Reedist and mutli-instrumentalist Udo Schindler's first instrument was a soprano sax, and this solo concert at Atelier Ekkelancj Götze in Munich in 2018 brings to the foreground his 40 years of experience, advanced technique, and creative approach to this capricious and demanding instrument, performing a 2-part free-form "PNEUMA-Sax+Erde" and an encore.

Working their way backwards from "Five" in 2017 to the new "Three" in 2020, the UK creative improvising quintet of Daniel Thompson on acoustic guitar, Adrian Northover on saxophones, John Edwards on double bass, Marcello Magliocchi on drums, and Neil Metcalfe on flute are heard live at London's Iklectik in 2019 for three profoundly exploratory free improvisations.

A tightly integrated group that balance strongly melodic material and fully free and spacious improv from the Melbourne, Australia quartet of Hiroki Hoshino on double bass, Miles Henry on drums, Theo Carbo on guitar, led by trumpeter Paul Williamson, presenting four lyrical modern jazz compositions from both Williamson & Hoshino, and 4 collective improvisations.

The long-running UK collaboration of Paul Dunmall on tenor sax & alto flute and drummer Mark Sanders, is joined by NY pianist Angelica Sanchez to record five superb collective trio compositions, Sanchez and Sanders providing outstandingly active rhythmic foundations over which Dunmall passionately soars, then adding unusual foundations over Sanchez's astute solo sections.

A split 7" release between Cremaster (Alfredo Costa Monteiro (electronics) and Ferran Fages (feedback mixing board and electroacoustic devices); and the Komora A trio of Karol Koszniec (electronics), Dominik Kowalczyk (laptop) and Jakub Mikolajczyk (modular synth).

19 years after the last Chicago Underground Quartet album, this session with Rob Mazurek on piccolo trumpet, electronics & bells, Jeff Parker on electric guitar, and Chad Taylor on drums, percussion and newcomer Josh Johnson on synth bass & keys is a warm reunion, with individual compositions from Taylor, Mazurek & Parker, and two solo pieces by Mazurek and Taylor.

Recorded during a series of concerts reuniting alto saxphonist Rick Countryman with mentor and friend, drummer Sabu Toyozumi, this live concert at Tago Jazz Cafe in Philippines includes acoustic bassist Simon Tan and free improvising Malaysian tenor saxophonist Yong Yandsen, in an adventurous set of extended performances of intertwining reeds and rhythm; superb!

The second album between the late saxophonist Giuseppi Logan and guitarist Ed Pettersen after the former learned of the Logan's reappearance in the early 2000s, is this collective session with Logan on sax & piano, Jessica Lurie on sax & flute, Larry Roland on double bass, and Ed Pettersen on guitar, originally released in 2013 on the Improvising Beings label.

Rediscovered playing in NYC's Tompkins Square park in 2009, iconic saxophone player Giuseppi Logan enjoyed a second life in performing and recording up until his passing in 2020, heard here covering Coltrane, Ellington, and collective improvisation, in a quintet with Cooper-Moore (piano), Larry Roland (acoustic bass), Ed Pettersen (guitar) and Tracy Silverman (electric violin).

The second album for the duo of Japanese avant percussionist living in New Mexico Tatsuya Nakatani and Asheville, NC guitarist Shane Parish (Ahleuchatistas), recorded live at Static Age Records during Nakatani's extensive 2018 tour, finding both players intensely involved in their dialog, through highly interactive and deeply reflective passages.

After the 2014 Rock In Opposition Festival in Japan, Richard Pinhas and Yoshida Tatsuya did a two week tour of Japan; one of the results was this CD compiled from several shows during that tour, an excellent album of improvised electronics and drums from Heldon and Ruins masters.

The 3rd release of improvising guitarist Joe Morris' "Instantiation" series, where each part is unique, composed with specific notated and operational components such that it impossible to perform any of them the same way twice; performed with Ben Hall on tympani & percussion, Andria Nicodemou on vibraphone, Dan O'Brien on tenor & baritone sax,and , Allison Burik on alto sax.

