The Amsterdam-based ZWERV is an international, free-improv unit led by veteran Dutch guitarist Henk Zwerver. The ZWERV septet features musicians who have collaborated with each other in many other outfits. Fellow Dutch double bass player Raoul van der Weide, plays with Zwerver in String5 and The Bertch Quartet; Israeli expat, bass clarinet player Ziv Taubenfeld plays with van der Weide in Xavier Pamplona Ensemble; Argentinian pianist Nico Chientaroli plays with van der Weide in the New Rumors and Other Noises trio; Portuguese trumpeter Luis Vicente; Italian trombonist Salvoandrea Lucifero; and British drummer George Hadow, another member of The Bertsch Quartet and Xavier Pamplona Ensemble, who plays with Taubenfeld in the Kuhn Fu quartet and with Vicente in ad-hoc outfits led by Belgian guitarist Dirk Serries.
The sophomore album of ZWERV, following «Live» (Creative sources, 2017), then a quintet sans Lucifero and Chientaroli, was recorded at Amsterdam’s haven for improvised music, the Zaal 100 club on December 2017. The title of the album, «Music from any moment», captures faithfully ZWERV aesthetics, leaning towards the British school of non-idiomatic, free-improvisation, offering a series of cerebral, tough and fast-shifting, free-form textures. Zwerver himself adapts Derek Bailey approach to the guitar, and together with van der Weide and Hadow build a low-end, restless, percolating layer that pushes the horn players and pianist Chientaroli to different, conflicting courses.
ZWERV has a clear affinity for exploring weird and eccentric sounds through various extended techniques. On «Sur Herbe» even manages to sketch an exotic, ironic stew out of these spicy ingredients and on «The Takeover»
ZWERV adopts a collective, slow-cooking method of transforms these exotic sounds into a dense and powerful interplay. The shorter improvisations, «Revolving Entrances» and «The Startup», suggest more playful veins, informed by the American free jazz of the sixties, and are the most cohesive and intense pieces here. The brief, last «Sixpack 2» adds some humor ZWERV uncompromising improvisations.
Eyal Hareuveni
Ziv Taubenfeld (bcl), Luis Vicente (tp), Salvoandrea Lucifero (tb), Henk Zwerver (g), Nico Chientaroli (p), Raoul van der Weide (b, objects), George Hadow (dr)
