Peter Brötzmann ‎– I Surrender Dear (Trost, 2019) ****(*)

By Colin Green

This recording arose out of a conversation with Peter Brötzmann over coffee in Budapest: solo performances of some of his favourite jazz tunes, along with his own. From the seven hours of music recorded over three days at Martin Siewert’s Vienna studio in 2018 Brötzmann made the current selection, played on tenor only, a tightening of focus and a beam that cuts because it is narrow. The album does not have the epic dimensions of the magisterial Münster Bern (Cubus, 2015), his previous solo recording made in the reverberant acoustic of Bern’s Gothic cathedral, but is a collection of very private performances more intimate in scale. Gone are the vaulting spans and in their place we have a succession of meditative studies, ruminations on tunes that have touched Brötzmann over the years perhaps as stations in his life replete with memories. Yet more than mere exercises in reminiscence they form past imperfect dialogues with the continuous present. “When I walk through the woods or stroll through a city I’m always whistling, tunes I have in my head through all my life,” he says in the brief liner notes, “and the only idea for this recording was to show – mostly to myself – the connection between what has been and what there is right NOW – the one can’t exist without the other.”

It’s tempting to speculate whether specific versions of some of these tunes lay behind the performances – for example: is it Billie Holiday on ‘Lady Sings the Blues’? – but that would be misplaced. Whatever recordings originally attracted him, with the passage of time Brötzmann has internalised these melodies and he sounds like nothing other than Brötzmann. They seem to exist in an indeterminate, largely tempoless realm, repeating and absorbed by themselves as though mulled over in his mind, telling him one thing and responded to with other voices, by turns caressing, elated, desperate; at times no reply at all. There are underlying connections, some tunes lead directly into others like wandering thoughts – ‘I Surrender Dear’ becomes ‘Lover Come Back to Me’, a theme from Bach emerges as a coda to ‘Dark Blues’ – others chart Brötzmann’s musical journey, or at least one particular narrative, not as a story but as events having a sequential nexus whose significance is known only to him. There’s no thematic development as such, instead an accumulation of self-communing reflections, and only rarely those blazing swarms of notes – everything is reduced to the bare bones, breaths are shorter, pauses longer and expression terse, conveyed by often barely perceptible shifts in intensity and intonation.

The opening ‘I Surrender Dear’ has a rasping edge getting grittier as the piece progresses. Softer phrases come through, are then scrambled and the remainder crosscuts between sweetness and dissolution. ‘Lover Come Back to Me’ is rendered in a ripe tone, barely contained that blisters and splits. Some pieces float almost entirely free of their original rhythmic structure and dwell on particular melodic figures, drawing out an interior aspect of the tune, a telling interval or phrase. The lilt and swagger of ‘Lady Sings the Blues’ drifts into a mesmeric space as if Brötzmann is transfixed by features of the melody and its rocking motion. Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Con Alma’ is detached from its surrounding Latin rhythms, the contours of the melody etiolated and after a while sinking wearily into silence. Gershwin’s ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It’ is relieved of its normal jauntiness, its cadences readjusted as the tune becomes progressively estranged. Other numbers contain flashes of the more familiar, gutsy Brötzmann. He’s incorporated ‘Sumphin' by Sonny Rollins into his improvisations before and here, introduced by grizzled blasts, it rings out assertively but abruptly takes a doleful turn, ending incomplete. Similarly, on ‘Brozziman’, written by Misha Mengelberg, the resounding tune in the splintered high registers, full of blood and muscle, is sustained only briefly before fracturing as the phrases compress then come apart.

‘Improvisation über ein Thema von Bach’ uses the haunting Thema Regium that forms the basis of Bach’s Das Musikalisches Opfer (The Musical Offering), a melody reputedly written by Frederick the Great for Bach to improvise on while visiting the Prussian court. For Bach, the theme was a source for proliferation, woven through the canons and fugues like a golden thread; for Brötzmann it’s a continuation of other thoughts passing from one state to another, an improvisation around rather than on the theme, its rise and melancholic fall transformed into a tentative blues melody fleetingly registered. His own ‘Churchsong’ which follows is nothing grand, a tune of sparse simplicity played in an unhurried procession of even measures amplifying its ordinariness and thereby elevating its affect.

‘Love Poem Nr. 7’ was recorded on Brötzmann’s first solo album, 14 Love Poems (FMP, 1984) later released as a 20th anniversary expanded edition, 14 Love Poems Plus 10 More (FMP, 2004). There played on baritone sax and in embryonic form, it’s a talismanic tune that has run throughout his music – over time developing into the elegiac melody commonly known as ‘Master of a Small House’ after its appearance on Tales Out of Time (hatOLOGY, 2004) and also as a more bluesy variant, both frequently drawn on during performance. The latter is used on ‘Dark Blues’, a lingering interpretation in which the notes, having an almost physical sensation, fall singly and slowly as the melody withdraws into itself with ever decreasing energy. The emotionally draining penultimate track, ‘Ballade / Love Poem Nr. 7 / Blues’, interlaces all three versions. It begins with the Master theme, delivered with a thick vibrato, gently unwinds into Love Poem where the tune rouses itself in stark profile and eventually mutates into Blues, a mixture of resignation and flickering resistance. The album ends as it began with another performance of ‘I Surrender Dear’, not as a conclusion but a cycling back, returning to previously trodden ground furrowed by re-enactment. This time there’s the entranced atmosphere of a slow unending dream, broken harmonies and a brittle surface that introduce an apprehension of something dreaded, or desired, finally subdued in a quieter tone.

