Jazz Articles about Joëlle Léandre

About Joëlle Léandre

Album Review

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

Read "14 rue Paul Forte, Paris" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 10, 2016

Leo Records' press release correlates this trio's output to “heavy artillery" music, but it's most assuredly not all about bombast or in-your-face type avant-garde improvisation. Hence, these esteemed improvisers do what they do best in front of a select audience in Paris. Bassist Joelle Léandre and Benoit Delbecq hail from France and like Canadian clarinetist Francois Houle, are among the crème de la crème of global improvisational artisans, and as anticipated, they dutifully get the job done here. The agenda ...

Live Review

Brda Contemporary Music Festival 2015

by Angelo Leonardi
September 30, 2015

Brda Contemporary Music Festival 2015 Smartno--Slovenia 10-12.09.2015 A Smartno in Slovenia, poco oltre il confine con l'Italia prospicente Cormons, si tiene da cinque anni un piccolo ma avvincente festival dedicato alla libera improvvisazione. La regione, chiamata Brda, è tanto suggestiva quanto quella del vicino Collio: un paesaggio di verdi colline che producono vini strepitosi e piccoli borghi medioevali. Il festival di Smartno nasce dalla collaborazione tra la Hisa Kulture -vivace centro culturale del ...

Album Review

Daunik Lazro / Joelle Leandre: Hasparren

Read "Hasparren" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 30, 2014

This outing signifies the fifth recording and sole duo pairing by these consummate improvisers, spanning several decades. Recorded at a cultural center in Hasparren, France, the musicians explore the lower register with a profusion of prismatic contrasts as they interrogate and expand upon numerous schematics that at times, seem uncannily composed or sketched out prior to their summit. Of course, the album is totally improvised and the artists' striking intuitiveness is not surprising. The duo engages ...

Album Review

Sudo Quartet: Live at Banlieue Bleue

Read "Live at Banlieue Bleue" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
May 20, 2013

Such is the strength and conviction with which the Sudo Quartet performs that thoughts immediately turn to how they developed such a cohesive group sound. With no liners and no information on the web, the genesis of the unit remains a mystery, though the same foursome feature on four tracks on bassist Joelle Leandre's At the Le Mans Jazz Festival (Leo, 2005). But when uniting four virtuoso stylists from the European free improvisation scene, it's a near certainty that their ...

Album Review

Joelle Leandre & Jerome Bourdellon: Evidence

Read "Evidence" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 15, 2013

Bass and flute represent significant tonal contrasts and here, flutist Jerome Bourdellon and world-renowned bassist, composer and improviser Joelle Leandre divulge innumerable perspectives and quite a bit of food for thought on these duets. However, Bourdellon employs bass clarinet and bass flute on two tracks, as no other instruments are nestled into the mid-sections of the program and the artists follow similar modalities to complement and support each other. Each piece presents a different viewpoint, largely immersed in ...

Album Review

Joelle Leandre / Serge Teyssot-Gay: Trans

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 19, 2012

The first collaboration between prolific French double bass and free-improvisation master Joëlle Léandre and fellow countryman, guitarist Serge Teyssot-Gay--founder of French progressive bands Noir Désir and Interzone, and affiliated with the experimental and more arty side rock--may not seem a natural fit. But this live recording from a benefit concert for the Point Ephémère magazine demonstrates that the two share a lot in common. Léandre and Teyssot-Gay weave patiently, carefully built and multilayered textures. Often these textures ...

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Album Review

Joelle Leandre / Phillip Greenlief: That Overt Desire Of Object

Read "That Overt Desire Of Object" reviewed by Mark Redlefsen

by Mark Redlefsen
February 24, 2012

Contrabassist Joëlle Léandre and West Coast woodwind player Phillip Greenlief work out 11 different compositions between their two respective instruments and voices on That Overt Desire of Object. The flexibility and space that each provides the other seems to be reflected in the line note comments about the negative effects of greed. The title is a variation of the Luis Buñuel movie That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), with a playing field that appears a bit more level when compared ...