Point of Departure review by Troy Collins

Ches Smith and These Arches Hammered  (CF 270)
Among the many notable creative improvising musicians currently based in New York, there are remarkably few whose purview includes significant collaborations with veterans of the fabled ‘80s and ‘90s Downtown scene. Ches Smith is one such artist, a powerful yet unassuming drummer whose resume includes impressive sideman work with Tim Berne and Marc Ribot, collaborations with contemporaries Mary Halvorson and Darius Jones, and membership in the avant rock bands Secret Chiefs 3 and Xiu Xiu. These Arches is Smith’s flagship ensemble, an unconventional bass-less unit no less unusual than Good for Cows, his longstanding duo with bassist Devin Hoff, or his solo percussion endeavor Congs for Brums.

These Arches features an intriguing multi-generational lineup, pairing seasoned accordionist/electronics wizard Andrea Parkins and ubiquitous guitar prodigy Halvorson with renowned alto saxophonist Berne and industrious tenor player Tony Malaby. Berne has proven to be visionary in his choice of younger collaborators; Jim Black, Chris Speed and Craig Taborn have all gone on to great acclaim following their tenure in Berne’s pre-millennial projects. Returning the favor, Berne has served as a sideman for some of his most compatible associates, including Smith.

The recent addition of Berne to the original four-piece roster amplifies the quintet’s fervency, simultaneously creating a conceptual link to the post-modern Downtown aesthetic that Berne helped shape with peers like John Zorn. Smith’s quixotic writing is reminiscent of the eclectic genre-splicing that defined the early Knitting Factory scene, although his stylistic juxtapositions are more organically cohesive than those of his predecessors. Despite the subtly diverse nature of the program, the individual tunes exhibit melodic similarities, lending the date a unified sensibility.

Reinforcing its title, Hammered traffics in somewhat heavier territory than the group’s 2010 Skirl debut, Finally Out Of My Hands. Most of the pieces were originally written for a rock-oriented lineup, a detail that’s readily apparent in the dramatic title track, which provides an excellent example of Smith’s sensitivity to dynamics. The number’s infectious theme is fashioned from nuanced variations on a soaring metallic riff driven by stop-time rhythms, bookending a series of divergent episodes that veer between swaths of coruscating noise, aleatoric pointillism and deft call and response.

Despite being chart-driven, the open structures underlying Smith’s labyrinthine compositions facilitate a wide range of individual interpretations. Dense, collective improvisations are counterbalanced by brief unaccompanied soliloquies and intimate duets, resulting in a fascinating array of detours, including Parkins and Halvorson’s pensive exchanges with Smith at the end of “Wilson Phillip” and the saxophonists’ sinuous interplay on “Learned From Jamie Stewart.”

The band’s intuitive chemistry also spurs their communal rapport. Together Parkins and Halvorson weave a phantasmagoric web of sound, underpinning the proceedings with a bevy of kaleidoscopic textures that range from skirling distortion and whirling fuzztones to chirpy percolations and glitchy bleats. Berne and Malaby, whose simpatico dialogue is further enriched by the tonal contrast between the former’s urbane precision and the latter’s folksy expressionism, make a suitably compelling frontline, capable of hushed lyricism to trenchant histrionics.

In light of such heavyweight company, it would be easy to take the leader’s sterling contributions for granted; his understated virtuosity eschews grandstanding pyrotechnics, driving his bandmates with concision and focus. Though the interpretive prowess of Smith’s collaborators is a key factor in the success of Hammered, their contributions are equally reliant on the malleability of the leader’s accessible writing. By gracefully incorporating everything from catchy post-punk themes to rousing Balkan-inspired motifs into a hybridized new standard, Smith successfully advances the erratic post-modern innovations of the recent past.
http://www.pointofdeparture.org/Pod43/PoD43MoreMoments5.html

