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Vilhelm Bromander :
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Hand-numbered repress edition.
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Michael Formanek Quartet (Smith / Davis / Malaby):
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Michael Formanek's compositions run a wide range of styles and approaches to creative modern jazz, from flowing lyrical melodies to tense agitation in rapid runs, all anchored by Formanek's powerful bass and rendered with his Elusion Quartet of Tony Malaby on tenor & soprano sax, Kris Davis on piano and Ches Smith on drums & vibes; inventive jazz that continuously surprises. ... Click to View


Kris Davis:
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Joris Ruhl:
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Madly You (Lazro / Zingaro / Leandre / Loves):
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Reissuing the 2002 Potlatch release of this exceptional free improvising quartet of Daunik Lazro on alto & baritone saxophones, Carlos Alves "Zingaro" on violin, Joëlle Léandre on double bass and Paul Lovens on percussion & musical saw, some of the most notable of European improvisers captured live during the 2001 "Banlieues Bleues" Festival. ... Click to View


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Swiss sound artist Jason Kahn chronicles his 37-solo concert tour through North America from the US to Canada, exploring the state of DIY experimental music scenes post-pandemic, including a CD of concert recordings in Portland and Chicago in 2022 using local radio and field recordings from each city, along with mod synths, tube amp, electromagnetic transducers and contact mics. ... Click to View


Turbulence Orchestra:
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The extended horn section from the Boston collective Leap of Faith Orchestra is heard in this ensemble session with reeds and winds from David Peck and Michael Caglianone, and brass from Eric Dahlman, Bob Moores and John Fugarino on trumpets and Duane Reed on double bell euphonium, plus Jared Seabrook on drums and all members performing on the Evil Clown extended percussion arsenal. ... Click to View


Leap Of Faith:
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Reuniting drummer Sydney Smart with Leap of Faith, the core duet from the Leap of Faith Orchestra of cellist Glynis Lomon and reed, wind & percussionist David Peck, in a sextet configuration of the Boston collective band with Ellwood Epps on trumpet, Eric Zinman on keyboards, Joel Simches performing real-time signal processing, and Smart on a variety of exotic drums and gongs. ... Click to View


James Lewis Brandon / Red Lily Quintet:
For Mahalia, With Love [2 CDs] (Tao Forms)

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James Lewis Brandon / Red Lily Quintet:
For Mahalia, With Love [VINYL 2 LPs] (Tao Forms)

Composer and tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis' exceptional Red Lily Quintet quintet (Kirk Knuffke on cornet; William Parker on bass; Chad Taylor on drums; Christopher Hoffman on cello) pays homage to gospel and jazz singer Mahalia Jackson through a suite of original Lewis compositions, reimagining some of Jackson's best known works; CD & LP issues include a bonus download track. ... Click to View


Matthew Shipp Trio:
Circular Temple (ESP-Disk)

Originally released in 1992 on the US Quinton Records label, this trio album by New York improvisers, pianist Matthew Shipp (this being his first CD under his own name), bassist William Parker and drummer Whit Dickey, presents the four-part "Circular Temple" composed by Shipp, leveraging the language of jazz in remarkable ways, particularly the 2nd movement, "Monk's Nightmare". ... Click to View


Matthew Shipp Trio:
Circular Temple [VINYL] (ESP-Disk)

Originally released in 1992 on the US Quinton Records label, this trio album by New York improvisers, pianist Matthew Shipp (this being his first CD under his own name), bassist William Parker and drummer Whit Dickey, presents the four-part "Circular Temple" composed by Shipp, leveraging the language of jazz in remarkable ways, particularly the 2nd movement, "Monk's Nightmare". ... Click to View


Evan Parker / Matthew Wright Trance Map + Peter Evans / Mark Nauseef:
Etching the Ether (Intakt)

Evan Parker and Matthew Wright are the core of Trance Map, the soprano saxophonist and live electronics duo expanding on their original 2011 concept with Trance Map+, adding guest musicians to their unique approach to electroacoustic improvisation, here in an exceptional quartet configuration with Peter Evans on trumpet & piccolo trumpet, and Mark Nauseff on percussion. ... Click to View


Marie Kruttli:
Transparence (Intakt)

Swiss pianist, composer and producer Marie Kruttli, who splits her time between Switzerland and Berlin, steps away from her trio with bassist Lukas Traxel and drummer Jonathan Barber for a sophisticated solo album of original composition and improvisations, in thirteen succinct, emotional and introspectively elegant works. ... Click to View


Joe McPhee / Mette Rasmussen / Dennis Tyfus:
Oblique Strategies [VINYL] (Black Truffle)

An unrestrained album of free jazz, unorthodox electronic excursions and vocal irascibility as legendary tenor saxophonist Joe McPhee joins the Bazuinschal duo of alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen and percussionist & electronic manipulator Dennis Tyfus (Ultra Eczema) for this singularly unusual 2018 concert at Het Bos, in Antwerp, Belgium; magnificently indescribable! ... Click to View


Hedvig Mollestad :
Weejuns [VINYL 2 LPs] (Rune Grammofon)