Guitarist Barry Chabala merges musique concréte and improvisation, using recordings from painter and visual artist Lance Austin Olsen that Olsen recorded in his workshop while creating a series of large collaged and folded paintings--mutterings, physical sounds and other ephemera--which he sent to Chabala to use as a backdrop for these spaciously meditative guitar improvisations.

Saxophonist & flutist Bonnie Kane (W.O.O.) joins the Turbulence group, the extended horn section of the Leap of Faith Orchestra from Boston area collective Evil Clown led by David Peck (PEK), a concert that was live-streamed to Youtube during the Covid-19 Pandemic in February 2020, in a sextet with four reedists, two trumpeters, electronics, drums & extensive percussion.

This '93 solo concert at Norfolk Academy in Virginia finds free jazz pianist Joel Futterman reflecting on standards and jazz repertoire by inference & reference, improvising over 7 original compositions and Coltrane's "Naima", with moments of lyrical delicacy, savvy swinging sections, and reflective Monk moods, all filtered through his Futteran's powerful creative drive.

The 2011 Guelph Jazz Festival presented this quartet of legendary players--William Parker on bass, Alvin Fielder on drums & percussion, Joel Futterman on piano & flute, and Kidd Jordan on tenor saxophone--for an exemplary concert of jazz that uses free approaches to create melodic, inventive and soulful music, the expansive conversations sophisticated and wonderfully exhilarating.

Since 2015, composers-performers-conductors Anna Webber and Angela Morris have brought their compositions and playing skill to their Webber/Morris Big Band, 18 stellar New York improvisers integrating improvisation and composed material in unorthodox ways & with extra-musical sources, heard here at Roulette in Brooklyn in 2018 and at Buckminster Forest in 2019.

Four rich and soulful pieces of electric jazz with an often Mwandishi-feel, from bassist Bill Laswell in a 9-piece ensemble of outstanding improvisers: Pharoah Sanders on sax, Peter Apfelbaum on sax, flute & keyboards, Herbie Hancock on electric piano, and 5 drummer/percussionsts--Jerry Marotta, Chad Smith, Hideo Yamaki, Satoyasu Shomura and, Adam Rudolph.

Urgent and inspired free improvisation from New Yorkers Futterman, Fielder and Levin in a studio release of their trio's original and spontaneous compositions.

The 4th in improving guitarist and composer Joe Morris' Instantiation series, where each part is unique, composed with specific notated and operational components such that it impossible to perform any of them the same way twice; performed with two active Boston improvisers, trombonist Eric Stilwell (hear on Joe Morris Trio "Value") and cellist & bassist Brad Barrett.

Filipino guitarist Karl Evangelista translates the name of the seminal South African sextet Chris McGregor Group's album "Very Urgent" to the tagalog equivalent--"Apura!"-- recording in London with McGregor group drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo and kindred soul Trevor Watts on saxophones, plus luminary pianist Alexander Hawkins, for a sophisticated album of exemplary collective improv.

Two albums released together as a single-priced 2-CD set, NY drummer, composer and free improviser Whit Dickey leads two groupings: on Reckoning, a duet with frequent collaborator, pianist Matthew Shipp; and Pacific Noir, a trio with Shipp and trumpeter Nate Wooley; both superb examples of modern jazz with creative inventiveness and virtuouso execution.

Two distinctive tracks from the Norwegian duo of Katariin Raska-Torupill on Estonian bagpipe and Christian Meaas Svendsen on double bass: "Melting With Butterflies" is a work of ecstatic repetition, filled with chaos and joy, building in intensity; "The Way Mountains Make Love" is an immense, profoud and potent lower register work of dark solidity.

Chinese Buddhism defines "Hungry Ghosts" as beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way, an apt description of this trio's dynamic and often bristling collective free jazz, with Malaysian saxophonist Yong Yandsen and Norwegians, Christian Meaas Svendsen on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums, performing live in Kuala Lumpur, 2018.

NYC Downtown mainstays, trumpeters Dave Ballou and Herb Robertson, are heard in a full concert at The Stone in NYC in 2007 with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey, concentrating their work in the Satoko Fuji Orchestra and Orange Then Blue into their own quartet, this their first performance together their energy, inventivenss and enthusiasm is on full display.

Though short-lived, the New York Contemporary Five brought together NY free players Don Moore on bass, J.C. Moses on drums, Archie Shepp on tenor saxophone, and Don Cherry on trumpet with Danish alto saxophonist John Tchicai, in a remastered edition of their 1966 album "Consequences", expanded with Shepp's revisiting of the material in a sextet with Sunny Murray and Ted Curson.

With intricate interplay and textural passages, Chicago improvising cellist Tomeka Reid and UK pianist Alexander Hawkins present their first collaboration, an exciting set of rapid interchanges of pointillistic playing and introspective playfullness, 9 collective dialogs alongside Leroy Jenkin's piece for "Albert Ayler (His Life Was Too Short)".

After their 2018 Off Label release Radiant Imprints, the dynamic pairing of James Brandon Lewis on tenor sax and drummer Chad Taylor, also on Mbira, are heard live at the Jazz Festival Willisau in 2019 for an exciting concert where the two present and reference pieces by Coltrane, Mal Waldron, Duke Ellington, & Dewey Redman, alongside original work from each; superb!

Insanely inventive and obsessive, the Bascaille trio of Antoine Letourneau-Berger, Olivier Tremblay-Noel and Tom Jacques use a mix of traditional and world percussive devices, homemade instruments, objects and amplification to create works of contemporary art and percussion, using equal temperament, microtonality, noise music, improvisation, unison, and polyrhythms.

Phill Niblock's "Baobob", a rich drone work on a massive scale, is realized by the German sound collective The Dorf (German for The Village) augmented as a 35-member orchestra, released in a 2-CD set alongside "Echoes", a compositions from Jan Klare in three parts recorded the same evening with the same large edition of The Dorf ensemble.

Longtime bandmates Ken Filiano (bass) and Andrew Drury (drums) join violinist Jason Kao Hwang for 6 original compositions, each a progression of gestures, songs, movements and locations that bring the musicians into a state of discovery and compassion, completed during the COVID-19 pandemic and honoring healthcare workers and those tragically lost to the disease.

An album of ecstatic noise improv with an experimental edge from the trio of Ulrich Krieger on tenor saxophone & contrabass clarinet, Nandor Nevai on "throats" & drums, and Wolcott on oscillator & electronics, viciously assertive music in seven track of mostly succinct statements composed or conceived by each of the band members; cathartic.

Mark Mothersbaugh records five compositions for the Player Piano Forte composed by Nandor Nevai, each an impossible performance for a human being, with each piece named for the number of hands theoretically performing, from "1 Hand" to "5 Hands", driving the Pianoforte into extreme territory of rapidity and complexity in a fascinating set of compositions.

This puzzling display of punk/jazz surrealism is masterminded by Nondor Nevai on drums and vocals, featuring Weasel Walter on bass and legendary journeyman Kenny Millions (aka Keshavan Maslak) on guitar and reeds, a sort of unholy fusion between extreme metal, bludgeoning noise rock, free jazz, black humor and true stream-of-consciousness improvisation.

Not Two Records celebrates their 20th Anniversary with a festival in Wlen, Poland, inviting 13 of the finest European & US improvisers--Guy, Leandre, Mazur, Nilssen-Love, Kaucic, Fernandez, Gustafsson, Vandermark, Trzaska, Brotzmann, Swell, Holmlander, & Homburg--performing in configurations from duo to quintet, released in a limited 5-CD wooden box set.

The 1981 debut studio album of Von LMO, released independently in 1981 through his label StraZar, dedicated to the advancement of the United States space program, described by music journalist Chuck Eddy as being one of the 500 best albums of heavy metal in his Stairway to Hell book, here in the Flemish Masters edition with the track "Shake, Rattle and Roll".

The 2nd volume from tenor & soprano saxophonist John Coltrane 1962 tour of Europe and Scandinavia, heard here in late November at Stefaniensaal, Graz with his quartet of pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones, the band playing classic numbers under the influence of Coltrane's expanding drive to transform his music toward greater freedom.

Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura (The NatSat Duo) launch their project Pentas with this album, their 7th as a duo, with compositions from each musician and dedicated as a tribute to Eric and Chris Stern, elder inspirational fans who spoke with the duo after the NY premiere of this music, upon learning that Eric passed away that very night.

Celebrating 40 years of Zlatko Kaucic's professional career as a musician, the quartet of Joelle Leandre on acoustic bass, Evan Parker on tenor saxophone, Agusti Fernandez on piano, and Zlatko Kaucic on drums & objects are heard live at the 23th Cerkno Jazz Festival in 2018 for an extended and stunning set, from the most active to the most introspective of moments.

The 13-piece Krakow Improvisers Orchestra approaches their music through conduction and improvisation, founder Paulina Owczarek leading the ensemble in an impressive 3-part work recorded in the studio, an exciting and quirky set using mostly acoustic instrumentation through reeds, brass and two drummer/percussionist, 2 bass players, free vocal improv, synth & guitar.

Released for their 50th anniversary, The LJCO, in configurations of up to 21 musicians including Derek Bailey, Trevor Watts, Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, &c., perform works by Kenny Wheeler, Barry Guy, Paul Rutherford and Howard Riley, captured live at the Berliner Jazztage in 1972; at Donaueschingen Musiktage in 1972; in the studio in 1980; and London's Round House in 1980.

Recording in Graz, Austria in 2019 at the club Tube's, Chicago alto saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Michael Zerang, frequent collaborators with Ken Vandermark and The Resonance Ensemble, joined with Austrian improvising and classical pianist Elisabeth Harnik to record three exuberant and incredibly informed improvisations: "Triple Tube" I through III.

The 13th International Festival of Improvised Music "Ad Libitum" in Warsaw, 2018, themed "Women Alarm!", presented the new trio of Joëlle Léandre (double bass), Myra Melford (piano), and Lauren Newton (free improv voice), performing a masterfully energetic, quirky and indescribably enthralling set of trio and duo improvisations titled "Whisper" 1 through 8.

The title to be taken literally, these two solo concerts recorded in Canada by French-based US bassist Barre Phillips, the first recorded at Vancouver Western Front in 1989, the 2nd from the 35th International Festival Music Festival of Victoriaville in 2019, both exemplary concerts showing his masterful skills and ability to captivate then and now.

Recording at the Lilypad in Cambridge, MA, the Boston-area trio of pianist Pandelis Karayorgis, bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Eric Rosenthal are captured in concert for an adventurous album of free improvisation, Karayorgis's compositions leading this piano trio of magnificent mastery into buoyantly exciting interaction as they take their listeners to a dizzying precipice edge.

With origins in Switzerland in the Recall Pollock duo of trombonist Roland Dahinden and pianist Hildegard Kleep, this trio with UK electronics artist based in South Africa Cameron Harris has its origin in the quartet CubeZ with visual artist Charbel Ackermann, here focused on their unusual language through acoustic improv altered and complemented by interactive electronics.

A fully improvised cycle of seven miniatures, or "Mutations", recorded live on Kultur-Schranne in Dachau, Germany in 2019 by the trio of two masterful and legendary players--Catalan pianist Agusti Fernández and British double bassist Barry Guy--inviting young Catalog saxophonist Don Malfon as they transmute their conversation for fascinatingly creative conversation.

Aggressive "honk-n-skronk" free jazz from the Moscow based trio of alto saxophonist Anton Ponomarev, with Danish drummer Peter Ole Jørgensen (aka P.O. Jorgens known for his work with Peter Brötzmann) and bass guitarist Dmitry Lapshin, in a studio album of eight burning "Circles", demanding skirmishes of fiery imformed collective free jazz.

