Browse by Label: BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)

Artist:	MOORE/TRISTAN HONSINGER/COR FUHLER, MICHEAL
Title:	Monitor
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 003

With Michael Moore (clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone), Cor Fuhler (piano, keyolin, hammond organ), Tristan Honsinger (cello). Recorded in Köln, Feb, 1999. "This trio's working method does not copy any of the umpteen bands these musicians have worked in of late -- not ICP nor Clusone 3 (Moore) nor Cecil Taylor's units (Honsinger) nor the trio Fuhler/de Joode/Bennink. The combination of musical ingredients is specific to this combination of players. All of them have the capacity to play pretty and to make rude sounds. Micheal has an irresistible bittersweet sound on alto or clarinet, which never gets cloying because it's no end in itself, but a vehicle for musical ideas. Tristan is unafraid to introduce lyrical material into an open improvisation -- although his cello sound is less conventionally pretty, very idiosyncratic -- and is just as ready to scrape up trouble when things get complacent. He's a born agitator." -- Kevin Whitehead.

Artist:	KOGLMANN, FRANZ
Title:	An Affair With Strauss
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 006

"An affair with Strauss? It sounds like a daring idea, and yet, in the end, there is the music as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Franz Koglmann looks for the essence of Strauss' compositions, translates it into the idiom of jazz, defamiliarises it -- and reveals what Strauss himself borrowed from other composers. By keeping at a distance, Koglmann gives us a completely new view of such apparently familiar musical forms as the waltz, for example. But he is not concerned with providing yet another jazzed up interpretation of the compositions he uses as a basis. The music represents Koglmann's musical reflections on the relevance of Strauss against the backdrop of the latest musical developments at the end of the 20th century. As in his other productions, the background is provided, not only by jazz with its tremendous emotional richness provides, but also by New Music with its exactly defined playing with forms.The understanding of jazz has suffered long enough from the misunderstanding that the desire for expression in itself already constitutes art. With his latest production, Koglmann convincingly shows that there is no opposition between intellectualism and an analytical approach on the one hand, and emotionality and expression on the other, but a mutual dependency. Just as Franz Koglmann analytically filters the tender scars of melancholy out of the ecstatic merriment of the waltz, his own music with its crystalline structures and manner of playing is a most precise impression of the uncertainty (or undefinability) of emotions."

Artist:	WILLERS, ANDREAS
Title:	Tin Drum Stories
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 009

"Flight into art seems to be one of the ways of escaping the complexities of reality. Even if Andreas Willers took his inspiration for his 4-part Tin Drum Stories from the quaint twists in the plot of Günter Grass' novel The Tin Drum, his compositions and the way he transposed his model are fascinating in their own right. The explorations of this exceptional guitarist who has made recordings with most of the important European musicians, including Enrico Rava and Louis Sclavis, as well as with Americans such as Paul Bley and David Murray, are convincing simply because he has long since found a way for himself which is agreeably different from the music of multitudes of imitators of Bill Frisell and John Scofield. In his Tin Drum Stories melodies are often merely hinted at and move in space like mobiles. Some motifs arrange themselves into melodic patterns which emerge as surprisingly as the colourful, flowing patterns produced in the glass segments when one shakes a kaleidoscope. Line Up: Andreas Willers (el. & ac. guitar, banjo, ukulele, doorharp), Horst Nonnenmacher (b), Michael Griener (trap set, prepared trap set, dictaphone)."

