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Leimgruber, Urs / Andreas Willers / Alvin Curran / Fabrizio Spera: Rome-ing (Leo Records)

The long-running duo of saxophonist Urs Leimgruber and guitarist Andreas Willers are joined by percussionist Fabrizio Spera (Ossatura) and Alvin Curran (MEV) for a live performance at Casa del Jazz in Rome, merging avant jazz approaches with ea-improv through guitar effects and sampling, finding passion in explorative and unpredictable music of superb skill and intent.
 

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Personnel:



Fabrizio Spera-drums

Andreas Willers-electric guitar, effects

Alvin Curran-piano, sampler

Urs Leimgruber-soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone


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UPC: 5024792087228

Label: Leo Records
Catalog ID: LEOR872.2
Squidco Product Code: 28608

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: UK
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded live at Casa del Jazz in Rome, Italy, on November 22nd, 2018, by Asciano Linzi.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Recorded in Rome, perfect stage, great acoustics, four master performers with a vast knowledge of idioms as well as a deep understanding of non-idiomatic, abstract means of musical expression and four sets of ears as widely open as the gates of the Colosseum make up the ingredients to this fine live recording. The players flow together effortlessly and are able to create soundscapes of tension and release, harsh noise and delicate whisper, 'engin-ears' of mutual fearlessness doing away with the meaningless separation of genres. Roaming through sounds, carried by trust and wealth of experience they uncoil a steady stream of poised musicality that simply feels right yet defies explanation."-Leo



"These venerable European improvisers tease and taunt the listeners' psyches with free-form minimalist sound-shaping designs and subdued inner-workings with gradual buildups and asynchronous movements, countered by explosive episodes of angst, tinted with creaky sub-motifs. With four lengthy works recorded live in Rome-hence, the album title-American pianist Alvin Curran and Swiss guitarist Andreas Willers incorporate electronics into this otherworldly manifestation of avant-garde frameworks.

The players afford themselves plenty of room for discovery and invention while fusing the group sound into an unclassifiable array of futuristic passages, complete with Willers' scratchy notes and Urs Leimgruber's circular phrasings. Moreover, the guitarist and keyboardist's tasteful integration of background EFX casts bizarre aspects into the already out-of-the-box developments. For example, on "Rome-Ing Part II" the saxophonist's wistful lines amid eerie backdrops transform into wavy currents atop a subtle undertow, intensified by Leimgruber's high pitch squeals, and contrasted by Curran's rolling piano riffs.

"Rome-Ing Part III" is an exhilarating work via scorching blast furnace-like outbreaks, driven home by drummer Fabrizio Spera's bustling asynchronous patterns as the band ventures to parts unknown. However, "Rome-Ing Part IV" offers a diversion due to the saxophonist's bluesy phrasings and Willers' microcosmic parts, offset by oddball sound-sculpting mechanisms. Nonetheless, this mind-altering journey is the antithesis to easy listening fare. Then again, we wouldn't expect anything less from these shrewd instrumentalists."-Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz


Get additional information at All About Jazz

Artist Biographies

Born in Rome where he has been active for many years both as a musician and organizer in the field of experimental and improvised music. Founding member of Ossatura, 7k Oaks, Eco d'Alberi, Weightless, Truth in the Abstract Blues and has worked, amongst others, with Peter Kowald, Mike Cooper, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, ROVA, Blast, Lisle Ellis, Larry Ochs, John Butcher, John Edwards, Evan Parker, Alfred Harth, Tim Hodgkinson, Wolfgang Fuchs, Thomas Lehn, Michel Doneda, Lol Coxhill, Veryan Weston, Hans Koch and Axel Dorner.

-Recommended Records 3/13/2024

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

"- Andreas Willers

- started out as a blues- and avantgarde guitarist, first outing 1981 on the FMP label (Hier & Als Auch, solo guitar),

- studied el.guitar and composition in Los Angeles (MI), Hamburg (HfM) and Banff (Canada),

