Selected reviews

Liner Notes - Consensual Tension

I figured it would be more or less a pairing of known musical personalities. What I had not figured was how absolutely different both Mark and Sabir sounded when paired together. Here were color and dynamics bearing little resemblance to what I thought I knew...
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Looking East - Review at AAJ

Sabir Mateen occupying the late Glenn Spearman’s position. As expected, Mateen, on sax, clarinet, and flute, ccompanies Malik’s scattered, urgent excursions perfectly.
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Waking the Living - Liner Notes

"hey EARTH PEOPLE - what wonderful sounds, sure increased my bliss. thanks. hope there's more to come since sound is empty, unarisen and unceasing. bleassings" - Phil Sentner, Peacham, VT
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Simple ... Isn't It? - Reviews and Quotes

"Simple ... Isn't It?? is a truly magnificent document - yous guys really made a fantastic effort!! i congratulate you on achieveing such a worth result!!!" - Meg Montgomery (trumpetress, composer, engineer/producer)
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Earth People - Now Is Rising - Reviews

It was all in place for magic in the studio! The varied members of Earth People were wailing in spontaneous creativity.
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BANG! from New York City - Liner Note

"as a way of expressing my appreciation for the hospitality you showed me last Sunday, please accept this little poem..." A note from Jerry Schwartz
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Review - Breathing Together

The overarching focus of the musicians gathered was to play a wholly improvised, spontaneously created series of works, demonstrating the fertility and expressiveness of free and collective creativity.
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Celestial Communication Orchestra - Reviews

The "Treasure Box" is as much an art artifact as it is an exemplary document of Alan Silva’s consummate skill as a composer, big band leader, arranger, and improviser. Presented as two individually hand-painted fold out 12" x 12" panels (no two are alike) with a pair of CDs in either side, the visual presentation, stunning as it is, only hints at what beauty and innovation lie in digital code on the discs themselves.
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Double Sunrise Over Neptune - Review at AAJ

Following Roy Campbell's Akhenaten Suite and Bill Dixon's 17 Musicians in Search of a Sound: Darfur, bassist William Parker's Double Sunrise Over Neptune is the third release from AUM Fidelity this year to document premiere performances from the 2007 Vision Festival.
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SAMA - Review at Music and More Blog

Pianist Matthew Shipp and multi-instrumentalist Sabir Mateen make for fascinating duet partners on this album, which is an eight part suite of completely improvised music recorded at the Roulette Studio in New York City.
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Dharma - review at AAJ

Dharma documents a 2004 performance at CBGB's by two of New York's finest "free jazz" players. Blowing both hot and cold, the forty-odd minute performance shows a relentless energy and creativity on the part of both musicians as they work through a broad range of sounds and textures.
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Not on Earth…. in Your Soul

With this LP we are treated with one of the most inspiring and energetic free-jazz performances of the year. The amazing drumming by Andrew Barker, the back and forth action between the two horn players and the chanted vocals make for an exhilarating and ecstatic experience. Also great about the label is their use of artwork. This one in particular is breathtaking. The musicians are captured in a moment which perfectly reflects their joyful and energetic playing.
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URDLA XXX - Review at AAJ

It must have been some surprise when Sabir Mateen, already playing, strode into the centre of URDLA, the Parisian engraving workshop where a hundred guests were convened for a celebration of its 30th anniversary. Mateen had been commissioned as a special guest to appear on the stroke of midnight. Solo concerts are not the rite of passage they were for a saxophonist back in the 1970s test bed of free jazz creativity, and their infrequency means it still takes a healthy dose of chutzpah to expose oneself to such scrutiny.
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Other Places Other Spaces at DMG

One of the highlights of my day here at DMG is when our friend Sabir Mateen comes to visit us. Sabir is a gifted reeds wizard and a gracious spirit.
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Sabir Mateen Quartet - review by Stef

Mateen has always been a free jazz man in heart and soul, enjoying the rhythms, enjoying the freedom, enjoying the expressiveness, enjoying the interplay, and going at it to the full. Mateen is great on this album, and so is the band, and they are at their best in the high energy full steam moments, when the four musicians push each other forward relentlessly.
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The Sound Visions Orchestra - Reviews

