The line-up of two pianists, Kenneth Karlsson and Jon Balke, and two percussionists Bjørn Rabben and Ingar Zach, is highly unusual, and at first sight you would expect interfering keyboards and relentless percussion, but you get the exact opposite : minimalist soundscapes built around silence. What they bring is very fragile, open and totally unexpected music, adding sounds to sounds in a very coherent and focused way. The tracks are short - the CD consists of no less than 19 tracks - which forces the musicians to be concise in their explorations while still being able to create something of interest. You hardly ever have the impressions of four musicians playing together, yet they play single notes, single beats, some electronic sounds that last a little bit longer, but which all together manage to create eery and unreal music.
A Panopticon is a prison concept in which the inmates can be watched without them knowing it, creating to the observer "the sentiment of invisible omniscience". This feeling of dread is clear in the music, but then rather in empty space than in a crowded prison, but the overall effect is there.
The total absence of any sequence of sounds, the perfect sense of pace, the restrained and careful discipline of the musicians make this something special. Only on the last track does the intensity build up to a kind of paroxysm of noise, only to fade away into almost non-existent vibrations in the air.
There are many things I don't like in jazz, but reciting poetry in a piece of music is to me one of the most conflictual combinations you can have. I hate it, actually. And I'm not too sure why it doesn't work, but let's give it a try.
1. Poetry is "text made lyrical", it means that you try to bring musical elements into plain words and sentences. You add rhythm, you add rhyme, you add repetitive elements, you play with words and letters to make sentences flow, or fly, or even halt, or shout ... you make the text sing. And this works perfectly fine as long as you read it (silently!). Great poetry can sing to you as a reader, it can move you, it can surprise, it can make you laugh. Now when you put poetry (text trying to be music) into a piece of music, you put it in sharp contrast with its ultimate ambition. And that contrast is too great to make the poetry survive. It's like making music with the brakes on. It's not good for the brakes, it's not good for the car's speed. And certainly not for the passenger's nerves.
2. The poetry used for music is often of a pitiful quality, penned by the musician, trying to sound like a poet. It's an ambition the musician shouldn't have. The words, the phrases, are often high-brow, with lots of dull cliché images, or spiritual, or romantic elements which are closer to the kitsch of the Bragolinpaintings of the boy with the tear on his cheeks than to art. Just like few great poets are truly great musicians, great musicians should not assume they are great poets. Be yourself, don't fake what you aren't.
3. Writing poetry is one thing, but reciting it is still another. Sometimes professionals are hired to do that, sometimes one of the band members does it. In both instances, the reciting is almost always overly dramatic, full of misplaced pathos.
4. And then you have the bad poetry recited badly. That makes the passenger jump out of the car (at no risk, since now the brakes are more powerful than the engine of the car).
5. Singing poetry is still an option. But the odd thing is that this still does not work. You can put words to a melody, as often happens in rock music, doing the opposite is extremely difficult. It sounds artificial and musically poor.
6. What I find most perplexing is that all of the above often takes place a free jazz context. Free jazz musicians who try to find ways to circumvent conventions, to find new ways to express themselves, sometimes fall back on the most horrible conventions of poetry, as they were taught in school, as they think that they are supposed to be written and supposed to be recited or sung. Why is that?
So, hence my often negative comments on poetry in jazz. As said earlier, I re-recorded some CDs to eliminate all the tracks with spoken word or poetry on them, just to make them audible, just to drive without the brakes on.
To end in a positive note. There are some notable exceptions of excellent spoken word in music, although not in jazz specifically, but then only because they managed to get a perfect integration of music and words.
Tom Waits - What's He Building In There (from : Mule Variations - see clip below) Michael Mantler - The Hapless Child (with Robert Wyatt, Terje Rypdal, Carla Bley, Jack DeJohnette... with weird texts from Edward Gorey, but the whole album is weird, yet worth listening to) Laurie Anderson - many songs on Life On A String, Big Science, Bright Red, ... (she's a truly under-rated artist)
Great stuff from Norway again, and by two musicians who make pure music from the heart, sounding like the true heirs of Don Cherry - it is open, joyful, in-the-moment, focused on the fun of the performance and the interaction, in the pleasure of the act of creation itself. Per Jørgensen plays trumpet, heriba-ton, tabla, flutes, coupon, vocal, kalimba, percussion, piano and Terje Isungset plays drums, percussion, wood, stones, goat horn, voice, electricians-tube and mouth harp. That says it all - from the world music influences to the "any-object-is-an-instrument" attitude. These two musicians also play as if they couldn't care less about what the world thinks of them or their music, let alone about which music genre this is. The only thing that counts is the music itself.
