Spring and free jazz are both in the air with Leo Records!
Jelena Kuljic has a feisty Nina Simone-styled vocal delivery, teaming with Frank Gratkowski/as-bcl, Kalle Kalima/g, Olver Potratz/b and Christian Marlen for an August 2016 concert of urgent originals. The team is intricate underneath Kuljic’s sassy and strong street poetry on “Two” while she gets poetic on the bohemian “Clouds Gathering.” Gratkowski delivers a funky bass clarinet on the instrumental “Talking to Little Ladies” and Kalima delivers an eerie mood for Kuljic on the desultory “Memories” while the team rocks through the defiant sprint of “Success.” Creative beats and beatniks.
The team of Simon Nabatov/p, Gareth Lubbe/va and Ben Davis/vc team up for six Nabatov creations of jazz chamber moods. The team varies between modern Bartokian mixes of quietude and unrest on 
“Unfold-fold” and the swirling buzz of strings on “Meta Morph.” Some brooding piano mixes with bowed strings on the highly evocative “Sunrise Twice” and Nabotov is elegant on “Stern Looks.” Long sepia shadows of the sunset dominate this sonic film noir.
At a 2016 concert in Cologne, Germany, the quartet of Martin Blume/dr-perc, Tobias Delius/ts-cl, Achim Kaufmann/p and Dieter Manderscheid/b get together for one hour+ of improvisation divided into two parts. “Part One” includes gasping tenor, pizzicato and bowed bass, explorative piano and intuitive drum work, while “Part Two” has a darker cue, including gasping and howling reeds, rustling piano and drums and throbbing bass. The music is free, loose and intuitive. Expressive with Jackson Pollock styled music.
With Anne-Liis Poll on voice, kalimba and bottles (!), she teams with Alistair MacDonald’s “live electronics” for 11 collective compositions. Poll’s lovely voice haunts on “Sorrow” while sounding like avant garde opera on “Reminiscence” and “Eldrich” while she huffs an d puffs and pants on “Monologue.” Various snaps, pops and crackles sound like Rice Crispies on “Click-Clack-Buzz” and a mix of glass percussion and ambient electronics meld on “Infinity Box” as wood objects shake on “Rattler.” Any sheet music for this?
The quartet Sensoria includes Heath Watts/ss-voc, MJ Williams/tb-p-melodica-voc, Nancy Owens/vi and Blue Armstrong/b. Their hour of music ranges from squawking sax pops, rustling percussion and plucking bass as on “Slow Weave” to experiments with mouthpieces with fuzzy gasps on “Vim.” A throbbing bass on “Quick, It Catches” and edgy bowed long tones on “Kif-Kaf” keep Armstrong and Owens busy, as Williams’ trombone blurps and sighs on “Frenergy” and brays on “Parallels and Polarities.” Williams’ piano has a Monkish playfulness as the fingers plunk out “Time Release” while all the horns wheeze like there’s an attack of emphysema on “Such Falls Softly.” Sounds close to music.
Drummer Gerry Hemingway teams with trombonist Samuel Blaser for six free forming pieces. With a ‘bone that sounds Mahleresque, Blaser contrasts with tribal drumming on “Bloos” while contributing loose wah wahs to a swinging rumble on “Spoor.” Soft long tones mix with edgy growls for “Rogue” and Hemingway snaps the horn to attention on “Kerkk.” Dialogues of music.