Founded in 2005, Corbett vs. Dempsey is a label attached to the Chicago art gallery of the same name. Featuring a mixture of new recordings and CD reissues of out-of-print LPs, CvsD's offerings focus on jazz, free jazz, and improvised music; occasional rock and rock-related noise; artist-related projects; sound art; and soon some experimentally minded dub. Many of the releases continue the archival work that John Corbett did with his Unheard Music Series, released under the Atavistic label starting in the late '90s, with Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, Tom Prehn, and Sun Ra being carry-overs from UMS. Corbett's commitment to the Joe McPhee legacy led to CvsD's acquisition of McPhee's legendary Hat Hut tapes, along with the label's cache of recordings by Steve Lacy, Jimmy Lyons, and various other artists. The label's more recent offerings are packaged in tipped-on mini-LP covers, lovingly designed to reproduce the original LP packaging.
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CVSD 105CD
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At the tail end of 1996, saxophonist Mars Williams and drummer Hamid Drake took the tall corner stage at Chicago's Empty Bottle for two sets of duets. The rock club had just started a weekly Jazz & Improvised Music Series, curated by Ken Vandemark and John Corbett, which would run for nearly a decade. This rare pairing brought together two pivotal figures in the city's creative music scene, both of whom had extensive experience in diverse areas of music, from the free jazz focus of this intimate encounter to Mars's stints in rock with the Waitresses and the Psychedelic Furs and Hamid's work in Mandingo Griot Society, playing in reggae house bands, and lending rhythms to hits by Herbie Hancock. As eclectic as these inputs were, in the deep souls of Williams and Drake they added to the players' burgeoning inventive resources, rather than urging the players to pastichery. In the venerable dialogical lineage of saxophone and drum kit, these two contemporary ninjas indeed invented their own approach, very different, for instance, from other such duo settings for Drake, like those with Fred Anderson, Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, or Ken Vandermark. Here, the fiery reed-work of Williams lends the concert a special urgency and punch, Drake's funk trap imbued with G-force, his cymbals ringing with nuance, his toms speaking like a whole West African drum choir. Williams responds to this positive energy with one of his most commanding performances, starting with his composition "The Worm" (written for Dennis Rodman of the Bulls), and continuing through a series of phenomenal improvisations. Released by CvsD as part of a series of archival Mars Williams CDs, hand selected by Williams shortly before his untimely death in 2023, I Know You Are But What Am I? goes on the record proclaiming the lasting power of Mars Williams, especially in the company of a master like Hamid Drake.
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CVSD 107CD
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When Mars Williams dove into his vault to excavate several recordings for a Mars Archive series on Corbett vs. Dempsey, he immediately landed on a concert date from a decade earlier. The event, recorded at Chicago's Elastic Arts Foundation in 2012, featured a trio with Williams on reed instruments, Darin Gray on bass, and Chris Corsano on drums. This configuration had already been highly enough estimated by Williams that he'd posted one set on Bandcamp, but he saved the other set for future release, and selected it to be the third CD in CvsD's archival suite. Gray is of course well known to creative music insiders for his work with Jim O'Rourke and Akira Sakata, and as half of On Fillmore (with Glenn Kotche, of Wilco fame); he's a massively resourceful player with keen ears. Corsano is one of the hardest working percussionists in improvised music who has played with everyone under the sun, among them Joe McPhee and Okkyung Lee. In this freely improvised context, the threesome works almost as a single organism, spinning sounds that develop organically and patiently. Dave Zuchowski documented the date in a gorgeous recording. This is creative music at an exceptionally high level, with no gimmicks or compromises. Taken together with the other episodes in the Mars Archive series, it helps paint a full some picture of the restless creativity that was embodied in Mars Williams.
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CVSD 106CD
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From a night of music in Holland that's become legendary among NRG Ensemble enthusiasts, Hold That Thought presents a blazing concert of the quintet's unique sound. With Mars Williams and Ken Vandermark on reeds, Kent Kessler and Brian Sandstrom on basses (the latter doubling on trumpet and electric guitar), and Steve Hunt on drums, this incarnation of the band was arguably its tightest and mightiest, taking the inspiration of founder Hal Russell (1926-1992) and running with it. All the way. The quirkiness and eccentricity of Russell's vision remained a lasting part of the fabric of NRG, but the level of discipline and craftsmanship achieved by this version of the combo is arguably taken to a whole other level. Working with original material, mostly by Williams and Vandermark, NRG Ensemble had its signature pugilistic feel, with lots of time changes and dynamic shifts, quick starts and hard stops. Williams certainly knew how to push up the energy/NRG with a strangulated solo or a sudden burst of beautiful melody; all his years in creative music, from time spent as Roscoe Mitchell's copyist to countless weeks on the road kicking ass with the Psychedelic Furs, led him to a core understanding that linked many kinds of noise-making -- rock, funk, soul, free jazz, squeaky-bonk improvised music. Those tributaries meet in NRG Ensemble, with his longstanding colleagues gathered to joyfully up the ante. Williams chose this beautiful recording as one of three archival tapes he wanted released as soon as possible, and he approached CvsD with the job of shepherding them into the world just before his tragically early death from cancer in November, 2023.
