avant-garde jazz Archive
Sean Noonan Pavees Dance – Tan Man’s Hat – RareNoise
Neo jazz-rock with harmolodic inclinations.
Dave Liebman, Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake – CHI – RareNoise
Sax and percussion trio music with unanticipated depth.
Gordon Grdina’s The Marrow – Ejdeha – Songlines
Middle Eastern-influenced jazz with a melodic center.
Phillip Johnston & the Coolerators – The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Diggin’ Bones – Asynchronous
Organ jazz and a jazz soundtrack with a difference.
Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp – Oneness– Leo
Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp – Oneness– Leo Musical collaboration and communication of the highest order. Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp – Oneness – Leo CD LR 823/825 (3-CDs), 49:24, 49:06, 43:52 [3/2/18] *****: (Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp – piano) How does one select the best of the best? As tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp have discovered, that’s nearly impossible. The concept behind the duo recording, Oneness, was for the two long-time musical allies to go into a studio—in this case, five days at Parkwest studios in Brooklyn in September 2017—and then pick the best material and release a single CD. When Shipp and Perelman listened to their completely spontaneous tunes— no predetermined themes, structures or tempos—they faced a conundrum. “The idea was to get just one CD, the best of the very best,” Shipp explains in the album’s liner notes. “But then we listened to these recordings and said, ‘We can’t do that: we can’t choose.’” The result? A three-CD boxed set of close to 2.5 hours of music which is the definitive statement of Shipp and Perelman’s enduring musical partnership. The two artists’ failure to compile a single disc is the listeners’ […]
Bang on a Can All-Stars – More Field Recordings – Cantaloupe
From footsteps to snoring, space exploration to quilting: here’s another unique chapter in the Bang on a Can All-Stars oeuvre. Bang on a Can All-Stars – More Field Recordings [TrackList follows] – Cantaloupe CA21136 (2-CDs), 38:55, 37:43 [10/27/17] ****: (Ashley Bathgate – cello; Robert Black – bass; Vicky Chow – piano, keyboards; David Cossin – drums, percussion; Mark Stewart – guitar; Ken Thomson – clarinet, bass clarinet) Patterns are important to the two-disc More Field Recordings, the second installment of the Bang on a Can All-Stars’ ongoing series. More Field Recordings is like the first Field Recordings collection released in 2015 by the Cantaloupe label. Both incorporate classical and electronic influences and use found sounds, audio samples and archival audio elements as an underpinning and/or starting point. While the patterned groundwork is the same, this edition widens the idea of field recordings into a richer and more exploratory degree of sounds and music which includes ambient qualities, unconventional components and electro-acoustic segments. The key factor which aligns the 13 disparate pieces on More Field Recordings is that each composer was requested to go out into the world to find either new or old sounds and then act on those sounds […]
Gordon Grdina, François Houle, Benoît Delbecq and Kenton Loewen – Ghost Lights – Songlines
Gordon Grdina, François Houle, Benoît Delbecq and Kenton Loewen – Ghost Lights [TrackList follows] – Songlines, SGL 1621-2 70:45 [6/9/17] ****: Avant jazz with a subtle and nuanced quality. (Benoît Delbecq – piano, bass station; François Houle – clarinet, electronics, loops; Gordon Grdina – guitar, electronics; Kenton Loewen – drums, percussion) When the term ‘avant jazz’ is used, some listeners conjure music with severity that is non-melodic, or difficulty mixed with discordance. But the 70-minute quartet album, Ghost Lights, is different. There is a delicate texture throughout the seven lengthy pieces composed or fully improvised by Benoît Delbecq (piano, bass station), François Houle (clarinet, electronics, loops), Gordon Grdina (guitar, electronics) and Kenton Loewen (drums, percussion). Grdina is known for a harsher, harder guitar style on previous outings, so Grdina fans might be surprised on his quieter quality throughout Ghost Lights. Delbecq concisely describes this material, “Its music with slow motion.” Gordon Grdina Ghost Lights was taped in summer, 2016 at Afterlife studios in Vancouver, Canada but has a live ambiance and the engineering has a warm, stage-like attribute. You can hear how the foursome flows with each moment and proceeds from one creative state to the next creative phase. There […]
Mumpbeak – Tooth – RareNoise
Mumpbeak – Tooth [TrackList follows] – RareNoise RNR078, 41:43 [5/26/17] ****: Is it jazz? Is it progressive rock? It’s definitely Mumpbeak. (Roy Powell – Hohner clavinet, Moog Little Phatty, Hammond organ, tubular bells; Lorenzo Feliciati – bass; Torstein Lofthus – drums) What’s a Mumpbeak? Despite the title, it’s not some fantastical bird. Mumpbeak is the Oslo, Norway-based prog-rock/jazz fusion instrumental power trio led by keyboardist Roy Powell with bassist Lorenzo Feliciati and newest member, drummer Torstein Lofthus. Feliciati has issued solo projects; Powell and Feliciati are in jazz-rock ensemble Naked Truth; Powell is also in the genre-defying trio Interstatic; and Lofthus drums for avant-garde group Shining and the psychedelic prog-rock/jazz trio Elephant 9. Mumpbeak crafts a kind of niche music, which blends classic progressive rock akin to Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Van Der Graaf Generator alongside forays into jazz comparable to Miles Davis’ early ‘70s material. Mumpbeak’s 41-minute sophomore release, Tooth, was issued as a CD Digipak, a limited-edition single blue vinyl LP (2×180 grams) and a digital download album. This review refers to the CD version. Roy Powell Powell favors a heavily-effected, guitar-sounding clavinet. “I play a stock Hohner E7 clavinet into a series of guitar effects pedals […]
JD Allen – Radio Flyer – Savant
JD Allen – Radio Flyer [TrackList follows] – Savant SCD 2162, 53:23 [6/2/17] ****: Saxophonist JD Allen ups the ante on exploratory jazz. (JD Allen – tenor saxophone; Liberty Ellman – guitar; Gregg August – bass; Rudy Royston – drums) Its significant tenor saxophonist JD Allen’s latest album, the 53-minute Radio Flyer, was recorded in January, 2017. It was a period when changes were taking place in American society and politics, and the current notions and future hopes of many were out of balance. It was the start of a tumultuous time, and Allen’s seven originals reflect his embrace of a higher plane of improvisation and freedom, of the need to move into new directions. Basically, as Allen states in the CD liner notes, “To express yourself without concern for consequences.” Allen deliberately wanted to draw on the essence of adventure and revolution of fellow saxophonists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and others. These stalwarts crafted jazz which echoed the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, and for Allen the post-Obama era demands similar musical exploration. Thus, Allen’s music is unconstrained, freer and more outward-bound than anything he’s previously done. No surprise Allen utilizes his trusted trio members Gregg […]
Satoko Fujii, Wadada Leo Smith, Natsuki Tamura and Ikue Mori – Aspiration – Libra
Satoko Fujii, Wadada Leo Smith, Natsuki Tamura and Ikue Mori – Aspiration [TrackList follows] – Libra 204 043, 62:40 [9/8/17] ****: Four brilliant and independently-minded improvisers together at last. (Wadada Leo Smith – trumpet; Natsuki Tamura – trumpet; Satoko Fujii – piano; Ikue Mori – electronics) For listeners who prefer jazz outside of traditional or predictable jazz territory, the 62-minute Aspiration is a must-hear. The reason is the quartet which makes up this six-track album. Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is one of the top avant-garde jazz and free improvisers. He’s involved with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his 2012 effort, Ten Freedom Summers, and he received the 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award. Pianist Satoko Fujii is one of Japan’s major jazz improvisers and free jazz proponents, with over 40 releases. Fujii’s husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, has collaborated on many of Fujii’s recorded material (they both also front the acoustic group Gato Libre) and has been favorably compared to Smith for his likeminded inclinations concerning free jazz and creative melodicism. Ikue Mori (on electronics) was initially a drummer in the late 1970s NYC No Wave movement, […]
GEORGE RUSSELL Box Set – Complete Remastered Recordings on Black Saint & Soul Note – CAM (9 CDs)
One of the wildest avant-garde jazz artists (and pianists) of the last 50 years.
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
