Reviews that mention Roger Turner
August 7, 2020
Dikeman/Vincente/Atunes/Hawkins/Turner
Corda Bamba
JACC Records JR 036 CD
El Memorioso
Cinq forms du temps
Musique en Friche MF 007
Molding the expected Jazz combo configuration of tenor saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass and drums to more ductile processes, two European ensembles demonstrate that sound textures can be expressed in startling manners. Plus the worth of each CD lies in the freshness of each band.
Dedicated to a microtonal reflection on memory spurred by saturnine photographs and poetry is Cinq forms du temps. A first iteration of El Memorioso, the French quintet consists of trumpeter Nicolas Souchal, who has recorded with Fred Marty and Jean-Brice Godet; tenor saxophonist Julien Pontvianne part of the Onze Heures Onze Orchestra; pianist Xavier Camarasa also in the Grand Fou band; bassist Alexis Coutureau of the HEO trio; and drummer Julien Chamla, who has played with Hippie Diktat and Godet. Corda Bamba is also a first collaboration but with an international cast. American tenor saxophonist John Dikeman has played with William Parker; the British contingent, pianist Alexander Hawkins and drummer Roger Turners have worked with everyone from Evan Parker to Joe McPhee; while the Portuguese players, trumpeter Luís Vicente and bassist Hugo Antunes have been associated with Paul Lovens and Dirk Serries. MORE
December 29, 2019
SEA
Relative Pitch RPR 1092
Serries/Vanderstraeten/Verhoeven
Impetus
New Wave of Jazz nwoj 0024
One of the delights of improvised music how varied sounds produced can be, even when created from almost from an exact instrumental combination. Both these sets feature experienced sound searchers creating distinct programs with guitar, piano and percussion. Yet Impetus, featuring a Belgium-based trio, defines new parameters in hushed, moderato intonation while SEA, by a mixed Japanese/British ensemble situates high-volume noise within interpretive investigations. MORE
December 1, 2019
Wels, Austria
Nov. 8, 9, 10, 2019
By Ken Waxman
Performance photos by Susan O’Connor
Treading the fine line among genres– or perhaps jumping from one to another – the sounds presented at Music Unlimited (MU) 33 touched on pure improv, hard noise, semi-notated patterns plus electro-acoustic and near-Rock forays. Still, every performer’s musical emphasis was on originality and discovery. That’s why some sets initiated by MU’s three curators – German pianist Magda Mayas, American tenor saxophonist Joe McPhee and Japanese guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi – during this annual festival in this Austrian city of 60,000 near Linz, featured some already constituted bands. Others were the equivalent of musical blind dates, with unanticipated sonic interactions adding up to memorable discoveries. MORE
December 11, 2017
The Corner
Relative Pitch Records RPR 1059
Oddly singular for both the favored piano-percussion duo format and the multiple records on which Flemish pianist Fred Van Hove and British drummer Roger Turner have been featured, The Corner is not only the first time the two have recorded together but the only disc in that format in the pianist’s extensive discography. That said despite the novelty and meeting of different generations of Free Music practitioners, the four improvisations are fluid and distinctive. Part of EuroImprov in its infancy, Van Hove, 80, was one-third of the ground breaking Brötzmann-Bennink-Van-Hove trio of the late 1960s and has worked with nearly every improviser of note since then. Similarly musically promiscuous Turner, 70, has had long-term association with likes of John Russell and Thomas Lehn plus many others. MORE
June 29, 2017
The Spirit Guide
Creative Works Records CW 1062
John Butcher & Ståle Liavik Solberg
So beautiful, it starts to Rain
Clean Feed CF390 CD
Jazz and improvised music, in common with many other spheres, have enough history to develop particular archetypes which are continuously cited in certain situations. For instance it seems that every set of improvisations featuring a saxophonist and a percussionist invariably gets compared to John Coltrane’s classic duets with Rashied Ali. But like totems no longer applicable for present times, the Trane-Ali duets have the same relevance to these saxophone-drums CDs as a Dizzy Gillespie trumpet solo would have to one by Axel Dörner. The instrument is the same, but the concept and intent are different. MORE
November 16, 2015
Taking The Dog for a Walk: Conversations with British Improvisers
A film by Antoine Prum
By Ken Waxman
Part travelogue, part history, part performance and part philosophy, Taking the Dog for a Walk is the definitive portrait of British Free Improvisation. Yet from the first sequence showing drummer Mark Sanders improvising alongside a bingo caller, the genre’s sardonic humor implicit in isn’t neglected either – note the vintage clip of Lol Coxhill and other improvisers in zoot suit disguise playing at a beach resort.. Even the title references the hoary jape that three men and a dog was BritImprov’s typical audience. MORE
March 26, 2013
The Pancake Tour
Relative Pitch RPR 1007
Maintaining an exceptional level of consistency playing improvised music demands empathic collaborators as well as chops and commitment. That’s why so many improvisers maintain long-standing relationships with a select group of fellow sound experimenters. Paradoxically, these same musicians often revel in the challenges of playing in new combinations.
