Northern Lights
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Pan-Pan
Caprice Records
Fans of improvised music in general, and jazz in particular, are people with an exaggerated need for fresh stimuli. That is why jazz imposes such merciless demands on its practitioners for constant innovation. And it is why European jazz, with its proprietary...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Eight Tunes We Like
Moserobie
The matter-of-fact title reflects the honest, workmanlike nature of this music. What Hakon Kornstad (tenor saxophone) and Havard Wiik (piano) do with the eight tunes they like is encounter them thoughtfully, with minds open to possibility; and with the freedom...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Soloduotrio
KSJazz
It turns out that all those critics and academics searching for a "third stream" back in the '60s were simply ahead of their time. The real cross-fertilization of jazz and classical music is happening now, in the work of European jazz players for whom classical...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
#2
Stunt
Kasper Villaume's last album, 117 Ditmas Avenue, is an impressive trio date that announced an accomplished, aggressively two-handed young Danish pianist. This quartet session, #2, actually predates that announcement. It was recorded in December 2002, 18...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Zanussi Five
Moserobie
In the August 2004 issue of JazzTimes, reviewer Chris Kelsey spoke for many of us who share his special (some would say kinky) musical cravings. Kelsey copped to "a bias for...cojones-out, collectively improvised free jazz," and acknowledged "after a steady...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Unity of Action
Ilk
It is an obligation of the record reviewer to provide, at minimum, a usefully accurate characterization of music under consideration. But describing Anderskov Accident, an electric/acoustic, manic/meticulous, sarcastic/earnest Danish octet led by keyboardist...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Libera Me
ACT Music + Vision
There are many industry pessimists who doubt that SACD will survive as a format. Libera Me is one more reason to hope they are wrong. The impact of Lars Danielsson's seductive, emotionally authentic music is inseparable from its rendering in the enveloping...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Eclexistence
Tum
Eclexistence reveals how much fertile soil was left untilled, 40-plus years ago, by pianoless free quartets like those of Ornette Coleman and Tomasz Stanko-Edward Vesala. Coleman and Stanko introduced a particular open-air concept, with floating but intense...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Short Stories
Tum
Petri Haussila's liner notes to Short Stories provide an object lesson for proof readers everywhere, informing us that the pianist in this Finnish duo, Eero Ojanen, was influenced by "Bud Bowel." Haussila does not explain the seven-year delay in releasing...
October 2005 By Thomas Conrad
Penguin Beguine
Tum
In this beautifully produced CD package, one of the many photographs is an outdoor group shot. The 10 musicians of Loco Motife, swathed in scarves and fur parkas and stocking caps, make Porvoo, Finland, from whence Penguin Beguine emanates, look like a very...
