Ingrid Laubrock – Serpentines (Intakt, 2016) ****

By Dan Sorrells

Another year, another upheaval in Ingrid Laubrock’s music. Laubrock has always assembled impressive bands, each—despite some overlapping membership—standing as distinct sonic entities. They’ve also served as blazes along an increasingly challenging trail of development as a composer and band leader, with each new group Laubrock convenes digesting and incorporating the lessons and strategies of those before. The septet behind Serpentines is the latest blaze, a mix of past collaborators and new faces that has affinities with Laubrock’s recent projects, but nevertheless bushwhacks into yet new territory.

Serpentines is a record of contrasts, shifting between spaciousness and density, concision and elaboration, restraint and virtuosity. These tensions are not the means to some cathartic resolution, but rather deliberate friction points that might spark novel musical ideas. Two unusual additions exemplify these contrasts well: Miya Masaoka’s koto, a delicate Japanese instrument with hundreds of years of history, and Sam Pluta’s electronics, which can feel as though they’re beamed in from some time in the future. Those familiar with Pluta’s ability to reshape Peter Evans’s entire quintet will find him to be relatively discreet here, excepting a bizarre, fourth wall-breaking solo spot in “Squirrels” that will make you think your audio system is fried.

As with last year’s Ubatuba, Laubrock’s compositions roam between controlled atmospherics and loose schemes designed to provoke her cast of improvisers into bouts of jaunty, knotted counterpoint. “Pothole Analytics Pt. 2” spins simple canonical motifs into a whorl of complexity by allowing each musician to choose their own tempo, while stretches of “Squirrels” and “Serpentines” are dizzying accretions of strange timbres and spirited interplay. Florian Keller rightly focuses on the significance of the album’s title in the liner notes: a writhing pile of snakes, Serpentines questions clean, linear approaches, favoring instead the unpredictable and the unexpected. In each of Serpentine’sfive pieces, no single moment betrays what will happen in the next.

At the other end of the spectrum, centerpiece “Chip in the Brain” has the ominous feel of a synth-heavy 80s horror soundtrack. Much like her octet’s music, the number of musicians involved is misleading: Taborn, Masaoka, Sorey, and Laubrock on glockenspiel form a tight-knit pattern, feeling more like one element than four. Beneath, Peck and Pluta merge into a snoring, gurgling drone, while Evans’s mournful trumpet drifts above it all. It’s unlike anything else on Serpentines, or that we’ve heard from Laubrock before.

Closing on a beautiful duet of piano and koto, Serpentines is a record that demands to be played again; it’s music that can be appreciated, but perhaps not fully understood after only one listen. It’s a fitting and absorbing continuation of Laubrock’s ongoing project: writing music that both excites and challenges some of the world’s best improvisers. Happily, we listeners can be excited and challenged by it, too.

Miya Masaoka – koto
Dan Peck – tuba
Sam Pluta – electronics
Tyshawn Sorey – drums
Craig Taborn – piano
Peter Evans – trumpet, piccolo trumpet
Ingrid Laubrock – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, glockenspiel.

And in concert at Roulette this month:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Read More

The Art of the Improv Trio (3 of 3)

Ivo Perelman, Joe Morris & Gerald Cleaver – The Art of the Improv Trio, Volume 5 & 6 (Leo, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

As we draw to a close on this series of reviews of saxophonist Ivo Perelman's latest set of recordings, The Art of the Improv Trio, we have a rare chance to hear the same trio but with the key difference of guitarist Joe Morris on Vol. 5 becoming bassist Joe Morris on Vol. 6. The results are two excellent recordings, sounding like two entirely different line-ups!

Vol. 6 provides an instant rush of listening adrenaline. The sax, drums, and bass line-up is a potent combination, and the trio does not disappoint. Vol. 5's sax, drums, and guitar approach is a more complex and quite rewarding on repeat listens. Let's start with the 'classic' line-up of Vol 6, to which I was instantly drawn, quite simply by its forthright energy.

The first third of 'Part 1', the main 42-minute track, builds in intensity until the saxophonist lets loose a primal scream (on the sax) at about the 16-minute mark. Then, the texture changes as Perelman takes his foot off the gas, Cleaver drops out, and Morris pulls back. This leads to a few solid minutes of exploration by Perelman - and to over use the metaphor - where he's checking the mirrors and refilling the tank before ramping up the engine again. As Cleaver and Morris re-enter the mix, they help the saxophonist in leading into another wave of intensity.

Switching gears to Vol. 5, this is an album that takes a little more time to announce itself. Morris' work on the guitar, as opposed to the bass, leads to a much different musical setting, and how the trio adapts so fluently and cohesively is just as an important of a component in creating such compelling music as Perelman's evolving technical capabilities (see Colin's intro). The guitar and sax, as opposed to the bass and sax, operate in a similar musical range, which could possibly generate more 'competition' for the same space, however what happens is an delightful intertwining of instruments and ideas.

