Paal Nilssen-Love & Mats Gustafsson - I love it when you snore

PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE & MATS GUSTAFSSON - I love it when you snore (SmallTownSupersound, 2002)

Mats Gustafsson: baritone saxophone
Paal Nilssen-Love: drums & percussion

1. I Love It
2. Come Lie Closer
3. Face Make
4. Lightning Bug
5. Shake Off
6. Snarcus Brutalus
7. When You Snore

Norwegian drummer/percussionist Paal Nilssen-Love is a young firebrand who has been gaining recognition in rapid fashion! Nilssen-Love has emerged as one of the top improvising drummers on the Euro-jazz circuit. Here he teams with veteran Swedish reedman Mats Gustafsson.

The duo bobs and weaves through seven improvisational works. The musicians patrol through a sequence of multifarious, free-form grooves where Gustafsson performs solely on baritone sax in concert with Nilssen-Love’s renegade polyrhythmic endeavors. However, the artists sustain constant synergy throughout, evidenced by their shrewd sense of the dynamic and alluring tonal contrasts. The duo’s tight-knit excursions and rhythmically charged micro-themes evolve, disappear, and resurface in odd shapes and sounds. Needless to say, there’s an abundance of rapidly executed twists, turns, peaks and valleys. And while the music they convey resides within the avant-garde scheme of things, the musicians’ coherent dialogues and interleaving fabrics of sound serve as the mark of triumph. Recommended... (from AAJ)

HERE

Günter Christmann, Mats Gustafsson, Paul Lovens - Tr!o

Günter Christmann: cello, trombone
Mats Gustafsson: soprano & baritone saxophones, fluteophone
Paul Lovens: percussion

In 1994 cellist and trombonist Günter Christmann, drummer Paul Lovens and saxophonist Mats Gustafsson performed together for the first time as a trio. Now, in 2010, their performance is released on CD.

Musically, it shows that what was avant-garde then still is avant-garde today, sixteen years later, and very much so. The music also demonstrates that even within avant-garde, this trio was thinking quite ahead. What you hear is an incredibly intense interaction between three masters, barely using their instruments other than to produce sounds - not phrases, not melodies, just timbral explorations of coloring, restrained power, blocked flux, sudden release, shades, changes in intensity, and all this against a broad canvas of silence.

Critics who claim that all modern and avant-garde jazz is just noise will find both denial and confirmation here.
It is not noise in the traditional sense : the volume is kept down, allowing for even the most subtle of movements to be picked up by the mikes. No other music, not even classical chamber music, allows for such nuance of sound perception.
Yet it is noise in its most traditional sense, in its most primitive and basic meaning : what you hear are scraping, screeching,clattering, gurgling, hammering, hissing, shouting, rumbling, ticking, weeping, thundering, chattering, ... all coming out of instruments, not in a structure, but raw and in immediate reaction or as propulsion for other sounds.

Ten years ago, I would have run away from this as fast as I could, arms in the air screaming bloody horror.

Today, and don't ask me why, I can listen to this intently, as I have done several times back-to-back and in bits and pieces, enjoying the incredible power contained, almost locked-up, in this music, full of tension despite its minimalism, with sometimes no sound, then all three simultaneously letting out a shout from their instrument, as if read from some sheet music. The greatest quality of the music is the total effect, including what is not being played, not only in the silence, but in what is being suppressed. That is by itself a rare achievement. (from FREEJAZZ)

2010 TR!O

The Thing - Action Jazz

Mats Gustafsson: baritone, alto & slide saxophones
Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten: bass
Paal Nilssen-Love: drums

2006 ACTION JAZZ
AllAboutJazz

The Thing with Otomo Yoshihide - Shinjuku Crawl

Mats Gustafsson: alto & tenor saxophones
Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten: bass
Paal Nilssen-Love: drums
Otomo Yoshihide: guitar

2009 Shinjuku Crawl

AALY Trio + Ken Vandermark - Hidden In The Stomach

AALY Trio:
Mats Gustafsson: tenor & baritone saxophones
Peter Janson: bass
Kjell Nordeson: drums, percussion
Ken Vandermark: tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass-clarinet

