Cheryl Pyle, Max Ridgway, Randall Colbourne, Modern Art

The trio of Cheryl Pyle, flute, Max Ridgway, electric guitar and Randall Colbourne, drums, is no stranger to these pages. I covered on November 10, 2011 their album "Soul Dust"; "Green Underworld" was reviewed on these pages on May 2, 2013. They return with the latest, "Modern Art". It is for now a download only release, available as mp3's at http://www.cherylpyle.blogspot.com/.

It's another good one, having as the encompassing theme modern artists and their work. Each track is a free improv dedicated to a particular artist. The music has a lightly electronic component here and there, mostly if not all a transformation of Max Ridgway's guitar via effects and filtering, according to my ears.

It's free-flow, free-time collective improv mostly all the way, with a very nice interplay between flute, guitar and drums in a relatively laid-back zone that makes for good listening. Cheryl in her very original way works around selected motifs in gently persuasive, new music terms that nevertheless have jazz flow and continuity. Max counters with lines and chords that have a personal stamp and a wide tonality. Randall keeps energy flowing with nice free-time and/or pulsing essays in percussive sound. They all work together to a highly ear-stimulating end. This is one of their best, maybe the best one, ever.

Watch some of the videos showcasing the artists represented and hear some of the music at the same time. Paste the url as follows into your browser for that: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7mri9NZsd8HglJ4Or24q-qS8jvs63BhL

It's an excellent listen.

Evan Parker, Barry Guy, Paul Lytton, Live at the Maya Recording Festival

In many ways the threesome of Evan Parker, Barry Guy and Paul Lytton is the ideal lineup for European free music, free jazz if you will. They of course are no strangers to each other, having played together rather often. But there is something in the performance Live at Maya Recordings Festival (No Business CD 55) that is even more than you might come to expect from them.

There are three long and one shorter improvisations involved. Evan plays in his patented soprano style (that circular blur of invention) but puts forward his tenor playing a bit more than is sometimes the case. And maybe I've missed some of his pretty considerable output in the last decade, but at any rate I notice something in his playing on tenor here that is perhaps evidence of an evolvement. That is, it is still about the sound, yes, but there is much more about the notes than usual. His tenor playing is phenomenal here. And it's note choice as well as timbre that stands out.

Barry Guy is firing up the bass in exceptionally expressive and impressive ways and the recording brings out his extraordinarily way quite sharply. Paul Lytton gets that excitingly busy wash of drums that makes him integral, as always.

And it's funny but on this one I feel like there is a direct link between the music and the classic Ayler trio. It's an extension, a development, but there is a rootedness that branches out of the Ayler-Peacock-Murray nexus in very nice ways. No one into the music would mistake the one for the other, but there's a real connection, a logical progression out of that classic lineup.

These are some of the very best of the Euro-avant masters, of course, and this is one of the very best recordings. It is powerful. It doesn't flag. And Parker on tenor was (and is) thrilling to hear on that night. But then they all sound perfect!

The Rempis Percussion Quartet, Phalanx

Dave Rempis, a saxophonist composer-conceptualist of high repute and attainment, has launched his own label, Aerophonic, and gives us as first offering a 2-CD set of his Rempis Percussion Quartet live. Phalanx (Aerophonic 001) pits Dave on alto, tenor and baritone with a formidable gathering of Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass and the excellent two-drum pairing of Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly.

This makes for some very together free burning and a killer rhythm section. The quartet gets a disk each for two live sets, one in Milwaukee, one in Antwerp.

It's a matter of extended free blowing and a fine thing it is. Dave sounds great as always on tenor and alto but I don't recall hearing much of him on baritone, and that is a real treat. Ingebrigt as one can always expect brings a busy and smart bass approach to the mix and the one-two punch of Daisy and Rosaly is everything you could ask for. Not surprising given what we have heard them do in one drummer situations, but as a two-part percussion team they give complexity and depth to the blowing that sends it all over the top.

This is a real-deal scorcher! A great kick-off to the label and plenty of heat throughout. Dave Rempis takes off in style!

Abdelhai Bennani Trio, Encounters, with Alan Silva, William Parker, 2000

Not-yet-well-known tenor saxist Abdelhai Bennani knows how to pick them. The trio album Encounters (JaZt Tapes CD 037) has Alan Silva on piano and synthesizers and William Parker on double bass.

The program is a live, first set from The Sunside in Paris in 2000. It features three free improv "Encounters" and it gets into the classic new thing outsideness in ways you might expect from Alan and William (Alan delving into the piano and synths imaginatively these days) and then Abdelhai plays an out tenor that has the immediacy of a raw-er Shepp. He goes for the gut responses and gets a wide palette of sound colors going.

Those who dig Parker and Silva will find lots to hear on this. And Abdelhai is well worth hearing as well. I couldn't help wishing that a Sunny Murray would come into the fold to make it a quartet. But one gets used to this trio format quickly and there's much good for the free-jazz ear.

Find out more about this and other Limited Edition JaZt Tapes by going to http://www.janstrom.se/6.-recordings/6.3.-jazt-tapes-6267605.