The approaches to free improvisations are many and varied. It's not the screaming monolithic caterwaul that its detractors like to characterize it as. There are many, varied approaches to the music. Below are two worthwhile recent recordings that demonstrate two dif- ferent ways musicians approach free improvisation. The quartet assembled by Evan Parker to play on one night of his residency at the Stone in New York City in 2014, is truly an international group. Parker is British, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier is Swiss born. electronics master Ikue Mori was born in Japan and violinist Feldman in America. But they all speak the same musical language: free improvisation. (OK, they also all speak English but that's another matter.) The residency was such a success that a year later the quartet gathered again, this time to play at Roulette. Miller's Tale is a collection of improvisations recorded on an afternoon the day before that performance. The album is dedicated to playwright Arthur Miller and each title is a reference to a title or a phrase from one of his plays. The assembly of Miller's Tale has an unusual structure. The first part of the album consists of quartet tracks (tracks 1-4) and the second half, various group duets. The full group tracks are free improvisations of the highest order. The recorded sound is excellent. Each instrumentalist's distinct and individual style is brought out in this recording. Each of the players uses the full range of their instruments. Parker's use of extended range technique is legendary and although he tends to use it less these days, it's still recognizably Evan Parker. Courvoisier prepares her piano in such a way that it can sound like a percussion instrument or electronic. Feldman's violin can sound full-bodied with bold sweeping lines but he can also issue forth ghostly harmonics that transform the sound of his instrument. Mori's electronic set up has a unique range of sound that gives the music a further dimension. Each of the four group tracks sound complete in and of themselves with natural endings. If there is editing, it is extremely well done. The opener "Death Of A Salesman" starts with Feldman heralding their arrival with a barrage of taut scratchy phrases and proceeds from there. By the track's halfway mark all four have blended into a unified voice almost breathing as one organism. It's a beautiful moment that carries through to the end. While most of the quartet tracks run to the 6-8 minute range, "The American Dream", the longest at 13 1/2 minutes, is the most satisfying. It takes its time in development and goes through several different stages to make it a complete performance involving full length development. The conclusion finds Mori issuing subtle blips that fade into the ether is a most satisfying ending. The duos give the listener a glimpse into each player. They tend to be short (only one is over 5 minutes) and to the point. "The Reason Why" has Feldman and Parker engaging in a duet of spiraling lines, sometime converging into one voice but throughout, they match perfectly in tone and texture. But the concluding "A Fountain Pen" is the most unique track on the album. It's between Courvoisier and Mori. As Courvoisier plays contemplative chords, Mori backs her with subtle tinkling bell-like sounds (reflecting Mori's percussive avatar) and subtle background drones. It's a brief
but fitting conclusion to a superb album of free improvisation.

Yonkers, een wijk in New York, speelt een grote rol in 'Death Of A Salesman', het bekende toneelstuk van Arthur Miller over vertegenwoordiger Willy Loman, die er met zijn Studebaker strandt op weg naar zijn huis in Brooklyn. De omzwervingen en depressieve gevoelens van deze vertegenwoordiger, die er zo'n 35 jaar trouwe dienst voor de firma heeft opzitten, vormen de kern van het stuk.

In datzelfde Yonkers namen in september 2015 vier gerenommeerde musici uit de vrije improvisatie het album 'Miller’s Tale' op, daarmee verwijzend naar die fictieve gebeurtenis in de jaren vijftig van de vorige eeuw. Dit treffen was overigens een voortzetting van een eerste ontmoeting in The Stone, New York. Saxofonist Evan Parker nodigde daar voor de afsluiting van een residentie pianiste Sylvie Courvoisier, violist Mark Feldman en elektronica-producer Ikue Mori uit. Dat beviel en leidde tot de opnamesessies een jaar later. Vier groepsstukken en vijf duetten bevat 'Miller’s Tale'.

