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    burning ambulance

    Explore " burning ambulance" with insightful episodes like "John Corbett", "Dwight Trible", "Rune Grammofon", "Roxy Coss" and "Zev Feldman" from podcasts like ""Burning Ambulance Podcast", "Burning Ambulance Podcast", "Burning Ambulance Podcast", "Burning Ambulance Podcast" and "Burning Ambulance Podcast"" and more!

    Episodes (21)

    John Corbett

    John Corbett

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    Writer John Corbett is from Chicago, and has been spreading the word about obscure and underground music for decades. He's a writer, a critic, a record collector, a presenter of live music, and a producer of both reissues and new albums in the areas of free and avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, noise, modern composition, and things that are simply impossible to pigeonhole or classify in any meaningful way. He's got a new book out, Pick Up the Pieces: Excursions in Seventies Music, which is absolutely worth a read, but I wanted to talk to him about a lot of his other work, including the legendary Unheard Music Series of CDs which he curated for the Atavistic label in the early 2000s, and his current project, Corbett vs. Dempsey, which is an art gallery/publishing house/record label that's putting out incredible music, new and old, right now.

    In this interview, we talk about a lot of different subjects, including everything I mentioned above, as well as his thoughts on Seventies jazz, punk rock vs. postpunk vs. hardcore, and much, much more. It’s a very interesting conversation, and one of our longer episodes. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

    Music heard in this episode:

    Joe McPhee, "Nation Time" (Nation Time)

    Milford Graves, "Ba" (Bäbi)

    Dwight Trible

    Dwight Trible

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    Vocalist Dwight Trible is originally from Cincinnati, but he's lived in Los Angeles since the early 1970s. He's recorded several albums on his own, but is probably best known right now for contributing to Kamasi Washington's The Epic and Heaven and Earth. Still, he's a hugely important figure on the L.A. scene, because he was a member of Horace Tapscott's Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra, and still works with that group now that Tapscott himself is deceased; he's also the executive director of the World Stage, a performance space and community center where Washington and the whole West Coast Get Down all got their start. He's not just a musician; he's an organizer, and a leader, helping preserve the artistic community there.

    In this interview, we talk about a lot of different subjects, including his work with Tapscott, with Washington, with Pharoah Sanders, and much more. It’s a very interesting conversation, and one I hope you’ll enjoy.

    Music heard in this episode:

    Dwight Trible, "Mothership" (Mothership)

    Dwight Trible, "Tomorrow Never Knows" (Mothership)

    Rune Grammofon

    Rune Grammofon

    The final Burning Ambulance podcast of 2018 is a very special episode. Back in May, I went to Norway for the Nutshell jazz showcase and interviewed several Norwegian jazz artists – that was in episode 19. And just a couple of weeks ago, at the end of November, I went back to Norway, for the 20th anniversary of the Rune Grammofon label.

    Rune Grammofon is a fantastic label that has put out albums by Motorpsycho, Supersilent, Arve Henriksen, Bushman’s Revenge, Elephant9, Fire!, Maja Ratkje, the Espen Eriksen Trio, the Hedvig Mollestad Trio and many, many others. To celebrate their 20th anniversary, the founder and label owner, Rune Kristoffersen, booked two nights of shows at National Jazz scene, a club in Oslo. The first night featured Maja Ratkje and Motorpsycho, and the second night featured Fire! and the Hedvig Mollestad Trio. And I was one of the foreign journalists invited to come over and see the shows, because I’ve been a supporter of the label for a long time – I’ve reviewed their releases for The Wire and for Burning Ambulance, I interviewed Arve Henriksen for a cover story back when BA had a print magazine, et cetera, et cetera. I wrote a review of the concerts for Down Beat, which you can read on their website, and while I was in Oslo I interviewed Rune, Maja, Bent Saether from Motorpsycho, Mats Gustafsson from Fire!, and Hedvig Mollestad, and you’ll hear all of those conversations, as well as music from each of them, in this episode.

