VINNY GOLIA – Openhearted (LP-1979)

Label: Nine Winds Records – NW-0102
Format: Vinyl, LP; Country: US - Released: 1979
Style: Free Jazz, Avant-garde Jazz
Recorded Feb. 7, 1979 at U.C.L.A., Melnitz Hall, Los Angeles, CA.
Composed By, Arranged By  – Vinny Golia
Producer – Vinny Golia
Cover Design By – Vinny Golia and Alex Cline
Published By Nine Winds Music

A1 - Alone - A) ...At Nite B) Try Toane  -  11:18 
A2 - #14 - A "Conversation" Piece  -  6:15
A3 - The Happy... - For My Friends In L.A.  -  6:10

B1 - Pulse - ..Striving To Ascend...  -  6:13
B2 - The Presence - "..A Dedication To The All-seeing Eye..."  -  8:04
B3 - Dance For O.C. - ..Thanks For A Conversation In '69 And A "Special" Meeting A Remingtons..."  -  7:58

Vinny Golia – alto / bass clarinet, soprano / tenor / baritone saxophone, flute [C- / alto]

Baikida Carroll – trumpet, flugelhorn

Nels Cline – guitar

Roberto Miranda – bass

Alex Cline – drums, percussion

Vinny Golia / Alex Cline

The second LP from Nine Winds features the versatile avant-gardist Vinny Golia playing six originals that feature him on alto flute, soprano, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor and baritone.
Golia is joined by trumpeter Baikida Carroll, bassist Roberto Miranda, drummer Alex Cline and (on three of the six numbers) guitarist Nels Cline. From sound explorations to free bop, the advanced music always holds one's interest and has plenty of unexpected tone colors.



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WADADA LEO SMITH / VINNY GOLIA / BERTRAM TURETZKY – Prataksis (1997)

Label: Nine Winds Records – NWCD0199 

Format: CD, Album; Country: US - Released: 1997 

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz

Recorded at Studio 451 at UCSD, La Jolla, California, April 23, 1997.

Cover [Cover Art], Design, Layout – Jeff Atherton, Vinny Golia

Mastered By – Jim Watson
Recorded By, Mastered By – Josef Kucera

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has always been on the forefront of the musical melting pot. Not interested in being merely a "jazz musician" (a perfectly honorable thing), Smith has always sought to expand the color and dramatic scheme of jazz by including vast panoramas of poetry and instruments not usually associated with the genre. By employing improv wunderkind Vinny Golia (on all manner of saxophones and clarinets as well as dudek and English and Chinese instruments) and bass wild man Bertram Turetzky, Smith has created -- while only playing trumpet -- a new landscape for his improvisational idiomatics. This band was recorded live in the studio with no second takes and no edits. What falls from the speakers is how it rolled out in the studio: linear, transparent, and full of fresh dynamics in the tonal studies. Microtonality - à la Joe Maneri -- is the order of the day, and it crosses with Smith's Third World notion of melodic sensibility, where no melody is complete until every comment has been made upon it within a group. Hence, the entire world is contained in the eight selections here, which move and breathe with the fearlessness of vanguard jazz but are as earthy as Australian didgeridoo arias or King Sunny Ade's juju songs. Ultimately, it's all movement in one direction, to the heart of both player and listener in a spirit of such generosity and sophistication that it is an infectious laughter that haunts the listener long after the record is over.

_ By THOM JUREK



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ADAM LANE QUARTET – Live At Soundlab, Buffalo NY, 2005 (2007)

Label: Cadence Jazz Records – CJR 1193
Format: CD, Album;  Country: USA - Released: 2007
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded live at Soundlab, Buffalo NY, February 25, 2005
Recording Engineer By - Steve Baczkowski
Mastering By - Jon Rosenberg
Packaging: Jewel Tray

The sensations given by a live event, force and fascination of a live performance are often a difficult thing to transfer on CD.
Not always, but sometimes the purpose is perfectly achieved…as in this case. Product of a session at Buffalo’s Soundlab, NY, in February 2005, this recording is an excellent documentation of that event, reproducing the pure energy transmitted by it. A trio of absolute protagonists of the jazz scene (Adam Lane on bass, Vinny Golia on saxophone and Vijay Anderson on drums) that becomes a quartet on four tracks (thanks to the contribution of the trumpeter Paul Smoker).
The more significant aspect of this album is an extraordinary interaction among the players, who succeed to reach a particular balance, a unity of intents and action which unleash emotional impulses.
Free improvisation in great measure, but also melodic nuances ( “ Spin with the EARth ” ), smooth passages ( “ Without Being ” at its starting phase, with an impressive Lane’s solo that leaves space to Smoker and Golia, both in evidence for the rest of the piece), again, the peaceful atmosphere created by the Golia's flute ( “ Free ” ) followed by a compulsive free improv act.
Frenetic passages alternate with more meditative moments, after which suddenly the rhythm grows again (the beautiful final track “ Lucia's First Breath ” ). So genuine, so real, so free…

