Jin Hi-Kim & Gerry Hemingway - Pulses (Auricle Records, 2010) ****

By Stef

Good music really knows no boundaries, neither of style or tradition or geographically. With two instruments, in this case a komungo, played by Jin Hi-Kim, and percussion, played by Gerry Hemingway, a whole world of sound is created : strange, unfamiliar, beautiful and deeply resonating.

Korean artist Jin Hi-Kim clearly leads the dance, with Hemingway adding accents, emphasis or counter-rhythms to her unusual instrument, which she had also made in an electric version. The nature of the string instrument is percussive : the strings are hit with a bamboo stick, and the left hand changes the pitch, but the other strings continue to resonate openly. The result is a quite hypnotic repetitive and addictive mode of music, built around a single tonal center on each piece, but it remains open-ended, fully improvised. Hemingway is the ideal dance-partner, with incredible listening skills and a master at becoming one with the music, to the level of being uncanny.

Yes, the instruments have their limitations, and even after many, many listens, it is impossible to differentiate between the various pieces - at least for the unaccustomed listener that I am - but that does not spoil the fun and the mystery, quite to the contrary, it emphasises and shifts and brings back and diverges and returns in a great mystical wheel of sound, whirring around a pole that is rooted deep in the ground yet facing upward. Anything is possible, but without straying to far. Difficult to get more coherent.


Watch a short performance that will give you an idea of what to expect.





      
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Weasel Walter, Mary Halvorson, Peter Evans - Electric Fruit (Thirsty Ear, 2011) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

What makes this excursion into improvised mayhem so compelling? There is no reason that I can rationally put forth to explain how and why "Mangosteen 3000 A.D." should be listened to at all. It's not neatly defined as jazz, rock, post-rock, pre-jazz or rife with beautiful melodies and dazzling harmonies. Rather, Evan's trumpet bifurcates into spittle and inspiration, Halvorson's guitar slips and shimmies, and Walter's free ranging percussion somehow keeps it all together. Clean toned runs crash into thick distorted chords, lines shatter into dazzling arrays of tiny shiny notes, this recording can dupe the senses with its spiraling helixes of sound.

Electric Fruit is a celebration, a joyous racket, a jumble of adjectives and superlatives running roughshod on the expected. The songs are ever shifting and building explorations of texture, tonality and expression. There are moments of beauty too, with the guitar providing delicate backdrops for muted melodies. From the cover art of an orange contraption, presumably electrified, to a phantasmagorical arrangement of verbiage for song titles ('The Stench of Cyber-Durian', 'The Pseudo-carp Walks Among Us'), to the free spirited music within, it would seem that such a potent brew could go so wrong, yet it could not be better.

Halvorson continues to reinvent the guitar, playing with an instantly identifiable voice that eschews cliché or formula. Evans coaxes all sorts of sounds that are not usually found in the trumpet and Walters provides accents and beats in places perfectly unexpected. For example, 'Yantok Salak Kapok', finds Evans inventing an extended melody over assorted scattered pulsing percussion, while Halvorson bends tones, shoots out tonal clusters and smears chords around the sonic canvass. Halfway through this dynamic epic, the musicians individual voices begin coalescing into, well, I suppose a giant orange outfitted with pipes, wires and a thirst for adventure.

This is an album that is well worth the experience.

Listen and download from eMusic.



Listen to some samples:


or on their website.


               

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Grey Ghost - Broad Oration (Self-published, 2010) ****

By Joe Higham

If you enjoy Faust, Can, 23 Skidoo and the likes, then here's one for you!

Grey Ghost (Aram Shelton sax/max/msp and drummer Johnathan Crawford) play music that has (at the same time) blissfully peaceful minimalist grooves, linked into hypnotic soundscapes and add to that some wild screeching sax solos, in fact something for all the family! Is this possible? Well yes, the music on this CD is constantly challenging whilst remaining accessible, in fact I found myself sitting hypnotised by the mix of percussion and live and manipulated sounds. As I mentioned already this could be something from the 70's Kraut rock experimental stable, but with the use of max/msp the music is certainly straight from the '00s.

