Belgium’s jazz webzine JAZZHALO just reviewed our latest two releases. Check them out and of course both albums are still available from our bandcamp store. Currently at a discount of 25% till December 31st, code : happyholidays2022

“Altsaxofonist Hugo Costa en drummer Philipp Ernsting hadden in de loop van 2020 afspraak in de Rotterdamse Studio SanteBoutique. Waar ze zich zoal mee bezighielden, is te horen op deze opname. Laat u vooral niet afschrikken door de titel ook al zijn het niet precies de meest broze ideeën die de heren naar voor brengen. Costa mag de eerste stappen zetten. Een korte noodkreet om bijstand lijkt het wel. En daar duikt Ernsting al drummend op. Het startschot voor een gestadig voortschrijden van beiden die duidelijk heel wat gezamenlijk aanknopingsvinden hebben. Staccato ritmen zijn aan de orde van de dag. Pittige steekspelletjes volgens een uiterst fysisch stramien. Ze gunnen elkaar noch de luisteraar enige ademruimte. De opgeroepen associaties blijven voorbij zoeven. Indrukwekkend hoe dit duo het heilige vuur van de improvisatie brandend houdt. We kunnen het elf minutenlange ‘Twine Engined’ aanraden als geschikt instapmoment. Ideale aanzet om nog eens te luisteren naar ‘Live In Willisau’ (Intakt), het duo-concert van James Brandon Lewis en Chad Taylor.” Jazzhalo – Belgium

“Ook al bieden improvisatieconcerten of -opnamen steeds de nodige verrassingen en koerswijzigingen, is het toch dikwijls de introductie die een goed beeld geeft van wat volgt. Dit is in elk geval zo bij ‘Dandelion’ van klarinettist Tom Jackson, gitarist Dirk Serries en drummer-percussionist Kris Vanderstraeten. De drie beroeren hun respectievelijke instrumenten alsof ze een snelcursus volgen over het klankenspectrum dat voorhanden is. Al snel benutten ze dat potentieel tot het uiterste elk langs zijn kant en toch in samenspraak. Soms laten ze invallen opstijgen als te gekke kamifusen, om nadien te vervolgen met meer bloedstollende uitvallen. Deze laatste zijn weliswaar eerder uitzondering dan regel. De drie gaan te werk als laboranten die doorlopend een vluchtig en obsessioneel uitwisselen van akoestische antidota als werkwijze hanteren en zo een heus reservoir van mogelijkheden opbouwen om nieuwe sonore entiteiten te evoceren. Het bijwijlen speelse karakter verlaagt de claustrofobische drempel.” Jazzhalo – Belgium

To light up these darker days and to celebrate our upcoming holidays, here’s a mighty 25% discount on any physical release (while supplies last) or digital album. 

Code : happyholidays2022 Valid thru December 31st, 2022. 

Happy holidays !

newwaveofjazz.bandcamp.com

On November 4th A NEW WAVE OF JAZZ organized a concert by this lovely Portuguese quartet of ERNEST RODRIGUES (viola), GUILHERME RODRIGUES (cello) and NUNO TORRES (alto sax) at the beautiful chapel Oude Klooster in Brecht (Belgium). DIRK SERRIES joined them on guitar.

Here’s a snippet from this excellent performance. The full concert is set to be released on CREATIVE SOURCES.

VITAL WEEKLY reviews our two new releases with familiar ‘wit‘. Both albums are available from our bandcamp store.

HUGO COSTA & PHILIPP ERNSTING – THE ART OF CRASHING (CD by New Wave Of Jazz)
JACKSON & SERRIES & VANDERSTRAETEN – DANDELION (CD by New Wave Of Jazz)

“History does not only repeat itself”, Guy Peters’ opening line for the liner notes for the Hugo Costa and Philipp Ernsting CD. I
have to correct him. History is not a scientific experiment that can be repeated to verify the results. Peters explains that the Dutch improvisation world was in the old days mainly in Amsterdam, and thus, other scenes were easily snowed under and that something similar is the case these days. But New Wave Of Jazz has released music from Rotterdam before, and these two musicians are from the same city. Drummer Philipp Ernsting is part of AIM, a collective of improvisers creating opportunities for experimentation. Hugo Costa, originally from Portugal but now in Rotterdam, plays the alto saxophone. Two years ago, they recorded the six pieces on ‘The Art Of Crashing’, one wild free jazz/improvisation. I know, I keep saying that Vital Weekly is buried with improvisation/free jazz/jazz music and that I don’t think we’re the right platform for this. But, when I was thinking about the noise the other day and said that a noise release a week is quite alright (or even two), I guess I could 
say the same about free jazz. Or, perhaps, about so much music; is there any music I could hear all day? Now there’s an interesting question. So, here I am, Saturday afternoon, still ‘at it’, the review business. In the meantime, I am sitting in my comfy chair, reading today’s paper and listening to the wild free jazz. of Costa and Ernsting. And, oddly enough, I dig it. I think ‘dig’ is a jazz word but is it? Whatever. Unlike Peters, I can’t put this into any historical context, so I have to take his word for it. John Coltrane, Ken Vandermark, Paal Nilssem-Love, Evan Parker, Colin Webster & Andrew Lisle are a few names I recognized, sometimes because I wrote about some of them. For me, it was mostly the high energy level that had, oddly enough, a soothing character on me.

The other new release by New Wave Of Jazz is also wild but slightly different. With Costa and Ernsting the wildness reflects in the chaotic and speedy approach to the instruments. In the case of Dirk Serries (acoustic guitar), Kris Vanderstraeten (percussion, drums) and Tom Jackson (clarinet). Here, there is less chaos as such, but the three players use similar freedom to produce whatever music they find necessary. Maybe with a touch more control and with more listening and interaction together. Perhaps that aspect, the conversation, is not as in the other one, but it is certainly here. Maybe that’s the reason why the music is gentler. Maybe softer is a better word, or more minor, with both abstract and melodic sides. The latter is mostly from the clarinet, where Tom Jackson stays on the musical side. His instrument remains to sound like a clarinet. Serries, on the other hand, tortures his instrument no end. You can recognize this as a guitar, but that’s it. He plucks, hits, and twists the strings. Vanderstraeten operates on the middle ground. Sure, you recognize the drums and percussion pieces; he hits them but also plays them with other objects, and there is the occasional bow across the cymbals and toms. A mixture of convention and abstraction. Like the other, this is not easy music to access, certainly if one has little experience or, like me, is not too knowledgeable. It unfolds more when one takes more time.”

Headmaster Gene Bulmer of AMBIENT LANDSCAPE made a new podcast mix featuring a lot of A NEW WAVE OF JAZZ and related releases and described it as ‘this is a magnum opus – a veritable whirlwind of a “New Wave of Jazz”!’. Who are we to claim otherwise ? Enjoy.

elements cornerstone | Avant Garde/Ether Jazz/Jazz/Noise | 80:31
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
Isaiah 28:16

Experimental excursions into heretofore uncharted, Jazz-ish territory . . .
I’ve been associated (by way of crafting podcasts) with this genre of avant-garde jazz, predominantly of out of Belgium, since 2018 (TONUS Tribute mix).
At first, I sprinkled the TONUS tracks in amongst other, avant-garde & experimental sounding artists. Slowly, however, I began to appreciate more and more the tone, texture & timbre of the work of Dirk Serries & Company’s ‘A New Wave of Jazz’.

At first blush, the listener may hear only discordant, improvised ‘noise’ – but I would encourage you to re-listen to the intricate nuances & balance contained within the scope of their work.
Improvised? Yes, indeed! But, in sync with one another’s sense of musical timing and “erratic harmony”, the flow can be utterly captivating. It goes without saying that I have acquired a distinct taste for this New Wave of Jazz!

This edition is both a retrospective as well as an embracing of some of the group’s newer offerings (tracks 4, 6, 10, 12, 13 & 16). Track 14, courtesy of ECM.

01 Dirk Serries & Asmus Tietchens – Air Concertina (edit)
02 TONUS – Ear Duration 03, Set 1 (edit)
03 Benedict Taylor & Anton Mobin – Slicing Ups
04 Guilherme Rodrigues & Dirk Serries – A Palm
05 Dirk Serries & Tom Malmendier – Coded Ideal
06 Asmus Tietchens & Dirk Serries – Höfner Akte 3
07 Goncalo Almeida – Monólogos a Dois III
08 Daniel Thompson & Colin Webster – BOSKAGE 02/II
09 Serries, Vanderstraeten & Verhoeven – Tangent
10 Colin Webster, Emilie Škrijelj, Dirk Serries, Martina Verhoeven & Tom
Malmendier – Oud Klooster (excerpt)
11 Vanderstraeten, Russell & Keune – On Sunday 2 (edit_2)
12 Jackson, Serries & Vanderstraeten – Dandelion
13 Philipp Ernsting & Hugo Costa – Oase
14 Stefano Battaglia & Michele Rabbia – Spirits of Myths
15 Rubicon Quartet – Caught a Flying Ghost
16 Hugo Costa & Philipp Ernsting – Blind Spot

JACKSON SERRIES VANDERSTRAETEN’s DANDELION is getting their first reviews in. Here’s the Dutch MOORS MAGAZINE one. Available through our bandcamp store.

