Trumpet and piano

By Stef

I like many ensemble formats, and depending on the mood of the day, some get preference over another. When you're in an atmosphere of quiet introspection, or calm availability, or intellectual sensitivity, the trumpet piano duet is often my preferred listening companion. Often, the technical quality is good, the chamber-like sounds do not force you too much out of your comfort zone, but you're still open for inventive ear-candy.

If you feel the same from time to time, I can recommend the following three albums, which also - in sequence - bring us from tradition to avant-garde, from jazz over neo-classical to music beyond conventions, and in my opinion, increasing the value of the outcome, from sublime entertaintment, over brilliant aesthetics to real art.


Dave Douglas & Uri Caine - Present Joys (Greenleaf, 2014) ***½

Of course we all know Dave Douglas and Uri Caine, no need to tell who they are. Douglas is jazz personified, and Uri Caine has been the tormentor of classical music into his own fusion idiom, and much more. Both of course have their references with klezmer too, as part of John Zorn's environment.

Here they bring us their own "present joys", a very jazzy album in the most traditional sense, with more rounded and finished compositions, based on the "Sacred Harp" tradition, choral music from the south of the United States, which they use as the spring board for own compositions, or for further explorations of the sacred with the very profane bar jazz, and they switch as easily from one to the other, presenting both in a very respectful, playful and sometimes melancholy manner.

Even more, both musicians dive really deep into jazz origins, bluesy, boppish, with walking bass lines, conjuring up the very foundations of why we all like jazz so much, then adding some more contemporary sounds and figures, embedded in the traditional song harmonies.


Maciej Fortuna & Krzysztof Dys - Tropy (ForTune, 2013) ****

The Polish duo of Maciej Fortuna on trumpet and Krzysztof Dys on piano is a real treat. Both are classically trained, and the latter we already mentioned as part of Waclaw Zimpel's band on "Stone Fog". The technical quality of their playing is absolutely superb, with Fortuna having an incredible purity of tone, and Dys having the versatility to tackle many challenges and offer subtle beauty. As they say themselves "it's too classical to be called jazz, and too jazzy to be called classical", and indeed, they merge both genres as if there was no distinction, shifting in and out of structure, in and out of harmony and rhythm, free to roam where it pleases them.

They offer us a very nice and coherent album, with moments of joy, of intimate melancholy, of playful fun and more exalted jubilations, yet always interesting, always engaging, offering a delicate solidity.

Does Tomasz Stanko come to mind at times? Yes, he does. But to the duo's credit, they manage to create their own sound, their own space, which is so inviting and welcoming, that no references are needed.


Peter Evans & Raleigh Dailey - Measure From Zero (Llama Records, 2014) ****½

This album was already reviewed earlier by Paul Acquaro, but why not review it twice? It can only offer more insights to the interested reader.

Of the three albums presented here, Peter Evans and Raleigh Dailey offer the most abstract, the most explorarotary outing, and there is no comparison with what Dave Douglas and Uri Caine do, except then for the feelings. Again, there are moments of pure aesthetic beauty, many moments even, deep expressions of melancholy or joy or distress or rage or even beyond those.

Evans gives a great demonstration of modern trumpet playing, using the broad scale of techniques to produce different sounds, unheard sounds while keeping his ears very close to the emotional content of his expressivity, including the overall sound of the interplay, that shifts between moments of intensity to quiet and contemplative phases. Evans whispers and wails and cries (listen how he even imitates the human voice, howling on "An Ax For The Frozen Sea"), and Dailey creates the context for that voice, sometimes eery, sometimes thundering, always subtle and precise.

Some of the tracks are triggered by pieces of literature, such as "What The Bird With The Human Head Knew" (by Anne Sexton), "The Third Invention" (by Leonard Cohen?), and the others I couldn't place, although the reference to "End, Middle, Beginning" (also by Anne Sexton), reverses the sequence of story-telling, which this music is all about.

