PI Recordings

Marc Ribot - Spiritual Unity (2005) {Pi Recordings PI15}
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© 2005 Pi Recordings | PI15
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Structured Improvisation / Guitar

Guitarist Marc Ribot, formerly of the Lounge Lizards and sometime partner of Marianne Faithfull, Tom Waits and John Zorn, has been involved in his share of unusual projects, but this one might be the most unexpected: a tribute to the late saxophonist Albert Ayler's music of the 1960s. The band catches the group's rough-hewn, trancelike sound with uncanny accuracy, with Ayler's bassist, Henry Grimes, back in action for the project at age 70. But this is no sentimental tourist trip: it's an attempt to reignite the transported atmosphere that the old band discovered through a mix of simple materials, church- and street-music, blues and selfless free-fall interplay.

Marc Ribot - Live At The Village Vanguard (2014) {Pi Recordings PI 53}
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© 2014 Pi Recordings | PI 53
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Experimental / Guitar

It might be more concise to list what musical genres Marc Ribot hasn't explored than the ones he has, but his approach to the guitar has often reflected the freedom, reinvention, and elastic boundaries of jazz, no matter what the specific context. On this date, recorded in mid-2012 during a handful of shows at one of New York's most iconic venues, Ribot gives himself the luxury of stretching out with a pair of gifted accompanists, bassist Henry Grimes (who worked with Albert Ayler, one of Ribot's key influences) and drummer Chad Taylor (a veteran of the Chicago Underground Duo and Trio), and the result is one of Ribot's most explicitly jazz-focused dates in some time.

Ever the thinker, saxophonist Steve Coleman now delves into the connection between human biology and music with Functional Arrhythmias, perhaps his most accessible release in recent memory. With a vast discography that has covered everything from unadulterated funk in 1988's Sine Die (Pegasus) to advanced concepts in 2011's The Mancy of Sound (Pi), his curiosity and influence continue to expand.

Demian as Posthuman is saxophonist Steve Lehman’s most experimental release to date. With a solid acoustic quintet record, Artificial Light, and trio release, Interface, under his belt, Lehman is also one-third of the collaborative trio Fieldwork, whose Simulated Progress is easily one of 2005’s best jazz releases. Lehman has upped the ante on this album, which dispenses with typical notions of jazz and popular music by combining the two in an effort to document the creation of a new, hybrid music.

In for a Penny, In for a Pound is the latest installment in saxophonist/ flutist/composer Henry Threadgill’s ongoing exploration of his singular system for integrating composition with group improvisation. The music for his band Zooid – his main music-making vehicle for the past fourteen years and the longest running band of his illustrious forty plus-year career – is no less than his attempt to completely deconstruct standard jazz form, steering the improvisatory language towards an entirely new system based on preconceived series of intervals. His compositions create a polyphonic platform that encourages each musician to improvise with an ear for counterpoint and, in the process, creating striking new harmonies.

Steve Coleman And Five Elements - The Mancy Of Sound (2011) {Pi Recordings PI38}
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© 2011 Pi Recordings | PI38
Jazz / Free Funk / Post-Bop / M-Base / Modern Jazz

A saxophonist of a different order—part griot, theorist, numerologist, and incessant seeker of knowledge— Steve Coleman continues to forge new paths in creative music. He's influenced more of today's forward thinking artists than almost anyone in recent memory with his proven M-Base concepts. His critically acclaimed 2010 recording, Harvesting Semblances and Affinities (Pi Recordings), was a welcome return to the spotlight, and the follow-up, The Mancy of Sound , is even more rewarding.

Jen Shyu - Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses (2021) {Pi Recordings PI88}
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© 2021 Pi Recordings | PI88
Jazz / Classical / Avant-Garde Music / Ethnic Fusion

Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses, the new work by sui generis vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu, is a collection of songs devoted to the marginalized voices of women around the world, and a profound elegy to personal loss. The album is dedicated to her father, who passed away in 2019. It was Shyu's discovery of her old diaries while cleaning out his closet that transformed Zero Grasses into a coming-of-age story about her ambitions and personal reflections on the racism and sexism that she has faced throughout her life.

For Kinsmen, Rudresh Mahanthappa's fifth album as leader, he trades in his standard sax quartet for the hybrid American jazz/South Indian classical Dakshina Ensemble, co-led by Carnatic saxophone legend Kadri Gopalnath. Guitar, bass, and drum kit are joined by violin and mridangam and the leaders' two saxophones; meeting squarely between the two traditions. There is a strong Indian flavor to the soloing of both Gopalnath and his longtime violin player A. Kanyakumari, and the melodies are Indian inspired but the music only sounds purely Carnatic in spots. No, this is a jazz album and it swings mightily through most of the program.

A Pouting Grimace is the audacious new release from pianist/composer Matt Mitchell, whose prior release Vista Accumulation (Pi 2015) The New York Times calls “a bold signature” that “simmers with deep intensity.” Not only is he one of the most in-demand pianists in jazz – Mitchell plays in bands such as Tim Berne’s Snakeoil, Steve Coleman’s Natal Eclipse, the Dave Douglas Quintet, John Hollenbeck’s Large Ensemble, Jonathan Finlayson’s Sicilian Defense, Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Birdcalls, and David Binney’s Quartet — he has established himself as a composer of bold distinction. Substantial in scope, the album, which features twelve musicians: five woodwinds, four percussionists, harp, bass, and the leader on piano, Prophet 6, and electronics, weaves an intricate web of off-kilter rhythms and logical frenzy. Produced by the acclaimed guitarist/composer David Torn, the work is completely beyond genre, a daring tour de force that headily mines the interstice between precision-plotted compositions and the thrill of improvisation.