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Thomas Johansson: Home Alone
BySolo trumpet is fashionable of late with recordings by Peter Evans, Nate Wooley, and Rob Mazurek, but the tradition actually stretches back to 1970s pioneers Bill Dixon and Wadada Leo Smith. In the 1990s, German trumpeter Axel Dorner and others advanced a minimalist improvisation, bridging their sounds with John Zorn's duck calls. Johansson pulls together many traditions and innovations on this 10 track 35-minute LP.
He might be best known for this contributions to Cortex, the freshest freewheeling jazz quartet of this new century. He is also a member of a trio with Øyvind Storesund and Paal Nilssen-Love, the quintet Friends and Neighbors, and Nilssen-Love's Large Unit. Here everything is stripped down to one man, one trumpet (or flugelhorn), and some mutes and plungers.
Johansson fashions music from the past 50 years of trumpet innovations. "Monologue" exhibits a crisp richness of tone, any classical student would envy, while "Fractures" delves into the slurry slap-tongue hyper-expressive extended technique his producer Lasse Marhaug might sample in a club clearing noise performance. Yes, what we are listening to is an artist in full command of his instrument. What is key here is that he doesn't just present sound, but song form. "Lines For Mathilde" is a luxurious flugelhorn ballad and the title track might be the solo you waited for all night when he is playing in another group.
The music is available as an LP or download.
Track Listing
Monologue; A Fistful Of Density; Thematics; Sonic Transformation; Signal This; Bucket; Somewhat Faster; Fractures; Line For Mathilde; Home Alone.
Personnel
Thomas Johansson
trumpetThomas Johansson: trumpet, flugelhorn.
Album information
Title: Home Alone | Year Released: 2018 | Record Label: Tammtz Records
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About Thomas Johansson
Instrument: Trumpet
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