Sons d'Hiver Festival, Paris, France
AACM
Muhal Richard Abrams piano solo
Co-founder and first president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), Muhal Richard Abrams not only is one of the genuine legends of the Chicago music scene but also one of the secretly more influent personalities in the history of modern jazz. Strongly influenced by blues, rhythm�n�blues and the tormented virtuoso lyricism of the most recent Bud Powell, this original piano player proved as years went by an exceptional composer with an extensive and ambitious songbook, both lyric and abstract, as much influenced by jazz (from boogie-woogie to bebop, from ragtime to vanguard) as 20th century composers (Messiaen, Webern). Alone facing his keyboard, Abrams takes us to another musical dimension. It�s as if in the depth of his personal expression lay some kind of anonymous voice telling the universality of belonging somewhere, being rooted some place, some times, in a soil � linked to the others with a brilliant modernity as the generations go by.
Ari Brown Quartet + Corey Wilkes
ARI BROWN, tenor, alto, soprano saxophones
KIRK BROWN, piano
YOSEF BEN ISRAEL, bass
AVREEAYL RA, drums
COREY WILKES, trumpet
A harsh tone that reminds us what free jazz owes to rhythm'n'blues in its close connection with body, voice and shout; a flowing yet eventful phrasing, both smooth and steep, always under control even when he lets himself go into intense lyricism here is Ari Brown, a blazing 60 years old men, exceptional sound designer, familiar with every aspect and idiom of nowadays jazz and undisputedly part of that tradition of Chicago's great tenor sax players. Accompanied by the brilliant and inventive trumpet of Corey Wilkes whose style was fed by funk, soul and every sort of jazz and seduced all the major characters of today jazz (he is a regular member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago since 2003), Brown creates a music both modern and timeless, firmly tied to ancestral blues and let us feel he gathers in a perfect digest all lyricism, energy and instant poetry that make the magic of jazz.http://www.aacmchicago.org
