Polish saxophonist and bass clarinetist Mikołaj Trzaska has a more than impressive career, not only within his own country, but increasingly internationally, an evolution we can only applaud. His music has also made an interesting evolution, or better still, it is a tree with many different branches, going into full power free jazz mode (with for instance Peter Friis Nielsen and Peeter Uuskyla), and lyrical sensitive modern jazz with the Oles brothers, European free improv (with Brötzmann and Johannes Bauer), and more jewish inspired sounds with Ircha. Next to all that he was also the co-founder of Miłość, one of the best known bands of Polish "yass" as the country's specific variant of jazz is called, and let's not forget his work for the dramatic arts, probably also an influence on the story-telling aspect of music. In any case, what he does is worth listening to, it's actually really worth looking for, and this for each of the branches that grow out of the solid tree. And that tree is one of real humanity, authentic expression and lyricism, even in the wildest formats, and a deeply rooted sense of adventure. And does everything work? No, surely not, but that doesn't matter: he's taking the risks and without taking the risks you don't get anywhere, let alone shape listening experiences.
In the end it is a matter of choice. He's been very prolific in his output recently, and here are some albums that require highlighting.
Mikolaj Trzaska, Melbye, Hojgaard & Lohse - Live At Mayhem (7 Records, 2013) ***
It has taken me a year to write the review on this album. Primarily because I don't like to write negative reviews, of which I do not really see the point. But then again, Trzaska is such an important musician in my opinion, that not reviewing it would not be good either. Trzaska is performing with a Danish trio on this album, with Jeppe Højgaard also on saxophone and clarinet, Adam Melbye on double bass and Rune Lohse on drums. Even if the sound quality is not ideal, the album starts well, yet somehow the efforts taken never really gell. There is a lot of searching going on among the four musicians, yet they never find the sound they want to bring, to the extent even that I think that sometimes some of the band members take a step back to avoid too much confusion, and not surprisingly the best part is the first half of the second side, on which silence and quiet solos create a good atmosphere, but it ends in absolute mayhem, no sorries for the pun. And do you get value for money? "These records are the product of a year's work. Each record is made into one LP and is sold for the price of 2,000 $ a piece. If you choose to buy all 7 you will get a discount", writes drummer Rune Lohse on the website for his label. Luckily cheaper version exist via iTunes and other download sites.
Mikolaj Trzaska, Devin Hoff & Michael Zerang - Sleepless In Chicago (No Business, 2013) ****½
Things get phenomenally better with his trio with Devin Hoff on bass and Michael Zerang on drums. Trzaska starts with a slow and lyrical intro on his alto, setting the sound for a twenty-minute improvisation, that despite its many changes of fierceness, speed and phrases retains its initial concept, demonstrating how great an improviser Trzaska is. He explores emotional content, sonic possibilities, soaring, singing, howling like you've rarely heard an alto howl, yet keeping focused at the same time on the improvisation's foundation. Strong stuff, and Hoff and Zerang are perfect to achieve the fantastic end result, and if they already shine as a trio, they also get some time for solo activity. The second side starts equally slowly and lyrically, at times almost sounding like a spiritual invented on the spot, with feelings going deep into everyone's mutual understanding of places for which no words exist. It is sad, it is yearning, it is exalted, full of joy too, and then listen how Hoff's bass reinforces the feeling with his deep rumblings on bass, and Zerang's creative emphasis of moments, supporting the alto or even on the quieter pieces sufficiently strong to keep the percussive power going, shaping wonderful contrasts. Of all the sax trios around, this is possibly one of the highlights of the year. It is not the most innovative, because this is free jazz in its most essential delivery by a sax-bass-drums trio, and they do not do anything else than do what so many improvising sax-bass-drums trios have done for fifty years now, and still what you get to hear is of such a solidity, such a purity, such power and such flawless delivery, that it dwarves even some of the giants.
Inner Ear - Return From The Center Of The Earth (Bocian, 2013) **½
Inner Ear is a new band, with Trzaska on saxophone and bass clarinet, Steve Swell on trombone, Per-Ake Holmlander on tuba, and Tim Daisy on drums, a band that performed also twice, at the same moment as "Sleepless In Chicago", with the first part recorded at the Hideout in Chicago in March 2011, and the second part at the Elastic in August 2012.
The overall sound is more linked to European free improv than the jazzy blow-outs on "Sleepless In Chicago" and the quality is also less. Trzaska, Swell and Holmlander are not always on the same plane, often on a kind of sonic collision course, with Trzaska trying to get some lyricism into the proceedings, but when failing this, also resorting to long howls and fierce shouts.
It is a strange album, one that has its good moments, for sure, but this is not sustained throughout. Indeed, when taking risks, you sometimes fail, and I guess this is one of those moments, including the bizarre abrupt ending of the music on the last track, as if the label had also heard enough, and just switched off the sound.
Mikolaj Trzaska, Mazur & Pandi - Tar & Feathers (Gusstaff Records, 2014) ****½
The brilliant mastership goes on with this equally strong "Tar & Feathers", now with Polish acoustic bass guitar player Rafał Mazur and with Hungarian drummer Balazs Pandi. Mazur's skills on his custom-made instrument add a lot of weight to the overall sound, with a tone that is clearer than an acoustic bass, allows for more speed, more rock-ish, while still maintaining the natural acoustic sound. Pandi we have reviewed before, with his collaborations on Ivo Perelman's "One", and with Slobber Pup, two bands in which Joe Morris also features. Recently, Pandi also toured with Zu, the Italian power jazz band.
This rhythm section already gives you an idea of where the music could lead : to regions of high intensity and power play, and it is wild, violent at times even, but then Trzaska's lyricism, the beauty of his phrasing, the deeply felt blues and 'Weltschmerz' that resonates throughout his improvisations and spontaneously generated themes, add a sensitivity to the music that is strangely not in contrast with the rhythm section, because the interaction between all three musicians is so good, so fluent, so coherent, that the result is almost magical. Descriptions like violent sensitivity, or raw sophistication, come to mind, or a Jackson Pollock aquarel, if that exists, in any case a merging of opposites, a suspension of differences, an eruption of beauty.
The performance was recorded live at the Club A38, a ferry boat floating on the Danube in Budapest, Hungary, for an enthusiastic audience.
Riverloam Trio - Inem Gortn (FMR, 2014) ****
Two years ago, No Business released "Riverloam Trio", a collaboration between Trzaska and British musicians Olie Brice on bass and Mark Sanders on drums. Their first album was great, and when the three musicians met again in New York, they recorded this CD, possibly somewhat more accessible than the 500 copies LP of the first record. Again, the collaboration is a success, with Trzaska as the lead voice managing to remain inventive, and instead of having a sixty-minute blowfest, the trio gives us eight tracks with great variety, including lyrical beauty, relentless blowing, an intro ("Beware Of The Porter, Part 1") full of surprise, some bluesy stuff, and much more. Of all the albums reviewed here, the trio is really a balanced trio, with Brice's arco often going into full dialogue with the sax as the second lead voice, and Sanders' drumming is a listening experience on its own. The great thing about this trio is that all three artists take initiative, while being able to listen and adapt to the other player's initiatives.
The Yiddish title, "Inem Gortn", means as much as "In The Garden", and it is only on the track with this name, that Trzaska picks up his bass clarinet, and brings us one of his phenomenal soulful, spiritual, deeply emotional solos, then leaving Brice the full space for an equally strong bowed solo. Sanders gets his own solo moment near the end, sufficiently long to entertain, but the trio is really at its best when they play as a trio.
Great stuff, again, raw power and sensitive lyricism.
In short, three highly recommended albums, not surprisingly all trio albums, slightly different in approach, yet spectacularly good in the quality and depth of the musical delivery, even if a little less so in the formal innovation.
After the excellent "Intimate Conversations", Joe McPhee and Mikołaj Trzaska release a new album together, again with Jay Rosen on drums, but now also with Dominic Duval on bass. You might say it's Trio X + Mikołaj Trzaska, and that's correct if you look at the names, but not when you listen to the music. This band does not even touch on the "traditional" Trio X repertoire. McPhee plays sax and pocket trumpet, Trzaska alto sax and bass clarinet.
The album starts with "The Magician", with tribal sounding tones from Trzaska, full of primitive incantations, slowly being joined by trumpet, bass and drums, and developing into a slow, smooth and warm open lyrical exploration. The fit between Trzaska and McPhee is almost perfect, since they have the same attitude to music, one of freedom, respect and authentic warmth. That doesn't mean they don't go wild at times, but the dominant element is careful and reverent. The first track immediately illustrates this range, from tribal over sensitive dialogues to more boppish uptempo steaming improvisations. The second piece is more free form in nature, with Duval playing arco, McPhee delving into the deeper regions of his tenor, Rosen accentuating, and Trzaska's alto adding layers of sensitivity on top. "Sex Toys" is more minimalist and subdued, with the musicians scarcely breaching through the silence, and I think rarely a track has received such an inappropriate name (there isn't even an orgasm of sound to conclude). The first CD ends with "I Remember Max", a luckily not too long drum solo by Jay Rosen, dedicated to Max Roach.
The second CD continues with the minimalist approach, with a long dialogue between the two saxes, interlocking and interweaving calm yet urgent phrases, with McPhee doing some quiet singing while blowing his sax, bursting open into a screaming duel, waking the sleeping dogs of drums and bass in the process. "Contra-ception" is a bass solo track by Duval, nohting wild, nothing too smooth either, and when he starts using his bow, some shouting brings back the sax for one of the most intense pieces of the album, that shifts mood a little over half-way when McPhee picks up his pocket trumpet: for almost spiritual gospell-like lyricism. One of the most beautiful tracks is the long and slow "Turtles Crossing", a tune that was already on McPhee's Jumala Quintet release with the same name. As the title suggests, there is no need to hurry (from the turtle's perspective of ignorance), but the deep tension of the menace of being crushed is omnipresent, and this horror of course gets articulated musically near the end of the track, but it ends happily.
Again, Trzaska is a perfect fit for this band, who deliver a strong, balanced and varied album of great instrumental power and coherent musical expression, full of emotional depth and moments of fun. Enjoy!
By Dan Sorrells
Mikołaj Trzaska “plays Rose” in this stunning performance from the 2012 OFF Festival. With a beefed-up version of Ircha Quartet (swapping out Paweł Szamburski’s fourth clarinet for two double bassists and a drummer), Trzaska recreates music he originally composed for Wojtek Smarzowski’s 2011 film Róża. This is Trzaska at his foreboding, old world best: creating a distinctly Eastern European music that’s quiet, achingly sorrowful, and able to quickly reduce the murmuring, animated crowd to an hour of rapt silence.
As exhilarating as he can be on saxophone, I much prefer Trzaska on clarinet. His playing is passionate in a way that’s entirely at odds with the free jazz exorcism of his saxophone: instead of driving spirits out, it’s as though he’s calling them in, giving voice to tragic old souls whose painful stories were drowned out by the monotonous grinding of history and conflict.
“By Boat” opens the program, developing a recurring motif that perfectly evokes the steady rocking of waves. In a way, the music is difficult, not because it’s abstract or abrasive, but because the details of its themes and structures are hard to anticipate and so seamlessly blended with the improvisation. Though there are occasional pockets of tension, the music surprises through the warps and coils of its unfolding progression, rather than through volume or density.
Further into the performance, the woody tones of the long “Bicycle Herd” turn very dark before brightening in a driving, jaunty clarinet counterpoint. It’s one of those gripping musical highs that you wish would last longer, but derives so much of its power from its very fleeting nature.
After a rough start, “Harvest Axe” quickly reprises the theme of “By Boat,” cementing the feeling that this is truly a cohesive, singular experience. It’s a remarkable performance, and the hushed crowd simply erupts at its conclusion. Gra Różę is rife with moments of brilliance, but when the last of the applause following the encore “Wedding, Boat, and the End” dies away, there’s one epitomizing sound that lingers in my mind: the eerie, theremin tone of the lead clarinet in “Despair on Birch.” Haunting, beautiful music, and one of the year’s best so far.
John Edwards (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) were my musicians of the year for 2016. Although I was aware of them, somehow I hadn’t realised what an outstanding rhythm section they are (though such a description only scratches the surface). Last year I saw them twice – first, with Frank Paul Schubert (saxes) and Matthias Müller (trombone) as Foils Quartet in Weikersheim, where Edwards played one of the most spectacular bass solos I’ve ever heard, and then in a superb show with Roscoe Mitchell at the Métèo Festival in Mulhouse. They‘re able to lift a good performance to a great one.
Their history with Evan Parker goes back to the wonderful 1997 FMP release London Air Lift (with guitarist John Russell) and the equally splendid The Two Seasons (Emanem, 2000). Since then Edwards has joined Parker in various groups and he and Sanders have become a potent, and ubiquitous, pairing. With the exception of Spring Heel Jack’s The Sweetness of the Water however, the three have never recorded in the same band again, until this album.
Edwards’ and Sanders’ qualities lie in their acute ears and subtlety, as heard at the beginning of in “In Case of Fire“ – both are top-flight free players who complement the two horns. Sanders’ drumming pumps and pushes, full of ringing and shimmering details, while Edwards is both lyrical and brutally energetic, full of unexpected twists and turns, refining Barry Guy’s “all-over“ approach. In the first minutes of the recording he even sounds like an alternative rock bassist gone wild.
And then there are the two reeds. No one who follows this blog doubts Evan Parker’s virtuosic tenor technique – elaborate and spectacular (his circular breathing solos) – but he’s not out to impress. He rather concentrates on timing and placement, the correct cue to contribute something important. Here, it’s the ease with which he counters the quicksilver runs of Mikołaj Trzaska. The Polish alto sax and bass clarinet player sounds very different from Parker, boisterous and soulful, more like Peter Brötzmann or Ken Vandermark. It’s also striking what a remarkably consistent player Trzaska is. Often, even the best musicians find it hard to reach their optimum level, but he’s able to maintain a high batting average in a variety of contexts (check out Stef’s deep dive on him here).
The combination of the two saxophones can be heard in the opening track, the forty-three minute “Hunting Moon”. When Trzaska joins Parker just over half-way through, their phrasing is so interlocked and focused that they sing as in a choir – the ever-changing nuances and contrasting tonalities suffusing each other, creating a finely woven mesh. Shortly after that bass and drums drop out and the sax lines artfully overlap, revealing distinct musical colours.
The music on City Fall is a testament to a deep affinity, a shared consciousness and respect, referring to a tradition that goes back to the early days of European free music. The best example is the encore “Eternity for a Little While“, beginning with Parker and Trzaska in a saxophone duet, with the latter starting a swinging lick, before the others literally saw it up.
City Fall - Live at Cafe Oto is a perfect example of how a real unit can work. Edwards and Sanders are like a V 12-cylinder engine boosted to - say - 700 horsepower, with turbochargers in the shape of the two horns.
