The Listening Guide
🎶 The listening guide: five albums, released during the past twelve months, chosen around a weekly theme 🎶
This week, we pick five recent releases reflecting the brilliance of Anthony Braxton and his influence on subsequent generations of players. The expert woodwind player, pianist, and prolific composer is known for his unconventional but theoretical approach to music, which has seen him produce work in an enormous range of styles, often with intuitive graphic notation and titling. The recently-released 2006 collaboration between London-based pianist Pat Thomas and The Locals provides a funkier take on Braxton’s compositions, whilst Thumbscrew’s project is a remarkably tight trio performance of his work, and Kobe Van Cauwenberghe’s project is a fascinating solo guitar response to Braxton’s Ghost Trance music. The two albums featuring Braxton himself are an improvised duo set with Eugene Chadbourne dating back to 2017, and a solo alto saxophone performance captured in Peitz that same year.
Pat Thomas / The Locals – The Locals Play The Music Of Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton / Eugene Chadbourne – Duo (Improv) 2017
Thumbscrew (Tomas Fujiwara/Mary Halvorson/Michael Formanek) – The Anthony Braxton Project
Album of the Week
Our NQ Jazz album of the week is New York-based pianist Chris Pattishall’s ‘phantasmagorical interpretation’ of Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite. With Snarky Puppy’s Jamison Ross on drums and experimental guitarist Rafiq Bhatia focussed here on sound design and programming, Pattishall’s debut recording reimagines Williams’ largely solo piano suite as an expansive quintet plus arrangement, with trumpeter Riley Mulherkar, saxophonist Ruben Fox, and bassist Marty Jaffe completing the line-up. Support the project on Bandcamp!
Classic Album
Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims is the final studio album of Hipp's all too brief career as a jazz pianist. In addition to Hipp and Sims, this 1956 Blue Note recording features Ed Thigpen on drums, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Jerry Lloyd on trumpet. The album contains a variety of energetic and pensive numbers, with Hipp’s playing on ‘Violets For Your Furs’ of particular brilliance. Find the album on streaming service as well as on wax, courtesy of the ‘Blue Note 80’ reissue campaign.