No Business Records

Started in 1997 as a second hand music shop under an unpretentious name “Thelonious” our glorious enterprise developed considerably to embrace other music related activities – namely carrying out concerts, producing and releasing recordings. For these purposes an NGO “Thel” (concert management) was opened in 2004 and“No Business Records” (music releasing) – in 2008. Since the beginning “Thelonious” has been a special place on the city map – “a must visit” for anybody interested in jazz and improvised music. It didn’t take long before a community of dedicated fans united around the shop and it turned into some sort of club. Friendly relationship with local musicians has been established. By 2004 our love to music and an experience gained from listening and collecting records prompted an exciting idea: to invite our favourite artists to Lithuania. The NGO “Thel” was established and the first concert was successfully carried out.

Rodrigo Amado Motion Trio & Peter Evans | Live in Lisbon | No Business Records

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Live in Lisbon consists of two tracks – “Conflict is Intimacy” and “Music is the Music Language” – and especially the first title functions as a guiding idea the musicians seemed to have for this album. Obviously, Rodrigo Amado (saxes), Peter Evans (tp), Miguel Mira (c) and Gabriel Ferrandini (dr) carry out conflicts, since they are free individuals bringing in different ideas. They are on stage to make a statement, but they respect each other, there is an open-mindedness which is necessary to create something new. In order to achieve this, the musicians have to be intimate, they have to trust each other. — Martin Schray Continue reading →

Max Johnson Quartet | The Prisoner | No Business Records

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Bassist Max Johnson has been building up quite an impressive resume as both a leader and a sideman for a variety of labels. His second release of this year is a collaborative effort with Ingrid Laubrock on tenor saxophone, Mat Maneri on viola and Tomas Fujiwara on drums. You might think that this unit could blow up quite a storm, and indeed they do on a few sections of the recording, but most of the music is given over to slow and atmospheric improvisations. The group shows quite a bit of cohesion and self control in the building of their music, and Maneri’s subtle and patient bowing meshes very well with Ingrid Laubrock who is quite comfortable at low volume and long narrow bands of sound. This is an interesting album, definitely worth picking up if you are interested in patient and slowly developing music that envelops you in a sense of unease. It is all the more powerful when the band really lets loose on more feverish improvisational sections, coming as a shock and keeping the listener on their toes throughout the album, developing the sound of surprise and not knowing what might be around the next corner. — Tim Niland Continue reading →

Jean Luc Cappozzo | Christine Wodrascka | Gerry Hemingway | 2° étage | Grey Matter | No Business Records

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Les titres des pieces sont evocafeurs: sur un fond de matiere grise, un sherif possede arrive d’un train fantome, va pres d’un ruisseau, commence un mouvement: en haut en bas, c’est le moment de danser, belle echappee! Le trio 2° etage, compose de Jean- Luc Cappozzo, Gerry Hemingway et Christine Wodrascka improvise sa musique comme des conteurs, des peintres, des poetes. Ces trois musiciens sont des magiciens de la spontaneite, inventant dans I’instant un decor, une histoire, un monde imaginaire avec leurs sons nes de tuyaux, coquillages, peaux, ca-houtchou, bois, cloches, billes, scotch, pinces a linge… Us jouent ensemble comme des enfants, avec generosite et authenticite, pour vivre une aventure musicale et humaine, en osmose dans I’instant present.

The titles of the pieces are evocative: on the bottom of grey matter, a possessed sheriff arrives from a ghost train, goes near a rivulet, begins a movement, up down, its time to dance, beautiful escape! The trio 2° etage, comprised of Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Gerry Hemingway and Christine Wodrascka, improvise their music as storytellers, painters, poets. These three musi-cans are magicians of the spontaneous, instantly creating a setting, a story and an imaginary world with their sounds born from pipes, shells, skins, rubber, wood, bells, balls, adhesive tape, clothespins…. They piay together as children play together, with generosity and authenticity, living a human and musical adventure, through osmosis in present time. Continue reading →

