Soundtrack To The Apocalypse is the third composition in the trilogy that has included The Black Peril and White Juju. In this work, Kinch has taken the original Greek meaning of the word ‘apocalypse’ which is an ‘unveiling’ , implying in this context a hopeful take on how a change in global attitudes to the disasters of war and effects of climate change might sound and feel. 

The composition began with a repeated phrase on Kinch’s alto saxophone played over an electronic soundscape, a phrase that was picked up by the horn section of trumpet, trombone and tuba. The music moved on quite quickly to a more acoustic tune that had Kinch developing a blues line, this time on the tenor saxophone. 

The movement between the electronic and the acoustic tunes continued throughout the set and there was also an interesting contrast between Kinch’s rap pieces and Francis Mott‘s forceful vocals in a soul style. 

These quite rapid transitions created a series of contrasting episodes in the music that nonetheless maintained a strong sense of cohesion. The only criticism is that some of the pieces could have been allowed more space with more freedom for individual solos. 

There were, however, many highlights, notably the layers of sound created by the electronics, but also various acoustic quartet or quintet pieces involving Kinch and Jay Phelps on trumpet playing over the excellent rhythmic support of Rick Simpson on piano, Josh Vadiveloo on bass and Louis Hamilton-Foad on drums. Also impressive were Francis Mott’s soul inflected vocals and a moving rap from Kinch on the theme of restoring justice to politics. 

There were also some special moments such as a short section that involved Kinch on the EWI (electronic wind instrument) combining with Hannah Mbuya‘s tuba and Mott’s vocals to create a unique texture; also a short free improvisation with Kinch on tenor saxophone playing over a strong rhythm from Vadiveloo and Hamilton-Foad. 

Kinch explained that he felt the music was essentially danceable, and one person near me did get up to dance in the aisle. It would be fascinating to see how the music would go down in a stand up dance venue. It certainly brought together many of the elements of the contemporary jazz and club music scenes in the UK to make a powerful musical statement. 

This concert was part of a weekend launching the collaboration between the Montreux Jazz Festival and the South Bank. The initial agreement is for a three year collaboration involving themed weekends such as this one, and involvement of British musicians in the main festival in Switzerland. 

The post Soweto Kinch – ‘Soundtrack To The Apocalypse’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The opening track, Muffled Screams, moves through a series of episodes featuring the various members of the ensemble. It begins (episode 1) with a stunning trumpet statement over a rippling piano sound and splashes on the cymbals and rolls on the drums. The music then moves into a passage for strings and piano (episode 2) which sets up the rapper who improvises over an ambient backing from the synths and short notes from the piano and drums. The strings return for a brief period before the synths take over. Episode 3 features the trumpet interacting with the rapper, with both matching each other’s energy. Finally (episode 4), the trumpet takes over and returns to the atmosphere of the first episode. The transitions between these episodes are smooth and cohesive.

The remaining four tracks follow a similar pattern with each having a series of episodes. Owled is a particularly interesting track that features aspects of minimalism, ambient electronic music, classical string quartet writing and hip hop. -s-/Kinfolks is the longest track at 29 minutes; it has a nostalgic feel, the focus moving between the trumpet and the rest of the band.  

The line up is Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet, the Mivos String Quartet, Sam Harris on piano, Chiquitamagic on synths, Justin Brown on drums, and Kokayi on vocals. Akinmusire in the liner notes points out that Kokayi is an improvising vocalist who reacts to the surrounding music rather than just a rapper, and his vocals are indeed relatively easy to follow. 

The music on this album is an excellent example of how creative jazz has the ability successfully to integrate various strands of contemporary music.

honey from a winter stone is released today 31 January 2025

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Responses came from saxophonist Chris Potter,  pianist Craig Taborn,  multi-instrumentalist Jorge Rossy and Sinikka Langeland, a folk musician from Norway who sings and plays the kantele, a member of the zither family which is considered Finland’s national instrument.

Most of the pieces from the responding musicians are placed in a random order on the CD, in a way which provides both variety and a sense of flow between them.

The album begins with a solo drum and percussion piece, ConfrontingSilence, and this is followed on a later track by a second solo piece, Arc For Drums.  In these Strönen plays in a more classical percussion style focussing on sounds from gongs, bells rather than on rhythmic patterns.

