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Derek Whyte
Adam Nolan: Listen to Me Now
by Mike Jurkovic
Listen to Me Now evolves from a blank radar screen. At first glance, there's nothing there. Blank grid. Gray expanse. Then, suddenly, one blip, then another. In-breath-out-breath then another. Uncountable seconds later one's juggling a whole new multiverse. Action is demanded. Questions abound. Run for the exits or find the teachable moment? The learnable instant? “Roll the Dice," the starting pistol of Irish free jazzing saxophonist Adam Nolan's fearless new testimony, answers that question and other such inquiries as well. ...
read moreAdam Nolan: Prim and Primal
by Mike Jurkovic
Whether stalking the perimeters or cutting to the bone, Irish alto saxophonist Adam Nolan's full throated assault on alternative facts takes you by storm on his fourth (and hopefully breakthrough) disc, Prim and Primal. Like Ornette Coleman, like Anthony Braxton, Nolan and his fellow non-shy improvisors—bassist Derek Whyte and drummer Dominic Mullan—keep the music stark. Impassioned. Jabbing darkly, waxing in and out of time and shadow. Animated. Keening. Upon their maiden voyage, Nolan, Whyte, and Mullan ...
read moreAdam Nolan: Prim and Primal
by Richard J Salvucci
Tell you what. A lot of listeners have never been particularly big fans of free jazz. “It is difficult to understand." Really? “Formalism," said Sergei Prokofiev, “is the name given to music not understood on first hearing." This, recall, was a statement made in defense of Dmitri Shostakovich and his Fourth Symphony. This is not to compare Adam Nolan with Shostakovich. Yet one could imagine Stalin objecting mightily to the Kilkenny saxophonist's 2021 recording as “muddle instead of music." Because, ...
read moreAdam Nolan Trio: Prim and Primal
by Jim Worsley
Prim and Primal is a cool name for a record. It does, however, take some balls to put out a record with such a title. It leaves listeners with deep expectations. To paraphrase the old saying, though, “It's okay to talk the talk if you can walk the walk." Alto saxophonist Adam Nolan has a pair of rhythm section mates, double bassist Derek Whyte and drummer Dominic Mullan, that step and groove to the same beats. Collectively they improvise from ...
read moreReDiviDeR: Mere Nation
by Ian Patterson
It may be disappointing to enigmatologists that there are no palindromes or obvious anagrams from ReDiviDeR on its third Diatribe Records release, following Never Odd Or Even (2011) and I Dig Monk, Tuned (2013). Musicophiles, however, should be delighted, for like its predecessors, Mere Nation is a colorful box of delights. Rambunctious, brooding and tender in turn, drummer Matthew Jacobson's compositions explore a heady no man's land between discipline and freedom. Thirteen years into ReDiviDeR's trajectory, Jacobson, alto ...
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