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Paraphrase: Please Advise
by Dan McClenaghan
Saxophonist Tim Berne has taken his Snakeoil group to the top, with four excellent CD releases on ECM Records, including 2017's Incidentals. The ECM label is considered by many to be the gold star standard in terms of jazz--though the word “jazz" is way too confining to describe the music in their extensive catalog. That level of success for Berne and his bands could overshadow his work on his own label, Screwgun Records, where his releases include offerings by his ...
read moreParaphrase: Pre-Emptive Denial
by Sean Patrick Fitzell
Without a compositional safety net, freely improvising musicians must listen deeply and react quickly to avoid excess repetition or meandering. Executed with precision, the visceral immediacy of free improv can be exhilarating, as is the case on Pre-Emptive Denial, the third release by Paraphrase, saxophonist Tim Berne's improvising trio with drummer Tom Rainey and bassist Drew Gress. Like their previous CDs, this was serendipitously recorded live by an enterprising audience member; the band had not intended to ...
read moreParaphrase: Pre-Emptive Denial
by Dan McClenaghan
Alto saxophonist Tim Berne describes himself as a perfectionist, a word that has “control" lurking just under its skin. So how does someone who's into control get comfortable going into a situation of spontaneous composition, where the unpredictable is the game plan?Paraphrase, with drummer Tom Rainey, bassist Drew Gress, and Berne, got togther to perform live, and outside the confines of the more mapped out territory you hear on some of Berne's discs under his own name. Pre-Emptive ...
read moreParaphrase: Pre-Emptive Denial
by John Kelman
What do you do for a release when your normal modus operandi is to play within a context of complex composed material? In the case of saxophonist Tim Berne, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Tom Rainey, the answer is to periodically convene a group called Paraphrase, whose purpose in life is to improvise without a safety net or advance planning. Paraphrase may not be a regular occurrence, but the three have played together so often--especially Berne and Rainey, who have ...
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