Sax trios on Ayler Records

The French label Sans Bruit started a collaboration with the Swedish Ayler Records, resulting in two excellent French sax trios, and as usual on Ayler, great live performances.

Abdelhaï Bennani - There Starts The Future (Ayler, 2008) ****½

I had once heard Abdelhaï Bennani's "Ensounded" record, and qualified it maybe too fast as good but not more than that, but after listening to this performance, I may have to go back and revise my opinion. The trio conists of the leader on tenor, Benjamin Duboc on bass and Edward Perraud on drums. From the very beginning Bennani sets the scene by playing very intense, almost agonizing tones, in short bursts and wails, creating openness and tension at the same time. Duboc reacts well, both pizzi and arco, and Perraud joins with a very implicit rhythm, keeping the tempo yet playing assymmetrically, now on the toms, then on the cymbals, some rolls and a rimshot. The music hesitates, tries to move forward, perplexed and in full suprise, yet it moves on, and as a listener you would expect a moment of release, a moment when the thing explodes into unrestrained hitting, plucking and blowing. You can wait for nearly 30 minutes on that first track, but that release does not come, you stay in this little sound universe the trio has created for you : intense, open, hesitating, agonizing. That doesn't mean that nothing happens, quite on the contrary, the story they tell is an interesting and captivating one, there are variations, in Bennani's tone, in some sudden walking bass and tempo increase, but it just will not give that moment of release, before you know it, they're back in their small universe, as a trio, for a bass solo, for some powerfully subtle drum beats. The second track starts more uptempo, yet don't expect themes or patterns, Bennani keeps uttering his highly sensitive squeals, and then it evolves into slowness, with little sounds produced by the three instruments, apparently only there as boundaries for silence and open space, yet the slower they play, the less sounds you hear, the higher the intensity. You get the feeling that some huge thing is trying to get out, emotionally overpowering and potentially explosive, yet it doesn't, it's duly chained within this trio's sound universe, making the story even more compelling. And that's the amazing paradox of this trio : how free improvisation can create such a powerful feeling of confinement and restraint (whether deliberate or not). A great listening experience for those with open ears.

Didier Lasserre Trio - Live At L'Atelier Tampon (Ayler Records, 2008) ***½

The second album brings us a trio consisting of Didier Lasserre on drums, Sylvain Guérineau on alto, Jean Rougier on bass and reed flutes. The performance is built up of four long tracks of free improvisations by these three excellent musicians. The music is warmer than Bennani's, more jazzy in its overall sound, yet as free as it gets. Yet despite the tracks are only half as long as on Bennani's, there is also a little less focus in the improvisations, despite the intensity and the adventurousness. The best track is 18 minute long "La Tregua", on which Guérineau's playing is quite emotional and the overall progress of the trio's interaction more coherent. The sound quality is not superb, it all sounds as if you're listening from a distance, but the enthusiasm of the small audience, their spontaneous reactions and applause make up for it. A nice performance.

Download or buy from Ayler Records.

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Even more ECM on eMusic

Sorry to become boring, but today there is even more material available for download at eMusic from ECM (unfortunately only in Europe, from what I understand).

(It also remains a mystery how eMusic can make the mistakes they make about the artist who released the album. Half the albums are wrong, so be careful when you browse through their site. Only trust the cover of the album).

Other great albums include :

Carla Bley - Escalator Over The Hill (a masterpiece)
Keith Jarrett - Nude Ants (with the European quartet)
Keith Jarrett Standards Trio (quite a lot)
Charles Lloyd - Sangam (a great and unusual trio)
Shankar - Vision (powerful music with Garbarek and Mikkelborg)
Louis Sclavis - L'Imparfait Des Langues (great blend of styles)
Tomasz Stanko - Litania (melancholy and superb music)
David Torn - Prezens (great avant fusion)
Anouar Brahem - Astrakan Café (world music)

Not to mention John Surman, Paul Bley, The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Marilyn Crispell, Dave Holland, Bobo Stenson, Eberhard Weber, and all these other great jazz musicians typical of the ECM catalogue, as well as the younger generation, with Trygve Seim, Frode Haltli, Tord Gustavsen, Nik Bärtsch, ...

