Jazz /
Live In Masuda
Seikatsu Kōjyō Iinkai (Committee for the Improvement of Life) began its activities in the early 1970s, led by Kazutoki Umezu and Yoshiyuki Harada. Many musicians came and went and engaged in multifaceted activities, but one of the pillars was the so-called Life Improvement Committee (Matsugumi), centered on Koichi Shofaze. This work, recorded live in Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture, is the only work left by Matsugumi with the same members. The saxophone cuts like a knife into the solid trio's pe…
My Present Song
Dive into the brilliance of 1970s Japanese jazz with this exceptional bass-led trio session. While piano trios had their spotlight, the bassists led equally enchanting ensembles. Eiji Nakyama's bass takes center stage, weaving lyrical lines complemented by energetic guitar and drums. The album seamlessly blends straight jazz and modal explorations, showcasing creativity without gimmicks. A testament to Japanese jazz greatness, this session stands out for its dynamic and innovative approach.
Paradiso Amsterdam 1970
Tip! Space is the place! That classic piece - in a historically early version without lyrics - opens the album Paradiso Amsterdam 1970, which shows how the Netherlands was first introduced to Afrofuturism. A pivotal moment in the Dutch jazz experience. It was always thought that the recordings of the long-awaited first concert that the Sun Ra Arkestra gave in the Netherlands were useless for an album release.After all, the entire Arkestra, booked by Hans Dulfer, marched among the massive crowd a…
Lasting Ephemerals
*2023 stock* Sparkling acoustic duo featuring a contemporary wild chamber attitude, improvising instant compositions, sound texture explorations and sudden lyrical flights. Their improvisation, that has been defined "A Gentle Vertigo", freely crosses boundaries and welcomes rich contradictions between melody and blessed chaos. Experimental flavors, multi-perspective intuitions and reciprocal listening are the extremely well balanced blend of this duo that strives for an improvisation where "thin…
Busy Butterflies
*2023 stock* "To watch two butterflies in flight is to see a complex intertwining of zigs and zags, dips and weaves, as each—seemingly erratically--rides the turbulence its wings create to carry it along. Together they trace an unchoreographed but nevertheless coherent set of variations on the line as they move with, against and through each other’s paths.
The intricate pattern of two butterflies’ interwoven flight paths stands as a fitting analogue for the nuanced complexity of Busy Butterflie…
Transient
"Second album for Clairvoyance, a trio that sublimates improvisation through a blessed chemistry, delivering a perfectly balanced music where elements coming from different derivations and attitudes find grace and essentiality, freshness and solidity. Narrative spots and timbral consciousness inform this classy band and make this record unmissable!!
Clairvoyance's fundamental orientation--an orientation that, collectively and individually, represents a compositional stance toward improvisation. …
Wells
"Amirani Records, the label founded and run by Milanese soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo, ends its eighteen-year run with three final releases. The last of the three, a recording of the Sestetto Internazionale, was reviewed here earlier; preceding it a duet for Mimmo and Finnish soprano and sopranino saxophonist Harri Sjöström, and a solo recording by Milanese cellist Walter Prati.
Mimmo and Sjöström are frequent collaborators, whether in the Sestetto Internazionale or as duet partners, and on W…
Due Mutabili
[…] There is something slightly daunting about the notion of an improvising sextet. Do the casual math of instrumental permutations from six soloists to one sextet, adding in duos, trios, quartets and quintets, and you have something like 55 possible combinations. Literally anything might surface, but among the least likely is the superb music achieved here by Sestetto Internazionale, music that dances between the ideal poles of inevitability and unpredictability, inviting a sense of wonder. Lis…
Cadenza Del Crepuscolo
"The meaning of "cadenza del crepuscolo" ("dusk cadenza") can be interpreted in a variety of ways. The most profound is the one corresponding with the implicitly slow flux of thoughts and reflections that emerge as we sense the day fading away, possibly in a moment of somewhat regretful oscillation between an unknown tomorrow, what we have already experienced and now miss, and the unexpressed potential of what we long for, but have not yet achieved (and perhaps never will).
