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| Adam Rudolph & Tyshawn Sorey's Archaisms I and II – Out June 7 Archaisms I and II, including a duet performance and a percussion quintet featuring members of new music ensembles Yarn/Wire and ICE, will be released digitally and on 180g vinyl via Meta, Yeros7 and Defkaz Records on June 7, 2024 "Archaisms I is one of the best records [of the year]… the music flows like one entity linking every second of sound with the next one." – Fotis Nikolakopoulos, The Free Jazz Collective "Sorey and Rudolph are master listeners… excellent at noticing, recognizing and ultimately harvesting the tiniest sonic connections of value for extensive development into fully realized gestures." – Max Kutner, Jazz Right Now Visionary composer/percussionist/drummers Adam Rudolph and Tyshawn Sorey convene for a pair of captivating performances with Archaisms I and II, available June 7, 2024 digitally and on limited edition 180g vinyl via Meta, Yeros7 and Defkaz Records. The paired releases showcase the staggering range and innovative spirit of the sonic languages developed by these two revered artists, each having evolved their own distinctive yet complementary approach to spontaneous composition. Recorded live at the Zürcher Gallery in New York's East Village in December 2021, Archaisms I features Rudolph and Sorey in a conversation of pure in-the-moment invention, Sorey on drum kit and an array of percussion, Rudolph with his arsenal of hand percussion. Captured at Brooklyn's Roulette Intermedium in February 2023, Archaisms II focuses on the unique approach to conducted improvisation that each has devised, with a trio of percussionists from the new music realm: Sae Hashimoto and Russell Greenberg of Yarn/Wire and Levy Lorenzo of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). All three are imaginative musicians from the classical/new music realm who are also skilled improvisers – a rare combination. Rudolph tasked each with assembling their own personal percussion array utilizing elements of skin, wood and metal. The term "archaisms" refers to a word or phrase of more ancient provenance employed in the context of modern language. In referring to the singular music created by Rudolph and Sorey it could be thought of as the way that African, African-American, European and other traditions from around the world emerge in their own thoroughly contemporary approach to composition; from another perspective, the forward-searching languages that each has invented are further evolutions of jazz, new music and folk traditions, making what we recognize as contemporary music an archaism in their advanced approaches. "Even while receiving ancestral codes from the ancient aboriginal past and generating thought/feeling patterns which point to the multi-dimensional future unknown, this music resides completely in the present moment, " writes Rudolph in his notes for Archaisms I. Rudolph and Sorey had long admired one another's work from afar when they first met for a concert at The Stone in 2018. "Tyshawn and I had an immediate, alchemical connection, " Rudolph recalls. "We found that we were really in tune with each other, and it was easy and inspiring to play with him." Sorey adds, "With both of us being composers, it felt natural for us to operate in this composerly way. Rather than speaking two different languages, we quickly found a way to unify our languages and speak as one." In a review for The Wire, critic Bill Meyers agrees, writing, "it's more rewarding to listen to them as an ensemble than to analyse the licks… even the quietest moments feel eventful." Archaisms I begins sparsely, with surprising, pointillist sounds that seem to emerge from various points in three-dimensional space surrounding the listener – strikes, crashes, gongs, chimes, horns. An insistent rhythm gallops out of this mysterious space before subsiding again into a mesmerizing sparseness. The first half of the performance continues in this tidal fashion, ebbing and flowing from dynamic action to punctuated silences. The second half (Side B of the vinyl release) begins with a dialogue of mallets and hand strokes, echoing and floating like whale song carried underwater. Ricocheting cymbals and snare snap these amorphous sonics into crisp focus, initiating an avalanche of roiling, shifting sounds that carry on at blistering pace. When they reconvened at Roulette a little over a year later as part of Thomas Buckner's long-running Interpretations series, Rudolph and Sorey decided to expand their palettes by inviting the three members of Yarn/Wire and ICE and conduct this larger ensemble using their respective languages. Rudolph's conducting has been well documented through the recordings of his Go: Organic Orchestra and other ensembles, which draw on a set of intervallic and rhythmic references that can be cued in varying combinations. Sorey's "autoschediasms" drew from his work with Butch Morris' Conduction and Anthony Braxton's Language Music melded with his own innovations. The first half of Archaisms II features Rudolph at the helm, with Sorey at the piano for much of its 22-minute length, before shifting to drum kit in the closing minutes. The second half is conducted by Sorey, with Rudolph taking his turn at the keyboard for a portion of the proceedings. Despite the additional voices, Sorey says, "In a lot of ways it's still a duet between Adam and me. Our concept has expanded so the point where the music still sounds like something that we teamed up and developed together." "Tyshawn is a very studious, courageous and imaginative artist, " Rudolph says. "What strikes me about the music we make together is that it contains a balance between what I call the virtuosic and the invocational. John Coltrane is a wonderful example of the invocational aspect, which invokes something transcendent. The virtuosic has to do with the high level of craft that serves that, which Tyshawn and these three fantastic percussionists certainly possess. That all results in an intense, feeling quality, a range of emotions, thrills and goosebumps." Adam Rudolph Composer and percussionist Adam Rudolph composes for his ensembles Moving Pictures, Hu Vibrational, and Go: Organic Orchestra, a 30-piece group for which he has developed an original music notation and conducting system. Rudolph has performed with Andre 3000, Don Cherry, Jon Hassel, Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, Muhal Richard Abrams, Shankar, Dave Liebman, Wadada Leo Smith, Philip Glass, and Fred Anderson, among others. He toured extensively and recorded 15 albums with Yusef Lateef including duets and their large ensemble compositional collaborations. His compositions have been performed by the Momenta String Quartet, The Oberlin Percussion Group, Figura new music group, and the Odense Percussion ensemble, among others. Rudolph is known as one the early innovators of what is now called "World Music". In 1978 he co-founded, with Foday Musa Suso, the Mandingo Griot Society, and in 1988 he recorded the first fusion of American and Moroccan Gnawa music with sintir player Hassan Hakmoun. Tyshawn Sorey Tyshawn Sorey is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery, and an extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Claire Chase, Steve Lehman, Jason Moran, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Myra Melford, among many others. Sorey has composed works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, soprano Julia Bullock, PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the McGill-McHale Trio, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, Alarm Will Sound, the Louisville Orchestra, and tenor Lawrence Brownlee with Opera Philadelphia in partnership with Carnegie Hall, as well as for countless collaborative performers. Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2020. Adam Rudolph / Tyshawn Sorey – Archaisms I and II Meta/Yeros7/ Records – FK019 / FK020 – Recorded Dec. 16, 2021 & Feb. 9, 2023 Release date June 7, 2024 write your comments about the article :: © 2024 Jazz News :: home page |