And that music sounds like an ode to life, an ode to simplicity, to spontaneity, to spirituality, to human interaction. Yet despite the restricted line-up and the full improvisational aspect of the music, both Isungset and Jørgensen manage to remain captivating for the full double CD, creating rich music with a wealth of ideas and approaches. The first CD is more focused on the core instruments : trumpet and drums, while the second has more of the weird instrumentation and vocals in it. But regardless of what they play, this music is so refreshing, so timeless, and so basically natural, with such an admirable sense of innocence, that I'm afraid it will be overlooked.
Yet for me, this is music in its absolute and pure essence.
Most fusion is bad music. Because it brings lots of technical skills with little or no creativity, often centered around the guy on the guitar who wants to take on self-proclaimed stardom. There are some rare exceptions of fusion musicians who seek other things. John McLaughlin is a true musician in that sense. He is interested in the music, and his fabulous guitar technique helps him in achieving this musical result. Terje Rypdal belongs to the same category, as does Jonas Hellborg, the acoustic bass guitar wizard who made breakneck speed world fusion (if you like the real guitar wizardry in an adventurous environment, check out Hellborg's CDs with the late Shawn Laneor with the fabulous Niladri Kumar on his custom-made electric sitar : mindblowing stuff by guys who still manage to make music despite their skills).
Anyway, Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary belongs to the same category. Sure, the guy has technique, but if you just listen to the variety of music he released in recent years, it covers avant-garde with Mat Maneri, over electronics with Gunter Muller to free jazz with Han Bennink. He is on a clear quest to find new ways of expression, and he sure has covered some ground.
This is his 17th CD since 2005, and it covers yet again other musical territory. Sure, it is fusion-inspired in his guitar style and in the dramatic build-ups, but there are as much electronics to hear, especially on the first piece, as ethnic influences in the rhythms. He is assisted on this album by John Herndon on drums, known from Tortoise and more recently from the Exploding Star Orchestra, and by Ståle Størlokken on synths and samples, known from Supersilent. The band creates soundscapes, not of a dreamy nature, yet full of tension, full of dramatic effect, with lots of musical surprises and expectations of what will come next. Melodies arise once in a while, as does rhythm, but these are only secondary to the overall musical effect, which can be at once flowing and lyrical to jagged, angular and full of pins, sharp claws and pointy hooks. The title track offers everything from pure soundscape electronics to death metal heavy chords, but moving into wild rhythmic and sonic areas. The longest piece "Theme From Jack Johnson", titled after the long Miles Davis tune on "Agharta" is dark, eery at times, full of agony and despair, with no hope of obtaining release or relief, it goes on and on. Herndon's fierce and irregular drumming is fascinating to hear and the role of Størlokken is vital in creating the overall effect (yes, even though I do not usually appreciate electronics), and the real jazz thing is that these guys improvise and react to each other as you would expect in an acoustic context. It's hard to say what is planned and what is not. The music is uncompromosing, not built on expectations, but on surprise and creativity and brought in an extremely coherent new and sustained language. Mark O'Leary himself calls it "epic post-fusion", and that sounds about right. Or call it the fusion version of Downpour by Cline/Parker/Rainey. But don't expect jazz, don't expect fusion, don't expect electronics. Whatever the description, it surely is something you're unlikely to have heard before, and it is worth listening to : demanding but rewarding.
The biological rhythm of day and night is called the circadian rhythm. The Circadian Rhythm Kings is a band which has not stolen its name : they bring highly rhythmic free bop, free funk, free jazz or whatever you name it, alternately, but which immediately appeal to you biological system, and at times it's hard to keep from dancing along. Most pieces are based on a regular beat, but some, as "The Early Worm", are more abstract work-outs, with all instruments more focused on creating an abstract soundscape. The band consists of Andrew Hickman on tenor sax and indigenous wind instruments, Ken Field on alto sax and flute, Todd Brunel on clarinet and bass clarinet, John Funkhouser on double bass and Gary Fieldman on drums. The music is excellent, even really beautiful at times, with bluesy ("The Pen") and sometimes even middle-eastern influences ("Escape Goat"), but the band is at its best when they funk like hell, like on the last two tracks, on which the front-line of the three reeds creates lots of variation and intertwining melodies and counterpoint, while bass and drums create a beat seldom heard in such an otherwise free environment. Fans of Exploding Customer and The Fully Celebrated Orchestra will surely enjoy this one too.
I think you have delivered a beautiful album, and on ECM no less. Many young musicians surely envy you. I hope it sells well, and from the other reviews I've read about this CD, it won't surprise me that it does. You are a great trumpeter, with a velvety sound, and you have good musical ideas, as you already demonstrated in other bands. You got some great international awards for your trumpet-playing, and rightly so. Your band of fellow Norwegians on this album is good : great instrumentalists and musicians : Audun Kleive on drums, Jon Balke on piano and Audun Erlien on bass, with pedal steel guitarist Stian Carstensen on a few tracks.
You don't know me. I'm an old man, you're still young. Allow me to give you some advice. At moments when I was listening to your album, I got the following impression. That you walked around your living room and came to the conclusion that live is OK. That's the feeling I have when listening to "The Door". A feeling of contentment. Nice, friendly, and carefully crafted music. Everything is in place, neatly organised. No conflict. No pain. A kind of sadness maybe. A little melancholy. And you're only 28 years old.
What I can suggest is that you leave the house you're in now, go out into the world. Look around, and see what really makes you angry. And believe me, there is more than enough to make you rebel and revolt. But don't forget to watch out for joy and beauty too.
Then have a deep look inside, and see what other feelings you might have. Is there no frustration, no fear, no anger, no joy, no excitement? Is there only melancholy? At 28?
Then think of how your instrument could express those feelings. Tear it out, rip it out, blow it out, from outside, from inside!
And last but not least, think about which musical language is best suited to convey all this : the sounds, rhythms, maybe even the instruments still need to be discovered to do that. Make the language. Don't rely on what exists. It's kind of stale.
Don't let yourself be harnessed by the ECM sound. Don't let yourself be harnessed by concepts developed by others (NPM, Truffaz, Stockhausen, ...). Don't let yourself be sucked into atmospheric mood music, which surely pleases wider audiences, but which is a dead-end street, both artistically and career-wise. "Aftenposten", one of your country's leading newspapers called your album "tasteful", which it certainly is, but it's also a description which should send shivers down your spine.
You're a great musician, a great trumpeter.
Don't rely on the success this album surely deserves. I know this doesn't sound friendly, but friendliness is not what life is about, nor is art.
Do your own thing. I hope the income from this album will give you more freedom. Freedom to explore. To go out there. And to bring us back excellent music.
Fully improvised sax-drums duo by Heath Watts on soprano and Dan Pell on drums, also known as Grass Hair Duo. Both play a totally free, unbound feast of sound and percussion, influenced by many genres, ranging from tribal music to Coltrane and Lacy. Dan Pell is originally from Norway, and used to be called Haon Sregor, but he changed his name after moving to the US, where he learned percussion from a native American called Iron Cloud. Watts is from Philadelphia and is a powerful free player. His tone is raw, hard and heavy, certainly for a soprano, yet he manages to be very emotional and expressive. Don't expect structure, fixed melody or anything which could vaguely ressemble patterns or repetitive things : this is far from these musicians' thoughts and intentions. What you get is in-the-moment improvisation, sounds following sounds, all incredibly intense and direct, but still lyrical and melodious. Both musicians interact perfectly well and speak the same musical language.
Chris Welcome, on guitar, Shayna Dulberger on bass and John McLellan on drums have played and recorded before, in quartet and trio settings. For this release, they added avant-garde jazz veteran Daniel Carter on alto and tenor saxophones, Bb clarinet, flute, and trumpet, for a very calm, subdued and almost chamber jazz adventure of free improvisation. The whole focus of the band is on creating soft and gentle musical texture, very down-tempo, very sensitive and almost hesitatingly. The overall effect is one of absolute openness and space, with fragile and intimate sounds, that seem to meet each other uninentionally, surprised at this and moving along, friendly and hand-in-hand. Even the presence of the electric guitar and the drums do not create any volume or substance, they also limit themselves to providing accents, colorings, shadings, yet it moves forward coherently, flowing in the same direction. Daniel Carter changes instrument on every track, adding variety in approach to the tunes. He is far away from the music of Test or of Other Dimensions In Music in terms of overall timbre and effect, yet the deeply emotional and creative approach is also present in this utterly restrained and expressive sober music. Nice!
Pianist Denman Maroney is something else. Already on "Distitch", with Mat Maneri, his cerebral approach to creating new musical universes became apparent, while maintaining a high sense of emotional lyricism. Music can sound clever, yet awful. The real challenge is to create something new that still sounds great, as on this album. Maroney is joined by three stellar musicians : Ned Rothenberg on reeds, Reuben Radding on bass and Michael Sarin on drums. Because of Maroney's calculated, even mathematical approach to music, every piece sounds extremely precise and finished, even the long title track, while still sounding very open and refreshing. "Gaga", the track, changes the whole time, while remaining essentially the same, giving the impression of watching the flow of the water just next to a river bank, very repetitive, very minimal, yet every few notes adds something different, either rhythmically or musically. The music is measured, thorougly composed with limited improvisations and certainly not very expressive. In that sense it's very un-jazzy in its approach, despite the line-up, and yet, it has a jazz sensitivity in mood and tunes. While searching for a clear aesthetic form, it does not sound distant at all. "Social Security" is probably the most jazzy tune, while "Frogs" has some Latin influences and "Blip" has a march-like cadence. But genre has become irrelevant for Denman Maroney's music. He loves rhythmic and compositional complexities while keeping the surface of the music appealingly simple and accessible. And the four musicians are absolutely a pleasure to hear. This is ear-candy from beginning to end.
There aren't many rock musicians with a jazz sensitivity, exception made for the 70s mostly British prog-rock scene, and some recent endeavors by the French label Chief Inspector. But it's even more unusual that the entire album is a tribute to one jazz musician, and a living one at that. And that's exactly what His Name Is Alive does here, making a tribute to saxophonist Marion Brown, and they do it brilliantly, without relinquishing their rock background, but without making it rock either. Their take on Brown's music is gentle, respectful, often contemplative, with a sometimes simplified take on the music, but that's fine here : the constant rhythm and the clear structure offer a great background for the trumpet and the saxes to solo on. The objective is not to demonstrate instrumental skills or to be too overly expressive : the music of Marion Brown stands at the very center as it should be, but then in the atmospheric mode that the band is known for.
His Name Is Alive is actually a band with ongoing personnel changes around founder guitarist/pianist Warn Defever, assisted by Jamie Saltsman on double bass who performed with the band before. Five of the other musicians come from the neo-Afrobeat band NOMO : Elliot Bergman on tenor saxophone and Rhodes, Erik Hall on electric piano, Justin Walter on trumpet, Dan Piccolo on drums and percussion, and Olman Piedra on congas and cajon. Michael Herbst from Antibalas joins too on alto saxophone and Jamie Easter on percussion. Marion Brown has given the project his blessing. Warn Defever said "I thought we should do it while he is alive. We've talked quite a bit about the project and he's supported us all the way. His encouragement and insight has been incredible".
And Marion Brown commented himself : "It's beautiful. Thank you. You really understand me".
And who are we to say anything else?
(Thank you Pedro for pointing out this album to me!)
The line-up of two pianists, Kenneth Karlsson and Jon Balke, and two percussionists Bjørn Rabben and Ingar Zach, is highly unusual, and at first sight you would expect interfering keyboards and relentless percussion, but you get the exact opposite : minimalist soundscapes built around silence. What they bring is very fragile, open and totally unexpected music, adding sounds to sounds in a very coherent and focused way. The tracks are short - the CD consists of no less than 19 tracks - which forces the musicians to be concise in their explorations while still being able to create something of interest. You hardly ever have the impressions of four musicians playing together, yet they play single notes, single beats, some electronic sounds that last a little bit longer, but which all together manage to create eery and unreal music.
