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Gianni Mimmo | Harri Sjöström | Live at Bauchhund Berlin 2010 | Amirani Records

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The soprano saxophone is an unsafe place. Here two musicians devoted to the “fish horn” in an intriguing sound mirror play. Transparence and flexibility of this rare formula rapresent the first nucleus of a reciprocal discover, a distance suddenly dialogic and without hiding possibility. It’s a dance, ovelapping different and close identities, where the inner voices catch themselves, giving room to a new narration, easy and complex at the same time, and to an expressive push. Deeply explored here, the soprano sax shows still a surprising modernity, a plastic psossibility, a great elegance and a more phisycal, direct sometimes violent side. Both pupils of the modern soprano sax master Steve Lacy, but with different derivations, Harri Sjöström and Gianni Mimmo are considered among the most interesting sound declinations of the soprano saxophone. Lyrical, ispired, harsh and warm at the same time they are performers with a personal style, great skills and sensitive feelings. Continue reading →

Gebhard Ullmann | Michael Jefry Stevens | Joe Fonda | George Schuller | Conference Call | What About…? | Not Two Records

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One of the finest improvising units working today Conference Call is a complete band, capable of touching all the jazz bases, be they individual or group improvisation, or the performance of composed music. The quintet’s sixth release, What About…? is a two-disc session from the band’s 10th anniversary tour, and was recorded live at Alchemia in Krakow, Poland.– Mark Corroto – All About Jazz Continue reading →

Sabir Mateen | Frode Gjerstad feat. Steve Swell | Sound Gathering | Not Two Records

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Saxophonist Sabir Mateen is one of those musicians who have been playing free jazz since the seventies, playing with all the icons of the genre such as Cecil Taylor, William Parker, Daniel Carter, Steve Swell and Frode Gjerstad, to name just a few. With the latter two he recorded a new album on Not Two, and a solo album on RogueArt. He is a frequent player in the free jazz mini big bands, like the Little Huey Orchestra, Gjerstad’s Circulasione Totale, and Earth People. On this album Sabir Mateen is co-leader with Norwegian saxophonist Frode Gjerstad, and with Steve Swell on trombone, Clif Jackson on bass and David Gould on drums. On the long first track, Swell’s trombone is one of the strongest voice, both in volume and presence, wailing in all emotional registers, from distress to sadness, with the two saxes adding appropriate background support, but the piece becomes strongest when the saxes do their solo-thing. Otherwise there are lots of dialogues and trialogues, and as the title of the album indicates, this is more about sound that about lyricism. That changes with the second piece, when Mateen picks up his flute for a hesitant, almost fragile slowly moving forward tune. With the third piece we’re back in high intensity territory, a kind of jubilant blowing fest. You get the gist: wild interaction reigns, lots of dense interplay, but in my opinion a little lacking in focus and real musical vision.–Stef Continue reading →

Matthew Shipp | Sabir Mateen | Sama | Not Two Records

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Pianist Matthew Shipp and multi-instrumentalist Sabir Mateen make for fascinating duet partners on this album, which is an eight part suite of completely improvised music recorded at the Roulette Studio in New York City. While Mateen plays a battery of instruments from saxohpone to flute, it appears that he sticks to clarinet throughout this recording. The high woody sound of the clarinet makes from a fascinating contrast with Shipp’s often low and probing keyboard playing. Shipp’s piano playing is clearly articulated and patient whether his is laying down a foundation for Mateen to improvise over, or engaging him in a head-to-head duet. Shipp lays down beautifully stark and dark toned chords and notes, and Mateen swirls and probes them in a natural and organic way. There is nothing forced about the music, the two work together seamlessly with a common goal and strategy in mind. The suite builds logically through a series of dynamic moods and textures, from fast paced free improvisation to long and low abstractions of melody and form. Both musicians are patient and sympathetic duet partners and they make music that has an open ended muse and graceful poise.– “Music And More”, Friday, April 23, 2010 Continue reading →

Steve Swell’s Slammin’ The Infinite | 5000 Poems | Not Two Records

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Slammin’ IV – 5.000 Poems The title for this fourth installment of Slammin’ The Infinite takes its name from an essay by Walt Whitman. His theme in this essay, briefly summarized, is that in all art, and life too for that matter, being prolific, hardworking and productive in all you do, including trying those things whose outcome may not be exactly perfect in one’s mind, will eventually lead to that one good idea or work of art. Farmers after all plant many seeds, not just one, in the hope that some of those seeds will yield a nourishing crop. So it is with how I view my own work as an improvising musician and composer. Only by constantly creating can there be any hope that some of that creating will yield something worthwhile. Something that will mean something to someone, making that connection to even that one listener that might be moved and nourished by this most human of endeavors. I am fortunate to have a band that is still working together planting those seeds as a band and as individuals throughout the world always in the hope of creating that one crop of abundance that might fill the listener with strenght and hope and life. Also, there would be no ground to plant these musical seeds if it weren’t for the likes of Marek Winiarski, the wonderful people of Alchemia in Krakow and that most gentle and wisest of gardeners, Barbara Backer Manes. Thanking them all here does not even scratch the surface of their commitment to this music and to me personally. To all of them and the amazing musicians on this recording that I have been fortunate to work with, I am humbly grateful. —Steve Swell Continue reading →

