We’ve got five 7″ singles of field recordings by Craig Colorusso‘s solar-powered Sun Boxes (as discussed in this post) to give away. Just email burningambulance@gmail.com and one can be yours! But this giveaway ends this Friday, February 10, so hurry up!
Lulu.com, manufacturers of the print edition of Burning Ambulance, are offering free ground shipping until January 31. Just enter the discount code WHOASHIPPING305 at checkout, and make sure you select ground shipping.
If you’re missing any of the first five issues, now’s the perfect time to pick them up!
Just in time for the holidays, Burning Ambulance #5 has arrived! (In fact, if you order by tomorrow, you can save 25% off your order with the checkout code COUNTDOWN.)
This issue includes: a mammoth cover story on New York-based jazz/funk/rock/improv/soul/hip-hop crew Burnt Sugar, built around interviews with co-founders Greg Tate and Jared Michael Nickerson; interviews with saxophonist Marcus Strickland, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, and Swans founder Michael Gira; a roundtable discussion assessing the contemporary state of North American black metal, with contributions from members of Averse Sefira, Infernal Stronghold, Krallice, Krieg, Lightning Swords of Death, Panopticon, Xibalba, and Yaotl Mictlan; a profile of improvising guitarist and composer (and former Burnt Sugar member) Morgan Craft; an essay on Cecil Taylor‘s amazing band of spring and summer 1978; an analysis of the meaning of time in music; and a look back at director Monte Hellman‘s movie Two-Lane Blacktop, 40 years after its initial release. Contributing writers include Kim Kelly, Michael Kaplan, Phil Nugent, and Steve Hicken.
It’s available from Lulu.com in two formats: a perfect-bound paperback edition, for $10, and an e-book, readable by Nook, iPad and most other e-readers, for $5.
Click here to get the print edition.
Click here to get the e-book edition.
Click here to get the Kindle edition from Amazon for $3.
Everyone who contributed to this issue is ferociously proud of it. We hope you’ll buy it, read it, and enjoy it.
The subject of Burning Ambulance #5′s cover story is Greg Tate‘s awesome, omnivorous jazz/funk/rock/hip-hop/improv ensemble, Burnt Sugar. They’ve got a new album out, All Ya Needs That Negrocity, and in the pages of our next issue, Tate and co-founder/bassist Jared Michael Nickerson discuss the entire history of the group, from its first jam sessions right up to the present day. In honor of all this, we’ve assembled a Spotify playlist to help you get somewhat up to speed on the massive Burnt Sugar discography. Not everything they’ve done is represented (the That Depends On What You Know trilogy is not in the Spotify database, nor is All Ya Needs…), but this will definitely give you a good idea of their breadth and power.
Here’s what you’ll hear:
“Steals a Kiss from the Merman” (from Blood on the Leaf: Opus No. 1)
“Blood on the Leaf” (from Blood on the Leaf)
“Dewey’s Boot (feat. Matana Roberts)” (from Chopped and Screwed, Vol. 2)
“Mtume” (from Black Sex Y’all Liberation & Bloody Random Violets)
“Thorazine/Eighty-One” (from Making Love to the Dark Ages)
“Funky Rich Medina” (from Black Sex)
“Wretched Jazz Grunge” (from Chopped and Screwed)
“Muta’s Rites Version” (from Black Sex)
“Butch vs. Saladin (Conducted by Butch Morris)” (from Chopped and Screwed)
“Fear” (from Black Sex)
“Butch vs. the Wretches (Conducted by Butch Morris)” (from Chopped and Screwed)
“The Ballad of FEMA, Katrina & Satchmo” (from More than Posthuman: Rise of the Mojosexual Cotillion)
“Driva Man/Freedom Day” (from Black Sex)
“Spartacus Free the Slaves! (feat. Kirk Douglass)” (from Blood on the Leaf)
“Himatsuri (Fire Festival)” (from If You Can’t Dazzle Them with Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them with Your Blisluth)
“Sky Porch” (from The Rites)
The fifth issue of Burning Ambulance is coming very, very soon! The upcoming print edition will include full-length interviews with Michael Gira of Swans, saxophonist Marcus Strickland, and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt; a profile of avant-garde guitarist/composer Morgan Craft; a history/analysis of Cecil Taylor‘s 1978 Unit (the band that recorded The Cecil Taylor Unit, 3 Phasis, Live in the Black Forest and One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye); a look back at the movie Two-Lane Blacktop, 40 years later; a roundtable examining the state of North American black metal from the perspective of eight very different musicians/bands; an essay on the nature of time as it relates to 20th Century composition; and the cover story, an epic history of Burnt Sugar as told by its co-founders, Greg Tate and Jared Nickerson.
In the meantime, though, issues 1-4 are on sale for 24 hours only! From now until 11:59 PM PST on Wednesday, November 30, you can save 30% just by using the code CYBERTUESDAY305 when you check out at Lulu.com.
Click to purchase:
Issue 1 (Matthew Shipp, Henry Threadgill, Bill Dixon, Orthodox, Christian pop culture and more)
physical ($10)
digital ($5)
Issue 2 (Darius Jones, Bill Dixon memorial, Eyehategod, Japanese pop, punk rock movies and more)
physical ($10)
digital ($5)
Issue 3 (Anthony Braxton, Jon Irabagon, David Weiss, Moritz von Oswald Trio, Norwegian progressive metal, “New Hollywood” and more)
physical ($10)
digital ($5)
Issue 4 (JD Allen, Harriet Tubman, Bill Laswell, ELEW, Earth, Nicolas Jaar, Posi-Tone Records, the Ramones, fascist art, and more)
physical ($10)
digital ($5)
Thanks for your support! New issue coming very soon!
