Guitars ... of Songs and Sounds (part 1)

By Paul Acquaro 

  

My love for the guitar is no secret. Evidence abounds from the multitude of declarations on these pages to the lovely specimens adorning the walls of my home, which unfortunately mostly collect dust these days. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, a trip though some recent guitar music is always pleasure to undertake, so today, a first installment of what I am planning to be a multi-part set of (mostly) freely improvised solo and duo guitar recordings of recent vintage, in no particular order except, solos then duos, and then we'll see!

 

Marcelo Dos Reis - Life ... Repeat! (Miria Records, 2024)

Life ... Repeat! is Portuguese guitarist Marcelo Dos Reis' third solo album and on it he takes us on a meditative journey. The first track 'Pulse' is a tonal excursion from the origins of it's life - a slowly repeating note that becomes a background drone. Melodic lines are introduced, small repetitious figures, fleet fingered filigrees and impulsive rhythmic jolts. Eventually, a swelling vocal line begins accompanying what sounds like a violin but must be the result of his prepared guitar. Wordless vocals then envelope the guitar in a mysterious gossamer web. Halfway through the tune, the voice is gone and attention is given to a evolving melodic idea. Quick passages erupt, burn quick and bright and spark other ideas. Sometimes it is messy, other times crisp and clean, and through it runs a rhythmic melody that provides the connective tissue. Intensity builds, but never spills over, instead it swells with breath and depth and after nearly a half-hour, quietly dissipates. 

 

The other tracks are shorter at an average of 7-minutes each, and all fully developed ideas themselves. The second track, "Rhythmical Throbbing,' takes a more dense approach. The guitar certainly sounds "prepared," notes warble slightly de-tuned, accompanied by a rattle of something striking the strings of his clean toned electric guitar. The track 'Single Vibration' follows with what sounds like an overly prepared guitar - so much that the guitar strings that are more like the quickly muted tones of an oud. Its impact is hypnotic. Closing track "Burst of Sound' is the loveliest of the songs. It's melody rises over a thrumming background colored with chord tones. It, like the preceding tracks, also seems to rise with an organic and intrinsic impulse.

 

Life...Repeat! is an engrossing dive deep into a meditative space. Over the course of the recording, simple ideas are layered, creating an affecting atmosphere. 

 

Chuck Roth - Document 1 (Relative Pitch, 2024)

 

I listen with a certain fascination to NYC based guitarist Chuck Roth. His music is pure sound, the sound of the un-effected, unprepared guitar. It's in a sense an unfettered guitar, in that he is playing it without regard to the structures and tones usually associated with a guitar. As I was listening, I thought of Derek Bailey's work re-envisioning the instrument and after pulling out Bailey's 1971 Solo Guitar, Volume 1, I still do think that there is a nascent connection in the divine plink plonk, but that's as far as I feel confident to make such a comparison. Regardless, there is plenty on Document 1 to keep us occupied.

 

Suffice to say, there are no melodic hooks to be found here, it's mostly arrhythmic striking of strings and a disciplined kind of chaos. This well practiced touch of randomness guides Roth's hands as he presses, pulls and pushes sounds out of his crackling, dry-toned electric guitar. There are a number of moments where a run of normal sounding notes provides a grounding for the listener, lean in closer and one starts to intuit a logical flow to the textured play. 

 

If you are a fan of the guitar, Document 1 is an excellent exploration of its sounds and possibilities, compelling and pure. 

 

Luciana Bass - Desatornillándonos (Relative Pitch, 2024)

 

Labelmates with Roth, and writers of each others liner notes, Argentinian guitarist Luciana Bass is very much an explorer too, but whereas Roth seemed to really pull apart the guitar itself, Bass's focus is on song and sound. 

 

Starting with opening track 'Blind Willie (for Sonny Sharrock),' Bass greets the listener with a song that slowly opens like a flower. It's a little worn, but the conventional beauty is still recognizable in its blues drenched petals, its structure embodying a lovely rawness. The next one though, 'Arco y Flecha,' lets go of any such structure and revels in pure sounds. The guitar is the source, but this is not an exploration of the sounds of the instruments as much as it an exploration of sounds themselves. On the next track 'Blues for Pipo,' however, we find ourselves back in the land of song. A thumping bass note undergirds open tuned chords and a slide driven melody. There's a bit of wildness towards the end of the track before it segues into 'Voces de Violeta,' which features a full on striking of chords and a thin, distorted tone that offers a lone melodic line straight through. 