Instigated by Simon Reynell and Ryoko Akama and recorded on the last day of a residency at at Dai Hall in Huddersfield in early 2020, the long-standing collaborative relationship of violinist Angharad Davies and cellist Anton Lukoszevieze are joined by Klaus Lang on harmonium, heard in this incredibly rich, mesmerizing and fascinating journey in pitch, tone & timbre.

Four chamber pieces for strings, covering 5 decades of work by veteran German composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler--each with his representative focus on concentration and quiet intensity--recorded in Bulgaria and performed by violinist Biliana Voutchkova, to whom two of the pieces are dedicated, with Michael Rauter (cello) and Nurit Stark (viola).

Another Timbre's second CD of chamber works by the Paris-based Italian composer Giuliano d'Angiolini: Four pieces - ensemble works performed by Apartment House and the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, a duo for flute and piano, and a piece for solo piano played by the composer, all performed at the 2018 Angelica festival in Bologna Italy.

A beautiful, melancholic soundworld created by three musicians who have a rare rapport--Cyril Bondi on Indian harmonium, Pierre on Yves Martel on viola da Gamba, and Christoph Schiller on spinet--following their previous CDs tse and awire by moving on to new territory in 3 compositions allowing for freedom from each musician, two from Schiller and one from Bondi.

The title aptly describes the intense excitement and exhilaration of NY guitarist Brandon Seabrook's second trio album on Astral Spirits, performed with rhythm giants Cooper-Moore on Diddley Bow (a single-string bass) and free jazz drum legend Gerald Cleaver, the two creating a percolating interactive foundation for Seabrooks powerfully expressive and investigative playing.

Compatriots in bands over many years, the quintet of David Liebman on saxophones, Randy Brecker on trumpets, Marc Copland on piano, Drew Gress on bass and Joey Baron on drums, joined by trumpeter Ralph Alessi on 2 tracks, come together to bring joyfully lyrical enthusiasm and masterful skill to works by Liebman, Gress, Baron, Brecker, and Ellington.

Two trumpeters--Nate Wooley from New York City, and Torben Snekkestad from Norway, also performing on soprano sax--met in Copenhagen in 2015 for this live concert "KoncertKirken--Blagards Plads", a monumental meeting of exploratory and investigative improvisation, using unusual and unorthodox techniques on their instruments to present 3 unique and singular dialogs.

As part of the Polish website Jazzarium.pl's 5th anniversary celebration, UK tenor saxophonist Evan Parker joined the Polish RGG free-improvising piano trio of Lukasz Ojdana on piano, Maciej Garbowski on bass, and Krzysztof Gradziuk on drums, for this four-part sophisticated collective improvisation recorded at the legendary Alchemia club in Krakow.

Two massive drone works for organ and pre-recorded tracks commissioned by Musica Festival Strasbourg for organist Hampus Lindwall, with tapes by Emanuel Schmelzer-Ziringer, each piece titled anagrammatically (ie. Nagro = Organ) and recorded with the composer at the Manufacture d'orgues Thomas and Orgelbau Klais organ in the Collegiale Sainte-Waudru, in Mons, Belgium.

Extremely patient compositions for electronics, cello, guitar and tenor sax from French sound and visual artist Pierre Gerard: "Air" using recordings from his duo partner of tenor saxophonist Bertrand De Lamalle with long sections of silence; "Cavity" employs previously recorded guitar improvisations that interact with Gerard's live electronic improvisations.

Bob Drake takes his listeners on a 22 piece instrumental journey through a "Beastley" garden of confident melodic foundation anBob Drake takes his listeners on a 22 piece instrumental journey through a "Beastley" garden of confident melodic foundation and experimental forays, captured by day and night, a tour de force of conception and execution.

Belgian composer Pierre Gerard presents a work that examines what we see around us, and what sometimes remains invisible, in three dramatic minimal works of powerful tones and tension, silence and motion: the first is 'the mechanics', the second 'the structure of a rock on a high mountain', the third 'the distance between the elements in a small forest area'.

