Tag: Free Jazz Blog
“If not ecstatic, we replay.” An interesting statement and quite a kick-off to the Shinjuku Growl, a recent offering by The Thing with guest guitarist Jim O’Rourke. There is no need for a replay, from humble rattling percussive sounds punctuated by choice blasts from the sax, to the noisy improv that wells up between O’Rourke and drummer Paal …
According to Scott Fields’ website, this recording with Elliot Sharp, Afiadacampos, came out in 2010, which on the cusp of 2012, makes me a little more than fashionably late. Apologies for my tardiness, however, I am pleased to report the music has not aged a bit. I think the first thing that stuck out to me on this recording is just how nicel…
Lisbon Berlin Trio starts with the scratching and scraping of picks across the coils of round wound electric guitar strings. Percussion rattles below and a bowed bass fills the space in between. The muted soundscape grows and soon the guitar is lashing out with distorted chord tones and a disjointed rock-ish melody. By the end of the tune, the …
Novela by Tony Malaby is a real treat. It tantalizes the senses with its complex yet accessible horn arrangements, burns with a restrained energy that propels the soloists and builds so imperceptibly that by time we are half way into the first piece, “Floating Head,” and the piano’s slightly disjointed but flowing phrases come to the fore, we are r…
I suppose that Blixt is best described as a rock power trio. Working with industrial strength rhythms, thickly distorted leads and dark enveloping bass, the trio moves through a series of tough minded improvisations bracketed by short heads. However, as tough and stormy as the tunes may get at times, the musicianship and sensibilities of all invo…
The music starts getting tense midway through ‘Two’ on Matthew Shipp and Joe Morris’ vibrant new duo recording ‘Broken Partials’. Shipp extracts all the sound he possibly can from the piano while Morris, intense and focused on upright bass, contributes a swarm of sound below the piano. Soon, like Shipp, he is digging fiercely into the acoustic …
The Kris Wanders and Mani Neumeier Quintet’s Taken by Surprise is an excursion into free but highly melodic improvisation, and Wanders and Brett Evans’ tandem tenor saxophones on the the impassioned “Oxymoron” is an inspiring opener. The quintet is rounded out by Rory Brown on bass, Yusuke Akai on guitar and Neumeier on the drums. The rhythm s…
You could try approaching XYX actively listening to every nuance and rhythmic shift, analyzing and digesting every note. Or, you could let it wash over you, letting its sonic sandpaper exfoliate your mind. Either way, you will not be able to escape the tingling rawness it inflicts.
I’ve tried both approaches, during the same listening session. T…
‘Unknown Skies’ posseses an intriguing quality: it seems to be precisely imprecise, the strength of its cohesion built upon the tensions of it coming apart. Song heads could almost be improvisations, they seem so naturally unfolding, yet unison accompaniment belies their composition. Rhythms unfold loosely yet totally in control, and it makes fo…
I wonder what would make music like ‘Scowl’ of interest to the ‘lay’ listener? I suppose this is a question that has been asked in varying ways many times before, and no doubt will continue to be asked as members enter and (dare I say?) leave the fold of avant garde jazz. I don’t pretend to have an answer, nor will I even posit a theory, all I ca…
There is some quality to the Nels Cline Trio’s Silencer that keeps making me think of the first album by the jazz-rock trio Gateway. Cline’s guitar here is often a clean and clear fluid mix of single note runs and well placed double stops that echoes Abercrombie’s work decades earlier. Likewise, Cline dirties up his sound but often never quite ge…
The four musicians in the Kris Wanders Outfit connect at a level deep below the surface. Their primal collusion results in some dark and earthy improvised music that bares the soul while kicking up some serious dust.
Wanders, a tenor saxophonist from the European free jazz scene in the late 1960’s has made Australia his base since the late 70s a…
