This digital-only release is the follow-up to “New Works”, which has been hailed by the Italian jazz magazine JAZZit as “An Album of the Future”. “New Territory” continues their forward looking directions in jazz with five new spontaneous compositions plus realizations of two new electronic pieces.
“Rift”, “Caldera”, Lagoon”, “Archipelago” and “Tropics” uses the spontaneous composition approach the group has been developing since its inception in 2017. The process begins with one player introducing melodic material, with the others integrating that material into their parts, then closely following each others’ development of the piece and responding to that. The group’s proficiency at this approach on “New Works” caught the attention of Judy Carmichael, who booked the group’s leader Maury Baker for an extended interview on her NPR show “Jazz Inspired”. She delved into the group’s unique approach to total improvisation as well as Maury’s remarkable career that covers everything from tours and recordings with major pop artists to his long career as an expert performer in the field of Baroque and pre-Baroque music.
“Land of Sarama” features the group improvising over an electronic piece that was created on the fly using samples of vocalist Sarama Esmaili from the world music group Miraz Ensemble. The piece was premiered at the Sun Space performing arts center utilizing a four channel sound system with different samples of Sarama’s voice projecting from each corner of the room.
“Ice-Nine” again features the group performing live over a four channel electronic piece, this one composed by group member Jim Goetsch. The cold feel of the piece inspired Jim to name it after the substance that figured large in Kurt Vonnegut’s book “Cat’s Cradle”.
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