Darius Jones - Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity, 2024)

By Lee Rice Epstein

In the context of the previous six chapters in Darius Jones’s Man’ish Boy epic, the cover of chapter seven, Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) is most striking for its black-and-white portrait of the artist looking out towards the listener, eyes wide open, welcoming, inviting, asking, also demanding to be seen. Previous covers showcased Randal Wilcox, Justin Hopkins, and Risha Rox, featuring bold colors and dense imagery. Oh yeah, and then there’s the music. This is a necessary album, a heartbreaking and passionate collection that explores self, trauma, healing, affirmation, and community.

It’s been 15 years since the first album in this series was released, Man’ish Boy (A Raw and Beautiful Thing) , and one of the more striking elements of Legend of e’Boi is how Jones’s performance has evolved and grown in that time. From the jump, he played with such a clear vision it could be easy to skip over the cleverness and openness of his compositions, especially when songs like “Roosevelt” and “Chasing the Ghost” were revisited on subsequent albums, where a listener could zoom in and hear more of his ideas at play. Arguably, Legend of e’Boi reaches a mighty high peak; throughout the album, Jones plays with the lushness of Arthur Blythe, the lyricism of Julius Hemphill, and the compositional range of Oliver Lake—oh, how he swings, how he skronks, and all with one of the most beautiful alto tones.

Joined this time by drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Chris Lightcap, Jones premieres five originals—“Affirmation Needed,” “Another Kind of Forever,” “We Outside,” “We Inside Now,” and “Motherfuckin Roosevelt”—alongside an adaptation of “No More My Lord,” one of many songs recorded by Alan Lomax on February 9, 1948, atParchman Farm (theMississippi State Penitentiary) in Parchman, Mississippi (about 20 miles from the Mississippi River), in two performances by Henry (Jimpson) Wallace: first accompanied by an anonymous group of men, then performed solo. With Lightcap playing a drone and Cleaver improvising alongside Jones’s melody, “No More My Lord” is a potent, vital plea, seemingly drawing from his personal history, as well as the song’s and the history of Parchman Farm, known as an abusive prison that was run like a pre-Civil War plantation.

All this history feeds into Legend of e’Boi, which, per the liner notes, acts as a means of acknowledging and processing trauma and overcoming the stigmatization of so-called poor mental health. In the enclosed booklet, following Harmony Holiday’s liner notes, Jones asked several artists to listen to the album and reflect on what they felt and heard. In this way, every moment on the album is a revelation and invitation—going back to the portrait on the album cover—asking us to reflect, listen, and to also participate.

There’s no true center of the album, but the couplet “We Outside”/“We Inside Now” might be closest. In 20 minutes, Jones, Cleaver, and Lightcap lean way in, then pull back, a patiently swaying rhythm gradually settling into one of Jones’s most (least?) unvarnished solos that will pierce whatever shell surrounds you and slowly hopefully support your peeling it away, not leaving something behind as much as baring yourself to yourself. Maybe perhaps, you’ll listen to all this music and come away thinking, “It inside me now.”

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Stefan Wittwer (1953 - 2024)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

The Swiss multi-instrumentalist Stefan Wittwer recently passed away, as we have somewhat belatedly learned. Wittwer, born in Zurich on March 1, 1953, was considered one of the most important Swiss musicians when it came to experimental music and improvisation. He first became known primarily as a guitarist, later using every conceivable device to create music: amplifiers, the recording studio itself, and finally mainly computers. Wittwer had piano lessons as a child and then taught himself to play the guitar. At the age of 18 he was already playing in the jazz-rock band Wiebelfetzer with renowned musicians such as John Tchicai, Irène Schweizer and Fredy Studer. Later he played with Anton Bruhin, Hans Reichel, Paul Lovens and then with trombonist Radu Malfatti. Wittwer was then a member of Rüdiger Carl’s legendary COWWS Quintett, Werner Lüdi’s Sunnymoon (with Martin Schütz, Hans Koch, among others) and Red Twist & Tuned Arrow (with OM members Christy Doran and Fredy Studer. Actually, he has played with almost all the greats of the European and international free jazz scene in all kinds of projects, including Han Bennink, Steve Lacy, Pierre Favre, Alfred Harth, Paul Lytton, Butch Morris, Jim O'Rourke, Christian Marclay, John Zorn, Peter Brötzmann and William Parker. And that is by no means all of them. He also occasionally wrote film music for Peter Fischli and David Weiss, among others. Additionally, he can also be found in free rock, for example with Werther / Wittwer, his duo with Michael Wertmüller or with SLUDGE 2000, his rock group with Lucas Niggli and Marino Pliakas.

