JOHN ZORN | BILL LASWELL — The Cleansing (2022) Spectrum Series – 37 | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Zorn and Laswell have been friends and musical compatriots since they first met in 1978, and have been responsible for some of the most intense and memorable music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Recorded in early 2021, near the end of the year’s pandemic lockdown, it marks the first time Zorn had touched the saxophone in over fifteen months. Laswell had spent most of the year locked in his apartment. Something special was happening that day—and after the session Laswell felt rejuvenated—as if all the toxins and poisons had left his body. Soulful and essential, "The Cleansing" is an historic meeting—and the first recorded duo project by these two Downtown magicians. TZADIK
Tracklist :
1    Brion Gysin    10:04

2    Aleister Crowley    6:52
3    Austin Osman Spare    6:47
4    William Burroughs    10:19
5    Alejandro Jodorowsky    8:56
6    The Cleansing    3:41
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Producer, Liner Notes – John Zorn
Bass – Bill Laswell

PHAROAH SANDERS — The Impulse Story (2006) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Like the Archie Shepp and Alice Coltrane volumes in the Impulse Story series, the Pharoah Sanders issue is one of the flawless ones -- despite the fact that it only contains four tracks. Ashley Kahn, author of the book the series is named after, wisely chose tracks with Sanders as a leader rather than as a sideman with John Coltrane (those were documented quite well on the John and Alice volumes). The set begins with "Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt," recorded in 1966 while he was still a member of the Coltrane band. Featuring Sanders on tenor, piccolo, percussion, and vocals, it also contains a who's who of the vanguard: pianist Dave Burrell, guitarist Sonny Sharrock, bassist Henry Grimes, percussionist Nat Bettis, and drummer Roger Blank. Sanders could take a disparate group of players like this one and wind them into his sound world. Burrell is the most automatically sympathetic, and lends a hand in creating a series of call-and-response exchanges with Sanders so Sharrock and Grimes follow suit -- not the other way around. This is also the place where the listener really encounters Sharrock's unique (even iconoclastic) playing -- he performed on Miles Davis' seminal Jack Johnson album but was mixed out. At over 16 minutes, it is barely a hint of what is to come. This cut is followed by Sanders' magnum opus, "The Creator Has a Master Plan." Based on a simple vamp, it unravels into an almost 33-minute textured improvisation that sounds like it could move heaven and earth because it almost literally explodes. Recorded for the Karma album in 1969, "The Creator" also features the late great Leon Thomas on vocals, providing his eerie, deep, and soulful "voice as improvisational instrument" approach that sends the tune soaring. Other sidemen here are bassists Richard Davis and Reggie Workman, James Spaulding, Julius Watkins, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, Bettis, and drummer Billy Hart. This is where this track belongs, not on the box where it took time and space away from other artists. "Astral Traveling," from the 1970 platter Thembi, follows, with the great violinist Michael White serving as foil to the lyric Pharoah. The last two tracks really chart Sanders' development not just as an improviser and composer but as a bandleader and in his mastery of the soprano saxophone -- only Steve Lacy and Coltrane did it better. The sprawl is tightened -- this cut is less than six minutes long -- but mainly in the way he leads the band with his approach to the saxophone and its dynamics. Cecil McBee plays bass here and Clifford Jarvis is on drums, and Smith uses an electric piano to fantastic effect. The final cut here, "Spiritual Blessing" from the Elevation album in 1973, is widely regarded as another Sanders classic with the man himself on soprano. He is accompanied by a group of percussionists, including Michael Carvin, Jimmy Hopps, John Blue, and Lawrence Killian. Sanders uses the percussionists as a counter to the featured drone instruments (with Joe Bonner on harmonium and Calvin Hill on tamboura). At just under six minutes, it's a song that perfectly fuses Eastern and Western musical improvisational traditions. Listening to this volume of the course of an hour is literally an aurally expansive and spiritually enlightening experience. If you can only have one of the CDs in this series, this may be the one to snag -- along with Alice Coltrane's chapter, this is spiritual jazz at its very best.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    Upper Egypt And Lower Egypt 16:16
Bass – Henry Grimes
Drums – Roger Blank
Electric Guitar – Sonny Sharrock
Percussion – Nat Bettis
Piano – Dave Burrell
Tenor Saxophone, Piccolo Flute, Percussion, Vocals, Composed By – Pharoah Sanders
2    The Creator Has A Master Plan 32:45
Bass – Richard Davis
Composed By – Leon Thomas, Pharoah Sanders
Drums – Billy Hart
Flute – James Spaulding
French Horn – Julius Watkins
Percussion – Nat Bettis
Piano – Lonnie Liston Smith
Tenor Saxophone – Pharoah Sanders
Vocals, Percussion – Leon Thomas
3    Astral Traveling 5:48
Bass – Cecil McBee
Electric Piano, Composed By – Lonnie Liston Smith
Soprano Saxophone, Percussion – Pharoah Sanders
Violin – Michael White
4    Spiritual Blessing 5:40
Bells [Bell Tree] – Lawrence Killian
Drums – Michael Carvin
Harmonium – Joe Bonner
Percussion – Jimmy Hopps, John Blue
Soprano Saxophone, Composed By – Pharoah Sanders
Tambura – Calvin Hill

ANDREW CYRILLE | WADADA LEO SMITH | BILL FRISELL — Lebroba (2018) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Lebroba, Andrew Cyrille's second leader date for ECM, finds the septuagenarian rhythm explorer trading in all but guitarist Bill Frisell from the quartet that recorded 2016's fine The Declaration of Musical Independence (with bassist Ben Street and pianist Richard Teitelbaum). This bass-less trio also features trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith. While this setting is somewhat unusual, Frisell is quite familiar with it, performing in this same setting on Ron Miles' 2014 offering Circuit Rider. Back in 2010, the guitarist led another unusual trio for Beautiful Dreamers with sidemen Eyvind Kang on viola and Rudy Royston on drums.
In fact, this set's opener is a redo of the guitarist's "Worried Woman," from the latter album, a lithe charmer of a melody wherein Frisell envelops himself in a call-and-response conversation on the lyric with Smith's as Cyrille colors time around the beat rather than on it. The longest piece here is Smith's nearly formless "Turiya: Alice Coltrane Meditations and Dreams: Love" at over 17 minutes. The tune is mostly "free," though the trumpeter, in true signature fashion, sketches out spaces for emphasis on dialogic exchanges that evolve from melodic fragments to dissonance and back again, with Cyrille's colorful, textured rhythmic pulses bridging the gap between frontline players. Despite the fragmented nature of the piece, the intuitive interplay between the trio's members is canny, welcoming, and thoroughly enjoyable. Cyrille's title track is based on an eight-bar blues, but it's a chameleon-like work. There are lyric aspects that recall Charles Mingus' "Good-Bye Pork Pie Hat," but Smith's soulful, muted trumpet abstractions -- ever the picture of tasteful economy -- highlight and underscore Frisell's turnarounds and expressionist reflections of deep blue Americana from the Delta to Chicago. The five-plus-minute "TGD" is credited to the group, commencing with Cyrille's dancing snares and whispering cymbals through Frisell's effects-laden soloing and sonic smears and fills and Smith's interrogatory improvisation above and around the paying of his bandmates. The only complaint is that given the nearly symbiotic nature of communication in this improvisation, the track doesn’t go on long enough. The juxtaposition of Frisell's subtly shaded chordal voicings and long single notes by Smith in the intro to the drummer's closing rubato ballad, "Pretty Beauty," are breathtakingly poignant. Cyrille's hushed and spacious use of brushes around the lyric line, highlight its dips and subtle assertions, which are exchanged by guitarist and trumpeter to create an achingly beautiful groupspeak that seemingly creates a narrative language from air. While much of Lebroba is gentle, none of it is nebulous or speculative. This trio engages in the kind of magical interplay that only extremely experienced players can conjure.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    Worried Woman 7:35
Music By – Bill Frisell
2    Turiya:Alice Coltrane / Meditations And Dreams:Love 17:24
Music By – Wadada Leo Smith
3    Lebroba 5:44
Music By – Andrew Cyrille
4    TGD 5:17
Music By – Andrew Cyrille, Bill Frisell, Wadada Leo Smith
5    Pretty Beauty 6:24
Music By – Andrew Cyrille
Credits :
Drums – Andrew Cyrille
Guitar – Bill Frisell
Trumpet – Wadada Leo Smith

SUN RA & HIS ARKESTRA — Some Blues But Not The Kind That's Blue (2008) FLAC (tracks+.cue) lossless

