Bittolo Bon / Grillini – Spell/Hunger (Hora Records, 2025)

By Guido Montegrandi

Spell/Hunger is a new chapter in Bittolo Bon's (augmented sax, feedback and electronics) search for a sound that develops and thrives at the intersection between acoustic and electronic sources. This time, he plays in duo with Andrea Grillini on drums, percussion and electronics; a musician with whom he shares a long history of collaborations (Bread&Fox, Youruba, Rex Kramer Trio, Tower Jazz Composer Orchestra).

On the album, the sound of the acoustic instruments is often augmented with electronic effects but most of all the electronics provide a grounding, a sort of basso continuo that allows the two musicians to move freely. The final result possesses a hypnotic quality that sets the listener into a pervasive fascinating sonic environment.

The first track 'Spell/Hunger #1 - pangolin summoner' unrolls on a repeated reed pattern with the percussion that develops around it with a sparse quality. The global sound never escalates with the two musicians defining a sonic horizon based on subtle nuances and evolving rhythmic patterns.

This is a feature that characterizes almost every track and even when the sound gets thicker as in 'Sports' or 'Ongok Sunside', Bittolo Bon and Grillini create dense and obsessive forms that never give to a liberating yelling and thumping.

The thing that the augmented sounds seem to add to the mix is a sense of inescapable anxiety, a kind of restless hungry feeling (to quote Mr Dylan). 'Bite the Beaver' for example displays a heavy drum pattern augmented with electronics that is then topped by a distant dissonant reed; in about three minutes everything dissolves into a crackling whistle.

All of this work carries the listener on the verge of something, every sound could develop in every direction but then every sound is left somehow suspended…an unsettling but thought provoking sensation. Absolutely worth listening.

Spell/Hunger is released by Hora Records.

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Spaces Unfolding + Pierre Alexandre Tremblay – Shadow Figures (Bead Records, 2024)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

The trio of Spaces Unfolding (Emil Karlsen on drums, Neil Metcalfe on flute, Philipp Wachsmann on violin) has been reviewed here on this site before and was, still is, a main feature on the resurrection of the great Bead Records. This trio channels the very essence of the experimental ethos in music, using improvisational techniques and practices as a means to a collective feeling about music. It’s not an easy task and they make it even more difficult for themselves by adding the complex electronics of Pierre Alexandre Tremblay. To clarify things, by more difficult I mean that, always, adding another person takes time and energy to continue in the same vein. Improvisation is demanding, that’s why its fruits are so juicy.

The presence of Tremblay marks a shift in the jazz based free improv stance of the trio. He helps create atmospheres where the respected instruments of the trio move freely without any hesitation. I’m, as a listener but also as someone who feels that the less amplification the better nowadays, quite skeptical about the use of electronics in any kind of freely improvised musics. Apart from my latter comment, electronics can easily saturate the music, leaving the acoustic nature of it behind, making it many times barely inaudible.

But on Shadow Figures this isn’t the case, quite the opposite. It seems that Tremblay’s use of the ambience of the recording space opened up new possibilities for them. Both the violin and the drums seem to be ever-expanding in every audio way is possible. The duo of Wachsmann and Karlsen offer the listener an alternative way to hear. The percussive nature of the violin (sounds from its body and strings) is at the forefront, while Karlsen’s playing is full of ideas, gestures and small scale energetic playing. Metcalfe’s flute is a part of the electronic dialect between him and Tremblay’s humble use of electronics.  In some tracks, like the two part Refractions, Tremblay takes the upper hand, transforming Shadow Figures into almost an ambient record. But that’s one of the facets of the quartet’s music. Quite thrillingly there are many of them, and in terms of listening and exploring this CD is one of the most demanding I’ve listened to the whole year. One of the best and most rewarding too.

Listen here: https://beadrecords.bandcamp.com/album/shadow-figures

@koultouranafigo

 

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Columbia Icefield with Susan Alcorn

The news of pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn's passing came as quite a shock yesterday. Today's video features Susan in Nate Wooley's Columbia Icefield project. Susan was also in the trumpeter's thunderous Seven Storey Mountain VI. In 2021, Alcorn appeared at Jazzfest Berlin performing Columbia Icefield. Of it, I wrote:

...The mournful, charged, amplified breath blew a cold breeze across the stage. It was musical dawn, and guitarist Ava Mendoza provided the first rays of light breaking through the tonal darkness. Deep, thick droning tones hovered in the background, emanating from Susan Alcorn's pedal steel guitar. As the music awoke, the textures came into sharp relief: Wooley changing from a metallic rush of sound to a mournful melody, drummer Ryan Sawyer adding additional texture, and Mendoza delivering aggressive arpeggios and discordant tones. 

It seems a video of that performance is not readily available, but I did stumble upon this version from Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, with Alcorn, of course, and Mary Halvorson replacing Mendoza: 

 

- Paul Acquaro

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kelly bray + caleb duval - BRAY/DUVAL (F.I.M. Records, 2024)

By Jury Kobayashi

Bray/Duval is an incredible duo album by Kelly Bray (trumpet) and Caleb Duval (double bass). It was released by the relatively new record label F.I.M. Records, out of New Haven Connecticut, which also hosts a concert series by the same name. This record is easily one of my favourite releases of 2024. The album is quite short (roughly 35 minutes in length), and I find I often listen to it twice in a row because of the sheer amount of amazing playing packed into a beautifully succinct album.

In Perpetual Frontier: Properties of Free Music, Joe Morris outlines that there are 5 methods of interaction (solo, unison, compliment, juxtaposition, silence) that free music musicians can choose to engage in when they play. This duo uses all 5 forms of interaction, weaving them in and out and bouncing between the different types of interaction, often changing the mode of interaction on a dime. This album is a lesson in interaction, and it makes for an amazing listening experience. Bray has one of the widest pallets of articulation on the trumpet that I have ever heard. She can go from a beautiful rich tone, to spluttering attacks, to percussive punchy notes. Duval plays the bass beautifully, and he is clearly engaged in a deep study of the possibilities of preparing the double bass. The effect of the wide range of articulations and careful attention to modes of interaction has produced an album that demands repeated listening.

The album art (painted by Bray) is layered and striking, much like the album itself. The recording is also beautifully done--I love that I can hear Duval preparing the instrument, or removing preparations from under the strings etc. This album is great, I highly recommend listening to it and checking out other F.I.M. records and concerts if you are in the Connecticut region.

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Susan Alcorn (1953 - 2025)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

Some news simply comes out of nowhere, it catches us unprepared and on the wrong foot. The news of Susan Alcorn’s sudden death is such news. Nobody expected it; she had recently played concerts in Europe- in front of euphoric audiences. There was no one like her who managed to combine country and western elements with free improvisation so elegantly. Anyone who spoke to her found an incredibly friendly person who could talk about her instrument with a unique enthusiasm. The musical (and human) loss is just immense.

Susan Alcorn was born in Cleveland/Ohio in 1953. She grew up in a musical family and said that her earliest musical experience was a situation in which she sat under the piano as a small child while her mother played - and she played the pedal, her first musical instrument, as she put it. As a child, she was surrounded by the music her parents listened to - Igor Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Bach, Beethoven, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, but also pop music from the radio. She herself began playing the guitar at the age of twelve, inspired by her interest in folk, blues and the pop music of the sixties. She loved Muddy Waters which was why she wanted to play the slide guitar. One evening, when she was about 16 years old, she heard excerpts of John Coltrane’s OM on the radio. The next day she went out and bought His Greatest Years.

In 1975, she saw someone playing pedal steel guitar in a nightclub. She was immediately drawn to the magical, metallic sound and marveled at how the shiny bottleneck seemed to float above the instrument. As with the Coltrane record, she went out and bought the instrument the very next day. It was the start of a lifelong journey of musical discovery and a love affair, which - however - didn’t start easily. First, Alcorn took the obvious way and played in country & western bands. Technically, of course, she had to learn the instrument, but the critique was often direct and brutal. Her first “compliment“ as a pedal steel player came from a musician who came up to her and said he liked the songs she played, but not the way she played. Other musicians also had no sympathy and grimaced when she played. However, she later said that she was grateful for this criticism. It was the only way she was able to acquire the armor she later needed to push the boundaries of her instrument with free jazz influences, classical avant-garde music, Indian ragas and various styles of worldwide roots music.

To improve her technique, she copied the music of her steel guitar and blues heroes: Buddy Emmons, Lloyd Green, Jimmy Day, Curly Chalker, Maurice Anderson, Robert Johnson, Bukka White and many more. She also took lessons from anyone who would teach her, especially Maurice Anderson, who was very supportive. In 1981, she moved to Houston/ Texas, where she played with local and regional country and western swing groups. Alcorn described her time there as her real musical education. In addition to regular country swing jams, she weekly drove to the Third Ward to study jazz improvisation with Dr. Conrad Johnson, whose pentatonic approach to improvisation opened the door to improvised music and the vast possibilities of dissonances.

Alcorn then met the composer and philosopher Pauline Oliveros in 1990 and ended up working with her. Possibly, this was the decisive turning point in her musical life. Oliveros introduced her to her deep listening approach to music (and life). A second turning point was a moment in 1997 when she was asked by trombonist David Dove to play a 12-minute solo set live. Alcorn decided to do this without any guidelines, nothing was planned, it was free improvisation par excellence. She had never played a solo set before and was quite afraid of it. But when the moment came, she looked the audience in the eye and began to play. She described this experience as absolutely liberating - it was just her, the pedal steel, the audience and the room.

Since that moment, Susan Alcorn has played with everyone who is anyone in the free improv scene, e.g. Joe McPhee, Nate Wooley, Ken Vandermark, Ellery Eskelin, Mary Halvorson and many more. She particularly emphasized her work with Eugene Chadbourne (with whom she was able to perfectly combine country and free improvisation) and her work with Peter Kowald. She knew no boundaries, as her work with Olivier Messiaen, Astor Piazzolla and Roberta Flack proves. She recently played Messiaen compositions to a sold-out audience in Zurich in Switzerland.  

Susan Alcorn recorded lots of exceptional albums. Possibly our favorite is Pedernal (Relative Pitch, 2020) with her quintet with Michael Formanek on bass, Ryan Sawyer on drums, Mary Halvorson on guitar and Mark Feldman on violin. Another beauty is Mirage (Clean Feed, 2013), a trio with Ellery Eskelin on tenor sax and Michael Formanek on bass. Her solo album Soledad (Relative Pitch, 2015), on which she plays compositions by Astor Piazzolla, is outstandingly beautiful. Also very much recommended are her trio Birds Meets Wire (Relative Pitch, 2021) with cellist Leila Bordreuil and sax player Ingrid Laubrock, as well as Filament (Relative Pitch, 2024), a duo with tenor saxophonist Catherine Sikora. A personal favorite of mine is Columbia Icefield (Northern Spy, 2019), a record by Nate Wooley (trumpet, effects), with her, Mary Halvorson (electric guitar), and Ryan Sawyer (drums, voice).

Susan Alcorn still had many plans. She was in the process of recording a trio album with Lori Freedman and Mat Maneri, scheduled for release this year. In July, Relative Pitch wanted to record a sequel to the trio with her, Ingrid Laubrock and Leila Bordreuil and she also worked on a Messiaen project. In addition, she was scheduled to play at Big Ears Festival with Mary Halvorson and Ryan Sawyer, among others. Finally, a tour with Catherine Sikora was planned for April. All of this is no longer possible. The news of her death shocked us all and many have lost a true friend. The music world has lost a queen.

Watch Susan Alcorn play in Gdansk in 2020: 

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Acqua Pesante - Shaping the Time (Phonogram Unit, 2024)

By Aloysius Ventham

The stated aim of the album is to incorporate music, broadly understood as jazz music, within the Spatialist and Nuclear Movement project(s). It is, therefore, perhaps a solid exegetical strategy, and possible point of entry, to spend some time looking at their project.

Both Spatialism and the Nuclear Movement (still active projects today) emerged from the avant-garde scene in post-war Italy. While various manifestos of intention were released, themes tended to centre around destruction, creation and technology. There is a stated and tangible antipathy to The Old Ways that merely aimed to entertain and please (in the perjorative senses of the word) ‘consumers’ of art. Spatialism and the Nuclear movement aimed to throw of this mediocritizing ‘crowd pleasing’ bent via various disruptive provocations – creation not for consumption, but for a sort of anti-consumption. Creation not for a mundane, borderline-anhedonic pleasure, but for discomfort. To this end, new methods of artistic expression, new mechanisms of artistic creation , were adopted (those that utilised state-of-the-art technologies were to be preferred), thus creating ever-new textures, colours, spaces and arrangements.

What would a musical equivalent to this be, and do Acqua Pesante succeed? From their album blurb, we are told that they wish to take Spatialism and Nuclear as a springboard in the following sense:

“The “Acqua pesante” project calls for the need for a new art, which “goes beyond traditional painting, sculpture, poetry and music”, without imposing formal solutions, but encouraging a new creative attitude: art that must update in accordance with the scientific-technological-anthropological evolution of the times.”

One would thus reasonably expect to hear something unified and familiar becoming stressed and deformalized, or perhaps something that begins in a completely ‘free’ fashion become pushed to its structureless limit, developing perhaps geometrically, evolving almost deterministically like a nuclear reaction. Is this what we find? To be honest, I can’t be sure…

The album starts off, to my ear, in a complete state of disunity. The appropriately labelled ‘Blind Instant Composition’ process works very well – the musicians at the beginning of the work sound like they’re playing masterfully, but at random, completely independently from each other. Were the progression of the project to move towards obtaining its stated goal, one would expect this effect to accelerate with each track. What one experiences, however, is a seemingly anastrophic process. The musicians by the end sound more coherent.

The opening track of the album initially sounds like someone cleaning the windows of a particularly untidy and chaotically arranged house. The texture of the sound is uncomfortable and restrictive; the music is incoherent, disordered, disorientating and, borderline stressful. This is, of course, no bad thing and it would be an enormous mistake to stop listening here. While the first track is saturating (Carlo Mascolo’s trombone is overwhelming in the intensity of its strangeness), track two is far more sedate, but no-less interesting. Giacomo Mongelli is able to express his virtuosity as a percussionist and Hernâni Faustino’s accompanying double-bass meeting Mascolo’s croaking trombone is truly an outstanding performance. The second track is probably my highlight of the album acting, if not as a palate cleanser, as a sort of bridge away from referentless noise and towards something more concrete and tangible, albeit complicatedly structured. By track three I was absolutely hooked and was able to make sense of what was going on.

While all the musicians are clearly superlative at their craft, it is probably Mascolo’s trombone playing that will stay with me and keep me returning to the album; the sounds were unusual and chaotic, enrapturing and confusing – I truly couldn’t wish for more.

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the klingt.collective - variable densities (Interstellar Records, 2025)

By Eyal Hareuveni

klingt.org (a wordplay in German that means sounds weird) is the website and the collective of Viennese experimental musicians that celebrated its 25th anniversary in January 2025 with a one-day festival, and with, among other acts, the rarely-heard “nine-musician improvisation hydra” klingt.collective”, on its only third performance. This electro-acoustic ensemble represents musicians-improvisers from a wide spectrum of musical activities - sound art, noise, free jazz, free improvisation, contemporary music, reductionist music, and art-rock. The ensemble was put together by turntables wizard dieb13 (aka Dieter Kovačič) and its first performance was during the 2022 edition of the Wien Modern festival.

The king.collective features drummer Martin Brandlmayr (of Radian, Christof Kurzmann’s El Infierno Musical, and Mats Gustafsson’s Fake The Fact), recorders and tapes player Angélica Castelló (of Disturbio duo with Revox tape wizard Jérôme Noetinger, and the duo Chesterfield with guitarist Burkhard Stangl), dieb13 (of Fake The Facts and Gustafsson’s NU Ensembles, and TWIXT duo), ppooll software player Klaus Filip (of sonic luz and Kurzmann’s Orchester 33 ⅓), bass clarinetist Susanna Gartmayer (of Vegetable Orchestra, GBK and So Sner), cellist Noid (aka Arnold Haberl, of sonic luz), electronics player and bassist Billy Roisz (of The Elks and RWIXT), guitarist and electronics player Martin Siewert of (Radian, Georg Graewe’s Sonic Fiction Orchestra, Also and Fake The Facts and in-demand sound engineer) and guitarist and electronics player Oliver Stotz. These musicians collaborated on countless other projects, bands, performances, and albums.

variable densities is the first album of klingt.collective, “composed ex ante and in real-time” and recorded live during its second performance of the ensemble at Festival Denistés in Fresnes-en-Woëvre, France, in October 2023. True to DIY spirit of the collective, the album was mixed by Siewert and Kovačič, mastered by Siewert, and its ironic cover artwork was made by Kovačič with advice by Roisz and Gartmayer.

The music moves between pre-defined structures and free improvised parts and between the resolute opening of massive waves of disorienting, noisy sounds that demand total surrender to highly nuanced and conversational improvisations that its enigmatic, suggestive sounds have a strong, hallucinatory quality, mirroring the diverse stylistic influences and the various backgrounds of the musicians. Obviously, the dynamics of the ensemble stress the many years of common musical work and profound aesthetic history. The album is divided into two extended pieces, fitting the vinyl release. Side A with the title piece is more sparse with a mysterious, dream-like cinematic quality while Side B, “dense variations” deepens this mysterious, psychedelic vibe but slowly gravitates towards an explosive, cathartic maelstrom. As with all the works of klingt.org ’s musicians, variable densities promise that its attentive listeners would be equipped with a much better, recalibrated sensory consciousness of their environments - real, imagined, and dreamt of.

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Fred Moten / Brandon López / Gerald Cleaver - the blacksmiths, the flowers (Reading Group, 2024)

 

By William Rossi

This record is many things: it's a live album (the best kind of album), it's a critique and exploration of art while being a piece of art itself, it's a musical and political statement, it's dense and cerebral while retaining simplicity and viscerality, it's an iteration on cultural symbols and signifiers, it's an exploration of the human experience through a personal and new lenses which is, put simply, what poetry is. And it's Fred Moten's improvised poetry that this album revolves around.

Sometimes I struggle to convey through words how certain music impacts me and why I think it's great but, funnily enough, I'm finding that conveying how Moten's words make me feel is way harder than describing the music on this record; he effortlessly weaves a thick webbing of his lived experiences, his radical politics and references to current and past events like the murder of Rodney King into a free associative tapestry of feelings and moods that I can't quite untangle neatly or dissect but that simply, as the kids say, hit. The mastery Moten has over the english language is evident, with his vocabulary smoothly jumping from exalted to ordinary just as quickly as he jumps from musings on climate change and the growing hold oligarchy has on our societies to vignettes of interpersonal relationships, creating a miniature replica of the pathways of his brain, intrusive and throwaway thoughts included, a fully fledged universe of his own. 

His wordplay also holds infinite replay value, with new quotes and thoughts jumping out at every listen and sticking in your head like 'we cut each other off to make each other up' when discussing the connections to our fellow humans or the oxymoronic and borderline Lynchian 'having become fleshly with amputation'. Hip-hop fans call them quotables and this album is a treasure trove of wonderful, at times funny and poetic thoughts to sift through and hoard in the back of your mind. Moten's not just great with words, he chooses the best words every time (another definition of poetry).

While the poetry alone is worth the price of admission I'd be remiss not to mention the incredible musicianship from bassist Brandon López and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Their synergy is out of this world and their creativity defies all expectations. López explores his bass in all possible ways: grinding bowed notes, koto-like harmonics, hypnotic ostinatos, fast and spidery runs, everything delivered with fiery intensity and blaring volume. Despite the nature of improvised music and no matter how some of the playing might be physically demanding the bass is never out of sync with the drums, López and Cleaver are focused on and locked in with one another, constantly adding to each other's ideas and leading to exhilarating moments like the blood-pumping, Swans-like crescendo on '1A' or the irresistible rhythms on 'B1' and 'A2'. The pair are the gold standard of what we might reductively call a 'rhythm section', as comfortable with free-tempo caveman bashing as they are with Hip-hop inspired wonky beats, not in the Spotify-approved and sanitized kind of way but in a way that feels honest and true to the artists' vision. All of this while perfectly complementing Moten's contributions to the music and creating a wonderful listening experience. For all the fantastic interplay among these musicians nothing is as emblematic of their great chemistry as the times Cleaver punctuates Moten's lyrics with his own voice. A microcosm of what improvisation is, a nod of approval and enjoyment that's delightful in its simplicity.

Both deeply personal and, in a way, universal, a fantastic album to be played over and over, recorded on two separate nights but cohesive both sonically and lyrically. Available digitally and on double LP from Reading Group with gorgeous, abstract artwork, perfectly suited for the music and words on this record. I can't recommend this enough.

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Lotte Anker /Jacob Anderskov/Kamil Piotrowicz - Antiworld I (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2024)

By Taylor McDowell

As an avid listener of improvised and experimental music, I find satisfaction in “discovering” anything new [to me]. Be it a new artist, musical concept, unusual instrumental configurations, etc. Continual discovery is what attracts us to these types of arts. Antiworld I gratifies my desire to hear something new in two ways: first, it’s my introduction to Polish pianist and composer Kamil Piotrowicz; secondly, I’ve never listened to a trio comprised of two pianos and saxophone.

As to the latter, Kamil describes Antiworlds I as the first of a series of compositions for unique ensembles. Unique, indeed. What’s more are the collaborators Kamil called upon to join him in the inaugural Antiworlds composition: Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker, and her countryman Jakob Anderskov, also on piano. Both Anker and Anderskov teach at Copenhagen’s Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium (RMC), where Piotrowicz was a student prior to conceiving Antiworld.

Antiworld I is a wondrously mature concept and performance from such a young composer, and Piotrowicz fits right in with his veteran collaborators. Recorded live at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 2019, Antiworld I is a single performance broken up into 10 tracks that is best listened to in one sitting. Throughout the performance, Piotrowicz and Anderskov are constant companions. Their duel pianism plots a course through unknown waters, yet they so complement (and antagonize) one another that it’s impossible to tell who’s who. At times, they simultaneously occupy similar timbral or rhythmic ranges, whereas later, one will counter with an opposing musical statement (like a rumbling bass note against shimmering right-handed pianissimo) that crystallizes into a new idea/direction. Unfettered by ego or, to my ear, predetermined roles, the two pianos seem to steer the shifting moods and dynamics. In fact, there are times when I could conceive the performance as a very satisfying piano duo.

Given how snug the musical mesh is, woven by the two pianos, Lotte Anker asserts herself as an indispensable member of the ensemble. Her voice seems to float atop the pianos and enriches the music with emotion and passion. Anker’s phrasing vacillates between long, lamenting tones, piercing feedback-like shrills, and rapid-fire staccato lines. Sometimes, she falls back, allowing the two pianos to chart the course. Her timing is impeccable, and the effect is magnified when she chooses to reenter. Towards the end of the performance, the piece climaxes as the keys put up a thunderous wall, and Anker’s soprano cries out in anguish. Utterly moving.

Given that this is my entry to the musicality of Kamil Piotrowicz, I find myself anxious to “discover” the next of the Antiworlds. Piotrowicz’s compositional vision for “specific and unique ensembles” is beautifully manifested with sterling input from Anker and Anderskov on Antiworld I. Highly recommended.

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Lotte Anker, Jacob Anderskov & Kamil Piotrowicz - Antiworld I (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2024)

By Stef Gijssels

Every record with Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker is to be cherished, whether as a member of the "Fred Frith Trio", as a leader with "Plodi", with Jakob Riis on "Squid Police", on "Birthmark" with Rodrigo Pinheiro and Hernâni Faustino, or on the brilliant "Floating Islands" with Craig Taborn and Gerald Cleaver. This latter album is still a very frequent visitor on my turntable and this trio album with Kamil Piotrowicz and Jacob Anderskov on piano comes close in terms of style and quality. 

The 'leader' of this trio is the young Polish pianist Kamil Piotrowicz, born in 1992, classically trained as of the age of seven, yet getting increasingly interested in improvised music during adolescence. After his musical studies in Gdansk, he continued his training in Denmark. He describes the concept of his music in the liner notes: "

"Antiworld I is the beginning of a cycle of compositions for non-traditional ensembles and improvisers, which I dreamed of starting as a young student at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen back in 2018. This live recording from 2019 is a very special initial exploration, where I had the pleasure of inviting and collaborating on the idea with artists who are extremely important to me: Jacob Anderskov and Lotte Anker. The Antiworlds are still to be created, composed, improvised, dreamed, defined, and found… " 

The ten tracks of the live album form the word "Antiworld", and should be considered as a very long suite with changing angles of approach. The concept of having two grand pianos offering the double rhythmic base for the wonderful lyrical flights of Anker's sax. The pianos move in an out of rhythmic and thematic patterns, often sounding like a gurgling and babbling mountain brook, at high speed or slow speed, yet never bombastic or heavy, keeping a very lightfooted sensitivity, allowing for quieter and more meditative moments, full of freedom, surprises and unexpected turns. Little phrases are often repeated, then changed and repeated again. It is not clear to me which piano is played by either pianist, but that's less relevant than the quality of their interaction. And Anderskov and Piotrowicz are truly symbiotic in this kind of music. 

And of course Anker's participation elevates the beauty of the two pianos and Piotrowicz's musical concept even to a higher level. Her tone is so lyrical, precise, vulnerable, sensitive, sad or joyful, never loud or never overpowering, and always with an incredibly deep emotional power, making every note and the inflection of every note of value. 

I think it's amazing again that such great music takes five years to find a label willing to publish it. We can only appreciate that Fundacja Słuchaj has made the investment. Piotrowicz is a musician with great ideas, and we cannot wait to hear more from him. 

Some pieces are of a true magnificent beauty. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Life is Great - Option A (Owl Way Records, 2024)

By Sarah "FLAKE" Grosser

When consuming jazz on a regular basis, it’s such a welcome change to hear something upbeat and joyful, amidst the sea of intense, emotional think-pieces and busy experimental noodling. It’s the vibrant, happy-go-lucky spirit of Option A that really makes it sparkle. On his website, frontman German drummer/composer Johannes Koch states that the band Life is Great aims to “[recreate] the feeling of his teenage indie/postrock - years… [navigating] between naive simplicity, rhythmic complexity and energetic improvisation.” On this relatable, undeniably charming debut, Koch certainly achieves his goal.

The Berlin based up-and-coming quartet consists of fellow German Johannes “Jojo” Mann on guitar, Danish bassist Thorbjørn Stefansson, and Danish saxophonist Asger Nissen. Each is involved with numerous local and international musical projects: Jim Black’s Jim & The Schrimps, Kaiser Pommes with Kasper Tranberg & Oli Steidle, and Phillip Dornbusch’s Projektor, just to name a few.

On guitar, Mann often utilises a chorus pedal that will be a matter of taste for some, but for others, it adds a twist of '90s nostalgia, bringing a satisfying warmth to the overall sound. In particular, his meandering on the ballad single “No Stuart” is so chill, one would not be surprised to hear indie darling Mac DeMarco offering a vocal feature over the top. Despite its release in December, this song is the perfect soundtrack to a lazy 30°C+ summer afternoon, lounging by the poolside.

Nissen’s saxophone glistens happily on “Happy Cargo,” and indeed the entire album, as he soulfully channels each of Koch’s compositions, bringing them to life with an irresistibly bright sheen. The record is also not without its more austere, experimental moments. “Anleger/Kurve 2327” sees the group break it down with Koch softly pitter-pattering to slow, distant, reverb/effect-heavy guitar chords, sparse sax, and Stefansson’s thoughtful bass accompaniment. It’s a spacey mood-interlude.

Creators on social media are currently releasing videos reminiscing about their youth, and the good old days of 2015, and “Childhood TikToks” announcing, “Take me back to 2020!” But as Koch composed these songs during the pandemic – a time of great uncertainty, mass hysteria, and basic survival – he and the others could be forgiven for prematurely harking back to a simpler, more carefree time, when the only thing that mattered was how much battery life you had left on your iPod Gen3.

So much of life is so shit. Maybe Koch is aware of this, but has come through the other side to his own conclusion. Maybe he outright disagrees, and persists with relentless positivity. Or it’s the opposite - maybe he agrees, and the band name is simply holding a mirror to the good times of his past.

Whatever the answer may be, with music like this - the kind that makes you stop for a moment and reflect, and maybe even smile - then just maybe, life is not so bad after all. 

 

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Joe McPhee & Ken Vandermark

Joe McPhee & Ken Vandermark @ Music Unlimited 38, Schloss Puchberg, Wels, Austria, 2024

 

Eyal Hareuveni wrote this about the set:

The second set featured the one and only Joe McPhee reading insightful and amusing poems about music, and playing the tenor sax, accompanied by Vandermark on tenor sax (both have been collaborating since Vandermark invited McPhee to play in Chicago, resulting in the album A Meeting in Chicago, Okka Disk, 1998. Check McPhee reading his poems on Musings of a Bahamian Son: Poems and Other Words by Joe McPhee, Corbett Vs Dempsey, 2024). McPhee told life lessons of Ornette Coleman who was once asked by trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr.: in what key would like us to play, and the master answered: the only keys I have are the keys in my pocket. McPhee finished this inspiring set with the poem “Fuck Free Jazz”, with McPhee asking the audience to suspend belief and imagine him reading it in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson: …Over sixty years is a long time, fuck free jazz, time for new shit.

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Andy Haas – For the Time, Being (Resonantmusic, 2024)

By Matty Bannond

Strap-on tremolos, hazarai guitar pedals, extreme panning and manipulated vinyl LPs carry Andy Haas’ saxophone to uncharted terrain on this solo record. What are those things? How are they used? Where can listeners spot them in the mix? You won’t find any answers here—but that might be the main message of For the Time, Being. Nothing is certain on this tense, tactile album.

This is Haas’ nineteenth or twentieth release on Resonantmusic. The experimental saxophonist isn’t entirely sure. In the accompanying blurb, however, he’s convinced that only systems with solid low-end response can unleash the full effect of this recording. Low-frequency tracks and effect-altered saxophones swim around in each section. On laptop speakers or pocket-soiled earbuds, they drown.

What does it sound like? Disconcerting and disconnected, but full of discoveries. There’s droning, whirring and revving beneath most of the material. Haas favors the squeakier end of his soprano horn and that gives his voice its complex character by mixing trapped-animal panic with a giggly quality. There’s hurt and humor in these collage-like compositions.

The cry of the blues bubbles up in some passages, most notably on “Protention” and “(im)Material”. Haas plays around with a slide-whistle sound on “Purified in Vain”. Breathy noises and echoing sax on “Wcnsf (Nocturne No. 1)” put the man ahead of the machines.

Many of the tracks reveal a nervous spirit and a nagging sense of remembered pain. But the final piece, “Dehiscence”, rounds things off with a note of optimism. It has a winding-down atmosphere, where spacedust is settling and a state of balance has arrived.

Andy Haas takes the role of a sculptor on this mysterious release. He breathes life into his figures and lets them speak in seldom-heard frequencies that agitate the membrane of his listeners’ eardrums in unfamiliar ways (if they use suitable speakers). For the Time, Being invites its audience to seek connections and contexts. But you won’t find any. Instead, this album offers an experience of disorientation and disturbed assumptions that neatly reflects the current moment in history.

The album is available on CD and as a digital download here .

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Der Dritte Stand - Spontaneous Live Series 015 (Spontaneous Music Tribune, 2024)

 

By Martin Schray

The music of Der Dritte Stand’s second album Spontaneous Live Series 015 evokes powerful images, especially if you close your eyes while listening: Rudi Fischerlehner’s percussion drags heavily along at the beginning of the improvisation, as if a chain gang were moving a mighty tree trunk. Above this, Matthias Bauer’s frantically bowed bass buzzes like a myriad of flies and Matthias Müller’s trombone looms over the other two instruments, heralding disaster. The basic orientation of this structure shifts only minimally in the opening five minutes of the forty-minute piece, e.g. when Fischerlehner changes his beat and Müller abandons the dark, low registers. Only when Bauer stops arcoing after seven minutes and starts with pizzicato, does the - fascinating - first part come to an end and something completely new begins. Bass and drums seem to chase the trombone mercilessly, then they circle each other, almost lurking. The whole thing leads to a dialog between Müller and Fischerlehner, which Bauer seems to comment on with pistol-like shots, as if he was watching the duet with amusement. Additionally, Part 3 almost brings the improvisation to a standstill, but only to take a completely different direction - more airy, more equalized, freer, even if the tempo and concentration are still high at times. Matthias Bauer’s bass in particular takes center stage here. When the trombone kicks in, the music sounds like a blues and American and European traditions are combined in a first-class way.

In the second part of the set, too, the alternation of density and openness remains the main characteristic of the music. Especially towards the end, when the improvisation gets into a deliberate lurch, Müller keeps it stable with a melody, before riding towards the furious end with an increase in tempo and several great riffs hurled out.

What makes the improvisation so special is the clarity, the almost dramaturgically coherent structure, as if the piece was a play. Everything is just right, no phrase is too long or too exaggerated. Arco and pizzicato phases alternate at exactly the right intervals, the drumming is never too expressive, but never too restrained either. If you didn’t know that the set, which was recorded as part of the Silence/Noise 7th Spontaneous Music Festival in Poznań/Poland in October 2023, was completely improvised, you would swear that compositional elements at least played a role. Ultimately, however, it’s simply the somnambulistic certainty with which the three musicians come together that has brought this extraordinary music to life. The audience is rightly enraptured at the end. So am I, and believe me, it’s even more fun listening to it repeatedly.

Spontaneous Live Series 015 is available as a CD and as a download. You can listen to it and buy it here:

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Stories about Thollem (and everyone else) [2/2]

Thollem. Photo by ACVilla

By David Cristol

See part 1 here.

Listening to music

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It depends on how involved I am on any given project, which is pretty much all the time. Because of our travels, I have the great fortune to hear a lot of music that I might not otherwise be exposed to, as well as a lot of live settings, and this is an important part of my life and musical development. An indelible memory is listening to records at the library when I was a kid, and I had a pretty eclectic record collection as well.


Interests and influences

I am more influenced by elements outside of music than by music made by others. Also, very curious about popular science, ancient archeology, quantum physics, astronomy... Everything between the birth canal and the eventuality of death – so they say. I very much love working with artists of other disciplines, and learn a lot when interacting! One of the great benefits of being an artist is that there is always the potential to assimilate all of our experiences and interests. 

Photo by ACVilla

A sense of fun

I'm glad you hear a sense of fun in my music. At the very least, fun is a real-life experience just as are all the “serious” topics, emotions, approaches. I think, “does humor belong in music?” is a serious question, though I don't normally necessarily intend for my music to be humorous. I love music and I love making music with others, it’s where I find joy and relief from suffering, and want to spread this to others. That said, it is also because of how serious I do take it. When we stop to look at life from the human perspective we see constant contradictions underlying it all. For me the little revolutions and the big revolution HAS to include more joy, but at the same time it HAS to include more justice, which is deadly serious.


Shared values

Fortunately, in my line of work, there are endless colleagues I enjoy being and working with. This doesn't mean that I shy away from disagreements or challenging situations, in fact I am constantly finding – or putting – myself into challenging situations. Growth comes through both the abrasive nature of life as well as the joy we share. Generally, musicians and artists have pretty similar political views, at least in my circles. The pandemic and vaccines created a bit of a divide, for sure. It is important to work with people that share similar viewpoints, especially in this moment in time, because our values come through in our expression, and we are living in such a politically perilous moment. I would always hope, however, that nuance in disagreements can be a way to learn and grow. There are certainly people who work harder towards social issues and justice than others and there’s definitely a lot of performative actions with little substance. But this goes with all of humanity. We are all trying to navigate this crazy thing we call life, and it’s not easy for anyone. That said, I would never work with a MAGA supporter, partly because I can’t imagine we would have enough in common to want to create together but also because I wouldn’t want to validate their political beliefs by association.

Improvisation, composition and “comprovisation”

I came up with the “comprovisation” term and put it in some credits, but I don’t think of it as original. It's both an efficient and playful way to describe my approach to music. Where does composition stop and improvisation begin? In some ways I prefer it to the term improvisation, because I think most improvised music is actually quite composed, at least in the sense that in almost every situation, there are preconceived ideas of how musicians will approach their instruments and how they will interact with each other. But of course, it’s not very helpful in the long run if it’s not a common term, and it’s especially unhelpful if the goal is to reach out into the society at large. So, I don’t really use it that often.

A composition is something with a set of parameters that creates an outcome that is distinguishable from any other, no matter how slight. Improvisation is constantly happening in every aspect of the world. Sometimes I use the term instant composition, either for creative or bureaucratic reasons. Certainly, it's a shame that more emphasis is placed on composition by institutions financially. Though I came out of the hyper-composed world of classical music, and have degrees in composition, I believe improvised music has pushed the boundaries equally or even more so. And it was also an integral aspect of the development of classical music for centuries.

Solo piano

My solo piano work is the result of my lifelong practice. When I was young I dreamt of re-establishing the concept of composer/performer that used to be such an important part of what we call classical music. George Antheil was kind of my hero for a while, and then I began to realize that this was alive and well in the overall scope of jazz. Somewhere along the way it all merged for me, composition and improvisation, European concert music and black American music. I have a bunch of recordings out there, most recently Infinite-Sum Game on ESP-Disk’ which is a concert recording in Palermo in 2023.

Synthesizers and electronics

I am primarily inspired by exploring the possibilities of a particular instrument. I was dedicated to the piano for most of my life and didn’t record with an electric rig until about twelve years ago. I decided to take the leap and ended up owning about thirty different rigs. Synthesizers, samplers and mechanical instruments with pedals. Since I live on the road I owned only one at a time, so I was buying, exploring, recording, and selling, then buying a different one and so on. I’ve been working with the Korg Wavestate for about five years now – I’ve had about eight of them with other instruments in between – and have been working a lot utilizing my own recordings as sample sources which developed out of The Light Is Real , for which Terry and I recorded vocal improvisations virtually. His files were corrupted, so I chopped them up, imported them into the Wavestate and played them back through the keyboard with effects. Terry loved it and that gave me the idea to do this with samples from all five of the trio albums with Nels, William Parker, Michael Wimberly and Pauline Oliveros. ESP-Disk' released the first two Worlds in A Life volumes. Live in Dublin / WFMU Live will be coming out on a Limerick-based label in June.

Song and other writing

Most people who know my work do not know that I'm also a singer-songwriter. It definitely hasn't been my emphasis, but I have been writing songs since I was a very young. I'm the lead singer of Tsigoti, as well as with the Hand To Man Band (Mike Watt, John Dieterich and Tim Barnes) and on solo albums such as Machine in the Ghost and Hot Pursuit of Happiness' This Day's Called Tuesday, both on the Personal Archives label from Iowa and on a brand new album I'm self-releasing on Bandcamp called Oligarch Super Villains. Most of my songs are socio-policital commentary, anti-war, and philosophy, but I'm starting to work on an autobiographical album called Godammit Tommy! which is centered on my upbringing in the SF Bay Area and the political and cultural happenings, drawing parallels to the dynamics of our time now. Other than that, I have been published as a writer, most recently for a publication out of the UK called The Land, about experiencing the transition from the Valley Of Heart's Delight to Silicon Valley as a teenager. Over the last decade I have been the sole music writer for First American Art Magazine which is devoted to native artists of the Americas, as well as Essays on Deep Listening (for Pauline Oliveros), Blue Moon Magazine out of Prague, and ThreeFold Press out of Detroit.

Vision Festival and the New York scene

The common ground is the world of sound and our shared humanity. The beauty of freely improvised music is that everyone is coming at it with the idea that we are entering into a known/unknown territory, where exploration and connection with each other is key. William Parker and I first met in Detroit when I opened up for his trio at the old Bohemian National Home and we continued our friendship over the years. He had contributed a composition to Estamos Ensemble, a group of U.S. and Mexican musicians I put together, and eventually I asked if he would like to play with me and Nels Cline. I used to play a lot in New York but I haven’t so much in the last few years, mostly because I’m no longer traveling around the country in our van. It was a thrill to record with Karl Berger[1935-2023]. We were talking about a follow-up recording before he died. A great honor, and I cherish this one recording we made. I also have a couple of albums with Michael Snow, another dearly departed. One was recorded at the Philly Museum of Art to open his retrospective show, and was released by Edgetone Records, and the other one is part of my Astral Traveling Sessions that we recorded at Array in Toronto and published on Astral Spirits as part of a 25-album series of collaborations with many different musicians in 2019 and released during the pandemic.
 

Photo by ACVilla

It was great playing at the 2024 edition of the Vision Festival. I was able to attend the entirety of the fest. The first night was in honor of William who performed with a variety of his projects and ensembles, and I played on the last night, which also included the Sun Ra Arkestra and Marshall Allen for his 100th birthday celebration! I performed a solo piano set as well as Worlds in A Life along with live video art by ACVilla. 

Upcoming projects

This month a duo album is coming out with Carlo Mascolo, a trombonist from Puglia as well as a new Hot Pursuit of Happiness – my solo songs project – album. This album is pretty political. In March I have a duo album with the Uruguayan contrabassist Alvaro Rosso. These are comprovisations based on the structures I devised originally for my duo with Stefano Scodanibbio. We have a concert in Lisbon March 20th. In April will also see the release of Omnileliomatic II with the SIO. We will be celebrating this with a concert in Catania and another in Palermo organized by Curva Minore, the organization founded by Lelio Gianneto. I will also be playing duo concerts with Maria Merlino , a wonderful saxophonist from Messina to celebrate our duo album on Setola di Maiale. The label is run by Stefano Giust, a great drummer whom I originally met in a trio with Edoardo Marraffa . We call ourselves Magimc. Other releases coming out include my first heavy metal album with a band called Akklamation from the Navajo Nation. I got to know them through Diné [the name Navajos call themselves] musician Michael Begay whom I’ve been collaborating with for several years. In September I will be directing the second installment of the Southwest Collaborative Music Convergence which brings together over twenty musicians for three days of collaborations. Everyone is invited as individuals and we play three large ensemble concerts at night as well as smaller groupings, panel discussions, and educational programs. I am also working with Cork Marcheschi, a visual artist and founding member of the 1960s experimental rock band 50-Foot Hose for the next Thollem/Cline trio album. Cork has built an array of mechanical noisemakers and Nels and I will be playing in response to these!


Further meditations

We live in an increasingly perilous moment in time. I believe the arts have an integral role to play in re-envisioning our relationship with each other and the planet. I would encourage everyone to be more curious about what’s happening in smaller pockets, places outside of the cultural meccas, and in your own home town. In all of my travels I have had the privilege to experience artists and communities in small cities and rural areas which are all too often ignored by the larger publications, festivals and audiences. I’ve always thought of counter-culture as something that is truly counter to the anti-values of so much of mainstream culture. I’m afraid to say however, that much of that has been lost to previous eras. The world of improvised and experimental music has adopted many of the same tactics and dynamics of consumerist society: There has been an accumulation of wealth in power. We have our own 1%, as well as cult of personality and celebrity worship, and as a result many beautiful artists are left behind. It should always be about the work itself, not about where you come from, and especially not what resources you have to throw at publicists. I know dynamics are difficult in our world and there are many pressures, and I am not suggesting that those who have the attention are not deserving it, but it seems to me that there should be more curiosity for what is happening in the more obscure parts of the world.

https://www.thollem.com/

https://thollem.bandcamp.com/

Upcoming albums (2025)

• Oligarch Super Villains Godammit Tommy! (January)
• Quattro Frecce e Buonanotte Duo with Carlo Mascolo on Muzic Plus (January)
• Shatter and Conquer Godammit Tommy! (February)
• Memories of Ourselves Duo with Alvaro Rosso on Setola di Maiale (March)
• OmniLelioMatic II with the Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra on Setola di Maiale (April)
• Untitled trio with Jacopo Andreini and Charles Ferris on Bandcamp (May)
• Worlds in A Life Live (Solo Sextet) on Fort Evil Fruit
• Ohms with Akklamation (Heavy Metal band from the Navajo Nation) on TBA

Live in 2025

• Mar 7 (Urbana, IL) @ University of Illinois - Workshop with Improvisers Exchange Ensemble
• Mar 8 (Urbana, IL) @ University of Illinois - 'Stories About People And Everyone Else' (with ACVilla)
• Mar 9 (Chicago, IL) @ The Hungry Brain - Trio with Matt Lux and Avreeayl Ra
• Mar 12 (Detroit, MI) @ Trinosophes - Solo Piano
• Mar 20 (Lisbon, PT) @ Casa do Comum - Duo with Alvaro Rosso (release concert for Memories Of Ourselves) and 'Stories About People And Everyone Else' (With ACVilla)
• Mar 27 (Strasbourg, FR) @ Conservatoire de Strasbourg Workshop plus concert with Tom Mays and Jean-Daniel Hege
• Mar 31 (Zurich, CH) @ XENIX Thollem/ACVilla's 'Stories About People And Everyone Else'
• Apr 3 - 5 (Bologna, IT) @ Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinary Sulla Voce - residency in collaboration with Francesco Venturi
• Apr 6 (Bologna, IT) @ Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinary Sulla Voce - duo with Francesco Venturi
• Apr 10 (Catania, IT) @ Zo with the Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra
• Apr 11 (Palermo, IT) Sala Perriera Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa by Curva Minore - with the Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra
• Apr 12 (Palermo, IT) @ Sala Perriera Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa by Curva Minore - Duo with Maria Merlino for the release on Setola di Maiale
• Sep 18 - 20 (Flagstaff, AZ) @ Coconino Center for the Arts co-Directing the Southwest Collaborative Music Convergence along with Interference Series
  
  

Solo piano (Kuumbwa Jazz Club, 2019):

Thollem on the Free Jazz Blog: 

• Thollem’s Astral Travelling Sessions with Alex Cline & Susan Alcorn (Astral Spirits, 2021) ****
• Ribbons of Euphoria, Music Unlimited 31 Festival, Wels, Austria, Nov. 10-12, 2017 (Part 2 of 2)
• Rob Mazurek – Rome (Clean Feed, 2017) & Chimeric Stoned Horn (Astral Spirits, 2017) ****½
• Thollem | Mazurek - Blind Curves and Box Canyons (Relative Pitch, 2017) ****
• William Parker & Stefano Scodanibbio - Bass Duo (AUM Fidelity, 2017) *****
• Nels Cline - Lovers (Blue Note, 2016) ***½
• Over the Pavement: Detroit's Festival of Art Music (Tom Weber Films, 2015) ****
• Magimc - Area Sismica (Setola Di Maiale, 2015) ***1/2
• Thollem McDonas & Markus Hunt - Adobe (Edgetone, 2016) ***½
• Thollem/Cline/Wimberly - Radical Empathy (Relative Pitch, 2015) ****
• Estamos Trio - People’s Historia (Relative Pitch, 2013) ****
• Piano solo
• Thollem, Parker, Cline - The Gowanus Session (Porter, 2012) ***½
• Piano, piano, piano
• Piano & piano - the aristocratic art
• The Naked Future - Gigantomachia (ESP, 2009) ****

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Stories about Thollem (and everyone else) [1/2]

Thollem. Photo by ACVilla

By David Cristol

Thollem McDonas – or simply Thollem according to which album cover you’re looking at – is a pianist, keyboardist, songwriter, vocalist, and activist whose work straddles free jazz, new classical, improvisation, film scores, punk rock, art pop, the minimalist and the maximalist, the avant-garde and all kinds of experimental music, from (acoustic and electric) solo to large ensembles, and countless collaborations which include, in addition to those featured in the following interview, Jad Fair (from Half Japanese), drummers Brian Chase (from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Sara Lund (from Unwound) and Gino Robair, French guitar improviser Jean-Marc Montera, pedal steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn, Chicago cornetist Rob Mazurek, New York bass player Michael Bisio, … With a restless and fiercely independent work ethic and wide-open aesthetic vistas, Thollem’s music doesn’t fit easily into any genre or category,which might confuse the most dedicated listener and doesn't help make his music marketable. An oeuvre so multifaceted in scope it's almost impossible to grasp – let's try anyway, through the artist’s own words. There are many sides to Thollem, whose creativity knows no bounds.

P.S. The Gowanus Session, by Thollem/Parker/Cline (Porter Records, 2012), was this listener’s introduction to Thollem’s music, and not a bad entry point in the sprawling discography.

***

Growing up in a musical environment

Both of my parents were pianists, though kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum. My mom was a classical pianist and my dad played in piano bars. Although I didn’t know him very well growing up, they both had a big influence on my musical perspectives and interests. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and exposed to much music from all of the communities represented there. It had a huge impact on my way of seeing the world and experiencing music.

The piano

Piano music was all around me growing up. One of my earliest memories is crawling up and into my mom’s piano and playing the inside. I studied classical piano music and have been improvising and composing for as long as I can remember. I was very fortunate that I grew up in an environment where music was integral to our lives, and my creative interests were encouraged. My mom was also very strict, which I’m thankful for now!

Influences

I grew up studying and performing classical piano music, so those 450 years of musical history definitely shaped me as a pianist. I also had the great fortune to have access to the Kuumbwa Jazz Club in Santa Cruz, California, where my stepsister was, and still is, the chef. Anyone who has played there knows Cheryl and her food! I started going to shows there when I was 12, and heard Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Toshiko Akiyoshi , Pharaoh Sanders and many others. At the same time, West coast punk was in its heyday and had a huge influence as well. I went to the Cabrillo Music Festival each year. My mom studied with composer Lou Harrison, and I attended classes with her. I was influenced by music from all of the communities from the Bay Area, like salsa, norteño, taiko, gamelan, West African, Eritrean, and on and on…

Photo by ACVilla

Playing style

My playing in certain contexts has elements that make it distinct, but I’m more interested in approaching each musical situation as a unique event and expression. I have always thought of myself as an explorational musician and a serial collaborator. Collaboration for me means the opportunity to discover something new about myself in relation to others. As a solo pianist I incorporate many influences but people on many occasions said they knew it was me from the first moments of listening. As a songwriter I am continuously pushing myself. I’m inspired by music from all eras and places. I dropped out of school and society for the most part, during the buildup to the Persian Gulf War in 1990, and spent years living out of a backpack, devoted to organizing and protesting. This was a profound break from everything I had been preparing for up to that point in my life. It took years to figure out how to participate in this society in a way that was aligned with my values, and at one point I had kind of a nervous breakdown realizing that I had neglected playing music throughout my 20s. I mention this because it had a huge impact on the way I approached music again coming back. I had burned every bridge I had built up to that point and had to start from the ashes. My first real tour was in 2005 when I was 38 years old, so I’ve felt like I had a lot of catching up to do and all of this is what has created a deep urgency in my work.

