Joel Grip
Stumps
Sven-Ake Johansson has referred to the book of compositions used for his Stumps project as the magnum opus of his small group writing. The top-notch quintet he assembled for the project includes some of his most trusted collaborators in trumpeter Axel Dörner and double bassist Joel Grip, complemented by the involvement of two younger but equally compelling French improvisers, pianist Simon Sieger and alto saxophonist Pierre Borel. A set of recordings made at the Berlin club Au Topsi Pohl were re…
Swinging At Topsi's
An evening of free improvisation recorded in Berlin at au Topsi Pohl in 2020 from the Swedish trio of Euro Free Jazz legend Sven-Ake Johansson on drums, Niklas Fite on acoustic guitar and Joel Grip on double bass, performing two extended and dynamic improvisations, and then settling into jazz standard form for "Isn't It Romantic" and "Out of Nowhere" sung by by Johansson. The novelty and warmth of the songs aside, the serious work heard in Sets 1 & 2 of shows the trio in fine form, evolving thei…
In Early November
Two historical heavyweights of European free music, clarinetist Rüdiger Carl and drummer Sven-Åke Johansson, join forces with younger bassist Joel Grip for a night of incredible trios. Recorded a few months before the pandemic clampdown, in November of 2019, at Berlin's Au Topsi Pohl, the music is exploratory and swinging, with Carl's viscous clarinet and a brilliant rhythm team steeped in time-based feel but loose and sometimes oblique. Johansson was part of the first Peter Brötzmann Trio to …
Neuköllner Modelle (Sektion 1-2)
Sektion 1-2 is an extravagant LP-production which depicts the new musical thoughts and craftsmanships of three musician identities who couldn’t be further apart (or better distributed) in age. Together they work on the form. The result is a radical suspended shape of instrumental interplay, exploring unbound rhythms, structures, and harmonies.
Even though Neuköllner Modelle draws attention to Free Jazz (a genre of which Sven-Ake Johansson became one of the european pioneers), their methods…