Okkyung Lee - Ghil (Editions Mego, 2013) ****½

By Stef

It isn't noise, it's something else, growing from the inside, something incredibly physical and emotional at the same time, like extreme bodily tension and nervous stress mutually reinforcing each other, with strings tight as tendons, muscles wired by the electrical discharges of neurons, full of anger and confusion, it's visceral and intense, hoping somehow for relief yet there is only one alternative, to build up more energy and more hypnotic dynamics of raw abrasiveness, of making bow and strings collide and tear and fight to express the thing that cannot be explained, that cannot be understood even, yet that needs to be said and brought out in the open, through wood and guts and hairs in fierce contempt for all that came before, giving birth to sounds that never touched air and ears before, like yawns and rumbles and shouts, screams and whispers, powerful and soft at the same time, fingers hammering and carressing, ....

.... in sum, she pushes herself and her instrument to the extreme, like the Jimi Hendrix of the cello, reinventing the instrument and its language.

An incredible statement, so radical that you either love it or hate it, but next time you'll listen to other conntemporary cellists, like Ernst Reijseger, or Erik Friedlander, or Vincent Courtois, or Daniel Levin, or even Fred Lonberg-Holm, you risk to find them too tender and traditional ....

Listen to "Meolly Ganeun", one of my favorite tracks on the LP.

 

Available at instantjazz.com.

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Pauline Oliveros – Solo Concert 2001 (Deep Listening, 2012) ****½

By Tom Burris

I forgot how to listen to Pauline Oliveros.  First of all, this recording is exactly what you think it is.  It's Pauline, droning on the accordion unaccompanied.  Initially, I put it on and started making some notes.  Horrible notes.  The first thing I jotted down was “Debussy colors, Feldman spaces.”  Okay, feeling the impressionistic vibe at the beginning...  Then as I started thinking I was going with the flow, I wrote “Static in motion.  Blinking (anti-)polka dots.”  Oh, cutesy faux cleverness is so much more important than actually listening to the music you're supposed to be reviewing...  It got worse.  I'll spare you the details, but it ended with an accidental (I swear!) haiku of pretentious awfulness that said “slow moving box cars move / across the fields at night / under Rothko skies.”

I forgot how to listen to Pauline Oliveros!  I forgot for the first half of this disc – and then it happened.  Any visualization I had, any thought that could be explained with the written or spoken word, any distraction at all from the sound of notes and chords being played left my mind completely.  It was just the music.  I wasn't even there!  In that moment of ego-less samadhi, time stood still and the only thing in existence was the gently surprising music of Oliveros' lone accordion. 

The disc lasts 51 minutes.  The first 25 minutes felt like an hour.  The last 26 felt like five minutes.  Then I went back and played the entire disc again.  The second time the entire thing seemed to take about five minutes.

This music is not about the sound or the notes.  The music itself isn't the most important thing about this recording – or most of Oliveros' recordings.  It's all about the listening experience itself.  This music serves the highest purpose of any music you will likely encounter.  For 51 minutes, you cease to exist as a human being – as you become music yourself. 

Leave your thoughts at the door and give your mind a good cleaning.  Learn to receive this music as the priceless gift it is.  It's worth every ounce of effort.

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Nate Wooley Sextet - (Sit In) The Throne Of Friendship (Clean Feed, 2013) ****½

By Stef

Music fans who are familiar with Nate Wooley's latest releases will be surprised to hear the other side of the trumpeter's musical vision, one that is less focused on sound and technique, but more on composition and arrangements, and with equal success I must say.

The band is actually an extension of Wooley's quintet that released "(Put Your) Hands Together", with tuba-player Dan Peck as the new member, next to Wooley on trumpet, Josh Sinton on bass clarinet and baritone saxophone, Matt Moran on vibes, Eivind Opsvik on bass, and Harris Eisenstadt on drums.

The music is as inventive and varied as on the first album, yet taking even a step further, making it more memorable in that sense, maybe more complex, more compelling, with solos that just go a notch deeper and stronger, in such a way that you want to listen again and again, because even if all sounds are quite easy to get into, and are welcoming and warm from the first listen, the compositions and arrangements develop in unpredictable ways, with lots of tempo and rhythm changes within each track, making it an almost mandatory gesture to push on the start button again, just to make sure you understood what was happening, and especially how it all fits together and how it works out so nicely.

