Cuneiform Artists on tour - January, 2016

[Steve F.]

While you were gorging yourselves on eggnog, the hard-working elves at Cuneiform have been busy assembling this list of shows for you of their artists.

We post this just once per month here but you can see the constantly updated listing by visiting
http://cuneiformrecords.com/tours.html

Wishing everyone a great 2016.

BENT KNEE [our latest signing - CD out in May!]
January 13 - BAR - 254 Crown St - New Haven CT 06511 (with Kindred Queer; Procedure Club) - No Cover

January 16 - Great Scott - 1222 Commonwealth Ave - Allston MA 02134 (with The Shills; Naytronix; Oh Malo) - $10

February 19 - Ralph’s Diner - 148 Grove St - Worcester MA 01605 - $7

February 26 - The Last Safe - 160 Merrimack St - Lowell MA 01852 - $5

February 27 - Midway Cafe - 3496 Washington St - Jamaica Plain MA 02130 (with New Tarot; Bury Me Standing) - $8

May 8 - RoSFEST 2016 - Gettysburg, PA

BLUE CRANES
February 15 - Mississippi Studios - 3939 N Mississippi Ave - Portland, OR (opening for Ches Smith/Mat Maneri/Craig Taborn)

EMPIRICAL [our latest signing - CD out in February]
February 22-27 - Old Street Underground pop up shop - London, UK
[For six days, the band will take over a retail unit in the centre of Old Street Underground station and transform the space into an inviting pop-up Jazz Lounge featuring performances and workshops!
Listeners will be invited to visit the lounge for lunchtime and evening commute live sets, with late night sessions scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Early birds will also be able to catch an 8am mid-week performance. All gigs will be free of charge.
To give younger audiences a chance to experience live jazz at more suitable times, Empirical also invites Hackney and Islington school and community groups to sign up to free educational workshops demonstrating the principles of jazz improvisation.]

MICHAEL GIBBS with BILL FRISELL
January 14 - with the University of Washington Symphony - Meany Hall at the University of Washington - 4140 George Washington Lane Northeast - Seattle, WA 98105 (opening will be Bill Frisell and his quartet performing the music of Michael Gibbs)

January 15 - with the University of Washington Big Band - Meany Hall at the University of Washington - 4140 George Washington Lane Northeast - Seattle, WA 98105 (opening will be Bill Frisell and his quartet performing the music of Michael Gibbs)

HAMSTER THEATRE
February 14 - The Dairy Center For The Arts - 2590 Walnut Street (26th & Walnut) - Boulder, CO (with Glass and Thinking Plague)

LE REX
January 9 - Jazzclub Allmend - Oberengstringen, Switzerland

January 15 - Kulturcinema - Arbon, Switzerland

January 26 - Kleintheater - Luzern, Switzerland

February 19 - Kreuz - Nidau, Switzerland

LED BIB
April 23 - Jazzahead Conference - Bremen, Germany

GARY LUCAS' FLEISCHEREI featuring SARAH STILES [our latest signing - CD out in January]
February 20 - The Museum Of The Moving Image - 36-01, 35 Ave - Astoria, NY 11106 (718) 777 6888

March 5 - American FIlm Institute - appearing as part of the Jewish Film Festival - 8633 Colesville Road - Silver Spring, MD 20910 - (301) 495 6700

ED PALERMO
January 8 - The Iridium - 1650 Broadway - NYC, NY (212) 582-2121

January 9 - The Iridium - 1650 Broadway - NYC, NY (212) 582-2121

February 13 - The Falcon - 1348 Route 9W - Marlboro, NY (845) 236 7970 (record release show!)

PIXEL
January 5 - Ronnie Scott's - 47 Frith Street Soho - London W1D 4HT, UK (opening for The Oslo Jazz Orchestra)

January 6 - Bimhuis - Piet Heinkade 3 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands (opening for The Oslo Jazz Orchestra)

January 7 - Lantaren Venster - Otto Reuchlinweg 996 - Rotterdam, The Netherlands (opening for The Oslo Jazz Orchestra)

REVOLUTIONARY SNAKE ENSEMBLE
February 17 - Mardi Gras party & 25th anniversary concert, with special guests Godwin Louis & Jason Palmer - Regattabar- Harvard Sq, Cambridge, MA - 8-9:15pm

JASON ROBINSON / JANUS ENSEMBLE
January 4 - Shapeshifter Lab - 18 Whitwell Place, Park Slope - Brooklyn, NY - 8:15pm / $10 / all ages
Jason Robinson - tenor and soprano saxes, alto flute
JD Parran - alto and contra alto clarinets, c flute
Oscar Noriega - Bb and bass clarinets, alto sax
Marty Ehrlich - alto sax, bass clarinet, c flute
Michael Dessen - trombone
Bill Lowe - bass trombone, tuba
Marcus Rojas - tuba
Liberty Ellman - guitar
Drew Gress - bass
George Schuller - drums
Ches Smith - drums, glockenspiel

SCHNELLERTOLLERMEIER
January 8 - SAS - rue du 23 Juin - Delemont 2800, Switzerland

January 16 - tba - Basel, Switzerland

January 19 - Tuesday Jazz im Alten Spital - Solothurn, Switzerland

March tba - Ireland and England tour in planning

WADADA LEO SMITH
April 1 - Big Ears Festival - Knoxville, TN

SONAR
February 24 - E-Werk - Freiburg, Germany

February 25 - Early Bird - Innsbruck, Austria

February 26 - KunstWerk e - V Ulm - Germany

March 1 - Jazz Ohne Stress - Freiburg, Germany

THINKING PLAGUE
January 7 - Rudyard's British Pub - 2010 Waugh Drive - Houston, TX (713) 521-0521 (with The Wheelworkers)

