Joanna Duda - Delighted (Byrd Out, 2025)

By Paul Acquaro

 

Polish pianist Joanna Duda has a lithe, modern approach to the piano. Clear and repetitive figures interlock in hypnotic patterns, and although often precise and stark, her music can also be dramatic and laden with emotion. It is an alluring combination and one that can crack the scar tissue of the hardened experimental listener with incisive melodies and quick atonal jabs.

 

On Delighted, which is Duda's second release with her trio, bassist Jort Terwijn and drummer Michał Bryndal provide support with both their respective instruments as well as contribute to the electronics that Dude laces throughout her compositions. To describe the result, the cliché "tapestry" fits quite well: the music weaves melodic patterns, electronic adornments and solid threads of rhythm seamlessly together.

 

Delighted begins with the track 'We're New to This Planet', a simple chord sequence from Duda starts things off, while Terwijn provides a forward moving melody on the bass. Light drumming fills in the backing layer and it indeed feels like the first day of a fresh start on a new planet. Then, the wake up call comes: a slight hesitation followed by rhythmic syncopation from everyone. It's jolting and introduces the expansion of atonal melodic snippets and poly-rhythmic passages, leading to a modicum of free-improvisation before settling into a soothing ending.

 

Later tracks expand on all the elements found in the first track. In the following 'Those Who Think They're French but are Actually Russians,' a lilting melody with classical tendencies juxtaposes with uptempo arrhythmic swing. 'When the Truffles Get Dry' starts with an aggressively propulsive riff that leads deep into vintage Bad Plus musical territory and features some ping-ponging rhythmic moments. Among the other tracks left to discover, 'Romantische Sache' demonstrates the most robust application of electronics on the recording. Following its open-hearted intro, the middle half of the song spirals into bits and bytes before eventually reconstituting itself.

 

While Delighted leans towards the more melodic and composed, subversive elements draws it gently in an experimental direction. Certainly worth an open-eared listen. 

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Angelica Sanchez, Barry Guy & Ramon Lopez - Live at Jazzdor (Maya Recordings, 2024)

By Stef Gijssels

The question why some albums never get reviewed is as baffling for a seasoned reviewer as it can be for the regular reader. This is one of them. A great trio with three excellent musicians: Angelica Sanchez on piano, Barry Guy on bass and Ramón López on drums and percussion. 

The performance was recorded at the JAZZDOR Festival in Strasbourg on the 15th November 2023. 

From the very beginning, the trio is full of sparkling energy, crisp playing and symbiotic improvisation. The music is so intense that it almost becomes tangible. It is full of surprises, as it alternates between uptempo driven passion and controlled calmer moments, and remains at all times fresh and memorable. It's suprising how the format of the piano trio can still be inventive, captivating and at times even overwhelming. Sanchez is brilliant in her capacity to lead improvisations to unexpected and rounded closures, as if she planned it from the start. And Guy's resonating bass is as good and creative as can be expected, as is López's percussion, astonishing, unpredictable and accurate. 

Barry Guy and Ramón López have performed many times before, and released dozens of albums on which both perform, notably in Barry Guy's "Blue Shroud Band". It's the first time Angelica Sanchez performs with either of the other musicians, something which surprises Barry Guy in his liner notes: "Jazz Festivals have often provide the opportunity for a first encounter with musicians that are “on the radar”, so to speak , but for various reasons (often geographical) never came to fruition." 

This one is in any case a winner. 

The happy shouts of the audience and the fun of the performers at the end says it all. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Space - Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch, 2024)

By Taylor McDowell

Space is Lisa Ullén (piano), Elsa Bergman (double bass) and Anna Lund (drums).The piano trio based in Stockholm is back with a fiery follow-up to their 2022 debut. The trio now collectively goes under the name Space, which I perceive to be the symbolic transformation from ad hoc group to a real band. On Embrace the Space the trio indeed plays like a band - demonstrating a fondness of each other rooted in their shared history (a shared history dating back to at least 2016 as members of Anna Högberg Attack). On Embrace the Space, the exploratory interplay of their previous outing is sufficiently eclipsed by raw and moving confidence of a fully-developed team.

Recorded in studio, Embrace the Space consists of eight exhilarating improvisations. The conciseness of most of these improvisations yields focused, to-the-point statements that relish in their collective acumen with stirring results. “Look” kicks things off with snarl, with Ullén’s brooding piano building tension like thunderheads on the horizon. The erratic “Cyklop” begins with a spikey conversation between prepared piano and Bergman’s plodding bass before Lund enters the fray. “Rage” is aptly titled - it’s a full-tilt assault led by Lund’s driving cymbals. On “Composure,” the trio slows down without sacrificing a lick of intensity. The paced, descending piano harmony feels foreboding enough before Bergman and Lund prod the group into rougher seas. Three longer tracks permit the group to stretch out a bit more. 

They still retain the focused energy as on their shorter improvisations, but with some additional room to maneuver. “All at Once” is a daring ride that firmly seats Space in the upper echelon of piano trios. There are even moments that remind me of the Feel Trio in the same raw intensity. “Bleach” is the longest track here at over 12-minutes. We find Space at its most dynamic here - it’s a communion of shifting moods and building tension. About 6-minutes in the trio decelerates; Ullén taps out a repetitive chord while Lund and Bergman fill the scene with restless energy. The piece gradually builds gravity until it reaches a breaking point. The release of energy is hair-raising as three voices collide in free jazz maelstrom. Utterly brilliant.

Space is fast becoming one of the most daring piano trios on today’s scene (and a personal favorite of mine). Embrace the Space is a milestone achievement for the trio as they solidify their sound and camaraderie. Highly recommended.

Enjoy this live performance at Gothenburg’s Brötz.

Embrace The Space is available as a CD or digital download.

