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Come 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
A Reduced Listening production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3