At the Moers festival last spring, woodwindist Lao Dan played a solo show in a hair salon. It was a small storefront in the town's shopping area and it was packed. Eager listeners were arrayed outside on the sidewalk, in the chairs and along the walls, making a bit of space for Dan in the middle of the narrow space. The free jazz musician from Szechuan, China has been slowly making an imprint on the Western free jazz scene over the past few years and last spring in Moers he had no trouble filling the space with his robust sound, whether playing the saxophone or various traditional flutes and woodwind instruments. His approach was one of being fully in - musically and physically, he moved through the small space with purpose and vigor, embodying the sound the he was making. The music on To Hit a Pressure Point, a solo recording from Dan out on the ever bold Relative Pitch label from New York, is a perfect encapsulation of this experience.
The 9 tracks on To Hit a Pressure Point have a flow, to listen to them is an experience, and one that is best done from start to end. Not to say that you cannot enjoy it if you pick a random spot, there is beauty and ruggedness, refinement and rawness at any entry point, but following the whole stream reveals the complete picture. In fact, it is possible to think of it as a stream, running down from a remote mountain top, the winter snow melt adding volume and force. It begins small, a narrow rivulet, and as it flows, it grows fuller and stronger. At times, Dan's physicality is audible, a grunt, a shout, are like rocks in the stream, forcing the water to bubble around them, creating new currents and waves. Other times it pools into tranquil pockets, calm and peaceful, for a moment, before continuing on.
Dan's sonic vocabulary belies a great deal of study, there are elements of classic free jazz as well as Chinese folk music, and something that also was a part of that solo Moers performance: punk. The movement, the sound, the fierce emotion behind his playing is captivating - not always easily accessible, not always easily digested, but like a rugged hike along a mountain stream, worth every mesmerizing moment.
Drummer Steffen Roth, along with bassist Stephan Deller and saxophonist Bruno Angeloni have been working together in Leipzig since 2022, their first recording Ospedale from 2023 wonderfully captured the group's dynamics and improvisational prowess. For their follow up recording, on a hunch that it would work out, they invited New York trombonist Steve Swell to join them.
War der Clown gar nicht echt? ('Was the clown truly not real?') is the culmination of a tour throughout Germany performing as a quartet - Swell is not really a special guest, rather he quickly became an integral part of the group's sound. So, while the clown question remains unanswered, it can be positively said that the connection between the trombone work and Angeloni's fierce woodwind playing is obviously happening.
The music is, simply, fierce and well-connected, a post-modern explosion of sound captured in the studio. From the opening moments of '7,' the group is already in feisty form. It begins lightly, with the drums and sax creating a sound texture. Then we hear the brass percolating. Strokes of the bass strings intermingled with the other tones as the soup thickens. Pure improvisation and strong listening is happening here as Roth and Deller engage at a particulate level to create a sonic bed for Angeloni and swell's exchanges. Its detail oriented and open to anything.
Assuming from the naming of the tracks, simply numbers from 1 to 8, there is an intentionality to mixing up the sequence. Later in the sequence, on track '4', which comes in at place 3, the drums kick things off again with an impressive roll leading to a melee of sax and bass, the latter which goes off on an inspired tangent. Then we hear the trombone sneaking in between the three.
There are contemplative moments as well as all hell-breaking-loose ones (the middle of '5' is a little musical volcano) but what is most impressive is how well the working trio quickly became a well oiled (but still plenty squeaky) quartet. War der Clown gar nicht echt? is an album that one should take some time with, let it grow and then decide for yourself what is real or not.
What makes Ches Smith special? Is it his musicality – the trap set as
symphony? Is it his incredible multi-instrumental talent (on
The Self
he plays drums, vibraphone, timpani, glockenspiel, chimes, tam-tam, and
small percussion)? Or is it his ability to use these instruments to craft
free form music that conveys complex feelings and thoughts?
