New York Post December 9, 2020

One of Chick Corea's most ambitious projects was the recording of almost 60 hours of music with nine different groups over a three-week run at the Blue Note in December 2001; it must have been a challenge to choose the dozen performances for this two-CD set. The first disc begins with scat singer par excellence Bobby McFerrin joining the pianist to scat his way through three selections, including a stunning medley of an excerpt from Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" and Corea's "Spain." Bassist Miroslav Vitous and ageless drummer Roy Haynes provide the pulse to his extended work "Matrix." Corea's well-crafted tribute to Bud Powell, with Terence Blanchard and Joshua Redman in the front line, combines two of Powell's greatest works, "Glass Enclosure" and "Tempus Fugit." But Corea is at his most lyrical when old friend Gary Burton joins him to revisit the pianist's masterpiece, the shimmering "Crystal Silence."

Recorded between 1963-2019, Degrees Of Freedom Found is a six CD set “Blue” Gene Tyranny hand selected from archival, live recordings, and brand new first recordings before his passing in 2020. Part new album, part retrospective, this box offers a fresh perspective on “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s musical legacy. Blue’s career defining moment, composing the music for Robert Ashley’s magnum opus, Perfect Lives, typifies the Buddha-like self-effacement of his musical life. Often lending a substantial supporting role to his friends’ more visible projects, Blue’s music under his own name blossomed in a more esoteric and highly personal manner outside of the spotlight. Across its many previously unreleased recordings, Degrees Of Freedom Found showcases a surprising, extroverted side of Blue’s music, alongside the virtuoso works of sensitive spirit for which New Music devotees have long revered him.

Recorded between 1963-2019, Degrees Of Freedom Found is a six CD set “Blue” Gene Tyranny hand selected from archival, live recordings, and brand new first recordings before his passing in 2020. Part new album, part retrospective, this box offers a fresh perspective on “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s musical legacy. Blue’s career defining moment, composing the music for Robert Ashley’s magnum opus, Perfect Lives, typifies the Buddha-like self-effacement of his musical life. Often lending a substantial supporting role to his friends’ more visible projects, Blue’s music under his own name blossomed in a more esoteric and highly personal manner outside of the spotlight. Across its many previously unreleased recordings, Degrees Of Freedom Found showcases a surprising, extroverted side of Blue’s music, alongside the virtuoso works of sensitive spirit for which New Music devotees have long revered him.

LEYA is the Brooklyn based duo of harpist Marilu Donovan (Eartheater, Aerial East, Julie Byrne) and violinist / vocalist Adam Markiewicz (PC Worship, The Dreebs). With Flood Dream, LEYA subvert the academic and classical connotations of their instruments, instead reframing them in a DIY punk ethos and favoring intuition over pedagogy to inform their creative process. Their arrangements bridge instances of baroque ornamentation and blocks of harmonic density with stretches of fugue state-inducing confusion built over dreary standing tones and repeated dissonant intervals. Flood Dream includes a few tracks from their feature-length score of Brooke Candy’s queer pornagraphic film “I Love You” (made for PornHub’s Visionaries Director’s Club) and follows their debut album, The Fool. The lead single and album opener, which features experimental pop vocalist/composer GABI, hints at the expanded sound of Flood Dream which was written during an extensive touring over four months in the US, Canada & Europe.

Jazz -funk fans must have been taken aback when multi-instrumentalist and composer Bennie Maupin's Jewel in the Lotus was released by Manfred Eicher's ECM imprint in 1974. For starters, it sounded nothing like Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters recording, which had been released the year before to massive sales and of which Maupin had been such an integral part. Head Hunters has remained one of the most reliable sales entries in Columbia's jazz catalog into the 21st century. By contrast, Jewel in the Lotus sounded like an avant-garde jazz record, but it stood outside that hard-line camp, too, because of its open and purposeful melodies that favored composition and structured improvising over free blowing. Jazz after 1970 began to move in so many directions simultaneously it must have felt like it was tearing itself apart rather than giving birth to so many new and exciting musics…