Jimmy Giuffre 3 & 4 - New York Concerts (Elemental, 2014) *****

By Stefan Wood

There are reissues that can reintroduce a body of work to a new generation of listeners, and then there are reissues that completely alter established musical history, of an artist and a genre. Jimmy Giuffre 3 & 4's New York Concerts fall into the latter category. It is a 2-disc set comprised of two concerts in 1965, during a stretch of 7 or 8 years where there has been no recorded documentation of Giuffre's work.

The 1961 sessions, "Fusion" and "Thesis," originally recorded on Verve and later reissued by ECM, were considered landmarks of early free improvised jazz, brilliant works of group interplay and of space, using silence as an essential part of the music. With Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, the drummer less trio was structured in such a way as to be forced to be more interactive with one another, emphasizing counterpoint. On the New York Concerts, the drummer is back, with Joe Chambers, who was already making a mark for himself with his excellent collaborations with Bobby Hutcherson on Blue Note. Richard Davis replaces Swallow, and this trio, recorded live at Judson Hall, explodes where the earlier trio shimmers.

"Syncopate" is jaw dropping, as Giuffre unloads, with terse and weighty interplay from Davis and Chambers, a fierce torrent of notes that is unexpected as it is aurally exciting. It's short of sounding like Brotzmann, more lyrical, but it carries tremendous weight. Chambers is equally brilliant here, accenting the notes with a brief machine gun flurry, and Davis darting in between both musicians with notes that emphasize the space where the others don't inhabit. It is one of the most riveting and intense compositions I have heard from Giuffre. "Crossroads," an Ornette Coleman tune, again shows Giuffre's dexterity and fluidity, driving through the complicated series of notes with ease, even better than Coleman himself. He squeals and squawks with an intense focus, never overblowing, but in decidedly chosen moments that emphasize a positive and negative space. Chambers responds with thundering drum rolls, and Davis again provides an essential point of focus, providing a link between the sound and silence with accented notes, not so much providing rhythm but atmosphere. "Drive" is more boppish, with Giuffre providing a strong lead, moving from sweet notes to harsh atonal bleats, with Davis having counterpoint with a soft but intense solo.

The second disc is from an earlier date of the same year, at Columbia University. Joe Chambers is still on drums, but Giuffre is accompanied this time with Barre Phillips and Don Friedman. Four of the six tracks are similar as on disc 1, but the interaction is different, mostly because of Friedman's inclusion. On "Syncopate," Friedman's piano echoes and plays off of Giuffre's lead, then going off on his own, at times percussive, others very freely played, similar to his musical explorations on the Prestige albums at that time (think "Metamosphosis" & Dreams and Explorations"). The leader baton gets passed between the two, with Chambers continuing to provide a heavy accent on drums when needed. Phillips is less compelling than Richard Davis, perhaps because the dynamics of the group are different, but is still effective. The moments when the group explodes into free improv are breathtaking, because they are so brief, but the power is there. "Quadrangle," twice its length here than on disc 1, is a highlight on the set, an excellent work that exemplifies Giuffre and his group's use of silence and space, where four musicians interact, pull apart and play separately, then return. Phillips' playing is at best here, plucking and bowing at times to really give the listener a sense of atmosphere, tension, and placement between the musicians. "Quadrangle" flows right into "Three Bars in One," another long tune which takes the statement made from the previous piece and shoot it into the stratosphere. On "Cry, Want," Giuffre plays clarinet, and, while no one will mistake his sound for Eric Dolphy's, is introspective and as freely played as anyone from that time. It anticipates a wave of playing done in the 70s and later decades. Again, the dynamics are mostly between Giuffre and Friedman, who trade off tonal and atonal notes as if having a conversation. "Angles" showcases a lot of percussion from Chambers, who drives the others to a fast pace, with the others taking quick pauses then firing off salvos of notes at each other.

New York Concerts is an incredibly valuable document, not only for the artist, as it fills and informs a big gap in his recorded discography, but also how Giuffre anticipated a style and dialogue of playing that informed and influenced generations of free improvising musicians that followed. This easily is the reissue of the year, and gets my highest recommendation.


You can buy this album from Instantjazz. 

Read More

Douglas/Doxas/Swallow/Doxas - Riverside (Greenleaf,2014) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

The musical legacy of woodwind player and composer Jimmy Giuffre is one that is deeply intertwined with many of the recordings that are reviewed here on the Free Jazz Blog. Giuffre's album Free Fall from 1962 with bassist Steve Swallow and pianist Paul Bley is often regarded as a seminal moment in the development of free jazz, introducing a subtle chamber music approach to free improvisation. However, in the years leading up to this watershed recording, Giuffre had a trio with guitarist Jim Hall and Ralph Pena that approached jazz with deference to deep American folk and country roots.

So, why all this talk about Giuffre's music? Because trumpeter and composer David Douglas has put together a group that uses Giuffre's earlier music as a jumping off point into an exciting pool of folk and blues inspired tunes that are as unabashedly fun as they are cleverly composed. 

In this group, Riverside, Douglas is joined by Chet Doxas on sax, Jim Doxas on drums and original member of Giuffre's early 1960's Free Fall trio, Steve Swallow on bass guitar. Working mostly off of Douglas' themes, the quartet spins playful melodies over spacious rhythms. The only direct cover is 'The Train and the River', which was a hit for Giuffre in 1956. 

The opener, 'Thrush', is an uptempo romp beginning with a folksy melody that suggests wide open spaces and deep joy. Unison lines and counter melodies between clarinet and trumpet creates a distinct sound and is a feature throughout the recording. Jim Doxas' drumming helps the music float beautifully. Even during the more intense moments toward the track's end, the group is bouyant. 

'The Train and the River' follows, and it's a fine interpretation. Updating elements of the song, for example playing the melodic statement stronger and intensifying the blues elements, highlights the catchy melody. The song is brief here, letting the rhythms and original melody shine through.

Swallow's solo intro to 'Old Church New Paint' is a gentle melody played with deep feeling. When the group joins, they settle into a laid back gospel feel that wrings a certain joy out of the melancholy. Another highlight is the taut 'Back Yard'. At times rollicking, the trumpet and sax bounce lines off of the solid rhythm, countering each other at times and delivering punchy unison melodies. The closing 'Sing on the Mountain High/Northern Miner' builds slowly from a forlorn melody and atmospheric textures to a reserved climax. Douglas' trumpet is bright and singing and sets up Doxas, who delivers a tense saxophone solo.

Overall, Riverside is a great collection of compositions album that is free in spirit and feeling. It's not a tribute album, or an album of covers or interpretations, rather it's inspired by and suggestive of Giuffre's inventive folk-jazz approach. Douglas' gifts as a composer and the group's sympathetic interplay make it something that stands firmly, and wonderfully, on its own.

The album comes out next week, but check it out here.

