Ken Vandermark – reeds | Håvard Skarpnes Wiik – piano | Chad Taylor – drums. Recorded in concert at Jazz Festival Ljubljana by Luis Delgado on July 3 & 4, 2013. Mixed by Bob Weston and Ken Vandermark at Chicago Mastering Service. Photo by Petra Cvelbar. Album design by George Staicu. Continue reading
Talk with just about any improviser and he or she will tell you that their music happens in the moment, it’s best when they are fully in the present. Garrison Fewell always recruits members of the Variable Density Sound Orchestra (VDSO) that he knows can perform fully in the moment. It gives the music it’s vividness and urgency and it’s spiritual core as well. “In Buddhism there are three existences of life—past, present, and future—and they are all one,” explains Garrison, a practicing Buddhist for nearly 40 years. “Everything is determined in the present moment—a series of present moments.” Which is as good a description of the music on this disc as any. — Ed Hazell Continue reading
Composer-pianist Satoko Fujii always writes large ensemble music that’s celebratory, eventful, and sweeping in scale. But for this album, she wanted to make “something beyond. I don’t know how I can explain. I wanted to paint a picture that extends beyond its canvas. I composed for life, which has many stages and changes and dramas.” “Shiki,” the nearly forty-minute magnum opus that comprises two-thirds of this CD, does indeed reach for “something beyond.” In the hands of the Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York, the big band she’s maintained for recording projects since 1997, the music rises off the pages of the score and confronts us, consoles us, challenges us to feel and to contemplate ultimate questions. Rooted in life, Satoko’s insights into the human condition are passed through her unique artistic vision and back into our lives to enrich us with its wisdom. “Shiki” is a Japanese word that translates as “four seasons” in English and the music is as changeable as the wind and weather. “I wanted a title that suggested change,” she says. “I think we human being also have seasons in our life.” The composition is one of her grandest pieces of musical architecture. Soaring arches of melody are supported by great anchoring columns of orchestra chords and a subtly textured floor of ensemble drones underpins much of it. — Ed Hazell Continue reading
DuDu Gato Libre ran aground when our bass player, Norikatsu Koreyasu, passed away suddenly. I was not sure what to do, but decided to continue the band and invited a different guest player to sit in with us every time we performed. When Yasuko Kaneko performed with the band, it felt right. Her trombone timbre matched the band well and she has a sweet and wonderful personality. I invited her again and then I decided to ask her to become part of Gato Libre. We restarted the Gato Libre quartet with strange instrumentation – trumpet, trombone, accordion and guitar. When I compose I think about this new instrumentation so the music is now different from before. I hope you enjoy the strange newborn Gato Libre. — Natsuki Tamura Continue reading
The last album in this series is not really about seasons but also about the passing of time, or even the opposite concept, in which the most fragile and volatile and transitory, gets a timeless nature. Gianni Mimmo on soprano sax and Alison Blunt on violin treat us to some ephemeral beauty on this LP with three fully improvised pieces, recorded live at the St Leonard’s Shoreditch Church in London, in June 2013.It is hard to describe the music as jazz, and although Mimmo’s legacy is clearly with Steve Lacy, his sound and musical approach is truly his own, more abstract, classical at times in the clarity of his tone, yet audacious and explorative too. The spontaneous interaction with Blunt is nothing short of fabulous, almost organic, like birds, delivering soaring love songs, or fluttering agitatedly, or even stronger, like more intimate whispers, cautious touching of notes, moving forward gently and elegantly together. Blunt herself has the same spontaneous attitude for superb control of timbre and sound, while remaining utterly free in her inventiveness. Even in the rawest parts they find each other well, echoing improvised phrases, and creating sharp multiphonics if needed, before falling back on more gentle embraces.A marvelous duo. — Steff GijsselsFreejazzblog. Continue reading
Percussion & trombone / electronics. Meteoric engagement. Cumulative effect. Eine Kleine buenas noches nachtfockingmusik. Continue reading
“Atmospheric landscape poetry. Music rating: infinity.” — Mark Weber Continue reading
“The reel-to-reel as honky tonk band.” — Mark Weber Continue reading
“…plays crisply and leaves the harmonic spectrum wide open, comping only on the more tonal pieces, where its necessary. Listeners will also remember Gamble for his creative arsenal of sounds: the accelerating loop effects and the post-Hendrix sound-washes in particular.” — David Adler, All About Jazz – New York Continue reading
From the beginning, in creating the multi-track pieces, I’ve brought into play a concept I refer to as “festival form”, an idea that has been an essential part of the overall creative approach to what I call Total Music. — Henry Kuntz Continue reading