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Search Result for Label Corbett vs. Dempsey
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CVSD 126CD
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Restock expected in early 2026. For the first time, a release of select music performed at Chicago's Empty Bottle in the heyday of the creative music boom of the 1990s. From 1996-2005, writer and producer John Corbett and musician and composer Ken Vandermark teamed up to curate a series of concerts, the Empty Bottle Jazz & Improvised Music Series. Together with annual international festivals, the series comprised more than 500 performances over its nine-year span, which was lauded in the international press and helped focus attention on Chicago as a hotspot for improvised music. The majority of the music was dutifully documented by Malachi Ritscher, from whose archives The Bottle Tapes: Selections from the Empty Bottle Jazz & Improvised Music Series (1996-2005) is drawn. Over the course of six CDs, arranged in chronological sequence, the box set revels in the span of the music presented at the Bottle, from the hardest blown free jazz to microscopic free improvisation and other kinds of experimental music. The lineup incorporates nearly 100 international musicians, including Peter Brötzmann (who formed his Chicago Tentet at the Empty Bottle in 1997), Milford Graves (performing solo), a Bobby Bradford quartet with Fred Anderson, Hamid Drake and Wadada Leo Smith, Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble, the Dutch bands Available Jelly and Clusone 3, Von Freeman in his only performance with Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink, Jim O'Rourke duetting with Cor Fuhler, Mats Gustafsson and Thurston Moore in their first face-off, Chicago Underground Quartet, Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd Quartet, and much more. The package comes with a lavishly illustrated 64-page book, loaded with never-published photos and vintage ephemera, including Dan Grzeca's beautiful posters, as well as an in-depth essay by Corbett, with play-by-play notes on the music. Also featuring Willie Pickens, Wilbur Campbell, Ron Dewar, Joshua Abrams, Robert Barry, Alexander Schlippenbach Trio, François Houle, In Zenith, Fred Anderson, Kent Kessler, Hamid Drake, Mars Williams, Misha Mengelberg, Aaly Trio, Dkv Trio, Irene Schweizer, Evan Parker, Ned Rothenberg, André Jaume, Floros Floridis, Peter Kowald, Günter Sommer, John Butcher, Kevin Drumm, Holz Für Europa, Joe Mcphee, Philipp Wachsmann, Daniele D'agaro Quartet, Erik Friedlander, and the Anthony Coleman Quartet.
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CVSD 125CD
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It's not a stretch to say that saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark's path into creative music was paved by Joe McPhee. In particular, McPhee's landmark 1976 LP Tenor -- recorded casually in a Swiss chalet and featuring four new compositions that effortlessly combined experimentation and lyricism -- was Vandermark's ear-opener. The two musicians would go on to begin a fruitful working relationship in 1996, a partnership that continues today, and now Vandermark has paid homage to his friend and mentor with a suite of compositions and improvisations. These solo works, performed on an array of horns (clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone and of course tenor saxophone), are as melodious and unapologetically beautiful as anything in Vandermark's oeuvre, interweaving tremendous swells of emotion and ingenious linear inventions. Vandermark played the six pieces in the suite in front of an invited audience at Corbett vs. Dempsey, the gallery's natural acoustic drawing out every nuance of his playing. He augmented the suite, each part of which is named for a flower with significance to McPhee or Vandermark, with several powerful free improvisations, all titled after "filler flowers," making the entire program a bouquet for Mr. McPhee. Exquisitely documented by Alex Inglizian, with cover art by Arch Connelly and liner notes by Vandermark.
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CVSDLP 016LP
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Who was that masked man? This question is on many lips having seen and heard the Defiant Jazz episode of the hit TV show Severance, the one in which the show's protagonists are allowed a company dance party, accompanied by a light show and increasingly wild, funky, saxophone-driven music. The masked man? None other than Joe McPhee, Poughkeepsie, New York's best kept secret, one of the great figures of contemporary improvised music. A living legend looming large, you might say. And now a presence in households around the globe. This "taster" is more than a "best of" record. Defiant Jazz includes "Shakey Jake," the dance party track, a funky upsetter from 1970 that shimmies and rolls at the same time it builds and explodes. The vinyl-only compilation then moves across time, touching on another early track, the spiritual jazz classic "Astral Spirits," from the 1972 CJR LP Trinity and a 1983 version of the Sonny Rollins tune "Oleo" from the hat Hut LP of the same name, with psychedelic guitar outbursts courtesy of Raymond Boni. The second side opens with "I See You Baby Shakin' That Ass," a self-proclaimed "throwdown" with McPhee as emcee and flamethrowing saxophonist, fronting two bands, Cato Salsa Experience and The Thing. A dance floor jack-in-the-box for anyone unlucky enough not to have heard it yet. The program concludes with a sensitive tenor/drum duet between McPhee and Paal Nilssen-Love. The cover features previously unpublished vintage photos of McPhee. If you already know Mr. McPhee's music, this compilation is designed to fulfill, and if you're new to him, it will thrill and chill. Win-win.
