14 Sep
Toronto 1997 by Borah Bergman & Thomas Chapin
Sunday, 14 September 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Recorded in 1997 at a Toronto jazz festival, this significant event marks pianist Borah Bergman and multi-reedman Thomas Chapin’s second recording. Yet, in case some of you…
13 Sep
Before The Dawn by Satoko Fujii Orchestra - East
Saturday, 13 September 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
The Satoko Fujii Orchestra - East is one of two big bands headed by pianist/composer/arranger Sakoto Fujii. As their names would imply, the West orchestra is …
11 Sep
Line on Love by Marty Ehrlich
Thursday, 11 September 2003
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Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
"Line on Love" is the Palmetto Jazz label debut for renowned clarinetist and saxophonist Marty Ehrlich. This CD is the result of a 2002 European tour with pia…
04 Sep
The Velocity of Hue - Solo Acoustic Guitar by Elliot Sharp
Thursday, 04 September 2003
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Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Those familiar with New York City based guitarist Elliot Sharp have grown accustomed to his modernist slant, generally amplified by an idiosyncratic technique and monster c…
03 Sep
A Free Jazz Treatise Concerning Current Affairs by The James Tartaglia Trio + Voices
Wednesday, 03 September 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
In a press release for this album, leader James Tartaglia explains that the premise for the recording was to reflect the mood in Britain around the time that the war in Ira…
31 Aug
Live At Montreux (180-Gram Vinyl LP) by Sun Ra & His Arkestra
Sunday, 31 August 2003
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Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Probably the one song that explains and defines what the music of Sun Ra is about is "We Travel the Spaceways." It puts things into prospective for a career known for being…
30 Aug
Dog Out by Nordstrom - Pinton - Welin - Falt
Saturday, 30 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
This exuberant, European quartet conveys a penetrating yet altogether flexible approach. Here, multi-reedmen Alberto Pinton and Fredrik Nordstrom move about in multidirecti…
30 Aug
Shades of the Muse by Avram Fefer Quartet
Saturday, 30 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Multi-reedman Avram Fefer’s brand of modern jazz is founded upon a bouncy verve, cloaked with a distinct comprehension of traditional jazz values. Yet, his quartet pursues …
29 Aug
Outside Sources by Michael Bates
Friday, 29 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
One of the continuing issues with writing and talking about jazz, conventional, mainstream, "free" ( that is, however it is pigeonholed), in contrast to classical, composed…
29 Aug
Abaton by Sylvie Courvoisier - Mark Feldman - Erik Friedlander
Friday, 29 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier composed the pieces on disc one of this two CD-package featuring violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Erik Friedlander. Rooted in chamber and…
27 Aug
Big Ball by Lucas Niggli > Big Zoom
Wednesday, 27 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Big Ball signifies one of two, concurrent 2003 releases by Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli. As he calls this band, "Big Zoom." Here, Niggli steers his quintet thru spirit…
27 Aug
Triptych Myth by Cooper- Moore Tom Abbs & Chad Taylor
Wednesday, 27 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
One of several late 2003 releases by the New York City based non-profit jazz label, this piano trio affair in particular will probably find its way onto quite a few Top-10 …
26 Aug
Now Is by Joe Giardullo 4tet
Tuesday, 26 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
At one time, the music on this disc would be considered "avant-garde," but is something "avant" if it was done in 1967, ’75, ’84, and 1998? That mini-rant aside, the music …
23 Aug
The Meeting by Art Ensemble of Chicago
Saturday, 23 August 2003
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Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
When you come out with as many albums as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, some are bound to be, uh, less than wonderful - as much as this is Hip Heresy to state out loud, they …
23 Aug
Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings by The Remote Viewers
Saturday, 23 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Hailing from England, this trio is noted for its cleverly articulated and irrefutably unique line of tactics, spanning avant-garde jazz, and clever employment of electronic…
22 Aug
Rylickolum: For Your Pleasure by Paul Dunmall - Paul Rogers - Kevin Norton
Friday, 22 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Drummer/percussionist Kevin Norton aligns his formidable wares with revered British artists; saxophonist Paul Dunmall and bassist Paul Rogers for this live set, recorded in…
15 Aug
Leave It To Luther by Luther Thomas Quartet
Friday, 15 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
St. Louis., Missouri reared alto saxophonist Luther Thomas spent several years in Denmark yet can be heard on three CDs for this upstate New York area, impov based label. A…
15 Aug
Synapsis by Oskar Aichinger
Friday, 15 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
This Frankfurt, Germany based, progressive-jazz/avante-garde record label is celebrating its fifth year in business. Simply stated, Between The Lines has emerged as …
14 Aug
Laughing Barrel by Ron Miles Quartet
Thursday, 14 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Ron Miles is a trumpeter with no sense of musical boundary. The Denver musician who has worked with Bill Frisell, Don Byron and Ginger Baker, among others, is as capable of…
11 Aug
Sorcerer Sessions by Matthew Shipp
Monday, 11 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Pianist/composer Matthew Shipp’s legacy moves into yet another direction with this quasi, classical-atmospheric-jazz-improv outing featuring longtime associate, bass hero W…
10 Aug
Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings by The Remote Viewers
Sunday, 10 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings by the London based avant garde improvisatory ensemble The Remote Viewers, is a collection of music that transcends musical bound…
05 Aug
Need & Desire by Charles Collins and John Jasnoch
Tuesday, 05 August 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
With a set that challenges preconceptions about improvised music, woodwind player Charles Collins and string multi-instrumentalist John Jasnoch deliver, with Need & Desi…
29 Jul
The Difference Between A Fish by Michel Doneda - Urs Leimgruber - Keith Rowe
Tuesday, 29 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
This production is an appropriately coordinated extravaganza featuring three top-flight European improvisers. As the influential British, avant-garde guitarist and EFX wiza…
29 Jul
Sound Awareness by Brother Ah
Tuesday, 29 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Two tracks, totaling 38 minutes of flutes, percussion, sensual beats, like a walk through the mysterious jungle.Special guest, Max Roach, gives tribute to the sounds of …
28 Jul
Golden Years of the Soviet New Jazz - Volume IV by Vyacheslav Ganelin - Vladimir Chekasin - Vladimir Tarasov
Monday, 28 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Leo Records (Leo Feigin) has released a substantial catalogue of LPs and CDs documenting the pre-and post Soviet Union modern jazz/improvisational era. The latest culminati…
28 Jul
Live at the BBC by Elton Dean's Ninesense
Monday, 28 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
British sax great, Elton Dean is widely recognized for his work with "Soft Machine, and the various incarnations and of this wonderful band, that remains an operational ent…
24 Jul
Oceans of Earth by Kevin Norton - Joelle Leandre - Tomas Ulrich
Thursday, 24 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Here we have three prominent improvisers, imparting adventurous liberties with the modern jazz vernacular. Brimming with disparate musings, and atonally drenched dialogues,…
23 Jul
Goodbye Swingtime by Matthew Herbert Big Band
Wednesday, 23 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Max Roach. Abbey Lincoln, Billie Holiday, Charlie Haden, Sonny Rollins, Trane, Archie Shepp, Mingus,The Liberation Music Orchestra. Freedom Suite, American Dreams, Freedom …
18 Jul
Organic Resonance by Wadada Leo Smith / Anthony Braxton
Friday, 18 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
So, we have Braxton the "scientist/mathematician" and Smith the "organic/spiritual" guy - and I don’t mean these as put-downs. If one wanted to be reductive, one could look…
16 Jul
Sonic Trance by Nicholas Payton
Wednesday, 16 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
I suppose a fair way to review Nicholas Payton’s Sonic Trance would be to play it blind, without looking at the liner notes (or the publicity materials).... and with…
14 Jul
Sorcerer Sessions by Matthew Shipp
Monday, 14 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
The second issue in the Blue Series Continuum from Thirsty Ear Records, THE SORCERER SESSIONS, brings to light a mutiplicitous range of sound, spiced with a round of stretc…
06 Jul
Nothing Stays the Same by DJ Wally
Sunday, 06 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
If there is a new explication of how an orchestra can sound, it is in the new Thirsty Ear recording NOTHING STAYS THE SAME. This is a mix assembled by DJ Wally, in which is…
04 Jul
Think Tank by Pat Martino
Friday, 04 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Pat Martino continues to investigate new forms, never staying constant in his search for discovering alternative possibilities for the guitar. When Martino teamed with Joey…
03 Jul
Miller Time by Jim Miller
Thursday, 03 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
After too long of a hiatus, drummer Jim Miller’s Dream Box Media, Philadelphia’s only independent jazz label, is releasing recordings by the city’s homegrown talent again. …
03 Jul
Island by Bob Brookmeyer & Kenny Wheeler
Thursday, 03 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Much of the publicity surrounding Bob Brookmeyer and Kenny Wheeler’s Island has involved the label itself: John Snyder’s revived Artists House. Snyder has already re…
01 Jul
Solo (Milano) 1979 by Anthony Braxton
Tuesday, 01 July 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
The website says: "Leo Records is a small independent company producing highly original, innovative, improvisation-based new music; music that refuses to be submitte…
29 Jun
Lullaby for Sue by Clogs
Sunday, 29 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
It is rare, indeed, to come across a group that creates such a unique language that they completely defy categorization. While there are many labels that could be applied t…
29 Jun
When The Spirit Returns by Lester Bowie
Sunday, 29 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Many Brass Fantasy enthusiasts thought that Lester Bowie’s group had released all of its recorded output at the time of his death in 1999. However, Bowie had one more CD th…
27 Jun
Maldoror by Erik Friedlander
Friday, 27 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
With Maldoror, Downtown Scene cellist Erik Friedlander takes a bold step with an album of completely improvised solo cello pieces. It is an album of stark beauty and…
25 Jun
Cardinal Points by Jean-Michel Pilc
Wednesday, 25 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Jean-Michel Pilc had jazz piano enthuasiasts all agog during the last three years as a mostly East Coast cult following developed. With an imagination that seems to run wil…
24 Jun
The Grdina Trio by The Grdina Trio
Tuesday, 24 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Guitarist Gordon Grdina, a protégé of bassist Gary Peacock, brings an edgier kind of chamber jazz to the table with The Grdina Trio. Rounded out by Simon Fisk and Ja…
24 Jun
Spectral Reflections by Frank Gratkowski Quartet
Tuesday, 24 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
These laudable freethinking progressive jazz musicians once again relay a thirst for creativity, highlighted here in rather luminous fashion. Alto saxophonist/clarinetist F…
14 Jun
Abaton by Sylvie Courvoisier
Saturday, 14 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Abaton means a "place not to be entered unbidden". Abaton, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier’s debut for ECM records, and also the name of the trio which is completed by vi…
11 Jun
Lowe-down & Blue by Frank Lowe Quartet
Wednesday, 11 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Eight days after this session, tenor sax great Frank Lowe was scheduled for lung surgery, noted here, within the liner notes. Hence, on Sept 19, 2003 the artist succumbed t…
07 Jun
Myth of the Cave by Yitzhak Yedid
Saturday, 07 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Israeli pianist Yitzhak Yedid’s music covers a multitude of diametrically opposed angels via a chamber-esque setting throughout this most interesting and undeniably enterta…
05 Jun
This Now! by Steve Swell's Unified Theory of Sound
Thursday, 05 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
Trombonist Steve Swell leads this New York City based sextet through a rather symmetrically devised set, featuring free jazz extravaganzas, gobs of tonal contrasts and much…
03 Jun
Heavy Skies by Roman Kunsman
Tuesday, 03 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
I must admit not having heard of Roman Kunsman. Accordingto the liner notes, Roman was a Russian born musician who ended up in the USAvia Israel. While influenced by…
02 Jun
From the beginning to the end by Arhythmic Brain
Monday, 02 June 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
This trio performs music that is hard to describe and understand. Perhaps that's because they play a kind of music they call "arhythmia", which is unfamiliar to me. The ban…
30 May
Tango 1-8 by Hannes Enzlberger
Friday, 30 May 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
The union of a flugelhornist, bassist, and accordionist might seem a tad out of the ordinary for a program consisting of tango related works. Bassist Hannes Enzlberger c…
28 May
Before The Dawn by Satoko Fujii Orchestra East
Wednesday, 28 May 2003
Published in
Free Jazz / Avante Garde - CD Reviews
BEFORE THE DAWN sparkles with surreal imagination and innovative twists & turns which will delight fans of Satoko Fujii. BEFORE THE DAWN is one of her finest releases to da…