Most musicians hope for applause at the end of a performance; far fewer expect it before the concert begins. But when Irène Schweizer and Joey Baron took the stage for their set at the 2015 Unerhört-Festival in Zürich, the audience began to clap—an expression of well-deserved anticipation for the accomplished duo. Whether buoyed by the warm reception or already raring to go (I suspect the latter), Schweizer and Barron don’t fail to make the most of the audience’s excitement, offering up a 50-minute show so energetic, dynamic, and fun that Live!—exclamation point included—seems the only appropriate title.
The set opens with “Free for All,” Schweizer clearing the air with a single percussive report before the duo begins corralling fragmentary ideas toward a cohesive if off-kilter swing. Immediately in evidence in these first few minutes is Schweizer’s special blend of almost impishly playful musicality and breathtaking free improvisation. In several places across the set, try to catch her wheeling from one idea to another, each compelling enough to be fleshed out vertically into a full tune but kept instead as highly reduced units to be arranged horizontally next to others. Not to say her ideas don’t develop satisfyingly or that they rely on pure juxtaposition: see how the toy-light swing that opens “Up the Ladder” builds into the grand swells in the middle of the piece—and from there into the funky groove near the end. Part of Schweizer’s ability to bridge these fragments and styles may have to do with her superior instrumental powers, particularly the ease with which she can pump out irresistible ostinatos with her left hand—as she does on “Jungle Beat II” and “Blues for Crelier”—while spinning unpredictable lines with her right.
It’s also Schweizer’s knack for holding down the whole keyboard that makes the presence of a bassist virtually unnecessary. And in fact she does have a history of duets with drummers, her discography reading like a who’s who of free jazz drumming: Louis Moholo-Moholo, Günter “Baby” Sommer, Andrew Cyrille, Pierre Favre. It’s tempting to doubt that Joey Baron will stand up to Schweizer’s 2015 percussive partner, Han Bennink—whose bold and tricksterish playing so well matches the pianist’s—but of course he does just fine, adding his own unique filter to Schweizer’s sensibility. Quite the veteran himself, Baron has a well-honed intuition for when to follow his partner and when to chart his own course. And Live! provides him ample opportunity to demonstrate his range, from the firm swing of “Free for All” and “Blues for Crelier” to the subtle mallet-work of extended technique–vehicle “String Fever.” He even gets a few solo spots to show off his chops. But it’s when they’re improvising together that Schweizer and Baron are at their best here—where the push-pull of their interplay strikes its vital balance.
The set picks up in pace toward the end, finishing with back-to-back-to-back four-minute tunes. “Saturdays” features some of the album’s most cerebral and moody playing, while as already hinted, “Blues for Crelier” is a foot-tapper. Closer “The Open Window” begins with erratic improvisation, dropping from there into a fleet waltz. In the piece’s penultimate seconds, Schweizer’s playing becomes thinner and thinner until it suddenly vanishes in thin air, leaving Baron to ride out the last bit of the concert alone. Even when she stops playing, Schweizer draws cheers—such is her magic talent.
This one tested my personal arbitrary star rating. Another 5-star album, so soon? Why not? It’s two giants of free jazz performing together in a rare duo setting. What’s not to like? Irène Schweizer has had an epic run of piano-drums duo albums in recent years, pairing with Han Bennink, Pierre Favre, Günter Sommer, Louis Moholo, and Andrew Cyrille. As others have noted, this is amazingly only her second album with Bennink, the two sound so good together.
There’s a recurrence of words and phrases that follow these two around, things like effortless and comfortable. But it’s important to remember how much Schweizer absolutely dominates her instrument. She’s a classically expert improviser, and Bennink is a superb partner. His long history in duet, including pianist Misha Mengelberg, serves him well in this setting.
Schweizer displays her usual light touch, which often leaves me wrongfooted (in a good way) when she caps on a dissonant chord after a breezy run, or contrasts her right- and left-hand runs, as she does midway through the opener, “Welcome Back.” That’s followed by two raucous, free tracks credited to Bennink, “Kit 4” and “Trap 5.” On the former, Bennink opens on muted drums, playing against Schweizer’s brisk riffs. As Bennink opens up the drum sounds and brings in more cymbal crashes, Schweizer continues filling in the space between riffs, nailing some classically Taylor-esque runs before Bennink comes to the fore in the final minute. By contrast, “Trap 5” begins with Schweizer alone, until Bennink comes in with brushes, and the piece finds its rhythm.
There’s no one centerpiece to this album, but the sequence of “Verflixt,” “Rag,” Bleu Foncé,” and “Apus Melba” is a superb example of free interplay at its finest. Within about 15 minutes, Schweizer and Bennink seem to breeze through swing, boogie, stride, all filtered through the lens of collaborative free jazz. “Apus Melba,” credited to Bennink, is a tune constantly on the move, rarely settling in one place for more than a few seconds, and the duo play off each other throughout the duration, taking and giving brief hooks to respond to.
As with their last album, a selection of covers demonstrates the pair’s love of jazz history. Their “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” is sturdily faithful on the surface, with subtle tweaks from Bennink that remind you this isn’t an austere salute. Later, the duo tackle Dyani’s “Ntyilo, Ntyilo.” Again, Schweizer takes the lead, while Bennink adds percussive commentary. There’s a very slight mournful edge to the performance, a reminder of Dyani’s gentle, quiet vocals from the original. At album’s end, Monk’s “Eronel” brings the album to a natural and buoyant close.
If you have heard Irène Schweizer’s duos with drummers (including many
of the free jazz luminaries of the last forty years, Han Bennink,
Andrew Cyrille, Günter Sommer, Pierre Favre, Louis Moholo-Moholo and,
more recently, Joey Baron), you likely know what you are in for, even
if the percussion is always a world in itself.
Schweizer, of course, is a singular pianist. Her love of melody
(apparently, many borrowed from South Africa, in this case) is matched
only by her ability to detour into a free territory that combines the
discipline of the classically trained with the roots, rhythms, and
chops of the keenest practitioners of jazz in its myriad forms. Just
listen to the grooving 'Good Life', the Vince Guaraldi-styled 'Blues for
Crelier', and the infectious 'Song for Johnny – In Memory of Johnny Dyani' for examples of her rootedness. Then, there is also the potentially
more obvious free improv influence, evidenced in most of the pieces
included on Celebration, that stretches back a half-century to
Schweizer’s days at the forefront of free playing in Europe. Indeed,
her performance on Celebration, capturing her and Hamid Drake live at
the 40th Festival for Free and Improvised Music in Nickelsdorf, Austria
in 2019, that Schweizer, approaching 80 years of age, has still got it,
and in abundance, at that.
Drake, a decade-and-a-half younger, requires about as much introduction
as Schweizer. And Drake does his thing as well as Schweizer does. Both
musicians play impeccably, ride the improvisational waves convincingly
and zig-zag beyond the usual script, but rarely into spaces beyond the
wide zones they have trodden before. That invites, of course, one of
the big questions with improvised music. To what extent are improvisors
expected to continually push stylistic boundaries and to what extent
should they dedicate themselves to perfect their own style at the
expense of such free-wheeling exploration? Schweizer and Drake strike a
balance that leans toward the latter, here, with notable exceptions
such as 'Stringfever'. At the risk of sounding trite, Schweizer and Drake
communicate immaculately and, in the process, sound as much like
themselves as I have heard them. And that is part of what makes this
album so delicious. This is two master musicians from different scenes
and generations, who clearly appreciate each other’s journeys and
strengths, playing some damn fine music.
