Jazz from Gallery 41

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Special Saturday evening edition of Jazz from Gallery 41 with Ron Pelletier weekly Saturdays 10pm-2am (PT) on KCSM-FM91

Jazz from Gallery 41 with Ron Pelletier

When a weekly Saturday evening edition of Jazz from Gallery 41 returned to KCSM I added a segment to the show that gives a peek into a mountainous archive of rare, personal and historical conversations that I’ve recorded over the past 4+ plus decades with many, many, many phenomenal Jazz artists. From Joe Williams to Joseph Jarman, like…you know, from the Blues to the Avant-Garde.

The segment now has a name:

Jazz from Gallery 41 – JazzIzzAzzIzz – Actuality Bytezz
You may ask, what is an actuality? Well, I’ll tell you.
Actuality: noun; plural ac·tu·al·i·ties.
Actual existence; reality.
An actual condition or circumstance; fact.

About all those zz’s? My way of sending a message of gratitude and my respects out into the ethers to a uniquely creative saxophonist & composer and club owner (Azz Izz Jazz Club in Venice, CA.) Billie Harris, who was all that and great fun to play music with. Yes, his voice is in the archive and you will hear it at some point.

The plan is to share just 1 per show created for KCSM, but this Saturday the 9th of October there will be 2. The 2 gentlemen I mentioned in the beginning. Joe Williams (rcd. 1977) and Joseph Jarman (rcd. 1979). Say it with me…from Blues to the Avant-Garde. In the following weeks of October there will be actuality (sound) bytezz featuring Horace Tapscott, Shelly Manne, and James Newton. The list of recordings in my archive is a very, very long, diverse and eclectic list.

Feel free to join me on Jazz from Gallery 41, Saturdays from 10 pm – 2 am (PT) and you’ll hear a unique blend of the music and the actual voices of many great Jazz artists, past and present, speaking to the truth, reality, circumstances, facts and existence of their music.

You will hear much more of everything on Jazz from Gallery 41 that has been streaming around the world 24/7 covering the entire Jazz spectrum from Blues to the Avant-Garde. These "Actuality Bytezz" will also be added to the stream, and I am creating a way for you to hear the conversations in their entirety.

Do remember the virtual door is always open. Come share the music whenever and wherever you can...wherever you are!

Stay tuned!

Friday, September 24, 2021

A Love Supreme - John Coltrane

"A Love Supreme"

John Coltrane

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Jazz from Gallery 41

with Ron Pelletier

Streaming and sharing the music with you 24/7

Come share the music with us whenever you can!

Monday, September 20, 2021

Now Playing on Jazz from Gallery 41

Jane Ira Bloom / soprano saxophone & Allison Miller drums & percussion

"Tues Days"

In March and April of 2021 soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and drummer Allison Miller came together on five Tuesdays in March and April of 2021 to record some improvised sax and drum duets to see what might happen. They didn’t set out to make an album - they just wanted to play because they needed to improvise any way that they could. They played with complete abandon, performing remotely from their home studios in New York City in the reality of the world of 2021. Tues Days is the result of those recordings that now appear on Bloom’s Outline label and are available through Miller’s Bandcamp site, mixed and mastered by bassist Mark Helias with breathtaking fidelity. It’s a musical duet saturated in a kaleidoscope of color. The music is spontaneous composition at its best by two masterful improvisers – energetic, tactile, and alive. Miller’s multi-colored array of percussion augments her drumset in exquisite counterpoint to Bloom’s signature tone on the soprano sax. The music is both rhythmic and deeply lyrical - drum and sax dancing around one another until their song is sung. The compositions are Bloom and Miller making-it-up live and in the moment, taking you on a wild ride through their musical universe.

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Montreal Jazz Trio

Steve Amirault - Piano

Adrian Vedady - Bass

Jim Doxas - Drums

Montreal Jazz Trio’s self-titled recording is modern jazz piano trio playing at its fnest. This exciting new album was recorded in November of 2020 at the storied recording studio Boutique de Son in Pointe Claire, Quebec, and is being released by the Montréal label ODD SOUND. The group features three of Montreal’s fnest musicians: Steve Amirault on piano, Adrian Vedady on acoustic bass, and Jim Doxas on drums. This recording was self-produced by the trio and mixed by Doxas.

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Marcello Gonçalves - 7-string guitar

Anat Cohen - clarinet

"Reconvexo"

Anzic Records

Artists around the world responded to the forced isolation brought about by the 2020 pandemic in various ways. In Brazil, superstars such as Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil (who, amazingly, will all be celebrating their 80th birthday in 2022) shared performances from their homes, performing their hit songs for their fans. Performing in this new format, for people in need of healing and comfort that music can provide, further strengthened the already deep impact these melodies and lyrics had on Brazilian culture.

Among those fans were Anat Cohen and Marcello Gonçalves, quarantined in Rio. As Marcello puts it: “I've been dreaming of Anat singing those words through her clarinet, imagining how her unique way of interpreting melodies would powerfully convey the message of the lyrics to anyone familiar with them, even when played instrumentally.” When listening to these quarantine-era performances, “each one of these concerts reminded me of songs that I could play with Anat, so this project made even more sense to be done at this moment.”

Against the backdrop of a country and a world turning inward, distilling the importance of music in the lives of so many, the duo set out to record an album inspired by the beauty of Brazil, and the spirit of its people. The result is at once intimate and virtuosic, mournful and hopeful, soaked with the feeling expressed uniquely in the Portuguese language as saudade – bittersweet, at once deeply happy and sad, and full of emotion.

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Barrett Martin - Drums, Voice, Upright Bass, Piano,

Vibraphone, Marimba, Steel Drum, African,

Brazilian, and Cuban Drums, Mbira, Kalimba, Gamelans, Gongs

Dave Carter – Open & Muted Trumpet

Lisette Garcia – Shakers, Brazilian Surdo Drum, Gamelans

Stillpoint is the moment between thoughts, when all mental chatter
ceases and the clarity of absolute mind emerges from within.

Stillpoint is also an album of original music and a book of short stories from
Latin Grammy-winning producer, writer, and Zen practitioner, Barrett Martin.

Building on his previous two books that also came with
musical soundtracks (The Singing Earth 2017, The Way Of The Zen Cowboy 2019),
Stillpoint is a stand alone studio album, but it also serves as the soundtrack
for Barrett’s 3rd book in the series titled, Stillpoint: Reflections From A Year On The Cliff.

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Jazz from Gallery 41 with Ron Pelletier

Streaming 24/7

Covering the entire Jazz spectrum

From studios overlooking the San Francisco Bay

Live shows Monday - Friday

Occasional in-studio guests, conversation, live-performances

Come share the music whenever you can

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Now Playing on Jazz from Gallery 41 - Douglas J. Cuomo's "Seven Limbs" featuring Nels Cline and Aizuri Quartet

Douglas J. Cuomo's "Seven Limbs"

featuring
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Nels Cline, guitars/electronics

Aizuri Quartet
Emma Frucht, violin
Miho Saegusa, violin
Ayane Kozasa, viola
Karen Ouzounian, cello
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Composer Douglas J. Cuomo’s Seven Limbs, written for and featuring Nels Cline and the Aizuri Quartet, is out now on Sunnyside Records. The work is a ritual in seven movements, based on the Seven Limbs – a fundamental Tibetan Buddhist practice of purification. The spiritual grounding of the music is in the tradition of John Coltrane, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener.

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Called one of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” by Rolling Stone, Nels Cline brings his wildly creative improvisational skills and sonic range to the work. Drawn to the Grammy-nominated Aizuri Quartet’s precision and grace, Cuomo sets these five musicians in a landscape that is slightly unfamiliar - where the ground under their feet is always shifting a bit in unexpected ways. This requires a musical alertness and philosophical openness to whatever the moment brings, an outlook that has parallels to the Buddhist practice of the Seven Limbs. Cuomo describes his attraction to the artists:

“I intended to allow Nels the opportunity to play in all the different ways that he does – explosively and delicately, with lots of electronic effects or totally acoustic. His range drew me to him but equally important, even in his sonic mayhem mode, he is always wonderfully sensitive and reactive to what’s going around him musically. And the first time I heard the Aizuri Quartet, I was knocked out by their sound, precision, and rhythmic suppleness. They have such a beautiful musical and personal energy, and it just beams out at you from the stage. I knew I could write the kind of demanding music I was imagining and they would just eat it up.”

