DAVID S. WARE QUARTET – Oblations And Blessings (1996)

Label: Silkheart – SHCD 145
Format: CD, Album; Country: Sweden - Released: 1996
Style: Free Jazz
Recorded on 27, 28 September 1995 at Sound On Sound Studio, NYC.
Artwork [Front Cover Art] – Miroslaw Balka
Front cover art titled "A Piece To Keep Doors Open"
Design, Layout – Jörgen Renhorn
Edited By – Allan Tucker; Edited By [Assistant] – Nicholas Prout
Executive-Producer – FS-MAB, Keith Knox
Photography By [Booklet Session Photographs] – Cheung Ching-Ming
Photography By [Front Cover Art] – Börje Svensson
Recorded By [Assistant] – Devin Emke
Recorded By [Digitally] – Nicholas Prout

This session, recorded in a superb midtown studio in New York during September 1995, shows the David S. Ware Quartet at the height of its powers. This is one of the foremost groups who played then and their performance here is captured by engineer Nick Prout with extraordinary clarity. The development of David S. Ware 's music is one of the more significant histories in today's jazz and earlier examples from the Silkheart catalogue are 113, 127, and 128.

Oblations And Blessings is certainly one of David S. Ware's best recordings, and maybe the best if you're into extended blowing vehicles. The players are inspired, the sound is well- balanced so you can hear all of them clearly, and there's plenty of variety in the pieces. And Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Whit Dickey are up to the task of playing follow the leader because no one has more to express here than Ware. It's a disc for hearing David S. Ware blow hard, long and free--he plays every second of the closer "Serpents and Visions" and doesn't go in for much laying out anywhere.

The opening 17-minute title track hits the ground running with a spiritual intensity close to late John Coltrane that in spots pushes Shipp close to McCoy Tyner territory. It builds inexorably through ebb-and-flow periods of rumbling Parker, pounding Shipp and propulsive Dickey triggering Ware's harmonic squawks before falling away to a bowed bass solo that gives Ware his first break after 10:20 of full-bore playing. 100 seconds of down time later, he's back for the duration until Shipp's lurching chords brings the piece to an exhausted close.

"Riff Unknown" is more in a classic jazz vein with Parker close to double time walking and Dickey close to swinging while Ware swirls and twists, turns and doubles back around the melody. Shipp enters in mid-song--a common device here--and his long solo retains an appealingly light texture after the density of the opener. "Of Shambhala" boasts a gorgeously spare atmospheric opening, with Ware entering crying, then ruminating and extending the lines before handing the baton over for a restrained Parker solo with Shipp's elegant support.

But "Fire Within" gets Ware off and running again with Parker whooping behind him to trigger answering yelps and buzzsaw riffing over Dickey's light cymbals. "Manu's Ideal" is an excellent return to a sort of Trane-spiritual melody with Ware's big, burry tone carrying the medium tempo before a Parker solo and Shipp's re-entrance triggers the saxophonist's closing theme statement.

Ware's outside start to "Serpents and Visions" sounds like musical visions of serpents, Shipp ripples his way in at the two-minute mark and it evolves progressively into Ware's serious pushing to get to Albert Ayler-esque shrieks and cries over Shipp's lower register hammering. You can really hear the interaction between the two on this track before into peters out in honks and silence.

Music is the last thing you should reduce to numbers but David S. Ware is literally playing on 54 of the 69 minutes (give or take one or two) of music here, a simply staggering amount. And he's playing so intensely for that long with that huge tone doing interval leaps and Ayler shrieks, high harmonics and lower-register honks, buzzsaw-quick runs and scale slurs, wringing every possible melodic permutation out of every theme.

The liner notes define "oblation" (via Webster's) as "the act of offering something as worship or thanksgiving." No one who hears Oblations and Blessings could ever doubt the generosity of Ware's offering here. The man must have been absolutely, utterly drained--emotionally, physically and spiritually--after this session.

_ Review by DON SNOWDEN



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MAT MANERI TRIO – So What? (1999)

Label: HatOLOGY – hatOLOGY 529
Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition; Country: Switzerland - Released: 1999
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded at Sorcerer Sound, New York, on August 14, 1998.
Design [Graphic Concept] – fuhrer vienna
Mixed By, Mastered By – Peter Pfister
Photography By – ÖhnerKraller
Producer – Art Lange, Pia & Werner X. Uehlinger
Recorded By – Mike Cyr

Cardboard Sleeve. Edition of 3000 CDs.

