Summer Bummer 2026

By Paul Acquaro 

 

For a few years, I have had this funny vision of Antwerp’s Summer Bummer festival taking place on a beach near a body of water. I had sunshine, seagull calls and good vibes in this fantasy. In reality, the venue, a rock club called Trix, is located on a busy road amongst high-rise apartment buildings just outside of downtown Antwerp. So, no seagulls, no beach and even the sun was being fickle. It troubled me, what could be the source for this misconception? The only part I had right was the ‘good vibes’. From the moment the first band started up in the darkened main hall on Friday afternoon to the closing tones of a bass-clarinet and electronics show on the intimate cafe stage late Saturday night, there was always something to hear, records to dig, people to talk shop with, and art to make — hardly leaving time to lament the waning days of the summer.

Within the compact time-frame, starting late afternoon and ending around midnight on Friday and Saturday, festival organizers Koen Vandenhout and Christel Kumpen ran a tight program. Concerts were lined-up one after the other with a short break built-in to give the 200+ audience a chance to eat some dinner without developing FOMO. Plus, the sets ping-ponged from the main hall side to the cafe side, so there was always a chance to hit the bar if desired. Between the two halls, merch tables were arranged on all sides, making it dangerous to the wallet to traverse the venue. Parent organization of the festival Sound in Motion’s own Dropa-Disc label was present, as well as a record dealer with a selection of rare taste and local radio station Radio Centraal. If one purchased a t-shirt, or happened to have an extra one on hand, he or she (more likely than not: he) could head into the screen printing workshop and make their own with a festival design. Additionally, set in an adjacent room, musicians Cath Roberts and Tullis Rennie invited festival goers to record and manipulate sounds in a laboratory of their own design. When the weather was cooperative, one could visit the courtyard to procure some homemade food.  

Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paal Nilssen-Love

The Sound In Motion website has the tagline, “Adventurous Music and Things”, and since we have got the things part out of the way, let us talk adventurous music. Not just a free-jazz festival, Summer Bummer’s scope this year included several avant-noise and electronics acts along with some of the most exciting musicians working (primarily) in Europe today. There was something for everyone, for example the ear-bleedingly loud Integral, a quartet comprised of Julien Desprez (guitar), Claire Gapenne (electronics and vocals), Christine Abelnour (sax) and Lukas Koenig (drums) that went from beguiling to battering, to the opening act, Kabas Sun Dogs, a Belgian band who had invited Canadian saxophonist Karen Ng and guitarist Jonathan Horne for a slowly unfolding exploration of both understatement and spirited groove. 

  

Rodrigo Amado, Joelle Leandre and Gerald Cleaver

Highlights festooned the program, including a first time duo of drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and the legendary pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach as well as new trio formed by Rodrigo Amado with bassist Joelle Leandre and drummer Gerald Cleaver. In the duo’s extended set, Schlippenbach performed a chain of melodic ideas and Thelonius Monk song snippets that Nilssen-Love challenged with closely attuned force and precision. After a cautious opening, the trio of Amado, Leandre and Cleaver edged their way into the set, gathering momentum to the findcommon ground, letting Amado release his powerful tenor, Leandre impress with speed and expressiveness, and Cleaver move seamlessly between texture and forceful pulse.   

 

Daughter, Daughter

The formidable quartet of Daughter, Daughter, comprised of Camila Nebbia and Amalie Dahl (saxophones), Elizabeth Coudoux (cello) and Sun Mi Hong (drums), performed a blend of composition and free-jazz improvisation showcasing both individual contributions as well as whole group interactions. The Berlin formation Das B, featuring Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet), Magda Mayas (piano), Tony Buck (drums) and Mike Majkowski (bass) was given the designation as a “super group“ in the program and their set did not refute this. Ostensibly deconstructing John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, the quartet engaged in an exploratory and expansive sound collage complete with a trumpet played via surgical tubing and prepared piano that made the acoustic sound electric. Arguably one of the strongest shows of the festival. 

Das B

Additionally, percussionist and singer Maria Portugal presented her EROSÃO Septet (Lotte Anker and Angelika Niescier on saxes, Matthias Müller and Moritz Wesp on trombones, Carl Ludwig Hübsch on tuba and Reza Askari on bass), which performed a set of mid-tempo songs, both self-penned and from Brazilian composers, laced with some spicy improvisations. The next day, Portugal appeared in an exceptional duo with pianist Marta Warelis. As opposed to the septet, in which the music was a presented in more traditional structures, the songs themselves were de-composed and integrated organically with the ideas flowing from the pianist whose gentle and spacious playing grew progressively more ferocious.  

 

Marta Warelis and Maria Portugal

Rounding out the program were two bass clarinet focused sets and several quite noisy ones. Representing the louder side, in addition to the aforementioned Integral, were New Best Friends (featuring Ng and Horne along with bassist Aaron Lumley and drummer Nasim L-P Navarro), the duo of Laurentiu Cotac and Diana Miron, and Mopcut with Desprez, Koenig and electronicist/vocalist Audrey Chen. Of these three, New Best Friends balanced their clamorous impulses best with a flowing set of improvisations. Bookending the festival were two bass clarinet sets. On the first day, John McCowen explored the extended tonalities of the acoustic contra-bass clarinet, exploiting the instrument’s multiphonic capabilities. Closing the festival, Hanna De Backer, in collaboration with the electronics of Yves De Mey, extended her instrument’s sonic possibilities to the outer realms. 

 

Overall, a musically adventurous and enjoyable festival, and although quite satisfied, I was still bothered by one thing: my imaginary festival on a beach. So, after some detective work, I believe I finally pinpointed the source of my whimsical misconception. In 2019, Rodrigo Amado's The Attic released the album Summer Bummer, recorded at the festival in 2018 and whose cover is an image of three cut-out figures sitting on a beach under a cloudless blue sky, looking out at the ocean. I didn’t know I was so impressionable!

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Ava Mendoza - Alive Alone, Alive Together (Burning Ambulance Music, 2026)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Guitar in jazz. A strange beast, with which we had some issues coming to terms for a long time. In "traditional" jazz (with all the limitations of that adjective, but you get it), it passed us by almost unnoticed. Sure, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian et al: legends to whom we bow, but, to be honest, they slipped away without leaving any deep or meaningful trace. We’re sorry, respectfully sorry: our fault. Far more interesting is the contribution of guitars in Miles' electric turn, while the super virtuoso sounds of the likes of Pat Metheny or John Scofield left us emotionally inert. As soon as the instrument becomes edgy and menacing, it begins to win us over, Sonny Sharrock, James Blood Ulmer first, then Arto Lindsay, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Bill Orcutt, Keiji Haino are the names. The sharper, the better. In our own actual Valhalla, that sees Derek Bailey as the Supreme Odin, recently entered (becoming a sick obsession) Masayuki Takayanagi, a guilty belated epiphany of ours, and guitars as improper weapons take us with the guard down, unable to offer any resistance. 

The current free/improv scene is quite a golden vein, offering guitars for every taste, just head over to the dedicated section of our forum and you could dig in a six-string bonanza until your hands bleed. With Ava Mendoza, whatever the line-up on the field (alone, collaborations, groups), the turntable spins by itself and the moment to quit declaring our boundless love for her, as we did in previous reviews, is still far away. The reason? Very simple: it could be in disguise of country, metal or noise but she's got THE blues. We're obviously talking about the dirty, kind-of-black, hooch-flavored one that inhabits the rosters of Fat Possum and In The Red Records, the spleen of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the fury of Nick Cave's, pre-Gucci loafers, Birthday Party, the desperation of Alan Vega's solo albums or the hyper saturated textures of Mick Collins’ bands. Did you say Attitude? Ava not only has it, but she proved, with the astonishing Mama Killa project, to be able to cross the Shadow Line, to venture into the Heart of Darkness, coming back to tell all about it. Natural. Gifted. 

The new album, recorded live in Antwerp, Madison, Chicago and Firenze, features the Brooklyn-based musician reinterpreting seven songs from her "New Spell" and "Circular Train" records, along with a new composition, "Mama Cocha”. The recipe is the one we know and love: fuzz, harmonic progressions, solos and distortions are the facets of a virtuosic prism that's never self-referential or an end in itself, but always in service of the Ultimate Ideal: the Blues. The "togetherness" side of the work sees Ava joined by Maestro Hamid Drake, adding his sparse yet extraordinary polyrhythms on four tracks, demonstrating once more, that, as Voltaire said, "les grands esprits se rencontrent." Another solid hit from Phil Freeman's label, whose production portfolio is beginning to take on a truly interesting and relevant profile: long may the Ambulance burn. 

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Angles 4 and Martin Küchen - Liner Notes

These are liner notes by Stef Gijssels for two recent albums by Swedish saxophonist and composer Martin Küchen, first with Angles 4, second for his solo album. 

Angles 4 - (Relative Pitch, 2026)

Listening to Angles 4 here and now, in 2026, feels like a warm homecoming. The album is filled with the grand themes that have resonated throughout the various ensembles over the years, from the Martin Küchen Trio and Angles 6 to Angles 9 and All Included. The quartet knows this material by heart, having performed these compositions for decades. I would almost call them their personal standards: they sound deeply familiar, yet they retain the same power and vigour as they must have had at their very first performances—perhaps now with even greater maturity, intensity and fierceness.

The smaller quartet format gives the musicians more room to explore, express and expand, particularly across the relatively long tracks, most of which run for seven or eight minutes. There is a sense of space in the arrangements, but never a loss of urgency.

The music digs deep into the history of jazz, drawing on the spirit of Mingus and Coltrane, while at times reaching even further back into the history of sound itself—and into the collective emotions of people living through dire times: war, oppression and other horrors. Here, music becomes both a source of comfort and a force of liberation.

Whatever the size of the ensemble, this music remains as infectious as ever.

Listen and download from Bandcamp

 

Martin Küchen - Chase The Demons Out (Thanatosis, 2026)

Brutal sounds. Heart-rending, bleak. Gut-wrenching and abrasive. Sorrowful, dark, mournful, ominous. One musician generating a torrent of expression through three instruments played at once: sopranino saxophone, two horizontal hand drums, along with cymbals, metal plates, and bowls.

We know Martin Küchen from his work with the Angles ensemble—music that unfolds in epic arcs, sweeping themes that speak to a collective emotional space. This is the opposite. Here the music is stripped down to brutal poetry: visceral, concise, unadorned. Short, explosive statements. Limited means used to build intense dramatic pressure. Küchen’s anger at the state of the world is well known, and here it finds direct form in pounding drums and the wailing saxophone. Sound bursts collide and fracture, channeling raw fury.

The opening track, “Chase The Demons Out,” reflects a world drifting toward totalitarianism. Its title echoes a phrase from 1970s Chinese state media calling to “sweep away all demons”—to eliminate those who think differently. The theme feels disturbingly current as war again ravages the Middle East, where rockets, aircraft, and attack drones serve the ambitions of those in power.

The second piece, “Mach kein Krach” (“stop making noise”), recalls Küchen’s father telling him to quiet down as a child—something his son clearly had no intention of doing. The message is the opposite of silence: make your voice heard. Refuse passivity. Rebel, resist, speak up. Make noise.

The third piece, “Mit Ach und Krach,” uses a German expression describing something achieved with great difficulty—through blood, sweat, and tears. Speaking out and resisting the present state of affairs demands exactly that kind of effort.

Taken together, the three brief pieces form a suite: anger at the world, inner rebellion, and the search for the energy to act.

Every saxophone cry, every drum strike carries elemental emotion—horror, pain, rejection, fear—pushed forward by outrage, anger, disgust, and indignation. These forces build toward movement: to resist, to act, to stand together. It will take effort. It will take blood, sweat, and tears.

Once again, Küchen shows his artistic clarity. The music is raw, brutal, uncompromising—and authentic.
The world needs this."


Listen and download from Bandcamp

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Cecil Taylor Unit- Live at the Kimo Theater Albuquerque 1979 (Black Editions Archive, 2026) *****

By Stuart Broomer

There’s nothing so startling as the appearance of a vintage concert tape, in this case some 47 years old, that might illumine your view of a musician’s oeuvre, even a slight shift in focus counting for much. Such is the case with the release of Cecil Taylor’s performance from a New Mexico concert in 1979. Part of the concert was lost, but on the evidence heard here, Taylor was at the helm of one of the finest groups he would ever lead, a relatively unusual quintet that consisted of alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons (with Andrew Cyrille, one of Taylor’s greatest collaborators), drummer Jerome Cooper and two string players, the violinist Ramsay Ameen and Alan Silva, here playing cello as well as his usual bass.

Among extant releases, the two-LP set bears some resemblance, at least in personnel, to It Is in the Brewing Luminous, recorded in 1980 at New York’s Fat Tuesday’s, which had the additional inclusion of drummer Sunny Murray in the band and Alan Silva playing bass, exclusively. His cello playing here is an essential element, especially for the way in which it combines with Ameen’s violin. In a sense, the Albuquerque quintet is a larger band than the New York sextet, in terms of what the opening up of the soundscape makes possible.

Perhaps the most notable thing about the Albuquerque recording is the level of subtle and evolving detail achieved by the quintet and its capture in the extraordinary recording job done by Mike Wolff, who was regularly responsible for recording the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. The University of New Mexico’s Steinway was also borrowed for the performance, giving Taylor a piano appropriate to his special energies. The unusual clarity with which Ameen is heard here gives the performance some of its special significance, particularly in the way that his contribution combines with Silva’s cello in a virtual string section. Jerome Cooper, too, is less polyrhythmic, less aggressive than his predecessor, Andrew Cyrille, who had been the perfect complement in the trio with Taylor and Lyons.

What is highlighted here is the omni-directionality of Taylor’s music, from his thorough absorption of Western “classical” music as well as the jazz tradition and the general legacy of African music in America. Here those elements are present both individually and in Taylor’s special syntheses, those combined and foregrounded strings every bit as African as they are European.

Side C is given over to one of Taylor’s trance rituals, a summoning of spirits -- equivalent perhaps to speaking in tongues -- inspired and unknowable language accompanied by incidental phrases from the instruments, random sounds and Taylor’s piano musings, now enacted directly on the instrument’s strings, all an essential component of the complexity and mystery of Taylor’s far-reaching art.

The music that continues on side D is particularly spacious, opening up with Cooper’s spare percussion and the lyrical motifs of Ameen, Lyons and Taylor, evolving and flowering, still spacious yet dense with high speed content – some of Taylor’s most brilliant moments on record, the other instruments lifted skyward, until it concludes with Taylor’s gravelly equivalent of speaking in tongues, the very practice akin to the untranslatability of Taylor’s complex, contrapuntal, poly-vocal band music and the extrapolating lines and abstract organizing figures with which he guides the music from his piano keyboard.

Live at the KiMo Theater is a special event, reasserting an especially creative and relatively neglected period in Taylor’s career. 

Live at the KiMo Theater will be released on October 16th, but you can listen to a track and pre-order now.

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B:A:N:S Band (Sophie Agnel/John Butcher/Pascal Niggenkemper/Ståle Liavik Solberg) - foams & mesh (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2026)

By Martin Schray

Of the many things that make albums featuring John Butcher unique, I believe the most outstanding characteristic is not that he likes to play at unusual venues (caves, water reservoirs, oil tanks…), but rather the fact that every ensemble he plays with is so diverse and incomparable that it allows the listener to hear many different facets of his playing. In an interview with Brad Rose, Butcher said that when improvising, he likes to hear the musician behind the instrument, though it’s not important to him to hear the musicians putting themselves in the spotlight - on the contrary, he tends to seek subtlety. In general, he looks for musicians who have already developed a personal musical style and their own way of playing - something that truly feels like their own. It is therefore almost inevitable that the various ensembles he selects based on these criteria will possess a unique dynamic and sonic world.

One of last year’s best albums was RARE, John Butcher’s duo with French pianist Sophie Agnel, with whom he had been playing quite frequently over the last few years. I especially liked their improvisational rigor and the relaxed, varied, and aleatoric moments. On RARE, I considered the pauses in the music to be the central element; on foams & mesh, it’s different, mainly due to Pascal Niggenkemper (bass) and Ståle Liavik Solberg (drums), because the two of them fill those gaps. Solberg, with whom Butcher has played since 2015 in many kinds of combinations, permeates the improvisation with his bone-dry and at times almost esoteric style, for example when he uses extended materials (especially in the quiet passages of the first track). This is complemented by Agnel’s trills, which she plays from inside the piano. Butcher contributes very delicate bird calls here, while Niggenkemper subtly saws at the very low strings of his bass. It feels as though one is listening to the goings-on in the courtyard of a Tibetan monastery. This can be heard around the 20-mark of the first, significantly longer improvisation on foam & mesh. Such passages contrast with highly expressive moments, in which the rhythm section performs in a demanding and driving manner, but Butcher remains unflappable and employs his entire repertoire - guttural sounds, chirps, tremolos, circular breathing, serial/repetitive patterns, etc. - with casual ease. Only at the end of the track Agnel’s clusters and crescendos, Niggenkemper’s alienated drones and Solberg’s accentuated interceptions tempt him into vibrato-heavy phrases.

The album was recorded at the artacts festival in St. Johann/Austria in 2024 and in the first part of the encore the musicians showcase extended playing techniques, with Niggenkemper and Agnel holding the improvisation together by a somber drone. Then the bass and piano shift imperceptibly into their normal registers, and the piece grows denser, builds in intensity, becoming louder and more concentrated - like a tornado - before dissolving perfectly.

foam & mesh is an extraordinary album, the band is a superb match. They have played only three concerts so far and I think I’m not the only one who hopes that there will be more to come.

foam & mesh is available as a CD and as a download.

You can buy and listen to the album on the label’s website: https://sluchaj.bandcamp.com/album/foam-mesh

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Laurie Anderson with SexMob - Let X=X (Live) (Nonesuch Records, 2026)

By Richard Blute 

“When you meet a man who is broken, pick him up and carry him. When you meet a woman who’s broken, put her all into your arms. Cause we don’t know where we come from … we don’t know where we are.”

-Laurie Anderson

Back in college in the early 80’s, my musical tastes careened wildly between the unchecked rage of Dead Kennedys and Black Flag and the deep melancholy of The Cure and Joy Division. (There was an occasional detour to the land of the Talking Heads.) Then my friends and I discovered Laurie Anderson’s Big Science . And everything changed. I think I was the one that found it and that was only because there was a song called Let X=X, which appealed to my math brain. Our first reaction was bewilderment. “What?? She no longer loves the color of my sweaters??!!? Huh??” But we quickly realized this was something new that we needed to absorb. It showed us that we could respond to all the grotesque absurdity of the world with something other than anger or sadness, that it could be met with surrealism and a sense of humor and that we could retain our humanity.

We thought about some of the lyrics. On the title track, there’s a lyric:

“I think we should put some mountains here.

Otherwise what are the characters going to fall off of?”

The song is all about how the oligarchs and huge corporations are reshaping the world to their will. They’re building shopping malls and freeways and new sports centres and drive-in banks. They’re reshaping everything for their own self-aggrandisement to the extent that we’re no more than characters in their play, and they even get to decide how we die. We realized this was the same sentiment that Jello Biafra was expressing in so many Dead Kennedys lyrics, just from an entirely different approach.

The music was unlike anything we had ever heard before, full of violins, saxophones, marimbas and organs. And was that a wolf? It was beautiful and then jarring at a moment’s notice. Laurie’s voice could sound quite soothing or, when she uses voice processing, terrifying.

A few years later, I discovered jazz, especially free jazz and it became an obsession which has lasted to this day. It eventually led me to The Free Jazz Collective. So when I discovered that Laurie was releasing a live album with a jazz band and an excellent one at that, I was extremely excited. The band is Sexmob, consisting of Steven Bernstein and Briggan Krauss on brass, Kenny Wollesen on drums, Douglas Wieselman on winds and guitar, and Tony Scherr on bass. They have an extensive discography which is well worth checking out. They like covering pop songs, and giving them an avant-garde jazz twist. I especially love Kenny Wolleson who I’ve seen perform many times, frequently in John Zorn projects.

The album, called Let X=X (Live), is full of the classics that every Laurie Anderson fan knows note for note and lyric for lyric, From The Air, O Superman, Let X=X, It Tango, Gravity’s Angel, Only An Expert , and on and on. But there’s new music to be found here as well. Church of Panic begins with a commentary on sadness and suicide and then turns on a dime and is funky as hell. There are lovely instrumental pieces like Looking At The Mo on. There’s an extremely funny (and at the same time sad) audience participation moment on Teachers which I won’t spoil. Junior Dad , from Lou Reed’s collaboration with Metallica, features Reed’s vocals with beautiful violin from Laurie.

There is quite a bit of sadness on this album at the state of the world and at all of the personal loss so many have suffered lately, but there is also an ember of hope to be found. It’s a hope that humanity might someday soon rediscover its compassion and decency.

It’s a sky-blue sky. 

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Jazzwerkstatt Peitz 2026: A New Day on the Karpfenteich

By Paul Acquaro

 

August 14 - 16, 2026, Peitz, Germany

 

Up a creaky set of wooden stairs to the lofts of the 1810 Huettenwerk of the historic Ironworks and Fishery Museum of Peitz, an imposing building full of old heavy tools for the iron foundry and fishing works in the surrounding carp ponds, is an exhibition on Free Jazz in the German Democratic Republic (former East Germany). It’s a traveling show, having accompanied Jazzwerkstatt concerts and festivals over the years. The first time I encountered it, at a Globe Unity Orchestra concert in Potsdam in 2014, it prompted me to dig for all of the Amiga Jazz records that I could find, leading to likely the most complete collection of East German jazz in New Jersey. 

Every year for the past ten years or so that I’ve been to the festival, I find myself drawn to the exhibition, like a pilgrim to worship. Each station of the exhibit offers a glimpse into this well documented but still mythical past, with a final station showcasing the Peitz Festival. Created in 1973 by two young free-thinking music fans, Uli Blobel and Peter “Jimi” Metag, both from the small East German town of Peitz, the festival drew other like minded youth to hear both East German musicians like Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and Conny Bauer as well as West German musicians like Alexander von Schlippenbach and other musicians from the other side of the Iron Curtain such as Barry Guy and Wadada Leo Smith. 

The names are many and the history can be read in the “Woodstock am Karpfenteich’ books as well as experienced here, and the story is a good one. Lasting until shut down by the government in 1982 and restarted by Blobel in 2011 under much different conditions, the Jazzwerkstatt Peitz festival of 2026 still draws some of those who trekked by train and Trabi to the original, but is also working to draw in a new audience whose connection to the past is being built by heading to upper floors via creaky wooden stairs.

Starting in 2024, Marie Blobel, the daughter of Uli Blobel, took over. Some of the changes Marie Blobel made included moving the festival from the center of Peitz to the grounds of the fishing museum amidst the carp ponds and injecting a festive flair into the weekend long event. With a packed schedule of concerts and a two kilometer hike to the Doener restaurant, festival goers are oriented to the wurst stand, the home cooked vegetarian dishes at the beer tent and the biergarten around the corner. Kids have the chance to make their own music with an imaginative looping station and everyone can climb aboard the “Karpfenbummler,” an electric miniature train that will take you in style from the festival to town to the train station. Coming into its own it the new form, Jazzwerkstatt Peitz was awarded the Deutsche Jazzpreis this past year.

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Gebhard Ullman’s Hemisphere 4 PLUS (biergarten stage)

The concerts began on Friday evening with the folk-meets-modern-jazz sounds of Trio Ivoire. In the trio's music, Hans Lüdemann’s piano and electronics and Christian Thomé's percussion and electronics are met with the organic tones of Aly Keïta’s balafon, an African instrument described as a “a gourd-resonated xylophone.” The music is upbeat and highly syncopated and thus quickly had some of the at-capacity audience on their feet swaying to their rhythms. As soon as the set ended, the audience began shuffling off, around the museum and cycler hostel (the Gurkenradweg - yes, the Pickle Bikepath - passes by the festival grounds), to a biergarten, where a stage has been set up under a lush copse of trees. Woodwindist Gebhard Ullman’s newest formation, Hemisphere 4 PLUS, featuring a mix of his current electric and acoustic groups, began with a chamber-jazz like combination of Anna Viechtl’s harp and Taiko Saito’s vibraphone. Disrupted by a crash of percussion, the group tumbled into a pulsating groove. Describing the music as “sculptures,” Ullmann led the group through an alluring mix of the delicate (add Silke Lange accordion to the chamber jazz components), hard-hitting (with Eric Schaefer on drums and Oliver Potratz on bass) and other-worldly (Liz Kosack’s keyboard and synthesizer).

 

OM (main stage)

A short shuffle back to the main stage where OM, the legendary avant-jazz-rock group, were ready to go. The original group members, saxophonist Urs Leimgruber, guitarist Christy Doran and bassist Bobby Burri were joined by drummer’s Gerry Hemingway and Tony Buck who have replaced the late Fredy Studer, as they did on the recent Intakt release Suedpol. After a short freely improvised intro from Leimgruber, a blast of rock energy from Doran gave root to a swirling squall of tones and the music slowly evolved into a groove led by the two percussionists. Moments of electric Miles colored the rich panoply of sound which ranged from deeply experimental to outright rock. An excellent set. 

Closing out the main stage for the evening was the quartet Selvhenter from Copenhagen. Saxophonist Sonja LaBianca and trombonist Maria Bertel and drummers Anja Jacobsen and Jaleh Negari crafted a dark, throbbing techno-jazz designed to get festival goers on their feet. It was quite late by the time the quartet’s final notes faded, but the show wasn’t over … yet, as drummer Willi Kellers and organizer Wolfgang ‘Assi’ Gloede were hosting a jam session in the cozy workshop building behind the main stage. Amongst painted fish sculptures and some serious looking tools, saxophonist Lotte Anker, keyboardist Liz Kosack and bassist Reza Askari joined Kellers in free-jazz improvisation that began with electronic percolations and slowly crescendoing notes that eventually balled into an exciting and thorny tumbleweed of sound. Following the opener, Gloede curated combinations of professional and hobbyist musicians who improvised into the wee hours.

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Wanja Slavin (sitting far right) (church)

Saturday’s full schedule began in the town church where saxophonist and festival Improviser-in-Residence Wanja Slavin, last year’s winner of the Brandenburg Jazzpreis - an award developed by Jazzwerkstatt and the state of Brandenburg - debuted a new composition with a band comprised of Peter Evans on trumpet, Leonard Huhn on bass clarinet, Almut Kühne with vocals and Kaja Draksler on piano. The rich 45-minute piece moved seamlessly between moods and approaches as darker moments were balanced by more hopeful passages. Repetitive arpeggios and prominent electronics formed a consistent tonal base accentuated by the dissonant church organ and several outstanding solos. 

 

A short while later back at the festival grounds, percussionist and singer Mariá Portugal’s EROSÃO septet took the stage in the rapidly heating up early afternoon. The music began with a brass fanfare as the group walked-on the stage and transitioned to Portugal singing over polyrhythmic accompaniment. Concentrated on a repertoire of songs that drew heavily on her Brazilian background, Portugal’s vocals took center stage, while the high-powered group of saxophonists Lotte Anker and Angelika Niescier, trombonists Matthias Müller and Moritz Wesp, tubist Carl Ludwig Hübsch and bassist Reza Askari provided solid support. Afterwards in the Huettenwerk building, the duo of Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian and Valentin Portron, performing on the traditional Iranian tanbur and bendir - a stringed instrument and hand drum - continued the expansion of the festival’s musical purview.

 

Impro-Concert: Tony Buck, Matthias Mueller, Taito Saito (workshop)

Two improvisation sessions, tucked away in the workshop building, injected a bit of the unexpected into the afternoon. The first introduced the British woodwindist Tamar Osborn with the American bassist Nick Dunston and drummer Gerry Hemingway. This first meeting proved fruitful. Clicking quickly, Osborn leaned into the deeper registers of her baritone sax, while Hemingway contributed a lithe, but full, pulse and Dunston provided a melodically swinging bridge between the two. The later improvisation session joined three Berlin based improvisors who have been in each other’s orbits but never played together before. Vibraphonist Taiko Saito, trombonist Matthias Müller and drummer Tony Buck played a set ranging from contemplative to combustive. 

Aki Takase, Robert Landfermann, Christian Lillinger. (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

The mid-afternoon offered both unforgiving sun and an excellent set from pianist Aki Takase who was performing her upbeat, complex, and often humor-laced music with drummer Christian Lillinger and bassist Robert Landfermann on the main stage. The trio’s music is impressive, Lillinger, with his agitated, driving approach is a perfect rhythmic partner for Takase’s own intensity, and Landfermann’s rhythmic and melodic playing adds a nicely fitting layer. Nearing the end of the set, a dramatic moment ensured when Takase suddenly collapsed from the heat. Fortunately, it was reported that the pianist was already on the move to the next concert in Austria that evening. 

 

Darius Jones & Otomo Yoshihide Quartet. (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

A little later the shows were back in the biergarten, where the trees provided some relief from the 100 degree heat, and the Czech quartet Edemit added a jolt of avant-rock to the day while Neiscer and Portugal picked up in a duo form the earlier set. As the day began to cool, the action moved back on the main stage where Darius Jones and Otomo Yoshihide (alto saxophone and guitar, respectively) augmented by bassist Nick Dunston and drummers Gerald Cleaver and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki provided an electric set. Following a rousing Coltrane-like introduction, the rhythm section gave Jones a rumbling foundation for his soaring melody to which Yoshihide responded with a feedback-laden solo, pushing the music to an early peak. The music ebbed and flowed, from dark atmospheric wanderings to high-energy free-jazz explosions over pulsating rhythms. Afterwards, the UK-based Ill Considered featuring Tamar Osborn (Idris Rahman on saxophone, Liran Donin on bass, Emre Ramazanoglu on drums and Osborn with various woodwinds) closed out the night with a set heavy on beats and Middle Eastern-tinged scales. The set ended with about half the remaining audience dancing in front of the stage.

--

Perhaps in normal times, it would have been a disappointment but after the previous day’s oven-like disposition, the cool, rain-soaked grey morning greeting festival goers on Sunday was welcome. A church service in the Huettenwerk started the day for the faithful while out on the festival yard, the others were huddling under the drink stand tents sipping coffee while the bratwurst man started up his grill.  

First musical act, Richard Koch’s Ray of Light was the only one to be seen under the steadily raining sky. They began with the trumpeter playing a regal anthem and launching into a cheery, melodic tune filled with the folkish sounds of Fabiana Striffler’s violin and Valentin Butt’s accordion along with the rhythm support of Andreas Lang’s bass and Nora Thiele’s frame drums. The “gute laune” (good mood) music with its blend of up-tempo jazz, classical and folk elements provided a lighthearted start to another long day of music. Their timing was perfect too, as Ray of Light reached the end of their set, the first beams of sun reached the festival grounds. 

 

Have You Ever Been Experienced. (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

The opening set was followed by Brandenburg Jazzpreis. Prize winner, guitarist Andreas Willers, who was to present his Hendrix inspired group Have You Ever Been Experienced, featuring a top-notch group of Berlin based musicians: Amy Green on vocals, Rieko Okuda on piano, Jan Roder on bass and Christian Marien on drums, was unfortunately too ill to attend. Despite this, the group, still gave a rousing performance, taking well-worn Hendrix themes and spinning them anew. Okuda took over the guitar solos with a distorted synthesizer, while Roder and Marien made sure the foundations were securely fortified. Most revelatory were Green’s vocals, which retained enough of the melody for song-recognition and enough improvisational liberty to free them from nostalgic interpretation -- for example, an updated interpretation of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl set to a free-jazz take of ‘If 6 was 9.’

The final two sets of the festival moved back into town to the church. The first was the Polish duo of vocalist Maniucha Bikont and bassist Ksawery Wójciński performing a set of haunting folksongs. Discovered through Bikont’s musicology research, the songs came from a disappearing tribe in the Ukraine, with themes that touched on the universal: suffering, responsibility and expecting better manners from the dead. Performed solely with voice and bass, the music filled the church mesmerizingly.

Konradism. (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

The closing set to the festival may have also been one of the most anticipated. Connecting the festival’s eras, trombonist and archetype of the original Peitz festival and East German free-jazz in general, trombonist Conny Bauer presented the large group Konradisms with an extended composition of “chamber big-band” that mixed generous improvisation and dramatic riffs. Joining Bauer was a cross section of a younger generation of German-based musicians: Nils Wogram on trombone, Maxine Troglauer also on bass trombone, Gerhard Gschlössl on tuba, Claudio Puntin on bass clarinet, Maria Reich on violin, Emily Wittbrodt on cello, Matthias Bauer on bass, Dag Magnus Narvesen on drums and Rieko Okuda on piano. Often breaking into small combos - trombone and piano, tuba and violin - the solos would grow intense and eventually congeal around common themes. A stand out was Puntin whose bass clarinet playing ranged from the sound of a flute to deep, woody resonance.

After an intense two and half days of music, the two last concerts were a satisfying and full-circle-moment ending to the festival. Overall, one could sense a tilt towards the new - nights that ended with experimental but danceable music, a series of risky but successful workshop concerts with musicians meeting for the first time, an infusion of world-music elements, and a loosening, but not denying, deference to the past, showing a way forward.

 

More about the Peitz festival:

• Review of the 50th Anniversary Peitz Festival 
• Review of the Jazzwerkstatt Peitz Boxset
• Jazzwerkstatt Peitz website.

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Henry Threadgill / Vijay Iyer / Dafnis Prieto - Fifteen (Nonesuch, 2026)

By Martin Schray

Of course, this trio is a supergroup, like so many of pianist Vijay Iyer’s latest ensembles.

Percussionist Dafnis Prieto may be less well-known, but the now 82-year-old saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill is all the more so. Despite his age, he has been more productive and acclaimed than ever. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his most important work of the past 15 years, In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Zooid; 2015). It’s possibly the most consistent realization of Threadgill’s compositional system, in which he works with predetermined interval sequences that provide the musicians with a harmonic and melodic framework within which they are also expected to improvise - that is, improvisation itself becomes part of a highly complex composition. What’s fascinating about this is that the music initially seems almost chaotic, but is in fact organized with extraordinary precision. As intellectually fascinating as this music is on the one hand, it has also faced criticism on the other hand, that the whole thing is too contrived and too lifeless, too close to new classical avant-garde music. That kind of criticism can certainly not applied to “Fifteen”.

The album title refers to the number of years that have passed since this trio first came together at a benefit event for the New York Jazz Gallery. Here, all three compose and improvise; recurring melodic patterns are readily - even eagerly - embraced, bringing the music closer to mainstream jazz than to free jazz. This is primarily due to Dafnis Prieto’s Cuban influences and his light, elastic groove, which remains free and almost impossible to count. This is perhaps most clearly evident in “I Want a Map”, which comes across more like a rock song, with Threadgill’s saxophone initially taking up the melody, which is developed by the piano and built up relatively straightforwardly by the drums to a crescendo. Rarely has Threadgill sounded so accessible; he uses a fair amount of growl, and his clear sound from the Air years is barely recognizable. But he wouldn’t be Henry Threadgill if he didn’t gradually incorporate small atonal elements and offbeat shifts that disrupt the piece’s static structure.

Things get significantly wilder on “Fire City“, then. Prieto plays less to the beat. Here, he actually acts more like a free jazz drummer. Iyer, too, plays fewer tonal harmonies, and Threadgill’s sound is indeed clearer and more abstract on this track. The piece is denser, less airy than others on the album, but perhaps that’s precisely what makes it the most exciting, as it gallops off in different directions several times without ever losing its way.

The most unusual track is the album’s finale, “On the Way”. Here, the different compositional and improvisational logics stand in direct contrast to one another: Henry Threadgill’s carefully balanced vocabulary meets the rhythmic power and temporal sophistication of Iyer and Prieto, opening up spaces for dense ensemble polyrhythms and incisive solo passages. At times, you can literally tap your foot along - you almost feel like dancing. Who would ever have expected that from an album featuring Henry Threadgill?

This is definitely one of the albums that will appear on many year-end charts.

Fifteen is available on vinyl, as a CD and as a download. You can listen to it and buy it on Vijay Iyer’s bandcamp site:

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Harri Sjöström and Guilherme Rodrigues - Treasures Within

On Sundays, we like to take the opportunity to share something aside from an album review, like interviews we've conducted or videos that we have found and enjoyed, and sometimes, something entirely different, like liner notes. The following notes, written by Paul  Acquaro, accompany the adventurous duo release Treasures Within by Harri Sjöström and Guilherme Rodrigues. 

This album is the second document of the duo following The Treasures Are. The Treasures Within is comprised of three encounters in the studio and live starting in 2019 at Munich's Artoxin Gallery followed by the Berlin locations Toolbox Gallery in 2021 and Berlin Room in 2022.   

By Paul Acquaro 

What makes musical chemistry? What is it that make some combinations simply work? While there are many examples like Paul and John, Bennink and Brotzmann, and Parker and Drake to draw on, it also seems that saxophonist Harri Sjöström and cellist Guilherme Rodrigues have some insights into this phenomenon as well.

Here, it begins with creaky bow strokes on the cello to which squeaky tones from a soprano saxophone are carefully inserted. It lasts only a minute before a reset, the next track and a new route chosen, but in those previous few seconds one could hear a lot about a musical relationship. There is no hesitancy, no time needed to discuss and calibrate, it is a meeting of mutually sympathetic musical minds. Rodrigues explains, "for me the way Harri approaches the saxophone gets pretty close, imagination wise, to my imaginarium. And because of that, we play well together intuitively."

The next track begins with a rather classical sounding approach and then quickly becomes an intertwining of melodic strands that are in some ways hard to differentiate, but thrive on an inherent contrast. Rodrigues continues, "both instruments have colors that naturally match and therefore, taken together, the result of our music becomes treasured!"

Indeed, by the time we are at track 3, which happens quickly with these miniatures, the melodic ideas have taken a different turn. Sjöström is bouncing around a delicate melodic idea while Rodrigues provides textural accents. Suddenly, we are at track 4 and now the cello is responsible for the melodic twists while the saxophone finds the perfect points to interject.

Sjöström also gives some hints as to why this pairing works so well, "I think we both share a strong melodic instinct, even within freely improvised music. There is a constant dialogue between us, and I always feel Guilherme is incredibly alert to every subtle change in the music."

So, what is it about these subtle changes that are so powerful? Well, for one, the conversation is always diverting course. Like on track 5, which suddenly turns inwards, darker hues and longer tones fill the space. Sjöström simply says, "we also enjoy strong contrasts and often abrupt changes and aren't afraid to move between intimacy and intensity." 

< Please see Bandcamp to read the rest of the notes and listen to the music >  

 

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Greg Kelley and Yoona Kim - Distractions for Trumpet and Ajaeng (Relative Pitch, 2026)

By Brian Earley

 

The “distractions” of Greg Kelley’s trumpet and Yoona Kim’s ajaeng on this new album for Relative Pitch are hardly simple diversions for the listener, as one often thinks about the term. Actually, I find the music on this lovely duet recording to be at various times quieting, disruptive, disturbing, and even a challenge. Listeners familiar with Greg Kelley’s recorded output will not be shocked by what they hear, and at times this album reminds me a great deal of the trumpet player’s provocative, whisper-improvising duo Nmperign. Actually, the other half of that duo, Bhob Rainey, mixed and mastered Distractions.

 

Kelley performs wonderfully and utilizes a reticence that nearly always prevents him from easily erupting into high energy bursts. His patience and discipline are admirable. The unexplored story here, however, is ajaeng player Yoona Kim. I was not familiar with Kim’s instrument of choice, and this reality is part of what first drew me to this recording. An ajaeng is a Korean zither-like instrument–think a bendier, more temperamental cello laid on its back. It can be plucked, but is often bowed with a stick or a more standard Western bow of horsehair.

 

Kim is a polymath of musical styles and performs at least seven distinct genres, according to her website. Free improvisation and jazz are two of these, as are contemporary and traditional Korean music. The others are more surprising: Delta Blues, Klezmer, and Appalachian Old-Time Music. Despite an extensive set of online live performances, Kim is still relatively young and has only three recordings as a leader to her name. Distractions is one of these, and the other two, Deltat Dokkaebi and Modern Gagok, are all but impossible to find. A strong outing with pianist Anthony Coleman can be viewed here . This dazzling performance has a mere 25 views and 2 likes as of this writing. Free Jazz Blog readers, you know what to do.

 

With all this being said, Yoona Kim is particularly challenging to define, though she has performed in some of the revered free jazz spaces (The Stone, for a week-long residence in July of 2026) and studied or played with many names readers of the FJC are quite familiar with: Tom Rainey, Chris Corsano, Joe Morris, and Linda May Han Oh. And of course, Greg Kelley.

 

Distractions for Trumpet and Ajaeng is a wonderful album, full of quiet restraint and unsettling surprises. While the opening track, “Display,” starts with insistent blowing and bending, the first minute and a half is about as busy as the album gets. Kim bows and pulls the strings of her ajaeng while Greg Kelley flutters a raspy, metallic horn down into registers so low and frequencies so wobbly I had to stop the music to see if something was wrong with my speakers.

 

The aesthetic largely, however, is quiet. To be more precise, silence that alternates with tiny eruptions of activity. Listen to the second track, the lovely “Dispute,” for this as Yoona Kim rips and bows urgently just before the one minute mark, at which point the recording falls into total silence. When the musicians return, Greg Kelley is more active and works his way into an exploration of one wavering note. This interplay builds as the two play an eerie high-harmony fit for hungry ghosts that largely bends and vibrates as it squeals and scrapes.

 

While the dynamics never really reach the loudest of volumes, all of this silence makes certain mid-level insertions of noise jarring. For example, on my favorite piece on the album, the closer “Disappear,” Kelley forces air through his horn with such subtle power, and balances a series of soft notes so sinister, that my dog ran out of the room when I first played it.

 

This, of course, is the power of understatement, and the album as a whole serves as a wonderful reminder that so often in music, as in our day-to-day laboring, what produces joy or excitement, as well as heaviness, sorrow, or surprise is how the moments fall together. Distractions is a delight of quiet echoes and disquieting interruptions that is well worth the listen.

 

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