Read More

Paul Bley Tribute

The passing of pianist Paul Bley is a tough way start to the New Year, especially coming after the loss of Ornette Coleman this past summer. Fortunately, Bley  leaves behind a massive and masterful discography. As a tribute, we present some of our favorites:


Paul Bley Quintet – Barrage (ESP Disk, 1965)

Recorded in 1964, shortly after the historic “October Revolution in Jazz” concert series in New York, the power and incision of this quintet cuts through the slightly muffled sound, on which Bley is joined by Dewey Johnson (trumpet) Marshall Allen (alto saxophone), Eddie Gomez (double bass) and Milford Graves (percussion). Ornette is a pervasive influence, in both the way the tunes are rattled out in abbreviated unison at the outset and close of each piece, and the hyperactive ‘barrage’ of the ensemble, at times sounding like Ornette’s Free Jazz, compressed onto the head of a pin. The aptly named ‘Batterie’ is a sign of Graves’ contribution, he and Gomez providing a bubbling platform for the solos, never allowing the music to settle. The compositions are all by Carla Bley, and the quintet manages to calm itself for one number, the lovely ‘And How the Queen’. The introspective side of Bley’s music would predominate in later years, with only occasional flashes of this kind of revolutionary fervour.


Paul Bley Trio – Blood (Fontana, 1966)

My pick from the ground-breaking piano trio albums recorded by Bley in the Sixties, where he’s joined by Mark Levinson on double bass (of later hi-fi fame) and Barry Altschul, drums. Bley showed an alternative means of musical development from the trios of Bill Evans, unpicking a tune and playing with its components in unpredictable ways – odd directions, digressions, after thoughts, even second thoughts – but so that the tune remains just visible, like a figure in a   cubist painting (Bley’s Picasso to Evans’ Matisse). There are times when the music seems tempo free, even at a standstill; on other occasions different tempi are superimposed, something Bley would exploit further in his later music, particularly his solo performances. The trio performs as a unit, alert to every change in light and shade. This kind of playing was to prove influential to pianists like Chick Corea and Keith Jarrrett, whose early work, along with much of Bley’s from this period, is now perhaps unjustly neglected

Paul Bley, Franz Koglmann, Gary Peacock – Annette (hat ART, 1992)

Bley spent much of his musical life in a continuing discourse with the songs of Annette Peacock, whose often elusive tunes, marked by sparse phrasing and acute dissonances, form the basis of all bar one of the pieces on this album (the title work is a collective improvisation). He’s joined by bassist Gary Peacock – a long-standing musical partner with whom he recorded a number of outstanding duo and trio albums – and Franz Koglmann (who suggested the project during the recording session) whose fragile flugelhorn and trumpet are ideally suited to these pensive renditions. As with Free Fall (Columbia, 1963) and Bley’s sessions the previous year, which produced In The Evenings Out There (ECM, 1993), we hear various permutations – solos, duos and trios – as well as alternative readings: ‘Touching’ opens and closes the album, first as a meditative study by Bley alone, at the end by the trio as a brief, ghostly lament. Elsewhere, the cool occasionally icy, detachment sometimes present in Bley’s playing is matched by Koglmann’s austere outlines, as the tunes are reduced to skeletal form, Peacock’s terse bass lines providing only a hint of warmth. Playing of such brevity serves to heighten the emotional content, however – intense feelings expressed with concision, made more powerful by virtue of the restraint.

Paul Bley, Evan Parker, Barre Phillips – Time Will Tell (ECM, 1995)

Another inspired grouping by ECM’s Manfred Eicher – Bley with Evan Parker (tenor and soprano saxophones) and Barre Phillips (double bass) – a trio which might look odd on paper but whose combination of piano, reeds and bass invokes the Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Bley and Steve Swallow of thirty years earlier. At the traditional ECM dinner the night before the session everyone was agreed: they had no idea what they were going to play, and what we hear is more or less in the order it was recorded. The result is a set of mutually sympathetic pieces, Bley and Parker not just finding common ground but exploring aspects of each other’s music, with Phillips, who had played with both, providing additional dialogue. On ‘Sprung’ Parker’s tightly wound soprano line is mirrored in Bley’s glittering run on the piano, and ‘No Questions’ is one of Bley’s free form ballads, accompanied by Phillips’ velvety bowing, in which the piano’s piquant harmonies are set off by Parker’s flinty edgings on tenor. The trio recorded one further album: Sankt Gerold Variations (ECM, 2000) which is also recommended.

- Colin Green

---

Jimmy Giuffre 3 - 1961 (ECM, 1992)

                     

After the split of his trio with Jim Hall and different bassists, Jimmy Giuffre founded a new drummerless band with Paul Bley on piano and Steve Swallow on bass. 1961 is the 1992 ECM reissue of the trio’s formerly long out-of-print Verve albums Fusion and Thesis including previously unreleased tracks from the same sessions. There are early interpretations of Carla Bley tunes including “Ictus“ to which Bley frequentl;y returned. 1961 is mainly about the creative use of space and silence. Giuffre and his band proved that jazz can retain its swing, power and intensity without loud outbursts. And Paul Bley was an indispensable factor in this music having “the right combination of sensitivity, attitude, taste and facility“ (Giuffre). His plucking of the piano’s interior strings anticipated later developments. Even 54 years later this music sounds utterly modern and fresh.

Jimmy Giuffre Trio - Free Fall (Columbia Records, 1963)

Although very avant-garde, Fusion and Thesis were only a harbinger of what the trio got up to next:  Free Fall can be considered a real revolution in the band’s in-depth study in pointillism, reduction, sound coloration, angular rhythms and a free sense of tonality and form. The original album consists of five clarinet solos, two duets for clarinet and bass, and three trio pieces (the CD reissue adds five more solos and another trio) and it’s not just the structure which is full of contrasts. Dissonance and consonance struggle constantly, Giuffre pointed out that there‘s a “curious vacillation between the simple and the complex“. In “The Five Ways“, the central piece of the album, Bley surrounds Giuffre’s and Swallow’s runs with open chords, trills and swing allusions. Free Fall was such radical music, it was beyond the capacity of many and the group disbanded shortly thereafter, on a night when they took money at the door and made only 35 cents apiece.

Open to Love (ECM, 1972)

Invited to make his first solo piano recording at Oslo’s Arne Bendiksen Studio in 1972, Paul Bley played on and in the piano. There are three Carla Bley compositions (the wonderful “Closer“, Seven“ and “Ida Lupino“), two by Annette Peacock, and two of Bley’s own. The result is forty minutes of the most crystalline, fragile, dramatic, tense and spirited music. Shimmering pieces of sound hovering between dissonances and delirious with melodies, this album is the blueprint of Bley’s music – improvised solo piano, distilled to its essence. Open, to Love is a masterpiece.