Brötzmann’s music has gravitated to emotional states in extremis reflecting the struggle at the heart of things, shifting between fervent passion and deep anguish – sensibilities on occasions indistinguishable – setting bright against dark, each requiring the other. On this album the light often dims to an intermediate, tenebrous grey, a twilight of shades and an endless horizon. Caught between resurrection of the past and refusal of consolation by the present there seems no place where the longed-for and the actual might coincide. At times I Surrender Dear is not comfortable listening, nor I suspect is it intended to be. Notwithstanding glimpses of beauty and moments of warmth there’s a pervading sense of disenchantment, with self and the world. Brötzmann is a musician for whom sentiments matter yet he refuses to indulge in sentimentality. As he states bluntly:

“There are two ways to master this life – trying to be clever and fulfil expectations or to take a (sometimes very masochistic) stroll through time and eternity, trying to find out what’s wrong with you. And if you have the feeling the bait is coming closer somebody moves the hook more far away again. That’s what I am busy with and…fuck the rest of the world.”

Except that these highly personal communions, embracing vulnerability and solitude, do amount to more than that and have an authority beyond the local. Like all great jazzmen Brötzmann mines the inarticulate to give voice to what cannot be said, making palpable what is sensed, for all of us.

The album is available digitally, on CD or as a download, and on vinyl.

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Stephan Crump, Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe - Channels (Intakt, 2019) ****½

By Taylor McDowell 

Some people just make it look easy. For us common folk, we can only scratch our heads at how some people excel like it’s a walk in the park. That is how I feel listening to these three as they spin yarns on their second release, Channels. Granted, these three are some of the hardest-working musicians in New York, so they’ve earned the right to baffle the rest of us.

The last few years have been good for these three. Stephan Crump (acoustic bass) released an excellent record with his Rosetta Trio this year. Ingrid Laubrock (saxophones) wowed the Free Jazz community with her LP, Contemporary Chaos Practices (Intakt, 2018), which was voted third in the 2018 Happy New Ears Poll (in a four-way tie with a very stacked roster of contenders). Pianist Cory Smythe found similar success after releasing his ambitious debut, Circulate Susanna (Pyroclastic, 2018), which was awarded a 5-star rating here at FJB. As if by divine fate, these three formed the triumvirate in 2015, releasing their debut studio record, Planktonic Finales (Intakt, 2017) to much acclaim. Beyond these achievements, I won’t even bother going into their respective resumes.

Channels is exactly the type of sophomore record that we should have hoped for from this trio.  
Planktonic Finales consisted of eleven, short-ish tracks (only three that exceed six-minutes), whereas Channels is comprised of four longer improvisations, ranging from 10 to 16 minutes apiece (recorded live at the Unerhört! Festival in Zurich on December 1, 2017). I may be biased, but I especially enjoy improvised music in open, long-form - where the artists are afforded the opportunity to stretch out and explore the nooks and crannies of their craft.

The four-part trialogue on Channels creates a sort of aural odyssey, where individual pieces consist of their own arcs and emotional narratives, yet the whole feels almost like a composed chamber suite. In fact, one of the more striking qualities of Channels is how it feels like it should be composed. Had I seen this performance in person, I wouldn’t have batted an eye if I saw notated music in front of the performers. Instead, the trio spontaneously navigates uncharted waters so cohesively and gracefully. There are several joyous moments through Channels where the trio unanimously hits an unseen mark, all at the same moment. Take, for example, mid-way through the first track, “Fluvium.” Smythe gradually builds tension in a series of repeated, ascending lines; meanwhile, Crump contributes to the intensifying upheaval, alternating between rapid/altissimo and short/bass bowed notes. The upward spiral suddenly ends. In a soft and seamless transition, Crump bows a steady pulse, Smythe taps out crystalline figures and Laubrock enters on tenor playing a bluesy melody. They sound like a jazz trio here, hitting chords written down on a nonexistent piece of sheet music.

Movements like these are mercurial but common. There’s a singular sense of forward-motion through the entire performance. Much of the forward drive and overall compositional structure might be attributed to their use of pulse. Even in a drummerless configuration, they frequently employ a steady, explicit pulse. Crump is instrumental in setting up these sections, either plucking or bowing steady lines, however harmonically static or dynamic. This pulse becomes a springboard for all sorts of fun. At times, Laubrock contributes to the metronomic rhythm with her own steady phrases, allowing Smythe to run wild. Other times, Smythe adds impressionistic embellishments over the bass while Laubrock dances freely about. The tempo is often altered, or discarded altogether in favor of free rubato sections. Any of these rhythmic changes invariably leads to new sections, where different moods take form.

This trio also excels at measuring intensity throughout the performance. They have a superb ability to dial-up tension using subtle adjustments in volume, dissonance, and space. Choosing not to light the powder keg for the effect, they instead opt for subtler methods. In fact, it seems that it’s the quieter moments that feel the tensest. Crump may opt for a slow, scratchy arco drone that is quietly matched by breathy tenor phrases and ebbing piano lines. Volume and urgency swell in carefully measured increments. Nothing is rush or forced. Every note, sound, and phrase feels as if it were meticulously placed there. The result is a fluid narrative that explores both emotional and musical possibilities. It is almost paradoxical how their playing is so tempered yet inspired; tense yet graceful. I should also note the excellent recording quality here, which I feel is requisite for picking up the many nuances to be heard on this record.

Their ability to exact such strong emotions with a restrained sense of playing attests to their near-telepathic communication and intuition. As moods and musical ideas begin to develop, each performer seems to know exactly what to contribute and when. It’s like the cliche, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The end result is nothing short of beautiful. Channels is a dynamic, cohesive and lyrical story - one “written” by three of today’s most creative voices in improvised music. And they somehow make it look easy.

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Trying to keep up with Mia Dyberg

By Stef

What was originally planned as the review of one album by Danish saxophonist Mia Dyberg actually morphed into a whole series of recently released material.

It's always good to welcome new talent to the music scene, especially when the artists have their own strong vision of what music should and could sound like. And Mia Dyberg clearly fits into that category. Next to her own musical vision, she has the additional strength of being very open to perform with musicians with completely different approaches, and from different cultural and instrumental backgrounds, or even age groups. She demonstrates this openness with her "Duo Scrapbook Album Series", of which some of the albums are listed below. She must either be restless or very much in demand, but so far she has performed in seventeen different configurations, and played on eleven albums.

But let's start with her most official album.

Mia Dyberg Trio - Ticket! (Clean Feed, 2019) ****

The trio consists of Dyberg on sax, Asger Thomsen on double bass, and Dag Magnus Narvesen on drums. Their music holds a perfect balance between progressive jazz and free exploration, between respect for the tradition and the wild energy to go far beyond it. The album is inspired by the voice of Beat poet William Burroughs, after having heard him read his poetry, which Dyberg afterwards transposed into composed pieces, bringing her back to jazz.

Regardless of the musical space she's in, Dyberg's tone on the alto is warm and round, on the slower melancholy pieces - as on "Party ist Vorbei" or "Nord", but also on the more playful "Tropical" as on the more aggressive "Claws Out". Thomsen and Narvesen are good, fresh and solid. Maybe because of their youthfulness, I wish they would have gone a step further, into more adventurous zones, but that's a subjective wish for an otherwise excellent album.


Mia Dyberg, Masing, Rodrigues, Rodrigues & Jacobson - Egin (Creative Sources, 2019) ****

"Egin" is an improvisation of a little less than half an hour by Mia Dyberg on alto saxophone,  Elo Masing on violin, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola,  Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and Tomo Jacobson on double bass. As you can expect from father and son Rodrigues and their label, the music is avant-garde, minimal and focused on using timbral shifts in sustained horizontal soundscapes. Sonic waves slowly roll forward, with a calm drive and intensity, sometimes increasing in agitation. The music is subtle and fragile. It is obvious that the strings determine the sound and Dyberg's alto is an interesting addition to this. The chamber music on this album is so different in nature from the jazzy "Ticket!", yet Dyberg does seem to embrace the difference in approach wholeheartedly, almost as if she is as comfortable in this environment as on her own music.


Morph! - Morph! (Duoscrapbook Album Series, 2019) ****½

Dyberg shows her musical vision with more clarity and more broadly on her duo performances. The one that I found most interesting is "Morph" with Italian Roberta Wjm Andreucci on electronics. "Morph" is a 52-minute long sonic journey by both artists, a strange journey to be joining as a listener. Andreucci's electronics, turntables and CDs create a wonderful sonic landscape for Dyberg to interact with and to react to, but more often than not, the total sound is a joint creation, in which the prepared sax produces interesting sonorities. Ambient sounds and field recordings intervene and integrate in some deeper rhythmic patterns that lay a foundation for the shimmering sax. There are moments when it's hard to describe what's happening, or what you're hearing, yet it remains fascinating and full of variation. 

The presence of voices from streets around the world, together with Dyberg's warm tone, makes this a very human and welcoming album, despite its wealth of industrial noise. Even if not everything works, the end result is strong and very coherent. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Mia Dyberg - Home (Self, 2019) ***½

"Home" is a solo album, or as Dyberg describes it: "a duo with nature". On the first track the nightingale gives the intro, and you only hear the bird singing. On the solo pieces, her improvisations are even more lyrical and melodic than on the other albums. Despite the "duo with nature", the solos are recorded while listening to drummer Rudi Fischerlehner's "15-8 Slum", reviewed on this blog earlier this year. On "Danish Sweepings", she directly interacts with the sounds of the nightingale, the German waterfalls and other creatures. The album was released on October 23. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Mia Dyberg & Asger Thomsen - Spejlrytme (Self, 2019) ***½

The duo with bassist Asger Thomsen is more intimate and mixes composed unisono moments with improvisation and electronic experimentation. The album's title means "Mirror Rhythm". Like on "Ticket!", it contains very short pieces with a short and clear narrative line, and some longer tracks that allow for more development and expansion.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Mia Dyberg & Asger Thomsen - Lyrehale (Self, 2019) ***½

"Lyrehale" consists of one, almost 30-minute track and a shorter one of three minutes. As on "Spejlrytme" the music is very intimate, close even, as if both musicians are playing next to you. In contrast to the previous album, this one is more adventurous, rawer and intense at moments, abrasive even, with moments of pure silence. The short second piece is improvised around an agreed rhythm and it closes the album with more tenderness.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Mia Dyberg & Rudi Fischerlehner - Berg (Self, 2019) ***½

Rudi Fischerlehner is an Austrian percussionist, now also residing in Berlin, like Dyberg. This duo album tries to reflect their impressions of nature in Austria. It was recorded on August 31 of this year with one microphone and released one day later. What you hear is how it was performed, without embellishments or changes. The sound is a little more distant and less crisp as on some of the other albums reviewed here. Yet the playing is good. Fischerlehner is impressive on the long first track, and Dyberg gives him the space he needs to develop his ideas.

With an album whose intention it is to experience the grandness in nature, you would expect a more expansive approach than the one presented, but regardless of the intention, the music is fun to listen to.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Dyberg released one album every month this year, and she will continue to do so till the end of the year. In September, she also participated in a new album by the "Variable Geometry Orchestra", a continuation of her collaborations with Ernesto Rodrigues on his Creative Sources label.

It's rare for a young artist to document her own work in such a systematic way, yet I guess that's the value of today's technology and possibilities of self-production. The interesting aspect of her musical journey is the variety of musicians she played with, offering interesting new perspectives to approach her own sound, which remains remarkably intact. Other duo performances were released with Marcello Magliocchi on drums, Rieko Okuda on piano, Thomas Rohrer on rabeca, and Brad Henkel on trumpet.

Watch a performance with drummer Michael Evans at the Downtown Music Gallery in New York:

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75 Dollar Bill -- I Was Real (Thin Wrist, 2019) *****

By Spencer Friedman

Attention lovers of ecstatic music: I Was Real, the third full length from the New York duo 75 Dollar Bill -- Che Chen (guitar) and Rick Brown (percussion) -- is the group's most significant statement yet. The double record is a sprawling collection of singular music, suffused with blues, West African guitar music, Henry Flynt/Tony Conrad connected NY Minimalism, punk ethos, celebratory spirit and joyfulness. Through all of these layers however, Chen and Brown maintain an unmistakable sound that is 75 Dollar Bill.

I Was Real finds the duo working newly in collaboration with a host of musicians. With Chen's tumbling guitar and Brown's insistent percussion always at the core, said collaborators serve to flesh out the soundscape, making this particular record a sort of 75 Dollar Bill on overdrive.

The songs center on a repeating guitar phrase, which interlocks with Brown's percussion, building to a hypnotic drone. This drone isn't static though -- it's active, limber and evolving. Chen and Brown have spent years playing and improvising together, and their close relationship is readily apparent in the tight yet fluid foundation that they lay for their songs. 

The center piece of this set is the nearly 17 minute title track, which serves as a thesis statement, of sorts, for the duo. The slow but chugging bluesy riff locks in, sitting over a bed of strings droning
beneath. Brown's simple, syncopated percussion lurks nearby. 

The melody is repeated over and over, eventually morphing ever slightly, adding another note or two.
75 Dollar Bill are masters at the art of appropriate and perfectly timed melodic ornamentation. Eventually the build makes it way to a full chord. The duo's patience pays off, and the heights of this song are well earned and it hits hard. The title track too is a perfect example of 75 Dollar Bill utilizing their filled out ensemble, as the addition of strings augments their already existing aesthetic beautifully.

We hear this work on the "Every Last Coffee or Tea" too. After two and half minutes of brooding introduction, Chen starts up another signature guitar line, this time doubled by strings and saxophone. After this initial unison, they drift from each other, weaving melodies around and pocketing a tight trance groove. Elsewhere, "WZN #3" is a great piece in the style of the faster, Appalachian sounding, violin forward Henry Flynt music. Again, the group sits in the harmonic spot it starts in for the whole piece, finding new nooks melodically that splinter and rejoin. The ways in which the group adds and subtracts is so inventive. Listen to "There's No Such Thing as a King Bee" or "WZN #4" for a vintage duo only version of this. Simply by description this isn't music that should quite "work" -- but Chen and Brown's resourceful connectivity creates a sum greater than the perceived parts.

75 Dollar Bill's music is simultaneously of many influences but entirely non-derivative. You can hear very clear points of reference, but to me it never leans on this too heavily. It's also, at once, deeply improvisational as it is thoughtfully compositional. Chen and Brown know their strengths, and they build worlds with them. You can listen to every moment of every piece, or you can sink into the ambiance they create. Again too, this is joyful music, and the spirit of the musicians that made it is front and center. I Was Real is an important work from this special duo.

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Marcelo dos Reis, Valentin Ceccaldi, Marco Franco & Luís Vicente - Points (Multikulti, 2019) ****½

By Stef

When guitarist Marcelo dos Reis and trumpet-player Luis Vicente meet, magic happens, and especially in their collaborations with the French brothers Ceccaldi, with Theo on violin and Valentin on cello in the successful "Chamber 4" ensemble.

For this quartet, the violin is replaced by the drums of Marco Franco, another Portuguese musician best known from his collaborations in "The Attic", a trio with Rodrigo Amado and Gonçalo Almeida. Or you could also call it the "Deux Maisons" ensemble in which Theo Ceccaldi is replaced by Marcelo dos Reis.

Needless to say these musicians 'feel' each other, understanding music without the need to prepare too much, as they can move the sound forward propulsed by its own energy and self-creating sonorities and texture. In contrast to the percussion-less ensemble, the sound here is much more granular, more gritty and raw. Yet the approach is the same: a few repetitive rhythms, often by the guitar, arpeggio-ed or hammered on the strings design a basis for the other instruments to add layers to, often unpredictable, and at the same time coarse and refined, wild and controlled.

All four instruments are at times reduced to something else, and sounds reduced to dots, to pointillistic points that make up an abstract canvas that presents a coherent yet hard to grasp picture. We recognise some of the influences of recent French music by Theo Ceccaldi or drummer Sylvain Darrifourq, in which rapid-fire precision creates its own energy (listen to Franco's galloping sounds on the drums). And part of the magic is that despite this rawness, each instrument manages to present its counterpart: the passionate tones of the trumpet, the melancholy bows on the cello, gentle soloing on the acoustic guitar, all find themselves in different spaces creating a sound that is somehow in conflict yet coherent too, slow and fast, dark and light, nervous agitation and calm delivery. Often it sounds like life itself, ranging from the fearful cries of unknown animals in the dark to the harshness of mechanical noise, but with a core of humanity in between, an oscillation between surprise and determination, opening up like a beautiful flower on the last piece, called "Endpoint".

Their open and wayward approach to sound allows them to be inventive at any time, without any constraints or limits, apart from staying in a conceptual harmony with the rest of the ensemble. It are the contridictions that make it attractive to keep listening to, as well as the core of its aesthetic, unmistakably inimitably theirs. Fascinating.

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Nina de Heney/ Karin Johansson/ Henrik Wartel - Quagmire (Creative Sources, 2019) ****

By Eyal Hareuveni

The Swedish, Gothenburg-based, free-improvising trio of Swiss-born double bass player Nina de Heney, pianist Karin Johansson and drummer Henrik Wartel has been performing steadily over the last few years. This trio describes itself as exploring the musical territories that occur through instant compositions, balancing between expressions of sounds, rhythms and textures. The trio’s debut album, Quagmire, was recorded live at Geiger sessions, Elementstudio, Gothenburg in February 2018.

All three musicians are experienced improvisers, and all have developed their own extended techniques, unique preparations and assorted objects that enrich their sonic universes. De Heney is known from her brilliant solo work and duo with pianist Lisa Ullén. Johansson works with experimental guitarist Finn Loxbo, and veteran Wartel is known from his work with local jazz icons like trombonist Eje Thelin and vocalist Monika Zetterlund as well as the Polish trumpeter Tomaz Stanńko, and today he is playing with everyone, everywhere.

This trio sounds as if it has found its very own mode of operation in the kind of muddy waters that experimental, instantly-composed music often is. Quagmire feature three distinct improvisations. The first, title-piece begins with a fragmented dialog between The enigmatic bowing of de Heney and rubbing and scratching wooden, metal and skin surfaces of Johansson and Wartel, and patiently it gravitates to a sparse and fragile pulse. De Heney injects a destabilizing element with each stroke of the bass strings, subverting the intensifying rhythmic pattern that Wartel attempts to solidify, while Johansson adds cosmic, melodic touches to this tense and dense yet very intimate interplay. The second piece, “Tideland,” still suggests a shaky atmosphere, with de Heney leading and using the double bass as a percussive instrument that triggers imaginative percussive envelope from both Johansson and Wartlel, encompassing her total intuitive rhythmic rationale with nuanced sounds. The last, “Meander Mesh,” is the most gentle, and emotional piece here, beginning with Johansson offering resonant ripples of the piano strings and finally treads on quite linear course and even on solid ground. De Heney, Johansson and Wartel succeed again to find their own complex yet mysterious pulse and keep exposing more detailed and colorful layers.

Brilliant and beautiful.

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Focus on Photography: Cristina Marx

 

Self Portrait

What are some of your recent projects?

Being the festival photographer at the recent Soundance and Kim Collective festivals. Attending the Jazzfest Berlin with a photo pass and hearing some great performances. Going to concerts every night and the unlimited33. Planning two exhibitions at Berlin concert venues for autumn and winter 2020.

Magda Mayas, Solo, Letra / Tone Festival 2019 @ Radialsystem Berlin

What is the decisive moment (referring to Henri Cartier-Bresson) in photographing free jazz/free-improvised music/creative music? 

Trying to catch a special moment of action, or rather inter-action between musicians and especially the emotions in musician´s faces. Besides this, to me, it is not so much about catching a concert in a single shot, but rather to document a concert. So that someone who was not able to attend, could possibly feel like he or she would have been there as well. Personally, I don´t think that Cartier-Bresson´s quote can be applied 100% to concert photography. In dance photography, which I am also doing and loving, there are other issues to be dealt with as it is much more physical, i.e. dancers need to be in control of the photos taken of them. The physicality of the performances is stronger and decisive. Some concert performances can get very close to dance though. In the end it might simply be all about body and facial expressions…

William Parker, FMP Festival 2018 @ Akademie der Künste Berlin

Can photographs, in this digital and Instagram age, still tell a story?

Yes. Telling a story with photos is not so much about the media being used, but about what the photos are telling and about what the eye of the respective photographer is seeing. It can be very personal, depending on one´s emotions when listening to the music and watching the performance and interaction on stage.

Barcelona Series (Andrea Neumann, Axel Dörner, Sven-Åke Johansson), FMP
Festival 2018 @ Akademie der Künste Berlin

Do you have a musician, configuration, setting, or instrument that you feel works well with photography? 

No, any would do, as long as I can relate to the music, and as long as there´s good light and enough space to change perspectives.

Junko Wada, MAKURA, Soundance Festival 2019 @ dock 11

Do you have a musician, configuration, setting, or instrument that you feel does not work well with photography? 

Bad light and bad vibes.

What is your preferred/recommended camera/lenses? 

As a beginner I would not dare to recommend anything so far, but for now I am very happy with my Fuji XT2 camera and its lenses.

Any advise for the novice photographer? 

Don´t try to be cool and show off with your possibly expensive camera, rather simply try to concentrate on the music and take good photos without being in the way of others. And if you don't love the music, it won't work. And yes, it helps if you take some classes and check out other concert photographers work and read a book or two on photography.

Anything else that we should have asked, but did not? 

