This is an album of duets by Fred Frith (guitar) and Darren Johnston (trumpet). To state it quite matter of factly, like that, seems to do the music a disservice as the creativity of the way the instruments are handled to create different tones and sounds often makes it appear like there is much more happening than a series of duets.
Between the two players we are treated to percussive and prepared guitar sonorities, which at times conjure-up references (in their quality of sound and not necessarily their musical language) anywhere from Gagaku (traditional Japanese court music) to North African percussion, stopping off at mechanistic and sounds of industry on the way, with Johnston’s pining trumpet tone being extended with rasps, percussive tongue slaps and breath sounds.
Overall the album contains a cinematic quality to it, á la Mark Isham’s atmospheric soundtracks. It’s not surprising that the genesis of this collaboration was to produce some music for a short dance film. However, these pieces are no soundscapes, or sound effect titbits as they contain strong musical ideas and sounds with real grit and texture, the album taking on a life of it’s own beyond the initial source of inspiration. The overall feel of the music is full in texture, sometimes with different layers being created and then overlapped. There is also a lonesome feel to the music at times, an isolation that is reflected in the title of the album.
Just to pull out a few tracks, the album starts with ‘Barn Dance’ with it’s atmospheric vibe, continues with ‘Scribble’ a piece of free improv with it’s partner piece ‘Scratch’ coming later in the album (also coincidentally sharing similar sounds and the title of a John Stevens text piece), and ‘Luminescence’, a title not lightly chosen it would seem as ‘cool’ muted Miles Davies-esque trumpet tones play fragmented melodies over Frith’s subtle looped guitar creating a full and warm glowing piece.
Consisting of eleven tracks made up of nine duets and two solos, the two musicians bring their own vocabulary of sounds and techniques to the table creating a music which is highly stylistic, experimental but accessible, giving it an immediacy, an authenticity and a creative honesty.
Norwegian tuba player Kristoffer Lo and drummer Tomas Järmyr met in 2008 as young students at the renowned jazz department at the music conservatory in Trondheim. Both are musicians who refuse to be pinpointed in any genre or musical form, even within the diverse concept of non-idiomatic free improvisation. Lo's sophomore solo album and the collaboration of the two as the YODOK duo stress the constant need of these two resourceful musicians to search for new means of exploring sounds and textures.
Kristoffer Lo - The Black Meat (Propeller Recordings, 2016) *****
Lo keeps moving, in recent years, between different genres. He is a member of the successful art-rock group Highasakite (where he doubles as a guitarist and vocalist); he plays with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra which released last year his impressive prog-jazz opera Savages (with the vocalists of Highasakite, Propeller Recordings, 2015); he is a member of the experimental tuba trio Microtub, and he collaborates with Järmyr in another trio, Sunswitch.
His second solo album as tuba and flugabone player, following the innovative Anomie (Gigafon, 2013), was recorded in the southernmost lighthouse in Norway, the Ryvingen Lighthouse, located in the ocean outside Mandal, about half a hour out from the shore and into the ocean. Lo loaded up a boat full of amplifiers, instruments and recording equipment, and recorded the album live inside the lighthouse at night, when a storm was raging outside. The thunderous winds outside affected the mood and the atmosphere of this dark sounding album. Lo borrowed the title of the album from William Burroughs seminal book “The Naked Lunch” (where “black meat” is compared to “junk”, i.e. heroin). The whole journey was filmed by photographer André Løyning, who initiated this project (Løyning mini-documentary film is attached).
Lo uses pedal effects in order to create multi-layered, atmospheric-noisy drones. The first piece, “Anodyne for Annihilation” set the the disturbing sonic atmosphere for the imminent storm, still, in a calm and reserved manner. The presence of the storm is fully elaborated in the 27-minute title piece. Here Lo creates such an intense and dense texture, constructed from few, low-end and long tones. But this rich texture has a hypnotic power to draw you deeper and deeper into a claustrophobic experience of being stranded, surrounded by great walls of primal sounds, locked in the middle of a total darkness and terrifying storm, until this natural storm and its musical mirroring calm down. The processed sounds explore a surprising timbral spectrum of the tuba and flugabone, often sounding metallic and even tangible, as if these turbulent sounds crawl into your innermost feelings and thoughts. This sonic journey ends with the gentle, moving “Front Row Gallows View”. This ten minutes piece awakes us from the troubled, almost hallucinogenic trip into the heart of a threatening storm, back to a bright new day. Here the focus on simple, slow changing, deep frequency tones, has a kind of comforting, even sobering quality after the profound, threatening experience of the title piece.