Silva keeps the faith, putting his thunderous juggernaut ensemble through its turbulent swirling paces. Sleevenotes come from Marion Brown's writings on John Coltrane, & the aspirational surge of Ascension reverberates throughout Visions.
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Review - Brothers Together

...This is a scorching session & the closing piece, 'New Life Dance,' makes half an hour pass by in seeming seconds. Mateen is a versatile reedman & his clarinet playing in particular deserves attention, full of dark power & illuminated with a quality the much heralded Don Byron can only dream of.
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The Sound Visions Orchestra - Review at AAJ

Alan Silva’s Sound Visions Orchestra seemed the ideal vehicle to usher in the ten celebratory days of community-empowering creative music.
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Review - Sharps and Flats

The program features six tracks with quintet recorded in '85, followed by a warm chunk of '79 PAPA playing a Sharps composition live. The music is rich and urbane, unafraid of appealing melodies and varying time signatures.
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Consensual Tension - Review at All About Jazz

Whitecage (alto) and Mateen (tenor) trade some serious heat while Fonda and Sorgen swing or rumble and tumble in support of the clever and fire breathing improv from the saxophonists.
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Review - Divine Mad Love

Mateen seeks the freedom & accepts the responsibilities of playing only what he's dreamed up from deep within.
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Consensual Tension - Review at All Music Guide

The playing is tight and the solos riveting, particularly when the two horns go hand-to-hand. Whitecage and Mateen seem to anticipate each other's every move, and the cover art by Kara Rusch of two fingers pulling a wishbone to its near-breaking point is a good depiction of the tension throughout.
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Research On the Edge - Liner Notes

My interest in recording this particular group was motivated first because of my confidence in capturing an exceptional standard of artistry.
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Review - Secrets of When

Recorded in 2001, this date from the Sabir Mateen Quintet runs the gamut. This is ensemble playing as it tracks the improvisationally uncharted. The sense of aesthetic and dynamic employed by this band is startling in many cases...
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Raphe Malik ConSequences - Reviews

Mateen first came to my notice as a voice deserving further recognition on Marc Edwards excellent ‘Red Sprites and Blue Jets’ on CIMP. He is now appearing on a gratifying number of recordings and his performance here gives ample testimony as to why this should be so.
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Incomplete Directions - Review at AAJ

Poet Steve Dalachinsky has the type of voice that those of us who don’t live in New York City often associate with denizens of that metropolis. It produces words in a deliberate and matter of fact fashion with inflections that are equally restrained and pronounced.
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The Distance Between Us - Review

The Distance Between Us fills with broken glass, smart bombs, and unmarked mass graves. A lone voice crooning like Arthur Prysock to the accompaniment of tom toms rises up from this cleft of consternation. This is the opening scene to a passion play of conflicting aspirations and lost innocence. This is the first exhalation of redemptive sound issuing from William Hooker's latest recording.
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The Distance Between Us - Review at AAJ

“The Distance Between Us” is a well-conceived effort which at times, takes on the semblance of a “Best Of” compilation...
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Moon Blue Boogie - Review at AAJ

One of three so called, “extremely limited releases”, here “Mark Whitecage & Eclectic Electric” are caught live at New York City’s “Knitting Factory” and “Cornelia Street Cafe” venues.
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Review - Prophecies Come to Pass

Recorded live in Brooklyn in September 2005, the CD was edited by Mateen and Swell and mastered under Mateen’s direction. It's dedicated to the late great Raphe Malik, who at one time played with the group.
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Review - Getting Away With Murder

A 45 minute improvisation requires pace and intellect; Mateen's meditative, Lowe-like intimacy is just what is required. When the sax lays out for nine minutes, Bruno's fluid ebullience comes to the fore. Mateen's concluding flourish lets in some subway ambiance...
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Review - We Are Not at the Opera

These four duets with Sabir Mateen, a strong multi-instrumentalist & a rapidly growing presence in the catalogs of such hardcore free jazz labels as Eremite & Aum Fidelity, provide a full airing of the many facets of Murray's drumming.
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Two nights with Sabir Mateen

On this album, Sabire Mateen is co-leader with Norwegian saxophonist Frode Gjerstad, and with Steve Swell on trombone, Clif Jackson on bass and David Gould on drums.
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