Zen Widow Featuring Wadada Leo Smith - Screaming In DayTime (Makes Men Forget) (Pfmentum, 2012) ****

By Stef  

For those who don't know Zen Widow, the trio is worth mentioning for its previous recordings too. The trio consists of Gianni Gebbia on sax, Matthew Goodheart on piano and Garth Powell on drums. Their debut album brought seventeen pieces of short ideas and more elaborate developments, all pretty abstract sketches and adventurous sound creations, a little crazy at times, yet quite coherent overall. 

Their second album, "Quodlibet", was even better, more accessible, more melodious, "drawing on a wealth of material that ranges from Soviet era cabaret tunes to Gene Pitney classics to 17th Century Italian opera arias", and using these as inspiration to work from, not as separate tunes, but within the same piece. The result is interesting and beautiful at the same time.

On their third album, with the frightening title "Screaming In Daytime", the same concept is used, but then with material coming from tenor saxophonist Glenn Spearman. As the liner notes say "Wishing to maintain the essence of Glenn's rich compositional style was the priority, without resorting to a typical tribute collection of an artist's past works".

... yet now the trio is expanded with no one less than Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet. Goodheart already played with Smith before, including on the highly recommendable duo album "Interludes Of Breath And Substance" (1998).

This album starts with a powerful and typical horn phrase by Smith, an incantation and wake-up call at the same time, full of contemplative calm and spiritual yearning. Then Powel joins on light percussion with strong pulse, a great introduction for the rest of the music to come. Halfway the track Gebbia joins for a few echoing phrases, as an invitation for the piano to join - replacing trumpet and drums and sax - and the mood shifts into one of only calm contemplation on keyboards, and when the sounds then completely dissolve into silence, the sax, solo again, picks up the tread, and Powell picks up a single-percussion rhythmic delight, with some small leftovers of trumpet and sound resurging before it all fades out.

It is all strange, pleasant, welcoming, open-ended, light-textured, with the artists taking turns in making the music, rather than simultaneously, in a slow, evolving unhurried relay of creative thoughts and shared sentiments. Musically, the album ranges from real "soundscape" mode in "This Seeming Dream" to the more jazzy long closing track, "Musa Physics", which is built around an actual theme and has more density and simultaneous interplay.

A strange and beautiful album. 

Elena Kakaliagou, Schmoliner, Stempkowski - Para-Ligo (Creative Sources, 2012) ****

By Stef  

The first sounds on this album come from the French horn played by Greek musician Elena Kakaliagou, a deep and dark wail arising from the depths of human emotion in a desperate cry to be heard, heartrending and beautiful, followed by the double bass of Thomas Stempkowski and the subtle piano touches of Ingrid Schmoliner, both from Austria. The three young musicians create a warm yet sad welcoming sonic environment.

Once you've been welcomed, you get different aural vistas, with sounds emanating from the same instruments, but now unrecognisable, yet intense, vibrating around a fast repetitive rhythm, that quietly dissolves once the horn makes its entry, an entry of silence and deconstruction of sound fragments trying to get a life and structure.

On "Ti ine?", Elena Kakaliagou recites poetry in Greek. What she recites is ununderstandable to me, but in contrast to most poetry recited in a jazz or musical context, it sounds lyrical, intimate and beautiful, in sharp contrast to the bombastic declamatory style that I abhor.

"-1°", the long center piece of the album sounds slow and sad, with some uncanny wails over light percussive sounds, no, it is extremely sad and extremely desolate, amazing what you can create with so few sounds.

"Sandra" offers more recognisable instrumental voices, with the horn, the bass, the piano using their intended sound, offering a small waltz-like song, fresh and simple and beautiful, gloriously disrupted by the rattling strings on the piano on "Canidae", offering a torturous backdrop for the muted plaintive laments of the horn, interestingly surrounded by a lightly jumping walking bass.

"ihobkanfoelagsehn" is a long slow piece circling around a tonal center played by the bass, with muted parlando-style horn, a strange dialogue interrupted - or complemented - by resonating piano chords.

A young trio, with an unusual line-up, brings us remarkable music with a strong musical vision and voice.

AMM - Two London Concerts (Matchless, 2012) ****

By Stef  

The album starts with a forceful piano chord ... then silence ... then another chord ... then silence. This is impact : drag the listener right into the sound, let him or her anticipate what's coming, or what's not coming. You cannot listen without being part of what you hear, not to dance on (god forbid, although you may give it a try), but because your mind and soul are being captured by tension, anticipation and surprise. Slow scraping and piercing sounds escape from highly resonating cymbals. The chords change color, become darker, just as percussive sound arise from unknown places, gentle and deep, then slowing down with single keys and near silence. What is going on here? What is going on?

It is AMM, in a duo setting with John Tilbury on piano and Eddie Prévost on percussion, in a way that only they can do it, in a genre that they created, the art of silence, the art of dynamic silence, the art of sonic tension. They create a place where there is no hiding for the listener too. You have no choice. Either you flee are you are into it. And if you are into it, you are part of it. Enjoying the beauty of the sounds, their horror, their precise shading, their cautious interaction, their gentle collisions, the ominous atmosphere.

AMM is getting smaller as a line-up, but that's no handicap really, not here, strong stuff. The joy of listening.

Atomic - There’s a Hole in the Mountain (Jazzland, 2013) ****

By Martin Schray

There is no doubt that Atomic are a great jazz band. Yet, I had difficulties writing about their album. Should I refer to the title and/or the titles of the single tracks? Is there a common theme, either musically or thematically? Is there something personal I could refer to like a certain live experience (I saw them once)? As you can see, starting the review was a problem. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block but somehow I was stuck. I even considered just describing the music but when I was at the Moers festival with my friend Christoph he reminded me that this is something I didn’t have to do and he came up with this Günter “Baby” Sommer quotation that “describing music is like story-telling a meal”.

When I write about music I am always very subjective and very personal, I write about the things I like. And of course I like Atomic. I like their long time cooperation (this is their 12th album since 2001), I like listening to the small changes they have made during their existence (check out Bikini Tapes for that), I like Håvard Wiik’s unpretentious but precise way of playing the piano, I like Magnus Broo’s (tp) and Fredrik Ljungkvist’s (sax) arrow-like and razor-sharp unison riffs, and I like Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love as a rhythm machine just because they are my favorite European rhythm machine.

As to their music the French critic François Couture claimed that Atomic was founded as a reaction to the very smooth Scandinavian bands released on ECM (like Jan Garbarek, Nils Petter Molvær or Bobo Stenson). In contrast to the really ethereal and hyper-clean ECM sound Atomic’s approach is rather enrooted in the American bop and cool era and the European free jazz movement of the 1960s as well, something they combine in a very tense and tight way.

You can see this in a track like “Civilon”. It displays this kind of Miles-Davis-Ascenseur-pour-l'échafaud-atmosphere (the faster tracks, of course), but in their typical Atomic way the whole piece makes a U-turn to something that reminds more of Archie Shepp’s Fire Music, it completely falls apart before the band picks up the pieces again (or actually what’s left of them). It works similarly with “Available Exits”, just replace the Miles Davis theme by a hard bop staccato line. There are a lot of styles present on the album, though. The title track and “Wolf-Cage” include classical and/or klezmer elements to the brew which makes me think of Arnold Schönberg, Lennie Tristano, Ornette Coleman and John Zorn on a night out, getting loaded on some bottles of Pinot Noir, before they start composing all together simultaneously.

This whole thing is full of energy and funny and sometimes even breathtaking.

But I realize that I describe the music again. I don’t know what else to do. Maybe I whetted somebody’ appetite.

Watch a clip from 2010 here:

 Buy it on  www.instantjazz.com

Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - Your Turn (Northern Spy, 2013) *****

By Paul Acquaro

Marc Ribot says it best when he sings 'why burn like a crazy Roman candle when you've got a hand grenade'. Musical shrapnel, sharp lyrics and well conceived mayhem explode from the second recording by Ribot's Ceramic Dog.

Your Turn is seething, powerful, delightful, and one heck of a rock album. The collection of songs run the gamut from stomping punk ('The Professionals') to campy fun ('Back in Love Again') to avant rock ('Your Turn'), all lovingly draped in a dark and brittle sound that embraces the decay that goes along with beauty (or perhaps finds the beauty that exists in decay?). Regardless, with Shahzad Ismaily on bass and electronics and Ches Smith on drums, the group can be both hard hitting and nuanced.

One striking aspect of the recording is the perfect setting Ribot created for his singing and lyrical prowess. The intro to "Lies My Body Told Me" sounds to me a little bit like if Morphine was fronted by Gordon Gano, before exploding with the vibrant and dark intensity that fills the album. I won't delve into the ironic and witty lyrical content, but I am excited to let you discover the wit and pointed criticism to be found in 'Masters of the Internet' and sheer joy of 'The Kid is Back'.

On Your Turn, Ribot seems to have brought together many sides of his musical career. From the more song based structures found in his support work with Tom Waits and many others, to his restless experimental work on his own recordings with say the Rootless Cosmopolitans, to his dark instrumental rumination that exist throughout solo efforts like Saints and even Silent Movies. Elements that have appeared throughout are assembled into a cohesive whole, and when aggressive avant-punk-jazz juxtaposes with Tin Pan Alley chord progressions, it makes perfect sense.

You can buy it from instantjazz.com.

Listen a little:

Evan Parker Trio: Live at Maya Recordings Festival (NoBusiness, 2013) **** ½

By Martin Schray

As a musician Evan Parker is a man of many faces. On the one hand he is always looking for new collaborations like on C-Section with electronic madman John Wiese (Second Layer Recordings), Live at Akbank Jazz Festival (Re:konstruKkt) with the Turkish group konstruKt or ‘Round About One O’clock (Not Two) with Slovenian drummer and percussionist Zlatko Kaučič. On the other hand he likes long time relations like his Electro-Acoustic Ensemble (although many new members have been added to this project), the legendary Schlippenbach Trio (as to persistence the Rolling Stones of free jazz) and the Evan Parker Trio (with Barry Guy on bass and Paul Lytton on drums).

Albeit the work of this trio is pretty well documented (their first album was Tracks in 1983), there haven’t been many albums in the last 15 years (just Nightwork/Marge, Zafiro/Maya, 2x3=5/Leo) - if you don’t count the albums when the band was augmented by guest musicians like Peter Evans or Marilyn Crispell. And now almost simultaneously there are the contributions to Barry Guy New Orchestra Small Formations: Mad Dogs and this one here.

And Live at Maya Recordings Festival presents the trio at its best. Especially when the whole trio is in action the building up of sound layers is of a rare intensity, a “thickly textured woven soundscape, which is constantly adding and subtracting, re-designing itself and pushing the sound through new possibilities and decisions”, as Steve Day describes it in his book “Two Full Ears”. It is music from the bottom of a Poe-ish maelstrom pretending it is perfect surfing weather. Their secret is that they are a well-greased machine, an improvising entity, a true trio – with a drummer that stirs the shit, a bass that provides an irresistible pulse (plus some extra surprises) and a saxophonist who does not use this context for selfish solos but for tight and spontaneous interaction looking for new pastures.

The best example is the last track on the album. “Scoria” starts with an intimate Guy/Lytton conference, there is an almost evil pizzicato drone by Guy, a climactic strumming supported by Lytton’s cascade of cymbal rolls before Parker’s approximates rather hesitantly to the figure of the duo before he jumps on the train with his typical circular breathing. What makes up the beauty of the piece is the contrast between the dark atmosphere created by Guy and Lytton and the twinkling sea-spray of Parker’s tenor at the end – an undertow you could addict yourself to forever … and ever … and ever.
The album was recorded during a concert at the Maya Recordings Festival in September, 2011 at Theater am Gleis, in Winterthur, Switzerland

The album is available on double vinyl as a limited edition of 500 and on CD as well.

You can buy it from instantjazz.com.

Finally, get an impression of the trio here:

Empty Cage Quartet - Empty Cage Quartet (Prefecture Music, 2012) ****

By Philip Coombs

The imagery of an empty cage. Unless you are looking at a new one in a pet store, there was once something alive in there. A bird perhaps, maybe a large cat, or a chimpanzee to pick something a little closer to home. Of course, there is always a positive, more uplifting way of looking at it. Was there a jailbreak, a run to freedom leaving an antiquated symbol of repression? These were just some of the thoughts running through my head as the 'Empty Cage Quartet' were running after them.

This recording celebrates their tenth year as a group and all their years together realizes itself in various incarnations of telekinesis.  Little did I know the ride I was in for.

This is thoughtful music, thought out music, and ultimately realized music.  The recording begins with promise, ('Oblige the Oblivious') a promise of a happy, albeit slightly off putting soul quite happy to be singing in a cage. Oh, the sweet sounds of when you think you are correct. The soul soon leaves the tenant ('Peace') and begins what can only be described as a downward descent until it nearly reaches rock bottom ('Taming Power of the Great').

This quartet feels right and even better for the listener if the album can be listened to in one sitting, (multiple times if the ability is there to do so) and is brought to you with skill and precision by Kris Tiner (trumpet), Jason Mears ( reeds), Paul Kikuchi (percussion) and Ivan Johnson (bass).

'Joyous Lake' haunts as it takes a 9 minute introspective look through the bars of the cage where claws or paws or fingers once held. It is at times as stark as the album's artwork. It begins with a flutter of sound searching for a footing. Horns ring out. An emotional bowing of the bass and a tentative tap on the drum kit set up the final fall until the tension breaks and leads the listener into 'Avoid the Obvious' thus bringing the album full circle by revisiting some of the themes and sensibilities of the recording's opener.

Even though split up into tracks, this recording works as a single piece of composed and free music, both suspenseful and uplifting, both creative and destructive. You may even feel a little better than you did at the beginning of the record, I did.

Can be purchased from their Bandcamp page.

Devototionalien: “söllen uns in demut üben in harmony zu ieberlüben” (Not Two, 2013) *** ½

By Martin Schray 

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.

Buy at Instantjazz.

Andrew Cyrille – Duology (Jazzwerkstatt, 2013) ****

By Tom Burris

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.

Barry Guy New Orchestra Small Formations – Mad Dogs (Not Two, 2013) *****

By Dan Sorrells

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


Buy at Instantjazz.