On 'Continuum', German drummer Nathan Ott leads a group with saxophonists Sebastian Gille and Christof Lauer, along with bassist Jonas Westergaard - a true continuum from the group that Ott played in with saxophonist David Liebman. The quartet's music is the result of close communication and genre transcending atmospherics ... at least in this clip! We'll all learn more when their album with the same title comes out next week.
Christof Lauer ss, ts;
Sebastian Gille ts, ss, cl;
Jonas Westergaard b,
Nathan Ott dr
Learn more about group as well as Ott's new musical platform An:Bruch here.
Legendary Swedish, Berlin-based Sven-Åke Johansson composer,
drummer-percussionist, poet, writer, and visual artist, will celebrate
his 82th birthday and six decades of work this year. He belongs to the
first generation of European free improvisers, known for his work with
Peter Brötzmann’s earliest and some of his most important projects,
including Machine Gun, but has never limited himself to any single
artistic discipline. in an interview with the Berlin newspaper Taz,
defined his work: “My work is not actually jazz, but rather the
exploration of sounds. In that sense, my music defies some
categorizations. Jazz is only a small part of what I do”.
Hautzinger / Schick / Johansson - Rotations + (Trost, 2025)
Rotations+ is a free improvised trio featuring Johansson on percussion
and accordion, German turntable wizard Ignaz Schick on turntables, and
Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger on trumpets. Both players use
electronics. The trio was recorded live at the Berlin experimental venue
KM28 in September 2023. The six collective improvisations adapt the
syntax of reductionist electronic music and explore a deep forest of
subtle colors and timbre, with each improvisation suggesting a fresh and
unpredictable perspective.
Johansson’s elegant sense of time is still remarkable, adding loose
structural narratives with a kaleidoscopic, rhythmic sensibility to
Hautzinger’s minimalist, extended breathing smears and cries and
Schick’s delicate yet noisy and sometimes cartoonish beeps and bloops.
At times, Johansson’s drumming even adds a ritualist dimension to the
abstract and fragile interplay of Hautzinger and Schick, immediately
disciplining exotic overtones (as on “R2”) and bringing a heightened
form of spontaneous sound sculpting, something Johansson has been doing
since the early 1970s. His accordion playing, on “R3” and the last “R6”
improvisations, injects a subversive, romantic touch to the abstract and
often nervous interplay of Hauztzinger and Schick.
Sven-Åke Johansson Quintet - Stumps (Second Version) (Trost, 2025)
Johansson first introduced the book of compositions used for his Stumps
project on the album Stumps (Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu, 2022), recorded live at Au
Topsi Pohl in Berlin in December 2021, with a quintet of Johansoon’s
long-time collaborator, German trumpeter Axel Dörner, Swedish double
bass player Joel Grip (of أحمد [Ahmed], another trusted collaborated of
Johansson), and young French sax player Pierre Borel (of Die Hochstapler
and Sebastian Gramss' States Of Play) and pianist Simon Sieger, and
Johannson on drums.
Johansson referred to this book of six compositions as the magnum opus
of his small group writing. Extended versions of “stumps 2” to “stumps
6” are included on Stumps (Second Version), recorded live one year after
Stumps (which included all six compositions), at Haus der Berliner
Festspiele during Jazzfest Berlin in November 2022. These compositions
are based on strict, schematic instructions and offer a potential for
variation with falling and rising short signals (notes). Each “stump”
composition repeats the simple yet captivating theme four times and
establishes its light-swinging pulse. Each “stump” alters the melodic
and rhythmic shape of the basic formula and ignites a distinct kind of
thoughtful deconstruction with introspective collective improvisation
and solo excursions. A simple repetition of the theme at the end rounds
off the composition as a kind of return. The underlying tempi of the
themes are rather calm, there is no fixed tempo but more of a free
positioning, according to the principle of ‘free tempo/dynamic
vibration’.
Johansson leads the ensemble with commanding, modest, and always elegant
authority and his trademark rolling cymbal pulse and stuttering snare
drum keep the music forward. These compositions, despite their strict
formula and repetitive themes, demand probing individual playing, and
this ensemble brilliantly performs them.
This live recording, from the ARTACTS Festival is Austria, captures this
trio in fine form indeed. As the world of improvisation (and not only this
field) is in a big need of women players, the presence of two of the best
around on this recording is totally a blast. Leandre is, of course, on
double bass, Harnik on piano and Kaucic on drums and percussion.
Playing live (and enjoying it…) is, and always will be, the core of the
non-spoken shared language we call music. All three of them are very good
and gifted in presenting their vision live. A vision that encompasses the
idiolect of improvisation strengthened with their individual skills. But,
don’t get me wrong. This is not a cd of three soloists. The three musicians
have struggled, for a long time now, to play, interact and share ideas with
others. Listening and interacting is the main focus. Their past proves
that, this CD also. LIVE IN ST. JOHANN is a recording of collectiveness. Of
camaraderie even. They play in unison, transforming their togetherness into
a musical entity that is solid and enjoyable too.
Enjoyment is a key word for this live recording. Another key word is jazz.
And why not. Improvisation has, for a long time, battled against the jazz
tradition, but that doesn’t mean that this tradition is at fault per se. On
LIVE IN ST. JOHANN, the three musicians use this tradition as a certain,
non-restrictive, guideline. Their jazz based compositions follow the linear
way of a jazz drums-piano-bass trio. Their playing is like storytelling.
There is a beginning, a middle passage as a main theme and a, more
aggressive, ending. Sometimes, to quote Godard a bit, not with this
particular order, but this given does not lessen the enjoyment at all…
LIVE IN ST. JOHANN is mostly, apart from the storytelling part, about
feelings. As every piece of great music should be about. Invest in those
feelings generously donated by the three artists. You cannot miss.
Quatuor Bozzini, a string quartet featuring Alissa Cheung, Clemens Merkel,
and siblings Stéphane and Isabelle Bozzini, have been at the forefront of
Canada’s new music scene for over two-and-a-half decades, now. Here, they
are joined by the junctQin keyboard collective, a somewhat younger but well
established and distinguished piano trio – that’s three pianos – consisting
of Stephanie Chua, Joseph Ferretti, and Elaine Lau in a series of
realizations of composer Rebecca Buton’s Faerie Ribbon and Jason Deoll’s to
carry dust & breaks through the body. These and the album title,
a root or mirror, blossom, madder, cracks; together,
are evocative, but in their opacity and undefined suggestiveness. And maybe
that is a fitting way to lead into the review proper. The music is
suggestively enigmatic.
Rebecca Burton – 'The Fairie Ribbon' (Tracks 1-4)
Burton’s 'The Fairie Ribbon' consists of four parts of glittery, romantic
music that borders on the hymnic. At the same time – and maybe linked to
that religious idea of calm, sacred space – it evokes an uneven saunter
through a forest pathway with strings enveloping birdsongs just well enough
to add an impressionistic mystery. As with any proper forest tale, it plays
with light and dark, sometimes seeming more foreboding than carefree. (Leo
Orenstein comes to mind in this blend of elements.) Long pauses separate
the sections within each part, of which there are four. These mark
transitions and escalations, but also mimic the detours and distractions of
a light hike, where one stops to view a vista here, or a strange, colorful
bird in a tree there, or an odd outcropping one may or may not want to risk
exploring. After a quick glance, one returns to their thoughts, meandering
along with the hiker’s uncertain path. The listener’s mind and attention is
set wandering in a similar fashion, until, in the final part, the piece
climaxes in a majestic moment of clarity.
Jason Deoll – 'to carry dust & breaks through the body' (Track 5)
The second half, loosely speaking, of a root or mirror consists of
a realization of a composition from Jason Doell. This one is somewhat
darker than 'The Fairie Ribbon' and relies on long doubled tones and slow
progressions to achieve a sort of grandiosity. Slow melodies waft around a
couple central dramatic leitmotifs. The melodies, meticulously excavated
from what could otherwise have been a morass of chords, are heavy and
plodding, almost menacing in their unison. But the piece shows its real
power in the persistence of the drones, the heavy key strikes, the
constant loop back to the foundational melody, the anticipation those
elements engender. 'To carry dust' is a strong piece, more linear than the
itinerant 'Fairie Ribbon.'
