Freejazzblog on Air: The Song Does Not Remain The Same

freejazzblog on air, featuring blog colleague Martin Schray and radio host Julia Neupert broadcasted  on SWR2 in southern Germany at 11 p.m. CEDT. The show is available online for this week: https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-jazz-und-pop/Jazz-SWR2-NOWJazz-freejazzblog-on-air-Songs-im-Free-Jazz,1160489-100.html.

The show is entitled "The Song Does Not Remain The Same" and is about the relationship of songs and free improvisation. It will include songs by Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Seval, Fire Orchestra, The Comet Is Coming, Code Girl and Ben LaMar Gay.

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Freejazzblog on Air: Re-issues - Listen Now!

freejazzblog on air, featuring the Free Jazz Blog's Martin Schray and radio host Julia Neupert is now available to listen to online until 11 p.m. 6-27. (It was broadcasted on SWR2 in southern Germany at 11 p.m. CEDT  on 6/19) 

The show is about re-issues and will feature music from Rashied Ali / Frank Lowe, Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe, Alice Coltrane, and Albert Ayler.

The show is available here: https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-jazz-und-pop/freejazzblog-on-air-reissues-die-lust-an-der-vintage-avantgarde-swr2-nowjazz-2020-06-19-100.html

Playlist for the episode:

Rashied Ali, Frank Lowe:
Exchange Part 1 (Movement 1)/CD: Duo Exchange (1973/2020)
Rashied Ali, Frank Lowe

Albert Ayler:
Vibrations/CD: Spirits To Ghosts Revisited
Albert Ayler Quartet 1964 (Albert Ayler - Saxofon, Don Cherry - Trompete, Gary Peacock Kontrabass, Sunny Murray - Schlagzeug)

Herbert Joos, Helmuth Zimmer, Wilfried Eichhorn, Claus Bühler, Rudolf Theilmann:
Unreleased Track Nr. 2/CD: Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe + Four Men Only - Complete Works
Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe

Wolfgang Fuchs:
Binaurality - Part 3/CD: Concert At Town Hall - Binaurality (2020)
King Übü Orchestrü

Alice Coltrane:
Africa/CD: Carnegie Hall ' 71
Alice Coltrane Nonet (Alice Coltrane - Piano, Harfe, Kumar Kramer - Harmonium, Cecil McBee, Jimmy Garrison - Kontrabass, Clofford Jarvis, Ed Blackwell - Schlagzeug, Tulsi - Tambora, Pharoah Sanders - Saxofon, Archie Shepp - Saxofon)

Masayukii Takayanagi:
What Have We Given?/CD: April is the crullest month
Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit

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LISTEN NOW: freejazzblog on air from June 28th on SWR2

freejazzblog on air, the creation of Martin Schray and Julia Neupert is on air again - on SWR2 in southern Germany, broadcasting 11 p.m. CET on Friday the 28th, and online for the following week.

This episodes theme: "Play it loud! Music as social protest." It will include music by Damon Locks, Irreversible Entanglements, Christian Lillinger, Joelle Léandre, Joe McPhee/Hamid Drake, Marc Ribot and Anguish.

Listen here for the next week:

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Freejazzblog on Air - Spirituality in Free Jazz (with Link)

freejazzblog on air, featuring blog colleague Martin Schray and radio host Julia Neupert broadcasted  on SWR2 in southern Germany at 11 p.m. Central European Time (5 p.m. in NYC) is available online for  week starting tonight.

The theme of the show is Spirituality in Free Jazz. Tune in for some talk and lots of music by Kahil El' Zabar, Lakecia Benjamin, Angel Bat Dawid, Danile Carter, Amina Claudine Myers, Martin Küchen and Makaya McCraven.

Link to the show: https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-jazz-und-pop/freejazzblog-on-air-in-anderen-sphaeren-spiritual-jazz-100.html

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Free Jazz Blog on Air - Newcomers

freejazzblog on air, featuring free jazz blog writer Martin Schray and public radio host Julia Neupert, will broadcast on SWR2 in southern Germany at 9:05 p.m. Central European Time this Wednesday, February 9th.

For those of you unable to listen when it airs, it will be available online for four weeks following the broadcast.

The theme of the show is "Newcomers" with music by Camille Emaille, Farida Amadou, Signe Emmeluth, Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Baptise Boiron and Susan Alcorn. 

Here is a link to the broadcast: https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-jazz-und-pop/freejazzblog-on-air-newcomer-on-the-scene-swr2-nowjazz-2022-02-09-100.html

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Free Jazz on Air - Digital Edition (Link available)

freejazzblog on air, featuring free jazz blog writer Martin Schray and public radio host Julia Neupert, will broadcast on SWR2 in southern Germany at 11 p.m. Central European Time (5 p.m. in NYC) this Friday, April 9.

For those of you unable to listen when it airs, it will be available online for week following the broadcast.

The theme of the show is "Digital Edition" with music almost exclusively available on the internet (and/or as a download). It will also delve into the situations that musicians have found themselves in during the pandemic. The play list includes selections from Ignaz Schick and Oliver Steidle, Leap of Faith's PEK, Marina Kifferstein, Xenofox, and Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey, among others.

Link will be published here when it is available.

Update: 

Listen here until April 16: https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-jazz-und-pop/freejazzblog-on-air-digital-edition-100.html

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freejazzblog on air: One World, Many Visions. Jazz als Global Music

freejazzblog on air, the creation of Martin Schray and Julia Neupert is on air again - on SWR2 in southern Germany, broadcasting 11 p.m. CET on Friday the 15th, and online for the following week.

