NYC

Just checked this HQ video of Fieldwork live on stage at Padova. Fieldwork consists of the hottest three names in today’s free / improv jazz Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey and Steve Lehman. Very good wish the camera wasn’t static but anyways.

Two albums that I’ve been procrastinating over for a few months, Vijay Iyer’s Historicity and Ben Allison’s Think Free has been topping nearly all the noteworthy jazz lists. Historicity is the effort of a piano trio with Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums, but it’s not a standard piano jazz album.

The connection tying this to the previous NYC jazz posts is his regular sidekick Joey Baron who is a pillar of the Masada clique and Joe Lovano on tenor who tries to fill Coltrane’s shoes with quite a success.

Yesterday’s post already mentioned the percussion wiz Cyro Baptista’s upcoming album with his Banquet of the Spirits troupe. It’s no secret Cyro loves huge ensembles that’s why I guess he decided to transfer Banquet of the Spirits from a quartet to a 26-strong ensemble.

Good news! There’s a new Zorn CD out on Tzadik called “O’o” which is named after an extinct Hawaiian bird and is the follow up to The Dreamers. There’s also a new and unplugged Rashanim CD out to quench our thirst after a yearning period of 3 years, and if that’s not enough, there are two new releases by Koby Israelite and Cyro Baptista.

The twitterverse is getting crowded, here are some of our latest finds: @Western Vinyl label home to Balmorhea, Composer @Rhys Chatham, @Sawako, @Hypnotic Brass Band, @Pauline Oliveros

One of the most advanced new generation jazz composer/players is undoubtedly NYC’s Steve Lehman. In fact he can easily be singled out as the most exciting in recent years. His newest album Travail, Transformation and Flow on Pi Records continues to explore the idiosyncratic Lehman sound familiar from 2007’s “On Meaning“, with 8 people this time.

Continuing in the vein of the last few albums of accessible John Zorn material is Filmworks #23: El General original score to a documentary about the controversial Mexican dictator Plutarco Elias Calles from the early 20th century. El General is a welcome departure from klezmer to latino tinged music reminiscent of a cinematic and dramatic Los Cubanos Postizos mixed with The Dreamers.