In this release, we see two related but diverging faces of the many-sided
dice of contemporary composition, inspired by various strands of the
postwar new music, but avoiding the stark minimalist or cacophonist
extremes. Composers Burton and Deoll are not alone in this pursuit, of
course. However, they pursue it with a rare degree of skill and confidence.
As do the Bozzini and junctiQin ensembles.
Available as on CD and vinyl and as a download from Bandcamp. The download
includes four alternate versions of 'The Faerie Ribbon.'
At the end of this past December, bassist Barre Phillips passed away. Today, fellow bassist Joëlle Léandre pays tribute to her mentor, collaborator and friend.
I met and heard you when I was so young, 15 years old, in Aix-en-Provence,
my hometown, you gave a solo bass concert there, in 1963 or 65!
Pierre Delescluse, a great, passionate and stern double bass teacher took
the whole class to listen to you, to see you. It was extraordinary, a solo
on a forgotten, low register instrument... there in front of us!
A U.F.O., something else... A light.
You played a movement of a Bach suite for cello, transcribed of course, and
music you had written spread across 6 or 7 music stands on the stage! Like
an accordion you moved from stand to stand, it was magical.
One sound, then one phrase… You played as much pizz as
arco
, as we say in our string family vernacular. Music bursting everywhere. It
was yours. You were a protagonist and a pioneer.
Later, we played a lot together, as a duo of course, in a bass quartet in
tribute to Peter Kowald, but also did a show called "The grammar of
grandmothers" [grandmother = surname for the double bass]: three
bassists on stage at the American Center, Boulevard Raspail in Paris, where everything creative was happening – this was also the place where I went to
listen to the free jazz greats and thank them all! We shared the stage with
Robert Black, another explorer of the double bass.
On the stage, there were only basses laid flat, sideways… small, huge,
broken, hung here and there, like a workshop, pieces of wood, bass strings
in a bucket, music stands everywhere, a bass suspended like a swing...
magnificent! All three of us had written a lot of music.
It came from you, Barre, the spirit of adventure, permissiveness, all these
meetings and projects.
The living music, the ringing of this big cabinet that scares dogs and the
taxis that reject us!
Your smile, your joy, your wisdom and mischievous eyes, many memories I
keep…
With a childlike and curious mind, you were always enthusiastic and eager
to share information with me about new microphones, amps, and slipcovers! We bass players are paranoid about sound, since it’s so hard to
hear us. Bass players always talk shop, and you were overjoyed to show me
your new carbon bass, taking it out of the hotel room into the corridor to
kick it and jump on it and show me it was unbreakable, I was in tears from
laughter – you always had a passion for new means of projecting a better
sound. You were a complete musician, regardless of genre.
We often spoke on the phone, on the road, at hotels and during festivals.
You were always the one I looked to, Barre, an example to follow. Your
sound, the sound of your bass is recognizable among thousands. The sound is
our identity as musicians, it's the energy we put in, the choices we
make, we keep selecting, deciding, taking risks, we have to!
With an implacably accurate left hand, you made the bass a solo instrument
in its own right… Others have taken over, haven’t they? We are not many...
Classical, free, jazz, who cares, I can hear your thing clearly! You
remained a unique musician, ever creative and funny, talking to the
audience or hiding behind the bass sometimes!
And always your kindness, reaching out to others, listening, sharing...
While everything in society is based on hierarchies and domination – black
and white, man and woman, serious and oral music, this style over this one
– you were basically becoming the other, without hierarchy.
Making music together is loving.
Thank you Barre for everything you gave us.
