Misha Mengelberg at 90 / Some housekeeping
Some housekeeping notes:
At Dusted Magazine, I wrote up a new Apartment House record of early John Cage compositions (https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/785446565070487552/john-cageapartment-house-chamber-works). It’s pretty cool stuff and I think this one is a good entryway into Cage’s music, which is less self-consciously experimental than might be generally supposed.
Also at Dusted, I wrote about The JACK Quartet playing John Zorn’s string quartets (https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/778923462306791424/john-zornthe-jack-quartet-the-complete-quartets). If you’d asked me ten years ago if I’d be writing about classical so much, I might have given you a look. But then, if you’d told me I’d be writing for Dusted and would have transed my gender, I wouldn’t have believed you either.
At The Bulwark, I wrote about a new collection of Murray Kempton’s writing (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-late-great-american-newspaper-columnist-murray-kempton?utm_source=publication-search). Very excited about this one, and huge thanks to Martyn Wendell Jones for his editing, he really helped make this one shine.
For the Transfeminine Review, I wrote about Torrey Peters’ new book Stag Dance (https://thetransfemininereview.com/2025/04/18/milner-stag-dance-review/), a collection of her two earlier novellas and two new ones. It’s not that it’s uneven, it’s more that when Peters is on, she’s amazing, but even when she doesn’t quite connect, she’s still good. I liked it a lot, although I’m hearing more mixed reception from other people.
Finally, At Full Stop I wrote about Jeanne Thornton’s new novel A/S/L (https://www.full-stop.net/2025/04/07/reviews/rozmilner/a-s-l-jeanne-thornton/), which was a great story about three trans women tied together by their experiences making a ZZT-style game as teenagers. It’s a moving and compelling story, and just blew me away. I bet you’ll like it, too.
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Today would’ve been pianist Misha Mengelberg’s 90th birthday. Born in Kyiv in 1935, he passed away in 2017. He spent a good portion of his professional career as part of the loose Instant Composers Pool ensemble, a group that self-released records with ensembles of various sizes - sometimes a duo, sometimes as a large group - and who never fail to surprise. Mengelberg also recorded as a leader for other labels and as a sidesman. He was someone who sometimes popped up unexpectedly and was always a treat.
I think my fave of his records is MiHa, two long duo sets of him on piano and drummer Han Bennick on drums and “other stuff.” The two shows are separated by five years, but you’d never know that from their chemistry. These are two players who feed off each other, know when to step back or take the lead, and constantly push the edges of free jazz. Mengelberg’s piano sometimes fractures into weird, pounded chords, and sometimes shows him playing sparse, reflective phrases. Meanwhile Bennick’s drumming can be propulsive one moment and a counterpoint the next. It’s playing that rewards close attention and unlike some more free records, it’s as fun to listen to as I assume it was to play.
MIHA (ICP031, 1997) by Misha Mengelberg & Han Bennink
His work as a leader is worth investigating, too. The Root of the Problem (Hatology, 1997) shows him working with a series of players (saxophonist Steve Potts, tuba player Michel Godard, percussionist Achim Krämer, and trumpet player Thomas Heberer) over a series of nights in Koln. It’s music where things change on a dime, but Mengelberg’s playing is constant and keeps the music in line. Sometimes you can hear slow, stride piano echoes of Monk, at others the flurry of notes I associate with Don Pullen, but often he just seems content to guide the music in a way I’d call unobtrusive - he never takes over or pushes the others aside. Maybe a good name for it would’ve been Plays Well With Others.
And indeed he did. Two Days in Chicago (Hatology, 1999) is him sitting in with a bunch of Chicago’s finest free jazzers: Fred Anderson, Ken Vandermark, Hamid Drake. A few of his Dutch friends are there, too: reed player Ab Baars and drummer Martin Van Duynhoven. It’s split into two separate records, the first a studio session, the second a live performance. The music alternates between free improvisation and hard-swinging jazz, but for my money the best stuff is when the two merge, as on “Chicago Quartet One.” Anderson’s hard blowing sax mixes well with Mengelberg’s ever-moving piano lines and a skittering drum pattern by Drake. It’s a pity he didn’t record more with AACM-associated figures, although it is worth mentioning his turn on Anthony Braxton’s Charlie Parker Project 1993.
Lately I feel like I’ve seen an uptick in interest with the ICP and its various records. There’s a nice Bluesky account representing the label and their Bandcamp is issuing a mixture of old and new records. I pestered the Bluesky account and got them to confirm that ICP026, Two Programs: The Icp Orchestra Performs Nichols - Monk is getting a digital reissue, which is one of those records I want more people to listen to. You’d do well to keep an eye out for it.