already cultivated a storied history of reaching across genre to bring the freshest sounds of the Zeitgeist in jazz, soul, Afrobeat, house, and everything in between to an intimate forum where music lovers and musicians alike find common ground. The club was founded by Carlo Vutera, a classically-trained opera singer of Sicilian descent, and his sister Gina, a

foreign language professor, who shared a vision of creating a welcoming environment geared towards musicians and true lovers of groundbreaking music in all its hybrid forms.

Having consistently played host to mainstays of the contemporary jazz and avant-garde scenes since the club’s inception, among them guitar guru Charlie Hunter, genre-bending sonic wizard and trombonist Josh Roseman, and ambient Afrobeat-dub spinsters Mobius Collective, Rose’s walls spin a rich tapestry of heavy grooves, trance-inducing funksmanship, and mind-blowing improvisation.

In fact, the club’s walls tell a story quite literally — in order to create the European cafe aesthetic of their youth, the owners imported vintage wallpaper from Belgium, a country known for its artistry in, among other things, its wallpaper. Perhaps chiefly, though, Belgium is also known for its beer, and indeed, the libations at Rose flow freely, ranging from a wide array of Belgian cask ales drawn from an imported tap to an extensive variety of organic wines curated by the in-house sommelier. Downstairs from the performance space, Rose also houses Vutera, a gourmet restaurant that serves up home-style new Mediterranean cuisine.

A chicly decorated grotto bathed in iridescent red light and illuminated by well-placed candles, the European-style speakeasy is a cozy space so intimate that listeners can hear musicians on stage catch their breath in between notes. The tight quarters make for a vertiginous call-and-response synergy between performer and audience, creating a musical conversation that drives the delicate fuse that enlivens each performance’s explosive spontaneity, the touchstone of jazz.

“One of the greatest assets of Rose is that musicians really feel comfortable there, that they can do things that they can’t usually focus on,” says Mary Ho, who is in charge of booking for the club.

Though the eclectic musical offerings are prodigious, Rose tends to fly under the radar, a diamond in the rough amid a slew of other live music venues in Williamsburg. Located slightly off the beaten path on Grand Street, Rose has largely established itself as a haven for Brooklyn artists, a local watering hole and musicians’ hang where members of renowned jam band Soulive, Lost Tribe co-founder and in-demand sideman drummer Ben Perowsky, effervescent post-bop trumpeter Avishai Cohen, and numerous other luminaries of the scene regularly gather to commune over good food and good tunes unfettered and unfiltered by the vicissitudes of the broader music industry. These are the musicians’ musicians, convening to lay back and indulge in the music they want to play and the music they want to hear.

“The thing about Rose is that it provides a platform for musicians

who just want to try something new,” says Ho. “It gives them the rare opportunity when they’re not touring or not on the road to work on their own stuff, or just to play with their friends. There’s not the pressure of putting on that performance that other people expect and it gives the audience a chance to see them in an intimate setting.”

For more information, please contact Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media matt@fullyaltered.com / 347-527-2527

Release Date: March 23, 2010

Album Features: Myra Melford, Todd Sickafoose & Special Guest Jenny Scheinman

“Some of my closest friends are extremely smart and powerful women,” Allison Miller says. “I can’t stress enough the importance of this community. There’ve been several women who’ve really helped me out in my career. I hope that I do the same for other women in the musical community.

The example that Miller sets on BOOM TIC BOOM is that of a powerhouse drummer with an unerring sense of swing and a moving melodicism; an inventive composer with a gift for memorable tunes that leave ample space for bright improvisations; and a bandleader who ably marries these pieces with the right collaborators to breathe life into them. Here, those collaborators are pianist/composer Myra Melford; longtime collaborator Todd Sickafoose on bass; and guest violinist Jenny Scheinman on one piece.

Half of the album is comprised of original pieces penned by Miller during a one-month break from the road during the summer of 2008. The diversity of influences evident in the music belies the short time span in which it was written, but is reflective of the wealth of musical experience that makes up Miller’s résumé.

Raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Miller began playing the drums at the age of ten and was featured in Down Beat magazine’s “Up and Coming” section in 1991. Five years later, after graduating from West Virginia University, she moved to New York City to pursue what has became a fruitful career as a freelance drummer. Miller’s talents have landed her gigs in the mainstream music world, with artists like Natalie Merchant, Ani DiFranco, and most recently, folk singer Brandi Carlile; and her jazz skills have been embraced by everyone from saxophonist Marty Ehrlich to organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith, with a wide range of leaders in between, including Erik Friedlander, Mark Helias, Steven Bernstein, Ray Drummond, Peter Bernstein, Sheila Jordan, George Garzone, Mike Stern, Rachel Z, Kevin Mahogany, Bruce Barth, Mark Soskin, and Harvie S.

She also leads or co-leads several bands, including EMMA, with singer/songwriter Erin McKeown; TILT, with pianist Taylor Eigsti and bassist Jon Evans; and Agrazing Maze, with trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, pianist Enrique Haneine, and bassist Carlo DeRosa. Miller has also been recognized by the Showtime network, which featured her music in the series The L Word, and by the US State Department when she was chosen to tour East Africa, Eurasia and Southeast Asia as a Jazz Ambassador. She will also be featured in a magazine article and web feature for Yamaha’s All Access 360 in January 2010.

For BOOM TIC BOOM, Miller assembled a trio that she knew would stretch the limits of the music she had written. “I come from a straight ahead jazz tradition,” she explains, “but I play so many different styles of music that I don’t want to stick strictly to that tradition. So, for BOOM TIC BOOM I wanted more of an avant-garde approach to my semi-traditional compositions.”

Key to this interpretation of her music is pianist Myra Melford, who Miller describes as bringing “electric light to my compositions. She plays with an incredible amount of spontaneous creativity and a lot of fire. There’s also a playfulness to the way she performs my music which I really love. Myra is always in the music and in the moment, but also completely individual and creative.”

The balance that Melford brings is evident immediately, as Miller opens the first track, “Cheyenne”, with a steamroller barrage that is met by Melford’s steely but delicate approach, a calm presence amidst the drummer’s effusive maelstrom. Later, on “Big Lovely”, inspired by Miller’s friend, singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon, Melford brings a knife-edged sharpness to the song’s down-and-dirty groove. Melford also contributes two compositions to the session. “Be Melting Snow” has a fractured urgency that evokes Miller’s most abstract and textured percussion, while “Night” provides the album with a hushed and atmospheric closer to contrast the disc’s otherwise exuberant mood.

To complete the trio, Miller chose bassist Todd Sickafoose, with whom she shares a long and rich musical history. The two first performed together under the leadership of saxophonist Jessica Lurie, forming a bond which has continued through each other’s projects and a busy two-and-a-half year stint touring the world with Ani DiFranco. “I think of Todd as my brother in music,” Miller says. “We just know each other musically inside and out. He’ll take the sheet of music, get the gist of what I’m trying to say, and then run with it, which frees me up to explore, too. I like to hire musicians for who they are and let them do their thing with my music. I don’t have any interest in controlling the situation.”

The trio is joined by violinist Jenny Scheinman on Miller’s “CFS (Candy Flavored Sidewalks),” which begins with extremely sparse free improvisation, which congeals into a brisk hoedown. “I’m not personally a fan of jazz violin, but Jenny is the antithesis of what I thought an instrumental improvisational violinist is,” Miller admits. “She’s so melodic and lyrical, and her improvising is very energetic and melodic. She almost plays like a singer.”

BOOM TIC BOOM also features two standards: “Intermission” from pianist Mary Lou Williams, who Miller refers to as “a huge idol,” and Hoagy Carmichael’s classic “Rockin’ Chair,” the date’s only tune by a male composer. “I love the Louis Armstrong version of that song,” Miller says. “There are certain songs that I hear and immediately want to experiment with different chord changes and feels. On “Rockin’ Chair,” I love that melody, but I always heard it in a more modern version, rhythmically and harmonically.”

The end result is a multi-faceted album replete with spontaneity and emotional expression. “Maybe I’m just growing as a musician and a bandleader, but things just seemed to happen really naturally in the studio with this album,” Miller concludes. “I don’t know why that was and I don’t want to think about it too much, but it felt really good.”

For more information, please contact Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media – matt@fullyaltered.com / 347-527-2527