It’s worth exploring Stefan Wittwer’s work, even if the occasion is a sad one. His two duos with the Austrian trombonist Radu Malfatti, Thrumb lin (1976) and Und? (1978) have both been released on FMP and are highly recommended for lovers of European free jazz. Together with Anton Bruhin he released Nine Improvised Pieces 1974 / Rotomotor 1978 (Sunrise) in 1978, an album that is more akin to Musique Concrète but is also reminiscent of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. My personal favorite is the COWWS Quintett (an acronym for Rüdiger Carl on saxophone, accordion and clarinet, Jay Oliver on bass, Wittwer, Phil Wachsmann on violin, viola and electronics and Irène Schweizer on piano). The first two albums, Seite A (FMP, 1991) and Grooves'n'Loops(FMP, 1994) offer a nice overview of Wittwer’s skills as a guitarist, e.g. when he sounds like he’s trying to mix a twangy Morricone guitar with free jazz in “Relativ Ewiges Lied”. Something completely different, actually a brutal piece of art, is Sprawl, with Peter Brötzmann and Alex Buess on saxophones, William Parker on bass, Wittwer on guitar, and his long-time musical partner Michael Wertmüller on drums (Trost, 1997/2015). His soundtrack for Peter Fischli/David Weiss' film Der rechte Weg shows him more as an electronic avant-garde musician is definitely underrated.

Stefan Wittwer left us too soon, the news came like a complete surprise. He’s surely to be missed.

Listen to a part of his soundtrack for the Peter Fischli/David Weiss film „Der rechte Weg“:

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Splitter Orchester – splitter musik (Hyperdelia, 2024)

By Nick Ostrum

In the Splitter Orchester, one hears a convergence of trends that bridge new orchestral music and big band free jazz. There is a group sotto voce, wherein larger and larger units play quietly, creating timbral textures that largely eschew the natural dynamic range posed by the instruments at hand. There is also the use of field recordings, or, in this case, recording in the field. The wind, the cars, the passers-by, the environs of the recording become part of the performance, at times gobbling up the band and at others providing the sonic backdrop, a sort of non-rhythmic rhythm section used in a way that many musicians now use background electronics. In both of these themes, one hears echoes of the Insub Orchestra and, in the latter (disc 3 in this release), the related but self-consciously bucolic Polytopies project , though far be it from me to claim which group inspires which, or whether this is just an avenue many groupings are exploring autonomously.

Disc one of splitter musik, Vortex, begins quietly and builds slowly, with the odd cluck and hiss here, bass pluck there, other noises of various derivations darting back and forth. At about 19 minutes, a brief trumpet fanfare, then a barrage of saxes, breakthrough and incite a powerful crescendo, followed by an extended plain of varying levels of activity. Think: Seven Storey Mountain, but steelier. The music is hardly harmonious, but the components work together toward an oddly variegated stasis. Disc two, Imagine Splinter, has a busier and fuller sound that vacillates between the new big band sound described above and droning sound art. More traditionally musical elements pop up from time to time, but in flits. Muffled voices pop in after about a decade, and various percussion hint at a rhythm. Inevitably, these features converge into a thrumming crescendo. The effect is as if Tim Olive or someone of his ilk were leading an orchestra. Disc three is a different beast. Apparently recorded in the open air (or with quite convincing field recordings), Pas involves voices, sonic scenes of feet tromping through water, chiming bells (or water drops on metal) and various other environmental sounds. Long tone explorations distinguish the band from the ambient foreground, but the interaction between the two is key: it sounds as if they are all vying for space. The tones eventually disjoint from each other and short punctuated clusters meet children’s voices and giggles in a playful section that sounds as if the band has found a live and lively audience. This passage gives way to the tromping that comes earlier, now accompanied by heavy scrapes and quavers. By the end, the piece relaxes. The voices appear again, as do the water sounds and a drone, which draws Pas to its conclusion.

This is a big album, in terms of time and sound. It is not loud but expansive. I would not necessarily suggest swallowing all three discs in a single sitting, but I also would not deter you if you can dedicate the time. That is what I did the first time, and, to my surprise, it held up for those three hours. And, it has held up on subsequent listens, admittedly in shorter chunks, as I tried to make sense of it for this review. I am not sure that I have unlocked its code, but I can say for certain that splitter musik is riveting and, after many spins, continues to offer new clues and new points of intrigue.