Fantastic.
YODOK - IIII (Substrata, 2015) ****
Lo and Järmyr began to work as the tuba and drums YODOK duo already in 2008, developing a highly original and intense blend of free-improvised, ambient-noisy drones. The duo released one vinyl album and one disc before expanding to a trio in 2013 - YODOK III - with Belgian guitarist Dirk Serries. YODOK III released two limited-edition studio vinyl albums and two limited-edition live cassettes albums in the the last two years.
Since Lo and Järmyr have begun working together, Järmyr has also been involved in many other left-of-center projects. He recently joined the Italian power-punk trio Zu and the local, like-minded trio MoE; he also collaborates with Serries in the Void of Expansion duo; plays in the noise-drone drums-electric bass duo Brachan and the local art-rock groups Forræderi and Prime Ministers of Scandinavia.
The return of Lo and Järmyr to the YODOK duo format offers fresh, different perspective of their sonic aesthetics, different from the one explored in the YODOK III format or the earlier version of YODOK. YODOK III perfected ritualistic soundscapes, almost shamanic ones, often culminating in ecstatic-cathartic climaxes, while YODOK avoid such structures and prefers here to form powerful, rough soundscapes.
The three untitled, extended piece of IIII are developed patiently. The first one begins as a contemplative-ambient piece before it settles on a intense-manic drums pulse, multiplied and resonating, and mirrored with the processed, deep-toned noisy tuba tones. Järmyr wild, highly energetic drumming dictate the course of the second piece, while the processed sounds of the tuba and flugabone push its sonic envelope to more ecstatic and noisier terrains. The last piece opts for an atmospheric, ambient soundscape, building its invigorating tension with slow but methodical march-like drumming segments that gains more volume and energy as this piece reaches its climax,
Serbian composer and multi-instrumentalist Szilard Mezei has another recording out this year on Slam Productions, a further testament to his creativity, dynamism, and talent. I first heard Mezei in 2008 on the excellent Nad/Reed, the first of many albums released under the Szilard Mezei Ensemble. That side of Mezei showcases his work in experimental big band jazz releases, though he works in many different arrangements and genres. The album at hand today is on the opposite end of the spectrum, an interesting trio arrangement with viola, flute, and acoustic guitar.
Mezei has a wide range of styles on display throughout his discography. One of his main talents is
composition, and he brings a healthy dose of knowledge in modern classical music technique, which he blends effortlessly with jazz. This can also expand to include more improvisation-based jazz, though he almost always has a strong compositional backbone.
When I first saw this lineup I was intrigued, but because of my proclivities leaning more towards noisy and raucous jazz I was a little weary that I may just not be able to get into it. I had already decided in my head what an acoustic guitar, flute, and viola trio would sound like, and I was already missing the saxophone. However, my expectations were subverted, and I was very impressed with the textural qualities of all the instruments, particularly in interplay. I also really enjoy the way that Mezei plays viola, not a traditional jazz instrument, but one that has many incredible sonic qualities in the hands of a talented player.
In the three compositions here, Mezei moves around from free improvisation, full composition, and dramaturgical technique throughout. The improv is wonderful, moving from full band to solos and duos, with a percussionist popping up for a little bit later on in the proceedings. There are moments of onkyo/lowercase related improv (though not as extreme as those genres), with certain notes highlighted by the silence between them. The compositions are aleatoric in technique, so they allow for a lot of improvisation between the clearer presence of melody, rhythm, and harmony. The dramaturgical elements were great to me, and added a certain amount of gravitas to the whole thing. This is music we’d probably describe as “cinematic” in a modern context, but the flute work is highly reminiscent of older stage music, particularly Wagner’s operas (and the Wagner influenced The Wood Nymph, by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius).
I thought it would be a little less adventurous than my favorite kinds of jazz, and that was accurate. However, this album has a wide variety of technique that is constantly surprising and dynamic, while also retaining a unique thematic purpose. It may not be something that speaks to me personally in the way some other Mezei albums do, but it is a great testament to how bright of a talent Mezei is in composition, as well as improvisation, while building on an already very impressive and idiosyncratic style that is bound to subtly surprise, a feat in itself.
If you have a look at the socio-economic conditions of improvised music you’ll find out that it is mostly an urban phenomenon. Most of the musicians live in metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Krakow or Vienna (to name just a few) because that is where you can find clubs and other musicians to jam with - in other words: a network. However, Axel Dörner (tp), Roger Turner (dr) and Ra Ra da Boff (electric organs, little instruments) try to find out if there is more to it and have named their album after the places they live - London Leipzig Berlin. The question is if these cities also have style-defining features for the process of improvising.
For the first time Roger Turner, one of the main protagonists of the British improvising scene, and Axel Dörner, the most important trumpeter of Berlin’s Echtzeit network, have joined forces here. Dörner’s trumpet is characterized by its formal severity and the attempt to find new, otherworldly sounds, something which can also be said about Turner’s way to play his drum kit. As in many of his collaborations he uses an arsenal of extended materials, and his contributions fizzle, clatter, rattle, scrape or jolt, rather than groove in a classic sense. It’s obvious that there is a huge intersection with Dörner’s vibrating, bubbling and muffled micro-environmental sounds, which creates a lot of high tension.
The glue that keeps these approaches together is Ra Ra da Boff, a pseudonym for Friedrich Kettlitz and Oliver Schwerdt (who enjoys using monikers like Birg Borgenthal or Elan Pauer). Of course the double Ra refers to Sun Ra and indeed it seems like two Sun Ras are sending pulsating signals from out of space that serve as spooky background buzz. Like electro-magnetic textures these organ sounds wobble through the improvisation, especially the bass booms in incredibly low frequencies (you need good speakers to enjoy this). Turner and Dörner sound as if they play in a shipyard, next to huge canvases whipped by a storm.
What appears a test arrangement built on the remnants of Art Brut is, in fact, the exact opposite: a clever creation of calculated differences like condensed drone clusters and tiny sound splinters, with an intensity that swells and ebbs away like bonfires that are kindled by sudden gusts of wind again and again.
This is indeed the soundtrack of cities at night, of the outskirts, the lonely places, industrial areas, tower blocks. If it is the specific sound of London, Leipzig and Berlin it is hard to tell. In any case, this is very urban music.
This self-titled release from Mazzmelancolié is an artifact - formed in the distant future, beamed to the ancient past, and found buried in the midst of some primeval forest (presumably by the kind folks over at Poland’s Wounded Knife Records). Composed of shifting layers of static, electronic gurgles, uncanny vocal samples, muffled snatches of jazz, and sundry other field recordings, Mazzmelancolié is actually two artists, Jerzy Mazzoll and Robert Skrzyński. Both of them are well-established in Poland’s experimental music scene: Mazzoll was a long-time member of the group Arhythmic Perfection, and Robert Skrzyński has released a considerable amount of experimental/noise music on various labels (look here for a sampler). Thus, the first line of this review is a bit misleading; Mazzmelancolié is not some “found object” that’s devoid of historicity. Upon listening to it, however, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that was the case - at times, it truly sounds like a document of a world far-removed from our own, a world sputtering away in the wake of destruction.
The first piece opens with a percussive rhythm laid out by what seems to be a bass clarinet; it’s repetitive, persistent, and accompanied by nervous rattles of indeterminate origin. Later on, some instruments rise from the murk, but they have the sound of degraded transmissions from a bygone time, occupying this world of indistinct knocks, scrapes, and whirrs with asynchronous tension. The hints of melody that do appear are spectral and slippery; for example, the third track features an unrelenting motif from Mazzoll’s clarinet, a sliver of a fragment of a theme that seems to move in hesitant circles, like a person who has lost something they can’t identify and keeps retreading the same ground. The fourth piece develops this theme a bit, but submerges it beneath thick layers of drone.
In the fifth, we get a near-traditional tune from numerous instruments, but it’s quick to dissipate in Skrzyński’s apocalyptic sound-world - all busted-receiver beeps and swirling, cinematic textures. The wonder of this recording lies in its incongruities; while it is decidedly experimental, the instruments themselves maintain a semblance of convention. There are no skronky outbursts, no high-pitched squeals, no brassy growls (at least not until the final track). It truly sounds like an old jazz record that has been dug up, dusted off, and set spinning on a jerry-rigged player - all on an Earth that has been dismantled, disemboweled, and left to desiccate. Perhaps the members of Mazzmelancolié foresee such a future, and this album is their warning. Case in point: in the final track, a computerized voice details the rise of robots and (presumably) the downfall of humans. Over looping electronics and the wailing of reeds, it describes the increasing harmony and organization of the robots’ world, and it eventually reaches the conclusion that “humans would never achieve form and order on their own. Decency was not their nature. We only had one choice to keep our society advancing. We had to take control.” With the recent successes of Google’s AlphaGo in the news, issues of artificial intelligence and the potential obsolescence of humans have become more timely than ever. Mazzmelancolié invites us to see the aftermath of a large-scale war between man and machine, where old jazz melodies are the only thing connecting us to the human culture that once was. If the (post-)apocalypse sounds like this, I can’t say I’ll be disappointed.
