Reviews that mention Frank London
April 17, 2018
Ten Billion Versions of Reality
No Label No #
Blue Lines Sextet
Live at the BIMhuis
Casco Records 005
Working through the sound variations promulgated by a three-horn, three-rhythm combo playing mostly originals, are an American and a European sextet, coincidentally recorded at the very beginning and the very end of 2016. While Live at the BIMhuis and Ten Billion Versions of Reality differ in offering either a more improvised or an arranged instrumental palate the results are equally notable.
Timing in with twice the number of racks as the other CD, Live at the BIMhuis also benefits from a cosmopolitan, pre-Brexit concept of group creativity. Although the CD was recorded in Amsterdam, only half the band is Dutch: leader and chief composer pianist Michael Scheen, trombonist Wolter Wierbos and bassist Raoul van der Weide. Drummer George Hadow is British, trumpeter Bart Maris Belgian and saxophonist Ada Rave Argentinean. Meanwhile with the exception of Israeli-born trombonist Reut Regev, the rest of Ten Billion’s is American: trumpeter Frank London, pianist Art Hirahara, bassist Wes Brown, drummer royal hartigan, and, saxophonist David Bindman, MORE
January 11, 2018
Frank London//The Glass House Orchestra
Astro-Hungarian Jewish Music
Piranha Records PIR 3063
Like those 1960s urban country blues players or citybillies who tired of recreating other persons’ sounds, some Klezmer revivalists have gone in two separate directions for more authenticity. Like those urban pickers who moved south to join local country bands, Klezmer players trekked to Eastern Europe to intensify appreciation of pre-Holocaust texts and resurrect others. Back in the 1960s as well, bands like Electric Flag and Country Joe & The Fish, to pick two, were started by players who used their knowledge of blues and folk as a basis for psychedelic-electric experiments. With Astro-Hungarian Jewish Music, New York trumpeter-bandleader Frank London is someone in the Klez field trying both routes simultaneously. MORE
July 11, 2012
Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York
ETO
Libra Records 215-029
Le GGRIL avec Evan Parker
Vivaces
Tour de Bras TDB9006 CD
The Royal Improvisers Orchestra
Live at the Bimhuis
Riot Impro 01
London Improvisers Orchestra
Lio Leo Leon
psi 11.04
Something in the Air: New Soloists for Improvising Ensembles
By Ken Waxman
Adding another voice to an established improvising ensemble is more precarious than it seems. With a group having worked out strategies allowing for individual expression within a larger context – and without notated cues – the visitor(s) must be original without unbalancing the interface. Luckily the sessions here demonstrate successful applications. MORE
June 25, 2012
Sunset Park Polyphony
No Label No #
A significant statement from saxophonist David Bindman, Sunset Park Polyphony musically reflects both parts of its title. A New Yorker with a master’s degree in World Music, Bindman has spent much of his career blending the time sense of non-Western music with the harmonies and improvisationary freedom of Jazz. At the same time the two-CD set aims to reflect not only the sounds of Sunset Park, his polyglot neighborhood in Brooklyn, but also in the disc-length “Landings Suite”, translate into sound the experiences of a young person who experiencing injustice decides to work for the common good. MORE
December 2, 2009
Ha’orot: The Lights of Rav Kook
Tzadik TZ 8137
Frank London/Lorin Sklamberg
tsuker-zis
Tzadik TZ 8141
Retro Boppers who take their improvisational cues from the music of the 1950s, and Classic Jazz players, who try to replicate 1920s New Orleans Jazz, are veritable late comers when compared to the musical traditions wedded to Jazz on these memorable releases. Reedist Greg Wall, trumpeter Frank London and vocalist Lorin Sklamberg put their musical smarts to work on ecstatic sounds related to the Hasidic Movement, which originated in Eastern European in the 18th Century; tinged with shtetl-popular Klezmer music developed even earlier; involving concepts, lyrics and melodies going back to Talmudic pre-history. MORE
December 2, 2009
tsuker-zis
Tzadik TZ 8141
Greg Wall’s Later Prophets
Ha’orot: The Lights of Rav Kook
Tzadik TZ 8137
Retro Boppers who take their improvisational cues from the music of the 1950s, and Classic Jazz players, who try to replicate 1920s New Orleans Jazz, are veritable late comers when compared to the musical traditions wedded to Jazz on these memorable releases. Reedist Greg Wall, trumpeter Frank London and vocalist Lorin Sklamberg put their musical smarts to work on ecstatic sounds related to the Hasidic Movement, which originated in Eastern European in the 18th Century; tinged with shtetl-popular Klezmer music developed even earlier; involving concepts, lyrics and melodies going back to Talmudic pre-history. MORE
February 20, 2006
Shachor
El Gallo Rojo
Meshuge Klezmer Band
Treyf 1929
El Gallo Rojo
Switters
The Anabaptist Loop
Improvisatore Involontario
By Ken Waxman
February 20, 2006
Why do Italian improv-Klezmer bands exist, you may ask? Well – to answer a question with a question – why not? Musicians of Southern European heritage have been a mainstay of jazz since its beginning and been part of American popular music since its beginning, so why shouldn’t they get involved in the newest variant of Klezmer sounds? MORE
February 15, 2002
HASIDIC NEW WAVE & YAKAR RHYTHMS
From The Belly of Abraham
Knitting Factory Records KFW 294
Real fusion is the point of this session, not the sort of wanking jazz-rock to which the term has been reduced through misuse. Mixing two different traditions, it features five committed members of the Jewish Alternative Movement trading riffs and rhythms with three African percussionists.
While hardly spectacular, the results at least suggest new avenues of exploration for those who refuse to be shackled by tradition. Part of the time the Hasidic New Wavers’ admixture of jazz, funk and Eastern European melodies lock steps into the Sabar throb of the trio of Senegalese drummers. Other times, trying to metaphorically mix Ashkenazi and near Ashanti culture produces as queasy a repast as spreading Romanian-Jewish chopped chicken liver onto Ethiopian Injera bread. MORE