Daren Burns - Fear Is Not The Natural State Of Civilized People (UrbanNerds Records, 2012) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

Bassist Daren Burns describes his album Fear Is Not The Natural State Of Civilized People as 'post-fusion recording for the new world' and it is recording that is at once a comment on the world post-9/11 and fusion done freely and fiercely well.

The hard hitting passages on the opener, 'Gothalay' start off with a furious flood of sound from which Burns emerges with single electric bass note runs and distorted chords that eventually becomes interlocked with Craig Bunch's percussion. Burns' bass never settles into a steady groove but rather one that pulsates and pummels. Soon, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith joins and proceeds to spit out melodic projectiles while pianist Sarah Phillips lends accompanying tonal clusters. Following the two, guitarist Scott Collins appears with a blast of distortion and begins shadowing Smith's lines until the two trade places and he delivers some scorching agile runs.  

The next song, 'Gandhi', opens with Phillips delivering exploratory lines on the piano, over an undercurrent of droning tension. By the time the trumpet joins in, the song has become a slow burning fuse. It smolders and sizzles, and like watching the fuse progress, it's a study in anticipation. 

The track 'Aung San Suu Kyi', begins with an extended slow build of percussive sounds and chant like droning, with sprinklings of melodic improvisations by the trumpet and piano. It's a melancholic and evocative soundscape. The album was recorded in 2009, before Aung San Suu Kyi's 2010 release from imprisonment and recent rise as a major political figure in Burma.

Of the albums theme of the struggle for freedom and equality, and its flip side, the fear and paranoia that causes people to willingly give it up, Burns writes:

This recording is dedicated to Goyathlay (Geronimo) the great Apache leader, Gandhi the Indian revolutionary, Aung San Suu Kyi the Burmese political prisoner, Fela Kuti the Nigerian fighter of governmental corruption, and anyone else who believes that life based on fear is not an option. Music Is the Weapon.

It's interesting to note that Burns is currently working in the beautiful chaparral and red rock splendor  of Sedona, Arizona. While Sedona itself seemingly projects its own peaceful aura, the state of Arizona is currently a hot bed for the contentious immigration issues rippling across the US. Whether there is truly a connection is beyond my knowledge but the tension between natural beauty and freedom versus human suffering and struggle seems to frame this oft biting and deeply felt music.

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David S. Ware Planetary Unknown: Live at Jazzfestival Saalfelden 2011 (AUM Fidelity, 2012) *****

By Martin Schray

With the first sound of David S. Ware’s saxophone you can see it coming. It seems to be far out in the sea but it is there. You know it, you hear it, you feel it. You can watch the waves mount up, towering. It is coming at high speed to get you, it is inevitable. Whether you choose to submerge yourself in this music and explore its subtexts or try to defy its power and its fury, it's an elemental roar that nails you to your seat.

Free jazz at its best is like a wave just about to break, this is the moment the players have to make last - the moment of the greatest power, the highest concentration, the purest communication. Usually it takes some time to build up that wave (or to find that moment) but Planetary Unknown - David S. Ware (sax), Cooper-Moore (p), William Parker (b) and Muhammad Ali (dr) – only need a few seconds.

They seem to start from scratch, as if they could not wait to begin. You are immediately confronted with the wonderful tone Ware has, one of the real voices in jazz. He knows what he is capable of, a master of his instrument (which is an extension of his soul to him) being aware of the huge reservoir of music there is in his world, feeling absolutely free to play what he has to play - strong, uncompromising, trying to get to the “essential essence of sound” (as William Parker put it). And then there is his new band. Just listen to Parker and Muhammad Ali and how unbelievably tight they play (who says a free jazz combo can’t swing?). With Cooper-Moore playing clusters and Taylor-like lines you are hit by a storm of whiplashes and hailstones dropping on glass. They create an immense wall of sound.

Not only is the band tight, they are also incredibly fast, almost breathless in what they do. Cooper-Moore once said that you have to have heart and stamina to play this music, you have to have the will to play it because the music is hard, it is not easy. And William Parker added that this music was a journey, you could not resist it, you had to allow it to flow through you. You had to let it meld with what you don’t know so that it becomes another entity. All of it is in Planetary Unknown’s sound: in one sequence they can be full, rich, earthy, and warm but also boisterous, shrill, Ware is overblowing his sax when he is shrieking in the high registers, they sound like angry 25-year-olds when they combine pure outbursts of energy with instrumental mastership.

