Alexandra Grimal & Giovanni Di Domenico - Shakkei (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

French saxophonist Alexandra Grimal and Italian pianist Giovanni Di Domenico have performed and released albums over the years, in different ensembles. This is their fourth duo album, after "Down The Hill" (2020), after "Ghibli" (2011) and "Chergui" (2014), and it is an absolute winner. 

Recorded live in Ghent, Belgium in January 2023, the duo brings us five improvised pieces with Japanese titles. "Komori" means "a person who tends to trees", "Ishi No Irai" means "Request Of The Stone", "Kuden" means "(oral) tradition", "Sanmai" "absorbing oneself in something", "Korishiro" "object to which a spirit is drawn or summoned". If anything, these titles suggest an organic, nature inspired and spiritual musical excursion. Grimal plays tenor and soprano saxophones, Di Domenico plays grand piano, celesta and organ. The music is fragile, ethereal, lyrical and very precise. Both Grimal and Di Domenico master a wide variety of styles and influences, to the extent that a lot of their music would not even match our blog's profile, yet this album will please fans of free improv and avant-garde alike. 

The music is rich, complex despite its spontaneity, light-hearted yet deep. 

The pièce de résistance is the twenty minute long "Sanmai" - starting with a smartphone tone from the audience - on which De Domenico switches to organ. The latter instrument gives more gravitas to the sound, a more solemn and grand vista compared to the more delicate piano pieces. Grimal takes on the sound by long single tones from her tenor, with growing intensity and timbral extensions, resulting in a mesmerising effect. After a little more over six minutes, her tone becomes lyrical, somewhat naive, gentle, playful and on soprano, completely changing the atmosphere of the piece without losing its essential focus and sense of direction. The organ's dark tone from the beginning shifts into a more light-hearted theme and takes over the piece after another six minutes, only to change again into a more unpredictable environment. And it keeps shifting. The effect is astonishing, fascinating. 

I liked their previous albums a lot, but this is the strongest one. Both artists have a very strong sensitivity for each other's sound, allowing to co-create as if every note was planned, as if every change and shift was agreed upon instead of the joint movement into a new uncharted sonic space, and perfected this over the years. 

Don't miss it!

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Sophie Agnel / John Butcher - RARE (Les Disques VICTO, 2025)

By Martin Schray

Music can be compared to radiation - analogous to descriptions by the German writer Ernst Jünger. In his diary entries of the same name, Jünger refers to light, but his observations can also be applied to the auditory world - especially that of improvised music. The musicians capture sound that reflects on the listener. In this sense, they perform preparatory work. The abundance of sounds must first be selected and then evaluated - in other words, given the sound that corresponds to their rank according to a secret key. Sound means life, which is hidden in the tones. A flawless improvisation then has an effect beyond the pleasure it gives the listener. It would be a decision between the played and the discarded, a delicate balance that transcends to the other areas of life and society. Thus musicians would be far more important in their significance than they are generally given credit for. When they transform tones into sound, the future is seen, it is conjured up or banished in the best sense. Perhaps this gives music a little too much weight, but I thought of this analogy when I listened to Sophie Agnel’s and John Butcher’s latest album, RARE.

The very first notes of the opening piece sound like a small homage to György Ligeti’s “Atmospheres”, with their improvisational rigor on the one hand and relaxed, variable and aleatoric moments on the other. However, the two apparent extremes coincide in Agnel and Butcher’s music. The improvisation is then more a state than a contour or shape, the timbre is the decisive element, the actual carrier of the form, which - detached from the musical shapes - becomes an intrinsic value. Agnel’s notes seem to be dabbed on, Butcher’s saxophone casually hisses past them or his lines pop up only to disappear again immediately. Much could be played here, but the two decide not to. The pause is the crucial element. If RARE were an ECM recording, euphony would probably take center stage. But Angel’s and Butcher’s music is roughened, bulky and accessible at the same time, atonal but quite audible, rugged and dark, but also plainly beautiful. Both are masters of their instruments, and there are also wild passages on RARE, as well as stark contrasts such as Butcher’s birdsong in “RARE 2”, which Agnel accompanies with notes from the lower register. Pure life here: The awakening of nature in the early morning, but the dark clouds on the horizon already herald a coming storm.

The music on RARE lives from these fundamental tensions, it even thrives from them. You can lose yourself in the sounds created by two of the great improvisers of our time, let yourself fall into it, reel in it. RARE celebrates this creativity, it’s a high mass of improvisation. Agnel and Butcher manage to uncover the life (the sound) that is hidden in the notes. It’s a vision of a better future. Marvelous!

RARE is available as a download.

You can listen to some excerpts and buy it here:

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Frode Gjerstad with Matthew Shipp - We Speak (Relative Pitch, 2023)

By Paul Acquaro

I've been thinking about extended technique and the saxophone a bit lately, and I am starting to come up with a taxonomy, a classification scheme, if you will, of the various sound possibilities and their application. For example, there are the extended tonal systems that musicians like Evan Parker and John Butcher have developed and extended, rich panoplies of sounds that when you hear it, you can immediately identify the source. This extends, in my nascent system, to titans like Peter Brötzmann whose blasts belong to his own unique vocabulary. Then, there is the over-blowing that add emphasis and takes the listener out to the unknown, like, for example in Tony Malaby's playing.

Norwegian saxophonist Frode Gjerstad lies somewhere in the middle. His musical language is built from a generous array of extended tones, smeary squeaks, slathered squalls and contained eruptions, all with an idiosyncratic grammar that glues it together. His syntax contains hints of raw power and much refined application, and it communicates wonderfully with collaborators who intuitively know how to speak a similar sonic dialect.

Enter pianist Matthew Shipp. We Speak is this duo's first recording, and I believe, their second all told following 2019's Season Of Sadness with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. After a few spins of We Speak, one would not suspect that this is not the work of a long standing duo. Shipp effortlessly builds up the environment with strong tonal clusters and rhythmic figures as Gjerstad darts around and interjects sonic splatters amongst delightfully melodic sprints. Structures emerge through both Shipp's reactions to Gjerstad's edgy and sweeping lines, and the saxophonist's reciprocal filling in of the musical spaces.

