The Ljubljana Jazz Series is a cooperation between the Clean Feed label and the Ljubljana Jazz Festival.
All recordings are made during the festival and released by Clean Feed the following year.
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CF317– De Beren Gieren/Susana Santos Silva "THE DETOUR FISH (LIVE IN LJUBLJANA)" |
The Ljubljana Jazz Festival has the good policy to program either veterans or newcomers who already proved their value, and here is the recording of the incendiary concert presented at the 2014 edition of that event by young piano jazz trio De Beren Gieren. After collaborations with the likes of Ernst Reijseger, Louis Sclavis and Jan Klare, this time the Belgian improvisers Fulco Ottervanger, Lieven Van Pée and Simon Segers have Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva as special guest. All four of them play here with a mission: find new ground with the terraplaning tools of jazz tradition and some appropriations of classical motives and techniques. One thing is certain: they really do it. The music is fresh, exciting, sometimes humoristic and even groovy – yes, there’s some rock riffs all along. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
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CF316– Brötzmann/Edwards/Noble "SOULFOOD AVAILABLE" |
This is the second album by the Peter Brotzmann trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble, following “The Worse the Better” (they’re also together in a third one, “Mental Shake”, but with the addition of Jason Adasiewicz and his vibraphone). And just like that first opus, recorded live in 2010 at the londonian Café Oto, what you find here is the vibrating document of a concert situation – now the band’s performance during the 2013 edition of the Ljubljana Jazz Festival. The band is the reunion of several generations of European free improvisers, and the best approach you could have for such a special encounter is to find them playing on stage. As you can conclude listening to this music, Brotzmann is far from being a historic figure just trying to keep his message alive. He’s still very much in the front line, always pushing the music ahead. Here is something precious for all those who like strong emotions….
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CF308– Kullhammar/Aalberg/Zetterberg/Mathisen "BASEMENTSESSIONS VOL.3 (THE LJUBLJANA TAPES)" |
At the third volume of its “Basement Sessions”, the Jonas Kullhammar / Torbjorn Zetterberg / Espen Aalberg trio brings a fourth element to the “mutated hardbop” concept they’ve been putting to practice: Jřrgen Mathisen. The Norwegian tenor saxophonist is the perfect match to Kullhammar’s twin sax – he has a similar power drive and the same connection to the tenor jazz tradition (the one going through Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane) than the Swedish musician. Finding them together in this live recording at a very special session before the audience got in, for their appearance at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival is a joy for the ears. Side by side they improvise inside (and out) everyone’s compositions (plus a surprising rendition to Marilyn Mazur's Fresk Baglćns) and topping one of the most propulsive rhythmic sections in Europe today, provided by the always surprising Zetterberg and Aalberg. If you thought, by listening to Mathisen’s work with Shagma, The Core and Zanussi Five, he was a Kullhammar’s rival in the Scandinavian scene, think again: here they are in a collaborative set, never indulging in a “who blows more and play faster” combat. The music sounds old school, mixing references of the years when hardbop transitioned to free jazz, but make sure: what you find here isn’t a passive reproduction of the Fifties. A must.
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CF307– Adam Lane´s Full Throttle Orchestra |
Adam Lane is back to the big band format he loves so much, with an ensemble (Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva is one of the contributors) large enough «to allow for a dense, multi-dimensional sound palette», but small enough «for successful group improvisation». The scores and the arrangements are at times complex and dense, while at others, soaked in a steamrolling groove. Lane incorporates organizational strategies that he learned from the new music composer Earle Brown, but never strays too far from the flowing logic of the jazz tradition. As usual he integrates a myriad of influences into his sound including nods to Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Muhal Richard Abrams, but also Luigi Nono, and Parliament/Funkadelic. And, surprise, surprise, there are even some key rhythmic elements taken from the Balinese and Javanese gamelan tradition, and not for exotic effect. As Adam Lane himself puts it: «It’s all about the groove.» Yes, this is highly intelligent music to tap your foot to: soulful mind candy with a groove!
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CF299 – Cene Resnik Quartet Live From the Sky |
Don’t feel disconnected to the world if you don’t know the name Cene Resnik. Only now all things happening in the fields of Slovenian jazz and improvised music start to be known outside the frontiers of this young European country born from the death of Tito’s Jugoslavia. And what you can find there is really astonishing. You had a glimpse when Clean Feed released a recording by pianist extraordinaire Kaja Draksler - now it’s time to discover the music of this tenor saxophonist who studied Indian classical music and tablas and whose vision of what is normally called “free jazz” is tinted by his Buddhist beliefs. With the help of violinist Emanuele Parrini, double bassist Giovanni Maier and drummer Aljoša Jerič, Resnik forged a refreshing improvisational practice, free from
any constraints but commited to the jazz language. No, the fact there's a tenor and a violin involved doesn't imply any special Albert Ayler influence – things are a bit more complex and less stereotyped. After all, what we would expect from someone who was a pupil of such different musicians like Archie Shepp and Joe Zawinul. Check it out and be surprised.