Chris Potter, on his two tracks, Weaving Loom on which he plays tenor sax, and Ephemeral on which he playssoprano, just goes for it, creating his own lines that run in parallel with Strönen’s; they were certainly less interactive than if they had been together in the studio.  The results are quite dramatic with the tension arising from the contrast between two approaches.

Sinikka Langeland adopted a very different method; she committed the percussion pieces to memory and recorded her contributions without direct reference to them.  She comes from a Norwegian/Finnish tradition, having been brought up in Finnskogen in Norway where her mother settled having left Karelia and she brings that tradition to bear in her improvisations, The results are nicely integrated with the two players taking turns to exchange phrases, with the sound of Strönen’s gentle skittering lines matching the sound of the kantele on the two tracks featuring that instrument, Koyasan and Nemesis. On the vocal track, Beginners Guide To Simplicity Langeland’s attractive voice is complemented by the ambient sound of the gongs.

Craig Taborn decided not to listen to the percussion tracks before reacting to them; he went straight in.  On The Axiom of Equality Taborn is gentle in the spaces between the drum phrases, but comes in strongly in direct reaction to a burst on the drums.  By contrast, on the longer track, Pentagonal Garden, Taborn plays a series of very short phrases in response to Strönen’s busier lines, but gradually becomes more expansive.  Both pieces are attractively thoughtful.

Jorge Rossy came up with yet another approach; he spent a lot of time working on different responses and submitting pieces on drums and vibes as well as the three pieces on piano that were eventually selected. These pieces, Nonduality, Ishi and KMJ have Rossy playing short rounded phrases leaving plenty of space for the drums.  They have more of a composed feel.

The tracks were put together and edited by Strönen with Manfred Eicher to construct a programme which lasts 35 minutes.  The variety of the approaches adopted by the responding musicians and the resulting differences in balance between more spontaneous and more structured approaches makes this a very listenable album.

The post  Thomas Strönen – ‘Relations’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The label’s first release, Altered Visions, features the three founders of the label plus bass player Kanoa Mendenhall – born in Japan, but raised in California – and drummer Iago Fernández. All five members of the group are young players already making their mark on the contemporary jazz scene. 

The recording came about because all five happened to be in Basel between gigs and were enthusiastic about playing together. Their aim was to celebrate togetherness and there is a considerable amount of collective improvisation on the only track on the album, the 33-minute Wild Marks.

A 33-minute straight-through track might seem a little daunting for an online or CD listener as compared with a live situation. That said, my experience was that the playing is varied, and moves between so many different approaches that it definitely does hold the listener’s interest. More than that: there is some really fine playing.

As is often the case with free improvisation, the music constantly changes and goes through a series of episodes: mostly collective improvisation from all five players, or in duo or trio passages, but also some straightforward soloing with saxophone playing over the rhythm section. There are also occasional vocals from Maria Grand.  

The post Maria Grand, Camila Nebbia, Marta Sánchez, Kanoa Mendenhall, Iago Fernández – ‘Altered Visions’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

This album is one of many contrasts.  Each track creates a soundscape mixing the sound of the electronics and percussion with the sounds of the acoustic instruments, namely the two saxophones mentioned above, the violin of Preetha Narayanan and the cello of Tara Franks.  It is led by Tullis Rennie, a composer, trombonist and DJ who has taken the improvised tracks and manipulated them in his studio to create a fusion of improvised music and club music. The aim is to create through the short abstract  soundscapes an musical event reflecting the magical unrepeatable moments that occur in club music, a particular sound or rhythm that one wants to grab and get hold of.  

This is an important album that makes a significant contribution to the growing field of improvised electronic music.

The post Tullis Rennie – ‘Safe Operating Space’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Its first release, Altered Visions, features the three founders of the label plus bass player Kanoa Mendenhall, a bass player born in Japan, but raised in California, and drummer Iago Fernández.  All five members of the group are young  players already making their mark on the contemporary jazz scene. 

The recording came about because all five happened to be in Basel between gigs and were enthusiastic about playing together.  Their aim was to celebrate togetherness and there is a considerable amount of collective improvisation on the only full track on the album, the 33-minute Wild Marks.

