Kidd Jordan - Palm Of Soul (AUM Fidelity, 2006) ****½

This is without a doubt one of the best albums of 2006 (and the cover is also fantastic), with veteran Kidd Jordan on tenor sax, accompanied by William Parker (bass, guimbri, gongs, talking drum) and Hamid Drake (drums, tabla, frame drum, voice). And of course, this is not only the best rhythm section I know, but also Jordan exceeds himself on this CD. I knew him from a few blowing sessions with Fred Anderson, yet what he brings here is totally different. The CD was recorded one month after hurricane Katrina swiped away large parts of New Orleans, Jordan's hometown. The CD starts with less than a minute of free bop, but the album really opens with "Forever" and the 70-year old Jordan shows his powers. The warm tone of his sax goes deep into all the possible emotional registers of his instrument, and there are many, from deep blues, over powerful soaring cries to soft sobbing, and both Parker and Drake lay accents with percussion. This song almost literally brings me to tears, it is that emotionally powerful. In "Living Peace", Parker plays arco in the beginning and sadness reigns. Jordan manages to retain the attention for a long piece of close to 15 minutes, by being extremely expressive, and as the piece moves forward, it suddenly generates rhythm, and it even ends lightly bopping, and surprisinly a sudden theme emerges. In "Unity Call" Drake takes the initiative, with frame drum and African (?) singing, beautiful and very similar to what he brings on Fred Anderson's Timeless, and possibly even better. Parker plays his guimbri, an African guitar, and the atmosphere on the album becomes more open, more rhythmic, more melodious. Despite his tremendous technique, Parker continues to repeat the same three notes till the very end, changing the tempo once in a while. This feeling of world music sticks to the record, but it is still free jazz, and at its best. The real star of this CD is Kidd Jordan, inspired till the very end, expressive throughout, sensitive, howling, singing, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, ...

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Myra Melford's Be Bread - The Image Of Your Body (Cryptogramophone, 2006) ****½

Myra Melford is a searching spirit. She has already tried many ways of expression, often very idiosyncratic, never chosing the easy road, without giving in to commercial expectations, yet always looking for new sounds, melodic and rhythmic innovation. This quest brought her to India for a year, where she learned to appreciate the harmonium, this quest brought her also to Arabic music and sufism. In her previous album "Where The Two Worlds Touch", these influences were already apparent, but in "The Image Of Your Body" she brings all this one step further. This is not world music, this is modern jazz that fully integrates the Indian and Arabic and rock music into her idiom, and make it quite essential, rather than using it to add some flavor, and what she brings to life a real thing of beauty. For this album she is accompanied by Cuong Vu on trumpet, Brandon Ross on electric guitar and banjo, Stomu Takeishi on bass guitar and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums. Strangely enough, Vu and Ross never meet on this CD, yet their approach is highly similar. Vu is a master of the electronic distortion of his trumpet, as we know from his own albums, and Ross is a master in the same area, on the long piece "To The Roof" even sounding like Terje Rypdal. The title songs "The Image Of Your Body" and "Be Bread" have the most outspoken Arabic influence, with long unisono melodies of harmonium and banjo (replacing the Arabic oud for the occasion). Melford's presence is despite her technical skills very economical on this album, laying the harmonic foundations and adding accents for emphasis. She explains in her press kit : "I first played this music on the melodica and as a result, much of it is based on melody. It’s conceived as quartet music, but what’s important here is not the instrumentation but rather individual musical personality". But this shouldn't create the wrong expectations, this music is full of emotional power, full of suspense, menace, dispair, jubilation and chaos at moments, sentiments that are difficult to squeeze out of a melodica. This is tightly arranged, refreshing music with depth and variation. The music belongs to the same category of the album by Louis Sclavis that I reviewed yesterday. Both artists search for new forms of expressions, using influences from outside jazz and their end result is remarkably close.