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CVSD 104CD
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For the first time, a compact version of Rob Mazurek's magisterial Exploding Star Orchestra -- Exploding Star Orchestra/Small Unit -- commits its music to CD. Recorded live at Corbett vs. Dempsey's Chicago gallery space in March, 2023, the six-piece band featured Mazurek on trumpet, Tomeka Reid on cello, Damon Locks on voice and electronics, Angélica Sánchez on Wurlitzer, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Chad Tayloron drums. Spectral Fiction consists of two tracks, the deeply exploratory "Equations of Love in Prismatic Waves of Color," clocking in at nearly 40-minutes, and the super-groovalistic 14-minutes of "Driftless" (a Mazurek-penned melody named after the Sam Gilliam exhibition in which the music took place and by which it was inspired). The musicians were already warmed up -- really hot at this point -- by a concert the night before, playing music from their great International Anthem LP Lightning Dreamers in the Sky Theater at Chicago's Adler Planetarium. With Locks's incantatory samples and momentum-staked poetry and Reid's incisive pizzicato and arco cello intonations, the band moves through a spectacular range of diverse colors and emotional zones, locking into rolling grooves and opening out onto fields of energy and sound. Often open and investigatory, it's a different side of Mazurek's vision from the eight previous Orchestra releases dating back to 2007, a lighter, more aerodynamic incarnation of the cosmic-conscious ensemble.
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CVSD 099CD
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Corbett Vs. Dempsey presents the third release in an ongoing series that will reconstruct the legacy known and the legacy damned of the most overlooked and under-documented American free rock unit, Dredd Foole and the Din. After his miraculous two-year collaboration with Mission of Burma came to an end, Dredd Foole found a full-time band -- built with Peter Prescott's Volcano Suns. This new Dredd Foole and the Din would set the Boston scene on fire from 1984-1987, playing more shows in a given month than the Burma-Din had played during their entire run. The band is the longest running and most fully realized group that Dredd Foole has ever been part of, and the music bears it out. For the first time, their full story will be told. This 2CD set features the complete Suns-Din era and almost doubles the group's historical output: both of their never-before-reissued albums -- 1985's Eat My Dust, Cleanse My Soul, and 1988's Take Off Your Skin -- plus unreleased studio tracks from multiple sessions and a bevy of never before heard live material from the height of the band's powers, including a complete show -- all remastered from the original tapes, all seen through rare and ecstatic photos by Boston scene documentarian Pat Ireton, all framed by extensive liner notes by the project's archivist. The effort includes a painstakingly remixed Take Off Your Skin, the Din's second album, recorded in '86 but not released until '88. This new mix reveals the under-distributed album as the band's magnum opus. After an exhaustive approach in which hundreds of live, studio, home, and private performances have been located and reviewed over several years, this monster third archival release is a both-barrels blast of peak radical expression music, proudly presented with the full cooperation of Dredd Foole, Volcano Suns, and guitarist Kenny Chambers.
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CVSD 102CD
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On this maiden recording, Chicago-based bassist Jason Roebke leads a new quartet, featuring his original compositions and a stellar lineup. The music, which was brilliantly recorded at Steve Albini's legendary Electrical Audio and expertly mixed and mastered by Alex Inglizian at Experimental Sound Studio, is performed by veteran reed player Edward Wilkerson Jr., whose own bands Eight Bold Souls and Shadow Vignettes were among the great ensembles of eighties/nineties Chicago, extending the AACM tradition and spotlighting Wilkerson's sensitive improvising. Here, wielding tenor saxophone and alto clarinet, Wilkerson is a commanding -- but also supremely collaborative -- voice, joining the younger pianist Mabel Kwan and drummer Marcus Evans. Roebke's scores are rich and flexible, but they concentrate on exploring multifarious ways of stopping, something that's been a feature of the bassist's own improvisation for decades. Investigating the interrelationships between flow and cessation, the quartet is at once organic and halting, Roebke and Evans playing together with great assurance, but occasional interruptions of metronomes or Roebke's lo-fi cassette recordings pushing against the fluidity and expressiveness in revelatory ways. Roebke's own bass playing has been a feature of scads of ensembles, both working and ad hoc, including Jason Stein Trio, Jeb Bishop Trio, James Falzone's KLANG, Jorrit Dijkstra's Flatlands Collective, Pillow Circles, The Whammies, Keefe Jackson, and Mike Reed's People, Places, and Things. The CD package for Four Spheres comes adorned with a beautiful painting by Rebecca Shore.
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CVSD 103CD
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Tuned metal percussion figures prominently in the sound universe of Roscoe Mitchell. Many of Mitchell's early compositions for the Art Ensemble of Chicago feature xylophone and tuned bells, and his immersive set-up known as "The Cage" arranges an array of percussed instruments in a circle around him, including all sorts of metallophones and gongs. On Roscoe Village, Chicago-based improvisor Jason Adasiewicz has transcribed and arranged a selection of Mitchell-penned pieces, performing them all on solo vibraphone. Adasiewicz, who has been one of the most in-demand players on contemporary improvised music stages, with his group Sun Rooms, his quintet Rolldown, the ensemble Living By Lanterns (co-led with drummer Mike Reed), and in duets and quartets with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, is back on the scene after a self-imposed five-year break from music. Originally commissioned to transcribe a few works as a surprise for Mitchell during the afterparty for an exhibition of paintings at Corbett vs. Dempsey at the beginning of 2023 Adasiewicz dug deeply into the archives. He transcribed and arranged several 1960s Art Ensemble cuts ("Old," "Toro," "Congliptious," "A Jackson In Your House," and the perennial "Carefree"), a cut from the '70s ("The Key"), and another from the '80s ("Jo Jar"). From the great LP The Third Decade, he chose a piece scribed by Mitchell's father ("Walking In the Moonlight") and from a recently uncovered Paris-era Art Ensemble composition sketchbook, he arranged a never-heard Mitchell work ("The Cartoon March"). Adasiewicz also worked up a version of one of Mitchell's favorite R&B tunes (Otis Blackwell's "Daddy Rollin' Stone"). On certain tracks he slowed the melody down drastically or split a harmonized part into its constituent parts, playing them in sequence rather than at once, on others he added his own composed material to the familiar Mitchell piece. This is the first time many of these historical works have been treated to a new arrangement, and it's also Adasiewicz's first solo record, a fact worth celebrating on its own. Sporting a 1968 painting by Mitchell on its cover, Roscoe Village is a unique document of two great minds in dialogue, one paying homage to the other by the mightiest means available: a highly attuned form of personal creativity.
