Happy Saturday!! I opened this set with a poem I wrote last year, accompanied by a collage and featuring the first track we heard Thursday “Thankingtheearth – LIVE” by Carlos Niño & Friends, Nate Mercereau, and Josh Johnson. This sought to set the tone for today’s show. Things will be ambient, but active. The next few tracks I have had in my playlist of songs I hope to play since I started this show. “A RING” by TOWA TEI featuring Pascale Borel, gives an industrial, electronic spin. This track is more approachable than much other industrial music, but I couldn’t keep things that way. “Kinda Dukish” makes things free again, free from industry, free from forms and Sam Rivers maintains structure with no boundaries. This track was also recorded in New York with Blue Note. To keep things in high contrast, I pulled an almost punk + industrial track far from NY, “Bagna” by Błoto. From Poland, this group strips things down to the elements I want to focus in on for this show. Percussion. Even the piano is used as a rhythmic piece, like the kick, clave, and what I can only guess is a bottle full of marbles??

But to keep in contrast, I wanted to focus on an independent artist making large strides internationally. There hasn’t been much smooth saxophone this Thursday, so I enlisted Mauricesax led by Bao to get “Back on the Grind”. Obey and Heem join Mauricesax in the next track “Leilia Orchid” to provide some much needed, upbeat meditation before heading to the next track.

I had some words prepared to open this set with and forgot to read them off at the start of my show, but this is an apt place for them: “You will hear some ballads today, some things totally formless. The shape of jazz that has come is difficult to imagine in 2 or even three dimensions. Listen to the percussion, Take it easy, let the music make you terrified and anxious, and appreciate things that provoke a more evocative response than the billionth crooner. I have no apologies, enjoy.”

My mother would frequently ask me “What did you do at (x place)?” and in my teenage years I would dismiss it with “Nothing much”. This next track “Nothingness” is pretty close to representing that white noise in my head as the day passed. J.J. Whitfield teams up with Forced Meditation and that Meditation becomes further forced with “In the Void of All Things” by kinkajous. This is the other side of “Nothing much”, quieter and down-tempo. Featuring tap-dancing as a percussive voice!! This is my foot tapping through the time at (x place). A place surrounding by things, indubitably, but my mind is in the void of all such things and my foot keeps tapping.

“Oofed” by Gerard Bailey featuring David Agee, and Brad Wagner strips away all the complex percussion. With more traditional instrumentation, an equally unnerving sound emerges. Thanks in special part to the trumpet playing of Gerard Bailey which fills in the anxious gaps left by the flute and himself, while muted. I get tense just writing all of this, so from the album “Stress Relief” Léon Phal orchestrates for Lorine Chia to provide such on the track “Something Inside”. The saxophone and trumpet talk dirty enough, that you can infer the theme of the track. Before getting lost in any sort of ecstasy, Angelo Outlaw helps us break into a measured slow-dance. “Silent Horizon” uses synth leads as percussive voices while the vibraphone creates a spacy melodic setting. We continue off into space, with the track “Robyn” by cktrl giving a heartbroken saxophone ballad that feels like an astronaut watching his ship take off without him. “Chandler” by Ebi Soda featuring Yazz Ahmed works in this low gravity environment. Complete with eerie brass lines, synths, drums all through unique and calculated effects.

To cool things down “Mas O Menos” by the Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange makes things upbeat and cheerier, showcasing talent from all around Europe. Jaubi is the first Pakistani group I have encountered in my research and features a Sarod, an instrument rarely, if ever heard in Western music. The sound is richer and not-boundless, but with bounds totally unrecognizable in more familiar string instruments. Also the artwork for this new single “Wings of Submission” is beautiful and carries subliminal religious, political messaging.

We are now deep in the mix of new releases from around the world and the next track “With Time” fits our theme and showcases creative work by David Versace. Out of Brooklyn, “Pulpo Lucido” by Star Rover, Kenny Wollesen, Jeremy Gustin, and Will Graefe is laid back and creates a sound I can only describe as “folk jazz”. “Paradox” by Emanative slowly strips its phrasing from the structure and the sax runs away from us, but they are free in this jazz afterall. The Means of Production take us back over to Brooklyn where this new form (or lackthereof) of jazz is thriving. Their track “(Di)stance” feels as hazy as it would look if I tried to see Brooklyn with x-ray vision from this basement in Manhattan. I can hardly make things out, but each interference creates a kaleidoscope of unexpectedly choreographed motion. To close things out, Carlos Niño and Friends (Maia Mălăncuș,André 3000,Jesse Peterson) have made the track “Birthworkers Magic, and how we all get hear…”. Most of the set was to prepare for this track, an almost explicit sonic image of childbirth and Agape (Unconditional Love).

Next week there will be no show, I will be en route to Narraganset, RI where I stay to do coverage of the Newport Jazz Festival. Stay tuned to this blog for festival coverage including a daily breakdown and artist interviews.

This episode was streamed live on 89.1 FM and on WNYU.ORG so catch more next Thursday 9-10:30 PM.

K3FAY