Burning Ambulance Podcast

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Wadada Leo Smith May 21, 2021

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I’ve been listening to Wadada Leo Smith for a long time; I own a lot of his albums, but his catalog is really large. I interviewed him for a cover story in The Wire in 2009, which he actually remembered — that surprised me a little. He was an early member of the AACM, collaborated extensively with Anthony Braxton in 1969 and 1970, made some beautiful records for ECM and Nessa in the 1970s (you should check out Divine Love and Spirit Catcher in particular), and has really never stopped putting out music. Earlier this year, I wrote about Matthew Shipp‘s New Orbit, a beautiful album that Wadada appeared on in 2001.

This year he’s turning 80, and he’s celebrating that with an absolute flood of new work — 20 CDs’ worth, spread across six or seven releases, all on TUM. One of those is a seven-CD box of just his string quartet recordings. That’s one of the fascinating things about Wadada, is that not only is he a brilliant trumpet player with a sound like no one else, but he’s also an extraordinary composer who developed his own musical language, Ankhrasmation. We talk about that in this interview, along with his approach to the horn, his approach to rhythm, which is very much his own, and a lot of other things.

If you enjoy this podcast, please consider visiting patreon.com/burningambulance and becoming a subscriber. For just $5 a month, you can help keep this show and Burning Ambulance as a whole active and thriving. Thanks!

Music featured in this episode:
Wadada Leo Smith/Douglas R. Ewart/Mike Reed, “Super Moon Rising” (Sun Beans of Shimmering Light)
Wadada Leo Smith, “Albert Ayler” (Trumpet)

Pi Recordings Apr 15, 2021

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Episode 63 of the Burning Ambulance Podcast features an interview with Seth Rosner and Yulun Wang of Pi Recordings.

As you probably know by now, a typical episode is based around an interview with an artist. But Pi Recordings is such an important label when it comes to the kind of music covered on Burning Ambulance – I mean, Roscoe Mitchell, who’s released music on Pi both as a solo artist and with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, was the first ever guest on this show – that I thought it was important and worthwhile to have these guys on to discuss 20 years of the label.

I’ve been listening to their releases pretty much since the beginning – the first titles I heard were The Year of the Elephant, by Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet, and Organic Resonance, a live duo album by Wadada and Anthony Braxton, and The Meeting, a reunion album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. I was at one of the Art Ensemble’s performances at the New York jazz club Iridium that was recorded for the live double CD Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City; we talk about that record a little bit in the show. I haven’t heard every record they’ve put out, but I’ve heard at least half of them, and I’ve written about a ton of them for Bandcamp Daily, for Stereogum, for The Wire, for Burning Ambulance, for Jazziz, and probably other places as well. And I’ve known Seth and Yulun personally for years. I’ve run into them at the Jazz Gallery or at the Vision Festival or in record stores, and we’ve always gotten along and I’ve always enjoyed talking to them, and I think that feeling comes through in this conversation.

We talk about a lot of different things relating to the label in this interview. We start from the beginning, but it’s as much about philosophy as history – they talk about why they do what they do, the kind of music they’re choosing to support and promote with their releases, and what it says about the culture that their highly specific niche within the world of jazz has been so well received by critics and the public, and that so many of their artists have received major awards. I mean, Henry Threadgill is a Pulitzer Prize winner and an NEA jazz master. Roscoe Mitchell is an NEA jazz master. Vijay Iyer is a MacArthur fellow. Tyshawn Sorey is a MacArthur fellow. Steve Coleman is a MacArthur fellow. Wadada Leo Smith was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Pi releases routinely land at the top of jazz critics’ polls, every single year. Anybody looking at the landscape would have to say that if there’s any kind of debate about the status of traditional versus so-called avant-garde jazz, the avant-garde guys have won. But it’s still a business, and the music business is tough, tougher than ever, honestly. So we talk about the realities of what it’s meant to run a small independent label and how they’ve managed to keep it going for 20 years, too.

Music featured in this episode:
Henry Threadgill, “Tickled Pink” (Up Popped The Two Lips)
Jen Shyu, “Living’s a Gift, Part 1 – Springtime” (Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses)

Joe Chambers Mar 10, 2021

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Joe Chambers is a legend. He made his name in the early 1960s, playing on a string of some of the most adventurous Blue Note Records sessions of the time. He can be heard on albums like Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogue, Wayne Shorter's The All Seeing Eye, Andrew Hill's Compulsion, McCoy Tyner's Tender Moments, and many more. He also backed Archie Shepp on Fire Music, On This Night, New Thing At Newport and For Losers, and he was the drummer on Chick Corea's debut album, Tones for Joan's Bones. He maintained a long creative partnership with Hutcherson; the two men made something like 10 albums together.

