Sonny Rollins 1930 - 2026

Photo by John Abbott

By Martin Schray

There’s this scene that has gone down in the history of jazz. A tall, almost skinny, Black man playing his saxophone on Williamsburg Bridge in New York. The man was Sonny Rollins and already one of the biggest stars in the jazz world. At the age of 29 he had decided to take a break from playing live and making studio recordings. Rollins had rented a small apartment on Grand Street on Lower East Side, but the walls were paper thin and he couldn’t practice without disturbing the neighbors. One day he walked through Delancey Street, saw the steps up to the bridge and went up. He liked it there, he could play as loud as he wanted, with the Brooklyn-bound subway on one side and traffic on the other. From that moment on the bridge became his daily retreating room of sorts for two years, sometimes for 15 or 16 hours, in any kind of weather. Spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Rollins was a musician whose name stands in one line with the greatest ones of modern jazz - Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. Monk was indeed his teacher and partner, he first almost imitated Monk’s formal musical principles (on Think of One in 1953) before he became his equal partner (on the Thelonious Monk/Sonny Rollins album from 1956, e.g.) and finally emancipated himself with the piano-less trio classic Way Out West. As a consequence of these outstanding and successful albums he was invited to play Carnegie Hall, the accolade for every American musician. But then he realized that all these things didn’t help him to rent an apartment - because he was Black. His response was Freedom Suite in 1958. In the liner notes he wrote: “America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms; its humor; its music. How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed; that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.“ Freedom Suite is considered the first instrumental piece that accused racism and discrimination. Rollins however, had to face isolation after the release of the album. That’s why he took the Williamsburg-Bridge-break.

But on a grey November evening in 1961 he wanted to play again. He wanted to pay tribute to Booker Little, a talented young trumpeter, who died at the age of 23. The concert was to be a fundraiser for his widow. Rollins called the concert and the following album The Bridge, it was his comeback. In the 1960s he recorded more excellent albums like Our Man in Jazz (1963), Now’s the Time (1964), East Broadway Run Down (1966) and the soundtrack for the box office hit Alfie(1966). In the musical turmoil of the early Sixties Rollins remained clearly rooted in the jazz tradition, but he helped to pave the road to free jazz. His freest recordings are Our Man In Jazz from 1962, with Don Cherry on trumpet, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums and 1963 Paris Concert with Henry Grimes on bass. Rollins was looking for new ways but he wasn’t as courageous as Ornette or Ayler (which isn’t meant in a negative way, he just wasn’t interested in harmolodics or crassly overblown sounds). The reason why his music cannot be characterized as free jazz has also to do with the rather “traditional“ playing of bass and drums on his compositions (in the end they still played time - again not meant in a negative way). However, it has always been marvelous to listen to him exploring, finding and dropping musical ideas. His saxophone sound is just gigantic, its elegant, deep, very articulate and free flowing, he really was a “saxophone colossus“ (the name of one of his most famous albums). He had a real lust for playing, every new idea he had led to new variations - everything was elaborated with an enormous ease, but he wasn’t interested in showing off. From the 1970s onwards Sonny Rollins tried to find new ways integrating funk, fusion and Latin elements in his music, like on Reel Life (1982). He played with bag piper Rufus Harley at the Berliner Jazztage in 1974 (and the audience booed them), he recorded with ragtime pianist Mary Lou Williams. Moreover, he went to Japan and India and became a buddhist, he discovered yoga and lived in a monastery. As to music he also featured new talents like Branford Marsalis on Falling in Love with Jazz(1989) and Roy Hargrove on Here’s to People (1991). Last but not least, he curated his favorite live recordings, the Road Show Series, which is a bonanza for die hard fans.

However, Sonny Rollins was more than his music. All his life he was a political person, respect and appreciation were very important for him. In an interview with German author Christian Broecking he spoke of himself as a “planetarian“, which is one of the reasons why he released Global Warming (in 1998), a harsh criticism of the US government’s environmental policy. On 9/11/2001 his flat was evacuated, his saxophone was the only thing he took with him. Only a few days later he played a gig in Boston which was to be released as Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert.

Rollins dedicated his music and his life to the fight against injustice and ignorance, and he wanted to express this just by musical means. He believed that music could make a difference. He was a visionary. About his time on the bridge he told the Washington Post in 2011: “I used to blow my horn back at the boats when the boats would blow. All of that was great. I was in a place where nobody could see me. This was heaven.” 

Musically, things had become quiet around him in his final years. Now the last great icon of jazz’s golden age has passed away. The world is a poorer place without him.

Watch him with Don Cherry (tp), Henry Grimes (b) and Billy Higgins (dr) in Rome 1962:

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Miles Davis @ 100 - A Celebration Through Albums (1)

Miles Davis, born on May 26, 1926 would turn 100 today. The jazz world is rife with memorials of this centennial and since almost anyone who listens to this music has in some way been touched by Davis' music, we at the Free Jazz Blog thought we would pitch in. It is hardly necessary to introduce the iconic trumpeter - you likely own Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew, right? - and while the musical structures on those albums loosened and spawned entire genres themselves, Davis was somewhat ironically ambivalent in his feelings - if not rather dismissive - towards Free-Jazz overall. Oh well, life is complex. 

To join in the celebration, Free Jazz Blog collaborator Martin Schray proposed that we do what we like to do the most, write about recordings, chosen from Davis' sprawling discography. We did not set rules - no length, no time periods, overlap of albums was fine, just as long as the pieces reflected the writer's feelings towards the recordings. Today, we start off with Martin's reflections and will continue everyday with new impressions from our critics and a few close associates until there is simply no more to say!

- Paul Acquaro 

Miles Davis- Birth of the Cool (Capitol, 1957) 

In 1949 Capitol signed a contract with the up-and-coming trumpeter Miles Davis for a few singles, which he recorded with his nine-piece band that same and the following year. The first recordings were initially released on 78s, then eight tracks appeared for the first time as an album in 1953, on 10-inch vinyl. Four years later, Capitol released the sessions as an LP with eleven tracks. Even at that early stage of his career, one could already see what would define Miles Davis throughout his musical life: he was an atypical player, yet he possessed remarkable control over timing, dynamics, and emotional impact. The pieces gathered here are precise and focused; they swing with confidence and move between the immediacy of bebop and the sophistication of an Ellington band. Moreover, Davis was a brilliant bandleader who was already able to gather the best musicians around him (here and even more so later on). Birth of the Cool is characterized by the understated elegance of a band that played together perfectly, featuring Gerry Mulligan, Kai Winding, John Lewis, Lee Konitz, and Max Roach (to name just a few). Gil Evans served as arranger and the band’s éminence grise. Ultimately, this album also showcases Davis’s - sometimes underestimated- musical prowess. His mostly vibrato-free tone could be raw, yet also expressive and vulnerable. Just listen to “Jeru” and “Venus de Milo,” true musical masterpieces. 

Miles Davis- Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) 

In various rankings, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue are considered the best jazz albums of all time. And yet, especially if it comes to Kind of Blue, connoisseurs of harsher, freer music, don’t listen to this albums that often, because it allegedly has been played to death - just like “Yesterday” by the Beatles, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons“, Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”, or Keith Jarrett’s “Köln Concert”. 

But does that mean it has lost its quality over time? Not at all! As to Miles Davis, most hard bop players at the time played too much, too long, and too fast. His solution: modal playing instead of frantic chord progressions, mid-tempo, and plenty of space between the notes. He brought only a few sketches to the sessions, yet his choice of ensemble was a compositional masterpiece. 

 The band itself is perhaps the best jazz ensemble that has ever existed: Cannonball Adderley’s blues-soaked, relaxed, deep playing meets John Coltrane’s daring, modal runs; Bill Evans adds impressionistic touches; Paul Chambers’s bass and Jimmy Cobb’s drums are clean, lighthearted, and airy, forming a foundation against which the others have complete freedom. Davis’s trumpet holds the reins. It’s amazing how this sextet of giants swings. If you know “So What“, “Freddie Freeloader“ and “All Blues“ by heart, give “Blue in Green“ and “Flamenco Sketches“ a chance and listen closely. You’ll feel the magic in every note. 

 For the second time at the end of a decade, Davis shifted the course of music in a different direction. At the end of the next decade, he will also determine another change of course.

Miles Davis- The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions (Columbia, 1969) 

The next groundbreaking shift in direction, in the late 1960s, was In A Silent Way. While Columbia’s decision in the late 1990s to release the complete sessions for Davis’s most important albums may have been driven by commercial interests, for Miles’s fans it’s been a welcome opportunity to witness a work in progress. And nowhere is this more evident than on In A Silent Way. 

At the end of the Sixties Miles Davis was playing in half-empty clubs; soul, funk, and rock musicians were drawing the kind of audience he would have liked to have. For the In A Silent Way sessions between September 1968 and February 1969 he therefore wanted an electric bass and an electric piano. On The Complete Sessions you can literally feel the epochal change in the air. While the first track, “Mademoiselle Mabry,” still sounds very much like the old quintet, the change becomes more audible with every new musician. 

In addition to Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, Davis brought in Joe Zawinul as the third keyboardist. The core, now formed by three keyboards, and the addition of John McLaughlin as guitarist were the quantum leap that ushered in a new era. Davis wanted simple structures and hip sounds - nothing complex, and above all, no superfluous chords. The result, however, was not jazz-rock, but trippy psychedelic textures that also have an ambient quality. 

But Davis was also concerned with being at the cutting edge of the times, both in terms of electronic equipment and recording technology. The tried-and-true production techniques no longer made sense to him. Teo Macero played a central role as producer, cutting up the sessions at specific points and reassembling them. As a musical event and group process, what was released back then had never existed before. The fact that the record is nonetheless full of the spirit of spontaneous improvisation is one of the most astonishing events in recent music history. 

 A fun fact regarding the reception of this album is that nearly fifteen minutes of the LP version consist of exact repetitions, and that this went unnoticed and uncommented upon for decades.

Miles Davis- Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970) 

Six months after In A Silent Way, Miles Davis ultimately broke with the jazz traditionalists. Bitches Brew was even more uncompromising, more radical, more challenging. 

And it was my first Miles album. I bought it when I was 18; I needed it for a school presentation. When I played it (“Pharaoh’s Dance“, fading in somewhere in the middle and then fading out again), most of my classmates were confused. What was that? Jazz or rock or something else entirely? I didn’t understand Bitches Brew back then (and I’m not sure whether I do it today), but I found the sound fascinating. There are few albums I’ve struggled with as much - but it’s been worth it. 

Davis simply took what he started with In A Silent Way and cranked it up another two notches. As the recording sessions for Bitches Brew approached, he expanded his ensemble once more. Three drum kits, three Fender Rhodes, two bassists, and three percussionists - who infused his music with African and Indian influences - were tasked with blending jazz and rock. He also added Bennie Maupin’s bass clarinet to Wayne Shorter’s sax and John McLaughlin’s guitar. 

The musical motifs he had devised together with Wayne Shorter twitched like hummingbirds jolted by electricity. The staccato notes from his trumpet ricochet like shrapnels. The collective improvisations collapse like flash floods. Additionally, he led the ensemble like a conductor who has a rough idea of how the music should sound but had to trust his ensemble to make it happen. 

“If I heard something in the music that I thought could be expanded, I gave instructions,” Davis says in his biography. The music celebrates the creative process itself; it makes energy palpable. Producer Teo Macero hit the record button the moment Davis stepped into the studio - whenever an amorphous mass of over a dozen instruments coalesced into a collective identity that complemented, repelled, and attracted one another. “We didn’t talk much during the recording sessions,” Macero said. “After the sessions, I spent weeks in the studio, listening to the tapes and beginning to piece the material together.” The result is structured free improvisation, which allows plenty of room for individuality and often reaches absolute ecstasy, all of which is mercilessly condensed. 

An album you can listen to forever, one that never bores because it completely transcends boundaries. 

- Martin Schray

 

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Scenes from Jazz in E

By Paul Acquaro 

Last weekend was a long one in Germany and on which every year the Jazz in E festival takes place in Eberswalde, a small city about an hour by car north from Berlin. This was the 31st edition of the festival and over four nights, acts drawn from Berlin and beyond, played to an appreciative audience, each evening offering a balance of accessibility and adventure.

The event opened with guitarist Uwe Kropinski playing his unique and amply fretted instrument with a mix of flamenco flair and percussive panache. He was followed by a upbeat folk-inflected compositions of Vienna based Richard Koch's "Ray of Light" ensemble.

 

The second night was opened by "rant," the drum and guitar duo of Merle Bennett und Torsten Papenheim respectively. Followed by the highly syncopated Kind, a fantastic new quartet let by Essen based saxophonist and composer Jan Klare.

 

Friday offered a highlight of the festival in the form of the Berlin-based duo of Achim Kaufmann and guitarist Kalle Kalima. Not enough of the delicate intertwining of the two acoustic instruments is presented here in the video, but one can also check out their recording Ilmonique. They were followed by the kinetic and driving sounds of saxophonist Phillip Gropper's TAU, with Philip Zoubek on keys, Ludwig Wandinger on electronics and Felix Henkelhausen on bass.

On the last night of the festival, the relaxed guitar styling of Tobias Hoffmann and keyboardist Benjamin Schaefer opened the evening, followed by the frenetic rock of Els and the Bliss. Featuring the animated Els Vanderweyer on vibraphone and the bifurcated beats of the Bliss: Dirk Berger on guitar, Based Krajewski on drums and Beat Halberschmidt on the bass, the quartet closed the festival on a high note. 

Here is a final snippet, showing first the Koeln based guitarist painting a sonic canvass with some of Bill Frisell's brushes mixed-in with his own, followed by the Berliner's agitated art-rock.

 

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Keenan Ruffin and Stan Zenkov – The Mechanics of Getting Anywhere (Moon Villain Records, 2025)

 By Matty Bannond

Google can’t introduce you to Keenan Ruffin or Stan Zenkov. ChatGPT will guess their biographical details with trademark confidence and trademark lack of accuracy. These two improvisers operate beyond the reach of data-driven detectives and AI assistants. The only way of getting to know their artistic personalities is to listen to their music. There’s rich reward for that sonic study.

Ruffin is a guitarist and Zenkov plays reed instruments. Both perform frequently in Brooklyn. This four-track album, released in November 2025, captures a 45-minute session from October 2024. The protagonists pass moods and motifs around the studio, while Ruffin explores his pedals and Zenkov cycles through clarinets and saxophones. Two distinct identities emerge in sharp focus.

The prevailing character of the record is affable, welcoming and generous. Ruffin often constructs arpeggio-adjacent shapes like ladders for his listeners to climb, using extended effects to add warmth rather than discord or discomfort. In the early stages of the title track, he picks notes like water droplets. Later, he stifles his strings to produce a sound like a windchime.

Zenkov is more excitable and energetic but successfully avoids crowding out his colleague or overwhelming his audience. The shortest piece,“1000 Armed Massage”, has a tentative and peering-around-corners feel. It features a balladeering central section, where the bass clarinet’s plummy voice hums a melodic line as if embarrassed to have forgotten the lyrics.

The third track, “Turn the Wheel”, stands out for its spookier spirit. It’s the album’s most industrialized district. Something is rotating behind the initial exchanges. Zenkov plays more hectic material, while Ruffin deploys his pedals and switches with more pugnacity. It’s a nervy, threatening piece that suggests a cornered animal with titanium teeth bared and rusty claws unsheathed.

In today’s age of intrusive tech tools and aggressive data scraping, it’s impressive that Keenan Ruffin and Stan Zenkov have maintained such a low digital profile—but faintly regrettable too. These are two disarming and benevolent improvisers who share their unpretentious, open-hearted music with the world on The Mechanics of Getting Anywhere. Listeners get rich reward for time spent with this record. But don’t tell the robots.

The album is available on cassette and as a digital download here .

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Lonely Woman ... female artists and solo horn performances

By Stef Gijssels

On May 22nd, 1959, Ornette Coleman recorded "Lonely Woman", after 67 years still one of the most beautiful pieces ever composed, with its conflicting sentiments of sadness, darkness and hope. I am close to having collected 200 versions of it by various musicians and in a huge variety of styles, and happy to get to know even more. 

Today, the tune itself is not the subject, but the many albums on which female horn-players (sax and trumpet) give a solitary performance, also in a variety of styles. We received some of these albums, and this made me search for other recent work by female saxophonists. It's quite a list, and one worth mentioning. I guess that solo albums by male horn-players will be for another occasion. 

Amelia Ya'el - Voices 1 (Signbearer, 2026)

When I first heard this brief album, I was struck by its raw yet delicate polyphonic sound. Through circular breathing on the baritone saxophone, Amelia Ya’El manages to express tension and tenderness, rhythm and lyricism, all at once. What surprised me even more was discovering that this is not only her debut album, but also an entirely solo performance. Ya’El stresses that the music is fully acoustic and free of overdubs, underlining how important it is to her that the listener recognises the sheer virtuosity of her playing.

The four short compositions/improvisations each have their own specific character and recognisable sonic signature. "Mechanics of Anger", the first track is indeed brutal, direct, with no restraints, yet excellent. "Song of Peace" is built on a repetitive phrase, as the backbone for her improvisation, oscillating between joy and agony, and it's hard to believe that the total sound is just generated by one single instrument. 

“No Evil But Ignorance” is equally intricate in its solo voice, unfolding through broad, sweeping passages that at times seem almost to sing. Its sheer force even made me laugh in disbelief — the piece is absolutely ferocious.

“Beneath The Waves” closes the brief album with another recurring motif, its hypnotic repetition recalling Philip Glass. That pattern forms the backbone of the improvisation: there are moments of slight hesitation, perhaps, but the music continues to flow — singing, surging, and shouting.

Chicagoan Amelia Ya’El is unquestionably one of the standout newcomers of the year, and she deserves full credit for releasing a solo debut that is so pure and uncompromising. This album serves as her artistic calling card: physical, virtuosic, expressive, and deeply sensitive.

A real treat. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Caroline Kraabel - Translation Trials (Self-Released, 2025)

American saxophonist Caroline Kraabel found her artistic home in the UK’s free improvisation scene, where she has long been an active and influential presence, including as one of the leaders of the London Improvisers Orchestra. On this solo album, she offers twelve improvisations recorded at home during the summer of last year, capturing both the intimacy and spontaneity of her approach to improvised music.

As she writes in the liner notes: "As documents, these pieces may present what occurred with less lacking than is the case on many audio recordings of improvised music, because there was relatively little extra-sonic content to be missed: just me, alone in my body in a room with my saxophone." And that is precisely the impression that emerges: an artist 'playing' with her instrument in the truest sense — experimenting, exploring, delighting in discovery, allowing herself to be surprised, and enjoying the interaction. She sings through the horn, conjures multiphonics, and answers to nothing beyond the ideas in her mind, the brass in her hands, and the physical intensity of the encounter between the two.

In this sense "Translation Trials" is a very personal album, a translation of the artist's being into sound, it is pure, and a for it's a privilege to be witness of this process. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Adia Vanheerentals - Taking Place (Relative Pitch, 2025)

Adia Vanheerentals is a young Belgian saxophonist - although a little older than the picture on the cover - and one of the country's newcomers in improvised music. This is her sophomore solo album, after "Here Are 5 Reasons To Meditate" from 2024. Credit also to the "Relative Pitch" team, who invited her to release this album on their label, just like they asked several other female musicians to do the same, including the already reviewed and highly recommended "Holy Trinity" by clarinetist Laura Altman. 

Vanheerentals is active in various ensembles, including participating in some Fire! Orchestra shows earlier this year. She started playing saxophone at the age of 9, and switched later to jazz, having a degree from the conservatory of Antwerp. She says in an interview: "My real influence is Steve Lacy, from a very early age. I prefer to play the soprano saxophone myself, and Lacy opened up a whole new world for me, ranging from traditional jazz and classical to free jazz, and especially Thelonious Monk and modern jazz. I find Ingrid Laubrock impressive on both the soprano and tenor saxophones. She gave a masterclass at the conservatoire and writes original compositions in which she attempts to approach standard jazz in a different way" (with thanks to Jazz'Halo for the quote).

For this album she chose several external environments to act as the background for her improvisation: a chicken coop, a resonating silo, flowing water (rain?), cars on the street, ... It's fun to hear, especially when the chickens get all excited, as they should be. Her music has a striking directness, placing greater emphasis on lyricism and tone than on timbral experimentation or sonic exploration. In that sense, it feels very much in the tradition of Steve Lacy — marked by a clarity, purity, and understated simplicity that define her sound.

As a special gift, here is a video of the artist spending playing on Tram 10 in Antwerp at the beginning of last year. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Katie Porter - Conversation No. 1 - Collecting Rocks from the Places We've Been (Relative Pitch, 2025) 

Another album in the Relative Pitch series, is this album by bass clarinetist Katie Porter. In essence it's actually a duo album, in the sense that one bass clarinet line has been pre-recorded and serves as the background or foundation for the further expansion of her sound, which is exceptionally strong, and juxtaposing the high-pitched with the deep-toned, usually fluctuating around a tonal center, resulting in very long stretched notes, welcoming and slow, repetitive and well-paced. 

She describes her music as an open invitation for others to join, like a a sonic landscape in which other 'rocks' can be added. 

Her music has its own aesthetic, one that requires close listening, and that offers a unique, rewarding and hypnotic listening experience. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Berlinde Deman - Plank 9 (Relative Pitch, 2025) 

We've met Belgian tuba-player Berlinde Deman before, on Dave Douglas's "Secular Psalms" from 2022. 

On this album, her main instrument is the 'serpent', one that we only knew from French musician Michel Godard, and his collaboration with Lebanese oud-player Rabih Abou-Khalil. Deman started playing tuba at the age of eight, and is classically trained. In an interview with Jazz'Hallo she explains her fascination for the serpent: "My serpent sound is melancholic, full of character and very dark. The serpent naturally has a warm tone. People sometimes associate the sound with a womb or with deep roots. Melancholy is also a pitfall; it’s easy to evoke that feeling with the serpent. Three notes and everyone is moved. For me, the challenge lies in making the sound dangerous. I do that with effects pedals." (with thanks to Jazz'Hallo). 

Her music is melancholy, and not in a cheap way. Her sound is deep, often sustained with the use of pedals, giving a level of resonance or depth, further increased by electronic effects that multiply the voices, and add layers of sound. This is not jazz, often more ambient music, quietly moving waves of sound, sensitive and rich. My preference goes to those tracks on which the serpent has its simplest and original acoustic sound, as on the beginning of "Three Trees", which offers a higher level of authenticity and musicianship. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Camila Nebbia – Rastro O Vacío (Self-Released, 2025)

My search for female solo saxophone albums inevitably brought me to the Argentinian artist Camila Nebbia, who delivers seventeen mostly brief but vividly varied tenor explorations: sharp, agile, expressive, playful, direct, sensitive, brutal, blues-inflected, and consistently charged with energy and intensity.

Some of the longer pieces, such as “El color de un río desconocido” and “Algo que solía conocer que ya no puedo identificar o recordar,” are multi-layered and heavily post-produced, with overlapping saxophone lines unfolding into slow-moving sonic textures before descending into bursts of chaos and noise toward the album’s conclusion. As a result, the record seems to present two distinct identities, which somewhat undermines the coherence of the listening experience.

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Alexandra Grimal - Interspaces (Self-Released, 2025)

One of France's top saxophonists is without a doubt Alexandra Grimal, a musician with a strong personal sound and voice, whose albums we reviewed and appreciated before on this blog. 

This album is very short - a little longer than 14 minutes - and only available digitally. Interested readers can also check out the video of her performance in the art gallery where the exhibition took place. As a kind of joke at the entrance, there is a copy of Gustave Courbet's (in)famous painting "L'Origine Du Monde" (1966), on which the names of all famous painters of the previous century are presented with female first names. 

The music itself is quiet, intimate, fragile and sensitive. Her soprano cautiously thrills the air, touching it, sensing it, appreciating it, in the same mode as the paintings on the wall, light touches of colourful poetry in a white and empty space. 

Short, but excellent. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Anna Piosik - In The Absence of Gods (4DaRecord, 2026)

Anna Piosik is a Polish trumpeter, singer and ceramics artist living in Portugal. She is a member of the all female group Lantana, and also collaborated with Ernesto Rodrigues and with the Variable Geometry Orchestra. 

She explains the title of her first solo album: "Without really meaning to, I think it reflects my sadness about the state of the world today. It was during the recording sessions. João Madeira said something to me at one point that really stuck with me; he said: “Let it flow and play as if no one were listening”. It sounds like a cliché, but somehow I thought: “Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing all this time in Alfafar (where she lives in Portugal)”. Just me and my goats in the woods, in the absence of my “gods” — my idols, my musician friends and collaborators." 

She is her own self on this album, playing without an audience, except for the occasional dog or goat bells, or the orchestra of crickets on the last track, intimate and close, expressing her deepest feelings, stripped from all influences, preconceived notions, expectations and other distractions that create barriers between the self and the sound. 

Yet however personal and intimate, her heart belongs also to the entire world. "And then, when we were working on the album and it came to choosing a name, the title really resonated with the state of the world. As if we were living in times when nothing matters anymore — neither ethics nor morality." (with thanks to Jazz.pt)

The overall mood is undeniably melancholic and sad, yet she brings an authentic voice and a refreshing sound—shaped not by a pursuit of perfection of sound, but by a search for emotional depth, that can also offer moments of wonder and surprise, of pain and joy, of struggling and hope. 

We hope to hear much more from her. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Signe Emmeluth - Lonely Woman (Self-Released, 2025)

... and we end our list with Danish saxophonist Signe Emmuth, most appropriately giving a solo sax performance of "Lonely Woman" (with thanks to Jeff Sackmann for the tip!). She was recently reviewed by us for "With Love", "The Hyperboreal Trio", "Everything that shines, everything that hurts", "Banshee", "Bonanza of Doom", "Nonsense", and these were only released in the last few years. 

The single track can be listened to and downloaded from Bandcamp. 

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Booker Stardrum - Close-up On The Outside (We Jazz Records, 2026)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

First transitive property of the Free: if A plays with B and B plays with C, A will play with C. From which the second follows: if you liked A, you will like C. The empirical observation of the above, today starts from SML, a quintet composed of bassist Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu synth, Booker Stardrum drums and Gregory Uhlmann guitar. International Anthem's debut album, Small Medium Large, released in 2024, was recorded at ETA in L.A., a venue Jeff Parker used for his quartet, which included Butterss and Uhlmann, on “Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy”. Its pyrotechnical synthetic grooves, ranging from Miles's On the Corner or Get up with it infectious pimp jazz, the polyrhythms of Fela Kuti and the greasy funk of Parliament/Funkadelic, guaranteed free fall, joyful listening. From there, Booker Stardrum's new solo album (his fourth, following 2015's Dance And, 2018's Temporary Etc.; and 2021's Crater), released on We Jazz Records, is a short but lateral step. 

Who is Booker, besides being SML's drummer? His official bio describes him as a composer, drummer, and producer, involved in numerous impro/experimental and pop projects, film scores and sound design, through collaborations that include Lisel, Photay, Horse Lords, Wendy Eisenberg, Amirtha Kidambi, Ben Vida, Will Epstein, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Chris Williams, Patrick Shiroishi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, and Nels Cline. Our Man, supported by faithful collaborators Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Chris Williams, Lester St. Louis, Logan Hone and Michael Coleman, began mapping out the new album during a stint in the Catskill Mountains in 2022, sketching out recordings of insects and birds and homemade mallet instruments. 

So, a field recording album? Not exactly, since those are reworked through MIDI controllers, samples, and loops. An electronic music album, then? Not only that, acoustic sequences are interpolated into the electro textures, as if to maintain a solid connection (human first, rather than analog) with that farm where it all began, in the quiet of a late summer on the Catskills. Jon Hassell-esque ambient, perhaps? It's a fuel element of an engine that shifts down two gears and hits the gas before going too narcoleptic, just as the sonic iterations hark back to the supreme Necks, but when the synapses connect there, here's an immediate shift in direction. 

Regarding "Third Nature," the album's fourth track, Booker's words are a sort of programmatic declaration for the entire project: "It gets its name from a concept in social ecology, that humans are part of nature even though there have been different philosophies that separate humans from nature. First nature is the natural world, second nature is human development and social ecologists remind us that we are of nature, and then the question is, how can we do a better job, exist, be of nature, and affect nature in a cohabitual way?" Obviously the theme is gigantic and of capital importance, and unfortunately, this album, nor any other album, can’t provide us with the answers. But it is precisely in its minimalism that Close-up On The Outside finds its raison d'être, like those small mechanical devices made of gears and springs that in themselves have no specific function but that you would remain enchanted by looking at for an indefinite time. Its compositions, carved from the dense layering of instruments and manipulated samples with a pantonal harmonic sense and an intuitive approach to rhythm, won't change the music's axis of rotation by a single degree (how many albums do that..?), but they will allow you to spend 33 minutes of irresistible bliss. To play with the oxymoron: a dispensable, necessary listening. 

 

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Gunther Hampel (1937 -2026)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Kenneth Blanchard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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DoYeon Kim - Wellspring (TAO Forms, 2026)

 

By Sammy Stein 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Eyal Hareuveni

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

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

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

Full playlist here.

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