 

A trio of back-to-back tracks in the later half of the album stand out. First, on 'Echoes for Ornette,' after a quickly passing rock chord, Bass plays a melodic line, fast paced and circular, adorned with shards of chords providing unexpected harmonic movement. Then on 'Revisiting Heitor's Prelude,' a haunting melody is laced with traces of Villa-Lobos, and on 'Alyer's Ghost,' she defiantly distills pieces of the saxophonist's signature melodies. 

 

There is a whole lot packed into the album's dozen short tracks. The musical contrasts on Desatornillándonos make for a true gem for the guitar music collector. 

 

 

Ava Mendoza - The Circular Train (Palilalia, 2024)

A heavyweight among the avant-rockers, NYC's Ava Mendoza seems to know how to hit all the right notes. Here on the Free Jazz Blog, we've covered her work from her formative Unnatural Ways groups to her recent collaboration in Blll Orcutt's guitar quartet. Along the way we have also taken note of her previous solo work as well as her delectable duo with violinist gabby fluke-mogul. On Circular Train, we find the guitar slinger riding alone, sharing a set of music that she has been refining for over a decade. 

 

The Circular Train features Mendoza's work as both as an instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, though making a distinction between the two isn't really necessary, as all of these tracks tell a story in some way. Opening things up is 'Cypress Crossing,' which begins with a slight, distorted power chord and then slides into a desert-tinged lonesome-landscape double-stopped melodic line. The style suits - it's tough but accessible, it's new while familiar, and from this base, Mendoza evokes good cinema. 'Pink River Dolphins' is the first of the two songs with lyrics. The start has the listener deep in a bluesy morass, a strong chord structure supports the tune as Mendoza sings "make a sound, it comes back around." The tune opens up into improvised territory with Mendoza filling the space with questioning lines and energetic strumming. 

 

While there is sonic connective tissue through her reverb-laden and rusty wire tone, each tune exudes something unique. 'Ride to Cerro Rico' has moments of classical guitar in it's churning approach and 'Dust From the Mines' is a subdued shredder that manages a tonal super nova. The other vocal tune, 'The Shadow Song' is an interesting take on our negative-light companion, though it seems to be more about a tussle with karma. Capping off the recording is a the blues/folk tune 'Irene Goodnight,' which Mendoza pulls off with a raw entropic cool. 

 

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Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba - Never Again, Again and Again

Not quite sure when or how today's video came over our transom, but it seems like a pretty good metaphor for how it's feeling these days. A meditative view of a burning world.

Video by Wojciech Rusin 

Music by: Marek Pospieszalski - soprano & tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute & tape; Zoh Amba - tenor saxophone; Piotr Chęcki - tenor & baritone saxophone; Tomasz Dąbrowski - trumpet; Tomasz Sroczyński - viola; Szymon Mika - electric guitar & acoustic guitar; Grzegorz Tarwid - piano; Max Mucha - double bass; Qba Janicki - drums & soundboard 

 More here.

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Inclusion Principle

Inclusion Principle – The Call of A Crumbling World (Discus 2025) 

Inclusion Principle – Clarino Oscura (Discus 2025) 

By Nick Ostrum

A few years ago, I got turned on to Martin Archer’s Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere, which is a spaced-out prog band that somehow stands out from the masses, who trod similar terrain. Still, I was not sure what, exactly, made them stand out, until I heard Inclusion Principle.

Inclusion Principle is Archer’s pared down avant-electronica project. Actually, it is pared down to a bare two: Martin Archer on modular synth, shortwaves and clarinet and Hervé Perez on laptop (including field recordings), shakuhachi, and sound design. Then again, maybe this can be considered a core project, as it has been running for twenty years now.

Even though Perez himself is not a member of the OUA, the music on the two EP’s reviewed here, The Call of a Crumbling Worldand Clarino Oscura , is the filament that makes that project so distinctive. Archer tends toward his wide-beam reed work, spitting out heavy, round, and thick tones that spin into repeating melodies. His synth contributions often follow a similar trajectory, though with heavy distortion, adornments, and decay. Meanwhile, Perez and, I assume, Archer lay backbeats that range from crackly drum ‘n bass to Mos Eisley cantina space ambience to sound collaging, replete with bird calls. Through it all, however, that slightly askew, sweltry cosmic fusion that underpins many of Archer’s other projects, especially OUA, shines through here.

The benefit of working in a smaller group is that the musicians can focus on space in the round rather than one or another end of orchestral sound. After the jaunty Romanic Tangential of The Call of a Crumbling World – a section of the single track that composes this album – Archer and Perez offer the quiet storm of 2D Moonrise. On this one, the fine edges and shimmers of the electronic work really shine through. The infrequent bass beats surprise amidst the foggy electrical storm. This movement throbs and sizzles and mesmerizes. Clarino Oscura unfolds with similar elements, but on a different trajectory. It begins with ping-ponging beeps and smeared electronic noises before a keyboard melody breaks through. It sounds like morse code messages fighting through a variety of other transmissions only partially realized. It reaches its flow in rush of dancehall beats and various glitchy elements that awaken the listener from complacent daydreaming. Shakuhachi and clarinet interpolate scraps of melodies throughout, adding a slanted, eerie dimension to the otherwise progressive back beats. But this has much more of an electro-dance flow, making it most akin to Geometry Jungle from The Call of a Crumbling World . Yet, despite the backbone Perez lays, Clarino Oscura unfolds in multiple directions. Tendrils grow and are abandoned just as quickly. The beats stop for long intervals to open space for the finer tweaks and chirps, drawing off the sweet spot of modern experimental music.

If the world is indeed crumbling, as one title suggests, these albums witness it walking the fine line between opium haze dreaming and imagining a way forward that is not quite so apocalyptic as the other steam-punkt techno-futurists may have it.

The Call of a Crumbling World and Clarino Oscura are available as downloads on Bandcamp:

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Skordas/Chytiris/Noraoto – Spiritual Forces (self released, 2025)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Nikolas Skordas on wind instruments (saxophones and flute, tarogato and tsabouna, a greek bagpipe) and Stefanos Chytiris (drums and percussion) have been friends and collaborators for years. Playing as a duo they have been reviewed here before, exploring the boundaries of the free jazz sax-drums tradition. But they have played alongside many more (more recently Chytiris has been a part of Pascal Niggenkemper’s large ensemble), as their will and musical thinking always tends to collective works.

Spiritual Forces, a quite telling title about this recording, is the first that comes out as a trio with Noraoto Nanashi on the double bass. The presence on Noraoto’s playing, humble and low key, adds up to the spirituality that Skordas gives the listener with the way he approaches his wind instruments. I dare to say that Skordas, at least partly, re-imagines his Balkan tradition in every track of this CD, a fact absolutely true on track seven where under a barrage of free, but so concentrated, drumming by Chytiris he encapsulates the tradition of mountain musics throughout Greece. Noraoto uses the bow in order to create atmospheres, while Chytiris manages, as ever, a great balance between being an individual player and playing alongside his fellow musicians.

Noraoto’s presence in this music is so lyrical but at the same time almost invisible. The music created by the double bass (as I was listening to a lot of Angus MacLise lately) is rooted deeply into the minimalism of eastern traditions. It felt to me that, even though Noraoto is the newcomer in this music, this presence in integral for the CD.

Each musician is a spiritual force here. Even though, having listened to many of his past and recent recordings, I expected that from Skordas, Chytiris managed to catch me of guard with his vibrant, relaxed and atmospheric playing.

This self released trio really deserves a listening as it creates solid ground between the free jazz and free improv milieu and the, always on the verge of being trance-like, musics from the Balkans.

@koultouranafigo

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Will Mason Quartet - Hemlocks, Peacocks (New Focus Recordings, 2025) *****

By Stef Gijssels

I have been listening almost exclusively to this album over the last few weeks. It is wonderful. An incredibly creative, compelling and carefully crafted gem that transcends the boundaries of style and genre. The quartet are Will Mason - the leader and composer - on drums, Anna Webber on tenor, Daniel Fisher-Lochhead on alto, and deVon Russell Gray on keyboards. All seven tracks are carefully composed with room for improvisation. 

It is avant-garde classical music in its essence, exploring La Monte Young's tuning system from his "Well-Tuned Piano" classic from 1974. You can read more about La Monte Young's "Well-Tuned Piano" here or watch a performance here. I'll share two technical paragraphs from the liner notes to give the reader/listener an idea about the concept of the music and especially its strange sonic quality. 

"Mason’s exploration (...) began because of Young’s elegant solution to mapping just intonation onto the piano. Young’s 12-note scale omits the fifth harmonic, resulting in an absence of justly-tuned major (5:4) and minor (6:5) thirds. One way of approaching the resulting scale is as a pentatonic scale with several shadings available of each pitch; another would be to construct a scale out of the septimal major (9:7, 35 cents wider than an equal-tempered major third) and minor (7:6, 33 cents narrower than an equal-tempered minor third) thirds. Young’s keyboard layout makes both approaches fairly intuitive; some familiar hand shapes, like the perfect fifth or octave, typically sound like a perfect fifth or octave. By contrast, a span of a minor 9th might sound beautifully consonant, and a major second might produce shrill beating."