But one of my favorite bands is still Old & New Dreams, whose "Playing" is also available for download. Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell and Dewey Redman, basically the traditional Ornette Coleman Quartet, minus Coleman and plus Redman (or the quintet minus Coleman). They play Coleman's music, and how! This music is playful (thanks to Cherry), spiritual, deep, highly rhythmic, full of emotion and wonderful interplay. With great tunes such as Coleman's "Happy House" and "Broken Shadows", and Cherry's "Mopti". One of my lonely island picks.

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ECM - now on eMusic.

Some people could think that I'm paid by eMusic to promote their download business, but trust me, that is unfortunately not the case. Just for your information, eMusic now has a quite substantial number of the ECM catalogue available for download, including many of the Keith Jarrett trio recordings with Peacock and DeJohnette. Regardless of this great service, the people at eMusic are most of the time wrong with the name of the artist, as they are also very often with the indication of the musical genre (sometimes not able to tell the difference between jazz and punk, between easy listening and avant-garde).

ECM brought me to jazz, mainly through Abercrombie, Jarrett, Rypdal and Garbarek. And in a way ECM also made me appreciate my then girlfriend, now wife, so many years ago, who had this album by Chick Corea, Dave Holland & Barry Altschul, called A.R.C., an interesting avant-garde piano trio for a 18-year old to have, and which she liked. At that age, that was exceptional (and she still is!). In a way, ECM was instrumental to get me hooked to my wife (but pleae don't tell her, and don't tell ECM).

These are some of my favorite ECM albums that are now available for download :

Keith Jarrett - Eyes Of The Heart (the great American quartet!)
Keith Jarrett - The Survivor's Suite (brilliant, an absolute masterpiece)
Charlie Haden - The Ballad Of The Fallen (another masterpiece)
Terje Rypdal - Oddissey (catalogued underBrynjulf Blix) (a fantastic album)
Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous, Jack DeJohnette (great)
Don Cherry & Ed Blackwell - El Corazon (my favorite musician in the simplest possible dynamic format)
John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette - Gateway (great)
Anouar Brahem, John Surman, Dave Holland - Thimar (world music by great musicians)
Anouar Brahem -Conte De L'Incroyable Amour (a masterpiece of sensitive world music)
Jack DeJohnette - New Directions (under Eddie Gomez) (an underrated album introduced me to free music, all brilliant musicans and great music, with Lester Bowie and John Abercrombie)
Egberto Gismonti - Solo (the master of the 8-string guitar, and a wonderful composer)
Old & New Dreams - Old & New Dreams (WOW! absolutely essential!)
Jan Garbarek - Ragas & Sagas (mister cold & icy meets warmth)
Rabih Abou-Khalil - Nafas (world music, among the best)
Nils Petter Molvaer - Solid Ether (Nu jazz, among the best)
David Torn - Cloud About Mercury (daring adventure into new musical realms)
Jan Garbarek, Egberto Gismonti, Charlie Haden - Magico, Folk Songs (two great chamber jazz/world jazz albums)

I can recommend all of the above, yet I haven't heard all of the albums now made available. There still might be some treasures to find here.

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Ben Stapp - Ecstasis (Uqbar, 2008) ****

The tuba is such an usual instrument in jazz, that the kind of music that it plays (or what it is selected for), often brings a combination of playfulness, rhythmic power and world music. Maybe I am a little bit too influenced in my judgment by Michel Godard's presence on many Rabih Abou-Khalil records, but also by the excellent Trio Bravo and Trio Grande, both consisting of Michel Massot on tuba, Michel Dubrulle on drums, and with on the former Fabrizio Cassol on sax and on the latter Laurent Dehors. At least they're almost all called Michel ...

