Marcelo dos Reis & Luís Vicente - (Un)Prepared Pieces for Guitar and Trumpet (Cipsela, 2023)

By Stef Gijssels

The risk of getting to know musicians too well, is that you come to appreciate their music differently, possibly with less distance and with less sense of criticism. I've watched both Luis Vicente (trumpet) and Marcelo Dos Reis (guitar) perform several times in various ensembles and talked to them about their music, their tours, their concerts. 

I do not believe that this will hamper my judgment in saying that this record is exceptionally good. In the liner notes, Marcelo Dos Reis explains their long journey together in many ensembles - of which Chamber 4 is one of my favorites - and performed hundreds of concerts. 

This album showcases the result of a few days of residency in Coimbra, Portugal, resulting in new material, as well as spontaneous recordings. The result is a very intense, intimate and creative album, on which Dos Reis' singular guitar style - rhythmic, arpeggio-ed, with extended techniques - is perfectly matched with Vicente's deep and sad sound, exemplified in the gentle "Cornelia", in the video below. 

Other tracks are more adventurous and boundary-shifting, but always in a friendly and inventive way. This is something you have not heard before, yet it works, and it works well. The duo truly find their voice, with the guitar creating the more contextual setting of the piece, its repetitive nature, its hypnotic progress and the level of raw directness, while the trumpet adds the perfect counterbalance, with disciplined and lyrical phrasing, even in the more brutal moments of the music. Some pieces, such as "The Grey Car", are almost experimental, with an intro in which Vicente conjures up unheard sounds out of his trumpet, multiphonic with superpressured lips, gradually accompanied by fragmented bits of muted guitar strings, the tension is such that you - as the listener - keep being impressed by their mutual understanding and control. 

My favourite track is the one that bookends the album, "Climbing Up The Mountain", built around a single drone-like tone that serves as the backbone for the piece, and that thanks to its length also evolves into different sonic universes. 

Guitar and trumpet duos are relatively rare. We have reviewed only eighteen in the last sixteen years (Mazurek/Parker, Wooley/Morris, Tiner/Bagetta, Susana Santos Silva/Frith, Sei Miguel/Gomes, Robertson/Solborg, ...), and somehow the combination usually works, even if probably not an easy one. 

Both musicians on this album demonstrate their deep understanding of each other's musical power and artistic possibilities, resulting in improvisational power that is stunning, delivering something that is their very own personal sound, and the magic that was already present in several of their albums is even more strongly present here, from the first note to the last. 

Technical skills combined with solid interplay, fascinating musical ideas and explorations, a strong esthetic unity and deep feelings ... what more do you want? 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Fred Frith & Susana Silva Santos - Laying Demons to Rest (RogueArt, 2023)

By Eyal Hareuveni

After listening to this album over and over you may be assured that its enigmatic, rare beauty, magical spells and suggestive, emotional power can lay all kinds of demons to rest. This duo was recorded live during Festival Météo at Motoku in Mulhouse, France in august 2021 but Fred Frith and Susana Silva Santos collaborated before when the Portuguese trumpeter joined Frith trio tours in Brazil in 2018 and in the United States East Coast and Europe in 2019 (documented in Road, Intakt, 2021). 

Another collaborator of Frith, British composer Tim Hodgkinson, who co-founded with Frith the legendary British prog-rock band Henry cow and continued to collaborate with him throughout the years, suggests in his poetic liner notes that the process of laying demons to rest is inherent to free improvisation, and especially in Frith and Santos performance: 

“sometimes, improvisation 

at other times, something else, but what?  

perhaps not something else but someone else, a third person, another kind of responsibility

not just the play of audible presences, but the facing towards an absent presence

that was summoned by the way of playing.

is it this, a demon first summoned and then laid to rest

returned to the beyond

as god at the end of ritual?

or are these the demons of improvisation, of insatiable relationship

of the unending thirst for detail and consequence…”

Frith and Santos are idiosyncratic sonic explorers, or sonic painters and poets equipped with rich palettes of sounds, sketching possible, intimate and introspective rituals for exorcizing all our demons and healing with imaginative sounds. As Hodgkinson writes, their evocative sounds and vulnerable, textures moods and feelings “fields further armies of ambiguity, Blake wrestling with Freud…” The music flows naturally on its own accord, alternating between delicate, tense and sensual dramas, allowing both Frith and Santos to feel lost in the intensity of their interaction, and then find and embrace each other again, feeding and inspiring each other with playful ideas and resume their spirited dance together. The improvisation becomes a mean to reach a higher and deeper consciousness of oneself and of Fred and Santos as an exquisite, almost telepathic entity.  

“we enter a sphere of evocation where sounds are

messages of movement whose agency is loose,

the ear enacts the scrubbing of a hand or realises the pursing of a lip

as if they were ours (not quite)

a trumpet may stand for a guitar that stands for a previous trumpet that lived and died in the previous second that was an age ago but had stood for a feeling we had had, each moment casting a spell on the next inside Fred and Susana messages reach fingers or lips: inside us they form webs and accumulate into secret paragraphs the gold we carry away”, concludes Hodgkinson. 

This magical ritual lasts only 42 minutes but offers healthy doses of sublime beauty and cathartic promise about the healing power of music. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Trumpet-guitar duets

 By Stef Gijssels

In the fourteen years of our existence, we've reviewed only 15 trumpet-guitar albums. Obviously more albums have been released, but the format is clearly not very common. We're updating you with three new albums. 

Tin/Bag - Evening Hawks (Big Ego, 2021) ****

Of those 15 albums, three are by the duo of Kris Tiner and Mike Baggetta. We're happy to present you their fifth album after "There, Just As You Look For It" (2005), "And Begin Again" (2007), "Bridges" (2011), "The Stars Would Be Different" (2015). 

Over the years, they have perfected their art of quiet, warm and intimate music. Yes, it is sentimental at times, but that's part of their unassuming and unpretentious approach. They do not intend to change the nature of music, but rather try to perfect the possibilities of great instrumental mastery. 

Two of the tracks have been performed before, "The Stars Would Be Different" and "Evening Hawks". They also give their own rendition of "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" by Leonard Cohen and the country song "Let Me Talk To You", possibly the most sentimental track on the album. 

Tiner's compositions are a little more abstract and in my opinion also more powerful.

As mentioned before, this is music for quiet indoor moments, when the weather is cold and unfriendly outside, and all you need is to be enveloped by warm and gentle quality music, as an extra to the blanket and the hearth. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Watch them perform one of the album's compositions at a concert in Nashville in 2020. 

Jeff Parker & Rob Mazurek ‎– Some Jellyfish Live Forever (RogueArt, re-issue 2021) ****

In 2015, this music was released on vinyl only, and reviewed by Paul Acquaro, which led to the comments of not being available in the desired format. Fans can be happy today, because the label re-issued the duo of guitarist Jeff Parker and cornetist Rob Mazurek on CD. 

Parker is a precision player, preferring quality of touch and sound, subtlety of phrasing and harmonic changes over speed or volume. Even if four of the five compositions are penned by Mazurek - and recognisably so - the actual tone and voice of the album is really Parker's thing. Mazurek is a master at composing grand themes in unusual rhythms. We do get those, but then in an equally unusual intimate setting. The guitar and the cornet create their joint pieces in a slow, unhurried and deliberate way, letting the music and their instruments resonate quietly, muted, slightly electronically altered at times. 

The music was recorded in May 2013. Many fans will be happy that it's available again. The music is more than worth lsitening to. 

Staniecki & Jachna - Two Souls (Requiem, 2020) ***

The third album is by Wojciech Jachna on trumpet and loops, and Maciej Staniecki on guitar and loops. We've followed the releases by the trumpeter for years and he should hence not be a stranger to our readers. The guitarist comes from a more rock-influenced electronic and ambient ecosystem. This music is all about atmosphere and mood: quiet, subdued, gentle and very melancholy. 

Staniecki's guitar often takes the lead, harmonically, with arpeggio chords, adding inventive crisp additions, with electronic alterations, creating the background for Jachna's lyrical improvisations. 

This will not be for the real avant-garde fan, but with this series of trumpet-guitar duos, we're clearly in a more unassuming, friendly and warm environment. For once, this can be enjoyed too. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Mark Solborg & Herb Robertson: Tuesday Prayers (ILK, 2016) ****

By Joe

This seems to have been a year of duos, or is it that I've been listening to many recently? It is indeed one way of presenting music in a format where musicians cannot hide behind each other, always exposed, forcing them into a performance situation that helps concentrate the mind musically. This new record from Solborg and Robertson is one such piece, placing the two musicians in a church in down-town Copenhagen, as the records title says, on a Tuesday night. This is a record where you really feel the two musicians in total synchronicity, any sound or disturbance from outside would have felt like an intrusion. The music the duo produces in this way is highly focused and is indeed like a meditation that could, as the title says, be likened to prayers.

Solborg and Robertson don't need much introduction added to that they've also already worked together previously. One fine collaboration, reviewed here a few years back, featured Herb Robertson with Evan Parker (The Trees), highlighted Solborg's work with a larger ensemble which produced high quality music that was dense and probing. Here the duo achieve quite the opposite, full of space, this music takes advantage of the peaceful acoustic of the church, creating pure improvised music which relies on the quickness of thought and musicality of each player.

This isn't a ground breaking record, or at least there's nothing outrageously new in their playing styles. Robertson and Solborg look for ways to produce music which is melodic, and at times jagged, which often hangs motionless in the air. Solborg's (Frisellian) sustaining chords, textures, or simple melodic lines, help produce the meditative quality mentioned earlier. His playing is gentle and searching, using simple repeated ideas as if looking for a way out of a musical maze. His style is, in my opinion, very much anchored in blues, using dissonance in a melodic way which helps keep the music listenable. His partner, Robertson, brings in subtle ideas built up with an almost childlike simplicity, coaxing Solborg out into the open where the two find common ground. The duo dance around each other, magically leaving just the right amount of space where needed to produce some very magical and delicate musical moments.      

As for the way the material is presented, the record has an interesting make up of six pieces/tracks, and two sections. Section #1 is titled: PREPARATIONS, made up of two short pieces, followed by section #2, CONCERT with four individual tracks. I imagine that the first two pieces are a sort of rehearsal/sound-check(?), but this doesn't make any real difference to the playing/presentation as the record works just fine as a one-sitting listening session and is best taken that way. 

If you'd like to find out more, or interested to pick up a copy, head over to ILK's site. Highly Recommended!
 

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Fred Frith / Darren Johnston – Everybody’s Somebody’s Nobody (Clean Feed, 2016) ****

By Chris Haines

This is an album of duets by Fred Frith (guitar) and Darren Johnston (trumpet).  To state it quite matter of factly, like that, seems to do the music a disservice as the creativity of the way the instruments are handled to create different tones and sounds often makes it appear like there is much more happening than a series of duets.

Between the two players we are treated to percussive and prepared guitar sonorities, which at times conjure-up references (in their quality of sound and not necessarily their musical language) anywhere from Gagaku (traditional Japanese court music) to North African percussion, stopping off at mechanistic and sounds of industry on the way, with Johnston’s pining trumpet tone being extended with rasps, percussive tongue slaps and breath sounds.

Overall the album contains a cinematic quality to it, á la Mark Isham’s atmospheric soundtracks.  It’s not surprising that the genesis of this collaboration was to produce some music for a short dance film.  However, these pieces are no soundscapes, or sound effect titbits as they contain strong musical ideas and sounds with real grit and texture, the album taking on a life of it’s own beyond the initial source of inspiration.  The overall feel of the music is full in texture, sometimes with different layers being created and then overlapped.  There is also a lonesome feel to the music at times, an isolation that is reflected in the title of the album.

Just to pull out a few tracks, the album starts with ‘Barn Dance’ with it’s atmospheric vibe, continues with ‘Scribble’ a piece of free improv with it’s partner piece ‘Scratch’ coming later in the album (also coincidentally sharing similar sounds and the title of a John Stevens text piece), and ‘Luminescence’, a title not lightly chosen it would seem as ‘cool’ muted Miles Davies-esque trumpet tones play fragmented melodies over Frith’s subtle looped guitar creating a full and warm glowing piece.

Consisting of eleven tracks made up of nine duets and two solos, the two musicians bring their own vocabulary of sounds and techniques to the table creating a music which is highly stylistic, experimental but accessible, giving it an immediacy, an authenticity and a creative honesty.

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Jeff Parker / Rob Mazurek - Some Jelly Fish Live Forever (Rouge Art, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Is there reason to buy new vinyl? Is there any reason not to just stream an album, and never to feel that physical artifact, born from the blood, sweat, and tears of so many, working so hard, to bring to life?

I think you know my answer.

Holding guitarist Jeff Parker and Cornetist Rob Mazurek's vinyl only Some Jellyfish Live Forever, I have the gatefold open in my hands and am reading Alain Drouot's no-nonsense liner notes. Referencing the duo's associations through the years in several Chicago based groups and then delving into the subject of immortal jellyfish, it is pure joy.

I had first heard about this recording last year from Mazurek and had been looking forward to it since. And, I'm not disappointed. Mazurek is all acoustic, leaving behind the electronics that have permeated a significant body of his work, and while Parker's guitar is fed through various effects, his sound and approach never overpower. The two blend nicely, creating a series of soundscapes in which the guitar lays the ground work while Mazurek delivers lovely austere melodies.

What a pleasure to stop and listen to this album - the sound so organic and textural. It moves slowly, slyly, without hurry. The duo's music still tingles in my ear as the record runs out and the non-automatic tone arm of my record player delivers a pop as sure as a breath. As I put down the big white album jacket, after reading the liner notes and checking out the photos, a small download card tumbles out. I look at it - is it worth it?

Available at Downtown Music Gallery.

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Shane Perlowin & Jacob Wick – Objet a (PromNight, 2014) ****

By Julian Eidenberger

If memory serves, “Objet petit a” is a Lacanian term that stands for the interchangeable but ultimately unattainable object of desire (or something like that). How this concept is, beyond being its title, related to the duo recording to be reviewed in the next few paragraphs is admittedly a bit of a mystery to me, but the good news is that no knowledge of Jacques Lacan’s esoteric psychoanalytic theory, let alone of “Lacanese”, is required to appreciate the music.

So, let’s start over again: 'Objet a' is the outcome of a collaboration between guitarist Shane Perlowin and trumpeter Jacob Wick. Perlowin’s name might be familiar to those interested in the more adventurous side of rock music; however, as he has proved on the more recent – and stylistically more varied – albums of his main band Ahleuchatistas, he’s clearly not willing to restrict himself to any particular style or genre. By contrast, Jacob Wick is, at least to me, an entirely new name; that said, his playing here suggests a background in free improv.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the music they make as a duo is almost as hard to pigeonhole as it is difficult to grasp Lacan: Objet a sounds like the product of careful deliberation, but it’s definitely not tightly composed; at the same time, it has a certain looseness to it without being a typical improv record; and finally, the “structured improv” tag isn’t appropriate, either, since there are hardly any typical recurring themes on display here. Style-wise, it’s similarly ambiguous, with elements of jazz, new music, drone-y ambient and more creeping into the mix, but never taking center stage.

It’s mostly slow-paced music that proceeds carefully and deliberately; unlike some other (improv-)duos, Perlowin and Wick are not afraid of silence and don’t try to conceal emptiness with frenetic playing. On the contrary, they are clearly interested in the possibilities of negative space, in letting notes and sounds be shaped by the silence that surrounds them. Consequently, Objet a is, in a way, “nocturnal” music, with sounds emerging like shapes out of pitch-black darkness. This accounts for some of the record’s appeal; it lends quasi-coherence to the proceedings and invites the listener to listen very closely, to grasp each sound before it is swallowed up again by the darkness.

Nowhere, perhaps, is close listening more amply rewarded than on "It’s over there", where increasingly gruff trumpet sounds are juxtaposed with flamenco-like guitar runs. Still, to single out one track here is to miss the point, since the tracks segue into one another and are obviously meant to constitute a sort-of-narrative. If there’s anything that does warrant being singled out, even against better judgment, it’s probably Wick’s playing. While Perlowin’s skills and taste are almost a given by now, Wick has really amazed me here; he employs a wide variety of extended techniques, hissing like a leaky gas pipe in one moment and sounding like a rodent rummaging about in a garbage bin during the next.

To sum up, this is frequently fascinating listening on the borders between jazz, free improv and perhaps new music à la Ligeti.

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Zero Centigrade – Unknown Distances (Audio Tong, 2011) ***½

 By Ananth Krishnan

The adventure continues - Vincenzo and Tonino return with yet another concoction of their sonic explorations with Vincenzo handling the trumpet and Tonino taming the guitar. This time around, the release is via the small Polish label Audio Tong which seems to be the perfect outlet for the likes of such experimental and unclassifiable music. The treatments of the instruments are pretty much the same as what we experienced in the first release but what is different here is the layout. Whilst the duo dabbled in fairly long pieces (the average length clocking at around 8 minutes) in I'm Not Like You, in Unknown Distances the songs are relatively short.

This setting, in my opinion, is ideal for kind of the output that this duo produces - engaging not grating, occupying without meandering. Another factor that works in the favour of the musicians is the fact that there is a more constructive feel to this entire outing - mind you, the instruments are still subjected to all the extremities they can endure to produce sound but there is an underlying and palpable theme that pervades the 40 odd minutes musical journey.

The opener, Into the Storm, almost reminds of the music in one of the fight sequences in the movie, The Hero (the Quentin Tarantino one) - discordant plucks of the guitar with some eerie background compositions (Tonino is credited with "compositions" in the CD; I believe this has to be it). Clouds #1, the third and also one of my favourite is one track that seems to approach a semblance of melody with the guitar but chaos soon follows but unlike the earlier album the breaking of melody here is more through minimalist rather than violent means, that makes for a far more pleasant listen. Dry River is another strong track that almost flirts into a tune suggesting a strong underlying structure waiting to be unearthed.

I am not going to debone track by track for I believe every track has its own story to tell for this time around, the duo seem to have an eerie consistency that pervades the entire album and that consistency is something I like - there seems to be a destination and all the atonal plucking and scraping seem preordained to keep this feeling alive (take for instance the tracks good morning and upward - the former has an almost jaunty feel about it while the latter uses repetition to build a more tangible and salubrious structure - both fit perfectly well into the flow of the album; clouds #2 followed by cleft are both tracks that seem to use minimalism very effectively; under the volcano – well I think it suffices to say that is a track that carries a perfect name!!).

The entire album ebbs and flows - building and releasing tension, hinting at themes that go into disarray soon after, haunting yet beautiful at times. The entire music is tighter this time evoking a wholesome listen while the earlier effort was a little disjoint. Once again, without any hesitation I will recommend this album to the more explorative listener - there is more depth and more purpose to this outing that the previous one. Even thought I cannot put my finger on it, there is some element that is just waiting to be tapped in this music - maybe another instrument or maybe timbral changes - when that’s revealed this music is going to be that much more irresistible, here's hoping that the duo manages to nail that.

Until then......

Listen and download from Bandcamp
   

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Tin/Bag - Bridges (Mabnotes, 2011) ****

By Stef

It is a rare quality to play sensitive, lyrical and calm music without falling into the abyss of cheep sentimentalism à la Mathias Eick, and this duo does it with incredible charm. Krist Tiner on trumpet and Mike Baggetta on guitar weave nine compositions/improvisations that are performed with careful precision, without using extended techniques, using their instruments in their most traditional sense, yet with great skill. It is as if they have been reading my review of their previous album, "And Begin Again", because all experiments are taken out.

Yet the end result is far from traditional, with quite abstract pieces, full of a contemplative and somewhat sad mood, that took out all unnecessary notes and sounds leading to a rare purity of sound. There are some "americana" references, there is some Chet Baker "cool" sentiment, but these are nothing more than just ghosts of the pasts who are taking along on a journey far more modern and forward-looking.

Modern music of an unusual and warm accessibility. Beautiful.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.



There is not a great tradition of trumpet-guitar duets in jazz. You can find my list of recent albums here. There are of course some other noteworthy albums in jazz history, yet very few : Chet Baker and Philip Catherine, and Tom Harrell and Philip Catherine (each time with bass), and Jerry Gonzalez with Niño Josele on flamenco guitar (with small percussion).Suggestions are welcome.

   
© stef

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Sei Miguel & Pedro Gomes - Turbina Anthem (No Business, 2011) *****

By Stef

There aren't that many trumpet-guitar albums, and I must admit that I like the line-up. This duet between trumpeter Sei Miguel and Pedro Gomes on guitar is something unique. Both are minimalists, but while Miguel using his trumpet mainly in a traditional and voiced mode, Gomes extracts sweet acoustic sounds or extremely harsh electric sounds from his guitar.

Yet it is far from noise : the volume of the guitar is low, the distortion maximal, the notes minimal. Both musicians play plaintive, sad phrases, full of longing and crying and pain and restrained anger, quietly, almost resigned yet extremely expressive. The album is so powerful that the listening experience is of an immediacy that is uncommon. The feelings they have seem to be transmitted directly to the listener, without the distance of appreciation or interpretation or any other form of rationalisation.

You feel the sounds, the sounds are what you feel in a real phyisical sense : setting your nerves on edge, sending shivers down your spine, giving you goosebumps, making you want to flee or cry. The few, more bluesy, pieces with acoustic guitar come as a relief, a welcome pause for the nervous system ... only to be dragged back into a universe of extreme tension : an uneasy beauty, harsh warmth, raw embraces, hard truths ... as if every release of tension creates its own new tension again ... And it requires incredible skill to maintain this for the entire album, without straying, without relinquishing the concept.

This is music without compromise, yet its vision is clear, its voice is unique, a listening experience that is not always pleasant, but extremely rewarding.

Great art.

Buy from Instantjazz.

© stef

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Zero Centigrade – I’m Not Like You (Twilight Luggage, 2010) ***½

By Ananth Krishnan

Popping in a CD that you have never ever heard about is a fairly adventurous deal. Especially when the afore said CD purportedly belongs the free jazz genre it is almost a feeling of exhilaration – one might either end running with their hands over their ears or be swept off their feet. My experience with Zero Centigrade was rather mixed – I definitely did not run but my brows were twitched in both incredulity and perplexity.

Featuring Tonino Taiuti playing (or should I say wrenching, twisting, creaking or in short man-handling) the guitar and Vincenzo Del Luce doing similar things to a trumpet, I’m Not Like You, in my opinion, resides on the fringes of free jazz. Forty minutes of a wild ride is what is in store for all those daring ones who sit down to take a listen. For instance, I could barely make out the trumpet for the sounds that Del Luce manages to get out are, to say the least, so ‘out-there’. The guitar though is fairly on the easier-to-decrypt side but mind you, this is no melodic acoustic guitar on display here – it squeals and twitches and wails. The album does feature (rarely) some parts where the instruments are retained to provide their natural timbre (in the longest and stand-out track, In the Field) but these parts quickly disintegrate into the usual plunking and clunking escapades. What struck me as most riveting are the moods that these players manage to evoke – there are moments of tension when both the players are barely playing to periods of total atonality and improvisation – it is almost an eldritch feeling one gets while plying through the record (the opener, Swimming in Black Water, sets the stage perfectly for what is to come).

The sounds reminded me of a live DVD that I had seen of Fred Firth where the guitar was practically reintroduced in a new avatar but Taiuti stretches even these limits. At the end of it, it is quite difficult to put a finger on where this album stands for me – I, for one, at the end, did feel rewarded yet teased and taunted. I have to recommend this with caution to the general free jazz listeners but with excitement to the more adventurous of the free jazz aficionados – after all isn’t that the purpose of this whole genre?!

Download free at Twilight Luggage

   

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"It could be argued that the trumpet is leading the way again ..."

I will share the full sentence of Joe Morris's liner notes to "Tooth & Nail" : "We are now in the second century of improvised music. The entire history of expansion of technique and aesthetics used by trumpeters and guitarists in that nearly one hundred year period is available for us to hear.(...) For the narrow-minded, it's all been done, or it must be done in a certain way to have meaning. For the rest of us the current situation is a fresh start on the original situation, and there is no end in sight". (...) Our community of players is still relatively small, but is now global as well as local. Interestingly, it could be argued that the trumpet is leading the way again, as there is a number of extremely inventive trumpet players in this period who are setting new conditions with new methods".

Guys, you get the gist : open your ears and minds, and get ready for some music, from across three continents that goes beyond the known, in outer space, propulsed by the power of history. 

... and three stellar trumpeters : Nate Wooley, Axel Dörner, Peter Evans ... who luckily are also stellar creative artists ....

Joe Morris & Nate Wooley - Tooth And Nail (Clean Feed, 2010) ****

I have had the chance to listen to this album many months before it was released (thanks Nate!), and even if I found it hard and harsh and raw during the first listens, with Morris's nervous little guitar sounds cascading over each other, bouncing back and forth, with trumpeter Nate Wooley's tones ranging from the voiced to almost soundless whispers.

Because Morris plays acoustic guitar, and because Wooley's trumpet sound is the opposite from muscular, with notes falling out of his trumpet rather than soaring through the ceiling, the music is incredibly intimate and close, warm even, despite the atonal nature of the proceedings. It is an alien universe, but like most avant-garde work, you as the listener need to make an effort too.

And once you've listened to it a lot, you start discerning structure, or repeated patterns, or little echoes that are not so obvious at first hearing.  And once you're in their universe, it all is very welcoming, charming even, precious, sensitive and fragile.

Listen to Morris's intro to the second piece "Gigantica", on which - in contrast to the title - sounds escape from the guitar that you would not expect, almost harplike, yet each note played in singular isolation, with lots of space around them. Wooley accentuates by blowing some little puffs of air over it.  But on other tracks the guitar evolves with arpeggiated chords, equally minimalist yet with a touch more density, with the trumpet adding voiced interaction, in a language that is incomprehensible though touching.

It is a strange universe, but it is coherent, appealing and sometimes even hypnotic.

Listen and download from eMusic.

Buy from Instantjazz.

Ino Imai Axel Nori / rostbestandige zeit (Doubt Music, 2010) ****

German trumpeter Axel Dörner is best known for his work with Alexander von Schlippenbach or with Die Enttaüschung. On this double CD he plays with Kazuo Imai on guitar, Nobuyoshi Ino on bass. Noritaka Tanaka joins on drums on the second disc. 

The band's universe is equally strange and minimalistic as the Morris/Wooley album, yet possibly a touch - but nothing more than that - more accessible, and then only at moments. The first disc consists of free improvisation between guitar, trumpet and bass. The second is built around compositions by Dörner, and with Tanaka on drums you could even qualify the music as jazz, which cannot be said from the first disc. 

Again, you wonder about the nature of music, about aesthetics, about aural discomfort and purity of sound, about refinement, delicacy and finesse. 

And like the Morris/Wooley album, you need to get into this, and harshness will turn into sophistication and sensitivity. 

After you've listened to this music, everything else you hear will sound blunt, heavy and superficial. Lady Gaga for sure, but it was the same with the Mozart I listened to right after this CD. 

And that is bizarre ... but says enough.

Peter Evans - Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten (Self-published, 2009) ***½

In earlier reviews I praised Peter Evans to the stars,especially his stellar "Nature/Culture" solo CD.On this album, his trumpet playing is electronically altered into some kind of bizarre experiment that has some industrial connotations, even valve clicks become percussive sounds with echo and reverb effects. If you listened to it without knowing anything of the context, I do not think one listener out of a hundred would identify the instrument as a trumpet. But that's of course a pointless comment from a musical perspective.

Again, a trumpeter leading us into uncharted territories. And like Joe Morris's liner notes, there is reference to the early 20th Century, but now not to jazz tradition, but to the first atonal composition ever, by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg's, dating from 1908, on which a soprano sings a poem by German poet Stefan George : "Entrückung", with the sentence : "Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten" (I feel air from other planets).

But there is no intimacy here, you are indeed in a more greater expansive space, travelling through space, crossing the final frontier.

-------

Thank you trumpet players for these new vistas, and obviously the musicians going with them on the same journey.

I can only add some more verses from the same poem :

"Ich löse mich in tönen, kreisend, webend,
Ungründigen danks und unbenamten lobes
Dem grossen atem wunschlos mich ergebend."

"I lose myself in tones, circling, weaving,
With unfathomable thanks and unnamed love
I happily surrender to the great breath."

----

Here is the Stefan George poem in full.

Entrückung

Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten.
Mir blassen durch das dunkel die gesichter
Die freundlich eben noch sich zu mir drehten.
Und bäum und wege die ich liebte fahlen
Dass ich sie kaum mehr kenne und du lichter
Geliebter schatten—rufer meiner qualen--
Bist nun erloschen ganz in tiefern gluten
Um nach dem taumel streitenden getobes
Mit einem frommen schauer anzumuten.
Ich löse mich in tönen, kreisend, webend,
Ungründigen danks und unbenamten lobes
Dem grossen atem wunschlos mich ergebend.
Mich überfährt ein ungestümes wehen
Im rausch der weihe wo inbrünstige schreie
In staub geworfner beterinnen flehen:
Dann seh ich wie sich duftige nebel lüpfen
In einer sonnerfüllten klaren freie
Die nur umfängt auf fernsten bergesschlüpfen.
Der boden schüffert weiss und weich wie molke.
Ich steige über schluchten ungeheuer.
Ich fühle wie ich über letzter wolke
In einem meer kristallnen glanzes schwimme--
Ich bin ein funke nur vom heiligen feuer
Ich bin ein dröhnen nur der heiligen stimme.

Rapture

I feel wind from other planets.
I faintly through the darkness see faces
Friendly even now, turning toward me.
And trees and paths that I loved fade
So I can scarcely know them and you bright
Beloved shadow—summon my anguish--
Are only extinguish completely in a deep glowing
In the frenzy of the fight
With a pious show of reason.
I lose myself in tones, circling, weaving,
With unfathomable thanks and unnamed love
I happily surrender to the great breath.
A violent wind passes over me
In the sway of commitment where ardent cries
In dust flung by women on the ground:
Then I see a filmy mist rising
In a sun-filled, open expanse
That includes only the farthest mountain hatches.
The land looks white and smooth like whey,
I climb over enormous canyons.
I feel as if above the last cloud
Swimming in a sea of crystal radiance--
I am only a spark of the holy fire
I am only a whisper of the holy voice.

© stef

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ECM ... melancholy trumpets

Some decades ago, the only jazz I listened to was ECM jazz, Jarrett, Garbarek, Gismonti, Towner, John Abercrombie, John Surman ... slowly moving towards Arts Ensemble Of Chicago, Old & New Dreams, also on ECM, and opening in my young mind suddenly totally new realms of music, and ECM was soon almost forgotten, even though for many years it was the only label (almost) that I bought LPs from. The German label has kept its carefully nurtured positioning of chamber jazz, often inobtrusive, yet always of superb quality, both of the selected musicians as for the quality of its productions (sound, art work, booklets, ...). You can debate about the style and the lack of adventure, but on some evenings, on a Friday night, when you're flat out, everything is dark outside, the autumn wind blows, rain hits the windows, and the fire place heats the room, ... melancholy hits. The music is not guaranteed to keep you awake, but it is certainly to be enjoyed.

Ralph Towner & Paolo Fresu - Chiaroscuro (ECM, 2009) ****

Ralph Towner is a brilliant guitarist, in a genre all of his own, playing nylon-string and twelve-string guitar, with an incredible precision and sense of pace and rhythm, even if not always explicit. Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu used to be a Miles Davis epigone, yet to his credit he managed to create his own voice in jazz. On this painfully beautiful and melancholy album they treat you to eight new compositions and Miles Davis' "Blue In Green". No surprises, yet a beautiful album.

Tomasz Stanko - Dark Eyes (ECM, 2009) ****

Many trumpeters have tried to emulate his style, but few have come close. Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko is without a doubt the most melancholy musician I know, yet he is musically so strong that most of his compositions and performances are captivating and gripping. Those who tried to copy him, often landed into meaningless slobbering and moaning. On this album he is accompanied by young Scandinavian musicians : pianist Alexi Tuomarila and drummer Olavi Louhivuori from Finland, and guitarist Jakob Bro, and bassist Anders Christensen from Denmark. Nothing new here either, just again a fine album, and without a doubt among his best.

The title of the album is inspired by a painting by Polish artist Oskar Kokoschka, called Martha Hirsch.

© stef

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Herb Robertson & Mark Solborg - (NOD) ( ILK, 2009) *****

 Regular readers of this blog know about the joy I find in trumpet music in small ensembles, and here is another album to enjoy from beginning to end. You will hear Herb Robertson like you've seldom heard him, stretching his notes, creating something like melancholy soundscapes, introspective even. And much of the credit for this great music goes to Danish guitarist Mark Solborg who invited Robertson for this recording as a kind of side project for the quartet they were performing with.

Solborg's guitar playing is minimalist, sober but quite effective, reducing tones and interaction to the bare essence, but creating more substance in a few notes and chords than what many are not able to create by building layers of rapid speed violence. No speed here, no violence either, only calm and careful interaction, subtle and sensitive. Quite a contrast for the guitarist too, whose Mold album of two years ago shows a much harsher rockish side to his playing. The music on this album is fully improvised. The slower melancholy tracks are alternated with more quirky pieces, on which the symbiosis between the two instruments becomes even more immediate and intense, and on which Robertson explores the many possible sounds out of his instrument as we would expect, as on "Komplet Komplot".

The title refers to many different things, from the basic term of "nodding", to "the land of Nod", or even the abbreviation of a Nocturnal Observation Device, and the two artists play around these many meanings, from mutual understanding to the eery lands of the imagination where few have gone to making the invisible (or inaudible) a reality. A wonderful album, that meanders between the late evening blues of Miles Davis' "L'Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud" over Wadada Leo Smith's more contemplative albums such as "Compassion", but then adding the spicy avant-garde inventiveness of these two excellent musicians. Stunningly beautiful. I love it!

But the best review of this album was written by the great Scottish author R.L Stevenson, a poem apparently appreciated by both musicians.

The Land of Nod

From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do --
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.

Buy from Instantjazz.

© stef

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Willie Oteri & Dave Laczko - WD 41 (CDBaby, 2009) ***

Guitar and trumpet duets being extremely rare, I thought this new album might interest some readers. Guitarist Willie Oteri and trumpeter Dave Laczko team up for eight improvised pieces that are processed through electronic loops and all sorts of sound altering technology. The end result is a kind of long ambient rock soundscape, with the electric guitar and the trumpet playing long sustained notes, weaving tonal textures with lots of delays, lots of repetitive loops and lots of reverb. Oteri is in essence a rock guitarist, and you can hear in his playing licks that come from David Gilmour, Hendrix and Fripp, with Laczko sounding like Toshinori Kondo when he gets his equipment out. It is not highly original in its approach or in its delivery, yet it has its nice moments, and it is very coherent. The album is available only in an mp3 version from CDBaby.

Listen and download from CDBaby.

© stef

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Matt Lavelle & Barry Chabala - I Like To Play (self-published, 2008) ***

From some of the first tracks of the CD I wasn't quite sure that Barry Chabala could play guitar, but after a while my early misconception proved wrong (again, and sorry for that). The point is, he doesn't play in a conventional way, he creates sounds on the strings - and sometimes on the body of his guitar - regardless of conventions, often hesitantly without much "stage presence". Sometimes it sounds bizarre, or even like a beginner playing around on the strings, but what he does still has coherence and direction. Matt Lavelle builds his lines (on sax or trumpet) around this, reacting fast and intense, leading to a strange mixture of sounds. They play as if they were sitting in the same room as you, that intimate it sounds, yet it is not intimate in the traditional sense, because you don't get any comfort as a listener. They move you to interesting territory, with tradition never far away, and even a traditional blues perks up its head, adding some warmth to the proceedings, while at the same time throwing the traditional elements of the blues overboard. This is friendly and nice, two guys having fun in playing together. No great ambitions, no pretence, just two guys enjoying themselves creatively, although some of the tracks are great, such as "Is That A Trumpet In Your Pocket Or, Um?", which is a long uptempo nervous, boogie-influenced, chasing duet. As the title says : they like playing.

Listen and buy from CDBaby.

© stef

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Ferenc Snetberger & Markus Stockhausen - Streams (Enja, 2007) ****

Ferenc Snetberger is a Hungarian master guitarist, classically schooled, fully educated in jazz guitar, but also skilled in the Roma tradition, Brazilian and flamenco guitar. Markus Stockhausen is in that sense very close to him, but then on trumpet. Both musicians can converse in any musical idiom, and that was clearly the basis for this collaboration, for which they first had some free improvization amongst themselves, then they listened to the result together, took out the best pieces, wrote them down and further expanded upon them. Furthermore, the two musicians have recorded and played together many times, and that also led to the closeness you can experience on this very intimate and expansive music. The overall tone is reminiscent of what has been called ECM-style jazz, as created by musicians such as Kenny Wheeler, Jan Garbarek, Bill Connors, Egberto Gismonti. There are no rough tones, there is no sign of anger, violence or agression, no hard feelings, just impressionistic wonder, the search for aesthetic beauty and clarity of execution. And more often than not, in the hands of less skilled artists, this leads to some dull or flat experience, yet on this album the music itself and the musicianship are just too good to let this happen. A real treat.

Listen, download or buy from Enja Records

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Tin/Bag - And Begin Again (Evander Music, 2007) ****

I have to say that I must change my mind about the Tin/Bag duo, consisting of Kris Tiner on trumpet and Mike Baggetta on guitar. I found their first two albums too experimental to my taste, because of the searches for extreme new sounds and sound combinations, using lots of extended techniques, but as I said, I have to change my mind, because this record is absolutely excellent. They are on this one also searching for sounds, but they seem to have found the music back in the process, and that's more than welcome, because by doing so both musicians demonstrate their creativity and skills on their instruments, but more importantly, their ability to express emotions (I know I keep repeating this, but music without emotions is nothing more than a sequence of meaningless sounds). For some of the tracks they are accompanied by Brian Walsh on clarinet and Harris Eisenstadt on percussion. The focus on this album is on the music, which is open-minded, intimate, sparse even, allowing for lots of space, also each other's. A big part of the music is improvized, but it does not always sound like that. Most tracks are down-tempo, creating a meditative, ethereal atmosphere, but there are some uptempo tracks such as "Bienvenue" which create a welcome variation. A really great album.

Listen to
And Begin Again
The In Between


Tiner-Phillips-Schoenbeck Trio - Breathe In, Feed Out (pfMentum, 2004) ****

And while looking for information on Kris Tiner, I came across this record (I already knew him from the Empty Cage albums and his duo collaborations, but this one did not appear on my radar screen in 2004, and what a shame!). And what a beautiful album! It's rare to hear a bassoon in jazz (here Sara Schoenbeck), and the combination with trumpet (Kris Tiner) and guitar (Noah Phillips) is highly unusual, yet it works wonderfully well on this intimate, contemplative, fragile, open-ended, adventurous and sensitive music. It's not a new release, but it would be a shame if you missed it, which almost happened to me.

Listen to : The Mistook Time For A Line

You can listen to and download from PayPlay.fm.

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