You could say that “Vibrate in Sympathy” is one more item in the present focus on acoustic improvisation. Or you could say this is one more example of the particular jazz brand you find in the Dutch scene. Both judgments are not really true. The musicians involved have their own individual personalities and they don’t represent any organized tendencies. Two of them, saxophonist and clarinetist Tobias Klein and double bassist Gonçalo Almeida, may live in Holland but they weren’t born there – the first is German, the other Portuguese. Besides that, Klein had a past dedication to live-electronics and composes chamber music, and Almeida leads or co-leads electric bands and goes often into rock territory. These factors contribute to the rather different, and even special, approach here documented, confirming the definition provided by this trio «inspired by all kinds of adventurous music of the last 50 years». But the connection with the acoustic tradition, and with the “Dutch way”, is there and it’s solid: drummer Martin Duynhoven was a pioneer of this soundworld and, as such, is a living reference of everything happening in the country. His partners here can go very far, but it’s him who keeps their feet on the ground. That’s what you’ll find here: dreamy music with a sense of gravity. The best kind…
released September 1, 2015
Almeida | Duynhoven | Klein
Clean feed 2015 (CF341CD)
Tobias Klein alto saxophone, bass clarinet & contrabass clarinet
Gonçalo Almeida double bass
Martin van Duynhoven drums
ALL TRACKS BY TOBIAS KLEIN , except #6 by GONÇALO ALMEIDA, #7 by all members
Design, Artwork – Travassos
Executive-Producer – Pedro Costa
Mastered By – Niels Brouwer
Mixed By, Recorded By, Producer, Photography By – Tobias Klein
Producer – Tobias Klein
cleanfeed-records.com/product/vibrate-in-sympathy/
By Grego Applegate Edwards
gapplegatemusicreview.blogspot.pt
"If you want to get a quick bead on the trio of Tobias Klein (alto sax, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet), Goncalo Almeida (double bass), and Martin van Duynhoven (drums), specifically on their album Vibrate in Sympathy (Clean Feed 341), you might consider the three dedications appended to three of their numbers, that is to Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake and Ornette Coleman. I do not mean to say that those three dedications explain the music fully and we can be done with it. But it does give you a hint of what to expect.
Klein, Almeida and van Duynhoven do manage to give us their own vision of a freely articulate trio jazz with crucial compositional and improvisational elements that are certainly beholden to the avant tradition of the three masters paid tribute to. Klein gets considerable torque on the alto and makes the bass and contrabass clarinets speak with great color. He manages NOT to sound too much like anyone else in the process. He is soulful, noteful and original. Almeida is very much a full-blown virtuoso on the contrabass, fulfilling a special function on arco and pizzicato for the compositional sections, an ensemble bassist of great skill and invention, and a soloist who makes for lines of continual interest. And van Duynhoven finds a comfortable, catalytic niche as a swinging time component when called upon, or as a creative drummer in the open freedom zone. What he does always seems right for the moment.
Take all of that and lay it out in nine numbers and you have some seriously worthwhile music, a trio seriously contributing to what is happening today. They put a good deal of thought, feeling and interplay into the set. In the end you go away smiling. Because this one HAS the genuine frisson the new new thing needs to launch into excellent musical territory. Highly recommended!"
By Guy Peters on
enola.be
"A nice trio fled to Amsterdam with the German reed player Tobias Klein, one of Almeida‘s buddies at Spinifex and drum veteran Martin van Duynhoven, you really can not see all that often emerge out of the Ab Baars Trio. This is probably the most traditional jazz album that will be discussed this week, all will now also not say that the three lacks inspiration, because a nosedive taken by several decades jazz, and what look like flowing sounds fresh , spontaneous and surprisingly catchy. A few compositions are dedicated to some of Klein’s predecessors on the alto sax – Henry Treadgill, Oliver Lake and Ornette Coleman – but that should not mean that the trio therefore seeks out the gnarly places where these figures are or were known for. Indeed, in opener “Threadbare” is an easygoing blues central. Small smooth and melodic solos are on the loose, while the rhythm section holds a loosely swinging course. Almeida with a dry, burly no-nonsense approach of Duynhoven with a very austere style of play, with drums and cymbals without much fanfare deployment. Does the composition vaguely reminds of Monk’s “Brilliant Corners”, it seems the reference elsewhere also make sense because Vibrate In Sympathy is regularly imbued with echoes from the past. “Lakeish” In its turn the jumpy from “Straight No Chaser”, although the trio after a minute left for a Vieve gear. Also “Werg” contains so lightning fast passages, but which will be interspersed with tight lyrical moments of relaxation. The title track dedicated to Coleman put the elegance of Kleins altsaxklank in the foreground. Besides which instrument plays Klein also the bass clarinet and the rather rare contrabass clarinet. The latter provides the expected deep humming in “20 Kilos” (the weight of the instrument?), While the implementation of their bass clarinet a nervous dance in Dolphy tradition in the compact “Gneiss”. There is also a reprise of Almeida’s “Crime & Punishment” from the latest album Lama, while “Molenando” the only free improvised piece, moves further away from jazz in a zone of abstract sensing chamber. Vibrate In Sympathy is an album that totally lives up to its title. With this (keep them together under forty minutes."