Stuart Broomer
Rouge Ciel. Bryologie. Bryologie, named intriguingly for the study of mosses, is the third CD by the Montreal quartet Rouge Ciel, founded in 2001. When the group began recording, some of the members were around twenty years of age, and the band maintains that same personnel, with Guido Del Fabbro on violins, banjo,[...] Read more
Joane Hétu. Récits de neige. This is the third and final CD in Hétu’s series of compositions about snow performed by her Ensemble Supermusique. It’s divided into four multi-part segments—La Neige, Jamais froid, Rafales, and Paysages—but there are overarching patterns here, a profound[...] Read more
Sainkho Namchylak, Nick Sudnick. Not Quite Songs. Sainkho Namchylak, a native of Tuva, is relatively well known for her brilliant accommodation of throat-singing techniques to free improvisation, using a body of traditional techniques to create music of extraordinarily expressive power, mixing high-pitched metallic sounds and multiphonics[...] Read more
Dave Liebman, Evan Parker, Tony Bianco. Relevance. The saxophonists Dave Liebman and Evan Parker might not immediately strike one as likely associates: Liebman, a one-time member of Miles Davis’ electric band, usually works well within the jazz tradition; Parker is usually associated with free improvisation and a mastery of techniques[...] Read more
Joëlle Léandre, François Houle, Raymond Strid. Last Seen Headed: Live at Sons d'Hiver. Few musicians in the international improvising community can find as many varied settings with which to create an ever-expanding musical language as can French bassist Joëlle Léandre. She appears here as part of a trio with Vancouver-based clarinettist Fran[...] Read more
Ross Bolleter. Night Kitchen: An Hour of Ruined Piano. Australian Ross Bolleter has devoted himself to ruined pianos: instruments found exposed—in different degrees—to the elements, having in that exposure developed a quirky originality, radically at odds with the piano’s usual ideal of uniformity. Cracked soundboards vibrate[...] Read more
ROVA Saxophone Quartet & Nels Cline Singers. The Celestial Septet. The Celestial Septet combines two institutions of California’s experimental and improvised music, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet and guitarist Nels Cline’s instrumental trio with bass and drums, ironically named the Nels Cline Singers. This music is rooted in the free-jazz[...] Read more
Lori Freedman. Bridge. Bridge largely emulates the pattern of one of Freedman’s solo clarinet concerts, exploring the relationships between composition, interpretation, and improvisation. If composition and improvisation were once separated by a gulf, here they’re constructed as a continuously[...] Read more
The Element Choir. At Rosedale United. Christine Duncan leads the most unlikely ensemble devoted to collective improvisation, Toronto’s fifty-one-voice Element Choir. The choir’s improvisation is strongly shaped by Duncan’s ongoing “conduction.” In performance, members respond to a series of[...] Read more
Kyle Brenders. WAYS. Saxophonist-composer Kyle Brenders has assembled a sextet from among Toronto’s community of improvising musicians to perform an extended composition called Ways. Five segments of the work are heard here (Sections 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8) so the recording explicitly resists the notion of[...] Read more
Jazz em Agosto. Lisbon, Portugal. August 1–2, 6–9, 2009. There are plenty of festivals designed to exploit beautiful physical settings, but they tend to present the most accessible (and festive) musical genres. At the opposite end of the spectrum there are festivals that emphasize challenging music in ad hoc environments. Somehow, Jazz em[...] Read more
Rainer Wiens. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. More frequently heard playing guitar and prepared guitar in the context of jazz and improvised music, Rainer Wiens performs here on kalimbas—African thumb pianos possessing a distinctive metallic resonance—which are heard prominently at the beginning and end of this unusual[...] Read more
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