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CVSD 101CD
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In the winter of 1980, Chicago tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson (1929-2010) brought his quartet to Milwaukee, where they were recorded live in concert. These tapes were first plumbed for The Milwaukee Tapes Vol. 1 on the Unheard Music Series in 2000. Anderson's group featured his long-time trumpeter Billy Brimfield (1938-2012) as well as his protege and percussionist Hamid Drake, then known as Hank, and bassist Larry Hayrod. Finally, after another couple of decades during which both Anderson and Brimfield have passed, Corbett vs. Dempsey is proud to present The Milwaukee Tapes Vol. 2, a full CD of previously unissued material from the same concert. Among the five tracks are four penned by Anderson, including his classic "3 On 2," as well as a rare composition by Brimfield, "He Who Walks Alone." The trumpeter is lithe and mercurial in this context, playing with his typical sense of mystery, while Anderson's huge tenor sound and unique approach to linear improvisation are in top form. Drake is, as always, the element that gets everything warmed up, his kit a veritable furnace, as propulsive as humanly possible. On The Milwaukee Tapes Vol. 2, the influence of Edward Blackwell on the 25-year-old drummer is clearly audible, with intricate polyrhythms and a full head of steam. Recently rediscovered, this second half of the Milwaukee session fills out the picture completely, offering a glimpse of one of the great figures of AACM Chicago in his prime, with a simpatico working band on a great night. The package includes beautiful portraits of Anderson and Brimfield, the contemporaneous color shot of the leader never before seen.
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CVSD 100CD
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In 1981, British percussionist Paul Lytton and German guitarist Erhard Hirt met and recorded for a couple of days in Belgium. This explosive, ahead-of-its-time first encounter, which had been planned as a release on the legendary Po Torch label, has remained dormant for over four decades. In that period, Lytton and Hirt teamed up often, joining forces with saxophonist/clarinetist Wolfgang Fuchs and bassist Hans Schneider as the quartet X-Pact, a group that has recently reformed -- several years after the untimely death of Fuchs -- with Stefan Keune in the saxophone chair. Lytton and Hirt were key participants in the Aachen (Germany) improvised music scene, also key members of King Übü Örchestrü, one of the most radical improvising large ensembles. Lytton's legacy hearkens back to his time in the London jazz scene of the late 1960s, where he played with a who's who of heavies, and he's perhaps best known for his long-standing collaboration with saxophonist Evan Parker, in duet settings and their collective trio with bassist Barry Guy. He is one of the great innovators of European improvised music, both as a percussionist and with his unique electronics rig. Hirt's super-resourceful guitar work -- here both on electric guitar (with active whammy bar) and acoustic dobro -- deserves to be more widely heard. Along with his own solo music, which started with a killer record called Zwischen den Pausen on Uhlklang in 1983, he's worked intensively with musicians such as Axel Dörner, Phil Minton, Thomas Lehn, Phil Wachsmann, and John Butcher. For its debut voyage, Borne on a Whim was lovingly transferred (for the first time) from the original reels by Ken Christianson, preserving every crispy, crackling noise. The cover features a stencil used to make a poster for them back in the period that Lytton and Hirt first began their work together. Borne on a Whim is the first release drawn from the Paul Lytton Archives at Corbett vs. Dempsey.
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CVSD 098CD
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Corbett Vs. Dempsey presents the second release in an ongoing series that will reconstruct the legacy known and the legacy damned of the most overlooked and under-documented American free rock unit, Dredd Foole and the Din. During an era of peak corporate control on popular music, when guitars were in the closet, improvisation was in retreat, and the flames of fire music were dimming, Dredd Foole and the Din emerged as part of a new underground kicking against the pricks, holding the line with the firmly clenched spirit of The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, and the newfound freedoms of the DIY post-punk landscape. Dredd's approach was radical even by the underground standards of the day: only the chords and some lyrics were predetermined, yet the songs were recorded in one take, without rehearsal. He sought to engineer maniacal and spiritually frenzied bursts of raw aliveness. That this was achieved with such rock action is testament to the power of those involved. Dredd entered the studio with Mission of Burma in February of 1982, stepping off a remarkable decade of post-punk activity that drew comparisons to The Stooges, Tim Buckley, and various outsider musicians. They would never tour and lacked ambition, so their powers were largely witnessed by a cloistered Boston scene. Their role as the Din was Mission of Burma's sole collaboration during their initial incarnation, and this release documents their second year together -- uncovering that their activities extended well beyond Burma's demise as a proper band. Mastered for the first time from the original tapes, with the full cooperation of Dredd Foole and Mission of Burma, We Will Fall is comprised of entirely previously unreleased material, including a complete concert performance. Live-mixed at the soundboard direct to reel by the band's longtime producer, the performance captures the lineup at peak glory. An additional live track from another performance serves as a blistering encore to the set, and Dredd's only surviving home recordings from the era round out the picture of this critical but lost period of activity.
