Pi Recordings

07/13/2024

Thank you to and all the critics who voted in this year’s poll. We appreciate the recognition and support. That’s mighty fine company and many friends on that list.

More to come from….
.tyshawnsorey_official

2024 and beyond….

07/12/2024

We’ve ordered our copy. Been waiting for to drop this and excited to dive in once it arrives. Reach out directly to Phil for your copy.

Maybe this weekend will be a CT weekend. Phil, you should put a playlist together of some of your favorite and essential CT listening.

Taking on Cecil as a subject can’t be easy. Congrats.

07/11/2024

Peter Margasak reviews Kim Cass's Levs in The Wire! "The bassist wrote the thorny, hyper-complex music from the perspective of the bass without giving too much thought to how the rest of the instrumentation might fit. That choice demanded an agile set of collaborators, and Mitchell takes up the gauntlet with typical enthusiasm, immersing himself in the difficult, high-velocity material as if it was his own. Polymath Tyshawn Sorey was an astute choice for the drums, masterfully finding his way through these dense tunes to add deep rhythmic thrust while also parsing the tricky patterns like it was a game."

07/09/2024

Kim Cass's Levs reviewed in Something Else: "Like his main supporting players, Cass is absolutely fearless as a technician, and his scores push him out toward the far out limits of his abilities, inspiring his colleagues to likewise stretch.... A breathtaking ride."

07/08/2024

Kim Cass's Levs reviewed in Jazz Trail: "The band’s musicianship and extraordinary coordinated interchange are excellent, establishing Cass as an essential name within the future of jazz."

Label: Pi Recordings, 2024 Personnel - Kim Cass: bass, sampling; Matt Mitchell: piano, Prophet-6; Tyshawn Sorey: drums; Adam Dotson: euphonium; Laura C***s: flutes.

07/04/2024

Is it his birthday today, August 4th… does it matter? is playing all day long and… is there a reason not to tune-in? We don’t think so.

If it makes ‘ya happy, do it.

07/04/2024

Feels like a fitting way to kick off the 4th. and co. with some beautiful thoughts and observations. Dialoguing from the get… check it out while you’re grilling.

07/02/2024

I feel like we’re sharing secret sauce here or something…. Or maybe it’s more like a mathematical proof… you e gotta see it and hear it to get it.

Whatever it is it’s on paper and from there you gotta get it in your ears. “Levs” .tyshawnsorey_official

This is “Rumple”….

07/02/2024

Fred Cisterna reviews bassist Kim Cass's Levs for Qobuz: "intensely focused explosions of virtuosity... The result is gorgeous."

Listen to unlimited streaming or download Levs by Kim Cass in Hi-Res quality on Qobuz. Subscriptions from $10.83/month.

07/01/2024

Kim Cass's Levs with Matt Mitchell and Tyshawn Sorey featured in Phil Freeman's Month in Jazz column for Stereogum, where he calls it "heavy and thrilling stuff."

Plus: the best new jazz releases of the month.

06/28/2024

Happy release day for bassist Kim Cass's Levs, with Matt Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey, Laura C***s and Adam Dotson. Tyshawn had this to say about Kim and his music: "highly-concentrated, thought-provoking, forward-probing, incredibly demanding, and totally idiosyncratic. He is one of the greatest bass players on the planet who possesses a singular vocabulary as a composer and player: the man can do things that can be and CANNOT be done on the bass.”

Brooklyn bassist Kim Cass' debut recording for Pi Recordings, featuring Matt Mitchell and Tyshawn Sorey. Levs is out May 3rd.

06/10/2024

Looking forward to hearing these guys hit next week. Thank you to John Zorn, the Stone and for creating a space for multi-night performances of creative music.

From Wednesday the 19th through Saturday the 22nd one set a night at 8:30PM, .rickman1 and Matt Mitchell will be playing new music. This is Five Elements first New York City hit since summer of ‘22 and first multi-night stand since the Village Vanguard in 2018.

Come on out.

06/08/2024

There’s always a bit of excitement when you pop a physical disc on after listening to the digital for so long, not that there’s anything wrong with digital… on a good system sounds great. But seeing and holding the finished disc is always nice.

That feels doubly true with “Levs”, Kim Cass’ first release as a leader with us. We’ll be posting plenty about this music in the upcoming weeks and months. But if your reference point for Kim to date has been mostly as a bass player, his writing is about to knock you down. The music is so thoroughly through-composed and played so precisely, thank you Matt Mitchell and .tyshawnsorey_official, that you’ll be playing this on repeat for a while.

Sitting back as I write this listening to “Ripley”. Just beautiful. “Levs” is out end of June. Check it out.

05/19/2024

A loving piece on an institution and the man responsible for it. has been at the center of so much music and supportive of so many artists. Roulette continues and the work of Jim Staley lives on. Thank you and for shining a light.

We’re looking forward to gathering at Roulette once again this June for Vision Festival. See you there.

Photos by

05/10/2024

More love for from the hometown paper, which is always nice when the hometown paper is . Thank you for picking Luke’s “Seek Whence” for this week’s Playlist.

If you’re in Brooklyn or Manhattan next week come out and hear Luke, and at on Tuesday and on Thursday.

While we’re at it, shoutouts two others contributors to the recording that is “Unknown Rivers”. sounded amazing this past weekend performing with as the Chicago Underground Duo and liner notes for “Unknown Rivers” are beautiful. Thank you both.

