This is a comp we won’t have to wait too terribly long for. The Roundtable is a record label out of Melbourne, Australia which documents some phenomenal jazz from down under. Apparently, the first installment of Pyramid Pieces was a tour-de-force of Australian spiritual jazz, and the comp sold briskly, Continue Reading
Free Jazz
Florian Arbenz, Hermon Mehari, Nelson Veras – Conversation #1: Condensed
Swiss drummer and percussionist Florian Arbenz was featured on our previous website, A Miscellany of Tasteful Music, some time in 2020 on a record he did with American saxophonist Greg Osby. This album is equally as engaging. This slightly unusual line up of guitar, trumpet & drums might, at first Continue Reading
Roman Stolyar – Right Back from Bosnija
I’m delighted to share a piece from my old friend, the Siberian composer and multi-instrumentalist Roman Stolyar. This nearly 20-minute improvisation was recorded live on July 30, 2021 at the MMMESSS studio in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The piano-playing is quick, sharp, with each keystroke coming at you like waves of Continue Reading
Ikuro Takahashi – しりえないものとずっと
An’archives, a French experimental music record label, has released しりえないものとずっと (Forever With The Incomprehensible) by legendary drummer and percussionist Ikuro Takahashi. Takahashi has worked with the likes of Keiji Haino’s power-trio Fushitsusha, Seishokki, High Rise, Ché-Shizu, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Kousokuya, LSD March and Nagisa Ni Te. This kind of Continue Reading
Der Finger – Le Cinque Stagioni
Russia has a pretty remarkable history with jazz. Even during the Soviet times, everything from Dixieland to hard bop was represented rather well, and free jazz is no exception. Der Finger are the trio of Anton Efimov (bass), Evgenia Sivkova (drums & saxophone) and Edward Sivkov (bass clarinet, saxophone and Continue Reading
Zeena Parkins, Mette Rasmussen, Ryan Sawyer – Glass Triangle
Relative Pitch Records is making a great case for becoming a favorite label of mine. There are so many great releases covering the best of improvisational and free music that I’ll probably go broke trying to purchase all of them. It’s fitting to make my first review that of avant-harpist Continue Reading
Rafał Mazur & Satoko Fujii, Guillermo Gregorio, Natsuki Tamura, Artur Majewski, Ramon Lopez – The Great Tone has no Sound
Though I cannot say I know much about Fundacja Słuchaj’s background, I can say that their releases tend to be excellent, releasing some of the bigger names in improvisational music. This collection is no different. The personnel on this four-disc set is pretty phenomenal: Rafał Mazur plays bass, Satoko Fujii Continue Reading
Joseph Benzola – When You Get to Saturn, Make a Left.
I cannot think of any genre of music percussionist and composer Joseph Benzola doesn’t sound comfortable working in. There might be some bizarre concoction lying dormant in the underground somewhere, but it’s not worth wasting one’s time thinking much about. This collection puts together what sounds something similar to Balinese Continue Reading
Ah-Q Jazz Arkestra – Letters From Afar
This release by Ah-Q Jazz Arkestra is a joint Chinese-American project. The back story is rather interesting. From the Bandcamp website: In early 2020, we found ourselves separated and stuck at home. Even though four of us were in Beijing, COVID19 control measures prevented us from meeting face to face. Continue Reading