The Free Jazz Collective

John Coltrane 100: The John Coltrane Quartet Plays

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:01:00 +0000

**John Coltrane – The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (Impulse, 1965)**

Most of my listening hours are spent on freely improvised music. But when it comes to Coltrane, I love the classic quartet, 1965, right before things broke open (and the group, apart). The John Coltrane Quartet Plays is what I reach for most often. “Chim Chim Cheree” starts like another “My Favorite Things,” but less than a minute in, Coltrane’s already chafing against the melody, and after two he and Jones are fairly bursting out of Tyner’s measured vamp. “Brazilia” and “Nature Boy” enticingly point toward the searching explorations to come, where ideas were turned inside-out in dizzying, kaleidoscopic epics (something further evidenced by various surfaced recordings from the Half Note during the same period, where “Chim” and “Song of Praise” stretch to twice the length). The sense that traditional song forms must still be made to contain Trane’s increasingly frenetic probing lends indelible tension to the music; these songs are like swelling water ballons, but they’re filled with boiling water. For those of us in the future, it’s all the more heightened when you know just how far things will get pushed, even before the close of the year.

John Coltrane 100: Live at the Village Vanguard

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

John Coltrane – Live at the Village Vanguard (Impulse, 1997)

By Kenneth Blanchard

There are certain recordings that stretched my grasp of jazz (and indeed music). Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure comes to mind. Coltrane’s LVV collection is another. Recorded over four nights in 1961 at the Jerusalem of Jazz, only five of the originally recorded numbers were released in the following two years. The 1997 box set is a genuine treasure. The structure of the music remains within standard hop bop spaces, but the moods blossom into an entirely new ecosystem. The inclusion of Eric Dolphy was one of Trane’s most brilliant moves. On Naima, Spiritual, India , his low horns (also sax and bass clarinet) perfectly match Trane’s tenor and soprano sax. Trane’s interest in alternative spiritual and musical traditions is obvious enough. His famous “sheets of sound” slide in and out of every line. I find the articulation of Coltrane’s own personality to be as vivid here as on any of his recordings.

John Coltrane 100: A Sunday Morning Record

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

DUKE ELLINGTON & JOHN COLTRANE - s/t (Impulse!, 1963)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Sunday morning. We weren't even looking through Trane’s records, we already had a clear plan for the centenary. Then we spotted it. Or rather, it was almost as if IT was looking at us. There it was, humble and elusive amidst some truly gigantic "neighbors": “Duke Ellington & John Coltrane”. When a title says it all. How long had it been since it last took a spin on the turntable? A long, long time. So, we not only dusted it off, rescuing it from obscurity and oblivion but also cast it as the star of our own humble contribution to the Coltrane forum’s tribute. A quick preamble. Our favorite Trane is the one who burned all his bridges behind and embarked on the Path of Spiritual Ascension alongside Alice, Pharoah, Garrison, and Ali: for us, THIS is John’s definitive group. Since we are certain that our colleagues will, as usual, handle albums like ‘Interstellar Space”, “Olatunji”, “Live in Japan” et al, with the utmost mastery, we opted for a record you won’t find on "100 all-time best" playlists or among the essential albums by either Duke or Trane, yet one that is nonetheless deeply compelling. First things first: when and how did this encounter (the only one, if we’re not mistaken) between two of the greatest musicians of all time take place? The date: September 26, 1962. The setting: Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, a place so legendary that, like Atlantis, one wonders if it ever truly existed. The mastermind: Bob Thiele, a producer at Impulse! The Maestri arrived at the meeting from different trajectories, not just in terms of age, but artistically as well. Duke, at 63, as the old king of the jungle, having already changed the course of music history in the 1920s and 30s, he wanted to show the "young lions" that the time to end up in the zoo hadn't arrived just yet. And judging by the extraordinary “Money Jungle”, recorded right some weeks earlier along with Max Roach and Charles Mingus, he had every right to feel that way. Trane, meanwhile, aged 35, was in a transitional phase. Leading one of jazz’s most sensational lineups ever (Jones, Garrison, Tyner), he had just released his first album for Impulse! in 1962, a record where modal structures were handled sublimely, yet he had not entirely cut ties with a more “mainstream” approach to his music (though, given the musical context, quotation marks are essential here!). It was as if, mid-journey, he had paused to catch his breath and look back one last time, before lighting the fuse and blowing everything wide open. The two arrived at the studio bringing their respective rhythm sections: Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones for Coltrane; Aaron Bell and Sam Woodyard from Ellington’s orchestra. To glimpse a moment of that historic occasion, we can turn to bassist John Lamb, who was present that day: “There was no music on that whole date. Nobody had a chart. We came in and we were standing there, waiting to see what would have happen. Trane would go and sit on the piano bench with Duke. They didn’t talk but Duke would be singing and Trane would go. Then, after they did that for a few minutes, they got up. Trane would go to his microphone, Duke would start playing and the rhythm section, we had to do for ourselves, you know. That’s it. He didn’t even tell you the key. He could communicate without words and Trane could hear it.” The eight-hour session yielded seven tracks: “In a Sentimental Mood”, “Take The Coltrane” and “Stevie” (two sketches composed right there in the studio), “Angelica” and “The Feeling of Jazz” by Ellington; Billy Strayhorn’s “My Little Brown Book”; and Coltrane’s “Big Nick,” a tribute to tenor saxophonist Big Nick Nicholas. At work here are two living legends who set out not to change history, but simply to experience, with mutual respect and admiration, the intimate joy of music. No overbearing displays, no pointless academic showing-off or gratuitous virtuosity. Pure Magic. Even Elvin Jones puts down the sticks of dynamite and picks up the brushes. It is a "Sunday Morning Record", relaxed, atmospheric, and straightforward, reminding us that in our constant search for the ultimate, mind-blowing thrill (which, by definition, is NEVER the last one), we often lose sight of the wonder of simplicity. This is the perfect album to set that right. Let us leave the final word on this experience to Trane: “I was really honored to have the opportunity of working with Duke. It was a wonderful experience. He has set standards I haven’t caught up with yet. I would have liked to have worked over all those numbers again, but I guess the performances wouldn’t have had the same spontaneity. And they mightn’t have been any better.”

May the Journey be light for you, dear John.

John Coltrane 100: Olé & Monk

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Paul Acquaro

John Coltrane - Olé (Atlantic, 1961)

In the mid-1990s I had just graduated from undergrad with a degree in Journalism and absolutely no idea what to do next. I spent the following summer living in a shared house with five other people about my age, one of whom was a good friend and musical partner in our band called “Joe Joe the Dog Face Boy.” We were working, we were playing music, all in all, it was fine even if a bit of a confusing time in life.

In the living room of the house, next to my room, was a shelf with a bunch of records on it. The records belonged to my friend, who had just been gifted them by his father. He had placed them on the shelf not knowing what to do with them - I am not sure that he even had a record player at this point, as it was the heyday of CDs afterall. I, however, did have a record player that had been accompanying me all through college and would be my only constant companion for the next twenty years or more, so the records, a rather eclectic mix of music from the 60s and 70s, would end up often on my stereo. This was how I encountered Olé.

Olé, John Coltrane’s last album for the Atlantic label, released in 1961, was recorded with his long-time associates MyCoy Tyner on piano and Elvin Jones on drums, which already likely brings certain harmonic and rhythmic sounds to mind. Joining them was trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassists Reggie Workman and Art Davis, and the great Eric Dolphy on flute and alto sax.

It was the title track that caught my ear. Extending over the whole side A of the album, it’s a modal feast that builds on a vamp derived from a Spanish folk song. Here, it starts with a single churning bass line and Tyner’s pulsating chords balancing on Jones' driving swing. Soon, Coltrane joins on soprano sax with an approach reminiscent of his playing on ‘My Favorite Things.’ Then, Dolphy lends his flute to the mix, paving the way for Hubbard’s solo, from which the track really takes off. It was rhythmically dense music, but not overly dissonant or harsh; however, for ears that could listen to jazz but were more attuned to rock, it was the perfect hook - a little more advanced than what I was used to, but not too steep of a climb. The B-side’s, ‘Dahomey Dance’ and ‘Aisha’ were a bit more rooted in the ‘jazz’ I knew. I enjoyed them, but it was the A-side that pushed me as a listener.

Critics have called Olé a transitional album. Aside from the label change, Coltrane was also headed towards more experimental realms. For me, Olé and that pile of records also came at a transitional time, and helped reveal new paths and possibilities.

Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (Jazzland, 1961)

My plan was to next dig into something in that experimental realm. I had my sights on Offering: Live at Temple University, a live album recorded in 1966, shortly before Coltrane passed away, and released posthumously by Resonance Records in 2014. A funny thing happened, however, along the way. As I was pulling up the recording, I passed by Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane and stopped in my tracks. Also released in 1961 on the Jazzland label, this set of evergreen Monk tunes that had been recorded by Coltrane and Monk in '57 and '58 with changing rhythm sections. Two seconds of the opening ‘Ruby, My Dear’ and I knew I’d wanted to spend a little time awith this one again before moving on.

As the story goes, Coltrane was addicted to heroin and had just been fired from Miles Davis’ group. He took this break, and cleaned himself up and started to play with Monk. A residency at the Five Spot in NYC in ‘57 is the stuff of legends and a concert recording of the two from 1957 was discovered and released in 2005 by Blue Note, lends credence to the stories. Entitled Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, it underscores the copacetic musical relationship found on the original release.

Back to that recording: the tune that stopped me in my tracks, the slow moving ‘Ruby, My Dear’ begins with such a melancholic saxophone playing the yearning melody that it instantly romanticizes any space where it’s played. ‘Tinkle, Tinkle,’ with its playful and up-tempo melody gives Coltrane a chance to unfurl those ‘sheets of sound’ that he’s famous for. Similarly on ‘Nutty’, the sheets return in a generously flowing solo, studded at key points with with reminders of the melody. Drum and bass outlining the tune, Monk waiting to come back in with the melody, before abstracting it into Improvisational flurries.

This album album is a high point in two musical catalogs that are festooned with them.

John Coltrane 100: Blue Train & More

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Nuno Catarino

Like many others, my gateway into the Coltrane universe was the inevitable Blue Train, a 1997 CD reissue, with the cover altered with different tones from the original edition. I was beginning to discover jazz and, beyond the variations on the title track, it was the vertigo of “Moment’s Notice” that must have won me over at that early stage. And, of course, the free sound of the saxophone, and the fascinating process of its discourse construction in real time — fascinating for someone who, until then, knew nothing of any form of improvised music. From there, there were several landmark records, in a process that did not follow chronology: it went through the duet with Johnny Hartman, Live at Village Vanguard , the space journey of Meditations, all the way to the devotional magic of A Love Supreme, reading the booklet while following the music, and the pinnacle of Ascension. Along the way, an unavoidable landmark, Giant Steps (as with Ornette’s records, the title also announced the jazz that was coming) with its timeless title track and the melancholic sweetness of “Naima”. I was discovering the albums in no particular order, finding the records or having them find me in a random way, and then gradually organizing Coltrane’s journey in my head, as if piecing a puzzle together. In that process, my favorite album then remains my favorite to this day: My Favorite Things. Too mainstream, too easy, some might say. On ’Trane’s path, a milestone. Not yet the classic quartet, but almost there: McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, Steve Davis on bass (Jimmy Garrison would join shortly afterwards). Coltrane takes up the soprano saxophone and transforms a well-known popular melody into a piece of his own; starting from the original melody, he transforms it through a profound process of unfurling. From this point on, it would become one of his signature tunes, evolving into other, much more advanced and deconstructed versions. But this is the start. The LP setlist also has three songs that touch the soul of anyone who loves the history of jazz: one by Cole Porter, “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye”, and two by the Gershwins: “Summertime” and “But Not for Me”. In the context of Coltrane's quest and discography, My Favorite Things is a turning point. And, in my own listener's journey, it's music that affects me deeply.