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Omawi - Waive (Relative Pitch, 2023)

By Stef Gijssels

The Dutch band "Omawi" (short for Onno, Marta and Wilbert) consists of Marta Warelis on piano, Onno Govaert on drums, and Wilbert de Joode on double bass. This is their third album, after "Inscapes" (2018) and "Live At Roze Tanker" (2020), and it is an absolute winner. I already very much liked their previous albums, but this one goes even a step further. 

Warelis is an exceptional pianist, a little bit in the same vein as Eve Risser, someone who can appreciate the percussive and lyrical aspects of her instrument in equal measure, full of ideas and a good sense of sonic coherence and unrelenting dynamics. Her natural drive and energy are even made stronger and more powerful by Onno Gevaert's fireworks on the drums, and De Joode's equally exceptional skills and experience on bass. The trio moves as one, and is a real pleasure to hear from the very first note to the last. 

The album is a live performance, recorded in Zaal 100 in Amsterdam on October 12, 2021, in between the Covid-19 lockdowns and it presents a wonderful kind of escape, in which all the frustrations, social isolation and uncertainty get thrown overboard in a one hour long eruption of shards of sound, repetitive, percussive, urgent, with a strong sense of pulse without explicit rhythm, intense, vibrant, energetic, relentless, full of passion, power, fire, muscle, even in the quiet, more intense moments, but definitely when the volume picks up, in short, music that becomes a physical manifestation of internal energy and a real will to live again and to share it. 

Don't miss this one. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Below you can find a short excerpt from another concert that illustrates the band's sound and approach 

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Clara Lai - Corpos (Phonogram Unit, 2023)

By Stef Gijssels

It's a great start to make your debut trio album a winner, and that's the case with this album by Clara Lai on piano, Alex Reviriego on double bass, and Oriol Roca on drums. 

We already met Lai on José Lencastre's Common Ground album from last year, and are not yet familiar with her other recently released albums. She is trained in classical piano and has a bachelor in jazz improvisation. With her new trio she creates music that is fresh, inventive and entertaining. Reviriego and Roca are also from Barcelona, and have been reviewed in several ensembles over the past years. 

Lai's music is one of structural improvisation, sculpting sonic patterns out of the fog of ideas, making them concrete and real, before they disappear again in their original background. It is a music of creative surprise, intimate like poetry at times, introverted, disciplined freedom. Both Reviriego and Roca co-create the sound, and grasp the intentions and voice of the piece perfectly. 

The first tracks are more compact and focused on exquisite and intense interaction. Only on the second part of "Corpo III" does this also lead to an increase in power and volume, and a more extroverted approach, the pivotal centre of the album. The last two tracks are longer exploratory pieces with great space for both bass and drums to demonstrate the power of some extended techniques to create a unique sonic atmosphere. 

Don't miss it. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman, Anna Lund - Space (Relative Pitch, 2022) ****½

 By Stef Gijssels

Ever since I heard the duo of Swedish pianist Lisa Ullén and bassist Nina De Heney on "Carve", I've been a big fan of their music. Despite her talent as a composer and a performer, Ullén's output is relatively limited, and not in proportion to the quality of her work. She received five-star ratings from us for her "Piano Works" and "Hydrozoa", also with De Heney. 

On this album, she teams up with Elsa Bergman on bass and Anna Lund on drums. Bergman and Lund we know from their collaborations with Anna Högberg's Attack - in which Ullén also plays. Bergman has also performed with Ullén, on "Sekvenser och Lager" with the Motståndsorkestern, and she is a member of Fire! Orchestra. The references here are only to demonstrate that this trio album is a culmination of the qualities of their background: seamless interplay, strong versatility, brilliant instrumental skills combined with intensity, power and sensitivity. 

The album was recorded during the pandemic, at the Fylkingen venue in Stockholm, and the music sounds like a sonic release from lockdown, a true joy from beginning to end. 

The first three tracks have titles that suggest closeness and human warmth ("Come Together", "The Circle of Security", "Joint Attention"). The first is an intense almost boppish workout with high intensity and fireworks from Lund driving forward the swirling piano. The second starts more quietly and tender, with some muted strings on the piano, subtle bass work and accentuating percussive tinges. Ullén builds up the improvisation elegantly, weaving repetitive and shifting patterns into ever more expansive sonic generosity and unexpected turns. The third piece is structured around a heavy single chord, almost hammered, a hypnotic foundation for bass and drums to work around, after which the piece completely shifts into a very quiet, peaceful almost silent interaction. 

"Tempest" starts calmly, with an almost romantic quality, where it not for Ullén's capacity for unusual intervals, but as you might have guessed, this is just the calm before the storm. Intensity and volume grow, compelling, gripping, entrancing. The album ends with "Core", introduced by Bergman, and like the first track, evolving into the perfect freedom of what a jazz piano trio could sound like: unleashed, nervous, disciplined, listening and full of energy. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

The short video below will make you want to hear more (recorded at Burning Ambulance concert). 

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Eric Zinman/Mario Rechtern/Weasel Walter – Mermaids and Sirens Know (Studio 234, 2021) ****½

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

I must state from the beginning, that this is the best piano trio that I’ve listened so far in 2021. The fun fact is that Mermaids and Sirens Know comes out ten whole years after the four tracks were recorded. All three players have really made their names heard in the grey, but so appealing to some of us, zone between free jazz, free improvisation, rock and, even, noise. Walter, who is a disciple, of all out punk attack in drumming, has managed to participate in so many great free jazz albums. Call him a jazz drummer too… In bands like the Flying Lutenbachers, but also in various more jazzy formations he has proven his skills. Yes, I’m a fan…Pianist Eric Zinman, apart from being a member of the amazing Linda Sharrock Network, has also shared the same stage and studio with saxophonist Mario Rechtern, again in various formations that cover any ground from improvisation to jazz, to any kind of experimentation.

