04 Oct

[ October the 8th, 2024 release via Playscape Recordings: Jason Robinson’s Ancestral Numbers II ]

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The second volume of Jason Robinson’s “love note to my family” is out October 8, 2024 via Playscape Recordings, with trombonist Michael Dessen, pianist Joshua White, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Ches Smith

“Jason Robinson tends to weave his musical projects with multiple and overlapping narrative layers… [his] richly nuanced, storytelling compositions are full of freedom, flexibility, inventiveness and humor.” – Eyal Hareuveni, All About Jazz

“Jason Robinson is a sure-footed reedist, composer, bandleader and improviser… There is certainly jazz tradition here, but also a blissful sense of contemporary vitality.” – Filipe Freitas, Jazz Trail

09 May

[ May 14th, 2024 release on Playscape recordings: Jason Robinson’s Ancestral Numbers ]

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The first of two volumes is due out May 14, 2024 via Playscape Recordings, featuring trombonist Michael Dessen, pianist Joshua White, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Ches Smith.

02 Feb

[ February 2nd, 2024 release on Pyroclastic Records: Ches Smith – Laugh Ash ]

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Due out February 2, 2024 via Pyroclastic Records, the album features a brilliant ensemble with James Brandon Lewis, Nate Wooley, Anna Webber, Shahzad Ismaily, Oscar Noriega, Shara Lunon, Jennifer Choi, Kyle Armbrust and Michael Nicolas.

“A go-to percussionist for experimental jazz and new-music ensembles, Ches Smith gravitates toward edgy outfits… while displaying a musical personality as detail-oriented as it is sweepingly ornate.” Steve Futterman, The New Yorker

“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

21 Oct

[ October the 28th, 2022 release via Pyroclastic Records: Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant – Séances ]

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Séances, out October 28, 2022 via Pyroclastic Records, features Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith, Anna Webber, Carla Kihlstedt, Mariel Roberts and Oscar Noriega navigating chamber-jazz-metal compositions inspired by the bizarre tales of an 18^th-century French religious sect

“ The music [Trio-Convulsant] play is not so much a fusion of styles as it is a collision of styles… If you’ve been following Trevor Dunn‘s widely varied career as a player, you know he’s got a sense of adventure.” – Sean Westergaard, AllMusic.com

“[Trio-Convulsant] hurtles from heavy to weightless and back again so quickly it’s hard to keep up… [pulling] it off with rare style and impressive improvisational rigor.” – Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

01 May

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

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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

01 Jun

[ June the 11th, 2021 release via Pyroclastic Records: Ches Smith and We All Break – Path of Seven Colors]

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release date: 11.06.2021 via Pyroclastic Records

The recording and accompanying film showcase the band’s synergistic connection and exhilarating, alchemical mix of musical forms

5-stars. “Haitian traditions inspire the percussionist’s exhilarating hybrid of melodic drums, evocative vocals and fiery improvisation… Smith wanted the resources of traditional vocalists, highly melodic drummers and melody-instrument jazz improvisers to become spontaneously inseparable on this long honed adventure. We All Break have made a tour de force of it.” – John Fordham, The Guardian

4-stars. “Smith brings a jazz sensibility, opening the band to exploration and excavation into the pieces he built from drum patters with new songs written by and traditional tunes woven in by Brevil…The results are inviting and engaging, playing to tradition without being beholden to it.” – Kurt Gottschalk, Stereophile

5 stars. “The pieces are all profoundly original…. simply extraordinary, innovative and important…infinitely beautiful and pure…. a truly rare work that – at these levels of quality – has never really been even imagined before.” – Vic Albani, All About Jazz Italia – Album of the Week

“I’ve been on the scene, and know a lot of people, but projects like this are the kind of thing you live for.” – saxophonist and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón

With its remarkable merging of traditional Haitian Vodou with contemporary jazz and beyond, the groundbreaking album offers eight evolutionary/revolutionary tracks performed by a collaborative octet of world-class musicians. They are drummer/composer Ches Smith, pianist Matt Mitchell, saxophonist Miguel Zenón, bassist Nick Dunston, vocalist Sirene Dantor Rene, and master drummers Daniel Brevil, Markus Schwartz and Fanfan Jean-Guy Rene.

07 Feb

[ February the 14th release via Libra Records: The Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York – Entity ]

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release date: 14th February 2020

“This big band packs fierce solo power, but Fujii flexes all that muscle masterfully.” ― Tom Hull, The Village Voice

“Balances rousing swing with probing experimentation, updating the big band tradition with inspired verve and an abiding reverence for venerable customs.” ― Troy Collins, All About Jazz

“Interlocking riffs, driving rhythms and a tight band who do full justice to her imaginative conceptions, showing the benefits of a lineup barely changed since their 1997 debut.” ― John Sharpe, The New York City Jazz Record