Sound of Music review by Thomas Millroth

Trespass Trio + Joe McPhee – Human Encore (CF 269)
Jag har skrivit det förut, det gäller än. Martin Küchen har mutat in område efter område som jag inte väntat mig. Det är skört, det är skevt och han har återupprättat konvoluttexten, temat och titlarna. Annars verkar ju sådant vara hänvisat till slumpen i tider av föga engagemang. Küchen hävdar att musiken betyder något, att han kan vara explicit med egen historia.   Här knyter han ju egentligen an till de stora pionjärerna inom fri jazz. De hade en romantisk konstnärsyn, där musiken var en konst där varje ton kunde höras och ses som en ring på vattnet efter stycket som plumsat i det allmännas damm.  Naturligtvis ger tro och övertygelse bättre musik. Likgiltighet gränsar till ironi. Att inte vilja stå för något.   I konvolutet talas det om kränkning av social moral och etik. Musiken rasar med vassa plåtkanter här någonstans. Inte för att klangen är ovan, inte för att musikerna spyr upp gamla former söndertuggade. Nej, de demonstrerar ingen leda, ingen sorg, mer då ett slags estetisk upprördhet. På trots liksom låter de musiken vagga framåt som en tung vagn, där varje dekor, varje detalj är underbart utformad. Att det gungar litet skevt, javisst. Det där slagverket av Raymond Strid, det är så underbart i sina småljud, sina oväntade klanger och sin goda suveräna smak att det ibland glömmer bort att gå i takt exakt. Inte ens före eller efter, bara för sig själv. Det är härligt för det är så vackert gjort.   Martin Küchen själv har en sval klang inuti sin saxofon, litet metallisk, men flödande, som om han skrev brev med bläckpenna för länge sedan och glömt bort adressaten. Därför är brevet inte avsänt ännu. Joe McPhee sjungande på trumpet eller saxofon. En kärv försångare, som ännu ekar av de andliga hymnerna och stridsmarscherna från länge sedan. Ljudet är som en strypsnara på en skönhet han tillber men vägrar låta gå vanliga vägar. Att dessa officianter framför den vackra musikens altare inte helt är i takt och överens, det stör nog mest basisten Per Zanussi, som med stora labbar föser ljud och kamrater in i något som är gemensam rörelse.   Det lyckas. Tillsammans spelar de en musik som en gång kunde kallas andlig, då menar jag i Tylers, Sanders eller för den delen Coltranes anda. Fast det inte riktigt låter så. Men de far med samma tåg i samma riktning. Än en gång konstaterar jag inför denna tjocka, feta, klirrande, vemodiga fria jazzmusik att Martin Küchen är en av dem som abonnerat på begreppet skönhet i svensk musik.
http://www.soundofmusic.nu/recension/trespass-trio-joe-mcphee-human-encore

JazzWrap review by Stephan Moore

Ellery Eskelin - Mirage Ellery Eskelin (CF 271)
Ellery Eskelin is a troubadour. His creative talent has been on display both as leader and member for almost three decades. A warm and enveloping texture to his recordings is always present. On his latest, Mirage, his display an intriguing outback journey that feels like a desert soundtrack.

Susan Alcorn’s shimming opening chords on “Rain Shadow” forecast a session that is filled with majestic passages and mysterious undertones. Eskelin’s notes weave slow a gently around bass and guitar and accentuate the haunting nature of piece. “Saturation” is an rolling improvised piece that while each member seems be moving in divergent directions by midway, a slight melody evolves and then slowly deconstructs. Alcorn and Eskelin play off one another beautifully.

There are times when Eskelin’s tones sound like late period Ornette Coleman circa the Naked Lunch soundtrack. One of those moments for me was the epic piece “Downburst.” A slow moving blues style ballad mixed with intrigue and experimentalism. Fromanek and Alcorn have silent and introspective conversation throughout. This, while Eskelin’s journey moves across like broad strokes of a small paintbrush. Lovely and lengthy.

Mirage is document that paints a beautiful and luxurious picture with influence of avant garde, blues and Americana. This, all resulting in an excellent soundtrack for a Summer journey. Enjoy a very deep listen.
http://jazzwrap.blogspot.pt/

All About Jazz review by Mark Corroto

Made To Break - Provoke (CF 273)
The evolution of Ken Vandermark continues with his new quartet Made To Break, an electric/acoustic ensemble that bridges his musical strengths of composition, organization, and improvisation. Founded in 2011, the saxophonist drew together bassist Devin Hoff  (The Resonance Ensemble), drummer Timothy Daisy (Vandermark 5, The Frame Quartet, Sound In Action Trio, Bridge 61), and a new contributor, Christof Kurzmann  (electronics).

In the early 2000s, Vandermark’s interest in non-jazz elements like funk and reggae developed with his Spaceways Inc. trio and electronics with Frame Quartet and Powerhouse Sound, the latter featured Scandinavian noise artist Lasse Marhaug . His improvising, both solo and in duo (with Daisy) also became an important path for him. As he retired these young projects (including the most successful V5), the seeds for Made To Break were planted.

