Tag: Free Jazz Blog
Watch out NYC – Patti Smith gave up on you years agoand Jeremiah’s already signed the DNR. Artists have always been pushed to the periphery, but when there isn’t a periphery any longer, they, and the cultural vitality, move on. And if I had a hunch to where it’s going, I’d keep my eyes peeled west, mid-west that is.
Tom Weber’s Over the Pavem…
Nickelsdorf in Austria is home to the great Konfrontation art festival and also to Phillip Schmickl, the driving force behind the ‘the oral’, an ongoing oral history project that has so far produced 12 volumes on artists and musicians, the latest beingConversations with Hamid Drake and William Parker. A conversation with Hamid Drake on the…
awa is the meeting of three Leipzigers and a lone New Yorker in a freely improvised setting. Comprised of Gustav Geißler (Alto Saxophone, Leipzig), Zach Seely (Guitar, New York), Noah Punkt (Bass, Leipzig) and Philipp Scholz (Drums, Leipzig), the quartet tends to rely on a light touch, with bursts of concentrated energy that finds each musicia…
Ron Stabinsky, a pianist from Pennsylvania, has been working in recent years with jazz upstarts Mostly Other People Do the Killing, debuting on 2013’s excellent Red Hot. Not only is he from the state that is band leader Moppa Elliot’s source of inspiration, but his approach to playing contains the sly and subtle irreverence that has so success…
Trumpeter Brian Groder’s trio with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Jay Rosen plays a sleek style of modern jazz that builds on the spirit of free-jazz and delivers with a laser-like focus. On their second release ‘R Train on the D Line’ (if you’re a New Yorker, you know), Groder and company pick up with where they left off with 2014’sReflex…
There is something familiar aboutAruánOrtiz’s approach on the piano. One bit Matthew Shipp, one bit Craig Taborn, and much of his own sound, there is precise angularity and elliptical energy that defines Ortiz’s approach to both composition and playing. Perhaps too, his choice of musicians says something – drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Er…
This is a recording that has been on high rotation in my playlist list for a bit of time now, and each time I come back to it, I find another interesting facet. I suppose an overarching description of the music is that it’s meticulously composed,and I mean that in a few ways. While there is an overall strong sense of composition that guiding…
We conclude this week of duos with four recordings featuring the saxophone and a stringed instrument – in this case cello, bass, bass guitar and guitar, and then close out with two classic sax and drum duos. The problem is, it’s hard to stop here. Just in the time of the creation of this week of reviews, a new recording from OutNow called Esoter…
Now in its second edition, Trevor Barre’sBeyond Jazz, Plink, Plonk & Scratch, the Golden Age of Free Music in London 1966–1972 is anicely composed survey of the unique approach to free improvisation that came to be in London starting in the mid-1960s. Striking the right balance between entertaining and academically rigorous, the book…
Erik Platz’s debut disc, Life After Lifeis an atmospheric outing made from aunique pairing of instruments. With the help of James Falzone (clarinet), Leanne Zacharias (cello), and Don Benedictson (bass), percussionist and composer Platz takes the time to developan environment for the group totake his compositions on an inward journey. Througho…
Saxophonist Uli Kempendorff’s quartet Field is guitarist Ronny Graupe, drummer OliverSteidle, and bassist Jonas Westergaard. Their music is a great example of the vibrant and highly syncopated blend of modern bop/free jazz that seems to be pouring out of Berlin as of late (I’m thinking of groups like Die Enttäuschungand Soko Steidle).
The gro…
A few weeks ago I had a chance to catch a screening of this new documentary on saxophonist/composer Thomas Chapin. It was an early cut of the film, and about two and half hours long. Not knowing a tremendous amount about Chapin, I went in thinking that 2.5 hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon is quite a commitment … yet as the film neared it…
