Jazz /
Windows: The Music Of Steve Lacy
What a pleasant surprise! The Swedish multi-reed maestro, he of the coruscatingly wild fluteophone attacks, turns to the relatively calm and linear world of Steve Lacy and finds a very happy medium in this solo release. While he treats Lacy's deadpan and deceptively simple melodies with clear respect, he uses them as jumping off points for his own idiosyncratic deconstructions. On "Deadline," he navigates into a territory of ultra-soft percussive clicks and taps, creating a fascinating spatial f…
Solo
Urabe is the ONLY Japanese player with the ability to soar beyond where Kaoru Abe left off, and for anyone with even the slightest interest in the possibilities of human breath and forged brass this is an essential and tremendously exciting document.
Agape
Martin Küchen: prepared and non prepared alto saxophone. David Stackens: guitar, low-budget electronics. Recorded at Fylkingen, Stockholm by Andreas Berthling, 16th of May 2004. Mastered by Andreas Berthling, David Stackens and Martin Küchen.
Leopardo
Leopardo is a solo recording by the Portuguese guitarist Manuel Mota, who might best be described as a somewhat more fluidly lyrical Derek Bailey. Lovingly recorded on solid body electric guitar, his improvisations have the spiky quality associated with the elder statesman of the freely improvised guitar, but Mota's lines sound as though coated in oil, possessing a slipperiness and liquidity that peeks back at Portuguese traditions. There are very few extended effects employed, the guitar string…
The hearing continues
The hearing continues. The playing continues. The listening continues. The music continues. The London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) continues to play the first Sunday of every month (except December & January) at the Red Rose. Every concert is different - has its own flavour - largely due to who is performing that night, and whose pieces are performed. Some musicians have other commitments on the night. Some musicians drop out completely, others join afresh. Some are just in London for an extende…
More together than alone
Soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill always sounds good regardless of what area he is playing in and who he is playing with. This present collection just features his free improvising, but with a variety of partners. The late Hugh Davies was a master instrument inventor. Guitarist John Russell is one of the major stalwarts of the London improvising scene (like Coxhill). Henry Lowther has been a much sought-after jazz trumpeter since the 1960s, but has always kept a toe in free waters. Pat Thomas is a…
Out to launch
Two complete solo soprano saxophone concerts, from Chicago and London, show that Coxhill is as inventive as ever some four decades after his first solo performances. In between there is a 10-minute improvisation by an impromptu 13-piece orchestra. 77 minutes -- previously unissued.
Digswell duets
The 39 minute duet with Simon Emmerson is an early example of interactive saxophone and electronics, wherein Emmerson modifies Coxhill's sound, and Coxhill reacts accordingly, etc. The 34 minute duet with pianist Veryan Weston is an early example of their very compatible duo, which is still going strong. Reissue of Random Radar RRR 005 with extra material from the same sessions. 73 minutes.
The Open Air Meeting
Muhal Richard Abrams: piano; Marty Ehrlich: alto saxophone, clarinet.
This disc is taken from a live recording of an open air concert
which took place August 11, 1996 at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
This duet concert was, on one level, a meeting between two of the
seminal jazz innovators of their respective generations. The nuanced and
subtle interchange of ideas between these two great musicians-as they
challenge and provoke each other to explore new musical ground-is
enthralling thr…
s/t
ErstLive is a new series of releases from Erstwhile Records, documenting notable live sets associated with the label. The discs are designed to simulate a concert experience, each in the same template design using two colors chosen by the musicians involved, with a photo of the concert on the back cover. Each will be in an edition of 800 CDs and not reprinted. The initial releases will be chosen from the AMPLIFY 2004 festival which took place in Cologne and Berlin in May 2004. ErstLive …
Between
"between", for me is about the tension and space between objects, and how we might occupy this area, to reside if you like between the conventions, to locate the flexibility that comes from de-theorizing the dogmas. It seemed to me as if Toshi and I were navigating a route through a familiar part of town, where each of the buildings stood for and represented expectations, styles, outcomes and histories. We wanted to resist entering the buildings and to stay between. The cover art and photo attem…
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.