Jazz Articles about Gebhard Ullmann

About Gebhard Ullmann

Album Review

Satoko Fujii has spent three decades assembling large ensembles the way other composers assemble scores, treating personnel as raw material shaped alongside melody and structure. Her Berlin orchestra, formed during a 2014 residency, reunites nine years later. Recorded live in Berlin on May 3, 2026, the album closes out a tour Fujii nearly abandoned after a family medical emergency pulled her back to Japan mid-way. It unfolds across five continuous movements, “Part 1" through “Part 5." “Part 1" ...

Album Review

Gebhard Ullmann: New Conference Call

Read "New Conference Call" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
March 7, 2026

In May 2000, at Acoustic Recording, Brooklyn, a quartet entitled Conference Call recorded together for the first time to produce the album Final Answer, which was released on the Soul Note label in 2002. The quartet at that recording session comprised the German Gebhard Ullmann playing bass clarinet and soprano saxophone (he could also play clarinet, as his membership of The Clarinet Trio demonstrated), alongside Americans Joe Fonda on double bass, Michael Jefry Stevens on piano and Matt Wilson on ...

Radio & Podcasts

New & Older Post Bop, Free Jazz and Avant Garde from Europe, NYC, and Montreal

by Jon Greenbaum
March 1, 2026

Lots of new and some older music from Italy, Germany, Finland, Montreal, NYC, England, Estonia, and Sweden.Playlist Kaja Draksler Octet “Skylark" from Bare, Unfolding (Clean Feed Records) 00:00 Joe Morris “Slipshod" from Racket Club (About Time Records) 07:05 Federico Calcagno & The Dolphians “Children of Gaza" from Face The Music (Da Vinci Jazz Records) 16:58 Koro Almost Brass “Kabarett" from Plays Kurt (Caligola Records) 21:54 Cecil Taylor “Track 2" from 3 Phasis (New World Records) 28:04 Ivano Nardi ...

Album Review

Steve Swell: Dances With Questions

Read "Dances With Questions" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
January 11, 2024

American trombonist Steve Swell plays to the strengths of his talented cast of improvisers on the sprawling multifaceted Dances With Questions, a three-CD box set which documents his three day residency at the 2019 Krakow Jazz Autumn. The center piece is the 70-minute title cut for a dozen musicians, but the album also includes two discs of small group encounters captured in the city's legendary Alchemia club during the previous evenings. Swell, a veteran of the New York ...

Album Review

Gebhard Ullmann / Steve Swell / Hilliard Greene / Barry Altschul: We're Playing In Here?

Read "We're Playing In Here?" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
January 7, 2023

For musicians, one consolatory by-product of lockdown was the chance to reappraise the archives, which led to a subsequent bonanza of deserving material reaching the marketplace. Whether that was the genesis of the limited edition LP We're Playing In Here? is a moot point, but this 2007 studio recording by the Gebhard Ullmann / Steve Swell Quartet certainly more than justifies release. It is the fourth album by what was a cracking band, although it actually predates the outfit's second ...

Radio & Podcasts

The Chicago Plan, Paul Williamson & Patricia Brennan

by Maurice Hogue
December 27, 2022

No point in looking for a roadmap for this edition of One Man's Jazz because it's all over the place. New releases come from the avant sounds of The Chicago Plan (Gebhard Ullmann, Steve Swell, Fred Lonberg-Holm & Michael Zerang), Norway's Andreas Røysum, vibraphonist Patricia Brennan and South Korean bassist Jeong Lim Yang. International groups presenting new music are Spain's Cuarteto Fuerte, Italian multi-reedist Filippo Orefice and Berlin-based Canadian transplant saxophonist Jonathan Lindhorst. There's much, much more. Enjoy!

Album Review

The Chicago Plan: For New Zealand

Read "For New Zealand" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
October 15, 2022

German reedman Gebhard Ullmann and American trombonist Steve Swell, front line comrades for over 15 years in a variety of outfits, reunite on For New Zealand for the second release from their joint led initiative The Chicago Plan. Rounding out the foursome and providing some allusion to the band's moniker are the Windy City pairing of drummer Michael Zerang and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm (although the latter decamped to Kingston, NY in 2017 following a 22-year stay). They share deeper connections ...