Unfortunately, the album - a double-CD - was released on 23rd December, 2016, so it didn’t make it into my annual Top Ten. It’s definitely one of last year’s best releases.
You can buy it from the label’s bandcamp site, where you can also preview all the tracks:
“Riverloam” is such an evocative word. It makes me think of fungi on a riverbank, colorful mushrooms pushing up through black earth, tiny bright surrogates that hide the true extent of the knotted mycelium whose countless nerve-like connections stretch in all directions just below the surface. Maybe this is a decent metaphor for Riverloam Trio, too—and all improvised music—this idea that perhaps what we’re hearing is the dense, unseen mycelium, the untraceable web of connections that binds musicians on a stage or in a studio. Some vital thing that’s bigger and more deeply rooted than the bodies we see standing before us.
Plus, there’s Mikołaj Trzaska’s rough-hewn, earthy tones. Trzaskahas been an important voice in the modern Polish scene since the early 90s. In recent years, he’s branched out significantly, playing with a number of international musicians and releasing improvised music on his label, Kilogram Records. Here he teams up with two Londoners: bassist Olie Brice and the ubiquitous drummer Mark Sanders. Riverloam Trio features five long improvisations that stretch across two LPs. Trzaska trades off between his woozy alto wail and some quieter, brooding bass clarinet work, clearly inspired by his rhythm section.
And inspiring it is. Sanders can make anyone sound good, and Brice plays in an almost vertical manner, seemingly building his ideas upward rather than simply laying them out. There’s a wonderful logic to his lines, even in heated exchanges. “Ostrich Season” gives him a central role, his bass thundering through the low simmer of Trzaska’s clarinet. There’s a clear rapport among the trio, and Trzaska and Brice in particular aren’t afraid to circle back on an idea if it seems there’s something more to be extracted.
Riverloam Trio is one of those great albums that feels like it was made for vinyl. The playing keeps pace with the best of the modern crowd, but there’s something aching in Trzaska’s vibrato—even from the first moments of “Riverloam”—that hearkens to the early days of this music, that almost necessitates the physicality of handling a record, the ritual of flipping wax and setting needles. A time when maybe we were a little more emotionally connected to music, because the act of listening was a bit more purposeful than overloaded iPods and hard drives allow.
As can be said of many NoBusiness releases, Riverloam Trio is worth the investment. It’s the fire music of our time—maybe now more like glowing embers, but still remembering something of the flames that gave rise to them.
Every new CD by Polish saxophonist Mikołaj Trzaska is one to look forward to, and this one also delivers the goods, in the good company of Swiss cellist Clementine Gasser and American percussionist Michael Zerang. The album is recorded live at the "Alchemia" club in Krakow, Poland (where else would it be?). Trzaska is not only a wonderful instrumentalist, but his musical creativity and sense of sound is possibly his greatest asset. He knows how to be intriguing, inventive, expressive and sensitive at the same time, adventurous and accessible at the same time. And in Gasser and Zerang he really found two soulmates. Gasser is a wonderful cello-player, wild and furious at times, heart-warming and bone-chilling, always creative and subtle when needed, also when playing in a more supporting role. Zerang too is a pleasure to hear, and he is as usual as defining for the music as the soloists, adding texture, depth and emphasis, performing a great intro for the the album's title song, as an avalanche introducing the repetitive and hypnotic single-note screeching of cello and sax, after which all three instruments move into an evocation of the sound of falling rain drops, that in turn change into light sustained sounds, all weird and sweet. Trzaska and Zerang I knew, and they more than deliver the expectations, but Gasser is absolutely stunning, with a really strong musical presence, a true revelation. I really hope to hear more from her.
Watch Trzaska and Gasser on Youtube (without Zerang, and without subtitles, but just go fast forward for the music pieces)
Recorded live in concert in 2024, Transient Riot is the latest release from Polish reedist Mikołaj Trzaska, who has been well documented on this blog. On it, he is joined by fellow Polish group Daktyle, a duo consisting of Marek Sadowski on various percussion and electronics and Maciej Jaciuk on daxophone, bass-box, sidrax synthesizer, loops, and other electronics.
Although experimental jazz of all sorts seems to be leaning toward electronics these days, the addition of Daktyle still adds something novel to this outing. Some of this might be because live performance is the heart of the Daktyle project. The notes to one of their few releases, DKTLE, emphasizes their reliance on “electronics and prepared live instrumentation,” which is an excellent way to describe the dialectic between preparation and in-the-moment decision and deployment. The duo is unpredictable and engaging throughout, laying out a carpet of beats here, liquid ambient wrinkles there, restive percussion and abstract slashes of noise elsewhere. But they also often provide the textures and rhythm (or beats or loops) over which Trzaska plays. If you have heard him play before, you will likely recognize his approach. He can go on a tear, but never for too long. Often, he waits and listens, sprinkling some stray notes until he finds space for his plangent and soulful wails.
Although the title might denote something aggressive and violent, an eruption that quickly burns itself out, Transient Riot is anything but. It is open and free flowing – though I should add that the album itself has an impeccable and directive flow. At the same time, it is somewhat constrained. One gets the sese that Sadowski and Jaciuk could run amok if they wished, but they don’t. Conversely, they could content themselves with some juicy ambient backdrops but are too interested in the details and detours to do that. The same goes for Trzaska. Much like Joe McPhee, with whom he has played before, he focuses on constructing wafting and mournful phrases. He harnesses rather than discharges energy. Sadowski and Jaciuk respond in kind. There is no real riot here, but there is a lot of bluesy abstraction and EAI dissonance. And that’s certainly good enough for me.
Mikolaj Trzaska is, together with Adam Pieronczyk, without a doubt the best of modern Polish or even European saxophonists. I called him earlier the opposite of Peter Brötzmann, in the sense that his tone is warm and elegant, and that he does not need to shout or scream in order to be adventurous or move boundaries. And his style of playing comes close to the efforts made by Joe McPhee in the previous years, in whose tone anger has been gradually replaced by compassion, though not completely. It's no surprise they met and played together, assisted by the great Jay Rosen on drums. "Intimate Conversations", the title of the album, is well-chosen, because that's exactly what this CD brings. The first two tracks are duets between McPhee and Rosen, fierce, anguished, powerful. On the third track the tone melts down to more melancholy regions for a duet between McPhee and Trzaska. On "Did God Forget About Darfur/What God?" the first trio track can be heard. While McPhee sticks to his tenor on the whole album, Trzaska alternates between alto, bass clarinet and the rarely used C-melody sax. That difference makes it easier to identify the musicians, although their differences in style are easily recognized. The interaction, the common language they find, the call-and-response, are all excellent, especially in "Intimate Conversation # 2" on which they move to the higher registers of the instruments, playing very controlled and shrill tones, like birds. Jay Rosen brings a solo drums tribute piece to Max Roach, called "North Star" and although I'm not a real fan of drum solos, this one is captivating, with some one-handed drum rolls, played with power and subtlety as Roach did himself. The most intimate conversation is the third one, on which Trzaska brings some rhythmic and hypnotic circular breathing on bass clarinet throughout the track, over which McPhee plays some eery light lines, sparsely accompanied by Rosen, moving into a more intense blaze in the middle, yet falling back in their initial routine at the end : a bizarre and impactful piece of music. One of the greatest feats of the album is the space the musicians offer each other, creating great openness. The best example of this can be found in "Snowflakes on flowers", on which the music expresses exactly that, with all the trembling lightness and softness of touch it entails, including a little over 15 seconds when nothing can be heard at all. A great, explorative and sensitive album.
