NOAH HOWARD – Patterns (Altsax Rec. – AMC 1000 / LP-1973)

Label: Altsax – AMC 1000

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1973

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded in Hilversum, Holland, October 1971.

Design at Photography – Chas. Baum and Daphne Warburg

Mastered At – Sadler Recording Service

Lacquer Cut At – Bell Sound Studios

Matrix / Runout (Side A, hand-etched): AMC⋅1000⋅A Bre 6 - 4 - 73

Matrix / Runout (Side B, hand-etched): AMC.1000⋅B Bre 6 - 4 - 73

A - Patterns .......................................................................................... 18:41

B - Patterns (continued) ....................................................................... 18:45

Composition by Noah Howard

Noah Howard – alto saxophone, bells, tambourine, timpani

Misha Mengelberg – piano

Earl Freeman – bass

Jaap Schoonhoven – electric guitar

Steve Boston – congas

Han Bennink – percussion

A nice obscure one from Noah Howard, recorded in Holland during his time in Europe, and featuring a great lineup that includes Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink. The album is one long track – "Patterns" – in which Howard solos in a fairly free, post-Coltrane kind of way, although the other players retain more of their own styles.  (Dusty Groove, Inc.)

Originally issued on his own AltSax label in 1971, the "Patterns" session is one of the great mystery spots in the Noah Howard canon... The blasted opening sequence, which we seem to enter whilst already in-process, is a space duet for conga & electric guitar unprecedented in the annals of jazz & new music. When the rest of the musicians enter there is a heavy attempt to africanize Dutch architecture, a proposition which Mr. Mengelberg seems reluctant to accept. What eventually occurs is a primitivist aerial slugfest that invokes a world of shared experience, then negates its substantiality with hammers of nihilist beauty. Emblematic of the end of Europe's open arms policy towards America's expatriate improvisers, "Patterns" remains a nobly ferocious, confounding ghost.

_Review by Byron Coley

If you find it, buy this album!

MISHA MENGELBERG and ICP ORCHESTRA – Japan Japon (LP-1982 + 7inch single)

Label: Instant Composers Pool ‎– ICP 024, DIW ‎– DIW 1014,

           International Music Activity ‎– IMA 1

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

Style: Free Improvisation

Recorded on 11 May 1982 at Osaka and 17 May 1982 in Tokyo.

Recording Engineer by – Tsutomu Suto

Painting and design by – Tomiyasu Shiraiwa

Back cover photos by – Mitsuyoshi Nishida and Tsutomu Suto

Includes liner notes in Japanese by Kazunori Sugiyama

Produced by IMA (International Music Activity)

Co-produced by ICP (Instant Composers Pool)

This Japanese release included limited bonus 7inch single:

ICP ORCHESTRA – Caravan, DIW  1001, 33 1/3 rpm, (JAP) 1982

A1 - Salute To Fujisawa Shukoh ................................................ 2:50

A2 - Kwela ................................................................................ 17:42

a)      Hap

b)      Boodschappen

c)      Welkom

d)      Briefkaart

e)      Maurits

B1 - Habanera ............................................................................ 6:21

B2 - Carnaval ............................................................................. 3:35

B3 - Japan Japon ....................................................................... 7:10

B4 - Zing Zang Zaterdag ............................................................ 3:14

+

C  -  Caravan (7inch single) ........................................................ 7:12

Artists:

Misha Mengelberg – piano, voice

Han Bennink – drums, percussion

Peter Brötzmann – tenor sax, alto sax, bass sax, voice

Keshavan Maslak – tenor sax, alto sax, voice

Michael Moore – alto sax, clarinet

Toshinori Kondo – trumpet, voice

Walter Wierbos – trombone

Joep Maassen – trombone

Larry Fishkind – tuba

Maurice Horsthuis – viola

Recorded live on May 11th (Osaka) and 17th (Tokyo),  ICP Orchestra Japan Tour in 1982.