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The Lives of Many Others
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Joe McPhee is a musician of many solo albums (this is the number eight), but each one gives a different view of his art – either because of the instrumental choices, being the tenor saxophone the most frequent recording option, or because he has something new to add. In this case we can hear him playing the pocket trumpet, nowadays maybe his first tool to improvise, and a secondary reed among several, the alto sax. There’s a reason for this combination: “Sonic Elements” is a tribute to trumpeter extraordinaire Don Cherry, focusing on his period with the iconic alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. The imitation stops there. A master in his own right, McPhee doesn’t want to copy them, but to celebrate their music keeping a distance. Even so, three factors of that magical collaboration are retained after 50 years: the song format, the use of the blowing instruments as extended voices, and the blues feeling. That’s right: you can listen to this CD as a homage to early free jazz, but this is really the document of a live performance (in Ljubljana, dating from 2012) committed to the mother-language of African-American music: the blues. And what a fabulous blues record this is!
Trumpet and drums, or more exactly: two trumpets and two drumsets. The trumpeters, Nate Wooley and Peter Evans, are used to playing together, but it’s a first finding such different drummers (one a natural born rhythmicist, the other an architect of textures) as Jim Black and Paul Lytton playing together. Wooley has a duo with Lytton, and Evans worked with the two men holding the sticks. So, don’t think there’s a double duet acting here, or that previous Wooley / Evans or Wooley / Lytton experiences give a base of security to the events heard. As the wild card of the quartet, Black would easily (just by being himself) cut off all attempts to go to chartered terrain, but truth is he doesn’t need to: veteran improviser Lytton and the two younger horn players are known, precisely, for their ability to contradict themselves and to perform the unexpected. So, “Trumpet and Drums” isn’t the kind of summit you normally get when the same instruments are on stage. There’s no battle of skills, even if they’re well evident. That’s something else what conducts this meeting of giants: to find what the mirrors don’t show. And the four musicians do find what they search for, and so can you.
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CF278 - JOE MCPHEE |
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Joe McPhee is a musician of many solo albums (this is the number eight), but each one gives a different view of his art – either because of the instrumental choices, being the tenor saxophone the most frequent recording option, or because he has something new to add. In this case we can hear him playing the pocket trumpet, nowadays maybe his first tool to improvise, and a secondary reed among several, the alto sax. There’s a reason for this combination: “Sonic Elements” is a tribute to trumpeter extraordinaire Don Cherry, focusing on his period with the iconic alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. The imitation stops there. A master in his own right, McPhee doesn’t want to copy them, but to celebrate their music keeping a distance. Even so, three factors of that magical collaboration are retained after 50 years: the song format, the use of the blowing instruments as extended voices, and the blues feeling. That’s right: you can listen to this CD as a homage to early free jazz, but this is really the document of a live performance (in Ljubljana, dating from 2012) committed to the mother-language of African-American music: the blues. And what a fabulous blues record this is! |
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CF 257 - IGOR LUMPERT TRIO Innertextures Live |
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The present day jazz scene in the countries born when Tito’s Yugoslavia collapsed is very badly known by the rest of the world. Only recently things changed a bit, and one of the most alluded names of that part of Europe is tenor saxophonist Igor Lumpert. Searching for international recognition, for his Innertextures Trio he uses to invite American musicians. After touring and recording with, for instance, Matt Brewer and Tommy Crane, Lumpert’s rhythm section is now formed by two new-yorkers used to work together, bassist Christopher Tordini and drummer extraordinaire Nasheet Waits. More than an emergent name, Tordini collaborated with the likes of Greg Osby, Steve Lehman and Jim Black, and Waits is one of the most intriguing and brilliant drummers of our time. With partners like these and his very special talent, Lumpert is in the way to be widely known. The reasons why are in this CD – don’t be the last to know it. |
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CF 256 – ANGLES 8 |
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It was a special configuration of the Swedish band Angles that leader Martin Kuchen brought to the Ljubljana Jazz Festival in its 2011 edition. To the instrumental formation of the sextet was added a second saxophonist, Eirik Hegdal (baritone and sopranino), and a pianist, Alexander Zethson. The other participants are the same who recorded “Every Woman is a Tree”, with the exception of Magnus Broo, replaced by Goran Kajfes: Mats Aleklint, Mattias Stahl, Johan Berthling and Kjell Nordeson. If in that previous album the six musicians seemed an entire big band, the eight playing in “By Way of Deception” go even beyond that format to give an orchestral impact to the music. “Impact”, here, has a double sense: the pieces are either massive, particularly when the blowing section of four create a wall of sound, or full of details and dynamics – the presence of two harmonic instruments, the vibraphone and the piano, contributing decisively to that objective. The deception alluded by the title is the one every European (and everybody else in the world) is feeling now, in relation to how things are going, economically, socially, politically and more… So, don’t expect joyous music; only great music. |
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