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The Outskirts - Dave Rempis (ts, as), Ingebrigt HÃ¥ker Flaten (b), Frank Rosaly (dr)

Schorndorf, Manufaktur, March 2025

Jörg Hochapfel (p), John Hughes (b), Björn Lücker (d) - Play MONK

Faktor! Hamburg. January, 2025

Sifter: Jeremy Viner (s), Kate Gentile (d), Marc Ducret (g)

KM28. Berlin. January, 2025

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Isaiah Collier & Tim Regis - Live in the Listening Room (Vinyl Factory, 2025)

By Nick Metzger

Here we have a new vinyl-only EP from saxophonist Isaiah Collier with drummer Tim Regis and producer Sonny Daze in collaboration with the Vinyl Factory. The session was recorded direct to tape in January of this year at Devon Turnbulls’s (OJAS) Hi-Fi Listening Room Dream No. 1 at 180 studios in London. The duo met Turnbull through Daze circa 2021, setting off a series of concerts in Turnbull’s listening rooms in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Chelsie, and finally London, where this session was recorded. Collier and Regis first met up in 2020 during practice sessions in NYC during the pandemic and have developed a fantastic rapport in the time since - and it shows on this scorcher. Collier has been releasing some incredible music over the past 5 years both with his quartet the Chosen Few and with a diverse set of players and projects both young and old. In Regis he finds an incredible collaborator who speaks the same language and works with the same energy. You can probably consider this a trio recording with Sonny Daze playing Upsetter on the mixing board - his accents leave a psychedelic stamp, elevating the recording beyond that of a simple sax-drums duo and helping to achieve sounds and textures not available with a more limited palette.

The album is split into 3 pieces across 2 sides and the duo does a great job of keeping things moving along for the entirety. I could listen to Collier solo all day long. He has an effortless musicality and is great at throwing in little hits of melody amongst the skronk - it absolutely spills out of him and is impressive to see live. Tim Regis is a brilliant percussionist who I really look forward to hearing more from, this being my introduction to his work. He lays down a very busy, propulsive sound - heavy on the kick drum which is how I like it - but more than that he has a tremendous sense of swing that maintains a sense of form, during even his most abstract passages. Add to all of this the interspersed sonic manipulations of Daze, provisioning octave effects and swirling Pollock-esque lashings of Echoplex feedback that multiply the sonic density. He applies what sounds like an MXR Blue Box to Collier’s horn on the lead-in of the second track “2nd Genesis” which may be a first, at least outside of Borbetomagus, and it’s pretty effective for building tension. On the final track it sounds like they use live looping in conjunction with the octave effect, making it sound like a big band is playing the riff, that kick drum just absolutely walloping on the last track. For all the swirling psychedelia and experimentalism throughout, the album is relatively concise, wrapping in the span of 26 minutes. An excellent EP of OUT! spiritual jazz.

This album, along with The Ancients bookend Collier’s year - one with two of the old masters, and one with a dynamic newcomer - and that is the music in a nutshell. Always looking for inspiration from the past, yet continually pushing forward into the future. This one is pretty special, not to be missed!

Out September 24th and limited to 500 copies from The Vinyl Factory :

https://www.thevinylfactory.com/product/isaiah-collier-tim-regis-live-in-devon-turnbulls-listening-room

Monday, September 22, 2025

Bertrand Denzler & Frantz Loriot - Musique Improvisée et Questions Politiques (Bruit Edition, 2025)


By Stef Gijssels

In this little book, two avant-garde musicians, French-Swiss saxophonist Betrand Denzler and French-Japanese violinist Frantz Loriot discuss the link between improvised music and politics. Their approach is a long dialogue between two intellectuals. Even if Loriot asks the questions to Denzler, he also comes with a lot of ideas and suggestions to which the other can react and comment. The responses are often long, and clearly the result of a written text, with sources and references. 

Obviously, the key question is whether improvised music is political in nature or addressing political questions. In the history of improvised music many artists have actually addressed political questions, maybe even more than in other genres, yet this is not really the topic here. The question is about whether breaking down musical boundaries, ideological and cultural, whether relinquishing a pre-programmed structure, is a political statement. I'll translate some passages of interest, with the original text below. It gives you an idea of the kind of discussion both men have over the full length of 100 pages. 