- Martin Schray

---

Solo in Mondsee (ECM, 2007)

Thirty-five years would pass between Bley’s solo albums on ECM, but when he finally returned with Solo in Mondsee, it was a revelation.  Across ten “Variations” and more than an hour, Bley gives a master lesson in musical mediumship, channeling ghostly wisps from the entire history of jazz and blues. Unyieldingly lyrical and assured, Solo in Mondsee lays bare the essence of Bley’s musicianship, and would serve as a perfect introduction for anyone unfamiliar with his work.


Virtuosi (Improvising Artists, 1976)

Calling an album Virtuosi may seem presumptuous, but there’s little denying how apt the description is, even without the benefit of hindsight. Recorded in 1967, the trio of Bley, Gary Peacock and Barry Altschul tackle two side-long Annette Peacock compositions. What’s virtuosic about the music is not its technical agility, but rather its remarkable restraint, the tunes unspooled in such a loose and spacious manner that they hardly seem composed at all. “Butterflies” floats as airily as its namesake, while Bley and Peacock trade leisurely melodies on “Gary.”


Time Will Tell (ECM, 1995)
Sankt Gerold (ECM, 2000)

These two albums, released five years apart but both recorded in the mid-90s, are an interesting communion of legendary musicians with very different approaches to free playing. Still, Bley’s unfailingly melodic touch dictates the terms of Time Will Tell: Parker is often miles away from the claustrophobics of his solo saxophone, and Phillips has a lush, deeply romantic bass tone. Sankt Gerold is more adventurous yet. Recorded in a booming monastery, Bley’s notes seem to ring on forever. While Parker and Phillips engage in frenzied chatter, Bley plays not a single unneeded note,and is all the more memorable for it.

- Dan Sorrells

---

Paul Bley Trio – Closer (ESP-Disk, 1965)

On the heels of the masterful freedom of the Barrage quintet comes this collection of concise and intimate meditations on the state of the piano trio.  It features the lyrical “Ida Lupino,” one of Bley's best-known pieces, written by his wife at the time, Carla – who also composed the vast majority of the pieces on this record.  Closer doesn't ditch freedom at all; but it does serve up the goods in smaller, more easily digestible chunks.  “And Now The Queen,” clocking in at a mere 2:17, is transcendent and perfect.  Oh – and the trio includes Steve Swallow and, in his recording debut, Barry Altschul.     

- Tom Burris

---

Mr. Joy (Limelight, 1968)

Recorded live at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1968, Bley is on piano here, along with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Billy Elgart. The music is generally upbeat, rather free and very accessible. There is one Ornette Coleman piece, ‘Ramblin'’, one Bley original - ‘Only Lovely’, and the other are penned by Annette Peacock. It’s a great place to get into Bley’s music - if you can get it - unfortunately it seems to be very much out of print.


The Paul Bley Synthesizer Show (Milestone, 1971)

Recorded in 1971, Bley is on the very early ARP synthesizer, electric piano, and piano. He’s is joined at various times by Dick Youngstein, Glen Moore, Frank Tusa, Steve Hass, and Bob Moses. The connection to the earlier album is the song “Mr.Joy”, which ends the album Mr. Joy,  begins Synthesizer Show. Expectations need to be tempered a bit though, the sounds are quite primitive to 2016 ears, but its experimental nature was boundary pushing. Tunes like ‘Archangel’ and 'Nothing Ever Was, Anyway' are dark and absorbing, while 'Parks' is a nifty rock number. Also out of print.


Paul Bley & Scorpio (Milestone, 1972)

On this album, Bley is on a pre-Fender Rhodes on most of the album, though there are still occasional blips of synthesizer. With the rhythm section of drummer Barry Altschul and bassist Dave Holland, and a band name like Scorpio, you may expect something more pulsating like the music of Circle or Sam Rivers' work, however aside from an incredible version of 'King Kong' and an effect laden 'Syndrome', most of the album is brooding and spacious. There are also a few other electronic keyboard and synthesizer recordings between these albums - Improvise, Dual Unity and a little later, Jaco. Paul Bley & Scorpio is available digitally.


Fragments (ECM, 1987)

Skipping ahead fifteen years, Bley made this beautiful quartet recording with Paul Motion, Bill Frisell and John Surman. According the liner notes, this was a hand-curated group by Manfred Eicher. Frisell's tune 'Monica Jane' appears along Motion's 'For the Love of Sarah' and Annette Peacock's 'Nothing Ever Was, Anyway'. Just from the opening moments, Surman's rich tone and Bley's considered sprinkling of chords you can tell something magical is afoot. The peak the quartet reached on Surman's 'Line Down' is reason enough!

- Paul Acquaro

Read More

Akira Sakata: Artist Deep Dive (Day 2)

The second, and final day of our Akira Sakata deep dive. We begin with a second opinion on Iruman...

Akira Sakata & Giovanni Di Domenico: Iruman (Mbari, 2014) ****

By Martin Schray

Interestingly enough – especially when you listen how easy it seems to be for Sakata – he has never played in a duo with a pianist before. It seems even more surprising that he does it now with Giovanni Di Domenico, a 37-year-old Italian musician who grew up in Africa and who has played with lots of the top dogs like Arve Henriksen, Toshimaru Nakamura or Alexandra Grimal. His album “Posh Scorch” with Nate Wooley and Chris Corsano was one of my favorite albums in 2013.

“Iruman” consists of ten mainly improvised tracks which combine traditional Japanese music, Western classical music and African influences as well as free jazz moments – but most of all some tracks remind of the music of Jimmy Giuffre.

“A Piece of Silence” sets the tone of the album, Di Domenico’s fragile tones almost show a relation to pianists like Colin Vallon, while Sakata’s bells and shakers sound like windchimes – you might feel like you are listening to an ECM production. Then, “Yellow Sand Blowing from China” presents Sakata on alto, his elegant sound contrasting Di Domenico’s hard touch on the piano. When Sakata plays the clarinet on “Lotus Blossom in an Old Pond”, “Water coming into Rice Field” and “The Peaceful Atmosphere of a Wood Sukiya-style Temple”, the Giuffre’s reminiscences are most obvious, the first one is the most beautiful track on the album being close to the border to classical chamber music, e.g. Brahms’ sonatas for clarinet and piano. When the musicians combine prepared piano sounds and percussion against Sakata’s chanting on “Voice from a Temple in the Deep Mountain”, which is very melancholic in contrast to his singing on “Arashi”, they show that their music is under constant change, all their different approaches are being displayed again and again. The final (and longest) track “Bud II” proves this: Compared to the elegant and subtle improvisations before, this is an aggressive back-and-forth conversation which is replaced by a cool-jazz-like middle part just to break free at the end again.

“Iruman” might even be called a romantic approach to improvisation, hardly ever has Sakata’s world been so accessible - flowing nicely in free structures as well as in an emotional atmosphere. A very recommendable album.

