Jazz /
Weather sky
That said, "Weather Sky" is another thing altogether. Bruno Meillier invited Toshi to play a duo concert in St Etienne with AMM's no-concessions table guitar master Keith Rowe, and took them into the studio the day after to record for Erstwhile. Sensitivity to pitch is less important here (Rowe, remember, hasn't tuned his guitar since the early 1960s): the album's three tracks are real slow-burners. Rowe can be agile and aggressive when he wants to, but his preferred working method is to lay dow…
The world turned upside down
A document of a performance last autumn at Parisian Improv spot Instants Chavires, in which Günter Müller is flanked by two very different but distinctive users of the electric guitar. On one side of the stage is Keith Rowe, who's worked for half a lifetime to unsettle the boundaries between music and noise. On the other is the restrained presence of Taku Sugimoto, whose crabbed phrases waft above the shifting timbral networks laid down by the other two. The trio's music is dominated by rasps an…
A view from the window
A couple years before this session, Rowe recorded with two soprano saxophonists, Michel Doneda and Urs Leimgruber (The Difference Between a Fish on Potlatch), a session that, while providing some interesting music, had its share of problems. Central to these was the difficulty many saxophonists have in shedding the "baggage" accumulated while playing in jazz bands as opposed to working in non-idiomatic, free improvisatory forms. For whatever reason, possibly having to do with the ability to abst…
Two strings will do it
This is the first contact of B.Phillips, maestro of improvised bass, and K.Haino! New dimentions of the shape of improvisation to come!
Just play
Hard-swinging vibraphone and percussion free jazz duets based on compositions by Berger and Don Cherry. In contrast to these largely metallic sounds, there are also two African sounding improvisations on two instruments made from wood -- a bala(fon) (African xylophone) and an osi-drum (slit drum). Reissue of Quark 9996 with an extra piece from the same concert. 61 minutes. Recorded in Albany, NY, 3/20/76.
New cool
With Gary Crosby, Ed Jones & Byron Wallen. As well as his pioneering work with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, John Stevens continued to explore the jazz idiom. This group with three fine young musicians active on the London jazz scene, was one of his best as well as being one of his last. Byron Wallen (trumpet & flugelhorn), Ed Jones (soprano & tenor saxophones), Gary Crosby (double bass) & John Stevens (drum set) find fresh things to say in the areas associated with Ornette Coleman and John Co…
One Time
John Stevens, drums and mini trumpet; Kent Carter, bass; Derek Bailey, electric guitar. track list: 1. One time (11.560) 2. U Kent & I (14.15) 3. Without warning (14.43) 4. Along the coast (10.00) 5. Not a dry glass in the house (06.24) 6. Cheers/tears (03.29) Recorded in Leicester, England in November 1992. Cover art (reproduced above) 'Self portrait' by John Stevens; CD booklet design by Karen Brookman.
Three planets
John Russell: guitar. Ute Völker : accordion. Mathieu Werchowski : violin. A very fine acoustic (guitar, accordion and violin) improvising trio, made up of three musicians of three different ages from three different countries. Put together by a promoter for a French festival in 2001, they related so well, that they have continued to get together, whenever possible, to continue to make great music.
The fairly young bean
Acoustic guitar, cello or double bass, & percussion trio improvisations -- intended for release as the third CAW LP which never happened. Recorded 3/24/81.
Tandem 2
2nd volume of all previously unissued recordings of solos & duets for clarinet and cornet. All of a sensational LA duo and solo performance, plus the remainder of the Worcester concert leftover from Tandem 1 -- improvisations on original compositions.
Tandem 1
70 minutes of Bradford (cornet) & Carter (clarinet) duets, recorded in Worcester, MA. Previously unissued music by these legendary Ornette alumni.
Cavern with nightlife
Five tracks from 2002 recorded live in Japan by Tetuzi Akiyama. The first four feature Butcher solo on tenor or soprano sax, and were recorded at the Oya Stone Museum. The final track is a 20-minute duet with Toshimaru Nakimura on no-imput mixing board, recorded at Super Deluxe. Released in 2004, this is the first release on Butcher's Weight of Wax labe
The contest of pleasures - Tempestuous
Having used extensive editing and some remixing for the second of their two excellent Potlatch CDs, Albi Days, Contest of Pleasures – the trio of John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones), Xavier Charles (clarinet) and Axel Dorner (trumpet) – returns to its initial acoustic position with Tempestuous, which launches the new British label, Another Timbre. Recorded late on a stormy November night in an old church during the 2006 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival,Tempestuous moves between t…
Respiritus
Test the ears and patience of yr so called 'friends' -- the trained (operatic) vocalizings of ms. mackness dance and squeak around the flutter-scronk of mr. butcher (he of long-standing brit-free improv fame). Pure frontal-excursion, quiet and slippery.
Fixations (14)
Though saxophonist John Butcher is not short on instrumental prowess, his primary assets lie in the realm of ideas. On Fixations, Butcher has rejected conventional jazz thinking (swing, melodicism, harmonic cycles) in favor of creating his own personal language of improvisation. As Butcher puts it in the liner notes, "...improvisation can only make sense when it is somehow connected to the hope of finding, spontaneously, some music you don't really know about beforehand."
So the pursuit of a…
Chapter Two 1981-83
PAUL RUTHERFORD (trombone, euphonium & electronics), PHILIPP WACHSMANN (violin & electronics), and BARRY GUY (double bass & electronics). The first time some early recordings of this trio have been issued. The bulk of the music in this set comes from a late 1983 tour of England - 4 concerts in 6 days - during which this trio used more electronics than before or since. The music in each concert moved in a different direction, so it all had to be included. There are also two slightly earlier perfo…
Frankfurt 1991
Outside of Peter Brotzmann and Derek Bailey, I am not certain there are many players, European or otherwise, that maintain such sustained reverence from their peers as Paul Rutherford. And deservedly so, since I know of very few musicians as uncompromising as the British trombonist.While the trombone has languished in mediocrity over the past three decades, with the exception of a select number, on American shores, the European improvisers who call the trombone their home have continued its forw…
Ieirll
Sold out, last copies: 'Beautiful duo set from these two European improvisors which is a deal more removed from any established notions of intuitive post-SME thought than you might initially suspect. Davies plays harp throughout, but right from the first track he steers away from both the scrabbly string attack favoured by most post-Derek Bailey strategists and the Heavy Metal assault of instrumental pioneers like Zeena Parkins, opting instead for a slow blur of droning notes that flare like fiz…
Aérea
a beautiful duo album, Alfredo Costa Monteiro: accordion. Ruth Barberán: trumpet. Recorded in 2004, Barcelona