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Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.

RADIO November 28, 2019

Shake Stew, Louis Sclavis, John Zorn and More New Releases

After two weeks exploring the legacy of Enrico Rava, here we are catching up with more global new releases. Join Mondo Jazz in a journey that takes us to St. Petersburg (Zhenya Strigalev)—via London and Santiago Del Chile (Federico Dannemann)—Tokyo (Ronin Arkestra)—via Los Angeles (Mark De Clive Lowe), Vienna (Shake Stew), Paris (Louis Sclavis), Rome (Alice Ricciardi and Piero Lussu) and, of course, New York (Dave Douglas, John Zorn, Julian Lage, Gyan Riley, Bill Frisell, Ted Nash, and Emma Frank) ...

ALBUM REVIEW May 21, 2017

Louis Sclavis / Dominique Pifarély / Vincent Courtois: Asian Fields Variations

By John Kelman

Few artists on the ECM roster reinvent themselves as regularly--and with such consistent success--as Louis Sclavis. While it is true that the French clarinetist (and occasional soprano/baritone saxophonist) often draws (and re-draws) from a gradually expanding pool of musicians, there are few label mates who have released as many albums as Sclavis, where the lineups literally change with each and every album. In fact, the closest he's come to repeating the same lineup back-to-back has been with his most recent, ...

ALBUM REVIEW January 13, 2015

Louis Sclavis Quartet: Silk and Salt Melodies

By Glenn Astarita

Iranian zarb (diagonally positioned drum)performer Kevyan Chemirani adds a worldly and exotic aspect to prominent French clarinetist, composer Louis Scalvis' band, featuring guitarist Gilles Coronado and keyboardist Benjamin Moussay who have performed with the leader on his Atlas Trio album, Sources (ECM Records, 2011). Sclavis' highly praised and disparate body of work for ECM Records is essentially unclassifiable, via his uniquely articulated jazz components, also framed on classical, free-improvisation, jazz fusion and world music persuasions. As a soloist, his resonant ...

ALBUM REVIEW September 30, 2014

Louis Sclavis Quartet: Silk and Salt Melodies

By John Kelman

After reinventing himself with a completely revamped ensemble on Sources (ECM, 2012), reed multi-instrumentalist Louis Sclavis expands the purviews and possibilities of his Atlas Trio by adding percussionist Keyvan Chemirani to the mix for Silk and Salt Melodies. Sclavis has, in his 33-year career as a leader--and since coming to ECM Records in 1991 with the recording of Rouge (1992)--made a life's work of regular reinvention, both contextually in terms of lineup and stylistically through a broad cross-section of projects ...

ALBUM REVIEW August 14, 2014

Louis Sclavis Quartet: Silk and Salt Melodies

By Karl Ackermann

With its ancient roots and latter-day association with New Orleans, Dixieland and swing, the clarinet isn't often a frontline instrument in modern jazz let alone avant-garde. A handful of players such as Don Byron and Marty Ehrlich have aided in its prominence but not many. In the hands of Louis Sclavis the bass clarinet is not only a deterrent against conformist thinking; it is an instrument with greatly expanded borders and characteristics. Sclavis incorporates European chamber music, Middle-Eastern samazens and ...

INTERVIEW August 13, 2012

Louis Sclavis: Maps of the Mind

By Ian Patterson

"My music? I know what it is, and I don't know what it is. It's a paradox." Now entering his fifth decade as a recording artist, multi-reedist/composer Louis Sclavis may not have a clear handle on the music he makes, but he has absorbed the lessons of all the music he has turned his hand to, from free jazz to film scores, from African music to neoclassical composition. Listening to Sources (2012), Sclavis' ninth release on the ECM label--and his ...

ALBUM REVIEW August 13, 2012

Louis Sclavis Atlas Trio: Sources

By Ian Patterson

Multi-reedist, composer and improviser Louis Sclavis' ninth release for ECM sees this eternally restless seeker of new sounds and textures heading once more into personally unchartered territory; this is the first time Sclavis has led a trio of clarinet, guitar and piano. In guitarist Gilles Coronado and pianist Benjamin Mouassy, Sclavis has recruited open-minded musicians with the technique, discipline and imagination necessary to give life to his sketches of musical ideas, where formal structure and free rein co-exist in such ...