Co Streiff Sextet - Loops, Holes & Angels (Intakt, 2007) ***½

Shifting between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the Co Streiff Sextet finds a great balance of world music rhythms and avant-garde explorations and traditional jazz. The band consists of Co Streiff on alto and soprano sax, Tommy Meier on tenor sax, bassclarinet and balafon, Ben Jeger on piano, farfisa, clavinet and accordeon, Christian Weber on double bass, Fredi Flükiger on drums, percussion and balafon, and Russ Johnson on trumpet and flugelhorn. Co Streiff's compositional talent is excellent, one track after the other brings strong musical themes, with lots of room for improvization and with a great rhythmic basis. The first track is modern jazz, the second moves into real African territory, the beautiful third piece mixes both styles with some electronics. The slow "Batak" brings some intense music, with slow balafon and piano, with great solos by Streiff and Johnson. Her soloing is quite restrained, very melodic and precise. Her long solo on "Chtau" is a real beauty. And Johnson is excellent too (by the way, his "Save Big" album is a real treat, as was his collaboration last year on Nicolas Masson's "Yellow (A Little Orange)", two records worth looking for), forming a perfect match for Streiff's playing. His bluesy solo on "Die Brücke" is so deep and touching that you wish it would never stop. Not everything works though : the accordion is added at the intro and outro of "Chtau" and I'm not quite sure how it fits with the rest. The variation on the album is great but not always very coherent, leaving the musical unity of the whole album somewhat lacking. Yet the overall quality of each piece is so good that it makes this a worthwhile album.


Below you can see a video with the Swiss female jazz band Ratraba with Co Streiff on alto, Hilaria Kramer on trumpet, Beatrice Graf on drums and Karo Hoefler on bass.

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Régis Huby - Simple Sound (Le Chant Du Monde, 2007) ****

This is a hard to pigenhole record, blending chamber jazz, avant-garde jazz with modern classical music with at times European folk ingredients. The band consists of Régis Huby on violin, Alain Grange on cello, Bruno Chevillon on bass, Olivier Benoit on electric guitar, Catherine Delaunay on clarinet and Roland Pinsard on bass clarinet. Every piece is completely composed, with lots of contrapuntual and often sophisticated arrangements for the strings, full of rhythm and tempo changes, yet offering freedom for the soloists to improvise. In his compositions, Huby is a master in creating tension and release : repetitive figures, often reminiscent of Steve Reich, played in unisono with lots of dramatic power are reacted upon by the other instruments in the same vein, driving the composition to moments of climax, yet never exploding but changing unexpectedly into slow and sweet melodic interplay and than back into an overdrive forward movement. The contrast between the strings and the rawness of the electric guitar or the bass clarinet is strong, giving the music extra power and depth. The musicians are absolutely stellar, and their genre-blending skills are amazing, moving from one to the other while maintaining a high quality performance in each. The music too shifts from one mood and mode to the other : accessible with claws, sweet with a angry attitude, reverent and iconoclastic, hypnotic and refreshing, serious yet light. A musical adventure. Fans of John Zorn's string ensemble or of Bang On A Can will love this.

Listen and download from eMusic or iTunes (both sources mention that the album was first released in 1999, but that is wrong : it was recorded between September 2005 and March 2006, and released in October 2007, according to the CD cover).

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Empty Cage Quartet - Stratostrophic (Clean Feed, 2008) ****½

