Photo: Peter Gannushkin

Tonight at 9:00 p.m., alto saxophonist/composer Darius Jones continues his four-week residency at the newly renovated Ibeam in Brooklyn.

He’s celebrating his latest AUM Fidelity release, Big Gurl (Smell My Dream), with four consecutive Thursday night performances through November 10th.

Doors open at 8:30 p.m. and admission is $10.

“Sparked by the sonically unpredictable alto saxophone of New York-based composer Jones,” writes JazzTimes reviewer Carlo Wolff, “this tight-knit group knows its way around free-form jazz, funk, even metal—check how drummer Jason Nazary evokes John Bonham on ‘Ol Metal-Faced Bastard.’ Still, this music swings on a foundation of the blues, with Jones’ smears and mild vibrato underlining its vocal quality. Jones can keen, weep, caress—and cut, too. And no matter how abrasive he becomes—parts of ‘Chasing the Ghost’ and ‘E-Gaz’ are defiantly in your face—he convinces. This warm CD sobs and challenges.”

“Fulfilling (and exceeding) expectations,” explains AllAboutJazz.com’s Troy Collins, “Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) is a rightfully compelling follow-up to his stunning debut. With another installment already in the works, Jones has set the stage for a winning series of albums designed to document his rise as one of the most impressive and unique voices of our time.”

Dusted‘s Jason Bivins adds, “Big Gurl is another superb effort from Jones, who is taking a mix of top-shelf ingredients and making them over in his own language. And it’s righteous fun, lest we forget that challenging jazz can hit these buttons, too.”

Learn more about Darius Jones and his AUM Fidelity releases at http://www.aumfidelity.com/darius_jones.html

Today is the official street date for saxophonist/composer Darius Jones‘ latest AUM Fidelity release, Big Gurl (Smell My Dream), his long-awaited second recording as a bandleader.

It follows Jones’ widely acclaimed 2009 debut, Man’ish Boy (A Raw & Beautiful Thing), as well as ensuing releases with pianist Matthew Shipp and the groups Mike Pride’s From Bacteria To Boys and Little Women.

Here’s a sample of the opening track, “E-Gaz”

“Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) continues the sonic tone poem of my life,” Jones explains, referring to the ongoing “Man’ish Boy” series of original compositions introduced on his debut. “It focuses on my experiences in Richmond, Virginia, which changed my life profoundly. This album is a musical love letter to Richmond for the beautiful people I connected with and life lessons I learned during my time there as a young man.”

He adds, “It captures that mystical moment when I fell in love with music for the first time so completely. It delves deeper into the concept of developing organically without the awareness of boundaries. It expresses my love for underground hip-hop, soul, gospel, jazz, blues, rock and all things funky. Soul Power!”

This diverse series of pieces is performed by Jones’ working trio, featuring bassist Adam Lane and drummer Jason Nazary, which has been his primary outlet as a composer/bandleader for the past three years. The group was first heard on record in 2009 thanks to a special foreshadowing bonus track on Man’ish Boy, and has since performed at such notable venues as the Earshot Jazz Festival, Undead Jazzfest and the Vision Festival.

“Once again drawing on his Southern roots for inspiration,” writes AllAboutJazz.com reviewer Troy Collins, “Jones revels in a program that runs the gamut from tender balladry to testimonial fervor—with a penchant for all things funky underscoring the date. Fulfilling (and exceeding) expectations, Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) is a rightfully compelling follow-up to his stunning debut. With another installment already in the works, Jones has set the stage for a winning series of albums designed to document his rise as one of the most impressive and unique voices of our time.”

Dusted‘s Jason Bivins adds, “Big Gurl is a series of stories that burns hot with emotional conviction and technical invention…another superb effort from Jones, who is taking a mix of top-shelf ingredients and making them over in his own language. And it’s righteous fun, lest we forget that challenging jazz can hit these buttons, too.”

The Darius Jones Trio will be celebrating the release of Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) with an October 14th performance at Outpost 186 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a four-week residency at the newly renovated Ibeam in Brooklyn beginning October 20th.

Learn more about Darius Jones and his AUM Fidelity releases at http://www.aumfidelity.com/darius_jones.html

Today is the official street date for AUM Fidelity‘s two June releases, Farmers By Nature’s Out Of This World’s Distortions (AUM067) and David S. Ware/Cooper-Moore/William Parker/Muhammad Ali’s Planetary Unknown (AUM068).

Out Of This World’s Distortions is the second recording by the improvising trio of Gerald Cleaver (drums), William Parker (bass) and Craig Taborn (piano), which takes its name from its acclaimed 2009 debut, Farmers By Nature (AUM053). This latest effort further demonstrates the highly fruitful level of interaction its members have cultivated over the past four years.

“This isn’t a piano trio with rhythm and the keyboard out front,” explains AllAboutJazz.com’s John Sharpe. “The three parts are wholly equal…an almost telepathic understanding, promoting exciting seat of the pants navigation and unfettered expression, safe in the knowledge that any unexpected turns will be spiritedly pursued. Their egalitarian outlook ensures ample space for each, arising in unforced natural progressions.”

