By Martin Schray Free jazz trios consisting of saxophone, bass and drums have a hard time these days, because - let’s be honest - the paths on which they travel are largely explored: whether it’s classic free jazz like that of Alberts Ayler’s legendary Spiritual Unity Trio, which revolutionized the genre for this line-up, the finely chiseled playing of the Evan Parker Trio, David S. Ware’s trio with William Parker and Warren Smith, which combines tradition with modernity, Peter Brötzmann’s various projects, most of which used an iconoclastic philosophy and influenced newer trios such as The T ..read more

By Don Phipps Complexity is at times its own virtue. And the music on Chad Fowler’s Birdsong certainly is complex. Take its instrumentation – Fowler on sax and bass flute, Shanyse Strickland on French horn, flute and vocals, Sana Nagano on violin, Melanie Dyer on viola – and a standard rhythm section (Ken Filiano on bass and Aders Griffen on drums). French horn is most certainly rare in jazz and combined with the violin and viola lines, the result is a modern but uneasy interweaving of soulful bluesy jazz with abstract modern music. Experimentation is a hallmark of modern free jazz. A wi ..read more

© Beat Streuli, Zürich 2013 What is your greatest joy in improvised music? The greatest joy is that you can move freely musically - without taboos and restrictions that could come from outside. The freedom also becomes greater and greater - it grows with experience. What quality do you most admire in the musicians you perform with? That's her ability, her musicality - her flexibility but also her humanity...we have to understand each other - I don't mean that we think the same or something - but a basic trust has to be there for me...I have to be an accomplice in certain moments ..read more

By Don Phipps A Japanese Zen rock garden is majestic in its own right. The stones, manicured and ordered yet free and flowing, seem to reflect a cosmic calendar where infinite time can be experienced within the confines of bounded space. In the 60s, New York born Paul Horn, a jazz flutist noted for his contribution to the “cool jazz” movement (a movement ushered in by Miles Davis and his album “Birth of the Cool” and which reached its musical apex with the classic and much-beloved Davis album “Kind of Blue”), began to explore transcendental meditation. He was joined in these explorations by t ..read more

By Gary Chapin I feel shallow sometimes about how strongly I react to the timbre of things. Like, forget the ideas or the improvisation or the composition, sometimes just the sound gets me. The first notes on No Tamales on Wednesday are from Craig Taborn’s electric piano and those sounds brought a smile to my face and wave of associations. “Oh, yeah,” I thought, “We’re going to get some of that!” No Tamales on Wednesday is an archival concert recording coming from one of my absolute favorite periods of Berne’s work. Science Friction features Berne, Tom Rainey on drums, Marc Ducret on guitar ..read more

New Old Luten Trio - Trident Juncture (Euphorium, 2023) By Paul Acquaro Leipzig based pianist Oliver Schwerdt, along with Berlin based drummer Christian Lillinger, have been, for many years, developing a series of recordings based on encounters with legends of the avant-garde. Most recently, the two worked with Japanese saxophonist Akira Sakata in what was named the Great Sakata Project. Prior to this was a somewhat contentious pairing with the late Peter Brötzmann (as implied from Schwerdt's liner notes in Trident Juncture), which nevertheless resulted in some impressive recordin ..read more

By Guido Montegrandi Cuneiform record is celebrating its 40th year with an impressive series of releases and Relics by Antistatic is no exception. This is the first full length work that the Copenhagen-based band has released, and the result is quite powerful. Though the line up of the band - two guitars, bass and drums- could lead into rock-something territories, the percussive style that characterizes the four musicians has its roots in the minimalist experience and also in the post-industrial soundscape. “Our music wouldn’t have been made if it hadn’t been for drum machines ..read more

By Nick Ostrum Recorded live December 18, 2022, Live at Café Oto London is one of those live masterpieces. I am sure any night this trio played would be enrapturing. This one, however, just sounds special. It starts with energy. Christoph Gallio barks fat alto lines (evoking Brötzmann and late Coltrane albeit on a different horn) over the churning thrum that drummer Mark Sanders and bassist Dominic Lash lay beneath him, steeped in the free improv tradition that implies rhythm but only by abandoning it for sound on sound on sound. Then, space opens and things get really abstract. (Lash, f ..read more

By Lee Rice Epstein Almost certainly, every review of this album will gesture in some way towards the title, it’s both too easily referenced and too validly applicable. I spent the past several weeks primarily listening Matthew Shipp Trio music, almost exclusively featuring the current lineup of Shipp, bassist Michael Bisio, and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. New Concepts In Piano Trio Jazz is, arguably, the finest thus far of the seven albums they’ve recorded together. This has been a gradual journey, where each album builds upon the developing relationship between the three players, and the d ..read more

Photo by Peter Gannushkin What is your greatest joy in improvised music? Perceiving the music as it flows past in time, feeling connected, whatever that may consist of in context. What quality do you most admire in the musicians you perform with? I value most when musicians exhibit singular focus, resulting from intense and continued study, to achieve something new. Which historical musician/composer do you admire the most? Way too many. Xenakis, Cecil Taylor, Zappa, Miles. Bach, Chopin, Scriabin. Duke Ellington. Morton Feldman. Monk. Stravinsky. Sun Ra. Also, deep admiration ..read more