"One world, many visions. Jazz as global music". It includes music by Don Cherry, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society, Karkhana, Konstrukt, Gato Libre (feat. Satoko Fuji), Okkyung Lee and Switchback.

Listen now online here:

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Freejazzblog On Air - Tonight on SWR2 (Germany)

 

Martin Schray teams up one more time tonight with radio host Julia Neupert to listen to and discuss free jazz on Germany's NWR2.

The topic under consideration is the influential New York City based free jazz and improvised music label Relative Pitch. Martin and Julia will be playing tracks from recent releases by Fred Moten, Brandon Lopez and Gerald Cleaver; Biliana Voiutchkova & Michael Zerang; Liz Albee and many more. 

If you want to do a little digging of your own before listening, click here for a list of articles and reviews related to Relative Pitch on the Free Jazz Blog

The episode aired April 19th, at 9:05 p.m. (German time) on SWR 2. 

An archive of the program is now available for listening for one week.

 

Don't miss it.

 

More info: https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-jazz-und-pop/freejazzblog-on-air-das-new-yorker-label-relative-pitch-swr2-nowjazz-2023-04-19-100.html

 

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FreeJazzBlog On Air - Jan 9th

Just a reminder  Free Jazz on Air, co-hosted by our very own Martin Schray, broadcasts this Friday at 11 p.m. on German public radio station SWR 2 (Südwestrundfunk 2).

Martin will be joining host Julia Neupert on air for another hour of Free Jazz talk and music, this session will profile a prolific free jazz oriented record label. 

A link to the show is available for on-demand listening for a week after the broadcast. Check out the announcement (in German).

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Polish Jazz Week

Polish Jazz Week

This week we are leading up to Martin’s next installment of “FreeJazzBlog on Air” with a bunch of reviews focusing on the ever expanding avant-garde jazz scene in Poland. Centering around Warsaw and Kraków this vibrant and creative scene is worthy of celebration and will be the focus of Martin's and Julia's show on Friday the 10th on German public radio’s SWR2 (airing at 11 pm and online for a week following).

After an introduction on Polish jazz history we will present an overview of the latest and most interesting releases.

A Round Up on Polish Jazz

By Martin Schray and Stef

The connection between Poland and jazz has always been a special one. After WW II, before free jazz came up, it could even be called a European center for jazz (together with Sweden and Great Britain). Although this changed with the rise of free jazz in Europe in the middle of the 1960s, when the scenes in Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands became more important, Poland always had exciting and famous musicians like Krzysztof Komeda and Tomasz Stanko.  But also people who are not as well known like Andrzej Trzaskowski, whose 1965 album Synopsis (with Stanko on trumpet) already had free elements, or pianist/saxophonist Włodzimierz Nahorny, whose trio also released a real classic of European free jazz (Heart, in 1967), are inseparably linked to the European scene. Another classic album is Zbigniew Namysłowski’s Winobranie (1973) with Stanislaw Cieślak, Tomasz Szukalski, Pawel Jarzebski and Kazimierz Jonkisz.

Apart from fantastic musicians Poland has always had great festivals, labels and publications. Since 1964 there was “Jazz Forum”, a magazine which was also available in English and German since the late 1970s and which – according to Wolfram Knauer, the head of the German jazz institute – can be considered the most important jazz publication in the 1970s and 80s. At its peak it was distributed in 103 countries! It still exists (but as far as we know only in Polish).

And of course there was “Jazz Jamboree” in Warsaw, the most important jazz festival in Europe, where even people like Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington or Charles Mingus played (but also free jazz musicians like Peter Brötzmann, Alex von Schlippenbach, Günter “Baby” Sommer and Conny Bauer) and which was already established in 1958.

On the other hand, the Polish free jazz scene lost its importance in the 1980s, as the scenes in Western Europe and the GDR had became more interesting; however, this changed with the fall of the iron curtain. Polish free jazz is literally booming, musicians like Mikołaj Trzaska, Wacław Zimpel, Adam Pierończyk, Mikrokolektyw or the Oleś brothers have released excellent albums. In addition, labels like NotTwo, ForTune, Kilogram, Multikulti or Bocian and venues like Alchemia in Kraków keep the tradition alive and have even put it on a new level.

P.S.:
A lot of information in this article is based on information by Ernst Nebhuth, who works for the jazz department at Ludwig Beck’s in Munich. He is one of the greatest experts on free jazz we know. Thanks a lot, Ernst.

Now – here is the music...

Sambar – Melt! (NotTwo, 2014) ****

Sambar are Paulina Owczarek and Tomasz Gadecki on baritone saxes and Melt! is their debut album which was recorded live at Alchemia in Kraków in 2013. Baritone sax duets are hard to find in improv and this one is a real bonfire of melodies, clicks and clacks, short runs and extended techniques – it’s a real journey into breath. The most interesting thing about this album is the rich timbre of these instruments, their dark and sombre sound and how the musicians intertwine. Owczarek and Gadecki circle each other, they fight and dance, but they always listen to each other respectfully. A very interesting album – not only for saxophone aficionados.

Listen to them here:

Olbrzym i Kurdupel - Work (Kilogram, 2014) ***

Sambar’s Tomasz Gadecki is also a part of Olbrzym i Kurdupel (Polish for “Giant and Dwarf”), here he plays the tenor and his partner is Marcin Bozek on bass guitar. But while Sambar is very focused and concentrated, Olbrzym i Kurdupel’s improvisations sometimes simply lead nowhere – which can be quite funny on the one hand but also a bit puzzling on the other. In “Part 3” they start elegantly next to each other, then they stop all of sudden, start anew, stop again, just to get lost somewhere. And I must admit that Bozek’s bass sound is not quite my cup of tea.

Pole – Radom (Kilogram, 2014) ****      

Pole is Jan Młynarski (drums, percussion), Peter Zabrodzki (guitar, bass, synthesizer) and Michał Górczyński (clarinets, flutes) and on the surface Radom is an album full of contradictions. On the one hand there are typical traditional Polish melodies played by the clarinet and the flute (mainly based on Jewish klezmer), on the other hand there are tons of electronic rubble, repetitive guitar riffs, absent-minded bass runs and a pulse that has gone completely wild. All of this at the very same time, for example in the opening track “Kieniewicz”. Górczyński seems to be a soulmate of Mikołaj Trzaska and Wacław Zimpel, so it’s logical that he is also part of their fabulous Ircha Quartet. Particularly on “Godzinki”, the longest track of the album, the trio develops a relentless meditative groove (at least in the first part), mainly due to Zabrodzki’s elegant, smooth bass lines and Górczyński’s repetitive licks. In the second part the track falls apart, which is nice to watch. Very Polish, very avant-garde, very good.

Kamil Szuszkiewicz - Bugle Call and Response (Wounded Knife, 2014) **½

By Stef

On this audiocassette, Polish flugelhorn player Kamil Szuszkiewicz offers us two faces of a solo performance : the A-side is acoustic, the B-side is electronically manipulated. The A-side is melancholy, intimate, refined and sad. The B-side sounds like a coffee percolator processed through a Moog synthesizer of the seventies.

Each side takes about thirteen minutes. An interesting experiment.

You can listen and download from Bandcamp or buy the cassette.

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freejazzblog on air: Chicago Boogie

Martin Schray has surprised us with a new episode of 'freejazzblog on air' with host Julia Neupert on Germany's SWR2.

With the subtitle "The World's Secret Free Jazz Capital", the episode checks out Chicago's thriving free jazz scene.

The broadcast was 3/13, but you can check it out now - but it's only available until Friday 3/20!

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Jazz em Agosto, Day 3

By Paul Acquaro

Aug 3, 2019, Lisbon

I am convinced that the best way to see a city is to orient yourself towards one of its remaining record stores and walk. Take your time, don't worry, they open late and hardly at the hour Google Maps indicates, so get sidetracked. I started at my hotel and headed out, and along the way discovered a park with a commanding view of the city, historic monuments, museums, tree-lined promenades, and funiculars going up the steep hillsides to neighborhoods of dangerously skimpy sidewalks and faded charm around each corner. When I finally arrived at my destination - a shop located at the top of a steep stair-street lined with hole in the wall restaurants and outdoor seating, it was still not open.

Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey © Jazz em Agosto / Petra Cvelbar

Evening three of the Jazz em Agosto festival began with spectacular husband and wife drum and sax duo of Tom Rainey and Ingrid Laubrock. Both have impressive discographies full of experimental and influential words and neither are new faces to festival. They have been playing as a duo since 2007 and have released three albums on Relative Pitch records: And Other Desert Towns,  Buoyancy, and Utter. Hearing them live, of course, is where some real magic happens.

Rainey doesn't play a straightforward rhythm, his approach is complex and nuanced, for example, large gestures made with mallets on the tom-toms or a thud of the bass drum are surrounded by smaller ones, barely audible whispers of cymbal or quiet arrhythmic high hat crashes, finding small empty spots and sometimes making new ones. Laubrock's playing fit perfectly, sometimes she is in the lead, sometimes it is Rainey, regardless, she too finds the best notes and sounds to fills the spaces and add unusual syncopation here, or unexpected accents there, keeping the music fresh and moving. 

Tonight, the duo was respectful of each other's space and trusting of each others next moves. At about 10 minutes into the performance, they pulled back their volume, suddenly shifting into "exploratory" mode. Laubrock placed the bell of her tenor sax around a vocal microphone and began playing with gloopy sounds. Rainey, like on spin cycle, ran his brushes over the drum heads. Patiently, they took the music from the sounds of gremlins in a washing machine to an apex of agitation, Laubrock picking up her soprano sax and pulling every sound out of that she could, and Rainey putting down his sticks, brushes, and mallets and using his hands directly on the drums. Their final improvisation featured an upbeat, uptempo pulse with Laubrock playing melodically over it.

The sax and drum duo is a rich collaboration with many possibilities, and the Laubrock/Rainey duo know how to make it really work.

Burning Ghosts © Jazz em Agosto / Petra Cvelbar

 So how does your music communicate 'resistance' when there are no words to rely on to convey it? Los Angeles' Burning Ghosts was fortunately on hand to answer this very question and the answer lies in the intention and feelings when you are making the music. Theirs is an intense instrumental mix of jazz, rock, and metal, and it isn't a bolt-on endeavor, rather it's a real melting-pot of influences that seamlessly veers from one end of the spectrum to the other. Their first recording was made in 2015 when racial tensions began boiling in the US following a number of highly publicized police killings (and how the hell does that now feel like a more innocent time?!?). In fact, the band's name came from the liner notes that John Skipp wrote for their album Reclamation - itself presenting a black and white image of the American Flag behind dark red tint on its cover - who wrote in his calamitous liner notes: 

"We're at another pivot point in history. And whether this smoke in the air smells like revolution, evolution, devolution, total apocalyptic disaster - or all of the above, in competing measure - if there's one thing I know, it's that time the time has come to put all of our flame-squirting cards on the table ... and if that wild trumpeting voice of the soul has anything real and important to tell us - surrounded as it is by all the burning, long-suffering ghosts of America, from beginning to end - it's that this life matters" 

Group leader, and organizer of Orenda Records, trumpeter Daniel Rosenboom explains, they all come from a left-leaning perspective, but are open to discussions - real discussions, not jingoistic shouting - with anyone, and hope that their music makes a space for organizing your own thoughts. On the stage at the festival he quickly introduced this notion and then let the music do the talking.

