Lotte Anker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ikue Mori - Alien Huddle (Intakt, 2008) ****

With the risk of being accused of being a male chauvinist, I would say this is very female avant-garde jazz, not only by the pink color on the album cover, but also by the subtlety and fragility of the music. Lotte Anker is a Danish saxophonist, mainly trained in jazz, Sylvie Courvoisier a Swiss pianist, mainly trained in classical music, Ikue Mori is a Japanese drum machine specialist, now a real-time electronic laptop music wizard. On "Alien Huddle", the trio brings highly unusual music, giving impressions of birds, not as such, but in their natural environment: sparrows, owls, herons, swan, rooster, raven, crow, ostrich, blackbird, yet without being too literal in the evocation, or too programmatic in the performance. While on many tracks Courvoisier and Mori create short, rustling, shuffling, bleepy or thundering sounds, with Courvoisier more often plucking her strings directly than using her keys, the fact that the sax's performance stretches the notes, gives a quite accessible (relatively speaking) feel to the music, almost redefining the rhythm section for modern music and its interplay with a solo instrument. The interactions are organic, immediate, full of surprises and wild thought jumps. Despite the similarity of approach throughout the album, each track has its own coherence and unique identity. The music is unusual, but it has an intense and highly concentrated beauty.



© stef

Read More

The New Albert Beger Quartet - Big Mother (Earsay, 2008) ****

Israeli tenor saxophonist Albert Beger can be fierce, and also very gentle, yet he's always expansive. He appears to be influenced by both Coltrane and Ayler, at times sounding like Redman. His new quartet further consists of Aviran Ben Naim on piano, Gabriel Meir on bass and Yoav Zohar on drums. In contrast to his trios with William Parker and Hamid Drake, the addition of the piano brings the music more into post-bop territory, with a lyricism and emotional outbursts which will surely please the fans of Jarrett's early 80s quartets, with sax and piano having changed the lead role, of course. And even the more mainstream, more composed tracks such as "Tales Of Beelzebub", quickly evolve into very powerful improvisations by sax and piano, pushed forward by a strong rhythm section, ending in abrupt stop-and-go unison breaks. "Point Of No Return" is a heartrending duet for sax and piano. "Big Mother" refers to nature and mother earth, as an ode and a lament about the deterioration of the planet, as illustrated by the sad album cover on which a mother and child look at a waste dump. The march-like cadence of the track gives the inevitability of progress, or vaguely reminiscent of the Sorcerer's Apprentice in Disney's Fantasia, over which first the arco bass, then a mournful sax wails and weeps. Yet the last track "The One For Hope", shows some light at the end of the tunnel, although starting very sad, with a very loose structure and rhythm, gradually moving to a more light-footed approach, especially because of the piano's high-toned playing and Beger's soaring sax, leading to a gentle composed ending. A strong achievement.

Listen and download from eMusic.

© stef

Read More

Fight The Big Bull - Dying Will Be Easy (Clean Feed, 2008) ****½

This is for sure one of the year's albums with the highest musical dramatic effect, a score for a bull-fight, for a lost war, integrating musical genres as if there was no difference between them : marching band, New Orleans jazz, flamenco, blues. And when listening to this band, there is indeed no difference, all these genres fit perfectly well, sharing the same emotional genes. The band, led by guitarist Matt White, further consists of Pinson Chanselle and Brian Jones on percussion, Cameron Ralston on bass, Bob Miller on trumpet, Reggie Pace and Bryan Hooten on trombone, J.C. Kuhl on tenor saxophone and Adrian Sandi on clarinet. The album is short, a little of thirty minutes, yet worth every second of them. The first track "Dying Will Be Easy", starts with a dragging marching band rhythm and atmosphere, leading on the listener into their world, like the throngs of village people following the musicians to the bull's final destiny. The second track "November 25th" is dark, with the horns in full counterpoint with the rest of the band, with flamenco handclapping supporting a brilliant trumpet solo, before the main theme starts again, cinematic and impressive. The third track "Grizzly Bear", starts with a full forward moving big band theme, but then rough and raw, disciplined with an edge, as an intro for a percussion solo, challenged in a duel with the bass, and with perfect timing, the band barges in again, with a fierce trombone solo on top. The highlight of the album is certainly the last track "In Jarama Valley", which starts as a slow blues, with the trumpet playing in deep emotional sadness. The title refers to the battle of Jarama during the Spanish Civil War, and the following lines capture the atmosphere quite well:

"There's a place in Spain called Jarama
It's a place that we all know too well.
For 'tis there that we fought against the fascists
And saw a peaceful valley turn to hell".

