Reviews

Martin Schray, Free Jazz Blog In recent years, Stefan Keune has mainly been involved with the reformed King Übü Örchestrü and the orchestra’s nucleus, XPACT (at least that’s how it seems to me). Keune, who has replaced the late Wolfgang Fuchs in the new outfit, is the perfect substitute, as he is a master of […]

Stuart Broomer, Free Jazz Blog King Übü Örchestrü 2021 (the year added to the name to distinguish the group’s most recent incarnation) is a large-form improvising orchestra that first gathered in 1984. While the group had a personnel list of 27 members for a 1989 recording, this recent version has only 11, but it retains […]

Ken Waxman, Jazzword A standout session of uncompromising improvisations by three experts in the field, this Brussels concert has inexplicably waited 10 years before being on disc. On Sunday offers two masterful performances by British guitarist John Russell (1954-2021), German alto saxophonist Stefan Keune and Belgian percussionist Kris Vanderstraeten. Russell who played with the likes […]

Martin Schray, Free Jazz Blog What must one sacrifice to art? Not always and necessarily life, as Friedrich Schiller says in his drama “Wallenstein“ (“And if you do not to commit life / life will never be won“) and as it may have been true for some jazz musicians who literally played for their lives […]

John Eyles, All About Jazz Recorded live in concert, in October 1993, at Museum Bochum, during the Ruhr Jazz Festival, this album is not a reissue but is being released for the first time, its wryly amusing title indicating that it has been declared fit for public consumption. In fact, the album’s four tracks, being […]

Massimo Ricci, Paris Transatlantic Magazine It is impossible not to be immediately floored by the technical command and the overwhelming repertoire of special FX that Stefan Keune brings to the table with this collection of scaled-down invitations to solo sax paradise. A captive nightingale undergoing electroshock therapy singing Xenakis („Reedcycling“), Keune, rips pages from Alfred […]

Martin Schray, Free Jazz Blog The saxophone/drums duo might be the most intense and concentrated formation in improvised music, reduced to the absolutely necessary: melody and rhythm. Lots of players have used this constellation, from John Coltrane/Rashied Ali’s Interstellar Space (1967/released 1974) to Frank Wright/Muhammad Ali’s Adieu Little Man (1974) to Peter Brötzmann/Hamid Drake’s The […]

John Sharpe, All About Jazz German reedman Stefan Keune has shown a strong affinity for British improv since making a connection with drummer Paul Lytton in 1990. Since then his discography records a number of dates with guitarist John Russell, including appearances at London’s now dormant Freedom of the City festival. This limited edition LP, […]

Ken Waxman, Jazzword Real-time, pedal-to-the-floor Free Jazz is the long and the short description of this CD, with this German trio proving that masterful improvising can result from the almost extrasensory interaction among experienced players. (…) This session will never be confused with chamber music however. Keune’s reed eruptions encompass frequent wheezing, crying and spitting. […]