Lawrence Casserley-Jeffrey Morgan

Room 2 Room
Konnex KCD 5213

Christine Sehnaoui/Michel Waisvisz

Short Wave

Al Maslakh CD 08

As the sonic interaction of acoustic and electronics instruments in improv shifts from the province of novelty to that of an everyday occurrence, focusing on the strategies used for coherence is more instructive than enumerating sound sources.

So it is with these notable CDs, recorded about six months apart by duos from different backgrounds. Interestingly enough the two slightly younger performers – Lebanese-French alto saxophonist Christine Sehnaoui and “The Hands” manipulator Michel Waisvisz, of the Netherlands – blend and jumble pulses to such an extent that it’s often difficult to tell which instrument creates which sound. Furthermore neither player is much concerned with capturing a pure timbre. With Room 2 Room on the other hand, there’s never any question that American-born, Köln-resident Jeffrey Morgan is playing tenor and soprano saxophones, while the signal processing created by British electro-acoustician Lawrence Casserley demarcates itself.

As an aside, appreciation for Short Wave is tinged with melancholy. For despite being the first studio recording since the 1970s by live-electronic visionary Waisvisz – best-known as inventor of the crackle box and The Hands – it’s also one of his last. He died of cancer in June 2008.

Waisvisz, whose involvement with STEIM went back to 1969, uses an ultra-flexible version of “The Hands” attached to various sensors which, when used with specially designed sound manipulation software LiSa, translates the performer’s hand gestures into sound. Someone whose playing partners have included saxophonists such as Willem Breuker and Steve Lacy, he easily adapts to the non-idiomatic focus of Sehnaoui, who has recorded with musicians such as Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach. Her most distinct approach involves lip bubbling, throat retches, split tones, tongue slaps and sudden expelling of breath. These strategies are doubled, amplified or deconstructed by oscillated signal processing runs and ramping, ever-moving processed wiggles.

Vocalized gurgles subsumed in circular motions are most pervasive on “Preciously Empty”. Initially built on low-key whistles, single puffs and mouth-expanding growls from the reedist, the piece alters its shape as Waisvisz’ pond-algae-like wave forms spin from broken octave concordance with reed tones to new definitions. Processing solid pipe-organ-like pumps and calliope-like shrills, the crackling, blurry oscillations eventually become forced drones and amplified twitters. These sound waves break infrequently to reveal Sehnaoui’s circular breathing and growled counter tones.

Morgan, whose electronics collaborators over the years have included Joker Nies on synthesizer and real time-processing plus guitarist Keith Rowe using treatments, short wave radio and noise makers, isolates his saxophone tone more overtly than Sehnaoui does hers. While Casserley, a retired Royal College of Music professor, known for his contributions to Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensembles, is sensitive enough to reed textures to never mask them. Interactions which encompass legato and semi-lyrical trills or abrasive kazoo-like mouthpiece squeaks on Morgan’s part, float on, or dart among, indistinct oscillations or color-organ-like crescendos. As well, Casserley’s sampling multiples the saxman’s initial tones.

Compare “Rhombic Rheums” with “Lunar Lagoons” for example. The later may almost be a reconfiguration of Bird and Strings – if you can imagine the signal processing as the “strings”. In its climatic moments, the piece finds Morgan playing tenor saxophone in swollen straight time, while flanged modulations from Casserley’s instrument produce a cascade of polyphonic pumping textures. Where previously the processor’s echoes performed a monkey-hear-monkey-do tactic along with Morgan’s foreground strident cheeps and cries; by the finale the reedist’s almost-solipsistic split tone are being cushioned by near symphonic sheets of sound coloration.

In contrast, “Rhombic Rheums” is taken adagio with atmospheric reflections. As the fuzzy pulsations give way to ring modulator-like clangs and a landscape of complex drones and shrill echoes, Morgan’s split tones reassert and divide themselves still further, before they’re doubled and tripled with electronic replication. Aviary squeals, guttural honks, spetrofluctuation and tongue flutters protrude, before they’re remixed by Casserley. Going head-to-head with his processed selves, the live saxophonist easily projects his individuality.

Each of these CDs contributes a significant definition of satisfying electro-acoustic integration. Unfortunately now, only the Casserley-Morgan interaction can be repeated.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Room: 1. Quaking Quarks 2. Martian Arts 3. Rhombic Rheums 4. Ayler Appears 5. Strange Roads 6. Lunar Lagoons 7. Questing Qualms

Personnel: Room: Jeffrey Morgan (tenor and soprano saxophones) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instruments)

Track Listing: Short: 1. Wig Wag 2. Precious Empty 3. Deep Sleep Revelation 4. The Bottom of the Pond 5. Find the Short Wave in the Dark

Personnel: Short: Christine Sehnaoui (alto saxophone) and Michel Waisvisz (“the hands” live electronics)

June 23, 2009

Christine Sehnaoui/Michel Waisvisz

Short Wave
Al Maslakh CD 08

Lawrence Casserley-Jeffrey Morgan

Room 2 Room

Konnex KCD 5213

As the sonic interaction of acoustic and electronics instruments in improv shifts from the province of novelty to that of an everyday occurrence, focusing on the strategies used for coherence is more instructive than enumerating sound sources.

