Freeness

Corey Mwamba presents the best new jazz and improvised music with an adventurous spirit.

~Freeness: noun - to be exempt or released from something that controls, restrains or burdens. Corey Mwamba presents the best new jazz and improvised music with an adventurous spirit.

Episodes

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Acoustic Ecologies2022051520220514 (R3)
20221204 (R3)
In a programme first broadcast in May, Corey Mwamba presents improvisers drawing inspiration from nature to acoustically explore their environments and the climate crisis.

Instrumentalist, violinist and sound artist, Ruby Colley sent us a track from her new album Overheard. Through field recordings, disembodied voicing and stringed instruments melding classical, folk and improvisational styles, she examines the relationship between humans and their environments through sound. A contemplative reflection on climate awareness through domestic and local life - using sounds from her back garden, to a train depot and a churchyard in a thunderstorm.

Via bustling rhythms and an aerial expansiveness, Glass Canyon Ensemble take inspiration from scientific research on the colours, migratory patterns and songs of birds flying through Chicago. Their album, Collision Theory, compares the activities of birds and humans against the backdrop of the climate crisis. The collective features a range of avant-garde players including cellist Oli Harris, Ben LaMar Gay on flügelhorn and poet Satya who muses, ‘Six million citizens/Seven million winged migrations/Whose city is it?

Elsewhere, a vintage recording from the Glasgow based Scatter Archive record label takes us back to 1994, where the late saxophonist Lol Coxhill and saxophonist Mark Browne filled a village hall in Wiltshire with sounds of freewheeling communion and joy.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music inspired by nature.

Instrumentalist, violinist and sound artist, Ruby Colley sent us a track from her new album Overheard. Through field recordings, disembodied voicing and stringed instruments melding classical, folk and improvisational styles, she examines the relationship between humans and their environments through sound. A contemplative reflection on climate awareness through domestic and local life - using sounds from her back garden, to a train depot and a church yard in a thunderstorm.

Via bustling rhythms and an aerial expansiveness, Glass Canyon Ensemble take inspiration from scientific research on the colours, migratory patterns and songs of birds flying through Chicago. Their album, Collision Theory, compares the activities of birds and humans against the backdrop of the climate crisis. The collective features a range of avant-garde players including cellist Oli Harris, Ben LaMar Gay on flugelhorn and poet Satya who muses, ‘Six million citizens/Seven million winged migrations/Whose city is it?

Via bustling rhythms and an aerial expansiveness, Glass Canyon Ensemble take inspiration from scientific research on the colours, migratory patterns and songs of birds flying through Chicago. Their album, Collision Theory, compares the activities of birds and humans against the backdrop of the climate crisis. The collective features a range of avant-garde players including cellist Oli Harris, Ben LaMar Gay on flügelhorn and poet Satya who muses, ‘Six million citizens/Seven million winged migrations/Whose city is it?

Via bustling rhythms and an aerial expansiveness, Glass Canyon Ensemble take inspiration from scientific research on the colours, migratory patterns and songs of birds flying through Chicago. Their album, Collision Theory, compares the activities of birds and humans against the backdrop of the climate crisis. The collective features a range of avant-garde players including cellist Oli Harris, Ben LaMar Gay on flugelhorn and poet Satya who muses, ‘Six million citizens/Seven million winged migrations/Whose city is it?

After Dark Festival: Freeness20220327Corey Mwamba presents live music highlights from Radio 3's After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music.

Corey opens the show with a selection from saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael and guitarist Niko Ziarkas' atmospheric sunset set, recorded at dusk on the concourse of Sage Gateshead. He then presents highlights from a late night improv session, featuring a scorching set of high energy and heavy riffs from the sax-drums duo Run Logan Run. Plus freely improvised one-off collaborations between musicians at the festival including Andrew and Matt from Run Logan Run, the Newcastle-based turntablist Mariam Rezaei, vocalist Lauren Kinsella and Dan Nicholls on keys.

For all related content, search “After Dark Festival ? in BBC Sounds.

​​

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey Mwamba presents live music highlights from Run Logan Run and Chelsea Carmichael.

For all related content, search `After Dark Festival?? in BBC Sounds.

For all related content, search `After Dark Festival` in BBC Sounds.

Alchemy of sounds20240331Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music inspired by ancient alchemy, including mystic interactions from Krakow and deep sonic wonder from Stockholm.

The trio of José Lencastre (alto sax), Zbigniew Kozera (double bass) and Vasco Trilla (drums) engage in turning the raw elements of sound into something greater than the sum of its parts with their new album Chymeia. In Stockholm, Lisa Ullén (piano), Elsa Bergman (double bass) and Anna Lund (drums) form another trio, Space - in their improvisations, they evoke wonder and mystery.

Elsewhere in the show, Corey picks a track from the most recent album he recorded with a stellar line-up of Paul Dunmall (tenor and c soprano saxophones), Soweto Kinch (alto and tenor saxophones), Xhosa Cole (tenor saxophone), Dave Kane (double bass) and Hamid Drake (drums). Plus transcendental excursions on the vibraphone by Khan Jamal.

Produced by Silvia Malnati
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3

Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music inspired by ancient alchemy.

Corey Mwamba presents the best new jazz and improvised music with an adventurous spirit.

Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music inspired by ancient alchemy, including mystic interactions from Krakow and deep sonic wonder from Stockholm.

Alexander Hawkins20220313Kim Macari presents a selection of new improvised music. Also in the programme, the award-winning composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader Alexander Hawkins shares cherished pieces of music and talks through his latest release, ‘Break a Vase'. Hawkins's innovative touch merges the worlds of composition and improvisation with technical fervour and freewheeling inventiveness. A leading voice in improvised music in the UK and beyond, this latest project sees his trio with bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis expand to include saxophonist and clarinettist Shabaka Hutchings, guitarist Otto Fischer, and drummer Richard Olátúndé baker.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Celebrated British pianist talks through his new album, Break a Vase.

Kim Macari presents a selection of new improvised music. Also in the programme, the award-winning composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader Alexander Hawkins shares cherished pieces of music and talks through his latest release, ‘Break a Vase'. Hawkins's innovative touch merges the worlds of composition and improvisation with technical fervour and freewheeling inventiveness. A leading voice in improvised music in the UK and beyond, this latest project sees his trio with bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis expand to include saxophonist and clarinettist Shabaka Hutchings, guitarist Otto Fischer, and drummer Richard Olကtúnd退 baker.

Alternate States2021112820220320 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents electronic and found sounds conjuring new worlds. Drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey teams up with synthesist and producer King Britt for polyrhythmic time travelling; vintage East Coast club sounds collide with in-the-moment improvisation, dazzling drum and bass and sharp breaks on an electronic plane.

Also exploring alternate states are the duo of double bassist Una MacGlone and pianist Jim McEwan, who take inspiration from the remote environs of the Scottish Hoy coastal lines and North Sea that surrounds it. The pair fuse their playing with the sounds of objects including radios, tape recorders and crinkly bags, journeying inwards to explore the experience of different psychological states.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents electronic and found sounds to conjure new worlds.

Ambient Melodies2022041020220409 (R3)
20220806 (R3)
Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Laura Cannell talks about her new album, Antiphony Of the Trees, and shares her inspirations. Of the album, created during a lockdown wave, she said: “the birds were singing so loudly that I had to sing back. ? Here, she reinterprets birdsong through the recorder. Mimicking and extending the tonal quality of birdsong, through a mixture of composition and improvisation, she creates a beguiling dialogue with the natural world. Elsewhere in the programme, Francesco Covarino weaves soothing lullabies for his daughter from sparse guitar, toy instruments and field recordings. Plus, oceanic meditations on consciousness from the Ukrainian violinist, Valentina Goncharova.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

A Reduced Listening production from BBC Radio 3

Laura Cannell talks birdsong, improvisation and her inspirations.

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Laura Cannell talks about her new album, Antiphony Of the Trees, and shares her inspirations. Of the album, created during a lockdown wave, she said: `the birds were singing so loudly that I had to sing back.?? Here, she reinterprets birdsong through the recorder. Mimicking and extending the tonal quality of birdsong, through a mixture of composition and improvisation, she creates a beguiling dialogue with the natural world. Elsewhere in the programme, Francesco Covarino weaves soothing lullabies for his daughter from sparse guitar, toy instruments and field recordings. Plus, oceanic meditations on consciousness from the Ukrainian violinist, Valentina Goncharova.

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Laura Cannell talks about her new album, Antiphony of the Trees, and shares her inspirations. Of the album, created during a lockdown wave, she said: `the birds were singing so loudly that I had to sing back.` Here, she reinterprets birdsong through the recorder. Mimicking and extending the tonal quality of birdsong, through a mixture of composition and improvisation, she creates a beguiling dialogue with the natural world. Elsewhere in the programme, Francesco Covarino weaves soothing lullabies for his daughter from sparse guitar, toy instruments and field recordings. Plus, oceanic meditations on consciousness from Ukrainian violinist Valentina Goncharova.

Archie Shepp20211219Corey Mwamba shares classic and contemporary improvised music. Legendary saxophonist and civil rights activist Archie Shepp joins the show to talk about artists that have inspired his approach to playing and improvising. He shares a beloved track and dear memories of learning from another stalwart of the music, SONNY ROLLINS.

The bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck's latest offering is a series of spacious and melodic duo collaborations with artists such as Roscoe Mitchell and Nicole Mitchell. Paying homage to her relationship with these musicians and to her instrument, it captures her quest to find a musical language that includes and extends beyond Western traditions. Elsewhere in the programme, we hear the sparse and emotive compositional work of the Huddersfield based artist Ryoko Akama, who worked alongside the experimental musician Phillip Thomas - to whom the record is dedicated - to create rich soundscapes that stand as a testament to creating outside our comfort zones.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba shares new music, plus the iconic Archie Shepp on his inspirations.

Asher Gamedze2022050120220430 (R3)South African drummer, activist and cultural worker Asher Gamedze talks about his latest release. His debut album, Dialectic Soul introduced his style as a playful and deeply relational facilitator of rhythm. His new album offers a meditation on time. In his self-authored notes, he muses: ‘What is outside of work? Work's out sides? How might it mean to work on the outside? Is that even a place of work? And what could that sound feel and look like?

Heavy Lifting (Lucy Cheesman) and Graham Dunning come together for an improvised collaboration of free electronic hedonism, layering fractals of textured sound and melodies. Plus, a re-release of adventurous 1970s-era recordings from Japanese guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

South African drummer Asher Gamedze talks about his latest release.

South African drummer, activist and cultural worker Asher Gamedze talks about his latest release. His debut album, Dialectic Soul introduced his style as a playful and deeply relational facilitator of rhythm. His new album offers a meditation on time. In his self-authored notes, he muses: ‘What is outside of work? Work's out sides? How might it mean to work on the outside? Is that even a place of work? And what could that sound feel and look like?

Asymmetrical Waves20230115Corey Mwamba offers new angles on free jazz and improvised music, from the energetic blowouts of a live session by Oslo's 15-piece Large Unit to a reflective musical conversation between cellist Tomeka Reid and saxophone heavyweight Joe McPhee to mark Juneteenth, the national American holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

Oscillating between composition and free improvisation, Furthered is the forthcoming album from Alex Ward Item 4, a quartet featuring Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet and flugelhorn, Otto Willberg on double bass, and Andrew Lisle on drums. With this work, the London-based clarinettist and guitarist Ward aims at encouraging a musical dialogue that challenges the very structures around which the music is designed. And French experimentalist Quentin Rollet is joined by Romain Perrot for his new album Le Vieux Fusible, where sci-fi-inspired, improvised synthwave creates a futuristic soundscape to underscore tales of reckless space adventure.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba offers new angles on free jazz and improvised music.

Beck Hunters At Newcastle Festival Of Jazz And Improvised Music2022103020221029 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents a performance from Beck Hunters recorded specially for Freeness at this year's Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music. Over the past five years, Beck Hunters have established themselves as a fearless and playful trio, and for this festival set the usual line-up of Mick Beck (saxophone, bassoon), Anton Hunter (guitar) and Johnny Hunter (drums) is augmented to a quintet with the addition of pianist Laura Cole and bass player John Pope.

The Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, which took place over the first weekend of October, is an eagerly-anticipated annual celebration of improvised music from around the world. Since 2017, it has showcased new talent alongside established names on the scene, and elsewhere in the show, Corey selects highlights from other artists who featured at this year's festival.

Produced by Tej Adeleye and Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents Beck Hunters at Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music.

Blue Feedback20240121Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and improvised music that explores the power of resonance.

Nottingham percussionist Regan Boweing releases her debut album, a series of solos on snare drum with amplifier feedback, recorded in a variety of acoustics. She says: “The feedback gives me a different set of colours to work with, a different material to carve as part of my sonic and rhythmic pallet ?. Also in the show: Ferran Fages (electric guitar), Àlex Reviriego (double bass) and Vasco Trilla (drums and percussion) join forces in a new project called Phicus, a mix of improvisation and loose composition that culminated in a session recorded at the Convent de Sant Agustí in Spain. Plus a whirling track from the new album Chattering Teeth from Hery Paz, Sana Nagano, Max Johnson and Alfred Vogel.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares free jazz and improvised music that explores the power of resonance.

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and improvised music that explores the power of resonance, with snare solos by Regan Bowering and a droney session recorded in a Spanish convent.

Body Music2023040220230401 (R3)The Alaska-based interdisciplinary artist S Hollis Mickey offers an invitation for us to tune into the rhythms of our bodies. Reflecting on the impact their complex chronic illness has on their ability to play music, they work with their body, rather than against it, to produce meditative pieces that give human bones new life through gritty, metallic improvisations.

Tap dancer Petra Haller and pianist Meg Morley continue their longstanding creative partnership, one that eschews any sense of hierarchy between their mediums, and instead invites a rich interplay and an embodied approach to freeness. Quicksilver keys waltz with even quicker footwork. Elsewhere, we hear the soundtrack to a live movement performance from Brazilian artists Gabriel de Oliveira and Lara Santass, in dedication to the late Milford Graves: the duo give their bodies permission to say, “ah - hmmm ?.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

A Reduced Listening production from BBC Radio 3

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music inspired by the human body.

Tap dancer Petra Haller and pianist Meg Morley continue their longstanding creative partnership, one that eschews any sense of hierarchy between their mediums, and instead invites a rich interplay and an embodied approach to freeness. Quicksilver keys waltz with even quicker footwork. Elsewhere, we hear the soundtrack to a live movement performance from Brazilian artists Gabriel de Oliveira and Lara Santass, in dedication to the late Milford Graves: the duo give their bodies permission to say, - ?ah - ¦hmmm - ??.

Tap dancer Petra Haller and pianist Meg Morley continue their longstanding creative partnership, one that eschews any sense of hierarchy between their mediums, and instead invites a rich interplay and an embodied approach to freeness. Quicksilver keys waltz with even quicker footwork. Elsewhere, we hear the soundtrack to a live movement performance from Brazilian artists Gabriel de Oliveira and Lara Santass, in dedication to the late Milford Graves: the duo give their bodies permission to say, `ah - hmmm`.

Bostin' Birmingham20231210Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and the latest sounds in improvised music, plus we've the next stop on our journey around the UK in search of the country's diverse and thriving improvised music scenes. Having recently explored Newcastle (hearing from artists Mariam Rezaei and Faye MacCalman), Birmingham is the next point on this improvised map. A true elder of the scene who has been promoting jazz sessions for over 40 years, Tony Dudley-Evans will open his archive for us, sharing memories about his favourite gigs; and we also hear saxophonist and educator Alicia Gardener-Trejo's top tips for emerging Brummie talent.

Elsewhere in the show, a track from Superless, a new quartet with Eirik Hegdal (woodwinds and synth), Jeff Parker (guitar), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (acoustic and electric bass) and Øyvind Skarbø (drums, percussion). Plus improvisations on a Persian poem with the Rahma Quartet.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and highlights from Birmingham's improvised music scene.

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz from Birmingham's improvised music scene, with contributions from saxophonist Alicia Gardener-Trejo and promoter Tony Dudley-Evans.

Bridging The Gap2023081320230812 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares free jazz and improvised music that bridges tradition and imagined future, including futozao-shamisen player Yumiko Tanaka as well as percussionist Camille ɀmaille in a trio with dieb13 (turntables) and Hans Koch (reeds).

Alongside her focused explorations of traditional Japanese music, Yumiko Tanaka has, since the 1990s, been part of a nexus of improvisers who play the futozao (wide neck) shamisen, a stringed instrument comprising a wooden body covered with animal or synthetic skin and a long neck on which strings are strung and plucked. With the music of Tayutauta (2004), her debut solo record which is re-released this month, Tanaka brought a variety of experimental techniques - including plucking, bowing and the use of 'prepared' objects - into conversation with the sounds of the instrument's heritage.

On the other side of the planet, a trio comprising Camille ɀmaille, dieb13 and Hans Koch get together for a live session in Biel, Switzerland. Their combined sonic gestures create otherworldly atmospheres charged with the tension and punctuated by the cries of Koch's soprano saxophone. Plus there's music from Brew featuring Miya Masaoka (koto, electronics), Reggie Workman (bass, percussion) and Gerry Hemingway (drums, electronics) whose approach fuses tradition and imagination.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares free jazz and improvised music bridging tradition and imagined future.

Corey Mwamba shares free jazz and improvised music that bridges tradition and imagined future, including futozao-shamisen player Yumiko Tanaka as well as percussionist Camille Émaille in a trio with dieb13 (turntables) and Hans Koch (reeds).

On the other side of the planet, a trio comprising Camille Émaille, dieb13 and Hans Koch get together for a live session in Biel, Switzerland. Their combined sonic gestures create otherworldly atmospheres charged with the tension and punctuated by the cries of Koch's soprano saxophone. Plus there's music from Brew featuring Miya Masaoka (koto, electronics), Reggie Workman (bass, percussion) and Gerry Hemingway (drums, electronics) whose approach fuses tradition and imagination.

Bursts Of Light2023050720230506 (R3)
20240303 (R3)
Corey Mwamba presents improvised music teeming with light and birdsong. For Dawn Chorus Day, falling this weekend, a dazzling piece from Sarah Peebles playing the shō: gentle wind work breezes through collected recordings of birdsong, rushing rivers and the soft hush of rustling plants. Plus, Wadada Leo Smith plays with a new ensemble, Orange Wave Electric, the band's name reflecting the electric vitality Smith sees in this particular colour. The group comprises stalwart figures in experimental music including Nels Cline, Brandon Ross, Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs, and through anthemic rock grooves and soaring trumpet lines, the group references Black cultural figures as a way of pointing to the creative possibilities of social transformation.

Elsewhere in the show, experimental artists Halina Rahdjian and Luhas create a dense world of sensory wonder, with dappled light creeping through in the form of glitching tape manipulations, Nintendo sound effects, and field recordings.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music teeming with light and birdsong. For Dawn Chorus Day, falling this weekend, a dazzling piece from Sarah Peebles playing the sho?: gentle wind work breezes through collected recordings of birdsong, rushing rivers and the soft hush of rustling plants. Plus, Wadada Leo Smith plays with a new ensemble, Orange Wave Electric, the band's name reflecting the electric vitality Smith sees in this particular colour. The group comprises stalwart figures in experimental music including Nels Cline, Brandon Ross, Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs, and through anthemic rock grooves and soaring trumpet lines, the group references Black cultural figures as a way of pointing to the creative possibilities of social transformation.

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music teeming with light and birdsong, including recordings in New Zealand, Nintendo sound effects and blazing trumpets.

Call And Response2023060420230603 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music from artists and collectives responding to art. British pianist Robert Mitchell draws from the experiential wisdom of McCoy Tyner, who said that his time playing with John Coltrane was like “stepping into the flames ?. Mitchell's band is, in turn, called The Flame, which speaks to the heightened experience of connection shared with his collaborators Neil Charles and Mark Sanders - a space of ‘pure spirit', with a sonic tapestry to match. Plus, a live performance from Henry Threadgill, who integrates Milford Grave's experiments with the human heartbeat into a sweeping three-movement suite.

Elsewhere in the programme, music that inspires poetry. Ed Shipsey, Jordan Muscatello and petals (Petero Kalulé) conjure a Surrealist twilight zone between sleep and waking states, where a dog's paw scratches time off the face of the earth. Or something like that.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music from makers and collectives responding to art.

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music from artists and collectives responding to art. British pianist Robert Mitchell draws from the experiential wisdom of McCoy Tyner, who said that his time playing with John Coltrane was like `stepping into the flames??. Mitchell's band is, in turn, called The Flame, which speaks to the heightened experience of connection shared with his collaborators Neil Charles and Mark Sanders - a space of ‘pure spirit', with a sonic tapestry to match. Plus, a live performance from Henry Threadgill, who integrates Milford Grave's experiments with the human heartbeat into a sweeping three-movement suite.

Elsewhere in the programme, music that inspires poetry. Ed Shipsey, Jordan Muscatello and petals (Petero Kalul退) conjure a Surrealist twilight zone between sleep and waking states, where a dog's paw scratches time off the face of the earth. Or something like that.

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music from artists and collectives responding to art. British pianist Robert Mitchell draws from the experiential wisdom of McCoy Tyner, who said that his time playing with John Coltrane was like `stepping into the flames`. Mitchell's band is, in turn, called The Flame, which speaks to the heightened experience of connection shared with his collaborators Neil Charles and Mark Sanders - a space of ‘pure spirit', with a sonic tapestry to match. Plus, a live performance from Henry Threadgill, who integrates Milford Grave's experiments with the human heartbeat into a sweeping three-movement suite.

Canny Newcastle20231105Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music and free jazz with a focus on Newcastle, joined by turntablist Mariam Rezaei, fresh off her new kaleidoscopic album Bown, and saxophonist and clarinettist Faye MacCalman, both active participants of the bustling scene in the North East's capital city.

Following on from recent visits to the music scenes in Leeds and Huddersfield, Corey takes the improvised radio road trip north and east to Tyneside. Home to the Newcastle Jazz and Improvised Music Festival, this year celebrating its 7th edition, the city of Newcastle is a melting pot of young and established talents that spill across multiple scenes, audiences and musical approaches. There's fertile ground for creativity and sound explorations, creating a scene that is “cross-genre, unique and canny ? in the words of local artist Mariam Rezaei.

Elsewhere in the show, we listen to Vienna and Berlin-based ensemble Polwechsel, whoc celebrate their 30th anniversary with a special release of recordings. Band members Werner Dafeldecker (double bass), Michael Moser (cello), Martin Brandlmayr and Burkhard Beins (percussion) are joined by a roster of musician friends including John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones) and Magda Mayas (piano). Plus we hear improvisations from Eve Egoyan deploying her augmented piano - a hybrid of acoustic piano, physical model, sample playback and signal processing - and Mauricio Pauly on live samplers, de-keyed chromaharp and drums.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music and free jazz with a focus Newcastle, joined by turntablist Mariam Rezaei and saxophonist and clarinettist Faye MacCalman.

Following on from recent visits to the music scenes in Leeds and Huddersfield, Corey takes the improvised radio road trip north and east to Tyneside. Home to the Newcastle Jazz and Improvised Music Festival, this year celebrating its 7th edition, the city of Newcastle is a melting pot of young and established talents that spill across multiple scenes, audiences and musical approaches. There's fertile ground for creativity and sound explorations, creating a scene that is `cross-genre, unique and canny?? in the words of local artist Mariam Rezaei.

Following on from recent visits to the music scenes in Leeds and Huddersfield, Corey takes the improvised radio road trip north and east to Tyneside. Home to the Newcastle Jazz and Improvised Music Festival, this year celebrating its 7th edition, the city of Newcastle is a melting pot of young and established talents that spill across multiple scenes, audiences and musical approaches. There's fertile ground for creativity and sound explorations, creating a scene that is `cross-genre, unique and canny` in the words of local artist Mariam Rezaei.

Carols Re-imagined20221225Corey Mwamba offers up a feast of festive improvisation and Christmas carols re-imagined. Among the experimental wassailers to knock on the Freeness front door are baritone saxophonist and improviser Cath Roberts, Yorkshire-based keyboard adventurer MATTHEW BOURNE and German vocalist Ute Wasserman, all three bearing gifts in the form of specially-recorded takes on popular seasonal tunes.

Elsewhere in the show, there's jazz and improvised music to get us into the festive mood including Pat Thomas playing DUKE ELLINGTON's hymn to the sabbath, Come Sunday, and the tinselled sound of Martin Payne and David BeeBee's vibraphone-and-Fender Rhodes-electric-piano combination. Plus, Rhodri Davies's whirling improvisations on lap harp.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba offers up a feast of festive improvisations and Christmas carols re-imagined.

Chance Designs20230514Corey Mwamba presents improvised music of intrepid spirit that thrives on and challenges chaos.

Captured live in Avignon, the album Ice In A Hot World marks the return of the explosive trio Thermal - John Butcher on sax, Andy Moor on guitar and Thomas Lehn on analogue synthesiser - who celebrate twenty years of collaboration. Making their recorded debut, meanwhile, comes a Barcelona-based trio made up of Clara Lai (piano),

Changing Elements2021101020211009 (R3)Weathered terrains, metallic tuning and cosmic explosions - Corey Mwamba shares new and old music evoking natural processes and personal transformation.

We hear from Canyon, a collaboration between Mancunian pianist Tom Harris, and drummer Kai Charuensy. Their new release ‘canyon, exhibits i-vi' was recorded during lockdown after a year of musical solitude, with each track accompanied by artwork and poetry. Here, smattering percussion and shimmering keys conjure the feeling of torrential downpours and personal change: ‘the hardest things tend to look smoother during brief, heavy rains.

Elsewhere in the show, the Brooklyn based multi-instrumentalist Jessica Pavone continues her explorations into the impact vibrations have on health and wellbeing, this time using tonal experimentations to explore themes of comfort though metallic contours. We journey back to 1969 with WAYNE SHORTER's iconic Supa Nova record, featuring a stellar line up of luminaries including Jack DeJohnette, Miroslav Vitous, Sonny Sharrock and Chick Corea...on drums!

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba shares new and old shifting sounds with elemental themes.

We hear from Canyon, a collaboration between Mancunian pianist Tom Harris, and drummer Kai Charuensy. Their new release ?canyon, exhibits i-vi? was recorded during lockdown after a year of musical solitude, with each track accompanied by artwork and poetry. Here, smattering percussion and shimmering keys conjure the feeling of torrential downpours and personal change: ?the hardest things tend to look smoother during brief, heavy rains.?