"‘When you practise this music, you realise that being concerned solely with the process, tending towards ’without preconception‘, ideally implies that ’the music is produced solely by the relationships that are established, on the spot and throughout the piece, both between the sounds and between those who generate them", to quote what we wrote in the foreword to The Practice of Musical lmprovisation'. Now, despite the gap between music and politics, these relationships do raise questions about equality and freedom, which you say are ‘important ideas’ in anarchism. In fact, it seems to me that improvisers, because they have the possibility of doing so, establish from the outset something that evokes a ‘situation of anarchy’, by implicitly positing the freedom and equality of everyone as principles and by asserting without saying so that there are neither rulers nor ruled, neither representatives nor represented, neither God nor State and so on. So it would seem that improvising musicians are actually prepared to play the game of equality and freedom to see what happens. Rather than trying to understand the link between improvised music and anarchism [a claimed anarchism], I therefore feel that it is more effective to examine the practice of improvised music by seeing it as an attempt to establish a (musical) ‘situation of anarchy’ each time, even when the musicians present don't talk about it or think about it in these terms" (p. 35-36).

Luckily, and interestingly they also integrate the importance of listening, at least for the musicians to perform in public.  

"We're self-proclaimed musicians [without any further details about our status and without worrying about whether we're going to make any money], which doesn't seem to me to be completely indefensible. We just want to make music and we want to make it ‘in public’. Because even if we are aware of the issues mentioned above, we know that the presence of flesh-and-blood listeners and the codified ritual of the concert and the utopia it evokes change the music, and that, for good and bad reasons - some of which remain mysterious - these listeners make the music more intense. The concert is open to criticism, and it would be easy to shoot it down. But thanks to this institution, we have experienced some powerful moments, both as listeners and as musicians. The concert allows us not to isolate ourselves, to shut ourselves in, to barricade ourselves, to self-segregate, to separate ourselves completely, to circulate ideas and sounds, to have experiences, and it changes our music". (p. 94)

Interestingly, and that is my personal opinion, what they fail to see in all this is the actual experience of the listener, who is forced by this music to drop his or her guard, to have an open mind and open ears, to welcome the unexpected, the undefined, and welcome novelty, even if some aspects and sounds may appear harsh or strange. It is the listener too, who has to drop pre-conceived notions and the act of open listening also changes something in the mind and hopefully also the heart of the audience. 

It's interesting to have this kind of questions about the music we like, and I applaud both authors for the nature and depth of their questions, their proposals for answers, while at the same time being humble enough to not to proclaim anything with certainty or in absolute terms. This short review and excerpts do not do full credit to the conversation, so I can only recommend readers who speak French to give it a try. 

The book can be ordered here


Original excerpts:  

"Lorsque l'on pratique cette musique, on s'aperçoit que le fait de se préoccuper uniquement du processus en tendant vers le «sans préconception » implique dans l'idéal que « la musique est produite par les seules re­lations qui s'établissent, sur-le-champ et tout au long de la pièce, aussi bien entre les sons qu'entre ceux qui les génèrent », pour reprendre ce que nous ecri­vions dans l'avant-propos de The Practice of Musical lmprovisation'. Or, malgré l'écart entre la musique et la politique, ces relations posent éffectivement des questions concernant l'égalité et la liberté, dont tu dis que ce sont des« idées importantes » de l'anarchisme. En fait, il me semble que les improvisateurs, car ils en ont la possibilité, établissent d'emblée quelque chose qui évoque une « situation d'anarchie », en posant implicitement la liberté et l'égalité de toutes, de tous, de chacune et de chacun, comme des principes et en affirmant sans le dire qu'il n'y a ni gouvernants ni gouvernés, ni représentants ni représentés, ni dieu ni Etat et ainsi de suite. II semblerait donc que les mu­siciens improvisateurs soient effectivement prets a jouer le jeu de l'égalité et de la liberté pour voir ce qu'il advient. Plutôt que d'éssayer de comprendre le lien entre musique improvisee et anarchisme [un anarchisme revendiqué}, j'ai donc le sentiment qu'il est plus éfficace d'examiner la pratique de la musique improvisée en la considérant comme une tentative pour établir à chaque fois une "situation d'anarchie" (musicale), même lorsque les musiciens présents n'en parlent pas ou n'y pensent pas en ces termes" (p. 35-36)

"Nous nous autopro­clamons musiciens [sans plus de précisions sur notre statut et sans nous préoccuper de savoir si nous allons gagner de l'argent], ce qui ne me semble pas com­plètement indéfendable. Nous voulons done faire de la musique et nous voulons la faire « en public ». Car même si nous sommes conscients des enjeux évoques ci-dessus, nous savons que la présence d'au­diteurs en chair et en os ainsi que le rituel codifié du concert et l'utopie qu'il évoque changent la musique, et que, pour de bonnes et de mauvaises raisons. dont certaines restent mystérieuses, ces auditeurs rendent la musique plus intense. Le concert est critiquable, il serait facile de le descendre en flammes. Mais grâce a cette institution. nous avons vécu des moments forts, en tant qu'auditeurs et en tant que musiciens. Le concert nous permet de ne pas nous isoler, nous enfermer, nous barricader, nous auto-ségréguer, nous séparer complètement, de faire circuler des idées et des sons, de vivre des expériences, et il change notre musique". (p. 94)

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Josh Cole Trio + Strings

Featuring Josh Cole with John Oswald, Aline Homzy, Nick Storring, & Blake Howard

Enjoy!


More on Bandcamp

Saturday, September 20, 2025

Peter Ehwald - Public Radio (Jazzwerkstatt, 2025) *****

By Don Phipps

An exquisite collection of hazy atmospheres awaits the listener of Peter Ehwald’s Public Radio, an album of improvisations that features Ehwald on tenor saxophone, Tom Rainey on drums, and Stefan Schultze on piano. Each of the musicians contributes to the foggy happenings – mysterious and beautiful – emphasizing lines that seem to wander in a dark forest of sound.

One need look no further than the second cut, “Palladio,” for evidence of this blurred landscape. There is Ehwald’s muted blowing coupled with Schultze’s delicate tinkering – abstractions that are both cool and lyrical. But it is Rainey’s wonderful cymbal work that is the highlight here. Listen to his masterful touch and the way he interacts with Ehwald’s searching lines and Schultze’s light strokes.

Then there’s the labyrinthian navigation presented in “Slip Song,” where the piece seems to slowly wind forward, propelled by a combination of bell sounds, inside the piano tinkering, light sprinkles on the keys, and Ehwald’s diffused sliding explorations. And in “Promise,” Schultze’s subdued but seductive use of piano overtones slip perfectly underneath Ehwald’s dreamy phrasing.

“Limestone and Seabed” is another improv that demonstrates the contemplative misty nature of the tunes. Ehwald’s extended notes have a slow motion effect. Listen to how he dwells on them – lingering – milking the essence from the sound he creates. Rainey wisely keeps his energetic yet musical contribution low key, permitting Ehwald and Schultze to weave their cloudy moods together like a fine-spun tapestry.

The music veers towards darkness in “Fortune Teller.” Rainey’s subtle but precise use of the tom and bass pedal add girth, while Ehwald’s sax lines wander about, like an explorer in some strange new land. His phrases run high and low – with a grace and sparse beauty. Then there’s the sad veneer of “Focus,” where Rainey’s exquisite brushwork and Schultze’s repeated motif undergird Ehwald’s sax contemplations; each sax note is packed with emotion. And on “Night Out,” Ehwald’s solo seems to float in the air before the number becomes more active under the pulsating drive of Rainey’s drumming and Schultze’s repeating motif.

The music of Public Radio is the music of three improvisers who choose to sift through the ethereal landscape of perception. The works presented remind one of Dali’s surreal mind probes or Escher’s challenging blends of shapes and forms. It is music of consciousness. Music of the underneath. Swimming under the waves. Highly recommended!

Friday, September 19, 2025

Matt Mitchell - Sacrosanctity (Obliquity Records, 2025)

By Lee Rice Epstein

Revisiting some of the East vs. West Coast jazz criticism of the 1950s, I was reminded of several toss-offs I’ve read in the past 20 years about players in what Vijay Iyer termed New Brooklyn Complexity, players like Iyer himself, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Tyshawn Sorey, Steve Lehman, Matt Mitchell, Kate Gentile, Anna Webber, Miles Okazaki—for shorthand, maybe, the Pi Recordings crew, the post-Threadgill, post-Berne, post-Steve Coleman artists who really pushed the boat out in terms of composing dense, complex melodies and counterpoint, who sometimes even dared to appear at clubs and bars with sheet music.

