Core-Distal
Original album artwork by Jacquelyne Collett (2021)
Featured Track:
The fifth release in the Metal and Wood series, Core-Distal (CUR006) features Hunter Diamond in improvisation with Quin Kirchner.
Hunter Diamond // saxophone, clarinet, percussion
Quin Kirchner // drums, percussion, sampler electronics
Released November 4th, 2022
The Metal and Wood project is a series of live improvisations between woodwind artist Hunter Diamond and various drummers living in the United States. Captured in different locations in Chicago and New Orleans, these recordings document Diamond’s ongoing interest in the saxophone-drums duo pairing made historic by legendary collaborations between John Coltrane & Rashied Ali, Archie Shepp & Max Roach, Dewey Redman & Ed Blackwell, Charles Lloyd & Billy Higgins, Joe McPhee & Hamid Drake, and many others.
Specters of narrative sneak in and around the duo’s coalesced imagination: unlocked drum grooves dancing along with with sampled and manipulated textures of semi-recognizable origin; cacophonous pulses of pre-historic assembly lines; a swaying bamboo forrest, testing the outer limits of minimalist durational melody; an audio time lapse in a centuries-old cathedral; garish clarinet like a caged rare bird summoning its kin and revolting for release.
Perigee
Original album artwork by Jacquelyne Collett (2021)
Featured Track:
The fourth release in the Metal and Wood series, Perigee (CUR005) features Hunter Diamond in collaboration with Lucas Gillan.
Hunter Diamond // saxophone, clarinet, singing bowl.
Lucas Gillan // drums
Released May 6th, 2022
The Metal and Wood project is a series of live improvisations between woodwind artist Hunter Diamond and various drummers living in the United States. Captured in different locations in Chicago and New Orleans, these recordings document Diamond’s ongoing interest in the saxophone-drums duo pairing made historic by legendary collaborations between John Coltrane & Rashied Ali, Archie Shepp & Max Roach, Dewey Redman & Ed Blackwell, Charles Lloyd & Billy Higgins, Joe McPhee & Hamid Drake, and many others.
Diamond and Gillan unfurl a collection of transcendental folk narratives in their addition to the legacy of freely improvised saxophone and drum duos. Perigee captures them in deep melodic and textural meditations that unfolded during a pre-pandemic live performance at Chicago's beloved house of creative work, Elastic Arts Foundation. Through close connective listening the duo swerve nimbly between metered groove and non-pulsed sound canvases. This document shows the influence of earth-bound reed/drum duos like Lloyd/Higgins and McPhee/Drake as opposed to the more stratospheric reachings Coltrane/Ali or Redman/Blackwell. Diamond's diverse contributions as a multi-instrumentalist sound artist in the current Chicago Creative Music community continue beautifully with this release.
Bywater
Original album artwork by Jacquelyne Collett (2021)
Featured Track:
The third release in the Metal and Wood series, Bywater (CUR004) features Hunter Diamond in collaboration with Justin Peake.
Hunter Diamond // saxophone, clarinet, spoken word
Justin Peake // drums, electronics
Released March 4th, 2022
The Metal and Wood project is a series of live improvisations between woodwind artist Hunter Diamond and various drummers living in the United States. Captured in different locations in Chicago and New Orleans, these recordings document Diamond’s ongoing interest in the saxophone-drums duo pairing made historic by legendary collaborations between John Coltrane & Rashied Ali, Archie Shepp & Max Roach, Dewey Redman & Ed Blackwell, Charles Lloyd & Billy Higgins, Joe McPhee & Hamid Drake, and many others.
Captured in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans, this recording simultaneously animates the creative and aesthetic spirits of both Chicago and New Orleans. Traversing between avant-astral, swamp swing, and experimental ambient, the sounds represents the currents of creative music at both ends Mississippi river, reaching both backward and forward in time while commenting directly on the present.
Nilia
Original album artwork by Jacquelyne Collett (2021)
Featured Track:
The second release in the Metal and Wood series, CUR003 features Hunter Diamond in collaboration with Mike Reed.
Hunter Diamond // saxophone, clarinet, percussion.
Mike Reed // drums
Released December 3rd, 2021
The Metal and Wood project is a series of live improvisations between woodwind artist Hunter Diamond and various drummers living in the United States. Captured in different locations in Chicago and New Orleans, these recordings document Diamond’s ongoing interest in the saxophone-drums pairing made historic by legendary collaborations between John Coltrane & Rashied Ali, Archie Shepp & Max Roach, Dewey Redman & Ed Blackwell, Charles Lloyd & Billy Higgins, Joe McPhee & Hamid Drake, and many others.
“the drums-and-reeds duo of Mike Reed and Hunter Diamond exemplify the city’s robust avant-garde community” - Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader
Thank you to Jacquelyne Collett for committing to this vision, to Marine for the unending support, and to Mike for the ongoing exploration.
We Stand
Original album artwork by Jacquelyne Collett (2021)
Featured Track:
The first in the Metal and Wood series, We Stand (CUR002) features woodwind artist Hunter Diamond in improvisation with Chicago drummer Charles Rumback .
Hunter Diamond // saxophone, clarinet, percussion, voice.
Charles Rumback // drums
Released December 3rd 2021
The Metal and Wood project is a series of live improvisations between Hunter Diamond and various drummers living in the United States. Captured in different locations in Chicago and New Orleans, these recordings document Diamond’s ongoing interest in the saxophone-drums duo pairing made historic by legendary collaborations between John Coltrane & Rashied Ali, Archie Shepp & Max Roach, Dewey Redman & Ed Blackwell, Charles Lloyd & Billy Higgins, Joe McPhee & Hamid Drake, and many others.
REFLECTIVE NOSTALGIA
Cover photograph: “Self-Portrait” (2019) by Hunter Diamond
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Reflective Nostalgia is my debut solo album, captured while revisiting the landscape of my native North Florida. Recorded while in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, you’ll hear the site-specific sounds of the ACA amphitheater and surrounding environment. This recording is a reflection on past studies of jazz and current interest in improvised and experimental music. You'll hear Diamond solely playing the tenor saxophone (currently a rare occurrence) in conversation with the natural and mechanistic sonic landscape: cicadas and trains, crickets and planes, thunder and a/c units.
Many thanks to Nicole Mitchell, Cornelius Eady, the artists of ACA residency 174, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Lexa Walsh, Luminarts Cultural Foundation, Dave Zuchowski, Marine Tempels, and the creatures and machines that accompanied me for the recording.
Released August 6th, 2021 on Curio Records
Available on CD through Curio Records. For digital/streaming options, visit Bandcamp
BLACK DIAmond - “A HELD SPACE”
Released on November 7th, 2020 on Woolgathering Records, “A Held Space” captures the emotional scope of a day-long improvisation with Artie Black. In post-production, we layered sections of the raw recordings to create meditative and evocative quasi-song structures.
“Black and Diamond’s augmenting of their in-the-moment work stops short of straightforward overdubbing and has the effect of deepening their spontaneity and the acute degree to which they are a meeting of musical minds. The results are several country miles from the surface bluster that for me mars so much of the music that slots too easily into the contemporary jazz category.”
Featured Track:
Black Diamond - “Chant”
Album art and design by Marine Tempels
Released on February 15th, 2019, “Chant” (Shifting Paradigm Records) is the second release from my collaborative project with saxophonist/composer Artie Black.
“…no matter which direction either the quartet or its individual members’ goes, their music always has a watm, welcoming feeling - hearing it is like running into an old friend who’s ecstatic to see you.”
-Izzy Yellen, Chicago Reader
featured track:
“Henrylle” was written after attending a concert by the Andrew Cyrille/Bill McHenry duo at the 2017 Hyde Park Jazz Festival.
Black Diamond - “Mandala”
Album art and design by Marine Tempels
Black Diamond’s debut album “Mandala” (Shifting Paradigm Records) was released August 11th, 2017. Co-written and co-produced with saxophonist/composer Artie Black, this album represents seven years of collaborative writing, improvising, and friendship.
“The combination of the two tenors is extraordinary... the music is spirited and passionate throughout.”
- Downbeat Magazine
“They embrace a buoyancy and airiness that most contemporary saxophonists avoid in favor of something heavier and more fiery; together they evoke Lennie Tristano acolytes Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz - in their timbre, in their elegant unison lines, and in the way they solo together, braiding improvised patterns that effortlessly shimmer and float.”
- Chicago Reader