Mikołaj Trzaska – alto sax, bass clarinet | Olie Brice – double bass | Mark Sanders – drums
All compositions by Trzaska / Brice / Sanders. Recorded in Birmingham on the 27th May, 2011 by Chris Trent. Cover photograph by Elvin J. Inside photo by Krzysztof Penarski.
Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios. Design by Oskaras Anosovas. Produced by Danas Mikailionis. Co-producer – Valerij Anosov
Tracklist Side A: 1. Riverloam Side B: 1. Kornic Side C: 1. Ostrich Season Side D: 1. Carnival of Shapes 2. Sumac and Pokeweed
The Riverloam Trio
are Mikolaj Trzaska (alto sax, bass clarinet), Olie Brice (double bass) and Mark Sanders (drums). This trio has been working together for a couple of years, touring Europe and performing at festivals including Kerava Jazz and Jazz Od Nowa. They have an LP due out in November on NoBusiness Records. For this concert they’ll be joined by special guest Paul Dunmall who’ll play a solo set on pipes before joining the trio on tenor sax.
MIKOLAJ TRZASKA / alto sax, bass clarinet
Mikolaj Trzaska is one of Poland’s leading free jazz musicians. He has toured and recorded with his Clarinet Trio (with Ken Vandermark and Waclaw Zimpel), Peter Brotzmann, Joe McPhee and Lester Bowie, among many others. He is also a member of ken vandermark’s Resonance Ensemble.
“Mikolaj’s sound on alto is mesmerizing, even at his most lyrical there’s the inner tension in the timbre, you could hide entire planets in there, even at his most expansive and screaming, there’s something intimate and emotional to what he plays” – (Free) Jazz Alchemist
OLIE BRICE / double bass
Olie Brice plays double bass
in a wide range of jazz and improv groups, as well as leading and composing for his own Quartet (with Mark Hanslip, Leon Michener and Jeff Williams) and The Carracks Project (with James Allsopp, Nick Malcolm, Alex Bonney and Mark Sanders). He has performed with Paul Dunmall, Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Vandermark and Louis Moholo-Moholo, among many others.
“Brice makes the entire body of his bass sing. He has the ability to deliver a fractal line that is as purposeful as any by the great jazz bassists, but to do so within an entirely abstract setting” – Brian Morton, Point of Departure
Photo by Bruce Milpied
MARK SANDERS / drums
Mark Sanders has been acclaimed as “the most exciting, original and overwhelmingly powerful drummer alive” (Steve Reynolds, Jazz Corner) and his precise and propulsive drumming has graced projects with, to name but a few, Evan Parker, Jah Wobble, Broadcast, Agusti Fernandez, John Butcher, Roswell Rudd, and Otomo Yoshihde.
“ubiquitous, diverse and constantly creative, drummer Mark Sanders always outdoes himself, whether playing with restraint or erupting like a dynamo.” — Bruce L Gallenter, Downtown Music Gallery. NY
Double LP version (incl. shipment cost world-wide)
NoBusiness Records has been doing an excellent job exposing the world to important aspects of the American and International improvising avant garde. They have also, from their home base in Lithuania, been taking the opportunity to document and present Eastern European artists that we might not otherwise get the chance to hear.
Altoist-bass clarinetist Mikolaj Trzaska is one such artist. The recent double LP Riverloam Trio (NoBusiness NBLP 52/53) gives us a good listen to Mikolaj in a fine trio setting. Olie Brice on double bass and Mark Sanders on drums provide an excellent collaborative twosome for Trzaska’s reeds. They are free-wheeling and inventively varied, accomplished free improvisers.
And Trzaska has stylistic originality. He has a soulful rasp a la Threadgill and the ability to weave interesting lines with excellent consistency. He can soar in the clouds or whisper with the wind.
The double LP is a joy to hear. But keep in mind only 300 copies have been minted. So grab one now if you are inclined. It’s a great listen.
“Riverloam” is such an evocative word. It makes me think of fungi on a riverbank, colorful mushrooms pushing up through black earth, tiny bright surrogates that hide the true extent of the knotted mycelium whose countless nerve-like connections stretch in all directions just below the surface. Maybe this is a decent metaphor for Riverloam Trio, too—and all improvised music—this idea that perhaps what we’re hearing is the dense, unseen mycelium, the untraceable web of connections that binds musicians on a stage or in a studio. Some vital thing that’s bigger and more deeply rooted than the bodies we see standing before us.
Plus, there’s Mikołaj Trzaska’s rough-hewn, earthy tones. Trzaskahas been an important voice in the modern Polish scene since the early 90s. In recent years, he’s branched out significantly, playing with a number of international musicians and releasing improvised music on his label, Kilogram Records. Here he teams up with two Londoners: bassist Olie Brice and the ubiquitous drummer Mark Sanders. Riverloam Trio features five long improvisations that stretch across two LPs. Trzaska trades off between his woozy alto wail and some quieter, brooding bass clarinet work, clearly inspired by his rhythm section.
And inspiring it is. Sanders can make anyone sound good, and Brice plays in an almost vertical manner, seemingly building his ideas upward rather than simply laying them out. There’s a wonderful logic to his lines, even in heated exchanges. “Ostrich Season” gives him a central role, his bass thundering through the low simmer of Trzaska’s clarinet. There’s a clear rapport among the trio, and Trzaska and Brice in particular aren’t afraid to circle back on an idea if it seems there’s something more to be extracted.
Riverloam Trio is one of those great albums that feels like it was made for vinyl. The playing keeps pace with the best of the modern crowd, but there’s something aching in Trzaska’s vibrato—even from the first moments of “Riverloam”—that hearkens to the early days of this music, that almost necessitates the physicality of handling a record, the ritual of flipping wax and setting needles. A time when maybe we were a little more emotionally connected to music, because the act of listening was a bit more purposeful than overloaded iPods and hard drives allow.
As can be said of many NoBusiness releases, Riverloam Trio is worth the investment. It’s the fire music of our time—maybe now more like glowing embers, but still remembering something of the flames that gave rise to them.