The Free Jazz Collective

Booker Stardrum - Close-up On The Outside (We Jazz Records, 2026)

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

First transitive property of the Free: if A plays with B and B plays with C, A will play with C. From which the second follows: if you liked A, you will like C. The empirical observation of the above, today starts from SML, a quintet composed of bassist Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu synth, Booker Stardrum drums and Gregory Uhlmann guitar. International Anthem's debut album, Small Medium Large, released in 2024, was recorded at ETA in L.A., a venue Jeff Parker used for his quartet, which included Butterss and Uhlmann, on “Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy”. Its pyrotechnical synthetic grooves, ranging from Miles's On the Corner or Get up with it infectious pimp jazz, the polyrhythms of Fela Kuti and the greasy funk of Parliament/Funkadelic, guaranteed free fall, joyful listening. From there, Booker Stardrum's new solo album (his fourth, following 2015's Dance And, 2018's Temporary Etc.; and 2021's Crater), released on We Jazz Records, is a short but lateral step.

Who is Booker, besides being SML's drummer? His official bio describes him as a composer, drummer, and producer, involved in numerous impro/experimental and pop projects, film scores and sound design, through collaborations that include Lisel, Photay, Horse Lords, Wendy Eisenberg, Amirtha Kidambi, Ben Vida, Will Epstein, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Chris Williams, Patrick Shiroishi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, and Nels Cline. Our Man, supported by faithful collaborators Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Chris Williams, Lester St. Louis, Logan Hone and Michael Coleman, began mapping out the new album during a stint in the Catskill Mountains in 2022, sketching out recordings of insects and birds and homemade mallet instruments.

So, a field recording album? Not exactly, since those are reworked through MIDI controllers, samples, and loops. An electronic music album, then? Not only that, acoustic sequences are interpolated into the electro textures, as if to maintain a solid connection (human first, rather than analog) with that farm where it all began, in the quiet of a late summer on the Catskills. Jon Hassell-esque ambient, perhaps? It's a fuel element of an engine that shifts down two gears and hits the gas before going too narcoleptic, just as the sonic iterations hark back to the supreme Necks, but when the synapses connect there, here's an immediate shift in direction.

Regarding "Third Nature," the album's fourth track, Booker's words are a sort of programmatic declaration for the entire project: "It gets its name from a concept in social ecology, that humans are part of nature even though there have been different philosophies that separate humans from nature. First nature is the natural world, second nature is human development and social ecologists remind us that we are of nature, and then the question is, how can we do a better job, exist, be of nature, and affect nature in a cohabitual way?" Obviously the theme is gigantic and of capital importance, and unfortunately, this album, nor any other album, can’t provide us with the answers. But it is precisely in its minimalism that Close-up On The Outside finds its raison d'être, like those small mechanical devices made of gears and springs that in themselves have no specific function but that you would remain enchanted by looking at for an indefinite time. Its compositions, carved from the dense layering of instruments and manipulated samples with a pantonal harmonic sense and an intuitive approach to rhythm, won't change the music's axis of rotation by a single degree (how many albums do that..?), but they will allow you to spend 33 minutes of irresistible bliss. To play with the oxymoron: a dispensable, necessary listening.

Gunther Hampel (1937 -2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:41:05 +0000

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

“I don't make music, I am music.“ A typical Gunter Hampel quote about Gunter Hampel. “I don’t compose songs that have been done a thousand times before. I really am like Mozart or Beethoven. My compositions are original, they come about like my children,“ he once said. “When I was in New York in the 1970s, I was the center of things because I was the one who came from Europe and who brought a breath of fresh air.“ Modesty has never been his thing, however, his musical work and the appreciation he has received for it prove him right.

Gunter Hampel was born in Göttingen/Germany on August 31, 1937. In 1953, he already had his first own combo. He studied architecture and became a professional jazz musician in 1958, trying to integrate European influences such as 12-tone music into American jazz. In the 1960s, therefore, he worked with European musicians like John McLaughlin, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Manfred Schoof and Willem Breuker, and then more and more with American soloists, especially Marion Brown, Jeanne Lee and Anthony Braxton. With the album The 8th of July(Birth Records, 1969), which included Braxton, Breuker and Lee as well as Arjen Gorter on bass and Steve McCall on drums, he succeeded in finding a convincing synthesis of European and American free jazz for the first time.

In the early 1970s, Hampel founded the Galaxie Dream Band in New York, which lasted for almost 30 years. In addition to himself, the central players in this formation were his wife, the jazz singer and composer Jeanne Lee, and the clarinetist Perry Robinson. Furthermore, he repeatedly gave solo and duo concerts (especially with Marion Brown and with Jeanne Lee).

But Hampel has also always transcended the limitations of improvised music and turned to completely different projects, such as the alternative music ensemble The Cocoon, which was founded in the environment of the avant-garde band Kastrierte Philosophen. Later came a collaboration with Jazzkantine, a very commercial jazz/hip-hop project that was actually very successful in the mainstream, for their first two albums. His forays into more commercial territory also include writing film music, as well as music for the 1996 play Sid and Nancy by German actor Ben Becker. At the other end of his musical spectrum, he repeatedly devoted himself to new classical music, participating in the performance of compositions by Hans Werner Henze and Krzysztof Penderecki. All in all, Hampel conducted several different large formations, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and much more. In order to be able to publish all this appropriately, he ran his own label Birth Records.

From 1972 to 1981 he released 16 albums by the Galaxie Dream Band alone. All of them are really good, if I had to pick two I’d go for Celebrations (Birth, 1974) and All the Things You Could Be If Charles Mingus Was Your Daddy (Birth, 1981). A must have is the above-mentioned The 8th of July, as well as my personal favorite Cosmic Dancer (Birth, 1975), again with Robinson and Lee plus Steve McCall on drums. Enfant Terrible (Birth, 1975) - nomen est omen - is another great one, actually a Galaxie Dream Band recording, it was just not released under that moniker. Apart from the free jazz albums, I can wholeheartedly recommend the two Cocoon records, especially While the Recording Engineer Sleeps (first released in 1989, re-released on Staubgold, 2015).

Hampel was a multi-instrumentalist, he played the flute, saxophone and piano, but especially as a vibraphonist and bass clarinetist he had great merits. He created enormous sound fields, did not let anything dictate him musically throughout his life and always tried to penetrate new musical worlds. Now this great free spirit and stubborn man (in a positive sense) has passed away. May he rest in peace.

Watch a performance of the Galaxie Dream band from 1972 (in excellent quality) and you’ll get the magic of the ensemble:

Sylvie Courvoisier Trio – Éclats-Live in Europe (Intakt, 2026)

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

By Kenneth Blanchard

Swiss native Sylvie Courvoisier has not escaped notice. She began her recording career in the 1994 and moved to New York four years later. Since then, judging by her faculty page at the New School College of Performing Arts, she has had no difficulties finding either work or fame.

Courvoisier received numerous awards including the United States Artist Fellow (2020); the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists (2018); Swiss Music Prize (2018); Switzerland SUISA’s Jazz Prize (2017); and Switzerland's Grand Prix de la Fondation Vaudoise de la Culture (2010). She received commissions to compose new works from The Shifting Foundation (2019) and the Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works (2016).

This recording documents two performances in Germany during a 2025 European tour. The trio features the superb bass of Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen on drums and “Wollesonics.” The latter are instruments invented by Wollesen. You can see some of these fascinating creations at this link: https://www.15questions.net/interview/kenny-wollesen-about-drumming/page-1/ .

Éclats presents a series of compositions built around fairly simple lines. Courvoisier’s piano work ranges from heroic to sparkling. The pieces are coherent and, in many places, dramatic, or even romantic. “Requiem d’un songe” comes closest to telling a story, albeit in a variety of traditional accents. It reminds me of the compositional strategies (though not the sound) of Thelonius Monk.

“Imprint Double” begins with a thumping drive that would make a good soundtrack for a stagecoach scene in a Western. This action is broken periodically by short conversations between the piano and whoever is riding shotgun at the time. This gives way to a pensive conversation with enough space to let each instrument precisely define each moment. Then we are back to riding across the uneven landscape.

“Big Steps Toward Silence” is a lovely piece that might be the place to start if you want to appreciate what each member of the trio brings to the stagebut the percussion creates a soft mood just as effectively as the piano.

For much of the recording, I am never sure where the drums leave off and the Wollesonics begin. “Free Hoops,” however, begins with a very aromatic rattle that doesn’t sound like it comes from any drum kit I am familiar with.

This is a fine album. It makes for excellent background texture whether you are driving or washing the dishes. It also richly rewards careful attention. If it meets your approval, you might check out the Trio’s studio album D’Agala. Both recordings are available from Bandcamp or Amazon Music.

Éclats - Live in Europe by SYLVIE COURVOISIER TRIO with Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen

DoYeon Kim - Wellspring (TAO Forms, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Tue, 19 May 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Sammy Stein

A gayageum is a traditional Korean plucked zither with 12, 18, 21, or 25 strings. Historically made from paulownia wood, the instrument produces a soft, delicate, resonant sound, the range of tone enhanced by having movable bridges. Do Yeon Kim is an internationally recognised gayageum player who has been key to bringing this instrument into contemporary music. Being a plucked string instrument with a wooden body, it has percussive overtones that make it versatile and able to blend with percussion or stringed instruments.

On Wellspring (Tao Forms), Kim teams with Mat Maneri on viola, Tyshawn Sorey on drums, and Henry Fraser on bass, and the result is a crazily magical seven tracks, four composed by Kim and three group compositions.

The opening track, ‘The Beats of Distant Thunder,’ is a creative blending of sound with plucked strings, flowing lines, and percussive distractions that create a flow of energy from one musician to another. The breath-like ebb and flow, along with a rise and fall in dynamics, make for a piece brimming with interest. It feels like almost the perfect free playing match, as each musician takes explorative themes, sees where they go, and passes the concepts deftly to the rest. Sorey’s percussion is monumental on this track, and the gayageum reveals a huge range of sounds.

‘Walking In The Dream’ is an enchanting blend of sung and spoken vocals and sonorous, gutsy bass lines. It is a track that brings in essences of Crass at times, with the shouted, meaningful vocals. On ‘Whispers Among Dawn,’ Kim changes her 25-string gayageum for a 12-string one, and the sound is distinctly more open. The interaction with the bass is mesmeric. On ‘Sun Shower,’ Kim is back to her 25-string gayageum for a beautiful number with interaction between viola and gayageum that becomes hard to differentiate at times. Halfway through, Kim unleashes madcap vocals that align perfectly with the multi-layered textures of the instruments. The sheer depth of the controlled noise of the final third until it fades is worth listening to at full volume.

On ‘Diffraction,’ Kim switches to the 12-string gayageum again, for a dynamic, interactive track, followed by ‘Linear System’, which is so laden with sound, it sounds like many instruments; it is hard to believe just one is involved. It gets denser, and more layers seem to evolve until everyone quietens and the vocals of Kim gently, almost tentatively, rise from the near silence. The music builds again, then, with a cymbal crash and a bass, it is gone, yet not quite. It moves into the final track, ‘Calculus for Our Souls,’ which is the most atmospheric track of the album, with Kim's vocals singing, shouting, calling over the instruments, with Maneri’s viola adding its own lines underneath before the drum and bass introduce even more layers to this extraordinary music.

This is one heck of an album, with something for everyone, from free jazz lovers to punk vocal style and hints of classical in the string lines. It is mesmeric and different, yet there is also a familiarity – the sense of musicians coming together and creating free jazz that does just what this kind of music does – connects and communicates.

Kim says of the album that she was asking the question: How could she embody the world through her music to create a powerful and lasting impression on the listener?

Question answered: This album does exactly that. It is an expression of primal force, encapsulated by musicians who understand what Kim needed and wanted. The dynamics are beautiful, the communication sound, and the music captivating.

Wellspring by DoYeon Kim

Albert Beger Quartet - Astral Visit (Kame’a, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Mon, 18 May 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Eyal Hareuveni

Israeli tenor sax player and composer Albert Beger took his time before responding to the Israeli collective trauma of October 7, 2023. His eighteenth album, Astral Visit, begins with the simply titled piece, “October 7”. This piece processes the trauma of endless loss, pain, and grief into a most compassionate, spiritual statement. You can sense the whole emotional turmoil in the charged performance of Beger Quartet - the intense piano solo of Milton Michaeli, the propulsive drive of double bass player Asaf Shchori and drummer Nitzan Birnbaum, and Beger himself, who channels the lament into a powerful, deeply emotional, and life-affirming plea, celebrating life over apocalyptic, death-seeking vision.

Astral Visit is Beger’s eighteenth album and his most spiritual album to date. Its title immediately evokes the spiritual music of John and Alice Coltrane, but Beger has his own vision. The second piece is called “C major,” and it is a playful, fast, and acrobatic rhythmic piece that flirts with Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics and highlights Beger's profound camaraderie with his longtime comrades Michaleli and Shchori, as well as the new drummer Birnbaum. The following title piece begins with the sound of exotic bells before cementing Beger’s deep connection to the astral meditations of the Coltrane's, but, surprisingly, Beger thinks of this simple piece as his own perfect melody, just like Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”. He beautifully articulates the melodic theme with a commanding, soulful sax solo.

