Secret People - Secret People (Out of Your Head Records, 2022)

By Lee Rice Epstein

The Brooklyn and Richmond-based Out of Your Head Records, founded by bassist Adam Hopkins in 2018, has quickly become something of a playground for like-minded, polymath experimentalists. Altoist Nathaniel Morgan, guitarist Dustin Carlson, and drummer Kate Gentile appeared on record together for Carlson’s OOYH debut, Air Ceremony. That one featured a lush septet, and Secret People finds them contracting into a sparkling trio.

Similar to Dan Rosenboom, Jake Vossler, and Tina Taymond’s Trio Subliminal, there is a real collaborative drive behind Secret People’s music: unlike a de facto democratic structure—where a single dominant leader occasionally gives voice to fellow group members—Morgan, Carlson, and Gentile seem to operate on fully equal footing. Each track bears strong marks of the players’ signature sounds: Gentile ties threads of jazz, funk, and rockabilly into addictive polyrhythms, Carlson punctuating lyrical Frisell-like sections with shades of No Wave and shoegaze, and Morgan playing a series of astonishingly clear, jumpy, unbroken lines.

Morgan’s alto tears the roof off on the opening to “Peephole,” alternately dueling and syncing with Carlson, as Gentile rides a cymbal-heavy intro, soon skittering off into a spacious group improvisation. On the surface there’s nothing to necessarily suggest Art Ensemble of Chicago or fusion trios like Tony Williams Lifetime, but the searing groove on “legitimate perseverance,” the laid-back blues of “U,” and pointillist, percussive interlude on “swamp gaze” all hint at some of Secret People’s bedfellows.

If there’s any secret sauce to be found here, it’s arguably Morgan in the mixer’s chair. He previously mixed and mastered a number of Free Jazz Blog favorites, including the Webber/Morris Big Band’s Both Are True, Devin Gray’s RelativE ResonancE, and both Anna Webber’s Clockwise and Idiom (he also played on that album’s second half). Morgan’s albums have a typically deep depth of sound, instruments sound bright and lively. Carlson’s guitar has plenty of edge and bite, and there’s ample space for Gentile’s percussion and vibraphone to echo and fade. Much like Webber’s two Pi albums, nothing gets lost, and not a moment is wasted: Secret People is a nonstop series of addictive tunes and jaw-droppingly impressive solos. Highly recommended for summer days and summer nights, rooftop barbeques and beach bonfires, and all points in between.

Available on Bandcamp

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Peter Brötzmann / Fred Van Hove / Han Bennink: Jazz in der Kammer Nr. 71 (Trost, 2022)

By Martin Schray

In 1971, the Kammerspiele of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin-Mitte were located in what was then East Berlin, not far from the Berliner Ensemble, Bertolt Brecht’s theater, and only a few minutes away from the Friedrichstraße border crossing, the checkpoint for incoming visitors from the West but the final stop for GDR citizens, which is why the place was also called the palace of tears. The overall atmosphere in the city at that time can be described as heated, the political mood between the two German states was tense. However, those were also musically raucous times. In 1968, Wuppertal saxophonist and clarinetist Peter Brötzmann formed a trio with Antwerp pianist Fred Van Hove and Dutch percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink, marking the transition from the power phase of European improvised jazz of the larger formations (e.g. his Machine Gun octet) to more sophisticated but still energetic playing in smaller lineups. The trio’s concert in East Berlin was Brötzmann’s first “official“ concert in the GDR (there had been a few unofficial encounters before) and the audience vibrated with excitement and anticipation. Now, on the basis of this sound document, one can listen to how the three musicians made the air burn.

Jazz in der Kammer No. 71 is a contemporary document of this second initial spark in European free jazz. Conventional “jazz rules“ were still broken, but especially sound was redefined in the process. Brötzmann, Van Hove and Bennink moved away from the boisterous outcries of early European free jazz and discovered the quiet, delicate sides of their instruments. They gave free rein to their ideas, tamed only by few agreements: spontaneous music, linked with humorous interludes and excessive atonality. The variety and density, structure, fine dynamics and musical microcosms of this music are still surprising - even after more than 50 years. A rich, musical world unfolds that has not taken on any patina.