All of Shipp's musical gifts are put to use in ensconsing Gjerstad's sounds in harmonic fit-to-form packages. From the opening moments, when we hear the saxophonist introduce a series of vibrant, akimbo tones and then sharp, strident tonal fragments from the piano, to their suddenly pulling back and delivering of a lithe melody adorned by tonal fragments, it is riveting. The results are perfect crystallizations of spontaneous music, the product of the unique chemistry of two masterful improvisors. We Speak is a challenging and exciting album that I'll continue to listen to as I mull over my emerging 'saxophone squeaks' classification system.

 

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Martin Küchen & Sophie Agnel- Detour Tunnels Of Light (Thanatosis, 2023)

By Stef Gijssels

Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen has many faces ... and many voices. Most readers will know him best  from his band "Angles" (extrovert, exuberant, infectious): 

("Every Woman Is A Tree" (2008), "Elliptical West" (2010), "By Way Of Deception" (2012), "In Our Midst" (2013), "Injuries" (2014), "Disappeared Behind the Sun (2017), "Equality & Death/Pacemaker"2016), "Beyond Us" (2019) "Today Is Better Than Tomorrow" (2019) "A Muted Reality" (2022), 

 

... and possibly also from his solo work (dark and introvert):  

"Hellstorm" (2012), "Lieber Heiland, Lass Uns Sterben" (2017), "Det Försvunnas Namn" (2020), "Utopia" (2022).

Next to these, he also has a few dozen albums with some of the best musicians in free improvisation and jazz: Agusti Fernandez, Rafal Mazur, Vasco Trilla, Zlatko Kaucic, Burkhard Beins, Steve Noble, Ernesto Rodrigues, Keith Rowe ...

For this excellent album, we find him in a duo format with French pianist Sophie Agnel, still recently reviewed on our blog for her albums "Animals" and Gargorium" (2023), and before for "La Pierre Tachée" (2022), "Marguerite d'Or Pâle" (2016), "Aqissieq" (2018), "Meteo" (2013), performing also with a number of like-minded artists: John Butcher, Steve Noble, Daunik Lazro, John Edwards, Satoko Fujii, Benjamin Duboc, Christine Wodrascka ...

On "Detour Tunnels Of Light", they serve us four improvised pieces, open-textured and fragile. Both artists have redefined the sound of their instruments, and possibly also of the concept of music. Agnel uses all aspects of her instrument, standing next to it, making strings resonate, vibrate, pluck, twang, or other sounds that are  delightfully unfamiliar. The interaction with Küchen's sopranino works well. His voice is rasping, hoarse, often plaintive and sad, with lots of bended notes, creating a human-like inflection to his sound. 

All four tracks clock at a little longer than eight minutes, and their combined voice remains coherent throughout, and only on the second track - not without reason called 'The Gould Passage' - her piano actually sounds at moments like it's originally intended to. Together they explore the limits of musicality, the foggy place where ambient sound and lyricism merge, where surprise and vision converge, probing and softly creating at the same time. 

Their musical universe is at once introspective and expressive, calm, controlled, precise, tender and sad. The tone of despair that characterises Küchen's solo albums is not really present here, but it's not cheerful either. You can only let these two artists guide you, take you along on their journey, to enjoy the wonder and soothing quality of their fragile sonic texture, the experience of new sounds, articulating equally new feelings and aesthetics.

We can only hope they continue their explorative journey together. 

The music was recorded at Borlunda Church, Eslöv, February 16-17, 2022.

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Matthew Shipp and Chad Fowler – Old Stories (Mahakala Music, 2022)

By Anthony Simon

When he walked into the studio, Matthew Shipp was at the piano playing Duke Ellington ballads. “Really swinging, beautiful,” recalls reedist Chad Fowler in the album notes. Other than arranging the logistical details, the two hadn’t discussed the music they were about to record. Their ensuing spontaneous musical dialogue is titled Old Stories (2022) and is published on Fowler’s label Mahakala Music. The 2-CD recording captures their very first time playing together, but the deep simpatico heard between them makes me think they must’ve been playing together for ages. It’s a compelling narrative. And so is their music.

Ellington has been a perennial inspiration and touchstone for Shipp’s art, notably on a wonderful 2015 trio recording titled To Duke (RogueArt) , covering classics and offering originals in a riveting avant-garde spirit. In a sense that’s more oblique though no less alluring, one might hear the spontaneously composed songs on Old Stories as magnifying that homage, this time with Chad Fowler playing stritch and saxello, himself bringing a longstanding admiration for Ellington’s saxophone sideman Johnny Hodges. Shipp’s playing has delightfully lyrical moments on Old Stories, and when Fowler coaxes sweet bluesy tones from his horn, even a fledgling like me catches echoes of Ellington. But it’s volatile, and in the blink of an eye Fowler can be wailing fiercely amidst Shipp’s rapturous storms.

Old Stories is divided into 14 tracks or “chapters,” and Shipp and Fowler have an endearing magnetism throughout. Through both communicative contrasts and mirrored responding, there’s always an emotional valence to their dialogue. Some passages can be emotionally exacting – stories full of pain or rage can be like that. But that doesn’t diminish their value, their importance. There’s vibrancy in expressions of pain. To that point, Fowler’s label Mahakala Music notes “our aim is to create and release aggressively beautiful music.” In Tibetan Buddhism, Mahakala is a deity that represents pure compassion, but expressed through the slaying of egoism. The tension between delicate beauty and ferocious bouts can be heard on nearly every track of this album.

On this topic, Fowler answered some questions I had via email. He wrote about being “motivated by creating catharsis via music. Bringing these abstract concepts into play more concretely in a compositional sense, a piece can use emotion as a musical palette in the same way a melodic fragment, harmonic progression, or textural change is introduced and developed in a composition. Emotion is a higher level of abstraction over the components of traditional music theory. I strive to be able to shift between, say, ‘angry’ and ‘distraught’ in the same way I might alternate between G minor and G major.”

