Almeida - Live at the Bimhuis (2019)

The trio of Gonçalo Almeida, Martin van Duynhoven and Tobias Klein may present itself as a synthesis of «all kinds of adventurous music of the last 50 years» and that is true, but one in special comes immediately to mind when we listen to them: the influence they put to work of the original free jazz. “Live at the Bimhuis” includes two Ornette Coleman pieces, “Sleep Talk” and “Mob Job”, and that says much in terms of the aesthetic lineage of this project. One thing is for sure, anyway: their brand of “free jazz”, if we still want to call it like that, has little to do with the “new thing” of the Sixties and Seventies. The reading provided here of “Verdes Anos”, a score written by the late Portuguese guitar master Carlos Paredes, gives another perspective to all the procedures. What else could you expect from a bassist (Almeida) who leads a punk-metal-jazz band, Albatre, and an electro-acoustic chamber jazz group, Lama, or a saxophonist (Klein) who mixes jazz, rock, South Indian classical music and more, in the sextet Spinifex? And what else could happen when the anchor of this music, the time keeper, Duynhoven, is a pioneer of the Dutch special understanding of creative jazz, so distinctive from the American one? Jump inside and hear for yourself…