So, drum roll please ... as the group gathered on the stage, drummer Aaron McLendon started a drum solo, which lead into their first tune of the night. Compressed trumpet and distorted guitar sparred and intertwined, over McLendon's driving beats and the insistent pulse of Richard Giddens' upright bass. At one point guitarist Jake Vossler would have made Eddie Van Halen proud with his effortless tapping. The tight tandem leads shared between the guitar and the trumpet however were the high point of the night throughout - when they were locked in, Rosenboom's clean, straightforward melodies and Vossler's thick comping complimented the devastating precision of the bass and drums.

The second song that they introduced was dedicated to their mentor bassist Charlie Haden, who led the famous Liberation Music Orchestra, with the evocative title "Drowning on the High Ground." A long bass introduction opened the song, which then featured a legato melody with echos of Ornette Coleman's 'Lonely Woman'. Vossler later pulled out a Flying-V tenor guitar. The strikingly shaped and lower register instrument gave the group an even greater heavy-metal emphasis as they lumbered lithely through a ballad while Rosenboom counter-balanced with a mellifluous melody.

The music of Burning Ghosts' music is structured and well thought-out, there's plenty of room for improvisation in its often heavy "prog-metal" developments. Their music embodies the anger and hope that comes with being political aware, active, and engaged, without becoming righteous ... only the metal was!

Index of posts for Jazz em Agosto 2019:
Day 1: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-2019-day-1.html
Day 2: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-day-2.html
Day 3: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-day-3.html
Day 4: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-day-4.html
Day 5: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-day-5.html
Day 6: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-day-6.html
Day 7: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-day-7.html
Day 8: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2019/08/jazz-em-agosto-day-8.html

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Peter Brötzmann: An Update on the Latest (Day 1)

By Martin Schray

"Will Brötz ever stop going, on and on?", my friend Peter, a dedicated Brötzmann fan, asked me when I told him that there was another release by the great saxophonist on Holiday records (Eklisia Sunday, a vinyl release of a 2013 Not Two CD). He had to have it, even though he knew there have been more than a dozen new releases and reissues this year (and it’s only October) such as Songlines and Beautiful Lies, his album with the ICI Ensemble, and Risc, a recent album with Full Blast. But there are also negative voices. Julia, the host of the SWR 2 Freejazzblog On Air radio show, said she was puzzled by all these albums, that Brötzmann’s output was simply too much.  It might seem a glut, but Brötzmann is as close to a guaranteed seller as it’s possible to get in free jazz, and it’s primarily labels and other musicians who decide to release these recordings of his performances.  Brötzmann is also keen to support other ensembles. And, along with the touring, the answer might have something to do with the absence of pensions in free jazz. 

Given the number of releases, we will spend the next three days covering them mostly in shorter reviews though some certainly deserve closer attention...

Brötzmann/Parker/Drake - Song Sentimentale (LP and CD) (Otoroku, 2016) ****½

When Brötzmann started out in the 1960s, he was trying to find a language that could express what he felt conventional music was unable to do. In his attempt to find something new Brötzmann was standing on the shoulders of other giants who had asked themselves similar questions, though his early involvement in art exposed him to certain non-musical solutions, like the German Dadaist Richard Hülsenbeck, for whom the language critique of Dada started like any other critique - with doubt. Like them, Brötzmann asked himself if the continued use of existing modes could accommodate the kinds of things he wanted to say. And so he left conventional paths and started to express himself by ignoring the usual structures, looking to find fresh ways to address issues of modernity. In a career that’s spanned fifty years, Brötzmann’s playing  has changed. It now has a more nuanced vocabulary, aware of the simple but potent locutions at the core of the jazz tradition, combined with his own articulations – playing that is recognizably his own.

Song Sentimentale documents parts of a Café OTO residency with his longtime collaborators William Parker (double bass) and Hamid Drake (percussion). OTO’s own Otoroku label has released the music in split format, with different music on the LP and CD, using the same title and cover art. The music on these nights can be heard as the quintessence of Brötzmann’s oeuvre. The best example is “Stone Death”, Everything is in here: the opening call, songlike phrases, folk song allusions, the angry do-or-die improvisation, crassly overblown parts, relentless in their intensity. Initially, there‘s the old mad dog of the early days, grounded by a rhythm section that moves with the elegance of a ballet dancer. Parker and Drake shuffle and swing like hell, and adjust the temperature by speeding up or decelerating. Drake even throws in a rock groove used by Brötzmann to let loose. The last six  minutes present the “new“ Brötzmann, knee-deep in melancholy, playing of pathos which can almost bring a tear. Notwithstanding the album title, short, harsh outbreaks ensure that poignant doesn’t become sentimental.

“Dwellers in a Dead Land” presents a different Brötzmann, employing oriental and African rhythms, with Drake singing and finger-tapping on a frame drum, while Parker plays the guembri. Brötzmann is on tárogató, and as often when he plays the instrument, his lines sound closer to African and Far Eastern harmonies. In the middle of the track he drops out and returns on clarinet, dueling with Parker on shenai, a reed instrument similar to the oboe - European free jazz iconoclasm meets Indian trance.

The LP‘s a good example of what has become a typical Brötzmann’s performace (although his health is sometimes not the best these days). The set begins with his familiar call to arms, followed by variations on tárogató with Drake delivering a polyrhythmic salvo while Parker’s bass supports with a pungent pulse. It’s a pleasure to listen to a group able to submerge so deeply in their music. The structures are similar to the CD performances. After a take-no-prisoners intro, it’s time for the blues. Brötzmann’s sad melodies are soon replaced by a rough tone but Parker and Drake keep the blues fire burning.

