Different Perspectives In My Room...!

Label: Incus Records – 9

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo / Country: UK / Released: 1977

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Selections from live performances at Verity's Place, June 16-17, 1972.

Cover drawing, Artwork – Mal Dean

Composed By – Bailey, Bennink

Engineer – Bob Woolford

Matrix / Runout (Side A Runout stamped): INCUS 9 A-3△6

Matrix / Runout (Side B Runout stamped): INCUS 9 B-3△6

A1 - Call That a Balance ........................................................................... 2:07

A2 - Misty .................................................................................................. 7:18

A3 - The Title ............................................................................................ 2:17

A4 - Who Is That ....................................................................................... 4:02

A5 - The Girl with the Concrete Tongue ................................................... 4:35

B1 - Din Din Teo ........................................................................................ 9:31

B2 - On a Clear Day .................................................................................. 4:07

B3 - Barb ................................................................................................... 1:36

B4 - Shake Your Arse White Man ............................................................. 1:32

B5 - Whiling ............................................................................................... 2:19

B6 - When Day Is Done and Shadows Fall I Think of You ....................... 4:10

DEREK BAILEY – guitar

HAN BENNINK – drums, percussion

Derek Bailey & Han Bennink (subtitled Selections from Live Performances at Verity's Place) is a live album by guitarist Derek Bailey and percussionist Han Bennink which was recorded 1972 and released on the Incus label.

This selection of live duet performances from 1972 is a wonder to listen to almost forty-four years after the original performances. The guitar's greatest improviser bantering musically with the Netherlands' greatest drummer is, no doubt, a point of interest for those interested in the extremes of Western music. Before Bailey had recorded the infamous and now legendary Incus Taps disc, he had perfected his view of the atonal world (at least up until that time), undoing it with spiritual guidance from the ghost of Webern at his side. These two live dates reflect that direction, having been recorded less than a year before. Given that Bailey is investigating his undoing of the ritual tonal space, Bennink's woolly percussions are the perfect foil: Who better to stretch the perceptions of guitar music to its limit and beyond than a man for whom the drums are the only instrument in any band? Thus, the chase is on, moving from one dynamic range to the next in search of the perfect tonal space where things completely fall apart, only to be picked up in rather grotesquely fascinating order. This music asks no questions; it only shouts obscenities while laughing hysterically because it knows exactly what it's not doing. Great album.

(Review by Thom Jurek)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Revelation Records – REV-12

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1970

Style: Contemporary Jazz, Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded in Herrick Chapel Lounge, Occidental College, Los Angeles, 1969.

Photography By [Cover Photo], Design – J.W. Hardy

Liner Notes – John William Hardy

Engineer – J.W. Hardy, Pete Welding

A1 - You Stepped Out Of A Dream ................................................... 9:00

A2 - Lennie's Pennies....................................................................... 4:10

A3 - 317 East 32nd Street ................................................................. 8:12

B1 - Subconscious-Lee ..................................................................... 7:10

B2 - Touch And Go .......................................................................... 15:58

Warne Marsh – tenor saxophone

Gary Foster – alto saxophone

Dave Parlato – bass

John Tirabasso – drums, percussion

Recording date: 25 October 1969, except (A1) which was recorded 14 September 1969.

This is the first Warne Marsh's recording as a leader since 1960. He teamed up with complementary altoist Gary Foster (who was most influenced by Marsh's former musical partner Lee Konitz), bassist Dave Parlato and drummer John Tirabasso.

As a protégé of Lennie Tristano in the late 1940s and early 1950s, tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh learned lessons that shaped his playing until his death in 1987. He has inspired a cult following among musicians, particularly saxophonists seeking an alternative to the John Coltrane approach, and Ne Plus Ultra fully justifies his status as a legend of the cool school.

Recorded in 1969 with a thoroughly rehearsed ensemble, the date finds Marsh exploring conventional forms with precision and depth. Having famously teamed with Lee Konitz for Tristano's sides on Capitol, Marsh enlists alto saxophonist Gary Foster for Ne Plus Ultra; comparisons to Konitz are inevitable, but the less influential Foster is still a force to be reckoned with. His polished tone and fluid lines are so compatible with Marsh's own that one begins to suspect some form of telepathic communication is at work.

The title of the Konitz composition featured here, "Subconscious-Lee," is particularly appropriate: calling to mind the anarchic dialogue of a Eugene Ionesco play, the saxophonists speak over one another, prompted only on a subconscious level by each other's phrases. To close the album, the two players trace the lineage of their advanced contrapuntal jazz...

Neither the absence of a chordal instrument nor the dominant character of the two horns can squelch the superb efforts of the rhythm section. Each of Dave Parlato's unaccompanied bass improvisations is a treat, and John Tirabasso's drumming is thoughtful and precise. Solos are brief and densely packed, lending an air of round-table discussion to the album. The group's dynamic range is somewhat limited, excepting "Touch and Go," a free piece containing the LP's most melodic and direct playing.

Ne Plus Ultra is a no-brainer for Marsh converts; others may find its abstract qualities difficult to penetrate, but an engaged listener can look forward to a wealth of no-nonsense musical invention.

(By Brad Glanden, AAJ)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Deram – SML 1005

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo / Country: UK / Released: 1967

Style: Post Bop, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Jackson Studios, January 15, 18 and 24, 1967.

Design [Sleeve Design] – Gillian Jackson Designs

Liner Notes – Charles Fox

Producer – John Jackson, Malcolm Jackson

This is the original THE GRAHAM COLLIER SEPTET - Deep Dark Blue Centre 1967 STEREO release, 1st PRESS

Also in mono (Cat# DML 1005)

A1 - Blue Walls ....................................................................................4:32

A2 - El Miklos ......................................................................................6:48

A3 - Hirayoshi Suite .............................................................................5:55

A4 - Crumblin Cookie .......................................................................... 5:21

B1 - Conversations .............................................................................. 6:42

B2 - Deep Dark Blue Centre .............................................................. 13:23

Graham Collier – bass, arranged

Dave Aaron – alto saxophone, flute

Karl Jenkins – baritone saxophone, oboe

Philip Lee – guitar

Kenny Wheeler – trumpet, flugelhorn (tracks: A2, B1, B2)

Harry Beckett – trumpet, flugelhorn (tracks: A1, A3, A4)

Michael Gibbs – trombone

John Marshall – drums, percussion

Graham Collier’s 1967 debut album with Kenny Wheeler, Harold Beckett, Philip Lee, Mike Gibbs, Karl Jenkins and John Marshall (the latter two members of Soft Machine).

A fine bassist and one of the most important British jazz composers and arrangers, Graham Collier boasts a discography the envy of many of his contemporaries. This critically acclaimed album features a young Kenny Wheeler, and Harry Beckett, with others from the vibrant British scene of the late 1960s. Collier's influences have been tied to Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, and even Miles Davis, and this unlikely combination is clearly evident in his concepts: There are contrapuntal lines, complex rhythms tempered by a gentleness and glazed by simultaneous improvisations. The substantial nature of the music amply rewards the adventurous listener. The strong personalities of the soloists ensure individuality, while the juxtaposition of the flute, guitar, and trumpet lend a light air to some of the tracks. Collier's wonderfully diverse compositions are waiting to be discovered by a new generation, as his timeless, carefully crafted structures are charmingly alluring...

(Review by Steve Loewy)

"Collier's Septet plays Collier's music which is brilliantly constructed in the Gil Evans manner. Could any recommendation be higher? Collier has a great ear for melody, for new ways of jazz counterpoint, for interesting instrumentation. Five stars".

(Derek Jewell, The Sunday Times)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Edition X – 1079

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition / Number of this copy – 395

Country: Germany / Released: 1969

Style: Drone, Contemporary, Minimal

Artwork [Cover, Labels, Design, Calligraphy] – Marian Zazeela

Composed By, Producer, Liner Notes – La Monte Young

Matrix / Runout (Side A - "1079" etched, "-A" stamped): 1079-A

Matrix / Runout (Side B - "1079" etched, "-B" stamped): 1079-B

A- 31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM ....................................................... 23:00

B- 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta ........................... 20:15

La Monte Young– voice, electronics [sine wave drone], gong [bowed]

Marian Zazeela– voice, gong [bowed]

Eponymous untitled album popularly known as "The Black Record" or "The Black Album"

The cover is black gloss print on matt black and very hard to read.

Numbered edition limited to 2800 copies of which numbers 1-98 are dated and signed by the artists.

Side A: This work was recorded at the date and time indicated in the title, at Galerie Heiner Friedrich, München 31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM - is a section of the longer work: Map Of 49's Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery. Play this side at 33 1/3 rpm only.

Side B:We recorded this gong duet in our studio in New York City on the date and time indicated in the title. It is a section of a larger work: Studies In The Bowed Disc begun in September 1968. To listen to the live performance, playback at 33 1/3 rpm. However, this side may be played back at any slower constant speed down to 8 1/3 rpm, i.e., 16 2/3 rpm which is available on some turntables.

La Monte Young / Marian Zazeela

La Monte Young is one of the founding members of the genre of musick called Minimalism (a term which he despises). He is one of the greatest innovators of 20th century composition. His influence is everywhere in the world of modern musick. Unfortunately he is for the most part unheard & unknown outside a small circle of musickians & musick lovers.

Young & Zazeela recorded their first full length album in Munich for Heiner Friedrich's Edition X label, released as a limited edition. Side one is a section of “Map of 49's Dream”, performed by Young with sinewave drone & voice, with vocal accompaniment by Zazeela. Side two is an extract from “Study for the Bowed Disc” featuring the duo bowing a gong given to them by sculptor Robert Morris. Morris had made it for his dance piece “War” & asked Young to play it for the performance. Afterwards Morris presented the gong to Young, who began experimenting on it with double bass bows. Young recommended the listener turn the musick up (PLAY FUCKING LOUD), the resulting low drone being a spiritual tool. For the album artwork, Marian Zazeela embedded her calligraphic lettering & designs in black. The point is to focus on her artwork while concentrating on the vocal/sinewave drones of Young's dream music.