After the trumpet, the sax takes over, creating a little lighter mood at first, but when the rest of the band joins, full distress and despair ensues, with horns blowing in all directions, drums thudding and bass pounding, suddenly stopping for sparse guitar sounds and a wailing blues trumpet, for an even slower and sadder mood, heartbreaking as can be. If anything, it makes me think of Charlie Haden's "The Ballad Of The Fallen" in its grand sweeping theatrical display of sympathy with the underdog against the one in power, integrating all musical styles possible to demonstrate the universality of the theme, yet at the same time using the expressive elements that make these styles great and turning them into one big piece of an auditive story, the drama of mankind, but then compressed, condensed into half an hour of musical delight.

Listen and download from eMusic.

© stef

Read More

Devin Hoff - Solo Bass (Self Published, 2008) ***½

Devin Hoff is one of those modern bass-players with a very broad pallette. You can't call him mainstream, you can't call him avant-garde either, yet he's equally comfortable in both and everything in between. He has played with amongst others Nels Cline, Plays Monk, Steven Bernstein, Good For Cows and Ben Goldberg, all musicians open to any style and adventure. Furthermore he gives musical references as wide apart as "Munir Bashir, Joao Gilberto, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Joelle Leandre, as well as the profound inspirations of Ornette Coleman, The Carter Family and Black Sabbath". All that by itself gives a good indication of his approach to solo bass : it's accessible, creative, and sophisticated. The titles are all a little bit anarchic, but that's certainly not what you would expect from hearing the pieces. True, sometimes his bowing leads to some hair-raising sounds, but it is always complemented by his soft plucking. Playing solo bass is extremely difficult, not by itself but to keep the listener's attention throughout the whole album. And Devin Hoff tries to vary sufficiently in style, tempo and pizzi vs arco, to maintain interest. I have Paul Roger's "Being" still fresh in the back of my head as the reference for solo bass, and that's a tough comparison. Rogers indeed manages to throw his entire "being" into his music, showing the emotional nakedness of true authenticity, an incredible feat well beyond most musicians. That being said, Hoff's bass playing is very good, his approach to music is nice. And I just love the sound of solo bass, the warmth and the depth of the instrument : it is clear that Hoff enjoys every atom of his instrument and every sound it can make. So do I.

Listen and buy from CDBaby.

© stef

Read More

Scott Tinkler - Backwards (Extreme, 2007) ****

I find it amazing that musicians who are extremely talented and have earned their reputation in mainstream jazz and big bands, create music that is totally different and avant-garde when leading their own ensembles or when playing solo. Trumpeters like Herb Robertson, Thomas Heberer and Axel Dörner fall into that category, and so does Australian trumpeter Scott Tinkler. In the 1990s he already released several trumpet trio recordings, which are truly great : adventurous and accessible at the same time (and downloadable via eMusic). On "Backwards", his overdubbed solo recording, he pushes the boundaries of trumpet playing, not as far as Greg Kelley or Nate Wooley, still paying attention to the lyrical side of things, the expressivity and the pleasure of creating sound, rather than just extending techniques for the sake of it (even more stunning : this record does NOT contain any overdubbing, see Scott Tinkler's comment on this post : it is mindboggling then how he manages to sound like two trumpets playing at the same time, especially on the first track!). Tinkler creates an incredible intensity just by playing his horn in unfamiliar regions, sounding at the same time deeply primitive, alternating just two stretched notes fully of agony, incredibly spiritual, and very avant-garde (blowing in water as Rob Mazurek already did, but here luckily only on one track!). In that sense he is closer in spirit to the Norwegians Eivind Aarset and Per Jørgensen : deep-rooted and universal emotional expressiveness prevails over technique. If you're a trumpeter, don't miss this. If you're not a trumpeter, look for it.

Listen and download from eMusic.
© stef

Read More

Craig Green + David King (Long Song Records, 2008) ***½

Throwing away all preconceived notions, creating new musical environments, while still sounding familiar and even groove at times, is an unusual combination, yet guitarist Craig Green and drummer Dave King, who also plays keyboards, do exactly that. The guitarist I didn't know, but of course Dave King is the highly energetic and rock-influenced drummer of The Bad Plus and Happy Apple, two bands who've rejuvenated jazz in the past decade and created interest in jazz among a younger audience. This record is not likely to achieve this, therefore it is a little bit too avant-garde for that, but then again ... the twelve tracks each create their own musical universe, sometimes utterly bizarre, but at times combining known elements into surprising new approaches. For instance, on "Walk Left", King plays piano in a totally irregular way, changing the rhythms all the time, and totally dissonant, while Green plays around this, only to fall into a repeated pattern at the end, becoming even a little sentimental and sweet. "Faux Hawk" brings a steady rock groove of some serious drumming and heavyly distorted guitar. "Cinematic" starts with eery electronic landscaping, evolving into wall-of-noise electric guitar sounds. "Praise The Shadows" brings harsh guitar sounds over distant hypnotic polyrhythmics. "Rainey Qunceira" is a track of beautiful, melodic acoustic guitar with King on vibes, again nice and sweet. But once you're accustomed to this pleasant tune, you're pushed into darkness again with "Snow Plow", on which a steady drone and brushed drumming create the backdrop for splinters and shards of guitar sounds, and surprisingly the record ends again with soft acoustic guitar over a steady almost industrial drum beat in the background.

