Photo (c) Petra Cvelbar |
Photo (c) Petra Cvelbar |
I am a jazz advocate and lover but still feel, after decades of listening to the music, there is so much more to uncover and explore. I've been convering jazz since 1978 when I was the Arts Editor for the Boston University Daily Free Press. I was first exposed to jazz in high school where I studied clarinet and saxophone. My love of music grew into dabbling with the piano and guitar as well. My listening strategy is to spin new music often, explore areas of the back catalog as time permits, respect and learn about past masters to inform my appreciation of new and current masters, and keep an open mind. Jazz is very much a "flow" music- -cerebral, emotional—but clearly a music of the moment. And the best jazz is in the moments where creative, improvisation, innovative and classical influences all come together to produce art at the highest level.
Those wishing to reach me can do so at jazzmanneobop [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Ron Coulter is a percussionist, composer, improviser, and researcher. Interests in noise, performance art, and interdisciplinarity have led to curating many experimental sound series, Fluxconcerts, and co-founding numerous intermedia groups. As a composer, he has created more than 390 compositions for various media. His performance credits include solo and chamber percussion music, jazz, classical, pop, electronica, free improvisation, and various world musics (West African Djembe and Dunun, Shona Mbira, Cuban Folkloric drumming).
Irena is a recent philosophy graduate, and a long time avant-garde jazz enjoyer. She spends most of her time listening to and discovering new music, reading books and endlessly talking about seemingly unimportant philosophical ideas. Born and raised in a post-socialist country (North Macedonia), surrounded by coal power plants and brutalist buildings, she found solace in listening to melancholic but also chaotic music. Shortly after hearing Bill Laswell’s Sacred System, she started feeding her soul with avant-garde free jazz compositions, which sometimes she excitingly gets to play at an underground radio in Skopje. So, to this day, she experiences the music deeply and writes about the sublime feelings she gets from the albums.
A punk and extreme metal lover at heart throughout his teens, the discovery of industrial music kickstarted a deeper appreciation for experimental and improvised music which he holds to this day.
He's a member of a few collaborative projects with various members of the European noise and free improv scene and makes singer-songwriter-meets-noise music under the moniker Misdirection.
Free = liberated from social, historical, psychological and musical constraints
Jazz = improvised music for heart, body and mind