By Andreas Wildenhain

Lets say: A friend of yours asked you a few days ago, if you knew some cool music, maybe Creative Music or even Free Jazz, because lately he explained, he could´t stand those radio mainstream Songs anymore, always using four chords the whole song through, some autotune, to pitch the singer to the right note, etc, etc. You left him standing with a grin on your face, telling him, that you will have look. So you went back home thinking what might be appropriate for his dude. Maybe some Sun Ra? Squarepusher? Son House?

Looking through your CD Library you catch a glimpse of the latest Ken Vandermark Platform 1 Release, entitled Takes Off. While hearing through this latest release, you realize that this CD offers some Free Bop with a lot of positive musical aspects like: beautiful melodies, some remarkable communication between instrumentalists, high energy interaction, but the whole release is balanced and never completely off the wall.

So lets look at the first song Tempest/2A>2B which starts with a blast of a theme, then turning into a rather energetic duet between Steve Swell, trombone and Michael Vatcher, drums & perc, switching to a well balanced group conversation that leads to an astonishing end of the track. A nice track that made me smile while taking its twists.

Overall, I really liked this recording with its composed and improvised sections and would recommend it to every open eared music fan.

If you are in a hurry at your local CD Store, I recommend listening to Tracks 1,3 and 7 to get an idea of the recording. Furthermore the recording is well recorded and mixed by Bob Weston and Chicago Mastering Service in April 2012.

You can pick a copy at Clean Feed Records a Portuguese Record Company by Pedro Costa.

The musician of this session are:

  Ken Vandermark - div. sax, clarinet

  Joe Willamson - bass

  Michael Vatcher - drums & perc

  Magnus Broo - trumpet

  Steve Swell - trombone