Jazz Articles about Fred Frith

About Fred Frith

Album Review

In the last forty years, no one has been about to categorize just what exactly Fred Frith music is. His seminal early work with the British prog-rock band Henry Cow--along with the likes of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart--developed the idea rock artists could also be accomplished and serious musicians. Later he founded the New York Downtown scene with John Zorn, Tom Cora, Gary Lucas, and Thomas Chapin. His continuing interests accompany the worlds of free improvisation, film music, chamber ...

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Album Review

Fred Frith: Nowhere / Sideshow / Thin Air

Read "Nowhere / Sideshow / Thin Air" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
November 30, 2009

His sixth album of music for dance, Nowhere / Sideshow / Thin Air continues multi-instrumentalist/composer Fred Frith's longstanding collaboration with Carla Kihlstedt. The violinist was heard most recently on Frith's previous dance disc, The Happy End Problem (ReR Megacorp, 2006), and in performance as part of his well-received Art Bears Songbook, with Art Bears percussionist/lyricist/co-founder Chris Cutler, and Cosa Brava, a new rock-oriented group with a debut disc due out in 2010. It's clearly a fruitful relationship that has seen ...

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Multiple Reviews

Fred Frith: To Sail, To Sail, Pas de Deux & The Big Picture/Still Urban

by Marc Medwin
October 4, 2009

Fred FrithTo Sail, To SailTzadik2008 Fred Frith, Danielle Palardy RogerPas de deuxActuelle2008 Fred Frith and Arte QuartettThe Big PictureIntakt2009 Fred Frith and Arte QuartettStill UrbanIntakt2009 There are very few musicians as versatile yet as instantly recognizable as Fred ...

Album Review

Fred Frith and Arte Quartett: Still Urban / The Big Picture

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 11, 2009

Per cominciare con una battuta, spesso e volentieri si raccontano facezie e storielle varie sulla Svizzera di cioccolato e mucche, ironizzando simpaticamente a mo' di Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo sui grandi luoghi comuni attorno alle storie elvetiche. Mi domando se, oltre a ciò, anche i più attenti si accorgano di quanta intelligenza e lungimiranza stanno invece alla base della produzione della cultura tout-court di quelle parti. Insieme alla Norvegia, la Svizzera è l'unico paese europeo capace di aiutare significatamente la ...

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Multiple Reviews

Fred Frith and Arte Quartett: Still Urban / The Big Picture

by Nic Jones
April 29, 2009

Alongside a career as an independently-minded improviser, guitarist Fred Frith has maintained a track record as a “formal" composer. Whilst these two roles might on the surface appear contradictory, Frith has over the years managed effortlessly to maintain them. Thus, the composed content on Still Urban and The Big Picture is for the Arte Quartett, on saxophones, augmented by Frith on guitar and, on the title track of The Big Picture, Katharina Weber on piano and Lucas Niggli on drums. ...

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Album Review

Fred Frith: The Happy End Problem

Read "The Happy End Problem" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
September 26, 2008

Since emerging in the early 1970s with Henry Cow, multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith has created a large, stylistically diverse body of work and a reputation for being both a fearless improviser and composer--fearless because he has steadfastly avoided any trappings that might lead to predictability, stylistic or otherwise. When he played at the 2008 Festival International de Musique Actuelle Victoriaville with his marvelous new Cosa Brava band and the eagerly anticipated Art Bears Songbook, an almost unbelievable criticism of Cosa Brava ...

Album Review

Maybe Monday: Unsquare

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 26, 2008

Antefatto. The Stone, novembre 2006. Accade spesso che John Zorn decida di affidare la programmazione del suo locale, “The Stone”, a un direttore artistico a tempo perso. Prassi consolidata e degna di lode quella di Mr. Tzadik, che nel novembre del 2006 cede la chiavi della propria dimora newyorchese a Miya Masaoka. L’artista di origine giapponese, virtuosa del koto, prenota subito un week-end per i Maybe Monday, il trio che da anni condivide con Larry Ochs e Fred Frith. L’idea ...