Splitter musik is available as a CD and download from bandcamp.

In case the review has not hooked you, yet, here is the line-up, which consists of many key figures from the current echtzeit scene : Liz Allbee (trumpet), Boris Baltschun (analog synthesizer), Burkhard Beins (percussion), Anthea Caddy (cello, electric bass) Anat Cohavi (clarinet), Mario de Vega (electronics), Axel Dörner (trumpet), Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet), Robin Hayward (tuba), Steve Heather (percussion), Chris Heenan (contrabass clarinet), Mike Majkowski (double bass, electronics), Magda Mayas (clavinet, harmonium), Matthias Müller (trombone), Andrea Neumann (inside piano, mixer, hydrophones), Morten Joh (percussion), Simon James Phillips (organ, piano, Korg CX3), Jules Reidy (guitar), Ignaz Schick (electronics, turntables), Michael Thieke (clarinet), Clayton Thomas (double bass), Sabine Vogel (flutes, hydrophones), Biliana Voutchkova (violin), Marta Zapparoli (tape decks, hydrophones, radio receivers, antennas).

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Weird of Mouth - s/t (Otherly Love, 2024)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Weird of Mouth is one of the new, intrepid and aptly-titled bands of Danish-born, Norway-based alto sax player Mette Rasmussen that can outlive the imaginary barrier of a debut album, alongside ØKSE (Axe in Danish, with New York-based drummer Savannah Harris, Haitian electronics player Val Jeanty and Swedish bassist Petter Eldh) and the unrecorded yet The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (with British turntables player, Italian trumpeter-electronics player Gabriele Mitelli and Austrian drummer Lukas König). Weird of Mouth features pianist American, New York-based Craig Taborn, who performed sporadically with Rasmussen since 2004, and drummer-percussionist Ches Smith, who has collaborated with Taborn since 2009 (in a trio with violist Mat Maneri, in Smith’s The Bell and Interpret It Well, ECM, 2016 and Pyroclastic, 2022, and with Dave Holland and Evan Parker, Uncharted Territories, Dar2, 2018).

The debut, self-titled album of Weird of Mouth was recorded at Big Orange Sheep in Brooklyn in June 2022 (and mixed by Deerhoof guitarist John Dieterich, with surreal cover artwork by drummer- painter-tattooist John Herndon), following a handful of gigs in North America since their first appearance at Manhattan’s The Stone in 2016, and the trio reconvened recently to celebrate its release. The trio relies not only on the extensive experience of its musicians in free jazz and free improvised settings as well as its deep camaraderie but also introduces a fresh and compound comprised of Rasmussen raw sax sound, with and without preparations, the sophistication of Taborn’s piano playing and the rhythmic wisdom of Chess, who is also a devout student of Haitian Vodou drums.

The music of this trio is entirely improvised but its instrument-defying format blurs the common distinction between the composed and the improvised. The three musicians were recorded close-miked and in the same, resonant room, so you can feel the raw and immediate, tangible in-your-face energy. The stream of ideas feeds the powerful dynamics as the trio expeditiously moves between fierce and fiery attacks to brief and more sparse interplay, as the first pieces - “Wolf Cry”, “Dogs in Orbit” and the cathartic “Existension” - suggest with their fast dances of overlapping blows and jabs. And, indeed, the newly-founded Otherly Love label compares such heavyweight dynamics to the one of the legendary Japanese Yosuke Yamashita Trio (with Akira Sakata and Takeo Moriyama) that referenced boxing champion Muhammad Ali (in April Fool: Coming Muhammad Ali, Super Fuji Discs, and Clay, Enja, 1975).

But Weird of Mouth is more than just sheer power. “Brooders Of Joy” offers its lyrical, contemplative side with Rasmussen singing the soulful ballad, and on the following “Planisphere” Taborn and Smith cleverly contrast and subvert Rasmussen's commanding, soaring sax flights. “In Search of Soul Pane” is the sparsest, most mysterious piece here, with Taborn employing preparations on the piano strings, Rasmussen muting her sax and producing long tones and Smith adding ritualist percussive touches on the tuned gongs. The last piece “Proven Right, Then Left, Then Right” cements the wise, real-time architecture of the trio that relies on deep trust about what all can bring into the masterful, creative process.

