| Jazz moderne |
Just as the visual arts have long harbored an undercurrent known as abstract art, music, too, has its own parallel, a form where sound abandons the safety of melody and structure to embrace something more elusive, more cerebral. In the case of multi-instrumentalist Ned Rothenberg, that parallel is not merely an influence; it is the very ground on which his work stands. His music is unapologetically demanding, intellectually charged, and, to my mind, best experienced live. This is music to be lived, not merely heard.
Rothenberg is, above all, a soloist, not simply in the sense of performing alone, but in the truer sense of an artist who pursues his own uncompromising vision, one in which form and substance are inseparable. His expression demands both extreme compositional precision and a profound command of sound, of his instruments, certainly, but also of the spaces between their notes. What the album inevitably lacks is the theatrical dimension of the stage, where one can follow the artist’s propositions as they unfold in real time. Rothenberg’s creations often feel like dispatches from an urgent state of mind, a voluble artist compelled to transmit his work directly, with no detour or delay.
For over three decades, Rothenberg has been recognized internationally for his solo music, presenting it in hundreds of concerts across North and South America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. He has led ensembles including Double Band, Power Lines, and Sync, his current trio with Jerome Harris (acoustic guitar and bass) and Samir Chatterjee (tabla). His list of collaborators reads like an avant-garde honor roll: Evan Parker, Marc Ribot, Sainkho Namtchylak, Masahiko Sato, Samm Bennett, Kazu Uchihashi, Paul Dresher, and John Zorn among them. Since 1978, he has lived and worked in New York, a city whose restless energy seems to run in parallel with his own.
Listening to this album, one gets the sense that for Rothenberg, the recording is merely a point of departure, the stage is always the destination. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to pinpoint where composition ends and improvisation begins; arrangements here draw equally on rhythm and on the modulation of sound itself. Certainly, not everyone will be inclined toward such an album. Yet for those with the cultural openness, and perhaps the patience, to surrender to it, this stands as one of the most poetic recordings I have encountered this year. The saxophone, for instance, becomes an actor here, conversing, narrating, exposing truths, perhaps even brushing against the very core of who we are.
This is a work of creation in its purest form, a creator’s work in the fullest sense. Only when one reaches the latter passages of his biography does the scope of this singular figure come into full view. Rothenberg is a graduate of Oberlin College, with studies at both the Oberlin Conservatory and the Berklee School of Music. He took private lessons with Les Scott (saxophone and clarinet) and George Coleman (jazz improvisation), yet his signature solo technique remains self-taught. He has received grants and commissions from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Arts Council, the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the Lila Wallace Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Asian Cultural Council, Roulette, the Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Japan Society, and ASCAP. His career also includes workshops and master classes, further testament to his role as both performer and educator.
The result is an unclassifiable album, perfectly executed, rigorously conceived, and deserving of the audience it seeks. One hopes it will find them.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, August 2nd 2025
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Tracklisting:
1. Dance Above 05:17
2. Denali
3. Resistance Anthem
4. How You Slice It
5. Plun Jah
6. Brief Tall Tale
7. Urgency 08:33
8. Flurry
9. Bounding Not Binding
10. Fra Gile
11. Inner Briation
12. Tender Hooks
13. BellKeyBell
14. ‘Round Midnight
Musician: Ned Rothenberg
Ned Rothenberg
alto saxophone, Bb and A clarinets, shakuhachi
All music by Ned Rothenberg—Thenro Music (ASCAP) except ’Round Midnight (Thelonious Monk/Cootie Williams—published by WB Music Corp.)
Produced by Ned Rothenberg and Marty Ehrlich
Executive Producer, Kris Davis
Recorded December 18, 2024 and January 24, 2025
at Jaybird Studios, Brooklyn, NY
Engineered by Owen Mulholland, assisted by Andres Abenante
Mastered by Scott Hull—Masterdisk
Edited by Owen Mulholland and Ned Rothenberg
Photograph by Veronique Hoegger
Design by Michael Dyer, Remake
Special thanks to Sylvie Courvoisier, Marty Ehrlich, Kris Davis, and Owen Mulholland