T. DELIUS, H. JEFFERY, W. De JOODE, S.C.M. GUEYE – Apa Ini (2003)

Label: DATA Records – DATA:033

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

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at BIMhuis Amsterdam, November 29, 2002

Cover art by Han Bennink

Recorded by Dick Lucas

Produced by Tobias Delius / Dick Lucas

Tobias Delius - tenorsax, clarinet

Hilary Jeffery - trombone

Wilbert de Joode - bass

Serigne C.M. Gueye - bugarabu, calabas, djembe & sawrouba

Tobias Delius was born on 15 July 1964 in Oxford, England. He began playing saxophone in 1980 in the German Ruhr region. In 1983/84 he lived in Mexico City.

Delius moved to Amsterdam in 1984 and studied for a short while at the Sweelinck Conservatorium. He quickly became involved with Amsterdam improvisers and dropped his studies to immerse himself in the improvised music scene.

He has worked in Europe and overseas with such musicians as Steve Lacy (October Meeting ’91), Louis Moholo’s Viva-la-black (South Africa ’93), Bill Frisell, Mark Feldman and Trio Clusone (Clusone Jazz ’93), Misha Mengelberg (“Pollo de Mare”, Angelica ’96 in Bologna), Steve Beresford (“Signals for Tea”, Vancouver ’98), Jeb Bishop, Kent Kessler & Hamid Drake (Chicago 2001) and Ray Anderson (Rotterdam, ’01).

Tobias Delius leads his own quartet with Tristan Honsinger (cello), Joe Williamson (double bass) and Han Bennink (drums) and Delius also has a duo with bassist Wilbert de Joode, a trio with keyboard player Cor Fuhler and various drummers (Louis Moholo and Paul Lovens to name two), and initiated the Trio San Francisco with reed players Sean Bergin and Daniele D’Agaro. He has recently formed apa ini, a group with Wilbert de Joode, Hilary Jeffery (trombone) and Serigne Gueye (djembe).

Tobias Delius is known (to the extent he is known -- despite a decent output he seems, unfortunately, to appear below the radar screen) for his innovative small groups that plug away at the margins where the fringes of melodies fade into abstraction. At his best, the saxophonist's disjointed phrasing, off-balance thrusts, and short though solid repetitions attractively straddle the line between the real and the ephemeral. While Delius often uses the same musicians, he enjoys mixing his players. The piano-less quartet on this album and recorded at the famed Bimhaus keeps longtime colleague Wilbert de Joode on bass while adding the appealingly grungy-sounding Hilary Jeffery on trombone and the mystical machinations of Serigne C.M. Gueye on percussion. The group appears well-rehearsed, as it has to be to perform these difficult freestyle improvisations. On the stunning "Pok," for example, which incidentally closes the set, the trombone and sax converse rapidly, with the percussionist listening in, after which de Joode launches into a wild excursion with the percussionist eavesdropping, followed by a few pedal notes on the trombone and a barely audible clarinet waxing lyrically. A word about Jeffrey: the trombonist has absorbed much of the vocabulary of Roswell Rudd without aping him, stamping an individual persona by using mutes, sharp jabs, and a powerful legato tongue. Gueye contributes unorthodox though bright sounds and exciting rhythms, all recorded flawlessly. Influences as diverse as Ornette Coleman and the British school of free improvisation are evident, but to Delius' credit the album retains a freshness and each track its own identity.

_ Review by Steve LOEWY

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TOBIAS DELIUS 4TET – Toby's Mloby (BIMhuis-1999)

Label: Instant Composers Pool – ICP 034

Format: CD, Album / Country: Netherlands / Released: 2000

Style: Free Jazz, Post Bop, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Amsterdam jazz club Bimhuis, September 6, 1999.

Cover – Han Bennink

Design [Cover] – Leugenachtig Lekker

Photography By – Francesca Patella

Recorded By – Dick Lucas

“This group moves seemingly effortlessly between passages of great complexity and pure abstraction, and does so on a dime. This recording, like its predecessor solidifies my theory that there isn’t a better working band in creative music today.”

(Coda Magazine, january/february 2001)

 01   Brrrrt / Toby's Mloby 3 / TWR . . . 8:09

       (Composed By – T. Delius, T. Delius, T. Honsinger)

02   Wink No. 50 / Toby's Mloby 2 / Wink No. 50 . . . 5:03

       (Composed By – T. Delius, T. Delius, T. Honsinger)

03   Salmon + Bear Suite . . . 10:50

       (Composed By – T. Honsinger)

04   Television . . . 2:09

       (Composed By – T. Delius)

05   Shrinkage / ¿Whither? . . . 3:38

       (Composed By – J. Williamson, T. Delius)

06   Toby's Mloby 1 / Wireless / Antonelli's Night Out . . . 7:42

       (Composed By – J. Williamson, T. Delius, T. Honsinger)

07   Faultier . . . 1:58

       (Composed By – J. Williamson)

08   Dut . . . 2:59

       (Composed By – T. Delius)

09   Beehive . . . 10:43

       (Composed By – T. Honsinger)

10   Toby's Mloby 4 & 5 . . . 2:07

       (Composed By – T. Honsinger)

11   Schijf / Romy . . . 5:03

       (Composed By – T. Delius, T. Honsinger)

Tobias Delius – tenor saxophone

Tristan Honsinger – cello

Joe Williamson – double bass

Han Bennink – drums, percussion

 