The album opens with the magnificent theme of "Old Man On The Farm", so beautiful and moving, that you wonder whether this is truly Wooley you're listening to, but then the theme collapses in absolute free improvisation with great duets between trumpet and bass clarinet, spiralling upwards, in absolute frenzy, then move back into the unison theme with Swiss clock precision.

The album also gives us a grand tour of jazz history, with boppish moments as on the second track, "Make Your Friend Feel Loved", on which Dan Peck plays a lead role, with deep intro growls from his tuba gradually picking up rhythm, Eisenstadt and Moran joining soon, then Wooley Sinton Opsvik bring the theme, things change into hesitant stalling chords, going nowhere at all like a track stand in cycling, full of built-up tension, only to be released by a boppish "walking tuba" underpinning for a great solo by Wooley, full of joy and anger at the same time, things come to a halt again, the theme resurfaces and Sinton shouts through his baritone for his solo part.

"The Berries" offers Moran the stage for a long solo moment in between a jubliant unison theme that is fun although somewhat too mellow for my taste.

Things get better again with "Plow", with odd thematic counterpoints as beacons in an otherwise open-ended structure, with solos for Opsvik  in the first part, and some weird trialogue between trumpet, vibes and bass clarinet in the second.

"Executive Suites" is a strange animal, with changing themes, rhythms and moods even, varying between funny and solemn, with complex arrangements and sudden surprises.

"My Story My Story" is a melancholy piece that starts rhythm-less with muted trumpet tones over slow vibes which sound like church bells in the distance, and with bass and tuba adding darkness in the lower tones, over slowly changing ascending chord changes, then halfway an explicit slow blues emerges with Wooley unmuting his horn, playing some astonishing fully voiced multiphonics, then sounding like Lester Bowie in "The Great Pretender", heartrending and deeply emotional.

"Sweet And Sad Consistency", has a contemplative beginning which evolves into a stomping uptempo 7/8 juggernaut with Sinton blowing some hair-raising howls out of his baritone sax, in stark contrast to Wooley's warm introduction, while bass and drums are more of the headbanging kind, but when the band is at full throttle, the thing stops for some side conversation of the low volume kind, all this in sharp contradiction with the track's title.

The album ends with "A Million Billion BTUs", a composition built around several themes, one more sweeping, the other interestingly accelerating, with changes of tempo throughout and great solo space for Wooley, Sinton and Moran.

So, now listen to this album, and again and again. To describe it in a few words is hard, as you can understand from the above, but here is a try : a warm and heartfelt album, full of inventive compositions, building on various elements of jazz tradition, yet moving it a step further into the future, performed with superb musicianship and equally warm and tight interplay.

Play it again!


You can find a copy at instantjazz.com.

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Mark Dresser - Nourishments (Clean Feed, 2013) ****

By Paul Acquaro

In a very recent interview with Avant Music News, bandleader and composer Mark Dresser explains that the origins of his new album Nourishments began with a musical / culinary exchange between Chef Paul Canales and one of Dresser's groups, Trio M, that included concerts with Canales cooking for the audience for between-set-dining.

Suffice to say, Nourishments kicks off in a most fulfilling manner. Melody, rhythm, and harmony are all a part of the spread, and with Denman Maroney at piano, Michael Dessen on trombone, Michael Sarin on drums, Rudresh Mahanthappa on sax, and Tom Rainey on drums, at the table, you know the conversation is going to be good!