Mermaids and Sirens is comprised of four tracks with a total duration of more than an hour. All four of them present the three musicians in great form, eager and aggressive to explore. Zinman’s Tayloresque playing allows room for the other two to attack their instruments (which are alto, baritone and sopranino saxes for Rechtern), while he bangs on the keyboard with the force and wit of the great Cecil Taylor.

I’ve already wrote about him, but it makes no justice to him, to label Walter’s playing as just “energetic” or “dynamic”. Apart from being the backbone in all tracks, his interaction with his fellow comrades makes him a point of reference for the cd. Rechtern’s sax playing, as always, make him the ideal partner. Even though he tends to get carried away (but is this a bad thing when we are talking about a free jazz recording?), he never slips out of phenomenon, meaning the collective feeling of the trio. I also believe that he has listened to a lot of Frank Lowe’s playing…

Their aggressive playing leaves enough room for small details that prove fruitful for the listener: Zinman’s piano timbre, Walter’s percussion work on the less noisy parts, the shifts between the saxes from Rechtern.

Overall a great recording, that, so far, has made it to my shortlist for the best of 2021. You can listen and buy here:

@koultouranafigo

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Vijay Iyer/Linda May Han Oh/Tyshawn Sorey - Uneasy (ECM, 2021) *****

By Martin Schray

On Uneasy, his seventh album for ECM Records, Vijay Iyer presents an immensely powerful new trio, which he has formed with two outstanding musicians from New York’s jazz scene: bassist Linda May Han Oh, who is featured on an Iyer recording for the first time, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, who was already part of Iyer’s superb sextet album Far From Over in 2017. Uneasy mainly consists of Iyer’s own compositions plus two cover versions - Cole Porter’s “Night and Day“ and Geri Allen’s “Drummer Boy“ - and was recorded in 2019. Actually though, Iyer started the recording process in 2010, which makes the album a sort of overlap, a new interpretation of past pieces brought to life again with a fresh group. In the liner notes, Iyer points out, mutatis mutandis, that back then the band named the album Uneasy in allusion to the uncertainties they sensed beneath the surface of things. It was their alias for an emerging unrest in American life. A decade later, as systems have shaken and crumbled, the word “uneasy“ seems like an ironic belittlement, almost inappropriate for these devastating times. But as the word contains its own opposite, perhaps it reminds people that the most soothing, healing music is often born of and located in deep unrest, and conversely, the most turbulent music can contain peace, balance and lust for life.

Some of the album’s original compositions are obviously about the humanitarian crisis in the US (“Children of Flint”), referring to the lead poisoning water scandal in Flint/Michigan, or civil rights (“Combat Breathing”). Iyer composed the latter after the death of Eric Garner in 2014, amid waves of protest linked to the Black Lives Matter movement. The 11-measure-structure refers to the eleven times Garner cried out “I Can’t Breathe“ in his dying moments. There has been an increased frequency of such events, lately culminating in George Floyd’s murder in 2020, which makes the piece even more relevant given these days’ social climate, as Tyshawn Sorey puts it. That’s why it’s possible to think about Uneasy as a form of re-focussing, a re-evaluation of found material or past experiences through music. As a conclusion, Vijay Iyer’s album is sociological, reflecting the turmoil that has shaken the US in recent years, from political instability to police violence to the precarious economic conditions of the pandemic. Iyer has translated this into music by an extreme forcefulness which drives the central pieces “Combat Breathing“ and “Uneasy“. After melancholic beginnings, the musicians virtually gallop through the compositions, Iyer’s runs are bubbling over exuberantly, his block chords pumping up the music so that it almost seems to burst. Before that happens, however, Tyshawn Sorey repeatedly sets rhythmic counterpoints, he stops his drum rolls with whip-like snare shots. Han Oh’s lyrical bass slides into the pauses with little melodies, but they are quickly recaptured by the seriousness and severity of Iyer’s piano playing.

However, there is more than restlessness and brooding despair running through Uneasy, namely simple beauty - and it shakes us in radical ways. It’s joy and it gives joy, it’s an expansion and enlargement of our being - both that of the musicians and that of the listeners. As mentioned before, there’s a certain terror inherent in the beauty of the music on Uneasy, for its perfection gives us pause, leaves us in a dizzying limbo. All it takes is a focus on the dabbed arpeggios in Iyer's solo interlude “Augury“, whose roughened harmony one might call unreal. Or the tenderness in “Entrustment“. This experience of beauty is in turn also political, for it makes us believe in a saved world spared from adversity, as if, far from all subjectivity, there was an experience superior to all intention. What is more, this can also be compared to the turbulent creative process Iyer describes as to the making of this album.

So, is Uneasy edgy and freely improvised? No. Is it excellent jazz? Absolutely. An early candidate for the album of the year.

Uneasy is available as a CD and on double vinyl (from May, 28th on).

Watch the video for “Combat Breathing“ here:

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Grünen - Disenjambement (Trokaan Records, 2020) ****½

By Martin Schray

Grünen first performed in April 2009 when Robert Landfermann (bass) invited Achim Kaufmann (piano) and Christian Lillinger (drums) to participate in his ongoing concert series “Not without Robert“ at the Loft in Cologne. Their first encounter was immediately recorded and released by Clean Feed Records (read Stef’s review here). While the first recording was completely improvised, the trio has combined pure improv with preconceived material on their second album (Pith & Twig, also on Clean Feed) in order to take “new turns with written material, some of it rhythmically quite intricate and/or evoking images of surrealistic jazz and song“, as they put it. For their new album Disenjambement the band recorded at the Loft again - as part of a four-day-residency in June 2017. During the day they rehearsed and in the evening they played live and processed the developed material. They played two sets each evening and in the second sets the trio was mostly supported by musicians like Frank Gratkowski, Thomas Lehn, Carl-Ludwig Hübsch and Elisabeth Coudoux.

