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Jazz Articles about Martin Kuchen
Angles + Elle-Kari With Strings: The Death Of Kalypso
by Chris May
As a genre, jazz-opera is thinly populated. The recorded archive is marked more by quality than quantity, with albums by Mike Westbrook and Kate Westbrook, Carla Bley and Charlie Haden to the fore. But the best ever jazz-opera, in this parish anyway, predates anything by these musicians. Composer Todd Matshikiza and lyricist Pat Williams' King Kong premiered in the Great Hall of the University of Johannesburg in February 1959 to rapturous reviews, and went on to romp through sold-out proscenium-arch ...
Continue ReadingTrespass Trio featuring Susana Santos Silva: Live In Oslo
by John Sharpe
Although Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen is the toast of festival-goers across Europe for the variously sized Angles ensembles he fronts, which revel in sometimes exuberant, sometimes heart-rending riff-fuelled anthems, he also pursues somewhat more somber strands of expression. One involves the sort of adventurous sonic explorations heard on Animal Quotes (Relative Pitch, 2022). But another, and the one heard on Live In Oslo, finds him in small group settings designed to negotiate his often dirge-like compositions. For this ...
Continue ReadingTrespass Trio featuring Susana Santos Silva: Live in Oslo
by Mark Corroto
Adding Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva to Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen's Trespass Trio for the 2018 Blowout Festival in Oslo, Norway was “a no-brainer." The inclusion of her trumpet, which features in ensembles led by Mats Gustafsson, Fred Frith, and Torbjörn Zetterberg, to name but a few, requires little or no thought. It is as if the four previous Clean Feed releases by the Trespass Trio, The Spirit Of Pitești (2017), Human Encore (2013), Bruder Beda (2012), and “---was there ...
Continue ReadingTrespass Trio, Mikko Innanen, Mark Solborg & Noa Fort
by Maurice Hogue
If you like your music on the edge, this episode of OMJ has plenty, starting with Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen and his Trespass Trio, Live In Oslo, ably abetted by the dynamic trumpet of Susana Santos Silva. Danish guitarist Mark Solborg's Babel draws upon language for his latest, while saxophonist Ivo Perelman continues his regime of constant releases, this time with a dynamite ensemble called the Seven Skies Orchestra. Finnish reed master Mikko Innanen and friends turn the traditional organ ...
Continue ReadingbBb: Animal Quotes
by John Sharpe
Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen practices at least two distinct modes of expression. One is the variously sized Angles ensembles he fronts, which present sometimes exuberant, sometimes heart-rending riff-fuelled anthems to the acclaim of festival crowds across Europe. He also partakes of more arcane pursuits, using his saxophones as tools to examine the very question of what music is. He indulges this latter endeavor in the collective bBb in the company of his compatriot, trombonist Ola Rubin. To say they lean ...
Continue ReadingVilhelm Bromander: In This Forever Unfolding Moment
by Chris May
Ornette Coleman's haunting “Lonely Woman" is becoming something of a 2023 soundtrack. At the time of writing, we have had memorable versions from Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble on Spirit Gatherer (Spirit Muse), and Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter on The Iridescent Spree (Edition), plus another couple of efforts about which the less said the better. Here comes a third boss edition. Sort of. “Låt Våra Tårar Bli Våra Vapen," which opens side two of Vilhelm Bromander's ...
Continue ReadingMartin Kuchen, Agusti Fernandez, Zlatko Kaucic: The Steps That Resonate
by John Sharpe
Once improvisers reach a certain level of experience, it is rare that a meeting between them does not deliver the goods. By this stage they are well versed in the mechanics of collective music making off the map. They have developed a fine sense of when to play and when not, how much they can respond without it becoming predictable, and a host of other similarly arcane split-second decisions which happen faster than thought. But when masters of the art ...
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