Jonas Cambien Trio - Nature Hath Painted The Body (Clean Feed, 2021) ****

By Eyal Hareuveni

Belgian-born, Oslo-based pianist Jonas Cambien chose a quote from the 1653 book The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton for the title of the third studio album of his trio. This illustrated book celebrated the art and the spirit of fishing in prose and verse. You can equate the aesthetics of Jonas Cambien Trio to the experience of fishing. This trio is not interested in capturing heavy, well-crafted textures but is focused on the experience itself of music-making, stressing that nothing is out, nothing is prohibited, and that the music goes everywhere, unpolished, challenging and surprising. Like fishing, music-making is a means for exploration of your art and yourself as a creative artist (and, obviously, as an attentive listener).

Cambien also chose perfect partners for his musical journeys. André Roligheten, who plays the soprano and tenor saxes and the bass clarinet, plays in drummer Gard Nilssen’s Acoustic Unity and Supersonic Orchestra, Friends & Neighbors quintet, the duo Albatrosh and sax player Eirik Hegdal’s Team Hegdal. Drummer Andreas Wildhagen plays in fellow drummer Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit, Lana Trio and in various Nakama’s musicians cooperative-label projects. Both played on the previous albums of the Trio, all released by Clean Feed. Cambien plays also the soprano sax on one piece and the organ on another two pieces.

Cambien composed all the pieces but his compositions are simple and suggestive baits for collective trio improvisations. The trio, in its turn, never repeats itself and searches for new modes of conversational, open and playful dynamics, improvisation strategies and moods. The trio plays - literally - as it deconstructs and reconstructs Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics motives on “1 000 000 Happy Locusts” and experiments with a repetitive, rhythmic theme on “Herrieschoppers”. Cambien and Roligheten soprano sax duet on “Hypnos” offers an abstraction of imaginary whirling dervishes dance and serves as an introduction for “Mantis”, where the Trio dives deeper into an irresistible, mysterious trance-like dance “The Origins of Tool Use” is an open improvisation with Cambien playing prepared piano and organ, and the following “Bushfire” employs a repetitive theme in search of an introspective interplay. “Freeze” alternates between the chamber, sparse segments that rely on extended techniques of all three musicians, and sudden and powerful outbursts. Roligheten adds Mediterranean veins into the stubborn ostinato of “Yoyo Helmut”. The last piece is a twisted but emotional ballad, articulated beautifully by Cambien on the piano and organ, and subverted cleverly by Roligheten’s exploration of extended breathing techniques and Wildhagen’s sparse, mechanical drumming.

Nature hath painted the body of the fish with whitish, blackish, brownish spots, according to Walton. Jonas Cambien Trio’s fishing-like journey is colored with fresh, brilliant intuitive and almost telepathic dynamics.

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Tania Caroline Chen & Wadada Leo Smith - Every Leaf (Self, 2021) ****½

 

By Stef Gijssels

Of all Wadada Leo Smith's incredible output, only a few are duets with pianists, such as "Interludes Of Breath And Substance" with Matthew Goodheart, "Twine Forest" with Angelica Sanchez, "A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke" with Vijay Iyer, and the albums reviewed by us both received a five-star rating. We could appear very generous, but I can only ask the reader/listener to check for themselves. 

In 2017 he released a quartet with Tania Chen, Henry Kaiser and William Winant: "Oceans Of Storms", in which Chen and Smith perform a duet, which was then described as "one of the highlights of the album for the purity of sound" of the piece. 

Now we find Tania Caroline Chen and Wadada Leo Smith for a wonderful duo album of piano and trumpet. 

Whereas the duo with Iyer was a more subdued, polished, solemn, streamlined and a little sentimental (ECM!), and the duo with Angelica Sanchez was more jazzy and dynamic, intense, unpredictable, angular, playful at moments, rebellious, Tania Caroline Chen's playing is more abstract, with a wonderful approach of gentle austerity, precise and not jazzy in her chords or phrases. Chen is a classical pianist, and her catalogue mainly consists of works by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Arnold Schoenberg, Erik Satie and other modern composers, even if she also worked the free improvising pianists in the UK: John Tilbury and Steve Beresford. In her work, she moves easily between tonality and atonality, composed and improvised, inside and outside, acoustic and electronic, but here she performs purely acoustic.

The album was recorded in 2017 in a studio in California. All nine pieces, the titles of which refer to trees, were recorded in one take. Possibly that accounts for the natural flow of the performance, and its authenticity. Like growing trees evolving into branches and leaves, the improvisations move without pressure. This is not music that's crafted, but rather created organically, by two master musicians. 

