Four times per year, Silver Spring, Maryland based label Cuneiform Records usually releases four new titles of adventurous music. Latest bunch seems really strong.
Crazy times call for outrageous music, and few jazz ensembles are better prepared to meet the surreality of this reality-TV-era than the antic and epically creative Ed Palermo Big Band. The New Jersey saxophonist, composer and arranger is best known for his celebrated performances interpreting the ingenious compositions of Frank Zappa, an extensive body of work documented on previous Cuneiform albums.
But his fifth project for the label, The Great Un-American Songbook Volumes 1 & 2, is a love letter to the rockers who ruled the AM and FM airwaves in the 1960s via successive waves of the British Invasion. Featuring largely the same stellar cast of players as last year’s gloriously eclectic One Child Left Behind, the 18-piece EPBB lovingly reinvents songs famous and obscure, leaving them readily recognizable and utterly transformed. The first installments in what he hopes to be an ongoing project, these two volumes give a whole new meaning to 'swinging London'.
You can hear demanding vocal or instrumental versions of songs by Cream, Jethro Tull, Procol Harum, King Crimson, The Beatles, ELP or Radiohead on this album.
Chicago / London Underground presents first meeting of core duo of Chicago Underground Collective, cornet player Rob Mazurek and drummer Chad Taylor (both uses also electronics) with prominent London improvisers, pianist Alexander Hawkins and bassist John Edwards, recorded live at Café OTO in London, April 2016. The result named A Night Walking Through Mirrors is an expansive sonic adventure whose every unexpected note and alchemical reaction runs counter to the limited imaginations ruling social media name-calling and clannish provincialism.
album on bandcamp
The other releases are new albums by another Americans, experimental jazz oriented The Microscopic Septet and avant-prog combo Thinking Plague.
more info and music to hear on each title bandcamp page or at www.cuneiformrecords.com (Created with use of Cuneiform promo materials)
LOUIS MOHOLO-MOHOLO - drums
JASON YARDE - alto & soprano saxes
ALEXANDER HAWKiNS - piano
JOHN EDWARDS - double bass
Recorded on 12 November 2013 by Ben Lamdin at Fish Factory Studios, London.
Mixed by Jason Yarde.
(c) 2014 Ogun Recordings Limited
Moholo Quartet plays simply high-octane interactive jazz and shows improvisational skills of all four musicians, as well as Louis' ability for leading the groups of various sizes. Music on the album continues in traditions of legendary South-African Blue Notes and British free improvisation too.
Louis Moholo-Moholo Quintet @ the Vortex 17.o3.2o11: Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums), Paul Dunmall (saxophone), Alan Tomlinson (trombone), Alexander Hawkins (piano) and Olie Brice (bass).
Found through Jazz Gig Diary blog.
+ PLUS + SEPTOBER ENERGY: Keith Tippett conducts Viva La Black with Julie Tippetts, Louis Moholo-Moholo & Minafric Orchestra in Sant'Anna Arresi (Sardegna) on 2nd September 2oo8. Soloist on soprano sax is Roberto Ottaviano.
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Some interesting gigs @ Jazz Dock in Prague these days: On Sunday, June 24, Polish pianist Pavel Wlosok will joinOndřej Štveráček (tenor sax), Tomáš Baroš (double bass) and Tomáš Hobzek (drums).
Pianist Karel Růžička's trio with Josef Fečo (double bass) and Dano Šoltis (drums) will play together with Karel's son, Karel Růžička Jr. (saxes and flute), on Monday July 25. Karel Jr. is based in New York for years and is currently in Prague due to his participation on Czech Jazz Workshop.
Promising Czech quartet POiNTS will play octet gig on Wednesday: Luboš Soukup (saxes), Miroslav Hloucal (trumpet, flugelhorn), Tomáš Liška (double bass) and Tomáš Hobzek (drums) will be joined on stage by Dorota Barová (cello and voice), Marcel Bárta (saxes and bass clarinet), Jan Jirucha (trombone) and Petr Kalfus (alto sax). All four players were guesting on POiNTS album, released by Animal Music in 2o1o. Live album from Points appearance at Jazz Getxo festival in Spain, where they won first prize in young bands contest in 2oo9, was also released by festival label Errabal.
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Plus one actual prog song: Sluneční město / Suntown by FUTURUM, from iSLAND EARTH album, 1984 > download here.
Due to connection problems, there are actually no new additions at my Rajce gallery :(