Provoke and the LP (only) Lacerba (Clean Feed, 2013) are the fruits of his latest transformation. Conceived as compositional modules, each lengthy piece is built of blocks or modules of sound in which players improvise within. The music is a more methodical version of John Zorn’s Cobra and resolves itself as a democratic version of a Butch Morris

Conduction. Opening “Further (for John Cage)” with a simple tenor/drums duet, the piece builds into a heavy funk with the shock of electronics sizzling. The music morphs several times, here and with all tracks, into meditative passages, lyrical (dare I say songlike hymns?) and heavy rock elements. Each module, opens up possibilities of soloing, duos and group interactions. “Presentation (for Buckminster Fuller)” opens with Kurzmann’s electronic circuits firing, fizzling and smoldering as an invitation for some strikingly exquisite clarinet that segues into heavy electric bass destruction.

Each module is a cause for spontaneous structures, improvisation on jazz and non-jazz elements, and like all emerging music, some surprises.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=44685

All About Jazz review by C. Michael Bailey

At the Corner: Ran Blake / Sara Serpa / Christine Correa
The common element between Sara Serpa’s Aurora and Christine Correa’s Down Here Below is obviously pianist Ran Blake. Enigmatic to a fault, Blake has made a potent name for himself among improvised music enthusiasts. Blake is an intellectual amalgam of pianists Thelonious Monk and Martial Solal distilled to a dissonant essence.

A long time professor at the New England Conservatory, Blake has taken many under his tutelage, specifically singers, beginning with Jeanne Lee on The Newest Sound Around (BMG, 1962) . Two contemporary singers claiming Blake as a mentor are Sara Serpa and Christine Correa, who each has recorded with Blake previously. These two recordings illustrate art made by like minds sharing the same intellectual space

Sara Serpa and Ran Blake – Aurora Clean Feed (CF 264)
Camera Obscura (Inner Circle Music, 2010) was the first recorded collaboration between vocalist Sara Serpa and her mentor, pianist Ran Blake. That recording was a moody assault on the fringes of the American Songbook, culminating in an “April In Paris” recorded at the Bates Motel after the word got out about Norman’s mother. Aurora continues where Camera Obscura left off. If anything, Aurora is darker and more nuanced. A bouncy “Moonride” smolders into a stark and terrifying “Strange Fruit,” full of vocal gymnastics and vocalese.

Blake contributes a lengthy original to the mix in “Mahler Noir,” eight minutes that could serve as a soundtrack of any of Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther stories. Imagine Wagner, mad with Beethoven, pounding out a suffering late-Romantic recital piece. Disconcerting and off- putting, this strange music has a gravitational pull that disallows any quick dismissal, reeling the listener in to hear “just what is going to happen next.”

“The Band Played On” is where everything fully clicks. The late-19th Century popular tune is delivered as a crippled calliope song with Serpa taking her liberties with the material, making it suited for the remake of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. While this sounds negative, it is anything but. A certain genius on Serpa and Blake’s part governs the interpretation of these songs, something beyond the postmodern…something well beyond.

Ran Blake and Christine Correa – Down Here Below: Tribute to Abbey Lincoln Volume One (Self Produced)
Vocalist Christine Correa has had a twenty-year musical relationship with Ran Blake that has resulted in Roundabout (Music and Arts, 1994), Out of the Shadows (Self Produced, 2010) and the present Down Here Below: Tribute to Abbey Lincoln Volume One. Neither artist show the least bit of interest in the status quo, instead opting to push the perimeter of existing repertoire well beyond the bounds of traditional performance.

As with the Serpa disc, Blake remains taciturn introspective, allowing notes to collide almost randomly while Correa provides just enough aural memory that a theme to the performances indeed does exist and that theme is based on another iconoclastic artist, Abbey Lincoln. The title piece is offered in two half—a cappella renderings, delivered full-throated by Correa, dissolving into Blake’s most introspective playing on the disc. The pianist turns inward in search of the necessary pathos to spill upon the keys.

The pair also doubles Oscar Brown Jr.’s “Freedom Day,” delivering an almost desperately anxious performance in the first take, while the second take comes off more rhythmically sound with Correa no less extroverted than the first take. “Brother, Can You Spare Me A Dime” is completely transformed from a saloon tune to a post-modern blues hymn. Where Serpa is finesse and irony, Correa is sheer power and fractured momentum.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=44581

All About Jazz review by Mark Corroto

Sophie Agnel/ John Edwards/ Steve Noble: Meteo (CF 272)
The liner notes said it best, …”listening is a form of improvisation.” To be sure, no two listeners come away from Meteo with the same experience. This single track (38:25) live recording from the 2012 Festival Météo in Mulhouse France is a first time meeting of the French pianist Sophie Agnel and the British rhythm section of John Edwards (bass) and Steve Noble (drums).

While rhythm is often an intramural device, here it is a highly personal interchange between masterly improvisers. Agnel, a classically trained pianist, has focused her energies on free improvisation, prepared piano, and music beyond category like fellow musicians Stéphane Rives, Michel Doneda, and Jean-Luc Guionnet. Edwards and Noble are two-thirds of the band Decoy with pianist Alexander Hawkins, members of the London Improvisers Orchestra, and have backed the jazz giants Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Alan Wilkinson, and Peter Brotzmann.

The disc begins with a crash and rattle of drum and cymbal and the simultaneous manipulation of both inside and outside of the piano. The trio sets a pulse that they return to, but not until they have traced a line from tonal to atonal music and silence to noise. Agnel works with a palette of new piano sounds, like a saxophonist’s extended technique, dealing with the physicality of her instrument. Likewise Edwards and Noble are often scraping an exorcism of sound from their instruments. With barely a pause for ideas, the applied cymbal strike, the woodiness of the bass and the harp-like qualities of the piano’s insides yield an energy that climaxes somewhere at 31 minutes. Exhaustion follows, and the shortish (by digital standards) piece requires no more time to qualify as a nonpareil.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=44684

Jazzthing review

Christian Lillinger’s Grund – Second Reason (CF 265)
Der Berliner Christian Lillinger gehört zurzeit der Generation junger Jazzschlagzeuger an, die gehörig für Aufsehen und Wirbel auf dem Jazz-Circuit sorgen – nicht nur hier in Deutschland, sondern mittlerweile auch in ganz Europa. Gerade ist das zweite Album seiner Working-Band Grund erschienen: „Second Reason“. Aufgenommen mit zwei Kontrabässen (Robert Landfermann und Jonas Westergaard), zwei Saxofonen (Pierre Borel und Tobias Delius), Piano (Achim Kaufmann), Vibrafon (Christopher Dell) und ihm selbst am Schlagzeug klingt Lillingers Modern Jazz aufregend und spektakulär – obwohl oder gerade weil er auf expressive Momente verzichtet. Dem 28-jährigen Drummer geht es um anderes: um einen kompakten Klang, aus dem nur für kurze Zeit jeweils einzelne Stimmen solistisch hervorstechen, und um ein fixes Ensemblespiel, das gleichsam wie ein Instrument klingt – um als Band das musikalische Material zu bearbeiten und in die eigene Sprache zu transformieren. Und überhaupt, Lillinger ist einfach ein erstklassiger Schlagzeuger: In seinem Spiel wirkt nichts aufgesetzt oder einstudiert, es ist auf eine kraftvolle Weise filigran, bleibt dabei stets authentisch und eindeutig als Christian Lillinger identifizierbar.
http://www.jazzthing.de/review/christian-lillinger-s-grund-second-reason

Feuilletonscout review by Dieser Beitrag

Christian Lillinger’s Grund – Second Reason (CF 265)
Als die Debüt-CD „First Reason“ von Christian Lillingers Grund im Jahr 2009 herauskam, hatte der heute 28-jährige Schlagzeuger schon einige Highlights in seinem Berufsmusikerleben hinter sich: Studium an der Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber  Dresden bei Günter Sommer, dazwischen Umzug nach Berlin-Neukölln und Gründung der Band Hyperactive Kid mit Philipp Gropper (Saxophon) und Ronny Graupe (Gitarre). Er gab Unterricht und spielte mit vielen bekannten  Musikern in der Jazzszene.   2008 schließlich gründete er Christian Lillingers Grund: Zwei Bassisten (Robert Landfermann, Jonas Westergaard), zwei Saxophonisten (Tobias Delius, Pierre Borel), ein Klavier (Achim Kaufmann) und Lillinger am Schlagzeug.   Nun ist die zweite CD „Second Reason“ herausgekommen, bei der sich die Gruppe Verstärkung durch Christoph Dell am Vibrafon geholt hat.   Zeit online: „Entstanden ist eine traumverlorene, sich langsam und fast zärtlich entfaltende Musik, ein Klanggewölbe, aus dem sich einzelne Instrumente herausschälen und eine neue Struktur vorgeben, bevor sie wieder im rhythmischen Geflecht verschwinden[...] Was man da hört, ist schon Jazz. Aber dieser Jazz hat nichts Traditionelles. Er klingt frei, ohne hart wie der Free Jazz zu sein.“
http://blog.feuilletonscout.com/2013/01/07/freejazz-mit-christian-lillinger-grund-%E2%80%9Esecond-reason%E2%80%9C/

Dalston Sound review by Tim Owen

Hugo Carvalhais ‎– Particula (CF 253)
The Portuguese composer, producer and double-bassist Hugo Carvalhais made his recorded debut with one of 2010′s stand-out albums, Nebulosa, which featured NYC alto saxophonist Tim Berne alongside Carvalhais’ regular bandmates Mário Costa (drums) and Gabriel Pinto (piano, synthesizer). Particula (Clean Feed) is every bit as good, and more distinctive still. Here, the core trio is reunited with a regular collaborator, soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien, and violinist Dominique Pifarély is a significant new presence.   Carvalhais plays electronics as well as bass, extending the quintet’s palette both tonally and texturally, and Pifarély combines beautifully with those electronics and Pinto’s synth.   Particula is a strikingly original electro-acoustic fusion of new music and modern jazz. All evidence suggests that the album was meticulously composed with the individual colours and talents of the ensemble in mind, but the music flows with the immediacy of intuitive improvisation rather than painstaking interpretation.   Tracks three and four constitute a sort of diptych, across which each of the quintet’s elements come to the fore by turn. ”Simulacrum” has a luminous solo contrabass intro, then progresses through first a feature for piano flecked with glints of metal percussion and electric keys, then a drums solo, and finally a saxophone soliloquy with shifting accompaniment. Pifarély then takes an unfettered solo on ”Capsule”, and another after Pinto’s response on synthesizer. The piece ends in a flurry of agitation as their exchanges incite a percussive response from Costa and Carvalhais.   As the album title Particula (‘particle’) suggests, Carvalhais’ music emphasises the ensemble as particulate, albeit never at the expense of its essential unity. “Cortex” is a brief, unsettling piece, with Pinto playing on the piano’s harp and Carvalhais bowing drily around his bass’s bridge.   All reviewers note the upper-register focus of Pifarély’s violin and Parisien’s sax, with the leader’s bass rarely venturing beyond its lower range. Carvalhais’ gravidity is a nice counterpoint to the agility and folkloric lyricism of the violin. Parisien occasionally plays with a touch of Berne’s pungency, but more often responds to the perspicuity of his bandmates with mellifluousness: his clarinet-like tonality on “Generator” is akin to the rich, lyrical flow of Wayne Shorter.   On the balladic “Omega”, Pinto plays with a lucidity that’s comparable both tonally and structurally to Paul Bley’s work in the early 60s Jimmy Giuffre trio. The group develop this tune with the scampering, inquisitive delicacy of exploratory rodents, all activity bound up with interstitial pause and attunement.   There is neither bass nor drums on the last track, “Amniotic”, which sounds at first evanescent, comprising inchoate microsounds coalescing in fleeting, unforced exchanges; music of meditated beauty. An emergent blending of sax and violin yields to first a churchy synth meditation, then a brief final flurry of double-tongued sax and electronics.   Particula is outstanding, a highly distinctive synthesis of styles, performed by an ensemble which graces Carvalhais’ singularly beautiful music with lissome luminosity.
http://dalstonsound.wordpress.com/

The New York City Jazz Record interview by Stuart Broomer

Nate Wooley Interview by Stuart Broomer
Since settling in New York in 2001, Nate Wooley has developed a wide-ranging practice as both trumpeter and composer. On the explicitly jazz-oriented front he works regularly in Daniel Levin’s Quartet and Harris Eisenstadt’s Canada Day, as well as leading his own quintet. On the free improvisation side, Wooley has ongoing duo partnerships with drummer Paul Lytton, guitarist Joe Morris and trumpeter Peter Evans. Along with Evans and Axel Dörner, Wooley is in the vanguard of a revolution in trumpet technique and he’s produceda remarkable series of solo pieces as well. He’s also the composer of a piece called Seven Storey Mountain, a major work that he’s been revisiting and recasting since 2009.

Wooley was born in Oregon in 1974 and grew up in the town of Clatskanie. The quiet rural setting likely contributed to Wooley’s ongoing interest in silence, but he sees it as something innate as well: ”Growing up in a very small town where there was very little city noise and city light definitely informed a certain amount of who I am, but I’ve come to realize that I’m also just a quiet person; that I’m interested in the power of quiet and silence and the fact that it causes the listener to apply a different kind of strain to engage in the music. I have come to realize, though, that only in combination with other elements does that connection to silence really mean anything.

