Jazz / Avant-Garde
Alan Mosley Remastering
Alexander Brykin Bass
Anatoly Tilsov Piano
I. Bokov Producer
Leo Feigin Producer, Liner Notes
V. Fetisov Photography
V. Keller Engineer
V. Makarov Cover Art
V. Peretyagin Engineer
Valery Zhilin Drums
Vladisav Talabuyev Clarinet, Saxophone
The most mysterious recording that reached Leo Records' quarters from the Urals (a mountain ridge that separates Europe from Asia). AMA stands for "Association of Musicians of Avant-garde". AMA-JAZZ is a quartet (piano, sax, drums, el.bass) that plays highly charged, powerful, passionate, intuitively structured music. They are of The Ganelin Trio school, and like The Trio in the past they will be compared to the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
A pretty incredible recording by a quartet of Russian improvisors living way out in the boondocks -- in the Ural mountains, one thousand miles away from Moscow, in Ekatarinburg, the place where czar Nicholas II and his family were murdered in 1918. The band's nationality and manner of performance naturally bring to mind the more famous Ganelin Trio, the Soviet Union's best-known contribution to Free Jazz. AMA certainly has much in common with Ganelin. Their music is an amalgam of various strands of contemporary classical forms, indigenous folk musics, and jazz. Pianist Anatoly Tlisov's playing is all scraggy atonality with an unmistakable streak of romanticism at its core. Alexander Brykin manages to use the electric bass in a way that's wholly appropriate within the mostly acoustic context. Saxophonist/clarinetist Vladislav Talabuyev is a free expressionist with chops and taste, and the mostly unobtrusive drummer Valery Zhilin embroiders the pulse-free performances in a sensitive and creative way. The group dynamic is exceptional. Perhaps because of their "outsider" perspective, AMA's music has the effect of being wholly uncontrived. Unstructured free improv is old news, yet AMA manages to transcend many of the genre's limitations by virtue of a fresh outlook. ~ Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide |
