Uniting three generations of Danish improvisers, ZAV’s music is a visceral combination of heart-on-the-sleeve immediacy, fractured lyricism and rapid-fire interplay. Elder statesman Jesper Zeuthen (alto saxophone, saw) rose to prominence in the late ‘60s with proto-jazz rockers Blue Sun, rising [...]
It would be remiss not to remark on the album’s enigmatic title, an allusion to the bizarre exploits of 19th Century music hall artiste Albert “Zanetto” Bale. Bale’s repertoire included catching vegetables on a fork clasped between a gap in [...]
Recording for New Zealand’s Rattle Music for over a decade now, Greek pianist Tania Giannouli has rightly been compared to the great pianists associated with ECM Records. Her music traverses the boundaries between jazz, free improvisation, European classical and Eastern [...]
Velvet Revolution (Daniel Erdmann, Théo Ceccaldi and Jim Hart) At a certain point in the life of most working groups, things can suddenly click into place. That’s not to say that Velvet Revolution’s first two albums, “A Short Moment Of [...]
For anybody unfamiliar with the members of this Franco-German trio, cellist Vincent Courtois’s career now spans four decades, his adventurous spirit gracing dozens of recordings by artists including Louis Sclavis, Rabih Abou-Khalil and Michele Rabbia. Saxophonist Daniel Erdmann rose to [...]
From Keith Tippett to Benoît Delbecq and Eve Risser, improvising pianists continue to find inspiration in John Cage’s seminal works for prepared piano. Canadian pianist and composer Matt Choboter dives deeper than most, adding an array of live electronics to [...]
Having studied classical guitar and baroque music from age 6, Dutch maverick Bram Stadhouders (b.1987, Tilburg) knows his sackbut from his theorbo. Improvisation, homophonic textures and counterpoint are of course all part of the common lingua franca of jazz and [...]
From X-Legged Sally to Bram De Looze, the relatively small population of Belgium has certainly made its mark on contemporary jazz. With a new generation of artists beginning to make waves, those familiar with the brilliantly sardonic improv of SCHNTZL, [...]
