Ivo Perelman and Matt Shipp - Duologues 7: Distillation (Squid Note, 2026)

By Sammy Stein

Pianist Matthew Shipp and tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman have developed a three-decade-long musical relationship where both musicians explore improvisation in a collaboration that continues to develop. Each of them plays with different musicians and continues on their individual musical journey, but when they come together, the distillation of the experience results in an ever-developing relationship and one where each allows the other to bring whatever new ideas they have to the table, no matter if these are predictable or unexpected, disruptive, and revelatory.

As they continually circle back to each other and record, the language of their music changes in subtle ways. Both musicians have played alongside and collaborated with many other musicians, while they remain powerfully individual; their shared knowledge shines through in their collaborations.

What comes of three decades or more of collaboration is an immediacy of reaction and interaction – a kind of musical telepathy that is difficult to capture but is apparent to the listener. Neither always leads nor always follows, but both revel in shifting emphasis, nuances that only come from playing with someone over time. This is reflected by the way one will introduce a new idea, or pathway, and the other will reflect the same idea, not as imitation but as recognition – a deep, intuitive echo.

Their playing has become not so much a conversation, as is often the case between improvising musicians listening intently to each other, but is more of a shared delivery, a unanimous development of ideas shared with the listener.

Both have worked in larger configurations, but the saxophone-piano duo reveals each at their most exposed and far from the prosaic. Their previous projects have shown their duo evolution from different perspectives, demonstrating how freely improvised music can acquire coherence not through predetermined structure but through accumulated trust, memory and intense listening.

Duologue 7: Distillation sees Perelman and Shipp back in the exposed, elemental setting of just piano and sax and one-take sessions of completely improvised recordings that give enough material for two CDs. There is no need to explain; there is just the music and the melodic fragments, insertions of traditional tunes alongside completely improvised phrases, silence (which is used so effectively), rhythmic pattern changes, sudden register switches, and a duologue that at times is expressed almost as voices rather than music, as both musicians find the full range of their instruments.

With Shipp and Perelman, there is no revisiting history, no repeating of anything that has gone before, but a new dialogue each time, bringing with it the familiar rhythmic intensity, changes, and multi-register expression, but also new ideas, perhaps picked up in the time they spend apart in other projects, and they challenge, support and improvise alone as feels right, communicating their deep and long-lasting collaboration but also offering the listener a new take on just how good music can be with no score.

The two-CD set comprises nine tracks on disc 1 and ten on disc two, numbered, as ever, track 1-9 (disc 1) and 10-19 (disc 2), and there is something for every Shipp or Perelman aficionado – or anyone with a love of freely improvised music. From the gentleness and conversational tone of track 1, where the music evolves from a to and fro to a gentle, swingy back and forth with fewer spaces between responses, to the classical-meets-improvised styles on track 3, or the intensity and depth of Track 4, the playfulness of track 5 or the divergent parts of Track 9, there is a lot to take in. On Disc 2, the explorative quality of the music is more evident, with Perelman setting up ideas more on this second part of the release. On Tracks 10 to 14, Perelman travels some unconventional roads on tenor sax with Shipp supporting, and then in Track 15 it is Shipp who dictates the atmosphere and thematic tone of the number.

Distillation is a CD set that invites exploration and several listens. You can hear the classical leanings of both musicians, but also the application of known musical concepts to create improvised music that comes not just from an idea in the brain but is coupled with a sound understanding of how tonality and relativity of the notes and parts affect the outcome.

This is improvised music in its truest form, not so much a musical relationship, but an ever-evolving force.

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Other Galaxies : an interview with DoYeon Kim

DeYeon Kim. Photo by Hyun Park

By David Cristol

Following in the footsteps of traditionnally-trained, pioneering female Asian artists such as Japan's Michiyo Yagi and Miya Masaoka (specialists of the cumbersome koto) and China's Min Xiao-Fen (pipa, known for her duets with Derek Bailey) playing hard-to-tune instruments in free music contexts, DoYeon Kim has been a consistent presence on the scene in the past few years. A rigorously-educated virtuoso of the gayageum, a silk-string zither and variant of the Chinese guzheng, the Seoul-born musician moved to the USA to study and perform under the guidance of Joe Morris at the New England Conservatory. The acclaimed bassist/guitarist and educator helped open her ears and heart to the great wide world of contemporary composition and improvisation, from Anton Webern to Anthony Braxton, and encouraged her to find her voice. Her appetite for encounters, stunning-sounding instrument, intense vocals and theatrical flair took the scene by storm. She's played and recorded with a wide array of key artists : Cooper-Moore, Peter Evans, Satoshi Takeishi, Cyro Baptista, Brandon Lopez, Lesley Mok, Sonia Belaya, Tomas Fujiwara, Matt Mitchell, Michael Bisio as well as Europeans Elias Stemeseder & Christian Lillinger (on Intakt's "Umbra" and Plaist's "Antumbra"), these searching minds eager to marry their sounds to the distinctive ones of that most singular of apparatuses, performed by such a powerhouse individual. 2026 saw Kim's visibility increase, with performances at major festivals and the release of her debut album as a bandleader, on jazz label Tao Forms. On stage, seated cross-legged in traditional robes, she makes audiences feel like taking part in a ritual. Amidst a hefty touring schedule, the artist tells the Free Jazz Collective about her journey so far. 