As on their second album there are improvised parts and notated elements on Disenjambement (here exclusively by Achim Kaufmann). However, Kaufmann isn’t the leader of the band, the trio is actually a real collective. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no distinction between solo artist and rhythm section, instead there’s a constant shifting of functions. “Mondegreen“, the opener, begins with Kaufmann playing weird Monk chords paired with a small, romantic, but rhythmically broken melody, which then shines through again and again in the composition. But the actual theme only emerges when Lillinger and Landfermann enter the piece and reflect it in a variety of ways. This predetermined statement is followed by improvisations on a rhythmic structure based on the theme, which is almost chopped up by Lillinger when he briefly intersperses quite monotonous, but loud rimshots in the style of a clockwork. Kaufmann's piano literally sparkles in front of Lillinger's nervous beats and Landfermann's independent, self-confident runs. Eventually, the head is taken up in the final part again. The piece is a perfect example of the trio's music, which attempts to combine the piano trio tradition with contemporary jazz and modern classical music by initially providing different material for all three players, which can then be varied and improvised with.

Another characteristic piece is “Fsinah“, a composition the trio also recorded for Pith & Twig, which consists of different thematic variations, which are initially interrupted by improvised and even contrasting intermediate parts. The central improvisational part is based on a rhythmic structure of only one bar. There are several formal parts in the piece, in this case a larger A/B form with a main part and an extended coda like on “Mondegreen“. The trio improvises with both parts, creating a constant up and down of emotions and surprising drop outs of bass and drums, yet everything is held together by the rhythmic structure that opens up and contracts all the time. The result is a tense and lyrical modern jazz piece with relaxed and funky beats, deconstructed parts, e.g. when Kaufmann makes use of the two pianos provided by the Loft, so that he could use a regular and a prepared one, which creates new and interesting polyphonic dimensions (something which becomes even more obvious in “Mierenneuker/Quincunx“).

Yet, my favorite piece is “Lost Gesture/Green Istria“, a composition consisting of a two-bar polyrhythmic structure in which the individual players selected different levels, which then alternate and overlap. Here Kaufmann’s idea of the music becomes obvious: creating some kind of meta-version of different musical genres like bebop, modal jazz, even 1970s new wave, without quoting it in a postmodern way. The piece develops a strong, dark groove with Kaufmann’s left hand and Landfermann’s bass exploring the low registers of their instruments before it dissolves in pure sound excursions.

Asked about his influences Kaufmann says that this was hard to define. He states that he found it interesting to think about what already existed and to do something new with it, to find a new level. This goes far beyond pure piano trios, he’s rather interested in larger contexts, in whatever kind of trios. That includes non-piano formations like the ones by Steve Lacy and Jimi Hendrix. And indeed, if you know this, you can find abstractions of rock, free jazz, classical music and even the above-mentioned new wave. The more intense you listen to the album, the more interesting details are revealed. This is what the future of piano trio music could sound like.

Disenjambement is available as a CD.



Watch the band live here:

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Iro Haarla’s Around Again - The Music of Carla Bley (TUM, 2019) ****½

By Eyal Haruveni

Iro Haarla’s Around Again is the second Nordic tribute to influential and prolific American pianist-composer Carla Bley, released in recent years and follows the reeds-piano duo of Fredrik Ljungkvist and Mattias Risberg (And Now The Queen, Lilao, 2016). Haarla, a composer and bandleader in her own right, known for her role as arranger and co-composer of seminal Finnish drummer Edward Vesala work (her late husband), suggests fresh interpretations of Bley’s early compositions, some were covered by the duo of Ljungkvist and Risberg.

Most of Bley’s compositions covered by Haarla’s Around Again were featured on Paul Bley Trio iconic album, Closer (ESP Disk, 1965), described by Haarla as “one of the most important recordings of all time” and Bley as her “favorite pianist”. But Haarla has no intentions to adopt the interpretive perspective of Paul Bley, one of the first musicians to play Carla Bley’s compositions (and her first husband). She comments that Closer and Paul Bley solo piano album Open, To Love (ECM, 1973) made a lasting impression on her as a young student. Haarla enlisted to the recording of The Music of Carla Bley veteran drummer Barry Altschul, who has played in Bley’s Closer and on many other albums of the Paul Bley, in addition to her close partner, double bass player Ulf Krokfors, who initiated this project.

Haarla sheds a new light on some of the most enduring compositions of Carla Bley, somehow more introspective, delicate and thoughtful than the powerful, ubeat and often whimsy, early perspective of Paul Bley. Haarla’s new interpretations sketch Carla Bley, as Haarla herself, as an independent and strong-minded composer that refuses to employ conventional compositional strategies or to subscribe to common genre conventions, a rare phenomena “in the macho world of American jazz”, as Haarla adds. These compositions, recorded in Helsinki in November 2015, were written on just one page of notes or even less, and represents different aspects of Bley’s one-of-her-kind personality - humorous and ironic, restless but playful, dreamy yet determined, open to improvisation and inviting totally different musical personalities. Haarla succeeds to distil the elusive, poetic, haiku-like essence of each of the 12 compositions of Bley, even though she has often chosen a traditional narratives of head-solos-head. She plays with great sensitivity and manages to sound emotional and cerebral at the same time, as she makes these compositions her own but still meditates on their mysteries simultaneously.

Haarla’s Around Again offers a sparse version of “Closer”; contemplative but engaging cover of “Vashkar”; charges the iconic “Ida Lupino” with a strong and transparent, lyrical vein, turns “Olhos De Gato” into a schizophrenic waltz filled with nervous steroids, enjoys an open, playful interplay on “King Korn” and plays “Utviklingssang” as a folk song. “Jesus Maria” that closes this album, one of the earliest compositions of Bley, is performed with reverent, spiritual mode. All these compositions are performed with profound melodic flow and with open senses of time and space. Altschul blends organically into the intimate, conversational and patient interplay of Haarla and Krokfors. His subtle playing always highlight surprising melodic games deep inside Bley’s compositions, as his imaginative solos introduction on ““Olhos De Gato” and “And Now, The Queen”.

