Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings – Renegades

Description

Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings – Renegades
Delmark DE 587
Compact Disc (2009)

Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings (BES), rides at the forefront of jazz, new music, and creative improvisation. Mitchell’s “rough and edgy” aesthetic rebels from the flowery sweet flute and string stereotype that runs rampant in jazz, making Renegades an appropriate title for the project. On Renegades, Mitchell’s compositions bring African rhythms, contemporary sounds and swinging improvisation to a chamber music setting. Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings concept started in 1997, but this is the group’s first commercial recording. The CD features Nicole Mitchell on flute, alto flute, piccolo, Renee Baker, violin + viola; Tomeka Reid, cello; Joshua Abrams, bass + gimbre; and Shirazette Tinnin, drum set + percussion.