Photo by Hillel Kim

Could you start by telling our readers about your instrument and training?

The gayageum has been used in both court music and folk traditions. The 12-string court gayageum and the 12-string sanjo gayageum are different in their construction, playing techniques, and musical traditions, even though both have 12 strings. There are also modernized versions such as the 18-string and 25-string gayageum. I attended the National Korean Music High School, a specialized high school for Korean traditional music, and later majored in Korean traditional music at Seoul National University, so I was trained to play and understand these different forms of the instrument.

Does your playing in free music situations maintain a link to the traditional ways of playing the gayageum? Do you see it as an expansion or a departure from those traditions?

It could be seen as an expansion of tradition, or perhaps even as exploring new territory, but I don’t really think about it that way when I play. What I focus on is what I want to say, what it means to me, and how I can communicate it as clearly and honestly as possible. For me, it’s simply a way of expressing myself through the instrument. Whether that is an expansion of tradition or a departure from it, I’m not sure. Either way to perceive it, from a listener's point of view, is valid.

Are you composing and reading from Western sheet music writing conventions, when playing the gayageum?

Yes. I read Western staff notation, usually using the grand staff. I also compose using Western notation when I write for the gayageum, although I sometimes adapt the notation to capture certain nuances of the instrument and my playing technique. I started out learning the piano and reading from scores, and am still studying scores by XXth century composers, from Bartók to Morton Feldman. 

At Joe's Pub, NY, 8 July 2025. Photo by Melanie Mor

Are your vocals connected to the Korean tradition, or does it come from another influence?

Honestly, I’m not sure. I never had any formal vocal training, so I just sing according to what I hear, feel, and imagine. I don’t consciously think about whether it comes from Korean tradition or free jazz. It’s probably a combination of all the music I’ve heard and experienced, and ultimately I just try to follow my own instincts. While in middle and high school, whenever we finished a midterm or final exam, my friends and I would go to karaoke to release all the stress. I would just scream my heart out - maybe that was part of my vocal training after all.

This year you played at New York's Winter Jazz Fest, Vision Festival, Jazztopad New York edition, Knoxville's Big Ears, and released your first album as a bandleader. How do you handle all the activity?

I feel grateful for all of it. And I don’t think any of this could have happened through my efforts alone. Whit Dickey and Steven Joerg at Tao Forms have believed in my music and supported me a lot, which made it possible for my first album as a bandleader to come into the world. And with Tyshawn Sorey, Mat Maneri and Henry Fraser, who play on the album, my ideas and what I wanted to express came through fully and honestly. My manager Matt Merewitz has also been working hard behind the scenes to promote my music, along with many other people who have helped me along the way. All of the opportunities have come from people who have believed in my music and invited me into their spaces. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has trusted me enough to invite me to be part of festivals and communities. And thanks to all of this, I’ve been able to meet so many wonderful new people - I’m grateful for these unexpected and precious connections that music continues to bring into my life.

My favorite track on your album is the epic Linear System. You seem connected with nature and the elements, from the album cover to song titles. Where does your inspiration come from?

That means a lot to me. Human beings are part of nature, and that idea is deeply connected to the way I think about the gayageum. If you look inside the sound box of the gayageum, the backboard is traditionally associated with the sky, the human, and the earth. Isn’t that beautiful? The sound feels like it connects the sky to the earth, with the human being the bridge between them. I think of music in a similar way—as something that is part of this larger natural world and connects us to something beyond ourselves. That’s why, as you noticed, the album cover also has this image of the sky, the human, and the earth. The river in the photograph is actually the sound box of the gayageum, and the snow reflects both the sky and the earth. Everything is connected. After the pandemic, I started thinking a lot about making music that wasn’t only about myself, but that could connect me to the world around and other people. As I followed that thought, I began to feel that music and the natural world were somehow one and the same. 

Isn't there a tone discrepancy between the gayageum and Western instruments - and did you call on Mat Maneri because he's an expert of micro-tonalities and would bridge the two worlds?

The first time I heard Mat play, his sound felt incredibly familiar. The way he plays around the pitch, bends notes, and moves between different shades of sound felt natural to my ears. Beyond that, his energy, charisma and expressiveness always move me deeply. So I didn’t really choose him simply because I thought he could bridge the tuning systems of the gayageum and Western instruments. I wasn’t thinking about the relationship between the two tuning systems that much, but about Mat as a person and as a musician. His music is so compelling to me, and I simply wanted to make music with him. I felt the same way about Tyshawn and Henry. I wasn’t choosing them because they could solve a particular musical problem. I was drawn to who they are as musicians and people, and wanted to hear what would happen when we played together. 

Photo by Alex Joseph

Rhythm is often neglected or discarded by free improvisers, but is definitely present in your work. What's your relationship to rhythm and music genres that have a lot of rhythm?

