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Music Reviews

Okuden Quartet’s Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn’t Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter Review

 

With a name like Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn’t Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter, you might expect the new album by the Okuden Quartet — bass clarinetist / soprano clarinet player / alto saxophonist / flautist Mat Walerian, pianist Matthew Shipp, double bassist / shakuchi player William Parker, and drummer / percussionist Hamid Drake — to be pretentious or silly or a bit too much. Thankfully, the music on Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn’t Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter (CD, digital) — and yes, I am going to write it out in full every time because SEO — is anything but. Instead, it’s an impressive collection of acoustic jazz that’s both moody and manic, and a worthy successor to the previous albums these four have recorded in various configurations.

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Music

Exclusive Interview: Jazz Musicians Matthew Shipp And Mat Walerian

In jazz as in life, you’re sometimes only as good as the people you work with. John Coltrane, for instance, made some amazing music in his career, but did some of his best work with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones, as best heard on such classic albums as Ballads, Crescent, Afro Blue Impressions, First Meditations, Sun Ship, and, of course, A Love Supreme.

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Music Reviews

Jungle | Mat Walerian, Matthew Shipp, Hamid Drake: Live At Okuden Review

Though it shares the same name, was recorded a few months later during the same concert series, and is a collection jazz that runs from the atmospheric to the noisy, the second Live At Okuden album (CD, digital) by jazz maestros Mat Walerian and Matthew Shipp — on which they’re joined, this time around, by Hamid Drake under the name Jungle — is anything but a rerun. Well, except in how good it is.