On March 12, I had the opportunity to hear three great sets of music in the Late Breakfast series at Ham & Eggs in downtown Los Angeles. These culminated with alto saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi leading a nine-piece band that included voice, two flutes, tenor saxophone, guitar, bass, cello, and harmonium. The one extended piece they
Interview with violist Liliana Rodriguez Alvarado via email, January 8-February 1, 2018 CB: What were your formative musical experiences growing up in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico, and other places that you have lived? LRA: In Torreón, I started playing viola at the age of 13 at the Instituto de Arte Integral de la Laguna with my professor
Esplendor Geometrico – Fungus Cerebri: Selected Tracks from Cassettes 1981-1989, Spanish Underground Cassette Movement, vol. 1 (Geometrik, 2016) [vinyl] Art Zoyd – Generation sans Futur (Atem, 1980; reissued on Sub Rosa, 2015) [vinyl] Cecil Taylor – The Cecil Taylor Unit (New World Records, 1978) [vinyl] Cecil Taylor – In Transition (Blue Note reissue, 1975) [vinyl] Olivier Alary – Fiction/Non-fiction (FatCat,
Jazz Icon and five decade long AACM collective member, Wadada Leo Smith has curated the second annual CREATE Festival which he founded in April 2017. The two-day, New Haven, CT based festival which will take place at Firehouse 12, will feature five separate ensembles over two evenings and include an exhibit of Smith’s Ankhrasmation Symbolic
Talk of the elders and the ancestors has popped up a lot in my sphere recently. So much so that it has taken me the better part of a month to sit down and focus on how to express the wave of emotional African-based experiences that have come my way. Two spiritual readings in the
Jen Shyu – Song of Silver Geese (Pi, 2018) The New Blockaders – Live at Anti-Fest (Hospital, 1999) [vinyl] David Toop & Paul Burwell – Suttle Sculpture (Logos/Sub Rosa, recorded 1977, released 2018) [vinyl] Musiche di Daniela Casa – Societa Malata (originally released 1975, reissued by Dagored, 2015) [vinyl] Salah Ragab and the Cairo Jazz Band – Egyptian Jazz (recorded
Spoken word artist Samantha Riott has emerged over the past few years as a unique and powerful figure on New York’s experimental music scene. Having developed a reputation as an iconoclast in the poetry world, she turned to fierce experimental music as her medium of self-expression. Her deeply personal, biting lyrics delivered with such raw
Tashi Dorji – Appa (Bathetic, 2014) [vinyl] Colin Hinton – Glassbath (self-released, 2018) Roman Filiu – Quarteria (Sunnyside, 2018) Jen Shyu – Song of Silver Geese (Pi, 2018) Brian Groder – Torque (Latham, 2006) Archie Shepp-Bill Dixon Quartet – self-titled (1962 original, Jeanne Dielman, 2016 reissue) [vinyl]
Bio / Press / Discography / Projects Interview 2017 Nov 9: Improvised Music.IE, Interview with Catherine Sikora ahead of BAN BAM festival 2013 Dec 23: No Sound Left Behind, Catherine Sikora: The Interview
Peter Kuhn – Dependent Origination (FMR, 2017) Manas (Thom Nguyen, Tashi Dorji) – self-titled (Feeding Tube, 2015) Various – Exquisite Corpses from the Bunker (Heartpunch, 1988) James Brandon Lewis-Chad Taylor Duo – Radiant Imprints (Off, 2018)