Listen to some samples

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Rob Brown - Radiant Pools (RogueArt 2005) ****

The French RogueArt label has published a wonderful series of modern jazz in the past frew years, including work by Hamid Drake, Malachi Favors, Roscoe Mitchel. And also this "Radiant Pools" by Rob Brown (sax) with Steve Swell (trombone), Joe Morris (bass) and Luther Gray (drums). The first piece is uptempo, pushed forward by bass and drums, with excellent solos by Swell and Brown. Then comes "Semantics 1", a more abstract and contemplative piece, with great interplay of Morris on arco, and with the sax and trombone that seek and elicit tones and sounds from eachother like a love dance between two doves. The same concept returns in "Semantics 2" later on the CD, with Morris on flute. "Out Of The Lurch" is more freebop, with a solidly anchored rhythm and a clearly delineated theme. "Radiant Pools" starts with a minute-long unisono of sax and trombone, moving away and coming back again. Halfway the piece, Morris's arco enters the game. The most beautiful piece is King Cobra, a composition by Joe Morris (also to be found on his "Beautiful Existence") which is slightly funky and because of the sheer beauty of the melody brings up the best out of the musicians. The overal space offered by the music on this album allows the musicians to demonstrate the breadth of their technical range and knowledge of jazz in all its aspects. Great.

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Drake/Beger/Parker - Evolving Silence Vol. 2 (Earsay, 2006) ****

It must be clear that I am more than a little crazy about Hamid Drake and William Parker, the best "drum&bass" duo of the world. And "Evolving Silence, Vol. 2" confirms this again. This is the second CD of a series of recordings that the duo had in Israel with Albert Beger, an Israeli sax-player/flautist, who is not really known, but he deserves otherwise. His playing is creative, precise, sensitive, melodious. It's bizarre that the CD was issued as two albums because they actually form one, and with some effort they might even have fit into one CD, because both are relatively short : 42 and 40 minutes. Other downside : you can only order them in Israel, but the good news is that they arrived within a week's time.

Then there is the music : exactly as I like it. Pulsing and complex rhythms with seas of freedom to move for the whole trio. You can hear the players enjoy the interplay, reacting to each other, coming back to the main theme, just to move away from it through free improvisation. The first piece is powerful, furious even, but also melodic. The second one is a free improv of flute and bass. Beger sings, howls, snorts and heaves through his instrument, but rhythmically and ending with a slow and beautiful solo. On "Funky Lacy" Drake takes the initiative, and we get his typical powerful beat, with little touches in between, drum-rolls, deleted shots, funking like hell. Beger and Parker join the fun. "Skies of Israel" is a menacing and slow piece, lead and controlled by Parker who conjures a beautiful melody out of his arco. Then unisono with Beger, in a serpentine interplay. You can hear the pain, the loss, the fear, the despair, ... Parker plays some wonderfully shrill tones in the high notes, piercing your heart, then the trio brings the song to an end, sensitive and joined by common feelings. Remarkable! This last piece alone makes the purchase worthwhile.

Parker's daughter studies in Israel, which explains his presence there.

Both albums are now available for download on emusic.com.

To order a hard copy : http://labels.third-ear.com/

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Fred Anderson - Timeless/Live At The Velvet Lounge (Delmark, 2006) *****

This CD is the last performance by Fred Anderson in his own Velvet Lounge, which had to be broken down to make place for an appartment building. Fred, 77 years old, set up a new Velvet Lounge in the meantime. A great thing, because his was the place-to-be for the Chicago free jazz scene.

Fred Anderson is a perfectionist, still now practicing for hours on end on his sax, still learning.

On this CD he is accompanied by Hamid Drake (drums) and Harrisson Bankhead (bass). They bring four songs, each between 13 and 25 minutes, of great and exciting music. It's amazing how they can lock in tightly, then let loose again for individual solos, change the tempo, move on different paths again to suddenly rearrange rhythms or come back into a tight core theme. The three players listen intently to each other. Anderson has a very warm and authentic tone, with strong rhythmic solos, searching and soaring, and listening to him is a real pleasure. Hamid Drake is his stellar self : I know few drummers who manage their rhythms so perfectly as Drake, while at the same time adding ligh touches here and there. His personal joy in playing this music is obvious. Bankhead is rock-solid, but what a sensitivity. It's amazing how in his solo in "Ode To Tip" he lets himself be directed by Drake while still doing his own thing. It goes on an on with surprises, some singing, hefty passages, slow passages, even a wind-tube (?) interlude, an enthusiastic and participating audience, but great stuff all along. If you own more than 20 euro, run to the store!

There is also a DVD version of this performance. I'd be more than happy to find it.

