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Recording

Trumpetman Ralph Alessi Fields Powerful Quintet for "Wiry Strong"

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
October 15, 2011

In the struggle to stay ahead and/or catch up in these difficult economic times, the distractions and out-and-out traumas of survival can take us away from the good things that come by us in spite of all. That in part happened to me in the last week or so. Ralph Alessi and This Against That's Wiry Strong (Clean Feed 220) played numerous times on my system, yet it failed to register with me. I was elsewhere in my head. Then ...

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Recording

Bill Laswell, Raoul Bjorkenheim and Morgan Agren - Blixt (Cuneiform, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
October 15, 2011

Blixt, the jazz fusion/progressive rock trio of Bill Laswell on bass, Raoul Bjorkenheim on guitar and Morgan Agren is a powerful one filled with tricky lead statements and intricate improvisational sections. Laswell is famous as a legendary producer and musician on the “downtown" improvisational scene in New York city, while Bjorkenheim, late of Finland (an improvisational hotbed all its own filled with great composers and musicians) has had his profile rise with tenures in the fusionesque band Krakatau and The ...

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Recording

Frank Kohl Quartet - Coast to Coast (2011)

Source: Something Else!
October 15, 2011

Frank Kohl approaches the guitar with an exuberant curiosity, but also a well-crafted ability—skittering from influence to influence without ever stumbling. He sounds like he's having a ball, too. That's led to an album called Coast to Coast that boasts a savvy veteran player's satisfying structural logic, but also its share of humor and fun. Kohl gets off to a fast start, with “Wide Open," the first of six original pieces. The Seattle guitarist bursts out amidst a bouncy, insistent ...

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Recording

Rudresh Mahanthappa - Samdhi (2011)

Source: Something Else!
October 15, 2011

Despite his heritage, American alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa didn't start out as a practitioner of a unique blend of American jazz and traditional Indian music, he started with the jazz style of the America he grew up in and worked his way back to the music of his forbears' native India. Doing this informed with the jazz of his life's training resulted, among other things, in one of jazz's most innovative records in recent years, Kinsmen (2008), a crafty, unusual ...

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Recording

Boom.FM Social Radio: Indie Artists in Social Listening Rooms

Source: HypeBot
October 15, 2011

boom.fm offers yet another twist on social listening rooms by featuring music uploaded by artists. In addition to finding another way to avoid major label licensing, boom.fm is creating a social platform for music marketing. Starting from a base in South Africa, they intend to take their project international. boom.fm recently launched in beta but the basic concept is well sketched out. The key feature is “radio for the digital age" in the form of “Radio Rooms" in which listeners ...

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Recording

Kris Wanders - Mani Neumeier Quintet - Taken by Surprise (Not Two, 2011) ****

Source: Free Jazz by Stef Gijssels
October 15, 2011

By Paul Acquaro The Kris Wanders and Mani Neumeier Quintet's Taken by Surprise is an excursion into free but highly melodic improvisation, and Wanders and Brett Evans' tandem tenor saxophones on the the impassioned “Oxymoron" is an inspiring opener. The quintet is rounded out by Rory Brown on bass, Yusuke Akai on guitar and Neumeier on the drums. The rhythm section is top notch with Akai's guitar providing dry, clean, rhythmic and probing accompaniment, sometimes comping chords and other times ...

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Recording

The Red Trio Back for Their Second Album: "Empire" with Guest John Butcher

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
October 14, 2011

When it's a matter of new, outside free-jazz ensembles, not all that many can afford to stay together for a second go-round. The Red Trio have. Their first came out in 2010 on Clean Feed (see review from April 5, 2010). It was quite lively and showed much promise. They return with the vinyl-only release Empire (No Business NBLP 37) in a limited edition of 400. That is a good thing because this is some very well-executed outness. Rodrigo Pinheiro ...

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Recording

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette - Open Source (Cryptogramophone, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
October 14, 2011

Violinist and composer Jeff Gauthier wears a diverse array of hats in the jazz and improvised music world. Founder of the well-regarded Cryptogrampohone record label, and an in demand producer, he still finds time to record his own music. Gauthier states that his vision of Open Source means drawing from a diverse well of creativity, and he has assembled a fine crew for the achievement of this mission. He is joined by John Fumo on trumpet, Nels Cline on guitar, ...

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