Review:

Adam Lane's is not only one of my favorite bass-players of the moment, but definitely one of my preferred musicians. His sense of musical freedom, combined with melody and bluesy soul is superb, as is his choice of band members. On this album Vinny Golia plays reeds, Paul Smoker trumpet and Vijay Anderson drums. The album captures several days of live performances in Buffalo, hence the title. And Paul Smoker did not participate on one track presented here. These musicians no longer need any introduction, but the way they play together here, is absolutely stellar. The first track brings an absolutely beautiful melody - although you have to wait a bit before a theme emerges - played superbly by the whole band, compelling, fierce and free. The second track starts with a gut-wrenching arco solo by Lane, which evolves into a straight blues with the horns circling around each other in wonderfully emotional counterpoint, then speeding up the whole thing to some free jazz uptempo boogie, just to slow down again at the end, leaving the audience enthusiastic and your reviewer with goosebumps (sympathetic piloerection). The third track, "Free", starts with Vinny Golia playing flute, all bucolic, cosmic and light, to be replaced by the tenor, creating an all the more astonishing effect with the agonizing violence of the storm that comes, unleashing all power a trio can muster to create a wall of sound, ending again in peaceful calm. "In Our Time" is a fully improvized piece, but the four musicians interact so well, creating chaotic tension on the spot, out of which the arco bass elicits some highly sensitive beauty, accompanied by long slow trumpet tones and an accentuating drums. But then listen how Golia intervenes, adding little rhythmic notes, without interrupting, but emphasizing the power of the trumpet, first echoing, then slowing the sax down till it becomes unisono, a signal for Lane to end in the same long arco-played tone. Astonishingly beautiful. The last track is an odd-metred piece, mid-tempo pushed forward by a bass-vamp and strong drumming, starting with the sax leading into a theme, and when the trumpet takes over, the piece shifts into a walking bass supported free bop frenzy, and each time the sax comes in, the original rhythm appears again, with Lane moving up the speed, pushing Golia to play the bejesus out of his soprano. This is a really an excellent album, with four top-musicians at their best and interacting at their best, responsive, creative, enthusiastic, melodic and respectful. Adam Lane is truly great, and I must say that every CD that he released so far is recommended, but this one is highly recommended.

_ By Stef (FreeJazz)
http://www.freejazzblog.org/2008/01/adam-lane-quartet-buffalo-cimp-2007.html



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TIM BERNE – The Empire Box (1998) - 5CDs

Label: Screwgun Records – SCREW U 70009
Format: 5 × CD, Album Box Set, Compilation
Country: US Released: 1999; Style: Jazz, Free jazz
Engineer – Kazunori Sugiyama; Mastered By – Bob Ludwig
Producer – Brian Horner, Jon Rosenberg
Compiles four early vinyl LPs released on Berne's own label, Empire Productions
All albums have been digitally remastered.


CD 1 - THE FIVE YEAR PLAN 
1. The Glasco Cowboy (For Julius Hemphill)
2. A.K. Wadud (For Abdul Wadud)
3. Computerized Taps for 12 Different Steps
4. N.Y.C. Rites

Personnel: Tim Berne (alto saxophone); Vinny Golia (baritone saxophone, alto flute, piccolo); Glenn Ferris (trombone); John Carter (clarinet); Roberto Miranda (acoustic bass); Alex Cline (percussion).
Producers: Tim Berne, Alex Cline, Nels Cline.
Engineers: Bruce Bidlack, Tony.
Recorded at Melnitz Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, California on April 25, 1979.


CD 2 - 7X
1. Chang Tim Berne
2. The Water People (For Brian Horner)
3. 7x
4. Flies
5. A Pearl in the Oliver C.
6. Showtime (For Don and Thelma Cline)

Personnel: Tim Berne (alto saxophone); Vinny Golia (baritone saxophone, flute, bassoon, khene); Nels Cline (electric 6- & 12-string guitars, Hawaiian steel guitar); Roberto Miranda (acoustic bass); Alex Cline (percussion).
Producers: Brian Horner, Alex Cline, Nels Cline, Tim Berne.
Engineer: Bruce Bidlack.
Recorded at Intermix Studio, Los Angeles, California on January 8, 1980.

 
CD 3 - SPECTRES
1. Hot and Cold
2. Spectres
3. Grendel (For Hamid Drake)
4. Stroll
5. For Charles Mingus

Personnel: Tim Berne (alto saxophone); Olu Dara (cornet); James Harvey (trombone); Ed Schuller, John Lindberg (bass); Alex Cline (percusion).
Producers: Tim Berne, Gary Halvorson.
Recorded in Brooklyn, New York on February 5, 1981.


CD 4 - SONGS AND RITUALS IN REAL TIME (Vol. 1)
1. San Antonio/The Unknown Factor
2. Roberto Miguel (For Roberto Miguel Miranda)
3. New Dog/Old Tricks

CD 5 - SONGS AND RITUALS IN REAL TIME (Vol. 2)
1. Shirley's Song (For Shirley Britt) /The Mutant of Alberan
2. Flies/ The Ancient Ones (For Alex Cline)

Personnel: Tim Berne (alto saxophone); Mack Goldsbury (soprano & tenor saxophones); Ed Schuller (bass); Paul Motian (drums).
Producer: Tim Berne.
Engineer: Kazunori Sugiyama.
Recorded at Inroads, New York, New York on July 1, 1981.

Review:

The most remarkable thing about this box set of four of Tim Berne's reissued releases from the JMT label is that the wealth, depth, and breadth of the material here was recorded in only two years. This is astonishing, if one considers -- merely by cracking the box set open (a very handsome cardboard sleeve, really) and looking at the notes -- that Berne composed, arranged, and performed on these albums with no less than four different bands during the period. For starters, from 1979 there is The Five Year Plan, which featured Berne alongside the late clarinetist John Carter, wind and reedman Vinny Golia, drummer Alex Cline, and bassist Roberto Miranda. This is a live date with Berne's aggressive saxophone work taking a back seat to his leading a band full of strident personalities. Certainly he blows here, especially on alto on "The Glasco Cowboy," written for his mentor and hero, the late Julius Hemphill. Carter and Golia entwine each other, playing through separate harmonic architectures through the entire gig. Everything is crash and burn, and let's see who gets there first. Next is 7x, with Miranda, Cline, his brother Nels on guitars, Golia, and trombonist John Rapson. Here, the aggression factor is heightened by the presence of Nels Cline, whose overdriven scree and amplitude push Berne into the red zone and make Golia carry the structural frameworks and harmonic structures of most of the numbers. An excellent example is when Berne and Cline begin to solo at each other in "The Water People," and Golia and Rapson offer a contrapuntal intervallic figure to hold them in check while the rhythm section moves the tune into more open territory to accommodate them.

On Spectres, from 1981, Berne's counterparts include trombonist James Harvey, Olu Dara on cornet, and John Lindberg and Ed Schuller on alternating basses. On the title track and on "Hot and Cold," Berne utilizes the humorous aspects of Dara's attack on the cornet. Dara is the king of tricks on the instrument, and gives everything a loose carnival feel, even in the heat of a chromatic solo. When the band launches into "Stroll" with Lindberg, it's two players with a wry sense of jester's humor moving through Berne's raw emotionalism and roughing out the edges; the tempered moments of free- swinging post-bop are joyous in both their levity and intensity. Finally, on the double album Songs and Rituals in Real Time, Berne's compositions are in the hands of a band that includes drummer Paul Motian, Ed Schuller, and saxophonist Mack Goldsbury. In this quartet, also recorded in 1981, Berne found the perfect balance of aggressive improvisatory innovation and hardcore, taut ensemble playing. His compositions and arrangements walked the tightrope between restrained, reserved timbral and tonal equanimity and a swinging, blowing rhythmic intensity that had each saxophone player trying to move the other up the scale, not in terms of competition, but in expression. From a knotty, shimmering blues-like figure on "New Dog/Old Tricks," Berne slips into a modal R&B as Goldsbury answers him by taking the modal scale out of the rhythm section's interval, carrying it into an empty one (a diminished fourth), and roaring into the stratosphere with it. For their part, Motian and Schuller play around with time a lot, they stretch intervals to the breaking point and somehow roll them over, and conversely break apart small units of time into bebop-like figures. The 25-minute "The Ancient Ones" is one of Berne's finest moments as a composer and as a soloist, as he goes head to head with Schuller and Motian for ten minutes and clips through the entire chromatic range of his chord progression's palette. Each color becomes another figure upon which to build and deconstruct.

This set is a must for Berne's fans who didn't have the opportunity to get the records the first time around and, for those who did, hearing them in this way, as a set of music spanning only two years (the albums themselves were issued over a longer period), it becomes a revelation of Berne's development as a bandleader and as a soloist. Here is the shop work that witnessed him harnessing his considerable power as a composer and his frighteningly deft ability as a soloist, while leading not just one but four bands in a variety of settings with the same clarity and quality. Essential.

~ By Thom Jurek




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