'Part 1' starts with Morris comping alongside Perelman, while Cleaver accompanies with rhythmic ideas outlining the pulse. Continuing into 'Part 1', the interplay is more abstract than on Vol. 6. However, it is about halfway through 'Part 2' where the single note guitar lines really start popping. As 'Part 3' solidifies, the sax and guitar go at it, matching phrases, responding and reacting at warp speed. One of my favorite moments is on 'Part 8' where Cleavers' highly syncopated playing bubbles below a heated exchange between Morris and Perelman, the guitarist's chord fragments colliding with saxophonist's melodic bursts.

This isn't the first time that the trio of Perelman, Cleaver, and Morris have recorded as a trio, in fact we don't have to look back to far back to Living Jelly (Leo, 2012). These two volumes are an excellent update of three musicians in a mission to redefine the boundaries of their techniques and talents.

A strong closing to an excellent new series from Perelman. Indeed, 2016 has been a productive year for the saxophonist in releasing 11 incredible albums!

Check out all the reviews here.


Vol. 5:

Vol 6: 

Read More

The Art of the Improv Trio (2 of 3)

By Eric McDowell

Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp & Gerald Cleaver – The Art of the Improv Trio, Volume 3 (Leo, 2016) ****½

Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver—at this point, the web of collaborations linking these three improvisers is almost too tangled to pull apart. Just for an idea: typing “Ivo Perelman” into Shipp’s Discogs page calls up twenty results, the well received Callasand Corpoamong them. Fifteen results for “Gerald Cleaver,” and twelve for Cleaver with Perelman. As a trio, we’ve heard them before on The Foreign Legion, plus in quartet with William Parker on Serendipity and with fellow drummer Whit Dickey on Enigma—all on Leo Records, the label that’s been such a welcome home to Perelman since the late ’nineties (forty-eight results on Discogs!).

I’ll admit, while we’re in the midst of this recent sextuple release, that it’s hard to keep up with Perelman’s prolific output, not to mention Shipp’s. Which is why it’s so pleasing, when you do catch an album, to come across one as good as the third volume of The Art of the Improv Trio. That said, we do cover as many of the Brazilian saxophonist’s releases as we can on the blog, and even as he continues to stretch boundaries, the common descriptors work fairly well here: there’s a sense of mystery, soulfulness, and poetry to the improvisations. Perelman’s playing is sublimely expressive, especially in his exploration of the altissimo register, where notes flit and then spill back down the tenor’s range. His control over the instrument—in part what makes his albums, with their varied range of collaborators, so consistently strong—is in evidence on each of these nine tracks.

It’s hard to discuss each musician’s contribution individually, since throughout the album they’re almost always playing at once. In this context, Shipp’s playing demonstrates a kind of control in its relative restraint. More than anyone else, he takes responsibility for setting the mood of the improvisations, whether with dark, crashing chords that plume out like fog or with ostinati that help launch Perelman into the ether. On one track, he even sits out entirely. Cleaver, meanwhile, proves exactly why he deserves his recurring role on these albums. Here he straddles the line between timekeeping and open playing, sometimes implying a groove, sometimes cracking out backbeats. He can swing hard or patter around quietly. Fellow drummers will enjoy turning up the volume to appreciate the richness of his drum sound, especially in his two solo spots.

Anyone hesitant to commit to all six volumes of The Art of the Improv Trio or unsure where to make your approach—I encourage you to give Vol. 3 a try.

Ivo Perelman, William Parker & Gerald Cleaver – The Art of the Improv Trio, Volume 4 (Leo, 2016) ****

“Flow” is the term my writing students usually use when they want to talk about development: your essay really flows! But when—in his notes for The Art of the Improv Trio, Volume 4—William Parker observes that “[t]he music must flow without effort and without preconceived ideas, just the eternal now,” I tend to listen up. Because while I do often find myself conditioned to tracking (or superimposing) structures of development within (or onto) improvised music, many times, as in this fourth installment of Ivo Perelman’s recent batch of Leo releases, “eternal now” seems an apter description. It’s predetermined, controlled structural development—from verse to chorus, from A to A to B to A, etc.—that risks habituating the listener and deadening their response. Without that predictability, we lose our comforting reference points and in turn must pay equal attention to every shift, remaining as present as possible alongside the improvisers.

Especially in Volume 4’s forty-minute centerpiece (bookended by two six-minute improvisations), these kinds of shifts do make useful signposts—the early breakneck swing decelerating to a more moderate tempo; Parker’s brief, methodical solo; the loose Latin feel that gathers afterward; the closing groove. But this synopsis fails to capture the energy of the trio’s dynamic interplay, which effortlessly keeps the music constantly refreshed. Indeed, Parker’s “flow” calls to mind vital activity, the instinctive pumping of blood through veins. Moment to moment there’s a productive, good-natured tension between each musician’s approach, as when Parker and Cleaver keep time simultaneously but at different rates, or when Perelman sets his altissimo against Parker’s arco. That the improvisation comes to a close with the three improvisers uniting around an infectious groove may invite a reading of resolution, a solving of the album’s beautiful chaos. But such a linear reading would seem to have little to do with the flow of the music, from one now to the next.

