Endangered Blood - Endangered Blood (2011)

Endangered Blood - Endangered Blood (Skirl, 2011)

Personnel:
Chris Speed - tenor saxophone
Oscar Noriega - alto saxophone, bass clarinet
Trevor Dunn - bass
Jim Black - drums

Tracklisting:
01 - Plunge
02 - Rare
03 - Epistrophy
04 - Elvin Lisbon
05 - K
06 - Tacos At Oscars
07 - Iris
08 - Uri Bird
09 - Valva
10 - Andrew's Ditty Variation One

Endangered Blood formed in 2008, to play a benefit concert to help pay for fellow musician Andrew D'Angelo's medical bills. For the performance, drummer Jim Black and bassist Trevor Dunn—two of the saxophonist's band mates—enlisted saxophonists Chris Speed and Oscar Noriega. As happens so often in modern groups, familiar players in different combination produce compelling results.

Black and Speed are both veterans of Tim Berne's vanguard band, Bloodcount, as well as Human Feel, Pachora, Yeah No and Alas No Axis. Dunn has been a member of Mr. Bungle and bands led by John Zorn, while Noriega is one of Berne's latest finds, and a longtime collaborator with Satoko Fujii.

The quartet's brief and intense tribute to D'Angelo, "Andrew's Ditty Variation One," begins with a two-horn lockstep sprint that quickly evolves into a time-shifting squawk-fest. With Black bashing out a barrage of beats, the two horns mimic D'Angelo's infamous raging sound that is often performed onstage, wriggling on his back.

But the disc is not at all about camp. The quartet draws together its many influences, from Eastern European to alt-rock, to push the boundaries of performance jazz. Speed is credited with the writing here, but he draws not only from his writing with The Clarinets and Human Feel, but his work in Black's Alas No Axis and drummer John Hollenbeck's The Claudia Quintet.

With Noriega doubling on bass clarinet, Speed is able to enlarge the sound on "Rare," and present Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy" with a much darker tone, as if played by men in over-sized wool coats lifting heavy objects. "Tacos At Oscars" swirls some Philip Glass-style unison horns around Black's frenetic drumming. This recording's purpose becomes clear, however, on tracks like "Uri Bird," which melds funk and bebop, or "Iris," a New Orleans blues outfitted with an old-school sawed bass and parading horns.

Endangered Blood signals a sort of watershed in the evolution of creative music that was once called jazz. The dust has cleared, and what's left is an idiosyncratic and very entertaining sound. [allaboutjazz]

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Aram Shelton's Arrive - There Was (2011)

Aram Shelton's Arrive - There Was (Clean Feed, 2011)

Personnel:
Aram Shelton - alto saxophone
Jason Adasiewicz - vibraphone
Jason Roebke - double bass
Tim Daisy - drums

Tracklisting:
1. There was...
2. Cradle
3. Lost
4. Fifteen
5. Frosted
6. Golden

There aren't many musicians tied to more than one musical scene, but Aram Shelton is one of those rare examples.Both the Chicago and the Bay Area avant-jazz and free improv circuits benefit from this horn player who improvises with a composing perspective and composes to serve collective improvisation. Arrive, which dates back to 2001, is one of Aram's Chicago bands, and you can sense the connections with this city's jazz and experimental traditions, including the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. His individual alto saxophone style makes us think of the early music played by Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton: it's bitter and argumentative, but also ascetic, expressionist, with a sense of measure. Aram Shelton's parallel interest for electroacoustic music isn't strange to this approach. His partners in "There Was..." are the right ones for such an "in-between" focus. Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz is an exquisite colorist, but also a master in what concerns intensity and balance.With his double bass, Jason Roebke is a secure time-keeper and a trustable space-organizer, even when he puts the "center" way out there. Tim Daisy is the kind of drummer indispensable when a band needs to keep the motor running and simultaneously to be free from strict pulses. What an astonishing quartet we find here, indeed... [Clean Feed]

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Nate Wooley Quintet - (Put Your) Hands Together (2011)

Nate Wooley Quintet - (Put Your) Hands Together (Cleen Feed, 2011)

Personnel:
Nate Wooley - trumpet
Josh Sinton - bass clarinet
Matt Moran - vibraphone
Eivind Opsvik - double bass
Harris Eisenstadt - drums

Tracklisting:
01. Shanda Lea 1 (3:33)
02. Hands Together (9:49)
03. Erna (4:06)
04. Shanda Lea 2(2:58)
05. Ethyl (5:20)
06. Cecelia (9:05)
07. Pearl (2:16)
08. Elsa (5:51)
09. Hazel (3:45)
10. Shanda Lea 3(4:01)

For the first time in many years, Nate Wooley releases an album with composed music, with an actual band, and with music that is more accessible than any of the records made under his leadership. The band is Josh Stinton on bass clarinet, Matt Moran on vibes, Eivind Opsvik on bass and Harris Eisenstadt on drums .... indeed the musicians who play regularly together in each other's bands and with equal success.

In stark contrast of some of his previous albums, Wooley's trumpet tone is voiced, deeply sensitive but within the same phrase he can switch it into screeching whispers. The compositions integrate jazz history, but then in a reverend and playful way, gently giving new dynamics and dimensions to the familiar forms, lifting them up, dusting them off, refreshing them with new power and creative angles.

The end result is a carefully crafted, fun album, with moments of playfulness ("Elsa"), deep sentiments ("Hazel"), compositional complexity ("Ethyl") or all in one ("Hands Together"). The most beautiful piece is "Shanda Lea" (Wooley's wife?), opening the album with solo trumpet, repeated halfway the record in duet with Stinton, then again as solo trumpet to end the album. On tracks like "Erna" you can hear the warm voice of Ron Miles seep through, but unlike Miles, Wooley adds some odd raw edges and in doing so also more depth in the delivery.

In short, a heart-warming and inventive album, show-casing a fantastic musician and an artist in full development. No need to praise the rest of the band: you know them already: they're among the best you can get these days, and to Wooley's credit, he leaves them lots of space. [Free Jazz]

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Seikatsu Kojo Iinkai Orchestra - This Is Music Is This!? (1979)

Seikatsu Kojo Iinkai Orchestra - This Is Music Is This!? (Union Records, 1979)

Personnel:
Umezu Kazutoki - Clarinet (Bass), Japanese Flute, Sax (Alto), Sax (Soprano)
Yoshida Tetsuji - Trumpet
Yasuda Shinji - Trumpet
Sato Haruki - Trombone
Itaya Hiroshi - Trombone
Numagami Tsutomu- Bass
Mori Junji - Sax
Masami Shinoda - Sax
KatayamaHiroaki - Baritone & Tenor Saxes
Hayakawa Takeharu - Cello
Harada Yoriyuki - Conga, Piano, Whistle
Kikuchi Takashi - Drums, Percussion
Kameyama Kenichi - Drums

Tracklisting:
01 - Yasudabushi (11:14)
02 - Take the "A" Train (9:14)
03 - Aketaketa March (6:41)
04 - African Elephant (8:59)
05 - Youngmen Insist (4:59)

Wow, actually this is THE BEST (Japanese) FREE JAZZ RECORD (according to me of course) out there. It's elegant, fun (free jazz SHOULD be fun), confident and nicely recorded (much better produced than their first effort); the rhythm section is mesmerizing. Even the cover is amazing.
Notably, it was my first personal experience with mad pianist Yoriyuki Harada ; he's got an immediate new fan. His rendition of Take the "A" Train (Billy Strayhorn) is piano playing like you've never heard before (though it is sometimes reminiscent of Fred Van Hove's piano skills).
Plus, it features the late great sax player Masami Shinoda. [by rotkappchen]

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Mostly Other People Do The Killing - The Coimbra Concert (Clean Feed, 2011)

Mostly Other People Do The Killing - The Coimbra Concert (Clean Feed, 2011)

Personnel:
Moppa Elliott - Double Bass
Kevin Shea - Drums, Electronics
Jon Irabagon - Tenor & Alto Saxophones
Peter Evans - Trumpet

Tracklisting:
CD1:
01 - Drainlick
02 - Evans city
03 - Round Bottom, Square Top
04 - Blue Ball

CD2:
01 - Pen Argyl
02 - Burning Well
03 - Factoryville
04 - St. Mary's Proctor
05 - Elliott Mills

Mostly Other People Do the Killing is proud to release their new live double-album on Clean Feed records. The two discs, made up of material culled from a three night stint at the Jazz ao Centro Festival in Coimbra, provide an excellent perspective on the way this quartet performs live. Unlike the previous four studio albums, all on Hot Cup Records, MOPDtK's live performances vary between short renditions of bassist Moppa Elliott's compositions, and sweeping suites encompassing many compositions. This free-association style of performing has developed over the seven years that the quartet has been performing and recording together.
The four members, Peter Evans, Jon Irabagon, Moppa Elliott, and Kevin Shea, have developed a style of performance in which each member is free to steer the group in any way they choose. The other members may or may not follow suit, creating a type of group interplay that often pits the individuals against each other. Within any given performance, an individual may try to cue a new composition, a return to the original melody, or other structural device, only to be vetoed, creating music that often features multiple chains of association simultaneously. In addition, the members of MOPDtK are not afraid to lay out and allow each other ample solo space. [clean feed]

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Grey Ghost - How To Create Words (2003)

Grey Ghost - How To Create Words (428 Music, 2003)

Personnel:
Aram Shelton - Saxophone, Computer, Clarinet, Trumpet
Johnathan Crawford - Synthesizer, Percussion, Melodica

Tracklisting:

01 - Spitzacoll
02 - Splendo
03 - Horns And Organ
04 - Hand Down
05 - When You Say Go, Leave
06 - Command Control
07 - Unheard, Other Bands Practice
08 - Spoo
09 - Keep On

We're now five years or so into the laptop era of improvised music, during which ever greater numbers of players have attempted to incorporate electronic elements into their improv work. Some use a computer as an extra tone source, setting a preprogrammed pattern of notes in motion, then picking up another instrument and playing along; some perform in teams in which one player's output is electronically augmented or manipulated by another. Since forming the duo Grey Ghost in early 2002, reedist-laptopper Aram Shelton and drummer-keyboardist Johnathan Crawford have been developing their own methodology; listening to their debut album, How to Create Words (482 Music), it's clear they're onto something. Through his work in groups like Dragons 1976, Arrive, and Rapid Croche, Shelton has established himself as one of the finest young saxophonists in town--his tart alto tone and melodic generosity show strong signs of Ornette Coleman's influence--and the organic-feeling synthesis of horn and laptop he's created here is testament to his abilities as both composer and improviser. While Shelton occasionally uses computer-generated bass lines as structural nuggets to improvise around, a la Chicago Underground Duo, most of the sonic elements in play come from terse samples of his own saxophone. On a track like "Spitzacolli" he starts with a succession of breathy alto licks, samples them in real time, and tweaks the samples on his computer until they fit together in an endless self-reflecting grid; then Crawford snaps out of a gentle cymbal wash into a hard-hitting circular groove and Shelton solos over the hall-of-mirrors framework. The sax samples on "Hand Down" are percussive pops and harmonic squeaks repeated ad infinitum while Crawford taps out a spare, stuttering beat, giving Shelton plenty of room for a moody solo, while "Unheard, Other Bands Practice" is a loose assemblage of percussive clatter, dyspeptic melodica puffs, striated columns of breath, and bell-like electronic tones.

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You can also download their next album for free here.

Kolkhöze Printanium - Vol. 1 Kolkhöznitsa (2008)

Kolkhöze Printanium - Vol. 1 Kolkhöznitsa (2008)

Personnel:
Paul Brousseau: keyboards, voice and drums
Maxime Delpierre: guitars and effects
Hugues Mayot: sax
Philippe Gleizes: drums
Jean-Philippe Morel: bass and effects

Tracklisting:
01 - Sans Le Savoir
02 - Our Faces At the Motown (Part A)
03 - Our Faces At the Motown (Part B)
04 - Stalker At79
05 - Fsy Tokyo
06 - Kolkhöze
07 - Ssen Soupape
08 - Chaotic Mantra
09 - Kolkhöze Talk
10 - Morgenrot (Part A)
11 - Morgenrot (Part B)
12 - Errance Digitale
13 - Petrovsky 1988
14 - Surround
15 - Mana

Creating a unique voice is not easy, and especially not in the very crowded fusion genre of rock and jazz, but what this French band creates is totally unusual, rich and intense. This is possibly one of the darkest albums I have heard in years. The rock rhythms are heavy, over which slow gloomy, unison themes of sax, guitar and keyboard are woven, with electronics, ambient sounds and the slow declamation of texts in Russian. The rhythmic backbone is industrial, repetitive, like heavy production machinery churning out endless identical products at the end of an assembly line. The great tension in the music arises from the solo instruments, trying to escape this repetitive horror, trying to liberate themselves, complaining, yearning, pleading in the meantime. Once in a while, the tune of the piece becomes joyful, almost ironic, as a sugary coating to hide the horror beneath, as on "Stalker AT79". But beauty has its place too, as the slow sax solo on "FSY Tokyo", played with a background of a-rhythmic bells, metal sounds and undefined scraping. Despite the wide variety of approaches in the 15 tracks, the coherence is extremely strong, including in the art work of the album, which depicts "Worker and Kolkhonitza", a Soviet sculpture made by Vera Moukhina in 1937. The band creates a musical world, something apart, very profound without falling into the trap of exaggeration. It is not about the effects, it's about the music. It is also very French, continuing the roads taken by Camisetas and Limousine, but taking it a step further. There is a little bit more drama, more cinematic effect, more staging, but that's part of the listening fun. Not everything works though, and in my mind the last track could have been left out, but that's a minor comment. Despite the music's dark edge, the ultimate hope for humanity message comes through loud and clear. Absolutely impressive. [Free Jazz]

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