Ernst Ludwig Petrowsky & Michael Griener - The Salmon (Intakt, 2008) ****

Two new reviews of the sax-drums duo format. Two albums which are close in their improvised approach and musical freedom, one sounding very European and the other very American, although some tracks might be exchanged from one to the other, and people with untrained ears will probably not be able to tell the difference.

Ernst Ludwig Petrowsky & Michael Griener - The Salmon (Intakt, 2008) ****

The Salmon consists of 11 pieces of great interplay between saxophonist Ernst-Ludwig "Luten" Petrowsky and drummer Michael Griener. The album starts in the way you would love such an album to start, right into the core of things, straight to the essence, no holds barred. Petrowsky is fierce, energetic and sensitive too. Griener is fierce, energetic and sensitive. This sensitivity is the essence of the second track, called "The Salmon 2" (no creativity in the titles), on which Petrowsky plays long deep-toned passages, with Griener accentuating subtly. Petrowsky almost comes to a theme, yet rapidly kills it, for fear of creating a melodic pattern, keeping freedom and openness, without falling into dissonance or empty squeeks and squeals. This is music that breathes, that is direct, soulful and wild, yet both men have something to tell. I like the format for that reason, as it often works.


Andrew Lamb & Warren Smith - The Dogon Duo (Engine, 2005) ****

I recently downloaded this album from iTunes, although it was released some years ago. Like Petrowsky, Andrew Lamb is also an autodidact, who got formal training later on. He is accompanied by Warren Smith, who, like Griener, is a master of minor subtleties and a deep soulful approach. The Dogon are an African tribe in West Africa, mostly in Mali and Niger. With that as a context it's not surprising that African rhythms and melodies dominate the music, but then in the free-est of ways. The first piece starts with odd, pounding polyrhythmics by Smith and a soaring sax, sounding like a mixture of Kalaparush McIntyre and Dewey Redman, warm, free, rhythmic and lyrical. The role of Smith in setting the scene is crucial on many tracks, as on the title piece. There is quite some variation, with Lamb switching to flute or mismar once in while, but also in the musical approaches. There are some slow spiritual pieces ("Lake Tanganyka" with Lamb blowing on bottles), alternated with wild tribal dance music, and wild spiritual pieces ("Call Of The Spirits"). Again, I like this format. And this CD also delivers the goods.

Listen and download from iTunes.

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Carl Ludwig Hübsch - The Universe Is A Disk (Leo Records, 2008) ****

This band's actual name is "Carl Ludwig Hübsch's Longrun Development of the Universe", but there wasn't enough space to put it in the title. The band consists of three brass players: Carl Ludwig Hübsch on tuba, Matthias Schubert on tenor saxophone, and Wolter Wierbos on trombone. On last year's "Primordial Soup", Hübsch opened for me new doors for listening to music, creating a musical universe which had depth and a wonderful attraction without using traditional musical reference patterns. This album is much more intimate, yet it is as bizarre as its predecessor, but then in a totally different way. Hübsch uses traditional jazz tunes and harmonics, with unison lines and solos as if he's trying to revive the old New Orleans music in a modern dress, but then suddenly there is some theatrical dialogue in German between the three musicians, followed by real avant-garde stuff of the kind that is only a slight whisper away from silence, and this played by the three instruments together. The dialogue itself is fun, contradicting, arguing about the tune's itself, which was played perfectly, and once they agree, the unison line gets lost. The theatrical, almost zappaesque effects, come back in "Another Determinator", with humor in the music itself, in the texts and in the way the shouts and music interacts. As with the jester, you're always taken by surprise, the music changes the whole time until you've lost your footing, until you don't know what is what and which is which. Tracks like "Floating Fragments 2", are clearly composed, with definite pre-conceived anchor points scattered across the track in an assymetrical structure, with in between moments of fun or agonizing or beautiful or experimental sounds. "Floating Fragments 3" is pure avant-garde, with sounds that hold the middle between a jungle at night and the music of the spheres. Some tracks are really interesting sound explorations for three brass instruments, but also musically. Yet this trio questions as it creates. It pierces the illusion they've gradually built up over the album. And believe me, there are some great listening moments. Which are then questioned. The last track "Elephantenrunde", brings us back to the trialogue in German, questioning each other in an argument that is to the three of them totally ununderstandable too. Their universe is not only a disk, it is beyond comprehension ("Just a moment. That was not it. What? Again? No. The silence. What? Your place? Which place? The one from before? Mine? No mine. The one from much earlier? Which one? Again? That was another one. Pedantic. Me? No me! Stop! Just a second. Halt! That was not it. No. What was ...? The place. Which place?" etc. etc. or something to that extent). Absurdity kicks in, a dialogue like the music.

