The Free Jazz Collective Reviews of Free Jazz and Improvised Music
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Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus – Flip Side (Lumo Records, 2024)
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 14, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Matty Bannond Seconds can slip past unnoticed, stacking up into minutes. Then come hours, days, weeks. But where did the time go? Oh, how you’ve grown! Why, it seems like only yesterday... That’s the sensation of each improvised segment on this album from trumpeter Lina Allemano and her Berlin-based trio, plus guest. It’s a record in constant but barely perceptible flux. Ohrenschmaus is an international group, with Norwegian bassist Dan Peter Sundland and German drummer Michael Griener joining their Canadian leader. Flip Side is the trio’s second release following their 2020 debut Rats and Mice (review here ). It also adds Andrea Parkins on three tracks. She carried an accordion, electronic effects and some unspecified objects all the way from the USA. The first track, called “Sidetrack”, awakens with rusted joints and creaky cogwheels. It’s a nine-minute journey around a pre-dawn metropolis that’s slowly whirring into action. A million machinations scratch and shudder until Allemano announces her arrival with long-tone calls. More sounds rise, competing for attention and causing the atmosphere to thicken. “The Line” is probably the most thoroughly composed piece on the album and it features an abrupt shift of mood that stands in contrast to the rest of the record. A short passage leaves Allemano alone in the heart of the music, before drums and bass return for an improvised section with an untypically hectic feeling. Allemano’s trumpet sound is clear and concentrated, but she plays with more fizz and soft edges on “Stricken”. It’s the most moving piece on the album. Sundland uses the bow on his bass for a while. It’s a mournful track with a heavier emotional weight despite its lower mass of tonal material. Flip Side is a many-sided release that changes shape subtly, but constantly. Lina Allemano has extensive classical training and commands a striking variety of extended techniques, which she combines to create infinite fluctuations and mutations on this small-group record. The forty minutes and twenty-one seconds slip past like a half-remembered daydream. The album is available on CD and as a digital download here. You can read another review of Flip Side on Free Jazz Collective here . Flip Side by Lina Allemano's Ohrenschmaus with special guest Andrea Parkins Subscrib […]
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Phil Freeman - In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor (Wolke Verlag, 2024)
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 13, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Taylor McDowell Most of us probably remember first hearing Cecil Taylor’s music. For me, it was Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within) (Enja, 1978): a solo recording that embedded itself into my mind and gut. I recall feeling mesmerized and, frankly, confused as hell: knowing what I was listening to was profound but I couldn’t grasp why. That initial point of deflection hurled me along a path of discovery and wonder: confronting Taylor’s massive discography and trying to gain better sense of his genius. I craved reading more about Taylor and accessing as much of his music as possible - like turning over rocks to discover flecks of gold. My appreciation of his artistry grew with each new and repeated listen, coupled with disparate interviews and articles I found online. Much has been written about Taylor and his music over the years, but conspicuously missing was a published biography of the man and his music. I knew it was a matter of time before some brave journalist endeavored to synthesize the story of one of the most prolific and enigmatic figures of 20th-century music. After hearing of Freeman’s new book, published by the wonderful Wolke Verlag, I instantly set about getting myself a copy. Like the other Wolke Verlag books I own, it is beautifully published and printed: a thick stock softcover with Taylor’s likeness consuming the front cover. The photo of Taylor, seated at the piano and adorned in sunglasses and a bucket hat (essential Taylor accessories), was taken from his Orchestra performance in Warsaw, 1984. Over 300 pages of material span between the covers and include many photos from over the years.. It’s the kind of book that earns a permanent place on the coffee table or is featured prominently on the bookshelf. In the Brewing Luminous is Phil Freeman’s fourth book, though he might be best known as the founder of Burning Ambulance (also a record label). Recently, he led the initiative to upload the Leo Records catalog to Bandcamp, but more on that later. Phil’s exposure to Cecil Taylor is documented throughout the pages of his book, such as his first encounters of Taylor live in New York: “The music was far too much for me to absorb; they played a single 60-minute piece that I received like a child standing in a tidal wave pool at the water park, repeatedly smashed down but determined to withstand whatever came my way.” And later culminating with his time with Taylor leading up to the 2016 residency at the Whitney Museum. The author’s personal experiences, while not dominant, come to the fore at times. It’s a reminder that Cecil’s music is a highly personal and subjective experience; we, as listeners, can’t help but be reactive to his art, so why write a book that attempts subvert this experience? It also worthwhile to mention Markus Müller’s striking preface, which highlights Taylor’s monumental presence in Berlin in the 80’s and 90’s. Müller’s recollection functions as the flip side of the same coin: the European experience of an American phenomenon. At its heart, In the Brewing Luminous is a musical biography - linking together events and periods of Taylor’s life that define his artistry. Freeman makes it clear from the beginning: the intent of this book is to illuminate the biographical details of Taylor’s life that lend to his music and art; beyond that, you won’t find the little tidbits of personal information standard to “bio-dramas.” In some aspects, this book functions as a narrated discography and sessionography. We can follow along Taylor’s globetrotting tours, trace the many permutations of his unit and orchestral works, chart the evolution of his solo performances, and participate as the proverbial fly on the wall during his numerous studio recording sessions. Each chapter deals with a discrete period (e.g. Part VIII: 1980-1987) and exhaustively covers each of Taylor’s musical maneuvers: setting his personal encounters and artistic developments against the arc of his career totalis. Freeman opens the story with a short, but deeply personal introduction describing his interaction with Taylor leading up to the 2016 event at the Whitney Museum: Open Plan: Cecil Taylor. The initial chapters deal with Taylor’s early and formative years: his relationship to his parents, the influence of his mother during his youth; later, his formal education in music, his time in Boston at the New England Conservatory, and early gigs as a professional musician back in New York. The book continues to unravel his long career, highlighting his earliest studio records and the criticism that followed him, “breaking free” in Sweden in 1962 and meeting such iconic figures as Sunny Murray, Andrew Cyrille, Jimmy Lyons, Albert Ayler, etc. We learn about Taylor’s views on musical notation and his propensity towards rigorous rehearsals, where he would dictate passages to his acolytes so they could learn it by ear. Taylor's academic stay at the University of Wisconsin (and later Antioch and Glassboro State Colleges) was crucial to his development as a bandleader, composer, and arranger. We also hear from his former "pupils," such as bassoonist Karen Borca and saxophonist Jameel Moodoc, on Taylor's idiosyncratic approach to rehearsals. Later chapters deal with Taylor’s legendary residency in Berlin in 1988, which led to the career-defining box set published by FMP. Taylor was no newcomer to Europe at the time, but in the late80s, and following the untimely death of Jimmy Lyons, Cecil’s ensembles became more of an international affair. Reading about this prolific period of Taylor’s career, we can’t help but imagine this was the apogee of his art. Also discussed is his increasing use of dance and poetry within performances (and, at times, poetry recital being the entire performance). Freeman invites us readers to listen to his recorded poetry, such as Chinampas (Leo, 1987), in the same way we would listen to his solo piano: that the rhythmic quality of his words, emphasis on certain syllables, or the volume dynamics of his voice really aren’t all that different from his approach to piano. The chapters that I found most illuminative were those that deal with the twilight years of his career and life. By this point, Taylor has long been recognized by the world and established as a leading voice in creative music. Choosing not to slow down, Taylor’s creativity flourished in the late’90s and 2000s in a series of partnerships, new and old. His collaboration with Tony Oxley continued, even expanding into a trio with Bill Dixon. Taylor also spent a great deal of this period working with various large ensembles and orchestras. It was, as Freeman describes, “...the ultimate fulfillment of Taylor’s compositional principles…” Some of this music was recorded, though unreleased at the time of writing, giving us hope that these recordings will surface one day. Freeman was present at a number of Taylor’s performances during this period, and later during his retrospective at the Whitney Museum. The author’s personal accounts make the final chapter especially vivid, especially for someone (myself) who never saw Cecil Taylor live. Occasionally, these chronographic non-fictions run the risk of becoming tedious play-by-plays. Freeman avoids this pitfall for several reasons. First, the text is rife with quotes and interview excerpts from Taylor and his associations. The voices of, say, Andrew Cyrille, William Parker, journalist Chris Funkhouser, or Taylor himself breathe life into the text. One such passage quotes Gary Giddens on the climatic recording session that produced the 3 Phasis(New World, 1978): “After about forty minutes, [producer Sam] Parkins exulted, ‘We’ve got a record now!’ — but ten minutes later he was worried about whether Taylor would stop in time: ‘I hope he stops pretty soon, because I’d hate to cut this. I’ve never been to anything like this before, have you?’ Taylor punched out a riff, his hands leaping as fast and deft as a cheetah, his arms almost akimbo. Everyone was eyeing the clock nervously and with giddy excitement. And then, nearing fifty-seven minutes, just short of the maximum playing time for a long-playing album, Taylor began to wind down for a dramatic finish. Observers burst into the studio with excited praise, and the laconic Taylor was heard to say, ‘Well, you know we knew it was good, too.’” Secondly, Freeman capitalizes on what he does best: describe the music in lucid terms. Taylor’s music, like most free or improvised music, isn’t easy to describe. So, Freeman leans on metaphors and easily discernable analysis when writing about Taylor’s music. On describing Tony Oxley in his inaugural meeting with Taylor, which produced Leaf Palm Hand (FMP, 1988): “His [Oxley’s] kit sounds like it’s made of hard plastic and he’s tapping at the toms with pencils; his cymbals sound at times like aluminum can lids, at other times like they’re in the next room. He rattles across the kit as quickly and dexterously as taylor overruns the keyboard, and his leaps between the lower and upper registers of his multifarious instruments mirror the pianist’s, in spirit at least. He never seems to be following Taylor at any point. And yet, their duo is absolutely that. They are not just playing simultaneously, they are playing together.” I read In the Brewing Luminous twice. I ended up doing the same thing both times: re-listening to many of Taylor’s recordings. This is where I think Freeman does a service in his book: he encourages the readers to approach Cecil Taylor’s music, again and again: “Let it hit you like a flood for the first time. Wash yourself in the waves of the notes. Then come back — a day later, perhaps. Play it again, and this time listen as carefully as possible. Focus on his opening gambits, and trace their paths through what follows, like a nurse injecting colored dye into a patient and watching their veins reveal themselves. If — when — you get lost, listen a third time. A fourth. A fifth. At some point, it will unfold before you like a flower, and the beauty of his conception will be fully audible.” Arming us (the reader) with descriptions of the music or anecdotes about Cecil when the music was recorded, these repeated listenings become a little richer and more satisfying. Like, for example, hearing traces of Taylor’s style yet-to-be in his earliest recording, Jazz Advance(Transition, 1957); Or hearing his fully-formed compositional/arranging vision realized in his short-lived 1978 Unit. Regardless of your exposure to Taylor’s music, there is always something new and exciting to be gleaned through repeated listens. In the Brewing Luminous provides the footnotes to add depth and context to that listening experience. In the Brewing Luminous is an achievement, not only as the first and only Cecil Taylor biography but because it makes Taylor (and his music) approachable. It’s the kind of book that I wish I had years ago when I first heard Air Above Mountains. But even today, as a devout Taylor fan, it is a book that encourages me to do what I enjoy most: indulge in the music. Subscrib […]
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Free Jazz Blog Interview With Phil Freeman
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 13, 2024 at 4:59 am
Phil Freeman How did you get the assignment to interview Cecil Taylor for The Wire in 2016? I was the only journalist granted an interview with Taylor during the run-up to his Whitney Museum show, Open Plan: Cecil Taylor, in February 2016. (The show ran for two weeks in late April of that year.) The whole thing was coordinated between the show’s curators, Jay Sanders and Lawrence Kumpf, and The Wire’s then-editor, Derek Walmsley. He emailed me one day and asked if I was interested in interviewing Taylor and I responded affirmatively in about two seconds. I had previously done lengthy interviews with Ornette Coleman and Bill Dixon for the magazine (and attempted to interview Pharoah Sanders, but it didn’t come off), so obviously there was precedent for a piece like this, but it really turned into something I could never have anticipated. How did you prepare for the interview? Did it go according to plan? I prepared as I always do, by listening to as much of the artist’s music as possible and thinking about what I would like to ask them if it were just the two of us talking, without considering a reader. In Taylor’s case, I had been listening to his music for nearly 30 years by then, having first seen him perform at the Village Vanguard in August 1997. Did meeting Cecil change at all how you listen to, interpret or appreciate his music? No, but I greatly enjoyed our time together. He was a fun person to hang out with – he was a smart, witty man who was deeply engaged with the world far beyond music. We talked about politics, about food, about birds, about our respective family histories, and many other things. Meeting him strengthened my appreciation for his music, because it caused me to read more deeply into it, looking up what the titles of his pieces might mean and in the process gaining insight into him as a person by charting the evolution of his interests. This came into play again when writing In The Brewing Luminous, as I was able to trace, for example, his interest in African history and religious traditions through the titles of pieces like “The Stele Stolen and Broken is Reclaimed” (from Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!) or “B Ee Ba Nganga Ban’a Eee!” (from Olu Iwa ). What was your first interaction with Cecil's music? Do you recall what it was? How did you feel when you heard it? I don’t remember if I had heard any of his records before the Village Vanguard performance from August 1997 that I mentioned earlier. I went to that show because of a blurb Gary Giddins had written in the Village Voice ’s club listings, asserting that Taylor was a genius and that any NYC appearance was not to be missed. The music rolled over me like a tidal wave that night; it was a single long piece and far too much to take in unprepared. I walked back upstairs afterward, my head swimming. Not long after that, I bought Trance, a Black Lion CD that featured some (but not all) of the 1962 recordings from the Café Montmartre; when the Revenant label issued the complete Montmartre tapes as Nefertiti, the Beautiful One Has Come , I bought that, and over the next few years began picking up one title or another here and there. I specifically remember buying the CD of Dark to Themselves as research for my first book, New York Is Now!, which included a profile of David S. Ware. (Ware was in Taylor’s band on that album.) I remember finding Taylor’s music overwhelming for a long time. Sometimes that was pleasurable, other times not. Listening to it was like trying to climb an icy cliff; it pushed me away. It wasn’t really until I got hold of some of his solo albums, especially Air Above Mountains and The Willisau Concert , that I was able to hear the romanticism and beauty at the heart of what he did. Once I was able to identify those qualities, I could go back and listen to the group records with new ears. Do you have a "favorite" period of his music? A favorite album? If so, what and why? My favorite period of his music is definitely the 1978 Unit with Jimmy Lyons, Raphé Malik, Ramsey Ameen, Sirone, and Ronald Shannon Jackson, which made the albums The Cecil Taylor Unit, 3 Phasis, Live in the Black Forest , and One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye. I wrote a long essay about their work for Burning Ambulance, parts of which made it into In The Brewing Luminous . But I love albums from every era of his career, including early works like Looking Ahead!, The World of Cecil Taylor and New York City R&B ; the solo albums Air Above Mountains, Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! , the two volumes of Garden, and The Willisau Concert; the early ’80s Orchestra Of Two Continents, heard on Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants) and Music From Two Continents; his collaboration with the Italian Instabile Orchestra, The Owner of the River Bank; and the collaborative session with Dewey Redman and Elvin Jones, Momentum Space . When did you decide you would write this book? What did you think the challenges would be? And were they? The book didn’t start out as a biography of Taylor. Originally, I wanted to write a history of free jazz as a whole. That was far too unwieldy, though, and inevitably more people would be overlooked than covered. Then I thought about a book that would profile seven major avant-garde jazz figures: Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Bill Dixon, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Taylor, and Henry Threadgill. (I considered including Julius Hemphill as well.) The point of that book would have been to discuss these men as major American composers, and bring so-called “free jazz” into the spotlight as, in fact, a deeply considered music full of theory and conceptual rigor. But then I realized that no one had written a full-length biography of Taylor. So I emailed Wolke Verlag in Germany, whose books on avant-garde jazz have been excellent, and pitched In the Brewing Luminous . I had the title and everything, and they went for it right away. The biggest challenge was research. I was unable to physically visit places that I knew would be excellent sources of material, like the New York Public Library’s performing arts collection or the Rutgers Institute for Jazz Studies, because I had moved from New Jersey to Montana. But I was able to get a lot of scans of old magazine interviews from both US and European sources from Rutgers and the Darmstadt Jazzinstitut via email, and when word of the project began to spread, people reached out, offering theses they’d written, personal reminiscences and much more. Ultimately, the book took a little over a year to research and write, and its scope grew as I worked. The more I learned, the more there was to learn. I conducted new interviews with many musicians who worked with Taylor at various points in his and their careers, and dug up as many old interviews with musicians now dead as I could find. I also searched through the archives of the New York Times and the New Yorker, both of which covered Taylor extensively during his lifetime, which revealed to me that in New York at least, he was considered a major cultural figure worthy of serious critical assessment and regular “check-ins”. I’m very proud of this book. A lot of the information I present has been available for decades, but it’s scattered in old newspaper and magazine articles, album liner notes, and other places, and it’s never been pulled together in this way. Whether you’re a longtime Cecil Taylor fan or a newcomer to his music, I think you’ll learn something by reading In The Brewing Luminous . Switching themes a bit ... Burning Ambulance Music has been active for a number of years now, in fact we did a Q&A with you about it (see here). So, simple question, how is the label going? What's new? The label is going quite well; we have just released our ninth and tenth CDs. Polarity 3 is the third collaboration between saxophonist Ivo Perelman and trumpeter Nate Wooley, and it’s as intimate and beautiful as its two predecessors. We’re offering a special package deal to people who want to buy all three discs together. Irrational Thinking of the Subject is an album by Ukrainian musician Sergey Senchuk, aka Tungu; it consists of 15 collaborative pieces featuring notable avant-garde musicians from around the world: Noël Akchoté, John Bisset, Lawrence Casserley, Jacek Chmiel, Phil Durrant, Wayne Grim, Ayumi Ishito, Pak Yan Lau, Lucia Margorani, Phil Minton, Lara Suss, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Gebhard Ullmann, Sabine Vogel, and Sylvia Wysocka. You recently started offering the Leo Records catalog as downloads, how did this come about? How does it work and what are the future plans for it? I saw an announcement from Leo Records that Leo Feigin, the label’s founder, was thinking about shutting the operation down. I thought that was a shame, as their catalog is stuffed with brilliant music by a vast array of musicians, some famous and some obscure, and I knew that Destination: Out! had done quite well with licensing the FMP catalog for digital reissue on Bandcamp. So I emailed Mr. Feigin and proposed uploading the Leo catalog to Bandcamp, and he agreed. The arrangement is simple: Leo sends me the music and I upload the files and scan the cover art to make it look as good as possible. Because their catalog runs to around 800 titles, we’re doing things in waves. The first wave is focused on the work of American (and a few European) avant-garde jazz legends like Anthony Braxton, Amina Claudine Myers, Marilyn Crispell, Cecil Taylor, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Evan Parker, Reggie Workman, Joe and Mat Maneri, and others. The second wave will be dedicated to the work of Ivo Perelman, who has something like 70 releases on Leo, including many collaborations with Matthew Shipp. The third wave will deal with Leo’s deep catalog of Russian avant-garde jazz, and the fourth wave will be… everything else. ---Read the Free Jazz Blog review of 'In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor' here. Subscrib […]
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Joëlle Léandre Celebrates Her Rebellious Music with Old and New Friends
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 12, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Eyal Hareuveni Joëlle Léandre - Lifetime Rebel (RogueArt, 2024) The 2023 edition of the Vision Festival honored French double bass master Joëlle Léandre with Lifetime Achievement, celebrating the first fifty years of her incredible, international career. The box-set Lifetime Rebel presents four performances with outfits from the festival, two with working trios - Tiger Trio, with pianist Myra Melford and flutist Nicole Mitchell, and Roaring Tree, with pianist Craig Taborn and violist Mat Maneri, and two new collaborations, and with poet Fred Moten, all recorded on the same night at Roulette in Brooklyn during the Vision Festival on July 13th, 2023, the opening night of the festival. The Atlantic Ave. Septet, with sax player Ingrid Laubrock, trombonist Steve Swell, guitarist Joe Morris, violinist Jason Kao Hwang, violist Mat Maneri, and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm playing Léandre’s composition, who also played on the same night in the Vision Festival, was recorded at Sons d’hiver Festival in Vincennes, France, in January 2024. The box-set also features a DVD, Struggle, Life, Music where the head of RogueArt label, Michel Dorbon, interviews Léandre about her work and the seminal influence of Afro-American jazz, with its celebration of life and freedom, on her life and free improvised music. Léandre provides an insightful socio-historical context of free music and plays a few solo improvisations. “Improvisation means something. We are not free”, she says. “Free music means nothing to me. When you have an instrument in your hand, (you) are not free. When you improvise, it’s a selection. It’s a kind of continuous composition”, she says. Tiger Trio opened the Vision Festival and its live set is the third one released by RogueArt (following and Unleashed and Map of Liberation, both were also recorded live, in 2016 and 2019). This trio plays a kind of chamber, free improvisation of six short pieces, often in stimulating and passionate duets or in confronting interplay. All pieces highlight Léandre as a one-of-her-kind, always inventive, imaginative and poetic force of nature, singing and shouting her wordless but very expressive stream of thoughts, as well as the profound yet totally unpredictable dynamics of this great, leaderless trio. The second set (but the fourth album) was Léandre’s first performance with poet and cultural theorist Fred Moten (who released an excellent album with bassist Brandon López and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Reading Group, 2022). Moten, like Léandre, believes that art can change the world, and like Walter Benjamin, looks backward as we’re blown forward. Moten reads in commanding, passionate voice poems from his book Hughson’s Tavern relating to The Conspiracy of 1741, also known as the Slave Insurrection of 1741 or roasts Ken Burns’s PBS series Jazz that ignored Afro-American heroes like Cecil Taylor, while Léandre taps to his restless, raging drive, colors the poems with mournful vocals, and occasionally - and quite rarely - play walking bass, pizzicato. The third set (but the second disc) was with Taborn and Maneri, who recorded before with Léandre on hEARoes, RogueArt, 2023. Maneri recorded before with Léandre in the Stone Quartet with pianist Marilyn Crispell and trumpeter Roy Campbell and in Judson Trio with drummer Gerald Cleaver). This set was the only second performance of the newly titled Roaring Tree trio but nothing was roaring. The atmosphere was quite reserved and introspective, allowing the music to flow naturally, in deep listening and a telepathic interplay between Léandre and Maneri, as these gifted improvisers sketch rich and complex instant compositions, and sound like contemporary, chamber music. The fourth set (but the third disc) that closed this magnificent, emotional night was by the Atlantic Eve. Septet. The ensemble premiered Léandre’s composition after three days of rehearsal. Atlantic Ave, is where Roulette is located in Brooklyn and where the Vision Festival took place. The score was projected on a screen (and excerpts are replicated in the box’ booklet), and captured best Léandre’s rebellious and mischievous spirit. This composition relies on the poetic and often dramatic and fiery dynamics of the string musicians, led by Léandre, with Swell and Laubrock acting as agent provocateurs, and, naturally, it leaves enough room for individual, irreverent interpretations. Dorbon summarizes this jubilant performance as suggesting that there should be no hierarchy between all music, written or unwritten, vernacular or improvised, learned or popular, and only the music and musicians bring it to its triumphant life. LIFETIME REBEL by JOËLLE LÉANDRE Joëlle Léandre and Lauren Newton - Great Star Theater, San Francisco (Other Minds Records, 2024) Great Star Theater, San Francisco is the fifth duo album of Léandre and American-born, Germany-based vocal artist Lauren Newton, capturing their live performance at Other Minds Festival 26 on October 2022. Léandre and Newton have been performing together for nearly 30 years, and have always been exploring unpredictable inseparable textures of deep tones, enigmatic vocals and lingos of their own, flowing with pure joy. The five improvised pieces suggest intense yet gentle, intimate moods and adventurous stories that only close and dear friends like Léandre and Newton, with their rich and imaginative idiosyncratic languages, can find new things to share and harmonize. The performance reaches its emotional climax with the last piece, “Kujira No Uta” (Whale Song). Fellow bassist, and The Free Jazz Collective’s David Menestres, who wrote the liner notes, calls Léandre and Newton “modern myth makers telling their stories across decades, always reflecting the sign of the times. The worlds they spontaneously create reflect the current moment back upon us, influencing not only our present but showing the ever-evolving possibilities for the future. Which is now. And now. And now”. Great Star Theater, San Francisco by Joëlle Léandre and Lauren Newton Subscrib […]
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Steve Baczkowski - Cheap Fabric (Relative Pitch, 2024)
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 11, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Martin Schray Although Steve Baczkowski has been on the free jazz scene for almost 20 years, he is not a super-prominent name. Even his outstanding recordings with Chris Corsano, Brandon Lopez (e.g. Old Smoke ), Bill Nace and Paul Flaherty have done nothing to change that. And Cheap Fabric probably won’t change that either, even if it is an absolutely wonderful recording. The album was “mostly recorded (...) on the evening of a lunar eclipse (...). The process and timing created an energy of focused intensity and strong intimacy, which is apparent in the music”, Baczkowski says. What is more, one could almost feel the surroundings of a cold November night in Buffalo, NY., Baczkowski's hometown. Especially “Threads of the Warp“ shows that, with twelve minutes by far the longest track of the album. But it’s not only intensity and intimacy that can be felt here, the album is also about restraint, although great expressiveness is shown. It’s about a minimal but dynamic approach with simultaneous abstraction. Baczkowski doesn’t show off any technique on this solo album, he hardly displays his instrumental qualities, which he undoubtedly has. Instead, he seems to remove every element from his work that he considers superfluous. He reduces his improvisation to long drones, siren-like passages, isolated, plaintive outbursts, hushed echoes. It’s the refinement of his concentrated yet haunting style, a reduction in which only the truly essential remains. Sometimes it sounds as if the notes of his saxophone have been sawed through, but his lines still remain razor-sharp. Even though Cheap Fabric consists largely of melody and sound, some of the miniatures that make up most of the album gain their own inner rhythm, with grandiose details being displayed in the whispered and breathy passages (e.g. in “Meteor”, which seems rushed due to the breathing noises, which is also reinforced by the flap noises of the sax that sound like a child's toy gone wild). On the other hand, there are extreme sounds and registers, as in “Soft Landing”, in which the saxophonist exhausts the entire spectrum of his instrument, sometimes to the listener’s pain threshold. The same goes for “Low Orbit“, which sounds as if the saxophone has been squeezed together It seems as if Baczkowski has been working towards an opus magnum, a concept album, distancing himself from his art until only the truth of the moment remains. The solar eclipse seems to have been the perfect time for this. Cheap Fabric is available as a CD and as a download. You can listen to it and buy it here: Cheap Fabric by Steve Baczkowski Subscrib […]
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Shane Parish - Sunday Interview
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 10, 2024 at 5:00 am
Photo by Petra Cvelbar1. What is your greatest joy in improvised music? A lot of my time is spent composing and arranging, researching and developing. Most of my improvising is saved for the live performance. So, when I am performing a concert or recording in an improvised setting, it is a moment of discovery for me, where I learn what resources I have available to me in the heat of battle. I allow myself to let go and enjoy the ride, listen and trust intuition, observing the tools that I have fashioned over so many years of devotion.2. What quality do you most admire in the musicians you perform with?Naturalness, sensitivity, personality, emotional intelligence. I admire their dynamic range. The ability to work with pin drop silence and space, and the means to conjure tremendous force when necessary. The sensitivity to follow where the collective muse is taking us, without forcing it to move one way or another in a contrived way. 3. Which historical musician/composer do you admire the most?The obvious choice is John Coltrane. I admire his curiosity, rigor, breadth, beauty and evolution. 4. If you could resurrect a musician to perform with, who would it be?I would love to play a freely improvised duo with Eric Dolphy.5. What would you still like to achieve musically in your life?Total fluency in improvised pan-tonal polyrhythmic counterpoint. 6. Are you interested in popular music and - if yes - what music/artist do you particularly like.I love all music. Any interest in music is a positive. I like some Lana Del Ray quite a bit. 7. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?I would have started singing at a much younger age. 8. Which of your albums are you most proud of?Repertoire, Liverpool, Undertaker Please Drive Slow, the Ahleuchatistas albums Expansion & The Same and the Other. 9. Once an album of yours is released, do you still listen to it? And how often? Typically no. But, in recent years, I have listened to my own albums to prepare for concerts. So I’ve spent long hours listening to Repertoire, Four Guitars Live, and Expansion, in preparation for performances with the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, Ahleuchatistas, and solo. 10. Which album (from any musician) have you listened to the most in your life?Who knows? If we count my teenage years, probably The Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Taste by Ministry, or Animals by Pink Floyd, or Repeater by Fugazi. 11. What are you listening to at the moment?I’m currently listening to Explorations by The Bill Evans Trio. 12. What artist outside music inspires you?Bruce Lee. About five years ago, I read all of his journals. Throughout his writings, I replaced the word “combat“ with “music” and felt like I received a lot of wisdom about improvisation. Shane Parish on the Free Jazz Blog: Jazz em Agosto 2024 (Part 1/3) Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville - May 2024, Victoriaville, Canada More Soul and Fire Bill Orcutt - Music for Four Guitars (PALILALIA, 2022) Guitar - Duos (Part 1): Leading tones, sympathetic harmonies, and unobservable mysteries Wendy Eisenberg and Shane Parish - Nervous Systems (Verses Records, 2020) ***½ Solo Guitar: Shane Parish and Ross Hammond Ahleuchatistas - Arrebato (International Anthem, 2015) **** Subscrib […]
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Travis Laplante - The Golden Lock (New Focus Recordings, 2024)
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 9, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Lee Rice Epstein I've had relatively few performances as transformative as seeing Battle Trance, the saxophone quartet led by Travis Laplante, perform live in Los Angeles a couple years ago. Laplante's music has such profound sincerity and openness, I find it impossible to listen and remain unmoved. His latest, The Golden Lock—for a quintet featuring Erika Dohi on piano, Charles Overton on harp, Lizzie Burns on double bass, and Eduardo Leandro on percussion—takes a subtle but meaningful turn in the musical language used, and the result is as impactful and affecting as ever. Set in seven movements over three tracks, "The Golden Lock" feels substantially different from anything Laplante’s done before, while bearing all the signs and signifiers of his compositional and improvisational practices. There are rhythmic and tonal echoes of previous works, enough to remind you “The Golden Lock” exists within a universe of compositions. And yet, the distance between them extends further as the album progresses. For one thing, almost shockingly, it’s three whole minutes before Laplante’s tenor is heard; instead, it’s Dohi’s ringing piano that enters first, laying down a melodic framework upon which he and Overton will later build. None of this is to say the music is entirely calm or restful, there is a lengthy run towards the end of “The Golden Lock II” that’s a breathtaking, five-part acrobatic performance. Coming out of it, Burns opens Part III revisiting the melody first laid out in Dohi’s piano intro. While each movement feels—forgive belaboring a metaphor—like things clicking into place and/or opening up and out. Not only does each player take a solo turn throughout the duration of the piece, but the duos and trios within the broader work serve to bring the performers closer to one another. Dohi and Leandro’s duet flips into a brief but magical Overton and Dohi duet. There feels like a tremendous amount of personal and emotional risk in the music, and these clusters amount to a kind of trust-building exercise that accrues over the course of the album. Everyone gets a chance to be exposed to the audience, and they get equal chance to support and be supported by their collaborators. Some of this is due to Laplante’s urgent, sensitive composing, and it’s equally due to the makeup of the quintet; surely, another quintet of players can perform the music—personally, I’d be really interested to hear how an accordion might fit in here—but only this quintet could present “The Golden Lock” to us with this level of dedication. It’s a testament to Dohi, Overton, Burns, and Leandro and their commitment to seeing through Laplante’s superb and at times breathtaking vision. The Golden Lock by Travis Laplante Subscrib […]
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Lars Fiil - New Ground (s/r, 2024)
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 7, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Sammy Stein I first heard Lars Fiil in 2017. His album, Reconsideration (2011), was nominated for a Danish Music Award Jazz, and he has since released internationally acclaimed albums with the projects Frit Fald and Fiil Free, as well as with oud virtuoso Bilal Irshed. He has also contributed to over fifteen releases as a sideman and is a regular member of the indie-jazz group I Think You’re Awesome, which tours worldwide. After hearing Fiil and reviewing some of his music, I invited him to perform at The London Jazz Platform festival where he proved an engaging and well-received guest. Now, Lars steps into uncharted territory with his album New Ground set to release on November 1st, 2024. It is Fiil’s seventh release as band leader, and he has a new band comprising Nicolai Kaas Claesson (Horse Orchestra, Dødens Garderobe) on electric bass and Matt Carroll (SloGlo, Ohmme) on drums. The band also features prominent guest appearances from trumpeter Jakob Sørensen (Bagland) and clarinettist Carolyn Goodwin (Copenhagen Clarinet Choir, Thou Sonic Friend), whose lyrical and ethereal melodies add additional layers to the group's exploratory sound. Together they create a sound that blends acoustic soundscapes with ambient electronic textures offering a fresh take on Nordic jazz. Fiil explains, "This album is about having the courage to venture into unknown territory while daring to stand firm in who you are and where you come from as a musician. We wanted to create something that feels both grounded and forward-looking. We've worked on combining acoustic and electronic elements to create something fresh and challenging, allowing us to explore new ideas while maintaining a connection to beautiful melodies and epic storytelling." Much about this release captures the imagination, from the shimmering effects, off-kilter drumbeats, delicate piano melodies, and soft synthesizer pads. From the ethereal ‘Look Up’ to the delicate melodies of ‘Around US’ the music, from the start is a journey through different moods. The listener is immersed in imaginative sound waves that lift, gently release, and capture the mind. There are moments of magic like the entrancing ‘A Question of Time’ where the off-kilter rhythms are contrasted by a pervasive melodic backdrop and the clarinet intersperses melody in rounded tones and beautiful runs. The slightly held final beat to each bar is a masterstroke, contrasting as it does with the steadfast timekeeping of the clarinet. There is music for every mood such as the relaxed intonations on ‘It is What It Is’ or the dark contrasts of ‘New Ground’ and there are tracks where explorative directions are taken by the ensemble members, like on ‘So We Say Goodbye. ‘Epilogue’ is glorious and probably the freest track on the album yet it, like the rest of the tracks, adheres to traditional concepts of music creation. An almost classical lineage is adhered to, so the listener is ensconced among the familiarity of traditional musical lines while also exposed to free spontaneity – such as the crashes that intersperse the final track when least expected. This beautifully conceived album nods to classical music, jazz, and spontaneous creativity. Fiil has taken a bold step down a different path with this music, successfully blending various elements of his stylistic playing, all backed by an ensemble that understands the musical intent. New Ground by Lars Fiil Subscrib […]
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Frush (Luc Houtkamp, Sebi Tramontana, Steve Beresford, Martin Blume) - Frush (FMR, 2024)
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 6, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Martin Schray Frush is a project of four unsung heroes of the second generation of European free jazz - Luc Houtkamp, Sebi Tramontana, Steve Beresford and Martin Blume. Nevertheless, this categorization in no way means that they deserve to be “unsung“ - on the contrary! Houtkamp is a Dutch saxophonist (tenor, soprano) and clarinettist who has been playing with Sven-Åke Johansson from 1973 - 75 and later with the great improvisers from the Benelux countries such as Ernst Reijseger, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg and Fred Van Howe. Tramontana, an Italian trombonist, was initially best known on the Italian scene, later working with Paul Rutherford and Barry Guy, among others, and becoming a member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra. In the new millennium, he has been a regular at festivals such as Victoriaville (with Mario Schiano, Evan Parker, Paul Lovens and Barry Guy), he has connections to the Chicago scene around Ken Vandermark, he was a member of Mats Gustafsson’s Nu Ensemble and has played a lot with Joëlle Léandre and Paul Lovens anyway. The British pianist and multi-instrumentalist Steve Beresford is the age president of the quartet and probably the best known of the musicians. He was already part of Derek Bailey’s Company projects in the 1970s. Actually, he has played with everyone who is famous in the UK in the field of avant-garde music. Finally, the band is completed by the German drummer Martin Blume. He too can boast a significant list of collaborations: Among others with Peter Brötzmann, Lol Coxhill, Peter Kowald, Werner Lüdi, or Jay Oliver. Together with Ken Vandermark, Matthias Muche and Thomas Lehn, he forms the free jazz quartet Soundbridges . From this somewhat lengthy introduction, you can already deduce that you can expect first-class free jazz of the European kind on Frush. The seven pieces can be divided into four longer improvisations and three shorter miniatures. What strikes you from the very beginning ist he excellent timing of the musicians. Everyone jumps into the improvisation when it suits him, but then leaves it again immediately. So somehow everyone is always involved, but then again not - there is a lot of air during the playing, but still an enormous dynamic. Very dense, energetic passages alternate with quiet moments in a matter of seconds. The dense passages sound as if a toddler is rummaging through his overflowing toy box full of exuberance (which is meant in an absolutely positive way here), while the quieter ones - mainly due to Tramontana’s mutes and Beresford’s preparations - seem almost eerie. Houtkamp’s saxophone hovers above it all, giving the impression that he is biting into the melody and shaking it back and forth like a predator does it with a large piece of meat. Blume provides a very solid background for the music, his playing is most reminiscent of that of Paul Lovens (another compliment). His contributions are lightning-fast, varied and full of surprises, both tonally and structurally. The icing on the cake are quotes, which are sprinkled throughout the pieces (e.g. Dixieland phrases in “Flusk”, classical film music at the beginning of “Fidther”, later in the piece there are modern jazz piano passages; “Fracchen“ starts with a cool jazz line). In general, the album offers a cornucopia of different sounds and little melodies. In a nutshell, Frush offers outstanding free jazz of the old school played by masters of their trade. Anyone who likes John Butcher/Phil Durrant/Paul Lovens/Radu Malfatti/John Russell: News From The Shed, Quintet Moderne’s WellSprings or the good old Schlippenbach Trio’s Winterreisewill be well served here. Frush is available as a CD and as a download. you can listen to the complete album and buy it here: Frush: Houtkamp/Tramontana/Beresford/Blume by Martin Blume Subscrib […]
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Rhonda Taylor – chaos theory (self, 2024)
by [email protected] (Paul) on November 5, 2024 at 5:00 am
By Nick Ostrum Rhonda Taylor is Professor of Saxophone and Music Theory at the University of New Mexico, Las Cruces. I am not sure how much location informs this album, but there might be something to Las Cruces’ removal from the usual metropoles. The distance might even have been crucial to chaos theory ’s sound, one that follows different musical lines than so many other solo sax releases. And chaos theory is all about exploration. The album is divided into a side a and side b, and each composition, abstract and loose, appears twice on the album in different realizations, each time leading to a different conclusion. Rather than melodic variations on a theme, much of the divergence between, for instance, the first and second versions of the morning after occurs through sonic processing and layering. Despite this, Taylor and her technique remain central to this album. Side a shows considerable range, from whistles and bird songs to a delicate, breathy pieces (exorcism) to explorations of longer tones. Much of this half is minimally processed, drawing attention to Taylor as a lone venturer on these sonic pathways through the neighboring and surprisingly though subtly vibrant deserts. Event horizon, the final part of side a, breaks this tendency somewhat, as it evolves from a soft minimalist drone into a harsh-noise clarion call, not unlike some of the territory Nate Wooley and Peter Evans have explored when amplified. Side b beginning with the second take of the morning after, however, takes this augmentation much further. It plays with space, and glitchy radio-fuzz chirps, and layered over bird recordings. To a greater extent than on the first realization, here the birds sing with the saxophone to the extent that they become more electronic as the processed sax comes to sound more natural. They meet in a strange middle. Exorcism follows with a return to the harsh noise workings of event horizon. The divergence diminishes on the final three takes on side b, which fall into a grouping on side b as they do on side a. The focus is long notes. The effect, however, is different. The sounds are often clearer and sound closer to the ear. What had been hazy on side a deepens on side b, often sounding fuller and cut with different degrees of space and sound. Appropriately, event horizon closes again, and blasts the ears. I have not really heard much like chaos theory before. It lies somewhere between long-tone modern classical, amplified trumpet experimentation, and electro-acoustic noise. Through it all, however, it sounds deeply personal. One hears emotion. One also hears a coldness and, often, the clash between the two. chaos theory is available as a download from Bandcamp: chaos theory by Rhonda Taylor Subscrib […]