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CVSDLP 009LP
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At the beginning of 2017, Chicago vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz brought a quintet into the hallowed halls of Electrical Audio, Steve Albini's legendary studio. The project was intended as a session to wax music for a new film, Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago, a documentary by Rob Christopher based on the Roy's World series of short stories by Barry Gifford. With Christopher producing and providing guidance in terms of imagery, but without a film to cut to, Adasiewicz wrote music aimed at creating a specific set of atmospheres, basically making a record before any footage was chosen. "In a way, it was always a record, since I didn't have anything to look at or to hamper me," says Adasiewicz. "I had to write the tunes, that was it." For the session, he brought together a crack team to bring the charts to life, a task they more than accomplished. Hamid Drake is one of the most storied drummers in creative music, here alloying with bassist Joshua Abrams (Natural Information Society once included Adasiewicz in its ranks). Together, the rhythm section's momentum is unstoppable, and when they stretch out or dig into a sizzling swing, as on "Rudy's Basement," their thirst is unquenchable. Adasiewicz switches to balafon on "Blue People" and the groove bubbles and pops with the force of a Fela Kuti burner. On the front line, saxophonist Jonathan Doyle brings a slinky joy to Jason's tunes, and cornetist Josh Berman adds his own tart inventions to the mix. Doyle, Berman, and Adasiewicz have worked together since the late '90s when they started An Diamo, a band that never released a proper record. Adasiewicz hangs back a bit in terms of soloing -- it's really an ensemble effort, the spotlight on the gorgeous compositions and spacious sensibility, a perfect complement to Christopher's fascinating, beautiful film, which has a noir vibe set in a fifties version of the Windy City conjured by means of vintage found footage, narration by Willam Dafoe, Matt Dillon, and Lilli Taylor, and Adasiewicz's score. Bluesy, swing-ful charts with elements that might recall the post-hard-bop Blue Note records of folks like Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, and Grachan Moncur III, Roy's World is more than a great soundtrack record, it's a killer program of new tunes played by a monstrously strong band recorded and mixed at one of the world's finest facilities. Includes "The Recital," a never-published story by Gifford printed in the LP gatefold.
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CVSD 096CD
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Raining Spiderlings is a text and sound art project by Nikolai Galen and Sarmen Almond. Galen is a singer, actor, and writer living in Istanbul; also known as Nick Hobbs, he was the singer in the incredible 1980s post-punk band The Shrubs, for a period roadie'd for Captain Beefheart and managed Henry Cow, Pere Ubu, and Laibach, and has worked in many other contexts from free-improvised music to experimental theater. Almond is a musician, voice performer, and intermedia artist based in Mexico City; she identifies the human voice as a focal point of her work. Superstition, Raining Spiderlings' maiden voyage, features voice and electronics and occasional instruments. Voice with words, sometimes without. The twosome mine a rich zone of comprovisation, an area between composition and improvisation, each track coming together intuitively, iteratively, as files are sent back and forth between the artists from their respective cities, worked and reworked to achieve an optimal level of intrigue. For Superstition, Galen wrote fourteen (let's call it 13 + 1, for evident reasons) texts around the title's loose theme, recording them as performed poems. Some of the poetry ("1492," for instance) started life many years ago and was later revised for the album and some was written after Galen and Almond started work on the project. All the words were rigorously scrutinized and recast before being recorded a dozen or so times, then edited into composites. Galen's recitations include poetical rhythms but no strict, musical rhythms, and they're dramatically recited rather than sung. In the mode of a theatrical or cinematic sound-designer, Almond freely reworked the vocal recordings electronically, carefully editing and placing Galen's voice according to what she calls creative mixing. Initiated organically, this process of recording, editing, and interweaving led to the resulting album. The title Superstition is borrowed from Panthéâtre's 2021 live-streamed Myth & Theatre Festival of the same name. Deep points of reference for Galen include Firesign Theatre and early Zappa, bold pioneers of the riddles of the larynx. An ominous, atmospheric, sometimes claustrophobic mix of sound and word. Galen's recordings were made at The Attic in Cihangir, Istanbul. Almond's recordings and the mixing were made at Alquimia Vocal in Mexico City. The texts were mostly written during 2021-22; some have their origins in texts written years ago. Mastering: Zlaya Hadzich (LOUD). Includes 40-page, full-color booklet; includes original photographs by Galen.
