The Squid's Ear Magazine


Bisio, Michael: NuMBq (Mahakala Music)

Bassist and composer Michael Bisio leads an exceptional quartet with Melanie Dyer on viola, Marianne Osiel on English horn, and Jay Rosen on percussion, blending Third Stream nuance with the fire of free jazz in an ever-flowing, deeply expressive set of improvisations, channeling rich orchestral textures and spontaneous interplay into a powerful and fluid genre-blurring journey.
 

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Personnel:



Michael Bisio-bass, composition

Melanie Dyer-viola

Marianne Osiel-English horn

Jay Rosen-percussion


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UPC: 195269346713

Label: Mahakala Music
Catalog ID: MAHA-086
Squidco Product Code: 35945

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded at Parkwest Studios, in Brooklyn, New York, on August 14th, 2024, by Jim Clouse.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"What do you call an ensemble whose members have pasts, presents and futures in these storied units?

Barbara Donald and Unity, The Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Heroes are Gang Leaders, Sonny Simmons and The Cosmosamatics, William Parker's Universal Tonality String Quartet, The Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, Charles Gayle Trio,Karl Berger's Composers Improvisors Orchestra, Joe McPhee's UrbanAssault Vehicle, Seattle Opera, Matthew Shipp Trio, Sun Ra Arkestra under Marshall Allen and Trio X.

The answer: NuMBq.

Conceived and directed by bassist/ composer Michael Bisio, the ensemble features Melanie Dyer/viola, Marianne Osiel/english horn, and Jay Rosen/percussion -- all master improvisors.Their premier recording, NuMBq (Mahakala Music), establishes an ensemble already a force, fully in the flow and totally lit. Influences might be Third Stream nuance welded to the fire-born New Thing. Their music, like a stream, continually flows, fueled by the impetus and intention of inner flame."-Mahakala Music



"Since the 1950s, adventurous jazz artists have held experiments that fuse jazz with classical music, commonly referred to as 'Third Stream.' Renowned jazz bassist Michael Bisio - who is also well versed in classical music - undertakes his own endeavor into this high-brow hybrid with NuMBq (February 14 2025, Mahakala Music), where he unveils his new quartet that's like no other.

Any notion that this genre has been exhausted are quickly dispelled by Bisio and his NuMBq ensemble, primarily because this quartet doesn't follow conventions for neither jazz nor classical. Joining Bisio and his bass are violist Melanie Dyer and English hornist Marianne Osiel, with Jay Rosen on drums. The unique talents arrayed are matched to unique composing canniness of Bisio, pulling together elements of the formal with the informal, an alchemy that produces sounds that challenges the very established forms it's derived from.

"Elegy For MG" is classical and improvised music, but sequentially so. Following an ad-hoc drum intro is a delicately conceived piece involving the intertwining of English horn, viola and bowed bass. But the sparks start to fly when Bisio takes command, leading the quartet into collective unrestraint while staying within key and circling back to a doleful emotion.

"Broken Waltz" swings in the deep jazz tradition but the English horn with viola substituting for, say, a saxophone and a trombone, shifts the harmonic space and sounding more structured while actually playing largely free. Bisio's bass anchor gives Osiel and Dyer permission to take those chances.

Classical music hues within the architecture of advanced modern jazz makes "Medicaid Melancholy" an imaginative hybridization. "Going Home Amazing Grace" is seven minutes of Bisio and Dyer listening to, responding to and directing each other as they create a tuneful harmony together.

The chamber music elements are countered by what Bisio terms "fire music," the free-flowing jazz that enables purer expression and allows each musician to reveal their true musical character. Tracks like "improv 1091" and "AC 2.0nu" demonstrate the group dynamic in this way. For the latter, Bisio's cantankerous arco bass and Rosen's drums set up the framework around which everyone else creates on the fly."-S. Victor Aaron, Something Else! Reviews


Get additional information at Something Else!

Artist Biographies

"Michael Bisio, bassist/composer, has eighty five recordings in his discography, twenty four of these are split evenly between leader/co-leader, ten of them document his extraordinary association with modern piano icon Matthew Shipp. Michael has been called a poet, a wonder and one of the most virtuosic and imaginative performers on the double bass. Nate Chinen in the New York Times writes : "The physicality of Mr. Bisio's bass playing puts him in touch with numerous predecessors in the avant-garde, but his expressive touch is distinctive;..."

As a composer Michael has been awarded nine grants and an Artist Trust Fellowship

Collaborators include Matthew Shipp, Joe McPhee, Charles Gayle, Connie Crothers, Whit Dickey, Ivo Perelman, Barbara Donald, Newman Taylor Baker, Rob Brown, Sonny Simmons and Sabir Mateen."

-Michael Bisio Website (http://michaelbisio.com/bio.shtml)
2/28/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Melanie Dyer performs and composes in creative, improvised and through-composed music spheres. She trained with William Lincer (Principal Violist, New York Philharmonic), Lee Yeingst (Principal Violist, Colorado Symphony Orchestra), John Jake Kella (NY Metropolitan Opera) and Naomi Fellows (Colorado Symphony Orchestra); and studied viola performance at the LaMont School of Music/University of Denver.