Take Swiss soprano and tenor saxophonist Urs Leimgruber for instance. The Pancake Tour is a duo outing with an experienced associate: British drummer Roger Turner. Turner and Leimgruber are also present on Almost Even Further, except that on the latter disc the drummer and American cellist Okkyung Lee are new elements introduced to the 6ix group. They add their textures alongside those of other founding members, pianist Jacques Demierre and vocalist Dorothea Schurch from Switzerland and German synthesizer player Thomas Lehn, all of whom Leimgruber has worked with for at least the last decade. MORE
March 26, 2013
Almost Even Further
Leo Records CD LR 644
Urs Leimgruber/Roger Turner
The Pancake Tour
Relative Pitch RPR 1007
Maintaining an exceptional level of consistency playing improvised music demands empathic collaborators as well as chops and commitment. That’s why so many improvisers maintain long-standing relationships with a select group of fellow sound experimenters. Paradoxically, these same musicians often revel in the challenges of playing in new combinations.
Take Swiss soprano and tenor saxophonist Urs Leimgruber for instance. The Pancake Tour is a duo outing with an experienced associate: British drummer Roger Turner. Turner and Leimgruber are also present on Almost Even Further, except that on the latter disc the drummer and American cellist Okkyung Lee are new elements introduced to the 6ix group. They add their textures alongside those of other founding members, pianist Jacques Demierre and vocalist Dorothea Schurch from Switzerland and German synthesizer player Thomas Lehn, all of whom Leimgruber has worked with for at least the last decade. MORE
January 11, 2013
Acid Rain
Ayler Records AYLCD -128
ET
Labor
Creative Sources CS 206 CD
Events often move so quickly in 21st Century music that the electronic manipulators featured on these fine European sessions can be considered throw-backs because both insist on using analog devices, many of them DIY. Yet the key to exultant Free Music is its adaptability. The ET duo for instance pairs these primitive electronics with primordial percussion consisting of cast off junk, tools and found objects. Meanwhile the electronics on Acid Rain are paired with the 20th Century’s two most popular instruments – the electric guitar and the drum kit. In both cases the result is as mesmerizing as it is unique. MORE
July 6, 2012
Veryan Weston
By Ken Waxman
London-based pianist Veryan Weston is a well-travelled musician who regularly turns up in a variety of free music situations in the United Kingdom and aboard. Best-known for his long associations with iconoclastic saxophonist Lol Coxhill and distinctive vocalist Phil Minton, Weston has also spent time in various ensembles with, among others, drummer Eddie Prévost, saxophonist John Butcher and is sometimes a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra. Weston and British alto saxophonist Trevor Watts are playing at the Stone this month as part of a duo tour of the US. MORE
May 21, 2012
Curare
NoBusiness NBCD 38
Exceptional music that’s blazingly intense yet judiciously moderate, Curare, apparently named for the South American muscle-relaxant plant, captures sessions recorded almost two years apart from what in advanced music terms is a super group.
All of its members have been plying their trade in this gene since the 1970s, French baritone saxophonist Daunik Lazro with the likes of soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda and bassist Joëlle Léandre; fellow Gaul, guitarist Jean-François Pauvros with everyone from drummer Makoto Sato to harpist Hélène Breschand; and British percussionist Roger Turner with seemingly every advanced sound explore in the United Kingdom, North America and the Continent. Never before have they recorded in trio formation and the four tracks hang together so well because of another contradiction: each cooperates fully with the others, but no one alters his individual style. MORE
October 15, 2011
The Cigar That Talks
Collection PiedNu PN0110
Michel Doneda/Jonas Kocher/Christoph Schiller
Grape Skin
Another Timbre at42
Like many other peripatetic improvisers, French soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda spends his time in many different locations playing with a variety of improvisers. These CDs find the resourceful reedist a member of particularly sympathetic trios: in The Cigar That Talks, with veteran British stylists and on Grape Skin with two younger, Swiss-based players.
In fact, after more than a quarter century, Toulouse-based Doneda, whose associations are with dancers as well as other minimalists, could almost be thought of as being part of the mainstream – of Free Music that is – on the first CD. Alongside percussionist Roger Turner and guitarist John Russell, both Londoners, Doneda’s playing on the five selections is upfront and sometimes clamorous, unafraid of exposing piercing textures in contrast to the others’ more rhythmically oriented charctersitics. MORE
September 25, 2011
Success with your Dog
Emanem 5010
Lol Coxhill-Enzo Rocco
Fine Tuning
Amirani Records AMNR024
Nearly ageless and indomitable, British soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill, who turned 79 on September 19, seems to have tapped into some sort of woodwind player youth elixir. At least his playing is as notable as an octogenarian as it was when he was say, a callow senior citizen.
