Renowned pianist and composer Burton Greene joins French composer and improvising guitarist Guillaume Gargaud performing on acoustic guitar, for four duo improvisations recorded at Tilo's Ark, in Weesp, The Netherlands in 2019, in crisp & often rapid dialog that uses space and reflective moments well, the duo joined by Tilo Baumheier on flute for three pieces.
Label: Chant Record Catalog ID: None Squidco Product Code: 28907
Format: CDR Condition: New Released: 2019 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Sleeve Sealed Recorded on Tilo's Ark, in Weesp, The Netherlands, on April 19th, 2019, by Tilo Baumheier.
"Renowned pianist and composer Burton Greene has been playing professionally since starting out in his hometown of Chicago in 1962. He was one of the first artists to record for ESP, the first record label devoted to avant garde jazz. With Alan Silva he formed the Free Form Improvisation Ensemble in 1963. He joined Bill Dixon's and Cecil Taylor's Jazz Composers Guild in 1964, and has played with a number of other artists including Rashied Ali, Albert Ayler, Gato Barbieri, Byard Lancaster, Sam Rivers, Patty Waters, Mark Dresser and Roy Campbell. Guillaume Gargaud is a French composer and guitarist who specializes in improvised music. He has appeared on 25 albums and composes music for contemporary dance and film. The duo is joined by flutist Tilo Baumheier on three tracks."-Chant Records
" [...] I was attracted to this album because it was a bare, acoustic duo (with some help from the flutist Tilo Bauheier on the final three tracks). I was also attracted to the octogenarian pianist, Burton Greene, an old school free jazz legend. I knew much less about the French guitarist and demi-octogenarian Guillaume Gargaud, who, despite an impressive history of collaborators, has spent much of the last decade exploring the potentialities of solo guitar work.
This collaboration falls exactly along the lines one might expect. Burton Greene brings his manic curiosity, still potent after all these years, to the grand piano. At times, he makes it sound like a clanky upright. At others, he juxtaposes the deep resonance with jangled keys. Two minutes into the fourth track "Apart Together" (an apparent nod to the standard "Alone Together"), Greene intersperses skittery runs with several choppy bars of "Frere Jacques." This tune is referenced again on "Capricious Voyage to Serenity," though this time it is buried among what sound like a panoply of desconstructed folk tunes.
For his part, Gargaud seems to have inherited some of Derek Bailey's fear of crisp sustain and Eugene Chadbourne's percussive fidgetiness. Except for isolated moments, Greene, the elder statesman of improvisation, assumes the role of the melodic and rhythmic driving force of this effort. Gargaud's contributions often weave in and out of Greene's more determined directionality, sudden fishtails, swerves, and stops included. Bauheier, meanwhile, adds solemnity and pacifies some of the schizophrenics into an uncharacteristically soft (though still jagged) piece in the closing "Capricious Voyage to Serenity." A fitting end to an album that modernizes the old, roots the new, and shows that free jazz, in the classic sense, is still alive, vibrant, and even fresh."-Nick Ostrum,