In the twilight of his career, Brötzmann seems to be fully conscious of his art, and its potential, drawing on the language he helped invent and what he considers to be the essential elements of jazz history. Even when things seem more accessible, they’re far from being convenient. This is powerful, invigorating, challenging music. Both releases are among his best in recent years. They are a must for Brötzmann fans and a good entry point for newcomers.

Listen to an excerpt here:

Available via www.instantjazz.com, downtownmusicgallery.com. and the label's websites.

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Free Jazz Blog on Air: Black History Month

Listen to Free Jazz Blog's Martin Schray and radio host Julia Neupert on SWR2 for an exciting hour of Free Jazz talk and music, this Wednesday, February 21st, at 9 p.m. (CET) on SWR 2 - and streaming online for the following week.

Martin explains, "The show is on Black History Month and about how Black history is told by jazz musicians. There will be music by Jason Moran, Matana Roberts, James Brandon Lewis, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Wadada Leo Smith and Matthew Shipp."

Listen here: https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-jazz-und-pop/freejazzblog-on-air-black-history-100.html

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Free Jazz Blog on Air Available Now

Listen to Martin and host Julia Neupert on SWR2 for another excellent hour of Free Jazz talk and music, this time on large ensembles, with music by Globe Unity Orchestra, Brötzmann Tentet, Fire! Orchestra, Henry Threadgill's Ensemble Double Up, and more.

http://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/jazz/swr2-nowjazz-freejazzblog-on-air-9/-/id=659242/did=17523350/nid=659242/1jknd58/index.html

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Christian Lillinger/Tobias Delius - Dicht (Relative Pitch, 2017) ****

By Martin Schray

Julia Neupert, the host of the SWR2 Now Jazz radio show "Freejazzblog On Air", has a theory about the way musicians play their instruments: She claims that their style is similar to the way they talk. Be it quick, moderate, hectical or bewildered - everything is reflected in their music. And she has a point: Think of Peter Brötzmann, who could declaim very uncompromisingly and brush off other people’s opinions very harshly when he was younger. However, he’s seemed to mellow with age when you talk to him these days and so has his music, for example on Münster Bern. Another example is Han Bennink, who likes to tell funny anecdotes and whose performances always have something clownesque.

This theory also works for the young German drum wizard Christian Lillinger and saxophonist/clarinetist Tobias Delius. Delius, a real cosmopolitan who was born in Argentina and has lived in Mexico, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, speaks eight languages and he can easily jump back and forth between them. On the saxophone he combines the swing sound of Ben Webster and the hard bop tradition of Sonny Rollins with elements of the blues and a traditional free jazz attitude. Or, as Olie Brice put it: “I like his massive, warm sound and his melodic style rooted in the great jazz tenor tradition, with a completely flexible and free approach to improvised interaction.“

In conversations Delius often mumbles, he sometimes gets lost in anacoluthons, just to use very elaborate and eloquent constructions in the next sentences. Lillinger, on the other hand, is someone who talks very rapidly, his sentences ricochet through the air. He throws in ideas, interrupts his thoughts, turns in another direction, just to be absolutely precise within a second. As a drummer his style is incredibly inventive and unpredictable, it’s as if he was an electric toy which is wound up and cannot be stopped.

In their duo they combine Delius’ instant melodies with Lillinger’s quick-witted responses, it’s a fascinating dialogue, a give and take that works in raucous and laid back moments. "Pea Jaw Zinc Zee", the longest track on Dicht (German for "tight"), is a good example of this. Delius plays chopped and blurred lines, he quotes Evan Parker motives and creates tender blues riffs, he interrupts, starts anew, tries something completely different, while Lillinger pushes him forward and forces him to zigzag with his phrases, click sounds and sparse notes. It’s as if they were eyeing each other. When Delius plays a swing riff in the middle of the track, Lillinger resigns attacking it and prefers to support it delicately. Only in the last few minutes they seem to agree out of the blue and tighten the reins. When the listener has just noticed that something has changed they stop the track track right in the middle.

Dicht is like a high speed conversation in different idioms. It’s fun to listen to it over and over again to discover Delius’ hidden references and just to acknowledge that Lillinger is the most interesting European drummer at the moment.

You can buy it from www.downtownmusicgallery.com or www.instantjazz.com

Watch them live here:

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Polish Jazz Week: Wrap-up/Round-up

And so we wrap up Polish Jazz Week much like we began, with a round up of recent releases and an invitation to listen to the music we wrote about this week with Martin's "Freejazzblog on Air" on SWR2 this evening. If you are unable to tune in at 11 p.m. wherever SWR2 reaches in and near Germany, you can listen online for the next week.

Polish Jazz – Conclusion and Outlook

by Martin Schray

After reading so many reviews this week you might wonder why the Polish improv scene is so special (compared to other Eastern European countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine or even Russia). During my research for the radio show I contacted Maciej Nowotny from polishjazz.com (among others) and he told me that it has been one of the most crucial aspects of the Polish scene that Polish jazz has always been connected to film, fine arts, literature and philosophy (for example existentialism in the 1950s). This has been handed down from generation to generation which has resulted in the fact that the Polish intelligentsia has been very interested in jazz up to today. He even said that it would be almost impossible to be called intellectual if you are not deeply into that kind of music. So, after the fall of the iron curtain, a new scene emerged which is very interested in new things and which is very well connected with musicians from all over the world. It is mainly due to this new generation that free jazz is relatively successful in Poland, because they try to express what’s important for them and what’s going on around them.