A 33-minute straight-through track might seem a little daunting for an online or CD listener as compared with a live situation.  Nonetheless, my experience was that the playing is varied and moves between so many different approaches that I did not lose concentration.  There is indeed  some really fine playing.

As is often the case with free improvisation, the music constantly changes and goes through a series of episodes: mostly collective improvisation from all five players, or in duo or trio passages, but also some straightforward soloing with saxophone playing over the rhythm section.  There are also at certain points vocals from Maria Grand..  

‘Altered Visions’ is released today, 6 December 2024.

The post Maria Grand, Camila Nebbia, Marta Sánchez, Kanoa Mendenhall, Iago Fernández – ‘Altered Visions’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Raul Midón is a singer-songwriter steeped in the jazz and Latin traditions, who received Grammy nominations in 2017 and 2018 in the Best Jazz Vocal Category.

His latest self-produced album, Lost & Found, adds elements of ‘alt-pop and smooth folk’ to the overall Latin jazz feel. Interestingly, the lyrics of the songs adopt a pessimistic and worldly-wise narrative focussing on life’s challenges, but the music itself is strongly upbeat and optimistic. In this, Midón is supported by the keys/piano, bass and drums trio of Federico Peña, Richard Hammond and Andrés Forero.

The opening title track, ‘Lost and Found’, sets the mood with lyrics talking of how a person facing life’s challenges can join Midón in Lost and Found. In ‘Going Away’, Midón sings of leaving for another place, leaving behind his problems and looking for peace of mind. However, on both of these tracks the nature of the music is highly rhythmic, positive and optimistic. On ‘Keep On Keeping On’, Midón suggests that ‘things will work out fine’ as long as he has his walking shoes.

On ‘A Condition of Love’, Midón is joined by the Ethiopian singer Wayne; they sing of ‘slowly drifting into love’, whereas on ‘The Ganja Song’ the focus is on the inspiration brought by cannabis.

Overall, the joyful nature of the music combined with lyrics focussing on life’s challenges gives the album a certain engaging charm. It is also extremely welcome that the words of the songs are clear and can be clearly heard by the listener.

Raul Midón is currently on a European tour and will play two dates in the UK: 

Friday 15 November: Trading Boundaries Restaurant, Sheffield Green, East Sussex, TN22 3RB, nr Fletching

Saturday 16 November: Soul Mama, Gantry Hotel (Curio Collection by Hilton), London, E20 1DB

The post Raul Midón – Lost & Found first appeared on UK Jazz News.

These celebrations focused on the Berlin community, in particular on that in the Moabit district, an area in the centre of Berlin that is extremely diverse in terms of its population with significant numbers of Turkish and Syrian inhabitants. The festival mounted an extensive programme in Moabit, culminating in the Sunday Community Walk on the final day of the festival. This began at the Jazz Institute with a concert that featured various acts, a children’s event in which they conducted a piano trio followed by performances by Syrian and Turkish choirs, the latter being composed of teenage girls and four men, accompanied by a couple of saz players. 

The walk took place in the area by the side of the canal and the river and featured occasional pop up improv sessions and open air performances involving rappers from the communities, and bands from the main concert programme, including the Otomo Yoshihide Big Band. The culmination of the day took place in the Refo Moabit Church with performances by the choirs that had performed earlier in the day, the Musho duo of Sofia Jernberg and Alex Hawkins and a group of improvising musicians who played on the church balcony.

A complementary strand of the celebrations involved a two day seminar and a publication reflecting on the history of the festival. Four previous Artistic Directors joined the current Director, Nadin Deventer, to discuss the way the festival has grown. Nadin emphasised that her highlight of this year’s festival was the Community Project and related performances, and that this was an important development for the festival.

It was fascinating to learn that major artists, such as Sarah Vaughan, Abdullah Ibrahim and Miriam Makeba, had been booed at the festival for being too mainstream. It was agreed that this was unlikely to happen today, and that the Berlin audience, while maintaining its penchant for contemporary jazz, has become much more tolerant. 

Turning to the main festival programme, highlights included three piano led groups. Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons impressed with its ability to embed Davis’ melodic ideas within an open improvised setting, and to integrate the sounds of Val Jeanty‘s electronicsand Terri Lyne Carrington’s explosive but totally supportive drumming into a cohesive group sound. 

Joachim Kuhn led his French trio with bass player, Thibault Cellier and drummer Sylvain Darrifourcq, chosen for their ‘French way, with lightness, speed and elegance’  (UK Jazz News review of their album by Frank Graham).  Kuhn, now in his 80s, moved from elegant compositions to high energy improvisation driven by the strong and inventive support from Cellier and Darrifourcq.  Each piece built up to a strong climax at which point Kuhn either returned to the tune, or just stopped.  Sylvie Courvoisier presented her new quartet, Poppy Seeds with three key players from the creative New York scene, Patricia Brennan on vibes, Thomas Morgan on bass and Dan Weiss on drums.  The combination of piano with vibes, effectively two keyboards, created very interesting and distinctive textures.

The festival maintains its strong links with the American scene; in the past this has been with the Chicago and the AACM scene, but this year it programmed  a more varied set of players from the USA.  Drummer/composer John Hollenbeck had two projects, both based in the backstage area where the late night concerts take place.  The first was based on Martin Luther King’s The Drum Major Instinct speech in which he criticises the human desire to be out front and to be praised.  There were three parts, each with the members of the group interacting with the recording of the speech, the first iteration featuring three trombones and Hollenbeck on drums, the second a group with guitar, accordion, vibes and Hollenbeck on piano, and the third with the whole ensemble.  Many of the audience found the third repetition of the speech, one too many and drifted away.  His second appearance presented his ‘Letters to George’ project in which the compositions are dedicated to a number of people with the first name George.  The GEORGE group with Hollenbeck on drums, Anna Webber on tenor saxophone and flute, Sarah Rossy and Chiquita Magic, both on keys and vocals, explored very attractive sonic territory.

Darius Jones presented the German premiere of his commission from the Vancouver Jazz Festival, fluXkit Vancouver; this featured Jones’ excellent writing for the strings of Peggy Lee on cello, and the Zubot brothers, Jesse and Josh, on violin,and the very distinctive contrast between Jones’ powerful sound on the alto sax and the sound of the strings.

The festival on the main Festspiele stage concluded with a barnstorming performance by Otomo Yoshihide’s 16 member big band.  This was a joyous performance with full on anthemic compositions, conductions from different members of the band and free collective improvisation.  The encore gave us the Japanese bon dance, a participatory dance music very popular in the Fukushima area of Japan.

The energy and fun of the Yoshihide big band contrasted with an earlier rather lacklustre performance from the Sun Ra Arkestra, which seemed to miss the charisma of Marshall Allen, who no longer tours with the band now that he is 100 years old.

JazzFest Berlin has this year in its 61st edition maintained its standing as one of Europe’s most progressive jazz festivals and has broadened its remit through its focus on the different communities of the city.

The post Jazzfest Berlin 2024 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The music is intense, dramatic, even aggressive; it is based on complex compositions and the use of multilayering of the various instruments delivered at breakneck speed.  It has been described as having ‘the inventiveness of a mad scientist’ and ‘a strong element of physicality’. 

There is, however, a welcome variety and an element of humour across the ten tracks on the CD.  Certain tracks, for example, the title track and Perverted by Perseverance, create a high energy and almost manic effect by layering the sound of several instruments on top of each other, and by creating occasional sudden pauses before moving into a change of direction.  A more atmospheric mood is created on The Snow Falling, Failing by the use of a number of vintage tenor banjos playing over each other.  There are also a number of genuinely solo tracks without any layering; Unbalanced Love Portfolio and Phenomenal Doggerel feature solo banjo and Gawk Fodder and Some Recanted Evening feature the 12-string guitar.  

This is another excellent recording on the Pyroclastic Records label.

The post Brandon Seabrook – ‘Object Of Unknown Function’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The opening track, Zircon, sets the mood for the album, opening with the wonderful reedy sound of Rose’s bass clarinet accompanied by a kind of drone on the bass and a repeated rhythmic figure on the tar.  Once the feel of the track is established the clarinet and tar reverse roles with the tar leading accompanied by the clarinet and bass.  

The music develops in very natural and relaxed ways, but always building on the interaction between the three players and creating interesting textures. It all flows smoothly with most tracks segueing straight into the next track.  Occasionally the music breaks down into a solo or duo section, but mostly it has the feeling of three musicians engaged in a continuous conversation. 

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