In both cases, West Coast (specifically LA circa late 1950s to early 1960s) and Brooklyn (of all-time, probably), what you have are players who lean heavily into composing and arranging duties, who delight in new sounds and rhythms, but who nevertheless bring to bear all the bluesy, swinging heart of any group playing the same ol’ heads and changes. The NBC scene was often baptized on the bandstand, occasionally trial-running high-wire ideas live in person, much to the consternation and finger-wagging of more than a few earthbound critics. And so, last year, when pianist Matt Mitchell dropped a double-album of solo piano, Illimitable, many of us were rightfully knocked out. Over nearly two hours of improvised piano that effectively shut down any lingering criticism or doubt that Mitchell can swing like the all-time best. As a follow-up, Mitchell’s comparatively brief (only 55 minutes!) Sacrosanctity furthers what he has accomplished on piano, as he again delivers a moving, impressive improvised suite.

If anything, I find Sacrosanctity sounds like a true follow-up rather than some kind of Janus-faced twin—this despite the fact that the two albums were recorded on the same day, at the same studio. In truth, I have no idea what order the two sets occurred in, but opener “gnomic” plays like an interregnum, holding the listener in suspension before the gently roaming “hibernaculum.” Displaying his gift for patiently building drama, Mitchell unravels idea after idea, like a series of brief anecdotes linking each section. This was the genius on display on last year’s “unwonted,” and in its slightly contained state here, the strengths are amplified. The mid-album stretch of “glyph scrying,” “skein tracing,” and “thither” go to some intriguing lengths, Mitchell’s two-handed playing evoking at times Jarrett and Taborn (piano and electronics duet when?), while at other times bringing to mind the exceptional forward-thinking piano of Hildegard Kleeb, the great interpreter of Braxton, Lucier, Feldman, and Wolff. As an intentional and sensitive player, Mitchell is subtly giving audiences and critics an opportunity hear him outside the confines of NBC. And isn’t that the real complexity all artists strive for, to go beyond the artificial bounds we place on them?

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Gjerstad / Schlippenbach / Narvesen - Seven Tracks (Relative Pitch, 2025)

By Martin Schray

It’s hard not to compare this band with Alexander von Schlippenbach’s trio with Evan Parker and Paul Lovens, a formation that has existed since 1970 (initially with Michel Pilz on clarinet). However, there was a break after 2018, when Paul Lovens was no longer able to tour (on their famous winter journey), even though Paul Lytton was a more than worthy successor. Recently, Schlippenbach continued go on a winter tour again, with Rudi Mahall on clarinet and Norwegian drummer Dag Navesen. Navesen is also featured on this recording, plus saxophone legend Frode Gjerstad (also from Norway) replacing Evan Parker, so to speak. That being said, expectations were high for Seven Tracks, a recording that came out of the blue for most of the fans of the old trio.

“1“ begins like a typical Schlippenbach Trio piece, with the band immediately hitting its stride. You’re confronted with seemingly isolated, short phrases that nevertheless come together and belong together. After two minutes, there is a first break, set by a piano chord. It becomes clear that Schlippenbach plays more romantically than in the wild years, but he still makes radical statements and creates structure with block chords. Nagesen shows that he’s very much in the tradition of Lovens and Lytton, but of Tony Oxley as well, which proves continuity and a sense of tradition. At the same time, he’s also a very energetic drummer, who has developed a style of his own. The biggest difference to the Schlippenbach Trio, however, is Frode Gjerstad. He hovers above the improvisation as if he was the group’s sound poet, who comments on the action calligraphically. His sound and his playing are rougher and more squeezed compared to Evan Parker, but they are also very varied, as he proves in the second piece. At first, there’s even a short passage that swings, but then the tempo picks up significantly. Gjerstad communicates intensively with the man at the piano, setting clever counterpoints between Nagesen’s elegant figures. In general, between these two warhorses of European improvised music the drummer is an absolutely equal explorer of sound worlds, underlining and initiating areas of discourse with nervous reflexes and a wide range of percussion sounds, most clearly in a short solo in “4”.

The music presented on Seven Tracks is remarkably unsentimental; Schlippenbach avoids the interior of the piano, instead offering dense, dissonant lines at breakneck tempos (the man is 88 years old), but he also likes to invent ballad arrangements without abandoning free tonality. What is more, his sense of form is as incorruptible as ever, and at the end of his career, his love for Thelonious Monk and the influence his music has had on him is becoming increasingly apparent. This can be heard in “5“ for example, where the sublime rhythmic shifts give way to expressive force (as they often did in the old trio), but they determine the improvisations even more obviously, and the control that the musicians have over their interplay seems more light-footed.

Yes, this music is complex, but that’s undoubtedly part of its strength and a reason to hope that this album will not be the last from this band.

Seven Tracks is available as a limited CD and as a download. You can listen to it and buy it here: 

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Keefe Jackson, Jakob Heinemann, and Adam Shead - Stinger (Irritable Mystic, 2025)

By Gary Chapin

Keefe Jackson is someone on my “notice” list. Whenever the Chicagoan puts anything out or broadcasts a live performance I make sure to hear it. His sax and compositional voice put him squarely in my sweet spot for listening: the sort of “loft aesthetic” exemplified by the amazing Studio Rivbea and the Wildflowers record series that documented it. Jackson—and his compatriots on this record, bassist Jakob Heinemann and percussionist Adam Shead—would have been right at home in that scene. Stinger, the trio’s new recording on Irritable Mystic Records, is glorious stuff.

To focus on some specifics: the track “12345” is propulsive, riding on a syncopated bass/drum riff, with bass clarinet playing the role of storyteller. The whole piece comes to a short pause, a stuttering interlude, some right angle melody options, then off to the races again. “Gun Shy” begins with a slow crawl evocative of Eric Dolphy, deep and languorous with suspiciously wide intervals. It’s like an instrumental noir, action and chaos bracketed by sleepy reflection about how the whole situation may be fakakta, but at least it’s my situation. A few tracks later we get “God of the Fickle,” a swinging thing with bass and drums stringing their ebullience under the tenor’s knowingly good natured solo. It may be that I'm reacting to these too cinematically, but that’s my idea of a good time. In a way this trio brings to mind the fabled Thomas Chapin Trio, which swung hard and skronched hard. 

The compositions are split evenly between Jackson and Heinemann each contributing four, with one additional by Bobby Bradford and another by John Tchicai. The opening piece, by Heinemann, “Regent,” starts with an intriguing minimal, chromatic melody with a blowout bridge that sets the pace for the improv that follows, tenor goodness with a shimmering excess of fast percussion and bass surrounding it all. One thing I love about a trio in “this kind of music” is how they have an equality of place, each has autonomy within the mix to shape the beast. The coda of this relatively short piece (!) goes into a kaiju-stomping moment that is *chef’s kiss.” Like I said, glorious stuff.

Monday, September 15, 2025

Carol Liebowitz/Nick Lyons - The Inner Senses (Steeplechase, 2025)


By Hrayr Attarian

Pianist Carol Liebowitz and alto saxophonist Nick Lyons are kindred spirits not only because they studied with erudite pianist Connie Crothers, but also because they are thoughtful and sensitive improvisers. Liebowitz excels in duet settings with like-minded saxophonists and her sublime The Inner Senses is her second collaboration with Lyons, a dozen years after the brilliant First Set (Line Art Records, 2017). In the intervening time between the two dates the pair’s synergy has crystallized and matured.

Liebowitz and Lyons improvise freely without sacrificing lyricism. For instance, Lyons opens “Phantasm” with a bluesy solo. Liebowitz enters with a series of resonant chords. The contemplative exchanges create an otherworldly atmosphere with an undercurrent of meditative spirituality. Liebowitz’s reverberating notes echo against silent pauses building a loose rhythmic framework within which Lyons weaves sparse, introspective lines. The expressive conversation is thought-provoking and accessible, pushing the boundaries of the music but never giving in to full-on dissonance.

Nine of the 10 pieces on the album are spontaneously created and the tenth is a Crothers composition “Ontology”. The pair plays the soulful theme in unison before diverging into independent and complementary performances. The shimmering melody flows within an expectant ambience as each musician embellishes it with angular and expressive phrases. Despite the overlap of simultaneous yet individual monologues the result is moving and quite harmonious further underscoring the sublime camaraderie within the duo.

The title track, meanwhile, also has a pensive mood with a haunting cascade of piano notes within which Lyons weaves sinewy refrains. The dialogue has a reserved passion that boils to the surface frequently while the duo flirts frequently with atonality. As the tune evolves, the musical discourse becomes more fiery yet naturally concludes on a solemn note.

This intimate meeting of inventive minds is a multilayered work that makes for a rewarding listening experience. It is a superb example of synergistic creativity, and both provocative and delightful. Hopefully Liebowitz and Lyons will continue to collaborate in the future.


