The Roulette Tapes

A project launched by Tim Spelios and David Weinstein in the 80s, Impossible Music features cutup, montaged, recycled material, lopsided grooves, appropriated, restored, or reconstituted audio, new and legacy technologies, loops of contrasting and colliding musics, sound effects, disembodied vocal tracks, and noise merged into panoramic constructions. Illustrated with a 2004 performance at Roulette and artist commentary. Photo by Beatriz Cardoso Guimarães.

Composer, harpist, and multi-instrumentalist Zeena Parkins introduces the projects Phantom Orchard with electronic percussion artist Ikue Mori and a duo with electronic sound artist Laetitia Sonami. Alongside excerpts from performances at Roulette, Parkins discuses process, technique, and history. Parkins returns to Roulette on Oct. 24, 2024 with Ikue Mori and their Phantom Orchard project.

Bassist, composer, and activist Luke Stewart is best known as an accomplished  jazz musician, but he is also an innovator of techniques incorporating feedback as an extension of his sound. This edition features Stewart’s commentary on his musical trajectory as well as the role of liberation politics in music. With excerpts from the Feedback Ensemble with cellist Leila Bordreuil, and the composition “Assassinations” with ensemble Irreversible Entanglements. Stewart also discusses his Silt Trio with Brian Settles, sax, and drummers Trae Crudup and Chad Taylor. Stewart presents that trio at Roulette as part of an album release concert for "Unknown Rivers" on 12 Sept. 2024.

Improvisers John Zorn (alto sax, game calls) and Michihiro Sato (shamisen, three-stringed banjo-like instrument) in a 1985 performance at Roulette. Rescued from a reel-to-reel tape and documenting an early chapter in the downtown improv scene, the concert came shortly after the release of the duo's album Ganru Island, since re-released on Tzadik Records.

Admired as a bold saxophonist (and also sometimes guitarist, vocalist, pianist), composer Zoh Amba traces a journey from a difficult Tennessee childhood to musical and spiritual revelation. The remarks are coupled with excerpts from two performances at Roulette: the Bhakti project (2022, with Micah Thomas, piano; Thomas Morgan, bass; Marc Edwards, drums; and Matt Hollenberg, guitar) and Sun Quartet (2024, with Lex Korten, piano; Caroline Morton, bass; and Miguel Marcel Russell, drums). The Quartet emerged from a Roulette commission and is built using graphic scores and variations of devotional hymns.

The trombonist Jim Staley traces his path from playing in a Vietnam-era Army band and as an orchestral musician; through encounters with influential mentors and techniques; and musical awakenings that led to a career as a master improviser and Director of Roulette, the New York City concert series. With musical appearances by John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Chris Cochrane, Derek Bailey, Joey Baron, Kyoko Kitamura, and Cyro Baptista with recordings captured between 1986 and 2015. Staley will be honored with an all-star Gala at Roulette on June 6, 2024.

The cellist/composer/improviser in commentary with excerpts from several performances at Roulette: his own Transfer 01 and Metahaven projects; collaborative works with guitarist Wendy Eisenberg, drummer Ryan Sawyer, vocalist Charmaine Lee, violist Joanna Mattrey; and yuniya edi kwon's Sun Han Guild. St. Louis has also worked with jaimie branch, Isabel Crespo Pardo, Ka Baird, the Vision Festival, and for Spectrum, the Brooklyn experimental arts venue.

Bassist, composer, and improviser Brandon Lopez in solo, duo, and ensemble works recorded at Roulette alongside the artist's commentary on technique, process, influences, and the unexpected. With appearances by collaborators Steve Baczkowski (sax), gabby fluke-mogul and Marina Kifferstein (violins), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Michael Foster (sax), Ben Bennett, (percussion), Gerald Cleaver (drums), and Cecilia Lopez (electronics). The title Lopez refers to looks like this: vilevilevilevilevile...

The composer Ches Smith in a collection of excerpts from performances at Roulette featuring Smith on drums, percussion, vibraphone, drum machine, and electronics. The artist provides background on his wide-ranging band projects including a Haitian ceremonial concert with drummer Daniel Brevil plus ensembles with Bill Frisell, guitar; Craig Taborn, piano; Matt Maneri, viola; Mary Halvorson, guitar; Devin Hoff, bass, and many more stellar players. Smith’s 2024 album, Laugh Ash, will be celebrated in a release concert at Roulette on March 20, 2024.

Vocalist, composer, and electronic musician Charmaine Lee with commentary on and excerpts from four performances at the Roulette concert hall in Brooklyn from 2017-2021 with bits of the works Ceremony and Papillae, an appearance at the Resonant Bodies Festival, plus solos and collaborations with violist Joanna Mattrey, cellist Lester St. Louis, trumpeter Nate Wooley, and electronics with Conrad Tao. Raised by Hong Kong émigrés in Australia, educated at Princeton and New England Conservatory, Charmaine Lee is now a major contributor to the New York experimental music scene. A recipient of Roulette’s Van Lier Fellowship, Lee returns to Roulette as part of the Mixology Festival on 10 Feb. 2024.