All artists filed by last name under J, K and L :
Second album for the wind trio. This one with a lot of guests from the italian impro avant scene! It was recorded in 2011 in Bologna at the Ivan Illich Popular School of Music and it contains 11 tracks for about 50 minutes of music. Some tracks are completely improvised and some contains written parts by Ivan Pilat and Piero Bittolo Bon. Continue reading
The music of Kongrosian is free jazz or is it improvisational jazz? I think both terms will bring to mind complete freedom, which for a few may mean “lack of organization or direction”, which in their case is untrue. Bootstrap Paradox (Aut) is a collaborative effort between the trio and Oreste Sabadin, and together they make music with a small bit of foundation, but then they each have the freedom to go anywhere and everywhere with what they do. In fact, the group say they are “a trio + 1″, and the role of that +1 is open to anyone who wants to join them. I love the concept of music that is “in the making”, or at least music that sounds like it’s being assembled as you hear it. You may hear trumpets, saxophones, and a bass clarinet play an off-key melody, while another clarinet plays around and within that melody, only for another instrument to follow, which in turns follows something else. It’s like an onion unveiling new layers, and you’re not sure whether to enjoy the onion or keep peeling. That’s the joy of such pieces as “I’m A Strange Loop”, “Fractal Structure Of Revolutions”, and “No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!”, the words have no reason for being there and perhaps the sounds are the same. They don’t belong, but do because that’s how it’s combined, to create these reckless sounds that may make you want to join in and play. Bootstrap Paradox is an album that is far from lacking any direction, the fun is trying to compile the sounds and figure out what they’ll do next. I look forward to their next destination. — John Book Continue reading
Hanam is a Berlin based quintet of musicians coming from different geographic areas: well know musicians like Horst Nonnenmacher (who has been part of the Improvisors poll, a group born to celebrate the collaboration between two jazz monsters as Alex Von Schlippenbach and Sam Rivers) and Alison Blunt (of various important collaborations and member of the London Improvisers orchestra that gathers, together with the Glasgow orchestra, the best of the avant-garde jazz of today in UK), joined here by the fresh possibilities of pianist Nikolai Menhold and two saxophonists, Anna Kaluza on alto sax and Manuel Miethe on soprano sax. Hanam is the perfect demonstration of how singularities can be sublimated: the interplay is the essential referring point where, in a sort of secret conduction, the musicians work on sharing energies. Each one knows how use their personal techniques to be part of a restless sound fluxus. You can easily feel it: look at their video recorded at the Vortex Jazz Club in London and appreciate their abilities and symbiosis. In this cd we find two different recordings: the Lumen Church one is a true hommage to contemporary music made by devoted to improvisation: a suite built on woodwinds overtones (Scelsi), opposed to extended percussive touches on piano and double bass (Berio) that seem to refer to the essential structures so connected to the contemporary composition strategies (Lachemann). In the other performance at the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin, a two set concert, guest artist Tristan Honsinger, the premises are confirmed: great expression of this group, able to set a quality standard of the highest kind and to play a captivating chaos improvised music, thanks to a wise contrast/fragmentation playing, able to cause that neural involvement that only free improvisation can give. These sounds are imaginative, the instruments themselves seem to cause situations through their musicians: the idea is that of a special narration the goes through innocence and unpredictability of music. Something close to Alice in Wonderland adventures, an idea close to the famous cellist Tristan Honsinger who in his participation here joins his chamber instinct (especially in less dynamic phases) to his experimental side (feeding the transversality and the opposition to the mainstream use of the instrument). Highest level. — Review by Ettore Garzia Continue reading
