Jazz /
Resta chi va
Antonio Borghini and Banquet of Consequences continue on their path of jazz, freedom, and rigor, in which writing, improvisation, tradition, and chaos coexist in a vital and surprising mixture. Well-organized music that uses disorder to its enrichment and is a harbinger of melodic flourishes and references many different kinds of music.
In Movimento
Tip! Two long pieces, a live performance and a rehearsal at home, make up this work by the Braida Locatelli duo, a new stage in their 30-year journey. Improvised music that often sounds composed. Improvised, decomposed, recomposed, composed? A true duo, where one plus one makes one.
B-X0 NO-47A
A cornerstone of avant-garde jazz, B-X0 NO-47A captures Anthony Braxton at a pivotal moment in his career and in the history of the Association For The Advancement Of Creative Musicians (AACM). Recorded in Paris in 1969 and newly restored from the original master tapes, this classic session finds Braxton leading a quartet of fellow AACM visionaries: trumpeter Leo Smith (before adopting the name Wadada), violinist Leroy Jenkins, and drummer Steve McCall.
The group’s instrumentation is strikingly …
Domino - Live At Radio Bremen Tv-studios 1963
On September 30, 1963, American saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk and his quartet gave a small concert in the TV studios of Radio Bremen. The concert was broadcast on ARD in the spring of 1964 as part of the popular "Domino" series.
Now the original tapes have resurfaced in the station's archives. Sensational! The former sideman of Charles Mingus, Gil Evans and Quincy Jones had come to Germany not only with his successful Mercury albums "Domino" and "We Free Kings" in his…
Gesprächsfetzen & In Sommerhausen
Alto saxophonist Marion Brown was an initially underrated hero of the jazz avant-garde. It was only after he moved from Atlanta to New York and joined John Coltrane that the public and the critics took notice of him.Dedicated to discovering the far-reaching possibilities of improvisational expression, Brown possessed a truly lyrical voice. In the early seventies, she played with Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille, Bennie Maupin, Jeanne Lee, and Chick Corea, among others. On this recording he was ac…
More Than Anything
German pianist Georg Graewe reunites with drummer Hamid Drake and bassist Brad Jones in a fiery 2024 trio debut at Konfrontationen Festival. Capturing the spirit of his 1990s Chicago collaborations, More Than Anything showcases masterful free improvisation and Graewe’s genre-blurring brilliance.
Phase Murmur 7-11-73
Lost celestial solo piano transmissions retrieved!
The Music of Anthony Braxton
Saxophonist Steve Lehman and trio, with Mark Turner, celebrate Braxton’s 80th in a live set: intense emotion meets cool articulation and rhythmic mastery.
Revision
Fred Moten & Brandon López’s duo debut explores cultural innovation, virtuosity, and confronting institutional madness while preserving humanity.
At Somewhere There
2010 release ** "This is certainly not William Parker's first solo album, he already released "Lifting The Sanctions", "Testimony" and "Painter's Autumn", but this is the first one on which he doesn't play pizzicato, using his bow for the first and lengthy track, called "Cathedral Wisdom Light", on which he demonstrates the unbelievable riches that are hidden in his instrument : from the cry of whales to those of birds, over the pulsing or a heart, or just bone-chilling shrieks. He goes deep her…
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…
L'Histoire De Mme. Tasco
1993 release ** "This trio, comprised of bassist/vocalist Jöelle Léandre, violinist Carlos Zingaro, and accordion and clarinet player Rüdiger Carl have, under the auspices of Léandre's inspiration, come together to create a musical mosaic under the guise of "chamber improvisation." These players take their cues from long developed practices like nuance, empathy and even a kind of sonic telepathy. Léandre, though most understated, is clearly the catalyst in making all things possible in this trio…
(Y)earbook Volume 3
1991 release ** The third in a three volume compilation (each available separately) of 114 improvisers from around the world, covering a wide variety of approaches to improvisation. "A turbid dive into new music, this release packs everything from free-form jazz-like scraw to variations in composition, structure and situation to solo exploration." Featuring Pluto, Amy Denio, Davey Williams, LaDonna Smith, Marty Walker, Crawling With Tarts, IDLH, Ed Herrmann, Andrew Voigt, Tom Nunn, Tamio Shirais…
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…
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…
Take Some Risks
1989 release ** "On November 23, 1986, at the Galerie Maximilien Guiol, a small art space in Paris, Alan Silva, Roger Turner, Misha Lobko, Didier Petit, and Bruno Girard shared the stage for the first time. They knew each other well, since they had all performed alongside one another in various groupings, but as a quintet, as this quintet, it was their first concert. From the moment Turner starts hitting his metal scraps, they all dive in and begin to Take Some Risks. A satisfying session, focus…
Diriaou
Diriaou (“Thursday” in Breton) captures the singular collaboration between Kristen Noguès-pioneering Celtic harpist and explorer of Breton tradition-and legendary British saxophonist John Surman, renowned for his atmospheric jazz on ECM. Recorded live in 1998 at the Dre Ar Wenojenn festival, this album presents the duo weaving together original compositions and traditional melodies into a tapestry of free folk, modal improvisation, and ambient soundscapes.
Noguès, deeply rooted in Breton music y…
The Firmament / Fury
1994 release ** "Hooker's music is good, unabash ed free-jazz improvising. He and Lawrence make an effective duet: Hooker's rolling bed of drumming avoids direct comment on Lawrence's strong, Lyons-inflected alto. Of the trio and quartet tracks on the album, Pralaya and Radiance are probably the strongest. The horn players get their solo moments and do well with them, but the music is framed to emphasize the group, and that's where a listener's ears are drawn. There's good group improvising to b…