Two From Circum-disc Records

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos  

Improvising drummer and composer Peter Orins is the main man behind the small, but significant in adventurous musics of today, label called Circum-disc. The following two releases are, certainly, two of the best I’ve listened to the whole year, pushing the envelope of improvisational music a little further. Like all releases from the label, both CD’s (even though Circum-disc is putting out vinyl as well) contain small gestures full of the ethos of free improvisation. But since the jeez word (improv that is) is already mentioned enough, I should not label the music in such a way. It is, in a few words, good, full of risks, music.

Trapeze – Level Crossing (Circum-disc, 2023)

This quartet’s music came out late in 2023 but it missed my best of list by a few weeks. I think it’s time to correct this mistake. The quartet is made of by the great, already making her presence very fruitful and strong, Sakina Abdou on the saxophone, trombonist Matthias Muller, my personal favorite Joke Lanz on the turntables and Orins himself on the drums. Just like the titles on the six tracks of Level Crossing, the music is playful, energetic and seems to elevate their playing into a non-hierarchical stance. Ego-less maybe. Clashing between playful electronics and acoustic sounds, syncopated rhythms from the drums, a sax that, at some points is unrecognizable, an ethereal presence that goes against the noisy character of the instrument and a fresh approach to the trombone (call it a part of an elastic rhythm section), the CD is a totally joyful listen. On the other hand it is so good, that brought, many times, a smile to my face. This is how improvisation should sound.

Listen here:

Woo – Hoo-ha (Circum-disc, 2024)

 

Hoo-ha, the trio’s CD who came out in the spring of 2024, is again Peter Orins on the drums, Christine Wodrascka on the piano and Paulina Owczarek playing the alto saxophone. Again, on this CD, the presence of women improvisors very important. Even though Orins and Owczarek have been playing together for some time (in fact another review, by me the fan of their music, of the duo has been posted on this site), but their achievement as a trio seems fresh. Two of the three tracks on the CD, especially the core track Why Not? (a note to the amazing album of the late 60’s by Marion Brown maybe?) which lasts more than half an hour, are live excursions on the (not so in this case) tradition of the piano-drums-sax trio.

On Why Not?, probably making a clear point for the whole album, they start rather conventionally, allowing the listener to get in touch with the three instruments, and as the track proceeds they collide, producing a small scale unified chaotic celestial sound. “Direct actions and interactions” is a phrase used on the bandcamp page of the CD and, rather pompous it initially seems, it describes their relationship quite accurately. Both between them as players and with their respected instruments. They succeed in presenting their music both directions at once. First as individuals who struggle to be heard while, abolishing the prose of loudness. And as a collective entity that its music is being produced through fruitful clashes (as separate duos and a trio of course) and three-person imaginings of the freedom improvisation brings. A great CD.

Listen:

@koultouranafigo

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Allen Lowe & The Constant Sorrow Orchestra - Louis Armstrong’s America (ESP-Disk’, 2024)

By Lee Rice Epstein

Let’s start with the hyperbole: Allen Lowe’s massive, five-hour opus may turn out to be one of the most important recordings of the 2020s, if only more people well spend time with it. Lowe’s music is personal, deeply thoughtful, and addictively listenable. Lowe spends a great deal of time reading, writing, and thinking about jazz and the blues, their intersection, the influences that birthed rock and roll, and he’s taken all that and channeled into five hours of horn-drenched, witty and delightful music.

Casually listed, the roster is a massive who’s who:

Allen Lowe on tenor sax and piano; Aaron Johnson on alto and clarinet; Elijah Shiffer on alto; Nicole Glover on tenor; Frank Lacy on trumpet; Ray Anderson and Brian Simontacchi on trombone; Andy Stein on violin; Ursula Oppens, Lewis Porter, Loren Schoenberg, Matthew Shipp, and Jeppe Zeeberg on piano; Marc Ribot on guitar; Ray Suhy on guitar and banjo; Will Goble, Colson Jimenez, and Nick Jozwiak on bass; Ethan Kogan, Rob Landis, James Paul Nadien, and Kresten Osgood on drums; and Huntley McSwain on vocals.

But don’t be fooled by the credits: this isn’t a piano-and-drums-heavy big band performance. The 69 songs were recorded in a series of small-group, studio sessions, typically with sax, piano, guitar, bass, and drums. Lowe composed all the music, a mountain of output following his 2023 albums, the single-volume America: The Rough Cut and the three-volume In the Dark, a radical, deeply felt, and raw exploration of the time following surgical removal of a cancerous tumor in Lowe’s sinus. Louis Armstrong’s America, on the other hand, sounds like a reaffirming celebration of all that’s good about great American music. Armstrong is something of the mirepoix, with additional ingredients coming from Berrigan, Beiderbecke, Ellington and Strayhorn, Mingus and Byard—tracing a hundred years doesn’t stop only there, nods to Lou Reed and Steve Albini bring everything to the present. Lowe’s not interested in some kind of play-acting or creating museum pieces, the music here is lively and joyfully performed.

With so many individual tracks, a song-by-song review wouldn’t begin to cover the riches found inside. There’s a nod to John Cage featuring Oppens, a number of songs with long-time jazz player and teacher Schoenberg, a handful of phenomenal duets with Shipp, and a handful of breakaway takes from a session with an octet, featuring Johnson, Lacy, Suhy, Simontacchi, Porter, Goble, and Landis. Now, the answer to the obvious question: none of this works in isolation. Sessions kicked off in December 2023 and lasted through May 2024. There is method everywhere, and perhaps a bit of madness just to keep everyone on their toes.

Available in digital and physical formats

https://allenloweesp.bandcamp.com/album/louis-armstrongs-america

Note: The physical release comes in two volumes, but this should be considered a single album, less volumes one and two, more like discs one through four.

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Barre Phillips (1934 - 2024)

Photo by Didier Bonnet / ECM Records

By Martin Schray

Sometimes you play music and it wasn’t planned to release it as an album. That’s what happened with the first bass solo album in jazz. Barre Phillips, the man who made that record, was asked by a friend of his, Max Schubel, to record some bass sounds. Schubel wanted to use these sound for “mixed music between tape and live“. Phillips agreed and played for probably about an hour and a half without any breaks. Schubel was swept off his feet and said that he doesn’t want to mess with that in an electronic studio. Instead he wanted to release the music on his label. Phillips later said in an interview that if I had known that someone hadn’t done that already, he probably would have refused to publish it since he had considered it to be much too pretentious. That’s how the story behind Journal Violone (Opus One, 1969), which was the prelude to a series of many solo works by Barre Philipps and of course to hundreds of solo albums by other bass players. It is sad news that this pioneer and maestro of modern music has now passed away.