 

Mat Maneri, the world's challenging microtonal electric violinist, explains that he once studied Baroque violin, in which the bowing style creates an "almost horn like sound." He goes on to explain that "I'm not trying to get a horn sound now, but I am trying to get horn phrasing." Certainly there are moments on So What? when Maneris' violin sounds uncannily like a horn, whether with a conventional tone or even featuring growling multiphonics, as he does right at the beginning of this disc, on "Asunta." 

His trio mates, the excellent pianist Matthew Shipp, and drummer Randy Peterson, are well- chosen for the rapidly shifting rhythms and moods that Maneri moves through on this intriguing set. Shipp specializes in arhythmic power piano, and has an arresting capacity for throwing out shimmering and glimmering melodic shards in the middle of the Maneri maelstrom. Much of this disc, however, features him interacting with Maneri on a low gear. He answers Maneri's Ornetteian maniacal rapid bowing with small clusters of his own. Then he shifts effortlessly with the violinist into quiet but not tranquil sections, in which Peterson jostles and huffs and the two string players trade and intertwine short, fragmentary motifs. 

Maneri explains that he included four Miles Davis tunes in this set - "So What?," "Circle," "Solar," and "No Blues" - "to demonstrate that what we play is not random." The trio makes no attempt to play any of these tunes in anything resembling Milesian fashion, and they do indeed blend well here with the arch and ruminative bursts of Maneri's own compositions.

And it works: although they take each of these tunes in a direction that probably would make the Prince of Darkness blanch, the coherence of the melodic and rhythmic development of each - and of Maneri's own tunes, some of which (at least "Three Smiles" and "Solaris") seem to pay indirect tribute to Miles - is undeniable. 

Maneri and Shipp are unafraid to traffic in classical motifs, and often these tracks approach that kind of sonority. But all of them are deeply and carefully thought out improvisations from excellent musicians.

_ By ROBERT SPENCER
Published: September 1, 1999 (AAJ)



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IVO PERELMAN QUARTET – The Hour Of The Star (2011)

Label: Leo Records – CD LR 605
Format: CD, Album; Country: UK - Released: Apr 2011
Style: Free Improvisation, Free Jazz
Recorded by Jim Clouse at Park West studios on September 20th, 2010.
Artwork by Ivo Perelman
Packaging: Jewel Tray

"The hour of the Star" by the newly formed all-star Ivo Perelman quartet is a fierce tour-de- force that will leave improv music fans breathless. The mesmerizing interaction between Ivo Perelman (saxophone), Matthew Shipp (piano), Joe Morris (bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums) proves that intensity and attention to detail can coexist when delivered as a cohesive artistic statement. A band bound for greatness!
_ Leo Records

"A Hora da Estrela" [The Hour of the Star] is the last work by Clarice Lispector, released shortly before his death in 1977. Hour of the Star is the latest album by Ivo Perelman, released by the English label Leo Records, in 2011. After 34 years, the tireless New- York based Brazilian saxophonist and artist revisits the theme accompanied by some of the most creative and active musicians in the current "free- jazz"/improvised music scene. His recent albums have been named after works by Clarice Lispector (Soulstorm, Apple in The Dark, etc.), which seems to have become an obsession for Perelman, translating the essence of Lispector's confusing, distressing, melancholic and, to some extent, liberating character into his music.

Hour of the Star was recorded just one week before the quartet's live debut in São Paulo, in September 2010. This was the first time the four musicians had played together. They had recorded and played as trios and duos, but never as a quartet. I had the chance to see them perform first hand in São Paulo. One could call this quartet a "super group", but I prefer not to refer to them as such, as the term is closely linked to the music of the 1960s and 1970s, made by musicians with inflated egos, which isn't the case with Perelman's quartet.

With each new release, Perelman has continued to develop his technique. His breathing is unique, very characteristic and different from other saxophonists. As soon as one hears his playing you can tell that it is Perelman's. His music is urgent; it has to stretch out from limits and reveal feelings, whatever they may be, to the outside world. His music is challenging. It has become increasingly developed, complex, but without being boring: it encompasses huge energy and creativity. Whenever people think that Ivo's musical career has peaked, he brings out another great record. Hour Of The Star' has the complexity, density and melancholy found in Clarice Lispector's works, but if we close our eyes we can see the abstract paintings directly relayed via Perelman's music.