We hear from Canyon, a collaboration between Mancunian pianist Tom Harris, and drummer Kai Chareunsy. Their new release ‘canyon, exhibits i?-?vi' was recorded during lockdown after a year of musical solitude, with each track accompanied by artwork and poetry. Here, smattering percussion and shimmering keys conjure the feeling of torrential downpours and personal change: ‘the hardest things tend to look smoother during brief, heavy rains'.

Elsewhere in the show, the Brooklyn based multi-instrumentalist Jessica Pavone continues her explorations into the impact vibrations have on health and wellbeing, this time using tonal experimentations to explore themes of comfort though metallic contours. We journey back to 1969 with Wayne Shorter's iconic Supa Nova record, featuring a stellar line up of luminaries including Jack DeJohnette, Miroslav Vitous, Sonny Sharrock and Chick Corea... on drums!

We hear from Canyon, a collaboration between Mancunian pianist Tom Harris, and drummer Kai Charuensy. Their new release ‘canyon, exhibits i-vi' was recorded during lockdown after a year of musical solitude, with each track accompanied by artwork and poetry. Here, smattering percussion and shimmering keys conjure the feeling of torrential downpours and personal change: ‘the hardest things tend to look smoother during brief, heavy rains.

Charlotte Keefe's Right Here, Right Now Quartet At Manchester Jazz Festival2023061820230617 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares a live set from Charlotte Keeffe's Right Here Right Now Quartet recorded at Manchester Jazz Festival

Right Here, Right Now is the quartet led by British composer and improvising musician, Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet and flugelhorn, with Moss Freed (guitar), Ashley John Long (double bass) and Ben Handysides (drums). A spellbinding improviser who released her debut album in 2021, Keeffe has performed with the quartet in various settings, most recently taking to the stage at this year's Manchester Jazz Festival.

In this episode, we also get a taste of Know: Delirium Atom Path, the forthcoming album by pianist Pat Thomas with guitarist Chris Sharkey and drummer Luke Reddin-Williams, releasing at the end of June. “What happens when three musicians go in without a plan? They give us Delirium Atom Paths ?, say the liner notes.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares Charlotte Keeffe's live quartet set at Manchester Jazz Festival.

Corey Mwamba shares a live set from Charlotte Keefe's Right Here Right Now Quartet, recorded at Manchester Jazz Festival.

Right Here, Right Now is the quartet led by British composer and improvising musician, Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet and flugelhorn, with Moss Freed (guitar), Ashley Jon Long (double bass) and Ben Handysides (drums). A spellbinding improviser who released her debut album in 2021, Keeffe has performed with the quartet in various settings, most recently taking to the stage at this year's Manchester Jazz Festival.

Corey Mwamba shares Charlotte Keefe's live quartet set at Manchester Jazz Festival.

In this episode, we also get a taste of Know: Delirium Atom Path, the forthcoming album by pianist Pat Thomas with guitarist Chris Sharkey and drummer Luke Reddin-Williams, releasing at the end of June. `What happens when three musicians go in without a plan? They give us Delirium Atom Paths`, say the liner notes.

In this episode, we also get a taste of Know: Delirium Atom Path, the forthcoming album by pianist Pat Thomas with guitarist Chris Sharkey and drummer Luke Reddin-Williams, releasing at the end of June. `What happens when three musicians go in without a plan? They give us Delirium Atom Paths??, say the liner notes.

Circular Wanderings20221106Corey Mwamba roams through realms of improvised music and free jazz, encountering the other-worldly improvisations of sax-player Tom Ward, recorded during his recent performance at SET Lewisham, London, and the mystic sonic juxtapositions of Harbingers of Change, a newly formed collective helmed by multi-instrumentalist Florence Anna Maunders and featuring Lara Jones, Amy Brice and Maya-Leigh Rosenwasser. Elsewhere in the programme, a tumultuous track from the recent first-time reissue of Dickie Landry's 1972 performance at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, and a sonic excursion from the French collective No Tongues featuring vocalist Isabel Sorling.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba roams through realms of improvised music and free jazz.

Cityscapes2023032620230722 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music inspired by city soundscapes.

Percussionist Jason Nazary (Anteloper) joins forces with Iranian-American fraternal duo, Saint Abdullah. Through a gauzy tapestry of glitch and electronics, this offering conjures ambient visions of the cityscapes of New York, as hopeful improvisations meet frenetic acknowledgement of housing precarity. Multi-instrumentalist Laila Sakini and percussionist Valentina Magaletti, meanwhile, come together on Cupo, meaning ‘dark' in Italian. Recorded in various settings across London, it's a brooding, shapeshifting soundscape that expands and contracts over several movements.

Elsewhere in the programme, we hear a love letter to the city of Madrid from the electroacoustic improviser Wade Matthew in which sound collages and field recordings are interwoven with the soft ululations of bass clarinet and alto flute.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Percussionist Jason Nazary (Anteloper) joins forces with Iranian-American fraternal duo, Saint Abdullah. Through a gauzy tapestry of glitch and electronics, this offering conjures ambient visions of the cityscapes of New York, as hopeful improvisations meet frenetic acknowledgement of housing precarity. Multi-instrumentalist Laila Sakini and percussionist Valentina Magaletti, meanwhile, come together on Cupo, meaning ‘dark' in Italian. Recorded in various settings across London, it's a brooding, shapeshifting soundscape that expands and contracts over several movements.

Comets Drifting20240204Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and improvised music that investigates constellations of sound, including Rob Mazurek's Exploding Stars Orchestra and solo gong from Susie Ibarra.

Comprising Damon Locks (voice, electronics, text), Tomeka Reid (cello, electronics), Angelica Sanchez (electric piano), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass) and Chad Taylor (drums), the supergroup Exploding Stars Orchestra led by Rob Mazurek (trumpet, piccolo trumpet, bells, voice) release a new ecstatic session, Spectral Fiction.

Elsewhere in the show, we are invited to get lost in the spacious drums and Balinese gong solos of Susie Ibarra, an improviser and sound artist whose practice focuses on conservation - from exploring North and South Philippine islands' indigenous music cultures to mapping the rhythms of glaciers and freshwaters. Plus a track from the forthcoming album by Lisa Cameron (drums and electronics) and Alex Cunningham (violin, objects), entitled Chasms.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares free jazz and improvised music investigating constellations of sound.

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and improvised music that investigates constellations of sound, with Rob Mazurek's Exploding Stars Orchestra and solo gong from Susie Ibarra.

Common Tongue20220306Kim Macari presents new improvised music.

The Italian duo, Cesare Lopopolo's and Anna Vezzosi's project, Rosso Polare uses an array of techniques - from call and response improvisation to tape manipulation - to create experimental soundscapes of bass-backed murmurs and clangs that blur the line between the worlds of human and non-humans.

The name of the Berlin based trio, Der Dritte Stand, roughly translates as the Third Estate, or the common people. Through free association and subtle give and take, a sprawling egalitarian world emerges that exists beyond hierarchy and towards collaborative possibility.

Kenyan American multi-instrumentalist Nyokabi Kariuki offers a meditation not only on the impact of colonialism on Kenyan languages and indigenous cultures, but her own reconciliatory journey to reconnect with her heritage. Her childhood haunts are brought to life through field recordings, experimental electronics, and multilingual chatter in this tender and vibrant quest through memory and history.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Kim Macari presents improvised music exploring spoken and non-verbal communication.

Cosmic Expansions2022102320221022 (R3)Corey Mwamba sets sail on a new adventure in the cosmos of improvised music.

Pianist Meg Morley is joined by drummer Emiliano Caroselli and Richard Sadler at the bass in her new album ‘A Journey Through Home' that stands out for its enchanting and warm atmospheres. The same elegant playing is to be found in the freshly released improvisations from the Mancunian duo, Mark Hanslip and Andrew Cheetham, fusing soft singing lines with multi-textural percussion.

Elsewhere in the programme, an exclusive live extract from the recent Meakusma Festival in Eupen, Belgium, featuring Anil Eraslan, Tom Malmendier and Ignaz Schick, plus a track from Let Spin's forthcoming album ‘Thick As Thieves', which captures their vital post-jazz and post-punk spirit.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Pianist Meg Morley is joined by drummer Emiliano Caroselli and Richard Sadler at the bass in her new album ‘A Journey Through Home' that stands out for its enchanting and warm atmospheres. The same elegant playing is to be found in the freshly released improvisations from the Mancunian duo, Mark Hanslip and Andrew Cheetham, fusing soft singing lines with multi-textural percussion.

Elsewhere in the programme, an exclusive live extract from the recent Meakusma Festival in Eupen, Belgium, featuring Anil Eraslan, Tom Malmendier and Ignaz Schick, plus a track from Let Spin's forthcoming album ‘Thick As Thieves', which captures their vital post-jazz and post-punk spirit.

Cybernetic Splatters2023102920231028 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music and free jazz that lives in the present moment, from audacious experiments in extending the trumpet's sound to propulsive free black metal courtesy of the Brussels-based quintet ZAÄAR.

With a similarly wild energy, drummer Kate Gentile joins forces with saxophonist Jeremy Viner, pianist Matt Mitchell and bassist Kim Cass to deliver Find Letter X, an explosive tripartite album featuring wide-ranging sonic textures that blend mind-bending composition ideas with free improvisation.

Elsewhere in the show, we hear a track from the forthcoming debut album of Nicole Rampersaud, an improviser from Canada who has spent the past couple of decades pushing the boundaries of what is possible when it comes to generating sounds with her chosen instrument - the trumpet. The album, Saudade, incorporates granular processing, micro-loop pedals and glitch delay into her trumpet playing.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music and free jazz that lives in the present moment.

Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music and free jazz that lives in the present moment, from audacious experiments in extending the trumpet's sound to propulsive free black metal.

Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music and free jazz that lives in the present moment, from audacious experiments in extending the trumpet's sound to propulsive free black metal courtesy of the Brussels-based quintet ZAĀAR.

Debussy's Songs Re-imagined2021092620210925 (R3)A Hungarian trio creates their own interpretations of Debussy's chansons. The compositions, which the composer wrote to poems by Paul Verlaine, Andr? Girod, Paul Bourget and others, are re-imagined by the expressive singing of Veronika Harcsa, the classically trained harpist Anastasia Razvalyaeva and the spatial electronics and acoustic guitar playing of M?rton Fenyvesi. Plus one of the great figures in British improvised music KEITH TIPPETT's last ever recording is released, a duo with fellow pianist MATTHEW BOURNE recorded just before Keith's passing in 2019.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

A Hungarian trio create their own interpretations of Debussy's chansons.

A Hungarian trio creates their own interpretations of Debussy's chansons. The compositions, which the composer wrote to poems by Paul Verlaine, Andr退 Girod, Paul Bourget and others, are re-imagined by the expressive singing of Veronika Harcsa, the classically trained harpist Anastasia Razvalyaeva and the spatial electronics and acoustic guitar playing of Mကrton Fenyvesi. Plus one of the great figures in British improvised music Keith Tippett's last ever recording is released, a duo with fellow pianist Matthew Bourne recorded just before Keith's passing in 2019.

Deep Tuning2023031220230715 (R3)Ensemble Dedalus collaborate with composer and field recordist Erik M to make inventive use of an acousmographe - a tool to analyse electronic music using graphic scores. Combining this with field recordings, they create a dense cacophony, blurring the lines between human and non-human worlds, where we hear the sonic language of whales, bats and amphibians recast through searching improvisations.

New York-based pianist Eva Novoa leads a paired back trio featuring Masa Kamaguchi on bass and Gerald Cleaver on drums. Aerial silences are animated by crashing keys and the constant flurry of subtle textures for this masterclass in spatial generosity and deep listening. Elsewhere, through a celestial blend of South Indian devotional music, psychedelic electronic and transcendent free playing, Berlin multi-instrumentalist Seljuk Rustum constructs an immersive world of catharsis and freedom.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music tuning into nature, transcendence and space.

Ensemble Dedalus collaborate with composer and field-recordist Erik M to make inventive use of an acousmographe - a tool to analyse electronic music using graphic scores. Combining this with field recordings, they create a dense cacophony, blurring the lines between human and non-human worlds, where we hear the sonic language of whales, bats and amphibians recast through searching improvisations.

Deep Waters20240225Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and improvisatory adventures including a piece inspired by the act of dropping a piano into deep waters by Swedish artists Rosanna Gunnarson and Karin Johansson. The musicians in question combined recordings of the instrument being lowered into the water and played while fish swum around it, with layers of improvisations on a prepared piano. It's a celebration of the Baltic Sea, exploring three unique sound worlds - one above the surface of the water, one below, and the one that is inside us. Elsewhere in the show, the duo of Crystabel Riley (drums) and Sue Lynch (tenor saxophone) offer an unreleased track from their recent studio recording, before we indulge in a fiery live performance by Bill Orcutt (four-string guitar), Tashi Dorji (guitar) and Joe McPhee (saxophone), recorded at the Issue Project Room, in Brooklyn, New York.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and a work inspired by a piano dropped into deep waters.

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and a work inspired by a piano dropped into deep waters by Rosanna Gunnarson and Karin Johansson.

Dissolving Edges2022070320220702 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents pioneering, boundary-blurring music from around the world.

Canada-based organ-percussion duo Katelyn Clark and Isaiah Ceccarelli work in early music and contemporary contexts, and bring the two together in an improvisation on ‘kyrie eleison'. There's an extemporised realisation of a graphic score by Greek composer Ioanna Valsamara. Plus, Corey chooses a live recording from a cross-generational celebration of British improv featuring Steve Beresford, Rhodri Davies, Phil Minton and John Edwards.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music with a pioneering spirit.

Dissolving Edges2022071020220702 (R3)
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Corey Mwamba presents pioneering, boundary-blurring music from around the world.

Canada-based organ-percussion duo Katelyn Clark and Isaiah Ceccarelli work in early music and contemporary contexts, and bring the two together in an improvisation on ‘kyrie eleison'. There's an extemporised realisation of a graphic score by Greek composer Ioanna Valsamara. Plus, Corey chooses a live recording from a cross-generational celebration of British improv featuring Steve Beresford, Rhodri Davies, Phil Minton and John Edwards.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Organ-percussion duo Katelyn Clark and Isaiah Ceccarelli improvise on kyrie eleison.

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music with a pioneering spirit.

Canada-based organ-percussion duo Katelyn Clark and Isaiah Ceccarelli work in early music and contemporary contexts, and bring the two together in an improvisation on ‘kyrie eleison'. There's an extemporised realisation of a graphic score by Greek composer Ioanna Valsamara. Plus, Corey chooses a live recording from a cross-generational celebration of British improv featuring Steve Beresford, Rhodri Davies, Phil Minton and John Edwards.

Drones2022073120220730 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music that channels deep feeling.

American percussionist JoVia Armstrong draws inspiration from the likes of SUN RA and Lee Scratch Perry to create drone-laden, aerial pieces that attempt to heal through an Afrofuturist approach to sound.

Drones make another appearance via a meditation on grief from the Athens-based Farwest Mandolinistic Orchestra. The quartet generate a glitching industrial atmosphere softly underscored by rippling strings.

Elsewhere in the programme, British double bassist Olie Brice amasses a supergroup of stellar UK improvisers offering a funhouse of sound that slips and slides in multiple directions. This octet features Jason Yarde, Rachel Musson, George Crowley, Cath Roberts, Alex Bonney, Kim Macari and Johnny Hunter.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba with new music channelling deep feeling through drones and industrial sounds.

Dynamic Duos2022042420220423 (R3)
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Corey Mwamba presents improvised pairings in dialogue, unbound by genre and in innovative locations. Cath Roberts and Olie Brice come together with grit and urgency in a real time digital collaboration. Idris Rahman and Liran Donin recorded together in a since-demolished church for a hypnotic moment of intimacy and meditation. Elsewhere in the programme, saxophonist Mette Rasmussen and pianist Park Yan Lau bring together toys, found objects and a plethora of instruments for a conversation filled with generative tension and bite.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents innovative improvised pairings.

This programme was first broadcast in April this year.

Echoes2022070320220702 (R3)Twenty years after meeting up in Oxford for a tea, guitarist Dominic Lash and pianist Pat Thomas share their first project as a duo - a rich exchange filled with vaporous, unpredictable turns and riffs that slack loose and snap taut.

We hear new music from the New York-based group WeFreeStrings, led by viola player Melanie Dyer. This second offering from the group pulses with the album's title: ‘love in the form of sacred rage'. Here, dedications to activists including Fred Hampton and Fannie Lou Hamer find life through glitching, tectonic orchestrations.

Elsewhere Barcelona-based Tomomi Kubo collaborates with saxophonist Ferran Besalduch. Kubo creates subterranean sound waves on the ondes Martenot. Together, they create unsettling, shadowy pieces drawing on aquatic life.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music exploring echoes of liberation struggles and aquatic life.

We hear new music from the New York-based group WeFreeStrings, led by viola player Melanie Dyer. This second offering from the group pulses with the album's title: ‘love in the form of sacred rage'. Here, dedications to activists including Fred Hampton and Fannie Lou Hamer find life through glitching, tectonic orchestrations.

Echolocation2023102220231021 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new music that uses sound for imaginative questing and exploration. Saxophonist Camila Nebbia, is joined by violist Joanna Mattrey, pianist Maya Keren, drummer Lesley Mok and Cecilia Lopez on synths and electronics. Together they quest into roiling hinterlands of ancestral echoes, memory, and the song-loops of life cycles. Plus, we hear a live set from drummer Ryosuke Kiyasu, performed at Tokyo Arts and Space. Playing on a single snare drum and a table, Kiyasu creates a dynamic, propulsive collision between the human body, wood, and space. Elsewhere, Finnish-born, Melbourne-based artist Helen Svoboda pulls listeners into a world of beguiling fantasy: a choir chomping and chewing in chorus on genetically-modified apples that induce apocalyptic visions.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music that uses sound for imaginative questing and exploration: percussion on tables, crunching apples and the echo of ancestral memory.

Energetic Matter2022052220220521 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new music exploring energetic states inspired by Afrofuturism, dharmic principles and quantum physics.

Leeds-based DJ and sound artist Nik Nak sent in a track from her debut album, Sankofa taking inspiration from Afrofuturism and comic book heroes. Entitled Doubt, through an initially foreboding, pressure cooker atmosphere, she creates a buzzing sound world that ‘whispers, sounding like swarms of locusts'. But, it's an immersive experience that shifts from the negativity of doubt to a state of peace and enlightenment.

In Barcelona, sound artist Reiko Yamada and physicist Maciej Lewenstein offer a glitching, multi-dimensional ride building on their interdisciplinary research and interest in quantum physics. Elsewhere in the programme, we head to Tokyo for a live performance from improvisers Tatsuya Yoshida and Risa Takeda. It's a voracious, drum and synth fuelled feat drawing from dharmic symbols to evoke the principles of irresistible force and indestructibility.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music exploring energetic states and quantum physics.

Leeds-based DJ and sound artist Nik Nak sent in a track from her debut album, Sankofa taking inspiration from Afrofuturism and comic book heroes. Entitled Doubt, through an initially foreboding, pressure cooker atmosphere, she creates a buzzing sound world that ‘whispers, sounding like swarms of locusts'. But, it's an immersive experience that shifts from the negativity of doubt to a state of peace and enlightenment.

Excavations20240211Corey Mwamba presents new music digging through history, memory and interspecies relations.

Bassist Ruth Goller plumbs the depths of her own recent experiences, pulling the pain of loss and fragments of feeling to the surface as part of a process of renewal. Rippling bass, siren songs and off-kilter percussion circle together to create a dystopian soundscape of survival.

Though waves of honking, futuristic, swing, the celebrated quartet, Ahmed - Pat Thomas, Joel Grip, Antonin Gerbal and Seymour Wright - continue their sonic conversations with the archives of Ahmed Abdul-Malik, the renowned double bassist and oud player whose work fused Middle Eastern and North African styles with jazz. Elsewhere, through field recordings, Ana Rodriguez and Robert Da Silva honour the musicality, labour and social importance of horses in the rural village of Curtina in Uruguay.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba with new music digging through history, memory and interspecies relations.

Corey Mwamba presents new music digging through history, memory and interspecies relations. Expect unfinished musical dialogue, unearthed memories, and rustic horse-hoof grooves.

Expanded Horizons20221120Corey Mwamba shares adventurous improvised music that expands the horizons of sound, including a new recording from Peter Rehberg on electronics and Reinhold Friedl playing the inside of a piano, plus Leo Chang and Lucie V퀀tkovက with amplified gongs and accordion performing at the Judson Memorial Church, New York.

Elsewhere in the show, sonic journeying from London-based cellist Ecka Mordecai's latest album, Promise & Illusion, expansive improvisations courtesy of Kaja Draksler and Susana Santos in duo, and a track from the recently-reissued 1962 album, The Eastern Moods Of Ahmed Abdul-Malik.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares adventurous improvised music that expands the horizons of sound.

Corey Mwamba shares adventurous improvised music that expands the horizons of sound, including a new recording from Peter Rehberg on electronics and Reinhold Friedl playing the inside of a piano, plus Leo Chang and Lucie Vítková with amplified gongs and accordion performing at the Judson Memorial Church, New York.

Festivity!2023042320230422 (R3)Corey Mwamba celebrates new improvised music including selections from artists performing at the 2023 Cheltenham International Jazz Festival.

Founded in 1996, the festival is an annual event that invites all genres of jazz onto its stages, welcoming both up-and-coming artists as well as renowned musicians. Offering a foretaste of what we can expect at this year's edition of the festival, we'll hear a piece from Deadeye, a group with a fresh perspective on the Hammond trio format, whose latest release is a live recording from their performance at the Cologne Jazzweek. And there'll be improvisations from the Norwegian septet led by drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, an ensemble which draw inspiration from Paal's experiences in Ethiopia and Brazil and his fascination with Malian and Senegalese traditions. Plus music from Black Top (who will be joined on stage in Cheltenham by saxophonist Xhosa Cole) as well as the ethereal sound of the trio Skylla, helmed by Ruth Goller with Lauren Kinsella and Alice Grant.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba offers a foretaste of the upcoming Cheltenham International Jazz Festival.

Free Music From Leeds2023082020230819 (R3)Corey Mwamba explores the improvised music scene in Leeds with the help of drummer Emil Karlsen. Plus a punk-infused session from Dali de Saint Paul's EP/64.

Our unfolding map of the UK's key free-music scenes continues. Last month, we heard from Huddersfield-based artist Maria Sappho on who and what makes her local cultural landscape so special; this month, we follow our improvised trail north to the city of Leeds, to which drummer Emil Karlsen relocated after leaving his country of origin, Norway. Karlsen is now a key part of the local music-making community and current custodian of the improvised music label Bead Records, founded in 1970. He tells us about his experiences with the vibrant Leeds scene and shares a previously unheard extract of a live set with John Butcher (saxophones) and Dominic Lash (double bass), recorded in July to celebrate the release of their latest album, Here and How.

Elsewhere, a track from the new album Letters To Milena by Ernesto Rodrigues (viola), Nuno Torres (alto saxophone), Guilherme Rodrigues (cello), Eric Bauer (electronics) and Stephen Flinn (percussion). Plus a recording from vocalist Dali de Saint Paul's EP/64 outfit, an epic project comprising 64 improvised live performances by musician/projectionist combos.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba explores the improvised music scene in Leeds with the help of Emil Karlsen.

Freewheeling2023052820230527 (R3)Corey Mwamba picks improvised music and free jazz that escapes categorisation, from oddball songs by the eccentric quartet Galut helmed by Alan Sondheim, to a fiery session from multi instrumentalist Sam Rivers's archives. Tenor saxophonist Paul Dunmall, meanwhile, joins forces with long-time collaborator and double bass player Olie Brice in The Laughing Stone, a new album of sparse textures and airy melodies released this month.

Elsewhere in the show, a track from the latest work of improvising trio Vaster Than Empires (Allen Otte, Erica Dicker, and Paul Schuette) hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio - playful recordings gathered during the summer of 2021 - and recently released music from Kodian Plus, a quintet composed of Charlotte Keeffe (trumpet, flugelhorn), Andrew Lisle (drums), Dirk Serries (electric guitar), Martina Verhoeven (piano) and Colin Webster (alto saxophone).

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba picks improvised music and free jazz that escapes categorisation.

Futurist Impulses2022082120220820 (R3)Saxophonist Steve Lehman collaborates with an international group, S退l退b退yone. The band features Gaston Bandimic and HPrizm representing underground hip-hop scenes from Senegal and New York respectively, alongside saxophonist Maciek Lasserre and drummer Damion Reid. The group's name means intersection in Wolof, and together, they conjure up a swirling vortex of free jazz and futuristic hip-hop, exploring mysticism and creativity.

Elsewhere, Berlin-based guitarist Amidea Clotet creates an immersive world of sonic exploration. Using the electric guitar as a source of sound amplification, she teases out surprising textures and soundscapes. And British cellist Shirley Smart and multi-instrumentalist James Arben continue their collaborations, joined here by percussionist Demi Garcia Sabat for breezy improvisations filled with glide and gust.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music, from futuristic hip-hop to microscopic guitar.

Saxophonist Steve Lehman collaborates with an international group, Sélébéyone. The band features Gaston Bandimic and HPrizm representing underground hip-hop scenes from Senegal and New York respectively, alongside saxophonist Maciek Lasserre and drummer Damion Reid. The group's name means intersection in Wolof, and together, they conjure up a swirling vortex of free jazz and futuristic hip-hop, exploring mysticism and creativity.

George Burt And Cl\u00edona Cassidy2020092020200919 (R3)
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Guitarist George Burt and singer Cl퀀ona Cassidy introduce their new record Rain Shadow, a mixture of folk-inspired songs and operatic improvised dreamscapes. Corey presents a track from the pianist Sylvie Courvoiser's new trio album, which takes angular be-bop themes and latin grooves and gives them a fresh modern spin. And there's warm oscillating electronics and vocal experiments from the Italian duo Ignacio C rdoba and Sara Persico.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Improvised dreamscapes of operatic and folk-inspired jazz.

Guitarist George Burt and singer Clíona Cassidy introduce their new record Rain Shadow, a mixture of folk-inspired songs and operatic improvised dreamscapes. Corey presents a track from the pianist Sylvie Courvoiser's new trio album, which takes angular be-bop themes and latin grooves and gives them a fresh modern spin. And there's warm oscillating electronics and vocal experiments from the Italian duo Ignacio Córdoba and Sara Persico.

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra2022010920220625 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares highlights from a joyful night of free-spirited improvisation at GIOfest, a festival organised by Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

This was their first in person gathering since the start of the pandemic; the players have been meeting online for nearly two years. Corey hosts from the stage of the CCA in Glasgow with highlights from the small groups - ensembles curated by Corey featuring members of the orchestra. Some players were familiar to each other, others were not, but each group came together for a memorable evening of spontaneous dialogue.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba shares highlights from a joyful night of improvisation at GIOfest.

Gwrth-git\u00e2r20191201Corey Mwamba explores ‘gwrth-git r', a term used by Welsh improviser Ash Cooke meaning ‘anti-guitar'. It seeks to explore new ways of using a traditional and universally familiar object to paint an alternative view of the world. It is unrehearsed, and leaves as much to chance as it does to the ability of the operator. Gwrth-git r is, in part, the answer to the question 'what else can this thing do?

Trumpets, electronics and drums combine to create rich glitchy and percussive textures on a new record by Tom Arthurs, Isambard Khroustaliov and Julian Sartorius. And there's a live recording of flautist Nicole Mitchell's ensemble performing on the mainstage at Saalfelden Jazz Festival in Austria.

Corey Mwamba explores 'gwrth-git\u00e2r', a term used by Ash Cooke meaning 'anti-guitar'.

Haunted Textures2022081420220813 (R3)
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Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music.

Damon Smith and Sarah Ruth Alexandra pay homage to the late bassist Ben Patterson with a special duo set inspired by a 1961 performance. A celebrated experimentalist, Patterson was one of the founders of the radical Fluxus movement.

Mexican group Cataratas del Niကgara - featuring double bassist and improviser, Adriana Camacho - create an evocative world of mysterious field recordings and distortion charged by electronics.

Elsewhere in the programme, a skronking, squalling collaboration from Dirk Serries, Cath Roberts and Tullis Rennie. Together they play with texture and space to beguiling effect.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music made with haunting textures.

Mexican group Cataratas del Niágara - featuring double bassist and improviser, Adriana Camacho - create an evocative world of mysterious field recordings and distortion charged by electronics.

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For almost six decades, Henry Threadgill has been an illustrious figure in post jazz. He is a core member of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a pioneering body both for forward-thinking music and a radical approach to education. Collaboration has been key to Threadgill's output, as evidenced by his work playing in and leading a raft of seminal bands including the trio Air, the nonet X-75, his own eponymous sextet and the adventurous Zooid. A Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Threadgill takes an incisive approach to creating musical systems in sound that allow for rich improvising and creative expression, and he makes work across a range of mediums, from painting and poetry to theatre.

Threadgill's new book, Easily Slip Into Another World, is a vivid memoir from a true polymath, and to mark its recent release he joins Corey Mwamba for reflections on improvising, composing, collectivity through sound, and nurturing creativity.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Henry Threadgill joins Corey Mwamba in conversation.

Legendary artist Henry Threadgill joins Corey Mwamba for illuminating reflections on improvising, composing, collectivity through sound and nurturing creativity.

How To Begin20230101Come take a cup of Freeness for the sake of auld lang syne! Corey Mwamba welcomes in the new year with free jazz fireworks and improvised music.

In a programme of beginnings, Corey considers the ways in which improvisers start out on a musical journey, and how openings set the tone for where a spontaneous piece of music will end up. Drummer Chloe Kim commits herself from the outset to clear, simple and strong ideas in an improvisation that nonetheless (and because of this) finds great variety and moments of surprise; and the piano trio of Denman Maroney, Denis Fournier and Scott Walton launch out in the upper registers of their instruments in a free-falling rhapsody that gently comes down to earth. We also hear improvised storytelling from Brooklyn bassoonist Joy Guidry, the weaving of a musical tale that begins with the shortest of opening motifs, a melodic fragment around which the solo takes shape.

Another way to begin comes with the seeking out of new spaces and acoustics in which to improvise, an approach favoured by Berlin-based cellist Guilherme Rodrigues, who takes his instrument into various churches around the city as part of a sound investigation process. The Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal, meanwhile, sets up a series of musical conditions and states from which his ensemble builds an unruly and exhilarating cacophony. And as the first-foot to enter the Radio 3 household in 2023, tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman brings good fortune in the form of an ecstatic take on a traditional melody.

Produced by Phil Smith

Imaginary Zones2023062520230624 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares improvised music and free jazz that opens up the rooms of our imaginations, from impromptu sessions recorded in dilapidated buildings to reverberating, droney textures.

Guitarist Chris Sharkey is joined by Matthew Bourne (synthesiser) and Luke Reddin-Williams (drums) for a rock-inspired sonic adventure captured guerrilla-style in abandoned spaces and secret locations across the North of England.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Italian-born drummer and percussionist Carlo Costa improvises with contrabass clarinettist John McCowen - the result is a hypnotising and ever-changing soundscape that invites us to lose track of time.

Plus a track from the new album Trim from the quartet comprising Dominic Lash (electric guitar), Rachel Musson (tenor saxophone), Phil Durrant (modular synth) and Steve Noble (drums, cymbals and percussion).

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares improvised music and free jazz to expand our imagination.

Imagist Visions20220130Corey Mwamba shares new music exploring the Anglo-American poetry movement of imagism.

Soprano singer Stephanie Lamprea collaborates with the composer Hannah Selin to bring to life the words of the 20th-century Imagist poet, HD Selin. Together, they create a swirling soundscape of electronic loops, sustained notes and layered coloratura vocalisations. Thought to be the one of the earliest double bass trios in the UK, the London Bass Trio - Marcio Mattos, Tony Wren and Mark Meggido - brought a novel and fervent approach to their instruments through adventurous improvisation and raucous live sets. Via a new re-release, we time travel back to a memorable performance of theirs from the late 1970s in London, to experience a sound so forceful that it was described by Melody Maker at the time as evoking ‘a whole battery of wind instruments'.

Also in the show, the Slovenian jazz guitarist and composer Samo Salamon playfully reimagines the music of one of his influences, the great saxophonist Eric Dolphy.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Soprano singer Stephanie Lamprea collaborates with the composer Hannah Selin to bring to life the words of the 20th-century Imagist poet, HD Selin. Together, they create a swirling soundscape of electronic loops, sustained notes and layered coloratura vocalisations. Thought to be the one of the earliest double bass trios in the UK, the London Bass Trio - Marcio Mattos, Tony Wren and Mark Meggido - brought a novel and fervent approach to their instruments through adventurous improvisation and raucous live sets. Via a new re-release, we time travel back to a memorable performance of theirs from the late 1970s in London, to experience a sound so forceful that it was described by Melody Maker at the time as evoking ‘a whole battery of wind instruments'.

Impressions2022100920221008 (R3)New music from New York-based artists Jessica Pavone, Lukas Koenig and Matt Mottel. The trio played together for the first time in 2019, the day after the death of their friend, the celebrated poet and artist Steve Dalachisnky. The result is an intensely glitching and grooving cathartic ride.

There's a return to a golden moment from the 1990s UK improvising scene by way of the Martinican-born vocalist and bassist, Francine Luce. Her debut release B  kay la vi-a featured an illustrious line-up of players who together conjure a sweltering, impressionistic swamp of subatomic sounds.

Elsewhere, Corey shares music from the late Pharoah Sanders, who died in September. A giant figure in the history of jazz, and a singular voice on saxophone, he leaves behind a rich legacy.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents impressionistic moments of new and classic improvisation.

There's a return to a golden moment from the 1990s UK improvising scene by way of the Martinican-born vocalist and bassist, Francine Luce. Her debut release Bò kay la vi-a featured an illustrious line-up of players who together conjure a sweltering, impressionistic swamp of subatomic sounds.

Improvising Across Five Continents2023043020230429 (R3)Established by UNESCO in 2011, International Jazz Day celebrates the heritage, future and impact of this art form, raising awareness of the need for intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding by bringing together artists and enthusiasts from all over the world. Marking this year's edition, Corey Mwamba shares improvised music from around the world, including explorations of Peruvian polyrhythms on cajon and electronics by Ale Hop and Laura Robles, and an ominous electro-acoustic piece from Irish musicians Fergus Kelly and David Lacey. Kurdish musician Khabat Abas, meanwhile, offers solo improvisations on the skin cello, an experimental instrument made from the combination of a drum skin and a cello; plus intricate drumming by Australian Will Guthrie.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

On International Jazz Day, Corey Mwamba celebrates improvised music from around the world.

In Flux2023082720230826 (R3)
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Corey Mwamba presents new music in states of flux.

Inspired by the Fluxus art movement, Darius Jones is joined by drummer Gerald Cleaver, violinists Jesse and Josh Zubot, cellist Peggy Lee and bassist James Mege for ‘suite but sacred' experimentations. The Fluxus philosophy was one that attempted to integrate art and life, critical processes and flow - here, Jones fuses visual art with performance, blending states through hedonistic visions of sound.

Elsewhere, sound artists Tobi Adebajo and petals use sound as a scrying device, tugging on ancestral chords, breath and ephemeral whispers. Through free play and English and Yoruba vocalise they invite listeners to tune into their ‘unbodies'. Plus, violinists Sana Nagano and Leonor Falcón offer an ebullient ode to Béla Bartók, their twin string instruments slipping and sliding around one other, generating a transcendent haze.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Elsewhere, sound artists Tobi Adebajo and petals use sound as a scrying device, tugging on ancestral chords, breath and ephemeral whispers. Through free play and English and Yoruba vocalese they invite listeners to tune into their ‘unbodies'. Plus, violinists Sana Nagano and Leonor Falcón offer an ebullient ode to Béla Bartók, their twin string instruments slipping and sliding around one other, generating a transcendent haze.

Inspired by the Fluxus art movement, Darius Jones is joined by drummer Gerald Cleaver, violinists Jesse and Josh Zubot, cellist Peggy Lee and bassist James Mege for ‘suite but sacred' experimentations. The Fluxus philosophy was one that attempted to integrate art and life, critical processes and flow - here, Jones fuses visual art with performance, blending states through hedonistic visions of sound.

Elsewhere, sound artists Tobi Adebajo and petals use sound as a scrying device, tugging on ancestral chords, breath and ephemeral whispers. Through free play and English and Yoruba vocalise they invite listeners to tune into their ‘unbodies'. Plus, violinists Sana Nagano and Leonor Falc n offer an ebullient ode to B退la Bart k, their twin string instruments slipping and sliding around one other, generating a transcendent haze.

Elsewhere, sound artists Tobi Adebajo and petals use sound as a scrying device, tugging on ancestral chords, breath and ephemeral whispers. Through free play and English and Yoruba vocalese they invite listeners to tune into their ‘unbodies'. Plus, violinists Sana Nagano and Leonor Falc n offer an ebullient ode to B退la Bart k, their twin string instruments slipping and sliding around one other, generating a transcendent haze.

Elsewhere, sound artists Tobi Adebajo and petals use sound as a scrying device, tugging on ancestral chords, breath and ephemeral whispers. Through free play and English and Yoruba vocalese, they invite listeners to tune into their ‘unbodies'. Plus, violinists Sana Nagano and Leonor Falcón offer an ebullient ode to Béla Bartók, their twin string instruments slipping and sliding around one other, generating a transcendent haze.

Corey Mwamba presents new music in states of flux, guided by visionary art movements, ephemeral whispers and Béla Bartók.

In Transit20220227Kim Macari presents new music exploring themes of movement from train journeys to the ways creative processes change us.

Belgian harpist Ann Eysermans has been fascinated with trains since her childhood, after riding from Antwerp to Ostend at the helm of a train. On her debut album, trains and the acoustic world of railways are transformed into musical instruments. Announcements on tannoys, billows of smoke and the gentle lurch of carriages departing from and arriving at stations - all these weld with the harp and synths to create an immersive locomotive sound journey. The Barcelona based pianist and composer Clara Lai offers a soundscape of quicksand-like rapid movement, rumbling horns and snapping percussion - a bustling meditation on the alchemic power of creative processes and the ebb and flow of life.

Plus, Leeds-based duo Teruki Chan (drums) and Theo Hayes (piano) fuse freewheeling improvisation with pre-written motifs to create animated sketches filled with dynamism and shifting tones.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Kim Macari presents new music exploring themes of movement.

Inner Rhythms20211107Corey Mwamba presents new music exploring creative freedom. Australian percussionist Abe Rounds presents music inspired by an old VHS film of his younger self aged four, expressing himself without inhibition. The film was sent to him by his father - the celebrated producer Victor Rounds. Tapping into those formative memories, he unleashes a joyful experience of kaleidoscopic percussion and rhythms drawing on his rich cultural heritages - he's mixed Polynesian, Sephardic Jew, Iraqi and Hungarian. Another artist looking inwards is saxophonist Catherine Sikora, who invites listeners to re-evaluate conventional ideas about strength and weakness, through extended tonal explorations. Elsewhere in the programme, opera singer Alya Al-Sultani and turntablist Mariam Rezaei join forces in a live performance that gives a new voice to Middle Eastern poetry, hip-hop and noise.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents adventurous percussion, tonal sax and a live set.

Jaimie Branch20211114Jaimie Branch and Corey Mwamba go back to back! Trumpeter and bandleader Jaimie Branch joins Corey ahead of her London Jazz Festival show with her critically acclaimed album, Fly or Die Live. Based in Brooklyn, Branch - also a producer and engineer - is a celebrated player and bandleader on the New York and Chicago scenes, known for her electric live shows and signature candescent tone on the trumpet. Here, she joins Corey and shares some of the inspiration behind her last album, her approach to improvisation, and music from artists who have influenced her playing.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

American bandleader and trumpeter Jaimie Branch goes back to back with Corey Mwamba.

Jason Nazary2022091820220917 (R3)Drummer Jason Nazary joins Freeness to talk about his musical journey - alongside the inspirations and approaches behind the recent release from his avant-garde duo with the late Jaimie Branch, Anteloper. On Pink Dolphins, the pair offer a psychedelic collision of sound worlds - from electronica, to sound system and hip hop textures - which find expression in the language of improvisation and subaquatic bass experiments.

Jaimie Branch passed away on 22nd August 2022. We pay tribute to this ebullient force in free and experimental music by revisiting Corey's interview with her from last year.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Jason Nazary reflects on his musical journey, plus a tribute to Jaimie Branch

Jason Nazary20220924Drummer Jason Nazary joins Freeness to talk about his musical journey - alongside the inspirations and approaches behind the recent release from his avant-garde duo with the late Jaimie Branch, Anteloper. On Pink Dolphins, the pair offer a psychedelic collision of sound worlds - from electronica, to sound system and hip hop textures - which find expression in the language of improvisation and subaquatic bass experiments.

Jaimie Branch passed away on 22nd August 2022. We pay tribute to this ebullient force in free and experimental music by revisiting Corey's interview with her from last year.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Jason Nazary reflects on his musical journey, plus a tribute to Jaimie Branch

Jason Nazary2022092520220924 (R3)Drummer Jason Nazary joins Freeness to talk about his musical journey - alongside the inspirations and approaches behind the recent release from his avant-garde duo with the late Jaimie Branch, Anteloper. On Pink Dolphins, the pair offer a psychedelic collision of sound worlds - from electronica, to sound system and hip hop textures - which find expression in the language of improvisation and subaquatic bass experiments.

Jaimie Branch passed away on 22nd August 2022. We pay tribute to this ebullient force in free and experimental music by revisiting Corey's interview with her from last year.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Jason Nazary reflects on his musical journey, plus a tribute to Jaimie Branch

Jessica Ackerley2022061220220611 (R3)Over the last decade the Hawai'i based, Canadian born guitarist Jessica Ackerley has established herself as a singular voice in improvised music. She garnered critical acclaim for her dexterous finger picking, her various collaborative projects, and her stripped back approach to harmonic, tonal and textural exploration. She reflects on letting go of inhibitions, her love for Jimi Hendrix and Jim Hall, and new music from her forthcoming project, SSWAN, featuring Patrick Shiroishi, Chris Williams, Luke Stewart and Jason Nazary.

Khimaira is a three headed monster: a lion head in front, a wild goat head on its back and a snake head at the end of its tail. The fantastical beast is brought to life through the eerie murmurations, unsettling howls and intense free play of the trio that shares its name.

Elsewhere in the programme; new solo music from Richard Scott who, amidst rich layers of analogue and modular synths, recreates the relational dynamism of playing in an ensemble.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music, and guitarist Jessica Ackerley talks about her process

Jo\u00eblle Leandre, Pauline Oliveros And George Lewis2021100320211002 (R3)
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Corey Mwamba presents a grand meeting of three luminaries in the fields of improvisation and the avant-garde. The group comprised French double bassist Joëlle Léandre who has been a key part of both free improvisation and contemporary classical music since the early 1980s; accordionist and vocalist Pauline Oliveros, a pioneering figure in late-20th-century experimental music and George Lewis, a leading academic for experimental music by black artists on trombone and electronics. The recording, called Play As You Go, was made by the national Czech radio station as part of the VS. Interpretation festival in Prague in 2014.

Plus there's melodic motifs from pianist Aki Takase and saxophonist Daniel Erdmann on a new release called Isn't It Romantic?

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents a grand meeting of three luminaries in the fields of improvisation and the avant-garde. The group comprised French double bassist Jo뀀lle L退andre who has been a key part of both free improvisation and contemporary classical music since the early 1980s; accordionist and vocalist Pauline Oliveros, a pioneering figure in late-20th-century experimental music and George Lewis, a leading academic for experimental music by black artists on trombone and electronics. The recording, called Play As You Go, was made by the national Czech radio station as part of the VS. Interpretation festival in Prague in 2014.

Joelle Leandre, Pauline Oliveros, And George Lewis2021100320211002 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents a grand meeting of three luminaries in the fields of improvisation and avant-garde. The group comprised of French double bassist Jo뀀lle L退andre who has been a key part of both free improvisation and contemporary classical music since the early 1980s; accordionist and vocalist Pauline Oliveros, a pioneering figure in late-20th-century experimental music and GEORGE LEWIS, a leading academic for experimental music by black artists on trombone and electronics. The recording, called Play As You Go, was made by the national Czech radio station as part of the VS. Interpretation festival in Prague in 2014.

Plus there's melodic motifs from pianist Aki Takase and saxophonist Daniel Erdmann on a new release called Isn't It Romantic?

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents a grand meeting of three luminaries in the fields of improvisation and avant-garde. The group comprised of French double bassist Jo?lle L?andre who has been a key part of both free improvisation and contemporary classical music since the early 1980s; accordionist and vocalist Pauline Oliveros, a pioneering figure in late-20th-century experimental music and GEORGE LEWIS, a leading academic for experimental music by black artists on trombone and electronics. The recording, called Play As You Go, was made by the national Czech radio station as part of the VS. Interpretation festival in Prague in 2014.

Plus there's melodic motifs from pianist Aki Takase and saxophonist Daniel Erdmann on a new release called Isn?t It Romantic?

Landscape Interplay2023101520231014 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised interactions with a variety of environments, from a conversation between voice and wind to the sound of seeds popping in the heat of Wanstead Flats, London, plus a sound poem by the duo Blanc Sceol.

The collaborative project of Hannah White and Stephen Shiell, Blanc Sceol has just released a new album entitled Follow Your Ears. It's a project rooted in the pair's deep listening practice and involves the weaving-together of field recordings and improvisations on amplified objects, voice and waterphone. With a preview of his forthcoming album I Was Too Young To Hear Silence comes saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, meanwhile, who treats us to a long solo improvisation recorded late at night inside the cavernous parking structure below a hotpot restaurant in Monterey Park, California, a place he defines as “a vacant space for a new kind of collaboration - between saxophone and silence, between noise and reverberation. ?

Elsewhere in the show, we listen to a track that Estonian-Latvian avant garde vocalist, eleOnora sent in via the Freeness inbox. Taken from her new album Tuulajamuud, the piece captures the spontaneous interaction between eleOnora and the wind blowing through some pipes, somewhere outside, at a location she says she's now forgotten.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised interactions with a variety of environments, from a conversation between voice and wind to the sound of seeds popping.

The collaborative project of Hannah White and Stephen Shiell, Blanc Sceol has just released a new album entitled Follow Your Ears. It's a project rooted in the pair's deep listening practice and involves the weaving-together of field recordings and improvisations on amplified objects, voice and waterphone. With a preview of his forthcoming album I Was Too Young To Hear Silence comes saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, meanwhile, who treats us to a long solo improvisation recorded late at night inside the cavernous parking structure below a hotpot restaurant in Monterey Park, California, a place he defines as `a vacant space for a new kind of collaboration - between saxophone and silence, between noise and reverberation.??

The collaborative project of Hannah White and Stephen Shiell, Blanc Sceol has just released a new album entitled Follow Your Ears. It's a project rooted in the pair's deep listening practice and involves the weaving-together of field recordings and improvisations on amplified objects, voice and waterphone. With a preview of his forthcoming album I Was Too Young To Hear Silence comes saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, meanwhile, who treats us to a long solo improvisation recorded late at night inside the cavernous parking structure below a hotpot restaurant in Monterey Park, California, a place he defines as `a vacant space for a new kind of collaboration - between saxophone and silence, between noise and reverberation.`

Landscape Symphonies2022020620220220 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents music inspired by different environments. Brooklyn based saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock's latest offering is a piece originally aired at the BBC's Tectonics Glasgow 2021 online festival. A kaleidoscope of accordion, drums and electronics, which creates a shapeshifting bed for field recordings made on long bike rides, which meld alongside air conditioner hums, ice cream vans, power stations and other found sounds.

Producer Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer recorded late night boat and bike rides through the Åland archipelago in the Baltic Sea under the soft glow of a baleful midnight sun. On their record, they merge these panoramic soundscapes with improvisations on modular synth, viola, piano and hand chimes. Bassist Petter Eldh celebrates his roots in the west coast of Sweden, paying homage to coastline flowers, popular oyster snacks and traditional folk music. Here, thunderous bass and melodic saxophone riffs sweep and swirl around iridescent vocals from the Ethiopian-Swedish artist, Sofia Jernberg to animate these odes to their homeland.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Kim Macari sits in with music inspired by different environments. Brooklyn-based saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock's latest offering is a piece originally aired at the BBC's Tectonics Glasgow 2021 online festival. A kaleidoscope of accordion, drums and electronics that create a shapeshifting bed for field recordings made on long bike rides, which meld alongside air conditioner hums, ice cream vans, power stations and other found sounds.

Producer Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer recorded late night boat and bike rides through the A?land archipelago in the Baltic Sea under the soft glow of a baleful midnight sun. On their record, they merge these panoramic soundscapes with improvisations on modular synth, viola, piano and hand chimes. Bassist Petter Eldh celebrates his roots in the west coast of Sweden, paying homage to coastline flowers, popular oyster snacks and traditional folk music. Here, thunderous bass and melodic saxophone riffs sweep and swirl around iridescent vocals from the Ethiopian-Swedish artist, Sofia Jernberg to animate these odes to their homeland.

Liberation Music20220123The Universal Liberation Orchestra was formed in the late 70s, taking on various formations until two members remained: brothers River and TOM SMITH. Making what they called ‘liberation music', which they describe as music to help us realise the “possibilities available for all of us ?, they render their expansive visions through the light and shade of psychedelic folk-rock and reflective instrumentation. The Nigerian-British producer and singer-songwriter Klein offers a soulful collage of audio samples, distortions, drone and paired down piano solos to bring to life the harmattan winds of West Africa and connected vignettes of experiences in the UK and Nigeria. Also in the show, new music from a Norway-based improvised music trio comprising pianist Emilio Mendonça, double bassist Celio Barros and drummer Marcio Gibson. The only recording made to date by the trio, it's a three-way exchange that swells and wanes through waves of in-the-moment expression.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba shares a re-release of 1980s 'liberation music' and an audio collage work.

The Universal Liberation Orchestra was formed in the late 70s, taking on various formations until two members remained: brothers River and TOM SMITH. Making what they called ‘liberation music', which they describe as music to help us realise the `possibilities available for all of us??, they render their expansive visions through the light and shade of psychedelic folk-rock and reflective instrumentation. The Nigerian-British producer and singer-songwriter Klein offers a soulful collage of audio samples, distortions, drone and paired down piano solos to bring to life the harmattan winds of West Africa and connected vignettes of experiences in the UK and Nigeria. Also in the show, new music from a Norway-based improvised music trio comprising pianist Emilio Mendon瀀a, double bassist Celio Barros and drummer Marcio Gibson. The only recording made to date by the trio, it's a three-way exchange that swells and wanes through waves of in-the-moment expression.

The Universal Liberation Orchestra was formed in the late 70s, taking on various formations until two members remained: brothers River and Tom Smith. Making what they called ‘liberation music', which they describe as music to help us realise the `possibilities available for all of us`, they render their expansive visions through the light and shade of psychedelic folk-rock and reflective instrumentation. The Nigerian-British producer and singer-songwriter Klein offers a soulful collage of audio samples, distortions, drone and paired down piano solos to bring to life the harmattan winds of West Africa and connected vignettes of experiences in the UK and Nigeria. Also in the show, new music from a Norway-based improvised music trio comprising pianist Emilio Mendon瀀a, double bassist Celio Barros and drummer Marcio Gibson. The only recording made to date by the trio, it's a three-way exchange that swells and wanes through waves of in-the-moment expression.

London Improvises20231112Corey Mwamba shares music from artists playing at the EFG London Jazz Festival, plus free jazz from Chicago and a new track from a quintet helmed by AMM's Eddie Prévost with Binker Golding (saxophones), Henry Kaiser and N. O. Moore (guitars) and Olie Brice (double bass).

Now in its thirty-first edition, the EFG London Jazz Festival will take place at over seventy venues from the 10th to the 19th of November, bringing to the stage a wide variety of music from across the jazz spectrum. Broadcast during the first weekend of the festival, this episode of Freeness shines a light on the more experimental talents featured in the line-up, including Irreversible Entanglements, Juno 3 (Han-earl Park, Lara Jones, Pat Thomas) and Adjunct Ensemble.