After 15 minutes Ware takes a break, leaving space for the piano trio to excel, which proves that the trio itself is a wonderful collective, they could be a marvelous group on their own, although Ware is definitely the leader, the one who is focused, who drags the others along - he is the captain of the ship. When the track literally calms down, when it comes down to the bass accompanied by some spare chips of piano and drums, it almost stops, stripped to the bone. Then Ware comes back and gives orders for a new direction (in this case a sax trio). With Cooper-Moore re-entering the wave builds up again and what Ware plays here is simply incredible, he pulls out all the stops (for example in an awe-inspiring circular breathing part which ends part one). Here the band is playing on a level only to be compared with Cecil Taylor’s legendary Unit.

The pieces on this album are called “Precessional 1 – 3”. Precessional means “a comparatively slow gyration of the rotation axis of a spinning body about another line intersecting it so as to describe a cone”. If you replace “slow” by “high speed” then this is what this album is about on the one hand. But on the other hand it is (as every Ware album) about spirituality, about finding a spiritual reality that exists out there in contrast to materiality. In times of a financial crisis this album (and with it spirituality) has a political dimension as well, it gives the world meaning. This can be heard in “Precessional 3”, a dark blues of John-Coltrane-dimensions, mournful, proud, of majestic beauty.

Ware says that spirituality is what you are and music is what you do. Just because there is a lot of experience in this band their music can be 100 percent intuitive, very refined, and spontaneous.

I really felt sad when Ware came to an end with his legendary quartet with Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Guillermo E. Brown. But – my god – he has replaced it with another supergroup.

Buy from www.instantjazz.com or the label www.aumfidelity.com

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Heddy Boubaker & Hernâni Faustino – Domino Doubles (re:konstruKt, 2011) **** & Pedro Sousa & Hernâni Faustino – Falaise (Dromos Records, 2012) ****

By Daniel Sorrells

I spend a lot of time thinking about space in music. Two recent duo recordings with Portuguese bassist Hernâni Faustino are especially evocative of musical space: Domino Doubles is full of it, Falaise makes you aware of it. Music often implies structure that goes beyond the mere arrangement of its elements. It’s easy to forget that sound is utterly immersive; you can’t turn off your hearing, and you can’t ignore the subtle information sound coveys about your surroundings. This is coding that music can tap into as well, and it can set off our synapses in all kinds of suggestive ways. The ears can create a map or image in the mind just as easily as the eyes can.

Superficially, Domino Doubles and Falaise are very similar. Close listening reveals different improvisational angles and recording approaches, however. Domino Doubles matches Faustino with musical polymath Heddy Boubaker on alto and bass sax, a pairing that places a lot of emphasis on aesthetic, compositional space (in the sense that you’re making decisions about the arrangement of sounds during improvisation). On Falaise (with Pedro Sousa on tenor), what’s evoked is actual physical space as conveyed through sound— aural architecture.

Faustino is obviously the shared link here. He’s amassed a lot of improvising credibility through his membership in RED Trio. Though they heroically attempt to overcome most limitations, Faustino is usually pitted against two instruments that are fairly inflexible in terms of pitch: piano and drums. It’s refreshing to hear him in a more fluid context, especially with two players so skilled in extending the expressive range of the saxophone. Boubaker’s technique may be a bit more subtle, esoteric even, but Sousa has an impressive command of the outer-reaches of the tenor for such a new face on the scene. Faustino is clearly inspired in both pairings, though he often defers to Boubaker on Domino Doubles.

Both are headphone albums. Domino Doubles seems to materialize from somewhere inside your head. Boubaker has a fine-spun control over his signal, bleeding overtones that feel like some kind of trippy inner-skull resonance.  There are small, breathy gestures, splintered harmonics, peals of arco sawing, bent notes. Much care is given to the placement of sounds, perhaps as much as the choice of sounds themselves. Tones linger, are allowed to settle and vanish. With so much riding on the details, both players are pristinely recorded. Falaise can seem just the opposite. Fine minutiae give way to the force of combined sound. The recording is clear, but it’s as though one microphone is placed close to Faustino, and Sousa’s long, rich tones seep in from somewhere across the room. The sense of the playing space is palpable, and the two capitalize on this natural resonance by converging on tones or crafting repetitive motifs that meld together into complex drones.

In these duos, space is made real through the fullness of reverberating sound, or thrown wide by the silences in the music. One traces the acoustics of a performance space, the physical potential of sound as it’s shaped by matter, the warm aura as lambent tones redouble and re-cross. The other drops charges into the echoless darkness inside your skull, pits sound against sound, like searing drips of color that burn brightly against a canvas of negative space. Neither should be missed.

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Arts and Sciences - New You (Singlespeed Music, 2012) *****

Posted by Joe

I met Michael Coleman (the leader of Arts and Science) in Brussels quite a few years ago. He was on the usual European tourist trip with a friend of his - maybe Jordan Glenn, the drummer on this album? Michael told me about another interesting project called Schumann's Humans, a group playing the music of Schumann, but re-imagined. I remember checking out via MySpace the group and being highly impressed, but of course since then I'd lost track of Michael's groups and career. Well, time has caught up and here we are in 2012 with a record from Michael Coleman under the title 'Arts and Science - New You', and it's to my ears a corker! I should also add, for all those that read the recent Aram Shelton review, that this is another record out on the excellent Singlespeed Music label.

If you're ready to be taken on a burning trip of musical ideas and styles, then this is the one you might indeed be well advised to check out. If you remember the free wheeling blowing and sheer eclecticism of Human Feel then you'll already have a vague notion of what the music could be. Although not as 'free', it does however have a power and imagination that easily matches that genre breaking group. The groups makeup does (in a way) mirror some of Human Feel's elements as it's two sax front line, no bass, drums and in this case keyboard may suggest. Each of the musicians deserves a mention as everybody plays sublimely well, blowing hot and cold all over the music, prepared to take the risks needed to give the music an excitement and energy that keeps the listener pinned to their seat!

Both Jacob Zimmerman (alto sax, flute, percussion), Matt Nelson (Tenor sax, effects, percussion) are new names to me, and a revelation also. Both players seem to mold together to form a front line that instinctively thinks as one. Their solos sometimes scream out of the speakers and at others come together to form tight ensemble work. Jordan Glenn (drums) is certainly a key player in this complex music which at times sounds not unlike early King Crimson in it's ensemble work. The modern melodies fly out at you never letting one guess which direction the music will take. 'Seram' (Tk 7) swings away at a fast tempo, whilst the gorgeous melody of 'Shunting' (Tk 8) has an almost sinister obstinate riff for the two saxes to blow around. Baby Boner (Tk 3) turns into a polyrhythmic piece, like a pigmy melody taken straight from the rain forests. 'Scientology' (Tk 9) makes use of gongs and bowed cymbals leading us to a beautiful and delicate melody with extra horns and a guitar. And the final brooding 'Jazz/Shadow' (Tk 10) with strangely distorted recorded horns and keyboard, roll like the sea with the two horns wailing above. Every track is a winner!

The myriad ideas of Michael Coleman really keep each track fresh, and although there is clearly a huge range of musical styles, somehow Michael manages to make the whole thing completely coherent. His keyboard playing (only keyboards) never dominates the ensemble, yet there are constant ideas flowing back and forth. His use of the sound palettes available is always well chosen ; mellotrons, percussive glockenspiels, tiny pianos, old wurlitzers, etc. However, what is clear is that this is no solo record, but a true group project that live must be very exciting to hear indeed! The recording technique and sound also used on this record is also very interesting, at times clear and at others heavily treated, all of which (I imagine) is intended.

Highly recommended to all those who love King Crimson, rock, out jazz, Human Feel, downtown scene, pygmies...!         

Listen and download from their Bandcamp page.     

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Jacob Garchik: The Heavens (Yestereve Records, 2012) ****

By Martin Schray

I grew up in a small village in Southern Germany, my parents’ house is in the center of it just opposite the church. Some of the neighboring houses belong to the parish and twice a week the Protestant trombone choir has its rehearsals there. Especially in the summer they practiced with the windows open, so I could not avoid hearing them. Unfortunately, they were really terrible, the musicianship was poor, and the songs from the hymn book they played bored me to death which is why I hated trombones for a very long time. It only changed when Paul Rutherford and Johannes Bauer in Peter Brötzmann’s März Combo showed me what was possible with the instrument.

Another great young trombonist of the younger generation is Jacob Garchik, whose “The Heavens -  The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album” is a nine-song-selection for trombone choir, all performed by himself (he plays up to eight trombones, two sousaphones, two baritone and alto horns and slide trumpet). As the title suggests the album is about religious music and spirituality from anatheist’s perspective, that’s why you cannot only find gospels on it (e.g. “Dialogue with my Great-Grandfather”) but also soul songs (“This Song is the Center ofthe Universe”), a Ray-Charles-quotation (“The Heavens”), country music (“Glory/Infinity/Nothing”) and Doo Wop pop songs (“Be Good”). Even though his overall love for gospel shines through permanently, another very important influence is Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy and its deep admiration for the blues and funk of New Orleans Brass Bands.

“I was inspired to create this project out of a deep love for gospel music, and for religious music in general.” says Garchik in the notes. “I knew I had to play it but I wanted to do it on my own terms and in a way that was honest. In my mind, music and religion are both amazing reflections of human creativity.”

As to the underlying philosophy of the album there are two programmatic songs, the funk stomper “The Problem of Suffering” and the soul number “Digression on the History of Jews and Black Music”, because they deal with the similarities between African-American and Jewish history. Steven Lee Beeber (author of “The Heebie Jeebies at the CBGB’s”) points out that both people share a similar history from slavery to displacement and genocide and emphasizes the role of music in the process of assimilation to American society. He also explains that one of the central messages of the Pesach feast was that Jews were never allowed to support slavery and oppression because they were slaves in Egypt themselves. This historical motif of the Jews as children of Israel is also a central image in many gospel songs of the African-American church, which leads us back to this album. And Stanley Crouch adds that “they [the Jews] have a joy of life that's cynical, which is basically the same sensibility as the blues sensibility. That's a greater connection than atrocities.”

Even if Garchik claims that he is an atheist quoting Stephen Hawking on his website (“It would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.”) this does not mean that all this stuff mentioned above is not part of a collective memory.

Most songs are just a couple of minutes long, the longest being just over six minutes, and the entire album only runs for 28 minutes – this is almost apunk/DIY attitude (but that’s a different kettle of fish).

Great album, great fun to listen to.

It is available on Garchik’s bandcamp page http://jacobgarchik.bandcamp.com/, where you can stream it in its entirety and purchase it in a number of file formats.

Listen to “Digression on the History of Jews and Black Music” here: 

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Available Jelly – Baarle-Nassau (Ramboy, 2012) ****½

 

By Troy Dostert

On the second disc in this two-disc release from Michael Moore’s Available Jelly, the band performs a version of the Ellington/Troop classic “The Feeling of Jazz.”  And what a fitting tune it is, for that’s precisely what the band provides on this fantastic live recording.  All the emotions and sensations that jazz embodies are here in spades: joyous exuberance, somber reflection, unstoppable energy, and a bit of humor thrown in for good measure as well.

Moore (alto sax, clarinet) is joined here by his long-standing collaborators: Eric Boeren (cornet), Wolter Wierbos (trombone), Tobias Delius (tenor sax, clarinet), Ernst Glerum (bass), and Michael Vatcher (drums, percussion).  The group delights in teetering just on the edge of chaos, as tunes threaten to come completely unraveled, only to be woven back together despite the odds.  Playing of this nature can only happen when the members of a group know each other so well that they can experiment with this kind of controlled recklessness, and these guys played together for well over a decade, so they can definitely pull it off.  The rhythm team of Glerum and Vatcher is essential to this process, as both manage somehow to keep things anchored on even the most complex tracks, even when things seem to be going off the rails.

Most of the tunes are Moore’s compositions, along with several well-chosen standards taken from the Ellington canon; in addition to the aforementioned “Feeling of Jazz,” the group offers beautiful performances of Strayhorn’s “Isfahan” and Ellington’s “Village of the Virgins” and “I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So.”  These songs are played fairly straightforwardly, without too many hijinks; Moore’s feel for Ellington’s work is spot-on, and the arrangements capture the moods of Ellington’s pieces quite nicely.  Indeed, the winding, rich harmonies played by the four horns are one of the greatest strengths of all the songs, including Moore’s own pieces.  Moore clearly knows how to write horn charts, and he does it with intelligence and creativity for maximum advantage here.  Whether the tune is a bouncy, energetic piece like “Kwela for Taylor,” or a more melancholy, restrained number such as “Chy,” Moore crafts subtle and intriguing harmonies consistently.

In addition to the melodic sophistication of Moore’s songs, what stands out about the group’s work as a whole is its stylistic range: the group can switch rhythmic structures seamlessly, going from freely-improvised to composed sections with barely a ripple.  And the jazz tradition in all its grandeur is alive and well in these pieces, as a bit of Dixieland or old-fashioned swing can come into play whenever Vatcher and Glerum decide to take the tunes in that direction.  A great example of the range of styles in Moore’s writing would be “Bundle of Shorts,” on the second disc.  A clever mix of free playing and composed horn parts begins the track, with a fair bit of growling and squealing along the way from all four horns; following that, a groove gradually develops, with Glerum and Vatcher asserting themselves and providing a pulse for the others to follow.  Vatcher introduces a shuffle-beat behind the horns at this point, sometimes obviously, other times less so.  Finally, about midway through the tune Vatcher really lets loose, as with Glerum he introduces a driving, New Orleans-style second line march rhythm, and the horns really pick up steam behind it.  Then, as if this weren’t enough, yet another rhythmic variation is brought into the mix, as we’ve suddenly traveled from New Orleans to South Africa, and the tune ends rapturously with a township groove.  An amazing mix of sounds, impressions, and moods, in just one piece.  And both discs are full of such powerful, imaginative music-making.  The “Feeling of Jazz” indeed.

It’s a special treat to hear this music in a live environment, as the musicians’ enthusiasm and sense of fun clearly invigorate their appreciative crowd.  This was billed as the last concert recorded by this line-up, which does add a note of sadness to the proceedings; but we can still be grateful that this document was able to capture the group’s distinctive spirit so well.  Curiously, the discs are being sold separately—but I wouldn’t want to be without either one.  They are both superb and come highly recommended.

You can buy the discs direct from Ramboy.


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Michel Doneda & Nils Ostendorf - Cristallisation (Absinth, 2012) ****½

By Stef     

Feeling with your ears, is the image that comes to mind when listening to this fantastic duo of Michel Doneda on soprano and sopranino and Nils Ostendorf on trumpet.

This is music you can feel, as in physically touching, letting it glide through your fingers, for the pure enjoyment of the fine texture, the translucent weightlessness of gauze, the smoothness of silk, the rough prickliness of wool, or compare it to the warmth of sand in the sun, the gentle hardness of pebbles, or pulsating living skin ... Like touch, the endless variations in timbre and sound reach you somehow in an undefinable way. It doesn't speak: it affects. It reaches you differently, totally. As a listener, you can only experience it. Feel it. Touch the sound, with your ears, let it resonate fully in your tympanic membrane, play with it like something you have in your hands, touch it, sense it from all sides ...

In ten miniatures, Doneda and Ostendorf make the listener feel with her ears all the subtle variations of timbre, the beauty of sound as sound, the beauty of several sonic threads going in opposite directions to weave the same fabric, gentle and deliberate and cautious.

And so should you too, listener, envelop the sound with your ears, unhurriedly, listen how sound can become something precious, small and rare and valuable.

Exceptional.


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Latest from Leo (Part 3 of 3)

“Jazz is a form of expressing freedom” – Leo Records

By Martin Schray

According to the German saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann working for Leo Records is a win-win-situation. While Leo Feigin, who does not care about the confinements of conventions and routines (and they exist even in free jazz), wants to keep his label going (although you cannot get rich with this kind of music), the musicians want to spread their music. If you can publish an album on Leo Records it is some kind of accolade for a musician – he or she is “Leo-proofed” – which is an advantage when it comes to negotiations with promoters or requests by journalists.

This is the last part of our little Leo batch:

Shift: Songs from Aipotu **** ½ 

Shift are Frank Gratkowski (reeds), Thomas Lehn (synthesizer), Philip Zoubek (piano), Dieter Manderscheid (bass) and Martin Blume (drums, perc) and “Songs from Aipotu” is a lucky bag of  subliminal brewing and communicative energy. For a short moment “Introduction”,  the central track,  is very tender, lost in thought, almost idyllic, but soon the clarinet gets nervous, it is pushing the others and what follows is an explosion of creativity, an up and down of emotions. The reeds are kissing, smacking, and squealing at the same time, there are synthesizer beeps and creaks put through the grinder and sparkling piano chips and all of a sudden the track is almost petering out. While piano, bass and drums are the cement that bonds the pieces, Lehn’s synthesizer is always trying to rip them up, he is tearing and dragging at them, instigating and fueling the expressionistic outbursts. On the one hand the others try to follow him, on the other hand they have to make sure that the pieces do not lose their tracks, a dichotomy which gives the album a great tension. Lehn differs from other contemporary synth players because he uses his instrument in an aggressive yet discrete way. Whereas other electronic improvisers often depend on acoustic input, he is more independent treating the synth like a solo instrument.

The result is an excellent group improvisation and Frank Gratkowski says about his music that there were no predefined rules, that’s why he calls it instant composing. The fact of structuring the music instantly was very important and on this album passion and creative will are combined, the music possesses precision within channeled sonic explorations even in its fiercest outbursts.
Aipotu (“utopia” in reverse) is a word from a novel by the German author Peter-Paul Zahl. Neither is it music from the beautiful ideal state, nor the exact opposite - it is music from the here and now, compelling, uncompromising, rich, and prodigious in its power.

You can get an impression here:

Matthias Ziegler: La Rusna – Music for Three Flutes ****

Troy Dostert had to admit in his review of Steve Lacy’s “Avignon and After” that he actually does not like solo recordings. Well – I can understand him. And I have difficulties with the sound of some instruments like the guitar (as mentioned above), the human voice, and – the flute. So the expectations for Matthias Ziegler’s “Las Rusna” were rather low. After listening to the album the surprise was all the more bigger.

Ziegler does not play regular flutes here, he is a specialist in bass flutes (contrabass flute, baritone flute, alto flute) and has even designed some new instruments. He creates a completely strange, trembling, and almost unheard sound with carefully placed microphones in the flutes itself. With the help of some effects the album sounds like the echo of a minimal symphony played by one musician. Especially the title track, a 20-minute-drone, is a psychedelic trip you can get high on. It feels like sitting in the lung of a huge gentle beast listening to its breathing. To your own surprise you are not afraid, it is a completely organic and natural ethereal sound, surreal and mind-boggling.

The other tracks are not as unique but nonetheless unusual and interesting. “Stop n Go”, for example, is a tour de force on the baritone flute, much faster, less ambient. Ziegler shows what an excellent player he is, presenting a huge variety of sounds, aspirating, breathing, key tapping, exploring the sonic possibilities of his instruments. This album was the great discovery in all this LEO stuff.

You can watch and listen here:

Steve Day: Strewn with Pebbles **

Steve Day has recorded for Leo before (his CDs “Visitors” and “Songs of the Fly”), although he is mainly known as a left-wing critic and as the author of liner notes for Anthony Braxton and the wonderful book “Two Full Ears – Listening to Improvised Music”, in which he describes the relationship between playing and listening to free music from the perspective of the listener.  Unfortunately, he should not have changed allegiance. On the 10 songs on "Strewn With Pebbles" Day (voice, percussion) is supported by Aaron Standon (saxophones and guitar) and Bill Bartlett (piano and Hammond organ) who also accompanied him on his first two albums (among others). Even if the songs are said to be built on collective improvisation based on Day’s great jazz knowledge he often sounds like a cheap gutter poet, in his worst moments like a whiny version of Tom Waits, Shane McGowan or Robert Wyatt (especially when he tries to sing). I can hardly find authenticity or inspiration in these songs, nothing that grabs my attention. What saves the album to a certain degree is Aaron Standon’s sax, although it sometimes has to fight hard against the misplaced Hammond organ and the amateurish percussions. Sorry, Steve.


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Latest from Leo (Part 2 of 3)

By Martin Schray

“Jazz is a form of expressing freedom” – Leo Records 

In part one we mentioned that Leo’s Feigin’s approach of publishing is a case sui generis. What makes it so special is his relationship with the musicians, for him working with Leo Records is based on friendship, that’s why he does not sign musicians. His philosophy is to support them without condition and whenever they want to release something, he tries to make it possible. This philosophy has led to an average annual output of more than 30 albums a year. As to free jazz standards this is sheer madness but for the musicians it is a blessing which is why many of them have a real history with Leo Records.

This is part two of our selection of Leo’s 2012 issues.

Ivo Perelman & The Sirius Quartet: The Passion According to G.H. ****

A perfect example of Feigin’s concept to support artists without signing them is his relationship to Brazilian saxophone colossus Ivo Perelman. Over the years Perelman has released 17 albums on Leo, from his collaboration with Dominic Duval and the C.T. String Quartet (“Alexander Suite”) and duos with Jay Rosen and Gerry Hemingway to quintets with Louis Sclavis, Paul Rogers, Ramon Lopéz, and Christine Wodrascka up to his new trio with Matthew Shipp and Gerald Cleaver.

