The Free Jazz Collective

Olaf Rupp - Berlin Eiskeller (scatterArchive, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

The “Eiskeller” (German for ice cellar) is a tranquil area in Berlin’s Hakenfelde district (which is part of the Spandau borough), and it’s considered the coldest place in the city. Due to its special valley location in the Spandau Forest, cold air masses accumulate there, leading to extremely low temperatures in winter. The name comes from its former use as a natural ice storage facility. During the days of the Berlin Wall, the three farmsteads in Eiskeller, surrounded by GDR territory, were connected to West Berlin only by a four-meter-wide and 800-meter-long corridor. The place was almost isolated.

Olaf Rupp’s new album Berlin Eiskeller is also about isolation, albeit not geographical but musical. “When recording, I wanted to listen deeply to the modulations created by saturation effects in the amplifier itself: octaves, difference tones, ring modulator effects, and all that purring, creaking, and gurgling that is always smiled at a little arrogantly in the genteel world of musical aristocracy,” says the guitarist. The result is music that defies categorization - there are no rock patterns, it lacks even the slightest hint of “jazz“, and the occasional sprinkling of melodies and flageolets makes it too accessible for brutal noise music. Even new classical music doesn’t fit into any pigeonhole. That’s why his music is also somehow isolated.

But Rupp isn’t interested in pigeonholing anyway. He studied linguistics (English and Spanish) and is a certified translator. Currently, he’s reading Marcel Proust. If you string together the titles of the first seven pieces, they form a sentence from “À la recherche du temps perdu” (In Search of Lost Time): les murs, aussi bien/ ceux du salon / de la salle à manger / de la cuisine que / celui de la cage de l'escalier /embrassaient la pièce / la séparaient du / reste du monde , which in English means “The walls, both those of the living room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as those of the stairwell, embraced the room and separated it from the rest of the world.” It’s plain to see that the isolation topic is picked up here as well. “The way the adjoining rooms ‘embrace’ your own always carries with it the threatening idea of walls closing in on you, leaving you unable to breathe.” But the music is not claustrophobic; on the contrary, it has something liberating about it. Rupp’s style consists of many nimble notes in atonal runs, and the clusters he plays are more reminiscent of the style of Cecil Taylor. As with the great pianist, Rupp also seems to have harmonic core elements, basic chords and arpeggios, groups of notes that form horizontal and vertical axes, each characterized by stark extremes in pitch, as in the first track, “Les murs, aussi bien”. These modules and interval relationships, the aforementioned octaves and difference tones, merge with structural formations to create cells and characteristic motifs: Rupp can break down and reassemble these basic building blocks, creating great tension and density, not unlike James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness-technique.

But that’s not all. In the title track, which closes the album, all these elements are given plenty of time and space. The ring modulator effects and flageolets complement each other and float feather-light through the room. Rupp shifts from almost gently dabbed open chords and harmonics to bizarre little flourishes. The effect is that the brittleness of the music has toned down in favor of a pointillistic, psychedelic touch - as if Jimi Hendrix were floating through space and experimenting with electronics. Being highly abstract and demanding music (but by no means off-putting) Rupp’s playing is utterly captivating.

Berlin Eiskeller develops a strange, magical pull, giving us 72 wonderful minutes to revel in sound.

The album is available as a download. You can buy and listen to it on the scatterArchive website.

Berlin Eiskeller by Olaf Rupp

The Suggestive Sounds of Paula and Pablo

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Paul Acquaro

Paula Shocron - Tarot Sonoro (self-released, 2025)

Argentinian pianist Paula Shocron's Tarot Sonoro is, as the name clearly states, a presentation of the tarot as tones, and one that is at times as mystical and open for interpretation as the fortune teller's toolset itself. The tarot, a fertile source of inspiration, works a bit like a structured daydream—its images giving just enough symbolic material to pretend there’s something mystical at play while you’re making up your own story. Each card is like a gentle nudge toward reflection, or here, towards a sound.

Shocron captures it in the liner notes, entitled MANIFESTO, which can be read on her Bandcamp page:

The tarot as a sensitive oracle, music as a divine channel.

Vibration as a universal language, intuition as inner listening.

The Major Arcana as travelers of time and sound.

In the melody of the present, the rhythm of transformation.

The music is quiet, contemplative, just Shocron's gentle, breathing work at the piano adorned and augmented here and there with percussive and textural elements. Starting with 'El Loco', the first of 22 short pieces representing the 22 major cards - known as the Major Arcana - which apparently are linked to major life events, the journey begins. It begins with a tinkling of the keys, a bit off an off-key warble to the notes of the atonal melody. This leads to 'El Mago,' which begins with more gravitas, deep down the left=hand side of the keys. Single notes lead upwards, spacious and deliberate, to be joined by percussive clink and clatter and eventually taking a mysterious bend. 'La Sacerdozita' is build around a cycle of chords that brushes up again electronic whispers. Each piece has a unique approach, but all are united by generous space and classical underpinnings. Some are more uptempo like 'La Torre,' which cycles about with a hopeful lilt and others like 'La Luna' are apparitions in the mist, while the track 'La Muerte' is a primal soundscape.

Dark, contemplative, mysterious, Tarot Sonoro is a trip through the subconscious and deserves a quiet listen to experience it's gentle impact.

In addition to the recording, there is a set of tarot cards, illustrated by Sandra Ureta Marín. You can see these at Shocron's website.

Tarot Sonoro - 22 piezas para sintonizar by Paula Shocron

Pablo Diaz - otro ritmo (Archivo Veintidós, 2025)

Speaking of soundscapes, Pablo Diaz, Paula's partner in the SLD Trio, which made a tremendous impression on me about 10 years ago, has taken his work with solo percussion into unusual territories in the intervening years. In recent years, he released the collection of purely acoustic percussion, Planos De Estratificación, on Sello Postal (2024) and Son Esos Ecos on scatterArchive (2025), a project rooted in field recordings and percussion, and at the tail end of the year, Otro Ritmo, where he explored cymbal resonance in creating drones and melodies.

Checking out the latter, Otro Ritmo, is a fascinating and focused affair. The opening and title track begins with the faint sounds of birds and what you could hear as percussve cricket chirps. Working through the textures are gentle drones and elongated tones. The next track, 'es una estructura' is more insistent with its cadence interrupted and then augmented by droning tones.

The ambiance of the recording is key to the recording. Birds appear throughout, as does the crunch of foot steps on gravel and what seems like church bells on the track 'fragil.' Then, there are the various tones that could be made through the cymbals and/or electronics. The mystery of the sounds and textures only adds to the captivating sonic pictures. Otro Ritmo is an immersive experience for the patient listener.

OTRO RITMO by Pablo Díaz

Tashi Dorji - Low Clouds Hang, This Land Is on Fire (Drag City, 2026)

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

By William Rossi

All art reflects the times it was created in and all art is by extension political. This isn't a novel concept, it's art critique 101, really. So what do we really mean when we say that a work of art is politically charged? Colloquially we use the term to describe something whose explicit intent is to comment on, reflect or challenge the status quo it was made under. Tashi Dorji's music has always been (colloquially) political, an instrument that gives voice to his radical and anarchist ideals wielded with revolutionary fervor, and it's precisely the kind of music we need right now.

Somewhat uncharacteristically for him, though, this album (his third on Drag City) is a quiet album made up of fragile, open melodies, delicate volume swells and shimmering harmonics coated in a thick dust of amplifier hiss and all-encompassing reverb. If one were to try, this album could be pigeonholed in the periphery of what we consider Ambient, but the music never allows you to fully drift off: the improvisations are complex and multi-faceted, there's always an unexpected note, a surprising turn and the hint of the aforementioned fervor keeping the audience engaged and consistently dragging the tracks forward.

In the same way, the sound itself that Dorji conjures out of his guitar keeps the listener on their toes. The clean and spanky amp is always on the verge of breakup, the massive reverb always a hair away from feedback, it's a balancing act that doesn't let go and makes you hold your breath for when, if ever, the balance will break. Wrangling this almost self-sustaining behemoth of sound is as instrumental to the music as the note choice is, and one informs the other. It's high praise but there's something very Jimi Hendrix about that.

The tension broiling under the surface of the whole album finally gets released on "Black Flag Anthems" with its clusters of dissonance, a fully driven amp and a furious pick attack that scrapes and grinds the guitar strings in a continuous crescendo, everything we've come to expect from Dorji's playing. What follows these bursts of rage is not nihilism, but hope. Despite how somber the music is and in the face of the times it was recorded in, this is a very hopeful, aspirational album, a rallying cry for people to come together and support each other, a spit in the face of the oligarchs and tyrants that rule us. While this beautiful music can be a refuge from the ugliness of the world I think it's important to highlight that this is not a refuge meant to pacify, it's meant to inspire action.