The Self highlights Smith’s abilities to bring it. There’s the
ac/dc approach on vibraphone on “The Problem,” which alternates between
dreaminess and energy. There’s the funk of “Stems From,” where Smith uses
the glockenspiel to create a rotating motif wrapped by syncopated snare and
bass drum. Or for those who prefer flashy drumming, there’s the wonderful
“In Two” and “Light Spirits,” with cascading snare rolls and cymbals
juxtaposed against bass drum pedal syncopation, or the beautiful tom tom
beats on “Freely Stated,” where the strokes are hard and fast but the sound
produced flows and rolls. And his free form brush work on “Subtly” is not to
be missed.
Or check out his use of the vibraphone and chimes on “Vertiginous Question,”
which turns ethereal and blends with what almost sounds like electronics at
play. Or the fascinating use of the glockenspiel to suggest a clear night of
twinkling stars on “Constellation View.” Perhaps the masterpiece of the
album is “Empty Individual.” Not only does this composition demonstrate
Smith’s endearing musical all over drumming, replete with bass drum pedal
work that startles and impresses, but to this he adds the glockenspiel for
just a couple of precise notes in the middle of his drumming escapades! The
music continues to roll about in a fine rage, with some sudden explosions
and incredible cymbal and gong play, elements that slip in an out of the
tune like changing lanes on a speedy highway.
The important thing with The Self is that Smith makes it happen –
from trampoline bounces to adventurous safari rhythms (“Get Out There And
See”). Finally, one would be remiss not to comment on his use of the bells
(or chimes as he refers to it). “Menm Bagay La” illustrates this perfectly,
where he recreates the sound of chimes blowing in the breeze.
Smith, who in 2025 has participated on Myra Melford’s excellent
Splash,
Clone Row where reviewer Aloysius Ventham wrote “I suspect it will
be my album of the year”,
and John Zorn’s Impromptus, is covering the bases.
The Self
shows that he continues to develop and expand and it’s exciting to hear his
expanding artistry. Enjoy!
Ogun Records has just released to YouTube a restored version of a short film called "The Real McGregor" from 1967, documenting Chris McGregor's Blue Notes. Filmed at the height of London’s 1960s jazz scene, the group was newly arrived from Apartheid South Africa and sparking a wave of adventurous music. This rare film captures their only known visual record from that era, set within Ronnie Scott’s legendary Old Place at 39 Gerrard Street. Originally the first Ronnie Scott’s club and later run by John Jack, the basement venue became a round‑the‑clock hub for young British jazz musicians to rehearse, perform, and experiment.
Experimental trio Taupe comprises saxophonist,
composer, and arranger Jamie Stockbridge (Agbeko, Martha Reeves and The
Vandellas, John Pope Quartet and more), drummer, composer, and improviser
Alex Palmer (Logan‘s Close, Blue Giant Orkestar, Pippa Blundell, SMIRK, and
more), and guitarist and electronic musician Mike Parr-Burman (Glasgow
Improvisers Orchestra and a variety of projects including Dome Riders and
more).
Taupe has performed at jazz festivals, punk clubs, and venues in the UK and
Europe. They have opened for Deerhoof, Melt Banana, and Richard Dawson, and
have been featured at the 12 Points! Jazz Festival and selected for Jazz
North’s Northern Line. In 2023, they received the PRS International Showcase
Fund Award to perform at the Sharpe showcase festival in Slovakia.
Lemonade Tycoon is announced by two
sets of repeated blasted phrases, before the rhythm kicks in, and it is this
slightly offset beat that pervades the single, creating a slightly
off-kilter dynamic that works well at engaging the mind.
The title , Lemonade Tycoon, is a nod to the classic business
simulation game of the same name, where players run a lemonade stand and try
to make profits, but really, the sound has nothing to do with a game. It is
intense and unique, enhanced by a live drum improvisation in the final
sequence, captured via a saxophone clip-on mic and routed through
saxophonist Jamie Stockbridge’s intricate effects pedal chain, creating a
spectral echo. It is here where the lemonade reference makes sense, as it is
sparkling and chaotic like shaken lemonade, simultaneously precise and
unruly.
If ever a track screamed skronk, it is this one. Beautifully balanced, Taupe
work together to create music that encompasses free jazz with punchy,
repeated phrasing that works it way into the mind, like a relentless drill.
The switches from precise, intricate phrases to turbulent, chaotic lines are
seamless.