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Karen Borca Trio, Quartet & Quintet - Good News Blues (NoBusiness, 2024)

By Martin Schray

Already the first notes of this album are something special. They are reminiscent of a saxophone, however they are clearly different. The rather low notes are raw and woody, even abrupt. The vibrations of the reed are clearly audible. But the sound is never muffled or blurred, it retains a clear presence at any volume. In other registers, it’s sonorous, sometimes even slender and sharp, which is particularly advantageous in solo passages. We are talking about the bassoon and its master in free jazz: Karen Borca.

Born on September 5, 1948 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, she studied music at the University of Wisconsin. While there, she met Cecil Taylor, who taught at the university during the 1970/1971 academic year. It was, as Ed Hazell puts it in the liner notes of this album, "the single most important event in her career." She studied with him, played in some of his bands and ensembles - first and foremost the Cecil Taylor Unit - and was his assistant while he worked in the Black Music Program at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She was also an assistant to Taylor’s longtime collaborator, saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, while he was artist-in-residence at Bennington College in Vermont in 1974. Finally, she married Lyons and played in his ensemble until the saxophonist’s death in 1986.

Since then, she has performed as a side woman and with her own ensembles at various great festivals with musicians like William Parker, Bill Dixon, Sabir Mateen, Pheeroan akLaff, Paul Murphy, Alan Silva and Jackson Krall. However, in spite of all the kudos she has got from fellow musicians, she has never released an album as a leader and presenting her own music until this album here, which NoBusiness has put together from two Vision Festival performances from 1998 and 2005.

Good News Blues are four original recordings with alto saxophonist Rob Brown, bassists William Parker, Reggie Workman and Todd Nicholson and drummers Paul Murphy, Susie Ibarra and Newman Taylor-Baker. The title track opening the album is a trio with William Parker and Paul Murphy. A good decision, because none of the four tracks pushes Borca’s sound as strongly to the fore as this one. “Her low notes are nice and big and fat; the middle of the horn is robust and fulsome; and her high notes are clothed in a vibrato that gives them a singing quality. Sometimes her sound is sensuous with a soft luster. At other times it’s gritty and growling, a rough edged abstraction of the blues“ (again Ed Hazell in the liner notes). She also uses special trills and surprising stops, which control the further improvisation depending on length and expressiveness.

In the next pieces (two trios with Rob Brown, William Parker and Susie Ibarra), a different structure of the music is noticeable, and it’s here that Taylor’s influence is most evident. Both begin with a hard bop-like head, held together primarily by bassoon and saxophone. Then the wind players digress individually into their solos, but they complement each other excellently, which has to do with the fact that Borca has found a second Jimmy Lyons in Rob Brown. “The charts changed a lot after I started up with Rob. I got back into the way Jimmy and I reacted to one another. (…) I started specifically writing for two voices. Sometimes the voices were separate and I juxtaposed lines, sometimes in unison“, she said.

The quartet with Brown, Reggie Workman, Todd Nicholson and Newman Taylor-Baker uses the compositional structure of the trios again, but the two double basses (arco and pizzicato) display a different dimension both in sound and texture. On the one hand, they are more subtle and fragile than in the pieces before, because the whole thing is also like a finely woven piece of cloth, when the wind instruments circle around each other in a very elegant way. On the other hand, the solos are very boisterous because bassoon and sax seem to wrestle with each other, which is a pleasure to listen to.

Good News Blues is not only a nice opportunity to get to know Karen Borca as a musician and to discover the bassoon as a jazz instrument. It’s simply an excellent portrayal of a musician who deserves to be more in the limelight. Perhaps this will happen with this release.

Good News Bluesis available on CD and as a download. You can listen to “Good News Blues“ and order the album here:

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K. Curtis Lyle/George R. Sams/Ra Kalam Bob Moses Sextett - 29 Birds You Never Heard (Balance Point Acoustics, 2024) *****