Both musicians manage to create a wide variety of musical approaches to the art of the duo, integrating all styles and subgenres they master, while inventing many more possibilities. Interestingly enough, despite the wide variety of angles, it still sounds very coherent. Sounds promising.

Listen and buy from Long Song Records.


© stef

Read More

Raoul Björkenheim, William Parker, Hamid Drake - DGM@The Stone Vol. 2 (DMG, 2008) ****

Finnish power jazz guitarist Raoul Björkenheim asked (begged?) the organizers of the DMG festival in December 2006 to let him perform with Hamid Drake and William Parker, and wouldn't that indeed be any soloist's dream? For Björkenheim it became a reality and to great effect. Björkenheim has a tendency to be totally "out there", in very adventurous regions, but here he moves a little more to the middle of the spectrum (although that's very relative), without relinquishing his powerful and highly energetic playing, while Parker and Drake again demonstrate that no style or approach is alien to them and they adapt with verve and spirit. Next to his guitar he also switches once in a while to his electric viola da gamba, bowing the strings, inviting Parker to join for almost electronic sounding weirdness, but as surprisingly, there are even moments when he plays it clean, without any pedals or other distorted sounds. Björkenheim's music is as usual not restricted to any style or genre : there is jazz to be heard, blues, but it mostly sounds like a rock guitar jam session, with lots of energy, ever moving forward, with no respect or memory of previously played themes or phrases, ever moving forward without looking back, playing notes in the moment itself, coming up with new ideas, delivering them and on we go to other places. Even in this kind of environment, Parker feels perfectly at ease, making his bass sound the natural partner of this wild guitar, while Drake again amazes me with his unbelievable skill of sounding almost fluent and relaxed while playing hard-hitting high energy rock-influenced beats.

On the last track, the roles are reversed, with William Parker playing shawm, a reed instrument, and Björkenheim taking over the bass part on the lower strings of his guitar, playing a rock-influenced vamp, with Drake playing up a storm in the background. In short, it's the high quality equivalent of three youngsters having fun with improvising. The lack of focus is easily counterbalanced by the apparent fun, discipline and musical immediacy.

© stef

Read More

Nobu Stowe - An Die Musik (Soul Note, 2008) ****

Baltimore-based Japanese pianist Nobu Stowe is a man of many voices. His lyricism combined with a sense of adventure that were so apparent on his highly recommended previous albums, make way here for an ode to music, and more specifically an ode to Keith Jarrett. Like Jarrett, Stowe sits down at the piano and starts improvising, creating instant melodies and rhythms, often mid-tempo hypnotic pieces, with a musical intensity that comes and goes, like waves, often open-ended, but always integrated. The album's title, "An Die Musik", refers to one of Schubert's "lieder", for solo voice and piano, dating from 1817 in which he sings his love for music. Here the pianist is accompanied by Alan Munshower on drums and Badal Roy on tabla in for duo and trio settings. Badal Roy has one solo tabla piece. Both percussionists keep the tension high and participate in creating the necessary contrast and perspective to Stowe's improvising. On some tracks, as on "Trio II", Badal Roy plays even a very dominant role in setting the scene. Some of the tracks, such as "Duo IV" and the long "Trio III" create melodies that would have many listeners confusing Stowe with Jarrett at first hearing. That means a lot of impressionistic romanticism, and a search for aesthetic beauty. This is surely not the first tribute to the music of Jarrett, but it's certainly one of the better ones. On the other hand, I do prefer Stowe in a more adventurous environment. He has more creative qualities than imitating the master. That being said, it is a beautiful album of an accessibility that is rare on this blog, but so what? I also was to a great extent sucked into the world of jazz by listening to Jarrett, and I share with Nobu Stowe the love for cats : they're independent, unpredictable, elegant and a little mysterious animals, qualities that I admire in good music. The last track on the album is dedicated to his own cat "Pochi". For sure, Stowe's music is unpredictable too, and pretty independent.