"An Ax For The Frozen Sea" is in any case a quote from Kafka (also used by your servant as the title for his literature blog), which actually means that a book, or a piece of art by extension, should act like an ax to break the frozen sea in ourselves, and that art is pointless if it does not bring the reader or listener to deep emotions, however shocking or disturbing or revelatory or intimate or liberating. No wonder then that Evans and Dailey go deep, really deep, much further than conventions of this kind of chamber ensemble, without totally alienating the listener, quite to the contrary, they keep the listener glued to the music, exactly because it manages to connect at a deeper level than the pure musical form.


So, all albums can be recommended to fans of contemporary trumpet and piano, all three break the mould, and even if you have no open ears, I can still recommend the Evans/Dailey duo too, because I think it offers a great entry ticket into the real value and power of free music, demonstrating how improvised music can offer the strongest outcome.

The unifying factor of all three albums is that the six musicians demonstrate that with superb mastery of their instruments, and of musical form, and of interaction, real freedom of musical expression can be generated.

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Cene Resnik Quartet - From the Sky (Clean Feed, 2014) ***½

By Stefan Wood

Cene Resnik is a tenor saxophone musician from Slovenia, a student of artists Archie Shepp and Joe Zawinul, whose teachings, combined with Resnik's own Buddhist beliefs, have resulted in a sound that is a fusion of free jazz, hard bop, and Slovenian culture.  He leads a quartet on his debut album for Clean Feed, From the Sky, which is full of promise and solid playing.

The opening track, "Red Mango," shows Resnik's influences, with a strong, full bodied sound, at times lyrical, others atonal, not unlike Coltrane in his later years, yet lacking his power and fervor.  Emanuele Parrini's violin's is very evident -- angular, a mixture of Django Reinhardt and Billy Bang; Giovanni Maier's strong plucking on bass; and Aljosa Jeric providing powerful drumming.  Throughout the album they demonstrate a versatility, between the skronk and the lyrical, as half of the album's six tracks break the ten minute mark, giving the artists ample time to stretch out.

The compositions aren't very strong -- they show more influence of others than their own unique take -- they are well performed, and sustain interest.  Standout tracks are:  "We Dance," the shortest track on the album and the most energetic, with Resnik and Parrini trading off leads while Maier and Jeric deliver a scorching rhythm section.  "Riverbank" is another fiery track, all musicians deploying their arsenal of sounds in another five minute noisefest.  From the Sky is a nice debut for this Quartet, Resnik showing strong influences from 60's-70s era of free jazz.


Available from Instantjazz.

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Fail Better! - Zero Sum (JACC, 2014) ****

By Stef

In the category of unknown-musicians-or-bands-that-you-really-should-spend-some-time-listening-to, we can recommend "Fail Better", yes, another band from Portugal, with Luis Vicente on trumpet, João Guimarães on alto sax, Marcelo dos Reis on electric guitar, José Miguel Pereira on bass, and João Pais Filipe on drums.

This is actually the third concert out of five that the band gave in February 2013 in Coimbra, Portugal, and the music is completely improvised. The band's overall sound is absolutely exquisite, the result of a very careful approach to interaction, with a very low density and slow interaction, creating an atmosphere of doom and beauty, and "Bright Red", the opening track, is by itself already worth purchasing the album.

It's hard to pigeon-hole the sound, because it is jazz, but then with a sense of carefully built-up effects and hypnotic slow rhythms that resuscitate memories of early psychedelic rock music, with a steady pulse like a calm heart-beat, creating a huge space for the individual musicians to add their voice to the developing enveloping sound, and none of them are there to impress, all of them carefully, cautiously contribute to the sound, without pyrotechnics, without force, without aggression, just slowly, gradually, emphatically, empathetically growing their sound, over the repetitive, relentless rhythm section, full of control full of restraint, full of power and intensity.

The concept is not new, but the delivery and the sound are phenomenal.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut - The Music of Everything - BFP (Creative Musicfor Creative Listeners, 2014) ****

By Paul Acquaro

The Music of Everything - BFP by New York based guitarist Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut is a digital only EP-length release, that while only 20 minutes long, covers a lot of sonic ground. Recorded during two dates during the summer of 2013 at Brooklyn Fire Proof, Shurdut, along with Landon Knoblock , Kevin Shea, John Letman, Sean Sonderegger, Harvey Valdes, Sana Nagano, Matt Luczak create an unpredictable and unusual soundscape that feels both lightly structured and open ended. 