They describe their music as having ‘wonky charm‘ and that is perfect to
describe this joyfully noisesome, beautiful music that gets into your
psyche. There is a crazy section where sax and guitar cross swords in
rhythmic interpretation that makes for a bonkers conversation, including
pulled back timings that add to the sense of controlled chaos of the track.
It is a track that starts as one thing and by the end is something different
but equally, turbulently glorious.
This single is fun, free, dynamic, and completely beautiful.
Lemonade Tycoon is the single release ahead of Taupe’s third album,
waxing | waning, which will be released in March 2026 by the Czech
label Minority Records.
In 2024, I interviewed saxophonist Ivo Perelman for Free Jazz Collective. He
told me he was coming to the UK in October 2025 to record with John Butcher.
Perelman described Butcher as ‘a multi-faceted musician with an original,
elegant, yet powerful sax voice.’ Butcher has played with John Edwards, the
late, great John Russell, Phil Minton, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders, and a host
of other musicians. He has great versatility and in-the-moment skills that
can turn the atmosphere of a performance. When Perelman commented on
collaborating with Butcher, I mused at the time that this would make for an
interesting recording, and it has materialised in ‘Duologues 4’. Perelman is
on tenor sax, and Butcher on soprano and tenor.
Duologues 4 proves yet again that Perelman makes some inspired choices in
collaborators. Teamed with butcher, Perelman is more conversational on this
recording – and no wonder. Butcher is one of the most creative saxophone
players the UK scene has produced in a long time, and perhaps one who
deserves more acclaim. The album is infused with Butcher’s intuitive
responses and quiet, solid playing. The opening track is akin to a
respectful argument, with both players alternating phrase development and
interpreting the other’s take with harmonic dialogue. Perelman and Butcher
are one of those combinations that you might hope would happen, and when it
did, there was no disappointment. Perelman’s register-flitting and rapidity
are exemplary on this track, but Butcher has that ability to slot just the
right tone and note into any gaps left by Perelman’s multiple register
coverage.
Track two is busy, the speed frenetic, and both players create breathy,
singular melodies and develop intricate harmonies as the track evolves,
weaving melodies in and out, across and over each other, while making full
use of stops and gaps. Butcher shows he is gifted in spontaneity and
placement of phrases.
The entire album is a continuum of this conversation that carries on between
Butcher and Perelman. It is an album of equality where Perelman often
suggests the theme, or introduces an idea, but Butcher responds with
creative development or apposite music thoughts that Perelman instinctively
follows. At times, Butcher is like a stalking wolf, picking up the trails
Perelman sets and ng them before diverging off onto tracks of his own
invention. The changes are interesting throughout because they happen with
subtlety, almost before you realise it and the thinking of the two masters
is also intriguing, such as on track 3 where there is individual melodic
phrasing, but by the time four minutes and around twenty second have
elapsed, the pair are in delightful, elevated harmony with an intense energy
that flows from the music.
There is a calmness to some of the music also, such as the gentler start of
track 4, where the musicians are clearly listening to each other, the
intensity palpable in the responses, and both, led by Perelman, visit the
upper reaches of altissimo.
There is diversity too, such as on track 5, where Perelman introduces a
subtle long take on a swung beat, and the slap tongue sections on track 6,
coupled with exploration of as many forms as it is possible to fit in a
track less than four minutes long. The longest track is track 7, and here
both players get the chance – and take it- to be melodic, harmonious and,
naturally, introduce some spontaneity (a lot). Butcher is at his best here
in the lower register of the tenor and in this track lurks a bit of swing, a
touch of classical and a good dose of free playing – wrapped in a colourful
coat of intensity. The final track is a glorious, popping escapade,
enjoyable for the listener and probably for the players too.
Perelman is familiar to many people as one of the great, inspirational
players of our time and he describes Butcher as ‘amazing and responsive’.
This is true.
Perelman and Butcher, Butcher and Perelman. Either way, it is a terrific
combination.
See You in the Pastis a meeting of generations. On the one side are
Kyle Hutchins on saxophones, Seth Andrew Davis on guitar and electronics,
and Kevin Cheli on percussion and vibraphone, all three young(er) and
associated with various Midwestern scenes. On the other side is Douglas R.