The traveler listens, and says: I was called by a name that is not mine, and that is revealed by music. I barely had the time to assemble a bouquet of our hands and feet and to hang from the rope of our bodies. I heard this voice, the orgeat of this voice: what is happening to us? And with a more evasive tone: who are we, really? I stumbled on the chimney of dreams. I was with scarlet crows.Alexandre Pierrepont (translation: Remain Tessler) Continue reading
Out of the 63 or 67 satellites around Jupiter, fifty or more of them were discovered since the year 2000 (since the “elections” of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, since the busting of the Internet bubble and the market launch of the first USB key: it’s all a question of scale, right?). We are told their orbits are far apart, eccentric, inclined and retrograde. That they do as they please, heads in the clouds, that they dance. It’s your turn to dance. You understand you are a moon in all its phases simultaneously. Let me say that again. Anybody can be the root, says Roscoe Mitchell. Everything is seed, says Novalis. Ascension Dream Phoenix, says Rob Mazurek. A feast. — Alexandre Pierrepont (translation Romain Tesler) Continue reading
A stealth recording deserving of wide spread critical acclaim! Straight up, Jessica Jones and Connie Crothers Live at the Freight is an absolute gem! Why? Simple…Take iconic standards performed at an exemplary level such as Duke Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood” then carefully intermingled some highly accessible yet spontaneously energetic free jazz and you have a live duo that is crossing musical planes and welcoming everyone along for the journey. …Live at the Freight is spontaneous creativity at its finest. – Brent Black, Criticaljazz.com Continue reading
Linda King showed up in the Vagabond Press mailbox, unsolicited, back in 1972, in Redwood City, California. I’d never heard of her before, but the poems she sent had fire and were free of pretension. I wrote asking if she might have enough material for a chapbook, and she sent the manuscript for Sweet & Dirty. It was only then that I realized she was connected to Bukowski. Vagabond published the book, to the delight of some and the disgust of others. Most of what we published tended to draw these extreme reactions. It was a short press run and was gone in a flash. True to its name, Vagabond was always on the move — Munich, D.C., New Orleans, San Francisco, etc., and in 1974, in Ellensburg, Washington, we brought out a second edition of Sweet & Dirty. It too was gone in a flash. It’s now 2013 with lots of water under the bridge. I hadn’t thought about Sweet & Dirty in a long time, and then Herr Klaus of Outlaw Poetry, a powerhouse literary web site operating out of France, contacted me with the request to bring out a third edition. I agreed, Linda agreed, and here it is. The poems in Sweet & Dirty still have their fire, and also, I realize now, their innocence. What goes around comes around. — John Bennett – Ellensburg, WA, August 10, 2013 Continue reading
Recorded at the end of a weeklong tour in Bielefeld Germany at the club Bunker. The CD includes Jan Klare on alto saxophone and flute, Bill Elgart drums and percussion, Meinrad Kneer on bass and Jeff Platz guitar. The idea was to record a few takes during the day and then record the evening performance. The club Bunker is an actual bunker from the world war two era, which has been transformed into one of the countries most historic jazz clubs. After two sets of what was agreed to be very intense playing and listening on all of our parts, we were quiet pleasantly surprised at the outcome! — Jeff Platz Continue reading
An evolution of gratitude to Mark for the silent spaces between the thoughts, words, and poems from which this concert arose; to Tom Guralnick for planet Outpost, base camp to parallel dimensions; to Janet Simon for divine hospitality and terrestrial support; to the audience of Dreamers who dove into the cosmic womb with us; to Steven Schmidt for discerning notes and words from satelite beeps; to Dana Duke for adding shine; to Jim Gale and JB Bryan for manifesting design; and to the playful Universerse, for having that car zoom by after Poem #4, conjuring a rocket ship vanishing into outer space, or a long forgotten inner galaxy… Kazzrie Jaxen Continue reading
Joe McPhee – alto sax, pocket trumpet |Fred Lonberg-Holm – cello, electronics | Michael Zerang – percussion. Recorded in concert on October 26, 2010, at Instants Chavires, Paris, France by Jean-Marc Fossat. Mixed by Michael Zerang and Lou Mallozzi at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago. Mastered by Rafal Drewniany (dts studio). Inside photo: Steve Robinson. Cover photo: Filip Przewozny. Cover design: Malgorzata Lipinska. Continue reading