Dorji's work has been reviewed extensively on this site over the years and he's been extremely prolific, be it with his collaborations with Tyler Damon, his work in Kuzu, Manas or his brand new collaboration with Audrey Chen. It's great to see how surprising his music can still be and I hope we'll keep discussing it for many more years to come.

Available on vinyl and digitally on Bandcamp or from Drag City, a second pressing has just come out so you have no choice but to get it.

low clouds hang, this land is on fire by Tashi Dorji

Irreversible Entanglements- Future Present Past (Impulse!, 2026)

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

By Martin Schray

After Protect Your Light, Future Present Past is Irreversible Entanglements’s second album on Impulse! and let’s cut to the chase: Even if it may lack the radicalism and freshness of Open The Gates and Who Sent You, Future Present Past is an outstanding album! While the free jazz moments have given way to somewhat more accessible spiritual jazz elements and Afro-Caribbean and African influences, the urgency of the music is still fully palpable. How could this project not position itself amidst the current political and cultural discourse in the U.S.? Here, too, the themes are oppression, historical trauma, and collective emancipation; the slave trade, rapid industrialization, and the hope for a better future. At the same time, you hear a technically mature band pursuing a clear concept and aiming to reach a wider audience. The band itself describes this as a moment in which “five musicians transform into billions”, thereby calling for a musical embodiment of global solidarity and the collective experience of resistance.

The band itself is often described as a free-jazz collective (even if there’s less free jazz that is still true) and still consists of poet and singer Camae Ayewa (a.k.a. Moor Mother), trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, saxophonist Keir Neuringer, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Tcheser Holmes. Here, however, the album gains even more depth through guest appearances by New York vocal artist MOTHERBOARD (Kyle Kidd) and Helado Negro, a singer with Ecuadorian roots. At the same time, this underscores the connection to other, similar projects such as the Sun Ra Arkestra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, as Future Present Past increasingly combines a percussive approach with vocals.

But what also sets this album apart from its predecessors is the more obvious influence of Charles Mingus's music. In the relentlessly driving “Panamanian Fight Song”, Irreversible Entanglements bring together all the sonic worlds explored on the album into a single piece. It’s certainly no coincidence that the title of the piece evokes Mingus’s famous “Haitian Fight Song”. Both pieces begin with a bass solo, both build to a crescendo, and both intensify before fully unfolding. But it’s primarily through the vocals and the track’s brevity that Irreversible Entanglements give the track its own direction. Mingus’s influence is also evident on “Keep Going” and “The Messenger”; brief, episodic interludes of trumpet and saxophone both support the driving, ostinato bass and the Fender Rhodes, and at the same time, with wild free-jazz interludes, they also shake up the structure of the tracks, while Moor Mother encourages her brothers and sisters to confidently continue on their path. In the penultimate track, “The Spirit Moves,” black self-empowerment is invoked against a backdrop of African rhythms as a simple, steady beat emerges from the supposed chaos: “a rhythm of us marching toward victory/no more trouble/move all the troubles away.” Here it also becomes clear that this is music that is aware of traditions, honors them, is anchored in the here and now, yet also points toward the future. Future Present Past.

Future Present Pastis available on vinyl, as a CD and as a download. You can listen to it on the usual streaming devices. Since it’s a major, you can buy it at your favorite record store.

Check out “The Messenger“ here:

100 Jahre MILES DAVIS PANGEA

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

Oh, this one is an unexpected treat... the centennial celebrations of Miles Davis are happening all over, but I would surmise that very few are as free as this one! Bringing together a stellar group of European experimental musicians, the Pangea (1976) inspired set is fiery and fierce as well as fluid and fluctuating. With two analog synths augmenting a crack group under the direction of (fittingly) trumpeter Axel Dörner, the group takes the extreme to the extremes. The Apr 1, 2026 recording comes from the Dialograum Kreuzung an St. Helena in Bonn, Germany under the ageis of the In Situ Art Society präsentiert Aufbruch ins Unerhörte: 100 Jahre MILES DAVIS PANGEA.

The group is:

Axel Dörner (DE) – Trompete, Elektronik, Leitung

Marthe Lea (NO) – Saxophon

Thomas Lehn (DE/AT) – Analog Synthesizer

Richard Scott (UK/DE) – Analog Synthesizer

Joe Williamson (CA/SE) – Kontrabass

Tony Buck (AU/DE) – Schlagzeug

Marilyn Crispell/Anders Jormin–Memento (ECM, 2026)

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

By Kenneth Blanchard

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t like rock music. I do remember precisely when I began to hear jazz. I was watching a performance by bassist Red Mitchell and pianist Bill Mays on public television. They produced a CD with the same or roughly the same music: Two of a Mind (1983). Something about the bass/piano brought about the subtle shift in mental processing that is the essence of jazz. I would experience that same shift several more times as I developed a taste for more adventurous music.

Pianist Marilyn Crispell describes such an experience as the turning point in her musical career. Hearing John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme for the 1st time sent her on her way stardom on the stage of free jazz. She spent 10 years with the Anthony Braxton quartet and was a frequent collaborator with Gerry Hemingway. On Memento she reunites with double bass player Anders Jormin. I can recommend his collaboration with his percussionist brother, Christian Jormin and all-around horn master Mats Gustafsson: Opus Apus.

Crispell opens “For the Children,” with a soft, elegant melody. Jormin comes in so subtly that I am not quite sure where the ringing of the keyboard is replaced by the bow and strings. After a few moments, the interlocutors trade places and Jormin’s base rides on Crispell’s pensive but passionate piano. Near the end, the bow is replaced by his fingered notes that rise like hills in the distance. The piece is exquisite.

The second entry, aptly titled “Dialogue” continues the thoughtful empathy that is expressed throughout the recording. The two musicians leave just enough space between notes that each word, phrase, and exchange is clearly articulated.

“Beach at Newquay” was an unexpected delight. Jormin imitates the cry of gulls so authentically that it took me a moment to realize that they weren’t really at the beach. Crispell’s lines, by contrast, present an almost visual impression: glittering light on waves.

This is music for a cool, gray morning, a cup of coffee in both hands, and any body of water that stretches over the horizon. In the afternoon, put on Brahm’s Cello Sonata No. 1. Trust me.

Sun Ra/Walt Dickerson - Visions (SteepleChase, 2025/1978)

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

By David Cristol

Recorded in July 1978 and released in 1979, this is a special album in the expansive Sun Ra discography. Firstly, the bandleader/pianist/keyboardist rarely ventured in the duo format. Secondly, the piano/vibraphone combination — without a rhythm section too — isn’t such a common sight, although Chick Corea and Gary Burton made a case for those instruments’ association, with Brian Marsella and Sae Hashimoto reviving it no later than this year with Tunnel Vision on their own Red Palace Records label. Dickerson had previously featured Sun Ra in a rare sideman appearance on piano and harpsichord on his 1965 album Impressions of a Patch of Blue (MGM Records, reissued on CD by Verve). Visions is as remote from Ra’s exotic big band arrangements of the early years as it is of his thunderous free jazz and electronic forays of later eras, instead distilling a peaceful and dreamlike atmosphere for all of its duration. The vibraphone’s floating and diffracted tones invite the pianist and listeners into the realms of meditative abstraction. Together they offer a liberated and unique spin on the jazz idiom. This music should be listened to at good volume, one’s gaze turned toward the night skies. The CD version issued in 1988 added 25 additional minutes from the same session, while the LP now available again reverts to the original release duration, with three cosmic-themed tracks on side one and two on side two. Interestingly, an unreleased 24 minutes by the duo, recorded two years later at a Dickerson-billed concert, surfaced in 2023 on the Modern Harmonic release Sun Ra - Haverford College Jan. 25^th 1980 Solo Rhodes Piano. This time around, Ra played the Fender Rhodes, which tones are close to that of the vibraphone. Maybe this is why he seemed content to offer supporting chords and clouds now and then, not getting in the way of his partner’s discourse. In any case and whether you pick this 2025 remastered LP edition or find the earlier CD version, Visions is an endearing and singular record even by the standards of these players, and recommended listening for anyone interested in the manifold manifestations of Great Black Music.

Nabelóse – Haar (Trost, 2026)

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

By Dan Sorrells

Haar rolls in like a fog or a dream. Nabelóse—the duo of Ingrid Schmoliner and Elena Kakaliagou—finally return with their third album, recorded in 2022 in a studio perched on the edge of the Norwegian Sea. This locale—ocean spreading outward, mountains rising above—saturates the music. The music, in turn, has a way of seeping in. Both disorienting and soothing, Haar can be as intimate or uncanny as a whisper in the ear (quite literally in "Hinter Meinen Dünen"). At other times, it fully envelops you and you are held weightlessly in its allure.

Nabelóse has long had a talent for opening enchanted spaces with prepared piano, French horn, and increasingly, both women's voices. As with their earlier work, Schmoliner and Kakaliagou channel techniques honed through years as performers of improvised and contemporary music into the hoary realm of folklore and myth. Poems and old songs in multiple tongues are suspended within the duo's intricate sound fields. These are further extended on Haar through studio shaping and with the addition of guest musicians Bilgehan Ozis and Elys Vanderwyer on "Perfume" and "To Ke," respectively. Each song is an invocation, a rift that opens into a dreamspace where the unreal mingles with the perennial comforts of varied folk traditions. Crossing the threshold into one of these small worlds is, to borrow from one of the duo's earlier songs, "to be given up," if only for a few moments.

There's a playful, almost figurative sense to many of the tracks on Haar, even when the mood can be ambiguous. The album's three shorter tracks are intense—disquieting, even. "Niriides" layers dampened arpeggios beneath a recitation of the many daughters of Nereus from The Iliad, the turbulent piano like the vaporous bubbles of sea nymphs arriving from all directions. The stabbing martial chords and blatting horns of "Blue Mountains" depict the hubris of its protagonist, who, fooled by the birds about his immortality (we hear the cackling nightingales between verses hissed through the French horn), builds his house to tower over nature, only to see Death riding in from across the green plains.

For me, it's the two longer tracks that have soaked in the deepest. On "Perfume" and "To Ke," the duo create an atmosphere, a charged air that I imagine must share some quality with the enigmatic and animate world that kindled the allegories and ancestral folksongs that inspire them. "Perfume" could not conjure any more vividly the longing of its heartbroken narrator, perhaps sitting by the shore as the sun sets, caught in that pensive crossing of the great beauty of nature and a great pain of heart, Kakaliagou evoking the sounds of surf with her horn, her voice nearly breaking as she sings over Schmoliner's patient and melancholic chord progression. I do not need to understand the words—and in the case of lyrics in imagined languages like those in "To Ke," can never literally understand—to be moved by this music, to feel that affective pull, which is a set of sensibilities and intensities that Nabelóse ritually enact in their music-making. I feel my whole self humming along with it all: the hollowed ring of Vanderwyer's measured vibraphone; the buzz and thrum of Schmoliner's eBow-excited strings and the spectral partials in her overtone singing; the solemn force of Kakaliagou's wavering tones.

HAAR by Elena Kakaliagou & Ingrid Schmoliner

Three with Daniel Thompson

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

By Stuart Broomer

British Guitarist Daniel Thompson works in a direct line from Derek Bailey and John Russell, somehow mediating the spikiness of the former and the warmth of the latter in a richly distinctive personal art, simultaneously touching traditions that stretch from historical acoustic archtop artistry (e.g., Eddie Lang, George Van Eps, et al.) to engaging an instrument of multiple voices from strummed and picked and plucked to massaged and scraped strings, tapped-upon bodies and traditional chordal vocabularies surrendering to dense clusters, sometimes rich in dissonant harmonics. In his work, Thompson embraces both the tradition and the instrument as invitation to random material speculation, the body as drum, the string as longitudinal invitation to scratch, tuning keys as material assists, and all the other things about the instrument that arise upon material inspection beyond any initial impression. His label Empty Birdcage Records is rich in varied materials, though here he turns up on other labels as well.

Daniel Thompson - Violet (Empty Birdcage Records, 2025)

To enter the solo CD Violet is to immediately find oneself in a transcendent state, one in which time is simultaneously suspended and insistent, a musical language of startling intimacy, attenuated gestures and under-voiced reflections. Tracks are simply numbered from “Improvisation One” to “Improvisation Five”; their lengths vary from relative brevity, 4’31” for “Three”, to the near epic “Four” at 13’ 26”. “One” begins as a series of evenly strummed dissonant clusters eventually following a series of distinct evolutions. “No. 2” shadows a ground between intimacy and invisibility, sparse gestures on a sea of silence, each new shape as immediate as thought, each minute gesture a kind of micro-composition, bright, isolated harmonics poised against strummed dissonances, sometimes slowing, micro-gestures laid further apart amid a presence that suggests the guitar might be breathing. There’s an exalted level of attention paid to series of micro-gestures – a buzz, a harmonic, paired notes, a 10-minute reverie stretching toward its own disappearance. It’s followed by “No. 3”’s (relatively) loud, fast, chaotic and insistent pace, characterized by sudden shifts in density. “Four” is a master class in diverse approaches shaped into a single work, including an extended passage of high-speed scratched tones. “Five” begins as perfect reverie, with a couple of expansive high-speed bursts, before it returns to a delicate placidity and an ultimate embrace of silence. Like every work here, its evolution feels as natural as breathing. The numbering system is abandoned for the final title track: “Violet” is an eight second burst of insistence that suggests a looped electric guitar.

violet by Daniel Thompson

John Edwards/Daniel Thompson - Where the Butterflies Go (Earshots Recordings, 2025)

This string duo recording chooses the most traditional of string compositions as its model, a Four Seasons with its tracks named from “Summer” to “Autumn” to “Winter” to end speculatively and positively with a brief “Spring” of thrumming to suggest new and future life. Like the other life here, it’s the sense of the closely shared space that gives it its special character.

That opening “Summer” is a genuine hive of sound, brooking scant distinction for its opening minutes, densely plucked acoustic guitar and plucked or bowed bass presenting as a single instrument, the bass replicating the pitches of the lower four strings of the guitar and dropping them an octave, even picking, plucking and spiccato bowing acting as a singular continuum. When the notion of individuation asserts itself, what had been singular simply asserts itself as dialogue, retaining a strong sense of cooperation.

At nearly 21 minutes playing time, “Autumn” represents roughly half the year. It’s a dense dialogue consisting of arco bass and scraped/ wiped high-pitched guitar (they can still overlap in frequency and density), the delicate maelstrom reducing to silence only to gradually rise again with a developing hive of potential. Instruments can usually be distinguished, but that almost seems beside the point of this exalted, telepathic improvising. In the concluding moments, the instruments grow increasingly distinct, the bass insistently bowed, the guitar chorded tunefully, suggesting another evolution is imminent.

“Winter” is a whimper and a scrape, a jangle of disconnected elements slipping toward meaning, a haunted echo of a prepared instrument suddenly given to dizzying chording and lightening-fast picking, some body drumming and the storm is unleashed with the liveliest and least comforting season demanding and overwhelming attention before breaking into an almost pointillist duo of eliding bass tones and rapid guitar strumming, then slipping into a zone of microscopically detailed, evanescent figures, all together grinding toward life’s refresher course called “Spring”.

where the butterflies go by John Edwards & Daniel Thompson

Tom Jackson/ Daniel Thompson - Dark Kitchen (Confront Recordings 2025)

Dedicated to Derek Bailey and Tony Coe, this is another series of duo free improvisations, a format in which Thompson excels and in which his fitting partners, here the clarinetist Tom Jackson whose recordings encompass work with a range of improvisers, are similarly versed in cooperative creation, in an intensive attention to detail, to finding mystery, to unravelling it and to refolding it into another mystery. The longest work here is the functionally titled “Improvisation One”, a 20-minute piece in which Jackson presents as polyvocal, virtuosic and injured songbird, rapid-fire runs sometimes stretching toward dissolution, before some pastoral re-launch of bell-toned and dissonant guitar harmonics gradually restores the clarinet.

Three shorter tracks are more concentrated, less free ranging. “Improvisation Two” begins with a densely expressionistic clarinet solo, eventually matched by a subtly complex guitar accompaniment that becomes an increasingly significant subtext to Jackson’s compounding bird calls. “Three”, highlighting the duo’s interactive facility, is a high-speed, up and down, back and forth dialogue; “Four” foregrounds Jackson’s lyricism while Thompson creates a quietly unpredictable and abstract soundscape, each gradually becoming more actively conversational.

Dark Kitchen by Tom Jackson / Daniel Thompson

Ivo Perelman with Marc Ribot, Elliot Sharp and Joe Morris - Trifecta (Mahakala, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Sammy Stein

Ivo Perelman has teamed up not with one, or two, but three guitarists on Trifecta. Guitarists Marc Ribot (Disc One), Elliott Sharp (Disc Two), and Joe Morris (Disc Three) pair with Perelman in a release that showcases the guitar as an instrument and the individual playing styles of each musician.

