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Lotte Anker: Plodi

Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker and Slovenian drummer Zlatko Kaucic possess extensive resumes so to speak. With a long list of affiliations, including disparate undertakings as leaders and collaborators, the respective artists are prominent exponents of the European progressive jazz / improvisation realm. The program begins with Anker performing solo on three tracks at St. Martin's church in Smartno, Slovenia, highlighting her improvisational expertise and multi-purposed strategy. On Odmevi 1--Odmevi 3" Anker works through a gamut of emotive outpourings ...
read moreLotte Anker/ Rodrigo Pinhero/ Hernâni Faustino: Birthmark

After releasing a trio of stellar recordings with pianist Craig Taborn, and drummer Gerald Cleaver, the last being Floating Islands (ILK, 2009), Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker returns with a new trio. She teams up with the Portuguese players Rodrigo Pinhero (piano) and Hernâni Faustino (double bass), best known as members of RED Trio with drummer Gabriel Ferrandini. Like her American trio, this encounter is marked as an interactive improvisational session. A very cooperative session. Much, no, all of ...
read moreLotte Anker / Sylvie Courvoisier / Ikue Mori: Alien Huddle

On the face of it, Alien Huddle may seem like another notch on the belt for three well-seasoned veterans of experimental improvised music--each with her own language, capturing their collaboration and conversation in the studio, rather than in a club. Yet the experience of listening to this album proves that the meeting of these three musicians is more than chance, more than a mere session: it is a combination that works exceedingly well, an alchemic formula that smelts gold out ...
read moreLotte Anker

One September evening in 1987, Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker sat among the audience at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine at a tribute concert for one of her heroes, John Coltrane. Two things about that night stand out for her: the reverberation of sound in the massive space and the extraordinary playing of pianist Marilyn Crispell. Eight years later she saw the pianist perform again, this time in the more intimate setting of a club in Malmo, Sweden. Sometimes ...
read moreLotte Anker / Craig Taborn / Gerald Cleaver: Triptych

For the past few years, Gerald Cleaver has been on the A-List of most enjoyable drummers to see live. He is ever the master of the perfectly placed tap, with an inborn sense of when to chill out or when to charge full speed ahead. Pianist Craig Taborn met Cleaver at college in Michigan, and the two share a musical connection that runs deep. As intimately as Cleaver plays his drums, Taborn does the same with his piano. Not afraid ...
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