Through most of the album Fowler plays the stritch, a kind of straight alto saxophone often associated with Rashaan Roland Kirk. The only exception is “Chapter VIII” where he plays the saxello. Fowler notes that “playing a strange instrument” is one tool he employs to aid in “shedding the creative baggage I've accumulated both knowingly and unknowingly over the years.”

Here’s live video from the recording of Old Stories (Fowler plays saxello): 'Old Stories - Chapter Eight'

In a career studded with masterworks, pianist Matthew Shipp has numerous duo recordings, including with Roscoe Mitchell, Rob Brown, Ivo Perlemen, Evan Parker, and others. In an interview with Free Jazz Blog, Shipp noted at least two elements to playing duo: an openness to each other’s language and a commitment to “the gestalt'' between the players. This is evident in the distinctive sound created between Shipp and Fowler. Each spontaneously composed song travels the emotional distance from a theme told in sweet or fragile voicings, to another that’s vociferously hammered and bellowed – back and forth often multiple times in the same song. Motifs arise and transform quickly but coherently – they weave a narrative from razor’s edge rawness to swinging strut to sweet melancholy.

This music and theme of Old Stories reminds me of a line in a Herman Hesse novel, “My story isn’t sweet and harmonious, like invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.”

Old Stories is available as a double CD or digital download.

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Ivo Perelman - Brass and Ivory Tales (Fundacja Sluchcaj, 2021) *****

By Paul Acquaro

The small white box sits on my desk. Perfectly square, about an inch and a half high, featuring a light grayscale photo overlayed with white lettering. Inside, a slim booklet with saxophonist Ivo Perelman's image. Then, nine cardboard sleeves, each with a black and white image of a different pianist ... first, David Burrell, then Marylyn Crispell, followed by Araun Ortiz, Aaron Parks, Sylvia Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Craig Taborn, Angelica Sanchez, and finally Vijay Iyer. As you can surmise, within each envelope is a CD documenting a fruitful encounter between the saxophonist and musician whose image is on the sleeve. Just a look at the list of musical partners and you can also safely surmise that the contents of the box are likely to combust. 

The more proper metaphor, however, is something regarding a book of stories rather than a book of matches. From the "tales" of the title, each one, a new collaboration, is broken into chapters - the track titles are chapter one, two, three, and so on. However, mere minutes into the over 1/2 hour 'Chapter 1' from Tale One, the first of two tracks with Dave Burrell, and the explosive imagery is just as appropriate. Burrell, 81, is ever a thoughtful and melodic player, and the interaction with Perelman is both delicately balanced and devastatingly precise. The energy already streaming from Perelman's instrument is heated, building in intensity as each minute goes by. They settle a bit later in the track, Burrell offering sparse dissonant lines and Perelman playing long yearning tones. The second track continues their adventure, the piano swings occasionally and the sax glides above and below the steady line. 

Tale Two, with Marilyn Crispell begins differently. Ruminative and gentle, the duo plays what sounds like a composed song, wistful and pretty, however unexpected tones and intervallic leaps belie the truly improvised nature. Then 'Chapter Two' flips the script. The romanticism turns to pointillism as Crispell's playing is quick, syncopated, and unpredictable. Perelman spars gamely, he is a blaze of notes and twisting musical logic. On this disc, 'Chapter 5' is standout. The two are again in a fierce match of agility, Crispell punctuating her ideas with percussive chords and Perelman jumping into altissimo range on a whim.

Tale Three finds Perelman working out some ideas with Cuban-born, NYC based Auran Ortiz. 'Chapter One' finds Ortiz providing spare, percussive chords for Perelman to climb over and dance around. The saxophonist smears high pitched tones between the spaces in the pianist's accompaniment. On many of the chapters in this collaboration, Ortiz employs a minimalist approach, which is quite interesting to hear in contrast to the denser duos on Tale Two. However, a rumble from the low end coupled with a twinkling cluster of high notes also gives Perelman a much different set of tones and textures to explore.

Brass and Ivory Tales is a generous and rich set of music. The recordings capture the saxophonist's inimitable style, as well as the spirit of pure improvisation. As the booklet with text from writer and de-facto Perelman scholar Neil Tesser indicates, each recording started with a blank slate, no discussion of ideas precede the push of the record button.

This collection took the prolific musician seven years to complete, with the final three recordings made during the summer of 2021. Most collaborations here are first encounters and it is fascinating to hear how Perelman adapts to each different musical partner. The one missing collaborator in this collection is long-time musical partner Matthew Shipp, but there are plenty of other releases available to enjoy their telepathic work.

All nine CDs in this set are worthy of a close listen. They are accessible, but take time and patience. The effort though is not without ample reward. Tale Five, for example, is a set of eleven shorter stories, told with Swiss-born, NYC based pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, that are fulfilling and dramatic. The piano playing is rich and harmonically complex, to which Perelman response is rich and melodically.  Tale Six with Craig Taborn begins spiritedly, the pianist providing an expansive array of tones to navigate. Tale Four with Aaron Parks begins on a more subdued note. Known in more modern jazz circles, Parks offers Perelman a calm, expressive palette to work with. Tale Six is with Spanish avant-garde pianist Agusti Fernandez. Their collaboration also begins gently but soon splinters in many directions, sometimes simultaneously. By 'Chapter Three', the two are dancing on hot coals. Tale Eight is with pianist Angelica Sanchez and begins with the cheeriest of interactions so far as Sanchez's lithe playing rounds off some of the sourer timbers in Perelman's tone. 'Chapter Three' is intense, the piano plays tight a tight cluster of tones while Perelman reacts with similarly tightly clustered notes. The tension breaks soon enough, but not without leaving a lasting impression. Finally, Tale Nine is with Vijay Iyer. The two waste no time getting into a sprightly exchange, Iyer seems to envelope the entire keyboard with his ideas and Perelman masterfully matches the exuberance. The five tracks featuring the two of them is a fitting ending to this tremendous set of music.

