Pause & Effect

This extraordinary NYC trio combines free jazz and post-punk with pointed commentary about issues of race, gender, the pandemic, and political autonomy.

Rose Tang, a Mongol from Sichuan, sings/recites and plays guitar, piano, and percussion. Her album with Roses & Roaches, And Yet We Ain’t Alone, was released by 577 earlier this year. Mentored by free jazz legend Daniel Carter, Tang plays in about 30 bands and ensembles in New York and Seattle. Her music, which she hates to be labeled, may be called punk rock, post-punk, free jazz, spoken word, experimental improv, avant garde, or Chinese rock and folk. Tang calls her music genre “weird shit.” She is also a journalist and was a protester at Tiananmen Square.

Tenor saxophonist Ayumi Ishito, from Japan, plays in a plethora of bands along the jazz/rock spectrum. She spent three years studying performance and composition at Berklee, where her instructors included George Garzone, Hal Crook, and Frank Tiberi. In 2017, Ayumi joined Marc Edwards & Slipstream Time Travel, led by Marc Edwards, former drummer of Cecil Taylor’s band. She has also worked with Daniel Carter, Dave Sewelson, Elliott Levin, and Steve Dalachinsky. Currently, Ayumi is a regular member of The Jazz Thieves, GADADU, Eighty-pound Pug, Platypus Revenge, and Big Squid. Ayumi has been leading her own group since 2011. She released two albums of her original compositions, View from a Little Cave (2016) and Midnite Cinema (2019).

Drummer, composer, and educator Wen-Ting Wu, from Taiwan, combines jazz drive and classical rigor. She was a member of Golden Melody Award-winning band Chang & Lee and Hello Nico in Taiwan before she moved to New York in 2016 and earned her Master of Jazz Performance Degree in Queens College. Wen-Ting has performed at festivals including the Washington Square Music Festival, CUNY Jazz Festival, the NTCH Summer Jazz Festival (National Theater Concert Hall), Taichung Jazz Festival, Golden Melody Festival, GonGliao Rock Festival, the Wake-Up Music Festival, and the NTU Art Festival in Taiwan. Besides being a member in Frank Lacy’s Concert Jazz Ensemble currently, she leads her own band.

The group came together to play one song at an event. ESP-Disk’, already familiar with the separate work on the NYC scene of all three members, immediately invited them to make an album. After intensive rehearsals, the members recorded the album in a one-day session, then reunited during the pandemic to add words about its effect to an existing instrumental on “8 Steps/7 O’Clock.” This album is simultaneously part of ESP-Disk's Drive To Revive Weird Rock and an extension of the label's famed free-jazz legacy.

Credits:

Rose Tang: voice & electric guitar (side A), piano (side B), percussion (A4)

Ayumi Ishito: tenor saxophone, voice (A4)

Wen-Ting Wu: drums, voice (A4)

Recorded by Jim Clouse at Park West Studio on December 16, 2019 and September 3, 2020 (“7 O’Clock”).

Mixed at Park West Studio by Jim Clouse and Ayumi Ishito

Steve Holtje: producer

Sherri Rubel: photos

Track Listing:

A1. Gimme a Mic                                2:58

A2. Who Flung Dung                         7:22

A3. Flames with No Names            7:49

A4. 8 Steps/7 O’Clock                       3:54

B1. Conversation                              24:57