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Exploding Star Orchestra

Exploding Star Orchestra: In 2005, cornetist Rob Mazurek was approached by The Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute to put together a group that would represent the more contemporary / avant-garde side of sound in Chicago for a concert in Millennium Park’s Frank Gehry-designed concert hall. The music was conceptualized/composed in Manaus Brazil, Fontevraud, France and Chicago, and developed over more than a dozen performances of the Orchestra before it was recorded by John McEntire at his Soma Studio in Chicago.

We Are All From Somewhere Else is comprised of 3 distinct sections, and corresponds to a story involving an exploding star, cosmic transformation, a sting ray, the travels of the sting ray, intelligent conversations with electric eels, the destructive power of humans, the death and ascension of sting ray, the transformation of sting ray ghost to flying bird, and the transformation of bird to phoenix to rocket to flying burning matter to a new-born star.

Says Mazurek, “I could clearly see and hear the events as a kind of animated adult/children’s story that could be presented in book or video form. In the end you have a poem text based on the original story line that is then flipped backwards to reveal another perspective on the poem. The flipped text was orchestrated by Portuguese video artist and conceptualist Joao Simoes, while I was in Lisbon making final preparations for the release of this recording.”

As the arrangements of the parts of the pieces came together it became more and more evident that Nicole Mitchell’s flutes would play a major role in the realization of the music. That said the intent of the music is not to featuring individual players (although this very well could have featured any individual in the group, as they are all very strong soloists and improvisers) it is more about the projection of a certain sound pertaining to imagination and the trajectory of the sound as movement in time and space, weaving patterns and non-patterns around and inside the idea of the poem. The overall organic approach included actual organic sounds - for example, the sounds of electric eels recorded by Mazurek at INPA research laboratory in Manaus. The juxtaposition of two drums, two basses, two mallets, multiple flutes, two cornets, bass clarinet, ARP synthesizer, guitar, trombone, voices and flugelhorn all played important roles in the development of the final sound.

“Psycho-Tropic Electric Eel Dream” is a group improvisation centered around the sound of electric eels. The electric eel tanks Mazurek recorded at INPA contain two species of eels, Pulsating and Waveform. The sound was recorded in a special tank of 15-20 eels of various sub-species, each with its own tone. The results are fascinating tonal clusters not unlike the sound of violins. This track reveals the beauty of these fine creatures and juxtaposes our improvisation with them, and concludes with spoken word by Rob Mazurek (“Robert Ashley was in my head during this part”), some ARP by Jim Baker and some final cascades of Nicole’s flute, which was snuck into the recording on the bass amp mic sitting in the hallway while Nicole was playing in another room. “Black Sun” features Jim Baker’s lovely piano playing. “This piece was originally written for the great French pianist Jeanne-Pierre Armengaud,” says Mazurek, “who I had the pleasure of working with at Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud in France during my residency there.” What you hear is Jim’s emotionally charged and understated improvisation on the theme of the composition. The sound corresponds perfectly to the text/poem of the recording in which the death of the stingray is a new re-birth of the bird and eventually a new star.

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98
Album Review

Exploding Star Orchestra: Stars Have Shapes

Read "Stars Have Shapes" reviewed by Nic Jones


This release by the Exploding Star Orchestra is one of those rare examples of a present day unit able to travel to other places. Under the direction of cornet player and composer Rob Mazurek they've come up with a program of music which incorporates advances outside of the jazz tradition even while it strikes an extraordinary balance between established precedents and developments still in the process of fruition. Thus the collective voices on “Ascension Ghost Impression #2" ...

158
Album Review

Exploding Star Orchestra: Stars Have Shapes

Read "Stars Have Shapes" reviewed by Troy Collins


Stars Have Shapes is dedicated to the memory of recently deceased seminal free jazz innovators Fred Anderson and Bill Dixon, both of whom played with cornetist Rob Mazurek's all-star ensemble on separate occasions, including the magnificent summit meeting Bill Dixon With Exploding Star Orchestra (Thrill Jockey, 2008). Featuring a rotating cast of renowned Chicago improvisers, the Exploding Star Orchestra has become a mainstay in the Windy City's jazz scene and a significant part of Mazurek's growing discography.Sequenced like ...

258
Album Review

Exploding Star Orchestra: We Are All From Somewhere Else

Read "We Are All From Somewhere Else" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson


This record bristles with the hubris of an artist who ignores conventional notions of prevailing styles, blithely imposes his own aesthetic vision, and achieves a rousing artistic success in the end. That artist is Chicago-turned-São Paulo cornetist Rob Mazurek, who composed and conducted this performance.This record also bristles with the sound of electric eels. That's not a clumsy metaphor: I mean, literally, that Mazurek recorded eels in a special tank at a research laboratory in Brazil (two species, ...

