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Sabir Mateen

Sabir Mateen - Alto & Tenor Saxophones, Flute, Piccolo, Bb & Alto Clarinets Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Poet

The name Sabir Mateen has been one to deal with and listen to.

Originally from Philadelphia (b. April 16th 1951), he moved to Los Angeles and played with Horace Tapscott and his Pan- Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and other bands. He moved back to Philadelphia in the '80's and played with two musicians he still collaborates with today, Sunny Murray and Raymond A. King, and also with Monette Sudler, Bill Lewis and many others. He also pursued studies with Byard Lancaster.

Having moved to New York in 1989, Sabir became a world renowned artist and has performed with the greats such as Cecil Taylor, William Parker Ensembles (Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra & The Inside Songs Of Curtis Mayfield), Alan Silva, Wilber Morris, Jemeel Moondoc, Charles Downs (Rashid Bakr), Marc Edwards, Mark Whitecage, Raphe Malik, Dave Burrell, Butch Morris, Henry Grimes, Kali Z. Tom Bruno, Roy Campbell, Daniel Carter, Steve Swell The Sun Ra Arkestra, Frode Gjerstad, William Hooker and many others.

Mateen has performed in Europe, Japan, and Africa. He is also involved in Collective bands such as TEST (w/ D. Carter, Matthew Heyner and T. Bruno), The Downtown Horns (w/ R. Campbell & D. Carter), The East 3rd St. Ensemble (w/ Matt Lavelle, Clif Jackson and David Gould).

Sabir leads his own bands as well: The Sabir Mateen Ensemble, Omni-Sound, Trio Sabir, and Juxtapositions.

Sabir also performs in solo and duo configurations with Matthew Shipp and Hilliard (Hill) Greene.

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3
Album Review

Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: Live at I.U.C.C. 11/26/1978

Read "Live at I.U.C.C. 11/26/1978" reviewed by Danen Jobe


In November of 1978, Horace Tapscott had some advantages that any other iconoclastic, idealistic, idiosyncratic jazz bandleader would greatly desire. For one, he was approached by a socially minded professional gambler named Tom Albach about starting a label (Nimbus West) devoted to Tapscott's music, allowing complete creative control, never expecting to make a dime of profit, and providing living money to keep the band going. Another was a steady gig in the only area in the nation that Tapscott truly ...

6
Album Review

TEST and Roy Campbell: TEST and Roy Campbell

Read "TEST and Roy Campbell" reviewed by John Sharpe


This archival recording does what it says on the tin, capturing trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr. (who died in 2014) with free jazz quartet TEST in a high octane live date from April 1999. These five are masters of the genre. TEST were the archetypal New York City underground band, who could be found in their heyday busking on the subway, as well as igniting the downtown clubs. Multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter and reedman Sabir Mateen provide the firepower, while bassist Matthew ...

3
Album Review

TEST with Roy Campbell: Live at The Hinton House

Read "Live at The Hinton House" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


More exquisite madness from Brooklyn's barn burning free jazz label 577 Records, home to the free and the brave. This time it's a hard core NY borough blowout recorded live in April 1999 that cantankerously and vividly chronicles the only known performance of the late, free/avant, Harlem/NoBro legend, trumpeterRoy Campbell. Unrestrained, Campbell raises the roof with a loosely defined autonomous collective of downtown alchemists, namely drummer Tom Bruno, bassist Matt Heyner and the rioting reeds of Sabir Mateen ...

513
Album Review

Sabir Mateen: URDLA XXX

Read "URDLA XXX" reviewed by John Sharpe


It must have been some surprise when Sabir Mateen, already playing, strode into the centre of URDLA, the Parisian engraving workshop where a hundred guests were convened for a celebration of its 30th anniversary. Mateen had been commissioned as a special guest to appear on the stroke of midnight. Solo concerts are not the rite of passage they were for a saxophonist back in the 1970s test bed of free jazz creativity, and their infrequency means it still takes a ...

176
Album Review

Sabir Mateen: Prophecies Come to Pass

Read "Prophecies Come to Pass" reviewed by Jeff Stockton


The Shapes, Textures and Sound Ensemble is a quintessential downtown New York jazz group in the tradition of Other Dimensions in Music and Test--as intense and impassioned as music honed on the street should be: tough, but coherent and highly skilled. Led by veteran reedman Sabir Mateen on alto, tenor, flute and clarinets, none of the players in the Ensemble are more than a degree or two outside of the wide shadow cast by William Parker's Little Huey Creative Orchestra--and ...

164
Album Review

Sabir Mateen: Prophecies Come To Pass

Read "Prophecies Come To Pass" reviewed by Troy Collins


On Prophecies Come To Pass, saxophonist Sabir Mateen's Shapes, Textures, and Sound Ensemble delivers a rousing program of classic free jazz that rarely relents in its intensity. Recorded live in Brooklyn, this album captures the group at its rapturous best. Dedicated to late trumpeter Raphe Malik, the ensemble pushes its post-Ayler dynamics to the heavens.

Multi-instrumentalist Mateen coaxes an array of sounds from his many horns; his alto is light and buoyant, with an assertive edge; his raucous ...

193
Album Review

Sabir Mateen: Prophecies Come to Pass

Read "Prophecies Come to Pass" reviewed by Florence Wetzel


Prophecies Come to Pass is the debut recording of Sabir Mateen's compositions by his group The Shapes, Textures, and Sound Ensemble. Recorded live in Brooklyn in September 2005, the CD was edited by Mateen and Swell and mastered under Mateen's direction. It's dedicated to the late great Raphe Malik, who at one time played with the group.

The ensemble is composed of an impressive roster of creative musicians: Mateen on saxophones, flute, and clarinets; Matt Lavelle on trumpet, ...

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Recording

Sabir Mateen's Quartet Gives Us "Just a Little Something," Volume One

Sabir Mateen's Quartet Gives Us "Just a Little Something," Volume One

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

Tenor-reedman Sabir Mateen, through a long tenure with drum-giant Sunny Murray, with his own groups and other significant associations, has proven to be one of New York's prime avant jazz figures in recent years. He's absorbed the free tradition and realized his original, personal version of it. Albums made with his own groups can come in and out-of-print rapidly, which is a sign of the times. So when one comes along it's important to grab it while you can. A ...

162

Recording

Matthew Shipp and Sabir Mateen - Sama Live in Moscow (Solyd, 2011)

Matthew Shipp and Sabir Mateen - Sama Live in Moscow (Solyd, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

If two men were ever born to perform together, pianist Matthew Shipp and saxophonist Sabir Mateen are those two. In this extraordinary duo performance, they expand on last year's excellent studio performance, SaMa, with a live performance which takes their improvised communication even closer to the edge. Mateen's tenor is strong and supple, honed to a razor's sharpness, and Shipp uses the entire keyboard, whether it's bombs of bass notes or rippling high register figures. They begin with a few ...

107

Recording

Sunny Murray in Duet with Sabir Mateen: "We Are Not at the Opera," 1998

Sunny Murray in Duet with Sabir Mateen: "We Are Not at the Opera," 1998

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

Many if not most of the readers of this blog will know that drummer Sunny Murray is the godfather of “free" drumming. He played with critically important improvisers of the new thing musical explosion in the early sixties (like Ayler, Taylor) and he developed a uniquely effective “freetime" style, one that rarely stated an overt pulse, but proffered a running commentary and complement to the solos and bass punctuations. That's textbook fact. But listen to him in an especially exposed ...

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