Gunther Hampel (1937 -2026)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

“I don't make music, I am music.“ A typical Gunter Hampel quote about Gunter Hampel. “I don’t compose songs that have been done a thousand times before. I really am like Mozart or Beethoven. My compositions are original, they come about like my children,“ he once said. “When I was in New York in the 1970s, I was the center of things because I was the one who came from Europe and who brought a breath of fresh air.“ Modesty has never been his thing, however, his musical work and the appreciation he has received for it prove him right.

Gunter Hampel was born in Göttingen/Germany on August 31, 1937. In 1953, he already had his first own combo. He studied architecture and became a professional jazz musician in 1958, trying to integrate European influences such as 12-tone music into American jazz. In the 1960s, therefore, he worked with European musicians like John McLaughlin, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Manfred Schoof and Willem Breuker, and then more and more with American soloists, especially Marion Brown, Jeanne Lee and Anthony Braxton. With the album The 8th of July(Birth Records, 1969), which included Braxton, Breuker and Lee as well as Arjen Gorter on bass and Steve McCall on drums, he succeeded in finding a convincing synthesis of European and American free jazz for the first time.

In the early 1970s, Hampel founded the Galaxie Dream Band in New York, which lasted for almost 30 years. In addition to himself, the central players in this formation were his wife, the jazz singer and composer Jeanne Lee, and the clarinetist Perry Robinson. Furthermore, he repeatedly gave solo and duo concerts (especially with Marion Brown and with Jeanne Lee).

But Hampel has also always transcended the limitations of improvised music and turned to completely different projects, such as the alternative music ensemble The Cocoon, which was founded in the environment of the avant-garde band Kastrierte Philosophen. Later came a collaboration with Jazzkantine, a very commercial jazz/hip-hop project that was actually very successful in the mainstream, for their first two albums. His forays into more commercial territory also include writing film music, as well as music for the 1996 play Sid and Nancy by German actor Ben Becker. At the other end of his musical spectrum, he repeatedly devoted himself to new classical music, participating in the performance of compositions by Hans Werner Henze and Krzysztof Penderecki. All in all, Hampel conducted several different large formations, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and much more. In order to be able to publish all this appropriately, he ran his own label Birth Records.

From 1972 to 1981 he released 16 albums by the Galaxie Dream Band alone. All of them are really good, if I had to pick two I’d go for Celebrations (Birth, 1974) and All the Things You Could Be If Charles Mingus Was Your Daddy (Birth, 1981). A must have is the above-mentioned The 8th of July, as well as my personal favorite Cosmic Dancer (Birth, 1975), again with Robinson and Lee plus Steve McCall on drums. Enfant Terrible (Birth, 1975) - nomen est omen - is another great one, actually a Galaxie Dream Band recording, it was just not released under that moniker. Apart from the free jazz albums, I can wholeheartedly recommend the two Cocoon records, especially While the Recording Engineer Sleeps (first released in 1989, re-released on Staubgold, 2015).

Hampel was a multi-instrumentalist, he played the flute, saxophone and piano, but especially as a vibraphonist and bass clarinetist he had great merits. He created enormous sound fields, did not let anything dictate him musically throughout his life and always tried to penetrate new musical worlds. Now this great free spirit and stubborn man (in a positive sense) has passed away. May he rest in peace.

Watch a performance of the Galaxie Dream band from 1972 (in excellent quality) and you’ll get the magic of the ensemble:

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Sylvie Courvoisier Trio – Éclats-Live in Europe (Intakt, 2026)

By Kenneth Blanchard

Swiss native Sylvie Courvoisier has not escaped notice. She began her recording career in the 1994 and moved to New York four years later. Since then, judging by her faculty page at the New School College of Performing Arts, she has had no difficulties finding either work or fame.

Courvoisier received numerous awards including the United States Artist Fellow (2020); the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists (2018); Swiss Music Prize (2018); Switzerland SUISA’s Jazz Prize (2017); and Switzerland's Grand Prix de la Fondation Vaudoise de la Culture (2010). She received commissions to compose new works from The Shifting Foundation (2019) and the Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works (2016).

This recording documents two performances in Germany during a 2025 European tour. The trio features the superb bass of Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen on drums and “Wollesonics.” The latter are instruments invented by Wollesen. You can see some of these fascinating creations at this link: https://www.15questions.net/interview/kenny-wollesen-about-drumming/page-1/ .

Éclats presents a series of compositions built around fairly simple lines. Courvoisier’s piano work ranges from heroic to sparkling. The pieces are coherent and, in many places, dramatic, or even romantic. “Requiem d’un songe” comes closest to telling a story, albeit in a variety of traditional accents. It reminds me of the compositional strategies (though not the sound) of Thelonius Monk.

“Imprint Double” begins with a thumping drive that would make a good soundtrack for a stagecoach scene in a Western. This action is broken periodically by short conversations between the piano and whoever is riding shotgun at the time. This gives way to a pensive conversation with enough space to let each instrument precisely define each moment. Then we are back to riding across the uneven landscape.

