Jazz Articles about Jeff Kaiser

Michael Vlatkovich Ensemblio: An Autobiography of a Pronoun

by AAJ Italy Staff
July 11, 2012

Michael Vlatkovich è uno dei talenti più fulgidi della musica creativa della West Coast per l'ampiezza di vedute, per la sua curiosità che travalica i generi, per le qualità di strumentista, compositore e arrangiatore, per le svariate e stimolanti collaborazioni eccellenti, per la valenza artistica delle sue registrazioni. An Autobiography of a Pronoun non fa eccezione. Anzi è forse il suo progetto più ambizioso, e azzardiamo, il lavoro nel quale riesce ad esprimere e a far convivere al meglio le ...

Jeff Kaiser / Tom McNalley: Zugzwang

by Glenn Astarita
November 10, 2006

Southern Californian experimental improvisers Jeff Kaiser (trumpet, electronics) and Tom McNalley (e-guitar, electronics) embark upon a mischievously bizarre sojourn here. Call it what you will, but this studio session serves as the epitome of crazed-out, avant garde sound-sculpting where just about anything is liable to occur. For the record, this is not spacey New Age-type fodder. However, the artists delve into a variety of moods, exploring angst, humor and alien soundscapes. McNalley's electric guitar phrases are generally concise and steeped ...

Jeff Kaiser / Andrew Pask / G.E. Stinson / Steuart Liebig: The Choir Boys with Strings

by Jim Santella
March 18, 2006

In following their duo session, The Choir Boys, with this quartet performance a year later, Jeff Kaiser and Andrew Pask once again reach out into the realm of electronic music, unfettered by convention. The Choir Boys with Strings adds guitar and bass to the mix, giving Kaiser's trumpets and Pask's woodwinds an added layer of sounds. They're wild and raucous throughout, making sure that eerie refrains capture the day.

Each of the four artists converses through his instrument, ...

The Jeff Kaiser Ockodekete/The Kaiser/Diaz-Infante Sextet: The Alchemical Mass/Suite Solutio

by John Kelman
May 21, 2005

With most peoples' ears attuned to common musical elements such as melody, harmony, and rhythm, free improvisation and contemporary classical composition can sometimes come across like disturbing chaos. There are often precious few recognizable patterns to hang one's hat on, and with extended techniques used by some instruments, it can often be next to impossible to ascertain who is doing what. The challenge, however, is to try interpreting such works by absorbing the dissonances and apparent cacophonies on a gut-instinct ...

Jeff Kaiser-Andrew Pask: The Choir Boys

by Rex Butters
April 15, 2005

Sound sojourners Jeff Kaiser and Andrew Pask create unique sonic landscapes on The Choir Boys, utilizing both the instrumental expertise for which they are known as well as tapping their broader ambitions with live processing. The music ranges from ambient electronic to industrial Stockhausen, with plenty of hard blowing along the way.

Pask begins with his bass pennywhistle, processed while he plays. The swirling and smearing goes from a pan pipes sound to an impending storm. When the whistle is ...

Jeff Kaiser Ockodektet/Kaiser-Diaz Infante Sextet: The Alchemical Mass/Suite Solutio

by Rex Butters
March 23, 2005

Straight out of Ventura, California, Jeff Kaiser releases the CD version of his recent performance with his Ockodektet and the Ojai Camerata, The Alchemical Mass. A riveting exercise crossing modern composition with improvisation and choral arrangements, all in the service of an authentic 15th Century alchemical text, its author having passed from royal court astrologer to executed heretic fugitive.

Filling out the remainder of the CD, Kaiser presents “Suite Solutio," an earlier outing with a sextet co-led with ...

The Jeff Kaiser Ockodektet and the Kaiser/Diaz-Infante Sextet: The Alchemical Mass/Suite Solutio

by Jim Santella
October 9, 2004

Two progressive artists lead these ensembles in a creative affair. Quiet spaces are interwoven with loud cacophony. A group of orchestral instruments can be made to sound like many things. Here, Jeff Kaiser and Ernesto Diaz-Infante light creative fires and push their ensembles to the limit.

“The Alchemical Mass" combines the formal sounds of church with the kinds of natural motifs that are commonly found in native religious rites. Primal chants and tribal drums are mixed with the ...