All artists filed by last name under Q, R and S :
This reading took place at Acequia Booksellers, 4019 Fourth St. NW, Albuquerque, NM on January 2 3, 2011. Mei-mei Berssenbrugge has recently published I Love Artists: Selected Poems (UCal 2006). Jonathan Skinner’s most recent book is Birds of Tifft (BlazeVox 2011). Edited by Bruce Holsapple. Copyright 2011 Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Jonathan Skinner and Vox Audio PO Box S94 Magdalena NM 8782S Continue reading
The TARFALA TRIO has its roots from 1992, meeting at the SOLO – 92 festival in Stockholm, Sweden. After that first encounter in 1992, the trio has worked sporadically and played festivals in Europe and releasing 2 Cds on Maya Recordings. This recording captures them playing live in Belgium, 2009. It is explosive, high energy loaded ferocious music focusing on low dynamic melodic material. Tarfala Trio is at their peak creating the most exciting improvised music you can hear today. Continue reading
The late, great violinist’s first two albums — the first so obscure I missed it when I assembled a discography for my 2005 Voice piece on Bang. A quartet for the first record, with Bilal Abdur Rahman on tenor and soprano sax, William Parker on bass, and Rashid Bakr on drums. Rahman, an old friend of Bang’s, picked up Islam in prison and recorded reluctantly but more often than not his cutting and slashing is terrific here. Both albums are hit and miss, with bits of spoken word spouting political critique — “when the poor steal, it’s called looting; when the rich steal, it’s called profit” is one turn of phrase. Second album adds Henry Warner on alto sax and Khuwana Fuller on congas — Warner’s another player who shows up on rare occasions but always makes a big impression. Way back when I would probably have hedged my grade, seeing each album as promising but half-baked, but now they’re indisputable pieces of history — and not just because Bang and Parker went on to have brilliant careers. Also note that the label in Lithuania that rescued them cared enough to provide a 36-page booklet on the era and this remarkable music. — Tom Hull Continue reading
Wind & Slap is an intense dialogue sincere and straightforward, made of sinuous complementary lines. Music is a fascinating intimate account, a succession of consecutive paintings that gain the hearing in a sequence – like smooth moves in a solitary suite. When it comes to live tracks, the dialogue, enhanced by a third element, goes at a faster pace and music is tinged with bluesy tones. Continue reading
Free clashes of the “Furlania” (lands of Friuli) in that of the comelican valley, recorded during the small jazz festival organized by D’Agaro in August 2006. Gluttony allegiance towards its own free jazz background, as if it were the first time. There are tasty Ellingtonian echoes in the growl of the arrangements, played by a luxurious orchestra, led by the creative drums of the ever-great Han Bennink. — Giovanni Natoli Continue reading
Music in its purest state. Improvisation intended as a method of instant collective composition. Sonorous symbols which are as bare and essential as Zen aphorisms are dropped onto hypnotic and feverish pulsations. Gashes of a new psychedelia, with a visual valence that is cinematographic. Dilutions of sound meet with a killer instinct for proportions and colours. Displacements in real time, guided only by sparse but very distinct micro-thematic reference points. Enrico Terragnoli’s guitar is a box of sounds with unlimited secret compartments. Giorgio Pacorig’s Rhodes distances itself from the limits of its own tradition. Danilo Gallo’s bass meanders darkly around the gut and Zeno De Rossi’s drumming here is absolutely unbeatable. — Giorgio Signoretti Continue reading
Newly awarded as European jazz musician of the year from the Franch Jazz Academy, Franco D’Andrea carries on his fellowship with El Gallo Rojo with this second work. He surprises us giving up to that live dimension that he and his quartet accustomed us to: Sorapis is a studio recording. The listeners may be reassured: the freshness of their approach and the intensity of their performance are untouched. The stretched gait of the stream of consciousness that connects, often as medleys, original compositions and tunes coming from the jazz tradition is also intact. The more concise forms and the clearness of the sonic layers give us the meaning of the passage under the magnifying lens of the recording studio: D’Andrea is once again a poet of the synthesis. — Francesco Bigoni Continue reading
Considering that I was not previously familiar with any of the musicians in this fine sextet, both Mikey & I were completely flaggerghasted! […] There is restless, exciting quality to all of the pieces. […] This is yet another winner from an unknown Italian sextet. — Bruce Lee Gallanther, Downtown Music Gallery, 2008 Continue reading
Succi is always a melodic player and hence even his free improvisations contain motivic phrases that help create a structure. Indeed, the strength of the music lies in the structure that supports these twelve striking miniatures. […] Fabulous music that will entrance for every single second of its forty-four minutes. — Budd Kopman, All About Jazz – 6.5.2007 Continue reading
A new and subversive drink against the summer that makes inexorable and hot….. You, drink Cocktail Saturno! Raise the glasses! Toast! The blue color and intense flavor will take you into a cosmic and interstellar travel to enjoy very close the galaxy of a changing and amending flavour, like a chameleon. A standard trio (right and duty quote) + voice that accompanies you in the jazz universe, without the fear of displacement, to and caress the ears (and heart) of the listener to often engaging sounds, sometimes hard (think a certain punk idea), which tend to open and be admired. To listen in several hours of the day … Martino Fedrigoli Continue reading