“Big Steps Toward Silence” is a lovely piece that might be the place to start if you want to appreciate what each member of the trio brings to the stagebut the percussion creates a soft mood just as effectively as the piano.

For much of the recording, I am never sure where the drums leave off and the Wollesonics begin. “Free Hoops,” however, begins with a very aromatic rattle that doesn’t sound like it comes from any drum kit I am familiar with.

This is a fine album. It makes for excellent background texture whether you are driving or washing the dishes. It also richly rewards careful attention. If it meets your approval, you might check out the Trio’s studio album D’Agala. Both recordings are available from Bandcamp or Amazon Music.

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DoYeon Kim - Wellspring (TAO Forms, 2026)

 

By Sammy Stein 

A gayageum is a traditional Korean plucked zither with 12, 18, 21, or 25 strings. Historically made from paulownia wood, the instrument produces a soft, delicate, resonant sound, the range of tone enhanced by having movable bridges. Do Yeon Kim is an internationally recognised gayageum player who has been key to bringing this instrument into contemporary music. Being a plucked string instrument with a wooden body, it has percussive overtones that make it versatile and able to blend with percussion or stringed instruments.

On Wellspring (Tao Forms), Kim teams with Mat Maneri on viola, Tyshawn Sorey on drums, and Henry Fraser on bass, and the result is a crazily magical seven tracks, four composed by Kim and three group compositions.

The opening track, ‘The Beats of Distant Thunder,’ is a creative blending of sound with plucked strings, flowing lines, and percussive distractions that create a flow of energy from one musician to another. The breath-like ebb and flow, along with a rise and fall in dynamics, make for a piece brimming with interest. It feels like almost the perfect free playing match, as each musician takes explorative themes, sees where they go, and passes the concepts deftly to the rest. Sorey’s percussion is monumental on this track, and the gayageum reveals a huge range of sounds.

‘Walking In The Dream’ is an enchanting blend of sung and spoken vocals and sonorous, gutsy bass lines. It is a track that brings in essences of Crass at times, with the shouted, meaningful vocals. On ‘Whispers Among Dawn,’ Kim changes her 25-string gayageum for a 12-string one, and the sound is distinctly more open. The interaction with the bass is mesmeric. On ‘Sun Shower,’ Kim is back to her 25-string gayageum for a beautiful number with interaction between viola and gayageum that becomes hard to differentiate at times. Halfway through, Kim unleashes madcap vocals that align perfectly with the multi-layered textures of the instruments. The sheer depth of the controlled noise of the final third until it fades is worth listening to at full volume.

On ‘Diffraction,’ Kim switches to the 12-string gayageum again, for a dynamic, interactive track, followed by ‘Linear System’, which is so laden with sound, it sounds like many instruments; it is hard to believe just one is involved. It gets denser, and more layers seem to evolve until everyone quietens and the vocals of Kim gently, almost tentatively, rise from the near silence. The music builds again, then, with a cymbal crash and a bass, it is gone, yet not quite. It moves into the final track, ‘Calculus for Our Souls,’ which is the most atmospheric track of the album, with Kim's vocals singing, shouting, calling over the instruments, with Maneri’s viola adding its own lines underneath before the drum and bass introduce even more layers to this extraordinary music.

This is one heck of an album, with something for everyone, from free jazz lovers to punk vocal style and hints of classical in the string lines. It is mesmeric and different, yet there is also a familiarity – the sense of musicians coming together and creating free jazz that does just what this kind of music does – connects and communicates.

Kim says of the album that she was asking the question: How could she embody the world through her music to create a powerful and lasting impression on the listener?

Question answered: This album does exactly that. It is an expression of primal force, encapsulated by musicians who understand what Kim needed and wanted. The dynamics are beautiful, the communication sound, and the music captivating.

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Albert Beger Quartet - Astral Visit (Kame’a, 2026)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Israeli tenor sax player and composer Albert Beger took his time before responding to the Israeli collective trauma of October 7, 2023. His eighteenth album, Astral Visit, begins with the simply titled piece, “October 7”. This piece processes the trauma of endless loss, pain, and grief into a most compassionate, spiritual statement. You can sense the whole emotional turmoil in the charged performance of Beger Quartet - the intense piano solo of Milton Michaeli, the propulsive drive of double bass player Asaf Shchori and drummer Nitzan Birnbaum, and Beger himself, who channels the lament into a powerful, deeply emotional, and life-affirming plea, celebrating life over apocalyptic, death-seeking vision.

Astral Visit is Beger’s eighteenth album and his most spiritual album to date. Its title immediately evokes the spiritual music of John and Alice Coltrane, but Beger has his own vision. The second piece is called “C major,” and it is a playful, fast, and acrobatic rhythmic piece that flirts with Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics and highlights Beger's profound camaraderie with his longtime comrades Michaleli and Shchori, as well as the new drummer Birnbaum. The following title piece begins with the sound of exotic bells before cementing Beger’s deep connection to the astral meditations of the Coltrane's, but, surprisingly, Beger thinks of this simple piece as his own perfect melody, just like Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”. He beautifully articulates the melodic theme with a commanding, soulful sax solo.