"In Hemlocks, Peacocks the just intonation tuning system of Young’s The Well Tuned Piano is set at two pitch levels on two separate keyboards, one rooted on C and the other on 436Hz (a slightly flat A). This allows for the use of the 5/4 just major third, which Young’s tuning system deliberately omitted. But it also allows for an array of clusters and shadings of pitches. Especially in the improvisational context of much of this music, this lends the keyboard a flexibility and expressivity that is not normally available to performers."

The result is a very accessible microtonal, polyrhythmic and polyphonic delight. Anna Webber is the perfect saxophonist in this context, equally interested in microtonal playing, she is at once very controlled when required and exuberant at other moments, breaking through the confines of classical music and adding a free jazz accent to the overall sound. I just give a quick impression on some tracks, but leave it to the reader to further explore. 

"Hemlocks", the opening track is available on video, and will let you enjoy here below. It sets the tone for the album's overall sound. 

"Hymn" is a long piece on the keyboards by deVon Russell Gray, with Mason adding percussive touches. The sound is off-center, yet gentle and eery at the same time. The minimalist keyboard touches resonate in the open space of the Cole Memorial Chapel in Norton, Massachusetts, were the album was recorded. 

"Turned in Fire", starts as a free jazz piece with its tenor and drums intro, brought back into harmonic order by the keyboards. It's one of the highlights of the album, with its increasing tempo and unexpected changes. "Planets" also starts with the seemingly very free intro by the two saxes and the drums, only to shift into a tender and fragile piece. 

"Peacocks", the track that ends the album is possibly the most composed, and it is of an incredible beauty, with a hypnotic rhythmic and the two saxes spiralling ever upward, and when the drumming gets more volume, they leave their patterned playing for more improvisational work, with an exceptional interaction between the two saxes. 

You can admire the technicalities of the harmonies, and the rhythms and the tuning of the instruments, but the only thing that actually counts is the quality of the music itself, its intensity, its emotional power, its atmospheric mysteriousness, its artistic vision, the listening experience ... and this album ticks all these boxes. 

If you like music, whatever your tastes, you should check it out. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Watch a video of the recording of the first track. 

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Angharad Davies & Burkhard Beins -- Meshes of the Evening (Ni-Vu-Ni- Connu, 2025)

By Stuart Broomer

Since the release of Eight Duos, another LP of Beins’ duets has appeared, Meshes of the Evening with violinist Angharad Davies, recorded a year earlier at Ausland Berlin. The quality of concentrated attention and empathy is at the highest level throughout the two side-long duets, each a kind of mini-suite in which there are brief pauses between improvised movements” of varying length.

Side One, “Meshes 1”, proceeds as a kind of suite, with a shared attentiveness so profound that they might have had a conductor. The opening passage, some 4 ½ minutes, emphasizes high-pitched metallic tones, scraped, struck metal percussion and sustained upper-register violin pitches. The second passage emphasizes an assortment of mostly lower-pitched percussion that has something of the quality of a construction site, no jest or slight intended, just an on-going awareness that, if the right distance and perspective are applied, construction sites might yield sonic masterpieces, though very rarely this good. The third episode is marked by very high, whistling harmonics that involve both musicians (the listener’s temptation to ascribe much of it to the violin is corrected when the violin enters with a lower register melodic figure as the whistle continues).

Meshes 2 presents another episodic sequence, rich in unpredictability. Within its opening moments, Beins’ percussion gives the impression of a person drumming inside a large metal drum (the industrial kind), the sound muffled and set against the subtly inflected, repeated single tone of the violin. There are moments here when Davies might suggest a saw, Beins too, but an electric one, and there are times when, again, the constructivism seems literal, when the sounds of the duo seem like they might be literally building something, not an ethereal work of free improvisation but something as concrete as a wooden structure, say a cabin or a shed, art achieving the focused attention of unattended, practical activity (which, in a significant sense, it is). There are beautiful sequences here in which Davies sounds like she is wandering through a village under construction, yet one in which every cabin and garage is sentient, every hammer and wrench is sentient, inviting, supporting, engaging the wanderer. By the conclusion, the two musicians barely exist as independent entities, each part an immediate complement to the other, to the degree that effect and cause are simultaneous.

The two sides of the disc achieve a kind of ideal, a music that is both fully conscious of its parameters, peregrinations and potentialities and yet also suggests the possibilities of chance, an intense creativity that is somehow so casually practiced that listeners might feel themselves contributing something of its strange beauty, its complex and allusive organization, its genius that presents itself as common occurrence. An extraordinary recording.

