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Jazz Articles about Tim Berne
New Sounds and New Faces
by Bob Osborne
This week's show includes recent releases featuring Tim Berne via the 9donkeys label, New Faces from Posi-Tone, a watershed moment in East Coast Jazz, new music from Michaela Steinhauer and Francisco Mela, and much more. Playlist Tim Berne's Hardcell “Van Grundy's Retreat" from The Cosmos (9donkeys) 00:00 Ben Allison “Spy" from Medicine Wheel (Palmetto) 08:12 Francisco Mela “Suite For Leo Brouwer" from MPT Trio Volume 1 (577 Records) 16:31 Michaela Steinhauer “Me, Myself and I" from Changes & ...
Continue ReadingTim Berne's Snakeoil: The Deceptive 4 - Live
by John Sharpe
With the sixth entry in their discography, alto saxophonist Tim Berne offers a progress report of sorts on his band Snakeoil. The Deceptive 4 Live collects together two cracking sets, one from a brace of appearances in NYC in 2009/2010 before Berne had even settled on the group name, and the other a latter-day outing from New Haven's esteemed Firehouse 12 in 2017. Testament to both sufficient challenge in the scripts and sufficient sustaining work for the band, the cast ...
Continue ReadingTim Berne, Russ Lossing & Hot Heros and Iro Haarla
by Maurice Hogue
New albums from saxophonists Tim Berne and Sabir Mateen, from guitarists Alex Ward and Dave Gisler with Jaimie Branch, Finland's Hot Heros joined by pianist Iro Haarla, and pianist Russ Lossing fronting a quartet this time. Top it off with Louis Moholo Moholo's Five Blokes live in London, add a whole bunch more great stuff including an sparkling duet from clarinetist Mario Colonna and pianist Alexander Hawkins (also on the Five Blokes album) and you've got the makings of very ...
Continue ReadingSnakeoil, Mark Helias, The Doxas Brothers And More
by Bob Osborne
A busy year for the prolific Tim Berne continues with the release of live music from his Snakeoil band and a fascinating duo with Mark Helias. There is further live music from the stellar line up of Sylvie Courvoisier, Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley and Tom Rainey. Also a brand new album from Chet Doxas with brother Jim Doxas and the third release from pianist Will Bonness, which focuses on contrast, texture, and epic storytelling. There's also an archive cut from ...
Continue ReadingTim Berne: The Deceptive 4—Live
by Mark Corroto
The difference between disc one and disc two of Tim Berne's Snakeoil release The Deceptive 4, two live recordings made eight years apart, might be the same difference between Miles Davis' first and second great quintets. Where Davis' The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions (Prestige, 2006) with John Coltrane from 1955-56 are stellar, they lack the complex riskiness of his 1965 date, The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965 (Columbia, 1995) with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony ...
Continue ReadingTim Berne's Snakeoil: The Deceptive 4—Live
by Dan McClenaghan
Alto saxophonist Tim Berne has given his various ensembles some cool names over the years. There was Big Satan, Bloodcount, Science Friction, Hard Cell. Then, in 2012, on his first recording for ECM Records, he introduced his group (and the album) Snakeoil. The band has become, since then, his main--though certainly not his only--means of artistic expression, with recordings like Shadow Man (ECM, 2013), You've Been Watching Me (ECM, 2015), The Incidentals (ECM, 2017) and The Fantastic Mrs. 10 (Intakt ...
Continue ReadingSun of Goldfinger: Congratulations to You
by Mike Jurkovic
As if Tim Berne were a pied piper bearing the eleventh hour of democracy solely on his back, on the fourteen-minute opener “Bat Tears" (recorded in 2010) his rebel alto and now-retired baritone saxophones presciently pierce the abhorrent now under which we all labor, with a viscerally ecstatic, David Torn-Dopplered, sweeping, urgency which seizes the senses with all the abstract subtlety of a meat hook. Now that is a boatload to take in, but so is the concept ...
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