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March 8, 2010 - As if improvised music didn’t have to put up with enough wanna-bes and poseurs, Pam Becker of The Chicago Tribune provides instructions as to how not to be “intimidated” by the music when faced with jazz --probably in a club situation. Aimed for the neophyte more comfortable and familiar with the Black Eyed Peas than John Coltrane or who listens to Miley Cyrus rather than Thelonious Monk, the five recommendations passed on by Howard Reich, Tribune Newspapers jazz critic, suggest viewing the music as abstract art, talking to other nearby fans – probably during the bass solo like the others – and discovering jazz culture – including drug use – through films like 1994’s A Great Day in Harlem, 1986’s ‘Round Midnight and …1950’s Young Man with a Horn [!] READ
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Pop Goes the Weasel? Weasel Walter moves to New York
March 1, 2010 - Probably the most articulate drummer to simultaneously operate in the extreme rock and Free Music spheres, Weasel Walter explains his deconstructionist philosophy in the Village Voice now that he’s moved east. Although writer Brad Cohan appears to take at face value the Chicagoan-turned-Oakland, Californian- turned-Brooklynite's assertion that he isn’t a jazz drummer, it’s mentioned that Walter has played and recorded with such Free Jazz-Free Music types as drummer Marc Edwards, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, trumpeter Peter Evans and guitarist Mary Halvorson, along with a series of metal, no-wave and punk bands. Considering Walter’s Chicago band. The Flying Luttenbachers took its unusual second name from the real moniker of NRG Ensemble legend Hal Russell, and that his Oakland bands include committed improvisers such as bassist Damon Smith, Walter’s jazz-improv bone fides seem secure, no matter what those whose only knowledge is of rock might think. READ
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Bass Clarinet Crusader: Jason Stein
February 22, 2010 - While most bass clarinetists on the improvised music scene double on that woodwind as a secondary horn, Chicago’s Jason Stein has dedicated himself to that instrument. In this brief interview with Rui Eduardo Paes on the latter’s Entrada Web site, he explains how he adopted the bass clarinet after a time as a rock and blues guitarist. Stein has gained acclaim for his two-reed groups with either Ken Vandermark or Kyle Bruckmann plus his own trio. He points out that although he comes from a jazz background and studied the music with teachers like saxophonist Charles Gayle, his sound is as influenced by contemporary classical music composed by Milton Babbit, Pauline Oliveros and others as the music of fellow jazz bass clarinetists such as Rudi Mahall and David Murray. (Click on “interviews” on the site’s first screen; then find Stein’s name and picture among the interviewees on the left hand side of the linked page). READ
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An Exhaustive Look at the real Thelonious Monk
February 15, 2010 - In a sympathetic, if somewhat condescending review of D.G. Kelley’s book, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original,in The Nation, David Yaffe, a Syracuse University English professor, does pass on the basic information about Thelonious Monk’s life and career, situating his particular genius within a post-Second World War United States that had time for upper-class eccentrics like poet Robert Lowell, but not for quirky jazz musicians such as Monk and Charles Mingus. Most importantly he does dispute some of the hoary clichés perpetuated by Ken Burns’s Jazz TV series that Bop was big happy family; and more importantly isolates the truism that “since 1987 the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz has given awards to promising musicians with chops far smoother than those of its namesake”. Like their aim with tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, it would seem that Jazz’s present-day myth-makers still want to shove Monk into the neo-bop establishment bag and to ascribe different attitudes to the pianist than he would have accepted. READ
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Is Peter Evans the Future of the Trumpet?
February 8, 2010 - For someone who has only been on the scene for a short time, Queens. N.Y. York-based Peter Evans has quickly become one the most talked about and praised trumpeters on the progressive scene since arriving in New York six years ago with a classical performance degree from Oberlin Conservatory. Composer/keyboardist Eric Wubbels raves about the trumpeter’s solo double-CD in New Music Box, going into great detail about Evans’ technical prowess, comparing his command of solo technique to that of saxophonist Evan Parker and situating him firmly within the New music tradition. However Evans is more versatile than that. He’s also a charter member of bassist Moppa Elliott's so-called terrorist bebop band Mostly Other People Do the Killing, along with alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon and drummer Kevin Shea; performs Baroque music on piccolo trumpet; and is part of the improvising duo Sparks with bassist Tom Blancarte, and another one with fellow trumpeter Nate Wooley. READ
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KEN WAXMAN'S
REVIEW OF THE MOMENT
Read reviews of over 1,800 musicians
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COXHILL/GJERSTAD/STEPHENS
This That and The Other
Loose Torque LT 003
By Ken Waxman
An aviary symphony, this CD matches two veteran European reed players on six longish explorations of the timbral qualities of high-pitched horns. Anchored only by the steadfast stopping of acoustic bassist Nick Stephens, England’s Lol Coxhill on soprano saxophone, and Norway’s Frode Gjerstad on Eb and Bb clarinets and alto saxophone, explore every nuance of staccato shrillness.
Although the reedists, in their first recorded face-off, are front-and-centre, it’s Stephens who earns MVP status. The bassist, who also recorded, mixed and edited the session before releasing it on his own label, utilizes nearly every bull fiddle technique available to both accompany the players singly, and serve as the glue holding together their improvisations.
Along the way he exhibits his own command of the big daddy of the string family. Leaping from vibrated shuffle bowing to thick pizzicato episodes of splayed rhythms and then back to tremolo col legno action – often on the same track – he provides the ballast that keeps the other two’s timbres from fixating on strident altissimo.
Most of the time Coxhill’s and Gjerstad’s reeds produce enough echoing tones to populate an ornithological pet shop. Penny whistles-like shrieks, tremolo spetrofluctuation and staccato wails are the common discourse of both, although there are points when the Norwegian adopts a more moderate tone. He almost touches on mellow when his lower-pitched Eb clarinet is in use.
At points layered dissonance seems to be the contrapuntal currency, yet there are other spots at which the Englishman’s tongue-stopping brays manage to suggest an obtuse complement to Gjerstad’s vibrations. Less frequently, it almost appears that the polytones complement and harmonize with each other – then it’s back to singular split-tones from the soprano, ascending past dog-whistle territory, and split-tone braying and tongue slaps from the alto saxophonist. All the while Stephens’ growling sul tasto patterning plus occasional waist and belly knocking holds down the bottom.
Admirable rather than gripping, THIS THAT AND THE OTHER exposes far too many fortissimo and agitato tones to really tell a story. Yet it does confirm the technical skills of all three players.
Track Listing: 1. This 2. That 3. This and That 4. This and The Other 5. That and The Other 6. This That and The Other
Personnel: Lol Coxhill (soprano saxophone); Frode Gjerstad (Eb and Bb clarinets and alto saxophone); Nick Stephens (bass)
August 14, 2006
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