Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Art Blakey remains high on the list of the greatest drummer-bandleaders, a claim that’s given solid support by the star-studded Jazz Messengers album Caravan. Originally released by the Riverside label in 1962 and featuring trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, trombonist Curtis Fuller, pianist Cedar Walton, and bassist Reggie Workman, the album’s hard bop thrust is streamlined but sturdy with Blakey leading the charge. It’s out on 180 gram vinyl March 1 as part of Craft Recordings’ Original Jazz Classics reissue series.

By 1963, when Caravan was released, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers were no longer on the cutting edge of contemporary jazz. Key to the development of hard bop, the band that Blakey led throughout its existence (until his death in 1990) didn’t waver stylistically. Instead, the Messengers existed as a platform where promising young talent matured into greatness.

The lineup for this album is particularly stacked, and was productive, cutting three LPs for Riverside (Caravan, Ugetsu, and Kyoto) and one for Blue Note (Free for All), plus one for Colpix (Golden Boy) with an expanded lineup that added James Spaulding on alto, Charles Davis on baritone, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Julius Watkins on French horn, and Bill Barber on tuba.

Blakey’s hard bop allegiance extended to his non-Jazz Messengers albums as leader and across his extensive work as a sideman, which extended back to the dawn of the ’50s in connection with the initial bebop wave, supporting saxophonists Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, trumpeters Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie, and pianist Thelonious Monk.

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Released in 1969, Hot Buttered Soul brought Isaac Hayes widespread attention as he helped lead the charge into a new decade of soul music innovations. An impeccable album in a genre that hitherto had been largely dominated by singles, Hayes’ achievement is a perfect addition to Craft Recordings’ Small Batch series. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl at RTI with Neotech’s VR900 compound using lacquers cut from the master tapes by Bernie Grundman, the edition of 3,000 is available March 1.

Given how Hot Buttered Soul has consistently pulled in new listeners across a span of generations since its smash hit release, it can be easy to misplace the record’s reality as a groundbreaker. Featuring two songs on each side, the LP did something almost unheard of, hitting the marketplace without any accompanying singles; radio edits of “Walk on By” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” were subsequently issued (and charted) after the record’s unexpected success.

That Stax (through subsidiary Enterprise) allowed Hayes such creative freedom is not only unusual but also pretty risky, as the set’s bold conception couldn’t have been inexpensive. The scoop is that Hot Buttered Soul became a reality through Stax honcho Al Bell’s directive to the label’s active roster to cut a slew of albums for release in a very tight timeframe, a decision made because Stax had lost its entire back catalog to Atlantic Records.

Presenting Isaac Hayes, the artist’s debut from 1968, proved a disappointment, and to nobody more than Hayes himself, who responded to Bell’s album initiative with a demand for complete creative control. That the resulting LP received the necessary promotional push to take root with consumers and then catch fire is testament to Hayes’ talent but also to Bell’s stature as a record man.

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Remembering Dexter Gordon in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.

On May 23 of 1963 a trio of bebop originals joined up with a worthy European compatriot and visited CBS Studios in Paris. The comeback of tenor giant Dexter Gordon was well underway, but the Continent was a relatively recent change of scene. Pianist Bud Powell and drummer Kenny “Klook” Clarke had been living in France for quite some time however, and bassist Pierre Michelot was born there. Together this quartet agreed upon five standards and executed them with utter brilliance. Blue Note titled it Our Man in Paris, and years later it remains a classic.

They ate voraciously as Dean, sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph, listening to a wild bop record I had just bought called “The Hunt,” with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume.
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Much deserved praise gets heaped on Dexter Gordon for his comeback(s), but it can be occasionally overlooked that even if he never came back at all, he’d be a hugely important figure anyway. To begin, he’s the most distinctive tenor saxophonist to emerge from the ‘40s bop scene, extending the influence of Lester Young and quickly adapting the innovations of Charlie Parker, recording with Bird and Dizzy Gillespie and as a leader for Savoy before heading back to California and cutting those tenor battle 78s for Dial, the very sides that impacted Kerouac and Neal Cassady (i.e. Dean Moriarty) so massively.

It was heroin that nearly ended Gordon’s career for good; the ‘50s were a lost decade, though he did cut two records in ’55, Daddy Plays the Horn for Bethlehem in September and Daddy Blows Hot and Cool for Dootone two months later. After kicking the habit, he commenced his return with The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon, a minor session (some would call it a false start) for the Jazzland label.

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Celebrating David Sylvian, born on this day in 1958. —Ed.

When UK new wavers Japan broke up in 1982, the members predictably splintered off into various directions, and the highest profiles belonged to Mick Karn and David Sylvian. Over the decades the latter has amassed a solo and collaborative discography of unlikely reach and impressiveness; however, giving a fresh listen to ‘84’s Brilliant Trees makes abundantly clear Sylvian’s career trajectory isn’t as surprising as it might initially seem.

Upon consideration, very few musicians who made their name in the pop sphere have aged as well as David Sylvian. Of course, this is mainly due to his choice after Japan’s dissolution (they briefly reunited for one self-titled ’91 album under the name Rain Tree Crow) to gradually leave the milieu that fostered his initial reputation. The subsequent journey led him into the outlying territories of experimentation and the avant-garde, though this shouldn’t give the false impression that Sylvian’s post-Japan oeuvre is devoid of pop elements.

As a youngster of the ‘80s, I knew little of Japan, my discovery of Sylvian supplied by his ’87 collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Secrets of the Beehive. The introduction was made through the frequent play and promotion of said disc by my hometown Mom & Pop record mart, an enterprise also involved in the sale of high end stereo equipment.

To my teen mind any system comprised of separate components was high end, and at the time Secrets of the Beehive basically eluded me, as did much “deep-listening” material attached to ambient, new age, minimalism, art-pop etc. Reengaging with Sylvian as a mature adult provided, if not an epiphany than another instance aiding the realization that artistic assessments work in tandem with personal growth, therefore flouting finality.

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Formed in 1991 in Philadelphia, PA, the enduring heavy psych specialists Bardo Pond have amassed a substantial and consistently rewarding discography on a variety of physical formats in the years since. A significant portion of that output is a series documenting assorted jam sessions; Volume 9 is the latest entry, available on vinyl with accompanying download card February 23 through Fire Records. The sounds captured will appeal to lovers of drone-friendly psych at its most raw and fans of stoner-sludge-doom at its most expansive. Noise hounds and La Monte Young heads should find much to dig, as well.

For this record, recorded by Bard Pond in 2005–2006 in their compound-studio-warehouse space The Lemur House in Philly, the band consisted of Isobel Sollenberger on flute and viola, John Gibbons on guitars, his brother Michael Gibbons on guitars and synth, and Michael Zanghi on drums and percussion. Known for his work with Kurt Vile and The War on Drugs, Zanghi is something of a guest collaborator here, deepening an already rigorous sonic approach.

Bardo Pond began documenting their sound with the self-released cassette Shone Like a Ton in 1992. Although Fire is the band’s current and longtime label (others have included Drunken Fish, Siltbreeze, Three Lobed Recordings, ATP Recordings, and Matador), much of their output has been assembled by the band themselves, in large part because they excel at raw outward bound abstraction rather than trad song variations and innovations. Structure is part of the Pond’s equation, but it never dominates and often fades into the background.

The band’s growth coincided with a sort of renaissance in self-releasing. During this period the CDr joined the cassette and lathe-cut vinyl as options for underground bands grappling with inspiration that exceeded the norms of music distribution. The series that continues with Volume 9 began in 2000 with a CDr titled (what else?) Vol. I. The first installment to get the vinyl treatment upon release was Volume 8 in 2018 (Vol. I, Vol. II, and Vol. 3 have been reissued on wax, all by Fire).

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Julian “Cannonball Adderley” ranks amongst the finest alto saxophonists in the history of jazz. In pianistic terms the same is true for Bill Evans. Putting them in the studio together meant brilliance was bound to happen. And that’s exactly what’s heard on Know What I Mean?, an album first released in 1962 by the Riverside label that’s getting a fresh 180 gram pressing on March 1 by Craft Recordings as part of the label’s Original Jazz Classics reissue series. Add bassist Percy Heath and drummer Connie Key to the lineup and the result is an essential entry in the discographies of all the participants.