January 8 - The Ten Eleven - 1011 Avenue B - San Antonio, TX 78215 - $10.00 (with Stop Motion Orchestra & Airplane Mode)

January 9 - Church Of The Friendly Ghost - Salvage Vanguard Theater - 2803 Manor Rd. - Austin, TX 78722- click for tickets! - with Stop Motion Orchestra $10.00

January 10 - The Kessler Theater - 1230 W. Davis St. - Dallas, Texas 75208 (with Collective Unconscious) $20.00

February 14 - The Dairy Center For The Arts - 2590 Walnut Street (26th & Walnut) - Boulder, CO (with Glass and Hamster Theatre)

THUMBSCREW
May 12 - Roulette - 509 Atlantic Avenue - Brooklyn, NY (record release show!)

UPSILON ACRUX
September 16-18 - Rock In Opposition Festival - Carmaux, France

UZ JSME DOMA
September 16-18 - Rock In Opposition Festival - Carmaux, France

[NogbadTheBad]

I see Gutbucket are playing locally on 1/29, I'll get myself along to that.

[Steve F.]

^ ^ ^

Given too us too late for this original posting and I forgot to update this:

GUTBUCKET
January 28 - Shapeshifter Lab - Brooklyn, NY

January 29 - x2 at The Record Company - Boston, MA

January 30 - Orion Sound - 2903 Whittington Ave, Suite C - Baltimore, MD : 8:00 PM

[Baribrotzer]

GUTBUCKET

You probably know this, but I find it noteworthy:

Ken Thomson, Gutbucket's sax player, is now also a member of the Band on a Can All-Stars. He recently replaced Evan Ziporyn, their founding reed player. This is quite an honor, because they're one of the country's premier avant-classical ensembles. I'm not sure how much of their output would interest people here - quite a lot of the music written for them falls into the Minimalist camp, and even to avant-prog fans could seem simultaneously monotonous and over-intellectualized. But I enjoy a fair amount of it.

[NogbadTheBad]

Oh I like Bang On A Can, haven't bought anything yet, but they've been on my investigate further list for ages. Any advice where to start?

[Baribrotzer]

Hard to say.

So much of their stuff is a mixed bag, at least to me. With Minimalism, the line between "great" and "an interesting idea but not-so-great" can be so fine, and so much a matter of opinion, that it's hard to recommend something one way or the other. A lot of what they do sounds superficially like avant-prog - partly a function of their instrumentation - but there's a both a certain intellectual depth to the composition and sometimes a certain over-thought dryness to it, perhaps from the composers' academic training. Julia Wolfe's Anthracite Fields, for example, fuses Minimalism with "old-timey" Americana, and has what I hear as two really good movements and three that don't quite hit the mark. Louis Andriessen's "Hoketus", from Gigantic Human Dancing Machine takes one odd little concept and beats it to death for 25 minutes, but actually works - it reminds me of a much sparser version of late Crimson.

Completely off the subject of touring Cuneiform artists or Gutbucket, but germane to this little side-jaunt, here's a very different Bang on a Can All-Stars video:



Incidentally, the wavy-haired woman the two girls talk to is Julia Wolfe - and note the visual pun.

Also, a somewhat longer version of the same thing, with the whole amusing story:

[BrianG]

Hard to say.

So much of their stuff is a mixed bag, at least to me. With Minimalism, the line between "great" and "an interesting idea but not-so-great" can be so fine, and so much a matter of opinion, that it's hard to recommend something one way or the other. A lot of what they do sounds superficially like avant-prog - partly a function of their instrumentation - but there's a both a certain intellectual depth to the composition and sometimes a certain over-thought dryness to it, perhaps from the composers' academic training. Julia Wolfe's Anthracite Fields, for example, fuses Minimalism with "old-timey" Americana, and has what I hear as two really good movements and three that don't quite hit the mark. Louis Andriessen's "Hoketus", from Gigantic Human Dancing Machine takes one odd little concept and beats it to death for 25 minutes, but actually works - it reminds me of a much sparser version of late Crimson.

Completely off the subject of touring Cuneiform artists or Gutbucket, but germane to this little side-jaunt, here's a very different Bang on a Can All-Stars video:

I've been sampling a lot of the new and previous music from Cantaloupe Records. My favorites of the Bang On A Can stable are Michael Gordon's symphonic work and some of Ethel. Some of the "Field Recordings" were really excellent.
A recent record of music written for the Young People's Chorus of New York City is very interesting and engaging.
As for the minimalist recordings, sometimes I think this music can evoke more emotional response when it is played live, and you can see the responses of the players, as well as feel more of the dynamics of the group. I watched a live performance of the All Stars from their website last fall and couldn't take my attention away from the performance even though I know I would soon lose it listening to the same music recorded.

[Steve F.]

Bent Knee have just announced a FREE show at Lincoln Center in NYC

March 10 - Independent Music Award Winners - Lincoln Center - David Rubenstein Atrium - NYC, NY - 7:30 pm / Free!

[thedunno]

F**k! I just read this post and I see I missed Pixels show on 7 januari in my hometown.

[zombywoof]

Bent Knee have just announced a FREE show at Lincoln Center in NYC

March 10 - Independent Music Award Winners - Lincoln Center - David Rubenstein Atrium - NYC, NY - 7:30 pm / Free!

This is so ridiculously cool.