Read More

The Art of the Improv Trio (1 of 3)

By Colin Green

Recently, we’ve had a week of solo recordings, and then duo albums. With an inexorable (if unimaginative) logic, for the next three days we focus on the trio. For some, when it comes to improvisation, the trio is the configuration most conducive to the exchange of ideas and generating repartee: triangulations for mapping musical discourse and achieving the best balance between individual expression and communal responsibility.

In a world of shortages, albums from tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman seem immune. We now have another six: The Art of the Improv Trio, Volumes 1 to 6 (it’s nice to see someone sticking up for the abbreviation for a change). In these trios, there are more constants than variables: Perelman plays on them all, with drummer Gerald Cleaver on five of the six. The third member, or the instrument they play, is different on each. That’s where the analogy with algebraic functions falters, as the combinational outputs are performances in which the input of each musician is not predictable, and their relations never fixed. In other words, what the art of improv is all about.

Recorded in bursts at the beginning and end of a twelve-month period, one of the most captivating features of Perelman’s playing on these albums is his effortless handling of the altissimo register, seamless with the natural range of the tenor, not pushing at the boundaries of the instrument but redefining those boundaries. According to Neil Tesser’s notes:

“… by the time he made the last of these six recordings [they’re not numbered in recorded order], he had completely overwritten the altissimo fingerings he had used for decades, due to his ability to better command that range through breath alone”.

These are not extended techniques but techniques which have extended the working range of Perelman’s saxophone.

Irrespective of whether you consider three to be improv’s magic number, there’s plenty to explore and much to enjoy in these releases.

Ivo Perelman, Karl Berger, Gerald Cleaver ‎– The Art of the Improv Trio, Volume 1 (Leo, 2016) ****

Perelman and Karl Berger have recorded twice before: Reverie (with Berger on piano) and The Hitchhiker (Berger on vibraphone). This time, he’s back on piano. As with all the albums in the series, the track names are the simple “Part 1” etc. as if something more specific would distract from the music (also, coming up with six albums’ worth of titles is an unappealing task). If Perelman’s previous practice is anything to go by, the track sequence is probably the order in which they were recorded.

From the opening ascent from bass to treble in a single breath on the saxophone, this is music which feels totally natural, not something sought, but found. There’s a liquid flow and fluency to Perelman’s tenor, creating long, crescent-shaped passages in which he glides between notes. Each track is a piece of measured thinking, coming to an instinctual conclusion, a feeling that this is a good place to end.

The trio covers a wide spectrum of sentiments, ruminative to rhapsodic. ‘Part 1’ is melancholic, with Perelman’s mourning saxophone, gentle piano chords and brushed whispers. ‘Part 2’ is more declamatory, Berger’s broken dance figure multiplied into superimposed rhythms which dissolve into something like a hymn, transformed into a mellifluous song without words by Perelman. The metric jungle reasserts itself before a compromise is reached, both kinds of music moving together to a uniform close. ‘Part 4’ reverberates with chords, repeated and spread across the full range of the piano, like some profound question which Perelman answers with echoes and a beautiful, wandering melody, growing in power as the chords become more insistent and the piano answers in turn. ‘Part 5’ consists of intersecting lines, three separate patterns of thought which cross from time to time.

Right through the album, Cleaver provides a backdrop of vaporised cymbals and scuttling drums, punctuated by crisp accents, a diffuse tissue of sound sometimes only noticeable when it’s absent. There’s an ambient acoustic, allowing one to hear the air around the instruments and rendering them in seductive colours: the piano’s bell-like motif that provides the foundation for ‘Part 3’, the textural luminosity of Perelman’s playing in the high registers and his resonant sobs lower down.

The album concludes with ‘Part 6’, the longest piece – barely articulated phrases and squawks on tenor; deep, pedalled piano with random interjected notes; and the irregular rattle of percussion. Little by little, the parts come into focus, their movement becomes more adroit and the disparate elements gradually cohere, retaining their distinctive features but drawing on each other, moving to a bold conclusion and then ebbing into silence with the sound of Perelman’s breath.

A compelling set of performances.

Ivo Perelman, Mat Maneri, Whit Dickey ‎– The Art of the Improv Trio, Volume 2 (Leo, 2016) ****

This is only album in the series not to feature Gerald Cleaver: instead we have Whit Dickey on drums, joining Mat Maneri, viola. As with all the trios, these are musicians with whom Perelman is familiar, from a pool on which he’s drawn during his creative surge of the last five years.

Previous sessions featuring Perelman and Maneri have generated an intricate and lucidly woven fabric – complimentary contours always expanding. On this occasion, the tendency is in the other direction, considering what can be done on a more elemental level by focusing on how it’s put together – its interior nature – in a collection of relatively brief studies. The basic material is parsed, dissected and rearranged, internal relations reconfigured, and the new segments linked then separated afresh, all marked by fleeting changes in register, intonation and phrasing. It seems as if there’s continual variation, yet in each piece the building blocks remain the same, in music that forgoes linear progression. This process is not a formal but poetic, analysis – explorations akin to Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “inscape” of things, lying out of normal sight and only revealed by taking a different approach. It’s not a rigid template, however. To a certain extent the trio go where their instincts take them, part of the art of improv.