Marian Zazeela (she was born 1940) and La Monte Young (born 1935) are an artist couple from the United States who live and work together since 1962 and have ever since taken part in a multitude of projects too numerous to mention. It is far more than music both create as their repertoire also features installation art and paintings. But since our main focus is the music, we concentrate on their just reissued album named 'The Black Record' from 1969 with two lengthy minimal drones that create the ultimate mind expanding atmosphere by hypnotizing the listener and putting him into a state of physical and spiritual trance afterwards. We hear several layers of voices on a deep dark drone as the first track and I could imagine that this drone is in fact the echo of Mrs. Zazeela's chanting voice but it might also be a harmonium or an organ. It sounds too natural and warm for a synthesizer. Whatever it is, it works as a solid base for the wordless chants of both artists. This piece is in fact a selection from a much longer soundscape recorded in an art gallery in Munich in 1969. The minimalistic structure and meandering voice melodies generate a hypnotic and utterly spiritual atmosphere just as if you would witness an Indian meditation ritual. Turn the vinyl around and you will be swallowed by a black hole of sounds. This piece has been recorded in 1968 in the home studio of Young and Zazeela and it predates the cosmic music and proto industrial sounds of early TANGERINE DREAM or CLUSTER by a few years. This album is certainly made for a small audience of people who can put themselves in a state where leaving the body for a spiritual journey is only the next step. Both pieces are far from regular popular music but that makes them even more captivating and intriguing. A challenge for each listener in case he's not used to TANGERINE DREAM's 'Zeit' album yet. Who dares to join us on this strange trip?

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Gramavision – R2 79487

Format: 2×CD, Album, Gallery edition / Country: US / Released: 1993

Style: Experimental, Avantgarde, Blues, Minimal

Cover, Typography [Calligraphy], Design – Marian Zazeela

Lighting Director – Marian Zazeela

Liner Notes – La Monte Young, Robert Palmer

Product Manager [Design] – Marika Blossfeldt

Mastered By – Chris Muth

Photography By, Cover – Jim Conti

Recorded By, Mixed By – Bob Bielecki

Matrix / Runout (Disc 1): 3 R2 79487-2.1 SRC#01 M1S1

Matrix / Runout (Disc 2): 3 R2 79487-2.2 SRC#01 M1S1

American premiere performance series, The Kitchen, New York, January 14, 1993.

01 CD-1 - Young's Dorian Blues In G (Part 1) ................................ 61:54

02 CD-2 - Young's Dorian Blues In G (Part 2) ................................ 60:23

Composed By – La Monte Young

LA MONTE YOUNG – Korg Synthesizer in just Intonation

JAN CATLER – Just Intonation and Fretless Guitar

BRAD CATLER – Just Intonation and Fretless Bass

JONATHAN KANE – Drums

"Just Stompin'" was released as a two-CD set from Gramavision Records. It consists of just one piece--"Young's Dorian Blues in G"--recorded live at the January premiere of the piece at the Kitchen in New York.

An album of instrumental, roadhouse blues may seem something of a departure for Young, a revered original, the seminal influence on both minimalism and the Fluxus movement and creator of a highly personal body of work. It makes, however, a clear, relatively compact and accessible expression of his obsessions with extended durations and just intonation, the acoustically pure tuning based on the natural harmonic series. It is also music with a long gestation period, going back to his student days in Los Angeles.

Young has played alto saxophone since he was 7, with his father as his first teacher. He went to John Marshall High School here, studied with William Green and then went on to Los Angeles City College, where everybody told him he should play in the dance band. The first-saxophone chair there was already tied up, but he auditioned and beat out Eric Dolphy for the second-chair position.

He and Dolphy became friends, and both played clarinet in the orchestra, where Dolphy was first chair. Other jazz musicians Young performed with in clubs and sessions at that time included Billy Higgins, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman and Don Friedman.

At the same time, he was studying with Schoenberg disciple Leonard Stein at Los Angeles City College and became extremely inspired by Webern. From the terse, pared-down creations of Webern to Young's own long-spanned music seems quite a reach, but he finds a credible evolution there, where his early music became "like Webern in augmentation."

Augmented indeed. He usually takes five to six hours to perform his solo piano piece "The Well-Tuned Piano," and he confined "Young's Blues" to two hours only because that was the length of the DAT tape available then.

"I think, in addition to my unique piano style, the just intonation and the Dorian mode, ("Young's Blues") is different because it is a very long, complex, evolved form--really very compositional in structure, not just song forms," the composer says. "I'm totally disinterested in short song forms. I'm interested in evolved structures in extended time formats."
"There is no doubt a short work can be profound and very strong," he says, "but a long work has the potential in the end to be much, much more."

Young learned the importance of silence from both Webern and the contrast between the clarity of the rural sonic environment he knew as a child in Idaho and the noise of the big city he discovered when his family moved to Los Angeles. It figures in his idea of "eternal music," but not so much anymore in actual performances.

"I have these enormous silences between performances," Young says ruefully, "so when I get a chance to play, I seem to want to fill it up with sound."

Young is willing to play pieces such as "The Well-Tuned Piano" only under very special and expensive circumstances. He insists on three months on location, one month exploring the acoustical environment and tuning, followed by two months giving weekly performances. With his Theater of Eternal Music Big Band, he had 23 rehearsals before the first concert.

"This is the way I really want to perform, but very few people can afford to present it," Young concedes. "The blues band is a way I can perform without compromising my principals and still fit into the one-night format.

"This blues setting, with these young musicians, is a way I can show off my compositional skills and improvising, in a way that's more affordable for more concert presenters." (The Forever Bad Blues Band consists of Jon Catler on fretless and just-intonation electric guitars, Brad Catler on similar basses and Jonathan Kane on drums, with Young himself playing a synthesizer in just intonation.)

(By John Henken, special to the LA Times, 1993)

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-09-04/entertainment/ca-31590_1_la-monte-young

"I consider much of my music... to be blues-based," claims La Monte Young, the acknowledged father of minimalism. This might not seem so bizarre considering his early collaborations with jazz musicians and the undoubted minimal qualities of blues pioneers like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. Like many of his works, Young has been developing the piece here, "Young's Dorian Blues in G," since its inception in 1960, including his work with his Theatre of Eternal Music ensemble with John Cale and Tony Conrad. Here the piece is presented as a two-hour live performance which he did at the Kitchen in New York in 1993 with a guitar/bass/drums line-up headed by Young's synthesizer in his "just intonation" tuning. Beginning with an elegiac opening, the piece soon evolves into a rollicking, driving, gradually-evolving epic featuring Jon Catler's searing guitar runs and Young's keyboard mimicking a barrelhouse piano -- because the two of them trade solo spots so effectively, this never gets tedious or drawn-out. With its extensive liner notes, Just Stompin' serves an excellent introduction to the work of one of the most important composers of the 20th century, especially for anyone interested in Young's work but frightened off by the scope of the 5-LP The Well-Tuned Piano.

(Review by Jason Gross)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Shandar – 83 510

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: France / Released: 1974

Style: Modern Classical, Drone, Minimal

Cover [Label, Design, Calligraphy] – Marian Zazeela

Photography By [Cover Photo] – Robert Adler

Liner Notes – Julian Cowley, La Monte Young

Matrix / Runout (A): 83 510 A

Matrix / Runout (B): 83 510 B

A- 13 I 73 5:35-6:14:03 PM NYC............................................................... 39:03

trombone – Garrett List

trumpet – Jon Hassell

voice – Marian Zazeela

voice, Electronics [Sine Waves] – La Monte Young

B- Drift Study 14 VII 73 9:27:27-10:06:41 PM NYC .................................. 39:14

electronics [sine waves] – La Monte Young

Side A - 13 I 73 5:35 - 6:14:03 PM NYC is a sub-section of Map Of 49's Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery, begun in 1966 as a section of the even longer work: The Tortoise, His Dreams And Journeys which was begun in 1964 with The Theatre Of Eternal Music. Performed 17 January 1973 at La Monte Young's private studio.

Side B - Drift Study 14 VII 73 9:27:27 - 10:06:41 PM NYC Three sine waves. Frequencies and voltages of the sine waves determined and tuned by La Monte Young using oscillators custom designed by Rober Adler to generate specific frequencies and voltages of great stability. Performed 14 July 1973 at La Monte Young's private studio.

For the maximum fidelity on Side 2, reduce the treble controls on your pre-amplifier to minimum. Since the sine waves have no harmonic content, and all are below 202.5 Hertz, this will reduce the surface noise which is normal on most discs. Note: Be sure to keep the treble controls normal on Side 1.

Sleeve Notes:

“Frequencies and voltages of the sine waves generators were determined and tuned by La Monte Young using oscillators custom-designed by sound technician Robert Adler to generate specific frequencies and voltages of great stability. The sine waves produced are such that they interfere with each other, creating changes of volume both in time and space that can be experienced either walking within the room or staying put. If one chooses to walk, he will change the sound experience of other people in the room by moving the molecules of air.”

Dream House 78’17” was originally released by Shandar in 1974. I touch on the label’s history in my piece on Steve Reich’s Four Organs / Phase Patterns. Of all the releases in the label’s catalog, Young’s is the most sought after. It contains two single-sided works. 13 I 73 5:35 – 6:14:03 PM NYC is a sub-section of Map Of 49’s Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery, which extended from the iconic The Tortoise, His Dreams And Journeys. The recording features a later incarnation of The Theatre Of Eternal Music, with Garrett List on trombone, Jon Hassell on trumpet, Marian Zazeela singing, and La Monte Young singing and playing electronics. It’s pretty mind bending – with Young and Zazeela’s vocals droning away over the sustained electronics and horns. The tonal relationships between the five elements are hypnotic and totally engrossing. One of the first things you’ll notice about the piece is that it stretches a shocking 39:03 – almost double the standard length of an LP side – but, they are managed the impossible.