And what of the music of everything? Shurdut has a technique of tuning to the environment of where he is playing, and as I understand it, pulls the ambience, atmosphere, and hum of humanity together into a sound that is gripping in its intensity. On this recording, track one begins with swooping effects on guitar and bleating of horns. As the large ensemble explores the contours of sound and space, the listener is led around a dizzying labyrinth until ending up in the same spot. Track two takes a quieter approach but with a bit more forward motion. Still featuring a layer of noise, the clamor of the track is juxtaposed with strains of straight-ahead sax beneath the bubbling surface. 

In the end, it seems that the contrasts are paramount - the difference between the first track's inertia and the second tracks motion, the tensions between the layers of sounds. Indeed, the recording is the music of many things.

There is also a companion piece with the suffix DMG that was recorded recorded during the winter of 2014 at New York City’s Downtown Music Gallery with a slightly different set of musicians. Available at eMusic, iTunes, Amazon, etc.

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The Ames Room - Struggling In Public (Norwegianism, 2014) ****

By Stef

We were more than pleased with the two previous albums of The Ames Room: "Bird Dies" and "In", and we are still of the same opinion with "Struggling In Public" a live album of performances given in Berlin, London, Newcastle and Paris.

The trio is Jean-Luc Guionnet on alto sax, Clayton Thomas on bass and Will Guthrie on drums. They call their music 'minimal-maximal terror jazz', and that makes sense in a way. The trio's sound range appears to be reduced to a few notes, and that includes the bass and the alto, which are repeated in small phrases with incredible insistency, like some madmen making the same argument again and again, changing force and attack, slightly changing perspectives but never changing the message, repeating it again and again, raw, ferocious, relentlessly, and without end.

This simplicity is in a way its greatest strength, because the forced confinement gives a claustrophobic effect out of which you want to escape with violence, not only as musicians, but also as listener.

Yet the effect is hypnotic at times, trance-like too, like some primitive ritual in which repetition is needed in a wild kind of angry incantation, and the wild abandon within the confines knows no boundaries: everything is reduced to energy and power and interaction, hard, limitless.

And it's exactly that paradox which makes this great music. I love this trio!


Listen and download here.

Available from Instantjazz.

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Gato Libre - DuDu (Libra, 2014) ****

By Stef

In my review of "Forever", their previous CD, I wondered what would happen with this great Japanese chamber quartet, now that bassist Norikatsu Koreyasu has sadly passed away. Rather than looking for a new bass player, they invited  Yasuko Kaneko to join on trombone. The other band members are still Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Satoko Fujii on accordion and Kazuhiko Tsumura on guitar. 

For fans of the quartet, the overall sound is not dramatically impacted by this change, the music is still a mixture of old European folk music with avant-jazzy improvisations and colorings outside of the lines. The music remains soft-spoken, with precious themes and solos that can go totally "out there" on a basis of rhythm and melody. 

If anything, the music is sadder than ever, if that's possible, with some devastating soloing by Tamura, who really outperforms himself on "Nanook", making his horn cry and wail in between the pure warm tones in the intro section, and Kaneko's trombone adds some wild additions to this in a duet with the trumpet near the end of the tune. 

Fujii and Tsumura offer harmonics to the horns in the most senstive of fashions, well illustrated by the careful build-up of a single accordion note and sparse guitar chords to evoke the title's "Rainy Day". 

The music has become more ethereal, with more open space, with less dense arrangements, and the more explicit dance rhythms that could be heard on the band's earlier albums has completely disappeared, as do the themes in a way, and interestingly enough, this evolution seems to work well, keeping the music fresh, authentic and offering fans something new instead of more of the same. 

A moving album. 

Available from Instantjazz.

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Martin Küchen - ... And Everything Inside Came Down As Dust (Confront, 2014) ****

By Ed Pettersen

Rumblings.  That’s how it starts.  That’s how it always starts.  A buzz in the distance, a hum, distortions, but then it starts coming closer.  Closer.  Like a heartbeat to the ear.  Or a tank.