Chambers didn't record as a leader until the 1970s, but one of his pieces had a significant afterlife in the '90s. "Mind Rain," from Double Exposure, an album where Chambers played piano, duetting with organist Larry Young, was sampled by DJ Premier for "N.Y. State of Mind," from Nas's debut album, 1994's Illmatic. On his new album, Samba de Maracatu, Chambers reworks the piece as "New York State of Mind Rain."

This is a really interesting conversation about Chambers' long career as both a musician and an educator (he taught at the New School in New York for many years, and now lives and teaches in North Carolina). I hope you'll enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed having it. And if you do enjoy this podcast, please consider visiting patreon.com/burningambulance and becoming a subscriber. For just $5 a month, you can help keep this show and Burning Ambulance as a whole active and thriving. Thanks!

Music heard in this episode:

Joe Chambers, "Mind Rain" (Double Exposure)

Joe Chambers, "Visions" (Samba de Maracatu)

Muriel Grossmann Jan 21, 2021

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Muriel Grossmann is a saxophonist originally from Vienna, Austria, but now she lives in Spain, and she puts out roughly an album a year entirely independently, though she licenses them to a label for the vinyl editions, which she talks about in this interview. She was very open about the business side of being an independent musician, in terms of self-funding and having the discipline and mental fortitude to keep on pushing until you find the audience that’s waiting to hear your music.

Muriel plays spiritual jazz, long flowing tunes that may remind you of Alice Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders – I hear things that remind me of early 70s Joe Henderson or Azar Lawrence records too, and sometimes when she adds harp and droning elements from tamboura and other instruments, it reminds me of Illuminations, the album Carlos Santana made with Alice Coltrane, or even Larry Young’s Lawrence of Newark. What’s most fascinating about her music, though, is the degree to which she uses the studio as an instrument, adding layers upon layers of percussion and drone and ornamentation so it’s not just four or five musicians, it sounds almost orchestral at times. We talk about that a lot too, as well as the whole definition of the phrase spiritual jazz, which you see thrown around a lot without ever really pinning down what it means, or how you would define it in terms of a set of rhythms or a particular instrumental palette or whatever – it’s just kind of a know it when you hear it sort of thing.

Anyway, this was a very interesting conversation from my perspective, as I’ve only recently become a fan of Muriel’s but now I’m deep into her catalog, almost all of which is available on Bandcamp, so by all means check it out after you’re done listening to this interview. And if you enjoy this podcast, please consider visiting patreon.com/burningambulance and becoming a subscriber. For just $5 a month, you can help keep this show and Burning Ambulance as a whole active and thriving. Thanks!

Music heard in this episode:

Muriel Grossmann, "Wien" (Quiet Earth)

Muriel Grossmann, "Wisdom" (Earth Tones)

Ivo Perelman Dec 17, 2020

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This episode features an interview with saxophonist Ivo Perelman, which is important because he's one of the artists on Polarity, a CD which I'll be putting out through my new label, Burning Ambulance Music, in February 2021. It's a duo album with trumpeter Nate Wooley, and it's intensely beautiful music unlike anything else you've ever heard, I promise. Pre-order your copy now.

I’ve known about Ivo Perelman for about 25 years; the first record of his I heard was Cama de Terra, which came out in 1996. It was actually the very last release on Homestead Records, right before Steven Joerg, who was running the label at the time, left and started AUM Fidelity. That album featured Perelman with Matthew Shipp on piano and William Parker on bass, and they’re two of the people he’s continued to work with ever since, along with many others, including Joe Morris, Nate Wooley, Mat Maneri, Whit Dickey, and a whole slew of other players.

See, Ivo’s discography is massive. He puts out albums in bunches, sometimes as many as eight at a time, sometimes three and even four-CD sets. He just recently passed the 100 release mark, which puts him in relatively rarefied company, up there with Duke Ellington, Anthony Braxton, David Murray, and very few others. It can be hard to know where to begin with his catalog, frankly, but his music has evolved a lot over time – he’s really on a lifelong creative journey, which is why he’s constantly collaborating with people in new combinations and changing his approach to the horn and just generally trying new things. So you’re probably best off starting with something recent and then moving backwards, deciding what to listen to based on who’s on a given record.

He’s been living in Brooklyn for many years, but he’s originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and when the pandemic got rolling, he went back to Brazil, which is where we connected for this interview. It was conducted via Skype, so there are a few points at which the sound warps a little, or cuts in and out. Still, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out what he’s saying in those moments. We had a really fascinating conversation, about his creative philosophy and his practice regimen and the role of improvisation in Brazilian music and a lot of other things. I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed having it.

