Jazz /
Concept Of Freedom
2005 release ** "Recorded at the Institut fur Elektronische Musik und Akustik in Graz, Austria during the first week of August 2003, Anthony Braxton's (+ Duke Ellington) Concept of Freedom is a dazzling exercise in collective creativity. Braxton does not perform on this recording. Neither does Ellington, for that matter. Both men and their substantial accomplishments are honored and invoked by a quartet of skilled improvisers. These are trombonist Roland Dahinden, pianist Hildegard Kleeb, violin…
Basement Research
1995 release ** "With Basement Research, Gebhard Ullmann released his first CD for the Italian label Soul Note in 1995. Four of the most interesting individualists out of the new generation of contemporary jazz players realized their very personal and intense musical ideas. The CD was widely critically acclaimed and has been listed in the US-College Radio Jazz Charts for several months. "
Chonyi Together
1999 release ** "While documenting some of the most important free-style jazz from around the globe, Leo Feigin of Leo Records has focused on discovering new talent, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Here, startlingly unique trumpeter Guyvoronsky is teamed with young accordionist Evelin Petrova for a series of eleven duets that incorporate folk music and jazz in an experimental avant-garde approach that defies convention and focuses on color, humor, and shading. At times, the trumpeter se…
New Vienna (At The Musikverein, 2016)
New Vienna is the fourth concert recording to be released from Keith Jarrett’s final European solo tour. It follows Munich 2016, Budapest Concert and Bordeaux Concert. Why New Vienna? As Jarrett aficionados will know, his discography already includes a legendary Vienna Concert (recorded at the Vienna State Opera) whose music, he once claimed, spoke “the language of the flame itself”, after long years of “courting the fire”. Keith Jarrett’s 2016 return to the Austrian capital brought the flames …
The Sorrounding Green
Masterful trio interplay reliant on deeply honed three-way communication and a refined sense of understatement make Fred Hersch’s third recording for ECM an essential entry into the piano trio canon. Hersch tackles a handful of 20th century compositions – spanning from standards to less frequented jazz tunes – as well as three originals, with Drew Gress on bass and Joey Baron on drums – two longstanding companions of Fred’s who have played with him on and off since the late 80s and early 90s res…
Drifting
After Mette Henriette’s critically acclaimed, self-titled first recording comes Drifting – and album pervaded by trio conversations of idiosyncratic and original expression. With Johan Lindvall returning on piano, new addition Judith Hamann on cello and herself on saxophone, Mette’s chamber musical elaborations prove of a concentrated and exploratory quality, marked by subtle yet intense interaction. Motifs and recurring patterns crystallize and reveal a concise, intricate narrative. The saxopho…
Relations
Musical messages from Oslo, New York, Basel and Lugano – recorded between 2018 and 2022 – are juxtaposed and recombined on an absorbing recording that features Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen solo and in a series of duets . With such partners as Craig Taborn, Chris Potter, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy, the musical frame of reference is very broad. Elements from Langeland’s’s archaic-sounding folk to Potter’s post-Coltrane saxophone and Taborn’s whirlwind modernist piano each find their p…
Arcanum
The Scandinavian project Arcanum brings together four artists all well-known to followers of directions in music at ECM: Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin and Markku Ounaskari. They’ve played together in many permutations over the years, but this is their first album as a quartet. Compositions by Anders Jormin and Trygve Seim, the Finnish traditional “Armon Lapset” (Children of Mercy), and Jormin’s arrangement of Ornette Coleman’s “What Reason Could I Give” are slotted into a programm…
Itinerary
1991 release ** "Recorded at the Listen to Lacy festival in Vienna, 1990, this large ensemble recording is really the Steve Lacy Sextet plus ten. One of the dectet members is Franz Koglmann. Although some of Lacy's other large group experiments met with mixed results, it is not so here. Itinerary, with its seven selections, is an orchestral work on par with at of Gil Evans' (to whom this record is dedicated) Out of the Cool sessions for Impulse, and of course the Gil Evans and Ten recordings tha…
Tout De Suite
1994 release ** "This is the logical companion to Tout Court. The lineup has been hardly changed. The only newcomer is Alfred Spirli, who alternates percussion duties with Xavier Desandre. Yves Robert also sticks to the same formula with an emphasis on musical vignettes. The relationship with Tout Court is also underlined by the deliberate choice of opening with the composition that concluded its predecessor, "Epilogue" -- several other pieces are also revisited. It would be a mistake, however, …
Honig Und Asche
1998 release ** "A cosmopolitan synthesis of visionary music and outstanding poetry" is the concept and program of "Honey and Ashes," according to the press release. This claim naturally raises many questions about the work of German saxophonist Michael Riessler: Is it jazz—what constitutes "jazz"? There is little improvisation, as "Honey and Ashes" is largely through-composed. Is it contemporary classical music? Can you find pounding bass drums in classical music? "Honey and Ashes" is a speech …
In Full Flail
1989 release ** An early Available Jelly Quartet; the instrumentation scaled down to two horns, bass/tuba, and percussion. Original compositions and covers of Brian Wilson and Misha Mengelberg. "The 1989 album from Available Jelly, In Full Flail narrowed down the band's physical lineup while extending its musical reach. Down to a quartet, the band included Michael Moore on saxophones and piano, Gregg Moore on tuba, trombone, electric bass, and mandolin, Michael Vatcher as master drummer, and the…
The Uppercut: Live At Okuden
2015 release ** "Matthew Shipp, the supreme jazz pianist of his generation, and Mat Walerian, the finest Polish jazz woodwind player of his, have combined their talents in concert on several occasions. This album documents one such event on May 15, 2012. Shipp hardly needs an introduction at this point thanks to a career of over a quarter century, including not only many acclaimed albums under his own name but also a long and prominent tenure in the David S. Ware Quartet and a vast array of coll…
Rotella Variations
2003 release ** "“The human voice must not be limited only to a conventional language, but is an inexhaustible source of natural musical instruments. If it is coupled with jazz it becomes a double musical instrument”: Mimmo Rotella dixit, and here is a combative group of Italian jazz musicians, stimulated by the maestro in his eighties, puts the theory into practice. The Rotella Variations therefore materialize in nineteen episodes of mostly short duration, often introduced or concluded, contami…
Ambleside Days
1992 release ** "A stunning album of duets performed by John Taylor and John Surman composed by the former. This recording documents the longstanding musical relationship between the two Johns captured by Jan Erik Kongshaug at Rainbow Studios in Oslo. Some of the most beautiful music you will ever hear."
Bristol Silence
Tip! An orchestra that played for Nazis. A silence that lasted for generations. A work that lets this silence speak, sing, and scream. Motvind Records presents John Andrew Wilhite’s monumental piece, Bristol Silence, written for the Motvind Festival and premiered at Hotel Bristol in Oslo in the summer of 2023. In this work Bristol Silence, the double bassist and composer brings to light a chapter of Norwegian music history that has remained in the shadows. Wilhite writes: "Having known that Nazi…
Follow A Very Heavy Person, First Visit
"First visit to the audio equivalent of a graphic novel. Follow A Very Heavy Person is more than an album—it is an experience, an inquiry, an adventure into the unknown, defying easy categorization and existing in the liminal space between music, poetry, and philosophy. Armaroli and his quintet have crafted something truly singular—a journey through sound that is both timeless and profoundly rooted in the ephemeral beauty of the present moment." - Mark Corroto
Watusa
When a limited edition 45 single landed on the desk of Jazz Room Head Honcho Paul Murphy he contacted the guys straight away. "Do you want a 45 piece of wax released on Jazz Room Records?" Bells were ringing! The A Side is a Latin Afrosound version of the Sun Ra Classic "Watusa". Featuring members of the Los Angleles based Afro Latin Beat Collective "Jungle Fire". You might have noticed this getting quite a few spins on the Gilles Peterson show on BBC 6 Music. The B Side is a funky version of th…