Jeff Platz | Jim Hobbs | Luther Gray | Timo Shanko | Sour Grapes | Glitch Records

Welcome to the latest release on Glitch Records, Sour Grapes! Sour Grapes features Boston area musicians Jeff Platz, Timo Shanko, Jim Hobbs, and Luther Gray. Sour Grapes was recorded in the fall of 2014 in Boston Massachusetts at Q Division studio by Jason Bitner. The session was a six hour excursion into free style playing., incorporating electronics with acoustics, no holes barred! Platz, Shanko, Hobbs and Gray have played together for several years in a variety of Boston and New York City based ensembles. Each member is a composer and bandleader, all with several individual recordings and ensemble projects. We hope you enjoy the recording! Many thanks for listening! — Jeff Platz Continue reading

The Cosmosamatics | Reeds & Birds | Not Two Records

This version of The great Cosmosamatics features Sonny Simmons on alto sax, English horn & vocals, Michael Marcus on tenor sax, saxello & b-flat clarinet and Clifford Barbaro on drums for all but the last track in which they use Jay Rosen on drums. Legendary west coast sax great Sonny Simmons never fails to deliver the goods and with the marvelous Cosmosamatics, which features another former west coast sax hero Michael Michael, they both continue to push each other to further flights and heights with each tour and release. This is the sixth Cosmosamatics disc in less than five years and each has been an engaging gem. — BLG Continue reading

Hubert Bergmann | Yellerwood | Udo Schindler | Rome Hills | Mudoks Record

ROME HILLS, in case of tonal emergency The story behind this music is for the most part unknown. Rome 2012. During a brief stay in February – wandering from place to place in the city, pleasantly warm, every day life in the North now vanishing, somehow a newcomer in this interim spawning ground of being, here where Passolini hinted his portent in the ether. The cafes in which the ether coagulates, barely concealing their peace and tranquility, and each place where memories are celebrated are so old that forgetting now is hardly noticeable. History disappears just around the corner. One who fights “against” this forgetfulness , is an atypical Roman, Massimo, whom I met in front of the now entirely contrived Fiaschetteria, once the hangout and meeting place of Roman artists, who gave me an update of the happenings in the Italian scene. Later in the train while the sounds of AH23 fluttered gently through my mind (I imagined his burning finger and M.’s portrait sunk into the Tiber), a video popped up, totally unexpected, on my google site. John Cage and Cathy Berberian, who performed this mysterious aria in Rome, sang a piece whose link I was able to pull up on my computer – something about “yellow” and “wood” that I later discovered was “Yellerwood.” A voice from the Roman Hills sounded so like Berberian. Then the request on this unknown woman, via Mr. Ricci, if she might be interested in contributing her wonderful voice to recordings done in October 2011 with Udo, a bustling multi-reed man. Something however was missing. Her voice shuttled back and forth, a poem added for garnishment, out of which a new and peculiar world blossomed into a fine mood. Something from Berberian, the utter essence of nature and beauty. Everything that knows itself is sound… No reason to crash… Hubert Bergmann Continue reading

Hubert Bergmann | Udo Schindler | Hut Ab | Mudoks Record

There’s a whole new ball game going on. Players: Pianist Hubert Bergmann and the man on the saxophone Udo Schindler. No idea what kind of game they are playing. Anyway, they’re throwing balls across a huge field of notes and keys. American Football? Well, no, the players seem too slim and subtle for that. Too smart when they’re passing the ball. Hockey? Too esoteric. This is music in a democratic vein, its communication is a matter of transparency. Improvisations for each and every member of the audience. Basketball? Handball? Soccer? Actually, who cares? Each and every ball ends up in the goal, the basket or wherever it’s supposed to go – in any case in the ears of the listener. Take your hat off and listen! — Dr. Stephan Richter Continue reading

Halfpipe | Mammut | Mudoks Record

These recordings are from a period of 1 1/2 years and document the work with children between 11-12 years of playing in an ensemble of new improvised music and more. The approach, as in all activities with children, is conceivable playful and it is amazing to commit with what delicacy and nuance, the players go their way. Children are oriented at a certain age more outward, toward the world of idols and role models. That this is not always in the sense of adults, or even collide, so that speaks for a method that takes up the aspects of this idols with and blends into the unknown own creative work. Thus, the adepts learn to “do their thing” and cultivate themselves in “as saying” the creative potential in themselves. That we keep on using so-called clichés is almost self-evident. We all live of patterns that guide us and we continue that. Goal from the beginning, was a maximum of musical expression with the aid of reflection usually from the moment of creating out. Increasingly, we came here in the fields of game processes which could be called composition or better call it “instant composing”. There, where with re-improvised material, structure and tone will be organized more conscious and more and more complex mobile compositions emerges. A mammoth task. — Hubert Bergmann Continue reading

Dave Burrell | Steve Swell | Turning Point | No Business Records

Dave Burrell’s Turning Point, the third in a series of five suites commemorating the people and events of the Ainerican Civil War, is one of the crowning achievements in his career. A mature and passionate work, it weaves together 150 years of American history and music into a piece that grapples with some of the most horrifying moments in American history and yet remains profoundly hopeful. Born after a nine-month gestation period of historical research and rehearsals, the music evokes the harrowing events of mid-nineteenth century America through a vivid mix of sound imagery, stylistic references, and improvisation in an attempt to come to terms with the Civil War and its legacy. — Ed Hazell Continue reading

John Dikeman | Jasper Stadhouders | Onno Govaert | Cactus Truck | Seizures Palace | Not Two Records

Based in Amsterdam this fire-breathing improvisational trio is comprised of bassist/guitarist Jasper Stadhouders, drummer Onno Govaert, and American-born saxophonist John Dikeman. The band plays a take-no-prisoners, high-energy brand of free jazz strongly influenced by the likes of Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann at their most intense (they also claim that their music includes elements of Delta blues, Japanese noise, and no wave). Cactus Truck self-released an eponymous CD-R in 2011 and followed that up with a 2012 cassette release (featuring Terrie Ex from the Ex) entitled Macho Sex; their first “official” album, Brand New for China!, arrived in March of 2012 on the Public Eyesore label. In late October through mid-December of that year, Cactus Truck stormed the United States with a massive 37-date tour that saw the trio tearing it up across the country, up the East Coast from Atlanta to Boston, across the Midwest and West, down the West Coast from Seattle to Los Angeles, and finally wending their way back east for three final dates in New York City. Selections from the tour (recorded at Squidco Records in Wilmington, Delaware with guest trombonist Jeb Bishop; Astro Black Records in Louisville, Kentucky; and the final show at JACK in N.Y.C. with guest trumpeter Roy Campbell) were featured on the Live in USA album, released in March 2013 by the band’s Tractata Records imprint in collaboration with the eh? label. — Dave Lynch, AllMusic Continue reading