So it is with these notable CDs, recorded about six months apart by duos from different backgrounds. Interestingly enough the two slightly younger performers – Lebanese-French alto saxophonist Christine Sehnaoui and “The Hands” manipulator Michel Waisvisz, of the Netherlands – blend and jumble pulses to such an extent that it’s often difficult to tell which instrument creates which sound. Furthermore neither player is much concerned with capturing a pure timbre. With Room 2 Room on the other hand, there’s never any question that American-born, Köln-resident Jeffrey Morgan is playing tenor and soprano saxophones, while the signal processing created by British electro-acoustician Lawrence Casserley demarcates itself.

As an aside, appreciation for Short Wave is tinged with melancholy. For despite being the first studio recording since the 1970s by live-electronic visionary Waisvisz – best-known as inventor of the crackle box and The Hands – it’s also one of his last. He died of cancer in June 2008.

Waisvisz, whose involvement with STEIM went back to 1969, uses an ultra-flexible version of “The Hands” attached to various sensors which, when used with specially designed sound manipulation software LiSa, translates the performer’s hand gestures into sound. Someone whose playing partners have included saxophonists such as Willem Breuker and Steve Lacy, he easily adapts to the non-idiomatic focus of Sehnaoui, who has recorded with musicians such as Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach. Her most distinct approach involves lip bubbling, throat retches, split tones, tongue slaps and sudden expelling of breath. These strategies are doubled, amplified or deconstructed by oscillated signal processing runs and ramping, ever-moving processed wiggles.

Vocalized gurgles subsumed in circular motions are most pervasive on “Preciously Empty”. Initially built on low-key whistles, single puffs and mouth-expanding growls from the reedist, the piece alters its shape as Waisvisz’ pond-algae-like wave forms spin from broken octave concordance with reed tones to new definitions. Processing solid pipe-organ-like pumps and calliope-like shrills, the crackling, blurry oscillations eventually become forced drones and amplified twitters. These sound waves break infrequently to reveal Sehnaoui’s circular breathing and growled counter tones.

Morgan, whose electronics collaborators over the years have included Joker Nies on synthesizer and real time-processing plus guitarist Keith Rowe using treatments, short wave radio and noise makers, isolates his saxophone tone more overtly than Sehnaoui does hers. While Casserley, a retired Royal College of Music professor, known for his contributions to Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensembles, is sensitive enough to reed textures to never mask them. Interactions which encompass legato and semi-lyrical trills or abrasive kazoo-like mouthpiece squeaks on Morgan’s part, float on, or dart among, indistinct oscillations or color-organ-like crescendos. As well, Casserley’s sampling multiples the saxman’s initial tones.

Compare “Rhombic Rheums” with “Lunar Lagoons” for example. The later may almost be a reconfiguration of Bird and Strings – if you can imagine the signal processing as the “strings”. In its climatic moments, the piece finds Morgan playing tenor saxophone in swollen straight time, while flanged modulations from Casserley’s instrument produce a cascade of polyphonic pumping textures. Where previously the processor’s echoes performed a monkey-hear-monkey-do tactic along with Morgan’s foreground strident cheeps and cries; by the finale the reedist’s almost-solipsistic split tone are being cushioned by near symphonic sheets of sound coloration.

In contrast, “Rhombic Rheums” is taken adagio with atmospheric reflections. As the fuzzy pulsations give way to ring modulator-like clangs and a landscape of complex drones and shrill echoes, Morgan’s split tones reassert and divide themselves still further, before they’re doubled and tripled with electronic replication. Aviary squeals, guttural honks, spetrofluctuation and tongue flutters protrude, before they’re remixed by Casserley. Going head-to-head with his processed selves, the live saxophonist easily projects his individuality.