528
Album Review

Exploding Star Orchestra: We Are All From Somewhere Else

Read "We Are All From Somewhere Else" reviewed by Troy Collins


Working from a commission by the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute to assemble a group representing Chicago's contemporary avant-garde, cornetist/composer Rob Mazurek's newest venture, the Exploding Star Orchestra, has long since eclipsed its provisional origins. Conceptualized and composed between Brazil, France and the States, We Are All From Somewhere Else is as ambitious in scope as it is in execution.

Mazurek's recent music sounds partially inspired by his new home in São Paulo, where he lives ...

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65

Recording

Bill Dixon - Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra (2008)

Bill Dixon - Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra (2008)

Source: Something Else!

had this discussion about jazz with a friend of mine once. He really couldn't deal the sound of a full-bore, large-scale ensemble (he doesn't like any jazz, honestly, but that's sort of irrelevant here). I can't remember exactly what CD was playing in my car, but it seemed to make him nervous. “How can you stand this?!," he said. It seemed like the wrong question to me. In my synesthetic kind of way, the sounds of music seem to emanate ...

89

Recording

Farewell Bill Dixon...Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra, 2008

Farewell Bill Dixon...Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra, 2008

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

The great Bill Dixon is gone. I am late at putting my hand at a fitting memorial line or two. This is all I think I need to say: Bill Dixon never sounded like anybody else on trumpet and he never wrote a line that didn't have his indelible stylistic footprint squarely emblazoned upon it. So we turn to one of his last recordings, Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra (Thrill Jockey 192). As I nabbed this as a download ...

73

Recording

Exploding Star Orchestra - We Are All from Somewhere Else (2007)

Exploding Star Orchestra - We Are All from Somewhere Else (2007)

Source: Something Else!

By Tom Johnson Tortoise alum Rob Mazurek had a big concept behind this project. As we all know, sometimes big concepts pay off, sometimes they simply lead to big letdowns. Exploding Star Orchestra's We Are All From Somewhere Else was a big concept that luckily actually paid off. Either way, feel free to simply ignore the bizarre concept behind it and enjoy the stunning music. The concept, if you must know, goes something like this: somewhere in deep space, a ...

208

Recording

Exploding Star Orchestra - Stars Have Shapes (Delmark, 2010)

Exploding Star Orchestra - Stars Have Shapes (Delmark, 2010)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Led by cornet player and musical visionary Rob Mazurek, the Exploding Star Orchestra is a post modern big band that draws on great instrumentalists, found sound and electronics to create a soundscape like no other. Echoes of John Coltrane's Ascension and Sun Ra's long form experimental works like Atlantis and The Magic City are here, but the group creates a sound that is unique to their vision. The album opens with the extraordinary “Ascension Ghost Impression #2" with a jaunty ...

201

Recording

Exploding Star Orchestra - Stars Have Shapes (2010)

Exploding Star Orchestra - Stars Have Shapes (2010)

Source: Something Else!

By Pico Cornet player Rob Mazurek has got to be one of the busiest guys on the robust Chicago fringe jazz scene. We loved Sound Is when it came out last year, which introduced his new quintet, but Mazurek has by then helmed or co-helmed so many other projects that starts with jazz and ends up who knows where: Isotope 217, Tigersmilk, Exploding Star Orchestra, and the Chicago Underground Orchestra, with its splinter groups Chicago Underground Duo, Chicago Underground Trio ...

158

Recording

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra

Source: All About Jazz

By: Trevor Pour

This is a free jazz album. Still reading? Congratulations. A few short years ago, I would have already hit the 'back' button and moved onto show reviews. Those two words in succession - free and jazz - have the power to make even experienced listener turn a cold shoulder. But, like great poetry, blue cheese and Flemish sour ales, free jazz is an acquired taste with potentially vast rewards. Before listening to this album, however, I had ...

90

Music Industry

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra

Source: All About Jazz

Trumpeter Bill Dixon was a significant presence on the free improvising jazz scene of early-1960s New York, but his performing progress suffered from a predilection for academic activities, and his recorded output has consequently remained sporadic. So, ultimately, Dixon's legendary reputation might be bigger than his documented reality, although he was chosen for the Lifetime Recognition award at 2007's Vision festival in New York. Chicago Underground cornetist Rob Mazurek had long admired Dixon, meeting him for the first time whilst ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Stars Have Shapes

Delmark Records
2010

buy

We Are All From...

Thrill Jockey
2007

buy

We Are All From...

Thrill Jockey
2006

buy

We Are All From...

Thrill Jockey Records
0

buy

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