Jazz Articles about Ellery Eskelin

Ellery Eskelin & Han Bennink: Dissonant Characters

by Robert Spencer
August 1, 1999

“And Han, to his audible pleasure, discovers a rare, fully equipped improviser he can't scare off, wear out, bury or give the slip."

So says Kevin Whitehead in the liner notes to this little gem, which consists of ten tracks - ranging in time from twenty-four seconds to almost ten minutes - and all featuring an incredibly agile Ellery Eskelin, plus Han Bennink, as puckish and brilliant a drummer as ever.

Take the first track, with Bennink's dramatically spare and ...

Ellery Eskelin with Andrea Parkins & Jim Black: Kulak, 29 & 30

by Robert Spencer
December 1, 1998

Kulak, 29 & 30 was recorded live at Kulak, Berikon, Switzerland, on October 29 and 30, 1997, by the innovative trio of Ellery Eskelin (tenor saxophone), Andrea Parkins (accordion and sampler), and Jim Black (percussion). In the liner notes Ellery Eskelin explains that “I'm constantly looking for structural methods to change existing and assumed paradigms in improvised music, sometimes blurring the line between written and improvised material but more often creating a highly defined distinction."

That's exactly what's happening on ...