Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
Bassist Chris Lightcap (third from right) merges his two working ensembles for SuperBigmouth, which is set for release Oct. 4 on Pyroclastic Records.
(Photo: Bradley Scott Rosen)Chris Lightcap’s compositional and performative dexterity stretches back to the ’90s, when he began working with some of New York’s best-known avant-gardists. A few folks who were gigging and recording with the bassist back then again congregate for SuperBigmough, a composite picture of the bandleader’s two regular ensembles that’s set for release Oct. 4 through Kris Davis’ Pyroclastic Records.
Splicing together Suprette—a group that last year issued a self-titled disc via The Royal Potato Family imprint—and Bigmouth, Lightcap’s sussed out the best of what electrified acts have to offer, as guitarists Curtis Hasselbring and Jonathan Goldberger trim the proceedings with some undeniably rockist intentions. That saxophonist Tony Malaby and drummer Gerald Cleaver are along for the session only hints at the level of musicianship captured here.
But for “Through Birds, Through Fire”—a tune named after a 1943 Yves Tanguy oil painting which debuts below—Lightcap’s nothing short of effusive over the contributions from another ensemble member.
“The opening section is made up of a bunch of different melodic fragments that eventually come together and serve as a springboard into Craig Taborn’s solo,” the bandleader began while explaining “Through Birds.” “[H]e takes one of the most compelling Hammond B3 organ solos I’ve ever heard, and throughout it you can feel how his playing drives and inspires the rest of us.”
For additional info about the album, visit the Pyroclastic website. DB
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
“I love doing ballads,” Mike Stern says. “It’s just a part of me, some part of emotionally how I feel sometimes.”
Dec 3, 2024 12:52 PM
Stories of major shifts and rebirths among musicians during the past five years are common, from weathering the…
Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.
Dec 12, 2024 1:58 AM
Cuban-American jazz trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval and Harlem’s Apollo Theater were among the honorees at the 2024…
“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
Jan 2, 2025 10:50 AM
On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
Robertson had a penetrating, pliant sound with a remarkable softness at its center.
Dec 11, 2024 10:34 AM
Herb Robertson, a trumpeter and flugelhornist known for his wide-lens explorations of the avant-garde, died Dec. 10. He…
