Derek Stone

Derek Stone was born in the sunny state of Florida, but has since migrated to the “Land of the Morning Calm,” South Korea, where he teaches English. His first brush with free jazz was through Albert Ayler’s “Spiritual Unity,” an album which he initially hated but has since come to admire greatly. He spends his free time hanging out with his girlfriend and trying to get her to do her best “For Alto”-era Braxton impression (it’s really quite accurate). He’s currently a student of Applied Linguistics at the University of Birmingham (via distance learning) and is desperately trying not to go mad from the excessive work-load.

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Sean McCarthy

Sean McCarthy is a Canadian saxophonist, improvisor, composer, and writer. He specializes in the soprano saxophone in all its facets from early jazz to the avant garde. He leads the 'Sean McCarthy Quartet' and freelances in both the Toronto and Montreal areas.

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Nick Metzger

Aside from his family Nick’s passion in life is listening to, playing, and talking about music. He’s always leaned towards the avant-garde in his artistic tastes and plunged down the rabbit hole that is jazz upon listening to Bitches Brew in his early teens. Through his research into the genre he encountered an album called Spiritual Unity which opened the floodgates to what he felt he had been searching for all his life, free music, and he has been drinking heavily from the well ever since. He also enjoys reading, writing, cinema, and good food. He lives and works in central Indiana.

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Nicola Negri

I’m a graphic and web designer based in Padova, Italy, and I’ve been involved in jazz and free improvisation for the last twenty years.

I’m a proud member of “Centro d’Arte degli studenti dell’Università di Padova”, a non-profit cultural association specialized in music promotion and concert organization.

Free improvisation and japanese free jazz, AACM and Wadada Leo Smith, John Zorn, Rob Mazurek, Derek Bailey, The Thing, these are a few of my favorite things.

Sometimes I play the trumpet.

I firmly believe that free music can make us free.

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Peter Gough

Peter Gough was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He spends his free time with his wife, three cats, and book and record collection. Peter is a proud supporter of his local creative improvised music culture, and is a member of Toronto's Music Gallery.

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Wendy Eisenberg

Wendy Eisenberg is an improvising guitarist and banjo player who has toured internationally, both solo and with the critically acclaimed band "birthing hips." some of her additional critical writing can be found in John Zorn's Arcana VII: Musicians on Music.

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João Esteves da Silva

João was born in the mid 90s into a family of musicians, mostly pianists. His passion for music, however, only came much later, when he was already at university. A lover of abstract art since his childhood, he immediately clicked with avant-garde music, which at the time struck him as a sort of sonic equivalent of the latter. He tried to take conventional piano lessons at some point, but never went very far, ending up developing his own unorthodox approach to the instrument, largely inspired by the likes of Thelonious Monk or John Cage. Anyway, playing-composing is far from his main musical activity. Listening is. An avid record collector, he is constantly listening to music (of all sorts), and admits being totally addicted. Criticism is, for him, a way of sharing his passion and hopefully helping others discover stuff he finds worthwhile. Also trained in philosophy, he believes, somewhat controversially, that, though neither philosophy nor criticism are rigorous sciences, criticism is nonetheless more akin to a rigorous science than philosophy is.

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Bengt Berger - Beches Brew (Country & Eastern, 2009) ** or ****

Swedish drummer Bengt Berger made one masterpiece, "Bitter Funeral Beer", an astonishing world jazz album beyond category, that is as hypnotizing as it is guaranteed to move you to tears as well. Yet the rest of his musical output is of a quite doubtful level and unequal quality, often quite traditional, boppish, or plain silly.

On Beches Brew, he combines it all, great compositions, with great influences from Indian traditional music, alternated with more or less interesting Scandinavian folk, silly beer brawl songs and boppish pieces. To make matters worse, some of the sounds, and especially the guitar, but also the keyboard at times, appear to have skipped a few decades, as if there had been no evolution with the instrument since the early seventies.

The band consists of Thomas Gustafsson on soprano and tenor saxophones, Jonas Knutsson on soprano,  alto and baritone saxophones, Lindha Kallerdahl on voice, Max Schultz on guitar, banjo, bass and voice, Mats Öberg on keyboard, harmonica and voice, Bengt Berger on drums and percussion.

Some of the music is excellent. Some is awful. Even in the excellent pieces, you find some ugly sounds, or just lack of quality : Linda Kallerdahl has a great voice, but she doesn't master the Indian voice inflections, unfortunately, which leads to some painful moments. I wish a great producer like Manfred Eicher could have been involved in this. The material is here, the output unfortunately not. There is no unity, there is no coherence, it's a mixed bag. Studio pieces alternate with live pieces, sometimes even of the same compositions. In short, it's a mess, but one full of jewels.

So, here is my advice : just download the tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17 and 18 (a live version of 7). That's more than half the album. Forget about the rest. What remains is 45 minutes of great compositions, with splendid themes, African and Asian influences, both rhythmically and melodically, some reminiscent of "Bitter Funeral Beer", with great singing by Kallerdahl in Swedish, especially on the long "Dagar, Djur", some classical concepts, and excellent soloing by the band, and cleverly arranged on top. Organised in such a way, the music gets some unity and coherence.

World jazz fans shouldn't miss those tracks. 

PS - the reference to Miles Davis' Bitches Brew in the title is only a play with words : Berger's nickname is Beche, yet there is no musical ressemblance whatsoever.

Listen and download from Country & Eastern or from eMusic.

© stef

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Ian Lovdahl

Ian Lovdahl is a professional writer in the fields of investment management and data analysis, but his true passion is music. Graduating from Michigan State University, he wrote album reviews for the East Lansing radio station 88.9 The Impact, and most recently for the former blog Indy Metal Vault. Ian likes all kinds of music and credits a chance encounter with Miles Davis' Kind of Blue as his conduit into jazz. His favorite concert experience was SUNN O))). 

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Splatter - Music For Misanthropes (Self Published, 2009) ****

Let's get rid of a couple of possible misunderstandings first.

1. Splatter has no relation whatsoever with the American Splatter Trio, with Dave Barrett, Myles Boysen and Gino Robair, a rock-ish free jazz improv band that was active in the 90s.
   
2. The back cover reads "Reach for the sick bag. This is music for dung beetles, execrable flotsam from the rotting underbelly that passes for everyday life. This lamentable babbling is like scratching an already pustulating sore - a festering stew that relishes its own putrefaction, cherishing each tiny scabrous canker that passes for creativity." and ending with the warning : "You'd have to be brain dead to listen to this". Which is a load of crap with equally no relationship to the music you can hear on the record ... and it almost made me put the record on the slush pile without even listening to it ....
   

The band is Anna Kaluza on alto, Noel Taylor on clarinet, Raúl Monsalve on electric bass and Pharoah S Russell on drums. And they're British. At least partly: Kaluza is German and Monsalve from Venezuela.

The music is sweet, gentle and accessible, free and quite mature, in contrast to the adolescent scribblings on the back cover. And entirely improvised. And I must say, well improvised. The lyricism and interplay on some pieces make it sound as if it's thoroughly rehearsed or at least pre-conceived, but apparently not. The bass guitar of Monsalve is one of the most distinguishable and defining factors of the music. He gives color, punch and rhythm, allowing for the double reed front line to interlock phrases and melodies, and giving the excellent drummer the opportunity to play on or around the beat at leasure. Both Kaluza and Taylor are really good and creative, not trying to imitate, but making their own sound. It all sounds young, crisp, fresh, modern, with rock-influences of course, and with vision and coherence. They give the Claudia Quintet as possible reference, and in terms of sound there are indeed analogies, but not conceptually. Chris Speed and Jim Black are somewhat better for comparison, albeit a little more free.

And misanthropes? Not at all. They have a sensitivity and emotional content that is too gentle.

A really strong and enjoyable debut.

Listen and download or buy from CDBaby or iTunes.


© stef

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