For her 75th birthday, the music department of the Lucerne University and
the Broecking Verlag published a comprehensive biography of jazz pianist
Irène Schweizer. Now, five years later, the English version of the book has
been released, translated by trombonist Jeb Bishop.
In this detailed biography Schweizer is honored not only as a central
figure in the development of European free jazz, but also as a committed
pioneer for the equality of women in art and society. In her early years,
for example, she stood up for the artistic and economic autonomy of artists
and fought against discrimination against people on the basis of gender,
origin or sexual orientation. The German critic Christian Broecking, who sadly passed away this year, has created an elaborate, diligent work
with lots of case studies. What is more, the book consists of many interviews with Schweizer and over 60 contemporary witnesses, which turn
out to be insightful as to her life's work.
Chronologically, the biography begins with Schweizer’s youth. She grew up
in a pub owner’s family in Schaffhausen and after her first attempts on the
accordion she discovered the piano and joined the Crazy Stokers, a
Dixieland band, at the age of 16. In 1957, that alone was a sensation.
Shortly after that she landed in the top ranks at the Zurich Amateur Jazz
Festival playing soul jazz and hardbop. The prize was a man’s shirt and a
pack of cigarettes - no one could imagine that a woman would be able to win the
first prize.
A little later, Schweizer attended a language school in Great
Britain, where she immersed herself in the London jazz scene (mainly Ronnie
Scott’s club), before returning to Zurich. At the "Africana" jazz club she
met drummer Mani Neumeier and bassist Uli Trepte, who also formed her first
trio. When the two men converted to rock music in 1968 and formed the
underground band Guru Guru, Schweizer’s long-time collaboration with
drummer Pierre Favre began. Their music sounded increasingly wild and free,
which earned the pianist invitations to the Total Music Meeting in Berlin -
the annual pilgrimage site for free jazz fans. As a woman, however, she was
on her own and had to assert herself against the male alpha dogs, which
resulted in her more playful, sensitive style. Since that time Schweizer
has been a regular guest on the avant-garde stages in Berlin, Willisau,
Chicago and New York, she has played with Don Cherry, Louis Moholo, Hamid
Drake, Andrew Cyrille and George Lewis, her solo performances show her as a
leading pianist of European jazz. In the last years of her career, she was
finally deemed worthy of playing in the temples of high culture, a late
triumph.
As in his interview collections Christian Broecking is more interested in
sociocultural conditions than musical investigations, often touching on
issues of material survival or gender politics: Irène Schweizer had to work
part-time as a secretary for a long time to make ends meet, and she came
out as a lesbian at an early age.
Broecking’s biography is diligently and thoroughly researched, it is at its
best when it tells anecdotes. One chapter addresses the chronic
underpayment of jazz musicians, one deals with "Knitting as Provocation." Time and again, the author inserts digressions to explain a fact even more
explicitly and places it in a social context. As a result of Schweizer’s
consistent advocacy against apartheid (she has had very good connections to
the South African expats in London) and for women's rights, she was part of
the so-called Fichen scandal, in which she was surveilled by the Swiss
secret service.
Nevertheless, the pianist continued to be active in the
feminist and lesbian scene. She has kept on provoking and challenging,
mostly in a musical way with the Feminist Improvising Group FIG, the
European Women's Improvising Group EWIG, the Swiss-French-English trio Les
Diaboliques and the organization of the first women’s jazz festival in
Switzerland. All in all: Anyone who wants to be comprehensively informed
about the life of the “grande dame“ of Swiss jazz can’t go wrong with this
book.
Ah, what a joy! Swiss free jazz pianist Irene Schweizer is joined by Chicagoans Fred Anderson on sax and Hamid Drake on drums. The latter two of course have been performing together for many years and are also close friends, both coming from the same town in Louisiana. Schweizer has been a musical adventurer since the late 60s, pushing the boundaries of jazz and even free jazz, integrating everything from classical to Indian and African music, and she is especially renowned for her duos with drummers (Andrew Cyrille, Pierre Favre, Han Bennink, Louis Moholo, Mani Neumeier). This album starts with a duo with Hamid Drake, taking a very intensive and rhythmic attack from the very start, inviting the drummer in, who takes up the challenge and with great success. Hamid Drake's sense of music and rhythm, combined with creativity and speed of reaction (or anticipation?), makes him one of the best drummers of the free jazz scene. After a while Schweizer loosens up a bit, changing the piece into something more lyrical, enthusiastic, with even little moments of fun thrown in once in while : a little melodic sidestep, a little dancing figure, and where is Drake - for sure, he is part of it, as if he's reading the notes from a sheet of paper, encouraging Schweizer to do more. Great stuff! After this first take, which was recorded at the Taktlos festival in 1998, comes the trio, with Anderson on sax, and recorded at the Willisau festival in 2004. This is splendor continued. Schweizer's playing is not easy, and in terms of musical sensitivity, phrasing and color in another area than Anderson, who is more directly emotional, bluesy - but the two mix well, moving towards one another without relinquishing their style. And agile Drake is the glue that holds them together. And they give each other room as well, Drake and Anderson play a great duet in the middle of the lengthy second track, but so do Drake and Schweizer on the same track, integrating them into trio interplay and moving it to an even higher level. The third track starts with Drake's frame drum, and lines from Anderson that I remember from another album (but which one?), but Schweizer joins and with her propulsive piano hammering leads it into other territory, first abstract, but then picking up Anderson's base line with the left hand and moving it with the right into an African melody. There's nothing as good as hearing three great musicians having fun playing together, and with the audience enjoying it to the full. So will you, I hope.
Below you can watch the trio, after a 2 minute piano intro by Schweizer, when the two Chicagoans join the piece "Willisau" (the clip is edited).
A man’s shirt and a pack of cigarettes - that was the prize for the
16-year-old winner of a Zurich amateur jazz festival in 1957. That a woman
could win the competition was simply unthinkable for the organizers at the
time. When Irène Schweizer entered the world’s jazz stages, times were
still different - especially for women.
Irène Schweizer was born June 2, 1941 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. She
grew up in a pub owner’s family in her home town and after her first
attempts on the accordion she discovered the piano and the drums and
joined the Crazy Stokers, a Dixieland band, at the age of 16. In 1957, that
alone was a sensation. Shortly after that she landed in the top ranks at
the aforementioned Zurich Amateur Jazz Festival playing soul jazz and
hardbop. One might image how the jaws of many men in the audience dropped
when they heard her play.
A little later, Schweizer attended a language school in Great Britain,
where she immersed herself in the London jazz scene (mainly Ronnie Scott’s
club), before returning to Zurich. At the “Africana“ jazz club she met
drummer Mani Neumeier and bassist Uli Trepte, who also formed her first
trio. When the two men converted to rock music in 1968, Schweizer’s
long-time collaboration with drummer Pierre Favre began. Their music
sounded increasingly wild and free, which earned the pianist invitations to
the Total Music Meeting in Berlin - the annual pilgrimage site for free
jazz fans, which was organized by the FMP people around Jost Gebers. As a
woman, however, she was on her own and had to assert herself against the
male alpha dogs, which resulted in her more playful, sensitive style.
Nevertheless, she managed to prevail, an incredible personal and musical
achievement that cannot be overstated in retrospect.