    Here's a list of the music you'll hear in this episode:

    Motorpsycho, "Ship of Fools" (The Tower)

    Fire!, "The Hands" (The Hands)

    Maja Ratkje, "Trio" (Voice)

    Motorpsycho, "Manmower" (Roadwork Vol. 5)

    Fire!, "Up and Down" (The Hands)

    Hedvig Mollestad Trio, "First Thing to Pop is the Eye" (Smells Funny)

    Sky Music, "Chaser" (A Tribute to Terje Rypdal)

    Roxy Coss

    Roxy Coss

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    Roxy Coss is a saxophonist who's put out four albums as a leader and has also recorded with Jeremy Pelt (a guest on episode 21), and as a member of the Posi-Tone Records all-star band New Faces. Her most recent releases are The Future is Female and the New Faces album Straight Forward, both of which came out this year.

    In addition to her music, Roxy Coss is the founder of WIJO, the Women In Jazz Organization, a collective that has a whole bunch of projects in the works in terms of education, expansion of opportunities for female musicians, and much more. We talked about that a lot in this interview, along with her various recordings, the evolution of her style on the horn, and much more. I’m sure you’re going to find it very interesting, as I did.

    Here's a list of the songs you'll hear in this episode:

    Roxy Coss, "Nevertheless, She Persisted" (The Future is Female)

    Jeremy Pelt, "The Calm Before the Storm" (Face Forward, Jeremy)

    Jeremy Pelt, "Boom Bishop" (Water and Earth)

    Roxy Coss, "Waiting" (Restless Idealism)

    Roxy Coss, "Chasing the Unicorn" (Chasing the Unicorn)

    Roxy Coss, "Crazy" (Chasing the Unicorn)

    Roxy Coss, "She Needed a Hero, So That's What She Became" (The Future is Female)

    New Faces, "King Cobra" (Straight Forward)

    Zev Feldman

    Zev Feldman

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    Episode 27 of the Burning Ambulance podcast—the first episode of Year Two of the show—is the first one not to feature an interview with a musician. Instead, I’m talking to Zev Feldman, who’s a producer working primarily with the Resonance Records label.

    Resonance has been around for ten years and has mostly specialized in releasing archival music by legendary jazz artists. Their first big release was Echoes Of Indiana Avenue by guitarist Wes Montgomery—it featured some previously unheard early recordings. They’ve subsequently done several other albums of his music, including a live concert recorded on his only European tour in 1965. They’ve also put out albums by Stan Getz, Charles Lloyd, Bill Evans, Larry Young, and John Coltrane, among many others, and Zev is the guy who actually travels the world locating these lost recordings and putting in all the legwork to get them licensed, make sure they’ve got the rights, and do everything else that leads to the physical release. The thing that makes Resonance releases so great, by the way, is that they’re not just about throwing the music out there—they have really in-depth liner notes, tons of historical photographs, interviews with the surviving musicians or people connected to the recordings in some way, and beautiful packaging overall. They’re all about preserving the love of physical music formats. They do special releases for Record Store Day every year, putting out the vinyl versions before the CD edition and stuff like that.

    They don’t just release archival music, either—they also put out CDs by new artists, and Zev and I talk a little bit about that in this interview. We also discuss some of the non-Resonance work he’s done, like the Thelonious Monk record Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 and a big project he did the other year, reissuing 25 titles from Xanadu Records, a small '70s label that really deserves much more attention than it’s ever gotten.

    There's a lot more music in this episode than usual. Here's a full listing of everything you'll hear:

    Thelonious Monk, "Well You Needn't" (Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960)

    Grant Green, "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing" (Funk in France: From Paris to Antibes 1969-70)

    Wes Montgomery, "Full House" (In Paris: The Definitive ORTF Recording)

    Bill Evans, "Very Early" (Another Time: The Hilversum Concert)

    Larry Young, "Mean to Me" (In Paris: The ORTF Recordings)

    John Coltrane, "Crescent" (Offering: Live at Temple University)

    Andreas Varady, "Radiska" (The Quest)

    Mark Turner & Ethan Iverson

    Mark Turner & Ethan Iverson

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    Episode 26 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features a conversation with saxophonist Mark Turner and pianist Ethan Iverson; it's also the one-year anniversary of the show. I want to thank every single person who’s listened to the show in that time, and assure you that Year Two is going to be even better.

    I’ve known both Ethan Iverson and Mark Turner for a while; Ethan actually wrote a blurb for a crime novel I self-published last year – it’s called Fifty Foot Drop, and you can find it on Amazon if you want – and a few years ago, I was hired to run a social media campaign for Mark when he had a new album out on ECM. Ethan and I had never met face to face, though, before this interview, which was recorded backstage at the Jazz Standard in New York on September 18, the night they were there to perform songs from Temporary Kings.

