Tag Archives: free jazz

Brother G: Giuseppi Logan and the Twilight

Matt Lavelle & GIUSEPPI LOGANText by Matt Lavelle

Photo and video courtesy of Matt Lavelle and YouTube

The last we heard from Brother G he was still holding court in Tompkins Square Park with a tenor and a small batch of CD’s to sell. 9:30 every morning, like clockwork. Rain or shine, G was almost always at his post on the northwest corner. This last winter slowed him down though. Even the cockroaches, rats, and sky-rats were M.I.A. Despite my time crunch; I had lined up three concerts for him to play, two out of state, and one with bass player Eric Revis. Then G fell again and re-injured his hip. When he ended up back in the hospital, the state decided that G was no longer in control of his life, and they took over. G was dispatched out to Far Rockaway Queens, at the end of the A-train line. It took me a minute to track down  Giuseppi Logan since I’m not a blood relative, but soon enough I learned he was on the fourth floor, and that he was in stable condition. Lawrence Nursing Home is a God-send, straight up. A place for folks who have reached the twilight alone, with no support system. Incredible stories and a few tragedies reside there. The folks at this home are all survivors. At some point, everybody has to come in from the cold.

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Cooplog #15

Photo courtesy of Constance Cooper

Photo courtesy of Constance Cooper

Text by Constance Cooper (keyboards/vocals improviser and performance artist)

Quoting Sten Hostfalt (composer/improviser, microtonal guitarist, superb colleague) about the improvising life:
Free as a style and stylistic marker and/or a philosophy ? What is free ? How free is free ? is free really free ?
does it matter ? do we care ? well, either way we’ve done it for decades already so it most likely does exist.
Also we might find a clue in rehearsal ( yes freedom can be rehearsed ! ) the night before this event.
And the audience can hear/decide for itself at the concert.

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Introducing A New NY Music Project: SUMARI = A Federation of Consciousness

Text by John Pietaro

Matt Lavelle – trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, pocket trumpet, alto clarinet; Jack DeSalvo – cello, mandola, guitars, banjos; Tom Cabrera – dumbeq, rik, frame drums, bass drum, percussion.

SUMARIOther-world art music. Improvisations through space and time. The soundtrack of twilight. These phrases have all been used to attempt to describe this trio known as Sumari. The channeling of free improvisation and global folk culture with a boundless sense of the new are the path Matt Lavelle, Jack DeSalvo and Tom Cabrera course to conjure the sounds heard on their eponymous release on Unseen Rain Records. Each member of Sumari is a veteran of international New Music and Free Jazz, with roots in NYC’s “downtown sound”:

JACK DESALVO, hailed in THE WIRE magazine as “masterful”, joined Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society in the 1980s and has toured the world with many artists in his own musical-spiritual journey. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, DeSalvo also studied classical guitar and composition before taking private tutelage with Bill Connors. His pianistic, wholistic approach to performance practice on guitar led to committed doubling on such instruments as cello, alto guitar and various members of the ukulele, mandolin and banjo family. DeSalvo’s credits beyond Ronald Shannon Jackson include Peter Brotzmann, Karl Berger, Chris Kelsey, Vic Juris, Tony Malaby, Pat Hall, D3 and many more.

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Recommended Event: WILL CONNELL MEMORIAL WEEK: Celebrating the Life & Music of the Heart & Soul of Downtown

Will ConnelText by NEW MASSES MEDIA RELATIONS/John Pietaro: (646) 599-0060 or newmassesmedia@gmail.com

Date: December 23, 26, 27, 28, 2014
Venue: The Stone (Ave C @ 2nd Street, New York, NY 10009, (212) 473-0043)
Ticket: $15
Genre: jazz/free jazz/improv

Will Connell‘s daughter, Safiya Martinez, and the musicians of WILL CONNELL MEMORIAL WEEK at the Stone would like to extend a warm invitation to all for this powerful event. Christmas week, DEC 23, 26, 27 & 28, downtown will celebrate the much-loved Connell, a force in creative music on both coasts over five decades. Will stood as an invaluable part of the original Horace Tapscott organization, a close comrade of the Black Arts Movement, groundbreaking voice of downtown Free Jazz and contemporary composition, and an elder statesman of the sounds of social change…

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