Month: February 2023

It got cold again in NYC after a warm winter. We even saw a few flakes in the air, but still no real snow until the very end of the month. With more time indoors, we’ve been listening to music (of course) and bring you are album picks for the month. This time we have burning twin guitar energy from Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade, and a classic free jazz journey from Dave Liebman with incredible trumpet by Peter Evans, and the lots of other good stuff, too – hope you enjoy it!

TNB Pick!
Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade: Dion’s Quest
(released February 10, 2023)

Greg Ward – Alto Sax, Vocals
Matt Gold – Guitar, Effects, Synths, Vocals
Dave Miller – Guitar, Effects, Vocals
Matt Ulery – Upright and Electric Bass, Vocals
Quin Kirchner – Drums, Vocals

Ward brings the noise with this two-guitar program of ecstatic, soaring music. Dion’s Quest is Rogue Parade’s follow-up to 2019’s Stomping Off From Greenwood, and the two albums result from seven years of developing a sound that the liner notes say is “raw, eclectic and full of passion.” I agree, and the whole album is strong, our most-played record of February. Need to see this band live!

TNB Pick!
Dave Liebman – Live at Smalls
(released February 3, 2023)

Dave Liebman – saxophones
Peter Evans – trumpet
Leo Genovese – piano
John Herbert – bass
Tyshawn Sorey – drums

A continuous set of free jazz, which Liebman breaks up on the record as “The Beginning,” “The Middle,” and “The End.” The liner notes are by Liebman’s daughter, who says John Coltrane inspired her father to return to “free” playing. Remarkably, the musicians here had never all played together before. You can’t tell that from the evidence of this album, they sound great together, and I can only hope we get a studio record from this band. Special kudos to Peter Evans, who tears up every solo he gets, and when he does, he frankly dominates the music (in a very good way).

Oriol Roca Trio & Lynn Cassiers – Live at Jazz Cava
(released February 11, 2023)

Lynn Cassiers – Voice and Electronics
Giovanni Di Domenico – Piano
Manolo Cabras – Bass
Oriol Roca – Drums

Live at Jazz Cava features drummer Oriol Roca alongside his regular trio and singer and soundscaper Lynn Cassiers. Cassier’s singing immediately made me think of Asha Puthli, which is high praise and is, to me, the main draw here. But the band’s playing is also very strong – an excellent release.

Algiers – Shook
(released February 24, 2023)

This album is all over the place; some of it is great, some less so, but the ambition and energy are impressive. The biggest thrill for me was seeing (TNB fav) Patrick Shiroishi’s name on the album cover of a high-profile release! Very cool. Check out Jon Pareles’ profile at NYT.

Zack Lober – NO FILL3R
(released February 24, 2023)

Zack Lober – double bass
Suzan Veneman – trumpet
Sun-Mi Hong – drums

Bassist Zack Lober recorded this with what sounds like a minimal and very natural mic set up in one large room at the Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum, The Netherlands. The sound on the album is beautiful, as is the playing with a Netherlands-based trio Sun-Mi Hong (drums) and Suzan Veneman (Trumpet).

Antti Lötjönen – Circus​/​Citadel
(released February 24, 2023)

Antti Lötjönen – double bass
Mikko Innanen – alto saxophone, baritone saxophone
Jussi Kannaste – tenor saxophone
Verneri Pohjola – trumpet
Joonas Riippa – drums

Like the Lober album above, another European-based jazz record with a bassist leader. It’s a theme this month! Themes are on Lötjönen’s mind in composing this album; he says: “the temporal closeness of the ideas brings with it a certain kind of unity. The world we live in sometimes feels like an absurd circus from which you need to get away from to get new ideas and energy. Everyone needs their citadel, whatever it may be.” The album has great energy and a wide range of ideas, from affecting ballads to pent-up carnival cacophony.

Stick Men – UMEDA (Live in Osaka 2022)
(released February 3, 2023)

Tony Levin – Chapman Stick, Voice
Pat Mastelotto – Acoustic and Electronic Drums & Percussion
Markus Reuter – Touch Guitars@ U8 Custom, Soundscapes

You probably know how much we love King Crimson (TNB profile of one of their classics here), and Stick Men is a great way to satisfy that Crim fix. The guitar sound from the Chapman Stick (hence Stick Men, right?) is terrific. This live album was recorded from last year’s tour at the BB club in Osaka, Japan—heavy and enticing music.

Astroturf Noise – Blazing​/​Freezing
(released February 17, 2023)

Sam Day Harmet – Mandolin/fx/op-z
Sana Nagano – Violin/fx
Zachary Swanson – Bass

Another winner from 577 Records and the funnest album of February! The Bandcamp page captures the flavor: “Here, American roots music coexists with electronics-spiked free improv, Downtown skronk, and on the new album, manipulated samples sourced from Tennessee, Wisconsin, and their home city of Brooklyn, NY.” We don’t need more music labels, but avant-Americana is good.