“Drie musici die met elkaar vrij gaan improviseren, dat is altijd weer een spannende aangelegenheid, maar als je drie virtuozen bij elkaar zet die goed naar elkaar kunnen luisteren, en die ook daadwerkelijk muzikaal met elkaar in gesprek gaan kan er ineens iets magisch gebeuren. Gitarist Dirk Serries en klarinettist Tom Jackson zijn bevlogen spelers die met passie het spel in gaan, en dat geldt absoluut ook voor percussionist en drummer Kris Vanderstraeten, maar die laatste voegt er wat mij betreft nog een extra element aan toe dat deze sessie wat mij betreft boven alles uit doet stijgen, en dat is humor. Want de passie is er zonder meer ook, en de bevlogenheid, maar ik schiet ook regelmatig in de lach bij de percussieve toevoegingen van Vanderstraeten, en eerlijk gezegd geniet ik daar enorm van. Een geweldige sessie, waarin alledrie de musici op hun scherpst spelen, en waarin ze elkaar fantastisch weerwerk bieden – beluister het album vooral wat vaker, want in de details zitten nog wat sublieme diamantjes verstopt. Niet voor luie luisteraars, maar als je bereid bent je oren open te zetten valt hier enorm veel te genieten. En te lachen.” Moors Magazine – The Netherlands

Welcome to another bandcamp friday ! Not only do we offer you a 80% discount on the full digital catalog but also do we celebrate our first official label t-shirt ever ! Designed according to our passion for minimalism and referring to the launch of our new cd series next year. The t-shirt is available in S, M, L and XL through our bandcamp store. Thank you for supporting A NEW WAVE OF JAZZ !

And out since November 25th are these two new releases :

HUGO COSTA & PHILIPP ERNSTING – THE ART OF CRASHING
JACKSON SERRIES VANDERSTRAETEN – DANDELION

Grab them here.

Not so long ago we got the pleasure to release COLIN WEBSTER & MATTHEW GRIGG’s album ‘GOOD TO BE BACK IN REALITY’ on limited cassette. This upcoming Saturday they are celebrating this release with a concert at HUNDRED YEARS GALLERY. Also lined up is multi-instrumentalist TOM WARD for a solo concert. For those living in London, go to see these amazing musicians.

JACKSON/SERRIES/VANDERSTRAETENs DANDELION cd gets an extensive, wicked review by the hands of Todd McComb for his Jazz Thoughts blog. The album is officially out since Friday November 25th, 2022, and available here.