We will miss you!! JL (translation by David Cristol)
Joëlle Léandre Photo by Christian Pouget
Joëlle Léandre and Barre Phillips can be heard together on the following recordings:
Joëlle Léandre – Les douze sons (Nato, 1984)
Phillips, Léandre, Parker, Saitoh – After You Gone (Victo, 2004)
Barre Phillips & Joëlle Léandre – A l'improviste(Kadima,
2008)
13 Miniatures for Albert Ayler (Rogue Art, 2012)
Sebastian Gramss – Thinking of... Stefano Scodanibbio (Wergo,
2014)
Video, live in France, 2013 (excerpt):
Upcoming Joëlle Léandre releases:
Duo with Andrejz Karalow – Flint on Fundacja Ensemblage (March
2025)
Duo with Evan Parker on Rogue Art
Duo with Rémy Bélanger de Beauport on Tour de Bras (LP)
I remember a long while back reading a review for a blistering solo free
jazz album on Keith Fullerton Whitman’s now defunct Mimaroglu Web Store
(thanks for everything Keith!) and he noted that solo albums like that
really hit him between the eyes during the freezing winter months and I’ve
thought of that every winter since. I also tend to listen to a lot of solo
music during the post-holiday cold as I’m generally not as distracted with
outdoor life and am able to listen a little more closely. That said, this
year I've been loving this new solo trombone release from Philadelphia's
Dan Blacksberg who’s trio has been covered a couple of times
here
on the blog. He was in the Hasidic doom metal band Deveykus with fellow
Philadelphian, guitarist
Nick Millevoi
, releasing their only album Pillar Without
Mercy on Tzadik back in 2013. Blacksberg is described on his website
as “a living master of klezmer trombone” and in addition to being a
dedicated proponent, teacher, and organizer of the music he also released
the first album of klezmer to feature the trombone as the lead instrument
on Radiant
Others, also with Millevoi. The album currently under consideration
here is not a klezmer album in the slightest. The Psychic Body/Sound
System is a powerful improvised statement that blends wild soundscapes and
drone with gnarled extended technique and commanding free trombone flights.
The poetic fictionalizations of the titles are the perfect signage along
the path, one that is craggy and steep but also imbued with some remarkable
vistas.
The album starts off with “We Walk Through the Petrified Gates” - a brief,
low drone that feels like an initiation - setting the tone. Next is “Tale
of a Survival” a heady dialogue of solo free trombone where the staccato
phrasing starts to slur and is interrupted by mumbled exclamations across
the track, occasionally breaking down into violent and wet blasts of sound.
On “Crags of Resounding Whispers” the thwacking churn of the horn is
reminiscent of the chug of a huge pumping machine. The album's arguable
centerpiece (for me) is “Observing the endless screamer” , this time on a
prepared trombone. No idea what the preparations are but it would seem that
Blacksberg opened some sort of portal. Endearing in much the same way that
Merzbow is, it might require a bit of effort for some. Blacksberg does a
considerable job of bending and directing these noises to make the track a
standout on the album, it’s not just pure intensity but also arrangement,
variety, and nuance. “Feeding the great babbler” is a brief segue in low
frequencies - a lot lower than the previous track - it’s fast-paced and
bulbous and pretty easy on the ears (mindful sequencing) with a lot to
offer the careful listener. “Softgrid Lament” is built of growling,
multiphonic passages recorded really dryly, so much so that the gurgling
inner world of his trombone is central to the piece. It seats gnarly,
aggressive exclamations at the same table with slow glissandos that sound
like cartoon airplanes falling out of the sky.
The direct effect of being submerged is discernible on “Liquified tides of
thought”, which conversely has the reverb cranked to 11. The stuttering
passages ripple like water over rocks, closing in breathy resolution. On
“Infinitely shattering crystal wishes” Blacksberg plays his horn into a
prepared piano. Heavy tongue thwacks and high pitched whistles disturb the
pressure field, causing the strings to answer, the track becoming more
intense and violent as it progresses. “Gliding over the dimensional glacier”
is another brief but continuous drone piece that puts the gauze back in our
ears, again the sequencing is right on as this lull resolves into the
brightness of the next track “Tale of refusing futility”. On this one
Blacksberg plays with a raspy, cutting tone that blasts through in a haze of
atomized spittle. Then Blacksberg puts down the magic wand momentarily and
delivers a passage that’s aggressive and direct. The album closes with the
“We exhale the gate closed”, another brief and murky drone that works as a
bookend with the opening track. This is a good one, there’s a lot of
variety in both technique and style and it’s a lot of fun to listen to.
It's got a quality of its own and doesn’t sound like a solo trombone album
in the sense you might expect. The detail and density keep the listening
active and as a result it’s 40 minutes pass all too quickly.
Question: Why would it be that an artist or art that has been widely
recognized as wonderful, groove-tastic, ecstatic, and cool for fifty years
“suddenly” becomes transcendent, “suddenly” becomes preternaturally
compelling, “suddenly” becomes the best music you’ve heard live in years?
Is it the persistence of the vision that transports you? Has the music been
gaining gravity over the past 50 years? Is it improvement? Has the artist
upped their game year after year and now, in the present moment, they
transcend? Or is it the quality of the audience? Has the time, space,
context, trauma, and treasure of “us today” rendered the present moment into
the right time? Or is it a mystical alignment of the river and the foot
stepping into it? Never the same twice, but perfect for this exact moment?
These were my thoughts in the days after attending Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic
Heritage Ensemble performance at the Space Gallery in Portland, ME, on
February 4, 2025.
The trio came into a sold out room and began with the “little instruments”
percussion wash that the AACM has turned into a sacred ritual. The Ethnic
Heritage Ensemble has celebrated its 50th year as one of the only extant
ensembles from the collective’s early days (possibly one can say the Art
Ensemble is still around). The audience—packed in—was ready to be embraced.
Corey Wilkes, trumpet, and Kevin Nabors, tenor, traveled the spectrum. The
head of the first tune was quirky, post-boppish, and soulful with space and
tricky syncopations, but the solos were barnburners, the sorts of things
where outlandish blowing is occasionally accomplished by pistoning the
keys/plungers using your forearm and the elbow as a fulcrum. This first
tune, apparently a mission statement for the evening, ended with Zabar’s own
solo which had enough kinetic energy to raise a house. Rarely has
destructive energy (hitting) been used to create so extravagantly.
That said, Zabar did not spending that much time behind the kit, often
coming out front to sit on the most thoroughly, skillfully, and soulfully
whacked cajon I’ve ever heard, or playing a “thumb piano” (of all things) in
a way that defied all expectations of what most people think of as a gift
shop tchotchke. Through it all, Zabar threaded his songs and vocalizations,
bringing together the blues and the choir, uniting Saturday night and Sunday
morning. This was spiritual, trance-making music, joined with noise, play,
and ecstasy. His wordless singing has a dreamlike quality to it, evoking joy
without being required to articulate it.
The evening had half a dozen pieces. Zabar’s own “A Time for Healing” was
the center of the set. The trio’s rendition of “All Blues” was the most
sublime moment, with Wilkes’ harmon mute (of course) bending the room to his
will. McCoy Tyner’s “Passion Dance” came through like a cyclone. Zabar’s
tribute to Ornette Coleman mesmerized us, with Nabors provoking a standing O
in the middle of the tune. The evening ended with a solo vocal performance
from Zabar, a love standard—”my mother’s favorite”—rendered in Zabar’s
unique scatted/sung/dreamscaped/onomatopoetic way. It was funny,
adventurous, exciting, and remarkably touching.
Was this the best performance I’ve seen in the last few years? Maybe. At the
very least, when we discovered, after the concert, that the keys had been
locked in our car on an evening when the temperature began at 8 degrees and
only went down—my sense of joy was in no way dampened. I after-glowed the
drive home, lightly buzzing as I made my way back into the dark,
snow-blanketed Maine Woods.
I fell in love with the music of Howard Riley rather late, actually it was
with
Solo in Vilnius (NoBusiness, 2010). But then I really did. In the following years, I
discovered his whole body of work, his early trio and most of all his solo
albums, especially
Constant Change 1976 - 2016 (NoBusiness, 2016), a 5-CD box set, which is one of my favourites of the
decade. Howard Riley has become my favourite pianist (except Cecil Taylor,
who is a league of his own), and because I had listened to his music
intensively, I was really shocked when it became known that he was
seriously ill. However, Riley managed to defy the illness for a long time
and even managed to adapt his playing technique. But in the end, the great
British pianist lost the fight and died yesterday, February 8th, shortly
before his 82nd birthday.
Howard Riley studied at the University of Wales (1961–66), where he gained
a BA and MA. He then he went to Indiana University (1966–67), before he
enrolled at York University (1967–70) for his PhD. Alongside his studies and
teaching he always played jazz professionally, with Evan Parker in 1966 and
then with his aforementioned trio (1967–76), with Barry Guy on bass and Alan
Jackson, Jon Hiseman and Tony Oxley alternating on drums. They released
three albums for three different labels, each showing a remarkable
stylistic evolution, opening up standardized structures into the worlds of
an unknown, free improvisational language, while still clearly rooted in
jazz. Riley played with a number of the key musicians of the British
improv scene, but his idea of freedom was different. He needed a melody or
rhythmic fragment to provide a center of gravity.
Apart from that, the feature which characterizes Riley’s music best is a
tendency to reduction. His first solo album, Singleness, “demonstrated his
mastery of historical techniques, attuned, through Monk, to the language of
bebop as well as to the contemporary forms of Xenakis and Penderecki“, as
Trevor Barre puts it in Beyond Jazz - Plink, Plonk & Scratch; The
Golden Age of Free Music in London 1966 -1972. Especially Xenakis has been a
constant influence to his music which Riley has always seen as an
evolutionary process. In the liner notes to Facets (Impetus, 1981) he
mentioned that he had always tried to bring both sides together: the useful
ideas and intellectual aspects of the European musical environment and the
intensity and spontaneity which is displayed by the American jazz
tradition. Riley’s work ricocheted between drama, space, rumbling trills,
rhythmic surprises and a sparing lyricism. Hardly anyone was able to
develop a theme through constant modulations, harmony shifts and subtle
dynamics like him, his idiosyncrasies always remaining accessible.
During a recording session, he realized that he couldn't play anymore and
went to see a doctor, who diagnosed Parkinson’s disease. Riley had to stop
playing for some time, and luckily he recovered with the help of
medication. However, he had to revise his technique. At that age this was
a tremendous and hard effort and it was surprising how well it worked, for
example on the late recordings for Constant Change 1976 - 2016. As another
result Riley approached his later solo performances “with or without
repertoire“, playing the great standards, mainly Monk and Ellington. He was
back where he started from.
Howard Riley has always been something like an unsung hero in the
improvised music scene, but he released very recommendable albums. Flight
(Turtle Records, 1971) and Synopsis (Incus, 1974), both with the
above-mentioned trio, are landmarks of British free jazz. Duality (View
Records, 1982) and For Four On Two Two (Affinity, 1984) are early
masterpieces of his solo excursions. His piano duo with Keith Tippett must
also be mentioned here, for example The Bern Concert (FMR, 1994). A
personal favourite of mine is Improvisation Is Forever Now (Emanem,
1978/2002) with Barry Guy and Phil Wachsmann. From his late period all
albums on the NoBusiness label are great,
Solo in Vilnius
and
Constant Change 1976 - 2016
are essential. By releasing Riley’s late works regularly, the Lithuanians
have helped this wonderful music to see the light of day.
It was also NoBusiness’s Danas Mikailionis who informed us that Howard
Riley passed away at his care home in Beckenham, South London.
Unfortunately, Parkinson’s Disease had really taken its toll severely with
him over the last few years. The musical universe has lost a bright star, a
kind man and a great personality. It is not only me who will miss Howard Riley a lot.
Appearing on Friday this past week, a video by Samot Nosslin/Underhypnos was released for the song "Work Song For a Scattered Past" by FIRE! Watch as the trio of Mats Gustafsson (sax), Johan Berthling (bass) and Andreas Werlin (drums) apply their lugubrious magic to devastating effect.
FIRE! and it's bigger sibling FIRE! Orchestra and their influences have graced the pages of the Free Jazz Blog quite a few times over the years:
Peter Brötzmann/Paal Nilssen-Love- Butterfly Mushroom (Trost
Records 2024)
Somehow I missed the
earlier review of Butterfly Mushroom
by Eyal Hareuveni at this venue. Having written it, I went ahead and sent
it in. Apologies to Eyal.
There are no surprises here for anyone who has listened to more than the
first few minutes of almost any Brötzmann recording. Well, maybe one,
especially if you enjoy his trios and duets as much as I do. I find the
synergetic pacing of those recordings to be woven together as seamlessly as
if a four or six handed demigod were playing it all at once.
Butterfly
Mushroom gives me the feeling that the two musicians are playing
independently, isolated in space and time; and yet somehow the result is
perfect, dynamic, joinery, something like body and soul in Cartesian
theory. As I hear most free jazz, it is the role of percussion to create
the aural space within which the other instruments flicker in and out of
being. On this recording I often seemed to hear this reversed. The horns
make a space within which a range of collisions occur.
That out of my system, most of the pieces present the signature Brötzmann
high-frequency fields of sound. On the first cut, “Boot licking, Boots
kickin,” Brötzmann’s guttural buzz is produced as he drills into one vein of
ore after another. I was reminded near the end of this cut of two cruise
ships passing out of port and playing signature tunes with their
Godzilla-sized horns. On “Ride the Bar,” the horn lines get smeary, as a
pen pressed too hard into parchment, and then gives way to streams of
humming punctuated on both ends by high squeals. Nilssen-Love squeezes out
a wide and dense ribbon with sparkle and humor. “Frozen nose, Melting
Toes” opens with jungle drums at an imaginary distance. The horn sings a
sad, breathy lament and the drums, for once, go quiet. When they come
back in, the percussive vibe has shifted to East Asia. The romance does
survive the next two cuts. However, as the horn goes feral, we still get
traces of Zen temple strikers.
Butterfly Mushroom was recorded in Wuppertal, Germany, in 2015.
Around that same time, I missed a chance to hear Brötzmann live in Chicago.
What a mistake. If you want to hear two extraordinary artists who can
evoke pretty much any human experience out of ear and memory, check this
one out.
Hungry Ghosts - Segaki (Nakama Records, 2024)
Hungry Ghosts is described on the Bandcamp page as “Norwegian-Malaysian
trio.” Try finding that restaurant in Boise. The trio consists of Yong
Yandsen on tenor sax, Christian Meaas Svendsen on double bass, voice, and
shakuhachi, and, tying these two recordings together, Paal Nilssen-Love on
percussion. You can find a review of their first album
by our own Taylor McDowell
here.
The term hungry ghost comes directly from Buddhist mythology. The
idea is that the ravenous, unsatiated appetites of human beings live on
after death. It is less clear whether the ghost is the person herself or
just a particularly toxic fragment from that bundle of passions we call a
person. I believe this idea appears also in Navaho mythology. A large
bit of funerary ritual is designed to detoxify these spirits. The album
title refers to such rituals. The title and cover (I learn from the
Bandcamp page) are from The Scroll of Hungry Ghosts.
The titles of the four cuts suggest that hungry ghosts have bizarre
cravings. “In search of filth like vomit and feces to eat” begins with a
thunderous, chaotic dialogue between the saxophone and drums. If Svendsen
is there, it was hard for me to tell. A little over three minutes in this
intense volume of sound collapses into a moment of silence, into which
Yandsen pours his solo. He replicates the dialogue by alternating between
higher and lower whimpering, descending to a barely audible crackle. About
a third of the way through we get a more explicitly Buddhist vibe. Bells
ring and echo. The drums come in and weave a marvelously textured carpet
of clicks and plunging knocks. The last section of the piece brings back
the jungle drum/soundtrack passion similar to that noted on the previous
recording. All the energy rushes back in and we return to the intensity of
the opening.
If your ghost is hungry for a marriage of bowed base and sax, you get it on
the second cut “Small bits of pus and blood.” The small bits make enough
room for one another here that we can appreciate all three virtuosos, but
it is the bass that steals the show. Svendsen maintains the dominate role
at the beginning of the longest and best cut on the album. “Mountain
valley bowls full of grime” reminds me of a sputtering engine more than
mountains or bowls. There is more narrative here, but it never leaves the
passion for texture that marks free jazz. This one was so good that I had
to carry my JBL speaker into my stairwell, which has the best acoustics in
my home.
Both of these recordings are brilliant. If you had to choose one, go for
Segaki. It’s only Jan 24 as I write this, but if this isn’t the
best thing I hear all year… it’s going to be a wonderful 12 months for free
jazz.