Since that time Schweizer was a regular guest on the avant-garde stages
in Berlin, Willisau, Chicago and New York, she has played with Don Cherry,
Louis Moholo, Hamid Drake, Andrew Cyrille and George Lewis, her solo
performances show her as a leading pianist of European jazz. In the last
years of her career, she was finally deemed worthy of playing in the
temples of high culture, a late triumph.
Schweizer, unlike other jazz musicians, has not recorded for many different
labels; almost her entire oeuvre is available on FMP and Intakt. However,
her debut Santana with Pierre Favre on drums and Peter Kowald on
bass was released on Pip in 1969 before Jost Gebers reissued it on FMP in
1979. More classics are her two FMP recordings with Rüdiger Carl (sax,
clarinets) and Louis Moholo (drums): Messer (1976) and
Tuned Boots
(1978). Her solo recordings Wilde Senoritas (FMP, 1977) and
Hexensabbat
(FMP, 1978). Since the mid-1980s she has recorded almost exclusively for
the Swiss label Intakt, and although these recordings no longer have the
power and energy of the early recordings, her duo with Louis Moholo
Irène Schweizer & Louis Moholo (1987) and
Where's Africa
with Omi Ziegel (saxophone, vocals) are truly excellent albums.
In the last years of her life Irène Schweizer lived in a retirement home,
she could no longer perform. But anyone who saw her at her last
performances, such as in 2017 at the Neumarkt Theater in Zurich with Louis
Moholo-Moholo, and how much joy she exuded in playing even at an advanced
age, and how she was celebrated by her - predominantly female - fans, can
guess what a loss she is to the free jazz community.
Watch her solo at a festival in her hometown Schaffhausen in 2008:
In 2012 the Swiss Intakt label hosted a two-week-residency with some of their artists at The Stone in New York City. The row of concerts was a real success, which is why the label planned a similar event, this time in London’s The Vortex. Scheduled around Barry Guy’s 70th birthday on April 22nd, there were 26 bands/solo performances over twelve consecutive days, starring artists like the Howard Riley Trio, Schlippenbach Trio, Omri Ziegele’s Where’s Africa and many others. Although it was a huge effort to organize the London shows, Irène Schweizer and Omri Ziegele suggested some form of an appendix in Zurich, presenting line-ups with a London - Switzerland connection.
Due to Irène Schweizer and Omri Ziegele being local heroes, the first day at the Theater Neumarkt was almost sold out and the festival started with Schweizer (piano) and Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums). The two have known each other since the early 1960s and recorded excellent albums for FMP (Messer and Tuned Boots, both with Rüdiger Carl on saxophone). In 1986 they played as a duo at the Zurich Jazz Festival and their music protested against the collaboration of Swiss banks with the South African apartheid regime. The concert was later released as one of Intakt’s first CDs. At the Theater Neumarkt, their opening set moved from longer, excessive pieces, which could be understood as a reminiscence to their riotous past, to miniatures towards the end of the gig. Their improvisations danced around Schweizer’s melodic lines, which Moholo complemented with his stoic and tender style, especially on the cymbals. However, the highlights of the set were when Schweizer’s changed to Tayloresque clusters or gloomier passages from which she culled little tunes. The duo had to play three encores, one quoting “Angel“ from their 1986 set, which made the audience almost freak out.
After this rather accessible set, Evan Parker (tenor saxophone) and Flo Stoffner (guitar) were harder to digest. Stoffner's way of playing was reminiscent of Derek Bailey, he tore the strings and used staccato chords and harmonics, which gave Parker the possibility to present the whole range of his impressive technique. The central element of their music was a certain unevenness (not in a negative way), which was regularly interrupted by floating passages, often instigated by Parker’s circular breathing technique. The two played a real duo set, there were no solo parts. All in all, this was improvised music as it should be: communicative, challenging, subtle. However, some people left the room, obviously, it was a bit too disturbing for them.
The highlight of the first evening was the trio of Omri Ziegele (tenor saxophone, flute, voice), John Edwards (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums). Ziegele composed a theme for the band which bookended the set and it was interesting to see Edwards and Sanders dealing with a notated part. The trio included lots of different musical styles (in general a central aspect of the festival), which referred back to Schweizer/Moholo-Moholo and foreshadowed Ingrid Laubrock’s Sleepthief. Their unique feature was high speed, both relentless, energetic and soulful at the same time - something Edwards and Sanders are famous (or notorious?) for. They generated many of layers of sound and Ziegele responded with wide and open lines. When he changed his strategy and went for speed as well, the set provided moments of sheer expressivity and excitement. This basic pattern was ruptured by different excellent solos: first Ziegele played the flute and improvised lyrics in the style of the Beat Generation, then Sanders contributed a very light-footed drum solo and finally Edwards proved that he is one if the most creative bassists on the scene, bowing his head to the great Barry Guy’s "all-over-approach."
As to the surroundings, the second day was very different, only about 50 people attended the show - and to cut a long story short, they missed excellent music.
The evening was started by Evan Parker and Barry Guy, always a perfect match. Both have known each other since the big bang of British improv in the 1960s, they’ve played together in lots of constellations (in the Evan Parker Trio or Barry Guy’s London Jazz Composers Orchestra, to name just the two most famous ones), as a duo they released Incision in 1981 (on FMP/SAJ). Their nearly patented individual styles have become free jazz history and so it was no surprise that they didn’t need time to warm up to come to the point. Both played marvelous loud/quiet passages, especially when Guy’s overtones met Parker’s circular breathing. Or, as Parker once put it: "Effectively, we're just machines turning sunlight into music." Their music was full of meticulous details about the idea of communicating and both deployed a musical empathy, which was simply sensational - even after such a long time of playing together.
Some of the people in the audience came just for the two old masters, which is why the final concert, Ingrid Laubrock’s Sleepthief with Liam Noble on piano and her husband Tom Rainey on drums, took place in front of just 30 people. However, like the people who left the Woodstock festival before Jimi Hendrix’s concert, they missed the best of all gigs.
The trio was the exception to the rule since there is no Swiss element in it (Laubrock was born in Germany). Like Schweizer/Moholo and Ziegele/Edwards/Sanders Sleepthief also presented a whole range of musical styles, in their case free jazz, classical music, blues, swing, modern jazz etc. Often the musicians blended musical ideas smoothly, e.g. in the first piece when Noble played a series of filigrane runs and Rainey and Laubrock tip-toed elegantly above them. When Laubrock changed her tenor for the soprano sax, Rainey played the most minimal drum transition I’ve ever heard (with mallets and the palm of his right hand) so that Laubrock and Noble could easily find their way into the next part. Above all, the trio was just great in creating different kinds of atmospheres. The icing on the cake were two Ingrid Laubrock solos, one very expressive in the first piece, the other one at the beginning of the second track, when Rainey and Noble just listened. Here she was unusually bluesy, with a lot of overblown notes, very vibrato-drunk. However, typically Laubrock, she was also abstract and digressing. It was my favorite solo of the festival (together with Edwards’ and Sanders’ ones the day before). In the last part of the concert the trio went full blast and paid tribute to Cecil Taylor's legendary trio with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray. A worthy finale - for the gig and for the festival.
All in all, London - Zurich was a very coherent and well-curated festival. A nice side-effect was that it presented three very different drummers, each of them a real treat. The venue, the Theater Neumarkt in the middle of Zurich’s old quarter, was beautiful and full of friendly people. Even the weather the great. I wished I could have been in London to watch the other bands.