Besides playing in the London Improvisers Orchestra, some of whose members are 40 or 50 years his junior, the saxman excels in small group settings. Of course, superior improvising is aided by sympathetic associates, and on these notable sessions, Coxhill is matched individually with two of the best. While fellow Londoner, percussionist Roger Turner, with whom he plays on Success with your Dog, and Italian guitarist Enzo Rocco, who partner him on Fine Tuning may be Baby Boomers, each has considerable experience working with quirky reedists. Rocco has played with Turin’s Carlo Actis Dato and Brussels’ André Goudbeek; and Turner with, among many others, clarinetist Tim Hodgkinson and saxophonist John Butcher. MORE
January 13, 2011
Bledsoe/Lapin/Poore/Schubert/Turner
Seek it not with your eyes
Red Toucan RT 9339
Norbert Stein
Silent Sitting Bulls
PATA Music 20 CD
Recorded within eight months of one another, these CDs provide a revealing snapshot of the Köln-centred improvised music scene and coincidentally catch up with recent sounds created by two of the stalwarts of the recently dissolved James Choice Orchestra (JCO). Together for four years, the 20-piece plus JCO was a European aggregation which successfully mixed improvised and notated music performed by players whose primary allegiance was to Jazz, Rock, Improv or so-called Contemporary Classical sounds. Its four leaders/composers were saxophonists Frank Gratkowski, Matthias Schubert and Norbert Stein plus tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch. MORE
October 17, 2010
The Black Hills
GROB 962 LC 10292
Heading towards their 15th anniversary in 2012, the German-British trio Konk Pack continues to be the gold standard against which any band of electro-acoustic improvisers must be measured.
Characterized by a unity in conception and creation the tracks on this exceptional CD were actually recorded in both Houston and Wuppertal, Germany about a year apart. That they flow together so seamlessly can be attributed to the skill and technical smarts of the band members consisting of German analogue synthesizer player Thomas Lehn, plus, from the United Kingdom, percussionist Roger Turner and Tim Hodgkinson on lap steel guitar, electronics and clarinets. MORE
October 6, 2010
Festival Météo, Mulhouse, France
August 24 to August 28
By Ken Waxman
Proving that varieties of improvised music can sound as different as the personalities of those who play it, the annual Météo festival offered a cornucopia of noteworthy sounds from the bombastic to the barely audible, solo or in groups.
Venues in this Upper Rhine French city, located 30 kilometres northwest of Basel, Switzerland, also reflected this sonic diversity. Performances take place in the hushed surroundings of a 12th Century chapel downtown, and on the city’s outskirts, a capacious night club usually used for rock shows; and, new this year, within the expanses of an abandoned 1930s’ thread manufacturing factory. MORE
May 8, 2008
Off Leash
GROB.654
Unquestionably living up to its onomatopoeic name with these crammed yet elastic pulsations, the Konk Pack trio proves once again with this concert performance why it is likely improv’s most accomplished electro-acoustic group. The trio consists of Köln-based synthesizer player Thomas Lehn, also a pianist; plus two Londoners: clarinetist/lap steel guitarist Tim Hodgkinson, a notated composer and co-founder of 1960s Art Rock band Henry Cow; plus percussionist Roger Turner, who over the years has collaborated with most British free musician from vocalist Phil Minton to saxophonist John Butcher. Most impressively, at no time during the throbbing, blistering textures that Konk Pack exposes on the single track here are empathy and enthusiasm sacrificed for electronically packaged formulae. MORE
April 17, 2006
The Sound of Squirrel Meals: The Work of Lol Coxhill
Edited By Barbara Schwarz
Black Press
By Ken Waxman
April 17, 2006
Perhaps the sort of player who only could have thrived in the ever-shifting scene that developed in the United Kingdom starting in the mid-960s, soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill is one of improvised music’s most distinctive characters.
In truth, the bulky, bald-headed Portsmouth-born saxophonist has always been a fellow traveller to Improvised Music, but never quite a card-carrying member. That’s because his quirkiness – and need to make a living – has encompassed a multiplicity of gigs, most of which he’s accepted with the same equanimity of spirit. In other words he’s been just as satisfied playing a featured role with punk band the Damned and other rockers as improvising with fellow reed masters like Steve Lacy and Evan Parker. He has been part of oddball vocal-and-instrumental groups like The Melody Four as well as more serious endeavors like the London Improvisers Orchestra. He has appeared as a TV and film actor. Plus he’s spent days busking outdoors almost as often as he’s been featured in proper concert settings. MORE
June 9, 2003
Live at the Total Music Meeting 2002
a|l|l 007
JOE FONDA/XU FENGXIA
Distance
Leo Lab CD 069
There may be more than one billion people in China, including a goodly collection of pop music stars and classical music interpreters, but so far the country has yet to produce one major -- or even middling -- free improviser.
By sheer force of numbers and the society’s gradual liberalization, that lack will eventually be rectified. But right now, at least on the evidence of these CDs, the person coming closest to the ideal is Xu Fengxia, the Shanghai-born guzheng player who has lived in Germany since 1991. MORE