Appreciations from recording artists.

Many thanks, Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg. `It is always a pleasure to read your reviews because you really HEAR the music and you understand the context of what people are trying to do.   

Richard Duck Baker 

Jean Michel Van Schouwburg, absolutely ! You have the HEARING and the WRITING gloriously happening at the same high high level  !  

Ivo Perelman  

Bonjour Jean-Michel, 

 grand merci pour votre chronique sur mon disque solo ! Merci pour votre écoute si précise, pour ce propos élogieux qui donne de l'élan, pour vos mises en perspectives avec de grands noms qui m'honorent ... et m'invitent à creuser ma propre identité musicale ! Je n'ai pas vu votre chronique immédiatement , ni votre message parce que j'avais des soucis de connexion, c'est pourquoi ce mail arrive quelques jours après... . Quelle élan cela m'a donné de vous lire ! Je vous remercie pour  l'ensemble de votre travail qui fait tant découvrir , et qui fait tant pour les musiques créatives. Et à mon tour d'écouter bientôt votre album ! Je vous réécrirai !  

Merci enfin pour votre chronique que vous aviez faite sur le cd " l'écorce et la salive" de notre duo , à Jean-Luc Petit et à moi. 

Bonne soirée et à bientôt !

Françoise Bopp 


Dear Jean-Michel

Many thanks for you great review of my duo with David Leahy. It is very interesting and how you high light various aspects of the music. Again, amazing writing and reflection. Best wishes from Philipp (Wachsmann)

Hello Jean-Michel

Je suis content que tu aimes notre musique. Également très bien décrit ce qui s'y passe. C'est généralement plus intéressant lorsque des gens qui improvisent écrivent sur quelque chose comme ça. 

BEst Flo . 

Florian Stoffner. 

... Merci pour ton écoute généreuse !...
....
P.S. Tes paroles aident les musiciens à garder l'espoir et l'envie. En ' VIE ' , c'est donc du VITAL !   Grazie d'être là ! 
Rosa Parlato 


Again you wrote such a precise and just beautiful review about music - WordUp!

Ebba Jahn 

...i can imagine very well. but i also agree with Ebba Jahn. because only a few humans are able to find words for the other language - music, cheers

Paul Hubweber 

Dear Jean-Michel,

Thank you very much vor this absolutely wonderful written review!! 

Also Sergio and Giancarlo have said this about it!    (Amaroli and Schiaffini)

Also thanks you for your feed about me as soprano sax improvisor! It warms my heart and encourages me to keep on and on playing! 

......

Big hug and all my very best wishes to you! Be safe and stay healthy! 

I hope we can continue with our concerts soon and make the plan happening in the Gallery coming fall! 

Harri (Sjöström). 

Hi Jean-Michel,

Thank you very much for putting such an effort in to working out the Crossings project, and using several importantly relevant historical perspectives that then give any reader a clearer understanding of what this music is about. Nobody has got as close to the truth about my music as you and I really appreciate this. Unfortunately, I had to use Google-Translate but I do get a lot of the picture that you have colourfully painted. Wonderful, and so helpful and supportive - thank you again.

My love to you and dearest Joelle

V - Veryan Weston

Dear Jean-Michel,

thank you so much for your review, it is really wonderful to read! I am glad that our music touched you and the way you are listening to it is how we intended it. Sorry that my answer comes so late, I fell kind of asleep in this time…. I hope we will have the chance to meet in person once the covid restrictions are over.

Until then I wish you all the best,
Elisabeth - Elisabeth Coudoux Physis CD


Merci, merci pour les notes qui sont vraiment bien et qui décrivent parfaitement les choses, ce qui est rare.

Jean - Marc Foussat au sujet du duo avec Thomas Lehn sur FOU Records.


THANKS A LOT!!!
votre écriture est fantastique, imaginative et toujours cohérente!!! c'est la musique des mots !! Merci beaucoup!

Andrea Centazzo

Ah Jean Michel,
What amazing sleevenotes!!!!!!!!.....and thank you a million zillion times over for these. They are truly beautiful and are so full of love of the music we both live on for our food, oxygen and sanity.
I really was not expecting you to write these, thinking that you would find the task too difficult and too demanding, but what you have written is very perceptive, passionate and inspiring. I really think that it might well help many people to listen deeper to this music.
I will buy you a large beer the next time we are in a room together which I hope will be soon!!
Much love to you and Joelle (as always)
Veryan Weston about Early Sonatas with Phil Durrant on scâtter!