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CVSDLP 014LP
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Corbett vs. Dempsey presents Horizon, featuring music by Joseph Shabason and Thom Gill as a score for artist David Hartt's film. This vinyl-only project is co-released with Hartt's new imprint, Actualité. It is the label's maiden voyage and exists in a strictly limited edition of 300 copies. Horizon features soundtrack music composed by Canadian multi-instrumentalist and composer Shabason and Toronto-based musician Gill, also featuring vibraphonist/marimbist Michael Davidson. It includes a breathtaking interpretation of the song "Quiet Life," written by David Sylvian and featured on Japan's 1979 record of the same name. Hartt drew the cover image, of a concrete panel used in the curtain wall of the Chateau Champlain, based on archival materials from the Fonds Roger D'Astous, housed at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montréal. He commissioned the British comics artist Lando to make speculative drawings of a future city, specifically with Montréal as its starting point, featuring his nephews. In notes from the exhibition at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, where the work was originally shown, curator François LeTourneux writes: "While steering clear of a strictly autobiographical approach, Horizon draws on his personal experience to examine the complex relationship between identity, design, architecture, and urban planning within a specific cultural context and temporal framework. The filmic component of the work explores the daily life of his sister Sue's family, a culturally mixed household like the one in which David and Sue themselves grew up, in Beaconsfield, a suburb of Montréal (of Caribbean descent, they were adopted by English-speaking, Jewish, and white parents). Hartt has described his youth and the socio-cultural context of the time as having been the source of a 'profound sense of alienation,' against which the modernist buildings of the downtown landscape offered a kind of imaginary refuge." Immaculately and painstakingly engineered, mastered, and plated, and pressed on 180-gram vinyl, Horizon plays at 45 rpm, giving the tracks room to breathe and the music space to shine. Impossible to adequately describe, it is as captivating as it is rigorously thought through. A cool, shimmering atmosphere suggesting a utopian soundscape that might be at home in the remade architecture of some near future.
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2CD
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CVSD 123CD
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Two decades ago, an all-star assembly of Chicago improvisers started a new band, drawing its name from an 1841 book by Charles Mackay: Extraordinary Popular Delusions. With weekly gigs at a spot in Chicago called Hotti Biscotti, Jim Baker, Mars Williams, Brian Sandstrom, and Steve Hunt honed their sound, which could be ferocious or nerdy or diffuse, as they moment required. After a couple years, the quartet moved to a regular Monday session at Beat Kitchen, where they were resident band for more than fifteen years. Williams was from time to time called away on tour, frequently enough that the band invited another horn player, the venerable Edward Wilkerson Jr., to substitute. This inevitably led to quintet convenings with both Williams and Wilkerson, the likes of which are now legend. Without question, although they have only released two previous records, EPD is one of the signal ensembles of Chicago creative music. Mars Williams (1955-2023) had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer when EPD booked a concert at Elastic Arts Foundation at the end of August, 2023. Williams, who lived less than three months more, was on the bill. Nobody expected him to play the way he did. More than an honorary appearance, this was Mars at the top of his game, playing, as it were, for his life. With Sandstrom switching between bass, trumpet, and electric guitar, Wilkerson doubling on saxophone and clarinet as well as oud and didgeridoo, Baker on ARP synthesizer and piano as well as violin, and Hunt on all sorts of percussion, Williams' table of toys and his blazing soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones were in perfect company -- a band that could freely improvise open structures and instantly compose unforeseen suites, while maintaining a level of intensity and intrigue on par with the saxophonist's mastery. Long term relationships extending outside this group, including those with NRG Ensemble, Mars Williams' Ayler Xmas projects, as well as a variety of ad hoc and shorter-lived amalgamations, made this one of the most fertile environments for these players, and this final quintet bore the marks of a classic concert. Which it was. Fortunately, Dave Zuchowski was there to brilliantly document it in all its two-set glory. Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present the entire concert on two CDs, as the fourth installment of CvsD's Mars Archive series, with a cover painting by Timothy Howe.