What is also helpful is the fact that there are great labels supporting this scene. They run their businesses out of passion, commercial interests are only secondary to them. Names like NotTwo, ForTune, Kilogram, Multikulti and Bocian are only the tip of the iceberg. And since the musicians do not get rich by selling their CDS and LPs it is vital that there are great venues like Alchemia in Krakow, for example.

Considering all this I guess we will hear a lot from Polish musicians in the future. And we are looking forward to it.

Irek Wojtczak & The Fonda-Stevens Group - Wojtczak NY Connection: Folk Five (ForTune, 2015) ****

Polish jazz is not only restricted to Poland, it actually is an open and attractive field for musicians from all over the world. As mentioned in the introduction to this week, labels like ForTune, NotTwo, Multikulti, Kilogram or Bocian have an excellent reputation and venues like Alchemia in Kraków belong to the best clubs for free jazz in the whole world. A musician like Ken Vandermark, for example, has established a project like Resonance Ensemble, a mix of Polish and Chicago musicians (sometimes augmented by Scandinavian musicians), that has recorded remarkable albums (like Head Above Water). Wojtczak’s NY Connection is a similar collaboration.

Irek Wojtczak is a Polish saxophonist and for Wojtczak NY Connection he is joined by the New York City-based Fonda/Stevens Group consisting of bassist Joe Fonda and pianist Michael Stevens plus trumpeter Herb Robertson and drummer Harvey Sorgen. The result is an exciting and very elegant brew of splendid modern jazz mixed with Polish folk music like on “Cztery Mile Za Warszawa”, for example. It is a piece in which Polish influences clash with a New Orleans funeral march atmosphere as well as with Robertson’s cool jazz trumpet – you might call it Polish blues. In general compositions like “Weselny” should be played late at night (or in the very early morning), they are of exquisite beauty, Kenny Wheeler’s last albums seem to have been an obvious inspiration.

There are also distant polka intersperses in two pieces, “Pod Gazem” and “Kiej Jo Ide W Pole”, the first one a piano solo for Stevens that reminds of  Keith Jarrett’s “My Melody at Night, with you”, the latter a mixture of pre-free-jazz Coleman and Charles Mingus starring Wojtczak on bass clarinet playing an outstanding solo.

Like the above mentioned Vandermark group this connection seems to work marvelously as well, there is some kind of affinity of spirit in Polish and American jazz. And above all the album comes with a great cover as well.

Mazur Neuringer Duo - The Kraków Letters (ForTune, 2014) ****½

Another transatlantic cooperation is this duo recording of American saxophonist Keir Neuringer and Polish avant-garde jazz acoustic bass guitarist Rafal Mazur, a duo that has already released three albums (Improwizje was reviewed by Stef in 2010). I first came across Neuringer when I read Stefan’s review on his solo album Ceremonies Out of the Air and was immediately deeply impressed by Neuringer’s extraordinary command of the instrument.

Communicating with another musician makes Neuringer’s approach even more gripping. The two sound as if Luc Ex and Colin Stetson had joined each other, Mazur playing his bass more like a guitar and Neuringer delving in circular breathing. But there is more to their music, there is an immense intensity, an almost brutal expression and a dedication which is absolutely uncompromised, which can be seen at challenging staccato lines and wild runs (“Letter #3”). Although the sound of the acoustic bass guitar needs getting used to the emotional quality of this music is almost breath-taking.

Listen to it here:

Łukasz Borowicki Trio - People, Cats & Obstacles (ForTune, 2014) ***½

Guitarist Łukasz Borowicki’s trio consists of Polish bassist Mariusz Praśniewski and Danish drummer Kasper Tom Christiansen. Borowicki’s sound meanders between early John McLaughlin and Raoul Björkenheim’s excursions with Scorch Trio, his style can be edgy, boisterous and distorted, then again he is also melodic and accessible - often in the same track as in the opening piece “Happy Summer”. The compositions include notated parts and completely free form and present the band as a tight unit. Most pieces are full of structural and textural changes (as in “Hiss and Rumble” with its allusions to minimal music), the musicianship is extraordinary, bass and drums are supportive and unobtrusive. People, Cats and Obstacles is a fine debut album of a band we should keep an eye on. Maybe this is an album for you, Paul.

Adam Pieronczyk Quartet – A-Trane Nights (ForTune2014) ****

And last but not least an archive recording by Polish heavyweight jazz legend Adam Pierończyk (saxes)  who is accompanied by Australian trombonist/didgeridoo player Adrian Mears, American bassist Anthony Cox and Polish drummer Krzysztof Dziedzic, so we have another international collaboration here. The album is a live recording  from 2008, based on a  studio recording of the same material, which was already released as “El Buscador” in 2010.

A-Trane Nights is classic modern jazz, there are hardly any free elements on this album. However, it’s not mainstream either. Pierończyk has developed a voice of his own between notated melodies and riffs and excellent soloing  work, he leaves a lot of space for his fellow musicians and while Cox mainly tries to support trombone and sax, Dziedzic sometimes interprets his role like an additional soloist. Especially the two tracks with the didgeridoo create a very laid back atmosphere.

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Listen now: "There's No Such Thing As Live Music - Free Jazz Festivals" on SWR2

Listen to Martin and host Julia Neupert on SWR2 for another excellent hour of Free Jazz talk and music, this time on festivals. It's called "There's No Such Thing As Live Music - Free Jazz Festivals" featuring talk about the blog covering festivals (like Vision, Alarm, Kongsberg, and Blow Out), and music by Philipp Gropper's Philm, Maja S.K. Ratkje, Daniel Carter/William Parker/Matthew Shipp, Irreversible Entanglements and others.

