News From Pi Recordings

[JSngry]

This label started interesting and shows no signs of slowing down!

Just received via e-mail:

Greetings from Pi Recordings,

We here at Pi Recordings hope that Spring has arrived wherever you might be. We would like to take this moment to tell you about what has been happening here thus far in 2005 and what the rest of the year looks like.

Firstly, we are pleased to announce our first release for 2005 Marc Ribot's Spiritual Unity.

Spiritual Unity is a group formed by guitarist Marc Ribot dedicated to re-creating and re-imagining the music of the great saxophonist Albert Ayler, one of the pillars of modern jazz. Ribot (Lounge Lizards, Los Cubanos Postizos and countless other bands) is a longtime fan of Ayler’s who has spent years listening to and internalizing the communicative group process integral to Ayler’s music. Ribot describes playing Ayler’s music as a “ritual process, through improvisation, of experiencing and presenting the rawest moment of musical creation.” He knew that the time had come to realize his long-time dream of forming a collective band to play this music when the celebrated bassist Henry Grimes, who played on many of Ayler’s seminal recordings from the 1960s, returned to the jazz scene in 2003.

Grimes’ amazing reemergence after 30 plus years away from music is now one of the great stories in the annals of jazz. Spiritual Unity is just the second release and the first studio recorded release to feature him since his return. This recording, for those who haven’t had the good fortune to see Grimes play live, finds him playing as strong as ever. He is obviously the perfect bassist for this music. Ribot displays his obvious passion for this music. His playing ranges widely from delicate beauty to wails and shrieks and everything in between. Trumpeter Roy Campbell exhibits his incredible versatility. He sports his free jazz hat and delivers the combination of lyricism and whomp that he brings to every musical context. Drummer Chad Taylor (Chicago Underground Trio) plays with muscle and verve, propelling this difficult music forward.

Spiritual Unity features one original by Ribot and four compositions by Ayler. Ribot’s “Invocation” opens the album and immediately conjures Ayler’s spirit. This is followed by “Spirits,” one of Ayler’s catchiest and instantly recognizable tunes. “Truth is Marching In,” another of Ayler’s signature tracks, featuring a long, mournful intro that suddenly breaks into a warped march. The spacious “Saints” bridges to the album closer “Bells,” a 15 minute tour-de-force recorded live at Tonic the night before the studio session.

Spiritual Unity could easily be overshadowed by comparisons to Ayler’s original work, but the intentions far exceed a straightforward canonization of Ayler’s music. Using Ayler’s vocabulary as raw material, Ribot, Grimes, Taylor and Campbell combine their disparate influences to fashion their own distinct work of art. Pi is proud to present Spiritual Unity.

July sees the release of Pi16 Fieldwork's (Feat. Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman and Elliot Humberto Kavee) Simulated Progress. The CD is the band's second and the first with new member Steve Lehman, who has recently released the critically praised, Artificial Light on Fresh Sounds and Camouflage Trio on Clean Feed. The band will be performing at the Jazz Gallery on Monday May, 2nd with new member Tyshawn Sorey before embarking on a brief European tour.

In the fall we will be releasing Steve Lehman's debut on Pi (Feat. Vijay Iyer, Meshell Ndegocello, Jahi Lake, Eric McPherson and Tyshawn Sorey).

Other releases for 2005 will be announced soon as we are still in the process of finalizing our release schedule for the year.

In other label news we will be having a three day Pi Recordings festival at the Jazz Standard July 19th-21st. Liberty Ellman, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Fieldwork will be performing. Expect some special guests as well as the premiere of new material. Before that though, this week sees the premiere of a new music by Rudresh Mahanthappa, May 5-6 & 8, at the Asia Society. The piece features Kadri Gopalnath and the Dakshina Ensemble.

We will be updating the news section of our site as details emerge on the rest of 2005 so please stay tuned. As always thank you for your continued interest and support of our music and the musicians.

Pi Recordings

_______________________

http://www.pirecordings.com

212-222-6140

PO Box 1849

Cathedral Station

New York, NY 10025

Well, well, WELL! Henry Grimes and Meshell Ndegocello on the same label. Nice to see somebody doing something like that!

Edited May 2, 2005 by JSngry

[gnhrtg]

Thanks for posting this. Very much looking forward to Simulated Progress and Steve Lehman's new one.

Edited May 2, 2005 by gnhrtg

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I had the pleasure of attending the studio recording session for the Ribot - look forward to hearing the finished product.

Mike

[John B]

Spiritual Unity is just the second release and the first studio recorded release to feature him since his return.

just one minor quibble: this will be at least the third disc (second in the studio) since Grimes' return. Dennis Gonzalez' Nile River Suite was the first studio, and the live set on Ayler with Murray and Drake was the second disc.

That said, I'm looking forward to hearing this one.

[GregK]

Word from Pi also that they may be releasing a live album from the current Art Ensemble (from April 2004), sometime next year

[Bol]

I hope there is a new one coming from Liberty Ellman soon. His recent "Tactiles" was terrific. One of my favorite recordings in recent years.

Edited May 6, 2005 by Bol

[jlhoots]

I just bought the (relatively) new Rudresh Mahanthappa CD.

Expectations are high.

[Gary]

I just bought the (relatively) new Rudresh Mahanthappa CD.

Expectations are high.

If you give it a couple of listens Im sure you will not be disappointed.

There is a thread on here about this CD

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...&hl=mahanthappa,

I think the comparisons with M-Base are spot on.

[Gary]

This is on the Ayler site about the Marc Ribot band

May  9  2005

News

Marc Ribot’s Spiritual Unity on the radio

Thanks to Maarten Derksen for letting me know that ‘Spiritual Unity’, the Albert Ayler tribute band led by Marc Ribot (mentioned below), is appearing on Dutch radio just after midnight this coming Friday. The programme, 4FM: is dit nog wel Jazz?, features the first part of a concert from the Amsterdam Bimhuis recorded on April 18th. The second part will be broadcast on June 25th. The programme goes out at 00:02 am, Saturday, 14th May (i.e. two minutes after midnight on Friday) and I presume it can be listened to live on the internet. If you miss it, then the link above should take you to the archived programme.

(archived link)

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/isditnogweljazz/