The Empty Cage Quartet moved back into the studio for a great record, and a much better one than last year's "Hello The Damage", and this for a variety of reasons. First of all, the sound quality is excellent, with all four instruments coming across perfectly and well-balanced. Secondly, the band brings brings more variation thanks to eleven tracks that - though not all of the same level - are all sufficiently coherent in their approach to give the album a strong sense of unity. Jason Mears plays alto sax and clarinet, Kris Tiner trumpet and flugelhorn, Paul Kikuchi drums, percussion and electronics, and Ivan Johnson double bass. This is an original Ornette Coleman line-up and the music is surely indebted to him, but even more to bands as Other Dimensions In Music, or Wadada Leo Smith, daring to take the time to improvize on a thin rope above empty space, but with sufficient instrumental skills and perfectly attuned to each other to keep the high quality of interaction going, without tumbling down into the void. Some tracks are fun, others are soulful and beautiful free explorations with lots of contrapuntal interplay by the horns, as on "Through The Doorways Of Escape Come The Footsteps Of Capture". This title itself tells you something about the band : the music is serious but the musicians don't take themselves too serious. Some tracks are hard bop with a rhythmic head, improv and back to theme, such as "Old Ladies", on which all four musicians show their reverence for their musical tradition. But they go even further : "Steps of The Ordinarily Unordinary" sounds almost like medieval European court music. "The Power Of The Great" is dark and brooding. Variety indeed. The great thing about these young musicians is that they stayed and played together for many years and that really pays off. The way they interact on every track is a pleasure to hear, even at the most intricate moments, as in the first track "Again A Gun Again A Gun Again A Gun" - and the repititiveness of the title is also to be found in the music, with all the rhythmic subtleties you may want. They end the album with the 17-minute long climax "Don't Hesitate To Change Your Mind", which illustrates again the band's strengths : a great sense of focused freedom, a great sense of rhythm and interplay, and so soulful and emotional throughout. This is without a doubt their best album so far, and with the upward curve they're in, we can expect even more fireworks and intensity in the future.

One recommendation though for the band : delete these low quality videos from youtube - they don't do credit to the band's music, quite the contrary even.

Order at Clean Feed.

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Esa Pietilä - Travel of Fulica Atra (Fiasko Records, 2007) ***½

A Finnish free jazz trio with Esa Pietilä on tenor, Ulf Krokfors on bass and Markku Ounaskari on drums. The three technically skilled musicians hesitate between real exploration and more traditional forms. The music is inspired by nature on the great Finnish lakes, at times evoking the sound of birds or the flowing of water. Some of the tracks are absolutely beautiful, such as the short "Free The Bird", but in some tracks, such as the long "Forget Gravity", the music is the opposite of its title, it never really takes off, and the ballad "Summer" is a kind of conflict of style with the rest of the album. The trio is at its best when their playing is improvized on the spot, intimate and meditative, as on "Radar" or "Pond", which are really intense and demonstrate the intrinsic value of the band. The title track too is wonderful. This is one of those records that you have to re-arrange yourself in your playlist. Take out a few tracks and the totality becomes even better. A pity the band did not do that itself.

Listen, buy or downloand from CDBaby.

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Daniel Levin - Blurry (Hatology, 2007) ****½

With "Blurry", the Daniel Levin Quartet brings an album of extreme aesthetic beauty, full of sadness, melancholy, and late evening slowness. The quartet consists of Levin on cello, Nate Wooley on trumpet, Matt Moran on vibes and Joe Morris on bass. As Art Lande writes in the liner notes of their previous album "Some Trees" : "... if the instruments that establish the rhythmic foundations - especially the drums - are removed, then each remaining instrument is free to vary the timing, spacing, and emphasis within its own phrasing". And that's a good description of the feel of the album - the music floats along in slow tempo, rarely with all four musicians playing together, but just rotating roles to add notes and sounds in support of the soloist of the moment. Chamber jazz, indeed. The album expands on the ideas of the previous record, and goes a step further in reducing structure and composition, giving more space to freedom of interaction and emotional expressiveness. Although the music is built around empty space and silence a lot, this is music with substance, dramatic power and musical adventure too. "Improvisation II", but especially the title track, which ends the album, lead to some raw free improvisation, full of anxiety and angst, adding a stark contrast with the intimacy of the other pieces, revealing the dark side underneath all the beauty. Highly recommended.

Listen to
Law Years
Improvisation II

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Solo Cello Albums

Here are a number of my favorite cello solo albums in the free jazz, free improv, avant-garde genres. The instrument is very much not jazz at all, and there is always this classical presence, combining a cerebral approach with deep emotion. If I ever get banned to the moon, and if I'm allowed to take only ten albums with me, then Bach's Suite For Cello Solo is certainly one of them. This piece of classical music was for me a personal revelation of the absolute power of artistic beauty, leading to an unprecedented musical experience. Ever since, the cello has been one my favorite instruments. It is also a very feminine instrument, with magnificent musicians as Joan Jeanrenaud, Jane Scarpantoni, Maya Beiser and Peggy Lee, to name but a few. I will write a review on my most favorite cello contributions in jazz albums shortly.

These solo cello albums are easy to recommend :

Abdul Wadud - By Myself
Maya Beiser - Worlds To Come
Erik Friedlander - Volac
Rufus Cappadocia - Songs For Cello
Ernst Reijseger - Colla Parte
Joan Jeanrenaud - Metamorphosis
Dave Holland - Life Cycle
David Darling - Cello
Fred Lonberg-Holm - Anagram Solos
David Eyges - Wood
Tristan Honsinger - A Camel's Kiss
Tom Cora - Gumption In Limbo

Other solo cello CDs that I haven't heard (yet), but are probably worth looking for :

Fred Lonberg-Holm - Personal Scratch
Eric Longsworth - I Hear You
Hank Roberts - 22 Years from Now

Any suggestions for other solo cello CDs are most welcome.

View Maya Beiser with Worlds To Come (music and image are not synchronised)

And see the great Yo-Yo Ma with Bach's Courante from the Cello Suites : pure musical joy!

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Paul Rogers - Being (Amor Fati, 2007) *****

A Paul Rogers solo bass album on Amor Fati, a new French label. All CDs on the label are issued in not more than 500 copies, and all in unique hand-painted covers. There is no information on the cover or backside at all, as a dual token of both lack of commercial interest and excellent positioning. The record brings a live performance from Rogers in the Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux, France in April 2007, consisting of two tracks : "Being One", which lasts a little over 70 minutes, and "Being Two", which lasts a little over 3 minutes. This is, to my knowledge, Roger's third solo bass release, and one well worth getting if you're interested in the genre. His custom-made 7-string bass with 14 sympathetic strings is a unique instrument which of course broadens the possibilities of sound exponentially. What you hear could come from a variety of instruments : bass, guitar, percussion, cello, piano strings or even harp-like sounds, although the bass itself is the dominant voice. As the music is improvised on the spot, it has no goal, it is moving nowhere, and to Roger's great credit, he manages to make every moment interesting and captivating.

He starts the long track by dark arco playing, then alternating with playing pizzi throughout the piece, yet always creating tension, suspense even, and out of the gloomy atmosphere he builds, once in a while a jubilant half-melody of extreme beauty arises. His playing is rich and varied, from dark droning moments to barely touched silence and faint birdlike sounds, to pulsing deep-souled jazz sounds. And that's the only thing he does on the short second track, of which at least one minute is the audience clapping enthusiastically. Here is a man at the peak of his powers, creating beauty and deep emotion at the same time. Don't miss it!


Here are a few quotes of interest :

Paul Rogers in an interview : "You have to be inquisitive and find the keys to get in to the art. Be honest with yourself and don't tolerate bullshit. Because that's when it all goes wrong as an artist, when the ego comes in and it's me, me, me! Forget that and just get on with it."

From another Rogers review : "There's an old joke about a marriage guidance counsellor who manages to get uncommunicative couples talking to each other in his sessions by playing Charlie Mingus records, in the belief that no-one can keep quiet during a bass solo." Why are there so many jokes about bass players?

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Satoko Fujii Quartet - Bacchus (Onoff, 2007) ****½

Pianist Satoko Fujii is not only one of the most prolific jazz musicians, her music is always of an extremely high level, often completely different than the previous record, depending on the musicians she is playing with. Her Satoko Fujii Quartet, with Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Takeharu Hayakawa on bass and Tatsuya Yoshida on drums brings more composed avant-free-fusion jazz with mainstream elements. Don't mistake her Quartet with the Satoko Fujii Four, also with Tamura on trumpet, but then with Jim Black on drums and Mark Dresser on bass. The Quartet has so far only released CD's with titles referring to ancient Greek gods and goddesses. This time "Bacchus", the god of wine, pleasure, but also of madness (perfectly illustrated in the title song), gets the honor. The music here can best be described as an unbelievable amalgam of styles and influences, brought together in carefully crafted pieces, in which anything is possible : changes in rhythm, melody, tempo, mood, style and genre, and not once, but several times, and not only slight changes, sometimes even radical changes. The piano can dance like a Mozart piece, the drums can rock like heavy metal and the electric bass can slap like Jaco, while the trumpet is in the most avant-garde areas, or vice versa and the other way round. The musicianship of all four players is virtuosic, the compositions extraordinary and unique. But the ultimate thing that seems to drive this high energy music is the creation of new musical forms, to explore possibilities, to enjoy the juxtaposition of hitherto untried style elements, the absolute fun of throwing the whole thing around and take the listener by surprise. Musical effects in their purest form are sought and brought, full of drama, full of tension, often dark, often daring, not avoiding musical complexities and difficulties, but actually seeking them out, just to play them with the most accurate instrumental precision, and all that with the greatest respect for melody and rhythm. Sure, this is not free jazz, or fusion or whatever, there just is no name for this deliberately different genre. You can listen to the tracks again and again and again, and there's always something new to be found. There aren't many musicians of her creative calibre around. The music itself is a little too composed for me to get the full five stars, just because I prefer (her) music in a more free context, but that's a very personal appreciation. By all objective standards, this is a great album.

Buy by e-mail via her website. (and the CD gets delivered relatively fast).

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Fantastic Merlins - Look Around (Innova Recordings, 2007) ***

Two years after their first live EP, the Fantastic Merlins now released a full CD (which is the EP plus a few additional tracks). The band consists of Nathan Hanson on tenor saxophone, Jacqueline Ferrier-Ultan on cello, Brian Roessler on bass and Federico Ughi on drums. The music they bring is "mood" music, especially because of the determining voice of the cello, with often calm and long phrases, very cinematic, yet free and improvized at the same time. Some of the tracks are a little more uptempo, such as "Lenny" or "I Was Behind The Couch All The Time". Tracks like "It Would Seem", start as pure improv with some punky rhythmic part thrown in, and bring a little more variation to the record. But that's probably its greatest weakness. Their approach is quite interesting, yet musically insufficiently substantial to fill the whole album and the more uptempo variation disrupts the coherence of their unique chamber-like style. Still, quite an interesting endeavour. With a little less willingness to please and a little more focus, their approach and vision holds a great promise.

Listen to
Look Around
I Was Behind The Couch All The Time
A very Small Animal
Runoff Water.

Buy from eMusic or iTunes.

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Peter Brötzmann/Peeter Uuskyla - Born Broke (Atavistic, 2008) ****

You know I'm not a fan of Brötzmann - and I therefore do not know everything he has released - but if he keeps going like this, I might get to appreciate him better. In a duo setting with Swedish drummer Peeter Uuskyla, the two musicians bring some staggering free improv, for more than an hour and a half of relatively accessible music - relative, that is, to Brötzmann's standards. He typically wails and screams of course, but often the music is sad, slow, sometimes even subdued and quietly moaning. Especially at the end of "Born Broke", the title track, but also at the beginning of "Beautiful But Stupid", which starts slowly, evolving into a typical high energy blowing session. "Ain't Got The Money" starts with plaintive wails, evoking the misery the title suggests, with Uuskyla creating great reaction to Brötzmann, urging him on, playing counterrhythms at moments, but always very rhythmic, and in a way not free at all. And that recipe explains the quality of the music. No matter how wild Brötzmann is, the rhyhtmic foundation is rock-solid and rich. The third track collapses into silence about halfway, going back to the sad crying it started with. "Dead And Useless" is the only track on the second CD, which lasts close to 40 minutes. Uuskyla is a real revelation, and on this CD, right now, to me, Brötzmann too. The two musicians seem to be led on by the same feelings of love and rage, subtlety and power, sensitivity and brutality. The duo combines the directness of street musicians, with the skill of real artists. And have you have read a more desperate list of titles on one CD?

You can download from eMusic.

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