★Corbett Vs. Dempsey
Route 84 Quarantine Blues
Joe McPhee’s response to the challenge of making a new CD of solo music during Covid was to go at it head on, to address the present in its starkest aspects, to reach for comfort in the music of great composers, and to speak directly to the virus in no uncertain terms. The result is unlike any other of McPhee’s many records, a variety show of improvisations, favorite compositions, field recording, multi-tracking, incantation and recitation. After searching for the right studio-like setting wit…
The Field Within A Line
With his riveting performance in the inaugural Sequesterfest online festival in April 2020, Ken Vandermark inspired the Black Cross Solo Sessions. Already in the early days of lockdown, making good on the promise – or threat – of protracted off-road time, Vandermark had dedicated himself to the creation of a new book of works for solo reed instruments, which he debuted that day. The result of this watershed moment for the Chicago-based improvisor and composer was a body of works that reassert …
Every Single Night
From a time before Covid, Brazilian singer/songwriter/producer Moreno Veloso began singing his children to sleep. After the virus set in, this habit took on added significance, a father's reassurance. The music he chose for these nocturnes was drawn from friends and heroes, a selection of beautiful tunes and lyrics that began to form itself into a songbook of sorts, and Veloso started recording these pieces after the kids were tucked in. Gently surrounded by the night sounds outside his apartmen…
나를 (Na-Reul)
Extremely personal and passionate, cellist Okkyung Lee recorded this album after separation from her instrument for months; the 9 pieces are layered with strings, instrument sounds, voice and with profound timing, creating an intensely beautiful album reflecting the anguish and loss of the time.
Corona
A grand reunion of sorts in Berlin on the first day of November, 1996. Under the auspices of Free Music Production, Cecil Taylor, the great pianist and one of the premier musical minds of the 20th century, joined forces with his early comrade, drummer Sunny Murray, for a set of improvised duets. Murray was part of Taylor's important groups starting in 1959, including the trio with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, with which Taylor toured Europe in 1962 and 1963, recording the seminal Nefertiti, the…
Centrifuga
Danish pianist Tom Prehn was one of the first Europeans to deeply explore free music. With his quartet featuring Fritz Krogh on tenor saxophone, Poul Ehlers on bass, and Finn Slumstrup on drums, Prehn recorded Axiom in October, 1963, for Sonet, though it went unreleased until 2015 because the band felt that their music had moved beyond it already. To hear the music they were talking about, one could only turn to two privately-made reel-to-reel tapes, Centrifuga and Sohlverv, recorded in August, …
Communicate, How?: Paintings and Tapestries, 1967 - 1980 (Book)
* Exhibition catalogue. Limited edition. Produced on the occasion of the exhibition, extensive and copiously illustrated, with texts by Evie Ward, John Corbett, Lisa Alvarado, Christina Forrer, Naima Karlsson* Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present Moki Cherry, Communicate, How?: Paintings and Tapestries, 1967-1980. Following Blank Forms’ exhibition in New York, which took an in-depth look at the Don Cherry and Moki Cherry partnership, Communicate, How? places the spotlight squarely on Moki, …
In Early November
Two historical heavyweights of European free music, clarinetist Rüdiger Carl and drummer Sven-Åke Johansson, join forces with younger bassist Joel Grip for a night of incredible trios. Recorded a few months before the pandemic clampdown, in November of 2019, at Berlin's Au Topsi Pohl, the music is exploratory and swinging, with Carl's viscous clarinet and a brilliant rhythm team steeped in time-based feel but loose and sometimes oblique. Johansson was part of the first Peter Brötzmann Trio to …
In a Perpetual Now of Instantaneous Visibility
Artist and musician Rosa Barba paired up with drummer Chad Taylor for their first duo record, In a Perpetual Now of Instantaneous Visibility. Documenting a September 2019 performance and installation at New York's Park Avenue Armory, part of an invitation by pianist Jason Moran, the CD's two mesmerizing tracks clock in at over 30-minutes each. Patiently built as collaborative soundscapes, they feature Barba's unorthodox conjoining of cello and film projector in which she uses the celluloid as an…
The Mystery J
Yet another triumph from the legendary multi-instrumentalist, Joe McPhee, Corbett Vs. Dempsey drops "The Mystery J", their first ever full-length vinyl release, issued in a limited edition of 500 copies. Recorded in 2014 with violist Jen Clare Paulson and Brian Labycz on electronics, it writhes with bristling tension, while retaining a remarkably minimal form. Visionary experimentalism and freejazz reimagined on entirely singular terms, 'The Mystery J' encounters McPhee producing some of his bes…
Density 2036
In 2013, Claire Chase instigated a project designed to cultivate an entirely new body of work for flute. A MacArthur Fellow, Harvard professor, and indomitable musical force who co-founded the International Contemporary Ensemble, Chase began commissioning work, with the idea of doing so until the centennial of Edgard Varése's seminal flute solo "Density 21.5," in 2036. This deluxe 4-CD set is the first fruit of these commissions, realized in the first three years of the project, featuring 17 wor…
Left / Right
**2021 Stock** Catalog for Left / Right, an exhibition held at Corbett vs. Dempsey. July 27 – August 17, 2013. Includes an essay by Jim Dempsey. Design by Sonnenzimmer.