Linus is the Belgian duo of guitarist Ruben Machtelinckx and reeds player Thomas Jillings, both collaborate also in the yet-to-be-recorded fusion quintet Sgt. Fuzzy. The duo's self-released debut album Onland from 2014 offered melancholic meditations that blended elements of folk, minimalism, and associative improvisation. A year later the duo expanded into a quartet and recorded with Norwegian percussionist Øyvind Skarbø, known for his improv groups 1982 Trio and Bly the Blyant (both groups released albums on the Norwegian label Hubro Music), and guitarist Frederick Leroux. This album suggested more eclectic and improvised textures.
On Linus third album, Felt Like Old Folk, the duo is joined by a close collaborator of Skarbø, Norwegian master Hardanger violinist Nils Økland, who also plays in the 1982 Trio and known for his collaborations with pianist Christian Wallumrød and trumpeter Arve Henriksen, and fellow Belgian euphonium player Niels Van Heertum, member of the genre binding group Ifa Y Xango. The presence of Økland propelled Linus aesthetics further towards the far north and intensified the free improvisation vein of the expanded duo.
The first three pieces, “A”, “B” and “Old Folk” are spontaneous improvisations, played without preparation or strategy, but also free of haste or inhibition. The immediate affinity between all musicians and the patient, emphatic interplay sketch gentle textures that succeed to capture the elusive Nordic melancholic spirit. Økland resonant sounding Hardanger fiddle, the deep-toned baritone euphonium of Van Heertum, together with the skeletal baritone guitar and banjo playing of Machtelinckx and breathy playing of Jillings construct the dark, contemplative-dreamy folksy sound of the quartet. Within this chamber, intimate and often cyclical interplay the four musicians mirror each other’s ideas with great sensitivity and a sense of an equal, cooperative unit.
The fourth piece, “Felt”, was written by Machtelinckx and suggests a moody, simple drone, beautifully abstracted by Økland's almost ambient playing, in a manner that brings to mind the guitar-based soundscapes of American Steve Tibbetts while collaborating with Norwegian Hardanger fiddler Knut Hamre (Å, Hannibal, 1999).
The vinyl and disc version of this album are packaged in a limited-editions of a beautiful foldout screen featuring the artwork of Ante Timmermans.
Also known as Jeff Lederer's Brooklyn Blowhards Play Albert Ayler and Songs of the Sea, this album seemed like it was beamed straight from my brain into my music library. The cover features art from Matt Kish’s MOBY-DICK IN PICTURES, which is prominently displayed on our bookshelves. The music is inspired by two of my all-time favorites, Ayler and Melville, as well as various traditional shanties and folk songs. And the lineup is a streamlined octet, with saxophonists Lederer and Petr Cancura, cornet and slide-trumpet player Kirk Knuffke, Bryan Drye on trombone, Art Bailey on accordion, and drummers Matt Wilson, Allison Miller, and Stephen LaRosa on percussion, chum bucket, ship’s bell, and chain. It’s been a few years since the great Shakers n’ Bakers has recorded, but Brooklyn Blowhards picks up where that band left off, trading the religious-inspired mania for a woozy maritime sound.
“Bells” opens the album, with a looser Ayler interpretation than most. Lederer channels both the humor and deep spiritualism at the heart of Ayler’s music. His arrangement is brilliantly rollicking, one of the more joyous takes on Ayler I’ve heard in awhile. Martial snare and accordion lead a pub-ready “Haul Away Joe,” Drye blasting out a hearty call, and the rest following with boisterous response. A couple tracks later, Lederer and Cancura blow the roof off on the opening of “Black Ball Line” and trade solos over rotating drum fills and marching snare riffs from Wilson, Miller, and LaRosa.
Mary LaRose joins the band on vocals for several songs, including a spin on Ayler’s “Island Harvest,” an improvement on the original. Here, the band’s sound is a bit more ragged than Ayler’s, and LaRose’s vocals are much better than Mary Maria Parks’s original line. LaRose simply does more with her voice, leaping and taunting Lederer, Cancura, Knuffke, and Drye to chase her melody. On “Shallow Brown,” LaRose is similarly playful, sounding something like a barrel organ up against Gary Lucas’s steel guitar.