Daunik Lazro | Joëlle Léandre | Hasparren | No Business Records

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ERRATIC MILESTONES. Although we (MADAME Leandre & me) have carefully listened to each other and regularly played together since 30 years or so, we have rarely documented on records our musical meetings. After all, regarding improvisation, to disappear in the air is the rule, almost the law. The sand castle everytime erased, we must build a brand NEW one at every concert. Four notable EXCEPTIONS : « Enfances », excerpts from a unique concert at the legendary club 28 rue Dunois (Paris) in January 1984, a trio with wonderful George Lewis (issued as side D in the 2LP album « sweet zee »for Hat Art). « Paris Quartet»: Joe’He Leandre, pianist Irene Schweizer, trombonist Yves Robert and myself, from two brilliant concerts (issued in 1989 on swiss label Intakt). « Madly you », recorded at festival Banlieues Bleues in 2001 : a sublime quartet-with violonist Carlos « Zingaro » and drummer Paul Lovens (issued on label Potlatch, 2002). Then Christine Baudillon realized a film on Joelle : « Basse continue » (issued on DVD, hors-ceil editions, 2008), including among lots of other sequences (with Barre Phillips or Mr Braxton) an excerpt of our duo snooted at club « 7 Lezards » (Paris) in november 2006. Fortunately, on December 2011, Catherine Luro invited the duo to play in HAS-PARREN (Pays Basque) and our dear Jean-Marc Foussat was there, with good mikes and his exceptional ears. Of course, the music was beautiful. This is our milestone #5… — Daunik Lazro Continue reading →

Kidd Jordan | Peter Kowald | Alvin Fielder | Live in New Orleans | No Business Records

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There are few left playing to whom the term “master” can be applied without reservation. Kidd Jordan and Alvin Fielder are two such musicians. Peter Kowald, who was taken from us far too soon, was another. Fielder and Jordan have been communing through deep listening and resultant improvisation since the 1970s, when the Improvisational Arts aggregate was conceived, and these three sessions afford the chance to compare their interactions at pivotal moments of a ten-year period. Though this trio performance with the internationally recognized German bassist is the only documentation of that group, he is clearly a kindred spirit, geographic concerns thrown to the winds as three veterans compose in, for and beyond each moment. The live trio set, ushered in by Kowald’s resonant pizzicato and an invocation from Fielder’s high hat, bristles with sublimated and titanic energy, roaring and surging with oceanic force only to be pulled back, the ebbs showing no diminution of spirit but thriving on subtlety. Listen, during his solo, to the supple but nearly silent descending polyrhythmic spirals and timbral thrusts Kowald floats over Fielder’s delicate brush work. Jordan’s reentrance, after Kowald builds his solo to an inter-register frenzy, is one of the concert’s highlights, saxophone and bass darting and weaving, overlapping, diving headlong into a spicy blend of neo -Schoenbergian pan tonality and “new thing” cries of freedom that will set the coldest heart ablaze, Fielder’s percussion adding layers of transcultural resonance. — Marc Medwin Continue reading →

Mikołaj Trzaska | Devin Hoff | Michael Zerang | Sleepless in Chicago | No Business Records

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This is an interesting LP consisting of two improvised performances by Mikołaj Trzaska on alto saxophone, Devin Hoff on bass and Michael Zerang on drums. This sounds like a coherent date but one side of the record was recorded in Chicago in 2011 and then the and the second the following year. The music in both of the performances follows an unpredictable path of free jazz. Trzaska is a very powerful saxophonist and his burly strength powers the opening track “Elastic – Chicago” with raw blowing and excellent support from Hoff and Zerang who are relentlessly driving the music forward. They slowly back off from the full throttle approach and move into a more abstract free section that uses a quieter and more open framework for the music to conclude. “Skylark – Chicago” continues the probing nature of the music allowing each musician to express themselves in an open and thoughtful manner. It is interesting to hear when the musicians coalesce into a ferociously powerful unit that are the masters of dynamics, tact and pacing. — Tim Niland Continue reading →

Bryan Rogers ­| Alban Bailly | Matt Engle | David Flaherty | YAPP | Symbolic Heads | No Business Records

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Even for the standards of NoBusiness a label that sometimes features artists who haven’t been very well known so far, YAPP is a really young band, all of the band members seem to be around 30. It’s Bryan Rogers ­on tenor saxophone, Alban Bailly ­on guitar, Matt Engle ­on bass and David Flaherty ­on drums, and they cultivate the field between post rock, modern jazz, minimal and improvised music. — Martin Schray Continue reading →

John Tchicai | Charlie Kohlhase | Garrison Fewell | Cecil McBee | Billy Hart | Tribal Ghost | No Business Records

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The album features very light percussion by Billy Hart who plays in a very subtle and shape shifting manner. Fewell has an appealing tone, moving through and weaving in and out if the music. Tchicai and Kohlhase play at a slow burn throughout and the mystical – spiritual – incantatory vibe suits the music well. This is a fine collective album, quiet and thoughtful, played at a summering level which allows space for all voices to be heard, it’s a cooperative group where no one dominates. — Tim Niland Continue reading →