For Jazz in the Chamber no. 71 offers everything that one has come to love on the nine albums released so far by this trio (if you count the four with trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff as well): The clash of different creative means, Peter Brötzmann’s expressive spectrum from primal screams to the most delicate, softest breaths, as well as his drones on the baritone saxophone reminiscent of foghorns; Han Bennink’s instrumental variety through the use of his home made junk (exotic drums and rattles and unconventional instruments); but especially Fred Van Howe’s energetic, ultra-fast trills, his oddballness, the folk songs he likes to intersperse, and his Taylor-like cascades, which, when combined with Bennink’s attacks on cymbals and snare, make one think of barrages. Brötzmann himself is rather restrained by his standards, which brings Van Hove more to the fore compared to other recordings, since in the past he often threatened to be drowned in the saxophonist’s and Bennink’s storm of steel. As a result, the basically highly condensed music gains more space, humor loosens the tension, and unusual techniques and stylistic elements are integrated into the musical events in an almost collage-like manner.

These live recordings are already one of the finest reissues in 2022 jazz (along with Albert Ayler’s Revelations - The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recording and Charles Mingus’s The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's). This band’s music is so radically democratic, technically sophisticated and musically pleasurable that after listening to the album you want to start over again and again. The striving for openness, contrast and structural clarity is also evident in the fact that there is plenty of room for solos and duets - also to Van Hove’s advantage. The musicians, for all their lack of agreement, have such a sense of cohesion, such a frenzy of quotation, that it seems the music is being put through the meat grinder of their imagination. The repertoire of sounds and techniques, the density and pace of development of the events and the wit of this music have no equal to this day.

Jazz in der Kammer Nr. 71 is available on double vinyl, CD and as a download.

You can listen to “Schwarzspecht“ and order the album here:

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I AM (Isaiah Collier & Michael Shekwoaga Ode) - BEYOND (Division 81, 2022)

By Nick Metzger

I AM BEYOND is another must-listen from Isaiah Collier and Michael Shekwoaga Ode, who had me completely gobsmacked last year on “ Cosmic Transitions ” with Mike King and Jeremiah Hunt. The duo recorded these platters at Chicago Recording Company, again in collaboration with producer Sonny Daze, and again the results absolutely smoke (h/t rod j). It’s an exceptionally tasty manifestation of spontaneous musicality, whetted chops, and good ol’ fashion ecstatic abandon.

The Bandcamp info notes that one of their goals was to revisit some ideas from an exchange during “Mercury’s Retrograde” from “Cosmic Transitions” and to explore their spiritual consciousnesses more deeply through sound. And to these ears it sounds like that’s what they’ve managed here: two young, crazy talented musicians channeling urgent and soulful music. Daze selectively highlights portions of the album with echo and reverb, working to enhance the galactic sentiments by spilling over boundaries and dissolving lines, resulting in some wildly psychedelic phantasms at the just the right moments. The sax-drums format has been fertile ground for some great free jazz albums and I count this among the best I’ve heard in the last decade. Really just excellent music all around. Collier and Ode dial in the sweet spot between melody and bedlam then go to work with an eagerness and passion that makes it all wholly convincing.

It begins with an extended, ambient introduction subtitled “Take Me Beyond”. Daze invited the poet and sound healer Jimmy Chan into the studio for an initiation, or perhaps invocation is the right word. Ceremonial sounds - shakers and singing bowls, gongs and world instruments - envelope Chan’s croaks and growls. On “Suns of Mercury (Storms of Revelations)” Collier paints in broad, reedy strokes while Ode pushes the intensity with his wild, albeit hyper-controlled grace. It’s a sizzling wind-up of jagged shrapnel that directly counters the billowing haze of the introduction, serving as a right cross after the left lead, softening the listener up for what’s next.

Melody seeps in on the (initially) understated theme for “Confessions of the Heart'', a piece that gets wilder as it progresses. When the duo really gets it going - acknowledging the production - they let no light pass. This density eventually diminishes and the first quivering notes of “Bend the Universe (Trust With All Your Heart)” are let loose. The tendrils contort into intense undulations of glissando and heavy handed percussion that the duo leave unresolved, building tension.