I’ve seen the most magical of all magical rhythm sections in free jazz /
improvised music - John Edwards on double bass and Mark Sanders on drums -
several times now, the first time as the Foils Quartet with Frank Paul
Schubert on saxophone and Matthias Müller on trombone. I was immediately
blown away; my jaw literally kept dropping at the musical fireworks the two
of them set off. Later, I saw them with Trevor Watts and Veryan Weston, then
with Swiss saxophonist Omri Ziegele, and finally, three years ago, with John
Butcher. However, the most spectacular gig was a concert with Roscoe
Mitchell at the Météo Festival in Mulhouse in 2016. After ten minutes, the
audience jumped to their feet and gave a standing ovation, yelling, shouting
in pure ecstasy - right in the middle of the piece. Sometimes I think that
even a way below-average amateur guitarist like me could play with them, and
the result would be - let’s say - not a complete disaster.
Because It Happens is part of a gig at Café Oto (the other part, Not So
Late, is available on a separate CD), and for this recording, the rhythm
twins have enlisted the help of first class Polish saxophonist and bass
clarinetist Mikołaj Trzaska. It’s no surprise that the trio is in full swing
from the very first seconds,. Sanders stays firmly on the drums, which lends
the improvisation a dark, driving character. Trzaska uses this for insanely
fast runs, which are nonetheless underpinned by a deep spirituality. Many
influences converge in his playing: Coltrane, Brötzmann, Shepp, Parker, and
many more. His style is both energetic and subtle, he uses vibrato when
appropriate but he can also sound very dry and abstract. Added to this is
his excellent timing that leaves plenty of space for Edwards and Sanders.
All of this is evident right from the opener “Running Loose”. Throughout the
entire set a wide range of emotions is explored; there are moments of
intense density followed by very lyrical passages (e.g., in “Creator of
Creatures”) and superbly integrated solos (see Sanders’s drum solo in
“Written By”).
However, the highlight of the album is the encore, “Light Inches”, which
Edwards and Sanders kick off with an off-the-wall rhythm. The piece swings
back and forth, Trzaska lets the notes dart through the room, breaks off
abruptly, plays somewhere in the background, then Edwards takes the lead -
the three musicians seem to be arguing over the direction of the
improvisation, only to then agree almost instinctively on where to go. The
rest is sheer madness in terms of power, harmony, and perfection.
Because It Happens is an outstanding album in every respect. Anyone who
wants to hear state-of-the-art European free jazz (or “live composition”, as
the musicians call it) should give this release a try.
Because It Happens is available on vinyl and as a download.
It is hard to assess the soundtrack for a movie without knowing the movie, and it rarely happens that the music is sufficiently entertaining to stand on its own. Despite its inherent qualities, the same holds true for this album by Polish saxophonist and composer Mikołaj Trzaska, whose achievements have been appreciated before on this blog.
The musicians are Mikołaj Trzaska on alto saxophone, bass clarinet, taragot, farfisa and other keyboards, Clementine Gasser on 5 string cello, Tomasz Szwelnik on piano, Clayton Thomas on double bass, and Michael Zerang on drums.
Trzaska has written scores for theater before, and he manages to find a good balance between strong genre-bending compositions, and a very expressive performance. The ten tracks are in the same vein : from the sad over the menacing and the agonizing.
Some pieces are stellar, like the weird and horrifying opening track, the sensitive dialogue between clarinet and cello on "After Explosion", the gloomy, fear-drenched and hair-raising title track. But obviously the music has to support the action in the movie too, also at the emotionally more neutral moments. Most pieces are mini-suites, with themes and moods evolving in often very short time spans, and clearly determined by another logic than can be understood without seeing the pictures.
Yet, in soundtrack terms, this is without a doubt one of the most avant-garde I've heard.
Better late than never. This album was released about two years ago, but I managed to get hold of it just now, so it can still get a review, and with reason. I have expressed my appreciation for the Polish twin brothers Marcin Oles (bass) and Bartlomiej Oles (drums) before, and with this album they climb even higher in my esteem. Their fellow countryman Mikolaj Trzaska plays sax to form their usual trio, and Frenchman Jean-Luc Cappozzo now also joins on trumpet. I had never heard of Cappozzo, and I'm glad I do now, because he is really excellent in this free musical environment, which is suprising for someone who apparently learned to play in the French army. This is the kind of free jazz that I like the most : free improvisation on a structured basis, creative, rhythmic, soft and intense. Listen to the title track : a unisono melody of sax and trumpet on a slow Eastern rhythm, out of which the trumpet frees itself for a beautiful solo, then the whole thing evolves into a bass solo by Marcin Oles, and believe me, this guy is among the best you can hear on the instrument these days, both pizzi and arco. His touch is both elegant and powerful, his improvisations melodic and creative (his solo bass album "Ornette On Bass" is also worth checking out). "JLC" starts with solo trumpet, then the band joins with some dissonant interplay, followed by arco bass which move into a folkish melody which could have been written by Henri Texier. "Budmo" is a slow, sad and gloomy piece, which stands in strong contrast to the next one,"5-5", a funky uptempo rhythm fest, with amongst others a stunning duet between trumpet and drums, which then evolves into a variation of Ravel's bolero, with the well-known slightly dancing rhythm. Mikolaj Trzaska, on bass clarinet, is the star of this track. You could say that Trzaska is almost the opposite of Peter Brötzmann : he is a very sensitive sax player with a velvet tone, although he can do some fierce and outside blowing if needed, but it always remains elegant. An I think that word sums up the whole musical style of this album. The last track, "Urodzaj", starts with flutes in a kind of jungle atmosphere, with light trumpet blasts, reminiscent of Don Cherry and Codona, but then Marcin Oles comes on the stage with a wonderfull bass line and he takes the whole band along into a beautiful melody with trumpet and sax alternatingly in unisono and counterpoint, fantastic, but too short, too short, too short... This is free music that is not aggressive, music that is accessisble even if you haven't heard this kind of approach before. Anyone with interest in jazz will appreciate this album. It's rhythmic, melodic, great mastering of the instruments, great interplay. A real treat. Don't miss it!
There are albums you can turn to at any time, knowing the high probability of them providing exactly what the doctor ordered. To each man his own. They don’t necessarily have to be the easy records, or the mellifluous. I have favourite albums that can disperse crowds. And then there are the others, the ones you probably are only going to hear once, maybe twice. It pays well once in a while to take one of those and listen to it. And listen again.
This one is a short one (31’51”) and is made by Mikolaj Trzaska with Tim Daisy. Alto saxophone and drums. The title is In this moment. The first time I listened to it left me undecided. On another day it would probably not enter the first category, mentioned above. But that’s too easy now. So I read the songtitles : On Division, Grass and Trees, Statues in the Park, On Washtenau (like that one), Sirens Above Cortez. This is city music. There is some serious traffic going on here. I’m guessing we’re in Chicago. I have listened a few times by now. It is not going to enter in category one, it is not that kind of record to me. But I can get into it.
The drumming is relentless throughout and stretches over the entire spectrum, never losing its pulse. And then there’s a saxophone. I know Mikolaj from an album with the Oles Brothers (Mikro Muzik), but this is not the mood he’s in. He has different things to say. In Grass and Trees e.g. the rumbling of distant thunder and the wailing plangent saxophone soaring above. If I were there, with them in the room I know I would relax my spine and give in without thinking. It ends with a delicious spluttering over shuffles and cymbals. Now I realize what it is. I realize how apt the title is. This is the now. It is not their now now, it is mine. And that’s the beauty of it. This is one of the records that have the potential of opening up the moment to you, when you listen. Glad I did.
This quartet consists of musicians from Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary,
and Ukraine, a potential conscious or unconscious survey of the former
Eastern Bloc. Mikołaj Trzaska appears on various reeds, Petr Vrba on
trumpet and electronics, and Balázs Pándi on drums. For his part, Ukrainian
bassist Mark Tokar is currently defending Ukraine, as the notes so finely
puts it, “changing his double bass for a rifle”. Given the current
geopolitics of the region, maybe there was some prescient solidarity behind
this aggregation.
That said, such speculations are hardly necessary to appreciating Malá Pardubická Vol. 4, recorded in the autumn of 2021. The gist:
this is wonderful experimental music. Trzaska plays some controlled
flourishes while Vrba huffs out raspberries, hushes, flutters and beeps
(once he switches to electronics.) On much of this, Tokar’s playing is
thick and viscous, a perfect complement to Pándi’s cluttery percussion.
Vrba and especially Trzaska, meanwhile, add everything from the squeaky
atmospherics to billowing streams of sound. Still, this is pulse-driven,
rather than melodic or chordal music. All four musicians feed more off the
herky-jerky rhythmicism than anything else. And that is to their credit.
This is the kind of off-kilter free jazz that exists between the new music,
non-idiomatic aestheticism and the melodicism and steady drive of so much
of post-Coltrane, post-Coleman, post-Ayler music. It really stands apart in
its concerted, for lack of a better term, clunkiness often balanced by
Vrba’s atmospherics and sometimes by Tokar’s quieter passages of background
(or backbone) wandering. In short, Malá Pardubická is a fine set
of improvisations and an interesting twist on where experimental jazz-based
music resides today.
Malá Pardubická Vol. 4
can be purchased directly from Gusstaff Records.
Mikolaj Trzaska is a musician who deserves wider recognition than he does today. He is not only an excellent sax player, as a composer he is also not afraid to take risks and to look for a renewed, more expressive musical language without becoming too experimental or without chasing away potential listeners. He has made some really excellent sax trio albums with the brothers Marcin and Brat Oles, especially "LA Sketch Up" and "Mikro Muzik", both also issued on the Polish Kilogram Records and highly recommended. On these albums, jazz sounds as you've rarely heard it, soft-spoken, sophisticated, nostalgic, yet raw, creative and full of tension at the same time. Interesting. Next to these albums, he's also written a lot of work for theater and television, and this albums fits into that category. It was originally ordered for an internet radio drama, but the music on this album is far removed from the original idea. The input for the music appears to come, not from the play, but from dictaphone recordings made from the author's journey in the Balkans: Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The dictaphone recorded everything that was possible to record, starting with the sounds of streets in Sarajevo, conversations in a Balkan bar and finishing with the singing of a muezzin from a minaret in Sarajevo, but also church bells can be heard, dogs barking, car doors slamming, etc. Right through these ambient sounds Mikolaj Trzaska weaves music in his own specific syle, often solo, or accompanied in the lightest possible fashion, sometimes an accordion, often an organ, or just bass, or drums, but never with the whole band together. It is odd music, sometimes bizarre ("Barbarian's Child"), sometimes of extreme beauty ("The Silence of Fish"), but always airy and accessible. And what he makes of this is really powerful : the human emotions laid bare, pain, longing, distress, anxiety, joy, nostalgia. And it doesn't really matter whether you understand any of the slavonic languages heard on the tape. Just let yourself go and listen to the fragile soul of man, made a little bit more eloquent by Mikolaj Trzaska.
Not Two Records was founded by Marek Winiarski in 1998 and has grown to
become one of the leading labels for freely improvised music, having
released over 270 albums to date, a genuine feat of endurance in such a
fragile market. To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, Not Two held a
festival at venues in the village of Wleń, south-west Poland over three
days in September 2018 with the participation of thirteen musicians from
nine countries in four sets each evening, now available on five CDs
programmed to follow a slightly different sequence from the festival’s
order of appearance, thereby producing its own continuities and contrasts.
The discs come in a handsome, hinged wooden box, a sturdier construction
than some other Not Two sets such as the cardboard package that housed the
10-CD Vandermark Resonance collection. There’s also a booklet that
provides a brief introduction to the label and commentary on the festival’s
sights and sounds from John Sharpe of All About Jazz.
The concerts feature an all-star cast, each of whom has appeared on
previous Not Two releases, performing in ad hoc rotating
formations where it seems everybody gets the opportunity to play with
everyone else. Such ‘workshop’ ensembles go back to early European free
jazz festivals and tours, and in many ways it’s an arrangement that
reflects the jigsaw of possibilities inherent in the improvisor’s creed.
The development of free music has been the story of paths that criss-cross,
suggesting that its history is not so much continuous as branched, more a
network of shared concerns than consistent tendencies and trajectories
bounded by some dominant narrative. And as heard across these performances,
divergence and differences count for as much as a shared vocabulary, to the
extent that there are times when it makes sense to pause between each
combination in preparation for the mental adjustments required. As with
other kinds of music there are multiple ways of going about matters, giving
rise to complex relations that demand adaptive listening.
Most of the sets last between about twenty minutes and half-an-hour which
might have sharpened the senses and account for the high standard of
performance, a collective rising to the occasion, along with the liberty to
think liaisons anew afforded by such flexible settings, surely an
inspiration for all the musicians, whose playing is marked by a wonderful
freshness and intelligence. Free improvisation is an act of faith in
happenstance, things that come in waft rather than choice, a celebration of
happy accidents and intuitive leaps. Yet it is also a living art form
embedded in humanistic values, so that although spontaneity lies at its
heart it has a strictness of purpose which reaches beyond the short-lived
and fugitive. There’s a respect for unforeseen occurrences but also the
challenge of finding points of contact and different ways of maintaining
coherence within a sometimes heterogenous environment, as well as
countering unity through displacement and disjunction, using subtleties of
response to create something of real substance. It is music sensitive to
its own peculiar habitation to be played with antennae out. Likewise, it
has a malleable structure which may be sequential, cyclic, labyrinthine, by
dialogue, through reverie and respite, evolution or osmosis. Most of all
however, in its attempts to grasp and perpetuate the transient
improvisation seems to mirror the passage of time as a qualitative rather
than a measured experience, the product of memory and anticipation acting
together.
There’s a lot to digest and of remarkable, at times dizzying, scope. I’ll
take it one configuration at a time but first, the dramatis personae:
Saxophones, Reeds – Ken Vandermark, Mikołaj Trzaska, Peter Brötzmann
Trombone – Steve Swell
Tuba – Per-Åke Holmlander
Barry Guy, Maya Homburger
This duo produces a distinctive synthesis of old and new, moving from the
medieval to modern in a sequence that has opened their recitals for some
years. We begin with the plainchant hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus
(Come Creator Spirit), an invocation for the music to follow with Homburger
playing while she walks from the back of the room to the stage area,
uniting audience and performers, which leads directly into ‘The
Annunciation’ from the first of Heinrich Biber’s Mystery Sonatas,
its quickening ascents and quicksilver contrasts a herald of things to
come, accompanied by Guy’s imaginative extemporisation on the continuo
parts. György Kurtág’s Hommage à J.S.B., one of his many tributes
to fellow composers, is rendered as a spiralling violin line over a glaze
of arco. Next is Guy’s Tales of Enchantment for Violin and Bass, a
suite that was later worked up and into Amphi (Intakt, 2014) and Time Passing.... (Maya, 2015) for larger ensembles. A brisker
performance than the premiere recording on Tales of Enchantment
(Intakt, 2012) the seven pieces are not individually banded though there
are brief pauses between each.
