13 Miniatures for Albert Ayler: RogueArt: 2012
Paying tribute to an artist who is no longer around happens often in the creative improvised music world. Albert Ayler is one of the most, if not, the most, revered improvisers in the history of the music. Perhaps, because he vanished before he fully realized his destiny. Or so it is thought. Or perhaps, he left this world because it was really the time and he had done everything he, alone, could do and it was time for others to develop his language and legacy.
13 Miniatures for Albert Ayler demonstrates how his influence took hold. Thirteen vignettes with distinctive cadence: cadence that would be dismissed without the Ayler context. This is especially notable: in the introductory text, "Albert Ayler à la Fondation Maeght," read by composer Daniel Caux's wife, Jacqueline Caux, lyrically, in French, painting an atmosphere for the upcoming testaments to the assimilation of the saxophone player's music; and in the poetry reading by Steve Dalachinsky, who is well-known for his remarka…
Lyn Horton: Wall Drawings and Works on Paper
photo by Richard Laurie
Cross MacKenzie Gallery is pleased to present a solo show of wall installations and works on paper by Massachusetts based artist, Lyn Horton, following her well-received participation in the gallery's spring group show, "TWISTED". This exhibition presents a more complete picture of Horton's oeuvre from her individual small works on paper to her monumental site-specific wall drawings that employ velvet rope for the linear elements and are applied directly onto the painted wall.
Horton's work is visual jazz - rhythmic, layered, sensuous and adheres to her own sensibilities. It is no surprise Lyn Horton writes about jazz - her passion. Her reviews have been regulars in Jazz Times, The New York Jazz Messenger, her own music blog - "The Paradigm for Beauty" and other publications, and her drawings have graced CD covers, most recently Wadada Leo Smith's "Ten Freedom Summers".…
Jamie Saft: New Zion Trio: Fighting Against Babylon: Veal Records, 2011
As a musician, Jamie Saft is not easy to pin down. Each of his ventures can and no doubt should be considered without comparison to any previous recording, composition, or performance for that matter. Saft's consistent inconsistency characterizes the breadth of his musicianship on keyboards, acoustic piano and electric guitar. Exposing unexpected contexts for well-known songs, compositions, and his own music puts him in that label-less zone that frustrates clear perceptions of him, but which also keeps him out of sedentary, stale ruts that are so often carved out by other musicians.
New Zion Trio is described on Saft's Veal Records website as "bringing together three masters of Reggae and Jazz musics for the first time in a unique piano trio setting straight from Kingston [NY] Yard." With Saft on piano and Fender Rhodes, Larry Grenadier on acoustic bass and Craig Santiago on drums are created a laid back, totally listenable set of tracks. Each track title has a metaphorical twist in…
Jamie Saft: New Zion Trio: Fighting Against Babylo...