Over the years, we've come to recognise and admire Smith's small ensemble improvisations: his trumpet resonates deeply, whether muted or not, with a deep emotional and spiritual component. He manages to lift every sound to a higher level, more meaningful, grand, majestic and memorable. 

Readers who have liked the duo albums with Matthew Goodheart, Angelica Sanchez and Vijay Iyer, will without a doubt also like this album. It's in the same vein, but not the same. Smith remains himself, with his unique voice, but Chen, like the other pianists, also has her own voice with a smart use of minimalism, silence, shifting harmonies and changes of intensity, giving a totally different colour and sentiment to Smith's playing. The result is different. 

The quality of the production is also excellent thanks to the capable ears and skills of our former colleague Ed Pettersen. 

Highly recommended. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Two Tim Berne Duets

Matt Mitchell / Tim Berne - 1 (Screwgun, 2020) ****

By Stephen Griffith

In the May 2018 issue, Downbeat conducted a blindfold test for Tim Berne. When discussing a Zorn composition he stated, paraphrasing from memory, that John goes into the studio with specific ideas on how he wants each participant to sound in a composition unlike Berne’s approach in wanting the musicians to develop the role with their identities. I thought of that often regarding his relationship with Matt Mitchell, whether in Snakeoil and previously released duets, but particularly in this collection of solo piano interpretations of Berne’s compositions, a spellbinding reworking that still contains the stamp of the composer but gently nudges the listener to examine the lyricism in a different way.

The genesis of this recording began when Berne first encountered Mitchell in the summer of 2008 when both taught at the Brooklyn School of Improvised Music’s workshop and performed in the faculty concert. Discovering they were musically sympatico led to increasing concert interactions: a seven piece Adobe Probe concert at the Stone in January 2009, an early version of Snakeoil called Los Totopos in September 2009, and in December 2009 at the Art Alliance in Philadelphia Matt played an opening solo piano set of Tim’s songs before joining Adobe Probe for the second set, the latter of which was released by Screwgun in June 2020, the same release date for 1 which was recorded at Ibeam on June 30, 2010. This wasn't the first time they recorded as a duo but it's the earliest performance to be released. Snakeoil was Berne’s first new band after a prolonged period of one off performances and it gave him an opportunity to revisit older unrecorded compositions and expose them to younger musicians anxious to apply their imprints. One of Berne’s strengths as a composer is in balancing freedom and form and in Mitchell he found a counterpoint to his insistently probing alto lines with ambidextrous melodicism capable of generating complimentary rhythmic propulsion. In the informative liners Matt gives background info for each composition as well as unlisted pieces that they segued into. For example the second piece, “Scanners” which was eventually recorded on the first Snakeoil album in January 2011, they start so strongly and familiarly that you don't miss the clarinet of Oscar Noriega nor Ches Smith’s drums in the swirling alto and piano lines. When things wind down they transition into an earlier composition of Matt’s before ending on a Berne song which never made it to record. I find these early versions of Snakeoil compositions fascinating because they're too fully formed to call them works in progress while still subject to the pushes and pulls of further performances, not to mention differing instrumentation, to morph into something different through time. And as Berne pointed out in an interview shortly after the release of Snakeoil, different studio takes of the same songs sounded wildly different.

Two other pieces here, “Duck” and “All Socket”, ended up on this followup Snakeoil recording as “Cornered (Duck)” and “Socket” recorded in January 2013 and greatly altered with the passage of time but still recognizable in the melody. At the conclusion of “All Socket” Mitchell plays a wigged out stride-ish figure that was a strikingly unique way to close it. One other piece, “Traction” from Berne’s book of work was previously appended to “Jalapeño Democracy” on a live Science Friction recording.

Although Snakeoil was the relatively concurrent destination of these pieces perhaps it's just as useful to consider this performance as an early version of the Berne and Mitchell duo entity realized in three subsequent recordings and ongoing still. Whichever context you place it in, it's a very coherent and adventurous performance providing rewarding listening through repeated exposure.

Tim Berne / Mark Helias - Blood From a Stone (Helias Self Release, 2020) ***(*)

After the frenzied assertiveness of two musicians still in the learning curve of becoming familiar, this recording represents the opposite musical dynamic: two bandmates from the early 80s making music as an incidental part of a small social gathering over a weekend last September. They carved out two blocks of time in the studio to record these five joint compositions. Initially it sounds like Helias, a wonderfully melodic bassist, sets a rhythmic motif which Berne follows and embellishes in a somewhat uncharacteristically placidly reactive manner, although as the first track, “Throw Me A Bone” progresses the roles reverse and further trade offs occur for the duration. If the track order reflects when they were recorded, the third cut, “Physical Responsibility”, is where Tim’s playing becomes more assertive with subdued fireworks and continues accordingly through the rest of the session. It's a very relaxing musical reunion of two longtime friends.