Hi Jean Michel!
I would like to thank you for the beautiful review of my latest cd...especially because it was done with great competence and because you managed to capture the thought and the depht behind this work, which is not something that everyone can do.
Thank you again and I hope that one day we can play together, it would be very nice! 😎
my best ,
Andrea Massaria - guitarist fr his own solo album New Needs Need New Techniques on Leo Records

It was easily the most gratifying translation work I've done, and the result is much more than extended liner notes. Jean-Michel's essay captures the essence of one of the most accomplished ongoing collaborations in improvised music/jazz, and does so with a sensitivity and generosity perfectly suited to his subjects.
Andrew Castillo , Univ. of Columbia , NYC , Lecturer on Cinema - Movies . Translator of my essay Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp - Embrace of Souls issued by SMP label's Perelman - Shipp Special Edition Box


Dear Jean Michel,
It is so nice to hear from you and its great to read your marvelous writing about MOVE! „Archipelago bird“ - haha thats really good! I go to the finnish archipelago every year and I grew up there to a part as well so sounds of the birds are in my imagination when playing. You absolutely heard it right!
Thank you very much for your writing and I hope we can see soon in a next future!! I would very much love this!!!
Hugs and best,

Harri (Sjöström) about Move Live in Moers / Fundacja Sluchaj

Jean-Michel's first book Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp: Embrace of the Souls (Nuremberg: SMP Records, 2020) . I look forward to the book, especially after the information that it will include the CD Procedural Language, which promises a reading and listening experience in one. Jean-Michel has convinced me that he can write nicely and interestingly about music in many reviews and critiques that he has tirelessly published in magazines and on the web for years. He writes as spontaneously and passionately as he vocalizes; he tries to snatch writing from the clutches of logocentrism and to keep his presence in it for as long as possible. It is a rare ambition in today's world of bloggers and unfinished writers, whose impressionistic outbursts and superficial compilations circulate in the superproductive field of contemporary journalism without saying anything new and meaningful.""

Josef Cseres in https://www.hisvoice.cz/hermovo-ucho-vasnive-streamy-jeana-michela-van-schouwburga/

Caro Jean Michel,
Ho letto ora la tua bellissima recensione e davvero te ne sono grato.
Commovente in certi punti.
Sono contento che ti sia piaciuto questo album! Quando ho ascoltato il recording mi ha sorpreso… per una specie di tenerezza, forse.
Gianni Mimmo The Lenox Brothers : Township Nocturne / Amirani

A unique box variant is Embrace of the Souls: (SMP 2020 https://smprecords.bandcamp.com/album/special-edition-box), which packages three examples of the almost-25-year musical partnership of Brazilian tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman and American pianist Matthew Shipp. Included is an audio CD of a 2019 New York concert, a DVD of a São Paulo concert later that year, and a 49-page booklet discussing the musicians and 14 of their recordings by Belgian writer Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg. Building on the time he produced a Brussels concert with the duo, Van Schouwburg defines what he calls their sense of aesthetic familiarity, which allows them to create first-class music. Designed for both free jazz insiders and those exploring the sounds, Van Schouwburg describes the duo’s individual histories and situ- ates their references and influences to swing era and bop stylists as well as more recent exploratory players. He insists on the unique qual- ities of every improvisation, live and recorded, and offers a succinct description of each disc. Meanwhile Perelman and Shipp’s art can be experienced audibly and/or visually. Filmed on a darkened stage and occasionally cutting away to show Perelman’s paintings, the DVD is one hour of uninterrupted improvisation that shows interwoven crea- tivity. Consisting of a dozen tracks that take from between slightly over two to slightly over seven minutes to be resolved, the majority of the CD’s untitled tunes are pensive and romantic. Demonstrating again that free improvisation doesn’t have to be loud to be profound, logical shifts and slides are heard. Despite the saxophonist’s frequently climbing to altissimo or sopranissimo pitches with fragmented peeps, squeaks and screams, the two press on resolutely. Sometimes acceler- ating to a gallop to counter Perelman’s discursive reed lines or violent keyboard squalls before subsiding to double counterpoint, Shipp’s measured pattering and percussive asides indicate how he too subtly contributes to the tracks’ floating coordination.
No vanity projects, each of these collections has something to offer and celebrate.
thewholenote.com
September and October 2021 | 51


Thanks wonderful Jean-Michel. Merci !!
I am so happy that you understand the music and the intention behind it. Yes, with these solos i wanted to create a music that was brand new to me, unlike anything else i had done on cello in the past. And it is interesting that you preceive Simon as an influence as this definitely was the case. If not in the music exactly, definitely in spirit !!
Regards Mark (Wastell) Mark Wastell Cello - Intern Solos Confront Recordings.

Jean-Michel. Your definition of our music is transcendental and accurate. Thank you. You are one of the few that are connected. An enormous hug!
Guilherme Rodrigues.
Cher Jen-Michel merci pour l'excellente critique! Tu es sans aucun doute l’un des rares à savoir écouter et à écrire avec acuité, esprit et astuce ! Encore merci.
Ernesto Rodrigues . Both Ernesto & Guilherme conerning CD Conundrum of Alex von Schlippenbach Ernesto Rodrigues Guilherme Rodrigues Nuno Torres Willy Kellers.

Thank you so much for writing the 'Water' review....you are both kind and very well-informed. I have read the translation via Liam Steffani's translation using Google Translate and it reads surprisingly well. Fantastic descriptions of the music....you have caught some inspired moments using your musical prose that is both enthusiastic and generous.....thank you Jean.
Veryan Weston for his own solo piano Water (1988)issued by scätter archives digital