Listen to "Lotus Blossom in an Old Pond" here:

Akira Sakata, Fred Longberg-Holm, Ketil Gutvik, Paal Nilssen-Love: The Cliff of Time (PNL, 2014) ****

If you think that titles like “The Woman in the Dunes”, “The Dancing Girl of Izu”, “Face of Another” or “When a Woman Ascends the Stairs” indicate another rather melancholic album like “Iruman”, you are totally wrong.

“The Cliff of Time” rather resembles “Arashi”– not only because Sakata teams up with Paal Nilssen-Love again, he is also augmented by Ketil Gutvik on electric guitar and Chicago scene institution Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello and electronics. Gutvik has won his spurs playing with Nilssen-Love in his Large Unit and with Okkyung Lee and Kristoffer Alberts, and Lonberg-Holm and Nilssen-Love have been part of Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet and Ballister, their marvelous trio with Dave Rempis (among a lot of other projects). This being said, the direction of this musical journey is pretty clear – straight and pure Chicago/Skandinavian scene free jazz.


The most obvious difference to the other two albums is the fact that Sakata abstains from singing and that he only plays the clarinet on one piece – where it also sounds angry and fragmented. He is rather a team player on this recording which gives the others a greater possibility to shine – especially Ketil Gudvik. His guitar displays various influences, from Sonny Sharrock, John Russell, Derek Bailey to James “Blood” Ulmer. Gudvik hits the guitar and tears with both hands at the strings creating a wall of splintering notes, and in combination with Lonberg-Holm’s cello, which is – as usual - very often put through the effect grinder. The result is a tightly knit carpet of unusual sounds, it is like watching glass splinters pouring down from a safe distance.

Sakata uses this background to sound like in his old days with the Yamashita Trio, fresh, iconoclastic, consequent and aggressive. The music here is a rollercoaster of emotions, played by excellent musicians who seem to have great fun. And the sound is transparent and crispy too.

You can buy these albums from instantjazz.com.

Read More

The Straight Horn of Rudi Mahall (Two Nineteen Records, 2024)

By Eyal Hareuveni

In 1961 Candid released the Steve Lacy album, The Straight Horn Of Steve Lacy, where the legendary soprano sax player led a quartet with baritone sax player Charles Davis, Double Bass player John Ore and drummer Roy Haynes, playing compositions by Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, with a liner notes by Martin Williams and Nat Hentoff.

The Straight Horn of Rudi Mahall, obviously, nods to Lacy’s classic album and its iconic artwork. German clarinetist Mahall (of Globe Unity Orchestra, Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra and Die Enttäuschung fame) focuses on a different straight horn, the B-flat clarinet (with a motto by Benny Goodman: “It’s an awful lot of work playing the clarinet. You have to practice!”), is joined by the Paris-Berlin Oùat piano trio - pianist Simon Sieger (alternating on the trombone, also in the current line-up of the Art Ensemble of Chicago), double bass player Joel Grip and drummer Michael Griener (who was responsible for the recording and the insightful liner notes), which focuses on swinging bebop verities, and already evoked the sound of brilliant eccentrics like Elmo Hope, Herbie Nichols, and Thelonious Monk on three previous albums. Now this quartet offers its own interpretations of popular jazz standards from Sidney Bechet and Duke Ellington to Jimmy Giuffre and Eric Dolphy.

Mahall has a sound of its own on the clarinet (and the bass clarinet), and maintains a disciplined daily practice routine focused on the jazz standards but claims that “Everyone hates the clarinet. It was then, and still is today, a pretty much out-of-favor instrument in jazz music. You can't get anywhere with the clarinet”. Like Mahall, Oùat is well-versed in the legacy of jazz and is a perfect partner to this wise, often provocative moving musical journey into iconic pieces that shape jazz as we know it today and the role of the straight clarinet in these pieces.

Side A of The Straight Horn of Rudi Mahall begins with one of the first iconic bebop pieces, Dizzy Gillespie’s “Bebop” from 1944, interpreted in a similar powerful, fast and almost chaotic manner like its original version. Tadd Dameron's playful and driving “Good Bait” highlights Mahall's beautiful solos that according to Griener, keep “the tactic of compressing and stretching the time against the rhythm section, resulting in rhythmic overlaps that could possibly be explained by Einstein's theory of relativity”. The following “Sechseinhalb Brüder” melts Giuffre’s 1947 “Four Brothers”, a tribute to the saxophone section of Woody Herman's second big band based on the chords of the Harry Warren composition “Jeepers Creepers”, Mahall’s “Vier Halbe” (four halves in German, from Die Enttäuschung album by the same name, Intakt, 2012) and Gerry Mulligan's 1949 “Five Brothers”, and turns this imaginary sum of six and a half brothers = “Sechseinhalb Brüder” into a wild ride. The interpretation of Ellington’s “The Mystery Song” from 1961 nods to Lacy’s version of the song (from Evidence, with Don Cherry, New Jazz, 1962), with more room for improvisation over the 16-bar form. This side ends with a composition of another pioneer of the straight horn (clarinet and soprano sax) Bechet’s iconic “Petit Fleur” from 1952, after moving to France, and having a French pianist in the quartet seemed perfect. Mahall explores the full expressive potential of the clarinet, from the most traditional jazz to the free jazz.

Side B begins with “Unbewusst im Puff” (Unconscious in the brothel), merges cleverly Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House” (slang for brothel) and Lee Konitz’ “Subconscious-Lee”, both are abstractions of Cole Porter’s "What is this thing called love", to show that "hectic" bebop and "cerebral" cool jazz have a lot more in common than jazz critics would have you believe. Pee Wee Russell’s signature piece “Pee Wee's Blues” allows the double bass and clarinet to introduce it in free pitches before singing the familiar theme. Mahall’s bass clarinet playing has earned him many comparisons to Dolphy, and in 1992 he and Griener played in a project of pianist Rolf Sudmann, and later he recorded with pianist Aki Takase Duet for Eric Dolphy (Enja, 1997), which opened with “17 West” (a former Manhattan address of Dolphy) with Mahall performing it on the bass clarinet. Now with a “normal” clarinet, this piece receives a free, urgent version, with Sieger's piano solo is reminiscent of early Cecil Taylor. This beautiful album concludes with “ In-stable Mates, an adaption of Benny Golson's “Stablemates”, a little less stable version of Golson’s piece with its unusual structure”, that highlights the strong individual voices of this great quartet.

Read More

Wild Chamber Trio – “10.000 Leaves” (Nottwo, 2012) ****

By Steve Mossberg

With a dry slap of the tongue and the warble of a Japanese bamboo flute, soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo leads the way into “Atomic Heart.” Clementine Gasser’s 5-string cello rustles the leaves, brushing against the pianistic wind chimes of Elisabeth Harnik. We are drawn into a protean soundscape that is brash, lawless, frequently off-putting, but consistently engaging.

