Photo by Beth O’Brien
Text by Craig Shepard (on Foot Production)
“In the short-run, the market is a voting machine … but in the long- run, the market is a weighing machine.” – Warren Buffett, 1993 Letter to Shareholders.
Date: Monday, March 9, 2015
Time: 7pm
Venue: Theater for the New City / Cino Theater (155 1st Avenue, b/w 10th & 11th street, New York City 10003, 212-254-1109)
Ticket: $15
Genre: psychedelic-ambient jazz/electric sitar music/improv
God’s Unruly Friends! The new musical event led by master musician Dawoud!
God’s Unruly Friends picks up where Dawoud’s previous ensemble Renegade Sufi left off. Featuring Latif Kurfirst (percussion), Chenana Manno (singing bowls, bass, dance, vocals), and led by Dawoud (exotic string instruments, such as the sitar and dilruba, laptop, vocals), and special guest t.b.a.. They offer music improvised from elements from many musical genres, and translates non musical concepts into musical ideas.
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.
Other-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.
Text 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…
Photo courtesy of John Pietaro
Text by John Pietaro
I was so very sorry to hear of Fred Ho’s passing. We had many contacts over the last couple of decades and shared performance and/or speaking engagements a few times. He was irascible and loved debates of any and every kind; he left NO prisoners! That energy allowed him to fight off this illness for so long. We last saw each other at the first Russell Maroon Shoats fundraiser at St Mary’s Church a couple of years ago where he played a powerhouse solo bari piece that illustrated none of the physical strain he was going through. I was a part of the ensemble led by Salim Washington and we performed a piece of Fred’s but he sat out that section of the gig as he was too exhausted after his solo piece. He rocked the rafters. Still, he had the passion and drive to smile so hard when he saw the musicians that he filled the hall with a warmth that made us feel a very deep love. Fred’s heart was as big as his tenacity.
