Steve Reynolds

Last night in Philadelphia Sam Yulsman solo keyboards & eldctronics Michael Foster’s The Ghost plus Susan Alcorn Michael on tenor & soprano saxophones, John Moran on bass, Joey Sullivan on drums & the *great* Susan Alcorn on pedal steel guitar 45 minute continuous set of improvised genius. Best free improv set of the year. lately I can’t miss:)

Last night at Beautiful World Syndicate in Philadelphia Michael Foster, Webb Crawford & Joey Sullivan Sakina Abdou, Camila Nebbia & Chuck Roth as great as the tenor/soprano, guitar & drums trio was, the second set with Sakina on tenor & alto, Camila on tenor and the *great* Chuck Roth on guitar was incendiary and genius level improvising of the highest order. Camila Nebbia is a great tenor saxophonist. What a sound. two different kettles of fish but the drummerless trio hit me very hard last night. I’ve seen Chuck play a whole lot over the past 14 months. New levels playing the guitar unlike anyone I’ve ever heard.

I love the quartet for what it is. Avant-garde pop kinda. “Cute” to some extent. Very engaging and fun live. Love Tomeka’s melodies. Best live when they do cool improvised segues between songs. Better last year at the Stone than this past Spring at Jazz Gallery. I’ll see them every time they play.

Yes lots of good stuff. I just ordered the above 2 CD set.

Kevin Reilly (who runs Relative Pitch) loves solo recordings. He believes it’s a true challenge for the musicians. I like strings solo a decent amount but saxophone solo isn’t my thing.

These are some of the newest younger musicians on the scene in NYC/ Brooklyn Nava & Do Yeon have been playing longer. great duo recording with Nava & gabby fluke-mogul on relative pitch fwiw Michael appears on numerous recordings including the aforementioned recording Vanishing Pleasures

Hopefully we get a recording of Michael Foster with Strings He’s arguably the best saxophonist playing in NYC. One of the greatest I’ve ever heard. amazing 58 minute set last night at Solar Myth in Philadephia incorporating Ellington, Fred Anderson & Joe McPhee themes with improvisation. ended with variations of Old Eyes. Best show of the year. With Webb Crawford, Zosha Warhapa, Nava Dunkelman, Ana Abondolo & Do Yeon Kim

One day soon I need to make an updated list of some of the many great releases from the last year or so. Golden Age for creative music, in my view too bad the vast majority flies way under the radar as there is so much music released and most listeners are not focused on new music.

Tonight in about an hour: 8:00 set: Tim Berne, Gregg Belisle-Chi, John Hebert, Aurora Nealand & Tom Rainey 9:30 set: Tim, Gregg & Tom

All of the Barry Guy box sets on Not Two are essential Tensegrity & Intensegrity feature the members of the Blue Shroud band. Stunning small formations improvisation Mad Dogs & Mad Dogs on the Loose are earlier boxes with the members of Guy’s New Orchestra the 2 more recent boxes have improvisations from members of the LJCO & Guy & Friends. to my ears these are the most undervalued releases to date of the 21st century. Pristine sound quality and often magical interaction by grand masters young & old.

Webb Crawford/Chuck Roth duo 20 minutes of genius John Blum/Michael Foster/Brandon Lopez/Joey Sullivan modern free jazz at the highest level

Goldberg, Cline, Dunn & Rainey were spectacular 48-49 minute improvisation followed by a 6-7 minute coda wowza

I have shows on both Friday & Saturday night in Brooklyn. I’ll try to make this as well if possible. Catherine Sikora is an amazing saxophonist, fwiw

Last week: Alex Harding/Lucian Ban Blutopia with Mat Maneri, Bob Stewart & Brandon Lewis also Michael Foster’s Ghost with John Moran & Joey Sullivan, solo alto Don Malfon Also Chuck Roth duo with Scott Fields an awesome trio with Maria Valencia, Brandon Lopez & Matt Moran tomorrow Ben Goldberg with Nels Cline, Trevor Dunn & Tom Rainey then some great improv sets in Brooklyn this upcoming weekend including Sandy Ewen, Lyle Rivera, Sabrina Salome, Michael Foster & Webb Crawford among others watch out for Webb Crawford and her baby Gibson.

I’m a much bigger fan of McPhee’s recordings and playing over the past 20 years. too many great recordings to count.

Ceramic Dog in Kingston, NY Marc Ribot Shahzad Ismaily Ches Smith

Craig Taborn & Kris Davis might stay for the second set Sylvie Courvoisier & Cory Smythe not really my thing but couldn’t pass up the dual grand pianos with grand masters playing them:)

I got mine pretty quickly fwiw

Schism on Monday night in Queens: Simon Hanes & Ana Abondolo on electric basses Jon Starks & Ches Smith on drums incendiary last night at Solar Myth in Philadelphia Columbia Icefield: Nate Wooley, Ava Mendoza, Susan Alcorn & Ryan Sawyer as great a 47-49 minutes as one could imagine. Wooley utilized Ron Miles compositional material to make a suite of music that is beyond my words. Ava has the best tone and is such a bright light & Susan is simply a genius on pedal steel. Wooley gives the players space but when he improvises, just stunning as always

Earlier Andrew Barker, Kyle Motl & John Dikeman 2 strong sets really catching fire during the 2nd set

60 minutes with segues about 6 of the recent batch of Berne compositions radically different than last week with Seabrook & Smith in place of Belisle-Chi & Rainey then ended with Okey>Castor Oil another 23-24 minutes of brilliance incredible mind blowing set. Brandon Seabrook is a genius. Hebert is maybe the best “jazz” bassist in NYC and Ches is on another planet. Not better than Rainey but the intensity is breathtaking with the floor shaking.

Tim Berne, Brandon Seabrook, John Hebert & Ches Smith At Lowlands in Brooklyn take off in about 20 minutes Better every time. Love the rotating ace musicians. They all walk here:) 5 feet from the *great* Ches Smith

It was great. McPhee strong on tenor. Dual tenor stuff was very exciting. Very deep listening by both saxophonists. Michael Foster towards the end played one if the best soprano saxophone improvisations I’ve ever seen young drums & bass of Joey Sullivan & John Moran shined with Moran really coming on towards the end. Joey better every time I see him.

I’ll be there tonight. Doors at 7:00? Show around 8:00?

Same here. I’ve seen her maybe 6-7 times. I like the “rock” group with Gunn et al. Great set at The Stone last summer. Gunn was great. Best other set was with gabby, Gunn & Ryan Sawyer. Michael Foster is a brilliant virtuoso with a genius level mind. Flaherty is on a whole other level. Clifford and I are of the same view (as it often appears to happen)