Archive: May, 2007

evan parker | derek bailey and others

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

Derek Bailey | Evan Parker | Photo: Mark Weber

PERFORMANCE OF FEBRUARY 14, 1975 at Wigmore Hall, London

Evan Parker / soprano and tenor saxophones, Derek Bailey / guitars.

PERFORMANCE OF FEBRUARY 18, 1975 at the Unity Theatre, London.
“PROTOTYPE FOR AN IMPROVISING ORCHESTRA”

Evan Parker / soprano saxophone, homemade saxophones, Martin Mats / french horn, Radu Malfatti / trombone, Derek Bailey / guitar, electronics, Phillip Wachsmann / electric violin, Steve Beresford / electronics, Paul Lytton / percussion, electronics.

Memories of the Anthony Braxton-Derek Bailey concert are still vivid: release of the concert recordings coincided with first news of this event (February 14) tending to bracket and potentially overshadow the later concert. There is, too, a shred of the old European inferiority complex left: perhaps for all Parker’s ability he’s going to prove only a substitute for Braxton in a re-runoff of the previous scene? No: things have changed in Europe; the old worries may nag now and then but they can be kept in perspective. So, expectation of a good concert, one demonstrably different from what went on before. Just how much it would take on its own identity, though, was a little surprising.

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bells | Comments (0) | 465 Views

anthony braxton | derek bailey | performance of june 30, 1974 at wigmore hall, london

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

PERFORMANCE OF JUNE 30, 1974 at Wigmore Hall, London

Anthony Braxton / flute; alto and sopranino saxophones; contrabass, b-flat and soprano clarinets, Derek Bailey / guitar.

For those of us who were around in the dear dead days circa 1950, one of the minor turn-ons of that period was the Lee Konitz-Billy Bauer duo. On records like Duet for Saxophone and Guitar or Rebecca, they offered a fresh alternative to the conventions of jazz improvising, and even if these things didn’t always come off they hinted very strongly that if the techniques of duo working could be developed they would become a very useful avenue to follow up. They remained for the next two decades largely neglected.

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bells | Comments (1) | 385 Views

han bennink | solo

Friday, May 18th, 2007

HAN BENNINK has a new solo record: Free Music Production (Germany) SAJ 21, West/East, recorded in concert, West Berlin October 1978.

And this is a review of it. But why any writing should want to probe under the surface of this brashly attractive and simple music I can’t imagine. To what purpose? - influences, references, structures, cultural implications, psychologies, politics…the music wipes all that away like a multicoloured cloth cleaning the mist off a window. The music is surface, like all good music; it doesn’t conceal anything. No designs are implicated, no hysteric self projections - it is unthreatened, open and fresh, and its aim is sheer delight; it is a true playing…

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bells | Comments (0) | 397 Views

e.s.t. | seven days of falling

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

Download “Seven Days Of Falling” (mp3) Download “Did They Ever Tell Cousteau?” (mp3) Download “O.D.R.I.P.” (mp3)

from “Seven Days Of Falling”
by Esbjörn Svensson Trio Label: 215 Music

Buy at iTunes Music Store
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more on Esbjörn Svensson Trio here…

seven days of falling [6:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
did they ever tell cousteau [6:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
o.d.r.i.p. [14:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

podcast | Comments (0) | 304 Views

e.s.t. | viaticum

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

Download “Tide Of Trepidation” (mp3) Download “The Well-Wisher” (mp3) Download “The Unstable Table & The Infamous Fable” (mp3)

from “Viaticum”
by Esbjörn Svensson Trio Label: 215 Music

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Buy at Napster
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at GroupieTunes

more on Esbjörn Svensson Trio here…

tide of trepidation [7:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
the unstable table the infamous fable [8:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
the wellwisher [3:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

podcast | Comments (0) | 251 Views

new ghost

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

Download “Subterranean-Phil-Holy-Feast-Of-All” (mp3)

from “Live Upstairs at Nick’s”
by New Ghost Label: ESP Disk

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster

peter brötzmann

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

Peter Brötzmann | Photo: Gérard Rouy

In his notes to Die Like A Dog, FMP CD 64, 1993, Peter Brötzmann writes of his relationship to Albert Ayler: “We both tried to do similar or almost identical things at the same point in time, each independently and without knowing anything about the other – each of us within his own culture.” This review, written in 1977, assumed from recorded documentation - For Adolphe Saxe in particular - more of a direct influence of Ayler’s music on Brötzmann’s. I believe the review stands as a partial comparative analysis of the players’ respective musical approaches. - Henry Kuntz, 2007

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Nr. 6 [5:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

bells | Comments (0) | 387 Views

peter brötzmann | fred van hove | han bennink

Monday, May 14th, 2007

Peter Brötzmann - Fred Van Hove - Han Bennink

ELEMENTS (FMP 0030)
Tunes: “Florence Nightingale” / “Elements”

COUSCOUS (FMP 0040)
Tunes: “Couscous” / “Wenn mein Schätzlein auf die Pauke haut”

THE END (FMP 0050)
Tunes: “The Bad” / “Antwarreppe”, “Albert’s”

Peter Brötzmann / tenor sax, Fred Van Hove / piano, Han Bennink drums and various instruments; plus Albert Mangelsdorff / trombone.
Recorded: August 27, 28, 1971 at the Berlin “Free Music Market.”

OUTSPAN NO. 2 (FMP 0200)

Peter Brötzmann / clarinet, alto and tenor sax, brotzophon, Fred Van Hove / piano, Han Bennink / drums, clarinet, homemade junk, everything, anything.
Recorded: May 4, 1974, Nurnberg Festival.

The “Free Music Market” recordings present music that is remarkably successful considering it is almost entirely of a non-linear nature. These LPs might appropriately be referred to as studies in texture and tone color. While the language used is similar to that of the black free musicians of the Sixties, the similarity is of language only; because the purpose to which this organization of sounds is put is almost totally different. There are no real themes presented and there is no development in the sense that a thematic idea might be developed. Development is implied by the changing episodes and the withdrawal and addition of new sounds (textures). But the music does not so much develop (linearly) as it simply changes shape or direction. There is a churning forward movement (a real urgency about it) but it is more expanding (like circles in a pond) than it is actually going any place. Its linear aspects, such as they are (short, probing motifs or melodic fragments), are nearly all deceptive, rather quickly turning into something else.

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bells | Comments (0) | 391 Views