M – N – O – P

All artists filed by last name under M, N, O and P :

Christian Skår Winther | Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard | Joakim Heibø Johansen | Mats Gustafsson | Ich Bin Nintendo & Mats Gustafsson | Va Fongool Records

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The three wildlings in ICH BIN N!NTENDO trooped up with The Thing’s critically acclaimed saxophone player, Mats Gustafsson, on their debute album released in october, 2012. Recording it during a live gig in Oslo, they managed to fully absorb the ultimate scolding energy of trembling musicians the album deserved and would not get from any studio. To fulfill the noise-soundscape to this record, Lasse Marhaug mixed and mastered it to perfection. ICH BIN N!NTENDO is a purely improvised trio and can be compared to bands like The Ex and the more experimental releases from ZU. Though, in the company with Mats Gustafsson, the closest comparison would be, if anything, the Original Silence recordings. Continue reading →

Halvor Meling | Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson | Jan Martin Gismervik | Wolfram | Va Fongool Records

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Wolfram Trio is a group that seeks inspiration in acoustic free jazz, with heroes such as Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Peter Brotzman and Even Parker. Wolfram plays a mixture of improvised music and their own compositions. The three members in Wolfram is also very good friends and therefor it is very fun for them to play together, as if the musical amusement should not be enough. On April the 20th, 2012, they gave out their debut album «Wolfram», labeled as acoustic speed-improv. Full of fierce energy, this is a great listen for all fans of improvised music. The album was recorded in Stavanger, Norway, 8th -9th of september 2011, and is produced, mixed and mastered by Frode Gjerstad. Continue reading →

Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson | Jan Martin Gismervik | PGA | Va Fongool Records

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Va Fongool is proud to present the duo PGA consisting of Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson on the double bass (Wolfram Trio, Moskus, Skadedyr) and Jan Martin Gismervik on drums (Sagstuen, Karokh, Wolfram Trio). After many years of cooperation and sharing the joy of playing in each others company, they´re now ready with their debut album “Corrections”.

PGA works with a clear framework and specific ideas, and delves deeply into the basic elements, which form the basis for their improvisation. This adds an originality and uniqueness to the music that also have been further fulfilled by the guest musicians Torstein Lavik Larsen on trumpet and Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø on trombone. Corrections is both extremely silent and minimalistic, and really intense at the same time, and provides a unique listening experience where you get sucked into the sounds of the PGA world. To complete the overall thoughts the German artist Danny Gretsch made the cover design. Recording and mixing are done by Greener Productions, while the Italian Guiseppe Ielasi did the mastering. Continue reading →

Denis Fournier | Nicole Mitchell | Hanah Jon Taylor | Tomeka Reid | Bernard Santacruz | Watershed | RogueArt Jazz

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If the three compositions proposed by Denis Fournier have already been recorded, they merit to be here as resurgences, like scenarios encouraging the freedom of transformation without which free interpretation is nothing. “I often say that I don’t make improvised music, but that I improvise music. In other words, I put together there and then elements of my life, of my history, of my culture…” In other words, no structure commands the action. Every structure opens to the action (to sharing) which redefines it. On their side, Nicole Mitchell and Tomeka Reid propose, one a musical treasure trail (Pathways), in phases and superposed phrases, the other a lament which is also a homage (Prayer for Wadud), beginning solemnly, elevatory, but dispersing like the cellist Abdul Wadud who still lives isolated from the world. Because if the album starts briskly, it finishes through several series of halos – once reaching Prayer for Wadud and La Voce de la Luna which takes its name and its indolence from Federico Fellini’s last film, itself inspired by a book by Ermanno Cavazzoni entitled Il Poema dei lunatic – The Lunatics Poem…Or how to show that things and beings are never what they appear to be, never only, never complete without the imagination which completes them and glorifies them. — Alexandre Pierrepont, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

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

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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

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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 →

Greg Lyons

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Greg Lyons is a British saxophonist, composer and arranger. Currently based out of Singapore, he is becoming known to an ever-increasing network of listeners for a commitment to making original music of an eclectic nature combining elements of his whole musical evolution – which includes representations of jazz, classical, funk, rock, pop, Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, avant-garde, folk and lots more.

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Szilard Mezei Tubass Quintet | Canons – 2nd Hoisting | No Business Records

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I’ll say it straight-off. Szilard Mezei is one of the most interesting jazz composer-instrumentalist-bandleaders active in Europe today. If you don’t know of him much, it’s because his releases do not shout out their existence, exactly. They are mostly small quantity albums on important but hardly mass-marketed avant jazz boutique labels, which I often favor–as of course regular readers know. A near-perfect example of the sort of release I speak of is his new one on No Business, a fine label out of Lithuania. This one is an LP pressed in only 300 copies, Szilard Mezei Tubass Quartet’s Canons – Second Hosting (No Business NBLP 56). This one may not jump out at you right away. That’s probably in part due to the very unusual instrumentation: Szilard and three others on contrabass and a tuba player!

The sound is dark and burnished. The improvisation out front, the compositional motives typical Mezei in that they bear his autographic stamp–the way of irregular phrasing, repositioning tonal commonplaces so that they become unusual. This may not be one to start with if you want to know about his music. My blogs cover a good number of those so search here and on the Gapplegate Guitar blog and you’ll find others. But there nonetheless is the characteristic daring presence on this one that makes Szilard an artist to listen to closely. —Grego Applegate Edwards Continue reading →