photo: Amitava Sarkar

#4 Best Jazz Album of 2014

Tom Hull

"New Orleans brass band meets Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman - fiery yet booty-shaking music - it's a stone cold killer diller! ... Most bands can't get the New Orleans stuff right, but the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble is one of the few who does and then takes it in fascinating directions."

OffBeat (New Orleans)

"Led by Ken Field, an alto saxophonist and flutist, this Boston-area band puts a premium on Mardi Gras-style rhythm - the opening track of its new album, Live Snakes, is aptly titled Parade - but also pursues a sinuous, writhing counterpoint, in ways that justify the band's name."

New York Times

"Mardi Gras on steroids...Take everything you thought you were familiar with in terms of the music of New Orleans and wipe the slate clean. Boston based Revolutionary Snake Ensemble takes that Crescent City vibe to the next level with a live release that will set your hair on fire! Spectacular"

CriticalJazz.com

"The band thrives on experimentation while still keeping things accessible...passionately performed... captivating"

Editor's Pick, Downbeat Magazine

"The music has depth, complexity, but never gets so esoteric that it loses its visceral kick."

Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald

"Mix traditional brass band and avant garde jazz, what do you get? Ken Field's Revolutionary Snake Ensemble Live Snakes a Mardi Gras party!"

Brad Stone, KSJS Radio

"A mix of traditional New Orleans brass band, James Brown, Sun Ra, and raucous street performer enthusiasm, RSE's music is as fun as it is engaging."

www.WonderingSound.com

"Sizzling!"

Time Out New York

"A first class band worthy of much wider recognition."

KIOS, Omaha Public Radio

"Beauty and anguish"

JazzTimes

"A jubiliant celebration of music and life. This is one movin', groovin' funfest."

The Jazz Page

"Hauntingly beautiful music!"

Shelley Neill, Exec Dir, Multicultural Arts Center

"Fun, musical, energetic and filled with agape-styled love, this disc is a reminder ... of why you're alive."

JazzWeekly

"Revolutionary Snake Ensemble finds joy in the rhythms of the street, in the melodies of the everyday, and in the shouts one creates against the darkness."

Richard B. Kamins, Step Tempest

"Brilliant improvisation...superb interpretations...inspired...deserves to be heard by all."

Expose

Best of 2014 Jazz

PoOPlist (Kent B)

"Pretty heavy duty one-two punch starts this album from a fast-flying hydra big band led by Ken Field. Quite the stirring cocktail...the funk button is in full effect. Harkens back to some of the best Thirsty Ear beat collider digi-blue jazz. Ride the Snake!"

KFJC - Thurston Hunger

"C'e molta espressivita, molta consapevolezza, molta anima, in questa musica."

Maurizio Comandini, All About Jazz Italia

"Excellent - just great"

Robert Steven Silverstein, MusicWebExpress

"Very adventurous"

Christopher Wright, Adventures in Music

"Amazing piece of sonic architecture"

mwe3.com

"Feestmuziek voor denkende mensen"

JazzFlits #103 (The Netherlands)

NIGHT LIFE PICK OF THE WEEK: "OUT OF LEFT FIELD: The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, a writhing, horn-heavy group led by the Boston-based saxophonist and composer Ken Field, dresses in feathered masks and sequined robes and covers a broad range of funk- and New Orleans-inspired music... A seasoned collection of horn and percussion players, the group puts a funky spin on everything from Billy Idol to Ornette Coleman."

The New Yorker 5/19/08

"I love the disc!"

Scott Borne, Music Director, WWOZ, New Orleans

"RSE's album starts with the slinkiest and sassiest version of the gospel chestnut 'Just a Closer Walk' ever heard"

Dirty Linen

"If the wailing vigil of Down By the Riverside doesn't rake your spine, chances are you don't have one...It's quite possibly the most convincing treatment of New Orleans by a non-native since Hugh Masakela's Goin' Back to New Orleans...If [Field]'s not re-arranging some holy chestnut, he's dreaming up freaky, wind-jamming floor monsters like The Large S."

Brendon Griffin, PopMatters

"A quirky, idiosyncratic band capable of both partying and intellectual discourse...A formidable slew of potent originals...The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble has taken danceable music to both earthy and progressive levels."

Michael Nastos, All Music Guide

"About the most fun I've had musically all year."

Jon Davis, Expose

"Imaginative arrangements...make up the lion's share of the album but it is the four original tunes by leader/altoist Ken Field that really shine! A really appealing listen."

ZNR

"Unlike most modernisations of supposedly 'traditional' concepts, this one has an informing logic that carries it through, and by the time you get to Minor Vee and Under the Skin, both written by saxophonist/leader Ken Field, you're a voodoo convert."