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EOM 116LP
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Archaic, infernal, radical, consistent, courageous. Following the release of his LP The Lovers And Destroyers with Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem in autumn, 2024, renowned guitarist Caspar Brötzmann and his band Caspar Brötzmann Massaker present a collaborative release between Corbett vs. Dempsey and Exile On Mainstream (Berlin). The record features two different live versions of "All This Violence," recorded in Vienna and Dresden, with Saskia von Klitzing (drums) and Eduardo Delgado Lopez (bass). Founded in 1986, Caspar Brötzmann Massaker became a significant force in the 1990s alternative rock scene. The band's albums The Tribe (1987), Black Axis (1989), Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore (1991), Koksofen (1993), Home (1995) and Mute Massaker (1999) are heralded underground classics, having a profound influence on bands and artists like Sonic Youth, SUNN O))), Faith No More, Neurosis, Sumac, and Helmet, to name a few. The band's music is textural, visceral, arresting, and urgent, marked by repetitive, hypnotic intensity, and Brötzmann's signature guitar sound. The legacy lies in his fearless experimentation, dissolving boundaries between classical music structures and amplified instrumentation in rock music. Since the mid-1980s, Caspar Brötzmann has been shaping an unmistakable sound -- infernal, radical, uncompromising. He unwaveringly pursues his own path, beyond clear genre boundaries. As the son of a famous saxophonist, he found his artistic identity early on and developed a unique sound language that discharges in brute catharsis. His music is not an adaptation to trends, but a sensitive, passionate, almost obsessive approach to despair and anger -- and yet full of hope. With his virtuoso independence on the instrument, he is an exceptional phenomenon. An atonal Hendrix, made in Germany. Also includes full album on CD.
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CVSD 119CD
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Corbett vs. Dempsey presents the release of PRO FAKE NO REJECT by pianist Erez Dessel. This is Dessel's first solo CD. One of the most astonishing young musicians to emerge in contemporary improvised music, Erez Dessel (b. 1998) is helping to revitalize the practice. An ace technician who studied at the New England Conservatory, Dessel is in no way conservative. Indeed, his bracing approach to the keyboard and deeply intuitive sense of form can be explosive, uncorked energy summoning references to Cecil Taylor and the Don Pullen/Milford Graves duets, and an almost Russian Romantic darkness -- imagine an improvised Mussorgsky -- offset by keen emotional intelligence, with joyful melodicism and an airborne quality. And nestled within Dessel's playing there's a perverse streak, a contrarianism that might call to mind Misha Mengelberg or Jim Baker. An active participant in Chicago's current creative music scene.
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CVSDLP 012LP
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LP version. Corbett vs. Dempsey presents this joint release with Thanatosis Records (Stockholm), the second record by the quartet Das B. The lineup features Maya Magdas on piano, Mazen Kerbaj on trumpet, Mike Majowski on bass, and Tony Buck on drums. Taking structural and dynamic cues from the classic John Coltrane record A Love Supreme, Das B totally reinvents the music, and in the process meticulously subverts the notion of the tribute or songbook. Available on both CD and LP, in strictly limited editions.
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CVSD 122CD
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Corbett vs. Dempsey presents the release of the self-titled debut CD by the international quartet The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. The highly democratic foursome works in the productive netherworld between genres, where genres go to die. Integrating noise, jazz, electronic music, and pure mania, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters does not sit passively waiting for something to happen; in highly focused free improvisations, they take the proverbial bull by the horns with tempestuous throwdowns that have both a sense of abandon and an innate order. Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen singes the proceedings with bursts of alto while Anglo-Iranian turntablist Mariam Rezaei constructs a startling architecture with pioneering artistry. Italian piccolo trumpeter Gabriele Mitelli doubles on an array of electronics, and Austrian drummer Lukas König propels everything with propane power. Who are the monsters that the mind produces in its dormant state? The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters ponders the question by means of sound and spontaneity, as Goya did with his incisive etchings. Like a defibrillator, they place paddles on the chest and give it a jolt, nine jolts in nine tracks, hoping to revive our moribund consciousness. Awaken the creative impulse, they urge us, or suffer the consequence.
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CVSD 117CD
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Corbett vs. Dempsey presents this joint release with Thanatosis Records (Stockholm), the second record by the quartet Das B. The lineup features Maya Magdas on piano, Mazen Kerbaj on trumpet, Mike Majowski on bass, and Tony Buck on drums. Taking structural and dynamic cues from the classic John Coltrane record A Love Supreme, Das B totally reinvents the music, and in the process meticulously subverts the notion of the tribute or songbook. Available on both CD and LP, in strictly limited editions.
