Tag: Free Jazz Blog
There was just a cryptic email and a link to Bandcamp for this short (35 minutes), inexpensive (free) and exciting album calledGlas Live at Brotz.
The group, Glas, from Norway isLars Larsson on saxophone,Gunnar Backman on guitar and live loops, Peeter Uuskyla on drums,Niclas Rydh on trombone and Anders Berg on bass, and they are pretty d…
Bassist Daren Burns describes his albumFear Is Not The Natural State Of Civilized Peopleas ‘post-fusion recording for the new world’ and itis recording that is at once a comment on the world post-9/11 and fusion done freely and fiercely well.
The hard hitting passages on the opener, ‘Gothalay’ start off with a furious flood of sound from…
A quick warning — do not attempt to listen to Catatumbo if you have a preconceived notion of how a melody should sound or a rhythm should go.
It’s not that these elements aren’t present, nor that the talented cast of saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, percussionist Javier Carmona and bassist Olie Brice do not deliver them in abundance, it’s just th…
Perhaps one reason I’ve been enjoying Altitude so much is that I suffered through the sweltering night at The Stone when AUM Fidelity captured the event. I kind of feel like I earned (and purchased) the recording.
It was hot that night, which is corroborated by Joe Morris in his liner notes. But more so, the music was sizzling. As I listen rep…
I had barely received the email announcing the release of Kalabalikand I was immediately trudging through the depths of NYC to the Downtown Music Gallery in search of it.
A man possesed, no doubt.
But not without good reason. I was at the first two shows that brought the Scandinavian guitarists together in NYC that previous winter and had …
Recorded in 1967 with drummer Rashied Ali,John Coltrane’s posthumously released Interstellar Space was a template for the sax and drum duo. It is a beautiful and, at times, challenging recording and has been described around the blogosphere as:
“Noisy, abrasive, violent. But it’s the tight playing and the remnants of melody that give Coltran…
The sax-bass-drum trio is a particularly favorite combination of mine. The flexibility of the unit, the space that is filled by the three instruments and both the power and finesse that it can achieve is inspiring. However, I am also pretty partial to the sax-guitar-drum configuration as well. It’s different, the bottom end is more likely…
Camino Cielo Echo, the Tom Rainey Trio’s second effort, features the same group as the debut album, Pool School, however in the intervening time, it seems the group has further developed a sound that is as improvization based as ever, but even more elastic and risk taking. As before, the group is Tom Rainey on drums, Ingrid Laubrock on sax and Ma…
Vinny Golia’sAbstractions And Retrocausalitiesis not only a mouthful to say but also an album to really sink your teeth into. It’s a masterful dish of composed and free passages that mix seemlessly into a lively work.
Working with a sextet gives Golia an exciting assortment of textures and tones which he employes to great effect over the cou…
Anders Nilsson cites fellow guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim’s solo guitar album Apocalypsoas well as solo works by John Mclaughlin, Sonny Sharrock and bassist Ken Filiano as inspirations for ‘Night Guitar,’ his collection of solo pieces for electric guitar. The songs feel as spontaneous as they feel composed, and contain an air of mystery and expl…
Ambience is to the fore on Lisa Mezzacappa and Nightshade’s album Cosmic Rift. Built upon electric/acoustic soundscapes, the focus in on interactions and textures rather than strong rhythms and striking themes.
The album has been sitting in my iPod for quite a while now, slowly gaining my attention and surprising me each time I give i…
“Wind Sweeping Pines” is a twenty minute track on the Chicago Underground Duo’s sixth album “Age of Energy” and the intensity and emotion that builds by the end of the track is just incredible. Cornetist and electronic sound sculptor Rob Mazurek’s melody sails above the mix of acoustic drums and bubbling electronics. But, it’s the journey to…