Brian Morton, The Wire (UK)

"Three cheers and five stars - Thoroughly happening!"

Glenn Astarita, eJazzNews

"The music is what counts, and Forked Tongue demonstrates why the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble matters."

Steve Greenlee, JazzTimes

"The album is GREAT! [It] touches all the right cornerstones of jazz, but also funks my socks off"

Kyle Press, WKDU, Philadelphia

"I can't stop playing this crazy CD over and over again. Doctor, is there an antidote? I am having visions of Mardi Gras parties out of control. They call it a brass band, but there must be some voodoo in this music."

Ted Gioia, www.jazz.com

"I dig it quite a bit and think [they've] hit on something quite original in the world of jazz and beyond."

Kory Cook, KUT Radio, Austin, TX

"Their most focused, adventurous, and rollicking effort yet. Ken Field's Snakes march their jazzy New Orleans-style second line in slinking, swaggering new directions"

Boston Globe

"Ecco un disco coraggioso e divertente, che non mancheranno di suscitare interesse in un pubblico a trecentosessanta gradi con la sua energia stradaiola, che si nutre di memoria e innovazione allo stesso tempo."

Enrico Ramunni, Rockerilla (Italy)

"Un disco divertido sin ser banal, con humor sin perder autoridad conceptual, que suene familiar y accessible sin que sea reiterativo o intrascendente y que reœna en un mismo piano retazos sonorous de Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic, Sex Mob, James Brown y Lounge Lizards impregnado del bullicioso esp’ritu de las marching bands de New Orleans...El Revolutionary Snake Ensemble es un sopio de aire fresco que, sin mensajes subliminales ni segundas lecturas, entretiene con inteligencia, ingenio y simpat’a."

Sergio Piccirilli, El Intruso (Argentina)

"An original musical presence"

Zdenek Slaby, UNI Magazine, Czech Republic

"A super CD"

Linda Yohn, Music Director, WEMU, Ypsilanti (Ann Arbor/Detroit)

"What a fantastic groove!"

Mitchell Feldman, Jazz Without Borders, Georgia Public Broadcasting

"I love it"

Andrea Leonard, KZSU Stanford, CA

"An extended suite of pulsing studies for multiple saxophones, acoustic and electric bass, drums, and percussion. Part jazz, part funk, playful, driving, flip, and filled with life and humor!"

John Schaefer, WNYC Radio New Sounds

"This guy can make more sound with a saxophone, bass, & drums trio than just about anybody I've heard in years! Great stuff!"

Russ Davis, Beyond Jazz - XM Satellite Radio

"Ken Field's dynamite jazz/funk score pops with an infectious groove as he plays live with a prerecorded tape in a way that echoes the dancers' fusion of the real and virtual."

Boston Globe

"This is dance music. Rhythmic, playful, driving, flip, occasionally funky, audaciously sassy, filled with life and humor."

David Lyman, Cincinnati dance critic (from the liner notes)

"Its rich jazz idiom, varied moods, strong back beats, and solid modular forms carry it along quite successfully, without recourse to imagery or narrative. Field's multi-tracked saxes produce fluid counterpoint and chunky bop harmonies, and his parts are precisely interlocked with Jesse Williams' funky bass lines and Phil Neighbors' energetic but unobtrusive drumming; the effect of the trio as recorded is of a considerably larger and more impressive band, which projects something like a live feeling. Field's work on this 2006 Innova release holds ample interest, and anyone curious to hear some of his infectiously rhythmic music will find it to be a terrific introduction."

Blair Sanderson, All Music Guide

"Ken Field has been a respected part of the Boston experimental music scene for years, with his nearly two-decade membership in Birdsongs of the Mesozoic and long-running radio show The New Edge on MIT's college station WMBR. His rare solo records occasionally seem like afterthoughts in the saxophonist's busy creative life, but Under the Skin, his first solo record since 1999's Pictures of Motion, is one of his most enjoyable and immediately accessible works. Written on commission for a New York dance company's show mixing video and live performance, Under the Skin was written and performed in a similar fashion: Field pre-recorded himself playing with the rhythm section of bassist Jesse Williams and drummer Phil Neighbors, often overdubbing several saxophone parts on top of each other, then performed live alto sax solos over the tapes during performances. These eight brief pieces (none breaking five minutes) are lyrical and melodic, many with haunting cyclical rhythmic figures built up through Field's overdubbed saxes in a way that occasionally recalls both Philip Glass' Glassworks and Fripp and Eno's conceptually similar '70s work. Elsewhere, "Om on the Range" builds slowly on top of an intoxicating, almost Indian (in both the south Asian and southwestern American sense) percussion figure, and the closing "Slits in the Curtain" is a playful, surprisingly funky bit of soul-jazz groove."

Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

"Un lavoro commissionato con intelligenza e coraggio, portato a termine con allegria, ironia e rigore."

Maurizio Comandini, All About Jazz Italia

"It's a GREAT CD"

Mitchell Feldman, Georgia Public Broadcasting

"It's urban tribal music -- undeniably sensual, often improvised, and always synchronized in celebration. And on RSE's long-anticipated, it's delivered in precision bursts of audacious, sliding horns, and locomotive beats."

Tristram Lozaw

"A fabulous Mardi Gras-themed album of horn-heavy, funky, and energetic party music."

John Schaefer, WNYC Radio New Sounds

"Captures the abandon of a street parade while expanding its stylistic scope ... it's got the essential ingredients spiced with fresh flavors."

Dan Ouellette, Brown Alumni Magazine

"Man, this snake can move!"

Matthew Robinson, MusicDish.com

"Urban tribal music that blends an audacious New Orleans brass spirit with the sensual fever of African and Latin rhythms."

The Boston Herald

"Simply put, this is one of the most successful combinations of booty-shaking & brain-stimulating music to be released this year, and it deserves your attention post-haste."

Brett McCallon, Splendid

"Great Music!"

James Cervantes, KWVA, Eugene, Oregon

"It's incredible!"

Meghan Currier, Music Director, WERS Jazz Oasis, Boston, MA

"Year of the Snake is killer!"

Clay Gaunce, WRFL, Lexington, Kentucky

"Musical innovator Ken Field...[drags] the brass band into the 21st century."

Seth Rogovoy, Berkshire Eagle

"Imagine a New Orleans brass band coupled to JB horns and firing off just enough improvisation to keep things unpredictable. Things have certainly heated up in Boston!"

Nils Jacobson, All About Jazz

"The CD is amazing"

Dan Bodah, WFMU Radio

"It's all here - music for the head, the heart, and the feet"

Scott Billington, Two-time Grammy-winning New Orleans music producer

"Great work - making quite a buzz around here!"

David Eisenman, Jazz & Blues Director, WTJU, Charlottesville, VA

"Top 10 pick for 2003"

Glenn Astarita, New Orleans Gambit Weekly

"One serious party album - an instrumental record infectious enough to keep the bodily juices bubbling, and interesting enough to keep the noggin engaged, as well."

Charles Winokoor, Taunton Daily Gazette

"Terrific recording!"

David Beckett, Jazz Music Director, WWPV, Vermont

"FOUR STARS!"

Maurizio Comandini, All About Jazz Italia

"Brilliant. Exciting and soothing, freely improvised yet accessible, jazz yet prog, Occidental yet Oriental: paradoxical in every way, Tokyo in F should be played over and over in order to taste every subtlety." [Full Review]

All Music Guide (Francois Couture)

"On my top twenty of the year list...sounds like nothing else I've heard" [Full Review]

LaFolia Music Review
(Steve Koenig)

"Quite engrossing. A true merger of the musical qualities of East and West. Captures the human spirit in high flight and reinforces the principle of the universality of jazz. A fine example of collective communication." [Full Review]

One Final Note
(Frank Rubolino)

"Terrific...very, very rewarding. Field...is this area's real musical treasure."

The TAB (Ken Capobianco)

"This live record oozes with spontaneity and a constant sense of discovery. An unusually satisfying document." [Full Review]

All About Jazz (Nils Jacobson)

"Breathtaking"

The Noise (Brian Westbye)

"The performances flow so naturally they seem composed. They blithely float -- sometimes dart -- from pastoral to giddy to elegantly probing. The disc makes for gorgeous and provocative listening."

The Phoenix (Ted Drozdowski)

"Ken Field once again demonstrates his seemingly boundless capabilities as an adventure seeker who is willing to take risks. Yet Field's ambitious projects often reap huge rewards for the willing listener, and Tokyo in F proves that notion beyond a reasonable doubt. Highly recommended. *****." [Full Review]

All About Jazz (Glenn Astarita, Modern Jazz Editor)

"These gorgeous improvisations range widely in material and mood, from sound textures to lyrical and beautiful melody. Remarkable!"

CDeMUSIC

"FANTASTIC - Really really NICE improv!"