There is no video footage of the festival but if you want to get a glimpse of the bands, you can check the following links:
This year the Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer celebrated her 80th birthday. The writers at the Free Jazz Blog have covered the influential pianist's work over the years and we thought it would be an appropriate celebration of her milestone year by reviewing not only her most recent release on the Intakt label, Celebration, a duo with Chicago percussionist Hamid Drake, but also survey some of the recent releases from the label, which is closely associated with Schweizer.
Intakt, based in Zürich, Switzerland, was founded in 1986, and is still run, by Patrik Landolt. The label was initially begun in order to feature the work of Schweizer, who although had a number of solo and collaborative recordings on the German labels FMP and SABA, as well as Harry Miller's Ogun, had a backlog of work that she was ready to release. In fact, according to a profile by arts critic Kurt Gottschalk, of the first 10 releases from the label, 8 featured the pianist.
Intakt continues to this day with an impressive release schedule. In fact, as we assembled this short tribute with reviews from 2021, another new set of releases came out (a de facto to be continued). Additionally, aside from a focus on developing artists and groups, another feature of the label is that its releases are typically complete with extensive liner notes (pure treasure for us music obsessives!). The liner notes are even included with full album downloads from their robust Bandcamp store.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy the set of reviews that will post over the next few days. Today we begin with a review of Celebration by Schweizer and Drake written by Nick Ostrum.
Although the album cover is of Léandre in ball gown on the Grand staircase of the Palais Garnier (Paris Opera) the recording was made during the four days of Carte Noir a Joëlle Léandre, held in June 1983 across the Seine at the more humble Left Bank location of Théâtre Dunois, a former coach inn which since 1977 had been a sort of laboratory for drama, dance and improvised music. One of Léandre’s earliest albums – though she’d been playing such music for a number of years, mainly outside France in America and Germany – she cites it as one of her most important discs. The title (The Twelve Sounds) is a reference to musical scope and intent rather than dodecaphony, an ambition that can be heard throughout the album, prescient of her music-making in the following years, and witnesses the renewing and forging of relationships she’d continue to explore, and at greater length. There are twelve pieces on the album, each different, but it suffers from a feeling that too many are mere appetisers: three last less than a minute and two just over – more substantial dishes though less varied and fewer in number, would have made greater musical sense.
Looking back, the outlook and personality of John Cage, especially as found in his writings, were possibly the most signal influence on Léandre, emancipating her imagination by charging the everyday with aesthetic significance: “He turned life itself into a form of poetry”. For this reason, it would be misleading to think of her as having a particular style or role within music. Her playing springs from something more basic, inspiration through the animation of an object – the acoustic and physical properties of the double-bass itself: vibrating strings and their harmonics resonating in a wooden chamber; how the bass is plucked, bowed, scraped and knocked; even the posture the body is forced to adopt. Paradoxically, although Léandre had a rigorous formal training, and her playing is rooted in the sonorities of the instrument, it helps to forget everything you know about the double-bass and its history. Our natural tendency to categorise and reference other music in order to make sense of what’s going on actually works against a sympathetic appreciation of her work and often, even advanced notions of musical coherence have no real application. There’s no avoiding the particularity of her sound, something which is nothing other than itself, and yet at the same time thinking in more abstract terms can actually make it easier to listen: events can have no significance beyond the moment – her desire to excavate and elaborate, before moving on – but what we hear in her duos and trios is the mutual and sometimes disjunctive exploration of shapes, surfaces, configurations and movement. Like Léandre and her colleagues, we have to put our imaginations into play: “The art of improvisation is not improvised. It’s practised through listening.”
There are two duos with fellow bassist Barre Phillips: ‘Basses Profondes’ and ‘Grand Duo Concertant’, studies in the sonorities of the lower registers (“equivalent to the colour black”) with some impassioned bowing from Léandre. ‘Seriozo (pour Cordes et Trombone)’ adds George Lewis on the latter, though initially it’s barely recognisable as such, before he rises above the bass arpeggios and plays a quasi-lament.
The guitarist Derek Bailey, whom Léandre first met when he invited her to play with him during a Company Week in New York, was also an important figure in cementing her views on improvisation, though they never discussed music, just played. Here, they’re joined by Ernst Reyseger on cello for a brief blur of arco and chopped chords, ending in a pizzicato flurry. (Léandre and Bailey’s subsequent, No Waiting (Potlatch, 1998) is recommended).
There’s a comic air to much of what goes on. Of the four pieces from the trio of Léandre, Annick Nozati (vocals), and Irène Schweizer (piano) the first is a cabaret intro and the second a parody of the Sprechstimme from Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. With its virtuoso vocals and surreal twists, ‘Les Trois Dames’ is a forerunner of Les Diaboliques. In ‘Sonate Brève Échappée’ there’s a cartoonish gait on bass turned into a perpetuum mobile by Schweizer and evolving onto a free for all, from which Léandre recovers with syncopated pants. ‘Ballade de Chien’ features a contribution from Miss Biscotte, Léandre’s dog, in an impromptu dialogue with Lewis – the inlay informs us that no animals were mistreated during the recording, and the boxer even has her own Discogs entry.
Les Diaboliques – Live at the Rhinefalls (Intakt, 2000)
Les Diaboliques is the long-standing group comprising Irène Schweizer (piano), Maggie Nicols (voice) and Léandre, presumably named after Clouzot’s classic, and still chilling, 1955 film of female duplicity. Recorded at the Rhine Falls in Switzerland as part of the 1997 Schaffhausen Jazz Festival, this is an excellent example of what the trio can get up to.
Léandre is someone for whom the theatrical aspect of music has always been present – she’s worked in the theatre and with dancers and poets, giving her a sense of stage time – and Les Diaboliques is fundamentally a dramatic unit. There’s no substitute for seeing them perform, but there remains much to enjoy in their recordings, which contain some of Nicols’ best and most entertaining work. Capable of shifting from diva to pantomime dame in the space of a few seconds, and able to encompass everything from phonic scat to sweet melodies, Nicols is possessed of a wonderful singing voice. Mostly, she uses it as a third instrument, following and echoing her colleagues’ lines, rousing and undermining them.
We open with ‘Mercurial Drama’ and the title really says it all: Nicols’ impassioned wordless vocal, sometimes manic, other times folky – with some nonsense foreign language interjections and hammed up chuckles – while Léandre and Schweizer dart and scurry impishly around her, throwing in some silent movie skits and a bit of boogie-woogie. There’s even some tap dancing from Nicols.
Léandre frequently uses her voice in performance, which she sees as an extension of her instrument (possibly due to her teacher enjoining her to make the bass sing). There’s also a lot of mimicry and humorous dialogue with Nicols, though admittedly much is lost without the visuals.
It’s not all tomfoolery, however. There’s a lateral thinking at play in the way Nicols floats between sounds, syllables and singing at the beginning of ‘Almost Straight Ahead’, over Schweizer’s recital accompaniment. The piece then dissolves into blurred speech with pointillist dabs and accelerating spurts on bass and piano, and concludes with a catchy blues melody. ‘Rheingefallen’ is a piano interlude, which has the same stream of consciousness flow, and ‘Tongue Talking’ is the trio’s exploration of diffuse lines, fusing and separating.
‘Diverse Moods’ Wings’ begins with Nicols monologue on what it means to have a good time and other musings on the medicinal treatment of unhappiness, which probably doesn’t bear repeated listening, but eventually it settles into excerpts from popular songs, some more tap dancing, despondent moans, bucolic babbling, and other therapeutic noises suggesting that she at least, is having a good time.