As always with Perelman, brevity and restrictions are no bar to variety. The thirteen pieces have a range of paces, each unfolding in a manner that suits the treatment adopted. There’s no single way to go about this. Sometimes things are clear – more accurately, set in higher relief – other times they’re more dispersed and ambiguous. Likewise with texture and tempo: the viola’s serrated edge and the warm, occasionally sour saxophone, smeared and wavering tones; widely spaced notes and closely packed clusters, with oscillations generated by identical and adjacent pitches producing phantom notes; steady speeds and accelerating figures but also passages where shape rather than pulse govern direction. At one point, Perelman and Maneri indulge in a mutual chuckle. The melody instruments drift over the delicate lacework of Dickey’s strokes, swirls and seething cymbals. Elsewhere, his brusque drumming incites further fragmentation. He’s the usual steady pair of hands (and feet).

Of course, an interesting notion does not necessarily make for a good album (in fairness, the way I’ve expounded it may not be universally acknowledged). Perelman and his colleagues have mastered a complex and subtle expressive language – a group of sympathetic and mutually articulate musicians – who also recognise the need to inject fresh ideas and consider matters anew, to remain stimulated and avoid staleness, though I suspect such things are never discussed in detail as they have a remarkable intuitive consensus on how they approach each album. There’s no reason to think that they will not continue to produce engaging music for the foreseeable future, though fully appreciating the depth and range of their work might take a little longer. 

Read More

Eric Hofbauer – Ghost Frets (Creative Nation Music, 2016) ****

By Chris Haines

This is an album of solo guitar pieces dedicated to Garrison Fewell. As well as the title Ghost Frets including the initials of the late guitarist there are among the varied set of pieces two of Fewell’s compositions as well as others by Monk, Dolphy, George Harrison and the Psychedelic Furs!

The album kicks-off with Fewell’s ‘Blues Update’, with Hofbauer providing a slightly more laid-back swinging interpretation of the piece, whilst the other Fewell piece ‘Ayleristic’ is punctuated with flourishes but contains the same freewheeling folksiness, which is emphasized even more as a solo guitar rendition. A piece that stands out for me is the Furs track ‘The Ghost in You’, not something I was expecting to hear but a pleasant surprise, especially as I was a fan of the group and this song in an earlier life. The re-harmonisation of the piece gives it a new vitality and allows it to sit much more comfortably in amongst the other pieces. Whilst the improvisation ‘Scratchedelic’ nods to the guitarists enjoyment of hip-hop and furthers the notion that modern pop music can still be used as a great resource for the jazz musician, Hofbauer also feels and sounds comfortable tackling such modern jazz behemoths as Eric Dolphy’s ‘Out to Lunch’ and Monk’s ‘Lets Cool One’ in a solo context. Another piece worthy of mention is the improvisation ‘Masafir’ with it’s picking behind the bridge providing an African mbira-like accompaniment to the hammered-on pentatonic melody, which again shows the diversity of the range of influences covered.

As an album of varied and catholic taste the homogeneity of the set is a real testament to Hofbauer’s musical style and vision with the continuity from piece to piece providing us with a unique and original glimpse into the guitarist’s personal take on pre-existing forms and material. The playing is excellent and virtuosic throughout providing us with a real master class in creative solo performance.

With this significant and interesting set of pieces Eric Hofbauer has done his old friend and mentor GF proud, a very worthy dedication it is too!

Read More

Happy New Ears 2016: VOTE

This year's New Ears Awards/Best of 2016 poll is a mix of reader and reviewer input. Following the public nomination process to complete the list of ten top albums of the year, we now present the list for your vote.

Voting is from Dec 19 to Dec 23rd. 

Please vote only once via the form here.


The candidates:

• Anna Högberg Attack - Self-Titled (Omlott)
• Fire! – She Sleeps, She Sleeps (Rune Grammofon)
• Henry Threadgill - Old Locks and Irregular Verbs (Pi Recordings)
• Ingrid Laubrock - Serpentines (Intakt)
• Mary Halvorson Octet - Away With You (Firehouse 12)
• Pascal Niggenkemper: Talking Trash (Clean Feed)
• Peter Evans - Genesis (More is More)
• Tyshawn Sorey - Inner Spectrum of Variables (Pi Recordings)
• Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith  - A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (ECM)
• Wadada Leo Smith - America's National Parks (Cuneiform)

Have fun! The New Ears Album of the Year will be revealed on December 31st.

Read More

Forebrace - Steeped (Relative Pitch, 2016) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

Steeped is blistering, no holds barred, instrumental avant-rock. Striking a balance between the ‘jazzier' strain of band leader Alex Ward’s lithe clarinet playing and guitarist Roberto Sassi’s distorted guitar work, Forebrace manages to be forceful and direct without losing a melodic touch.

Ward is a clarinetist and guitarist from the UK who has been working in free improvised music, rock, and jazz since the mid-80s and has long been associated with musicians like Steve Noble, Simon H. Fell, and Duck Baker, as well as leading the group Forebrace, among other quintet and sextets. Making up the rest of the group is another long term associate of Ward, drummer Jam Doulton, as well as the aforementioned Sassi and bassist Santiago Horro. Since last hearing from Forebrace on 2013’s Bad Folds, the group has retained its hard edge and avowed allegiance to the influences of Miles Davis, Last Exit, and Prime Time, and they seem to be ever more integrating these styles into something all their own.

The opening ‘Hive’ kicks off Steeped with a pure rush of energy. A crash, a piercing scream from Ward's clarinet, followed by an angular thrust from the rhythm section. They 'settle' into an effects laden solo from Sassi that is both shredding and textural. It becomes pretty clear that the group is not interested in recapping past achievements and are pushing themselves into new sonic territory.

The follow up 'Planetesimals' is another bruising show of force.Ward leads with crisp, clean, laser sharp lines while Sassi's metallic lines shimmer behind, and they are both pulled along by the dense undertow of Horro and Doulton. 'Stalks', track 3, seems to me like that perfect synthesis of melody and might. Sassi takes finger-twister of a solo above the swirling storm of fuzz bass and percussion that ends up tying itself into a compressed and distorted knot. Tucked into Ward's solo is a Miles Davis quote from - I believe 'Star People' - but delivered in pure Dark Magus fashion.

The following ‘Crest’ pulls them back together, starting with a heavy groove from the bass and drums, over which Ward lays a fraught theme. The band ramps up the tension up to a drum solo the leads them into a completely free zone that the group quietly explores. This long exploratory section leads us into the track 'Grains' which sports and intense composed theme, followed by a passage of counter-melodies between the guitar, clarinet, and bass that stretch the ear to its limits. The music continues, varying in the approach (like a solo clarinet passage where Ward employees a deft combination extended techniques) but with similar focus and muscle.

The tracks on Steeped were recorded at the venerable Vortex Jazz Club and Cafe Oto in 2014 and 2016 respectively, the sound is excellent and the energy captured has that special spark of a great gig.

Read More

Anna Webber’s Simple Trio - Binary (Skirl, 2016) ****

By Derek Stone

For three years now, New York-based flautist/saxophonist/composer Anna Webber has spent much of her time oscillating between the complex, multi-faceted, and textured jazz of her septet Percussive Merchanics, and the more minimal approach that Simple Trio deals in. It is this latter group, consisting of Webber, John Hollenbeck on drums, and Matt Mitchell on piano, that has produced the magnificent Binary. In many ways, Webber’s Simple Trio is a scaled-down variant of the knotty compositional avenues she has surveyed with Percussive Mechanics. As in that larger group, the musicians here explore the intersections between rhythm, timbre, and melody, and they do so without ever abandoning the angular twists-and-turns that have characterized Webber’s best work.

“Rectangles 2” wastes no time in transporting you to Webber’s world. It’s a world made up of discrete units of melody that, at first listen, seem to clash, but eventually reveal themselves to be locked together in their own, singular kind of harmony. “Impulse Purchase” expands upon this restless push-and-pull with a wondrous showof space. Hollenbeck doesn’t shy away from forceful, muscular flows, but what’s more often on display is his restraint - he ties his piecemeal rhythms to Mitchell’s martial blocks of sound, and this connection serves to highlight the percussive nature of the compositions. Likewise, Webber casually resists the urge to send her tenor on fanciful flights or errant excursions; in place of wild spurts of warm blood, she offers coolly-calculated drips from an I.V. machine. On one track, the appropriately-named “Tug O’ War,” Webber switches to flute, and the change seems to inject the whole group with a nervy restlessness that’s even more pronounced than usual. In that piece’s middle section, Hollenbeck trades terse, geometrical patterns for textural explorations, and Mitchell provides the twinkling backdrop to Webber’s breathless, near-frantic improvisations. It’s an intriguing change of pace for a group that often seems to be marching in ineluctable lock-step.

When the group lets loose a little, as on the fast-paced joy-ride of “Underhelmed,” it’s a joy to hear. In this piece, Hollenbeck’s rhythms are loose-limbed and groove-laden, and they bring an irresistable swing to the party. In similar fashion, Mitchell slides with a newly-energized fluidity over the keys, and Webber’s streams of notes become downright torrential. The presumable centerpiece of the album, “Binary,” is an exercise in brooding drama, with frenzied drops of fire that occasionally come to melt the piece’s icy exterior. Mitchell is the melodic backbone of the composition, playing a skeletal, yet profound, motif that wouldn’t sound out of place on Olivier Messiaen’s famed Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus. “Disintegratiate” sounds like an ode to Thelonious Monk, but one that hammers a few nails into Monk’s famously wooden progressions.

Despite the implications of its title and the name of the group itself, Binary is not simple. Webber’s compositions are full of intricacies and inexplicable shifts, and it’s never easy to predict the direction any given piece will take. In addition, Matt Mitchell and John Hollenbeck are the perfect complements to Webber’s curious style, and they add their own idiosyncracies that help to further elevate the music. The world of Binary is one that wavers between moments of pinpoint accuracy and hazy unpredictability - perhaps that’s the duality that the title is hinting at. This is a fantastic record, and it comes highly recommended!

Read More

Arthur Williams - Forgiveness Suite (NoBusiness, 2016 - recorded 1978) ****

By Nicola Negri

Arthur Williams – trumpet
Toshinori Kondo – trumpet
Peter Kuhn – bass clarinet
William Parker – bass
Denis Charles – drums

Forgiveness Suite is another worthy rediscovery by NoBusiness Records, focusing this time on trumpeter Arthur Williams, an almost forgotten figure of the free jazz scene of the late Seventies. Williams participated in some interesting recording sessions of the period, like First Feeding by Jemeel Moondoc’s Muntu Ensemble, Lowe And Behold by the Frank Lowe Orchestra and most significantly ‎Peter Kuhn’s Livin' Right, that shares exactly the same instrumentation and musicians with this record.

Recorded live at WKCR Radio on 19 December 1978 and comprised of a single composition roughly thirty minutes long, Forgiveness Suite is in a sense a perfect snapshot of the New York’s loft jazz scene, merging the mystical tensions of spiritual jazz and the attention to unconventional compositional strategies of Chicago’s AACM. The main theme that opens the record, after a brief introduction of the instrumental voices, is harmonically simple, with a solemn, hymn-like quality. Different other melodic cells are then heard throughout the album, usually exposed in unison lines by the trumpets; sometimes sounding like permutations and abstractions of the initial theme, or focusing on more complex rhythmic variations and structural juxtapositions. The rest of the performance is reserved to small group combinations, creating suspended interludes that highlight the different styles of the musicians. Particularly interesting is the complementary nature of the two trumpets, as evidenced in their respective solos: Kondo shows excellent technique and a rich and very controlled extended vocabulary, passing from fast legato excursions to overblowing or pedal notes with ease; Williams, though less technically refined, accumulates different ideas with a captivating, urgent attitude, alternating between a soulful, direct delivery and more adventurous ideas made of growls, half-valve notes, and a hint of multiphonics. Kuhn, here exclusively on bass clarinet, contributes with effective textural underpinnings to the ensemble passages and brief but incisive melodic statements, while Charles uses the drums to add different percussive colors, eventually returning to a more straightforward rhythmic role when needed. The episodic nature of the composition sometimes risks to stiffen the performance, but Parker, that even at this relatively early stage of his career already shows a very personal instrumental voice, effectively connects the different sections with a plethora of ideas and a firm structural understanding, both sustaining and continually pushing his bandmates to move forward, until they finally converge on a forceful collective improvisation that brilliantly closes this brief and intense album.

Read More

Unlimited 30 Festival, Wels, Austria, Nov. 11-13, 2016

By Eyal Hareuveni

There is nothing obvious in having a music festival that focuses on genre-defying music for thirty years now. But the Music Unlimited Festival in the small town of Wels, Austria, is unlike any other festival. For many years it is the place to experience some of the most adventurous, experimental and provocative music, to examine different strategies of improvisations, guaranteeing some of the best and most arresting music one can find today. The festival's 30th-anniversary edition brought back many of the singular legends who shaped the festival open, inclusive identity, some of them even curated the festival programs, and others who accompanied the festival throughout its history. All under the most relevant mottos: Peace & Fire and Refugees are Welcome, there in Austria and everywhere, especially, as many were still shocked and troubled after the American election.  

Day 1

The festival began with a duet of Japanese guitarist-sound sculptor Otomo Yoshihide and drummer Hiroshi Yamazaki. This duet marks a kind of closure for Yoshihide with his early mentor, legendary experimental guitarist Takayanagi Masayuki (1932-1991), with whom Yamazaki played since the sixties and through the eighties. Yoshihide and Yamazaki joined forces in recent years and this performance was one of the first ones outside Japan. This was an intense and muscular set that highlighted the immediate, inventive interplay that these resourceful improvisers have established. This set also offered a perfect opportunity to know how great improviser Yamazaki is, full of passion, endless energy and a total master of time and texture. He balanced wisely the free-associative sonic attacks of Yoshihide.

Mats Gustafsson and his Nu Ensemble were supposed to perform the program Hidros 6 - Knockin’ (released as a box-set and later as a disc by Not Two, 2014, 2015), dedicated to songs Little Richard. But Gustafsson decided in the last minute to perform a newer program, Hidros 7 - Zap, dedicated to Frank Zappa (after earlier Hidros programs with the Nu ensemble were dedicated to Patti Smith, György Ligeti and architecture at large), explaining that we all are meant now to “fight global stupidities”. This 11-musicians ensemble deconstructed brilliantly Zappa classic songs, including a spectacular version of “Any Way The Wind Blow” (from the debut album of Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!), and assembled them again in a typical absurdist and provocative manner. Gustafsson conducted the orchestrated improvisations, employing the whole ensemble infectious, massive power only for short segments and playing himself only fewer, brief solos. This set stressed the unique, charismatic vocal delivery of Mariam Wallentin, as well the imaginative contributions of Joe McPhee, trumpeter Anders Nyqvist, vibes player Kjell Nordeson, pianist Agustí Fernández, turntables master Dieb13 and a heroic performance of drummer Paal Nilssen-Love with a strained leg.    

