{"id":551,"date":"2011-09-29T14:13:29","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T18:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=551"},"modified":"2012-12-04T10:24:27","modified_gmt":"2012-12-04T15:24:27","slug":"551","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/09\/551.html","title":{"rendered":"Roulette: “old” new music\/dance space moves to central Brooklyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

My new column<\/a> at CityArts-New York is about Roulette<\/a>, the\u00c2\u00a0new music\/new dance performance space, started in downtown Manhattan but moved to a coolly refurbished theater \"\"<\/a>near a major Brooklyn transportation hub. Roulette’s in first season in this new home is thick with Chicago-born, -raised \u00c2\u00a0and -emigrated “creative musicians” — Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, George E. Lewis, Wadada Leo Smith, all early members of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). Which makes perfect sense, as their decades old but still biting, exploratory, expansive, original, intellectual and always impassioned works inspired Roulette stalwarts John Zorn, Marty Ehrlich, Elliot Sharp and Adam Rudolph (all performing this fall).<\/p>\n

The AACM has also born the latest younger generation of surprising composer-improvisers — Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Steve Lehmann, Matana Roberts, Liberty Ellman among others. Some of them appear in the AACM-New York concert\u00c2\u00a0series<\/a> at Community Church of New York,\u00c2\u00a0instituted by the group’s founding guide, pianist-composer-improviser and NEA Jazz Master Muhal Richard Abrams.<\/p>\n

I visited Braxton — Roulette’s throwing a four-day celebration of his defiantly unique but highly systematized music October 5 through 8 — a couple weeks ago at Wesleyan University, where he’s taught for 22 years, and video’d him with his ensemble class. The shooting and editing’s a bit rough, but you can take a look if you like.
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Braxton and Wadada Leo Smith, now a key figure at California Institute of the Arts and in December having 70th birthday concerts at Roulette, were among the first AACM members to be embraced by American institutions of higher learning. Currently drummer\/percussionist Thurman Barker teaches at Bard College, reeds virtuoso Roscoe Mitchell holds a prestigious chair at Mills College in Oakland and flutist Nicole Mitchell has just taken a new university position in San Diego. AACM precepts — open-ended but precisely described in George E. Lewis’s exemplary book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music<\/a> — are ever more identified with what must be studied and what can be done.<\/p>\n

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Brooklyn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My new column at CityArts-New York is about Roulette, the\u00c2\u00a0new music\/new dance performance space, started in downtown Manhattan but moved to a coolly refurbished theater near a major Brooklyn transportation hub. Roulette’s in first season in this new home is thick with Chicago-born, -raised \u00c2\u00a0and -emigrated “creative musicians” — Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, George E. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/roulette.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1i3CL-551","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":554,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/10\/anthony-braxtons-new-music-at-wesleyan-roulette.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":0},"title":"Anthony Braxton’s new music at Wesleyan & Roulette","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"October 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Mentoring women musicians as well as men distinguishes Anthony Braxton among avant-garde composer-performers. That's not the only unusual aspect of the career of Braxton, a 66-year-old composer, improviser, philosopher, educator and multi-instrumentalist who just celebrated a four-night festival overview of his work at Roulette music and dance space, new to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":346,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/10\/manhattan_music_loft_roulette.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":1},"title":"Manhattan music “loft” Roulette takes big chance on Brooklyn","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"October 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Roulette, since 1978 a formerly humble Manhattan-based presenter of avant-garde \"intermedia,\" has signed a 20-year lease on a former YWCA art deco 600-seat theater in Brooklyn. This\u00a0\u00a0Next weekend (Oct. 7, 8, 9) is the space's three-night benefit \"Easy Not Easy,\" assigning emerging (read: little known) artists presumably simple scores by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":351,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/11\/aacm_at_45_creative_musicians.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":2},"title":"AACM at 45: “Creative Musicians” span generations, U.S., globe","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The AACM -- Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians -- continues after 45 years to encourage highly original, edgy and exciting artists -- as I detail in my new City Arts column.\u00a0Examples in New York City: reedist\/composer\u00a0Henry Threadgill's Zooid performs tonight and tomorrow at Roulette; trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":661,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/12\/elliott-sharp-roulette-way-beyond-category.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":3},"title":"Elliott Sharp @ Roulette – way beyond category","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"December 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"No label exists for the music of composer-guitarist-saxophonist Elliott Sharp, who performed with two of his Carbon concept ensembles at Roulette in Brooklyn last week. In both quartet (Sharp on 8-string guitarbass with electronic processing, curved soprano and tenor saxes, and musicians playing electric bass, prepared harp and drums) and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/elliot-sharp.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":249,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/09\/todays_the_day_nyc_goes_beyond.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":4},"title":"Today’s the day NYC goes beyond jazz","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"September 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"On September 17,New York kicks off a fall season more highly charged with new creative energies than any in memory.\u00c2\u00a0An\u00c2\u00a0army of mostly young, skilled, ambitious and devoted musicians is making itself heard in the East Village, Soho, Brooklyn, on the Lower West Side and in the clubs -- while benevolence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":263,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/11\/henry_threadgill_seer_beyond_j.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":5},"title":"Henry Threadgill, seer beyond ‘jazz’","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In my City Arts column: a new album and Roulette concert with commissioned work from a worldly-wise 65 yr-old NYC\/East Village-based composer-bandleader who keeps looking at music -- Varese's and Wagner's, Scott Joplin's and Ornette Coleman's -- to find something new. I call Henry Threadgill a prophet in the wilderness,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}