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Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March
by Mark Corroto
Drummer, composer and vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara did not set out to rebut the saying “familiarity breeds contempt," but March from his sextet Triple Double does just that. His combination of three pairs of double instruments—guitarists Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook, cornet/trumpets Taylor Ho Bynum and Ralph Alessi, plus double drummers Gerald Cleaver and Tomas Fujiwara himself—creates respect, the opposite of contempt. The harmonious and organic nature of this music, first heard on their self-titled debut album Triple Double (Firehouse 12, ...
Continue ReadingTomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March
by Troy Dostert
Drummer Tomas Fujiwara's March, another offering from his Triple Double sextet, was recorded in December 2019, prior to the widespread racial unrest that followed the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others in 2020. But it feels completely of a piece with those protests, with an unsettled anger and impatience that animate every moment of this absorbing album. Creating music that seems perfectly suited for a tumultuous age, Fujiwara's compositional instincts are spot-on, and he once again marshals ...
Continue ReadingTom Rainey Obbligato: Untucked In Hannover
by Dan McClenaghan
Tom Rainey Obbligato is drummer Rainey's jazz standards group. Untucked In Hannover is the first live album of a triptych. It follows Obbligato (2014) and Float Upstream (2017), both on Intakt Records. Great American Songbook tunes hammered and bent and stretched away from expectations into new shapes is the name of the game, an approach which runs parallel to that of Lee Konitz, especially the alto saxophonist's late career outings, including Live At the Blue Note (Half Note, 2012) and ...
Continue ReadingAlex Koo / Attila Gyárfas / Ralph Alessi: Identified Flying Object
by Mark Corroto
Belgian-Japanese pianist Alex Koo and Hungarian drummer Attila Gyárfás formed the duo Identified Flying Object to explore fully improvised music that has one foot in jazz, one in chamber music, another in minimalism, and a fourth in electronic manipulations. Their initial release Galactic Liturgy (2017) is followed up here with the addition of Ralph Alessi's trumpet and piccolo trumpet. Alessi, along with Mark Turner, was heard on the stunningly beautiful Appleblueseagreen (Clever Tree Records, 2019). Where Galactic Liturgy ...
Continue ReadingTineke Postma: Freya
by Ian Patterson
Following the co-led outing with Greg Osby that was Sonic Halo (Challenge Records, 2014), Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma took a step back from her solo career to raise a family. In the intervening years there were two trio albums with Nathalie Loriers, but Freya-- Postma's debut on Edition Records--marks her comeback as a leader. Inspiration comes in various guises on these ten originals, with motherhood, her surrounding landscape and formidable women all firing her creative juices. Pianist Kris Davis, trumpeter ...
Continue ReadingFerdinando Romano: Totem
by Friedrich Kunzmann
According to Italian double bassist Ferdinando Romano, a totem “is a symbol that represents a natural or spiritual entity which has a particular meaning for a single person or even for a large group of people." Furthermore, it refers to the different references each of the musicians on this album have, the different people they've met and shared artistic experiences with, as Romano explaines in the liner notes. For his debut album as a leader, Romano has chosen to work ...
Continue ReadingRalph Alessi: Imaginary Friends
by Mike Jurkovic
Ever leading the avant-garde, trumpeter Ralph Alessi has never been pressed for future-forward ideas or the time to express them in whatever setting best suits the music. Not counting his prodigious work alongside such leading figures as Fred Hersch, Don Byron, and Steve Coleman, in this tumultuous century alone Alessi has led and released such challenging works as This Against That (RKM, 2002), the blazing Cognitive Dissonance (Cam Jazz, 2010) with Jason Moran, his ECM debut Badia (2013), and the ...
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