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Aurora Trio at Dachau Kultur-Schranne, Germany
by John Sharpe
Aurora Trio: Agusti Fernandez, Barry Guy and Ramon Lopez Dachau Kultur-Schranne GermanyOctober 26, 2013 In an artform as mutable as jazz, nothing is ever finished. So it was that even in the soundcheck, Catalan pianist Agusti Fernandez and virtuoso English bassist Barry Guy were still tweaking some of their arrangements. Not ...
Mats Gustafsson: Shift
by John Sharpe
Having co-opted reed iconoclast Mats Gustafsson to pen the enthusiastic liners for their prosaically-named Two Nights in April (Ayler Records, 2010), young Swedish trio Correction goes one better on Shift by persuading their countryman to actually participate in the session. Over its five year existence, the threesome of pianist Sebastian Bergström, bassist Joacim Nyberg and drummer ...
Iro Haarla Sextet: Kolibri
by John Sharpe
On Kolibri, Finnish pianist Iro Haarla brings together four mainstays of the country's improvised music scene, along with rising trumpet star Verneri Pohjola, in an outfit which sits mid way between a small group and a big band in terms of its capabilities. It's an accomplished unit. All six were part of the TUMO agglomeration which ...
Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Red Hot
by John Sharpe
Having been simultaneously inspired by and ironic about '80s smooth jazz on the excellent Slippery Rock (Hot Cup Records, 2013), Mostly Other People Do the Killing delve back further into history to explore pre-War genres on Red Hot. It's a tall order for a foursome, so bassist and leader Moppa Elliott has added Brandon Seabrook on ...
Trio 3 + Jason Moran: Refraction - Breakin' Glass
by John Sharpe
If ever there was a threesome that hankered after being a quartet, it's Trio 3. Though working as a self-contained unit since 1986, pianists have often supplemented the core triumvirate, and in fact one has augmented each of the group's previous three recordings. Now Jason Moran fills the piano stool on Refraction--Breakin' Glass, adding to an ...
Vandeweyer / Van Hove / Lovens / Blume: Quat Live At Hasselt
by John Sharpe
In one sense the cover of Quat Live At Hasselt could act as a metaphor for what lies within, due to its focus on a narrow spectral range. At first glance the black appears uniform, punctuated only by the white text. But on further scrutiny, an intricately patterned network of various shades of grey becomes apparent, ...
Melodic Art-Tet: Melodic Art-Tet
by John Sharpe
Once again the Lithuanian No Business label has unearthed a little known relic from the lower strata of NYC's loft jazz era. Like The Group's Live (No Business, 2013), the previous beneficiary of the imprint's ongoing investigation, the Melodic Art-Tet never officially recorded so this 1974 broadcast tape from WKCR represents the only surviving fragment of ...
Billy Bang: Da Bang!
by John Sharpe
Even were one not viewing Da Bang! through the lens of this being violinist Billy Bang's last album, recorded just two short months before he succumbed to cancer in April 2011, there is still a detectable elegiac air which pervades even the brightest tracks. That's not the fault of the cast, although trombonist Dick Griffin comes ...
Satoko Fujii New Trio: Spring Storm
by John Sharpe
Back at the start of her career, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii's reputation was considerably enhanced by her stellar trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black. Together they waxed seven discs, with the last Trace A River (Libra) in 2008. Since then, the traditional piano trio hasn't appeared in her prodigious output, until the New ...
Convergence Quartet: Slow And Steady
by John Sharpe
It might just be that the third record from the Transatlantic Convergence Quartet is its best yet. Recorded live at north London's Vortex at the conclusion of a short British tour, the band was firing on all cylinders. Not that its previous two outings were in any way remiss. Live In Oxford (FMR, 2007) documented a ...