In the Bandcamp notes, Mark credits Tim for having urged him at the beginning of his career to overcome his reticence in putting his music in front of the public by recording it prior to the usual commitment from a label and then, years later, encouraging him to make a solo bass recording; all successfully executed and received. Maybe the nature of their long musical relationship is borne out by these songs.

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Marco Colonna & Alexander Hawkins - Dolphy Underlined (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2020) **** ½

By Matthew Banash

Tribute albums, for lack of a more precise term, double down on the task. Cosmetic comparisons yield simple dichotomies, plain one-dimensional statements and conclusions that neither reward nor encourage deep listening. Does one listen only to the recording at hand or in the context of its concept?

While Dolphy’s versions are polyphonous they are never cacophonous and employ a split-second deliberateness in conception and execution that illustrates intellect over flash but never at the expense of Soul. In my opinion they are the perfect gateway to the sense and sensibility of the “free jazz” that followed. Colonna and Hawkins approach them as Compositions and not just mere tunes to travel “Out There” and succeed in exploiting the parameters of the duo to parse out the range of Dolphy’s compositions and aesthetic almost as if note by note in an aural funhouse hall of mirrors.

“Something Sweet, Something Tender” is typical of the album in such a good way - Colonna and Hawkins play slowly parsing out the tune note by note, taking that moment’s consideration before each turn of note and phrase and in doing so draw the listener into Dolphy’s world, the world of free, unfettered uninhibited expression.

Hawkins’ solo reading of “Serene” has spare ECM quality to it. He opens by allowing the notes their lifespan before playing another and suspends time by doing so; the song makes its own way touching on a variety of moods and runs, hinting here and there, skirting the issue at times, its strength is the low-key energy Hawkins musters to sustain the song's mood. One can visualize him leaning into the keyboard then sitting back with everyone aural epiphany.

Colonna plays sopranino on “Gazzelloni” with a light evanescent tone grounded by Hawkins’ sure touch. And here is where a lot of duo recordings fall into rote cliches of leading following battling resolving or just play ignoring one another and putting a lot of effort into it. But here the two manage to do all in the spirit of the music without dismissing the listener. Because the music in all its variety and influences is inclusive. And Colonna and Hawkins always leave space for the listener.

“Straight Up and Down” uses that riff and tongue slap as Hawkins skips about the keyboard before they settle into their grooves. Here it isn’t deconstruction as much pacing and appreciation. This is not a dry mechanical scholarly approach to Dolphy. And then you get to 2’20'' and get the classic line, the woozy, gauzy one, and you realize, Holy S… Dolphy could write hooks!

“God Bless the Child” is Colonna’s solo take on Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” is an outlier as it focuses on Dolphy’s approach to interpretation rather than composing. It is a lovely, timeless piece. Colonna uses a good bit of range as the solo echoes and reverbs like a reverent voice resounding in an old church.

On “245” the duo digs into the choicest riffs and manage to create the noir feeling of the original by playing it, not updating it or deconstructing it. It has a lugubrious slow ending that one can’t help but think of the tragically short life of its composer.

Recordings like Dolphy Underlined illustrate how Eric Dolphy opened the music wide for successive generations to play as they wish and Colonna and Hawkins do just by paying homage to the music and the artist by being thoughtful, passionate musicians, by being themselves.

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Daniel Carter, Brad Farberman, Billy Martin - Just Don't Die (Ropeadope Records, 2019) ***½

By Gregg Miller

This album has grown on me. I am maybe 30 listens in, and the groove has started to take.

I’ve been a huge fan of multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter since at least 1998. He would play at Tonic (NYC) and when things got hot, he would take off his long-sleeved flannel shirt to reveal underneath, yes, a second long-sleeved flannel shirt. His work on Matthew Shipp’s Strata (hatOLOGY, 1998) first tuned me into his playing. His duo Astonishment (577 Records, 2001) with Frederic Ughi was on permanent rotation for many years, along with Principle Hope featuring the late Peter Kowald (Sublingual, 2002), Chinatown (Not Two, 2005) and the very relaxed Emergence (Not Two, 2009) with Eri Yamamoto and Whit Dickey.

