Jim Goetsch

The music of Jim Goetsch is the product of a widely divergent background that includes extensive jazz experience on saxophone, performance of avant garde classical works on clarinet and bass clarinet, tours with blues legend Albert King and Senegalese griot Mor Thiam, and a long history of performing electronic music in the Los Angeles area. He currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is primarily engaged in two projects at this time.

Baker’s Brew is an experimental jazz ensemble led by veteran drummer Maury Baker, which features total improvisation as well as the group improvising their parts over four channel electronic compositions by Jim. Their release “New Works” has been hailed as “An Album of the Future” by the Italian magazine JAZZit.

The second project is Double Image, a solo effort that is Jim’s electronic music alter ego. This project has recently produced the album “Electronic Landscapes”, a mix that includes ambient music, electronic jazz, modern classical and other elements that is intended to be presented live through a surround sound system. Both “New Works” and “Electronic Landscapes” are available on Jim’s label, Psychosomatic Records.

Jim is currently holding down a weekly jazz gig with the High City Jazz Quartet at Chile Line Brewery in Santa Fe NM. He is also one of the producers of the monthly Sandbox Music Series that presents new and experimental music in Santa Fe. More info on all these projects is at the site for his Psychosomatic Records label at psyrecords.com

Tags

Jim Goetsch Soprano Sax Electronics Avant Garde Experimental Jazz

ENRICO MERLIN / JAZZit - reviewing New Works: "Inspired by the historic multiphony works of Stockhausen and Luigi Nono, the composer constructs a series of electronic sequences that are broadcast live in quadraphony. In the first piece we are dealing with parts of virtual arches that quickly create a texture of glissandi lenses, which like a bullet catapult us into a parallel dimension in which Giacinto Scelsi meets the Ligeti of “Lux Aeterna”. In place of the monolith of “2001: Space Odyssey” however, Goetsch's saxophone enters, which mixes tonally with the recorded parts to lead us on our interstellar journey. The strings move from pizzicato to a multi-displaced pointillism in the stereophonic space (I can only imagine what the effect could be in a quadraphonic concert hall) and all the instruments begin to interact by improvising. And this is the key that strongly struck me: the work of interaction between pre-composed and pre-recorded materials and total improvisation, each time reformulating the narration of the story, enriching the script in an unpredictable way. But compared to many similar experiences in the past, it does so in a very autonomous and personal way. After all, shouldn't jazz be just that? A great journey into the future. I recommend that you find this album through the band’s site or the label’s site.

JAZZ WEEKLY - reviewing New Works : "Usually, when you read phrases like “spontaneous compositions” on the liner notes of an album, your first association is usually, “cacophonic ramblings”. Well, in the hands of vets like drummer Maury Baker, guitarist Daniel Coffeng, Jim Goetsch on sax and electronics and bassist/electronics man Carl Royce, you get two separated discs of rich impressionistic art, easy to follow and even easier to appreciate."

METALJAZZ.COM - reviewing New Works: "Cultivated art-rock drummer Maury Baker (Ars Nova, Tim Buckley, Frank Zappa) strokes it light & spacious on jazz and electronic tunes/jamz with bandmates Jim Goetsch (sax), Daniel Coffeng (guitar) and Carl Royce (bass). Detailed recording and trippy surround-sound complement tuned-in performances and moody intelligence for a deeply involving audiophile experience, if that ain't a dirty word."

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