The concert ends with ‘Vals Diaboliques III’, loosely based on ‘Softly as a Morning Sunrise’ with some lovely singing from Nicols and sensitive accompaniment from her friends.
François Houle, Joëlle Léandre, Raymond Strid – 9 Moments (Red Toucan, 2007)
Recorded in the studio and at a concert in Victoria, Canada in November, 2006, the trio of François Houle (clarinet), Léandre and Raymond Strid (percussion) perform nine pieces which exemplify Léandre’s observation that “improvisations are born and die, they are ceaseless little ecstasies and rebirths”.Here, the title to each “moment” is an indication of its placing, mode or prevailing tone.
‘Moment Premier’ is a short, carbonated introduction, which slowly fizzes to silence, followed by the more substantial ‘Moment Grave’, a study in stasis – Léandre sustains a subtly inflected note, skirted around by Strid’s mallets and Houle’s meandering figures, their decorations gradually becoming more elaborate. Bass and clarinet then merge as the vibrating tone intensifies. After an episode for percussion alone, the protracted intonations return, this time with bass, vocals and swirling clarinet, rising and then sinking back into a long drone and woodwind dirge. The ensuing ‘Moment Calme’ is a lighter affair, a jumble of split notes, bustling bass and erratic drums.
‘Moment Tendu’ is about extending the most basic material – Houle’s circular breathing and bubbling contours, drum rolls, shuddering bass and bowed tremors – but also the lyrical expansion of simple motifs, exploiting Houle’s beguiling, lacquered tone. In the seemingly negligible the considerable is to be found.
The duo ‘Moment à Deux’ blends spectral bass harmonics and playing close to the bridge with soft cymbals, and in ‘Moment Clé’ a jerky animation from all three is the driving force, winding down in spasms to its conclusion. ‘Moment Spatial’ has Houle’s gentle configurations hovering over Léandre’s sonorous pizzicato; by contrast ‘Moment Donné’ is a skein of looping clarinet and agile drums. We end with ‘Moment Final’: spare, poised gestures and intimations of something more – a reflective close to a diverse collection.
It’s difficult to imagine the situation for black musicians in South Africa
in the 1960s today. Apartheid, the racist system of legal separation between
blacks and whites, determined people’s lives, including art and music. Black
and white musicians were not allowed to perform, rehearse, or travel
together. Concerts in mixed ensembles were illegal. Politically charged
music - such as African rhythms and free jazz - was considered “subversive”
and many musicians were monitored by the state, their music banned or
restricted. Black musicians needed special passes to move around their own
country. International tours were hardly possible, and when they did happen,
they were mainly for privileged white artists. Many black musicians
therefore lived in poverty and had no professional platform for their art.
Louis Moholo-Moholo had to deal with this reality at the beginning of his
musical career, which is why he and his band, the Blue Notes, decided to
leave the country in order to be able to perform freely. It was not until a
little over 40 years later that he returned to his homeland, where he has
now passed away at the age of 85.
Tebogo Louis Moholo-Moholo grew up in a township in Cape Town. In the
vibrant jazz scene of this neighborhood, music became a place of expression,
resistance, but also joy and hope. There, Moholo-Moholo met Dollar Brand
(Abdullah Ibrahim), among others, and was a co-founder of The Blue Notes, a
band that soon became the artistic spearhead of South African modern jazz.
The Blue Notes consisted of black and white musicians, which was forbidden.
Public performances were therefore dangerous, their music, which opposed
restriction and racial segregation, was increasingly seen as provocative. In
1964, the band fled into exile in Europe, officially under the pretext of
participating in the Antibes Jazz Festival in France. In reality, it was an
escape from censorship, police surveillance, and oppression by the apartheid
state. From South Africa, they traveled via France to London, where they
sought and ultimately found asylum. “We played because we wanted to live -
and we lived because we could play,” the drummer said in retrospect about
this time.
Soon, Moholo-Moholo became part of the British free jazz scene, playing with
Chris McGregor and his Brotherhood of Breath, with Dudu Pukwana, Evan
Parker, Keith Tippett, and many others. He formed a particularly close
musical friendship with Irène Schweizer, the Swiss pianist. In Europe, he
played with all the important free jazz musicians, and several of his
recordings with the West German FMP label are considered classics. His
playing was explosive yet melodic, rhythmically rooted in African tradition
but open to anything experimental. He combined township grooves with
European avant-garde jazz - a musical act of decolonization. Logically,
however, he was never “just a musician.” He understood his art as a
political act, which was almost inevitable given his background. Apartheid,
exile, the loss of his homeland – all of this resonated in his music. He
refused to provide “entertainment”. His concerts were acoustic manifestos -
loud, raw, demanding. In 2004, he received the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver,
one of South Africa’s highest cultural honors, and in 2005, after more than
40 years in exile, he returned to Cape Town on a permanent basis. There, he
taught, played with young musicians, and continued to fight for cultural and
social justice.
Louis Moholo-Moholo was at home in all kinds of formations, and his
characteristic drumming always enriched any group he played with. This makes
it difficult to single out any particular albums from his extensive oeuvre.
However, the first two Blue Notes albums, Blue Notes for Mongezi (Ogun,
1976) and Blue Notes in Concert Vol.1 (Ogun, 1978) are definite must haves.
Almost everything he published on FMP is outstanding: The Nearer The Bone,
The Sweater the Meat (FMP, 1979) and Opened, But Hardly Touched (FMP, 1981)
with Peter Brötzmann on saxophones and clarinet and fellow expat Harry
Miller on bass, are spectacular albums and only due to Miller’s untimely
death there are just these two recordings by this trio. In general,
Moholo-Moholo was great in duos with pianists - with his friend Irène
Schweizer on their self titled album (Intakt, 1987), which includes “Free
Mandela!“ and “Angel“, signature compositions of the two. In this context
one must also mention No Gossip (FMP, 1982), a piano duo recording with
Keith Tippett, and Remembrance (FMP, 1989) with the great Cecil Taylor.
Messer (FMP, 1976) and Tuned Boots (FMP 1978), his trios with Irène
Schweizer and Rüdiger Carl on saxophone, must not be forgotten either. A
personal favorite of mine is Tern (FMP, 1983), his trio with Keith Tippett
and Larry Stabbins on saxophone. But what is more, he was a great bandleader
as well. Among his many recordings, Spirits Rejoice! (Ogun, 1978) certainly
stands out. It’s his octet album with Harry Miller and John Dyani on bass,
Keith Tippett on piano, Evan Parker on saxophone, Kenny Wheeler on trumpet,
and Radu Malfatti and Nick Evans on trombone - a killer lineup that delivers
everything it promises. A perfect example of his interest in teaming up with
younger musicians is his quintet Five Blokes with Alexander Hawkins on
piano, John Edwards on bass, and Jason Yarde and Shabaka Hutchings on saxes.
Uplift the People (Ogun, 2018) is just a great album.
On June, 13th, the exceptional man died after a long illness. With this
extraordinary drummer the last surviving member of the legendary Blue Notes
has died. So, this also marks the end of a musical era. “Louis was more than
a pioneering musician - he was a mentor and a friend. As a drummer,
composer, and fearless voice for artistic freedom, Louis inspired
generations through his groundbreaking contributions to South African and
global jazz,“ the Moholo-Moholo family said in a statement.