© stef

Read More

Erik Friedlander - Broken Arm Trio (Skipstone Records, 2008) ****

In the Broken Arm Trio Erik Friedlander on cello, Mike Sarin on drums and Trevor Dunn on bass, join forces for a nice, light-footed and warm-hearted record of unpretentious yet sophisticated and captivating music. It is jazz, at times with a few klezmer influences, but barely, with Friedlander mostly plucking his strings. He can only be heard bowing on a few exceptions such as on "Pearls" or "Ink", with especially the latter track adding some gravity and variation. This gives the whole a sense of lightness and fun, in great contrast to the melancholy sound of the bowed instrument. Most tracks are uptempo, which gives the rhythm section the chance to shine. The music is inspired by Oscar Pettiford and influenced by the small group feel of Herbie Nichols. Friedlander, Dunn and Sarin have all three already ventured into very avant-garde environments, integrating influences from modern classical music to rock and klezmer, on top of their own creativity and adventurousness, and it is actually great to hear them here in a more traditional jazz setting. The love of melody, rhythm, jazz and interplay just drips off every note. Three great musicians having fun with music. A treat!

Listen and download from eMusic.

© stef

Read More

François Carrier - The Digital Box (Ayler Records, 2008) *** & *****

True, it's getting out of hand, all these excessively abundant CD boxes of modern jazz bands. It started, surprisingly, but then also not, with a 12-CD box for the Vandermark 5. This leads to the reviewer's dilemma : before you have listened to all CDs, and again, and again, ... sufficiently to form an opinion and give some advice to potentially interested listeners, the year has passed and the news value of the review has become nil. So you write nothing about it, despite its musical value. Or you write about it, knowing that you haven't had time to properly appreciate (or hate) the album.

Recently, in a wave of total commercial madness, Ayler Records started releasing boxes with everything-that-was-ever-recorded-by-a-musician-but-that-no-other-label-had-the-guts-to-release. The first in the row was the Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut box. The second is this François Carrier box. The regular readers of this blog will in the meantime know that I have a very high esteem for François Carrier, not only as a saxophonist, but also for his musical vision and sense of spiritual adventure. So, I do not want to make the same mistake as with the Vandermark 5 "Alchemia" box (get it, each of the twelve discs is worth having).

So, about the François Carrier box, to which I have only listened once ... Enough to form an opinion? Probably not. Enough to generate interest among the potentially interested? Surely!

The problems with boxes is that they are not very discriminating : they kind of accept all performances on an equal footing, regardless of inspiration, delivery or sound quality. Often a little more selectiveness would be good for the listener, but on the other hand, the tastes and pleasures of listeners are so personal that opinions will diverge largely on what is good and what is not.

CD-1 - Great Love, with Dewey Redman, Ron Séguin on bass and Michel Lambert on drums. Dewey Redman only performs on one of the tracks, but he is absolutey great, the way we like him. Warm-toned, creative, shouting through his horn, combining pleasure and pain in a Coltrane-influenced yet also in his own personal style. We dearly miss him. And it's great to hear him again. Kudos also to the rest of the band for the great performance.

CD-2 - Dance, with Michel Lambert - a live duo performance, with a sound quality which could have been better, yet offering quite some interesting moments of interaction and musical ideas;

CD-3 - Far North, with Michel Lambert on drums and Pierre Côté on bass. Quite good. The bass adds warmth and pulse, the longer tracks offer great room and space for expansive soloing. Carrier is very Coltrane-like in his approach to music : spiritual and earthly at the same time, rhythmic and lyrical (although a little less exuberant, more meditative).

CD 4 - Kala, with Michel Lambert and Pierre Côté : absolutely excellent, beautiful, inspired, lyrical, deep, spiritual. If you only want one disc out of the seven, choose this one. In my eyes a five star quotation.

CD-5 - Unfolded, with Michel Lambert. Again a live duo setting. The tracks are shorter, leading to more focused playing and quite some intensity at times. Lambert is as important as Carrier in delivering the goods, knowing what to play, how to push the saxophonist forward, when to play, and when to stop playing. The music is excellent. If you want a second CD from the box, choose this one.

CD-6 - Soulful South, Part 1, with Sonny Greenwich on guitar, Michel Lambert on drums, Michel Donato on bass. A great try-out, but with insufficient results, insufficient coherence and focus. Somehow it just doesn't match and the recording quality is not ideal.

CD-7 Soulful South, Part 2, with the same band. Sound quality is a little better, the sax trio sounds great, the guitar is a little more integrated than on album six, and it works well now, with the sax defining the atmosphere and thematic developments. On the last track the guitar takes the lead, and I'm sorry to say it, but it does not lead to great music. Drum and bass try to follow as well as possible, but nothing really worthwhile emerges, even not when Carrier enters the tune halfway the track.

I love Carrier's musical approach and playing. And if you don't know his music, there are better CDs to start with (look for them in my "Overview Of All CD Reviews"), but if you like small ensemble jazz and lyrical creativity, this one is worth downloading. And I apologize beforehand for the superficial listening and review.

Download from Ayler Records.

© stef

Read More