Featured Jazz Artist: Kali Z. Fasteau
Vote for Kali Z. Fasteau in our Top "Fuse This Jazz" Artists

About

From a musical family, Kali Z. played piano, cello, flute, voice since early childhood in Paris and New York.

She received degrees studying the music of Asia, Africa, 20th Century Europe and Jazz, and then traveled for fourteen years, living in sixteen countries: India (1981-83), Turkey (1976-77), Nepal, Morocco, Senegal, Congo, Italy, Holland, France, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Germany, Greece, Haiti and America, performing in many music festivals and concerts, national radio and TV, film soundtracks, and university programs.

Kali’s recording and performing associates include: Donald Rafael Garrett, Archie Shepp, Beaver Harris, Rashied Ali, William Parker, Oliver Lake, Joseph Jarman, Joe McPhee, Hamid Drake, Andrew Cyrille, Bobby Few, Noah Howard, Oscar Brown III, and a great many others.

Kali Z. led her ensemble playing her original compositions at New York’s Town Hall, Lincoln Center and Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art in Paris, The Museum Theatre in Madras, India, The Boston Center for the Arts and hundreds of other noted venues worldwide.

Selected Discography

Kali Z. Fasteau: PEOPLE OF THE NINTH; Flying Note CD 9011
Kali Z. Fasteau: MAKING WAVES; Flying Note CD 9010
Kali Z. Fasteau: ONENESS; Flying Note CD 9009
Kali Z. Fasteau: VIVID; Flying Note CD 9007
Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett:
MEMOIRS OF A DREAM; Flying Note Double CD 9008
Kali Z. Fasteau: COMRADERIE; Flying Note CD 9006
Kali Z. Fasteau: SENSUAL HEARING; Flying Note CD 9005
Kali Z. Fasteau: EXPATRIATE KIN; CIMP #140
Kali Z. Fasteau: PROPHECY: The Whale & the Elephant Trade Notes on the State of the World; Flying Note CD 9003
Kali Z. Fasteau: WORLDS BEYOND WORDS; Flying Note CD 9001
Kali Z. Fasteau: AFFINITY; Flying Note Cass 6003
Kali Z. Fasteau: BEYOND WORDS; Flying Note Cass 7003
Kali Z. Fasteau: BLISS; Flying Note Cass 6001 Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett:
AFTER NATURE; Red Records
Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett: MANZARA; Red Records
Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett: WE MOVE TOGETHER; ESP-Disk

Review

One of the great benefits of obscurity is the celebration of discovery. Throughout his career, saxophonist/teacher Kidd Jordan has been respected and hired by peers including Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and Ellis Marsalis, but only since the late ‘90s has the septuagenarian begun to garner prolific recording opportunities and jazz festival invites. Multi-instrumentalist Kali Z. Fasteau is the latest to share the time-tested and distinctive playing of Jordan.

For People of the Ninth: New Orleans and the Hurricane 2005, the intent is unmistakable and the focus startling. The emotions of being displaced from his Louisiana home (Jordan resided in the Ninth Ward, pre-Katrina) can be heard from the opening quote of “Now’s The Time” on the first selection, “Levees, Lies and Lives.” Using the Charlie Parker theme as a springboard to a plaintive cry, Jordan’s multi-faceted message is a revealing one.

It’s up to the listener to decide between it being a statement on the evacuation or the larger failure of government to prepare for what would become the worst disaster on American soil.

Fasteau and Jordan complement one another sonically with Jordan’s inspiring range on tenor and Fasteau’s ceaseless creativity on piano (inside and out), cello, soprano sax, nai flute and aquasonic (waterphone), with drummer Michael TA Thompson (who also plays balafon) adding propulsive undercurrents.

Respectful of the past while conscious of the future, Jordan’s sound is at once earthy and deep and intensely biting. Titles such as “Rising Winds,” “What Once Was,” “Rescue Denied” and “Oil and Water” make this one of the most moving and personal post-Katrina music tributes made thus far.

By Laurence Donohue-Greene
AllAboutJazz.com


Listen to the music

Tracks from "People of the Ninth" are featured on  the  "Fuse This Jazz" program

Featured CD

Kali Z. Fasteau:
PEOPLE OF THE NINTH;
Flying Note CD 9011
2007

Buy the CD at CDBaby

Tracks:

Levees, Lies & Lives;
Rising Winds;
Right of Return;
What Once Was;
Whales' Advice;
Rescue Denied;
Professor Jordan's Favorite Horse;
Mr. October;
Concentration Dome;
Diaspora/Oil & Water;
The Dynamite Question;
Solace (Transcendance IV).

Musicians:

Kali Z. Fasteau: soprano sax, cello, piano, nai flute, aquasonic;
Kidd Jordan: tenor sax;
Michael T.A. Thompson: drums, balafon.

Web site:
kalimuse.com

"PEOPLE OF THE NINTH is transfixing, perfectly balanced and sublime...an immensely wonderful job. Hallelujah is all one can say!" Downtown Music

"Part of New York' original free-jazz scene, Kali's music is fierce...pure and constant rapture." The New York Times

"Multi-instrumentalist improv-goddess Kali. Z. plays truly wonderful music. Highest recommendation!" Other Music