Jazz Articles about Joëlle Léandre

About Joëlle Léandre

Album Review

Three leading exponents of their instruments unite on Unleashed. Since their first collaboration in Vancouver in 2009, French bassist Joëlle Léandre and American flutist Nicole Mitchell have enjoyed a simpatico outlook, as evidenced by a clutch of Rogue Art releases including Before After (2011) and Sisters Where (2014), as well as Flowing Stream (Leo, 2014). Joining them on this occasion, pianist Myra Melford fully buys in to the freewheeling collective approach aired in a Paris gallery in early 2016.

Live Review

Joëlle Léandre alla chiesa Saint-Eustache di Parigi

by Francesca Odilia Bellino
February 15, 2017

Joëlle Léandre Chiesa di Saint-Eustache Joëlle Léandre sur les routes. 40 ans de tribulations Parigi 28.11.2016 1976-2016. Joëlle Léandre fissa due coordinate storiche per celebrare la sua prima permanenza negli Stati Uniti (Buffalo), i successivi quarant'anni sulle strade del jazz, e il suo punto d'arrivo ideale, a casa, finalmente in Francia. Le tre etichette storiche con cui la Léandre ha inciso negli ultimi anni--Nato, Fou Records e Rogue Art--festeggiano insieme a lei i ...

Album Review

Joëlle Léandre: A Woman's Work...

Read "A Woman's Work..." reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
January 30, 2017

How do you sum up the career of an improvising artist like Joëlle Léandre? Do you reissue a package of recordings from her 40 years of performance? That is probably not possible, given the multiple labels and the location and ownership of the masters. Besides, free improvisation, almost by definition, dissipates (or probably should dissipate) upon performance. Recordings contain only a fraction of the whole experience. When it comes to Léandre's oeuvre, total immersion in her music is the only ...

Year in Review

Hrayr Attarian's Best Releases of 2016

by Hrayr Attarian
December 21, 2016

Many other writers have submitted superb Best of/End of year lists, so another similar one would be redundant. As women instrumentalists in jazz have been historically underrepresented to great degree and remain a minority even today, below is a list with a feminist bent. These 12 exquisite albums are either by women or prominently feature women. An example of the latter is cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum's Enter the Plustet that showcases, among other masterful improvisers, guitarist Mary Halvorson, cellist Tomeka ...

Album Review

Joëlle Léandre - Urs Leimgruber - Fred Frith - Alvin Curran: Oakland/Lisboa

Read "Oakland/Lisboa" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
August 19, 2016

Under the moniker MMM Quartet a crew from diverse points of the compass assembled for a concert at the 2014 Jazz Em Agosto in Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal). Three of the four principals have associations with Mills College in Oakland (the MMM acronym improbably stands for Mills Music Mafia), while the Swiss saxophonist Urs Leimgruber is the solitary interloper. With constituent parts like French bassist Joëlle Léandre, English guitarist Fred Frith and veteran American pianist, composer and electronics whizz Alvin Curran, ...

Album Review

Léandre - Delbecq - Houle: 14 rue Paul Forte, Paris

Read "14 rue Paul Forte, Paris" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
February 15, 2016

Dice Kafka che “il libro deve essere un rompighiaccio, per spezzare il mare gelato dentro di noi." Questa musica è un rompighiaccio. Ma è anche un bisturi, una torcia, un occhio che esplora, un urlo. Una voce. Tre voci. Che si accostano, si ascoltano, si mescolano, si avvinghiano. Chi ascolta resta sospeso, colpito, stupito da tale forza immaginativa. Dal rigore e dal magistero di chi costruisce attraverso i suoni. Per saggiare la forza di questa musica bastano ...

Album Review

Joëlle Léandre - Urs Leimgruber - Fred Frith - Alvin Curran: Oakland/Lisboa

Read "Oakland/Lisboa" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 13, 2016

This multinational dream team's second album was recorded live at a venue in Lisbon, Portugal. MMM stands for Mills Music Mafia, alluding to the respective artists' tenure or residency at Mills College in Oakland, CA. As anticipated, the quartet embarks upon a course of ingenuity that would be difficult to top within global improvisational circuits. Indeed, active minds are on the loose here. They navigate through jarring pathways and even integrate off-center folk into a few choruses; whereas, ...