Jazz

Pascal Niggenkemper featuring Simon Nabatov and Gerald Cleaver | Upcoming Hurricane | No Business Records

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Upcoming Hurricane is a new group in a traditional form, a particular concatenation of musicians that gelled with remarkable speed and which brings its own strong personality to the idea of the piano trio. It has a layered rhythmic dynamism that comes directly from the tradition and the exploding, unfettered energy of free improvisation. It was the young bassist Pascal Niggenkemper’s idea to put together this band with the brilliant veterans Simon Nabatov and Gerald Cleaver, and it’s a sign of both Niggenkemper’s skills and his prescience that the group possesses the depth, vitality and vision that it does. — Stuart Broomer Continue reading →

Karl Berger | Werner Hasler | Gilbert Paeffgen | No Business Records

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The electrified acoustic trio combines several worlds. Stories are told here in the jazz idiom: starting from a basic groove is stressed about this and also improvises with nesting and rhythmic themes. The compositions are mainly played on scales from division of the octave harmonic structures and parallelisms, scales, supposedly inspired by such contrasting worlds as well as the oriental Maqamwelt of natural horns in the Alps region. The trio moves also because of the natural inclusion of electronica outside “world music” sound is ethnocentric and exoticism of the young new century – in which bits and bytes a supporting role-play required. The clash of purely electronic and acoustic sounds of the trio receives a new topicality and urgency. Continue reading →

TARFALA TRIO | Mats Gustafsson | Barry Guy | Raymond Strid | SYZYGY | No Business Records

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The TARFALA TRIO has its roots from 1992, meeting at the SOLO – 92 festival in Stockholm, Sweden. After that first encounter in 1992, the trio has worked sporadically and played festivals in Europe and releasing 2 Cds on Maya Recordings. This recording captures them playing live in Belgium, 2009. It is explosive, high energy loaded ferocious music focusing on low dynamic melodic material. Tarfala Trio is at their peak creating the most exciting improvised music you can hear today. Continue reading →

Billy Bang’s Survival Ensemble | Black Man’s Blues – New York Collage | No Business Records

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The late, great violinist’s first two albums — the first so obscure I missed it when I assembled a discography for my 2005 Voice piece on Bang. A quartet for the first record, with Bilal Abdur Rahman on tenor and soprano sax, William Parker on bass, and Rashid Bakr on drums. Rahman, an old friend of Bang’s, picked up Islam in prison and recorded reluctantly but more often than not his cutting and slashing is terrific here. Both albums are hit and miss, with bits of spoken word spouting political critique — “when the poor steal, it’s called looting; when the rich steal, it’s called profit” is one turn of phrase. Second album adds Henry Warner on alto sax and Khuwana Fuller on congas — Warner’s another player who shows up on rare occasions but always makes a big impression. Way back when I would probably have hedged my grade, seeing each album as promising but half-baked, but now they’re indisputable pieces of history — and not just because Bang and Parker went on to have brilliant careers. Also note that the label in Lithuania that rescued them cared enough to provide a 36-page booklet on the era and this remarkable music. — Tom Hull Continue reading →

Sabir Mateen | Silvia Bolognesi | Holidays In Siena | Rudi Records

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Poetry’s strength is unexpected. It always surprises us, probably because there is lesser and lesser of it around us. It overcomes geographic distance, generational features and language differences. It drags us to a sublime level, since it moves into a space without reference points and crosses the boundaries of what we can see, hear think and imagine. But how it comes that we speak of poetry for a musical artifact? Because Sabir Mateen and Silvia Bolognesi, in “Holidyas in Siena”, are poets, first of all. Far from a worn out romantic concept (inspiration, destiny…) they create sounds, mix, contrasts, silence spots, that show not only contemporary anxiety but also the joy of playing together. Not only Mateen and Bolognesi have all this and much more, but they are also driven elsewhere, far away, by their poetic license that set them free. So far away that somebody will not like “Holidays in Siena”. Perhaps the same person in which no consequences are left by Fontana’s scratches, by Rothko colors, by Joyce words or by Cage’s silences. Because poetry, music, art are for everyone, but not everyone knows it.– Paolo Carradori Continue reading →

Giancarlo Schiaffini and Sebi Tramontana | Wind & Slap | Rudi Records

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Wind & Slap is an intense dialogue sincere and straightforward, made of sinuous complementary lines. Music is a fascinating intimate account, a succession of consecutive paintings that gain the hearing in a sequence – like smooth moves in a solitary suite. When it comes to live tracks, the dialogue, enhanced by a third element, goes at a faster pace and music is tinged with bluesy tones. Continue reading →

Mickey Finn | Dudek! | El Gallo Rojo Records

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Music in its purest state. Improvisation intended as a method of instant collective composition. Sonorous symbols which are as bare and essential as Zen aphorisms are dropped onto hypnotic and feverish pulsations. Gashes of a new psychedelia, with a visual valence that is cinematographic. Dilutions of sound meet with a killer instinct for proportions and colours. Displacements in real time, guided only by sparse but very distinct micro-thematic reference points. Enrico Terragnoli’s guitar is a box of sounds with unlimited secret compartments. Giorgio Pacorig’s Rhodes distances itself from the limits of its own tradition. Danilo Gallo’s bass meanders darkly around the gut and Zeno De Rossi’s drumming here is absolutely unbeatable. — Giorgio Signoretti Continue reading →