★Rogueart
Some Jellyfish Live Forever
** 2021 Repress ** A great reunion of the Jeff Parker/Rob Mazurek duo – a pair who've only continued to grow strongly in the years since their Chicago Underground classics – and who bring all that sense of energy to play in their music! The sounds here represent the deeper, more mature styles that both musicians have hit – a way of almost being more powerful by being less aggressive – especially from Mazurek, who's got this wonderfully gentle touch on his horn at times – wrapped up in these wave…
Roscoe Mitchell on Rogueart
Roscoe Mitchell turned 80 on August 2020. At this occasion, we launch the following offer: 50 % discount for purchasing together the nine albums, 6 single CDs, two double CDs and one CD + DVD. These nine albums particularly illustrate the diversity of Roscoe Mitchell's music.
Three duets, two with two other great figures of current jazz, George Lewis and Matthew Shipp, the third with a contemporary musician, David Wessel, two very different trios, one with West Coast musicians, James Fei and Wil…
Cloud Script
Rogueart presents Joshua Abrams' Cloud Script. All compositions by Joshua Abrams. Recorded by Ken Brown on September 26th 2016 at Electrical Audio, Chicago, IL, USA. Joshua Abrams (double bass), Ari Brown (tenor saxophone), Jeff Parker (guitar), Gerald Cleaver (drums).
“Sharp, deeply interactive, and soulful music; brilliant quartet!” - Rogueart
Combinations
Joe Morris and Tomeka Reid offer a few new “standards” that are the fulcrum between a set of prepared instrument pieces where it is difficult to recognize either instrument and attention is absorbed by the overall density and character of sound, and a set notable for its sparseness as both Reid and Morris play primarily independent lines. Within that set, the effect, most apparent in the rare moments in which one musician briefly acknowledges the other then shifts onto a new independent line, is…
The Reward - Solo Piano Suite In Four Movements
* Edition of 500 * Released on the occasion of Matthew Shipp 60th birthday. This double LP is the first vinyl Matthew Shipp recorded since his very first recording, "Sonic Exploration", a duo with Rob Brown, released on 1988. All compositions by Matthew Shipp. Recorded by Jim Clouse on November 10th and December 1st 2015 at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Warning! Slowly remove contents from its package: while you think you are entering into new beginnings you are indeed beginning to reach…
Then Now
Since their 1988 duo album Sonic Explorations and through a number of group collaborations, the duo of alto saxophonist Rob Brown and pianist Matthew Shipp have extended and evolved their uniquely astute and confident dialog, as heard in this magnificent 8-part studio album, a reflection on their compatibility and perceptive artistry.
"What they have lost are the rough edges or, more precisely, they have been able to incorporate them into what they have learned over the past 30 years. The depth …
The Clawed Stone
Matthew Shipp (piano), John Butcher (saxophones) and Thomas Lehn (electronics) in a studio album recorded in France in 2017, a uniquely voiced collective trio of transformative improvisation, Lehn's additions and modifications blending perfectly with Shipp's solid foundations and Butcher's advanced technical expression, for an engrossing and expressive set of recordings.
"They manage to perfectly combine the many elements of the music while always keeping their individual identities intact."- Ro…
What If?
* 2020 Stock * An authoritative meeting between two of New York City's strongest players - Matthew Shipp on piano and Nate Wooley on trumpet - distilled to their essence after work with saxophonist Ivo Pereleman, here performing a set of 12 Shipp compositions brilliantly captured in the studio, illuminating Shipp's solid mastery of the keys and Wooley's remarkable technique and creative drive.
Symbolic Reality
* 2020 Stock * Six compositions by pianist Matthew Shipp for his String Trio with violist Mat Maneri and double bassist William Parker, their first Trio record since 2001's "Expansion, Power and Release" (Hat), their long history of working together in a variety of configurations creating a near-telepathic link between the players over Shipp's sophisticated frameworks.
Urdla XXX
The dramatic act of this performance draws a deamhulatory line colouring each phase in the sound of the required instrument; large discursive logic intensity in the atmosphere appropriate to each segment. After his entry "City of Lyon"which sets the happening hic et nunc, the second piece "Art Dance"on alto clarinet is heard as a twirling questioning with changes of mood from anger to melancholy: bal(l)ade autumnal de Dakka Du Boo Yu", again on the clarinet,"Music is Sound, Sound is Music"thunde…
Magnetism(s)
"The music takes on short, fleeting forms: fading here, held and moody there, as though the improvisation encouraged skepticism of firm certitudes. The tightness of the discourse, however, demands enlightening energy and lucid tautness." (Jean-François Abert, excerpt from the liner notes)"We have already seen that in the history of the universe, such a spiral nucleus of sounds that subsides on itself and grows dense, that softens and dilates, that provides its exceptional energy of cohesion even…
Wild Red Yellow
The culmination of 11 years working on music for this band, Wild Red Yellow was recorded in 2011 by an expanded version of Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core. With very critical help from engineer Philip Perkins, Ochs then slowly mixed and edited the two soundscapes on this new 2017 release, dedicated to film-makers Julie Taymor and David Cronenberg. The Sax & Drumming Core was originally a trio of Ochs on saxophones and two drummers – Scott Amendola and Don Robinson. They released two CDs and toure…
Heads Or Tails
Two different duets between reedman Sylvain Kassap and percussionist Hamid Drake – one live, one studio – recorded six years apart, but sounding wonderful together in this double-length package! The first section is live – and features some very long, open improvisations – with Kassap on a range of clarinets, mostly in the bass range, plus chalumeau as well – as Drake opens up his drum kit with that special sort of magic that's made him a key percussionist in the legacy of rhythm-free drummers l…
Electric Ascension+Cleaning The Mirror
"In Rova's translation of Ascension into contemporary practice, Coltrane's Ascension remains as a great gift for the energy it presents, for the sheer unfailing intensity with which it fights toward its collective freedom. The original is a major work of art, not merely an episode but a larger process. Rova's substantial achievement consists in assuming the responsibility of Coltrane's great original, treating it not simply as a memento of liberation but as a tool for it as well."(Stuart Broomer…
An Air Of Unreality
"An "air of unreality" characterizes the best free improvisation. This performance-captured during last year's Vision Festival in Manhattan's Judson Church-definitely ranks among the best on record this year. Part of this unreality has to do with finding beauty and gratification in uncertainty, something that so often makes reality difficult to bear. Another part is transcendence, both of person and pedigree: the idea of a musician effaced by their instrument, and then by their creation. Music t…
Gain
"Illtet is here to cure one's ills while shaking up one's beliefs, to make you react, think, feel and not just sit still. Just listen!"(Rogue Art). Crossing NY and Chicago artists, the quartet of Mike Ladd on vocals & synth, Jeff Parker on electric guitar, Tyshawn Sorey on drums, trombone & electric piano, and HPRIZM/High Priest on synth create thought-provoking spoken environments of intense improv.
Soul Travelers
"So, listen closely, and savor the sounds: treat them with delicate abandon, indulge in their intricately measured poignancy; but don't forget to relax (a little) and enjoy: You are in the hands of a master soul traveler."(Steven Loewy, excerpt from the liner notes).
Trombonist Steve Swell is one of the stalwarts on the NYC free jazz scene as both a player & an educator. This studio recording from June 2015 features a top flight band comprised of Swell’s longtime collaborators (William Parker &…
13 miniatures for Albert Ayler
Would it be that when everything finishes that everything starts? Rather than a postlude or a coda, the five minutes a cappella by Joe McPhee on the tenor saxophone placed here in thirteenth position, sound like a song of love and hope coloured utopia which condenses the invisibility of lives which are here and then are no longer here.from the effervescence of an aviary where chirpings and warbling intersect (from Raphael Imbert, Urs Leimgruber, McPhee, Evan Parker and John Tchicai each sax seem…
Three compositions
Despite the compositions’ respective demands, Nicole Mitchell and Black Earth Ensemble fully and vividly represented Roscoe Mitchell’s varied means of creating chemistry between written and improvised materials. At every turn in the program, they played with a palpable sense of familiarity and ease with the composer’s vernacular and methods. They sounded like they’ve been playing this music every night for a long time. Bill Shoemaker, excerpt from the liner notes
Watershed
If the three compositions proposed by Denis Fournier have already been recorded, they merit to be here as resurgences, like scenarios encouraging the freedom of transformation without which free interpretation is nothing. “I often say that I don’t make improvised music, but that I improvise music. In other words, I put together there and then elements of my life, of my history, of my culture…” In other words, no structure commands the action. Every structure opens to the action (to sharing) whic…