Before even discussing the terrific music on this disc, praise should be lavished on the packaging. Because of both the look of the slightly oversize front cover and the die-cut cardboard square that is supposed to hold the disc in place, one could get the impression of owning a homemade work of art by the extremely creative Han Bennink, who is one of the world's great drummers as well as quite an active visual artist in many mediums. The fact that he plays drums for this group is a definite plus, as well. The other members of this quartet are equally talented. The sympathetic combination of these musical abilities applied to a perfectly realized concept of improvisation and composition make this one of the best small jazz groups of the new millennium. Bennink might have a reputation for loud, bombastic playing and he certainly deserves this, although it must be said the quality of his sound and beauty of his tone and technique on the drums never wavers no matter how loudly he might bash away. Yet in this group he is dealing with some extremely subtle players who work together very melodically, and this brings out another side to his playing that gets much less attention than his surrealistic antics or show-stopping drum solos. He is a totally sensitive member of the group whose control of dynamics and once again tone are a big part of the success the ensemble achieves. Not to give him all the credit, of course. Tenorman Delius has a versatile, beautiful sound and has a great foil in cellist Tristan Honsinger, a stalwart of the European improvising scene. Of all the groups the latter musician has been in, this is maybe the one in which his abilities are most obvious, especially his wonderful lyricism and distinctive personal sound. Filling out the group is bassist Joe Williamson, working excellently throughout. He has a way of playing down the dynamics while simultaneously increasing the intensity. For this CD the group sometimes plays in what has become its normal manner, blending together several themes into little suites. Often these pieces combine compositions by several group members. There are also tracks focusing on a single composition, some of them short and precise, others stretching out. The music was recorded at the famous Amsterdam jazz club Bimhuis but does not sound like a live concert recording unless the audience members were bound and gagged. Recording quality is crystal clear and ensemble playing simply sparkles. This is a disc listeners will want to return to again and again, which may show up a flaw in the lovely little package, as the more one removes the CD from the cardboard holder, the less it is likely to hold the disc in place. The solution is perhaps to keep this disc on the CD player all the time.

_ Review by Eugene CHADBOURNE

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FRANK GRATKOWSKI PROJEKT – Loft Exil V (2CD-2003)

Label: Leo Records – LR 410/411
Format: 2CD, Album; Country: US - Release: 2004
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded live at the 32nd New Jazz Festival Moers (Germany) on June 7th (CD 1) and June 8th (CD 2) 2003 by Stefan Deistler
New Design by ART&JAZZ Studio SALVARICA, Designer by VITKO - 2012
Mixed and mastered by Wolfgang Stach

Review:

Milestone birthdays are as fine a catalyst as any for convening all-star aggregates of improvisers. Evan Parker teamed with colleagues from his two longstanding trio associations for his 50th. The results released on the Leo label were memorable and still rank in the top tier of his discography. Paul Dunmall followed suit when he hit his own half-century mark by conscripting his Moksha big band for a BBC-commissioned concert. German reed maven Frank Gratkowski, a guy who can count both men as peers, marked his 40th in similar fashion. Coordinating celebratory gigs as part of the 2003 Moers Jazz Festival, he assembled a formidable septet fronted jointly by his own horns, trumpeter Herb Robertson, and trombonist Wolter Wierbos. A dyadic rhythm section comprised of Dieter Manderscheid and Wilber de Joode on basses and drummers Gerry Hemingway and Michael Vatcher, divided into separate stereo channels, completes what reads on paper as a powerhouse collective. And as if that weren ’ t enough marshaled might, the set ’ s second disc finds Tobias Delius joining in on both tenor and clarinet, further swelling the band to octet size.

Loft Exile V also celebrates Gratkowski ’ s enduring relationship with H.M. Müller, proprietor of the Loft, a performance space where the reedman got his start along with a still-growing alumni of other European musicians. Assembling his dream band in a crowded formation against one wall (pictured in a landscape shot in the liners), Gratkowski largely eschews his customary compositional intricacy, opting instead for looser free-range blowing. The two dates captured each carry an ad hoc feel, with the players tossing out the formalities of a rigid, premeditated roadmap and simply seeing where there shared ingenuity takes them. Gratkowski supplies the single ‘ composed ’ piece with the closing “ Out of the Loom ” . It works as a fitting capstone to the mammoth slabs of free improv that precede it. Point-of- entry track demarcations further leaven the density by allowing for easy episodic listening. The first disc ’ s hour plus “The Morning Beckons” contains ten such tags.

The music is much too sprawling and discursive to reconstruct an accurate itinerary within the space of a review (and why read a faulty facsimile when one can take the trip in person for the price of a parting with a small stack of bills?). Arresting moments are numerous, starting with the opening fracas that finds the horns bristling and blustering atop a stomping crosshatch of snap-plucked basses and stentorian drums. But there are also a fair number of quietly palaverous passages too, still strung with tension. A loping two-prong pizzicato groove surfaces and Wierbos ’ mute-socketed brass spreads metallic glisses. Arco harmonics weave with floating flute-like sonorities in a creaky dance of ethereal tones only to turn knotty and diffusive once again with the ‘ rhythm ’ section thwacking and smacking away at its instruments. Gratkowski ’ s all-stops-pulled alto solo in the crowning closing section represents an energized apogee. Delius ’ presence on the second disc also helps in shoring up the more meandering sections too.

Some listeners will probably second-guess Gratkowski ’ s decision to mostly suppress his composerly urges in favor of freewheeling improv. For those doubters there are plenty of places in his existing catalog to find solace. His jubilee shindig might not place on par with the likes of Parker ’ s, but there ’ s still much enjoyment to be had. With luck Gratkowski ’ s own 50th will stir up an even more potent habanero heat.

_  by DEREK TAYLOR, 17 January 2005 (AAJ)



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