This is not my style of music. It is too odd, and like much of music which intends to be humorous, it also creates an emotional distance. Sure, it's fun, it's enjoyable, but never gripping. On the other hand, what a delight to hear so much self-relativation from avant-garde musicians. I don't really like their project, yet they deliver it perfectly.

There is a booklet that goes with the album, but which I didn't get because I downloaded the music (so don't shoot me if I misunderstood the music or the German conversation).

Listen and buy/download from Leo Records.
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Wacław Zimpel & Tim Daisy - Four Walls (Multikulti, 2008) ****

A month ago I praised Polish clarinettist Wacław Zimpel for his playing on "The Light". Now he teams up with Tim Daisy on drums, whose quartet release "1,000 Lights" I reviewed only yesterday. Seems like these guys have found each other under the right luminiscence, for this duo outing, which is expanded by Dave Rempis on alto and tenor saxophones, and by Mark Tokar on bass on two of the seven tracks on this album. Both Daisy and Rempis are members of the Vandermark 5, yet here there music is more abstract, more free, moving in the direction of what I heard of Zimpel and Tokar before. There is rhythm for sure, there is melodic tension, but very implicit, painted in broad strokes, leaving lots of opportunities to change, alter, accentuate, dialogue, and crackling with anticipation and subtle touches. And if Zimpel and Daisy manage to create wonderful interaction on the five duets, Rempis and Tokar add a dimension to the music, with "Chorale" as the highlight. If you listen to the album in one go, it moves from the light-footed and intense duets into two more dramatic, darker quartet pieces, even if one is called "Basement Of Joy", ending more light-footed again with the last duet, which is a second take at the opening track.

The record comes with the enigmatic message that the music was recorded live at the Alchemia Club in Krakow, but without public participation. The meaning of "live" has apparently been altered without notifying us.

Buy from Instantjazz.

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Solo Trumpet CDs - update

Solo trumpet CDs are pretty rare. And the music on them especially, often very experimental, looking and searching for the extreme extended sounds you can get out of the instrument or looking for microtonal or electronically distorted possibilities. If you are an adventurer, you will like to listen to some of the records below. Markus Stockhausen and Hugh Ragin are the most accessible. Some of them are plain weird, and will only be of interest to trumpeters who are looking for interesting new angles.

• Bill Dixon - Collection (Music for Solo Trumpet)
• Bill Dixon - Odissey (Solo Works 1970-1992) (6-CD box)
  
• Hugh Ragin - Sound Pictures For Solo Trumpet
• Natsuki Tamura - A Song for Jyaki (Leo Records, 1998),
  
• Natsuki Tamura - Ko Ko Ko Ke (Natsat 3012)
• Peter Evans - More is More (PSI Records, 2006)
• Peter Evans - Nature/Culture
  
• Kelly Pratt - Solo Works for Trumpet & Flugelhorn
  
• Axel Dörner - Trumpet
• Markus Stockhausen - Solo 1
• Thomas Heberer - The Heroic Millipede
• Nate Wooley - Wrong Shape to be a Story Teller
• Rob Mazurek - Silver Spines
• Rob Mazurek - Abstractions On Robert d'Arbrissel
• Mazen Kerbaj - BRT VRT ZRT KRT
• Franz Hautzinger - Gomberg
• Franz Hautzinger - Gomberg II
• Franz Hautzinger - Neublacher Blech
• Greg Kelley - Trumpet
• Greg Kelley - Self-Hate Index
• Greg Kelley - Religious Electronics
  
• Wadada Leo Smith - Creative Music 1
• Wadada Leo Smith - Red Sulphur Sky
• Wadada Leo Smith - Ahkreanvention
  
• Lester Bowie - The One And Only (re-issued as disc 2 on "All The Magic")
• Arve Henriksen - Sakuteiki
• Baikida Carroll - The Spoken Word
• Birgit Ulher - Scatter
• Scott Tinkler - Backwards
• Toshinori Kondo - Silent Melodies
• Toshinori Kondo - Touchstone
• Toshinori Kondo - Fukyo
• Toshinori Kondo - Fuigo From A Different Dimension
  
• Matt Davis - Violence
• Kozo Ikeno - Overlooks
• Kozo Ikeno - Secret Notes
• Kozo Ikeno - Perfect Sound
• Luciano Berio - Sequenza X
  
  In the grey zone between avant-garde and modern classical music, there is also :
  
  • Choi Sun Bae - Freedom solo trumpet improvisations
  • Mark O'Keeffe - Knight Errant - Solo Music For Trumpet
  • Håkan Hardenberger - Emotion
  • Håkan Hardenberger - Exposed Throat
  In the world music genre, there is the brilliant
  
  • Nassim Maalouf - Improvisations Orientales
  Anyone with suggestions for other albums, please let me know.
  
  Many thanks,
  
  Stef
  
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New Fracture Quartet - 1,000 Lights (Multikulti, 2008) ****

When I first heard the beginning of the first track, called "Falling Rocks", I thought this was one CD to dismiss quickly, when heavily distorted rock guitar sounds, a pumping bass and wild drumming tortured my sensitive ears, yet this initial violence makes soon place for a great soft, gentle and sensitive trumpet solo. Creative contrasts form the core of these carefully crafted compositions. The Chicago-based band "New Fractures", led by drummer Tim Daisy, well-known as the drummer of the Vandermark 5, further consists of Jaimie Branch on trumpet, Dave Miller on guitar and electronics, and Nate McBride on bass. And this line-up is great for the band's musical vision. As their name suggest, they break things to pieces, yet they create something in the meantime. McBride and Daisy form a formidable rhythm section, creative and supple, yet leaving the frontline to two young musicians, whose playing is surprisingly mature.

Jaimie Branch is a strong trumpeter, with a clear and warm tone, and an incredible musical presence and personality for a 25-year old. She surely is someone to watch, as is guitarist Dave Miller, whose range and creativity are also very promising. Anyone can play loud and distorted, but I prefer him when he plays with the sensitive touch with which plays "1,000 Lights", the title track, or when he uses his wealth of clear-toned ideas to add to this great rhythmic and open music, as in "No Fires". This is free jazz, but rhythmic, melodic, with strong compositions while keeping that sense of freedom and expressivity that makes the genre so interesting.

This band gives you the feeling that anything can happen. And it does, yet remarkably, and very unusually, the whole thing remains quite coherent, despite the often abrupt style variations. Four musicians with a story to tell. I like it.

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Blaise Siwula & Carsten Radke - Projection: Zero (Konnex, 2008) ****

Music can be great in little things. What a great and intimate musical interaction between two artists who understand each other well this record is! Blaise Siwula's alto and Carsten Radke's guitar seem to be made for each other, both in tone and in musical approach. They also demonstrate how improvised music can go well beyond any patterns and harmonies without sounding dissonant. Quite on the contrary, it is at moments amazing to hear how they create the piece together, moving in the same direction, coming together even without falling into patterns. This is gentle, sensitive, organic music. Because they had no preconceived notions when starting to play, they called it "Projection: Zero". Both musicians are also interested in Zen Buddhism, and the first track is aptly titled "Wu Wei Ways", describing their approach to music, with Wu Wei being the state of "action without action", to let things move with natural grace, without forcing things, let things grow out of themselves. And this latter organic thing is precisely what you hear. Siwula listens to Radke, Radke listens to Siwula, notes and phrases, sometimes rhythms are created, repeated, echoed, supported, expanded, ... gently, subtly. That does not mean that everything is always nice and peaceful, or slow. There is speed at moments, there is tension too because many unexpected things happen, yet it is because of this that variety and sometimes differing views that other and new things happen, but in full control, with lots of disciplined freedom. Masterful.

Listen to samples on Siwula's MySpace.

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Michael Marcus - Lotus Symphony (Not Two, 2008) ***½

I have always liked Michael Marcus' knack for lyrical improvisation, and on this album he does it again, but now restricting himself to the Bb clarinet. The album is a mixture of line-ups and styles, starting and ending with the beautiful "As Always, Our Blessing", a tune which could have been composed by Coltrane, magnificent in its expansiveness and paced development. The musicians are Antoine Roney on tenor sax, John Austria on piano, Radu ben Judah on bass, Rashaan Carter on bass, Taru Alexander on drums, and Jay Rosen on drums, and this, in various configurations. The second track is more boppish trio, with an angular theme. The third is a quartet with Antoine Roney on sax, a great theme, but the volume between sax and clarinet is unfortunately not quite right. "Elipsis", is a slower ballad-like tune, nice but nothing more. Apart from the title track, two other tracks are great : "Sumatra", and "Lotus Symphony", both trios, and built around long and beautiful themes, and it is on those pieces that Marcus is really at this best, expanding on the theme, improvising freely and without boundaries, yet still focused and in line with the theme. Starting and ending the record with the same tune, is a nice trick to give an impression of unity, yet it's unfornutately absent, not only because of the variety of line-ups, but also of the compositions and sound quality. Yet there are great moments.

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Zbigniew Seifert - Solo Violin (Polonia Records, 2008 re-issue) ****

Apart from Leroy Jenkins' Solo Concert from 1976, I do not think that there are many solo violin albums that fall within the broad "jazz" genre. You could also argue that Polly Bradfield's "Solo Violin Improvisations" from 1979 is jazz. Now Polonia re-issued this album by Polish musician Zbigniew Seifert. Seifert was a classically trained violinist whose musical world opened when listening to Coltrane. He switched to sax shortly, then moved back to violin, trying to capture Coltrane's timeless expressivity and open esthetic. On this album, you can hear this Coltrane influence, together with a modern classical touches and even some European folk. His improvisations range from the very abstract to real rhythmic jazzy, from sad to joyful. On two tracks, he dubbed some additional violin, as a kind of background support, or even drone. Seifert died in 1979 at the age of 32 and he did not leave that many records. If you search for this record on internet, download links can be found all over the place.

PS - I got the additional information that Billy Bang released a solo violin album, "Commandments" (No More Records 1997), as did Malcolm Goldstein "Live In Fire In The Valley" (Eremite 1997). Thanks Pedro for the info!

Watch a rare video-taped recording of Seifert:

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Philip Glass - Songs And Poems (Orange Mountain, 2008) ***** & **

Many years ago I switched on the radio and I heard this repetitive violin sequence, which just kept repeating and repeating itself, with once in a while a little change: it was both hypnotic and ununderstandable. I was hesitating whether it was a stuck record that the radio channel did not notice, but that could not be it, because of those changes. I listened to the whole twenty minute piece, totally mesmerized. It was Philip Glass's "Einstein On The Beach", a wonderful record, a unique listening experience. One of the things that truly get me is what madness, what unbelievable concentration it must require from the musicians to play these lengthy pieces with so little variation. In the meantime, Glass became more famous than any other current classical composer, maybe next to Michael Nyman, because they both write film scores.

Now there is this "Songs And Poems", written for solo cello, and one not to be missed. Unlike many other Glass compositions, the music is hardly repetitive. There are repetitions of course, but then more Bach-like, as musical patterns to play with and explore. As can expected from pieces for this instrument, there is some melancholy to be heard, some dark feelings even, in the middle part and towards the end, but the overall trend is classical in its severe structural approach, its finesse and refinement. Wendy Sutter, also a cellist in "Bang On A Can", is absolutely fabulous on this album: precise, sensitive, and with a great sense of pace. Sutter plays on her "ex vatican stradivarius" from 1620, a unique instrument with a deep and very warm sound.

So far so good, then comes the cold shower: the last four tracks are no longer solo, but pieces from "Naqoyqatsi" that were not used in the movie, on which Sutter is accompanied by David Cossin on percussion and by Glass on piano. Those pieces create a bizarre musical conflict with the rest of the album. They are totally different in style and approach, more romantic, less austere, less dramatic.

I find it mind-boggling that labels can be so stupid and irrespectful, to musicians, but especially to listeners, to break the coherence of such a wonderful album. Nothing wrong with the last four tracks by themselves, but the context is totally wrong. It's like adding some unused Beatles '62 tracks to Sergeant Pepper's just because there was some space left at the end of the album! Who cares if the album is just thirty minutes long? As long as it's good! It drove me up the wall when I heard those additional tracks. And truth be told, I find the terribly kitschy artwork on the album cover as repulsive, and again in total contradiction with the quality of the music. But that should not deter you from buying this album. Do like me: re-record it and delete the last four tracks. You will be holding a true gem in your hands.

Listen and download (the first 7 tracks) from iTunes.


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Les Amants De Juliette (Quoi de neuf docteur) ****

"Les Amants De Juliette" (Juliet's lovers) is a French trio with Serge Adam on trumpet, Benoît Delbecq on prepared piano and Philippe Foch on tabla and percussion. Their musical universe is a great fusion between world music, modern minimalism, and free jazz. This is their fourth record so far, released on the French label "Quoi De Neuf Docteur", but now available on eMusic, together with other releases by the same label, and it is more than worth listening to. Adam is an excellent trumpeter, who has been active in various bands, ranging from traditional jazz over folk music to more experimental music. This trio is something special. It reminds me of Codona, with Don Cherry, Nana Vasconcelos and Collin Walcott in the joy of its music, although this trio is a little more intellectual in their search for new form and complex overlapping rhythms, it also reminds me of "Agbalagba Daada" by Per Jørgensen and Terje Isungset, although is a little less folksy/shamanistic. Foch's percussion is excellent, and although his tabla often gives the music an Indian sound, the rhythms are not (necessarily), influences abound, as do creative approaches. Technically, Delbecq's piano-playing is probably the most discerning element, and surely the most unorthodox, with muted strings, tantric left hand repetitions, interesting melodic try-outs, or percussive playing, often sounding like an African string instrument rather than a piano. And although it's not a new release, it's a great one to start the year with : open to the world, light-footed, creative, and full of hope and joy.

Listen and download from eMusic.

Go To Quoi De Neuf Docteur for more information on Serge Adam's multiple projects.

Watch them on Youtube (bad sound and image).



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