best of 2011 @ london _ resonance

selections + live photos _ gian paolo galasi

Records:

Live Acts: 

Peter Broetzmann / Masaiko Satoh

Henie Onstadt Art Center, Hovidokken (NO), Jan. 16

Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith / Gunther Baby Soemmer

Cinema Teatro Torresino (IT), Padova, May 12

Sainko Namtchylak / Arto Lindsay

Teatro dell'Arte, Milano (IT), May 31

Rogelio Sousa - Cafe OTO, London (UK), Sep. 30

Havard Skaset - Cafe OTO, London (UK), Sep. 30

reviewing @ london_resonance [part 2]

words _ gian paolo galasi

I discovered Mauro Sambo recently, thanks to the profile I wrote for the Istanbul-based label re:konstruKt. Versatile and many-sided, carrying since many years a personal artistic expression at the convergence of sculpture, performance, videoart and music, even if not still widely recognized as he deserves, Sambo is also a multi-instrumentalist: alto sax, tenor sax, flute, bass clarinet, double bass, electronics, iPad, iPhone, percussions. His last effort "Presto (dicono) giungerà la neve" [in English "Soon, they say, the snow will come"] takes his title from a Jorge Louis Borges novel. 

In the past, Michel Foucault dedicated his "The Order of Things" to the writer, underlining a concept of 'other space' (heterotopia) that lies in between the things and the words, a space neither here nor there. Improv fans familiar with Sun Ra probably will be able to connect with the concept, but the music here is really somewhere in between improvisation and soundart, electronic and acoustic, analogic and digital, music and space, while his previous "... di Origine Oscura" was a little bit shifted towards sculpture. 


05 - 06 09 2011

The Spontaneous River Ensemble was assembled in 2007 by Jason Kao Hwang and Patricia Nicholson Parker for a tribute to Leroy Jenkins, that died that year. Their first performance took place at the Vision Festival XII. Billy Bang was the conductor of the first version of Hwang's Symphony of Soul (Mulatta Records/Flying Panda Music, 2011) that reached his definitive version in 2008 where it was performed at the NY's Living Theatre. 

The ensemble is composed by Hwang's regular partners (Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, Andrew Drury on drums and Ken Filiano on bass) in the Edge quartet, 14 violins, 5 violas, 7 guitars (featuring Dom Minasi), 5 cellos and 6 string basses (amongst them Michael Bisio, since about one year regular partner of pianist Matthew Shipp).

Partly inspired in his conduction by his past collaborations with Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris and Henry Threadgill, the music contained in this record is related by Jason Hwang himself to the jiwa, the individual embodied soul of every human being. The orchestral arrangements are conceived as a dialogue of souls and an exploration of the kinetic energies of the music itself through the layering of his particles.

Ilia Belorukov's Intonema released at the same time with Wozzek also Bewitched Concert, a 40 minutes improvisation reminiscent of contemporary music by a 'spontaneous' and international quintet composed by singer Thomas Buckner, flutist and composer Edyta Fil, pianist, composer and sound engineer Alexey Lapin, cellist Juho Laitinen and Belorukov himself on alto saxophone and objects.

While Dmitry Ukhov in the liner notes mentions Pauline Oliveros and her Deep Listening music, and also Witold Lutoslawski's Hesitant second symphony, we can take note of a work perfectly balanced between contemporary music and improvisation, in which the backgrounds of every musician are perfectly recognizable. It's not that common today listening to young performers (Thomas Buckner is the only one to have more than 40 years of career on his shoulders), coming from different backgrounds even if with a slight balance on contemporary music, still using as means of expressions devices related to recognizable , while stirred, idioms and looking for a coherent structure. So the record - as the other two in this article - can be also taken as an important clue in order to avoid for free improvisation the risk of involution as, apart from single musicians, happened to sound art at least in the last ten years. 

reviewing @ london_resonance [part 1]

words: gian paolo galasi

Since my first days here in London I received via mail or digital download many records kindly provided by musicians residing in different parts of the world. While waiting for the issuing of an extended analysis for each one on a webmagazine, I decided to start an overview here on london_resonance, just curious about their matching with the live reviews for London-based listeners, while at the same time trying to shorten the schedule. 