“Nobody Dies” was composed before Oct. 7 but relates to the horrors of this day. This piece rides on a hypnotic pulse, and Beger chants a quote from the Indian Vedantas and the mystical Jewish Kabbalah, “They say nobody ever dies, therefore nobody ever born”. Michaeli is the main soloist, transforming Beger’s opening, concise solo and the rhythmic pattern into a magnificent, astral tour de force, before Beger takes the lead again and brings this piece into a cathartic, liberating climax. The album ends with the ballad “Healing Song”, which was written during the COVID-19 pandemic and laments Beger’s departed friends, but, obviously, became more and more relevant. It is a gentle song, shining with its optimistic light. A beautiful conclusion for a great album. 

Full playlist here.

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Negotiating Control and Openness: Three Albums by Gligor Kondovski

By Vangel Nonevski 

In recent years, Macedonian experimental violinist, composer, and electronic sound architect Gligor Kondovski has been systematically expanding the semantic field of the violin – treating it less as a stable instrument and more as a volatile site of transformation. Much like on Floating Steps , where the violin functioned as a narrative trigger within an electroacoustic imaginary theater, Kondovski’s three new releases form a loosely connected cycle of defamiliarized musical situations: studio intimacy, ensemble architecture and live improvisational exposure. What unites them is not genre allegiance but a persistent effort to redefine context itself – to place sound inside carefully constructed yet deliberately unstable frameworks.

Rather than presenting stylistic variations, these albums function as three different dramaturgical environments in which Kondovski tests how composition, electronics and improvisation can co-exist without settling into habitual roles.

Gligor Kondovski & Vladan Drobicki – Inward (PMGJazz, 2025)

Inward unfolds as a subtle and introspective exchange between electronics and acoustic improvisation. Kondovski shapes the album’s core material through abstract electronic textures, understated soundscapes and sparse compositional cues that define the emotional and spatial contours of each piece. Rather than functioning as a backdrop, these electronic elements actively determine the music’s internal logic, setting conditions to which the acoustic voice must respond.

Vladan Drobicki, a trombonist with over thirty years of experience across numerous improvising ensembles, approaches this environment with remarkable restraint. His playing avoids assertive statements in favor of gentle, exploratory gestures that trace the edges of Kondovski’s electronic constructions. Long tones, subtle shifts in timbre and carefully measured silences allow the trombone to move in close dialogue with the electronics: following rather than leading, responding rather than shaping.

The result is music that unfolds gradually, emphasizing atmosphere, pacing and attention to detail. Inward is less concerned with dramatic development than with the careful articulation of space and the quiet tension between prepared material and spontaneous response.

Skrit – Sunday Connection (PMGJazz, 2025)

With Sunday Connection, Kondovski presents his quartet Skrit, joined by Filip Metodiev on electric guitar, Andrea Mircheska on double bass and Dario Cievski on drums. Here, the focus shifts decisively toward composition and ensemble balance. Kondovski’s writing provides clear structural frameworks that guide the music without constraining it, allowing individual voices to emerge while maintaining a strong sense of collective direction.

Metodiev’s guitar plays a crucial role in shaping the quartet’s sound. His tone is restrained and finely controlled, favoring clarity and nuance over overt expressionism. Rather than dominating the texture, the guitar weaves itself into the ensemble, offering melodic fragments and harmonic shading that subtly reframe the music’s internal relationships.

The rhythm section operates with notable precision and sensitivity. Mircheska and Cievski avoid conventional timekeeping roles, instead focusing on dynamic control, textural variation and measured propulsion. Their contributions are essential to the album’s overall coherence, ensuring that the music’s structural clarity remains intact even as it opens itself to improvisational flexibility.

Gligor Kondovski | Konstantin Hadzi Kocev | Martin Georgievski – Neo-Noir (AKSIOMA, 2025)*

Neo-Noir stands apart as the only live recording among the three and documents a rare trio configuration of violin, piano and electronics. Performed with minimal prior preparation, the concert captures Kondovski leading a group where the absence of predetermined form becomes a defining creative resource.

In this setting, Kondovski’s violin acts as a catalyst rather than a focal point, initiating shifts in direction, provoking responses, or withdrawing entirely to allow space for interaction between piano and electronics. Konstantin Hadzi Kocev’s piano work moves fluidly between sparse gestures and dense, percussive clusters, while Martin Georgievski’s electronic interventions fracture and recontextualize the acoustic dialogue in real time.

The music develops through accumulation, interruption and reorientation, shaped by the immediacy of the performance and the trio’s responsiveness to the moment. Neo-Noir emphasizes process over resolution, offering a document of collective listening and rapid decision-making under live conditions.

*Disclosure: the review for this final album 'Neo-Noir' is Nonevski's take on the album. He is the executive producer for AKSIOMA (the publisher of the album).

* * *

Taken together, these three albums present Gligor Kondovski not simply as a violinist operating within experimental jazz, but as an artist persistently questioning how and where music happens. Whether through abstract electronics, ensemble composition or live improvisation, Kondovski continues to treat sound as an unfinished object – open to reconfiguration, misalignment and recontextualization.

Much like Floating Steps, these works do not seek to resolve meaning but to invite attentive listening within constrained yet imaginative frameworks. They remind us that the most compelling improvised music often emerges not from excess, but from the careful cultivation of uncertainty. 

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Vangel Nonevski was born in 1977 in Belgrade. He completed his undergraduate, MA and PhD studies at the Institute of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, where he discovered a somewhat twisted modus of listening to and writing about music. So far, he has published three books on remix and hip-hop music and culture. Hip-hop is the main reason he fell in love with “Great Black Music”, as the musicians in the AACM famously called it. Since 2012, he has been engaged as a professor at three universities, where he tries not to present himself as a know-it-all. He is the father of a lovely and happy child – Luka. 

Negotiating Control and Openness: Three Albums by Gligor Kondovski also appeared on the Macedonian music site Mono-ton. 

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Brian Marsella and Sae Hashimoto - Tunnel Vision (Red Palace Records, 2026)

By Brian Earley

 

A single string vibrates into one deep, sustained note. The note flickers, almost pulses around its tonal center, the way a Tibetan singing bowl circles one ever changing tone. 

 

This is how “Sheep Water,” the fourth song on Tunnel Vision, by Brian Marsella and Sae Hashimoto, opens.

 

After nearly forty seconds of this single string emanation, four high-pitched notes seemingly glow into existence out of the opening sustain. Soon, a quiet clatter– air passing through different length reeds? –a metal spatula clacking along a turning bicycle tire?- stutters its way forward.

 

The string is from the low register of the inside of Brian Marsella’s piano, bowed with a shoe lace or some object that must resemble one. The glowing notes and bicycle tire? The vibraphone of Sae Hashimoto, played first with nearly complete resonance and almost no attack at all, and then hit with direct percussion, as her sticks clank over the outer face of the instrument’s metal resonating tubes.

 

It feels like floating through a dark but weightless corridor.

 

“Blurry-eyed and dizzy,” like the feeling of tunnel vision, is how Hashimoto explains the way she felt while working late into the night with Marsella on this new mesmerizing album. I could spend the entire review on “Sheep Water” alone, so wonderful it is, as it floats freely through atonal rubato before collecting itself some four and a half minutes into Hashimoto’s composition with an impressionistic alternating piano line and a hushed conversation between the two instrumentalists. 

 

While much of the music on Tunnel Vision is chamber music tranquil, the work is filled with ambitious and off-centered percussive rhythms. Listen, for instance, to Marsella’s composition “S.O.S. (Mayday! Mayday!).” The rhythms here splatter like paint thrown unpredictably at a wall, opening with three splashes from the piano in mid, high and low registers, followed by three hits on the vibraphone bars, the first patiently held out, the final two playfully rushed offstage as the duo embark on a six minute adventure that is as exploratory as it is fun.

 

Much of this lovely album exists either in the dreamtime realm of rubato ballad melodic lines that quietly insist on remaining unresolved (“Seeing Behind the Bald Cypress Tree,” for example) or whimsical percussive play (check out “The Centrifugal Force That Keeps Us Intact” for this side of the record).

The work is also visually evocative, and I am so thankful the Bandcamp page includes a video of the two musicians working their way through Hashimoto’s title piece with Brian using a piano that is partly prepared to stop its strings’ resonation dead flat, while Sae fires out impossibly accurate off balance rhythms. And balancing out the rhythms of life is central to this recording in unexpected ways as well. The album notes on Bandcamp tell listeners this: Sae’s 34-week pregnant belly made it difficult for her to stand for extended periods of time, and the vibraphone was further away than usual. However, feeling her son kick throughout the session, she knew he could hear and feel the vibrations of the music.

 

How cool–how beautiful–is that?!?

 

Tunnel Vision is a wonderful album filled with compositional ambition and avant-garde experimentation. It too is very beautiful, and I highly recommend checking it out. 

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Hatka - Quartet (Mustik Motel, 2026)

By Charlie Watkins

Quartet feels like a good old-fashioned free jazz album, in the best sense. Start to finish it is imbued with that 60s viscerality, creative and raw, moving ever-forwards with driving force. The improvisations are fresh, the group cohesion strong, and the identity sure. The three members of the group are free jazz veterans – Darin Gray on bass, Janne Tuomi on drums, and Alan Wilkinson on alto sax, bass clarinet and occasionally vocals – so perhaps it is no surprise that they have produced such a strong debut outing as a trio. But even so, it feels like the second they entered the studio, something must have clicked: this sounds like a group who have been playing together for years.

I must admit that I spent the first few tracks of this album wondering whether I was missing something obvious. Where was the fourth member of this ‘quartet’? The album notes reveal that Jone Takamäki was meant to be joining the trio for the live date and recording but was then unable to, sadly passing away later the same year. Takamäki is still listed as the fourth member, and the album feels like an ode to his boundless creativity and range of expression. Fierce one moment, reflective the next, it is everything Takamäki would have wanted.

