| RogueArt | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Founder | Michel Dorbon |
| Genre | Jazz, avant-garde jazz, improvisation |
| Country of origin | France |
| Location | Paris |
| Official website | roguart |
RogueArt (also written Rogueart and Rogue Art) is a French independent record label based in Paris. It was founded by record producer Michel Dorbon in 2005 and specialises in jazz and improvised music.
RogueArt was founded by record producer Michel Dorbon in 2005, and its first release was the album, Bindu by jazz percussionist Hamid Drake. [1]
In the 1960s and 1970s, Dorbon listened to rock groups like Cream, Soft Machine and Henry Cow because of their use of improvisation. His first exposure to free jazz was at an Archie Shepp concert in the 1970s. His interest in this type of jazz led him to start working for various record labels. In the late 1990s he began producing records for Bleu Regard, a French record label. After several years, Dorbon decided he wanted more control of the production process, and in 2005, he established his own record label, RogueArt in Paris. [1]
Dorbon said "'RogueArt' is a natural name for a label that provides shelter for music that is outside the mainstream." [1] He wanted the RogueArt covers to be "original, sober, noticeable and beautiful", and asked artist Max Schoendorff for ideas. Schoendorff proposed a design of a white cover with no images or pictures, plain red and black text in the middle, and red and black stripes on the left and right borders. Dorbon accepted the design without any changes and used it for all RogueArt's releases. [1] [2]
RogueArt features some European musicians, but mostly American artists because of Dorbon's "love for American, and particularly New York, jazz". [1] As of December 2020 [update] RogueArt had released over 100 albums. [3] Included in their catalogue is Passages (2012), a concept album by cellist Didier Petit and writer Alexandre Pierrepont. It was made during a 2011 trip across America during which they stopped at Los Angeles, Woodstock, Chicago and New York City to improvise and record with local musicians, including Drake, Gerald Cleaver, Marilyn Crispell, Nicole Mitchell and Michael Zerang. Pierrepont's contribution was a booklet of texts describing their trip and musical encounters. [2]
In addition to audio releases, RogueArt has also published several books, including Conversations, Conversations II and Conversations III by free jazz double bassist William Parker. The three volumes comprise photographs and interviews conducted by Parker. [4] All RogueArt books have the same white covers with red and black text as their albums.
Maxwell Lemuel Roach was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He worked with many famous jazz musicians, including Clifford Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little. He also played with his daughter Maxine Roach, a Grammy nominated violist. He was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1992.
Archie Shepp is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz.
Peter Brötzmann was a German jazz saxophonist and clarinetist regarded as a central and pioneering figure in European free jazz. Throughout his career, he released over fifty albums as a bandleader. Amongst his many collaborators were key figures in free jazz, including Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, as well as experimental musicians such as Keiji Haino and Charles Hayward. His 1968 Machine Gun became "one of the landmark albums of 20th-century free jazz".
William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist. Beginning in the 1980s, Parker played with Cecil Taylor for over a decade, and he has led the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra since 1981. The Village Voice named him "the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time" and DownBeat has called him "one of the most adventurous and prolific bandleaders in jazz".
Matthew Shipp is an American avant-garde jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader.
Roscoe Mitchell is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". The Penguin Guide to Jazz described him as "one of the key figures" in avant-garde jazz; All About Jazz stated in 2004 that he had been "at the forefront of modern music" for more than 35 years. Critic Jon Pareles in The New York Times has mentioned that Mitchell "qualifies as an iconoclast". In addition to his own work as a bandleader, Mitchell is known for cofounding the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
John Greaves is a British bass guitarist, pianist and composer who was a member of Henry Cow and has collaborated with Peter Blegvad. He was also a member of progressive rock band National Health and jazz-rock supergroup Soft Heap, and has recorded several solo albums, including Accident (1982), Parrot Fashions (1984), The Caretaker (2001) and Greaves Verlaine (2008).
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist.