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CVSD 097CD
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First-ever reissue. 11th Street Fire Suite is a post-BAG (Black Artists Group) classic. An emotionally ranging set of blues-drenched duets by alto saxophonist Luther Thomas and flutist Luther C. Petty, it's one of the great documents of the St. Louis creative music diaspora, a wild ride through turbulent and beautiful terrain on a slab of vinyl that's as rare as hen's teeth in its original form. Relocated from their midwestern hometown to New York City, Thomas and Petty entered the studio in 1978 with a fellow musician, clarinetist Peter Kuhn, sympathetically recording and ultimately mixing their LP. The sound is extremely direct and penetrating, Thomas's keening, braying horn sending the proverbial needle popping, his brusque ballads captured in all their hoarse glory. Thomas was the loose cannon of the BAG gang. His debut record, Funky Donkey, which was released a year before 11th Street Fire Suite (1977), also on his own Creative Consciousness label, sewed together elements of free jazz, unbridled funk, and gutbucket blues in a garment with all its seams showing. In New York, his raw approach was somehow perfectly timely, a free jazz suited to no wave listeners. This was the pinnacle period for Thomas. His ongoing partnership with drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw resulted in the 1978 Black Saint LP, Junk Trap; Jef Gilson recorded a Thomas-led throwdown at PALM studios in Paris that was issued as I Can't Figure Out (Whatcha Doin' to Me) on the German Moers label in 1979, and Thomas formed his expressly funky band Dizazz in the early '80s, also recording for Moers. Back in NYC, Thomas was a regular at the Squat Theatre on West 23rd Street, working with James Chance and Defunkt, among others. Petty was hot, too, for a brief moment in these years, playing with Lester Bowie's Sho Nuff Orchestra and gigging actively around New York. A decade later, with a heroin addiction on his shoulder, Petty would make his living busking as "The Flute Man" outside Yankee Stadium. But here, midstride, in an intimate, often explosive woodwind suite, he and Thomas marshal all the forces of creative music, from the openness of the midwestern AACM-style space-play, replete with little instruments, to the ferocity and unforgivingness of the Big Apple and its competitive loft scene. Thomas spent his latter years living in Copenhagen. He died at the untimely age of 59 in 2009. 11th Street Fire Suite stands as one of Thomas's master strokes, a perfect encapsulation of the dark energy of its era and the brightness of its shooting star. Remastered from the original tapes. Features facsimile reproduction of the original cover.
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LP+12"
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CVSDLP 010LP
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Sexmob breaks new sonic ground with longtime producer Scotty Hard on The Hard Way, a new and extraordinary collaboration. For over a quarter-century, the visionary quartet Sexmob has exploded all preconceived notions of what an instrumental jazz band can be. In many cases -- on the albums Dime Grind Palace (2003), Din of Inequity (1998), Solid Sender (1999), and Sex Mob Does Bond (2001) -- they've done so with producer Scotty Hard at the board. On The Hard Way, Sexmob's remarkable new recording for 2023, the music skews decisively electronic, as Hard's beats and soundscapes provide slide trumpeter and founder Steven Bernstein, saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr, and acoustic/electric drummer Kenny Wollesen, all the stimulus they need for further composition and fearless reinvention. Acclaimed pianist/composer Vijay Iyer guests on "You Can Take a Myth," sprinkling stark sustained treble tones and abstract harmonies on top of fat processed bass (played by Hard) as the composition unfolds. John Medeski (of Medeski Martin & Wood) underlays organ chords and blues phraseology to perfection on "Banacek" and works atmospheric magic with mellotron, counterposing Hard's evocative balafon samples, on "Club Pythagorean," one of two tracks included on the bonus 12" EP (45rpm). The other, "Dominion," was created with DJ Olive. With each offering, and certainly with The Hard Way and its rich electro-acoustic groove canvas, Bernstein and crew evince a modernizing impulse but also an equally strong foundation in the roots of jazz and American song. Funky, bluesy, with a tattered dissonance conjured up by Krauss's throaty saxophone tone, the distinctive wail of Bernstein's rare horn and the swagger of Scherr and Wollesen's rhythm section grind, Sexmob continues to chart new paths in 21st century creative music.
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CVSDLP 005LP
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On their first stand-alone record as a duo, Ken Vandermark and Hamid Drake celebrate their 30+ year playing relationship with an electrifying live set of pieces, all featuring music composed by legendary free jazz musician Don Cherry. Restricting himself here to tenor saxophone, Vandermark has developed an almost telepathic understanding with Drake, whose masterful work on the drum kit has rarely been more focused and relaxed. The music was recorded in Corbett vs. Dempsey's main space on the closing day of the gallery's exhibition of work by Moki Cherry, Don's partner in the Organic Music Society, whose powerful tapestries and paintings were often key elements in the Cherry's performances. Drake and his family in fact lived with the Cherry family in their home in rural southern Sweden in the 1970s, and the drummer's personal experiences with her visual art added a special depth to the concert with Vandermark, diving into music from across the great trumpeter's songbook. The program, some of which runs as medleys of different tunes, comes from as far back as Cherry's groundbreaking '60s Blue Note LPs (Elephantasy, Complete Communion), up through the title track of the killer 1975 A&M side Brown Rice, and more culled from later LPs on ECM, including the band Old And New Dreams (Guinea, Mopti) and Cherry's beautiful duo album with drummer Ed Blackwell (El Corazón, Solidarity). During the concert, mid-set, Drake stopped playing to tell the story of his time with Don Cherry, including his harrowing experience contracting malaria while playing in Africa; this stirring narrative is transcribed as the liner text in the LP's gatefold. Gorgeously recorded, with Moki Cherry's tapestry "Spirit" on the cover, Eternal River keeps flowing with the ease and wonder of two brilliant Chicago musicians at the top of their game, in their hometown, playing the music they love.