The Music of Carla Bley is released with a beautiful art work of Finnish painter Ole Kandelin, insightful liner notes of Haarla, Krokfors and Altschul, an essay on the music of Carla Bley by Amy C. Beal, author of Carla Bley (University of Illinois Press, 2011) and the recorded history of each of Bley’s compositions.

You need such a beautiful gem at your home.

Listen here.

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Sophie Agnel, John Edwards & Steve Noble - Aqissieq (ONJ, 2018) *****

By Eyal Harueveni

This recording of French pianist Sophie Agnel and British double bass player John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble epitomizes the true essence of free-improvisation. This trio blurs any distinctions between the British, supposedly old- school of free-improvisation and other European, more audacious and abstract schools of free-improvisation.

These three musicians are gifted with elephantine ears, ultra-fast instincts. They are confident and fearless, ready to dive deep into the unknown. Still, they play with great focus on detail and precision with no colossal collisions or attempt to structure conventional chord progression. Just be there, fully in the moment and let the sounds - in all forms and shapes - create enigmatic chain reactions of resonant, microtonal sounds and subtle noises.

Aqissieq is the second album of this trio. Agnel is known as imaginative explorer of the prepared piano, close collaborator of vocal artist Phil Minton and member of the acclaimed French National Jazz Orchestra (which she left at the end of 2018). Edwards and Noble have accompanied many innovative improvisers, among them reeds players Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill and Akira Sakata. Aqissieq follows Meteo, a concert recorded at the Météo Festival in Mulhouse (Clean Feed, 2013). And captures three extended improvisations of the trio, two from the Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival and the third, brief piece from the Konfrontationen Festival, Nickelsdorf, all recorded in the summer of 2016.

The title of the album refers to the Greenlandic words for ptarmigan, a snow grouse the enjoys the fierce, freezing weather of Greenland. Like this bird, Agnel, Edwards and Noble enjoys their very own quiet sonic landscapes, Territories and landscapes that borrow composer Giacinto Scelsi concept of sound - a circle of plenitude with a thick circumference, beyond common, conventional systems. Without the obvious hierarchy of typical piano trio. Where each instrument has total freedom to take the lead, shape, adapt, restore balances and align with the others to the most infinite degree. Each of the pieces - “Aqissit”, “Aqissiaq” and “Aqisseq” - encapsulates a rare, transient moment where sound, intention, intensity, color and shade and imagination briefly unite into a collective, dream-state architecture. In paraphrasing Eric Dolphy immortal words: after it's over, it's gone in the air, but this trio still manages to capture its beautiful magic again and again.

Listen here.

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Wayne Horvitz - The Snowghost Sessions (Songlines, 2018) ****

By Stef

Amazingly enough, this is the first piano, bass and drums trio that Wayne Horvitz ever recorded, despite his long career as a musician. Geoff Harper plays bass and Eric Eagle drums. The performance was recorded in 2015. Horvitz adds amplified piano, live processing, Wurlitzer electric piano, Hammond B-3, Nord Lead, TX-7, and Mellotron in his playing, even if the majority of the music is performed with acoustic piano.

Of all jazz pianists, Wayne Horvitz is possibly the bluesiest, in tone at least, and then he manages to compose such wonderful lyrical themes and melodies, adding a strong flavour of American more traditional music with a kind of cinematic soundtrack touch to it.

Horvitz has had many musical bifurcations in his career, from the classical avant-garde with his Gravitas Quartet or his "55 Music and Dance in Concrete", over free improvisation with with Butch Morris and William Parker and the rhythmic modern jazz of Pigpen, to the more accessible bands such as Zony Mash and Sweeter Than The Day. The music on this album is mostly close to the last two bands, which play the same sweet bluesy melodies, the first in an electric band, the second in an acoustic version, but with the same musicians.

Some of the quieter songs, seem to come from Sweeter Than The Day albums, even if the titles are different. There are some contrasts such as "IMB", which brings a violent attack on your ears with fully distorted sounds coming from Horvitz's electronic equipment. And the sweetness is often pierced by unusual sounds, such as in "For James Tenney".

This is music for dreamy evenings, quiet and nice next to the fireplace, away from the cold and the rain. It is guaranteed to warm you up inside.


Listen and download from Bandcamp.

The youtube track below is vintage Horvitz. Play it anywhere, and anybody with any knowledge of Horvitz's oeuvre will identify its author and performer immediately.

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Keith Jarrett - After the Fall (ECM, 2018) ****

By Raina Joines and Rick Joines

After the Fall is a live album by Keith Jarrett’s famed “Standards Trio,” with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Recorded on November 14, 1998 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (also the venue for the trio’s last gig in 2014), this album marks the midpoint of their collaboration.

After the Fall is a two CD set. Four tunes played often by the trio are featured on the first disc: “The Masquerade is Over,” Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple from the Apple,” “Old Folks,” and “Autumn Leaves.” “The Masquerade is Over” is about a six-minute tune on a couple of other records by the Standards Trio, but here it stretches past fifteen minutes, beginning with a few minutes of lyrical solo playing by Jarrett. The sound moves from full to sparse, melancholic to dramatic, and quotes “A Tisket, A Tasket” along the way. The trio cascades over one another, Jarrett sometimes sounding like Bill Evans, sometimes like Vince Guaraldi, sometimes like Theolonius Monk, but as that voice punctuating it all reminds us, always like Keith Jarrett. 

Although all the tunes on the first set are familiar to the trio, or perhaps because of that, it is more adventurous than the second set. The band wanders in and out of each other’s lines, swinging and drifting into the melodies and finding the possibilities for dissonance within them. Jarrett makes light-fingered, liquid runs across the keys as if to smooth them out. DeJohnette shimmies in now and then, shaking the water off his feathers, but he rarely ever plays more than an 8-bar solo at the end of any of these tunes. Peacock doesn’t walk a standard bass line on this set and never seems to feel the need to adhere to the melody or time signature. His playing is elliptical, often tangential to the theme. He drives the tunes abstractly, pugilistically, slightly behind the beat, as Jarrett keeps the melody in our ears. 

