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Far Corner: Far Corner
by John Kelman
Sometimes the strangest things happen in the strangest places. If you were to say that a new chamber rock outfit, comfortably blending a classical music approach with a more aggressive rock stance, had come out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you might be laughed out of the room. Nothing against Milwaukee, it's just that when one thinks of ...
The Muffins: Double Negative
by John Kelman
When the Muffins, with their own take on music influenced by the British Canterbury Scene and Rock In Opposition bands like Henry Cow, reformed after nearly twenty years and released Bandwidth (Cuneiform, '02), expectations were high. But in the truly progressive tradition, they proved you can't go home again, nor should you want to. ...
Yo Miles!: Sky Garden
by Jerry D'Souza
In paying tribute one must go beyond the obvious. Yo Miles! succeeds in doing so on the second release that tips the group's collective hat in the direction of Miles Davis. It would have been simplistic to let a tribute to Davis lie in the wake of his music. Yo Miles! has gone beyond the fundamental ...
Brotherhood of Breath: Bremen to Bridgwater
by Jerry D'Souza
Back in the times when apartheid was a festering wound in South Africa, several musicians felt the scabrous effects of that putrid policy. Some left their homeland for the opportunity to express their feelings and to expose the instigators of the great divide. Some stayed behind and defied the dictates. Chris McGregor was among the latter, ...
Brotherhood of Breath: Bremen to Bridgewater
by Rex Butters
Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath rampaged through the British free jazz scene of the late '60s and early '70s, a loose big band/free orchestra built around a core South African unit that emigrated to London in 1966. They anticipated the African jazz boom of the '80s, and their ability to drop smart big band riffs through ...
Pip Pyle's Bash: Belle Illusion
by John Kelman
Pip Pyle has an illustrious history in that subset of British pop and jazz fusion called the Canterbury Scene. He was the drummer for both Hatfield and the North and National Health, two ‘70s groups that were defined by clever writing, virtuoso musicianship, strong chemistry and more than a little sense of humour. In recent times ...
Henry Kaiser/Wadada Leo Smith Yo Miles!: Sky Garden
by John Kelman
With Miles Davis' electric period finally gaining the credit it deserves, the number of groups recording everything from “music-informed-by" to flat-out tributes is almost too large to count. Everyone from Dave Douglas to George Schuller has, in some shape or form, created works influenced by Miles' electric excursions. But when guitarist Henry Kaiser and trumpeter Wadada ...
Soft Machine: Live In Paris
by John Kelman
Following an aborted experiment with free drummer Phil Howard, Soft Machine recruited ubiquitous drummer John Marshall to fill out a version of the quartet that ultimately recorded one side of an album and performed about twenty shows before saxophonist Elton Dean left, feeling that the group was not free enough, not a “real" jazz band. The ...
Raoul Bj: Ritual
by AAJ Staff
Finnish-American guitarist Raoul Björkenheim is more or less the definition of iconoclast, which is especially notable given the fact that he attended one of the biggest jazz factories in the United States, Boston's Berklee School of Music. Berklee has employed and produced its share of guitarists (including most prominently alumnus John Scofield and professor Pat Metheny), ...
The Claudia Quintet: I, Claudia
by Sean Patrick Fitzell
After debuting as a leader with three nearly simultaneous releases two years ago, drummer/composer John Hollenbeck returns with I, Claudia, the sophomore effort from his Claudia Quintet. Consisting of Chris Speed on tenor saxophone and clarinet, Ted Reichman on accordion, Matt Moran on vibes, and Drew Gress on bass, the band adeptly maneuvers the leader's quirky, ...
