Articles

Georg Graewe/Ernst Reijseger/Gerry Hemingway: Sonic Fiction

By Marc Medwin

This long-standing and prolific international trio's debut finally gets the reissue treatment. Still quite active and stylistically amorphous, the group's first statement remains a bold one, establishing a collective aesthetic that defied boundary and categorization while making its place in history clear. The second part of “Alien Corn" is as fine a point of departure as any--drummer Gerry Hemingway ushering the track in with brushwork that stands quietly on pins and needles. His explosion into cymbals invokes a fairly standard ...

Georg Graewe: Jazz Improv Chameleon

By Martin Longley

Could Georg Graewe be a chameleonic figure in the world of jazz improvisation? Listening to a selection of recordings from over the last decade or two, it soon becomes clear that this German pianist is frequently found in completely different settings, with his music consequently traversing the distance from intensely thoughtful sparseness through to throttling, high-density hyperactivity. He's always identifiably himself, but deeply affected by the colleagues that he chooses for any given session. Graewe has played piano duets with ...

Georg Graewe - Barre Phillips - Peter Van Bergen: Other Songs

By Glenn Astarita

Modern jazz/improvising pianist Georg Graewe is rapidly becoming a prominent recording artist for Dallas, Texas based “nuscope recordings” and on Other Songs the pianist performs alongside world class bassist, Barre Phillips and the lesser known but highly regarded saxophonist/clarinetist, Peter Van Bergen. The title, Other Songs intimates choice tidbits of loosely based motifs, quaint three-way dialogue and jagged statements, evident from the onset of the first track, “Verbunden”. Here, Van Bergen executes raspy lower register lines performed on contrabass clarinet ...

Georg Graewe - Marcio Mattos - Michael Vatcher: Impressions Of Monk

By Glenn Astarita

Not often will you hear Thelonius Monk's music performed in the manner that is represented on Impressions Of Monk by the Trio consisting of pianist Georg Graewe, bassist Marcio Mattos and drummer Michael Vatcher. Following up their extraordinary and largely improvised freshman release for “nuscope recordings titled, “Subsymbolism , the group take on Monk's work in ambitious fashion although these translations may seem a tad unconventional to Monk purists.

Throughout, the musicians deconstruct and reinvent several well-known Monk compositions primarily ...

Georg Graewe & Jon Butcher: Light's View

By Glenn Astarita

Light’s View is free-jazz pianist Georg Graewe and saxophone virtuoso John Butcher collaborating on a series of improvised pieces. The results prove to be fascinating and altogether enduring. On “Second Curiosity” we find Butcher supplying tremolo and quaint melodic undercurrents, which nicely contrasts Graewe’s, inquisitive style phrasing through brief chord progressions and quick, darting right hand leads. “Chromatic Aberrations” features a series of spurious call and response activities enacted mainly within the lower to mid-registers. On “Egratignures” Butcher utilizing his ...

Graewe/Mattos/Vatcher: Subsymbolism

By Glenn Astarita

Here, we celebrate the first of 2 releases on the newly formed NUSCOPE record label. NUSCOPE records dutifully conveys the flavor of modern improvised jazz with smart packaging, photos of modern artwork gracing the CD inserts and superior audiophile sound quality.

Veteran modern jazz pianist Georg Graewe aligns himself with London based Marcio Mattos (bass) and American drummer Michael Vatcher. “Subsymbolism” was originally intended to be a series of Monk interpretations but traversed a different path ultimately evolving into free ...

Graewe / Reijseger / Hemmingway: Saturn Cycle

By Glenn Astarita

The new release from this amazing trio was recorded live in Koln, Germany in 1994. Improvisational for the most part, structural motifs guide the listener through an dazzling array of mind bending virtuosity. While the improvisation is astounding, one gets the feeling that these pieces were composed and rehearsed; the uncanny ability of these three to anticipate complex chord changes and tempo shifts are unique attributes.

The first two cuts “La Bonne Vitesse (approximation 1&2)" commence with ...