Ilia Belorukov is the young founder of Saint Petersburg-based Intonema label, organizer of the festival Zeni Geva and collaborator of Ignaz Schick (Ambiances Magnétiques). The first two outputs of the label are Act III: Comics by Wozzek and Bewitched Concert by a quintet composed by Thomas Buchner (voice), Edyta Fil (flute), Ilia Belorukov (alto saxophone, objects), Alexej Lapin (upright piano) and Juho Laitinen (cello, voice). 

Wozzek is basically the duo of Belorukov (prepared/processed alto sax, ipad, objects) and bassist Mikhail Ershov, and through his three major releases and many eps since 2007 evolved from the initial jazzcore influenced by Painkiller, Zu and Diskaholic Anonimous Trio up to this first physical publication, accompanied by a beautiful booklet in which Victor Melamed is responsible of hypercinetizing Frank Miller, while the 47 small compositions for an amount of 23 minutes are the soundtrack the duo, with the addiction of Dmitriy Vediashkin on electric guitar, Dmitriy Krotevic on trombone, Maria Grigoryeva on violin, and Mikhail Tsypin on voice, is providing for it. Splinters of sound, of voices, of onomatopoeias. Classic Guide to Strategy and Raymond Scott are the obvious references, while the second, ten minute track - actually a remix of the first - is made of a more wide and stretched landscape, as if Popol Vuh were playing found objects.


http://intonema.blogspot.com/2011/02/int001-wozzeck-act-iii-comics.html

Jason Kao Hwang, recently granted by Downbeat with the second place as 'Rising Star of Violin' and a 'reissue of the year' by the New York City Jazz record for Commitment: The Complete Recordings 1981-1983 (NoBusiness, 2010), issues on Euonimous Records the Edge quartet's Crossroads Unseen and the Spontaneous River ensemble's Symphony of Souls. 

Edge are Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, fluegelhorn), Andrew Drury (drum set), Ken Filiano (string bass) and Hwang (composer, violin, viola) providing a buch of compositions whose feeling and spirit is what the New York loft season produced at his best (with Henry Threadgill's Air as the main possible reference, if one). Long time associated with William Parker, and responsible for a quite different style from Leroy Jenkins, the main reference for improvising on violin, full of Asian colors without being ethnic - a subtly asian-tinged use of space, sensitive as far as harmonic and melodic architectures and interplay, Hwang and his fellows are responsibles for a music beautifully cooked up, revitalizing a tradition of free improvisation in showing us the single improvisers shifting their dialogues with fluency and sharpness, cinematic devices and a title track worthy of being listed in a forthcoming best of 2011. 


From East Sixth Street Jason Kao Hwang

I talked about Islak Kopek on Allaboutjazz months ago - skim through it and pick up what you want directly from re:konstruKt digital label after reading, so I'm happy to introduce a record (Istanbul Improv Sessions 4th May, Evil Rabbit Records, 2011) made by the first improvising group active in Istanbul since 1995 added with flutist, improviser, composer Mark Alban Lotz. 


While I'm planning to put down a retrospective on the activity of the band via an interview with Korhan Erel, I'd like to point at the fact that the music herein is an excellent document of the different approaches to composition and improvisation of the group - basically electroacoustic improvisation with a 'chamber' approach, since the fourtheen small pieces, from 1 to about 5 minutes - are featuring different combinations of musicians. Kevin Whitehead in the notes writes about a cosmic sound carrying with it balinese gamelan, senegalese drumming, navajo and bulgarian and australian aboriginal singing, peruvian pipes. That means that one of the best quality of the record is being higly evocative. I would add that the best moment here is Our, an explicit, moving dedication to Albert Ayler and to the 'speaking in tongues' era, and an indication on how a group of musicians can bring together non idiomatic expressions and a well rooted sense of what dealing with structures mean.


14 Our (group)