Konstrukt (feat. Peter Brötzmann | H. Ertunç | D. Doğusel | B. Tan Özemek | Eklisia Sunday | Not Two Records

Eklisia Sunday (Not Two) was recorded near Bodrum, Turkey on May 15 2011, seven months before the Wels festival. The event presumably marked the belated release of a Konstrukt/Brötzmann album, Dolunay (ARES), which they had recorded in 2008. Konstrukt is an Istanbul-based improv group; not one I’ve previously known, although it also collaborated in 2011 both with Marshall Allen and—as documented on the album Live at Akbank Jazz Festival (Re:konstruKt)—Evan Parker. The usual Konstrukt lineup—Korhan Futaci, tenor & soprano saxophones; Umut Çağlar, electric guitar; Özün Usta, double bass, djembe, gong, bells; Korhan Argüden, drums and “old k zildjian cymbals” — here becomes an septet with the addition of Brötzmann (tenor & alto saxophones, clarinet) and additional guests: Hüseyin Ertunç, acoustic piano, küstüfon, gong; and Doğan Doğusel, double bass, küstüfon. An eighth player, Barlas Tan Özemek stands in for Umut Çağlar on the third and longest track. — Dalston Sound Continue reading

Roscoe Mitchell | Nicole Mitchell | Black Earth Ensemble| Three Compositions | Live at Sant’Anna Arresi | RogueArt Jazz

Despite the compositions’ respective demands Nicole Mitchell and Black Earth Ensemble fully and vividly represented Roscoe Mitchell’s varied means of creating chemistry between written and improvised materials. At every turn in the program, they played with a palpable sense of familiarity and ease with the composer’s vernacular and methods. They sounded like they’ve been playing this music every night for a long time. — Bill Shoemaker, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading

Didier Petit | Alexandre Pierrepont | Passages – A Road Record – Woodstock – New York – Chicago – Los Angeles | RougeArt Jazz

Lawrence Butch Morris developed the concept of “conduction” to account for a mode of Instant Composition based on the creative freedom of the players stimulated by the gestures of a central conductor. AP/DP, with this cd, invent the practice of musical transduction. Just like the French language is not “translated” but transducted into Kamau Daáood’s unique prosody, DP’s cello does not “translate” the playing of a thumb piano, an oud or a kora: all of these instruments, all of their phrasings electrify his playing from the inside, they are transducted into the cello. Similarly, DP’s vocal cords do not “translate” what his fingers perform on the strings: both are electrified by a common current, alternating and direct. The astonishing fluidity of this complex meshwork of influences qualifies AP/DP as “Super-transductors”: through this cd, one hears not only a whole family of giant cello players (Abdul Wadud, Robert Een, Tom Cora, Ernst Reijseger, Peggy Lee, Hank Roberts), but also a long history of lyrical surrealism (from Lautréamont to Henri Michaux), and the widest range of traditions in ethnomusicology (from Africa to the Middle East, through classical Europe and Amerindian singing)… …Be prepared to be transducted, transformed and elated. — Yves Citton, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading

Thomas Borgmann | Wilber Morris | Reggie Nicholson | Nasty & Sweet | No Business Records

From the first few notes, it’s apparent that something special is happening on Nasty & Sweet. Perhaps it’s the way bassist Wilber Morris and drummer Reggie Nicholson sound so assured in their placement of the merest splashes of color. Completely unafraid to take their time, creating a powerful tension which isn’t released even when German reedman Thomas Borgmann joins with his breathily majestic tenor saxophone smears. There is a story here. — John Sharpe Continue reading

Yehudit | Valentine | Edgetone Records

This album is a valentine… Each of these classic songs is a valentine – a celebration of the joy and gift of love. I imagine that you might play them while you sit down to a quiet dinner with your sweetie, with flowers and candlelight. In recording these songs, I manifest my profound love for the great American traditions of jazz and songwriting, I am always astonished and delighted to be a small tributary to this great river of music. The album itself is a labor of love on the part of the musicians, engineers, and artists who contributed their skill, creativity, and heart to make it what it is. And finally, this album is a valentine from me to you, the listener. May your life be filled with love and music. Continue reading

Yehudit | YL 101 | Edgetone Records

Violinist Yehudit (pronounced “yeah who DEET”) is making a place for herself in the forefront of the jazz mainstream, demonstrating that the electric violin, in her hands, is a convincing and innovative jazz instrument. A classically trained player with a solid grounding in the jazz idiom, her extensive professional experience encompasses ensembles as diverse as the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and the jazz/blues band John Handy with Class. Performing on electric and acoustic five-string violins, she produces a varied sonic palette, ranging from boppish licks and wails to warm, singing melody. Her music is firmly rooted in straight-ahead jazz, spiced with blues, free improvisation, and a dash of funk. Continue reading

Rent Romus | The Lords of Outland | You can sleep when you’re dead | Edgetone Records

The Lords of Outland present their latest black metal deth jazz sequel to Culture of Pain. In this day, this dawn, when privacy rapidly begins to dwindle…where the difference between inside and outside of one’s head or one’s house or one’s inbox are growing more blurred….we find ourselves in new territory, a no man’s land where everyone has fifteen hours of fame, whether they know it or not. There is no choice anymore in what is open to the electronic voyeur. The eyes of the world are upon us and we are all stripped naked on the internet, over the phone, in our email and in our very thoughts. Nothing is hidden from the watchful eyes of the ‘gods’. We are on display for their amusement. However, as the watcher watches so too do we watch him. So too do we indulge in voyeuristic fashion, in the analysis of his behavior. He is the wolf to our sheep, but we are the hunter to his wolf, and as the spiral turns so to the watcher and the watched become one in a dance, the pull eternal, between fascism and freedom. Continue reading

Rent Romus’ Lords of Outland | You’ll Never Be The Same! | Edgetone Records

This raw, gut level, on the edge recording places the listener smack dab in the middle of Blondie’s Jazz Bar in San Francisco on a cold night in February 1995. YOU’LL NEVER BE THE SAME is a musical journey combining a prima sense of groove and improvisation with Romus’ “X” generation angst. This seven-cut release pushes the envelope with Romus’ original compositions, which follows a gut level groove, and then builds upon that structure with free form improvisation. The music takes the attitude of the grunge music movement, and incorporates it into an acoustic, improvised setting. Through this concept of strange bedfellows the music appeals to the hard core jazz fan as well as the alternative music fan.

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