German woodwind player and composer Gebhard Ullmann began his Basement Research project in the early 1990s. He released the group’s self-titled album in 1993 on the Italian Soul Note label with a group featuring saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Phil Haynes. The music was a successful mix of more formal compositions d…
The Baritone saxophones is big and formidable. I’ve always enjoyed the power and sonorities of the large woodwind, and it seems it is the last sax that one can play without having to sit, or have some sort of contraption scaffolding the instrument. Folks like Dave Rempis, Ken Vandermark, and Mats Gustafsson eat up the instrument, often luxu…
Flamingo is a trio from Berlin, made up of bass player Adam Pultz Melbye, percussionist Christian Windfeld, and contra-bass clarinetist Chris Heenan, with a little help from the sound engineer Roy Carroll adding a touch of electronics. They eschew any song format for a one hour and 12-minute long improvisation that rises from the silence an…
By
Martin Schray
Last year I covered NYC’s Vision Festival with Paul Acquaro, but since he has moved to Berlin, I’m on my own this year. New York welcomed me in its typical manic way: heavy clouds were hanging over the city, it was raining. On the bus from Newark Airport to the city it was on the news that a …
By
Colin Green
Such are the flood of releases from British reeds-man Paul Dunmall that it
sometimes feels like you can never quite catch-up. 2018 saw him feature on
eight albums, all on Trevor Taylor’s FMR label which has done so much to
support free jazz and improv over the years.
The Rain Sessions
…
‘Bast’ is a blast – a kinetic opener to say the least – a musical can opener that removes the lid from the Brooklyn based trio Bloor’s first recording Drolleries. Sam Weinberg’s saxophone playing is fierce and unforgiving, Jason Nazary’s percussion work, while at moments feels frenetic, is quite deftly applied, and Andrew Smiley (like Nazary, f…
As I began writing this, I took a quick look back at my post from 2015 about the Ken Vandermark (woodwinds) and Nate Wooley (trumpet) duo’s first recording, East by Northwest. At the time of writing, I was still thinking about the show I had just seen of theirs. Before that experience, I had been a little skeptical about what two wind instrume…
It’s feeling a bit urgent, isn’t it? Autocracy and corruption, intolerance and extremism, hash-tag wisdom and anti-critical thinking all seem to be in high fashion. So, a good dose of free thinking music is, to my ears, a welcome respite from this unthinkable Zeitgeist. Microscopic Sextet founding member, and long-time member of NYC downtow…
Before dropping the needle on this beautiful color vinyl pressing ofSpinning Song: Duck Baker plays the music of Herbie Nichols, I must admit that I wasn’t too familiar with the composer. Herbie Nichols (1919 – 1963) was interested in an adventurous mix of Caribbean folk, dixieland, and bop, and was a contemporary (and friend) of Thelonius …
DuringWinter Jazz Fest 2018, I caught a whiff of saxophonist James Brandon Lewis’group that recorded AnUnRuly Manifesto. At the time, I thought it was one of the best set that I caught at the festival and the recording does not dispel the notion.
Last year Lewis released a duo recording called ‘Radiant Imprints’ (see review below), that demon…
Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog – YRU Still Here? (Yellowbird, 2018) *****
Guitarist Marc Ribot is a long standing favorite of mine. In all of his guises – whether the folk and blues solo work, his always spot-on accompaniment, the ‘fake’ Latin band, or the raucous Ceramic Dog with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith, he always has…
We received an unusual guest contribution for guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel’s latest ECM release Where the River Goes.The writer, Marinella Barigazzi, offers a poetic take on this music, capturing in words images of the sounds flowing from the speakers, plus adds some additional words from the guitarist.
Where The River Goes
ByMarinella Barigaz…