The release begins with "A Tearful Tale", in a very fragmented and angular way with just Ivo and Shipp; this becomes more cohesive as Morris and Cleaver join in, leading to a peak after almost 13 minutes. "Singing the blues" is what we could call the most "conventional" on this album, followed by the brilliant and powerful "Hour of the Star", the high point of the album. In its 14 minutes, the quartet does not demonstrate any sign of fatigue or lack of creativity. The track is explosive, with impressive interaction between the musicians. It is one of Perelman's best compositions in his long career.

"The Right of Protest" is the shortest piece on the album and also the most melancholic. Shipp and Perelman play it as a duo. "As for the future" is just the trio of Perelman, Morris and Cleaver, while Matthew Shipp lays out. Starting calmly with Cleaver, the track develops in such a way that the listener just has to get involved. Morris and Cleaver provide the necessary support for Perelman to take off on his solos perfectly. It is worth remembering that Joe Morris is a guitarist with a highly personal technique, but recently he has concentrated on playing bass, as he does here. The album closes with "Whistling in the Dark Wind" at the highest level, with Matthew Shipp and his "hammered" piano, while Perelman wrings everything he can out of his sax, stretching the limits of the instrument. A breathtaking close to one of the most sincere, honest and challenging forms of music.

Review by Cláudio PENTERIANI (2011-08-10)



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SPRING HEEL JACK - The Blue Series Continuum – Masses (2001)

Label: Thirsty Ear – THI57103.2
Series: The Blue Series – (Artistic Director of Blue Series: Matthew Shipp)
Format: CD, Album; Country: US - Released: 2001
Style: Abstract, Downtempo, Free Improvisation, Free Jazz
Recorded upstairs at the Strongroom, London & Sorcerer Sound NYC, 2001
Executive Producer – Peter Gordon; Producer – Ashley Wales, John Coxon
Mastered By – Nick Webb
Mixed By – Oliver Meacock
Recorded By – Chris Flam, Oliver Meacock

The British electronica duo Ashley Wales & John Coxon with Tim Berne, Guillermo E. Brown, Roy Campbell, Daniel Carter, Mat Maneri, Ed Coxon, Evan Parker, William Parker, Matthew Shipp and George Trebar.

Review:

Spring Heel Jack entered the electronica scene in the mid-90's, clearly on the living-room listening side of the drum-n-bass spectrum. The beats on 1996's 68 Million Shades came complex, but despite their rapid pace the overall sonic texture was subdued, making for a smooth, pedestrian vibe. The following album, Busy Curious Thirsty, locked into the harder dance groove that was developing at the time, though a closer listen showed that the real intent was the creation of a roughened, more diverse sound. The new direction lost a lot of their audience, though, and the ambient pieces were numbingly repetitious. In a typical major label move, Island dropped the duo from its roster.

Since then, John Coxon and Ashley Wales have been working hard, and each of their recent endeavors have been more successful-- from the driving, eerie Treader to the slightly softer, more cinematic Disappeared and the noisy ambient experiments collected on Oddities. They've also taken a cue from Fila Brazillia, who produced the strangely pristine luster on Greg Dulli's Twilight Singers project. Coxon & Wales collaborated with Low in 2000 on the Bombscare EP, in which all junglist tendencies vanished, subsumed into Low's stark minimalism; likewise, Alan Sparhawk & Co. found their fragile song frames reinforced by a mesh of synthetic subtlety and carefully controlled drones. The union got called "experimental" mostly due to the uncomfortable tension the album evoked.

Masses invigorates the Thirsty Ear label's fusion project, "The Blue Series Continuum." Spring Heel Jack have toyed with jazz since their early days-- sampling a brassy trumpet trill here, employing a live percussion sample from Tortoise there-- but as time progressed, they showed interest in jazz as a structural template rather than cut-and-paste decoration. For Masses, they recorded a number of ambient soundscapes composed of crackling feedback and found sound (once again absent of breakbeats), and gathered choice labelmates to improvise over the recordings. Some of the most influential names in the new breed of free jazz participated, from the dynamic duo of pianist Matthew Shipp and double bassist William Parker to mercurial saxophonist Evan Parker. The result is the most intense, fascinating album of Spring Heel Jack's career.