By Nick Metzger

Balance Point Acoustics serves up another great release with this remarkable album that brings together some verifiable living legends of the music in addition to having strong ties to St. Louis’ Black Artist Group (BAG) collective. This Sextett is composed of poet K. Curtis Lyle, trumpeter George R. Sams, percussionists Ra Kalam Bob Moses and Henry Claude, and double bassists Damon Smith and Adi Bu Dharma Joshua Weinstein. Smith unpacked this for me a little bit, saying that Sams, Weinstein, and Claude had been doing some private playing when the prospect of recording with Ra Kalam Bob Moses materialized. K. Curtis Lyle, now based out of St. Louis, was close friends and recorded with BAG alumni Julius Hemphill. I remembered Lyle from disc five of the 2022 archival release The Boyé Multi-National Crusade For Harmony, and Smith reminded me that there is also his debut “The Collected Poem for Blind Lemon Jefferson”, which Hemphill also plays on. Lyle also performed on the Julius Hemphill Big Band which features his epic poem “Drunk on God”. As it turns out Hemphill was in a free funk band with Moses, so by extension they asked Curtis to join the recording. George Sams is also BAG alumni, having grown up with the collective in St. Louis, but he’s probably best known for his Bay Area quartet United Front, who recorded their final LP for FMP sub-label SÅJ, and for “Nomadic Wins” his excellent 1981 album on Hat. So this release is an important one that ties together deep seams of the multigenerational American free jazz scene and elevates some crucial voices back to the foreground.

The first track “Crown/Birds You Never Heard” starts with heavy bass grima and subtle, scattered percussion, setting a solemn atmosphere which Sams pierces with echoing peels of trumpet. Curtis recites his poetry in the confident, assertive tenor of a man who has spent a lifetime working his craft. On “The Pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt” the percussion is even more varied and creative and the bassists color the background as Sams drives the cutting edge of the music. Curtis’ poetry is full of imagery and is never too direct. Rather, abstract passages and non-sequiturs dovetail into unforeseen statements of profound insight. “Damballah and Aida Weidho The Old Gods” dances on the back of handpans and mbira navigating groaning bass pulls along pizzicato pathways. On “Five Peacocks Ingest The Mandrake” the brambles of rhythm tighten in their thick coils, complemented by bass fiddles in stereo. Sam’s playing is excellent on this track, subtle and bright - every expression timed perfectly to complement the roiling colossus beneath. The last couple of minutes find the group going all-in on a sawing, droning texture before an abrupt about face. “The Gold Standard Andrew Hill Deconstructs James Booker” crackles with turbulent percussion and fingered bass lines that gradually secede into sections of regressive deconstruction which Lyle orates within. On the final piece titled “Harmonize My Black Mule Blues” Lyle recites in sung passages while Sams claps and whoops and the rhythm section gets granular in their sounds with the physical presence of a heavyweight fighter.

A fantastic album that’s sure to be on my year end list, as it hits all the right marks. For comparisons sake, Bill Dixon’s “Vade Mecum” albums as well as “Berlin Abbozzi” obviously come to mind, given the similar instrumentation. But here the percussion is on steroids and the addition of Lyle’s poetry really elevates this one and makes for a complex and surreal listening experience. This is also a great example of how some of the best music comes together in unforeseen ways, and I always wonder how much is intent and how much is happy accident? The packaging includes artwork from both Sams and Lyle as well as a chapbook of the latter’s poetry, so a physical copy of this one is definitely worth it. And finally, there is also (coincidentally) a highly anticipated archival release from BAG out now if you’re interested in some complimentary listening material. Don’t miss this one though, highly recommended!

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Ingrid Laubrock & Tom Rainey - Brink (Intakt, 2024)

By Hinrich Julius

Already with a first listening this album impresses. It is quiet music, gentle dialogues of a couple who know each other, have gained a lot of experience to react. It is comforting music that makes you settle down when listening, always reaching out for the listener to draw him or her into the conversation. And both musicians do also succeed in surprising you, especially with highly varied sounds.

Both musicians are probably known to most readers of this blog, Tom Rainey adding varied rhythm to different forms of jazz from Kenny Werner and Fred Hersch to Tim Berne, Ingrid Laubrock starting out in Germany and over London now for many years an established member of the New York Downtown Scene. Together they also appear in too many recordings to mention. To my knowledge this is their fifth regular duo album plus one collection of home recordings, all of them worth listening and through the years quite varied. It started 2013 with And other Towns (Relative Pitch), already a dialogue which combined inventiveness with lyricism, followed in 2014 with Buoyancy (Relative Pitch) – a captivating live recording.  Utter (Relative Pitch) from 2018 with composed pieces derived from a tour of 2016 and since then refined, but again the conversation is what fascinates. During the pandemic in 2020 both were stuck to their home in Brooklyn and offered dialogues from there, first released as one recording per day and now as a collection available on bandcamp, Stir Crazy Episodes 1 – 60; some of the recordings using compositions of colleagues as a starting point. After these “messages from home” 2021 saw a next regular recording, Counterfeit Mars (Relative Pitch), again tight and comfortable dialogues, some even with a slight classical touch.