Ewart, here on saxophones, flutes, and
George Floyd Bunt Staff
. Ewart, of course, was an early AACM member and has since become
multi-reedist+ legend even after departing Chicago for Minneapolis. This
grouping succeeds not only in blending scenes and rough cohorts, but in
layering the old (or ancestral or atavistic) and the new (or electronic
futurism) convincingly. One need not take such a polarity too literally, of
course. Electronics is hardly new to Ewart’s circles. However, here it
sounds not like Sun Ra’s Moog or even George Lewis’ experiments, but like a
more contemporary – astral prog crossed with ambient and particularist noise
making – iteration.
Together, Ewart, Hutchins, Davis, and Cheli harness a large sound, which,
even in the quiet moments, occupies considerable space. Ewart’s spirituality
and earthiness is a clear thread, but it sounds different in the context of
the electronics and long stretches of wall-of-sound production. Most often,
Ewart or Hutchins fight through the downpour that Davis and Cheli (and I
think Hutchins and Ewart, when on his George Floyd Bunt Staff) conjure.
Actually, it is tough to decipher when Ewart or Hutchins steps up and the
others scape and scrape the sound from behind. Many passages veer even
further from the free jazz stylings one might expect into noise rock and the
most abstract moments of the Grateful Dead’s Space/Drums jams. Indeed,
See You in the Past
is more interested in suspended and extended moments, rather than
progressive development. There are exceptions. Future Ghosts, at 7:43 the
shortest of the three tracks, is a scorcher. It is a free for all from the
beginning and the energy does not ebb until the final moments. Still, the
other selections, Echoes of Tomorrow and Sound Seekers, subdue the quartet’s
most eruptive impulses. It is in these longer stretches that this group
shows what they can really achieve, as they not only find their sound, but
probe it, stretch it, and turn it inside out to utterly mesmerizing effect.
See You in the Past is available on Bandcamp as a CD and download:
The first time I heard Steve Tintweiss was in college. I got my first album
by Albert Ayler, Nuits de la Fondation Maeght, which captured one
of his last performances, and was floored. Then I began flipping through the
booklet and found the bassist. I did some quick Google searching and did not
find much on him at the time. (This was a couple decades ago, after all.)
So, apart from that recording, he would remain just a mysterious part of
Ayler’s late band for me until quite recently. As it turns out, Tintweiss
performed with everyone from Marzette Watts and Frank Writght to Burton
Greene and Byard Lancaster. He just released sparingly.
Live in Tompkins Square Park 1967 captures Tintweiss and one
iteration of his Purple Why (Jacques Coursi on trumpet, James DuBoise on
trumpet, Perry Robinson on clarinet, Joel Peskin on saxophone, Randy Kaye on
drums and piano, and Lawrence Cook on drums) performing the bassist’s
compositions in the fabled (but also very real) Tompkins Square Park in
1967.
Live in Tompkins Square Park is very much of its time and in that
late Ayler vein, though without the insistent melodicism. Rather, Tintweiss
and company are exploring abstraction and dynamic range. Listen to the music
box string duo five minutes into News Up/Down for one of softer moments.
Then follow the piece through to the full-blast realization of the
leitmotif. Or check out the modal lyricism of Space Rocks, a piece that
starts with a slow folk march before opening into a collective but mostly
contained funerary wail. Or the smokey jazz club romance of To Angel With
Love, which is absolutely beautiful. As was common for the 1960s downtown
scene, most of these pieces are bookended by short grooves and ditties that
decompose into freer interactions that embrace the moment of creation and
the probing quest to find the right rhythm or combination of looping horns
or textures. Through all the sparring that reeds and winds do, the
propulsion comes from the relentless drive of Kaye and Cook paired on
percussion, and Tintweiss, himself.
Now to the recording. It is somewhat raw but it works. It works because the
tapes are a half-century old and capture the band live and outdoors. For
that it sounds great. It also works because the background hums, the
imperfections in balance and other infidelities catch the live experience
better than a crisp studio production would have. And this music is about
that in-person excitement, which one hears in the chatter and genuine
participation (singing, cheering, impromptu percussion, applause) of the
audience.
Tintweiss will likely always be best known for his brief stint with Ayler.
But recordings like this show he had sensibilities and vision that stand on
their own.
Live in Tompkins Square Park is a limited release and can be
purchased through Tintweiss’s own
Inky Dot Media.
Gregg Belisle-Chi - Slow Crawl: Performing the Music of Tim Berne (Intakt, 2025)*****
Gregg Belisle-Chi has been at this long enough that I should stop being
surprised. His first album of Tim-Berne-on-Acoustic
(2021’sKoi)
was an unexpected gift that provided a late in the game expansion of the
contexts within which Berne’s compositions could be expressed. If you accept
that the strength of a composer reflects how well their compositions can be
adapted to different contexts (and maybe you don’t), then Koi
served as a proof-of-concept. Four years later a recording such as this
doesn’t depend on the novelty of the concept—we’ve got it! this works!—but
Slow Crawl nevertheless lands as a revelation.
The question this recording answers is, “What can Tim Berne’s compositions
do if you don’t lean into the spectacle? The loud? The electric? The
skronk?” Belisle-Chi brings forward the beautiful and (dare I say it)
exquisite nature of the melodies and harmonies. It’s a different, aromantic
expression of Berne. Belisle-Chi isn’t whipping us into a frenzy (as he did
on
Yikes Too) but inviting us into the baroque-ish—fascinating, thinky, knotty,
satisfying—tunes. Performances of Berne’s music generally have so much more
than pitch going on, but what if, for a little while, the pitch was the
thing? Thus, we’re presented with very complex, introverted, emergent
experiences. Of necessity, this is quiet stuff, but quiet can be amazing,
and that’s what it is, here. 5 stars.
Snakeoil- In Lieu Of (Screwgun 2025) & Snakeoil - Snakeoil OK (Screwgun 2025)
There have been a bunch of from-the-vault style releases from Screwgun since
2020—if there can be said to be a bright side to the plague, that was it—and
2025 saw the release of these two gems. Snakeoil was (is?) an
extraordinarily strong group featuring Berne, Oscar Noriega, Ches Smith, and
Matt Mitchell. Of Berne’s groups I find Snakeoil to be the most intriguing,
complex, knotty, and, almost, esoteric. It’s as thinky as a grad student and
as primal as a rockfall, but bigger than either. These two releases come
from what Tim calls “the early period” but which seems more like “mid-season
form.” So often the music makes you stop and awe. Noriega, Berne’s only
clarinet playing partner (afaik), weaves with spikes, jumps, and
gaps—scrapes, squeals, and deep blue. Smith never stops—what a wealth of
outre drummers there are!—and Tim leads from the front, a never faltering
well of improvisation. The chthonic force on these discs (and it’s true of
all Snakeoil recordings) is Matt Mitchell, shifting the Earth on the piano. What a joy this
is!
Masayo Koketsu, Nava Dunkelman, Tim
Berne - Poiēsis (Relative Pitch, 2025)
In this improvised set of pieces, Tim Berne and Masayo Koketsu bring their
altos together, sprawling on the jagged carpet of Nava Dunkelman ‘s
percussion. The seven pieces are innocuously titled (“page 1,” “page 2” …)
as if they don’t want to give any secrets away or draw untoward
associations. Dunkelman’s percussion is cinematic hereon, as in the opening
piece, presenting us with a driving free rhythm, whipping us all into a
frenzy, but just as often inserting “little instrument” characters that add
color to a landscape that the altos can’t avoid interacting with. Honestly,
I’m not even sure what she’s playing. Is the deep thooma tympani?
What is it that sounds like the lowest of arco bass lines? The notes tell us
that Berne acts as the melodic foundation with Koketsu hanging out more with
the extended registers, and I can see that. Berne is so strong in the
mid-range, but there are plenty of moments where both of these altos are
playing stratispherically, and some, even, when the two are genuinely
delicate.
Elia Aregger is a Swiss guitarist whose album Live came out in the
opening hours of 2025. Like some other European guitartists, like Kali kalima
and Jakob Bro, Aregger seems to have ingested and integrated a
particularly American guitar vernacular created by, among many other, Bill
Frisell, John Abercrombie, and even Pat Metheny, and transformed it into
something expressive and new. When I first heard Aregger, I thought maybe I
stumbled on a forgotten Power Tools-era Frisell album. By no means, however, is the recording bound to the past, rather it feels both reassuringly familiar and yet infused with discovery at its heart.