The huge variety on this relatively concise recording is its great strength. The first track is powerful, the second meditative, the third sparse (but fierce). Each subsequent track has something that makes it distinctive; the tracks could hardly be more different, and yet it feels completely cohesive as a statement of what this group can do. It is an album that demonstrates faithfulness to the free jazz tradition – even as it stretches it in different directions – and as such feels like an ode to the music itself. Wilkinson is, of course, a force to be reckoned with. There are some incredibly guttural moments of bass clarinet, and the last couple of tracks, when he starts to use his vocals, are the highlight of an already impressive album. But the three musicians together achieve that holy grail of psychic connection where they seem able to turn corners and move the music on with almost simultaneous decision making, and Gray and Tuomi never fail to match Wilkinson’s energy, bringing distinctive .

This record isn’t going to change the world, but I don’t think it can be criticised for that: it was never what it set out to do. It is reminder that originality does not always need to be the bar by which music is judged; instead, as Hatka demonstrate, we are allowed to enjoy it just for being really good.

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Luise Volkmann's Été Large feat. Wallis Bird - Été Large and Wallis Bird (self-released, 2026)

 

By Sammy Stein

Wallis Bird is an Irish musician residing in Berlin. She has released six studio albums, including ‘Architect’ in 2014, and Home in 2016. She performed at the Eurosonic Festival in 2012, when Ireland was the Spotlight Country, and has worked with numerous musicians on various projects.

Luise Volkmann is a German jazz and improvisation musician and composer. She has played with Devin Gray, Satoko Fujii, Xu Fengxia, Moritz Sembritzki, and Natsuki Tamura, among others. As a bandleader, she founded small bands such as Konglomerat and also large ensembles in Germany and France. Her newest large ensemble is Ete Large, featuring herself and a dozen musicians.

Ete Large, under the direction of Volkmann, has released an EP featuring two beautifully contrasting tracks, featuring Wallis’s vocals, pragmatically titled Ete Large and Wallis Bird. Volkmann is delighted to have worked with Wallis and calls it a beautiful cooperation. The first track on the EP is ‘Chorale, my quiet Pal’. It is an atmospheric, gentle number, featuring Wallis’s superb vocals, which are wonderfully suited to this music. She transitions from beautifully pitched melody to keening, emotive phrasing, and the backing of deep brass and woodwinds adds atmosphere and nuance to the vocal lines.

The second track is a complete contrast. ‘Their Quotes and How They Twist Them,’ and Wallis shines here with beautifully told stories about living with people and having to listen to them as they talk about different things, twisting what is said. The ensemble orchestration is creative and supportive, enhancing the beauty of the lyrics and harmony of the vocals.

If you want to know more about Ete Large, the links below are highly recommended.

Two contrasting tracks of superb quality. 

The Pre-Save: https://listen.music-hub.com/ITJzz0

Bandcamp: https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/music

Wallis EP : https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/album/t-large-and-wallis-bird

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Torino Jazz Festival 2026

By Ferruccio Martinotti

TJF 2026 (Aprile 25th-May 2nd)

April 25th, Liberation Day, is a national holiday particularly felt in Turin, a city that was the heart of the partisan resistance to Nazi-Fascism. In these times of right-wing resurgence infecting our lives almost everywhere, it is even more meaningful to celebrate it. For the jazz addicted, the date coincides with the start of the Torino Jazz Festival, now in its 14th edition: in addition to the concerts’ schedule, lectures and films celebrate the centenary of the births of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Below is a synopsis of what we saw.

Photo: Acid Rain Production

Interviews excerpts: La Stampa

FABRIZIO BOSSO “ABOUT TEN” - April 25 (Teatro Colosseo)

The great trumpet virtuoso pays homage to Ellington and Gillespie with his group (Julian Oliver Mazzariello on piano, Jacopo Ferrazza on double bass, and Nicola Angelucci on drums) expanded to include six young talents (Stefano Bergamaschi, Andrea Priola on trumpets, Didier Yon on trombone, Lorenzo Simoni on alto saxophone, Sophia Tomelleri on tenor saxophone, and Andrea Iurianello on baritone saxophone) for refined and swinging arrangements that bring a fresh take on the great classics and an intriguing interpretation of his own songs. Our main courses in the Festival’s menu are different, but it's gonna be a marathon, better to start off calmly and then, as Ken Vandermark teaches us, it's a good and healthy habit to take a dose of Duke whenever we can.