“Nobody Dies” was composed before Oct. 7 but relates to the horrors of this day. This piece rides on a hypnotic pulse, and Beger chants a quote from the Indian Vedantas and the mystical Jewish Kabbalah, “They say nobody ever dies, therefore nobody ever born”. Michaeli is the main soloist, transforming Beger’s opening, concise solo and the rhythmic pattern into a magnificent, astral tour de force, before Beger takes the lead again and brings this piece into a cathartic, liberating climax. The album ends with the ballad “Healing Song”, which was written during the COVID-19 pandemic and laments Beger’s departed friends, but, obviously, became more and more relevant. It is a gentle song, shining with its optimistic light. A beautiful conclusion for a great album.

Full playlist here.

Negotiating Control and Openness: Three Albums by Gligor Kondovski

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

By Vangel Nonevski

In recent years, Macedonian experimental violinist, composer, and electronic sound architect Gligor Kondovski has been systematically expanding the semantic field of the violin – treating it less as a stable instrument and more as a volatile site of transformation. Much like on Floating Steps , where the violin functioned as a narrative trigger within an electroacoustic imaginary theater, Kondovski’s three new releases form a loosely connected cycle of defamiliarized musical situations: studio intimacy, ensemble architecture and live improvisational exposure. What unites them is not genre allegiance but a persistent effort to redefine context itself – to place sound inside carefully constructed yet deliberately unstable frameworks.

Rather than presenting stylistic variations, these albums function as three different dramaturgical environments in which Kondovski tests how composition, electronics and improvisation can co-exist without settling into habitual roles.

Gligor Kondovski & Vladan Drobicki – Inward (PMGJazz, 2025)

Inward unfolds as a subtle and introspective exchange between electronics and acoustic improvisation. Kondovski shapes the album’s core material through abstract electronic textures, understated soundscapes and sparse compositional cues that define the emotional and spatial contours of each piece. Rather than functioning as a backdrop, these electronic elements actively determine the music’s internal logic, setting conditions to which the acoustic voice must respond.

Vladan Drobicki, a trombonist with over thirty years of experience across numerous improvising ensembles, approaches this environment with remarkable restraint. His playing avoids assertive statements in favor of gentle, exploratory gestures that trace the edges of Kondovski’s electronic constructions. Long tones, subtle shifts in timbre and carefully measured silences allow the trombone to move in close dialogue with the electronics: following rather than leading, responding rather than shaping.

The result is music that unfolds gradually, emphasizing atmosphere, pacing and attention to detail. Inward is less concerned with dramatic development than with the careful articulation of space and the quiet tension between prepared material and spontaneous response.

Inward by Gligor Kondovski, Vladan Drobicki

Skrit – Sunday Connection (PMGJazz, 2025)

With Sunday Connection, Kondovski presents his quartet Skrit, joined by Filip Metodiev on electric guitar, Andrea Mircheska on double bass and Dario Cievski on drums. Here, the focus shifts decisively toward composition and ensemble balance. Kondovski’s writing provides clear structural frameworks that guide the music without constraining it, allowing individual voices to emerge while maintaining a strong sense of collective direction.

Metodiev’s guitar plays a crucial role in shaping the quartet’s sound. His tone is restrained and finely controlled, favoring clarity and nuance over overt expressionism. Rather than dominating the texture, the guitar weaves itself into the ensemble, offering melodic fragments and harmonic shading that subtly reframe the music’s internal relationships.

The rhythm section operates with notable precision and sensitivity. Mircheska and Cievski avoid conventional timekeeping roles, instead focusing on dynamic control, textural variation and measured propulsion. Their contributions are essential to the album’s overall coherence, ensuring that the music’s structural clarity remains intact even as it opens itself to improvisational flexibility.

Sunday Connection by Skrit

Gligor Kondovski | Konstantin Hadzi Kocev | Martin Georgievski – Neo-Noir (AKSIOMA, 2025)*

Neo-Noir stands apart as the only live recording among the three and documents a rare trio configuration of violin, piano and electronics. Performed with minimal prior preparation, the concert captures Kondovski leading a group where the absence of predetermined form becomes a defining creative resource.

In this setting, Kondovski’s violin acts as a catalyst rather than a focal point, initiating shifts in direction, provoking responses, or withdrawing entirely to allow space for interaction between piano and electronics. Konstantin Hadzi Kocev’s piano work moves fluidly between sparse gestures and dense, percussive clusters, while Martin Georgievski’s electronic interventions fracture and recontextualize the acoustic dialogue in real time.

The music develops through accumulation, interruption and reorientation, shaped by the immediacy of the performance and the trio’s responsiveness to the moment. Neo-Noir emphasizes process over resolution, offering a document of collective listening and rapid decision-making under live conditions.

*Disclosure: the review for this final album 'Neo-Noir' is Nonevski's take on the album. He is the executive producer for AKSIOMA (the publisher of the album).

Neo-Noir by Gligor Kondovski | Konstantin Hadzi Kocev | Martin Georgievski

* * *

Taken together, these three albums present Gligor Kondovski not simply as a violinist operating within experimental jazz, but as an artist persistently questioning how and where music happens. Whether through abstract electronics, ensemble composition or live improvisation, Kondovski continues to treat sound as an unfinished object – open to reconfiguration, misalignment and recontextualization.

Much like Floating Steps, these works do not seek to resolve meaning but to invite attentive listening within constrained yet imaginative frameworks. They remind us that the most compelling improvised music often emerges not from excess, but from the careful cultivation of uncertainty.

---

Vangel Nonevski was born in 1977 in Belgrade. He completed his undergraduate, MA and PhD studies at the Institute of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, where he discovered a somewhat twisted modus of listening to and writing about music. So far, he has published three books on remix and hip-hop music and culture. Hip-hop is the main reason he fell in love with “Great Black Music”, as the musicians in the AACM famously called it. Since 2012, he has been engaged as a professor at three universities, where he tries not to present himself as a know-it-all. He is the father of a lovely and happy child – Luka.

Negotiating Control and Openness: Three Albums by Gligor Kondovski also appeared on the Macedonian music site Mono-ton.

Brian Marsella and Sae Hashimoto - Tunnel Vision (Red Palace Records, 2026)

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

By Brian Earley

A single string vibrates into one deep, sustained note. The note flickers, almost pulses around its tonal center, the way a Tibetan singing bowl circles one ever changing tone.

This is how “Sheep Water,” the fourth song on Tunnel Vision, by Brian Marsella and Sae Hashimoto, opens.

After nearly forty seconds of this single string emanation, four high-pitched notes seemingly glow into existence out of the opening sustain. Soon, a quiet clatter– air passing through different length reeds? –a metal spatula clacking along a turning bicycle tire?- stutters its way forward.

The string is from the low register of the inside of Brian Marsella’s piano, bowed with a shoe lace or some object that must resemble one. The glowing notes and bicycle tire? The vibraphone of Sae Hashimoto, played first with nearly complete resonance and almost no attack at all, and then hit with direct percussion, as her sticks clank over the outer face of the instrument’s metal resonating tubes.

It feels like floating through a dark but weightless corridor.

“Blurry-eyed and dizzy,” like the feeling of tunnel vision, is how Hashimoto explains the way she felt while working late into the night with Marsella on this new mesmerizing album. I could spend the entire review on “Sheep Water” alone, so wonderful it is, as it floats freely through atonal rubato before collecting itself some four and a half minutes into Hashimoto’s composition with an impressionistic alternating piano line and a hushed conversation between the two instrumentalists.

While much of the music on Tunnel Vision is chamber music tranquil, the work is filled with ambitious and off-centered percussive rhythms. Listen, for instance, to Marsella’s composition “S.O.S. (Mayday! Mayday!).” The rhythms here splatter like paint thrown unpredictably at a wall, opening with three splashes from the piano in mid, high and low registers, followed by three hits on the vibraphone bars, the first patiently held out, the final two playfully rushed offstage as the duo embark on a six minute adventure that is as exploratory as it is fun.

Much of this lovely album exists either in the dreamtime realm of rubato ballad melodic lines that quietly insist on remaining unresolved (“Seeing Behind the Bald Cypress Tree,” for example) or whimsical percussive play (check out “The Centrifugal Force That Keeps Us Intact” for this side of the record).

The work is also visually evocative, and I am so thankful the Bandcamp page includes a video of the two musicians working their way through Hashimoto’s title piece with Brian using a piano that is partly prepared to stop its strings’ resonation dead flat, while Sae fires out impossibly accurate off balance rhythms. And balancing out the rhythms of life is central to this recording in unexpected ways as well. The album notes on Bandcamp tell listeners this: Sae’s 34-week pregnant belly made it difficult for her to stand for extended periods of time, and the vibraphone was further away than usual. However, feeling her son kick throughout the session, she knew he could hear and feel the vibrations of the music.

How cool–how beautiful–is that?!?

Tunnel Vision is a wonderful album filled with compositional ambition and avant-garde experimentation. It too is very beautiful, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Tunnel Vision by Brian Marsella & Sae Hashimoto

Hatka - Quartet (Mustik Motel, 2026)

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

By Charlie Watkins

Quartet feels like a good old-fashioned free jazz album, in the best sense. Start to finish it is imbued with that 60s viscerality, creative and raw, moving ever-forwards with driving force. The improvisations are fresh, the group cohesion strong, and the identity sure. The three members of the group are free jazz veterans – Darin Gray on bass, Janne Tuomi on drums, and Alan Wilkinson on alto sax, bass clarinet and occasionally vocals – so perhaps it is no surprise that they have produced such a strong debut outing as a trio. But even so, it feels like the second they entered the studio, something must have clicked: this sounds like a group who have been playing together for years.

I must admit that I spent the first few tracks of this album wondering whether I was missing something obvious. Where was the fourth member of this ‘quartet’? The album notes reveal that Jone Takamäki was meant to be joining the trio for the live date and recording but was then unable to, sadly passing away later the same year. Takamäki is still listed as the fourth member, and the album feels like an ode to his boundless creativity and range of expression. Fierce one moment, reflective the next, it is everything Takamäki would have wanted.

The huge variety on this relatively concise recording is its great strength. The first track is powerful, the second meditative, the third sparse (but fierce). Each subsequent track has something that makes it distinctive; the tracks could hardly be more different, and yet it feels completely cohesive as a statement of what this group can do. It is an album that demonstrates faithfulness to the free jazz tradition – even as it stretches it in different directions – and as such feels like an ode to the music itself. Wilkinson is, of course, a force to be reckoned with. There are some incredibly guttural moments of bass clarinet, and the last couple of tracks, when he starts to use his vocals, are the highlight of an already impressive album. But the three musicians together achieve that holy grail of psychic connection where they seem able to turn corners and move the music on with almost simultaneous decision making, and Gray and Tuomi never fail to match Wilkinson’s energy, bringing distinctive .

This record isn’t going to change the world, but I don’t think it can be criticised for that: it was never what it set out to do. It is reminder that originality does not always need to be the bar by which music is judged; instead, as Hatka demonstrate, we are allowed to enjoy it just for being really good.

Quartet by Hatka

Luise Volkmann's Été Large feat. Wallis Bird - Été Large and Wallis Bird (self-released, 2026)

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

By Sammy Stein

Wallis Bird is an Irish musician residing in Berlin. She has released six studio albums, including ‘Architect’ in 2014, and Home in 2016. She performed at the Eurosonic Festival in 2012, when Ireland was the Spotlight Country, and has worked with numerous musicians on various projects.

Luise Volkmann is a German jazz and improvisation musician and composer. She has played with Devin Gray, Satoko Fujii, Xu Fengxia, Moritz Sembritzki, and Natsuki Tamura, among others. As a bandleader, she founded small bands such as Konglomerat and also large ensembles in Germany and France. Her newest large ensemble is Ete Large, featuring herself and a dozen musicians.

Ete Large, under the direction of Volkmann, has released an EP featuring two beautifully contrasting tracks, featuring Wallis’s vocals, pragmatically titled Ete Large and Wallis Bird. Volkmann is delighted to have worked with Wallis and calls it a beautiful cooperation. The first track on the EP is ‘Chorale, my quiet Pal’. It is an atmospheric, gentle number, featuring Wallis’s superb vocals, which are wonderfully suited to this music. She transitions from beautifully pitched melody to keening, emotive phrasing, and the backing of deep brass and woodwinds adds atmosphere and nuance to the vocal lines.

The second track is a complete contrast. ‘Their Quotes and How They Twist Them,’ and Wallis shines here with beautifully told stories about living with people and having to listen to them as they talk about different things, twisting what is said. The ensemble orchestration is creative and supportive, enhancing the beauty of the lyrics and harmony of the vocals.

If you want to know more about Ete Large, the links below are highly recommended.

Two contrasting tracks of superb quality.

Été Large and Wallis Bird by Luise Volkmann's Été Large feat. Wallis Bird

The Pre-Save: https://listen.music-hub.com/ITJzz0

Bandcamp: https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/music

Wallis EP : https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/album/t-large-and-wallis-bird

Torino Jazz Festival 2026

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

By Ferruccio Martinotti

TJF 2026 (Aprile 25th-May 2nd)

April 25th, Liberation Day, is a national holiday particularly felt in Turin, a city that was the heart of the partisan resistance to Nazi-Fascism. In these times of right-wing resurgence infecting our lives almost everywhere, it is even more meaningful to celebrate it. For the jazz addicted, the date coincides with the start of the Torino Jazz Festival, now in its 14th edition: in addition to the concerts’ schedule, lectures and films celebrate the centenary of the births of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Below is a synopsis of what we saw.

