No Business Records

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 →

Vinny Golia | Marco Eneidi | Lisa Mezzacappa | Vijay Anderson | Hell-Bent in the Pacific | No Business Records

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Vinny Golia has made some unusual choices. In 1973, he moved from New York to Los Angeles, away from the centre of the jazz universe to the more cooperative Left Coast scene. He established his musician-run New Winds label in the 1980s, the start of tough times for the record biz. He also bucked conventional wisdom to concentrate on just one or two instruments, devising a rotating practice schedule to master the full families of saxophones, flutes and clarinets, as well as shakuhachi, bassoon, and so many other winds that his Penguin Guide to Jazz list ends with “etc.” —Lawrence Joseph Continue reading →

Carlos Zingaro | Jean Luc Cappozzo | Jerome Bourdellon | Nicolas Lelievre | Live At Total Meeting | No Business Records

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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 →

Liudas Mockūnas | Barry Guy | Lava | No Business Records

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Iconoclastic saxophonists Mats Gustafsson and Evan Parker furnish the most customary duo outlets for master bassist Barry Guy, so Lithuanian reedman Liudas Mockunas’ situation on Lava is an exposed one. However, he acquits himself well in a voice entirely his own. Co-founder of the No Business imprint, Mockūnas weighs in as one of the country’s premier improvisers, appearing alongside an ever increasing catalogue of Baltic, Scandinavian, and US performers. Previous appearances have placed him in a Peter Brötzmann-like trio on Live at 11:20 (No Business, 2010) and in an impromptu freewheeling duet with Japanese pianist Ryoji Hojito on Vacation Music (No Business, 2011). — John Sharpe Continue reading →

Mikolaj Trzaska | Olie Brice | Mark Sanders | Riverloam Trio | No Business Records

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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. Continue reading →

Bobby Bradford | Frode Gjerstad | Ingebrigt Håker Flaten | Paal Nilssen-Love | Kampen | No Business Records

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Sometimes there are weird coincidences. When we got new albums on our review list recently, many of them included reminiscences of the golden jazz eras in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Rob Mazurek’s Pulsar Quartet sometimes sounds like the seminal Miles Davis Quintet, Sam Rivers’ trio with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul brings back memories of his RivBea studio days, Michael Blake taps the great jazz-rock bands of the 70s, Joe McPhee’s plays “Naima” and “Round Midnight” on two new reissues, and even Wadada Leo Smith and Louis Moholo-Moholo salute the great Ancestors. Finally, west-coast-legend Bobby Bradford’s new album reminds one of the landmark Ornette Coleman Quartet with Don Cherry, Scott LaFaro and Ed Blackwell. — Martin Schray Continue reading →

William Parker | Centering | Unreleased Early Recordings 1976 – 1987 | 6 CD Box Set | No Business Records

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This box of music is dedicated to my wife, Patricia. I would also like to thank the producer Danas Mikailionis for his conviction to the project and Ed Hazell for guiding us through these musical memories. I give sincere thanks to all the musicians who made a commitment to the music; those who have passed on to the next life – Billy Bang, Malik Baraka, Denis Charles, Raphe Malik, Jay Oliver, Charles Tyler, Arthur Williams – and those who continue to play and create beautiful music of their own today – Ramsey Ameen, Brenda Bakr, Roy Campbell Jr., Daniel Carter, Ellen Christi, Charles Downs, Charles Gayle, John Hagen, Masahiko Kono, Rozanne Levine, Alex Lodico, Zen Matsuura, John Mingione, Jemeel Moondoc, Lisa Sokolov, Ricardo Strobert, and David S. Ware. — William Parker Continue reading →