Improvijazzation Nation (Dick Metcalf)

"Nothing short of magical...a special blend of surprisingly original, largely accessible, unusual sounds. ****"

All Music Guide (Steve Loewy)

"Tokyo in F adalah suatu bukti nyata bahwa musisi avant-rock pun, dengan keluwesannya beradaptasi, kemampuannya berimprovisasi dan berkomunikasi dengan pemusik lain, bisa menghasilkan kreasi yang manis dan mudah dinikmati, tanpa perlu menanggalkan identitas dan kualitas musiknya." [Full Review]

Warta Jazz [Indonesia] (Gamantyo Hendrantoro)

"Tokio In F e un'amabile conversazione musicale, tanto imprevedibile quanto speciale che testimonia la magia della musica nel far dialogare mondi in apparenza lontani, ma in realta molto vicini."

Michele Chisena, All About Jazz Italia

"Insomma un musicista creativo, che vuole pensare con la sua testa e che si fa poco condizionare dale mode e dai trend." [Full Review]

All About Jazz Italia (Maurizio Comandini)

"This is GREAT music!!! This gets the pick of this issue for best improvised jazz, along with our most highly recommended rating!"

Improvijazzation Nation (Dick Metcalf)

"Excellent...a wealth of melody and feeling...daring" [Full Review]

The Boston Phoenix (Ted Drozdowski)

"[Ken Field is] one of Boston's true music innovators"

The TAB (Ken Capobianco)

"Pictures of Motion is diverse, featuring reed-driven tone poems, shaky-jake funk, and drones that reveal their melodic side with each new breath. Field thinks in terms of reeds and their character, and his music embraces much of what the saxophone has to offer."

The Providence Phoenix (Jim Macnie)

"A commanding and beautiful sound"

Euro-Rock Press [Japan] (Nobuhisa Nakanishi)

"Twentieth Century head music with a swinging beat - Four stars"

Outsight (Tom Schulte)

"Stunningly beautiful"

Cleveland Scene (Mike Hovancsek)

"Extraordinary...Field's style is uniquely his own"

The Noise (Joel Simches)

"Field's brilliance as a composer is his ability to pass off high-minded composition through a thoroughly accessible sound...The closest musical comparison I could find to Field's concept of cultural jamming would be that of Rahsaan Roland Kirk."

All About Jazz (Mark Corroto)

"A wonderful piece of work - diverse yet all of one mind at the same time"

(C.W.Vrtacek)

"16 stars (A PERFECT SCORE!!!) I admired and enjoyed every minute."

Eclectic Earwig Reviews (John W. Patterson)

"Killer sh*t!"

(Bill T. Miller)

"One of the most provocative CDs I have heard. It was in my car CD player for three weeks. Through composed and thoroughly enjoyable."

(Michael Moran, Executive Director, The Center for Arts in Natick)

"A great and imaginative work. Impressive...a wide range of innovative aesthetics."

Margen [Spain] (Rafa Dorado)

"This CD is a religious listening experience ... evokes the kind of bittersweet emotions you almost forgot you had."

The Noise (Kristy Andrelunas)

"I loved it...The compositions are wonderful - a nice Exotica feel."

(John Zorn)

"With references to Sun Ra, chant, trance, and saxophone quartets, Field has created something extraordinary."

SoS Jazz (Mark Corroto)

"Field is a composer of boundless ability and determined sensibility. That he is an artist capable of walking the fine line that separates the two is a gift few musicians - past or present - are indentured to. ... Subterranea is a wondrous sonic testament to his unique music making, an album with a consciousness and personality all its own."

Albuquerque Weekly Alibi (Michael Henningsen)

"travail delicat et intimiste...magie du rerecording qu'il utilise a merveille...le cote magique de l'album, hypnotisant a la facon d'une danse vaudou...une sorte de chant gregorien a la pulsation tribale...premier album reussi, une maturite croissante... une musique introspective et passionnante."

Art Zero [France] (Xavier Gombert)

"A haunting record of his solitude in a marvelous and mysterious location ... richly textured music that is both rhythmic and meditative."

The Boston Phoenix (Ed Hazell)

"Engaging ... buoyant ... energetic ... charming."

The Wire [UK] (Will Montgomery)

"A music of captivating simplicity."

Cadence (Michael Rosenstein)

"Vriendelijk, maar toch voldoende fris en uitdagend nieuw."

Graffiti [Belgium] (Jaak Perquy)

"The soundtrack to a modern dancer's dreams."

The Entertainment Line (Michael Keating)

"A powerful mixture...an outstanding job."

Expose Newsletter (Peter Thelen)

"A warm, resonate album that sweeps the listener into the music."

Vision Magazine (Cory Beck)

"Mysterious, chilling, and richly textured...overwhelmingly captivating."

Saxophone Journal (Timothy Roberts)