Feldman en Mori vangen het gelijknamige 'Death Of A Salesman' aan met krassende en knisperende klanken. Parker mengt zich erin met beheerst kwetterende geluiden en op de achtergrond horen we Courvoisier plukken aan de pianosnaren. De wanhoop van Loman zit aan het eind, als de klanken samenkomen tot een doldriest mengsel. 'A View From The Bridge' klinkt ingetogen, met een vleugje weemoed en het is hier vooral Feldmans zangerige vioolspel dat opvalt. Verontrustend klinkt 'The American Dream'. Courvoisiers hamerende wijze van pianospelen is hier debet aan, evenals de vreemde en spookachtige geluiden die Mori hier creëert. Maar de echte tragiek brengt Feldman met een zeer intense solo, door Mori ondersteund met vreemd parelende geluidjes. 'Up From Paradise' is het vierde kwartetstuk. Parker speelt hier een voor hem kenmerkende, alle kanten op schietende solo op sopraansax, terwijl zijn medemusici fragiele muzikale lijnen trekken.

Zoals gezegd telt het album eveneens een vijftal duetten. Mori en Feldman bijten het spits af met 'Riding On A Smile And A Shoeshine', het motto van Loman tijdens zijn werk als vertegenwoordiger. De twee bouwen al improviserend een boeiend web van klanken waarin ernst en speelsheid elkaar afwisselen. Ook het duet van Mori met Parker is meer dan de moeite waard. De langgerekte noten van Parker contrasteren goed met Mori's sprankelende klanken.

https://draaiomjeoren.blogspot.com/2017/05/cd-sylvie-courvoisier-mark-feldman-ikue.html

Sylvie Courvoisier is a Brooklyn-based pianist, composer, and improvisor that the readership of this blog is probably well aware of; with over 25 records released as a leader, and around 30 as a sideperson, she’s an undoubtedly prolific force in the world of contemporary jazz. Luckily for us, 2016 and the early part of 2017 seem to mark a rather active period for Courvoisier, after a relative dearth of recorded output in 2015. Her studio output has surged recently, and now there is a steady supply of recordings with which she can pull listeners into her captivating sound-world. Recorded in 2015, Miller’s Tale is the first of these I’d like to draw readers’ attention to. Along with Courvoisier, Miller’s Tale features Mark Feldman on piano, Evan Parker on tenor and soprano saxes, and Ikue Mori on electronics.

One of the most distinctive aspects of this album lies in the track sequencing; while the first four pieces are full-group improvisations, the last five feature various duo configurations, so that Miller’s Tale becomes a kind of treatise on the dynamics of improvisational group interplay, and how the basic building blocks (e.g. the players) can be switched and substituted to produce results that are often quite divergent. Compare, for instance, “The Reason Why” and “Nothing’s Planted,” which are sequenced side-by-side on the album. While the former has the structure of a conversation, with Parker responding in kind to the melodic phrases that Feldman turns out, the latter seems more like a soliloquy held in the middle of some dense, sweltering jungle - Parker’s ever-inquisitive tenor is on its own, with Mori’s electronics offering little in the way of footholds for him to latch onto. When Feldman and Mori get the chance to engage in a duo improvisation, as in “Riding on a Smile and a Shoeshine,” the effect is equally disquieting; Feldman plucks and pulls at his instrument, drawing out a range of uncanny tones that, in the context of Mori’s enveloping waves of digital detritus, sound absolutely ghostly.

When held up against the dialogic intimacy of the duo improvisations, the tracks in which the full group plays are almost narrative in the way they unfold, with voices constantly bubbling up and dissipating. Considering that Miller’s Tale seems to be either an homage to or an account of the life of famed playwright Arthur Miller (all of the track titles are direct references to either works that Miller has produced or quotations within those works), this is hardly surprising. “Death of a Salesman” opens with Feldman’s distinctive violin, and soon introduces a range of characters: Courvoisier’s percussive plinks-and-plunks, Mori’s understated gurgles, and Parker’s breathless runs.