Elsewhere in the show, we hear a track from the reissue of 2001's Masses, a collaborative album made by East London duo Spring Heel Jack together with a group of improvisers drawn from the contemporary UK and New York scenes. Plus we've an extract from a recent live performance by Kemetic Tapestries, the supergroup of David Boykin and Eliel Sherman Storey (saxophones), Nicole Mitchell (flutes), Zahra Baker (vocals), Jeff Parker (guitar), Josh Abrams and Darius Savage (basses), Avreeayl Ra (drums) and Lawrence Jones (percussion).

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares music from artists playing at the EFG London Jazz Festival.

Corey Mwamba shares music from artists playing at the EFG London Jazz Festival, plus free jazz from Chicago and a new track from a quintet helmed by AMM's drummer Eddie Prévost.

Corey Mwamba shares music from artists playing at the EFG London Jazz Festival, plus free jazz from Chicago and a new track from a quintet helmed by AMM's Eddie Pr退vost with Binker Golding (saxophones), Henry Kaiser and N. O. Moore (guitars) and Olie Brice (double bass).

Long Distance Improv2022061920220618 (R3)The Oxford Improvisers came together online from different locations in 2021, to create a space of collaboration and dialogue in a piece called Between, a reflection of the physical distances between players. Here, they weave a world of ever emergent textures and terrains, filled with quiet sliding doors and rousing cacophonies.

Trio Eris 136199 - Catherine Sikora, Han-earl Park and Nick Didkovsky - mark their 10th anniversary with a long-distance improvisational collage, bringing new life to a performance originally recorded in Derby in 2017. Each player recorded a new part resulting in tectonic shifts, extraterrestrial buzzing and clandestine whispers across time. As Nick Didkovsky notes, “It's like peering into a parallel universe and listening to what Eris in that world sounds like. ?

Elsewhere in the programme we hear a piece of rich and expansive improvising from a custodian of Shona culture, the late Zimbabwean master mbira player Dumisani Maraire. A committed ethnomusicologist, he created a new notation system for the instrument, and championed Zimbabwean music around the world.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music made through long distance collaborations.

Trio Eris 136199 - Catherine Sikora, Han-earl Park and Nick Didkovsky - mark their 10th anniversary with a long-distance improvisational collage, bringing new life to a performance originally recorded in Derby in 2017. Each player recorded a new part resulting in tectonic shifts, extraterrestrial buzzing and clandestine whispers across time. As Nick Didkovsky notes, `It's like peering into a parallel universe and listening to what Eris in that world sounds like.??

Trio Eris 136199 - Catherine Sikora, Han-earl Park and Nick Didkovsky - mark their 10th anniversary with a long-distance improvisational collage, bringing new life to a performance originally recorded in Derby in 2017. Each player recorded a new part resulting in tectonic shifts, extraterrestrial buzzing and clandestine whispers across time. As Nick Didkovsky notes, `It's like peering into a parallel universe and listening to what Eris in that world sounds like.`

Lost Relic20211212Corey Mwamba presents classic and contemporary improvised music. A quartet comprising New York-based musicians Mat Maneri and Tanya Kalmanovitch, alongside Copenhageners Tomo Jacobson and Kresten Osgood, experiment with what they call ‘non-particularity', a mode of collective expression in service of finding a unified voice. An unusual combination of two violas, double bass and drums, the group offer a gauzy haze of layered strings and tones that rumble and buzz, through their self-fashioned language of ‘chamber free improv'.

Another unique formation, Skin and Bone are a trio of drummers from Derby. The group sent in a live, rollicking tribute to the Dubrek, a crucial music venue and studio space frequented by many creative communities in the region that is facing demolition for new developments. Elsewhere in the programme, we head back to a heyday period of free playing the mid-sixties via the John Handy Quintet where heritage jazz meets orchestral breaks and spontaneous moments of expansion.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents classic and contemporary improvised music. A quartet comprising New York-based musicians Mat Maneri and Tanya Kalmanovitch, alongside Copenhageners Tomo Jacobson and Kresten Osgood, experiment with what they call ‘non-particularity', a mode of collective expression in service of finding a unified voice. An unusual combination of two violas, double bass and drums, the group offer a gauzy haze of layered strings and tones that rumble and buzz, through their self-fashioned language of ‘chamber free improv'.

Luminous Interactions20230108Corey Mwamba picks a glowing selection of new free jazz and improvised music, featuring the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra performing at their home city's Centre for Contemporary Arts, and a track from violinist Biliana Voutchkova and artist Jeff Surak, the results of their open-air sessions in the streets of Berlin. Also, with a deep and luminous sound emanating from Finland, the recently-formed sexted Muumiot warm the spirits during these cold winter nights with a piece taken from their debut album Gau Ri Laa.

Elsewhere in the show, we hear legendary improviser Evan Parker combine forces with Henry Dagg and his Stage Cage, a new electronic instrument that generates its own sounds as well as processing the notes of Parker's soprano saxophone in real time. Plus a track from the forthcoming release of Japanese musicians Kawashima Makoto and Mochizuki Harutaka and French lapsteel player Michel Henritzi, who collaborated remotely in 2021 to create poignant lines inspired by Georg Trakl's poem, Nocturnal Song, their music an antidote to the darkness.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba picks a glowing selection of new free jazz and improvised music.

Matana Roberts20231119Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Matana Roberts joins the programme to share how they listen to history as a personal and artistic practice: “If people really listened, some of the things that we are currently experiencing wouldn't be happening. You can look at the rhythm of a moment in history and understand the layers that push things to a certain point. That's how I listen to history.

Their newest release is Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden - ., an immersive world of poetic witnessing, interwoven folk songs, blues, and improvisation. It's the latest addition of their Coin Coin project - a long song of America, refracted through prisms of familial stories, archival research and collective memories stored in sound. This chapter explores the story of a woman in their ancestral line who died following complications from an illegal abortion, through which they ask broader questions around reproductive justice and bodily autonomy today: “I'm trying to be in the chain link of artists who are trying to create work that is a testament to a lineage and a culture.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Matana Roberts talks about their latest album, and how they 'listen' to history.

Matana Roberts talks about their latest album, and how they 'listen' to history, through sonic memory, somatic healing and paying attention to the cycles of the past.

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Matana Roberts joins the programme to share how they listen to history as a personal and artistic practice: `If people really listened, some of the things that we are currently experiencing wouldn't be happening. You can look at the rhythm of a moment in history and understand the layers that push things to a certain point. That's how I listen to history.

Their newest release is Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden - ., an immersive world of poetic witnessing, interwoven folk songs, blues, and improvisation. It's the latest addition of their Coin Coin project - a long song of America, refracted through prisms of familial stories, archival research and collective memories stored in sound. This chapter explores the story of a woman in their ancestral line who died following complications from an illegal abortion, through which they ask broader questions around reproductive justice and bodily autonomy today: `I'm trying to be in the chain link of artists who are trying to create work that is a testament to a lineage and a culture.

Meditative States2022052920220528 (R3)Guitarist Tashi Dorji joined forces with drummer Susie Ibarra back in 2019 for an exhibition exploring the life and teachings of 8th century Indian Buddhist master, Padmasambhava. Believed to have brought Buddhism to Tibet, his philosophies included beliefs around self-transformation, impermanence, and the nonlinear nature of time. Here, the duo conjure shapeshifting transmutations that stretch and evolve with shades of dark and light.

New York-based pianist Lucian Ban, known for his work blending Transylvanian folk music and European classical music with improvisation, is back with his first unaccompanied solo album. Recorded in his native Transylvania in a grand hall on a B怀sendorfer piano, it's an offering of tonal quietude, washing over in gentle waves, and a snapshot into his contention that `improvisation is just composition in real time??.

Elsewhere, we dive into the subtle ferocity of cellist Tomeka Reid, guitarist Joe Morris, cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and exquisite vocal work from Kyoko Kitamura. A foursome playing with texture, pitch, and daring presence.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music

New York-based pianist Lucian Ban, known for his work blending Transylvanian folk music and European classical music with improvisation, is back with his first unaccompanied solo album. Recorded in his native Transylvania in a grand hall on a B怀sendorfer piano, it's an offering of tonal quietude, washing over in gentle waves, and a snapshot into his contention that `improvisation is just composition in real time`.

New York-based pianist Lucian Ban, known for his work blending Transylvanian folk music and European classical music with improvisation, is back with his first unaccompanied solo album. Recorded in his native Transylvania in a grand hall on a Bösendorfer piano, it's an offering of tonal quietude, washing over in gentle waves, and a snapshot into his contention that “improvisation is just composition in real time ?.

Meetings And Meldings2022021220230212 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents sounds from the adventurous ends of improvised music, with debut releases from new jazz formations as well as the latest from more long-standing ensembles.

Entering their sixth decade, Art Ensemble of Chicago certainly counts as the latter. Conjurors of a musical magic that reaches both forward and back in time, the members of the collective offer up their trademark blend of freewheeling compositions and improvised percussion-heavy textures in their latest record, recorded at the 2020 edition of the Sons d'hiver festival at the Maison des arts de Cr退teil in France. Closer to home, the Leeds-based Mu Quintet bring an avant-garde fire and horn-led lyricism to their first record of original compositions and studio improvisations. And there's also the chance to hear a taste of the forthcoming album from Tomas Fujiwara's sextet Triple Double, a band featuring some of New York's finest improvisers at their dynamic best.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba with adventurous new jazz formations and esteemed improvising ensembles.

Entering their sixth decade, Art Ensemble of Chicago certainly counts as the latter. Conjurors of a musical magic that reaches both forward and back in time, the members of the collective offer up their trademark blend of freewheeling compositions and improvised percussion-heavy textures in their latest record, recorded at the 2020 edition of the Sons d'hiver festival at the Maison des arts de Créteil in France. Closer to home, the Leeds-based Mu Quintet bring an avant-garde fire and horn-led lyricism to their first record of original compositions and studio improvisations. And there's also the chance to hear a taste of the forthcoming album from Tomas Fujiwara's sextet Triple Double, a band featuring some of New York's finest improvisers at their dynamic best.

Mesmerising Performances20211121Corey Mwamba shares forgotten archive recordings of performances from the iconic Glasgow cultural venue, the Third Eye, now known as CCA. Part of an online project called Jazz At The Third Eye led by writer and researcher Stewart Smith, which is restoring old performances, and commissioning contemporary artists to respond to the collections. Elsewhere in the programme, we hear a freewheeling intimate set from multi-instrumentalist trio Kalul退, Shipsey and Cicone played in a London park at dusk amid birdsong and long grass to a live audience. Plus, a hypnotic live set from The Geordie Approach - a collaboration between British player Chris Sharkey on electronics and Norwegian artists St倀le Birkeland on drums and Petter Frost Fadnes on alto saxophone and electronics. The trio played at SuperDeluxe, a hub for experimental music in Tokyo, alongside the virtuoso koto player Michiyo Yagi, it's a masterful example of deep listening in real time and the joy of live music.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba shares new and archival performances from around the world.

Corey Mwamba shares forgotten archive recordings of performances from the iconic Glasgow cultural venue, the Third Eye, now known as CCA. Part of an online project called Jazz At The Third Eye led by writer and researcher Stewart Smith, which is restoring old performances, and commissioning contemporary artists to respond to the collections. Elsewhere in the programme, we hear a freewheeling intimate set from multi-instrumentalist trio Kalul?, Shipsey and Cicone played in a London park at dusk amid birdsong and long grass to a live audience. Plus, a hypnotic live set from The Geordie Approach - a collaboration between British player Chris Sharkey on electronics and Norwegian artists St?le Birkeland on drums and Petter Frost Fadnes on alto saxophone and electronics. The trio played at SuperDeluxe, a hub for experimental music in Tokyo, alongside the virtuoso koto player Michiyo Yagi, it's a masterful example of deep listening in real time and the joy of live music.

Corey Mwamba shares forgotten archive recordings of performances from the iconic Glasgow cultural venue, the Third Eye, now known as CCA. Part of an online project called Jazz At The Third Eye led by writer and researcher Stewart Smith, which is restoring old performances, and commissioning contemporary artists to respond to the collections. Elsewhere in the programme, we hear a freewheeling intimate set from multi-instrumentalist trio Kalulé, Shipsey and Cicone played in a London park at dusk amid birdsong and long grass to a live audience. Plus, a hypnotic live set from The Geordie Approach - a collaboration between British player Chris Sharkey on electronics and Norwegian artists Ståle Birkeland on drums and Petter Frost Fadnes on alto saxophone and electronics. The trio played at SuperDeluxe, a hub for experimental music in Tokyo, alongside the virtuoso koto player Michiyo Yagi, it's a masterful example of deep listening in real time and the joy of live music.

Mingus At 1002022041720220416 (R3)Corey Mwamba celebrates CHARLES MINGUS, 100 years after his birth, sharing the most adventurous records from across his decades-long career. A landmark American jazz double bassist, pianist, composer, and bandleader, his landmark releases included Mingus Ah Um, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady and Mingus Plays Piano. A central figure in the development of 20th-century music, Corey plays tribute to his enduring legacy of inventiveness and creativity.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba celebrates CHARLES MINGUS, 100 years after his birth.

Miniature Movements2023092420230923 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents improvised miniatures that make maximal sounds.

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music.

Turkish duo Fulya U瀀anok and Zeynep Ay?e Hatipo?lu create a series of miniature pieces offering bodily, in-the-moment responses that generate maximal sounds full of space and scurrying movement. Elsewhere, C退cile Broch退, Russ Lossing and Satoshi Takeishi use subtle turns of sound to pull us into the bustle of Parisian streets. Through short vignettes, they reenact sunsets, the cavernous echoes of subways and, somehow, even the warm glow of ovens in a bakery.

Plus, Abe Mamet leads a luminous big band who had spent a month making music together in Italy, featuring Rahul Carlberg, Adriana Camacho, Luisa Muhr, Emily Shapiro, fall raye, Rachel Musson, Daniel Carter and Gary Jones III. And, taking self-made improvisations as a base, sound artist Seventh Shadow of the Sun builds otherworldly structures infused with the kinetic force of tiny electron particles.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Turkish duo Fulya Uçanok and Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu create a series of miniature pieces offering bodily, in-the-moment responses that generate maximal sounds full of space and scurrying movement. Elsewhere, Cécile Broché, Russ Lossing and Satoshi Takeishi use subtle turns of sound to pull us into the bustle of Parisian streets. Through short vignettes, they reenact sunsets, the cavernous echoes of subways and, somehow, even the warm glow of ovens in a bakery.

Mixed-ability Improvisation With Maggie Nicols2021080120210731 (R3)Corey Mwamba talks to vocalist Maggie Nicols about her long-running improvisation meet-up, The Gathering, and her new solo album, Creative Contradiction: Poetry, Story, Song and Sound. Starting in 1991, The Gathering is an invitation for anyone interested in free improvisation to come along and take part in a 90-minute experience guided by the principle that you use your skills and experience to create group excellence.

Plus, there's frenetic high energy from American saxophonist and bandleader Jean Toussaint on his 1992 album What Goes Around; and on a new release by Adam Morford and Anne Lanzilotti, a metal sound sculpture that looks like a giant cow-bell with springs and wires attached is joined by analogue tape loops, viola and guitar to create a doom-laden sound world.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey talks to vocalist Maggie Nicols about her improvisation meet-up, The Gathering.

Moment's Notice20240310Corey Mwamba presents new freewheeling music plus guest George Nelson shares his love of improvisation.

Alongside his work as a photographer, author and lecturer, Nelson is the curator of Moment's Notice, an improvised music series that takes place in London. With each edition, he invites five musicians to play in duo and trio formats, before joining in a collective ensemble at the end of the night. Key to Moment's Notice is the desire to bring into spontaneous collaboration musicians who might not have played together or met before. George describes the nights as an artistic challenge for the musicians, and, most importantly, a space where the work of listening is a shared practice between artists and the audience. He joins the show to share some of his favourite free music and his quest to tease out new possibilities in improvisation.

Elsewhere in the programme, we step into funk-filled reverie of 'chromatic magic', otherworldly harmonies and off-kilter rhythms by way of Meshell Ndegeocello, who leads a group dedicated to the music and philosophies of Sun Ra. Plus, bassoonist Joy Guidry injects Max Roach's classic Members Don't Git Weary with fresh baptismal fervour.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new freewheeling music, and George Nelson shares his love of improv.

Corey Mwamba presents new freewheeling music. Plus guest George Nelson - curator of the London-based night Moment's Notice - joins the show to share his love of improvisation.

Monuments20220116Corey Mwamba presents live sets performed in, and reflecting on, old monuments in Russia and France, plus Latin American-inspired psychedelia.

We hear a live set from The Urge Trio - saxophonists Keefe Jackson and Christopher Erb, alongside cellist Tomeka Reid - performing at the Masterskaya Anikushina community arts venue in St Petersburg, Russia. Here, they explore different facets of heroism, as inspired by the statues of 20th-century Russian revolutionaries through deep listening and subtle gestures. Another live set comes from Jo뀀lle L退andre at the 2020 Souillac en Jazz festival in France, just before her seventieth birthday. It's a stunning solo performance filled with vigour and light-bending grit, in the atmospheric surrounds of a church marked as an historic site predating the 17th century. Also in the programme, we dive into the ‘electric experimental assemblage' world of the Canada-based Commander Gonzales, a project led by saxophonist Mark Allwood and drummer Paul Ciuk: expect Latin American polyrhythms and avant-garde psychedelia.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents live sets performed in, and reflecting on, old monuments.

We hear a live set from The Urge Trio - saxophonists Keefe Jackson and Christopher Erb, alongside cellist Tomeka Reid - performing at the Masterskaya Anikushina community arts venue in St Petersburg, Russia. Here, they explore different facets of heroism, as inspired by the statues of 20th-century Russian revolutionaries through deep listening and subtle gestures. Another live set comes from Joëlle Léandre at the 2020 Souillac en Jazz festival in France, just before her seventieth birthday. It's a stunning solo performance filled with vigour and light-bending grit, in the atmospheric surrounds of a church marked as an historic site predating the 17th century. Also in the programme, we dive into the ‘electric experimental assemblage' world of the Canada-based Commander Gonzales, a project led by saxophonist Mark Allwood and drummer Paul Ciuk: expect Latin American polyrhythms and avant-garde psychedelia.

New Beginnings20220102Pianist and poet Robert Mitchell and cellist Shirley Smart continue their creative partnership: a quest in parts to recover and explore improvisation in Western classical music whilst melding it with other musical forms. Here they reflect on new ways of seeing and remembering through a track inspired by dappled sunlight dancing on an opal ring given to Smart by her grandmother. The Boston-based South Korean pianist Eunhye Jeong offers a sparse and charged study of new possibilities. Filled with different tonal registers, she creates a world of dynamic textures that glitter and crash: an apt soundtrack to new beginnings and shifts in perspective. Plus, we travel back in time to the 1984 Jazz Jamboree in Poland for a performance featuring an all-star lineup including Cecil Taylor, Tomasz Stańko, Jimmy and Karen Lyons, and William Parker. A meeting of artists from across the world, it's a truly golden moment of transcendence. Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents music to soundtrack new beginnings and shifts in perspective.

Pianist and poet Robert Mitchell and cellist Shirley Smart continue their creative partnership: a quest in parts to recover and explore improvisation in Western classical music whilst melding it with other musical forms. Here they reflect on new ways of seeing and remembering through a track inspired by dappled sunlight dancing on an opal ring given to Smart by her grandmother. The Boston-based South Korean pianist Eunhye Jeong offers a sparse and charged study of new possibilities. Filled with different tonal registers, she creates a world of dynamic textures that glitter and crash: an apt soundtrack to new beginnings and shifts in perspective. Plus, we travel back in time to the 1984 Jazz Jamboree in Poland for a performance featuring an all-star lineup including Cecil Taylor, Tomasz Sta?ko, Jimmy and Karen Lyons, and William Parker. A meeting of artists from across the world, it's a truly golden moment of transcendence. Produced by Tej Adeleye

New Frontiers2022040320220402 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents improvised music exploring new frontiers in outer space, technology and language. UK trumpeter Nick Walters's piercing horn meets inventive loops and NASA audio samples from space exploration missions. Here, he draws on unresolved mysteries of outer space, pulling listeners into the centre of black holes and an infant universe freshly reeling from the Big Bang.

British duo Moses Boyd and Binker Golding extend their collaborative partnership to include producer Max Luthert as they venture to more electronic planes for their new album, Feed The Machine. Their improvisational dialogue moves with heightened velocity through modular synth and ambient, minimalist touches.

Also in the programme, travel back in time to the 1970s in Ireland, via the archives of the former Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory, an experimental project founded in the mid-1960s by Jacinta Delaney and Eoghan Comerford bringing together cutting-edge technologies, sound studies, early years studies and linguistic research.

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3 -

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music exploring new frontiers.

Nicole Mitchell And Alexander Hawkins At Newcastle Festival Of Jazz And Improvised Music2022112720230415 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents an improvised performance from flautist Nicole Mitchell and pianist Alexander Hawkins in duo, specially recorded for Freeness at this year's Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music.

Founder of the Black Earth Ensemble, and the first woman president of Chicago's legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Mitchell is an American flautist and composer known for her work across free jazz and new music. At this year's edition of the Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, she joined forces with British piano virtuoso Alexander Hawkins to deliver an inventive and critically-acclaimed performance at the city's Lit & Phil Library.

The Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, which took place over the first weekend of October, is an eagerly anticipated annual celebration of adventurous music from around the world. Since 2017, it has showcased new talent alongside established names on the scene, and elsewhere in the show, Corey selects highlights from other artists who appeared at the 2022 edition.

Produced by Tej Adeleye and Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents an improvised performance from flautist Nicole Mitchell and pianist Alexander Hawkins in duo, specially recorded for Freeness at the Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music in 2022.

Nina At 9020230219Corey Mwamba presents new music from bass clarinettist Aviva Endean and UK ensemble Union Division, plus 90th birthday reflections on Nina Simone.

Marking her 90th birthday and twenty years since her passing, this week we celebrate Nina Simone. A trailblazing artist, composer and live improviser, she defined her artistry as black classical music, and we'll dive into some of the lesser-known recordings of Simone in full musical flight. Though her work and message continue to offer ongoing directives and reflections on creative and social freedom, honouring her memory would be incomplete without acknowledging the exploitation she was vocal about throughout her life, and Corey explores some of the questions that her words and her music bring forth today alongside a personal tribute from Philadelphia-based writer Jordannah Elizabeth.

Also on the show, the Australian bass clarinettist Aviva Endean takes her cue from nature's whispers - the beating of a moth's wing or the pulsating stillness of a night sky. Using archival recording and experiments in pitch, she crafts an intuitive world of cool reprieve and intimate listening. Elsewhere in the programme, new music from British supergroup Union Division who orchestrate an egalitarian world of synchronised signals and regenerative possibilities.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music and celebrates Nina Simone's 90th birthday.

Corey Mwamba presents new music from bass clarinettist Aviva Endean, and UK ensemble Union Division, plus 90th birthday reflections on Nina Simone.

Marking her 90th birthday and twenty years since her passing, this week we celebrate Nina Simone. A trailblazing artist, composer and live improviser, she defined her artistry as black classical music, and we'll dive into some of the lesser-known recordings of Simone in full musical flight. Though her work and message continue to offer ongoing directives and reflections on creative and social freedom, honouring her memory would be incomplete without acknowledging the exploitation she was vocal about throughout her life, and Corey explores some of the questions that her words and her music bring forth today.

Also on the show, the Australian bass clarinettist Aviva Endean takes her cue from nature's whispers - the beating of a moth's wing or the pulsating stillness of a night sky. Using archival recording and experiments in pitch, she crafts an intuitive world of cool reprieve and intimate listening. Elsewhere in the programme, new music from British supergroup Union Division, who orchestrate an egalitarian world of synchronised signals and regenerative possibilities.

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music, and celebrates Nina Simone's 90th birthday.

Olie Brice20221113Ahead of his octet's London Jazz Festival date, bassist Olie Brice shares music by two composer-improvisers who have inspired his recent work for large ensemble. In the music of American saxophonist Julius Hemphill, Brice finds a distinctive and direct approach to combining written polyphony with uncompromising improvisation, while the Johnny Dyani Quartet's landmark recordings have helped to shape how he seeks to balance intensity and playfulness. Elsewhere in the show, Corey Mwamba showcases some of the other adventurous musicians on this year's London Jazz Festival billing, including a trio of saxophonists: US legend ANTHONY BRAXTON, the visionary `sound-quilter?? Matana Roberts, and rising UK star Xhosa Cole.

Olie Brice shares musical inspirations ahead of his octet's London Jazz Festival date.

Ahead of his octet's London Jazz Festival date, bassist Olie Brice shares music by two composer-improvisers who have inspired his recent work for large ensemble. In the music of American saxophonist Julius Hemphill, Brice finds a distinctive and direct approach to combining written polyphony with uncompromising improvisation, while the Johnny Dyani Quartet's landmark recordings have helped to shape how he seeks to balance intensity and playfulness. Elsewhere in the show, Corey Mwamba showcases some of the other adventurous musicians on this year's London Jazz Festival billing, including a trio of saxophonists: US legend Anthony Braxton, the visionary `sound-quilter` Matana Roberts, and rising UK star Xhosa Cole.

Olie Brice 20221113Ahead of his octet's London Jazz Festival date, bassist Olie Brice shares music by two composer-improvisers who have inspired his recent work for large ensemble. In the music of American saxophonist Julius Hemphill, Brice finds a distinctive and direct approach to combining written polyphony with uncompromising improvisation, while the Johnny Dyani Quartet's landmark recordings have helped to shape how he seeks to balance intensity and playfulness. Elsewhere in the show, Corey Mwamba showcases some of the other adventurous musicians on this year's London Jazz Festival billing, including a trio of saxophonists: US legend ANTHONY BRAXTON, the visionary “sound-quilter ? Matana Roberts, and rising UK star Xhosa Cole.

Olie Brice shares musical inspirations ahead of his octet's London Jazz Festival date.

Organisms Expanding20240317Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music and free jazz including a track from the trio of Alex Bonney (electronics), Jem Doulton (drums, percussion) and Will Glaser (drums, percussion), who deliver new electroacoustic improvisations under the moniker Pando Pando. Taking their name from the world's largest tree (measured by landmass) - a clonal quaking aspen spanning 106 acres located in Utah - the group's sound is multicellular and musically expansive.