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Wadada Leo Smith - Compassion *****

This is a unique CD, just trumpet and percussion. Wadada Leo Smith and Adam Rudolph both belong to the free jazz avant-garde, masters with great technical skill, unafraid to search for entirely new forms of expression, but always with a strong spiritual element into it. This kind of initiative often fails because the music itself suffers from this search for new form. Smith and Rudolph have both made albums for which you really need open ears in order to be able to endure the music till the end of the album at one stretch. On the other hand both have also already issued beautiful CDs with relative accessibility (Smith : Kulture Jazz, Rudolph & Pharoah Sanders : Spirits).
Compassion is again a spiritual journey, starting with lonely and voiceless stuttering by the trumpet, soon joined by slight percussion, like the sounds of the night. The second piece brings us dawn, and as the sun breaks through we get the long notes of Smith's trumpet, supported by Tibetan bells and gongs of Rudolph. This is a quite intimistic kind of improvisation without any preconceived structure, but with an authentic joint search to subdued beauty and emotional expression. On Fragrance of Light, Rudolph a changing rhythm on the framedrums, with great improvisation by Wadada. The pièce-de-resistance is the long "Love Rhythms, Heart Songs", on which Rudolph also sings, sometimes in overtone. On the last piece, The Caller and The Called, Rudolph digs up his dousn' gouni and we get sounds that remind us of Codona with Nana Vasconcelos and Don Cherry. This is music which will not directly appeal to those who expect clear melodies, structure and harmonic changes. It is in any case no mellow new-age emptiness, because despite the minimalistic line-up, the music is exciting from beginning to end, and the focus of both musicians is clearly kept on the creation of a coherent musical journey. Highly recommended.

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Kahil El'Zabar - Big M

Kahil El'Zabar is hard to put into a box. He's a disciple of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), the Chicago free jazz movement, to which also the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Fred Anderson belong, yet he's carved out his own space. Kahil El'Zabar is a great drummer and percussionist; rhythm is extremely important in his compositions and they are inspired by African music. The core theme of his pieces are thematically repetitive and often hypnotic. The simplicity - without being simple - of the themes give the soloists the opportunity to take up all the space. El'Zabars Ritual Trio has at least the record of the longest piece in my collection : 1 hour and 19 minutes and 57 seconds, short for 80 minutes (on "Ritual Trio with Pharoah Sanders Live")! The power of this music is to be found in the energy, the improvasitional inventiveness, the joy of the musical interplay, even the spirituality of it all.

Big M is dedicated to Malachi Favors Maghostut, the bass player of the Ritual Trio, who died in 2004. Kahil started playing the drums at the age of 14 after having seen a performance of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, impressed by Favors' bass work. Ari Brown on sax and piano completes the trio. Ari Brown himself replaces the late Lester Bowie. Malachi Favors is replaced by Yosef Ben Israel, and for this CD Billy Bang also joins in on violin. This CD is not really his best performance, yet really worth listening to. The Ritual Trio recorded a live album two days before this CD was recorded, called "Live At The River East Art Center". I find the latter a little more energetic, more intense, but it is harder to find. Big M offers over one hour of great music : the endless creativity of El'Zabar on percussion, teh warm, intense and soaring sax of Ari Brown and the powerful yet sensitive bass of Yosef Ben Israel. Enjoy!

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Vinny Golia - Sfumato

Sfumato by Vinny Golia is one of those records that I put on countless times last year (partly while painting my bathroom and since this is no background music, my walls suffered terribly). This quartet also consists of Bobby Bradford (trumpet), Ken Filiano (bass) and Alex Cline (drums). Golia, who plays soprano, bass flute and bass clarinet, created some really strong compositions for Sfumato. Veteran Bobby Bradford is a great asset for this band, creating the right gloomy atmosphere. Golia gets out of his instruments what is in them : high double sounds, shouts, long staccato pieces, but also at times a velvety softness. Cline is never less than efficient, with lots of light touches. The real treat on this album is Ken Filiano, whose arco work is stellar, and who even keeps supporting the soloists in a telepathic fashion right up to the very highest tones of the horns. This music is free, without any doubt, but still quite structured and anchored in both jazz and blues idioms. Highly recommended.

Can be downloaded via emusic.com

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Michael Bates - A Fine Balance

In 2005 Michael Bates, a Canadian bass player, issued Outside Sources, a very promising album. His second, "A Fine Balance", figures in my top-10 list of 2006. Outside Sources is now the name of the band, consisting of Quinsin Nachsoff on sax and bass clarinet, Mark Timmermans on drums, and Kevin Turcotte on trumpet. This is jazz that digs deep into a broad array of source material. Bates himself cites Shostakovich, Prokoviev, Miles Davis, Tony Malaby, Dave Douglas and middle-eastern music. The music remains 100% jazz, though, with strong compositions offering lots of space for improvisation. The addition of Kevin Turcotte on this album creates more interaction than on the first CD, and by consequence also more depth and perspective to the music. It is obvious that Bates looks for effect and beauty through his compositions, and with success. The result is adventurous jazz, with in each piece sufficient bends in the road to keep surprising you with the new view you get once you've taken the turn.

