Artist: Hypercolor
Title: Hypercolor
Label: Tzadik Rec
Genre: free style/free rock/noise
CD review by Dawoud Kringle
Tzadik has released a CD by the newest of the Downtown No-Wave improv scene: Hypercolor.
Artist: Richard Bennett and Dhanashree Pandit Rai
Title: Mumbai Masala
Label: Times Music
Genre: nu Indian music/Indian jazz/West meets East?
CD Review by Dawoud Kringle
Pianist / composer Richard Bennet is one of the forefront musicians who are blending Indian raga with jazz. He released several groundbreaking recordings (including New York City Swara, Raga & Blues, Rhapsody in Yaman, etc.), and performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, The Guggenheim Museum, BAMcafe, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and NJPAC. He has toured the world with various jazz and blues ensembles.
Artist: KAKI KING
Title: The Neck Is The Bridge To The Body
Label: Short Stuff Records
Genre: acoustic experimental guitar
Release date: March 3, 2015
Kaki King’s groundbreaking new work, The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body, sees the renowned guitarist/composer joining forces with visual performance pioneers Glowing Pictures to construct an innovative multi-media production in which The Guitar itself takes centerstage. The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body debuted at Brooklyn’s BRIC House Ballroom in March 2014, and will tour extensively in 2015. An album featuring the music from the show will also be released in 2015.
The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body lays bare The Guitar’s inner life and protean power, its incalculable possibility and perpetual presence in our deepest unconscious. The hour-long production places the focus directly on The Guitar itself, the Instrument serving as an ontological tabula rasa in a creation myth unlike any other ever presented.
Artist: Ayelet Rose Gottlieb
Title: Roadsides
Label: Arogole Music
Genre: world music/traditional/jazz
Review by Dawoud Kringle
Ayelet Rose Gottlieb’s music blends Jazz, Middle-Eastern & Jewish music, combined with her innovative approach to composition & improvisation. Her history is fascinating.
Gottlieb was born in Jerusalem, to a background of mixed cultures and a musically seasoned family. She was exposed to Oum Kalthoum, J.S. Bach, The Beatles, Andres Segovia, Laurie Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan, Thelonious Monk, Fairuz, and many others. In her childhood, she played the classical flute until graduating from the High School For the Arts in Jerusalem.
Artist: Mehmet Polat Trio
Title: Next Spring
Label: Homerecords
Genre: world/maqam/kora music
CD review by Dawoud Kringle
Collaborations between musicians of different traditions are a peculiarly modern phenomenon. Sometimes this produces nothing more than a contradictory hybrid. Yet, many times, the masterful and insightful blending of different cultures produces a balanced and complete aggregate greater than the sum of its parts that enriches all culture and the traditions and spiritual vision that emerges from it. The later is exemplified by the work in the Mehmet Polat Trio’s CD Next Spring.