After these intense, explosive sets the performance of the Berlin-based Barcelona Series trio - percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson (who played on Peter Brötzmann self-released debut, For Adolphe Sax, 1967,  and on his seminal Machine Gun, 1968) , and electronics and piano strings player Andrea Neumann and trumpeter Axel Dörner, titled after its debut album (hatOLOGY, 2001) - changed the atmosphere to more introspective one. Johansson described the minimalistic music of this trio as “peeling, certain nudity," The trio explored the sounds of surfaces, strings, breaths and subtle electronics as friendly, alien noises, articulating these abstract, almost transparent sounds and textures with great imagination, letting the sounds flow according to their own intriguing rational.

The Ex + Fendika

This evening concluded with a 3-hours Ethiopian celebration, conducted by the Dutch dissidents, The Ex, great ambassadors of Ethiopian culture for the last two decades now. The Ex bagan with a short set augmented by Ken Vandermark, with drummer-vocalist Katherina Bornefeld reminding all that such musical events keep us from the “crazy world outside”. This short set was followed by the funny, acrobatics and juggling of the Circus Debre Berhan and an hypnotic solo performance of Zerfu Demissie, singing and playing on the ancient, huge begena, the “King David harp” (believed to be 3,000 years old). The Fendika group followed with another short set, featuring songs from its recently-released, debut album Birabiro (Terp Records, 2016), before they joined forces with The Ex and Vandermark. Then this joyful celebration of traditional ethiopian songs reached its cathartic climax. By this time the excited audiences was already dancing. This ecstatic celebration was concluded with “Lale Guma”, originally a traditional war cry, and a wild, spirited version of the classic Ethiopian song “Tezeta”, with Vandermark playing masterfully the role of the late, great Ethiopian sax player Gétatchèw Mèkurya, a close and beloved comrade of The Ex.

Day 2

The second day opened in the picturesque building of Im Pavillon with the Austrian quintet Zimt headed by composer-guitarist Gunther Schneider and featuring Barbara Roman on hammered dulcimer, Kai Fagaschinski (the three recorded together the beautiful Here Comes The Sun, Mikroton, 2012), Burkhard Stangl on guitars and Angélica Castelló on devices and electronics. This quintet explored delicate and dreamlike soundscapes that sounded as bridging organically archaic traditions and sounds, songs-forms with futuristic sonic explorations, all performed with an impressive sense of detail and emotional lyricism. Immediately afterward at the old church building of Minoriten, German sax player and actor Dietmar Diesner demonstrated his commanding mastery of minimalist, circular breathing techniques on the sax. In an intense, highly disciplined and with an impressive sense of timing and tension building, together with few theatrical tricks, he created short, repetitive staccato-like rich loops, almost as if in techno music, were the basis for further improvisations.   

Fred Frith + Lotte Anker

The evening began with two working duos that formed an ad-hoc quartet. Danish sax player Lotte Anker and guitarist Fred Frith opened with an inventive set that balanced the fast-shifting sonic inventions and game-like plays of Frith with the more structured eruptions of Anker. The duo of Vandermark and trumpeter Nate Wooley continued with a soulful reading of John Carter “And She Speaks” (covered on their album, East by Northwest, Audiographic, 2015). Then all four improvised together a short set. Anker and Vandermark connected immediately and formed a strong core of this freely moving improvisation, while Frith pushed for more eccentric articulations and Wooley balanced him with beautiful melodic lines.

The trio of electronics pioneer Bob Ostertag, violinist Jon Rose and drummer Gerry Hemingway continued with a hyperactive, free-improvised set fueled by the possessed-powerful drumming of Hemingway, the inventive and provocative games of Rose, and the weird sonic flights of Ostertag. These experienced improvisers have been playing together in different formats in the last decades and already formed such a telepathic understanding that enabled them to shift the atmosphere and the sonic palette in a matter of milliseconds, moving from nuanced, structured textures to loose soundscapes and theatrical games.

The trio of cellist Okkyung Lee, Norwegian noise master Lasse Marhaug and violinist and electronics player C. Spencer Yeh (this trio released the LP Wake Up Awesome, Software, 2013) continued the intense, experimental vein but pushed it into noisier terrains. This trio of sonic shamans transformed all sound sources - strings, bows, vinyl, electronic devices - into a string of raw, suggestive noises. Lee and Yeh struggled with their instruments - in the most physical sense of it, producing weird yet arresting sounds while Marhaug injected even weirder noises, including from a tortured turntable and broken vinyl. Together they created a tortured, apocalyptic soundtrack that ended surprisingly with a comforting, lyrical tone.

