Sirocco

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO 2016, held in Helsinki, Finland in July 2016.

Afofona is above all a word from the secret language of newborns. Ancestral cry whose sound is meaningless. In Bambara, “afofona” could mean: to speak or express oneself involuntarily. It is tempting to link this meaning to the spontaneous outburst that characterizes improvisation, this joyful state of letting go, close to childish language. With this first album, Brame de Zéphyr lays the foundations of his own dialect, a true hybridization between Mandinka sounds and today's jazz. This specific writing work mixes cheerfully with phases of unbridled improvisation, forging an extraordinary group sound.

Tropical Soldiers in Paradise is the special unit comprised of six musicians from different backgrounds who blend oldschool hip hop with jazz, dub, calypso and latino-african rhythms. This time you can expect a departure from the Mazovian valleys all the way to tropical paradise as the band builds their visions of distant places and, in a way, anchors it into a plotline. The first track sets the tone of the whole story and, at the same time, is an homage to Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack to “Chinatown” by Roman Polański - a movie that tells the tale of a theft of drinking water in drought stricken California.

Drummer Ralph Peterson Jr.'s ninth recording as a leader, his first for Sirocco Jazz, and his fifth featuring his Fo'tet, is a energy filled session with former OTB bandmate Ralph Bowen replacing Steve Wilson on soprano sax, plus group regulars vibraphonist Bryan Carrott and bassist Beldon Bullock performing seven originals by the group members and three jazz classics. Peterson's aggressive drumming, consisting of his driving cymbal beat, well-placed snare and tom accents, and powerful cymbal crashes, is always a joy to hear and he sounds better than ever.

Joe Locke is widely considered to be one of the major voices of his instrument. He has performed and recorded with a diverse range of notable musicians, including Grover Washington Jr, Kenny Barron, Eddie Henderson, Cecil Taylor, Dianne Reeves, Ron Carter, The Beastie Boys, the Münster Symphony Orchestra and the Lincoln, Nebraska Symphony.

Eddie Henderson brings his working group to the British-based Sirocco label for Oasis, a rewarding straight-ahead effort. The desert theme is established on the very first track, "Dubai," an enchanting seven/four piece by Billy Drummond, the session's formidable drummer. Henderson follows this with two desert-related originals, "Oasis" and "Sandstorm," a ballad and an all-out swinger, respectively; his modal, quasi-epic "Desert Sun" concludes the program. In between are compelling versions of Wayne Shorter's fairly obscure waltz "Lost," Herbie Hancock's oft-sampled (and here, heavily reharmonized) classic "Cantaloupe Island," Lee Morgan's 1964 ballad "Melancholee," and George Cables' mellow yet funky "Why Not."

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 24th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO 2017, held in Porquerolles, France, in June 2017.

This book constitutes the refereed conference proceedings of the 26th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO 2019, held in L’Aquila, Italy, in July 2019.