“Spirits Rejoice!” the family concluded - a reference to the legendary octet
album and a tribute to a life that has linked music and political resistance
like few others. May he rest in peace.
Watch Louis Moholo-Moholo live with Irène Schweizer at the 29th outfit of
the Unlimited Festival in Wels/Austria in 2015:
Les Diaboliques - Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer, Scottish vocalist (and occasional tap-dancer) Maggie Nicols and French double bass player-vocalist Joëlle Léandre - are the foremothers of the European school of free-improvisation. The three have been working together as a trio for more than 25 years, blending spontaneous improvisations with comic cabaret, throwing into this intense stew elements of South-African jazz, theatrical ploys, delirious humor and operatic tricks, all with a strong feminist and satirical edge.
This live recording is from the first of two concerts that Les Diaboliques played at the DOM club in Moscow. This recording highlights the deep, intimate rapport and the extraordinary, telepathic interplay between these unique and resourceful musicians. It captures the true essence of Les Diaboliques - three highly individual masters, being totally themselves on stage, exploring their differences and their profound affinity, being witty, funny and inspiring.
The trio opens and closes this performance with extended trio improvisations. Schweizer acts on these pieces as the responsible adult who accommodates the hysterical, theatrical games of Nicols and Léandre, including their amusing, gibberish vocalizations, cementing the wild, dramatic interplay with a perfect rhythmic timing and a straight, deadpan sensibility. Nicols and Léandre continue with two intense and highly emotional duets that shift fast between moods - sensual and surreal, energetic and eccentric, spoiled and child-like. The trio improvisation that follows is more contemplative and reserved - in Les Diaboliques terms - but it stresses the immediate manner that the trio move as a tight, perfect unity. Schweizer solo piano improvisation is a magnificent demonstration of her rich, nuanced language that embrace all the history of jazz, from rhythmic-bluesy phrases to more abstract, and open-ended improvisation.
Simply excellent.
CD2: Joëlle Léandre & Mat Maneri duet
By Stef
Léandre likes duets, and she likes duets with a violin. She has made "Les Domestiques" with Jon Rose, "Ecritures" with Carlos Zingaro, "Firedance" with India Cooke, "Elastic" with Théo Ceccaldi, not to mention her duets with cello (Vincent Courtois) and other double-basses (Peter Kowald, William Parker, Tetsu Saitoh, Michael Francis Dutch).
The great thing is that all these artists have their own voice, as is definitely the case with Mat Maneri, whose playing is first of all identifiable from far because of the human voice quality of his sound, his raw bowing, his quiet nervousness, his capacity to create a sense of fluidity despite his short staccato notes that hang together like links in a chain.
Léandre released an album with Mat Maneri in 2004 ("For Flowers") together with Christophe Marquet and Joel Ryan, and I have no idea how many performances Léandre and Maneri had without actual published output, yet on this album the interaction is great. Léandre goes along with Maneri's specific style, and the result is uncomparable with her other violin-bass duets. She goes along with his high intervals, with the short little bursts of sounds, the hesitation, the minimal intense agitation, yet all this without relinquishing this forward flux, this liquid flow without any foundation whatsoever in rhyhm or melody. In contrast of the other duo albums mentioned above, there is more of a conversation here, a parlando style, like a Jackson Pollock painting, with splashes all over the canvas, without inherent structure but resulting in a work of art of substance. And as with the other string duets, it all works well, there is this kind of natural empathy between the instruments themselves, a kind of natural logic to create sounds together.
The live performance was recorded on January 23rd, 2011 at La Java in Paris.
The video below was recorded on Monday this week, at the Eglise Saint-Eustache in Paris, at Joëlle Léandre's 40 Years On The Road celebration.
By comparison with this band of four sexagenarians, many of today's young musicians sound old, stale and devoid of creativity. These four musicians, even if they took part in the creation of free jazz, modern jazz, free improv and new music, kept their fresh attitude to music, as a fluid thing to play with, to use to express emotions, to cry, to weep, but also to enjoy. The quartet consists of Irene Schweizer on piano, Oliver Lake on alto saxophone, Reggie Workman on bass, Andrew Cyrille on drums. They are so good that it sounds as if they have been playing for years, and those are really kudos for Schweizer's seamless integration in this routined trio. The music was recorded live at the Taktlos festival in Switzerland in 2007. Not all tracks present the full quartet. Each member of the trio has the pleasure to play a duet with the great swiss pianist: "Timbral Interplay" is a long and fascinating duet with Cyrille, "R.I. Exchange" with Workman, "Phrases" with Lake. "Ballad Of The Self" is just Trio 3 without piano. These are all quite enjoyable, but the best pieces are the ones with the full quartet, offering the richness you can expect from such a long musical experience. And again, they still have a new story to tell, after so many decades.
The Beatles were the first pop band to introduce the sitar and Indian music to broad audiences, with the George Harrison song "Within You, Without You", released on Sgt Pepper's in 1967 possibly one of the better known ones.
This album was recorded in the same year, on October 23rd, in Villingen, Germany, by a band consisting of Irene Schweizer on piano, Uli Trepte on acoustic bass, Mani Neumeier on drums, Dewan Motihar on sitar and vocals, Keshav Sathe on tablas, Kusum Thakur on tambura, Manfred Schoof on trumpet, and Barney Wilen on soprano and tenor saxophones.
True, the sitar had been used before in jazz, though sparingly, and Coltrane and Miles Davis were influenced by Indian music, but to my knowledge (and tell me if I'm wrong) this is one of the first real joint performances, on equal footing between musicians from east and west.
The first track "Sun Love", starts with the Indian trio, with the sitar taking the lead voice, and once their music has been established, the drums join, then the piano and the bass after some five minutes, hesitantly, respectfully, trying to become one with the Indian rhythm and modal scales, yet Schweizer's response is unbelievably precise and Motihar's response even better. Once they get to this comfort level, the volume increases without trampling too much on the vulnerable sound of the Indian instruments. When the calm returns, Schoof's trumpet enters, slow, magnificent, warm-toned, rapidly breaking the set boundaries, dragging bass and drums along into more intensity, falling back after a great improvisation on the slowly flowing essence of the piece, as the opportunity for Wilen to join, brilliantly, emotionally strong and sensitive, yet the long track ends with total mayhem in the best free jazz tradition, with controlled chaos, followed by the absolute calm of the solo sitar.
"Yaad" is shorter, with sitar and Indian vocals leading the way. The piano adds sparse tones and Wilen's entrance is again sheer brilliance of finding the right tone and approach, emulating the sadness of the voice, and with both horns adding great slow echoes to Mohitar's singing.
The last track, "Brigach And Ganges", starts with the jazz musicians : arco bass, tenor and trumpet, for some abstract free form, with Neumeier adding percussive accents, then sitar and piano join and turn the piece seamlessly into Indian raga form, with changing levels of intensity and volume depending on which instrument is taking the lead.
And then it's over: and it's too short, about thirty-seven minutes.
A real find (thanks Tony!).
If you're interested in world jazz: don't miss this one. The sound quality is absolutely excellent thanks to the digital remastering of the original tapes.
The Unlimited Festival in Wels, Austria is one of the best places to explore free and creative, genre-bending music. It is not the diverse and well-chosen performances and musicians -- 29 performance in three days -- since many festivals feature many more concerts, but also its explorative atmosphere that balances wisely the experimental and the demanding with musicians and outfits that have already won over the audience, trusted by the many repeat visitors that for many years come from all parts of Europe. Adding to that, the festival has an intimate and close atmosphere that enables a constant and direct contact between the musicians and the audience, thus cultivating a strong, supportive and global community to the unique musical art.
