Home » Jazz Articles » Matt Turner
Jazz Articles about Matt Turner
Jean-Marc Foltz - Matt Turner - Bill Carrothers: To the Moon
by AAJ Italy Staff
Ecco una musica singolare: pur essendo totalmente improvvisata sembra invece del tutto scritta, rivelando una qualità sonora e un impianto strutturale che potrebbero rientrare nella linea estetica della ECM New Series. Il trio è paritario, ma l'animatore è Foltz, che nelle note di copertina rivela di essersi personalmente ispirato al testo del Pierrot Lunaire di Albert Giraud, pur avendo lasciato ai due partner la più completa libertà: “troviamo della musica da qualche parte... sull'arcobaleno" afferma di aver dato come unico ...
Continue ReadingMatt Turner: Patina
by Budd Kopman
Patina is the first of a pair (to date) of recordings by cellist Matt Turner that stretch the boundaries of jazz, or perhaps better, blur the lines between music, sound, and noise, making use of technology in this case. Whereas Dada Ear Ink made it clear that all sounds heard came from the piano, perhaps prepared with different materials on the strings, Patina declares the following: “All software treatments manipulated and recorded in real time using only ...
Continue ReadingMatt Turner: Dada Ear Ink
by Budd Kopman
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but in the case of Dada Ear Ink, a piano is not merely a piano. The liner proclaims loudly, NO effects, reverb, or editing used on this recording, and from the start it is clear that at least part of the conceit is for the listener to try to imagine how Matt Turner gets the sounds he is pulling from a piano. Listeners familiar with music for prepared piano might ...
Continue ReadingBill Carrothers: Armistice 1918
by Chris May
As we approach the hundredth anniversary of the start of “the war to end all wars," international conflict blights the planet like never before, and unilateral might-is-right aggression is increasingly replacing diplomacy and consensus. Bad karma rules and history sometimes seems, like the poet said, to be “one fucking thing after another." So Bill Carrothers' Armistice 1918--a deeply affecting creative jazz suite about the horror and waste of the First World War, and by extension any war, performed ...
Continue ReadingMatt Turner: Patina
by AAJ Staff
No one will ever accuse cellist Matt Turner of being predictable. His work in a variety of situations (on cello, piano, and voice) has a restless quality that renders it ephemeral and elusive. Both of his solo records have been very adventurous in approach. Last year's fine Outside In (with pianist John Harmon) represented an high point for Turner--a recording of sustained clarity and vision.
On Patina, Turner turns inward. This record consists of fourteen solo cello improvisations, ...
Continue ReadingMatt Turner and John Harmon: Outside In
by AAJ Staff
Outside, inside; man, this disc is all over the place. Cellist Turner, probably best known from various fine collaborations with Jeff Song (guitar, kayagum, bass), here is mostly in, with standards pop, jazz, and religious, and with bizarre timing, an original tune called “Ground Zero,” which turns out to be an excellent blues. It’s not mood music, though much is, um, standard. Harmon’s piano comping is solid mainstream and Turner turns in some tasty slurs and off notes.
From “I ...
Continue ReadingMatt Turner: Crushed Smoke
by AAJ Staff
Crushed Smoke is difficult but rewarding. Matt Turner speaks with his own language on the cello, and it's comprised of an elaborate vocabulary, grammar and syntax. He's asking us to listen to a handful of meditations in that private language on Crushed Smoke. This recording (an addition to his solo discography) sets the cellist free, and he takes an extended voyage through a series of unpredictable, often mystifying explorations. The titles help with a couple: “Koto Caress," for example, is ...
Continue Reading
