Last Call Label Spotlight: Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records continues to release some of the most daring and visionary progressive jazz recordings of our time. Two new efforts are of special interest to jazz fans.
Living By Lanterns presents drummer Mike Reed and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, essential members of Chicago's jazz scene, leading an ensemble of Chicago and New York musicians for a studio date, with is Old Myth, New Science. Together,the ensemble explores tunes written by Reed and Adasiewicz based on a previously unknown 1961 Sun Ra rehearsal tape. The results are dynamic, unexpected, but always brilliant--distilling the essence of Sun Ra's genius into the 21st Century and beyond. Solid stuff.
For saxophonist/composer Jason Robinson’s polydirectional masterpiece Tiresian Symmetry, the saxophonist doesn’t seek to tell the ancient soothsayer’s story. Instead he explores the nature of the story itself in a jazz context on this, his seventh album as a leader. Tiresias, the blind prophet of ancient Greek stories and myths, was blessed and cursed by the gods, living as both a man and a woman over the centuries. Robinson incorporates mythology, odd meters and complex writing while allowing his bandmates plenty of space to improvise. In doing so he reminds the listener of the excellence of bandleaders like Charles Mingus and Henry Threadgill. It is truly an ambitious work.
For more information you may visit http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/