MATANA ROBERTS — Coin Coin Chapter One : Gens de Couleur Libres (2011) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Chicago-born, New York-based alto saxophonist and composer Matana Roberts made waves with her debut, The Chicago Project, in 2008, and earlier this year with her Live in London set issued by Barry Adamson's Central Control imprint. Coin Coin Chapter One: Les Gens de Couleur Libres on Constellation, is the opening salvo in a projected 12-part musical statement, and stands apart in her catalog. The large 16-piece ensemble was recorded in a Montreal studio live in front of a small audience. Roberts plays various reeds and vocalizes; she is accompanied by a stellar cast of musicians playing everything from horns and strings to electric looped guitars to a musical saw. The album is conceptual and dramatic -- yet stridently self-controlled -- a new chapter in the book of vanguard jazz. Her album employs family stories through the narrator's tales of a distant relative (alternately a physical presence and a ghost) named "Coin Coin" (a.k.a. Marie Therese Metoyer a freed slave from the 18th century who founded her own community along Louisiana's Can River; a giant figure in African American history), she portrays strong black female archetypes throughout history, around which she constructs her own myths (of interwoven facts and fictions). Roberts understands implicitly the power of restraint in these compositions, though free improvisation as a dialogue is also imperative. The wailing saxophone that commences the album on "Rise" is a clarion call answered by a piano responding and conversing for nearly two-and-a-half minutes before a muted trumpet and strings enter. The rhythm section begins haltingly, becoming more urgent as the piece progresses, creating a pole between piano and bass as horns flit in and out, up and around the strings; hints of melodies assert themselves fleetingly and disappear quickly. "Pov Piti" begins with the piano and droning strings before a vocalist utters a primal wave of wordless expression that builds to a crescendo before Roberts' alto enters, playing repetitive, haunting lines in a bluesy tone; she is answered by strings, horns, and other voices before she begins to vocally narrate. These pieces serve as an introduction for this ensemble's journey through a labyrinthine past. It's provocative, uncompromising, and quite moving emotionally. The completely sung, near-gospel call and response of "Libation for Mr. Brown: Bid Em In...." introduces the beautiful responsorial "Lulla/Bye," where Roberts' alto, strings, and piano highlight gorgeous females singing a near spiritual before it gives way to the urgent free playing that alternates dynamically in "I Am." The set closes with "How Much Would You Cost," wherein the question is asked literally and upfront in a deceptively simple, almost nursery-rhymed song that underlines the preciousness of human life, which is all the more powerful for its unassuming and unwavering directness. It is illumined only by a hypnotic bassline and ends this gorgeous, singular performance. Roberts is in her own league as an improviser, a composer, and conceptualist. Given the success of this album, she creates great anticipation for the next installment in her project.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    Rise    7:27
2    Pov Piti    7:41
3    Song For Eulalie    8:26
4    Kersaia    7:33
5    Libation For Mr. Brown: Bid Em In... 9:48
Lyrics By [Arrangement Of A Poem] – Oscar Brown Jr.