Elsewhere in the show, an extract from Fluid Fixations, a piece commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival for saxophonist John Butcher in the company of thirteen fellow improvisers. Plus: Corey plays an archive track from the 1970 spiritual jazz album Forces And Feelings by saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre; and Taiwanese artist Fangyi Liu offers new sound experiments.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music that plays with senses of scale.

Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music that plays with senses of scale, including a trio who take inspiration from the largest tree on earth.

Pat Thomas Plays Duke Ellington2021091920210918 (R3)Corey Mwamba plays tracks by artists performing at Newcastle Jazz and Improvised Music Festival including pianist Pat Thomas's tribute to the music of DUKE ELLINGTON. A visionary and virtuoso pianist, Thomas pulls Ellington's melodies apart like a thread before knitting them together into a joyful patchwork of familiarity and adventure. Plus free-flowing melodies from the bassist and Newcastle resident Andy Champion with his long-standing collaborator saxophonist Graeme Wilson.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

The visionary and virtuoso pianist pays tribute to one of the jazz greats, DUKE ELLINGTON.

Paul Dunmall20230122Corey Mwamba presents new free jazz and improvised music plus a unique conversation with heavy-hitting saxophonist Paul Dunmall, following the release of That's My Life with Tony Orrell and Paul Rogers. The album, released at the beginning of January, comprises an explosive live performance recorded in Bristol in 1989, heard now for the first time.

Turning seventy this year, Dunmall has been a pivotal figure in the jazz and improvised music scene for the past fifty years, both in the United Kingdom and in the USA, where he counts amongst his musical collaborators legendary pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane. In this special chat with Freeness, the British reeds-player talks about what made Bristol such a bustling stage for free jazz in the ‘80s, and he shares some of the creative inspirations, both in jazz and other genres, that led to the development of his personal technique and approach as an improviser.

Elsewhere in the show, an unreleased track from the Freeness Inbox from Latvian/German pianist and singer Maria Kalnars and British bass-player Ian Robinson that celebrates collaborative improvisation. And a live piece from the first album by Earscratcher, a newly-formed quartet with Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik at the helm alongside Dave Rempis (alto saxophone), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and electronics), and Tim Daisy (drums).

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents new free jazz, plus saxophonist Paul Dunmall in conversation.

Turning seventy this year, Dunmall has been a pivotal figure in the jazz and improvised music scene for the past fifty years, both in the United Kingdom and in the USA, where he counts amongst his musical collaborators legendary pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane. In this special chat with Freeness, the British reeds-player talks about what made Bristol such a bustling stage for free jazz in the ‘80s, and he shares some of the creative inspirations, both in jazz and other genres, that led to the development of his personal technique and approach as an improviser.

Peace Pieces20231224On Christmas Eve, Corey Mwamba presents a selection of new free jazz and improvised music to usher in peace and welcome the sacred, taking inspiration from Peace Piece by Bill Evans, one of the most serene and quietly-disarming solo improvisations ever heard.

Musicians and listeners share their ideas for ‘peace pieces', tracks imbued with atmospheres of tranquillity or performances that express the search and the struggle for serenity and calm. Saxophonist Paul Dunmall offers I Wish You Peace, an anti-war anthem he composed for his 50th birthday; and the trio of Kyoko Kitamura (vocals), Melanie Dyer (viola) and Mara Rosenbloom (piano) share an unreleased live exploration of what amity can sound like.

Violinist Marija Kovacevic sends an improvised response to our theme, specially created for Freeness; plus we receive a musical message of sonic goodwill from Buster Woodruff​-​Bryant (saxophone) and Federico Ughi (drums).

Produced by Silvia Malnati

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and improvised music to usher in peace.

Corey Mwamba shares new free jazz and improvised music to usher in peace, including sounds created especially for Freeness by violist Marija Kovacevic.

Percussion Storm2022090420220903 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents the best in improvised music.

UK trio Alan Wilkinson, Alex Ward and Jem Doulton conjure up an apocalyptic punk storm complete with lightning-rod guitar riffs, thunderous drums and the unrelenting hail of a blowing horn. Plus, new music from Eddie Wakili Hick (of Sons of Kemet fame) and his forthcoming debut release as a band leader. His group, the NOK Cultural Ensemble, celebrates diverse percussive styles from across the African diaspora. With inflections of propulsive dub and devotional music, the band take inspiration from the ancient Nigerian NOK civilisation.

Elsewhere in the programme, Corey plays a track in tribute to the late cellist Abdul Wadud. A distinguished voice as an improviser, he was a creative force in experimental and classical music scenes, playing with the likes of George Lewis and Arthur Blythe.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents storming free punk and Afro-percussive devotional music

Phantasmagoria2023040920240218 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents improvised music blurring the lines between worlds.

Led by the indomitable Marshall Allen, we hear a futuristic refashioning of an old myth: The Gordian Knot, a tale stretching back to Alexander the Great, and describing human creativity to overcome a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Through an ancient-to-future soundscape of flute, shamanic drums, electronic synths and spoken word, this bold quartet unleash an enchanting world of possibility and hope.

In Mexico, the long circular breaths of flautist Camilo À?ngeles meet the focused study of Violeta García's cello to create an intoxicating atmosphere, blurring the lines between the corporeal and dream worlds. Elsewhere, saxophonist Ayumi Ishito pulls listeners into an interstellar imaginary. Gauzy layers of electronic experimentation bubble and blink like living organisms, whilst a whistling theremin offers a heady backdrop of ambient escape.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music blurring the lines between worlds - ancient to future, physical and dream, outer space and inner imaginaries.

Piano Studies2022082820220827 (R3)
20230205 (R3)
Corey Mwamba presents new music from pianists inspired by poetry, games and studies in human perception.

Marta Warelis creates a grainy and sinuous sound world on acoustic piano, offering careful studies in scale, perception and interconnectedness.

Eleonor Sandresky takes the evocative imagery of Mary Oliver's poetry as cues for improvisation: fireflies at dusk, night-time swimming and alligators sinking into swamps. Playing these pieces live, she'd place a few words from each poem on her piano stand as a way of triggering the visceral feeling each piece had on her, using that as a jumping-off point for musical expression.

Haunting, disjointed keys appear via the Tara Clerkin Trio, who create a heady mix of hip-hop, drum and bass and glitching free jazz. The music was created via a musical version of the game ‘exquisite corpse', where instead of drawing body parts blindfolded, the group improvised random parts to create a Frankenstein-like whole.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new pieces of music from experimental pianists.

Eleonor Sandresky takes the evocative imagery of MARY OLIVER's poetry as cues for improvisation: fireflies at dusk, night-time swimming and alligators sinking into swamps. Playing these pieces live, she'd place a few words from each poem on her piano stand as a way of triggering the visceral feeling each piece had on her, using that as jumping-off point for musical expression.

Haunting, disjointed keys appear via the Tara Clerkin Trio, who create a heady mix of hip hop, drum and bass and glitching free jazz. The music was created via a musical version of the game ‘exquisite corpse', where instead of drawing body parts blindfolded, the group improvised random parts to create a Frankenstein-like whole.

Haunting, disjointed keys appear via the Tara Clerkin Trio, who create a heady mix of hip-hop, drum and bass and glitching free jazz. The music was created via a musical version of the game ‘exquisite corpse', where instead of drawing body parts blindfolded, the group improvised random parts to create a Frankenstein-like whole.

Haunting, disjointed keys appear via the Tara Clerkin Trio, who create a heady mix of hip hop, drum and bass and glitching free jazz. The music was created via a musical version of the game ‘exquisite corpse', where instead of drawing body parts blindfolded, the group improvised random parts to create a Frankenstein-like whole.

Quiet Contours2021101720211016 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents the best in adventurous improvised music. This week features pianist Aman Mahajan's musical responses to his mother's poetic reflections on quietude. The vocalist Mankwe Ndosi gives voice to what is felt, and not said in a contained tempest of free improvisation with BodyMemOri trio (Tomeka Reid on cello, Davu Seru on drums and Sylvia Bolognesi on bass). Plus, the multi-instrumentalist Maeve Schallert creates an immersive experience with the remnant sounds of a performance - easily discarded feedback from guitar, violin and more are used to build an atmospheric sound world of droning, subtle noise.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Pianist Aman Mahajan responds in music to his mother's poetic reflections on quietude.

Range Of Motion2023112620240324 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new free jazz and improvised music that defy speed and time, featuring a recent live performance from the duo Musho and sax laments by Lao Dan.

In 2016, vocalist Sofia Jernberg and pianist Alexander Hawkins formed the duo Musho - an Amharic word meaning Sad Song - and since then have continued to collaborate, creating music that draws on their shared interest in Ethiopian music. In this episode, we listen to an extract of their melancholic set at last August's Météo Mulhouse Music Festival in France.

Elsewhere in the show, the chance to hear a recently-resurfaced saxophone solo from the Chinese flute and woodwind master musician Lao Dan. Plus atmospheric improvisations from the debut album by Italian quartet tellKujira and Belgian sextet Games & Motifs, who make playful and experimental music inspired by the beauty of inventiveness.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents jazz and improvised music that defy speed and time.

Rapturous Rhythms2022101620221015 (R3)In his album ‘New Jazz Jungle: Remembering', Pat Thomas revisits jungle music, combining his classical training with his experience in electronic music and sampling techniques. Originally released on CD in 1997, the 10 tracks have just been reissued on vinyl.

High-intensity drumming makes another appearance via Alvin Curran's ‘Drumming Up Trouble', a new album of hilarious hip-hop samples and drum-machine improvisations that explores the relationship between the most ancient dimension of music and contemporary technology.

Elsewhere in the show, Loula Yorke's contrapuntal experiments on analogue synthesiser from her forthcoming album ‘Florescence', Mark Westell's cello solos from his residency at the Hundred Years Gallery in London, and an exclusive track from Jonathan Raisin and Nick Branton.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares a new take on jungle and a selection of energetic improvised music.

In his album ‘New Jazz Jungle: Remembering', Pat Thomas revisits jungle music, combining his classical training with his experience in electronic music and sampling techniques. Originally released on CD in 1997, the 10 tracks have just been reissued on vinyl.

High-intensity drumming makes another appearance via Alvin Curran's ‘Drumming Up Trouble', a new album of hilarious hip-hop samples and drum-machine improvisations that explores the relationship between the most ancient dimension of music and contemporary technology.

Elsewhere in the show, Loula Yorke's contrapuntal experiments on analogue synthesiser from her forthcoming album ‘Florescence', Mark Westell's cello solos from his residency at the Hundred Years Gallery in London, and an exclusive track from Jonathan Raisin and Nick Branton.

Elsewhere in the show, a riotous drum-propelled live performance from Khan Jamal's Creative Arts Ensemble, a trailblazing saxophone solo from Coleman Hawkins, and an exclusive track from Jonathan Raisin and Nick Branton.

Reclamation2022072420220723 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new music that reclaims and reimagines experiences of despair and social injustice.

LA-based musicians Kozue Matsumoto, Patrick Shiroishi and Shoshi Watanabe collaborate on ‘Yellow'. They merge Japanese instruments and styles with avant-garde sensibilities to explore Japanese American identity, and to call attention to anti-Asian racism. The rich wash of the shakuhachi and saxophone, and the resonant textures of the koto, offer a portal to a world of reflection, liberation and solidarity.

London-based multi-instrumentalist Ashley Paul's latest release glistens with soft vocals and the spacious patter of sparse percussion. Lucid woodwind instruments swirl around minimalist sounds that tease pleasure out of despair.

Elsewhere in the programme, South African saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane offers up a whirlwind of free jazz, as quick-footed piano and bass dance together around transcendent melodies.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music that reclaims and reimagines.

LA-based musicians Kozue Matsumoto, Patrick Shiroishi and Shoshi Watanabe collaborate on ‘Yellow'. They merge Japanese instruments and styles with avant-garde sensibilities to explore Japanese American identity, and to call attention to anti-Asian racism. The rich wash of the shakuhachi and saxophone, and the resonant textures of the koto, offer a portal to a world of reflection, liberation and solidarity.

Regenerated Classics2021103120211030 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents artists playing with traditional forms, plus, a lost live performance. Multi-instrumentalist Amina Claudine Myers breathes new life and meaning into an old spiritual through questioning vocals and her indomitable piano performance. The sprawling Go: Organic Orchestra - led by creative director and percussionist Adam Rudolph - joins forces with the Brooklyn Raga Massive to form a super collective experimenting with Indian classical music. And we time-travel back to the 1970s, a time of countercultural folk currents, via an exhilarating, previously unheard live performance from the iconic but short-lived band, Splinters. This previously unreleased recording was made with a line-up of eminent players included trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, alto saxophonist, Trevor Watts, TUBBY HAYEs, pianist Stan Tracey, bassist Jeff Clyne, and two drummers, Phil Seamen and John Stevens.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents artists playing with traditional forms, and a lost live performance.

Ricochets And Ripples20230305Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Amongst the selections comes the Portuguese group Lantana, whose members call forth a range of elemental textures - cavernous voices and undulating drones which slip and slide over strings and a glitchy, electronic storm. Lucie V퀀tkovက and Leo Chang, meanwhile, soar high in their sonorous collaboration, Religion, with probing existential questions at its heart.

Elsewhere in the show, found objects offer textures that rise and fall ornamentally over long synth tones, whilst resonant accordion and harmonica riffs bellow outwards to create an immersive vortex of sound. Plus saxophonist Caroline Kraabel and cellist Khabat Abas tease all manner of noises and shapes from their instruments - sinewy runs and vocal exhalations bounce off grainy turbulence and bubbling discord.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents the best new improvised music bouncing off shifting surfaces.

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Amongst the selections comes the Portuguese group Lantana, whose members call forth a range of elemental textures - cavernous voices and undulating drones which slip and slide over strings and a glitchy, electronic storm. Lucie Vítková and Leo Chang, meanwhile, soar high in their sonorous collaboration, Religion, with probing existential questions at its heart.

Rites Of Summer2023090320230902 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music and free jazz to mark the fading of summer, including saxophone solos influenced by the seasons and a track inspired by the Earth's rotation.

Alto-saxophone player Seymour Wright celebrates the rituals of improvisation with a live recording exploring the variety of sounds generated by the inside of the instrument and the breath passing through it. It's taken from a collection of solos captured in London and Brussels over the last 20 years.

Elsewhere in the show, we hear a track from the forthcoming album by flautist and vocalist Nicole Mitchell, which reflects on the energies that move the cosmos. Plus improvisation on synthesiser and guitar by N. O. Moore from their latest album Solar Providence.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music and free jazz to mark the fading of summer.

Roots In Air2023080620230805 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music to make spaces expand, including new releases from Belgian trio Dry Speed and British saxophonist John Butcher.

From a live session recorded at Les Atelier Claus in Bruxelles, Indium is the result of the genre-defying collaboration between Joachim Devill退 (electric guitar, flugelhorn, trumpet, effects), Thomas Olbrechts (alto saxophone, prepared post horn) and Dirk Wauters (drums, percussions), who formed as the trio Dry Speed in the early 2000s.

Their sparse soundscapes, meticulously crafted, radiate through the studio room, leading us into the floating solo saxophone of John Butcher, recorded inside the Brønshøj Vandt倀rn, a concrete water-tower in the suburbs of Copenhagen. Here, the sound of Butcher's instrument reverberates and resonates against the walls of this wide space, taking root in the air.

Elsewhere in the show, an improvised brew in a London beer shop from Robbie Judkins (zither, objects and effects) and Colin Webster (baritone sax), their spontaneous music bubbling and flitting around the room; plus the latest molecule-permeating free jazz collaboration from the Norwegian powerhouse rhythm section of Ingebrigt H倀ker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music to make spaces expand.

From a live session recorded at Les Atelier Claus in Bruxelles, Indium is the result of the genre-defying collaboration between Joachim Devillé (electric guitar, flugelhorn, trumpet, effects), Thomas Olbrechts (alto saxophone, prepared post horn) and Dirk Wauters (drums, percussions), who formed as the trio Dry Speed in the early 2000s.

Their sparse soundscapes, meticulously crafted, radiate through the studio room, leading us into the floating solo saxophone of John Butcher, recorded inside the Brønshøj Vandtårn, a concrete water-tower in the suburbs of Copenhagen. Here, the sound of Butcher's instrument reverberates and resonates against the walls of this wide space, taking root in the air.

Elsewhere in the show, an improvised brew in a London beer shop from Robbie Judkins (zither, objects and effects) and Colin Webster (baritone sax), their spontaneous music bubbling and flitting around the room; plus the latest molecule-permeating free jazz collaboration from the Norwegian powerhouse rhythm section of Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love.

Saxophone Incantations With Zoh Amba2023070920230708 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares audacious free jazz and specially-recorded reflections on the fearlessness of improvised music with Tennessee-born saxophonist and flautist Zoh Amba, whose forthcoming album The Flower School, with Chris Corsano and Bill Orcutt, will be out on the 21st of July.

Now based in New York, where she plays an active part in the city's buzzing improv scene, Amba is one of the most interesting emerging voices in free jazz today. We hear her talking about her musical aspirations and influences, as well as finding the balance between developing her personal sound and channelling the tradition of avant-garde saxophone masters.

Elsewhere in the show, an enigmatic track from the recently reissued album Old And New Dreams with Don Cherry (trumpet, piano), Dewey Redman (tenor saxophone, musette), Charlie Haden (bass) and Ed Blackwell (drums) who came together to celebrate the work of mentor Ornette Coleman. Plus an extract from saxophonist Evan Parker's first solo performance in New York City, released 45 years after it was recorded.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares audacious free jazz and improvised music focusing on the saxophone.

Shadows And Silence20230319Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music.

As a part of a live performance that took place at the Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre in Glasgow - an emporium of whirring sounds and kinetic machinery - the cellist and sound artist Semay Wu weaves a sensory world of electronic connectivity. In collaboration with John Cavanagh, Wu improvises with the theatre's machines alongside collected recordings for a mesmerising performance meditating on space, time and movement. Plus, drummer Sebastian Rochford and pianist Kit Downes team up for a minimalist dialogue between their instruments, where reverberating silences create a loaded atmosphere of suggestion and release.

Elsewhere, electronic improviser Chunyang Yao uses vocal distortions and drones to recreate the ominous sight and sound of crows circling over seas and empty streets in Tomakomai, Japan.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music with haunting crows and reverberating silence.

So Long!20240331Corey Mwamba celebrates four plus years of Freeness and bids farewell to the show with a special selection of improvised music and free jazz.

Inspired by processes of ancient alchemy, the Kraków-based trio of José Lencastre (alto sax), Zbigniew Kozera (double bass) and Vasco Trilla (drums) turn the raw elements of sound into music that's somehow greater than the sum of its parts with their new album Chymeia. In Stockholm, meanwhile, another trio takes shape: as Space, Lisa Ullén (piano), Elsa Bergman (double bass) and Anna Lund (drums) use improvisation to evoke wonder and mystery.

Elsewhere in the show, Corey signs off with a track taken from a recent studio date of which he was a part. The line-up features a stellar triumvirate of saxophonists (Paul Dunmall, Soweto Kinch and Xhosa Cole) together with Dave Kane on double bass and Hamid Drake at the drums. There'll be time, too, for transcendental excursions on the vibraphone courtesy of Khan Jamal.

So long and thanks for all your ears!

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba offers up a final choice instalment of free jazz and improvised music.

Corey Mwamba presents free jazz and improvised music for the last instalment of Freeness, including alchemic interactions from Kraków and magic on the vibes from Khan Jamal.

Sonic Currents2021120520220213 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents exciting new contemporary music. Taking inspiration from the conceptual Australian sculptor Ken Unsworth, sound artist and composer Kate Moore offers a sound that plays with stillness and movement, fluidity and structure - pulling and pushing sonic currents between these states with gentle builds and refined subtlety. Driven by ritual and the energy of fire, Spanish duo Agust퀀 Fernကndez and Amidea Clotet explore what it means to set themselves alight with creative inspiration - responding spontaneously to stimuli and without waiting for permission to create a freewheeling ride of frenetic soundscapes.

Also in the programme, the South African multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Jiyani extends the motif of HERBIE HANCOCK's Suite for Angela. Stretching and tapping into that tribute to the activist Angela Davis through the prism of jazz-funk, Jiyani takes a global view of the experiences of black women through space and time across the Black Atlantic.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents contemporary music exploring energetic currents and rituals.

Corey Mwamba presents exciting new contemporary music. Taking inspiration from the conceptual Australian sculptor Ken Unsworth, sound artist and composer Kate Moore offers a sound that plays with stillness and movement, fluidity and structure - pulling and pushing sonic currents between these states with gentle builds and refined subtlety. Driven by ritual and the energy of fire, Spanish duo Agustí Fernández and Amidea Clotet explore what it means to set themselves alight with creative inspiration - responding spontaneously to stimuli and without waiting for permission to create a freewheeling ride of frenetic soundscapes.

Sonic Fragments20240107Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music inspired by Hermetic poetry and the colour blue, with tracks from Impetus Group and the trio of Olie Brice, Rachel Musson and Mark Sanders.

Fascinated by Archaic Greek poet Sappho's fragmented poems, seen as “an invitation and dissolution into wonder ?, Jessica Ackerley (electric guitar), Alex Cunningham (violin), Patrick Shiroishi (alto sax) and Damon Smith (double bass) join forces to deliver a new album of improvisations titled [five lines indecipherable]. Elsewhere in the show, we listen to an extract from the album Electritradition where Damascus-born, Vancouver-based multi-instrumentalist Emad Armoush teams up with friends old and new to explore sonic landscapes blending Western and Middle Eastern influences.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares new improvised music inspired by Hermetic poetry and the colour blue.

Sound Evolutions2022060520220604 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music charting personal evolutions, the path of the sun and processed sound.

Swedish pianist Karin Johansson returns with the first release from her band ORD featuring sparse, gossamer-like pieces and haunting vocals. The album was inspired by the words of the late Swedish poet and psychologist, Tomas Transtr怀mer, who wrote about personal evolution. He said, `I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. The sum of them is me. The mirror sees only my latest face, while I know all my previous ones.??

We head back to 2006 for a moment of live exaltation, in a piece called Solar Suite, featuring musician David Boykin's Expanse collective. The band includes Nicole Mitchell on flute and Josh Abrams on bass and this piece follows the evolving path of the sun's journey through the sky.

Elsewhere in the programme, Sheffield based musician Laurie Tompkins adopts the playful persona of a karaoke aficionado, in a trio featuring saxophonist Ashley Paul and Eliza McCarthy. Disembodied wails and recitations dance through layers of dystopian instrumentals, punctured by squalling horns and ricocheting keys.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba with music that charts evolution and the path of the sun.

Swedish pianist Karin Johansson returns with the first release from her band ORD featuring sparse, gossamer-like pieces and haunting vocals. The album was inspired by the words of the late Swedish poet and psychologist, Tomas Transtr怀mer, who wrote about personal evolution. He said, `I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. The sum of them is me. The mirror sees only my latest face, while I know all my previous ones.`

Swedish pianist Karin Johansson returns with the first release from her band ORD featuring sparse, gossamer-like pieces and haunting vocals. The album was inspired by the words of the late Swedish poet and psychologist, Tomas Tranströmer, who wrote about personal evolution. He said, “I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. The sum of them is me. The mirror sees only my latest face, while I know all my previous ones. ?

Spaces Between20221218Corey Mwamba celebrates the best in free jazz and new improvised music, with selections that make the spaces between the notes dance.

New York violinist Sana Nagano provided the impetus for the forming of a new improvising trio, featuring her musical mentors, the drummer Billy Martin and pianist and vibes player Karl Berger. Nagano speaks of the latter's awareness of “that space between the sounds, before he plays and right after he plays each note, ? and the group's recently-released set of instant compositions is a masterclass in listening, relating and emoting.

Tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, meanwhile, duets with the acoustic of the Church of The Holy Ghost in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, making the air particles audible in an intrepid solo exploration of sound and space. And long-time collaborators Enrico Fazio and Giancarlo Nino Locatelli sit at either side of a room and meet in the middle in playful musical dialogue that gambols and skips.

Corey Mwamba celebrates the best in free jazz and new improvised music.

Tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, meanwhile, duets with the acoustic of the Church of The Holy Ghost in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, making the air particles audible in an intrepid solo exploration of sound and space. And longtime collaborators Enrico Fazio and Giancarlo nino Locatelli sit at either side of a room and meet in the middle in playful musical dialogue that gambols and skips.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

New York violinist Sana Nagano provided the impetus for the forming of a new improvising trio, featuring her musical mentors, the drummer Billy Martin and pianist and vibes player Karl Berger. Nagano speaks of the latter's awareness of `that space between the sounds, before he plays and right after he plays each note,?? and the group's recently-released set of instant compositions is a masterclass in listening, relating and emoting.

New York violinist Sana Nagano provided the impetus for the forming of a new improvising trio, featuring her musical mentors, the drummer Billy Martin and pianist and vibes player Karl Berger. Nagano speaks of the latter's awareness of `that space between the sounds, before he plays and right after he plays each note,` and the group's recently-released set of instant compositions is a masterclass in listening, relating and emoting.

Speculative Visions2022050820220507 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Double bassist Josh Jury Kobayashi-Mackay creates an immersive sound world based on their experiences running along trail paths. Here, they explore the ‘messy assemblages' of nature through what they call ‘speculative free improvisation' for a subtle sounding out of the hidden terrains of nature.

Descend into the deconstructed world of bassist Teté Leguía, saxophonist Martín Escalante and drummer Weasel Walter. The trio fuse noise and free jazz sensibilities to create ‘ballistic fire music': a foreboding, visionary scream of distorted feedback, magnetic field disruption, found objects, and ferocious improvisation.

Elsewhere, Swedish pianist Tilda Björnberg and American guitarist Jon Lipscomb bring their instruments together for an unusual dialogue filled with soft clashes and lucid impressionism.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music exploring speculative visions of nature.

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Double bassist Josh Jury Kobayashi-Mackay creates an immersive sound world based on their experiences running along trail paths. Here, they explore the ‘messy assemblages' of nature through what they call ‘speculative free improvisation' for a subtle sounding out of the hidden terrains of nature.