A stunning exploration of interior architecture through recordings of the elements of three spaces including La Casa's own apartment, finding micro and macro-scopic sound in common elements that he uses to create fascinating compositions reflecting both the captivating fullness and stillness of each space, as the composer questions his relationship with each space.

A superb live album recorded at the 2000 Tampere Jazz Happening, Pakkahuone, Finland, and the 4th release from the trio of Kidd Jordan on tenor sax, Joel Futterman on piano, soprano sax & indian wooden flute, and Alvin Fielder on drums & percussion; improvisation performed like old friends, the album divided into six tracks plus an encore but performed as one long piece.

The trio of guitarists Patricia Bateira (NATurlich), Jochen Arbeit (Einstürzende Neubauten) and Vitor Rua (Vitor Rua & The Metaphysical Angels) combine to create a new style of long-form electronic music, a richly continuous work seemingly without start or end, incorporating sustain, effects, & field recordings into a beautifully abstract aural environment.

A 5-part concert and encore from Masami Akita, AKA Merzbow, performing in Australia at Room40's Open Frame Festival in 2019, a wrenching performance of distinctive yet diverse noise sources and textures revealed as a controlled tumult; all profits from this edition will be donated to assisting wildlife recovery in the wake of the Australia bushfire crisis of 2020.

A long-form ambient composition from Portuguese composer and electroacoustic performer Rafael Toral, combining piano (Joana Gama), harp (Angelica V. Salve), vibraphone (Luis Bittencourt), clavinet (Joana Baulho), Rhodes (Riccardo Dillon), and sinewaves (Rafael Toral) a generative piece that avoids repetition while creating a floating and vast sense of reverberant space.

The first of two volumes in celebration of legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker's 100th birthday, here remastering his landmark recordings for the Dial label on the US West Coast between 1946-47, performing with jazz greats including Miles Davis, Lucky Thompson, Erroll Garner, Barney Kessel, Red Calender, JJ Johson, Max Roach, &c. for some of Parker's best known and essential compositions.

The second of two volumes in celebration of legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker's 100th birthday, here remastering his landmark recordings for the Savoy label in New York City between 1945-48, performing with jazz greats including Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Lewis, Curley Russel, Max Roach, &c. for some of be-bop's finest and best known compositions.

A series of duos and one solo work each from European/UK Free Improvisation masters, saxophonist Evan Parker and pianist Agusti Fernandez, an astonishing display of creative interplay.

Czech trombonist Conny Bauer and brother, double bassist Matthias Bauer, are joined by Stavanger drummer Dag Magnus Narvesen, captured live at Christchurch, Berlin in 2018, inspired by their surroundings the three present a sophisticated concert of collective free improvisation of great energy and playfulness, born from decades of experience and improvisational affinity.

Embracing a wide and diverse stylistic range, from burning modern electric jazz to introspective interplay, NY guitarist Adam Caines' band with fellow guitarist Bob Lanzetti, Adam Lane on acoustic bass, Billy Mintz on drums, and Nick Lyons on alto saxophone, perform with great taste, technical mastery and superb interplay, releasing an extremely well-balanced collection.

Saxophonist Francois Carrier joins Shibusashirazu director & double bassist Daisuke Fuwa, drummer Takashi Itani, and alto saxophonist Masayo Koketsu (also of Shibusashirazu) for a live performance at Yamaneko-ken, in Saitama to capture this 6-part suite of intensely creative free jazz, the inventive rhythm section driving both saxophonists into both raucous and beautiful territory.

Two thirds of the free jazz group "Boom Box"--saxophonist Thomas Borgmann and drummer Willi Kellers--and referencing that band's 2011 album titled Jazz, Keys & Screws is rounded out as a trio with double bassist Jan Roder, following the format of "Jazz" with compositions from each player following head/solo format, fueled by each player's extensive experience.

