June 20, 2005

NATHAN HUBBARD

Skeleton Key Orchestra
Circumvention 039 A-B

Perhaps it’s the number of music schools in California, the dissatisfaction musicians in the West have with regular commercial gigs they have, or a Left Coast insistence on group companionship, but the number of big – make it massive – bands extant seems to have grown exponentially there in recent years.

Los Angeles-based multi-reedist Vinny Golia has one, drummer Adam Rudolph’s Organic Orchestra is another in the Bay area, and trumpeter Jeff Kaiser Ockodektet works out of Ventura – and there are others. Individually though, percussionist Nathan Hubbard’s San Diego-based Skeleton Key Orchestra (SKO), is unique in many respects. MORE

January 27, 2003

CHRISTOPHER ADLER TRIO

Transcontinental
9 Winds NWCD0262

A coalition of equals despite the band name, the trio of pianist Christopher Adler introduces echoes of notated music and ethnic imaging to improvisation in the three long pieces that make up this disc.

In fact, it’s the virtuosity of woodwind switch hitter Alan Lechusza that defines the shape of the tracks as much, if not more, than Adler’s contributions. Drummer

Vikas Srivastava has stated that his polyrhythmic percussion call upon Indian traditions and modern jazz, but in practice, his contributions don’t stand out as much as the work of earlier free music time keepers. MORE