July Slowdown
Graves/Parker/Gayle, Tony Oxley Quintet, Louis Moholo-Moholo's Viva-La-Black, the Handover, Siti Muharam
Things really do slow down in the summer over here in Europe. I wrote about some local action happening later this week, but I’m taking advantage of the reduced offerings to spend some time on some recent archival releases, which are as good as anything new I’ve heard thus far this year.
Blasting the Past Into Now
Milford Graves, William Parker & Charles Gayle
In the last few weeks there’s been a bumper crop of newly released archival free jazz and improvised music titles of serious depth and importance. Unsurprisingly, one of them comes from Black Editions, whose role in disseminating the archives of Milford Graves has been yielding some major triumphs. Last month the label released the third such transmission with WEBO, a three-LP set capturing two scalding 1991 performances at the titular Manhattan venue by Graves, bassist William Parker, and tenor saxophonist Charles Gayle, who was in the midst of his global discovery, following the release of his late 80s Silkheart recordings, and not long before the release of his classic Touchin’ on Trane (FMP) with Parker and drummer Rashied Ali. The trio played seven public performances together, and if I was aware of these shows once upon a time, my memory had since disabused me of that reality. Mike Ehlers, the owner of the Eremite label and the guy administering the Graves tape archive, says that t this performance had achieved legendary status, and from the evidence spread across these three records the hype was deserved.
Graves is in especially fine form, a virtual whirlwind of motion and polymetric input. Naturally, Parker functions as an imperturbable rhythmic engine, driving the music forward with almost maniacal force, affording the drummer even more freedom to lets his playing breathe even more than usual. Gayle is in his element, unleashing massive flurries of sound, slashing, unending runs that interweave the bassist’s high velocity splatter to form a wonderfully nubby fabric of sound as scorching as it is muscular. But most of my focus keeps going back to Graves, who has one foot buried into the surrounding action—pushing and interacting—while another limb seems to be imagining a parallel sonic universe. When I focus solely on Graves it sounds like a band in itself, which reinforces a quote from Parker in the liner notes: “Imagine a village or choir of drummers, horn players & strings. You can hear the bass & drums churning with a call & response, a melodic-rhythmic propulsion.” It’s a resonant observation, but in hindsight it seems like Graves brings the greatest multiplicity, no disrespect to the others.
As improvised music the two hours of sound collected here adheres to a fairly conventional rise-and-fall structure, a perpetual tidal force that moves between fiery ecstasy and tightly-coiled repose, but putting the focus there is missing the point. The musicians are keenly locked-in, listening and playing off one another with quicksilver alacrity and spark. But, again: Graves. There’s an extended solo section towards the end of the first piece that’s so mind-blowing that Gayle’s ferocious response—which would normally knock down a wall—somehow feels a bit puny in context. And to be clear, my focus on Graves in this space has more to do with my particular interests right now than any kind of expression of disinterest in what Gayle and Parker bring to the proceedings. They’re all at the top of their game, and basking in the sheer power and soul has been glorious. (Below you can hear a shorter piece that opens with a beautifully churchy series of sobs from Gayle).
Tony Oxley Quintet
Angular Apron (Corbett Vs. Dempsey), a new album billed to the Tony Oxley Quintet, is another new archival discovery, recorded in Bochum, Germany the year following the Webo sessions. The singular British drummer died in December of 2023, and I imagine overlooked gems from his archives will start surfacing, as with this recording, which thanks his widow Tutta Oxley in the credits. Surrounded by an exceptional, carefully assembled global cast of improvisors—saxophonist Larry Stabbins, trumpeter Manfred Schoof, bassist Sirone, and pianist Pat Thomas, doubling on electronics—the group follows some kind of loose structural frame over the course of an hour. The piece proceeds in fruitful fits-and-starts, with pronounced silences piercing melodic sequences, focused chaos, gnarly, heavily metallic timbres, and chamber-like fragility.
Oxley’s scheme allows plenty of space for all the players, but it’s still one of the more impressive works for structured improv I’ve heard, particularly from this time period, but even against current standards. Of course, the caliber of the players helps, but the shifts between different sections, aesthetics, and attacks occur with a fluidity and confidence that makes me wonder what was charted and what was spontaneous, which is ultimately a question I don’t need answers to any longer. The line between pure abstraction and oblique references to tradition is crossed with little regard. As with Graves on the album discussed above, it’s hard not gravitating toward the leader’s clangorous output thanks to his bespoke kit festooned with all sorts of clatter makers. Oxley was a pioneer in that sense and the sound world achieves peak clarity on this recording. The entire piece is streaming, and you can hear it below, but the CD package is adorned by the drummer’s artwork.