Because I pluck and strike the strings with my right hand, there’s naturally a very percussive quality to the sound of the gayageum. The physical act of playing the instrument itself creates rhythm, so rhythm has always been very deeply connected to the way I play. For me, rhythm actually comes before melody. Rhythm is one of the most fundamental and instinctive forms of human communication. Before we even have words or melodies, there is something very powerful about a pulse, a repetition, a gesture, or a physical movement that allows us to connect with one another. So I see rhythm almost as a natural human language. Rhythm feels fundamental to me, whether I’m improvising freely or working with repetition, grooves, or other rhythmically driven music.

Last summer you played in New York and toured Europe in a trio with Kris Davis and Tom Rainey. How did that go?

Touring with Kris and Tom was an incredible experience. I learned a lot from them, felt very alive on stage and felt a sense of infinite possibility in the music. Kris created a supportive environment that allowed me to focus on the gayageum and explore what I could do with it. As both a bandleader and a mentor, she gave me a lot of generous advice and encouragement. The tour became something I will never forget. European audiences were warm and open, people seemed to genuinely enjoy the music and were very curious about it. The meaningful conversations we had made me feel that we were connecting as human beings, through the music, reminding me why I make music in the first place.

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"I first heard DoYeon Kim when we played an informal trio session with Tom Rainey at my practice studio. We clicked immediately musically, and I was struck by her energy, joyfulness as a player, and the command and expressive range she has on her instrument. I looked for an opportunity to include her in a project and invited her to guest on my record "Spirit, Fire Fact". At first, I had envisioned her as part of the centerpiece, Splitting Silent Stars, which I hold dear because it was composed in memory of my father, who passed away in 2024. The piece is very much about the knottiness of grief and letting go, and it is speech-like in parts. DoYeon Kim’s playing seemed to have just the right combination of wild abandon, spirituality, and gentleness that I needed. Once we started working on it, I enjoyed it so much that she became part of the rest of the album as well—often doubling the guitar to create a kind of augmented string instrument. I have since played DoYeon’s music as well, which is visceral, guttural, and elegant at the same time. I look forward to more opportunities to work together." (Ingrid Laubrock)

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DoYeon Kim, Chris Tordini, Anna Webber, Ryan Easter, Ingrid Laubrock, 
Yuma Uesaka, Ches Smith, Mary Halvorson, David Virelles. 
Photo by TF Huff (Intakt Records)

How did you meet with Ingrid Laubrock and first played together?

During the pandemic, I discovered Ingrid’s music through her album Blood Moon (Intakt, 2020) with Kris Davis, and became interested in her playing. After I moved to New York, I started going to her performances, and eventually had an opportunity to play with Tom Rainey, which led to meeting Ingrid.

How did Ingrid adapt to the specifics of the instrument, when composing?

I think she approached the piece in a special way. Rather than focusing primarily on the specific characteristics or limitations of the gayageum, she trusted me as a musician and wrote for me as DoYeon. In a way, because she didn’t try to fit the composition into a specific “gayageum framework”, I had more freedom to express myself and bring my own musical language to the piece. It felt less like adapting the instrument to a composition and more like creating a space where the instrument, the music, and I could meet naturally.

Can you tell us about the upcoming "Spirit, Fire, Fact" album, and how do you feel about playing those compositions live?

I feel honored to be part of that new album by Ingrid, it still feels a little surreal to me. The album carries the care, passion, and love of every musician who was involved in it. Tom Rainey, Brandon Seabrook, and Shawn Lovato are all musicians I admire and love listening to, and it was a great pleasure to make music together. Everyone was deeply committed from their own position, and ideas could emerge freely among us. Ingrid, as a leader, was open and flexible in receiving those ideas, while at the same time being extremely clear about her own foundation and what she wanted the music to be. Watching her lead with such flexibility and clarity taught me a great deal. I also love that the energy of the music changes when we play it live. Something new happens between the musicians and the audience in the moment. I’m thrilled to bring this music to Switzerland [at the unerhört festival in Zürich] and experience what happens with it live. Ingrid’s playing is extraordinary, of course, but I also like that her character and humanity are enclosed in her compositions. I had listened to her music and looked at her scores before, but playing her music and experiencing it from inside the ensemble allowed me to feel those qualities on a deeper and more personal level.

At the same festival you're scheduled to do a workshop.

It will be my first time visiting Zürich and meeting the students at the University of the Arts. I hope I can share something from my own experience with them, and learn new perspectives from them as well. I will also be performing some of the pieces from "Wellspring" with them.

What are your next projects and collaborations?

I’m thinking about four projects right now. The first is an expansion of the DoYeon Kim Quintet. I’ve already written music around the Five Stages of Grief, and I’d like to develop that material into a much larger project, with choir, tuba, trombone, trumpet, violin, cello, bass, percussion, gayageum, and voice. I’d also love to make a video alongside the recording, so that the project can exist not only as an album but also as a visual work.

The second project is quite different. I'm planning on creating music using electronic sounds with gayageum, drums, and voice. I think you’ll hear a completely different energy and another side of my musical world.

The third is a string trio I’ve started with Gabby Fluke-Mogul and Lester Saint-Louis. This group is focused on improvisation.

The fourth is a collaboration with a string quartet called The Rhythm Method. They commissioned me to write a new piece for gayageum and string quartet, which we’ll perform next year. What makes this project exciting is that it won’t just be about playing music — the performance will also include acting, singing, and movement. I’m looking forward to exploring how all of these elements can come together on stage.

