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

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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 →

Roscoe Mitchell | Nicole Mitchell | Black Earth Ensemble| Three Compositions | Live at Sant’Anna Arresi | RogueArt Jazz

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Despite the compositions’ respective demands Nicole Mitchell and Black Earth Ensemble fully and vividly represented Roscoe Mitchell’s varied means of creating chemistry between written and improvised materials. At every turn in the program, they played with a palpable sense of familiarity and ease with the composer’s vernacular and methods. They sounded like they’ve been playing this music every night for a long time. — Bill Shoemaker, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

Didier Petit | Alexandre Pierrepont | Passages – A Road Record – Woodstock – New York – Chicago – Los Angeles | RougeArt Jazz

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Lawrence Butch Morris developed the concept of “conduction” to account for a mode of Instant Composition based on the creative freedom of the players stimulated by the gestures of a central conductor. AP/DP, with this cd, invent the practice of musical transduction. Just like the French language is not “translated” but transducted into Kamau Daáood’s unique prosody, DP’s cello does not “translate” the playing of a thumb piano, an oud or a kora: all of these instruments, all of their phrasings electrify his playing from the inside, they are transducted into the cello. Similarly, DP’s vocal cords do not “translate” what his fingers perform on the strings: both are electrified by a common current, alternating and direct. The astonishing fluidity of this complex meshwork of influences qualifies AP/DP as “Super-transductors”: through this cd, one hears not only a whole family of giant cello players (Abdul Wadud, Robert Een, Tom Cora, Ernst Reijseger, Peggy Lee, Hank Roberts), but also a long history of lyrical surrealism (from Lautréamont to Henri Michaux), and the widest range of traditions in ethnomusicology (from Africa to the Middle East, through classical Europe and Amerindian singing)… …Be prepared to be transducted, transformed and elated. — Yves Citton, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading →

Sudo Quartet | Joelle Leandre | Carlos Zingaro | Sebi Tramontana | Paul Lovens | Live at Banlieue Bleue | No Business Records

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The pan-European Sudo Quartet is comprised of four true heroes of free improvisation: French double bassist Joëlle Léandre; Portugese violinist Carlos Zingaro; Italian trombonist Sebi Tramontana; and German drummer Paul Lovens. All have played together in various formats for more than two decades, playing contemporary music, free jazz and spontaneous, on-the-spot improvisations, expanding the spectrum of the musical language of their instruments through innovative techniques. All are gifted with compelling performance personalities. — Eyal Hareuveni Continue reading →

William Hooker Quintet | featuring Adam Lane | Channels of Consciousness | No Business Records

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William Hooker (born 1946) is an American jazz drummer and composer. Early in his career, he played with the Isley Brothers and Dionne Warwick, among others. In college, Hooker began broadening his musical vision: He wrote a paper on Alban Berg, and befriended some members of Funkadelic. A move to New York City in the mid-1970s led Hooker to the so-called “loft scene” of adventurous free jazz performers. While Hooker was active in music throughout the 1980s, he was little recorded until the 1990s. While most of Hooker’s output is rooted in free jazz, critic Neil Strauss has written, “William Hooker is a man determined to get his music ‘out there’, and he’ll cross any genre to do it.” His work has also crossed over into noise rock and free improvisation. He has worked with Glenn Spearman, Christian Marclay, Tomaas Proitsis, DJ Olive, William Parker, Sabir Mateen, Dave Soldier, and Sonic Youth founders Thurston Moore, and Lee Ranaldo. Continue reading →

Szilard Mezei Tubass Quintet | Canons – 2nd Hoisting | No Business Records

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I’ll say it straight-off. Szilard Mezei is one of the most interesting jazz composer-instrumentalist-bandleaders active in Europe today. If you don’t know of him much, it’s because his releases do not shout out their existence, exactly. They are mostly small quantity albums on important but hardly mass-marketed avant jazz boutique labels, which I often favor–as of course regular readers know. A near-perfect example of the sort of release I speak of is his new one on No Business, a fine label out of Lithuania. This one is an LP pressed in only 300 copies, Szilard Mezei Tubass Quartet’s Canons – Second Hosting (No Business NBLP 56). This one may not jump out at you right away. That’s probably in part due to the very unusual instrumentation: Szilard and three others on contrabass and a tuba player!

The sound is dark and burnished. The improvisation out front, the compositional motives typical Mezei in that they bear his autographic stamp–the way of irregular phrasing, repositioning tonal commonplaces so that they become unusual. This may not be one to start with if you want to know about his music. My blogs cover a good number of those so search here and on the Gapplegate Guitar blog and you’ll find others. But there nonetheless is the characteristic daring presence on this one that makes Szilard an artist to listen to closely. —Grego Applegate Edwards Continue reading →

Thomas Borgmann | Wilber Morris | Reggie Nicholson | Nasty & Sweet | No Business Records

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From the first few notes, it’s apparent that something special is happening on Nasty & Sweet. Perhaps it’s the way bassist Wilber Morris and drummer Reggie Nicholson sound so assured in their placement of the merest splashes of color. Completely unafraid to take their time, creating a powerful tension which isn’t released even when German reedman Thomas Borgmann joins with his breathily majestic tenor saxophone smears. There is a story here. — John Sharpe Continue reading →