"Chorale" opens in static pulses. Shipp hesitantly takes lead with four- and five-note piano clusters, while William Parker's bass explores the space between the rumbling drones. One aspect of the prerecorded soundtracks is that the musicians can slow down and test intimate, abstract harmonies usually only available to duos and trios. Evan Parker's lone soprano sax line repeats after long intervals, intriguingly programmatic considering his usual repertoire. This melancholy motif is the only semblance of melody in the entire song, and the noir ambience would fit perfectly in Blade Runner when Deckard sips his drink alone in the dim living room.

"Chiaroscuro" defines an opposite approach-- an amplified two-note bassline followed by a handclap serves as the rhythmic anchor for the entire track. Hardly boring, this relentless, aggressive reverb is the current through which Daniel Carter runs his saxophone, at first a playful expedition that becomes increasingly strained and frenetic. Guillermo Brown busts three minutes afterwards with overlapping bass-drum rolls and snares, adding to the uneasiness. Trying to isolate the organic from the preprocessed is difficult; at times, the streaks of Ed Coxon's violin blend seamlessly with the humming bed of distortion.

The title track, on which all players are involved, is by far the standout. Brown plays schizophrenically liberated percussion, abusing cowbells and the drumstand itself as pianist Shipp jabs at the low register ivory keys. A sudden crescendo: seconds too late, you realize these were pebbles before the rockslide. The onslaught erupts, burying the listener in a lung- collapsing surge of saxophone wails, trumpet squeals and double-bass throttling. The moment ends as soon as it began, dispersing into Brown's maniacally inspired building-block clatter. If the ascendant free jazz of the 1960's came to be known as "Fire Music," the elemental force here takes place somewhere between metamorphic earth and storm-strewn air, though the electrical fury can hardly be traced back along its silicate tangents to any original resting place.

But don't assume that the entire album is impenetrable noise. A few short interludes separate the longer works, giving single musicians the chance to test their mettle against the compositions. On "Cross," I felt transported to a swirling fantasia, sure that the background was tampering with Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" until I realized that this was just Mat Maneri in the foreground on acoustic and electric viola. "Salt" is a comparatively straightforward number, launched by Brown and William Parker's hard-bop rhythm and spiced by Shipp's Monk-like vamping. But the final track, "Coda," returns to the spatial acoustics of the first. Coxon and Wales pull the buzzing chimes of their earliest work off the lathe, causing the trumpet-like microtonality of Maneri's viola to recede into the background.

Masses compresses so many components: improv artists from New York jam with Londoners and other Europeans, organic instruments collide with digital spree, free jazz is tempered by prerecorded loops. Curated by Matthew Shipp and sequenced by the Spring Heel boys, this is steaming hot fusion, a record whose density and emotional nuance requires repeated listening to decipher. Many questions are raised, but the one that tugs most anxiously in my mind is whether Coxon and Wales will attempt improvisational electronics themselves on future projects.

_ By Christopher Dare, June 5, 2001 (Pitchfork)



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SPRING HEEL JACK – AMaSSED (2002)

Label: Thirsty Ear – THI57123.2
Series: The Blue Series – (Artistic Director of Blue Series: Matthew Shipp)
Format: CD, Album; Country: US - Released: 2002
Style: Free Jazz + Electronics
Recorded upstairs at the Strongroom, London & Gateway Studio, Kingston, 2001 
Mastered at Abbey Road
Design, Photography – Cynthia Fetty
Executive-producer – Peter Gordon;  Producer – Ashley Wales, John Coxon

Review:

John Coxon and Ashley Wales are back with their second installment of "Free Jazz plus Electronics" for Thirsty Ear's Blue Series. The Blue Series has, over the past couple of years, been a much-needed shot in the arm for recorded Jazz, presenting different approaches and ideas than the saccharine parade of dusty reissues and nostalgia acts still being churned out by most of the Major labels. Thirsty Ear has, effectively, thrown down a gauntlet by depicting Jazz as a living, thriving, and still-evolving musical genre. Moreover, while their releases depict the incorporation of such controversial material as electronics, dance-hall beats and DJ- ing, the focus is never on mere novelty, but is backed up by strong and committed performances from the participating musicians. AMaSSED is no exception.

