Beethoven Duos & Trios
Violinist Isabelle Faust (interviewed on BA podcast #51) has a long-standing creative relationship with pianist Alexander Melnikov. The two have a deep shared catalog of recordings and performances,...
View ArticleO’Neal’s Porch @ 20
Bassist William Parker had already been a key figure on the New York jazz scene for close to 30 years in 2001. His first record date was in March 1973, on saxophonist Frank Lowe‘s Black Beings. (An...
View ArticleThe Tone World: Part 1
Bassist William Parker has a fairly epic box out this week. Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World is a 10CD set, with each disc featuring a different ensemble, most of which do not...
View ArticleFly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! @ 40
Pianist Cecil Taylor was playing solo as early as the late 1960s — the double LP Praxis was recorded in Italy in 1968, though it wasn’t released until 1982. His solo work truly blossomed in the 1970s,...
View ArticleThe Runners-Up: Andrew Hill
The Runners-Up is a monthly column, wherein we will analyze an album that isn’t the consensus first choice or most canonical title by a given artist, but is one worthy of more attention than it’s...
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Odyssey @ 20
Trumpeter Bill Dixon was a crucial figure in the history of the 1960s musical avant-garde, but his disinclination to participate in the commercial marketplace ultimately limited his music’s reach....
View ArticleBA Podcast 66: Anthony Braxton
Support Burning Ambulance on Patreon • Get the Burning Ambulance email newsletter Episode 66 of the Burning Ambulance Podcast features an interview with Anthony Braxton. This is an episode I have been...
View ArticleJD Allen
I realized recently that I’ve been listening to saxophonist JD Allen’s music for ten years. I first encountered his work in 2011, when he’d just released Victory!, his third album with bassist Gregg...
View ArticleBA Podcast 68: Andrew Cyrille
Episode 68 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with drummer Andrew Cyrille. Andrew Cyrille is the last man standing from the first wave of free jazz drummers. He and Milford Graves,...
View ArticleWinter & Spring
Discussed in this essay: William Parker Trio, Painter’s Spring (Thirsty Ear, 2000); William Parker Trio, Painters Winter (AUM Fidelity, 2021); Other Dimensions in Music, Live at the Sunset (Marge,...
View ArticleCecil Taylor: November 1996
Cecil Taylor‘s relationship with Jost Gebers and the FMP (Free Music Production) label began in 1988, when he staged a month-long residency in Berlin which was documented in the lavish In Berlin ’88...
View ArticleSoul Of Things @ 20
Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, who died in 2018 at 76, had an astonishing career. At 20, he formed the Jazz Darings, who adapted the innovations of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, in the process...
View ArticleSirone
Bassist Norris Jones, better known as Sirone, was born in Atlanta in 1940; he died in Berlin in 2009. Though he never became a mainstream figure, within the world of avant-garde jazz from the 1960s...
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Interview: Steven Schick
Percussionist Steven Schick is a professor of music at the University of California San Diego and the artistic director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus and the San Francisco Contemporary Music...
View ArticleJazz As Living Memory
When I interviewed Cecil Taylor in 2016, on the occasion of the Whitney Museum exhibition devoted to his life and work, the most contentious part of the two days we spent together came when we...
View ArticleWillie Jones III
In the introduction to his 1985 book Rhythm-a-Ning, Gary Giddins writes, “When we talk about a renaissance in jazz, we are talking about a wealth of interesting music, not a broad-scaled awakening of...
View ArticleCharles Gayle
Saxophonist Charles Gayle died last week at 84. He was born February 28, 1939 in Buffalo, New York and lived and worked there until the early 1970s. He didn’t like to talk about his early life, but...
View ArticleBA Podcast 79: Ethan Iverson
It’s true — the Burning Ambulance Podcast is back! To find out about upcoming episodes, as well as all things Burning Ambulance, sign up for our free weekly newsletter. It’s been a long time since...
View ArticleBill Dixon @ 99
Last week was the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution in Jazz, a four-day event encompassing performances and panel discussions, all held at the Cellar Café on West 91st Street in Manhattan....
View ArticleJazz From 1974
I know we’re in the middle of year-end list season, but this is better than that. What follows is a list 50 jazz albums, all of which turn 50 this year. The list is alphabetical, and you’re gonna get...
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