The 29th edition of the Unlimited Festival had few headlines. The festival program was curated by Austrian electronics innovator and music theoretician Christof Kurzmann, and thus titled after his independent label Charhizmatic Music. The festival was dedicated to free jazz giant {{Ornette Coleman}}, who left this planet last June, and offered an impressive exhibition of Coleman's vinyl covers and its opening performance was an homage to the late master. And the festival performances were held under the projected and most relevant slogan throughout Europe: Refugees welcome.
Kurzmann devised a rich program that featured his interest in many aspects of improvisation, typical to the Unlimited Festival three decades legacy, ranging from free jazz to free improvisation, from minimalist and avant-garde to contemporary music and from art-rock to experimental-techno. The 29 performances were divided between the big hall of Alter Schlachthof, where the full sets were performed, and shorter solo ones, between the long ones, in the nearby new temporary hall, titled the Extra Room.
First Night
The opening performances of the Unlimited Festival are always unique and this year was no exception. A new ad-hoc quartet - Harmolodic Affection - offered a moving homage to the art of the late Coleman, featuring American master sax and trumpet player Joe McPhee and drummer Michael Zerang with French, Vienna-based clarinet player and vocalist Isabelle Duthoit and Christof Kurzmann, playing his electronics ppooll software. From the opening minimalist reimagination of Coleman’s “Sadness” (originally recorded on Town Hall, 1962, ESP-Disk, 1965), arranged for voice and electronics, it was clear that this quartet takes Coleman seminal ideas about free, creative music to new terrains.
McPhee introduced later his song-poem “Old Eyes”, written as a dedication to Coleman, saying that the sadness in the eyes of Coleman mirrored the wisdom of the ages. In a way, a similar wisdom characterized this quartet. The wisdom to create highly individual sounds that morphed into provocative but highly emotional music, and the freedom to challenge any musical convention, even Coleman ideas about free jazz. The passionate, irreverent arrangements of McPhee’s “The Loneliest Woman”, followed by the concluding, iconic “Lonely Woman”, with Kurzmann reciting the sad lyrics in a quiet, sober voice, stressed how Coleman art is still inspiring and relevant for today and coming ages. Hopefully, this excellent quartet will keep on performing.
As often happens in this festival, the spirit changed completely in the next set. The Naples-based Duo Marinare - vocalist and accordionist Cristina Vetrone and vocalist and percussionist Enza Alessandra Prestia - entertained the audience with a passionate set of Italian folk songs and colorful stories about them. The funny dialog with the surprised audience even included an offer to date these two charming ladies.
Irène Schweizer and Louis Moholo-Moholo
The next set introduced two legends of free jazz - Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer and South-African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo. Their collaborations date back to the mid-sixties when Moholo, then a member of the exiled Chris McGregor's Blue Notes, settled with his group in Switzerland for a while. The two recorded an acclaimed live duo album almost thirty years ago (released on Intakt, 1987), and their performance followed this album - free, rhythmic arrangements of South African songs and anthems, some even penned by the Blue Notes musicians. There was nothing spectacular in this performance, still, it was a very emotional ones. The powerful themes of these songs are still moving, as their optimistic and compassionate messages, and both Schweizer and Moholo-Moholo sounded intense and energetic.
The first night ended with the Dutch Tobias Delius Quartet - Delius on tenor sax, Tristan Honsinger on cello, Joe Williamson on double bass and Han Bennink on drums. This quartet of four experienced improvisers and eccentric individuals introduced another blend of free jazz, moving organically between tightly composed segments, to wild, erratic exchange of ideas and dynamics, spiced with generous doses of humor. Bennink played only on the snare drum, swinging with his typical shtick as banging the drum with his legs or drumming on the floor. He and the restless-talkative Honsinger pushed for spontaneous chaos while Delius expressive sax and Williamson solid reserved bass playing anchored this ecstatic playful interplay.
In the Extra Room: The format of this small space and the limited time allocated for each set - 15 to 20 minutes - forced the musicians to offer the essence of their art. The first day presented three female composer-performers. Austrian Pianist Katharina Klement offered her unique extended technique of the piano, playing inside the piano and on its strings, creating a series of arresting sounds. Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler played a brilliant set, full of imagination, humor and depth, alternating between melodic segments and experimental investigation of the piano full sonic spectrum inside-out. Last one was Austrian bass and contrabass clarinet player Susanna Gartmayer, member of the avant-rock group 'broken.hearts.collector', who played a powerful set that stressed her extended breathing techniques and clever sense of structuring her pieces, blending her searching tone with a commanding manner of structuring complex narratives.
Second Day This day opened with two afternoon concerts, both offering demanding and provocative perspectives on the very essence of music and its basic elements - silence, space, audience and ultimately sounds. The first one was at the Medien Kultur Haus gallery and introduced the Berlin-based trombonist Hilary Jeffery and electronics generator Werner Dafeldecker, co-founder of the minimalist Viennese quartet Polwechsel, and stressed the minimalist process of sketching of sounds. The second one, held at the beautiful Im Pavillon, featured Argentinian trumpeter Leonel Kaplan and Viennese electronics player and programming expert Klaus Filip, playing sinus waves. This set featured a music that was so close to silence, disturbed only by elusive, fragments of minimalist sounds that outlined the possible articulations of this meeting - breathes, delicate electronic hums, the touches of the hands on the instruments and the contemplative, spare blows.
The first set in the evening, back in the Alter Schlachthof, continued the afternoon experimentalist vein. The quartet Scanning Grisey - Austrian double bass player Uli Fussenegger, bass sax player Gerald Preinfalk, Swiss contrabass clarinet player Ernesto Molinari and Kurzmann on ppooll - performed a reimagination of the composition "Anubis, Nout" (1983) by French composer Gérard Grisey (1946-1998). Grisley, known for his spectral compositional technique, was inspired by the mythological Egyptian god Anubis, who protected the dead, weighing their souls and deciding their fates, and the goddess, Nut, who, according to the myth, swallowed the sun every evening and gave birth to it every morning, in this composition Anubis represent the reversal laws of harmony while Nut resumes its normal laws. The quartet arranged the composition into a fascinating tone poem that investigated methodically the spectrum of deep, resonating and sustained tones and its overtones, with great attention to detail, leaving only the resourceful Fussenegger for free improvised solos.
The following set featured the Berlin-based quartet The Pitch - clarinet player Michael Thieke, harmonium player Boris Baltschun, double bass player Koen Nutters and vibes player Morten J. Olsen. Its set consisted of repetitive dark and long drone patterns, called by the quartet as “liquid music”, with an arresting focus and nuanced individual playing but with no solos, except few fleeting ones by Olsen.
Sidsel Endresen
The atmosphere changed again in the following set by Norwegian vocal artist and master improviser Sidsel Endresen. She has developed in recent years her own, highly idiosyncratic and expressive vocal language, deconstructing any conventional grammar, spoken and sung in an alien gibberish yet a very communicative one and delivered in a colorful story-like manner. Endresen improvised playfully on several vocal-stories themes with a sharp sense of invention and humor but concluded her set too fast, leaving the audience eager for more.