Those clued into the achievements that shaped jazz music’s boom years likely know the most celebrated album to feature both Adderley and Evans isn’t this one, but rather Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. Recorded in 1959 and released by Columbia later that year, Kind of Blue remains a highly lauded and well-liked album, a groundbreaking recording that has endured as a consumer favorite.

Know What I Mean? isn’t a milestone in jazz or in the careers of Adderley or Evans for that matter. There are in fact two prior Adderley releases that feature Evans, both recorded in 1958, a quintet session Portrait of Cannonball for Riverside and an orchestral date Jump for Joy for EmArcy, but this final collaboration is the best of the bunch, a thoroughly enjoyable set and furthermore distinct as it captures Adderley at his most expressive as the sole horn, while Evans’ creativity, integral to the record’s success, flows forth without being dominant point of focus.

The opening version of the cornerstone Evans composition “Waltz for Debby” is case in point, as Adderley’s entrance after the pianist’s stately opening gives the tune’s swing-shift an extra boost and without steamrolling the foundational beauty. By early 1961, the year Know What I Mean? was recorded in NYC, “Waltz for Debby,” now a standard and heard on numerous subsequent Evans releases, had been recorded only once before, on the pianist’s 1956 studio debut New Jazz Conceptions.

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On February 23 Craft Recordings and Acoustic Sounds kick off a year-long 180 gram vinyl reissue series sourced from the catalog of Contemporary Records with a welcome new edition of Smack Up by the Art Pepper Quintet. Cut in 1960, it captures alto saxophonist Pepper in superb form leading a top-flight band of West Coasters on six selections that mingle accessible swing with bluesy and occasionally progressive motifs. The cohesiveness of the whole is playful but sharp and will broaden perceptions of Pepper for listeners who mainly know him for a certain canonical quartet session.

Art Pepper’s undisputed entry into the jazz canon was also his debut for Lester Koenig’s Contemporary label; cut and released in 1957, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section teamed the saxophonist with pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones, aka Miles Davis’ celebrated rhythm section of the time (hence the title).

The quality of the music this august group produced in a one-day session (January 19) has endured since and helped bolster the album’s legendary stature. It was a first time meeting, connecting the East Coast to a rising West Coast star who was to some extent unprepared for the date (sources vary), in part due to a drug problem. This is all long-established info, but it’s particularly worthy of mention in this review, as the title Smack Up has been perceived as either a direct or coincidental reference to Pepper’s heroin addiction.

It’s also this album’s opening cut. “Smack Up” was composed by Harold Land and appears on the tenor saxophonist’s 1958 album for Contemporary, Harold in the Land of Jazz. This adds a bit of ambiguity to the drug association (Land having stated the piece’s title was inspired purely by the music’s structure) as it clarifies Smack Up’s conceptual reality; all six tracks were composed by saxophonists.

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Formed in Chicago in the early 2000s, The Children’s Hour featured the vocal and multi-instrumental talents of Josephine Foster alongside the guitar and bass of Andy Bar. Gorgeously folky, they released one LP in 2003 and then recorded some tracks with the addition of David Pajo on drums, material that was long lost and recently thankfully found, mixed, mastered, and scheduled for release as Going Home. It’s available February 23 via the Sea Note label with distribution by Drag City.

Not to be confused with the mid-’80s New Zealand-based Flying Nun-affiliated outfit Children’s Hour, the outfit reviewed here, until recently, was mainly discussed as one entry in Foster’s prodigious body of work. Had Going Home been finished and released in a timely fashion, the group would surely be remembered differently, as Pajo’s involvement was a direct result of his double-duty drum backing for The Children’s Hour as they toured as openers for Zwan.

It was SOS JFK, released on CD by Minty Fresh in 2003 (and reissued on LP by Fire in 2016) that landed The Children’s Hour that plum gig. It was a terrific debut, placing the duo of Foster and Bar on the outskirts of the New Weird America, though it’s worth underscoring that there’s nothing especially freaky about SOS JFK’s folky orientation. Instead, the record establishes and sustains a high level of beauty.

Their moniker comes not from the 1934 Lillian Helman play The Children’s Hour or its 1961 William Wyler film adaptation, but the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem that was first published in 1860. The inspiration jibes well with the out of time quality that heightens the distinctiveness of Foster’s work. The characteristic of being spiritually aligned with earlier eras rather than the present truly flourishes in her later output but does have roots in SOS JFK.