Guy has done much to merge composition and improvisation, employing aspects
of both in a simpatico relationship, such as textures and tones that resist
standard notation operating within a premediated but ductile architectural
span. As so often with his music there’s no audible distinction between
composed and improvised elements, sounding impromptu yet organised. The Tales are evocative studies, each of a different character
encompassing a wide range of registers and dynamics, attentive to nuanced
gradations in sonority, and rich in string colour. There are slivers of
elegiac melody on violin and plucked bass, a resonant fusion of combined
voices, metallic rattles from treated bass, whispering trills, and swollen,
overlapping chords. The work ends with the energetic ‘Hero’, and a series
of virtuoso flurries and synchronised double-stops.
Peter Brötzmann, Barry Guy, Zlatko Kaučič
The exordium is what one would expect, two titanic forces in mutual
eruption: Brötzmann’s wailing saxophone and Guy’s molten encrustations.
After a time, the temperature cools and Brötzmann draws on his repository
of emblematic tunes, the first time on subdued tárogató, the last at
feverish full-throttle on tenor propelled by pounding bass and percussion,
accruing in force until the trio crashes at high speed, abruptly terminated
by a local power cut that plunged the venue into darkness; save for
Brötzmann who keeps his wits and brings matters to a quick but graceful
close.
As often the case, with this combo rather than an aggregated texture we
hear the instruments very much as independent striations, separated not
blended, and therefore retaining their individual character and motion –
even solos feel like exposed layers – giving the listener the opportunity
to take a global view or plot alternate routes. Swell is by turns
lightweight and fruity, tripping along in solid through-lines. Fernández
deploys an array of pianistic textures which can be crisply linear or
vaporously vague, darting across the keyboard, tinkling in the upper
registers and hammering out dances in the lowest. Léandre is more grounded,
wiry and tremulous, supplying a ceaseless warp and weft. But these are not
self-sustaining zones of activity. There’s overlapping slippage as figures
and phrases zigzag across the trio, brief alliances are formed and spent,
and significant changes in pace are respected by all.
In contrast this is a quite different ensemble with soundscapes dominated
not by individuals but indeterminate relations and amorphous textures that
coalesce and seep. It sounds as if things just happened that way as the set
begins with a punchy dialogue between the saxophones. This dwindles to sotto voce key clatter and a reduced field of discourse, inducing
slithering micro-level movement from the whole ensemble. Led by the
saxophones the music takes on muscle as it adopts a new profile before
sinking back to superimposed membranes and Mazur’s controlled layers of
feedback. After it’s over someone, possibly Gustafsson, says, “I’ve never
played like that.”
According to the track sequencing at least, it’s Gustafsson and Mazur off,
Brötzmann and Fernández on, a quartet still playing with two saxophones up
front but with a number of tactical changes as each takes the option to
move forward or drop back into a supporting role. Fernández’ mazy runs and
diagonal movement provide the principle linking play leaving room for
interchange within the group – Brötzmann’s crunchy slabs of sound paired
with pulsating tuba, Trzaska’s elasticated saxophone set against dexterous
convolutions on the piano. Led by Brötzmann’s tenor the performance is
elevated to a stirring group communion, and after discussion time is added
on for a brief encore featuring some silky B♭ clarinet and distinctly
grainy bass clarinet.
Here we find Gustafsson in familiar territory. There’s an emotional
rawness to his playing; like Francis Bacon’s painting of flesh his
saxophone is charged with a viscous energy, sticking directly to the
nervous system as it were, in a procession of blistering encounters
with actuality. Although the coagulations and smears may sound
unmediated, as with Bacon’s brushwork it’s a fluency acquired through
skill and judgment, as much about control as impulse. In this
performance these features are enhanced by Mazur’s nimbly plucked bass
lines, like an electric current coursing through the music, and framed
by Nilssen-Love’s precisely gauged waves of percussion. It’s not all
searing intensity, however. Plosive squawks and clots surrender to
weeping laments – in recent years Gustafsson has shone as a tunesmith -
and the set reaches its apotheosis with a tender melody over repeated
notes on bass. For the encore we’re back to open-throated, throbbing
honks, the full surge of utterance.
Joëlle Léandre, Barry Guy, Zlatko Kaučič, Steve Swell, Ken Vandermark
Léandre is the common denominator across the third disc. Considered in the
round, her playing has a sense of oratory about it, the locutions of
recitation and song that at times give rise to her own exuberant
vocalisations, what she’s described as adding an extra string to the bass.
Her gritty bowing and wandering lines are not specifically French in accent
(although Proust’s long, looping sentences spring to mind) but are
definitely conversational in diction and tone. The prevalence of the bow
allows her to shape long phrases and introduce asides and inflections that
can be loquacious, witty, and challenging, and which impart a periodicity
spanning everything from speaking in tongues to the cadences of high
rhetoric.
This second set of the second day consists of various combinations of the
above performers in a sequence that should probably be heard uninterrupted
for its full effect. The dispositions expand in a way that reveal the
fluctuations that can take place through augmentation with each grouping
having a slightly different convergence, giving the set’s progression an
air of fascinating unpredictability. Léandre (left) and Guy (centre) set
things in motion. Their first duo together took place
the previous year
and during these improvisations the pair broaden their compass. They have
distinct sensibilities, but the overwhelming impression in the opening duo
is of two musicians absolutely attuned, drawn into the same zesty universe
where energy is trapped and released. Each seems to refract the intricate
composition and shapes of the other, moving from tangled webs to moments of
pin-point focus, including a softly rising chant and some beautiful
pizzicato from Guy.
They are then joined by Kaučič whose dusty particles of sound (including
metal cups and bubble wrap) establish a more scattered terrain. Léandre and
Guy are now separate voices, still listening but with something different
to say. Time slows during an extended passage of reflective bowing
disappearing into silence. (You can hear the audience reacting to some
on-stage theatrics at this point, described by Sharpe in his liner notes.)
The trio reconstructs itself with increasing power, a bristling pattern
continued, after a pause, with the addition of Swell who then drops down
into a lyrical flow. Gradually he’s pushed into a more vivid display by
heavily plucked echoes and thick bowing from the basses, overlaid with the
glitter of struck metal and wood. Léandre’s glissandi introduce another
change in direction, a more fractured assemblage as each of the quartet
bounce rapidly off one another. This process of equivocation and renewal
continues with the trombone’s increasingly distended phrases dominant until
it too dissolves into murmurs.
With the introduction of Vandermark the dynamic shifts again, as gristly
spurts on saxophone and Swell’s perky trombone fasten the quintet together,
bringing the first piece to a rumbustious close. Everything’s reversed for
their second improvisation, never rising above pianissimo as suggestive
fragments and delicate traces of melody float about one another,
half-formed.
The last two tracks on disc three are from the following day and are a
contraction to solo and duo. Léandre starts in monologue, which is not that
common: mumbling, glossolalic growls alternating with exclamations,
released to take flight, interrupted by arpeggios, and dissipating into
trembling chords and a folksy, left-hand pizzicato. When Trzaska joins he
seems to pick up on her chattering chronicle using undulating clusters of
notes which mutate into new combinations, breaking out into short melodies
and percussive exchanges. Having reached an accord, they end with both in
full song and fade to hushed whispers.
