Joelle Leandre
Great Star Theater, San Francisco
Joëlle Léandre and Lauren Newton have been performing together for nearly 30 years, having met in the mid-1990s in Paris. Throughout that time, they have always favored exploring the textures of music that are not arranged conventionally but rather are scattered, diffused, and dispersed through layers of sound. The voice’s high notes forge a variety of color fragments, while the low notes of the double bass create substance and depth. These two components remain inseparable as the sound settles …
Miniatures
Since emerging in the early 1980s the French bassist, composer, and vocalist Joëlle Leandre has ignored the gaps between improvised and composed music, jazz and new music, inventively braiding post-Cagean concepts with the free jazz ferment she witnessed first-hand growing up in Paris. Accordion master and fellow countryman Pascal Contet was initially rooted in contemporary music, helping to bring it back as a viable, versatile instrument in experimental music, but throughout his long career he’…
Madly You
"Most Americans discover European improvised music using a map dominated by Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, which dwarfs and shoves the rest of the continent to the margins. At some point, however, even they realize the land lies differently. Yet, extensive exploration is required to correct the proportions, label the tributaries, and overlay the trade routes. In this endeavor, recordings become the coordinates that begin to flesh out the map's heretofore blank spaces.
Madly You is valuable in th…
Live At Banlieue Bleue
2023 stock** "Such is the strength and conviction with which the Sudo Quartet performs that thoughts immediately turn to how they developed such a cohesive group sound. But when uniting four virtuoso stylists from the European free improvisation scene, it's a near certainty that their paths have crossed many times during their careers. Whatever the history, it becomes straight away apparent from the first few notes that there are powerful forces at work as Léandre's richly resonant bowing meshes…
Bla Bla Bla Duo
Double bass legend Joelle Leandre and young Catalonian drummer virtuoso Nuria Andorra together. Two generations of the improvised music world, two different approaches to improvisation, and one incredible world of music!
After You Gone
Reverberations from bassist Peter Kowald's passing continue to be felt two years later. Last year, a long-time bass quartet with one sub gathered to bathe Kowald's spirit in a bass balm. Comprised of close associates or admirers of Kowald, this quartet represents a summit from across borders and generations, sharing only remarkable technique and a love of the unknown.Barre Phillips helped legitimize improvised solo bass, as well as expanding its vocabulary with extended techniques. Joëlle Léandr…
Play As You Go
A grand meeting of three luminaries in the fields of improvisation, avantgarde and experimental music -- live recorded by the national Czech radio station, as part of the festival VS. Interpretation 2014 in Prague. Personal notes from Joëlle Léandre and liner notes by Tracy McMullen, 2021. Mastering: Martin Siewert. Artwork: Lasse Marhaug. Personnel: Pauline Oliveros - el. accordion; Joëlle Léandre - contrabass, voice; George Lewis - trombone, laptop electronics.
The Space Between with Joëlle Léandre
Recorded live at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies, Berkeley, CA, November 2 & 3, 2002. The Space Between brings together the freedom of spontaneous improvisation with a number of diverse traditions and ideas, not the least of which is the legendary Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening concept. In the Cadence review of their 2001 debut, The Space Between with Barre Phillips, Frank Rubolino wrote, "As a unit, they speak in a broken tongue of rarified beauty that is demanding but fully r…
Beauty / Resistance
Not Two Records presents Beauty / Resistance by Joelle Leandre. Recorded live at the Krakow Jazz Autumn Festival 2019, in Club Alchemia, in Krakow, Poland, Fall, 2019, by Rafal Drewniany. Joelle Leandre, bass. Zlatko Kaucic, drums, percussion. Mateusz Rybicki, clarinets. Zbigniew Kozera, bass. Rafa Mazur, acoustic, bass guitar.
That Overt Desire of Object
“Fabulous duo studio session featuring Joelle Leandre on contrabass & voice and Phillip Greenlief on woodwinds & voice. Our good friends Mike Panico & Kevin Reilly - whom you might meet at door of The Stone on various nights - have been talking about starting their own label for the past year. Finally have their first release (and a second of Vinny Golia Qt next month!) which is quite extraordinary. Both Joelle and Phillip are gifted improvisers with long and varied backgrounds. Anyone who regul…