Ellery Eskelin & Sylvie Courvoisier - Every So Often (Prime Source, 2008) ****½

Saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier are both wonderful stylists, who master jazz and modern music perfectly, in all their subgenres, settings, line-ups and other ramifications. Last year they played this great trio album, "As Soon As Possible", with Vincent Courtois, looking for new sounds and modes of expression, a journey they continue here in a duo environment, equally improvised, and even if it is a notch less adventurous, it has a nice warm touch to it. The recording quality of this album is superb, sounding as if both musicians are playing next to you, which gives a nice feeling of closeness and being part of the music. All nine tracks are fully improvised, yet each piece has its distinct sound, elaborated upon by two musicians who can communicate feelings and musical insights as if the approach had been discussed and agreed upon before. Courvoisier is a more of a conceptualist, creating the atmosphere and the scenery, the unexpected angles, the conflict element. Listen to "Open Channel" and how she manages to sound like a trio on her own, creating a small universe by playing piano, percussion and non-descript sounds from the inside of her instrument at the same time. Eskelin adds the human voice, the sensitivity and an exceptional warmth of tone, never raising his tone, sounding like a velvet caress, but finding within these limitations a broad range of subtle sounds in his instrument that sound fresh, deep, new, unexpected, and so right, so right. The combination works extremely well, from the intimate to the more abstract pieces, and it is not all sweet of course, many pieces are headstrong, obstinate and self-willed, focused on the creation rather than on the listener's reception of it, but that's fine, that makes it interesting and challenging. I love it.

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Listen to "Architectural"


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Aänet - Aquarian forest (Emouvance, 2008) ****

This French trio, with Rémi Charmasson on guitar, Stephan Oliva on piano, and Claude Tchamitchian on bass, is further completed by Finnish trombonist Jari Hongisto, who joined them on their trip to Finland where this album was also recorded. The music is avant-garde, boppish and chamber jazz-like, and the latter not only due to the absence of a percussive instrument, but also because of the intimacy of some of the tracks. Sometimes the three substyles are quite separate, as on the evocative avant-piece "Extérieur Nuit", that brings an eery impression of the forest at night, sometimes they are mixed, as in the wonderful closing piece "Jazz Pretext". Anyone who enjoyed Max Nagl's Big Four, will certainly like this track, which is bluesy, free and boppish.The other tracks bring great adventurous evocations of Finnish nature, with all four instruments remaining within the normal sound range of their instruments, but playing around with musical inventiveness, rapid interactions and some really interesting and expressive moments. Most of the tracks require some open-mindedness and appreciation of avant-garde, but some pieces will be without a doubt to everyone's taste. Recommended.

Listen to "Jazz Pretext"


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EA Silence - Cono Di OMbra E Luce (Amirani, 2009) *****

Electroacousticsilence, or EA Silence for short, is a trio with an unusual line-up: Luca Cartolari plays live electronics and electric bass (track 5), Mirio Cosottini plays trumpet and flugelhorn, and Alessio Pisani plays bassoon and contra-bassoon. The bassoon is an unusual instrument in modern music, but on the few albums that I know on which it's played, the quality of the music is high (see especially Kris Tiner, with an almost similar line-up, but also Wayne Horvitz and Bill Dixon). The music brought by the trio is of an extraordinary stylish aesthetic, mixing classical music, sometimes even with a medieval pre-baroque touch, modern music, jazz and electronics. The music progresses slowly, solemnly, with trumpet and bassoon acting in unison, counterpoint, echo, with the electronics repeating the sounds at times, distorting them, or just providing a textural background, dramatic effects or ambient sounds. The music also shifts between composition and improvisation, between crystal clear tones and more diffused tonal explorations. These contrasts, including the sharp difference between the high-toned trumpet and the dark sounds of the bassoon, make for a wonderful tension and musical depth of perspective, a chiaroscurao of sound. Unlike the Tiner-Phillips-Schoenbeck Trio, the sounds here are less intimate, more emotionally distant, more dramatic, but also more magnificent in their slow forward movement, creating a feeling of immense space and beauty. Many have tried this approach before, and fell into the trap of syrupy sentimentalism, but this trio manages to have a consistently coherent unique musical vision, rich in ideas and tonal explorations, austere and disciplined in its delivery. Truly great.