The first set of the final evening begins again with the summons of Veni Creator Spiritus, from which Homburger moves on to play the
opening ‘Grave’ and ‘Adagio’ from Bach’s second and first sonatas for
violin, respectively. The music of Bach can act as a palate cleanser. As
many musicians (and audiences) will confirm, it has a purity of spirit that
refreshes the soul and provides an ideal means of musical preparation,
whether for listening, practice or performance and irrespective of genre.
Bach’s works, still the peak of the solo violin repertoire, have an
emotional depth and contrapuntal intensity that never fail to inspire, and
here these slow movements are given readings whose sensitive phrasing and
transparency radiate an inner calm.
Between the two Bach pieces Homburger performs Aglais by Barry
Guy, the middle composition of a trilogy named after butterflies that were
written to be interspersed on each of her three CD recordings of the
complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas (Maya, 2008). Fully notated, it’s an
absorbingly meditative work that started life as a graphic score and
exploits the sonorities and articulations particular to the baroque violin
and bow, different in timbre and projection from their modern counterparts
most notably in the use of gut rather than steel strings, lending the
instrument a softer, grainier sound. The piece is contemporary in its
language yet at the same time makes use of recurring blocks of material and
broken chords in a manner that evokes baroque techniques. Unfortunately,
Homburger’s set is marred by some offstage barking (Baching?);
appropriately enough this music is rousing for dogs too.
Peter Brötzmann, Paal Nilssen-Love
From Bach to Brötzmann, which was not the order of performance, might seem
quite a jump but it is a thought-provoking juxtaposition. Over the years
duos with drums have been some of Brötzmann’s most telling performances,
perhaps because the format embodies a fundamental relationship between
melody and rhythm which in its own way, like Bach, is anchored in something
eternal. There’s an almost mythic grandeur to Brötzmann’s music, though
over the last decade or so epic sweeps have gradually been replaced by more
condensed dramas, polarities and reversals portrayed with the dark clarity
of classical tragedy. This time there are three scenes in which the old
stories are told once again, where the gravity of what has passed carries a
particular charge, opening with his familiar clarion call and fiery
proclamations that resound with increasing urgency. Switching to the
tárogató’s reverberant, double-reed buzz, the heroic blasts are now
delivered as soft pleas and fraught remonstrations, eventually emerging
into the redemptive light of Sonny Rollins’ ‘Sumphin’ backed by
Nilssen-Love’s ritual beat. After years of collaboration he perfectly
understands the arc of Brötzmann’s discursions and the foil required: how
to build momentum or heighten the emotional pitch, when to press, when to
hold back. The final tableau opens with a mournful soliloquy on clarinet.
After delaying his entry Nilssen-Love’s fidgety brushes become more
emphatic as the mood splinters until only his shaken percussion is left,
and we end with Brötzmann’s ‘Churchsong’ chiselled out on tenor – an
absolution of sorts.
The performance starts with just Gustafsson and Vandermark, also familiar
to one another from multiple settings, but as throughout the festival each
encounter provides fresh impetus. On saxophone and clarinet respectively,
this is an exercise in telepathy as they swerve from one set of ideas to
the next – meshed, abbreviated, knockabout, leisurely – establishing a tone
of capricious invention for the remainder of the set. With the addition of
Swell and Holmlander (Vandermark and Gustafsson
now both on saxophones) the refulgent ensemble of reeds and brass lights up
like flares in an intoxicating display of knife-edge polyphony. The
confabulation gives way to a duo between Swell and Gustafsson, in turn a
prelude to an unexpected change of tack, a serene chorale laid down by
trombone and bass saxophone. As it builds in sombre resonance, underpinned
by the animated tread of Holmlander’s tuba, Vandermark’s compressed,
increasingly shrill tenor rises and lets out a succession of heartrending
cries with truly poignant finality.
Due to the venue’s remote location, the last official set of the festival
finds Fernández using a Yamaha digital piano. Mazur and Guy are placed left
and right of centre but there’s little prospect of confusing their guitar
and upright basses as the construction of each, their physical ambit and
angle of engagement, produce markedly different sounds. Played together
they create a dense amalgam of soft and hard edges, a tactile region that
fits comfortably between the piano’s sharp lucidity and Kaučič’s light,
fluttering percussion – right across this collection the recording quality
allows us to savour a certain sonic beauty in the various permutations.
Apart from an aphoristic central episode that ascends to a thinner
altitude, the bulk of the performance takes place in a hothouse of
accelerated growth dominated by a clump of closely spaced, rapidly repeated
notes that first surface early on the piano. A seemingly inconsequential
idea, this tiny seed sprouts offshoots and hybrids. The harmonic tension
between the notes and the gesture itself are a significant generative
force, acting as a catalyst for some knotty dialogue between Guy and Mazur
and harnessed by Fernández in his blurred crescendos.
Not Two But Twenty Orchestra
Finally, there’s a sort of bonus track. Festivals such as this often end
with members of the cast gathered in a farewell celebration, sometimes a
collective summation, occasionally a case of “Too many cooks…”. It helps to
have a format to organise such a gathering, and here it was supplied by
Conduction cards. Unaware of this unlisted performance, Marek Winiarski was
persuaded onstage to select and hold up the cards, containing instructions,
pictures and symbols, so that in a sense it is his piece too. The exercise
is carried out with good humour and after a false start the Orchestra whips
through varying combinations, large and small, handling the card changes
with aplomb. A fitting conclusion to the festival and tribute to its
curator.
One of the highlights, the outstanding set from Mats Gustafsson, Rafał
Mazur and Paal Nilssen-Love:
Last year, Polish clarinetist Mikołaj Trzaska released the first and second album by his clarinet quartet, called IRCHA, the first - "Lark Uprising" with Joe McPhee and the second, "Watching Edvard" as a real quartet. The band consists of Mikołaj Trzaska on bass clarinet and Bb metal clarinets, Michał Górczyński on Bb and bass clarinets, Paweł Szamburski on Bb and bass clarinets, and Wacław Zimpel on alt, Bb, bass clarinets and tarogato.
The music though, is completely different than on the previous albums. These offered pretty abstract improvisations, and "Watching Edvard" offered a series of quite distinct, almost situational theatrical conversations between the four instruments. On Zikaron Lefanaj (Hebrew for "Memory Before Me", if I can trust what I find on internet), the mission is grander and spiritual, much in the same vein as Waclaw Zimpel's music with Hera, offering long pieces with clear melodies and themes, full of subdued passion and reverence, spiritual longing and the kind of sadness that is inherent in klezmer music.
Strangely enough, the music also reminds me of the famous Flemish polyphony of the 15th Century, in which male voices sing different melodies yet in harmony, at that time a musical innovation. You can find an example in this Youtube video, the music of my catholic Flemish ancestors (not that I care very much), but it shows the deep spiritual universality that can come with music.
Back to Ircha, the music is just baffling, stunning ... by the beauty of the compositions, the way they are played, the coherence of the interplay, as in the combination of subdued control and raw expressivity. It is jazz after all, and possibly even too avant-garde for real jazz fans at that. It can be moving and tearing you apart at the same time. Calming and distressing. Comforting and challenging.
But it all comes from a deep well : traditional gypsy music (as in "Red Shoes"), jewish music ( as in "Nigun Number 115") and Armenian traditionals (as in "Akhtamar" - if interested you can read Akhtamar's original story here), but the traditionals add to the flavor, and the band's compositions can easily stand the comparison.
The quartet manages to create a totally new sound, a kind of synthesis of centuries of spiritual music, but then brought with a clear look at the future possibilities of expression. Zikaron Lefanaj, indeed! Magnificent music.
Sometimes you wish that German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann would do something else that what he's been doing for the last fourty years, namely to blow his lungs out in his horn, occupying musical space and then not let go of it for the rest of the performance.
Sometimes you wish that German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann would NOT do anything else than what he's been doing for the last fourty years, not only because that's what he does best, but because doing other stuff clearly brings him out of his comfort zone.
This is without a doubt the best album of the lot: fierce and relentless power play between two masters. Paal Nilssen-Love has played many times with the saxophonist, including a duo recording, "SweetSweat". It works best because Brötzmann does not have to care about other sounds intermingling with his own, he just needs the percussive power to drive him forward, and whatever he does, can move and shout and scream without hitting the borders of other melodic musicans. The result is fireworks from beginning to end. True, there a few seconds that the avalanche of punches and kicks and jabs slows down a little, but these are far and few between. Even on the eighteen minute long fourth track the fire does not die down for one millisecond. And when you think he's reached his climax, he goes even harder and higher. Not for sentimentalists, but a delight for the fans.
Sonore - Call Before You Dig (Okkadisk, 2009) ****
Sonore is Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and Peter Brötzmann, the three power players of current jazz for their third album in this configuration, now with a double CD, with 7 tracks on the first, and no less than 17 tracks on the second CD. The interesting concept is that, without the presence of a rhythm section, they move into a more melodious and lyrical mode, giving each other ample space at times, or adding a double backbone to the soloist. "Mountains Of Love" on the first CD is an absolute beauty, with sensitivity that will move you to tears and sudden blasts that will blow off your chair (at least it did to me). Next to sax, Brötzmann and Vandermark also play their bass clarinets, and Gustafsson his flutophone (a flute with a sax mouthpiece). In their trialogue they explore not only all the timbral possibilities of their instruments, but also the comfortable shifts in improvisation provided by this unique line-up: lengthy single tone developments offer solid background for improvisation, but trio is also duo + one, evolving into one + duo, merging into trio and dissociating again. A pleasure for improvisors. The album offers much : from subtlety to utter cacophony.
Peter Brötzmann, Mikołaj Trzaska & Johannes Bauer - Goosetalk (Kilogram Records, 2010)***
We find Brötzmann back with Mikołaj Trzaska, a Polish saxophonist who is in my eyes the antipode of the German, because of his sophisticated warm tone and melodious phrasing, and with Johannes Bauer on trombone to complete the trio. The album's title is quite well chosen, because that's exactly how it sounds on the title track: geese chatting full of excitement and enthusiasm. The long second track is more fluent, called "Ducks Call", and the contrast in physical power between the German and the Polish sax-player becomes all too apparent, although they do find each other in the content of what they're doing, mostly in short bursts of sounds, with the exception of the last track, an ode to Albert Ayler, that starts with a two minute solo intro by Brötzmann, full of raw power, and then listen how emotionally more subtle Trzaska joins, again the perfect complement for the German's tone, with Bauder's warm trombone lifting the whole piece up where it belongs, in the free sky, with Albert Ayler, the ducks and the geese.
Peter Brötzmann - A Night In Sana'a (ARM, 2010) **½
Interestingly enough, Brötzmann some years ago expressed his interest in playing with Arabic musicians, which he now finally does with this classical band from Sana'a, Yemen. The ban is Abdul-Aziz Mokrid on violin, Khalid Barkosch on cello, Achmed Al-Khalidy on kanun, Ali Saleh on ney, and Yasir Al-Absi on darbuka. The band is further completed with Michael Zerang on drums, who himself happens to be of Iraqi descent.
The first piece starts with the Yemenite band playing their classical Arabic music, accompanied by Zerang, with its typical sophisticated sad and spiritual tone, marked rhythmic unison lines, and long improvisations. When Brötzmann joins after six minutes, it sounds like the building is being invaded by godzilla in person, yet the terrified band keeps playing, and they are right, because godzilla apparently retreats so that they can bring their music to its expected finale.
To be honest : it just doesn't fit. Brötzmann lacks the skills to find common ground with the band from Yemen, nor do they seem particularly open to what the German does. Brötzmann's compositions are too bland, as compared to the opening and closing track. There are many other examples where traditional arabic music and jazz work very well, but not here. Brötzmann's endeavor to follow the melody on the second track is almost painful (as on the other pieces), yet it does work when he completely ignores the tune, and does his own thing just on top of it. Believe me : that works, and after a while there are even some great moments of powerful contrast.
In the incredible piles of music that are still waiting for review (and for first listens), I still felt miserable not to have had the time to review quite a number of them, including the ones reviewed today.
What today's review have in common, is that two existing reed quartets, one clarinet quartet from Poland, and one sax quartet from the US, both quite close in their adventurous approach to music, now invited a fifth musician, a like-minded spirit, although with a different background, to come and join them and challenge them, Joe McPhee and John Zorn respectively. The results are somewhat unusual, yet easy to recommend for the amateurs of new sounds.
Polish clarinetist Mikołaj Trzaska created his fabulous clarinet quartet with some fellow countrymen and the great Joe McPhee. The band is Joe McPhee on alto clarinet,
Mikołaj Trzaska on alto clarinet and bass clarinet,
Paweł Szamburski on clarinet and bass clarinet, Wacław Zimpel on bass clarinet, clarinet, taragato, and
Michał Górczyński on bass clarinet.
It's hard to say how their system works, whether the arrangements are discussed before or whether they arise while playing, but whatever it is, the result is baffling at moments. The five musicians manage to create rhythm, structure, harmonics, melody and improvisation with alternating roles about who takes the lead and who lays down the foundations. In that sense you can call it jazz in its purest form.
Yet they add more levels to this. First, there is the voice of the various musicians, raw with emotion, soaring with joy, twittering like birds, weeping in sadness.
Second, there is the adventurous approach of the concept itself, a kind of a common natural journey, an ode to music and life and it possibilities, including the escape from the unavoidable sorrow, equally present here. The line-up itself intensifies this myriad of possibilities because the similar sounds flow through each other with the impossibility to follow one instrument in its progress, they move as one, but with five voices, coming and going, and moving up, and down, intensifying and relaxing, coming forward, stepping back. Everything happens, but it is actually one voice.
Third, with the five musicians, they manage to create an intimate conversation, a warm meeting of wooden sounds, nothing expansive, just showing a different perspective to everyday life.
ROVA : Zorn - The Receiving Surfaces (Metalanguage, 2011) ****
On this limited edition LP, the ROVA saxophone quartet invites John Zorn for 37 minutes of a soothening shock treatment, that will set your nerves on edge, while possibly also resulting in mental peace.
The five saxes are Jon Raskin on baritone, Larry Ochs on tenor, Steve Adams on alto and sopranino, Bruce Ackley on soprano, and John Zorn on alto. The album captures a performance by the quintet at Yoshi’s in San Francisco in August, 2010.
As said in the opening lines, you get it all on this record : the absolute mayhem of five saxes doing different things at the same time, with Zorn's usual and exceptionally shrill sound piercing through the warmer tones of the Rova quartet, while at other moments, the hair-raising sounds fold beautifully into harmonious textures, on which the full breadth of low and high-toned horns lead to a feeling of aesthetic beauty, while remaining open-ended.
The end result is the feeling that you have survived something, that you have come through the storm unharmed, no, even stronger, it is because you have been subjected to the violence of the storm and feared the worst, that you can experience the calmer sounds at the end of the album in a totally different way. The contrast and the effect are almost purifying and cathartic.
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