Recording: Without a Single Green Feather

Artist: Without a Single Green Feather

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #93), July 2, 2024.

Without a Single Green Feather - [excerpt]

This was another set that came about from me inviting Patrick O'Reilly to bring along some musicians who might not (yet!) be familiar to me, and he obliged by putting together this trio with Sam Laramee and Ezra Schell. Answering the musical question, "what would happen if we attached a fax machine to the rock tumbler?" there was a radiophonic workshop's worth of ingenuity here as the sounds moved from "relaxed drift" to "OS error message".

You can check out the full set over on youtube:

[Track Could Bend will be back on Wenona next week (Tuesday, August 6th), featuring sets from Dangertown (New York's Dafna Naphtali and Hans Tammen, fresh from Electric Eclectics) and Eye_Duh Kho.]

Recording: Jake Laur Trio

Artist: Jake Laur Trio

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at The Dock Ellis' No-No Room (Gabe Girard presents), May 26, 2024.

Jake Laur Trio - unknown

This trio (with pianist Jake Laur joined by double bassist Yoshi Wall and drummer Ezra Schell) closed out a night of experimental and improvised sounds in the basement of The Dock Ellis. Clearly a keen student of syncopation, Laur led his crew through a continuous medley of pieces and strode through several eras of jazzy exploration.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Sunstone

Artist: Sunstone

Song: You've Got to Have Freedom [composer: Pharoah Sanders]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), June 2, 2023.

Sunstone - You've Got to Have Freedom

Some joyfully-blasting explorations through standards and spiritual jazz jams from this crew of younger musicians. Adrian Russouw (double bass) was the most familiar face to me, and from my digging it looks like there are some different folks shifting in and out, but so far as I can make out the lineup here was completed by Luke Nickel (trombone), Ali Rashid (sax), Eugene Kwong (sax), Ezra Schell (drums) and Matthew O'Halloran (piano). (Do correct me if I'm wrong there!)

This gig was a solid reminder that there is a whole cadre of musicians who have been honing their chops while there were fewer gigs in the past few years — hopefully they keep getting more chances to play and we get more chances to hear them.