    Temporary Kings is their first record as a duo, but they’ve been playing together for more than a decade, along with bassist Ben Street, in a quartet led by drummer Billy Hart. And obviously they’ve both had very strong careers on their own – Ethan of course was the pianist for the Bad Plus for a long time, and recorded a trio album, The Purity of the Turf, in 2016 with Ron Carter on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums. He’s also starting to build his own career as a writer, both on his blog and in pieces for the New Yorker. Mark has recorded as a leader for Criss Cross, Warner Brothers and ECM, was – and maybe still is – a member of the trio Fly, and plays a lot as a sideman in all kinds of different contexts. He’s also got a second album of duos out this year – Faroe, with guitarist Mikkel Ploug.

    This conversation was really fascinating for me. We talked about each man’s early career, about projects they’ve worked on together, musicians they both know, early influences, social media, and a lot more. At certain points, you’ll notice that it almost becomes me and Ethan interviewing Mark, which I thought was hilarious but also really apt, because Mark is an incredibly smart guy and very philosophical in a really unique way. His attitude toward his life and career is unlike anyone else I’ve ever spoken with, and I’m really glad he was willing to be interviewed for the show.

    Nicole Mitchell

    Nicole Mitchell

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    Episode 23 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell. Mitchell is originally from Syracuse, New York, but she grew up in California and eventually went to college in the Midwest, where she became an important figure on the Chicago jazz scene. In fact, she eventually became the first female president of the AACM there. Her primary group is called the Black Earth Ensemble, which has a fluctuating membership but Tomeka Reid is one of the core members – Tomeka was featured on episode 7 of this podcast, back in January, and spoke about working with Nicole and how important it was to her development as an artist, so we’re getting the other side of the story in this episode.

    In addition to the Black Earth Ensemble, Mitchell has led a lot of one-off groups, and been a part of other people’s projects – she’s in some of Anthony Braxton’s large ensembles, she’s been part of several of Rob Mazurek’s groups including the Exploding Star Orchestra and its offshoot projects, she’s in the Indigo Trio with Harrison Bankhead and Hamid Drake. But she’s really made a tremendous impact as a leader, creating music that covers a broad spectrum from jazz to modern composition to theatrical pieces and multimedia presentations, collaborating with and paying tribute to writers – as you’ll hear in this conversation, texts are hugely important to her, even when the music itself is instrumental. Last year, her album Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds got a tremendous amount of critical acclaim – it combines violin, cello, guitar and percussion with traditional Japanese instruments to create a sound that’s both ancient and modern at once, and really is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard.

    We don't agree about everything, and you'll hear some interesting back-and-forth in this conversation about a variety of issues, from the audience for hardcore improvised music to how young artists should navigate the industry. I really enjoyed speaking with her, and I hope you'll enjoy this episode.

    Regina Carter

    Regina Carter

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    Episode 22 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with violinist Regina Carter. She's one of the best known jazz violinists in the world, as well as a MacArthur fellow and a Grammy nominee. She’s originally from Detroit, and she got her start in an all-female group called Straight Ahead. From there, she moved to New York, joined the String Trio of New York with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg, and also started making solo records starting in 1995. She’s made 10 albums in all, including one that was a duo with pianist Kenny Barron. She’s worked with a broad range of musicians including Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Oliver Lake, Madeline Peyroux, Steve Turre, Terri Lyne Carrington, and James Carter, who’s also her cousin.

    Winning a Macarthur fellowship in 2006 has allowed her to work on some really interesting projects without having to convince a label of their value beforehand. Southern Comfort was an album that explored Appalachian and southern roots music as a way of tracing her own family’s history, and her latest album, Accentuate the Positive, which came out last year, was a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, but it doesn’t feature the songs you’d expect. A lot of the pieces are obscure, and as a consequence she doesn’t really feel the need to perform them in a way that the listener might identify with Ella Fitzgerald.

