Clean Feed

Who would've predicted that the drummer of the punk band Joe Cool, one of the regular groups playing at the legendary CBGB's at the end of the Seventies along with Talking Heads, Television and The Ramones, would become a big name in the progressive jazz scene?

The piano solo format is a natural one for this musician of great inner density. João Paulo is a composer of exquisite melodic and harmonic sensibility. He's also a very special improviser, with the same drive, deliverance and proficiency that we recognize in Keith Jarrett.

If you already sensed that the free bop style played by Ken Vandermark has roots in rhythm 'n' blues, here is the recording that confirms your impression.

After a free jazz investment for many years, now something entirely different. Avant-garde? Composer / improviser Rob Brown says it's an irrelevant categorization nowadays.

To begin with - and we always begin listening a record by reading its title and the names of the tracks -, a glance to the cover of this disc informs us of a situation of conflict.

This is a reissue of the long disappeared CD on Konnex recorded by multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton with one of his most notable pupils, Joe Fonda. "Duets 1995" is a remarkable item of the duo series from this frontline figure of avant-garde jazz.

This pair of great French musicians had a previous duo recording in 1994, but it's now difficult to find. It was such a marvellous encounter that a second session has been greatly anticipated. Here it is, 13 years after, and with a Portuguese edition.

The title of this CD by the Sonic Openings Under Pressure troupe is the term used by the Lenape tribe to name the Hudson River, and it means "river that flows two ways". The music acts accordingly, and surely is a New York product. There are two flows here - one is freedom (as in "free jazz" and "free improvisation"), the other is form (established by structure and composition).