Teaming up with Norwegian keyboard player Ståle Storløkken of Elephant9 & Supersilent and drummer Ole Mofjell, guitarist Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen introduces her new trio with this double album of live recordings from three separate concerts in Oslo and Stavanger, Norway, in dynamic performances of blistering, building prog and jazz fusion-oriented rock forms. ... Click to View


Foussat / Parrenin / Rollet:
Haut-Coeur (Fou Records)

Emphasizing the electronic aspect of ea-improv, the trio of Jean-Marc Foussat on Synthi AKS, voice & toys, Emmanuelle Parrenin on hurdy-gurdy & voice and Quentin Rollet on alto and sopranino saxophones & small electronics, are heard in an immersive performance at Allumes du Jazz, in Le Mans, France in 2023, for a superb concert of unrestricted free improvisation. ... Click to View


Daunik Lazro / Carlos Zingaro / Sakis Papadimitriou / Jean Bolcato:
Periferia (Fou Records)

Reissuing the 1995 In Situ album of the sublime 1993 concert at Vandoeuvre-Les-Nancy in France from the free improvising quartet of Daunik Lazro on alto & baritone saxophones, Carlos Zingaro on acoustic and electroacoustic violins, Sakis Papadimitriou on piano and Jean Bolcato on double bass & voice, in a highly focused set of concentrative collective expression. ... Click to View


Joelle Leandre / Paul Lovens :
Off Course ! (Fou Records)

Bringing together two masterful and legendary players from the European Free Improv scene -- French double bassist and vocalist Joëlle Léandre and UK drummer & percussionist Paul Lovens -- heard in this live performance at Les Temps du Corps, in Paris, free playing in two parts with an incredible sense of communication, timing, humor, virtuosity and finesse. ... Click to View



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  Morton Feldman 
  Trio  
  (Mode Records) 


  
   review by Kurt Gottschalk
  2010-11-03
Morton Feldman: Trio (Mode Records)

The Japanese experimental guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama has commented that he felt compelled to make mid-tempo, moderate volume music because everyone around him was working in extremely loud or extremely quiet sounds. The need to rebel, in a sense, forced him into breaking old ground.

It's a similar position to the one Morton Feldman found himself in a half century earlier. With the minute having been explored a generation earlier by Anton Webern, and with his peers seemingly more than willing to adhere to the dictates of the LP, Feldman began to grow interested in creating exceedingly long works. (The similarity doesn't end there, either. As much as Feldman's compatriot John Cage is celebrated, in many ways it's Feldman the formalist, with his use of sound and silence is extremely deliberate — an exhibition of ego, as Cage might accuse — who is a truer progenitor of the new school of minimalist improvisation.)

To cite the man himself (as quoted in Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, published by Exact Change in 2000):

My whole generation was hung up on the 20- to 25-minute piece. It was our clock. We all got to know it and how to handle it. As soon as you leave the 20- to 25-minute piece behind, in a one-movement work, different problems arise. Up to one hour you think about form, but after an hour and a half it's scale. Form is easy — just the division of things into parts. But scale is another matter. You have to have control of the piece — it requires a heightened level of concentration. Before my pieces were like objects; now they're like evolving things.

Trio for violin, cello and piano was composed in 1980, is among Feldman's first experiments in extended duration, and is seen as marking the beginning of his late period works, from 1979 until his death in 1987. And while it's all too easy in discussing Feldman to get preoccupied with on clock-watching, the roughly two-hour Trio was followed in 1984 by the four-hour For Philip Guston and the oft-cited six-hour String Quartet No. 2. But what matters, of course, is not how long the theater is rented out for but what's done with it once you're there. Central to the Trio (and to Feldman's ideas about use of scale) is the fact that the piece is a single movement; There's no time open for a regrouping of wits or a realigning of motifs. It is a singular expression. Rather than boldly announcing the next thematic variation, then, Feldman is constantly in flux, working within palette and pace, making subtle realignments and shifts in emphasis.

In that sense, the use of repetition is far from an elongating device. The instrumentalists get locked into patterns — in unison, in succession, or sometimes in isolation — not to create scale but to explore it, as if to say "We couldn't have a mountain were it not for each of these stones."

At the same time, however, there's a curious irony to Feldman's mountain climbing. The composer also wanted to eschew the dramatic underpinnings of concert music (notably that of Boulez), and yet it's the drama of his extended works that make them so majestic, so mountainous. For duration without drama, see (for example) Warhol's film Empire, a work of a very different emotive impact than the Trio. Feldman's long pieces, in other words, are far from drones. They are filled with suspense. And in fact, the Trio is filled with murder-mystery string swells. Certainly the composer isn't responsible for the projections of pop culture, but at the same time it's hard to imagine that in 1980 Feldman wouldn't have recognized the baggage Bernard Hermann had attached to stabbing violins. And indeed, suspense is Feldman's mojo. His pace allows ample time to wonder what will happen next. No Mozartian filigrees here! The music is, literally, suspended in time.

Mode's 2006 recording of the performance by violinist Marc Sabat, cellist Rohan de Saram and pianist Aki Takahashi is gorgeously warm and intimate. The only shame is that, with Feldman having despised the confines of the LP side, the 105-minute performance should be spread across two CDs. With the possibility of DVD-audio release, technology is finally catching up to Feldman's vision.





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