Session 52 // 20.10.2025
The Bill Dixon Orchestra – Intents and Purposes (1967)
Ciao,
October is super packed with great gigs and our modest tribute to what would have been Bill Dixon’s 100th birthday.
Since his pivotal role in the 1964 “October Revolution in Jazz” and his long professorship at Bennington College in Vermont, Dixon has been celebrated not only as an instrumental and compositional innovator, but also as a remarkable organizer and educator. Having studied both painting and music, he approached sound through a visual sensibility—treating it in terms of color, shading, and texture, and displaying a refined awareness of dynamics—qualities that swiftly positioned him at the vanguard of the 1960s New Thing movement.
See you at Rhinoceros,
Alessandro
✨ 20.10.2025 – Listening session 52: The Bill Dixon Orchestra – Intents And Purposes (1967 RCA Victor)
Bill Dixon’s Intents and Purposes (1967, RCA Victor) stands as one of the most profound yet criminally overlooked statements of 1960s jazz. Recorded at a time when the American free jazz movement was both exploding and fracturing, Dixon’s sole major-label release presents a vision that is as rigorous in its structure as it is daring in its freedom.
Dixon’s trumpet serves more as a guiding presence than a traditional lead instrument. His sense of space recalls the European avant-garde and even contemporary classical composers, but the music remains deeply rooted in the Black American jazz tradition. The orchestra’s careful balancing of improvisation and composition reveals Dixon’s role not just as a bandleader, but as an architect of sound.
It is music that resists easy categorization: too structured for “free jazz,” too expansive for “chamber jazz”. Listening today, one realizes how far ahead Dixon was, anticipating later developments in large-ensemble improvisation and compositional jazz.
✨ Rhinoçerós Bar, Rhinower Str. 3, 10437 Berlin.
✨ The bar opens at 6:30 PM, needle drop at 8:30 PM.
✨ A 5 Euro entry ticket will be charged on the first order. No reservations.
✨ We ask for silent listening during the length of the record.
✨ Come early and stay late for a chat and a drink!
More on Bill Dixon:
- Archie Shepp - Bill Dixon Quintet Live in Helsinki 1962
– Bill Dixon Ensemble live 1981
More music:
Sven-Ake Johansson, Pierre Borel, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip – Two days at Cafe Oto (2CD Otoroku 2025)
What a beautiful river of music to immerse oneself in: during two nights at Café Oto Sven-Åke Johansson improvised on drums and accordion with Seymour Wright and Joel Grip of Ahmed and Pierre Borel from Umlaut records. Long tracks, played in various combinations of musicians, exploring with lightness and humor different pathways of improvisation. Full of ostinati when Wright plays the horn, reminiscing here and there the bop era with Borel and and more generally channeling a stream of (musical) consciousness that stretches across two long CDs, enough time to evolve and capture one’s mind.
Anna Högberg Attack – Ensamseglaren (LP Fönstret 2025)
How long have I’ve been waiting for this? The first two records from Anna Högberg’s formation, Attack and Lena have been spinning non-stop for years and I fell deep inside a rabbit hole, eagerly collecting and obsessing over her other projects: Dog Life, Pombo, Se och Hör, The big YES! and the great but far too short solo tracks on Bengt Frippe’s boxset. Apparently, she took a five-year pause to attend nursing school, and now she returns with a tribute to her late father in the form of a double sextet. Three tracks that evolve slowly and groovily; it reminds me a little of Fire! Orchestra’s early records, with an intriguing noisy, guitar-driven insert in between. A confirmation that she’s one of the greatest talents to emerge from the north, both as a musician and as a composer and arranger.
From the bookshelf:
Two celebrations and goodbye.
No book this month, but a little homage to the two printed magazines that have been with me on my musical journey since… forever. Blow Up from Italy is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and it still has the same effect on me: every issue brings a flood of interesting music and keeps widening my horizons. I especially love the moment when you read an article about a band that more or less made music history with a ton of releases… and somehow you’ve never even heard of them (!). Like Sun City Girls in 1996; or Bernhard Günther in 1999; or, or, or.
The Wire doesn’t really need an introduction, it just entered my life much later than Blow Up. It quickly became essential: the Invisible Jukebox, the Primers, and that unique ability to look at culture on a meta level. The 10th and the 21st days of the month are the happiest, when I open my mailbox and find the new issues waiting.
Also a big shout out to Vital Weekly, which sent its 1500th and final issue: the newsletter will be sorely missed.
Upcoming gigs in October:
8.10 – Mirna Bogdanović Group at Sowieso
9.10 – Stefano Pilia at Labor Neunzehn
10.10 – Lai / Furtado; Masing / Heery / Surberg at Richten25
10.10 – Dedicated to Dean Roberts (Andrea Belfi, Stefano Pilia, Valerio Tricoli, Margareth Kammerer, Emanuele and Elisabetta Porcinai) at KM28
11.10 – Nebbia / Banner / Gray at Sowieso
14.10 – Joshua Burkett, Ned Colette (Early show) in Bis Aufs Messer
16–18.10 – Trouble in the East festival (too many to list!) at Panda Platforma
19.10 – Dyberg / Piña; Cruz / Ce at Exploratorium
24.10 – Absolutely Sweet Marie at Richten25
29.10 – Fink Floyd at Richten25
31.10 – Elektramusic Hybrid Serie 2 at Studio DB
What a month! JazzfestBerlin also starting on 30.10. See you out there.