Too many shows the last few days / about 7 nights over the past 10 days or so
highlights among many:
Maria Valencia with Sylvie Courvousier & Chris Corsano
Maria with Matt Moran & Brandon Lopez
Bill Orcutt trio including Steve Shelley
William Winant & Zeena Parkins
Brandon Lopez, Mat Maneri & Sun Mi Hong
Michael Foster, John Blum, Brandon Lopez & Sun Mi Hong
Nate Wooley, Laura Cocks, Brandon Lopez, Hans Young Binter & Carlo Costa
Chuck Roth solo
Strong set last night at The Stone
Aruan Ortiz on grand piano
Hery Paz on tenor saxophone & flute
Tom Rainey on drums
57-58 minute freely improvised set
As far as I know Peter never made it back to the United States since before the pandemic. I was lucky to see his last show stateside in June 2019 / a short but nice duo with Andrew Cyrille.
tonight at Roulette in Brooklyn
Zosha Warpeha solo on hardanger fiddle followed by Michael Foster with strings
Michael’s strings band is incredible including undervalued musicians like Webb Crawford, Rocio Sanchez & the amazing Nava Dunkelman. The wondrous Zosha is also in the ensemble.
This trio was absurdly great tonight. Lordy Lord
9 minute piece followed by two 15 minute pieces ending with a 18-19 minute tour de force. The band stunned itself.
Genius level improvisation by three of the greatest musicians on the planet.
Last night:
duo with Sandy Ewen on guitar & Weasel Walter on drums
trio with the amazing Webb Crawford & the incredible Chuck Roth both on guitar with Weasel Walter on drums
Tonight:
Darius Jones on alto saxophone, Craig Taborn on grand piano & the *great* Ches Smith on drums
Very sad day
Weir as a unique musician. Not a soloist but became by 71-72 a brilliant improvisor playing in between and around two of the greatest improvising musicians who ever lived in Phil Lesh & Jerry Garcia. No one sounded remotely like Bob Weir.
over the past 11-12 years I’ve listened to thousands of hours of Grateful Dead music. Manically in some ways. In between and around modern freely improvised music.
there were never 3 guitarists together (including Phil’s 4-string electric bass) who played amplified electric improvised music near this level. Without Bob, none of this happened. The long Dark Stars, the open ended 10 to upwards of 30 minute Playing in the Bands, The Other ones, etc.
Nice list
love the Sven discs madly
gonna check out a few of these I have not heard yet. About to order the AMM plus Sachiko M. I usually far prefer AMM with Keith Rowe.
fwiw I just saw Bill Nace with Nava Dunkelman & William Winant last week. Genius.
saw Sakina Abdou a couple of times in 2024.
big Sandy Ewen fan, I’ll listen to that trio discs. I’ve been listening to her solo recordings from this years southern tour.
seeing Ahmed again end of February in Brooklyn 2-3 nights.
Was blessed to him in Philadelphia maybe in 1998 or so with our friend Gordon B from the old Jazz Corner/Jazz Central Station in a quartet led by David Murray with the late John Hicks & Andrew Cyrille.
RIP, sir
Last night at The Stone
Trio M
Mark Dresser, Myra Melford & Matt Wilson
an hour of playful & often moving compositions. Saw them years ago. Last night exceeded my expectations. Myra peaking madly. Very unique uber melodic sense. Plus to this day, I don’t think people realize how great Mark Dresser is.