The Free Jazz Collective

By Sammy Stein I first heard Lars Fiil in 2017. His album, Reconsideration (2011), was nominated for a Danish Music Award Jazz, and he has since released internationally acclaimed albums w...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/lars-fiil-new-ground-sr-2024.html

By Martin Schray Frush is a project of four unsung heroes of the second generation of European free jazz - Luc Houtkamp, Sebi Tramontana, Steve Beresford and Martin Blume. Nevertheless, t...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/frush-luc-houtkamp-sebi-tramontana.html

By Nick Ostrum Rhonda Taylor is Professor of Saxophone and Music Theory at the University of New Mexico, Las Cruces. I am not sure how much location informs this album, but there might b...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/rhonda-taylor-chaos-theory-self-2024.html

By Don Phipps There is much to enjoy on Refract. BlankFor.ms (electronics), Jason Moran (piano), and Marcus Gilmore (drums) create a series of poetic vignettes that carry the listener on ...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/blankforms-jason-moran-marcus-gilmore.html

By Don Phipps The jazz world was devastated to learn that Keith Jarrett had suffered two strokes in October of 2020 and would no longer be able to perform. Primarily a pianist (but also ...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/keith-jarrettgary-peacockpaul-motian.html

Photo by Cristina Marx/Photomusix What is your greatest joy in improvised music? I get a very basic and fundamental joy from the activity itself. This is not necessarily enough to gener...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/peter-evans-sunday-interview-xl.html

By Martin Schray The period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s can certainly be described as the golden age of European and therefore, of course, German free jazz. Apart from the big...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/hans-schneider-1951-2024.html

By Matty Bannond A poem about the transience of modern life is the muse for the second episode in this two-part series from 577 Records. Shine Hear Volume 1 (review here )was characterized ...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/daniel-carter-leo-genovese-william.html

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos The music of , quite deliberately, is too difficult to pin down or label. Of course someone who is not an acolyte, I must admit that I am, of their music, would co...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/ahmed-giant-beauty-fonstret-2024.html

My apologies! These have been sitting in my 'to-post' pile too long now. So, as the clocks start falling back for winter, here's a little remembrance of the summer, first with a review of Gunter ...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/summer-memories-gunter-baby-sommers.html

By Sammy Stein The Roles We Play To Disappear will be released by acclaimed artist Paula Rae Gibson on Fri 1st of November on 33 Xtreme label. It is an album of experimental songs, and ele...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/paula-rae-gibson-roles-we-play-to.html

By Martin Schray In the late 1970s, New York City seemed to be on its last legs. Faced with economic stagnation, industrial decline and the threat of financial bankruptcy, the city was force...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/kalaparusha-maurice-mcintyre-rivbea.html

By Don Phipps Combining improvisation and formalism, the music on the Kris Davis Trio’s Run the Gauntlet sizzles and pops with creative flair. Davis (piano), Robert Hurst (bass) and Joh...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/kris-davis-trio-run-gauntlet.html

© photo Uwe Bley  WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST JOY IN IMPROVISED MUSIC? To play with others in intensive-concentrated-listening and open-to-risk collectives. I particularly like everything fro...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/harri-sjostrom-sunday-interview.html

Photo (c) Cristina Marx By David Cristol At festivals in Italy and Portugal in March and May of this year, I met and talked about music with Oxford pianist, organist, composer, bandleader...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/essential-listening-alexander-hawkins.html

All photos (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix By Paul Acquaro (text) and Cristina Marx (photos) In advance of his 70th birthday (October 25, 1954), British saxophonist John Butcher performed f...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/john-butcher-70-berlin-weekend.html

By Nick Ostrum This is becoming a pattern on FJB. Gordon Grdina drops a few albums, and we cover them, usually with high praise. This review will continue in that trend. Guitarist and oud...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/two-gems-from-gordon-grdina.html

By Paul Acquaro You must not skip ahead to minute 39:30 of Bleed. Let it build, or rather, let it kind of sizzle expectantly until the aforementioned, sublime final three minutes. These c...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/the-necks-bleed-northern-spy-2024.html

By Ferruccio Martinotti Ever used the banal claim “stellar line up”? We did. Ever dropped the boring line “the total exceeds the sum of the parts”? We did. Ever had the childish d...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/rasmussen-sakata-orourke-corsano-live.html

By Gary Chapin Fanfares and Freedom makes sense when you think of it—as the notes suggest—as a jazz quartet paired with a brass band, the two in dialogue. The brass band tradition ha...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/laura-jurd-paul-dunmall-fanfares-and.html

Jack Wright with Ben Bennett   WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST JOY IN IMPROVISED MUSIC? Performing or playing a session interactively with friends--no structure, concept, or notion of what would b...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/jack-wright-sunday-interview.html

By Eyal Hareuveni Norwegian guitar hero Terje Rypdal joined the performances of local free-prog-rock power trio Elephant9 - keyboard player Ståle Storløkken (of Supersilent, who played w...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/elephant9-with-terje-rypdal-catching.html

By Paul Acquaro DEREK PLAYS ERIC - A SUITE OF SOAPS AND OTHER ASSORTED SCENERIES (JAZZWERKSTATT, 2023)  The concept of this Berlin based trio is to find a spot somewhere in the continuum...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/guitar-week-closing-statements.html

By Eyal Hareuveni  LUÍS LOPES - DARK NARCISSUS: STEREO GUITAR SOLO (ROTTEN/FRESH / SHHPUMA, 2024) Portuguese guitarist Luís Lopes describes his idiosyncratic, solo aesthetics as aver...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/luis-lopes-solo-and-duo.html

By Eyal Hareuveni SCHNEIDER / SERRIES (SCHNEIDER COLLABORATIONS, 2024) The duo album of Serries and German experimental, free-improv, avant-rock and noise drummer Jörg A. Schneider (kn...

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/10/dirk-serries-three-completely-different.html