AMaSSED brings back a few of the players from last year's Masses, but also features collaborations with several new musicians. Returning are pianist Matthew Shipp (curator of the Blue Series), saxophonist Evan Parker, bassist George Trebar and violinist Ed Coxon. The fresh faces are drummer Han Bennink, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, trombonist Paul Rutherford and bassist John Edwards. In addition to jazz musicians, AMaSSED is graced by a prominent figure from the Indie Rock community -- Billed as J Spaceman, Spiritualized's Jason Pierce contributes guitar work to the recording. No interloper, Pierce is clearly at home in this musical environment.

AMaSSED does not present itself simply as a sequel -- Son of Masses, as it were. Instead, the combination of players new to the project and continuing participants allows SHJ to both invent entirely new compositions and to reinvestigate some of the material from Masses. The most notable example of the latter is the recycling of George Trebar's ostinato, open-string, one-note bass groove, first used on the Masses track "Chiaroscuro", on the even-more frenetic AMaSSED cut "Obscured". Gotta love the alliteration, by the way. Comparing the two pieces, one hears different sets of musicians, many accustomed to a more atonal atmosphere than the one-note ground provides them, seeking to obliterate its insistent low E with increasing violence. They create a pair of berserk yet inspired jams (for lack of a better word). There seems to be some resonance in these pieces with the effect achieved on Radiohead's Kid A by the horn section that plays on "National Anthem".

Another inspired effort is "Maroc"'s duet between Pierce and Parker. Parker plays his characteristic cascades of notes, while Pierce interjects both judicious feedback and spare textural playing. Despite the resultant flurry, neither seems to get in the other's way. Kenny Wheeler's always affecting playing is nicely featured, particularly his negotiation of the most stratospheric register trumpet will allow, on "Lit". "Double Cross" finds string players Edwards and Coxon playing with Parker and Wales on an ethereal composition that presents itself with the intimacy of chamber music.

Han Bennink and Ed Coxon tear it up on "Duel"; this cut is also an excellent demonstration of SHJ's more overt contributions. Throughout, the electronic duo are never heavy-handed with their interjections of beats and sound material. Turning this music into some kind of raver's bad trip by loading it with heavy, pulsing backgrounds would be a tragedy, given the flexibility of rhythm found in Avant-Jazz in general and especially when considering the sensitive playing found here. SHJ instead react appropriately to the sounds created by their collaborators, with flexible and fleeting beats and well-spaced dabs of synthetic sound.

In addition to the aforementioned "Obscured", "100 Years Before", "Wormwood" and the title track all feature larger cross-sections of the participants. One might suppose that the danger in these ensemble efforts, especially once electronics are added to the mix, is that the result will be dense and cluttered. However, this never appears to be a problem. Whether due to judicious editing, sensitive interaction, or some combination of the two, the music on AMaSSED is possessed of both clarity of texture and narrative flow.

Will the innovations and trends depicted in the Blue Series prove enduring? Only time will tell. However, the rapprochement between two wings of experimental music (Avant-Jazz and Electronica) indicated by AMaSSED and other recent recordings, seems to hold out the promise of much fertile musical creation in the future. Unlike many other recordings released this past year, Spring Heel Jack's latest seems to speak to the here and now instead of the past, all the while keeping an eye on what comes next.

_ By Christian Carey, 5 November 2002



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MARSHALL ALLEN, MATTHEW SHIPP and JOE MORRIS – Newport Jazz Festival 2010 - Night Logic Suites 1-5 (2010)

 

Marshall Allen, Matthew Shipp, and Joe Morris In Concert: Newport Jazz Festival 2010 
Quad Stage, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, Rhode Island


Note from Greg Drusdow:

date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 7:40 PM subject: Marshall Allen broadcast from Newport Jazz Festival 2010 WGBH-FM & National Public Radio (NPR) broacast a select group of performances from the Newport Jazz Festival 2010 this past weekend.

The August 7, 2010 appearance of Marshall Allen (alto sax, flute, EVI*), Matthew Shipp (piano), and Joe Morris (bass) 
* at times, Marshall Allen's EVI sounds like an electronic slide whistle!

Design by ART&JAZZ Studio - 2012
Artwork and Complete Design by Vitko Salvarica


Marshall Allen played reeds with Sun Ra for decades. Matthew Shipp has created one of the most distinctive piano voices of his generation. Joe Morris anchors on bass, an instrument he mastered after first establishing himself as a guitarist. At the Care Fusion Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, R.I., the meeting of three top free improvisers performing "Night Logic Suites 1-5".

