#seymour wright

[garadinervi]

Philipp Eden / Frantz Loriot / Marina Tantanozi, And Raw, Lift My Eyes, (CD, Digital album), ie-069, Inexhaustible Editions, 2025

Philipp Eden: prepared piano, objects Frantz Loriot: viola Marina Tantanozi: flute, bass flute

All music by Philipp Eden, Frantz Loriot & Marina Tantanozi

Recorded by Chris Diggelmann at The Zoo Studio in Bern, Switzerland in January 2024 Produced by László Juhász & Philipp Eden

Liner notes: Seymour Wright Cover Artwork: Morgan Cuinet Graphic Design: László Szakács

[dustedmagazine]

John Chantler — Logic Being the Lowest Form Of Magic; John Chantler — Move Along, Nothing Here to See; John Chantler/Steve Noble/Seymour Wright — Front and Above  (1703 Skivbolaget)

Logic Being The Lowest Form of Magic by John Chantler

When it comes to ways and means, John Chantler is a slippery guy. Some might recall his older recordings on Lawrence English’s Room40 label, his membership in the duo For Barry Ray or his past work as a talent wrangler and dogsbody at Café OTO.  Nowadays the Australian expatriate lives in Stockholm, Sweden, where he organizes the annual Edition Festival. On these three recent releases, Chantler moves between formats, music production methods and geographical locations. What ties them together is Chantler’s understanding of sound as a life-like force that can be invoked, invited and guided, but never quite controlled.  

Logic Being the Lowest Form Of Magic is an album-length, download-only release that Chantler developed over a year and a half at electronic music studios in three countries to be played at Audiorama, a 21-speaker listening space in Stockholm. Boiled down to a stereo mix of reed organ drones and fluctuating Serge synthesizer tones, it remains an immersive piece of music, albeit one that depends upon the listener to run it through some decent speakers. The sounds accumulate like tumbleweeds against a fence, building up and bustling around, and the piece’s 36-minute duration gives one plenty of time to notice first the grain of each sound and then the way layers give way to more layers. The listening experience replies to the title’s unanswered question — what forms of magic are higher than logic? They are legion, and among them is the sensate experience of sound as it washes over and through your body, transforming your emotional and physical state and perhaps your spiritual orientation as well. Stray thought — the day we melt our weapons down to build a surround-sound, communal listening space in every town is the day we will know that humanity really can transcend itself. That’d be magic indeed.

A baser but still community-boosting impulse was the genesis for the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. John D. and Adolph B. Spreckels, the heirs of a sugar fortune, built it in the wake of the opening of the Panama Canal as part of a scheme to draw commercial interest to the city of San Diego. At one point its instrument was the biggest outdoor organ in the world, and while the pavilion’s fortunes have waxed and waned over the past century, it’s currently the site of weekly year-round free organ recitals and a special summer series of concerts sponsored by the San Diego Parks and Recreation Department. In 2017, a group of experimental composers wrote pieces for the Spreckels organ; four can be heard on the LP Organ For The Senses (Marginal Frequency), and while it doesn’t include Chantler’s contribution, you can get that from his Bandcamp page. You want immersive? Petition the return engagement and pack your bags for San Diego, where the force of the organ’s 5,017 pipes will turn your belly to jelly. Nothing you can fit into your computer can do that, but this ten-minute piece nicely sketches out the instrument’s potential. Chantler builds up ranks of sound, which part to reveal whorls of overtones and a sub-bass presence so solid you could herniate a disc just listening to it.

Front and Above approaches sound from another angle — instant music production. Chantler’s tenure at Café OTO put him in the room with London’s best improvisers, and this CD documents his first concert with two of them. Between them, saxophonist Seymour Wright and drummer Steve Noble have played with a formidable who’s who — Evan Parker, Eddie Prévost, Peter Brötzmann, John Butcher, Alan Wilkinson, etc. If you’re hearing him for the first time, Wright sounds like a successor of John Butcher; he’s alert, abrasive, able to change the temperature of a room with a single coarse note. Noble can fill the room with sound if he likes, but his playing is also highly detailed and endlessly variant. It’s handy to have a percussive thesaurus in the band with the third guy’s as likely to trigger a rain of mechanical pecking as he is to displace space with amorphous ghost tones. Sometimes Chantler is like a sound designer, influencing the atmosphere with subliminal presences, but he can respond timbre for timbre and gesture for gesture. This CD imparts an experience of constant unfolding, which makes sense given that it was the trio’s first encounter. Since then it has become an ongoing concern.  

