The cover to Live At Total Meeting depicts a maze and that’s a good metaphor for free improvised music. No-one knows where they are going or how they will get there. Even whether they have arrived or not is open to dispute. How the participants achieve resolution (of a sort)—negotiated, as it often is, without verbalization—is part of the enduring fascination of such sessions. For sure, the risks are less when veteran improvisers like the Portuguese violinist Carlos Alves “Zingaro” and French trumpeter Jean Luc Cappozzo are onboard, alongside fellow Frenchmen reedman Jerome Bourdellon and drummer Nicolas Lelievre. Between them, they have performed with all the major European and American innovators. — John Sharpe Continue reading →