Point of Departure‘s Troy Collins adds, “This studio session pristinely conveys a continuous exchange of ideas that expand through a wide range of dynamics, veering from understated pointillism to raucous expressionism. Their conversational interplay espouses the hushed tones of pellucid key strokes, bowed string harmonics and shimmering cymbal washes as readily as the dense note clusters, thrumming bass drones and roiling trap set palpitations of their more aggressive excursions—often segueing seamlessly between approaches in the same tune…a novel variation on an enduring format that transcends customary expectations through considered interplay and empathetic unanimity.”

Farmers By Nature will celebrate its new release with a performance at Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival on June 21st followed by a six-city tour of France, Slovenia and The Netherlands beginning June 24th.

Planetary Unknown documents the birth of the new improvising supergroup of the same name, while also marking the first collaboration by Ware and Cooper-Moore (né Gene Ashton) in 30 years and the first appearance on record by Ali since the early 1980′s. The all-star quartet just made its live debut at Vision Festival 16 on Friday night, an event Time Out New York named one of its 25 must-see NYC summer jazz shows.

“Almost immediately,” writes The Wire‘s Julian Cowley, “the collective force of this stellar group kicks in, evolving dynamic forms that revitalize yet again the blazing language of free jazz. Cecil Taylor once observed that John Coltrane’s tone was beautiful because it was functional, meaning that it was always involved in actually saying something, never an empty display of his formidable technique. Such functional beauty is the business of this quartet.”

“Every moment is breathtaking,” declares The New York City Jazz Record‘s Marc Medwin. “The level of invention is staggering, Cooper-Moore matching Ware in every trill, arpeggio and overtone-laden growl with swoops, chordal passages and inter-registral showers of crystal…expanding on every implication in Ware’s vast vocabulary. The team of William Parker and Muhammad Ali is no less engaging.”

Point of Departure‘s Ed Hazell adds, “David S. Ware plays with such solemn power and majesty that his soloing begs comparisons to mountains or waterfalls. In fact, it’s hard to avoid ecological metaphors when discussing his latest album, Planetary Unknown, so completely do Ware, pianist Cooper-Moore, bassist William Parker, and drummer Muhammad Ali create their own world of sound, a landscape in which one can sense the presence of the divine in much the same way that Walden inspired Thoreau or Yosemite John Muir. Listening to this quartet makes Transcendentalists of us all.”

Planetary Unknown is currently planning future performances, but Ware is celebrating the record, as well as his other recent titles on the label, with a series of solo shows in Toronto (this past Sunday night), Montreal (tonight at the Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival) and New York (June 24th at The Stone and June 25th at Undead Jazzfest).

Learn more about AUM Fidelity, which will present two weeks of music at The Stone starting on Thursday night, at http://aumfidelity.com

Today is the official street date for Other Doors (Allos Documents), the third release from Chicago-based clarinetist/composer James Falzone‘s working quartet, KLANG.

It features a new book of original compositions and arrangements Falzone created after receiving an invitation to commemorate the Benny Goodman centennial at the 2009 Chicago Jazz Festival.

KLANG’s core line-up of Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone), Jason Roebke (bass) and Tim Daisy (drums) is augmented by special guests Josh Berman (cornet), Keefe Jackson (saxophone and bass clarinet), Jeb Bishop (trombone) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and electronics) for a program that juxtaposes reimaginings of some of Goodman’s best-known music with new pieces inspired by Falzone’s exploration of the iconic clarinetist’s history.

“Falzone’s links to Goodman shine throughout the disc,” writes DownBeat Associate Editor Aaron Cohen in the liner notes, “primarily an unquestionable virtuosity on the clarinet, along with a sense of fun to make octave leaps sound not just easy, but joyful. Still, while Goodman led most of his groups through hard driving swing, and others through his commissioning of modern classical compositions, Falzone makes these turns through one group—KLANG—and often during a single tune. What winds up being created from throwing all of this together is Falzone and KLANG’s vision of their current environment.”

In his review for Point of Departure, eminent music journalist Brian Morton described the record as “so unmistakably right,” “immensely impressive” and “music driven along by Falzone’s remarkable, capacious imagination and grasp of group dynamics.”

“Blending new pieces with startling arrangements of old standards,” adds AllAboutJazz.com’s Troy Collins, “the record provides a fresh look at the legacy of a respected icon. Falzone’s originals exude a bracing balance between avant-garde invention and spirited traditionalism, with the abstruse angles, dynamic structural shifts and pithy rejoinders of ‘The 4:08′ and ‘Goodman’s Paradox’ serving as cogent examples. Supported by the lively contributions of his sideman Other Doors easily sidesteps the nostalgic clichés that plague many similar homage’s by bringing a freewheeling and modernistic vitality to the enduring work of a celebrated innovator.”

Falzone talks more about the project in feature articles from ALARM Magazine and The Columbia Chronicle.

KLANG will celebrate the release of Other Doors at The Hideout in Chicago on May 25th and Sugar Maple in Milwaukee on May 27th.

Learn more about James Falzone and his various musical projects at http://allosmusica.org