(Free Jazz, Modern Jazz) Boom Box (Willi Kellers, Thomas Borgmann, Akira Ando) - Jazz - 2011, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

...This aspect of 20th Century music, and Dolphy's alchemistic embodiment of it, has everything to do with the seemingly eternal and fluttering beauty of "Jazz"...
The bird image, and the fluttering, soaring of the idiom of jazz itself, meet here, on the shimmering glacier of Borgmann's music.
So, whether it is all about the bird or all about jazz ultimately does not matter.
In the end, it is all about the profound beauty of where music and life meet.
Borgmann's prophetic conversations with bassist Akira Ando and drummer Willi Kellers regarding the mighty flight of the avian being are a parallel to how music captures the downward spiral of blue sorrow and the upward spiral of the joy that follows with equal majesty and splendor.
The fact that "Little Birds May Fly" is a precocious song about the very flock of living songbirds that make up a jazz tune is a masterstroke.
The playful nature of the music may sometimes be misleading, as this is a very serious journey, indeed.
It is a reminder that ears are a pathway to the mind, which is a pathway to the soul.
That is the real answer to the question-in-song, "And To Where?"
~ raul d'gama rose at allaboutjazz (july 2011)
In line with the album title, the music is unquestionably jazz. Although obviously rooted in free jazz, it is surprisingly replete with qualities that some may not associate with that description, such as swing, restraint, delicacy. There is no screaming—or booming—here.
On an album where every track is peerless, the standout has to be "Albert and Frank"...
the longer this trio plays the better it sounds. There is never any sense of running short of ideas or falling back on stock phrases; everything sounds freshly minted.
Borgmann seemingly has the ability to endlessly spin out solo lines that are melodically and rhythmically inventive, making the process sound as simple as breathing.
He switches between tenor, soprano and sopranino with ease, using them in a painterly fashion for their different tonal qualities, as required; on the closer, "Only for Dörte," he even briefly uses two harmonica chords to good effect.
His rhythmic sense helps give the trio its swing; it always feels as if all three players are creating it equally, without any sense of them being soloist plus rhythm section.
"Jazz" is the best surprise of the year so far, and a favorite that's sure to be one of the best albums of 2011.
~ john eyles at allaboutjazz (july 2011)
Free jazz can have some fairly antisocial connotations. Too often, the term raises an undeserved fear in the uninitiated, as freedom can be scary.
That hardly necessitates that it lack beauty, lyricism or intimacy, however; it simply means that those traits are arrived at by organic means rather than controlled ones.
Few artists understand the form's capability for such qualities as the three musicians comprising Boom Box.
All veterans of the world, multi-reedist Thomas Borgmann, bassist Akira Ando and percussionist Willi Kellers combine their efforts for a series of fluttering extrapolations on loose themes that pull from an enormous variety of free jazz's past realizations while still defining itself with a distinct sound all its own...
Boom Box traverses new ground at every turn.
~ henry smith at allaboutjazz (august 2011)
Derek Bailey may have denied such a thing existed but this is a free jazz record...
"Jazz" has a strangely weightless, dateless quality... The music orbits in its own atmosphere, untroubled as to prevailing styles or doctrines, not identifiably anyone’s name but a genuine collective of three. Its freedoms are thoroughly leashed by dancing passages that depend on a strict count, bold but orthodox harmonic devices and refreshingly direct melody...
it’s fascinating and instructive to listen to Brötzmann after an hour or two of Borgmann; the similarities are more pronounced than not – in favour of deceptively simple lines in which intervals are nudged at, worried, teased apart but mostly spun out in long, segmentary lines...
~ brian morton at point of departure (june 2011)
Some might think there an element of presumption in titling a CD Jazz, but German saxophonist Thomas Borgmann gets right to the essence in this set by his Boom Box trio: spontaneous three-way conversations which swing...
While writing credits are apportioned equally between the participants, the six tracks spanning this generous 76-minute studio session actually sound like extemporized constructs with loosely sketched themes.
Improvised or not, they are notable for their tuneful nature and the restraint evident in their measured evolution and structure. A high level of responsiveness and communication is necessary to make everything work and seem so natural...
~ john sharpe at allaboutjazz (september 2011)
...Certainly the drummer’s “Hey Little Bird” is a far cry from the emotions expressed on the saxophonist’s “Albert & Frank”.
Temperate, restrained and almost folk-like, the first piece is built on a constant swirl of drum beats and cymbal pressures plus Ando’s low-pitched tremolo stopping which exposes all string colors.
Similarly Borgmann’s output varies from mellow story-telling which could encompass a slice of “Blues in the Night” to tongue-rolling squeals and slurs...
~ ken waxman at jazzword.com (october 2011)
...Being European doesn’t preclude the presence of a bluesy drawl from Borgmann’s tenor on “How Far Can You Fly?” as he purrs, dips and wails in a meaty landscape of strings, skin and copper.
But as rhythmically and harmonically liberated as the proceedings are, they're still quite tied not just to tradition, but a sense of groove and lyricism that’s immediately accessible.
Importantly, it doesn’t necessarily require Borgmann to be accompanied by American musicians, either.
~ clifford allen at ni kantu (october 2011)

Thomas Borgmann - tenor, soprano & sopranino saxophone, harmonica
Akira Ando - double bass
Willi Kellers - drums, percussion