Louis Moholo-Moholo’s Viva-La-Black
Finally, there’s a reissue of drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo’s eponymous debut by his group Viva-La-Black, originally released in 1988 on Ogun. I’m genuinely mortified that I had never previously heard let alone heard of this recording, as anything with saxophonist Sean Bergin is notable, especially something led by Moholo-Moholo. While nothing can ever really touch the brilliance of his indisputable 1978 classic Spirits Rejoice, this feels like a major discovery for me. The frontline features not only Bergin—one of the crucial sources of the joyful kwela that impacted the Dutch jazz scene—but fellow South African hornman, trumpeter Claude Deppa as well as a very young Steve Williamson. The group is rounded out by Italian bassist Roberto Bellatalla, a new name to me, and percussionist Thebe Lipere, another South African expat who worked in the band for years and also played on a memorable trio session with Moholo-Moholo and guitarist Derek Bailey, Village Life (Incus, 1992).
The album opens with a tune by the great cellist Tristan Honsinger, a patiently arcing meditation called “Tristan’s Line,” which magnificently highlights the band’s loose feel. Moholo-Moholo evokes a bit of the shuddery thrum-pulse of Sunny Murray, while Bergin’s big sound straddled the lower-register fluency of Albert Ayler with a more boppish fluidity. The South African flavor is pronounced on the buoyant Chris McGregor gem “Joyful Noises,” a tune that appeared on the first Brotherhood of Breath album (hear it below), while “Mongezi—Frames Part One” is a piece composed by Keith Tippett, named for the Blue Notes trumpeter, that’s a free jazz burner appended by a hilarious series of precisely timed and executed false endings. Harry Miller, another Brotherhood of Breath alum, wrote the sorrowful ballad “Lost Opportunities,” which conveys a Mingus-grade sense of pathos and muscular grace, with an especially fragile Deppa solo. Mongezi Feza’s febrile “Mad High” opens in much the same way the Tippett tune concludes—there’s an obvious correlation, although I don’t know the backstory—which is followed a springy Moholo-Moholo chant-laced churn called “Woza.” The album has never appeared on CD until this reissue, which includes an alternate take of the Tippett tune, and another take of “Woza” without the soloing between the intro and outro, probably just a rehearsal when the tape was running.
Cairo-Oslo Expression
This past spring I wrote about Maca Canu, the rugged quartet led by the superb Belgian keyboardist Jonas Cambien, who lives in Oslo. I was bummed to miss the quartet’s performance in April, but last month I got to experience a much different project of his called the Handover, which played the Motvind Festival in Rollag, Norway. The trio dropped its excellent eponymous debut album on Sublime Frequencies earlier this spring, but hearing the group live offers a much fuller picture of what Cambien and his two Egyptian collaborators—oudist Aly Eissa and violinist Ayman Asfour—are capable of together. Cambien has been visiting Cairo regularly over the decade, studying and learning Arabic music, and playing with an expanding group of musicians far outside his broad circle of jazz and improvised music colleagues in Europe.
I didn’t know anything about either Eissa or Asfour before encountering the Handover, but I quickly discovered the wildly ambitious, sprawling project of Eissa’s called Gouda Bar, released last year by Akuphone. Among the cast of Arabic musicians is Cambien, who plays synthesizer. It’s an extravagantly cosmopolitan suite of music, still strongly rooted in Arabic traditions. As a fascinating profile published by East.East details, he’s delightfully quirky, an autodidact who also studied with some of the living last links to a bygone era. He has a deep curiosity, affording him the ability to meld disparate concepts and styles together with exceptional craft and imagination. It’s like you can virtually hear the gears in his head turning in his music. Below you can check out the trippy “Barrel’s Dance” from that album.
Asfour is remarkable violinist who’s a vital part of community of experimentalists loosely connected to Alan Bishop—a Sun City Girl, current sax kingpin in Dwarves of East Agouza, and co-founder of Sublime Frequencies—and guitarist Maurice Louca, who moves with equal ease between continents as he does musical traditions styles. But the violinist really gets to stretch out in the Handover. The trio’s performance involves an open-ended interpretation of Eissa’s composition, which gave the ensemble its name. It’s an unlikely but seamless collision of classical Arab forms and raunchy chaabi (street pop) woven together through free-wheeling improvisation rooted in tradition but free to leave it behind. The composition is lovely, gliding from exquisite tenderness to floor-stomping euphoria, but it’s also a vessel for febrile improvising that conveys the same sort of emotional breadth. Cambien plays an old Ace Tone organ and a microtonal synthesizer, filling out the sound, playing unison lines, or taking warped solos that conjure some psychedelic belly dance scene. Without a percussionist the trio expand and constrict time like putty, but intensity and density project groove as much as any drum could. These sensations definitely come across on the recording, but watching them interact onstage, where a genuine delight in making music together is plastered across each of their faces, further enhances the experience. And, of course, no two performances of the piece are ever the same, as I vividly witnessed in Rollag. Below you can hear the first part of “The Handover,” but if you’re in Berlin you could hear the rest of it live when they perform on Tuesday, July 16, at Morphine Raum.