__________

The Newport Jazz Festival, was founded by jazz pianist George Wein in 1954 as the first outdoor music festival of its kind devoted entirely to jazz, and is now universally acknowledged as the grandfather of all jazz festivals.

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Re: MANERI ENSEMBLE – Going To Church (2002)

Label : Aum Fidelity; AUM024
Published by Personasound (BMI) ©+p 2002 AUM Fidelity
Recorded by Carl Seltzer on June 12, 2000 at Seltzer Sound, NYC
Produced by Mat Maneri, Mastered by FLAM at Mindswerve Studios, NYC
Design by Ming@409 from photographs by Edvard Vlanders

Note:

Going To Church is a once-in-our-lifetime meeting of three distinct and potent worlds of improv. One sunny Saturday afternoon in the studio with no preset ideas, save free communication through tone. The open form and fluid dynamics that day manifest themselves into this profound program, ranging from rarefied pastoral beauty to an intensity of psychedelic proportions. String prodigy Mat Maneri and his father, underground legend Joe Maneri – an innovator in the realm of elucidation through microtones. The legendary ex-pat bassist Barre Phillips (New Thing at Newport, Ornette Coleman, Naked Lunch soundtrack, ECM Records pivot) representing the finest that European improv has to offer. Legends in the making Matthew Shipp and Roy Campbell, bring to the party the African-American tradition; their gifts honed in the hardcore NYC of Now. Improvisation at the highest level knows no geographic or genealogical boundaries. Truth to tape, Going To Church is another divine offering from AUM Fidelity.

- SJ ( AUM Fidelity)


Review:

DUSTED REVIEW
date: Sep. 30, 2002

Going to Church is credited to the Maneri Ensemble, and right now, the Maneri with the highest profile among Dusted readers is certainly violist/violinist Mat. And sure enough, Mat Maneri does contribute his trademark twisting, sighing viola lines to this record, but the Maneri who features most prominently here is Mat ’ s father Joe.
Joe Maneri still isn ’ t especially well known in the U.S., even in free jazz circles, which may be partially due to the fact that he ’ s an older man who ’ s only been releasing recordings for about a dozen years. But it ’ s probably also because of his actual playing style, which is about as inaccessible as free jazz gets (despite Joe ’ s touching pleas to the contrary, available here: www.jazzweekly.com/interviews/maneri.htm). His work on saxophone and clarinet isn ’ t inaccessible in an Albert Ayler/Pharoah Sanders hide-the-children sort of way, and neither is it at all emotionally detached. But Joe ’ s playing is foot-draggingly slow, and it often sounds unsure—his phrases often expand and contract quickly, and he spends much of his time (intentionally) wobbling between the twelve equal-tempered tones to the octave used in most Western music. The first time I heard his playing, it sounded a little like a drunk person repeatedly trying to say something that would be easy to pronounce while sober. The more I listened, though, the more it sounded like Joe Maneri had found a new and beautiful way to play the blues.
Along with the two Maneris, Going to Church features pianist Matt Shipp, trumpeter Roy Campbell, veteran ECM bassist Barre Phillips and frequent Maneri family collaborator Randy Peterson on drums. Shipp ’ s presence is surprising, because his instrument doesn ’ t allow him to imitate Joe ’ s wavering approach to pitch. Shipp ’ s playing is effective, though, because he mostly stays out of the way, adding slow, unsure-sounding chords while allowing Joe to lead. Still, Shipp and Campbell ’ s contributions mean a lot—unlike some Joe Maneri recordings, Going to Church isn ’ t filled with tense pauses. Instead, the entire band seems to lumber like a drugged elephant, collectively lurching to and fro in tentative, yet weighty, steps. Both Joe and Mat Maneri are in especially fine form here, circling around each other with woozy, wounded lines.
The entire album feels both mournful and massive—listeners who haven ’ t heard Joe Maneri ’ s work before may find themselves focusing more on his microtonal approach to pitch than anything else. But after a few listens, the sadness in his playing becomes unmistakable. Going to Church would easily be among my favorite new jazz recordings if it hadn ’ t been recorded in June of 2000; the only downside to this album is that it ’ s taken so long to find release.

By Charlie Wilmoth




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