Another standout band from the young wave of nu-jazz, pushing the
boundaries of traditional jazz by blending it with R&B, hip-hop, and
soul. As they reshape the genre's foundations, many of these artists are
creating a new tradition within jazz itself. This trio is one of those
examples, crafting what I’d call Urban Jazz – a sound deeply rooted in the
new jazz generations. Based in Berlin, the trio quickly developed a unique
style of their own. Even though their debut mini-album only dropped in
2023, they’ve already made a name for themselves among the neo-jazz fans,
performing in clubs around Germany, and now they’re even touring parts of
the world, spreading their sound further.
On their debut mini album, Moses Yoofee’s keys occasionally took a more
classical tone – grounded, down to earth. But on this one, the signature
style of the band becomes clear right from the start, diving headfirst into
the playful, wicked, liquid sound. Beside the spirited piano, breakbeat
drums by Noah Fürbringer pulse through, while Roman Klobe-Barangă crafts
deep bass lines, tying the tracks together. This combo births the Urban
vibe I mentioned earlier – a late-night city feeling resembling those from
the 90s. When the music scene was completely raw, in its purest form and
free from distractions.
The greatness of the album is that there’s something for any type of
listener. For the musicians there’s the great technical aspect of the album,
hip-hop drums combined with the old school jazzy, yet at times contemporary
and bewildering piano. For the instinctive listener, it has the groove that
makes your body move. But for the more imaginative one, it has everything
needed to slip into a state of losing yourself – forgetting everything and
just getting lost in the music.
The music on Rob Mazurek’s Live at the Adler Planetarium is
beautifully crafted and striking – a dramatic mix of emotions and
abstractions. Mazurek directs the ensemble, plays cornet, trumpet, and
bells, and composed the music. He even adds his voice to the proceedings.
The band, aptly named Exploding Star Orchestra, is comprised of a multitude
of incredible talents: Nicole Mitchell (flute, voice, electronics), Damon
Locks (voice, samplers, electronics), Tomeka Reid (cello, electronics),
Craig Taborn (Wurlitzer electric piano, moog, electronics), Angelica
Sanchez (Wurlitzer electric piano, moog), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass),
Chad Taylor (drums), and Gerald Cleaver (drums). Wow… what a crew!!!
Mazurek has been creating music for the orchestra since 2005 and recorded
with the group first in 2007 on We Are All from Somewhere Else
(Mitchell was also on this album). The group has at times featured jazz
luminaries such as Bill Dixon (on the 2008
Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra
- sadly, Dixon’s last recording), and Roscoe Mitchell (on the 2009 live
recording Matter Anti-Matter).
While Locks, Sanchez, and Taylor played on the group’s last three albums
(beginning in 2015 with Galactic Parables: Volume 1), Reid and
Flaten joined the unit for 2020’s Dimensional Stardust, and Cleaver
and Taborn made their debut with the band on the unit’s last outing, the
2022 album Lightning Dreamers.
Live at the Adler Planetarium
is a live version of the compositions recorded on
Lightning Dreamers
.
The New Jersey born and Chicago schooled Mazurek presently lives in the
remote artist colony of Marfa, TX, about 60 miles northwest of the Mexican
border. A visual artist (painter and animator) as well as musician, one can
understand Mazurek’s attraction to Marfa, a small desert city known for its
“Marfa Lights,” orbs in the sky that emanate from automobile headlights
distorted by warm desert air. Furthermore, one can understand why Mazurek
seems fascinated with celestial imagery and why this album was recorded in
a planetarium.
Those who have traveled the remote back desert of southwest Texas know how
stunning the night skies can be, and the music on Live is full of
mystery and awe – a kind of masterful interpretation of the overwhelming
sense of being one might experience looking at the vast night sky. The
album is also noteworthy for its pervasive and ubiquitous use of
electronics. It is as though Mazurek has tapped into the radio wave
emissions of such entities as pulsars and quasars – combining the imagined
sounds of space with an almost Indigenous point of view.
Locks’ poetry can be heard at times above the music:
“Imagine a timeline opening up.”
“Floating in the current.”
“Accept the invitation to feel; accept the invitation to dance.”
“In the dark, we fade away.”
“Toes touch first upon the star dome!”
The first three cuts, “Dream Sleeper,” “Black River,” and “White River”
merge together like rivers flowing toward a junction and then out to a
wide oceanic expanse. Movement is conveyed by the electric piano and bass
lines, which float like buoys above fluid drum lines. Mazurek creates some
striking notes on trumpet, and Michell’s flute and Reid’s cello lines rise
to the foreground.
The sweeping theme of “Underneath the Star Dome” sounds visual. There is a
dance quality to the music – modern ballet weaving and bobbing. Listen to
the precision Cleaver and Taylor bring to the trap sets as they spin atop
the esoteric electronics. When the group reaches the flex point in the
number, the music become looser and freer – unglued – as Mazurek’s trumpet
roars. Voices join in, and the theme dissolves into a bluesy abstraction.
On “Spiral Parable,” there is a forward momentum, like a jostling safari, a
vehicle bouncing along a dusty road on a great plain. In the distance are
plateaus and buttes that front a blue and red sky. Great birds take flight
via Mitchell’s flute arcs. The drummers generate heat, their off beats and
rhythmic flourishes stretch and sway – creating the equivalent of a giant
drum circle around a huge bonfire, the flames lapping high into the evening
sky.
The concert (album) closes with “Parable 3000,” a funky exposition
featuring a repetitive yet interesting piano motif. Mazurek’s trumpet is a
tour de force and Reid’s cello lines splice neatly into the Sanchez/Taborn
chordal structures. There is an almost hallucinogenic quality to this
number - very trippy indeed.
Mazurek and crew deserve a major tip of the hat for this outing. What we
have is a synergy of great musical beauty and intensity that seems to
stretch time, like one momentous singularity, reaching out to the forever
darkness from the sands of an infinite desert.
As Georges Paul’s tenor sax erupted, after brief moments of silence, into
bursts of noisy repeated phrases, provoking equally energetic responses from
Chris Corsano’s drums, the aforementioned phrase came to my mind. A
collective expanding universe of drums, various percussion objects and a
tenor saxophone. Free jazz.
We haven’t seen Chris Corsano live in Athens for some years now, so for us
Athenians it was a big event and a lot of people felt the same about this
gig as me. The rapture of this duo –totally in the magnificent tradition of
the sax-drums duos from the past- was immense, catching many of us off
guard from the very end. Someone could comment that since there is no
recording by this duo, they have forged their musical relationship the
old-fashioned way. Just by playing live together. Their performance, which
lasted for almost an hour, was divided into two sets. Not knowing what to
expect, the two musicians allowed a big flow of energy through aggressive
playing, filling the room with excitement, as I could see on many faces.
Trying to be objective when writing or reviewing is a difficult task by
itself, becoming even more difficult, I believe, when it comes to the live
experience. Their two sets where at times fragmentary, at times fully
cohesive. They , in my eyes and ears at least, that they followed an
invisible trajectory that involved pushing each other to go ahead, while
listening attentively to what each one had to say. There were no actual
solos, but, from time to time, room for both to play on their own. Phrases
and gurgles from the tenor saxophone were intertwined with Corsano’s full
use of his modified kit. Joyful noises, many of them, were followed by very
short passages of silence. But mostly aggressive, passionate playing
leading to what this music has always been about: transcendence and
catharsis.
With a tenor sax that rose over the roof and a drum set that expanded into
polyrhythmic territories…
George Cartwright and Bruce Golden were easily my fave purveyors of
improvisational what the fuckery of 2024, and this recording is a
strong entry in their 2025 run for the title. Made up of thirteen short
pieces drawing from the worlds of garage sounds, electronics, lo-fi
musique concrète
, and the duo’s downtown jazz CV, South from a Narrow Arc is a set
that is reckless, heavy, and filled with cinema and humor. I could easily
be projecting my own sense of a good time onto these guys—maybe they’re
actually depressed and maudlin when playing, how would I know?—but the
sense of them creating music to suit their own fancies, tapping into joy,
and just occasionally cracking each other up in the studio is very
tangible. I would love to have heard some of the conversations that fell
between these pieces.
Listing the instrumentation hereon is not particularly helpful because
sometimes I don’t even know what is being played. Here it is anyway: Bruce
Golden - percussion and lots lots more, George Cartwright - saxophones and
guitar. “Lots lots more,” Bruce? Don’t confuse us with technical terms.
What I hear is bass, guitar, sax, someone pushing a heavy piece of
furniture on the sidewalk, bells tolling, as though heard by Quasimodo on
heavy downers. I hear … is that a stritch? As played by Dewey Redman? Well,
some sort of primordial buzzing reed. Hand drums. A maddeningly evasive drum
loop. Klangity-klang-klang. Some groove or other. Etc. Etc.
I’ve been aware of Cartwright and Golden for decades (not exaggerating),
but since reviewing the duo’s
Dilate in March 2024 my fire has been well re-lit. Here’s another for 5 stars.
Now, approaching 18 years into their existence, the Benelux sextet has
released the latest installment of their uniquely energetic and scattered
brand of spunky free jazz. The roster includes some names familiar (John
Dikeman, Jasper Stadhouders, Gonçalo Almeida) and some less so (Tobias
Klein, Bart Maris, Philipp Moser), but a quick internet search and listen
render that distinction arbitrary. These musicians are all well document
and, more importantly, have chops.
Undrilling the Holecaptures them in the Werkplaats Walter studio
in Brussels in February of last year. From the get-go, it is clear that the
album will be a chaotic romp, an act of
construction-through-deconstruction, an unmaking, as the title denotes, of
a space, rather than simply its filling. This is a tape real, run forward
and backward, and every which way. Much of the writing surrounding this
release focuses on its punk orientation and, indeed, this leans toward the
bouncier and more playful end of that spectrum. One might also note that
this draws from bebop speed and precision, progressive builds and releases,
and a Willem Breuker-tinged lust for rapid marching band motifs,
carnivalesque tunes and frequent and tight turns of phrase, melody, and
tempos. In short, Undrilling the Holeis an acrobatic exercise as
much as it is a fully realized musical vision.
The band is generally tight amidst the chaos. The latter especially applies
to Stadhouders. I am not sure if I have ever heard him play a straight line
before, and here he does with a precision that is striking for how normal
it sounds. Still, he is most compelling when he lays those wiry figures –
sometimes sounding more like overwrought pig iron rubbed with a corroded
nail more than a traditional electric guitar – that have made him the
singular guitarist that he is. When much of the rest of the band are laying
sheets of sound in one direction, he quietly punctures rusty pockmarks on
the path and encircling it with fine razor wire. It makes for an
interesting listening experience, especially considering the finely layered
if divergent filaments that the rest of the band produces. This is not to
say the rest of the band is tame or conventional, however. Quite the
contrary. They are exceptional and unpredictable, more often scrumming over
an unwieldy center than settling on a melody. Those whose ears might be
more familiar with Klein, Maris, or Moser, for instance, might notice one
of these figures slyly sabotaging any movement toward unison or dragging a
given composition toward craggier terrain. This music has no leader, but
also no single outlier. It does, however, now have my attention, and I
look forward to hearing what the band comes up with in the future, as they
move into their third decade as a unit.
PS: For those interested, see Eric McDowell’s insightful
review
of a couple Spinifex releases from 2016. I am not sure how I missed this
band back then, but clearly they have been making an impression for some
time.
Last week, saxophonist Harri Sjöström released a 3-CD set of his 4th SoundScapes Festival held in Berlin in fall of 2022. The two nights featured a set of 19 musicians performing instant compositions in the tranquil marbled Kuppelhalle of the Silent Green art space. I was lucky to be there and wrote the liner notes to the release, which I excerpt a bit of below. More important, though, is the music and here is a clip of the finale of the festival, a piece dedicated to the memory of cellist Tristan Honsiger called "Canzone Di Tristano":
Here is also a link to another snippet that was uploaded by cellist Guilherme Rodrigues who performs here with Elisabeth Harnik (piano), Sebastiano Tramontana (trombone), Giancarlo Schiaffini (trombone), Sergio Armaroli (vibraphone) and Sndrea Centazzo (drums and electronics).
--
LINER NOTES by Paul Acquaro (excerpt)
SoundScapes #4
Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström has been calling Berlin home for
nearly 40 years, and for over 10 of them, he has been organizing
concerts at venues around the city, featuring a who-is-who of the city's
rich improvisation scene and beyond, under the title "SoundScapes."
Starting in 2016, he extended the concept and held the first two
SoundScapes Festivals in Helsinki, followed by one in Munich, and then,
finally, in his adopted hometown.
SoundScapes #4 was held over two mid-autumn nights in the restrained
elegance of the Kuppelhalle in Berlin's Silent Green arts complex. The
hall was originally a chapel for the 19th century crematorium that is
now a park-like arts space tucked into the vibrant density of the city's
Wedding district. Arrive at the complex from the tree-lined pedestrian
street and one is struck by the solemn refinement. After entering
through the arched entrance house, the Kuppelhalle is a straight shot
over a well-manicured lawn. From there, one would typically proceed up a
set of stairs and through large wooden doors into the stately octagonal
chamber. However, if one veers to the left on the approach towards the
hall, separated partially from
view by a row of trees and shrubbery, is a modern glass box entrance to a
bar with its own egress into the chamber. This is where it begins.
...
I recall walking out into the mild
mid-autumn night with - as best I can describe - a generally "warm"
feeling about the whole event. While I have had the chance to attend
other SoundScapes events from time to time since, they have always
somehow still carried a bit of an afterglow from these memories. Hearing
the festival's music again - the audio tracks in their mastered form -
exactly one year later, has revealed to me, I think, why these feelings
have lingered. One can hear the deep respect that the musicians have for
each other, their thoughtful, tacit negotiations, and the musical
chance taking that they took, making each of the 18 short sets over the
course of the two evenings uniquely enjoyable.
Japanese trumpeter Natsuki Tamura was born in 1951, a year before fellow
Japanese, iconic guitarist Keiji Haino. Both Tamura and Haino are known
as free spirits with strong-minded, experimental approaches,
unrestrained by convention and embracing psychedelic and avant-rock,
free jazz, and free improvisation to a point that blurs any genre
distinctions. They also share a deep interest in folk music from all
over the world and are known for their eccentric, often provocative
performances.
But despite their rich careers and extensive, collaborative works, they
did not play together until Tamura and his partner, pianist Satoko
Fujii, invited Haino to their annual, daylong marathon festival at
Tokyo’s legendary Shinjuku Pit-Inn club in January 2024. Tamura and
Haino did not talk much before beginning to play the free improvised
set.
Haino, with only his electric guitar and vocals, and Tamura, on trumpet,
vocals, and kitchen utensil percussion, enjoy this
adventurous-surprising meeting, with its reckless energy, absurdist
humor, and profound, lyrical beauty. There is no telling what these
gifted improvisers will do next, but they listen carefully to each
other, and they are wise enough to color or subvert each other’s ideas
in unpredictable, poetic gestures, without seeking explosive, cathartic
climaxes, but a compassionate, conversational union of magical sounds.
They clearly enjoy the intense, often openly emotional dialog of
contrasts, and the opportunity to explore unusual timbres and textures
within the risk-taking, free-associative flow of ideas. Brilliant.
Satoko Fujii GEN - Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra, 2025)
Pianist-composer Satoko Fujii's first suite for a six-musician string
ensemble GEN (弦 - gen - means string in Japanese) celebrates her 65th
birthday and fulfills her dream to play with such an ensemble. Fujii, a
lifelong city dweller, composed the five-movement suite in the summer of
2023 while vacationing with her aging parents in the highlands of
Nagano, on the western side of Japan’s main island, Honshu, at an
altitude of 1,100 meters, enchanted by the mountain views and the cool
breezes, away from the city heat.
Fujii was inspired by the unique, ethereal atmosphere of the Nagano
mountains and wanted to mirror the unique atmosphere and the
ever-changing landscapes of the day into the delicate, vibrating
sonorities of string instruments, and her prepared piano, that can bend
notes and play microtones. She composed this suite on a small electric
piano., and says that the sound of the string instruments “activates a
part of my brain in a way that’s totally different from other
instruments”.
Each movement uses distinct sonorities of the two violinists, the
violist (who also contributes electronic colorings) and the double bass
player, who often employ extended bowing techniques, to create
haunting, evocative nuances and contrasts and propel the dramatic flow
of the suite. The music unfolds patiently and skillfully employs the
strings spectrum of the ensemble. It is mostly introspective and leaves
enough space for individual and collective improvisations and the
commanding individual voices of the ensemble. This was done so
masterfully when the only musician in the ensemble, except Fujii, who
had played with her before is the drummer Akira Horikoshi, who had
played with Fujii in her Orchestra Tokyo and Fujii’s ma-do quartet.
Gabriel Vicéns Puerto Rican/New York guitarist and composer who has been at
it for over a decade, now. His most recent release Muralwhere
other musicians are left to interpret his compositions. Pieces range from
piano-string duos – the slow and dramatic La Esfera and the primally
flirtations Carnal – to a sextet - the mysterious and slinking El Mattoral.
Muralis a sharp pivot from Vicéns’ earlier releases, which more
firmly embrace contemporary jazz idioms. Here, Vicéns largely abandons
those swinging melodic and rhythmic drivers and embraces contemporary
composition in its “new music” sense. One hears influences and inspiration
from across that spectrum: the stilted rhythm (sans percussion) of the
Third Vienna School, the fixation on note decay of wandelweiser, the
suspended accumulation of the Feldman school, but almost always with a
drift toward melodics and dynamics. Some of this comes through other
inspirations. In Ficcion, Hindemith and early Stravinsky are more evident
than minimalism, and that piece is fittingly sprightly and punctuated.
Others veer toward neo-romanticism a la Leo Ornstein. Suenos Ligados is
another stand-out, a dramatic piece, that fluctuates from a simple and
brittle four-note piano line to forceful expulsions from the full ensemble.
It is laden with drama, but also tenderness. The titular Mural, which also
opens the album, moreover, is a spacious piece, beginning with lone tones
that roll and accumulate into something light and abstract, but also
bucolic. It is a beautiful gesture toward the spalled and shorn, but
polished, impressionistic soundworlds to come.
Mural, in other words, is hard to place, and for that all the
better. The 20 th century influences are there, and widely
strewn, but also effectively deployed. There is some underlying logic that
unites the different inputs that might lie as much in Vicéns’ insistent
vision and refusal to box himself in as much as whatever musical theory
underlies it. The music here manages to bridge the adventurous and the
traditionally (in the tradition of Schoeneberg and those mentioned above)
beautiful music. And for that, it deserves a much wider listenership.
Muralis available as a download and CD from Bandcamp:
Alto saxophonist Steve Coleman has long been a force on the jazz scene.
Coleman cut his teeth in the 80s. He was part of a quintet put together by
bassist extraordinaire Dave Holland [the Quintet with Coleman issued three
excellent albums – Jumpin In (ECM, 1984), Seeds of Time
(ECM, 1985) and The Razor’s Edge (ECM, 1987). He also participated
in two other projects with Holland, Triplicate (ECM, 1988) with the
bassist and drummer Jack DeJohnette, and Extensions (ECM, 2008),
where he and Holland were joined by Kevin Eubanks on guitar and Marvin
“Smitty” Smith on drums. In addition, he had short stints with Sam River’s
Studio Rivbea Orchestra and Cecil Taylor’s big band.
It was also during the 80s that Coleman found his own voice in jazz,
creating a Brooklyn-based school of music called M-base (which stands for
micro-basic array of structured extemporization) with fellow alto
saxophonist Greg Osby and trumpeter Graham Haynes (whose father, drummer Roy
Haynes, sadly, recently passed – a musician whose drumming technique was
rightfully critically acclaimed). Even as M-base was taking its baby steps,
the 80s jazz scene experienced a takeover of concert venues by what was
labeled mainstream jazz (example, Jazz at Lincoln Center). Its strongest
advocate was Wynton Marsalis. In various ways, mainstream jazz was a
reactionary movement meant to ostracize and expunge free jazz and other
experimental jazz forms from “real jazz,” jazz based on the traditions of
swing and bop (ironically, and in a similar vein, in the 1940s, bop too was
ostracized by the proponents of swing who claimed that jazz was and always
would be a music for dancing. LOL.).
M-base stood apart from the mainstream movement. It focused on dark probing
energy combined with what trumpeter Dave Douglas referred to as a 12-tone
language (a language that drew from Schoenberg’s early 20 th
Century 12 tone system). While not free or atonal per se, it was adventurous
and experimental – and synthesized musical elements like blues, funk, free,
and importantly hip hop (which had not been part of the larger jazz scene
at that point). At its core was a rhythmically complex dense urban sound –
music that emphasized hot improvisations over heavy syncopated lines and
music that Coleman described as “spiritual, rhythmic, and melodic
development.”
Coleman is not only one of M-base’s founders, but its most ardent
practitioner – beginning his experiments with the musical form in a series
of 80s albums and extending the form to the present day. Those wishing to
check out Coleman’s early efforts in M-base would do well to take a listen
to his albums Motherland Pulse (JMT,1985),
Rhythm People (The Resurrection Of Creative Black Civilization)
(Novus, 1990), and the hip hop opus
A Tale Of 3 Cities, The EP
(Novus,1995) – all highly recommended.
Coleman most often records with his group The Five Elements. This group has
evolved over time. The first album released by the group was 1986’s
World Expansion
(JMT, 1986), and on that release, the group featured the late great
Geri Allen (piano). Graham Haynes (trumpet), fellow Holland alum Robin
Eubanks (trombone), Kelvyn Bell (guitar), Kevin Bruce Harris (bass), and
Mark Johnson (drums).
The configuration that plays on PolyTropos – Of Many Turns, is
Coleman, Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Rich Brown (electric bass), and Sean
Rickman (drums). A March 2024 live recording of two concerts, one in Paris,
one in Villon, PolyTropos – Of Many Turns catches Coleman and
bandmates in inspired, head-nodding fashion, articulating the very essence
of M-base – the soulful and funky exposition of improvised forms over
propelling rhythms. The first number, “Spontaneous Pi,” is a case in point.
It begins with an intense repetitive motif as both horns improvise in
spurts above. There is a lot of call and response here - Finlayson
answering Coleman and Coleman answering back. The next cut, “Spontaneous
One,” features a jagged beat. Coleman offers a bluesy solo – almost “Bird”
like. Rickman shines on the third track, “Spontaneous All.” His drum solo
migrates in and out of the funk. Harmonic lines are the highlight of “Mdw
Ntr,” a piece that approaches free form while staying anchored to a
rhythmic structure.
Other album highlights –
the full-on aggressive approach on “9-5,” a number that would have
Dolly Parton doing backflips;
the almost rotational spin on “Of Many Turns,” the music like a
top whirling about looking for a resting place;
the nod to the tradition by Coleman on his solo recitation of
“Lush Life Cadenza/Pi,” “Lush Life” being the Billy Strayhorn classic
popularized by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and which here, is a prelude
to the track’s sparkling notes and dramatic flair bookcased by slurring
runs;
and the cover of the Thelonious Monk standard, “Round Midnight” in
Charlie Parker “Embraceable You” fashion - the theme hidden in an array of
embellishments and phrases. For those interested in Bird’s approach to
“Embraceable You” [originally issued on the album Boss Bird Disc 2 on
Proper Records (P1282) – 1947] it is available on several compilations of
Charlie Parker’s work with Miles Davis.
It is great to hear M-base in action and to realize that it remains
relevant as a musical form today. With its strong rhythmic syncopation and
anchored improvisation, Steve Coleman’s PolyTropos – Of Many Turns
is a spirited life-affirming album that says while the heart beats, the
music lives.
Altered Forms Trio have been playing together since 2019 and the opening
track of this album renders this fact obvious – the interactions between
the musicians express a familiarity and comfort, a sort of gentle
confidence
that each knows they are safe in the presence of the others. Indeed, my
immediate, initial, impression of this album was that it was
complacent
. The piano’s tinkling opening with the gentle ‘phhwwhip’ of Robert
Lucaciu’s double-bass, accompanied by a sort of intermittent rattling sound
on the drums is so standard, so trope-ish, that I think I might
actually have rolled my eyes…
Imagine, then, my surprise when, just as I was settling into the
not-so-challenging aspects of the album, just when I had resigned myself to
listening to circa 41 minutes of this sonic beige, Gregor Forbes’ gentle
piano and Johannes von Buttlar’s ‘gently rattling jazz drums’ violently
pivot into a really frenetic piece of music led by a pounding double-bass
that sounds like it’s being chased around an unevenly inflated balloon. Just
as you get the sense that the musicians have grown too comfortable
together to be excited with each other’s playing, everything switches - the
music becomes innovative and interesting; the complacency turns to
excitement, the comfort turns to invigoration, the familiarity turns to
desperation.
And this shift doesn’t occur just once or twice, it’s the defining feature
of the album. The strange and radical changes in mood, tone, style and
energy between songs creates a sort of aesthetic incoherence – and not just
between tracks, but often within the songs themselves. This makes
the overall dynamic of the album intellectually challenging to access;
individually, the songs mostly work on their own (internal) terms, but as a
collection it requires a bit more from the listener.
On my initial listen-through of this album a review formed in my mind that
said something like ‘there are occasional flourishes of brilliance,
interspersed, for some bizarre reason, with what appear to be moments of
unneeded respite’. Without careful attention, the performance will sound at
points too generic, then at others too academic, then at others still, too
mundane. But the album rewards attention and close (and, in my case,
repeated
) listening... The first time I listened through I got to the end of the
album and had the vague sense that I found it too generic to comment on,
too generic to write a review about. The second time I listened to the
album, I was genuinely shocked I had the impression I did after the first
listen. It was, to my surprise, pretty good! By the time I gave the
album a third listen, I was positively into it. I might be revealing my own
limitations here (no bad thing, perhaps), but it’s only when you realise
what the album is doing, the unsettling way it moves from avant-garde and
experimental to something approaching (but not quite) cliché, that you
realise the nearly-generic-sounding ‘respite’ moments are themselves part
of the avant-garde-adjacent context setting for the strange and joyous
playfulness that the album leans into.
Is this effect intentional? And, if so, why take the risk? In a world where
everyone has an at-hand near infinite supply of streamable jazz, producing
a slowly percolating album is quite the risk. People, or at least,
algorithms, will not often give you the chance to make a first impression,
let alone a second or third. Albums like this show what is wrong with the
passive consumption model on which many services are based. Buy this album
for this reason alone. Listen to it repeatedly for the reasons I’ve given
prior to this.
There’s a master’s thesis—or a tawdry Netflix miniseries—to be written
about Tim Berne and his serial relationships with amazing, visionary
guitarists. Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, Marc Ducret, etc. Berne met guitarist
Gregg Belisle-Chi when the latter arranged a Berne composition for solo
acoustic guitar (it was something to do during the pandemic) and
posted it on Instagram. Berne reached out to Belisle-Chi and soon we had
Belisle-Chi’s
Koi: Performing the Music of Tim Berne
, produced by Berne. Then came
their duet record
. Now, Belisle-Chi has become one of Berne’s usual suspects on both
acoustic and electric guitar.
Belisle-chi has an expansive way of playing the electric, filling the room
the way an orchestra does, with a quantity of sound. There’s a touch of
proggy goodness in there—which is a treat for this lifetime prog fan. This
sort of electric bombast makes for a perfect partner for Berne’s
preternaturally strong sax.
The two take Berne’s compositions in a less oblique way than in other
settings. It’s always interesting to hear how different agglomerations of
players render these compositions. On the disc, we’re given 10 studio
tracks and 9 live tracks. Here’s the thing: in a few cases, we hear a tune
played in the studio, and then hear the same tune played live. Call me a
nerd but I find it FASCINATING to compare versions of the tunes to one
another. There’s the obvious differences of improvised chunks, but tempos,
dynamics, voicing … it’s all up for grabs. The composition is composed in
the moment! And look, I know that this is how our kind of music works—but
it’s very cool to see it so explicitly in action. Like seeing the aurora
borealis.
I haven’t mentioned Tom Rainey, yet. Not because I want to look away, but
because I want to set him aside for high honors. Rainey is
characteristically great on Yikes Too, holding the whole garment
together with his infinitely long thread of whackity-whack. I’ve
loved his stuff forever, but this year I’m feeling something special. In the
race for improv MVP of 2025, he’s already at the top of my list. 5 Stars
Recorded live at KM28 in Berlin’s Neukölln neighborhood, Rotations+
captures the trio of Franz Hautzinger (trumpet, electronics), Ignaz Schick
(turntable, electronics), and Sven-Åke Johansson (percussion, accordion).
Itsounds very much of the electro-acoustic corner of the
contemporary echtzeit scene and, in that respect, quite different from what
Johansson, the elder of the group, is known for. (I will not take this too
far, but this album is also an intergenerational meeting of representatives
from the first and second generations of Euro improv, and the contemporary
Berlin experimental scene. Maybe that is what “rotations” refers to, the
changing of the guard, or the persistent presence of that old guard amongst
the new. Or the spinning of Schick’s turntables and Johansson’s brushes
and cymbals, and the circular path of Hautzinger’s breath.) There are
passages where Hautzinger plays cleanly or Johansson decides to pound out
drum signals or squeeze a march or melody out of his accordion. And,
frequently enough, Schick leans into a record, allowing some faded vocal
track or other discernible tune to break through. Just as often, however,
Rotations+ leans toward lowercase acousmatic environs. The
apparently wide use of electronics feeds into that confusion and textures.
If nothing else, this music is finely textured. Even the static plays to
the tactility of these pieces.
Together, Hautzinger, Schick and Johansson make an impressive trio that is
eminently current in its blend of abstractions and full tones. It is also,
in a sense, very much Berlin. It fits into an aesthetic – disjointed,
coarse, ghostly, puckish - and in that it is a wonderful realization – or
rather seven realizations - of its surroundings. It is a testament to the
fact that Berlin, or at least this pocket of its music scene, is still
gritty, despite the city’s increasingly shiny veneer. If you need proof,
just listen to these guys roil and whirl.
Rotations+ is available as a download and CD on Bandcamp.
On 'Continuum', German drummer Nathan Ott leads a group with saxophonists Sebastian Gille and Christof Lauer, along with bassist Jonas Westergaard - a true continuum from the group that Ott played in with saxophonist David Liebman. The quartet's music is the result of close communication and genre transcending atmospherics ... at least in this clip! We'll all learn more when their album with the same title comes out next week.
Christof Lauer ss, ts;
Sebastian Gille ts, ss, cl;
Jonas Westergaard b,
Nathan Ott dr
Learn more about group as well as Ott's new musical platform An:Bruch here.
Legendary Swedish, Berlin-based Sven-Åke Johansson composer,
drummer-percussionist, poet, writer, and visual artist, will celebrate
his 82th birthday and six decades of work this year. He belongs to the
first generation of European free improvisers, known for his work with
Peter Brötzmann’s earliest and some of his most important projects,
including Machine Gun, but has never limited himself to any single
artistic discipline. in an interview with the Berlin newspaper Taz,
defined his work: “My work is not actually jazz, but rather the
exploration of sounds. In that sense, my music defies some
categorizations. Jazz is only a small part of what I do”.
Hautzinger / Schick / Johansson - Rotations + (Trost, 2025)
Rotations+ is a free improvised trio featuring Johansson on percussion
and accordion, German turntable wizard Ignaz Schick on turntables, and
Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger on trumpets. Both players use
electronics. The trio was recorded live at the Berlin experimental venue
KM28 in September 2023. The six collective improvisations adapt the
syntax of reductionist electronic music and explore a deep forest of
subtle colors and timbre, with each improvisation suggesting a fresh and
unpredictable perspective.
Johansson’s elegant sense of time is still remarkable, adding loose
structural narratives with a kaleidoscopic, rhythmic sensibility to
Hautzinger’s minimalist, extended breathing smears and cries and
Schick’s delicate yet noisy and sometimes cartoonish beeps and bloops.
At times, Johansson’s drumming even adds a ritualist dimension to the
abstract and fragile interplay of Hautzinger and Schick, immediately
disciplining exotic overtones (as on “R2”) and bringing a heightened
form of spontaneous sound sculpting, something Johansson has been doing
since the early 1970s. His accordion playing, on “R3” and the last “R6”
improvisations, injects a subversive, romantic touch to the abstract and
often nervous interplay of Hauztzinger and Schick.
Sven-Åke Johansson Quintet - Stumps (Second Version) (Trost, 2025)
Johansson first introduced the book of compositions used for his Stumps
project on the album Stumps (Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu, 2022), recorded live at Au
Topsi Pohl in Berlin in December 2021, with a quintet of Johansoon’s
long-time collaborator, German trumpeter Axel Dörner, Swedish double
bass player Joel Grip (of أحمد [Ahmed], another trusted collaborated of
Johansson), and young French sax player Pierre Borel (of Die Hochstapler
and Sebastian Gramss' States Of Play) and pianist Simon Sieger, and
Johannson on drums.
Johansson referred to this book of six compositions as the magnum opus
of his small group writing. Extended versions of “stumps 2” to “stumps
6” are included on Stumps (Second Version), recorded live one year after
Stumps (which included all six compositions), at Haus der Berliner
Festspiele during Jazzfest Berlin in November 2022. These compositions
are based on strict, schematic instructions and offer a potential for
variation with falling and rising short signals (notes). Each “stump”
composition repeats the simple yet captivating theme four times and
establishes its light-swinging pulse. Each “stump” alters the melodic
and rhythmic shape of the basic formula and ignites a distinct kind of
thoughtful deconstruction with introspective collective improvisation
and solo excursions. A simple repetition of the theme at the end rounds
off the composition as a kind of return. The underlying tempi of the
themes are rather calm, there is no fixed tempo but more of a free
positioning, according to the principle of ‘free tempo/dynamic
vibration’.
Johansson leads the ensemble with commanding, modest, and always elegant
authority and his trademark rolling cymbal pulse and stuttering snare
drum keep the music forward. These compositions, despite their strict
formula and repetitive themes, demand probing individual playing, and
this ensemble brilliantly performs them.
This live recording, from the ARTACTS Festival is Austria, captures this
trio in fine form indeed. As the world of improvisation (and not only this
field) is in a big need of women players, the presence of two of the best
around on this recording is totally a blast. Leandre is, of course, on
double bass, Harnik on piano and Kaucic on drums and percussion.
Playing live (and enjoying it…) is, and always will be, the core of the
non-spoken shared language we call music. All three of them are very good
and gifted in presenting their vision live. A vision that encompasses the
idiolect of improvisation strengthened with their individual skills. But,
don’t get me wrong. This is not a cd of three soloists. The three musicians
have struggled, for a long time now, to play, interact and share ideas with
others. Listening and interacting is the main focus. Their past proves
that, this CD also. LIVE IN ST. JOHANN is a recording of collectiveness. Of
camaraderie even. They play in unison, transforming their togetherness into
a musical entity that is solid and enjoyable too.
Enjoyment is a key word for this live recording. Another key word is jazz.
And why not. Improvisation has, for a long time, battled against the jazz
tradition, but that doesn’t mean that this tradition is at fault per se. On
LIVE IN ST. JOHANN, the three musicians use this tradition as a certain,
non-restrictive, guideline. Their jazz based compositions follow the linear
way of a jazz drums-piano-bass trio. Their playing is like storytelling.
There is a beginning, a middle passage as a main theme and a, more
aggressive, ending. Sometimes, to quote Godard a bit, not with this
particular order, but this given does not lessen the enjoyment at all…
LIVE IN ST. JOHANN is mostly, apart from the storytelling part, about
feelings. As every piece of great music should be about. Invest in those
feelings generously donated by the three artists. You cannot miss.
Quatuor Bozzini, a string quartet featuring Alissa Cheung, Clemens Merkel,
and siblings Stéphane and Isabelle Bozzini, have been at the forefront of
Canada’s new music scene for over two-and-a-half decades, now. Here, they
are joined by the junctQin keyboard collective, a somewhat younger but well
established and distinguished piano trio – that’s three pianos – consisting
of Stephanie Chua, Joseph Ferretti, and Elaine Lau in a series of
realizations of composer Rebecca Buton’s Faerie Ribbon and Jason Deoll’s to
carry dust & breaks through the body. These and the album title,
a root or mirror, blossom, madder, cracks; together,
are evocative, but in their opacity and undefined suggestiveness. And maybe
that is a fitting way to lead into the review proper. The music is
suggestively enigmatic.
Rebecca Burton – 'The Fairie Ribbon' (Tracks 1-4)
Burton’s 'The Fairie Ribbon' consists of four parts of glittery, romantic
music that borders on the hymnic. At the same time – and maybe linked to
that religious idea of calm, sacred space – it evokes an uneven saunter
through a forest pathway with strings enveloping birdsongs just well enough
to add an impressionistic mystery. As with any proper forest tale, it plays
with light and dark, sometimes seeming more foreboding than carefree. (Leo
Orenstein comes to mind in this blend of elements.) Long pauses separate
the sections within each part, of which there are four. These mark
transitions and escalations, but also mimic the detours and distractions of
a light hike, where one stops to view a vista here, or a strange, colorful
bird in a tree there, or an odd outcropping one may or may not want to risk
exploring. After a quick glance, one returns to their thoughts, meandering
along with the hiker’s uncertain path. The listener’s mind and attention is
set wandering in a similar fashion, until, in the final part, the piece
climaxes in a majestic moment of clarity.
Jason Deoll – 'to carry dust & breaks through the body' (Track 5)
The second half, loosely speaking, of a root or mirror consists of
a realization of a composition from Jason Doell. This one is somewhat
darker than 'The Fairie Ribbon' and relies on long doubled tones and slow
progressions to achieve a sort of grandiosity. Slow melodies waft around a
couple central dramatic leitmotifs. The melodies, meticulously excavated
from what could otherwise have been a morass of chords, are heavy and
plodding, almost menacing in their unison. But the piece shows its real
power in the persistence of the drones, the heavy key strikes, the
constant loop back to the foundational melody, the anticipation those
elements engender. 'To carry dust' is a strong piece, more linear than the
itinerant 'Fairie Ribbon.'
In this release, we see two related but diverging faces of the many-sided
dice of contemporary composition, inspired by various strands of the
postwar new music, but avoiding the stark minimalist or cacophonist
extremes. Composers Burton and Deoll are not alone in this pursuit, of
course. However, they pursue it with a rare degree of skill and confidence.
As do the Bozzini and junctiQin ensembles.
Available as on CD and vinyl and as a download from Bandcamp. The download
includes four alternate versions of 'The Faerie Ribbon.'
At the end of this past December, bassist Barre Phillips passed away. Today, fellow bassist Joëlle Léandre pays tribute to her mentor, collaborator and friend.
I met and heard you when I was so young, 15 years old, in Aix-en-Provence,
my hometown, you gave a solo bass concert there, in 1963 or 65!
Pierre Delescluse, a great, passionate and stern double bass teacher took
the whole class to listen to you, to see you. It was extraordinary, a solo
on a forgotten, low register instrument... there in front of us!
A U.F.O., something else... A light.
You played a movement of a Bach suite for cello, transcribed of course, and
music you had written spread across 6 or 7 music stands on the stage! Like
an accordion you moved from stand to stand, it was magical.
One sound, then one phrase… You played as much pizz as
arco
, as we say in our string family vernacular. Music bursting everywhere. It
was yours. You were a protagonist and a pioneer.
Later, we played a lot together, as a duo of course, in a bass quartet in
tribute to Peter Kowald, but also did a show called "The grammar of
grandmothers" [grandmother = surname for the double bass]: three
bassists on stage at the American Center, Boulevard Raspail in Paris, where everything creative was happening – this was also the place where I went to
listen to the free jazz greats and thank them all! We shared the stage with
Robert Black, another explorer of the double bass.
On the stage, there were only basses laid flat, sideways… small, huge,
broken, hung here and there, like a workshop, pieces of wood, bass strings
in a bucket, music stands everywhere, a bass suspended like a swing...
magnificent! All three of us had written a lot of music.
It came from you, Barre, the spirit of adventure, permissiveness, all these
meetings and projects.
The living music, the ringing of this big cabinet that scares dogs and the
taxis that reject us!
Your smile, your joy, your wisdom and mischievous eyes, many memories I
keep…
With a childlike and curious mind, you were always enthusiastic and eager
to share information with me about new microphones, amps, and slipcovers! We bass players are paranoid about sound, since it’s so hard to
hear us. Bass players always talk shop, and you were overjoyed to show me
your new carbon bass, taking it out of the hotel room into the corridor to
kick it and jump on it and show me it was unbreakable, I was in tears from
laughter – you always had a passion for new means of projecting a better
sound. You were a complete musician, regardless of genre.
We often spoke on the phone, on the road, at hotels and during festivals.
You were always the one I looked to, Barre, an example to follow. Your
sound, the sound of your bass is recognizable among thousands. The sound is
our identity as musicians, it's the energy we put in, the choices we
make, we keep selecting, deciding, taking risks, we have to!
With an implacably accurate left hand, you made the bass a solo instrument
in its own right… Others have taken over, haven’t they? We are not many...
Classical, free, jazz, who cares, I can hear your thing clearly! You
remained a unique musician, ever creative and funny, talking to the
audience or hiding behind the bass sometimes!
And always your kindness, reaching out to others, listening, sharing...
While everything in society is based on hierarchies and domination – black
and white, man and woman, serious and oral music, this style over this one
– you were basically becoming the other, without hierarchy.
Making music together is loving.
Thank you Barre for everything you gave us.
We will miss you!! JL (translation by David Cristol)
Joëlle Léandre Photo by Christian Pouget
Joëlle Léandre and Barre Phillips can be heard together on the following recordings:
Joëlle Léandre – Les douze sons (Nato, 1984)
Phillips, Léandre, Parker, Saitoh – After You Gone (Victo, 2004)
Barre Phillips & Joëlle Léandre – A l'improviste(Kadima,
2008)
13 Miniatures for Albert Ayler (Rogue Art, 2012)
Sebastian Gramss – Thinking of... Stefano Scodanibbio (Wergo,
2014)
Video, live in France, 2013 (excerpt):
Upcoming Joëlle Léandre releases:
Duo with Andrejz Karalow – Flint on Fundacja Ensemblage (March
2025)
Duo with Evan Parker on Rogue Art
Duo with Rémy Bélanger de Beauport on Tour de Bras (LP)
I remember a long while back reading a review for a blistering solo free
jazz album on Keith Fullerton Whitman’s now defunct Mimaroglu Web Store
(thanks for everything Keith!) and he noted that solo albums like that
really hit him between the eyes during the freezing winter months and I’ve
thought of that every winter since. I also tend to listen to a lot of solo
music during the post-holiday cold as I’m generally not as distracted with
outdoor life and am able to listen a little more closely. That said, this
year I've been loving this new solo trombone release from Philadelphia's
Dan Blacksberg who’s trio has been covered a couple of times
here
on the blog. He was in the Hasidic doom metal band Deveykus with fellow
Philadelphian, guitarist
Nick Millevoi
, releasing their only album Pillar Without
Mercy on Tzadik back in 2013. Blacksberg is described on his website
as “a living master of klezmer trombone” and in addition to being a
dedicated proponent, teacher, and organizer of the music he also released
the first album of klezmer to feature the trombone as the lead instrument
on Radiant
Others, also with Millevoi. The album currently under consideration
here is not a klezmer album in the slightest. The Psychic Body/Sound
System is a powerful improvised statement that blends wild soundscapes and
drone with gnarled extended technique and commanding free trombone flights.
The poetic fictionalizations of the titles are the perfect signage along
the path, one that is craggy and steep but also imbued with some remarkable
vistas.
The album starts off with “We Walk Through the Petrified Gates” - a brief,
low drone that feels like an initiation - setting the tone. Next is “Tale
of a Survival” a heady dialogue of solo free trombone where the staccato
phrasing starts to slur and is interrupted by mumbled exclamations across
the track, occasionally breaking down into violent and wet blasts of sound.
On “Crags of Resounding Whispers” the thwacking churn of the horn is
reminiscent of the chug of a huge pumping machine. The album's arguable
centerpiece (for me) is “Observing the endless screamer” , this time on a
prepared trombone. No idea what the preparations are but it would seem that
Blacksberg opened some sort of portal. Endearing in much the same way that
Merzbow is, it might require a bit of effort for some. Blacksberg does a
considerable job of bending and directing these noises to make the track a
standout on the album, it’s not just pure intensity but also arrangement,
variety, and nuance. “Feeding the great babbler” is a brief segue in low
frequencies - a lot lower than the previous track - it’s fast-paced and
bulbous and pretty easy on the ears (mindful sequencing) with a lot to
offer the careful listener. “Softgrid Lament” is built of growling,
multiphonic passages recorded really dryly, so much so that the gurgling
inner world of his trombone is central to the piece. It seats gnarly,
aggressive exclamations at the same table with slow glissandos that sound
like cartoon airplanes falling out of the sky.
The direct effect of being submerged is discernible on “Liquified tides of
thought”, which conversely has the reverb cranked to 11. The stuttering
passages ripple like water over rocks, closing in breathy resolution. On
“Infinitely shattering crystal wishes” Blacksberg plays his horn into a
prepared piano. Heavy tongue thwacks and high pitched whistles disturb the
pressure field, causing the strings to answer, the track becoming more
intense and violent as it progresses. “Gliding over the dimensional glacier”
is another brief but continuous drone piece that puts the gauze back in our
ears, again the sequencing is right on as this lull resolves into the
brightness of the next track “Tale of refusing futility”. On this one
Blacksberg plays with a raspy, cutting tone that blasts through in a haze of
atomized spittle. Then Blacksberg puts down the magic wand momentarily and
delivers a passage that’s aggressive and direct. The album closes with the
“We exhale the gate closed”, another brief and murky drone that works as a
bookend with the opening track. This is a good one, there’s a lot of
variety in both technique and style and it’s a lot of fun to listen to.
It's got a quality of its own and doesn’t sound like a solo trombone album
in the sense you might expect. The detail and density keep the listening
active and as a result it’s 40 minutes pass all too quickly.
Question: Why would it be that an artist or art that has been widely
recognized as wonderful, groove-tastic, ecstatic, and cool for fifty years
“suddenly” becomes transcendent, “suddenly” becomes preternaturally
compelling, “suddenly” becomes the best music you’ve heard live in years?
