Jazz Articles about Larry Ochs

Jones Jones: A Jones In Time Saves Nine

by John Sharpe
February 3, 2019

Over a decade in existence and the free jazz trio Jones Jones has just dropped its third album. That's not exactly prolific, but may well be an accurate reflection of the challenge implicit in bringing together colleagues separated by the 5795 miles between reedman Larry Ochs and bassist Mark Dresser in California, and percussionist Vladimir Tarasov in Lithuania. But the wait has been worth it with A Jones In Time Saves Nine ranking as their finest work so far, surpassing ...

Larry Ochs Sax And Drumming Core: Wild Red Yellow

by John Sharpe
July 4, 2018

Reedman Larry Ochs' Sax And Drumming Core was famously once threatened by a punter calling the police because they weren't conforming to his narrow definition of jazz. Wild Red Yellow constitutes the second outing by the augmented version of the band responsible for that misdemeanor, following as it does from Stone Shift (Rogue Art, 2009), which similarly incorporated the Japanese pair of trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii as guests. Happily they haven't been cowed by the prospect of ...

Kihnoua: Unauthorized Caprices

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 16, 2010

Il progetto Kihnoua di Larry Ochs, che esordisce in questo disco, è improntato alla radicale sperimentazione di elementi vocali e strumentali, sia acustici che elettronici che si fondono e interagiscono in un intenso abbraccio. L'organico di base è il trio, costituito dal sassofonista del Rova, dalla cantante coreana Dohee Lee e del batterista Scott Amendola a cui si aggiungono in questa stessa incisione o in concerto altri musicisti (Zeena Parkins, Fred Frith, Carla Kihlstedt e altri). La presenza della vocalist ...

Larry Ochs: The Celestial Septet & We All Feel The Same Way

by Marc Medwin
February 28, 2010

ROVA Sax Quartet/Nels Cline SingersThe Celestial SeptetNew World Records2010 Jones JonesWe All Feel The Same WaySoLyd2010 The synchronicity and boundless energy that separate great groupwork from everything else pervades these two new additions to multi-instrumentalist and composer Larry Ochs' already formidable discography. He has always negotiated the permeable boundaries between improvisation and composition with ...

Larry Och's Sax & Drumming Core: Stone Shift

by John Sharpe
January 20, 2010

Fifty years after its inception, the avant-garde still regularly begs the hoary old question “Is it jazz?" Notwithstanding that it has persisted as an active style as long or longer than most of its predecessors, with a small but committed following around the globe while continuing to reinvent itself in different ways wherever the seed germinates, that question just won't go away. With each passing year the connections to the tradition become clearer, but still not clear enough perhaps.

Why ...

Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core: Stone Shift

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 23, 2009

Avvicinarsi all'opera di Larry Ochs (artista che molti conoscono come co-fondatore e componente del ROVA Saxophone Quartet) è un'esperienza mai priva di interesse, non solo per l'evidente dedizione dell'artista e per le sue notevoli doti di strumentista, ma soprattutto per un impegno compositivo che mostra di risolvere con criteri originali le apparenti incongruenze che sembrerebbero esistere fra composizione e improvvisazione. Forse Rosalind Krauss apprezzerebbe la “all-at-onceness" che molti lavori di Ochs raggiungono e raffigurano e di cui “Across from Over" ...

Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core: Stone Shift

by Kurt Gottschalk
November 14, 2009

Larry Ochs, best known for his work with the long-standing ROVA saxophone quartet, has been working an unusual and satisfying side project for close to a decade. His Drumming Core, founded in 2000, is a trio with two drummers dedicated to exploring American field hollers and Asian chants. The first two CDs were rewarding, if more as an opportunity to hear Ochs as the sole melody instrument than for the East-meets-West concept. But for their third release, Ochs has expanded ...