★Clean Feed
Metasediment Rock
The Norwegian jazz scene is like the hat of a magician: when you think nothing more can get out from its mysterious hole, there’s something else emerging to amaze us. Snik is such a case. The compositions are from two of the members of this quartet, trombonist Kristoffer Kompen and double bassist Ole Morten Vagan. Vagan is one of the most respected names of the Scandinavian jazz, with his membership of Joshua Redman Trio and his quintet Motif, writing scores for the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra or p…
Directions
If you thought that Rafael Toral’s quartet was named after some reference to Sun Ra’s spatial jazz, here is the confirmation that there’s much more at stake than that, even if the many allusions to the Saturn envoy are also true. Space is the valorization of pauses, interstices, a certain measure of expression and narrative, a way to create transparencies and, most of all, a return to a human dimension, aware of its heart beating, its organic, silent thinking/ inner living of bodily functions. I…
Nature Hath Painted the Body
Clean Feed presents Nature Hath Painted the Body by Jonas Cambien Trio. André Roligheten soprano and tenor saxophone, bass clarinet | Andreas Wildhagen drums | Jonas Cambien piano (soprano saxophone on track 4, organ on tracks 6, 11). Belgian-born, Oslo-based pianist Jonas Cambien couldn’t have chosen better partners than Andreas Wildhagen and André Roligheten to perform his cleverly constructed compositions. On its third studio album, his trio shows itself as a tightly interacting ensemble, …
In The West
Max Johnson may be the only musician to have worked with legendary improvisers Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Muhal Richard Abrams & William Parker, bluegrass royalty Sam Bush & David Grisman, in addition to rock pioneers Adrian Belew, Vernon Reid & the Butthole Surfers. That eclecticism is at work on his new album, “In the West”, featuring piano trio, augmented by pedal steel guitar. The album features Kris Davis on Piano, Susan Alcorn on pedal steel guitar, and Mike Pride on drums, in addition …
Rome
To date, celebrated Chicago musician Rob Mazurek’s solo endeavors have focused on his modular synthesizer and keyboard musings. On “Rome,” Mazurek’s sensitivity on cornet is at the fore, but we also find him using various electronics, and seated at a piano. Here the presence of the piano is expanded. He plays it conventionally, with preparation, with direct manipulation of the piano’s interior, and as a resonator for his cornet to create ethereal, otherworldly overtones. “Rome” was recorded and …
Last Kind Words
There’s a good side in the present day global dimension and that’s called “cultural syncretism”. Roots Magic is an Italian band who’s gradually building up a repertoire between Deep Blues and Creative Jazz, and this is their second effort. As in their previous release, the track list consists of personal renditions of Delta Blues classics (mostly Charlie Patton) played with an overtly exploratory attitude derived from the Free Jazz tradition, as well as a number of pieces composed by some chosen…
Chants and Corners
Electro-Acoustic Composer, Cornetist Rob Mazurek continues to focus on the Brazilian side of his musical production, and that’s good news. Even better when we notice that “Chants and Corners” is something else than a new São Paulo Underground enterprise – some of the contributors are the same, but the project has another confection and this signifies that it’s multiplying in different perspectives, like the flowers of a plant. Playing a modular synth, a sampler and a piano besides his cornet, Ma…
So Beautiful, It Starts To Rain
In a country and a musical domain where you have someone like Evan Parker, it’s difficult for any emerging sax player to establish himself, but John Butcher managed to do it and with his own personal style, very different from Parker’s. Now, he’s one of the main figures of the United Kingdom free improvised scene and his name crossed frontiers. “So Beautiful, it Starts to Rain” is a transnational enterprising, and another product of the British / Scandinavian connection, reuniting the tenor and …
Soulfood Available
For their 3rd album together, the trio of saxophonist Peter Brotzmann, bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble are caught live at the 2013 Ljubljana Jazz Festival for three blistering works of free improvisation. This is the second album by the Peter Brotzmann trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble, following “The Worse the Better” (they’re also together in a third one, “Mental Shake”, but with the addition of Jason Adasiewicz and his vibraphone). And just like that first opus, recorded …
Less Is More
The piano trio is probably one of the most common ensembles to be heard in jazz, and truth be told, I am a little weary of them, preferring the expressiveness of a horn section. Yet once in a while, a piano trio comes forward that has something new to tell. When I listened to WHO Trio's "The Current Underneath" (Leo Records) a couple of years ago, I was immediately enchanted by the sheer musicality of the project. This one, "Less Is More", is even better. The trio consists of Michel Wintsch on p…
What Is When
Portuguese guitarist Luis Lopes defies rigid classifications due to his rather unconventional mode of execution witnessed on this persuasive trio date, featuring American rising star bassist/composer Adam Lane and rock solid, Israeli drummer Igal Foni. It’s a mesmeric gala, brimming with circular themes, and fractured movements. The guitarist’s patchy voicings ride atop the rhythm section’s bustling cadences, where the band instills a sense of perpetual motion. Here, Lopes dissects and interlink…
...was there to illuminate the night sky...
In the album notes to Trespass Trio's "...was there to illuminate the night sky...", saxophonist Martin Kÿchen provides a colorful yet somewhat fragmented essay, regarding the evisceration of society, partly tied into the Iraq war and the everlasting Israel-Palestine conflict. He sets the stage for a life force panorama, iterated through the power of music that casts a dour or ominous state of affairs. Recorded in Norway, the Scandinavian trio exercises some bloodletting here. The injustices of …
Planet Dream
In this present age of the history of humanity, there are few places left for a true utopia. The world has already experienced some of those ideal systems, but the results were tragic. Even in literature utopian thinking seems to have vanished. Only In music is there still a place to wonder, especially when it deals with spontaneous and non-hierarchical procedures. Musical improvisation is becoming the only possibility left to forge micro-societies of freedom and egalitarianism, without having t…
Live at Roulette
The Daniel Levin Quartet has already shown on prior recordings that a change of conventional instrumentation in a jazz combo is enough to explore an entirely different world of musical gesture, timbre, and expression. In the case of this latest release, Levin dispenses with his own convention of using song structures as the basis for improvisation. Instead, he gave trumpeter Nate Wooley, vibraphonist Matt Moran, bassist Peter Bitenc (and himself on violoncello) a set of words and concepts, and a…
Four Improvisations (Duo) 2007
This historic edition — Clean Feed’s one hundredth release — is a four-disc set that features two extraordinary musicians who before this session had never played together: multi-reedist Anthony Braxton and guitarist Joe Morris. “Four Improvisations (Duo) 2007” has other unique qualities. One is that Braxton has rarely recorded completely improvised pieces. More typically he plays compositions, his own or occasionally jazz standards, and improvises within their structures. His compositions can i…