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CVSD 124BK
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Corbett vs. Dempsey present Roscoe Mitchell, Keeper of the Code: Paintings 1963-2022. This is Mitchell's first exhibition with CvsD. Roscoe Mitchell (b. 1940) has been a leading figure in the performing arts for over 50 years. Keeper of the Code is the first solo exhibition to spotlight his work in the visual arts. Born and raised in Chicago, Mitchell formed the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble in 1966, featuring Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors. Three years later, adding Joseph Jarman, upon their departure to Paris for a two-year sojourn the group transformed into the collective interdisciplinary troupe called the Art Ensemble of Chicago. By that time Mitchell had already recorded the first LP of music affiliated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Sound (Delmark, 1966), and he had joined forces with St. Louis trumpeter Bowie for Numbers 1 & 2 (Nessa, 1967). Indeed, Mitchell had been painting since 1963, and he continued on and off into the heyday of the Art Ensemble and through a hyper-productive sequence of decades of solo music, improvised encounters, and music for Mitchell-led ensembles. The pandemic afforded Mitchell time off-road in which he began painting very avidly again. This exhibition surveys his work from the most recent canvases -- including a series of compositionally complex four-by-four foot works -- all the way back to the beginning, when Mitchell was a promising young saxophonist and ambitious autodidact painter. A large selection of recent works, executed since 2018, includes the painting "The Code 3," its diamond-mosaic pattern surrounded by hip glyphic figures including the titular keeper. These delightfully playful, jubilantly colorful canvases sport various repeated motifs and themes -- custodians of codes and keys, time keepers and ticket takers, figures known as "floaters" and "wavers," and another persona called "the watcher." Alongside these imagistic works, interpenetrating them as well, are all sorts of approaches to abstraction, from organic masses of circles that might recall Aboriginal art and warped checkerboards to more rigidly structured geometry and color sequences. In the gallery's north space, CvsD has gathered Mitchell's historical works dating back to 1963, including the cover painting from Numbers 1 & 2, and the riveting piece that graced the Art Ensemble's 1985 LP The Third Decade. In addition to the paintings, Mitchell is installing a new incarnation of his legendary percussion set-up known as "The Cage," which directly bridges the musical and visual in his capacious artistic imagination. 140-page full-color catalog reproducing over 100 of Mitchell's paintings, with an interview by John Corbett. First printing, edition of 1000; printed on 100# classic crest eggshell solar white and 70# starbright smooth white opaque text; 8.00x11.00x0.75 inches; 0.2 oz.
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CVSD 089CD
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One of the architects of no wave with his band DNA, a pioneer of noise guitar, sublimely inventive producer, and slinkily seductive songwriter, Arto Lindsay has worn countless musical hats. Invited to make a solo record for the Black Cross Solo Sessions, Lindsay boiled it down to essential ingredients, waxing a collection of bristling new songs and works for solo guitar; on six of a baker's dozen tracks, his angelic voice offsets the bracing dissonance of his acidic electric. Recorded at studios in Brooklyn and Araras, Brazil, Charivari has the intensity of a killer live session; it's closer in vibe to the more aggressive side of his work -- think of his trio outing Aggregates 1-26 or the barbed riffs of classic DNA -- than gorgeously arranged solo songwriting records like O Corpo Sutil (The Subtle Body). In these razor sharp cuts you may well discover the identity of what, in the song "Nothing," Lindsay calls "holier than thou timing." CD contains full transcriptions of Lindsay's lyrics. Cover artwork and design by Christopher Wool.
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CVSD 088CD
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One of the towering creative musicians of our time, a master drummer and percussionist, Hamid Drake has anchored innumerable bands. As a hard-working player, constantly touring the globe, he's collaborated with most of the major figures in improvised music and contemporary jazz, from David Murray and Peter Brötzmann to Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry. Along the way, Drake has never had an opportunity to stop and make a solo record. Indeed, he's only performed solo on a few occasions. John Corbett began petitioning Drake to record an unaccompanied session twenty years ago. At last, after the pandemic had (just slightly) slowed down Drake's incessant travel itinerary, a plan was hatched and he entered Experimental Sound Studio during the cold, hard month of December, 2020. With Corbett, Jim Dempsey, and engineer Alex Inglizian as his audience, Drake worked through a vaguely plotted-out blueprint, however after a few months had passed, the drummer was unsatisfied with the result. He returned to the studio in July, 2021, with no pre-planned notion, and this time the Hamid Drake magic was everywhere -- perched on his drum-throne, working exclusively at the kit, sometimes plying metallic percussion atop the snare, Drake recorded nine tracks, a cornucopia of rhythms and textures that touch on his love of reggae and funk but retain the openness and buoyancy that have made him such a go-to figure among his peers. In the CD's liner notes, he says: "A dedication in spirit to all those who have influenced, helped, opened, nurtured, shown love for, and cared for me along the way." These include Brötzmann's band Die Like a Dog, long-term percussion pal Adam Rudolph and mentor Fred Anderson, fellow drummers Paul Lovens and Milford Graves, Don and Moki Cherry, Big Black, and others. The record, precisely and soulfully recorded by Inglizian, has the beauty and warmth that always radiate from Drake's sticks, from his person and spirit -- deep humanity in the form of an unstoppable engine room. Cover art by Christopher Wool.
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CVSDLP 008LP
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In the year that Juneteenth was finally declared a national US holiday, 2021, Joe McPhee and Tomeka Reid united for a live concert in celebration. Multi-instrumentalist McPhee was deeply moved by the historical nature of the circumstances, the incredible freight of that history of oppression and liberation represented in the legislation, both the insanity of its overdue-ness and the joy of its institutionalization. As a preamble to the music, McPhee led off with two poems, read with trembling, vehement intensity: "Alone Together" and "Nation Time For Real This Time." Then, without a pause, they launched into a 33-minute duet for tenor saxophone and cello that gutted everyone in the packed audience, alighting for a brief segment on the late-19th century hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the so-called African-American National Anthem, lyrics from which the title of the record is taken. At the concert's end, McPhee was nearly inconsolable, the immensity of the day and the emotion of the playing overtaking him alone in the dressing room. Let Our Rejoicing Rise is a kind of apotheosis, an outpouring of two sensitive souls at the dawn of a new day in an epoch of damnation. With a jubilant cover image by Gee's Bend quilter Mary Lee Bendolph, recorded and mastered by Alex Inglizian, it's a once-in-a-lifetime record.