    I met up with Regina Carter at NJPAC’s All-Female Jazz Residency, a week-long program for students from 14-25 in Newark, New Jersey. She was the artistic director, taking over from Geri Allen, who founded the program but who passed away suddenly a little over a year ago, in June 2017. The residency combines lectures and seminars with rehearsals and master classes, so that the women who are taking part learn from each other as well as from people who are already making careers in jazz. And it goes beyond music, as we talk about in this interview – they also learn about branding yourself and maintaining a social media presence, about what radio expects from an artist and how to make an impression on journalists and DJs, and other things that will allow them to become professionals and avoid pitfalls in their careers.

    I had originally planned for this to be a joint interview with Regina Carter, saxophonist Tia Fuller, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, all of whom participated in the residency, but it wound up just being a conversation with Ms. Carter. I think it’s really interesting, though, and she’s got a lot to say not only about her music but about the residency and the state of the jazz business, so I hope you’ll enjoy it.

    William Parker & Patricia Nicholson

    William Parker & Patricia Nicholson

    Episode 17 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with bassist William Parker, whose latest album, the 3CD set Voices Fall from the Sky, is out now, and his wife Patricia Nicholson, who runs Arts For Art, the organization that has put on the Vision Festival every year since 1996 and has recently expanded to running additional concert series during the fall and winter.

    William Parker has been a crucial figure on the international avant-garde jazz scene since the 1970s. His first recorded appearance was in 1973, backing saxophonist Frank Lowe on the album Black Beings, and he’s made literally hundreds of records since then. He was the bassist in the David S. Ware Quartet for something like 20 years, and continued working with Ware until the saxophonist's death in 2012. He played with Cecil Taylor in the 1980s and 1990s, he was the bassist in Matthew Shipp’s trio for decades, and has played with almost everyone else you’ve ever heard of in this genre of music. As a leader, he’s done everything from solo bass albums to massive orchestral projects. Voices Fall from the Sky showcases his work with vocalists.

    Patricia Nicholson is also a hugely important figure to the New York avant-garde jazz scene, because she runs the annual Vision Festival, a massive, weeklong event that gathers amazing musicians from all across the spectrum, from players who’ve been around since the 1960s to people who’ve just made their debut in the last few years and are keeping the spirit of free music alive. She’s also a dancer and choreographer who performs at the festival every year, and she’s just made her debut as a spoken word performer on the album Hope Cries for Justice, a duo performance with Parker.

    In this interview, I’m talking to William about what he’s doing musically, and I’m talking to Patricia about her thoughts on dance, and what it takes to run the Vision Festival and all the other programs that the nonprofit Arts For Art, which she leads, put on every year. They’re an extremely ambitious organization working in a city and a cultural environment that offers equal parts apathy and hostility, but what they do is pretty amazing, so I hope you’ll find this conversation as interesting and inspiring as I did.

    Dave Burrell

    Dave Burrell

    Episode 15 features an interview with avant-garde jazz pianist Dave Burrell, who is being honored at the 2018 Vision Festival at Roulette in Brooklyn and who performed at Cecil Taylor's funeral on April 10, the day before this interview was recorded.

    Dave Burrell has been a respected and admired figure on the free jazz scene since he arrived in New York in 1965. He was born in Ohio, but raised in Harlem before his parents moved to Hawaii for much of his childhood—he later studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In the late 1960s, he recorded as a leader and played on albums by Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, Noah Howard, Sonny Sharrock, Sunny Murray, and many others. He moved to France in 1969 and played at the Pan-African Festival and recorded for the legendary BYG Actuel label. In this hour-long interview, he discusses his classic albums; his relationships with Cecil Taylor, Sunny Murray, Archie Shepp and others; his plans for the 2018 Vision Festival; and much more.

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    Billy Cobham

    Billy Cobham

    Episode 14 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with drummer Billy Cobham, an absolute jazz legend. He first came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he worked with Miles Davis on A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and then joined guitarist John McLaughlin's new project, a band called the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Cobham started making records under his own name in 1973, with albums like Spectrum, Crosswinds, Total Eclipse, Shabazz, and Inner Conflicts all establishing him as not just an amazing drummer but also a unique compositional voice in the realm of jazz fusion. At the same time, he was doing sessions for McCoy Tyner, Sonny Rollins, Stanley Turrentine and many other artists, particularly on the CTI label. He also played on the John McLaughlin/Carlos Santana album Love Devotion Surrender, worked with the Fania All-Stars on their Latin•Soul•Rock album and the concert that was released as Live at Yankee Stadium, and played on literally hundreds of other records. In this conversation, we discuss as many aspects of his career as we had time for, as well as his approach to drumming and to teaching, what he thinks of younger players, and much, much more. It’s a very interesting conversation, and I hope you enjoy it.