And the music? Well, you're taken on a trip around a universe of grooves and sounds. From the opening dark drum rhythms of 'Circle' that add electro-acoustic elements like snowflakes of manipulated sound, or the heavy drum groove and sonic sax (attack), on 'Sustained Room of Sun', the music constantly weaves in and out of expected places, sometimes free jazz and at others minimalist music. Examples such as 'Anthem for the Fox' , 'Wage Irony' could come straight from the world of Pierre Schaeffer or the group Faust as the music rocks and sways almost like a vinyl spiral groove(*). Other tracks such as 'The Phoenix', 'Brief' and 'Fever' involve mixtures of hypnotic manipulated sounds mixed with free jazz sax playing.

Tags for this excellent album could be : 23 Skidoo, Faust, Pierre Schaeffer, John Lurie's Men with Sticks, Holgay Czukay, Roedelius, Ornette, Mantana Roberts, 21st century. What can you say to that?

Only for "Free Jazz Blog" readers : available for free.

(*) For all those who never had the chance to own an LP (or Vinyl), a spiral groove is the 'groove' placed at the end of a record - side 1 and 2. When the music finished the needle continued into the spiral groove. If you didn't have an automatic stop system your pick-up (or needle) turned in this groove until stopped manually, creating a sort of hypnotic swirl and clicking sound.

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Medeski, Martin and Wood - The Stone: Issue Four (Tzadik, 2010)

By Paul Acquaro

Is it once a decade that we listeners are entitled to an entirely acoustic Medeski, Martin and Wood album? At the start of the 90's their debut "Notes from the Underground" set a high bar. 2000's "Tonic", a live album titled after the now defunct New York City performance space, came out after several organ and keyboard oriented recordings. And now this album, generous with woody timbers, big grooves and inspired improvisations.

The combination of Wood's deep pocketed bass lines, Martin's precise but unpredictable beats and Medeski's unrelentingly perfect note choice is captured on this ebullient release. Recorded at a recent tour date in Japan and released by Tzadik, the release goes to support a current downtown New York City performance space, The Stone.

"Tutrasa'i", kicks things off with a quiet but insistent groove by Martin and Wood with Medeski tossing some glittering notes into the mix. It builds a little intensity and then the piano lays on a hip angular melody that the audience picks up on immediately. The extended middle eastern theme gives way to more lush, but still slightly off-kilter, piano chords and finally into a extended jam that interpolates a bluesy feel within the harmonic minor theme. Clever use of dynamics brings the song to a hushed, almost mysterious, conclusion leading us to the smokey beginning of "Riffin' Ed - Luz Marina." This 23 minute tour-de-force starts with the rhythm section laying down a thick groove and then the piano responds -- there are moments that follow where I fully expect that Medeski was up on the piano jumping up and down on keyboard. All members come to the front during 'Buster Rides Again/Doppler', trading solos and working off each other. The excitement is palpable in each performance, and whether the group is going for the jugular or tentatively exploring the fringes, the audience reciprocates throughout.

This album is a really enjoyable mix of everything (except the electronics) that has made MMW such an enduring group. The spare instrumentation allows the group to really explore time, space and melody, all of which are in abundance. The thick soulful grooves makes the album a palatable listen from the moment the needle drops and the musicianship makes repeated listenings a must. The only part that knocks it back a half star for me is the use of the melodica during the concluding theme "We're All Connected". There are some moments in this breezy tune, that while certainly crowd pleasing, are perhaps more enjoyable in person than on record. Minor quibble really, this a nice gift from MMW, and one whose proceeds benefit an important anti-establishment establishment.

Available through Tzadik.

 

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Tommaso Cappellato - Open (Elefante Rosso, 2009) ***

By Bryan McAllister

Michael Blake – Sax
Giovanni Guidi – Piano
Joe Rehmer – Bass
Tommaso Cappellato – Drums

“Open” begins with “Nowhere, Now Here,” which starts with an intriguing saxophone line and evolves along a route that embodies the album title. Like with nearly every album, there are high and low points, but luckily even the low points are pretty good. At best, like on tracks “World Traveller” and “The Knight,” the group sounds explorative and inspired: a tight piano trio with soaring saxophone lines and passionate solos.

Unfortunately “Episode 29” and a few other small parts of the album came across as a nice effort, but did nothing for me as a listener. However, the highlights of the album more than made up for any failed attempts. I would recommend picking up the album, or at least “World Traveller,” “The Knight,” as well as the title track.

   

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Lisa Ullén & Nina de Heney - Carve (LJ Records, 2009) ****½

 By Stef

The advantage of writing fewer reviews is that I can listen a lot more to the same album, and I have listened dozens of times to this double CD in the past few weeks, first hesitantly, then becoming mesmerised by the beauty of it, then wanting nothing more than to listen to it again, and again.

The musicians are Swedish pianist Lisa Ullén and bassist Nina de Heney, both as skilled as adventurous, treating us to eighteen improvisations of three to five minutes, ranging from voiced instruments, as on "Luminal Sung" to extended techniques only. The result are sound sculptures, as the album's title suggests, with tonal creations carved out of raw sound material, sometimes familiar, often quite new to the ear, yet each full of wonder, full of surprise and fragile beauty.

I am rarely touched by descriptions in liner notes, but this one is quite accurate : "Carving is an ancient hand craft ; whether done in ice, wood, stone or bone, it’s process takes time. Carving could be seen as the the art of surrendering to the element by the understanding of the element. When achieved, it can last for centuries, or melt within a day".

Some pieces are reminiscent of nature, with organic sounds arising out of nowhere, from the soft occasional drip of water, the buzzing of bees or the raw tearing of tectonal plates against one another. Other pieces are more tribal, going back to the origins of organised sounds, percussive repetition, enchanting, spiritual. Yet without a real message, nor is there even an attempt to evoke existing sounds: their true work is the new sound itself, with all its possibilities of expansion and juxtaposition, to create new sonic possibilities.

And even if the music is serious, they are not afraid of little jokes and fun, adding a great human touch to it all, full of empathy with the sounds created. 

It is minimal, unobtrusive, cautious, precise. Avant-garde music is often denounced as noise. This is the absolute opposite of noise, even if that noise, the primary sound, offers the building blocks for a captivating musical creation.

If you have open ears, you shouldn't miss this one.


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Afterfall (Clean Feed, 2010)

By Paul Acquaro

We are waking up slowly, somewhere unexpected. Small sounds are creeping into our consciousness, clicks, moans -- slightly spooky -- suggesting a less than desirable near future. We begin to focus and clicks become tones, sounds begin to connect, we realize that we are being spoken to, but in a strange dialect. Soon we realize that this language, that while somewhat familiar, is actually comprised of those clicks and sudden accents -- a wail or moan is not unintended. It's all a part of the drama unfolding around us. The pacing quickens and the harmonies thicken.

Afterfall is an international collaboration on Clean Feed records with Luís Lopes on electric guitar, Sei Miguel on pocket trumpet, Joe Giardullo on soprano and tenor saxophones, Benjamin Duboc on double bass and Harvey Sorgen on drums. Lopes, from Portugal, is the group leader, but you may not know it, as he takes a back seat to his other Portuguese, American and French colleagues. In fact, it's Giardullo whose voice seems to be most prominent.

At first, there is a feeling restraint, like the musicians have colluded in not revealing exactly what they mean. However, things begin to loosen up slowly towards the middle of the album. 'Cancoa Branco' builds slowly over eight and a half minutes and only in the last minute of the tune does Lopes' distorted guitar rise out of the mix along with Giardullo's sax. But then the communication barrier has been broken open and the music pours forth on 'American Open Road with a Frog.' Then it starts making sense, this album is a suite, each piece building up into longer sonic segments and becoming increasingly melodic. Giardullo takes a full throttled free blowing solo, finally saying everything that was being held back for so long. 'Open Road' has broken free and how good it feels -- it's almost swinging!

The last two songs find us retreating back into a murkier atmosphere. 'Triptych' begins with upright bass bowing a dark chord and plucking choice notes white Lopes' guitar sprinkles tiny melodies atop. It laboriously builds, adding trumpet, then percussion and finally sax, leading to a fierce collective improv. The last tune, 'Return of the Shut Up Goddess' brings us full circle (the first tune is called 'The Shut Up Goddess'), with small snippets of melody and scratching rhythms. However, this time we are fully awake and ready.

This arching song cycle is illuminating. Lopes' use of the guitar as a colorist and percussionist (at times) is as non-conventional as you can get. All the sounds and dynamics of the sax and trumpet are explored. The album has some darker undertones, but they function by making us work harder to understand, and I'm fairly certain that we are, by this point, starting to get it.

Download and listen at eMusic.

Buy from Instantjazz.

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Axel Dörner & Diego Chamy - Super Axel Dörner (Absinth Records, 2010) ****½

By Stanley Zappa

To quote Nate Doward in the December 2002 issue of Cadence magazine:

"...his abilities as a trumpeter have dwindled to almost nothing. His entire sonic palette is now little more than flatulent releases of air, fed through a reverb device which is kept in the “on” position for the entire performance. At best the results are innocuously atmospheric – rather like the echoey sounds one might hear in a documentary on whales...it’s hard not to find the trumpeter’s playing solipsistic, even weirdly infantile, in its regression to the sounds of gurgling, breathing and farting, its indifference to line, shape or direction, and its inability to enter into meaningful dialogue."

Though talking about Bill Dixon, Doward may as well be talking about the state of the trumpet in Improvised music/Art music. In talking about Dixon, particularly Dixon's abilities as a “trumpeter” Doward forever gives us a litmus test with which to place improvised music created on the trumpet. Super Axel Dörner by Axel Dörner and Diego Chamy passes (or fails, depending on how you see things) for the simple reason that without Bill Dixon, there would be no Axel Dörner. Indeed, without Bill Dixon, there would be no “modern” trumpet as we understand it today. Without Dixon, not only would there be no Axel Dorner, but there would be no Franz Hautzinger, no Nate Wooley, no Rob Mazurek, no Stephen Haynes, no Taylor Ho Bynum, no Birgit Ulher nor any of the future generations of trumpet players influenced by the above mentioned. Excessive? Then how about none of the above mentioned—or the trumpet as we know it—would be the same. That Dörner, like all of the above mentioned, has taken Dixon's developments with the instrument and incorporated them into a compelling sonic strategy all his own is only to say that Dörner has good taste; in the words of Kierkegaard "He who is willing to work gives birth to his own father".

If I had to guess those "flatulent releases of air" will simply come to be known as "the way the trumpet is played" while the carressed, thoughtful birthings of perfect little sine waves will enjoy the same relevance the flintlock musket enjoys today. That is the inescapable feeling when Dörner juxtaposes the one against the other—Dörner's fluency with the “weirdly infantile...gurgling breathing and farting” spectrum of the trumpet is that convincing.

As for “flatulent releases of air, fed through a reverb device which is kept in the “on” position for the entire performance” unless he is circular breathing, Dörner employs electronics towards the ends of super human durations of sound. At no point does this come off as gimmick, so no need to call the Guinness book of World Records. Dörner's use of electronics is thoughtful, deepening and prolonging occasions for tonal introspection; deepened without succumbing to garish 16th note cookie-cutter “sophistication,” prolonged without look-at-me-I'm-circular-breathing-repeated triplets.

Diego Chamy can be heard on “vocals” and “percussion.” Imagine Diana Krall and Dave Weckl. Then imagine the exact opposite and rejoice in Super Axel Dörner's “indifference to line, shape or direction,” delight in the absence of so-called “meaningful dialogue” in their interaction. Everybody knows indifference to line shape and form x absence of meaning = infinite creative possibilities (Art, if you will)—just as everybody knows that “caring” about line shape and engaging in “meaningful dialog” is where glittery puffs of Grammy award winning commodity twaddle come from.

In the future, corporate boppers will reference Super Axel Dörner when looking for clues on how to value add their latest release with a track or two of outre-exotica. Why not treat yourself to the real thing?

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Foton Quartet - Zomo Hall (Not Two, 2010) *****

By Stef

There is nothing like pure and free musicality, flowing notes moving slowly forward, embracing one another in a common one-directional stream, yet totally unpredictable like the water sliding between rocks in a mountain river. So is this music.

The band is Gerard Lebik on tenor sax and contra alto clarinet, Artur Majewski on trumpet, Jakub Cywinski on bass, and Wojciech Romanowski on drums. And yes, you're right: yet again another stellar band from Poland. Both horn-players were recently reviewed in separate duo settings, but hearing them together is a pure joy.

The music reminds of "Other Dimensions In Music" because of its small band coherence and freedom, or more recently "Nuts", or "Les Fées Du Rhin", and the "Collective 4tet", bands that combine great musical adventure with fragile sensitivity, and albums that received top-ratings.

The most stunning aspect of the music is its great natural and organic sound, as if every note grows out of the previous one, without the need to demonstrate skill or use special effects or to be different in form. And the end result is skillful, and special, and different ... as the result of talent and creative vision.

Extremely beautiful! The year has only just begun, and this is to me already a strong contender for the best of the year lists.

 
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Peter Brotzmann

Peter Brötzmann, Massimo Pupillo, Paal Nilssen-Love - Roma (Self-published, 2009)

Hairy Bones - Live At Fresnes (Self-published, 2010)

By Tony Medici

A cold night in Baltimore, Maryland; the opening act was done. Next was Brötzmann. Dressed in tough canvas and corduroy, suitable for the Gdansk shipyards or a logging foray into the Black Forest, Brötzmann worked through his collection of reeds, from clarinet to tenor to alto to soprano. He played with vigor and imagination, strength and craft. On occasion, he referenced Albert Ayler, and reminded us what a potent influence Ayler has been for post-war German jazz. As he probed ever deeper into the music, amassing tremendous physical and spiritual force, he was Wotan: mind and body, war and battle and death, but also creation, poetry and vision. If Bach refracted the currents of the Reformation, and Beethoven the forces of classicism and Romanticism, so too has Brötzmann refracted the tortured German legacy of world war and Holocaust, and the turbulent currents of the 1960s in which his music was catalyzed. Make no mistake: Brötzmann is in the deepest tradition of German music, a successor to Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Strauss. Think that is an exaggeration? Consider his revolutionary importance to post-war jazz and improvised music and I think a very good case can certainly be made; as he approaches his seventieth year, it is a case that ought to be made.

The two disks at hand capture Brötzmann once again on the road in live performance: December 2008 in Rome and October 2009 at Fresnes-en-Woevre, France. The discs share some common traits: both are self-produced; come in extremely simple brown cardboard pockets, with red stamping; contain the barest performance information; and are designed for sale at concerts (although some record outlets have offered them for sale). Whether intentionally or by happenstance, they look amusingly like bootlegs. The 2008 performance consists of Brötzmann on alto and tenor saxophone, Massimo Pupillo on electric bass, and Paal Nilssen-Love (or PNL as he is often known) on drums. The 2009 performance presents the same line-up but with the critical addition of frequent Brotzmann collaborator Toshinori Kondo on electric trumpet.

The Fresnes concert starts with a sledgehammer blast of sound that could well serve as the opening chords for Armageddon. Pupillo's big, fat, bass sound provides a deep, dark, propulsive foundation for the music, while Kondo's keening electric trumpet could have done duty at the Walls of Jericho. PNL seems to be channeling Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, and Max Roach simultaneously. And then above all, there is Brötzmann, relentlessly driving the music forward, captain and commander of this frenzy, alive in his chosen element. Listen carefully and you can hear strains of the blues, of popular music, and of old folk songs distilled in Brötzmann's playing. This is loud music, power music, meant to be played loud. The long stretches of furious attack are broken by interludes that seem to suggest a Wagnerian twilight of the gods. By the end of this 55 minute performance, there can be nothing left to give; it has all been given.

The Rome performance is a bit tamer affair than the Fresnes performance. Although the line-up of Brötzmann, Pupillo and PNL parallels that of another Brötzmann group, Full Blast, with Marino Pliakas on electric bass and Michael Wertmüller on drums, the Rome group does not come close to the enormous energy generated by Full Blast. Pupillo's presence is much less pronounced, which allows PNL's drumming to come more to the fore. Are there many better drummers on the free jazz scene today than PNL? Once again Brötzmann carries the music forward on alto and tenor. By this stage of his 40-plus year career, it is seems rather beside the point to critique Brötzmann's playing. It's rather like critiquing the storm that blew through town last week. It is elemental, nearly a force of nature (although make no mistake, it is the product of years of craft). As he approaches his 70th birthday, Brötzmann shows no signs of slowing down, and certainly, thankfully, no signs of mellowing.

 

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