Extensions Out, Plus: Four Poetry Books 1957-1972 (4x Books)
Corbett vs. Dempsey announce the release of four books of poetry by Sun Ra. Two of these were pamphlets that accompanied early Sun Ra albums issued in the late 1950s; the other two were published more than a decade later by Infinity Inc./Saturn Research. CvsD's reprints are fastidiously designed facsimiles of the original publications, marking the first time they have been available in their Ra-ordained form since they were published. An architect of Afrofuturism and one of the great musical thi…
I Struck a Match on the Moon / Dreamsville
In 1961 Sun Ra took off from Chicago – where he had established the Arkestra, his dedicated ensemble and the vehicle for his mission to better the planet – and with a scaled-down version of the band he landed in NewYork. Their first recording session was in Newark in October of that year. The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra, recorded for the Savoy label, is a beautiful document of the material they'd honed during a long residency at the Wonder Inn at the end of the Chicago period. Among tracks left …
Vario 34 3: Free Improvised Music
Since its first iteration in 1979, Vario has appeared in some fifty different versions, with a great variety of musicians, also actors, dancers, and filmmakers. It's the brainchild of Günter Christmann, a powerhouse of improvised music in Germany whose influence is out of scale with his acclaim. Since his emergence on the scene in the early 1970s, including appearances on classic FMP outings such as Rüdiger Carl Inc.'s King Alcohol (CVSD 032CD) and the eponymous Peter Kowald Quintet LP (CF 015LP…
Incipient ICP, 1966-71
The untold early history of Amsterdam's seminal collective. Founded in 1967 by three of European free music's leading lights -- pianist Misha Mengelberg, drummer Han Bennink, and saxophonist and clarinetist Willem Breuker -- the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) was simply one of the most important vehicles for experimentation and improvisation in the history of creative music. Culling ideas and materials from jazz, modern and contemporary classical music, Fluxus, traditional music from the Balkans a…
Fire Without Bricks
The duo of saxophonist Larry Stabbins and percussionist Roy Ashbury was a mainstay of the London improvised music scene in the early 1970s. They recorded their lone LP, Fire Without Bricks, in 1976, and issued it in a tiny edition on the cooperatively run Bead label. Stabbins has toggled between more pop-oriented projects like Working Week and Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA Orchestra and adventurous free music in bands led by Peter Brötzmann and Tony Oxley. Born in Wolverhampton and based initially i…
Notes (8 pieces) Source a New World Music: Creative Music
* In process of stocking * This book was published by Corbett vs. Dempsey and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago on the occasion of the exhibition: Wadada Leo Smith, Ankhrasmation: The Language Scores, 1967-2015; October 11 - October 29, 2015.
A facsimile of Smith's landmark treatise first published in 1973 in an edition of 200 copies, with two additional chapters of recent vintage and an afterword by John Corbett. Design by Wadada Leo Smith (original publication), Sonnenzimmer…
Graphic: Design Work, 1959–2013
* In process of stocking * Brochure for an exhibition held at Rice University Art Gallery, Houston. October 8–November 14, 2013. Includes an essay by curator John Corbett. Design by Sonnenzimmer. Artist and musician Peter Brötzmann is best known as one of the preeminent figures in contemporary improvised music. He was trained as a visual artist in his hometown of Wuppertal, Germany, in the late 1950s, and his early musical career as a saxophonist and clarinetist was paralleled by his first art e…
Paintings and Objects
Catalog for an exhibition held at Corbett vs. Dempsey, October 26 - November 30, 2007. Includes an essay by John Corbett. Design by Kathi Beste. Artist and musician Peter Brötzmann is best known as one of the preeminent figures in contemporary improvised music. He was trained as a visual artist in his hometown of Wuppertal, Germany, in the late 1950s, and his early musical career as a saxophonist and clarinetist was paralleled by his first art exhibitions in Holland and Germany. Brötzmann assist…