Breuker

Willem Breuker Kollektief - Hunger! Thirst! Misery - The Complete Trilogy (2003) {Limited Edition Boxset BVHAAST 0502}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.17 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 476 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 113 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2003 BV Haast Records | BVHAAST 0502
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Experimental Big Band / Avant-Garde Jazz

AllMusic Review "Hunger" by Steve Loewy: This version of the Willem Breuker Kollektief includes highly entertaining vocalist Loes Luca on four of the 13 tracks. As with so many of the recordings by this orchestra, there is a mixture of Breuker originals and an eclectic sample of tunes from a variety of genres. "Yes, We Have No Bananas" is given a unique treatment, with vocals from Breuker, a ukulele solo by trumpeter Boy Raaymakers, and a delightful singing saw exposition by Lorre Lynn Trytten.

Willem Breuker Kollektief - A Paris & Summer Music (1978) {EPM-FD Music FD152012}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 263 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 101 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 18 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1978, 1993 EPM / FD Music / Marge | FD152012
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Experimental Big Band / Avant-Garde Jazz

A great Parisian recording from the legendary Willem Breuker – pulled from the most inventive years of his legendary group of Dutch avant musicians! The set captures the maestro at his best – working with a classic lineup of the Kollektief that includes Leo Cuypers on piano and vocals, Maarten Van Norden on saxes, Boy Raayamkers on trumpet, and some great drum work from Rob Verdurmen – all holding together beautifully with the offbeat mix of modern and traditional elements that Breuker used in his music. The sound of the album is surprisingly strong at times – especially on the straighter tracks, which groove along in a rhythmic mode, then break out for some solos that really go to town – and the whole thing's also handled with a fair degree of wit, as you'd expect from Breuker.

The ensemble of the Instant Composers Pool, or ICP, improvises for 45 years now on the highest level. "These guys can swing like madmen and then all of a sudden play the most sensitive ballads" according to trumpetplayer Dave Douglas.This is really an improvisational monster with ten heads!

Recently the fifth album in a great series of unique live recordings was released by the former Dutch Jazz Archive (now: MCN) in its series Jazz at the Concertgebouw. Previous releases contained live recordings by Chet Baker (1955), Gerry Mulligan (1956), J.J. Johnson (1957) and Sarah Vaughan (1958), all originally recorded by Lou Van Rees, then Holland's most well-known producer. The Mengelberg-Noordijk album is the first one which features a Dutch quartet, a legendary group with a certain presence: the Misha Mengelberg - Piet Noordijk Quartet.

Orkest de Volharding is one of the longest established European new music ensembles, created in 1972 by composers Louis Andriessen and Willem Breuker to perform one work, Andriessen's piece De Volharding. Its sister ensemble, Hoketus, has long fallen by the wayside, but Orkest de Volharding (literally the Perseverance Orchestra) presses on in a prodigious outpouring of concerts and recordings. They remain little known in the United States, despite having recorded works of Andriessen, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Torke for major labels distributed in America.

Recorded live at the Zurich Jazz Festival in 1980, this was America's first taste of the wild abandon that is the Vienna Art Orchestra and expatriate Lauren Newton's glorious vocal instrument. This is a 13-piece big band led by the beautifully weird compositional, instructional, and arranging craziness of Mathias Rüegg. They trash and revere all traditions – both historical and avant-garde at the same time – while using them both along with carnival and circus music, classical forms and fugues, and French salon music. They swing here like a Mingus big band playing "Jelly Roll, But Mingus Rolls Better," with soloists who could care less what the ensemble chart says and vice versa. Newton, mixed high above the prattle, soars with the intensity of a pianist while blowing Jon Hendricks away at his own game. The fun really begins when the ensemble changes tempos two or three times and sections play against each other as in "Concerto Piccolo," even if begun by the lilting line of the title's instrument.

Janine Jansen, Joris van Rijn & Benjamin Schmid - 24 Capriccios for Violin from The Netherlands (2002) {2CD NM Classics 92120}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 541 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 273 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 116 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2002 NM Classics | 92120
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music / Violin

In 1998, the Rotterdam Arts Foundation commissioned 24 Dutch composers to write short works, or "capriccios", for solo violin, clearly with the idea of being a modern counterpart to the 24 caprices of Paganini. The one main rule was to compose acoustically, i.e. no use of electronics/remixing, overdubbing, or other outside means of sound besides the violin on its own and the violinist on her/his own. The Dutch music publishing house Donemus published these works in a single collected volume in 1999. All of these works received their premieres that same year at the International Gaudeamus Interpreters' Competition, which centered on the violin that year.

Swedish trombonist Eje Thelin and French tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen were two of the top European jazz musicians for several decades before their deaths in the 1990s. They first joined forces briefly in Thelin's quartet in 1963. Based in bop and earlier forms of jazz, Thelin and Wilen were open to freer improvising and music from other countries. In 1966 they joined forces, and two sessions are included on the 1966 With Barney Wilen CD. The first one features a quintet with pianist Lars Sjösten, bassist Erik Lundborg, and drummer Rune Carlsson that is joined by eight brass, bass clarinet, and flute for four inventive Thelin originals. While those performances are excellent, it is the other five numbers (which include second versions of a pair of Thelin's tunes plus "It Could Happen to You" and "Dear Old Stockholm") that are of greatest interest.