Nuno Catarino is editorial coordinator of jazz.pt since 2022. He contributes to the national newspaper Público, where he has written since 2007. He is the author, with Márcia Lessa, of the book Improvisando (2019).

John Coltrane 100: Soul Junction & First Meditations

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Richard Blute

The Red Garland Quintet Featuring John Coltrane and Donald Byrd - Soul Junction (Prestige, 1960)

Culinary writers frequently refer to comfort food. Soul Junction is my comfort music. I go to this album when I’m not in the mood to be blown away by wild flights of improvised fury or complex compositions or arrangements. This is an “end of an exhausting day” or a “reminder that maybe all will be well” kind of an album.

I love the relaxed, bluesy feel of it. Listen to Garland’s piano on the opening title track. It’s pure bliss. George Joyner’s bass is understated perfection. The piano trio portion of the track goes on so long and is so hypnotic that you’re to be forgiven if you forget there’s a sax and trumpet still to come.

Hey, there’s the saxophone. It feels like Trane was digging Garland’s playing and was dying to join in. Recorded in 1957, Trane hadn’t perfected his style yet. But his genius is right there to hear. He’s fantastic on Dizzy’s classic Birk’s Works. Donald Byrd doesn’t get much mention on this website, but I love a lot of his Blue Note music. He’s the perfect trumpeter for this session. Garland wisely gives the two of them lots of space to play, and they take every advantage of it.

John Coltrane- First Meditations (For Quartet) (Impulse!, 1977)

As far as I’m concerned, A Love Supreme is the greatest jazz album of all time and Coltrane’s classic quartet the greatest group. First Meditations (For Quartet) is a beautiful piece of music and a fascinating document of a band just on the verge of transforming, both in terms of its personnel and its approach to music. (I prefer to say “transforming” to “ending”.)

The first track, Love,clearly recalls A Love Supreme,as if that classic album is the starting point of this new music. Trane is stunning as always and McCoy is the perfect accompanist. The best track, Joy, is relatively calm and peaceful, until it isn’t. It begins as any number of other tracks from this quartet and then Trane sits out. He’s let the remaining trio play some (for this group) fairly straightforward piano trio music. But then he returns with an absolute roar, as if he wants to break constraints the rest of us can’t see. This is one of several places you can see the seams of the band starting to tear. It’s fascinating to hear.

Much of this music was reconsidered on the subsequent album Meditations with Trane’s new group. A comparison of the two albums and the approach of two different groups to the material is fascinating, the second album justifiably being the more renowned of the two. But I find the first to be the one I keep returning to, as if I don’t want to say goodbye to this quartet.

I genuinely love this album, but I had an ulterior motive for writing about it here. It gives me the opportunity to tell the story of the time I met Elvin Jones. He had been doing a drum demonstration and a line formed afterwards for autograph seekers. When I arrived at the front of the line, I barely refrained from doing “We’re not worthy”, but I did tell him how much his music meant to me and said I’d be honored if he’d sign this album. He took the CD booklet from me, looked at it and asked “Did I play on this?”. (I assume that since the album wasn’t released until 10 years after it was recorded, he never saw the album cover.) I showed him his name in the booklet, he laughed and signed it, making this album all the more special to me.

John Coltrane 100: A Celebration

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0000

As you are likely well aware, this week marks the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane's birth and writers and friends of the Free Jazz Blog were asked to contribute their personal thoughts on his music and influence. The parameters for the contributions were loose, only that it should be something personal and if it so happened that an album appeared more than once, that was fine, as what it meant to the writer was surely different. We ended up with our biggest feature ever! For the next two weeks we will be featuring reflections, reviews, and anecdotes about Coltrane and his groundbreaking music. We begin today an introduction from Sammy Stein.

Enjoy!
Paul Acquaro

John Coltrane. Src: wikipedia

By Sammy Stein

FJC is celebrating John Coltrane’s 100^th year. For anyone unfamiliar with his music, the following offers a brief overview of why Coltrane is ranked amongst the greatest of musicians.

Through his approach, style, delivery, and unmistakable sound, Coltrane powered through the door that Ornette Coleman and others had left ajar, revealing jazz’s powerful, emotive, and transformational heart. Nothing post-Coltrane is untouched by his influence. His was not a deliberate subversion of traditional jazz, but an uncalculated stream of events, personal, spiritual, and historical, that converged in a confluence that formed his music.

Coltrane’s mother bought him a saxophone when he was sixteen, and he was influenced by players including Illinois Jacquet. His grandparents were ordained ministers, his parents met through the church, and Coltrane grew up influenced by religion. He chose a different path – that of music and was not discouraged by family, yet later in his life, it was God who helped him save his music and career.

Without his spiritual reawakening, Coltrane’s career may have faded. Early on, he was supported by musicians who recognised his prodigious talent. However, he became addicted to drugs and would arrive for gigs unshaven and in smelly, wrinkled clothes. He might fall asleep on stage. Miles Davis fired him, and Dizzy Gillespie didn’t follow suit only because of their friendship and his respect for Coltrane’s talent.

At the nadir of his life, Coltrane reached out to God. He described a revelation he had when God spoke to him, and he set about composing exquisite music, praising God and teaching his followers. He said, “My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it through my music. If you can live it, there’s no problem about the music, because it’s part of the whole thing.”

Coltrane’s first wife, Naima, was central to his early spiritual journey. A practicing Muslim, she helped him understand God’s presence in their lives. With her support, he overcame addiction within a year. His second wife, Alice, became his spiritual partner and musical collaborator. A pianist and harpist, she understood Coltrane’s desire to contribute to a greater purpose through music.

Some of Coltrane’s music has an intangible quality. He understood the spiritual and temporal worlds, and his music fused the two, expressing deep spiritual inquiry alongside the mortal complexities of personality. Jazz became a place where the human condition could be expressed with unflinching honesty and transcendent beauty.

Coltrane was playing at a time when conditions were ripe for rebellion and change, and he was profoundly affected by events of his time, especially the civil rights movement, initially siding with Malcolm X before aligning with Martin Luther King Jr’s belief in peaceful but persistent protest. He performed eight benefit concerts to support Martin Luther King Jr’s cause.

His music channeled anger at racism and discrimination, despair at humanity’s darkness, and the beauty of praise and worship. He had faced the demons of addiction and won, and his music reflected beauty, was personal yet spoke to millions.

The murder of four African American girls in the KKK bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 profoundly affected Coltrane. Two months after the event, he took McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones into Rudy Van Gelder's studio and recorded ‘Alabama’, later released on the album Live At Birdland (Impulse 1964).

As discontent rose, Coltrane’s modal technique challenged preconceived ideas about traditional jazz. Under his and other musicians’ tenure, jazz, ever the mirror of society, became more dissonant and unruly.

Coltrane’s music is as relevant today as it was in the 1960s. The messages are clearly and profoundly expressed and cut to the core impulses of humanity. Because of his uncloaked humanity, listening to Coltrane feels as emergent and alive for someone encountering the music today as it did to listeners forty years, or ten years ago.

Coltrane’s near-mythical status was helped by the Blue Note label, which signed Coltrane and other players, seen as risky at the time, and some iconic images, notably photographs by Francis Wolff, a skilled photographer and executive of Blue Note. Of over 33,000 pictures Wolff took (probably more), his images of John Coltrane in moments of intense concentration or creativity seem to capture the musician's essence.

One of Coltrane’s gifts was his ability to perform as a soloist or as part of an ensemble. Pieces like Davis’s’ ‘Milestones’ with ‘Cannonball’ Adderley (alto sax) and Coltrane (tenor sax) responding to Davis’s trumpet with twists and turns within the original mode laid a template for modal playing (try also Coltrane's’ Spiral’ and ‘Naima’ from Giant Steps (Atlantic 1959)). Modal jazz led away from traditional jazz and toward free jazz. Free playing was where Coltrane was headed.

In the 1960s, some journalists described early free jazz as a poison to jazz, and Downbeat critics described Coltrane and Dolphy’s playing as ‘nihilistic exercises’ and ‘anti-jazz.’ Miles Davis found free jazz difficult to embrace initially. However, a few years later Davis, like Coltrane and others, found free jazz liberating. Coltrane, like many free-playing musicians, connected the evolution of the music with a deepening of self-realization and the strengthening and expression of their beliefs. Alongside fellow musicians Yusef Lateef, Sonny Rollins, and others, Coltrane pursued musical mastery and self-realization.

In his suite A Love Supreme (Impulse, 1965), Coltrane expressed his love and awe of God, and the final movement is based on a devotional poem he wrote. He studied different religions and philosophies, including the Indian philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti, which he was introduced to by Bill Evans.

Coltrane perhaps expressed his love for God most during his free playing. His tracks ‘Love’ and ‘The Father, And The Son And the Holy Ghost’ on Meditations (Impulse 1965), albums Ascension (Impulse 1966), Om (Impulse, recorded 1965, released 1966), and ‘Peace on Earth’ from Infinity (Impulse, recorded 1966, released 1972), reflect his beliefs.

Coltrane used the ferocity of his playing and complex techniques as a way of worship. He said he created music for God and others and wanted to be the opposing force to evil. Even those unaware of his driving beliefs find something special, untouchable, and unique in his music.

Coltrane, Art Blakey, Yusef Lateef, and other musicians became part of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam, which forbids the intake of drugs and alcohol. Coltrane said, "My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being. When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups…I want to speak to their souls.”

Some found Coltrane’s later music, with its contradictions and unresolved transitions, less pure than his earlier recordings, but for many, they remain some of the best work produced by any jazz musician.

Two weeks before his death, Coltrane discussed opening a music venue without alcohol as he realized this had masked his creativity.

After Coltrane died in 1967, aged just forty, Alice kept pushing musical boundaries, and her music took on a profoundly spiritual element. She collaborated with Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, and many others, and her music traversed from blues-infused melodies to unfathomable sonic journeys, but it was beautiful, and her talent won armies of devotees, so, partly through Alice, Coltrane’s legacy remained. Also through his sons. John Jr, Ravi, and Oranyan. Oranyan started playing jazz with his brothers but has gone into trance and electronic music production. John Jr was a promising bassist but was killed in a car accident when he was 17, and Ravi is a jazz musician. Alice’s grandnephew, Steven Ellison, AKA Flying Lotus, is a record label owner, producer, rapper, and DJ. Many of his recordings feature jazz samples.