Album closer “Insular Tahiti ("The Seaman’s Hymn")” is a Lederer arrangement of an traditional folk song, layered with LaRose reciting text from Melville’s MOBY-DICK. Beneath LaRose’s crisp reading, the horns blow a unison funereal melody, the titular hymn. It brought to mind Taylor Ho Bynum’s setting of Melville for Positive Catastrophe, a band whose chaotic playfulness seems to share some DNA with Lederer’s Brooklyn Blowhards. Regardless, there’s much more Ayler and sea shanties left to conquer. Let us hope Lederer and company continue their brilliant exploration of both.
In 2014, bassist Massimo Pupillo (of Zu), drummer Brian Chippendale (of Lightning Bolt) and avant-garde jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafsson convened for what was supposed to be a brief European tour. By the end of the dates however, the trio had evolved into a band. Melt, issued this year and released on Trost, is their first sonic document.
It starts with feedback. A rumble. Then, electronics, bass scratchings. Way in the distance, familiar Chippendale patterns. Fans of Lightning Bolt will immediately recognize his snare-heavy forms. They close in on the song. The volume of the rumble increases. The rhythm coalesces, and Gustafsson roars in with Pupillo. Fans of the Swede's reed work should note immediately that Gustafsson lays his horn aside for much of the album's three explosive pieces. For those who thought he could gouge his sound no further into "rock" than his work with The Thing, I give you Melt. This is not a jazz record, but it is a monolithic improvisation driven largely by Gustafsson's modulated electronics. In fact, it is the electronics from both Gustafsson and Chippendale that keep this entire piece - even in its deepest fury - buoyant. If Pulverize the Sound wasn't already taken, the group would have a fitting name. They may be even more destructive.
Seven-and-a-half minutes into opening jam, Faces of Fear. Transformed. Melted., the sound drops to a kick drum pulse and furious bass. Chippendale's vocals enter with the same psychedelic reverb Lightning Bolt fans know so well. Seconds past the nine minute mark, Gustafsson's tenor sax begins to scream over the chaos beneath; huge, lung-emptying blasts. The bass rumbles like a motorcycle engine. Electronics - reminiscent of Chippendale's work in his solo project Black Pus - emit counterpoint stabs at Gustafsson's beastly exhales; the drums, a frantic setting for the bout. At 15 minutes, the pair return the song to Pupillo's solo tremolo bass. Then, Chippendale's first clear vocals, a screamed: "When the rocker speaks ... the roller listens!" The line, repeated again and again and transformed into reverbed whoops over a persistent bass, presents the first stench of the mad humor that perverts the album's prevailing sonic heft. The drums return in aggressive, searching forms. Again, a rhythm and melody converge in near-rock patterns. This coalescence is pure Lightning Bolt, drums and bass, the sound built from nothing on a primal whim. At 25 minutes, we return to brutal Prurient, Merzbow-like electronic punishment and bass. Chippendale's voice returns with funhouse vowels. The faces, transformed, now melt. The third movement of the song is in full force. A militaristic kick begins. I can see Chippendale in his handmade mask, contact mic wailing, as he packs the end of this 32 1/2 minute jam on his back and carries it to close. It never rehardens, just lays its plastic, melted mess down on a bit of thin static.
The second song returns to feedback as catalyst, but at 46 minutes, Flesh. Transformed. Melted. clocks at near time-and-a-half the first jam's measure. Chippendale's vocals are clear when he says in humorous staccato drops: "So dark. The first. time. I ever. saw. Me-tallica. I felt very happy. I got. first. row. seats. arrived early ..." His twisted monologue continues. Teenagers come. Items fly. Chairs and things and people pile and "fill. the. space." His delivery here reminds of the first few Shit & Shine LPs. Six minutes in, Gustafsson's shrieks follow Chippendale's grinding kit into a form like an engine startup on a cold morning.
In a recent documentary short chronicling last year's duo album with Chippendale and Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier (coincidentally, two of my favorite drummers and bands on the planet), Saunier described his surprise and delight in discovering Chippendale's sound and style, saying (I paraphrase) that he felt like he'd finally stumbled on a musician (and group) who wasn't appropriating a preexisting sound. Saunier alluded to the fact that while Chippendale has clear technical shortcomings, his physical limitations are almost nonexistent. As such, he is able to create music and, as Kid Millions described later in the film, "do things that no one else can do."