Now there's this excellent trio, led by tuba-player Ben Stapp, with Tony Malaby on sax and Satoshi Takeishi on drums. The music is melodic (and how!), fun, rhythmic (and how!), with themes often in non-western scales, mixing tight composition with improvisation. After several listens to this album, it is hard to believe that this is a debut album. Not only does Stapp wonderfully switches his instrument's role from providing the bass line to a solo instrument, the music is great too, as well as the room he leaves to the other two musicians to do their thing. Malaby is his brilliant self, blending in perfectly in Stapp's musical universe of now unison, then contrapuntal melodic exchanges and adding the controlled emotional component for which I like him so much. Takeishi too fits in perfectly, playing complex rhythm parts, yet adding subtle sounds and gimmicky details which make this trio so much fun to hear. Despite the trio's limited format, the band manages to bring variations in style, from funky and joyful tunes ("Painted Sharks") to slower and darker pieces ("Negative Space"), and then pieces which combine both ("Forgotten Stream") with often unexpected twists and turns. The real highlight is "Macchu Picchu", with tribal rhythms, wonderful harmonic changes and a stellar Malaby playing the lead melody. But Stapp himself is the real star of this great trio.

Listen and buy from CDBaby.

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Daniele Cavallanti & Tiziano Tononi - Rings Of Fire (Long Song Records, 2008) ****

Italian tenor saxophonist Daniele Cavallanti and drummer Tizian Tononi, created a new project, composing two suites "Faces & Phases", to be played by some of the best Italian musicians, and with Jenny Scheinman on violin as the guest star. The "Faces"part, composed by Cavallanti, focuses on modern movie directors, including "Cassavetes", "Bertolucci", "Jarmush", "Wenders" and "Eastwood", the "Phases" part, composed by Tononi, are more inspired by nature. The Italian musicians include Giovanni Maier on bass, Massimo Moriani on electric guitar, Pacho on percussion, Emanuele Parrini on viola, and Achille Succi on bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The music brings a strange mix of modern jazz, fusion, rock, folk music, world music, avant-garde and free moments. The original idea was also to use the infinite possibilities of interaction between the two horns, the two strings and the guitar, together with the clear objective to create "lyrical tension, drama, power but at the same time always under control". And I must say, that they managed to make this programmatic approach come true. Not only are the musicians excellent, but so is the music.

"Faces" is melodic, starting in an avant-garde fashion, moving on into "Cassavetes", possibly the most jazzy piece of all, eery and agonizing. "Jarmush" is uptempo, a little more funky and fusion, whereas "Wenders" has a propulsive rock drive with heavily distorted guitar solo, yet "Eastwood" is the best piece, a great mid-tempo workout with excellent solos from Cavallanti and Scheinman.

"Phases", also starts very avant-garde, with eery and screeching sounds like seagulls crying overhead, accompanied by singing whales, with the guitar and drums intervening with some some more industrial sounds. "Motionary Tales" has more drama, with strong unison theme, evolving into a lighter tune with a steady beat, over which the soloists do their thing, although all accompaniment slowly ebbs away before the viola give as a gripping solo. "Before The Storm", the second long track, is much slower, with a great wild part in the middle, where all the solo instruments have a kind of battle for share of voice, only to rejoin a theme for a march-like tune. But I like "Landschape # 2" the best, with a combination of a folk tune with world music influences, a great bass clarinet solo over great percussive work by Pacho and a beautiful viloa solo by Parrini.

Variation enough, actually the tunes changes every few minutes, even the longest ones, yet despite that, the whole is pretty coherent. For some listeners there might be a little too much stylistic variation, though.

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Paul Dunmall ...

It's hard to keep up with Paul Dunmall : 8 albums released in 2007, 12 in 2006, 14 in 2005, etc. He is one of the true free jazzers around, still appreciating rhythm and lyricism, yet without real structure or themes in the usually long pieces, improvising along with whomever he is playing with at the moment. He is always full of energy, but in a controlled fashion, unlike the hurricane approach of for instance someone like Brötzmann, more spiritual, which does not mean that he doesn't resort to powerplay once in a while. He is a free spirit, a spiritual free spirit, an energetic spiritual free spirit. Most of his albums are worth listening to. It's always fun to hear him play, yet it's hard to say which of his albums would be the easiest to recommended. And that's possibly the cause of his prolific recording too. Each session is what it is, a performance in its own right. Onward and forward to the next one. As if the implicit statement is this one "you, listener, you can make your own choice, each piece is what it is, created in the spur of the moment, I perform what I perform, who am I to decide what I release or not? who am I to select what is worth releasing or not? so I release everything, so that you, listener, can be your own judge of what you like and don't like". Fair enough ...

Paul Dunmall & Tony Bianco - Spirits Past & Future (Duns, 2008) ****

This album consists of two tracks : one 50 minutes long, the other 5 minutes. Dunmall plays tenor, Bianco drums. And the first track is long, it goes on and on and on, with shifts of intensity, sometimes slower, sometimes harder, interspersed with some drum solos, mostly with both musicians having a go at it, without restrictions, pushing each other on and interacting well. Fifty minutes is long for a duo to keep the attention going, yet at the same time it offers so much room for expansion, which they use as much as they can, and there's a reason why it doesn't stop. No constraints, no restrictions. Out there. Moving as you wish. Free.

Paul Dunmall, Barry Edwards, Mark Sanders - Mind Out (FMR, 2008) ****

This trio consists of Paul Dunmall on tenor and soprano saxophones, Barry Edwards on guitar, and Marks Sanders on drums. The session was recorded in Bristol on 17 October 2007. It is a little calmer than "Spirits ...", more subdued at moments, which is certainly due to Edwards's presence. His guitar playing is minimalistic to say the least, yet his influence on the band's overall sound is important, his soft playing adds color and shadings throughout, and he creates the same effect as when someone starts whispering in a group of people, then everyone quiets down and starts listening more closely. His quiet playing, often with muted strings, limits the powerplay and makes for some sensitive moments, yet they can also move into very nervous intensity. Edwards also often uses his bass strings to accompany the band in the fiercer moments. Dunmall is as usual, keeping the energy going, playing continuously, often within the same mid-range of the instrument. The best parts are when guitar and sax intermingle in contrapuntal dialogue, full of chaotic sparks, with Sanders interacting perfectly, pushing guitar and sax forward. Lots of variation, lots of listening fun.

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Vincent Courtois - As Soon As Possible (CAM Jazz, 2008) *****

Sparse cello ... minimalistic piano ... snippets of sax ... interweaving ... telling stories full of surprises ... gently ... creatively ... open and free ... full of emotion ... beautifully. What can I say more? What need I say more?

Maybe that the three musicians are excellent : Vincent Courtois on cello, Sylvie Courvoisier on piano and Ellery Eskelin on sax. All three are wonderful improvisors and great masters of their instruments.

The first track is a pointillistic beauty, the second is more jazzy, with a strong pulse and a powerful sax solo. The third track, the title song, is a hesitating abstract piece with lots of extended techniques evolving from near silence to a wonder of a highly discplined raw aesthetic. "Nocturne" is more melancholy, with bowed cello and soft piano accentuation, yet keeping far away from cheap sentiments, although there are references to the melodramatic accompaniment of silent movies, up until the sax joins, when the cello takes on a rigid repitive phrase, and the horn brings darkness and fear into the proceedings. The highlight of the album is the long "Mesure D'Ailleurs", starting in a very avant-garde mode, but all three musicians manage to bring a lyricism and emotional depth that is unusual for such a break-through approach. "La Fontaine De Mars" is equally interesting, with the cello creating an otherworldly electronic rhythmic sound, supported by plucked piano strings alternated with the regular keys, dark, gloomy, agonizing, over which Eskelin weaves beautiful notes together. The other tracks are all of the same level, varied, with unexpected twists and turns, yet always with a gradual build-up and carefully controlled closing.

The true value and power comes from the totality of what you hear, as it should be, yet so difficult to achieve in improvisation. The musical coherence of what this trio brings is absolutely stunning, creating on the spot what sounds like perfection. Their attention to detail, with every note or sound where it should be, as if lots of thinking went into it, is amazing, as is the way they find each other blindly in the improvisation, speaking the same language, despite the boundary-breaking approach ... What can I say more? What need I say more?

Listen and download from eMusic.



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Kahil El'Zabar/Lester Bowie/Malachi Favors - Saalfelden 1987 (unofficial) ****

You may or may not know my love for trumpet trios, my admiration of Kahil El'Zabar, Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors, but here it is. This was the initial Ritual Trio, but then Lester Bowie passed away. They recorded one album : The Ritual, playing the Art Ensemble's composition "Magg Zelma". When browsing the internet last night, I came across this download, which I want to share with you. It's a bootleg recording of high quality, recorded for a German radio station, bringing new improvisations by this excellent trio: great music, soulful, modern, open and free.

Download Kahil El'Zabar/Lester Bowie/Malachi Favors here (link removed - album now commercially available).

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Daniel Levin - Fuhuffah (Clean Feed, 2008) ****

The cello trio in jazz is an unusual line-up. Recently Erik Friedlander released his Broken Arm Trio album with cello-bass-drums, and before him Fred Lonberg-Holm and David Eyges come to mind. Now David Levin has done the same, and quite well even. The album does not have the great atmospheric feel of his "Blurry", going for a more direct, raw approach, but assisted with two stellar band-members Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass and Gerald Cleaver on drums. On the album the compositions vary between real jazzy tunes, with a strong rhythmic backbone to more modern work-outs. In stark contrast with his previous albums is the nervousness, the drive, a little more tormented, or even hypnotic and eery at moments, but always rough and moving on, with the title song already setting the stage from the very beginning. The second track "Shape" is built around some odd rhythmic patterns. The traditional, "Hangman", is absolutely brilliant and dark, starting with the melodic tune played by cello and bass played with arco, and evolving into eery soundscapes. For the following tracks, I am not too sure what happens, but I loose attention. It might be that I'm tired, but it may also be that the trio reaches a limit of possibilities. But it ends well again, with "Wood", a great kind of rubbing shoulders between cello and bass, sounding like lovesick whales courting one another. And once you're fully into this weird intimacy, all hell breaks loose again, with the last track, "Wiggle", on which the trio unleashes its true jazz power by bringing a long high tempo tribute to Jimmy Lyons. The cello trio has of course its limitations. The lack of vocal power of the cello next to bass and drums makes it a hard task to keep the same drive at with a tenor leading the tracks, but nevertheless, this trio really manages to play some great stuff, even if not all the tracks are of the same high level.

Listen to
Fuhuffah
Shape

Listen and download from eMusic.

Watch a recent performance by the trio (relatively calm compared to the CD).


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Joëlle Léandre - Live In Israel (Kadima, 2008) ****

Joëlle Léandre is the great lady of the bass, totally rich in ideas, open to new things and new collaborations and totally uncompromising. Always looking for new things, new forms of expression. This record is in its breadth a worthwhile addition to her long discography. It was recorded in November 2007, catching her performance with several line-ups of Israeli musicians.

It starts with seven improvised pieces for solo bass. To me, this is by far the best part of the record, because Léandre demonstrates her great skill at creating wonderful, beautiful, heart-rending sounds out of her instrument, especially when played with the bow. It has an unusual combination of purity, depth, substance, warmth and volume. The improvisations are timeless, universal, beyond musical categories, varying from lyrical explorations, over jazzy moments to plain avant-garde.

On the second CD are four sextet improvisations with Assif Tsahar and Albert Beger on tenor sax, Ariel Shibolet on soprano, Haggai Fershtman on drums, Daniel Sarid on piano. There are some nice moments, but also some chaotic ones, with sometimes a little sense of direction missing.

These are followed by four trio improvisations with JC Jones on bass and Steve Horenstein on sax, and I must say that I am impressed by these two double basses interacting, and especially by Horenstein's perfect match for it. The basses lead and the sax adds color. Léandre sings on one of the tracks (instead of her usual shouting as on some other tracks), again creating a musical environment which is totally out there and highly uncommon, but again again, she does her thing, and it works.

The rich and varied record ends with duo improvisations with Sameer Makhoul on oud and vocals. This is again a highlight of the album, with Léandre also working perfectly in a supporting role for Makhoul's subtle and sad playing. Then she joins his sad singing, wordless and equally sad, adding some drama, while playing arco at the same time. The last track is superb, because Léandre turns this traditional music into a more adventurous space, and the oud follows suit, improvising and interacting as if they'd played together forever.

Not everything works well on this album, but it has some truly great moments.

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