Bill Meyer

[garadinervi]

أحمد [Ahmed], Giant Beauty, (Boxset: 5 x CD + 96 page book in rigid slipcase (first and second edition); Digital album), fönstret 9–13, Fönstret, 2024 [Boomkat]

Compositions by ahmed abdul-malik, re-imagined and arranged by [ahmed]

Pat Thomas: piano Seymour Wright: alto saxophone Joel Grip: double bass Antonin Gerbal: drums

Produced by John Chantler and Seymour Wright

Recorded 10-14 August 2022 at Fylkingen, Stockholm by Mattias Hållsten and John Chantler Mixed by John Chantler and Seymour Wright Mastered by Andreas [Lupo] Lubich

Cover Photos by Leif Wigh and Christopher Landergren

Book texts by Silvia Tarozzi, Magnus Granberg, Nate Wooley, Valerie Mol, Pär Thörn and Lars Grip Drawings by Guillaume Delcourt and Aliocha Delcourt Camera op for inner sleeve photos: Feronia Wennborg

[jaaaaaaaaaaazz]

[dustedmagazine]

Pat Thomas & XT (Seymour Wright, Paul Abbott), Will Holder — “Akisakila” / Attitudes of Preparation [Mountains, Oceans, Trees] (Edition Gamut)

In August 2018, Café OTO presented a tribute to the recently departed Cecil Taylor with discussions of his life and work, a poetry reading by Evie Ward influenced by Taylor’s writings, and a performance by pianist Pat Thomas and XT (Seymour Wright on “actual & potential saxophone” and Paul Abbott on “drums and synthetic sounds”). In preparation for the event, Thomas, Wright and Abbott spent some time listening and discussing Taylor’s 1973 trio recording Akisakila featuring Jimmy Lyons and Andrew Cyrille (surprisingly, as far as I can tell, the only piano, sax, drums trio recording aside from Nefertiti, The Beautiful One Has Come recorded a decade earlier with Sunny Murray.) The three prepared an audio track which they describe as “‘unit structures’ made up of various voices of Cecil’s influences and associates (real and imaginary), and at the end the voice of Cecil himself” which they used as an open framework for the performance. They noted that “In our p(l)aying some sort of ‘tribute’ we hoped to create a space in which to think about, interrogate, acknowledge, embody and feel the nature of influence: his ‘attitudes of preparation’.”

It’s unusual to start a discussion of a recording with a focus on the LP cover. But here, the design of the four panels of the gatefold cover in collaboration with artist-typographer Will Holder (F.R.David) is fully integrated into the strategies the three have taken with the music. Transcriptions of interviews with the musicians along with an interview with Taylor by Eric Plaks are fractured, fragmented, and woven together into an expansive study in syntactical abstraction. Ideas are introduced and interrupted mid-stream. Points of view shift in kaleidoscopic manner from line to line. At first this is all bemusing, but patience reveals shifting threads and repeated tropes which offer inroads into the strategies the three took. Phrases like “[an attempt] to re-situate ourselves, our understanding of the tools and of history,” “[developing] a model of playing repertoire” or “[creating an] ecosystem, in which everything is mutable” provides an insight into the trio’s approach toward paying homage to Taylor’s music while developing personal inroads to that lineage. Quotes that appear such as “you’ve really got to have a melodic concept and the same with Cecil”, “the music is so independent in how it’s organized” and “Cecil saved the piano in contemporary jazz” provide a further glimpse into the “unit structures” explored by Thomas, Wright, and Abbott. 

