free jazz

PLEASE NOTE: This collaborative event with the RPI Arts Department takes place in downtown Troy, not at The Sanctuary for Independent Media!

The celebrated NYC-based Matthew Shipp Trio (featuring Matthew Shipp, piano; Michael Bisio, bass; Whit Dickey, drums) will perform live at the opening of a new gallery show at The Arts Center of the Capital Region, 265 River Street in downtown Troy NY.  The exhibition, which features locally-produced videos and still photos of internationally-known musicians, is called "Freedom Through Collective Improvisation: iEAR Presents! Free Jazz from the Sanctuary" and runs from April 1 through April 30.  There will be an opening reception with light refreshments at 6 PM on April 1, and a closing reception during Troy Night Out on April 30.  Admission to the receptions and gallery show is free of charge; admission to the concert is by donation ($10 suggested, $5 student/low income).  Call (518) 273-0552, email info@artscenteronline.org or visit www.artscenteronline.org for gallery hours, more information and directions.

This show is available online here (click on individual tracks at right) and on DVD directly from Downtown Music Gallery.

The Thirteenth Assembly is a touring collective made up of four musicians and four different and musically distinct small ensembles.  Styled somewhere between the classic r&b/soul revues of the 60’s and a post-modern traveling circus, the Thirteenth Assembly presents a selection of some of the fastest-emerging young artists and bands in New York’s creative music scene in one package.
 
Over the course of the evening of Saturday, December 1, 2007, each group performed a short thirty-minute set, offering a glimpse of the vibrant and varied stylistic diversity and creativity of this particular musical community. Especially for this Thirteenth Assembly Tour, these four close friends and frequent collaborators formed a new quartet, with each member contributing original compositions.
 
THE BANDS
 
Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo
 

The poet icon and political activist Amiri Baraka performs with Rob Brown, one of the New York City downtown music scene’s most in-demand saxophonists, in a reading of his new book Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems.

Admission: $10.

This event in the “Free Jazz from the Sanctuary” series is co-sponsored by
the Arts Department at RPI and the Albany Sonic Arts Collective, with support
from the NY State Council on the Arts and the NY State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Our press release:

Percussionist William Hooker, the genre-bending free jazz legend, will improvise a live soundtrack to pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux’s 1920 silent film classic The Symbol of the Unconquered, originally advertised as a chance to come see “the annihilation of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Download Original Article as PDF

Download Original Article

Download Original Article

Ras Moshe has been playing in various groups throughout New York City for almost twenty years, with William Hooker, Sabir Mateen, Steve Swell, Marc Edwards and others. His style has been compared to post-1965 John Coltrane and Frank Wright, among others. Born and raised in New York, and with a family history rich in the jazz tradition, Ras has uniquely positioned himself to bring the lineage of free jazz into the present day. $10 admission.

Our press release:

Join us at 8 PM on Saturday (9/20) for two of the most powerful and original jazz groups from the West Coast! Empty Cage Quartet explores imaginative new ways to integrate a diverse mix of musical influences ranging from shuffle swing to free jazz blowouts, minimalist percussion loops to complex modernist gestures, robotic grooves, odd-meter marches, heavy rock, and nearly everything in between. At 10 PM, Weasel Walter, a drummer whose current material straddles the many lines between punk, free jazz, no wave, improv, and much more, performs with Mary Halvorson on guitar and Peter Evans on trumpet. $10

Hear Empty Cage Quartet on MySpace.

See Empty Cage Quartet on YouTube.

Our press release: