"SoundDance celebrates the 80th birthday of the hugely influential pianist Muhal Richard Abrams. Perhaps best known as the founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)—the organization from which sprung such giants of...

"A recording by Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, or Roscoe Mitchell is occasion for notice and celebration.A recording by all three of them together is a historic musical moment.Abrams, founder of the AACM; Mitchell, founder of the Art Ensemble of...

"Much has happened since the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s last release, The Meeting, in 2003. The band had reinvented itself as a quartet again, with the return of Joseph Jarman. Their touring had increased consistently. They were all writing again with the

Kim Cass – bass, sampling
Matt Mitchell - piano and prophet-6
Tyshawn Sorey - drums
Laura Cocks - flutes
Adam Dotson - euphonium

“Bassist Kim Cass is among a vanguard group of Brooklyn-based improvisors who are creating works at the leading-edge of rhythmic acuity. Levs, his debut with Pi Recordings, features pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, who called Cass “a singular composer and player: the man can do things that doesn’t seem possible on the bass...

"The Mancy of Sound finds Steve Coleman at his creative peak, incorporating a lifetime of research into African Diasporic culture and cycles found in nature & astronomy into his musical methods. The current edition of his longtime band is perhaps his...

Steve Coleman - alto saxophone
Jonathan Finlayson - trumpet
Kokayi - wordsmith
Anthony Tidd - bass
Sean Rickman - drums

“Recorded live in performance at the renowned Village Vanguard in New York City, "Mdw Ntr," finds MacArthur Fellow Steve Coleman exploring new terrain in his use of non-linear performance practices in his music. Featuring his long-running flagship ensemble Five Elements, he utilizes spontaneous and pre-composed modules, or motivic cells that can be played in an

"Morphogenesis is the highly-anticipated follow-up to alto saxophonist/ composer Steve Coleman’s Synovial Joints, which was named the #1 jazz release of 2015 by the New York Times, as well as the top ten at NPR, Downbeat, Popmatters, Slate, and The Nation. Like on that release, Morphogenesis expands Coleman’s compositional scope, adding vocals, violin, clarinet, piano, contrabass and percussion to the mix, in addition to alto sax, trumpet and tenor sax. Partially due to the instrumentation, his use of...

Liberty Ellman - guitar
Steve Lehman - alto saxophone
Jonathan Finlayson - trumpet
Jose Davila - tuba
Stephan Crump - bass
Damion Reid - drums

“Last Desert is guitarist Liberty Ellman's follow up to his critically-acclaimed Radiate (Pi 2015), which the Wall Street Journal described as "bristling with energy and innovation" and Downbeat praised as "unique, indelible and fully human."
Named #1 Rising Star Guitarist in the 2016 Downbeat Critics Poll, Ellman is perh

"Liberty Ellman, one of New York’s most imaginative and unorthodox guitarist/composers follows up 1998’s Orthodoxy, which he released on his own Red Giant Records, with Tactiles. The Tactiles quartet is formed of Mark Shim on tenor, Stephan Crump on...

I actually saw this group at the Iraqi Embassy in 2011 and they kept a mostly Iraqi, non-jazz audience completely spellbound with this compelling blend of jazz and traditional Iraqi music. Only in DC, right? Right!...

"Praised by NPR’s Fresh Air as “a jazz power trio for the new century,” Fieldwork makes its most powerful and fiercely imagined statement to date with Door, their third album for Pi Recordings. An important marker in this New York collective’s ongoing ev

"Your Life Flashes is a powerful response to European accusations of stagnation in America’s creative music; it is emotional, challenging, experimental, edgy, hard-hitting, and intense. The music comes in cascades and torrents, demanding the listener’s un

Jonathan Finlayson - trumpet
Miles Okazaki - guitar
Matt Mitchell - piano
John Hébert bass
Craig Weinrib - drums

"Moving Still is the eagerly-awaited follow-up to trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson's Moment and the Message, which was voted the Number One album by a debut artist in the NPR Jazz Critics Poll and called 'a great modern jazz record that also sounds like joy and feels like a dance' by PopMatters. One of the most highly regarded young musicians on the scene, Finlayson was..

"The cohesive group's ethos is at once reflective and kinetic...this is exciting and eminently listenable stuff, intuitive in bearing and dynamic in execution. An essential for adventurous listeners, [it] could also serve as an ideal introduction to Iyer'

"Pi Recordings is proud to re-issue Grammy Award-nominated pianist Vijay Iyer’s Panoptic Modes. Originally released on the Red Giant label in 2001, this was his third CD as a leader and the one that first launched him to prominence, with rave reviews...

Fantastic performances and solid compositions. Note Bruno Ruder of Magma is in the ensemble!

“Ex Machina is a new collaboration between visionary saxophonist/composer Steve Lehman and the GRAMMY-nominated Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ). It is a dazzling new work for jazz orchestra that sets a new standard for innovation in the large ensemble format. With compositions by both Lehman and ONJ’s artistic director, Frédéric Maurin, Ex Machina makes frequent use of otherworldly spectral harmonies...

Quite challenging and also quite great new jazz album that incorporates many aspects of 'new music' into the compositions and performance. Some of these players are pretty well known and many are not, but everyone plays fantastically....

Steve Lehman – alto sax
Craig Taborn – piano
Matt Brewer – double bass
Damion Reid – drums

“Hailed by The New York Times as "a state-of-the-art musical thinker" and "a quietly dazzling saxophonist," Steve Lehman has built a career creating innovative, uncompromising music that packs a visceral wallop. His signature alto sound - searing with emotional intensity and crystal clear articulation - has been featured in high-profile partnerships with Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, and Bennie...

"Once again the outside world has provided a launching point and a system of order to draw from for Rudresh. The music on Codebook stems from ideas and concepts related to cryptography. The varied systems provided the groundwork for Rudresh to approach th

"Mother Tongue is the latest album from Indian-American composer and alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. Mother Tongue is Rudresh’s musical attempt to dispel the mistaken notion that India, with its multiple cultures, religions and hundreds of spoken...

"Song for My Sister is the Note Factory’s first release since 1999’s Nine to Get Ready. Recorded February of 2002 in Roscoe’s home of Madison, WI, the lineup has changed with the addition of Corey Wilkes, Vijay Iyer, Vincent Davis, and Leon Dorsey...

“Phalanx Ambassadors is the latest release from pianist/keyboardist/composer Matt Mitchell, whom PopMatters calls "the most complete and well-integrated improvising pianist of the last 15 years." They also called his prior release, A Pouting Grimace, "brilliant and varied... animated by breathtaking compositional imagination and startling arrangements." His bold new release features works that burst forth with intricate detail, featuring precise execution of complex polyrhythms and irrational meters...

“Zealous Angles is the first documentation of pianist/composer Matt Mitchell's long-running trio featuring bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Dan Weiss. Mitchell has been called by The New York Times "a pianist of burrowing focus and an indispensable fixture of the contemporary vanguard."
He is an anchor member of several significant and acclaimed creative music ensembles such as Tim Berne's Snakeoil, Dan Weiss's Starebaby, Miles Okazaki's Trickster, Ches Smith's We All Break, Kate Gentile's Find...

Hafez Modirzadeh - tenor saxophone (2-5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17)
Kris Davis - piano (3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 16)
Tyshawn Sorey - piano (2, 5, 8, 10, 14, 17)
Craig Taborn - piano (1, 7, 11, 13, 15, 18)

“Facets is saxophonist/composer Hafez Modirzadeh’s latest radical entreaty against the cultural hegemony of the Western notion of equal temperament and his argument that musicians should be free to explore a variety of tonal possibilities, even on piano. His 2012 release Post-Chromodal Out!.

"Scintillating ... a radical cultural exchange"-New York Times

"Thick with ideas and inspiration."-Los Angeles Times

"Post-Chromodal Out! represents the next step in Iranian-American saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh’s quest to create a...