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Sabir Mateen
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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Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: Live at I.U.C.C. 11/26/1978
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 ...
read moreTEST and Roy Campbell: TEST and Roy Campbell
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 ...
read moreTEST with Roy Campbell: Live at The Hinton House
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 ...
read moreSabir Mateen: URDLA XXX
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 ...
read moreSabir Mateen: Prophecies Come to Pass
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 ...
read moreSabir Mateen: Prophecies Come To Pass
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 ...
read moreSabir Mateen: Prophecies Come to Pass
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, ...
read moreSabir Mateen's Quartet Gives Us "Just a Little Something," Volume One
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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 ...
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Matthew Shipp and Sabir Mateen - Sama Live in Moscow (Solyd, 2011)
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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 ...
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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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Excerpt from Cosmic Canticles
From: For Those Who Cross The SeasBy Sabir Mateen