Captured live in San Francisco in 1978, the lastest in the NoBusiness Sam Rivers Archive series finds the masterful wind player in peak form with the trio of Dave Holland on bass & cello, and Barry Altschul on drums, Rivers on tenor & soprano sax, flute & piano, in the 52 minute free jazz epic "Ricochet", a high-energy work of diverse mood and character; superb!

Based on a series of improvisations on a very hands-on hardware setup, with an old tone generator, effects pedals, dictaphones, contact mics, &c., Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt) took these recordings into the studio to compose these four works, 2 brief pieces and the 2-part, intricate "Amalgaam", in an absorbing album of dramatic texture & sound.

A selection of Machinefabriek's (Rutger Zuydervelt) favorite remixes made between 2005 and 2015 of his reworks and reinterpretations of tracks by Mensenkinderen, Wouter Van Veldhoven, Fieldhead, Aaron Martin, Coppice, de la mancha, The Moi Non Plus, Djivan Gasparyan, Amon Tobin, Gareth Hardwick, Fiium Shaarrk, Vladimir and Red Stars Over Tokyo.

While developing a soundtrack with violinist and violist Anne Bakker, Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek, began editing a series of Bakker's improvisations, creating new works from those recordings by layering them into succinct short works or "scenes"--twenty of them in the end--that he sequenced into this album of confidently dramatic and delicately beautiful episodes.

Taking their band name from a Thelonious Monk quote, the Norwegian power trio of vibraphone player Amund Storløkken Åse (son of keyboardist Ståle Storløkken and vocelist Tone Åse), guitarist Nicolas Leirtrø and drummer Øyvind Leite bridge the divide between 70's progressive rock, classical music, jazz and improvisation with a unique instrumentation.

The 4th of 5 Xerox releases from electronic and sound composer Carsten Nicolai, based on the concept of digital replication of source material, Nicolai replicates his recordings and utilizes their changes, in Volume 4 creating melodic ambient works, warm tones that are colored and affected by subtle texture, creating a beautiful set of 14 cinematic expressions.

The Thumbscrew trio of NY improvisers Tomas Fujiwara on drums & vibes, Mary Halvorson on guitar, and Michael Formanek on double bass, turn their focus to their shared history with composer and reedist Anthony Braxton as he celebrates his 75th birthday, performing 11 previously unheard compositions selected from Composition No. 14 through No. 274; masterful and profound.

The Stirrup trio of cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, Nick Macri (bass), and Charles Rumback (drums) is merged with improvisers from Lonberg-Holm's Lightbox Orchestra project--Keefe Jackson & Mars Williams on reeds, guitarist Peter Maunu, violist Jen Clare Paulson, trumpeter Russ Johnson & Zoots Houston on electronics -for this compelling structured performance at Elastic Arts.

Merging players from the NY, Philidelphia and Chicago scenes, the trio of drummer Chad Taylor, saxophonist Brian Settles and pianist Neil Podgurski have a history reaching into the 90s in NYC, bringing a confident kinetic energy to their playing, energized by Taylor's powerful rhythmic center and a lyrical bent that makes their music exuberant and intelligent at once.

Drawn from some of New Yorks finest and most active improvisers, cellist Tomeka Reid's string-centric quartet with Mary Halvorson on guitar, Jason Roebke on bass, and Tomas Fujiwara on drums, take Reid's lyrical compositions into ebullient territory, showing the effective power of these versatile string instruments in creative and irresistible modern jazz.

Dating back to the 13th century in Wales, the Telyn Rawn is a nearly forgotten horsehair harp; UK improvising harpist Rhodri Davies researched the instrument and its unique sound, commissioning the construction of a harp on which he performs 18 improvisations of impressive technique and sonority, launching his new Amgen Records label with this album named for the instrument.

The collaboration of American alto saxophonist living in the Philippines Rick Countryman with legendary Japanese free improvising drummer Sabu Toyozumim, also performing on Erhu, continues with this outstanding performance at the LIMBO Art Gallery in Makati, Philippines in 2020, joined by Malaysian tenor saxophonist Yong Yandsen for a burning set of free jazz.