    Meg Okura & Sam Newsome

    Meg Okura & Sam Newsome

    The thirteenth episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast features a joint interview with violinist Meg Okura, who was born in Japan and recorded with David Bowie, and currently leads her own Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble, and her husband, soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome. Her newest album, Ima Ima, will be out in May. His latest, a solo record called Sopranoville, came out last year. They've also got an album with pianist Jean-Michel Pilc as the NPO Trio that's out now. In this conversation, we discuss their individual music, the work they do together, religion and spirituality, and much more.

    Logan Richardson

    Logan Richardson

    The twelfth episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast features Logan Richardson, an alto saxophonist from Kansas City, Missouri who's played with Ambrose Akinmusire, Walter Smith III, Jason Moran, Pat Metheny, and has recorded four albums as a leader. His newest, Blues People, will be out in April on Ropeadope. In this conversation, we discuss his career to date, the story behind his 2016 album Shift, the state of jazz at the moment, why he chooses to live in Paris, and much more.

    Orrin Evans

    Orrin Evans

    The ninth episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast features Orrin Evans, who’s been a solo artist for about 20 years, but is gaining a brand-new audience as the new pianist—replacing Ethan Iverson —in the long-running trio The Bad Plus. The group’s first album with Evans on piano, Never Stop II, was released two weeks ago, and they’re out on the road. I’ve interviewed Evans before, and reviewed many of his albums. In this conversation, taped in early January, we discuss his early career, his placement in the annual Thelonious Monk competition, his other collaborative trio Tarbaby, his plans for juggling his solo career with his work in The Bad Plus, and much more.

    UK Jazz Roundtable

    UK Jazz Roundtable

    The eighth episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast is a special one. New York’s Winter Jazzfest brings artists from around the globe to the city every year, and packs out nightclubs with audiences excited to hear the best new music around. This year, the UK made a very strong showing, with multiple performers appearing individually and together. And since I had been impressed by the work of multiple British jazz artists last year, I decided to gather some of the best players around in one room at one time, for a conversation about the state of British jazz, their own work, and much more. This episode, I talked to clarinetist/saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings , who leads three groups— Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming, and Shabaka and the Ancestors—and who is on the cover of the current issue of The Wire; trumpeter Yazz Ahmed, whose second album La Saboteuse placed on multiple critics’ year-end lists, including mine; and saxophonist Nubya Garcia, who released her debut EP as a leader, the six-track Nubya’s 5ive, in 2017. Hutchings and Garcia are also heavily featured on the forthcoming UK jazz compilation We Out Here; he was the musical director of the project, and she plays on five of its nine tracks. This episode was a challenge to set up, juggling everyone’s schedules, but we met on a Thursday afternoon in a rehearsal room at the New School and talked for well over an hour about their individual careers, the state of British jazz generally, Brexit, and much more. Special thanks go out to Matt Merewitz for setting it up.

    Tomeka Reid

    Tomeka Reid

    The seventh episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with cellist Tomeka Reid. She’s been on the avant-garde/free jazz scene since 2002, but has really begun to make her mark in the last few years. She’s got long-standing artistic relationships with flautist Nicole Mitchell, drummer Mike Reed, saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton, and the AACM. She leads her own quartet with guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara; is a member of the string trio Hear In Now with violinist Mazz Swift and bassist Silvia Bolognesi; and recorded a duo album, Signaling, with saxophonist Nick Mazzarella in 2017. She also performed on trumpeter Jaimie Branch's Fly Or Die, two Nicole Mitchell albums, and Hear In Now's Not Living In Fear, and became a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. In our interview, Reid discusses her creative relationships, her recent recordings, and much more. It’s a really interesting conversation I’ve been wanting to have for quite a while—she was one of the first artists I approached about appearing on the podcast—and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

    Stanley Cowell

    Stanley Cowell

    The sixth episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with pianist Stanley Cowell. He’s a jazz veteran who made his recorded debut in 1967, on Marion Brown's albums Now What? and Three for Shepp. He’s also worked with Max Roach, Gary Bartz, Bobby Hutcherson, and the Heath Brothers, among others, and he co-founded the Strata-East label with trumpeter Charles Tolliver in the 1970s. In recent years, he retired from teaching at Rutgers University, and has assumed a more active recording and performing role; in 2015, he put out a solo album, Juneteenth, and in 2017, he released a quartet disc, No Illusions.

