WILLIAM PARKER ORGAN QUARTET World Premiere Concert !
DECEMBER 4, 2011 @ Bohemian Caverns, Washington, DC >>>

William Parker: bass, compositions
Cooper-Moore: organ
Darryl Foster: tenor saxophone
Gerald Cleaver: drums

William Parker’s Organ Quartet will be treating our nation's capitol to a first-time ever live sharing of works from Uncle Joe's Spirit House, which was recorded in 2010 as a tribute and gift to Parker's Uncle Joe and Aunt Carrie Lee. The group will be performing pieces from the album, as well as new pieces written by WP for this occasion, including "Criminals in the White House".

@ the historic Bohemian Caverns
2001 11th Street
Washington, DC 20001

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

Two separate admission sets @ 7:00PM & 8:30PM
$20 per person in advance / $25 per person at the door

To purchase advance tickets: www.bohemiancaverns.com or call (202) 299-0800

Further information: www.transparentproductionsdc.org

 

 

DARIUS JONES TRIO 4-Week Residency at IBEAM, Brooklyn OCT/NOV 2011 >>>

The mighty potency of Darius Jones' Big Gurl Trio will be on full display during the their month-long residency at Brooklyn's recently renovated IBEAM studio. A tremendous opportunity for intimate audience communion. The Big Gurl book will of course be featured, and Darius promises some new compositions as well! Be there.

THURSDAYS – OCTOBER 20, 27; NOVEMBER 3, 10 – 8:30pm / $10-
@ IBEAM (in the Gowanus/Park Slope area of Brooklyn)
168 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215
http://ibeambrooklyn.com/
! Very easily accessible via the F, G, R trains at 4th Ave/9th St and a short 3-block walk !

 

 

AUM Fidelity at The Stone , JUNE 16 - 30, 2011 >>>

AUM Fidelity's founder/producer Steven Joerg curated the world-renowned experimental music performance space The Stone over the last two weeks of June, 2011 (except Mondays and John Zorn's Stone benefit concert) - a total of 24 concerts. The full schedule can be viewed here. This series prompted feature articles on the label and Mr. Joerg in both the Village Voice and the Wall Street Journal : links direct to the articles.

 

 

DARIUS JONES & MATTHEW SHIPP - LIVE @ JAZZ STANDARD, NYC on APRIL 27th! >>>

Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp celebrate the April release of Cosmic Lieder with two sets at Jazz Standard in NYC on Wednesday, April 27th. This will be their live on stage debut! They shall perform extensions and variations of the music on Cosmic Lieder, as well as wholly new compositions. We will be recording. Do not miss this momentous event if you are in NYC in April! Advance tickets available now

 

 

Early Reviews (!!!) : DARIUS JONES & MATTHEW SHIPP's Cosmic Lieder >>>

JAZZWISE (UK)
"4-Stars" --- "A form of pure expression that transcends notions of genre or style." --- "These are short pieces, densely compact and almost overwhelming in the amount of creativity they cram into a few minutes at a time. It's a breathtaking indication of how far collaborative improvisation has come."
–Daniel Spicer

ALL ABOUT JAZZ #1
"Cosmic Lieder contains the sound of a duo engaged in an exercise in totality, which takes in no small amount of the music's past even while there's never any doubt that both players are concerned with music of the future."
–Nic Jones

POINT OF DEPARTURE
"If titles mean anything, Cosmic Lieder is rather clever. Lied in the singular simply implies song with some degree of literary quality behind it, but Lieder tend to deliver some kind of cyclical narrative, some sense of journey or soul’s progress, and that is exactly what these two remarkable musicians have created here: a sequence of out-of-body journeyings that you might reasonably imagine Sun Ra and John Gilmore making, significant as much in their silences and elisions as in anything actually said, full of dark matter and tonal dust, interrupted by violent outbursts, punctuated by calms that seem prepared to run on forever."
–Brian Morton

ALL ABOUT JAZZ #2
"Veering between dark lyricism and roiling catharsis, the date offers an illuminating window into the creative discourse between two different generations of the avant-garde." --- "The [album] vacillates between sonic extremes, gracefully merging the fragile euphony of bittersweet harmonies with strident dissonances and brash intervals, yielding a singularly melodic sensibility that is equal parts introspective and extroverted." --- "Jones' vocalized timbre and rapturous delivery is comparable to a singer's dynamic range, as Shipp unleashes a labyrinthine series of melodic contours that escape the gravitational pull of standard harmony. Relatively brief and to the point, the oblique angles and abstruse detours of each concise tune invoke the art song tradition, making Cosmic Lieder an entirely appropriate title for this auspicious meeting."
–Troy Collins

DUSTED
"Julius Hemphill once said that the key to successful improvised music is contrast. He couldn’t have asked for more powerful evidence than this tightly focused baker’s dozen of performances from Darius Jones and Matthew Shipp." --- "These duo performances are truly sympathetic and move at the molecular level, making each piece on Cosmic Lieder wonderfully dense with information and ideas."
–Jason Bivens

BBC.com
"This engrossing union of pianist Matthew Shipp and alto saxophonist Darius Jones fascinates for its emotional and conceptual richness." --- "They both lock into a game of convergence and divergence that succeeds for their forceful individuality and unforced alchemy."
–Kevin Le Gendre

SOMETHING ELSE!
"Ideas are dwelled upon, not over-dwelled, and then they move on to the next one. The discreteness gives each track a clearer identity. Avant garde jazz? Perhaps more like improvised classical .. The mood simmers, stews and flows almost like a chamber piece." --- "A true collaboration of equals"
–S. Victor Aaron

EXCLAIM! (Canada)
"I'm going to say this bluntly: if you're a fan of improvised music, you need to hear this record. Combining language derived from free-improv, jazz and 20th century classical music, they've created a 13-part song cycle that is simultaneously beautiful, ugly, serene and chaotic. Each track is short, concise and focused. The interaction between players is almost like a fencing match — Jones deftly weaves melodies around and through Shipp's dense harmonic backdrop while Shipp parries and thrusts his ideas into the fray. That being said, it's not a battle, and the result is a stunning album that features two of NYC's most distinct voices."
–Matthew Fong

Be there to see/hear them for their live debut when everything shall be, furthered...

 

 

Billy Bang, Rest in Peace >>>

Indeed may this beautiful spirit rest in peace and then fly unfettered anew. He certainly earned it. The joy he projected both as a musician and a human being was catching, inspiring, and just, wonderful. Here is a clip of Billy Bang playing in duet with William Parker in 2007. (thanks to our friend Adam for directing our attention to this link back in early March)

 

 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011! >>>

 

 

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