Calvin Weston, The Phoenix Orchestra

*2024 stock* On his third album for 577 Records, Ornette Coleman’s drummer G. Calvin Weston hits us with notes both on and off the beat, that mark the time and space of sound, with edgy and sharp melodies. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear an obsessive bass-line that incites the explosion of rhythm. Dust and Ash is like a sand storm that changes direction with the wind and tries to imprison the traveler. If you hear it without anchors or safety nets, it is like an abstraction that draws a perfect shape. It is like a voyage without departure or arrival points, in which a woman’s voice allows itself to be cuddled by the shadows of a piano and dances with them to become a waterfall of notes before taking off.

More than ever, G. Calvin Weston’s playing is the rage of thunder, the melting of sound in a carpet of drums. The sound of the vital resistance of a native Philadelphian, the rage of blood that follows the edgy melodies of The Phoenix Orchestra, a boutique of sounds to be found, discovered, caressed, without questions that would compromise its flying.

Listen to this album to keep getting lost.
Listen to this album to be found.
Listen to this album to forget those thoughts that want to tame your vitality.
Listen to this album to imagine a story, your story.

This music is like a gift, a source of doubts, catharsis, and passion.

“Adventure has been coursing through the blood of Weston, a drummer of relentless invention, ever since his sojourn with Ornette Coleman when Weston was still a teenager.” - New Yorker