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Five New From Konvoj Records
by Mark Corroto
If you are a free jazz fanatic, you probably look for those out-of-print vinyl offerings from labels like Hat Hut, FMP, Sonet, and El Saturn Records. Sadly, you would have to be either independently wealthy or Mats Gustafsson to acquire the rarest of the rare music. But take heart, there are small labels producing the free ...
Kris Allen: Beloved
by Mark Corroto
You have to love how a sommelier might describe a certain wine. It has “a jammy taste with a sweet attack, leather, tobacco, and very muscular with integrated wood." Listening to saxophonist Kris Allen's Beloved reminds us that jazz listeners use similar terms to describe the music they're hearing. Allen's alto saxophone is flavored with hints ...
Defibrillator & Peter Brötzmann: Conversations About Not Eating Meat
by Mark Corroto
Imagine the fight posters we could create for the various musical boxing matches organized for saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. His profile picture would be facing a fellow competitor with all the relevant statistics--height, weight, reach, and age. The boxing poster image often comes to mind when he grapples with plugged-in artists and those dealing with electronics, as ...
The Claudia Quintet: Super Petite
by Mark Corroto
Except for a brief dalliance with the ingénue Lucy, drummer and bandleader John Hollenbeck has been faithful to his Claudia for nearly twenty years. Super Petite is the 8th release and 7th on Cuneiform Records. Actually, the band leader has had others. Besides his Lucy Quartet, there is his John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Refuge Trio, duos ...
Albert We Hardly Knew Ye
by Mark Corroto
The Chinese mystic philosopher Lao Tzu wrote, “the flame that burns twice as bright, burns half as long." Although he never heard the music of Albert Ayler, we're sure that he would agree the saxophonist's fire music was luminescent. Ayler's career was indeed quite brief, recording only for a period of eight years until his untimely ...
Thomas Johansson/Øyvind Storesund/Paal Nilssen-Love: Revolution Before Lunch
by Mark Corroto
There is probably no way to avoid the parochial mindset of the American jazz listener. Take the release Revolution Before Lunch by the Scandinavian trio of Thomas Johansson, Øyvind Storesund, and Paal Nilssen-Love. You might listen to a few notes of Johansson's trumpet as “Close As Hail" opens the affair and think, oh yeah, it's Magnus ...
Nate Wooley Makes America Great Again
by Mark Corroto
In his excellent book of literary and cultural criticism, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, Kevin Young describes the term Jazz as both a noun and a verb. He further explains that jazz from the time of its origins through, let's say the 1980s, was a word used to describe action. Such as the ...
Sun Ra & His Astro-Ihnfinity Arkestra: The Intergalactic Thing
by Mark Corroto
If you are a Sun Ra devotee, let's not use the terms “fanatic" or “zealot," you probably measure your collection in board feet instead of inches. Unlike many jazz legends of the 1950s, and 1960s, Herman Sonny Blount had the foresight to record his ensemble's rehearsals and concerts. He even established his own label El Saturn ...
Ellery Eskelin Trio Willisau: Live
by Mark Corroto
I considered writing just this sentence as my review of Ellery Eskelin's trio recording Live, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Taken from poet John Keats' 1818 poem “Endymion," the line just about says it all. Ok, to appease those that need a bit more information, Keats continues, “its loveliness increases / ...
Luis Perdomo: Montage
by Mark Corroto
The highest praise you can give to a recording by a solo performer is that the music was made just for your ears. Pianist Luis Perdomo's Montage gives just that impression. It's easy to imagine these fifteen tracks were played in your living room, or automobile, for that matter. After releasing seven discs as ...