-has played and/or recorded with Tom Arthurs, Steve Argüelles, Conny, Johannes & Matthias Bauer, Franz Bauer, Florian Bergmann, Jim Black, Samuel Blaser, Paul Bley, Kent Carter, Audrey Chen, Günter Christmann, Alvin Curran, Tobias Delius, Yorgos Dimitriadis, Axel Dörner, Wilbert De Joode, Michel Doneda, Mark Dresser, Marc Ducret, Silke Eberhard, Dirk Engelhardt, Mark Feldman, Rudi Fischerlehner, Alexander Frangenheim, Alain Grange, Lou Grassi, Frank Gratkowski, Phillip Greenlief, Michael Griener, Christof Griese, Trilok Gurtu, Roger Hanschel, Ratzo Harris, Gabriele Hasler, Phil Haynes, Thomas Heberer, Thomas Heidepriem, Gerry Hemingway, Devin Hoff, Tristan Honsinger, Carl L. Hübsch, Jörg Huke, Hui-Chun Lin, Dieter Ilg, Paul Imm, Thomy Jordi, Anders Jormin, Theo Jörgensmann, Kai Kanthak, Achim Kaufmann, Martin Klingeberg, Willi Kellers, Meinrad Kneer, Frank Köllges, Uwe Kropinski, Klaus Kürvers, Almut Kühne, Klaus Kugel, Ingrid Laubrock, Urs Leimgruber, Dave Liebman, Martin Lillich, Christian Lillinger, Hans Lüdemann, H.D. Lorenz, Dieter Manderscheid, Rita Marcotulli, Christian Marien, Lisa Mezzacappa, Jordina Millá, Matthias Müller, David Murray, Glen Moore, Nikolaus Neuser, Rudi Neuwirth, Lauren Newton, Horst Nonnenmacher, Lothar Ohlmeier, E.L. Petrowski, Dominique Pifarély, Elvira Plenar, Oliver Potratz, Bobby Previte, Claudio Puntin, Tom Rainey, Enrico Rava, Dirk Raulf, Hugo Read, Yves Robert, Herb Robertson, Michael Rodach, Jan Roder, Simon Rose, Olaf Rupp, Julie Sassoon, Volker Schlott, Andreas Schmidt, Niko Schäuble, Frank Paul Schubert, Matthias Schubert, Frank Schulte, Dorothea Schürch, Louis Sclavis, Elliot Sharp, Arkady Shilkloper, Marvin Smitty Smith, Ches Smith, Fabrizio Spera, Oli Steidle, Bob Stewart, Christof Thewes, Gebhard Ullmann, Peter Van Huffel, Petras Vysniauskas, Henrik Walsdorff, Ute Wassermann, Kathie Webster, Tim Wells, Fritz Witteck, Hannes Zerbe a.m.m.

- toured Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia/New Zealand and Southeast Asia for the Goethe Institut; festival appearences include Vancouver, Vienna, Salzburg, Melbourne, Madrid, Vigo, Cheltenham, Bern, Jakarta, Istanbul, Wroclaw, Monterrey, Sibiu, Amsterdam, Münster, Moers, Köln, Leverkusen, Vilshoven, Kiel, Viersen, Berlin, Freiberg, tours throughout the USA and Europe in places like The Stone, The Knitting Factory, Onkel Pö's amm

- has composed for the Jazz Baltica Ensemble, the NDR Bigband, different New Music ensembles, several scholarships and awards, founding member of the musicians cooperative Jazzfront Berlin-Brandenburg, was member of the Initiative Kölner Jazzhaus,

- taught electric guitar at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, Berlin, from 1991-96, wrote workshop articles for the German Gitarre&Bass magazine on improvisation and performance."

-Andreas Willers Website (http://www.andreaswillers.de/bio.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Born December 13, 1938, Providence, Rhode Island. From five years: piano lessons, trombone, marching bands, Synagogue chants, Jazz, and his father's dance bands. Becomes an artist at age 13 in an apple tree at the house of his lifelong friend, poet Clark Coolidge. Hears Spike Jones, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Satchmo, The Boston Symphony Orcherstra, Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, The Band of America, Thelonius Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Coltrane, Bartok and Christian Wolff.

With a fortuitous bang, he begins his musical journey (1965 in Rome) as co-founder of the radical music collective Musica Elettronica Viva, as a solo performer, and as a composer for Rome's avantgarde theater scene. In the 70's, he creates a poetic series of solo works for synthesizer, voice, taped sounds and found objects. Seeking to develop new musical spaces, and now considered one of the leading figures in making music outside of the concert halls -- he develops a series of concerts for lakes, ports, parks, buildings, quarries and caves -- his natural laboratories. In the 1980's, he extends the ideas of musical geography by creating simultaneous radio concerts for three, then six large ensembles performing together from many European Capitals. By connecting digital samplers to MIDI Grands (Diskklavier) and computers, since 1987, he produces an enriched body of solo performance works -- an ideal synthesis between the concert hall and all sounding phenomena in the world. He creates a visually striking series of sound installations, some of them in collaboration with visual artists including Paul Klerr, Melissa Gould, Kristin Jones, Pietro Fortuna, Umberto Bignardi, Uli Sigg. Throughout these years he continues to write numerous pieces for radio and for acoustic instruments.

