Day two of guitar week … duo recordings!
Joe Sachse & Nils Wogram – Free & Tremendous (Jazzwerkstatt, 2014) ****½
By Paul Acquaro
I am thinking about the book Woodstock am Karpfenteich: Die Jazzwerkstatt Peitz which recalls the underground free jazz festival in 1970’s East Germany. A DVD of the latter day ‘comeback concert’ has Joe Sachse and fellow guitarist Uwe Kropinski playing as a duo, and during the show, Sachse uses a screwdriver to pull out sounds from his guitar. Of course, Thurston Moore has made the screwdriver his thing, but it seems amazing how the same tools, in different hands, produce such different outcomes.
Ross Hammond & Grant Calvin Weston – Blues and Daily News (Prescott Recordings, 2014) ****
Fred Frith & John Butcher – The Natural Order (Northern Spy, 2014) ***½
Joe Morris & Chris Cretella – Storms (Glacial Erratic, 2014) ****
Both from Connecticut, Joe Morris is a bassist, guitarist and composer and Chris Cretella is a guitarist who studied with Mr. Morris at the New England Conservatory of Music and the sympathy between these two players is obvious, palpable and tremendous. It is not a stretch to say that you are not likely to hear an acoustic guitar finger style record like this from anyone else now or in the near future and even Derek Bailey, a hero of mine, would be stunned and equally proud of the work Mr. Morris and Cretella have created here were he still around.
It’s frenetic without being annoying and dizzying in its scope. Escewing effects and pyrotechnics it constantly moves forward and stirs the listener at every twist and turn and is beautifully recorded. Just two acoustics in what sounds like a medium-sized room and that’s it but I couldn’t stop listening to it. Simple, elegant, plucky (literally and figuratively), genuinely thrilling and titillating. If you’re into acoustic free jazz and/or improvisation get this disc. You won’t be disappointed.
Joe Morris should be familiar to the FJ crowd from his work with Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Ken Vandermark, Eugene Chadborne, John Butcher, Hamid Drake and others. Chris Cretella has also played with Anthony Coleman, Mary Halvorson, Gary Lucas and Rhys Chatham.