Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Chicago-based pianist Matt Piet’s set to release a new album with Four Letter Words, a trio that also includes tenor saxophonist Jake Wark and drummer Bill Harris.
(Photo: Matt Schwerin)
The pianist also helms the Matt Piet Trio, a group dubbed His Disorganization and performs in a trio with reedist Dave Rempis and drummer Tim Daisy.
(Photo: Matt Schwerin)Pinch Point seems like a similar conceit to Rummage Out, but they sound totally different.
Pinch Point is like the culmination of a lot of efforts with Bill and Jay. I owe them a lot, because they’ve been my most consistent collaborators over the last couple years. They were the first people that I collaborated with [in Chicago], and what we set out to do initially was to be a band that only improvised. We wanted it to be this trio that had no leader, and we kept getting together and trying to rehearse, improvise, rehearse; improvising over and over and over again. And eventually, we realized that we needed to write tunes just so that we could get into the improvising and develop a sound together.
The premise of City In A Garden lends itself to additional volumes. So, is that an idea that you’re going to revisit, structuring an album that way?
I’m really happy with the way that it turned out, so it could be something to do again. But right now, it feels very much like out of the three big records that I put out last year—and now with Pinch Point, it feels like I have to take a step back and maybe do something smaller. Not necessarily less ambitious, but just smaller in scope. So, maybe more duo stuff with one musician or something that’s the opposite of asking seven people to record, which is a rather daunting task. DB
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
As Ted Nash, left, departs the alto saxophone chair for LCJO, Alexa Tarantino steps in as the band’s first female full-time member.
Mar 4, 2025 1:29 PM
If only because openings for JLCO’s 15 permanent positions appear about as frequently as sub-freezing days on the…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