    In our interview, Cowell discusses his early career, his 1970s work as a solo artist and as part of the Piano Choir, his time as an educator, his fascination with electronic music and how he’s imported that interest into his own work, and much more. It’s a really interesting conversation I’ve been wanting to have for several years, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

    Matt Hollenberg

    Matt Hollenberg

    Episode 5 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with guitarist Matt Hollenberg. He’s one of the most adventurous players around right now, and he’s got a lot going on. He’s a member of John Zorn's trio Simulacrum, along with organist John Medeski and drummer Kenny Grohowski; we interviewed all three of them a few years ago. He’s also a member of the band John Frum, with Liam Wilson of the Dillinger Escape Plan and some other underground metal folks; we reviewed their debut album earlier this year. He’s also just launched a new instrumental metal fusion project called Shardik , and his longest-running band is Cleric. They’ve been around for more than a dozen years, but they’ve only released two albums, one of which, Retrocausal, just came out. Apparently, though, they’ve got two other records in the can, one of which is entirely made up of Zorn compositions, from the Masada songbook.

    Matt has a lot to say in our interview about Cleric, about Simulacrum and working with Zorn, about Shardik and John Frum, and about the state of metal in general. He also talks about a very bad accident he suffered earlier this year, which made it impossible for him to play for several months. It’s a really interesting conversation, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

    Roswell Rudd

    Roswell Rudd

    Episode 4 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features the final interview with trombonist Roswell Rudd before his death in December 2017. Rudd was one of the pioneering figures of the jazz avant-garde; though he started out in a Dixieland band, by 1960, he was working with Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, and Steve Lacy. He was a member of the ensemble that recorded the legendary ESP-Disk’ album New York Eye & Ear Control, alongside Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, John Tchicai, Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray; along with Tchicai, drummer Milford Graves, and several different bassists, he formed the New York Art Quartet, whose debut album, also on ESP-Disk’, is a landmark of the free jazz era. He and Lacy collaborated for years, interpreting Thelonious Monk's music without a pianist; he was also on multiple Shepp albums in the ’60s, and appeared on the Jazz Composers Orchestra album Communications. In the 2000s, Rudd explored music beyond jazz, recording albums with Mongolian musicians and with Puerto Rican guitarist and cuatro player Yomo Toro. His latest releases include Strength and Power, a collaboration with keyboardist Jamie Saft , bassist Trevor Dunn , and drummer Balazs Pandi, and Embrace, with singer Fay Victor, pianist Lafayette Harris, and bassist Ken Filiano.

    Rudd was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, and battled the disease until his death in December 2017, but maintained as busy a recording and performing schedule as he could until the end. It’s easy to tell, in this conversation, that he was in poor health; he spoke softly and slowly. But I think it’s still a very interesting interview, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

    Myra Melford

    Myra Melford

    The third episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with pianist Myra Melford. Melford has been a prominent figure on the jazz avant-garde since the late 1980s, having worked with numerous figures affiliated with the AACM, including Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Nicole Mitchell, and Leroy Jenkins. She’s also led several of her own groups, including Trio M with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson; the Myra Melford Trio with bassist Lindsey Horner and drummer Reggie Nicholson, which later became the Myra Melford Expanded Ensemble with the addition of trumpeter Dave Douglas and saxophonist Marty Ehrlich; Be Bread, which explored a blend of jazz and traditional Indian music, which Melford has studied extensively; and Snowy Egret, which includes guitarist Liberty Ellman, cornet player Ron Miles, bassist Stomu Takeishi, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, and with whom she just recorded a new album, due out in 2018. She’s got many other projects going as well, many of which are explored in this interview.

    Melford also discusses her early studies and her path to becoming a professional musician; her exploration of Indian music; her role as a professor at UC Berkeley; her participation in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra's “Handful of Keys” salute to jazz piano history; and much more. It’s a fascinating, nearly hour-long conversation I hope you’ll enjoy.

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