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Kent Kessler

Jazz bassist Kent Kessler is best known for his part in numerous Chicago bands, usually in line-ups with reedsman Ken Vandermark. He first began appearing on recordings in the early '90s as a member of Hal Russell's NRG Ensemble.

The band continued after Russell's death in 1992 with the addition of clarinetist and saxophonist Ken Vandermark. Kessler and Vandermark went on to play together in a number of bands that have revitalized Chicago's jazz scene, putting it back on the map of current avant-garde and free jazz.

The Vandermark 5, DKV Trio and Steelwool Trio are just some of the many groups that feature Kent Kessler's wide and gritty sound. He has performed and recorded with a number of leading European improvisers, such as German powerhouse Peter Br Ãtzmann (in his Chicago Tentet), Swedish avant-garde saxophonist Mats Gustafsson (in FJF), acclaimed Dutch pianist Misha Mengelberg, and Dutch avant- garde saxophonist Luc Houtkamp. Kessler has also worked with legends that are closer to home, including Joe McPhee and Fred Anderson!

Through his many projects, Kent Kessler has toured all over North America and Europe and has performed on an increasing number of albums per year, mostly on the Chicago labels Okkadisk and Atavistic. Source: Joslyn Layne

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9
Album Review

Rodrigo Amado This Is Our Language Quartet: Let The Free Be Men

Read "Let The Free Be Men" reviewed by John Sharpe


Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado adds another stunning entry to his discography with the third album from his This Is Our Language Quartet. It was actually recorded live in Copenhagen, three days before the outfit's second studio outing, A History Of Nothing (Trost, 2018) so, unsurprisingly, presents the same starry roster completed by multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Chris Corsano. The resultant blend of spontaneous free jazz, by turns refined, beautiful, exhilarating, heart-rending and belligerent, remains similarly ...

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Album Review

Rodrigo Amado This Is Our Language Quartet: Let The Free Be Men

Read "Let The Free Be Men" reviewed by Mark Corroto


If you are not hip to Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, where, as they say, have you been? He has garnered acclaim for many years now, with his own Motion Trio, Lisbon Improvised Players, The Wire Quartet, Luís Lopes' Humanization 4tet, and in duos with Chris Corsano and trios with Kent Kessler and Paal Nilssen-Love. If, though, you are new to Amado, This Is Our Language Quartet with Kessler, Corsano and the doyen of free jazz Joe McPhee is the most ...

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Album Review

Mars Williams: An Ayler Xmas Vol. 4: Chicago vs. NYC

Read "An Ayler Xmas Vol. 4: Chicago vs. NYC" reviewed by Mark Corroto


For more than a decade, Mars Williams has been making (to borrow a phrase) Christmas music great again. He does so by exchanging the saccharine for the sublime, intersecting holiday classics with the music of Albert Ayler. Born out of his Chicago Ayler repertory band which can be heard on Witches And Devils At The Empty Bottle</em> (Knitting Factory Records, 2000), Williams applied the Gospel and spiritual nature of Ayler's methodology to Xmas music. While the eponymously titled first volume ...

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Liner Notes

Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet: 3 Days in Oslo

Read "Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet: 3 Days in Oslo" reviewed by Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.


We live during a time when society needs music in boxes, connected with dots; music that can be readily explained and even more readily understood. But Peter Brotzmann tears down the walls, rips apart the boxes and completely shatters any preconceived notions of what music is supposed to be. He understands the necessity of art being able to express from the soul and spirit of the artist, and that is a freedom fought for, one that is intensely fought for. ...

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Album Review

Kent Kessler: Bull Fiddle

Read "Bull Fiddle" reviewed by Derek Taylor


More than any other instrument, double basses tend to show the miles logged by their owners. At the mercy of malevolent baggage handlers, trundled endlessly to and fro, these whales of the instrument world register each mishandling with legions of scratches, notches and splinters etched into their lacquered skins. Kent Kessler has certainly put some miles on his instrument, criss-crossing the Atlantic with Ken Vandermark’s constellation of ensembles. The close-up snapshot of his bass that adorns the cover of this, ...

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Recording

Daniele D'Agaro with Jeb Bishop, Kent Kessler & Robert Barry : Chicago Overtones on hatOLOGY 613

Daniele D'Agaro with Jeb Bishop, Kent Kessler & Robert Barry : Chicago Overtones on hatOLOGY 613

Source: All About Jazz

For a couple of years, D'Agaro has been frequently boarding planes destined for Chicago – thanks to John Corbett and Art Lange, whose good offices have sprouted collaborations between European musicians and exponents of the Chicago scene, which for about a decade has been bursting with new activities... It was Fred Anderson who drew D'Agaro's attention to drummer Robert Barry... The other members of D'Agaro's quartet, trombonist Jeb Bishop and bassist Kent Kessler, are among the heavyweights of the Chicago ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Let The Free Be Men

Trost Records
2021

buy

An Ayler Xmas Vol. 4:...

Astral Spirits
2020

buy

3 Nights In Oslo

Catalytic Sound
2017

buy

Bull Fiddle

Unknown label
2008

buy

Bull Fiddle

Okka Disk
2003

buy

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