Reviews that mention Goncalo Almeida
April 3, 2022
Beats the Plague
Trytone TT 559-087
The Undercurrent Orchestra
Everything Seems Different
ZenneZ Records ZR 2109020
Covid-19 and its pandemic variants have had global effects on the world’s population, not the least improvising musicians. Thus, it’s appropriate that during the last almost three years of fear, isolation and limited movement, two sextets from the Netherlands have created these energetic, playful and in-your-face sessions. Appropriate as well, and also reflecting the world’s increasing globalism, while all the players are Dutch residents many have settled there from elsewhere. MORE
March 24, 2022
Chanting the Name of
Clean Feed CF 575 CD
Andrew Cyrille, William Parker & Enrico Rava
2 Blues for Cecil
TUM CD 059
Veteran improvisers and those in mid-career approach the creative challenge of working with just double bass, drums and brass in fascinating and unique ways. While neither concept or execution is straight-ahead on these discs each result is equally compelling. A salute to a deceased Free Music master by three players whose vocabulary and ideas grew organically from the advances of pianist Cecil Taylor (1929-2018), 2 Blues for Cecil features Americans, drummer Andrew Cyrille and bassist William Parker, who were part of Taylor’s bands at different times, and Italian flugelhornist Enrico Rava, who was dealing with free concepts as early as the 1970s. Chanting the Name of is a different matter. A 21st Century interpretation of Free Music, it involves respected Portuguese stylists: trumpeter Luís Vicente, who has recorded with Parker as well as numerous European innovators; bassist Gonçalo Almeida who has worked with Rodrigo Amado; and drummer Pedro Melo Alves, who has played with the likes of Theo Ceccaldi, MORE
September 27, 2021
Ikizukuri + Susana Santos Silva
Suicide Underground Orchid
Multikulti MPSMT 023
Adding to the Iberian contingent of the German-Portuguese trio Ikizukuri, Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva makes a rare foray into pseudo-Metal sounds here. That’s pseudo-Metal though, because while the beats from fellow Portuguese electric bassist Gonçalo Almeida and the drums of Gustavo Costa are repetitive and hard-hitting, they never descend to mere pounding. Plus the split tone and smears projected by German soprano saxophonist Julius Gabriel reflect on his grounding in expressive improvised Jazz. As for Silva, she’s involved with many experiments from solo sessions to combo sessions with Torbjörn Zetterberg. MORE
September 7, 2019
Summer Bummer
NoBusiness Records CD 117
Rodrigo Amado/Chris Corsano
No Place to Fall
Astral Spirits/Monfonus Press MF207/AS103
One of the very few Portuguese improvisers known beyond the country’s borders, Lisbon-based tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado has also made common cause with players in both Europe and North America as these sessions attest. Recorded in 2014, No Place to Fall is an all-out Free Music display with the saxophonist duetting with American drummer Chris Corsano. More meditative and relaxed, Summer Bummer jumps forward four years for a trio of tracks recorded with Dutch drummer Onno Govaert and Rotterdam-based Portuguese bassist Gonçalo Almeida. MORE
June 27, 2019
Soufifex
Trytone TT559-076
Moving on from the Middle Eastern cadences they’ve dabbled with in the past, the members of Amsterdam-based sextet Spinifex decided to base all the tracks on this CD on sounds rooted in the Kurdish/Iranian Sufi traditional and/or Pakistan’s Qawali traditional music. Considering band members hail from Germany, Belgium, the US, Portugal and the Netherlands, the appeal of Soufifex is noting how the six meld these influences with the band’s usual sound underpinnings, which draw on Rock and improvised music. MORE
May 17, 2018
Amphibian Ardour
Trytone TT559-075
Already international in its membership, the now six-piece Amsterdam-based Spinifex band is doing the EU one better by adding Belgian trumpeter Bart Maris and American tenor saxophonist John Dikeman to the group consisting of alto saxophonist Tobias Klein and drummer Philipp Moser, originally from Germany, Portuguese bass guitarist Gonçalo Almeida and guitarist Jasper Stadhouders, the lone Netherlander.