The sound is usually full, without much air between the notes. Instead, there seems a determined effort to drive the silence away. The sound is expansive, panoramic, and aware of an attentive, appreciative audience familiar with jazz standards. By the end of “Old Folks,” mellow notes suffuse the auditorium, setting up “Autumn Leaves,” where Jarrett drops quick, clustered riffs around the melody, pulling away from it, then circling back. Peacock suggests an idea on the bass, DeJohnette raps the tom, and Jarrett wheels around again. The sound simmers down and evens out to finish the set. 

The second set is more Bop-oriented, featuring versions of Bud Powell’s “Bouncin’ with Bud,” (where Peacock does a bit more thinking, Jarrett’s fingers fly, and DeJohnette drives things merrily along), Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy” (heavily punctuated by Jarrett’s vocal enjoyment), Paul La Roca’s “One for Majid,” and John Coltrane’s “Moment’s Notice.” It also includes the lyrical ballads, “I’ll Never See You Again,” Paul Desmond’s “Late Lament,” the usual closer “When I Fall in Love,” and a rousing rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” which delights the live audience.

“Doxy,” “I’ll Never See You Again,” “One for Majid,” and “Moment’s Notice” never seem to have been recorded on any other Standards Trio album. This second set, with some less-familiar tunes, is fairly straightforward, with all the improvisation sticking close to the changes. Jarrett creates sheets of sound, running up and down the keys on “I’ll See You Again” and flying high on “Moment’s Notice.” He turns pretty and dark on “Late Lament,” plays it light and sweet on the charming “When I Fall in Love.” DeJohnette keeps time, and Peacock walks traditional bass lines, except when keeping up with the torrent that is “Moment’s Notice,” where he deploys some Charlie Hadenesque single-note strumming.

The Standards Trio is a three-ingredient cocktail that works. No matter how cutting edge one’s taste, this is a mix that pleases again and again. Jarrett’s moves, as usual, are limber and flowing, as if he’s transferring almost all his energy directly onto the keys to pour notes over everything. He swings and is bluesy and rhapsodic by turns. The trio’s expressive playing shimmers as it brings out the mysteries still hidden in long-familiar melodies. After the Fall creates a warm, relaxed sound that is perfect to serve to your friends and savor once they’re gone.

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Mostly Other People Do the Killing - Paint (Hotcup Records, 2017) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

A few years back Pennsylvania based pianist Ron Stabinsky joined the Pennsylvania-philic Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Around the same time, long term member trumpeter Peter Evans left and the group began featuring expanded line-ups (though not all recorded) with musicians like guitarist Brandon Seabrook, trombonist David Taylor, slide trumpeter Steven Bernstein, and on occasion trumpeter Thomas Heberer. However, 2017's Paint signals the biggest shift yet - a stripped down piano trio version of the band.

And what a piano trio it is - band leader bassist Moppa Elliot and drummer Kevin Shea do more than a yeoman's job supporting Stabinsky's melodic and puckish playing. As expected, the song titles continue the long running tradition of name checking towns in PA, but they take it to a new level as each one is also a color name ... like paint I suppose.

The opener 'Yellow House' certainly kicks off with some bright blues. Small shifts in time and tempo keep the music from flowing too easily, reminding attentive listeners of the MOPDtK modus operandi, but they can be so subtle they could slip by the inattentive ones. For a band that has built its reputation on tweaking tradition by say recreating classic album covers, recording Kind of Blue note for note, and brilliantly picking apart slick 80s jazz, Paint is a fantastic evolution - or perhaps just an intriguing side trip.

We heard Stabinsky's unbridled talent on his recording Free for One, a delightful solo outing from 2016. On Paint he again brings the whole jazz vocabulary to bear, from blues riffs and avant-garde tonal cluster on 'Orangeville', to pure blissful harmony on the Duke Ellington tune 'Blue Goose'. The track 'Black Horse' is pretty damn perfect melodically, and its infectious drive showcases not only Stabinsky's virtuosity but Elliot's composition skills. The bass solo during the track is excellent as well - it's rather straightforward while drum and piano hits threaten to derail the tempo but also adds much to the vitality (a trick they pull on 'Blue Goose' as well, where tempos and pulse become at times disorienting). The closing track 'Whitehall' is a fun major key burlesque-like romp but with an unexpectedly sticky prog-rock middle passage.

MOPDtK trio edition is no less fascinating than its bigger versions. The trio format presents a more musically cohesive side of the group, but not without their sly and oft meta humor intact. If their history has proven anything, it's best to simply enjoy this slightly subversive take on the piano trio oeuvre, next time we hear from the band they will most likely be something all together different.

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Alister Spence Trio - Not Everything But Enough (Alister Spence Music, 2017) ****½

By Eyal Hareuveni

The Australian, Sydney-based Alister Spence Trio - pianist Spence, double bass player Lloyd Swanton, known from The Necks, and drummer Toby Hall, has been working together for twenty years and still eager to evolve and explore new territories. Spence worked recently with pianist-composer Satoko Fujii and her Japanese Orchestras in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe and recorded before with American pianist Myra Melford and Scottish sax player Raymond MacDonald. Swanton’s impressive suite Ambon, drawing from his uncle’s secret diary kept whilst a prisoner of war in World War II, was released in 2015 (Bugle Records). Swanton also leads his own group, The Catholics, where Hall plays the drums. Hall has also collaborated with pianist Mike Nock.