Studies composition with Ron Nelson (B.A. Brown University 1960) and with Elliott Carter and Mel Powell ( M.Mus., Yale School of Music 1963). During summer vacations, plays European crossings with the "Brunotes" on the Holland American Line, in a Greek Dance Band in the Catskills, and in the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas.

Continues studies and friendship with Carter in Berlin (1964 Ford Foundation Grant), meets Stravinsky, Xenakis, Berio, Yuji Takahashi, Andriessen, Remo Remotti, and above all Rzewski. Goes to Darmstadt, hangs with Babbitt and Earl Brown, hears Stockhausen and Ligeti. Goes to Rome with Joel Chadabe and plays piano in bars on via Veneto, meets Franco Evangelisti and Cornelius Cardew.

In the Musica Elettronica Viva years (1966 -1971 in Rome), performs in over 200 concerts in Europe and the USA with Teitelbaum and Rzewski, Carol Plantamura, Ivan Vandor, Alan Bryant and Jon Phetteplace; and makes significant artistic encounters with Giuseppe Chiari, Edith Schloss, AMM, Cardew, Steve Lacy, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Steve ben Israel, Anthony Braxton, Simone Forti, Steve Reich, Joan La Barbara, Michael Nyman, La Monte Young, Trisha Brown, Ashley, Behrman, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, Larry Austin, Bill Smith, Ketoff, Robert Moog, Nuova Consonanza, MEV2, Meme Perlini, Mario Ricci, Maria Monti, Prima Materia, Ron Bunzl, Phil Glass, Charlemagne Palestine, Terry Riley, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Gregory Reeves, Serge Tcherepnin, Kosugi, Pulsa, Maryanne Amacher, John Cage, David Tudor, Morton Feldman. Scelsi becomes his friend and mentor.

From 1975-80 taught vocal improvisation at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica (Rome) and from 1991 to 2006 was the Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills College in Oakland, California. Currently teaching privately in Rome in addition to master classes, residencies, and lectures at Oberlin, Peabody, Brown, Berkeley, The Hague, Haifa, Bolzano, Northwestern, Yale, Beijing, etc."

-Alvin Curran Website (http://www.alvincurran.com/Curran_bio.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Born Lucerne, 1952; saxophones, composer.

Urs Leimgruber has been active for many years in the areas of contemporary improvisation, composition, jazz and new music. One of his earliest associations was as a member of the electric jazz/free music group 'Om' with Christy Doran, Fredy Studer and Bobby Burri, and he later formed the 'Reflexionen' quartet with Don Friedman and Bobby Burri in New York. More recently, his own projects have included 'Ensemble Bleu', 'Xylem', e_a.sonata 02 with the ARTE saxophone quartet, as well as a long association with Fritz Hauser: as a duo with the ongoing Music for saxophone and percussion; in the Leimgruber/Roidinger/Hauser trio; a trio with Joëlle Léandre; and a trio with Marilyn Crispell. He later formed the 'quartet noir' with Marilyn Crispell, Joëlle Léandre and Fritz Hauser, a trio with Jacques Demierre and Barre Phillips and the group SIX with Jacques Demierre, Isabelle Duthoit, Charlotte Hug, Dorothea Schürch and Thomas Lehn. Urs Leimgruber has also performed extensively as a solo artist and has been involved in mixed media presentations, providing music for dance, radio plays and film.

Urs Leimgruber has undertaken concert tours in Western and Eastern Europe, USA, Canada, South America and Japan, and appeared at concerts and on recordings with such musicians as Steve Lacy, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Joe McPhee, Lauren Newton, Michel Doneda, Keith Rowe, Günter Christmann, Sunny Murray and Günter Müller among many others."

-European Free Improv (EFI) (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mleimgr.html)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Rome-Ing Part I 17:50

2. Rome-Ing Part II 24:27

3. Rome-Ing Part III 9:16

4. Rome-Ing Part IV 17:17

Related Categories of Interest:


Leo Records
Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Collective Free Improvsation
Quartet Recordings
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms

Search for other titles on the label:
Leo Records.


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