Daily jazz blog, Marlbank

Reinhardt Winkler, Drop Me Off, Challenge ***

Again a case of a lot of well known names on this very amiable album of Austrian drummer Reinhardt Winkler's. While it's a very middle of the road mainstream outing modernists like saxophonist-flautist Wolfgang Puschnig chip in readily enough. …

Published: 28 Jan 2024. Updated: 5 months.

Again a case of a lot of well known names on this very amiable album of Austrian drummer Reinhardt Winkler's. While it's a very middle of the road mainstream outing modernists like saxophonist-flautist Wolfgang Puschnig chip in readily enough. Mainstreamer's mainstreamer Harry Allen provides gallons of creamy solos and sets the tone more in terms of idiom and is best going all Getzian on Claus Ogerman's 'Little Rio' at the beginning. Bass duties are filled by Boris Koslov while pianist John di Martino is gentle and persuasive on 'When It's Sleepy Time Down South' and there is a pleasant vocal contribution from Simone Kopmajer on her own co-written 'Good Advice' and on Randy Newman's 'It's So Hard Living Without You'. A Sunday morning lie-in sort of a record. If it has a fault it's just too easy going.

Tags: Reviews

Sunny Five, Candid, Intakt ***1/2

Spiky and no nonsense Candid is hardcore improvising from a quintet that certainly takes no prisoners. What the Sunny Five - the pervasive mood is dystopian and consistently noir-ish - altoist Tim Berne, guitarists David Torn and Marc Ducret, bass …

Published: 28 Jan 2024. Updated: 5 months.

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Spiky and no nonsense Candid is hardcore improvising from a quintet that certainly takes no prisoners. What the Sunny Five - the pervasive mood is dystopian and consistently noir-ish - altoist Tim Berne, guitarists David Torn and Marc Ducret, bass guitarist Devin Hoff and drummer Ches Smith - deliver on this challenging album recorded in in 2022 in New Haven is highly abstract, sometimes fierce and angry like an avant rock record, sometimes more electronic and thoughtfully serene - and there is a helluva lot of music here: 'Floored', one of the four tracks, alone is over a half an hour long. Really you need to be an avant fan to appreciate Candid most - a music of compromise this is not - it's more a manifesto that fights against complacency and musical structures that constrain and imprison us all.