Mind Maintenance is Joshua Abrams and Chad Taylor, two musicians whose concord transcends time, distance, genre, and instrumentation. They’ve been playing together since the 1990s, when they both lived in Chicago, and their collaborative relationship has endured since Taylor headed east 20 years ago. They’ve jointly backed the likes of singer Sam Prekop and cosmic […]
Author Archives: Bill Meyer
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Pianist Matthew Shipp provides a reminder of the Jazz Festival afterfest experience
Matthew Shipp has been making music at a relentless pace since the 1980s. On occasion, the Delaware-born, New York-based pianist has copped a David Bowie move and threatened to retire from recording. But now that he’s reached the age of 60, he’s apparently too busy making new records to talk about quitting. So far in […]
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Chicago has nurtured jazz since its infancy
There’s been jazz in Chicago for nearly as long as there’s been jazz. While jazz is commonly said to have ridden the rails to Chicago around 1916, when the Great Migration of African Americans from the south to the north kicked into gear, Dixieland bandleader Wilbur Sweatman had played gigs on the city’s south side […]
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Quin Kirchner puts a contemporary spin on mid-20th-century jazz
Quin Kirchner blew into Chicago in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated his old hometown of New Orleans. He wasted no time making himself essential as a drummer, and since then he’s played with a wide variety of acts: Afrobeat combo Nomo, tropical pop band Wild Belle, singer-guitarist Ryley Walker, and countless jazz ensembles. In all […]
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Versatile instrumental trio Bitchin Bajas unspool new material at their first concert since 2019
For the past decade, local trio Bitchin Bajas have exemplified the virtues of patience and versatility. All three members play synthesizers, Cooper Crain and Daniel Quinlivan play organ, and Rob Frye plays woodwinds and percussion. They create plush, pulsing instrumentals with melodies that evolve at such a leisurely pace that you might not notice the […]
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An improvised-music summit offers contrasting experiences of community and austerity
The double album Houston 2012 captures a two-day encounter in October 2012 between English tabletop guitarist Keith Rowe and the experimental-music community of Houston, Texas. Rowe’s visit came about thanks to the initiative of Saint Louis double bassist Damon Smith, who lived in Texas at the time. While there Smith developed a strong working relationship […]
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French polymath Jean-Luc Guionnet finally commits his solo saxophone music to wax
Jean-Luc Guionnet’s relationship to music is complicated, and it shows. As a youth, he drew while his father played saxophone, and he didn’t much like what he heard. When he changed his mind during his teens and started making his own music, his first instruments were keyboards, spliced tape, and drums; he only came around […]
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Fly or Die Live catches Jaimie Branch’s quartet reaching new heights
If the world can agree on one thing, it’s that 2020 was not our best year on record. For former Chicagoan Jaimie Branch, it should’ve been a time of triumph for her current quartet, Fly or Die. The group were riding the wave of a splendid sophomore LP, where Branch added vocals with tragically topical […]
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Tuareg guitar group Les Filles de Illighadad lock into their groove as a touring band
Fatour Seidi Ghali is surely not the first person to become enamored of an older sibling’s guitar. When she was about ten, her older brother, Ahmoudou Madassane (who currently plays rhythm guitar for Mdou Moctar), brought a guitar from Libya back to their home in Illighadad, Niger. Since Tuareg girls aren’t encouraged to pick up […]
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A multigenerational trio reaffirms the wide-open aesthetic of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has made recordings over the past decade that celebrate uplifting movements, such as the Occupy protests and the civil rights struggle, and great jazz musicians, including Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. At first glance Sun Beans of Shimmering Light, a six-year-old concert recording of a group that played just a handful […]
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Natural Information Society reaches a new ecstatic peak with Evan Parker
While it’s impossible to pinpoint a single peak in John Coltrane’s vast discography, Ascension is one of his most intense expressions of transcendental intent. Local musician Joshua Abrams knows his Coltrane, so it’s no accident that he’s given the name Descension to this summit between his group Natural Information Society and English saxophonist (and fellow […]
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Philadelphia duo Writhing Squares achieve maximum aggravation on their third album
Many rock ’n’ roll duos deal with economy of one sort or another. In the case of Philadelphia group Writhing Squares, it’s not a matter of compensating for thin arrangements: woodwind player Kevin Nickles and electric bassist and rhythm programmer Daniel Provenzano both sing and play synthesizers as well, and they can make so much […]
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Improvising trio Kuzu combines fire with finesse on a new LP
Kuzu formed in 2017, when electric guitarist Tashi Dorji and drummer Tyler Damon invited saxophonist Dave Rempis to join their duo onstage at Elastic Arts. The set went so well that they recorded an album the next day. Anyone who knew what that record’s title, Hiljaisuus, means in Finnish probably just thought the trio were […]
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Experimental Sound Studio has turned a streaming series into a virtual community
With its ongoing Quarantine Concerts, ESS has built connections faster and cheaper than it could have in person.
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Aki Takase, Christian Weber, and Michael Griener advance the language of piano jazz with a collective approach
Berlin-based pianist Aki Takase has been performing for more than 40 years, and in that time she’s engaged with contemporary composition, spoken word, and even a turntablist—the trio Lok 03 includes her husband, fellow pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and their son, DJ Illvibe. But no matter where she roams, her playing is fundamentally rooted in […]