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Remembering Tim Buckley, born on this day in 1947. —Ed.

Two releases illuminate Tim Buckley as being far from the typical 1960s folkie. Light in the Attic’s Lady, Give Me Your Key uncovers two ’67 demos and is easily the more consistent of the two, its contents complementing a significant portion of Omnivore’s Wings: The Complete Singles 1966-1974. That set leaps over a highly fertile period in chronologically documenting the 45s of an artist primarily known for his albums, but still manages to detail the lessening of quality in Buckley’s work. The former comes with vinyl, compact disc, and digital options, and the latter is CD only.

Tim Buckley’s output can be divided into three segments: the early formative period that includes his self-titled ’66 debut and the following year’s Goodbye and Hello, a fertile middle section beginning with ’69’s Happy Sad and Blue Afternoon and continuing with ’70’s Lorca and Starsailor, and a highly disappointing shift into strained soulfulness and off-putting conventionality that includes ’72’s Greetings from L.A., ’73’s Sefronia and ’74’s Look at the Fool.

Since his premature death in 1975, Buckley’s discography has roughly doubled, mostly through performance material, a circumstance helping Lady, Give Me Your Key to stand out a bit; composed of a pair of demos made for producer Jerry Yester in aid of choosing the contents of Goodbye and Hello, there are enough new song discoveries to enhance the familiar numbers, and if belonging to Buckley’s earliest period the album deepens the man’s work rather than just offering minutiae for diehards.

If predominantly straightforward in approach, it’s important to qualify that on his first LP Buckley was already more than a clichéd strummer. Working largely in baroque mode with a full band including drummer Billy Mundi, his longtime guitarist Lee Underwood, and on piano, celesta, and harpsichord Van Dyke Parks, a third of the album sets Wings: The Complete Singles 1966-1974 into motion, the A-side to the first 45 lending the collection its title.

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UK singer-songwriter Liam Bailey is a sly genre blender. Nowhere is this more apparent than on his latest album Zero Grace, which is out February 23 on vinyl (bloodshot colored or standard black), compact disc, and digital through Big Crown Records. Reteaming Bailey with ace producer and Big Crown co-founder Leon Michels, the resulting 12-song set delivers a vigorous infusion of reggae and what Bailey has described as lo-fi soul. Hints of rock, elements of psychedelia, and even a little acoustic strum widen the album’s sonic landscape.

Zero Grace’s opener “Holding On” presents Liam Bailey’s sound as tough, edgy, and soul deep. It’s really no surprise his initial dalliance with a major label didn’t work out, Bailey pulling his first album Out of the Shadows prior to release in 2011; he debuted with a pair of EPs on Amy Winehouse’s label the prior year. His first proper album, Definitely Now came out in 2014. But things started getting really interesting with Ekundayo, released by Big Crown and produced Michels in 2020.

The drumming at the start of “Holding On” solidifies a ’60s soul foundation while the singing accentuates the Jamaican roots. But in a striking style switch, the guitar eschews the slinky clean crispness of reggae for a decidedly rockish rhythmic string attack that goes so far as to insinuate early ’70s hard rock by the track’s back end.

The following cut “Dumb” effectively illuminates Zero Grace’s textural unusualness: muffled drums, a keyboard set to “croak,” unperturbed horns lines gliding in, and vocals alternating between soulful finesse and desperation. “Sekkle Down” places the focus directly on reggae but with keyboard tones alternating between vintage arcade games and wind instrument settings. But the singing in “Sekkle Down” extends the rich tradition of R&B vocal groups (including some sweet bass voice accents that are recurrent but not overdone across the LP).

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Paul Collins is power pop royalty. This is not a controversial statement, as he was a member of The Nerves and The Breakaways, the leader of The Beat (the Cali band, not the contemporaneous UK ska act), and a solo artist who released the 2010 set King of Power Pop! The man could’ve sported a crown on the cover of that LP (a la Joe Carrasco) and nobody, not even the crustiest of curmudgeons, would’ve questioned the choice of chapeau. Collins’ latest, Stand Back and Take a Good Look, extends his formal mastery across 12 tracks with a few sly stylistic detours. It’s out February 16 through Jem Records.