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Listen to an excerpt from "Medusa"

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Paul Dunmall's Sun Quartet - Ancient And Future Airs (Clean Feed, 2009) ****½

Usually I read the liner notes only after listening to the music, just to avoid influence. The imagery that came to mind when listening to this album was one of quietly floating water, something untangible, elusive and ever changing without actually losing its form. It floats quietly onwards and onwards, taking turns, going through some rapids occasionally, and ending in the most quiet possible context, when it reaches the ocean, all beatiful and peaceful. Now I read (also in the title, you stupid!), that it's about air, and that fits even better. The band consists of Paul Dunmall and Tony Malaby on sax, Mark Helias on bass and Kevin Norton on drums and vibes. And oh, I almost forgot, Dunmall also plays bagpipes in the middle of the long first piece. But don't run away. It doesn't sound like Mull Of Kintyre, not by a long stretch. It sounds like overblown tenor.

Both saxophonists are easily recognizable on the album: Malaby is an emotional lyricist and Dunmall a raw spiritualist, and their tone is totally different, but even when both are playing on tenor, their match is perfect, intense and warm. And their improvisation brilliant. It is extremely difficult to remain coherent for close to 50 minutes, but these guys manage this well, even if there is not much focus in the piece, but that's clearly not the purpose and it would have destroyed the effect too. Now, you're taken along on a trip (air or water) through varying moods, levels of intensity, but always with the greatest of attention to the interaction. Helias and Norton too add greatly to the overall sound. The interaction between Malaby and Norton after about 30 minutes is of the same high level as Dunmall's duet with Helias some five minutes later, and here is an ear-opener for drummers too: listen to Norton's drum solo, light as a feather, subtle as the wind. And he has the same approach when playing his vibes, with the softest touch, adding color and depth, without creating a real presence. Together they create a vision of wide expanse, in the best Coltrane sense, but lighter even, broader. With no sense of melody, no rhythm despite the variations in intensity, yet so lyrical, so fluent, so sensitive, this music is totally free.

The second short track, sounds as an encore for the enthusiastic audience at the Living Theater, and also as a kind of lullaby for the fearless, all sweet and eery.

Highly recommended.

Listen to an excerpt from "Ancient Airs"

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The Nu Band - Lower East Side blues (Porter, 2009) ****½

One of the best free bop bands of the moment is without a doubt The Nu Band, with four seasoned musicians who are as comfortable in the most complex jazz traditions as in the adventurous sonic explorations of nowadays, mixing them with rhythm, soul, spirituality, a deep-felt sympathy for humanity, a strong dose of political criticism, joined with humor and self-relativation. The Nu Band is Mark Whitecage on sax and clarinet, Roy Campbell on trumpet, Joe Fonda on bass and Lou Grassi on drums. The album starts with the boppish title track, in hommage to the place where Charlie Parker lived and worked, with a strong bass vamp and a nice theme, a great springboard for the musicians to start their respective solos from. The second track is more ambitious, penned by Joe Fonda for Mark Whitecage, and called "In A Whitecage", a slow exploratory piece offering both horn-players a framework to interweave their solos, moving in and out of the theme, moving from unison to echoing each other to different phrases to full separate improvisation, with a long bass solo by Fonda making the bridge to "The Path", the piece's second part, which is equally sensitive, but much sweeter. "Connecticut Solution", has a more middle-eastern rhythmic feel, an environment in which Campbell feels extremely comfortable for his slow bluesy, stretched, muted notes, so deeply felt that it gives me the goosebumps. While Whitecage and Fonda perform strong solos, Grassi's percussive power throughout this piece is stunning : economical and rich, creating a wonderful synergetic feel with the repetitive bass-line, and especially during Fonda's solo. Grassi's compositions for "Drunk Butterfly", "The Last Of The Beboppers", gets its cover here too, and so does his much older song "Avanti Galoppi", which was already covered on several previous releases but still maintains its great forward-propulsing rhythmic drive, the rhythm section quadruple-timing the piece's slow theme, a challenge for the horns to keep the slowness going, a delight for Fonda who clearly enjoys the speed, then almost brings it to a standstill during his own solo, only to get the galopping speed back up for the finale. "Heavenly Ascending" is again a slow, march-like piece, with Fonda's arco leading the way into a soulful and heartfelt suite ranging from very open-ended moments, to joyful unison phrases, wildly chaotic interactions, but ending again with the serene arco. This album will not change your life, nor will it alter music history, but it will offer you all the musical joy you can expect from great music and wonderful musicians: it is rich, soulful, spiritual, fun, varied, expressive, moving, elevating .... Highly recommended.

But now that George Bush is gone, who will these guys rage against now????

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Listen to an excerpt from "Connecticut Solutions"


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Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali - Going To The Ritual (Porter, 2009) ***½

Rescued from oblivion, and given a second jazz life by William Parker, Henry Grimes is one of the icons of jazz bass in the sixties, having played with everyone from Benny Goodman to Albert Ayler. And Rashied Ali is possibly best known for his work with John Coltrane in the last period of his life. Since Archie Shepp's "On This Night" (1965), both Philadelphians had not played together again, but here we find them back in this unique duo setting, more than fourty years later, for an improvised set of fresh and open-minded jazz. Both musicians play full of controlled fervor and passion, obviously enjoying the chance to interact creatively. Ali is careful enough not to drown the bass in the volume of his drums, choosing to play losely and supportively, and when Grimes picks up his softly screeching violin, Ali becomes even quieter. But the sound is at its best when Grimes plays arco, which gives the music more voice, more volume, allowing for a more powerful interaction, as on the longest third track "Gone Beyond The Gate".

In the second and fourth track, Grimes recites one of his poems, giving a sense of conceptual unity to the album. Grimes has been writing poetry all his life. You know what I think of poetry in jazz, but nevertheless, it does not spoil the fun.

Despite the limitations of the setting, the two veterans manage to bring a captivating piece of music, fresh and open.

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Sophia Domancich - Washed Away (Marge, 2009) ***½

French pianist Sophia Domancich loves Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman", just like me, and despite her limited output as a leader, this is the third CD on which she brings the tune. She played it earlier with her band Pentacle and in a duo with Simon Goubert, but here is assisted by the best of the best rhythm section, Hamid Drake on drums and William Parker on bass. The performance was recorded live at the Sunside in Paris in July of last year. Domancich herself is a a long background, having played lots with the Canterbury scene musicians, such as Pip Pyle, Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper, Didier Malherbe. From the little I had heard of her music, it was slightly left of center, but not much, but here, in combination with Parker and Drake, she improvises freely and openly, without boundaries and restraint. The first track "Washed Away" has a boppish backbone, with nice improvisations, the second track, "The Seagulls of Kristiansund", is a Mal Waldron composition, which starts with impressionistic piano, but through his solo, Parker leads the tune into a totally different direction, without altering the overall sound, keeping the gentleness of approach, but making it more organic, less structured, and interestingly enough Domancich takes up the challenge, joining Parker and Drake in their more avant-gardist approach, and slowly moving them back to the impressionism of the beginning, while Parker picks up his bow to add to the melancholy. But of course the highlight is "Lonely Woman", a piece she knows inside-out, here spread over 36 minutes (beating the Cojaniz/Schiaffini performance of the tune by 1 minute), which gives ample space to the three musicians to move through the theme's moments of wonder, surprise, playfulness, anger, melancholy and sadness. In the course of the lang track the focus tends to get a little bit lost, moving the piece into a freeboppish improvisation.

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Listen to an extract from "Lonely Woman"


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Yves Robert - Inspirine (Chief Inspector, 2008) ****

French trombonist Yves Robert delivers a wonderfully creative and rhythmic piece of music with "Inspirine", in the not so common format of a trombone trio. Cyrille Atef plays drums on all pieces, and Bruno Chevillon plays bass and Vincent Courtois cello, yet not together. It's always a trio format, although there is some overdubbing. The pieces are composed, well-structured with room for improvisation. The compositions are delightful in their joy and musical fun. All sixteen tracks are compact and dense, packed with ideas and great in their performance. For those familiar with "In Touch", his highly succesful ECM album, despite the fact that it's the same trio (without Chevillon), there is hardly any musical relationship or ressemblance, with the ECM album offering very lengthy expansive pieces. Both albums are excellent, but here the music dances, sings, swings, funks, ... yet it can also switch to more plaintive, melancholy moments, yet keeping a great sense of melody and attention to detail. This is music that is so full of humanity, warm, honest and highly likeable, without pretense and very creative.

Listen to an extract from "Between The Bliss And Me".


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Nate Wooley, Jason Roebke, Fred Lonberg-Holm - Thrown Down Your Hammer (Porter Records, 2009)

Two observations :
1. In his book, "This Is Your Brain On Music", psychologist Daniel Levitin writes that sufficient exposure to repeated listens to the same music will familiarize you with the sounds and make you appreciate what you hear, regardless of what your initial reaction is to the music.
2. Sometime in the previous century, I forced myself to like free jazz (as a punishment to myself after I bought an LP which I wrongly assumed I would like), and I then realized how rich, deep and fresh the music sounded even after dozens and dozens of times. So first impressions can be very wrong.

Add to this that I admire trumpetist Nate Wooley, bassist Jason Roebke and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, who just released this CD with the great title "Throw Down Your Hammer And Sing".

My point is this: I have just downloaded this CD from eMusic. It is very avant-garde, with sounds that are mostly not recognizable as coming from the instruments they play, and that sometimes ressemble organic, almost natural sounds, both in their creation as in their interaction, but sometimes also very industrial, but then in the artisanal way, like wood being sawn, sometimes like cars honking in traffic jams. But as Wooley writes on his blog, it is also very "intimate and human". I have listened to this album four times now. I admire these three musicians too much to discard this music as a waste of time. I will listen to it. I will listen to it many, many times, and let you know what I think of it later, much later.

Maybe I should add one thing. I once went to a presentation by a modern classical composer, who made horrible music, but who went so far as to explain his music. The whole audience stayed, and listened to his proud explanation of his music. I could tell everyone was bored, slightly horrified, and wanting to escape asap, yet too polite to run away to safer places. I can imagine this music may generate the same feeling.

But I will listen to it till I come to appreciate it, if I ever can. If yes, then Levitin is right, and I am richer with experience. If not, then Levitin is proven wrong, and I am still richer with experience.

I want to like this music.

Listen and download from eMusic.

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Matthew Shipp & Mark O'Leary - Labyrinth (FMR, 2009) ****½

Without making too many concessions to their own personal styles, pianist Matthew Shipp and electric guitarist Mark O'Leary find each other quite well on this duo release of fully improvised pieces. Both musicians have a very broad scope, ranging from more rock-influenced fusion, over traditional jazz, over free to avant-garde and back again. What they demonstrate here is just music. Hard to classify. They interact with notes, often touching upon subgenres, but without falling into known patterns, just driven forward by the thoughts inspired by the other. Some moments are close to romanticism, others close to fusion, or modern jazz, or modern classical, but just little hints, like doors opened yet not entered, weaving interesting musical textures, often rapid and nervous, which seems to be O'Leary's normal musical state, and one which works well with Shipp's dense percussive style, sometimes slow and precise, shying away from clear melody, yet lyrical all the way. Even if the first piece is very abstract, with the two musicians trying to find common ground, on the second piece, "Secret Miracle", they start echoing each other, slowing down the tempo, and coming up with solutions that sound pre-meditated, but because they are not, the music keeps this kind of floating openness that is hard to grasp or to describe. The unity is enhanced by the two musicians sticking to their lead instruments in their prime use, Shipp playing acoustic throughout, once in a while directly plucking his strings, O'Leary playing his electric guitar, mostly very soft and low-toned, with lots of sustain, and extreme clarity of tone, except on one track, "The House Of Asterion", on which the sound is more distorted, speedy delivery becoming essential, and when Shipp creates a magnificent and dramatic repetitive phrase, O'Leary joins whole-heartedly, drops the theme for some dark improv only to come back to the theme later, changing and exchanging ideas and moods without losing focus. Another highlight of the album are "Mosaic", a slow and eery piece, that evolves quite interestingly, also in tone, despite its coherence.

The album is dedicated to and inspired by Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, whose approach to literature was quite unique, light and playful on the surface, unintelligible and profound in its underlying meaning, deliberately disorienting readers by leading them into the contradictions of rationality and reality itself, full of surreal images, dreamlike and nightmarish. Both musicians do an excellent job at capturing some of these characteristics. Borges was interested in mirrors, in doppelgänger, symmetries and asymmetries, and Shipp and O'Leary reflect this quite well, soloing together - it's hard to say who is leading who and who plays background for the other, speaking with one voice, only doing different things. Some tracks, such as "Coptic Night", sound composed, just for its almost telepathic interplay. Very ambitious, very original, very succesful.

Listen to Coptic Night


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