Maybe that’s how it sounded to my forefather’s as they came rolling through Norway in the 1940’s.  Or to Martin Küchen’s family in Sweden.  It’s also how his new album begins though the first track never reaches the roar of a tank.  Just a fuzzy child’s toy.  But it is ominous much like his brilliant 2012 Hellstorm album recorded in a church and inspired by the Nazi occupation and “the world’s worst war” (liner notes).

Buzzing, puffed breaths, humming, textures…these are all musical landscapes in Küchen’s world and you can’t help but pay attention.  He never screams or shouts, even when he is actually playing his sax, but you can’t help and listen closer.  That is his gift.  And he never uses a cliché.  Ever.  It’s just not in his DNA.  I imagine he doesn’t even know what it means.  It appears he is in his own little world.  These compositions on this album are very well not like anything else you will hear this year (or maybe any other year).

There are other great players, such as Arve Henriksen with his trumpet, who mine some of the same territory as Mr. Küchen but with them it almost sounds like an experiment, an affectation or dissatisfaction with their instrument but not here.  Küchen is exploring his own personal space and doesn’t even know we’re listening and that’s fine with me (and I bet with him too).

Please understand, this is a delicate recording but not a fragile artist.  To make music this bold and carefree you can’t possibly give a damn.  And I think that’s the point and why, to me, it’s all the more powerful.  A bit self-indulgent?  Sure.  That’s why I don’t give it 5 stars but otherwise I say bravo.  

Highly recommended.

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Angles 9 - Injuries (Clean Feed ,2014) *****

By Antonio Poscic

It’s no secret that saxophonist and composer Martin Küchen and the various incarnations of his Angles group are quite beloved on the Free Jazz Blog. Not without reason since it can seem, at times, that Angles under Küchen’s guidance really are incapable of producing mediocre music. “Injuries” is another release by the Angles nonet, Angles 9, and the musicians and their music remain as wonderful as they’ve ever been.

Martin Küchen and his cohorts present us with big band music that frames grand and expansive moments within minimalist and quite improvisational borders. It is exhilarating, shiver-inducing music, but with a contemplative and spiritual thread passing through it. Imagine that: free, improvised music that you can almost hum and dance to! The record can feel so musical and uplifting at times that you’ll feel guilty for enjoying it so much. And yet, the music never even comes close to being corny or tacky. Instead, it successfully bridges intellectually challenging and emotionally fulfilling sonic dimensions. This is especially evident when the band is at full force, when an incredible energy and passion, a certain pathos almost, starts sweeping over the listener. A pathos that is easily associated with the message that lies in the background. A message that can be interpreted as a warning and a plea for peace, a message that is akin to the voice and ideas behind Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. Simultaneously, African and Latino rhythms that lurk between the lines, the syncopated drumming, and blaring horn section might remind us of African musicians such as Mulatu Astatke. It all amounts to charged and powerful music, plain and simple.

Take the opening “European Boogie” which booms and swings in the vein of early free jazz, the beautiful “Eti” that is opened by a progression on piano and vibraphone only to be joined by a full-bodied horn section which will send shivers down your spine, “Ubabba” which rocks along with remnants of afrobeat and an inherent sense of joy, or the title track “Injuries” which is a vibrating, nervous, and piano-dominated almost free improv track... There’s something special to be found on each track and hardly any negatives. The only thing that might bother some is the accessibility and a mirage of mundanity of the music, but this is easily and quickly forgotten once you dig into the music and completely fathom the ease with which the band manages their performance. They take simple, memorable themes, and develop the tunes around them, leaving ample space for improvisations which mostly come in the form of interludes between louder, busier group efforts. The rhythm section can feel rather straightforward, but this is down to the somewhat strict role it has in maintaining the band’s cohesiveness. On the other hand, the wind section emerges as the main carrier of themes, introduced quite often by the vibraphone and piano. While a certain level of homogeneity is required and upheld, the musicians are actually given many chances to express themselves. Based on the performances, it would actually be unfair to single out any of the musicians here since they all make significant contributions to the music, both as parts of a whole and as soloists.