MARC RIBOT HURRY RED TELEPHONE - April 26 (Hiroshima Mon Amour) 

After last fall's intimate concert at the Folk Club in support of Map of a Blue City, Marc Ribot returns to the city with his new group/project Hurry Red Telephone and, as expected, the sold-out venue is hit by a magnitude 9 tsunami. If it was well known that Chad Taylor is one of the drummers writing the history of nowadays drumming, less predictable and totally jaw-dropping was the metronomic, telluric fury of double bassist Sebastian Steinberg (anyone here remember Soul Coughing?). Orderly and precise, even too entangled in the score, Briggan Krauss's alto contribution alternates in a crazy, hyper-noise-saturated piece with the second guitar, reminiscent of the most ferocious Bill Orcutt. Marc described the group to us like this: “It was a trio with Chad Taylor and Henry Grimes that has created some of the best improvisations I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve wanted to continue collaborating with Chad ever since Henry passed away. And with this band, I’ve finally found the right lineup. Sebastian Steinberg was my favorite in the late ’80s and early ’90s, before he moved to Los Angeles. He and Chad make a truly exceptional rhythm section, the two most intuitive musicians I’ve ever known and Briggan Krauss is an extraordinary alto saxophonist.” What Ribot brings out, however, hunched over his old amplified acoustic guitar, is always astonishing: whether it’s picking or strumming, noisy no-punk or mellow calypso arpeggios, his signature asserts itself, whatever the declination, in a peculiar way, never predictable or self-indulgent, as only top notch players can offer. A double encore loudly demanded by the roaring audience and a final "loving" tribute to Donald with "Aliens in the White House" send us off to bed happily.

FYI, in the same interview, Marc assured us that the stop in Berlin before leaving for Japan with the Cubanos will be used to record their debut album. To say we can't wait to hear it is an understatement...

MORGENBARN - April 27 (Teatro Juvarra) 

A recently formed Italian-Estonian-German trio, characterized by the compositional and performing flair of its members, Matteo Poggi (trombone, electronics), Maria Faust (alto sax, electronics), and Tilo Weber (drums, percussion, vibraphone). Formed after a chance meeting at the 2024 Sudtirol Jazzfestival and an impromptu concert, they sparked an explosive chemistry. Their performance exudes naturalness, freedom and curiosity, resulting in a captivating and courageous sound that respects no boundaries: Weber's vibraphone and drumming set the stage for Faust's explosive sax, while Poggi, alternating between trombone and electronics, enriches the mix phenomenally. We weren't familiar with them and they were really a pleasant surprise.

FUNK OFF + VOX ARTIFICIOSA “THIS IS NOT AN ORCHESTRA” - April 27 (Teatro Alfieri)

Take Funkoff, a historic large Italian ensemble founded 28 years ago by Dario Cecchini and composed of three trumpets (Paolo Bini, Nicola Cellai, Emiliano Bassi), two baritone saxophones (Giacomo Bassi, Nicola Cipriani), two alto saxophones (Sergio Santelli, Tiziano Panchetti), two tenor saxophones (Andrea Pasi, Claudio Giovagnoli), a sousaphone (Giordano Gerini), a snare drum (Francesco Bassi), a bass drum (Alessandro Suggelli), cymbals (Luca Bassani) and percussion (Daniele Bassi); add to that the group Vox Artificiosa led by Cristina Zavalloni, one of the most incredible voices on the international scene, accompanied by Rise Beatbox (vocal beatboxer), Mario Marzi (soprano, alto, baritone sax) and Achille Succi (alto sax, bass clarinet) and how high could be the risk of an indigestible music meal, such as pineapple on the pizza? High, of course, very high. Instead, contrary to all expectations, the two worlds merge, collide, dialogue and break down in smaller groups, then they recompose themselves into a "Not Orchestra" that unleashes thermonuclear energy, imposing a new language that erases the original elements. The arrangements of the two leaders, Dario Cecchini and Achille Succi, allow Cristina's stratospheric baroque "bel canto" to intertwine admirably with the wind instruments, the vocal beat of Rise, the percussive street dance and the jazzy cavalcades of the orchestral reeds. "James Brown and Handel dance arm in arm," their press release reads, and believe us, they really did.

SLIDERS - April 28 (Teatro Juvarra)

As modest jazz chroniclers, we always willingly rely on the Great Academics who write on the Free Jazz Collective, ensuring that this forum is "The only forum that matters," to quote The Clash. So, should the Professors be aware of any group, other than this one we're writing about, consisting solely of three trombones, please tell us, they know where to find us. As far as we know, the Sliders (Federico Vignato, Federico Pierantoni, and Lorenzo Manfredini) represent a unique ensemble, capable of demonstrating the unique versatility of this instrument, exploring its infinite timbral possibilities in a way that's never boring or repetitive. Brave and courageous guys.

FYI, their self-titled album, released in the fall of 2024 by Hora Records, features original compositions alongside reinterpretations of John Coltrane, Egberto Gismonti, Carla Bley and Duke Ellington.

NORMA WINSTONE & GLAUCO VENIER - April 28 (Teatro Monterosa) 

Seen a few months ago as a trio, again with Venier on piano, one of the legends of British jazz returns to the city. Throughout her long and extraordinary career, she has helped redefine the role of the voice and its relationship to sound in contemporary jazz. The duo, formed in 1999, continues the journey Norma embarked on with Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Steve Swallow and her historic ECM recordings, which testify to her unique vocal work, thanks to which she remains an essential figure in vocal jazz. The timbre, verve, and stage presence, despite her age, remain dazzling.

