#isaiah collier

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Amerikkka The Ugly by Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few, live on KEXP

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❄️Ice Brice Game Winner 9/2/26❄️

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Listening Post: The Ancients

The zone of music that Isaiah Collier, William Parker, and William Hooker inhabit has been around for quite some time, and one could point to mid-20th century sax-bass-drum trios led by Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, and Albert Ayler as precedents for what they do. But if you A-B-ed their version of free, ecstatic jazz with earlier models, you’d not only hear the considerable energy that they generate together but its difference from earlier models. And given their diverse activities outside the trio, they might envision impacting all manner of cultural and spiritual action. 

Drummer William Hooker (b. 1946) first recorded in 1977, and while his music sometimes sounds like full-on free jazz, he has frequently recruited his fellow musicians from the rock realm or based on a shared enthusiasm for the spoken word. He’s usually heard leading bands, or occasionally in equal collaborations like his duo with Lee Ranaldo, but he’s made an exception to drum for William Parker. Parker (b. 1952) has been a part of the New York free jazz scene since the mid-1970s, when he played bass on Frank Lowe’s E.S.P. release Black Beings. He’s since written books, wielded a vast array of wind and stringed instruments, led big and small bands employing a myriad of improvisational and compositional methods, collaborated with singers and dancers, and backed eminences including Cecil Taylor, Peter Brötzmann and David S. Ware. Both men are based in New York. Saxophonist Isaiah Collier (b. 1998) is from Chicago. Like Parker, he things big; his recent multi-media work The 400 Years, is a thirteen-part consideration of African-American history from the slave trade to the present as told through music and movement. 

Parker had worked separately with the other two musicians prior to their formation as a trio for three concerts in Los Angeles and San Francisco in May, 2023. Their debut LP, The Ancients, was released by Eremite in the USA and Aguirre in Europe in January, 2025. It offers four side-long excerpts from the May concerts that showcase their purposeful synthesis of energy and expression. 

Bio by Bill Meyer

Ian Mathers: As one of the Dusted folks less familiar with/knowledgeable in the many facets of jazz, I admit I was a bit intimidated here; 90 minutes of free jazz seems a lot more daunting to me than, say, listening to the almost-as-long Water Damage LP from last year. But this afternoon I had a sustained burst of editing to take care of at my day job, so I threw on The Ancients as I got going, and that hour and a half practically flew by. I know I've tried listening to free jazz sporadically before (generally with pleasure, although for whatever reason it's not something I tend to reach for) but this is just about the easiest it's ever gone down. And yet the sets here don't feel diluted or entry-level at all (as far as I can tell as a neophyte). I was mostly paying conscious attention to Collier's sax, but all three trio members felt like they kept my attention. Am I just finally at a point in my life where jazz is starting to click more, or can those more already attuned to the nuances here tell me the ways this is exceptional?

Bill Meyer: Ian, you have gone straight to the point. In any genre, there's stuff that's good, stuff that's just okay and the rest. This album is the good stuff. It is accessible inasmuch as this music, while improvised, is played with a deep commitment to stating the groove. I think that's partly a function of the Hooker-Parker relationship. In his own bands, Hooker leads from the front and the rest of the musicians have to catch up. With Parker, I think he understands himself to be performing a different role and so the two of them are really locked into each other's playing. Another aspect contributing to accessibility is that I think that Collier is is in touch with song forms even when he's not playing a song. 

Bryon Hayes: You both have managed to articulate my thoughts on this recording.  The groove and the pacing of the Parker-Hooker rhythm section, and the way that they distribute their combined energies throughout each set, really kept me riveted.  I've heard both of these gentlemen in different settings and with different collaborators but never together, and they seem deeply in tune with each other here.  I'm also not an expert in the free jazz world, so I usually go by how a recording impacts me when deciding if I like it or not: whether I'm getting punched in the guts or whether I'm being probed in the emotional center of the brain.  This one falls in the latter category, as it feels rooted in soulfulness, especially Collier's playing - even when he's blowing his lungs out, there are little snatches of melody that really sing.  I really dig it. 

Bill Meyer: I’m certainly not an expert on Collier’s work, but because I live in Chicago I’ve had some opportunities to see him in diverse settings. Aside from the bands he leads, he sometimes sits in with other people; I’ve seen him with ensembles led by Hamid Drake and William Parker, where he does some AACM-style little instrument coloration as well as play saxophone. And I once saw a very curious solo concert where he mainly played sampler, coming up with something that sounded like a collage of some basement noise and solo keyboard fragments of contemporary r&b. 

In this trio, he seems very clear about his roll. He’s the spearhead, the focus of the rhythm section’s energy as well as his own. 

Jennifer Kelly: Okay, with the usual disclaimers about my not-super-familiarity or comfort with free improv, I’m finding that I like the third track the best, “2023-05-13 LA Set II.” Maybe that’s because it lets the bass and drums lead for an extended opening, at first a barely audible rumble of low-end and hands on drums, and then more of a conventional swing on cymbals with Parker’s bass bubbling up in synchrony and Collier, just sort of growling on sax.  His first long tone blows in like a fly swooping over, the tone dopplering against a swaggering rhythm.  And then you get the sort of song part of the piece, which is most of it, and I like the way the three principals meet, but very loosely, coming at the groove from different directions, everybody on his own trip but swerving suddenly back into the thick of it.  I hear them all echoing the same rhythm but not at the same time, one long note then a couple of short ones, daaah di di daah di di daah di di, and it works like machinery warped subtly out of true, volatile, intersecting, not quite making a monolith. 

Tim Clarke: I'm glad you mentioned the third piece, Jenny, as it's definitely my favorite on the record. It harnesses a particular feel between the players that really caught my ear. Noir / spy movie perhaps? The rest of the music, though clearly executed with sensitivity, frustrated my relatively straightforward ears. Just when the players seemed to be coalescing into something resembling a unified theme or groove that they could all dig into and explore thoroughly, someone would break away and the potential would be lost. I can hear the appeal of this music, but either don't have the patience to let it roam freely in the way it does, or simply need to be more familiar with the ways in which jazz musicians can flex song forms. 

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Isaiah Collier, Tyrese Haliburton, and Myles Turner 2024-25 NBA Regular Season

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Isaiah Collier - Parallel Universe - a hot direct-to-disc session for Night Dreamer, featuring Jimetta Rose on vocals

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Isaiah Collier connects with the divine ancestors on a transcendent Direct-To-Disc session, Parallel Universe. Chicago-based innovator and educator Isaiah Collier is opening up new dimensions in the jazzwise continuum. A saxophonist by trade whose multi-instrumental talents and compositional prowess have stretched the limits of the form, Parallel Universe represents a new chapter in Collier’s musical journey. Having already performed with a diverse range of musicians such as Chance The Rapper, Waddada Leo Smith, Chicago jazz royalty Angel Bat Dawid and his own band The Chosen Few, Collier’s latest work as a bandleader explores the shared musical heritage of the African diaspora with a sense of grace and assurance that belies his years. Embracing the risk and vulnerability that comes with the live process, Collier and his band tapped into the frequencies of improvisation that fired up so many of the most timeless jazz recordings. “Recording direct-to-disc gave me a really fortunate opportunity to experience what our musical predecessors almost a hundred years ago were dealing with,” he explains. Name-checking Sun Ra, Ras G, J Dilla, Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Gil Scott-Heron, Whitney Huston, Aaliyah and Frankie Knuckles, the opening of track of Parallel Universe imagines a genreless musical lineage that resonates with the polyphony of stories his band bring to the table, from Chicago and beyond. Featuring gospel soul singer Jimetta Rose, AACM and former Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpet player Corey Wilkes, blues-rooted guitarist Michael Damani, regular collaborators Julian Davis Reid, James Russell Sims and Micah Collier, the 8-track album bristles with a sense of love and understanding between players at the top of their game. “Give me that feeling that makes me feel like I’m alive,” Collier enthuses. “People can tell when you’re taking chances. I know that’s what everybody is looking for.”  Saxophone, Flute, Vocals, Keys - Isaiah Collier Vocals - Jimetta Rose Keys - Julian Reid Bass - Micah Collier Trumpet -Corey Wilkes Drums - James Russell Sims Guitar - Michael Damani Kalimba - Ra Additional Vocals - Sonny Daze Recorded, mixed and mastered by Martijn Schouten Cut by Patrick De Looper at Artone Studio Produced by Sonny Daze Recorded at Artone Studio on Thursday 9th & Friday 10th March 2023

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Jaren Jackson Jr & the Jazz Bench get teched for celebrating Bez Mbeng's first career triple double

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OG Anunoby, Isaiah Collier, Precious Achiuwa, and Kyle Filipowski 2024-25 NBA Regular Season

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I AM - Beyond - spiritual jazz explorations and explosions from sax/drums duo

I AM is the combination of Isaiah Collier on Woodwinds and Michael Shekwoaga Ode on Drums. This album was recorded on June 23rd, 2021 at Chicago Recording Company. This recording was inspired partly by a solo exchange between the duo during the 5th movement on the acclaimed Cosmic Transitions, entitled "Mercury's Retrograde". The one goal for the album was to go "Beyond". The Album features an introduction by Sound Healer Therapist and Poet Jimmy Chan. This guest was a surprise delivered to the Musicians upon their arrival by producer Sonny Daze. "We did soundcheck as the rain began to pour down. Jimmy set up his gong and singing bowls and once we were ready to record, I opened the door to his space and said we are probably going to name this record "Beyond" and then closed the door" Sonny explained. Beyond finds both Isaiah and Michael searching deep within their individual Spiritual consciousness to communicate the understanding that there is something "Beyond" the limitations of the physical world and the understandings of everyday life. The one focus of this album is to take the listener on a journey that is rare, uncompromising to any understanding other than the desire to tap into the higher forces in the universe and deliver that message to the World. Isaiah Collier: Saxophones, World Instruments Michael Shekwoaga Ode: Drums Jimmy Chan: Gong, Singing Bowls, World Instruments, Vocals