The AALY Trio, a Swedish band made up of reedmaster Mats Gustafsson, bassist Peter Janson, and percussionist Kjell Nordeson, are joined here by Chicagoan Ken Vandermark for a rich, muscular free jazz outing. The two covers included give a good idea of the sonic roots of this group: Charlie Haden's classic "Song for Che" and a medley of Albert Ayler's "Ghosts" and "Spirits." The playing is often turbulent and roiling, but never wanders so far afield as to become divorced from the structure of the compositions, which tends to be blues based or even noir-ish. Gustafsson limits himself to tenor and baritone saxes for this date: deep, and full-throated on his "Structure a la Malle" and moody and wistful on Vandermark's "Why I Don't Go Back." Vandermark, on tenor sax, clarinet, and bass clarinet, is an ideal foil, matching him in pure ferocity and inventiveness, but reining in the proceedings when need be. Special mention must be made of Peter Janson, an extraordinary bassist with a warm, thick tone who appears to have listened closely to Haden. The varied and sensitive support provided by Janson and Nordeson are crucial to the success of this fine recording. (AMG)

1997 HIDDEN IN THE STOMACH

AALY Trio & DKV Trio - Double or Nothing

AALY TRIO (left channel):
Mats Gustafsson: alto & tenor saxophones
Kjell Nordeson: drums
Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten: bass

DKV TRIO (right channel):
Ken Vandermark: Bb & bass clarinet, tenor saxophone
Kent Kessler: bass
Hamid Drake: drums

Double or Nothing documents a meeting that was bound to happen, as likeminded and closely connected as these groups are. The Swedish AALY and Chicago DKV are both fiery powerhouse trios with a penchant for covering Albert Ayler and Don Cherry when not playing tunes of their own. DKV member Ken Vandermark has also joined AALY on each of that group's four albums. The result is what fans would expect, but no more. With AALY heard in the left channel and DKV in the right, the album opens with a recording of Vandermark's "Left to Right," which predates the version found on AALY's 2000 release, I Wonder if I Was Screaming. This time around, it kicks off with a five-minute drum duo by Kjell Nordeson and Hamid Drake. The rest of the album consists of a particularly dynamic performance -- ranging from sparsely quiet to shredding -- of Ayler's "Angels," a Vandermark favorite, which leads without break into Cherry's "Awake Nu." Both Mats Gustafsson and DKV would separately revisit "Awake Nu" in the next couple of years; these versions can be heard on The Thing (Crazy Wisdom, 2001) and Trigonometry (Okkadisk, 2002). (AMG)

2002 DOUBLE OR NOTHING

SONORE (Brötzmann/Gustafsson/Vandermark) - No one ever works alone

Mats Gustafsson: tenor & baritone saxophones
Ken Vandermark: tenor & baritone saxophones, b-flat clarinet
Peter Brötzmann: alto, tenor & bass saxophones, tarogato, a-clarinet

2003 NO ONE EVER WORKS ALONE
Review

The Thing - Bag It!

THE THING:
Mats Gustafsson: alto, baritone & slide saxophones, electronics
Ingebrigt Haker Flaten: bass, electronics
Paal Nilssen-Love: drums

2009 BAG IT! CD1
2009 BAG IT! CD2
Review
AMG

Mats Gustaffson, Barry Guy, Raymond Strid - Tarfala

Mats Gustaffson: tenor & baritone saxophone, fluteophone
Barry Guy: bass
Raymond Strid: percussion

2008 TARFALA
Review

Mats Gustafsson - Solos for Contrabass Saxophone

Mats Gustafsson: contrabass saxophone

2003 SOLOS FOR CONTRABASS SAXOPHONE
No review, no cover

Pat Thomas, Mats Gustafsson, Roger Turner - Goodbye Silence

Pat Thomas: keyboards
Mats Gustafsson: sax, electronics
Roger Turner: percussion

2008 GOODBYE SILENCE