18 Jul

[ July the 29th, 2022 release on Pyroclastic: Nate Wooley & Columbia Icefield’s – Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes ]

By grzech In All That Jazz / No Comments

Trumpeter/Composer Nate Wooley releases breathtaking second album by his singular quartet Columbia Icefield – Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes, due out July 29, 2022 via Pyroclastic Records, features Mary Halvorson, Susan Alcorn and Ryan Sawyer

“Columbia Icefield [feels like] a mixture of quiet exaltation, wild exaltation, melancholy, fear, curiosity, struggle to keep warm… the prettiest (if most progressive) campfire music ever written.” – Zachary Woolfe, New York Times

“Columbia Icefield, with its long stretches of atmosphere interrupted by jarring dissonances, [is] something weird, haunting, lonely, and endlessly fascinating.” – Michael J. West, JazzTimes

Album Release Concert Monday, July 25 at TV Eye, Brooklyn, NY

01 May

[ May the 6th, 2022 release on Pyroclastic Records: Ches Smith Quartet – Interpret It Well ]

By grzech In All That Jazz / No Comments

release date: 06.05.2022 on Pyroclastic Records

★★★★ “Every track has an architecture, a flow, a journey, a story…again and again one can admire and be touched by the ability of all four of these musicians to make the pacing, the story-telling all feel as natural as breathing.” – Sebastian Scotney, The Arts Desk

“A smartly unruly drummer active in devious art-rock and outsider jazz.” – Nate Chinen, New York Times

“[The] nondescript term ‘drummer’ doesn’t get near the chemistry of earworm hooks, sharp-end jazz innovation and global-musical openness of New York percussionist/composer Ches Smith.” John Fordham, The Guardian

Interpret It Well, the new album featuring drummer/vibraphonist/composer Ches Smith and his all-star quartet with guitarist Bill Frisell, violist Mat Maneri and keyboardist Craig Taborn, is out Friday, May 6 via Pyroclastic Records

16 Oct

[ October the 22th, 2021 release via Attaboygirl Records: Gordon Grdina’s Square Peg – Klotski ]

By grzech In All That Jazz / No Comments

release date: 22.10.2021 via Attaboygirl Records

JUNO Award-winning guitarist and oud master Gordon Grdina launches his new label Attaboygirl Records with a remarkable pair of inaugural releases, Pendulum and Klotski, due out October 22, 2021. Album download links are below.

Klotski is the studio debut of Square Peg, Grdina’s exploratory quartet featuring Grdina on guitar and oud, Mat Maneri on viola, Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Moog, and Christian Lillinger on drums. The album’s single, nearly hour-long piece moves through eight of these cellular pieces, each able to be initiated by any member of the group and bridged by captivating improvisations, vividly blurring the lines between the written and the spontaneous.

19 Oct

[ October the 30th, 2020 release via Pyroclastic Records: Junk Magic’s Compass Confusion ]

By grzech In All That Jazz / No Comments

release date: 30.10.2020 via Pyroclastic Records

“Listen to the transfixing opening cut, ‘Laser Beaming Hearts,’ and in addition to Taborn’s aesthetic kinship with Detroit techno titan Carl Craig, you’ll be reminded of how many hours these improvisers have devoted, separately and in various configurations, to shifting the balance between abstraction and groove.” – Nate Chinen, WBGO

“Collages of dark and dirty parts, musical cast-offs, so to speak, that have been artfully reattached.” — Patrick Sisson, PopMatters

“More rewards await, rich and replete.” — Phil DiPietro, All About Jazz

For more than a decade, Junk Magic has been honing a collective sound that relies on individual expressions, imagination and subversion. Appearing first as a 2004 album title under pianist-composer Craig Taborn’s name, Junk Magic has transitioned into a sonic identity comprising electronic sound design, production techniques and elements of improvised music.