Before Cline goes on tour with Wilco, there will be a live outdoor performance of Seven Limbs on July 9, 2021 at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, in Katonah, NY.

Cuomo began his musical studies as a jazz guitarist, but his interests led him away from performance to composition, where he remained mainly self-taught. Cuomo found success in the early 1990s writing music for film and television, including the highly regarded drama series, Homicide: Life on the Street. After 15 years in the industry, Cuomo decided to step back and focus on composing for passion projects in theater and contemporary classical fields.

Also a practicing Buddhist, Cuomo writes: “The practice is about exploring your mind and facing what’s there. I tried to make the music reflect the same thing — stillness, turmoil, suppleness, resistance, euphoria, high drama. I wrote it to be like a dream, like looking inward and discovering a terrain.”

Seven Limbs creates a world of musical ideas and settings that allow the musicians to explore ideas of meditative tranquility, subtle levels of mind, the battle with inner demons, the circle of karma, and sudden bolts of insight. Both strings and guitar are shape-shifters in that the roles are fluid — at times the guitar is in front with the quartet playing a more supportive role, at other times the guitar conjures a multi-layered and evolving drone-like sonic environment and the strings step to the fore. There are also many instances when both find equal footing, intertwining in a way that makes such distinctions moot.

Despite being written and recorded during the COVID pandemic, Seven Limbs was a true collaboration. Cline and Cuomo met just before lockdown. Cuomo Skyped and exchanged written music and rough recordings with the Aizuri. In February 2021, everyone assembled for rehearsal, three livestreams, and the recording of the piece. The joy everyone felt to be in a room making music together after so many months of isolation was palpable.

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Jazz from Gallerly 41
with Ron Pelletier

Streaming 24/7

Live Shows Monday - Friday

Occasional In-Studio Guests

Conversations, Live Performances
Come Share The Music

New Music coming to Jazz from Gallery 41 in October 2021 on Circum-Disc Records

Uniquely Creative New Music coming to Jazz from Gallery 41

"You Never Know"

On Circum-Disc Records

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Paulina Owczarek - saxophone

Peter Orins - drums

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Paulina Owczarek – saxophonist and improviser, graduated from the Academy of Music in Krakow. She plays the alto and baritone sax. Interested mainly in free improvisation, she also performs contemporary chamber music, having premièred numerous new works for saxophone in Poland. She is an active member of improvised and experimental music scene, taking part in Krakow free improv projects (such as Institute Of Intuition, Muzykoterapia) and international festivals of contemporary and improvised music (Ad Libitum, Hurta Cordel, Musica Electronica Nova, Ostrava Days, Lublin Jazz Festival, AudioArt, Sound Exchange, Krakow Jazz Autumn, Mirror Mirror, Discordian Community Riot, No Woman No Art, Unsound, Soundance, Saalfelden Jazz Festival).

The founder and conductor of Krakow Improvisers Orchestra, an ensemble dedicated to conducted improvisation. Currently she is also involved in groups such as Morświn, Human.error, Dust Mite Paradise and Sambar. She has been a member of London Improvisers Orchestra and Satoko Fuji Orchestra; she has worked with theatres: Teatr Stary, Teatr Sztuk and Krakow Opera and has improvised with poets, dancers and painters. www.soundcloud.com/paaulina https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/paulina-owczarek

Peter Orins is a French drummer and one of the founders of the Muzzix collective. He’s developed his playing over the years, performing in various jazz bands in Lille since the early 90’s, and participating in experimental and improvised music projects. In addition to serving as an artistic director of Muzzix and helming the record label Circum-Disc, he leads several bands including Kaze, Toc, Abdou/Dang/Orins. Among the musicians he plays with, both inside and outside the Muzzix collective, are Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura, Ikue Mori, Dave Rempis, Sophie Agnel, Didier Lasserre, Joke Lanz, Jasper Stadhouders, Petr Vrba, Maciej Garbowski, Jarry Singla, and Didier Aschour, among others. www.peterorins.com