Falb / Holub / Satzinger Trio
Viola Falb – saxophone
Bernd Satzinger – bass
Mark Holub – drums
BARCODE 5028386714828
Track details:
1) Cash Cow - 0:31 GBACW1801188
2) Afterwards - 5:07 GBACW1801189
3) Eye Poker - 0:36 GBACW1801190
4) Downy Beard - 4:03 GBACW1801191
5) A Line - 0:28 GBACW1801192
6) A Room For You - 2:35 GBACW1801193
7) Dry Deposition - 0:38 GBACW1801194
8) Missing Link - 3:00 GBACW1801195
9) Mixed Blessings - 4:25 GBACW1801196
10) Private Conversation - 0:39 GBACW1801197
11) Breakfast as Dinner - 8:31 GBACW1801198
12) Quantum Readjustment - 0:38 GBACW1801199
13) False Tears - 7:31 GBACW1801200
14) You Can't Unthink a Thought - 0:44 GBACW1801201
15) Rusty Soles – 3:02 * GBACW1801202
All compositions by Falb / Holub / Satzinger except * by Mark Holub
Recorded on 12 – 13 September 2018 in Hotel Pupik, Styria, Austria by Oliver Brunbauer
Mixed and Mastered by Oliver Brunbauer at Feedback Studio, Vienna, Austria
VIOLA FALB / MARK HOLUB / BERND SATZINGER - A Room for You (Slam 2112; UK) Featuring Viola Falb on sax, Bernd Satzinger on bass and Mark Holub on drums. This music was recorded in Hotel Pupik in Styria, Austria in September of 2018. I hadn’t heard of the saxist here before now (a young Austrian woman who has a band called Falb Fiction), although the bassist once played in Haleoscene with Downtown bassist Nico Letman-Burtinovic and the drummer is from prog-band, Led Bib, who have discs out on Cuneiform and Babel. The pieces on this discs range from very short, (just 31 seconds), to 8 minutes. I like that this trio doesn’t sound completely free or overly frenetic. They actually have a soft center, calming down to a thoughtful contemplative simmer. Oddly enough, the short pieces are where they erupt while the long pieces are more restrained. Ms. Falb actually reminds me of Lee Konitz at times with a nice bittersweet tone that she likes to stretch out and bend slightly. All of the longer pieces seem to have some structure or strategy with the rhythm team playing some tight lines together while the sax adds selective punctuation. The short pieces are more like quick, quirky interludes for the longer, more thought out piece. Contrabassist Bernd Satzinger, stands out here, he is the glue that holds this together, whether bowing or plucking, he helps to focus the action or interaction by placing notes in just the right areas. Although it is rather rare for me, I put this disc on again as soon as it was over since I wanted to hear the way it worked so well the first time listening. A truly great find for a trio well worth wider recognition. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG Newsletter 5 February, 2021
This is the first album from a new, saxophone-led, free jazz, free improv trio from Austria. The crux of the music (yet again) seems to be aimed at the generation of a group language through the melding of a gamut of individual ideas and expressions, to some degree born of an extraordinarily pedagogical bent, but also arising from the creative brilliance, ingenuity and skills of the inspired collective.
The trio manipulates an impulsively imagined timing, set in a malleable configuration which together yield a new freedom. Improvisation is no longer seen as a natural or essential sequence to a chorus, but is instead an invitation to each instrument to spread itself, to travel where it will, to foil and frustrate the restraints that confine the jazz music so that it may now be played and heard freely.
Each musician has brought notions to the mill: Falb from many commissions and innumerable ensembles of different genres; Satzinger from years as composer/arranger for bass guitar and double bass and sideman for many groups, travelling worldwide; American Holub from his British, award-winning, jazz/rock quintet Led Bib project and other bands. The three together provide a truly exciting sound. They move with a continuous motion, bracketing abstractions and conceptions with extemporisation, and all in an air of high-dynamic multiformity.
This is Viola Falb at her very best and very much ‘of the present’. There are many instances in this music which illustrate the persistence of the spirits of free jazz, contemporary jazz and classic, with some moments of folk in the blend too. It needs no classification – just enjoy.
Ken Cheetham https://www.jazzviews.net/viola-falb--bernd-satzinger--mark-holub-trio---a-room-for-you.html
15 tunes, ranging from half a minute over eight, are delivered by tenor saxist Viola Falb, drummer Mark Holub and bassist Bernd Satzinger. The longer pieces included a bluesy feel on the melancholy "Afterwards", a happy bopper of "Rusty Roles" and a dreamy but darkly loose "Breakfast". Falb gets a happy feel on the whimsical "Eye Poker" and Satzinger makes the strings bend on "You Can’t Unthink A Thought". Intuitive with long shadows.https://www.jazzweekly.com/2020/09/slam-for-septemberviola-falb-bernd-satzinger-mark-holub-a-room-for-you-breadcrumb-trio-breadcrumb-trio-haslam-madeira-rua-lopes-ajuda-stephanos-shytiris-nikolas-skordas-invisible-war/ George Harris