Colin Stetson & Mats Gustafsson
Released 9 November, 2012
The Guardian Highest Rated Jazz Albums of All Time
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2MkkGrIOPSTKwkQRyQ2Poc?si=yMwpD4YCT_G4Zk8VAVBtPw
About:
In the history of jazz and improvisation the saxophone duet is remarkably rare. Sax players tend to lock horns with drummers, bassists, trumpeters, even cellists and violinists, but rarely with each other. But here to blow that convention out of the water come two of the planet’s most uncompromising and inventive young hornithologists, Colin Stetson and Mats Gustafsson. Mats Gustafsson has perfected the art of the vein-popping, no-compromise blowout, and has appeared with Sonic Youth, Jim O’Rourke, improvising legends Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Peter Brötzmann and Ken Vandermark. His own free jazz power trio The Thing recently released the acclaimed Cherry Thing album with Neneh Cherry; while his Fire! trio with Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin have released three albums on Rune Grammofon. The four tracks on Stones were recorded live on stage at the 2011 Vancouver Jazz Festival. Miraculously, this explosive encounter was also their first meeting. “It was completely magic”, remembers Mats. “All was there, the communication, the interaction, the music, the mystery…” This is fire music that smoulders in the dark. Perhaps this will give the sax duo a new lease of life. After all, as Mats says, there’s “No escape… nothing to hide… you just need to go out there and interact!”
Track Listing:
1. Stones That Rest Heavily 12:22
2. Stones That Can Only Be 5:03
3. Stones That Need Not 9:02
4. Stones That Only Have 8:08
Personnel:
Colin Stetson: alto saxophone, bass saxophone
Mats Gustafsson: tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone
Recorded live on stage at the 2011 Vancouver Jazz Festival
Design: Kim Hiorthøy
Review:
It might seem that a live improv encounter between the extraordinary Arcade Fire saxophonist Colin Stetson and Swedish free-sax wildman Mats Gustafsson would have audiences clinging to the fixtures to avoid being blown out of the doors – but this unplanned meeting at the 2011 Vancouver Jazz festival exhibits a raw but oddly affecting lyricism, and much of it is unexpectedly quiet. Both artists like low-end sounds (Gustafsson frequently plays a baritone and Stetson the gargantuan bass sax here), and though tunes in the regular sense are absent, the pair’s vibrato-laden harmonies, split-note sounds, elephantine bellows, bird chirrups and stomping riffs often coalesce into song-like shapes.
There are just four tracks, characterised by long, organ-like drones, jaunty melodies and percussive pad-flappings, flurries turning to free-jazz thrashes and resolving as gentle murmurs, and big, riff-like exchanges – punctuated by barks and circular-breathed, whirring patterns.
Free-jazz listeners familiar with the work of Evan Parker or Peter Brötzmann will find Stones easy to relate to, but the energetic compatibility of this impromptu partnership exerts a broader appeal than that.
John Fordham (The Guardian)