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Burkhard Beins - Eight Duos (Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu, 2024)

By Stuart Broomer

This three-LP set is a dive into a substantial body of work – 1 hour, 57 minutes and 29 seconds – drawn from performances at Morphine Raum in Berlin in March and April 2023. Each of the eight duos is represented by a single track, ranging in length from 7:59 to 21:08. It might also be a dive into semantics, and how one might describe what Austrian percussionist and composer Burkhard Beins does. Yes, he’s a percussionist and, more so, an improviser, for here he ranges far afield, playing strings and electronics. If one were to suggest a similarly engaged musician, Eddie Prévost or the late Sven-Åke Johansson would immediately come to mind, and surely there might be more precise terms for what they do. A percussionist hits things and an improviser does things spontaneously as circumstances invite, suggest or require.

To distinguish, I prefer to think of Beins, Prévost and Johansson as materialists and relationists, artists working in the sonic qualities of material and relationships among sounds, both the ones they choose to make and those of others with whom they work. Perhaps an element of the metaphysical is also present, the interactive transformations of materiality and mind.

Beins has been in the vanguard of European improvised music since the mid-nineties when he joined the pioneering new music ensemble Polwechsel, a group that has now been integrating methodologies of composition and improvisation for over thirty years. In that time Beins has also collaborated with numerous other significant improvisers, including Johansson, Lotte Anker, John Butcher, Keith Rowe and Splitter Orchester.

Eight Duos is drawn from a series of performances in which Beins performed sets with two different musicians. Four of the duos will each fill a side of an LP, four others will split two sides.

That fascination with particular sounds and their interactions defines Beins’ approach here: for each of the duos he chose to play a different instrument or instruments or a selection of instruments from his drum kit, extending his usual range to include electric bass and a host of electronics, while his shifting partners engage a broad range of sound sources, from minimal to very dense. At times a radical minimalism arises; at other times the selection of instruments will be sufficiently mysterious to take on elements of musique concrète. For the concluding Transmission , Marta Zapparoli brings antennae, receivers and tape machines with Beins employing analog synthesizers, walkie talkies and samples, the two creating a robot universe of sound.

On a brief note on the Bandcamp page, Beins explains, “On a conceptual level, the idea was that I would play with different instruments or with a different set-up each time in order to present the breadth of my current work.” The broad range of that work is also apparent in the highly distinct collaborators with whom he works here.

The first collaboration, Expansion (19’55”), is an exercise in a radical minimalism, with Andrea Neumann employing the inside of a piano and a mixing board, Beins restricting himself to an amplified cymbal and a bass drum. It’s a work of subtle minimalism, many of the sounds are not immediately attributable, whether scraped or struck metal, wood or even the shell of a drum; at the same time, the variety and breadth of sounds can suggest a group much larger than a duo. Complex, rhythmic phrases emerge, literally linear, but distributed between the instruments’ remixed sounds, rendering the acoustic, electronic and altered materials at times indistinguishable. A continuous melody emerges, sounding like it might be coming from a power tool. The work – sometimes stark, sometimes dense – possesses a durable mystery, arising between the amplified and the acoustic, the scraped, the tuned and the broad, ambiguous vocabularies of action.

The two shorter pieces of LP 1, side B, are studies in contrast, featuring the most radically reduced instrumentation and the most dense of the acoustic performances. Extraction (7'53”) has Michael Renkel credited with playing strings and percussion, Beins percussion and strings. Renkel’s strings consist of a zither and a string stretched across cardboard, Beins is apparently playing an acoustic guitar and other percussion instruments.

It's engaging continuous music with a delicate dissonance that reflects a long-standing collaboration. In 2020 Renkel and Beins released a 19-minute digital album entitled Delay 1989, recorded 31 years before, each playing numerous instruments.

Excursion, with Quentin Tolimieri playing grand piano and Beins engaging his drum kit, is at the opposite end of the sound spectrum, substantial instruments played with significant force. Tolimieri is an insistently rhythmic pianist, beginning with rapid runs and driven clusters and chords, moving increasingly to repeated and forceful iterations of single chords, combining with Beins’ fluid drumming across his kit and cymbals in a powerful statement that approaches factory-strength free jazz.

LP2, Side A is similarly subdivided. Unleash has Andrea Ermke on mini discs and samples with Beins on analog synthesizers and samples. Shifting, continuous, liquid sounds predominate, suggesting an improvisatory art that is literally environmental (traffic flowing over a bridge perhaps). Here there are prominent bird sounds as well, further drawing one into this elemental world of mini-discs and samples, a natural world formed, however, entirely in its relationships to technology. A door shuts… then a silence… then the piece resumes: bells, struck metal percussion, rustling paper, air, muffled conversation…

Unfold returns to the world of the grand piano and drum kit with pianist Anaïs Tuerlinckx joining Beins in yet another dimension, echoing isolated tones from prepared piano and scratched strings returning us to another zone of the ambiguated world initially introduced with Expansion and Andrea Neumann, though here there’s the suggestion of glass chimes along with the whistling highs from rubbed and plucked upper-register strings, matched as well with muted roars and uncertain grinds.

