Donnerstag, 22. Oktober 2015
Freitag, 7. August 2015
4 Star Review: Schlippenbach Trio - Features (John Fordham / The Guardian)
The Guardian
/ John Fordham
Schlippenbach
Trio: Features (Intakt)
Improvised
by master craftsmen
4 / 5 stars
The trio of Alex von
Schlippenbach, saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens are
nowadays that enemy of free-improv purity: an institution (the three have
played together for 45 years). But if they can almost unerringly read each
other’s minds, their methods have never hardened into habit, and their work
over the decades has immense variety. There are 15 numbered Features here, and
they are tautly concise, and often defined by improvised openings by one or
other participant that shape their developing character. Feature 1 begins very
melodically, developing with logical rigour and ends on a haunting multiphonic
sustained tone. Some pieces weave Parker’s nimble mid-range tenor sax lines
through percussive backdrops of banging chords and Lovens’ light, scuttling
patterns; some are soft and ballad-like. Feature 6 highlights Schlippenbach as
a brusque romantic; Feature 8 sounds like jazzy call-and-response; Feature 11
is a tone poem for Parker’s remarkable textural palette. It’s unpremeditated
music executed by master craftsmen.
Mittwoch, 22. Juli 2015
Freitag, 26. Juni 2015
4 star review: MARILYN CRISPELL / GERRY HEMINGWAY in THE GUARDIAN
(Intakt)
With Affinities in 2011, the partnership of former Anthony Braxton players Marilyn Crispell (piano) and Gerry Hemingway (drums) produced improv-duo music of power, precision and lyricism. Table of Changes is another live album, drawn from four dates on their 2013 European tour. The tracks are all originals, highlighting the players’ emotional as well as technical range, with the only cover being Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye – interpreted in solemn, spacey chords and percussion tapestries until the melody coalesces at the end. Crispell’s strength, decisiveness and energy often surface in the turbulent chordwork that rolls and rings against Hemingway’s needling cymbal sounds and pummelling drums, but she’s as likely to float glistening treble tones over the drummer’s vibraphone glow or the pings of finger-cymbals. The dreamy and then darkening Night Passing focuses on Crispell’s use of space and harmonic sophistication; Hemingway’s rubbed-metal sounds and ghostly nasal singing emphasise the title implications of Windy City while Crispell rhapsodises classically. It’s an uncannily attuned partnership.
Mittwoch, 22. April 2015
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