LOTTE ANKER / CRAIG TABORN / GERALD CLEAVER – Live At The Loft 2005

Label: ILK Music – ILK 148CD
Format: CD, Album; Country: Denmark - Released: 30 March 2009
Style: Free Improvisation, Free Jazz
Live concert recording from Loft, Cologne on June 22, 2005.
Recorded At – Loft, Köln, Germany
Barcode: 5706274002010

The music appears as played and heard with a minimum of editing.

A pure improviser, Danish native Anker pushes and pulls a variety of extended themes on this recording, with the American-based team of acoustic pianist Craig Taborn alongside drummer Gerald Cleaver.

This is the second release by Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker with her trio with Craig Taborn on piano and Gerald Cleaver on drums. The concept that started on the first album, "Tryptich", comes to fruition on this live date, and takes the concept a notch higher. Gone are the high-toned nervousness, and some of the density of the improvisations, making room for slower, warmer, more deeply felt and opener structures, and it works to perfection. Anker delves deep into the nature of music, stripping it of all its mannerisms, patterns and clear melodic lines, revealing a subtle, sensitive, melodic emotional nakedness, fragile and beautiful, intense and heartfelt. Taborn and Cleaver provide the ideal support and interaction, enjoying the subtleties, reinforcing the emotional depth, adding perspective and color, but leaving the center stage to Anker, whose calm presence defines the music. On "Magic Carpet", the long first track, she moves the music from calm, almost contemplative moments to increasing levels of intensity towards the end, but without raising her voice, or without losing the sensitivity, drawing Taborn and Cleaver into her realm of fast little sounds, who echo her, join her, then take over for two consecutive solos, compact, efficient, but great. The equally long second piece starts again in the faintest of modes, with barely audible sax notes vibrating in the air, floating sensitively, encountering their counterparts from the piano and finger-played drums, dancing around each other rhythmically, but then one without recognizable pattern. And out of this almost-silence erupt some gut-wrenching agonizing wails, slowly, plaintively, and then listen how Taborn takes over, capturing the idea, playing around with the implicit rhythm for a wild yet light piano excursion, and when Lotte Anker joins, she moves the piece back to slowness, stretching her notes, laying a quiet blanket on top of the rhythmical frenzy that Cleaver starts creating, followed in that by Taborn, leading to a strange musical contrast between the rhythm section and the tenor, the one hectic, the other slow. The last piece, "Berber", brings again this strange mixture of abstract and deeply emotional music, demonstrating that in the right hands and ears, musical purity in all its polished rawness, in all its real sensitivity, devoid of fake feelings, averse of false pretention, is not a vague dream, but a real possibility. Free form unleashes true feelings. An absolutely stunning performance.

_ By Stef
http://www.freejazzblog.org/2009/04/lotte-anker-craig-taborn-gerald-cleaver.html


ILK Music – CATALOGUE:  http://www.ilkmusic.com/catalogue/



Buy this album!

MAT MANERI featuring JOE McPHEE – Sustain (2002)

Label: Thirsty Ear – THI57122.2
Series: The Blue Series
Format: CD, Album;  Country: US - Released: 2002

THIRSTY EAR STUDIO RECORDINGS/ THE BLUE SERIES, 2002
Executive Producer: Peter Gordon
Engineered by Jamie Saft; Recorded at Frank Booth
Mastered by FLAM at Mindswerve Studio, NYC
Artistic Director for Blue Series: Matthew Shipp
Design and Photography: Cynthia Fetty, www.dahliadigital.com
Re-design (inside) by ART & JAZZ Studio SALVARICA; Designer: VITKO

Review:

In the last couple of years, Mat Maneri has been incredibly prolific. His versatility and range, especially on the viola, have facilitated work within widely different musical contexts. On Sustain he joins a quartet of active NYC musicians, plus special guest Joe McPhee on soprano saxophone. These players have built strong intuitive relationships over time in various collaborations, enabling them to make musical statements in an unforced, natural way. Sustain offers deliberate, open individual and collective improvisation.

The tracks on Sustain alternate between the "Alone" series (solo performances by each musician) and group improvisations. The contrast afforded through this arrangement allows the listener to appreciate each individual voice both on its own and in combination with the other players, making for a nice overall sound because everyone has something different to say. Maneri opens the disc with round, resonant notes rich with harmonics, hinting more than he actually states. (That leads quite nicely into the group tune "In Peace," a sort of psychedelic trip through outer sound.) William Parker's take on "Alone (Unravel)" strays from his usual intensity to a more open, spacious aura. And when he goes out on his own, drummer Gerald Cleaver coaxes texture and color from his kit, suggesting rub more than hit, stroke more than punch.

