Conjure | Cab Calloway stands in for the moon | American Clavé

See, at the heart of Conjure is this rhythm section (yeah, it includes legends and horns) that swings so strongly and intelligently that you can hear the joy the players have working with and writing for each other and you can’t escape the living respect they have for the magic of the tradition. And at its sharp ({enter are the words and stories of Ishmael Reed (genuine American Magical Realism?) reintegrating themselves into the verbal, griot tradition from which they come. Most magic is vertical as well as horizontal, isn’t it? — KIP HANRAHAN Continue reading

Ute Kaiser | Achim Tang | Maria Ammann | Prosa, Gedichte, Briefe von Margarete Steffin | Nemu Records

Die Mehrzahl von Steffins Gedichten – und Brechts Antwortgedichte – sind Sonette. Eine traditionsreiche und anspruchsvolle Form, die Mühe macht und Können verlangt. Steffin und Brecht haben sich ihre Sonette gegenseitig korrigiert. In diesem pfleglichen Umgang mit der literarischen Produktion des Anderen fand die gegenseitige Gewogenheit einen in der Literatur einzigartigen Ausdruck. — Robert Cohen, New York Continue reading

Ganelin Trio | Priority | Nemu Records

Music, no matter what genre becomes most vivid when it tells a story about ourselves. But the narrative freedom to produce fields of association that go beyond existing images must be fought for over and over again. In the 70´s, the pianist Vyacheslav Ganelin was considered exceptional. In soviet Lithuania he took part in a form of music that was called – without any questioning – free jazz. Continue reading

Herb Robertson | Dave Kaczorowski | Adrian Valosin | Party Enders | Not Two Records

Trumpeter Herb Robertson is one of these underrated and underrecorded musicians and each time a new CD is released, it is a pleasure to hear him play, whether as a sideman or here, as the leader of a trio with Dave Kaczorowski on double bass and Adrian Valosin on drums. Next to trumpet, Robertson also plays cornet, fluegelhorn, english hunting horn, penny-whistles, Romanian reed flute, mutes, electronic mutes, bells, castanets and vocals on the first track. — Stef Continue reading

Satoko Fujii Ma-Do | Time Stands Still | Not Two Records

SATOKO FUJII MA-DO is a quartet I formed in October 2007 with Natsuki Tamura, Norikatsu Koreyasu, and Akira Horikoshi. Though the format turned out to be a standard one-horn quartet, I wasn’t thinking about instrumentation when I invited these members to join me. Any time two or more people gather together, they create a “society.” What I wanted to do was make a society composed of these four individuals, I was absolutely sure that a very interesting society would arise from their particular combination of musical abilities and personalities.– SATOKO FUJII [July 19, 2012] Continue reading

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

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

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

Greg Lyons

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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