On “The Vessel Speaks” all the momentum built up over the preceding tracks finally takes the roof off and the duo detonate in joyous musical invention. It begins with an illuminating riff that leads the listener on to further golden chambers of rapturous squall before violently collapsing into silence. From this silence comes the skronking split tones that initiate “Omniscient (Mycelium)”, maybe the most buoyant cut herein. When Ode’s drums roll up under Collier’s bouncing vamp it’s just perfect, and I could honestly listen to these two all day. The album closes to the bugle-like calls of “Hymn: Love Beyond Compare” which distend into contemplative tangles of melody snaking among a rough fauna of percussion then finally coagulating in an exigent coda - resolution.

I’ll note that the double LP sold out shortly after the pre-order began, but as with “Cosmic Transitions” I would speculate that a second pressing may be necessary to satiate the demand. It’s also worth noting that “Cosmic” was vinyl-only initially but is now also available on compact disc as well, so to lovers of physical media I would advise patience and perhaps a slight vigilance. In the meantime I AM BEYOND is available digitally through Bandcamp. While you’re there grab “ Lift Every Voice” (if you haven’t already), a digital single released in February which was recorded during the same sessions at Van Gelder that produced “Cosmic” and is a stunner in-and-of-itself.

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Stefan Schönegg - Enso: Strukturen (impakt Records, 2021)

By Ron Coulter

Enso: Strukturen is a lovely, contemplative, 10-track release of compositions from the German, composer, improviser, and double bassist, Stefan Schönegg. It was released on the Cologne-based label that he runs, impakt Records, on November 19, 2021.

His ensemble, Enso, featured on this album consists of: Michael Thieke, clarinet; Sandra Weiss, bassoon; Nathan Bontrager, cello; Stefan Schönegg, double bass; and Etienne Nillesen, extended snare drum. Schönegg describes this variable-personnel group as dealing “with quiet intensities in between free improvisation and composition…” and it is further described on Schönegg’s website as:

For his ensembles entitled Enso, Schönegg writes contemporary chamber music for different instrumentations. Since launching the project back in 2016 he has embraced minimal materials for the group, allowing for patient exploration of tone colors and melodic gestures, blurring the line between improvisation and composition.

These are accurate descriptions. Strukturen tanslates to structures, and the first six tracks of the album are titled 'Struktur I' through 'Struktur VI.' These six tracks have an obvious compositional element (i.e. structure, or perhaps more accurately, form) to them that manifests as durational and pitch controls of some nature; this gives the tracks a sense of coherence/focus and forward motion in their existence. On these six tracks, the group has a cohesive sound, like that of a singular pipe organ or accordion, billowing out subtle phrases with timbre variations creeping in at the edges.

The final four tracks, titled 'Reflexion I' through 'Reflexion IV,' present with less obvious structure to the listener and less focus than the six 'Struktur' tracks. These final four tracks appear to lean more heavily on improvisation than composition, and they have an unsure, tentative quality about them, generally speaking.

Overall the album clocks in around 46 minutes and contains music of subtlety and patience, with performers that are very attentive to sound and its detail and its context. Curious listeners are encouraged to seek out other releases from Schönegg’s various Enso groups, as they will find a wide range of expression and differentiation between iterations of the group. Enso: Strukturen is available as digital download and as a limited edition 12” vinyl LP.

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Hyper.Object - Inter.Independence (Phonogram Unit, 2022) - Portuguese electronics III

By Stef Gijssels

After "Má Estrela" and "Mata Mata", this album with electronics is without a doubt the most jazzy in the series, even to the extent that at times it's hard to even discern the electronics. 

The band consists of Rodrigo Pinheiro on piano, João Almeida on trumpet, Carlos Santos on electronics, Hernâni Faustino on double bass, and João Valinho on drums. Pinheiro and Faustino and two thirds of the brilliant RED Trio, and Almeida and Valinho have been part of several reviews on our blog in various ensembles, and Carlos Santos got a special post last year for his collaboration with the Creative Sources label. To hear them all together here, and in great shape, is a real treat. 