05/07/2024

It's an incomparable thrill when an artist whom we have been working with for so long wins a major award. Congratulations, Tyshawn!

The composer and instrumentalist was honored for “Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith),” an unconventional concerto written for saxophone and orchestra.

05/06/2024

So much love for this man. No one more deserving. No one who stuns us more. Congrats .tyshawnsorey_official To ne nominated for a once is an honor. To be nominated two years in a row and receive it is remarkable.

Thank you for having us along on your journey.

Forward motion doctor.

05/03/2024

Happy release day, and not so coincidentally Friday the last till September I think, to .

Unknown Rivers is out in the world. Check it out. If you’re one of the many who use it’s a featured release today, link in the bio. Or if you go to for new music updates it’s on today’s New Music Friday. Check it, enjoy and head on over to BandCamp and support some artists directly.

05/02/2024

Love this well deserved piece in by on new release Kokayi: an eponymous joint. Some nice history in the piece and details on what Kokayi’s been up to. Particularly love this part on 2018 run, which we recorded and released. This was something to hear and see. Check the excerpt below:

Kokayi recalls performing at the Village Vanguard in 2018 with Steve Coleman’s Five Elements and billing himself as “wordsmith,” because Lorraine Gordon, the Vanguard’s proprietor, reportedly didn’t like rappers and didn’t want any performing in the club.

“That was my only time performing at the Village Vanguard,” Kokayi recalls. “Steve told Lorraine that I was a ‘wordsmith’ so that she would allow me to perform on stage. After our first set, she came up to me and said, ‘That was beautiful.’”

04/30/2024

“Me finding the music really saved me,” he continued. And “more people deserve to be saved.”

Love this as an ending to the article and as a statement of creative force. Thank you to and for this beautiful profile of Luke. Congrats to Luke and the whole Silt Trio crew,

“Unknown Rivers” comes out this Friday. Don’t sleep on it. Link to the full profile in the bio.

Photo credit

04/26/2024

These three will be heard on a recording together soon… Kim Cass, Matt Mitchell and .tyshawnsorey_official are the trio behind “Levs” and “Levs” is the music of bassist Kim Cass…

And June 28th is when it comes out…. But go to the link in the bio for a little preview now.

04/04/2024

Tomorrow… tomorrow…. “The Slip” from and drops tomorrow….

The first single from Luke and Silt Trio’s upcoming release, “Unknown Rivers” drops on our favorite streaming services tomorrow and … NO SPOTIFY!!!!

Full album out May 3rd… but catch the early vibes tomorrow.

And hey… west coast peoples… the trio will be out your way later this month. Check the dates below and come out.

Frogtown 4/18 Justine’s Wine Bar
San Pedro 4/19 College Arts
San Diego 4/20 The Loft at USCD
Pasadena 4/21 Healing Force of the Universe

04/04/2024

Legends…

Ok… we heard you. Through a confluence of events we are doing a small re-run of Henry Threadgill Air shirts. We’re happy you all are so pleased with them and want everyone who wants one to get one… but nothing lasts for ever so….

We’ve made them available again via our page. So you can order now or wait till tomorrow, April’s BandCamp Friday sale.

But after tomorrow, Friday the 5th, we’ll be shutting it down and this will be the last of these Air shirts printed.

We may also have a few extra Henry black tee-shirts and hoodies that we put up tomorrow. We’re just finishing shipping orders out and seeing what remains.

Ok… forward motion.

03/21/2024

Love that this is in the window of at the start of . Someone got the memo.

03/10/2024

We really can’t let a March 9th go by without wishing a happy birthday to Ornette Coleman. Ornette would have been 94 this year. WOW… bet he’d still be creating and ground breaking too.

Wanted to throw these two photos up there. The first of Ornette is by Takahashi Arihara. The second of the Revolutionary Ensemble was taken at Prince Street and we included cause, why not. Prince Street embodied Ornette’s sense of community and DIY and shows like this wouldn’t happened without him. Rev. Ensemble photo ©Raymond Ross Archives/CTSIMAGES.

We actually snagged these two photos from a piece published by Point of Departure. Link in the bio. Check it out and while you do tune into the final hours of Ornette birthday marathon. It’s been great and we always look forward to it and feel lucky that it, and all of the other birthday marathons, happen. Enjoy, and happy birthday again Ornette.

03/10/2024

03/03/2024

Placing this order tomorrow so if you wanted one, now’s the time…

02/28/2024

Man… you all freaked out over the Air shirt… we get it, we should have done this sooner. What would have happened if there was a Sextett shirt?

Ok… so after multiple DMs and comments re: a hoodie… let’s put it to a vote…. Your voice will be heard. If we do a small run of portrait “Go To Far” hoodies would you buy one? Price point would probably be like $45 +/-.

02/28/2024

And… Air featuring Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall…

We couldn’t be more excited to celebrate this beautiful trio. Our second t-shirt produced in conjunction with upcoming Henry mini-festival. Five performances, a film showing and talk. Don a shirt and go in style, celebrating all things Threadgill.

A limited edition t-shirt, “Be Ever Out” features the trio on a 100% natural cotton t-shirt. Available in medium, large and x-large. Link to order in the bio, get it now or get it at BigEars. Orders begin shipping the week of March 25th.