Jazz Articles about Tim Berne

A Fireside Chat With Tim Berne

by AAJ Staff
March 16, 2004

Has jazz lost its way? Those that have seen better days have told tales of how there used to be anticipation for the next Miles album. That advanced desire seems all but removed in today's commerically perverted aristocracy. So iconoclasts (e.g., William Parker, Ken Vandermark, Jason Moran, Dave Douglas) are the milk of kindness. An archetype of promise is the dramatic evolution of Tim Berne (unedited and in his own words). And although insecurities regarding the character of modern improvised ...

Tim Berne: The Sublime and...

by Farrell Lowe
December 15, 2003

From the opening salvo of “Van Gundy's Retreat," it's obvious that Tim Berne's Science Friction ensemble will take no prisoners during this performance, recorded live in Switzerland on April 12th, 2003. Along with his alto saxophone, Berne's group consists of electric guitar, Fender Rhodes-fueled electronics, and drums. This instrumental configuration opens up worlds of new and old possibilities simultaneously. The individuals who comprise the ensemble can collectively hold the compositional ideas of each piece together while a player deconstructs the ...

Tim Berne: The Sublime and...

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
November 13, 2003

Tim Berne's The Sublime And... --his second album for Thirsty Ear's Blue Series--captures the raw energy and improvisational prowess of his working band, Science Friction. Bringing together the musicians from his bass-less trios (Big Satan and Hard Cell), Science Friction consists of Berne on alto saxophone, Marc Ducret on electric guitar, Tom Rainey on drums, and Craig Taborn on Fender Rhodes, laptop, and virtual organ. Producer David Torn, a virtual fifth member of the band, mixed and mastered the recording, ...

Tim Berne: The Sublime And

by Rex Butters
October 19, 2003

Tim Berne's Science Friction Band fuses a quartet of radical sound sculptors who leave fields of scorched earth in their wake. The one-time prot'g' of Julius Hemphill continues to forge daring jagged music that blurs borders and leaps genres. With repeated listenings patterns and structures reveal themselves between periods of intensely imaginative improvisations. Ironically, for such forward looking futuristic sound, the band occasionally recalls '70s Soft Machine.Frequent collaborator Marc Ducret joins Berne on guitar. Keyboard conjurer Craig Taborn ...

Tim Berne's Science Friction Band: The Sublime And

by AAJ Staff
October 3, 2003

Whatever Tim Berne does in the studio always seems to end up magnified when it appears live on record. The central features of Berne's music--short, irregularly timed unison melodies, obliquely intertwined improvisational lines, and an edgy recklessness--all blow up in magnitude on The Sublime And. So does the size of the recording, which in this case stretches out to nearly two hours. In many ways it reminds me of the first thing he released on his own Screwgun label, Bloodcount's ...

Tim Berne: Open, Coma

by AAJ Staff
November 25, 2002

Saxophonist Tim Berne's usual comfort zone (to the extent he ever really gets comfortable!) lies in smallish groups. Some of his best material has been performed in quartets and sextets. But on Open Coma, he throws the gates open to the Copenhagen Art Ensemble, whose 11 members mix with Berne's long-time collaborators Marc Ducret and Herb Robertson. The big band does his music justice.

The four pieces on this two-disc set are generous in length, stretching from 28 ...

Tim Berne: Science Friction

by AAJ Staff
October 25, 2002

In 1996, after years of working under the auspices of indie labels like JMT and Soul Note, alto saxophonist Tim Berne took total artistic control over his work. The first release on his new Screwgun label was Unwound, a sprawling three disc live set documenting his working quartet, Bloodcount.

The freedom Berne earned with this career move made possible a kind of crystalline clarity: the records that followed display his vision in an uncompromising and revealing way. Science ...