The music is freely improvised during the scarce moments when lockdown was lifted last year. The title "Inter.Independence" refers to the performing concept of the band, "that all musicians have complete freedom to improvise and to choose what to play, there should be an active focus for each one to develop their ideas individually and to not immediately react or engage in direct dialog with the other musicians on the group. What was being experimented was the creation of several individual and independent layers that would interact organically, so that the tension would arise by the textures and by the expected and unexpected interactions created between these different layers that each musician was taking care of".
This being said, the music still appears to be very cohesive despite the almost absolute freedom of each musician, with lots of respect and open space to expand their own ideas. 

This is without a doubt one of the best albums I've heard this year. The quality of the playing is excellent, the sense of surprise and joy makes the attentive listener anticipate the unpredictable evolution of their 'in.coherent' narratives. The instrumental wizzardry is combined with smart musical ideas and deep emotional expressivity. Whether it's the quality of the musicians or the value of their concept, their music has a wonderful freshness from beginning to end. 

Don't miss it.

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Scolari - Mata Mata (Favela Discos, 2021) - Portuguese electronics II

By Stef Gijssels

For this album, Portuguese trumpeter Luis Vicente is in the company of António M. Silva on synths, and Vitor B. Pereira on electronics. 

This the ensemble's second recording, after one side of a cassette on the Faux Amis label, which I have not heard unfortunately. António M. Silva and Pereira are also performers on Bernardo Álvares' "&Fantasmas", released in 2019 by the same label, a minimalist dark drone composition for jazz and electronics ensemble. 

The liner notes on this album make reference to Jon Hassell, "gone through a goth phase and set up a studio in the garage of an abandoned mall", but this falls short of describing the music. On this album, Silva, Pereira and Vicente fully co-create an electronic drone-like soundscape, not as the backdrop for the trumpet, but as a composition in its own right.  Even if the context is different and darker than the settings we have heard Vicente play in during the last years, his approach to the instrument and to music remains intact. Like the synth and the electronics, the trumpet participates in a musically meaningful dialogue, creating novel sound experiences that stay away from the cheap sentiment that we hear on so many "nu jazz" trumpet albums. 

Not for purists, but lots to enjoy despite the joyless atmosphere. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Pedro Alves Sousa - Má Estrela (Shhpuma Records, 2022) - Portuguese electronics I

By Stef Gijssels

Our "Doom Jazz" label on the topic list of our blog is not the most crowded, but we can add this one that pushes the word jazz to the darkest corners of the musical universe. Portuguese tenor saxophonist Pedro Alves Sousa invites us to an electronic journey with Simão Simões and Bruno Silva on electronics, Miguel Abras on electric bass, and Gabriel Ferrandini on drums & electronics. 

The result is a masterpiece of musical collage, repetitions, overdubs, distorted sounds, multi-layered and dark, but at the same time compelling, infectious and full of emotional power. I am usually very suspicious and often quite averse even of the use of electronics in jazz, but here it works to perfection. The colliding sounds create a sonic wall over which Sousa's horn weaves repetitive wails, while the bass and the drums underpin the bizarre sound with emphatic bursts of power and energy, or quieten the whole movement down to eery moments of anticipation. Sousa's sax is further 'amplified via guitar and bass amplifiers and an effects pedalboard', we read in the liner notes, ambient sounds are introduced, human voices, snippets of songs, drones are repeated, and the bass and drums keep the pace going, with the raw sax sounding full of despair, alternated by an unexpected jubilating phrase. 

The music crackles, sputters, sizzles, rumbles, crashes, throbs, thumps, thuds, clunks, roars, clonks, drips, bursts and explodes. 

The atmosphere is unreal, relentless and magisterial. The effect is far beyond the familiar and incredibly coherent, as if the whole piece was conceived as a suite. Even the strange shifting melody of the title song create an eery intro to the deep industrial sound of distorted and mangled shreds of music. Despite the unfamiliar and almost hostile setting - it is a journey to an 'unlucky star' after all - the music is captivating from beginning to end. 

Purists will not like this, but again I can only invite them to give it a try, to go for the incredible sonic experience that Pedro Alves Sousa and his band have in store for us. 

The liner notes end with the cryptic "Even inside the shadows you can find hope", so not entirely doom. 

