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Deter Ulrich
Conference Call: Prism
by Jerome Wilson
Most jazz groups that stay together for a long time, such as The Modern Jazz Quartet or The Art Ensemble of Chicago, achieve a certain prominence. It is a surprise then to realize that the lesser-known band, Conference Call, has been around since 1999 and is here releasing its eighth album. The group's core members are saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens and bassist Joe Fonda. They have had a succession of drummers over the years; Matt ...
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by Dan McClenaghan
Prism, by the band Conference Call, sounds, on the set's opening tune, F.J.D.," like a bunch of guys who might mug you: a brash, turbulent, confrontational crowd with a we-don't-take-no-mess-from-nobody" approach to making music. Credit reedman Gebhard Ullmann with his grouchy, working-man-roused-from-his-afternoon-nap tenor sax sound, and the powerful bass (which you can feel in your bones) of Joe Fonda, accompanied by the aggressive clamor of, Dieter Ulrich--the group's third drummer in its twenty year tenurealong with pianist Michael Jefry Stevens' ...
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by Mike Jurkovic
During the roiling twenty years that Conference Call has willfully crisscrossed the broad Atlantic, the individual drummers haven't participated in all of the round trips. The pre-2020 drummer rotation was Matt Wilson, who left the band prior to its first tour in 2001 to prep for the delivery of triplets, Han Bennink, George Schuller, and Gerry Hemingway. But the core players remain. As does the key aesthetic: creative art as spontaneous geometry. So how you fit the individual pieces together ...
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