If the first track is a rapid-fire exchange between old friends, the second, “A View from the Bridge,” is the moment when the conversation has dipped into the bittersweet well of history - atop Courvoisier’s rumbling, drone-like foundation, Parker and Feldman construct minor-key monuments to the past.

The longest piece, “The American Dream,” could very well be taken as an indictment of that which its title references, especially given the current political climate (and considering that two members of the group, Courvoisier and Mori, immigrated to, and have become permanent residents of, the United States). Here, Feldman’s violin can only be described as anguished, shifting through a series of lamentations that always seem to be on the verge of buckling under their own emotional weight. Mori accents this sense of despair with her own burbling rivulets and insectile chirps - anyone familiar with her work knows that she has long been a master of such textures, but they have yet to lose their power to disarm and unnerve. With little-to-no rhythmic underpinning, and a similar lack of melodic anchors, these group improvisations rely on the ability of the players to emulate conversation - the turn-taking, the constant recycling of old ideas, the unplanned arrival of new ideas, and the strained silences. Miller’s Tale has all of this and more, and it represents some of the finest that free jazz has to offer.

https://www.freejazzblog.org/2017/02/sylvie-courvoisier-mark-feldman-ikue.html

En duo ou en quartet, et à chaque fois sous l’influence du Death of a Salesman d’Arthur Miller, Sylvie Courvoisier, Mark Feldman, Ikue Mori et Evan Parker poursuivent une aventure débutée quelques mois plus tôt au Stone new-yorkais.

En quartet, rapides et pressés, acharnés de la trille, ils adorent juxtaposer leurs élans, coordonner leur descentes, affirmer leurs réparties et s’acharner en souffle, clavier et archet continus. En mode lenteur, ils partagent les conflits, le saxophoniste et son phrasé mélodique temporisant les ébats.

En duos, les tempéraments se resserrent : Feldman-Mori entre sirènes et crépitements ; Courvoisier-Parker, conquérants et fermes ; Feldman-Parker, crissant et affutant le contrepoint ; Mori-Parker, gamins gambadant dans la boutique aux jouets cassés ; Mori-Courvoisier, charmants monstres soniques s’essayant à l’harmonie. Pourvu que ça dure!

http://grisli.canalblog.com/archives/2016/10/05/34401875.html

Vier echte Weltstars der freien Musikszene haben sich zusammengetan und einen ganz hervorragenden Tonträger für das Schweizer Label Intakt produziert. Miller's Tale nennen die Klavierspielerin Sylvie Courvoisier, Geiger Mark Feldman, Saxofonist Evan Parker und die Elektronikerin Ikue Mori ihr neues Werk, das vier beziehungsreiche Quartette und fünf knackig-kompakte Duos vereint. Das Konzept des Albums garantiert Abwechslung und eine feine, allgemein gültige Differenzierung der durchaus unterschiedlichen Herangehensweisen. Das Werk Arthur Millers ist der zentrale Bezugspunkt der Platte. Es ist, als würden eine Schweizerin, ein Amerikaner, eine Japanerin und ein Brite über den amerikanischen Traum räsonieren. Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge oder Riding on a Smile and a Shoeshine sind die passenden Titel. Die freizügigen und inspirierten Sounds lassen zahlreiche Interpretationen offen. Das darf einmal nachdenklich und fast still sein, wie im Duo von Mori und Feldmann, oder auch intensiv und brennend, wie im längsten Stück, The American Dream, einer spontanen Kollektivimprovisation des Quartetts. Allein das langsam verhallende Ende des Cuts mit einer Geige zum Weinen und einem Saxofon zum Niederknien rechtfertigen Jubel und höchste Anerkennung.