6    Lulla/Bye    5:54
7    I Am    10:05
8    How Much Would You Cost?    4:19
Credits :
Alto Saxophone [Alto Sax], Clarinet, Voice – Matana Roberts
Baritone Saxophone [Baritone Sax] – Jason Sharp
Bass – Jonah Fortune, Thierry Amar
Bass Trumpet – Brian Lipson
Cello – Nicolas Caloia
Drums, Vibraphone [Vibes] – David Payant
Duduk [Doudouk] – Hrair Hratchian
Guitar [Prepared Guitar] – Xarah Dion
Piano, Organ – David Ryshpan
Saw [Musical Saw] – Lisa Gamble
Songwriter [Songs By], Arranged By [Arrangements Of Folk Traditionals By] – Matana Roberts
Tenor Saxophone [Tenor Sax] – Fred Bazil
Trumpet – Ellwood Epps
Violin – Josh Zubot, Marie Davidson
Voice – Gitanjali Jain

MATANA ROBERTS — Coin Coin Chapter Two : River Run Thee (2013) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Mississippi Moonchile is the second chapter in saxophonist and composer Matana Roberts' projected 12-part work, Coin Coin, which examines race, class, gender and personal experience through the prism of American history. The first chapter, Gens de Couleur Libre, was a large-scale offering, combining out jazz with narrated and sung sections that commenced at the dawn of slavery on North America's shores through the Civil War. It was at once moving, arresting, provocative, and militant, combining histories and mythologies personal, actual and spiritual. By contrast, Mississippi Moonchile was composed with her New York sextet in mind. The ensemble -- Roberts (saxophone), Shoko Nagai (piano), Jason Palmer (trumpet), Thomson Kneeland (double bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), and Jeremiah Abiah (an operatic tenor) -- delivers a wildly creative, contrasting, and wide-ranging musical theater performance that embodies three folk songs and 15 original compositions, narration, chorus and solo singing, divided into 18 sections yet played as a continuous whole. The music often reflects the origins of blues and jazz from the Delta and New Orleans, but is woven seamlessly with modern sounds (the meld of gospel, blues, and modal music in "Humility Draws Down Blue" is the epitome of "art music" rooted in American folk traditions and Latin sounds), scat singing, post-bop, and Abiah's gorgeous voice anchoring nearly every cut. Roberts' horn more readily reflects her speaking and singing voices here; it is much warmer and calmer. It reflects blues because it comes straight out of them. Palmer's trumpet is informed by bop and hard bop; it closely follows her lines and underscores them. Nagai's piano builds bridges between various musical traditions and players. Check the meld of briefly articulated free playing, blues, and swing in "Twelve Sighed," which moves briefly toward modal jazz. The use of "Frère Jacques" in "River Ruby Dues" comes out of "My Lord What a Morning," with Abiah offering Roberts' own melody wordlessly as she blows a quote from Coltrane's "Meditations." She showcases the legacy of her studies with the AACM at the beginning of "Responsory," as Abiah delivers her words. Roberts and Palmer trade lines on the outer fringes of the melody as the rhythm section walks a tightrope between; a minute and a half in, it erupts into a gorgeous, slow, King Oliver-inspired blues. The music allows Abiah's mellifluous voice and Roberts' singing and speaking, a warm, inviting space. Her flow of personal narration in "Was the Sacred Day" offers Christian prayers, entries from her grandmother's (the muse of the title) diaries, and sung fragments of "Motherless Child"; the effect is riveting. Even in its relative gentleness, Mississippi Moonchile asks more provocative questions than its predecessor--offering a view of family history and the struggles in juxtaposing thwe African American Experience with "freedom" inside the American Dream. Both albums are parts of a coded memorial quilt, that critically examines the racist design of "official" history, even as it reveals attempts to sublimate it in the veneer of the present era.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    Invocation    4:17
2    Humility Draws Down Blue    1:35
3    All Nations    0:08
4    Twelve Sighed    2:15
5    Spares Of The World    2:29
6    Secret Covens    1:45
7    River Ruby Dues    4:21
8    Confessor Haste    1:25
9    Amma Jerusalem School    4:11
10    For This Is    1:04
11    Responsory    3:50
12    The Labor Of Their Lips    1:49
13    Was The Sacred Day    4:25
14    Lesson    3:30
15    Woman Red Racked    4:28
16    Thanks Be You    4:25
17    Humility Draws Down New    0:47
18    Benediction    1:59
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Vocals, Conductor [Conduction], Voice [Wordspeak], Artwork – Matana Roberts
Arranged By [Operatic Vocals] – M. Roberts
Double Bass, Vocals – Thomson Kneeland
Drums, Vocals – Tomas Fujiwara
Piano, Vocals – Shoko Nagai
Tenor Vocals – Jeremiah Abiah
Trumpet, Vocals – Jason Palmer
Written-By [Operatic Vocals] – Joseph D. Howard
Written-By, Composed By – Matana Roberts (tracks: 1 to 6, 8 to 14, 16, 17)

MATANA ROBERTS — Coin Coin Chapter Three : River Run Thee (2015) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Matana Roberts' Coin Coin series takes its name from Marie Thérèse Coincoin, a freed slave who created a community for Creole people in southern Louisiana. Roberts' parents also gave it to her as a nickname. In this title, one identity is referenced as another speaks, tied indelibly because they are informed by the two constant, ever governing (if ever changing) notions in American history, no matter how we try to deny them: race and class. River Run Thee stands in stark contrast to 2011's Gens de Couleur Libre (which featured a jazz orchestra) and 2013's Mississippi Moonchile, written for her sextet. This set is completely solo and has little to do with jazz. While she uses her saxophone, it is only one instrument here -- others are an early 20th century upright piano, various Korg keyboards and delays, field recordings (made on a trip through the American south on trains, buses, and while hitchhiking) and, of course, her singing and speaking voices. Roberts also samples Malcolm X and a homeless woman in Mississippi in 2014, and reads from the work of Captain G.L. Sullivan, who ran free slaves back to Africa. She sings bits of traditional hymns and nationalist and folk songs, too, but the vast majority of the work is her own. There are many narratives at work simultaneously here. They are at once translucent yet endlessly dense, and their meanings are layered in time and the American Grain. What begins on her Southern sojourn moves through pasts distant and recent, coming back into the moment without tripping her up. She is ever present. This has been a trademark of Coin Coin in general, but Roberts has taken its fever dream to a new level here, etched deeply into the soil. She states in the liner notes that the recording is best heard "in a dark room, loud, in one sitting…." It emerges then slips away mercurially, asking pointed questions of itself and the listener even as it reveals truths uncomfortable and comforting. Her free alto saxophone solos, woven throughout the background, are a supporting voice and one that speaks with the same authority as her others. All of it is filtered through ambient noise and other sculpted electronic and organic textural backdrops. They underscore her stories, and shift meanings in word and sound from the narrator(s) to the listener; neither are fixed entities. This is ghost music in the purest sense, because the spirits of those who were commingle with those who are, and both are disembodied and dislocated by the false notions of time and dimension. They inform a multi-linguistic conversation that shapeshifts in and out of the mythologies that America has, and does, believe about itself. All told, "other" histories speak with the same authority as official ones. River Run Thee ups the ante in Roberts' project. It is initially elliptical, but its self-determination, unflinching courage, and intense focus and openness create an indefinable but living, breathing art.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    All Is Written    10:06
2    The Good Book Says    2:39
3    Clothed To The Land, Worn By The Sea    3:24
4    Dreamer Of Dreams    4:33
5    Always Say Your Name    1:53
6    Nema, Nema, Nema    4:23
7    A Single Man O'War    2:05
8    As Years Roll By    4:05
9    This Land Is Yours    3:44
10    Come Away    5:26
11    With Me Seek    0:57
12    J.P.    2:23
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Synthesizer [Korg Monotron, Korg Monotron Delay, Korg Monotron Duo Analogue], Voice [Wordspeak], Upright Piano [Early 1900s Archambault Upright Piano] – Matana Roberts

MATANA ROBERTS — Coin Coin Chapter Four : Memphis (2019) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Like each of the previous chapters in artist Matana Roberts' projected 12-part work Coin Coin, she uses her music as a medium. Through it she explores the gauzy intersection of folklore and history that serves as a definition of the way in which we view ourselves at the present juncture, or refuse to should we wish to remain in the darkness. Roberts interrogates official accounts, slave narratives, her family's stories, and her identity as an African American woman; she also delves into and explodes mythologies, historic, spiritual, and cultural. Coin Coin is not one story but many, a revelatory exploration of Blackness outside the notorious twin filters of race and class that define America.