Now in 2024 I would call Brink (Intakt) at least partly a concept-album and a very successful one; 7 shorter pieces between 3 – 7 minutes are separated by interludes of 1 minute each (Brink I – VI). One does not hear the change of the label, the shorter pieces are a very worthwhile continuation of their previous work. These pieces start from a specific idea and develop when improvising. This can be rather quiet work between the sax in a higher register with gentle drumming leaving room for a saxophone solo (“Flock of Conclusions”) or constantly modified lines which get more agitated over the time (“Coaxing”). Sometimes the horn honks, I was reminded of ships (“Liquified columns”). Every piece offers something new and the best is the close connection between the players.

Brinks I – VII then offer techniques, primarily of the saxophone. Ingrid Laubrock demonstrates her full repertoire and even picks up techniques which remind of other musicians like the duck calls of John Zorn (Brink II and V) or continues overblowing of Evan Parker (Brink VI). The surprise is that all these techniques succeed in being musical, being pleasant and fitting into the album as a whole. The Brinks do serve as interesting interludes connecting the longer conversations.

Overall it is a highly successful album that serves well as a further addition to their already existing works, an album of close dialogues using the full range of techniques both of saxophone and drums and with this succeeding to be musical, captivating and surprising. Regardless if listened to with or without the knowledge of their previous works it is highly recommended.

Available as download or CD.

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Jason Stein - Sunday Interview

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

1. What is your greatest joy in improvised music?
   
   
   My greatest joy as a player is the experience of connection and communication with the people I’m playing with and having the opportunity to contribute to that communication. Being a musician has always been a social enterprise for me. When I was young I wanted to be able to play well partly just because I wanted to hang around the musicians in my environment who were great players.
   
   
2. What quality do you most admire in the musicians you perform with?
   
   I admire openness and the willingness to experience new things and new moments and unfamiliar territory and let that newness envelop you and to be able and willing to work from that place.
   
   
3. Which historical musician/composer do you admire the most?
   
   Lester Young, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk. Too difficult to narrow it down further.
   
   
4. If you could resurrect a musician to perform with, who would it be?
   
   John Coltrane. When I was around Charles Gayle a lot at Bennington he had what seemed like an ongoing internal conversation with himself about whether or not he could reasonably share the stage with Trane. He talked about it. He’d say “yeah man you know I really think that these days if I had to perform with Trane I could hold my own I really think I could.” Charles was such a powerhouse and of course Trane would have been absolutely enamored with his playing but it was striking that Charles used the imagining of what he’d have to bring to the stage in order to reasonably perform with Trane as a tool to cultivate a playing standard for himself. It was a creative exercise in imagination and appeared to fuel a life long orientation towards development. I admire that a ton. This question reminds me of Charles. But all that said, my answer is Trane. If you asked who I'd most want to hear (and not perform with) I think I’d say Bird. I’m so curious what he actually sounded like in a room and how his playing vibrated the walls and everyone’s bodies.
   
   
5. What would you still like to achieve musically in your life?
   
   I have a lot of music in me. I want to keep practicing and to continue to develop on my horn. And I want to keep working and performing and touring. I love playing. I want to keep at it for a long time.
   
   
6. Are you interested in popular music and - if yes - what music/artist do you particularly like?
   
   
   Sometimes songs will catch me and I’ll listen to the same song over and over. It’s kind of random. With popular music I tend to attach to a song rather than to a particular artist.
   
   
7. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
   
   I’ve been trying to prioritize sleep.
   
   
8. Which of your albums are you most proud of?
   
   I’m definitely most proud of my most recent album, Anchors. This record is more personal and nuanced than anything I’ve ever done and required more imagination and more of a comprehensive sense of what I’m able to do on my horn in order to access certain ideas and feelings.
   
   
9. Once an album of yours is released, do you still listen to it? And how often?
   
   Very rarely. I tend to look ahead and focus on the future.
   
   
10. Which album (from any musician) have you listened to the most in your life?
    
    There are a few. Hard to say which one.
    John Coltrane Stellar Regions
    John Coltrane Interstellar Space
    Evan Parker Chicago Solo
    Lee Konitz Motion
    Jimi Hendrix Axis Bold As Love
    Sonny Rollins Live at the Village Vanguard
    Miles Davis Nefertiti
    
    
11. What are you listening to at the moment?
    
    Elvin Jones Live at the Lighthouse. I've been working on learning some of Steve Grossman’s solos on that record.
    