Sylvie Courvoisier is a composer, pianist, improviser and bandleader. She was born and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has been a resident of New York City since 1998. She won Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022 and was named Pianist of the Year for 2023 in the international critics poll of Spanish jazz publication El Intruso. NPR’s Kevin Whitehead has encapsulated the distinctive character of Courvoisier’s art this way: “Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral. Sylvie Courvoisier treats it like a playground.”
Nicole Mitchell is an American jazz flautist and composer who teaches jazz at the University of Virginia. She is a former chairwoman of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Jeff Parker is an American guitarist and composer based in Los Angeles. Born in Connecticut and raised in Hampton, Virginia, Parker is best known as an experimental musician, working with jazz, electronic, rock, and improvisational groups. Parker studied at Berklee College of Music and then moved to Chicago in 1991.
Tomeka Reid is an American composer, improviser, cellist, curator, and teacher.
Cut Up the Border is a 2020 live album by English guitarist and composer Fred Frith, German film maker Nicolas Humbert and French sound artist Marc Parisotto. It comprises a collage of unused audio material recorded between 1988 and 1990 for the documentary film on Frith, Step Across the Border, overlaid with live improvisations by Frith performed in January 2019. The album was released by French record label RogueArt in January 2020.
Echoes of Henry Cow is a 2019 studio album by French jazz group, the Michel Edelin Quintet, with narration by English musician John Greaves. It comprises variations on Henry Cow compositions and other music, including by Art Bears and Edelin. The album was released by French record label RogueArt on 10 May 2019.
Bird on Money is a 1981 painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1981. It is a tribute to jazz musician Charlie Parker, who was nicknamed "Bird." The painting was acquired in 1981 and is housed in the Rubell Family Collection. In 2020, New York rock band the Strokes used the artwork as the cover for their studio album The New Abnormal.
Laying Demons to Rest is a 2023 live album by English guitarist Fred Frith and Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva. It consists of a single continuous track of improvised music, and was recorded live in August 2021 for Radio France as part of Festival Météo at Motoco, Mulhouse, France. The album was released by French record label RogueArt in January 2023.
Entropy/Enthalpy is a two-CD live album by the jazz ensemble The Turbine!, consisting of double bassists Harrison Bankhead and Benjamin Duboc, and drummers Hamid Drake and Ramón López. It was recorded during February 2014 at various locations in France during a tour that took place as part of a transatlantic exchange of musicians called The Bridge. While the first CD presents just the core group, three guest artists appear on the second CD: saxophonist Lionel Garcin, trumpeter Jean-Luc Cappozzo, and double bassist William Parker. The album was released in 2015 by the Rogueart label.
Cloud Script is an album by the free jazz quartet of the same name, led by double bassist and composer Joshua Abrams, and featuring tenor saxophonist Ari Brown, guitarist Jeff Parker, and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Consisting of six original compositions by Abrams, it was recorded on September 26, 2016, at Electrical Audio in Chicago, and was released on vinyl and CD in 2020 by the Rogueart label.
Blissful is the second album by drummer Hamid Drake and his group Bindu. It was recorded on July 12 and 13, 2007, at Soma Electronic Music Studios in Chicago, Illinois, and was issued on CD in 2008 by Rogueart. On the album, Drake is joined by vocalist Dee Alexander, guitarists Joe Morris and Jeff Parker, and double bassists Josh Abrams and William Parker. Lyrics were written by the 18th-century poet Ramprasad Sen, and were excerpted from Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment by Lex Hixon.
Reggaeology is the third album by American drummer Hamid Drake and his group Bindu. Tracks 1 through 6 were recorded during May 6–8, 2009, at Soma Electronic Music Studios in Chicago, Illinois, while the remaining track was recorded on July 28, 2009, at Sape Shoppe Studio in Chicago. The recording, which blends jazz and reggae, was released on CD in 2010 by Rogueart. On the album, Drake is joined by vocalist Napoléon Maddox, who also provided most of the lyrics, trombonists Jeff Albert and Jeb Bishop, guitarist Jeff Parker, and double bassist Josh Abrams.
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