Sunday, 17 February 2013

Sven-Åke Johansson, Lars Greve & August Rosenbaum: All Romantics (Hiatus/Pladekisten)




Two, young guys Lars Greve (saxophone and clarinet) and August Rosenbaum (piano) travel to Berlin, where they meet the 69 year old drummer and improviser, Sven-Åke Johansson, who is Swedish. He has lived in Berlin since 1968, where he collaborated with significant avant-garde people like Peter Brötzmann and Axel Dörner. 

Johansson plays his own homebuilt and specially designed drum kit.

I’ve heard Greve and Rosenbaum in free jazz projects before and I was prepared to be blow right through the living room in a cacophony. But no, that wasn’t the deal.

This music behaves like a delicate piece of abstract art pierced with thin sticks which can fall to the ground at any time.

Greve, Rosenbaum and Johansson show a lot of courage in the musical chances they take. They go places where they don’t know the destination; they go places where they don’t have any destination. Fine, small notes meet up and wonder why they haven’t met before

This is 40 minutes of undressed and intimate impro-jazz. It’s fragile and beautiful without anything falling apart. Greve and Rosenbaum show that the improvisational music is developing in a healthy way in Denmark.  
It’s a very original album and it is demanding of its listener but you are rewarded with a beautiful experience.

hiatuslabel.com

Review: Niels Overgård Translation: DSI Swinging Europe


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