While further attesting to improvised music’s universality, Amphibian Ardour’s 10 tracks vibrate with the same mix of animation and atonality that characterized the band’s earlier discs. Dikeman, who has played with William Parker and Hamid Drake and Maris who seems to have worked with just about ever improviser in Europe, may sometimes add a bit more stridency to the tunes, mostly composed by Almeida and Klein, but this tendency only confronts the stream roller-like dynamism of the rhythm section. MORE
December 6, 2017
Metamorphosis
Clean Feed CF433 CD
By Ken Waxman
Metamorphosis is true to its title only if an entity can transmogrify one way and subsequently take a completely opposite form, as this Portuguese/Canadian/Belgian foursome does on this CD. Initially on “Metamorphosis I”, it appears that the brassy emphasis from Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and pressurized flutters from Belgian bass clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst are going to be simple bagatelles to the polyrhythmic undulations from Portuguese keyboardist Gonçalo Almeida which seem to subsume all other timbres into a crackling electronic wash. But not only is there soon space for brass and reed counterpoint, but once the sounds flow into “Metamorphosis II”, the pulsating tick-tock of Canadian drummer Greg Smith kicks into gear and is joined by string plucks from Almeida, who has switched to powerful double bass expansion creating an acoustic jazz trope. MORE
February 3, 2017
Trytone Records
By Ken Waxman
Although committed to bolstering the careers of musicians who live in the Netherlands, the Amsterdam-based Trytone label, doesn’t dictate what is released on its CDs, as long as “there’s a certain minimum amount of improvisation plus a sense of adventure and originality,” says clarinetist Tobias Klein, the label’s coordinator. Founded in 1998 and with 70 releases so far, the imprint is managed by a seven-person collective so that when a session is submitted for consideration “the whole team listens and decides together whether or not to release it,” he adds. MORE
May 27, 2016
Maximus
Trytone TT99-062
Bathysphere
Bathysphere
Driff Records CD 1502
Translating musical ideas from a small group to a big band involves more than merely writing more parts. Like scientists who evoke new laboratory procedures to properly isolate unique phenomenon, Bathysphere’s two composers and Spinflex’s three approached the seven tracks on each of these CDs with methodologies that take into account the variegated colors available from multiple players as well as the resultant juiced up solo strength. Again like researchers whose breakthroughs are predicated on earlier experiments, the CDs’ stimulating shape(s) are the result of imaginative arrangements that take the individual bands’ identities a few steps forward. MORE
September 6, 2015
The Elephant’s Journey
Clean Feed CF 332 CD
By Ken Waxman
Expressing themselves on a CD that is surprisingly calm as well as cutting edge, are the members of the Lama group, who also extend the band’s internationalism with this memorable set. Consisting of trumpeter Susana Santos Silva from Porto, Portugal; plus Portuguese bassist Gonçalo Almeida and Montreal-born drummer Greg Smith, both of whom live Rotterdam; the trio’s guest on The Elephant’s Journey is Belgium clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst. Instead of adding unnecessary weight to the musical pachyderm’s load, Badenhorst joins Silva in creating resilient acoustic timbres which are buoyant enough to coordinate nicely with the other instruments’ electronic-enhanced structures. MORE
July 22, 2014
Hipsters Gone Ballistic
Trytone TT 559-005
Splatter
Cloudseed with Rafal Mazur
CTYCD 00106
Concisely highlighting the sometimes clashing sonic strands which are knitted together to produce contemporary European improvising ensembles are these CDs. Built around fluid quintets with almost identical personnel, Splatter, a UK-based combo and Spinifex, a band from the Netherlands, depend as much on the energy inherited by players raised on Rock as the fluid pacing and instrumental finesse expected from Jazz-oriented soloists. The memorable portions of each disc increase with the ability of each ensemble’s members to make sure any single sonic element doesn’t overwhelm the others. MORE