Jazz Articles

Cor Fuhler: Corkestra

by Rex Butters
April 24, 2005

The resourceful Amsterdam-based composer/performer/inventor Cor Fuhler brings his hatful of tricks to the nonet form when he leads the Corkestra. Miniature sound wonders materialize over the course of these organized improvisations. Fuhler's love of old, distinctive-sounding keyboards fits his richly textured ensemble, which includes Nora Mulder on cymbalom, the Ex's Andy Moor on guitar, Anne La Barge on flute, Tony Buck and Michael Vatcher on percussion, Ab Baars and Tobias Delius on reeds, and Wilbert de Joode on double bass. ...

Cor Fuhler: Corkestra

by Clifford Allen
February 22, 2005

Cor Fuhler Corkestra Data Records 2004

Though a significant number of fluxus and neo-dada artists were in fact American and American expatriates, the penchant for obtuse, referential destructuralization did not catch on in American jazz as much as it did in European improvised music. One has only to leaf through the Fluxus Codex to find Misha Mengelberg and Peter Brotzmann's names among the participants. Perhaps it is because the rebuilding of postwar ...

Joost Buis: Astronotes

by Jerry D'Souza
June 12, 2004

Holland has one of the most dynamic jazz scenes going. Several musicians revolve within the ambit of different groups, bringing in points of view that merge and play off each other. At the end of the rainbow there is a bustling and constantly evolving vocabulary. This tentet is an example of this kind of feedback, being but one of three groups headed by trombonist Joost Buis.

The approach centres around the written and the improvised, hardly an ...

Tobias Delius: Apa Ini

by Jerry D'Souza
October 9, 2003

The many sides of Tobias Delius and the instincts he spurs in his band are in vibrant evidence on this record. Delius can be a brawny player, his tone big and overwhelming as he struts across the canvas of a song, but he also shows a quieter, pragmatic side that is spelt out in the thoughtful exploration of a theme.

The other members of the band conceptualize the ideas and fashion music that inveigles itself into the ...

Fuhler / Bennink / de Joode: Tinderbox

by Jerry D'Souza
June 25, 2003

Han Bennink's painting on the cover of this disc proclaims a tinderbox as “a potential explosive place or situation.” Considering its members' credentials, this trio has the potential to be highly explosive. The three Dutchmen keep that tendency in check, which does not mean that the music they make is not interesting. It is, but in a heated simmer with just an occasional blast that is kicked more often than not by Bennink. He can toss up a tempest, and ...

Sean Bergin: Mob Mobiel

by Jerry D'Souza
May 25, 2003

Ever since it opened in 1974, the Bimhuis in Amsterdam has been a venue for creative improvised music. It has been the meeting ground for Dutch musicians, with Wednesday night concerts the hallmark of an event filled year. This album was recorded over four Wednesday nights with twenty musicians who formed four different big bands without the conventional instrumentation. The adaptability of the musicians augurs well for the music which bristles, rocks, swoons, sways, splits line and idiom, and fills ...