Enjoy!

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Ensemble Nikel - Klaus Lang: Bright Darkness (Self Released, 2022)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Ensemble Nikel is a Bern-based alternative chamber quartet featuring American percussionist Brian Archinal, Israeli electric guitarist Yaron Deutsch, Swiss keyboards player Antoine Françoise and German sax player Patrick Stadler. Nickel was founded in 2006 as a music lab “for new musical ideas is not based on aesthetic prejudice or dichotomies of musical genres but on passion and devotion to making and performing great music”, and its repertoire is entirely based on music written for the quartet by both established and up-and-coming composers.

Austrian contemporary composer, organ player and improviser Klaus Lang collaborated before with experimental, contemporary ensembles like the Austrian-German quartet Polwechsel and Klangforum Wien. Lang is famous for his saying that music is “is time that has become audible”, and insists that music is “not a means to convey extramusical contents, such as emotions, philosophical or religious ideas, political propaganda, advertisement etc.“, as well as for his focus on elusive, illusory textures. Bright Darkness, with Lang’s motto: "Listening with clogged ears and seeing with closed eyes” cements his unique compositional approach.

Lang claims that we are all ”impeded in realizing our sensory perception by a learned mechanism of our mind. It’s not uncommon that our preconceived expectations, our prejudices, are exactly the opposite of what we sensorial experience. If we obviate all noises, it gets louder, if we close our eyes, it gets light. We might question what we really see when we close our eyes in order to ‘see nothing’, and what even is our idea of ‘seeing nothing’ and ‘darkness’? The same applies to movement, too. Sometimes we can’t tell whether an object is moving or not. Is it a chord we’re listening to, or a line? A layer or a process? Or is it just our mind moving? Where can we find the answers to these questions?"

Bright Darkness was commissioned from Lang in 2017 and was recorded in Bern in October 2020 after being performed several times before by Nikel, often performing outdoors in parallel to sundown. This 61-minute composition creates an elusive notion about time or the way the sounds move - or simply float - and often it suggests that it barely moves forward or backward at all, creating delicate and minimalist, resonating layers and patterns that keep echoing in each other until all are lost in hypnotic, vibrating statis. Clearly, this composition offers a synesthesia impression of a “temporal phenomenon of audible time”. But if I may add, this notion of frozen time has also moral and humane implications. This elusive ambiance not only demands us to sharpen our aural attention but asks to try and find answers to what we experience and forces us out of our numbing comfort zones.

Buy here: https://nikel.bandcamp.com/album/klaus-lang-bright-darkness

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Dave Gisler Trio with jaimie branch and David Murray - See You Out There (Intakt Records, 2022)

By Kenneth Blanchard

Dave Gisler: Guitar
Raffaele Bossard: Bass
Lionel Friedli: Drums
jaimie branch: Trumpet
David Murray: Tenor Saxophone

This is one of my favorite kinds of albums. It is a prism splitting the jazz spectrum from the middle to one end. From younger X-persons and a seasoned superhero, we get music that would fit comfortably on an acid rock playlist, sandwiched between spooky art house soundtracks and genuine blues ballads. Sometimes we get more than one of those in the same cut. Gisler can be subtle and romantic. He can also play with so much electromagnetic energy it’s a wonder he doesn’t black out whole city blocks.

The trio, consisting of Gisler, Bossard and Friedli, has at least two previous albums: Rabbits On the Run (2018), and Zurich Concert (2020). Both are available from Bandcamp. Trumpet virtuoso jaimie branch (I gather from documentation that branch prefers her name in small letters) joined the trio here and on the 2020 album. I recommend both of the Gisler Trio’s previous recordings. So much for the X-gang.

Then there is the aforementioned superhero. I cannot exaggerate Murray’s influence on me as a jazz fan. More than anyone else, he drew me out of more traditional hard bop toward a whole new world of composition.

Meanwhile, if you don’t know Murray, do yourself a favor, listen to Ming, The Hill, and I Want to Talk About You.

#1 “Bastards On the Run” is very high energy romp with everyone playing amped sound and fury all at once all the way through. #2 “Can you hear me” start with a slower, more romantic duet between Gisler and branch, over a rapid, almost solid ribbon of drum and bass. A subtle friction is provided (I think) by Murray’s horn. Very interesting blend of instruments.

