Abdelhai Bennani Trio, Present

The Moroccan tenor saxophonist Abdelhai Bennani has been rather prolific in the past few years, mostly with self-released excursions on the cooperative label JaZt Tapes. He's back with a trio outing on that label, Present (JaZt Tapes 038).

This one has some clout to it thanks in part to the trio format. Benjamin Duboc on double bass and Didier Lasserre, drums, have a long and effective involvement in the free music-avant jazz-free jazz scene and their presence gives some dimension to Abdelhai's saxophony.

Maestro Bennani is a player with a distinct note-swallowing way of phrasing, a very grainy sound at times and a free approach. He sounds completely at ease here and the trio thrives in putting together a very loose and free set. It's something those into the new thing will appreciate, as I did.

To find out more and how to order, go to http://www.janstrom.se/6.-recordings/6.3.-jazt-tapes-6267605.

Blaise Siwula, Merida Encuentro (Merida Swings)

Blaise Siwula, reed master of free music. . . we've usually associated him with New York City in years past. He has however been spending some time down in Merida, Mexico and has hooked up with some good players there. Merida Encuentro (nfm 004) gives us a CD of free encounters of the ear-enriching kind, a rewarding result of the confluence of new and culturally diverse combinations that can happen when everybody opens up and listens.

The first several cuts feature Blaise on clarinet and alto and Armando Martin on acoustic guitar. "Para Django" starts things off with a kind of swing extension of outness, of course paying tribute to Django Reinhardt in the process. More abstracted duets follow, with "Sin Tiempo" giving us a first climax via prepared and unprepared guitar that goes from Bailey-esque flights to Latin classical to jazz chording to sung-played expressive lining while Blaise makes a cohesive statement on clarinet.

Armando switches to electric guitar for "Disenos" and drummer Edgar Caamal joins the group to make it a trio for the rest of the set. The dynamic remains free and open form. Edgar's brushed drums make us feel a little more like we are back in New York, but Armando on electric quickly turns up and gets us into a more watted avant abstraction that has an exploded free-rock feel as Edgar switches to sticks. Blaise turns up the intensity on alto and gets the max out of the two-lined simultaneous soloing.

The mood continues with Armando back on acoustic and Blaise catching alto fire. A longer, softer "Suave" brings back clarinet, brushes and acoustic for what starts out as a kind of free ballad with a lazy bluesiness in there as Blaise channels some tradition into his own world with smooth ease but pointed strength. It comes to climax, then gets quiet and moody again.

The finale, "Fuera", substitutes Alvar Canto Torres on electric guitar. He is more into a metallic, psychedelic, high-voltage sound with guitar feedback, power drones and edgy lines that give Blaise something else to work against. Blaise glides and slithers along with it while Edgar continues free drum barrages but also interjects intermittent pauses to change the texture of the momentum.

In the end we get another way free can roll. Blaise is in great form and his fellow travellers add dimensions and dynamics that keep it all interesting. This is a successful first outing with lots of modes and moods. I look forward to what else they will do in future.

Listen and you'll hear the sound of pure invention!

Devototionalien, sollen uns in demut uben in harmony zu ieberluben

"We join this program already in progress." That's what they used to say on TV when a show was interrupted by a announcement or news flash that cut into programming time. In a way you could say that about the free jazz quartet Devototionalien and their album sollen uns in demut uben in harmony zu ieberluben (Not Two MW 887-2). I say that only because ultra-spontaneous free music as performed as well as it is here is never complete because there could always be more when the players have something to say as they do surely on this one.

It's a recording made on location at Celeste in Vienna. Eric Zinman mans the piano and euphonium, Kilian Schrader plays electric bass and effects, Mario Rechtern plies the sopranino, alto and baritone saxes as well as the flute, and Johannes Krebs is on drums.

This is full-out energy freedom with no concessions made to anything but the band's collective talent and physico-musical thrust. And that is an excellent thing because each of them is primed and lucid. It's the all-over kind of freedom, tumbling ahead with hard-edged sound expression as the goal. Zinman-Schrader-Rechturn-Krebs are masters of that tumble. No, they do not sound like somebody else; they ARE somebody else.

If you are looking for a kicker, this is it. A whirlwind maelstrom of active inspiration awaits. You plunks down your money and you gets a great set of it. So check it out.

