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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Weekend Round Up: Tzadik

By Martin Schray
Anna Clyne: Blue Moth (Tzadik, 2012) ****½ Let’s start with one of last year’s best Tzadik releases (my favorite still is Ned Rothenberg’s World of Odd Harmonics): Anna Clyne’s “Blue Moth”. Although heaped on with prizes (she is composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), this is the first album exclusively with Clyne’s own music. Her electro-acoustic compositions juxtapose pre-recorded tape sequences with...

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Vincent Courtois - The Mediums (La Buisonne, 2012) ****

By Stef Gijssels
French cellist Vincent Courtois goes back to the times of his youth, watching the world and creating stories out of what he sees, trying to understand, fantasising and embellishing or fearing the worst. For this journey he is accompanied by two tenor saxophonists, Daniel Erdmann from Germany and Robin Finker from the UK. An unusual line-up yet one that works well to create this world of intimate feelings, with a scene that is each...

Friday, March 29, 2013

Nils Petter Molvaer – Baboon Moon (Sula Records, 2011) ***

One of the comments on Monday's introduction to this week's trumpet trio theme inspired us to revisit the recent (but not that recent) recording by Nils Petter Molvaer, Baboon Moon, reviewed here in 2011 and again today ... By Paolo Casertano Baboon Moon is the first and by now the only release of the new Nils Petter Molvaer Trio. Previously reviewed on this blog, it has been released on Molvaer’s own label Sula in 2011, distributed worldwide...

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Claudio Scolari's Project - Synthesis (Principal Records, 2012) ***½

By Paul Acquaro
Hailing from Rome, percussionist Claudio Scolari is the leader of the multi-layered Scolari Project. He is joined by percussion-oriented multi-instrumentalist Daniele Cavalca and trumpeter (and son) Simone Scolari for Synthesis, and intriguing blend of electronics, synthesizers, and acoustic instruments including the vibraphone and melodica. From the opening notes of 'Synthesis' the trumpet cuts through with a taut and vigorous...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Peter Evans Trio - Zebulon (More Is More, 2013) ****½

By Stef Gijssels
Guess how many albums with Peter Evans we reviewed since this blog's creation in 2007? Easily more than ten, with solo albums, duo albums, with his quartet, his quintet, with Mostly Other People Do The Killing, with Mary Halvorson, Weasel Walter, Evan Parker, Okkyung Lee, Payton MacDonald, Elliott Sharp, and many more. We fnd Evans in the company of John Hébert on bass and Kassa Overall on drums, for a trio performance a year ago...

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Harvey Sorgen, Herb Robertson & Steve Rust - Rumble Seat (Not Two, 2013) ****

By Stef Gijssels
We find Herb Robertson back on this third trumpet trio, with Harvey Sorgen on drums and sounds, and Steve Rust on basses and sounds. Despite Robertson's presence, the music on this album is totally different than on "Party Enders". Despite the fact that all tracks are fully improvised, except  for "Beauty In The Fan", the approach is different, with all pieces - more in a song-like structure - clocking around five minutes, yet...

Monday, March 25, 2013

Herb Robertson, David Kaczorowski & Adrian Valosin - Party Enders (Not Two, 2013) ****½

By Stef Gijssels
Trumpeter Herb Robertson is one of these underrated and underrecorded musicians, and each time a new CD is released, it is a pleasure to hear him play, whether as a sideman or here, as the leader of a trio with Dave Kaczorowski on double bass and Adrian Valosin on drums. Next to trumpet, Robertson also plays cornet, fluegelhorn, english hunting horn, penny-whistles, Romanian reed flute, mutes, electronic mutes, bells, castanets and...

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Jon Corbett, Nick Stephens, Tony Marsh - Freeplay (Loose Torque, 2013)

By Stef Gijssels
You put on the record and you know you're in the British free improv scene, with sounds that bounce against each other, erupting and surfacing like lava bubbles in the hottest possible environment as a kind of state, visible, approachable, almost intimate, still far away from the effects and the dynamics of the whole volcano exploding. The state is now, the music is now : notes skittering away, bustling, fluttering, trembling, vibrating,...

Trumpet Trios

By Stef Gijssels
In the coming days, we'll be paying some attention to recent trumpet trio albums, one of my favorite line-ups. You can click the "trumpet trio" tag on the right to have a look at some great examples of recent history, starting with Lester Bowie and Don Cherry, and more recently some fantastic albums with Thomas Heberer, Taylor Ho Bynum, Nate Wooley, Rob Mazurek, Kirk Knuffke, Snus, Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Serge Adam, Jon Corbett, Scott...

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Steve Beresford, Martin Küchen, Ståle Liavik Solberg – Three Babies (Peira, 2013) ***½

By Dan Sorrells
The amount of ground Three Babies covers in just under an hour is confounding. Hell, the first 15 minutes touch upon more modes of improvising than some record labels showcase in their entire catalog! Recorded during a 2012 concert at Café OTO (and the latest release from one-man Chicago label Peira), Three Babies matches UK giant Steve Beresford with two Nordic players, protean sax-man Martin Küchen and Norwegian percussionist...

Friday, March 22, 2013

Parque – The Earworm Versions (Sshpuma, 2013) ***½

By Dan Sorrells
I’m hoping The Earworm Versions will garner a little more international attention for Ricardo Jacinto, the Portuguese polymath behind the music of Parque. Jacinto’s a cellist, but his resume stretches on: a student of architecture and sculpture, he combines sound installations, visual performances, and improvised music into colossal vortices of art. Even without the visual/physical element, The Earworm Versions is an impressive...

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Confusion Bleue

By Stef Gijssels
Just after its release in 2010, I reviewed Nobu Stowe's 'Confusion Bleue' album, and gave it a five-star rating for its wonderful total improvisation, lyricism and ability to maintain melody and tonal harmony. Then, as it often goes these days, nothing more is heard of Stowe, who changed his day job and moved from Baltimore to San Diego to work as an academic scientist, trying to invest his time in both in research and music. Luckily...

Ingrid Laubrock's Anti House - Strong Place (2013) ****

By Paul Acquaro
Recently, I had the luck to catch a duo show of Mary Halvorson and Ingrid Laubrock at the intimate JACKArts space in Brooklyn. I was struck by how well their melodic ideas and abstract inclinations played off each other so well. I assume that their various associations, like their work with the Tom Rainey Trio, has helped them develop these tacit connections. The same probably could be said about Laubrock's work with pianist...

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Han Bennink Trio – Bennink & Co. (Ilk, 2012) ****½

By Tom Burris
Near the end of last year, the Han Bennink Trio released its second full-length recording and it is definitely no sophomore slump. In fact, I think I want a do-over on my “Best Of 2012” list – but it's my own damn fault for not playing this one until recently.  Our hero performs his masterful chops on a single snare drum throughout the disc, which was recorded at a show in Belgium & diced into a dozen bite-sized chunks...

Monday, March 18, 2013

Mattias Ståhl, Fredrik Ljunkvist & Patric Thorman - Två För Tommy (Found You Recordings, 2012) ****

By Stef Gijssels
It is hard to describe musical beauty, but this Swedish trio brings it in spades. On vibes we have Mattias Ståhl, on clarinet Fredrik Ljungkvist and Patric Thorman plays double bass. I am not sure who "Tommy" is to whom the title refers, yet the references to the Jimmy Giuffre trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow are obvious, even if this trio plays it even lighter and softer. Ståhl and Thorman each composed half of the compositions...

Sunday, March 17, 2013

John Edwards & Okkyung Lee – White Cable, Black Wires (Fataka, 2013) ****

By Dan Sorrells
Double bass and cello: a celebration of the bass clef if there ever was one! And with John Edwards and Okkyung Lee, no typical exercise in the art of the low-end. White Cable, Black Wires is nothing short of a symphony of percussive clatter, tweaked harmonics, rumbling clangor, buzzing strings, hollow woody thumps, and stuttering dances of bow and fingers. While a good portion of freely improvised music has retreated into...

Friday, March 15, 2013

Mark Solborg - The Trees (ILK music, 2013) ****

Reviewed by Joe This is one hell of a record, and - for me - yet another direction taken by Mark Solborg. Solborg seems to be able to take elements of music and mould his writing and the choice of players to get the best out of them. On previous recordings such as '4+4+1' and 'Hopscotch' the music has been more 'conceived', whereas this project obviously relies on team work. In fact what stands out on this recording is the empathy between...

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Paal Nilssen-Love/Lasse Marhaug/Massimo Pupillo - You're Next (Bocian Records, 2012) ****

By Paolo Casertano What we see - On a field of carcasses, bones and (what I assume are) kilometres of viscera we see hanged and tortured corpses (how did they die?) and a romantic as much extreme cannibalistic hug between two undead characters. We are in a pretty eerie forest. What we read - Massimo Pupillo plays “low end bowel chainsaw” Paal Nilssen-Love plays “battery of total limb annihilation” and Lasse Marhaug takes care of “electronic...

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Barry Altschul -The 3dom Factor (TUM Records, 2013) ****

By Paul Acquaro
3Dom Factor starts with a big slide down a bass string, a couple clashes of percussion, and then the sax kicks in with an infectiously upbeat theme. The strong syncopations and vivacious melody are the work of free jazz drum legend Barry Altschul on his first outing as a leader in a long while. The song, 'The 3Dom Factor' quickly leaves the composed head behind and ventures outwards. The melody is never lost though...

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Sudo Quartet – Live at Banlieue Bleue (NoBusiness, 2012) ****

By Dan Sorrells
Gary Peters has an interesting theory of improvisation: he claims it’s actually a tragic undertaking, as the moment with the most “freedom” and potential is that right before the musicians actually begin playing. A freely improvised performance then becomes a exercise in chasing after that original fleeting ideal, which gets farther and farther out of reach until a performance ends, and some permanent, determined, very un-free...

Monday, March 11, 2013

Hafez Modirzadeh - Post-Chromodal Out! (Pi, 2012) ***½

By Stef Gijssels
I have been following Iranian saxophonist and music theorist for quite a while, actually ever since his first album "In Chromodal Discourse" from 1993, and despite his obvious evoluetion, my opinion on his approach to music has barely changed over time. Modirzadeh has been working for decades on his "chromodal" and now "post-chromodal" music systems. “Chromodality” as originally developed to integrate Persian tones with Western equal...

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Jean-Marc Foltz & Stephan Oliva - Visions Fugitives (Visions Fugitives, 2012) ****

By Stef Gijssels
Serguei Prokoviev, Alban Berg, Francis Poulenc, Witold Lutoslawski and Johannes Brahms are not a jazz quintet, but classical composers who inspired the great French duo of Jean-Marc Foltz on clarinet and Stephan Oliva on piano. But they are not the only composers here. John Coltrane's "Naima" and "Lonnie's Lament" also figure among the covered pieces, as well as some of their own compositions. The pieces were apparently all chosen...

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Rudresh Mahanthappa - Gamak (ACT Records, 2013) ****½

By Monique Avakian When I hear Rudresh Mahanthappa on this album, my first thought is Charlie Parker. I say this not because of speed, but because of integrity. The speed is there of course – solid, well-phrased and impressive, but it’s the individualized nature of Radresh’s compositional and improvisational styles that stand out. Most self-referenced, and in the generous, gregarious sense of the word. And the unique way the song forms are constructed...

Friday, March 8, 2013

John Zorn: Templars - In Sacred Blood (Tzadik, 2012) ****

By Matin Schray Sometimes, at the end of a stressful day (or at the end of a week of round ups), you are longing for purification. It has to be simple, raw, and genuine. What else could be better than a decent dose of John Zorn’s Moonchild project, his super group consisting of Mike Patton (vocals), Trevor Dunn (bass) and Joey Baron (drums)? Like on previous albums the band is augmented by an additional musician – here John Medeski on organ,...

John Zorn: Rimbaud (Tzadik, 2012) ***½

By Martin Schray
Hardly any European poet has been as influential for American pop culture as Arthur Rimbaud. Artists like Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg or Henry Miller have adored his literary works which he accomplished between the age of 15 and 19. Being hard to categorize his poems have been called symbolist, surrealist or expressionist, his style is full of images which are not necessarily coherent, especially...

Thursday, March 7, 2013

John Zorn: The Concealed (Esoteric Secrets and Hidden Traditions of the East) (Tzadik, 2012) ****

By Martin Schray
On the latest volume of his continuing series of 21st century mystical music John Zorn mixes the sound and the arrangements of projects like Masada, Bar Khoba and The Dreamers to a hot and boiling irresistible stew. The songs here are influenced by klezmer, gypsy folk, Spanish traditionals, modern jazz and classical music, swing, Middle Eastern melodies, bar jazz, soundtrack scores and easy listening. You may call that inconsistent...