Ivo says of the recordings, “I was a guitar player ever since I was a young boy. I studied for many years, but the reason I quit was that I couldn't find a personal, differentiated, unique voice. The guitar is a difficult instrument for that purpose. It doesn't lend itself, like the saxophone, for instance, to a different way of responding to each player. With woodwind instruments, factors like embouchure, mouthpiece, lung size, and height immediately affect the sound; they are flexible and responsive to sound imagination. Whatever you think comes out, you make the sound.

The guitar, with its geometric fingerboard, can lead musicians to merely recreate patterns. Therefore, I deeply admire the musicians featured in Trifecta because I know how individual their voices are on an instrument that is otherwise often oblivious to individuality.

Because they are all so different from each other, our interaction was very different. Although it is the same instrument, each project sounds unique. It made sense to me to group them in a CD box format to offer the listener a panoramic view of contemporary guitar as played by three of its major voices.”

While one might argue with Ivo (and who does?) about the guitar being oblivious to individuality (think Sonny Sharrock, as an example), it is definitely true that each of the three guitarists featured plays in a distinctive style.

Disc One – Marc Ribot and Ivo Perelman. Track one is a gentle preamble with both players offering subtle, contrasting phrases, passing discussive musical musings back and forth. There is a sense of familiarity in the pre-emptive chord inserts of Ribot and the declarations of intent in the sax lines. Perelman is restrained and, at times, takes the tenor sax on a journey of screeches and wails, but Ribot grounds the track, maintaining the gentle pace and delicate chord placements. The track is over twelve minutes in length, during which Ribot introduces rhythm changes and punchy percussive elements, to which Perelman intuitively responds. In turn, Perelman takes the music into realms of contrapuntal changes, and Ribot reacts. Track two sees Perelman taking wild walks with airs and melodies, which Ribot echoes at times and develops at others. The final part of the track is a beautiful exchange of delicacies between the two musicians, which they, in turn, try out, and either discard or savour and develop. Track three is intense, lively, with fiery salvos passing between the musicians like hot cakes. Perelman introduces some gorgeous lower register lines in the second half, over which Ribot’s strings writhe like a cobra, creating dense, colourful phrases. Somehow, by the time the track ends, it is softer, the lines malleable, and flowing. Track four opens with a Celtic-sounding harmony which both players introduce before each diverges on a line of their own, Perelman’s tenor taking a more melodic tone, while Ribot inserts delicate chords and lines. Perelman rises into the top register, soaring and dipping back to pipping lower notes. Track five is bonkers – wholesale improvisation, with Ribot and Perelman vying for who can outwit whom. Yet there are still the intuitive reactions and challenges that make the track a standout example of communicative playing. Ribot’s mastery of styles is apparent, as he weaves seamlessly between free improvisation and snippets of different playing styles. Between them, Perelman and Ribot even go briefly into swing mode, though not for more than a few bars. Perelman’s delectation for taking a style and introducing free playing into it comes to the fore, and Ribot seems to delight in taking him up on his offer and following.

Disc Two – Elliott Sharp and Ivo Perelman. Track one is explorative, tentative almost, with Perlman initially taking the long melodic line and Sharp inserting quick, sharp chords, alongside some gentler extended ones, until the track unravels itself with both musicians diverging and coming together in a series of intricate phrases. Track two finds Perlman meandering along melodic inventions, into which eventually Sharp inserts delicate, then increasingly noisesome lines. There is a beautiful section where the melody is reversed with Sharp playing deep, resonant lines, over which Perelman flies, finding nuanced tones in the gaps of the music as only he can. Track three is delicate, each musician introducing lines of sound like threads, which weave themselves around each other to create a sonic tapestry of colourful sound waves. Track four is busy, buzzy, electronically enhanced, and atmospheric, while track five is just as atmospheric but with more guitar ‘twangs’ and warps, with Perelman retreating a little to allow the guitar to come to the fore in all its weirdness in the hands of Sharp. Sharp finds tones and nuances in the guitar with detuned strings and tightened chords that showcase the range of his instrument. Track six starts as if it is going to go into a blues number, but the two musicians quickly put a stop to that notion with a glorious development of rhythm changes and improvised lines. Sharp makes impressive use of the percussive elements of the guitar and its dexterity as an instrument. On track seven, this is demonstrated, alongside chords and singular lines that mesh and meld with the sax of Perelman intuitively.

Disc Three - Joe Morris and Ivo Perelman. On track one, the difference in the style of Morris compared to Sharp and Ribot is apparent; his guitar’s melodic voice is heard from the start. Track two is a conversation between guitar and saxophone with both musicians playing without pause, yet they intuitively diminish and crescendo in their dialogue, as each listen and responds. On track three, Morris’s guitar is busy, the notes intricately placed, and he finds ways to fill any gaps, however small, that Perelman leaves. Perelman, meanwhile, rises and falls, riffs, and meanders along musical pathways his brain creates, and his fingers bring into reality. On this track, the intuition of both musicians is palpable. Track four is a delightful back and forth between the instruments, and Morris’s responses to Perelman’s pips and riffles create the texture of this track.

Across the CDs, Perelman remains intuitive and perceptive as ever, but also adaptive, as his instincts and reactions to the guitarists vary. He is the constant in these recordings, yet there remains the steadfast dedication to musical improvisation and response to fellow musicians that Perelman has developed so well. Each guitarist brings their style and interpretation of Perelman’s unique musicality and playing characteristics.

Three individualist guitar players, paired with one of the most individual saxophone players, is, in theory, something to cherish and enjoy. In reality, it does not disappoint.

Trifecta by Ivo Perelman

Sunday Video - Earscratcher

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

We've been on a bit of a Dave Rempis roll lately ... Brian reviewed Dial Up from Rempis, Jason Adasiewicz and Chris Corsano in January, Charlie just reviewed Orbital, featuring the saxophonist with Frank Rosaly, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten plus Marta Warelis, and reader Klaus Kitzinger shared a recent picture, which is currently in our homepage rotation, of Earscracther's show at in Munich. So why not a video too? Special thanks to Jazz Explorer, we don't know who you are but your videos from the Artacts Festival in Tirol are much appreciated, thank you!

EARSCRATCHER - Artacts 2026, Alte Gerberei, St. Johann in Tyrol, Austria, 2026-03-08

Dave Rempis - saxophones

Elisabeth Harnik - piano

Fred Lonberg-Holm - cello

Tim Daisy - drums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6KlJT1fkc8

Mark Turner - Patternmaster (ECM, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Charlie Watkins

Reviewing Patternmaster for the Free Jazz Collective is an interesting task. Although Mark Turner’s quartet follows the free jazz tradition of having no instrument playing chords, Joe Martin’s bass playing and the horn players’ improvisations provide more than enough harmonic information to keep us firmly grounded in ‘mainstream’ jazz. The compositions too, though inventive, are hardly avant-garde. But at the same time, this album has a strong sense of freedom that makes it very appropriate to review here.

Turner describes the connection between his bandmates as ‘psycho-spiritual’, a sense of shared, mystical intuition that allows them to think as one mind. On a handful of occasions I’ve experienced this connection in my performances, and can attest that there is no feeling more liberating: freedom from the weight of decision-making into the realm of pure intuition. This is the sense in which Turner’s band should be considered ‘free’ jazz. It’s also where the title comes from: the Patternmaster is the master telepath in Octavia Butler’s novel of the same name. Surely this title indicates Turner’s desire for that Holy Grail of music: pure intuition, pure telepathy.

Not that Turner sets himself an easy task. The knotty compositions, irregular time signatures and lack of chordal accompaniment would drive a lesser musician to insanity simply trying to follow the changes. Not for these musicians: they don’t miss a beat, somehow seeming to float straight through the hurdles, and in the process their individual voices shine through. Never once does it feel like they are simply going through the motions or playing the changes, they are opening up new dimensions of the music even as they remain perfectly within the complex structures.

Like most of Turner’s output, the album remains within a relatively modest space: they are not interested in the extremes, they are interested in purity. So on this record you won’t find ‘explosive’ solos, but rather the absolute precision that can only come through years of honing a craft. Admittedly, this will not be to everyone’s tastes; and I’m not sure how wide the appeal of this album will be for audiences of this site.

The compositions themselves are wonderful. I especially enjoyed the playfulness of It Very Well May Be, which bounces with energy whilst it drags the metre forward and backwards, and for me was easily the standout track of the album. It reminded me of the music of Dewey Redman’s quartet Old and New Dreams, which of course is the same instrumentation (and who also released two of their albums on ECM). Some of the other tracks really swing – Turner’s bounces in with a great energy on Trece Ocho – and there certainly is a lot of variety in the tunes offered, although perhaps some shorter compositions might have helped the album to move with a little more momentum.