Coltrane’s music and persona continue to influence music and musicians. From those who followed directly, including Pharoah Sanders, Lonnie Liston, Sun Ra, Don Cherry, and John McLaughlin, to nearly every jazz musician today.

In 2016,’ Alabama’ was included in John DeJohnette's 2016 album In Movement (ECM), and on this recording, sons of the original artists, including saxophonist Ravi Coltrane (son of Coltrane) and bassist Matthew Garrison (son of bassist Jimmy Garrison), played.

Coltrane’s music has been sampled on recordings by hip hop artists, younger jazz musicians, and many others. FJC is celebrating the fact that Coltrane left his influence, and there are some great pieces following this introduction. It is impossible to adequately record the influence of John Coltrane on the music that followed, but we can try. As a jazz musician recently said to me, ‘Don’t worry, just stick on some ‘Trane.”

Perhaps more than any other jazz musician, John Coltrane showed there is a way to play from the heart without constraints. When you can do that, you allow your true spirit to reveal itself. Like ‘Trane.

Pendulum (Benoît Delbecq, Jonas Westergaard & Peter Bruun) - Opening Arcs 1-8 (Ilk Music, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Eyal Hareuveni

Pendulum is a singular piano trio featuring French pianist Benoît Delbecq with Danish double bass player Jonas Westergaard and drummer Peter Bruun (both Westergaard and Bruun have collaborated before with fellow Danish pianist Søren Kjærgaard). Bruun initiated this trio in 2024 as part of his ambitious research project exploring new approaches to musical time (Multitemporal movement and embodiment through Rhythmic Design at The Danish National Academy of Music).

The Pendulum trio investigates all aspects of this classic format, including the most basic sensibilities of space and time, avoiding rigid structures, allowing instead for balance, elegance and fluidity. It challenges us to listen to its music as resonant arcs or shared fields of presence rather than defined by linear time, and explores new ways to transform free improvisation gravity into groove. Delbeq suggested that the trio will play with the presence of physical pendulums on stage, symbolizing the elasticity of time and giving a sense of pulse. These oscillating bodies guide the subtle, cyclical shifts in the music, which, paradoxically, feels familiar: music that sways and breathes, while finding rhythm in the inevitability of motion.

The trio releases its eight-volume EP series, Arcs, nearly three hours of music, in a monthly release cycle that began in May and will conclude in December 2026. These Arcs offer Pendulum’s idiosyncratic, enigmatic, lyrical universe, in which metric relations, shifting balances, and elastic phrasing are woven together in a kaleidoscopic manner. Each volume swings on its own terms, with no intention to offer a linear narrative, and uses distinct compositional fragments, notated and graphic scores. But the whole project accumulates into an open body of work that allows us to feel how time bends, breathes, and searches for an elusive balance. The Pendulum trio invites listeners to form their own path through the eight volumes and discover different insights and relations in their own time.

Arc No. 1

Pendulum describes this volume: “Time leans before it moves. Motion unfolds patiently, stretching and rebounding with quiet elasticity. What propels the arc is not force but attentiveness, which allows duration to bend and return without breaking. Each swing carries clarity and restraint, revealing time as something more shaped than measured”.

The trio suggests sparse, deep listening, labyrinthine architectures with patient and subtle, cyclical-rhythmic shifts, best captured in the aptly titled, 17-minute minimalist “Exercice Elastique”, that patiently gravitates into a most delicate, vulnerable, quite irreverent groove.

Arc No. 2

“Afterwards appears before it is recognized. Movement writes itself into space, leaving subtle traces that guide listening rather than direction. Rhythms form paths, both adaptable and responsive, where perception stretches between memory and anticipation. The arc remains fluid, shaped by change rather than arrival”.

Pendulum sketches an almost abstract, empty map, from which it begins to imagine possible contours and paths, and how to find its inner, spatial logic, and its subtle rhythmic shifts, finally realized on “Plasticity”.

Arc No. 3

“Movement turns inward. Each gesture is weighted, deliberate, and reduced to necessity. Time thickens as motion slows, inviting attention to settle inside the smallest shifts. The arc transforms discreetly, as intensity is held beneath restraint. Balance is discovered through presence, not display”.

The 31-minute “Buto” corresponds with the hyper-slow and hyper-controlled motion of the Japanese avant-dance theatre, Butō (舞踏), that resists and fixated conception of time. Pendulum’s fragile balance was realized through an austere, cryptic, and often almost silent presence that keeps triggering our imagination, and not by technical display or mastery.

Arc No. 4

“Wooden time moves with grain and resistance. Motion creaks, sways, and negotiates its own structure. Oscillation becomes tactile, shaped by friction and patience. The arc holds multiple possibilities at once, allowing form and freedom to coexist without resolution. The rings of time are both counted and counting”.

The trio focuses on its essence, the ever-negotiated arcs that blur the distinction between form and freedom, and question our conception of linear time, turning it into a spiritual riddle, a kōan.

Arc No. 5

“A phase shifts nearly unnoticed. Motion lightens, stepping carefully through softened contours. Layers thin and overlap, revealing phrasing where gestures begin and fade. The arc listens closely to its own balance, finding meaning in nuance rather than emphasis. The push and pull are their own reason for being”.

Pendulum refines its fragile, nuanced equilibrium with melodic threads that patiently, hesitantly flirt with familiar, playful, and resonant piano trio dynamics.

Arc No. 6 (to be released on October 10)

“Momenta accumulate through return. Motion becomes practiced, framed by shared gravity and memory. Energy circulates without urgency, shaped by repetition and transformation. The past is present and future at once”.

A further, urgent, cyclical rhythmic refinement is offered, faithfully captured in the short pieces “Arc” and “Dance”, shaped by nuanced repetitions and transformations.

Arc No. 7 (to be released on November 9)

“Time folds into itself. Multiple cycles coexist, asymmetrical yet connected. Movement breathes across layered durations, allowing contradiction to remain unresolved. The arc sustains density without weight, continuity without uniformity. Listening is wide enough to hold all the all of it”.

Pendulum’s music plays a touch-and-go game in its own fragmented musical continuum, sustaining density without weight, continuity without uniformity, but with more structural focus.

Arc No. 8 (to be released on December 9)

“Strange tools reveal their logic through use. Motion disperses, leaving resonance rather than momentum. What remains feels everywhere at once, absorbed into space and attention. The arc settles without closing, as stillness carries the last trace of movement forward. It is the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning”.

The concluding volume is not an end to this fascinating journey but a sort of beginning. The Pendulum trio already inhabited its own elastic conception of time, as the devoted listeners to this journey, and has established its idiosyncratic language. But Pendulum’s music tells us something deeper about life and the inevitable changes we experience throughout life. This trio asks us to adapt our time sensibility to its subtle transformations, fully embrace and be deeply attuned to our own ubiquitous cyclical and oscillating arcs, as we move forward, attempting to maintain an elusive balance.

Opening Arcs: Arc No. 1 by Pendulum (Benoit Delbecq, Jonas Westergaard, Peter Bruun)

Opening Arcs: Arc no. 2 by Pendulum (Benoit Delbecq, Jonas Westergaard, Peter Bruun)

Pendulum – Opening Arcs: Arc no. 3 by Pendulum (Benoît Delbecq, Jonas Westergaard, Peter Bruun)

Pendulum – Opening Arcs: Arc no. 4 by Pendulum (Benoît Delbecq, Jonas Westergaard, Peter Bruun)

Opening Arcs: Arc no. 5 by ILK

LOUNGE LIZARDS - Live 79-81 (Analogue Pulse, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Ferruccio Martinotti

"All Art Has Been Contemporary”

This sentence is a neon installation by conceptual artist Maurizio Nannucci located on the roof of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Torino, that takes up a similar concept expressed a few decades earlier by Pablo Picasso. Such a fundamental axiom, around which rivers of ink have been spilled, seems to lose its actualization in the late '70s, early '80s, with regard to jazz: this art form is out of sync with the “here and now” and doesn't dialogue with contemporary, ontologically expressed by young generations. Totally deprived of any chance to become aware of free/improv artists, the teens of the time (your humble writer among them) relate to jazz in the same way they approach Dante, Seneca or Milton in highschool or uni: respect, awe, in some cases sincere passion, more often distance. Wright or wrong, a matter of fact. Moreover, those years were destined to write one of the brightest chapters in the Great Book of Music, through amazing groups like Clock DVA, PIL, Joy Division, Talking Heads, Pere Ubu, X, Television, Bad Brains, Wire, just to throw out some names in bulk. Would it have made sense to spend the very little bucks in our pocket on Chet Baker instead of Meat Puppets and Husker Du? C’mon, a no-brainer. This inexhaustible cornucopia of punk/post-punk gems experiences a small, apparently insignificant, intermittence, which leads us, aboard the only ISO-certified Time Machine (the music), to where almost everything happens: New York. Here, while the ruins of CBGB's and Max's Kansas City are still smoking, a patrol of sappers (Contortions, Mars, DNA, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks), pushing far beyond punk, lights up the charges of the “No Wave”, generating a shockwave that transcends the scope of music and involves the most extremist artistic fringes of the East Village and the Lower East Side: poets (Lydia Lunch), writers (Kathy Acker), painters (Basquiat) and filmmakers (Eric Mitchell, Amos Poe) are up for It. Among them, relocated from Minnesota, John Lurie, iconic muse actor from Jim Jarmusch’s early movies, who in his unmissable autobiography, The History of Bones, offers us a snapshot of that sparkling, bohemian milieu: “We were so sure of ourselves, we never doubted anything. We were powerful, intelligent, energetic, confident, self-centered, and incredibly naive. Nothing outside our fourteen-block radius mattered. From Houston to 14th St., from the Bowery to Ave. A, that was the only universe.” John alternates between filmmaking and musical practicing, not on a third-hand Telecaster or on a battered Precision bass, but on alto saxophone: "At 4 p.m. on Main Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, the universe gave me my first saxophone. Nothing special happened, except that a man, driving around with a wheelbarrow, gave me a saxophone. I became like a monk. I slept on the floor, I didn't have a TV, I didn't smoke, I didn't drink, I didn't fuck. I played the saxophone until my fingers bled and I devoured music: Varese, Stravinsky, Mingus, Dolphy, Monk, Bird, Ornette, Hendrix." From there, it was a short step to form a band, and with his brother Evan on keyboards, the rhythm section of Steve Piccolo and Anton Fier (of Feelies “fame”), and the abrasive guitar of DNA’s Arto Lindsay (a very distinctive element of the ensemble), the Lounge Lizards were born, self-described, out of respect for the Masters of the Past, as "fake jazz." The Purists, losers by definition, take the bait and move on, while those with heart and soul stop, listen to and understand the new hybridization of tradition with the metro, iconoclastic, infectious, no-sounds: a sabotage of the “status quo ante” of jazz but, definitively, a Sabotage of Love. None of them graduated from Juilliard (does it matter?), but the Lizards' sound reflects like few others the zeitgeist of Downtown and the mood of those courageous and visionary prime movers who animate it. Their debut album was released in 1981, packaged with Peter Saville's splendid artwork, featuring a black-and-white photo of the musicians on the cover that always reminds us of Jimmy Giuffre's stunning "Free Fall". At the helm, the mighty Teo Macero who infuses the album with the nocturnal atmospheres that made it legendary, sitting the listener at the bar counter of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks At Diner" or amidst a Raymond Chandler novel. The quick band’s development during the couple of years preceding it is captured on "Live 79-81," a reissue of the 1985 Roir cassette, containing live recordings at Hurrah and CBGB's in New York (June, August 1979), Her Majesty's Theater in London (June 1980), Cleveland Radio (June 1981), and Berlin Jazz Festival (December 1981). It's all there: contractions and swing, dissonances and post-post-bop, Earl Hagan (Harlem Nocturne) and Monk (Epistrophy), boredom and coolness, dark streets and streetlights. Jazz in its pure form. Did Lounge Lizards change the course of events? No. Did they spearhead a new musical stream? No. Did they contribute to ensuring that kids who grew up on punk could relate to jazz in an updated and conscious way? ABSOLUTELY YES. Same as it happened to John Lurie just some years before, then let him have the final words to come full circle: “When I was 17, someone made me listen to John Coltrane and it was as if he was speaking to me in Chinese. But how? Is there music I can't understand? And so I started listening to it all the time.”