Chris Abrahams and Magda Mayas, Gardener

Not everything in the heavens and on earth is known in our philosophies, to garble Shakespeare a bit on this Monday morning. In music that is occurring right now, unfolding before our very ears, that may be especially true. Take the album Gardener (Relative Pitch 1011), a series of duo improvisations by Chris Abrahams and Magda Mayas.

The two each play pianos, harpsichords and harmoniums, as they see fit from number to number. They get heavily immersed in some highly abstract, avant new music sorts of improvisations, creating a complex diversity of sounds both exotic and down-to-earth. And they do it very well. This is music that no philosopher could have dreamed up 100 years ago. And yet it fits in with the new free-avant music world that has grown increasingly multi-faceted in the last 20 years or so. No longer can you say that "free music," "free jazz" or "avant improvisation" is only a matter of this or that. It is today a matter of many different shades of performative sound.

Abrahams and Mayas come down in an area of abstraction that took shape in various ways both in the music of Cecil Taylor and in Europe--all in the very late '50s and into the '60s and beyond--what some people now call improv. It has some roots in avant classical but has the expressive spontaneity of jazz improvisation, and of course with Cecil these latter roots are especially fundamental. With Abrams and Mayas the attention is to the immediate in-the-moment sculpting of sound and timbres, so the piano for example is as often as not prepared, and the sensual qualities of the three instruments played by both performers contrast and commingle in attractive ways. Then too it IS about the notes, about the phrasings, the sounds and the silences, and some of the avant jazz aspects of the music come through at times in these zones especially.

But no, there are no symmetrical, structured barline sorts of regularities here. It is open form pretty much all the way. And the trick with this kind of music, as done well like the two artists at hand do, is to let yourself focus on the passing parade of sound and tone, to evacuate the evaluating mind of expectations, and to let the sounds take you where they will. Listen more than once, preferably many times, and the singularity of the program will become apparent. That's what I did. I come away from this one with a feeling of satisfaction, that what these two are doing is good, very good, and the idea that I will welcome another hearing.

That's when you know you've got something. This is something. Recommended.

Way Out Northwest, The White Spot

As I sit here writing up this review I realize that there are only about two weeks left of the socio-cultural summer season. I am glad of the weeks remaining but like a classic Twilight Zone episode I wish I had the ability to stop time now and again. I don't. In fact the older you get, the faster it all seems to go. But as if to counteract that we have at hand today an avant trio that plays in an a-temporal zone, a "classic" (probably shouldn't use that word, but I don't want to say "same old" because that doesn't work here) sound-against-sound free jazz outfit.

Who? Way Out Northwest and their CD The White Spot (Relative Pitch 1006). More specifically it is John Butcher on tenor and soprano, Torsten Muller, contrabass, and Dylan van der Schyff on drums.

This is full-out, hari-hair-standing-on-end screech-honk madness. Not always blowing the brains out madness, mind you, but consistently looking for that tone-into-sound grey area and consistently finding it. This isn't foot-patting groove, it has no bop roots, and it's isn't supposed to hearken back to anything. It's harmonics, multi-phonics, long-paragraphed freedom with room for all three players and the sense of space and pacing that keeps your ears from getting weary.

Everybody has their sonically expanded say, and they all have something to say. It perhaps sometimes sounds more European than New York New-Thingian. On the other hand there's more New-Thingian here than some European outfits. I like that just fine because they are good at it all. Jump in and get jumping! Defy time! Amaze your friends!

Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Geraldine Keller, Air Prints

There is music out there that may not get the attention it deserves because it is somewhat esoteric, demanding of concentration, not necessarily difficult but Zen-like in its singleness of purpose. I believe that would describe Jean-Luc Cappozzo and Geraldine Keller's Air Prints (Ayler 131). Now that is by no means a put-down. Far from it. It is only to say that this music brings its rewards like a well-crafted set of boxes-within-boxes. You must be ready to open up to each stage to get the whole set assimilated.

It's live music from 2011. Jean-Luc plays trumpet, horns and sound-producing objects of various sorts; Geraldine Keller vocalizes, plays flutes and also sounds objects.

The first thing you will notice is the almost ritual, chant-like vocals of Geraldine. It is a voice that goes well with her flutes, in fact is almost flute-like itself at times. On other occasions there is something a bit exorcising about what she is vocalizing. Her flutes have a world-sound at times. Jean-Luc plays trumpet with brassy boldness but can also take on sotto voce qualities. He has a slightly Dixonish growl sometimes, a Bowie playfulness at times, other times something else that comes out of where he is as a player right now.

It's a set of free avant provenance and it goes where you might not expect. So in some ways it's not only the novice that has work to do; the old hand at avant-free will find there are world and new music qualities here that need your attention if they are to come off. So in no way is this precisely easy listening in the Ivesian comfy-sofa sense.

I don't have much more to say except that after five hearings I still feel like I have not entered the inner sanctum of the duo's musical minds. That's saying something. I am not sure yet what. It's a definite adventure!

Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut, Imaginary Control Systems

One of the more unusual and more interesting of Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut's JaZtTapes CD-Rom releases surely is Imaginary Control Systems (JaZtTapes CD-026). It is that by virtue of the chemistry on display between the trio members captured here.

Jeffrey plays the piano throughout, comping in an out way, doing all-over barrages, taking off from motival kernels of musical thought. Lukas Ligeti acts as a free-foil with drumming that can pulsate or go into a-rhythmic zones. And there is the late Luther Thomas on alto--in a Luther-as-post-Bird realm, quoting snatches of Bird-dom, developing melodic motifs that have an out-bop feel to them. The three together enter special places that are pretty rarified.

It was 2007, NYC, and Luther was to live only two more years. This seems to me one of his more important later recordings for all the reasons mentioned. The music is very free and loose and yet there are moments underpinned by structure. There are more musical-structural factors underlining the blowing going on than with the everyday sort of stream-of-consciousness mode. Now of course the stream approach is completely valid and all three players are known for it. It's just that there there are indeed kinds of "Imaginary Control Systems" put into play here.

For all that it makes for a very interesting listen. Get more info on this and other JaZtTapes by going to http://www.janstrom.se/6.-recordings/6.3.-jazt-tapes-6267605

Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut, Sound Journal, 2007

There is one thing you can depend on in life, at least. That is, you can depend on Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut to be out there in the trenches month after month, creating very good to excellent free jazz, free music, or whatever you might want to call it. He gets around, finds the best free musicians, can play cohesively and movingly on piano, reeds or guitar, is a real leader-organizer, finds playing situations and gets the music out.

He may be the Eddie Condon of the avant garde jazz scene in a way--a good player who brings others together and creates an environment for serious blowing.

You can hear it in the JaZt Tapes Artist's Promo CD-R release Sound Journal (JaZt Tapes 031). This one goes back a little to a live date in NYC, 2007. It's one free improvisation lasting 50 minutes, with Jeffrey on the piano, Blaise Siwula on saxes, Marc Edwards on drums, Daniel Carter on saxes, flute, clarinet and trumpet, Nick Gianni on contrabass and also tenor, flute and soprano, and Enrico Oliva on alto. The CD-R came out in 2011.

This one gives you a thick carpet of free maelstroming, Ascension-like multi-horn layers, all-over piano cascading, and Marc Edwards' muscular free-drumming style.

Some excellent blowing happening here. Everybody is keyed into one another, responds with the right thing for a collective mayhem that is exhilarating! If you like a good blow-out this one has it.

Find out more about this disk and how to get it at http://www.janstrom.se/6.-recordings/6.3.-jazt-tapes-6267605

FAS Trio, "Chimeco"

The FAS Trio is a heady blend of sax-bass-drums. Their album Chimeco (Discos Intolerancia) showcases a major free outing by the group. They are Mexico-based for the most part. Remi Alvarez is the tenorist, David Sanchez is the contrabassist and Jorge Fernandez takes on the drums.

And the result is some fine improvising. Remi Alvarez has a strong tone. In his own way he takes to heart Sam Rivers' challenge for players to develop their own phrasings, their own way. He does. There is strong work from Mr. Alvarez from start to finish, in an expanded tonal mode. Mr. Sanchez's contrabass and Mr. Fernandez's drums are right there with him in a three-way expression that hangs together as a cohesive, freely improvised whole.

The set has energy, poise and melodic movement of an inspired sort. You can grab the album on i tunes. And if you are a free-thing enthusiast, you will want to! Recommended. Otra vez!