What musicians are you listening to at the moment and can you name one you'd like to play with?

I’m currently listening to Thomas Strønen’s music, whom I recently had a chance to play with. I’m also a big fan of Barry Guy, whom I had the chance to play with in Barcelona in 2019, and I remember being completely captivated when he played his solo. He played so beautifully that, for a moment, I almost forgot that I was also performing. Given the opportunity, I would love to play with him again.

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Latest releases :

DoYeon Kim - Wellspring (Tao Forms, 2026) 

Anna Webber - It's easier to imagine the end of the world... (Intakt, 2026)

Ingrid Laubrock's Grammy Season - Spirit, Fire, Fact (Intakt, 2026) (December)

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Live :

Mark Dresser Gradience Quartet

Oct 23 : Angel City Jazz Festival, Los Angeles (US) 

Oct 28 : University of California, San Diego (US)

Nick Dunston's Spider Season

Nov 10 : Stony Brook Festival, New York (US)

DoYeon Kim solo

Nov 14 : Rockit Festival, Groningen (NL)

DoYeon Kim & Sun-mi Hong

Nov 16 : Pocket Concerts, Utrecht (NL)

DoYeon Kim Quartet

Nov 21: Jazztopad Festival, Wroclaw (PL)

DoYeon Kim & Workshopband ZHdK

Nov 26 : unerhört! Jazzfestival, Zürich (CH)

Ingrid Laubrock's Grammy Season

Nov 27 : unerhört! Jazzfestival, Zürich (CH)

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Florian Arbenz, Greg Osby, and Bill Frisell - Quiet Lights (Hammer Recordings, 2026)

By Brian Earley

 

Swiss born drummer/percussionist Florian Arbenz has spent much of his time in the post-pandemic years working to join peoples of different ages, cultures, and genres together. His Conversation LAB, which serves as the philosophical groundwork of this release, posits “respect,” for “diversity and a spirit of togetherness, both in music and in society,” ideals that have become all but illegal in the United States in 2026, as well as in some parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. Here in the United States, our administration just proposed new laws that would financially punish secondary schools and universities if they “provide targeted support to minority students” according to a USA Todayreport, and even bike lanes have been officially assailed as supporting diversity and equity too much, a statement which sounds laughable until one sees that this logic stripped away over one billion dollars of funding. 

 

The voice of Arbenz and other active artists are needed at this moment more than ever in my lifetime. And, for this project Florian Arbenz, who hails from Basel, Switzerland, has brought together guitarist Bill Frisell, a white man from Denver by way of Baltimore, with saxophonist Greg Osby, a black man from St. Louis. There should be nothing radical about this, and we cannot allow our bars of social expectation to sink so low that this seems a departure from normalcy. It is not 1960, but even in that year it should not have been an act of moral resistance for Dave Brubeck to refuse to tour without bassist Eugene Wright.

 

For this lovely album Arbenz utilizes lessons he learned in Havana, Cuba years ago, and, to a lesser extent on this particular project, rhythmic techniques from Western Asia and India. Quiet Lights opens with a “rhumba-inspired” song penned by Arbenz titled “Homenaje.” There is so much peace in this work, that I have found myself listening to its at times longingly sad, at times soaringly optimistic, timbre over and over. The work begins with Arbenz playing a complicated rhythmic pattern on drum-kit and custom-made percussion tools. As is common throughout the album, Arbez does not abandon time, but he doesn’t exactly play it metronomically either, instead opening up percussive and rhythmic air that allow Osby and Frisell to sail like a breeze through the upper stories of a temple. The four minute mark on this piece, for example, contains so much human-musical information that, if for only a moment, joy is alive and manifest.

 

There are several other highlights on this album. One is found in the second song, “Chant.” This, like every other piece on the album save one, is again composed by Arbenz, who claims he is “inspired by Max Roach’s vision of the drummer as composer.” “Chant” commits one of the drummer’s most radical moves as a percussionist: his drums are barely audible as he allows Osby’s floating saxophone and Frisell’s ethereal legato guitar to fill the room. “Lueget vo Berg und Tal,” a traditional Swiss song, again features cymbals and bells played with quiet intimacy as Frisell drifts in liquid time.

 

The closer “Rhumba” features more kinetic and energetic drumming from Arbenz. Here, he creates an array of rhythmic templates that Osby and Frisell collectively use as a counterpoint to their own adventurous improvisations. Arbenz has stated that the Conversation LAB approach, while using form and clarity, should focus on spontaneous creation and the musicians should be “authentic” and “truly unique.” “Rhumba” perhaps demonstrates this concept more completely than any other part of the recording.

 

In closing I will say the silent part out loud. I am well aware that Greg Osby is a divisive musician for readers of the FJC. Frisell and Arbenz are also names that one does not immediately associate with free jazz. However, while portions of this album are clearly in the pocket, all three creators work in beautiful moments full of impromptu colorations and communal development. There are no overdubs whatsoever. Nearly every track is a first take, and the entire album was recorded in four hours one afternoon in September. There is something reassuring, calming even, about the close listening and spontaneous responses of the musicians here. I might even add the word hopeful. Quiet Lights is, at the very least, worth an open-minded listen. 

