The Joachim Kühn Group - Bold Music (2014) [Hi-Res]

The title Bold Music says everything and nothing, this is a challenging and ambitious avant-jazz date that features Joachim Kühn tackling everything from piano to alto sax to antelope horn. It's nevertheless most audacious for tempering its outré leanings with soulful, melodic grooves and insistent rhythms that make the music more accessible and more idiosyncratic. Working in collaboration with bassist/cellist Jean-François Jenny-Clark, drummer Stu Martin and percussionist Jacques Thollot, Kühn fuses improvisational skronk and sound-library smoothness to make a record that occupies both extremes of the MPS label sound at the same time. Somehow, Bold Music is both free and easy, and that's a rare feat indeed. ~ Jason Ankeny