A Rare Chance to Bask in the Hypnotic Glow of Zanzibari Taraab with Siti Muharam
Four years ago the British label On the Corner released an astonishing album by a singer from Zanzibar named Siti Muharam, with sounds of the classic sounds of Zanzibar taraab occasionally tweaked by a subtle contemporary vibe. Siti of Unguga (Romance Revolution of Zanzibar) opened with a lean instrumental titled “Nashozi Ya Huba,” built around a loping double bass groove, spare frame drumming, spindly qanun, and probing bass clarinet that contained flashes of classic taraab, particularly through the qanun interjections, but ultimately it felt more like a dub track, albeit utterly removed from reggae tradition. The double bass and bass clarinet were overdubbed in London by Stian Andersen and Tamar Collucutor, respectively, and I can’t say how much of the end result was from the original session recorded in Dar es Salaam in mainland Tanzania, but either way it proposed something new and fresh, before the record veered into more traditional terrain.
The singer has quite a pedigree: her great grandmother was Siti Binti Saad (1890-1950), one of the great taraab singers of the early 20th century who recorded a handful of singles in the early 1930s. Not only was she one of the style’s greatest voices, but she blazed a path that made it okay for women to perform taraab. Those tracks are scattered across a few compilations, including the great Poetry and Languid Charm: Swahili Music From Tanzania and Kenya (Topic) collection assembled by scholar Janet Topp Fargion, and some of them chronicle how she injected the rhythms of kidumbak, a related style in Zanzibar. The project was designed to cast a light on Saad’s accomplishments through extant lineage. Luckily, Muharam conveys a similar power, grace, and beauty in her own singing. Most of the tracks on the album are more traditional, reflecting a sound that emerged as Swahili traditions were impacted by the island’s location in global trade, which ended up bringing a heavy Arabic element, to say nothing of less prevalent European and Indian flourishes. While a handful of other tunes incorporate subtle electronic touches, none of them impinge on the music’s delicate soul. Muharam’s remarkable voice would be impossible to compete with anyway. Below you can check out one of the most arresting tracks, “Sikitiko,” but everything is great. And revisiting the album after several years has made me realize it’s even better than I originally thought.
I have always harbored a soft spot for the music’s elegant, spacious grace, percolating coolly, as qanun, strings, and other instruments cascade over patient polyrhythms, capped with astonishing voices. Muharam, who also plays violin and oud in addition to singing, advances that sound within these leaner arrangements that still project taraab’s infectious splendor. IIn the US it’s quite rare to experience this music live. I’ll never forget hearing Culture Musical Club perform in Chicago in 2006 and then getting to hear its accordionist Rajab Suleiman return with his smaller taraab group Kithara a decade later. Naturally, I’m super excited that Muharam is playing in Berlin on July 19 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, on a bill that also features the terrific Algerian singer Aziza Brahim.
Recommended Shows in Berlin This Week
July 15: Waxahatchee; Anna St. Louis, 8 PM, Festaal Kreuzberg, Am Flutgraben 2, 12435 Berlin
July 16: Fluxus Pieces 1, as part of Holy Fluxus. From the Francesco Conz Collection, Anna Clementi, Deborah Walker, Werner Durand, Luciano Chessa, and Miroslav Beinhauer (La Monte Young, Henning Christiansen, Philip Corner, Milan Knížák, Geoffrey Hendricks, George Maciunas, Dieter Schnebel, Werner Durand), 7 PM, St. Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz 1, 10785 Berlin
July 16: Anna Kaluza, alto saxophone, Jan Roder, double bass, and Achim Kaufmann, drums, 8:30 PM, Kuhlspot Social Club, Lehderstrasse 74-79, 13086 Berlin
July 16: The Handover (Aly Eissa, oud, Ayman Asfour, violin, and Jonas Cambien, keyboards), 8:30 PM, Morphine Raum, Köpenicker Straße 147, 10997 Berlin (Hinterhof 1. Etage)
July 17: Antje Vowinckel; Korhan Erel; Lorenzo Abattoir, 8:30 PM, Experimentik Berlin, TIK-Theater im Kino (Nord), Rigaerstr. 77, 10247 Berlin, Germany
July 18: Ustad Noor Bakhsh, 7 PM, Schlueterhof, Humboldt Forum, Museumsinsel, 10178 Berlin
July 19: Siti Muharam; Aziza Brahim, 7 PM, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin
July 19: Sessa, 7 PM, Schlueterhof, Humboldt Forum, Museumsinsel, 10178 Berlin
July 20: Sonic Interventions; Lia de Itamaracá, 7 PM, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin
July 21, Marie Krüttli "Dragon Life" Quintet (Marie Kruttli, keyboards, vocals, Jérémie Krüttli, bass, Sebastian Heindl, Hammond organ, Otis Sandsjö, saxophone, Maria Reich, violin, Peter Meyer, guitar, effects, Fabian Rösch, drums, effects), 6 PM, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, Breitscheidplatz, 10789 Berlin
July 22: Paed Conca, clarinet; Camila Nebbia, tenor saxophone, Keisuke Matsuno, guitar, Marta Warelis, piano, and Lesley Mok, drums, 8:30 PM, Kuhlspot Social Club, Lehderstrasse 74-79, 13086 Berlin