Changement de registre avec la réunion, à New York, de quatre improvisateurs de haut vol, Sylvie Courvoisier (piano) et Mark Feldman (violon), qui jouent ensemble depuis longtemps, Evan Parker (saxos ténor et soprano), qui a suscité la rencontre, et Ikue Mori (electronics). Ici on se lance à corps perdu dans la libre improvisation sans filet, d’abord tous ensemble à quatre reprises, puis deux par deux lors de cinq duos différents, plus courts et plus « calmes et mélodiques ». De la pure free music jouée sans la moindre hésitation, avec une aisance, une réactivité et une fraîcheur qui laissent pantois. Du grand art!

https://www.culturejazz.fr/spip.php?article3004

Miller's Tale is inspired not by Chaucer's tale of cuckoldry and buttock-baring but by Arthur Miller, with the opening track, for instance, taking its title from Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman. It's the most kinetic record I've listened to for months, the clatters and boings and flurries and scrapes coming together entirely in the moment. Each of the four musicians, first brought together for Evan Parker's residency at The Stone in New York, is remarkable. Pianist and composer Courvoisier has recorded as a leader for labels including ECM, Tzadik and Intakt, and worked with the likes of John Zorn, Yusef Lateef, and Fred Frith; Mori is known for the No Wave band DNA as well as subsequent work with Zorn and Zeena Parkins; Feldman has worked with Zorn too, as well as John Abercrombie, Kenny Wheeler and Paul Bley. Parker, of course, has been a leading light of European free improvisation since his 1960s emergence with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Collectively, Henning Bolter writes, in the liner notes, they make our ears 'squint'. It's more enjoyable than it sounds, both in the quartet tracks that make up the first half of the album and in the duets that follow.

"Miller's Tale", frei nach dem bekanntesten Drama des amerikanischen Schriftstellers Arthur Miller, ist eines der faszinierendsten Jazzalben dieses Jahres. In „Tod eines Hand- lungsreisenden" spiegelt sich das Leben eines in jungen Jahren erfolgreichen und im Alter erfolglosen amerikanischen Verkäufers, für den der Schein mehr ist als das Sein, eines innerlich zerrissenen Menschen, dem die Identität verloren geht, da er glaubt, dass die gesellschaftliche Bedeutung eines Menschen sich nur auf dessen Status und Stellung im Leben ableitet. Eine Identitätskrise, die exemplarisch ist und die nur zu überwinden ist, wenn man Hilfe annimmt.

Dieses Problem lösen die vier Musiker musikalisch auf eindrucksvolle Weise. Auf ihrem Weg zu einem Auftritt im Roulette in Brooklyn kommen sie wie der Handlungsreisende Willy Lowman von Arthur Miller in Yonkers, einem Vorort von Brooklyn vom Pfad ab und landen direkt im Oktaven Audio Studio und widmen sich in vier Viererkonstellationen und fünf intimen Duos wechselnder Besetzung, aber jeweils einmal mit ihrem speziellen Gast Evan Parker, den verschiedenen Handlungssträngen der Miller'schen Tragödie, wobei zur begeisternden Inspiration auch noch ihr untrüglicher Sinn für dramatische Effekte hinzukommen. So springen einem in den einleitenden Quartets die jeweiligen „Abgänge" förmlich ins Ohr (je nach der Handlung ist ein anderes Instrument an der Reihe), in den Duos der wechselnden Partner sind es die musikalisch entsprechenden Improvisationen. Die einleitenden Sätze zu der Musik in den Liner Notes mögen dazu eine Art Anweisung und Erklärung sein: „Durch Reibung, Kontrast, Überblendung, Umschwung, Auseinander- und Ineinanderfallen gewinnen die Musik und die Interpretation von Identitätskrise in einem Prozess von Aussonderung und Ausformung Gestalt, in Momenten, die durch kein noch so raffiniertes Vorabkonzipieren zu bewerkstelligen sind". Darin überraschen diese vier Musiker der Extraklasse, Evan Parker mit seiner Sensibilität und seinen multiphonen, oszillierenden Schichten auf Tenorund Sopransaxophon, Sylvie Courvoisier mit ihrer stoischen Ruhe und ihrem Sinn für die besonderen Momente, Mark Feldman mit seinem farbenreichen wie dynamischen Violinspiel und Ikue Mori mit ihren elektronischen wie akustischen Klangteilchen, immer am rechten Fleck. Eine Wahnsinns-CD, die süchtig macht und mehr ist als ein bloßes freiimprovisatorisches Aufeinandertreffen.