Such is the nature of “10.000 Leaves”, the premiere recording from the Wild Chamber Trio, a cross-European meeting of the Italian Mimmo, Swiss Gasser, and Austrian Harnik. This is the freely improvised sound of three great musicians on a 52-minute joyride through the land of jazz energy and classical sonority without a road map.

The idea of playing improvised music in a “chamber” setting dates back to the early 60s, when cool-jazz reed player Jimmy Giuffre stepped further away from convention in the company of the then-young now-legendary Steve Swallow and Paul Bley. Compared to the explosive, confrontational, blues-steeped flights of his more-famous contemporary Ornette Coleman, Giuffre’s drumless music was one of an intimate, boundless, searching dialogue.

Fifty years later, the Vienna-based group continues the conversation. For the duration of the recording, the trio navigates music of considerable variety and surprising originality. All three constituents possess the prerequisite musical skills for high-level free improvisation. They have the musical ears and brains to pick up and instantly expound upon the most abstract statements of their partners, and the physical ability to execute each impulse seamlessly.

The real liberating factor in the group, however, is the huge range of effects the musicians conjure from their actual instruments. The possibilities for new textures expand with each successive track. In “Shade Multiplication,” Mimmo’s soprano wheezes mechanically in and out of unison with the harsh overtones of Gasser’s 5-string. He often blows into the instrument until it distorts and warps like the vision of asphalt on a hot highway.  On “Radiance,” while the cello rumbles ominously and tonelessly, Harnik’s piano strings ping and resonate ethereally against the metal objects placed upon them. Within the blink of an eye, her instrument shifts from temple bells to bone rattle to the strained yowl of scraped cord.

When the trio deals in notes, their dialogues show deep invention and expert cohesion, but when they play with sounds, they attain near-telepathy. The improvisations open with powerful collective statements of atmosphere, such as the scrambling animal footfalls of “Fire Code,” the marshy bubbling and quacking of the title track, the dying fluorescent-light hum of “Remaining Words” and the military stomps, slams, and wordless vocalizing of “Kitty Hawk.” At moments of climax, the ensemble sound is an overwhelmingly rich cacophony. In the recording’s final minutes, it is one of vaguely mumbled questions and scurrying half-heard protests.

“10.000 Leaves” is an exciting debut, a reminder of the vitality of “chamber” improvisation, and a document of masterful free music making.

Highly recommended.

Buy from Instantjazz. 




© stef

Read More

Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity - Elastic Wave (ECM, 2022)

By Martin Schray

According to Peter Brötzmann, Manfred Eicher’s ECM label "cuts the balls off powerful groups," with the result that they all sound the same, which he finds awful*. Now, if you only consider Gard Nilssen’s first two albums with his Acoustic Unity** (which is Nilssen on drums, André Roligheten on saxophones and clarinet and Petter Eldh on bass), - especially the outstanding triple album Live in Europe released on Clean Feed in 2017 - you’d be inclined to agree with the German fire-breather. But of course, it’s not that simple. Already To Whom Who Buys a Record (Odin Records, 2019), the band’s third album, didn't sound as wild and free as Live in Europe, instead one could sense a strong hardbop influence. In addition, there were also ballads like "Broken Beauty," which pointed to where the journey with the Acoustic Unity could go. Moreover, Nilssen has recorded for ECM before, for example on Mathias Eick’s Skala (2011) and on two albums by the Maciej Obara Quartet (Unloved, 2017 and Three Crowns, 2019). So, the step to present their new album Elastic Wave on the Munich label was somehow logical.

Even though the Acoustic Unity doesn’t sound as brute as it did in their beginning, dynamic interactions, a sense of swinging pulse, and bold, sharply delineated themes are still among the trio’s defining characteristics. Another one is their stylistic flexibility, which has its roots in shared experiences; the three have known each other since 2005.

Many influences come together in the trio’s music. In Roligheten’s saxophone playing you can hear Ornette Coleman, and when he plays the clarinet, Jimmy Giuffre’s style shines through. In general, the Giuffre Trio has clearly influenced the sound and harmonies of this album (e.g. in “Dreignau“). On “The Other Village“, he plays tenor and soprano saxophone simultaneously, which sounds as if Roland Rahsaan Kirk was playing Mediterranean bagpipes. On the whole, the trio offers a comprehensive overview of modern jazz history. This can be heard in the opener “Altaret“, a piece by Petter Eldh that comes across as freely contrapuntal, indicating to the trio’s concept of openness and freedom in improvisation and composition.

Gard Nilssen has named Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Ed Blackwell, Roy Haynes and Jack DeJohnette as influences that have shaped his drumming style. But Jon Christensen’s well-known "Waves of Sound" approach has obviously also been an inspiration. To pay tribute to ECM’s drumming tradition, he brought one of Christensen's cymbals to the "Elastic Wave" session and integrated it as a second ride cymbal into the overall sound of his drum set. The title of the track "Lokket til Jon, og skjerfet til Paul" (Norwegian for: The lure for Jon, and the scarf for Paul) alludes to Christensen on the one and and on the other hand to a scarf that Paul Motian had once left behind in a studio, and which is used here to soften the bass drum’s resonating harmonics.

Finally, even those who appreciate the old Acoustic Unity will also find what they are looking for here: with its hard, lively drive "Acoustic Dance Music" is a piece reminiscent of the Ornette Coleman Trio’s recordings at the Circle in Stockholm.

All in all, Elastic Wave is simply a very diverse and coherent album in itself, which rather focuses on airiness and sound range. To say that the music would have no balls seems definitely too harsh.

Elastic Wave is available as a CD and as a download. You can find it on the usual streaming devices and you can listen to a short snippet here:

 

* Christoph J. Bauer: Brötzmann Gespräche (Posth Verlag, p. 75)

** The two album’s on Clean Feed are named Gard Nilssen’s Acoustic Unity, while the last two album are filed under Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity

Read More

Z3 - Pale Fire (Whyplayjazz, 2014) ***½

   

By Martin Schray

Philip Zoubek is an Austrian pianist and composer who lives in Cologne and is part of the scene around the “Loft”, a wonderful location for improvised music and new classical music, which is run by WDR Symphony Orchestra flautist Hans Martin Müller. Zoubek is known for his extended techniques preparing his piano with pots, plastic stuff and glass jars (and many more) but for this album he has chosen to put this stuff aside (at least mostly). His trio with Benjamin Weidekamp (cl, bcl) and Christian Weber (b) refers to Jimmy Giuffre’s seminal trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow but Zoubek intends to continue their approach adding his own musical experiences so that the music is more than a mere homage.

“Pale Fire” lives from a constant clash of composed material and improvised passages, Zoubek wanted the improvisation to take part in a complex communicative space where all the musicians are aware what the others are doing and where roles and functions are permanently in flux.