Unlock, LP2, Side B, initiating a series of three extended works, presents a duet with trumpeter Axel Dörner in which Beins plays snare drums and objects. It may be the most intense experience of music as interiority here. If the trumpet has a mythological lineage back to the walls of Jericho, Dörner’s approach is the antithesis of that tradition, focussed instead on the instrument’s secret voices, at times here suggesting tiny birds, recently hatched and discreetly testing their untried voices. Beins restricts himself to snare drum and objects, often exploring light rustles, as if the snare is merely being switched on and off. Sometimes there are lower-pitched grinding noises, any attribution here unsure. Sometimes it feels like the sounds of packing up, so quietly executed it might be impossible. When the piece ends, one is willing to keep listening. Trumpet? Snare drum? It feels like air and feathers.

The two side-length works that occupy the third LP find Beins leaving his percussion instruments behind. Transformation, with Tony Elieh, has both musicians playing electric basses and electronics, generating feedback and exploring string techniques that complement and expand the subtle explorations of the bass guitars’ continuing walls of droning feedback with whistling harmonics and burbling rhythmic patterns. There’s a sustained passage in which bright, bell-like highs and shifting pitches float over a continuous rhythmic pattern from one of the electric basses, further illumined by bright high-frequencies, only to conclude with low-pitched interference patterns and bass strings that can suggest the echoing hollow of a tabla drum amid droning electronics and querulous rising and falling pitch bends, until concluding on an ambiguous sound and a continuous rhythmic pattern.

The final Transmission is a wholly electronic, layered collage with Marta Zapparoli using antennas, receivers and tape machines, and Beins employing analog synthesizers, walkie talkies and samples. Each sound source seems fundamentally complex – echo, the hiss of static, the semi-lost sound seeping through interference, a factory enjoying itself on its own time, blurring voices of the human intruders until it suggests the voices of distant generals muffled into the meaningless, suggesting invitation into the work’s own dreams, its feedback modulations hinting at travel into deep space, a world of echoes, percussion evident as isolated crackle. It’s the sound of an alternate experience, the acoustic world disappearing into the alien beauty of technology’s sonic detritus.

Start anywhere, with any track. The music will transcend the inevitable linearity of its presentation. Can two people make that much music out of so little? Can two people make and manage that sheer quantity of sound. The works await.

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Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few - A Love Supreme at 60

A few weeks ago at Los Angeles’ long-running Grand Performances concert series, saxophonist Isaiah Collier led a performance of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, joined by Brandon Coleman on piano, William Parker on bass, and Tim Regis on drums. The event included a sound healing ceremony by Jimmy Chan, an introduction by Michelle Coltrane, and sets by Jimetta Rose & The Voices of Creation, Surya Botofasina, Dwight Trible, and Jeremy Sole (KCRW) and was presented by Worlds Alive x The John & Alice Coltrane Home.

Here, we're start with Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few's ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ followed by ‘A Love Supreme.’ To see the rest, simply 'rewind.'

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Silvia Bolognesi & Eric Mingus - Is That Jazz? (Fonterossa Records, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

Is That Jazz? is dedicated to the music of Gil Scott-Heron.

Bass supremo, composer and teacher, Silvia Bolognesi, heads up an impressive ensemble curated from Sienna’s Jazz Academy. It includes Noemi Fiorucci and Lusine Sargsyan on vocals, Emanuele Marsico on trumpet and vocals, Isabel Simon Quintanar on tenor sax, Andrea Glockner on trombone, Gianni Franchi on guitar, Santiago Fernandez on piano, Peewee Durante on keyboards, Matteo Stefani on drums and Simone Padovani on percussion with Bolognesi on double bass – her sound weaving forming a continuum throughout.

Putting this talented ensemble with the impressive vocalist and poet Eric Mingus is genius. Mingus is well known on the American scene and brings his huge voice and talent to this album, interpreting Scott-Heron’s music with his unique take. Mingus brings his presence to the ensemble, his reputation as a protagonist and established upholder of the African American traditions is well established. Like his father, the legendary Charles Mingus, Eric Mingus originally played ‘cello before switching to double bass, but he is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, poet, and vocalist with classical and jazz training. Improvisation and creating worlds within worlds with poetry and voice are his specialties. He has collaborated with Hal Willner, Hubert Sumlin, and Elliott Sharp, among others, and composed soundtracks for documentaries.