Is it the persistence of the vision that transports you? Has the music been
gaining gravity over the past 50 years? Is it improvement? Has the artist
upped their game year after year and now, in the present moment, they
transcend? Or is it the quality of the audience? Has the time, space,
context, trauma, and treasure of “us today” rendered the present moment into
the right time? Or is it a mystical alignment of the river and the foot
stepping into it? Never the same twice, but perfect for this exact moment?
These were my thoughts in the days after attending Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic
Heritage Ensemble performance at the Space Gallery in Portland, ME, on
February 4, 2025.
The trio came into a sold out room and began with the “little instruments”
percussion wash that the AACM has turned into a sacred ritual. The Ethnic
Heritage Ensemble has celebrated its 50th year as one of the only extant
ensembles from the collective’s early days (possibly one can say the Art
Ensemble is still around). The audience—packed in—was ready to be embraced.
Corey Wilkes, trumpet, and Kevin Nabors, tenor, traveled the spectrum. The
head of the first tune was quirky, post-boppish, and soulful with space and
tricky syncopations, but the solos were barnburners, the sorts of things
where outlandish blowing is occasionally accomplished by pistoning the
keys/plungers using your forearm and the elbow as a fulcrum. This first
tune, apparently a mission statement for the evening, ended with Zabar’s own
solo which had enough kinetic energy to raise a house. Rarely has
destructive energy (hitting) been used to create so extravagantly.
That said, Zabar did not spending that much time behind the kit, often
coming out front to sit on the most thoroughly, skillfully, and soulfully
whacked cajon I’ve ever heard, or playing a “thumb piano” (of all things) in
a way that defied all expectations of what most people think of as a gift
shop tchotchke. Through it all, Zabar threaded his songs and vocalizations,
bringing together the blues and the choir, uniting Saturday night and Sunday
morning. This was spiritual, trance-making music, joined with noise, play,
and ecstasy. His wordless singing has a dreamlike quality to it, evoking joy
without being required to articulate it.
The evening had half a dozen pieces. Zabar’s own “A Time for Healing” was
the center of the set. The trio’s rendition of “All Blues” was the most
sublime moment, with Wilkes’ harmon mute (of course) bending the room to his
will. McCoy Tyner’s “Passion Dance” came through like a cyclone. Zabar’s
tribute to Ornette Coleman mesmerized us, with Nabors provoking a standing O
in the middle of the tune. The evening ended with a solo vocal performance
from Zabar, a love standard—”my mother’s favorite”—rendered in Zabar’s
unique scatted/sung/dreamscaped/onomatopoetic way. It was funny,
adventurous, exciting, and remarkably touching.
Was this the best performance I’ve seen in the last few years? Maybe. At the
very least, when we discovered, after the concert, that the keys had been
locked in our car on an evening when the temperature began at 8 degrees and
only went down—my sense of joy was in no way dampened. I after-glowed the
drive home, lightly buzzing as I made my way back into the dark,
snow-blanketed Maine Woods.
I fell in love with the music of Howard Riley rather late, actually it was
with
Solo in Vilnius (NoBusiness, 2010). But then I really did. In the following years, I
discovered his whole body of work, his early trio and most of all his solo
albums, especially
Constant Change 1976 - 2016 (NoBusiness, 2016), a 5-CD box set, which is one of my favourites of the
decade. Howard Riley has become my favourite pianist (except Cecil Taylor,
who is a league of his own), and because I had listened to his music
intensively, I was really shocked when it became known that he was
seriously ill. However, Riley managed to defy the illness for a long time
and even managed to adapt his playing technique. But in the end, the great
British pianist lost the fight and died yesterday, February 8th, shortly
before his 82nd birthday.
Howard Riley studied at the University of Wales (1961–66), where he gained
a BA and MA. He then he went to Indiana University (1966–67), before he
enrolled at York University (1967–70) for his PhD. Alongside his studies and
teaching he always played jazz professionally, with Evan Parker in 1966 and
then with his aforementioned trio (1967–76), with Barry Guy on bass and Alan
Jackson, Jon Hiseman and Tony Oxley alternating on drums. They released
three albums for three different labels, each showing a remarkable
stylistic evolution, opening up standardized structures into the worlds of
an unknown, free improvisational language, while still clearly rooted in
jazz. Riley played with a number of the key musicians of the British
improv scene, but his idea of freedom was different. He needed a melody or
rhythmic fragment to provide a center of gravity.
Apart from that, the feature which characterizes Riley’s music best is a
tendency to reduction. His first solo album, Singleness, “demonstrated his
mastery of historical techniques, attuned, through Monk, to the language of
bebop as well as to the contemporary forms of Xenakis and Penderecki“, as
Trevor Barre puts it in Beyond Jazz - Plink, Plonk & Scratch; The
Golden Age of Free Music in London 1966 -1972. Especially Xenakis has been a
constant influence to his music which Riley has always seen as an
evolutionary process. In the liner notes to Facets (Impetus, 1981) he
mentioned that he had always tried to bring both sides together: the useful
ideas and intellectual aspects of the European musical environment and the
intensity and spontaneity which is displayed by the American jazz
tradition. Riley’s work ricocheted between drama, space, rumbling trills,
rhythmic surprises and a sparing lyricism. Hardly anyone was able to
develop a theme through constant modulations, harmony shifts and subtle
dynamics like him, his idiosyncrasies always remaining accessible.
During a recording session, he realized that he couldn't play anymore and
went to see a doctor, who diagnosed Parkinson’s disease. Riley had to stop
playing for some time, and luckily he recovered with the help of
medication. However, he had to revise his technique. At that age this was
a tremendous and hard effort and it was surprising how well it worked, for
example on the late recordings for Constant Change 1976 - 2016. As another
result Riley approached his later solo performances “with or without
repertoire“, playing the great standards, mainly Monk and Ellington. He was
back where he started from.
Howard Riley has always been something like an unsung hero in the
improvised music scene, but he released very recommendable albums. Flight
(Turtle Records, 1971) and Synopsis (Incus, 1974), both with the
above-mentioned trio, are landmarks of British free jazz. Duality (View
Records, 1982) and For Four On Two Two (Affinity, 1984) are early
masterpieces of his solo excursions. His piano duo with Keith Tippett must
also be mentioned here, for example The Bern Concert (FMR, 1994). A
personal favourite of mine is Improvisation Is Forever Now (Emanem,
1978/2002) with Barry Guy and Phil Wachsmann. From his late period all
albums on the NoBusiness label are great,
Solo in Vilnius
and
Constant Change 1976 - 2016
are essential. By releasing Riley’s late works regularly, the Lithuanians
have helped this wonderful music to see the light of day.
It was also NoBusiness’s Danas Mikailionis who informed us that Howard
Riley passed away at his care home in Beckenham, South London.
Unfortunately, Parkinson’s Disease had really taken its toll severely with
him over the last few years. The musical universe has lost a bright star, a
kind man and a great personality. It is not only me who will miss Howard Riley a lot.
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