Indeed, Paul Collins is fully aware that in power pop terms, he’s one of the greatest to ever do it, but his latest reinforces that he operates from a mindset of always having something to prove. The opening title track here, written by Collins’ bandmate in The Nerves Jack Lee (also the writer of “Hanging on the Telephone”), bursts out of the gate with bright full-bodied vocals right up front, plus hooky guitar and sturdy rhythmic propulsion.

“Stand Back and Take a Good Look” connects like a radio hit from the late 1970s, specifically a song picked up for rotation by DJs back when DJs still picked the tunes. This fits Collins’ MO, as “Hanging on the Telephone” was something of a radio hit for The Nerves, and also in the US for Blondie, who gave it a timely cover. But at just a smidge over two minutes the title cut here is just as notable for its brevity; the song’s an attention grabber, and Collins and his distinguished company (Dwight Twilley, Shoes, 20/20, Richard X Heyman, Prairie Prince, Ronnie Barnett) don’t squander the song’s power.

“I’m the Only One for You” is even more succinct while still connecting as a robust, harmony and riff laden nugget. But “In Another World” stretches out like a classic radio single, delivering some glorious chime pop harkening back to the era when it was first perfected. That’d be the 1960s, and the following cut “Don’t Take It So Hard” deepens Collins’ relationship to the decade, slowing the pace and hitting a bit like Bobby Fuller with Duane Eddy on his mind.

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Regarding two person rock ‘n’ roll, few have done it better than Flavia and Martin Couri, the married duo who record and play shows as The Courettes. Flavia, originally from Brazil, is the singer and guitarist, while Martin, who hails from Denmark where the band is currently based, handles the rhythm and some backing vocals. Theirs is a raw ’60s garage sound blended with pop elements from the same era, and they’ve sustained a high level of quality for nearly a decade. Their latest is “SHAKE!” c/w “You Woo Me,” available February 16 through Damaged Goods Records, and it’s a burning groove double whammy.

Half of this gold-vinyl 7-inch is a taster for The Courettes next full-length, which is set for release this September; it’s the flip that’s exclusive to this platter. Excluding Boom! Dynamite (An Introduction to the Fabulous Courettes), a compilation issued last year, and Here We Are the Courettes, a 2021 CD that combines their first two LPs, the duo’s upcoming LP will be their fourth, which is frankly a pretty high number for an outfit specializing in garage punk.

Along with a pair of 10-inch discs (perhaps we’ll call them mini-LPs), The Courettes have a slew of singles in their discography. This isn’t a surprise, as that’s the format where garage punk bands (and duos) tend to excel. The reason is reliably due to short-players capturing quick bursts of inspiration in a relatively timely frame, before the edges get smoothed down and urgency inevitably diminishes.

To expect more than a few short sharp singles from a garage punk act is a set-up for disappointment. And by extension, that’s why The Courettes’ inspired prolificacy over such a substantial period of time is worth celebrating. A big reason for the sustained success comes down the pair’s melodic deftness. Frequent is the praise The Courettes receive for their acumen with retro-’60s pop hooks, and it’s a streak that extends to “SHAKE!” as the catchiness gets merged with strong classic R&B-ish groove stomp reinforcing the Sonics comparisons they’ve garnered over the years.

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Itasca is vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Kayla Cohen’s chosen handle for a string of intimate recordings that stretch back to 2012. Imitation of War is her first release in four years, and it finds her engaging with a rock sensibility more forthrightly than ever before, all while cultivating those folkish roots. Available on 140 gram virgin vinyl and CD February 9 through Paradise of Bachelors, these ten songs should please discerning fans of early San Francisco psychedelia and ears that crave their singer-songwriter platters dipped in edgy acid-folk.

Imitation of War is a significant progression for Kayla Cohen, the album’s songs unwinding with a calm assurance that adds dimension as the foundation gets strengthened by the bass of Evan Backer and the drums of Daniel Swire and Evan Burrows. Backer and Burrows both play in Wand with Robert Cody, who produced Imitation of War. Swire plays in Gun Outfit along with contributing to Itasca’s prior album Spring. But it’s Cohen’s vocals, warm and pretty, and her guitar, expansive yet focused, that make her latest such a pleasure to hear.

