Articles by John Sharpe
Summer Bummer 2026
by John Sharpe
Summer Bummer 2026 Trix, Antwerp Belgium August 28-29, 2026 Intro The 11th edition of the Summer Bummer festival more than lived up to the promise of the mouth-watering bill, presenting a wide variety of experimental music without fealty to any particular genre. While Summer Bummer inevitably tips its hat to the local Belgian improvised music scene, it is notable for bringing in projects not routinely heard elsewhere, including one world premiere. Trix--more often a rock ...
Continue Reading1984: The Forward Process
by John Sharpe
Straight from the first notes, reality blurs and form becomes fluid. On The Forward Process Belgian guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe turns a literary notion of time into a working musical system. He sets his guitar alongside French saxophonist Sakina Abdou and English turntablist Mariam Rezaei on cycles that rarely resolve in the conventional sense. Under the moniker 1984--named after the birth year of the three protagonists, but with Orwellian echoes--the three traverse five pieces by Van Cauwenberghe intercut with three ...
Continue ReadingPeter Evans, Mike Pride: A Window, Basically
by John Sharpe
Trumpet meets drums in a series of superbly balanced exchanges on A Window, Basically. When the trumpet belongs to Peter Evans then not only virtuosity is guaranteed, but also an acute musicality. Nothing exists purely for effect. And double down on that when Mike Pride helms the trapset. Long-time colleagues, the pair recorded the seven cuts over a two-year period, although their history goes back much further. While together they constitute two-thirds of the band Pulverize The Sound, this album ...
Continue ReadingFjall: Helt
by John Sharpe
Helt finds Fjall refining its communal language into long-form sonic terrains shaped by timbre, patience and mutual purpose. The double album documents complete performances from December 2023 and April 2025, preserving the quartet unchanged from its debut, From the Rough Hill (Discus, 2023). Reed player and keyboardist Martin Archer joins percussionists Richard Jackson and Fran Comyn alongside harpist Jan Todd, whose contributions also encompass voice, electronics and samples. The breadth of instrumentation points to an unusually expansive vocabulary, in which ...
Continue ReadingŘŮ…ŘŻ [Ahmed]: Play Monk
by John Sharpe
Few contemporary bands dismantle Thelonious Monk's charts with either the conviction or the discipline displayed by ŘŮ…ŘŻ [Ahmed] on Play Monk. This double CD veers between primal throb and cerebral cool. Pianist Pat Thomas, alto saxophonist Seymour Wright, bassist Joel Grip and drummer Antonin Gerbal united around a shared affection for the work of pioneering bassist and oud player Ahmed Abdul Malik, whose late '50s albums introduced Arab and East African modes into the hard bop milieu. Although they seemed ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Amado / Joe McPhee / Kent Kessler / Chris Corsano: Wailers
by John Sharpe
Wailers captures Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's This Is Our Language quartet at a fascinating juncture, revealing fresh dimensions within one of his most compelling working bands. An unchanged lineup features reedman Joe McPhee (restricting himself solely to tenor), bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Chris Corsano alongside the leader's tenor saxophone. Recorded in a Lisbon studio in 2019, the album now arrives with the feel of an archival issue. But it constitutes the first since Let The Three Be Men (Trost, ...
Continue ReadingGjerstad Schlippenbach Narvesen: Seven Tracks
by John Sharpe
No messages. No allusions. Just pure music. Seven Tracks arrives stripped of extraneous signposts, its cuts identified only by duration and its content left to speak entirely for itself. Happily the utilitarian approach does not extend to the volatile freeform exchanges between veterans Norwegian reedman Frode Gjerstad and German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and Gjerstad's younger countryman drummer Dag Magnus Narvesen. Pianist and drummer form a cohesive unit responsible for three albums in tandem. Drummer and reed player likewise have ...
Continue ReadingCamila Nebbia: A Reflection Distorts Over Water
by John Sharpe
From her base in Berlin, Argentine tenor saxophonist Camila Nebbia continues to impress, extending her increasingly international reputation across the Atlantic on A Reflection Distorts Over Water. For a session recorded in the studio in Woodstock, NY, she enlists talent both established and lately emerged. Even after a storied career, most famously as part of Anthony Braxton's classic quartet, pianist Marilyn Crispell remains a persistently exploratory collaborator. Meanwhile drummer Lesley Mok's profile rises inexorably, thanks to their outstanding leadership debut ...
Continue ReadingAlexander Hawkins & Taylor Ho Bynum: A Near Permanent State Of Wonder
by John Sharpe
Nearly two decades after first crossing paths in the transatlantic Convergence Quartet, cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and pianist Alexander Hawkins reunite on A Near Permanent State Of Wonder, a recording that finds their rapport undimmed and their curiosity intact. In the intervening period Hawkins has become one of the most in demand pianists in Europe, as collaborations with the likes of Anthony Braxton, Shabaka Hutchings, Evan Parker and Tomeka Reid testify. Bynum, likewise an alumnus of Braxton, as well as ...
Continue ReadingAda Rave & Marta Warelis: Peel/Mondo
by John Sharpe
On Peel/Mondo, two distinctive voices sport in adventurous communion. Polish pianist Marta Warelis and Argentinean saxophonist Ada Rave first met as part of the fertile Amsterdam scene. As a result, they know each other well, so the empathy and highly attuned responsiveness they display on these six collective inventions from a 2024 concert performance comes as little surprise. Rave's singular approach has graced outfits as diverse as the Kaja Draksler Octet, all-women supergroup Hearth and venerable Dutch punk ...
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