Jazz Articles about Manfred Kniel and his Reduction Quartet

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Manfred Kniel and his Reduction Quartet: Low Down Music

by Nic Jones
February 28, 2011

Drummer Manfred Kniel has leadership status on this release, and all the compositions are his. But this is also, perhaps, the key to the music's shortcomings, especially when the rhythmic vitality the leader habitually imparts is not matched by some other equally compelling element. His sly and sometimes witty melodic sense seems often to be a mere afterthought, something he feels obliged to tack on so as not to run the risk of creating a musical monoculture. The results feel ...