Opener “Milk” begins with just Cohen’s guitar, but bass and drums enter the scheme soon enough. The atmosphere is initially calm but with a gradual, subtle rise in urgency. There is a definite similarity to San Fran psych from before the early ’70s rot set in; a direct instrumental comparison can be made to Alexander “Skip” Spence’s masterful Oar.

There’s a tangible late night quality both songs share, though Imitation of War lacks the captivating damaged eccentricity of Spence’s underground classic. But Cohen makes up for this with clarity in execution. The title cut is even more rock focused, indeed the most rocking cut on the record, as the singing glides atop and reinforces Cohen’s folky bona fides.

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Johnny Griffin ranks amongst the very greatest hard bop tenor saxophonists, with his voluminous discography as a sideman and leader stretching from the mid-1940s to the early 21st century. Having moved to France in 1963, he quickly became a fixture on stages and in studios throughout Europe. Live at Ronnie Scott’s 1964 documents the man at the height of his artistic powers at the storied UK club of the title, backed by the venue’s house band including pianist Stan Tracey. Issued as a three-sided 2LP in a numbered edition of 500 (with CDs also available), the set is out now through Gearbox Records.

Today, Johnny Griffin might be best known for his work with Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey circa the second half of the 1950s; one LP, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk, released in 1959 by Atlantic, brought Griffin’s productive relationships together. But the Little Giant (as he was called) was also in the band for Full House, a live recording that teamed the saxophonist with pianist Wynton Kelly’s trio in support of guitarist Wes Montgomery. Originally issued as a single album in ’62, Full House was expanded to a 3LP set just last year.

Griffin’s work as a leader, or co-leader, hasn’t exactly been forgotten, however. To put it plainly, that’s because he was a reliable, high-energy, straight-ahead player. If blowing sessions are your bag, then Griffin is surely (one of) your guy(s). His first records as a leader to hit the store bins came via Blue Note, and especially notable is 1957’s Johnny Griffin, Vol. 2 (aka A Blowin’ Session) which added two more tenors, Hank Mobley and John Coltrane, plus Lee Morgan on trumpet and Kelly at the keys with Paul Chambers on bass and Blakey on drums.

Blowing sessions have sometimes been billed as tenor battles (in the tradition of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray’s cutting contest approximations “The Chase” and “The Hunt”) and between 1960-’62 Griffin cut ten albums in this mode, many of them live, with fellow tenor titan Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. A few in this flood of LPs were issued later in the decade, but the majority landed in the retail racks promptly after recording, proof that Griffin was in demand and could be consistently interesting in a casually competitive context.

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Drummer Francisco Mela and tenor saxophonist-flutist Zoh Amba are two leading lights in the current avant-garde jazz scene. On Causa y Efecto, Vol. 2, they deliver some exemplary duo exchange, following up a prior installment released in September 2022. Both sets are available on vinyl (Vol. 2 releases February 2) through 577 Records of Brooklyn, NY. We cover both sets below.

Born in Cuba, Francisco Mela moved to the US in 2000 to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. It didn’t take him long to start amassing credits, and like many jazz drummers, he’s versatile, having played with saxophonists Joe Lovano and Kenny Barron, bassist Esperanza Spaulding, and live with pianists McCoy Tyner and Geri Allen, but also, swinging over to the avant-garde side of spectrum, saxophonists Daniel Carter and Stephen Gauci, bassist William Parker, and pianist Matthew Shipp.

A co-leader of many recordings, Mela’s own albums include 2006’s Melao, ’08’s Cirio (Live at the Blue Note), ’16’s Fe and ’18’s Ancestros. And it’s no surprise that Mela is featured on numerous recent releases from 577, including Zoh Amba’s ’22 debut for the label O Life, O Light (Vol. 1) in trio with Parker on bass (Vol. 2 came out last year).

Born in Tennessee, Amba attended San Francisco Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory and also studied in NYC with saxophonist David Murray. Her debut recording, ’22 O, Sun, was released by John Zorn’s Tzadik label with a guest spot from the saxophonist on one track. Bhakti followed not long after on the Mahakala label, and since then she’s been a co-leader on ’22’s Alien Skin with Parker, Shipp, saxophonists Chad Fowler and Ivo Perelman and drummer Steve Hirsh. Last year Palilalia Records released The Flower School by Amba, drummer Chris Corsano and guitarist Bill Orcutt.

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