More info on Michael Bates at: http://www.outsidesources.org/info.html

CDs available on http://www.cdbaby.com/

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McPhee/Duval/Shipp - In Finland

This is also one of the best of 2006. Joe McPhee (sax, trumpet) and Dominic Duval (bass) are old companions. They have performed for years with Jay Rosen (drums) as Trio X, with so far eight albums together. This drumless trio brings three long pieces : Never Before, Never Again and In Finland. The first starts with a six minute long thundering piano intro by Shipp, which McPhee suddenly brings to a more peaceful theme, after which Duval immediately switches to arco. McPhee is extremely lyrical with long notes, forcing Shipp to calm down a little. But that is just for a moment, and the theme explodes again in some powerplay by the trio, which goes on for the best of 20 minutes, when McPhee suddenly starts to hint a My Funny Valentine, followed by Shipp who picks up the theme in its entirety, slow, emotional, deep. It's absolutely great how they bring this to a beautiful ending. Never Again is an ode to Monk, starting with Blue Monk. It's quite remarkable that McPhee starts very similarly on the Trio X album “On Tour Toronto/Rochester” (2001) with his version of the same song (and by coincidence (?) My Funny Valentine was also one of the songs on this album too). It starts with McPhee's stuttering and voiceless blowing on his pocket trumpet, staccato piano by Shipp and the pulsing bass of Dubal. Monk is being deconstructed in a chaotic stream of music, only to make place for a newly built beauty and calm, with McPhee on sax. The last piece continues in the same vein : open, adventurous, with much variation. Great album.

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Bridge 61 - Journal

Bridge 61 is one of the musical highlights of 2006, Vandermark on sax and clarinet, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Nate McBride on bass and Tim Daisy on drums. McBride is also the bass player of Spaceways Inc., and Tim Daisy is the drummer of the Vandermark 5. Despite his incredible output of albums, Vandermark manages to keep the attention up. The pieces on this album are all composed but with room for improvisation, the search for new effects and sound combinations. Styles differ from more hesitant work, such as in Superleggera, over a more bop-oriented approach in Atlas, to funk with Nothing's Open, with McBride on electric bass. The sax and the clarinet search for each other, complement each other, respect each other. On the beautiful and slow "29 Miles of Black Snow", McBride brings a long solo, tenderly joined by Vandermark and Stein. On "A=A/b=b bass and clarinet start with a strong rhythmic intro, to be replaced after approx 4 minutes by drums and baritone sax : the same theme, different music. The song is closed by a powerful unisono line of the whole band. On the last piece, "Shatter", which is dedicated to guitar player Sonny Sharrok, McBride plays both distorted and non-distorted bass guitar, bringing noise rock elements, yet remaining composed and fresh. The band manages to keep up the high level of composition and performance throughout the album. Recommended.

Download on http://www.emusic.com/
More info :http://www.kenvandermark.com/

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Dennis Gonzalez - No Photograph Available

Dennis Gonzalez is an underexposed trumpet player and his music is hard to find, especially in Europe. His CD Nile River Suite is available on Gonzalez's website, but for your convenience linked below in its entirety. Nile River Suite is a great album, with Gonzalez and Roy Campbell on trumpet, Sabir Mateen on sax and flute, Henry Grimes on bass and Michael Thompson on drums. The music is slow, flowing like a river, with once in a while some slight middle eastern influence in the melodies, with lots of space for the soloists, pushed on by the horn section and with a rhythm section which is at moments hypnotic. Gonzalez once received the complaint that he gave too much space to the soloists, a reality which he luckily turned into his trade mark. This CD is again available on the market.

No Photograph Available is one of the best free jazz CDs of 2006, with Gonzalez on trumpet, Charles Kohlhase on sax, Joe Morris and Nate McBride on bass (together), and Croix Gallipault on drums. The latter is a 19-year old student of Joe Morris. I won't discuss this CD in detail : lots of space, lots of spontaneous composition. Buy it!