TNB Top Archival Release:
Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers, Tony Orrell – That​’​s My Life
(released January 3, 2023; Recorded live July 1, 1989, at The Albert Inn, Bristol, England, UK by Andy Isham)

Paul Dunmall – Soprano saxophone
Paul Rogers – Double bass
Tony Orrell – Drums

The intention of TNB’s monthly album round-up is to feature newly released albums by today’s musicians. We also want to feature (freshly released) archival performances, and this is a very good one to start with. If you Google “Albert Inn, Bristol, England” and look on street view right now, you’ll see banners over the friendly-looking pub/restaurant that announce “Families Welcome” and “Good Food.” Not sure if those signs were there on July 1, 1989, when this performance was recorded, but the marquee could have said “Burning Music Inside!” Dunmall’s soprano sax is like a flamethrower, and the rest of the band is right there with him. Amazing to think you could just go down to your local pub and hear this!

We love to discover and share music with you on this blog, but that does not mean we think we’re experts! Instead, we see ourselves as fellow travelers, sharing what we’ve discovered and trying the spread the appreciation of the love of music that makes the world a better place . . .

(Gerald Cleaver. Image: Jazziz Magazine)

These thoughts bring us to drummer Gerald Cleaver and the inspiration he sparked in us that we want to share with you. We know Cleaver from his work with a who’s who of musicians like Matthew Shipp, Craig Taborn, J.D. Allen, Ellery Eskelin, and Roscoe Mitchell, and as a leader himself. Cleaver’s drumming is always dynamic, musical, and recognizable as his own. He’s one of creative music’s most important musicians, period.

Cleaver’s playing with Shipp in East Axis made us take another look at his sizable discography, and we discovered for the first time recent albums where he did something daring for a drummer – ditched the drums! Instead, on Signs (2020), Griots (2021), and in collaboration with Hprizm on Signs Remixed (2021), Cleaver made wholly electronic albums. Cleaver recorded these albums to honor his roots in Detroit, paying tribute to one of his inspirations – Detroit techno music. The disarming results made us want to talk about these records and also look back at the Detroit electronic music that inspired him. Let’s experience generations of inspiration and generations of The Beat!

(Renaissance Center In Detroit, Image: Getty Images)

So first, let’s go back with TNB in time to the dawn of techno – late 70s and early 80s Detroit. Not quite Detroit, actually, but 30 miles outside the city in a relatively affluent and small suburb of Belleview, where black innovators developed a synthesizer and beat music based on George Clinton, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Prince, and especially the German electronic group Kraftwerk. The first of the Detroit techno records was by Cybotron, a collaboration of Juan Atkins and Rick Davis, who met in college. Cybotron released “Alleys of Your Mind” in 1981, recognized by many as the first techno record. This landmark track was followed by “Cosmic Cars” in 1982, “Clear” in 1983, and the genre-naming “Techno City” in 1984. The original Cybotron singles are the earliest and most definitive examples of Detroit techno. They introduced the genre’s hallmarks – an obsession with the applications of synthesizers, a utopian vision of the future, and an outsider’s perspective on redefining dance music. As the first experiments in this new style of music, these records might lack polish and sophistication, but more than makeup for that with joy in the possibilities created by technology – this music has a palpable sense of adventure and fun.

(A vision of the future – the 1961 Ford Gyron Concept car Image: Ford Authority)

Although these tracks are classics of the genre, they did not sell. Cybotron was briefly on Fantasy records, but when Akins wanted to release solo music as Model 500 (check out “No UFO’s“), he could not get anybody to put his records out and had to start his own label, Metroplex. The popularity of techno grew during the 1980s, especially with the Inner City’s tracks “Big Fun” and “Good Life” from 1988. These tracks achieved accessibility with the addition of vocals by Paris Grey and by using a beat-heavy hybrid of techno and house music. There is no track more iconic to this music than “Good Life” a true classic that still sounds great today!

(Inner City “Do You Love What You Feel” single, pictured, Kevin Saunderson and Paris Grey)

A growing community of Detroit musicians embraced techno. Other artists who put out electronic records included Sharevari (whose “A Name of Names” vies with Cybotron for the first techno release), Blake Baxter, Carl Craig, Jeff Mills, and Moodyman. Many of these tracks are compiled in 1988’s “Techno! The New Dance Sound Of Detroit,” which helped to define and popularize techno as a movement – especially in Europe. Soon Detroit musicians were getting their work in England and France, so much so that this type of dance music is more closely associated with Europe than its home city.