Bolognesi is known for being a bass player for the Art Ensemble of Chicago and often plays in the States, but she remains a passionate teacher at Siena Jazz and in conservatories. Her ensemble may be fresh, but their talent is controlled and toned by this leader, whose bass is a constant voice, maintaining the tempo.

The album is a revelation because Scott-Heron (1949 -2011) never conformed to genre boxes and often gets overlooked. He was considered the forerunner of hip-hop and jazz rap, infusing jazz and blues with rap and politically charged lyrics.

The album is divided into five parts (including the encore), intended to be played continuously, yet it can be created into fourteen tracks.

While Mingus is the main vocal interpreter, the other voices, playing the role of chorus and counterpoint, also have a space as protagonists, and each vocalist is given a chance to shine. The arrangements leave places for improvisation and conduction, the method of collective improvisation developed by Lawrence ‘Butch’ Morris of which Bolognesi is an expert.

The beauty and ability to involve and excite Scott Heron's compositions, the often compelling rhythms and above all the quality of Mingus' voice, capable of interpreting, with rough and scratchy sounds, moving sweetness or powerful aggression go perfectly with Scott-Heron’s style and in many places his interpretive vocals serve to emphasise the importance of the lyrics.

“The idea of a project dedicated to Gil Scott Heron came to the Artistic Director of Siena Jazz, Lacopo Guidi, for the festival in collaboration with the Accademia Chigiana dedicated to the “word” (Parola) and poetry, in which he wanted to pay homage to an African American poet,” says Bolognesi.

“Knowing the musical universes in which I move and my relationship with Chicago (where Scott-Heron was from originally), Guidi identified me as the musician who could best realize a project. I immediately threw myself into it, agreeing with him on some things and then remaining free regarding the repertoire and its arrangement. At the Accademia Chigiana Festival, the voice was entrusted to Michael Mayo, but knowing that there would be a sequel, I contacted Eric, who immediately declared himself interested, partly because he is not only a singer, but also a poet; partly because, although he had approached Scott Heron's music several times, he had never tackled it live, apart from a performance of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, which is probably his best-known song. Unfortunately, the topics discussed in Gil Scott-Heron’s lyrics are still relevant today.”

‘Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ appears at the beginning of each part of the album and its first appearance has the feel of a Swamp Dogg sound, with Mingus’ lyrics apologising to Gil (Scott- Heron) for the fact that many issues he warned of in his lyrics are still relevant today, and we have not improved things. The crazily patterned ‘Madison Avenue’ includes Mingus, the ensemble over Scott-Heron’s Lyrics, the track taking a different direction from Scott-Heron and Jackson’s original, with interesting harmonies that weave alongside the beautifully worked instrumental arrangement.

The version of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ that opens Part Two begins with the ensemble at full throttle, before Mingus’s lyrics come in, foretelling how things could change. The music morphs into a jazz track with a superb solo from Bolognesi’s bass, speaking in its sonorous voice. The fact that it is in the same range as Mingus complements beautifully.

‘Shut ‘Em Down/Conduction Movement’ is a standout track, featuring conduction where improvisation blends with elements of jazz and contemporary classical music. On this track, the music is enhanced by Mingus’s vocals, Emanuele Marsico’s intuitive backing vocals and scat solo, and trumpet. This track is powerful, rhythmic, and undeniably groovy. The final phrases see the ensemble instigate a free playing take on the rhythm, propelling the number skyward.

‘1980 Impro Version’ is a treat for the ears as Mingus’s words flow across the instrumental lines like balm, ‘The fools will have to fend for themselves’ he sings, followed by growly falsetto improvisation that works a treat.

‘Home Is Where the Hatred Is,” is based on the arrangement by Pee Wee Ellis in the version by Ester Phillips and features the trumpet of Marsico and the rich, warm vocals of Lusine Sargsyan with Bolognesi’s bass in a textured, colourful version. It is unsettling, as the uplifting, gentle rhythms of the track belie its origins as a number about the perils of drug addiction. Heron’s words “A junkie walking through the twilight, I’m on my way home, I left three days ago but no one seems to know I’m gone,” are lost in the prettified arrangement here.

‘The Prisoner’ is an emotive, achingly beautiful track, enhanced by the bass’s deep voice that permeates and contrasts with the sensual singing of Mingus. The words here are clear, powerful, and Mingus uses his vocal techniques to drive them deep into the listener’s soul. As powerful as ‘Strange Fruit’ in its day, the words strike into the heart,

‘Black babies in the womb are shackled and bound,

Chained by the caveman who keeps beauty down,

Smacked on the ass when they’re squalling and wet,

Heir to a spineless man who never forgets,

Never forgets he’s a prisoner; can’t you hear my plea?

‘Cos I need someone, Lord knows, to listen to me…….