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CVSD 118CD
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Corbett vs. Dempsey presents Jaap Blonk's Ursonate, featuring the complete text-sound work by artist Kurt Schwitters. Blonk first recorded the canonical Dada poetry piece in 1986, released as an LP on BVHAAST, Willem Breuker's label. He has returned to the work multiple times over the ensuing decades, and this incredible new recording shows his deepening understanding of the pioneering work. Blonk writes in the liner notes: "Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) wrote his Ursonate or Sonate in Urlauten ('Primordial Sonata' or 'Sonata in Primordial Sounds') over ten years, from 1922 to 1932. During that period Schwitters tried out many preliminary parts in public poetry readings. It became a 30-page work in invented words, which he later considered one of his two masterpieces (the other being the Merzbau in his house in Hannover, destroyed in 1944). The Ursonate has a structure similar to that of a classical sonata or symphony. It consists of four movements: 'Erster Teil' ('first part'), 'Largo,' 'Scherzo,' and 'Presto.' After a short introduction, the first movement opens with an exposition of its four main themes (subjects), each of which is subsequently 'developed' (development in the sense it is used in classical sonata form), leading to a coda. It is note- worthy that the theme exposition returns as a reprise before each new development but the last one. Both the Largo and the Scherzo have a centered (A-B-A) construction in which the middle part contrasts with the two identical outer parts. The Presto has a strict rhythm broken only by a few interjections from the first movement and the Scherzo. Like the first movement, it follows the sonata form: exposition (repeated immediately in this case), development, and recapitulation. Next is the Kadenz, leaving the reciter free to choose between the written version and his own. However, in his written instructions for future performers of the piece, Schwitters says that he wrote his cadenza only for those among them who 'had no imagination.' In my performances of the Ursonate, I always create an improvised cadenza on the basis of the sonata's thematic material. Only on the recordings I have issued, for reasons of completeness, a recording of the written cadenza is included as a separate track." --Jaap Blonk, December 2024
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LP
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CVSDLP 013LP
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Music Is A Message From Space is a bracing nine-track LP featuring new and archival recordings, all orbiting around the intergalactic soundscape introduced by Sun Ra. Ra's own acapella track "I Don't Believe in Love," recorded by Ra at home in Chicago during the 1950s, kicks the program off. This intimate private recording is followed by two intense new solo improvisations by French guitarist Raymond "Moncho" Boni, one acoustic and one electric, inspired by seeing the Arkestra preparing for a gig in Arles in 1976. The first side wraps up with Jason Adasiewicz's riveting unaccompanied vibraphone workout on Ra's "Lanquidity" and "Where Pathways Meet," both compositions from the LP Lanquidity. With a completely different take on Lanquidity, side two begins with four wild remixes by legendary Cologne techno pioneer Wolfgang Voigt, using layered samples from the record. Hailing from the intersection of free jazz and out rock, Ken Vandermark's band Spaceways Inc., with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Hamid Drake, continue with a medley of two Ra tunes ("We Travel the Spaceways" and "Space is the Place"), in collaboration with the Italian band Zu. And where the program started in disbelief, love-skepticism, it concludes with Joe McPhee's emphatic loving embrace on "Cosmic Love," a classic tenor/synth sound-on-sound recording from 1970. In its breadth, Music is a Message From Space revels in the omnidirectionality of Ra's influence. The vinyl is strictly limited to 500 copies and features cover art by Emil Schult, who designed classic 1970s LPs for Kraftwerk. The record's inner sleeve reproduces the artworks in Nothing Is: Sun Ra and Other's Covers, a show curated by John Corbett and Albert Oehlen for JUBG in Cologne and CvsD in Chicago, serving as a full-color commemoration of that recent exhibition.
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CD
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CVSD 112CD
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Corbett vs. Dempsey presents And Yeah So (1981-1985), the first ever compilation by Splat! Emerging amid the primo froth of the British post-punk era, Splat!'s lineup included vocalist Dave Parsons, the mastermind behind Ron Johnson Records. The band released its only 7-inch single as the label's maiden record, going on to follow up with a 12-inch EP. These (plus one track on a compilation) were the sum total official output, but the band was active and made loads of fantastic, high-octane, often hilarious and off-kilter recordings, the best of which are collected here, together with their full discography, and made available on CD for the first time. Nineteen tracks that give truth to the title "Jugular Blowjob," a heavy heap of blessed mess that kicks the whole comp off. Dave Parsons tells the full Splat! story: "Splat! were four, sometimes five, misfits from a small town halfway between Nottingham and Derby in the middle of England. Influenced by the likes of the Pop Group, PiL, The Fall, and the Birthday Party but also by all the punk stuff that they had experienced when they were fifteen years old or so. The band played mainly in the local area and got a good reputation for messy live shows that often ended in blood and tears (and some sweat). The band was around in 1982 -- after some pre-incarnations in 1980 and 1981 -- Paul Walker, drums (17 years old), Dave Parsons, voice (19 years old), John Allsopp, guitar (19 years old), Mark Grebby (bass, 20 years old) was the main lineup. A single was recorded at Cargo Studios. The first Splat! single did okay -- it sold most of its pressing of 1000 -- there was an interview in Sounds and John Peel played it a couple of times and plans went ahead for the second release. The 12" EP (RON2) came out in 1984 and did much the same. Soon after that the band split up, with some recorded but unreleased material (some of which is here for the first time in physical form). Dave continued Ron Johnson and the label had considerable artistic/critical success from 1984 to 1988 with Big Flame, A Witness, Stump, the Shrubs, MacKenzies, The Ex, etc. gaining the label a reputation for angular post-Beefheartian guitar noise-pop.
