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Live in Prague 2017
Houtkamp - Beresford - Blume at
Alternativa Festival in Prague, CZ,
8 November 2017
released December 26, 2017
Luc Houtkamp - tenor saxophone
Steve Beresford - piano, electronics
Martin Blume - drums, percussion
Recorded by Zdeněk Fikar Mixed by Luc Houtkamp
Cover by Henry van Kleeff
Cover picture by Luc Houtkamp
Music composed by Houtkamp - Beresford - Blume
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"Improvising is everyday business. Recently, the trio of Dutch reedist Luc
Houtkamp, British pianist Steve Beresford, and German drummer Martin Blume was
scheduled for a gig at the Manufaktur in Schorndorf, Germany. On the day of the
event Werner Hassler, the booker of the Manufaktur, received a message from
Beresford that his flight from London/Gatwick was deleted without replacement
(it was a no-frills airline). He couldn’t make it for the concert. So what
should they do now? Should they cancel the gig? Houtkamp and Blume decided off
the cuff to play as a duo, something they haven’t done before. In the end, it
went really well, although I suppose that the performance might have been even
better with Beresford. What the audience missed can be heard on Live in
Prague 2017, the trio’s only release so far (their plan was to record
another album at the Loft in Cologne after the Schorndorf show).
Martin
Blume is not a drummer who pushes himself to the fore all the time (this sounds
like a truism but I’ve seen drummers who do so), the aesthetics of his playing
stresses the idea of entering a challenging and exciting musical dialogue with
his partners. His characteristic feature is his drum kit, which he has extended
according to the modular system. It consists of a huge array of little cymbals,
bells, woodblocks, sticks etc. Additionally, he caresses his drumskins with the
palms of his hands, with the fingertips, with different mallets and brushes. His
approach contrasts very nicely with Luc Houtkamp’s saxophone philosophy, which
is a rather traditional one - hardly any extended techniques like circular
breathing, clicking and clapping on the keys of the tenor, hisses or guttural
sounds. He prefers to play a plaintive melody here and there but he’s also able
to be boisterous and harsh. All in all, he reminds me of the great free jazz
blues man Joe McPhee. However, the actual sensation is Steve Beresford. He leads
the way of the improvisation throwing in stride piano riffs, Tayloresque
clusters, and he accelerates the pace with arpeggios and propulsive, contrasting
chords that instigate Houtkamp to use guttural, forceful sax runs (listen to the
first track around the 22-minute-mark). Yet, out of the blue, Beresford is able
to switch to the interior of the piano and in combination with Blume’s little
instruments he can change directions to microscopic sound explorations. His
balanced use of electronics adds nice new sound colours as well. In a nutshell,
Live in Prague 2017 is a very nice album for fans of the Schlippenbach
Trio, for example." Martin Schray Free Jazz Blog |
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