The second side finds the third issue of Young’s Drift Study – in this case 14 VII 73 9:27:27 – 10:06:41 PM NYC. Two shorter versions were released during the late 60’s in Aspen, and S.M.S. This is its definite rendering – stretching to 39:14. Drift Study is built from three sine waves which are precision tuned and run through oscillators. If you’ve ever been to the Dream House in NY, this is the same technology (though in the record features a higher frequency). It can be incredibly dislocating. My first few hours in the space (of countless hundreds) were spent trying to work out how the sounds were fluctuating and changing. It messed me up. It’s the closest auditory equivalent to Brion Gysin’s hallucination-inducing Dream Machine. The tonal shifts are created by altering your physical proximity to the waves – thus where in their path or reflection you encounter them. I’ve spent untold hours moving around the Dream House like a turtle, trying to grasp its totality. The recording goes a long way to recreate this experience at home, making Dream House 78’17”.

(Review by Bradford Bailey)

Note:

Though I’ve seen reissue of La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela & The Theatre Of Eternal Music’s – Dream House 78’17“, I didn’t hold my breath. Every fan of Young knows of his refusal to grant his blessings for reissues, and of the scarcity (and extremely high price) of originals. Aguirre Records, the label responsible for its return, somehow obtained the record’s license – though I’d be surprised if La Monte gave his permission, making it a curious ethical line. Since the label did their due diligence, and it’s hard to know what La Monte’s thoughts are (not to mention the fact that he can be a pain in the ass), I’m letting my excitement get the better of me, and giving this one a plug.

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Virgin – VC 501

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK ( Released: 19 May 1973

Style: Krautrock, Experimental, Free Jazz

Sleeve design [Cover] – Uwe Nettelbeck

Liner Notes – B.D., Christian Lebrun, Ian MacDonald, John Peel, Léon Naje, Philippe Paringaux,S teve Peacock

Painting ["Crest"] – Bridget Riley

Photography By [Photograph] – Robert Horner

Matrix / Runout (Side A Runout stamped): VC 501 A-1U

Matrix / Runout (Side B Runout stamped): VC 501 B-1U

A- Side One............................................................................ 23:34

B- Side Two ............................................................................ 20:10

Performer [Uncredited] – Gunther Wüsthoff, Hans Joachim Irmler, Jean-Hervé Peron, Rudolf Sosna, Werner Diermaier

Text panel at the top of the front cover:

"The music on this album, drawn from Faust's own library of private tapes, was recorded informally and not originally intended for release. However, since British interest in the group has been unusually great, it has been decided to make some of this unofficial material available to the public in this country. These tapes have been left exactly as they were recorded - frequently live - and no post-production work has been imposed on them. The group wish to make it clear that this is not to be regarded as their third album, but a bonus release - on sale at the current price of a single - to mark their signing with Virgin Records, for whom they will shortly be recording their next official album. The Faust Tapes reveals Faust at their most personal and spontaneous. It's a unique glimpse behind the scenes of a group which European and British critics have hailed as one of the most exciting and exploratory in the world. Virgin Records"

The rest of the front cover text is made out of press quotes from: Best, Rock & Folk, Sounds, Disc, Extra, Pop Music, and New Musical Express.

Black & white 'twins' Virgin labels indicate Side One and Side Two without any track titles, some parts were specified on later reissues. Musicians are uncredited.

The cover has a 'fluted spine' (pinched at both edges).

. "The Faust Tapes" is yet another Faust masterpiece in which their collage-oriented ideology meets a more robust and aggressive expression than in their debut album (which was, indeed, quite intense). Even the more conventionally pop sections and the calmer passages intrinsically bear that typical Faustian bizarre feel, since there's always that impending doom that signals at the possibility for an abrupt change to bring in some sort of insanity - you just can't stop keeping the whole picture in mind (either retrospectively or prospectively) while listening to a specific section. Let's check over what happens during the first 14 minutes: random piano chords on reverb - tribal drumming accompanied by a Zappaesque choral arrangement - an acoustic ballad that reminds the listener of Dylan and The Byrds - singers struggling to gradually reach their highest tone, which is followed by aleatory washes of piano, trumpet, guitar, harmonica, percussion and demented chanting - a half French/half English-sung rocker that states a compromise between The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead, with hints to Barrett-era Pink Floyd. All this and more in a most bizarre (at times ,verging on the intolerable) 44 minute pastiche! Once again, I find myself granting a very high rating for an album that I can't honestly recommend to all prog fans alike. While this album is patently designed to draw the unfriendly listener away (miles away, to be more accurate), that won't detract me from regarding it as essential in the history of prog rock, and of course, the history of krautrock. Well, if krautrock was in itself a world apart within the world of prog, Faust created their own world within the aforementioned world apart, and this album certainly epitomizes the most accomplished qualities of their hyper-subversive style. Once I've stated this conclusion, I hope I made myself clear about why I see myself obliged to give this album 4 stars (4 1/2 stars in my mind).

(Review by Cesar Inca / ProgArchive)

While the first Faust albums were definitive Krautrock statemernts, their collaboration (Dream Syndicate) with a minimalist obviously perverted their spirit and Tapes is the real result: one of the very first RIO album (avant-la-lettre, though) that boggles the mind, but can also disturb unaware/unwarned listeners. This often-phantasmagoric soundscape is one of its decade's most influential albums, obviously heard by the Henry Cows and others. Rather hard to describe, the music often is just "bruitages" and montages of almost-industrial noises, but has some rather more accessible (almost easy) moments and some downright strange/disturbing "tunes", rendering the whole mix quite unnerving. Quite a strange but sometimes-wonderful trip. Bassist Jean-Hervé Peron to the French-sung finale the album is over. Incredibly madness.

Are you going to press replay immediately?

(Review by Sean Trane)

This concrete Adonis is built on hairpin turns through already strange, experimental, diverse, and unique musics and sounds and even some peppered in studio talks for that "In My Time of Dying" feel two years early. I can hear free jazz, noise, and proto- industrial alongside the snippets of more familiar krautrock kraziness. A happy surprise comes in the form of some pieces being long, providing some wonderful extended jams that are also respites from the insanity. This is more than just a representation of track skipping/channel hopping in intentional musical form, this is "Breathless" in album form. This defies category; it isn't even really concrete as we'd generally identify it; just mumble 'avant garde' and run. Excellent music in a groin smashing format. For the progheads who like surprises. I need to lie down.

(Review by LearsFool)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Polydor – 2310 142

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Translucent / Country: UK / Released: 1971

Style: Krautrock, Art Rock, Avantgarde, Experimental

Side A studio recordings

Side B recorded live at Wümme, September 21, 1971.

Composed By – Faust

Engineer – Andy Hertel, Kurt Graupner

Producer – Uwe Nettelbeck

Special radiography cover

Made In Germany [on record labels]

Printed in England [on cover]

A Product of Sound Packaging Partnership UK & World Patents Pending.

Incorrect track durations given on this release are:

Side A: 18:32 / Side B: 17:55

A1- Why Don't You Eat Carrots ................................................. 9:31

A2- Meadow Meal ..................................................................... 8:02

B- Miss Fortune ....................................................................... 16:34

Hans Joachim Irmler – organ

Rudolf Sosna – guitar

Gunther Wüsthoff - synthesizer, wind

Jean-Hervé Péron – bass, guitar, trumpet, vocals

Arnulf Meifert – drums, percussion

Werner Diermaier – drums, percussion, conductor

"Faust" is the debut full-length studio album by German Krautrock/psychadelic/avant garde rock act Faust. The album was released through Polydor Records in late 1971. The members of Faust were brought together by leftist-journalist Uwe Nettelbeck (who alledgedly was also associated with the infamous Baader-Meinhof movement), who had been asked by Polydor Records to find a German band, who could rival some of the contemporary commercially successful British artists (needless to say they were not impressed by the outcome). The label provided the band and Uwe Nettelbeck (who acted as producer on the recording project) with enough money and time, for the band to spend most of 1971 writing and recording the album.

Faust's first album is one of the most psychedelic and experimental albums ever released, the sounds this band creates are not of this world! Faust sufficiently blends groundbreaking electronic effects and 60's psychedelia into one insane combination. The album packaging was just as weird as the music, the vinyl being clear and a sleeve with an x-ray hand on it. Many bands were experimenting with electronic sounds at the time, but Faust took it farther than anyone else, elevating the traditional psych/hippie-folk song to insane new levels.

As an album "Faust" usually has the reputation that it´s a very difficult and avant garde listening experience, and while that is certainly true to some extent, the sometimes crazy sounding experiments actually work well together and the music isn´t completely devoid of hooks either. The album for instance features several great psychadelic rock parts and to make a comparison I don´t find the music on this album much more inaccessible than the most experimental output by 60s Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention.

In addition to the more "regular" rock parts on the album, the music on "Faust" features lots of studio tricks like tape manipulations and experiments with electronic devices. The vocals on the album which are in English are rather unique. Sometimes almost chanting and other times reciting the lyrics. It sounds like complete madness at times but it´s ultimately very charming, only features 3 tracks: "Why don't you eat carrots", "Meadow Meal" and "Miss Fortune". The two former were featured on side 1 of the original LP and the latter was featured on side 2. The album is very short with it´s 31:24 minutes playing time but with music as extreme as this I think it´s a suitable length.

