★Rogueart
What If?
* 2020 Stock * An authoritative meeting between two of New York City's strongest players - Matthew Shipp on piano and Nate Wooley on trumpet - distilled to their essence after work with saxophonist Ivo Pereleman, here performing a set of 12 Shipp com…
Symbolic Reality
* 2020 Stock * Six compositions by pianist Matthew Shipp for his String Trio with violist Mat Maneri and double bassist William Parker, their first Trio record since 2001's "Expansion, Power and Release" (Hat), their long history of working together …
Urdla XXX
The dramatic act of this performance draws a deamhulatory line colouring each phase in the sound of the required instrument; large discursive logic intensity in the atmosphere appropriate to each segment. After his entry "City of Lyon"which sets the …
Magnetism(s)
"The music takes on short, fleeting forms: fading here, held and moody there, as though the improvisation encouraged skepticism of firm certitudes. The tightness of the discourse, however, demands enlightening energy and lucid tautness." (Jean-Franço…
Wild Red Yellow
The culmination of 11 years working on music for this band, Wild Red Yellow was recorded in 2011 by an expanded version of Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core. With very critical help from engineer Philip Perkins, Ochs then slowly mixed and edited the two…
Heads Or Tails
Two different duets between reedman Sylvain Kassap and percussionist Hamid Drake – one live, one studio – recorded six years apart, but sounding wonderful together in this double-length package! The first section is live – and features some very long…
Electric Ascension+Cleaning The Mirror
"In Rova's translation of Ascension into contemporary practice, Coltrane's Ascension remains as a great gift for the energy it presents, for the sheer unfailing intensity with which it fights toward its collective freedom. The original is a major wor…
An Air Of Unreality
"An "air of unreality" characterizes the best free improvisation. This performance-captured during last year's Vision Festival in Manhattan's Judson Church-definitely ranks among the best on record this year. Part of this unreality has to do with fin…
Soul Travelers
"So, listen closely, and savor the sounds: treat them with delicate abandon, indulge in their intricately measured poignancy; but don't forget to relax (a little) and enjoy: You are in the hands of a master soul traveler."(Steven Loewy, excerpt from …
13 miniatures for Albert Ayler
Would it be that when everything finishes that everything starts? Rather than a postlude or a coda, the five minutes a cappella by Joe McPhee on the tenor saxophone placed here in thirteenth position, sound like a song of love and hope coloured utopi…
Three compositions
Despite the compositions’ respective demands, Nicole Mitchell and Black Earth Ensemble fully and vividly represented Roscoe Mitchell’s varied means of creating chemistry between written and improvised materials. At every turn in the program, they pla…
Passages
Lawrence Butch Morris developed the concept of “conduction” to account for a mode of Instant Composition based on the creative freedom of the players stimulated by the gestures of a central conductor. AP/DP, with this cd, invent the practice of music…
Roots Run Deep
Nicolas Humbert and his co-author Marc Parisotto decided to make a further montage of the readings and songs for the album "Roots Run Deep". There are short stories and poems set to music, beautifully interwoven with the music Yusef Lateef had pla…
Spontaneous Suite For Two Pianos
A 4-CD box set of 9 "Spontaneous Sweets", elaborate, magnificent and melodic piano improvisations, recorded by Connie Crothers & David Arner performing in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, NY. "It was magical from the beginning. T…
Velvet Songs (To Baba Fred Anderson)
"This 2 cd set recorded live at the Velvet Lounge a year before the legendary Fred Anderson passed away, is a fitting tribute by 3 Chicagoans to one of their own, the master tenor player, teacher, Velvet Lounge owner, advocate and AACM member, who…
Numbers
A beautiful set of compositions from saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, presenting works recorded in the 2000s with performers including Thomas Buckner, Stephen Rush, Nils Bultman, William Winant, &c - "In the 45 years since he recorded Sound, Roscoe Mitch…
Unknown skies
...Every trio without a piano, or without a drums, or as in this case without a double bass, gains in incline what it loses in “balance”. It only takes a little sometimes. Everyone plays at ease across. Everyone can split themselves. There are no mor…
Conversations
William Parker has long taken an active role in the presentation of his own art (self-produced records/CDs, concerts, festivals, publications) and that of others. That initiative continues with this major work, an anthology of musician-to-musician i…