All Included, Satan in Plain Clothes

From last December at Oslo's Nasjonal Jazzscene we have the very potent free-avant jazz quintet All Included and their Satan in Plain Clothes (Clean Feed 326). It is a vibrant showing firmly in the post-new thing realm more so than a new music orientation, which is only to say that it has especially strong jazz roots more than not.

It is a European gathering of heavies perhaps not as especially well known in the States as they should be, but worthy of our ears in all senses.

In the quintet is saxophonist Martin Kuchen, trumpet wielding Thomas Johansson, trombonist Mats Aleklint, double bassist Jon Rune Strom and drummer Tollef Ostvang. They are markedly intent on articulating some excellent head compositions, three by Strom, two by Martin Kuchen and one by Leo and Martin Kuchen. The frameworks are classic sounding vehicles in a new thing zone.

The originals set things up for a free falling or swinging excellence from the rhythm team of Strom and Ostvang, who spike the music and at the same time bring an irresistible momentum to it all.

Martin carries a saxophonic torch heroically and lucidly. Thomas shows a good deal of the old/new jazz tradition in his well healed performances. And Mats has a bit of the old tailgating exuberance along with an avant soulful drive. The three in the frontline work very well together in realizing the heads, engaging in three way improvs and in their individual solo spots.

If I sometimes hear a little of the New York Contemporary 5 and the New York Art Quartet in the music it is only to say that they are extremely mindful of the roots of free jazz and work as an ensemble in ways that reflect the lessons to be learned from those seminal '60s groups without slavishly copying or consciously setting about to create parallels. They have roots but they also have something to say about how we can work out new sounds that go beyond those roots in happy ways.

If someone were to ask me, right now, to play some exemplary free jazz made today, I might certainly put this one on, along with perhaps a good deal else. That is how much I value this date, obviously. It is a genuine goodie. So get a copy if you will! I expect you'll feel like I do after a few listens.

Laszlo Gardony, Life in Realtime

Laszlo Gardony has broken out of the pack in the past few years to establish himself as a creative force, a contemporary modern jazz pianist and bandleader of note and promise. I've covered several of his albums here (check the search box) and am now happy to talk a little about his new one, Life in Realtime (Sunnyside 4019).

This one finds Laszlo fielding a together rhythm team of self, John Lockwood on bass and Yoron Israel on drums, plus a three-tenor lineup of some potent voices: Bill Pierce, Don Braden and Stan Strickland (the latter doubling on bass clarinet as well). I've appreciated Stan since his days with Baird Hersey's Year of the Ear and he still sounds great. The other two have crossed my ear paths fortuitously over the years as very articulate hard post-boppers. Yoron is a drummer's drummer and shows why that is so on the album. Lockwood locks in with Yoron and Laszlo for some significant modern pulsations.

The entire album was recorded at Berklee's Performance Center a year ago. It has the sort of spirited thrust of an engaged audience-performer intersection, making the music climb several notches higher than a studio date ordinarily does.

The music is first-rate contemporary jazz heat, with lots of blowing space for all and a particularly fine showing in that wise with Laszlo and the three tenors. From "Impressions"-like modal blowing to hard bop to reworkings of the standard "Lullaby of Birdland" and originals, it all takes pride of place as a very engaged and hard charging foray into the modern jazz arts.

And so we have a strongly rooted set that sets about to restructure ageless contemporeinity, to fashion it into the shape of the spontaneous now. Good pianism and lively tenor explosions are especially out front for a happy result.

Nice! And another notch in the Gardony belt at that.

Intricacies, Paul Hubweber, Frank Paul Schubert, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Clayton Thomas, Willi Kellers

As this Monday in the heart of September dawns I can hear the extensive traffic making its way into Manhattan on the local Interstate some five blocks away from my I believe soon-to-be-abandoned home. Like in years past when I traveled that route into the city daily, individual and commercial traffic has once again amassed to put the big push into the season ahead, filled with people scurrying and striving to do the will of their masters, and trucks filled with various crap destined to be sold during "Black Friday" and the "Christmas rush." Peace on earth and good business to retail. As for many years since the downturn, I am not included in that mad dash to the holidays. For a number of years that traffic sound diminished greatly with the recession but now it is back. I may no longer be needed in this commercial orgy, so instead I write about some "crazy music" surely not part of the mad accumulation of riches, nor am I in any way compensated for these sometimes Herculian efforts. I set the stage for this review because surely this music vividly contrasts with the common denominator cash-dash that surrounds me. And that to me heightens the contrast between "free, avant jazz" and the creation of "product" that otherwise is in this world I am in, central and all-encompassing.

What would the group of musicians gathered together on the two-CD recording today, Intricacies (NoBusiness CD 74-75), think about it all, let alone the owner of the label so aptly called "NoBusiness"? They are surely aware that there is a gap between what they do and "business as usual." Avant garde improvisation is NOT a business. It stands outside of the world of commerce, for the most part. It is judged by standards, surely, that have nothing to do with financial success, that instead dwell in the realm of creative artistic expression not meant to "sell" much.

And who am I, the enthusiast and sometimes participant on the new musical arts? It is of no importance outside of the small circle I inhabit--the creators, the supporters. So no matter.

What matters in the end is the music. Intricacies gathers together five intrepid free arts practitioners, holding forth at the B-Flat club in Berlin on a February night in 2014. You may know Alexander von Schlippenbach, who is on piano throughout. You may be less familiar with his associates, Paul Hubweber on trombone, Frank Paul Schubert on alto and soprano, Clayton Thomas on bass, and Willi Kellers on drums. They are all very good.

Paul Hubweber plays an extroverted and adroit role in the ensemble as the trombonist. Frank Paul Schubert, too, has much to say on reeds. As expected von Schlippenbach comes through with a pianistic fluidity that lives up to his near-legendary reputation in the free music world. And both Thomas and Kellers give us a rhythm section that ranges far and wide to push it all forward.

This is a solid block of excellent free improvisation that lets the collective take its own way through the open possibilities of what can be. It is free music with the individual stamp of the players, in the manner that you might expect in the Euro realm of the music today, by those who show prodigious "jazz" roots in what they do, but with the slant of this special group of players on a good night.

So in spite of the turmoil of commerce and its selectivity of who grabs the most goodies and who perhaps gets nothing much from it, there continues the art forms of those pretty much on the outside of it all. And the music expresses something of the "beyond" I guess, of not being in the center of it all, but creating a creative center of its own with the reward of being recognized by the avant community? Yes. So I might say that here is an audio product of that "outsideness" that is worth your attention. It is exemplary music, something important to the collective, good music with no pretensions or ambitions in the commercial sphere, yet music that captures our times with creative zeal, uncompromisingly of our world without going by rules others might think central to it.

So I do suggest you buy it and in that way buy into an alternative to the mad rush of big profit and big doings. This is small doings. Small but someday no doubt recognized as an important part of the creative world today? Yes, I hope for that.

Karl Berger / Kirk Knuffke, Moon

Today's music is a real treat! It is a two-CD duet between Karl Berger and Kirk Knuffke. It is entitled Moon (NoBusiness NBCD 76-77). On it we get 16 numbers composed by Karl, Kirk or both, with extensive improvisations.

Knuffke is that rapidly rising cornet firebrand who has graced quite a few sessions of late, a player of classic poise and excellent ideas. Berger is a living monument, a vibraphonist among the very best, a beautiful force for avant jazz, new thing, or whatever you want to call it since the '60s and his seminal recordings on his own and with Don Cherry. He also is the founder of the all-important Creative Music Studio, leader of a very fine big band, pianist of thoughtful demeanor and composer of great strength.

OK, all that considered you would expect this two-CD set to be something fine. And it is. There is a strong connection in place between the two throughout. Karl sounds just fabulous. And he even plays some melodica here, happily. Kirk gets a chance to interact with Karl in ways that show an introspective, intimate side of his playing we don't hear as much of in the larger ensemble performances. The compositions are anything from "blowing" structures to full-blown, more or less through-composed gems. They combine with the improvisatory brilliance of the two in especially good form to make a recording that breathes with true life.

I do not need to break the music down into little bits. You can do that as you listen. The fact is, though, that the music hangs together so well as a whole that the experience is in that way holistic. It is exceptionally there at nearly every moment. It is a voyage from disk to ears that puts you in a special place, the sort of thing only two masters of the improvisatory arts can give you and that on especially good days.

I cannot recommend this album more heartily. It is a strong part of our now fading year, certainly.

Darius Jones Quartet featuring Emilie Lesbros, Le bebe de Brigitte (Lost in Translation)

Darius Jones is not only an alto saxophonist of importance in the new "jazz." He is also a composer-conceptualist of great imagination and merit. You get all of that in his latest album, volume five in his "Man'ish Boy" epic. Le bebe de Brigitte (Lost in Translation) (AUM Fidelity 095) is the Jones Quartet with vocalist Emilie Lesbros. The instrumentalists are Jones of course, Matt Mitchell on piano and Rhodes, Sean Conly on bass, Ches Smith on drums plus Pascal Niggenkemper adding his bass for one number.

The compositional element drives the music in various directions, from a swinging feel to bluesiness, balladry, a freely forward moving, and such. Emilie Lesbros is very much integral to it all, out front and expressively present. She contributes some of the lyrics and on one she is composer and lyricist. Darius gives us five compositions and wrote the lyrics for two of them.

This is all about identity, about, in Maestro Jones' words, how "much of the hatred and ugliness in the world comes from everyone trying to create a unison when they should be striving to create a harmony." When people fail to communicate effectively with one another, it often has to do with differences in language and culture. There is a kind of loss in translation. Much effort is needed to come to understand those people who come from contrasting backgrounds from your own, and this music embodies that problem as well as solves it in a real-time microcosm.

Such is the case, Jones notes, in a musical encounter as much as it is in any other. And so this album and its music is that attempt to arrive at a harmony. That it does is a part of Jones' own conceptually directed openness as well as the band's identity as developed individuals each with a place they have come from as well as a distinct something to say.

The result is a product of the very musical sensibilities of Jones, Lesbros, Mitchell, Conly, Smith (and Niggenkemper) and Jones' strong compositional framework.

Darius sounds especially beautiful on alto here, expressive and singular. The band in each of its parts stands out as a whole, too. Mitchell is a rapidly moving force on piano these days and he contributes some fine work. But then everybody is key here.

The many moods and nuances of the music make for an excellent set. It is music that requires your active participation, of course. If you devote your undivided attention to it, worthwhile unfolding universes of meaning and mood are revealed.

One of the serious contenders for the year's best! Need I say more? Hear it.

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.

Kelsey/Porter Duo, Plays Ornette Vol. 1, Free

I know the artistry of alto saxist Chris Kelsey well enough these days to expect something very worthwhile with anything he puts out. Pianist Lewis Porter I am not as familiar with. It turns out that their first volume of duets of the music of Ornette Coleman, Free, Kelsey/Porter Duo Plays Ornette, Vol. 1 (Tzazz Krytyk) is something excellent to hear.

They tackle some of Ornette's lesser-known numbers, like "Harlem's Manhattan" and "Check Out Time." The recent loss of the jazz titan makes this release timely, though they had been rehearsing and working over the numbers on the album long before the sad news reached us all.

It is a tribute in a way Ornette would have liked best. They do not try and copy his style so much as find their own way through his music. And they do it well. Chris is burning in a sort of post-Braxtionian manner, with soulfire and illuminating soundings of the possibilities available to him as his own stylist. Lewis Porter surprises continually with free-wheeling ideas and clusters of expression that fit completely with what Chris is doing yet in no way go in expected, predictable zones.

The two have developed a very tangible chemistry that results in some fine music. Both take note of what the other is doing while creating two-way improvisations that are much more than the sum of parts.

The music triumphs as excellent examples of both artists today, as a duo of true bipartite organicism, and as a glowing tribute to the master, Ornette Coleman.

Great sounds! Do not miss!