So, you know the old joke, “when is a guitar not a guitar?” No? Ok, that is likely because it doesn’t exist, besides, the guitar is always a guitar, even when it is being played in utterly unexpected ways. Like, for example, the double guitars of Lisbon’s Abdul Moimême, which are laid flat on tables and played with various tools, rather than by be…
It’s always a pleasure – and a bit of a nerve wracking experience – to participate in year end polls. Aside from the one that we run on the Free Jazz Blog, I also participated in these polls: The 17th…
The Free Jazz Blog’s Top 10 for 2022, a long time tradition at the site. Below is my intro, followed by my excerpted list. For the full list of top albums and lists from the other writers, visit the blog…
This is a bit unusual, it is a review of a recording that is still being made. Saxophonist Catherine Sikora has undertaken an ambitious project to record a solo piece every day for the month of December and add to Winter Solos, available in its evolving form from Bandcamp. The first track, ‘Winter Solos #1,’ is by far the longest track (so far) at …
Here is my extended list of top recordings and books from 2022. Of course, there is a lot to listen to and such a list is limited to what I’ve actually written about or listened to many times with good…
At a point during the track ‘Space for Hour’ on vibraphonist Patricia Brennan’s More Touch, I was pretty sure I heard guitarist Mary Halvorson’s patented pitch bends. However, a quick glance at the album credits pointed out that this was actually coming from Brennan’s set-up. Originally from Mexico, Brennan appeared on the New York scene in recently…
Biliana Voutchkova is a violinist/composer/multi-disciplinary artist who splits her time between Berlin and the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. She is deeply ingrained in the music scene of Berlin, playing with well known groups such as the Splitter Orchestra an…
In 2021, the prolific tenor sax player celebrated his 60th birthday with a major project, a nine-volume box, Brass And Ivory Tales (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2021), seven years in the making, and pairing Perelman with nine like-minded pianists. The improvised dialogues w…
Continued from yesterday.Friday’s line up at the Jazzfest Berlin featured the rich bounty of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann with Hamid Drake and gimbri player Majid Bekkas, along with the fire extinguisher opus “MM schäumend“ from Sven-Åke Johansson, among other highlights; however, other commitments kept me away. So, skipp…
Do you recall the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ series of books? These books were a story with many threads, and you were asked at the end each chapter what you should do next, and then you skipped around the story, seeing where the thread you…
Rodrigo Amado. Photo (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix.It’s always a pleasure to hear a new recording from Lisbon based saxophonist and photographer Rodrigo Amado. His groups, such as the Motion Trio, The Attic, This Is Our Language quartet, as well as his work with guitarist Luis Lopes’ Humanization 4tet, among many other collaborations, always feature…
One day, during the earlier part of the pandemic (time is vague, 2020 – 2022 really kind of mush together), I watched a live stream of saxophonist Rodrigo Amado performing a solo show from his home in Lisbon. It was, I believe, the first public performance of his solo repertoire and it alread…