Descend into the deconstructed world of bassist Tet退 Legu퀀a, saxophonist Mart퀀n Escalante and drummer Weasel Walter. The trio fuse noise and free jazz sensibilities to create ‘ballistic fire music': a foreboding, visionary scream of distorted feedback, magnetic field disruption, found objects, and ferocious improvisation.

Elsewhere, Swedish pianist Tilda Bj怀rnberg and American guitarist Jon Lipscomb bring their instruments together for an unusual dialogue filled with soft clashes and lucid impressionism.

Spirited Synergism20221211Corey Mwamba shines a light on the world of free jazz and improvised music, picking out pieces of profound artistic synergy.

Brought together by an instinctive sonic connection, soprano saxophonist PAUL DUNMALL and drummer Tony Orrell first met in Bristol in 1979 and found a powerful musical cohesion; and ten years later, they reunited for a breathtaking live performance, joined by double bass player PAUL ROGERS. Corey shares a track from this improvised encounter which is to be released for the first time in January. Italian improviser Francesca Naibo, meanwhile, uses the guitar to re-discover and explore memories of her childhood, counterposing cassette tape fragments recorded when she was eight years old with new musical responses in a surreal and timeless conversation with her younger self.

Elsewhere in the show, we head to St Louis, Missouri in 1982 where the collective energy of saxophonist Maurice Malik King, Qaiyim Shabazz on congas and Zimbabwe Nkenya on bass created the bluesy spiritual infusion of Malik's Emerging Force Art Trio. Plus a fiery track from American drummer Tyshawn Sorey's latest album The Off​-​Off Broadway Guide to Synergism as well as a poetic stream of consciousness from another new release, Brahja's Watermelancholia.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shines a light on the world of free jazz and improvised music.

Elsewhere in the show, we head to St Louis, Missouri in 1982 where the collective energy of saxophonist Maurice Malik King, Qaiyim Shabazz on congas and Zimbabwe Nkenya on bass created the bluesy spiritual infusion of Malik's Emerging Force Art Trio. Plus a fiery track from American drummer Tyshawn Sorey's latest album The Off?-?Off Broadway Guide to Synergism as well as a poetic stream of consciousness from another new release, Brahja's Watermelancholia.

Synchronous Vibrations2023061120230610 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents improvised music inspired by resonances and sonic rebounds, from Sheng Jie aka gogoi's guitar solos recorded in a deserted Beijing during the pandemic, to a no-rules session led by vibraphone player Sergio Armaroli with Martina Brodbeck (cello), Francesca Gemmo (piano) and Fritz Hauser (drums, percussion).

Elsewhere in the show, we hear an extract from the forthcoming album O Life, O Light, Vol. 2 of New York-based saxophonist Zoh Amba who is joined by William Parker on bass and gralla, a traditional Catalan double reed instrument, and Francisco Mela on drums to deliver deeply spiritual free jazz. Plus a track from the reissue of bassist Sahed Sarbib's Evil Season, a playful and vibrant recording from 1975 where the bass is elevated by Sarbib as a ‘mother instrument'.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba presents improvised music inspired by resonances and sonic rebounds.

Elsewhere in the show, we hear an extract from the forthcoming album O Life, O Light, Vol. 2 of New York-based saxophonist Zoh Amba who is joined by William Parker on bass and gralla, a traditional Catalan double reed instrument, and Francisco Mela on drums to deliver deeply spiritual free jazz. Plus a track from the reissue of bassist Sahed Sarbib's Evil Season, a playful and vibrant recording from 1975 where the bass is elevated by Sarbib as a ‘mother instrument'.

Synth Seances20240114Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music that looks into the beyond: expect spiritual synths, ritualistic folk, time-travelling breath and psychedelic fellowship in free play.

Soft sunrises meet mechanical clattering and wild, glitching birdsong by way of Fjall, a quartet tuning into ritualistic frequencies that features Martin Archer, Fran Comyn, Jan Todd and Richard Jackson. South African pianist Thandi Ntuli, meanwhile, collaborates with the LA-based producer Carlos Niño to reimagine the question of freedom in South Africa, with meditations on the symbolism of the rainbow. Shapeshifting synths glide under and around the atmospheric rush of rainfall, wind and waves; whilst layers of human breath dig and search through time for healing alongside hushed prayers. Elsewhere, Daniel Carter - who has spent many years honing an improvisational practice of playing outdoors - pulls listeners into a zone of psychedelic fellowship. The soundscapes of New York City burst into streams of new colour: punk mosh-pits dance with operatic vocals, lightning-streak guitar riffs and comical sound effects in the creation of a rich new year's baptism.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music: ritualistic folk, time-travelling breath and psychedelia

Corey Mwamba presents new improvised music that looks into the beyond: spiritual synths, ritualistic folk, time-travelling breath and psychedelic fellowship in free play.

The Bells Of Midwinter20231217Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music. Laura Cannell pulls us into a crisp midwinter's day at the centuries-old Tombland Cathedral in Norwich, where old stones carry the memories of processions. Through an atmospheric haze of violin and synth recorded inside the cathedral, Cannell invites us to make our own processional rituals in the outside world, movements - big or small - towards horizons of hope. Elsewhere in the programme, we experience more forward momentum by way of a percussion duo comprising Tyshawn Sorey and Adam Rudolph who have been performing together since 2018. Here, we travel back to 2021 for a kaleidoscopic set of twisting shapes and dynamic explorations at the Zürcher Gallery in New York City. Plus, Welsh guitarist Ash Cooke examines the creative parallels between painting and free improv on the guitar. Through close recordings of dry brushes on paper and on guitar strings, he attempts to 'paint through sound' with gauzy, psychedelic flourishes layered over tonal experiments with colour.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music for midwinter rituals.

Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music - crisp midwinter rituals, dynamic percussion and painting with sound.

The Trumpet Shall Paint2023100820231007 (R3)Corey Mwamba with new music from Charlotte Keeffe's Right Here, Right Now Quartet.

Corey Mwamba presents new music from Charlotte Keeffe's Right Here, Right Now Quartet including previously-unheard recordings from the band's live set at this year's Manchester Jazz Festival, recorded especially for Freeness.

The group - comprising Moss Freed (guitar), Ashley John Long (double bass), Ben Handysides (drums) and leader Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet - have just released their second album ALIVE! In The Studio, billed as “a messy emporium of raw, raucous realness ?. Sharing music from the record, Keeffe offers reflections on the musicians who have influenced her approach to trumpet-playing, as well as her characterisation of the instrument as a “Sound Brush ?.

Elsewhere in the show, we lend our ears to a piece of psychedelic groove-based improvisation recently landed in the Freeness inbox courtesy of Zyggurat, a quartet comprising Pete Grimshaw (modular synthesiser, kalimba), Sam Wooster (trumpet, electronics), Xhosa Cole (tenor saxophone, flutes) and Nathan England-Jones (drums, percussion). Plus we get lost in a labyrinth of vocal improvisations as Kyoko Kitamura is joined by Ingrid Laubrock (tenor sax), Ken Filiano (bass) and Dayeon Seok (drums).

Produced by Silvia Malnati

The group - comprising Moss Freed (guitar), Ashley John Long (double bass), Ben Handysides (drums) and leader Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet - have just released their second album ALIVE! In The Studio, billed as `a messy emporium of raw, raucous realness??. Sharing music from the record, Keeffe offers reflections on the musicians who have influenced her approach to trumpet-playing, as well as her characterisation of the instrument as a `Sound Brush??.

The group - comprising Moss Freed (guitar), Ashley John Long (double bass), Ben Handysides (drums) and leader Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet - have just released their second album ALIVE! In The Studio, billed as `a messy emporium of raw, raucous realness`. Sharing music from the record, Keeffe offers reflections on the musicians who have influenced her approach to trumpet-playing, as well as her characterisation of the instrument as a `Sound Brush`.

Transformative Terrains2023070220230701 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents the best new improvised music.

Swiss saxophonist Eva-Maria Karbacher pulls listeners into the mountainous habitat of the Ochotona, a small mammal with a lively call found in Asia and North America. Despite the animal's size, Karbacher creates full-bodied, atmospheric chatter through circular, hypnotic solos. Plus, whipping winds, howling vocals and eerie echolocation by way of Brazil from sound artists Renata Roman, Paola Ribeiro and Laura.aLL.

Elsewhere, we hear from UK-based improviser Maria Sappho. A riveting live performer, Sappho is a member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and Noisebringers ensemble and also plays experimental music with the world's only multi-modal creative AI. She shares what's happening in the free music scene in Huddersfield, as well as her advocacy work as part of the Feminist Free Improvisation group, a space to promote and share the work of women, trans and non-binary artists in improvisation.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba shares mountain music, howling vocals and spaces of solidarity.

Swiss saxophonist Eva-Maria Karbacher pulls listeners into the mountainous habitat of the Ochotona, a small mammal with a lively call found in Asia and North America. Despite the animal's size, Karbacher creates full-bodied, atmospheric chatter through circular, hypnotic solos. Plus, whipping winds, howling vocals and eerie echolocation by way of Brazil from sound artists Renata Roman, Paola Ribeiro,and Laura.aLL.

Elsewhere, to launch a new series of features exploring the UK's many and varied hubs of improvised music, we hear from the artist Maria Sappho. A riveting live performer, Sappho is a member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and Noisebringers ensemble and also plays experimental music with the world's only multi-modal creative AI. She shares what's happening in the free music scene in Huddersfield, as well as her collaborations with mushrooms.

Undertow2023022620230916 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new music with undercurrents of intensity.

Our cast of players includes Susana Santos Silva and Fred Frith, who come together in a processional, synergetic duo of trumpet and electronic guitar as they 'lay demons to rest.' Together, they create a brooding spiral of free ferocity that bursts into ecstatic runs and cathartic solos. A deceptively impish charm dances on the surface of Hel Mel, the collaboration between Vinny Golia, Patrick Shiroishi, Catherine Sikora, Nick Skrowaczewski, Andrew Wedman and Stanley Jason Zappa. This supergroup - featuring four saxophonists - propulsively shifts between riotous vitality and implosive swinging, loose blues. Elsewhere in the programme, sound designer and field recordist AHA references Middle Eastern and Western styles through a hazy vortex of stirring strings, tectonic bowed bass and gritty atmospheric textures.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Undertow 20230226Corey Mwamba presents new music with undercurrents of intensity.

Our cast of players includes Susana Santos Silva and Fred Frith, who come together in a processional, synergetic duo of trumpet and electronic guitar as they 'lay demons to rest.' Together, they create a brooding spiral of free ferocity that bursts into ecstatic runs and cathartic solos. A deceptively impish charm dances on the surface of Hel Mel, the collaboration between Vinny Golia, Patrick Shiroishi, Catherine Sikora, Nick Skrowaczewski, Andrew Wedman and Stanley Jason Zappa. This supergroup - featuring four saxophonists - propulsively shifts between riotous vitality and implosive swinging, loose blues. Elsewhere in the programme, sound designer and field recordist AHA references Middle Eastern and Western styles through a hazy vortex of stirring strings, tectonic bowed bass and gritty atmospheric textures.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Vijay Iyer2022100220221001 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents the best in new improvised music, plus composer-pianist Vijay Iyer shares his musical inspirations, ahead of his debut solo show at the London Piano Festival.

Elsewhere in the programme, new music from Denmark's experimental scene by way of the group Tactical Maybe. Brimming with echolocations and pulsating starts and stops, this shapeshifting sound finds its roots in the US, Mexico, Germany and South Korea. Plus, Sarah Bernstein's Veer Quartet, featuring Sana Nagano, Leonor Falcon and Nick Joswiak creates a brooding soundworld where Baroque signatures merge with avant-garde tones.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Voice As Source2023052120230520 (R3)Corey Mwamba shares improvised music and free jazz with the human voice at its centre, plus a specially-recorded conversation on the relationship between vocal sounds and instrumental improvisation with poet and cultural critic Fred Moten, bassist Brandon L pez and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Having recently released their self-titled debut album as a trio, the three artists discuss the dynamics and decisions at play when they come together in the moment to improvise, locating their work in the continuum of spoken word jazz records.

Alongside these reflections, there's the chance to hear a kaleidoscopic collage from the newly-formed supergroup Adjunct Ensemble, led by composer Jamie Thompson and featuring the words of Nigerian-Irish poet Felicia Olusanya; and we go back to 1971 for a wild live session featuring free jazz vocalist Jeanne Lee, which will be released for the first time in June.

Elsewhere in the show, anarchic cut-up noise and vocal loops from Leeds-based artist Territorial Gobbing's latest album How To Do Things With Words; plus a poem from Cecil Taylor's record Chinampas, and sonic experiments with the breath courtesy of Italian sound artist Lorenzo Abattoir.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

Corey Mwamba shares improvised music and free jazz featuring the human voice.

Corey Mwamba shares improvised music and free jazz with the human voice at its centre, plus a specially-recorded conversation on the relationship between vocal sounds and instrumental improvisation with poet and cultural critic Fred Moten, bassist Brandon López and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Having recently released their self-titled debut album as a trio, the three artists discuss the dynamics and decisions at play when they come together in the moment to improvise, locating their work in the continuum of spoken word jazz records.

Waves And Flames20240128Corey Mwamba shares fiery free jazz and improvised music that flows in waves, including an excerpt from a forthcoming album by Han-earl Park, Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia. To be released later this year, Gonggong 225088 captures the trio in a live performance recorded in Berlin.

Meanwhile, multilayered polyrhythms are contrasted with rapid crosscutting tricks and beat juggling in a session from Ignaz Schick (turntables) and Oliver Steidle (drums) entitled ILOG3. And there's the chance to hear the fluid improvisation from Sayozoku's new album, Childhood In The Cloud.

Elsewhere in the show, Welsh guitarist Ash Cooke shares recommendations of rising improvising talent from Cymru, including a track from the Exotic Connections & Other Such Stuff Vol 2 compilation, which documents the free jazz scene in Wales.

Produced by Silvia Malnati

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio

Corey Mwamba shares fiery free jazz and improvised music that flows in waves.

Weaving Worlds2023100120230930 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new music-weaving imaginative worlds and scenes.

Corey Mwamba presents new music weaving imaginative worlds and scenes.

On their fourth album, However, Forward!, the UK duo of Colin Webster and Daniel Thompson continue their collaborative musical adventures. Through a beguiling dance between the playful canter of Thompson's acoustic guitar and the billowing flight of Webster's alto saxophone, the duet craft cinematic scenes with seasonal shifts. Elsewhere, LA-based artists Tomoki Sanders and Kyoko Takenaka launch listeners into the punk-alien world of the far-flung Planet Q, where nebulous clouds of hedonistic sound carry the freak and funk of extraterrestrial whispers. Plus, Fay Victor holds a layered vocal wake for the ongoing pandemic, opening a portal for mourning that imagines collective care and disability justice.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Whispers And Eulogies2022071720220716 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents new music that haunts and remembers, from ancestral whispers to musical eulogies.

During the tumultuous summer of 2020, the New York-based vocalist Amirtha Kidambi and bassist Luke Stewart came together for a seance-like dialogue. Kidambi's soothsayer vocal improvisations join in communion with loop pedals, feedback and Stewart's reverberant bass: the result is a haunting exchange that soothes intergenerational trauma with a hopeful eye on tomorrow.

The Blue Notes were a seminal South African band that formed in 1962 - a multi-racial outfit that moved to Europe to escape the dangers of apartheid. In 1975, one of the band members, trumpeter Mongezi Feza, died at the age of 30 from pneumonia. We hear a tribute to Feza, recorded in London nine days after his memorial: a free and ferocious testament to his life and the group's artistic bond.

Elsewhere in the programme, saxophonist Tom Challenger creates a quietly blistering world of strings that slip and slide, accompanied by John Edwards, Benedict Taylor and Kit Downes.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

Corey Mwamba presents new music that haunts and remembers.

01Cutting-edge Jazz20191103This first show features poetic dialogue between baritone saxophone and guitar in Cath Roberts's quintet Sloth Racket and J Frisco, a trio that uphold Leeds's reputation as a city for cutting-edge improvised music.

This first show features poetic dialogue between baritone saxophone and guitar in Cath Roberts' quintet Sloth Racket and J Frisco, a trio that uphold Leeds' reputation as a city for cutting-edge improvised music. There's a chance to feel the sociable energy that exudes from Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra as Corey revisits their performance at Glasgow International Jazz Festival in 2014, and the American cellist Tomeka Reid unveils a new quartet album where melodies dodge out of the way of bouncing, angular rhythms.

02Pulled, By Magnets20191110This week, drummer Seb Rochford talks about his new band Pulled By Magnets which takes in black metal and Hindu Bhajans; Frisk Frugt from the experimental music collective Yoyooyoy creates a whole world in a two-minute improvisation, and the American saxophonist Steve Lehman returns with his long-standing trio on a record that demonstrates how their 10 years of collaborating makes the music ever stronger.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey Mwamba presents the best improvised music from the outer edges of jazz and beyond.

03Roscoe Mitchell And The Art Ensemble Of Chicago20191117This week, Roscoe Mitchell, a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, selects three tracks that have had a profound impact on him. The Art Ensemble of Chicago have been at the forefront of creative improvised music since 1969 and have fostered the careers of members such as Henry Threadgill and Wadada Leo Smith among others. Also in the show, a dazzling live recording of vocalist Cleveland Watkiss' UK All Stars, featuring dancing electronics, driving rhythms and societal lyrics.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey Mwamba presents the best improvised music from the outer edges of jazz and beyond.

This week, Roscoe Mitchell selects three tracks that have had a profound impact on him. Mitchell is a founding member of The Art Ensemble of Chicago, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and is also part of the even longer-running Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) that has fostered the careers of so many exploratory musicians, including Henry Threadgill and Wadada Leo Smith.

Corey Mwamba with words and music from Roscoe Mitchell of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

04Intimate Improvisations20191124Corey Mwamba presents intimate improvisations by duos and small groups. With tracks by the husband-wife pair of violinist Mark Feldman and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, and long-time friends and fellow saxophonists Lol Coxhill and Raymond MacDonald. Plus, Corey journeys back to London's Cafe Oto in summer 2018 when a trio who had never played together before set the stage on fire: Rachel Musson on saxophones, Pat Thomas on piano and Mark Sanders on drums.
05Gwrth-gitar20191201Corey Mwamba explores ‘gwrth-gitâr', a term used by Welsh improviser Ash Cooke meaning ‘anti-guitar'. It seeks to explore new ways of using a traditional and universally familiar object to paint an alternative view of the world. It is unrehearsed, and leaves as much to chance as it does to the ability of the operator. Gwrth-gitâr is, in part, the answer to the question 'what else can this thing do?

Trumpets, electronics and drums combine to create rich glitchy and percussive textures on a new record by Tom Arthurs, Isambard Khroustaliov and Julian Sartorius. And there's a live recording of flautist Nicole Mitchell's ensemble performing on the mainstage at Saalfelden Jazz Festival in Austria.

Corey Mwamba explores 'gwrth-git\u00e2r', a term used by Ash Cooke meaning 'anti-guitar'.

Corey Mwamba explores ‘gwrth-git r', a term used by Welsh improviser Ash Cooke meaning ‘anti-guitar'. It seeks to explore new ways of using a traditional and universally familiar object to paint an alternative view of the world. It is unrehearsed, and leaves as much to chance as it does to the ability of the operator. Gwrth-git r is, in part, the answer to the question 'what else can this thing do?

'Corey Mwamba explores ‘gwrth-gitâr', a term used by Welsh improviser Ash Cooke meaning ‘anti-guitar'. It seeks to explore new ways of using a traditional and universally familiar object to paint an alternative view of the world. It is unrehearsed, and leaves as much to chance as it does to the ability of the operator. Gwrth-gitâr is, in part, the answer to the question 'what else can this thing do?'

Corey Mwamba explores ?gwrth-git?r', a term used by Welsh improviser Ash Cooke meaning ?anti-guitar'. It seeks to explore new ways of using a traditional and universally familiar object to paint an alternative view of the world. It is unrehearsed, and leaves as much to chance as it does to the ability of the operator. Gwrth-git?r is, in part, the answer to the question 'what else can this thing do?

06Elliot Galvin20191208Corey Mwamba presents the best jazz and improvised music with an adventurous spirit. Featuring a solo piano improvisation by Elliot Galvin recorded live in Paris, an oboe and bass duet from Melinda Maxwell and Sebastiano Dessanay, and a piece by the instrument builder Victor Gama that uses a 40-metre long string instrument, recorded and then played back through a granulator in live performance.

Corey Mwamba presents with a solo piano improvisation by Elliot Galvin.

07Winter Warmth20191215It's cold and dark outside, so allow presenter Corey Mwamba to set you on fire, send electricity through your skin, and warm your bones with a hot selection of adventurous jazz and improvised music.

Hear a swelteringly great track from recent big British break-through band Steam Down, and a classic performance from the incandescent spirit that was pianist Cecil Taylor.

Produced by Jack Howson

Corey Mwamba presents a hot selection of adventurous improvised music to warm your bones.

08Elis James's Mid-life Crisis20191222Welsh comic and broadcaster Elis James selects three of his favourite tracks for the show. 2019 has seen Elis develop a new-found, serious obsession with free jazz, which his wife has labelled his `mid-life crisis music`. Tonight he can indulge that passion without restraint

~Freeness

Welsh comic and broadcaster Elis James selects three of his favourite tracks for the show. 2019 has seen Elis develop a new-found, serious obsession with free jazz, which his wife has labelled his “mid-life crisis music ?. Tonight he can indulge that passion without restraint -

Also, Corey Mwamba presents some seasonally appropriate choices, including a festive jam from London experimentalists Ill Considered.

Produced by Jack Howson

Comic and broadcaster Elis James adds some free-jazz choices to Corey Mwamba's playlist.

Welsh comic and broadcaster Elis James selects three of his favourite tracks for the show. 2019 has seen Elis develop a new-found, serious obsession with free jazz, which his wife has labelled his “mid-life crisis music ? Tonight he can indulge that passion without restraint -

09Dulcet Tones On A Dulcitone2019122920200718 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents Adam Fairhall performing on a dulcitone, a keyboard instrument from the 19th century which he prepares in a way that evokes the sound of an African balafon, played in a way that's inspired by the fast repeating figures of Keith Tippett. Plus there's music from Tim Hill's new quartet based on the piano-less groups of Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton, and a track by bandleader Laura Cole with her octet Metamorphic.

Corey Mwamba presents Adam Fairhall performing on a prepared dulcitone.

Corey Mwamba presents Adam Fairhall performing on a dulcitone, a keyboard instrument from the 19th century, which he prepares in a way that evokes the sound of an African balafon, played in a way that's inspired by the fast repeating figures of Keith Tippett. Plus there's music from Tim Hill's new quartet based on the piano-less groups of Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton, and a track by bandleader Laura Cole with her octet Metamorphic.

10Angel Bat Dawid2020010520200725 (R3)brought a free and spiritual jazz sound forged in her hometown of Chicago to the Clore Ballroom last November for the London Jazz Festival. Corey Mwamba presents the closing section of her set alongside some sage advice from Angel on the importance of listening.

Viola player Mat Maneri's calm and reflective playing is informed by the vibratoless tone of Baroque music and the melodic language of Paul Bley; we hear music from his new quartet album Dust. Plus vocalist Fay Victor presents her reaction to the modern way of life together with cellist Marika Hughes and saxophonist Darius Jones and a live recording from British bassist Barry Guy's 70th birthday concert.

Live music from Angel Bat Dawid's set at the London Jazz Festival

Angel Bat Dawid brought a free and spiritual jazz sound forged in her hometown of Chicago to the Clore Ballroom last November for the London Jazz Festival. Corey Mwamba presents the closing section of her set alongside some sage advice from Angel on the importance of listening.

Live music from Angel Bat Dawid's set at the London Jazz Festival.

11Konfrontationen Festival 40th Anniversary2020011220200801 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents live music from the Konfrontationen festival. For the last 40 years the small town of Nickelsdorf on the Austrian/Hungarian border becomes a hub for the best new free and improvised music across central Europe. Tonight Corey features highlights from a freely improvised set by US drummer Hamid Drake and Swiss pianist Ir耀ne Schweizer, and the hip-hop meets improv post-apocalyptic powerhouse Anguish featuring Will Brooks, Mats Gustafsson, Hans Joachim Irmler, Mike Mare and Andreas Werliin.

Also in the show: music from pianist/composer Satoko Fujii and drummer Taysuya Yoshida's new album Baikamo that's full of playful energy; and psychedelic otherworldly sounds from Leverton Fox.

Live music from the 40th edition of Konfrontationen festival in Austria.

Corey Mwamba presents live music from the Konfrontationen festival. For the last 40 years the small town of Nickelsdorf on the Austrian/Hungarian border becomes a hub for the best new free and improvised music across central Europe. Tonight Corey features highlights from a freely improvised set by US drummer Hamid Drake and Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer, and the hip-hop meets improv post-apocalyptic powerhouse Anguish featuring Will Brooks, Mats Gustafsson, Hans Joachim Irmler, Mike Mare and Andreas Werliin.

Corey Mwamba presents live music from the Konfrontationen festival. For the last 40 years the small town of Nickelsdorf on the Austrian/Hungarian border becomes a hub for the best new free and improvised music across central Europe. Tonight Corey features highlights from a freely improvised set by US drummer Hamid Drake and Swiss pianist Ir?ne Schweizer, and the hip-hop meets improv post-apocalyptic powerhouse Anguish featuring Will Brooks, Mats Gustafsson, Hans Joachim Irmler, Mike Mare and Andreas Werliin.

12Ideas Of Noise20200119Corey Mwamba looks ahead to Birmingham's Ideas of Noise festival, which champions sound art, noise and adventurous improvisation. This year's line-up includes the premiere of Oli Brice's new group with saxophonist PAUL DUNMALL, and New York drummer Tom Rainey's trio with Mary Halvorson and Ingrid Laubrock. Plus, pianist Daniel Bernardes brings Messiaen's compositional processes to the 21st century via his piano trio and percussion ensemble, on his latest album Liturgy of the Birds.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey looks ahead to the Ideas of Noise festival for sound art, noise and improvisation.

13Polyrhythmic Playtime2020012620200808 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents high-energy exploratory improvisation and razor-sharp polyrhythms from a trio called Taupe and the debut full-length album by saxophonist JOHN BUTCHER and Steve Beresford, who plays electronics and objects. Plus a chance to bathe in some luscious low end, with a track featuring two organs and two bass clarinets recorded in a reverberant church.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

High-energy exploratory improvisation and razor-sharp polyrhythms hosted by Corey Mwamba.