Chippendale's referenced superhuman stamina finds a foil on this record, and as the music on Flesh. Transformed. Melted. builds steam, Gustafsson scribbles a psychotic calligraphy atop. Fifteen minutes in, the Swede rides a pummeling groove from Chippendale and Pupillo to a full drop, leaving Pupillo's bass like a ship's propeller in an icy sea, and back to Chippendale's monologue, this time clearer than ever: "I just wanted to thank you ..." Gustafsson's horn sends bleats scratching and peeling paint from metal. Chippendale's response: crank the electronic noise and bark like a woodland monster. This is the exact halfway point of the song. The drummer, yet again, nearly drives the other players out, his noise-and-kit-and-deranged-vocals hydra just too much. The thirty-minute mark sees a shift to monastic chanting from Chippendale. The crucible is ready, and it's time to melt once more. After the squall, Pupillo's bass again binds to the static noise and to the drummer's vocal repetition: "I have no instrument ... I have no instrument ... I have no ..."
At only seven-and-a-half minutes, Melt's eponymous third and final track is by far it shortest but arguably its most furious. It begins with Chippendale's psychotic take on a beatbox. His metronomic kick finds Pupillo in seasick bass nods. When an eruption subsides, it leaves Chippendale to take us out with the sick sense of humor lodged in the chaos, repeating: "Who brought the motherfuckin' bagpipes to the party?!"
This isn't a sophisticated listen. It's almost drone-like, giant blocks of sound, titan steps, played at hyper-speed. Lightspeed drone? Whatever it is it, fittingly, returns to the fire to close.
With standout releases in the last year from Mary Halvorson, Katharina Weber, Marilyn Crispell, Ingrid Laubrock, Irène Schweizer, and Sarah Buechi, Zurich’s Intakt Records has been doing the good and necessary work of highlighting female artists—not only well-established but also up-and-coming—in a historically male-dominated field (yes, despite notable exceptions and a general openness to all comers). The label builds on this precedent in early 2016 with NYC Five, from Cologne-based co-leaders Angelika Niescier and Florian Weber. Here the saxophonist and pianist (respectively) draw on New York’s deep well of cultural significance and jazz talent, recruiting trumpet player Ralph Alessi, bassist Chris Tordini, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey for an hour of intelligent and gripping music.
Belying the pastoral associations of its title, opener “The Barn Thing” is angular and driving,
with Sorey marking out a steady 7/4 quarter note pulse around which the others weave and jab. In contrast with the tune’s robust three-part head, Weber’s solo—full of tense hesitations—is wonderfully disarming. Taking the hand-off from her co-leader, Niescier’s tightly coiled phrases and upper-register explorations work with rather than against Sorey’s rhythmic simmer to escalate the track’s intensity. After an impressive turn by Alessi, Sorey himself—obviously a special drummer, in my estimation—steps forward for a climactic solo over a stuttering ostinato by the band.
The quintet excels at this kind of rhythmic complexity—mastering difficult material and making the these compositions feel comfortably worn in without losing their heat. Follow-up “And Over” is another good example, with Niescier and Alessi setting out a jaunty 5/4 phrase that suddenly shifts feel and color with the entrance of the rhythm section. Here the work of the first track is cleverly undone as the solos progressively thin and decelerate, this time towards and not away from Weber’s meditative playing. And if well maneuvered, maddeningly technical compositions themselves have lost some of their excitement, the group finds other ways to subvert expectations—for instance “The Liquid Stone,” during whose theme Niescier does no more than provide a busy, buzzing texture for simple punctuation by trumpet, piano, and bass.
On the mellower end of the spectrum, the quintet knows how to play ballads, too. “Invaded” gives Weber’s spacious, patient playing plenty of room first to breathe and then to grow as his lines build in density, inverting the contrasts of the earlier, more hectic tracks. Niescier demonstrates her range here as well with an airier, gentler approach. “Parsifal” highlights some of Alessi’s gorgeously spare and introspective playing. And Tordini gets a solo, too, very welcome but brief and cautious enough to make us wish the album did more to feature him.
Perhaps unfortunately for reviewers—though not for listeners!—at the end of the day NYC Five isn’t about aesthetic experiments or novel concepts but, unpretentious as the album title, the music itself: good writing and even better playing.
This past Friday's Free Jazz on Air, an hour long conversation (in German) on free jazz with Martin Schray and Julia Neupert, on German public radio station SWR 2 (Südwestrundfunk 2) is now available to listen to online until this coming Friday.
The topic: "Free Jazz in Exile" and it will feature music by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Dikeman, Ingrid Laubrock, Karl Berger/Kirk Knuffke and others."