Download : http://www.emusic.com/album/10941/10941407.html

River Nile Suite : hier te beluisteren op Mp3

Lyons In Lyon (For Jimmy Lyons)

Sand Baptist

The Nile Runs Through New York (Part 1a)

The Nile Runs Through New York (Part 1b)

The Nile Runs Through My Heart (Part 2)

The Nile Runs Through Us All

Hymn For The Ashes Of Saturday

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Carlos Barretto - Lokomotiv

Wanna hear something else? Free jazz from Portugal. Carlos Barretto is a bass player who has played with Steve Lacy, Mal Waldron and Barry Altschull. On Lokomotiv, he is accompanied by Mario Delgado on electric guitar and José Sagueiro on drums. The French François Corneloup on baritone sax is a guest player on half the pieces. This is not entirely free jazz, rather modern creative, whatever that means. Delgado's guitar gives the music a fusion feel, but nothing more than just a touch of it.

The album starts very strong, with a panting bass, an hesitant guitar, slight drum rolls and the baritone sax really sets the thing going and once they're all on board, the rhythm changes, a short break, a panting bass and we're gone again (real locomotive stuff). Eirò is more subdued, again with a long and complex bass-line, against which the distorted guitar starts to react, first with sounds and noises rather than music, supported by a funking drums, to suddenly burst open into a pumping unisono guitar/arco bass rendition of the theme, just to set off again into free territory. The fourth song starts with nervous guitar work worthy of Robert Fripp, followed by very slow arco bass and baritone sax, to change into a strong funky duel between sax and drums. You get the picture : lots of surprises, unexpected changes in melody and rhythm, lots of contrasts and all this without sounding artificial. A joy to listen to.

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The Gift - Live At Sangha

I've always been a great fan of Roy Campbell (trumpet, flute), whom I consider to be the true musical heir of Don Cherry. I have all his great albums with William Parker and Hamid Drake, but this one I bought without knowing what to expect. The trio also consists of William Hooker (drums) and Jason Kao Hwan (violin). By itself, this is already an unusual line-up, but the CD is one long piece of free improvisation, with slow, hectic, intense, sad moments. I have listened to this album dozens of times as if hypnotised. The music is at the same time open and free beyond belief, yet very accessible and emotionally powerful. This is free jazz at its best. Campbell and Hwan circle around each other, complete each other through the warm acoustic sound of Campbell's trumpet and the electronically deformed sound of Hwan's violin. Hooker is a very dominant drummer and changes the whole piece from time to time by some astute interventions. This CD opened a new way of listening to music to me. It is as if a door opened which made all other free jazz which I found very inaccessible, suddenly something to be cherished (starting with Joe McPhee and Vinny Golia). Really great stuff. An emotional experience

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John Lindberg - A Tree Frog Tonality

This CD offers a strong combination of chamber jazz and free jazz. All pieces have a clear structure but the improvisations are quite free. The musicians are stellar : John Lindberg himself on double bass, Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet, Larry Ochs on sax and Andrew Cyrille on drums. The pieces evolve from very intense interplay of the whole band to more melancholic duos. The four musicians are at their best. I was not too enthusiastic about Lindberg's previous albums, but this one is absolutely excellent. Highly recommended.

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The Nu Band Live

This is the Nu Band's second album after Live At The Bop Shop. The band consists of Roy Campbell (trumpet), Mark Whitecage (sax), Lou Grassi (drums) and Joe Fonda (bass). All four musicians are masters of their instruments with a long track record and their own albums. The Nu Band Live is a fantastic album. Beginning with some composed melodic lines, the themes are deconstructed and added upon. This record offers listening joy from beginning to end, intense, melodic withouth being screamy or chaotic. Just the last piece, an attack against the Bush administration's Iraq policy, does not add much musically.

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Top 10 freejazz 2006

Of course there are more than 10, but the choice is difficult, also to rank them. I'm not sure either if they were all published in 2006, but that's at least I when I got hold of them.

Hamid Drake/Albert Beger/William Parker - Evolving Silence Vol. 1
Kahil El'Zabar - Big M
Fred Anderson - Timeless, Live At The Velvet Lounge
Michael Bates - A Fine Balance
Bridge 61 - Journal
Rob Brown - Radiant Pools
John Coltrane - One Up/One Down
Ernest Dawkins - The Messenger
Dennis Gonzalez - No Photograph Available
Kidd Jordan - Palm Of Soul
Adam Lane - Music Degree Zero
John Lindberg - A Tree Frog Tonality
Joe McPhee/Matthew Shipp/Dominic Duval - Live In Finland
Myra Melford - The Image Of Your Body
Romano/Sclavis/Texier - African Flashback
Wadada Leo Smith - CompassionTripleplay - Gambit
Vinny Golia - Sfumato

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