Our friends at Muteant Sounds have released a very mellow, relaxed free jazz session by SOUNDFOG. The band features Bernd Grohs-Ophoff on drums, percussion and carillon, Frank Wilke on a very relaxed trumpet, trombone and voice, and Sven Emmerich who playes synthesizer and adds samples and field recording. Not a Continue Reading
Free Jazz
Akira Sakata (坂田明) – a.k.a. Tombo (赤とんぼ)
Akira Sakata may be best known internationally for collaborations with guitarist and composer Jim O’Rourke and bassist Bill Laswell, but in Japan and among jazz aficionados, he’s also known as one of Japan’s best purveyors of spiritual jazz. This album is his latest, and it’s imbued with deepness and humor Continue Reading
Pray For Your Prey – Pray For Your Prey
At least as I understand it, there is a magnificent label out of Greece, Defkaz, releasing some really fine free jazz and world music. This particular album features one name whose work I’m very familiar with – the Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi, who is magnificent. After hearing him work with Continue Reading
Roman Stolyar – In Gleisdorf
Our dear friend Roman Stolyar has released a new live solo recording with him performing on the piano and recorder from a show recorded literally last weel in Gleisdorf, Austria.
Etron Fou Leloublan – Les Poumons Gonflés
Etron Fou Leloublan are (were?) an avant-guard rock band out of France whose main claim to fame was being one of the early bands who would end up forming the genre Rock In Opposition, a loosely-knit group of bands who opposed the business which refused to recognize their music, according Continue Reading
Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley – Being Astral And All Registers – Power Of Two
I’m not sure if one can rightly call this a free-improv classic, but it’s hard to find two musicians who gel together as well as Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley do. The piano playing is fierce and powerful, matched stroke-for-stroke by Oxley’s percussion and drumming. A fine live disc.
Peter Brötzmann / Keiji Haino Duo – The Intellect Given Birth To Here (Eternity) Is Too Young
Two of the greatest legends in free jazz and psychedelic rock, Keiji Haino and Peter Brötzmann, join forces after a long while in this four-album noise-fest. My understanding that the vinyl pressing on Black Editions, which includes a 3-inch CD, is long sold out, which is unfortunate, but a standard Continue Reading
Jeff Gburek – Pharoah’s Tarot
Pharoah Sanders left this mortal coil on September 24, 2022, after leaving a stellar body of work and his influence on countless musicians including Jeff Gburek. The influence was profound, and you can hear it on this album, where the guitar glides into something free, not as in noisy free-jazz, Continue Reading
Ivan Grebenschikov – Photo of A Changing World
Our friends at Fancy Music are releasing consistently good music in the contemporary classical, jazz and progressive rock fields. Ivan Grebenschikov composes music which manages to combine all three genres effortlessly, and adds in free jazz, rock and Latin American music into a fine stew.
Joey DeFrancesco – In the Key of the Universe
Organist Joey DeFrancesco passed away yesterday, leaving perhaps the most impressive background of any jazz organist in the past 20 years or so. Here is a list of artists he worked with: Miles Davis, Houston Person, John McLaughlin, David Sanborn, Arturo Sandoval, Larry Coryell, Frank Wess, Benny Golson, James Moody, Continue Reading