This is less intellectual than it sounds, tracks like “Melos” are constant shapeshifters as well as to rhythm and sound, intensity and beauty. The composition starts like a classic Giuffre piece, the melodies jump like jaunty grasshoppers, there is a sense of wildlife on a summer meadow, lively, joyous, exuberant – but towards the end the atmosphere changes: the sounds of the clarinets and the bowed bass are gloomy and dark, only the piano tries keep the mood from the beginning alive. There is immediacy and subtlety, there are condensed compositional parts and extended improvised spaces and especially when the instruments seem to melt into each other, the album has its best moments – for example in “Two” (my favorite) and “Hu”, the longest track, where Zoubek comes back to prepared piano.

My friend Julia Neupert (who is also the host of the SWR radio show) was absolutely enthusiastic about the album and I have to admit that I was rather reluctant after the first listening. Yet, the music has hidden qualities that I recognized only after several attempts, it is music that needs attention.

“Pale Fire” was recorded at the “Loft”, most of the music was played live at a gig the band played after two days in the studio.

Listen to an album teaser 

Read More

Guitar Week: Jazz-Rock-Folk-Americana (Day 5)

Here on the FJB, we often cite free jazz pioneer clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre for his album "Free Fall", but a couple of years before his trio with guitarist Jim Hall spawned the hit "The Train and the River", which Giuffre described as "blues-based folk jazz"...

Bill Frisell - Guitar in the Space Age (Okeh, 2014) ****½

By Martin Schray

Bill Frisell is a man of many facets, he has played hardcore with John Zorn’s Naked City, pure jazz in his duo with Jim Hall and his trio with Ron Carter and Paul Motian or avant-garde rock with Power Tools. But in the last few years he has also focused on his version of the Great American Songbook, especially of folk, country&western and pop songs. Albums like East/West, Ghost Town, The Willies or the marvelous Good Dog, Happy Man present Frisell’s vision of compositions like “Shenandoah”, “I’m so lonesome I could cry”, “John Hardy was a Desperate Little Man” or “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”.

Frisell has been criticized by his jazz fans for playing less complex music like this, but in an interview he said: “As I get older, I’m becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of playing something that was a part of my life. Some naive melody or childhood memory that I once would have thought wasn’t complicated enough.” On his new album he has chosen harmonically “simple” songs like The Byrds’ “Turn Turn Turn”, The Chantays’ “Pipeline”, The Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl” or Duane Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser”. And Frisell is very close to the originals, he is not interested in deconstructing them, instead he explores the sublimity of them by breathing the spirits of the songs – he builds a temple for them. His band – Greg Leisz on pedal and lap steel guitar, Kenny Wollesen on drums and Tony Scherr on bass – is outstanding, especially Leisz, maybe the world’s best pedal steel guitarist, is an equal soloist here, which makes the album a feast for guitar fans. Guitar in the Space Age is on par with Good Dog, Happy Man, it’s a Frisell essential and a great trip down memory lane.

Ross Martin, Max Johnson & Jeff Davis - Big Eyed Rabbit (Not Two, 2014) ****

By Paul Acquaro

How viable is bluegrass as a basis for free improvization? The music itself is largely improvisational, though rooted in chord changes and certain traditions. So what if you strip out traditions, pull back the changes, and let the other elements of the music remain -the rhythms, the melodic language, the open feel? That’s what the trio of Big Eyed Rabbit have done to great effect on their eponymous release.

The group is Ross Martin on electric guitar, Max Johnson on bass and Jeff Davis on drums. Though their feet are firmly planted in the New York jazz scene, Martin’s bluegrass influenced guitar playing references the Americana stylings of Frisell, bluegrass virtuoso work of Tony Rice, and even some Wes Montgomery for good measure. The tracks on the album include some bluegrass standards - ‘Cluck Old Hen’ and ‘Brown Country Breakdown’, which are both stand out tracks, hewing both close to bluegrass and letting themselves stretch out in ways most likely never imagined by Bill Monroe. The original tracks, like ‘One of my Happiness’ and ‘Mr. Sherbert’ have their own connections to the style and demonstrate the group’s originality extends far beyond interpretation.

Great album!

Erik Friedlander –Nighthawks (Skipstone, 2014) ****

By Martin Schray

In October 2012 there was a massive blackout which struck New York City. Cellist Erik Friedlander was inspired by the quiet and solitude that lay over the usually busy and loud city like a pall. In the end Friedlander wrote ten new compositions for his band with guitarist  Doug Wamble, bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Michael Sarin which are rooted in rock, blues, folk and C&W but which are also deeply tinged in an urban somberness and melancholia – the result is a perfect soundtrack for a walk through a dark and deserted Manhattan.

Musically it’s the clash between Friedlander’s classical approach and Wamble’s slide guitar that makes the difference on Nighhawks. There is a also lot of excellent musicianship, but it’s the marvelous melodic compositions that stand out, mainly on ballads like the folky “Hopper's Blue House”, reminding of Bill Frisell’s Americana albums with its cello arpeggios juxtaposed to a delicately and lightly sketched slide guitar tune, or “Nostalgia Blindside”, a perfect companion for the hours around 4.a.m. when you are tangled up in blue.  The highlight of the album is the title track – the longest and slowest ballad – which is dominated by unison playing of cello and guitar, elegant guitar flageolets, open, reverberating, lush guitar chords and a heartbreaking pizzicato solo by Friedlander.

There might be another reason why the album is so nostalgic since Friedlander’s wife had died less than a year before. However  many of the tunes breathe optimism and joie de vivre like the opener “Sneaky Pete” or the midtempo blues-rock number “26 Gasoline Stations”.

A very fine and accessible album.

Read More

Vandermark galore ....

Keeping track of Ken Vandermark's activities is a job in itself, and, admittedly, he must have fun playing all over the world with other musicians, each time in different countries, with different backgrounds and approaches to music. Yet regardless of the context, Vandermark manages to fit in perfectly well without loosing his own recognisable voice and approach.

Territory Band with Fred Anderson - Collide (Okkadisk, 2007)

Territory Band is an intercontinental mini big band with Johannes Bauer on trombone, Axel Dörner on trumpets, Per-Ake Holmlander on tuba, Lasse Marhaug on electronics, Paul Lytton and Paal Nilssen-Love on percussion, Jim Baker on piano, Fredrik Ljungkvist, Dave Rempis and Ken Vandermark on sax, Kent Kessler on bass, David Stackenas on guitar and Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello. This album "Collide" is dedicated to Chicago free jazz icon Fred Anderson, who is also joining for the occasion.

Vandermark explains that he tried to "design compositional frameworks that liberate and motivate the improvisers rather than confine them through a rigid set of directives and overly complex material". The musicians are free to add things and play as they see fit. The first track is a very thundering, menacing orchestral piece, the second starts with a Vandermark solo imitating some of Anderson's phrasing (at least that's what I think), to be interrupted by Lasse Marhaug's electronics, kicking off an African-influenced theme, which once subsiding gives room for bass and tuba soloing. The audience reacts very enthusiastically throughout. The players perform well, there is enough variation between soloing for the individual players and band-played tunes, but the variety of styles do not always mix. It is not clear to me either how this is a tribute to Anderson, but it is in any case one of Territory Band's most coherent performances.