Wenn vier verdienstvolle Querköpfe des zeitgenössischen Jazz aufeinandertreffen, ist garantiert, dass das Resultat keinesfalls von der Stange kommt. Genau dieses Unkonfektionierte stand daher auch auf dem Aufnahmeplan, als sich in New York Sylvie Courvoisier (p), Mark Feldman (viol), Ikue Mori (electr) und Evan Parker (sax) zu einem Improvisationsreigen verabredeten und damit die ein Jahr zuvor live besiegelte Freundschaft nun auch auf Tonträger festhielten. Vier Quartett- Stücke sowie fünf Duos wurden dafür mitgeschnitten. Und in welcher Konstellation auch immer die vier Musiker in trauter Zweisamkeit das fortsetzten, was man vierstimmig ausprobiert und angerissen, durchdacht und durchlebt hat - von Anfang bis Ende hat man das Gefühl, dass hier kein Ton zu viel oder zu wenig gespielt, kein Gedanke zu gespreizt oder zu schüchtern ausformuliert worden wäre. Im Gegenteil. Die Konzentration, mit der hier wilde Klangblüten zum Knospen gebracht, dämonisch schillernde Klangsternschnuppen aufgescheucht oder mit zitternden Atemstößen das Sanfte zerrieben wurde, ist beste, weil gehaltvolle Kommunikation und risikofreudige Interaktion jenseits aller Konformismen und lauwarmer Jazz-Statements.

Somehow the term ‘sound sculpture’ is associated more with the carving of the air by an orchestral conductor as he creates, by these means, the virtual, four dimensional shape of the music that the orchestra must play. It’s a little harder to imagine a modern quartet playing music with a large measure of improvisation as being engaged in ‘sound sculpture’ simply because often the musical ‘shape’ that’s produced is so dynamic it is ever changing and infinitely variable. However, once you’ve embraced this dynamism it might be possible to follow the so-called ‘carving of the air’ of not one, but eight pairs of hands as they bring to the ever-changing oeuvre of Arthur Miller to life.

To enter into the intrigue of Miller’s Tale one must enter into the shrine – the New York of his storied characters – into which the playwright entered almost as if he were party to every element of the dialogue and the narrative in each of his plays. Sylvie Courvoisier, Mark Feldman, Ikue Mori and Evan Parker, each a sound sculptor in his or her own right, enter into the visceral alchemy of these narratives as questioning and trenchant pioneers of spontaneity in improvisation. The task of each of these virtuoso dazzlers could not have been more difficult: to walk the fine line between the finite facets of the spoken word and the infinite aspects of improvised music. However, in the weaving together of an imaginary tapestry of Miller’s work into a more concrete audio-visual of his beloved New York, the musicians have created a series of pieces – each one more magical than the other.

This performance is truly transformational. Each musician, separately and together, manages to strike a winning balance between the highly experimental and the deeply expressive. In each of the nine works on this disc, each score or movement has a title that points the listener in some precise direction, though the results are suffused with vivid surprises. Feldman’s violin is intrepid and brilliant. Sylvie Courvoisier seizes the ear with pointillist discernment to make every note feel like a gleaming gem. The imaginative timbres that dapple the music from Evan Parker’s saxophones are sometimes gritty and pull no punches. And it is the electronic wizardry of Ikue Mori that takes up the instrumental assignment of melding together the interweaving voices of pianist, violinist and saxophonist into a cohesive whole that brings to life Miller’s Tale.

https://jazzdagama.com/music/sylvie-courvoisier-mark-feldman-ikue-mori-evan-parker-millers-tale/