    
12. What artist outside music inspires you?
    
    Herman Hesse

Jason Stein on the Free Jazz Blog:

• Jason Stein, Marilyn Crispell, Damon Smith, Adam Shead - spi​-​raling horn (Balance Point Acoustics/ Irritable Mystic Records, 2024)
• Jazzfest Berlin 2023 (1/2)
• Natural Information Society - Since Time Is Gravity (Eremite, 2023)
• Basher - Doubles (Sinking City Records, 2022)
• Vision Festival 2022: Lasting Impressions
• Keefe Jackson’s Likely So—April 16, 2022 at Constellation, Chicago
• Damon Smith/Balance Point Acoustics Roundup, Part 2
• Damon Smith/Balance Point Acoustics Roundup, Part 2c
• Natural Information Society with Evan Parker - descension (Out of Our Constrictions) (Eremite Records, 2021) *****
• Tributes and Homages (III of III)
• Reeds & Skins
• 85bears - s/t (Eyes and Ears Records, 2020) ****
• Quin Kirchner – The Shadows & The Light (Astral Spirits, 2020) ****½
• Threadbare - Silver Dollar (No Business, 2020) ****
• Ivo Perelman is Prolific in His Creativity: An Interview with Ivo Perelman
• Nature Work - s/t (Sunnyside, 2019) ****
• Free Jazz Blog's 2018 Top 10 Lists
• A Short Introduction to Swiss Reedist Christoph Erb
• J@K@L (Keefe Jackson, Julian Kirshner, Fred Lonberg-Holm) - After A Few Days (Jaki Records, 2018) ****
• Jason Stein Quartet – Lucille! (Delmark, 2017) ****
• Quin Kirchner - The Other Side of Time (Astral Spirits, 2018) ****
• The October Revolution Part 2: Saturday and Sunday
• Mike Reed – Flesh & Bone (482 Music, 2017) ****
• The 2016 Free Jazz Blog Reviewer's Top 10s
• Jason Roebke Octet – Cinema Spiral (NoBusiness, 2016) ****
• Hearts & Minds – self-titled (Astral Spirits, 2016) ****½
• Sounds from Chicago
• Hanami - The Only Way to Float Free (Eyes and Ears, 2016) ****
• Boris Hauf - Next Delusion (shameless, 2015) ****
• James Falzone: The Renga Ensemble - The Room Is (Allos Documents, 2015) ****½
• Tim Daisy and Jason Stein - Alive at the Woodland Book Center (Relay, 2014) ****
• Kyle Bruckmann's WRACK - ... Awaits Silent Tristero's Empire (Singlespeed Music, 2014) ****
• Russ Johnson - Meeting Point (Relay, 2014) ****
• Round-Up: Chicago
• Tim Daisy and Jason Stein - Bascule (Peira, 2013) ****
• Solo clarinets
• Weekend Roundup: Peira records ... a tiny and excellent label for improvised music
• Josh Berman & His Gang -There Now (Delmark, 2012) ***½
• Boris Hauf times two
• Jason Stein Quartet - The Story This Time (Delmark, 2011) *****
• My Silence - It Only Happens At Night (482 music, 2011) ****
• Bruno Duplant, Paulo Chagas & Lee Noyes - As Birds (re:konstrukt, 2011) ****
• Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore – Three Kinds Of Happiness (Not Two, 2010) ****1/2
• Mike Pride’s From Bacteria To Boys – Betweenwhile (AUM Fidelity, 2010) ****
• Exploding Star Orchestra - Stars Have Shapes (Delmark, 2010) ****½
• Keefe Jackson's Project Project - Just Like This (Delmark, 2008) ***
• Jason Stein's Locksmith Isidore - A Calculus Of Loss (Clean Feed, 2008) ****
• Bridge 61 - Journal

 

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Jason Stein - Anchors (TAO Forms, 2024)

By Don Phipps

Was there ever a musician more perfectly suited to the bass clarinet than Jason Stein? Yes, Eric Dolphy, Ken McIntyre, Ned Rothenberg, and David Murray – all noted and amazing musicians - have played the bass clarinet, but Stein has drawn the line by making it his primary instrument. In so doing, Stein has been able to take the bass clarinet to the next level. One need look no further than his effort on Anchors to hear and understand his greatness.

On the album, his first effort as a leader of an ensemble in over six years, he plays with Joshua Abrams (on bass) and Gerald Cleaver (on drums). The two sidemen provide sympathetic accompaniment, as does guest guitarist Boon, who adds a sweet splash of guitar on the opening and ending numbers (“Anchor I” and “Anchor 2”).

