Tag: Free Jazz Blog
Luis Lopes’ Humanization 4tet caught my interests a while back after I read a review of their eponymous first album. Indeed, as Stef described, the group still possesses a straight forwardness, backed up by raw intensity and sharp technical skills.Live in Madison was recorded in Madison, Wisconsin at the end of a US tour that the 4tet did in su…
You may know Devin Hoff as the bassist with Nels Cline Singers, here, he has hooked up with some of the Chicago’s avant-garde players in a project that “explores the intersections of late 70-s-early 80’s ‘post-punk’ and the electric avant-garde (or ‘free funk’) of roughly the same period…” (http://devinhoff.tumblr.com/). More importantly, h…
Pianist Rodger Coleman and drummer Sam Byrd’s collaboration is an energetic and succinct recording. Clocking in at a mere 35 minutes, there is not a scrap of waste onIndeterminate (Improvizations for Piano and Drums).
Captured live at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville, near where pianist Coleman is based, Indeterminate is a vibrant doc…
I think that the opening track ‘Calumet’ is the sound of the bascule opening. The introduction to Tim Daisy and Jason Stein’s duo recording begins with the lowercase sounds of air but the mood is soon punctuated byrandom musical chatter and finally it all gives way to a steady and strong rhythmic bass clarinet and drumsstream ofconsciousness –…
According to the label Prom Night’s web site, “hungry cowboy performs Jacob Wick’s graphic compositions loosely based on the emotional landscape of Cormac McCarthy’s Southwest novels.”
I was introduced to author Cormac McCarthy in an undergrad American Literature class as the new – or most recent – Faulkner, or something like that. From t…
Boston based pianist and composer Pandelis Karayorgis’ recent set of recordings on his label Driff Records feature a diverse set of players ranging from his home town of Boston, to the Chicago free jazz scene, and all the way to the Netherlands. The music is as varied as the configurations, ranging from compositions for a quintet, to interpret…
Mary Halvorson and Stephen Crump’s guitar and bass duo release Super 8 is all about atmosphere. Thoughts of Frisell come easily to mind in the opening moments of ‘Moom Song’, a minimalist musical painting, but they soon dissipate as the deeply unique and personal musical conversation of Secret Keeper reveals itself.
Halvorson, whose singular …
Black Host – Life in the Sugar Candle Mines (Northern Spy, 2013) ****½
ByPaul Acquaro
It’s not everyday that a new recording grabs you instantly. Sometimes, if it does, it’s just a fleeting thing, a little infatuation, that comes on quickly and strong, but then just as quickly is gone. My most recent infatuation began when I became enthrall…
The following are some modern jazz recordings that have been in rotation in my iTunes collection recently.I’m viewing this as a indulgence on my part, a quick dip into a different side of the collection.I decided not to star-rate these albums as they tend to be more mainstream than the recordings typically reviewed on the blog.
Rob Oswanski – Dec…
Cornetist Ron Mazurek’s The Space Between caught me off guard. Coming off of the Skull Sessions and the Pulsar Quartet, I had certain expectations, but after giving it spin, I found the oscillating electronics and instrumental fragments delightfully confounding.
Digging around the Internet, I found the context I was looking for on the Exp…
“Moments Form” does not need time to warm up, it just starts — a solid stream of invention and drive. Could one expect anything less from free jazz stalwarts, Mars Williams, Tim Daisy and Ingebrigt Haker Flaten? All are experienced and hard hitting improvisors and this consistently engaging album certainly, at the very least, solidifies this p…
Following up on last year’s Adored, guitarist Ross Hammond’s Cathedrals is another fine set of jazzrockfolkfree songsdelivered by a top notch quartet: woodwind player Vinny Golia, bassist Stuart Liebig, percussionist Alex Cline, and Hammond himself spinning rootsy lines on electric guitar. This new collection not only picks up where the group las…