Listen to
Part 1
Part 2

The Thing with Ken Vandermark - Immediate Sounds (Phonofile, 2007)

"The Thing" is a trio consisting of Mats Gustafsson on sax, Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums, named after a Don Cherry composition and originally focused on Cherry's music. On this album they are joined by Ken Vandermark who has played with the three musicians before. The first track starts off with the typical high energy playing these Swede and Norwegians are known for, and Vandermark blends in very well in this idiom, with his free funking improvizations feeling like a fish in the water, utterly enjoying the company, and when the blow-fest subsides, the drums and the bass pave the way for some very sensitive melodic playing in the second track, moving on to the third when Vandermark starts blowing one of his funky riffs, and Gustafsson can give free reign to the creative power of his instrument, after which Vandermark lifts his riff into a high electricity improv, which then turns into a raw, screeching, creative improv duel/dialogue between the two baritone saxes on the fourth track, then shifting beautifully into some bluesy interplay when bass and drums join, but these musicians are who they are and it doesn't take long before their hyperkinetic urges bring them back where they excell, namely into nuclear energy fields, where emotions and power and creativity join, first wailing but towards the end meeting each other in an interesting alternating interplay between spontaneous unisono melody and low tone counterpoint. Breathtaking indeed.

Listen to and download from eMusic.com

Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark - August Music (self-published)


Tim Daisy and Ken Vandermark have played hundreds of time together, but this is their first duo recording, which was only distributed in the context of their tour this summer. The recording itself was made during a life performance at the Empty Bottle in Chicago a year earlier. The record begins quite freely, with loose sounds trying to justify their living, but the second track brings us more into jazz territory, with funky sax and rhythmic drums, to be brought back again into some extended playing on both instruments, creating unusual sounds leading into some plaintive hesitant wailing on the bass-clarinet. Daisy is as much in the lead as Vandermark, setting the scene, with some very creative approaches, giving ideas and rhythms to Vandermark who takes them up with pleasure, turning into his usual funky improvs. This is high energy intimacy.

Listen to Study For Mural


Free Fall - The Point In A Line (Phonofile, 2007)

With Free Fall, Vandermark stays in Scandinavia with Havard Wiik on piano and Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten on bass. This is the band's third album after "Furnace" and "Amsterdam Funk". The band was originally trying to revive the Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley and Steve Swallow line-up from the sixties, "Free Fall" being also the title of a Giuffre album. The music is composed and open, melodic and sensitive. The energy level is not comparable to the records reviewed above, but that doesn't mean there is less tension. The three musicians manage to make their interactive statements compact and to-the-point, with an aesthetic efficiency which is rare in free jazz, even in the more chaotic pieces. There are some stunningly beautiful moments on this album. Great musicianship and great music.

Listen to and download from eMusic.com.


Ken Vandermark & Pandelis Karayorgis - Foreground Music (Okkadisk, 2007)


There is a sequence to this list, namely, the energy level goes down. But again, that's no negative judgment, just a factual statement. On "Foreground Music", Ken Vandermark joins forces with Greek national Pandelis Karayorgis on piano. Karayorgis moved to Boston in the 1980s to perfect his playing at the New England Conservatory, and he remained in the neighborhood. His playing is absolutely excellent, not expansive, but precise and concise, giving as much attention to the compositional structure as to the melodies themselves. And again, Vandermark feels as comfortable in this context as in any other. The music is abstract, with angular melodic figures, sometimes close to modern classical, but also at times reminiscent of middle-eastern music, with its long-winding themes and odd metres (on "JCT"), or just plain romantic and subdued (on "Dreamless"), or digging into jazz heritage and film music. The sensitivity and restraint are unusual for Vandermark, but it is absolutely excellent. Great musicians, great interplay, great music. Candy for the ear. A real treat.

Listen to Lifgatowy here (better sound) or watch it below (sound is too shrill).

Read More

The Swedes Are Coming #2

By Eyal Hareuveni

A few recent releases by and with Swedish musicians that guarantee to keep your ears warm, even in the coming, freezing Nordic winter.

Fredrik Ljungkvist / Mattias Risberg - And Now the Queen - A Tribute to  Carla Bley (Lilalo records, 2016) *****

And Now The Queen calls for many reasons to celebrate. It is a beautiful tribute to one of the greatest queens of modern jazz, Carla Bley, on the occasion of her 80th anniversary. It is also the debut album of the independent label Lilao Records, founded by vocalist Lina Nyberg. And it offers an imaginative interpretations of Bley compositions by two acclaimed Swedish musicians - reeds player Fredrik Ljungkvist, the husband of Nyberg, and keyboards player Mattias Risberg.

Ljungkvist is best known as a member of the Swedish-Norwegian quintet Atomic, leader of the Yun Kan groups (3, 5 and 10 that released its last album, Yun Kan 10 on Hoob Records, 2013), and a frequent collaborator of reeds players Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and Per ‘Texas’ Johansson and pianist Bobo Stenson. Ljungkvist also plays in Risberg’s yet-to-be-recorded Ritualia ensemble. Risberg is a composer in his own right, plays regularly with Ljungkvist in the last decade as a member of the Yun Kan 10 and is passionate about “soulful” vintage instruments as the mellotron and analog synthesizers.

Ljungkvist and Risberg cover Bley iconic compositions from the early sixties, most of them were written originally for the Jimmy Giuffre Trio - with Paul Bley, her husband at the time, and Steve Swallow, or for Paul Bley first solo albums. Their intimate interpretations are true to Carla's spirit - elegant, clever and ironic but far from being reverential. They reimagine and reconstruct these compositions, referencing the sixties and seventies sonic experiences with electronic sounds.
The duo offer two different versions for the title-piece and “Donkey”. The latter is first interpreted by Ljungkvist alone, in an intense tone that even cries and shouts, and later by the duo in a more playful mode. The reimagination of “Ida Lupino”, one of Bley most loved compositions, her moving homage to the actress, still captures its dreamy and melancholic essence as played on Paul Bley first recorded version (Turning Point, 1964), but Ljungkvist and Risberg version suggest free-associative perspective. The cover of the bluesy "Sing Me Softly of the Blues” cements even further this emphatic, free-associative vein. Nyberg joins the duo for the last song on this arresting album, an emotional cover of “Vila (AKA Jesus Maria)", sung in Swedish, a soulful acknowledgment of Bley lasting legacy.