Barre Phillips was born in San Francisco on October 28, 1934. Musically, he couldn’t be pigeonholed from the outset. After studying Romance languages and literature at Berkeley University, he moved to New York City in 1962, where he had double bass lessons with Frederick Zimmermann, the first bassist of the New York Philharmonic. However, he also put out feelers for the jazz scene early on and especially Ornette Coleman introduced him to many players of the new thing. In 1963, he appeared in a third-stream project by Gunther Schuller with Eric Dolphy at Carnegie Hall, but almost simultaneously he recorded a concert by Larry Austin with the New York Philharmonic as a soloist under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. From 1964 he was a member of Jimmy Giuffe’s trio. In the mid 1960s he came to Europe for the first time with George Russell’s sextet. Between 1965 and 1967, he worked primarily with guitarist Attila Zoller and saxophonist Archie Shepp. In 1967 he went to Europe permanently, moving to the south of France in the early 1970s, where he stayed for more than 50 years. In Europe, he worked with virtually every musician who had a name in the jazz scene, from Mike Westbrook to Rolf and Joachim Kühn and Michel Portal to the style-defining The Trio with John Surman and Stu Martin. Later he played with Derek Bailey and Gunter Hampel as well as Jeanne Lee, and since 1986 he has also enjoyed working with Barry Guy, especially with the bassist’s London Jazz Composers Orchestra. In the 1990s, Phillips recorded with Ornette Coleman, Evan Parker and Paul Bley. As to free jazz there’s hardly any great name who hasn’t worked with him: Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald, Joëlle Léandre, David Holland and Lol Coxill and many more. However, Phillips not only played with Americans and Europeans, he also regularly recorded albums in Asia from the 1990s onwards, for example with Motoharu Yoshizawa, Keiji Haino, Kim Dae Hwan and Masashi Harada. Additionally, as a composer and performer, he has repeatedly worked for film, dance and theater productions. For example, he has written music for films by Robert Kramer, Jacques Rivette, William Friedkin and Marcel Camus, to name but a few. Ultimately, however, Phillips was one thing above all: an avant-gardist par excellence. “I was as enthusiastic about Bartók, Schönberg and Stravinsky as I was about Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman“, he said in an interview. That’s why there were always excursions into the realm of classical music. In 1992, Aquarian Rain featured a collaboration with electroacoustic composers James Giroudon and Jean-François Estager, juxtaposing Phillips’s bass with a tape collage. Already Mountainscapes (his ECM album with The Trio from 1976) contains sensitive duets with synthesizer player Dieter Feichtner, which could be considered as if foreshadowing Face à Face, his collaboration with György Kurtág Jr. from 2022. Towards the end of his life, Barre Phillips returned to the United States in early 2022, he settled down in New Mexico.

There are many records of Barre Phillips’s immense output that must be recommended. Of course the above-mentioned Journal Violone (Opus One, 1969), a ground-breaking album indeed. Also, other solo albums are worth being mentioned, Call Me When You Get There (ECM, 1984) and his last one, End To End (ECM, 2018), 50 years after Journal Violone. Phillips has released excellent bass duos as well. You can’t go wrong with Music From Two Basses (ECM, 1971) with Dave Holland (the first album for two basses ever recorded), Die Jungen: Random Generators (FMP, 1979) with Peter Kowald, Arcus (Maya Recordings, 1991) with Barry Guy and Oh My, Those Boys (NoBusiness, 2018), a recording from 1994 with Motoharu Yoshizawa. The Trio’s Mountainscapes (ECM, 1976) is a marvelous recording, as well as Sankt Gerold (ECM, 2000) with Paul Bley and Evan Parker. Very personal recommendations are his albums with Joe and Mat Maneri Tales of Rohnlief (ECM, 1999) and Angles of Repose (ECM, 2004), the second of which was recorded in the old Sainte Philomène chapel adjacent to Phillips’s Puget-Ville home. If you want to see what a great team player he was, you might listen to the Gunter Hampel All Stars’ Jubilation (Birth, 1983) or to the very early The Horizon Beyond (Emarcy, 1965) with Attila Zoller’s Quartet (Zoller on guitar, Don Friedman on piano and Daniel Humair on drums). My personal favorite is Michel Portal / John Surman / Barre Phillips / Stu Martin / Jean-Pierre Drouet: Alors!!! (Futura Recods, 1970).

A true giant is gone. The gap he leaves behind is enormous.

Watch Phillips playing solo in a church at Kaleidophon Ulrichsberg:

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Ingrid Schmoliner - I AM ANIMAL (Idyllic Noise, 2024)

By Sarah Grosser

Composed in the week leading up to the 2024 Artacts festival in St Johann in Tirol, Austria, and performed in the Dekanatspfarrkirche (deanery parish church) Ingrid Schmoliner’s epic I AM ANIMAL is presented in two parts, averaging around 20 minutes each. This release on Idyllic Noise is a recording of the performance commissioned by the festival, which debuted on March 10, 2024.

Although the organ is notoriously difficult to play, Schmoliner is impressively confident on the physically demanding instrument. The first piece performed, "ACHNA," is an especially taxing endurance piece for the musician. From start to finish, one’s fingers must be absolutely exhausted from the constant arpeggiating. Underneath is the continuous whirr of the organ drones, creating a rhythm of its own, like breathing.

A loop of repetitive, steady, notes swirls over a deep, rumbling bass that is enormous and cinematic. The constant oscillating evokes a sense of urgency and tension. It’s refreshing to hear such a dark, intense piece played on an instrument normally reserved for more heavenly hymns and holy music.

The title “I AM ANIMAL” evokes the primal hunt between predator and prey, the fight for survival – the harsh elements of winter, and the enormity of nature. This was amplified on the day of performance by the chilliness of the weather. Schmoliner herself was also rugged up in layers in order to perform the works in the freezing chapel. The stoney church-smell and the crisp, cold air adding to the naturalistic themes of the music.

The second piece, "ASCELLA" is a more straightforward drone piece, made up of heavy deep chords whirring and allowing the natural mechanical buzz of the organ to really show itself off. The lowest notes create layers of brutal, heavy textures. When finally some higher pitches are given the airtime over the top, the tapestry becomes even more intricate and complicated. It’s noisey, but introspective. Avant-garde in every sense: obscure, beautiful, and unsettling.

One has to wonder what the passers by in little St Johann must have been thinking from outside the building – given the sheer obscurity of the piece, perhaps they might have wondered whether the droning organ was, in fact, stuck? Those inside, of course, knew better.

Meditative and transcendental, both compositions and their performance struck a chord with the crowd, many of whom rose to their feet in a standing ovation upon its conclusion – an ovation that unfortunately Schmoliner missed out on viewing for herself, as she was still obstructed up in the organ.

Nevertheless, a rare spectacle, expertly performed and, thankfully, recorded. Truly a unique work of art, ambitiously composed by a human, with the gargantuan, fighting spirit of a wild beast.

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Nathan Hubbard/Kyle Motl – Obsidian (Confront Recordings, 2024)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

A whole bunch of great releases came out from the vaults of Confront this year (have you checked the Derek Bailey/Simon H.Fell vinyl by the way?) but this one stands out a bit more and goes straight on my best of list for 2024.

Kyle Motl is a double bassist that I really enjoy listening to. The dynamics of his playing are always grasping my attention. He is always energetic but low key at the same time. He rarely follows the path of just being the rhythm section in a jazz or non-jazz attempt, but he, also, does not like to be a “soloist”. I’m not very familiar with percussionist Nathan Hubbard, but after Obsidian, I must pay closer attention to what he is doing.

The double bass-drums collaboration can be, by the very nature of the instruments, a solid heavy affair. It must be extremely demanding to present such a flexible and liquid version of the traditional jazz rhythm section. On all four tracks of Obsidian, clocking just under forty minutes, both players present a different, alternative could be, version of the drum and bass duo. Their interplay is very kinetic, full of energy. They fill the room, the audio space, with ideas that tend to use minimal sounds for their instruments. What I mean with minimal is that they don’t stick with one idea and go on with it, but their fresh approach jumps right away to another one. Both instruments collide and develop a shared language that, at some points, make the sounds they produce inseparable.

Obsidian is joyful, balanced (and that needs hard work) improvisational music that needs to be heard and stays on my list of the best releases for 2024. The minimal approach, typical for the label, of the CD’s artwork is an extra delight for my taste.

