Solo trumpet CDs are pretty rare. And the music on them especially, often very experimental, looking and searching for the extreme extended sounds you can get out of the instrument or looking for microtonal or electronically distorted possibilities. If you are an adventurer, you will like to listen to some of the records below. Markus Stockhausen and Hugh Ragin are the most accessible. Some of them are plain weird, and will only be of interest to trumpeters who are looking for interesting new angles.
Bill Dixon - Collection (Music for Solo Trumpet)
Hugh Ragin - Sound Pictures For Solo Trumpet
Natsuki Tamura - A Song for Jyaki (Leo Records, 1998), Ko Ko Ko Ke (Natsat 3012)
Peter Evans - More is More (PSI Records, 2006)
Kelly Pratt - Solo Works for Trumpet & Flugelhorn (Sachimay Interventions, 2006)
Axel Dörner - Trumpet
Markus Stockhausen - Solo 1
Thomas Heberer - The Heroic Millipede
Nate Wooley - Wrong Shape to be a Story Teller
Rob Mazurek - Silver Spines
Mazen Kerbaj - BRT VRT ZRT KRT
Franz Hautzinger - Gomberg
Greg Kelley - Trumpet
Wadada Leo Smith - Creative Music 1; Red Sulphur Sky; Ahkreanvention (re-issued on Tzadik)
Lester Bowie - The One And Only (re-issued as disc 2 on "All The Magic")
Arve Henriksen - Sakuteiki
Baikida Carroll - The Spoken Word
Nassim Maalouf - Improvisations Orientales
Birgit Ulher - Scatter
Anyone with suggestions for other albums, please let me know.
Many thanks,
Stef
12 comments:
I was amazed by Jacques Coursil "Minimal Brass" (Tzadik)
The Axel Dörner "Trumpet" got me thinking of pipes, deflating balloons, patient plumbery jobs... At times discreet toad calls seemed to announce some action, but nothing dramatic happened. Some passages sounded like they had a post treatment, but as I recall it's a pure acoustic affair. Amazing at times, but altogether frustrating to my ears.
Haven't heard the other albums listed. I'll try to come back with impressions on "More is more", which I have somewhere.
Thanks for the info!
I didn't know Jacques Coursil, but it sounds nice indeed from the few samples I found on internet.
Stef
Right on! This is a VASTLY underappreciated genre, and I'd say Wadada Leo Smith is the pioneer and reigning champion... check the early Creative Music-1 (1971!) and Ahkreanvention (1979), both now thankfully reissued on Tzadik, and the more recent masterpieces Kulture Jazz on ECM and Red Sulphur Sky on Tzadik.
And let's not forget Lester Bowie's The One and Only. Who else could possibly pull off a tune called "Miles Davis Meets Donald Duck"???
I know I'm forgetting some others...
Thanks Kris!
I will add those (I did not include Kulture Jazz, because he also plays mbira, percussion, etc.), but I will add his other albums and the Lester Bowie album, which I'd never hear of.
Mmm. This seems to be a topic which is not gone unnoticed to top musicians: even Dave Douglas got it on his radar screen.
Here's what he put on his blog :
Dave Douglas (Artist Thoughts), Music
November 19, 2007, 08:27 AM
posted by Dave Douglas
Free Jazz blog posts this thorough list of solo trumpet recordings:
Bill Dixon - Collection (Music for Solo Trumpet)
Hugh Ragin - Sound Pictures For Solo Trumpet
Natsuki Tamura - A Song for Jyaki (Leo Records, 1998), Ko Ko Ko Ke (Natsat 3012)
Peter Evans - More is More (PSI Records, 2006)
Kelly Pratt - Solo Works for Trumpet & Flugelhorn (Sachimay Interventions, 2006)
Axel Dörner - Trumpet
Markus Stockhausen - Solo 1
Thomas Heberer - The Heroic Millipede
Nate Wooley - Wrong Shape to be a Story Teller
Rob Mazurek - Silver Spines
Mazen Kerbaj - BRT VRT ZRT KRT
Franz Hautzinger - Gomberg
Greg Kelley - Trumpet
Nice. One of the things I've come to realize in working on FONT is that the instrument is going through a revolutionary growth spurt. Though Free Jazz offers wary support ("Some of them are plain weird, and will only be of interest to trumpeters who are looking for interesting new angles."), it is support nonetheless. And there are of course many other great players not appearing on this list, in many areas of musical practice. This new language of horn playing is infiltrating all kinds of ensembles, and I can't think of a richer or more productive time for effusions of new brass creativity.
The Jacques Coursil CD is not solo trumpet. There is also bass and light percussion. So I took it off the list.
stef
Hey Stef here's one of the earlier double solo trumpet albums you missed.
1978
The Spoken Word
Hat Hut Records #M/N
Recorded Live
@ Mapenzi in Berkeley, CA
April 22,1977 & April 1,1978
Engineers, Cynthia Kanstein and Daryl Suzukawa
All Compositions Baikida Carroll
One Long Song Music Publishing
BMI
Baikida Carroll -trumpet, flugelhorn and prepared trumpet
1. The Spoken Word I (17:05)
2. The Spoken Word II (14:30)
3. Third Image (15:15)
4. Rites And Rituals (11:50)
5. Double Rainbow Forest (10:25)
A recent solo trumpet recording from Australia is Scott Tinkler's 'Backwards' on Extreme Records (XCD 058). Apart from alone trumpet, he does some interesting stuff with piano resonance, percussion and water effects.
Just looking at the solo trumpet list -- you may be interested in Kozo Ikeno although he does fall more into the experimental, rather than free jazz, zone. Sometimes it's just solo trumpet (usually muted) and on other occassions he creates his own electronic accompaniment.
Trumpetronics (Braxtone)
Planned Penetration (Waveform)
Overlooks (Stasisfield)
Render Perfect Sound (Retinascan)
Secret Notes (Kugkmusique)
Anywhere to download/sample that Thomas Heberer album?
Choi Sun Bae-FREEDOM
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