The title cut, #3, is pure haunted house, the kind of thing that might remind you of Albert Ayler, but dialed five notches toward the graveyard. #4 “The Vision” has playing the kind of trumpet that always reminds me of walking alone, down a wet Chicago street, round midnight. Gisler brings up the lights a bit. #6 “Medical Emergency” is, and it does seem to be possible, electrified New Orleans. Murray’s playing is brilliant on this one.

We change gears and altitude with #7 “What Goes Up.” Think of Frankenstein in a hot rod on an alpine highway.

#8 “High as a Kite” is the most dreamy, almost ethereal, cut. I may be exaggerating the spookiness in some of these cuts but here, there is literally something going bump in the night or at least in the right channel.

We get a nice taste of drum and bass in #9 “Get a Döner,” until the trumpet and guitar inevitably overwhelm them. I would have liked a little more of that percussive dialogue.

#10 “Better Don’t Fuck with a Drunken Sailor” gets us back on Bourbon Street. It is such a beautiful piece of romance, allowing Murray to fully extend his command of reed and heart. Gisler and branch in turn reply to Murray’s solo. Oh my. If someone asked me to recommend one cut that represents the album, I would be at a loss. This is whole or nothing. The last cut, however, is the one that followed me home.

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Two from Relative Pitch

Kaluza/Roder – Am Frankfurter Tor (Relative Pitch, 2022)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Relative Pitch has been a mainstay in my personal list of independent labels that constantly push the envelope. I have written before about it but it’s never an overstatement to mention who is doing some important work in a musical practice, like improvisation, still marginalized by the music industry.

Another key factor for my fondness towards the label is that is continues to present small scale music, which is always a preference for my personal tastes. Don’t get me wrong, music is just music, it doesn’t matter if it produced by one or forty one people. But, to put it simply, I’m really drawn by the minimalism of a couple of people getting together to play and interact.

This is exactly the case with the duo of Anna Kaluza on alto saxophone and Jan Roder on double bass. Their "get together" attitude produces a sublime recording that reminds the laid back atmosphere of past seminal duos from the free improvisational canon. Most of the short tracks feel like snippets, exercises for edgy melodic lines, timbre and exchange of ideas. Roder’s double bass is in no way just keeping the rhythm. His syncopated plucking follows Kaluza’s sax every step on the way.

In the longer tracks, they both seem to feel more relaxed to explore their ideas, while the notion of heading towards all directions at once is present in all of them. Am Frankfurter Tor deserves a lot of listening, so watch out because it demands your attention.

Masked Pickle – 7 (Relative Pitch, 2022)

The trio of Masked Pickle (Olivia Scemama on bass, Tom Malmendier on the drums and Clara Well on any kind of vocals) is a lot more edgy, plus it confirms that the presence of women improvisers on the label’s catalogue is much higher than the average. A fact that shouldn’t pass unnoticed as well.

The instrumentation, by itself, makes this CD a “weird” listen. I really enjoy when at a first glance on a recording (be it a physical object or a digital one) I’m totally clueless on what I’m about to listen. Masked Pickle fall exactly on this category. The frustrated, funny and aggressive vocalizations of Well form the basis of a noisy improvisation that stands proudly on the margins of anything that could be called as jazz based music. After repeated listening I believe it’s more accurate to comment that is thrives just outside of them…

The electricity of Scemama’s bass gives 7 a rock edginess that deliberately deconstructs any easy path for interpretations about this recordings. The most obvious “jazz” element of 7 is Malmendier’s polyrhythmic drumming, but do not take this for a fact. He is constantly provoking the others to leave any kind well trodden path and run into the wilderness.

Malmendier’s choice is followed (or he follows her) by Well’s vocals. Well (a first time listen for me) takes no shortcuts in presenting her vocals as gutsy and witty as possible. I really loved how she blends with the other two, making her voice the third noisy instrument of the recording, while standing out as angry as possible.

No star ratings needed here dear reader, this is one of the best recordings for 2022 and probably will stay on my list until the end of the year.

@koultouranafigo

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