Jazz Articles

Alessandro Bosetti: Stille Post (Radio Works: 2003-2011)

by Mark Corroto
July 17, 2016

Do you agree with Alessandro Bosetti, that there is art everywhere? A buena vista is a painting waiting to happen, the music of the wind through a stand of conifers, and even the familiar subway stops as they come past are a sort of poetry. The conductor calls out, “Montrose, Irving Park, Addison, Belmont, California, Western, Damen, Division...," and even though it's just information to other riders, you hear his song. Bosetti has been tuned into the musicality of spoken ...

Postmarks: National Parks

by John Eyles
February 9, 2014

The duo Postmarks consists of London-born Austrian saxophonist Boris Hauf and the Chicago-based American pianist D Bayne. Their first CD Western Ave (Luminescence, 2005) was a limited-edition of only one hundred copies packaged in unique covers, each a handcrafted collage from twenties Chicago postcards. For National Parks, the duo went to Vienna to record with experimental guitarist Martin Siewert, maybe best known for his work with Trapist or in Hauf's Efzeg. The outlines for the ten pieces the three recorded ...

The Trophies: You Wait To Publish

by Mark Corroto
December 20, 2013

Alessandro Bosetti reshuffles the distinctions between speech and song with his repeating texts. His scripts of found words, nonsense passages, or snippets of conversations, when presented as a loop, take on new and disparate meanings. With his trio Trophies, the repetitive speech loops expand as drummer Tony Buck (The Necks) and guitarist Kenta Nagai (Laura Andel Orchestra) 'speak' instrumental lines into the vortex of Bosetti's loops. You Wait To Publish follows A Color Of A Horse (D.S. al ...

Trophies: Become Objects of Daily Use

by Mark Corroto
October 16, 2011

Alessandro Bosetti is repeating. Just as he phrased it on his previous Royals (Monotype, 2010), he is “gloriously repeating." The Italian musician, composer and sound artist continues his loop compositions with the assistance of Japanese fretless guitarist Kenta Nagai and Australian drummer Tony Buck. Bosetti's method--rapidly becoming a signature sound--is to map the musical profiles of spoken word, poetry, or his own non sequitur speech and transcribe the rhythms, pitch, and notes to be played and replayed ...

Alessandro Bosetti: Royals

by Mark Corroto
May 9, 2011

Musician/sound artist Alessandro Bosetti continues to explore the connection between speech and music, with yet another set of speech loop recordings. On Royals, like on his previous discs--Her Name (Crouton, 2007) and Exposé (Die Schachtel, 2007)--he orchestrates the tone, pitch and cadence of a speaker, talking or reading text. Much like pianist Jason Moran or drummer Dan Weiss' experiments with the articulation of telephone calls or movie scenes, Bosetti begins each of the three tracks with spoken language. ...

Neurobot: Petla Bohumina

by Mark Corroto
January 6, 2011

Listening to Charlie Parker recordings from the late 1940s and early 1950s, specifically the incomplete takes of studio sessions, it's possible to hear bits and pieces of chatter and noise from the hissing/wobbly start/stop of recordings. These are what musicologists and cultural historians dig. The off-hand comment, noise, or experiment in sound reveals another world, outside of the engineered masters.These outtakes might have been the seeds from which the 39 minutes of electronic improvisation, by the Neurobot trio, ...

Ecstasy Project: Europae

by Jerry D'Souza
March 23, 2008

Ecstasy Project was formed in 1998 by Rafal Gorzycki, its drummer. Gorzycki absorbs a range of influences which he transforms into illuming nuggets with his compositions. His interest is currently churned by contemperary European and chamber music. He brings the two together, washes them in jazz and comes up with music that will linger for a long time in mind and heart.

The line-up of the band has changed over the course of their three albums. The quintet featured here ...