The podcast is available until Friday the 21st.


https://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/jazz/freejazzblog-on-air-there-s-no-such-thing-as-live-music/-/id=659242/did=22441498/nid=659242/2tmzu9/index.html

 

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Jazz em Agosto 2021 - Day 3

By Paul Acquaro

Today, I took a walk to one of Lisbon's botanical gardens -- there are actually a number of places that could serve as such, but this one is the Jardim Botânico de Lisboa, a part of the University of Lisbon -- perched on the hillside near the old, winding streets of Bario Alto. The entrance was unexpectedly free, and as I began descending into the gardens, I was immediately struck with the desperate feeling of wanting to go three places at once: the bridge over a small fern festooned ravine, the winding path up to a small sitting area, and barrel on straight ahead to see what was next. What a delightful problem to hang onto for a moment while letting all the others go for a moment.

Winding through the paths, communing with heavy fronds, climbing up stairs past palms, oogling old trees with multihued bark, and passing an early 20th century observatory, I finally ended up at the entrance to the University's National Museum of History. The museum is a whimsical mix of 21st century immersive pedagogically-arranged multimedia exhibits and classical 19th-century display cases with a human and an ape skeleton, and colorful long ago embalmed birds. There is also a pristinely preserved set of rooms from the 19th century, including a gorgeous lecture hall and lab classroom, complete with casts of medical oddities and all sorts of curious and somewhat concerning medical instruments. I don't have a tie in here to the music, this was just a very pleasant, unplanned discovery. If you're in town, take time to visit.

 

João Pedro Brandão

João Pedro Brandão's Trama no Navio. Photo by Vera Marmelo – Gulbenkian Música.

Porto, Portugal's João Pedro Brandão's Trama no Navio is the woodwindist joined by Ricardo Moreira on Piano and synthesizer, Hugo Carvalhais on bass, and Marcos Cavaleiro on drums. For this piece, motion video, projected behind the band as they played, was provided by Alexandra Corte-Real. The combination made for a sublime 45 minute multi-channel experience.

The impetus for this project came from a soundtrack commission that Brandão contributed to for a screening of the 1925 film Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein, more specifically the second part of the film, Drama on the Deck. Taking the emotion and poetic imagery from the film, Brandão refitted the music to this quartet of musicians, along with Corte-Real's evocative imagery. 

Leaving the auditorium, I was struck by the depth of the piece. While frantically taking notes in the dark during the concert, I had been searching for adjectives and mnemonics to remember the moments of the music by, and one that I jotted the most seemed to be the word emotional. However, it was now not entirely clear to me whose, or what, emotions I was thinking about. It was a cheap short cut trying to capture the mix of gentle, but insistent, melodies, the rich counterpoint between the four musicians, and the abstract, yet grounded, images in motion behind them. It also had something to do with Carvalhais' riveting bass solo about half-way though the piece that elicited audience applause (that's a no-no during a serious piece, right?). But I could not get away from the word, emotional. It was even in the opening two bar figure that jumped from the sax to the bass and then to the piano. The sensitivity of the players was an important aspect of the piece, felt in the changes in dynamics and changes in timbre as Brandão switch woodwinds, or Moreira added a little synthesizer to the mix.

Another pseudo-adjective I jotted down was ECMish. Honestly, that one is an even dicier proposition. I wanted to acknowledge the sensitivity and balance between the instruments - like when the band slowly built to an intense state, a storm on the screen, a storm on the stage. It was not forced, rather it billowed from within, centrifugal forces swirling from sax to piano to bass to drums, slowly drawing in the clouds and roiling the ocean waves. At the end, we were washed ashore, an ECMish and emotional journey.

Fire!

Fire! Photo by Vera Marmelo – Gulbenkian Música.

"Good evening," exclaimed saxophonist Mats Gustaffson from the stage of the Gulbenkian's large concert hall. "We're going to play some Fire music, very predictable, but we're looking forward to it like hell!"

He then pulled out his flute and blew a few wispy lines. The lines grew stronger, laced with a folksy whimsy. Then, there were heaving breaths, emphatic pushes of air through the instrument, it was delicate and tough at the same time. A prelude for what was to come.

Now, the bass. A solid, simple few note figure rooted in a natural groove, the type that may make your shoulders twitch and head bop a bit. The lilting beat took on a slight world music feel. The trumpet soon added a new tonal dimension, playing long, flowing lines that danced around the flute work. As the trumpet took over, Gustaffson stepped back and switched to the baritone sax -- kind of the opposite to the flute in terms of, well, everything but the player -- and started physically rocking back and forth, something was brewing. 

Cue the percussion. Under the trumpet's Arabic scales and dedicated, looping bass line, the bass drum and high-hat grew aggressively prominent. Finally, the trombone entered with a simple comping figure, but soon linked up with the trumpet and suddenly there was a brass band on the stage riffing off a simple repetitive and high infectious musical figure.

 

If this is what Gustaffson referred to as 'predictable stuff,' then maybe I completely misunderstood him, as I had not yet heard Fire!'s latest, Defeat (Rune Grammofone, 2021), and was expecting something more, umm, gruff. The core group of Gustaffson, electric bassist Johan Berthling, and drummer Andreas Werlin, have done something new and exciting, in both adding the passionate trumpet playing of Goran Kajfeš and the expressive trombone work of Mats Äleklint, as well as embracing a more varied approach. It is not total defeat for the nosier aspects of the group, the music still contains fiery elements, noisy electronic passages, and the deep cry of Gustaffson's baritone sax, there is however the amplification of the already existing funkier moments, established by the minimalist looping bass figures and deep pocketed patterns from the drums. It sets a different foundation for Gustaffson to explore the sweeter - and sometimes more laser focused -- sounds of flute, and compliments the rich harmonies from the horns perfectly.