The sound production is hands down fantastic. All those sounds collages and tape tricks must have been a real challenge handling in the studio and keeping in mind that the album was recorded in 3 days, there is a time pressure factor here too that makes it an even more incredible achivement. The spontaneity and laid back approach to the recording process that these musicians had could have resulted in a terribly bad and sloppy end product, but as Faust were incredibly talented musicians, they could pull something as bold as this off with conviction. They also fully understood that avant garde rock has to have some degree of accessibility and some memorable parts to be entertaining to the listener and therefore this weird experiment works wonders.

Faust is arguably. arguably?. evidently and unabashedly!!. the most extravagant and multicolored band in the krautrock movement. But after the initial hesitation, cannot but admit publicly that their best recordings are essential in any good prog collection. This is, precisely, the case of their amazing debut album, which serves, most of all, as a manifesto of distorted hard rock, uncompromising psychedelia, radical pastiche, Dadaist humor and electronic avant-garde in a very cohesive progressive amalgam. The fact is that this musical offering preserves its inner myriad of sonic contrasts in a unitary whole. While not having the finesse of Can's musicians nor portraying the raw energy of ART or Guru Guru, the truth is that Sosna, Irmler, Wüsthoff, Peron & Diermaier together make up a very tight ensemble. Each one of the three pieces in the album's repertoire comprises an open field for diversity - two of them are 8+ minute long and the other, 16+. 'Why Don't You Eat Carrots?' starts with brutal slide guitar layers upon which samplers of The Rolling Stones''satisfaction' and The Beatles''All You Need is Love' appear; then, a semi- chamber grand piano section is accompanied by the sound of an angry man giving orders in an almost sick crazy way - go figure! The two main motifs that follow combine the dexterity of jazz-rock and the peculiar joy of circus fanfare, both of them seasoned by Zappaesque vocalizations and more slide guitar effects. I don't know how they managed to do it, but they did: this is an opus of musical aggression that bears no sign nor clear evidence of sheer aggressiveness. 'Meadow Meal' has two distinct parts: the first one is pure late 60s-early 70s psychedelia; the second one consists of eerie dual organ layers surrounded by the sound of rain. 'Miss Fortune' is the suite that fills the B- side of the vinyl edition, and it pretty much reiterates the band's penchant for complex psychedelic rock and unpredictable nonsense as exhibited in the previous two tracks. A specific note regarding this track: the acoustic guitar based coda bears a buoclic beuaty in its simplicity, but it is preveneted from becoming "romantic" by the presence of a double voiced soliloquy. If you're a listener whose aesthetic feel is in tune with Faust's demanding musical ideology, then this is a record that you will surely enjoy and may even find essential (as I personally do).

(Reviews by Cesar Inca and UMUR / ProgArchive)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: ALM Records – AL-8 / AL-9

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1976

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Subtitled "Saxophone Solo Improvisations" / Gatefold sleeve

A-1, B-2 recorded live at Aoyama Tower Hall, October 18, 1975.

B-1 and C-1 to D-2 recorded at Iruma Shimin Kaikan, October 16, 1975.

Design [Designed By] – Nobukage Torii

Photography By [Photo] – Masahiro Imai

Includes liner notes in Japanese by Aquirax Aida

Producer – Aquirax Aida, Hangesha, Yukio Kojima

Recorded By – Yukio Kojima

AL-8

A - Alto Improvisation No.1 ............................................................... 26:00

B1 - Alto Improvisation No.2 .............................................................. 11:20

B2 - Alto Improvisation No.3 .............................................................. 12:30

AL-9

A1 - Sopranino Improvisation No.1 ...................................................... 6:17

A2 - Alto Improvisation No.4 Part 1 ................................................... 20:14

B1 - Alto Improvisation No.4 Part 2 ................................................... 18:50

B2 - Sopranino Improvisation No.2 ...................................................... 7:00

KAORU ABE– alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone

After the Partitas double album (recorded 1973, released 1981), Mort À Credit was to become the last Abe album to be released in his lifetime.

Mort À Credit was the title given to Céline's novel Death On The Installment Plan, not a coincidence and an analogy that makes at least a little bit of sense - Abe was reportedly a major Céline fan, and his solo disks on PSF have Japanese translations of Céline text attached to the songtitles in the CD inserts. It consists of two alto improvs from a show on October 18, 1975, and five more (three on alto, two on sopranino) from another performance a couple of days earlier. Released by Kojima on 2LP in 1976 (the reissue does not appear to contain any unreleased material), it can be said to mark a significant change in Abe's style. Abe is here a little soften from his usual urgency - this can perhaps be in part attributed to the passage of time - and become more interested in spacing and the exact rhythms of phrasing. While never entirely ignorant of these concerns, by now they had come very much to the fore, as is illustrated by the two recordings from the earlier show here, in which roughly cut-off notes are spaced so regularly that their rhythms are like watching a slowed-down strobelight. With run after run of harsh, crude and almost bawdy staccato honking, Abe speedily races through the octaves in ascending and descending anti-order cadence. He breaks regularly into very shrill squeaks and squeals (and the occasional bold wail-melody) and references non-existent simplistic and just about jokey tunes. The eventuall effect is like having someone tapdance on stilletoes on your temple. Some passages are about 50% clearer than others, and at more than one point the fidelity swings sharply, moving from distant, muffled high-pitch screeching tones to furoious forehead-centre blowing gusts in virtual machine-gun arc.

Of the three alto tracks from the October 16 performance, the first is the most impressive. Again beginning with twisting, dancing note clusters that somersault forth from the speakers, Abe soon moves into the increasingly familiar technique of aching, wrenching bursts of heavy shrieking alto, separated by stopwatched periods of silence. Dwelling almost exclusively in the upper register, Abe sets upon the sounds lying within a limited tonal range and squeezes hard, eking an incredibly broad range of textures from an ostensibly small palette. He continues to work thus in the following two pieces, nodding throughout to the temperately expressionistic style he would employ so effectively on the Nord duo with Yoshizawa, and further impressing the change that had by now come about in his playing. Though at this point still slightly unfocused in parts, these recordings offer a significant development of his earlier playing that's simultaneously evolved and honed down/devolved, and are crucial from a historical perspective, showing Abe to be almost out on his own at this point (and also helping to contextualise the efforts of present-day practitioners like Masayoshi Urabe and Tamio Shiraishi). The two sopranino cuts hint at more history to be dug up, like Abe's pieces on bass clarinet showing him to adapt to the instrument rather than forcing the instrument to adapt to him. The first in particular (though at the time of the show possibly intended as introductory in nature) sends lovely, moving and sustained melodies flowering forth, one after another; the second ups the pace, with Abe improvising in light, feathery strokes - a painfully abbreviated look at another potential big gun in Abe's arsenal, the only other available glimpse being the Graves record, and who knows how often Abe actually employed the instrument in the live setting.

Mort À Credit shows Abe in a fascinating period of transition, moving forth to something complexly and identifiably new, yet intransigently rooted in what had come before. Alan Cummings reports that the general consensus in circles there within which Abe's work is known and appreciated is that he was at his best ca. 1970-1973/74, a view I don't think I could ever really significantly disagree with. But for me the period summarised by Mort À Credit is also highly salient. While his earlier recordings focused on energy and an almost self-conscious encompassing of the saxophone's entire range and sonic potential (like some deliberately comprehensive inventory of Sounds You Can Make With An Alto), the material here shows Abe audaciously experimenting with a smaller range of sounds - those inherent in the instrument's upper limits - and pushing them further, narrowing his scope and coming up with improvisations which, in what they attempt to achieve, are arguably even further 'out'.

(– Review by Nick)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Union Records – JUP-3

Format: Vinyl, LP, Reissue / Country: Japan / Released: 1982

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Teichiku Kaikan Studio on September 18 1969.

First vinyl reissue / Press: Japan-1982 / Different cover

Engineer – Mac Onuki

Mixed By – 伊豫部富治 (Tomiharu...?)

Conductor [Time Conduct] – Toshio Sato

Producer – Mitsuhiko Dairoku, Masayuki Takayanagi

All music composed and arrangements by Masayuki Takayanagi

A1- 銀河系 [The Galactic System] ......................................................................... 11:26

A2- 病気のおばさん [Sick...Sick...Sickness...My Aunt] ............................................ 1:12

A3- 習作第３番アップ・アンド・ダウン [Study No.3 Up And Down] .................... 5:55

B1- スペインの牧童の笛 [Herdsman's Pipe Of Spain] ............................................ 6:46

B2- 夜の沼 [Deepnight...Swamp] ............................................................................. 1:24

B3- ピラニア [Piranha] .......................................................................................... 13:22

Masayuki Takayanagi and New Directions:

Masayuki Takayanagi – guitar

Motoharu Yoshizawa – bass, cello, percussion, reeds [folk pipe], voice

Yoshisaburo Toyozumi – drums, percussion

Dear fans of free jazz, today I present to you another beautiful copy from my special collection of rarities. This is a vinyl edition of the album " MASAYUKI TAKAYANAGI And NEW DIRECTIONS – Independence: Tread on Sure Ground“, first vinyl reissue / Press: Japan-1982 / Union Records – JUP-3, with different cover.

Otherwise, originally released in 1970 on Teichiku / Union Records – UPS-2010-J.

This is a quintessential album by Takayanagi Masayuki and it was his debut recording as a leader with his newly erected unit The New Directions, a trio consisting out of bassist (and other instruments) Motoharu Yoshizawa and drummer Yoshizaburo Toyozumi. Recorded at the Teichiku Kaikan studios on 18 September 1969 (released in 1970), Independence – Tread on Sure Ground, is largely regarded as the first true classic of Japanese free jazz. The group thrashes out an entirely new Japanese methodology for improvisation based on Takayanagi's theories about progressive art. As Alan Cummings explains in his texts to review issues, the group's sonic outburst is pregnant with an urgent intensity similar to a violent rotating windstorm.