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CVSD 126BK
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Restocked. In Straight Up, Without Wings, Joe McPhee surveys sixty years in creative music. Starting with his trumpeter-father's influence and formative years in the U.S. Army, McPhee recounts experiences as a Black-hippy-cum-budding-musician based in upstate New York, perched at an ideal distance from Manhattan's free jazz demimonde of the 1960s and its loft scene of the 1970s. A natural storyteller, revealing never-told tales and reveling in the joys of noise, McPhee puts the influence of -- and encounters with -- Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Albert Ayler into the context of an independently-minded young player, ravenous for experience, dealing with the crucible of racism, seeking to break out beyond the bounds of a regional Hudson Valley scene that he knows like the back of his hand. The memoir draws forward through thrilling passages in Europe and across the United States, as McPhee gains momentum, as his music becomes the impetus for multiple record labels, as he collaborates with figures from Peter Brötzmann to Pauline Oliveros, and as he eventually goes on to inspire musicians far and wide. Written as an oral history, deftly conducted by Mike Faloon to preserve McPhee's unique narrative voice, Straight Up, Without Wings includes "reflections" by eight musicians from across the protagonist's rich history. Photography: Ziga Koritnik, Ken Brunton, John Corbett. First printing, edition of 1000. 166 pages. Dimensions: 8.5" x 6" x .5".
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2LP
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CVSDLP 011LP
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Corbett vs. Dempsey and Studio Williams announce that Radio Play is available on long play vinyl for the first time. The double-disk set contains two adaptions of Inklusive. Inklusive is a play written by Bavarian playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz. It is part of a trilogy of radio plays from 1971 titled Trilogie Münchener Lebens. The play was first broadcast as a radio play in former West Germany on Südwestfunk in 1972. A second version was broadcast in former East Germany on Rundfunk der DDR in 1974. The West and East German broadcasts are the basis for two radio play adaptations by artist Christopher Williams. Both adaptations will be recorded in German using the same technology used to produce the original broadcasts of 1972 and 1974. Eva Mattes (O.k., The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant) is an actress born in Tegernsee. Sebastian Bezzel (Tatort, Eberhoferkrimis) is an actor from Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Norbert Stöß (Abschnitt 40) is an actor born in Dresden. Andreas Leupold (The Human Centipede) is an actor from East Berlin. Rüdiger Carl is a free jazz artist born in Goldap, East Prussia. Mo Stern is a sound engineer, visual artist, DJ and music producer born in Hamburg. Franz Xaver Kroetz is a playwright, actor, and director from Munich. Christopher Williams is a Los Angeles-born artist and professor of photography who lives and works in Cologne. Maximilian Klemens Sänger is an artist and filmmaker based in Düsseldorf. Packaged in cardboard sleeve with paper insert. Produced and directed by Christopher Williams; executive production by: John Corbett & Jim Dempsey. Edition of 500.
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CD
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CVSD 116CD
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Until now, the earliest recordings anyone has heard by Joe McPhee come from the period around his 1968 debut album, Underground Railroad. McPhee had just started playing tenor saxophone at that point. A couple of years earlier, the bassist featured on all of McPhee's early recordings, Tyrone Crabb, led a band of his own, the Jazzmen, in which McPhee was featured on his first instrument: trumpet. Indeed, McPhee was a trumpet legacy -- his father was a trumpeter. In the mid-'60s, Joe was a serious young player with deep knowledge and an expansive ear. Performing around Poughkeepsie and across the Hudson Valley, the Jazzmen were one of the very first ensembles recorded by Craig Johnson, who would go on to form the CjR label expressly to release McPhee's music. The fledgling audio engineer was clearly learning the ropes when he documented this incredible 1966 performance, but despite a few excusable acoustic blemishes, it's a beautiful window into McPhee's trumpet playing, suggesting that, had he stuck to that instrument alone, he might well have been considered a major figure on the horn (of course, he is such a figure on the pocket trumpet); the opening track, a version of "One Mint Julep" as arranged by Freddie Hubbard (on his Blue Note record Open Sesame) shows McPhee's lithe stylings to good effect. McPhee's musical cosmology was much bigger than a single axe, however, as is evident on the sprawling second track, which, over the course of half-an-hour proceeds from an excoriating yowl to a version of Miles Davis's "Milestones" taken at a sweltering tempo. A portent of the free jazz to follow and a marker of McPhee's foundations in hard bop and soul jazz, 1966 features the entire reel-to-reel tape long thought lost, simply labeled: "Joe McPhee, 1966, trumpet." Featuring Joe McPhee (trumpet, recorder), Harry Hall (tenor saxophone, recorder), Reggie Marks (tenor saxophone, recorder), Mike Kull (piano), Tyrone Crabb (bass, bandleader), and Charlie Benjamin (drums).