Josh Berman Trio – Everybody Else’s Life, Too (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Nick Ostrum

Everybody Else’s Life, Too is the latest from Josh Berman, a stalwart of the Chicago scene still somewhat underappreciated outside of his hometown. He has played the gamut of Chicago improvisors (including Mars Williams’ A Very Ayler Xmas project, the all-too-short-lived Michael Zerrang and the Blue Lights, and Ken Vandermark’s Audio One), sneaked across the Atlantic to record with Paul Lytton, Edward Perraud, and Jon Rune Strøm, and led several of his own bands. On this one, he is joined by bassist Jason Roebke – a reliably punchy oft-times sideman of Chicago circles - and the indefatigable drummer Chris Corsano for a live date at Chicago’s Constellation from 2025.

I cannot say there is much surprising here if you are familiar with Berman’s previous headline albums. That said, this is more of what this listener wants rather than simply more of the same. Berman clearly has a thing for bop, in its various forms, and maybe the title is even a nod to his appreciation of those who came before and inspired him. The songs on here start with a catchy head, or a few more plodding, smokey ones, and from there break down into spurs, knotty angles, and spindly striations. One could play this album for someone who thought Miles went too far when he went electric, or Coltrane with Ascension, and they would happily bob their head along with Roebke’s walking bass or Corsano’s steady patter behind Berman’s jumpy melodies. But restricting this to such a palatable bridge would miss the other point, which lies in the free form sections that, yes, are tied to the head but in a sensual way that deviates from its rhythm, tune, and key in favor of capturing, extending, and straining the intricacies of a spontaneous moment. Those sections are when Berman stretches into flutters, crackles, and bites, when Roebke leans into timbre, and Corsano eschews rhythm for sound.

Those sections are limited; in this case I think for the better. That is not because trio cannot stretch out into the unknown. (Take the eighth cut, Scale, as an example of their exploratory chops.) Instead, it is because they do so within Berman’s bookending melodic confines that set the direction and mark the terminal point. And were those themes not inspired, this would fall flat. But they are and do not. For doubters, just listen to the wonderfully lonesome and wistful closer, Second Look, where Corsano’s brushes lay a soft-rain backdrop to Berman’s and Roebke’s melancholic dialog.

Everybody Else’s Life, Toois much in the vein of a different Josh Berman Trio’s A Dance and a Hop (2015) and should be considered an expansion of that project. Again, you might well know what to expect if you have been following Berman already, but that does not make what you hear any less satisfying.

Everybody Else’s Life, Too is available download from Bandcamp and a CD from a few choice independent music outlets. See the CvD website for more.

Everybody Else's Life, Too by Josh Berman

Kuhn Fu!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Happy Sunday, here’s a quick shot of some irreverent fun for the end/beginning of your week (depending on how you set up your calendar): Kuhn Fu, the eight‑member ensemble led by guitarist‑composer Christian Kühn mixes a bit of rock energy with jazz freedom. "Free improvisation-only" folks may wrinkle their noses at such a description, but take a listen - would Frank Gratkowski, John Dikeman or Ziv Taubenfeld lead you astray? Video is from Zentrifuge, Berlin in October 2025.

Christian Kühn - guitar, composition
Frank Gratkowski - alto sax, flute, clarinet
John Dikeman - tenor sax
Mateusz Rybicki - tenor sax, clarinet
Ziv Taubenfeld - bass clarinet
Sofia Salvo - baritone sax
Esat Ekincioglu - bass
George Hadow - drums

More: https://kuhnfumusic.com/

2026 FILMED BY EAR is a series by @berta.berlin.

Magda Mayas - Chant (Unsounds, 2026) Sculpting Silence 4

noreply@blogger.com (Stef Gijssels) — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Stef Gijssels

On "Chant", another sculptor of silence shows her art. The magician is Magda Mayas, whose explorations of the outside and inside of her piano keeps astonishing us, including her inventiveness to create unheard sounds. Mayas is not only a musician, but also an academic researcher with several publications to her name, getting her PhD on the subject of "Orchestrating Timbre – Unfolding Processes of Timbre and Memory in Improvisational Piano Performance" (2019/20), which examines improvisation through timbre, space, movement, objects, and listening.

I'm adding a few videos here to show her art.

The first is an exercise that Magda Mayas developed for the Hochschule Luzern called "Thinking Silent Matter". The excercise focuses on improvisation in a large ensemble context, bringing attention to silence and reduced sound material with slowly changing parameters, starting with the relevant quote : "... silence not only as absence of sound, but also silence as part of the sound". In the video she guides her students through the concept of the exercise.

Indeed, silence matters. It is even essential to anything we hear, whether we are aware of it or not, so why not actively use it in music?

On the tree pieces of the album, she shows this in very different formats. The first and last piece were recorded in Australia, with two years apart, the middle track was recorded in Berlin in Tony Buck's Brief Sand Studio.

The opening track, “Embodied,” recorded live at the SoundOut Festival in Canberra in February 2025, establishes its language through restraint. The piano notes arrive slowly, and the silences between them are as significant as the sounds themselves. Rather than functioning as a conventional prelude, however, this spaciousness becomes the central compositional device. Against the sparse piano framework, elusive sounds emerge from objects and tools used to activate the strings, producing a shifting field of resonance whose sources remain deliberately indistinct. The music is notably sparse, but never static; its intensity lies in the sustained concentration with which each sound occupies the space.

“Halcyon” extends this approach while pushing the sonic material into considerably harsher territory. Carefully paced piano chords are subjected to feedback from a guitar amplifier, alongside a guitar pickup and various other objects. The amplification and feedback transform the piano’s familiar timbre, extending each chord into a dense, sustained resonance. Despite the expanded textural palette, the harmonic language remains remarkably focused: pitches occupy a restricted register and coalesce around a clear tonal centre. This tension between harmonic simplicity and increasingly abrasive resonance gives the piece its mesmerising quality.

Developed in 2023 during the Harringtons Lane artist residency in New South Wales, “Chant” approaches the piano from yet another angle. The piece’s playback was recorded on sixteen different pianos, foregrounding variations in tuning and the subtle differences between instruments. Its structure is deceptively simple, built around the quiet repetition of two chords whose minute variations in tuning and timbre continually alter their perceptual weight. The effect is both soothing and strangely intense. Through repetition, small shifts become magnified, turning what might initially appear static into something constantly in flux.

Across these three works, there is a consistent interest in reducing musical materials to their essentials while expanding the possibilities of resonance, texture and perception. The music derives much of its power from this paradox: the means are often minimal, yet the listening experience is anything but. What emerges is an aesthetic that feels simultaneously rigorous and intuitive—fresh, inventive and deeply attentive to the physical properties of sound.

The title piece was also performed by Mayas at Roulette, streamed live on 30 Apr 2024. The video gives a great insight in her music but also on the added ingredients in the interior of her piano, things you can assume when you see a concert, but can usually at best only guess at.

Enjoy!

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Alexandra Grimal - Marée Basse (Self-Released, 2026) Sculpting Silence 3

noreply@blogger.com (Stef Gijssels) — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Stef Gijssels

Our third iteration of the "Sculpting Silence" series, brings us to France, for a trio with Alexandra Grimal on saxophones, voice, harmonium, nōkan, shakuhachi, Naoto Yamagishi on percussions and Alexandre Saada on piano and harmonium.

The title, Marée Basse, is French for “low tide”: the moment when the sea withdraws, leaving behind a wide, empty stretch of beach scattered with shells, tiny creatures, and fragments the waves have carried ashore. The music evokes much the same landscape. It takes this open space for granted, allowing the notes of saxophone, piano, and percussion to appear sparsely, sometimes only for brief moments before disappearing again.

All three musicians are minimalists, deeply attentive to the overall sound yet reluctant to impose themselves upon it, as though the tones themselves should determine whether, and when, they wish to interact. Every sound feels tender and fragile, unobtrusive and gentle—and often completely absent. Silence is not merely the space between the notes; it is an essential part of the music itself.

This is particularly striking in the thirty-minute second track, where, roughly halfway through, there is almost a full minute of near silence, with only faint crackling sounds barely audible in the background. When the music gradually returns, the instrumentation has subtly shifted: the harmonium introduces a handful of sustained tones, joined by Grimal's wordless singing, equally elongated and sensitive. Towards the end of the piece, the sound becomes fuller and more agitated, as though a sudden gust of wind were stirring the waves and awakening the distant cries of seagulls.

Once again, silence plays an essential role in this music, much as it does in Japanese art, which has fascinated Grimaldi in recent years. Here, absence is not a lack but a presence of its own—a space in which the smallest sounds can emerge, linger for a moment, and then quietly disappear.

Enjoy!

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Earth Tongues - Phases (Neither Nor, 2026) Sculpting Silence 2

noreply@blogger.com (Stef Gijssels) — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Stef Gijssels

This ensemble will always carry a deeply personal connotation for me. In 2015, they released their first album, Rune, at a time when I was hospitalised for two weeks, waking at irregular hours. Despite the dire circumstances, listening to Earth Tongues at four in the morning, alone in the darkness, was a strange and deeply soothing experience.

There was something about the ensemble’s careful, almost cautious little sounds—the tiny sonic points that gradually accumulated into a landscape that absorbed, captivated, and ultimately elevated you—that created a uniquely powerful listening experience. It is difficult to explain how important it became for me to return to this music again and again, and how much it taught me about the value of life, the value of art, and the value of improvised music.

When everything collapses around you—and inside you—you begin to realise that whatever remains, however small or fragmented, can still be enough to create something meaningful. You learn to cherish the smallest isolated event - "at least I still have this", to pay attention to what might otherwise go unnoticed, and to welcome the spontaneous connections with and between people who can, together, create beauty out of those tiny fragments of luck.

And in many ways, that is what this music does. Little sounds, little fragments, little pieces surrounded by silence, which, when brought together, can still constitute something beautiful, something meaningful, something valuable. It gave me hope against all odds, and with it a profound insight: to cherish every moment. Life is not necessarily a long story with a clear plot. Perhaps it is instead a collection of small, random events—fragments that, taken together, become a life, and that are all worth living.

