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Adam Lane

Combining influences from Duke Ellington, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Melt Banana, bassist and composer Adam Lane stretches the terms "jazz" and "chamber Music" beyond convention. His blend of music and performance art takes listeners on a meticulously orchestrated joyride, with horns, strings, electronics, spoken word, and the occasional vacuum cleaner. As a composer he has been recognized by critics world wide as "innovative" (Signal to Noise) and "forward thinking," (Jazziz) and as a player he has contributed to important new recordings by artist such as John Tchicai and Tom Waits.

Forthcoming projects include FO(U)R BEING(S) by the Adam Lane Quartet, featuring John Tchicai, Paul Smoker, and Barry Altschul (C.I.M.P), DUO MUSIC with Blaise Siwula (Cadence Jazz) and NOWHERE ZEN: Chamber Works and Solo Statements (Evander Music), all to be released in late summer 2002. He will be recording a cd of duo music with John Tchicai in Oct. 2002 to be released on the C.I.M.P label.

In October of 1999 Lane's recording Hollywood Wedding was released on Cadence Jazz Records to critical acclaim. The recording features 10 of Lane’s original compositions performed by 6 different ensembles under his leadership. The ensembles range from a large 20 piece improvising orchestra with a mix of traditional jazz interments, electronics, processing, and risqu? vocalizing, to electric chamber to acoustic trios to Mingus-style small big bands.

Sam Prestiani of Jazziz magazine described Lane’s work on Hollywood Wedding as "pushing beyond predictability," and said further, "Lane's confidence and confrontational prowess as well as his abiding sense of lyricism and heavy-groove power place him in the lineage of forward-jazz adventurism." Jon Morgan of Signal to Noise magazine said, "Those who listen to [Hollywood Wedding] will hear an ambitious composer who clearly has the goods, one who can command a large ensemble with daring eloquence or just as quickly blow the roof off the joint with unleashed cacophony."

Also released on Cadence Jazz was NO(W) MUSIC with his band THE FULL THROTTLE ORCHESTRA. The Orchestra has been active with the same personnel for 4 years making it one of the only continually active creative music ensembles in the Bay Area. The band features Jeff Chan and Aaron Bennett on reeds, Darren Johnston on trumpet, John Finkbeiner on guitar, Vijay Anderson on percussion, Adam Lane on bass and electronics and guest guitarist Myles Boisen. The band combines all the characteristics of Lane’s variegated writing style including a shifting creative aesthetic that might draw inspiration from Cecil Taylor and early Black Sabbath at the same time. With both guitarist Finkbeiner and Lane freely utilizing electronics and processing, the rhythm section might shift from their traditional role to a sound that is closer to David Tudor in the same tune. All members of the band are active composers and bandleaders in their own rights, with each maintaining projects in creative music as well as straight-ahead jazz.

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Album Review

Gauci Ewen Lane Shea: Studio Sessions Vol.5

Read "Studio Sessions Vol.5" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Inciso tre mesi prima (novembre 2018) del Vol. 4, di cui ci siamo occupati di recente, questo nuovo capitolo della saga free impro capitanata (anche nel ruolo di produttore) da Stephen Gauci, sax tenore, in quartetto con partners tutti diversi, evidenzia una maggiore capacità di gestire gli spazi improvvisativi (quindi l'aleatorietà, che qui segue itinerari più felicemente calibrati e articolati sul piano delle dinamiche), generando conseguentemente una musica più introitabile da parte di chi ascolta, che ne può cogliere e ...

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Album Review

In Real Time: Blue Shift

Read "Blue Shift" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Blueshift is a term employed by astronomers to describe an object that is moving toward another object or toward us. It is determined by measuring tiny shifts in the wavelengths of light coming from said object(s). This movement is not detectable by the naked eye but Blue Shift, the first adventure by the In Real Time trio of pianist Carol Liebowitz, bassist Adam Lane, and drummer Andrew Drury sure as hell make it heard. Collectively the New York ...

