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Rodrigo Amado Northern Liberties: We Are Electric
by John Sharpe
Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado hits the jackpot with the debut by his Northern Liberties quartet. He's found gifted collaborators in the Norwegian threesome of trumpeter Thomas Johansson, drummer Gard Nilssen and bassist Jon Rune Strøm. Amado's preferred domain is muscular free jazz. It's territory he's thoroughly explored with his Motion Trio, supplemented by guests like trumpeter Peter Evans and pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and with his This Is Our Language band with Joe McPhee. While the Scandinavian ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Amado Northern Liberties: We Are Electric
by Mark Corroto
The predicament with modern albums is that an album is often more than just one album. With the advent of streaming music, and compact discs before it, music expands beyond the unit we traditionally designated as side one or side two of an LP. A perfect example of this concept is We Are Electric by the Portuguese-Norwegian collaboration Rodrigo Amado Northern Liberties. Three of the four tracks here could easily be considered a freestanding LP side and, if that were ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Amado Northern Liberties: We Are Electric
by Troy Dostert
By all accounts, 2021 was a very good year for Rodrigo Amado. One of the leading lights of the Portuguese avant-garde, the indefatigable tenor saxophonist first released The Field (NoBusiness), featuring his Motion Trio (with cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini) alongside guest pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and Let the Free Be Men (Trost), with his now-frequent collaborators saxophonist Joe McPhee, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Chris Corsano. But if these two albums come to overshadow We Are Electric, ...
Continue ReadingCortex: Legal Tender
by Mark Corroto
The Norwegian quartet Cortex answers the question, what would have happened if the Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis, had advanced the jazz canon instead of looking backwards for inspiration. Remember when the two young lions burst onto the scene in the 1980s with their self-righteous mission to save jazz? They did so by stuffing it, much like a taxidermist, to preserve an endangered species. Their neocon approach actually can make us grateful for bands like Cortex with their inclinations to ...
Continue ReadingGard Nilssen, Sam Rivers, Laura Toxvaerd & Dan Blake
by Maurice Hogue
Drummers sparkle in the first hour of this edition of OMJ--Norway's Gard Nilssen with his Supersonic Orchestra, free jazz veteran Abbey Rader, and the iconoclastic RaKalam Bob Moses--plus a long track from some newly released music from the private stash of Sam Rivers. The second hour is a mix of styles, even including some blues from Buddy Guy. The final set has a definite European flavour with the eclectic foursome from Finland, Quartet Ajaton, saxophonist Laura Toxvaerd} from Denmark, and ...
Continue ReadingGard Nilssen's Supersonic Orchestra: If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours
by John Eyles
Before getting onto the music on If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours, the debut album by the appropriately named Gard Nilssen's Supersonic Orchestra, it is well worth taking a look at the instrumentation of this sixteen-member ensemble. Firstly, every member is credited with playing percussion, in addition to three of the sixteen being drummers, including Gard Nilssen himself. And with three double bassists, this orchestra has a rhythm section which packs quite a punch. The remaining ten members ...
Continue ReadingGard Nilssen's Acoustic Unity: Live In Europe
by John Sharpe
Norwegian drummer Gard Nilssen formed Acoustic Unity back in 2014 to assuage his desire to compose and lead in a pure jazz setting. The initial get together with saxophonist André Roligheten and bassist Petter Eldh was so successful that it yielded the well-received Firehouse (Clean Feed, 2015). That achievement gives rise to an audacious gambit for the trio's second release, which comprises three CDs worth of live performances from European festivals in the summer of 2016. In order to broaden ...
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