The Squid's Ear Magazine


Levin, Daniel Quartet: Friction (Clean Feed)

Cellist Daniel Levin Quartet leads his quartet with Nate Wooley on trumpet, Matt Moran on vibes, and Torbjorn Zetterberg on bass, in open-minded modern compositions that blend jazz, chamber, and experimental improvisation of reserved and riveting character.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Daniel Levin-cello

Nate Wooley-trumpet

Matt Moran-vibraphone

Torbjorn Zetterberg-doublebass


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UPC: 5609063003420

Label: Clean Feed
Catalog ID: CF342
Squidco Product Code: 21002

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2015
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardstock Gatefold Sleeve
Recorded on April 19, 2015 by Nick Lloyd at Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"It's nothing less than curious that the most "jazzy" of all Daniel Levin's projects, his Quartet, has also the most obvious of the classical chamber music connotations. Often labled as an avant-garde cellist, Levin uses this band with trumpeter Nate Wooley, vibraphonist Matt Moran and double bassist Torbjorn Zetterberg to put into sound his most melodic scores, translating vocal qualities to the lead voices of cello and trumpet. While some experimental singers use the voice as an instrument, going beyond the song specifications, this New York musician explores the opposite direction. This "vocal music" is simultaneously intriguing and seductive, even for more conventional listeners. You wouldn't expect a former collaborator of mind-blowing expressionists like William Parker, Joe McPhee, and Ivo Perelman to play such beautiful, detailed and exquisite chamber jazz, but here it is. And if you never imagined that Wooley and Zetterberg could be in the same band, well, they are. There are no "don'ts" in music, only in some people's heads."-Clean Feed


Artist Biographies

"Daniel Levin is "one of the outstanding cellists working in the vanguard arena" (All About Jazz), "ridiculously fluent, virtually overflowing with ideas" (New York City Jazz Record) and "very much the man to watch." (Penguin Guide to Jazz). No matter what setting he plays in, cellist Daniel Levin occupies a musical space bordered by many kinds of music, but fully defined by none of them.

"Demonstrating an impressive breadth of texture and contrast, the cellist Daniel Levin comes well prepared for a career in jazz's contemporary avant-garde." (Nate Chinen, The New York Times).

Elements of European classical music, American jazz, microtonal and new music, and European free improvisation all figure prominently in his unique sound. As critic John Sharpe observes in The New York City Jazz Record, "he invokes all manner of musics with prodigious skill: jazz, classical, improv, noise, vocal chorus. His technique is unquestioned and he revels in the physicality of the instrument. Those with an adventurous streak or interest in the outer reaches of the cello universe will find much to savor."

Born in Burlington, Vermont, he began playing the cello at the age of six. In 2001, he graduated with a degree in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory of Music, and arrived on New York City jazz scene shortly therafter. Since then, Daniel has developed his own unique voice as a cellist, improviser, and composer. Ed Hazell noted upon release of Levin's first record as a leader, "Cellist Daniel Levin is a major new voice on his instrument and in improvised music." He has performed and/or recorded with Billy Bang, Borah Bergman, Tim Berne, Anthony Braxton, Gerald Cleaver, Andrew Cyrille, Mark Dresser, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Tony Malaby, Mat Maneri, Joe Morris, William Parker, Ivo Perelman, Warren Smith, Ken Vandermark, and many others. Daniel is the recipient of a 2010 Jerome Foundation award."

-Daniel Levin Website (http://daniel-levin.com/about)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Nate Wooley was born in 1974 in Clatskanie, Oregon, a town of 2,000 people in the timber country of the Pacific Northwestern corner of the U.S. He began playing trumpet professionally with his father, a big band saxophonist, at the age of 13. His time in Oregon, a place of relative quiet and slow time reference, instilled in Nate a musical aesthetic that has informed all of his music making for the past 20 years, but in no situation more than his solo trumpet performances.

Nate moved to New York in 2001, and has since become one of the most in-demand trumpet players in the burgeoning Brooklyn jazz, improv, noise, and new music scenes. He has performed regularly with such icons as John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Eliane Radigue, Ken Vandermark, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, and Yoshi Wada, as well as being a collaborator with some of the brightest lights of his generation like Chris Corsano, C. Spencer Yeh, Peter Evans, and Mary Halvorson.

Wooley's solo playing has often been cited as being a part of an international revolution in improvised trumpet. Along with Peter Evans and Greg Kelley, Wooley is considered one of the leading lights of the American movement to redefine the physical boundaries of the horn, as well as demolishing the way trumpet is perceived in a historical context still overshadowed by Louis Armstrong. A combination of vocalization, extreme extended technique, noise and drone aesthetics, amplification and feedback, and compositional rigor has led one reviewer to call his solo recordings "exquisitely hostile".