As with much of Turner’s oeuvre, I expect the reception to this album will be mixed. There were points I enjoyed, and the ensemble’s tight connection is certainly to be praised. But I found it a little lacking in soul for my tastes, a little too formulaic and tightly controlled. Other reviews online seem to be more positive, so I expect this will be an opinion splitter and I can only suggest you try it for yourselves!

The Tomeka Reid Quartet - dance! skip! hop! (Out of Your Head, 2026) *****

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Gary Chapin

Every once in a while I’m reminded that I have a sweet spot in music and when that spot — that spot of sonic, cosmic equilibrium — is hit, then things in my head are just, in a profound way, going to be okay. The spot is defined by a deep groove, reckless composition, and a romance with the outside. Think of records by Eric Dolphy, Air, the Jazz Passengers, or Mike Formanek. My point (and I do have one) is that the Tomeka Reid Quartet (featuring Reid, cello; Mary Halvorsen, guitar; Jason Roebke, bass and cassette; Tomas Fujiwara, percussion) hits that spot dead on, and I am five stars happier than before I listened.

I wasn’t surprised that this was so. Reid comes out of an org (the AACM) that pioneered groove outre music, and she’s part of a group … or movement? school? tribe? “group of people who play all the time on each others’ records” … for whom this sort of Hemphilian tomfoolery is bread and butter. I’m talking about the nexus that includes (but is not limited to) Reid, Halvorsen, Fujiwara, Nick Dunston, Patricia Brennan, Adam O’Farrill, and the late, wonderful, Susan Alcorn.

This particular record telegraphs its intentions with its title, “dance! skip! jump!” It’s a string ensemble with percussion, and the title track timbrally evokes Black string bands. It’s got the lightness and ebullience (both necessary if you are going to “skip!”) Fujiwara’s brushes do a lot of the levitating. The second track, “a(ways) For CC and CeCe,” starts in a knotty place with the drums and bass giving attitude. When Reid enters on cello, It becomes an ode, loving well. “Oo long!” sets a hip and sinister groove. I am charmed by the pun title and want to know what it has to do with the apparently hip and sinister tea. “Under the Aurora Sky” enters a balladic or pastoral space, introspective. “Silver String Fig Tree” is a freer, more expansive conversation between the players with some interesting structures supporting it — for example, a section were Reid repeats a five note riff with a lot of space, and the others live on top of that.

Best of 2026 so far.

dance! skip! hop! by Tomeka Reid

Beatrice Arrigoni, Maddalena Ghezzi, Francesca Naibo - Monologo Addosso (Habitable Records, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Sammy Stein

Monologo Addosso comprises Beatrice Arrigoni (vocals), Maddalena Ghezzi (vocals), and Francesca Naibo (vocals, guitar). It is produced by Luca Martegani. Beatrice Arrigoni is a singer, improviser, composer, and performer with a range of projects under her belt. She participated in the 2023 “improvisation voice and electronics” workshop led by Valèrie Philippin at IRCAM in Paris and studied improvisation with Stefano Battaglia and vocal technique with Renaissance and Baroque singer Elena Carzaniga. She has performed at many festivals and events.

Maddalena Ghezzi is an Italian singer, composer, and improviser who settled in London in 2009 and now works in London and Milan in the fields of jazz, improvised music, and vocal and creative experimentation. As a leader, she has released five EPs, all part of her Minerals series: Amethyst (with Thodoris Ziarkas), Halite (with Ed Blunt), Opal (with Francesca Naibo), Emerald (with Maria Chiara Argirò), and Dolomite (with Ruth Goller), and two albums with her band FUWAH. She has performed at the London and Milan Jazz Festivals and many venues.

Francesca Naibo is a guitarist from Vittorio Veneto but Milanese by adoption, who plays many genres, including classical, electric, fretless, and pedal steel. Having spent years researching solo performance, she focuses on exploring the fields of free improvisation and contemporary music. Her interest is particularly focused on using both the acoustic and electric nature of her instrument, venturing from roaring drones to microscopic vibrations. She studied in Venice, Milan, Bern, and Basel, graduating in classical guitar and free improvisation, and collaborated with various European musicians, especially in Central and Northern Europe. She has worked with many composers and musicians, and her album Namatoulee, received critical acclaim

Monologo Addosso is a sonic work which work that reworks and transfigures the poetry of Elena Cornaggia in order to fully convey its expressive depth. The result is nine ‘sound paintings’ with great dramatic power, in which electronic inserts, the use of extended techniques, polyphonic and contrapuntal writing interact to compose an evocative and expressive mosaic of colours.

It is very much an ‘out of the box’ concept with the interaction between poetry, sonic effects, and vocals creating a merging of the arts. The imagery the music creates is powerful and incredibly profound.

The music and interpretation of words and pictures create an intersection where poetry, music, and electronic effects come together to create something unique. Different styles are linked, with the vocals creating beautiful harmonies, explorative diversions, and snippets of spoken conversation to weave a landscape of colour and evocative sonic portraits.

The purity of sound, created by vocals, guitar, or electronics, is presented sometimes as a raw, material element, or a primordial essence, a lyrical and ecstatic evocation, abstraction, idiom: the work's sonic journey invites the listener into profound contemplation, expressing the urgency of an internal’ monologue capable of releasing energy and revealing the essence of all things.

What this album is also is intensely feminine. That might sound like a strange thing to say as a reviewer, but there is a sense of power and deep connection between the women who created this recording that is palpable and creates a deep sense of sisterhood.

'A Mani Aperte' opens the recording, and this is sensual, where the women produce short vocal sounds, including ‘dings,’ intakes of breath, and sighs. It sounds mad, and it is, but it is also very effective at engaging the listener. The final third comprises atmospheric electronics topped by a beautiful melody, gorgeously worked harmonies that contrast and provide a grounding, before the short trills and whispered effects complete it and act as a reminder that the track began in this tone.

'Tra il sonno e la parole' features harmonies backed by warping, echoing electronics that fade, allowing the electronic effects to come to the fore, but gently and with the guitar adding definition in a melody. The harmonies are beautiful, with deep contralto and sweet soprano melding to become as a single unit with many parts.

Throughout the album, the vocals adapt to the soundscape, either enhancing the effects, or contrasting with purity and beautiful harmonies. From the rickety tickety effects on 'Dentro Alle Squadro' to the standout 'Mi raccogliesse,' which features harmonies that break into a variety of sounds, from clucks to melodic inserts and explosive effects, portraying the variety of essences that womankind encompass perhaps.

There are echoes of ecclesiastic harmonies and madrigal singing, alongside improvisation and imaginative electronic effects on some tracks. 'Paessagio mentale' is intense and deeply emotive, while Implodo esplodo is held together by a madcap, chattering spoken harmony line, the voices performing as percussive instruments before the slow build-up of electronic effects overpowers the vocals, which retreat into a deep hum that develops a regular rhythm akin to breathing, and whispered inserts and snippets of voice.

The closing track, 'Quando il cervello prude' showcases each musician and is a beautiful, atmospheric way to end the album – and go back to the start.

A powerful, beautifully worked project, this is for listening again and again.

Monologo addosso by Beatrice Arrigoni, Maddalena Ghezzi, Francesca Naibo

Two by The Outskirts–Sort Of: Orbital,The Outskirts and Marta Warelis (2/2)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Brian Earley

Disc Two

Friends, there is just so much music on Orbital that I needed to write two reviews to cover all its beauty. Seriously, I was listening to a new release by a fairly popular band this morning that clocks in around 40 total minutes of music. The first song on Disc Two of Orbital, “Spherical Harmonics,” contains more than 41 minutes of improvised mayhem by itself. The second improvisation, “Angular Momentum” runs nearly a half-hour. That’s an hour and ten minutes of music on just disc two! Disc one is over 70 minutes long. Damn! Ingo Frank, and Dave have some serious stamina.

What makes disc two of Orbital really special is the addition of pianist Marta Warelis. Recorded in Antwerp nine days before disc one, this version presents Håker Flaten, Rosaly, and Rempis in an entirely disparate context. If disc one was a propulsive trio romp, the addition of the Polish born pianist results in a thunderstorm where the lighting is hunks of lava.

Everything is big on this disc. The song lengths are big. Dave’s saxophone is big and bluesy and sultry; just listen to the 13.00 minute mark on “Spherical Harmonics” or, hell, check out Dave near the beginning of “Angular Momentum” where his big, fat vibrato and breathy tone evoke Ben Webster or even Johnny Hodges. The first nine minutes (nine minutes!) of “Spherical” is nonstop energy-power music where Warelis swipes violently upward in glissandos, thunder smacks the lower octaves of the keys, or tumbles piano notes like a waterfall made of glass where everything breaks but the momentum of the music. Ingo rams forward driving, chunks of bass plucking, and Frank hisses, smashes, and makes the cymbals scream.