Brass and Ivory Tales is a book of matches, both literally and figuratively. Combustible sticks on one hand, compatible musical partner on another. The music within is light and lithe, dark and dense, covering the keys, the octaves, and all the rest. 

The bandcamp site offers samples from all the CDs, here is a starter for you:

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Two Tim Berne Duets

Matt Mitchell / Tim Berne - 1 (Screwgun, 2020) ****

By Stephen Griffith

In the May 2018 issue, Downbeat conducted a blindfold test for Tim Berne. When discussing a Zorn composition he stated, paraphrasing from memory, that John goes into the studio with specific ideas on how he wants each participant to sound in a composition unlike Berne’s approach in wanting the musicians to develop the role with their identities. I thought of that often regarding his relationship with Matt Mitchell, whether in Snakeoil and previously released duets, but particularly in this collection of solo piano interpretations of Berne’s compositions, a spellbinding reworking that still contains the stamp of the composer but gently nudges the listener to examine the lyricism in a different way.

The genesis of this recording began when Berne first encountered Mitchell in the summer of 2008 when both taught at the Brooklyn School of Improvised Music’s workshop and performed in the faculty concert. Discovering they were musically sympatico led to increasing concert interactions: a seven piece Adobe Probe concert at the Stone in January 2009, an early version of Snakeoil called Los Totopos in September 2009, and in December 2009 at the Art Alliance in Philadelphia Matt played an opening solo piano set of Tim’s songs before joining Adobe Probe for the second set, the latter of which was released by Screwgun in June 2020, the same release date for 1 which was recorded at Ibeam on June 30, 2010. This wasn't the first time they recorded as a duo but it's the earliest performance to be released. Snakeoil was Berne’s first new band after a prolonged period of one off performances and it gave him an opportunity to revisit older unrecorded compositions and expose them to younger musicians anxious to apply their imprints. One of Berne’s strengths as a composer is in balancing freedom and form and in Mitchell he found a counterpoint to his insistently probing alto lines with ambidextrous melodicism capable of generating complimentary rhythmic propulsion. In the informative liners Matt gives background info for each composition as well as unlisted pieces that they segued into. For example the second piece, “Scanners” which was eventually recorded on the first Snakeoil album in January 2011, they start so strongly and familiarly that you don't miss the clarinet of Oscar Noriega nor Ches Smith’s drums in the swirling alto and piano lines. When things wind down they transition into an earlier composition of Matt’s before ending on a Berne song which never made it to record. I find these early versions of Snakeoil compositions fascinating because they're too fully formed to call them works in progress while still subject to the pushes and pulls of further performances, not to mention differing instrumentation, to morph into something different through time. And as Berne pointed out in an interview shortly after the release of Snakeoil, different studio takes of the same songs sounded wildly different.

Two other pieces here, “Duck” and “All Socket”, ended up on this followup Snakeoil recording as “Cornered (Duck)” and “Socket” recorded in January 2013 and greatly altered with the passage of time but still recognizable in the melody. At the conclusion of “All Socket” Mitchell plays a wigged out stride-ish figure that was a strikingly unique way to close it. One other piece, “Traction” from Berne’s book of work was previously appended to “Jalapeño Democracy” on a live Science Friction recording.

Although Snakeoil was the relatively concurrent destination of these pieces perhaps it's just as useful to consider this performance as an early version of the Berne and Mitchell duo entity realized in three subsequent recordings and ongoing still. Whichever context you place it in, it's a very coherent and adventurous performance providing rewarding listening through repeated exposure.

Tim Berne / Mark Helias - Blood From a Stone (Helias Self Release, 2020) ***(*)

After the frenzied assertiveness of two musicians still in the learning curve of becoming familiar, this recording represents the opposite musical dynamic: two bandmates from the early 80s making music as an incidental part of a small social gathering over a weekend last September. They carved out two blocks of time in the studio to record these five joint compositions. Initially it sounds like Helias, a wonderfully melodic bassist, sets a rhythmic motif which Berne follows and embellishes in a somewhat uncharacteristically placidly reactive manner, although as the first track, “Throw Me A Bone” progresses the roles reverse and further trade offs occur for the duration. If the track order reflects when they were recorded, the third cut, “Physical Responsibility”, is where Tim’s playing becomes more assertive with subdued fireworks and continues accordingly through the rest of the session. It's a very relaxing musical reunion of two longtime friends.

In the Bandcamp notes, Mark credits Tim for having urged him at the beginning of his career to overcome his reticence in putting his music in front of the public by recording it prior to the usual commitment from a label and then, years later, encouraging him to make a solo bass recording; all successfully executed and received. Maybe the nature of their long musical relationship is borne out by these songs.

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Piano sax duo

 By Stef Gijssels

The sheer volume of music released last year forces us to write combined reviews, now on the topic of sax and piano duos. There are many, as you will see, and we leave it up to the reader to further explore them and appreciate them. Some of them require more indepth attention and reviews, for sure, and that may still come. In the meantime, the reader is alerted to their existence. 

Peter Brötzmann & Fred Van Hove - Front To Front (Dropa, 2020)

German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove go back a long way. In 1970 they already released "Balls" together with Dutch drummer Han Bennink. The three men have been instrumental in determining the continental European kind of free jazz, iconoclastic, loud and raw and deconstructivist, but without taking themselves too seriously, and very expressive, creating music in which even more options and directions became available, not only pushing boundaries but completely doing away with them. Brötzman was 78 when this duet was performed, and Van Hove 82. Despite their age, they still play their music with the enthusiasm and even the freshness of young boys. I am not sure whether they could have dreamed this up back in the late 60s or early 70s, as both came under severe attack from even the more progressive side of the music establishment. They have opened our collective ears and continue to do so. 

This live performance dates from the Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerp in 2019. Fans for both musicians should definitely look to get a copy of the vinyl version. 

Matthew Shipp & Rob Brown - Then Now (RogueArt, 2020)

The duo of Matt Shipp and Rob Brown is also highly recommended (and more extensively reviewed by Gregg Miller here). The warm and lyrical tone of Brown's alto matches well with Shipp's unpredictable and sensitive music. Both artists released their first duo album "Sonic Explorations" in 1988, and they have continued to perform and release albums in various bands over the years. Possibly the most fascinating aspect of this album is the seamless interaction between both musicians, co-creating their music as they improvise, creating tight and focused music. Shipp is a star at creating micro-structures in his improvisations which vanish and are replaced by new ideas. Brown navigates these changes brilliantly. On two of the eight tracks, each musician has an unaccompanied solo moment. 

Agusti Fernandez & Liudas Mockunas - Improdimensions (No Business, 2020)

Every year, the „Improdimensija” (Improdimension) concert series is organised in Vilnius, Lithuanua, and is dedicated to improvised music. This duo performance of Spanish pianist Agustí Fernández and Lithuanian reedist Liudas Mockunas was recorded in two consecutive years, the A-side of the LP from December, 2019 and the B-side in November 2018. Both sets are equally intense, sometimes raw, closer to free improv, with no patterns to be discerned at all and lots of timbral explorations, and at other times both artists find a rhythm, however implicit, to drive things forward full of energy and power. The second session starts with lots of silence and weird sounds coming from inside the piano and a like-minded saxophone, shifting into high forward moving tension on the second piece. An amazing album that will keep its power with many listens. 

Catherine Sikora​​-Culpo Duo - The Paris Sessions, Volume 1 Mimesis (Self, 2020)  & Catherine Sikora & Christopher Culpo Duo - The Paris Sessions Vol. 2, Speaking In Tongues (Self, 2020)

I read in the liner notes that "In February 2020, Christopher Culpo and Catherine Sikora reconvened in Paris, where their collaboration started five years before, and spent four days recording at l’Atelier de la Main d’Or". Their music is more intimate than the albums reviewed above, chamber music, to be listened to in a smaller space. It is not expansive, but disciplined, measured, controlled even if improvised. Sikora's soprano has a warm and velvety sound, singing like a bird through the breeze of Christopher Culpo's piano. The music is smart, gentle and performed with great skill. 

The second album is the continuation of the first. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Christian Rønn & Aram Shelton - Multiring (Astral Spirits, 2020)

"Multiring" is a fascinating collaboration between Danish composer Christian Rønn and American saxophonist Aram Shelton. The music is available on limited edition cassette. The music is beyond genres. The first track is quiet and slow. Rønn's electric piano and Shelton's alto create a very unique sonic universe, with interesting harmonies and quiet intensity. The second piece is more dynamic with some vague connection to Ethopian jazz. On the third, the piano sounds more like a slow percussive instrument over which Shelton's alto weaves his lamenting sounds. Only one track, "Crawl", is a little more uptempo. The duo manage to create their own voice and a strong musical coherence with variation. 

The title is a reference to chemical bonding by multiple rings of atoms. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Daniel Carter & Matt Lavelle - The Piano Album (Self, 2020)

True, Daniel Carter also plays trumpet, flute, clarinet and saxophone, and piano, and Matt Lavelle also plays trumpet and bass clarinet. On their first duo album in 2004, both musicians used their horns. On the second - "Blackwood - Live At Tower Records" (2006) - the piano made its entry on two tracks, once played by Lavelle, once by Carter. Here, the roles are even more precise. Lavelle only plays piano, hence the title of the album, while Carter doesn't. Both musicians have performed many times over the years, including in streets and subways. But this far from being 'street music'. This is really subdued chamber music. In the liner notes, Lavelle is humble about his skills on the piano. And he shouldn't. It's the music that counts, and both artists have this natural sense of lyricism, of interplay and of soulful delivery, that their ensemble playing, in all its gentle interaction is a real pleasure to listen to, again and again. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Cooper-Moore & Stephen Gauci - Conversations Vol. 1 (577 Records, 2020)

Let's stay in New York. The title "Volume 1" already indicates that more is to come, and that is great. This intense duet of two of New York's free jazz mainstays is worth listening to. They developed their collaboration while performing weekly during a seven-month residency at the HappyLucky No. 1 Gallery in Brooklyn. The improvisations vary between high energy and more sensitive moments, with each track having its own character. 

The music is also released as a vinyl LP. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Marina Džukljev & Mia Dyberg - Circumscription (Self, 2020)

Another lockdown success. A duo performance created over the internet, with Danish saxophonist Mia Dyberg based in Berlin, Germany and Serbian pianist Marina Džukljev based in Novi Sad, Serbia. The entire album is fully improvised, which seems surprising at moments because of the quality of the interaction and the almost simultaneous co-creation. Both musicians describe their music as a diary of the lockdown. Even if some pieces are sad, other ones are more joyful and positive. A good remedy of positive thinking. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Frank Gratkowski & Elisabeth Harnik - Burrum-Bah (Sound Out, 2020)

The album consists of two long improvisations by German saxophonist Frank Gratkowski and Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik. The first one is called "Macropus Giganteus" and the second is called "Cacatua Galerita", two animals who live in Australia where the album was recorded live in February of this year. The album title means "Where the kangaroo, the wallaby, bounces over the rocks". Both tracks are around 12 minutes long and are intense, nervous, agitated, with some moments of calm. It's difficult to make the link between the music and the titles (is it evocative of nature?), but that makes the music not less rewarding. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Alexandra Grimal & Giovanni Di Domenico - Down The Hill (Self, 2020)

French soprano saxophonist Alexandra Grimal and Italian pianist Giovanni Di Domenico have performed and released albums over the years, in different ensembles. This is their third duo album, after "Ghibli" (2011) and "Chergui" (2014). The two musicians continue their journey of rather accessible explorations of folk themes. The music is friendly and welcoming, yet it has character. Both musicians have a sensitive and even romantic approach to their music, but without being cheap. The music has a rare sense of innocence that is sincere, charming as well as convincing. Next to her excellent work on the soprano, Grimal also treats us to her worldless singing which even accentuates the overall atmosphere of clarity and sensitivity. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Jan Klare & Wolfgang Heisig  (Umland, 2019)

German artists Jan Klare on alto sax and Wolfgang Heisig on piano give us their rendition of the music by American composer Conlon Nancarrow, who "composed for player piano by progamming sound events via punched paper rolls. He was one of the first composers to use the technical possibilites of mechanical musical instruments making them play far beyond human performance ability", we read on Discogs. These compositions have strange structures and patterns, to the level of even sounding a little insane. Performing them is not a small feat, but the musicians go even a step further by composing their own pieces in the style of Nancorrow. They sound as mad, and they are equally mesmerising because of their insistent rhythmic patterns. Only "Study 4" gives us some breathing space and a jazzy tune. The last track, penned by Heisig, luckily drives us back into maddening rhythms and chords. A pleasure to listen to. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Renê Freire & Thelmo Cristovam - Lobo Temporal (Antena Art, 2020) + Renê Freire & Thelmo Cristovam - C-Agardh (Fictício, 2020)

We receive two albums by Brazilian musicians Renê Freire on piano and Thelmo Cristovam on sax. Both live and work in Pernambuco, in the north eastern region of Brazil. Interestingly Cristovam has an academic background in physics and mathematics, and he is also a researcher in psychoacoustics. Unpredictability and uncertainty may define our physical universe at the deepest levels, and so is this music. The music is restrained and even intimate at moments. Freire's approach to the piano is anything but jazz, with classical references, and sometimes closer to the sound of harpsichord than a piano. Except for "Insania", there is almost no raising of volume or noise to detect.  The second album is an EP with two short pieces. 

Their music requires to be discovered. It's not often that we get avant-garde improvisation from Brazil, so we hope to hear more. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp and Bandcamp.

Matana Roberts & Pat Thomas - The Truth (Otoroku, 2020)

Pianist Pat Thomas is possibly best known from his collaborations in the London free improv scene, linked to the Cafe Oto, and reviewed on numerous occasions on this blog, but he has also a more jazzy side, as testified by his recent solo album of Duke Ellington compositions. On this album too, and possibly because of the presence of Matana Roberts on sax, the interaction is free in spirit, open-ended in their journey, but solidly anchored in jazz idioms, the rhythms, the phrases, the harmonies. Matana Roberts thrives by the interaction with Thomas, creating wonderful jubilant, playful, angry or moaning tunes, navigating with dexterity the sudden changes and new ideas in the pianist's approach, while managing to keep the continuity in her playing. The long last title track is a good example of this, and by itself already worth the purchase of the LP. 

Strong stuff. 

Tim Berne & Matt Mitchell Duo - Spiders (Out Of Your Head Records, 2020) & Tim Berne & Matt Mitchell - 1 (Screwgun, 2020)

The duo of Tim Berne and Matt Mitchell offers us abstract and often complex modern music, improvised around composed themes and structures, with many stylistic influences and variation in the tracks. The album was already reviewed by Gary Chapin. Interestingly enough, Tim Berne releases another album with a duo with Matt Mitchell, but then recorded in 2010, on his own Screwgun label. This is possibly their first recorded collaboration. Other duo albums include "Førage" (2017), "Angel Dusk" (2018). 

Both are worth checking out. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp and from Bandcamp. 

Ingrid Laubrock & Kris Davis - Blood Moon (Intakt, 2020) + Ingrid Laubrock & Aki Takase - Kasumi (Intakt, 2020)

Not to forget, Ingrid Laubrock released two duets with pianists this year, one with Kris Davis, the other one with Aki Takase, both on the Intakt label. Matthew Banash already reviewed both albums here. Just to remind you to listen to both albums, as they are a little special. Playful, light-hearted, with lots of ear candy. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp and Bandcamp. 

Hugo Read & Thomas Rückert - Sirius Variations (Kreuzberg Records, 2020)

Both Hugo Read on soprano and alto, and Thomas Rückert on piano present a very serious, austere and refined album. Their technical skills on the instrument are excellent, but it's all a little bit too polished to my taste. 

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Two from Laubrock, Two from Intakt, Two sax-piano duets

By Matthew Banash 

These two albums have led me to some larger questions. As a listener, I found each work unique with individuation being a lasting impression. As a thinker, I know nothing arises out of itself. So, how can two separate works, similar in instrumentation and with the tenor and soprano saxes of Ingrid Laubrock being a common denominator, work with homogeneity and heterogeneity while being a unique part of a whole?  I’ll skip the respective bona fides except to say the musicians are accomplished so let’s dive into this double shot of duets. 

Ingrid Laubrock & Aki Takase - Kasumi (Intakt, 2020) **** 

Takase and Laubrock first performed together in 2016’s JazzFest Berlin that referenced Louis Armstrong’s famous duet with Earl Hines on Weather Bird in 1928 in a larger scope of jazz as the art of conversation. in a cross-national They hit it off and played a few more times before heading into the studio to record.  The tunes tend to brevity more than expanse with some as short as 1:28 and other hovering around the 3 to 5-minute length. Overall, the 14 tunes clock in at a little over 50 minutes which lends the album an impressionistic vibe. 

The writing was handled on a fairly even basis and it’s a pleasure to listen to Laubrock and Takase finding their footing in playing together as Takase usually defers to Laubrock but always has a free flourish or subtlety to enhance the music; considered and playful not just devil may care whimsy In Japanese 'Kasumi' can mean “mist” or it can be a compound of “ka” or “flower, blossom” with “sumi” meaning “clear, pure.” And the opening title track establishes evolving impressionism that runs through the album.  Tracks 4,5, and 6 is particularly nice stretch on the recording.  On track 4, “Chimera” Laubrock slows down but expands at least note wise and here is where Takase goes to freer flourishes that both counter and fit Laubrock’s stylings. Takase takes a serious and studied turn on track 5, “Harlekin” but the playing and rapport is never staid.  

There’s always with a playful lurking around the corner and the duo, with Laubrock on soprano, explores these moments with unity and dissonance as well as whimsy without ever becoming disjointed or fragmented. On the next track, “Dark Clouds”, Takase grooves and rumbles then Laubrock joins skipping squeaking and gliding. About two minutes in there’s a tempo shift that paints the music as elastic and amorphous.  The briefer pieces like “Scurry”, “Density”, and “Carving Water” add to ephemeral tone and despite their brevity never feel incomplete. “Scurry” is a pleasure encapsulating the song’s title, sounds and length into a musical definition. Just fun.  “Luftspiegelung” means “mirage” in German and with “Kasumi” this song bookends the international feel of the album. One of the longer pieces, it feels like a synthesis of ideas and sounds played throughout the entire recording.  

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Ingrid Laubrock & Kris Davis - Blood Moon (Intakt, 2020) **** 

Laubrock and Davis have known each other and performed together in variety of groups and settings for well over a decade. The playing and compositions reveal the length and depth of that relationship. The parts seem to fit not so much where you expect them to fit but where they make sense. Like Kasumi this recording contains the element of surprise, too.  As on “Kasumi” the writing was shared evenly. On the 9 tunes spread out over nearly 53 minutes Laubrock uses range and repetition well, and even breaks out the soprano on a few numbers, and Davis applies steadfast rhythms imbued with lives and patterns of their own. 

The melodies are reminiscent of folk music. Notable examples are, but not limited to the songs below: "Snakes and Lattice", a Kris Davis tune, has a “cat’ n’ mouse” feel. It’s a fluid, folksy fairy tale that establishes the tone of the record for me with it vibrant, measured introspection rather than contemplation. Laubrock composed "Maroon" and does it feel lonely? Yes, but the album heretofore is more sparseness than crowds. Again, Laubrock and Davis seem to play with and without one another. But the ethos tethers their choices and sounds. Here they aren’t afraid to make a rumble or take a deft turn. Momentum and repetition play important roles here as throughout the recording.  Davis accelerates the tempo on her "Golgi Complex", but this is a wonderful opportunity to tune into the duo’s give and take, back and forth, lead and follow dynamic; about halfway through it's like you can hear them listening to one another. Creating something unique in a tried and true duo of piano and sax. Davis is at her subtle best altering some notes to reward you for listening. 

"Elephant in the Room" is a joint effort and seems like a bit of a respite. The artists’ tones and predilections are entrenched in your ear by now. A good thing. They hone their rapport further and the piece can stand alone of take up its part in the program. "Jagged Jaunts" by the saxophonist is just a fun tittle to say and takes the duo out on a bouncy brief exit. No hard and fast truisms, generally Takase follows Laubrock while Davis and the saxophonist unite in the lead voice at times. Each artist exists without the other. But they also exist together. And it serves the interested, thoughtful patient listener to receive and enjoy them like that. 

One never loses sight (or ear?) of who is playing with Laubrock. The musicians leave room for the music and personalities to flourish in a range of dynamics. And everyone involved knows their way around a tune and their respective instrument which seems obvious but sometimes it can be the obvious we miss. 

The music is real life conversations and dialogues which are not subsumed by sender/receiver/dynamics, but vibrant in their interaction and always democratic. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Evan Parker & Paul G. Smyth

Calenture and Light Leaks (Weekertoft, 2019) *****

The Dogs of Nile (Weekertoft, 2019) *****

By Lee Rice Epstein

First, of course, there’s Evan Parker. For some 50-odd years, Parker’s helped define the sound and shape of avant-garde/free jazz and improvised music. The great success of Parker’s music is how poetic his playing is; if free jazz began its life around 1960, then Parker was one of the early Homeric musicians to define and speak its language. His playing has evolved into bright, occasionally gnomic motifs, often strung together by flowing recursions blown in his effortless circular technique. Yet, if Homer’s long-puzzled-over “wine-dark sea” has given us no better understanding of the color of the Aegean, then Parker’s literal notes and techniques face the same challenge: does a line-by-line or note-by-note reading get us closer to the music?

And now here’s Paul G. Smyth, one of the great contemporary pianists—regular readers know me to be a champion of his music. There’s a category of pianists who play extremely well, and there’s a category I think of as pianists who speak in piano. For peers, think Alexander Hawkins, Angelica Sanchez, Aruán Ortiz, Kaja Draksler, Kris Davis, Matt Mitchell, et al., the Joycean modernists of free jazz. Smyth is both among these players, and slightly to the side of them, like David Virelles or Eve Risser. His recordings thus far on his Weekertoft label have been either solo or duos, and, like both Virelles and Risser, highly exploratory and experimental.

It’s a bit cheeky to put Smyth among a group of Joycean pianists, but I mean it like this: the group of players above and their many peers have taken a form—free jazz or free improvisation—that evolved over decades and are now playfully, delightfully, intellectually refining and subverting it, sometimes through radical interpretation. Where Joyce playfully relocated Homer’s wine-dark sea to Dublin Bay, transforming it into the snotgreen sea (or, more fittingly, the scrotumtightening sea), Smyth plays lovingly with Parker, as he alternately echoes, conducts, and even at times appears to ruminate on Parker’s music.

These two albums newly available from Weekertoft catch Parker and Smyth at two different venues, with two very different sound worlds. Calenture and Light Leaks was recorded in March 2015, at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland. It’s a beautiful album, with really fantastic production. Parker’s tenor sax sounds warm and full, and the details of Smyth’s playing are fully rendered. After opening with some dramatic duo recitations, the duo settles into a lengthy, patient improvisation. During the latter half of “Calenture and Light Leaks,” Parker and Smyth both perform solos, furious, spiraling solos that call back to earlier moments of dialogue with references and ellipses that constantly pull you back in. The full set takes its time, building and burning and crashing, when all is said and done, into a tremendous round of applause. I can only imagine what it felt like in person, though the thrill of the room feels duly captured here.

The Dogs of Nile was recorded 2 years later, in March 2017 back in in Dublin. Parker is on soprano this time, and the performance is packed more densely. In between both albums stood Brexit, which Parker surprisingly supported, explaining his vote was rooted in his suspicions of the EU more broadly. Thus, here he was in 2017, in Ireland, playing a ferocious set. The sound on The Dogs of Nile is slightly less rounded, but it’s not lacking in passion or technique. In this way, it’s almost the Odyssey to Calenture’s Iliad. Or, it’s Finnegans Wake to Calenture’s Ulysses. Or, I’m pushing these comparisons too far, and the two aren’t necessarily related, Janus-faced, but are nonetheless fantastic albums of top-notch free improvisation. Should I then heed my own words, let the music speak for itself, and end here? Yes I will yes, and exit under cover of night.

Available on Bandcamp and worth every pound, dollar, drachma, or whatever’s rattling around in your pockets.

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Yoko Miura & Gianni Mimmo - Departure (Seto Di Maiale, 2017) ***½

By Stef

Japanese pianist Yoko Miura and Italian soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo find a perfect musical blend for this gentle and sophisticated album. The music itself is genre-defying. It sounds like a modern classical piece of music, austere, precise, controlled, with a clarity of expression and sound that is almost too pure for the nervous expressivity of jazz, yet at times the latter's agitation and raw delivery pierce through, not too often, but just enough to keep the sound pallette shifting and adding new musical perspectives.

'Crystal Moon', the third track, is a good example of this: it starts with a playful melody on piano, a kind of lullaby, gently repeated by the soprano, gradually slowing down as if to accompany a child towards its dreams. Yet the purity of tone starts shifting into sudden multiphonics and unexpected harmonic twists and turns. Halfway the composition, Miura takes it back to its beginning, yet in an altered form, inviting Mimmo to more daring and violence. The mood changes completely. The chords get rougher, the sax louder and more expressive.

The album starts with 'Prologue', followed by the title song. Both are beautiful pieces of 'controlled passion', a description which is one of the foundational aspects of Japanese art, focused on taking away the redundant (in haiku poetry, in pen drawings, calligraphy, ...) in which the intensity and the emotional power remain perfectly balanced in sparse notes and cautious interplay.

The second longest piece on the album is called 'Boogie Woogie Wonderland', and it somehow does not fit with the overall sound. It's too basic, too rudimentary, too plump, and in stark contrast with the refinement of rest of the album. This is clearly also not Mimmo's preferred environment.

The last track, called 'Rain Song', creates the same magic again of austere playfulness, if that term exists. The composition/improvisation evolves and develops in a sophisticated way, full of precision, economy of action and lyrical interaction. Both musicians find each other, listening attentively and responding gently. They sing, they dance. With precision.

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Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp – Live In Brussels (Leo, 2017) *****

By Martin Sekelsky

I remember the sunny spring day, traveling to Brussels to see Ivo Perelman (tenor saxophone) and Matthew Shipp (piano) perform in – much celebrated (here, here, here, here, here, and here) – duo format. Timely arrival secured me a spot at the bar to the side of the stage with first line view of the keys. The venue, an art-deco style bar and art gallery, was soon stacked to the brim with both enthusiastic familiar faces and curious individuals. The duo would perform two sets, we were in for a treat.

Perelman and Shipp took the stage as one voice. Both musicians radiated an enormous understanding of and feeling for each other. Shipp modulated between melodic and percussive phrases, instantly replied by Perelman. Vice versa, tenor saxophone added exuberant color or intimate feeling that were keyed in musical imagery. Both musicians initiated musical motifs and explored and extended each other’s phrases, forming a coherent whole of sound. It was so breathtaking, this listener could not move. Most remarkably, both musicians truly enjoyed conversing to each other in the language they have been practicing together for many years. The duo even got so carried away the first set extended beyond its planned duration, finishing with a big smile on their faces. Quoting Ivo Perelman: “He (read: Matthew Shipp) just kept on playing.” Both sets were loudly applauded by the audience. Applause that was answered with modesty by the artists. This was true musicianship, they made it look so easy. Highly recommended, so happy this performance was sharply documented and released. Pick this one up, if you haven’t already.

This listener admits that he has only recently unlocked Ivo Perelman’s rich discography. Ignorance turns into bliss with every new, unearthed gem. Therefore, no extended comparisons were possible with other outings by Perelman-Shipp ± others.

P.S.: Top 10 list was already submitted before this one could be included.

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Deniz Peters & Simon Rose - Edith's Problem (Leo, 2017) ****½

By Stef

Two years ago I was quite ecstatic about "The Ten Thousand Things", the duo album of baritone saxophonist Simon Rose and pianist Stefan Schultze.

Now we find him in another wonderful duo setting with Austrian pianist Deniz Peters. Deniz Peters? Never heard of him, my apologies. He describes himself as a "music philosopher and aesthetician, musicologist, musician (classical piano & improv, inter arts). Some tertiary teaching background; currently exclusively doing research (theoretical and practical). Super interested in non-linguistic types of thought".

This last aspect is what we find here. Both musicians play in an incredibly intimate atmosphere, you can call it zen-like, with lots of space for silence, but then the sounds of both instruments have a little too much emotional power to compare it to buddhist-like detachment. They create tension, they create a focus on deep interaction with a minimum of notes. 

The album's title refers to Edith Stein, a German jewish atheist with a PhD in philosophy turned christian Roman catholic nun turned Saint, who wrote a book about "On the Problem of Empathy", describing empathy as being different from intellectual understanding and from impersonal and involuntary affective contagion". In the case of Rose and Peters, it is all about listening, and translating feelings at the same time, in fact the essence of free improvisation. Despite this, the music is very much not sentimental, in stark contrast to many albums with piano-sax duets.

And despite the overall calm and intimate atmosphere, the sound can be hard and harsh and raw, with no other structure than both men's feelings and intuitive collective development of the sounds of their instruments, which are used with careful precision to use the minimum of notes necessary to create a sonic universe.

On some tracks, such "Resonance, Part I", Rose plays only one low note, sustained and blown with increasing pressure as if shifting the tone upwards, and repeats it a hundred times in different ways, as if it was an animal in distress, or a persistent exploration of some unknown vibration, and it's mesmerising.

They don't need many notes to create their musical universe, but it is full of measured developments, full of focused intensity. It has this wonderful combination of a light and open texture, with a fragile and vulnerable sound, and a mood of sober gravitas. Sounds you can almost touch ...

An album to be savoured.

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