Lisa Ullén-Nina de Heney duo feat Charlotte Hug - Quarrtsiluni (Lamour, 2016) ****

Quarrtsiluni is an Inuit term referring to a state of deep silence in which one sits together and waits until something is ready to burst. The Inuit ancestors believed  that all songs came from such deep silence, coming to the human consciousness as bubbles from oceanic depths.

Quarrtsiluni is also the fifth recorded album of pianist Lisa Ullén and double bass master Nina de Heney, hosting this time Swiss violinist-vocalist Charlotte Hug. The Ullén-de Heney duo previous collaborations were with cellist Okkyung Lee and vocalist Mariam Wallentin. De Heney collaborated before with Hug on Acoustic Electronics (LJ Records, 2008), a trio with percussionist Christian Jormin.

The six improvisations-songs on this digital-only album were recorded on June 2015 in Gothenburg, after the trio gathered a crop of sounds, rhythms and ideas. The trio already passed its silent Quarrtsiluni phase and its songs flow in an organic, collective stream, emphasizing the rich, nuanced language that Ullén, de Heney and Hug have developed.

“Song Three”, the longest song here, almost 15 minutes long, answers best the ancient Inuit concept. Its sonic bubbles surfacing from a half-hallucinating, half-dreaming deep consciousness, morphing into a steady flow that keeps unwinding by its own secretive spell, sensual and tempting despite its dissonant atmosphere. The more you listen to it the more you are drawn by its haunting spirit. I guess that Ullén, de Heney and Hug may have connected with a spirit of ancestral, oceanic beast, most likely a singing whale who conveyed this trio some of its mysterious unsung rituals.

The Revoid Ensemble - s/t (Found You Recordings, 2016) ****½

Pianist Klas Nevrin’s Revoid Ensemble consists of eight opinionated and resourceful improvisers - Swedish Nervin on keyboards (he also plays in Ljungkvist’s Yun Kan 5 and 10), violinists Anna Lindal and Katt Hernandez (the latter plays in Yun Kan 10) , double bass player Vilhelm Bromander, reeds player Per “Texas” Johansson and drummer Ricard Österstam; Norwegian trumpeter Eivind Lønning and American cellist-vocalist Audrey Chen. Nevrin assembled this octet, an expansion of his own quintet, in attempt to explore improvisations strategies based on different compositional methods, moods and sounds, inspired by the Third Stream movement.

Nevrin modular compositions draw their inspirations from diverse, innovative composers - György Ligeti string quartets, Jimmy Giuffre trio, Barry Guy orchestral works and John Carter’s classic Castles of Ghana (Gramavision, 1986). His ensemble electro-acoustic language offers rich, dynamic spectrum, ranging from minimalistic, almost silent sonic events through dense and intense polyrhythm to reductionist textures and microtonal impressionism. He uses non-standard intonations, inspired by West-African balafon and Indonesian gamelan percussion tunings and the works of composers Terry Riley and Lou Harrison. He also superimposed "disorderly order" of shifting pulses and demanded collective improvisation in order to create ambiguity that demands the musicians to reflect on the ethical aspects of reciprocal interaction and interplay. This ensemble is already committed to an ongoing artistic research project at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm during  2016-2018, focusing on the workings of collective improvisation.

The Revoid Ensemble debut album was recorded live on January 2016 at Theatre Lederman in Stockholm. The experimental, complex compositional tools and the  disciplined improvised strategies unite organically and form a fascinating, highly nuanced language. Nevrin compositions are colorful, surreal kaleidoscopic textures that keep spiraling and shifting sounds, moods and ideas in some distant, hazy electro-acoustic atmospheres. “158-c” and “Spkkr” demonstrate the delicate tension between the composed, chamber-sounding segments and the ensemble collective abstraction of these segments, shifting the focus from the contemplative and reserved strings and reeds to an exploration of earthier rhythmic patterns. The almost silent, often dissonant “13.z” revolves around the weird, wordless recitations of Chen, as in some mysterious ritual, while “A+psq” trips gently in some dreamy, Eastern territory.

Konvoj Ensemble - Mira (Konvoj Records, 2016) ****

The sophomore release of the pan-European Konvoj Ensemble - featuring sax players Danish Lotte Anker, British Evan Parker and Ola Paulson, Lithuanian clarinet player Liudas Mockūnas, pianist and vocalist Sten Sandell, electronics player Jakob Riis and drummer-percussionist Anders Uddeskog - explores a new composition of Paulson and Riis. Mira is a five-parts composition, based on a collection of graphic scores and interactive methods used as tools for collective ensemble improvisation. Mira also asks the ensemble experienced improvisers to employ their skills as sound explores and navigate together through this complex musical organism, following its rational “to work between- to act among”.

The five pieces ebb and flow, alternating between patient, collective improvisations to eccentric, volcanic eruptions. Each piece emphasizes a certain strategy of the ensemble collective language. “Prelude/Hommage to O Ceti” uses the sparse, unique extended breathing techniques of reeds player Anker, Parker, Paulson and Mockūnas as its basic materials. “Speak out, Oh Ye Red Giant” intensifies the previous vein, structuring and deconstructing the multilayered sounds of the muscular reeds. Sandell sketches its outlines of the  central piece, the 20 minutes of “In the Belly of the Whale - 3 Days and 3 Nights”, beginning with a commanding solo piano introduction - playing all over the piano - and later with minimalist touches that  accentuates the stormy interventions of the reeds, drummer Uddeskog and the live processing of Riis. “A Part of Miranda” plays again with ever-shifting, multi-layered voices of the reeds, ornamented by Sandell, Riis and Uddeskog. The last piece “Postlude/Hauers Treasure” highlights the dense yet highly nuanced collective language of the ensemble. This composition demands repeated listening in order to fully explore its complex, nuanced aspects.

Martin Küchen / Johannes Heuer - Bagatellen / Cirfa 01-08 (Lenka Lente, 2016) ***½

The French publishing house Lanka Lente like to bring together left-off-center, eccentric musicians with poets and visual artists. This time it offers 50 copies only, special box edition that matches 43 short improvisations of alto sax player Martin Küchen with eight double-sided printed cardboards of Austrian artist Johannes Heuer, numbered and signed by Heuer. Küchen, who also plays with an electric toothbrush and radio, also contribute four poems to box, written in Swedish. He is known as the leader of the Angels group and from many free-improvised meetings with such innovative musicians as Keith Rowe and John Tilbury. Heuer art is done with everyday objects that have been cut and assembled again.

Küchen's brief, concise improvisations last only few dozens of seconds. All offer his highly personal approach to sound. He uses the sax as an instrument that produces abstract breathing sounds, then colors, disturbs or collides these sounds with the noises of the toothbrush and white-noise, alien radio waves, until these sonic events make some sense. It may be a weird, unsettling, even threatening sonic sense, but one that corresponds beautifully with Heuer art. Sounds and image that say that now is here but it is already gone, almost as life and its surrounding objects, all are on a declining course as it is captured on Heuer cardboards.

Read More