The double-album Not Everything But Enough, the seventh release of the trio, offers two totally different incarnations of the Alister Spence Trio. It was recorded in two sessions in 2014 and 2016. The first disc summarizes the trio work so far and features six compositions of Spence and one trio improvisation, recorded in October 2016. The second disc suggests new territories to explore and expand in the future and features seven solo piano improvisations of Spence from the same recording session plus 14 guided trio improvisations recorded in December 2014. Both discs emphasize the trio imaginative improvisational skills and its constant need to experiment with new sounds and dynamics.

The first disc features the trio diverse dynamics, alternating organically between the written segments and the improvised abstractions. The usage of samples by Spence and subtle percussive sounds by Hall, mainly glockenspiel and bells, on the title-piece enhances the tension building of the cinematic, minimalist groove. “As True” deepens the mysterious, minimalist vein where Spence piano hovers over the light pulse. “In a Good World” and “Peculiar Orbit” highlight the strong, multi-layered rhythmic sensibility of a trio. “Camphan Frog Song” suggests an enigmatic textual statis, closer to The Necks dynamics, stressed by the bow work of Swanton and the glockenspiel of Hall. The reserved and lyrical “Time and Place” sound as coming from ECM catalogue of impressionist Nordic pianists. The last piece on this disc,“Hopeful”, resumes the cinematic, minimalist groove.

The second disc 21 short “Room”-numbered improvisations experiment with demanding dynamics, all attempt to suggest new means of interplay outside the trio comfort zone. These improvisations also incorporate new sonic possibilities to the trio language, affected by Spence playing on the prepared piano and Hall on the glockenspiel. These brief improvisations investigate dark and abstract atmospheres, ambient, gamelan-like pulses, fleeting, ethereal melodies, sparse, fractured rhythmic patterns, weird-sounding drones and intense, chaotic free-improvisations.

Impressive.

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Benoît Delbecq, Perkin & Biayenda - Ink (Clean Feed, 2015) ****½

By Stef

Backlog 3

French pianist Benoît Delbecq has been praised on this blog before, and rightly so. Not that he is an icon of free jazz or free music. No, he has his own style, maybe even his own genre. Out of the jazz and classical heritage, and with more tribal influences, he developed the piano into an instrument that explicitly adds percussion as one of its sonic ingredients, playing with muted strings, or with objects on the strings. Also that is by itself nothing unusual, but Delbecq integrates all this into relatively accessible music.

The trio further consists of Miles Perkin on bass and Emile Biayenda on drums. The former replaces the late Jean-Jacques Avenel who passed away two years ago, and the latter, hailing from Congo, is also new to the trio. And they are fully in line with Delbecq's approach. The ten tracks are like little miniatures of structured and composed improvisations, all girating around rhythmic inventiveness and pulse, further enriched by the pianist's natural lyricism.

Without becoming really minimalist in nature, the trio still avoid anything that is expansive or sweeping in nature. They really do their utmost to stick to the absolute essence of each piece, adding ear-candy on the way, but without any superfluous embellishments. The whole has a lightness of touch, a joyful playfulness that is rare to find. It has no specific pretense, which makes it even more attractive.

A little gem.

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Vijay Iyer Trio @ Miller Theater, Columbia University, NYC 10-22-2016

Vijar Iyer, Stephan Crump, and Tyshawn Sorey at Miller Theater, Columbia University

By Paul Acquaro

It's probably best to be forthright about this: while I have read all of the reviews of pianist Vijay Iyer's releases on the Free Jazz Blog, and enjoyed the profile on him in the New Yorker before his appearances at the opening of the Met Breuer, aside from the Trio 3 + Vijay Iyer recording Wiring (Intakt) from 2013, I really knew Iyer's music best by text. However, a chance to see him with bassist Stephan Crump and percussionist Tyshawn Sorey (both of whom I have had the pleasure to hear many times) at Miller Theater, Columbia University, was a great opportunity to rectify this. I approached with an open mind - armed with only the pile of descriptions - and left a satisfied customer.

The show was broken into two 40 minute sets (or so, I didn't actually keep track) and each one had its own personality. The first was an unbroken string of tunes, until the last song, where the band paused, Iyer bantered a bit, and launched into a final song (possibly a Radiohead tune?). Two other covers, or rather deconstructions, in this set were 'Work' by Thelonious Monk and 'Human Nature' from Michael Jackson. While I have it on good authority that the latter is a concert staple, what the trio does with it was fantastic. Distilling key musical events - like the well-known chorus - and using it as a bridge between solos and collective workouts, the original song became a touchstone in a maelstrom. It was ever a pleasure to hear Sorey kicking the shit out of his kit!

Overall the first set seemed to really mine Iyer's catalog, and the songs had the ECM 'sound' to them - atmosphere and spaciousness were the rule, but one which was often broken by the rapturous climaxes of interlocking layers powered by Iyer's elliptical arpeggiated bursts. Crump's crisp bass lines, which hung just behind Iyer's beat, gave the music additional oomph, as did Sorey's imaginative drumming.

The musical statements in the second set seemed to flow more continuously and the connection between the three musicians involved even deeper concentration. On one tune, a pastoral 'mid-western dreamscape' à la Pat Metheny, Crump was noticeably deep in thought, conjuring the bass by shaping the air around it. When he finally connected with the instrument, the song  - which I had found a touch sleepy - suddenly burst apart is his hands as he played a solo that completely changed the group's direction. Sorey and Iyer responded in kind and the peak they reached was a tornado ripping though the musical landscape. That tune, along with Sorey's crescendoing solo on the penultimate tune, received enthusiastic applause from the already receptive and excited audience.

An excellent show, and one that has me scrambling to back-fill my collection!

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Aruán Ortiz - Hidden Voices (Intakt, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

There is something familiar about Aruán Ortiz's approach on the piano. One bit Matthew Shipp, one bit Craig Taborn, and much of his own sound, there is precise angularity and elliptical energy that defines Ortiz's approach to both composition and playing. Perhaps too, his choice of musicians says something - drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Eric Revis are no strangers to the type of hyper-melodic logic and muscular pulse found in Ortiz's tunes.

