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Bertrand Denzler
Sbatax: Spires
by John Sharpe
On their third album the Swiss-French pairing of saxophonist Bertrand Denzler and drummer Antonin Gerbal dishes up a double helping of fiery free jazz. While Denzler revels in the exquisitely sparse detail of outfits such as the electro-acoustic Trio Sowari, he also has a track record in weightier realms--witness his contributions to Neuköllner Modelle with veteran drummer Sven-Åke Johansson and bassist Joel Grip-- which serves him well here. Gerbal too has a broad resume which includes Peeping Tom, Ism and ...
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by Mark Corroto
The current literature on training to improve one's physical fitness advises an 90/10 approach. Ninety percent of workouts, it is advised, you maintain zone 2 (elevated heart rate but with the ability to carry on a conversation) when say, running or cycling. The remaining ten percent of your workouts, you opt for HIIT (High Intensity Interval training). This entails intense or explosive anaerobic exercise with brief recovery periods until the point of exhaustion. If we correlate musicians with athletes, saxophonist ...
read moreBertrand Denzler / Antonin Gerbal: Sbatax
by Mark Corroto
With six and one-half minutes remaining in this single thirty-eight minute live tenor saxophone/drums recording, an audience member at a club in Berlin begins howling. Listeners to this recording will probably be saying to themselves, where have you been? I've been shouting encouragement since I pressed play!" It's that kind of record. The two Parisians, tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler and drummer Antonin Gerbal work regularly in Zoor with guitarist Jean-Sébastien Mariage, and as a pair released Le Ring ...
read moreBertrand Denzler / CoÔ: Arc
by John Eyles
This release is particularly welcome as Potlatch Records has not released an album since Infra by Pascale Criton, in September 2017. As the label issued its first album--No Waiting, by Derek Bailey & Joëlle Léandre--in 1998, this is an opportunity to mark the ground-breaking label's twentieth anniversary, and send congratulations to proprietor Jacques Oger. It is fitting that an album featuring Bertrand Denzler marks the occasion, as he has been a Potlatch regular, in various guises. Recently, saxophonist Denzler has ...
read moreTwo Contrasting Releases From Bertrand Denzler
by John Eyles
Although the Swiss-born saxophonist, improviser and composer Bertrand Denzler has a modestly-sized discography compared to some saxophonists, the recordings within it reveal a diverse range of collaborations and activities with a consistently-high quality level. For many years he has participated in ensembles such as Hubbub, The Seen and Trio Sowari, his distinctive saxophone sound being one of the key ingredients of the groups' sounds and successes. But such long-term projects have never prevented Denzler from pursuing a range of short-term ...
read moreNeukollner Modelle: Sektion 3-7
by Glenn Astarita
Legendary free-jazz pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach joins the core trio Neukollner Modelle for this 2-CD follow-up to Sektion 1-2 (Umlaut, 2016). Here, top-flight European adventurists mold variable jazz vernaculars into a signature modus operandi, propelled by the superb Scandinavian drummer, Sven-Ake Johansson. Moreover, the program poses a mélange of rhythmically charged motifs, fractured voicings, and whirlwind-like improv segments amid the construction efforts and other parts where the band seemingly uses a wrecking ball to disassemble micro-themes. von Schlippenbach's ...
read moreThree contrasting Bertrand Denzler releases
by John Eyles
It seems that Swiss-born tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler is already involved in so many contrasting groupings that he would have no need to be joining or creating yet more. Active groupings of which he is a member include Hubbub, Mark Wastell's The Seen, Trio Sowari, Zoor, plus a trio with Eddie Prevost and John Edwards. Some others seem dormant, but not actually extinct, including the saxophone quartet Propagations, his own Bertrand Denzler Cluster, and a duo with Hans Koch. In ...
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