As Taylor notes in an interview that is woven into both the LP cover and the audio track prepared by the trio, “It seems to me that there are attitudes of preparation. Those attitudes of preparation include: if you’re going to play an instrument it could include researching the past masters of that instrument; the music that they made; but more than that the methodological concepts that produced that music.” Seymour Wright reflects that “For me, Attitudes of Preparation [...] is very much concerned with the idea of influence and how ideas and influences move across mediums (not just music), materials, ideas, bodies, (communities of) practices. And seeing how it feels — somatically, emotionally to move towards a certain way of playing. It was completely improvised, no rehearsals, minimal discussion in advance, we checked the sound and that was that. It was very much a one-off event — not concerned with developing a repertoire, but with an instance of celebratory reflection… Akisakila is such a powerful and important record it felt like the correct way in.”

 Which brings things to the music itself. Over the course of 75 minutes, Thomas, Wright, and Abbott dig deeply into the music of Taylor, Lyons and Cyrille, exploring their notions of “a new grammar” and “alternative vocabulary” (phrases referenced in the graphic cover). Starting out with a looped and abraded grab of the announcer’s introduction to the original album, the three dive straight in to the brewing maelstrom. Thomas digs deep into Taylor’s melodic concepts, or as noted in the cover “the idea of melody,” going beyond the surface of Val Wilmer’s description of Taylor’s “eighty-eight tuned drums.” He refracts the coursing torrents with splintered clusters of motivic intricacy. Jimmy Lyons’ role in shaping Taylor’s music is often underplayed, but Wright fully absorbs how central he was, referencing “the ‘alto’-ness of [Lyons’ playing] which to me is important. He is (to me) one of a wave of alto saxophonists after Charlie Parker (and Bostic) who moved on, and responded, in different saxophonic directions: Ornette, Jimmy Lyons, Braxton, Threadgill, Roscoe, Hemphill, Lake, a crucial part of balancing the logic of how ideas move.” 

Wright and Abbot have honed their playing together In duo and in collaborations ranging from RP Boo to Container to performance artist Anne Gillis, deconstructing the notion of beats, pulse and flow, melding alto sax and drums with electronics and amplification with a lithe, volatile sense of time and structure. In this collaboration, the two zero in on the piano/sax/drums vocabulary developed by Taylor, Lyons and Cyrille and apply that same sensibility. Wright’s playing builds from Lyons’ structural invention with searing lines that hurdle along with potent focus. His strident tone and keen utilization of split multiphonics provides a critical foil to Thomas’ harmonic inventions. It’s particularly intriguing to hear Abbott within the prominent jazz inflections of the performance. Here, he explodes pulse and time while charting dynamic inroads into the propulsive momentum of the trio. His use of electronic shadings is also effective in integrating the prepared audio track woven through the performance. 

The final section of the performance centers around a taped conversation between Taylor and Eric Plaks. Here, Taylor’s voice and distinctive vocal phrasing comes to the fore with pared back piano punctuation by Thomas. Then, the music simply cuts as the conversation ends. This final framing pays distinctive homage while wrapping the music back around to the enveloping graphics of the cover, tying the entire package together. Since the Oto concert, the trio has continued the project, expanding on the initial impetus. Wright sums it up this way. “We played short (20 minute) sets of 'Cecil material' on the first night in Zurich and at OTO, as a way of revisiting, briefly (and very rewardingly) that material — but the other music was an on-going development of the XT/Pat trio, all three of us using acoustic and electronic sound… The project was really about exploring I think, an investigation of ideas. And still is. The recent trio concerts were the same, but concerned with how Pat, Paul and I can make our own music, and work into the future.” One looks forward to how this collaboration will continue to evolve their “ecosystem, in which everything is mutable.” 

Michael Rosenstein

[dustedmagazine]

Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Seymour Wright, Jean-Luc Guionnet — Solos (Remote Resonator)

SOLOS by Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Seymour Wright, Jean-Luc Guionnet

Over the last twelve months, the Remote Resonator label has dropped a few striking releases for solo reeds. First up was Bertand Denzler’s Four Saxophone Solos followed by Xavier Charles’ Impédance Clarinet Déluge, a solo clarinet study which, in Charles’ words captured the instrument “either into it from outside or out of it from inside.” A recent release turns to the alto saxophone, collecting solos by three distinctive reed abstractionists, Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Seymour Wright and Jean-Luc Guionnet. Each of these musicians are consummate structuralists, having developed distinctive strategies from a deep-seated interest in the history of improvisation, the process of playing and the physicality of their horns. The three solos were recorded by Guionnet at Magasins Généraux, a converted 1930s warehouse in Paris and each makes effective use of the resonant space.

Paris-based Pierre-Antoine Badaroux’s musical interests run from deconstructed Bebop as part of the group Peeping Tom (along with inveterate musical explorers Axel Dörner, Joel Grip and Antonin Gerbal), deconstructions of Swing music with the Umlaut Big Band, caterwauling free improvisation with the trio R. Mutt and the intersections of compositional structures and improvisation with Ensemble Hodos. Add to that a super-quirky solo synthesizer take on Ornette Coleman’s “Songbook.” Badaroux’s solo begins with an extended tone which swells in waves colored by burred overtones. One can hear the reed player probing the way that his horn resonates within the space. Held notes quaver and build into surging blasts, dark honks and burnished brays which Badaroux then lets slowly decay into silent breaks. The piece builds over its 18 and a half minute duration with measured patience, adjusting attack and timbre from ragged harmonics and rasping overtones from the alto’s dark, low registers to modulating, tonal intervals which resound against the live space.  

Seymour Wright’s piece is a more strident affair. Wright’s self-released solo debut, Seymour Wright of Derby, introduced him as a singular reed practitioner, deconstructing his horn into reed pops, breath amplified through conical bore, keypad clicks, rasping microtones and tattered vocalizations. While the alto saxophone is intrinsic to his playing as a sound source, the results are completely abstracted from his horn. A single-minded focus imbues his solo here, starting out with acerbic, reverberating, sparely placed high-register notes. He gradually builds from there with insistent, stabbing phrasing of harsh, skirling intensity. Balancing attack and decay, Wright’s solo unfolds as an immersive sonic investigation. By midway through, notes start to pile up with piercing potency, shaded with breaths, overtones and vocalizations, breaking apart into slabs of sound and silence as he navigates his way toward the end of the piece. In the final section, soft hissing breaths are introduced, shading the ambient sound of the space only to be ruptured in the final moments with a stabbing, shrill cry.  

Amazingly, though he’s recorded extensively in various group contexts and solo organ programs, this looks to be Jean-Luc Guionnet’s debut solo saxophone recording. Of the three, Guionnet’s attack and phrasing alludes the most to free jazz though that is fully abstracted over the course of his 21 minutes solo. Guionnet digs in with a rasping tone and strapping inflections starting things out with slabs of notes that are blasted out, bent and cut off with frayed, overblown harmonics. Phrases are teased out, repeated, inverted and metamorphosed with sterling focus. His control of breath is astonishing, allowing him to extend tones and phrases in unbroken, commanding waves that mount with taught, bracing consideration. All of this is tempered with a measured sense of structure and pace. Like the others, he eschews the use of arc, instead spontaneously constructing the form of the piece with contemplative resolve. His piece is constructed with impeccable balance of blocks of sound broken by pools of silence, like the others exploiting the unique resonance and decay of the room with a keen ear. Anthony Braxton may have charted strategies for solo alto saxophone improvisation just over fifty years ago. But this release displays that there’s plenty left to explore by three able successors, each of whom are continuing to conduct vital extensions to that tradition.  

Michael Rosenstein

[festivalgear]

Music Review: XT - Palina’tufa

Music Review: XT – Palina’tufa

XT Palina’tufa

[Empty Editions; 2019]

Rating: 3/5

Palina’tufaopens with sounds that make me want to laugh out loud. “A,” or, eliciting the feeling of a few drafts gleefully torn up straight away. A poke at a giggle and haunting mumbles: a wiggle. Coo to yawn and tricks of some proverbial tongue, like saxophonist Seymour Wright’s. Words like floozy and knobbly. Loose comedy. Hunches bent all…

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[buttererer]

Toshi Tsuchitori / Seymour Wright / Ute Kanngeisser (sample)

at Cafe OTO on Sunday 14th February 2016