Jazz /
Live in New Orleans
Tenor saxophonist Edward Kidd Jordan and drummer Alvin Fielder have been a fixture in their southern outpost for nigh on forty years, but they've rarely been heard to such good effect as on Trio and Duo in New Orleans. This wonderful two CD set brings together music from three separate dates. The first disc (also available as a double LP) comprises a 70-minute exchange between the American pair and hugely talented peripatetic German bassist Peter Kowald in April 2002, five months before his unti…
Wrong number
Dredd Foole, vocals, Paul Flaherty, horns, Steve Baczkowski, horns, Chris Corsano, drums, Bill Nace, electric guitar.
Sleepless in Chicago
On the jazz front with these blogs I get exposed and in turn expose you to a fair number of names you may not know well. In the free-avant realm that has something to do with the underground nature of much of the music. I am glad to hear the music a great deal of the time--and pass along the news when something seems worthwhile to me.In the instance of Sleepless in Chicago (No Business NBLP 70) we have another in the admirable series of small-quantity release LPs No Business devotes to artists o…
Symbolic Heads
Even for the standards of NoBusiness, a label that sometimes features artists who haven’t been very well known so far, YAPP is a really young band, all of the band members seem to be around 30. It’s Bryan Rogers on tenor saxophone, Alban Bailly on guitar, Matt Engle on bass and David Flaherty on drums, and they cultivate the field between post rock, modern jazz, minimal and improvised music. I must admit that I was rather skeptical when I realized that Bryan Rogers has played in Melody Gardo…
Rebento
For avant modern jazz piano trio music at its free best, you can't go wrong with RED Trio. And their LP on No Business (NBLP 67) is as good a place as any to start. They give us three supercharged cuts. Hernani Faustino's double bass cavorts, rumbles and brings in a storm from the lower depths throughout. I love his pizzicato and his arco equally and he sets up the churning excitement the band generates. Gabriel Ferrandini has the drum dynamics covered--senses the sound colors and thrust needed …
Murmurs
While it would be an exaggeration to suggest that there was a house style for the adventurous Lithuanian No Business imprint, the European saxophone trio nonetheless forms a significant strand in its output. Recent winning entries in the format have included sets from the Anglo Polish Riverloam Trio, Thomas Borgmann's excellent US-German unit, and Evan Parker's longstanding trio. To these illustrious sessions must now be added the Fabric Trio featuring German reedman Frank Paul Schubert alongsid…
Tribal Ghost
Of all the collaborations in the later years of legendary reedman John Tchicai, some of the most fertile were in the company of guitarist Garrison Fewell, whether under the Dane's leadership like One Long Minute (NuBop, 2012) and Big Chief Dreaming (Soul Note, 2005) or in undocumented appearances with the guitarist's Variable Density Sound Orchestra. Joining the pair on Good Night Songs (Boxholder, 2006), Boston-based saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase completed a formidable unit. For the week long en…
Al Doum & The Faryds
Finally reissued, the debut album by this psychedelic band mixing etnic and african influences with the colors of the desert. Deluxe Edition, Gatefold Cover on Tobacco's Paper, 180 gramms in transparent vinyl splashed in black, postcard, numbered 600 copies"Equally stirring and equally necessary for mental health are those spectacular cave recordings contained within the grooved wares of Al Doum & the Faryds’ self-titled debut LP. Released on the Italian El Guscio Records (elguscio.it), this…
Archiduc Concert : Dansaert Variations
Paul Hubweber, trombone. Philip Zoubek, prepared piano. The whole of a duo concert on trombone and prepared piano, recorded at L'Archiduc in Brussels - a bar whose art deco interior is featured on the cover. This is the second CD by this duo following on from the highly acclaimed Nobody's matter but our own on NurNichtNur. Both musicians are now amongst the freshest exponents of their respective instruments, and they interact with each other superbly.
The cigar that talks
Michel Doneda (saxophones), John Russell (guitar) and Roger Turner (percussion). Recorded at Studio Honolulu in France (2009). 'What story can a non-figurative music tell if not that of the men that made it ? The memory is adjusted to the shape of the present, the space is open to the need to communicate; the transparency of brass, steel and wood, of the flesh and of the soul, through which passes the evidence of an unfinished ancestral sound. The substance is fleeting and the incessant gestures…
Taagi
Taagi – which takes its title from the Apache word for “three” - is his first trio recording with bassist Aaron Gonzalez and drummer Stefan Gonzalez. Recorded on successive nights during May 2009 performances in Dallas and Austin, this album represents a great collaboration between jazz veteran and great piano maestro Curtis Clark and young, but very talented Gonzalez brothers - Aaron and Stefan. Piano trio at it’s best. Curtis Clark (piano), Aaron Gonzalez (contrabass) and Stefan Gonzalez (drum…
Return from the centre of Earth
Recording during concerts in Chicago by Mikolaj Trzaska - saxophones, bass clarinet; Steve Swell - trombone; Per-Åke Holmlander - tuba; Tim Daisy - drums
Why is there something instead of nothing
This, Majkowski's third solo double bass release, is an album comprising of two pieces, which in their own way explore the relationship between stillness and momentum. The spectrum and resonance of particular sustained frequencies, and the atmosphere which they create is also at the core of this work. Majkowski captures these aspects via specific and highly detailed playing approaches, sustained over extended periods of time. We hear an inner pulse in slow melodies, and floating, almost frozen, …
Sin Gas
Wire Magazine's official King of All Skronk Mats Gustafsson is back with his partner in time Paal Nilssen-Love for a new duo record this week. I'm rather struck by the creepy skeleton on the front cover, and I'm also gleaning enjoyment from the textural bubble'n'squeak madness on the disc. There are quite a few droney periods on this one, with Gustafsson eking soft moans and primal howls and jagged rasps from his saxophone, with the drums often puttering around amorphously, but there are also mo…
Both Ends
The title 'Both Ends' seems innocent enough until you read the back sleeve of this record and discover the circumstances behind this recording. The experienced free jazz trio of percussionist Paal Nilssen-Love with sax pest Dave Rempis tooting the reeds and Fred Lonberg Holm handling cello and electronics played a gig in Warsaw immediately after accidentally poisoning themselves with bad chicken and then dousing their insides with vodka in the hope of sterilising away any bacteria. I'm pretty su…
Untitled
Atsushi Reizen, living in Japan, uses electric-guitar-based sound sources with drone, noise and minimalist techniques. In 2007 he formed the ambient quartet Nerae, but he has now left the group to focus on his solo music. This LP features two newly recorded tracks based on the concept of 'differing speeds', and a track recorded live at Fylkingen in Stockholm.
Untitled
Re-issue of one of the earliest Confront releases, originally available in an edition of 50 in 2001. Matt Davis : trumpet. Phil Durrant : violin. Mark Wastell : violoncello. 'The All Angels concert series ran between 1999 and 2001. Co-curated by Rhodri Davies and myself, we wanted to find an environment that was acoustically articulate enough to present our own quickly developing style of music. Rhodri found the perfectly beautiful Norman Shaw designed church, close to his then home, in Chiswick…
s/t
Fred Frith, electric guitar. Michel Doneda, soprano and sopranino saxes. First meeting recorded live at Swissnex, San-Francisco (February 2009).
The Nubians of Plutonia
An excellent Sun Ra session from 1959! Ra and the Arkestra are playing in a fine mix of straight jazz and spacey styles, with Ra on electric piano throughout the entire set. A few tracks have some great chanted vocals – and we're not sure if they're sung by one of the Saturn doo wop groups, or by the ensemble – but they give the tracks a great sound, and the whole set has a good late 50's Arkestra sound.
Art forms of dimensions tomorrow
Recorded in New York in 1962, this out-there disc sees Sun Ra and drummer / recording engineer Tommy Hunter experimenting to the max with wild use of home-made tape-loop echoes on the percussion pieces "Cluster Of Galaxies" and "Solar Drums". Also includes a lovely early version of the beautiful "Lights On A Satellite". Another essential reissue, complete with original hand-drawn artwork.