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Rob Brown Trio: Sounds
by Mark Corroto
The title, Sounds, might oversimplify the concept for Rob Brown's latest trio. Or maybe it allows for the multiple possibilities.
You see it is not just jazz sounds that are made here, nor is it only modern or avant-garde music. Brown is stretching the elastic of music-making, just like Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler once did.
The only difference is that in the 21st century, to quote the band Jane's Addiction, “nothing's shocking anymore.
The saxophonist first gained ...
Continue ReadingRob Brown: Sounds
by AAJ Italy Staff
Ne è passata di acqua sotto i ponti da quando Rob Brown era soltanto quel funambolico sassofonista bianco al fianco di William Parker. Il ragazzo si è fatto le ossa, ha sviluppato un linguaggio al contralto del tutto personale ed è riuscito ad affrancarsi dall’ingombrante tutela del carismatico contrabbassista. Whit Dickey, Joe Morris, Rashied Ali, Cecil Taylor, Mark Dresser, Tim Berne, Matthew Shipp: la lista delle collaborazioni inizia ad essere polposa e include il meglio della scena free dell’ultimo ventennio. ...
Continue ReadingRob Brown Trio: Sounds
by Troy Collins
Alto saxophonist Rob Brown has been a fixture on New York's avant-garde scene for over two decades. Working closely with Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Joe Morris and Whit Dickey, Brown has appeared on over fifty albums, and more than a dozen as a leader or co-leader.
Typically working in a piano-less quartet format on his own projects, Brown sought a more exotic combination of instruments to help expand his sound palette on Sounds. Eschewing the traditional rhythmic fulcrum ...
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by Sean Patrick Fitzell
Sounds is as much a mission statement as a name for the debut CD by the Rob Brown Trio. Matching his alto saxophone with Daniel Levin's cello and Satoshi Takeishi's Japanese Taiko percussion, Brown frees himself from the expectations of the standard sax-plus-rhythm trio. The textural range of the instrumentation, particularly the exotic percussion and the music's spaciousness of form allows for non-idiomatic exploration that is not strictly free improvisation. Eschewing the fire-breathing energy that often typifies sax-led trios, Brown's ...
Continue ReadingThe Diplomats: We Are Not Obstinate Islands
by AAJ Italy Staff
La Clean Feed, coraggiosa casa discografica portoghese, continua con coerenza a presentare delle incisioni di free che testimoniano la vitalità del genere e come esso continui a evolversi all'interno di quelle che ormai sono diventate regole grammaticali e di sintassi di una musica per definizione libera. Il trombonista Steve Swell ha già praticato la formula del trio senza contrabbasso, nello storico Barondwon insieme a Ellery Eskelin e Joey Baron, in incisioni la cui lunghezza d'onda è molto diversa da quella ...
Continue ReadingRob Brown Quartet: The Big Picture
by Rex Butters
Rob Brown's Big Picture Quartet includes William Parker, Hamid Drake, and Roy Campbell, the band responsible for the sublime Raining on the Moon with Lena Conquest, recorded as the William Parker Quartet, as well as playing together in different configurations yielding some of the most vital and essential recordings of the last decade. In the grand jazz band tradition (think Sonny Greer and his Memphis Men), the music's flavor and quality maintains whoever's name shuffles forward. These four veteran collaborators ...
Continue ReadingRob Brown Trio: Round the Bend
by John Kelman
A mainstay of the New York improvising scene that includes Matthew Shipp, Joe Morris, and William Parker (who appears on this date), alto saxophonist Rob Brown continues to cement his reputation as a player of note, evidenced on Round the Bend, a varied programme of free jazz .
Brown’s fiery playing comes from the Anthony Braxton school, but the innate sense of swing that sometimes appears and then disintegrates before reappearing, comes more from the Ornette Coleman camp, specifically some ...
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