Jazz Articles

Positive Knowledge: Live In New York

by Jerry D'Souza
October 6, 2003

The performance documented here was recorded at the 2001 Vision Festival, a stage that serves as a window for artists whose persuasion is the expression of free jazz. Sometimes when things are free, there is a price to pay. Does the musician communicate with the listener? Are the impulses strictly personal or do they also have the ability to let feeling flow to others? Sure, the intentions are honorable, but the bottom line has to be communication. If that is ...

The Abstractions: Ars Vivende

by Frank Rubolino
August 25, 2003

The Abstractions present a form of noise jazz coupled with narrative recitations, voice and vocal outbursts, and electrified intensity of gigantic proportions. These California improvisers and deviators from the norm take the mind on a psychedelic trip on Ars Vivende where reality is utterly buried within the surrealistic scene painted by these anti-war rule-breakers. There is turmoil boiling on most cuts, particularly when Jesse Quattro initiates his shouting matches overflowing with verbal abusiveness and agonized cries of despondency.

Ernesto Diaz-Infante, ...

The Abstractions: Sonic Conspiracy

by Jerry D'Souza
March 3, 2003

The Abstractions set up house on Sonic Conspiracy in the first 36 seconds. The roar, like an avalanche, heralds the coming; but in all the sound and fury there is an underlying attractiveness as they harness tumult in all of its atonality.

What emerges over the course of this album is the meld and merge of instruments and of voice given vent to in intense roil, and in somber expression. Agitation does not shift gear into overdrive, ...

Rent Romus: PKD Vortex Project

by AAJ Staff
February 1, 2002

Always on the move, Rent Romus has gone after the “exploratory ethic of science fiction" with this quintet recording dedicated to author Philip K. Dick. The title track leads off with a swirling, mysterious darkness, proceeding gradually to a full-on dark nightmare assault. After the crescendo finally reaches its crest, the group turns on a dime to shifting polyrhythmic funk. The beauty of dedicating a recording to a writer with the imagination of Dick is that you earn the freedom ...

Yehudit: Valentine

by Craig W. Hurst
November 1, 2001

Forrest Gump said in the film of the same name that life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get. The newest CD by jazz violinist Yehudit, Valentine, provides the listener with exactly what one would expect--a heart shaped box of bon bons of familiar musical standards devoted to the topic of love.

Guitarist John Hoy, bassists Cindy Browne and Karen Horner and drummer Curt Moore ably accompany Yehudit, performing on five-string electric ...

Guinea Pig: Out of Town

by AAJ Staff
August 1, 2001

Listening to Guinea Pig is a bit like watching a huge pot of water boil. Bubbles form and rise through the medium in unpredictable ways on Out of Town. These pieces range from the taciturn simmer of “The Communique" to the sheer roiling energy of “Hitchcockville." Saxophonist Rent Romus plays a central role here in determining where the music heads, although nominally these tunes all receive joint credit to the quartet as a whole. The “out" voyages of the saxophones ...

Rent Romus' Lords of Outland: Avatar in the Field

by AAJ Staff
June 1, 2001

Among the free set, Albert Ayler tributes have become a sort of rite of passage. It's a fitting setting to elaborate the fundamentally spiritual aspects of the music. Witness Peter Brotzmann's '94 Die Like A Dog Trio, which reminded the world that his musical conception extends far beyond screeches and snarls. Or David Murray's more open-ended '77 Flowers for Albert, which ignited a persistent debate over Murray's seemingly ubiquitous Aylerisms. Both records were defining moments in the respective saxophonist's careers. ...