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Review

Laura Toxvaerd / Maria Faust / Jacob Anderskov

Calling – Graphic Notation In 3 Parts, Live from Winterjazz in Copenhagen 2020


by Ian Mann

January 28, 2021

/ ALBUM

Ian Mann on the first release from the new Newcastle Upon Tyne based label New Jazz and Improvised Music Recordings, founded by Project Director Wesley Stephenson.

Laura Toxvaerd / Maria Faust / Jacob Anderskov

“Calling – Graphic Notation In 3 Parts, Live from Winterjazz in Copenhagen 2020”

(New Jazz and Improvised Music Recordings NEWJAiM1)

Laura Toxvaerd, alto sax, Maria Faust – alto sax, Jacob Anderskov – piano with preparations


It represents a pretty courageous move to to establish a new record label during the Covid pandemic, but this is precisely what Wesley Stephenson, who describes himself as its “Project Director” has done.

Stephenson is the curator of the annual Newcastle Jazz and Improvised Music Festival and the label represents a direct offshoot of this. The decision to establish a record label came about as the result of the cancellation of the 2020 Festival, which had been due to take place in late September / early October, but which was reduced to just a couple of livestream performances.

Stephenson’s main objective with regard to the establishment of a label at this time was to offer a creative and economic outlet to musicians who had been denied live performance opportunities due to the pandemic.

The label set up was assisted by a successful Crowdfunder campaign and the new imprint is currently rolling out its first four releases.

An ethos of sustainability also informs the project with the label deploying a carbon neutral manufacturing plant and distribution network and using recycled and biodegradable materials wherever possible.

The new label plans to issue six releases between December 2020 and April 2021, with the first four currently available on its Bandcamp page;
https://newjazzandimprovisedmusicrecordings.bandcamp.com/

In chronological release order the first four albums are;

Laura Toxvaerd – “Calling”

Paul Taylor – “Via” (solo piano)

John Pope Quintet - “Mixed With Glass”

Andy Champion and Graeme Wilson Duo - “Shoes For Losers”

My thanks are due to Wes Stephenson for sending me copies of all four albums for review. I was initially inclined to publish a feature on the new label and to review all of the recordings as part of the same article.

On reflection I decided that it would be fairer to the musicians involved for the albums to be reviewed as separate entities, thus granting greater exposure to the individual artists.

As might be deduced from the name of the new label much of the music is at the more adventurous end of the jazz spectrum, with its roots in free jazz and the avant garde.

The most challenging of the four releases to date is probably this one by the Danish saxophonist, composer and improviser Laura Toxvaerd, who is joined by her fellow alto player Maria Faust and by Jacob Anderskov on prepared piano.

Born in 1977 into a jazz loving family Copenhagen based Toxvaerd studied at the city’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory and at the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur in Paris. She then returned to Denmark to complete her Master of Arts (philosophy of music education)at Aarhus University.

In 2009 Toxvaerd was awarded a prestigious three-year working scholarship by the Danish Arts Foundation, an award granted by both the classical and popular music committees.

She now holds teaching posts at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory and the Danish National Academy of Music.

Toxvaerd’s influences range from Charlie Parker through grunge to contemporary electronic and classical music but her primary interests remain free or avant garde jazz. Her recording career began in 2002 and now numbers in excess of twenty albums, her collaborators having included saxophonist John Tchicai, pianists Carsten Dahl and Simon Toldam, drummers Peter Bruun and Raymond Strid, bassist Jonas Westergaard and percussionist Marilyn Mazur among many others. A particularly frequent collaborator has been Jacob Anderskov, the pianist on this new release for NEWJAIM.

“Calling” presents a live performance by the trio of Toxvaerd, Faust and Anderskov documented at the Winterjazz Festival in Copenhagen on February 21st 2020, around a month before the first Covid lockdown. The eventual album release has been made possible thanks to the additional financial support of a number of Arts Organisations in both Denmark and the North East of England, all of whom receive due acknowledgement on the album packaging.

As a composer Toxvaerd has become particularly interested in the technique of “Graphic Notation”, a compositional method that combines the worlds of the musical and visual arts. It’s an area of music that has also fascinated the British saxophonist, composer and improviser Cath Roberts, who often deploys graphic scores with her groups Sloth Racket and Favourite Animals.

