Dipping into the Meetinghouse in Amherst, MA, on a multi-city tour, reedsman Peter Brötzmann and drummer Han Bennink paired up for a performance that projected a dynamic rarely experienced in the music. A hard-edged European mode of improvisation overcame the acoustically alive room. Tenacity and intensity go hand in hand. Even though such descriptive nouns might imply a network of rules, those rules might also include flexibility fraught with determination and direction. For Brötzmann, the r

In a hall that has tripled in size due to the contributions of area jazz enthusiasts, the Vermont Jazz Center hosted The Billy Bang Quartet on a brisk October night at the slippery edge between summer and fall. The Billy Bang Quartet is a group that knows where it is going. Violinist Bang as leader has cast a musical net over his band mates. Each member plays with the acuity, diligence, bravura and sensibility which characteristics Bang himself possesses. The incomparable energy of

No stronger mind-body-spirit nexus exists other than that of meditation. In fact, the essences of all three dissolve into one in the process. The inside becomes the outside, the outside inside. When that becoming is conscious, peace settles. And we and the universe are indistinguishable. Meditation can assume many forms. For Matthew Shipp, that meditation is playing the piano. Shipp opened the fall season on September 22 at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, CT in a solo performance. Th

Innocence and wonder allow creativity to flow endlessly, without inhibition. Bill Frisell knows and practices innocence in everything he does. He continually changes his sound in relation to the context in which he places himself. What the listener will hear is always Frisell though, abstractions, melodies, and all. Frisell takes away all preconceptions about his task of making music and resultantly produces a distinctive sound that within its own prescribed limits reveals no bounds. P

Helpful to my appreciation of the ICP performance at UMass Amherst was my visual memory of the work of Pieter Bruegel, a 16th century Flemish painter. Although the subject matter explored by this late Renaissance master frequently took a religious or traditional turn, the way in which Bruegel portrayed the figures in his paintings was remarkably cariactural. Leap to the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra. This is a contemporary big band made up of an extraordinary group of musicians led by D