To be fair, “Angular Momentum” is filled with moments of quiet reflection, intelligent space, and subtle interplay. In fact, I really admire Rosaly’s discipline and restraint on this piece. He often holds back, drops out, or plays softly, and the result is pure beauty, as it offers a chance for listeners to hear Rempis and Warelis interact. Listen, for example, from roughly 4:00 to 7:00 on this work. Warelis plays sustained midrange single notes and a prepared piano that sounds like a stopped mbira or harpsichord while engaging with Dave in a stunning and varied call and response sequence (one of many on this disc).

The second work blows softly to a close. Warelis slows her pace, Frank softens his thwacking and shaking, Ingo opens up sonic room in a near ostinatto formation, and the music ends with the sound of only Dave’s breath.

I couldn’t recommend this album more to both long time listeners of these artists and to those finding themselves, like the rest of us, hearing Dave, Ingo, and Frank play with Marta Warelis for the first time. The delight of the trio making new of things past, and in its forking of lighting with Warelis, both make this a valuable listening experience and an angular tapestry of harmonics for our time.

Orbital by The Outskirts - Rempis/Flaten/Rosaly + Marta Warelis

Orbital can be purchased artist direct at https://www.aerophonicrecords.com/catalog.

Read part 1.

Two by The Outskirts–Sort Of: Orbital,The Outskirts and Marta Warelis (1/2)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Brian Earley

Disc One

I remember sitting in the audience with my wife at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in the spring of 2013. We were listening to The Engines, it was a cool April evening, and the band’s signature combination of spontaneity and precision was sharp that night.

I don’t wish to descend into nostalgia here, but I find myself thinking frequently about Dave Rempis’s old band recently as I have acquainted myself with his latest album for Aerophonic Records: Orbital. Orbital is not a new album by The Engines, but it isnew material from saxophonist Rempis, drummer Frank Rosaly, and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, a band that titled themselves The Outskirts, and played together from 2007-2009, smack in the middle of the years the Engines were active. While The Engines released a handful of recordings, The Outskirts released exactly zero. In fact, if it weren’t for Rempis’s now legendary COVID era 15-week, 15-livestream, 15-album release series we would not have access to any recorded evidence of The Outskirts at all.

On July 1, 2020 Dave took to the internet to perform solo and announce the release of the album You Deserve To Dance by the Outskirts, a recording he tells the audience that “never saw the light of day” because the original “multitrack files that allow you to mix a record were lost in a terrible hard drive accident.” The band, however, was given a rough stereo mix that allowed Rempis, over a decade later, to release the music. That night on the livestream, Dave did not perform any songs by The Outskirts, but he did play “Four Feet of Slush,” song four on The Engines album Wire and Brass reviewed at the time by The Free Jazz Collective.

“Four Feet of Slush,” it turns out, is the very first song on Orbital . Followers of Dave Rempis’s music will likely find this shocking as, first, Rempis, who pushes so urgently forward in the moment, performs songs from his past, and second, a Dave Rempis album contains songs,written-out songs. I mean, Dave never does this. His bands collaborate spontaneously, improvise live, sometimes for hours, and these works get recorded and Dave releases some of them on Aerophonic Records, often with the help of engineer Dave Zuchowski, artist Lasse Marhaug and others.

And The Engines songs do not stop there. Listeners will recognize “Cascades,” “Hover,” “Strafe,” and while it is not listed among the track titles, “Going Dutch,” a deep track from a 2015 digital only Engines album titled Green Knights. “Going Dutch,” found here on “Strafe-Glass Part 1” however, reminds me of early Ornette Coleman albums, if Sonny Rollins were the front man with the flexible time and forward swinging of Billy Higgins and Charlie Haden. Or, more aptly, the tune reminds me of the playing of still another Rempis band from the early aughts: Triage. In fact, the one non-Engines song on this performance is “Glass,” a tune recorded by Triage on 2003’s twenty minute cliff.

Orbital is far from reactive or sentimental, however. The trio takes these songs and makes something new and strange out of them. See, for example, the 8:25 mark of “Strafe,” when Dave and Frank explore improvised atmospheric sounds, more searching than swinging. But Ingo, Rosaly, and Rempis honestly sound like they are having a blast on this record and, given a thematic basis for mood and timbre, the group launches ahead, driving, laughing, and transforming these old tunes.

If you are anything like me, you would probably rather forget all about 2020, and on the Outskirts release stream from that July, before playing “Four Feet of Slush,” Dave quips the song applies to the time: “Let’s call it ‘Four Feet of Shit,’ how about that?” But those livestreams and the accompanying releases raised thousands of dollars for working musicians, and honestly helped me to stay afloat during that period of uncertainty. The past, even without nostalgia, can light up the present, as do my fond memories of the April concert in Philadelphia. So, although we may be walking through four feet of shit again in 2026, The Outskirts have arrived to provide the soundtrack one more time and to gift us a little warmth where there was none before.

Orbital can be purchased artist direct at https://www.aerophonicrecords.com/catalog.

Orbital by The Outskirts - Rempis/Flaten/Rosaly + Marta Warelis

Read part two.

Peter Evans Being & Becoming - Live At Bimhuis

noreply@blogger.com (Stef Gijssels) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 07:00:00 +0000

This is a treat - the full concert of Peter Evans' Being & Becoming at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam in 2023, with Peter Evans on trumpet, Joel Ross on vibraphone, Nick Jozwiak on bass and Michael Ode on drums. The quality of the recording and the editing are - as usual with Bimhuis TV - excellent.

Reviews of the band can be found here: Ars Ludica (2025), Ars Memoria (2023), and their original "Being & Becoming" (2020). The music is tightly composed with lots of room for improvisation. Some of the soloing and interplay are absolutely spectacular.

One of our Sunday Interviews with Peter Evans can be found here.

Harriet Tubman & Georgia Anne Muldrow - Electrical Field of Love (Pi Recordings, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

By Ferruccio Martinotti

It touched us a lot, discovering, some years ago, that a band was named after one of the legendary figures of the anti-slavery movement, Harriet Tubman. A runaway slave who, despite being physically disabled by the terrible conditions of segregation that she was forced to endure, didn't hesitate to help dozens of women and men like her on the road to freedom via the legendary Underground Railroad. Our band was formed in 1998 and features Brandon Ross on guitar, with previous collaborations with, among others, Archie Shepp, Henry Threadgill, Cassandra Wilson, Arrested Development; J.T. Lewis on drums (beating for Lou Reed, Don Pullen, Herbie Hancock) and the legendary Melvin Gibbs on bass, a trusted longtime partner of Bill Frisell, Henry Rollins and Arto Lindsay.

Raised with Miles, Funkadelic, Hendrix and the sounds of the New York streets as their soundtrack, Tubman aim to contribute to African-American culture through a clear and focused mission statement: “Our music reflects the essential impulse of the wave of energy that entered and embraced the world in the 1960s: depth, creativity, communication, spirituality, love, individuality, determination, expression, revelation. We feel that the choice to perform Open Music has a value and relevance that connects with re-awakening, the new search for restored meaning that we see and experience wherever and whenever we perform.” This Open Music, which we can easily translate as Great Black Music, is fittingly contextualized in the present, with the Ghosts of the past clearly in the room but not as intruders rendering it a dusty museum practice. So the blues fades into noise, electro and free take on psychedelic nuances, doom and dub have no dividing lines, in an ongoing free and powerful flow.

After I am a man (1998), Prototype (2000), Ascension (2011), Araminta (2017) and The Terror End of Beauty (2018), here is finally the new work, Electrical field of love. Alongside the three aces, this time we find the voice of Georgia Anne Muldrow, a true, disruptive novelty of the album. With a solo career of around twenty albums behind her and a series of prestigious collaborations (Yasin Bey, J Dilla, Madlib, Erika Badu), Georgia obtained a Grammy nomination in the Best Urban Contemporary Album category in 2018, while in 2020, under the moniker Jyoty (given to her by Alice Coltrane, a family friend), she recorded Mama you can bet, hailed by the NYT as one of the 20 best albums of the year. In 2022 their paths crossed at the Detroit Jazz Festival when Muldrow was invited to jump on stage: "it was the gig of my dreams. When Brandom called me later to do the recording, I almost fainted", is the memory of Georgia who adds in relation to the studio work: "I love to play free. I grew up in this music so it's my comfort zone. Brandon and I always seemed to be in spontaneous unison, it felt so natural to echo each other harmonically. Melvin synthesized everything beautifully. I didn't even need to explain myself, they already knew. And I call JT 'liminal trash', like someone who screams and whispers at the same time”. According to Maestro Melvin: "When people get with Tubman, they enter our world. Georgia Anne has a multidimensional mind and she jumped right in like she's one of us."

A final note to the role of producer Scotty Hard, essential as in the group's two previous albums. A protégé of Teo Macero, Hard applied the production technique used on "Bitches Brew," "In a Silent Way," and "On the Corner," distilling and reassembling over six hours of material before arriving at the finished product. "Two days of summoning the gods and finding inspiration in each other's creative flow," Scotty said. Benevolent gods and inspiration through the roof, we say.

Electrical Field of Love by Harriet Tubman & Georgia Anne Muldrow

LDL (Urs Leimgruber / Jacques Demierre / Thomas Lehn) - the eerie glow of jellyfish (Relative Pitch, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

By Eyal Hareuveni

The free-improvising LDL trio - Swiss soprano sax player Urs Leimgruber, pianist and keyboard player Jacques Demierre (who also collaborates with Leimgruber in a duo), and German EMS analogue synth and sound processing player Thomas Lehn - emerged from the trio LDP - Leimgruber, Demierre, and the late American double bass master Barre Philips, which worked between 2001 and 2021, and hosted Lehn in Willisau (jazzwerkstatt, 2019). LDL recorded its debut live album, in the endless wind, in 2023 (Wide Ear, 2024), continuing LDP’s aesthetics, which recorded most of its albums in live settings.

the eerie glow of jellyfish was recorded live at the Kaleidophon Festival in Ulrichsberg, Austria, in April 2024 (where LDP + Lehn performed in 2019), and features a five-movement suite. Demierre plays the amplified spinet (which he played in the duo album with Leimgruber, It Forgets About The Snow, Creative Sources, 2021), so two keyboards - the acoustic, harpsichord-like spinet and the vintage analogue synthesizer, both augmented by Lehn’s live sound processing, embrace Leimgruber’s soprano sax at the center of the sound image.

the eerie glow of jellyfish is an uncompromising, tension-filled, and volatile improvisation, relying on deep listening and thoughtful, precise exploration of the performance’s acoustic space. LDL is deeply immersed in a stubborn, collective process of continuously filling and emptying the sound space, allowing the unorthodox instrumentation and LDL’s idiosyncratic sonic palettes to manifest themselves in the most personal and freest manner possible. This captivating process suggests LDL as a live organism that acts within an unpredictable, highly resonant, and often noisy, yet hyper-attentive dialogue where elusive structure and spontaneous, individual musical events are in constant negotiation. LDL always challenges and disrupts the individual sonic palettes and never resorts to familiar sonic options or narratives.

the eerie glow of jellyfish offers an insightful listening experience that transforms the soprano sax, spinet, and the analog synth into new, surprising sonic dimensions. LDL’s profound sensibility of listening liberates its instruments, far beyond our preconceptions. It is a sonic journey that visits close and faraway exotic, otherworldly, and the freest sonic territories, but with deep roots in European free improvisation and contemporary music.

the eerie glow of jellyfish by LDL - Urs Leimgruber, Jacques Demierre, Thomas Lehn

Nomad War Machine / Susan Alcorn - Contra Madre (VG+, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

By Martin Schray

When Susan Alcorn passed away unexpectedly last year, it came as a shock to the free jazz scene. At the age of 71, she still had plenty of plans, including trio albums with Lori Freedman and Mat Maneri on the one hand, and with Ingrid Laubrock and Leila Bordreuil on the other. But obviously there were other projects as well, such as her collaboration with Nomad War Machine, the Philadelphian improvisational metal duo consisting of drummer Julius Masri and guitarist James Reichard. Alcorn’s roots lie in the Texas Western swing scene of the 1960s and 1970s, which she repeatedly combined with new classical music and free improvised music. So, in retrospect, it’s not surprising that she was constantly looking for new challenges and that metal could be an appealing starting point for her to explore new musical territory. Apart from the fact that Masri and Reichard have also been interested in country music, there was another intersection: Alcorn was enthusiastic about oriental music (she had studied the oud and the maqam) and Julius Masri, who comes from Lebanon, is also deeply rooted in Arabic musical traditions. Also, James Reichard has always been interested in xenharmonic music and open guitar tunings, which are more at home in the music of the Middle East.

The music on Contra Madre cannot deny metal influences, however the atmosphere presented is rather gloomy rock. It’s primarily Masri whose driving rhythms are responsible for this rock element, while Reichard throws in hard power chords or atonal arpeggios, over which Alcorn then lets her pedal steel float lightly. The alternative to these rather quiet parts are those when the pedal steel and the guitar start fighting. It sounds as if Ry Cooder was jamming with Earth and at some point they throw tonality overboard. This can be heard exemplarily in “Boiling Vortex”. The piece begins almost idyllically, as if it wanted to describe a picturesque landscape, before an alienated blues riff quickly emerges, foreshadowing evil. The vortex is by no means a gently swirling pool of water. The musicians take their time to build up this dark atmosphere. After about four minutes, violence reigns supreme, the tempo increases, the music seethes, howls, crashes and screams from all corners until the improvisation literally threatens to boil over. Even as a listener, it takes your breath away - and the tension doesn’t cool down until the end of the piece.

In the liner notes Lee Gardner of VG+ Records says of Alcorn and the album: “I started the label because of Susan. (…) All throughout 2024, she kept talking about this record that she'd made with these "metal guys" from Philly. (…) I texted with her on a Thursday in late January of 2025 about meeting the following Monday to make plans to talk about the new record. She suddenly, shockingly died the following day. I would eventually hear the record she made with Julius and James, and would meet them for the first time at a memorial concert for Susan in Philadelphia. I’m honored and humbled that they have trusted me to put this one more bit of Susan’s music out in the world.“

We, the listeners, are glad that VG+ made this wonderful recording available for us. Certainly one of the highlights in 2026 - even if it’s only March.

Contra Madre is available on Vinyl and as a digital download. On bandcamp you can listen to “Boiling Vortex“ and buy the album.

Contra Madre by Nomad War Machine and Susan Alcorn

Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere - Theta Seven (Discus, 2026) *****

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

By Gary Chapin

Martin Archer’s confluence of avant, prog, improv, electronics, krautrock, and big band is one of my favorite ongoing projects in the field, and my joy at this release is matched only by my being bummed out by the fact that this is the last recording the band will be putting out. The enterprise has come to a close. Theta Seven serves well as a valedictory effort — a capstone. Here’s the personnel:

Martin Archer – woodwind, keyboards, software instruments
Steve Dinsdale – drums, keyboards
Lorin Halsall – acoustic and electric double basses, electronics
Yvonna Magda – violin and electronics
Andy Peake – piano, keyboards
Walt Shaw – drums, percussion, electronics
Jan Todd – vocals, voices, melodies, electronics, guzheng, electric Harp-E, lute harp, cross strung harp, hulusi flutes, metal Noisebox, waterphones, found sound recordings, electronic samples
Terry Todd – bass guitar

The method of The Orchestra of the Enlightenment mixes composition, improv, and collage. For two frenetic days the band gathers and records all base tracks. Afterwards, Martin Archer takes the recordings, does overdubs, “radically” edits, and collage until, finally, the mass of granite has been shaped into a piece of work that reflects Martin’s original vision along with Brit prog, avant jazz, electronics, psychedelia, and trippy cinema soundtracks. There is a lovely Ummagumma-ish-ness to parts of this that I didn’t realize I missed.

The music is presented twice, once broken into eleven tracks, and once presented as a single hour-and-a-quarter-ish track of the whole thing. I prefer the latter, since every moment of music depends on where it came from and where it’s going. The segues and fades of this collage work are all on point.

There are many specific points that struck me extraordinary and have made this a many-spins-five-star album. After an evocative and lovely duet between the bass and the guzheng (an African zither-type), the second tune lets out all the horses. The drums fall into that ensorceling, mid-tempo “set the controls for the heart of the sun” groove that’s going to be the foundation for much that follows. The bass launches a repetitive, funky riff. A horn section of sorts, electronics, violin, haunting vocalese, electronics — overlapping melodies, almost, at the level of the arrangement, a round. On top of the pile is Archer’s baritone saxophone — which has a majestic timbre.

Martin Archer’s Discus puts out so much great stuff it’s easy to take for granted. But five stars is five stars, even when Archer makes a habit of it.

Theta Seven - 206CD (2026) by Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere

Street Fight - Stoic Hardcore (Profound Whatever, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

By Richard Blute

The band Street Fight consists of Itta Nakamura on drums, João Clemente on guitar and Nuno Jesus on bass, and this band absolutely cranks. I’m tempted to leave this review at that and just tell the reader to go hit PLAY. You’ll understand quickly.