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CD
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CVSD 113CD
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The beginning of the 1970s was a watershed moment in the terrestrial life of Sun Ra. With his band, the Arkestra, he began touring internationally. He and his manager Alton Abraham penned a deal with ABC-Impulse! for a series of records which introduced him to many new and distant listeners, as did his Blue Thumb LP Space is the Place. The film of the same name was under way in northern California at the time, too, and Ra accepted a lectureship at University of California, Berkeley, in 1971, teaching a class titled "The Black Man and the Cosmos." This course of study was held in some secrecy, apparently open exclusively to Black students who were strictly forbidden to record the lectures. Ra's assistants did, however, document the sessions, and some of these recordings have made their way to YouTube. The incredible half-hour of Berkeley Lecture presented here, however, is previously unknown, extracted from the Creative Audio Archive's extensive holdings. It presents Ra walking his students through a series of wonderful paradoxes and riddles, the sound of his chalk on the chalkboard serving as a kind of Greek chorus, commenting on or complementing his highly creative pedagogy. At the end of the lecture, Ra performs two musical demonstrations, the first a piano version of the Arkestra classic "Love in Outer Space," followed by a blistering 16-minute solo on the Moog synthesizer. Available for the first time ever, with cover images of the original tape box and reel featuring Ra's annotations. Transfer by Todd Carter. Mastering by Matt Mehlan. Original tape box and reel from CAA. CD designed by David Khan-Giordano. Produced by John Corbett.
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CVSD 111CD
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Two brilliant improvisers, two distinct generations, one close-listening encounter. Swedish guitarist (and, elsewhere, banjo player) Niklas Fite brings a flinty intimacy to his playing, a dry punch that reminds us that the guitar is a percussion instrument. One of the great figures in European improvised music, based in Hannover, Germany, Günter Christmann gained notoriety as a trombonist starting in the very early 1970s, but he was equally engaged in playing double bass and cello and has in recent years devoted himself mainly to the latter. On insisting, Christmann plays cello exclusively. Together, on eight tracks, the two players delve deeply into their collective sound spectrum, exploring timbre and timing, dynamics and dissonance. Like the different iterations of Christmann's variable ensemble Vario (one of which CvsD has documented on the CD Vario 34-3), this is music with intensity and integrity, hardcore improvised music, action-packed minute gestures concentrated within a sweeping overall field of sound and energy. Recorded over two days in 2019.
A statement from Niklas Fite: "the breath is of essential importance in great music. music that never gives that moment of exhalation -- of relief -- suffocates the listener. on the other hand: music that only exhales will also suffocate the listener. the inhalation -- the buildup of energy -- and the exhalation -- the release -- is the game we want to play. and perhaps more importantly: the correct timing of these, which can never be calculated or analyzed, but only felt. a third, and very important aspect of breath in music is the holding of the breath. to freeze in suspense, in anticipation of what will come, and in reflection of that which has been. these are sensations that can be felt in great music, but the truth of the music is far more complex than what I so far have described, and probably more complex than anyone can describe."
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CVSD 110CD
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British percussionist Tony Oxley returned to his piece "Angular Apron" multiple times after debuting it in the early 1970s. Drawing equally on his interest in contemporary composed music by folks like Xenakis and Ligeti and on his long tenure as one of the central figures in European improvised music, Oxley assembled a quintet to play the work in Bochum, Germany, in 1992. The one-time ensemble consisted of five players from varied backgrounds. Trumpeter and flugelhornist Manfred Schoof, who delivers one of his last performances before turning exclusively to composition, is one of the pioneers of free music in Germany, a somewhat understated figure of immense power and authority whose 1969 FMP LP European Echoes stands as one of the great documents of orchestral improvisation, and whose own quintet helped define the transitional forms of new jazz a few years earlier in the decade. American bassist Sirone is best known for his work in the Revolutionary Ensemble, with violinist Leroy Jenkins and drummer Jerome Cooper. Sirone's presence in Oxley's group confirms the drummer's commitment to a transatlantic aesthetic, one he explored extensively with Cecil Taylor and William Parker in the Feel Trio. Saxophonist Larry Stabbins brings his incredible versatility to the band, adding the mix of ferocity and buoyancy that he added to diverse projects from Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Peter Brötzmann to Weekend and Working Week. On piano and electronics, Pat Thomas was at the time a relative newcomer to the British scene, rapidly becoming one of its leading lights and most sought-after collaborators. Oxley drew on this crew's wide range of orientations for this "Angular Apron," exploiting their extremes of timbre and register, calling on their acuity as listeners, and prodding them with his finely-honed junkshop of metal percussion, with which he detonates the hour-long piece. Presenting the never-before-released music in its complete glory, mastered from the original tapes, the Angular Apron CD design features images of two of Oxley's paintings. Recorded October 2, 1992, at the Ruhr Jazz Festival, Bochum, Germany. Mastered by Larry Stabbins. Design by David Khan-Giordano. Produced by John Corbett. Thanks to Tutta Oxley.
