Category: Recordings
Excerpted from https://www.freejazzblog.org/2023/12/free-jazz-blogs-2023-top-10-lists.html So, here we are, standing on the precipice of a new year looking back at the current one — who would have thought that would see the future catching up with the present so fast, especially with…
Is this the album from Marcelo dos Reis that I had been hoping to hear or is it one that I had never expected to hear? After all, the Portuguese guitarist is a masterful player who weaves experimental lines with melodic results, and sharp tonal clusters with harmonic sophistication – for example, his recent duo release with trumpeter Luis Vincente …
Colonge based Angelika Niescier is a brilliant force on alto saxophone. Whether she’s playing melodious lines or blasting out searing ones, she is a musician with complete control of her instrument and flush with ideas. What can then be said of cellist Tomeka Reid? Hailing from the incubator of effusive jazz in the heart of America, Reid’s wide ran…
Guitarist Tisziji Muñoz is a somewhat under-the-radar player in improvised music. Perhaps better stated, he is more of an open secret, and those in the know, know that his fiery Coltrane-like approach to his instrument should have him cresting the top of any “fiery-guitar” music fan’s list. He also happens to be a teacher of spirituality and combi…
Entrance to the Downtown Music Gallery, June 2023 with Bruce GallanterIn the early 2000s as I was fumbling my way into ever more challenging music, I somehow ‘discovered’ the Downtown Music Gallery in its incarnation on the Bowery in downtown New York City. I was innocently walking up the street and in a somewhat opaque window noticed Dave Douglas’…
I’ve been savoring every crisp note from guitarist John Scofield’s Uncle John’s Band for a bit now. The trio format, I believe, is Scofield’s calling – he has crafted a distinct approach to his guitar playing that works best with skeletal, but solid, accompaniment, like on his ECM debut Swallow Tales (ECM, 2020) and years prior on Enroute (Verve, …
I’ve been thinking about extended technique and the saxophone a bit lately, and I am starting to come up with a taxonomy, a classification scheme, if you will, of the various sound possibilities and their application. For example, there are the extended tonal systems that musicians like Evan Parker and John Butcher have developed and extended, rich…
Celine Voccia, a French pianist currently living and working in Berlin,
couples her classical training with free jazz edge through energetic and
engaging improvisation. In the past half year or so, Voccia’s discography has expanded rewardingly for the free jazz and improvisational music fan. Here are some thoughts on a few recent reco…
Last year, I was introduced to the music of Steffen Roth, a drummer,
composer, and organizer based in Leipzig, Germany, at the now (sadly)
defunct Au Topsi Pohl in Berlin. A little while later, I attended his Potentiale
Festival in the middle of the German countryside, and among some excellent
performances, I had the chance to hear…
Peter Brötzmann. Photo (c) Cristina Marx.
The final day of our tribute to saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. See day one
here
and day two here.
Peter Brotzmann/Paal Nilssen-Love Sweetsweat (Smalltown Superjazz, 2008)
As a listener, as someone with deep love …
Peter Brötzmann. Photo by Peter GannushkinDay two of our tribute to saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. See day one here.
Peter Brötzmann, Toshinori Kondo, William Parker, Hamid Drake — Little Birds
Have Fast Hearts, No. 1 ; No. 2 (FMP, 1998 ; 1999)
These two albums, divided into six parts, were taken from performances by the…
The reed doubler Ken Vandermark is always juggling many projects of varying sizes and shapes, but one configuration that is always a joy to hear him in is the duo, especially the sax and drums combination. Famously, he has two long standing duos with Paal Nilssen-Love and Tim Daisy, and also just released an album with Hamid Drake. On Distant Cous…
