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Track 9:
Nik Bärtsch's Mobile - Modul 5
from Continuum (ECM)

Nik Bärtsch - piano
Sha - bass clarinet
Kaspar Rast - drums, percussion
Nicolas Stocker - drums, percussion

On the farthest end of minimalism that has any connection to jazz is Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch.

He has two different groups, the one with a new release this year is the all-acoustic Mobile that is the more minimalistic of the two, the other being his electric "zen-funk" group Ronin that gives a little more freedom to the musicians and is more groove driven.

Bärtsch says improvisation plays a part, but maybe he's just hedging his bets so jazz festivals will invite him to play: "Despite the tightly organized compositional construction, improvisation plays an important role in our music. On the one hand, accentuation, ghost notes, and variations within a composition are tossed back and forth between the musicians; on the other hand, a particular voice within a composition might have more freedom than the others. In doing so, that voice forms an independent module that can interact with the strictly notated interlocking patterns in continuously changing ways. Groove-habitats or void musical space of raw poetry emerge."

He has been releasing albums on ECM for about 10 years now. ECM of course releases both jazz and minimalist classical from the likes of Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich, so this kind of music is certainly well suited for the label. The contemporary classical is released usually in the ECM New Series - Bärtsch's stuff is in the regular ECM catalogue, so apparently Manfred Eicher considers him more jazz than classical. You are as likely to see them perform at jazz festivals than other music festivals, though, so they are certainly in the meeting point of different styles and traditions.

Europe has also heard of sketchy audience shot YouTube videos, not personally a big fan of those for trying to give someone an even remotely representative picture of what an artist sounds like

on a more serious note, if anyone is looking to sample more of this stuff almost everything from this week is available on Spotify apart from the ECM release and ACT releases only have some tracks available (full albums of ACT releases typically come to streaming in a few months from release), but you'll find it easier to find many of these albums there than on Soulseek for example

Track 10:
Frank Woeste - Nouakchott
from Pocket Rhapsody (ACT)

Frank Woeste - keyboards
Ben Monder - guitar
Justin Brown - drums
+Ibrahim Maalouf - trumpet
+Gregoire Korniluk - cello
+Sarah Nemtanu - violin

German born, Paris based pianist Frank Woeste's ACT label debut Pocket Rhapsody packs an admirable amount of different styles into one album. I was even thinking whether he's just trying to make sure he fits in ACT's roster by trying to sound like multiple different ACT artists on different tracks.

Front cover makes it look like a trio album with Americans Ben Monder on guitar (who got some extra cross-genre buzz this year from playing on Bowie's Blackstar) and Justin Brown on drums, but it never really sounds like a trio album with Woeste on both piano as well as electric keyboards and bass synth and multiple guests.

I particularly liked the two tracks that feature French trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf who brings a strong Middle-Eastern flavor to the music and pretty much takes over the show when he's around.

This track Nouakchott (based on the title dedicated to French avant-garde guitarist Noël Akchoté, although I don't hear much musical connection as all of Akchotés playing I've heard is pretty strongly on the Derek Bailey/Eugene Chadbourne/Marc Ribot side of things) also features some strings for good measure.

It's kind of a weird album since it's trying to do so many different things and I don't think Woeste uses either Monder or Brown particularly effectively, but parts of it are pretty engaging modern fusion and I think Maalouf does a great job bringing his own sound in while fitting to the whole on his tracks, so check it out if that sounds like your thing.

and that wraps it up for this week - hope you guys found something new to check out from this eclectic selection and thanks to everyone who participated!

if you think I left some phenomenal new Euro releases out, let's hear them!

Some others worth checking out in the running where the new album from Tonbruket led by Esbjörn Svensson Trio's bassist Dan Berglund that jtg mentioned in his Track 3 - chose Woeste's track instead for contemporary euro-fusion since I liked Maalouf so much on it and Mats Gustafsson's Fire! that I skipped to give Julie Kjær some visibility since Fire! appears to be pretty widely known on Sup Forums as it is.

Also Belgian-Finnish quartet Orchestra Nazionale Della Luna was on the list for the longest time as an example of Eurojazz closer to contemporary American styles, so check them out as well if this list was a total turn-off:
youtube.com/watch?v=ZSfgrua9-vo

Where should I go if I want to hear more of Maalouf?

Deep research on this one. Actually I'm enjoying reading your background on all these tracks. I'm going to have to step my game up in writing these for the playlists I chose.

>Marius Neset
I never have gotten around to listening to him. He sounded pretty good here so maybe I'll have to check out the rest of this record.

I listened to this album but didn't recognize this track. It's funny now that you mention it I do remember thinking of EST during the static fadeout while listening to the album.

>he connection to Renku that jtg alludes to before is that both albums are released by Portuguese label Clean Feed specializing in the more free and avant-garde side of jazz.
Not to mention the alto/bass/drums instrumentation. I happened to be checking out 2016 releases on rutracker yesterday and came across this and figured out that's what this track must have been.

I wouldn't have guessed this was the DR Big Band. They didn't sound nearly as tight here as when I've heard them in some other contexts... could be that the production has some impact on that.

I remembered listening to a youtube clip that you posted from this so I was actually looking for it to show up this week but I guess I didn't expect it to be quite so based in minimalism from the track you posted.

Listened to this album too. I don't know if I even realized it was Maalouf on this. One of the things I didn't like about that album (and about a lot of modern jazz releases) is the use of guests on just a few tracks. I really dislike that trend. I almost always prefer to hear a cohesive group sound throughout an album.

I'm not too familiar with much of his sideman work, but his own studio releases (that are not soundtrack albums) are a good place to start

he had two albums last year on the current iteration of Impulse! records - Red & Black Light and Kalthoum that I think are both quite good, so you could definitely start there

I think of the Wind and Illusion albums as his international breakthrough period, but that's probably due to him coming to the local jazz festival at that time. Both those albums feature Frank Woeste on keyboards, so if you liked track 10, they sound like decent places to start from as well.

He was pretty accomplished by the time he started making records in his own name, so I don't think you can fail too badly no matter where you start, although his recent soundtrack releases La Vache and Je Vous Souhaite d'être Follement Aimée are probably not the greatest choices for a jazz fan as said.

especially this week it was more of a factor of picking tracks that I had something to say about or had intrigued me before rather than doing additional research - felt like I should make some meaningful picks since most of this stuff would be new and obscure to practically all of you

>Track 10
the absolute worst part about that Woeste album for me is the Youn Sun Nah vocal track that just doesn't fit the whole at all - I would have preferred for Maalouf to be on every track and Nah and strings to not be there at all

Oh yeah. I forgot about her vocal track on there. I even kind of like some of her albums but it felt very weird in that album.

I think there's kind of a trend of having female vocalist guest stars. David Binney has an album coming out later this year and I was disappointed to see that Jen Shyu is going to be singing on it. Maybe it won't be too bad if she sings some throughout the album.

I agree, I enjoyed the writeups quite a bit. Also, definitely going to check out Aki Rissanen and Verneri Pohjola now.