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Mikolaj Trzaska
Steve Swell: Dances With Questions
by John Sharpe
American trombonist Steve Swell plays to the strengths of his talented cast of improvisers on the sprawling multifaceted Dances With Questions, a three-CD box set which documents his three day residency at the 2019 Krakow Jazz Autumn. The center piece is the 70-minute title cut for a dozen musicians, but the album also includes two discs of small group encounters captured in the city's legendary Alchemia club during the previous evenings. Swell, a veteran of the New York ...
read moreRiverloam Trio: Live At The Alchemia
by John Sharpe
Recorded at Krakow's legendary jazz club, Live At The Alchemia constitutes the third outing from what has become a perfectly-balanced unit, following the eponymous Riverloam Trio (NoBusiness, 2012) and Inem Gortn (FMR, 2014). Although, traditionally, Polish reedman Mikolaj Trzaska might be seen as the apex of a musical pyramid, supported by the solid foundation provided by the British pairing of bassist Olie Brice and drummer Mark Sanders, in actuality this is more of an equilateral triangle in which each of ...
read moreRiverloam Trio: Inem Gortn
by John Sharpe
After an impressive eponymous live debut, the Anglo Polish Riverloam Trio, comprising reedman Mikolaj Trzaska, bassist Olie Brice and drummer Mark Sanders, enter the studio for their follow up outing. In many ways they deliver more of the same: fiery free improvisation in post-Ayler mode. As a threesome they are perfectly matched both temperamentally and musically. If anything their colloquy convinces as even more egalitarian this time out, with Brice stepping into the limelight increasingly frequently, in what is essentially ...
read moreMikolaj Trzaska / Olie Brice / Mark Sanders: Riverloam Trio
by John Sharpe
Mikolaj Trzaska (pronounced Miko-why Chass-kuh") is not a name which drops off even the most assiduous jazz fan's lips. But on the evidence of this recording, it will become increasingly familiar outside his native Poland. Already the reedman has featured alongside American multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee on the excellent Magic (Not Two, 2009), with reedman Ken Vandermark's Resonance Ensemble, and in a spinoff from that aggregation with trombonist Steve Swell under the moniker Inner Ear.Riverloam Trio unites the Pole ...
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