Europe

My first time playing in France was 2006 with an Italian outfit of misfits called Squarcicatrici led by Jacopo Andreini. Jacopo and I originally met at the Olympia Experimental Music Festival that Arrington de Dionyso was directing. On the tour I met Pierre Barouh and his son who invited me to release a solo piano album on the Saravah label, called SoMuchHeaven SoMuchHell. The following year I was invited to play a concert on the only piano Debussy owned for the last 14 years of his life, which is housed at Musée Labenche in Brive-La-Gaillarde. For the first half of the concert, I performed works of Debussy's that he wrote on that piano, and for the second half I was joined by Italian double bass player Stefano Scodanibbio, with whom we improvised within a structure. French artist Delphine Dora got in touch and invited me to release something on her label Wild Silence. At the time, I was going through old tapes that I found when clearing out my mom’s house after her death, recordings of me as a teenager playing compositions of my own and others. I collected them together and titled the album Dear Future . Most recently I was in Marseille for a week with the Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra (SIO) hosted by Grand8 – both are large ensembles dedicated to improvised music. I have taken on a temporary long-term role with SIO after its founder Lelio Giannetto died of Covid in 2020. I was there at the right moment to help keep the ensemble going. They had always performed under the guidance of a visiting artist, and I had given several workshops and collaborated with many of the members over the years. Grand8 is a more anarchic ensemble, without a leader, and each year they invite another ensemble to Marseille for a week of collaborations and performances. SIO and I have our second album coming out this spring, after OmniLelioMatic (Superpang, 2023). I have a punk band in Italy called Tsigoti, that released our fifth album last year. In 2012, we did an anti-mafia tour throughout Italy in conjunction with anti-mafia organizations and anti-mafia events. When we were driving South and arrived in Napoli, my bandmates said, “now everything changes”. That was an interesting moment. We didn’t have any issues, and I don’t know how effective we were, but it was important to us and to what the band is about. In Portugal I’ve put out albums with Ernesto Rodrigues ’ Creative Sources label and collaborated with great improvisers including Carlos Zingaro as well as members of a noise rock band called dUASsEMIcOLCHEIASiNVERTIDAS. We formed a band called Para Poupar Coma Merde [to save money, eat shit].

Photo by ACVilla

Terry Riley

I first met Terry at a party at Joan Jeanrenaud’s house in San Francisco around 2007. I grew up on the West Coast and was steeped in his music, and feel very aligned in many ways philosophically. At the party I gave him Racing The Sun, Chasing The Sun which was a new album of mine at the time, and later he told me that he listened to it over and over again on his trips to LA while he was developing Hurricane Mama Blues , his huge organ work at the Disney Concert Hall. When I was invited to perform on Debussy’s piano I was inspired to invite Stefano Scodanibbio and asked Terry if he would put in a good word for me. Stefano and I then met in Brive the night before our performance and Terry wrote the liner notes for the album. With The Light is Real [2023 trio album with Riley and Nels Cline ] I had an epiphany when I was in New Mexico. My Suegra [mother-in-law] had painted a mural of a redwood forest in her bathroom, and the light was streaming through the window. I took the photo and thought “the light is real” and “Terry Riley”. So, I mentioned this to Terry and he was up for the idea, which was simply to vocalize together spontaneously. We had a great time. Later, Yuka Honda recorded Nels and me in their home in New York and I mixed it together. Other Minds Records wanted to put it out which felt appropriate because of their historical connection with Terry.

Film scores

I’ve primarily worked with the animator Martha Colburn and my partner ACVilla. They both have extremely different approaches to their work, so that also changes my approach. Martha composed her film, Triumph of the Wild, to my music; and I composed the score to ACVilla’s video works. Currently we are developing a project called Stories About People and Everyone Else. We’ll be performing it at the University of Illinois, Trinosophes in Detroit, and Lisbon and Zurich this spring.

ACVilla

ACVilla and I have been collaborating together for over thirty years, in life and in our work. She was an inter-city bilingual teacher for many years before taking the leap into joining me full-time on the road fifteen years ago. She’s also collaborated with artists including, most notably, the Rova Saxophone Quartet. We’ve been quite prolific together as well collaborating on projects such as Who Are U.S. In 2016, we traveled throughout the lower forty-eight states documenting the points where people came into contact with each other and the environment. Artists Engaged is a long-term series of interviews and profiles of artists and organizations working in response to the needs of their communities and the dynamics of the world. We have the third in a series coming out at the end of this month that is focused on New Mexico artists and organizations. We’ve also toured extensively internationally with our multimedia performances Obstacle Illusion and Worlds in A Life. We have a new one that we’ll be touring with soon called Stories About People and Everyone Else which investigates what a story is and how much can be left out for audiences to fill in for themselves. 

Photo by ACVilla

Long run and one-offs

Many albums are one-offs, with groups that never played again. It stems from leading an itinerant lifestyle. I also have projects that have had years-long lives, multiple albums and performances. Those include six trio albums with Nels Cline. Revolving members include William Parker , Michael Wimberly, Pauline Oliveros [1932-2016] and Terry Riley. Tsigoti just released a fifth album, No Vacation from Poverty. The Estamos project has four albums including two by large ensembles and two by a trio with Carmina Escobar and Milo Tamez. There are several albums with Rent Romus and Bloom Project. Several with Arrington de Dionyso, several with John Dieterich [of Deerhoof]. I don't have any one main project or projects, except for my solo work. So, a lot of side projects that are all important! I live on the road, so this gives me the opportunity and time to meet with musicians along my travels, either on stage or in the studio. I wouldn’t say necessarily that they represent a certain period of my playing but more what my collaborators bring out of me that I may not have known was there previously. I don’t have a grand vision as an improviser, it’s truly about being in the moment, challenging and supporting each other, diving deeply into my curiosity and finding the beauty in what is created and ultimately how this informs myself as a human being in this world. For many of these albums the particular group of musicians never met again and certainly never toured. It’s kind of an anti-model in a hyper-capitalist society.

Defining your own music

Ah, you were just buttering me up with the easy questions! My music is an ever-changing amalgam swirling in the confluence of infinite rivers – something like that. I’ve called myself an eccentriclect, and my music as omni-idiomatic in the sense that my influences and interests are eclectic, in that I’m open to ideas and inspirations from infinite sources and experiences and that I don’t want to be burdened by anyone’s idea of what should be. Depending on albums and eras I’ve been called a free jazz pianist, a post-classical improviser, a punk rocker and more. I prefer to always remain independent in search of other independent minds and creators and to encourage others in order not to succumb to the pressures to conform which are constantly attacking us in myriad ways. I’m doing all I can to assist in humanity’s evolution into a more mature, playful, creative relationship with our world and each other. My involvement in music making both solo and in collaboration is always coming from this place. The actual aesthetics are less important generally speaking, but crucially important situationally. I love to explore the value of different aesthetics and how that changes my relationship with music, art and fellow artists.

How projects are born

Primarily, I want to work with people I enjoy being with, and that share my vision of communality both musically and supra-musically. Joy and curiosity have got to be there before anything else of interest can happen. This I have learned through many varied experiences. So, many collaborations happen as anything else in life, because I happen to be in the same space and time with someone, and ideas generate organically out of a mutual experience. That is not always the case, of course, but it generally is. I often live by “What if?” and “Why not?”. This is the basis for experimentation. “What if I bring these different elements or artists together in this particular setting?”, “What will happen with the least amount of guidance from me?” A big part of the practice of my interaction with music making is a cycle that continually builds on itself. Sometimes collaborations are well planned out and often they happen because of our lifestyle of living on the road. We haven’t lived in our own place in over fifteen years and own almost nothing except what is essential to our lifestyle and that we can fit in our carry-on size backpacks. This has afforded us the ability to collaborate with amazing artists as well as document communities, like with our Artists Engaged series [Everything can be streamed freely through: www.artistsengaged.com].

 

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