Melanie founded WeFreeStrings, an improvising string/rhythm collective rooted in improvised music in 2011. ​From 2004 - 2013, under her Bb Universe banner and in collaboration with the multi-generational, multi-ethnic Scientific Soul Sessions collective, Melanie's Harlem home became the scene of underground public performances by WeFreeStrings and other large and small music ensembles. Bb Universe hosted open rehearsals and performances, recordings, lectures, one-act plays and films including presentations by recognized indigenous activists Toaksin Ghosthorse, a performance of Robbie McCauley's Sally's Rape and a screening of John Douglas' documentary, Grenada: The Future Coming Towards Us. These monthly and semi-monthly events brought cultural luminaries, emerging artists, social and environmental activists, working and under-employed people together. Open dialogues, emphasizing individuals as agents of change, were central to Bb Universe and Scientific Soul Sessions.​Melanie currently performs with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Heroes Are Gang Leaders, Gwen Laster's New Muse 4tet, William Parker, Tomeka Reid Stringtet, Patricia Nicholson's Women w an Axe to Grind. She's played and/or recorded with Henry Grimes, Nona Hendryx, Joe Bonner, Reggie Workman, Howard Johnson, and a many other notable musicians in Europe, South Africa and across the U.S.

Recordings include WeFreeStrings Fulfillment (Indepstrings, 2018), David Haney's Birth of a City (2019), Come Sunday (T. Cumberbatch, 2015); Fred Ho & Quincy Saul Present the Music of Cal Massey: A Tribute (2011); Live at St Nick's Pub, Salim Washington & Donald Smith Ensemble, Cadence Records (2007); With Strings, Salim Washington & The Harlem Arts Ensemble, CIMP Records (2007); Harlem Homecoming, Salim Washington & The Harlem Arts Ensemble, UJam Records (2005), and others. WeFreeStrings has received project support from New Music USA, Chamber Music America, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, and individual donors."

-Arts for Art (https://www.artsforart.org/blog/melanie-dyer-artist-profile)
2/28/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Originally from Santa Barbara, California, multi-instrumentalist / singer / songwriter / performer, Marianne Osiel, was a sought-after "sideman" in Nashville for a decade and an halt, as a recording session player and singer while also fulfilling her "day job" playing oboe in the Nashville Symphony.

She remembers, with fondness, being encouraged by conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn to march up in front of the orchestra and audience and make up lyrics to the very melodies that shaped the Russian symphonies the orchestra would then proceed to play during kiddies concerts, so that there could be a bridge made between their lives in full color and these otherwise "dead white men with big white hair" who were credited as having written these epic brilliant aural novels.

She also was hired by NSO's pop conductor, Amerigo Marino, to sing a few torch tunes for folks during their summer run-out's.

Marianne has performed and/or recorded with artists such as John Hall, Nanci Griffith, Jennifer Maidman, Rachel Sage, and Daryl Tookes, just to name a few.

Her instrumental arsenal includes oboe/English horn, flute, recorder, piano, guitar, and voice.

For years, Marianne made her living in the classical and the pop world at the same time, sometimes in symphony orchestras, others as a "sideman" for other artists, and then as center stage doing her own music, solo or in bands she has lead.

As a string quartet arranger, Marianne has written and recorded for artists such as David Olney, Susan Piper, Bob Hillman, as well as her own CD's.

Her original recordings include Strange Girl and Full of Wholes (both singer/songwriter CD's), a "live"duo recording from the famous Bluebird Café in Nashville, and "How The Light Gets In" ", an all-improvised instrumental CD featuring duets with four uniquely gifted New York keyboardists, with Marianne on oboe and English horn.

Her latest musical inclusion is in the world of improvisation, having been asked to join Karl Berger's "Improvisors Orchestra" (Kingston), as well as working with other "soundpainters" in the area."

-Viewcy (https://www.viewcy.com/e/marianne_osiel_3)
3/4/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Jay Rosen (born November 20, 1961) is an American jazz drummer. He is a member of Trio X with Joe McPhee and Dominic Duval and performs in Cosmosomatics with Sonny Simmons.

At age 10, Rosen became interested in jazz drumming after seeing Tony Williams perform with Sonny Rollins. He took lessons from Tracy Alexander, son of Mousey Alexander (with an occasional lesson from the elder Alexander). Later, he would study briefly with Barry Altschul.

Around age 18, Rosen became a professional musician. He worked at studios, weddings, and cocktail lounges in rock, rhythm and blues, country, jazz, and Brazilian music. His recording career in improvised music began in the mid-1990s, when he recorded Split Personality (GM Records) with Mark Whitecage and Dominic Duval. He began an association with the CIMP label in 1996, and has also recorded for Cadence). Todd Jenkins describes Rosen and Duval as the "house rhythm section" for CIMP, given the number of recordings on which they have appeared.:231

Since 1998, Rosen has performed with Joe McPhee and Dominic Duval in Trio X.:360 In 2000, he joined Cosmosomatics, a quartet with saxophonists Sonny Simmons and Michael Marcus and bassist William Parker.:114

Rosen describes himself as "a musician who plays percussion" rather than "'just a drummer.'" He uses a set of small cymbals that he approaches "like a string player, or a reed player," and his drum kit includes objects such as a boat propeller and a set of organ pipes that he activates with foot-driven bellows. Although Rosen is associated with free improvisation, he questions whether the music he plays is "free:"

"While 'free music' indicates that you're free to play whatever you want to play and you're not following chord progressions, and there's no time, there's no this, no that...The way I've been playing free music, with my constituents, doesn't really follow those guidelines. When we play, it's very well put together, in actuality. We're not just blowing to blow; there's listening going on, there's concerted effort at construction and organization, at putting things together - at minute levels - that hardly go on in 'free music' anymore."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Rosen_(drummer))
2/28/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Elegy For Mg 14:41

2. Broken Waltz 5:46

3. Going Home-Amazing Grace 7:16

4. Ac 2.0nu 4:47

5. Vib Gyor 5:38

6. Medicaid Melancholy 8:22

7. Densities Roy G Biv 6:43

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Chamber Jazz
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Quartet Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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Mahakala Music.


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