.....“An electric guitar string is pinged with a sour and markedly unlovely resonance. It is left to fade away naturally, its dying whisper replaced with a wavering feedback tone that grows steadily in volume and thickness. Against the slow feedback wave, a sudden loud percussive crash, urgent staccato rolls across the toms, and the dry rasp of a rattle. A choppy, non-sequential series of chords from the guitar, still mouth-puckeringly bitter is set against the warmer resonance of an alternately bowed and plucked double bass. Each instrument sounds self-contained, like lunar bodies spinning on their own axes at different tempos, but locked together by unfathomably complex rules of motion. Additional percussive rattles and scrapes have been overdubbed to fill in the blank space. Tendrils of feedback snake in and out, like cosmic dust from some cataclysmic celestial event. The playing is exploratory and deliberate, technically adept and keenly judged, easily sustaining interest and motion across the track's eleven minutes. Its sense of focused concentration is more akin to the European free improvisation of AMM or The Spontaneous Music Ensemble than the violent ecstasies of American fire music.”....... (by Alan Cummings).......

Note:

In 1969 Takayanagi formed his New Directions trio (initially Motoharu Yoshizawa on bass and cello, Yoshisaburo Toyozumi on percussion) that proceeded to record Independence (september 1969 - Union, 1970), Call in Question (march 1970 - PSF, 1970), with the addition of Motoreru Takagi on sax.

He also recorded with saxophonist Kaoru Abe (who died of a drug overdose in 1978 at the age of 29): Kaitaiteki Koukan/ Deconstructive Communication, recorded live in june 1970, Gradually Projection (july 1970) and Mass Projection (july 1970), the latter two recorded at the same live performance.

Free Form Suite (may 1972 - Three Blind Mice, 1972), with the three-movement Free Form Suite, credited to New Directions For The Arts with Kenji Mori on clarinet, flute and saxophone, Jazz Guitar Forms (november 1973) for a quartet with Kenji Yokoyama on piano (two side-long jams, Collabolation and Straight Away), April Is The Cruellest Month (may 1975), credited to New Direction Unit but still a quartet with Kenji Mori and a rhythm section, Eclipse (may 1975) and the double-LP Axis Another Revolable Thing Parts 1 & 2 (september 1975), all with the previous line-up.

Panic (august 1974) was a collaboration with pianist Mitsuaki Kanno. Grune Revolution (january 1976) was a collaboration with bassist/cellist Keiki Midorikawa....ect...

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Better Days – YF-7026-N

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1981

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Experimental, Avant-garde Jazz

Recorded At – Nippon Columbia Studio 1981

Illustration – Izumi Takao

Cover – Tztom Toda

Design – Hitoshi Nagasawa

Photography By – Sho Kikuchi

Directed By – Tomohiro Saito

Engineer, Mixed By – Kazuhiro Tokieda

Mixed By – Kazuhiro Tokieda

Producer – Pochi Kashiwabara

A1 - What Time Is It?....................................................................... 8:21

A2 - 4 O'Clock................................................................................ 11:12

B1 - E? E!! E? .................................................................................. 9:51

B2 - Trapper .................................................................................... 8:50

All songs composed and arranged by – Akira Sakata

Musicians:

Akira Sakata – alto saxophone, alto clarinet

Kasutoki Umezu – alto saxophone, bass clarinet

Yoriyuki Harada – bass clarinet

Tomoki Takahashi – tenor saxophone

Seiichi Nakamura – tenor saxophone, clarinet

Ichiko Hashimoto – fortepiano

Shuichi Chino – fortepiano, organ

Shinji Yasuda – trumpet

Haruki Satoh – trombone

Shigeharu Mukai – trombone, bass trombone

Hiroshi Yoshino – bass

Tamio Kawabata – electric bass

Nobuo Fujii, Tony Koba – drums, percussion

Kiyohiko Semba – percussion

Incredible work, Akira Sakata Orchestra (information on the web is very scarce) on this album is create a monstrous specimen of free-jazz, intense improvisations of saxophone and piano, incisive bass, playful rhythm section, best wild jazz with fast movements and rapid pace, ever is changing, collapse, again manic lifting, This is pure hell here.

I think that this album should be in every collection of free-jazz improvisations.

Enjoy!

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: DAM – DOR-0030

Format: Vinyl, LP, 45 RPM / Country: Japan / Released: 1977

Style: Bop, Jazz-Funk, Big Band

Live recording, April 30, 1976, Mitaka City Auditorium Hall.

Leader, Conductor – Toshiyuki Miyama

Arranged By – 前田憲男 (Norio Maeda) ?

Recorded By [Recording Engineer] – Yoshihiko Kannari

Manufactured By – Toshiba EMI Ltd

Rare Japan jazz LP

DAM original live recording 45 RPM!

A1- Theme From Ironside .................................................................... 4:00

(Written-By – Quincy Jones)

A2- Love Supreme Part 1 ..................................................................... 9:05

B - Love Supreme Part 2................................................................... 12:25

(Written-By – John Coltrane)

conductor – Toshiyuki Miyama

alto saxophone – Kazuo Oguro, Shinji Nakayama

baritone saxophone – Miki Matsui

tenor saxophone – Kiyoshi Saito, Shoji Maeda

piano – Yoshinobu Imashiro

guitar – Kozaburo Yamaki

trombone – Masamichi Uetaka, Seiichi Tokura, Takeshi Aoki, Teruhiko Kataoka

trumpet – Bunji Murata, Kenichi Sano, Koji Hatori, Kunio Fujisaki

bass – Masao Kunisada

drums, percussion – Nakamura Yoshio

DAM recording, meeting at Mitaka City Auditorium Hall, original live recording, April 30, 1976. Prestigious Japanese jazz Big Band, NEW HERD led by Toshiyuki Miyama, left behind him many of the masterpieces.

On this album were recorded two unforgettable performances, "Theme From Ironside" and "A Love Supreme" part I and II.

Note:

Well, Quincy Jones was in charge of the music in the classic detective TV drama "Ironside", Raymond Burr is a starring, aired in the United States until 75 years. Here we have a great performance JAZZ FUNK cover to Rare groovy "Theme From Ironside".

Recorded "A Love Supreme" modal cover of John Coltrane are arranged in two parts (the drum solo of Part 2 is a masterpiece !!!).

DAM 45 rotation indeed sound quality. Japanese pressings are renowned for their superb sound quality, as well as the bonus of inner sheets often with full lyrics.

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Frasco – FS-7028

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1979

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live on June 29, 1979 at "Jazz at the Symphony", as part of Newport Jazz Festival

Design – Koga Hirano

Photography By – Yukio Ichikawa

Management – Jam Rice

Music Director – Hiroshi Mitsuka

Engineer [Recording & Mixing Engineer] – David Baker

Producer [For Frasco] – Yosuke Yamashita

Producer [For Jamrice] – Roppei Iwagami

A1- Introduction - Rabbit Dance (Usagi No Dance) ................... 14:50

A2- Mina's Second Theme ......................................................... 10:03

B - Sunayama........................................................................... 14:20

Yosuke Yamashita – piano

Akira Sakata – alto saxophone, alto clarinet

Shohta Koyama – drums, percussion

Beginning in the '70s, his trio toured widely and played many major European events, including the Berlin and Montreux jazz festivals. Yamashita's U.S. debut was at the 1979 Newport Jazz Festival; he also recorded with members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago around that time.

June 29, 1979 in the "Jazz at the Symphony", as part of the Newport Jazz Festival, New York, Yosuke Yamashita Trio presented in the best way, material from their latest studio album „Sunayama“.

Enjoy!

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Frasco – FS-7025

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1978

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Victor Studio, Tokyo, Japan on June 21 and 22, 1978.

Producer – Roppei Iwagami

Director – Hiroshi Mitsuoka

Engineer – David Baker, Yoshikira Suzuki

Manufactured By – Nippon Phonogram Co., Ltd.

Original Japanese press from 1978 on the Frasco label with obi and insert.

A - Sunayama........................................................................ 18:58

B1 - Usagi No Dance - Dedicated To Pepi .............................. 15:06

B2- Anomachi Konomachi ........................................................ 5:01

Yosuke Yamashita – piano

Akira Sakata – alto saxophone

Shohta Koyama – druma, percussion

with

Yasuaki Shimizu – tenor saxophone

Hitoshi Okano – trumpet

Kenji Nakazawa – trumpet

Shigeharu Mukai – trombone

Kiyoshi Sugimoto – guitar (track B1)

Sunayama, recorded at Victor Studio, Tokyo (june 1978) featured standard Yamashita trio: piano – Yosuke Yamashita, alto saxophone – Akira Sakata and drums – Shohta Koyama with tenor saxophone – Yasuaki Shimizu, two trumpets – Hitoshi Okano and Kenji Nakazawa, trombone – Shigeharu Mukai and guitar – Kiyoshi Sugimoto on track B1.

Topnotch album !!!

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Hat Hut Records – Hat Art 1991/92

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, Box Set / Country: Switzerland / Released: 1982

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Track A1 on June 15, 1981, at Thalwil Gemeindehaussaal

Track A2 on October 29, 1981, at Bern Restaurant Schweizerbund

Track B1 on October 28, 1981 at Geneve New Morning

All other on October 30, 1981 at Zürich Bazillus

Cover art by – Klaus Baumgärtner

Photos by – Heinz Heinrich Stoller

Packaging concept by Werner X. Uehlinger

Recorded by – Peter Pfister

Mixed and edited by – Peter Pfister, Mathias Rüegg and Werner X. Uehlinger

Produced by Pia and Werner X. Uehlinger

A1 - Haluk ...................................................................................... 14:05

A2 - Plädoyer For Sir Major Moll ..................................................... 6:10

B1 - Nanan N'z Gang ..................................................................... 11:10

B2- Blue For Two ............................................................................ 6:15

C1- Suite For The Green Eighties Part I ....................................... 11:25

C2 - Suite For The Green Eighties Part II ........................................4:05

D1 - Suite For The Green Eighties Part III ...................................... 7:50

D2 - Suite For The Green Eighties Part IV ...................................... 8:00

D3- Suite For The Green Eighties Part V ....................................... 5:45

Orchestra:

Lauren Newton – voice

Karl Fian – trumpet

Herbert Joos – flugelhorn, baritonhorn, double trumpet, alpenhorn

Christian Radovan – trombone

Billy Fuchs – tuba

Harry Sokal – soprano sax, tenor sax, flute

Wolfgang Puschnig – alto sax, bass clarinet, piccolo flute

Ingo Morgana – tenor sax

Woody Schabata – vibes, marimba, tablas

Uli Scherer – pianos, melodica

Jürgen Wuchner – bass

Wolfgang Reisinger – percussion, drums, paiste gongs

Janusz Stefanski – drums, percussion

Mathias Rüegg – leader, composer, arranger

It might as well be said now so the hate mail can flow fast and free: I happen to agree with music critic/composer and historian Art Lange that Mathias Rüegg, leader, composer, director, etc., of the Vienna Art Orchestra is, without question, Europe's answer to Duke Ellington at the end of the 20th century, though he clearly isn't yet in Ellington's league. With Suite for the Green Eighties, a work inspired in equal parts by the gaining of popularity and power by the Green Party in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Europe, and also by the classic book by Charles Reich called The Greening of America, the five-part work is a crosshatch of jazz, blues, circus music, postmodern harmonic and intervallic invention, and dance music (as in ballet). The temptation to call it a pastiche is too easy to drape over this mammoth construction of color and texture in sound.

Before this suite begins -- and it is actually more like a symphony than a jazz suite -- there are three Rüegg compositions that set the audience up for the drama. There is the New Orleans jazz-flavored "Haluk," with its riveting soprano solo by Harry Sokal; the glorious Gil Evans-ish "Plädaoyer for Sir Mayor Moll," with its elegant quotation from "I Only Have Eyes for You," and microtonal flügelhorn solo by Herbert Joos, which turns the piece inside out and makes it a modal meditation on minor sevenths; and the woolly "Nanan N'Z Gang," which sounds -- in its opening measures -- like it was written in the medina in Morocco or Algeria. It eventually evolves into a post-bop modal stomp with a killer alto sax break from Wolfgang Puschnig. When the "Suite" finally begins, listeners are almost taken off guard since it sounds like a coda. Before the vibes and trumpets go into a dance of intricate counterpoint, the band plays "fliessend," smoothly and evenly, and the movement becomes almost contemplative, with the exception of the two contrapuntal instruments now playing in restrained tones. As the bop horn lines state the theme for the rest of the suite, short, choppy interludes of dissonance and even sets of quiet tone rows are inserted into the melody! Rüegg's harmonic sensibility is so developed that he has no difficulties in traversing isorhythms to get to his desired place. By the time the last movement is reached, one would swear that all elegiac notions have been left behind in order to join Buddy Rich and Count Basie in a Kansas City block party. Swinging brass, jump-start rhythms, and angular solos carry the joyous suite to its impossible ending -- in the quiet of the evening with only the feeling that something new is possible for the first time in a long, long while. (_Review by Thom Jurek)

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Hat Hut Records – hat ART 2032

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album

Country: Switzerland

Released: 1986

Style: Avantgarde Jazz, Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Album was recorded in a French studio while on tour in 1985.

Design – Walter Bosshardt

Photography By – Hans H. Kumpf

Recorded by – Peter Pfister

Mixed and edited by – Peter Pfister, Larry Ochs

Packaging concept by Werner X. Uehlinger

Produced by Pia and Werner X. Uehlinger

A - Terrains ............................................................................. 16:30

B1- Room................................................................................. 10:35

B2- Knife In The Times, Parts 1 + 2.......................................... 6:30

C - Knife In The Times, Parts 3-8 ........................................... 22:50

D1- The Crowd .......................................................................... 19:30

D2- Sport.................................................................................... 3:00

Musicians:

Andrew Voigt – alto saxophone, clarinet

Jon Raskin – baritone saxophone, alto saxophone

Bruce Ackley – soprano saxophone

Larry Ochs – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Rare vinyl 2LP box set, ROVA – The Crowd - for Elias Canetti, Hat Art 2032, is an out of print. This is Swiss press 1986.

Originally constructed as a much longer piece for a commission by composer John Adams for the Bay area saxophone quartet to perform a concert of original material, this shorter, tighter version was heavily influenced by the writings of Nobel laureate Elias Canetti's works. Most notably, his classic sociological text Crowds and Power. This album was recorded in a French studio while on tour in 1985. How a book about the fascistic implications of crowds, their organization, circumstances surrounding their coming into being, and how they are manipulated from outside their framework and a musical work of this size and statue have anything in common is a guess for anyone who hasn't absorbed both sources. But it doesn't matter. The Crowd was a turning point for the original ROVA, which still contained Andrew Voigt. From the freewheeling excesses of their earlier recordings on Meta Language and the more structural framework for improvisation employed on their Soviet tour of 1983 to this piece, ROVA had become a finely tuned machine. The Crowd is seamless in both composition and execution after the first few minutes that is "Sport," and directly into the nearly 20-minute title work it becomes impossible for the listener to know what was written and what was improvised. Certainly each member of this group solos, but it is the simultaneous improvisation and the harmonic texture of the composition itself that winds and weaves its way not only though different musical territory (there is even a section that nods toward Adams and Philip Glass), but diverse emotional ground is covered as well. To call this music "jazz" would be both accurate and a mistake, for it is both entirely jazz and not at all; to call it "free music" or "new music" would be just plain lazy and stupid; to call this ROVA music would make sense. From swing to Baroque quotations to minimalist serialism, free jazz, Herbie Nichols, Thelonious Monk, and even ragtime, the Crowd contains every kind of human voice, all together but as separate beings, just like those in Canetti's book. Where they are separate, however, is in the multivalent language they express and signify: As a group, or a "crowd," ROVA uses a self-created language to express the needs of each of its individual players, all borrowing and lending from one another as ideas or structural framework dictate. In Canetti's book, the individual is consumed within the frightening crowd, no longer conscious at all of her or his own motives, but only there to serve the ends of power. That ROVA can mirror this sentiment and thought process so well with a recording is a phenomenal thing, that they can do it and make it a joy to listen to an encounter without knowledge of the original work is what made them so special at the time they recorded this. Bravo. (_Review by Thom Jurek)

NOTE:

Elias Canetti / Crowds and Power, a masterwork of philosophical anthropology.

(Nobel Prize in 1981).

Crowds and Power is a revolutionary work in which Elias Canetti finds a new way of looking at human history and psychology. Breathtaking in its range and erudition, it explores Shiite festivals and the English Civil war, the finger exercises of monkeys and the effects of inflation in Weimar Germany. In this study of the interplay of crowds, Canetti offers one of the most profound and startling portraits of the human condition.

The style is abstract, erudite, and anecdotal, which makes Crowds and Power the sort of work that awe some readers with its profundity while irritating others with its elusiveness. Canetti loves to say something brilliant but counterintuitive, and then leave the reader to figure out both why he said it and whether it's really true. -- Richard Farr

Buy this excellent book:

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374518203/braipick-20

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Le Chant Du Monde – LDX 74526

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Repress, Gatefold / Country: France / Released: 1973

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live at Châteauvallon, August 23, 1972.

Design – Henri Galeron

Photography By – Guy Le Querrec

Engineer – Bruno Menny, Jean-Bernard Plé

Supervised By [Recording] – André Francis

Executive Producer – Daniel Richard

Matrix / Runout (Side A Label): XWG 74526 A

Matrix / Runout (Side B Label): XWG 74526 B

A- No, No, But It May Be ........................................................... 19:46

B- No, No, But It May Be (2e T.) ................................................ 24:30

Michel Portal: clarinets, bass, double bass, alto & sopranino sax, taragot

Bernard Vitet: trumpet, horn, violin

Léon Francioli: double bass

Beb Guérin: double bass

Pierre Favre: percussions

Tamia: vocal

Rare LP, French Press only; this record : 271 grams + package weight : 250 grams

...One of the artists that incorporates that huge creative streak, goes by the name of Michel Portal and those who minimally know his music, are aware of his constant search for new sounds, taking advantage of his provocative attitude to motivate himself towards new horizons...
In the autumn of 1973 by the Chant du Monde, the concert Michel Portal Unit to À Châteauvallon upset many minds and inspired a generation of French musicians.

Michel Portal, born in 1935 (Bayonne, France) stands out as a composer, clarinetist and saxophonist, while several other instruments like the bandoneon (small accordion) are also part of his repertoire.

In addition to having studied clarinet at the Paris Conservatoire, he also studied conducting with Pierre Dervaux, which would give him a solid background for future projects.

The diversity (or dissatisfaction) is present over a considerable part of the career of this unusual artist. Apart from multi-instrumentalist, also when it comes to musical genres, Portal has whittled different ways throughout his extensive career.

His musical anarchist tendencies revealed in different ways: in the participations with Stockhausen in the late 60s, the award-winning movie soundtracks and the reference pieces of contemporary or classical music, such as the remarkable participation as soloist in “Domaines” of Pierre Boulez.

But despite his artistic diversity, one of the labels he cannot get rid of, is the “father of the French modern jazz”, being considered by many as one of the architects of modern jazz and improvised music in the old continent. This reputable title comes from the fact that he participated in the initial phase of the free jazz movement in France (late 60’s) with musicians such as François Tusques, Bernard Vitet or Sunny Murray.

With the aim of promoting instant composition and collective improvisation, Portal still formed the “New Phonic Art” (1969) and developed a strong partnership with John Surman (first record of the Michel Portal Unit, created in 1971).

“No, no but it maybe” was recorded in Chateauvallon on August 23, 1972 during a live performance. The recording by ORTF (Office de Télévision Française Radiodiffusion) had its first edition by the extinct “Chant du Monde”.

This session of about 45 minutes of pure listening pleasure, has no line-up or separation of tracks; only the magic of improvised music interpreted with great mastery.

Despite this excellent work having on the soils of Michel Portal and Bernard Vitet (who died on July 3, 2013) the main protagonists, the other elements of this group have an equally important contribution in creating pieces of great richness.

The first part presents us a deep atmosphere, marked by the rhythm of the bass and the interventions of Portal and Vitet on the reeds and horns. The percussion (Pierre Favre) and the double-bass with bow (Beb Guerin, Léon Francioli) also join this exclusive creation, conveying the idea of a natural atmosphere that grows in rhythmic intensity until its end.

The B side, in a something obscure and enigmatic line (with influences of movie soundtracks) includes a beautiful performance of targot (instrument of clarinet family) whose intriguing sounding triggers some vocal interventions (cries and whimpers) by way of incentive. While a tribal and theatrical sound develops in intensity, joins Tamia’s voice by way of scat-singing.

The instrumental diversity used throughout this session is extremely well coordinated, revealing the individual conscience of each element in favor of the collective sound, even in the case of an exercise of pure improvisation. Perhaps that’s why the name (Michel Portal) “Unit” makes some sense.

Given the difficulty in describing in words the result of this work, it is particularly important to hear it and feel it and therefore, no hesitation in recommending this work to all who are interested in the European free jazz movement.

With almost 80 years of age, Michel Portal continues active and although no longer recording with the regularity of the past, he continues to incorporate in his music a contagious energy. His last works alternate between Jazz (Bailador, 2010) and interpretations of classical composers like Mozart or Brahms. As for his next work, nobody knows, but will certainly have the stamp of innovation and excellence that this great artist has used throughout his career of over 45 years.

Absolument génial, Monsieur Portal!

Review by Mister W

Text taken from:

http://thejazzspot.tumblr.com/post/96501010638/michel-portal-unit-%C3%A0-chateauvallon-no-no-but

I thank Mister W.

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: Le Chant Du Monde – LDX 74706

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: France / Released: 1979

Style: Experimental, Free Improvisation, Free Jazz

Recorded at studio Solaris, Paris, France, July 13 & 14, 1978.

Photography – Siegfried Kessler

Layout – Anne-Marie Dufour

Recorded By – Armand Friedman, Dominique Pauvros

Matrix / Runout (Side A Label): XC1I 74706 A

Matrix / Runout (Side B Label): XC1I 74706 B

A1 - Danse Du Stampe..................................................................... 5:08

A2 - Rêve D'un Vol........................................................................... 6:32

A3- Pizzicato D'antennes .................................................................2:02

A4 - Rock 83,000 Pieds D'altitude.................................................... 3:15

A5 - Swinging S.K. 13, Swagin' Cap 10 ........................................... 4:10

B1 - Espace Cathédrale ................................................................... 7:18

B2 - Chant Du Bijave........................................................................ 4:17

B3- Cumulo-Nimbus ........................................................................3:00

B4 - Phenix Re-naissance ................................................................ 5:32

Siegfried Kessler – clavinet, organ, piano

Jean-François Pauvros – electric guitar [Jacobacci]

Pauvros, a well-known avant garde guitarist composer & performer. He met and plays since the early 70s with the most renown musicians (Ted Milton/Blurt, Arto Lindsay/DNA, Elliot Sharp/Carbon). Part of Catalogue with Jac Berrocal and Gilbert Artman (Lard Free & Urban Sax). Siegfried Kessler played with numerous artists and namely Yochk'o Seffer. Considered as one of the most brilliant pianists of his time...

This is a magical record, absolute masterpiece.

There are several ways to master the fear of emptiness. In music, it is alone with his instrument that reveals the most pressing. But improvisation, that moment of weightlessness happiness that rewards long years of work sometimes turns into minutes of boredom, ecstasy or shame. To master the fear, you have to let go as they say in TV-hooks fashionable to jump naked into the mouth of the ogre. The vacuum also dominates the amateur aerobatics. At the helm of the cuckoo, there is then no question of improvisation for the pilot, everything seems thought studied as a tool for each function, dials numbers, a broom handle and so many other things to handle. A calm and control force, he will fly to the worst in gravity-defying acrobatics. Improvisation and technology, pushed to their limits are rare, and when these two qualities are found in one man, it borders on the fantastic.

Siegfried Kessler, German pianist and installed in France was this rather special timber, a fanatic aerobatics, a real, to the point that will make a record, at a time when the talent still allowed some daring. Phenix 14 is thus a recueuil impressions, music and freely inspired tensions aircraft, air, metal and unequal fight that they indulge without respite.

Accompanied by Jean-François Pauvros on guitar, the unlikely duo resembles one of those improbable cinema alloys where the two heroes who oppose eventually best friends. With his mop to Tahiti Bob and small glasses Pauvros like a conscientious objector all ready to be lectured by Kessler sergeant with his steely gaze and his aviator outfit is furiously thinking about a guy that must not do shit too. But the music of the two men, instinctive to excess, boiling, simmering ( "Pizzicato antenna"), energetic, it is nothing artificial, she speaks from heaven and she talks to you in the guts.

The large gap also does not stop the protagonists. The musical journey of Siegfried Kessler capable alongside Didier Levallet both of the free bold as to accompany the classic singer Jacques Bertin, and always on the very institutional and exciting label "Le Chant du Monde" that will given the words to all music and all the revolts that these carting behind. Excellence at the service of more or less popular singers of that time seems to be the witness of a bygone era where human connections flouted labels of all kinds. In the same vein, we think Francois Beranger who played in all relaxation alongside the great guitarist Jean-Pierre Alarcen (and vice versa) yet it it offended anyone. And deeper still, this absolutely free music made the big difference...

The album concludes with Phenix Rebirth, exciting piece, torn between the two musicians. Remove the guitar, he still plays some contemporary Kessler notes, remove the piano, there remains a sticky guitar solo, violent, but together the great voodoo operates.

Translated from French:

http://lesdisquesnousparlent.overblog.com/siegfried-kessler-jean-francois-pauvros-phenix-14-le-chant-du-monde-1978

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: NoBusiness Records – NBLP 35/36 + NBEP1

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album + Vinyl 7", Single Sided / Limited edition of 600 records

Country: Lithuania / Released: Jul 2011

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded 14th nov 2009 at België, Hasselt, Belgium.

Design – Oskaras Anosovas

Photography By [7" Cover Photo] – Olof Madsen

Photography By [Booklet Photos] – Ziga Koritnik

Mixed By, Mastered By – Michael W. Huon

Executive-Producer – Danas Mikailionis, Valerij Anosov

Producer – Tarfala Trio

A - Broken By Fire ....................................................................... 21:30

B - Lapilli Fragments ...................................................................17:43

C- Cool In Flight ........................................................................... 6:41

D- Tephra .................................................................................... 22:10

+ one-sided 7'' EP

E - Syzygy ................................................................................... 19:16

Tarfala Trio:

Mats Gustafsson – tenor saxophone, alto fluteophone

Barry Guy – double bass

Raymond Strid – drums, percussion

This is a double limited gatefold vinyl edition only, which, as a bonus, contains one-sided 7“ EP and a booklet of photos of the musicians playing live.

NoBusiness Records NBLP35/36 + NBEP1, 2011, limited edition of 600 records. Sold Out.

http://nobusinessrecords.com/NBLP35-36.php

Sometimes one has to admit that, as much of a connection as free improvisation has with the heart of jazz — an approach to music and life that has its roots in spontaneity — it’s sometimes a bit of a tenuous relationship. European free improvisation has a lengthy history going back to the heady late 1960s, as musicians weaned on traditional jazz and bebop searched for ways to distance themselves from cultural-geographic implications quite different from broad European-ness. In places like Scandinavia, it was ironically the influence of African-American jazz musicians like Don Cherry and Albert Ayler, both resident in Sweden in the 1960s, that helped free up local musicians from American influence. Cherry’s effect on the Stockholm scene of the time — including saxophonists like Bernt Rosengren and Bengt “Frippe” Nordström, pianist Jan Wallgren, and itinerant Turkish drummer Okay Temiz and trumpeter Maffy Falay — cannot be underestimated.

Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson studied with Nordström and also worked with veteran European heavies like Peter Brötzmann (Germany), Günter Christmann (Germany), and Sven-Åke Johansson (Sweden/Germany) throughout the 1980s and 1990s. At this point, he’s one of the leading lights of European free improvisation and has, through integrating it with a longtime interest and experience in punk rock and psychedelia, brought the music to a diverse stage. Lately, his collaborations seem to draw as much from the noise and art-rock end of the spectrum as they do improvised music and jazz, but that’s not to say his roots don’t often show.

The Tarfala Trio is a cooperative venture that also features English contrabassist Barry Guy and fellow Swede, percussionist Raymond Strid (Gush, Too Much Too Soon Orchestra). With its roots going back to 1992, the group has gigged around Europe, including collaborations with pianists Sten Sandell and Marilyn Crispell, drummer Alvin Fielder, and saxophonist Kidd Jordan. Curiously, Syzygy is the trio’s second proper recording in nearly two decades of existence, featuring four sidelong improvisations on two slabs of heavyweight vinyl with the addition of a bonus 7-inch. In true Gustafsson “diskaholic” style, the package itself is absolutely stunning, housed in a heavyweight gatefold with a gorgeous LP-sized booklet of photos by Ziga Koritnik. The music was recorded live in Belgium in fine detail, making this a very high-end and honest document of European free music.