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CVSD 108CD
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Kyosaku is a trio. Guitarist Finn Loxbo. Electric bassist Else Bergman. Drummer Ryan Packard. They are based in Stockholm. Together, they explore intensive plateaus. States of constant ecstasy. Kyosaku's music has been described as relentless. But it's really a combination of mesmerizing and prodding, the name a reference to Zen Buddhist "encouragement stick," used to rouse dozy meditators. Packard says: "Relentless as a conceptual place to live within. To be wide awake, relentlessly. To use a full peripheral vision and accept the full spectrum of color. To saturate. To stay within and grow deeper into the details of density, of a shared cohesive spirit. Endless variations under a common cause of stasis." With full-on heavy-hitting sound, this might seem to forecast a brutal listen, but on their second outing, Kyosaku, the band drills deep into detail, the buoyant music gradually shifting while maintaining its ferocity, in a way inviting comparison with Kommun, another group with Loxbo and Packard (also Lisa Ullén and Vilhelm Bromander) in which they explore the opposite end of the dynamic spectrum, also with an intensity and constancy. On the CD's two longform tracks, the music comes with influences hidden and explicit, from Mahavishnu Orchestra to Melt Banana, but it's entirely original, featuring the sum creative energies of its three potent parts, sustained groove serving the purpose of raising the intensity bar. Packard again: "We have collectively agreed upon the idea that under no circumstances should you let up. We propose this question to ourselves before we play: If you start with max intensity, is there more room to go? How does one collectively sustain at such a high intensity, volume? Where is your focus?" For the listener, focal point is also the point. Are you listening? How closely? How does your attention shift? What do you notice in the sound, in the manner of articulation, in the variations and the repetitions? And what are the joys of listening so closely to something so powerful? Like putting your hand on the ribcage of a sleeping tiger. Recorded by Christopher Roth at Studio Dubious, November 23-24, 2022. Mixed and mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Photo by Daniel Piaggio Strandlund.
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CVSD 109CD
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Joe McPhee is one of the great multi-instrumentalists of contemporary improvised music. His instrumental battery has included saxophones, clarinets, valve trombone, pocket trumpet, sound-on-sound tape recorder, and space organ, but another arrow in his quiver is text. McPhee has been writing poems since the 1970s. He occasionally introduces one into performance, as an introduction or afterword to music, and in recent years he's been known to do full-on readings, text only, featuring his inimitable sense of dramatic timing intoned in his rich voice. The poems range from the observational to the political to the surreal. They're composed in rhyme or according to an internal rhythm, sometimes utterly prosaic, sometimes fantastic and flamboyant. A few of them capture the immediacy of improvised music more acutely than any critical writing on the subject, his half-century immersion in the craft of free music having given him a bottomless cup to draw on and his sensitivity to the nuances of language providing a host of palpable metaphors and metonyms, similes and strophes. The poems are marvels on the page, but they really take flight in McPhee's mouth. In 2021, during a flurry of pandemic-inspired poetic activity, he traveled to Chicago expressly to record a program of his poems. For the studio date, he invited saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark to play duets as interludes between groupings of the poems. Then Vandermark, engineer Alex Inglizian, and the CvsD team sat breathless in the Experimental Sound Studio control room as McPhee proceeded to perform his poetry nonstop and without repetition for nearly two hours. The result is Musings of a Bahamian Son, the first full-length release dedicated to McPhee's writing, with 27 poems interspersed with nine musical interludes and a postlude.
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CVSD 105CD
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At the tail end of 1996, saxophonist Mars Williams and drummer Hamid Drake took the tall corner stage at Chicago's Empty Bottle for two sets of duets. The rock club had just started a weekly Jazz & Improvised Music Series, curated by Ken Vandemark and John Corbett, which would run for nearly a decade. This rare pairing brought together two pivotal figures in the city's creative music scene, both of whom had extensive experience in diverse areas of music, from the free jazz focus of this intimate encounter to Mars's stints in rock with the Waitresses and the Psychedelic Furs and Hamid's work in Mandingo Griot Society, playing in reggae house bands, and lending rhythms to hits by Herbie Hancock. As eclectic as these inputs were, in the deep souls of Williams and Drake they added to the players' burgeoning inventive resources, rather than urging the players to pastichery. In the venerable dialogical lineage of saxophone and drum kit, these two contemporary ninjas indeed invented their own approach, very different, for instance, from other such duo settings for Drake, like those with Fred Anderson, Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, or Ken Vandermark. Here, the fiery reed-work of Williams lends the concert a special urgency and punch, Drake's funk trap imbued with G-force, his cymbals ringing with nuance, his toms speaking like a whole West African drum choir. Williams responds to this positive energy with one of his most commanding performances, starting with his composition "The Worm" (written for Dennis Rodman of the Bulls), and continuing through a series of phenomenal improvisations. Released by CvsD as part of a series of archival Mars Williams CDs, hand selected by Williams shortly before his untimely death in 2023, I Know You Are But What Am I? goes on the record proclaiming the lasting power of Mars Williams, especially in the company of a master like Hamid Drake.