What happens between musicians and photographers? There is a lot of energy in the room during a performance. IMHO, photography interacts with the performances in a very specific way. It is a complex and sensual situation.

Also, what happens in your own mind and with your feelings when taking photos during a concert? What do you see what the audience might not see? Are you missing something off the music and what is one gaining when taking photos? Does it weigh up to what you might be missing during taking photos? There are many questions.


About Cristina Marx


Born in Timisoara (Romania) in 1967, immigrated to West Germany in 1985, studied Chemistry, finished and then dropped that and started working as a film projectionist, film curator and film festival organizer in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Munich. Moved to Berlin in 2000 to work as PR manager and festival coordinator of the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb). Since 2005 working at the Film University Babelsberg, responsible for sales and distribution of student films. Started with concert photography in 2015.

See more:

• https://www.facebook.com/photomusix/
• https://www.instagram.com/cristina.marx/
   

Rieko Okuda, Annapaola Leso, Soundance Festival 2018 @ dock11

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Flin van Hemmen - Casting Spells & The Coves (Neither/Nor, 2019) ****½

By Nick Metzger


Cinematic is a word that’s been used to describe Dutch composer/drummer/pianist Flin van Hemmen’s music, and rightly so. His excellent debut album, 2016’s Drums of Days masterfully utilized post-production of composed and improvised material from his long time trio with guitarist Todd Neufeld and bassist Eivind Opsvik to vivid and dramatic effect. Field recordings, ambience, and poetry are woven in with the instrumental material, coalescing into a beautiful and gripping whole. On his ambitious new double album Casting Spells & The Coves the processes developed on his debut have been expanded and realized further, extending his initial melancholic approach into a phantasmagoria of tinted memories, melodies, and allusions which he has divided into two expressive suites of music that work as well separately as they do together. Neufeld and Opsvik again join van Flemmen in providing some of the raw materials that are sculpted into this dark and surreal vision, supplying anchor and form among drift and shapelessness, guiding the listener through flickering passages of the mirage.

The “Casting Spells” suite is comprised of melody interspersed with swells of ambience and field recordings which saturating the events in the hiss of tape and a kaleidoscope of familiar, yet dreamlike sounds. The playing is torpid and deliberately sparse, leaving plenty of room between the notes for these unexpected sounds to rise through the veil. Despondent piano chords dance with groaning bass and fingerpicked guitar lines. The sounds swirl and convalesce, sometimes appearing only briefly, sometimes looping and developing structures and interactions with other noises only to dissolve again into the ether. The suite concludes with a poem from Miriam Atkin read by the author in a despondent deadpan over the trio’s playing, snatches a child’s voice, background ambience, noisy peels of electronics, etc. It’s a perfect conclusion to the first half of the album as the content impeccably fits in with van Hemmen’s surreal treatments.

The second suite of pieces “The Coves” utilizes similar sounds and pacing, but within a completely different set of structures. The piece “Paradise Cove” contains some of the best playing by the trio, replete with Neufeld’s subtle vocalizations and I have to say that I’m a fan of the mix of instruments used on this recording, especially during these trio pieces. The suite proceeds into the realm of a fever dream, looped samples, washes of percussion, and pizzicato bass all swell to the fore and then disappear down a cavernous halls. A section of farfisa organ is laid atop the trio improvisation, panning across the stereo field; it’s subtle but effective and adds a brief tint of suspense or perhaps even anxiety. As the miasma re-envelops the listener, someone flicks a lighter, a bell tolls in the background, the din of a crowded room swells and fades leaving only impressions of the ongoing conversations as someone addresses the crowd.

I’ll admit that I didn’t initially have this album in my write-up queue, but sometimes an album demands that you write about it. The music affects you in such a way that you simply can’t deny the impulse, and for me this is such an album. I could listen to it on repeat all day long, and it doesn’t ever nag for your attention. Fittingly on the album’s Bandcamp page van Hemmen quotes Erik Satie, and while this music is drastically different than that of the Velvet Gentleman it shares the objective of giving you something beautiful and profound to listen to at your leisure. The gentle melodies and washes of atmosphere stick with you and offer an inviting escape from the linear and obtuse machinations of day-to-day reality. I’m really looking forward to whatever van Hemmen does next; he’s definitely got my attention.



 

 

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Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp - Live in Nuremberg (SMP Records, 2019) ****½

By Sammy Stein

Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp have released a live recording and it is something quite special. recorded at a live concert in Nuremberg in June 2019, it gives a real feel of how great live music should be. Set one is over an hour of discussion between sax and piano - and it is a discussion because, just as in personal interactions, the conversation veers between listening, answering, talking at the same time and then one steps out for a while whilst the other takes over. The early part consists largely of Matthew Shipp placing chords over which Perelman on his sax takes liberties, embellishing, telling tales and taking over in a breathless, excitable style. A little further in and the piano asserts its authority, slapping the sax down a tone or two, the sax continually offering cheeky responses, only to be put down again. The conversation continues, each taking lead, each sitting back but over the first section, neither player falls silent for more than a millisecond.

What is interesting is how often the lead changes and how , though the sax takes the lead often, the piano leads for longer with Perelman gladly following, adding his quips and interjections but following mostly. Shipp occasionally introduces something completely different such as one section when Perelman is answering a particularly loud scale ascension and suddenly the piano is soft, quietly offering up rivulets of trickling sound, which is an incredibly effective way of re-taking the lead and for a minute or so the sax drops out, offering only breathy interjections into the falling, trickling, rivers of sound Shipp continues relentlessly.

Then, the sax returns, cheekily juxtaposing the chords, ascending where the piano descends and creating its own apposite sine-waves of sound. This continues throughout much of the recording and there are sublime moments aplenty such as when Matthew Shipp hammers out series after series of chords and Perelman noisily free flows across the top, effortlessly splitting hairs in tempo and rhythmic changes, inserting sound into each and every space left by the chords.

What comes across clearly is the relationship Matthew Shipp has to classical music, with his sometimes eloquent chordal progressions and melodies, the perfect apposite to Perelman's intricacies on the saxophone. It is as if this playing style breaks the chains which bound Ivo Perelman and with Shipp he unleashes an energy which surfaces as cheeky stut runs, blazing top notes and shrieking wails across the steadfast, rock-solid piano. Because it is a live recording and improvised over a large extent, the music will never be played this way again, and it is this quality of live performances which often make the decision to capture it or let it go an importance choice. In this case, it was right to capture because the listener is taken up, away and along with the two musicians who, whilst playing with the same reverence - and often irreverence- you might expect- are still occasionally tempered by remembering and respecting they have an audience - also live and within hearing distance.

The ear-shattering explosions from the sax are perfectly off set by the heavy, thundering melodies going on under Shipp's guidance at one point, then at another the sax plays a beautiful melody across the top of well, space because the piano simply drops out, leaving Perelman on his own projecting melodic sound into the echoey space of a minute. Both players switch from staccato to legato, from stut to smooth in the case of Perelman and Shipp demonstrates his intuitive understanding of harmonics under the provocative, highly charged sax lines at times. Perelman uses the sax to speak, sing and shriek, mostly to great effect. he has that ability to switch his sound from that of petulant response to mature, well honed and melodic responses.

This recording is a record of the date, the time and the place - Nuremberg June 2019 - where two great musicians who play in harmony - in the literal if not the musical sense -and the energy and intuition comes across much sharper than in a studio recording.

Much is said of the quality of the performance when the audience insists they return and the pair deliver an encore - just over four more minutes of completely improvised, delicious, bonus music.
Out of almost a quarter of a century of playing together, Matthew Shipp and Ivo Perelman have developed something of a psychic link when playing together - yet there is still a sense of more to come, more challenges to be explored and different combinations of the keys and in this live recording that sense of uniqueness comes across loud and clear.

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Momentum 4: Consequent Duos 2015>2019 (Audiographic, 2019) *****

By Keith Prosk and Paul Acquaro

Momentum 4 is a box set of duo recordings by Ken Vandermark, recorded at the Elastic Sound Studios in Chicago in 2015 and 2019, and at NYC's Stone in January 2018. The idea was to capture rare duo performances - even if the musical relationships have been ago long established.

In our review, we have deviated from the order of the discs and begin with Keith's assessment of discs 2 and 3 where Vandermark is in duet with electronics player Ikue Mori and pianist Kris Davis. Then, we'll come back to my thoughts on his duets with drummers Paul Lytton and Hamid Drake, and finally bassist William Parker.

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What makes Vandermark so special is not just the distinctive character of his musicianship but his character itself, and the feedback loop between them. His writing articulates an openness to listen and to learn; his playing demonstrates it by giving others generous space and apt communication. The subversion of personal patterns is a constant motif. This creative giant, who should by now be comfortable and confident in every move, is in such a position exactly because he’s purposefully not. For this reason I gravitated towards these discs, which feature musicians that don’t have a decades-long rapport with Vandermark like Lytton, Parker, and Drake. Freely-played duos with less-than-familiar musicians seems like excellent laboratory conditions for witnessing the instant development of Vandermark.

Disc 2: Ikue Mori

Ikue Mori first played with Vandermark during his first Stone residency in 2016, documented on Momentum 1: Stone, with Nate Wooley and Joe Morris. It was a strong set among many strong sets, just like this one, which was recorded at Vandermark’s second Stone residency in 2018 (along with the Davis and Parker discs). For 46 minutes, split across two tracks, Mori is on laptop and Vandermark is on saxophone. Mori’s software and technique can generate a chimerical barrage of percussion, displaying many faces of beat and rhythm simultaneously, like a digital drumming hecatoncheires; pulses created by droning pitches’ oscillating frequencies, electric purrs and percussive flutters, glitched clicks and cavernous water drops, and more recognizable drum machine sounds can occur closely together. But the timbres are often soft and the volume is often low, so it feels non-aggressive. And though this seemingly living percussive environment sometimes flirts with becoming ambient, Mori avoids this with judicious strokes of sound surrounded by plenty of space. Perhaps because of its tirelessness, or perhaps because of its innumerable lines in contrast to the mostly monophonic sax, the software environment can feel like a wall which Vandermark throws himself against, starting the set with energetic bursts of varying technique as if to test it.. It’s difficult to tell whether my ear adapts or Vandermark does or both but, as the set continues, Vandermark’s own high pitch frequency oscillations, snaking sinusoidal multiphonic lines, and glitchy click and tongue slap pulses sync well with Mori, phasing in and out of counterpoint. It’s perhaps the most rhythmic set I’ve heard from this rhythmic saxophonist. Some other Vandermark characteristics, like his deep vibrato and moody, smoky, soulful melodies, are here, and there’s a couple stunning moments where Mori’s environment focuses into a booming four on the floor beat over which Vandermark rips loose a freeform freakout. Vandermark’s instrument allows greater agility in communication, but Mori’s software is surprisingly mobile itself, allowing a conversation as lively as the other acoustic sets here. My favorite thing Vandermark has released all year, and it’s been quite a year for him.

Disc 3: Kris Davis

Kris Davis first played with Vandermark in 2016 during the sessions for Sing Me Some Cry, with Eric Revis and Chad Taylor. They reunite here for their second recording, for 3 tracks across 53 minutes, with Davis on piano and Vandermark on all sax again. The chemistry of this set belies their time spent together. They are rapidly responsive to each other. Davis’ muted rhythms and hammered keys, beautiful boppy chords and melodies, free flights, thunderous reverberations, and clock strikes and twinkling glissandos inside the piano are matched well with Vandermark’s rhythmic clicks, sultry soul tunes, energetic free frenzies, and resonant vibrato. They follow each other’s ebbs and flows through volume, space, and time and also up and down their instruments registers like friends who finish each others sentences. It’s not just a communicative match, but Davis also seems to share Vandermark’s rhythmic essence and a similar inside-outside aesthetic. The set seems so natural, you’ll wonder why they didn’t start playing together sooner.

- Keith Prosk

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Disc 1: Paul Lytton; Disc 5: Hamid Drake

In the thoughtful booklet accompanying the box set, Vandermark talks about the impact that the work of the first generation of British improvisers, who broke free from the parameters of jazz and developed their own musical language, has had on him. Lytton’s history itself goes back to the late 60’s in London and he has a long history of playing with the musicians of from this movement. Vandermark recalls a particularly revelatory conversation with Lytton where he wanted to draw on what he had learned from the music, to which the drummer explained that the Saxophonist's playing "implied a beat."

It seems that if we were to look at the work - at least on these two discs and the one with William Parker, which I’ll get to in a moment - we are indeed contending with rhythmic instincts that are an integral part of the musician's DNA. This is also why I think I have always enjoyed Vandermark’s work so much. No matter how 'out there' he may get on the sax or clarinet, there is a still deep rhythmic notion that holds everything together. Starting this collection with the Lytton duo recording seems just right.

What you hear are a pair who have worked together - on and off - for two decades. Lytton and Vandermark recorded English Suites back in 1999 (Wobbly Rail), he appears on 2013’s Nine ways to read a bridge (Not Two) in a trio with trumpeter Nate Wooley/Vandermark, as well as on a 2004 Okkadisk release, CINC. There are others, but more important is what they are doing now (or rather, in 2015 when they met at the Elastic Sound Studios in Chicago), which is nothing less than captivating. Lytton's playing is crisp and urgent. He provides ample support for Vandermark to let loose with a fury of ideas. From the moment the first track begins something is happening. It’s a little tepid, maybe for 10 seconds, then the percussive roles begin, no straight ahead time, but an insistent pulse pushing the saxophonist. The communication between the two is audible, there are slight pauses, almost like Vandermark is turning to Lytton and asking “you good?” Their track, ESS3, which is the longest, plays strongly with the dynamics. A long stretch finds Vandermark working the periphery of his instrument, while Lytton provides small, nearly inaudible, accents. A brilliant start to the collection.

Hamid Drake is a sympathetic drummer. His work with William Parker stands in my mind as a one of the most important rhythm sections in contemporary free jazz, and it is interesting to hear the two of them working separately here with Vandermark. Interestingly enough, I believe that Vandermark and Drake's musical relationship is around the same length as Drake and Parker's, as Vandermark notes in the booklet, they first played together in 1994, which resulted in the DKV trio with bassist Kent Kessler. Interestingly, Vandermark and Drake have not play as a duo much until this session date at Elastic Sound Studio.

The long term relationship bears fruit on the closing disc of the set where the duo explores the full spectrum of sounds and approaches. From the opening bars, Drake plays with a calmer energy than Lytton - not to say he avoids faster tempos and denser patterns, but the approach is different. I especially like the exploratory part of the track ESS 2B, here Vandermark's clarinet tone is warm and reedy, though at some moments shrill, and Drake is deep in the background, providing choice accents. A similar moment occurs on ESS 2E, but this time Vandermark emerges from the search, delivering lithe and urgent melodic lines over Drake's expert accompaniment. In between, ESS 2D features the baritone sax, with Vandermark displaying his signature deep pocket - insistent, direct, and friendly - along side Drake's similarly earthy solid drumming.

Disc 4: William Parker

Save the best for last? Hard to say, as this is overall such a strong set of music, but the duet with William Parker is certainly a strong contender. Again the booklet, Vandermark discusses his association with Parker, mentioning how it goes back twenty years to when they worked together in Peter Brotzmann's Chicago 10tet. Parker is a bassist who, again to my mind, can hardly do wrong. His playing, like Vandermark's, is a mix of searching and driving. The 15 minute mark in the first track, Stone 3A, is tender and warm, Vandermark's clarinet is light and the bassist's double stops and gentle pauses give the moment a perfect blend of motion and support. Likewise, in the Parker penned track 'Eventual (for Sunny Murray)', which was delivered the month after the legendary drummer's passing, the mutual sense of loss is palpable as the duo digs deep into the sound textures, even during the pulsating moments. 

When this fourth installment of the Momentum series came out a few months ago, I quickly jumped at the chance to review it with my colleague Keith. I had thoroughly enjoyed the original set of recordings from Ken Vandermark's week at the Stone in January 2016 (and had had the chance to attend some of the concerts) and after the intensity of volumes 2 and 3, I was ready for more. Suffice to say, this is a heavy set of music, there is a lot to digest, and a lot to savor. I've had been listening to it for months now, repeatedly, and I hope you have been - or will soon be - as well.

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