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Album Review

Vijay Anderson Trio: Studio Sessions Vol. 10

Read "Studio Sessions Vol. 10" reviewed by John Sharpe


Brooklyn-based Californian drummer Vijay Anderson leads an impressively cohesive trio on Studio Sessions Vol .10. In this case cohesion is a product of shared experience. Anderson's career has been intertwined with bassist Adam Lane's since 2003, and can be heard on Zero Degree Music (CIMP, 2005), New Magical Kingdom (Clean Feed, 2006),and Absolute Horizon (NoBusiness, 2013). Likewise, clarinetist Ben Goldberg has been a long-time colleague of the drummer, as evidenced by his appearances on Hard-Boiled Wonderland (Not Two, 2010) and ...

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Album Review

Morris / Gauci / Lane: Studio Sessions Vol. 3

Read "Studio Sessions Vol. 3" reviewed by John Sharpe


There is a surprise in store on Brooklyn tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci's Studio Sessions Volume 3. Not only is celebrated erstwhile guitarist and bassist Joe Morris an unexpected face alongside the reedman, but this time out he features on an unfamiliar instrument, seated behind the drum kit for the two lengthy excursions into uncharted territory. However, it is not all new; bassist Adam Lane, one of Gauci's most regular collaborators who regularly anchors the hornman's quartet, completes the line up. ...

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Album Review

Adam Lane Trio: Absolute Horizon

Read "Absolute Horizon" reviewed by John Sharpe


Not enough is heard from Brooklyn-born bassist Adam Lane. He boasts an impressive track record, illuminated by a series of outstanding recordings, mainly on the CIMP label, but culminating in the acclaimed Ashcan Rantings (Clean Feed, 2010). Nothing has surfaced under his own name since, so any new disc grabs attention. That's not to say he has been idle, notching up notable appearances on drummer William Hooker's excellent Bliss Suite (Not Two, 2010) which also featured rising star saxophonist Darius ...

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Album Review

Adam Lane Trio: Absolute Horizon

Read "Absolute Horizon" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Adam Lane is among the best and brightest of the new wave of forward- looking jazz and improvising bassists, who along with his formidable cohorts exploit the trio format. Here, every inflection, tonality and nuance becomes prominently embedded into the group's stylization which is based on instant composition. No doubt, the musicians' astonishing synergy is a powerful underlying component. Sprinkled with off-kilter thematic overtures, blooming tone poems, and unwieldy or tumultuous breakouts, the trio largely straddles the avant-garde spectrum. Lane ...

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Album Review

Adam Lane / Lou Grassi / Mark Whitecage: Drunk Butterfly

Read "Drunk Butterfly" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Connotations of a Drunk Butterfly might sound like a humorous proposition, especially when depicted in a cartoon. But art doesn't necessarily imitate art within this 2008 trio release. Sure, the trio embarks upon a few off-kilter flight patterns. However, the musical aspects present numerous examples steeped within the bop, or free-bop scheme of things. And with three highly revered New York area artists spinning a web of excitement, the music and overall effect convey a democratic engagement that occasionally projects ...

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Recording

Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra - Ashcan Rantings (Clean Feed, 2010)

Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra - Ashcan Rantings (Clean Feed, 2010)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

The spirit of the great bassist and composer Charles Mingus looms large over these recordings, no small feat for a scrappy band of musicians trying to record large scale music in a difficult economic environment. The powerful and well integrated group consists of Lane on bass, Avram Fefer on alto saxophone, David Bindman and Matt Bauder on tenor saxophone, Igal Foni on drums, Reut Regev and Tim Vaughn on trombone and Taylor Ho Bynun on trumpet. It's a compact and ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Blue Shift

Line Art Records
2022

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Another Spring

New Artists Records
2022

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inversions

CIMP Records
2018

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Cheryl

From: Another Spring
By Adam Lane

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