The trio, so many years later are still Joe Moffett on trumpet, Dan Peck on tuba, and Carlo Costa on percussion.

Like their previous albums, their sound is deeply organic, drawing on the textures and rhythms of the natural world: the drip of water, pebbles falling, animals growling, birds twittering. Each of the three long tracks has its own distinct character, while the music gradually evolves from pointillist blips into increasingly stretched-out tones in the final piece. Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, these scattered sonic fragments begin to coalesce. The subtlety of this shift is deliberate, shaped by carefully considered compositional ideas and structures.

Silence is an essential part of their music—the white space between colours, an open realm of possibility waiting to be filled. What makes their work so compelling is the extraordinary value they give to each individual sound, with an intense attention to precision, texture, and timbral quality. When you enter their music attentively, it seems to slow down rational thought itself, allowing you to surrender to the sound and, for a while, simply be the music.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Susana Santos Silva & Vasco Trilla - Mushin (Defkaz, 2026) Sculpting Silence 1

noreply@blogger.com (Stef Gijssels) — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Stef Gijssels

A short intro on "Sculpting Silence"

The nature of art is to make you stop you in your tracks, to stop doing what you're doing and thinking, and to start using your senses, your eyes and ears, sometimes your touch and smell to be surprised, to be confronted with the unexpected, to admire, to see things differently.

We will have a short series of music that we describe as "sculpting silence", music in which sound is used like the black lines of a pen in zen art, a few strokes that capture the essence on a white canvas. And the first album in the series explicitly refers to the Zen concepts of 'Mu' and 'Shin' : "The term combines the kanji Mu (nothingness) and Shin (mind or spirit), and is often translated as “no-mind.” It refers to a state of consciousness free from fear, anger, or ego—where action arises naturally and without obstruction. In musical terms, this becomes a space where sound is not forced or premeditated, but emerges with clarity and immediacy", we read in the liner notes.

So the few strokes on a white canvas - on 'nothingness' - are like the ripples on a still pond, the barely visible effect of the slightest breeze. Here are some descriptions I found on the value of the colour 'white' in Zen art, comparable to silence in music.

In Zen art, white is not merely a blank background or an empty void. It represents 'ma' (negative space), functioning as living breath, silence, and the infinite potential from which all forms emerge and return.

The unpainted white paper or silk is an active, essential presence equal to the black ink strokes.

Zen painting uses intentional emptiness, asymmetry, and abbreviated forms to point toward direct seeing rather than decoration.

Blank space is not “nothing”; it functions as breath, silence, and the field in which forms appear and dissolve.

Common motifs—enso, bamboo, landscapes, and solitary figures—teach non-attachment and ordinary clarity.

I also found some sayings about listening.

"Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things."

"What is this mind? Who is hearing these sounds? ... What is it that hears?"

"The quieter you become, the more you can hear."

Now about the album.

The cover art is bizarre, to say the least: a cigarette-smoking armour seated on a toilet in a hilly landscape. It's in bad taste in my opinion, and not because of the toilet, but also because it does not truly reflect the nature of the music. It's a surreal digital artwork created by Aki Karano (also known as Akis Karanos) a visual artist and experimental musician, based in Greece.

In retrospect, it looks familiar when you see the likeness with the traditional Japanese drawings of monks contemplating the world, and also seen from the back. There may be a reference, or it might just be a coincidence. Admitted, the monk is not smoking and not wearing an armour, and he's contemplating a circle and not a square, yet it might be a more modern, more surreal rendition of the same experience.

Now really about the album.

Both Susana Santos Silva on trumpet and Vasco Trilla on percussion explore the boundaries and sonic potential of their respective instruments, creating ringing tones, whistles, droplets, swooshes, rumbles, gurgles, swishes and many more sounds without name or description.

The album begins quietly, with uncommon sounds cautiously flirting with silence—touching it slowly and gently, as if aware of its fragility. The result is a kind of soft intensity, with no obvious path or predetermined concept beyond the simple act of producing small fragments of sound and welcoming their clarity, their unexpectedness, and the ways in which they interact.

This is music that has nothing to prove. It does not seek to impress, move, or even necessarily engage a listener or an audience. It exists simply for its own sake: to be savoured, appreciated, and perhaps approached with the same state of mind as the artists themselves—with no attachment and no anticipation. Such an experience can only emerge from going beyond the expected, allowing the music to develop organically and naturally, as if arising from nothingness.

Contrary to the liner notes, I would recommend simply listening, rather than reflecting while you listen. Let yourself become part of the experience. Be there in the moment.

Both Santos Silva and Trilla are masters of their art. They share a remarkable sensitivity and an innovative ability to draw sounds from their instruments that are rarely heard, while employing a wide range of techniques and tools to sustain the listener’s attention. As with much improvised music, the album may surprise you on a first listen, but it reveals more of itself with each return.

Be the music.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Caktus x OJKOS - Øyeblikk (Sonic Transmissions, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Hrayr Attarian

Danish saxophonist and composer Maria Dybbroe has fast established herself as a unique voice in contemporary European music. With her collaborative quintet Caktus, she fuses influences from various genres into captivating, improvisation-heavy works. On her third release with Caktus, the cinematic Øyeblikk, she blends her group with the Norwegian Jazz Composers' Orchestra, OJKOS, for six interlinked pieces of sublime beauty and depth.

The album title means “moment”, and each tune has an ephemeral immediacy at its core. For instance, “Kalvøya”, inspired by an island near Oslo, opens with a pastoral segment of bowed strings and flittering of the woodwinds. After setting a meditative mood, the dual drums of Knut Kvifte Nesheim and Tobias Andreassen add urgency with their sparse beats. The interaction between the booming brass and the twittering reeds builds delightful tension that leads to a warm, poetic trumpet solo. The 15-member band weaves a dynamic tapestry of sound from which emerges Dybbroe’s yearning, incandescent phrases. Nocturnesque, shimmering refrains usher in the conclusion.

Another track that bears the name of a location is “Fornebu”, a peninsula in Bærum, Norway. The clattering of percussion and the fluid clarinet notes are like a bird calling in the early morning hours among stems blowing in the wind. When the rest of the ensemble enters, they build a quasi-symphonic performance. This is best heard when the muscular trombones blow in unison against the clarinet’s tender melody. As various sections trade lines over percussive rhythms, a peaceful harmony ensues. Hence, it reflects the town’s perfect balance of architectural beauty and natural preserves.

The melancholic “Det nye år” (The New Year) consists of long, languid passages from the horns with sparse accents from the drums. Hints of mysticism infuse the serene atmosphere as lone musicians play nostalgic and celebratory melodies. Guitarist Arne Martin Nybo weaves a haunting, incandescent ballad, followed by cellist Thorbjørn Kaas’ lyrical soliloquy. The rustle of brushes and cymbals, together with deep, resonant basslines, color the backdrop with muted hues. The music perfectly reflects the joy, the regrets, and the anticipation of another turn around the sun.

Øyeblikk is a captivating recording with stimulating multilayered motifs. It is both thought-provoking and emotionally moving. It is a perfect example of what collective improvisational music should be: creative without pretensions and enjoyable without being pedestrian.

Øyeblikk by Caktus x OJKOS

Hayden Chisholm: To Bee Ritual at Neu St. Alban Church, Cologne

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Photos by Lucie Schulze

By Matty Bannond

As sunlight weakened on the first day of autumn, visitors to this carefully curated event slipped their hands into a red-tartan sack full of plastic rings and dipped wooden wands into a pot of locally sourced honey. Symbolic gifts and gestures were the central focus of the evening. Each ceremonial act invited deeper contemplation of how shared experiences bind societies together.

That reflective impulse was stirred by collective experiences and multi-layered stimuli. Many of those factors are fixed for each episode of the interdisciplinary Ritual series in north-west Germany, but each event culminates in a one-off concert. On September 1, saxophonist Hayden Chisholm and sound designer Robert Nacken transformed the interior of the Neu St. Alban church into an imagined beehive. Visual artist Natalia Manta added video projections.

First, however, guests got packed off for a twenty-minute plod around Cologne’s municipal gardens. Talking was verboten. Instead, walkers were encouraged to listen deeply and perceive how their footfall intersected with noises from screeching parakeets, grumbling freight trains or crackling leaf litter. They then scribbled notes onto postcards and hung them on a display outside the church.

Inside, Chisholm cradled his saxophone on a low stage in front of a set design where orange and purple light transformed sheets of foil into cragged ridges resembling a mountain face. The New Zealander had attached a feather from his homeland to his horn. He sat beside an accordion-like instrument called a shruti box. Traditional Māori wind instruments including kōauaus and pūtōrinos rested on his lap and hung around his neck.

A dozen or so figures shuffled into a circle at the back of the church and started singing. The Ritual choir welcomes all volunteers, regardless of experience or music-reading ability. They kicked off the concert with a short, spectral composition by local musician Dariya Maminova. Chisholm added whistly calls while simultaneously coaxing a low-note drone from the shruti box with his right hand.

For most of the concert, Chisholm cycled through his hardware to send sheets of sound swirling across the incense-scented interior of the church. Twice he chanted a Latin-language excerpt from Virgil's Georgics that referenced beekeeping. Nacken’s manipulated recordings of bee activity fizzed and bubbled, while Manta’s visuals swam from geometric patterns to clumps of crawling bee bodies.

Chisholm descended from the stage towards the end of the evening and paced around the pentagon-shaped space playing buzzy, waggle-dance lines on his saxophone. His route took him past ceramic objects designed by Manta specifically for the occasion, as well as a small box containing a group of gently humming real-life bees from Hannah Liebig’s nearby apiary.

Those footsteps recalled the earlier sound-walk, closing the distance between performer and audience. The event’s conceptual framework encouraged attendees to view the beehive as a world of sounds and images that represent key facets of collective life: Rigid physical and social structures, mutual dependence, and vulnerability in the face of environmental change. Strikingly, bees’ movements often appear chaotic—but hives are coherent places. Bees lean into their work. They embrace their rituals. They listen to each other. And that listening holds their world together.

NotTwo - Part Two (1/1)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Paul Acquaro

Earlier this Spring, a post on Facebook announced the end of physical media for the venerable NotTwo label, then based on Warsaw, Poland. It came as a bit of shock and the comments that followed showed just how important the label was to many listeners. The message was also a bit cryptic, it was unclear if the label itself was shutting down entirely. This summer, we learned, happily, that there while there was indeed big change at label, as it now finds itself on the West Coast of the United States in the care of long-time label assistant Cezary Lerski, it is still very much alive. Please see the interview below to learn more about the transition.

One Voice and Two Truths

To kick off the re-launch of the label in its new digital-only guise, Lerski has released two excellent compilation albums curated from the label's deep back-catalog, One Voice focuses on solo performances and Two Truths on duos. Scan the names on the track listings and one is struck by the prominence of the artists, for example Simon Rose, Ken Vandermark, Barry Guy, Peter Brötzmann, Joëlle Léandre, Anthony Braxton ... and that's just a random pick.