Where Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee was delivered completely solo, Memphis showcases a brand-new band. This new group includes the criminally under-celebrated multi-instrumentalist and composer Hannah Marcus on guitars, fiddle, and accordion, Sam Shalabi on guitar and oud, Nick Caloia on bass, and Ryan Sawyer on drums and percussion. All members provide vocals. Roberts speaks, sings, and plays alto saxophone and clarinet. She also engages contributions from trombonist Steve Swell and vibraphonist Ryan White alongside a trio of guest vocalists. Roberts employs her usual rainbow of methods to reveal her interrogation of past and present: Spoken word, singing, narrating, playing, and directing. Musically free jazz improvisation winds through gospel, blues, folk, and field chants. Introduced by droning voices, bowed strings, clarinet, and percussion, "Jewels of the Sky: Inscription" opens the doorways between antiquity and a 21st century United States where black men and women are executed by police. Though her maternal grandmother's mugshot adorns the cover, Roberts traces the story of an ancestor named Liddie whose father was murdered by the KKK. In "As Far as the Eye Can See," jaw harp, accordion, fiddle, and guitars frame her spoken narrative about the slippage of memory, Liddie's recollection of her father encouraging her to run as a metaphor to flee the Klan's violence and hate, of church, and segregation. In the set's longest track, Roberts sets snippets of folk songs "Cold Frosty Morning" and "Paddy on the Turnpike" against free improvisation as a way of opening them to her thematic narration which concludes with the sung refrain from "Do Lord." In "Fit to Be Tied," W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" is offered atop a Latin beat amid chants, moans, and free playing. "Her Mighty Waters Run" features staggered choral voices droning through the spiritual "Roll the Old Chariot." On "All Things Beautiful," abstract group improvisation clears the way for Roberts to expressionistically narrate the Klan's violence before and after Liddie's flight: "I wish I could feel myself again/I am a child of the wind/Even daddy said so…." Like its predecessors, Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis isn't "easy" to listen to, nor should it be, given the nature of what it explores and explicates. That said, it is a necessary, engaged art that bears repeated listening for its revelation to unfold and hopefully open a gateway to understanding. Arguably, it is the strongest and most compelling of the Coin Coin releases thus far.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1. Jewels of the Sky: Inscription .[01:49]
2. As Far as the Eye Can See .[04:04]
3. Trail of the Smiling Sphinx .[09:44]
4. Piddling .[02:30]
5. Shoes of Gold .[03:08]
6. Wild Fire Bare .[05:42]
7. Fit to Be Tied .[02:42]
8. Her Mighty Waters Run .[04:58]
9. All Things Beautiful .[02:31]
10. In the Fold .[03:17]
11. Raise Yourself Up .[02:45]
12. Backbone Once More .[00:52]
13. How Bright They Shine .[02:51]
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Voice [Wordspeak], Voice – Matana Roberts
Double Bass, Voice – Nicolas Caloia
Drums [Drumset], Vibraphone, Jew's Harp [Jaw Harp], Bells, Voice – Ryan Sawyer
Electric Guitar, Guitar [Nylon String Guitar], Fiddle, Accordion, Voice – Hannah Marcus
Electric Guitar, Oud, Voice – Sam Shalabi
Guest, Trombone, Voice – Steve Swell
Guest, Vibraphone – Ryan White
Guest, Voice – Jessica Moss, Nadia Moss, Thierry Amar

MATANA ROBERTS — Coin Coin Chapter Five : In the Garden (2023) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Storyteller, composer, saxophonist, and visual artist Matana Roberts is a dozen years into her visionary Coin Coin project that began in 2011. A canny, provocative, utterly revelatory history of African Americans through history and lineage, it's titled after Marie Thérèse Coincoin, former slave, mother, businesswoman, and activist. Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden (the first of a projected 12 parts) follows previous entries, juxtaposing folk songs and avant jazz, free improv and post-bop, spoken word, noise, and post-rock. Her tentet offers a great variety of sounds, textures, and colors in a complex yet illustrative narrative. This album expressionistically chronicles the tragic aftermath of an ancestor's terminated pregnancy, echoing poignantly across time into the 21st century when the Supreme Court invalidated Roe v. Wade.