Instant Composers Pool (ICP) is an independent Dutch jazz and improvised music label and orchestra. Founded in 1967, the label takes its name from the notion that improvisation is "instant composition". The ICP label has published more than 50 releases to date, with most of its releases featuring the ICP Orchestra and its members.

In 1967 saxophonist Willem Breuker, pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink founded the ICP label in Amsterdam. Mengelberg and Bennink had been playing together since 1961 and found success as members of Eric Dolphy's quartet in 1964, as documented on his live album Last Date. Mengelberg had also been involved in the Fluxus art movement and was developing a composition style that involved musical games. As European free jazz musicians, they were butting up against disinterest in their music from contemporary jazz labels, so they formed a cooperative as a means to release their own recordings. Mengelberg coined the label's name as a testament to improvisation being composition at the instant that the music is played. ICP's first records documented Breuker and Bennink's New Acoustic Swing Duo, and a trio of Mengelberg and Bennink with John Tchicai, whose album was titled Instant Composers Pool...

Breuker left ICP in 1974 to concentrate on his group, the Willem Breuker Collective, and went on to found his own record label, BVHaast. Mengelberg and Bennink intensified their collaboration and, widening their own musical project as the Instant Composers Pool Tentet with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and cellist Tristan Honsinger. Throughout the 1970s, the ICP label continued to release records, many as co-productions with other European independent labels, including albums by Jeanne Lee, Derek Bailey, Dudu Pukwana, Steve Lacy, Paul Rutherford, Evan Parker, Maarten Altena and Peter Brötzmann. Most of these releases were of limited (and sometimes even numbered) edition and featured a distinctive idiosyncratic graphic design by Bennink.

 LP Japan Japon + 7inch single – Caravan

A stunning early 80s performance from pianist Misha Mengelberg – working here with the ICP Orchestra, and at a level that's completely fresh and very striking – at a mode when the Dutch jazz approach was something very new indeed, and handled here with a wonderful balance between playful arrangements and fierce improvisations! In addition to Misha on piano, the lineup also includes Han Bennink on drums and percussion, Keshavan Maslak on alto, Walter Wierbos on trombone, Peter Brötzmann on alto and baritone, Maurice Horsthuis on viola, and Toshinori Kondo on trumpet – and most of the players vocalize at some point – but in ways that aren't really singing, and instead act as a great addition to their improvised musicianship. Larry Fishkind also throws in some incredible work on tuba – really amazing sounds – and titles include "Kwela", "Japan Japon", "Habanera", "Carnaval" and "Zing Zang Zaterdag".........

and +

ICP ORCHESTRA – Caravan, DIW  1001, 33 1/3 rpm, (JAP) 1982

One sided rare 7” , released together with ”Japan Japon” 12” LP

Another Japan released musical BOMB…. The legendary ICP Orchestra  under chef Mengelberg´s  leadership playing Ellington´s Caravan in a very wonderful and dreamy way… until… until… Peter Brötzmann enters the stage with some WILD blowing that makes hearts and clocks stop. Totally beautiful playing from Brötzmann, absolutely over the top. The greatest story teller of them all, hits again.

Listening to this music makes the world feel like a better place to be.

Enjoy!

If you find it, buy this album!

ERIC DOLPHY – Last Date (LP-1964)

Label: Limelight – LM 82013

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold cover / Country: US / Released: 1964

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live, June 2nd, 1964. in Hilversum, Holland.

Rare Limelight LP, in the bottom right corner of jacket states Monaural 82013.

Producer: Radio Jazz Club, Co-producer: Jazz Magazine

Gatefold cover with 8-page booklet

Illustration – Z. Jastrzebski

Photography By – Chuck Stewart, Don Schlitten

Liner Notes – Nat Hentoff

Matrix in dead wax side one: LM 82013A M1

Matrix in dead wax side two: LM 82013B M1

A1 - Epistrophy ...................................................................................... 11:15

        (Composed By – Th. Monk)

A2 - South Street Exit .............................................................................. 7:20

        (Composed By – E. Dolphy)

A3 - The Madrig Speaks, The Panther Walks ......................................... 4:50

        (Composed By – E. Dolphy)

B1 - Hypochristmutreefuzz ...................................................................... 5:25

        (Composed By – M. Mengelberg)

B2 - You Don't Know What Love Is ...................................................... 11:20

        (Composed By – D. Raye, De Paul)

B3 - Miss Ann .......................................................................................... 5:25

        (Composed By – E. Dolphy)

Eric Dolphy – alto sax, flute, bass clarinet

Misja (Misha) Mengelberg – piano

Jacques Schols – bass

Han Bennink – drums, percussion

Recorded at Hilversum, Holland, June 2, 1964 before a selected audience.

Allegedly Eric Dolphy's final recorded performance -- a fact historians roundly dispute -- this session in Hilversum, Holland, teams the masterful bass clarinetist, flutist, and alto saxophonist with a Dutch trio of performers who understand the ways in which their hero and leader modified music in such a unique, passionate, and purposeful way far from convention.

 illustration – Z. Jastrzebski / photography – Chuck Stewart, Don Schlitten

In pianist Misha Mengelberg, bassist Jacques Schols, and drummer Han Bennink, Dolphy was firmly entwined with a group who understood his off-kilter, pretzel logic concept in shaping melodies and harmonies that were prime extensions of Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, and Cecil Taylor. These three Dolphy originals, one from Monk, one from Mengelberg, and a standard are played so convincingly and with the utmost courage that they created a final stand in the development of how the woodwindist conceived of jazz like no one else before, during, or after his life.

Utterly masterful on his flute during "You Don't Know What Love Is," Dolphy's high-drama vibrato tones are simply out of this or any other world, perfectly emoting the bittersweet intent of this song. The ribald humor demonstrated during "Miss Ann" is a signature sound of Dolphy's alto sax, angular like Monk, jovial and more out of the box while he digs in. Where "Epistrophy" might seem standard fare to some, with Dolphy on bass clarinet it is based on voicings even more obtuse than the composer's concept, bouncing along the wings of Mengelberg's piano lines. The post-bop blues of "South Street Exit" is tuneful while also breaking off into tangents, with Bennink's crazy drumming acting like shooting, exploding stars. As the definitive track on this album, "The Madrig Speaks, the Panther Walks" demonstrates the inside-out concept, with mixed tempos changed at will and a 6/8 time insert with Dolphy's choppy alto merging into playful segments as the title suggests -- a most delightful track. The ridiculously titled "Hypochristmutreefuzz" might be the most understated fare in its more simple angularity, as Schols plays his bass in the upper register while the band dances around him.

 illustration – Z. Jastrzebski / photography – Chuck Stewart, Don Schlitten

Last Date is one of those legendary albums whose reputation grows with every passing year, and deservedly so. While it reveals more about the genius rhythm section than Dolphy himself, it also marks the passing of one era and the beginning of what has become a most potent and enduring legacy of European creative improvised tradition, started by Mengelberg and Bennink at this mid-'60s juncture.

_ (Review by Michael G. Nastos)

Note:

This album was also ripped via Laser Turntable, sound processing in the Studio of Radio Corona.  All tracks are placed on two channels, although the original LP monaural. The sound is perfect. Photos borrowed from the LondonJazzCollector, so, I will take this opportunity to thank them.

If you find it, buy this album!

AB BAARS TRIO + GUESTS – Party At The Bimhuis/10 Years Ab Baars Trio 2003

Label: Wig – 09

Format: CD, Album / Country: Netherlands / Released: 2003

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Live recording at the  Bimhuis club in Amsterdam, January 17th, 2003.