I feared, before listening to the album, that recording in a studio rather than in front of a live audience would somehow diminish or harm the rendition of Angles 9’s music. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded since the warmth and exhilaration in their approach are as present as ever and there’s not a sign of straying from the energy that they exhibit while performing live. In closing, I can only say that instead of reading this review you should already be listening and experiencing “Injuries” by yourself. It’s the only way to fully understand.

(The group is: Alexander Zethson (p), Andreas Werliin (d), Eirik Hegdal (bs), Goran Kajfes (cor), Johan Berthling (b), Magnus Broo (t), Martin Küchen (as/ts), Mats Aleklint (tb), Mattias Ståhl (vib))


Available from Instantjazz.

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Ross Hammond - Shiner (Prescott Records, 2014) ****

By Paul Acquaro

A found box of 10 minute cassette tapes inspired guitarist Ross Hammond to create the extremely limited release 'Shiner'. Recorded with drummer Jon Bafus, the two five minute tracks serve as a succinct teaser of Hammond's earth-toned ouvre.

Side A features 'Tones for Roscoe Mitchell', finds the duo spinning some gritty and kinetic melodies. The rapid elliptical lines repeat like possessed pamphleteers speaking in tongues in the subway station (I haven't seen these folks in the NYC subways for a while though, just a fading memory I guess). This track is a real highlight, and hopefully may re-emerge on a full length release sometime - when it fades out at the five minute mark it still seems to be building tension.  When all too soon auto-reverse kicks in, side B finds Hammond shifting around big slabs of sound with the help of Bafus. "For the Defenders of Middle Earth" can be categorized in the post-rock / Crazy Horse section of your growing Hammond collection.

Only 75 of these buggers out there - see here for more info

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Diego Barber with Craig Taborn - Tales (Sunnyside, 2014) ****

By Troy Dostert

Although Craig Taborn is a name most readers of this blog are quite familiar with, Diego Barber is likely more of an unknown—at least, he was to this reviewer before sitting down with this intriguing duo record.  Barber is a very accomplished classical guitarist, but he’s recorded a couple of classically-influenced jazz records on Sunnyside prior to this one, so he’s been exploring ways of bringing improvisation into his playing for some time now.  Since Taborn is himself rather adept at straddling genres, and at times has a distinctly classical sensibility to his playing, this pairing makes a lot of sense.  And for the most part, it’s a very satisfying and successful encounter.

One thing that is immediately apparent: Barber has some fantastic chops as a guitarist.  He brings a virtuosity that is channeled with great discipline.  He’s capable of jaw-dropping runs and complex passages which sound like there have to be two guitarists playing them—but his compositions are also very melodic in nature, with subtly beautiful phrases galore, especially on the 27-minute opener, “Kilian’s Mountains.”  And as we’ve come to expect from Taborn as well, his sympathetic skill at playing alongside his counterparts, rather than overshadowing them, is always evident.  (Taborn of course does have some really impressive moments here, however; see for instance the brilliant improvisation he offers on the second track, “Cipres.”)

I have just a few quibbles.  Although the recording quality is generally very good, it would have been nice to have better instrument separation.  Since Taborn does a fair amount of playing in the middle register, his overlapping parts with Barber (and there are a lot of these, particularly on “Kilian’s Mountains”) tended to blur the instruments together.  I eventually got used to this, but it took some effort.  And while this is certainly a duo record in most respects (with Taborn collaborating closely with Barber on his compositions), there are some rather lengthy solo stretches where only one of the two is playing.  The most interesting moments on the record are definitely the ones in which Taborn and Barber are listening to and responding to each other.  Along these lines, the mutual interplay on “Cipres” is really one of the highlights of the disc.  (Not that I can complain too much about this, though, as some of those solo moments are pretty stunning—take Taborn’s gorgeous performance on the first half of “Im Park,” for instance, the record’s last track.)  And while this is more of a personal preference, at times I found the classical orientation of Barber’s playing a bit staid and uninvolving; while his performances are consistently exceptional, there were moments when I wanted him to cut it loose a bit more—to bring a bit more fire to the proceedings, basically.  The collaborative improvisational power of “Cipres” is a terrific but somewhat isolated moment on the record.

Slight reservations aside, this remains an excellent collaboration between two superb musicians who will hopefully work together again in the future.   

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