Jazz /
Tales of the Algonquin
Originally released in 1971, 'Tales Of The Algonquin', is one of the finest artifacts of the British modal and free jazz scene of the 1960s/1970s. Johns Surman and Warren, like their contemporary Mike Westbrook, take the big band form and flip it on its head by incorporating elements of modal, free, and progressive jazz. The results are powerful and this album is perhaps the greatest example of that quintessentially British jazz style. Long sought after by jazz collectors across the globe, this …
Celebration
Originally released on Deram in 1967, 'Celebration' is one of the most important albums of the 1960s British progressive and avant-garde Jazz scene. The Mike Westbrook Concert Band included some of the UKs most important jazz figures of the time, including John Surman, Mike Osborne, and Harry Miller. These recordings, culled from two days of studio work, are equal parts swinging and experimental, boundary pushing and accessible. Original copies on Deram now fetch a hefty sum, thankfully the folk…
All For Now
All for now, by Thollem McDonas (Piano, Voice) and John Dieterich (Guitar). Celebrating their first public collaboration, All for now is one of those special moments, when the empathy and complicity between two players emerges into something far wider, complex, and profound than the simple circumstance of their encounter. In fact, as they play along, one wonders how did they have achieve such maturity in their first work together, evoking both their idiosyncratic inner voice and years of traditi…
Caustic Gate
Wasteland Jazz Unit is a Cincinnati duo by Jon Lorenz (saxophone) and John Rich (clarinet). Caustic Gate is no exception to their previous works, consolidating the reputation theyve built in the past times in the lineage of great mavericks and art provocateurs, standing therefore beyond any easy definition of free jazz, noise or improvisation. The sound of their instruments is stretched to the extreme, until they are barely recognizable, revealing new sonic and formal possibilities. This is musi…
AuldLangSyne
Berlin based improviser Olaf Rupp combines multiple elements and parameters into one very unique and personal idiom, whether he plays acoustic or electric guitar. Recorded last year in Berlin, "AuldLangSyne" inspired by a traditional Scottish poem is a mirror of that amalgamation of sound. Olaf Rupp's versatile approach to freeform guitar ranges from folk tinged arpeggios and heavy strumming to dense chord clusters. Possessing miraculous technique,he lashes out harmonics overtones and cluster no…
Schatten
Recorded in Vienna during Winter on a snowy night, Berlin-based musicians Magda Mayas & Anthea Caddy present on "Schatten" a dense and piercing improvisational statement. Focusing mainly on texture and structure,but also the percussive possibilities of their instruments, both artists display a continuum of immense creativity, pushing their instruments to higher limits and even beyond recognition with each new aural event surpassing the previous one. Magda Mayas explores both the outside as well …
Falaise
Falaise is the first meeting between two major players of the Portuguese improvisation landscape. For those paying attention, neither should be a stranger by now. Besides being a powerhouse bassist with extraordinary technique, Hernani Faustino is one of the people behind the Clean Feed Label and integrates Nobuyasu Furuya's formations and Red Trio, who recently recorded albums with John Butcher and Nate Wooley.Pedro Sousa is among the most gifted improvisers of a younger generation of musicians…
Rck
Long awaited monolithic boxset release from Manuel Mota, his second so far on Dromos. Material spreads from solo electric and acoustic to various live performances across the five discs. After more than a couple of decades of activity one might believe he knows what to expect of Mota, but the evolution in his work is constant and ever-developing. Throughout each disc and piece of music, Manuel Mota's suspended structures and isolated notes resonate with the intimacy and sentiment Manuel always h…
Phalanx
Dave Rempis, alto, tenor, baritone saxophone. Ingebrigt Hoeker Flaten, bass. Frank Rosaly, drums. Tim Daisy, drums. The Rempis Percussion Quartet is a free - improvising whirlwind that draws inspiration from a shared interest in West African and Latin American rhythms, coupled with American funk and free jazz. Using these influences, the band creates spontaneous music which nevertheless maintains a focus on ensemble motion and compositional structures. Led by saxophonist Dave Rempis (The Engines…
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…
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