But it is Stein who dominates nearly every bar of music. His approach runs from restless rambles to subtle poetry. Take his racing, repeating motif on “Crystalline,” or, later on, where he covers the bass clarinet registers in a controlled, unpressed, unhurried manner. Then there is the hard bite on the reed in “Cold Water,” where he pinches off forceful abstract lines as he works his embouchure like a heavyweight boxer might work a heavy bag. Listen to the long low foghorn notes that open “An Origin,” and how this evolves into a soulfully sweet revelation as the piece winds down like a boat slowly approaching a distant horizon.

Stein also displays his tonguing technique – check out the opening of “Holding Breath.” And on this same composition, he employs the difficult circular breathing technique, where somehow, he projects a tone through the instrument while breathing just enough to sustain the tone. The piece ends with his masterful exploration of both the upper and lower registers of his elongated woodwind atop a head-nodding bouncy rhythm.

Cleaver and Abrams do their part to make this album special. Cleaver’s subtle efforts are noteworthy. On “Boon,” he covers the trap set while maintaining a soft gentle sound. And his cymbal work on “Crystalline” is, in a word, exceptional. Later in the same piece, one can hear him exhibit a remarkably light touch on the toms and snare. Meanwhile, Abrams makes wonderful use of the bow on “Crystalline” and “An Origin,” and towards the end of the latter composition, he contributes lively and colorful plucks of the bass strings.

There is much to enjoy on Jason Stein’s Anchors. The trio is tight and the music full of life. Each number has its own raison d'etre and all the pieces together contribute to an exceptionally strong mix of movement, clarity, and interest. Enjoy!

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Jordina Millá & Barry Guy - Live in Munich (ECM, 2024)

 

By Sarah Grosser

Pianist Jordina Millá may still only be regarded as a newcomer to the improvisational scene alongside such a prolific artist as double bass player Barry Guy, but the two are a fabulous match sonically, and one is unable to immediately determine from this performance who was the more experienced player.

Recorded in 2022 at the Schwere Reiter in Munich, a venue which has become a haven for avant-garde and experimental music of the jazz persuasion in southern Germany, the photo booklet depicts sharp, black and white stills of two very focused musicians who are not here to mess around. Spatially, Guy is slightly panned to the left with Millá slightly on the right, which sounds a rather simple production technique on paper, but it really does give the effect that they are right there in the room with you. This nuanced attention to detail on the production is mirrored by the beauty of the performance itself. Like just about anything on the ECM label, the quality of the mixing and mastering is exceptional.



The pieces are mostly ominous and foreboding. The prepared piano is used percussively or melodically in turns, as Guy and Millá explore a myriad of textural sound-making methods: deep sawing, rubbing, twangs, snaps, rough and vigorous harmonic flicks through to bone-rattling creaks and turns. This is interspersed with more tonal runs and harmonies.

It’s often difficult to distinguish from which instrument each sound is coming, as both string instruments resonate with a similarly chilling frequency. This dark, graphic sound collage is represented appropriately in the black and grey cover photograph by Thomas Wunsch.

The pieces are intense and sombre - the deepest notes are the most satisfying, especially towards the tail end of "Part I." It’s serious and introspective, but the tension is not anxiety inducing per se. It’s fascinating and compelling, stirring, brooding, and always interesting. However, there is a general calmness to the tension which is intriguing. The pizzicato piano harmonics and cello string accompaniment sound fabulous together, almost as if they were designed to be played this way. 

Every so often we will be blessed with a small, tangible melody on either instrument. Millá’s playing is deeply sensitive, wonderfully dynamic, glistening, and emotional. Transitions between her more melodic moments to atonal sections are gradual and seamless. So too are the more rapid instances, and those of reverberant beauty. Guy is completely in tune with Millá, and the idyllic nature of this balance is further underlined by the enthusiastic cheers that follow each of the six parts of this live recording. What they are doing sounds as if it was meant to be, and it’s obviously resonating with the audience.

Perhaps this is due to the chemistry of Millá and Guy, which has been established over several years – their previous album as a duo, String Fables, was recorded in July 2021, so they have polished this craft over time. 

This is a delicate, mature, and heartfelt release. Hopefully, thanks to the exposure of ECM and the support of Barry Guy, we will be seeing much more of Jordina Millá in the years to come.

More here: https://ecmrecords.com/product/live-in-munich-jordina-milla-barry-guy/

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