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.

- Pete was featured in the November issue of Down Beat – as a “Players” feature by John Ephland.

- Pete was the subject of a feature interview on AllAboutJazz.com by Gordon Marshall entitled “Balance Dream.”

- Composer/blogger George Grella wrote a fantastic review of siLENT Z Live back in June.

- About.com concert review by Jacob Teichroew.

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.

Steve Colson (photo: Sharon Sullivan Rubin)

Tuesday 2/2 – Steve Colson Trio’s The Untarnished Dream is Released + Saturday 2/6 – Release Party at Symphony Space

This Saturday night, Feb. 6, the Steve Colson Trio featuring Andrew Cyrille on drums and Reggie Workman on bass + Iqua Colson on vocals will perform at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia theatre at Symphony Space in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  This is the Colson’s first release since 2004 and Steve’s 5th album as a leader or co-leader.  They previously led a group in the late 70s and early 1980s called The Colson Unity Troupe. See a beautiful feature on the Colsons in their hometown paper, The Montclair Times, entitled “The Colsons: life partners who make beautiful music together”. Be on the lookout for an article on Steve in the May issue of Down Beat Magazine. Time Out New York writes:

“Pianist Steve Colson is a product of Chicago’s AACM, the organization that birthed such staunchly experimental composers as Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill. Colson’s music sounds straightforward by contrast: There’s probing free jazz to be found on his latest disc, The Untarnished Dream, but also plenty of refined, hard-swinging postbop. Joining the pianist here is the sterling cast heard on the album—bassist Reggie Workman, drummer Andrew Cyrille and vocalist Iqua Colson.”

Details:
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space

2537 Broadway (at 95th St)
Upper West Side | Map

212-864-5400

Subway: 1, 2, 3 to 96th St  | Directions

http://www.symphonyspace.org

Prices
Tickets: advance $25, day of show $30, students $20

Composer Tyshawn Sorey (who is best known as a drummer) is featured as the lead music story by music/film/travel scribe Steve Dollar in the current week’s issue of Time Out New York (see the story here). The article is pegged to Tyshawn’s upcoming month of programming during August at The Stone, John Zorn’s renowned experimental music venue in New York’s Lower East Side and an upcoming new CD release with guitarist Todd Neufeld and bassist/guitarist Thomas Morgan.

Sorey, who was born and raised in Newark, NJ and educated at William Paterson University, has, at 29 years of age, played with a who’s who of leading jazz and creative music artists including Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Dave Douglas, Vijay Iyer, Michelle Rosewoman, Mark Helias, Steve Lehman, Pete Robbins and many others.

Sorey is now also being featured at the popular improvised music blog, Destination:Out, where he talks about music, unedited and in his own words. The post also features two full downloadable mp3s from the forthcoming album, “Koan,” which will be released September 29, 2009 on 482 Music, a label dedicated to developing talents.

See 482 Music for more information or watch here for more updates.

You can also follow Sorey on his Facebook fan page and Twitter.

photo by Natalia Almada

Well, it’s been a very successful week for Fully Altered client, guitarist Marc Ribot, who if you didn’t already hear, is celebrating his 55th birthday with a retrospective of projects he has led or co-led in the past (including Rootless Cosmopolitans and Shrek featuring Sebastian Steinberg, Mat Maneri, Shahzad Ismaily, Sim Cain, Christine Bard, Jim Pugilese, Roy Nathanson and Marc as ringleader, Los Cubanos Postizos and The Young Philadelphians with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and G. Calvin Weston); projects he is presently leading or co-leading (including the Marc Ribot Trio and Spiritual Unity (an Albert Ayler tribute band) featuring Henry Grimes, Roy Campbell and Chad Taylor, and Ceramic Dog, Marc’s “power trio” with bassist Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith) and projects he may lead or co-lead in the future (most notably Sun Ship, a late Coltrane “tribute band” with Taylor, Grimes and guitarist-on-the-rise Mary Halvorson and a slightly different lineup of Ceramic Dog with Hungarian violinist Eszter Balint).  All of the birthday shows have been packed so far and for that I’d like to thank some of the writers and publications who helped make these turnouts possible:

Mike Ayers for his Billboard.com piece.

Aidan Levy at the Village Voice for his masterful and witty appraisal of Marc.

K. Leader Williams for his insightful and informative profile of Marc in Time Out New York.

Ben Sisario and Nate Chinen at The New York Times for featuring Marc as Artist of the Week on the NY Times Popcast and placing the birthday events prominently in the listings.

John Donohue at The New Yorker for hooking it up with the listing and the killer illustration by Jörn Kaspuhl.

Chris Kompanek for hooking it up at Flavorpill.

And any others I may have forgotten…

So if you haven’t already gotten your Ribot fix yet this week, there is still time tonight (5/15) to see Los Cubanos Postizos, Cotito Trio, and La Cumbiamba eNeYe and tomorrow (5/16) to see The Young Philadelphians and Ceramic Dog with special guest violinist Eszter Balint both at (Le) Poisson Rouge at 158 Bleecker St between Sullivan and Thompson in the West Village.

I’d also like to thank Seth Rosner and Yulun Wang at Pi Recordings for being my official entrée into the professional world of Marc Ribot; Mary Ho for her dedication and tireless efforts in putting this week together as well as Matt Amoroso for helping to keep me in the mix.

Happy 55th, Marc!  And many happy returns…