Music heard in this episode:

Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley, "Four" (Polarity)

Ivo Perelman/Matt Shipp/Whit Dickey, "Garden of Jewels" (Garden of Jewels)

Tim Berne Nov 12, 2020

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I first heard Tim Berne on a John Zorn album – Spy Vs. Spy, from 1989, where the two of them, plus Mark Dresser on bass and Joey Baron and Michael Vatcher on drums, play 17 Ornette Coleman tunes in 40 minutes. It’s one of the most intense records you’ll ever hear in your life. They play almost all the tunes at hardcore punk speed, and the two drummers are delivering blast beats like they’re auditioning for Napalm Death. Some people love it, and some people fucking hate it. I'm in the former category. Anyway, Berne’s own music doesn’t always have that same punk rock aggression, but it’s definitely intense and can get very loud.

He’s originally from upstate New York, but has been based in Brooklyn for basically his entire professional career, which started in the 1970s when he was studying with Julius Hemphill. Hemphill is Berne’s single biggest influence, as you’ll hear in this interview.

Berne is very independent; he’s started two different independent labels to put out his own music – first Empire, which he used to make five albums in the late 70s, and later Screwgun, which continues to this day. He was signed to Columbia for a couple of years, though, and has made a bunch of records for ECM with his current primary band, Snakeoil. They’ve been together for about a decade.

Berne’s bands tend to have great names – he’s led Hard Cell, Caos Totale, Science Friction, Bloodcount, and Big Satan, among others. He’s also currently a member of Broken Shadows, a quartet with Chris Speed on tenor sax, Reid Anderson on bass, and Dave King on drums. They play the music of Ornette Coleman, Julius Hemphill, Dewey Redman and Charlie Haden, and they have a couple of live albums you can get on Bandcamp and a studio LP that’s only available as part of a ridiculously expensive subscription box set from the Newvelle label.

This interview was recorded last Thursday, November 5, which is why I mention obsessively refreshing Twitter at the beginning – we were both waiting for election results along with everything else. Anyway, we talk about a lot of subjects – Berne has been a really influential composer, particularly among 21st century jazz players from Brooklyn, so we discuss that, but we also talk about Julius Hemphill, about his various bands and his creative relationships with Matt Mitchell and David Torn, about his approach to composing and about the depth of his catalog, and much more. I had a really good time talking to him, and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to our conversation.

Music heard in this episode:

Tim Berne/Matt Mitchell, "Increminced" (Spiders)

Tim Berne's Snakeoil, "Moornoats" (The Deceptive 4)

Ambrose Akinmusire Oct 15, 2020

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Ambrose Akinmusire is a really fascinating trumpet player. He’s made five studio albums and one live album, all but one of them for Blue Note. He’s also recorded with Walter Smith III, with Archie Shepp, with Mary Halvorson as part of her group Code Girl, with Tarbaby, with Roscoe Mitchell, and he’s on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. His latest album, On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment, is one of the best jazz records of 2020. I saw him perform the music at Winter Jazzfest in January of this year, which as you’ll hear in our conversation was actually something like a live rehearsal, because they went into the studio and recorded the album the day after the show.

We talked about a whole range of subjects in this interview, I’m not even sure how to preface it all. We discuss his style on the trumpet, which is a little bit unorthodox and to my ear demonstrates a real mastery of the horn; we talk about each of his albums, including why he has occasionally taken several years off in between; we talk about political engagement and how his own life impacts the music he makes; and a whole lot more. I had a really good time talking to him, and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to our conversation.

Music heard in this episode:

Ambrose Akinmusire, "Confessions to My Unborn Daughter" (When the Heart Emerges Glistening)

Ambrose Akinmusire, "Tide of Hyacinth" (On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment)

Christian McBride Sep 25, 2020

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Christian McBride is one of the most widely recorded bass players in jazz. He’s been on more than 300 albums as a sideman, and has won six Grammys. This year alone, he’s put out three major projects. In February, he released The Movement Revisited, a large-scale project that paints sonic portraits of Black political and cultural icons Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and Barack Obama, mixing orchestral jazz with narration. It was first put together in 1998, covering just the first four people, and then revised a decade later, adding a fifth section about Obama and generally rewriting the whole piece. In July, he appeared on saxophonist Joshua Redman’s album RoundAgain, with Brad Mehldau on piano and Brian Blade on drums. This was the same set of players who made Redman’s album MoodSwing in 1994, which I remember was one of the first jazz albums I bought by a young musician; before that, I was mostly buying classic old albums by players who were either dead or long past their prime. And finally, he made For Jimmy, Wes And Oliver, a big band album with guests Joey DeFrancesco on organ and Mark Whitfield on guitar, which is coming out this week.

