Author Archives: Bill Meyer

In his own projects and his collaborations with others, tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed often makes music with a compounded quality, as though he and his associates are trying to concentrate as much information as possible into the available space. Human Feel packed the divergent aesthetics of four strong players into each tune; Pachora […]

Drummer Andrew Cyrille (born 1939) and double bassist Reggie Workman (born 1937) have worked with many of the most profoundly influential figures in post-1950 jazz; a short list of artists with whom one or both musicians have recorded includes Art Blakey, Alice and John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Cecil Taylor, Marion Brown, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, […]

Xylouris White’s fifth and latest LP, April’s The Forest in Me (Drag City), stands apart from everything else in the duo’s discography. Cretan folk musician George Xylouris—who contributes laouto (lute), lyra (upright fiddle), and vocals—and Australian MVP (most valuable percussionist) Jim White have typically recorded music that feels a lot like their live performances. Their […]

The Magic Number is three. It’s the number of musicians that gallerist, record label proprietor, and music scholar John Corbett deems to be ideal for an improvisational encounter. And since he’s organizing this event—which coincides with his observation of a significant birthday that’s divisible by three—he gets to pick the terms of engagement under which […]

Pandelis Karayorgis is all about connections. On The Hasaan, Hope & Monk Project, a fantastic trio session released last year by Driff Records, the Boston-based keyboardist explores the overlapping idiosyncrasies of fellow pianists Thelonious Monk, Elmo Hope, and Hasaan Ibn Ali. In other settings, he has delved deeply into the music of Misha Mengelberg, Duke […]

Yo La Tengo’s latest album, the double LP This Stupid World (Matador), arrives 37 years after their first, but time isn’t the only chasm that separates them. The band’s 1986 debut, Ride the Tiger (Coyote), is a charmingly game expression of fandom by a pair of pop-music enthusiasts, Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, who obtained […]

Histories of jazz tend to play up the significance of composers and conceptual innovators who also lead bands. Harrison Bankhead will not stand in their ranks; during a career that began in the 1970s and lasted until his death in Waukegan on April 5, he only made two albums as a leader. But as a […]

In 2017, Reader critic Peter Margasak noted Tinariwen’s recurring practice of featuring rock musicians as guests on their records. Their new album, Amatssou, doesn’t change that approach, but it perfects it. Originally, the long-running ensemble of Tuareg musicians (also known as Kel Tamasheq, meaning speakers of Tamasheq) intended to make the album at Jack White’s […]

This spring, east-coast instrumental duo Elkhorn released On the Whole Universe in All Directions (Centripetal Force), and Chicago’s Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble released the equally game-changing III (Astral Spirits). Though their sounds are distinct, the two bands aim at a common goal of musical transcendence—which may help explain how they ended up on this bill together. […]

Given the relentless corporatization of American life, any place you can find that isn’t a front for a faceless, rent-seeking conglomerate feels special. Certain independent music venues earn a special reverence by establishing a center of gravity for communities and movements in need. Since April 2013, when Constellation opened on Western Avenue in a shared […]