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The incomparable life and extraordinary, trailblazing career of jazz titan and influential composer Charlie Parker will be honored throughout 2020 with a worldwide celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth (August 29, 1920). Lovingly dubbed Bird 100 after the nickname of the preeminent alto saxophonist who was one of the fathers of bebop and progenitors of modern jazz, the centennial will include a host of major initiatives including exciting new music releases, a tribute tour…
With the essential sidemen to express his unique voice and approach to free jazz, saxophonist Albert Ayler, double bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Sunny Murray, recorded these sessions in 1964 for the ESP label as "Prophecy", this excellent reissue & remaster also adding the live "Albert Smiles with Sunny" (inRespect) from the same concert; essential.
"Christian Weber said in an interview for “Jazz’N’More": No matter how I move along the timeline, my attention is focused on what is to come. At the same time, I always keep in mind what happened before, without analyzing. This way, I avoid the improvisation becoming arbitrary. Both arbitrary openness and narrow restriction, neither suits me." And therein lies the whole secret of this record and ultimately the definition of great art: it is the ability of a musician to have control over space an…
"This, it seems to me, is the great strength of Sophie Lüssi’s music here on Atlantic Puffin. It is clearly skilled and doesn't deal in casual approximations. It is built on solid technique, a brilliant appropriation of classical violin methods in the interests of improvisation. But her music, which draws on folk as well as canonical forms, is one that emanates from and addresses the whole person. It's generous music, kindly and open, and in its gentle humour it engages a part of the spirit that…
"It is a message, and you will hear it sounding firmly through the various pieces that make up The Human Factor, that tells us much about how we might live together: sharing, giving way, simple giving, lifting up, helping ... above all, listening ..." - Brian Morton
"Basically, we witness an intimate dialogue between two improvisers. If there had not been a special circumstance leading to this result. Christine Abdelnour and Hans Koch could not hear each other. In fact, "FFlair" is based on two separately recorded solo improvisations, which were superimposed at the end. Mind you, without any subsequent editing." - Rudolf Amstutz
Temporary Super Offer! 'The CD’s title is borrowed from computer language: STRG + X is the key combination for “cut to the clipboard” to be temporarily stored and pasted somewhere else at a later time. Perhaps the most important quality of this carefully thought-out yet anything but cerebral music: it is aware of its means and can twist and turn and rearrange them as it pleases, in which case improvised contexts create their own forms and play with original material in a fresh, new way. This is …
What these performances then, and those in Impression Graz 1962, reveal is a great artist in a period of continued exploration and uncertainties, committed to integrating the exactness of order and the abandon of ecstasy, and reconfirming his improvisational quest as a spiritual discipline. But there were profound changes still to come. - Art Longe
The four tracks on this release have been selected from the 1962 concert tape which Hat Hut Records has licensed from ORF Stelemark, Graz, Austria. I…
Taking his quartet on a European tour in the fall of 1962, Coltrane's band with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on double bass, and Elvin Jones on drums performed in Graz, Austria at Stefaniensaal, the concert beautifully recorded by ORF Steiermark and here released as the first of two volumes, showing both Coltrane's lyrical origins and expanding free inclinations.
Six compositions for solo piano written by English composerb Christopher Fox between 1991 and 2015, performed by Netherlands pianist John Snijders at Abbey Road Studios in London, each work uniquely approached in both writing and performance, each a concept or style that brings something unique to Fox's music while still retaining his voice and character in composition.
West Coast composer and saxophonist Noah Kaplan, associated with Anthony Coleman, David Tronzo, Peter Erskine, Rinde Eckert, Joe Morris, Mat Maneri, Joe Maneri, &c., here in his 3rd album with his Noah Kaplan Quartet, in a set of original compositions and one standard performed with Joe Morris (guitar), Giacomo Merega (electric bass) & Jason Nazary (drums, electronics).
The innovative acoustic free improvising ensemble Polwechsel, bridging contemporary music and free improvisation in ways that sound deceptively electroacoustic and comprised of Michael Moser on cello, Werner Dafeldecker on double bass, and Martin Brandlmayr & Burkhard Beins on cymbals & percussion, are joined by Klaus Lang performing on the church organ of St. Lambrecht's Abbey.
Captured live at the 2016 Jazz at the Factory Festival in Sao Paulo, this addition to New York pianist Matthew Shipp's catalog finds the masterful player presenting his own compositions like "Symbol Systems", "Gamma Ray" or "Invisible" light alongside unique takes on "Angel Eyes", "On Green Dolphin Street", "Yesterdays" and "Summertime".
Active since 2010, the German/Swiss duo of classical guitarist Christian Buck and improviser Christian Wolfarth occupies a space between music and sound art, as they perform two works each by Ed Haubensak and Tomas Korber, pieces that make use of time, microharmonies, multiphonics, unusual tuning systems, interference patterns, and other conceptual approaches to music.
Through preparations, computers, contact microphones, gongs, feedback and other tools, Swiss pianist, composer & improviser Judith Wegmann's work transform the sound of the piano into an otherworldly instrument, set against more traditional acoustic pieces of a reflective nature, together creating a conceptual set of ten pieces in a uniquely flexible approach.
As part of her Colonial Piano Project, Australian pianist Gabriella Smart commissioned and performs "Kaps Freed" by Cat Hope, a contemplation of composer Percy Grainger's Free Music ideals, with Stuart James on electronics; and the alliterative "Two New Proposals for an Overland Telegraph Line ..." by Erkki Veltheim, inspired by the 1st piano to arrive in Alice Springs, AU.
The second album of piano works from Japanese composer Jo Kondo performed by pianist Satoko Inoue--a noted interpreter of solo works by Feldman, Ferrari, and Cage--here presenting all of Kondo's works for solo piano written from 2001 to 2012, alongside two early works from 1975, exploring a wealth of harmonic, rhythmic, and conceptual ideas from a diversity of projects.
The innovative string trio of Daniel Studer on double bass, Harald Kimmig on violin, and Alfred Zimmerlin on cello, develop focused environments of timbre, texture, dynamic and space, seemingly abstract yet incredibly concentrative and virtuosic interaction, here joined by Chicago trombonist and electronics artist George Lewis adding a 4th profound layer to their incredible conversation.
Seven works composed in the 21st century by Sebastian Gottschick, who arranges and conducts the Ensemble Fur Neue Musick Zurich, configured as an ensemble with percussion, a sextet, a chamber ensemble with baritone and soprano, and performing himself solo on viola; sophisticated and modern works that employ complex tonality, timbre and playing techniques.
Conductor Sebastian Gottschick presents an additional selection of songs and chamber music works from composer Charles Edward Ives that reflect this broad range, 20 mostly brief and innovative works composed between 1898 and 1921, blurring the boundaries between genres through unusual motifs, themes, gestures and phrases that appear in new vocal and/or instrumental contexts.