August 3, 2021

Thollem’s Astral Travelling Sessions

With Alex Cline and Susan Alcorn
Astral Spirits AS 153-08

Putting the pizzazz into peripatetic, keyboardist Thollem McDonas spent 2019 touring the US, recording with fellow improvisers along the way to eventually put out 25 albums. One of the first, this double duo disc, is illuminating as it shows McDonas’ reaction to contrasting situations using different instruments. Recorded in Santa Monica, the almost 38½-minute set with drummer Alex Cline is intense Free Jazz highlighting his kinetic piano undulations. The five tracks with Baltimore pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn in contrast are free-flowing and almost relaxed. Yet the dimensions of his synthesizer tones produce a texture that floats midway between prairie outskirts and outer space. MORE

October 2, 2013

Ellery Eskelin

Mirage
Clean Feed CF 271 CD

Ellery Eskelin Trio

New York II

Prime Source 7010

Although exposing characteristic and innovative reed comportment on both these trio sessions, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin’s choice of partners results in highly idiosyncratic and original discs. A superficial listing of personnel would deem Mirage the reedist’s country and western CD and New York II his standards disc, the conceptions that go into each are much more profound than these rote descriptions. MORE