Hope
The spirit intensified towards midnight when a new super-group, Hope, in one of its first performances, began its set. The group featured German, Seoul-based reeds and electronics player Alfred 23 Harth, British drummer-percussionist Chris Cutler, known as a member of the legendary British art-rock Henry Cow, Japanese innovative guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi and electric bass player Mitsuru Nasuno, a frequent collaborator of the free-minded Japanese musicians as Otomo Yoshihide, Keiji Haino and Tatsuya Yoshida and a member in Uchihashi’s Altered States group. Harth and Cutler collaborated in the eighties in the avant-rock Cassiber, and Hope sounded at times as an updated version of the musical ideas explored with this seminal group. Hope's fantastic set offered a kaleidoscopic, frantic ride of intense, wild ideas, virtuoso solos and group improvisation, drawing elements from free jazz, prog rock, spoken word, noise and electronics. The hyperactive Harth alternated between tenor sax, pocket trumpet, poetry reciting, bass clarinet and noisy electronics. Uchihashi added spectacular electric guitar and daxphons solos. Cutler massive drumming and Nasuno rock-solid pulse held these intense, volcanic eruptions, locking this set in a driving, explosive pulse.
Ventil
The second night ended with a late-night, invigorating set by the Viennese quartet Ventil, consisting of guitarists end electronics players Peter Kutin and Florian Kindlinger, vintage analog synthesizers and electronics player Michael Lahner and drummer Katharina Ernst, augmented with light structures by Conny Zenk. This group just released its self-produced, self-titled debut vinyl on its own independent label. Ventil merged industrial sounds with minimalist techno and ambient. Its dramatic set sounded like an inspiring, multi-layered blend of a disciplined, late incarnation of King Crimson, spiced with nuanced walls of noise and driven by dramatic, hypnotic pulse of techno, dictated by the charismatic Ernst. This promising group that deserve a wider recognition.
In the Extra Room: This small space hosted two brilliant Austrian pianists - Elisabeth Harnik and Manon Liu-Winter. Both suggested two different, highly inventive and personal approaches to the piano as an infinite sound generator, playing simultaneously on the keyboard and inside the piano while attaching various. objects to its strings, creating an intriguing spectrum of sounds. Austrian Drummer Didi Kerm set was explosive, full of humorous and inventive ideas, charged with infectious, driving energy. Slovenian vocal artist Irena Tomažin presented her unique, highly expressive vocal language, composed of broken syllables dressed as emotional cries.
Third Day
The last day of the festival opened with an afternoon screening of the French film “Les grandes répétitions: Cecil Taylor ou la découverte du free jazz” (1968), directed by composer Luc Ferrari & Gérard Patris. This film highlights the era when European intellectual elite began to appreciate the Afro-American free jazz and its political and subversive ideas. The film presented Taylor in his Parisian stay, rehashing with his group and talking in short cryptic sentences about his upbringing, his inspiration and his personal rejection of Western culture, including European And American music and composers, saying: "they do not come from our community".
Soon after, in the picturesque Im Pavillon, the only afternoon concert began, suggesting another, altogether different interpretation to the concept of free music. The Berlin-based duo The International Nothing - clarinet players Kai Fagaschinski and Michael Thieke, who played with The Pitch the night before, played minimalist, delicate compositions. Both sounded most of the times times as one, rich sonic entity, mirroring and multiplying the fragile, timbral spectrum of the clarinets, but at times extended the musical ideas of the other in a highly poetic manner. This beautiful set stressed the duo somehow distant emotional approach and dry sense of humor, perfectly captured in its albums titles, Less Action, Less Excitement, Less Everything and The Dark Side of Success (both on Ftarri, 2010 and 2014).
The opening set of the evening performances featured another duo of sonic explorers - British sax master John Butcher and French pianist Sophie Agnel. This set was an urgent, provocative journey in otherworldly and inventive sonic textures, surprising in its weird sounds, even for those who already know the art of both Butcher and Agnel. Both investigated the sonic possibilities of their instruments - Agnel hammering the strings of the prepared piano and creating series of resonating overtones while Butcher kept exploring the tenor and soprano saxophones as wind generators, creating gentle feedback sounds by bringing the tenor sax bell close to the mikes and using his inventive extended breathing techniques. But. as true masters of their instruments, Butcher and Agnel knew how to inject humor and sense of drama to their dense textures.
Next played Swedish sax player Anna Högberg’s all-female group Attack!, featuring tenor sax player Malin Wättring and Elin Larsson, pianist Lisa Ullén, double bass player Elsa Bergman and drummer Anna Lund. This group won the audience from its first notes. Högberg, member of Mats Gustafsson's Fire! Orchestra and leader of the power trio Dog Life, presented her and Bergman’s well-crafted compositions that encompass free and modern jazz sensibilities, fusing intensity and warmth, imagination and flowing energy, rich, expansive sound with beautiful melodies. These compositions left enough room for the individual musicians personalities to contribute their own personal interpretations. Attack! presents a new generation of gifted musicians. Soon it will release its debut album, one of the promising ones of 2016.
The next set was titled as “Songs about Love and other Relationship”, and featured Michael Zerang, known as a free-spirited drummer, this time as a singer-songwriter-guitarist. Zerang surprised all as a great storyteller who knows how to entertain the listeners with funny tales about impossible loves, delivered by his rich, warm voice and effective bluesy guitar playing. His songs sounded as drawing inspiration from the sensuality of folk singer Greg Brown, the humor of Texan songwriter Terry Allen, but rooted in domestic, urban hallucinations. One day Zerang should do justice to these great songs and record them. Experimental Singer-songwriter-guitarist Carla Bozulich completed this set with a short string of sad, heartbreaking songs, bearing her most vulnerable side. Bozulich fragile, emotionally intense delivery reached its climax in a solo vocal interpretation of a traditional Celtic love ballad about a woman crying the loss of a dead soldier, her lover.
Again, the next set changed the course completely, this time with two Austrian sonic conceptualists and long-time collaborators - guitarists and electronic players Christian Fennesz and Burkhard Stangl. Both weaved an intense, multifaceted loud electric storms where the manipulated and the effects-laden sounds of the guitars fed the electronics set and vice versa. Fennesz and Burkhard alternated between dense, noisy textures and atmospheric segments characterized with peaceful, cinematic qualities, all with a great sense of drama and structure.
The festival final concert was an energetic, uplifting set of the DKV Trio - drummer Hamid Drake, double bass player Kent Kessler and tenor sax and clarinet player Ken Vandermark -its last concert of a short European tour. The trio showed its deep rhythmic interplay, as all three explored and fed the hard driving dynamics. DKV Trio set highlighted the trio telepathic understanding and passionate energy, perfected by countless performances, tours and recordings, spanning now 21 years of playing together. The trio kept gaining more and more momentum and power throughout this joyful set.
Mats Gustafsson
In the Extra Room: German Thomas Lehn opened this evening with his innovative exploration of the sonic spectrum of a vintage analog synthesizer and electronics, creating dense textures, disturbed by surprising noises. Mats Gustafsson, clearly the most popular solo set throughout this festival, played a highly commanding set with the baritone and slide saxes pushing himself to wild, muscular wails and cries, but also offering moving and gentle blows. Vocal artist Agnes Hvizdalek suggested another approach for free improvising voice, using her vocal to create abstract, almost silent language, Turntables master Dieb13 improvised playfully on 3 turntables, mixing rare Sun Ra vinyls with dance and electronics sounds. Last was trumpeter Franz Hautzinger who played a wise and humorous set that highlighted his minimalist technique.
Next year will be the festival 30th anniversary. Highly recommended for all.
