by Seth Colter Walls “A Presentation of Work From Radical Composer Robert Ashley Shows An Oeuvre In Flux” Inimitable art has a way of inoculating itself from any critical approach that relies on analogy. Potentially evocative points of reference can seem halfway correct though also not quite right. When it comes to the radical American […]
New York Times Review: Wadada Leo Smith
by Nate Chinen “For a Big Birthday, Leading Three Groups A Night” Leo Smith 70th Birthday Celebration Wadada Leo Smith was a force in motion during the early stretch of his concert at Roulette in Brooklyn on Friday night. Stalking the stage, busily directing the output of his Golden Sextet, he gave off an air […]
Village Voice Review: Wadada Leo Smith
by K. Leander Williams “Wadada Leo Smith Throws Himself A Lively Birthday Party At Roulette” Last year during a pre-concert interview at the Library Of Congress in Washington D.C., composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith got a laugh when he spoke about recruiting bassist John Lindberg. At the time, Smith was in the process of rebuilding his […]
All About Jazz Review: Dave Douglas, Wadada Leo Smith & Taylor Ho Bynum
by Martin Longley “Dave Douglas, Wadada Leo Smith & Taylor Ho Bynum” Leo Smith 70th Birthday Celebration How many birthday cakes can a trumpeter gobble? To celebrate his 70th year, the Interpretations Series presented two nights of new music from Wadada Leo Smith at Brooklyn’s recently transplanted Roulette. This meant three bands each night and […]
Dark Forces Swing Review: Roscoe Mitchell
by Hank Shteamer “Roscoe Mitchell And The Tension Thing” Roscoe Mitchell 70th Birthday Celebration “I went out there and got this tension thing. It was a battle. I had to make the noise and whatever was going on with the audience part of the piece. The music couldn’t move until they respected me, until they […]
NYC Jazz Record Review: Roscoe Mitchell
by Russ Musto Roscoe Mitchell 70th Birthday Celebration In a belated celebration of his 70th birthday (Aug. 4th, 2010), Roscoe Mitchell made an all-too-rare New York appearance at Roulette (Feb. 17th) in which he clearly confirmed that age has in no way mitigated his intense dedication to a very distinctive approach to improvisation that is […]
All About Jazz New York Review: Muhal Richard Abrams
by Kurt Gottschalk Muhal Richard Abrams 80th Birthday Celebration Muhal Richard Abrams has made a career of not resting on his laurels. As cofounder and spiritual father of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Abrams has spent close to 50 years lobbying for innovative approaches within jazz traditions. Even still, the music he […]
Blog Review: Jon and Ralph Gibson
by Douglas Detrick “Concert Review: Jon Gibson and Ralph Gibson; New and Recent Works by Alexandra Gardner” Interpretations Series: Job Gibson and Ralph Gibson, and the NOW Ensemble playing works by Alexandra Gardner. At the November 18th concert on the 22nd season of Thomas Buckner’s Interpretations series, Jon Gibson and Ralph Gibson (no relation), both veterans of New […]
The Big City Review: Yasunao Tone & Adachi Tomomi
by George Grella There are other conventional places to hear music, conventional in that they specialize in unconventional music. Roulette is the host of the perennially strong Interpretations series, which ended the current season with an unusual, fascinating and complex program of two unique musicians/performers who presented physical poetry and the destruction of digital information. Tomomi Adachi used the instruments of […]
Just Outside Review: Yasunao Tone & Tomomi Adachi
by Brian Olewnick Tomomi Adachi is a boyish looking fellow, a vocalist/electronicist who specializes in a branch of sound-poetry that often incorporates devices worn on his body and clothes and triggered by his movements. He opened last night’s performance with eight pieces, one by Dadaist Hugo Ball, four 1960s works by sound poet Seiichi Niikuni and three self-composed works. […]
