Musicians for Musicians (MFM) is the name of a New York City-based non-profit advocating for fair treatment of working musicians, especially in the way of payment for live performances. Its membership includes big-name players like jazz sax giants Joe Lovano and Dave Liebman and drummers Christopher Parker and Billy Hart, along with dozens of lesser-known but uniquely talented musicians from our area and places as far afield as Australia and the U.K.
Two of the organization’s prime movers have just released innovative new albums demonstrating the stylistic range and impressive talent within MFM’s growing membership.
The first comes from MFM’s president and founder, Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi, who performs under the moniker SoSaLa.
Ladjevardi’s latest is a supremely fierce blast from the past, “1994 – Live at CBGB.” The music was performed live at New York’s legendary punk venue, CBGB, with SoSaLa’s Tokyo-based quartet, SADATO. Born to Iranian parents in Switzerland, Ladjevardi lived in Japan for a time and then performed under his Japanese name Sadato and played soprano and tenor saxes and handled the vocals, aided by Toshimaru Nakamura (guitar), Masaki Shimizu (fretless bass), and Ryo Kato (drums). The album comes from one of two performances by the band at the venerable Downtown NYC club in January 1994, and was recorded live by legendary engineer and producer Martin Bisi of B.C. Studios.
Stylistically, the nine tracks on this album are related to watershed bands of the era, such as DNA, the Lounge Lizards, James Chance and the Contortions, and Pere Ubu. It marries NYC No Wave, harmolodic jazz, indie-progressive rock, nu-blues, punk energy, and oriental modal jazz into a vital celebration of live improvisation. Listening to this album, one returns to the time when it was made when musicians fearlessly experimented with forms and concepts. It emphasized artistic expression and pushing boundaries but with love and compassion. Where old rules were broken, and new ones were being written – and broken. One may also want to have their Google Translator app handy, as SoSaLa sings lyrics in English, Farsi, Japanese, German, and French on the album.
The standout tracks include “35 Cent Puppy Sandwich,” a tune dedicated to the DIY spirit of a band he idolizes, Fugazi, and “65,” a showcase for this noisy, blistering feedback laden style of guitarist Nakamura, a tune dedicated to his Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb Amp. “Tavalod” (Birthday) is a seeming fusion of bent Klezmer that descends into noise rock, with SoSaLa rendering the lyric “Happy Birthday” in Farsi. “Death,” the album’s longest track, begins with a bass drum pulse and builds to cacophony with slashing guitar chords, very fleet bass runs in the style of Eno/Brand X stylist Percy Jones from Shimizu, and a howling recitation jumping languages from SoSaLa.
These and the other tracks almost conjure a fantasy for me. It’s one where avant-garde sax great Albert Ayler didn’t meet his end in the East River but stayed alive and well and became a part of CBGB’s high-energy punk and No Wave community.
The second new release from MFM’s growing membership comes from Dawoud Kringle, the host of the organization’s popular podcast and author of the recent short story collection Bedtime Stories for Musicians and Other People. You can find our review here.
Dawoud The Sufi Renegade’s music bridges world music, electronica, and jazz, with this multi-instrumentalist handling keys, synths, guitar, occasional vocals, beat-making and a unique stringed instrumental of his design, the Dautar. His music has been described as sounding like “Hans Zimmer and Jimi Hendrix fighting over a beautiful princess from another galaxy.”
His latest, the sprawling 14-track “The Power and The Longing,” is a showcase for his Dautar. Dawoud collaborated with Andy Dowty and Jeff Slatnick of the Limulus Musical Instruments in designing this one-of-a-kind instrument that blends the qualities of a guitar, sitar, and cello.
Many tunes, like “Making Love to Eternity” and the album’s title track, have the celestial sound of later-day Alice Coltrane solo releases, with a bit of the flavor of John McLaughlin’s acoustic raga outfit, Shakti, in his deployment of modal soloing with an Eastern flavor. Naturally, his new creation, the Dautar, is front and center, sometimes bowed, sounding like a violin, and sometimes plucked to conjure a guitar-like cadence. There’s even a bit of levity in one of my favorites on the disc, “Monsters Under Your Bed.” Guest vocalist Joi Peng sings the pretty refrain leading into Dawoud’s recitation about the scares that reside under where we sleep over a sort of Carib-funk musical bed.
In the past two years, MFM has emphasized growing membership in its newest chapter based in the musician-rich Hudson Valley. Another duo of talented, Kingston-based musicians founded and directs this chapter, the Brit-born Brazilian music authority Stephen Johnson (NuBossa/BossaBrains) and pianist-composer Peter Wetzler.
For information on membership and upcoming events, visit https://musiciansformusicians.org/
Sal Cataldi is a musician, writer and former entertainment publicist living in the Hudson Valley and NYC. He is the leader of the band Spaghetti Eastern Music and a member of the ensembles Guitars A Go Go, Vapor Vespers, and Spaceheater. He is also the host of “Reading In Funktamental” on WGXC 90.7 FM/Wave Farm, a monthly/Apple Podcast show where he speaks to the authors of the books on music he reviews here at NYSMusic.com
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