14Improvising With The Australian Outback2020020920200815 (R3)Allis Hamilton is an artist living in a hand-built shack in the Australian outback. She makes improvised music in a trio called Alias Nun who are inspired by the aural soundscapes of the surrounding bush. Even though their home is far away from the wildfires plaguing the country, there are days when the air is thick with smoke. Allis describes how the complex emotions these devastating fires arouse can find an outlet in improvised music.

Also on the show, saxophonist Mette Rasmussen creates some gorgeously gritty vocalisations through her instrument, in a duo with guitarist Julien Desprez, and there's a meditative piece that improvises with volume for turntables and electronics. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Allis Hamilton describes how Australia's wildfires have affected her as an improviser.

15Hindustani Classical Music And Asmr2020021620200822 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents an improvisation rooted in Hindustani classical music by the cellist, sitarist and vocalist Pete Yelding; a tingling track that provokes an ASMR reaction (like the hair on the back of your neck standing on end when someone whispers in your ear) by using wide stereo and sounds that require close attention. Plus new music from the Portuguese trumpeter, composer and vocalist Susana Santos Silva and her Impermanence quintet.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

An improvisation rooted in Hindustani classical music and a tingling ASMR synth track.

16Beats And Bluegrass20200223Corey Mwamba plays the best jazz and improvised music with an adventurous spirit. This week features Lushandverdant, a hip hop producer who improvises with samples taken from old soul and gospel records. Deconstructed bluegrass, jazz and avant-garde techniques come together in a track from the international trio Multifarious and there's sludgy doom from Pulled By Magnets, the new project of drummer Seb Rochford.

Hip hop-inspired improv, using samples from old soul records, and deconstructed bluegrass

17Roll The Dice20200301Corey Mwamba hosts the best adventurous improvisation. Featuring a chance piece for a new-music chamber ensemble, where a roll of the dice determines how many times to play certain materials and which path through the score to take, recorded at the Brasswind Festival in Norway. Plus, freewheeling avant-blues from Kim Macari's Family Band, and an abstract take on a British church hymn by saxophonist Guido Spannocchi and Capitol K.

A chance piece for a new-music chamber ensemble, and freewheeling avant-blues

18Nomadic Future Folk20200308Improvisatory explorations within African avant-garde music between dumama from South Africa and the Algerian-German musician kechou. Plus, a free approach to driving grooves from Wildflower's new record featuring drummer Tom Skinner, Leon Brichard on bass and Idris Rahman on flutes. And the Russian musician Ilia Belorukov performs with percussion, field recordings and samples to create a buzzing electro-acoustic piece. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

19Kit Downes20200315British pianist, composer and organist Kit Downes' work is widely known on the UK jazz scene - from his groove-based group Troyka to the spectral soundscapes on his most recent release for the ECM label. Kit shares his three favourite, lesser-known examples of great improvisation with tracks by American guitarist Mary Halvorson, vocalist Ingebjørg Loe Bjørnstad and South African pianist Bheki Mseleku.

Also in the show, creative modern arrangements from the Austrian bassist and composer Gina Schwarz, and the Italian cellist Francesco Guerri blurs the line between contemporary classical music and free improvisation.

The British pianist digs out his favourite, lesser-known examples of great improvisation.

20Improvisation For Large Ensembles2020032220200829 (R3)Under the direction of Mats Gustafsson, the Fire! Orchestra takes on Krzysztof Penderecki´s piece Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra written in 1971. There's live music from the 50th anniversary homecoming gig by the Art Ensemble of Chicago recorded in Millennium Park, Chicago last summer; and absorbing tonal improvisation in a collaboration between the French group Ikui Doki and vocalist Sofia Jernberg. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

With tracks from Sweden's Fire! Orchestra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

21Surrounding Sounds20200329Corey Mwamba shares improvised music that's inspired by place. Trumpeter Byron Wallen's new album Portrait emerged from time sitting in a square in Woolwich, reflecting on the community around him, with its mixture of Nepalese elders, Somali mothers and descendants of dockworkers. Tom Ward and Tim Fairhall's latest record was created during a week in a bothy on the isle of Eigg, with squeaky stove doors and murmuring wind and waves finding their way into their spontaneous creations.

Plus, music for ocarina from Mexico, a live recording from Fredrik Nordstr怀m NEEDS at the Stockholm Jazz Festival, and solo guitar music improvised to silent films by Dada/Surrealist artist Man Ray.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

From Woolwich to the Hebrides. Improvisation inspired by place, presented by Corey Mwamba.

Plus, music for ocarina from Mexico, a live recording from Fredrik Nordström NEEDS at the Stockholm Jazz Festival, and solo guitar music improvised to silent films by Dada/Surrealist artist Man Ray.

Plus, music for ocarina from Mexico, a live recording from Fredrik Nordstr?m NEEDS at the Stockholm Jazz Festival, and solo guitar music improvised to silent films by Dada/Surrealist artist Man Ray.

22Sonically Submerged2020040520200404 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents two, dark ambient improvisations that evoke the feeling of being underwater. Firstly, shimmering electronic noise and bowed percussion from Diana Policarpo and secondly, trumpeter Yazz Ahmed joins keyboard player Jason Singh on a mellow, floating track from an album called Water Songs. Also in the show, a track from the long-awaited third album by the angular post-jazz group Let Spin, and a duo with a 33-year age gap from pianist Sullivan Fortner and bass player Rufus Reid.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Dark, ambient improvisations that evoke the feeling of being underwater.

23Duos With Strings2020041920200418 (R3)
20200905 (R3)
Adventurous improvised music. This week, a series of duos involving string players.

Corey Mwamba presents a selection of adventurous improvised music. This week features a series of duos involving string players. There's a new album by the Chicago cellist Tomeka Reid with British pianist Alexander Hawkins; some Americana-inspired music from violin player Jen Curtis with drummer Tyshawn Sorey, and a Radio 3 session track from two musicians who've never met before, South African cellist Abel Selaocoe and Sarathy Korwar playing tabla.

Plus, Steve Beresford records a solo piano piece from his home during lockdown, and music from a global Chinese music collective combining traditional instruments with industrial electronics.

23Lo-fi Percussive Propulsions2020041220201017 (R3)Free-flowing saxophone lines, timbral guitar and double drums from We Bow To No Masters out of Los Angeles. An archive tape of the British-Jamacian saxophonist Joe Harriott, who combined his love of Charlie Parker's be-bop with his Caribbean roots and free-form innovations. The cellist Hannah Marshall performs a spare and sensitive solo improvisation and there's music from New York-based quartet Orientation of We, whose aim is to imitate the movement of a school of fish by improvising as closely to one another as possible without crashing into each other.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Free-flowing saxophone lines, timbral guitar and double drums from We Bow To No Masters.

24Robert Mitchell2020042620200425 (R3)British pianist Robert Mitchell shares his thoughts on long-form solo improvisations.

What goes through a musician's head before they embark on a long solo improvisation? Pianist Robert Mitchell shares his aspirations and the mental preparation process he went through for his forthcoming album. It's a 37-minute solo performance dedicated to Cecil Taylor and recorded in a familiar setting for Robert, the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

Also in the show, Corey shares new music from the American experimental jazz vocalist Patty Waters and there's an uplifting, energetic performance by Gard Nilssen's Supersonic Orchestra recorded live at Molde International Jazz Festival in 2019.

25Isolation Creations2020050320200502 (R3)Improvisers' responses to social distancing and a live recording of Vula Viel.

Corey Mwamba presents improvisers' responses to social distancing. Saxophonist Caroline Kraabel performs a solo piece alongside a ticking clock and there's remote music-making from Kit Downes on piano, cellist Lucy Railton, bassist Petter Eldh and saxophonist Tom Challenger. Plus, a live recording of Bex Burch's band Vula Viel which is centred around the sound of her gyil, a wooden xylophone from West Africa. Recorded at London's Cafe Oto they were joined on stage by a special guest, the American composer and trombonist Peter Zummo.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

26Lara Jones2020051020200509 (R3)The saxophonist and composer introduces her new solo album, Enso. It combines recordings she's made of everyday experiences over the last year, processed and mixed with electronics and her saxophone playing.

Also in the show, Corey plays a track from guitarist Chris Montague's new record for a drum-less trio that focuses on colour and harmony, and a dreamy solo piece by the Newcastle-based pianist Paul Taylor.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

27Sax And Harp2020051720200516 (R3)Saxophonist Anthony Braxton duets with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod.

Corey Mwamba presents a selection of adventurous improvised music. This week's playlist features the saxophonist Anthony Braxton duetting with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod at the Angelica International Festival of Music in Bologna, a track from recorder player Laura Cannell's new album, recorded inside Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, and exploratory new music from guitarist Otto Fischer.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Photo by Margherita Caprilli

28Steve Lehman2020052420200523 (R3)The saxophonist introduces a series of solo vignettes recorded in the front seat of a car.

The saxophonist introduces us to a series of solo vignettes recorded in the front seat of his car during lockdown. After realising that he wouldn't be able to be with his mother for her 80th birthday, Steve Lehman created a gift that pays tribute to the incredibly wide array of music that she introduced him to as a child.

Plus there's a recording of Jo뀀lle L退andre's Tentet performing her long-form piece Can You Hear Me?, an allegory of talking and listening at the Tampere Jazz Festival 2019. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Plus there's a recording of Joëlle Léandre's Tentet performing her long-form piece Can You Hear Me?, an allegory of talking and listening at the Tampere Jazz Festival 2019. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

Plus there's a recording of Jo?lle L?andre's Tentet performing her long-form piece Can You Hear Me?, an allegory of talking and listening at the Tampere Jazz Festival 2019. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

29Deep Listening And Explosive Energy2020053120200530 (R3)From a long-running duo combining finger-style acoustic guitar and avant-garde percussion

From a long-running duo featuring Shane Parish's finger-style acoustic guitar and avant-garde percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. France's Orchestre National de Jazz perform a storming set live at Kesselhaus in Berlin as part of the Jazzdor Festival. And melodic musings from a Washington-based duo consisting of guitarist Gary Prince and saxophonist Kate Olson.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

30Jazz Rock Jams2020060720200606 (R3)A rare Japanese pressing by fusion drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson is re-released.

Corey Mwamba presents a new reissue of a rare Japanese pressing by the fusion drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. There's lockdown-inspired sounds from the venerable British saxophonist Trevor Watts. Plus sound artist Gawain Hewitt overcomes the technical challenge of recording a real-time collaboration remotely and captures a soul-stirring performance by saxophonist Kaidi Akinnibi and Dominic Canning on piano.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

31Mariam Rezaei2020061420200613 (R3)The turntablist talks about how she makes the glitchy juxtapositions on her new album.

The turntablist Mariam Rezaei talks about how she makes the glitchy juxtapositions on her new album SKEEN. Manipulating sounds through a variety of techniques performed live, SKEEN also reflects on the challenges faced by people identifying with multiple ethnicities.

Plus, freeform improvisations from a new quartet put together by the American saxophonist Paul Flaherty.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

32Kim Macari Sits In2020062120200620 (R3)Musician and composer Kim Macari sits in the presenter chair for the first of two shows.

Musician and composer Kim Macari sits in the presenter chair for the first of two shows. Featuring music that likes to ask hard questions, break rules and follow its own path. Including the pianist Vijay Iyer's project with the MC/poet Mike Ladd which voices the dreams of American veterans returning from war, improvisations for radio by John Cage and David Tudor, and new music from the Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma.

Originally from Fife and now based in London, Kim's artistic work includes her quartet Family Band, solo trumpet, spoken word and an exploration of graphic scores. She is also a programmer for the Vortex Jazz Club in north London and an artist-activist often appearing as a speaker on topics including gender politics in the arts, political art and national identity.

33Keith Tippett Tribute2020062820200627 (R3)Remembering the late, great pianist Keith Tippett. Presented by Kim Macari.

The second of two shows presented by the musician Kim Macari, featuring a tribute to the late, great pianist Keith Tippett who passed away recently. As well as his startling skill as an improviser, Keith was known for his ability to bring people together, and to bring out the best in them. We hear an archive interview with Keith discussing his legendary solo performances with music from his album The Dartington Concert from 1992.

Also in the show an aptly titled track, Full On, by Jah Wobble and Evan Parker, that exudes an endless energy. There's new music by the cellist Lucy Railton called Lament in Three Parts and a piece by Kim's all-time favourite band, Amok Amor. Featuring Christian Lillinger (drums), Petter Eldh (bass), Wanja Slavin (alto sax) and Peter Evans (trumpet), Amok Amor places elements of classical avant-garde and hip-hop on top of a solid jazz and improvised music foundation.

Photograph by Sean Kelly

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A Reduced Listening production for Radio 3

34Finnish Blues2020070520200704 (R3)Saxophonist Jorma Tapio connects the traditions of shamanic songs and free jazz.

Saxophonist Jorma Tapio connects the traditions of shamanic songs and free jazz on his reinterpretation of the traditional songs from East Karelia. Originally a region of Finland, but now part of Russia, the area is famous for being populated by shamans, healers and players of the kantele, a Finnish stringed folk instrument that was a fundamental part of the local music scene for centuries.

Also in the show, the first album recorded by humans and produced by birds. Growing up in a musicians home, the non-human artist tandem that is Kakaduu (two parrots: S䀀uks and Pr䀀uks) became unique experts on music and were offered the opportunity to produce an album by the free improvising trio WIG. Plus, a mesmerising piece by the violin and double bass duo Vilde&Inga. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Also in the show, the first album recorded by humans and produced by birds. Growing up in a musicians home, the non-human artist tandem that is Kakaduu (two parrots: Säuks and Präuks) became unique experts on music and were offered the opportunity to produce an album by the free improvising trio WIG. Plus, a mesmerising piece by the violin and double bass duo Vilde&Inga. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

Also in the show, the first album recorded by humans and produced by birds. Growing up in a musicians home, the non-human artist tandem that is Kakaduu (two parrots: S?uks and Pr?uks) became unique experts on music and were offered the opportunity to produce an album by the free improvising trio WIG. Plus, a mesmerising piece by the violin and double bass duo Vilde&Inga. Presented by Corey Mwamba.

35Hopeful Noise2020071220200711 (R3)Tender, melancholic and hopeful sounds from a Greek trio called TUSK

Tender, melancholic and hopeful sounds from a Greek trio called TUSK who make short nostalgic pieces that draw on psychedelia, noise and electronic music. We'll also hear more music from the American composer George Lewis as recorded at Bergen's experimental music festival Borealis, following the first instalment from that concert in the New Music Show.

The long-running Italian band Anatrofobia return with a new release of spacious, textural interplay and a new member, the vocalist Cristina Trotto Gatta. They've been described by the critic Nazim Comunale as too cultured and cerebral for jazzcore, too punk for academic circles, too quiet for lovers of the more physical free, too intelligent for those who believe that a saxophone means necessarily jazz.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A Reduced Listening production for Radio 3

The long-running Italian band Anatrofobia return with a new release of spacious, textural interplay and a new member, the vocalist Cristina Trotto Gatta. They've been described by the critic Nazim Comunale as 'too cultured and cerebral for jazzcore, too punk for academic circles, too quiet for lovers of the more physical free, too intelligent for those who believe that a saxophone means necessarily jazz.

36Cooper-moore And Stephen Gauci2020091320200912 (R3)A conversational duo between two idiosyncratic voices of American avant-garde, pianist Cooper-Moore and saxophonist Stephen Gauci. Their relaxed and colloquial sound was developed while performing weekly during a seven-month residency at the Happylucky No.1 gallery in Brooklyn.

Elsewhere there's a new quartet album recorded live by the trumpet and flugelhorn player Charlotte Keeffe and a reissue from 1971 by pianist Ndikho Xaba. Ndikho was an exiled South African musician who moved to the U.S. and made links between the struggle against apartheid and the Black Power movement, blending jazz spirituality of the late 1960s with an African jazz tradition.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A conversational duo between two idiosyncratic voices of the American avant-garde.

37George Burt And Cledona Cassidy2020092020200919 (R3)
20210424 (R3)
20210828 (R3)
Guitarist George Burt and singer Cl퀀ona Cassidy introduce their new record Rain Shadow, a mixture of folk-inspired songs and operatic improvised dreamscapes. Corey presents a track from the pianist Sylvie Courvoiser's new trio album which takes angular be-bop themes and latin grooves and gives them a fresh modern spin. And there's warm oscillating electronics and vocal experiments from the Italian duo Ignacio C rdoba and Sara Persico.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Improvised dreamscapes of operatic and folk-inspired jazz.

Guitarist George Burt and singer Clíona Cassidy introduce their new record Rain Shadow, a mixture of folk-inspired songs and operatic improvised dreamscapes. Corey presents a track from the pianist Sylvie Courvoiser's new trio album which takes angular be-bop themes and latin grooves and gives them a fresh modern spin. And there's warm oscillating electronics and vocal experiments from the Italian duo Ignacio Córdoba and Sara Persico.

Guitarist George Burt and singer Cl?ona Cassidy introduce their new record Rain Shadow, a mixture of folk-inspired songs and operatic improvised dreamscapes. Corey presents a track from the pianist Sylvie Courvoiser's new trio album which takes angular be-bop themes and latin grooves and gives them a fresh modern spin. And there's warm oscillating electronics and vocal experiments from the Italian duo Ignacio C?rdoba and Sara Persico.

Guitarist George Burt and singer Cl?ona Cassidy introduce their new record Rain Shadow, a mixture of folk-inspired songs and operatic improvised dreamscapes. Corey presents a track from the pianist Sylvie Courvoiser's new trio album, which takes angular be-bop themes and latin grooves and gives them a fresh modern spin. And there's warm oscillating electronics and vocal experiments from the Italian duo Ignacio C?rdoba and Sara Persico.

Guitarist George Burt and singer Cl퀀ona Cassidy introduce their new record Rain Shadow, a mixture of folk-inspired songs and operatic improvised dreamscapes. Corey presents a track from the pianist Sylvie Courvoiser's new trio album, which takes angular be-bop themes and latin grooves and gives them a fresh modern spin. And there's warm oscillating electronics and vocal experiments from the Italian duo Ignacio C rdoba and Sara Persico.

38Remembering Gary Peacock2020092720200926 (R3)Corey Mwamba reflects on the exploratory bass playing of the late Gary Peacock. The anchor to many great ensembles including 30 years with Keith Jarrett's standards trio, he was an incredibly versatile player, comfortable with every style of jazz. Corey selects a track from his 1981 album with saxophonist Jan Gabarek, drummer Jack DeJohnette and trumpeter Tomasz Stanko: Voice from the Past - Paradigm.

Plus, a selection from a suite of improvised viola duets by Mat Maneri and Tanya Kalmanovitch and a 1976 session from The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a black music ensemble founded in Los Angeles by Horace Tapscott in 1961 which is still going strong today.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Photo by Caterina di Perri / ECM Records

39Lateness At Tusk Festival2020100420201003 (R3)
20210807 (R3)
~Freeness has teamed up with Late Junction, our sibling show for adventurous music on Radio 3 to curate a stage at this year's TUSK Festival. A revered annual festival for experimental sounds based in Newcastle, TUSK is happening virtually this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Together we've invited three ensembles to BLANK studios to record an exclusive, socially distanced session for broadcast across both programmes.

On the bill is a first-time collaboration between electronic artist Stephen Bishop and turntablist Mariam Rezaei; the left-field folk duo of Cath and Phil Tyler and a new quartet called Car怀m put together by the double-bassist Andy Champion, a central figure on the North East jazz scene.

And if that still isn't enough, there are also highlights from the rest of TUSK Virtual 2020‘s exciting line-up.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Exclusive session recordings curated by Late Junction and Freeness for TUSK Virtual 2020

On the bill is a first-time collaboration between electronic artist Stephen Bishop and turntablist Mariam Rezaei; the left-field folk duo of Cath and Phil Tyler and a new quartet called Caröm put together by the double-bassist Andy Champion, a central figure on the North East jazz scene.

And if that still isn't enough, there are also highlights from the rest of TUSK Virtual 2020‘s exciting line-up.

And if that still isn't enough, there are also highlights from the rest of TUSK VIrtual 2020‘s exciting line up.

Exclusive session recordings curated by Late Junction and Freeness for TUSK Virtual 2020.

On the bill is a first-time collaboration between electronic artist Stephen Bishop and turntablist Mariam Rezaei; the left-field folk duo of Cath and Phil Tyler and a new quartet called Car?m put together by the double-bassist Andy Champion, a central figure on the North East jazz scene.

And if that still isn't enough, there are also highlights from the rest of TUSK Virtual 2020?s exciting line-up.

And if that still isn't enough, there are also highlights from the rest of TUSK VIrtual 2020‘s exciting line up.

~Freeness has teamed up with Late Junction, our sibling show for adventurous music on Radio 3 to curate a stage at this year's TUSK festival. A revered annual festival for experimental sounds based in Newcastle, TUSK is happening virtually this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Together we?ve invited three ensembles to BLANK studios to record an exclusive, socially distanced session for broadcast across both programmes.

And if that still isn?t enough, there are also highlights from the rest of TUSK VIrtual 2020?s exciting line up.

40Mariam Rezaei And Stephen Bishop In Session2020101120201010 (R3)
20210814 (R3)
Corey Mwamba presents more music from the socially distanced Lateness sessions recorded in Newcastle for Late Junction and Freeness in association with TUSK festival. Tonight's highlights include the first live performance between turntablist Mariam Rezaei and electronic artist Stephen Bishop and some short improvisations from ad hoc collaborations that happened on the day.

Also in the show, pianist Cecil Taylor and percussionist Tony Oxley perform at Birdland in Neuburg in 2011 and a meeting in Chicago between the reeds player Ken Vandermark, saxophonist Joe McPhee and bassist Kent Kessler.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell.

Highlights from turntablist Mariam Rezaei and electronic artist Stephen Bishop's session.

41Stretched Atmospheric Songs2020102520201024 (R3)Fourth Page, a quartet who make quietly intense music that combines fragments of jazz with experimental English folk, introduce their recent commission by Jazz South. Plus, there's music from the soundtrack to a South African documentary about the 1976 student uprising from a group called SPAZA alongside a track from the new album by Leeds-based trio J Frisco that combines buzzy synths, soaring saxophone and feedback loops.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell.

Quietly intense music that combines fragments of jazz with experimental English folk.

42Joyful, Joyful2020110120210821 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents music that ignites joy and happiness. Featuring trumpeter Dave Holsworth's rollicking interplay with his group New Brew and a playfully inquisitive saxophone duo from Dee Byrne on alto and Cath Roberts on baritone.

Plus, a luminous sound collage bringing together snippets of pop music samples and layered electronics with the inimitable voices of saxophonist Lol Coxhill and bassoonist Lindsey Cooper, best known for her work with Henry Cow. The recording is from 1999 and comes from the archive of Scatter, a gig series in Glasgow and also features the keyboardist and sound maker Pat Thomas and Bill Wells on electric bass.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell.

43Sonic Explorations From Thailand20201108A Bangkok-based duo called Yama create music inspired by yoga philosophy. Paponpat Weerawit and Don Pengboon are two unsung heroes of Thailand's underground experimental music scene. Together they make music that embraces you with open arms and curious ears.

Plus, a compelling juxtaposition between elegiac horn lines and a field of fuzz and distortion. It comes from a new group called Scarla O'Horror featuring James Allsopp (tenor saxophone), Alex Bonney (trumpet), Isambard Khroustaliov (electronics) and Tim Giles (drums). And the Slovenian pianist and composer Kaja Draksler pulls together a stellar band for a collage piece containing the poetry of Robert Frost, Handel's psalm Dominus a dextris tuis and free improvisation.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

44Discus Music20201115Celebrating the 100th release on the wide-ranging creative label Discus Music run by Martin Archer. Beginning 30-years ago as an output for Martin's own music, Discus has since branched out to supporting a diverse range of musicians across the globe and covers areas of extended song form, free jazz, electronic music and left-field rock. The honour of their 100th title goes to the Palestinian pianist Dirar Kalash and his first encounter with a grand piano for a long time.

Plus, a track from saxophonist and free jazz pioneer Albert Ayler's 1964 live album Bells and Prophecy; the noise artist and poet Moor Mother shares her first foray into theatrical work and a younger label, Bloxham Tapes celebrates their 25th release with a slowly moving duo of clarinet and electronics.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Celebrating the 100th release on wide-ranging label Discus Music

45South African Soul Music20201122Catchy hooks and chaotic group interplay captured live from Louis Moholo-Moholo's Unit. As the last surviving member of the beloved South African group the Blue Notes, drummer Moholo-Moholo leads an all-star octet in celebrating the bands lasting influence in a rousing concert recorded in Milan, Italy, in 2012.

Plus, there's music that reflects on lost connections by piecing together two isolated performances from violinist Florence Rutherfoord-Jones and drummer Jonathan Lodder. Neither heard what the other had played until the tracks were mixed, months later. The end result is a cohesive piece that captures the energy of two collaborating musicians.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

46Honking Horns20201129Corey Mwamba presents a guided listen to the best adventurous improvised music from around the world. This week features screaming saxophone lines from the Swedish player Anna H怀gberg's group Attack and a fresh take on Eric Dolphy's unpredictable harmonies and rhythmic invention on a new album from the pianist Alexander Hawkins and clarinettist Marco Colonna.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Screaming saxophone lines from the Swedish player Anna H\u00f6gberg's group Attack.

Corey Mwamba presents a guided listen to the best adventurous improvised music from around the world. This week features screaming saxophone lines from the Swedish player Anna Högberg's group Attack and a fresh take on Eric Dolphy's unpredictable harmonies and rhythmic invention on a new album from the pianist Alexander Hawkins and clarinettist Marco Colonna.

Corey Mwamba presents a guided listen to the best adventurous improvised music from around the world. This week features screaming saxophone lines from the Swedish player Anna H?gberg's group Attack and a fresh take on Eric Dolphy's unpredictable harmonies and rhythmic invention on a new album from the pianist Alexander Hawkins and clarinettist Marco Colonna.

