For the Record: November 29, 2024.
Two significant past albums by Cecil Taylor return next week on Bandcamp Friday… plus Evan Parker, PainKiller, and more new arrivals and upcoming releases.
For the Record rounds up details about new and pending recordings of interest to the new-music community: contemporary classical music and jazz, electronic and electroacoustic music, and idioms for which no clever genre name has been coined, on CD, vinyl LP, cassette, digital-only formats… you name it.
This list of release dates is culled from press releases, Amazon, Bandcamp, and other internet stores and sources, social-media posts, and online resources such as Discogs. Dates cited typically correspond to initial U.S. release, and are subject to change. (Links to Amazon, used when all else fails, do not imply endorsement.)
These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, email information to nightafternight@icloud.com.
All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views of any employer.
Topspin.
Today is what’s known as Black Friday here in the U.S., though I don’t know whether that’s true elsewhere. Used in this context, the term refers to the start of the annual “Christmas shopping season”—the day when many retail stores will achieve their biggest sales of the year.
But I’m always more interested in talking about Bandcamp Friday, when the online music-retail platform Bandcamp waives its service fees, which means a bit more money going directly to artists and independent labels. Next Friday, Dec. 6, is such a date, and many recordings worth knowing about are on the way.
One topic I’d been planning to cover next week is the arrival on Bandcamp of two singular concert documents by Cecil Taylor, Live in Bologna and Live in Vienna. Both were recorded in concert in 1987, then issued by Leo Records in 1988. Limited-edition double LP sets offered the two sets complete, while their CD counterparts trimmed the concerts down to 70-ish minutes. (Music from a third 1987 concert by this same version of Taylor’s Unit, recorded in Paris, was issued on Tzotzil/Mummers/Tzotzil, paired with material from the session that had yielded Taylor’s poetry-and-percussion album Chinampas.)
I don’t imagine anyone would name these among Taylor’s finest representations on record—but they are of vital interest to Taylor aficionados for marking his first ensemble performances issued in the wake of losing his longtime creative partner and musical counterpart, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, who’d died in 1986.
Featured on alto and flute is Carlos Ward, a much different player who negotiated Taylor’s compositions in much different ways. The rest of the band included violinist Leroy Jenkins, bassist William Parker, and percussionist Thurman Barker, who alternated between drums and marimba. The sound world is unique in Taylor’s canon: warm and woody, lyrical and melancholy, perhaps even elegiac.
I’d reckoned on writing that and more next week—but Phil Freeman, purveyor of the Burning Ambulance website, newsletter, and record label, got a jump and posted “Spend Black Friday With Cecil Taylor!” today. Freeman’s imprint has been responsible for bringing the Leo catalog to Bandcamp these past few months. What’s more, his post offers a relevant, illuminating excerpt from his recent Taylor biography, In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor, dealing with this band’s genesis and revelation.
Crucially, both Live in Bologna and Live in Vienna are posted at full length, immaculately transferred from pristine vinyl sources, with the single-track CD versions included as bonus tracks. Strongly recommended.
Bonus tracks.
Lovers of veteran saxophone explorer Evan Parker won’t want to miss The Heraclitean Two-Step, a new deluxe offering from False Walls, a label founded in Chicago and now based in the U.K. Marking Parker’s 80th birthday year, the set includes four CDs of solo performances recorded between 1994 and 2024, plus a 120-page book featuring interviews, essays, and a selection of Parker’s original collage art.
Samsara, the new Tzadik release by the original lineup of PainKiller – John Zorn on saxophone and Bill Laswell on bass, with Mick Harris now providing electronic beats, is out today wherever you buy or stream music. As discussed here not long ago, the album is a revelation. A second album, The Equinox, is already completed and due in 2025, and a third is on the drawing board. Exciting times!
New this week.
Abdou - Gouband - Warelis - Hammer, Roll and Leaf (Relative Pitch)
Lotte Anker/Jacob Anderskov/Kamil Piotrowicz - Antiworld I (Fundacja Słuchaj; due Dec. 1)
Dan Blacksberg - The Psychic/Body Sound System (Relative Pitch)
Eventless Plot/Francesco Covarino - Methexis (Innovo Editions; due Nov. 30)
Joe Fonda - Joe Fonda & Bass of Operation (Fundacja Słuchaj; due Dec. 1)
Huw Morgan - Bristol 5.10.25 (with electronics) - compositions by Michael Bonaventure, Lauren Redhead, Huw Morgan, Elisabet Dijkstra, and Madame Ceski (mainly slow organ music)
Ornella Noulet - Promise of Faithfulness (Relative Pitch)
Ryoko Ono - The Days (Relative Pitch)
PainKiller (John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Mick Harris) - Samsara (Tzadik)
Evan Parker - The Heraclitean Two-Step (False Walls)
Passepartout Duo - Argot (self-released)
Schlippenbach/Narvesen Duo - KAIROS (Fundacja Słuchaj; due Dec. 1)
Upcoming releases.
December 5
Rebekka Karijord - Archives of Longing - Andrew Yee (OONA)
December 6
Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink - Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink (FMP; 2024 remaster)
Globe Unity Orchestra - Hamburg ’74 (FMP; 2024 remaster)
Edward Smaldone - What no one else sees… - performances by Brno Philharmonic/Mikel Toms, Niklas Sivelöv, Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Mikel Toms, Søren-Filip Brix Hansen, Den Kongelige Livgardes Musikkorps/Giordano Bellincampi, and Opus Zoo Woodwind Quintet (New Focus)
Various artists - Mandatory Liberation, Vol. 1 - performances by Ashcan Orchestra, Thee Reps, Megafortress, Weston Olencki, Powers/Rolin Duo, thingNY, Amirtha Kidambi's Elder Ones, Derek Baron, and more (Gold Bolus + Strategy of Tension)
December 13
Nicola Miller - Living Things (Cacophonous Revival)
January 10
Sirius Quartet - Incantations - compositions by Gregor Huebner, Fung Chern Hwei, Sunjay Jayaram, and Jeremy Harman (Navona)
January 15
Juno 3 (Han-earl Park, Lara Jones, Pat Thomas) - Proxemics (Buster and Friends)
January 17
Tim Berne (Gregg Belisle-Chi, Tom Rainey) - Yikes (Screwgun/Out of Your Head)
January 31
Brandon López & DoYeon Kim - Syzygy, Vol. 1 (577 Records)
Peter Rehberg - Liminal States (Editions Mego)
February 14
Benjamin Appl - Lines of Life: Schubert & Kurtág (Alpha Classics)
John Patitucci - Spirit Fall (Edition)
February 21
Laura Cocks - FATHM (Relative Pitch/Out of Your Head)
March 14
Adam O’Farrill - For These Streets (Out of Your Head)
April 4
Hemphill Stringtet (Curtis Stewart. Sam Bardfeld, Stephanie Griffin, Tomeka Reid) - The Hemphill Stringtet Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.