Fantastic. Another rare Saturn release makes its way into the digital realm. This time, it's Some Blues But Not the Kind That's Blue, a nice 1977 date that's heavy on standards. Aside from the two Sun Ra tunes (one of which had been unreleased prior to this), this is a pretty inside date with some major statements from Ra on piano and John Gilmore on tenor. Everyone gets a bit of solo room, and the flutes and bass clarinet add some really nice colors, especially on "My Favorite Things," a song so closely identified with the John Coltrane Quartet that this version is almost startling in its contrast to Coltrane's myriad versions. Aside from the title track and the two earlier bonus takes of "I'll Get By," there is no bass player present, the low end falling mostly to Ra's piano. Luqman Ali's drumming, as always, is remarkable in its tasty understatement. The bonus tracks are a wonderful addition. "Untitled" was recorded at the same 1977 sessions but didn't make the album cut. The other tracks are rehearsals, presumably from the Ra house on Morton St. in Philadelphia. They're two takes on "I'll Get By" with Ra on organ and the great Ronnie Boykins on a particularly well-recorded bass with Akh Tal Ebah on trumpet on one take and John Gilmore on tenor on the other. It's interesting to hear these rehearsals in relation to the same song's arrangement from a few years later. Although recorded about a decade apart, Some Blues But Not the Kind That's Blue is of a piece with Blue Delight: mostly standards albums that really put the spotlight on Sun Ra's piano playing and the tenor artistry of John Gilmore. Although the Arkestra is notorious for its outside playing and cacophonous tendencies, this album shows they could play it straight as well as anyone in the game. Wonderful stuff. Sean Westergaard
Tracklist :
1    Some Blues But Not The Kind Thats Blue 8:15
Written-By – Ra
2    I'll Get By 7:18
Written-By – Ahlert, Turk
3    My Favorite Things 10:01
Written-By – Rodgers-Hammerstein
4    Untitled 7:06
Written-By – Ra
5    Nature Boy 8:52
Written-By – Ahbez
6    Tenderly 7:30
Written By – Morrison
Written-By – Lawrence, Gross
7    Black Magic 8:38
Written-By – Arlen, Mercer
8    I'll Get By [Alternate Take] 7:24
Written-By – Ahlert, Turk
9    I'll Get By [Alternate Take] 6:42
Written-By – Ahlert, Turk
Credits :
Bass – Richard Williams (tracks: 1), Ronnie Boykins (tracks: 8, 9)
Bassoon – James Jacson (tracks: 1 to 7)
Clarinet – Eloe Omoe (tracks: 1 to 7)
Congas – Atakatune (tracks: 1 to 7)
Drums – Luqman Ali (tracks: 1 to 7)
Flugelhorn – Akh Tal Ebah (tracks: 8)
Flute – Danny Davis (tracks: 1 to 7), James Jacson (tracks: 1 to 7)
Organ – Sun Ra (tracks: 8, 9)
Piano – Sun Ra (tracks: 1 to 7)
Saxophone – John Gilmore (tracks: 1 to 7, 9), Marshall Allen (tracks: 1 to 7)

VIJAY IYER | CRAIG TABORN — The Transitory Poems (2019) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Despite distinctive individual approaches to composition and improvisation, jazz pianists Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn are kindred spirits. They are celebrated as innovators and stylists, are approximately the same age, and most importantly, share an important foundational experience playing in Roscoe Mitchell's Note Factory together in the early years of the century, recording the album Song for My Sister.

Transitory Poems documents a 2018 live concert at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. In his brief liner notes, Iyer states that they documented their performance in the aftermath of a 12-month period that saw the passing of pianists Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Geri Allen, and the cosmological abstract expressionist painter and sculptor Jack Whitten, whose work was deeply influenced by John Coltrane. The title of the album comes from an interview quote by Taylor. Opener "Life Line (Seven Tensions)" is a 13-minute exercise in flow that reveals without doubt that the two men are not merely "jamming," but spontaneously composing together. In varying shades of light and dark they interact with adroit single lines and contrapuntal chord voicings as they engage in everything from modern classical music to speculative moments of inquiring repose and angular boogie-woogie. "Sensorium," dedicated to Whitten, is a short, four-minute work that layers fleet counterpoint in abstraction in a manner that evokes the ghost trace of the artist whose signature method was the immediate yet systemic way he layered acrylic paint. "Kairos" downshifts, examining the sparsity of sound as it intersects with silence, with insertions of precise melodic interpolation that eventually claim the fore as tight rhythmic chords entwine in a dance that unfurls in narrative space. "S.H.A.R.D.S." begins similarly, but gradually engages jazz motivics and sharp rhythmic statements to unfurl in a whirlwind of four-handed playing alongside a bluesy Motorik pulse. The final three works are all dedications. "Clear Monolith" for Abrams is nearly 11 minutes and commences with sparse staccato statements in lower and upper registers simultaneously with minimal, bell-like responses on single keys. In the middle section, animated movement asserts chorded tonal inquiry balanced by crystalline space. "Luminous Brew" is dedicated to Taylor and emerges as if it has always been there. The deep register of the bass keys rumble ominously as open modal chords add dimensionality to their voice. Flitting moments of ragtime and Ellingtonia and are woven into the forceful yet elegant unfolding as chromatics and expanded harmonics create a mysterious homage. Closer "Meshwork/Libation/When Kabuya Dances," dedicated to Allen, asserts itself with articulate force and contrapuntal energy as stacked arpeggios meet precise bass notes and chords before erecting a galloping call and response that slowly evaporates as it introduces Allen's shimmering, tender, playful "When Kabuya Dances." Transitory Poems is a wonderful recording. The energy, ideas, and instinctive musicality of Iyer and Taborn is full of surprises, canny camaraderie, deft techniques, understatement, and symbiotic difference; they combine to add immeasurably to the all-too-slim catalog of duo albums in the jazz piano tradition.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    Life Line (Seven Tensions) 13:02
Composed By – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
2    Sensorium 4:17
Composed By – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
3    Kairòs 8:56
Composed By – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
4    S.H.A.R.D.S. 9:11
Composed By – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
5    Shake Down 6:40
Composed By – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
6    Clear Monolith 10:46
Composed By – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
7    Luminous Brew 8:17
Composed By – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
Meshwork / Libation / When Kabuya Dances    (12:48)
8.1    Meshwork
Composed By – Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn
8.2    Libation
Composed By – Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn
8.3    When Kabuya Dances
Composed By – Geri Allen
Credits :
Piano – Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer
Producer [Produced By] – Manfred Eicher