On this album he works with the Sirius Quartet (Gregor Huebner and Fung Chern Hwei on violin, Ron Lawrence on viola, and Jeremy Harman on cello) picking up where he left off with “Alexander Suite”. The third track, for example, explodes out of the starting blocks before it becomes a box full of staccato riffs, complex rhythms and dynamics, folk ditty melodies, circular breathing solos, avant-garde dialogues and monotonous sax drones shyly supported by the strings. It is an anthem-like track that exhales beautifully in the end.

The music on “The Passion According to G.H.” includes a lot of influences: Perelman is deeply rooted in South American music like bossa nova, tango and samba in which he is easily able to integrate the blues. His tone is rich, earthy, sometimes balladesque, but he can as well be really abrasive, intensive and harsh. The Sirius Quartet, in contrast, is a wonderful ensemble comprising first class classical musicians who are able to improvise as well. Actually you cannot believe that the music on this album is totally improvised because many passages sound pre-composed (especially the strings seem to present a tightly knit carpet on which Perelman can soar) but improvisation is the key principle in Perelman’s work. Neil Tesser says in the liner notes, ". . . Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this album is this: not one note of it was written in advance." The last track sums this up: it starts with a beautiful conversation of strings and sax, then the strings play a Steve Reich part (it sounds like a quotation from “Different Trains”) while Perelman is adding fierce tones, and in the end the track is gliding away in pure beauty.

Watch this really beautiful clip:

The Clarinet Trio: 4 ****

Gebhard Ullmann’s Clarinet Trio goes back 13 years with Leo Records, but this is their first album in eight years (there were three before). Ullmann says that the Clarinet Trio (which is Jürgen Kupke amd Michael Thieke on the other clarinets) is "like a microcosm of all my other work, I am still exploring the sound of woodwinds and the possibilities that lie in it - there is a lot of new vocabulary in this fourth CD”.

Seven out of eleven songs follow the same structure. They start with a theme played by at least two clarinets, then they stop abruptly or change their tone before they come back to the theme or a modulation at the end again. In between the musicians have a lot of free space to improvise. The music includes klezmer (“May 5”), cool jazz (“Blaues Viertel”), hardbop (“Homogenous Emotion”, a previously unreleased Ornette Coleman cover) or even heavy metal if you imagine the instruments were electric guitars instead of clarinets (“Catwalk Münzstraße”). Nevertheless, my favorite pieces are those which do not follow this structure like “Geringe Abweichung von der Norm” (which means “Minor Deviation from the Norm”, the title speaking for itself), a very slow track which presents a mournful, dark and gloomy atmosphere. All in all, it is a very beautiful album, the communication between the musicians is simply marvelous.

See the trio here:

You can listen to the trio here:

http://www.gebhard-ullmann.com/sounds/blauesviertelclar3.mp3

The Second Approach Trio: Beeswing ***

Of course, the Second Approach have a history with Leo Records as well, “Beeswing” is their third album on the label and since they are from Russia Feigin is able to present Russian music in the west, something he has always done from the Ganelin Trio up to Alexey Kruglow. The band is Andrei Razin (piano, percussion, voice), Tatiana Komova (voice, kalimba, whistle, percussion) and Igor Ivanushkin (acoustic bass, bass guitar, percussion). On some of the songs they are supported by Mike Ellis (sax), Arkady Shikloper (French horn), Vano Avaliani (percussion) and Vlad Okunev (percussion). “Beeswing” is a sort of  live “Best Of” album but the band has changed some of the arrangements giving them a new quality and new power. The music embraces all kinds of music from opera to swing, boogie-woogie and bebop. But there are also more daring attempts, for example the opening track “Dore Lume” which sounds like a mad Jewish kaddish. It is an ambivalent album, the musicians are absolutely great and when the songs are adventurous it is great fun listening to. But sometimes it is a bit too artsy fartsy, too.

Watch it here:

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Latest from Leo (Part 1 of 3)

“Jazz is a form of expressing freedom” – Leo Records

By Martin Schray
         
There are only some legendary label bosses in free music, most of them are often behind the scenes figures who prepare the ground for all the music we adore so deeply. People like FMP’s Jost Gebers, Hat Hut’s Werner X. Uehlinger, Emanem’s Martin Davidson, Black Saint’s Giovanni Bonandrini or Intakt’s Patrik Landolt, to name a few. And there is Leo Feigin. Feigin, who had emigrated to London in 1974, founded his label Leo Records there five years later in order to give Soviet free jazz – especially the legendary Ganelin Trio - a platform for their music in the West, but he also published seminal albums by Cecil Taylor, Marilyn Crispell and – foremost - Anthony Braxton. What makes his approach to manage a label so unique is that for him music is not business, for him business is music.

Over the next three days, we are going to review some of the label’s latest productions.

6ix: Almost even further **** ½ 

In Bernd Schoch’s wonderful documentary “But the Word Dog Does Not Bark” about the Schlippenbach Trio (hopefully soon to be released on Intakt) Evan Parker remarks about the process of improvised music that “it’s a question of finding a new path in an essentially known landscape (…). We sort of know the territory and when we get to the edges of the territory, what happens then? Can we see something we didn’t see? We go to that corner of the territory but instead of looking back to the things we know, for once we take the chance to look out”.

This is particularly true for 6ix’s “Almost even further”, the musicians explore their territory, they go out really far before they proceed even further. 6ix is Jaques Demierre (piano), Urs Leimgruber (saxophone), Okkyung Lee (cello), Thomas Lehn (synthesizer), Dorothea Schürch (voice, singing saw), and Roger Turner (drums), together they sound like a micro ensemble reminding of Evan Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble or King Übü Orchestrü. You feel like sitting on a hide listening to the music of the forest at night, unknown sounds come up, strange creatures communicate in a foreign language, which is fascinating because you are allured and attracted by this strange world. However, you have to be careful because the voices are very shy, as soon as you think you can catch one it immediately withdraws.

There are a lot of great moments on this album: Lehn’s synthesizer blends so well with Leimgruber’s saxophone and Lee’s cello, and Schürch’s voice is both scary and exquisite. When she enters the scene for the first time she is breathing heavily, whispering, panting, like the wind sweeping eerily through the treetops. Lehn works with her sounds, supports and processes them. It is a magical moment of high intensity – actually sensational.

The whole album is a game of concentration, sound colors, spicks and specks everywhere - as if a Jackson Pollock painting came to life - great art, really demanding. The more often you listen to it, the more beautiful details you can find in these sound landscapes.

You can watch it here:

Vinz Vonlathen, Cyril Bondi, Christophe Berthet: Silo ****

The guitar is a difficult instrument in free jazz. Compared to other instruments there are not many players whose sound matches with this music, although there were the late greats Derek Bailey and Sonny Sharrock and there are James Blood Ulmer, Christian Fennesz or Raoul Björkenheim. But I have my difficulties with Marc Ducret, Kim Myhr or even Olaf Rupp (sorry).

Another interesting player I discovered recently is Vinz Vonlanthen. Silo is his first collaboration with Christophe Berthet (saxophones, clarinets) and Cyril Bondi (drums) and it converts a wide range of improvised music in which especially the quieter tracks are the more interesting ones. “Passage”, for example, is a highly contemplative track with Berthet stumbling in on bass clarinet while the guitar is picking dissonant chords. A spooky atmosphere is created here – like listening to the jungle at night. Towards the ending the sounds fray out even more before a long and lonely note on the bass clarinet ends the song. “Chimère” is another almost tender track, it is timid, the muffled sounds are very shy, as if they did not dare to come out of the instruments. Finally, the exception proves the rule.

“Cynagogene” uses looped wah-wah-guitar riffs as a foundation to build up several layers of guitar sounds so that a hectic and nervous saxophone and staccato drums can soar over the track. A very varied and interesting album.

Mangia, Ladisa, Volpe, Urso – Ulysses ***

“Ulysses” is an album of an improvising string trio plus saxophone, guitar, harmonium and voice, namely Stefano Luigi Mangia (voice, alto sax), Stefania Ladisa (violin, voice), Adolfo La Volpe (guitars, harmonium, voice), and Angelo Urso (bass, voice). Particularly the voices sound like early Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten), they display the whole palette from ethereal singing to squealing, twittering, gargling, screaming, and buzzing. The ensemble is at its best when it creates drone-like sounds like in the four “Impro” tracks, they can create a really spooky atmosphere all the more when they integrate blues riffs. But sometimes the album is really hard to listen to, especially the vocals are over the top now and then, for example the yodeling at the end of “Stratosfonie” or the children’s voices in “La Virt”.

"Ulysses" can be regarded as a symbolic and utopian voyage because the musicians of this quartet dedicate the tracks to Demetrio Stratos, Jorge Luis Borges, Fjodor Dostoevskij, Albert Einstein et al. – all of them modern travelers searching for meaning. Ulysses' mythological voyage has been the leitmotif of the album, first intimately by each musician before the whole thing comes together.

Form a first impression here:





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