Articles by Alex T.
Jazz Baltica 2012 Opening Night: Niendorf, Germany, June 29, 2012
by Alex T.
Jazz Baltica Ensemble / Stefano Bollani with the NDR Big BandJazz Baltica 2012Niendorf, GermanyJune 29, 2012In the course of its 21 years of existence, Jazz Baltica has developed into one of Germany's most important jazz festivals. After a period of uncertainty about sponsors and funding in 2010 and 2011, Jazz Baltica returned in 2012 with a slightly altered concept introduced by its new artistic director, Swedish star trombonist Nils Landgren. Furthermore, the festival relocated to ...
read moreNed Rothenberg: Solo Works - The Lumina Recordings
by Alex T.
Despite the landmark work of Sonny Rollins, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker and Steve Lacy, solo saxophone performance represents an exception rather than the norm in jazz and improvisation. Because of the instrumental limitations, solo reed players need to develop complex multiphonic techniques or make use of electronic overdubbing in order to go beyond mere single-note playing.
The Lumina Recordings, recorded between 1980 and 1985, represent the entire spectrum of solo improvisation on reed instruments. The two-disc set contains music from ...
read moreJoseph Holbrooke Trio: The Moat Recordings
by Alex T.
The Moat Recordings fills in a gap in the story of free improvised music. Bassist Gavin Bryars, drummer Tony Oxley and guitarist Derek Bailey (who passed away in December 2005) met in Sheffield, England in the mid-'60s and started out stretching the limits of modal jazz toward freer forms of musical expression, increasingly moving away from traditional jazz conceptions of melody, chord changes and rhythm. In its early days, the trio (named after a somewhat neglected British composer) neither made ...
read moreMisha Mengelberg and Han Bennink in Berlin
by Alex T.
Pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink, two father figures of Dutch jazz and free improvisation, appeared for a duo concert at Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany on April 23, 2006.
Both have played together in different contexts for decades, most famously with the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) Orchestra, a large ensemble of Dutch improvisers they co-founded with clarinetist Willem Breuker in 1967, which recently toured Europe and the United States this March and April.
Their duo set ...
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