Ain't no wonder sometimes, near morning, I hear my woman cry

She knows her man is a prisoner . Won't you hear my plea?

 Yeah, ‘cos I need somebody, woah, to listen to me

Mingus excels on this track, driving the words home over powerful free-flowing arrangements.

‘Lady Day and John Coltrane’ is glorious with an adventurous guitar solo from Franchi and delightful vocals from Fiorucci artfully emphasising the essence of the number, which is that you can find solace from trouble in the music of Holiday and Coltrane.

‘We Almost Lost Detroit’ is beautiful and sad, with amazing vocals from Mingus, “Gil was sending out a warning, calling it down, almost lost Detroit,” he growls.

‘New York is Killing Me’ is wonderfully rhythmic. Impossibly deep, growly vocals over strings that sound remarkably like a 3-string box guitar.

There is so much going on in this music, from the glorious vocals of Mingus, perfectly suited to this music as he brings understanding of the history and meaning of Scott-Heron's words, to the talent shown in the ensemble, and of course, Bolognesi’s double bass.

It is one of those recordings where so much is going on that even with the ensemble’s unique twist on some of the numbers, it remains, like Heron’s music, unclassifiable and traversing genres, often blending them. From free playing, improvised phrasing, to regimented, predictable passages, the album proves an interesting and engaging listen.

To quote from Bolognesi, quoting Albert Ayler, who said, “music is a healing force of the universe. But to do so, it must excite, and in this album, the emotions are all there.” This music definitely excites.

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Stefan Keune / Sandy Ewen / Damon Smith- Two Felt-Tip Pens: Live At Moers (Balance Point Acoustics, 2025)

By Martin Schray

Stefan Keune’s latest trio with guitarist Sandy Ewen and bassist Damon Smith, with whom he performed at the Moers Festival 2023, is dedicated to his friend and long-time musical collaborator, bassist Hans Schneider. On the inside cover of the CD there’s a poem by Jean-Hervé Péron, a member of Krautrock legend Faust, who organizes the festival stage in Moers. At first glance, “Thoughts of the Dead” seems to be a tribute to the late bassist, but according to Damon Smith, it was actually pure coincidence: “I asked Jean-Hervé Péron since he was there. I said it could be something he had already written and he sent that. I wanted the writing to be more like cover art, picking someone that has some kind of resonance and not just a blow by blow. It is a total coincidence that it is about death.” The cover, on the other hand, has an actual connection to Schneider. ”When it became clear that the recordings would be released, I asked Hans to do a drawing for the cover. He always painted and also designed record covers. Hans then made the picture for the cover pretty quickly, for which I’ve been very grateful”, says Stefan Keune. The full title of the drawing, “Two Felt-Tip Pens, Cream, Butter, Oil, Red Wine, And Salt On Paper“, also explains the naming of the individual tracks on the recording. According to Keune, the picture might be the last piece of art Schneider ever did. So, for the saxophonist, the music on this album is both a musical dedication and a tribute to a friend and musical companion.

But what is more, Two Felt Tip Pens:Live at Moers is simply excellent free improvised chamber music. “Cream“, the first and longest piece on the album, begins with a jolt, as if the instruments and their players were shaken awake. But they don’t react with surprise, astonishment, or slow awakening, but with energy. Keune’s saxophone chirps indignantly, Smith’s bass warps notes to the extreme, and Ewen’s guitar sounds more like a rumbling percussion instrument. It’s as if everyone is running around confused, bumping into each other, and then ricocheting in different directions. This intense compression lasts for about five minutes, then there are more pauses, and the improvisation relaxes. This pattern, the alternation between compression and expansion, dominates the music of this trio, with the instruments forming various alliances. Sometimes the bass and guitar seem to be interwoven, then again the saxophone and guitar. In the expansive phases, it is the quiet moments that determine the improvisational action, for example in “Sand“, the closing track, which ends with the most beautiful drone. In general, listening to the dynamics created by this trio is the greatest pleasure.

Transforming the reality of our inevitable transience into a joyful experience through improvisation is perhaps the most important task of music. Transforming failure and the perpetual new beginning as an individual and collective destiny in such a way that it gives players and listeners a feeling of perfection and wholeness, even if only as an illusion and for the moment, is something that even the most rationalized music market cannot offer. It requires a different logic and a different place. The recently deceased former dramaturge of the Berlin Volksbühne, Carl Hegemann, expressed something similar - albeit in relation to theater. These words contain a beautiful utopia, and in these uncertain times, one would like nothing more than to believe in it. When I listen to this trio, everything about it feels true.

Two Felt-Tip Pens: Live At Moers is available as a CD and a download.

You can listen to it and buy it here:
 

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