Jazz Articles

Kyle Bruckmann: Grand Mal

by Jerry D'Souza
May 4, 2003

Sound shapes. The shapes that spring from the imagination. What is formless swirls and settles into shape. Or maybe it bloats into excess and then collapses in meaningless heap. The four players on this workout get their collective creativity working in tandem, coming up with some interesting twists and surprises until the final encounter.

Sound is their escape into another world. Power gets gnarled and knotted, a paean to pain or so it would seem in the gnarled ...

Kyle Bruckmann: Grand Mal

by Frank Rubolino
April 21, 2003

A branch of improvising artists with roots on the USA's West Coast flourishes on not being satisfied with the status quo. These Bay Area renegades continue to push the envelope in search of that which is truly new. Their unique experimental environment has beckoned woodwind player Kyle Bruckmann from his Midwest abode on several occasions. On this trek, he unites with Ernesto Diaz- Infante, John Shiurba, and Karen Stackpole to form a union of sound processors submerged into one bubbling ...

Scott Rosenberg: V: Solo Improvisations

by AAJ Staff
April 1, 2001

In the tradition initiated by Albert Ayler, the saxophone became a direct, hardwired extension of the human body--rather than an instrument constructed to obey external rules. Scott Rosenberg expands upon this idea on Solo Improvisations by playing notes that completely defy conventional assumptions of tone and order. His real talent, pursued at length here, is in the use of so-called “extended techniques" as a musical medium. The only formal commonality among the open-ended rumbles, pops, squeaks, and whistles on Solo ...

Anthony Braxton/Scott Rosenberg: Compositions/Improvisations 2000

by AAJ Staff
March 1, 2001

Whenever you pick up an Anthony Braxton recording, you can generally expect to hear a distinctive combination of structured composition and full-bodied improvisation. No exception with Compositions/Improvisations 2000. On this disc, Braxton joins forces with reed player Scott Rosenberg, a like-minded individual with his own compositional aesthetic and open-ended style of playing. Roughly a third of the tracks consist of compositions by each player, and the remainder features free improvisation.

The material on Compositions/Improvisations tends toward a chamber music sound--stark, ...