Wednesday, September 28, 2016

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




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!

Friday, September 16, 2016

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




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!

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

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




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!

Thursday, September 1, 2016

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




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
℗ + © 1986 Hat Hut Records Ltd.

A   -  Terrains ............................................................................. 16:30
B1Room ................................................................................. 10:35
B2Knife 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!