Referencing Ornette Coleman in the group name, Portuguese tenor saxophonist engages three US free jazz players--legendary saxophonist and pocket trumpeter Joe McPhee, double bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Chris Corsano--for this 2017 concert at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, capturing four exemplary, at times explosive, and always tightly interactive collective improvisations.
Format: LP Condition: Sale (New) Released: 2022 Country: Austria Packaging: LP Recorded at Jazzhouse, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on March 2nd, 2017, by Klaus Hedegaard Nielsen.
"Music by four strong individual players with room for eruptive solo-parts, but always held together by intense communication and beautiful interwoven melodies. The quartet's second album A History Of Nothing (TROST 170CD/LP) got a huge number of excited reviews: "A superb quartet outing. The music is all improvised, but it's firmly rooted in jazz, with superb interaction between all of the players, both on ripping, high-velocity blowouts and more delicate forays." --Peter Margasak (Chicago Reader) "Freedom is clearly a responsibility as well as a joy, and it's emphasized here by the group's shared commitment: each musician is constantly working in two directions, stretching further and creating cohesion. The music is improvised with such an ear to complementary detail that it's literally being collectively composed."-Stuart Broomer, Free Jazz Collective
"Tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado has deep roots in modern and free jazz, but he is every inch a self-made man. Born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1964, he grew up in a time when his country was on the periphery of such activities; the rich and varied community of improvisers that his country currently supports didn't really cohere until the turn of the century, and he's part of the generation that has made it happen. So, it makes sense that while Amado sustains groups with his compatriots, he's also instituted this band of Americans, since that's where the music came from, and given it a name that mirrors that of the music's foundational albums - Ornette Coleman's This Is Our Music.
Let The Free Be Men was recorded three days before its predecessor, A History of Nothing, during a tour of Europe that allowed Amado, drummer Chris Corsano, bassist Kent Kessler, and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee (here playing pocket trumpet, soprano saxophone, and a PVC pipe wielded like a digeridoo) to hone their interaction to a fine edge. For while each musician represents a different generation, and they have played in some pretty dissimilar settings away from this one, they're united in their commitment to promoting intensity and invention on the bandstand. The album's opener, "Resist!," drops the listener into the middle of action that's already been brewing. It builds from a restless drum solo to a rhythmic funnel cloud, which clears way for the horns to step in and build something too mutually supportive to be characterized as an exchange. Next comes the title track, a sequence of contrasting timbres. By turns rough and melancholy, it affirms the emotional gravity of vintage fire music without sounding much like it.
Amado may have his name at the front of the band, but one suspects that he's selected these musicians for the ways they can push him. Gruff and agile, he rides their vectors of influence like an ocean bird wheeling from one updraft to the next. Whether he's broadcasting vast shockwaves or bringing things down to a fine point succinct lyricism, Kessler invests the music with solemnity and texture. Corsano is restless, forever finding new angles from which to give the action a shove. And McPhee can be relied upon to pick the one sound that'll bring the music into focus, and make the moment feel ultra-real. They've got a language, all right; here's hoping that as we move into COVID's after-times, there's more opportunity for them to develop it."-Bill Meyer, Dusted Magazine