Jazz Articles about Sophie Agnel

Sophie Agnel: Song (Sophie Agnel)

by John Sharpe
August 7, 2025

With Song, Sophie Agnel confirms her place as one of the most stimulating and inventive pianists on the European improvising scheme. While she has long been a formidable partner to the likes of John Butcher, John Edwards and Steve Noble, here she underscores her worth as a soloist. But that is not quite the entire story. What gives the session its distinctive flavor is the framing device: a taped voice--that of soprano Mauricette Millot singing a 1958 ...

Wild Card: Cabin 19 Fever

by Mike Jurkovic
March 15, 2023

Cabin 19 Fever lifts from its lilting opening notes into one of those fun, poppingly good discs aimed to satisfy jazz purists and sceptics alike. Crackling with a jubilant, Euro/Afro/Cuban/Latin flare, London-based guitarist Clement Regert's Wild Card picks up where it left off on 2019's heady and exuberant Beast from the East (Top End Records) Sticking with his winning modus operandi of importing guest musicians into the Wild Card core of drummer Sophie Alloway and Australian organist Andrew ...

Sophie Agnel - John Edwards - Steve Noble: Meteo

by AAJ Italy Staff
July 1, 2013

Dimenticate il classico piano trio, quello raccontato dalle enciclopedie del jazz, con la star che fa danzare le dita sugli ottantotto tasti e la sezione ritmica a sostenere il lavoro del solista, con diversi gradi di sensibilità e di interplay. Ma dimenticate anche il piano trio, sporadicamente raccontato sempre in quelle enciclopedie, dove regna sovrana l'improvvisazione assoluta, guai a parlare di solista e di accompagnatori, aborriti concetti come melodia, armonia, ritmo, scale e quant'altro. Quella che si ascolta in Meteo, ...

Sophie Agnel: Capsizing Moments

by AAJ Italy Staff
July 13, 2009

Bastano le splendide note di copertina di Henry Jules Julien per chiarimenti sulla registrazione, per conoscere il significato del termine preppiano extensif - non solo un semplice piano preparato fisso e statico ma in continuo movimento ed evoluzione - su cosa c'entri la globalizzazione con lo strumento per eccellenza della musica colta occidentale. Così che l'ascoltatore può abbandonarsi completamente alla musica, in un viaggio al centro della terra della propria storia personale che non lascia vie d'uscita, non concede sconti, ...

Sophie Agnel: Capsizing Moments

by John Eyles
May 26, 2009

Sophie Agnel plays prepared piano, although she herself prefers to speak of “extensive piano." Her preparations evolve during the course of her playing as, inside the piano, she adds, moves or removes such objects as disposable water cups, foil ashtrays, bouncing balls and nylon fishing line.

This CD was recorded live in concert at Les Instants Chavires, near Paris in November 2008. Fortunately, the whole concert is included unedited, allowing the effect of those shifting preparations to be appreciated in ...