GIORGIO LI CALZI & SIMONE SIMS LONGO “THEATRUM ANATOMICUM” - April 29 (Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici) 

Call it “site specific”: anatomical analysis of sound, disintegrated and recomposed into new forms, a musical autopsy report made of noise and silence, light and darkness, with the audience, in the semicircular University hall, focused and engaged in the unveiling of the sonic sphere and visual perception offered by the great Li Calzi (trumpet, analog, digital and electromechanical instruments) and Sims Longo (electroacoustic computer music, visual score). The intermedial performance, featuring synthetic textures, manipulated samples and ever-changing sensory environments, is fully functional and the location (the University's Anatomy Institute) adds further impact.

FRANCO D’ANDREA TRIO “SOMETHING BLUESY AND MORE” - April 29 (Teatro Monterosa) 

It's impossible not to pay homage to the great Maestro, creator of some of the most extraordinary piano works known (for those who haven't already, listen to the recordings with the Modern Art Trio featuring Franco Tonani and Bruno Tommaso). Here, he blends his distinctive rhythmic and intervallic inventions with early blues and the scores of Ellington and Coltrane, accompanied by the amazing Roberto Gatto on drums (a collaborator with George Coleman, Enrico Pieranunzi, Chet Baker, John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Billy Cobham, Richard Galliano, Joe Zawinul, and Pat Metheny, among others) and the young Gabriele Evangelista on double bass, offering a free and communicative performance, in which D’Andrea's marvelous centrifugal thrusts are held in orbit by the gravity of the Blues Planet. A moving, well deserved, final ovation from the sold-out theater greets D’Andrea and his pards.

ITALIAN INSTABILE ORCHESTRA “PLAYS ELLINGTON” - April 30 (Casa Teatro Ragazzi e Giovani) 

It’s Duke time again. After years of hiatus, the legendary Orchestra, founded in 1990 (which has hosted giants such as Giorgio Gaslini and Mario Schiano during its career) is back. Today, the band features Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, alto clarinet), Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone), Roberto Ottaviano (soprano saxophone), Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet), Pino Minafra (didjeridoo, megaphone), Alberto Mandarini, Fulvio Sigurtà, Flavio Davanzo (trumpets), Giampiero Malfatto, Sebi Tramontana, Lauro Rossi (trombones), Emanuele Parrini (violin), Paolo Damiani (cello), Giovanni Maier (double bass), Fabrizio Puglisi (piano), Tiziano Tononi (drums), Vincenzo Mazzone (percussion), and is conducted and arranged by Giancarlo Schiaffini. The absolute caliber of the musicians, the stylistic signature of the large unity, at the service of Ellington's scores, ensure that the equation is perfectly resolved after the very first notes.

FRANCESCA TANDOI + JAZZ ACOUSTIC STRINGS QUARTET - April 30 (Teatro Monterosa)

With over 20 recordings under her belt (three as pianist for Scott Hamilton's quartet) and significant international critical acclaim for her album "Bop Wep," the captivating Francesca Tandoi is now one of the most prominent figures in contemporary European jazz. This concert brings to the stage the project linked to her latest album, "Hope," in which her trio (Stefano Senni on piano and Pasquale Fiore on drums) dialogues with a string quartet (Cesare Carretta, Silvia Maffeis on violins, Monica Vetrini on viola and Enrico Guerzoni on cello, Cristiano Arcelli on arrangements), blending piano virtuosity, orchestral writing and contemporary sensibility. Class and charme galore.

LISA ULLEN “TRANSPOSING SUN” - May 1 (Teatro Juvarra)

No one better than the Seoul-born, Stockholm-based pianist can describe what we heard: “explorations of life through sound, using rhythmic and melodic fragments, seeking to create music with multiple layers where different textures and rhythms can intertwine.” The concert centers on the song “After Sun,” from the 2024 album “Heirloom” (The Wire album of the year) in which, with the assistance of composer and sound engineer John Chantler, Lisa explores the possibilities of the piano and the unique sonority of the hall, enveloping the audience in a peculiar soundscape. Yet another confirmation of the terrific power of women in free music.

BILL FRISELL & EYVIND KANG “THE GREAT FLOOD” - May 1 (Lingotto Auditorium) 

The film The Great Food is the result of a collaboration between director Bill Morrison (Oscar-nominated for “Incident” and author of Decasia, the first film of the third millennium to be included in the US Library of Congress) and Bill Frisell. The film was inspired by the catastrophic Mississippi flood of 1927, the largest in American history; an event of immense proportions that affected thousands of people, especially African Americans, who were forced to emigrate to the North. The catastrophe also changed music, starting with the blues and its protagonists, some of whom had witnessed the flood and recounted it in their songs: electric blues was beginning to blossom. In 2012, Morrison found and assembled the filmed testimonies of that catastrophe in unparalleled evocative forms and Frisell created a visionary musical narrative, presented here in a previously unreleased duo version with violinist Eyvind Kang. Frisell told us: “Morrison and I have often collaborated, but he would simply take pieces of mine and superimpose them on his images, but here we worked side by side. We went first to Memphis, then to New Orleans and finally up the Mississippi: almost a century has passed since then, but it's as if history were repeating itself, amidst political mistakes, ecological disasters and corruption. At first, the other musicians looked at the score, trying to learn it, then, over time, the images and music became a unified whole that took on a life of their own.” The film is amazing, as is the perfectly calibrated and coherent soundtrack, while some around us were disappointed that Frisell hadn't played any blues pieces (!), finding the concert boring (!!).

