Lately: Luke Stewart, Upright Forms, Kamasi Washington

Sharing some recent work

Greetings all — thanks so much for tuning in, as always. Got some great feedback on last week’s John Stanier interview. I’m hoping to book more original conversations for this newsletter before too long, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, just wanted to highlight some recently published work…

First, it was a privilege to spend some time with the great bassist-composer-curator-writer-etc. Luke Stewart for this New York Times feature, which ran in advance of his excellent new album Unknown Rivers, out today. Luke’s world is truly vast, and I was barely able to scratch the surface in the allotted space, but I hope that this might inspire readers to do some delving on their own. One particularly fascinating sector of Luke’s work that I wasn’t able to mention: his Works for Upright Bass and Amplifier — two volumes’ worth of recordings and a series of live shows. Mesmerizing stuff and absolutely worth a look if you’re not familiar! And note that there are live shows coming up in both New York and Philly in support of Unknown Rivers, as well as a Village Vanguard run by David Murray’s band that features Luke — go here for more info.

Second, I was likewise happy to reconnect with my old friend (and longtime musical hero) Nick Sakes and his bandmates in the Minneapolis trio Upright Forms in advance of their new LP on Skin Graft, which comes out in June and just went up for preorder today. Picking up Dazzling Killmen’s Face of Collapse (released on Skin Graft 30 years ago as of 2024) as a teenager was life-changing for me, and since then, it’s been a thrill to follow Nick through his various projects — Colossamite, Sicbay and Xaddax — sometimes putting down a few words (see here, here, here and here, as well as this two-part, Colossamite-centric discussion with John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez) and eventually sharing bills, meals, hangs, etc. with him. I truly believe that Blurred Wires is one of the best records that Nick has ever been a part of, picking up on the Sicbay thread but adding in new dimensions, and I highly encourage you to check it out. Here’s an extended bio I wrote for the band, based on a fun conversation I had back in March with Nick, bassist-vocalist Noah Paster and drummer Shaun Westphal.

And third, I had a great time speaking with Kamasi Washington, as well as collaborator-admirers including George Clinton and Flea, for this New York Times feature related to his new album Fearless Movement. We also touched on the heady period surrounding The Epic, and what we might expect from him next. For context, here are some thoughts from a few years back regarding Kamasi’s initial breakthrough and its aftermath, and here is a truly outstanding 2016 Times feature on the saxophonist and his milieu by Adam Shatz that I revisited in preparation for the new story.

That’s about it for this time — more soon!