Greg Wall’s Later Prophets come across sort of like the Beat poets on Ha’Orot: The Lights of Rav Kook. There’s a splendid fusion of poetry and avant-garde jazz flowing throughout the record, accented by the poetry of Rabbi Avraham Itzchak HaCohen Kook (Rav Kook) as read by Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein. Wall, a leading figure in the neo-Klezmer… [Read more…]
August 23, 2009
To suggest that Eternal, a stunning marriage of the traditional Tuvan music of Huun Huur Tu and the electronica of Carmen Rizzo, is a haunting listen would be an understatement. The pieces of music are released as though they are fugitive spirits from the trees, as though recently-released sacred prisoners from the remote corner of the Russian Federation… [Read more…]
August 14, 2009
A chaotic, knotty blast of sound and violence, El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s Cryptomnesia is intoxicating in its breadth and passion. The band, a construction from The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Hella’s Zach Hill, was originally intended as a sort of duo experiment but quickly blossomed into a wreckage of noise and experimentation. Along… [Read more…]
August 12, 2009
David Mead’s gentle delivery left me in a perfect mood for star-gazing. With his tender voice floating in my head, the night sky seemed to contain all of the peace of the world. A day spent watching people tear each other apart in the country next to mine became a night of calm reflection and… [Read more…]
August 10, 2009
Pianists Satoko Fujii and Myra Melford were introduced to each other by pianist Paul Bley in 1994. Melford was playing a solo performance in Boston and Fujii was a student at the New England Conservatory. Fast-forward to 2007 and the two performed a duet concert for the first time in Tokyo with promises to do it all… [Read more…]
August 3, 2009
Arresting, haunting and, at times, incredibly odd, tsuker-zis is an engrossing piece of work from Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg. London, a Grammy-award winning composer and trumpeter, provides a beautiful presence on the record with his trumpet and keyboard. His instruments mesh smartly and impeccably with the poignant and intuitive voice of Sklamberg, the lead singer of Jewish-American… [Read more…]
August 2, 2009
Drawing its inspiration from a 1952 film noir, Andrew Green’s Narrow Margin is a deep, creative work infused with delicious dread and danger. Green, the author of three popular books on jazz guitar, leads a band of characters worthy of some of the most sensual, dark noir. Along with Green’s guitar, Narrow Margin features Bill McHenry on… [Read more…]
August 30, 2009
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