IRREVERSIBLE ENTANGLEMENTS - May 1st (Hiroshima mon Amour)

Three years later, here they are back in town for an event we'd marked in our calendar with indelible ink and the extraordinary concert that brings the Festival towards its end, not only doesn't disappoint, but exceeds the expectations, shattering them. With two long suites centered around their recently released album, "Future Present Past” and a final percussive sabbath, Irreversible Entanglements take no prisoners: the rhythm section of Luke Stewart and Tcheser Holmes is an unstoppable driving force, same as the locomotive in the film "Runaway Train", Keir Neuringer tirelessly alternates between sax, keyboards, gong and triangle, Aquiles Navarro, as he puts down his trumpet, plays percussions, melodica, bone horn and even a large conch shell! And then, of course, there's Moor Mother, the Voice (or better, the Scream) of Black Awareness, whose presence and magnetic charisma (unmatched on the planet today) captivate an ecstatic audience: from hip-hop or call-and-response modes to the voodoo-like trance of a blood sacrifice in the Haitian Heart of Darkness, Camae Ayewa, with metal rattles in the hands, enchants and envelops us in her sonic tentacles. Musically, the group demonstrates that they have broadened their scope, without distorting it, avoiding, as the excellent "Open the Gates" hinted, the risk of repetitiveness and predictability. Tinges of Miles off Keir’s Rhodes piano and shadows of Mingus (as Martin so aptly noted, reviewing their last album) are there to demonstrate that we are dealing with Irreversible Entanglements 2.0. A group like the Art Ensemble of Chicago will never exist again but our guys would be the most eligible to carry on their legacy. File under: Indispensable Presence.

JOHN SCOFIELD & GERALD CLAYTON - May 2 (Teatro Colosseo) 

Warm-up and chillout: the training rules also apply to the Festival. We started off relaxed a week ago and so we close with the last concert of TJF 26, a tribute to another Old Lion of this edition. As we all know, from his early days with George Duke and Billy Cobham, to Miles' court and then on to his solo career, John Scofield has shaken up bebop, blues, funk, soul and much more, and the concert we're seeing is a kind of compendium of it all. Alongside the guitarist is the extraordinary pianist Gerald Clayton (collaborator of Bill Frisell, Roy Hargrove, Dianne Reeves, Charles Lloyd, Joel Ross, Kendrick Scott and Kassa Overall), described by Scofield as "one of the best pianists I've ever worked with", the perfect companion for an evening filled with virtuosity, obvious references to the electric Davis and a beautiful, greasy, sweaty blues to close.

Curtain down, see ya next year.

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Goal Weight (Maggie Cox and Jennifer Gersten) - Keep Telling Yourself That (Relative Pitch, 2026)

By Hrayr Attarian

The absorbing Keep Telling Yourself That is a series of stimulating improvised dialogues between bassist Maggie Cox and violinist Jennifer Gersten. Together, the New York-based Cox and Gersten go by the name Goal Weight. This is the duo’s debut recording, though there is nothing freshman about it, as it demonstrates both creative maturity and impeccable camaraderie.

The opening “Candy Doll Bluff” has a martial rhythm with hints of whimsy. Cox’s percussive chords set the mood with their exacting rhythms. Gersten’s twangy pizzicatto bounces off the bassist’s taut refrains at unexpected times, and with theatrical flair endowing the piece with a humorous undercurrent.

“Brian 1” that follows matches Cox’s energetic bowing with Gersten’s tolling strings. The conversation grows from delightfully dissonant and fiery to serene and melancholic. Cox’s darkly expectant melodies hint at the baroque. Gersten’s crisp and angular lines contribute to the dramatic ambiance. As the tune progresses, the violinist plays a wistful song that the bassist mirrors. The collective refrains enhance the anticipatory mood and lead to the solemn conclusion.

Western classical influences appear frequently throughout the album as both musicians are trained and skilled in both experimental and traditional musical styles. This is most pronounced on the title track. A wistful and pastoral duet on which Cox and Gerster mirror one another in their mellifluous musings. There is a sublime balance between unbridled spontaneity and warm, emotive expression.

Meanwhile, “Your New Uncle” opens with sparse groans and chimes that slowly coalesce into an intriguing, cinematic performance. It sounds like the soundtrack to an experimental film. Cox’s muscular phrases are like an approaching storm, while Gersten’s plucked and strummed notes have a mix of zen-like serenity and an undercurrent of angst. The flow of intertwined improvisations is both seamless and quite adventurous.

This imaginative and thought-provoking album is a demonstration of virtuosity and brilliance. Above all, it is Cox and Gersten’s bold, synergistic explorations brimming with lyricism that make this a work to savor.

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