The four quintet pieces span a wide range of moods without sounding contrived or scattered. "Nerve" has a frantic, bubbly energy that hurries ahead, rarely pausing to gather steam. Both Craig Taborn and Maneri use effects to alter their sound, bringing it perilously close to a primal scream; meanwhile, the rhythm section stops and starts, eventually heading toward a insistent groove and then off into the wild beyond. On the other hand, the title track showcases Maneri's ability to say more with less. Gentle, undulating viola lines intertwine with McPhee's floating voice on the soprano sax, lending an ethereal atmosphere through generous use of space and time.

As might be expected from a group of this caliber, Sustain is a fine disc. Its inventiveness and range most emphatically reflect Maneri's own approach to improvisation.

_ By NILS JACOBSON, Published: October 10, 2002 (AAJ)



Links in Comments!

LOTTE ANKER, CRAIG TABORN, GERALD CLEAVER – Floating Islands (2009) [Repost]

Label: ILK Music; Catalog#: ILK 162CD; Denmark, 2009
Live concert recording, Concert Hall, Copenhagen Jazz Festival (07/2008)
(Jazz Style: avant-garde, free improvisation, Contemporary Jazz, Free Jazz)


Review:

One great album in a decade is an achievement, two great albums in one year is exceptional, yet this trio with saxophonist Lotte Anker, pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver does it. After “Live At The Loft”, published earlier this year, also on Ilk, the trio is back with a new studio album. Anker also figures on the excellent “Mokuto” album. Cleaver participated in the equally great “Farmers By Nature” with Craig Taborn, and on Miroslav Vitous “Remembering Weather Report” .

This is the third album by the trio, and they get better with each release.

The album starts with repetitive prhases on the saxophone, built around a single tonal center, accompanied by muted minimal drumming by Cleaver, soon to be joined by the piano, setting the tone for pure musical hypnotism. Anker keeps building the tension by slightly altering the tone and the pitch, leaving the foreground to the piano, equally soft and minimal, but she keeps the sax present, barely audible, with Cleaver maintaining his muted rumbling sounds, Taborn keeping the attention going, but then after a while the sax resurfaces, slowly moaning, fragile and vulnerable, full of soaring lyricism, then the volume builds, Cleaver gets his sticks out, Taborn uses his left hand for some more powerful chords, and the composition shifts seamlessly into the sixteen minute long second track “ Ritual ” , with intensity and tension building and growing, at a slow and wonderful pace, full of restraint and passion, mesmerizing and trance-inducing, with the rhythm becoming more angular, with the piano pounding chords, the drums kicking and the sax keeping up its wailing, screaming, full-toned howling, with the rhythm shifting underneath, falling in step, moving away again, and when you think this must end, well,… it just doesn ’ t, the power increases, the volume increases, the tension increases, … mad, mindless, repetitive, full throttle, the piano goes haywire, the drums go nuts, and then the sax reduces its pitch, and the rhythm changes again, odd-metered, with only piano and drums hammering on without the sax, increasing the tempo, dominating the scence, and then, out of nowhere, the sax is back again, for another round of heart- rending, gut-wrenching high-pitched wailing, only to end with the piano turning the music out of the storm into quiet waters, full of impressionistic sophistication, moving into the third piece, “ Transitory Blossom ” , on which Anker ’ s sound is again as sensitive as it gets, soft and fragile, evoking the temporariness of things, with almost romantic piano, and again the piece flows as one into “ Backwards River ” , more wayward, more avant-garde, with staccato playing by all three instruments, yet adapting quite rapidly to each other while shifting the piece together towards different musical territory, more nervous, full of wild agitation, with currents and counter-currents played by Taborn on his keys, with Cleaver going berserk at the drumkit, and when their double violence reaches the relentless power of high-speed rapids, the sax joins to add her slice of mayhem to the rhythm section pandemonium, with squeals, shouts, and howls, on and on and on, but things do come to an end, and the the piece suddenly slows down into a jumpy rhythm, unwillingly almost, but the sax goes, the piano goes, the drum stays, leading out and leading in the last track, “ Even Today I ’ m Still Arriving ” , as if the river reaches the ocean, with the sax sounding like seagulls, then the sax plays solo, melodic, lyrical, yet weird in a way, and also beautiful, sensitive, with the piano adding sad minimalistic and impressionistic tones, calm and measured, with Anker adding some sparse notes, not many, but with a stunning emotional depth.

This album has it all : the mastership, the skills, the balance, the musical baggage to draw from, the musical vision, the coherent delivery, the variation, the adventure, the passion, the discipline, the raw emotional power, the sophistication, …. Absolutely stunning.

By Stef (FreeJazz)



Welcome to new prog-blog "Different Perspectives In My Room...!".
Enjoy the music, and please leave a comment. Thanks in advance.

Link in Comments!