“Variations on the classic “jazz trio” continue to animate this space: Even as I continue to discuss more post-classical ensemble constitutions or other creative combinations, the pairing of horn & drums, along with some kind of string instrument, continues to figure a kind of pole — at least for these “jazz thoughts,” and likely for practical improvisational activity in general. As I’ve noted, the string instrument is the novelty from the American perspective, and that’s most often been bass or of course piano (more often in quartets…), but guitar makes for a sort of hybrid choice, i.e. a flexible articulation instrument with more chordal potential. And there’s plenty of variety possible from the other roles as well, i.e. a wide choice of horns, and then “drums” does have a sort of standard “jazz” meaning, but are at least as often buoyed or tilted in some personal direction, as regards not just expression per se, but kit…. I’ve also particularly enjoyed clarinet, since before this project, and even as saxophone is the more prototypical jazz reed, clarinet isn’t far off. So Tom Jackson has been one of the more compelling players for me over the past few years, including for his choice of colleagues. And I do want to feature his new album Dandelion, but I also feel compelled to address the trio format a little more generally: The obvious precedent around Jackson here is Nauportus (also featuring clarinet, guitar & percussion), first reviewed here in July 2019, and so in some ways, Dandelion seems like a reprise of that effort. But Dandelion also seems more taut & coherent overall, pace the (one-off?) festival context of Nauportus, each track here forging a little gem. Jackson’s wonderful sense of precision, both in rhythmic sections & in arrhythmic passages featuring held tones, brings distinct individuality to each track in this case, never really “in the weeds” as improv sometimes is…. There’re also the different players alongside Jackson, excellent “acoustic” (specifically) guitarists in both cases, Daniel Thompson on Nauportus & now Dirk Serries on Dandelion: I’ve been hearing Serries regularly of late, but of course he entered this space for me alongside Thompson in SETT (& has since recorded again with Thompson, alongside Martina Verhoeven on Today and all the tomorrows, as released earlier this year…), and while Serries can also seem like “the third” to this interaction, his sometimes-ringing guitar intervals & general sense of accent (& indeed reflection) provide a fascinating intervention — such that I’ve enjoyed listening to Dandelion by focusing on the guitar perspective. The latter’s drummer is then Kris Vanderstraeten, whom I hadn’t mentioned here, but who’s appeared on Serries’ A New Wave of Jazz label previously: He opens very much in colorist mode — pace the track titles — but also shows great fluidity in & out of more traditionally rhythmic interactions, a structuring flexibility (not so unlike Vid Drašler’s on Nauportus, as each percussionist is actually mentioned first by his label…) incorporating a broadly machinic animation into the individual tracks. (And I seem to enjoy the metallic chimes too.) There’s thus a sense of natural resonance to Dandelion, but almost as a frame, an arrhythmic-rhythmic turning inside out of elastic musical relations, as e.g. the first two tracks begin with held resonances — emerging from silence, one might say — transforming into more traditionally jazzy rhythms. (Other tracks might transform through smoothness in the middle….) In describing Nauportus, I’d also already closed by noting its “floating, timeless globalism” — & since then, I’ve figured the latter more in terms of “anthropology music,” i.e. generic inspirations of broad human activity, as relatively close to the divergent sounds of nature. But while Dandelion can be said to reference those sorts of callings, its intricate sense of sculpted control also seems to move beyond such a genre. Its “colors” come to suggest particular perspectives or situations, often sunny here (& so appropriately recorded at Sunny Side Inc., I suppose…), but e.g. becoming nocturnal for the long central track: There’s something seemingly self-contained about these little machinic-affective tracks, little gems I already said…, figured by specific (& usually bright) colors. The album seemed long at first, but now I’m usually sorry when it ends.

And the music on Dandelion does sparkle, but it’s not only the playing: I’ve started to note some high resolution sound formats here, and so this seems like a good time for a little more of a digression…. In fact, the 24bit sound on Dandelion is very present, with bigger-than-usual dynamics, and very crisp timbres. Compared to the “warmth” notion that people like to apply e.g. to vinyl, it can sound stark or harsh. That’s partly a matter of familiarity, but the sound does certainly carry in my apartment. And part of the reason I wanted to mention this is that there seems to be a lot of noise about high-def formats out there. On Dandelion, you can really hear the difference — assuming one has the decoder for it (& that’s another reason I’ve tended to steer clear of this topic, since I really have no idea how music sounds in “different” situations…) — but 24bit releases have actually become quite common on Bandcamp. They aren’t usually noted explicitly as such though: Indeed, per above, e.g. SETT First and Second was already a 24bit release (& maybe everything on A New World of Jazz is, I didn’t check…), but while it sounds good, it sounds more like a CD era recording (i.e. 16bit). Meaning that simply releasing a high-def format doesn’t automatically conjure a more vibrant recording from the sources, but more often lately, there’s striking sound to be found. That’s mostly in bit depth, though, as 24bit recordings are appearing at a variety of sampling rates, most often 48kHz it seems (& that’s what a typical smartphone will play), but some are at 44.1kHz (i.e. CD resolution), or even higher numbers such as 96kHz: The latter has been much less common outside of classical in my experience, but e.g. Braxton’s ZIM set was released at that resolution — & so put out on blu-ray as its physical format. These higher resolution formats have mostly been appearing silently in the improvised space online though, i.e. aren’t hyped (although the great sound from e.g. Braxton probably should be…!), with few labels providing consumers a choice of resolution (a situation now ubiquitous in the mainstream “classical” download market). But Zurich’s Intakt Records is one that does provide such an explicit choice, including different price points, and has been doing it for a while now. (Scan their Bandcamp site, and you’ll see a variety of resolutions offered, across different albums, not only a single “high def….”) Anyway, hopefully that little orientation has some value. The sound quality on Dandelion really is better than any CD recording, though — pace the unfamiliarity, which might figure “better” differently for different listeners (even as the level of sonic detail is certainly higher). Based on classical responses, some people really don’t appreciate e.g. the increased dynamic range possible in 24bit…. (Whereas higher sampling rates lend a “lushness” to timbres, and I don’t know that anyone has complained about that, but it does make the sound files much larger….)” Todd McComb’s Jazz Thoughts