Listen here: 

@koultouranafigo

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Janel Leppin, Jon Irabagon, Peter Evans ... urgent, restless and (in a good way) relentless

By Paul Acquaro

Janel Leppin Ensemble Volcanic Ash - To March is to Love (Cuneiform, 2024)

You cannot say D.C. based cellist Janel Leppin didn't try to sound the alarm, that she didn't try to put into her music into the service of delivering an important message. Released in June of 2024, To March Is to Love is intense, infused with an urgency of that moment. On her Bandcamp page, Leppin underscores this, saying "This is the moment where people are going to have to step up. We’ve done this before and we can do it again. It’s a very D.C. message, but a very important message." 

 

Seeing as to where we are now, we'll pivot and let the intensity and urgency of the message be of service to the music. As it is, To March is to Love channels the music and convictions of two very intense and urgent musicians: the classically rooted and musically boundless Abdul Wadud and Pablo Casals.

 

The influence of the first musician is name checked right on the opening track, 'Ode to Abdul Wadud,' and if you, dear reader, have ever felt goosebumps listening to the opening track of Julius Hemphill's 1972 Dogon A.D., be prepared to feel it again. In the quick minute and a half, the combination of Leppin's thick cello and Pirog's biting guitar delivers a crackling introduction that only gets more intense in the next tune "Tennesee's a Drag." Here, Leppin's repeating rhythmic line and Larry Ferguson's drums provide a feverish energy for Sarah Hughes' and Brian Settles' fuzzily-outside-the-lines saxophone solos. A later track, "As Wide as All Outdoors," is also notable in how Luke Stewart's bass and Leppin's cello together generate a lovely, resonant contrast.

 

The title track, broken into two parts, begins with the cello and bass bowing a pensive melody as the guitar plays an arpeggiated counter-figure. The saxes add some relief to undulating composition, while on second part, all hell breaks loose. Sort of. 'Part II,'picking up as the first ends, seems to grow darker and then evolves into the most free playing on the album.

 

The closing track, "Casal's Rainbow" finds Leppin on piano, solo. The classically oriented piece closes the recording with a buoyant rhythm but a questioning melody that leaves one feeling just a little unsettled.

To March is to Love spent too long in my "to listen to" list, so please do not make the same mistake now that you are in the know. This is a fantastic album that will help you keep the fire burning during the coldest of times. 

 

 

I Don't Hear Nothing but the Blues - Vol 3, Part 2: Exuberant Scars (Irabaggast, 2024)

Saxophonist Jon Irabagon has not gotten much rest this past year. At the tail end of '23 he released Recharge the Blade  and Survivalism, followed by the collaboration Bakunawa on Out Of Your Head Records and a duo with pianist Brian Marsella, Blue Hour, which was then followed by Dinner and Dancing with his trio with Barry Altschul and Joe Fonda, and finally one from I Don't Hear Nothing but the Blues, Volume 3 Part 2 - Exuberant Scars. We'll likely need a "Catching up with Jon" review soon, but for now, the focus is on the latter of this list...

The gun-slinging group, I Don't Hear Nothing but the Blues, seemingly undergoes an expansion with each volume. The group began in 2009 with Irabagon and drummer Mike Pride, and added guitarist Mick Barr on 2012's Volume 2. Then in 2020, on Volume 3, fellow outlaw guitarist and experimentalist Ava Mendoza added her firepower to the group. The result was even more energy for an already highly energetic group. On the second part of this configuration's collaboration, however, the impact is the same but the method is different. Recorded live at The Stone in NYC by Randy Thaler, Volume 3 Part 2 - Exuberant Scars, is sort of the inverse of Volume 1. Instead of the furnace blast of fire power that greeted us last time, we hear the wooden plunks of a xylophone and then a slowly growing menacing growl of the others. There is no beat, but there is a growing urgency and a subdued aggression behind the sounds. The plucked frenetic notes of electric guitar and vaguely connected line from the sax allude to the coming restlessness. Then, within a few more minutes, the strands begin layering, xylophone and sax seem to be shadowing each other, while one of the guitars is running about and the other is filling the background with texture. 

 

So that's the first 10 minutes of the single 45-minute track. Skip ahead to the 20 minute mark and the drums are fierce, the sax is screaming, and the two guitars have reached a peak of intensity. What can possibly happen in the next 20 minutes? 

 

Peter Evans - Extra (We Jazz, 2024)

If you are looking for something urgent, restless and (in a good way) relentless, you've got it all in this tight 34 minute package from trumpeter Peter Evans. From the moment the music starts, Evans, along with long-time collaborators drummer Jim Black and electronicist and bassist Peter Eldh, deliver a tremendous set of laser focused compositions. 

 

'Freaks' opens with a long held note from Evans over a sparky bass-line and a tumble of drums. The tone then morphs into a melody that one would swear requires two trumpets to maintain. Knowing Evan's prowess with the instrument, it is not a safe bet to make any assumptions of how it was done. The tune then opens up with a fierce, uptempo solo by Evans over the relentless backing of the pulsating rhythm work. The group suddenly crashes into a synthesizer, as a bright tonal cluster signals the end. 

 

What comes next is even more urgent - Eldh delivers a syncopated, pummeling bass-line, augmented by taught drumming from Black and - I think - some hand-clapping samples that recalls a sample from GarageBand. Evans takes full advantage of the groups momentum and delivers another scintillating performance, his trumpet's tone slightly augmented at times by electronics that open up new augmented tones and timbres.

 

"Movement 56," a piece in the middle of the album takes the electronics to an extreme. The track begins with Evans alone, acoustic, deploying his myriad solo techniques, but a synth tone quickly bubbles up - or for all we know, it may still be Evans, his trumpet's tone entirely enveloped by the electronics. Regardless, this highly synthetic tone builds and builds, finally ending in a deep, oscillating drone that eventually tapers off to the next track, 'Underworld,' which is comforting in its slippery beat count and dovetailing grooves. 

 

Overstuffed with ideas and more than enough improvisational craft, Extra, is the exact right portion of urgent, restless and (in a good way) relentless music. 

 

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Truth Is Not the Enemy, Sentient Beings (Discus Music, 2024) *****

By Don Phipps

Strikingly intense, no quarter given – all hands on deck. The music on the Sentient Beings album, “Truth Is Not the Enemy,” is simply a roller coaster of highs and lows (or hills and valleys if you will), which, whether slow-burn or rip-roaring, maintains its intensity from start to finish.

Recorded live at The Vortex in London on February 8, 2024, “Truth Is Not the Enemy” features the quartet of John O’Gallagher (alto sax), Faith Brackenbury (violin / viola), John Pope (bass) and Tony Bianco (drums). The recording was made on the last night of a 7-day tour. As such, the musicians had time to hone their improvisations and experiment with their soundscapes before settling on the course they would navigate on the final night.

The album consists of two tracks. The first track, “Hills and valleys,” begins with a rumble – like a thunderstorm on the horizon. As the piece develops, heat and raw, muddy power surge forward. O’Gallagher’s muscular lines over Pope’s plucking and Bianco’s splashes on the cymbals suggest a sense of menace in the offing. Then Brackenbury takes over and the music turns into a strong rhythmic gallop of striking yet beautiful intensity. There are hairpin turns and roller coaster levitations before the dust finally settles in a Brackenbury viola/Bianco drum duet. The quartet continues to expound – pulling from its toolkit long legato expressions, impassioned abstractions, and jagged dissonance. Then with Bianco’s all over drumming propelling the group forward, a wall of sound tapestry emerges – almost disorienting, like rotating in a circle to the point of dizziness. The locutions here are simply not for the weak of heart, but they are also not angry. Ferocious would be a better word, like snow flurries, scattered by a strong north wind. The piece winds down like a good mystery novel –the reader uncertain about the outcome yet fully satisfied with the experience.

The second track, inversely named “Valleys and hills,” begins with O’Gallagher offering up a lonely soliloquy above the color and texture of the rhythm section’s explorations and Brackenbury’s wanderings. There is space here, and the atmospherics are more gentle - like wandering in a dark forest as light streaks downward through the canopy. As the piece develops, the music intersects and breaks apart. Pope challenges from the bottom and O’Gallagher’s sax opens and closes in hip-hoppity fashion. Bianco drives along – his explosive effort on the trap set a master class of enjoyment for the listener. Brackenbury joins the fray. She bounces her bow on her strings before rolling off a series of impressive running intervals, and as the piece moves forward, she uses electrical effects to broaden her impact. Bianco keeps up with complex rhythms and what seems like superhuman all-over efforts. There is so much going on, it feels like a maelstrom or whirlwind of notes – fast and heavy but not uncontrolled. There is simply no pussyfooting around for this quartet!

Every note on both tracks has a tenacious nail-biting anxiety to it, like wing-suiting acceleration through a mountain pass to land on a high-speed rail. Even the sedate expressions, where the musicians create space for intimacy and embrace an open architecture, are highlighted by sound drips and dollops that have a “wide-awake at 3 a.m.” feeling to them. For Bianco, the music herein has a philosophical foundation. He says, “The purpose was the Truth of playing, bringing us out of the confusion of this world…. We all go through the ups and downs of life. Hills and Valleys, but Truth is not the enemy.”

That said, the musicianship on “Truth Is Not the Enemy,” is exemplary, evidenced by O’Gallagher’s slice and dice phrasing and hell-raising sax lines, Brackenbury’s heartfelt and precision flying attacks, Pope’s wonderful chordal strums and racing bass note plucks, and Bianco’s extreme up and down roundabout exertions. This is a recording that stands tall, peering over the abyss with defiance, raising a middle finger to the darkness. Highly recommended!

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Trance Maps large and small, near and far

By Stuart Broomer

Evan Parker and Matt Wright have been working together since 2008. Wright initially contacted Parker to explore his extensive collection of ethnographic field recordings and it eventually evolved into a duo in which Parker improvised on saxophone and Wright improvised with turntables and samples. The two have since added other musicians to the project (their presence signalled by a “+”), resulting in groups from trios to a sextet, occasionally including musicians’ materials that were recorded apart from the core ensemble’s recording.

The process has extended Parker’s long-term exploration of his Electro-Acoustic Ensemble in which acoustic improvising instrumentalists were paired with electronic musicians, further developing the acoustic input. The original sextet paired the Parker - Guy - Lytton trio with three electronic musicians, with Guy’s own doubling with electronic processing paired with Phil Wachsmann’s viola and processing. That ensemble has been active as recently as 2019 ( Warszawa, 2019 [Fondacia Sluchaj]), while it reached its most expansive form in an 18-member version at Lisbon’s Jazz em Agosto in 2010 (an extended reflection is available here).

Transatlantic Trance Map - Marconi’s Drift (False Walls, 2024) ***** 

Transatlantic Trance Map might be the most remarkable performance of improvised music in recent years, if only for the compound “location” of its performance, 13 musicians on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The significance of the work is tremendous, both in its realization and its potential, in a world where travel is increasingly challenged by environmental and disease concerns. The technical distribution here is apparent in an early “draft” of the process. Parker and Wright initially tried a “dry run” in November 2021, with a quintet version still called the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble interacting with the SPIIC ensemble in Hamburg directed by Vlatko Kučan. This is available on YouTube.

On December 17, 2022, Parker, playing soprano saxophone, and Wright (laptop sampling and live processing) gathered a septet at the Hot Tin in Faversham, England with Peter Evans (trumpets), Pat Thomas (live electronics), Hannah Marshall (cello), Robert Jarvis (trombone) and Alex Ward (clarinet, guitar). Meanwhile, a similar sextet of regular Parker collaborators gathered in New York at Roulette: Ned Rothenberg: (reeds, shakuhachi); Sam Pluta: (laptop, live electronics); Craig Taborn (piano, keyboard, live electronics); Ikue Mori (laptop live electronics); Sylvie Courvoisier (piano, keyboard) and Mat Manieri (viola), most of whom had played in the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble or its Septet variation, while between them, the two ensembles reunited the compact supergroup Rocket Science, consisting of Parker, Evans, Pluta and Taborn.

The most remarkable technological feature consists in the brevity of the time gap between the two groups: in his notes Wright mentions the work of the technical directors at Hot Tin and Roulette and that “After a number of tests we were able to work at high resolution, almost treating each location as a separate room within a studio, albeit with the slight, but workable delay of around 65 to 120 milliseconds,” a gap that Wright was later able to reduce further in mixing while creating a stereo spread that integrated the two bands.

The most remarkable feature, however, beyond the technology is the musical achievement. Parker has been expanding both instrumental technique and applied technology since the late-1960s as well as the breadth of his musical associations. While the Atlantic may separate these bands, the connections are dense. One of the features of the extended piece is a pattern of duets and trios sometimes featuring alike instruments that also draw in other members to create larger ensemble improvisations. The depth of musical relationships? Parker and Rothenberg, paired together here, first recorded as a duo in 1997, while others would be playing together for the first time.

Rather than attempting a description of a work this dense and rich, I’ll leave that to individual listeners. This is an amazing achievement, creative music managing the kind of global event usually reserved for pop superstars. Like several recent events of significance in the field, the project acknowledges the assistance of the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation. 

Trance Map - Horizons Held Close (Relative Pitch, 2024) ***** 

What could be more different and yet somehow the same? In the same period as Trance Map’s greatest expansions, Parker and Wright here return to their original duo form, with Parker playing soprano saxophone and Wright simultaneously employing turntables, software, sampling and processing, transforming Parker’s lines and field recordings into an orchestra of the imagination and strongly referencing his own journey to Mongolia in 2009. Just as it’s rooted in Wright’s turntables, it seems to mimic the LP, though available only as download and CD, with the near identical playing times of two pieces: “Ulaanbadrakh” runs 24:16; “Bayankhongor”, 24:10.

Parker’s intense chirping soprano multiphonics are set amidst an ever-shifting, recycling soundscape in which Parker own’s complex parts are multiplied, repeated, transformed, Parker himself interacting with the variations and the insistent and multiple percussion of Wright’s ever transforming synthetic orchestra, a reflection and extension of Parker’s long-expanding universe of mirrored and transforming musical impulses, as much a communal, collectivist, organic meditation as the globalizing social vision of Transatlantic Trance Map. It is at once constant, hypnotic yet ever changing, an ideal that Parker has been pursuing for decades, and perhaps first fully realized in the solo music of Conic Sections, recorded in 1989.

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Free Jazz Collective's Top Albums of 2024

Drawing by Anjali Grant

Dear readers, 

Thank you for another year of being a part of the Free Jazz Collective! According to our statistics, we have been lucky to see continued readership growth, with a rather noticeable jump in pageviews starting in October and running through November, which peaked at rather jaw-dropping number of 47,906 views in one day! The numbers have settled, but we're still seeing daily pageview count of around 11,000, which is a rather mind-blowing 69% increase from last year - hopefully these views correlate with reality and also with purchases of the recordings being reviewed! Anyway, who really trusts numbers these days? The important thing is you, dear readers, and you, dear writers, and most of you, dear artists who keep giving something that keeps us going. 

So, now to everyone's favorites - the lists. Below are the top 10 albums of the year lists from the writers of the Free Jazz Collective, but first, the top entries from the lists. How this is done is that the most listed recordings are culled to produce the list of top recordings of the year. Our rules are simple: any recording that appears on a list must have been reviewed on the Free Jazz Blog (or by the reviewer personally, somewhere). You can search for any of the recordings listed to read a review of the recording. As you check out the lists, the Collective will be busy voting, from the selections in the first list below, to come up with our top album of the year, which will be presented on January 1st.  

Please share your best of lists too!

Best,
-The Free Jazz Collective

 

Top Albums A - Z (all albums receiving three or more mentions)

Top 10 (entries appeared on the lists four or more times each, included in Album of the Year vote)

• Borderlands Trio - Rewilder (Intakt Records)
  
• Darius Jones - Legend of e'Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidely)
• David Maranha / Rodrigo Amado - Wrecks (Nariz Entupido)
• Fire! - Testament (Rune Grammofon)
• John Butcher + 13 - Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)
• ØKSE - self-titled (backwoodz records)
• The Attic & Eve Risser - La Grande Crue (NoBusiness Records)
• The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - self-titled (Impulse!)
• Mette Rasmussen, Craig Taborn, Ches Smith - Weird of Mouth (Otherly Love)
• أحمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fonstret)

Runners up (appeared in lists times three times each, not included in Album of the Year vote)

• AALY Trio - Sustain (Silkheart)
  
• Angles & Elle-Kari with Strings - The Death of Kalypso (Thanatosis Produktion)
• Matt Mitchell - Illimitable (Obliquity Records)
  
• Matthew Shipp Trio - New Concepts In Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk')
• Nick Dunston - Colla Voce (Out Of Your Head)
• Space - Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch)

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The Collective Lists of 2024

David Cristol

1. Matthew Shipp - The Data (RogueArt)
2. Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers - Central Park's Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook)
3. حمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
4. Matthew Shipp Trio - New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk’)
5. Luís Lopes - Dark Narcissus: Stereo Guitar Solo (Rotten/Fresh / Shhpuma)
6. Joëlle Léandre - Lifetime Rebel (RogueArt)
7. Borderlands Trio - Rewilder (Intakt)
8. Rob Mazurek - Milan (Clean Feed)
9. The Attic and Eve Risser - La Grande Crue (No Business)
10. Yuki Fujiwara - Glass Colored Lily (Defkaz)

Historic/Archival

1. Byard Lancaster - The Palm Recordings 1973-74 (Souffle Continu LP box set)
2. Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy - The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music)
3. Art Ensemble of Chicago - Message to our Folks (BYG-Actuel)

Books

1. Phil Freeman - In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor (Wolke Verlag)
2. Žiga Koritnik - Brötzmann In My Focus (Pega)
   
   

Don Phipps

• Kaze - Unwritten (Circum Disc)
• Fire! - Testament (Rune Grammofon)
• Kris Davis Trio - Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic Records)
• Anthony Braxton - Sax Qt  (Lorraine) 2022 (I dischi di angelica)
• Angelica Sanchez and Chad Taylor - A Monster Is Just An Animal You Haven’t Met Yet (Intakt)
• James Brandon Lewis - Transfiguration (Intakt)
• Sylvie Courvoisier - To Be Other-Wise (Intakt)
• Ivo Perelman, Nate Wooley - Polarity 2 (Burning Ambulance)
• Matthias Spillman Inviting Bill McHenry - Walcheturm (Unit Records)
• Sentient Beings - Truth Is Not the  Enemy (Discus Music)

Historic/Archival

• Cecil Taylor Unit - Live At Fat Tuesdays, February 9, 1980 (First-Archive-Visit)
• Tim Berne and Michael Formanek - Parlour Games (Relative Pitch Records)
• Mal Waldon and Steve Lacy - The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music)
• Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Paul Motian - The Old Country (ECM)
• Derek Bailey & Paul Motian – Duo In Concert (Frozen Reeds) 
• Gush – Afro Blue (Trost Records)
  
  

Eyal Hareuveni

• Isabelle Duthoit & Franz Hautzinger - Dans le Morvan (Relative Pitch)[read here]
  
• Stian Westergus & Maja S. K. Ratkje - All Losses Are Restored (Crispin Glover) [read here]
  
• Joe Mcphee (with Ken Vandermark) - Musings of a Bahamian Son: Poems and Other Words by Joe Mcphee (Corbett vs Dempsey)
• Alexander Hawkins / Sofia Jernberg - Musho (Intakt)
• The Attic & Eve Risser - La Grande Crue (NoBusiness)
• John Butcher - Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)
• ØKSE  - self-titled (Backwoodz Studioz)
• أحمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fönstret[
• Nacka Forum - Peaceful Piano (Moserobie)[read here]
  
• Joëlle Léandre / Elisabeth Harnik / Zlatko Kaučič - Live in St. Johan (Fundacja Słuchaj) [read here]
  
  

Ferruccio Martinotti

• Ballister - Smash and Grab (Aerophonic)
• Fire! - Testament (Rune Grammofon)
• Darius Jones - Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (Aum Fidelity)
• Ava Mendoza, Dave Sewelson - Of It but Not Is It (Mahakala)
• Pal Nilssen Love, Ken Vandermark - Japan 2019 (Pnl/Audiographic Records)
• ØKSE - self-titled (Blackwoodz Studioz)
• Reed, Edwards, Coudoux - self-titled (Relative Pitch
• Sakata, O'rourke, Rasmussen, Corsano - Live at Superdeluxe Vol. 1 (Trost)
• Frederico Ughi - Infinite Cosmos Calling You You You (577 Records)
• Weird of Mouth - self-titled (Otherly Love)

Historic/Archival

• Brotzmann, Kondo, Parker, Graves - Die Like a Dog ( Cien Fuegos)
• Charles Gayle/ Milford Graves/ William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions Archive)
• Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy - The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music) 
• Gush - Afro Blue (Trost)
  
  

Fotis Nikolakopoulos

• Ute Kanngießer/Eddie Prévost/Seymour Wright - Splendid Nettle (Matchless Recordings)
• Ben Bennett/Michael Foster/Jacob Wick - Carne Vale (Relative Pitch Records)
• TRAPEZE - LEVEL CROSSING (circum-disc, late 2023)
• yPLO - ob TRU (Feedback Moves)
• Feichtmair/Koliibri/Krist/Novotny/Pröll/Winter/Winter - Adschi (Creative Sources)
• Schubert/Rupp/Ohlmeier - Entropy Hug (not applicable)
• divr - Is This water (We Jazz)
• Nathan Hubbard / Kyle Motl - Obsidian (Confront Recordings)
• Wilson Shook/Ted Byrnes - Joy (Other Ghosts)
• Nick Dunston - Colla Voce (Out Of Your Head Records)

Historic/Archive

• Charles Gayle/ Milford Graves/ William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions Archive)
  Though the list above is in no particular order, this doesn't include WEBO. This box set was/is the most adventurous, fiery amazing music for me this whole year.
  
  
• Alice Coltrane - The Carnegie Hall Concert (Impulse!)
• Ofamfa - Children Of The Sun (Moved-By-Sound, Universal Justice Records)
  
  

Gary Chapin

1. Tim Berne’s Ocean’s And - Lucid/Still (Screwgun)
2. George Cartwright and Bruce Golden - Dilate (Self-released)
3. Ivo Perelman, Chad Fowler, Reggie Workman, and Andrew Cyrille - Embracing the Unknown (Mahakala)
4. Matthew Shipp Trio - New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk)
5. Liba Villevecchia Trio + Luis Vincente - Muracik (Clean Feed)
6. Moor Mother - The Great Bailout (Anti-)
7. ØKSE - self-titled (Backwoodz Studioz)
8. Space - Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch)
9. حمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
10. Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet - Hear the Light Singing (RogueArt)

Historic/Archival

1. Tim Berne/Bill Frisell - Live from Someplace Nice (Screwgun)
2. George Cartwright - Ghostly Bee (Mahakala)
3. Cecil Taylor - Live at Fat Tuesdays February 9, 1980 (First-Archive-Visit)
4. Tim Berne and Mike Formanek - Parlour Games (Screwgun)
5. Derek Bailey and Paul Motian - Duo in Concert (Frozen Reeds)
6. Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy - The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music)

Book

• Phil Freeman - In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor (Wolke Verlag)

Gregg Miller

1. AALY Trio - Sustain (Silkheart)
2. Wilson Shook & Ted Byrnes - Joy (Other Ghosts)
3. Russ Johnson, Tim Daisy & Max Johnson - Live a the Hungry Brain (Fundacja Sluchaj)
4. Sylvie Courvoisier - To Be Otherwise (Intakt)
5. Rich Pellegrin - Topography (Slow and Steady Records)
6. STHLM svaga - Plays Carter, Plays Mitchell, Plays Shepp (Thanatosis)
7. Jordina Milla & Barry Guy - Live in Munich (ECM)
8. Hubbub - abb abb abb (Relative Pitch)
9. Joelle Leandre - Lifetime Rebel (Rogueart)
10. John Butcher + 13 - Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)

João Esteves da Silva

• Nick Dunston - Colla Voce (Out of Your Head Records)
  Hands down the album of the year for me, regardless of “genres”. A real work of genius, and possible masterpiece of twenty-first century music, radically subverting opera conventions.

• Alexander Hawkins & Sofia Jernberg - Musho (Intakt Records)
  A breathtaking song cycle, eclectic and yet unified, by one of the world’s foremost creative singers and the great Oxford piano polymath, shattering the singer/accompanist hierarchy.

• Matt Mitchell - Illimitable (Obliquity Records)
  A fully improvised solo piano session for the ages. One to rank alongside stuff like Keith Jarrett’s Solo Concerts, Cecil Taylor’s Silent Tongues, or Craig Taborn’s Avenging Angel.

• Borderlands Trio - Rewilder (Intakt Records)
  In a year full of excellent piano trio albums, this one stood out. I currently know of no other band devoted to the art of spontaneous composition displaying quite the same degree of consistency.

• Stemeseder Lillinger - Antumbra (PLAIST-MUSIC)
  Genreless and wonderfully adventurous electro-acoustic music for the future, by a duo of groundbreaking musician-composers.

• STHLM svaga - Plays Carter, Plays Mitchell, Plays Shepp (Thanatosis Produktion)
  A delightful program, calling for the recognition of Black creative musicians as genuine composers, by an ensemble exploring the lower end of the dynamic range in an altogether rare way in jazz.

• The Attic & Eve Risser - La Grande Crue (NoBusiness Records)
  Rodrigo and Eve might have been an unexpected match, but the result is exceptional, and unlike anything either of them had done previously. A masterclass in focus and controlled intensity.

• Kim Cass - Levs (Pi Recordings)
  One of the freshest and most exciting works of New Brooklyn Complexity to come out lately. Utterly crazy writing, masterfully negotiated, to the point of sounding almost spontaneous.

• ØKSE - self-titled (Backwoodz Recordz)
  More than a successful fusion of hip-hop and avant-garde jazz, ØKSE has its very own, ultramodern aesthetic.

• Angles & Elle-Kari with Strings - The Death of Kalypso (Thanatosis Produktion)
  An exquisitely produced jazz opera, full of mystery and pathos, already sounding somewhat timeless.

Lee Rice Epstein

Ranked, as usual, because there can only be one number one.

1. Matthew Shipp Trio - New Concepts In Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk')
   This is it right here, the best album of the year. Shipp had a solo album that nearly took its place (if you know me, you know I try not to repeat players in my list), but this won me over early and nothing ever quite took its place…
   
   
2. Darius Jones - Legend of e'Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity)
   Except this one!! Which came very close to topping my list, as well. It's a wild year for wild, brilliant music.
   
   
3. Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra - Louis Armstrong's America, Volumes 1–4 (ESP-Disk')
   For some reason, we haven't covered Allen Lowe's music here, like, at all. Which is weird! Maybe this is the year all that changes.
   
   
4. Jason Stein, Marilyn Crispell, Damon Smith, Adam Shead - spi-raling horn (Balance Point Acoustics)
   Smith had an album drop late in the year that took my breath away, but this one stayed in rotation for months. Credit where due to its captivating sounds.
   
   
5. أحمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fonstret)
   C'mon, we all know this is going to rate highly for so many reasons, not least of which being the band is on fire.
   
   
6. Space - Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch)
   Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman and Anna Lund, sometimes known as the rhythm section at the heart of Anna Högberg's Attack, should be better known now as the piano trio Space.
   
   
7. Matt Mitchell - Illimitable (Obliquity Records)
   It seems like 2024 was the year of the piano trio, and I loved Mitchell's latest. And yet, his solo album is a triumph.
   
   
8. Anthony Braxton - 10 Comp (Lorraine) 2022 (Tri-Centric)
   Two lineups tackling a new book of compositions, written not very long before going on the road. Braxton should be an inspiration to us all, there really are no limits.
   
   
9. John Zorn - New Masada Quartet, Vol. 3 (Tzadik Records)
   The first live album for this latest quartet of Zorn's, released as a single track. You wouldn't want to listen to it any other way.
   
   
10. Weird of Mouth - self-titled (Otherly Love)
    Rasmussen had maybe the best year ever, with half a dozen albums I've had on permanent rotation. This one just rose to the top of that pile in recent weeks, and wow is it a scorcher.

Martin Schray

• Ballister - Smash and Grab (Aerophonic Records, 2024)
  The best band in the free jazz world, I stick to it
  
  
• The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - self-titled (Impulse)
  Punk/Hardcore clashes into Free Jazz
  
  
• Darius Jones - Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity)
  Possibly the best and most interesting saxophonist these days
  
  
• ØKSE - self-titled (backwoodz records)
  Free Jazz meets HipHop, finally with excellent results
  
  
• Fire! - Testament (Rune Grammofon) 
  No end-of-the-year-list without Fire! (Orchestra)
  
  
• David Maranha & Rodrigo Amado - Wrecks (Nariz Entupido)
  Is it possible to have an end-of-the-year-list without Rodrigo?
  
  
• Mats Gustafsson / Liudas Mockūnas- Watching a dog. Smiling. (NoBusiness)
  A dark raging hell ride. two masters at work
  
  
• Steve Baczkowski - Cheap Fabric (Relative Pitch)
  The pure essence of a free jazz saxophone
  
  
• Amalie Dahl/Henrik Sandstad Dalen/Jomar Jeppsson Søvik- Live in Europe (Nice Thing Records)
  Anyone who manages to elicit something new from this format deserves to be in theTopTen
  
  
• Dave Rempis & Tashi Dorji - Gnash (Aerophonic Records)
  Folk music, Bhutanese roots music, blues and psychedelic rock - true world music

Historic/Archival

• The Laws of William Bonney Saxophone Quartet 1993 - 2007: Self- titled (Acheulian Handaxe) 
  The misfit in this list; no idea why they didn’t release this music back in the days
  
  
• Olaf Rupp - Earth And More (scatterARCHIVE)
  Not really free jazz, but an important document that shows Rupp at a crossroads in his career
  
  
• Charles Gayle/ Milford Graves/ William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions Archive)
  Music that not only seems to come from another time, but also from another universe
  
  

Nick Metzger

• Barry Guy Blue Shroud Band - all this this here (Fundacja Słuchaj)
• John Butcher + 13 - Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)
• The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - self-titled (Impulse!)
• Magda Mayas’ Filamental - Ritual Mechanics (Relative Pitch)
• K. Curtis Lyle/George R. Sams/Ra Kalam Bob Moses Sextett - 29 Birds You Never Heard (Balance Point Acoustics)
• Darius Jones - Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity)
• أحمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fonstret)
• Weird of Mouth - self-titled (Otherly Love)
• David Maranha/Rodrigo Amado - Wrecks (Nariz Entupido)
• AALY Trio - Sustain (Silkheart)

Historic/Archival

• Charles Gayle/ Milford Graves/ William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions Archive)
• EMT - 1973, Editions 1-4 (SÅJ)
• Louis Moholo-Moholo - Louis Moholo-Moholo’s Viva La Black (Ogun)
• Atrás del Cosmos - Cold Drinks, Hot Dreams (Blank Forms)
  
  

Nick Ostrum

• Nick Dunston – Colla Voce (OOYH)
• ØKSE - self-titled (backwoodz records)
• Cheryl Duvall & Patrick Giguère - Intimes Exubérances (Redshift Records)
• Gordon Grdina’s the Marrow – With Fathieh Honari (Attaboygirl Records)
• Peter Evans’ Being and Becoming – Ars Memoria (More is More)
• Wadada Leo Smith and Aminda Claudine Myers – Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths, Garden (Red Hook Records)
• James Brandon Lewis and the Messthetics – self-titled (Impulse!)
• K. Curtis Lyle, George R. Sams, Ra Kalam Bob Moses Sextet - 29 Birds You Never Heard (Balance Point Acoustics)
• Jeremiah Cymerman – Body of Light (5049 Records)
• Adam Rudolph and Tyshawn Sorey – Archaisms I and II (Defkaz)
  

Historic/Archival:

• Cecil Taylor Unit – Live at Fat Tuesday’s, February 9, 1980, First Visit (Ezzthetics)
• Mars Williams and Hamid Drake – I Know You Are But What Am I (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• Charles Gayle, William Parker, Milford Graves – WEBO (Black Editions Archive)
• Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy - The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music)

Book:

• Žiga Koritnik - Brötzmann In My Focus (Pega)

Paul Acquaro

1. The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - self-titled (Impulse!)
2. Space - Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch)
3. Sakina Abdou/ Marta Warelis/ Toma Gouband - Hammer, Roll and Leaf (Relative Pitch)
4. The Attic and Eve Risser - La Grande Crue (No Business)
5. Borderlands Trio - Rewilder (Intakt Records)
6. Han-earl Park, Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia – Gonggong 225088 (Waveform Alphabet)
7. Ivo Perelman’s Sao Paulo Creative 4 - Supernova (s/r)
8. Janel Leppin - To March is to Love (Cuneiform)
9. Jon Irabagon I Don't Hear Nothin' But the Blues - Vol.3, part 2: Exuberant Scars (Irrbagast)
10. Peter Evans - Extra (We Jazz, 2024)
    

Historic/Archive

• Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy - The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music)
• The Arthur Blythe Quartet - Live from Studio Rivbea (NoBusiness)
• Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co / David Borden - Make Way For Mother Mallard : 50 Years of Music (Cuneiform)
  
• Bob Dylan - The 1974 Live Recordings (Columbia)
  Does this belong here? Absolutely not, but this is my all-time favorite Dylan period, so I'm going for it. 

Sammy Stein

1. Ivo Perelman and Fay Victor - Messa Di Voce (Mahakala Music)
   I liked how both improvisers encouraged the other and pushed them into challenging areas.
   
   
2. Paula Rae Gibson- The Roles We Play to Disappear (33Xtreme)
   The emotional content is barely contained in this music but controlled enough to give the listener a sense of the artist's inner soul.
   
   
3. Olie Brice, Rachel Musson, Mark Sanders - Immense Blue (West Hill Records)
   Improvisers proving what different ideas can create
   
   
4. Satya - Songs of The Fathers: A Celebration of the Music of Abdullah Ibrahim (Resonant Artists)
   Creative and beautiful interpretations and superb musicianship combine to make this a worthy listen.
   
   
5. Montresor - Autopioesis (s/r, 2024)
   Many different facets are combined in a unique styling.
   
   
6. Maddelena Ghezzie and Ruth Goller - Dolomite (Deng Yue records)
   The listener is taken on a sonic journey with the musicians
   
   
7. Samo Salamon, Vasil Hadzimanov, and Ra Kalam, Bob Moses - Dances of Freedom (Samo)
   Different influences meld together seamlessly.
   
   
8. Jelle Roozenberg and Han Bennink - Live At Galloway Studio (Sound of Niche)
   Both musicians show on this recording why their reputations are what they are.
   
   
9. Lars Fiil - New Ground (self-release)
   Lars shows how he has developed and found new ways to travel on this stellar recording.
   
   
10. Giuseppe Doronzo, Andy Moor, Frank Rosaly - Futuro Ancestrale (Clean Feed)
    The wonderful landscape created continues the journey for this creative musician.

Sarah Grosser

Records that impacted me greatly in 2024, reviewed on Free Jazz Collective:

• Semeseder & Lillinger - Antumbra (Plaist)
• Etienne Nilessen - en (Sofa)
• Jordan Mila, Barry Guy - Live in Munich (ECM)
• Neon Dilemma - Neon Dilemma (Klang Records)
• Ches Smith - Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic)
• Mary Halvorson - Cloudward (Nonesuch Records)
• Weird of Mouth - self-titled (Otherly Love)
• Reza Askari’s ROAR feat. Christopher Dell - Zen World Cables (Boomslang Records)
• Steffi Narr, Oliver Steidle - Introduction (self released)
• Ingrid Schmoliner - I Am Animal (Idyllic Noise)

Stef Gjissels

• Kris Davis Trio – Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic Records)
• Angles + Elle-Kari – The Death Of Kalypso (Thanatosis Produktion)
• Gonçalo Almeida, Susana Santos Silva & Gustavo Costa - States of Restraint (Clean Feed)
• Christoph Erb, Magda Mayas & Gerry Hemingway - Hour Music (Veto)
• John Butcher + 13 - Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)
• Lina Allemano's Ohrenschmaus & Andrea Parkins - Flip Side (Lumo Records)
• Hubbub - abb abb abb (Relative Pitch)
• David Maranha & Rodrigo Amado - Wrecks (Nariz Entupido)
• Desarbres Ensemble - Live at 6nd Spontaneous Music Festival, 2022 (Spontaneous Live Series) 
• Earth Tongues - Anemone (Neither Nor)

Historic/Archival 

• Gush - Afro Blue (Trost Records)