Photo: Acid Rain Production

Interviews excerpts: La Stampa

FABRIZIO BOSSO “ABOUT TEN” - April 25 (Teatro Colosseo)

The great trumpet virtuoso pays homage to Ellington and Gillespie with his group (Julian Oliver Mazzariello on piano, Jacopo Ferrazza on double bass, and Nicola Angelucci on drums) expanded to include six young talents (Stefano Bergamaschi, Andrea Priola on trumpets, Didier Yon on trombone, Lorenzo Simoni on alto saxophone, Sophia Tomelleri on tenor saxophone, and Andrea Iurianello on baritone saxophone) for refined and swinging arrangements that bring a fresh take on the great classics and an intriguing interpretation of his own songs. Our main courses in the Festival’s menu are different, but it's gonna be a marathon, better to start off calmly and then, as Ken Vandermark teaches us, it's a good and healthy habit to take a dose of Duke whenever we can.

MARC RIBOT HURRY RED TELEPHONE - April 26 (Hiroshima Mon Amour)

After last fall's intimate concert at the Folk Club in support of Map of a Blue City, Marc Ribot returns to the city with his new group/project Hurry Red Telephone and, as expected, the sold-out venue is hit by a magnitude 9 tsunami. If it was well known that Chad Taylor is one of the drummers writing the history of nowadays drumming, less predictable and totally jaw-dropping was the metronomic, telluric fury of double bassist Sebastian Steinberg (anyone here remember Soul Coughing?). Orderly and precise, even too entangled in the score, Briggan Krauss's alto contribution alternates in a crazy, hyper-noise-saturated piece with the second guitar, reminiscent of the most ferocious Bill Orcutt. Marc described the group to us like this: “It was a trio with Chad Taylor and Henry Grimes that has created some of the best improvisations I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve wanted to continue collaborating with Chad ever since Henry passed away. And with this band, I’ve finally found the right lineup. Sebastian Steinberg was my favorite in the late ’80s and early ’90s, before he moved to Los Angeles. He and Chad make a truly exceptional rhythm section, the two most intuitive musicians I’ve ever known and Briggan Krauss is an extraordinary alto saxophonist.” What Ribot brings out, however, hunched over his old amplified acoustic guitar, is always astonishing: whether it’s picking or strumming, noisy no-punk or mellow calypso arpeggios, his signature asserts itself, whatever the declination, in a peculiar way, never predictable or self-indulgent, as only top notch players can offer. A double encore loudly demanded by the roaring audience and a final "loving" tribute to Donald with "Aliens in the White House" send us off to bed happily.

FYI, in the same interview, Marc assured us that the stop in Berlin before leaving for Japan with the Cubanos will be used to record their debut album. To say we can't wait to hear it is an understatement...

MORGENBARN - April 27 (Teatro Juvarra)

A recently formed Italian-Estonian-German trio, characterized by the compositional and performing flair of its members, Matteo Poggi (trombone, electronics), Maria Faust (alto sax, electronics), and Tilo Weber (drums, percussion, vibraphone). Formed after a chance meeting at the 2024 Sudtirol Jazzfestival and an impromptu concert, they sparked an explosive chemistry. Their performance exudes naturalness, freedom and curiosity, resulting in a captivating and courageous sound that respects no boundaries: Weber's vibraphone and drumming set the stage for Faust's explosive sax, while Poggi, alternating between trombone and electronics, enriches the mix phenomenally. We weren't familiar with them and they were really a pleasant surprise.

FUNK OFF + VOX ARTIFICIOSA “THIS IS NOT AN ORCHESTRA” - April 27 (Teatro Alfieri)

Take Funkoff, a historic large Italian ensemble founded 28 years ago by Dario Cecchini and composed of three trumpets (Paolo Bini, Nicola Cellai, Emiliano Bassi), two baritone saxophones (Giacomo Bassi, Nicola Cipriani), two alto saxophones (Sergio Santelli, Tiziano Panchetti), two tenor saxophones (Andrea Pasi, Claudio Giovagnoli), a sousaphone (Giordano Gerini), a snare drum (Francesco Bassi), a bass drum (Alessandro Suggelli), cymbals (Luca Bassani) and percussion (Daniele Bassi); add to that the group Vox Artificiosa led by Cristina Zavalloni, one of the most incredible voices on the international scene, accompanied by Rise Beatbox (vocal beatboxer), Mario Marzi (soprano, alto, baritone sax) and Achille Succi (alto sax, bass clarinet) and how high could be the risk of an indigestible music meal, such as pineapple on the pizza? High, of course, very high. Instead, contrary to all expectations, the two worlds merge, collide, dialogue and break down in smaller groups, then they recompose themselves into a "Not Orchestra" that unleashes thermonuclear energy, imposing a new language that erases the original elements. The arrangements of the two leaders, Dario Cecchini and Achille Succi, allow Cristina's stratospheric baroque "bel canto" to intertwine admirably with the wind instruments, the vocal beat of Rise, the percussive street dance and the jazzy cavalcades of the orchestral reeds. "James Brown and Handel dance arm in arm," their press release reads, and believe us, they really did.

SLIDERS - April 28 (Teatro Juvarra)

As modest jazz chroniclers, we always willingly rely on the Great Academics who write on the Free Jazz Collective, ensuring that this forum is "The only forum that matters," to quote The Clash. So, should the Professors be aware of any group, other than this one we're writing about, consisting solely of three trombones, please tell us, they know where to find us. As far as we know, the Sliders (Federico Vignato, Federico Pierantoni, and Lorenzo Manfredini) represent a unique ensemble, capable of demonstrating the unique versatility of this instrument, exploring its infinite timbral possibilities in a way that's never boring or repetitive. Brave and courageous guys.

FYI, their self-titled album, released in the fall of 2024 by Hora Records, features original compositions alongside reinterpretations of John Coltrane, Egberto Gismonti, Carla Bley and Duke Ellington.

NORMA WINSTONE & GLAUCO VENIER - April 28 (Teatro Monterosa)

Seen a few months ago as a trio, again with Venier on piano, one of the legends of British jazz returns to the city. Throughout her long and extraordinary career, she has helped redefine the role of the voice and its relationship to sound in contemporary jazz. The duo, formed in 1999, continues the journey Norma embarked on with Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Steve Swallow and her historic ECM recordings, which testify to her unique vocal work, thanks to which she remains an essential figure in vocal jazz. The timbre, verve, and stage presence, despite her age, remain dazzling.

GIORGIO LI CALZI & SIMONE SIMS LONGO “THEATRUM ANATOMICUM” - April 29 (Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici)

Call it “site specific”: anatomical analysis of sound, disintegrated and recomposed into new forms, a musical autopsy report made of noise and silence, light and darkness, with the audience, in the semicircular University hall, focused and engaged in the unveiling of the sonic sphere and visual perception offered by the great Li Calzi (trumpet, analog, digital and electromechanical instruments) and Sims Longo (electroacoustic computer music, visual score). The intermedial performance, featuring synthetic textures, manipulated samples and ever-changing sensory environments, is fully functional and the location (the University's Anatomy Institute) adds further impact.

FRANCO D’ANDREA TRIO “SOMETHING BLUESY AND MORE” - April 29 (Teatro Monterosa)

It's impossible not to pay homage to the great Maestro, creator of some of the most extraordinary piano works known (for those who haven't already, listen to the recordings with the Modern Art Trio featuring Franco Tonani and Bruno Tommaso). Here, he blends his distinctive rhythmic and intervallic inventions with early blues and the scores of Ellington and Coltrane, accompanied by the amazing Roberto Gatto on drums (a collaborator with George Coleman, Enrico Pieranunzi, Chet Baker, John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Billy Cobham, Richard Galliano, Joe Zawinul, and Pat Metheny, among others) and the young Gabriele Evangelista on double bass, offering a free and communicative performance, in which D’Andrea's marvelous centrifugal thrusts are held in orbit by the gravity of the Blues Planet. A moving, well deserved, final ovation from the sold-out theater greets D’Andrea and his pards.

ITALIAN INSTABILE ORCHESTRA “PLAYS ELLINGTON” - April 30 (Casa Teatro Ragazzi e Giovani)

It’s Duke time again. After years of hiatus, the legendary Orchestra, founded in 1990 (which has hosted giants such as Giorgio Gaslini and Mario Schiano during its career) is back. Today, the band features Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, alto clarinet), Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone), Roberto Ottaviano (soprano saxophone), Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet), Pino Minafra (didjeridoo, megaphone), Alberto Mandarini, Fulvio Sigurtà, Flavio Davanzo (trumpets), Giampiero Malfatto, Sebi Tramontana, Lauro Rossi (trombones), Emanuele Parrini (violin), Paolo Damiani (cello), Giovanni Maier (double bass), Fabrizio Puglisi (piano), Tiziano Tononi (drums), Vincenzo Mazzone (percussion), and is conducted and arranged by Giancarlo Schiaffini. The absolute caliber of the musicians, the stylistic signature of the large unity, at the service of Ellington's scores, ensure that the equation is perfectly resolved after the very first notes.

FRANCESCA TANDOI + JAZZ ACOUSTIC STRINGS QUARTET - April 30 (Teatro Monterosa)

With over 20 recordings under her belt (three as pianist for Scott Hamilton's quartet) and significant international critical acclaim for her album "Bop Wep," the captivating Francesca Tandoi is now one of the most prominent figures in contemporary European jazz. This concert brings to the stage the project linked to her latest album, "Hope," in which her trio (Stefano Senni on piano and Pasquale Fiore on drums) dialogues with a string quartet (Cesare Carretta, Silvia Maffeis on violins, Monica Vetrini on viola and Enrico Guerzoni on cello, Cristiano Arcelli on arrangements), blending piano virtuosity, orchestral writing and contemporary sensibility. Class and charme galore.

LISA ULLEN “TRANSPOSING SUN” - May 1 (Teatro Juvarra)

No one better than the Seoul-born, Stockholm-based pianist can describe what we heard: “explorations of life through sound, using rhythmic and melodic fragments, seeking to create music with multiple layers where different textures and rhythms can intertwine.” The concert centers on the song “After Sun,” from the 2024 album “Heirloom” (The Wire album of the year) in which, with the assistance of composer and sound engineer John Chantler, Lisa explores the possibilities of the piano and the unique sonority of the hall, enveloping the audience in a peculiar soundscape. Yet another confirmation of the terrific power of women in free music.

BILL FRISELL & EYVIND KANG “THE GREAT FLOOD” - May 1 (Lingotto Auditorium)

The film The Great Food is the result of a collaboration between director Bill Morrison (Oscar-nominated for “Incident” and author of Decasia, the first film of the third millennium to be included in the US Library of Congress) and Bill Frisell. The film was inspired by the catastrophic Mississippi flood of 1927, the largest in American history; an event of immense proportions that affected thousands of people, especially African Americans, who were forced to emigrate to the North. The catastrophe also changed music, starting with the blues and its protagonists, some of whom had witnessed the flood and recounted it in their songs: electric blues was beginning to blossom. In 2012, Morrison found and assembled the filmed testimonies of that catastrophe in unparalleled evocative forms and Frisell created a visionary musical narrative, presented here in a previously unreleased duo version with violinist Eyvind Kang. Frisell told us: “Morrison and I have often collaborated, but he would simply take pieces of mine and superimpose them on his images, but here we worked side by side. We went first to Memphis, then to New Orleans and finally up the Mississippi: almost a century has passed since then, but it's as if history were repeating itself, amidst political mistakes, ecological disasters and corruption. At first, the other musicians looked at the score, trying to learn it, then, over time, the images and music became a unified whole that took on a life of their own.” The film is amazing, as is the perfectly calibrated and coherent soundtrack, while some around us were disappointed that Frisell hadn't played any blues pieces (!), finding the concert boring (!!).

IRREVERSIBLE ENTANGLEMENTS - May 1st (Hiroshima mon Amour)

Three years later, here they are back in town for an event we'd marked in our calendar with indelible ink and the extraordinary concert that brings the Festival towards its end, not only doesn't disappoint, but exceeds the expectations, shattering them. With two long suites centered around their recently released album, "Future Present Past” and a final percussive sabbath, Irreversible Entanglements take no prisoners: the rhythm section of Luke Stewart and Tcheser Holmes is an unstoppable driving force, same as the locomotive in the film "Runaway Train", Keir Neuringer tirelessly alternates between sax, keyboards, gong and triangle, Aquiles Navarro, as he puts down his trumpet, plays percussions, melodica, bone horn and even a large conch shell! And then, of course, there's Moor Mother, the Voice (or better, the Scream) of Black Awareness, whose presence and magnetic charisma (unmatched on the planet today) captivate an ecstatic audience: from hip-hop or call-and-response modes to the voodoo-like trance of a blood sacrifice in the Haitian Heart of Darkness, Camae Ayewa, with metal rattles in the hands, enchants and envelops us in her sonic tentacles. Musically, the group demonstrates that they have broadened their scope, without distorting it, avoiding, as the excellent "Open the Gates" hinted, the risk of repetitiveness and predictability. Tinges of Miles off Keir’s Rhodes piano and shadows of Mingus (as Martin so aptly noted, reviewing their last album) are there to demonstrate that we are dealing with Irreversible Entanglements 2.0. A group like the Art Ensemble of Chicago will never exist again but our guys would be the most eligible to carry on their legacy. File under: Indispensable Presence.