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CVSD 087CD
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Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson might have a separate discography for his solo records. He's investigated the possibilities of unaccompanied reed music from almost every angle. Presented with the opportunity to make a new solo record under the isolation of the pandemic, Gustafsson returned to a project he'd conceptualized but never realized: the playing-card pieces of Peter Brötzmann. Although these Fluxus-like prompts are better known through the two card sets the German saxophonist created in the 1990s, which resulted in two CDs with his Chicago Tentet, Images and Signs (both released on Okka Disk in 2004), Brötzmann had in fact been using cards since the 1970s. Recording in his home studio in Nickelsdorf, Austria, Gustafsson used two of these sets of compositional prompts, one designed for the ICP Tentet and another intended as a spur for Brötzmann's own solo work. The instrumentation on Naja includes the entire saxophone family from sopranino to bass, as well as a piece for mouthpieces; this is also a rare opportunity to hear Gustafsson play more than one horn at the same time, a Roland Kirk move that he'd long ago sworn off but was prompted to do by the cards. In addition to nine pieces using the cards, Gustafsson played one non-card composition from Brötzmann's solo FMP LP 14, Love Poems. Stunningly mixed and mastered by Martin Siewert, with liner notes by Gustafsson, photos of the card boxes and the first photograph of Gustafsson and Brötzmann. Cover art, as on all Black Cross Solo Sessions CDs, by Christopher Wool.
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CVSDLP 004LP
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Repertoire for cello represents a little-explored niche of the greater jazz songbook. In 2013, cellists Tomeka Reid and Fred Lonberg-Holm turned their arranger-ly and composer-ly attention to this terrain, assembling a selection of four originals (three by Lonberg-Holm, one by Reid) and four works by other composers. The latter include "Pluck It" by pioneering jazz cellist Fred Katz, member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet and soundtrack composer for Roger Corman films; "In Walked Ray" by intrepid hardbop bassist and cellist Sam Jones, who worked extensively with Cannonball Adderley; "Rally" by legendary bassist and cellist Ron Carter, who played with everyone from Miles Davis to Eric Dolphy to A Tribe Called Quest; and "Monti-Cello" by Harry Babsin, the least recognizable name in the group who played cello duets with Oscar Pettiford and recorded the first jazz cello solos with Dodo Marmarosa Trio in 1947. These new takes on old charts provide a storied backdrop and contemporary diving-board for Reid and Lonberg-Holm. By turns achingly beautiful -- utilizing all the woody resonance of the twinned instruments -- and probingly exploratory, they pay reverence to and also rethink their predecessors' music. Alongside these historically-mined tracks are the player's own deeply engaging compositions. Reid's "Alla Mingus For La Bang" pays homage to one stringsman by way of another: bassist Charles Mingus to violinist Billy Bang. Lonberg-Holm's "Fragile, C'mon," and "How Can We?" all investigate the bowed and pizz'ed cosmos of the celli with devilish relish. Gorgeously recorded direct-to-stereo sans audience at Chicago's Logan Art Center, with a cover that sports a painting by Lonberg-Holm.
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CVSDLP 007LP
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Torbjörn Zetterberg's new record, Opinions, is not a conventional "solo" outing. It doesn't represent the bassist, composer, and bandleader stepping away from all that to prove his mettle as a virtuoso unaccompanied improvisor. Anyone familiar with Zetterberg's small group recordings needs no confirmation of his prowess. And anyway, strutting his stuff is not his vibe. Certainly not the vibe of this record, where the bassist plays more than bass, a solo venture on which he is occasionally joined by others. What we have on Opinions is something altogether different, nearly impossible to describe except in parts -- minimal electronic/maximal prog/eco conceptual/experimental song form. With myriad instruments and multitrack studio composition, painstakingly assembled 2020-22, the LP's tracks have an episodic nature, and in this sense -- perhaps this alone -- they connect with other parts of the Swedish musician's oeuvre, his propensity for contrasting and juxtaposing sections, which can be deliciously heard on his records with The Torbjörn Zetterberg Hot Fiveor Torbjörn Zetterberg and Den Stora Frågen (including the latter ensemble's 2019 CD Live, also on Corbett Vs. Dempsey). But Opinions is a stand-alone work, a strange and wondrous personal adventure, a set of landscape miniatures contained in a bottle, each one equally abstract and actual, heady and guttural, melodic and textural, reaching for elements from across the musical map but never as pastiche, rather as deeply submerged influence, meditative result, a splash in icy water after the opium of sauna. Not your everyday solo record. Opinions introduces something particular: a chunk of raw coal buried far below surface that emerges faceted and glisten-y. Torbjörn Zetterberg writes: "This is without a doubt my best work so far. If you know me, you probably know me as a bass playing jazz musician. Yes, that's true, but pretty far from the whole truth. You'll be surprised. Not that this isn't jazz. Perhaps it is. If you say it is, why? If you say it's not, why? If you know the answer, please let me know. Me, I only hear music. The 'concept' behind this album was: not to box myself but to let creativity lead the way, all the way. I took guidance from the smallest kids in the playground. Apart from 'Brevet Från Lillan,' which was recorded at Zengården, the Zen Buddhist monastery where I live, everything was recorded in my apartment and my studio in Stockholm. Apart from drums on 'Random Thoughts,' which were played by Konrad Agnas, and Anna Högberg's alto sax on 'Opinions part 2,' I did everything myself including samples, singing, playing all instruments, recording, mixing, and mastering..."
