Countercurrents
June 2006 By Chris Kelsey
In This World
CIMP Recordings
Saxophonist/bass clarinetist John Gunther brings a prismatic compositional approach to this date, which features his longtime rhythm section of bassist Leo Huppert and drummer Jay Rosen. Huppert—like Gunther—is new to me. He couples an extraordinary facility...
June 2006 By Chris Kelsey
The Art of Improvisation
Mutable Music
No AACM’er has done the classical-jazz-world music fusion better than Leroy Jenkins. This album presents the violinist at his homespun/highbrow best. Featuring a string-centric lineup of Jenkins, pianist Denman Maroney, pipa player Min Xiao-Fen and percussionist...
June 2006 By Chris Kelsey
This Way Is West
K2B2 Records
Krystall Klear and the Buells is the eponym tenor saxophonist Marty Krystall and bassist Buell Neidlinger gave their ’70s and ’80s collaboration, a partnership that produced the two LPs reissued here: Ready for the ’90s and Our Night Together. I remember...
June 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Le Passant
Rant
Drummer-composer Michel Lambert’s title piece is a through-composed work for chamber orchestra, leavened by the inclusion of four top-rank improvisers: violinist Malcolm Goldstein, bassist Dominic Duval, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and Lambert himself...
June 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Pam Africa
CIMP Recordings
Attention, jazz critics: Dig the passion, spontaneity, and ingenuity at play here, and then talk to me about those cats in the penguin suits up at Lincoln Center trying to teach the rich tourists in the audience to clap on two and four. Puhleeze. Byard Lancaster...
June 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Elegans
Nuscope Recordings
Bowed double bass makes me think of an elephant wearing a tutu or a pastry chef trying to frost a wedding cake with a snow shovel. Damon Smith sounds like he’s put in a lot of work learning to play arco, and he does a respectable job. Nevertheless, his occasional...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Bilbao Song
Ramboy
Multi-instrumentalist Michael Moore is invariably interesting, whether as a sideman in groups led by Myra Melford or Gerry Hemingway, as a member of Trio Clusone or as leader of his own multifarious projects. Available Jelly consists of Moore on alto sax...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Slug's Saloon
ESP-Disk
Listening to these 40 year-old tracks, I'm reminded how extraordinary Albert Ayler was--and what a mixed blessing his influence turned out to be. Ayler was a giant, for sure. His work was unique and had a profound effect on a lot of fine players to follow...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Kinda Dukish
Wig
Dutch tenor saxophonist/ clarinetist Ab Baars' "adaptations" of 10 Duke Ellington tunes render the source material almost unrecognizable, which ain't a bad thing, at least in this case--the more oblique the reference, the fresher the result. Baars tackles...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Outtakes 1978
Hopscotch Records
The term "shamefully neglected" is a jazz-crit cliche, but if I'm ever gonna use it, it might as well be in reference to Cooper-Moore. Master storyteller, instrument maker and free-jazz pianist par excellence, Cooper-Moore is a little-recognized yet much...