Their music is somehow very familiar and yet new and exciting. It’s the standard configuration of a power trio, electric guitar, electric bass and drums. Part of me was hoping they’d launch into some Disraeli Gears, and while that didn’t happen exactly, the trio did a fine job of demonstrating just how flexible this combination of instruments can be and how much great music it can produce.

The short track Iron Resolve is pure noise, sounding a bit like one of Sonic Youth’s heavier tunes. Equanimity is a great track, the bass and drums find a deep groove and settle into it. Feet were tapping listening to this one and Clemente’s guitar work here is really sharp.

The track Paradox Of Calm is, paradoxically, not calm at all. Clemente starts by playing some funky guitar lines straight out of Fear Of Music-era Talking Heads but then the guitar suddenly goes fuzzy and the tempo slows to some sludgy metal. This band obviously wants to surprise their listeners and keep them on their toes. With musicians this talented, the surprise is always a good one.

The centrepiece of the album is a 5-part suite called The Storm. In the first part (The Eye), Nakamura has switched from a standard drum kit to percussion and Jesus is playing an almost drone-like line. In the second part (The Eyewall), the bass is especially thumping as the funky tempo of earlier tracks returns, but now Clemente is playing some classic rock guitar, and the combination works just as well. In part 3 (Rainbands), Nakamura is showing off his skills (and they are many) with the track at first being largely an interaction between guitar and drums. But with part 4 (Uplift) the tempo and style change again. It might be the best track on the album. Bass and drums are once again locked into a groove and the guitar becomes more and more intense. Then Nakamura’s drumming really takes off and the whole suite builds to a startling conclusion.

This album is a fine example of a band finding the sweet spot between guitar rock and improvised music and exploring it for all it’s worth. It was also an introduction for me to the very cool Portuguese label Profound Whatever. I’ve been exploring their other offerings, in particular further collaborations between Nakamura and Clemente, and I predict I’ll be reviewing more of their music in the future.

Stoic Hardcore by Street Fight

Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie EXTENDED - Live at Moldejazz (Sonic Transmissions, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

By Brian Earley

Sometimes I catch myself living a pathetic fallacy, finding parallels in song development, timbre shifts, volume dimensions, or any element of sound really, and feeling a correlation to the moment, whether social, emotional, political or otherwise. And even though composer and saxophonist Amalie Dahl uses evocative titles like “floating,” “slow motion,” and “in flux,” amplitude and hertz themselves are not drifting and turning through the morning headlines of suffering, rising fascism, and encroaching chaos. But the world needs an image for longing, or at least I do, if I am going to confront and make some sense out of the violence unfolding across the globe. The world is in lurching flux, and Dahl’s latest work, Dafnie EXTENDED, Live at Moldejazz from Sonic Transmission Records, meets the moment, even if I know I am making it so out of personal necessity.

Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie is the active quintet of Norwegians Dahl (composition and reeds), Oscar Andreas Haug (trumpet), Jørgen Bjelkerud (trombone), Nicolas Leirtrø (bass) and Veslemøy Narvesen (drums). On the band’s two earlier releases, 2022’s Dafnie and 2024’s Står op med solen , the music one moment voices itself small and intimate and then shifts suddenly into dynamics that sound far larger, louder, and varied than they should for only five instruments. According to EXTENDED’s press release, in this new work “Dahl aims to expand and intensify the Dafnie sound and create a larger, more powerful musical experience.” Dahl attempts this by doubling the rhythm section and adding a total of seven new musicians to the group: Sofia Salvo (baritone sax), Henriette Eilertsen (flute and electronics), Ida Løvli Hidle (accordion), Lisa Ullén (piano), Anna Ueland (synth), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), and Trym Karlsen (drums), and in doing so she creates a Dafnie big band that explodes through my speakers out of the softest reverberations of sound.

Take, for instance, the third track on the album, “drifting_turning.” The work opens with one bass quietly bowing harmonics over the other, but by the 1:30 mark the basses produce perhaps the loudest and biggest bass sound I have ever heard through scratches, bangs and extended techniques. Dahl’s saxophone sneaks into the aural scape and begins to play a seemingly improvised one-two-three melodic pattern. However, in a move characteristic of this album as a whole, around 2:45 the band joins the saxophone and varies the same melodic fragment. This parallel between improvisation and composition is striking on this album, and nowhere is it more effective than on this song. The band begins to grow in volume, see-sawing in unison at a three and five note uneven melody until, at 4:50, the band absolutely explodes, unleashing torrents of sound that burn the once hushed melody to ash, out of which soars a solo of Anna Ueland’s synth electronics that annihilates the sonic air around it while the double rhythm section crashes underneath. At 6:15 the band begins to swing like the Ellington at Newport musicians had fallen off their chairs all the while keeping the blues going. The bass and percussion soon project forceful speed and the synth soloist, accordion and horns, inspired to do the same, urge the sound into the ether. But wait! The band again assembles itself into a kind of unison that reveals preformed composition out of what had sounded like pure improvisation until it climaxes at the 8:35 mark before simmering into its closing wash of electronics.

This parallel of improvisation and composition is executed so seamlessly, and with such organic precision, that this music rivals the best I have ever heard. Part of me hates to shift into such hyperbolic phrasing, but I feel I need to communicate just how good this album is, and, if I could hear just one more experimental song in my life, it damn well might be “drifting_turning.”

The album ends with a work titled “longing.” Here is where all of the explosivesness I fallaciously find mirrored in the earlier works as counterpart to the chaos and violence of our time manifests into an aching form for hope. A bass solo evolves into one of the saddest snippets of harmony and melody I can recall hearing, and when Dahl’s saxophone plays, I know I am lying to myself, but I swear the solo here is the very image of longing. It is the human internalization and expression of homesickness, of a desire for better days. It is longing for peace, and it is a kind peace itself, ultimately, that can be measured objectively in decibels. No self-consuming despot could possibly carry out fascist power grabs if they listened, really listened, to Oscar Andreas Haug’s trumpet solo or the swinging and soaring band that plays alongside it.

The work, like all longing, remains unresolved, and stops at the 11:00 mark, leaving an appreciative crowd in silence before it too erupts into its own dynamic shift of applause. So much intelligence is alive on this album, but so much depth of feeling is present as well. The community of musicians on Dafnie EXTENDED has lit a torch in the darkness friends, and for me, this is the album of the year so far, and if there are any other floating souls out there needing to give substance and form to their ghosts, I urge you to listen to it.

Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie EXTENDED can be found at https://amaliedahl.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-moldejazz

Live at Moldejazz by Amalie Dahl's Dafnie EXTENDED

Dr. Jazz Talks interview with Bill Frisell

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Slovenian guitarist Samo Salamon, along with his prolific music making, has been donning the persona of Dr. Jazz for a long-running interview series on YouTube. With a focus on, as you guessed it, jazz musicians, he has an impressive video archive including discussions with fellow guitarists like Pat Metheny, Ben Monder and Steve Tibbetts, as well as musicians across the instrument spectrum from drummer Steve Gadd to oboist Kyle Bruckmann. In this video, Dr. Jazz speaks with Bill Frisell:

See more here: https://www.youtube.com/@SamoSalamonMusic

More from Samo Salamon from the Free Jazz Blog:

Anne Efternøler, Maria Laurette Friis, Johanna Borchert - We Are. Profoundly. Predisposed. To Drowning (Relative Pitch, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

There isn’t a better description for this Scandinavian trio of women (yes, women only, even free improvisation is male-dominated, let’s not forget about it), than the one that opens the liner notes on bandcamp’s page for this CD: an ongoing conversation between the three musicians about, I will add, the vulgarities, atrocities, sonorities and small wonderful gestures of everyday life.

With a very basic instrumentation, just voices, a prepared piano, a trumpet, a flute and some small objects, the three musicians collaborate in creating a sonic environment about the human condition. Collective improvisation could be the key word to describe what happens on this CD, but the listener will find strong fragments of chamber music and small vignettes of miniscule sounds that delve and mingle like a radio playing randomly while you perform boring everyday chores.

As a listener I have been exposed, like so many of us I believe, to great recordings and musics with grandeur and big intentions. It’s the small gestures, the mini scales that nowadays I seek. This cd is exactly that. But, there needs to be an explanation here, not because this is not important music or just because it is just music to relax. Quite the contrary. The music the three musicians produce is precise, intense and urgent. It is also, maybe the most important of them all, so personal that immediately sets my alarm for greatness.

It is becoming normality but Relative Pitch has nailed it again, producing an album of profound beauty that defies categorization.

Listen here:

We are. Profoundly. Predisposed. To drowning. by Anne Efternøler, Maria Laurette Friis, Johanna Borchert

@koultouranafigo