On this record, Daniel Carter’s tenor sound is typically husky yet sinuous, his flute seductive, his trumpet with mutes is just so intimate. He is in direct communication always. Brad Farberman on electric guitar with some distortion and a drop of wah generally keeps it simple. He finds five note clusters and calmly works the variations until it’s time for a change. Billy Martin (of Medeski, Martin and Wood) generally keeps his attacks funky—usually in sync with Farberman’s guitar. Though his groove-setting prowess is formidable, the music here works best when Martin’s drumming loses the time-keeping and becomes another vector of improvisation with pulse, tones and energy. Martin’s brushes (track 4) on snare feel alive.

The record opens up with an Eastern flute vibe, a crushed, tremelo-wah guitar, and random crashing bells. The toms come in and a groove sets in which turns the Eastern into ornament. The drums and guitar synch up, and Carter’s flute is left to spin in the wind. The drumming speeds up, and the guitarist’s 2-note toggling becomes insistent. Martin falls a bit too readily into back-beat shuffles, which at times makes Carter’s looping daydreamy lines feel out-of-sequence wrong or superfluous; Carter sensing this tries a bit to get down with the groove, but that’s not quite his thing.

In the record’s best moments (tracks 1 and 3), we get a floating world of music, but more often we get two against one. The guitar/drums pair seem super in sync, which makes Daniel Carter, a true master, left too often out on his own, sometimes as leading melody, but more often just a tad lost. One of the free electric guitar/drum duo records I keep going back to is Giant Dwarf, Rabbitwood (Engine Studios, 2012). It has the virtue of being decluttered and direct. It’s sort of the record I want the Carter/Farberman/Martin record to be (just add a horn player), which naturally is unfair, since this these three have their own chemistry. For a truly excellent exchange and integration of Daniel Carter with electric guitar/effects and drumming, check out the track “Harmoniums at Midnight” on the transcendent Mysterium (Eavesdrop, 2004) with Morgan Craft and Eric Eigner. (See here).

In his interview with Simon Sargsyan, here is Brad Farberman’s reflection on the outing:

“Recording Just Don’t Die with Daniel Carter and Billy Martin was a really special day for me. I had sort of grown up on the music of Medeski Martin & Wood and I was a little nervous. I had always wanted to play with Billy. And though I had been playing with Daniel for a long time, I wanted to make music he would be happy with. And at the end of the day, I felt okay about what had happened, but I wasn’t totally convinced it was a success. But when I listened back, I felt really good about it. We had all been listening so well. And as is so often the case, our first jam was the best. In fact, that’s the record—the very first hour we ever played. First-time energy can be really electric.” 

 

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Two from alto saxophonist Audrey Lauro

lauroshilau - live at Padova (el Negocito, 2021) ***½

By Keith Prosk

Audrey Lauro (alto saxophone, preparations), Pak Yan Lau (toy pianos, synthesizers, electronics), and Yuko Oshima (drums) freely play tense, textural, whirling soundscapes on the setlength live at Padova. It is the overdue followup to the self-titled debut from 2014.

The trio language is tight, sticking close to each other in speed, volume, and timbre. So close sometimes that the ear might confuse fluted cymbals for shrill sax, saxophone bubblings and pops for cavernous synthesizer clicks, synth distortion for shimmering cymbals, so on. Movement is unhurried but constant, progressive but almost circular in the kind of tug and pull similar textures from dissimilar instruments. Volume is quiet - enough to hear a cough - but never silent and, while there are dynamic fluctuations perhaps familiar to the forty-minute free improv set, they are closer to hibernation and the onset of doom than ecstatic groove and climax. Textures come from a blend of traditional play and extended technique, languourous sax lines with air notes and chirpings, sparse tom hits and orchestral bass drum rumblings with parallel play, conventional synth sounds with alien ones and muted percussive piano. But the focus is always on the sound and its interaction with those from others, rather than melody. The tension never really releases, which only contributes to the kind of darker moods that Lauro seems to conjure up with much of her music.

live at Padova is available digitally and on CD.

Audrey Lauro/Giotis Damianidis - Dark Ballads (Mr. Nakayasi, 2021) ***

Lauro and electric guitarist Giotis Damianidis improvise moody, brooding atmospheres on Dark Ballads. Lauro and Damianidis have recorded together on The Ear Cannot Be Filled With Hearing from Giovanni Di Domenico, a fruitful relationship with whom they both frequently work with on other recordings (indeed mixing and mastering this one). Just last year, Damianidis released the propulsive fusion of The Miracle and Lauro contributed powerful, textural, tense pieces to 点字呼吸の領域 [The Region of Braille Respiration. Dark Ballads blends those two approaches for six tracks with a substrate of distorted riffage and saxophone that alternates between conventional and extended techniques to create a grim dialogue over 36 minutes.