With reputations for both full-bore freedom and rarefied insectile distance, it’s easy to forget that things like lyricism and delicacy are important, that players with as much pedigree as Gustafsson and Strid are capable of poetic statements. Part of this group’s penchant for simple give-and-take might be due to Guy’s presence. The bassist has been a significant figure on the landscape of creative music since 1967, and he shows no sign of letting up — “supple orchestration” could be his nom de plume. From the opening entreaties of “Broken by Fire,” the saxophonist’s tenor coagulations nod equally to Evan Parker and Albert Ayler, logical incisions that ultimately catapult in steely, go-for-broke exploration. Although a first-time listener might not know it, Gustafsson is almost reined-in here, dipping and shouting as he bunches, blats, and stretches out on newfound tightropes. Guy and Strid are absolutely nothing like Thing collaborators Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love, rather constructing a lacy accenting thrum that’s constantly on the verge of disappearing. Constancy is, of course, the stock in trade of this rhythm section, ebbing and lapping cymbals enveloping the five-string filigree of Guy’s manhandled classicism. When Strid switches to a bevy of mallets and small objects, his phrases mirror Gustafsson’s flutter in beautiful succession; the three build tension expertly as Guy strums and swirls against breathy harmonics and eventual pulpit-pounding. The side closes with velvety, somber crooning, drawn arco and tapped gongs in huge, sweet counterpoint.

The third side’s “Cool in Flight” begins as a duo for bass and tenor, recalling the excellent Guy-Gustafsson duo LP Sinners, Rather than Saints (No Business, 2009) with slap-tongue drawn into burred lines. Jamming mallets and objects into the strings, Guy’s pizzicato solo sounds more like a brutish take on prepared piano à la Juan Hidalgo or the Swedish guitar wizard Christian Munthe. As the saxophonist reenters and tries to find a matching cadence, it sounds more akin to a drunken clamber. But the trio’s empathy is borne out through steadfastness as“wrong-ish” notes and phrases become “right.” Dogged volleys are rhythmic through lungpower and athleticism, glossolalic screams granted a workmanlike search as Strid and Guy maintain a toe-tapping rigor. There’s a winsome quality to the bassist’s upper-register strums alongside Gustafsson’s simple closing phrases, which recall Archie Shepp’s protest-pastoral “There is a Balm in Gilead.” This performance alone is worth the price of the set.

Taking two 20-minute slices out of an 85-minute set might seem disingenuous, but there’s so much music on offer here that giving it all away in platitudes seems more unfair. It’s worth noting again that a significant swath of Gustafsson’s work of the last several years has been wrapped in lung-busting machismo, tight t-shirts and wagging tongues alongside free-jazz covers of punk rock tunes. That music has its own attraction — outdoing PJ Harvey on “Who the Fuck,” for instance — but without denigrating the world-class improvisation that goes on in The Thing, Fire, and other groups, the Tarfala Trio embraces subtlety as much as it does the full-bore. There are snatches of jazz, or maybe the whole thing is “jazz,” depending on how open your definition of the music is — danger, excitement, love, and knowledge, where the only preordained structure is empathy.

by CLIFFORD ALLEN

If you find it, buy this album!

Label: NoBusiness Records – NBLP 37

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Limited edition of 400 copies

Country: Lithuania / Released: Jul 2011 / LP press in Germany

Style: Free Improvisation, Free Jazz

Recorded April 6, 2010 at Namouche Studio, Lisbon

Recorded By – Joaquim Monte

Mixed by – John Butcher

Mastered by – Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios

Design by – Oskaras Anosovas

Cover printed in Lithuania by UAB“Garsy pasaulis“

Produced by RED trio and John Butcher

Executive production by Danas Mikailionis and Valerij Anosov

A1- Sustained ................................................................................ 7:00

A2- Pachyderm ............................................................................ 17:02

B - Empire ...................................................................................23:34

Music By – Rodrigo Pinheiro, Gabriel Ferrandini, Hernani Faustino, John Butcher

RED TRIO:

Rodrigo Pinheiro - piano

Hernani Faustino - double bass

Gabriel Ferrandini - drums and percussion

John Butcher - tenor and soprano saxophone

NoBusiness Records NBLP37, 2011 / Limited edition of 400 copies. Sold Out.

http://nobusinessrecords.com/NBLP37.php

Although it may be fanciful to suggest that this is British saxophonist John Butcher’s Hard Rock record, his playing is certainly more voluble, raunchy and strident than on the majority of his recent sessions.

It may be because on this three-track LP the master of cerebral understatement is matched up with a trio of Portuguese Gen Xes who in this context enliven the common piano-bass-drum trio with enough rough and physical textures to frighten fans that prefer impressionistic pastels. That’s rough, but not crude however, for pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro, bassist Hernani Faustino and percussionist Gabriel Ferrandini have demonstrated a sensitive interface on other discs.
Besides touring the Iberian Peninsula with Butcher, the Lisbon-based trio members have a working knowledge of Rock; have played as a group with American avant trumpeter Nate Wooley; and individually worked with other anything-but-shy improvisers such as saxophonist John Zorn (Pinheiro), saxophonist Jon Irabagon, (Faustino) and cornetist Rob Mazurek (Ferrandini).

Whatever it is, as early as the first track, Butcher lots unbrace with some thickly vibrating and splintering altissimo punctuation that`s a lot closer to 1960s Free Jazz expression than what he usually plays. Meanwhile Pinheiro, for one, spurs minimalism, instead studding his solos with swift soundboard echoes, internal string strumming and high-intensity chording. Similarly as the expositions are developed, there are times when slide-whistle-like shrilling is heard. With his saxophone mastery, Butcher could be adding an intense parallel line to his improvisations. Or, on the other hand, the screech could arise from Ferrandini’s percussion mastery, which includes hand-patting drags, rim shots and flams plus measured cymbal claps and stentorian thumps. Nonetheless it’s the pianist who is most percussive in his playing. Frequently tremolo and highly syncopated, his circular keyboard chording sometimes matches the saxophonist’s circular breathing. Other times he’ll focus on repeated, high-pitched key clicking or use pressure to expose the deepest vibrations from his instrument. For his part, Butcher stresses trills that are watery and murmuring at one point, yet ascend to staccato interstellar-space exaggerations at others. In a way odd man out, Faustino keeps time and stays out of the way.

Exposing individual variants of note distension early on, the four-way communication reaches a climax of cumulative tension on the final and title track. With the bassist finally asserting himself with sul ponticello and col leno swipes and the percussionist’s mallet-driven chops providing the backdrop, the more-than-23-minute exposition bounds from Butcher to Pinheiro and back again. The pianist’s chromatic keyboard work takes in tremolo cadences in the instrument’s lowest register until he breaks free for friction-laden episodes of syncopated string strumming. Meantime the saxophonist blasts out juddering multiphonics, slurring, stuttering and splaying broken chords. In short order the nearly three-dimensional polyphony reaches a crescendo of drilling reed bites and nephritic honks matched with keyboard claps, clips and smacks until both are cut off and the narrative is completed by an isolated string pluck from Faustino.

Likely to be a unique entry in both Butcher’s and the Red trio’s discographies, Empire is a wild ride that should be experienced by everyone, music which shatters preconceptions.

—Ken Waxman

Not to be missed if you have a sense of adventure.

I recommend that you buy their recently released a new album:

https://cleanfeed-records.com/product/summer-skyshift/

https://www.discogs.com/RED-Trio-John-Butcher-Summer-Skyshift/release/8507374

If you find it, buy this album!

DEREK BAILEY / HAN BENNINK - Derek Bailey / Han Bennink (LP-1972-Incus–9)

WARNE MARSH – Ne Plus Ultra (LP-1970-REV-12)

THE GRAHAM COLLIER SEPTET – Deep Dark Blue Centre (LP-1967-SML 1005)

LA MONTE YOUNG / MARIAN ZAZEELA – 31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta (1969)

LA MONTE YOUNG and THE FOREVER BAD BLUES BAND – Just Stompin' (Live At The Kitchen) - 2CD/Gramavision-1993

LA MONTE YOUNG / MARIAN ZAZEELA - The Theatre Of Eternal Music – Dream House 78'17" (LP-1974)

FAUST – The Faust Tapes (LP-1973)

FAUST – Faust (LP-1971)

KAORU ABE – Mort À Crédit (2LP-1976- ALM Records-AL-8/AL-9)

MASAYUKI TAKAYANAGI And NEW DIRECTIONS – Independence: Tread on Sure Ground (LP-1970 / Re:LP-1982)

SAKATA ORCHESTRA – 4 O'Clock (LP-1981-Better Days – YF-7026-N)

TOSHIYUKI MIYAMA and THE NEW HERD – Live! New Herd (LP-1977)

YOSUKE YAMASHITA TRIO – Hot Menu - Live At The Newport Jazz Festival (LP-1979-Frasco – FS-7028)

YOSUKE YAMASHITA TRIO – Sunayama (LP-1978-Frasco – FS-7025)

VIENNA ART ORCHESTRA – Suite For The Green Eighties (2LP-1982)

ROVA – The Crowd - For Elias Canetti (2LP-1986-Hat Hut Rec – hat ART 2032)

MICHEL PORTAL – À Chateauvallon - No, No But It May Be (Michel Portal Unit) LP-1973-Le Chant Du Monde - LDX 74526

SIEGFRIED KESSLER /JEAN-FRANÇOIS PAUVROS – Phenix 14 (LP-1979-Le Chant Du Monde - LDX 74706)

TARFALA TRIO: Mats Gustafsson / Barry Guy / Raymond Strid – Syzygy (2LP-2011)

RED TRIO + JOHN BUTCHER – Empire (LP-2011-NoBusiness Records - NBLP 37)