Artist:	HOULE, FRANCOIS
Title:	Cryptology
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 012

"It starts like a quest. A quest for an impulse, for a guiding line which the music could follow. 'Palinodia I' a few notes, gentle and hesitant, like taking a last breath before embarking on a great creative endeavour. In this first track, which is representative of the CD Cryptology, the Canadian clarinetist Francois Houle and his four musicians do not choose the route of the traditional format of improvisation which consists of tuning in, moving ecstatically through the high-energy emphatic stage and then exhaustedly winding down. The free imagination of the performers focuses instead on the gentle lead-in to the composition. In François Houle's case, the transitions are flowing, the borders are open, form and freedom are no longer opposites or terrains which must be defended. Francois Houle's concept of chamber-format improvisation is about the desire to use improvisation as a means of giving shape not as a means of mere self-expression. This is music in permanent motion; music which is continually ready to change direction within the larger scheme. Tracks such as 'Asymptote', which tell us about an imaginary meeting in infinity, or 'Palinodia I & II' with their poetesque allusions to a free allocation of values which can be revoked at any time, give an indication of Francois Houle's principle of safeguarding the reticent emotionality of his music by underpinning it with an intellectually sound concept. Elegance, melancholy, reflection. These three attributes aptly describe the music of This extraordinary quintet. The element of compulsion which formerly characterised free music seems to have reined itself in. Francois Houle and his musicians, whose interaction is wonderfully smooth, derive their power not from emotion, but from the abstraction of emotion, which supplements the motions of thought and expands them by a further dimension. 'Cryptology' is a track which in very non-encrypted terms deals with the clarity of feeling and the joy of thinking. Francois Houle (Clarinet), Brad Turner (Trumpet), Peggy Lee (Cello), Tony Wilson (Guitar), Dylan Van Der Schiff (Drums)."

Artist:	AICHINGER, OSKAR
Title:	To Touch A Distant Soul
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 014

"Lorenz Raab (trumpet), Max Nagl (soprano, altosax), Martin Siewert (guitar), Oscar Aichinger (piano), Achim Tang (bass), Paul Skrepek Jr. (drums). Elements Of Poetry already had listeners enthusing about Oscar Aichinger's masterly command of formal idiom, which occupies an exceptional position in the realm of melodic sound sculptures and sound landscapes. For To Touch A Different Soul, the trio founded by the Austrian pianist was expanded into a sextet by the addition of two brass players and a guitarist. No friction losses occurred as the new formation found original ways of deciphering the signets contained in the leader's compositions without abandoning their own individual creativity. Alternating between written and improvised parts, they craft imaginative arcs of tension.Oscar Aichinger's music leaves abundant leeway for the listener's imagination. A piece like 'Siren Song' seems to bring voices from a crystalline world to a point of convergence with spontaneously emerging musical structures. In 'Cocoon', something we deem familiar -- a hint of a blues riff -- is borne away in the subsequent thematic element like a trace of sound blown there by a chance breeze. Even in the calmer sequences of the session, the spectre of leaden contemplation never raises its head. In Aichinger's music, the pauses between the individual notes are an important structural element. One example of this is the insistence of his percussive accompaniment in 'Phoenix', over which the brass instruments soar in a wondrous choreography. Other passages feature a perplexing playing with the randomness of sound episodes. In 'Ritornell', the way the brass players suddenly come in after a plethora of sublime motif sequences is just one of the imaginative demonstrations of this conception, which is dominated by exquisite melodies and sounds."

Artist:	EMERY & JOE LOVANO & JUDI SILVANO & DREW GRESS, JAMES
Title:	Fourth World
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 020

"James Emery (guitar), Joe Lovano (clarinet, soprano, alt, tenor, soprano, clarinet, log drums, drums, cymbals, bells, shakers, gongs), Judi Silvano (voice, flute, gong), Drew Gress (bass) Recorded: May 15 and 16, 2001 There is a melody in Bellflower like a weird and wonderful thought, a melody that could be right out of a composition by bop-piano outsider Thelonious Monk. It throws a revealing light on James Emery, whose unique performances on the acoustic guitar are rooted both in the jazz tradition and in the contemporary world of sound. Guitar riffs with uncanny arabesques and twirls reveal his skills in single-note play just as in chord accompaniment, and have such a plastic feel to them that the sounds might have been stamped out from metal. On Fourth World, Emery converses with Joe Lovano, who has just been crowned Jazz Artist Of The Year and has received more or less all the awards the trade journal Down Beat has to bestow. What is so sensational about this session is the fact that this outstanding musician not only plays most of the instruments in the saxophone family but also excels as a drummer and percussion player. His introduction on an array of gongs in Worship creates a meditative mood, which is taken up by Emery's flexible guitar lines until a theme is set up unisono by the onomatopoeic entries of the vocalist and of Lovano's soprano saxophone. The rhythmic pulse of Drew Gress' underlying bass figures supports the guitar solo, which is interspersed with action-laden percussion. The appeal of James Emery's new CD stems from the multifarious levels of the musical action. In Hannah, an intelligent bossa nova atmosphere is created during the improvised exchanges between Lovano's tenor saxophone and Silvano's flute, underpinned by light-hearted Latin rhythms. The Next Level establishes a contrasting mood: the heated exchange between the guitar and the alt saxophone ventures into new dimensions of sound. In Golden Horn, with its brawny bass introduction, Lovano not only features in an exciting improvisation on the tenor saxophone but also provides the appropriate beats."

Artist:	KOGLMANN, FRANZ
Title:	Don`t Play, Just Be
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 021

"Franz Koglmann, who likes to cross borders, pursues a dialogue between styles. Using this dialogue, which he consciously allows to include disruptions, Koglmann elegantly and expertly weaves his way along a path that avoids both the classical jazz clichés and the hermetics of e-music. His cool way of bridging worlds is often referred to as the '3rd Vienna School' by critics. On Don't Play, Just Be Koglmann collaborates with one of the world's leading New Music orchestras, the Klangforum Wien, conducted by Emilio Pomárico, and with outstanding jazz soloists. He impressively succeeds in harnessing the traditions of classical modernism and jazz for his very own world of sound. The four movements of the suite Don't Play, Just Be are a dialogue between a jazz quartet the legendary British tenor saxofonist and clarinettist Tony Coe, guitar virtuoso James Emery from New York, Franz Koglmann on the fluegelhorn and Klangforum bassist Uli Fussenegger -- and composed and written processes of European e-music. The dialogue is enhanced by references to a text by Jean Cocteau and the films of Jacques Rivette, as well as hints of French film scores brought in by the accordion and violin."

Artist:	HEMINGWAY, GERRY
Title:	Song
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 024

"Lisa Sokolov: voice, Wolter Wierbos: trombone Gerry Hemingway: Drums, Sampler, Voice, James Emery: guitars, John Butcher: tenor sax, Kermit Driscoll: ac / el bass, Ellery Eskelin: tenor sax, Thomas Lehn: analogue synthesizer, Herb Robertson: trumpets, Gerry Hemingway is back! From the beginning of his career in the 70s, the tireless percussionist and composer has been unstoppable in his progression to the absolute front-line of the New York downtown scene. Songs has a fresh, dynamic sound to it. Inspiration came into his life through his marriage to wife Nancy and -- in musical terms -- his new-found interest in song-writing, a first in Hemingway's work. After a series of chamber music works in recent years, Songs is a liberating creative experience. The idea of writing songs didn't come to him over night, however, as Hemingway recounts:'I have been harbouring that wish for quite some time. Songs were always a source of inspiration for my compositions, just as the phrases of singers always influenced my drumming.'What ultimately led to the present collection of songs were the changes in Hemingway's personal life, which obviously gave him a great deal of inspiration -- he is bursting with creative and performing energy. And the optimism has also perceptibly infected the musicians of his excellent band -- so we can really hope that life holds many great things in store for Gerry Hemingway in the coming years."