The mineral tracks (1, 3, and 5), are textural playgrounds for Lauro. Like overblown, hoarse, high and tinny war horns on “Obsidienne” , or the percussive “Almandin” with pointillistic phrasings and the scratch and pop of saliva in the bore. The ballad tracks (2, 4, 6) are still colorful - containing reedy vibrato, key clicks, and smooches - but more characterized by sultry, noirish, dark jazz lounge musings; it might feel cheap to make this comparison but I couldn’t shake the image of Harry Caul soloing at the end of The Conversation, sitting alone in the apartment he’s ripped apart in a paranoid frenzy. Communication with the guitar is light and spacious, sometimes more obvious with call and response type reactions but more often through textural compliments; hairy distortion to match saliva in the bore, light feedback for overblows, staccato picking with cavernous reverb for key clicks. While spacious, there is never silence, but rather an amplifier hum or lingering pool of reverb. Damianidis sprinkles in effects and techniques like tremolo and palming but most often rips a heavy riff over which Lauro plays. Sometimes, as on “(part 2),” the undulations of the sax and guitar synchronize for a visceral throb. There’s heavier, doomier, harsher fusings of jazz and metal inspirations, and others revel in the kitschy dark lounge of a Lynchian nightmare to greater degrees, but Dark Ballads operates in strange and strangely alluring space between.

Dark Ballads is available digitally and on LP.

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Vincent Chancey, Wilber Morris & Warren Smith - The Spell - The Vincent Chancey Trio Live, 1987 (No Business, 2020) ****

 By Stef Gijssels

A review of this album was long due. The trio consists of Vincent Chancey on French horn, Wilber Morris on bass and Warren Smith on marimba and drums, a live recording in New York from October 1987. 

The French horn is an unwieldy and rare instrument in jazz, and definitely as a lead instrument. We have covered several albums on which Chancey performs (with Kowald, with Taylor Ho Bynum and at the Vision Festival 2019). Other French horn mentions on our blog are about Mark Taylor, Elena Kakaliagou, Hild Sofie Tafjord (Zeitkratzer), Lis Rubbard, Tom Varner and Chris Weddle. That's not much in 14 years, and it makes this album all the more interesting and memorable. 

Of the four tracks (two on each side) two are penned by Morris, one by Chancey and one by Smith, and with the exception of the one by Smith, the pace is slow and bluesy, the perfect tempo for the lead instrument to reach its full power of emotional depth and more supple changes of pitch. Apart from Chancey's beautiful horn, the other memorable aspect is Smith's marimba playing. He starts on drums on the long first track, but switches to marimba halfway and the combination with the French horn works really well. The short third track is led by Smith's drumming and offers a more free form uptempo work-out. 

Morris is the ideal partner in the trio, moving easily between pizzi and arco, often creating the solid backbone of the pieces. The infectious theme of his composition "Afro Amerin" will keep playing in your head long after the album is finished. 

On the downside, the 'live' effect has been edited out with no applause at all, and second, the quality of the recording is not excellent, leading to a quite remote sound. But I guess that was a decision the label had to make, and we can only be extremely grateful that No Business did release this music. I'd rather listen to this great music with suboptimal sound quality than to have missed it altogether. 

A unique and compelling album. 

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Olaf Rupp - NOBEACH (Audiosemantics, 2020) ****½

By Martin Schray

For Olaf Rupp, playing solo is an ensemble form like any other. As to his musical philosophy social and musical interaction is an interesting part of improvised music, but nothing more. It’s primarily about the music itself and the spontaneous development of musical ideas, which is just as complex in solo improvisation as in other forms of playing. In an interview with the Austrian magazine Freistil, Rupp said that in solo performance he knew what he had to play, that he only needed his hands and that everything then runs by itself. In groups, the music depended on many factors, he continued. For him the chemistry between the musicians is difficult to assess because the interplay doesn't always work. The larger the group, the greater the share of concepts, rhetoric and dominance. He thinks that it’s not the best ideas that prevail, but those that are presented most skilfully. He himself is rather interested in the spontaneous development of musical ideas, which is why he prefers trios, duos and especially solos.

His latest solo release, NOBEACH, is Olaf Rupp’s bow to Hans Reichel, the late great German guitarist, especially to his albums Bonobo Beach and Coco Bolo Nights (which can also be seen in the titles of the individual pieces). But while Reichel always had a smorgasbord of his often self-made instruments at hand, Rupp limits himself to the electric guitar and effects units. Similar to Reichel, Rupp doesn't care about stylistic boundaries. You can hear wide spatial sound surfaces, percussive tone chains rich in overtones, arpeggios and whistling harmonics, major and minor tones, echoes of Tortoise and Sonic Youth, scraping and scratching noises. It’s like bringing together a philosophy of sonic condensation and piling up sounds in the style of Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman with the more open, spacious approach of - say - Bill Frisell and Kenny Wheeler. On the one hand, this is absolutely avant-garde (as in “NOWHERE“) and on the other hand, it’s reminiscent of post rock or Jimi Hendrix’s sound garden, because Rupp does not shy away from tonal harmony and subtle melodies, even if they are strangely alienated (“NOKOKOBOLO“) or buried in noise (“NOVEMBER“). Some of the music does have a disorienting effect, but there’s even a weird ambient music feel to some of the tracks, which has the effect of crawling into the ear almost casually. It’s music that follows the sounds and lets the notes unfold in space.

Rupp’s idea of playing is rich, deep and mysterious; it’s diverse and complex without being “off the wall“. However, it has nothing ordinary about it since it’s interwoven with a supernatural beauty. It seems as if the sounds are carried like a feather in the wind - light and supple they glide up and down. Besides the unpredictability of form, his music is characterised by tenderness, care and clear-sighted passion. And by uncompromising authenticity. Olaf Rupp simply plays life.

NOBEACH is available as a digital release. You can buy the album and listen to two tracks here:

https://audiosemantics.bandcamp.com/album/nobeach

A short interview with Olaf Rupp about digital releases and music in times of the pandemic

Olaf Rupp, photo by Marcel Meier

By Martin Schray

FJB: How do you get through the pandemic?

Olaf Rupp: The emergency aid for freelancers may not be used for living expenses, while large companies that receive emergency aid may even distribute dividends to their shareholders. At the same time, musicians are not allowed to have too much non-musical income in order not to fall out of the KSK (the German health insurance for artists). All musicians are sent into the HARTZ4 system (social welfare) while the income-neutral crisis basic income is not really discussed. That’s a crass state of affairs. In times like these, I wouldn’t dare talk in public about how I get by. There's a rough wind blowing. However, I do get by. There are always sensible, responsible, helpful people in all this madness.

FJB: Have you released more music via platforms like bandcamp since the pandemic began?

Olaf Rupp: No, I also started getting interested in download releases before the pandemic. There are simply too many labels that pass on all or most of the production costs for the recordings to the musicians. The idea of what the term “label“ once meant has changed fundamentally in the last few decades. Bandcamp is one of the ways to react to this change.

FJB: Consequently, you have recently published some things only via bandcamp, e.g. your solo album NOBEACH. Why have you only released it digitally?

Olaf Rupp: Well, it's still audiosemantics, my own label. Bandcamp is just the distribution, so to speak. At the beginning of the pandemic, that really helped me. I also think that downloading is definitely a good medium to fly under the radar of neoliberal insanity. Unfortunately, no one wanted to publish NOBEACH on vinyl or as a CD right away. At the moment I'm happy to pay my rent and buy strings.

FJB: Does it pay off at least a little bit?

Olaf Rupp: It was important to me to only offer really excellent stuff on bandcamp. So these are all works that I put a lot of work and heart and soul into, some of which I worked on for months, and which I would also release on CD or vinyl at any time. I think that in the long run, it’s worth it. People notice that these are not just quick recordings from the rehearsal room or bootlegs.

FJB: Do you think digital only releases will be the future for music?

Olaf Rupp: Improvised music is live music. Living music! Without concerts there will be no future.

FJB: Do you look forward to the summer/autumn and hope that there will be live concerts again?

Olaf Rupp: Due to social distancing rules, there will be no profitable concerts. So when all the shops open again and the Mallorca bombers fly south again, we will still be doing concerts where only twenty people are allowed to sit in large halls. That’s not feasible. Of course I’m happy about every single concert. And I hope that many organisers will creatively and energetically fight for new hygiene concepts in order to get at least a few performance opportunities. But that is no reason for excessive optimism.

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Ivo Perelman & Nate Wooley - Polarity (Burning Ambulance, 2021) ****

By Sammy Stein

Ivo Perelman is a tenor saxophone player who has released over 100 albums across three decades so far. Nate Wooley is one of the leading trumpet players in the US and has played and recorded with many improvisers. This is the fifth time the pair have recorded together and the first time Perelman has recorded a duo with a trumpet player. Wooley is used to playing in the duo format with a reedsman as he has a duo with Ken Vandermark. The album was recorded at Park West Studios in Brooklyn in February 2020 and released in February 2021.

'Four' opens the album, and the track sees Wooley and Perelman engage in musical tag with Perelman setting out phrases which Wooley echoes, adding his intricacies before Perelman switches to elongated held notes with Wooley now setting the patterns - for a while at least this continues until the two enter into a fast and furious exchange of dynamics with the lead changing as quickly as the rivulets of notes which pour from the tenor sax in altissimo. In altissimo, Perelman is one of few players who is as furious as he is in lower registers. Often a player touches altissimo and lingers, maybe for a while as a novelty or to introduce a temporial change in the music, but Perelman uses it as his voice to speak and charge the music with an energy reflective of the man himself. Wooley, too is firing on all cylinders on the track and his intuitive harmonics and counterpoints are a revelation of the innate musicality of this player. The final phrases where Perelman warps and pushes, echoed almost tentatively by Wooley, are interesting.

' Two B' sees the saxophone set off at rapid pace in a series of loose reeded, breathy runs which Wolley echoes and disassembles the patterns to create contrasting runs of his own before both decide to extend and rise with elongated phrases, again swapped back and forth between players. The number is buzzy, fuzzy around the edges and considered - again, that contrast between the players finding a way to engage the listener constantly.

'Seven A' sees the sax largely answering the trumpet at a rate of around seven to one. The trumpet notes are held, the sax notes respond with precision and rapidity as if it has a lot to say, but the trumpet then adds its rapid-fire runs, matching the sax in note number in one fell swoop. The trumpet and sax seem to compete yet also supportive of each other, and the intuition between the players is tangible.

'Three A' is an explorative track where the musicians show their curiosity and their challenging nature, and restlessness. Wooley warps and wails across the phrasing, sounding at times like a drunken swinger, his harmonies hitting the mark just enough to remain connected with the saxophone lines.

' Five A', on the other hand, is disharmonic, copiously laced with challenging dissonance, and at times the contrast is harmonic. At others so disharmonious it could dry paint at 20 metres. Perelman is at once at his most melodic and at the same time at his most ferocious. Both musicians push the boundaries of their instruments, and the combination makes for a stirring listen. This is a joyous journey into duel improvisation, Perelman even allowing a rarely heard intake of breath to be recorded for emphasis.

'Eight' is a boundary-pushing track of interconnected motifs with the vocal Bel Canto - something which Perelman has been studying recently - style coming across. The voice is heard in tortuous snatches, which sound at once slightly mad but at the same time add another tone and texture to the already rich lines.

'Two A' is begun with a swing theme from Perelman in a nod to post-bop jazz elements - a melodic interlude which evolves into an improvised section, echoed and picked up by Wooley before the pair seek out their own improvised lines before interweaving for the final few phrases.

The eponymous 'Polarity' is aptly named for the players who each create their own voice and improvisation roads on this track- each being the guide and then the follower, the subtleties of interaction clear when they come together in harmonics, perfectly aligned and yet having the confidence once again to diverge and return.

'Nine Short' is short but very sweet with muted trumpet chuckling and warping across the sax lines - which offer little in the way of response other than intricate, short responses, making this track conversational and incredibly engaging.

'Six' finishes the album, and once again, the virtuosity of both musicians shows along with an adroitness for spontaneous yet considered improvisation. There is a poetic influence on this track. There is leader and follower as both musicians swap and throw the lead to each other. Driven by spontaneity yet considerate in the listening and interpretation of the other, the music itself is allowed to guide.

Throughout the album, there is an energy and sense of adventure, each musician willing to take the lead and also to follow, creating a sense of deep understanding between the two musicians. Although the recordings are spontaneous, there is enough coordination and innate harmony; it feels as if there was a lot of pre-thought. There is profound intimacy, yet also a sense of each musician having a distinct character. At once adventurous but also with a sense of reflection and examination, the tracks offer contrasts and conformity, diversion and unity in different proportions and at different stages. There is also a sense of enjoyment as the conversations evolve into cheeky retorts and challenging responses, each seeming to relish how the other player automatically picks up the essence of what they are saying.

Perelman recently discussed the future of jazz with me. He is very much of the notion that freer music is the future of jazz, a view hotly debated by enthusiasts but finding much agreement in players with a sense of adventure and sound music understanding. Hearing two improvisers creating such harmonious cooperation - in spirit and musical terms in the sense of finding out what they can create together whilst referencing classical, traditional jazz pedagogy and yet playing freely makes the idea of free jazz being the way ahead a definite possibility.

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Interview with Phil Freeman from Burning Ambulance

 

We took the occasion of Sammy Stein's review of Ivo Perelman and Nate Wooley's Polarity on the new Burning Ambulances record label to reach out to label founder Phil Freeman with some questions.

By Paul Acquaro 

Paul Acquaro: Burning Ambulance, the web site, contains a wealth of your writing and podcasts about music. This seems like a good amount of work already ... why take the plunge to also be a record label? Was the decision something long in the making or more spontaneous?

Phil Freeman: I've dreamed of starting a label for many years. I think it's a dream a lot of serious music fans and/or music journalists share — presenting the artists we love to the world, and maybe making a little money out of it. And since 2020 was the 10th anniversary of Burning Ambulance, I thought it was the perfect time to finally just do it. And to be completely transparent, the existence of Bandcamp as a platform made it very easy from a logistical standpoint. Here’s our Bandcamp page.

You started the label in October 2020 with a strong compilation album Eyes Shut, Ears Open, from which the proceeds were split between starting the label and helping with the Jazz Foundation of America’s Musicians’ Emergency Fund. How did the compilation come about? How was the response to it?

First of all, I have to say that the response from the musicians I asked to contribute was unbelievably generous. Some people recorded brand-new tracks, while others shared outtakes from critically praised albums or allowed me to release things they'd been sitting on, all just to help me get the word out about the label. It really gave me the feeling that people had been paying attention to what I'd been up to with BA over the previous decade, and trusted that I was someone operating in good faith. And listeners responded very positively as well, which was great.

Aside from donating to the Musicians' Emergency Fund, do you think that the timing of the launch, in the middle of the pandemic, had any impact? In what way?

That's hard to judge. I expect that people who are stuck at home likely have more time to listen to music, so maybe it got more attention than it might have otherwise. Subsequent releases have been covered very positively, which is nice to see.

Your first release is Polarity by Ivo Perelman and Nate Wooley (see review), how did you select this recording to be your first one?

"Seven A" from Polarity also appeared on the compilation. Basically, when Ivo sent me the track, he said that he wanted to put out the entire album. And when I heard the album, I required no further convincing. Both he and Nate play brilliantly throughout, and as their first duo, it's a unique item in both their discographies.

Another recording on the Bandcamp site is Alkisah from the Indonesian duo Senyawa. It's a progressive metal recording and a pretty heavy affair, much different than Polarity. How did you choose this project?

That almost felt like fate. Very shortly after I decided to start a label, Senyawa announced that they were going to release their next album in a decentralized manner, licensing it to (ultimately) over 40 labels worldwide, each in a different territory. Since I love their music and had profiled them for Bandcamp Daily in 2018 , I reached out, and we agreed to work together. As it turns out, Burning Ambulance Music's version is the only CD edition available in the Americas or the EU (most of the other labels produced vinyl).

Would you say that there is a certain aesthetic that you are going for with the label - both musically and visually?

I think every release we'll put out will be the kind of thing that I would be writing about for the site if someone else had released it. Burning Ambulance has always covered a mix of jazz (both mainstream-ish and out-ish), metal, modern classical, experimental music...basically, we're open to a lot of different sounds. I don't think we'll be releasing any death metal records, despite my love of death metal, but I've been in touch with artists from across the spectrum about potential projects already, so we'll see what the future holds. Visually, we are definitely striving for something unique. All our releases will come in heavy-duty tip-on "mini-LP" sleeves, printed on textured paper, and all the covers and design work are done by BA's co-founder, I.A. Freeman, who has also designed covers for the ESP-Disk' label including Matthew Shipp's The Unidentifiable, Zero, and Signature; Whit Dickey's Morph; Matt Lavelle and Reggie Sylvester's Retrograde; and more. Her work for BA is abstract, with no text on the covers, the better to allow the music and images to harmonize.

Can you tell us about some of your other upcoming releases?

Our immediate future plans are a Matthew Shipp/Whit Dickey duo album, Reels, and Echolocation, a collaboration between cornet player Graham Haynes and electronic musician Submerged. Both of those will be out in July. After that, we're working on the debut album by Breath of Air, a trio featuring guitarist Brandon Ross, violinist Charles Burnham, and drummer Warren Benbow, and a disc by Portuguese saxophonist José Lencastre.

To wrap up, is there anything that I should be asking you that I didn't?

Yes, we are accepting submissions for potential 2021 releases, thanks for asking!

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