Reviews that mention Guillaume Aknine
August 11, 2019
August 27-31, 2019
Mulhouse, France
By Ken Waxman
Photos by Susan O'Connor
Having reached its 37th year without compromising its goal of presenting mature improvisers alongside younger musicians with newer concepts, the Météo Music Festival maintained that tradition throughout this year’s festival in late August. Creating an atmosphere where 21-year-old local drumming phenom Gaspard Beck is as welcomed and treated with the same respect as British saxophonist Evan Parker, 74, one of the pioneers of Free Music, confirms this. High quality sounds of all sorts were presented throughout the Mulhouse, France festival’s five days, with French performers featured along with those from Scandinavia, Asia, central Europe, North America, and pre-Brexit United Kingdom. MORE
October 16, 2016
Can You Hear Me?
Ayler Records AYLCD-146
Never content to stand still – often literally – French double bassist Joëlle Léandre’s music can be likened to the epistemological studies of pre-modern scientists. From her beginnings she didn’t feel that mastery of any one discipline meant she had to abjure from others. She demonstrated that by sidestepping from interpreting scores to improvising. During almost four decades she has usually expressed her skills in smaller ensembles. Now with Can You Hear Me she has turned to a large scale composition, played by a 10-piece orchestra. MORE
August 1, 2014
Jazzdor-Strasbourg-Berlin 2014
By Ken Waxman
The KulturBrauerei’s music space Kesselhaus in East Berlin was a fitting site for the eighth annual Jazzdor-Strasbourg-Berlin (JSB) festival June 3-6. With jazz and improvised music’s universality now a given, a festival presenting mostly French jazz taking place in what had been one of Berlin’s oldest breweries, now repurposed from industrial to artistic use, doesn’t seem that much of a stretch.
Overall its all-inclusive musical theme was confirmed by the programming of JSB’s artistic director Philippe Ochem and his team, which already host Strasbourg’s annual Jazzdor festival. Over four nights, JSB presented musician from different parts of Germany, Belgium and the US plus proudly delineated Basque and Corsican players, all of whom worked with improvisers from France’s major musical centres. MORE
May 14, 2014
Can You Smile?
Ayler Records AYLCD 136
Uri Caine Ensemble
Rhapsody in Blue
Winter & Winter 910.905-2
Samo Salamon & Slovene Philharmonic String Chamber Orchestra
Free Strings Orchestrology
KGOSF VD 013
Nils Wogram & Root 70 with strings
Riomar
Wog Records 007
Vijay Iyer
Mutations
ECM CD 2372
Something In The Air: Innovative Writing for Strings and Improvisers
By Ken Waxman
As genres draw closer to one another, the idea of a musician from one area playing and composing a work in another area doesn’t seem so far-fetched. More importantly the sophistication of many contemporary performers means that these inter-genre excursions are triumphant rather than merely passable. One form that is being explored by improvised musicians for instance is composing for the bedrock of the so-called classical music tradition: string groupings. MORE