Misha Feigin | The Dew Drop Blues

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With “Dew Drop Blues” Misha Feigin has created a beautiful set of anomalies, poetics that turn on an angle that only a bent mathematician such as he could invent and filled with a sardonic wit that is simultaneously dark and euphoric. And when words fail or need to transcend, Misha’s virtuosic guitar continues to propose impossibilities and hallucinations that tie everything together. — Elliot Sharp Continue reading →

Vijay Anderson | Hardboiled Wonderland | Not Two Records

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Vijay Anderson is a freelance drummer, bandleader, and teacher who lives and works in Oakland, California. He has been performing professionally in the Bay Area since 1997. He holds a MFA in music performance from Mills College, where he studied with Roscoe Mitchell, William Winant, David Bernstein, and Fred Frith. He earned his BA in music performance from S.F. State, studying under Eddie Marshall, Francis Wong, Hafez Modirzadeh, and Wayne Wallace. Anderson has performed and recorded with such diverse, outstanding musicians as Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalists Lynn Johnston and Vinny Golia, Bay Area composers/performers Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, John Schott, Graham Connah, Darren Johnston, Smith Dobson V, Lisa Mezzacappa, Aaron Bennett and Ava Mendoza, and Austria-based saxophonist/composer Marco Eneidi. He also has worked extensively with Brooklyn based bass player/composer Adam Lane as part of Lane’s Full Throttle Orchestra, the Adam Lane Trio featuring Vinny Golia, and Adam Lane’s Blue Spirit Band featuring Avram Fefer and Roy Campbell.
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Rosa Luxembourg New Quintet | Night Asylum | Not Two Records

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Rosa Luxembourg New Quintet consists of five talented musicians who respect no boundaries when it comes to creating music. The five musicians in this group all exhibit good talent for free jazz improvisation. Heddy Brubaker’s sound hovers between the academics of Anthony Braxton and the more primordial sounds of a Marion Brown or Julius Hemphill. Piero Pepin’s trumpet growls and moans Lester Bowie style as it plays off the rest of the ensemble. Marc Perrenoud provides bass and electric guitar in a manner that adds rhythm and color rather than tonal assistance. Fabien Duscombs expertly uses a wide range of percussion instruments. Lastly, Françoise Guerlin’s voice is an improvisational instrument in its own right. — freethemusic – olatunji.blogspot Continue reading →

Sei Miguel | Pedro Gomes | Turbina Anthem | No Business Records

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Turbina Anthem delves into the throes of assertive, sometimes chaotic experimentalism. A pungent trumpet opener pierced with mutated guitar plucks is standard fare across much of the track list, to most astringent effect on “Spoon” and “Jura”. Gomes aurally transforms his guitar into a metal sheet-washboard hybrid on the former, providing a percussive foundation for Miguel’s flaring trumpet. Beneath the grating overlap of the two strong-willed sounds, however, there does lay an appealing sense of discord and darkness – an ‘antiharmony’ of sorts. This quality reaches its height in “Jura”; Miguel plays with more apparent momentum, immediately searing the air when met with Gomes’ guitar gunshots. Turbina Anthem’s recurring piece – “The Pale Star”, recorded in five parts – offers some much-needed palate-cleansing. These tracks open with bare plucks of guitar or extended trumpet notes, proceeding serenely with few adornments. Gomes and Miguel still stretch the bounds of their instruments but on a more controlled scale, showcasing their versatility past caustic composition. —Sharon Mizrahi Continue reading →

Thomas Heberer | Joachim Badenhorst | Pascal Niggenkemper | Klippe | Thomas Heberer | One | No Business Records

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Thomas Heberer is called “a European master” and “new trumpet genius”. The music in his new double LP brings a fresh approach to blending improvisation and composition, which allows for the highest amount of freedom on the musicians’ side while incorporating significant structural tools on the composer’s side as well. His solo recording applies a vast variety of conventional and extended techniques, among which the most distinctive component is the exclusive use of circular breathing. Continue reading →