 

One can listen to Quiet Lights here:

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Tom Challenger & Evan Parker - May Spring Last A Lifetime (False Walls, 2026)

By Dan Sorrells

I won't spend much time describing the sound of May Spring Last A Lifetime. It is a searching, bursting 53 minute duet of tenor saxophones, one of which is played by Evan Parker, recorded in pristine clarity in Ramsgate. It may be worth noting that, at 81, Parker's had a long enough recording career that this isn't the first (or even fifth) tenor duet put to tape, Parker having spared with other tenors wielded by the likes of Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, John Tchicai, Hans Koch, and Urs Leimgruber. Here, his partner is Tom Challenger (quite a surname given the context!), a significantly younger musician who is a familiar face on the London scene, playing with musicians like Olie Brice and Kit Downes and in groups like Brass Mask. Challenger is an admirable match for Parker, and both players stick closely to each other through gradual turns of technique and dynamics. Above all, there is space for things to develop.

In the five or so years between Challenger and Parker's first meeting and the recording of May Spring Last A Lifetime, the two developed an informal process where they would meet with their tenors, pausing between bouts of playing to talk about their instruments and the music they were making. In the extended and wonderful conversation in the liner notes between Challenger, Parker, and False Walls label head CJ Mitchell, Challenger says that what felt significant about their duo was that, having "no goal of performance" for so many years, it felt like practice. Parker points out that "practice" is a "complicated" word, and what concerns the two is not practice in the sense of repetitively mastering the "how" of playing the instrument, but rather in approaching the "how" of playing together. Challenger characterizes this practice as the "joint activity" of "discover[ing] that you're not in control," "playing something when you're not really sure of what you're doing" and trying "to figure out what the hell that is."

As the conversation winds on, something possibly controversial is revealed: May Spring Last A Lifetime is not a single take of a herculean imaginative feat. It captures a typical meeting between the two, but has the pauses, the conversations, the breaks to change reeds removed. And not only are these gaps omitted, but Challenger has then rearranged the musical pieces. In an era where the perennial debate about the legitimacy or authenticity of recordings of improvised music has largely receded, and where there are more recordings than any one lifetime could survey, I'll admit to still bristling at this revelation. (For his part, Parker also seemed skeptical at first—or at the very least, like such an idea simply wouldn't have occurred to him). As I read on, Challenger's explanation was compelling, so much so that I think the choice becomes one of the most interesting things about May Spring Last A Lifetime. It stipulates that, yes, of course fidelity to a long-since-evaporated musical event is out of the question. But what if that's somehow more true to our experience?

Put plainly, Challenger says that the "purest perception" he has of recording with Parker, "of that event, is my memory." Only in the first order experience of the music in the moment that it happened can one be said to (maybe) have some sort of undiluted access. Even that is as evanescent as the notes themselves, immediately mediated. Everything after each vanishing instant is memory: inevitably shuffled, reordered, rendered diffuse. "The cool thing is that you can just change that perception in your head," says Challenger. This is how we engage with our memory. To alter the order of the music "isn't so problematic, because actually, when I think of it, I think of that memory, [and] I'm still reordering it all the time."

Sitting here, listening to a recording released long after the players vibrated the air in a room half the world away, I wonder what it is about Challenger's reconstruction that even caused the question of authenticity to enter my mind. Was it because I had a romanticized assumption about what I was hearing, and then the illusion was shattered? Do I really value something more about continuity or stamina than I do the actual engagement and creativity reflected in the music? Am I imposing some condition of purity on this document to assuage the guilt of having to encounter the music in this form? "You had to be there." But I wasn't. Is there something about Challenger reordering the pieces but concealing their seams that exhumes some dusty old bugbear, that maybe we haven't assimilated the troubles with recordings of free improvisation so much as repressed them?

It occurs to me that I've already encountered a version of all of this—and with Parker, to boot. Many years ago, I attended a performance of Parker, Nate Wooley, and Joe Morris that was later released as Ninth Square on Clean Feed. When I put that CD on, I recognize none of the music despite being mere feet from the players as it happened. My memories of the event have more to do with the setting and a sort of charged air of anticipation than with any kind of musical content. Ninth Squarehas six tracks—much like the six segments Challenger arranged into May Spring Last A Lifetime —and while several run one into the next, I couldn't possibly tell you whether those tracks accurately represented any portion of the two sets that were played that evening. What Challenger asks us to recognize is that these ambiguities and distortions are true for the people who make the music, too. We are all forced into reencounters that render things differently and newly. For all of us who weren't with Parker and Challenger in the Arco Barco studio, we're invited through Challenger's edits to partially occupy the perspective of one of the music's creators as they also turn it over in their mind.

Thinking about May Spring Last A Lifetime sent me to the bookshelf, where I pulled down David Grubbs' Records Ruin the Landscape,which delightfully mucks about in the same quagmire . I'm ruminating about these questions here because now, in a world awash in recordings of improvised music, a world where many listeners engage more frequently and more deeply with recordings than with live performance, there are very few albums that seem to dare us to contemplate how we engage with this music. The pleasures of sharing in what Parker and Challenger created together have little to do with chronological integrity. They are also not limited to those conveyed by physical presence. You don’t need to be aware of any of what I’ve discussed to partake in them. And if the way we encounter the music on May Spring Last A Lifetime is not quite true-to-life, it remains true to the spirit in which it was created, and—just as in Challenger's memory—the journey of two tenor saxophones becomes a contoured and nuanced surface and not merely the straight line between a start and a stop.