One Voice starts off with the intense blast of baritone saxophone from Simon Rose on the track 'Boxhanger'. It begins with such intensity that one wonders how it could develop further, yet it does with speed and precision. The track 'Dekooning' from saxophonist Ken Vandermark stands in contrast to the opener: restrained and melodic, its intensity is more conventionally jazz focused. For something completely different, bassist Marcin Oles' version of Ornette Coleman's 'Una Muy Bonita' presents at once an entirely recognizable tune that on one instrument captures the rhythm, melody and spirit of the tune.

Two Truths is also a rich collection of duo performances that one may never have gotten to - after all, while having everything online and available all at once makes it possible to access, actually accessing it becomes a whole other problem. Starting with 'Productive Cough' from saxophonist Peter Broetzmann and percussion Joerg Fischer, there are obviously treasures within just waiting to be (re)discovered. This one begins with a no-holds-barred intro from the uncompromising saxophonist before Fischer comes crashing in. Eight minutes of heart-pumping free improvisation follows. On 'Conversation 1' from bassist Joelle Leandre and vocalist Lauren Netwon, the duo crisscrosses each others sonic paths, wrapping around each other until the distinction of bass and voice is futile. In another unconventional blending, woodwindist Anthony Braxton and bassist Chris Dahlgren offer 'Penumbra for woodwind(s) & bass(es) 1+1'. It is a low-register pummeling that uses electronics to grind the two instruments together.

These two hand-curated compilations show some of the true bounty from NotTwo's back catalog. Each recording comes with detailed liner notes and links back to the source recordings, making entering this rabbit hole ever more enticing.

One Voice (MW001-5) by Various Artists

Two Truths (MW002-5) by Various Artists

***

An Interview with Cezary Lerski:

Paul Acquaro: NotTwo has been around for more than 30 years, founded by Marek Winiarski. You spent many years working there — what first drew you to the organization?

Cezary Lerski: It goes back to the early 2000s, right around when iTunes first launched. I was producing a compilation showcasing the best of new Polish jazz at the start of the millennium, and I reached out to Marek by email to ask about featuring a track from his catalog. He said yes — Simple Acoustic Trio, who later became internationally known as the Marcin Wasilewski Trio through their run on ECM, got a spot on that 2-CD compilation.

That first contact grew into something more personal. At the time, the whole model of music distribution was shifting online, and Marek — despite never really warming to the Internet himself, he genuinely avoided it, social media included — recognized that the label needed to embrace that shift if it wanted to reach beyond Poland. I think I was simply the right guy in the right place at the right time. I became, informally, "the Internet guy," and before long I was running all of Not Two's online sales, handling customers, distributors, and the whole digital side. I think it was a real relief for Marek — it let him step back from that and focus on what he cared about most, the editorial and artistic direction of the label.

PA: As I understand it, you had an important operational role in the label, were you involved with the musical direction and release choices too?

CL: Honestly, that's always been Marek's domain. The musical direction, the release choices — that's him.

Where I did have a real role was as a kind of gatekeeper. As "the Internet guy," I was the first line for the enormous volume of submissions the label got from artists wanting to release on Not Two. So I was the one who had to tell a lot of well-meaning dentists that no, we weren't going to put out their girlfriend's reissue of the Ella Fitzgerald songbook (ha, ha). But when something genuinely caught my ear, I'd push it forward and send it to Marek with my recommendation. That's actually how I recall Szilárd Mezei first came to Marek's attention — and today we have ten of his albums in the catalog.

PA: Did you ever think that you would be in charge of the label?

CL: No. Honestly, that thought never crossed my mind. I saw my role only as handling the online side, sales, distribution — while Marek was always the label. His ear, his taste, his editorial vision built Not Two, you can't just inherit that by osmosis. Taking over wasn't a plan; it was more like being handed the keys to a car you'd only ever been the passenger in.

PA: Moving to California is a major change for both yourself and the label, how did this come about?

CL: That's actually always been a bit of a misconception — I didn't move to California for the label, I've lived here since the 1994 Northridge earthquake, with a few years back in New York City in between. California's been home for a long time; if anything, the label followed me, not the other way around.

For Not Two, though, it really was a seismic shift — pun very much intended. We cut the ties to a lot of what had supported the label in Europe: the local fan base that had grown up around Marek and the label over decades, the brick-and-mortar distribution network, the festival circuit connections. All of that infrastructure that took almost thirty years to build in Poland and across Europe — we're now starting, from scratch, to build something equivalent here. It's early days. That's part of why the online side has become so critical; without that European backbone, digital distribution isn't just an add-on anymore, it's the lifeline while we figure out what comes next.

PA: Do you think it will have an impact on the label? If so, in what way?

CL: I think it already has, and I think it will keep having one. The most obvious shift is that we're now positioned to build a real foothold in the US — a market Not Two never had strong roots in before, despite the catalog being world-class. Free jazz and avant-garde have a dedicated, if scattered, audience here, and being physically present, able to go to shows, meet musicians, build relationships in person rather than only by email, changes the nature of those connections.

There's also the practical side — being US-based makes it easier to work with American artists, US distributors, and frankly, US customers who'd rather not deal with international shipping and customs. And going digital-first out of necessity has turned out to be an advantage too; the label isn't tied to a warehouse or a single postal system anymore.

PA: What is your vision for the NotTwo going forward?

CL: The short version: stay true to what made the label matter in the first place — Marek's ear, that "free" part of free jazz, the refusal to follow trends or chase what's commercially safe — while building the infrastructure so that vision can actually reach people wherever they are, not just where it's easy to ship a CD.

Concretely, that means a few things. Getting the digital side fully modern — proper distribution, a website and catalog system that does the music justice, so someone discovering the label today has as good an entry point as someone who walked into a record shop in Kraków twenty five years ago. On the physical side, I have to be honest — economics simply won't let us keep releasing everything on CD the way Marek did for all those years years. Digital will be the default going forward, with Bandcamp being our primary platform. But for special projects, the door is very much open — especially if we can move away from standard CD runs toward small-batch, on-demand, limited editions, whether that's CDs, vinyl, or even cassettes. It's a different model than the old one, but it lets us keep tangible formats alive for the releases that deserve them, without the economics sinking the label. It also means growing the US presence in a real way — not replacing the European roots, but adding to them, so the label has two homes instead of one. And it means keeping the catalog itself honest, so thirty years from now Not Two still means something specific when you see the name on a release.

PA: Can you give us a tease of any upcoming recordings?
CL: OK, I can tease a little. Fair warning though: this isn't necessarily going to be your grandmother's free jazz anymore. I'm getting a steady stream of submissions from artists working at the edges of avant-garde, pulling in influences from Krautrock, rave, psychedelia, trance — it's a strange and wonderful mix, and some of it is genuinely unlike anything currently in the catalog.

A few personal notes, since you asked: I've got a real thing for cello right now, and I think you'll hear that creeping into upcoming releases. And unlike Marek, I actually enjoy guitar too — so don't be surprised if it gets a bit more room on Not Two going forward.

What genuinely astonishes me is how many artists from all over the world are reaching out — practically every day — names most people, myself included, have never heard before. And the quality is often stunning. At the same time, I want to be clear: we're not abandoning the family. We have relationships with over 800 musicians already in the Not Two catalog, and it's always an honor when they come back to us with a new project.

And I'll close with this: we've put together a compilation series pulling together the best of our roughly 350 releases, organized by format — “One Voice” is entirely solo performances, “Two Truths” is duets, and the series continues from there with larger and larger groupings. Each one draws across the whole history of the label, so you might hear something from the late 1990s sitting right next to something recorded 25 years later. The idea is simple: instead of asking someone to dive into hundreds of albums cold, we're saying, here's a curated front door — start here, find what speaks to you, and then go explore the deep end of the catalog on your own terms.

Explore the NotTwo catalog at https://nottworecords.org/

Believe - Nature's God (Relative Pitch, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Dan Sorrells

A favorite from last year was Spirits of the Dead Are Watching, the debut of Believe, the Sydney-based quartet of Peter Farrar (saxophone), Novak Manojlovic (piano), Clayton Thomas (bass), and Laurence Pike (drums). Believe arrived as a mature working group, having largely negotiated their aesthetic off-tape. There's much care in their improvisations, which convey a particular reverence for the heightened space that opens when people play music together. All of the musicians doubled on small percussion instruments, and even when it got intense, the music had a ceremonial air, the band unafraid of rhythm and repetition, staying with fertile moments and drawing them out like silken filaments. That introduction was often a work of tension or calling-to-attention, and their follow-up, Nature's God —culled from the same 2023 recording sessions—feels more contemplative. It initially did not grab me in the same way, but I'm in its grip now. That first encounter was a victim of my own lack of care.

Listening to Nature's God, one of the first things I noticed—or rather, one of the things that allowed much to escape notice during my initial distracted listen—is the sparse appearance of Farrar's saxophone. On the opening title track, he doesn't pick it up at all. The music develops from hushed notes with a sly and simmering urgency, Pike and Manojlovic goading each other along, the whole thing less a dramatic revelation than the dawning realization that the looming intensity of its namesake is always already present. Setting the saxophone down in favor of percussion reduces the instrumental contrast and further heightens the feeling of a collective sound, particularly in combination with Thomas's often percussive bass playing, striking the strings with mallets or its body with his hands. "Braided River" is a prayer, as beautiful and coherent a thing as free improvisation can produce, the saxophone arising and Thomas and Farrar so close in tone and intent that they're indeed braided into a new, quavering timbre.

With the exception of the almost jazzy centerpiece "First Name Of A Flower" (which works itself into a fairly swinging groove by its midpoint), the pieces on Nature's God further underscore the ritualistic leanings that made Believe's debut so interesting. Small changes accrue but the music remains whole, like an undulating shape. Sometimes this takes the form of repetitive motifs or textures, as in Farrar's long tones and Manojlovic's delicate figures in the aforementioned "Braided River." At other times it is expressed in more explicit rhythm, such as the steadfast beat driving "Earth Does Not Need Us," the axis of a polyrhythmic swirl.

Closing piece "Owls" is daybreak, that transition when the owls have settled and are handing the world back to the day dwellers. Again, no saxophone. The shimmering piano notes hang like dewdrops in a web, and every note, whatever the source, is allowed its full measure. At one point a flare of feedback breaks through, and for some reason I think of sunlight rising through dripping trees, of the moment a ray first strikes your eye and, although it is all so beautiful, you have to look away.

Nature's God by Believe

Also, check out the band in full flight on Clayton Thomas's YouTube page:

Two sides of Irene Aranda

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Eyal Hareuveni

Spanish, Berlin-based Irene Aranda is primarily a classically trained pianist and self-taught in free jazz and free improvisation hyper-pianist who employs the piano as a sonic environment, using preparations and extended techniques to uncover enigmatic textures and resonances.

Irene Aranda - MAY (Relative Pitch, 2026)

MAY features Aranda in a trio with Spanish sax player Don Malfon (aka Alfonso Muñoz) and Japanese-born vocal (and visual) artist Ami Yamasaki in a studio recording from Berlin in January 2026. The eight free improvised pieces are titled as wishes that begin with “May the games begin”, go through “May you have many more meaning in Urdu”, and end with “May you all hate free jazz” (apparently, with the most free jazz playing by Aranda here).