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CVSD 107CD
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When Mars Williams dove into his vault to excavate several recordings for a Mars Archive series on Corbett vs. Dempsey, he immediately landed on a concert date from a decade earlier. The event, recorded at Chicago's Elastic Arts Foundation in 2012, featured a trio with Williams on reed instruments, Darin Gray on bass, and Chris Corsano on drums. This configuration had already been highly enough estimated by Williams that he'd posted one set on Bandcamp, but he saved the other set for future release, and selected it to be the third CD in CvsD's archival suite. Gray is of course well known to creative music insiders for his work with Jim O'Rourke and Akira Sakata, and as half of On Fillmore (with Glenn Kotche, of Wilco fame); he's a massively resourceful player with keen ears. Corsano is one of the hardest working percussionists in improvised music who has played with everyone under the sun, among them Joe McPhee and Okkyung Lee. In this freely improvised context, the threesome works almost as a single organism, spinning sounds that develop organically and patiently. Dave Zuchowski documented the date in a gorgeous recording. This is creative music at an exceptionally high level, with no gimmicks or compromises. Taken together with the other episodes in the Mars Archive series, it helps paint a full some picture of the restless creativity that was embodied in Mars Williams.
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CVSD 106CD
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From a night of music in Holland that's become legendary among NRG Ensemble enthusiasts, Hold That Thought presents a blazing concert of the quintet's unique sound. With Mars Williams and Ken Vandermark on reeds, Kent Kessler and Brian Sandstrom on basses (the latter doubling on trumpet and electric guitar), and Steve Hunt on drums, this incarnation of the band was arguably its tightest and mightiest, taking the inspiration of founder Hal Russell (1926-1992) and running with it. All the way. The quirkiness and eccentricity of Russell's vision remained a lasting part of the fabric of NRG, but the level of discipline and craftsmanship achieved by this version of the combo is arguably taken to a whole other level. Working with original material, mostly by Williams and Vandermark, NRG Ensemble had its signature pugilistic feel, with lots of time changes and dynamic shifts, quick starts and hard stops. Williams certainly knew how to push up the energy/NRG with a strangulated solo or a sudden burst of beautiful melody; all his years in creative music, from time spent as Roscoe Mitchell's copyist to countless weeks on the road kicking ass with the Psychedelic Furs, led him to a core understanding that linked many kinds of noise-making -- rock, funk, soul, free jazz, squeaky-bonk improvised music. Those tributaries meet in NRG Ensemble, with his longstanding colleagues gathered to joyfully up the ante. Williams chose this beautiful recording as one of three archival tapes he wanted released as soon as possible, and he approached CvsD with the job of shepherding them into the world just before his tragically early death from cancer in November, 2023.
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CVSD 104CD
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For the first time, a compact version of Rob Mazurek's magisterial Exploding Star Orchestra -- Exploding Star Orchestra/Small Unit -- commits its music to CD. Recorded live at Corbett vs. Dempsey's Chicago gallery space in March, 2023, the six-piece band featured Mazurek on trumpet, Tomeka Reid on cello, Damon Locks on voice and electronics, Angélica Sánchez on Wurlitzer, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Chad Tayloron drums. Spectral Fiction consists of two tracks, the deeply exploratory "Equations of Love in Prismatic Waves of Color," clocking in at nearly 40-minutes, and the super-groovalistic 14-minutes of "Driftless" (a Mazurek-penned melody named after the Sam Gilliam exhibition in which the music took place and by which it was inspired). The musicians were already warmed up -- really hot at this point -- by a concert the night before, playing music from their great International Anthem LP Lightning Dreamers in the Sky Theater at Chicago's Adler Planetarium. With Locks's incantatory samples and momentum-staked poetry and Reid's incisive pizzicato and arco cello intonations, the band moves through a spectacular range of diverse colors and emotional zones, locking into rolling grooves and opening out onto fields of energy and sound. Often open and investigatory, it's a different side of Mazurek's vision from the eight previous Orchestra releases dating back to 2007, a lighter, more aerodynamic incarnation of the cosmic-conscious ensemble.
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