Edited by – Dick Lucas and Ab Baars

Produced by – Ig Henneman

Cover photo by – Jean van Lingen

Design by – Francesca Patella

01  3900 Carol Court . . . 5:12

02  GF . . . 6:15

03  Indiaan . . . 5:48

       (Piano – Guus Janssen)

04  Party Talk 1 . . . 5:14

(Alto Saxophone, Flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort, Piano – Misha   Mengelberg, Viola – Ig Henneman)

05  A Portrait Of Roswell Rudd . . . 7:12

(Alto Saxophone, Flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort, Piano – Guus Janssen, Misha Mengelberg, Viola – Ig Henneman)

06  Party Talk 2 . . . 2:01

       (Alto Saxophone, Flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort)

07  Von . . . 7:03

(Alto Saxophone, Flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort, Piano – Guus Janssen, Misha Mengelberg, Viola – Ig Henneman)

08  Party Talk 3 . . . 2:06

       (Alto Saxophone, Flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort, Piano – Guus Janssen)

09  Whisper Soft Horsemeat . . . 0:35

       (Alto Saxophone, Flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort, Viola – Ig Henneman)

10  Reflections . . . 7:5

       (Piano – Misha Mengelberg)

11  Enter From The East . . . 4:54

(Alto Saxophone, Flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort, Piano – Guus Janssen, Misha Mengelberg, Viola – Ig Henneman)

tenor saxophone, clarinet – Ab Baars

double bass – Wilbert De Joode

drums, percussion – Martin Van Duynhoven

+

piano – Guus Janssen, Misha Mengelberg

viola – Ig Henneman

alto saxophone, flute – Mariëtte Rouppe Van Der Voort

To commemorate his ten years with bassist Wilbert de Joode and drummer Martin van Duynhoven, an almost unheard-of tenure for a jazz trio, Ab Baars celebrated where every good Dutch avant-gardist celebrates -- the famed Bimhuis club in Amsterdam. Inviting a quartet of guests, including renowned pianist Misha Mengelberg, the results were dutifully recorded with a tongue-in-cheek, blow-by-blow description by Kevin Whitehead in the liners. Highlights abound, including a ruggedly disjointed quartet version of Monk's "Reflections," with Misha Mengelberg added on piano, and a majestic interpretation of John Carter's "Enter from the East" performed by the septet and featuring the lonely, astringent strings of Ig Henneman. Baars' bittersweet offerings on clarinet are in full display on the opening "3900 Carol Court," where split tones and intervallic leaps combine with dramatic changes in volume to produce a prime example of his trio leadership. Two tributes are especially noteworthy. On "A Portrait of Roswell Rudd," the seven-piece ensemble is sans brass, with improvisations performed, curiously and hauntingly, by the two pianists, Mengelberg and Guus Janssen, while Baars' clarinet shadows mysteriously. The more exuberant "Von," based on the phrasing of Chicago tenorist, Von Freeman, opens with some wily drum work from Martin van Duynhoven, followed by the sprightly melodic line and leading to a raucous, un-Freeman-like solo by Mariette Rouppe van der Voort and an inspired, though less intense contribution from Henneman's viola. Interspersed among the composed tunes are three "Party Talks" -- off-the-cuff banter among close friends -- each with slightly varied personnel. In all, a fitting, understated, though very Baars-like way to remember a decade of good years while anticipating more to come.
_ Review by Steve LOEWY



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MISHA MENGELBERG / HAN BENNINK – Bennink - Mengelberg (LP-1981)

Label: Instant Composers Pool – ICP 023
Format: Vinyl, LP; Country: Netherlands - Released: 1981 (?)
Style: Free Improvisation, Free Jazz
Recording Dates: 
     Tracks A1, A2 at De Kroeg, Amsterdam on 3 July 1979
     Track A3 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam on 28 March 1981
     Tracks B1, B2 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam on 2 November 1979
     Track B3 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam on 13 June 1980
Recorded by – Dick Lucas in Amsterdam
Produced by – the Instant Composers Pool
Cover art by – Han Bennink, 1981

MISHA MENGELBERG – Piano
HAN BENNINK – Drums, Percussion, Soprano Saxophone, Trombone

A1 - Kroeg A   4:42
A2 - Kroeg B   9:47
A3 - Bim A   7:50
B1 - Bim B (Jaquidic)   11:04
B2 - Islay Malt Jitterbug   3:06
B3 - Bim C (Di Qui Ja)   7:14
Composed By – Han Bennink (tracks: A), Misha Mengelberg (tracks: B)

Misha Mengelberg & Han Bennink (Archives)

... It was only available in a limited edition, and now it's sold out, but it was an essential little package for any record-collecting improv enthusiast. The 64 page hardback book is a treasure trove of information. Kees Stevens' complete discography for the Instant Composers Pool presents (intelligently) the recordings in chronological order-from ICP 001, the "New Acoustic Swing Duo" of 1967 (Han Bennink, percussion, and Willem Breuker, reeds) up to and including last summer's "The Heron" (Tobias Delius) [ICP 033]-and includes various related ICP projects on other labels [FMP, Entr'acte]. Kevin Whitehead's accompanying essay provides a clear and affectionate history of the label, and if your Dutch is up to it, there are several assorted old press clippings and articles to pore over. The book also includes numerous photographs, not only of Bennink and Mengelberg on and off stage, but also of the front and back covers of all the released ICP albums, most of them splendid original designs by Bennink himself. If you can still track down a copy, don't hesitate...

... Although the New Acoustic Swing Duo album was a Bennink/Breuker project, it was pianist and composer Misha Mengelberg who came up with the name "Instant Composers Pool," and over the years Mengelberg has remained the principal guiding force behind the organization. Breuker and Mengelberg, despite strong mutual respect for each other, never got along well enough to record together for ICP, and Breuker eventually split in 1973 to form the Willem Breuker Kollektief (though relations have remained cordial enough for BVHaast, founded by Breuker to promote and distribute his work, to handle the ICP catalogue). Over the years Mengelberg gradually assembled the ICP Orchestra (whose regular line-up includes Ab Baars, Michael Moore, Ernst Reijseger, and Wolter Wierbos, along with frequent guest musicians such as Steve Lacy and George Lewis), all the while continuing his duo concerts with Han Bennink.

Rarely have we seen such intense and long-lasting musical partnerships as Misha and Han; together they played with the legendary Eric Dolphy on the "Last Date" album in 1964-by which time they'd already been working together for three years-and though Bennink gigged with anybody he could in the sixties, from Sonny Rollins to Marion Brown, while Mengelberg was "as happy to think about music as play it," they have continued to play and record together both as a duo and as the heart of the ICP Orchestra rhythm section ever since. Quite apart from the extraordinary music they make, their appearance and antics onstage are unforgettable. Bennink, absurdly athletic and dangerously healthy-looking-with his close- cropped hair and khaki shorts he resembles the kind of demented scout leader who would lead unruly teenagers through a minefield-regularly breaks several pairs of sticks per concert through sheer exuberance, and has been known to play anything (he attacks walls, potted plants, empty glasses at the bar, and even once attempted to saw the stage in half). In total contrast, Mengelberg, eternally chain-smoking and slightly hunch-backed-tending to look far older than his sixty-three years-huddles over the piano stool at a rakish angle, plunking away as if he had never seen the instrument in his life (although he knows damn well what he's doing). The humorous element is not just visual though, but deeply rooted in the musical interplay between the two musicians; to quote Eugene Chadbourne:

"It's a real gift to be able to create comedy. Han Bennink is a genius. One of my favorite things is that something very serious and very funny is going on at the same time. It totally confuses the audience-they don't know if you're trying to be funny or serious, when in fact you're both."

This LP is a fine example of that-there are moments of high comedy, aggression, repose, and, yes, boredom.. for where does it say that everything you do has to be stupendously thrilling? Since when was life like that? Says Mengelberg; "I like puzzles in an open form, like chess or a game of bridge. Something with a development that can lead to something... or not! In an open chess game there can be attacks that are to no avail, events that are going wrong but the opponent makes a mistake, or somebody makes a brilliant move but falters and is mated in two. So no little tricks.. No first, second theme. No development section, no reprise. There are no simple calculations for life."...

_ critiques by DAN WARBURTON, Paris Editor



If you find it, buy this album!