Countercurrents
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Live at Tampere Jazz Happening
Ayler Records
My tolerance for shticky jazz has worn to a nub--even when it's as creative and well played as this. Perhaps living through the Time of Great Irony (otherwise known as the Downtown New York City scene in the '80s and '90s) did the trick. I learned first...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Le Chien et la Fille
Ilk
Maybe only someone with ears twisted into pretzels by years of playing and listening to weird jazz would say this, but if I had my druthers, the music made by this young Swedish/Norwegian quartet would exemplify today's jazz mainstream. Not that there's...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Sea of Lead
Hopscotch Records
Even the best free improvisation is hit or miss. Disregard for the listener is implicit. On the other hand, most fans of the music understand and even respect such self-indulgence. They know if they're willing to slog through the dross, they're bound to...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Magic Numbers
Songlines
You'd think by now it would be it illegal for a string section to play on any recording that includes a drum set. But no, people keep trying it, usually to no good end. Saxophonist/composer Quinson Nachoff makes a better go of it than most, thanks mainly...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Intersections
Pine Ear
Bassist Radding's work is heavily jazz-influenced, but as the album's title suggests, he's interested in negotiating gray areas where idioms overlap. The bassist's set with vibist Matt Moran and clarinetist Oscar Noriega combines nontonal methods of composition...
April 2006 By Chris Kelsey
The Distance
Songlines
Drummer Dylan van der Schyff seems to be in the middle of everything hip going on in Vancouver. In this loosely constructed trio with pianist Chris Gestrin and guitarist Ben Monder, van der Schyff exhibits a keen perception of tonal color, rhythmic and textural...
March 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Cobra
I Compani
Bo van de Graaf (saxophones), Michiel Braam (piano) and Fred van Duijnhoven (drums) are total mofos. Here they play several short, jazz-based, mostly free improvisations, aided and abetted by poet/performer Simon Vinkenoog. Occasionally Vinkenoog slips in...
March 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Iraqnophobia
VoxLox
Texas-based composer/saxophonist Alex Coke tackles social themes in a pair of extended compositions for the Creative Opportunity Orchestra. The title piece obviously references Iraq, while the other, "Wake Up Dead Man," is inspired by the 1972 book of the...
March 2006 By Chris Kelsey
Music for Like Instruments; The Clarinets
Nine Winds Records
Here's hoping that, one of these days, some hip musicologist delves deep into the work of Vinny Golia. L.A.'s version of Anthony Braxton deserves the consideration, given the length, breadth and depth of his career in leftward-leaning jazz--a career that...
March 2006 By Chris Kelsey
The Orbit of Sirius
M41
I'm of the opinion that jazz writers should be required to pull out their old Coltrane records on a regular basis, as a way of calibrating their critic-o-meter. Not for content, necessarily, but to get an idea of the kind of intensity that (in my idea of...
