avant-jazz

Tim Berne (born 1954) is an American jazz saxophone player and composer. Though Berne was a music fan, he had no interest in playing a musical instrument until he was in college, when he purchased an alto saxophone. He was more interested in rhythm and blues music--Stax records releases and Aretha Franklin, especially--until he heard a recording by Julius Hemphill. Hemphill was known for his integration of soul music and funk with free jazz. Berne moved to New York City in 1974. There Berne took lessons from Hemphill, and later recorded with him.

There are several artists who use the name Molasses: a.) a musical collective from Montreal, Quebec (see picture) b.) a pop band from San Francisco, California c.) a noise-rock band from London, UK a.)
The Canadian post-rock band is a collective of up to sixteen musicians built around songwriter Scott Chernoff. Members are involved with other ventures such as Fly Pan Am, the Boxhead Ensemble, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Shalabi Effect, and Codeine. They play folk-actuelle, a genre fusing traditional North American folk aesthetics with the free ethos of musique actuelle.

Hans Koller, one of Europe's most beloved jazz performers and an acclaimed abstract painter, died of pneumonia on Monday, December 21, 2003 in his hometown of Vienna. He was 82 years old. A saxophone prodigy, Koller immediately impressed the faculty of the Vienna Music Academy upon his arrival at the age of 14. Within a few years he was playing professionally in jazz and dance bands. In 1941 Koller was drafted into the Nazi army; he spent most of the war as an American POW, at which time he organized a detention camp band.

Read more about Hans Koller on Last.fm.

For the past few years, avant-jazz legend Nels Cline (Wilco, Thurston Moore, The Geraldine Fibbers) and omnipresent beat freak Zach Hill (Hella, The Ladies, Team Sleep) have been waiting for an opportunity to spend a few hours making noise. When Cline joined Wilco full-time and Hill started The Ladies with Pinback's Rob Crow, the dream seemed increasingly unlikely. And by the time Hill's full-time gig as half of Hella saw him touring arenas with modern rock staples like System of a Down, the dream seemed dead.