This unconventional trio take their respective singular sonic palettes of Malfon, Aranda, and Yamasaki to the extreme, obviously, with an array of highly personal extended techniques - breathing (with mutes and objects, in the case of Malfon), echolocation vocals (Yamasaki), and playing (or pounding) inside the piano (Aranda). Each piece visits a distinct, intense, and deeply visceral, immersive territory, shaped by radical, urgent, and Dadaist approaches to breath, space, vibration, or sound at all, often on the verge of chaos. The trio keeps searching for friction and compatibility of its strong-minded musical personalities. Occasionally, the trio’s dark humour and Yamasaki’s sensual, lyrical, and often pixie-like (wordless) voice introduce a more accessible vein into the uncompromising sonic collisions. There is no end to the inventive, inimitable dynamics of this trio or to its unpredictable, captivating lexicon.

Prepare for the most physical, wildest possible ride yet a highly rewarding one where even the most discerning listeners may find themselves caught off guard.

MAY by Irene Aranda

The Dark Deniers - Tales of Freedom (Self-Released, 2026)

Aranda leaves the piano aside and is the mastermind, conductor, vocalist and bandleader of The Dark Deniers ensemble, a Berlin-based experimental octet featuring trumpeters Germán García and Brad Henkel, alto sax player Grgur Savić, baritone sax player Pablo Muñoz, trombonist Gerhard Gschlößl, guitarist Christian Kühn, and drummer Martial Frenzel. The Dark Deniers mix dramatic poetic texts (of John Masefield, Maya Angelou, John Donne, Lord Byron, Antonio Machado, Alfonsina Storni, Anne Bradstreet, Paul Éluard, Gilbert Chesterton, and Dylan Thomas), focusing on mortality, resistance, existential collapse, time, and transformation, with Butch Morris’ conduction principle, free jazz, avant-rock, metal, and free improvisation.

The Dark Deniers’ debut album, Tales of Freedom, was recorded live at Studio Zentri Fuge in Berlin in May 2026. Aranda is a capable, evocative and passionate vocalist and a commanding leader who leads this organism-like, powerful ensemble through ten pieces, beginning with the ritualist, pagan-like prayer (or provocation): “We are The Dark Deniers. Let us summon Death from a summer woman”, and soon lets this poetic phrase bloom into a funky storm. This ensemble sounds as if it searches for a primordial, pre-cosmic state of raw sound, as expressed in the aptly titled “Vocifera”, with Aranda’s effective growling vocals.

Throughout Tales of Freedom, Aranda uses the poetic texts, the language (the English, Spanish, and French ones), and the ensemble’s complex sonic palettes as material she can shape, mould, and invent anew as impossible yet intricate, organic structures, with a touching, thought-provoking, and often subversive pathos. The Dark Deniers, like the trio with Malfon and Yamasaki, also embrace chaos, but in a different approach. Aranda shapes the sonic architectures and literary texts from chaos and sheer visceral freedom, and vice versa, always flirting joyfully with fiery, explosive dynamics, danger and risk-taking, or as Aranda puts it: “play with death the way that children play with fire”.

Any round with Aranda’s music is bound to take listeners on the most unpredictable yet deeply immersive wild ride, inspire and equip us all with enough invigorating food for resisting thoughts, until, one day, Aranda and The Dark Deniers will rule the world.

The Dark Deniers - Tales of Freedom by Irene Aranda

Marty Ehrlich - Open Air: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head Records, 2026) *****

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Gary Chapin

For the dedicated fans of wind player, composer, and teacher Julius Hemphill, the last two years are shaping up to be an extraordinary era of listening and tribute. Hemphill passed away in 1995 and though he never fell away from the community’s eye, we seem, currently, to be paying much more attention. For a good bit of that,it seems we have Marty Ehrlich to thank. Ehrlich worked with Hemphill and his music over the decades, showing that connection clearly in his own body of work. In 2022 New World released The Boyé Multi-National Crusade For Harmony (reviewed here), a 7 disc set of unreleased archival Hemphill recordings, curated by Ehrlich.

Now we are presented with Open Air: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions of Julius Hemphill . We don’t need to ask which quartet we’re talking about. Hemphill’s work (along with Oliver Lake, David Murray, and Hamiet Bluett) as a co-founder of the World Saxophone Quartet did not createthe sax quartet, but did so much to map its possibilities and implications that it’s hard to imagine how the sax quartet got along before their work.

But there’s more. Two thirds of the music Hemphill wrote for sax quartet was recorded by the WSQ, but one third of the music here (14 or so tracks) was discovered in Hemphill’s papers after his death. Ehrlich discovered these while doing archive work with Hemphill’s publisher. It’s somewhat amazing to encounter, 30 years after Hemphill’s death, 14 new pieces for saxophone quartet. It’s like suddenly discovering 14 new Goldberg Variations.

(And, no, I do not agree that this is an overwrought analogy. Here’s a bias check for you: there are times when I’m listening to Hemphill’s quartets and I’m completely taken over. In the reverie or ecstasy or elation of those moments, I have been known to think things like, “When God said, let there be music, this is exactly what he was talking about!” I’m not saying I can argue a rational basis for that view, just that sometimes you can look to your elation for a truer kind of truth.)

Ehrlich forms a clutch of saxophonists—Allan Chase, Rob Debellis, Brian Landrus, Andy Laster, Jeff Lederer, Lisa Parrott, and Jason Robinson—into a few quartets, recording the whole body of work over a number of months in 2025.

The listening is exactly as one would hope. With faithful, passionate, and fascinated renditions of the tunes by musicians who love them, and infused with improvisation that leads to revelation. For example, the WSQ piece, “Revue,” is perhaps the best known sax quartet piece out there, and listening, I can’t help but expect the solo from the WSQ’s second album to come after the statement of the head. It’s a dumb expectation, of course, but Brian Landrus’s solo takes me by surprise and winds along a path that returns to the tune by a way I’ve never been before. The harmonies and ensemble playing of this choir of sax angels can be heart stopping, but the solo on top of those are just as amazing.

Ehrlich has shown—particularly on The Hard Blues by his Julius Hemphill Sextet—that he can render the master’s work with skill and authenticity. It’s important because this music is not just interesting and brilliant. It is hard, bluesy, and culturally real as anything you can imagine. It is exactly this mixture of “Stax funk and ‘out’ sensibilities” (to use Tim Berne’s phrase), mixed with an intellectual playfulness, that made Hemphill the composer that he was and keeps me obsessed with his oeuvre thirty years after he’s gone. In case I have to say it, 5 stars.

OPEN AIR: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions of Julius Hemphill by Marty Ehrlich

Other release...

Circle the Heart - Marty Ehrlich and Julius Hemphill (Relative Pitch, 2026)

Circle the Heart also explores the saxophone choir space (a duo is a subset of a choir, right?) and gives us insight into the musical collaboration of Hemphill and Ehrlich. The set is a discovered recording of a glorious 1982 concert. Of six tunes, all are Ehrlich compositions save the last, and, in an odd way, this seems only to confirm the shared DNA between the two. Besides, the intrigue is in the improv. The two are so in tune with each other that it’s not enough to call their duo a conversation, so much as a telepathic bonding. Again, I may be over-egging the metaphor, but it really is that good.

Circle the Heart by Marty Ehrlich, Julius Hemphill

Dogon A.D. - Julius Hemphill (New World Records)

Dogon A.D. may be the most cited gateway drug to outmusic of any record out there. The 1972 masterpiece—with its title track in an insanely addictive 11—was re-released in 2011 by International Phonograph. FJB reviewed it here, giving it five stars and listing it as one of the top 20 free jazz recs of all time. That New World is re-releasing it—remastered and co-produced by the ubiquitous Ehrlich—is only good news. I just thought I’d bring it to your attention.

Gustavo Coritñas - The Drum Also Sings (Desafio Candente Records, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Hrayr Attarian

Chicago-based drummer and composer Gustavo Coritñas is a restless experimenter. His music often includes Latin American folk influences, sociopolitical awareness, and thrilling spontaneity. On The Drum Also Sings, Cortiñas joins forces with two other unique and stylistically very different drummers, Dave King and Isaiah Spencer, to explore the drum kit's lyricism.

For instance, the three-part group improvisation, “Dialogue with the Ancestors” features a definite spirituality. Its chant-like refrains and fiery yet haunting rhythms build an exalted homage to the gods of the past and the primal world itself. Here too, the contrasting styles of the three drummers add another captivating dimension to the piece. King’s exuberant percussion with touches of whimsy, heard on the right, complements Spencer’s darkly hued thundering beats on the left. While Cortiñas, in between his bandmates, adds a contemplative, almost meditative aspect to the collective drumming. Despite the individuality of each musician, the result is delightfully cohesive, stimulating yet never jarring.

The theme of transcendent mysticism runs through the entire album. On “Etinel skotol t'ixt'unel” Mayan spoken word artist Angelina Suyul recites her own poem in her ancestral tongue. A paen to the eternal and the integration of humanity within the universe, Suyul’s performance moves with the hypnotic cadence of her words. Their meaning is almost instinctively understood even before reading the Spanish and English translations.

Chilean vocalist La Paula Herrera delivers Cortiñas’ song “Tu Resiliencia Es Resistencia” with emotional resonance. Her sublime artistry and eloquence amplify the hopefulness and the poignancy of the lyrics. Meanwhile, the intimacy of her voice and the fluidity of her singing enchant and mesmerize.

On “Añay Pachamama” Argentinian musician Maryta de Humahuaca interprets her compatriot, María Farfán Caparros’ ode in the Quechua language. The track glorifies the natural world in a pantheistic tone. The title translates to “Gratitude Mother Earth”, and de Humahuaca imbues it with an appropriate balance of the sacred and the primal. It is simultaneously a joyous and somber religious ceremony.

This conceptual framework continues with vocalist and clarinetist Anget Bat Dawid, who transforms “Psalm 23” into a powerful, impassioned plea. Her thrillingly dissonant clarinet and her bluesy shouts make this biblical verse into a life-affirming protest anthem. It also serves as the perfect conclusion for this intriguing and provocative work.

On the surface, a recording made up primarily of drumming, with little other instrumentation, may sound daunting. Coritñas, however, has made it evocative enough to entrance his audience. Far from mainstream, The Drum Also Sings stirs open-minded listeners to their core.

The Drum Also Sings by Gustavo Cortiñas

Summer Bummer 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Paul Acquaro

For a few years, I have had this funny vision of Antwerp’s Summer Bummer festival taking place on a beach near a body of water. I had sunshine, seagull calls and good vibes in this fantasy. In reality, the venue, a rock club called Trix, is located on a busy road amongst high-rise apartment buildings just outside of downtown Antwerp. So, no seagulls, no beach and even the sun was being fickle. It troubled me, what could be the source for this misconception? The only part I had right was the ‘good vibes’. From the moment the first band started up in the darkened main hall on Friday afternoon to the closing tones of a bass-clarinet and electronics show on the intimate cafe stage late Saturday night, there was always something to hear, records to dig, people to talk shop with, and art to make — hardly leaving time to lament the waning days of the summer.

Within the compact time-frame, starting late afternoon and ending around midnight on Friday and Saturday, festival organizers Koen Vandenhout and Christel Kumpen ran a tight program. Concerts were lined-up one after the other with a short break built-in to give the 200+ audience a chance to eat some dinner without developing FOMO. Plus, the sets ping-ponged from the main hall side to the cafe side, so there was always a chance to hit the bar if desired. Between the two halls, merch tables were arranged on all sides, making it dangerous to the wallet to traverse the venue. Parent organization of the festival Sound in Motion’s own Dropa-Disc label was present, as well as a record dealer with a selection of rare taste and local radio station Radio Centraal. If one purchased a t-shirt, or happened to have an extra one on hand, he or she (more likely than not: he) could head into the screen printing workshop and make their own with a festival design. Additionally, set in an adjacent room, musicians Cath Roberts and Tullis Rennie invited festival goers to record and manipulate sounds in a laboratory of their own design. When the weather was cooperative, one could visit the courtyard to procure some homemade food.

Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paal Nilssen-Love

The Sound In Motion website has the tagline, “Adventurous Music and Things”, and since we have got the things part out of the way, let us talk adventurous music. Not just a free-jazz festival, Summer Bummer’s scope this year included several avant-noise and electronics acts along with some of the most exciting musicians working (primarily) in Europe today. There was something for everyone, for example the ear-bleedingly loud Integral, a quartet comprised of Julien Desprez (guitar), Claire Gapenne (electronics and vocals), Christine Abelnour (sax) and Lukas Koenig (drums) that went from beguiling to battering, to the opening act, Kabas Sun Dogs, a Belgian band who had invited Canadian saxophonist Karen Ng and guitarist Jonathan Horne for a slowly unfolding exploration of both understatement and spirited groove.

Rodrigo Amado, Joelle Leandre and Gerald Cleaver

Highlights festooned the program, including a first time duo of drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and the legendary pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach as well as new trio formed by Rodrigo Amado with bassist Joelle Leandre and drummer Gerald Cleaver. In the duo’s extended set, Schlippenbach performed a chain of melodic ideas and Thelonius Monk song snippets that Nilssen-Love challenged with closely attuned force and precision. After a cautious opening, the trio of Amado, Leandre and Cleaver edged their way into the set, gathering momentum and finding common ground, letting Amado release his powerful tenor, Leandre impress with speed and expressiveness, and Cleaver move seamlessly between texture and forceful pulse.

Daughter, Daughter

The formidable quartet of Daughter, Daughter, comprised of Camila Nebbia and Amalie Dahl (saxophones), Elizabeth Coudoux (cello) and Sun Mi Hong (drums), performed a blend of composition and free-jazz improvisation showcasing both individual contributions as well as whole group interactions. The Berlin formation Das B, featuring Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet), Magda Mayas (piano), Tony Buck (drums) and Mike Majkowski (bass) was given the designation as a “super group“ in the program and their set did not refute this. Ostensibly deconstructing John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, the quartet engaged in an exploratory and expansive sound collage complete with a trumpet played via surgical tubing and prepared piano that made the acoustic sound electric. Arguably one of the strongest shows of the festival.

Das B

Additionally, percussionist and singer Maria Portugal presented her EROSÃO Septet (Lotte Anker and Angelika Niescier on saxes, Matthias Müller and Moritz Wesp on trombones, Carl Ludwig Hübsch on tuba and Reza Askari on bass), which performed a set of mid-tempo songs, both self-penned and from Brazilian composers, laced with some spicy improvisations. The next day, Portugal appeared in an exceptional duo with pianist Marta Warelis. As opposed to the septet, in which the music was a presented in more traditional structures, the songs themselves were de-composed and integrated organically with the ideas flowing from the pianist whose gentle and spacious playing grew progressively more ferocious.

Marta Warelis and Maria Portugal

Rounding out the program were two bass clarinet focused sets and several quite noisy ones. Representing the louder side, in addition to the aforementioned Integral, were New Best Friends (featuring Ng and Horne along with bassist Aaron Lumley and drummer Nasim L-P Navarro), the duo of Laurentiu Cotac and Diana Miron, and Mopcut with Desprez, Koenig and electronicist/vocalist Audrey Chen. Of these three, New Best Friends balanced their clamorous impulses best with a flowing set of improvisations. Bookending the festival were two bass clarinet sets. On the first day, John McCowen explored the extended tonalities of the acoustic contra-bass clarinet, exploiting the instrument’s multiphonic capabilities. Closing the festival, Hanna De Backer, in collaboration with the electronics of Yves De Mey, extended her instrument’s sonic possibilities to the outer realms.

Overall, a musically adventurous and enjoyable festival, and although quite satisfied, I was still bothered by one thing: my imaginary festival on a beach. So, after some detective work, I believe I finally pinpointed the source of my whimsical misconception. In 2019, Rodrigo Amado's The Attic released the album Summer Bummer, recorded at the festival in 2018 and whose cover is an image of three cut-out figures sitting on a beach under a cloudless blue sky, looking out at the ocean. I didn’t know I was so impressionable!

Ava Mendoza - Alive Alone, Alive Together (Burning Ambulance Music, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Guitar in jazz. A strange beast, with which we had some issues coming to terms for a long time. In "traditional" jazz (with all the limitations of that adjective, but you get it), it passed us by almost unnoticed. Sure, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian et al: legends to whom we bow, but, to be honest, they slipped away without leaving any deep or meaningful trace. We’re sorry, respectfully sorry: our fault. Far more interesting is the contribution of guitars in Miles' electric turn, while the super virtuoso sounds of the likes of Pat Metheny or John Scofield left us emotionally inert. As soon as the instrument becomes edgy and menacing, it begins to win us over, Sonny Sharrock, James Blood Ulmer first, then Arto Lindsay, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Bill Orcutt, Keiji Haino are the names. The sharper, the better. In our own actual Valhalla, that sees Derek Bailey as the Supreme Odin, recently entered (becoming a sick obsession) Masayuki Takayanagi, a guilty belated epiphany of ours, and guitars as improper weapons take us with the guard down, unable to offer any resistance.

The current free/improv scene is quite a golden vein, offering guitars for every taste, just head over to the dedicated section of our forum and you could dig in a six-string bonanza until your hands bleed. With Ava Mendoza, whatever the line-up on the field (alone, collaborations, groups), the turntable spins by itself and the moment to quit declaring our boundless love for her, as we did in previous reviews, is still far away. The reason? Very simple: it could be in disguise of country, metal or noise but she's got THE blues. We're obviously talking about the dirty, kind-of-black, hooch-flavored one that inhabits the rosters of Fat Possum and In The Red Records, the spleen of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the fury of Nick Cave's, pre-Gucci loafers, Birthday Party, the desperation of Alan Vega's solo albums or the hyper saturated textures of Mick Collins’ bands. Did you say Attitude? Ava not only has it, but she proved, with the astonishing Mama Killa project, to be able to cross the Shadow Line, to venture into the Heart of Darkness, coming back to tell all about it. Natural. Gifted.

The new album, recorded live in Antwerp, Madison, Chicago and Firenze, features the Brooklyn-based musician reinterpreting seven songs from her "New Spell" and "Circular Train" records, along with a new composition, "Mama Cocha”. The recipe is the one we know and love: fuzz, harmonic progressions, solos and distortions are the facets of a virtuosic prism that's never self-referential or an end in itself, but always in service of the Ultimate Ideal: the Blues. The "togetherness" side of the work sees Ava joined by Maestro Hamid Drake, adding his sparse yet extraordinary polyrhythms on four tracks, demonstrating once more, that, as Voltaire said, "les grands esprits se rencontrent." Another solid hit from Phil Freeman's label, whose production portfolio is beginning to take on a truly interesting and relevant profile: long may the Ambulance burn.

Alive Alone, Alive Together by Ava Mendoza

Angles 4 and Martin Küchen - Liner Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Stef Gijssels) — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

These are liner notes by Stef Gijssels for two recent albums by Swedish saxophonist and composer Martin Küchen, first with Angles 4, second for his solo album.

Angles 4 - (Relative Pitch, 2026)

Listening to Angles 4 here and now, in 2026, feels like a warm homecoming. The album is filled with the grand themes that have resonated throughout the various ensembles over the years, from the Martin Küchen Trio and Angles 6 to Angles 9 and All Included. The quartet knows this material by heart, having performed these compositions for decades. I would almost call them their personal standards: they sound deeply familiar, yet they retain the same power and vigour as they must have had at their very first performances—perhaps now with even greater maturity, intensity and fierceness.

The smaller quartet format gives the musicians more room to explore, express and expand, particularly across the relatively long tracks, most of which run for seven or eight minutes. There is a sense of space in the arrangements, but never a loss of urgency.

The music digs deep into the history of jazz, drawing on the spirit of Mingus and Coltrane, while at times reaching even further back into the history of sound itself—and into the collective emotions of people living through dire times: war, oppression and other horrors. Here, music becomes both a source of comfort and a force of liberation.

Whatever the size of the ensemble, this music remains as infectious as ever.

Listen and download from Bandcamp

Martin Küchen - Chase The Demons Out (Thanatosis, 2026)

Brutal sounds. Heart-rending, bleak. Gut-wrenching and abrasive. Sorrowful, dark, mournful, ominous. One musician generating a torrent of expression through three instruments played at once: sopranino saxophone, two horizontal hand drums, along with cymbals, metal plates, and bowls.

We know Martin Küchen from his work with the Angles ensemble—music that unfolds in epic arcs, sweeping themes that speak to a collective emotional space. This is the opposite. Here the music is stripped down to brutal poetry: visceral, concise, unadorned. Short, explosive statements. Limited means used to build intense dramatic pressure. Küchen’s anger at the state of the world is well known, and here it finds direct form in pounding drums and the wailing saxophone. Sound bursts collide and fracture, channeling raw fury.

The opening track, “Chase The Demons Out,” reflects a world drifting toward totalitarianism. Its title echoes a phrase from 1970s Chinese state media calling to “sweep away all demons”—to eliminate those who think differently. The theme feels disturbingly current as war again ravages the Middle East, where rockets, aircraft, and attack drones serve the ambitions of those in power.

The second piece, “Mach kein Krach” (“stop making noise”), recalls Küchen’s father telling him to quiet down as a child—something his son clearly had no intention of doing. The message is the opposite of silence: make your voice heard. Refuse passivity. Rebel, resist, speak up. Make noise.

The third piece, “Mit Ach und Krach,” uses a German expression describing something achieved with great difficulty—through blood, sweat, and tears. Speaking out and resisting the present state of affairs demands exactly that kind of effort.

Taken together, the three brief pieces form a suite: anger at the world, inner rebellion, and the search for the energy to act.

Every saxophone cry, every drum strike carries elemental emotion—horror, pain, rejection, fear—pushed forward by outrage, anger, disgust, and indignation. These forces build toward movement: to resist, to act, to stand together. It will take effort. It will take blood, sweat, and tears.

Once again, Küchen shows his artistic clarity. The music is raw, brutal, uncompromising—and authentic.
The world needs this."

Listen and download from Bandcamp