Steve Raegele - Last Century (Songlines, 2010) ***½

Compared to some of the recent guitar trios that I reviewed, this album is the odd one out : it is not trying to impress, it is not trying to tear down, yet it is not mellow or mainstream either. Raegele is accompanied by Miles Perkin on bass and Thom Gossage on drums and kalimba. The music is creative, searching, open-textured, subtle and sensitive. Some pieces, like the title track, come close to a real soundscape architecture, with precise guitar notes floating over ethereal backgrounds, other tracks are more post-modern, with quite structured themes and harmonic development. The music is unobtrusive, yet quite creative at the same time: unexpected things happen along the way, and I like that. Raegele seems unsatisfied with known idioms and starts playing around with what he knows: jazz, rock, rhythm, melody and lyricism, and he cuts them all to pieces and re-assembles them again : accessible, sweet sometimes, but never boring, never following the beaten track, creating new openings into music. Listen to the rhythmic oddities on "Stop Short". His guitar sound is clear with a little notch of distortion, just sufficient to give it a little harshness. Perkin and Ghossage's contribution is never less than functional, but often being more than just the rhythmic support. A nice and carefully crafted album, which could do with a little more tension.

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The Other Tet (Engine, 2009) ***½

In 2003, young Ghanese master drummer Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng released "Afrijazz", with Bill Lowe on bass trombone and Taylor Ho Bynum on trumpet, a promising, if somewhat unbalanced album. Now they are back with Joe Morris on bass. The drumming is still great but has a less prominent role in the music, and rather than being a demonstration of percussion and rhythms from the African diaspora, the music itself gets the full focus. And you could say it's a free bop album in the best of traditions: rhythmic, open, mostly without apparent themes, but yet with very close and coherent interaction between the musicians, who weave their solos over and around each other, constructing a great flowing and dancing sonic play.This opening track is the highlight of the album, and its great promise is unfortunately not fully met by the other pieces.

"Naptown/Trenton" is a real bopper with a theme (yes), a walking bass and constant rhythm, although Ho Bynum's trumpet solo is more left of center than you would expect from the genre, with Lowe's bass trombone sticking closer to the theme. "Dreamsketch" is slow and bluesy, with arco bass, and great dark combination of the bass and the bass trombone, and slowly develops into free improvisation, full of tension and emotional power. "Cold Day Clip", stays in the slower bop regions, a slowness which is necessary to make Lowe's playing come to its full right. "Look Below", is a again free bop, with a solid theme, and a long bass solo by Joe Morris.

A very enjoyable album, straight from the heart. 

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Brötzmann ....

Sometimes you wish that German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann would do something else that what he's been doing for the last fourty years, namely to blow his lungs out in his horn, occupying musical space and then not let go of it for the rest of the performance.

Sometimes you wish that German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann would NOT do anything else than what he's been doing for the last fourty years, not only because that's what he does best, but because doing other stuff clearly brings him out of his comfort zone.

Peter Brötzmann & Paal Nilssen-Love - Woodcuts (Smalltown Superjazz, 2010) ****

This is without a doubt the best album of the lot: fierce and relentless power play between two masters. Paal Nilssen-Love has played many times with the saxophonist, including a duo recording, "SweetSweat". It works best because Brötzmann does not have to care about other sounds intermingling with his own, he just needs the percussive power to drive him forward, and whatever he does, can move and shout and scream without hitting the borders of other melodic musicans. The result is fireworks from beginning to end. True, there a few seconds that the avalanche of punches and kicks and jabs slows down a little, but these are far and few between. Even on the eighteen minute long fourth track the fire does not die down for one millisecond. And when you think he's reached his climax, he goes even harder and higher. Not for sentimentalists, but a delight for the fans.

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Sonore - Call Before You Dig (Okkadisk, 2009) ****

Sonore is Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and Peter Brötzmann, the three power players of current jazz for their third album in this configuration, now with a double CD, with 7 tracks on the first, and no less than 17 tracks on the second CD. The interesting concept is that, without the presence of a rhythm section, they move into a more melodious and lyrical mode, giving each other ample space at times, or adding a double backbone to the soloist. "Mountains Of Love" on the first CD is an absolute beauty, with sensitivity that will move you to tears and sudden blasts that will blow off your chair (at least it did to me). Next to sax, Brötzmann and Vandermark also play their bass clarinets, and Gustafsson his flutophone (a flute with a sax mouthpiece). In their trialogue they explore not only all the timbral possibilities of their instruments, but also the comfortable shifts in improvisation provided by this unique line-up: lengthy single tone developments offer solid background for improvisation, but trio is also duo + one, evolving into one + duo, merging into trio and dissociating again. A pleasure for improvisors. The album offers much : from subtlety to utter cacophony.

Peter Brötzmann, Mikołaj Trzaska & Johannes Bauer - Goosetalk (Kilogram Records, 2010)***

We find Brötzmann back with Mikołaj Trzaska, a Polish saxophonist who is in my eyes the antipode of the German, because of his sophisticated warm tone and melodious phrasing, and with Johannes Bauer on trombone to complete the trio. The album's title is quite well chosen, because that's exactly how it sounds on the title track: geese chatting full of excitement and enthusiasm. The long second track is more fluent, called "Ducks Call", and the contrast in physical power between the German and the Polish sax-player becomes all too apparent, although they do find each other in the content of what they're doing, mostly in short bursts of sounds, with the exception of the last track, an ode to Albert Ayler, that starts with a two minute solo intro by Brötzmann, full of raw power, and then listen how emotionally more subtle Trzaska joins, again the perfect complement for the German's tone, with Bauder's warm trombone lifting the whole piece up where it belongs, in the free sky, with Albert Ayler, the ducks and the geese.

Peter Brötzmann - A Night In Sana'a (ARM, 2010) **½

Interestingly enough, Brötzmann some years ago expressed his interest in playing with Arabic musicians, which he now finally does with this classical band from Sana'a, Yemen. The ban is Abdul-Aziz Mokrid on violin, Khalid Barkosch on cello, Achmed Al-Khalidy on kanun, Ali Saleh on ney, and Yasir Al-Absi on darbuka. The band is further completed with Michael Zerang on drums, who himself happens to be of Iraqi descent.

The first piece starts with the Yemenite band playing their classical Arabic music, accompanied by Zerang, with its typical sophisticated sad and spiritual tone, marked rhythmic unison lines, and long improvisations. When Brötzmann joins after six minutes, it sounds like the building is being invaded by godzilla in person, yet the terrified band keeps playing, and they are right, because godzilla apparently retreats so that they can bring their music to its expected finale.

To be honest : it just doesn't fit. Brötzmann lacks the skills to find common ground with the band from Yemen, nor do they seem particularly open to what the German does. Brötzmann's compositions are too bland, as compared to the opening and closing track. There are many other examples where traditional arabic music and jazz work very well, but not here. Brötzmann's endeavor to follow the melody on the second track is almost painful (as on the other pieces), yet it does work when he completely ignores the tune, and does his own thing just on top of it. Believe me : that works, and after a while there are even some great moments of powerful contrast.

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Tatsuya Nakatani & Forbes Graham - Essences (BLAQ - 2010) ****½

Tatsuya Nakatani plays all kinds of percussion: bells, gongs, small drums, bowls, while Forbes Graham plays trumpet and piccolo trumpet, yet most of what you hear are sounds: floating, flowing, fleeting, scraping, scratching, screeching : balanced, in the sense of real equilibrium between different elements that are quite active and dynamic, balanced in the sense of authentic expression of feelings and thoughts, rather than showing off skills, balanced, in the sense of using regular playing in combination with extended techniques.

  If the first piece, "Cardamom", is quiet and menacing, the second track, "Vanilla", starts with a trumpet like you've rarely heard it, full of a howling desire to escape from something unspeakable, then gradually shifting to flutelike whistles over an almost endless single vibrating tone coming from the gong. "Lavender" is full of intense bustle and interaction, shadowboxing on a square meter.

"Mhyrr" is more expansive, with stretched sounds and the trumpet and drums identifiable for what they are, with Forbes stepping it up, with hypnotic circular breathing moments, supported by Nakatani's subtle touches around the beat, a great pivotal improvisation around which the rest of the album revolves. With "Basil", we're back in the realm of minimalism, with both musicians playing almost the same whistling sounds despite the quite different nature of their instruments, a harmony of diversity. "Sage" is the mirror part to "Lavender". The last track, "Sandalwood" evolves again from recognizable instruments to weird growls and grunts, shouts and scraping, full of intense energy. Intimate and powerful.

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Stefan Keune, Hans Schneider, Achim Krämer - No Comment (FMP, 2009) ****

In the best European free improv tradition of in-the-moment intensity and dialogue, this trio with Stefan Keune on alto and baritone saxophones, Hans Schneider on bass, and Achim Krämer on drums, drive the concept on with maximum power and focus. All three musicians create together, quite egalitarian, on the spot. They investigate sound and timbre and how subtle nuances in pressure and interaction can change the color of the piece, add new dimensions. On the first track volume is of the essence, on the long second track this shifts to minimal squeeks, and plucks and plops, a careful and precise construction of musical dashes that create an interesting abstract canvas, evolving almost organically into the next piece, with the tempo increasing gradually, as does the volume. Over the eleven tracks, the same lightness and raw immediacy is upheld. Despite the lack of phrases, or melodious fluidity, the music still manages to create a linear movement with peaks and moments of increased intensity. This will not be for everyone's ears, but will please fans of Evan Parker and John Butcher.

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Jean-Luc Cappozzo - Joy Spirit (Quark, 2009) ****

On this solo album, French trumpeter Jean-Luc Cappozzo brings hommage to musicians who left a lasting impression on him, either through several evenings of playing music together, or because of long friendships. The musicians are Bernard Prouteau, Frank Lowe, André Zemp, Paul Rutherford, Dizzy Gillespie, Jacky Barbier, Wallace Davenport, Alain Guérini, Mal Waldron, and Siegfried Kessler. His solo improvisations are made with those late musicians on his mind. The result is quite varied, in tone and in style, sometimes meditative, sometimes exuberant, often adventurous, but also bluesy, sometimes classical. Even if the musicians are deceased, his tribute to them is one of joy : for what they offered, for what they meant, for how they made you feel. This joy he expresses using all these different styles and techniques, with timbres that range from multiphonic screeches and growls to intonations of classical purity. On one piece, "Jacky Barbier", he even gives the impression to laugh in his horn, on "Mal Waldron" he alternates on his custom trumpet between muted and unmuted, giving the impression of overdub playing. As you hear, lots of variation, lots of ideas, and skills, but first of all, the joy of music.

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Mostly Other People Do The Killing - Forty Fort (Hot Cup, 2009) ***½

I did not want to write about this band until I saw them, which was last night. It is fun, it is virtuoso fun, full of drive, full of wildness, full of discipline ... They build on themes reminiscent from early Dixieland swing and bop and everything in between, including blues, but then the whole thing collapses, or unravels into undiscernable layers of sound in the best free jazz sense just to shift back into the same theme, or another, in another tempo, another rhythm, as if there was nothing easier in the world to do. It is crazy, it is wild, it is exhilarating.

You all know the band in the meantime : Moppa Elliott on bass, Peter Evans on trumpet, Jon Irabagon on sax,  and Kevin Shea on drums. All strong players, with Evans being technically astonishing. The band's explicit mission is to bring "fun" back in jazz, and they succeed: it is a highly entertaining album. It was a highly entertaining concert. But that's also a little bit its downside : it's entertainment of the highest level, but only entertainment.

And when you hear some of their soloing in the wildest parts of their performance, you think : "why do these guys put themselves in this self-constructed cage?", you think "what if they let things loose?", you think "what if they just played what they truly felt instead of just performing an act to amuse the audience?", you think "they could be the Chicago Bulls, but they act like the Harlem Globetrotters", you think "it is show rather than art, but then performed by artists rather than showmen". Sure, this approach sells more. But equally sure, these four musicians have more in store.

Enoyable fun.

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Nathan Hanson & Brian Roessler - Bellfounding (Community Pool, 2009) ***

Nathan Hanson on sax and Brian Roessler on bass are one half of the Fantastic Merlins quartet, a band that mixes jazz with chamber music and prog rock influences. Here, they are pure jazz, in a nice and sweet dialogue, never too brash, never too mellow. Most tracks are improvised duets, with the exception of Ayler's "Bells", a piece that inspired the title of the album. The musicians' original intension with a release on fifty copies was to restore the value of an album, in stark contrast to the zillions of mp3 formats that circulate and that nobody even ever listens to. This attitude also reflects their tone and style : unhurried, precise, calm, warm, intimate, tender. The downside of the approach is that, because they shy away from the extremes, the music lacks some character and personal voice.

And despite their intention, the album is now available for download in mp3 format. Whether you want to or not, you eventually get sucked up by the maelstrom out there.

Listen and download from CDBaby. 

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Watch on Youtube




 Fantastic Merlins - A Handful Of Earth (Fantastic Merlins, 2009)

On their second album, the Fantastic Merlins make a jump forward, as they say themselves, in my opinion moving away from just "mood" music, into a more composed environment that brings them closer to prog rock attitudes or in the zone that bands like the Penguin Café Orchestra explored. Jacqueline Ultan is still on cello and the drummer is now Peter Henning, replacing Federico Ughi, who went back to Italy to live in Rome. The music has lost a little bit of its free drive, becoming more groove-based and less exploratory. Despite the obvious quality of the compositions and the inventiveness in the arrangements, for me the lack of raw expression makes this album too gentle. Yes, it is a little menacing at times, yes, sometimes they resort to a powerful forward drive, yet it remains too measured and controlled to please me. But that was surely not their intention.


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Taylor Ho Bynum & Tomas Fujiwara - Stepwise (Not Two, 2010) ****½

The dialogue of a duet has a special and distinct musical quality that is not comparable to the introspective vulnerability of a solo performance, but does not quite reach the level of a band, a notion that starts with a trio, and which leads to a "group" creation of music. Duets are about dialogue, about intimacy and interaction, bouncing off ideas, contradicting and agreeing, like two good friends. And that's what these two musicians do, as a sequel to their previous album, "True Events". Taylor Ho Bynum plays cornet, Tomas Fujiwara drums. On ten tracks, varying between less than one minute to a little over ten, they sing, they swing, they shout, they murmur, they growl, they scream, they dance, they joke, they weep : they break boundaries and the remain cosy and comfortably within the tradition.

Some of the pieces, such as "Keys No Address", or "B.C." are clearly composed, others, like "Iris" and the long "Splits" are free improvisations that could evolve in any direction. And that's the great part of this album : you hear it all: the history of jazz in a nutshell (Gillespie/Roach, Don Cherry/Ed Blackwell to Dixon and beyond), technically broad, creative and inventive, and with loads of passion.


Listen to some tracks of a perfomance at WFMU which will give you a better idea of the music on this album.

Basie/Wisdom

Keys No Address

Untitled

Leaning Reflection

Ikuru

(The live audio in this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States license.)

and some video material ....

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Kirk Knuffke - Amnesia Brown (Clean Feed, 2010) *****

I already showed my appreciation for trumpeter Kirk Knuffke before (here, here, here, and here), and he keeps improving. His new album brings him in the company of Doug Wieselman on clarinet and guitar, and Kenny Wollesen on drums, both quite known from their work on Tzadik and other "downtown" bands. Knuffke's music is hard to name: it's composed, yet full of free improvisation. It is incredibly rhythmic, it is melodic, yet full of surprises and curious bends. It is sweet at moments, like the last track "Anne", which is full of sentiment and love, but abrasive at others, like the last-but-one piece "Please Help, Please Give". The switch between both extremes is often the result of which instrument Wieselman uses. His clarinet playing is full of lyricism, his guitar playing full of skronk. The alternation between both is a great idea, because it adds to the huge variation you get on the album. Wollesen's drumming is brilliant : his rhythmic inventiveness is an absolute pleasure to hear, and by itself already worth the purchase of the album.

Knuffke's tone is warm and subtle, full of emotional power, somewhat comparable to Dennis González, and his technical skills are excellent. He takes the most difficult parts with ease. The first track is a good example of that : "How It Goes", starts with a great long unison theme, after which his improvisation on the theme drives it higher with strong rhythmic pulse, wonderfully accompanied by Wollesen. The compositions are short, most clocking around three minutes, which forces the musicians to be compact and to-the-point in their improvisations. The pieces are fun, clever and full of emotional power, yet also headstrong and wayward, and with more ideas in one album than you sometimes get from other musicians' entire discography. Some of the themes, like the one for the title track, or of "Leadbelly", keep playing in your head long after you've stopped listening to the album, other pieces require repeated listens before you really get into them.

The album's greatest quality is its incredible power to say a lot in a few notes. It is very creative, and it swings from beginning to end. This is one of those albums that you want to keep listening to. What a joy!

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