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Nicola Miller’s Living Things: Spit!
by Mike Jurkovic
On the street, they would say that maritime Nova Scotia's rogue saxophonist Nicola Miller's rhizome-like way with her quintet, Living Things, or her prog jazz as a concept, is “some crazy sh*#!." But it need be said nicer at a global concern like All About Jazz. For as gentlemen and even gentler ladies, we are sworn to public service and to call a spade a spade. So Spit! is a spade. Hands down. Why? Well, the crickety landslide ...
Continue ReadingGerry Hemingway with Izumi Kimura, Frank Gratkowski and Christian Weber: Live at Bau 4
by Glenn Astarita
Drummer and composer Gerry Hemingway has spent five decades proving that percussion can be as harmonically literate as any horn or keyboard. That reputation was forged during his decade with the Anthony Braxton Quartet and expanded through an expansive discography on labels including Auricle, Tzadik, Clean Feed, and Intakt. Now based in Switzerland, Hemingway continues to cultivate collaborations that balance compositional rigor with the spontaneity of collective improvisation. Live at Bau 4 documents one such encounter. Per Maxi ...
Continue ReadingGerry Hemingway: Live at Bau 4
by Mark Corroto
Touch. It is the word that most often comes to mind when listening to the music of composer and drummer Gerry Hemingway. While rhythm and structure are central to his work, it is touch, the physical act of striking, rubbing, bowing, pressing and releasing that gives his music its distinctive character. Hemingway's performances do more than generate sound; they evoke texture. They invite the listener to imagine the grain of wood, the scrape of metal, the vibration of strings and ...
Continue Reading2025 Releases from Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Frank Gratkwski, Chad Taylor and more!
by Jon Greenbaum
Host Jon Greenbaum focuses on new and recent releases in this survey of artists exploring the boundaries of improvisation and composition.PlaylistFrank Gratkowski “Wie Lieblich Schallt" from Frank Gratkowski's In Cahoots (Klanggalerie) 00:00:00 André Carvalho “Dente de Leite" from Of Fragility and Impermanence (Robalo Music) 00:08:02 Wadada Leo Smith Marcus Gilmore and Jakob Bro “Sonic Mountains" from Murasaki (Loveland Music) 00:16:05 Brad Henkel Quartet “Overstory" from Overstory (Trouble in the East) 00:22:17 Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Exit Knarr “Kanón (for ...
Continue ReadingNicola Miller: Living Things
by Mike Jurkovic
It is more than fair enough to say that Nova Scotia-based saxophonist/composer Nicola Miller's vision and understanding of things is peppered with oddly curious axioms and an astute ear for the undertow that pulls us all further out to sea or crashing into the breakers. At least that is what Living Things, Miller's first bold statement as a leader leads one to believe given the odd shapes and delineations that such serpentine wanderings of the lead-off “Barge"--its slippery, open ...
Continue ReadingFrank Gratkowski, Simon Nabatov: Tender Mercies
by John Sharpe
This collection of seven duets from pianist Simon Nabatov and reedman Frank Gratkowski stands as one of those times when the late Misha Mengelberg's term “instant composition" for a series of seat-of-the-pants encounters makes absolute sense. Perhaps that should not be a surprise, considering the protagonists histories and shared base in the German city of Cologne. Indeed, their association dates back to at least 1999, when the reedman appeared as part of a quartet on Nabatov's Nature ...
Continue ReadingFrank Gratkowski, Achim Kaufmann, Wilbert de Joode, Tony Buck: Flatbosc & Cautery
by John Sharpe
Adding a new member to a long-established group sometimes reinforces the chemistry, at other times it transforms. With the threesome of reedman Frank Gratkowski, pianist Achim Kaufmann and bassist Wilbert de Joode, a unit since 2002, the co-option of Necks drummer Tony Buck propels the outfit more explicitly towards the high-energy end of the free spectrum, compared with previous outings such as palaë (Leo, 2007) and oblengths (Leo, 2016). Recorded in concert in Koln, in May 2018, ...
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