Label: Constellation - CST079-2

アフリカ系アメリカ人のアルトサックス奏者および作曲家として動き、また実験音楽の視点からアメリカジャズの再定義を行う激ヤバ女性プレイヤーMatana Roberts！！彼女が実験的スコアを用いた演奏や歴史的物語、パフォーマンス劇場を一体化させるという巨大編成マルチメディアプロジェクト"Coin Coin"の第一弾となる[Chapter One: Gens De Couleur Libres]。総勢15名以上で繰り広げられる演劇じみた合唱、どストレートな激シブ・ジャズから変則的なアヴァン演奏への突入など、実験というよりもユーモアの強い冒険演奏が繰り広げられる最初から最後まで見事な構成。CD & 2枚組み10インチフォーマット版あり。この音楽家は大推薦です。







Matana Roberts is one of the leading lights of contemporary African-American experimental music, combining her widely recognized gifts as an alto saxophone player and improviser with an intensely engaged re-definition of American Jazz traditions.

Matana's COIN COIN project is the centerpiece of this engagement and re-definition: a multi-chapter work that combines conceptual scoring (graphic notation, 'chance' strategies), storytelling and historical narrative, performative theatre (personae, costume, multi-media), and a deeply considered channeling of personal ancestry and the 'universal' experience of Africans in America.

COIN COIN Chapter One: Gens De Couleur Libre is the first official recording of this ambitious and powerful project. We invited Matana to assemble her Montreal group for a live in-studio performance at the Hotel2Tango facility, before a small but capacity audience of about 30 friends and supporters. The performance was stunning, literally bringing audience members to tears, and went to tape beautifully. The full 90-minute performance was then edited down to around 60 minutes.

While it may sound trite, we truly feel this music speaks for itself. It rallies adventurous improv, experimental voice and narrative, a wide array of black folkways, and Matana's impassioned lead playing to tremendous emotional and conceptual effect.