VIER HALBE

Since 2017, the two virtuoso improvisers and unmistakable stylists Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey have been celebrating music as a duo. A classic duo that releases energy, pulsating vividly while simultaneously withdrawing into intimacy. A celebration of successful interplay, burning for the moment. Brink is a fascinating example of jazz as the art of dialogue. In a profound and telepathic way, Laubrock and Rainey understand each other and speak to each other through the music. "We listeners will often find ourselves breathing as Ingrid and Tom breathe, as they cherish space along with vivid instrumental ideas", writes Nels Cline in the liner notes and adds: "The duo of Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey has been it's own beautiful story as this golden couple has coalesced to create music that, while evincing the natural breaths of humble human existence, also possesses magic." - Ingrid Laubrock: Soprano and Tenor Saxophones & Tom Rainey: Drums

For almost 20 years, Sylvie Courvoisier and Mark Feldman have been continuously redefining the dialogue between Western and American music, improvisation and composition, tradition and modernity. The most diverse playing attitudes and atmospherics network in the alert reactions of the two players - dance, world-weariness, liberating noise, shrill jumping cascades, the confession of simple beauty. Their latest live release was described by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) as one of the "original productions in jazz history". A duo that stands or falls with a special togetherness and a duo that lives from the spectacular playing, the immense technique, the grandiose joy of playing and the art of improvisation. The new album Time Gone Out, recorded at the Oktaven Audio studio in New York, is a culmination of many years of collaboration. The album shows how her music has freed itself from any reference and plays in radical singularity: between power and restraint, energy and fragility, energy and softness. This precious art speaks in the present about the present, about our time and wanders into a distant, unpredictable future.

LIVE IN ZURICH

DEDICATIONS

Everybody who is slightly interested in modern jazz knows the name of Mark Helias. The American double bass player has worked with everyone from Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry and Carlos Ward to Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams and Cecil Taylor. With Tom Rainey (dr) and Tony Malady (ts), Helias founded the trio OPEN LOOSE in 1996 to play his compositions which allow open form improvisation. As the three musicians get familiar with the pieces they recompose them on the bandstand. "The most interesting developments come when we start altering the compositions in a creative way, maintaining the spirit of the piece but taking it somewhere else, into an unimagined place," says Helias. "Every time we come together it's different, it's new and wonderful."

STRINGER; STUDY

Andrew Cyrille's longtime companion Oliver Lake praises the master of African-American rhythms in his poem The Real Cyrille: "making the real magic... The real rhythms... The real sounds... expanding his African/Haitian roots... surfing the drums for masterful lyrical snippets... a master of color... painting coloring riffing always stretchin' searchin' lookin' for that next sound color sound!" Lake's words astutely describe the artistry of Andrew Cyrille and the music that he makes on this record. Unlike his solo albums from the 70's and 80's, he has broadened the approach on this remarkable solo statement. Cyrille asserts, "I wanted to have a variety percussion instruments in the compositions. So I was thinking of melodies that could be played with tambourines, bells, cymbals, crotales, gongs, and mallets."

THE BIG PICTURE

WHERE'S AFRICA

Aru�n Ortiz, acclaimed as a piano cubist, excellent jazz improviser and wayward stylist who strays far from Cuban music while remaining so deeply rooted in Cuba's musical tradition, presents an impressive trio album with two congenial collaborators Brad Jones and John Betsch. Cuban influences from toques, rumba and Afro-Haitian music blend with European art music and modern jazz. "Serran�as is a special album for a double anniversary: the 20th anniversary of the recording debut as a leader in the United States and the 50th birthday milestone of Aru�n Ortiz, a pianist-composer from Santiago de Cuba who has become an undisputed protagonist of the New York avant-garde jazz scene thanks to the original processes of abstract Cuban creative crossfertilization that he composes with unusual Afro-Cuban/Haitian accents," writes Gian Franco Grilli in the liner notes.

Gu�nter Baby Sommer is at the height of his musical career. The Dresden jazz innovator, who together with the pioneering generation of jazz has unbounded drumming and developed his own sound, presents a refreshing album with a cross-generational quartet with the Lucaciu brothers. "The other three members of the quartet are two generations younger. Gu�nter Baby Sommer's music and presence belong to the inventory of traditions they feel inspired by and to which they have therefore orientated themselves. Jazz for them is a historical project which they approach with much warmth. Thus between these four musicians there is an electricity feeding on their similarities and differences - not only in age - and not diffused by any concessions", writes Hans-Ju�rgen Linke in the liner notes.

It was only during Ken Vandermark's residency at the Jazz club The Stone in January 2016 that Vandermark found himself in the same vicinity as Nate Wooley, Sylvie Courvoisier and Tom Rainey. A year later they went into the studio with nine compositions - three each by Courvoisier, Vandermark and Wooley. These four musicians have well-documented, distinct personalities which, in this context, results in performances full of surprises, rich contrasts and shared responsibilities. The music sounds thoughtful, but never over-wrought. They play by intuition, yet retain a vivid complexity. Their composing is transparent and uncliched; their improvising provided with a remarkable coherence and openness. And perhaps it is exactly this - a fresh collective unity that keeps their respective personalities and idiosyncrasies intact - that brings them success in this bold and collaborative performance. Art needs to pique and renew your interest, take you on inspiring and surprising journeys and sometimes even confront your own biases. Creating, not reviving as a way to evolve and to keep going forward in all directions.

After making the studio recording Camino Ciel Echo, New York drummer Tom Rainey's trio has now recorded a live album containing the distilled essence of numerous concerts including several European tours. Tom Rainey, born in 1957 in Santa Barbara, was known at an earlier stage of his career as an exceptional drummer. Since he moved to New York he has played with some of the heavy weights of the contemporary jazz scene including Mark Helias, Kris Davis, Tim Berne and Tony Malaby. For his own trio, he has chosen two strong female musicians. Ingrid Laubrock is a saxophonist who plays with an extraordinary sensitivity for structure and form, fusing intellect and poetry in her refined improvisations. Mary Halvorson is one of the most sought after jazz guitarist of her generation. One critic, praising this release, called it a concise lecture on the aesthetics of collective sound shaping.

STILL URBAN