”The other side of his upbringing was his relationship to jazz, one that defines his current quintet: “Jazz is just a big part of who I am. My dad is a jazz musician, a big band musician to really put a fine point on it. That’s a very specific way of thinking about what you do as an improviser and as a part of a musical unit and it’s the center of how I think, for better or worse. I did a lot of exploring of different ways of playing and still do, but there was a certain point where I realized that to not play jazz with a capital J – or at least my skewed version of it – meant to turn my back on that part of me and the people that taught me growing up.

”The solo trumpet music has Wooley sharing an interiority with the trumpet and examining extended techniques and tape editing in pieces like The Almond, a long work built up with tapes of contrasting techniques. For Syllables Wooley constructed a system of notation that’s based on the International Phonetic Alphabet. It’s as if Wooley is teaching the trumpet to talk, confronting the complex relationship between abstract instrumental music and speech. The work results in long stretches of near silence, that keybuilding block of Wooley’s musical thought. Wooley recently released Syllables: “The point of that first piece was really to get the concept of what a trumpet‘ should’ sound like out of my head, to create a piece for my own benefit without crafting its musicality and luckily it happened to work out to be interesting musically outside of the concept. With Syllables, I still allowed the sounds to be raw and uncontrolled and sit outside my conception of trumpet sound, but I did three versions of the composition, some acoustic and some amplified, and combined them to shape a piece of music that I was happy with, though I’m a little conflicted as to whether I really stayed true to those original ideals that I attached to this series of pieces. I like to work like that… It’s rare that you do something that makes you question yourself.

”That focus on trumpet mechanics and speech leads naturally to Seven Storey Mountain, named for Thomas Merton’s 1948 account of the spiritual struggle that led him to become a Trappist monk, complete with the practice of silence. Wooley initially described the combination of “tape manipulation, long forms with simple written musical directions” as “an attempt to reach some sort of musical ecstaticism. ” Wooley first recorded it in 2009 with David Grubbs (harmonium) and Paul Lytton (percussion) and then again in 2011 with new tape elements and C. Spencer Yeh (violin) and Chris Corsano (drums). “It’s changed over time. The performance we’re doing on June 6th is the fourth. The third iteration had both groups on it… I also added two vibraphones and the piece took on a slightly more composed feeling than the previous two. A lot of my attitude about why I was making the pieces changed as well. “During the first two pieces, the impetus was to try to find a way to access a certain feeling of ecstaticism- religious or not – that I had read about in a lot of mystical texts. After the second, I came to the realization that I’m just not a naturally ecstatic person and that I wasn’t being very honest about what I was doing with the series. So…being honest about what I was doing became more of the theme than the ecstaticism, somehow. The third version is much calmer and has elements of composition that weren’t really in the first two. The fourth has even more elements of composition, with Corsano and Ryan Sawyer on drums, Yeh on violin and Ben Vida on electronics, Matt Moran and Chris Dingman on vibraphone and the TILT Brass Sextet. ”In a world obsessed with success, Wooley is alert to the creative possibilities of failure, recalling SamuelBeckett’s dictum in Worstward Ho, “fail better”: “I took a lot from books like Seven Storey Mountain or St. Augustine’s Confessions about the power of allowing yourself to fail. That’s become the theme of these pieces in a way. They are far afield of what I know I can do and so there is an element of me doing something very large every once in a while that just might not work. I want to do that in public, as failure should be a part of anyone making something. There’s an element in our society that tries to birth artists fully formed from an aesthetic lotus blossom. I can understand that, but I appreciate the person who stands up and says, ‘not sure if this is going to work, but let’s try it and see… it’ll be fun either way.’ And if it doesn’t work, then you gain more power from learning about who you are and what you need to do to make something powerful to yourself and your audience.”

Recommended Listening:
• Nate Wooley – Wrong Shape To Be A Storyteller(Creative Sources, 2004)
• Mary Halvorson/Reuben Radding/Nate Wooley -Crackleknob (hatOLOGY, 2006)
• Nate Wooley – The Seven Storey Mountain (Important, 2007)
• Wooley/Weber/Lytton – Six Feet Under (NoBusiness, 2009)
• Nate Wooley Quintet – (Put Your) Hands Together(Clean Feed, 2010)
• RED Trio + Nate Wooley – Stem (Clean Feed, 2011)