As we said at the top of this post, we don’t consider ourselves experts at all about techno music, so we recommend a number of posts if you’re interested in reading and learning more. Don’t miss the NPR article “Get Familiar With Detroit Techno: 10 Essential Songs,” which features short interviews with Detroit musicians, who pick iconic tracks. For an even deeper dive, check out this landing page at Elemental magazine, which has several interviews and pieces from the heyday of the Village Voice’s coverage of techno in the 1990s. To see and hear many of these musicians, check out the short movie “Detroit: The Blueprint Of Techno,” For yet more, you can spend hours at Beatport’s exhaustive guide – we can only scratch the surface here! The music created by the first generation of techno musicians is a happy marriage between innovation and community building. By centering both beats and technological-driven ideas, the creators of techno made music that engaged the mind, worked just as well in clubs, and has a lasting influence on popular music today.

With this exciting music being so important to his hometown, it’s easy to see why a musician like Gerald Cleaver would want to make his own electronic albums. Cleaver developed the ideas that led to his first album of this music over two years, from 2017 to 2019. According to his Bandcamp page, the music “came about in his Brooklyn studio through a long process of looking to translate what he heard, into a new language. Cleaver was born and spent most of his life in Detroit, where he experienced, and was influenced by, the legendary development and blossoming of the Motor City electronic music scene.”

The release of composed music on Signs was an enormous surprise for fans of Cleaver’s spontaneous and live drumming. Yet not surprising because Cleaver’s electronic music captures the spirit of innovation at the heart of techno, with its use of sound and complex layers of ideas. For example, a few seconds into the opening track of Signs, “Jackie’s Smiles,” the first thing you hear is difficult to describe – an oscillating sound like vibrating water glasses or a squeaky pipe – but complex and musical! This mysterious sound is quickly joined by an ascending and interlocking set synthesizer motifs that build a rich tapestry of processed samples. The same atmosphere is consistently maintained across 11 tracks and over an hour. Each track has a different take on the central concept – rather than using a backbeat or heavy drum tracks, the percussion sounds are deeper in the mix, heavily textured, and support Cleaver’s more cerebral approach to Detroit techno music—an unusual and fascinating record.

Cleaver’s next electronic album, Griots from 2021, may be even better. The album’s masterpiece is “Virelles,” named after pianist David Virelles (who contributes electronic keyboards). You can listen to the track here:

“Virelles” conjures a symphonic range of machine blips, squiggles, loops, and synth textures that subtly shift shape over 8 minutes. By the time you get to the closing notes, you feel you’ve been on an epic journey packed with so many amazing vistas. The rest of the album has a similar scope – always full of interesting music and arresting details.

Cleaver recognized techno as a music of collaboration by bringing in the producer Hprizm of Antipop Consortium to create Signs Remixed, which was released alongside Griots. Hprizm takes a more grounded approach to the music with heavier drums and a backbeat. Listening to Hprizm’s remixes and then returning to Cleaver’s original version of Signs is lots of fun – so interesting to go back and forth and appreciate the differences, which expand the sonic boundaries of the original.

Cleaver has developed an approach to electronic music that distills techno’s curiosity about the future and rapture with technology but refines it into a presentation designed for listening. We can’t recommend these albums enough! And you don’t have to wait long for more of this music from Cleaver, because he’s got two new electronic records coming out that sound like they’ll be amazing. On March 17, 2023, Cleaver will release In The Wilderness, where he will play acoustic drums alongside Hprizm’s electronics and Brandon Lopez’s bass. I love Bandcamp’s description: “In The Wilderness opens with textured drums, a muted bass, celestial sound, like stars breaking into puddles.” You can order your copy here as a digital file, on CD, or (very cool looking) clear vinyl:

Then on May 25, Cleaver will release 22 / 23, which promises to be even more distinctive. For this project, Cleaver has mixed electronics with vocals. The release notes describe the music as a journey “through genre, exploring the future and recalling history, in his most place-based album yet,” where he “deftly combines his talent for electronic composition with a curious ear for the unpredictable, occasionally accompanied by singer Jean Carla Rodea.” Sounds amazing. You can order it here:

We’ve pre-ordered both of these and look forward to more music from Gerald Cleaver, both on drums and sans the drums, as well.

(Cleaver at the drums. Image: Pi Recordings)

Music Discussed:

Cybotron:
“Alleys of Your Mind” b/w “Cosmic Raindance” (Deep Space, 1981)
“Cosmic Cars” b/w “The Line” (Deep Space/Fantasy, 1982)
“Clear” b/w “Industrial Lies” (Fantasy, 1983)
“Techno City” (Fantasy, 1984)

Inner City:
“Big Fun” (1988, Virgin)
“Good Life” (1988, Virgin)

Gerald Cleaver:
Signs
(released March 27, 2020, 577 Records)
Credits:
Gerald Cleaver – electronics
Recorded during 2017-2019 in Brooklyn, New York

Griots
(released June 4, 2021, Positive Elevation)
Credits:
Gerald Cleaver – electronics.
Virelles features David Virelles, keyboards
Akinmusire features Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet
Recorded in 2020 in Brooklyn, New York.

Hprizm/Gerald Cleaver:
Signs Remixed
(released June 18, 2021, 577 Records/Positive Elevation)
Original tracks by Gerald Cleaver
Remixed by Hprizm