Ingrid Laubrock

After this stormy opening the set of sax player Ingrid Laubrock Anti-House Quartet (without original member, double bass player John Hébert) suggested a completely different atmosphere. This group has been working closely since 2010, has released already three albums (the last, as a sextet with clarinet player Oscar Noriega, Roulette of the Cradle, Intakt, 2015) and has perfected its complex dynamics. Together with partner-drummer Tom Rainey, pianist Kris Davis, and guitarist Mary Halvorson, this quartet played Laubrock intricate, expansive compositions. The fiery playing of Laubrock and explosive drumming of Rainey were contrasted by clever, contemplative piano solos of Davis and nuanced, minimalist solos of Halvorson. All four musicians were  all interacting intuitively, emphasizing rapid dissonances and nuanced tension building and the unpredictable turns of Laubrock complex compositions.

The second night ended with a loud, uncompromising set that united the Italian Jooklo duo - Virginia Genta on saxophones and keyboards, and drummer David Vanzan - with Danish sax player Mette Rasmussen and Norwegian bass player Guro Skumsnes Moe. This powerful set moved from one extreme eruption to another, with all pushing the intense, wild interplay to its limits - Moe with blood-freezing screams, Vanzan with frenetic drumming, Genta alternating restlessly between many instruments, and Rasmussen leading this sonic mayhem, setting its unwinding, nervous course with a natural command.

Day 3

Fred Frith + Christof Kurzmann

The afternoon program began at Medien Kultur Haus with an ad-hoc duo of Fred Frith on guitar and devices and Christof Kurzmann on the ppooll software. The musical interests of these innovative, creative musicians cover an impressive conceptual range, from free improvisations, orchestral works to experimental song formats. The short set began with as a free-improvised dialogue of two mad scientists - Frith attaching assorted objects the guitar strings and hammering the strings in many creative-playful ways while Kurzmann played with rubber bands and cork on his laptop. But as Kurzmann began to recite Robert Wyatt “Alifib” in his fragile, unassuming voice the set suddenly offered a fresh, sober perspective on the experimental British scene of the late sixties and early seventies, a time when Frith was a founding member of the legendary group Henry Cow. This feeling intensified as Kurzmann continued to interpret folk songs, accompanied by a moving, lyrical guitar playing of Frith and comforting sounds of the ppooll software. The second afternoon set teamed French double bass master Joëlle Léandre with local pianist Elisabeth Harnik at the Minoriten. The two have been performing constantly in the last year and about to release their debut album soon. Their set was restrained, serene and poetic in its spirit. Léandre offered some of her funny operatic vocal acrobatic and Harnik harnessed Léandre free-flowing sonic ideas into reasoned structures as if she was composing in real-time.

The evening program began with a rare performance of the Amsterdam String Trio - viola player Maurice Horsthuis, cellist Ernst Reijseger and double bass player Ernst Glerum - that played in the first edition of the Unlimited festival. The trio set feature compositions that bridge contemporary music with chamber jazz, sparked by healthy doses of eccentric Dutch humor, with Reijseger setting the playful tone of this trio.

Carla Kihlstedt + Zeena Parkins

The next set feature an ad-hoc quartet - vocalist-violinist Carla Kihlstedt, harp and electronics player Zeena Parkins, keyboards player Magda Mayas and last-minute addition, Bob Ostertag on electronics. Kihlstedt led the set with a heart-breaking, vocal-only reading of W.H. Auden famous poem “After The Funeral” (that begins with the line: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone…” and concludes with the lines “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood / For nothing now can ever come to any good”). Her bewitching, emotional cry was abstracted into one of the most moving moments of this festival, as Parkins, Mayas and Ostertag and later also Kihlstedt herself on the violin ornamented painful, wordless whispers, screams and claps into an apocalyptic soundscape. Ostertag processed in real-time and deconstructed Kihlstedt vocalizations into a string of intelligible sounds that intensified the already charged emotional atmosphere.

Peter Brotzmann + Heather Leigh

The working duo of reeds titan Peter Brötzmann and pedal-steel guitarist Heather Leigh (who released their debut album this year, Ears Filled With Wonder, Not Two/Trost) added to this apocalyptic vein with an aggressive and uncompromising set of their own. Leigh set the tone with a series of psychedelic-metallic drones that grew louder and tougher to the sheer delight of Brötzmann, He stuck most of the time to his tenor sax, and kept intensifying the tension with powerful, brutal cries, except for a while where both he and Leigh created a fleeting, subtle melodic texture.

Sarah Gail Brand, Maggiie Nichols, John Edwards, Mark Sanders

The festival artistic director Wolfgang Hermann sensed the dark atmosphere tried to ease it before the last set with a quote of Patti Smith, insisting that “everything is good at the end; if it is not good, it is not the end …”. And then the set of the British quartet of trombonist Sarah Gail Brand, vocalist Maggie Nicols and the magical rhythm section of double bass player John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders (Sanders collaborates with Brand in a long-standing duo that released so far only one album, Instinct & The Body, 2009) performed a fascinating set that cemented the festival atmosphere and its message: Peace & Fire. This free-improvised set was based on the fast instincts of all four musicians, full of eccentric inventions and healthy humor. Nicols, who did not stop dancing, framed the importance of this kind of improvised music by quoting the late British drummer John Stevens, founding member of the influential Spontaneous Music Ensemble, who said: “we are practicing freedom, practicing for a better society”, and concluded by reminded all that “fascists do not improvise”.  

Watch & Listen:

Read More