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Henri Herteman, Michel Kristof, Claude Parle, Jean-Luc Petit - At the oasis (self-released, 2026)

By Richard Blute

“Midnight at the oasis,
Send your camel to bed.”

-Maria Muldaur

Today we’re looking at the album At The Oasis from Henri Herteman on trombone and piano, Michel Kristof on guitar, Claude Parle on accordion, and Jean-Luc Petit on sax. I had previously reviewed the album Fisheye which had the same lineup except with Makoto Sato on drums rather than Petit. It was one of my favorite albums of 2025. So I hit play with a great deal of excitement. In Part.I, we’re treated to some vivid accordion from Parle. It’s the perfect introduction to the album. Then Petit jumps in with a bleat and some expressive soloing with just the right amount of overblowing. Herteman is on piano here urging the music forward in lieu of drums, and Kristof adds some droning, almost alien sounding atmospherics. They quickly build to a fine crescendo. It’s clear that the musicians are deeply invested in the music and really enjoy playing together.

Herteman opens Part.II on trombone. After a few questioning notes, Herteman announces his presence. A blast from the trombone is one of the great sounds of jazz and Herteman’s trombone playing throughout is a pure delight. Herteman and Petit have a wonderful dialogue on this piece. Kristof and Parle create a background that is sometimes disorienting and sometimes peaceful, in response to what their bandmates have to say.

I love listening to these musicians play together, since they successfully bridge the gap between a more textural style of free jazz and energy music. It takes very good musicians to be able to do this, and fortunately we have four.

Now I want everyone who remembers the 70s to admit it. You were humming “Midnight At The Oasis” while reading this review, weren’t you?

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Gianni Gebbia - Petrichor (objet-a, 2026)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

“To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything”. (J.W. von Goethe)

If there's one artist who embodies the layered, cultured, and restless soul of Sicily, it's Gianni Gebbia. But beware, his musical lexicon is never a regionalist language, but always an extraordinary, challenging, universal Esperanto. Born in Palermo in 1961, he taught himself jazz by gaining experience in numerous Sicilian groups and orchestras and participating in jam sessions with passing American musicians. Like all men from the islands, he couldn't resist the call of the Horizon Line, and in 1980 he moved to New York, where he experienced the "no wave" movement and the last glimmers of the loft scene. During those same years, he attended the legendary University of the Streets on the Lower East Side, directed by saxophonist Muhammad Salahuddeen, before moving to Paris in 1984 to study with Jean-Claude Forenbach and Alan Silva. In 1990, he performed solo at the FMP “Total Music Meeting” in Berlin alongside musicians such as Steve Lacy and Lindsey Cooper, and since 1991, he has collaborated with German percussionist Guenter Baby Sommer and double bassist Peter Kowald, thus reuniting one of the most telluric duos of European free jazz. In 1993 he formed the folk-improv project “Terra Arsa” along with Vittorio Villa and singer Miriam Palma. In recent years, performances have been frequent alongside contemporary and butoh dancers (Masaki Iwana, Tadashi Endo, Antonio Carallo, Julie Stanzak, Yves Musard), poets (Alberto Masala), videomakers (Salvo Cuccia), film and theatre directors (Raul Ruiz, Roberto Andò, Jerome Savary, Guido Chiesa, Vanessa Redgrave, Heiner Goebbels, Aurelien Bory, Stefania Casini, Davide Riondino, Luca Guadagnino, Pina Bausch), visual artists (Toti Garraffa, Nicola Console, Martha Keller, Georgina Starr) and circus artists (Francois Chat, Vera Mormino). The collaborations in the musical field are impressive: Heiner Goebbels, David Moss, Zu, Otomo Yoshihide, Fred Frith, Anatoly Vapirov, Vladimir Tarasov, Jean Marc Montera, Dominique Regef, Louis Sclavis, Pino Minafra, Jim O' Rourke, Lee Ranaldo, Glen Velez, Benoit Delbecq, Noel Akchoté, Antonello Salis, Sergey Kuryokhin, Henri Kaiser, Michel Doneda, Takaoka Daysuke, Shin'ichi Isohata, Reiko Imanishi, Garth Powell, Evan Parker, Francesco Cusa, Domenico Sciajno, Butch Morris, Lukas Ligeti, Elliot Sharp, Shin'ichi Isohata, William Wynant, Satoko Fuji, Dominique Regef, Benoit Delbecq, Lawrence Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, Milford Graves, to name some. Gebbia's ongoing projects in recent years include “Trionacria” alongside Roy Paci on trumpet and Francesco Cusa on drums,“Switters” with Francesco Cusa and Vince Vasi, and “Zen Widow” with Californians Garth Powell and Matt Goodheart. His solo work has continued steadily since 1990. In 2011, he played with Eiko Ishibashi, both in a duo and a trio with bassist Daniele Camarda. In 2013, he formed a new band, “Magnetic Trio”, with which, for his own label “objet-a”, he reinterprets all the compositions created from the 1980s to the present, as a sort of compendium of all his musical experiences. In 2020, he formed the open project "The Fruitful Darkness”, which features Massimo Pupillo and Tony Buck. In 2024, as “The Mayfield” (Heiner Goebbels, Willi Bopp, Cecile Lartigau, Nicolas Perrin, and Camille Emaille), he released an extraordinary album with Intakt Records. In recent years, he has begun studying and using Indian bansuri flutes in his performances, and he cultivates his study of Indian music, having attended courses with the renowned Maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia and his students Debopriya and Suchismita Chatterjee. This interest led to the solo albums “Vapor” and "Calor”, where Gebbia primarily uses the bansuri flute, and the same occurs in Petrichor. Titled with a neologism that combines the Greek words "Petra" (boulder, stone) and "Ichor" (sap), referring to the scent of rain on dry earth, the album unfolds across 11 tracks, all under three minutes, suspended between ambient atmospheres, micro-variations of sound, and sensorial perceptions. The textures of Indian wind instruments and electronics play with Eastern influences without folkloric shortcuts or implausible xerox-effects, but rather through a unique interpretation by someone who has embraced those cultural styles in their soul, even before than in their musical technique. In a single track ("Metabolico"), Gianni returns to the soprano saxophone, while the 11 minutes extended bonus track ("Zazeela") pays homage to Marian Zazeela (April 15, 1940-March 28, 2024), a New York-based artist and musician, member of the experimental music collective "Theater of Eternal Music," known for her collaboration with her husband, composer La Monte Young. For those who dug Shabaka's shakuhachi period but a really great record per se.