Sunday, September 14, 2025

Christian Pouget: Maëlstrom for Improvisers

After directing films about violin player Théo Ceccaldi (Corps à Cordes, 2018) and Joëlle Léandre
(Affamée, 2019, and Duende, 2023), director Christian Pouget embarked on a two and half year project, involving 22 multi-generational musicians from Europe, America and Japan, displaying their art in solo situations and musing on life, music, creation, inspiration, the ghosts of Ayler, Cage, Coltrane, Scelsi, ancestral chant, Noh theater, racism, resistance, rebellion, subversion, and the search for freedom in improvisation.

The sequences were shot in France, Spain and Italy, in unusual locations. There is no concert footage;
everything was specifically staged for the film.

 Releases in October.  

Saturday, September 13, 2025

Zoh Amba - Sun (Smalltown Supersound, 2025)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

There’s no point in denying that the 2024 forum’s final playlist was suffering for the lack of one of the year’s aces, There is a garden, by Beings, the group that saw Zoh Amba (saxophone, vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonium, piano) along with Steve Gunn (electric guitar), Shahzad Ismaily (bass, synth) and Jim White (drums). The blog’s rules of the game are crystal clear: no database/no review, no review/no playlist: fair and simple, “dura lex sed lex.”* 

Beside such small, negligible personal regrets, the reason to remember and to quote the above mentioned record is because the affinities with Sun, the one reviewed here, are pretty consistent, even though the musicians involved are totally different and Zoh’s pastoral Sandy Denny-esque voice is set beside. This time, the sublime Tennessee-born New York-based musician is teaming up with Caroline Morton on bass, Lex Korton on piano and Miguel Russel on percussion and decided to release the album on Smalltown Supersound, as a connection to the late titan Peter Brotzmann, who was both a spiritual mentor to Amba and issued several records on the label. For Amba the human cotè of the music is the architrave of her artistic outcome, so building up personal bonds among the band members before the recording process was a cornerstone of the whole project: “We spent days just playing together and I was trying to mentally take notes of what naturally wanted to exist in this band, before giving instructions or handing out sheet music, I wanted to see where we were all standing in life, right at that moment. From there, I started carving out the process with them”, she says. The final result shows a collection of nine compositions, three of them solo, and is absolutely quintessential of her music and of her peculiarity on the jazz scene: free, taking-no-prisoners outbursts (“Interbeing”, “Forevermore”, “Like the Sun”), interspersed with suffused, nightly atmosphere (“Ma”, “At noon”) and poignant textures (“Seaside”, “Champa Flower”). 

Here is another adventurous chapter in the astonishing biography of an artist who, at the age of 25, already crossed the blades with the likes of Sorey, Corsano, Orcutt, Zorn, Parker, Mela, Haino, Iyer, Drummond, Edwards, Shipp, Perelman and got covers and profiles, not only by every jazz magazines all over the globe but by The New York Times or The Guardian as well. It would be a huge mistake considering Amba flirting with the mainstream: we, keen on “lateral” (euphemism…) kind of music, often are fundamentalist in our judgments and pretty suspicious to see shadows of sell out or betrayal beyond every corner, but here there is really no reason at all. While listening to her music, it’s really difficult to wipe out the imagine of this young musician playing in the middle of nowhere woods of Kingsport, Tenn. before heading northeast, ending her path in New York with David Murray. As the British writer Geoff Dyer wrote: “One can envisage seeing Amba half a century from now, playing a selection of ballads at Carnegie Hall or the Village Vanguard. But who knows where she will end up, what twist and turns her career might take? Tradition in jazz has to be a springboard into the future though one can rarely tell what this future will sound like”. We let to Amba the final words that touched us from the very deep: “Heart takes its course. That feeling merges to silent sweetness. That is this journey. Reflecting and feeling my heart overpour. 

Knowing this is only the beginning of the journey and what was captured on this recording will never exist again and the next song will be closer and closer to the center of the heart. My heart sits in the deep light dear Peter Brotzmann shared to this universe. I hear his spirit each morning. This music is only a reflection of a soul that is ever changing and trying to reach beyond the sun”.

Foot note: Zoh, Mette, Ava, gabby, Kris, Anna, Tomeka, Moor, Savannah, Angelica, Sylvie, Mary, Sofia, Valentina, Matana…it seems that nowadays the most challenging projects belong to a pack of fearless she-daredevils that through an unashamed, brave, loose, untamed approach shattered the crystal ceiling and have begun to demolish the floor. Keep on going, ladies: Jamie left but, with you, the building is in super safe and reliable hands.

*editors note: these are almost the rules, the album does need to be reviewed on the Freejazzblog or by the lister somewhere in order to be eligible for listing in the end of year lists