Artist:	WILLERS, ANDREAS
Title:	In The North
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	BTL 026

"One of the most convincing talents on the contemporary German jazz scene is the versatile Andreas Willers with his strong chamber-music orientation. An homage to Jimmy Giuffre. In actual fact, however, In the North goes beyond Giuffre's dissolution of traditional patterns, penetrating far into the desolate realm of the second-hand existences of our age. Just listen to the spacious expanses and desert-like isolation of the title piece or the tonelessly breathed interludes of trombonist Yves Robert in the subtly de-constructed Giuffre classic 'The Train & the River' -- like a meeting of people whose worst expectations of the future have come true. Art, it is true, is a reaction to its time, and this is very clear from the cleverly fragmented 'Motif' or the eerily beautiful 'Glaswerk' as well from a ghostly and very brief version of Giuffre's 'Gotta Dance', which breaks off abruptly. Like Giuffre's legendary groups without drums, this line-up dispenses with drums of any sort, and pianist Paul Bley provides an original link to the -- meanwhile historical -- trio Giuffre/Bley/Swallow, while the virtuoso Willers and Yves Robert follow -- in the widest sense of the word -- Giuffre's irresistible co-operation with Jim Hall and Bob Brookmeyer. Just listen to the flashes of genius by Bley in 'Face Two' or the dark, air-filled sound of Yves Robert in Bley's tremendous ballad 'Carla', or the inspired nimbleness of all the players in 'Motion'. We are presented here mostly with intimate, low-key stories. But they certainly tell us more about where and how we are than much of the blaring, sycophantic stamping produced by the entertainment industry."

Artist:	AICHINGER, OSKAR
Title:	Synapsis
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	BTL 029

"Oskar Aichinger (piano + synthesizer), Stefan Nemeth (synthesizer + computer), Achim Tang (bass), Paul Skrepek (extended drums) Austrian pianist/composer Oskar Aichinger once said: 'I dream of music which is unequivocally committed to art and its complex mysteries -- but is still understandable: simple yet sophisticated, like a good joke'. Deliberately old-fashioned -- he steadfastly refuses to be taken in by the consumerist behaviour of the cell phone society -- the artist who has chosen to make Vienna his home is a consummate master of this intelligent interplay between simplicity and complexity. Oskar Aichinger is the secret star (although 'star' is just the opposite of what he wants to be) of Vienna's underground scene, and with the delicate chamber music on Synapsis, he realises what is perhaps his most essential musical postulate: 'It is possible to find forms that have immediate impact without being banal'."

Artist:	ENZLBERGER, JOHANNES
Title:	Tango 1-8
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	BTL 030

"Thomas Berghammer (flugelhorn), Otto Lechner (Akkordeon), Hannes Enzlberger (bass), Carla Bley's legendary album Social Studies (1981) seems to be the main source of inspiration for the Viennese bassist/composer Hannes Enzlberger. Enzlberger's Songs to Anything that Moves (BTL 022) also reveal this apparent affinity which Enzlberger explained with a reference to Carla Bley's eclecticism and her disrespect of traditional forms. Social Studies features Carla Bley's 'Reactionary Tango', which Enzlberger long considered a prototype of the tango before he explored the works of Astor Piazzola. For a series of private living-room concerts, Enzlberger composed eight delightfully atmospheric 'tangos' for flugelhorn, accordion and double bass, based on an experiment with tango clichés and with Bley's 'Reactionary Tango' always at the back of his mind. The tangos are performed by the regretfully little-known flugelhorn player Thomas Berghammer, the jack-of-all-trades accordionist of the Vienna scene, Otto Lechner, and the composer himself on the double bass. Hannes Enzlberger's tangos are a sheer delight. They sound relaxed and non-intentional with their well-balanced combination of pain, comedy, sentimentality and grace."

