Reviews that mention Jeffrey Morgan
March 23, 2018
Casserley/Illvibe/Morgan/Sjöstöm
Live at the Club Polnishen Versager, Berlin 2016
Unisono-Records No #
Narrowing the gap between acoustic and electronic sonic landscapes, a quartet of improvisers collated their skills in a Berlin club to see what resulted. More a chronicle of contemplation and action than completed manifesto, the fascination of the disc lies in tracking the challenges and interactions which evolve during its two extended tracks.
Taking the acoustic side are two reed players, Finnish-born, Berlin resident Harri Sjöström, who worked an extensively with Cecil Taylor, playing soprano and sopranino saxophones; and American-born Köln-resident Jeffrey Morgan, who has recorded with Keith Rowe, on alto clarinet. Morgan has a duo with British electronics and signal processing pioneer Lawrence Casserley, also represented here, while Casserley’s fellow electro-acoustician is Berlin-based DJ Illvibe, whose turntable manipulation has included a duo with percussionist Demian Kappenstein. MORE
June 23, 2013
Goyvaerts/Morgan/Van Buggenhout
White Smoke
Creative Sources CS 248 CD
Atolón
Concret
Intonema in 1004
No matter how altered the tones of acoustic instruments become with extended techniques, pairing them with those produced by electronics and so-called objects results in a stand-off that can be beguiling or distasteful. Luckily both the improvising trios here are sophisticated enough in handling the material(s) that avoidance is never an option. Uniquely constituted, each also approaches the language of improvisation in a highly novel fashion. MORE
June 23, 2009
Lawrence Casserley-Jeffrey Morgan
Room 2 Room
Konnex KCD 5213
Christine Sehnaoui/Michel Waisvisz
Short Wave
Al Maslakh CD 08
As the sonic interaction of acoustic and electronics instruments in improv shifts from the province of novelty to that of an everyday occurrence, focusing on the strategies used for coherence is more instructive than enumerating sound sources.
So it is with these notable CDs, recorded about six months apart by duos from different backgrounds. Interestingly enough the two slightly younger performers – Lebanese-French alto saxophonist Christine Sehnaoui and “The Hands” manipulator Michel Waisvisz, of the Netherlands – blend and jumble pulses to such an extent that it’s often difficult to tell which instrument creates which sound. Furthermore neither player is much concerned with capturing a pure timbre. With Room 2 Room on the other hand, there’s never any question that American-born, Köln-resident Jeffrey Morgan is playing tenor and soprano saxophones, while the signal processing created by British electro-acoustician Lawrence Casserley demarcates itself. MORE
June 23, 2009
Christine Sehnaoui/Michel Waisvisz
Short Wave
Al Maslakh CD 08
Lawrence Casserley-Jeffrey Morgan
Room 2 Room
Konnex KCD 5213
As the sonic interaction of acoustic and electronics instruments in improv shifts from the province of novelty to that of an everyday occurrence, focusing on the strategies used for coherence is more instructive than enumerating sound sources.
So it is with these notable CDs, recorded about six months apart by duos from different backgrounds. Interestingly enough the two slightly younger performers – Lebanese-French alto saxophonist Christine Sehnaoui and “The Hands” manipulator Michel Waisvisz, of the Netherlands – blend and jumble pulses to such an extent that it’s often difficult to tell which instrument creates which sound. Furthermore neither player is much concerned with capturing a pure timbre. With Room 2 Room on the other hand, there’s never any question that American-born, Köln-resident Jeffrey Morgan is playing tenor and soprano saxophones, while the signal processing created by British electro-acoustician Lawrence Casserley demarcates itself. MORE
July 17, 2005
André Goudbeek/Peter Jacquemyn/Peter Kowald/Jeffrey Morgan
Dubbel Duo
Konnex
Peter Kowald/Alberto Braida/Gincarlo Locatelli
Aria
Free Elephant
By Ken Waxman
July 17, 2005
Peter Kowald’s sudden death at 58 in 2002 deeply affected many other experimental players, since the bassist from Wuppertal, Germany was one of the few to have established himself as a true world musician. As likely to be playing with local improvisers on traditional instruments in Tokyo as with Free Jazz saxophonists and drummers in New York, Kowald had an enviable reputation as someone who could and would work himself into any musical situation, whether it be jazz, New music, traditionally oriented sounds or anything in between. MORE
November 22, 2004
Avenue X
Ninth World Music NWM 029 CD
THE WILD MANS BAND
The Darkest River
Ninth World Music NWM 027 CD
Difficult to imagine, but there are times during AVENUE X when the consolidated sounds of the Capote quartet are so harsh and brutal that in comparison the Wild Mans Band (WMB)’s output appears as restrained and serene as that of the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Not meant as a criticism, this state of affairs merely points out how effectively the vocabulary of pioneering fire-breathers like WMB’s reedman Peter Brötzmann and guest guitarist Pierre Dørge has permeated the fabric of modern improv. From the 1960s on, in the German saxophonist’s case and from the 1970s for the Danish guitarist, they and others proved that noise, speed and volume could just as easily be adapted to jazz as rock music. MORE
May 31, 2004
Take No Prisoners
Konnex KCD 5115
Should there ever be a New Thing Revival along the lines of the New Orleans Revival of the 1940s then saxophonist Bert Wilson could be prime candidate to be its Bunk Johnson.
Like the legendary trumpeter from New Iberia, La., Wilson has since 1980 lived far away from mainstream jazz centres in Olympia, Wash., and plays in a style as true to what was recorded on ESP-Disk as Johnson was to pre-Swing Era traditional jazz. At 64, the alto and tenor saxophonist is even a decade older than Johnson was when he was fitted with new dentures and rediscovered in 1940. As for historical connections, if Johnson played with Bolden in New Orleans before the First World War, Wilson fittingly jammed with John Coltrane’s expanded sextet in Los Angles in 1966. MORE
May 24, 2004
Terra Incognita
(Konnex)
PAIR A’ DICE
Near Vhana
(Ninth World Music)
By Ken Waxman
May 24, 2004
Buoyed by appreciative, knowledgeable audiences, American improvisers have taken up residence in Europe for greater or lesser periods since the 1920s. The trend intensified after the Second World War when Bop-to-Swing stylists including saxophonists Johnny Griffin and Charlie Mariano, trumpeter Bill Coleman and drummer Kenny Clarke, among many others, moved to the Continent. Fusion and contemporary jazz’s neo-conservatism later forced experimenters such as drummer Sunny Murray, bassist Barre Philips and alto saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan to make similar trips. MORE