Live opens in a suspenseful mood and then opens wide with a hopeful flowing melody line. The keyword is flowing. The rhythm
sways gently between Marius Sommer's light touch on the bass and the forward leaning pulse of Alessandro Alarcon's drums. The flow increases and the rhythm tightens as the
guitar transforms, now distorted and dangerous, the whole mood shifts.
The next song, 'B or D' begins more aggressively than the opener: a gently distorted guitar plays a dripping melodic line decorated with chordal fragments, and the bass and drums are still light but insistent, helping give the
spartan guitar parts motion and fullness. Like the previous track, this one
also builds to a rocking section, but which only lasts long enough
to make an impression, then the tension is pulled back. The follow up track is a
ballad entitled 'Martha,' which as one may imagine, again flows, but now
gently, laced with traces of dissonance and hopeful intervals.
This is much more to be heard, but the basic components are already in place:
patient, spacious melodic lines, precisely layered tensions, dabs of colorful
distortion and sympathetic interplay between the three players.
Trio of Bloom - s/t (Pyroclastic, 2025)
So, this one is not really a "guitar trio" in the sense that the guitar is the
leader, rather it's a full on collaboration, which critic Nate Chinen has called a "new-groove
supergroup" -- which is both kind of fun and kind of true. This first time
meeting of guitarist Nels Cline, keyboardist Craig Taborn and drummer Marcus
Gilmore certainly has groove at its heart.
The album kicks off with a cover of Ronald Shannon-Jackson’s
‘Nightwhistlers’ that shimmers and shutters with an antsy pulse and electronic
twists, and is bookended by a cover of Terje Rypdal’s ‘Bend It,’ which offers
a much different kind of straight‑ahead driving beat, along with allusions to
Rypdal’s signature soaring lines. The tracks in between all seem to flower in their own way. Especially the
second track, Taborn's 'Unreal Light,' which unfolds slowly, first in
stretching, legato glistening tones, then transmogrifying into a lithe
rhythmic piece with Cline improvising a melodic dance. Then, there is the
10-minute freely improvised ‘Bloomers,' in which where Cline and Taborn’s edgy
sonic textures intertwine with Gilmore’s fluid, morphing pulses, propelling
the music into a exploration of dark electrified grooves.
Trio of Bloom, with a name that recalls the short-lived collaboration between
John McLaughlin, Jaco Pastorius and Tony Williams, but with an actual
connection to the power-trio Power Tools via their shared producer David
Breskin, is a true aural treat. Take your time with it, let it take root and
blossom.
Marcelo dos Reis' Flora - Our Time (JACC, 2025)
Portuguese guitarist Marcelo dos Reis' Flora is a bona fide guitar led trio.
Sure, it is a collaboration of excellent musicians, but the concept
and compositions are from the guitarist's creative musings. I first
encountered the group on their debut recording from 2023, which you can check
out here and thoroughly enjoy this follow-up release. I feel it would be a slight
conflict of interest for me to properly review the album as I contributed the liner-notes, which you can find on Bandcamp. I will, however, quote
myself to save you a click:
So, here we have the trio's sophomore recording, Our Time, and it
more than picks up where the last one ended. There is more cohesion to the
compositions, but they are also more complex and with a bit more nuance and
contrast. It likely reflects the confidence they have gained after the
fifty some-odd gigs that they've played since the first release, as well
as something new in dos Reis' compositions. "I think this one is more
open and adventurous in some way," explains the guitarist. "The repertoire
from the first record grew up so much live after the recording, and when I
started composing for this second one, I decided to open the music up more
than on the first record."
Let us investigate, starting with
the perfectly appointed opening track "Irreversible Light." The track
loses no time announcing its intentions on seering its energy into your
ears. Each step of the song, from the double stop theme over the urgent
bass and drums to the sudden melodic twist introducing the solos, it is
an exciting piece of hard rocking jazz that fits perfectly together.
Do yourself a favor, click on the play button below and enjoy:
