KERN is a group comprised of Berlin-based woodwind player Edith Steyer, trombonist Matthias Mueller, and percussionist Yorgos Dimitriadis. As a trio, they released Mittendrin (‘In the middle’) in 2017 on Creative Sources. For their 2020 release Poles and Pulse on Trouble in the East – an artist run label out of Berlin – they welcomed the Berli…
Berlin, through the trees.(c) Paul Acquaroechtzeit musik – Day 1 When the question was posed to the folks in the Free Jazz Collective, who would like to join in on a tribute to the echtzeit musik scene in Berlin, the main question was “what is the echtzeit scene”? Funnily, that was a similar answer to some that we received from several of the music…
Ignaz Schick. (c)Cristina Marx/Photomusix
FJB: What is echtzeitmusik to you? Is what might be considered
echtzeitmusik connected through any approach, process, or sound result?
Ignaz Schick:
For me „Echtzeitmusik“ mostly is a community of similar minded musicians
who started arriving in Berlin i…
Guitarist Ava Mendoza is depicted with prickly pear cacti infront of a
barbed-wire fence on the cover of her new recording New Spells. It’s a fine
visualization of the sounds that crackle forth from her electric guitar.This is her sound. Some recent group settings featuring Mendoza, like
Mayan Space Station with William Parker and Gerald …
Silent Green, Berlin
Thursday night at Boulez HallWe raced it from the Hauptbahnhof to Boulez Hall in
the rain. My train had been delayed and we had about 10 minutes to make the 10
minute bike ride, show our proof of vaccination, scan the tickets, peel off our
wet rain clothin…
Today, something a little different. Carina Khorkhordina is a trumpeter and photographer from Russia, now living and working in Berlin. Some of her recent works are sound/site-specific videos that she has created showcasing some of the quickly disappearing ‘verlassene Orte’ (abandoned places) in the rapidly gentrifying city.The first is set in a de…
Jon Irabagon – Bird with Streams (Irabbagast, 2021) ****½
Ahh, COVID-19. How much has been written about it and how much has been lost to it? At the same
time, how many new possibilities appeared along with the global mayhem? For NYC
based saxophonist and composer Jon Irabagon, the pandemic took him and his
family on a journey westward t…
We are excited to have had a chance to touch base with Ken Vandermark and Brock Stuessi of the Catalytic Sound co-operative about the Catalytic Sound Festival. The second edition of the festivalwill be taking place in October, in Vienna, Haarlem, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Chicago, NYC, Trondheim, and Washington D.C. – and mostly viewable online. Paul A…
On September 30th, if you happen to be in the Albany, NY area around 10 a.m., tune in to 90.7 WGXC-FM. The Free Jazz Blog’s Paul Acquaro and Stef Gijssels join Tyran Grillo, author of the ECM dedicated blog and book Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond on radio host Cheryl K.’s show Situation Fluxus. Cheryl deftly leads the three in a co…
Angelika Niescier – Alexander Hawkins – Soul In Plain Sight (Intakt, 2021) ****½Germany based saxophonist Angelika Niescier and British pianist Alexander Hawkins share an intimate and explosive 52 minutes together on Soul in Plain Sight. The album, which was recorded after a series of concert dates last year in Europe was committed to tape (o…
Irene Schweizer, in concert in 2015. Photo by Peter Gannushkin.This year the Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer celebrated her 80th birthday. The writers at the Free Jazz Blog have covered the influential pianist’s work over the years and we thought it would be an appropriate celebration of her milestone year by reviewing not only her most recent releas…
When I first put on the drum and piano duo of John Blum and Jackson Krall, I felt a familiar sensation. It was that same, immediate and visceral reaction that I felt the day I stuck Cecil Taylor’s Conquistadorinto my car’s CD player, driving away from Jack’s Music Shoppe in Red Bank, NJ, where I had just bought a used copy of it, oh so many years a…