The playing is crisp, fresh, and accessible. There are hints of Latin rhythms mixed with strong modern and free jazz approaches. In addition to several originals, Ortiz also signals his musical lineage in picking Thelonious Monk's 'Skippy' and Ornette Coleman's 'The Sphinx' and gives a nod to his life growing up in Cuba, with a take on the traditional tune 'Uno, Dos y Tres, Que Paso Más Chevere'.

The opening track, 'Fractal Sketches', begins with a sparse and elliptical motif that lurches over a syncopated groove. Then, the classic Ornette tune begins with Revis' solo bass and quickly settles into a lithe and spirited arrangement. The following track, 'Caribbean Vortex/Hidden Voices' has a title with seemingly oblique political overtones, and the music too is full of intrigue and terse rhythmic figures. It builds, layer upon layer, to a tense climax. Ortiz varies the mood but his abstract sense of melody leans towards the spare and clean throughout. The track 'Joyful Noise' is a fun one for fans of prepared piano and 'Skippy' is a smart update on the Monk classic.

Ortiz presents a fresh sound on Hidden Voices and it is a pleasure to hear such a solid and energetic piano trio recording. Give it a click below...

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Simon Nabatov – Equal Poise (Leo Records, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

Following last year’s Projections, Simon Nabatov and Mark Dresser are back on record together in standard piano trio formation with up-and-coming drummer Dominik Mahnig. Equal Poise seems a cheeky name for this set of five rowdy improvisations; the stylized boxing ring depicted on the album cover is off-kilter and wobbly. Yet at the same time it’s perhaps in the album’s dynamic extremes that some sort of balance, ultimately, is achieved. On the one hand this repeated exploration of limits lends each track a seeming, superficial sameness. On the other hand, though, it makes each track—with some attention to detail—its own world worth inhabiting.

First up, “Full Circles” is itself built of ebbs and flows, advances and retreats. Nabatov has a knack here for creating drama by playing with proportion—he might build up tension and intensity gradually only to withdraw suddenly, or crash a quiet moment with a booming low-register chord cluster. Not that he can’t sustain sensitivity, but the most thrilling moments for me are when his playing leaves his band mates in its wake.

Given Nabatov’s intrepid power, while listening it’s hard not to think of the boxing ring album art or the blurb on the Leo site, which compares the music to a bout: “Push and pull, jabs and hooks, gloves on and off, circling around and direct engagement…” There’s certainly a physicality to Nabatov’s playing here—to Dresser’s, too—even a kind of avuncular bullying, given the generational gap between the two veteran players and the twenty-something Mahnig. Of course the drummer survives each round just fine. It’s the boxing ring itself—a space of structure and boundary, inherited codes and rules, not unlike the classic jazz piano trio configuration after all—that’s left bent out of shape, almost out of recognition.

Indeed, elsewhere the trio set their efforts toward cooperation and interplay. It’s no surprise that Dresser’s playing, whether textural or propulsive, makes a reliable complement to Nabatov’s. And while Mahnig isn’t afraid to experiment on his kit, at times he provides the decisive ingredient when the trio draws together rhythmically. One of my favorite examples of this is his perfectly stiff almost-groove over Nabatov’s two-handed pattern and Dresser’s eighth-note sawing near the end of “Minor Force.” And on the final track, “Lithe Moves,” the trio even drops in and out of some genuine swing—Nabatov flirting with some lithe indeed post-bop phrases, Mahnig working the ride and stamping out a crisp two and four. But to overemphasize these moments would be to ignore all the other wonderful, completely dissimilar moments of unpredictable discovery and tension. It’s in the balance of the two, again, that Equal Poise succeeds.

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Alister Spence Trio - Live (Alister Spence Music, 2015) ****

By Eyal Hareuveni

Making a live recording - a really good one - is considered in Australian slang to be somewhat of a 'slippery eel’ . You need to have a good sounding space, an able sound engineer with state-of-the-art equipment, and obviously, you need the musicians to be in top form. Fortunately, the stars aligned above the Sound Lounge in Sydney, Australia on March 20, 2015 when the trio of pianist Alister Spence, double bass player Lloyd Swanton and drummer Toby Hall recorded their first live album after about twenty years of working together as a trio.

Live, the trio's sixth recording, sounds fantastic and it captures this experienced trio's essence at its best. The trio has toured United Kingdom, Canada and Japan. Spence, its leader and the composer of most of its pieces, has developed an international career in recent years, recording with Scottish sax player Raymond MacDonald, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, American pianist Myra Melford and Swedish rhythm section of double bass player Joe Williamson and drummer Christopher Cantillo. Swanton is renowned composer and plays in another legendary Australian trio, The Necks. Hall is known for his collaborations with pianist Mike Nock.

The telepathic, tight interplay of the trio allows the three musicians to shift the dynamics instantly from thoughtful and fragile interplay to an intense and dense one, morphing abstract textures into propulsive pulses or playfully building and releasing the tension, as demonstrated impressively on “Felt”. “Brave Ghost” highlights the trio's patient manner of constructing and deconstructing Spence's cyclical melodic theme in many clever ways, alternating organically between a bluesy rhythm (with a commanding solo from Swanton), to ecstatic piano flights. 

The free-improvised “Not Everything But Enough - opening” and the following , Spence-penned “Mullet Run”, stresses the trio's expansive and open interplay. Spence adds samples and Hall alternates on the glockenspiel, and all together sketch a mysterious and subtle multi-layered texture. Their music's complex architecture is patiently fleshed out, but never settles on any pattern, pulse, or theme for more than few brief seconds, and just keep searching on and on. The trio concludes the set with “Seventh Song”, developing the moving theme in an economic and reserved manner, as if playing its skeletal outlines is enough to illuminate its profound structure.

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