Sometimes you sign up for a review under false assumptions. Here I was attracted by the label (like NoBusiness and Clean Feed the Polish Not Two label usually guarantees great music) and the obviously Yiddish title of the album (which roughly means “we should try humbly to survive in harmony”). I thought it might be music like Martin Küchen’s Hellstorm or Ned Rothenberg’s World of Odd Harmonics, music that deals with the Jewish heritage in Europe, sad and lamenting, but full of self-confidence, though.
And the album even starts like that, with an agonized soprano and a piano which is played in the interior. But after 35 seconds the drums immediately make it clear that this is not the way the music is going, this is gonna be straight and classic free jazz.
Devototionalien is a malapropism of the German word “Devotionalien” (meaning devotional objects), the band is Eric Zinman (piano, euphonium), who studied with Bill Dixon, George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre, and Austrian veterans Kilian Schrader (electric bass, sfx effects), Mario Rechtern (sopranino, alto and baritone saxophone, flute) and Johannes Krebs (drums). The quartet is obviously devoted (another pun as to the band’s name) to the tradition of the great European quartets and trios like the ones led by Alexander von Schlippenbach or Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink.
Especially Zinman’s piano is very Schlippenbach-like, like him he uses the interior of the piano quite frequently, he pushes the band with wild piano clusters and in combination with the highly energetic drums they almost take the small audience’s breath away, something particularly discernible in “Track Nr.1”, in which the quartet is immediately at full speed after a very brief warming up. Mario Rechtern’s sax is deeply rooted in the European tradition as well, his style is heavily based on Brötzmann, for example, it is very expressive with a lot of outbreaks. There is hardly any break, no relief, he is hard and concentrated and sounds as angry as a 20-year-old (although he is born in 1942). Only in “Track Nr. 2” the band let go a little, there is more subtlety and more lyricism, before “Track Nr. 3” picks up the speed again.
This is nothing you haven’t heard yet, it is not the reinvention of the wheel - but it is plain and simple free jazz played by fine musicians on a top level.
Duology = Michael Marcus (clarinet) and Ted Daniel (trumpet, flugelhorn). And Duology = the new album from the pair with master drummer Andrew Cyrille. They're an interesting group, as the musicians are all seasoned players whose abilities as support players are superb. A really open-ended approach to the playing field makes the possibilities seem innumerable with musicians of this calibre; and you may keep your hopes up because these guys came to ball.
The opening melody line of “Vigilance” immediately made me miss the bass line. Early Ornette & Cherry are easily detected as influences and maybe that's the reason why. (You are conditioned to hearing Haden's part underneath, even when the drums lay out.) Daniel takes a solo about a minute in, sounding pretty mu-like. Halfway through the track, Marcus takes the lead and spends his spotlight time thumbing through the surplus of ideas he has running around in his head. Not cohesive in any way, but completely fascinating. Then he and Daniel wind improvised lines around each other for a minute before returning to the head.
By the time you enter the world of “Zight Pulse,” it becomes apparent that Ornette and Cherry are going to be the reference point for Marcus and Daniel – and that Cyrille's approach, including the sound of the high-pitched and barely muted ride tom, is going to lean a bit toward Ed Blackwell on this date. It makes sense. Both Blackwell and Cyrille are careful, thoughtful, subtle and very natural players. Neither man is fussy, flashy, or overly aggressive, which are all too often the hallmarks of the free jazz drummer. Or at least the stereotype.
Cyrille gets his first extended solo during “Eclectic Autumns” and stays anchored to the rhythm of the track, but in a very exploratory fashion. His playing throughout swings with accents in surprising places. One great idea after another rolls out of Marcus' horn, this time in a way that is so artistically, aesthetically, mathematically sound that I suddenly realize he was jerking my chain during “Vigilance”. The first time through, I had to go back and listen to that track again right away just to be sure.
The album's longest cut, “Tripartite (Body, Soul and Spirit),” is appropriately divided into 3 sections – but Marcus sits this one out. Daniel blows some tub farts while Cyrille's gut pounding steadily churns, representing the Body section fairly well. The less, uh, earthy sections of the track are (more) beautiful; and there's a direct Ornette quote on this one, in case you weren't aware of his influence on all of this yet. But really, it's a testament to Daniel that it doesn't feel anything less than perfectly natural & heartfelt. In lesser hands, this could have been disastrously cloying.
“Epicycles” is perfectly titled. Loopy spirals from all players that weave around each other with careful precision. As great as the chemistry is between these amazing musicians, and as airy as the music feels without the sonic anchor of a bassist, I still find myself missing the sound of that instrument. Sometimes, as on this track, I actually find myself mentally writing the bass line. Any bassists looking for a creative outlet could do far worse than playing along with this disc.
I’ve been listening to Mad Dogs for three days straight, and I’m still giddy and disorganized in my thinking about it. My mind gets pulled into ruts when I try to find some clear expression of the music it contains. Sometimes I feel as though clichés are the only way we can get everyone sufficiently close to a piece of music. At least, they’re what we struggle to stop returning to when we brush up against the limitations of language, especially when faced with music that really connects. I’ll only let one really easy one go for you: embarrassment of riches. Five discs and over four and half hours of music captured at the 5th Krakow Jazz Autumn Festival in 2010. Calling this the Barry Guy New Orchestra is sort of misleading, but forgivably so. “Small Formations” is offered as a qualifier, and the smallest formations on display are as small as they get: solo sets by Agustí Fernández and Mats Gustafsson. It may just be that the New Orchestra name is the easiest rubric to jam the musicians of Mad Dogs into, though they all certainly interface in a world much more expansive than that.
You see, there’s a great thing that happens when the New Orchestra is broken down into small subsets: you get all kinds of other high-profile, well-received groups like the Parker/Guy/Lytton trio, the Tarfala trio, the Gustafsson/ Fernández duo, Fernández /Guy duo, and on and on (see full list of line-ups below). What makes Mad Dogs such a resounding success is that any of the five discs could easily have stood as a solid album on its own: the restless clatter of Parker/Guy/Lytton, who claim the entirety of the second disc; the absolutely balls-to-the-wall fourth disc, which features a surprisingly emotional set by the Tarfala trio, followed by a reprise of Parker/Guy/Lytton, this time with Fernández added; or the wide-ranging third disc, which features Hans Koch and Per-Åke Holmlander with a subtle dual percussion backup, a beautiful duo with Maya Homburger and Lytton, and the truly critical mass of Fernández and Gustafsson, who build to an almost unbearable crescendo.
This is not the world of microsound or the quiet smears of instruments and electronics that mark more recent branches of improvisation. This is the physical, acoustic collision of virtuosity and musical ingenuity, the raw synergy of musicians recognized as masters of the form. There’s an urgency spanning across these discs, as though Mad Dogs is making a case for the very legitimacy of free improvisation itself. Intentionally or not, the set is presented in an expanding fashion, building in both size and intensity, launching with the dull, muted thuds of Fernández’s solo piano set and culminating in a cathartic orchestral blowout with an octet whose bombastic density would make Varèse blush. In between, all manner of duos, trios, and quartets make their showings. Especially interesting is the opportunity to contrast the three different sax trios present throughout (Parker/Guy/Lytton is a whole different beast than Gustafsson/Guy/Strid).
In László Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance, the defeated musicologist Mr. Eszter, distraught at the fraud of equal temperament (which fakes the elegance of pure tuning), decries that the “world […] was too full of the noises of banging, screeching and crowing, noises that were simply the discordant and refracted sounds of struggle, and that this was all there was to the world if we but realized it.” It may well be that the world can be heard in bangs and screeches and crows; however, not all are the product of struggle. Some arise from the joys of cooperation, exploration, innovation, even downright Dionysian celebration and excess. These are the bangs and screeches of Mad Dogs, and they are a rallying cry for a world (or at least music) we can be proud of. Line-ups featured:
Agustí Fernández (solo)
Agustí Fernández/Barry Guy
Mats Gustafsson (solo)
Johannes Bauer/ Per-Åke Holmlander /Hans Koch
Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton
Trevor Watts/Johannes Bauer
Hans Koch/ Per-Åke Holmlander /Raymond Strid/Paul Lytton
Trevor Watts/Barry Guy/Raymond Strid
Maya Homburger/Paul Lytton
Agustí Fernández/Mats Gustafsson
Mats Gustafsson/Barry Guy/Raymond Strid
Agustí Fernández/Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton
Evan Parker/Paul Lytton
Trevor Watts/Herb Robertson/Hans Koch
Agustí Fernández/Johannes Bauer/Raymond Strid/Trevor Watts/Herb Robertson/ Per-Åke Holmlander /Mats Gustafsson/Paul Lytton
Starring Martin Schray on the first two episodes and Paolo Casertano for the season finale Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 1 (Aagoo Records, 2007) **** ½ New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation, 2011) *****
The first Colin Stetson album I came across was New History of Warfare Vol. 2: Judges because my friend Bernd recommended it to me. Listening to it for the first time something rare happened: It sounded like nothing else I've heard before even if it consisted of familiar elements, though. It’s hard to explain but this music felt so natural and accessible that I immediately fell in love with it and purchased Vol. 1 as well.
On this album everything which is so masterfully refined later on Vol. 2: Judges and Vol. 3: To See More Light is already on display: the references to minimal and serial music that sound like a weird Steve Reich composition, the growling, the clicks, the speech samples, the excursions in breath (especially circular breathing), the percussive sounds, the effects like reverb or fuzz tones that make the saxophones and clarinet sound like a distracted alphorn (as in As a Bird or a Branch) or a pinball-machine (e.g. Nobu Take). Compared to the sophomore albums, however, it makes no secret of the fact that it is standing on the shoulders of giants – namely solo sax performances from Steve Lacy to Anthony Braxton or Evan Parker. New History of Warfare Vol. 1 is structured by three long pieces - And I Fought to Escape at the beginning of the album, followed by Time Is Advancing with Fitful Irregularity in the center and Our Heartbreak Perfect as the closing track – all of them typical Stetson solo pieces which sound as if there was more than one sax player although he uses no overdubs or loops. How does he do this? The percussive elements are due to the close-mic'd and manipulated recording of the instruments' keys and he is vocalizing through the horn as he blows. He establishes basic rhythmic patterns and builds up several musical themes or recognizable phrases and riffs above them, intensifying the tempo or slowing it down, which has a monotonous psychedelic effect. The album’s shorter pieces use heavy funk/dub (Tiger Tiger Crane), rock splinters (Drown the Rats and Giants) or even crossover riffs (Stand, Walk) – a complete world of its own has been created here and Stetson planned to enlarge it.
Four years later the result was New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges and it is nothing else than a true masterpiece. Again Stetson does without overdubs, the record is one piece, even if it seems hardly possible that one musician is capable of doing this (proof is given in the sample below). On this album there is an even richer maelstrom of notes Stetson pours out repeating his scales, he also extends the use of massive bass drones and the percussive sounds plus he has added other voices to his own amalgamating everything to a perfect entity. The result is that the albums actually contains “hits” – for example “A Dream of Water” (with Laurie Anderson on vocals) and a cover version of Blind Willie Johnson's "Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes", an abstract, alienated folk blues featuring Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond, whose ethereal vocals sound like someone trying to deliver a dreadful, heart-breaking message from a twilight zone with Stetson adding incredibly dark sound layers to that. It’s a vivisection of a lost and tortured soul but what makes this music so great in the end is the fact that it is so easy to enjoy on a purely musical and emotional level without bothering the listener about the underlying ideas or concepts of how it is made.
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 3 To See More Light (Constellation, 2013) ****
I will start upside down. When I listen to ¨Part of me apart from you¨, the last track on Stetson’s third (and it seems by now final) solo sax installment, I can’t help having goose bumps (even tough guys need to be hugged sometimes), I can’t help feeling that I am being to be called to a glorious fate, probably riding on a black horse - definitely no saddle - towards the sunset, gunpowder smell still in my nostrils, the heart full of love and joy thinking of my wife and my son running to me when I will pass the fence of our farm with a life full of promises (avant-garde is stimulating and culturally chic but hey ... some good old tear-jerking melodies have never killed anyone, as far as I know). I would probably have the same kind of epic feelings playing in this empty resonating theater.
This is maybe the most impressive aspect of Stetson’s music, as Martin formerly stated. Its uncontested immediacy, the automatic suppression of the awareness that the involving melody you’re listening to is the result of a plodding, obsessive construction and augmentation of the acoustic possibilities given by one of the most uncomfortable instruments you can decide to play. You just don’t care if it is an entire orchestra playing or just a guy blowing his lungs in some metallic pipes. It is kind of uncommon to wiggle out so easily from an approach that is also based so clearly on technical virtuosity.
Colin Stetson enhances beyond the boundaries the already physical relationship the player has with a bass saxophone, adding to circular breathing his constant clicking on buttons, hisses, wheezes and many other guttural eruptions pouring out of his throat, captured by a contact microphone housed in a tight collar he wears when playing (I hope only when he plays). His devotion, his physical annihilation in the performance (it seems Stetson adopts a rigid diet and undergoes to hard physical training before and while touring to withstand the hustle, and the reasons can be easily understood) get him closer more to a cyborg-like enlarged new sound source than to a musician working with extended techniques on his instrument. This may be not connected to the quality of the musical result, but it is in my opinion the most remarkable experiment of technological hybridisation for these instrument techniques, as well as an interesting enhancement in the relationship between human body and sound technology in general.
In To see more light the opening act “And in truth” starts exactly where the atmospheres of Judges have left us: in the middle of some Michael-Nyman-Draughtman’s-Contract-echoes boosted by the gospel choir of Justin Vernon from Bon Iver that Stetson has enlisted for several episodes of this new adventure. Stetson seems to have found a perfect compositional alchemy in the technique of singing along with himself through his horn’s mouthpiece over the obsessive bass beat of pieces as “Hunted” and “High Above A Grey Green Sea” and then again, more gorgeously, in “Among the Sef” sustained by a relentless serial phrasing. Be reassured, this time vocals are overdubbed for the morale of the poor human being with just two lungs. But also a shorter episode as “In Mirrors”, where he just plays with shuffled and trembling breath drones, leaves its mark. The cutting and distorted “Brute” offers instead the most aggressive metal side of Stetson also hosting the rude hardcore singing of Vernon, far away from the clean Laurie Anderson’s presence in Judges. The voice is clearly gaining a nodal role in the compositional vision of the musician.
“To See More Light” is the cornerstone of the album, the album’s most ambitious track, in the form of a layered suite of fifteen minutes that sees one long excursion through a singsong melody, constantly moving across speed changes for about eight minutes up to a mournful, percussive rattle pierced occasionally by growing sighs that reconnect in a cathartic closing chant. As the music changes, it changes only in texture, colour and intensity, so that the feeling is not of something being created or developed, but of something already present being slowly illuminated.
I think it’s worth mentioning the album mixing by Ben Frost, grey eminence of so many recent masterpieces, when not directly involved in his own groundbreaking electronic (and not just) production.
Stetson’s New History Warfares trilogy accomplishes the goal to be at the same time rock and coherent with the experimental music, the lower rating I assign to this album - if compared to the two previous chapters - doesn’t mean this work achieved a lesser result. But just that probably the next time, to amaze us this much, Stetson will be forced to change and go even further than this. And I’m sure he can.
Okay, here's the line up on Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues. Ben Goldberg on all things clarinet, Joshua Redman (tenor saxophone), Ron Miles (trumpet), Devin Hoff (bass), Ches Smith and Scott Amendola (drums). As you can see, one has to go into listening to this recording with a certain heightened expectation of what will happen when Miles, Redman and Goldberg get in the same room. My only fear is they may play it too safe.
The opening track 'Evolution', is a wonderfully played take on New Orleans and what I hear as their musical rebuilding process. What begins with long somber tones, evolves into a dutch old style Dixie romp before descending back into the darkness from where it came. The fun and mutual respect is palatable on this track. Even the pauses contain part of the story. You can almost see them smile behind their mouthpieces.
'Ethan's Song' is like slipping on your favorite pair of trousers after a long hot shower. No rush, one leg at a time. It is here that I started paying attention to Hoff's bass and how beautifully recorded it is. I have always found it difficult to get good bass response from a MP3 at the best of times, but this recording seems to address this issue better than most. It holds onto a mellow tone but yet cuts through everything placing it right into its own proper bank of frequencies without sacrificing any of the groove.
Make no mistake, as musician heavy as this recording is, it is still very Goldberg and if at any point you needed a reminder, just listen to 'Study of the Blues', a horn fest of the highest level.
Ches Smith puts his stamp on just about everything he touches. Every time I see clips of him play, I am reminded of the famous self description of the great Mohammad Ali; 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.' Here he does it with a heightened grace, as there are few tracks that require aggressive drumming. As the title suggests, this really is a blues album, and as a parallel nod to Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', it is also a very lyrical recording with very structured passages.
Even if you are not completely in the mood to listen to this type of release, before you have finished, it will put you there, aided but tracks like 'Asterisk'. Things get a little more upbeat on 'Who Died and Where I Moved to' and freer on 'Lopse' but all in all it is a very introspective listen even if sometimes it does sound a little safe.
That's a lot of five stars for a few albums. So, when Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker teams up with Portuguese pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro and bassist Hernani Faustino from RED Trio, you can bet that magic is the air. And yes, they deliver the goods. What more can I say, that yes, I am a little bit biased because I had the honor of writing the liner notes, which I reproduce below, which saves me the effort of writing a review. Intensity, lyricism, sensitivity and character guaranteed.
"Intensity, you cannot put your finger on it … though you know it when you hear it. Nervous tension, the creation of anticipation, the quick-turn changes, the effect of being in the moment, all three, at the same time, then adding a flowing continuity, building expectations, building tension, new expectations, new tension. What you hear surprises you, it captivates you, every note, every sound a story by itself. Listen to the slow shimmering tones of Lotte Anker, and the precise and cautious sparse piano notes that Rodrigo Pinheiro adds, accurate, without abundance, just the right few notes that make it work, the dark tones of Hernani Faustino’s bass, one accent here, another foundational color there. What is happening? You wonder … you wonder about the beauty you hear, the worlds that unfold behind your ears the images behind your eyes … enveloped in shimmering light, subtle yet dense, ephemeral yet solid … the space between substance … the nature of contrast.
Intensity may be the result of paradoxes, a feeling of alienation combined with the comfort of recognition, the alienation of form with the recognition of emotion, the feeling that these light textures and joint instant lyricism reveal something known, a fleeting familiar feeling, implied but never stated phrases, melodies that evaporate before they become, images out of long-gone memories or images spontaneously arising, you don’t know, it is beauty offered.
Intensity is about giving value to each note as part of a broader canvas, created together, with each little note valuable like glittering diamonds in a necklace, with silence acting as emptiness to emphasise the quality of the tone, the shade of the sound, their combined effect. Intense calm, controlled passion. Stretching tones on alto on arco with piano like raindrops piercing through fog. Skittering like bird song, fresh naïve and real, with somehow a menace in the background, something that might disturb, that might alter and it does, the mood changes, but somehow the structure doesn’t, still the skittering bird song, the piano the bass menacing, the bird song in distress.
Ongoing surprise, unpredictability, deep experience. Don’t think while listening. Go with the sounds. Let go. Let yourself be surprised. You will be taken to strange places … intense and rich and authentic places".
Berlin in a not too distant future after the musical revolution:
Three months ago Justin Bieber was arrested at the Russian border where he was trying to ask for musical exile – he was on the run. American Idol has been banned from television for good, the whereabouts of former stars like Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and many others are unknown. A young angry audience was fed up with their music and sent them packing. The latest, coolest and hippest thing is improvised music, preferably free jazz. New clubs and record stores spring up like mushrooms. 20-year-olds are ready to spend a fortune for original vinyl albums by Bill Dixon, David S. Ware, Supersilent or Last Exit.
In front of a new club called “La Brötz” with an adjacent record store three young people - Oscar, Karl and Enna - are fumbling at their Apple glasses. You can hear only pieces of the conversation: “Yes, they are supposed to have super rare stuff…” – “Bill Dixon’s Edizioni Ferrari” – “AMM’s Ammmusic on Elektra …” – “I hope it’s not too late” - “… maybe it’s just a rumour”.
At 10 a.m. Elias, the shop owner, opens the doors. He is a man in his thirties who looks like a young Allen Ginsberg. The youngsters overwhelm him with questions. “Yes,” he answers, “there are some new LPs from an old lady who has cleaned out her late husband’s record collection. You find them here.” He points at two heavy wooden boxes in front of the counter. The young people ignore Elias now, they feel completely at ease and check out the stuff. The albums are in an excellent condition, the man must have been a connoisseur. Dixon’s and AMM’s album are not there but they find some rare FMP and RuneGrammofon LPs. Then Karl suddenly sees an LP on a board behind Elias. “What’s this?” he asks Elias, pointing at the cover. “It’s a trio LP with Joe McPhee on sax, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Bill Nace of Body/Heat fame on guitars, it’s called Last Notes. You can sometimes find the first part of the session on the video channels on the internet, but the vinyl is super rare, they only printed 250 copies then, but ….” “I heard about it, I don’t even know someone who knows someone who owns this record”, says Enna. “What’s the music like?” asks Oscar. “It’s not like the noise tornado you might expect, well … maybe the flipside, but the A-side is actually magical, majestic, both meditative and adventurous music. Totally beautiful! Moore and Nace build up huge guitar feedback and sound walls while McPhee makes use of his magnificent tone. Imagine you listen to Sonic Youth’s outro cacophonies around 1990 with John Coltrane as a guest star. This might come close to it. It was recorded live at Roulette in NYC in 2012, but you must know something …” - “How much do you want for it?” asks Enna. “It’s not mine, that’s what I wanted to tell you. The old men in the café across the street, it’s theirs. I know the oldest one, he is in his eighties now. His name is Martin Schray. He and his friends Paolo Casertano, Paul Acquaro and Stef Gijssels, these are the others, they wrote for a free jazz blog Gijssels started. But that was a long time ago. Maybe you can ask them …”
Back to the present:
There is an edition of only 250 vinyl copies and as you can imagine the album was immediately sold out at the source but there are some copies left on the web. So you better be quick, it is great music.
Last year we reviewed the fist volume of Eddie Prévost's "Meeting With Remarkable Saxophonists", called "All Told", with Evan Parker on sax and John Edwards on bass. We never highlighted the other two albums in the series : "All But", with John Butcher and Guillaume Viltard and "All Together" with Jason Yarde on sax and Oli Hayhurst on bass. All performances were recorded at the Network Theatre in London between May and August 2011.
All But - Meetings With Remarkable Saxophonists, Vol.2 (Matchless, 2012) ****
If it is difficult to match Evan Parker, you can rely on John Butcher to come to the same high level. Butcher shows his incredible skills on the instrument by sucking and slapping and blowing his instrument full of nervous tension, sounding like lusty blackbirds, whispering phantoms or raucous tantrums, as you see fit to describe it, but always as one with the trio, and offering great space and ideas for Prévost's skillful play of emphasis and pulse. Viltard, bassist with the London Improvisers Orchestra is good but less prominent, and at moments totally eclipsed by the fury of sax and drums. If you like Butcher, and you like Prévost, I can only recommend the album.
All Together - Meetings With Remarkable Saxophonists, Vol.3 (Matchless, 2012) ****
The real discovery is Jason Yarde, and to come in a series after Evan Parker and John Butcher says enough about the esteem Prévost has for the young musician. The quality is obvious. He can shout and scream full of relentless energy, exploring new sonic environments and alternating with very lyrical and calm passages, with phrases and rhythms that are real jazzy, and as part of a trio that moves as one. Hayhurst is good and quite jazzy too, quoting Charlie Haden in one of his solo moments ... and Prévost? .... well he is Prévost ... all creative all present all in function of the music. The album consists of two lengthy improvisations, one of twenty-six minutes, the other almost twice as long, but which is captivating from beginning to end. A real treat.
Good free jazz and free music DVDs are hard to find, so it's always a kind of an amazing fact when a dedicated label is created that does only that : release DVDs of "contemporary jazz and free improvisation". The label is called Panrec and is based in Bonn, Germany.
Here are some of the great DVDs that they released recently.
The Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet - Concert For Fukushima - Wels, 2011 (Pan & Trost, 2013)
This is a great and high quality recording of the famous Tentet but now with special guests from Japan;: Toshinori Kondo, Michiyo Yagi, Yoshihide Otomo and Akira Sakata, recorded at Wels, Austria, in 2011.
Hold on to everything that's dear to you .... and brace yourselves.
***
Nils Wogram & Simon Nabatov - Moods & Modes (PanRec, 2011)
Filmed at Radio Studio Zürich in July 2009, the DVD brings the entire concert of the trombonist and pianist, shifting moods indeed, ranging from romantic moments over playful improvisations to fierce battles.
***
Hans W. Koch, Thomas Lehn, Ben Patterson & Jozef Cseres - Requiem For A Baby Grand - Final Piano Music For 8 Hands And Tools (PanRec, 2012)
The most incredible DVD in the series is this systematic destruction of a baby grand piano, which though built in 1901 and having survived two world wars, needed to be destroyed anyhow, so why not rescue it for rehearsal first for a couple of years, and then thoroughly screw, hammer and saw it to pieces? An interesting performance. More a statement than actual musical joy, but you never know
***
Simon Nabatov Plays Herbie Nichols (PanRec, 2010)
Despite all our goodwill, we cannot possibly review all albums we receive, and that includes Russian master pianist Simon Nabatov's excellent "Simon Nabatov - Spinning Songs Of Herbie Nichols-Solo", released on Leo Records last year. Fans of solo piano music and of improvisation should get both the DVD and the album, not only because of Nabotov's idiosyncratic take on Nichols, but also for the sheer joy of watching creativity at work per se.
***
Unlimited 23 - A documentary About Music Unlimited Festival 2009 (PanRec, 2010)
Shot in Wels, Austria, November 6–8, 2009, the concert and DVD features Kristin Andersen, Lotte Anker, Martin Blume, Arnold de Boer,
Katherina Bornefeld, Tony Buck, Sylvie Courvoisier, Chris Cutler, dieb13,
Shayna Dunkelman, Peter Evans, Fred Frith, Lene Grenager, Noid Haberl,
Terrie Hessels, Lindha Kallerdahl, DD Kern, Pamelia Kurstin, Okkyung Lee,
Thomas Lehn, Koichi Makigami, Stephen O'Malley, Phil Minton, Andy Moor,
Ikue Mori, Mark Nauseef, DJ Olive, Maggie Parkins, Sara Parkins,
Zeena Parkins, Maja Ratkje, Peter Rehberg, Hild Sofie Tafjord,
Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Ute Wassermann, David Watson.
It is an amazing documentary with lots of variation, and a real strong presence of some of today's avant-garde female musicians.
***
And there are some other DVDs from other labels to which we should/could have paid more attention in the past.
Brötzmann - Ein Film von René Jeuckens, Thomas Mau und Grischa Windus (Siegersbusch, 2011)
A great film with concert performances and interesting pieces of interview with the master in his work space.
***
Soldier Of The Road - A Portrait Of Peter Brötzmann (Cinésolo, 2011)
Produced and directed by Bernard Josse, the DVD gives a very honest interview and picture of Brötzmann as a musician, as a graphic artist, as a person, and as an icon, with interviews of other musicians like Han Bennink, Fred Van Hove, Evan Parker and many more.
***
Arts Interplay by Ebba Jahn (2008)
This less recent DVD brings several performances, starting with a long trio performance with Roy Campbell, Barre Phillips and John Betsch and with Maria Mitchell dancing. The music exists for the dancer, and the dancing is not always my thing, but nevertheless nice stuff. The second piece is "Spiritworld", an interview with Jeff Schlanger, painter specialized in capturing live performances, and to most of us possibly best known from the Vision Festival art work. "La Mémoire Et La Main" is a solo performance by Barre Phillips, and "Cellophan" a performance by Günther Christmann on cello. "Bass Quartet" says what it is, performed by Barre Phillips, Jan Roder, Berit Jung and Konrad Grüneberg.
It took me some time to find it, but it's worth getting.
Great to see a Tim Daisy album, one of the best drummers around (in my humble opinion). This is not the first record that Tim has produced under his name, if I understand correctly it's number seven in the Relay Recordings series - check out Tim's website to see the other recordings, often duo projects, but not all. On this album Tim has chosen a strong team of players; Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet), Steve Swell (trombone) and John Herbert (bass), all top performers on their instruments and well known throughout the modern music world as leaders in their own right. It's also an unusual combination with two brass for a front line, but it works very well.
Since we didn't get any information on the recording I can't say who wrote the six tunes on the CD, however they're all fine pieces with plenty of scope. The music falls into the free/composed sector, groups such as Vandermark 5, The Engines, Atomic, Motif and others are all proponents of this style where clear melodic structures are used and fused with free improvised techniques. Out of the six tunes on the record only two "Come to Rest" and "Giving Back" are out of tempo, the others all find a groove at some point and often some chord structure or ostinato figure.
"Loud Noon", the first track uses a bass figure similar to the one used in "Night in Tunisia" to underpin the melody. It then builds a fine swinging atmosphere built on a non resolved chord which launches the two front line brass players. "Come to Rest"(tk2) is a cleverly placed impro' which segues into the title track "Streets in Time"(tk3). This artfully built piece has several subtle ideas which allow the two horns to develop solos. The first over a fine improvised cornet/drums duel. The two are gradually joined in the all out melodic 'ruckus' finally giving over to the trombone to develop a more harmonic area.
Tim Daisy uses his musicians to great effect by giving them plenty of space to express themselves. On "Inside A Room"(tk4) he lets the music unfold carefully over the eleven minutes, giving space for a bass solo, a quartet dialogue section, a trombone/bass/drums fight, a cornet/bass/drum dance, a drum solo and a final melody with bass, cornet and trombone playing peacefully over the soloing drums.
The last two tunes are equally exciting as the earlier pieces. The open improvisation and gentle theme of "Giving Back"(tk5) and the wonderfully strong bass solo which opens "Distance"(tk6) shows how strong this group of players are, all are able to swing or throw caution to the wind and abandon structures as needed. The rhythm section always attentive to move in any direction whilst the 'blowers' give plenty of ideas for their team-mates to work with.
The whole album works perfectly with no low points and never a dull moment. The recording quality is also a plus, fine attention to detail from each instrument goes to make this album a great listen. All the players hand in stellar performances, as one would expect. If you enjoy plenty of swing, melody and quirky music you'll definitely find it here.
A tag musically could be Elton Dean's Ninesense.... minus five musicians, naturally!
