Jazz Articles about Mats Gustafsson

About Mats Gustafsson

Album Review

Bengt "Frippe" Nordström: Vinyl Box

Read "Vinyl Box" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 27, 2023

Sometimes an artist can tilt the axis of a genre. Tilt it by just a degree or two. The effects might not be felt as such in the moment, but after decades their imprint is profound. Peter Brötzmann was one example, as was Derek Bailey. Add to that list, the Swedish saxophonist Bengt Frippe" Nordström (1936 to 2000). As a musician born into a family with wealth, he was spared the necessity of playing gigs to earn his livelihood. In ...

Live Review

Brda Contemporary Music Festival 2023

by Neri Pollastri
October 2, 2023

Medana, Slovenia Brda Contemporary Music Festival Sala Cinematografica Medana 14-16.9.2023 Giunto alla sua tredicesima edizione, il Brda Contemporary Music Festival ha, se pur di poco, cambiato sede --dal pittoresco borgo di Smartno al vicinissimo paesino di Medana, sempre su una delle meravigliose alture del Collio sloveno --ma ha conservato lo spirito e il clima, che ne fanno una rassegna a dir poco unica nell'attuale panorama musicale. Anche quest'anno, infatti, il festival voluto e diretto ...

Live Review

Südtirol Jazzfestival Alto Adige 2023

by Libero Farnè
July 13, 2023

Südtirol Jazzfestival Alto Adige 2023 Bolzano e provincia Varie sedi 30.06--09.07.2023 Superati i quarant'anni di vita, il festival bolzanino è giunto ad un nuovo giro di boa. Dopo una casuale anteprima nel 1982 su un'idea di Nicola Ciardi, con un memorabile concerto del trio Codona all'interno di Bolzano Estate, fu l'anno successivo che partì “Jazz Summer," il festival vero e proprio sempre sotto la direzione artistica di Ciardi. Gli anni 2000 portarono alla denominazione “Jazz ...

Album Review

The End: Why Do You Mourn

Read "Why Do You Mourn" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 17, 2023

Why Do You Mourn is the third release by the Swedish/Norwegian group The End. Ethiopian-born Swedish vocalist Sofia Jernberg is backed by the double reedists Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Fire! and Fire! Orchestra) and Kjetil Møster (Gard Nilssen's Supersonic Orchestra, Møster!, and Zanussi Five), plus guitarist Anders Hana (Circulasione Totale Orchestra) and drummer Børge Fjordheim. It follows two releases on the RareNoise Records label, Allt Är Intet (2020) and Svårmod Och Vemod Är Värdesinnen (2018). The sounds resemble ...

Album Review

Fire! Orchestra: Echoes

by Chris May
March 31, 2023

The story of supersized jazz orchestras is not pretty. The scene was set by the bleaching deracination of Paul Whiteman and the elephantine bombast of Stan Kenton, bandleaders whose craving for approval by the music establishment fatally compromised their art. Good taste came later with leaders such as Carla Bley and London's Keith Tippett, who proved that, in the right hands, swing and nuance could co-exist with size and power. Since around 2010, there have been some ...

Album Review

Gustafsson / McPhee / Håker Flaten / Nilssen-Love: The Thing She Knows...

Read "The Thing She Knows..." reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
August 22, 2021

The Hat Hut and ezz-thetics family of labels is in 2021 just three years shy of its fiftieth anniversary. This is a remarkable, perhaps unique, achievement for an independent company which has concerned itself exclusively with the avant-garde end of jazz and conservatoire music from the get go, and has done so with the highest (for which read costly) production standards. Perhaps mindful of the coming anniversary, the labels' founder, Werner X. Uehlinger, has since 2019 been reissuing ...

Album Review

Sabu Toyozumi / Mats Gustafsson: Hokusai

by John Sharpe
May 9, 2021

In a departure from the archival recordings customarily offered by the NoBusiness label's Japanese Chap Chap series, Hokusai presents a meeting of minds between Swedish reedman Mats Gustafsson and veteran drummer Sabu Toyozumi, recorded live in June 2018. The 65-minute program includes a solo piece from each man but still affords over 40-minutes of the pair in tandem. As one of the pioneers of Japanese free music Toyozumi has played with virtually everyone of note among his countrymen ...