On the evidence of this recording Toxvaerd’s approach is even more loosely structured than that of Roberts, the music on “Calling” being even more obviously ‘free’ and improvised.

Recorded at the H15 venue in Copenhagen the album features three lengthy musical performances, all of them over twelve minutes in duration. On listening to the music it sounds as if the trio are loosely following the graphic score contained within the numerals (1,2,3) that appear upon the album cover.

The album opens with “CA”, which commences with the sound of wispy saxophone multi-phonics and the percussive sounds of Anderskov’s prepared piano – or “piano with preparations” as the album credits prefer to describe it. The saxophone sounds gradually become more abrasive and assertive, still deploying harsh multi-phonic techniques. Following the opening alto sax exchanges the Estonian born Faust, now a Danish resident, eventually emerges as the sole saxophonic voice.
Extended dialogues then follow between Anderskov and each of the saxophonists, with Toxvaerd going first, followed by Faust. The piano sounds remain resolutely unconventional and are frequently highly percussive in nature, but all the while remaining thoroughly intriguing and compelling. The sax sounds remain sharp, pinched, abrasive and uncompromising. This album is by no means an easy listen, and many will undoubtedly find the music challenging. It’s very much a free jazz performance of the type that is perhaps best appreciated in a live setting rather than a recording – I’d be fascinated to see as well as hear Anderskov’s piano set up for example.

A glance at Faust’s own website reveals her to be a fascinating and highly unconventional musician with a myriad of projects on the go, ranging from duo to big band. Check her out at http://www.mariafaust.com

Anderskov is similarly versatile and prolific and has also worked with leading UK and US improvisers such as Evan Parker, Chris Speed and Michael Formanek. In addition to a number of albums as a leader he previously collaborated with Toxvaerd on the 2012 duo set “Phonebook”.
His website can be found at http://jacobanderskov.dk/

The second piece, “LL” commences with an uncompromising solo sax barrage from Toxvaerd, characterised by its harsh multiphonic attack and use of extended techniques. Her later exchanges with Faust find the pair gleefully sparring with each other and clearly delighting in their shared dissonance as they deploy vocalisations, bat like squeaks, pecking techniques and the rustle of keypads. Anderskov’s prepared piano augments the twin saxes towards the close of the piece, adopting an increasingly important role and providing an additional percussive element. Finally we’re left with a brief, softly whispered saxophonic kiss off.  As a whole it’s all frighteningly intense, but also strangely exhilarating.

The third part, “ING” is a thirteen minute tour de force for the two alto players as both saxophonists deliver extended unaccompanied statements, with Faust going first. It’s all startlingly intimate, with the recording capturing the sound of her breath as well as that of the horn. Although comparatively sweet at first the music also embraces harshness and dissonance as Toxvaerd takes over, her use of extended techniques pushing the alto to its limits and at one point sounding like the bray of a donkey. Anderskov’s piano also finds its way into the piece eventually, this time deployed as much as a textural device as a rhythmic one, as the music cools once more and he enters into an intimate series of exchanges with the two saxophonists. Relatively conventional piano tones are heard alongside the prepared sounds as Anderskov sprinkles a smattering of sonic fairy dust, the piece, and thus the album, ending with the glacial twinkling of the piano.

“Calling” represents a pretty challenging and uncompromising release for the début of a new record label, and its unrepentant embracing of the avant garde won’t be for everybody’s ears. Certainly it is music that would best be enjoyed in a live setting where the visual elements of the performance – extended saxophone techniques and of course the piano preparations – could best be appreciated.
Nevertheless absorbing oneself in the sound has its own rewards, provided the listener is prepared to work at it.

I’ll admit to not having heard of these three Copenhagen based musicians before but I was impressed by their unconventional and uncompromising approach and a visit to their respective websites suggests that all are restlessly creative artists who will be well worth keeping an eye and ear on in the future.

I’m now looking forward to covering the other new releases on the New Jazz and Improvised Recordings imprint, all of which I suspect will be a little more accessible to the general jazz public than this uncompromising début.

In the meantime hats off to Wesley Stephenson for getting this project off the ground – and watch this space!

 

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