Author Archives: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

“MFM Speaks Out” EP 21: Karl Evangelista on the Bay Area Improvised Music Scene

An Alternative (music business) infrastructure is one of the things that helps us keep this sustainable.”

In this episode of MFM Speaks Out, Dawoud Kringle interviews Oakland, California based guitarist Karl Evangelista is among the new wave of  21st century experimental / improvisational musicians. His work blends contemporary improvised music with popular song, 20th century composition, psychedelic rock, free jazz, and multicultural concepts.

The topics discussed include his beginnings and inspiration as a professional improvisational / experimental musician, his work with Oliver Lake, Fred Frith, Eddie Gale, Trevor Watts, Hafiz Modizradeh, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and many others, his involvement in music education (including lecturing at UC Berkeley and directed guitar ensembles at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts and San Francisco Waldorf High School, and as a licensed instructor in the Kinderguitar method), his prolific recording output, his GREX project with Rei Scampavia, his iconoclastic interpretation of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, his approach to the music business, the production of four “Lockdown Festivals” during the coronavirus pandemic, music activism, and his involvement with MFM.

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Commentary: The Music Industry and the Mafia

How Organized Crime Shaped Our Business

By Dawoud Kringle

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” – Hunter S. Thompson

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CD Review: Glasgow’s Glasshopper “Fortune Rules”

Glasshopper Artist: Glasshopper
Title: Fortune Rules
Label: AMP Music and Records
Genre: Spiritual jazz/ jazz-rock from the UK
CD & Digital release: 30 November, 2020
Review by Fiona Mactaggart

As anyone who, at last month’s EFG London Jazz Festival experienced the thoughtful and candid, often filmic soundscapes of London-based band Glasshopper will testify, this 6-year-old band’s debut album Fortune Rules has been worth the wait.

Glasshopper. L-R: Jonathan Chung, Corrie Dick, James Kitchman. Photo credit: Marieke Macklon

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“MFM Speaks Out” Podcast EP 19: DeLaurentis on The New Wave of European Electronic Music

For me, there is a strong connection between music and images.” – DeLaurentis

In this episode of MFM Speaks Out, Dawoud Kringle interviews Cecile DeLaurentis, commonly known as DeLaurentis. DeLaurentis is a French innovative electronic musician and producer. She studied music at the Perpignan Conservatory and Jazz Musicology at the University of Mirail in Toulouse. Her work has been described as electro-cinematic music and stands out from most other electronic music artists as having an emotional and beautiful quality. She developed a unique style and technique for performance and voice manipulation with innovative use of Ableton software and hardware.

The topics discussed included her early training and interest in electronic music, her upcoming album, UNICA, her approach songwriting and production, her use of Ableton Push as a MIDI controller, her approach to music video production, her personal theories on the relationship between organic and synthetic music, the inclusion of AI in the music creation process, her interpretations of the works of Satie, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns, her approach to the business side of music as a self-contained artist, the music scene in Paris and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the music scene in Paris and the rest of Europe, and her thoughts about the upsurge in music activism and musicians fighting for their rights.

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Digital Release Review: Shoshin Trio “The Shape of Emptiness Now”

“It’s quite impossible to listen to this music with any preconceived ideas of what music should be.” – Dawoud Kringle

Shoshin TrioArtist: Shoshin Trio
Title: The Shape of Emptiness Now
Label: self-produced
Genre: improv/free jazz/contemporary

Review by Dawoud Kringle

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