Roberts employs an excellent cast that includes clarinetist Stuart Bogie, drummers/percussionists Mike Pride and Ryan Sawyer, saxophonists Darius Jones and Matt Lavelle (who also plays trumpet), violinist Mazz Swift, pianist Cory Smythe, and vocalist/actor Gitanjali Jain (she also appeared on the first volume). Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio) played synths and produced.

"We Said" opens with white noise, shimmering, subdued percussion, and almost indecipherable female voices, creating a backdrop for brass, woodwind, and reed drones before a drum kit and tin whistle carry it out. "Unbeknownst" introduced by modal violins and synths playing a four-note pattern are joined by subdued reeds, winds, and processional snare before Roberts' narrative emerges -- from the point of view of her late ancestor speaking from beyond the pale: "My name is your name/Our name is their name/ And we are named/We remember/ They forget ..." Roberts answers with a mournful alto sax solo. The instrumental "Predestined Confessions" is also an excellent case in point, as is the poetic "How Prophetic," which employs droning horns to introduce a slamming rockist drum kit, post-bop reeds and winds, and driving funk. "Enthralled by Her Curious Blend" melds layered synth tones, chamber strings, and winds under Roberts' absorbing, poignant reflection of a marriage and family beset by cultural and racial pressures, coming apart. "But I Never Heard a Sound So Long" is a choral round based on the plantation lullaby "All the Pretty Little Horses." It's followed by "The Promise," a gorgeous choral piece in multi-part harmony with original lyrics atop traditional liturgical hymns. "Shake My Bones" is wonderfully abstract free jazz with horns, winds, and strings all soloing together in a conversation centered on a rhythmic pattern before merging into a mutant post-bop avant blues. "A(way) Is Not an Option" weds chamber jazz, rockist drumming, and frenetic strings and reeds underscoring the protagonist's harrowing story from beyond the grave. Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden's collision of styles, genres, and individual and group voices are not only welcome, but essential to the process of Roberts engendering dialogue, celebrating difference, and communicating emotions, psychologies, and cultures, all testifying to the import and cultural and artistic achievement of her evolving project.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1. We Said (3:31)
2. Different Rings (1:27)
3. Unbeknownst (4:44)
4. Predestined Confessions (4:48)
5. How Prophetic (2:56)
6. A Caged Dance (6:04)
7. I Have Long Been Fascinated (1:59)
8. Enthralled Not by Her Curious Blend (3:56)
9. No Way Chastened (1:16)
10. But I Never Heard a Sound So Long (1:17)
11. The Promise (3:20)
12. Shake My Bones (4:04)
13. A(way) Is Not an Option (5:55)
14. For They Do Not Know (6:56)
15. Others Each (1:22)
16. ...Ain't I. ...Your Mystery Is Our History (4:42)
Credits :
Matana Roberts - Composer, Horns, Harmonica, Percussion, Vocal, Spoken Word
Mike Pride - Drums, Percussion, Vocal
Matt Lavelle - Alto Clarinet, Pocket Trumpet, Tin Whistle, Vocal
Stuart Bogie - Bass Clarinet, Clarinet, Tin Whistle, Vocal
Cory Smythe - Piano, Vocal, Tin Whistle
Mazz Swift - Violin, Vocal, Tin Whistle
Darius Jones - Alto Saxophone, Vocal, Tin Whistle
Ryan Sawyer - Drums, Percussion, Vocal
Kyp Malone - Synthesiser