Perhaps what was most impressive was the contrast that the new approach provided. After a mounting groove helped segue from an electronics based section to a primal bari-sax scream, Gustaffson switched quickly to the flute and a sinuous melody rose from the snake charmer basket that the bass and drums had woven. The music was not rushed, each musician had time to develop a solo passage, the others dropping out. A stand out moment was Äleklint's trombone solo about two-thirds of the way through the set, where he was able to capture and focus the entire attention of the generous room on the soft, metallic bite of the horn's round sound.

From the playful moments, like when Äleklint and Kajfeš traded back and forth with Gustaffson's electronics, to the moving moments from the tightly interlocking bass and drums, to the infectious repeating figures, Fire!'s hypnotizing performance connected with the sold-out audience. In fact, there are often moments in improvised sets where a group, after wandering the sonic landscape for a bit, congeals around a solid rhythm and the audience happily goes along. With this expanded version of Fire!, it seems like Gustaffson has bottled it.

Rune Grammofon · Fire! - Defeat (Only Further Apart)

End of the first half ...

Due to some scheduling difficulties on my end, I am not able to stick around for the second half of the Jazz em Agosto festival which starts on Thursday, August 5th with the compositions of the Pedro Moreira Sax Ensemble. The next night, percussionist Gabriel Ferrandini brings his multi-dimensional solo work to the smaller stage, followed in the main hall by the fantastic James Brandon Lewis Quartet. The next evening begins with another richly layered solo drums and electronics performance by Katherine Ernst, followed by the rock-influenced, but jazz rooted, Lisbon band Anthropic Neglect. The final night features the abstract power-trio from drummer João Lobo, and a closing performance from the Italian sextet Roots Magic whose explorations have blended the roots of jazz with accessible contemporary arrangements. Many of the shows are actually already sold out. I'm sorry to be missing these performances, as I suspect they will be as diverse as this weekend that has just drawn to a close. 

In these unpredictable times where planning, usually done well in advance, has become a day-to-day feat, last minute cancellations due to pandemic uncertainties impacted the festival in different ways, which was highlighted in a brief conversation with Jazz em Agosto's musical director, Rui Neves. The festival was difficult to plan, explained Neves. It began with a European focus and was transformed when Norway's restrictions made it impossible for some previously scheduled musicians to travel, but American bands were actually able to perform. Neves explained "the pandemic restrictions obliged us to think in a different way." In the end, sharp ears and agile thinking (not to mention a lot of behind the scenes work) served Jazz em Agosto well. Neves, who is always listening and checking out musicians and groups, takes it in stride, adding "to me it's like making a movie, and I'm like a film director, trying to find the natural way of presenting each band." 

---

Read: 

Day 1: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2021/07/jazz-em-agosto-2021-day-1.html

Day 2: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2021/08/jazz-em-agosto-2021-day-2.html

Day 3: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2021/08/jazz-em-agosto-2021-day-3.html

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Filling the Void

By Paul Acquaro 

Jed Gottliebs' article "Curtains fall on arts critics at newspapers" in the Columbia Journalism Review from earlier this month really got to me. Having grown up in New Jersey reading the arts and leisure section in the Star Ledger, I learned a lot about the arts, music reviews, concert listings - basically all of the things that are still important to me. So, when I read a paragraph like "critics at newspapers are dying off even faster than print journalism. Theatre critics, film reviewers, A&E editors, and arts writers of every kind have been stripped from dailies and weeklies around the country", it's deflating.

I became involved with the Free Jazz Blog six years ago. It provided a creative outlet and welcome distraction during a trying time, and introduced me to a world of music that I had only dreamed about. Through the blog, I've met creative people and have been exposed to ideas and sounds that I wouldn't have otherwise encountered.

Over the years, as Stef  has pointed out, the blog has grown in terms of members and readership, and we've seen incredible developments like Martin's Freejazzblog on Air - an occasional series on public radio in Germany (SWR2), and a social media presence run by Dan and Antonio that has been key in bringing our readership to over 150,000 views a month.

However, I still find myself taken with this statement from the same article:

Blogs and niche arts websites thrive (if not economically, certainly in terms of traffic). But they can do great work, gather thousands of readers and still not plug the hole newspapers have left by pulling arts pages. Niche sites cater to niche audiences. They ghettoize content ...

True. The blog solution is not perfect - it's piecemeal, it's subjective, it's driven by passion, and there is always so much more to know about - like that there are a thousand more albums a year that we can possibly get to! However, it's what we can do, with the tools that we have, with the passion that the music invokes, and the duty we feel to share it.

Anyway, so here we are, the Free Jazz Blog at 10 years and still running strong. I want to express my thanks to Stef for starting this blog and then, when the time came, opening it up to the collective, and to the collective for selflessly contributing and making it strong. I'm also grateful to all of the musicians, promoters, organizers, labels, DMG, Instant Jazz, and the readers who keep the creative music world running.  

In the end, perhaps it is a niche, but regardless, it is a really important one. Simply being able to play a part in this community keeps me going when it's late, I'm tired, and we still need to post a new review for the next day.  I suspect it's something similar for all of us in the collective, and for our colleagues who run concert series in their cities, neighborhoods, or even their own homes, and/or spend hours writing their thoughts and spreading the word about music and art because of their own intrinsic motivation. It's the only way it works, and it is more important than ever. 

Ok, now back to work everyone!

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