In the past three years, Wooley has been gathering international acclaim for his idiosyncratic trumpet language. Time Out New York has called him "an iconoclastic trumpeter", and Downbeat's Jazz Musician of the Year, Dave Douglas has said, "Nate Wooley is one of the most interesting and unusual trumpet players living today, and that is without hyperbole". His work has been featured at the SWR JazzNow stage at Donaueschingen, the WRO Media Arts Biennial in Poland, Kongsberg, North Sea, Music Unlimited, and Copenhagen Jazz Festivals, and the New York New Darmstadt Festivals. In 2011 he was an artist in residence at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY and Cafe Oto in London, England. In 2013 he performed at the Walker Art Center as a featured solo artist.

Nate is the curator of the Database of Recorded American Music (www.dramonline.org) and the editor-in-chief of their online quarterly journal Sound American (www.soundamerican.org) both of which are dedicated to broadening the definition of American music through their online presence and the physical distribution of music through Sound American Records. He also runs Pleasure of the Text which releases music by composers of experimental music at the beginnings of their careers in rough and ready mediums."

-Nate Wooley Website (http://natewooley.com/about)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Matt Moran received a Master's degree in jazz composition from New England Conservatory in 1995. At NEC he studied with the visionary composer and multi-instrumentalist Joseph Maneri, and has continued to learn from Maneri through performances with him. Since moving to New York in 1995 he has performed both as leader and sideman, including billings for the Knitting Factory's What Is Jazz? Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival, the Panasonic Village Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and the Vision Festival, as well as leading tours in the U.S. and Europe.

Also active as a performer, teacher, and curator in the Balkan folk music scene, Moran plays traditional percussion with artists such as Lefteris Bournias, Raif Hyseni, Demetri Tashie, and other master musicians from the Balkans who have immigrated to New York. With Slavic Soul Party!, he sparked "Balkan Cabaret", a downtown music series for Balkan and Balkan-inspired music.

Moran currently leads the groups Sideshow and Slavic Soul Party! He is also active performing and recording with John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet, the Mat Maneri Quintet, Theo Bleckmann, Dan Levin, Nate Wooley, Kavala Brass Band, and Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band.

Vibraphonist and tunesmith Matt Moran "plays the vibraphone like a speed-chess master, always darting off into flurries of ingenious, unexpected activity" (Village Voice). He has performed and recorded with artists as diverse as Mat Maneri, Lionel Hampton, Combustible Edison, Ellery Eskelin, and Saban Bajramovic. Moran's sound is integral to an innovative group of New York musicians who blur the boundaries of composition, improvisation, and folk traditions."

-Matt Moran Website (http://www.mattmoran.com/bio.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Torbjörn Zetterberg (born 10 May 1976) is a Swedish jazz musician (double bass) and composer, known from collaborations with Jonas Kullhammar.

Zetterberg attended Södra Latin och Fridhems Folkhögskola in Svalöv but was first recognised as bassist when he studied at Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm still very young. Here he studied bass under guidance of Jan Adefelt. Soon he joined drummer Fredrik Norén's band together with the saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar. Already at this point one could sense that he would become a prominent figure in the Swedish jazz scene. Now his name is firmly rooted in the vibrant progressive selection as the new jazz generation.

He went through a personal crisis and did not record as a bandleader for more than seven years. Zetterberg was uncomfortable with his career and in 2010 he decided to leave the urban life including his bass, and moved to a Buddhist temple. There he resided for a year and still spends half of his time there in 2016. This existential crisis led to the production of the album Och Den Stora Frågan ("And the Big Question" in Swedish) in 2014. Here he collaborated with well known musicians from his earlier career, like the Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and drummer Jon Fält, known from albums with pianist Bobo Stenson's trio. The album is "charged with joyful urgency, shiny optimism and confident flowing energy, despite the doubts and uncertainties that accompany any creative, artistic process", the reporter of All About Jazz stated in 2014."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torbj%C3%B6rn_Zetterberg)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Launcher 5:18

2. Whisper 6:07

3. Terrarium I 3:19

4. Chol 10:21

5. Terrarium II 5:13

6. Particles 8:06

7. Lyrical 4:47

8. Springtime 6:04

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Clean Feed
Nate Wooley
Quartet Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
Chamber Jazz

Search for other titles on the label:
Clean Feed.


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