47Solo Guitar Experiments2020120620210911 (R3)Italian guitarist Francesca Naibo talks about her debut solo album Namatoulee. Francesca's music is a unique and colourful sonic experience that explores the instrument's acoustic and electric possibilities from roaring drones to microscopic vibrations. Plus, music from Ariana Tikao, a leading figure in the taonga pūoro (MĀ?ori musical instruments) revival, and a thrilling call and response between pianist Liam Noble and saxophone player PAUL DUNMALL on a quartet album that features Mark Sanders on drums and John Edwards on bass.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Italian guitarist Francesca Naibo talks about her debut solo album Namatoulee. Francesca's music is a unique and colourful sonic experience that explores the instrument's acoustic and electric possibilities from roaring drones to microscopic vibrations. Plus, music from Ariana Tikao, a leading figure in the taonga p?oro (M?ori musical instruments) revival, and a thrilling call and response between pianist Liam Noble and saxophone player PAUL DUNMALL on a quartet album that features Mark Sanders on drums and John Edwards on bass.

Italian guitarist Francesca Naibo talks about her debut solo album Namatoulee. Francesca's music is a unique and colourful sonic experience that explores the instrument's acoustic and electric possibilities from roaring drones to microscopic vibrations. Plus, music from Ariana Tikao, a leading figure in the taonga p?oro (M??ori musical instruments) revival, and a thrilling call and response between pianist Liam Noble and saxophone player PAUL DUNMALL on a quartet album that features Mark Sanders on drums and John Edwards on bass.

48Music Of The Internet Age20201213Music that explores the problems of the internet age from Craig Scott. The album I Am Revolting explores issues like the over saturation of information and memetics, where simple themes are transformed and pulled in many directions and perpetually recontextualised.

Bass line riffs abound in a solo piano improvisation from Doctor Stephen Tromans, and there's an east-meets-west coast American duo of guitarist Jessica Ackerley and saxophonist and percussionist Patrick Shiroishi.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

49A Revelation Of Light20201220Corey Mwamba presents music that brings light in times of darkness. Night turns into day with a ritualistic awakening from Mexican group Produtziones Aldabar and Peruvian artist Miguel Flores explores pachacuti - an Andean concept of renewal, rebirth and reversal - on his 1983 album Primitivo. We couldn't programme a show on this theme without including the greatest giver of light, SUN RA. Corey selects something from his symphonic jazz album The Pleiades, which is dedicated to the nearest star cluster to Earth, the constellation Taurus.

Photo by Stuart Chalmers

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

50Jazz Re:freshed2020122720211226 (R3)Corey and Adam Moses from jazz re:freshed share tracks with each other. jazz re:freshed is a movement that began in 2003 as a weekly live music residency in west London and has since grown into a multi-faceted organisation. It aims to challenge elitism and prejudice within the jazz community and bring the colourful, expressive and creative world of jazz to the people. Corey and Adam become musical sparring partners as they play each other tracks that ignite a joyful conversation.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey and Adam Moses from jazz re:freshed share tracks with each other. jazz re:freshed is a movement that began in 2003 as a weekly live music residency in west London and has since grown into a multi-faceted organisation. It aims to challenge elitism and prejudice within the jazz community and bring the colourful, expressive and creative world of jazz to the people. Corey and Adam become musical sparring partners as they play each other tracks that ignite a joyful conversation. This programme was first broadcast on 27 December 2020. Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

51Driving Acoustic Bass20210103Corey Mwamba provides a guided listen to the best new improvised music. This week features a rich and dexterous exploration of the acoustic bass from Neil Charles; the saxophonist Matana Roberts and pianist Pat Thomas speak the truth on a new duo recording full of long lyrical lines, locked grooves and neat switchbacks. And there's music from Zambia's Western Province with plenty of improvisation and individualistic identity on a new compilation called

Kangombio Silimba Jazz.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A rich and dexterous exploration of the acoustic bass on a solo album from Neil Charles.

52Sax And Drums20210110Corey Mwamba presents adventurous improvised music. This week features a series of tracks born out of a partnership between saxophone and drums. The group Alula grew out of several performances between the Brooklyn-based saxophonist Caroline Davis and drummer Greg Sanier. On their album from 2019, they added synth player Matt Mitchell to the mix for an album inspired by the movement of a bird's wing. And there's music from a South Korean duo of saxophonist Daniel Ko and drummer Soojin Suh who begin their improvisations with folk and religious melodies, before launching into rapturous solos that are reminiscent of the drum and saxophone duos from the classic 60's, free jazz era.

Elsewhere in the show, the longstanding duo ELDA (trumpeter Aaron Diaz and keyboardist Andrew Woodhead) welcome the saxophonist Faye MacCalman on to their latest record Hippocampinae, where live electronic soundscapes are created from the raw sounds of their instruments.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell and Gabriel Francis

Featuring a series of tracks born out of partnerships between a saxophone and drums.

53Open Improvisation20210117Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis and Roscoe Mitchell explore the principles of open improvisation: bring your own experience; focus on what's at hand and be ready to come up with solutions. Vocalist Maggie Nicols muses on the qualities of breath and there's an improvised turntable piece by Leeds-based DJ NikNak, who won a 2020 Oram Award for her innovations in music and sound.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Three giants of jazz explore the principles of open improvisation.

54Restraint And Release20210124Control, moderation and explosive freedom on display in a meeting of organ and saxophone taken from a new anthology of work by British musician Theo Travis and composer Laura Toxv怀rd performs one of her graphic scores alongside Maria Faust on alto saxophone and Jacob Anderskov on piano, recorded at Winterjazz in Copenhagen last year.

Elsewhere in the show, a mesmerising track from LA-based, multi-instrumentalist Josh Johnson, in his debut album as a bandleader.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Control, moderation and explosive freedom in works by Theo Travis and Laura Toxvaerd.

Control, moderation and explosive freedom on display in a meeting of organ and saxophone taken from a new anthology of work by British musician Theo Travis and composer Laura Toxværd performs one of her graphic scores alongside Maria Faust on alto saxophone and Jacob Anderskov on piano, recorded at Winterjazz in Copenhagen last year.

Control, moderation and explosive freedom on display in a meeting of organ and saxophone taken from a new anthology of work by British musician Theo Travis and composer Laura Toxv?rd performs one of her graphic scores alongside Maria Faust on alto saxophone and Jacob Anderskov on piano, recorded at Winterjazz in Copenhagen last year.

55Mary Halvorson20210131This week features a selection from the New York guitarist Mary Halvorson's latest album with her group Code Girl that combines halting rhythms, artful pitch bends and crystalline folk vocals. Plus, a piece full of twists and turns by vibraphonist Patricia Brennan; a blazing cut from saxophonist Courtney Pine's 1990 album Within The Realms Of Our Dreams and a group of improvisers pay homage to the music of the American bassist and oud player Ahmed Abdul-Malik, who integrated Middle Eastern and North African music styles.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A selection from the New York guitarist's latest album with her group Code Girl.

56Innovation And Spirit20210207String bass lines and chunky, rhythmic chords from a solo piano album by the late Geri Allen. Known for her lyricism, soul and virtuosity, Geri's musicality sings out on her solo album from 2010, Flying Toward the Sound. Plus an impressionist track from tenor saxophonist and electro-acoustic artist Jan Kopinski alongside drummer Steve Harris and there's a closely mic'd experiment for solo voice from Australian artist Charmaine Lee.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

String bass lines and chunky, rhythmic chords from a solo piano album by Geri Allen.

56Remembering John Russell20210207Corey pays tribute to the late British guitarist John Russell, whose kind and welcoming nature was at the heart of his Mopomoso live concert series, the longest-running improvised music night in London. Joining Corey is his close friend and collaborator of over 20 years, Paul Smyth.

Also in the show, stride bass lines and chunky, rhythmic chords from a solo piano album by the late Geri Allen. Known for her lyricism, soul and virtuosity, Geri's musicality sings out on her solo album from 2010, Flying Toward The Sound. Plus an impressionist track from tenor saxophonist and electro-acoustic artist Jan Kopinski alongside drummer Steve Harris and there's a closely-mic'd experiment for solo voice from the Australian artist Charmaine Lee.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Photo from Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra

Corey pays tribute to the British guitarist with his friend and collaborator Paul Smyth

57Marching Music20210214Trumpeter Dave Douglas provides a soundtrack to marching in protest of any and all social injustice on his new album Marching Music. Keith Tippett's percussive piano meets Louis Moholo Moholo's melodic drums on a classic free jazz recording from 1980 and there's a stark beauty to the new solo release from Turkish pianist Selen Gülün.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Trumpeter Dave Douglas provides a soundtrack to marching in protest.

Trumpeter Dave Douglas provides a soundtrack to marching in protest of any and all social injustice on his new album Marching Music. Keith Tippett's percussive piano meets Louis Moholo Moholo's melodic drums on a classic free jazz recording from 1980 and there's a stark beauty to the new solo release from Turkish pianist Selen Gu?lu?n.

58Pushing Into New Territory20210221The Mexican vibraphonist Patricia Brennan has been frustrated by the limited repertoire for her instrument in both contemporary music and jazz since she was a student. Now based in New York and a member of several big bands and orchestras she has just released her debut solo album of improvised pieces. Patricia talks about how she has pushed her instrument into new territory with an abundance of electronics and extended techniques alongside lyrical fluidity and graceful dexterity. Joyful flurries from the American pianist Amina Claudine Myers and her trio will lift your spirits and there's music from the Norwegian saxophonist Signe Emmeluth, who prides herself on her “big ears and good intuition ?.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Patricia Brennan describes how she has extended the language of the vibraphone.

The Mexican vibraphonist Patricia Brennan has been frustrated by the limited repertoire for her instrument in both contemporary music and jazz since she was a student. Now based in New York and a member of several big bands and orchestras she has just released her debut solo album of improvised pieces. Patricia talks about how she has pushed her instrument into new territory with an abundance of electronics and extended techniques alongside lyrical fluidity and graceful dexterity. Joyful flurries from the American pianist Amina Claudine Myers and her trio will lift your spirits and there's music from the Norwegian saxophonist Signe Emmeluth, who prides herself on her `big ears and good intuition`.

The Mexican vibraphonist Patricia Brennan has been frustrated by the limited repertoire for her instrument in both contemporary music and jazz since she was a student. Now based in New York and a member of several big bands and orchestras she has just released her debut solo album of improvised pieces. Patricia talks about how she has pushed her instrument into new territory with an abundance of electronics and extended techniques alongside lyrical fluidity and graceful dexterity. Joyful flurries from the American pianist Amina Claudine Myers and her trio will lift your spirits and there's music from the Norwegian saxophonist Signe Emmeluth, who prides herself on her ?big ears and good intuition?.

The Mexican vibraphonist Patricia Brennan has been frustrated by the limited repertoire for her instrument in both contemporary music and jazz since she was a student. Now based in New York and a member of several big bands and orchestras she has just released her debut solo album of improvised pieces. Patricia talks about how she has pushed her instrument into new territory with an abundance of electronics and extended techniques alongside lyrical fluidity and graceful dexterity. Joyful flurries from the American pianist Amina Claudine Myers and her trio will lift your spirits and there's music from the Norwegian saxophonist Signe Emmeluth, who prides herself on her `big ears and good intuition??.

59Mesmerising Riffs20210228Heavy guitar distortion and explosive drumming create a restless energy from a new group called Body Meπa, a nod to Ornette Coleman's 1978 album. There's a 20-year-old recording of four of Britain's greatest improvisers; PAUL DUNMALL on saxophone, KEITH TIPPETT on piano, Philip Gibbs on guitar and Pete Fairclough on drums. Plus a short snapshot of a new release from the Dutch noisenik Machinefabriek.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Heavy distortion and a restless energy from a new group called Body Me\u03c0a.

Heavy guitar distortion and explosive drumming create a restless energy from a new group called Body Meta, a nod to Ornette Coleman's 1978 album. There's a twenty-year-old recording of four of Britain's greatest improvisers; PAUL DUNMALL on saxophone, KEITH TIPPETT on piano, Philip Gibbs on guitar and Pete Fairclough on drums. Plus a short snapshot of a new release from the Dutch noisenik Machinefabriek.

Heavy distortion and a restless energy from a new group called Body Meta.

Heavy guitar distortion and explosive drumming create a restless energy from a new group called Body Me?a, a nod to Ornette Coleman's 1978 album. There's a 20-year-old recording of four of Britain's greatest improvisers; PAUL DUNMALL on saxophone, KEITH TIPPETT on piano, Philip Gibbs on guitar and Pete Fairclough on drums. Plus a short snapshot of a new release from the Dutch noisenik Machinefabriek.

60Spontaneous Soul20210307A magic meeting creates soul soaked jazz and free falling dissonance with moreish momentum. Recorded at Cafe Oto in 2019, the longstanding British project Black Top founded by keyboardist Pat Thomas and multi-instrumentalist Orphy Robinson joined up with a dream team rhythm section of bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake and special guest vocalist Elaine Mitchener for a blazing two-night residency. The resulting music draws on a wide range of influences from calypso and Caribbean musics to dub electronics and phonetic vocal experiments.

Elsewhere in the show, a wordless chorus from the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, directed by Renee Baker, evokes spiritual hymnals.

Produced by Gabriel Francis

Soul-soaked jazz and free-falling dissonance with moreish momentum.

61A History Of Connectivity20210314Rolling grooves, fragments of melody and a canny understanding of each other's space makes a joyful listen from an American group of well-loved players who create music that's engaged and intimate. Over many decades of musical partnership, the connection between bassist William Parker, drummer Gerald Cleaver, pianist Matthew Shipp and saxophonist Daniel Carter runs deep.

Plus, a track from the formative years of the pioneering drummer Milford Graves who died last month, and there's a quiet call and response in the soundworld of Olivia Moore, Sue Lynch and Douglas Benford.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A well-loved group of American players create music that's joyful, engaged and intimate.

62Fluctuating Rhythms20210321Quickening and slackening, Leeds-based piano trio Treppenwitz explore the contours of their rhythmic interplay on a new album. Recorded live in a living room, simple melodies are used as a point of departure for explorations of sonic texture, harmonic sonority and spontaneous interaction.

Elsewhere in the show, further fluctuations in rhythm in the form of Lauren Sarah Hayes's glitching electronic experimentation.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Quickening and slackening, Treppenwitz explore the contours of their rhythmic interplay.

63Adventures In Theremin20210328Corey Mwamba showcases the sonic possibilities of the theremin, including new music from Birmingham-based collaborative trio Bobhowler, in which Tom Mills explores the extensive range of soundscapes and textures of the theremin alongside Andrew Woodhead on piano and electronics and Alicia Gardener-Trejo on baritone saxophone and flute.

Plus we revisit an early release from firebrand British saxophonist and composer, Steve Williamson.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell and Gabriel Francis

Corey Mwamba showcases the theremin in improvised music.

64Middle Eastern Poetry2021040420210403 (R3)
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Interweaving words and harmonies come together in a poetic exploration of womanhood, as Corey Mwamba presents an exclusive piece from London-based vocalist and composer Alya Al-Sultani. Putting the words of Iraqi feminist poet Nazik Al-Malaika to music, Al-Sultani draws on her formative experiences of immigration and Iraqi folk songs to create a multi-layered vocal soundscape.

Elsewhere in the show, a lo-fi groove from Steve Beresford, newly re-released after a very limited original run in 2003, and electroacoustic improvisation from Lynn Cassiers and Alexandra Grimal.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey Mwamba presents a poetic exploration of womanhood from Alya Al-Sultani.

65Classic Archive2021041120210410 (R3)
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Corey revisits a classic archive recording, an exuberant 10-piece ensemble led by saxophonist John Surman. Recorded in 1969 as a one-off broadcast for German public radio the session was released by Cuneiform records in 2011 and captures Surman in the early stages of his career with a stellar line-up. Plus, a joyful solo piano piece by Bheki Mseleku, and the Australian Art Orchestra collaborate with the sound artist Shoeb Ahmad in an exploration of her teenage experiences.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

An exuberant recording from 1969 with a 10-piece ensemble led by saxophonist John Surman.

Corey revisits a classic archive recording, an exuberant ten-piece ensemble led by saxophonist John Surman. Recorded in 1969 as a one-off broadcast for German public radio the session was released by Cuneiform records in 2011 and captures Surman in the early stages of his career with a stellar line-up. Plus, a joyful solo piano piece by Bheki Mseleku, and the Australian Art Orchestra collaborate with the sound artist Shoeb Ahmad in an exploration of her teenage experiences.

An exuberant recording from 1969 with a ten-piece ensemble led by saxophonist John Surman.

66Controlled Chaos2021041820210417 (R3)Corey Mwamba presents music finding control in chaos. Brooklyn-based noise-jazz violinist Sana Nagano maintains balance amongst an explosive quintet featuring Peter Apfelbaum on sax, Keisuke Matsuno on guitar, Ken Filiano on bass, and Joe Hertenstein on drums, alongside a chaotic burst of energy from Japanese collaborative duo Yoshida Tatsuya and Ono Ryoko.

Elsewhere in the show, we find some space for peace in Steve Lawson's immersive cinematic soundscapes.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Finding control in chaos, with music from noise-jazz violinist Sana Nagano.

Produced by Tej Adeleye

67Cheltenham Jazz Festival Preview2021050220210501 (R3)An exclusive new track by Cleveland Watkiss ahead of his performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. A solo piece for voice and electronics, Cleveland combines tape of American police brutality trials with soulful voice, crunching electronics and rhythmic beats.

Plus, a live recording of large ensemble Troyk-estra performing at the 2013 edition of the festival; Emma Kate Matthews recalls pre-pandemic travel via abstracted electronica, metallic clatter and low drones, whilst Rachel Musson's dazzling solos flex through the uncertainty of the times.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

An exclusive new track by Cleveland Watkiss ahead of his performance at Cheltenham.

68Modular Electronics And Avant-soul2021050920210508 (R3)Corey presents a selection from Gerald Cleaver's latest album of electronic music, Griots. Jazz drummer Cleaver is about to release his second album of electronic experimentation which harks back to the history of his hometown Detroit, the birthplace of techno. On the track chosen by Corey he is joined by trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire to create a swooping, bubbling soundworld.

Also in the show, a formidable duo comprising Alan Wilkinson's fragmented bass clarinet melodies and Dirk Serries' percussive acoustic guitar.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A Reduced Listening production for Radio 3

69Vegetable Voices2021051620210515 (R3)Bassist and vocalist Helen Svoboda celebrates her favourite food group in sound. Vegetable Bass is Helen's debut solo album, it showcases her passion for the intricate combination of the overtone series and the human voice. Also in the show, Corey Mwamba selects a piece from Jonny Richards's new album for prepared piano and the soulful voice of Eki Shola swirls around playful drum machines and catchy bass hooks.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A Reduced Listening production for Radio 3

70Despondent Drones2021052320210522 (R3)Lockdown-induced inertia expressed in heavy drones and restless drums by Sarah Heneghan on an aptly named track describing the winter months, Sleep Until Something Happens Again. Palate-cleansing electronic artist SORBET presents a cinematic, sci-fi-sounding duet with double bassist Jack Kelly. Plus, Corey selects a track from the latest Safe House Lock Down Sessions, a series of recordings built like a game of musical consequences: a solo improvisation is passed on to a second musician, who overlays their own improvisation before handing over to a third improviser to create a remotely recorded trio.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

71The Improv Scene In South Korea2021053020210529 (R3)
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Hosted by Corey Mwamba with a profile of Mung Music, a label based in Seoul. Its founder Sunjae Lee speaks about the burgeoning scene for experimental improvised music in South Korea, which has been rekindled by the return by a few elder improvisers to free playing. Plus, a selection from the new album by one of Newcastle's longest standing bands, Archipelago, and an abstract blues inspired track from Charlotte Keefe, Martin Pyne and Martin Archer.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Hosted by Corey Mwamba with a profile of Mung Music, a label based in Seoul. Its founder Sunjae Lee speaks about the burgeoning scene for experimental improvised music in South Korea, which has been rekindled by the return of a few elder improvisers to free playing. Plus, a selection from the new album by one of Newcastle's longest standing bands, Archipelago, and an abstract blues inspired track from Charlotte Keefe, Martin Pyne and Martin Archer.

Image by Sunjae Lee

72Surprising Solos2021060620210605 (R3)Corey Mwamba features soloists who expand the possibilities of their instrument, including a famous drum solo by Art Blakey. Nestled amongst a series of hard bop tracks on the 1964 album The Freedom Rider, Blakey's solo shows how moments of freeness and liberation are fundamental to jazz. Plus there's new music from guitarist Chris Sharkey whose debut solo album sounds nothing like what you think of when you hear the words ‘guitar solo'.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey Mwamba features soloists who expand the possibilities of their instrument.

Corey Mwamba features soloists who expand the possibilities of their instrument, including a famous drum solo by Art Blakey. Nestled amongst a series of hard bop tracks on the 1964 album The Freedom Rider, Blakey's solo shows how moments of freeness and liberation are fundamental to jazz. Plus there's new music from guitarist Chris Sharkey whose debut solo album sounds nothing like what you think of when you hear the words ‘guitar solo'.

Corey Mwamba features soloists who expand the possibilities of their instrument, including a famous drum solo by ART BLAKEY. Nestled amongst a series of hard bop tracks on the 1964 album The Freedom Rider, Blakey's solo shows how moments of freeness and liberation are fundamental to jazz. Plus there's new music from guitarist Chris Sharkey whose debut solo album sounds nothing like what you think of when you hear the words ?guitar solo?.

73Wide-open Space2021061320210612 (R3)Expansive sounds from a duo that employ an electric toothbrush. Chris Williams and Patrick Shiroishi play other instruments too including trumpet, saxophones and glockenspiel in a set recorded in Los Angeles. There's new music from Chicago reeds player Roscoe Mitchell together with drummer Mike Reed. And breezy grooves from the London-based group Wildflower comprising drummer Tom Skinner, saxophonist Idris Rahman and bassist Leon Brichard.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A Reduced Listening production for Radio 3

74Tropical Jazz Meets Chicago Post-rock2021062020210619 (R3)Playful polyrhythms mix with electronic samples: Rob Mazurek's São Paulo Underground in a collaboration with Tupperwear, an electronic duo from Tenerife. Plus a historic recording from 1992 of The Dedication Orchestra, a 24-strong ensemble squeezed onto the tiny stage at the 100 Club in London to play music in tribute to the South African group The Blue Notes. And following our recent profile of the improvised music scene in Seoul, there's new music from a duo called dal:um comprising Ha Suyean on gayageum and Hwang Hyeyoung on geomungo.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Playful polyrhythms mix with electronic samples in Rob Mazurek's S\u00e3o Paulo Underground.

Playful polyrhythms mix with electronic samples: Rob Mazurek's S o Paulo Underground in a collaboration with Tupperwear, an electronic duo from Tenerife. Plus a historic recording from 1992 of The Dedication Orchestra, a 24-strong ensemble squeezed onto the tiny stage at the 100 Club in London to play music in tribute to the South African group The Blue Notes. And following our recent profile of the improvised music scene in Seoul, there's new music from a duo called dal:um comprising Ha Suyean on gayageum and Hwang Hyeyoung on geomungo.

Playful polyrhythms mix with electronic samples: Rob Mazurek's S?o Paulo Underground in a collaboration with Tupperwear, an electronic duo from Tenerife. Plus a historic recording from 1992 of The Dedication Orchestra, a 24-strong ensemble squeezed onto the tiny stage at the 100 Club in London to play music in tribute to the South African group The Blue Notes. And following our recent profile of the improvised music scene in Seoul, there's new music from a duo called dal:um comprising Ha Suyean on gayageum and Hwang Hyeyoung on geomungo.

75Discerning Choices2021062720210626 (R3)Hosted by Corey Mwamba with selective and spacious improvising from a British quartet featuring the late John Russell on guitar, Mark Sanders on drums, Dominic Lash on double bass and John Butcher on saxophone. Plus a melodic meeting between the saxophonist Ed Jones and drummer Emil Karlsen.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Corey Mwamba presents selective and spacious improvising from a British quartet.

76Icy Soundscapes2021071120210710 (R3)Shimmering, sparse sounds that evoke the grandeur of ice from saxophonist Dee Byrne, Merijn Royaards on electronics and drummer Johnny Hunter, under the name Deemer +1. Corey digs out one of his favourite tracks from his tape archive, by the saxophonist George Adams off his 1979 album Sound Suggestions. And a live set of electroacoustic improvisations that sounds like a car crash happening underwater, featuring Forbes Graham (trumpet), Jim Hobbs (alto saxophone), Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion), and Victoria Shen (electronics).

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Shimmering, sparse sounds that evoke the grandeur of ice, hosted by Corey Mwamba.

77Vision Festival At 252021071820210717 (R3)The best jazz and improvised music with an adventurous spirit.

Corey Mwamba previews this year's Vision Festival - for 25 years the spiritual home of free music in New York City. He speaks to the American pianist, poet and vocalist Amina Claudine Myers who is receiving a lifetime achievement award at the event. Amina's expansive career has covered blues, gospel, spirituals, jazz and improv as well as theatre and choral work, and she introduces a couple of tracks from her back catalogue.

Elsewhere on the show, there's light and exploratory improvisation that floats through the air from an ensemble put together by Torgrim Sollid, a Norwegian folk and jazz musician. And pianist Lisa Cay Miller, guitarist Vicky Mettler and bassist Raphae?l Foisy-Couture spontaneously create gritty, fine-grained and revelatory music.

Produced by Gabriel Francis and Jack Howson

Corey speaks to the American pianist, poet and vocalist Amina Claudine Myers.

Elsewhere on the show, there's light and exploratory improvisation that floats through the air from an ensemble put together by Torgrim Sollid, a Norwegian folk and jazz musician. And pianist Lisa Cay Miller, guitarist Vicky Mettler and bassist Raphaël Foisy-Couture spontaneously create gritty, fine-grained and revelatory music.

Produced by Gabriel Francis & Jack Howson

78Memories Of You2021072520210724 (R3)The best in new improvised music with Corey Mwamba. Guitarist Jessica Ackerley remembers two of her mentors who passed away this year on her new solo album Morning / Mourning. The Argentinian saxophonist Camiila Nebbia presents a contemplative and powerful vision of her country with a group featuring turntables, voice, cello and piano. Plus Corey pulls a rare record from his archive by the South African trumpeter Claude Deppa with his trio recorded live at the Jazz Cafe in London.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell