Rova & Nels Cline Singers - Celestial Septet (New World Records, 2010) ****

The Rova Quartet are Larry Ochs on tenor and sopranino saxophones, Bruce Ackley on soprano and tenor saxophones, Steve Adams on alto and sopranino saxophones, Jon Raskin on baritone, alto and sopranino saxophones. The Nels Cline Singers are Nels Cline on guitar, Devin Hoff on bass and Scott Amendola on drums. Apart, these two bands already bring genre-bending music. Together, under the name of "Celestial Septet", they push the limits even further.

The album starts with one of the most magnificent compositions I have heard in a while. The title, César Chávez, refers to the founder of the American United Farm Workers Union. The piece, composed by Amendola, is at the same time sad, dark, intimate, menacing, overwhelming and magnificent. It is slow, with one sax playing the lead theme, and the three others playing in different layers around it, with the drums, bass and guitar creating a dark and gloomy backdrop : stunning! The second piece is of a different nature, more abstract, with odd rhythm and arrangements, somewhat quirky and fun. In the ensuing improvisations, the musicians manage to see this bizarre concept through, not an easy feat. The longest and central piece, "Whose To Know", is a tribute to Albert Ayler (again!), with a wealth of influences and concepts seamlessly evolving one into the other : it is rock, it is jazz, it is modern music: raw, sensitive, deep and rich, with in the middle of the piece an unbelievable cataclysm of saxophones screaming, and gradually shifting into bass and guitar minimalism, only to end in the most Ayleresque of fashions. The following piece sounds like a marching band in which a berserk John McLaughlin got lost. The last track, "The Buried Quilt", is an experimental composition by Nels Cline, eery and disorienting, with quiet moments alternating with thunder storms, yet ending as magnificently as the album begins.

You get the idea : lots of variation, maybe a little too much, but played by artists who like the broad sweeps of new musical ideas, broad adventurous brush strokes on a new and open canvas. Recommended.


The Nels Cline Singers - Initiate (Cryptogrammophone, 2010) ****

It rarely happens that I write a review on the day that the album is released, but well, it so happened that I had already planned the review above. Have I listened to it? Yes, I did. Have I listened enough to make a good judgment? Possibly not. But who cares? You are the judge, I merely point out what's new and worthwhile.

First impression : the trio pushes their own boundaries again, and get better at each time. In addition to the line-up mentioned above, Cline uses electronics, Hoff as well and switches to electric bass at times, Amendola plays mbira too and effects.

Second impression : lots of variation, from electric Miles fusion ("Floored"), to weird sonic soundscapes, including unusual almost choral background at times (on the fantastic "Divining"), to intimistic moments of quiet meditation on acoustic instruments ("Grow Closer"), electronic and industrial experiments ("Scissor/Saw"), cinematic pieces ("King Queen" - holding the middle between King Crimson and Santana!), hypnotic repetitive power play ("Mercy"), pure sonic soundscapes ("Into It"), wild and fascinating high tension energy ("Fly Fly").

The first CD is recorded in the studio, the second CD is a live performance, offering the same range of musical variation, and ending with a wild, long almost funky fusion work-out, with pounding drums, pumping bass, and scorching wah-wah pedal. 

Enjoy!

Listen and download from eMusic.

© stef

Read More

Dave Liebman, Evan Parker, Tony Bianco - Relevance (Toucan, 2010) ****½

Saxophonist Dave Liebman is an absolute sax virtuoso, but his stylistic range is so wide, and his musical appetites so broad, that you never know what you get when you buy his albums : the music can be mellow and bland, new-agey superficial, yet equally creative or adventurous.

Dave Liebman, Evan Parker, Tony Bianco - Relevance (Red Toucan, 2010) ****½

Dave Liebman explains in the liner notes that he has a wish list of musicians he wants to perform with, and that Evan Parker was on top of that list. Drummer Tony Bianco managed to arrange a gig. The three met, and without further ado hit the stage for a fully improvised concert, resulting in this fantastic album. The first piece starts as a "tenor battle" in the best tradition, a real blow fest in which the two hornsmen meet and greet, challenge and respond, push forward and push forward, relentlessly supported by Bianco's nervous and thundering drumming, and when you think they will calm down a bit, the exact opposite happens: tension increases, energy levels are raised, with each one stepping back for a few minutes to let the other play solo a little, but then they lock horns again, and yes, they do calm down, giving Bianco some space, but that is of course only until the storm breaks loose again.

The second piece starts calm and meditatively, with the two saxes easily finding a common language and tone, but then halfway the piece Bianco seems tired of their musings and increases the tempo, and the intensity of the sax dialogue, which continues to evolve in the best traditions of the "Tenor Madness" album by Sonny Rollins with John Coltrane that Liebman refers to in the liner notes, with the only difference, that what Liebman and Parker get out of their saxes was not only inconceivable in 1957, but it surely must sound as real madness to the two jazz legends. The last track starts with drum rumbling and bamboo flute, then Parker takes over on sax, for some shamanistic yet sensitive playing.

Even if these two virtuosi have never played together, the ease with which they find common ground, in every respect, is stunning. So is the music. Fierce, energetic and surprisingly warm.

Evan Parker - Whitstable Solo (Psi, 2010) ****½

 Evan Parker solo is of course something else. From the very first piece, he takes a deep dive into intense multiphonics and endless circular breathing, filling the entire St. Peter's Church in Whitstable, and using its resonant power to the full, not only a technical but also a physical tour-de-force, keeping it up for close to ten minutes, trancelike, hypnotic, stunning. The second piece continues in the same vein, even pushing the envelope, giving the impression that at least three saxes are playing, one in the higher and one in the lower register, playing in counterpoint with the core phrase. On the third track, the hypnotic drive and effect make room for more measured abstract lyricism, and continued on the fourth piece, again with the magnificent sonic space of the church adding a dimension to Parker's performance. You get the gist. The last track is fifteen minutes long, and has a name, "Alpha And Omega", the beginning and the end, and it sounds like that. Giving it all, full of energy and sophisticated nuance, Evan Parker again demonstrates what a great artist he is, creating universes out of a brass tube.



Mateusz Kołakowski & Dave Liebman – Live at Jazz Standard (Fennomedia, 2009) ***½

Mateusz Kołakowski is a young Polish pianist, who played this nice series of duets with Dave Liebman, at the Jazz Standard in the US.The pieces vary between the impressionistic and the bluesy, with the latter style dominating, with a strong rhythmic pulse from the piano offering Liebman a great backbone to improvise. Both Kołakowski and Liebman deliver a nice performance, but without being adventurous. A very enjoyable album.

© stef

Read More

Free and avant-garde jazz festivals

It is quite impossible to keep track of the jazz festivals around, although free and avant jazz festivals might be harder to find. Please help keep this list up-to-date with comments and suggestions below.

We will keep the links to the biggest festival websites throughout the years.

Last update: 4/2021

-------------------------------------------------------------

Festivals:

March

• Nozart Festival, Köln, Germany
• Europa Jazz Festival, Le Mans, France
• Jazz & Sounds, Ghent, Belgium
• Altera! - Napels, Salerno - Sant'Agata de' Goti - Somma Vesuviana, Italy
• ARTLITLAB: https://artlitlab.org/music/concert-calendar
• Sound Disobedience, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

April

• Irtijal Festival, Beirut, Lebanon
• Lublin Jazz Festival, Poland
• Kaleidophon Festival, Ulrichsberg, Austria

May 

• Freedom Of the City, Conway Hall, London
• Europajazz, Le Mans, France
• Angelica Festival, Bologna, Italy
• Ring Ring Festival, Belgrade, Serbia
• Cerkno Jazz Festival, Slovenia
• Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival, St. Petersburg Russia
• Victoriaville, Canada
• Sonore Festival, Brest, France
• Moers Festival, Germany
• MIA, Atouguia da Baleia, Portugal
• Uncool Festival, Valposchiavo, Switzerland

June

• Festival Jazz & Musique Improvisée en Franche Comté, Besançon and Doubs, France
• Jazzdor - Strasbourg - Berlin
• Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival, Montreal, Canada
• Okka Fest, Milwaukee, USA
• Ottawa Jazz Festival, Canada
• Potentiale Festival, Kalbe, Germany
• Vision Festival New York, USA

July 

• Warsaw Summer Jazz Days - Warsaw, Poland
• Sound Symposium, New Foundland
• Konfrontationen Festival, Nickelsdorf, Austria

August

• A L'ARME Festival, Berlin, Germany
• Dissidents Arts Festival, New York, USA
• Jazz Em Agosto, Lisbon, Portugal
• Meteo Festival, Mulhouse, France
• Jazzfestival Saalfelden, Austria
• Blow Out Festival, Oslo, Norway
• Summer Bummer Festival, Antwerp, Belgium

September

• Sant' Anna Arresi Jazz Festival, Sardinia, Italy
• Ujbuda Jazz Festival, Budapest, Hungary
• Guelph Jazz Festival, Canada
• Crosscurrents, New York, USA
• Free Essen Festival, Essen, Germany
• Instigationfestival.com, Chicago, USA

October

• Jazz and More Festival, Sibiu, Romania
• Autumn Jazz Festival, Cracow, Poland
• Out.Fest, Barreiro, Portugal
• Jazzmandu, Kathmandu, Nepal
• Skaņu Mežs Festival for Adventurous Music and Related Arts, Riga, Latvia
• EdgeFest, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

November

• Jazzfest Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• Music Unlimited Festival, Wels, Austria
• Umbrella Music Festival, Chicago, US
• November Music Festival, 's Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands

December 

• 577 Forward Festival, Brooklyn, NY
• dOeK festival, Amsterdam, Holland

-------------------------------------------------------------

Concert Series: 

• Bushwick Improvisers Collective Concert Series (Monday, New York City)
• ARTLITLAB, Wisconsin
• Downtown Music Gallery (Sunday, New York City)

© stef

Read More

Jim Lewis, Andrew Downing, Jean Martin - On A Short Path From Memory To Forgotten (Barnyard, 2010) ****

Regular readers know I'm a fan of trumpet trios, always on the look-out for new things with this line-up, and here is again a great new album to add to the list, this time coming from Canada, with Jim Lewis on trumpet, Andrew Downing on bass, and Jean Martin on drums and trumophone.

Their playing is everything you can expect from a young trio with this line-up : the improvised pieces are open, relatively accessible, with the jazz tradition shining through the surface of the avant-garde. Some tracks have a strong rhythmic base, giving the pieces a nice sense of swing, but the band can be equally minimalistic, creating intimate soundscapes with sparse notes, sometimes moving from one to the other in the same piece. Lewis has a broad range, yet he is stellar when his playing is slow and bluesy, with some real deep emotional power, as on "Six". Downing is as confident on arco as he is on pizzi, providing the strong rhythmic backbone in the more uptempo moments. Martin's percussive power is eloquent and versatile (although his trumophone does not sound very convincing). The nice thing about the album is that the three musicians play these improvisations so very relaxed, with a great sense of pace, and no sense of urgency, despite the relatively short length of the tracks. No pretense, no needless artsy stuff, but adventure full of confidence. I like it a lot!

Listen to "Fourteen".

Buy from Barnyard Records.


Watch the band as the first performance on this clip - don't miss William Parker later on the video!


© stef

Read More

Solo Piano

Solo piano albums, especially if they're abstract in nature, require real skills from the improvising artist to keep the listeners' ears glued to the music.It is not my favorite line-up, to be honest, yet if you listen to the following four releases, you can only admire the skills and the vision that lift this music far above the mediocre. Abstract music is rich, and can be emotionally compelling too. The demonstration is here.