Artist:	EGGERT, MORITZ
Title:	Wide Unclasp
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	BTL 031

"Moritz Eggert used gentle irony to create the music for the memory chambers of Anne Sexton's existential poems: terrible, funny, strange, brilliant. Shortly before her suicide in 1974, American poet Anne Sexton wrote a series of poems in which she evoked rooms and houses filled with strange memories. The maze-like Winchester House near San Francisco, where the Winchester rifles heiress led a spiritistic existence, is just such a place. Composer/pianist Moritz Eggert has placed Sexton's inner world in juxtaposition to the labyrinthine corridors of the Winchester House, the title Wide Unclasp alluding to a Shakespeare quote written on the wall of the Winchester House ballroom: 'Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts'. Moritz Eggert is a restless spirit, always on the lookout for new musical challenges. He has been awarded numerous prizes for his operas, ballets and works for the music theatre. The Wide Unclasp cycle of songs represents another departure for new shores, as Eggert was attracted by the idea of writing a piece devoted to an unusual theme in the context of his past work: the relationship of notation and improvisation. To this end, Eggert was able to work with an outstanding septet headed by one of the greatest new artistic discoveries of the German jazz scene in recent years: vocalist Céline Rudolph. The other names, too, speak for themselves: Steven Bernstein, musical director of the Robert Altman movie Kansas City; Sebastian Hess, master student of Rostropovich; star drummer Gerry Hemingway; guitarist Ralph Beerkircher, a master explorer of border areas, and Georg Breinschmid, a former member of the Vienna Philharmonic."

Artist:	HERBERT, PETER
Title:	You're My Thrill
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	BTL 032CD

"Christine Tobin: vocals, ensemble plus, Peter Herbert: Dirigent Bassist / composer. Peter Herbert presents a new work, the main part of which, You're my Thrill, for jazz vocalist, jazz piano and nonet, is an homage to Billie Holiday. The life of the singer, legendary even in her lifetime and probably the one most important voice in jazz, was marked by professional triumphs and private fiascos. From the songs Herbert used, including 'Gloomy Sunday', 'Solitude' or 'Porgy', he only kept the text and intimations of the melody. The music for the Ensemble plus (a chamber orchestra of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra) is Peter Herbert's own composition completely. The overwhelming result, for which UK singer Christine Tobin of course deserves her fair share of the credit, is acoustic chamber music based on songs interpreted by Billie Holiday. The title of the second part of the production is 'Communications Error' for nonet and tape. In New York, social distinctions are particularly pronounced. A homeless person: 'Would you have some change? Think of me as your son, Happy Mother's Day.' Hardly anyone takes notice, let alone gives some change. A 'subtle' communications error. A cry for help ignored. 'Communications Error' for nonet and tape is about feeling one's way towards possible nuances -- perhaps some sort of musical reconciliation for hopelessly entangled human situations. The tape plays noises Peter Herbert recorded in the subway and in the streets of New York."

Artist:	OCCHIPINTI, GIORGIO
Title:	Histoire
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	BTL 033CD

"Giorgio Occhipinti Global Music Nonetto: Sonia Slany (violin), Joanna Lewis (violin), Nico Ciricugno (viola), Tiziana Cavalieri (cello), Giuseppe Guarrella (double bass), Matteo Gallini (soprano, bass clarinet), Olivia Bignardi (soprano, bass clarinet), Antonio Moncada (drums, kettledrums), Giorgio Occhipinti (piano, direction). Composer/pianist Giorgio Occhipinti, who was born in Ragusa, Italy in 1969, considers the basis of his working technique, which he has dubbed 'organized chaos', to be a controlled collision of a variety of different sources of inspiration. His main source of inspiration is 20th century music, albeit refracted by the prismatic effect of his Italian -- or, more precisely, Sicilian -- origins. This special Mediterranean outlook on life informs his novel interpretation and evaluation of the music of the last century. Folk music, contemporary classics, jazz and rock, opera, marching music -- such diverse musical genres are usually deemed incompatible. From Occhipinti's highly personal perspective, however, such diametrically opposed facets can very well be combined in a kind of controlled chaos. In Occhipinti's composing process, tradition does by no means merely serve as a host of patterns released for reproduction or deconstruction. Occhipinti draws from its overall effects and considers it to be the foundation of his aesthetic design, which is unique in the European jazz and new music scene."

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Artist:	WINTSCH/ROADMOVIE FEAT. GERRY HEMINGWAY, MICHEL
Title:
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 002