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Sunday Video - Simon Rose solo

 Our Sunday video this week offers a beautiful, intimate and well-recorded - both sound and editing - solo performance by British saxophonist Simon Rose, here on baritone. The video lasts only 20 minutes but is a great testimony for Rose's art: captivating, sensitive, explorative, adventurous, physical and as said, also intimate. 

I can only advise readers to check out his albums we reviewed on our blog, starting with Vienna Solo, equally from 2024. 

Performed at Acker Stadt Palast, Berlin. Curated by Volker Meitz, who also managed the sound and the mixing. Video recording: Florian Japp Editing: Per Jörgen Erkius. 

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Signe Emmeluth, Dag Erik Knedal Andersen, and Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard - Live at The All Ears Festival (Sonic Transmissions, 2026)

By Brian Earley

 

Signe Emmeluth, the alto saxophonist/composer/band leader/new Danish Thing progenitor/and hyperdynamic cosmic dynamo, burns bright in 2026. I have written about the artist’s work on numerous occasions for the Free Jazz Collective, as have my colleagues (if you missed it and you dig Signe, you need to read this review of Emmeluth’s stunning recording with MoE and Ikuro Takahashi by William Rossi).

What more can Emmeluth give us? I mean, it seems every time I communicate with someone about her, superlatives in the realms of incredible, amazing, or even somehow unexpected are thrown about. My reaction to this may be to say that the English language falls short. These adjectives are not only deserved and accurate, but like all words, they absolutely fail to relay what makes her so special. In 2026 alone Signe has appeared on at least three albums I think may be the album of the year (I have in mind We Vote Force Majeure by Hyper Elastic Jinx, With Love by the Amoeba, and the aforementioned Live at Børsen Kulturhus with MoE and Ikuro Takahashi). She has appeared on numerous other works this year, and will appear on yet another recording with guitarist Karl Borja this coming October. And the range of these recordings is just as sweeping: experimental music versions of compositional suite, punk rock, and new age folk.

On this new release with bassist Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard and drummer/percussionist Dag Erik Knedal Andersen, Emmeluth finds herself this time in a pure free jazz context. What I mean by this is Live at All Ears documents three musicians playing with no prior plan. This is a live set including only one 37 minute take consisting essentially of two tracks. The three allow the music to develop organically in the moment through deep listening, inventive contributions, and intuitive communal connections. 

 

The first of the two works presented here does the bulk of the heavy lifting. Running over 27 minutes, this piece demonstrates all of what these three make function so well. The work opens quietly, with Signe tonguing and repeating an impromptu motif built around a single bent, squeaky note. Knedal Andersen soon enters with bells and overtones from cymbals bowed with sticks. Skavhaug Nergaard simultaneously begins to pluck harmonics on his bass in the album’s first display of a kind of spontaneous communication that appears to fall somewhere between a magic trick and instrumental mastery. The reality, of course, is the three from the outset display the kind of intuitive connection one finds only in the very best moments of free improvisation. 

 

Each musician continues to provide momentum by contributing new developments or by responding to a contribution by another member. Moments like those around the 4:25 or 19:30 marks allow the listener to realize it is fruitless to determine who is the leader and who is the follower on this date as the musicians operate as one collective body of sound. As I listened to this piece, I found myself surprised again and again at how many times I could not figure out whether certain sounds were being created by the drum kit, the double bass, or the alto saxophone. These, after all, are pretty different sounding instruments. Somehow, nonetheless, moments like those around 6:00 or 8:40 provide a wonderful blending and confusion of sonic voices. 

