Two organ duets ~ The Free Jazz Collective

 By Stef Gijssels

The organ has never been one of my favorite instruments: it conjures up memories of heavy and ponderous religious ceremonies in dusty churches, of an artificial search for drama, of pompous and bombastic effects, as a great ponitifical tool to impress and subdue the impressionable.

Luckily, in the hands of creative people, the instrument can mean more and different things, even if the setting for playing the instrument is almost inevitably in a church. 

Seijiro Murayama & Jean-Luc Guionnet – Balcony Inside (Ftarri, 2024)

French alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and Japanese percussionist Seijiro Murayama have already released several albums together. We reviewed “Le Bruit du Toit (2007)” and “Window Dressing (2011)”. They also released “Mishima, Day & Night” (2015) and “Idiophonic” (2018). The latter album is also the first on which Guionnet switches to organ. Their previous album was “March 2017” (2020) with Guionnet on alto. 

On “Balcony Inside” they offer us a long live performance of around fifty minutes without interruption. Like on their previous albums, silence plays a major role, as a kind of anchor point in between the sonic bursts, that occasionally transform into drone-like passages. Murayama punctuates with wordless high-pitched vocalisations or shouts. The music and the sonic environment they create, with both the silence and the space of the church giving it an additional dimension, are mesmerising. Also Guionnet’s use of the organ is anything but predictable or common. There are long stretched notes, yet equally sudden multiphonic bursts on many keys, intentionally without real harmonic coherence. At times the volume is so low that you are inclined to turn up the volume, but I would recommend against that to protect your ears. The music is unpredictable but coherent in its total form. 

It’s a great testimony of two artists who created their own sound within the avant-garde. 

The album was recorded live at the Taborkirche in Berlin on the 11th of June 2023 (picture below).

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Tabula Sonorum Organum – Sub Aere (Cylinder, 2024)

“Sub Aere” is the work of Bart van Dongen on organ, and Gonçalo Almeida on double bass. Van Dongen is a Dutch conceptual sound artist, composer and musician. Gonçalo Almeida is a Portuguese double bassist and a determining voice on some of the most creative musical projects of the last years. 

On four tracks they present their art, which combines drone-like sounds with moments of strong agitated phrases. The result is strong and full of paradoxes: meditative moments clash with moments of agony, beauty with abrasive sounds. Van Dongen’s organ is the primary sound, yet it would never have the same effect without Almeida’s deep bowed lines, his piercing sound, his lengthy repetitions. 

It’s beyond description. I can only recommend that you check it out. 

The performance was recorded on the 18th October 2023 at the Sint-Martinus Church in Sint-Oedenrode, The Netherlands (picture below).