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CVSD 090CD
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Every day over the course of a year starting in June, 2020, in something she refers to as a "domestic ritual," Zeena Parkins recorded solo electric harp performances in her home studio. The brilliant improvisor and composer had, like most of her peers, been sidelined by the pandemic; unable to tour, she spent the end of each day at the harp, playing until sunlight waned, inventing and discovering new soundscapes, keeping her musical self together while the world seemed poised to crumble. Parkins's audience consisted of her boyfriend, filmmaker Jeff Preis (who filmed and recorded all the music) and their dog. Invited to participate in the Black Cross Solo Sessions, she returned to this deep well of recordings and selected ten tracks, augmenting the harp with pedals and resonant and resonating objects including bells and other percussion. To Dusk is a uniquely vibrating set of auditory investigations, a buzzing, ringing, hammering, plunging suite of instant compositions snatched from the maw of a malicious moment in the world's collective history. Liner notes by Zeena Parkins. Cover artwork and design by Christopher Wool.
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CVSD 091CD
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Reissue, originally released in 1967. In 1966, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach assembled his first large ensemble to play his compositions "Globe Unity" and "Sun." This 14-piece band, which brought together some of the leading figures in European improvised music, would eventually expand -- incorporating not only Europeans but also American and Asian musicians -- and assume its rightful name: Globe Unity Orchestra. In its nascent outing, beautifully recorded at Ariola Studio in Cologne, Schlippenbach's band was already sensational, performing at various festivals and solidifying the reputations of some of its star players. Most notably among these was a 25-year-old saxophonist named Peter Brötzmann, whose whole band -- saxophonist Kris Wanders, drummer Mani Neumeier, and bassist Peter Kowald, the latter of whom would for a period assume nominal leadership of Globe Unity -- was incorporated into the large Schlippenbach group. Globe Unity was Brötzmann's first outing on LP. Kowald's too. And future drum heroes of the krautrock genre, Neumeier (with Guru Guru) and Jaki Liebezeit (with Can) constitute the incredible rhythm section. If you factor in German early-free-music mainstays Gunter Hampel (here on flute and bass clarinet, no vibes), trumpeter Manfred Schoof, bassist Buschi Niebergall, and tenor saxophonist Gerd Dudek, Dutch saxophonist and clarinetist Willem Breuker, French trumpeter Claude Deron, the enormity of the band's potential becomes apparent. Add Schlippenbach himself, an absolute cyclone on the piano as well as prominent tubular bells and gong, and the global scene is set. Schlippenbach's unique position at the time, as one of the foremost players in German free music, but also as a rising young composer who'd studied with Bernd Alois Zimmermann, allowed him to serve as exactly the right conduit for several approaches to creative music, from introducing his graphically notated scores to making a perfect context for the debuts of future star improvisors Brötzmann and Kowald. Schlippenbach's Globe Unity was first issued on SABA in 1967, then MPS a couple of years after that. It has long been out-of-print and has only ever appeared on CD in a tiny Japanese version published in 1999. Corbett vs. Dempsey's reissue comes with facsimile cover. The music was remastered from the original tapes and is licensed directly from MPS. Anyone interested in the history of improvised music needs to hear Globe Unity, which retains a sense of urgency 56 years after it was waxed.
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CVSDLP 003LP
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LP version. Reissue, originally released in 1967. In 1966, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach assembled his first large ensemble to play his compositions "Globe Unity" and "Sun." This 14-piece band, which brought together some of the leading figures in European improvised music, would eventually expand -- incorporating not only Europeans but also American and Asian musicians -- and assume its rightful name: Globe Unity Orchestra. In its nascent outing, beautifully recorded at Ariola Studio in Cologne, Schlippenbach's band was already sensational, performing at various festivals and solidifying the reputations of some of its star players. Most notably among these was a 25-year-old saxophonist named Peter Brötzmann, whose whole band -- saxophonist Kris Wanders, drummer Mani Neumeier, and bassist Peter Kowald, the latter of whom would for a period assume nominal leadership of Globe Unity -- was incorporated into the large Schlippenbach group. Globe Unity was Brötzmann's first outing on LP. Kowald's too. And future drum heroes of the krautrock genre, Neumeier (with Guru Guru) and Jaki Liebezeit (with Can) constitute the incredible rhythm section. If you factor in German early-free-music mainstays Gunter Hampel (here on flute and bass clarinet, no vibes), trumpeter Manfred Schoof, bassist Buschi Niebergall, and tenor saxophonist Gerd Dudek, Dutch saxophonist and clarinetist Willem Breuker, French trumpeter Claude Deron, the enormity of the band's potential becomes apparent. Add Schlippenbach himself, an absolute cyclone on the piano as well as prominent tubular bells and gong, and the global scene is set. Schlippenbach's unique position at the time, as one of the foremost players in German free music, but also as a rising young composer who'd studied with Bernd Alois Zimmermann, allowed him to serve as exactly the right conduit for several approaches to creative music, from introducing his graphically notated scores to making a perfect context for the debuts of future star improvisors Brötzmann and Kowald. Schlippenbach's Globe Unity was first issued on SABA in 1967, then MPS a couple of years after that. It has long been out-of-print and has only ever appeared on CD in a tiny Japanese version published in 1999. Corbett vs. Dempsey's reissue comes with facsimile cover. The music was remastered from the original tapes and is licensed directly from MPS. Anyone interested in the history of improvised music needs to hear Globe Unity, which retains a sense of urgency 56 years after it was waxed.
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