Twenty One 4Tet, Live at Zaal 100

Who are the Twenty-One 4Tet? If you have to ask, you are probably like me, Stateside, needing to fill out your knowledge of Euro-Avant jazz today. They are the nicely aggregated foursome of Luis Vicente on trumpet, John Dikeman on tenor sax, Wilbert De Joode on double bass and Onno Govaert on drums. I've been listening with great interest to their recent CD Live at Zaal 100 (Clean Feed 366).

It is free-wheeling dynamic avant jazz that holds its own by advancing into the future while also showing new thing roots in paying respects to Ornette, Cherry, Shepp, Ayler and other classic free jazz pioneers.

Trumpeter Luis Vicente is the more familiar artist in the quartet, at least for those of us in the US. He sounds wonderful throughout: articulate, fire-y, filled with great ideas and the chops to make them ring out.

John Dikeman is a tenor man with that big extended sound, massive slurs and swoops, harmonics and a hugely soulful sound.

Wilbert De Joode is the complete bassist, whether in arco or pizzicato mode, an anchor and a prime mover in the forward motion of the 4Tet. And Onno Govaert plays in the advanced free style with imagination and catalytic drive. He has that abruptly contrapuntal extended sound range that somehow marks many of the Euro-free percussionists, and he does it quite well. It stimulates the 4Tet to advance timbrally and pontillistically.

It's the way the four work as a whole that makes this especially good. Their collective layering takes on many moods and colors. It marks the extended imaginations of the best collectives out there. They are one of them, as this recording evidences.

If you are on the outside track in free listening this one will satisfy you completely. It's a definite keeper. I recommend that you hear it, by all means.

WAS? What About Sam, Happy Meal

Portuguese avant modern jazz comes through with flying colors via the quintet WAS? What About Sam and their album Happy Meal (JACC Records CD). It is free but structured composition-improvisation that in its own way reminds of classic AACM music but then has its own twists.

The group is a strong one with Luis Vicente on trumpet (whose music I have covered on these pages before) and providing two of the compositions, Federico Pascucci on tenor and one composition, Roberto Negro on piano, providing a composition as well, Andre Rosinha on double bass and Vasco Furtado on drums. The additional two numbers on the album are collective improvisations.

What strikes me about the music is how the front line and the entire band improvise around the written and their overall sense of cohesiveness. The numbers have a sequential quality with worked out sections that may center around a solo or collective improv but impose unexpected turns not typical. There is open freedom to be heard, but different and unusual structuring of what the group unleashes from moment to moment.

Vincente, Pascucci and Negro have much to say as soloists, but the rhythm section has an active role to play too that goes beyond time keeping or the studious avoidance of pulsation.

In short the ensemble gives us an original approach to taking it out and in the process generates plenty of way-stations of musical interest that keep the ears busy and well nourished.

It is yet another notable example of the vitality of the Portuguese scene. I hope the quintet stays together and gives us yet more. As it is Happy Meal provides us with a great deal of unusual music. Here's one to check out, by all means.

Chamber 4, Marcelo Dos Reis, Luis Vicente, Theo Ceccaldi, Valentin Ceccaldi

I am happy to have over the years gotten a pretty good bead on the Portuguese avant-new music-free jazz scene. It is vibrant and vital, I think. Today something by Chamber 4 (FMR 393-0615), which turns out are four familiar players of note (familiar to me, familiar to you if you've followed my blogs or know otherwise of them). It's the very compatible foursome of Luis Vicente on trumpet, Valentin Ceccaldi on cello and voice, Theo Ceccaldi on violin and voice, and Marcelo dos Reis on acoustic guitar, prepared guitar and voice. All four have made some excellent music together and with others in the past. I've covered a fair amount of it. This one ranks among the very best.

We have five free collective improvisations on this CD, recorded live in 2013 at Lisbon's Les Devagar, LX Factory.

What strikes me listening is the considerably coherent dialog of the four, the timbral contrasts born of intelligent sound-color admixtures. Luis plays lots of trumpet, notefully fluent and sonically informed. Valentin and Theo use conventional and less conventional string attacks to once again give us the "string section" interplay that adds a great deal to the end result. Marcelo gets all kinds of sounds from the prepared and standard acoustic guitars and puts that well considered sound-texture/note choice to bear in the context of the total ensemble.

It's a new music chamber improv ensemble with free jazz overtones--and it straddles those two worlds with increasing fluidity and ease. The interplay is born out of a mutual music attuning that no doubt results from deep listening and a very comprehending familiarity with each other's stylistic penchants.

And the more you hear this one, the more it makes good, even inspired musical sense. These are players who excel together with an immediacy not so many ensembles of the free sort have achieved. I must say I am convinced for sure that Chamber 4 not only know what they are doing; they are doing superior work!

If you want an excellent example of what Portugal has to offer right now in the avant realm, do not hesitate. Get this one.

Deux Maisons, For Sale

Catching up on some worthy music today, namely the very focused avant quartet known as Deux Maisons and their album For Sale (Clean Feed 320). If you have been following my posts and the Euro-Free-New-Music scene in general you may well recognize some or all of the names: Luis Vicente on trumpet, Theo Ceccaldi on violin and viola, Valentin Ceccaldi on cello and Marco Franco on drums.

The album features six collective improvisations that have both jazz and avant concert elements, which is a growing amalgam among recent and edgy European improv ensembles.

What struck me on first listen and thereafter is the way the two Ceccaldi strings form a sort of mini-string-section in contrast to Vicente's trumpet and Franco's drums. They come across in many ways as a kind of threefold timbral sound interaction. But not of course in any old way, given the caliber of the artists and their clear directional thrust.

The music runs a sort of idiomatic gamut, with all four artists interacting rather exceptionally well, setting up spontaneous counterpoint in inventive ways, each showing a set of original approaches to the instruments they have mastered, and ultimately achieving a lucid four-voiced music that is a good deal more than four-in-one, more one-from-four, if that makes sense.

Franco makes excellent use of varied parts of his total kit to create nicely phrased washes of sound that set the scene for the bowed-plucked-muted-open interactions of the three melody instruments.

It is one of those sessions where everyone has a determined confidence each in the other to create significance and they go boldly where they may, with true success.

For Sale is something I might put on for someone who wanted to hear the state-of-the-art today in chamber free improv. It convinces and intrigues!

Highly recommended. One of the best examples of high-avant spontaneous music today!

Vicente / Marjamaki, Opacity

We have up today some contemporary ambient avant jazz from Vicente / Marjamaki on a live album called Opacity (Jacc Records). The premise is straightforward. Jari Marjamaki creates live electronic washes as a backdrop for the solo trumpet work of Luis Vicente. They are joined by electric guitar for two pieces (Pedro Madaleno or Marcelo dos Reis) and cello (Miguel Mira or Valentin Ceccaldi) for the rest.

One cut has a pronounced rock feel a la post-Miles ("Got That Zing"). "Pollock was Right" has a driving rhythmic feel as well. The others are more cosmically ambient and free-based. Vicente shows his mettle on trumpet nicely. He chooses his notes wisely and has a contemporary sound that shows a little Miles, perhaps a shade of Cherry and Dixon, and a bit of post-Brownian brassiness, all with his own personal amalgam and improvisatory clout.

Marjamaki's electronics are orchestral at times, always varied and contrasting, vivid and spacy. His use of electronically generated drums at times adds a fourth dimension tastefully and thoughtfully.

The addition of guitar and/or cello is integral to the music, with all involved contributing nicely.

It is music that coheres, creates various sound color mixtures and does it all for a program of interest and character.

Well done. If you appreciate some electronics in the mix this one will find you intrigued I suspect. Recommended.