Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Blindfold Test: Buster Williams
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
Craig Taborn, sound surfer
(Photo: Courtesy craigtaborn.com)The concept is simple, yet a little crazy … as in, fun.
Keyboardist and composer Craig Taborn has created a new online work of 60 pieces, each about 60 seconds in length, that will play in a randomized order when a listener goes to the 60xSixty website and hits “play.”
“Pressing ‘play’ initiates a run of 60 tracks in a randomized order,” Taborn says in press materials outlining the project. “The sequence ends after all 60 pieces play. The numbers relate to the ordinal position of each piece in the present playlist and are not intended titles or identifiers of the musical works. Every subsequent play shuffles the deck. In time, new pieces may be added as others are removed.”
Taborn said the pieces “relate to one another only in seeking to explore how malleable the perception of a 60-second span of time might be when subject to different sound worlds in succession. Do some pieces feel longer than others? What elements contribute to this subjective experience? How does time pass or not pass?”
It’s the latest offering by the heralded pianist and electronic musician, a work that expands and contracts time, surfs sound from the ultra acoustic to the über electronic, ties them into a singular package, then mixes, matches and messes with them with each playing.
It also highlights the wide-ranging pool of influence in whichTaborn likes to wade. From his solo-piano performance project Avenging Angel, to the Craig Taborn Trio, to his electronic project Junk Magic and more, he has been a noted improviser, composer and sound surfer for several decades now. This is just another example of Taborn following his muse. Hear for yourself at 60xsixty.com. DB
“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.
Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
The Free Slave, Cosmos Nucleus and Sunset To Dawn: three classic Muse albums being reissued this fall by Timer Traveler Recordings.
Aug 26, 2025 1:32 PM
Record producer and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman has launched his next endeavor, the archival label Time Traveler…
Butcher Brown, clockwise from top left: Marcus Tenney, DJ Harrison, Morgan Burrs, Corey Fonville and Andrew Randazzo. (Keyboardist Harrison couldn’t make the gig, so special guest Jacob Mann sat in with the band at the Reno Jazz Festival.)
Aug 19, 2025 12:41 PM
The band known as Butcher Brown has enjoyed the last half-decade basking in the glow from the twin engines of critical…
This year’s Jazz em Agosto set by the Darius Jones Trio captured the titular alto saxophonist at his most ferocious.
Aug 26, 2025 1:31 PM
The organizers of Lisbon, Portugal’s Jazz em Agosto Festival assume its audience is thoughtful and independent. Over…