 

The second work runs much shorter at around eight and a half minutes in length. This piece features a prickly start-and-stop collective improvisatory approach, and one of the highlights for me is the theme Emmeluth conjures into being. I do not know if Signe does so intentionally, but the leitmotif here is a melodic fragment used at times by Peter Brötzmann throughout his career. Shortly after Peter’s passing, I remember feeling deeply moved by the posthumous release of Chicken Shit Bingo with the saxophone giant and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. The theme one hears throughout the second work on Live at All Ears is similar to that played by Peter in “Smuddy Water” on that record.

Emmeluth, Knedal Andersen, and Skavhaug Nergaard manifest interplay and equity for listeners on this Sonic Transmissions release. Exploration, vulnerability, and adventure occupy equally important roles performed with spontaneity and unity. And, if you care to hear what humans sound like at their best when they get together, work together, and create together, I highly recommend giving At All Ears a listen. 

 

Live at the All Ears Festival can be listened to here:

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Rodrigo Amado & David Maranha - Desolation Row (European Echoes, 2026)

By Paul Acquaro

It’s a slow burn and one that is quickly alight. From the opening moments of the album through its mid-way wanderings to its tense, and then suddenly gentle closing bars, we hear a consistent lightly dissonant thrum from David Maranha colorful electric organ and the eviscerating emotional tones of Rodrigo Amado’s tenor sax. One could easily slap the label spiritual jazz to this music as it truly seems to climb up from somewhere deep within both musicians, but there is more to it than that. 

 

Over the course of 41 minutes, the one uninterrupted track of Desolation Row throbs and pulsates with an urgency that is palpable. Throughout, Maranha lays down a harmonic wave pool that flows and rolls with unrelenting, but calm, ferocity. For Amado, he does the opposite, his melodic ideas sail over these boiling waters with a confidence and focused energy, only once or twice going so far as to sonically abuse the instrument’s mechanics. It's quite easy to form a mental image of Amado’s veins pulsating as he pushes his instrument to its melodic limits.

 

Recorded live at the OUT.FEST in the outskirts of Lisbon in October 2025, Desolation Row follows the duo’s well-received Wrecks released the year before. Looking across both titles, one can hear, aside from the titular reference to Bob Dylan’s surreal masterpiece from 1965’s Highway 65 Revisited, which surveyed the cultural and political landscapes of its times with a prematurely cynical eye, an allusion, or acknowledgement, of decay. The music across both of this duo's albums is indeed foreboding and laced with a discernible disquiet — fitting for our current times. This is where the aforementioned spirituality meets current events, surveying and synthesizing the turmoil in the world and channeling it into something terrifying and lovely.

 

There is, however, more sense of hope on Desolation Row than on Wrecks. While Amado is still explosive, he has a slightly lighter melodic touch here. Similarly with Maranha, his organ playing is a little less abrasive and sharp edged. I was happy to survive Wrecks and I’ve come back multiple times to Desolation Row. You should too.

 

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Jon Raskin - Live at Celeste (self-released, 2026)

By Hrayr Attarian

Saxophonist Jon Raskin is a restlessly innovative improviser who excels in the company of like-minded musicians. His discography is rich in collaborative and spontaneously created works that show seamless camaraderie. Live at Celesteis one such example. Celeste is a Vienna venue that hosts improvisation sessions on Monday nights, a series that bass clarinetist Susanna Garmayer curates. On November 4th, 2024, Raskin, with frequent collaborator Thomas Lehn on synthesizers and bassist Matija Schellander, performed a single 31-minute multilayered piece that is vibrant, intriguing, and hypnotic .

“Sounds of the Wienfluss” starts with angular ensemble exchanges. Raskin’s agile alto saxophone forges a serpentine path within Schellander’s bowed phrases. Lehn contributes sound effects that underscore the dramatic ambiance. The mood is quite contemplative throughout, even though the group conversation ebbs and flows from fiery and riotous to quiet and somber. Raskin blows gentle, flittering notes, as Lehn peppers the music with clear, resonant chimes. Matija adds an organic quality to the interplay with dark, dense lines that delightfully contrast with Lehn’s otherworldly tones. Raskin’s alto alternates between urgent and acerbic melodies to solemn, crystalline refrains depending on the atmosphere his bandmates create.

A third of the way in, Schellander’s percussive bass ushers in an expectant undercurrent. Lehn responds with tense synth vamps. As Raskin returns with an elegant and passionate solo, the tune takes on an otherworldly quality with a touch of angst. Lehn brings subtle theatricality to the collective conversation, while Schellander contributes dark lyricism. Both perfectly complement Raskin’s forlorn saxophone lines. The result is wistful and introspective with a touch of mysticism. Slowly, as this stimulating and emotive three-way stream of consciousness comes to closure the trio members align their individual extemporizations with one another. Thus, the conclusion is haunting and provocative.

Live at Celeste is a brilliant and poetic recording. Raskin, Lehn, and Schellander demonstrate sublime synergy and share an innovative spirit. The result is a satisfying listening experience, one that stays memorable. even after the album itself has stopped playing.

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