Stuart Broomer

• Sakina Abdou/ Marta Warelis/ Toma Gouband - Hammer, Roll and Leaf (Relative Pitch)
• أحمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
• Anthony Braxton - 10 Comp (Lorraine) 2022 (Braxton House)
• John Butcher + 13 - Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)
• Joëlle Léandre - Lifetime Achievement (Rogueart) [read here]
• Ute Kanngießer/ Eddie Prévost/ Seymour Wright - Splendid Nettle (Matchless Recordings) [read here]
• David Maranha/ Rodrigo Amado - Wrecks (Nariz Entupido)
• Onceim - Laminaire (Relative Pitch) [read here]
• Jason Stein, Marilyn Crispell, Damon Smith, Adam Shead - spi-raling horn (Balance Point Acoustics/ Irritable Music)
• Transatlantic Trance Map - Marconi’s Drift (False Walls)

Certain musicians, otherwise unnamed but essential to current improvised music, stand out here:

Pat Thomas appears on three of these recordings: [Ahmed], Butcher + 13, and Transatlantic Trance Map; Hannah Marshall appears with Butcher + 13 and Transatlantic Trance Map; Craig Taborn appears with Transatlantic Trance Map and Joëlle Léandre; Seymour Wright appears with [Ahmed] as well as on Splendid Nettle. Antonin Gerbal is a member of both [Ahmed] and Onceim.

Historic/Archival

• Charles Gayle/ Milford Graves/ William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions Archive)
• Andrew Hill - A Beautiful Day, Revisited (Palmetto)
• Mal Waldron/ Steve Lacy - The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental)

Taylor McDowell

• Oùat - Trial of Future Animals (Self-Released)
• Weird of Mouth - self-titled (Otherly Love)
• مد [Ahmed] - Wood Blues (Astral Spirits)
• Matt Mitchell - Illimitable (Obliquity Records)
• Satoko Fujii Quartet - Dog Days of Summer (Libra)
• Darius Jones - Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity)
• Fire! - Testament (Rune Grammofon)
• ØKSE - self-titled (Backwoodz Studioz)
• AALY Trio - Sustain (Silkheart)
• Laura Jurd & Paul Dunmall - Fanfares and Freedom (Discus) 

Historic/Archive

• Gush - Afro Blue (Trost Records) 

Troy Dostert

• Borderlands Trio - Rewilder (Intakt)
• Steve Coleman and Five Elements - PolyTropos (Pi Recordings) [read here]
• Isaiah Collier and the Chosen Few - The Almighty (Division 81 Records)
• Caleb Wheeler Curtis - The True Story of Bears and the Invention of the Battery (Imani Records) [read here]
• Matt Mitchell - Zealous Angles (Pi Recordings)

William Rossi

1. ØKSE - self-titled (Backwoodz Studioz)
2. David Maranha / Rodrigo Amado - Wrecks (Nariz Entupido)
3. Angles + Elle-Kari - The Death of Kalypso (Thanatosis Produktion)
4. The Attic and Eve Risser - La Grande Crue (No Business)
5. Sinonó - La espalda y su punto radiante (Subtext / Multiverse LTD)
6. Fire! - Testament (Rune Grammofon)
7. Mary Halvorson - Cloudward (Nonesuch)
8. The Necks - Bleed (Northern Spy)
9. Makoto Kawashima - Zoe (Black Editions)
10. Weird of Mouth - self-titled (Otherly Love)

Historic/Archive

11. Charles Gayle / Milford Graves / William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions Archive)

Read More

John Zorn - New Masada Quartet, Vol. 3 (Live) (Tzadik Records, 2024)

By Lee Rice Epstein

John Zorn’s inaugural 1990s Masada songbook ranks as one of the most iconic books of compositions in modern jazz, alongside equally recognizable and influential songbooks of that time, like Anthony Braxton’s collage music, Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus, and Tim Berne’s Bloodcount. These groups, and the altoists at their helms, launched new ways of composing, performing, and listening to modern jazz—it’s like alleged joke Brian Eno made about the Velvet Underground, not a lot of people bought their first record, but everybody who did started a band. And among those bands, here comes John Zorn with his New Masada Quartet with their third album, the first live document of this lineup.

New Masada Quartet earned a spot alongside their namesake with their first outing in 2021, an eight-song, roughly hour-long trip that gestured toward Memory Lane, then took an immediate left turn down Got You, Sucker. In other words, this isn’t a nostalgic project as much as its a renewal or declaration of intent, performed with a revamped lineup of Zorn on alto, Julian Lage on guitar, Jorge Roeder on bass, and Kenny Wollesen on drums. All three have recorded at least a dozen other albums of Zorn’s music, and, as a result, they are deeply familiar with the various books and approaches he’s taken over the years. New Masada Quartet isn’t just “playing the hits”; the group plays songs from the book not quite like they’ve been done before. This feels like a natural next step after Masada Books Two & Three, where the composer entrusted about 40 ensembles to record the songbook, where Zorn has come back around to take the lead role once more.

Volume 3 (Live) was recorded at Roulette on May 24, 2024, mixed about fifteen days later, and released this fall. It’s about as close as audiences can get to hearing a band in motion, with less than six months from performed to packaged. The opener “Acharei Mot” was recorded four times with the original lineup, a mid-set, mid-tempo number that allowed the group to stretch out before the final stretch. Here, Zorn takes the song quite a bit faster, relying on Wollesen’s rumbling, percussive drive to urge the quartet beyond whatever might be a normal band’s breaking point. Watch any clip on YouTube, you’ll see the joy radiating from all four players, as they rip barn-burner solos off, then throw in a quick stop and pivot to a restatement of the theme or a wholly new idea.

Lage is a fascinating addition to Zorn’s cast, fitting in somewhere between long-time partners Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot (he’s also played with both), and he seems to delight in opening up his palette to the myriad influences in Zorn’s music. As often as he plays back and forth with Zorn, Lage does a lot of background duetting with Roeder, who has become a foundational player in several of Zorn’s ensembles. A brief Roeder-Zorn duet cuts right through the opening of “Karaim,” where the head is typically blown by one or more players. Roeder lays down more of a funky shuffle, where previously Masada, Electric Masada, and Bar Kokhba each approached from their own vantage points of, to simplify things, jazz, fusion, and chamber music.

“Dalquiel” opens a sequence of three compositions from Masada Book Two, Book of Angels. Grouped with “Rahtiel” and “Mibi” (both of which were also recorded in-studio for Volume 1 and Volume 2), the center of the album demonstrates just how varied the whole of the Masada songbook became over the course of 613 compositions. Zorn’s rich, full tone here—arguably more than some of his high-pitched wailing—reminds one of how he’s also an incredible player, again bringing to mind Braxton, Threadgill, Berne, all of whom still manage to blow minds every time they pick up a horn.

For a closer, the band pulls out “Sansanah,” one of the earliest compositions (number six of the first songbook’s 205), it’s also appeared now over five times in the hands of different groups and artists. In some ways, this is the most passionate reading in the catalog, with a dazzling, deeply felt Zorn solo near the end that directs the group toward a contemplative landing. It’s a phenomenal closer, and in a final introduction of the band, Zorn sounds simultaneously proud, grateful, and delighted by the set. It’s no wonder this was chosen for release; one hopes to see many more live sessions soon.

 

Available direct from Tzadik

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=9315

Available overseas from Soundohm and Boomkat

https://www.soundohm.com/product/new-masada-quartet-volume

https://boomkat.com/products/new-masada-quartet-vol-3-live

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