The sympathetic music…
HerbstReise
"I look at this HerbstReise of ours as a sequence short but complete gaze of sound, often evocative in a narrative way, aimed at fulfilling an articulate as well as legible pattern. Though a single breath crosses them, fascinating opportunities are not alien to the syntax, the outline, and the expression of these improvisations. A clear ellipsis the dialogue proceeds delicately and consistently into, even when it thickens.
The inner timing, the layer of colour that shines through have a reflecti…
Standards (Brussels) 2006
2023 restock "Packaged in an elegant cartboard box (a decca style) which includes a 26 page booklet with three little essays (Positions for listening, Real space and dislocation, A possible anthropogony) by Italian poet and writer Erika Dagnino. Featuring Anthony Braxton on alto sax, Alessandro Giachero on piano, Antonio Borghini on double bass and Cristiano Calcagnile on drums. Recorded live November 23-26 2006 at P P Cafe in Brussels, Belgium. Although I didn't initially recognize the names of…
Roy's World
Chicago vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz leads and composes for this magnificent quintet, driven by Hamid Drake’s powerhouse drumming and Joshua Abrams’ deep-in-pocket bass, with Jon Doyle and Josh Berman’s horns bringing the shine.Eight tight, swinging tunes featured in the film Roy’s World, based on the short stories by Barry Gifford.
Lados B
On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained …
Resavoir
"Resavoir - the collaborative project led by Chicago producer/composer Will Miller - presents their second self-titled album. The new 'Resavoir' is a subtly radiant symphony interweaving modern-day soul-jazz with bedroom beats, synth serenades and twilight sonatas. It represents Miller’s most assured and refined work to date. Imagined, instigated and produced by Miller, who ties the diverse sounds into an expansive, coherent whole, 'Resavoir' features a wide and vibrant cast of collaborators, in…
Spirit Of France
Obscure, rare spiritual jazz, deep folk and psychedelia sounds from the French ‘70s - ‘80s underground.
Everyone’s Children
Tip! *2023 stock* Everyone’s Children is the stunning debut album of spiritual avant-garde music from keyboardist, composer Surya Botofasina, out on Spiritmuse Records. The record combines deep jazz excursions with expansive synth passages and intimate piano turns to create a hypnotic, meditative and devotionally expressive suite that soothes, enriches and uplifts the soul. Botofasina’s upbringing at the Sai Anantam Ashram in the Southern Californian hills involved daily bhajans (traditional Hin…
Psychicemotus
Psychicemotus was released in 1965 and features Yusef Lateef on various flutes and tenor saxophone, Georges Arvanitas on piano, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer James Black. And while the Coltrane era of modal and free jazz was in full swing, Lateef always followed his own muse, and continued looking forward while looking back to ancient musics. His use of bamboo and Chinese wood flutes on the title track and "Bamboo Flute Blues" added not only dimension and texture, but rhythmic invention to…
Trio
Jesper Nordberg Trio is a group based in Copenhagen (DK) and Malmö (SE), featuring the double bass player Jesper Nordberg, violinist Stefan Pöntinen and trumpetist Ruhi Erdogan. With Nordberg's compositions as a starting point, the trio's playing can be characterized by close interplay, radical shifts, and having elements ranging from experimental improvisation, Balkan music, Scandinavian folklore, jazz and expressionism. Jesper Nordberg's warm tone and rhythmic displacements meet Ruhi's trumpet…
Variations On No Particular Theme - Part 2
*2023 stock* Lo and behold, the second and final part of the diptych from the unusual free improvising quartet featuring two New York-based viola players Mat Maneri & Tanya Kalmanovitch, and Copenhageners Tomo Jacobson on double bass & Kresten Osgood on drums, is finally here! This time, we enter into a darker, fiercer, seemingly telepathic exchange - a powerful finale to an unprecedented musical journey.
Variations On No Particular Theme - Part 1
Perhaps for the first time in the history of music, here is two violas, double bass, and drums quartet featuring the New York-based Mat Maneri & Tanya Kalmanovitch, and Copenhageners Tomo Jacobson & Kresten Osgood. Calling their music chamber free improv gives some clues about the sound world you are entering, but it also falls very short in the face of the multitudes presented here. ‘Variations On No Particular Theme’ is a pregnant name in which we can look for the key to this album. Of course,…