The opening track, 'Not Withstanding', is an uptempo modern jazz composition that feels at once comfortable but never predictable. There is plenty of edgy playing to grab and challenge the listener, but at the same time, the solos, melodies, rhythms play off of accessible patterns. A hint of prepared piano adds some spice as well. Track three 'Para Waltz' begins with the muted piano and Rainey providing atmospheric percussion, and when Dresser comes in, a delicate ballad starts evolving. Enticing harmonies carry a theme that moves unhurriedly along, with solo voices rising and receding in the flow. Dresser's bass solo is incredibly tasty, employing a certain extended technique to give his sound a metallic edge, adding the sour to the sweet. However, it's the title track -- the main course, if I may -- that is the most delectable. Evoking a Latin feel, the catchy rhythmic qualities play against the melodies inviting, and when the two horns play swirling melodic solos at the same time, it stretches the ears far and wide.

Nourishments is an excellent acoustic jazz album that skirts modern and free jazz, hitting all the right notes.


Check out the group from a Vision Festival appearance a couple years back ... it's a bit more aggressive than the album here, but just as captivating:

You can find a copy at instantjazz.com.

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Mario Pavone – Arc Trio (Playscape, 2013) ****½

By Troy Dostert

On this terrific piano trio record, veteran bassist Mario Pavone unites with pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver for a live outing from Greenwich Village, allowing us to gain a fascinating glimpse into the levels of musical collaboration possible between three masters of their respective instruments.

The album leads off with the powerhouse “Andrew,” with an infectious groove from Pavone developed in sharp rapport with Cleaver.  Pavone has cited Andrew Hill’s Smokestack as an inspiration for the album, and it’s not hard to hear that influence on the opening cut, as Pavone and Cleaver echo the chemistry on Hill’s record between bassists Richard Davis and Eddie Khan and the propulsive drum work of Roy Haynes.  And Taborn is also in top form on this track, with some dazzling two-handed piano runs and, even more fundamentally, an irrepressible rhythmic quality to his playing which only intensifies the groove.  When he locks in with Pavone and Cleaver at the 3:15 mark, generating an array of percussive bursts, the effect is intoxicating.  The only drawback to the track is that we don’t get to hear a proper ending to it, as it fades off on the recording.

The rest of the tracks are similarly superb, albeit somewhat more cerebral and abstract.  “Eyto,” the second cut, is built around a challenging rhythmic figure that eventually settles into another well-defined groove, providing an ideal vehicle for Taborn’s explorations.  Cleaver is the real star of the show on this one, as he manages brilliantly to remain both in the groove and outside it at the same time, offering enough flexibility to allow Pavone and Taborn to range freely as they see fit while still staying in conversation.  “Not Five Kimono,” the longest track, is a slow cooker, building simmering intensity as Taborn uses insistent repeating chords in the left hand while offering a variety of subtle statements on the melody with his right.  And Pavone gets plenty of opportunities to shine throughout the record as well: witness the way in which he uses rapid-fire staccato punctuation to accompany Taborn’s lightning-quick passages on “Box in Orange,” all the while staying in sync with Cleaver’s constant pulse; or the way he shadows Taborn on the sixth track, “Alban Berg,” providing running commentary on Taborn’s ideas that is unfailingly intelligent and creative.

In addition to its many other virtues, it’s a well-recorded album too, as we’ve come to expect from the folks at Playscape.  Indeed, although it’s a live record, the crowd isn’t heavy in the mix, which almost makes it feel like a studio recording at times.  Part of this is due to the precision of the players, who are so attuned to each other’s moves that they must have seemed to be the only people in the room.  But that’s all to the good, as the results are so consistently stimulating and inventive.  All in all, this is a great reminder that the piano trio format, in the right hands, is still one of jazz’s most exciting contexts for creative improvisation.

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Caspar Brötzmann/Marino Pliakas/Michael Wertmüller - Nohome (Trost, 2013) ****

By Martin Schray

When I think of Caspar Brötzmann there are always two things that pop in my mind: a short article in the German SPEX magazine including the phrase: “When Jimi Hendrix died Caspar Brötzmann was there and ate up his body”; and Jens, a friend of mine, who was at a concert of Brötzmann’s band Massaker in the 1990s with me and who was terrified and apparently tortured by their brute force, stammering: “This must be the soundtrack for the bombing of Sarajevo”.

And there is some truth in both statements indeed. Brötzmann is deeply influenced by Hendrix, in a way that he even plays a left-handed Fender Stratocaster (although he is right-handed) and that his sound is an art-metal variation of Hendrix’ Woodstock version of “Star Spangled Banner” – which brings us to my friend’s quotation since Hendrix then had deconstructed the American national anthem by imitating and integrating sounds of war.

Brötzmann goes even further and creates an atmosphere of enormous brutality but also of  breath-taking energy and strange, fascinating beauty with his guitar. The band’s wall of noise reminds of Napalm bombs detonating, jets overhead, air-raid warnings, buildings crumbling down, even the cries of humans in pain.

The album consists of four tracks, simply titled “One” to “Four”, and it presents a consistently conjugated set of the above mentioned elements in which the musicians (the rhythm section are Full Blast’s Marino Pliakas on bass guitar and Michael Wertmüller on drums) succeed in building up an almost monstrous, intimidating soundscape which smothers the listener with excessive drones.

Compared to his old band Massaker, Nohome is even more refined. Pliakas’s distorted bass does not only deliver a magnetic pulse but also serves as some kind of rhythm guitar, while Wertmüller’s drums are a constant barrage and therefore an ideal background for Brötzmann’s feedback orgies. His guitar howls and screams in sheer torment, apparently deeply hurt, as if it has seen the bottom of an abyss, the heart of darkness, the hell of war.

Of course this is not jazz, it is rather free rock in the tradition of Sunn O))) or experimental Sonic Youth stuff.

Caspar Brötzmann has slipped of my radar working for theatre productions in the past few years, it’s good to know that he is back (there are also rumors about a new Massaker album).
Play it loud, of course.

Listen to them here:

You can buy the album from the label: http://www.trost.at/label/releases/

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Looper - Matter (MonotypeRec, 2013) ****½

Reviewed by Joe

Ingar Zach, Martin Küchen and Nikos Veliotis make up the trio known as Looper. If I've read correctly this is their 4th album together - which includes an album in collaboration with UK pianist John Tilbury. To call this music understated would be an understatement! Being very minimal I ended up listening on headphones to make sure that I was indeed listening to the record, and not the ambient sounds around me. It is certainly a music which needs your whole attention, probaby the perfect record for very early in the morning, or last thing at night when surrounding world sound is at its lowest. 

Minimal music (*) such as this is always an interesting listen I find. The musicians create an intimate sound world that needs attention, a little like someone who speaks softly whilst explaining something, it would be interesting to hear/see how music such as this works live. The detail the three musicians put into each piece is fascinating, and also very delicate. Although it's difficult to pin-point exact instruments Ingar Zach's soft bass drum, or the fluttering of Küchen's saxophone pads clearly come through from time to time. The cello of Nikos Veliotis like his role in the drone string trio of "Mohammed" is somewhere within the sound of the ensemble, but trying to identify it may be more difficult. On "In Flamen" (tk2) I found myself comparing the sound of the trio to that echoing through the corridors and passages of the London Underground, a sort of fully realised ambient live performance. Everything is slightly blurred, yet you clearly hear all the details.  

Another very interesting point in the music is the amount of rhythmical detail the trio creates. Track three "Alignment", like "Slow" (tk1), uses very subtle - I guess - saxophone key noise to create a sort of clickerty-clack (not unlike a train track) helping the music have a sort of subliminal rhythm. The only piece on the record that is louder than a whisper is the last piece, a sort of electronic drone "Our Meal" (tk4). Here, sounding like an oscillator orchestra, you get different frequencies rubbing together to create a crescendo. We hear the sounds of overblown sax, bowed/rubbed glasses, percussion clicks, cymbal sounds and ..?.. all played and mixed into a highly charged industrial soundscape. This final piece is well placed after all the delicate sounds beforehand, releasing the listener from the previous pieces which have up until now been like listening to the delicate sound of snow falling in the night.

Highly recommended!

p.s. Released on a vinyl LP, and you can find a copy at instantjazz.com.  

*= As an example check out Another Timbre's catalogue for an excellent representation of what you can do with modern minimalism.

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Kirk Knuffke and Ted Brown – Pound Cake (Steeplechase, 2012) ***½

By Troy Dostert

It seems that cornetist Kirk Knuffke, in addition to his many more adventurous projects, has made it his personal mission to document a good deal of the jazz tradition as well, through an ongoing set of recordings with SteepleChase.  (See the reviews on this site of his “tribute” discs with Jesse Stacken: his Mingus record, Orange Was the Color, and his Like a Tree, which includes compositions by Carla Bley, Ornette Coleman, and Misha Mengelberg.  Although unlike those other discs this one includes some originals, some of the standout tracks are the jazz standards, which include Lester Young’s “Pound Cake” and Don Redman’s “Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to You.”  Considered collectively, these albums aren’t destined to become Free Jazz Blog classics, as they’re considerably more mainstream than the majority of recordings we review. Nevertheless, they’re still quite compelling in their own right, as Knuffke manages to infuse them with enough energy and creativity to avoid having them become staid repertory exercises.

It helps that he has such talented bandmates: in this case, his senior partner Ted Brown, a longtime “cool”-styled tenor saxophonist who has recorded with Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz; bassist John Hébert; and drummer Matt Wilson, like Knuffke also a veteran of both outside and inside recording sessions.  Each offers his distinctive voice as an essential part of the collective whole.  Brown has a restrained yet self-assured tone, and his studied explorations of these tunes, including a number of his own originals, are consistently interesting.  Hébert can generate a nice swinging bass line when he needs to, but he’s also able to open things up a bit, using more space in his playing to give the others room to work.  Wilson is right there with him in this regard, as he can provide some punch when it’s called for, but he is typically willing to limit himself to occasional light snare and cymbal accents so as not to overwhelm the proceedings, especially on the quieter tracks.

For his part, Knuffke shows himself to be a virtuosic presence, ranging from impressive flurries of notes (particularly on the title track) to more careful, measured passages that are more subtle and spare.  While his technique is remarkable, he always manages to put it in the service of the music as a whole, and he’s particularly sensitive when joining in with Brown, as the two engage in some thoughtful interaction on a few of the tracks—a great example being “Swivel,” one of the two Knuffke compositions on the record, in which the two horns intertwine nicely during the last third of the tune.

Every now and then it’s good to hear a well-played mainstream record that does justice to the ongoing vitality of the jazz tradition, and this certainly qualifies.  I’m not at all sure how Knuffke manages to find time for all his varied projects, but this is a worthy one.

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John Zorn/Thurston Moore - @ (Tzadik, 2013) ****½

By Martin Schray

It is strange to write a review on an album by John Zorn and Thurston Moore shortly after Lou Reed has passed away*, all the more because the opening chord of “Jazz Laundromat”, the second track on this album, reminds me of “Venus in Furs”, my favorite Velvet Underground song. In general, the music of Velvet Underground, John Zorn (particularly Naked City) and Sonic Youth has always been like a New York soundtrack for me, and when I heard that Zorn and Moore planned to release an album I was really excited.

"@" actually is the first album of these two prominent figures of New York’s downtown scene, it’s a studio recording of duo improvisations - and let’s be frank: it is absolutely fantastic.

The album is bookended by two excellent pieces: “6th Floor Walk-up Waiting”, a twelve-minute-monster, which starts with Moore’s heavy, fragmented guitar explosions and Zorn’s typical angry saxophone screeches. It’s an emotional and musical rollercoaster ride in which both accelerate and slow down their intensity again and again. After a lot of feedback and guitar staccato hammering Zorn makes a U-turn and plays incredibly beautiful lines, as if another musician had joined the duo. Moore follows him with reverberating chords, creating an electrified wall of sound.  The last track, “For Derek and Evan”, on which both actually pay tribute to Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, maybe the most legendary guitar-sax duo in free jazz (interestingly enough Zorn worked with Bailey** and William Parker on the marvelous “Harras” album and Moore with Evan Parker and Walter Prati on “The Promise”), is equally great. At the beginning Zorn refers to Parker’s extensive techniques and Moore to Bailey’s flageolets before they slightly shift the piece with guitar tremolos and saxophone shrieks so that it becomes their own track.

In between – almost hidden – there are two more gems: “Her Sheets” is a real ballad with Zorn playing cool jazz lines while Moore delivers the edgy background. It is music for a New York film noir that takes place at 5 a.m. and in which the camera follows an exhausted protagonist walking through a deserted Lower East Side. “Strange Neighbor” also has balladesque moments but Moore’s guitar sound rather reminds of scratches, creepy cawing, drilling or distant howling, which creates a Kafkaesque atmosphere.

I guess Lou Reed would have liked this music if he had heard it, its abrasiveness, its harshness, its elegance, its sound, its diversity, its beauty (including the fact that it makes you feel uncomfortable sometimes) and because it is on the threshold of pain sometimes. He would have played it loud so that every tone could cut like a knife through flesh.

Enjoy!

* John Zorn has worked with Reed before and has expressed his grief via facebook.
    Zorn actually has no facebook site run by him but there is one which is approved by him
**Zorn also worked with Bailey on “Yankees” (with George Lewis) and on “Improvised Music 1981” (with Laswell, Frith, Sharrock, Noyes) and “Company 91”.

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Angles 9 – In Our Midst (Clean Feed, 2013) ****

By Dan Sorrells

One of last year’s highlights was Angles 8’s sprawling By Way of Deception, an album that introduced an expanded line-up and featured liner notes by Free Jazz blog founder Stef Gijssels. After two previous releases on Clean Feed, By Way of Deception showed that there was still room for bandleader Martin Küchen’s vision to grow, with pianist Alexander Zethson greatly expanding the group’s rhythmic foundation, and Eirik Hegdal’s additional saxophone further broadening the band’s sonic palette.

On Clean Feed’s latest venture into the LP resurgence, Angles has expanded yet again, adding trumpeter Magnus Broo back into the fold after his absence on By Way of Deception. (It should be noted the band has grown even more since this recording, appearing at Jazzfestival Saalfelden this summer as a 10-piece with an additional drummer). A single LP, In Our Midst feels like a quick update, an intermediate document that serves as a snapshot of the band as it continues to evolve.

In Our Midst opens with a new eponymous track, a smoldering piece that builds a typically wistful melodic theme over slow-motion afrobeat rhythms. Angles’ music has always been deceptively simple and completely unsubtle at first blush. In reality, it’s meticulously crafted, emotive music that’s continually reborn as the musicians explore the possibilities in songs they have become intimately familiar with (Küchen doesn’t write anything down—the group learns and internalizes the music through Küchen’s demonstrations). Angles has in spades what many improvising groups have trouble conjuring: visceral emotional impact. It’s a music that aims to deliver to the listener even the smallest notion of its creator’s incredible passion. Huge rhythmsand dulcet counterpoint, playfulness and humor juxtaposed with plaintive melody, the fact that all of their albums have been live concert recordings: all of these serve as direct conduits of music-making passion. An Angles tune is designed to elevate musician and listener together to a shared, ecstatic plane. Foremost, it is a music of feeling.

One of the many pleasures of following Angles over the years has also been hearing the wayKüchen’s pieces have developed along with the band. The overlap in tunes on previous albums continues here: In Our Midst’s other offerings include “Every Woman is a Tree” from their debut, and the title track from last year’s By Way of Deception. “Every Woman is a Tree” has a fairly standard jazz tune structure, and has served as one of few vehicles for extended soloing by Küchen. Here, it takes on an all-new intensity, beginning with an angular piano vamp before ramping up to the head. The band now has many more possibilities behind the long solo in the mid-section: first, a monstrous bearing-down on the hypnotic beat; then multi-octave rephrasings of the main theme; finally, out-and-out improvised mayhem. The song sounds more urgent and cathartic than ever before. Similarly, “By Way of Deception” feels far more primal, the band muscling through the first portion of the song like brutes on a rampage.

On one level, you could say In Our Midst is more of the same from Angles. To my mind, that will continue to be a reason to get excited. But it’s a sentiment that oversimplifies: these songs may be familiar, but like the very best musical acts, Angles makes them feel new each time they’re heard.

Check out video from the same performance featured on In Our Midst:

You can find a copy at instantjazz.com.

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