Howard Riley - Solo In Vilnius (NoBusiness, 2010) ****

Howard Riley is relatively under-recorded as a solo artist, given that he has been playing avant-garde jazz since the early seventies, with names like Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Tony Oxley, Barry Guy, Trevor Watts, Elton Dean, Keith Tippett, to name but a few. On this double CD, recorded in the Saint Catherine's Church in Vilnius, Lithuania he plays his own compositions/improvisations, with additionally some covers of the standards "Round Midnight", "Misterioso" and "Yesterdays". Riley's playing is very openended, not spectacular or prone to dramatic effects, but is focused on careful development and further expansion of initial ideas. Even if open in spirit, his improvisations are quite controlled, never wild, never sweet or impressionistic, yet very lyrical and abstract. A rare combination.

Matthew Shipp - 4D (Thirsty Ear, 2010) ****

Those who have seen solo performances of Matthew Shipp will know that he likes to play standards once in a while, including "Frère Jacques", one of the most famous children's songs in the world. Though hard to believe, it took my wife a while to recognize the tune (actually I had to tell her what it was before she did recognize it), despite its obvious presence in Shipp's playing. The same goes with "Autumn Leaves", "Prelude To A Kiss", "What Is This Thing Called Love". He plays these pieces full of respect, but differently. He gets emotion and new musical elements, even little surprises out of these played-to-death-in-hotel-bars tunes, demonstrating that they are still full of life. The same holds true for his own compositions which start the album. He plays full of enthusiasm, full of ideas, full of lyricism, coming quite rapidly to the point, and all this with a playfulness that demonstrates both his pleasure in the music as in his instrument.


Geri Allen - Flying Toward The Sound (Motéma - 2010) ****

Another piano virtuoso is Geri Allen, who releases with "Flying Toward The Sound" one of her more abstract albums so far, dedicated to Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. As she comments on the liner notes : "These three pianists are foundational in terms of the modern piano. They informed my choices in abstract ways for this suite. It’s not like playing transcriptions; it’s more about refracting the admiration and love I have for them through my own muse, and letting the music reflect the ways they’ve influenced me through the years." But like Shipp, despite the abstract take at the music, she does not take herself so seriously. The joy and the jokes are still here, even if the music is very ambitious. Listen to her initial attack and sense of swing on "Dancing Mystic Poets@Twylight". And when the music is more expansive and meditative, it is rich with ideas and emotional depth.

Marc Hannaford - Polar (Extreme, 2009) ****

Probably least known of the pianists on this overview is Australian Marc Hannaford. I think he has received all the jazz awards possible down under, despite his young age, and he has already featured on this blog with the "Antripodean Collective". His first solo piano album shows us a guy with a vision : mixing rigidity with openness, sentiment with distance, the cerebral with emotion, playfulness with seriousness. He is not a jazz entertainer, he dives into the music itself and explores and expands from within. I don't think he cares about an audience per se, but that doesn't mean his music is not accessible: it is. But it is full of paradoxes and enigmas, avoiding the obvious, choosing for the austere and the beautiful, searching for the surprise in the lyricism, for the lightfootedness in the drama. Listen to his heavy left hand and his joyful right hand in "Genius And Emptiness". Most pieces are quite short, with the exception of the one mentioned and of "The Book Of Sand", possibly a reference to the Jose Luis Borges story with the same title. Like Borges, the music is self-contained, full of self-references. It is also beyond category : just improvised piano music. Yet very compelling. 



Watch Geri Allen on Youtube - for once a real good clip, actually part of the CD



Listen and watch Matthew Shipp solo on Youtube : another great quality clip.



© stef

Read More

The Claudia Quintet - Royal Toast (Cuneiform, 2010) ****½

The Claudia Quintet keeps exploring its own jazz subgenre, flirting with the cinematic, with prog rock, chamber music, classical influences and jazz, to make a great mixture of rhythmic, melodic and atmospheric delight, clever and subtle. The stellar band includes  leader John Hollenbeck on percussion, Ted Reichman on accordion, Chris Speed on clarinet and tenor saxophone, Matt Moran on vibes, Drew Gress on bass, and Gary Versace guest starring on piano. The latter's contribution to the overall sound is quite successful, adding his own nice touches as on the eery "Ideal Intro".

Every tune is a little compositional gem, full of unexpected twists and turns, strong forward motion, and long melodic lines, and tight arrangements. Interspersed among the composed pieces, there are four duels of musicians against themselves : "Ted versus Ted", "Drew with Drew", "Matt on Matt", and "Chris and Chris", short reactions on recorded improvisations, fun by themselves, and small fun interludes, but the real weight lies in the great gastronomical menu of tunes that Hollenbeck serves us : the food is fresh and rich, varied, with lots of ingredients, soft on the palate and easy to digest. Forget about the "toast" in the title. It all sounds simple, but it is not.

Even if the music is a little too controlled to my taste, it is of a rare level of sophistication, quality and class. Without a doubt the "quintet's" best so far.

Buy from Instantjazz.

© stef

Read More

Ken Vandermark & Paal Nilssen-Love - Milwaukee Volume (Smalltown Superjazz, 2010) *****

The fifth duo album between Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love may well be their best one. The two musicians find each other blindly for these three lengthy pieces, that vary between rhythmic funky improvisations, slower, more meditative moments and adventurous searches of new sounds. And needless to say, all this in one piece, switching easily from one mood to the other, from one mode to the other, without losing a sense of focus and musical coherence.

The first piece, on tenor, is intense, joyful, full of swing and drive, full of power and subtletly.  The second track shows a darker and more experimental side of both musicians, yet the power picks up again on the third piece, with long circular breathing on baritone sax, with Vandermark's sound evolving in some of the strongest volumes that you can get out of it, filling the entire available space, then the thing collapses for some heartrending cries, propulsed into full agony by Nilssen-Love's rhythmic thunderstorm, worthy of the mighty Thor, the ancient Norwegian god, but of course after the storm everything becomes quiet again, yet equally full of tension, maybe because it is the calm before the next storm ... to be heard on the next album, for sure.

You hear two musicians full of confidence in themselves and each other, moving into every possible musical region together, in perfect symbiosis, with the pleasure of playing dripping from every note, from every beat.

Don't miss it.

Buy from Instantjazz.

© stef

Read More

Trombones ....

Paul Rutherford - Tetralogy (Emanem, 2009) ***½

Last year Emanem released new material by the late trombonist Paul Rutherford, an artist who had been instrumental in creating and shaping the European free improv scene. The album consists of four quite distinct performances. It starts with "Elesol", three tracks for solo trombone and electronics, a kind of experiment and not really successful in my opinion. This is followed by two pieces for horn quartet, with George Lewis on trombone, Martin Mayes on French horn, and Melvyn Poore on tuba. The four men make their improvisations vary between solemn lyricism and wild intensity, with the former being the dominant one.

The second CD starts with three lengthy pieces for solo trombone, and to me these are the highlight of the album, showing the trombonist's richness of voice and experimental power. The last three pieces are a trio performance with Paul Rogers on double bass and Nigel Morris on drums. An interesting album for fans of Rutherford. The non-electronic solo performance and the brass quartet alone would have made a great record. Now, it sounds more like a collection, rather than a unified listening experience.

The Astronomical Unit - Relativity (Jazzwerkstatt, 2010) ****

Without a doubt a great fan of Rutherford, German trombonist Matthias Müller, in a cohesive trio format with Clayton Thomas on bass and Christian Marien on drums, takes the learnings of the great Brit into outer space. In four fully improvised pieces, the trio leads us on our interstellar journey, and it is quite an interesting one: it is one in which surprise and wonder reign. The notes are sparse and intense, the interaction telepathic and warm, moving quite well together, forward all the time.The sounds they create are minute, precise, full of new textures and shades of colors, unhurried, calm yet resolute. It does not have the raw energy of the duo albums of Müller and Marien, but the end result is even stronger. You will need open ears for this one, but you will not be disappointed. A truly powerful album.


Gail Brand & Mark Sanders - Instinct & The Body (Regardless, 2009) ***½

Equally adventurous, although much more direct and immediate in its expressivity is this CD by Gail Brand on trombone and Mark Sanders on drums. Both Brand and Sanders are well-known artists of the British free improv scene. Together they create this very intense, raw, violent, sensitive and subtle interplay of bouncing notes and crashing percussion, shifting between velvety and abrasive sounds. As the liner notes say : "ten years or more of laughing, crying, shouting, listening, uprooting, settling, coming and going, and improvising      it's all in the music". And that's an adequate description.

Watch Brand and Sanders on Youtube.




© stef

Read More

Nate Wooley & Paul Lytton - Creak Above 33 (Psi Recordings, 2010) ****

Three years after their debut on Broken Research, trumpeter Nate Wooley and percussionist Paul Lytton release a second album. This is the kind of "music" that puts all definitions of the term into question. The trumpet doesn't sound like a trumpet, the percussion doesn't sound like percussion. Both musicians, both artists try to find a common language, one that surpasses the limitations of their instruments. Hence the trumpet's voice dissappears into long whispering sounds, or short bursts, hence the percussion does not offer a beat or a rhythm, yet more often than not conjures up long screeching sounds, or even whispering sounds too, coming close to the trumpet. The dialogue is minute, very abstract, yet also incredibly intense. This is all about listening, and making sure that the dialogue becomes possible over and above the differences.

Music can be defined as "organised sound", but here you can even question the "organisation" part of it, since the dialogue evolves in a quite organic, open way, without any preconceptions.
It is only on the last piece that both instruments fall back on their more known voice, and the intensity only increases through it, what was implicit becomes explicit, what was happening under and around the silence, now breaks through it, but only for a while, the voices are muted again, the intensity maintained, the silence gaining in momentum and power.
Open ears are required for this intense adventure.

© stef

Read More

Amir ElSaffar & Hafez Modirzadeh - Radif Suite (Pi Recordings, 2010) ****

Amir ElSaffar is an Iraqi trumpeter, here joining forces with Iranian saxophonist Hafez Modirzadey, assisted by the great rhythm section of Mark Dresser on bass and Alex Cline on drums. In contrast to both ElSaffar's and Modirzadeh's previous albums, it would be hard to call this "world jazz". "Radif Suite" is jazz in every aspect of the music, while at the same time opening new melodic and rhythmic possibilities of the Arabic and Persian music, but it's not a fusion, or even a blending of genres, as on El Saffar's previous album "Two Rivers", or Modirzadeh's "People's Blues", two albums that are easy to recommend. The two real exceptions to that comment are ElSaffar's "Awj/Ancestral Memory", which is a partly sung in Arabic, full of spirituality, with the sax and trumpet taking over, with the same strong microtonal inflections, and the closing track "All Said And Done".

The album is built around two suites, the first, “Radif-e Kayhan” written by Modirzadeh, and the second, “Copper Suite”, by ElSaffar.

Especially in Modirzadeh's writing, you can hear Monk, Ornette Coleman, and the blues, all this with a quite open rhythmic structure, with once in a while maybe too strong emphases, or tracks leading to somewhat predictable (and not really relevant) themes. ElSaffar's compositions are even more open, more built around texture and sound than theme and structure, with the exception of the more boppish "Bird Of Prey". Both musicians are also excellent instrumentalists, demonstrating the power of pushing their horns beyond the traditional jazz sounds.

A great album by two composers who clearly deserve more attention.

Read more and listen to excerpts on Pi Recordings.


© stef

Read More