Obviously, a guy like McBride, who’s played with basically everyone, has a million stories to tell. I particularly wanted to ask him about one show that I saw him at, which was Sonny Rollins’ 80th birthday concert at the Beacon Theatre 10 years ago, where they were joined by Ornette Coleman and Roy Haynes. And believe me, he has stories about Rollins. And beyond making music and talking about music, he’s also the artistic director for the Newport Jazz Festival, and he his wife run a jazz program for kids in New Jersey, Jazz House Kids, so we talk about how that’s been impacted by COVID-19 and what they see as the future of the program and of jazz education. Something else interesting is that he’s an interviewer himself – he hosts a radio show where he talks to other jazz musicians. So we talk a little bit about that, too.

Music heard in this episode:

Christian McBride Big Band, "Night Train" (For Jimmy, Wes and Oliver)

Joshua Redman, "Silly Little Love Song" (RoundAgain)

Kevin Richard Martin Sep 03, 2020

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Episode 57 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with producer Kevin Richard Martin. I’ve been a fan of Martin’s for almost 30 years. The first thing I heard by him was 1992's Possession, by his band God, which also featured Godflesh's Justin Broadrick on guitar; they were an extremely heavy sort of postpunk free jazz group with elements of doom metal and dub — they sounded like nothing else out there at the time, and really nothing since. They released two studio albums and several live records, all of which are out of print and hard to find these days.

After that, Martin and Broadrick made a bunch of records under a bunch of different names, as Techno Animal and Ice and Curse of the Golden Vampire and a few others. The music ranged from extremely spaced-out instrumentals, like psychedelic dream soundtracks, to ultra-heavy stuff that was inspired by hip-hop but with incredible, booming, almost concussive bass. Martin is obsessed with bass, as you’ll hear in our conversation, and he’s spent most of his recording career working on ways to make the bass heavier and more immersive.

In the late '90s, he started doing solo work as The Bug; instrumental at first, but he very quickly started bringing in vocalists and making really harsh, almost industrial dancehall and hip-hop. The three best known Bug albums — Pressure, London Zoo, and Angels and Devils — are heavy as hell, and he's earned a reputation for ultra-crushing live shows, with so much volume and bass that it'll make your nose bleed.

His most recent music is completely different from any of this, which is part of the reason he’s releasing it under his own name, Kevin Richard Martin. He started out with the album Sirens in 2019, which was very atmospheric but also very intense instrumental music that dealt with the difficulties involved in the birth of his first child. Now this year, he’s put out five digital-only albums on Bandcamp called Frequencies For Leaving Earth volumes 1 through 5, and each one is different from the others, but they’re all connected in that they’re all experimenting with a kind of immersive use of sound and bass. I listen to them on headphones, and it’s kind of like having your head wrapped in a towel and very slowly squeezed.

In this interview, we talk a lot about those records, as well as God and Techno Animal and Zonal and a whole range of stuff. I think you’ll find it to be a very interesting conversation. If you do enjoy this podcast, please consider visiting patreon.com/burningambulance and becoming a subscriber. For just $5 a month, you can help keep this show and Burning Ambulance as a whole active and thriving. Thanks!

Music heard in this episode:

Zonal, "In A Cage" (Wrecked)

Kevin Richard Martin, "Requiem" (Frequencies for Leaving Earth, Vol. 4)

Alan Braufman Aug 20, 2020

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Episode 56 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with saxophonist Alan Braufman. Braufman is about to release his first album under his own name in 45 years. He made his debut in 1975 with Valley of Search, recorded at his loft at 501 Canal Street in New York and released on India Navigation. It was reissued in 2018 by his nephew, Abil Nyers, on the Control Group/Valley of Search label, and it sparked enough interest as a lost artifact of the loft jazz era (full disclosure: I reviewed it for The Wire) that he performed in NYC for the first time in decades, and wound up taking almost the same band used at those shows into the studio. Now he's got The Fire Still Burns coming out, featuring James Brandon Lewis on tenor sax, Cooper-Moore on piano, Ken Filiano on bass and Andrew Drury on drums.

Braufman and Cooper-Moore lived together at 501 Canal Street in the early 1970s, along with David S. Ware, bassist Chris Amberger, drummer Tom Bruno, and others. The building had a storefront on the first floor, where they set up a sort of house band, but they also hosted other performers; in our interview, Braufman claims David Murray may have given his first New York performance at 501 Canal. In addition to Valley of Search, Braufman played with Cecil McBee on the bassist's album Mutima, and was a member of one of Carla Bley's groups in the late '70s.

I think you’re going to enjoy hearing this conversation; it's full of history and memories of an era that hasn't been documented nearly as well as it should have been. If you do enjoy this podcast, please consider visiting patreon.com/burningambulance and becoming a subscriber. For just $5 a month, you can help keep this show and Burning Ambulance as a whole active and thriving. Thanks!

Music heard in this episode:

Alan Braufman, "Home" (The Fire Still Burns)

Alan Braufman, "Thankfulness" (Valley of Search)

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