JOHN SCOFIELD & GERALD CLAYTON - May 2 (Teatro Colosseo)

Warm-up and chillout: the training rules also apply to the Festival. We started off relaxed a week ago and so we close with the last concert of TJF 26, a tribute to another Old Lion of this edition. As we all know, from his early days with George Duke and Billy Cobham, to Miles' court and then on to his solo career, John Scofield has shaken up bebop, blues, funk, soul and much more, and the concert we're seeing is a kind of compendium of it all. Alongside the guitarist is the extraordinary pianist Gerald Clayton (collaborator of Bill Frisell, Roy Hargrove, Dianne Reeves, Charles Lloyd, Joel Ross, Kendrick Scott and Kassa Overall), described by Scofield as "one of the best pianists I've ever worked with", the perfect companion for an evening filled with virtuosity, obvious references to the electric Davis and a beautiful, greasy, sweaty blues to close.

Curtain down, see ya next year.

Goal Weight (Maggie Cox and Jennifer Gersten) - Keep Telling Yourself That (Relative Pitch, 2026)

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

By Hrayr Attarian

The absorbing Keep Telling Yourself That is a series of stimulating improvised dialogues between bassist Maggie Cox and violinist Jennifer Gersten. Together, the New York-based Cox and Gersten go by the name Goal Weight. This is the duo’s debut recording, though there is nothing freshman about it, as it demonstrates both creative maturity and impeccable camaraderie.

The opening “Candy Doll Bluff” has a martial rhythm with hints of whimsy. Cox’s percussive chords set the mood with their exacting rhythms. Gersten’s twangy pizzicatto bounces off the bassist’s taut refrains at unexpected times, and with theatrical flair endowing the piece with a humorous undercurrent.

“Brian 1” that follows matches Cox’s energetic bowing with Gersten’s tolling strings. The conversation grows from delightfully dissonant and fiery to serene and melancholic. Cox’s darkly expectant melodies hint at the baroque. Gersten’s crisp and angular lines contribute to the dramatic ambiance. As the tune progresses, the violinist plays a wistful song that the bassist mirrors. The collective refrains enhance the anticipatory mood and lead to the solemn conclusion.

Western classical influences appear frequently throughout the album as both musicians are trained and skilled in both experimental and traditional musical styles. This is most pronounced on the title track. A wistful and pastoral duet on which Cox and Gerster mirror one another in their mellifluous musings. There is a sublime balance between unbridled spontaneity and warm, emotive expression.

Meanwhile, “Your New Uncle” opens with sparse groans and chimes that slowly coalesce into an intriguing, cinematic performance. It sounds like the soundtrack to an experimental film. Cox’s muscular phrases are like an approaching storm, while Gersten’s plucked and strummed notes have a mix of zen-like serenity and an undercurrent of angst. The flow of intertwined improvisations is both seamless and quite adventurous.

This imaginative and thought-provoking album is a demonstration of virtuosity and brilliance. Above all, it is Cox and Gersten’s bold, synergistic explorations brimming with lyricism that make this a work to savor.

Keep Telling Yourself That by Goal Weight: Maggie Cox, Jennifer Gersten

Anthony Braxton – 2 Comp (2023) (Schott Music, 2025)

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

By Don Phipps

There’s always a cutting edge feel to the music of Anthony Braxton, and 2 Comp (2023) released last year is no exception. What is most engaging in Braxton’s efforts here are the dense and dissonant chords that overflow with subtle but edgy excitement.

Take 'Composition 445', the album’s first track. Braxton explores a kind of counterpoint in his bass lines as sax and trombones race along. The result is a feeling one might experience on a train going through a tunnel – an almost aural red shift effect. The piece, however, is not hot. For the most part it is a subdued kind of jumble – like a morning at the office where everyone is just starting their workday. Like recent projects, Braxton continues his use of vocals. Here they sound almost Ligeti-like and produce an escalator-like effect in tandem with the instruments – a movement of up and down. The music bubbles and rumbles, contrasting starkly with the rapid tonguing technique used by some members of the orchestra.

Braxton is not shy about using tried and true techniques like “call and response.” On 'Composition 445', the saxophones respond to trumpet blatts with short squeak bursts. And, like traffic in a city – the orchestra at times roars, and its proximity jars the senses. Braxton also employs strange combinations of instruments, for example – trombones interacting with a bassoon. The piece stretches like a rubber band – as if one were nearing an event horizon of a black hole. Trombones and bassoon, accordion interludes, woodwind notes that bounce like basketballs – it’s Braxtonian jumbled cubist creativity at its best.

The musicians on 'Composition 445' are: Accordion – Andreas Borregaard; Alto Saxophone – Anthony Braxton; Alto Saxophone, Sopranino Saxophone – James Fei; Bassoon – Katherine Young; Double Bass – Carl Testa, George Cremaschi; Trombone – Reut Regev, Roland Dahinden; Trumpet – William Forman; Voice – Andreas Halling, Anne Rhodes, Fabienne Seveillac, Juliet Fraser, Lisa Willems, Nick Hallett, Stepan Janousek.

'Composition No. 446 (Combination Music)' is equally engaging if not more intense. There’s a nightmarish feel to the odd harmonics and dissonance. Like ocean waves, the ensemble surges and then backs off; dynamic contrasts or other-worldly effects are followed by silence. It feels like pointillism in art - the elements of the number (tone, rhythm, color, techniques) singular, yet when combined, create a holistic effect. Abstractions seem to float in the air – through turbulence to slight breezes, and everything in between. The work dances and swirls about but at times feels uneasy – a kind of menace just beneath the surface.

As on more recent albums, Braxton’s prefers sonics that clash – take the electric guitar in an orchestra-ish setting. A piano line evokes impressionism while the polyrhythmic nature of the work give rise to dits and dots, slipping and sliding arcs, trilling, and exhortations from the vocalists. Braxton’s unusual gift for dissonant tone clusters is also on full display. The music moves sideways, up, down, and then sideways again – a kind of circular rotation that provokes and intrigues and keeps things very unsettled.

The musicians on 'Composition No. 446' are: Clarinet – Dafni Mengou, Rebecca Minten, Tadashi Lewis; Conductor – Anthony Braxton, Katherine Young, Kobe Van Cauwenberghe; Double Bass – Pablo Jimenez (7); Electric Bass – Paul Steinbeck; Flute – Luciana Perc, Maral Yerbol, Marianne Sihvonen, Seraina Ramseier; Guitar – Alec Goldfarb, Aleksey Potapov, Leonardo Melchionda, Orestis Tsekouras; Oboe – Aleksandra Panasik; Percussion – Aditya Ryan Bhat, Orson Abram; Piano – Jennifer Mong (2), Qi Qu; Trombone – Kalun Leung, Vasily Ratmansky; Trumpet – Émilie Fortin; Viola – Alison Eom, Aruzhan Abilseit, Christoven Tan; Violin – Ana Luisa Diaz de Cossio, Mac Waters, Paolo Vuono; Violoncello – Audreanne Filion, Clara Dietze, Jun Sian Chee, Laurence Gaudreau, Tord Bremnes; Voice – Elizabeth Gartman, Maria Morfeo.

With 2 Comp (2023), Braxton has once more provided another stellar illustration of his “creative” music. His expert ability to juxtapose instrumental voicings to create elaborate structures is in full evidence. Those who open this door, will find a path leading to the subconscious, the heavens, and the elemental. Enjoy!

Making Space: The Work of Access in Experimental Music

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

David Byrne. Photo by Cora Wagoner*

By Jeff Arnal

Making Space: The Work of Access in Experimental Music
Reflections from Big Ears on Democracy and the Avant-Garde

Across multiple traditions of creative practice in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, there is a recurring commitment to autonomy, resourcefulness, and collective invention that transcends style and genre. In the punk world, Michael Azerrad’s 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981–1991 chronicled a generation of American underground bands that survived and thrived outside mainstream structures by building their own circuits of support: booking tours, releasing records on their own terms, and forging direct relationships with audiences without corporate mediation. The book’s title comes from a line in the Minutemen’s song “History Lesson Part Two”: “Our band could be your life,” an invitation to listeners to see themselves in the creative process and a declaration that meaningful art does not depend on institutional sanction or approval. The Minutemen’s “jam econo” philosophy carried this even further, a way of working that stripped everything down to what was necessary, touring constantly, moving light, sharing gear, and keeping production lean so the music stayed close to lived experience. It fused punk urgency with a kind of jazz openness, a disciplined but flexible approach to making and surviving on the road, where interdependence and adaptability were not abstract values but daily practice.

This punk DIY ethos connects backward and outward into other experimental milieus. In 1970s New York, the loft jazz movement saw musicians transform abandoned industrial settings into venues, rehearsal rooms, and recording environments when commercial support was absent. Jazz artists such as Rashied Ali, Ornette Coleman, John Fischer, Sam Rivers, and others built performance opportunities with and for their communities. Earlier, the Judson Church collective in downtown Manhattan brought together dancers, composers, visual artists, and improvisers in a context that resisted institutional hierarchy, privileging openness, chance, and intermedia collaboration. In the 1960s, the Fluxus collective, with figures like George Maciunas and Nam June Paik, enacted gestures that foregrounded event scores, indeterminacy, and audience participation, making participation itself part of the work. These moments, punk, free improvisation, and interdisciplinary performance art, are not isolated facts but shared methods. They emphasize resourcefulness, collective forms of support, boundary-crossing practice, and the formation of contexts where participation is not pre-defined but discovered in practice. Each tradition demonstrates that creative practice does not wait for permission; it invents its own platforms, its own audiences, and its own ways of circulating ideas.

Before going further, it is worth saying that there is not a single term that holds all of this. Creative music, contemporary classical , noise, DIY, jazz, free jazz, improvised music , electronic music, avant-garde: each name points to something real and each falls short. These labels carry histories, communities, and also the weight of institutions and markets that shaped them. I do not mind the term experimental music, and for the sake of this piece I am using it as a kind of shorthand, knowing it has its own baggage, its own history, its own residue. It feels less like a fixed category than like a moving one, a way of pointing toward practices that question form, resist easy definition, and stay open to change.

Mary Halvorson with Tomas Fujiwara, Henry Fraser, and Dave Adewumi.
Photo by Cora Wagoner

The Audience Is Already Onstage

In experimental music, the audience is rarely an external body waiting to be reached. It is already embedded in the work. The same people circulate through multiple roles as performer, listener, organizer, label operator, archivist, critic. These roles are not fixed. They rotate, overlap, and collapse into one another, and in doing so they blur the line between maker and receiver.

This is not unique in an absolute sense. From the work and ideas of Marcel Duchamp onward, modern and contemporary art already unsettles the idea of a passive viewer: Meaning is completed through perception and participation rather than simple looking. But in experimental music the overlap becomes more continuous and more social. It is not only that meaning is activated in interpretation. It is that the same small networks are involved across the full cycle of the work, from making and performing to documenting, distributing, and sustaining it over time.

What emerges is less a separation between audience and artist than a shared field of participation. The work is carried by the same relationships that receive it.

At venues like Roulette, a Brooklyn nonprofit performance organization that grew out of the late 1970s downtown loft scene, and Issue Project Room, a Brooklyn-based venue for experimental and durational performance, this overlap is not incidental. Rhizome DC, a Washington, DC experimental and community arts venue known for presenting improvisation, electronic music, and interdisciplinary performance in an intimate, artist-run setting, operates less like a venue and more like a switching station. Downtown Music Gallery, a long-running New York record store and informal hub for experimental and improvised music, functions as a living archive, a place where circulation and memory coexist. The audience is not something to be developed or expanded in the abstract. It is already present, already participating, already shaping what the work becomes.

This condition has historical precedent. The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago in the 1960s, free improvisation circles in London, the 1970s New York loft scene, and punk basements in California all formed around informal, self-made settings where music existed outside institutional permission. These were not separate audiences so much as overlapping communities of players, listeners, and documenters, often the same people moving fluidly between roles. What appears from the outside as a limited audience is, from within, a dense and active network of participation, a self resonating circuit in which production and reception continuously fold back into one another.

Tyshawn Sorey. Photo by Ryan Clackner

A Turning Point in Listening

Any attempt to understand this field passes through John Cage and his 4’33” , a work shaped as much by Zen Buddhism as by the radical propositions of Duchamp. Cage did not simply expand music; he removed its center. Sound was no longer something organized solely by the composer. It was already present, already happening, already available to anyone willing to listen.

What Cage opened was aesthetic and conceptual but also social. By removing hierarchy from sound, he destabilized authority over who gets to make music and how it is received. Pauline Oliveros extended this into what she termed Deep Listening, grounding it in attention, embodiment, and collective practice. Julius Eastman insisted on presence, naming, and identity within experimental composition, making clear that sound is never separate from the conditions of power, visibility, and survival that shape it.

David Tudor collapsed performance and composition into generative live systems, shaping environments in which sound was emergent and collective. Laurie Spiegel used early computer music to expand access and participation, anticipating the distributed, system-driven approaches that are now commonplace. Alvin Lucier made listening itself a material, revealing space, resonance, and time as active forces in perception. Artists like Daphne Oram, Wendy Carlos, Maryanne Amacher, and Laurie Anderson helped define early electronic and multimedia approaches, building tools and conceptual frameworks that reshaped expectations about sound, audience engagement, and temporal experience.

Time-based, transmedia, and durational practices also exemplify this openness. Works that unfold over hours or across extended processes, like Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room, where repeated playback allows architectural acoustics to gradually replace spoken language with resonance, or Maryanne Amacher’s City-Links and mini-sound series , where psychoacoustic tones are composed to be completed by the listener’s nervous system and the acoustics of specific sites, treat sound not as fixed material but as something activated through time, perception, and environment. Pauline Oliveros’s multi-channel sound environments extend this further, grounding listening in attention, embodiment, and collective presence. These works demand sustained attention and situational awareness. They challenge conventional performance boundaries, blurring distinctions between composer, performer, audience, and environment itself.

Isaiah Collier plays Coltrane with Dave Whitfield, Conway Campbell, and Tim Regis.
Photo by Andy Feliu

Earbuds, Art Centers, and the Concert Hall

The geography is now fractured. Music and other sounds circulate through overlapping systems that no longer align neatly with older distinctions between underground and institutional contexts. A track can move from Bandcamp to independent radio to a performance in another country within days. Distribution is now widely available. Tools that once required studios, labels, promotional channels, and of course the financial resources that sustained them are increasingly shared.

At the same time, listening has become stratified. Earbuds create intensely private encounters with sound. Art centers frame work through curatorial context. Concert halls place it within historical lineage and institutional authority. These contexts overlap constantly. A work can move among them without changing form, only context. Small, locally rooted communities continue to invent their own practices and spaces, becoming microcosms of experimentation that circulate back into broader networks.

Entry is no longer the central barrier, and this shift is visible in how certain works and practices now travel across these overlapping systems. For example, albums released independently on platforms like Bandcamp often circulate first through artist-run or listener-run channels before moving into independent radio ecosystems such as WFMU or NTS, and from there into live performance contexts that include both DIY venues and major international festivals. Live coding and algorithmic performance practices, as developed in communities like Algorave, similarly move between informal club spaces, academic research contexts, and large-scale festival environments, with the same core work shifting meaning depending on framing rather than changing materially. Likewise, sound-based installations by artists working in both gallery and performance contexts, such as Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s walking audio works, circulate between museum presentation, headphone-based individual listening, and site-specific public activation, depending on where and how they are encountered.

What emerges across these examples is not a single unified system, but a set of porous circuits where production, distribution, and reception no longer align in stable ways. The same work can be private and collective, informal and institutional, local and transnational, often within the span of its own circulation.

The question is how to maintain meaning in an environment of near-infinite production.

Experimental music doesn’t wait for permission to take shape. It builds its own systems and its own audiences through the structures it creates and the people who gather around it. The audiences who show up for events like Big Ears reflect this. Big Ears draws tens of thousands of visitors each year, with a substantial portion of its attendees coming from outside Tennessee and from across the country and beyond. Many visitors commit multiple days to listening, dialogue, workshops, talks, and community programming, seeking connection, discovery, and deep engagement rather than passive entertainment. Some attendees are cultural professionals, curators, programmers, and label representatives whose presence signals that this field operates across overlapping scales, at once local, translocal, and networked. This expanding and engaged audience underscores that participation in the field is shaped by curiosity, commitment, and intentional cultivation, not solely by commercial logic or passive consumption.

Maria Chavez, Greg Saunier, Shahzad Ismaily. Photo by Jess Maples

Democracy Without Filters

When experimental music is described as democratic, it is not a claim that sits in one place. It moves through the field itself, through artists describing how they work, through presenters and curators trying to account for forms that do not fit institutional expectations, and through critics and listeners trying to find language for practices that are already happening before they are named.

What it tends to point toward is not equal representation in any simple sense, but something closer to distributed authority inside the work. Equal representation suggests balance in who is present or visible. Distributed authority describes how decisions actually happen in real time, how form is shaped through response, interruption, listening, and adjustment among performers, and sometimes listeners and organizers as well. It is not that everyone has the same role, but that no single role fully determines the outcome in performance.

In improvised music, and especially in lineages connected to the AACM, this becomes a lived practice rather than an idea. Structure emerges through interaction rather than being delivered from above. A piece is not executed so much as negotiated in time. Roscoe Mitchell’s ensemble work, or the intergenerational networks around artists like Tyshawn Sorey or Tomeka Reid, make this visible as a sustained practice of listening and recalibration rather than a fixed model of participation.

Across the broader field, including at events like Big Ears, this produces something closer to interdependence than symmetry. Artists move between roles as performers, composers, and organizers. Audiences are often deeply embedded in the field itself, sometimes including other musicians whose presence is part of what supports the work. Attention circulates across these roles rather than resting in a single center.

Value does not disappear in this system. It stops being universal and instead forms through repetition, proximity, and sustained engagement within specific communities of practice. What counts is not fixed in advance but built over time through shared listening, shared risk, and continued return to the work.

This form of democracy exists in tension with the world around it. At a moment when broader systems feel fragile, exclusionary, or in some cases actively regressive, experimental music offers another model. Not utopian, not pure, but functional. Small, interdependent communities form around sound. People organize their own platforms, define their own values, and maintain practices collectively over time.

At the same time, it is not clear that these formations are simply democratic in any straightforward sense. They operate more as situated or practiced forms of democracy, where participation is real but shaped by access, knowledge, proximity, and time. What can feel open from the inside often looks quite different from the outside, where the same formation may appear specialized, coded, or difficult to enter without prior context or connection.

The history of the AACM makes this tension legible. It emerged as a response to exclusion from dominant cultural and economic systems, creating a space where Black experimental musicians could define their own artistic and organizational terms. That autonomy required building its own structure, its own set of expectations, and its own forms of accountability. The aim was self-determination, but self-determination also meant drawing boundaries in order to sustain a shared practice over time.

What emerges is not a contradiction so much as a condition the field lives with. These communities are democratic in the sense that authority is distributed and participation matters, and they are also selective in the sense that they depend on sustained engagement, shared language, and forms of labor that are not equally available to everyone. They are built through relationships that deepen over time, and that depth itself naturally produces thresholds.

In that sense, the question is not whether these spaces are democratic or exclusive. They are both, and they have to be. Their openness is real, but it is not abstract. It is shaped through practice, maintained through participation, and continually negotiated in real time.

Engagement in this practice is not a solution to isolation, fragmentation, or exclusion within the field or outside it. It does not resolve the uneven access that shapes who gets to participate, who has the time and resources to stay engaged, or who is able to move through these networks with any consistency. Those conditions remain in place, and in some cases they are reproduced inside the very structures that are trying to work differently.

What these small communities do instead is something more limited and more specific. They create working methods inside those conditions. They build situations where people can actually show up for each other, listen, collaborate, and take shared risk over time. They make room for forms of relation that are harder to maintain elsewhere, but they do not remove the larger structures they are operating within.

In that sense, music in this context is not a fix. It is closer to a practice of rehearsal. A way of testing how people might organize together under real constraints, without assuming those constraints disappear. It is infrastructural in a quiet way. It builds relationships that can hold, sometimes loosely and sometimes tightly, but always under pressure from the conditions around them.

Seen this way, the value is not in resolution. It is in continuity. In the ability to keep making and listening together, even when nothing about the broader situation is settled.

Caroline Shaw. Photo by Cora Wagoner

A Music That Builds Its Own World

A consistent thread across these practices is the way experimental music builds its own systems of relation, rather than relying on existing ones.

The AACM emerged in Chicago in the mid-1960s as a self-organized collective that created its own concerts, education programs, and distribution networks out of necessity. The model of self-determination it developed has been extensively documented by the musician and scholar George Lewis, who has written and composed deeply on improvisation, technology, and Black experimental practice. Within this tradition, the bassist and composer William Parker understands music as inseparable from daily life, a continuous practice of listening, responsibility, and community. The saxophonist Charles Gayle speaks openly about the difficulty of sustaining that life, maintaining artistic commitment and material survival in conditions that are often unstable or indifferent. The drummer, visionary artist, and polymath Milford Graves approached improvisation as ritual and healing, a way of aligning body, rhythm, and spirit through sound as lived process rather than performance. Cecil Taylor, pianist, composer, and free jazz pioneer, treated music as energy in motion, a system of forces rather than fixed forms, framing each performance as something alive in the moment, never repeatable in the same way twice.

Miles Davis insisted on transformation, urging musicians: “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there,” a directive that emphasized invention over replication and placed responsibility on the performer to imagine new possibilities in real time. Herbie Hancock framed creativity as inseparable from life itself, and contemporary artists like Caroline Shaw and Tyshawn Sorey continue this line, moving fluidly across forms, genres, and ensembles, demonstrating that commitment and attention, not labels, define experimental practice.

In practice, these ideas are not abstract. They are enacted through the music itself. In works like George Lewis’s Voyager, a computer system improvises alongside human performers, creating a shifting sonic environment in which no single agent controls the outcome. Authority is distributed, and listening becomes an ethical act. Each participant must respond, adapt, and make space for others in real time. Similarly, the broader AACM approach treats composition and improvisation as collective problem solving, a way of modeling social interaction through sound. Early AACM statements made this explicit, asserting that musicians could determine their own strategies for political and economic freedom through collective organization and creative practice.

Throughout these examples, one sees a consistent thread. The work is not simply musical. It is infrastructural, social, and ethical. It creates spaces in which community, improvisation, risk, and care coexist. Each artist reminds us that experimental music is sustained as much by belief, practice, and labor as by sound itself.

The DIY ethos of the late twentieth century required building infrastructure from scratch. Bands created their own circuits, economies, and audiences.

Now much of that infrastructure is readily available. Anyone can record, release, and distribute music. What once depended on studios, labels, and the logistical weight of physical circulation now exists in more immediate, dispersed forms, often built from tools that are widely shared and relatively easy to access. This shift lowers the barrier to entry, but it also changes the conditions of attention. The question is no longer only how to make work visible, but how to sustain it in a field where everything is already moving.

This changes independence. It lowers the barrier to entry while raising the difficulty of sustaining attention. The challenge is no longer access but continuity, how to keep going, build relationships, and make work that persists over time. What looks like freedom in this context is never separate from the conditions that hold it up. It is made in the ongoing work of rehearsal, organization, care, and return. Freedom is tied to labor, not as constraint but as the steady practice through which anything shared or lasting is actually made.

Despite fragmentation, certain traditions remain active as methods.

In Europe, Stockhausen and Xenakis expanded composition into systems and architecture, shifting musical thought toward structure, spatial form, and process. Roscoe Mitchell treats ensemble practice as ritual, where form emerges through sustained collective attention. Anthony Braxton extends composition into language and philosophy, building frameworks that move between sound, notation, and conceptual structure. George Lewis integrates improvisation, history, and computation, connecting experimental practice to technological systems and shifting histories of agency.

Other currents move through spirituality and transcendence, from John Coltrane to Alice Coltrane, reappearing in contemporary practices that merge sound with devotion and expanded states of listening. The downtown continuum extends through artists like Laurie Anderson, where performance, media, and narrative fold into one another, while diasporic and global traditions reshape the field through ongoing exchange, translation, and return.

These are not fixed inheritances. They remain in motion, carried forward through practice rather than preservation.

Wild Up: Arthur Russell's 24 to 24 up. Photo by Taryn Ferro

A Living Cross Section: Big Ears 2026 and Other Festivals

What this looks like in practice can be felt in the density of Big Ears 2026. Not as a lineup, but as a temporary ecosystem where histories, communities, and practices intersect.

The presence at the festival of John Zorn and the Masada projects connects decades of composer-performer networks to artists like Ikue Mori, Ches Smith, and Brian Marsella, who move fluidly across improvisation, composition, and electronics. The AACM lineage continues through Roscoe Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, and collaborations with Tyshawn Sorey and Jeff Parker, extending the AACM’s foundational commitment to collective self-determination, original composition, and the integration of improvisation with structured and experimental systems. Emerging from Chicago in the 1960s, AACM artists not only redefined approaches to timbre, form, and instrumentation, but also built their own institutions, performance spaces, and educational models in response to structural exclusion. That legacy persists as both sound and method: a practice grounded in artist-run infrastructure, interdisciplinary experimentation, and the understanding of creative music as a social and cultural force. Another cluster forms around artists connecting Chicago, Los Angeles, and global scenes through figures like Carlos Niño, Nate Mercereau, Josh Johnson, and Isaiah Collier. Their work intersects with artists like Sam Gendel and Shabaka, linking spiritual jazz, ambient practice, and contemporary improvisation.

Composer-performer ensembles sit alongside artist-driven projects where composition and improvisation are inseparable. Artists move between configurations across the festival, appearing in multiple contexts. This is the network made visible, built through ongoing collaboration rather than isolated work.

Global traditions are integral to this context. Carnatic and Hindustani music, Ethiopian jazz, Gnawa, and cross-cultural collaborations unfold alongside experimental pop, folk, noise, and large-scale multimedia work. Artists like Laurie Anderson and David Byrne extend the field outward by translating experimental practices into more widely accessible forms, connecting them to broader audiences and cultural contexts without fully abandoning their underlying complexity. Their work operates as a bridge, making experimental approaches legible across disciplines and publics, while other performers remain committed to more intimate, durational, or deeply situated practices. Electronic and computer music legacies from the likes of Laurie Spiegel, David Tudor, and Alvin Lucier continue to inform new generations.

Underlying all this are shared support systems. Labels, independent radio, critics, archivists, venues, and informal networks. What emerges is not diversity as a surface condition but interconnection as a lived reality. Different histories and identities are not parallel. They are entangled.

The scale of the gathering reveals a dense layering of infrastructures that support the work. Labels function as archives and distribution networks. Radio creates continuity across generations. Writers and critics trace lineages and create context. The same names appear across projects not as repetition but as evidence of relationship.

Festivals make this visible. They compress what is usually dispersed.

The Vision Festival nurtures a long-term community. Founded in 1996 and held annually in New York City, typically in June, the Vision Festival brings together multiple generations of improvisers, dancers, poets, and visual artists within a self-organized, artist-run framework. Big Ears creates a temporary environment of openness, particularly in a region where that openness is not guaranteed. In Tennessee, where cultural policy has moved to restrict forms of expression, including attempts to ban drag performances, the presence and success of this kind of gathering is not neutral.

From a southern perspective, this carries a particular weight. In places like Western North Carolina, and in the longer shadow of the Deep South I grew up in, cultural life has often been shaped by distance from major institutional centers, by uneven access, and by the way communities build meaning without relying on sustained formal infrastructure. In that context, gatherings like this do not simply add another cultural option. They briefly reorganize what public life can feel like.

Audiences move between radically different forms within a shared environment, not as isolated encounters but as a kind of collective attention that is not always available in everyday life. What matters is not contrast for its own sake, but the experience of proximity itself, of being in a place where different histories, practices, and ways of listening can sit beside one another in real time, and where that co-presence becomes a kind of temporary commons.

What emerges is not a single narrative but a field of relations. Aesthetic questions remain open. What matters, what lasts, what holds attention over time, these are not settled questions. But the scale of activity itself is significant. The number of artists, practices, and connections forms something like a laboratory, a testing ground where ideas about sound, community, and value are constantly being proposed and revised. It is uneven, sometimes overwhelming, but it is alive.

What holds this field together is not agreement, but participation. Artists become audiences. Audiences become organizers. Organizers become archivists. Agents, curators, and promoters facilitate movement across contexts. The system does not stabilize into a single structure. It circulates across contexts, practices, and communities. Experimental music is not defined by a fixed audience. It is defined by those who choose to engage with it, to carry it forward, and to listen deeply enough for it to matter.

Despite its density, what is described here is only a partial record of a wider field that is always in motion. There are informal settings that never get documented, scenes that flare up and dissolve, small labels that circulate quietly, artists who step away and others who continue under difficult conditions. There are also networks of relation that shift depending on where you stand, and forms of labor that remain largely unmarked even as they hold everything else in place. Attention is never evenly distributed. Participation is always shaped by geography, by access, by race, gender, class, and ability in ways that no single account can resolve.

None of this completes the picture. It simply returns it to the conditions in which it is already unfolding. What holds is not resolution but continuity, the ongoing fact of the work as it moves through different registers, across places, through different hands. The field is not something to be finished or fully seen, but something partial, contingent, and in process. It is entered partway, listened to from within, and left while the motion continues.

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Jeff Arnal (b. 1971) is a percussionist, curator, and arts organizer based in Asheville, North Carolina. His work moves across performance, writing, publishing, and organizational practice within experimental music, shaped by long engagement with artist-built infrastructures. Since the 1990s he has performed internationally, including duos with Charles Gayle and appearances at venues and festivals such as Big Ears Festival, Blurred Edges Festival, the Vision Festival, Issue Project Room, and Roulette.

He currently works in projects including Chrononox with Camila Nebbia, Dietrich Eichmann, and John Hughes; a trio with Bonnie Han Jones and Ken Vandermark; and Drum Major Instinct with Curt Cloninger. Since 2016 he has served as Executive Director of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, where he has expanded exhibitions, performance, publishing, residencies, and research in dialogue with contemporary artists and scholars. He studied with Stuart Saunders Smith and Milford Graves, and holds degrees from the University of Maryland and Bennington College.

*All Photos courtesy of Big Ear

Camila Nebbia, Gonçalo Almeida, Sylvain Darrifourcq - Hypnomaniac (Defkaz, 2025)

noreply@blogger.com (Stef Gijssels) — Sat, 09 May 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Stef Gijssels

Argentinian saxophonist Camila Nebbia has steadily become one of the favourites of this blog, with reviews of "Noche U Niebla", "Presencia", "A Reflection Distorts Over Water", "Exhaust", with various ensembles, yet all from the past year, and this even without mentioning concert reviews, videos and end-of-year lists on which she featured.

On "Hypnomaniac", we find her in the company of Portuguese inventive double bassist Gonçalo Almeida and French percussion wizard Sylvain Darrifourq, and the result is ... well ... hypnotic. What begins as a free-jazz sax trio, with all three musicians tentatively probing the terrain, gradually transforms into a mesmerising sonic experience in which the instruments dissolve into a dense, drone-like wall of noise. The dual rhythm section of Almeida and Darrifourq develops into a bizarre and overwhelming mass of sound, while Nebbia’s hoarse saxophone flutters above and through the murky sonic miasma. The piece sustains this intensity for the full "19:45" suggested by its title.

The massive sound subsides and is replaced on the second track by cautious subdued rhythmic sounds over which Nebbia's sax hovers close to a tonal center, subtle and fragile. This approach is kept in the third piece, called "8:59". The three instruments basically merge into one coherent soundscape, with the occasional variation and escaping from the collective sound. It's fascinating.

Only on the final track do the individual instruments regain their distinct voices, though the bass remains electronically warped. The result is jittery, frantic, intense, and gloriously unhinged. It feels as though the sustained tension built across the earlier tracks suddenly erupts without restraint, propelled by Darrifourq’s machine-gun soloing and Nebbia’s wild, untethered improvisation, driving everything toward a deafening, full-throttle finale, welcomed and applauded by an enthusiastic audience.

Nebbia, Almeida and Darrifourq are highly inventive musicians with distinct musical identities and sonic approaches, yet remarkably they succeed in making their visions converge without sacrificing the individuality of their own voices.

The performance was recorded live on March 15th, 2025 at Thessaloniki-Greece during the ''Take 2'' festival organised by Defkaz records and the Mikri Skini venue.

PS - it seems to be a fashion to print titles upside down, as Han-Earl Park did on ‘uᴉɐƃ∀ ʍǝN sI plO sI ʇɐɥM’". For reasons of clarity, I kept the normal way of writing in the title, but for purists: here is the title of this album: "Ɔɐɯᴉlɐ Nǝqqᴉɐ' פouçɐlo ∀lɯǝᴉpɐ' Sʎlʌɐᴉu pɐɹɹᴉɟonɹɔb - Hʎduoɯɐuᴉɐɔ".

Ǝuɾoʎ¡

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

... and their concert schedule in Europe this year:

Luis Nacht & Camila Nebbia - Noche Y Niebla (ears&eyes Records, 2026)

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

By Ferruccio Martinotti

While all around us certainties crumble one after another, one remains intact: the creative streak of the Berlin-based, Argentine-born, ace musician Camila Nebbia shows no signs of drying up. After an incredible run of albums in 2025, so high-quality that it's almost impossible to rank them (don't even try, just get them), Nebbia doesn't let our turntables cool down and returns with the album "Noche y Niebla," an equal partnership with Luis Nacht on tenor and soprano saxophone, supported by the rhythm section of Jeronimo Carmona (double bass) and Fermin Merlo (drums), while she on tenor, as a rule.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1959, Luis began his formative journey studying the flute in Mexico City, taking his first steps as a professional musician touring Central America and Europe as a flutist and singer with the latin music band Grupo Sur. He later moved to New York and began playing saxophone, taking lessons from George Coleman and Richie Beirach. His collaborations include, among others, Actis Dato, Iannacone, Giunta, Otero, Hoogland, Hecht, Verdinelli, and Perez, and a series of prestigious awards earned at home and in Europe contribute to defining his stature as a musician. Jeronimo Carmona is a double bassist with a solid trajectory in foundational Argentine jazz ensembles and collaborator of Luis Nacht for over two decades. Fermin Merlo stands out for his rhythmic creativity and deep understanding of interaction in free improvisation, having worked alongside Nacht for more than ten years.

After many encounters on stage and in the student/teacher dynamics, Luis and Camila meet again in a Buenos Aires studio, attempting, through aesthetically and generationally diverse perspectives, to define sonic paths that unravel in the nocturnal mists of the amazing cover picture and perhaps also of their names, which translated as Night and Fog. We don't know if this is a joke or an induced suggestion, but what is certain is that the final result fully achieves the intended goal, offering us a labyrinth that challenges the listener, not by imprisoning him in tangles of sounds he can't unravel, but, on the contrary, by showing him the way out, or rather, multiple ways out, according to different everyone’s sensibilities, provided he follows the directions simply hinted at by the musicians.

A distinctive feature of the album is the working method used, establishing, before recording, the titles of the pieces, which serve as narrative coordinates within which to let the improvisation flow, unfolding between stories, intrigue and mystery, without ever drying up into sterile conceptualism and thus losing the emotional intensity expressed in dramatic and dreamlike plots that constitute the album's hallmark. The interplay and the resulting play of references among Nacht and Nebbia is wonderful, perfectly met by the powerhouse of Merlo and Carmona and, as always, it's interesting to hear what the protagonists have to say about. Nebbia: “Improvisation in ‘Noche y Niebla’ is a radical commitment to the present moment. We are not only searching for melody but for the expression of sound in its most solid and stripped-down state. It is a sound that is found and shaped in the fog, right at the moment of execution.” Nacht: "This album is the continuation of many years of work, taken to a new conceptual limit. My lyricism collides with Camila's sonic purity and that tension becomes the true composition of the record. Having Merlo and Carmona, musicians with whom I share more than years of history, gives this freedom an essential rhythmic anchor". As in every great free album, the architecture is very solid and only the excellent skills of the musicians are able to make it invisible to the listener: Noche y Niebla is a paradigmatic example, don’t miss it.

Noche y Niebla by Luis Nacht y Camila Nebbia

Tyshawn Sorey – Members…Don’t! (Pi Recordings, 2026)

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

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Coming out during the turbulent 1968, Max Roach’s Members, Don’t Git Weary was an album of its time. Political (continuing Roach’s musical statements that started with We Insist!), vocal and aggressive in its own right. The acclaimed –and a favorite of mine- drummer Tyshawn Sorey offers us here not a cover album, not even new interpretations of the songs, but, I dare say, a brand new reimagining of the old material.

Recorded live at New York’s Jazz Gallery with a great band -consisting of Adam o’ Farrill on trumpet, Mark Shim on tenor saxophone, Lex Korten on piano, Tyrone Allen on double bass and Fay Victor on vocals- Sorey and his comrades achieve something that only the quartet of [Ahmed] is doing right now: taking musing of the past, through a current perspective, and making it a product of the present. Really great Black music. Ancient to the future indeed.

Sorey as, somewhat, a leader is a musician that even a listener, like me, who prefers music as a means of collective expression, can trust. I use the word trust as he seems eager to channel the Black tradition that he so clearly has absorbed into a new entity that belong to the group of people that are behind all the sounds.

Joining the dots, very fast and ecstatically, between the jazz tradition, free jazz and the journey of transcendence that jazz, those days, offered to everybody (as did Roach’s music too), the music on this release, over ninety minutes long, is a joyous affair and a signature recording for a year, our current situation, that sees the planet going towards chaos, imperialism and fascism.

Music has no boundaries and sets free powers that can heal or, at least, bring solace. Even for brief moments. I commented before about Sorey’s leadership and that, obviously, brings in mind the solo players in jazz history. But Sorey here –continuing my previous line of thoughts- assures that this is a collective effort with the focus on how to act and react (the interplay between the musicians) using the material as a basis to comment on our dire situation right now. As did Max Roach’s music back then. This is an urgent listening for sure .

Listen here:
Members... Don't! by Tyshawn Sorey

@koultouranafigo

Han-earl Park uᴉɐƃ∀ ʍǝN sI plO sI ʇɐɥM (Buster & Friends, 2026)

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

By Sammy Stein

Berlin-based Korean American guitarist and improviser Han-earl Park has released ‘uᴉɐƃ∀ ʍǝN sI plO sI ʇɐɥM’ (What is Old Is New Again), a collection of twenty-one solo miniatures recorded between January 2024 and February 2026. Most are first-take improvisations with minimal editing and production.

Park is associated with numerous projects, including, but not limited to, ensembles and duos Juno 3 with Lara Jones and Pat Thomas, and Gonggong 225088 with Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia, Richard Barrett, Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Pauline Oliveros, Charles Hayward, Mark Sanders, Lol Coxhill, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Evan Parker, Ingrid Laubrock, Josh Sinton , and Franziska Schroeder, and a shedload more.

While the tracks are miniatures (as described by Park), they vary in length, some running for several minutes and others being shorter. What they have in common is Park’s touch of the bizarre, the explorative and various mechanizations of the guitar body and strings to create different soundscapes and atmospheres. The contrast between the numbers is impressive, and Park manages to find twenty-one slightly different ways to present an instrument. From the quirky, slightly thunky explorative open-fretted opener ‘All The Wrong Notes’ to the warpy, atmospheric ‘Drift After’ or the beautifully evocative ‘Bees on a Summer Day’ where the listener might conceivably feel as if they are inundated with little furry visitors of the apiaran kind in a grist, but not quite a swarm, as the notes plink and flip.

There are many highlights on this recording, from the overlapping melodies of ‘Footwork’ to the explorative ‘On The Way Out’ with its unexpected final phrases, and the wonderfully worked ‘The Zen of FWIW, Frustration,’ a retake of an earlier one-take work by Park (the FWIW is for What It’s Worth.)

‘Trash Fumble’ is wonderfully spooky and dark, with a frenetic ending, while tracks like ‘Scratch ‘n’ Sniff’ and ‘Coefficient of Friction/(Breathe, Just Breathe)’ contain contrasting rhythms, shaped phrases,, and in the latter track, Park uses the fourteen minutes of music to explore many facets of the guitar.

Of the title, Park says, “I don’t really want to be too explicit about the meaning—it’s probably my most didactic piece, which I don’t feel 100% comfortable about. It was recorded a few days after the ‘military action’ in Venezuela, and on January 6, the anniversary of the attempted self-coup in D.C., and the Star Spangled Banner runs both pro and retrograde through that piece. But do you think there’s a way -not- to spell that all out explicitly? None of it’s particularly hidden—or a secret—but I’d like listeners to come across it themselves.

The title came from a videographic piece recorded by Park for YouTube.

Over the eclectic mix of tracks, Park uses his music to convey a range of meanings, and the impact is varied, from the dark shades of ‘Grade Separation’ to ‘All You Zombies/Salvo and Echo’, where two guitar lines are interwoven to create chord-like essences.

There is the quietness of ‘Don’t Overthink It’ and the Latin elements that creep into ‘Envelope/Duo Minus-One’. The title track is beautiful, while the gloriously loud and gloopy ‘Oatmeal Again’ is crazily wonderful.

Park manages to give the track appropriate titles, as his artistry extends from the music through to the visual effects the sounds can have.

This is an album to listen to with intent and perhaps in parts because the intricacy and content need time to digest and imbibe. Listening to the entire recording feels like you might be glimpsing the relationship between Park and his guitar, one that is still developing and becoming ever more intricate and complex – a bit like the music.

Preorder available today on Bandcamp.

uᴉɐƃ∀ ʍǝN sI plO sI ʇɐɥM by Han-earl Park

Original track from uᴉɐƃ∀ ʍǝN sI plO sI ʇɐɥM:

Rodrigo Amado This Is Our Language - Wailers (European Echoes Archive Series, 2026)

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

By Eyal Hareuveni

Wailers is the fourth album so far of Portuguese sax hero Rodrigo Amado and his American super-quartet, This Is Our Language - Amado on tenor sax (on the left channel), Joe McPhee on tenor sax (on the right channel), double bass player Kent Kessler, and drummer Chris Corsano. The album was recorded during the quartet’s European tour that introduced its second album, A History of Nothing (Trost, 2018), at the same studio where it recorded its first and second albums, Namouche Studios in Lisbon, in October 2019. The quartet’s third album, Let The Free Be Men (Trost, 2021), was recorded live at Jazzhose in Copenhagen in March 2017. Amado released this archival recording on his own label.

Amado frames the quartet’s free jazz ethos of resistance, truth, and transformation with a quote from American poet, writer, teacher, and political activist Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones), titled “Wailers”:

"Wailers are we

We are Wailers. Don't get scared. Nothing happening but out and way

out. Nothing happening but the positive. (Unless you the negative.)

Wailers. We Wailers. Yeh, Wailers. We wail, we wail.”

The music was credited to the quartet, except one piece, the heartfelt “Theory of Mind III”, dedicated by Amado (who plays here the alto sax and bird water whistle), Kessler, and Corsano to McPhee. This Is Our Language offers free jazz, entangled with free improvisation in its most intense, ecstatic, poetic, and spiritual form, totally possessed by the music of the moment and performing it as seriously as their lives, while also aware and respectful of the great legacy of free jazz. The quartet’s energy is instantly absorbed by the listener and has a powerful, motivating, and emotional impact, transforming John Lennon’s “Power to the People” and Patti Smith’s “People Have the Power” into an actual reality. It reminds us, as Baraka wrote, of the constant need to resist common evils and keep working for the greater good.

Amado and McPhee sound like spiritual brothers who keep feeding each other with fiery ideas and touching melodic-soulful themes, as if they have discovered an endless well of sacred songs. You can repeat their deep conversations on “Hot Folk” and “Subterranean Night Color” time and again and still wonder at this inspired magic. Kessler and Corsano know when to push forward with manic, propulsive energy and when to open the interplay for an introspective dynamics that highlights the distinct voices of this quartet and its profound camaraderie. Just listen to Kessler’s masterful bowed solo that introduces “Violent Souls” and Corsano’s rolling drums, and the way they together build the tension for Amado and McPhee's soaring solos. This great album ends with the soulful, fiery blues” Blue Blowers”.

Wailers by Rodrigo Amado / Joe McPhee / Kent Kessler / Chris Corsano

The Thunks - Swarm Patterns (Trost, 2026)

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

By Brian Earley

…the Janus-like aspect of knowledge and cognition must be set against a background fabric of cultural possibility: individuals draw their self-understanding from what is conceptually to hand in historically specific societies or civilizations, a preexisting complex web of linguistic, technological, social, political and institutional constraints.

-Leslie Marsh and Christian Onof, 2007
“Stigmergic Epistemology, Stigmergic Cognition,” Cognitive Systems Research

No matter an individual’s greed, or desire for personal power, each of us works by necessity in collaboration with a larger social fabric. The utopian dream of nonhierarchical social structures may be more scientific fact entangling our actions in constant negotiation with the behaviors of those around us. Stigmergy, or communications and actions mediated with our surrounding environment, serves as a central component of swarm behavior: the phenomenon of starlings swooshing through the sky instantly negotiating each turn with the group so that the birds never collide with one another and form beautiful panoplies of arches and elastic contours.

No matter the political rift, so must human beings abide by the simple truth that we need each other to survive.

The Thunks, a trio assembled of one pianist and two drummers, manifest such coexistence in their recent release Swarm Patterns for Trost Records. On this work Elizabeth Harnik, the brilliantly inventive piano player who spends almost as much time playing the inner strings of the instrument as she does the outer keys, joins her former bandmate from the DEK Trio, drummer Didi Kern (the third member, “K,” is Ken Vandermark), and Martin Brandlmayr, himself a former collaborator with Harnik in the Trio of Mikolaj Trzaska, Harnik, and Brandlmayr.

The music on this album, comprising two long works, “Swarm Patterns I” and Swarm Patterns II,” is rich with energetic, spontaneous group swirling and swarming, but also materializes as extemporaneous or predetermined compositional patterns. Think Cecil Taylor’s concept of unit structures. For example, on “Swarm Patterns I” Harnik and the drummers create at least five distinct motific patterns they return to at various times through the twenty-nine minute work. After some opening swarming Harnik thunks the piano for the first time at 15 seconds and then lifts upwards into swarms of piano washes until developing a three and two note-thunking at the mid-range of the keyboard for the work’s first motif. The three musicians fly off into the stratosphere as a collective soaring Garuda until returning to the established pattern just after the one minute mark.

After five minutes into the piece Harnik is strumming the innards of the piano like a harp before establishing a be-dom-DOM sequence that will soon blend with the first pattern around 6:10 in the work.

This patterning happens over and over again, but so do spontaneously communicated stretches of interplay. At 7:20 atonal space time arrives and soon the drums are scratching on cymbals, followed by a series of tom hits. Stigmergy manifests in one of its clearest moments with a percussive SMACK around 7:50 prompting a strike on the piano strings by Harnik.

The piece alternates between synergistic hushes of silence framed by percussion and a swirling upward frenetic energy that lurches forward. The group attains autonomous, nonhierarchical vitality as tension synchronously builds and falls into quiet, and by the 23:50 mark the group develops its final motific pattern, which it quickly combines and recapitulates with motifs from the beginning and middle of the work.

A humorous piano splatter and a simultaneous drum and cymbal hit end the piece with laughter.

The group dynamics on Swarm Patterns are remarkable, and for some real swarming, check out the first five minutes of “Swarm Patterns II.” All over these works, the three members shift and fly and land and ascend like starlings or stars swirling in an expressionist night sky. But they are not avian creatures or orbs burning in the nether reaches of the cosmos, of course. These are three human beings showing the rest of us the possibility of beauty and harmony when individuals know they need each other to soar and shine.

Swarm Patterns by THE THUNKS (Harnik/Brandlmayr/Kern)

Globe Unity Orchestra - Live at Berliner Jazztage 1976

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

Just hitting the internet: from nearly 50 years ago and sounding as blasphemously fresh as it did then, this performance of the Globe Unity Orchestra is a must see. If you need more convincing, simply take a look at that list of musicians joining pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach on stage at the Berliner Jazztage that evening in early November.

Peter Brotzmann: Alto Saxophone, Bass saxophone,
Clarinet Evan Parker: Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone
Gerd Dudek: Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone
Rüdiger Carl: Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone
Michel Pilz: Clarinet, Bass clarinet
Kenny Wheeler: Trumpet, Flugelhorn
Manfred Schoof: Trumpet, Flugelhorn
Albert Mangelsdorff: Trombone
Paul Rutherford: Trombone
Günter Christmann; Trombone
Peter Kowald: Tuba, Bass
Alexander von Schlippenbach: Piano
Buschi Niebergall: Bass
Han Bennink: Drums, Percussion, Clarinet
Paul Lovens: Drums, Percussion

Johannes Bauer, Michael Griener, Olaf Rupp - Aufsturz (scatterArchive, 2026)

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

By Martin Schray

It’s always great when unexpected recordings of your favorite musicians surface, in this case the eternally underrated drummer Michael Griener, the great Olaf Rupp (if I had to pick my favorite guitarist in nowadays improv scene, it would be him), and trombonist Johannes Bauer, who died far too young and who was the living proof that free jazz can swing. When you listen to this live recording from Berlin’s Aufsturz Club from 2007, you shake your head in disbelief as to why this music wasn’t released back then. But the answer is relatively simple: the musicians organized this gig to have a demo tape that they could send to promoters. The simple stereo recording had a few technical flaws that could only be corrected now with modern studio technology. Finally, after mastering by Olaf Rupp, it has been made available in good sound quality - and the result is nothing short of sensational.

A long note opens “Aufsturz“, the first track, and already in the beginning almost everything that awaits you in the following 40 minutes is laid out. A powerful wave envelops you and takes your breath away. You feel as if you could literally grasp creativity: percussion shooting back and forth at lightning speed, machine gun fire, guitar glissandi and chopped runs, the accentuated trombone, which takes on the function of both the bass and a melody-leading wind instrument. Dark rumblings alternate with bright, sharp sounds. You don’t know where to listen first because you are pulled from one extreme to the other. Seemingly total chaos (but of course the band is complete control). Free jazz in the European tradition, as if from a picture book. It’s great fun feeling how the fiery improvisation of the opener penetrates your whole body. The sound swells like a tsunami and screams like a thunderstorm before the piece ebbs away.

In a beautiful article a few years ago, the major German newspaper DIE ZEIT claimed that Olaf Rupp plays guitar like only Olaf Rupp can play it. But that comes at a price, the article says, because he doesn’t fit into any pigeonhole. But isn’t that what it’s all about? His rushing runs and splintering sounds, his flageolet torrents, his booming feedback, and his generally bone-dry sound carry this recording. And it fits Johannes Bauer’s creaking, snarling horn, this sparkling, effervescent notes that stretch and compress sounds that are both real and unreal at the same time. Anyone who thinks that Griener’s drums hold the whole thing together is mistaken. It’s quite the opposite, his style, reminiscent of a hyperactive Paul Lovens, tends to tear everything apart. At the same time, however, he skillfully directs the dynamics of the improvisation. And of course, being the professionals they are, they saved the best for last. The 14-minute “Türsturz” sounds like a mixture of wild Sonic Youth, Derek Bailey, Jimi Hendrix, New York Art Quartet, and a distillation of Brötzmann's Machine Gun . It’s easy to get carried away by this force of nature.

Aufsturz is heaven and hell in one. So far, my favorite in 2026.

Aufsturz is available as a digital download. You can listen to and download the album on the scatterArchive bandcamp site: https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/album/aufsturz

Mia Dyberg: Hometown Duos

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

By Paul Acquaro

Two duo recordings from saxophonist Mia Dyberg from the tail of 2025...

Mia Dyberg and Axel Filip - HobbyHouse (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)

Danish saxophonist Mia Dyberg and Argentinian percussionist Axel Filip both currently call Berlin home and work together in a trio they've named "HobbyHouse." Avant-garde and experimental, their debut as a duo seems to focus on the intersection and overlay of timbre and textures as much, if not more, than the melodic and rhythmic sensibilities that also permeate their playing.

HobbyHouse starts with 'Feet in the water,' where long, hushed tones and gentle percussive vibrations intermingle gingerly, making for an expectant atmosphere. Then, they light off some small fireworks on 'Running horses,' spryly skipping rhythmically about. Next, 'Snow plow racer' combines the two approaches as a slowly unfolding, intervallic melody emerges over the splash of cymbals and taught figures.

A stand out track is the very short 'When they jump,' just slightly under two minutes of indeed jumping intensity. Here Dyberg's thoughtful playing bounces delightfully off Filip's agile figures for a fun romp. Skipping to the end, the closer, 'Swimming in the air' exudes a cool calmness, a gentle wrap up to a rich recording, which throughout the duo seems to be able to say quite a bit in the short duration of the tracks.

HobbyHouse by Mia Dyberg, Axel Filip

Mia Dyberg & Rieko Okuda - Glasscut (Kassiani Records, 2025)

Dyberg's duo with Japanese pianist and also current Berlin resident Reiko Okuda marks the debut not of their recorded work but of the Kassiani Records label, which has released Glasscut digitally and as a very limited edition LP. The album fits quite well sonically alongside Okuda and Dyberg's previous releases, Nigatsu 二月 from 2019 and Naboer from 2020. At times pensive and other times exuberant, the duo artfully follow their intuition.

The opening track's reservation is nerve wracking. The tension is palpable, first introduced by gentle breathiness from Dyberg and followed by a building of austere notes from Okuda that stretch a dissonant filament between the two instruments. It only gets more intense, suddenly breaking only when the next track begins. 'No Cut' is uptempo, starting with a curlicue melody from Dyberg, adorned with trills from Okuda. Here, one can hear the pianist's modern classical roots, which were long ago the focus of her studies before being drawn into the experimental fold, in the harmonic accompaniment. The track is both dense and light, moments of wildness tempered with more deliberate passages.

The final track, 'Jikan' begins with Dyberg with long solo introduction, demonstrating her jazz sensibilities and fragmented approach to melody. When Okuda joins, it is with single note lines that interject and intertwine for short stints. The piece develops in fits and starts, mixing restraint and eruptive play.

Glasscuts is an enjoyable and diverse recording from a two dynamic musicians in the contemporary improvisation scene.

Glasscut by Rieko Okuda / Mia Dyberg

Emmeluth’s Amoeba - With Love (Moserobie, 2026)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Acquaro) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

By Brian Earley

As I drove home from Philadelphia on March 28 of this year my soundtrack of choice was music from Scandinavia. Specifically, With Love, the latest release from Signe Emmeluth’s Amoeba. The specter of authoritarianism had brought me to Philly’s Love Park that day where I met up with 80,000 of my closest friends. A calling card of fascism has always been deliberate confusion and the restriction of information, both of which apply directly to my experience of With Love. When I clicked “Check out now” to purchase the physical record on Bandcamp from Moserobie Music Production, I was met with a message informing me this item no longer ships from Sweden to the United States, part of the fallout from the US mandate removing the de minimis tariff exemption. I don’t wish to trivialize the much more serious and life altering impacts of fascism on individual lives, where it rips apart families until the earth is charred and oil rains from the sky, but I also don’t want its tiny bruises to be normalized either. Information is growing a little harder to obtain in the US. Thank goodness the internet is still free enough for me to listen to music from a Swedish label.

I have long been in crazy love with Emmeluth’s compositions and recordings, and since Signe’s 2021 solo work Hi Hello I’m Signe , I acquire her albums as quickly as I can; a hard miss for me was the 25 edition release of Live 2022/2023with each cover a unique handpainted origami by Emmeluth herself (throw a shout my way if you know where I can find one!). Somehow, her work possesses a sound that is at once completely distinct and utterly new. This album is no exception. For example, mere seconds into the record’s second track, “Golugele,” there is no mistaking the sound for anything other than the Amoeba. Pianist Christian Balvig and Emmeluth bang down composed unison syncopations, while Karl Borjå’s jangling guitar alternates off beat chords with Sonny Sharrock like runs and drummer Ole Mofjell rolls the snare into splash and crash cymbal waves.

At times Emmeluth’s group evokes Don Cherry’s multi-thematic works where small themes emerge into expansive improvisations. In fact, like Complete Communion or Symphony for Improvisers, this album is one long suite, though perhaps it maintains a tighter line with composition than those legendary albums. At times Sun Ship era Coltrane is present, as it is on “Amoeba 1,” the first song on the record. The work, despite the community of free jazz ancestors smiling from the ether at their musical lineage, sounds like nothing else. Make no mistake, Emmeluth and the band are imitating nobody, but they do not come from nowhere. Although their roots may grow deep, they flower into petals and filaments not found on any other stem.

The music tumbles freely forward while remaining tightly fused. Check out the opening romp on “Amoeba 2” where Emmeluth’s horn soon signals the group in the direction of a heavy metal like guitar riff starting around the 2:00 mark. The work stomps along while operating with shocking precision, but really starts rocking as it continues into “Hubby,” the following track. The music converts into an asymmetrical wobble that escalates into a glissed wail around the 30 second mark. The riff returns and soon yields Emmeluth’s alto whistling at the top of the music before embarking upon a noise solo urged forward by Balvik crashing the piano keys.

“Pling Plong MF/Dripping Liquids/Pling Plong MF” follows the controlled chaos with mysterious ambience, and the record reaches its zenith on its closing work. “Something Old” returns the riff from “Amoeba 2” but varied and simplified and played on only strings at first (plucked on Balvig’s piano–or also on Borjå’s guitar?), and a trance-mania manifests as the group continues and varies this throughout the 9:52 work.

“Gåen,” the final song on the digital recording, seems to stand alone outside of the suite, and despite its opening flourish, emanates liquid meditation. It is soft and reassuring and sad and full of hope and is as filled with paradox as the band that plays it. I hope I have no illusions about my privilege in being able to listen to such a complex and beautiful work. The Amoeba is still tossing threads for us to catch and follow in the labyrinth, and I don’t want to grow complacent about how wonderful it is to have easy access to this remarkable music. The attention to detail, commitment to originality, and conscious lineage with its tradition all demonstrate just how much love went into the creation of this album, and it is with love that I thank those involved for it.

With Love can be found here: https://signeemmeluth.bandcamp.com/album/with-love

With Love by Emmeluth's Amoeba

Sónia Sànchez / Jordina Millà / dieb13 - Munich 2025 - Day 3 Set 1 (MMI Festival, 2026)

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

By Eyal Hareuveni

The Music & More Impro (MMI) Festival curates new, intimate musical and dance constellations, featuring artists from different generations and nationalities, and even different artistic disciplines, who have never played together—or at least not in that particular formation—for a one-time encounter and experience. The Festival began in Munich in 2016 but moved to Barcelona for its third and fourth editions, and returned to Munich in 2025.

The MMI Festival has released seven albums from its 2025 edition so far, documenting meetings between John Butcher and Marta Warelis, and Agustí Fernández and Lucía Martinez, among others. The last album in this series is of a trio of Catalan, Barcelona-based dancer Sónia Sànchez, who innovates the flamenco dance legacy with Japanese Butoh and Body Weather; fellow Catalan, Salzburg-based hyper-pianist Jordina Millà Benseny, who was introduced to the improvisational world by Fernández (who has also played with Sànchez, in a duo with Millà, and in the MMI Festival), plays with Barry Guy, and has collaborated with dance and theater groups before, including with Sànchez in Trio Mars; and Viennese turntables and electronics wizard dieb13 (aka Dieter Kovačič), who performed before with Millà.

This trio’s set opened the third and last day of the festival and was recorded live at Einstein Kultur in Munich in May 2025. Obviously, the album does not offer the full experience without Sànchez’s expressive face and dance moves, but you can hear her feet pounding the floor. The 51-minute free improvised piece begins with Millà producing delicate, otherworldly friction and percussive sounds from inside the piano, subtly extended by dieb13’s humming electronics. Slowly, it morphs into a resonant, enigmatic, and poetic texture, spiced with dramatic, fragmented pulses.

dieb13 kept introducing surprising, processed, and noisy sounds that stimulated the tension and disrupted any attempt to surrender to a familiar course, and mid-piece, he even adds a heavy, hypnotic, Fire! Trio-like pulse, and samples of vocal artist Phil Minton (dieb13’s long-time collaborator), while Millà transformed the grand piano into a twisted, restless harp. And just as this improvisation reached its chaotic climax, it gently slides into a cathartic coda, as if the trio has equipped its audiences with heightened sonic and visual awareness for the sober awakening that comes after such a masterful performance ends.

Munich 2025 - Day 3 Set 1 by Sónia Sànchez - Jordina Millà - Dieb13

Yvonne Rogers - The Button Jar (Pyroclastic Records, 2026)

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

By Hillary Carelli-Donnell

For listeners hungry for something humane yet experimental, there is a new musician offering work that strikes this delicate balance. Brooklyn based composer and pianist Yvonne Rogers’ is blending playful free improvisation and a burnished yet fearless approach to the piano. She uses subtle dissonances in rhythm and texture, combined with an elegant sense of restraint to develop fresh yet timeless pieces that speak a language all her own.

Rogers grew up in Penobscot Maine and studied at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. Since relocating to New York City in 2022, she has quickly made her mark on the jazz and improvisational landscape, playing regularly with various ensembles including saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock’s Lilith and trumpeter Adam O’Farrill’s ELEPHANT. Last December she wrapped up a yearlong residency at Close Up and is now preparing a Spring Season Commission at Roulette. On a cold winter morning, we spoke about her creative process and her upcoming album.

The Button Jar, set for release on Pyroclastic Records in May,will be Rogers’ first solo effort and a follow up to her 2023 debut Seeds. She’ll be in good company on Pyroclastic, which has released work from such heavyweights as Mary Halvorson and Craig Taborn. The Button Jar is a mature collection of compositions that shows off Rogers’ versatility as both a composer and improviser. It contains an equal measure of minimalism and rich harmonic interplay, and a few completely improvised pieces. It's a record that situates her, as she says, “solidly between experimental and jazz”. The idea for the album was born when Kris Davis, the experimental pianist behind Pyroclastic Records and Rogers’ mentor, encouraged her to further develop the tiny explorations she was posting to Instagram. “Seeds, my first project, was a quartet record, and [Kris] really wanted me to explore my sound to go deeper into my thing,” said Rogers. Although the pieces originated as sketches and most remain under three minutes long, it's clear that Rogers has taken a thoughtful approach to composition, noting that it sometimes takes hours to write a few measures. Rogers recalls her mother would implore her, “If you’re going to use this button, you need to know how to sew it on,” as she dug through the dross in the craft room. “It needed to be intentional.… but also it was just for fun”. Indeed, her compositions on The Button Jar are lively and playful, but the intentionality of purpose is palpable throughout the record.

The album is sonic homage to Rogers’ upbringing in Coastal Maine and her connection to its estuarine environment, which shaped her creative practice. “I was always outside,” Rogers says, “It was such an imaginative childhood for me, the feeling of being totally alone in the woods and feeling like that was my space.” The album is an exploration of an inner world, but without the indulgence. The softer, more introspective tracks contrast well with the angular modernist elements found in others. The record opens with “Luster”, a counterpoint melody reminiscent of the repetitive unpredictable patter of raindrops. The title track “Button Jar” is a frantic, but ultimately coherent, scramble. On “Monkey’s Fist” named for a mariners knot, she goes in a different direction opening with a theme suggestive of Roy Ayers’ “We Live In Brooklyn Baby”. Three of the pieces, Avid Risks (an anagram of Kris Davis), the “Craft Room” and “Exhale” are wholly improvised and were recorded in a single take. That they’re indistinguishable in complexity and vigor from the other composed pieces speaks to her ability to pare down a complex musical idea into a succinct package. Jazz critic for the New Yorker, Whitney Balliett, once wrote that if Cecil Taylor is a hammer, then the keyboard is an anvil. With that in mind, on this album Rogers is a woodworker, and the piano is a tree.

Photo by Alice Plati

In the process of carving out her melodies, Rogers is experimenting with a distinctive sonic toolkit. “I never really got into voicings…I’m more interested in what textural effects an interval or a rhythm will have. I think texturally rather than harmonically. I would rather play something that I really don’t like rather than something I think is boring.” Choosing to take creative risks like these is what imbues her artistic statement with vitality and personality, and it’s also what makes it interesting to be in the audience for her performances.

While The Button Jar highlights her solo chops, Rogers also shines in an ensemble as a skilled and versatile accompanist. Her personal style, percussive and angular comes through in combo settings, but she says her attention is focused on moving in sync with the other musicians. Her ensemble playing feels like watching a murmuration of birds. “It's about anticipating where the other person is going to go, it's intuitive” she says. “Most people are reacting to the soloist, but I want to be going somewhere together”. Indeed, her upcoming Roulette Commission is focused on the artistic personalities of her quartet members. Rogers shared that the pieces collectively titled Odesare “directly inspired by the musical habits, rituals, and timbres unique to each of my collaborators, it encourages us to spend time getting to know each other, and to celebrate the magic of our idiosyncrasies.”

The fundamental humanity of her music comes through in her live performances as well. When asked about how to interest people in a music that might feel esoteric or challenging, Rogers offered: “I think the first step is to relate to your immediate surroundings, and include people in the room. Live music is having a moment. The act of gathering being exposed to something that you might not normally be exposed to is important. I think people are appreciative of that right now.” Musicians and audiences today are beset by the isolating and homogenizing forces of artificial intelligence and capitalism. In this environment her approach that weaves connections between improvised music, human beings and the natural world is a necessary one, and it could not have come at a better time.

The Button Jarwill be released on May 8th on Pyroclastic Records; she performs “Odes” at Roulette in Brooklyn on June 6th.

The Button Jar by Yvonne Rogers

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Hillary Carelli-Donnell is a musician, DJ and sometimes writer interested in how democracy manifests in society, culture and music.