The performance space Roulette will present the four-day “Energies, Ideas, Intuitions” festival, which celebrates the music of Anthony Braxton, at their new location, 509 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. The festival begins on Wednesday, October 5 and ends Saturday, October 8; all shows begin at 8 PM.
On Tuesday, October 11, New Braxton House – the Tri-Centric Foundation label – will issue the first-ever studio recording of an Anthony Braxton opera, Trillium E. The four-CD set includes a booklet with libretto, photos, and critical essays, and advance copies of the box will be on sale at Roulette during the festival.
To promote the festival, Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation is offering a free download of the 11-track sampler Composition, Improvisation, Synthesis – Selections from the Tri-Centric Foundation Archives, which is an astonishing set of music by a broad range of ensembles, and which can be grabbed at this link.
The third issue of Burning Ambulance features a major article on Braxton (including extensive discussion of the opera) by Kurt Gottschalk; click here to purchase that.
Full festival information is below.
by Phil Freeman
The other day I bought an album from eMusic, and by the end of the second track I already regretted it. I won’t tell you what record it was; I’ll just say it was the second album by a young alto saxophonist (the only album of his available on eMusic), and as I posted on Twitter yesterday, I should have taken the fact that it had the word “Cerebral” right there in the title as a warning. My own fault.
Here’s the thing. I have no problem with jazz musicians being smart. You’ve gotta have a certain baseline level of intelligence to want to play jazz, period. I just wish certain players wouldn’t advertise their smarts (or, more accurately, their level of education) quite so crudely in their compositions. Don’t launch an album with two minutes of unaccompanied, twisty-turny, knuckle-popping saxophone acrobatics and then slowly drift into some midtempo, rhythmically complex but melodically wan exercise in tricky scales and harmonic befuddlement. Start with a song. A composition that’ll stick in the listener’s ear and brain, something that’ll make them put your CD in the player a second, third and fourth time, anticipating hearing that hook again.
Australian-born, New York-based saxophonist Nick Hempton (also an alto player, by the way) understands this. The second CD by his quartet, The Business, is the product of a sharp and witty mind (track titles include “Press One for Bupkis,” “Not Here for a Haircut,” and “Flapjacks in Belo”), but it’s also the work of a kick-ass band. When they swing, they do it like they want you to get up and dance. There are sections of the piece “From Bechet, Byas and Fats,” a nearly nine-minute burner at the disc’s midpoint, that sound like they’re heading into Louis Jordan territory. And how does The Business begin? With “Flapjacks in Belo,” a piece that takes a Brazilian rhythm, then lights its tail feathers on fire. Meanwhile, the melody line is more than memorable; it’s practically unforgettable. It’s one of those hooks you’ll wish was available as a ringtone.
The whole record is like this. Even on ballads (there are two, of 10 tracks total), these guys burn it down. The band includes pianist Art Hirahara, bassist Marco Panascia, drummer Dan Aran, and guitarist Yotam Silberstein, all but one of whom are part of Hempton’s working band. So maybe you should go check them out, minus Silberstein, when they celebrate the album’s release with a performance at Smalls on Saturday.
Posi-Tone Records, Hempton’s label and the subject of an article in the current print edition of Burning Ambulance (click here to purchase), has provided me with five copies of The Business to give away. Want one? You should. To get one, email burningambulance@gmail.com and tell me the names of a few of your favorite alto sax-led recordings (albums, individual tracks, whatever). You’ve got a week; winners will be chosen on Friday, September 2.
And hey! Here’s a free MP3 of “Flapjacks in Belo” to convince you!
Nick Hempton
“Flapjacks In Belo” (mp3)
from “The Business”
(Posi-Tone Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album
The fourth issue of Burning Ambulance is out. The cover story is an interview with jazz saxophonist JD Allen, and the issue also includes interviews with Melvin Gibbs, Brandon Ross and J.T. Lewis of jazz-rock trio Harriet Tubman; “rockjazz” pianist ELEW; bassist/producer Bill Laswell; electronic musician Nicolas Jaar; and guitarist Dylan Carlson of the band Earth. There are also articles on the Ramones‘ 1980s studio albums, a look at the jazz label Posi-Tone Records (including an interview with label owner Marc Free), an essay on classical composers’ musical responses to the political events of the 1960s, and a thoughtful analysis of what we mean when we use the phrase “fascist art.” It’s a terrific issue, one that marks a new era in Burning Ambulance‘s history, and I’m very proud of it.
The print and digital editions, as with the previous three issues, are available through Lulu.com for $10 (hard copy) and $5 (digital); here’s a link for that. (Please be advised that I’m not happy with the quality of the print edition right now, so don’t order that until I give the thumbs-up. The digital edition looks great, though.)
Starting with this issue, there’s a third way to get Burning Ambulance, though: You can now get it for the Kindle, at the ultra-cheap price of only $3. To buy that version, click here.
The first three issues of Burning Ambulance will be made available for Kindle soon. For now, enjoy issue #4, and thanks for reading.
Burning Ambulance contributor Steve Hicken is a composer as well as a writer about music. In the third issue of the magazine, he described his compositional process in a lengthy essay that’s well worth your time.
He recently had some of his work performed at the Western Illinois University New Music Festival. Streams of two of those pieces can be heard at the links below.
The River Flowing Through Me (solo viola, performed by Istvan Szabó)
Night Music (solo oboe, performed by Michael Ericson)
Enjoy!
Interview with Matana Roberts coming soon. Her new album, Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres, will be out on May 10. Pre-order it from Amazon