Each of these CDs contributes a significant definition of satisfying electro-acoustic integration. Unfortunately now, only the Casserley-Morgan interaction can be repeated.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Room: 1. Quaking Quarks 2. Martian Arts 3. Rhombic Rheums 4. Ayler Appears 5. Strange Roads 6. Lunar Lagoons 7. Questing Qualms

Personnel: Room: Jeffrey Morgan (tenor and soprano saxophones) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instruments)

Track Listing: Short: 1. Wig Wag 2. Precious Empty 3. Deep Sleep Revelation 4. The Bottom of the Pond 5. Find the Short Wave in the Dark

Personnel: Short: Christine Sehnaoui (alto saxophone) and Michel Waisvisz (“the hands” live electronics)

June 23, 2009

André Goudbeek/Peter Jacquemyn/Peter Kowald/Jeffrey Morgan

Dubbel Duo
Konnex

Peter Kowald/Alberto Braida/Gincarlo Locatelli
Aria
Free Elephant

By Ken Waxman
July 17, 2005

Peter Kowald’s sudden death at 58 in 2002 deeply affected many other experimental players, since the bassist from Wuppertal, Germany was one of the few to have established himself as a true world musician. As likely to be playing with local improvisers on traditional instruments in Tokyo as with Free Jazz saxophonists and drummers in New York, Kowald had an enviable reputation as someone who could and would work himself into any musical situation, whether it be jazz, New music, traditionally oriented sounds or anything in between.

Adding to his already large discography, death seemed to potentially move the bass man into Elvis Presley territory: new CDs featuring him still appear regularly. That’s OK, because unlike Elvis, Kowald didn’t knowingly record substandard work. Both CDs are examples of his versatility. Dubbel Duo is a full out Free Jazz session – note the echo of Ornette Coleman’s double quartet in the title – while Aria, as is suggested by its title, is more New music-y. Kowald’s final studio session, Aria features austere chamber-like work in a trio with pianist Alberto Braida and clarinetist Giancarlo Locatelli, both of Milan, who usually operate in the middle ground between improvised and notated music.

Kowald’s partners on the other CD are fellow bassist Peter Jacquemayn of Brakel, Belgium, Dutch-born, Belgium-based reedist André Goubeek, and Cologne-based, American expatriate saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan. Dubbel Duo includes six duo variations among its 13 tracks, Aria features eight trio tracks, with the others much shorter solo features for either Braida or Locatelli.

Solo, each Italian revels in extended techniques. Note the harsh, mechanized almost prepared piano fantasia Braida creates with his fourth ‘Cantus”. Mostly stopped string action, it intensifies an automated timbre from the soundboard and climaxes with heavy pounding on the bass keys. Similarly, on his first “Cantus”, Locatelli resonates a secondary tone from his horn’s body tube intermingling it with an almost uncomfortably shrill primary reed line.

Interaction as well as virtuosity is the focus of the eight trio tracks though – four, widely spaced variations and four connected, longer tunes, entitled “Ricercar I, II, III and IV” and named for contrapuntal compositions popular from the 16th to 18th century. At proper recital length of slightly more than 23 minutes, the suite begins with Kowald’s arco comments on the close-breathed, John Butcher-like smears and short chalumeau vibrations from the clarinetist. With Braida contributing staid and unshowy piano chording, the bassist establishes the next variation with spinning spiccato.

“Ricercar II”, the almost seven minute centrepiece of the session, features Kowald’s mid-range resonating plucks that delineates walking bass in a less prosaic manner. Meanwhile Locatelli’s tongued note patterning emulates the bass sounds. Underscoring both are stopped-action pitches from Braida. Throughout, the bassist’s pace is andante, while the others move slightly quicker. Legato surging and descending bass patterning make the next variation connective tissue between the preceding tracks and “Ricercar IV”. Kowald’s tones echo Death Valley deep as Locatelli’s clarinet expels woody peeps.

Finally, the fourth connection moves the three deep into classically oriented territory, with broken chords symbolizing each going his separate way for a time, then melding with the others. Again, clattering, almost-prepared piano tones take up the composition’s bottom as Locatelli and Kowald vibrate diatonic nodes. Irregular patterning and agitato bowing characterize the clarinet and bass parts until the tune splits into three polychromic sections: low-pitched bass sul ponticello, mid-range piano cadenzas and high-pitched clarinet beeps.

Interaction on the same level is apparent on the trio’s other “Variations”, with Braida’s output ranging from low frequency arpeggios to resonating soundboard dissonance, key clips and plucked tones that could come from a harpsichord. Locatelli produces tongue slaps, barely-there colored air expelling and engorged harmonica-like tones. Kowald bounces his bow on top of the strings or strums the four as if he was playing the bottom portion of a 12-string guitar.

What isn’t heard on Aria but is often present on Dubbel Duo are the shamanistic rasping throat echoes Kowald often vocalizes as he plays. Associating them with stentorian double bass twangs voiced in a similar fashion, creates his version of Swing Era bassist Slam Stewart’s humming and plucking. Distinctive, on this CD the improvisation tick encourages Jacquemayn, who as a sculptor manipulates clay as well as bass strings, to distort his vocal chords in a similar manner.

This happens on one of the two bass double duos. Both pitchslide and scrape timbres from their strings. But one – Jacquemayn? – pitter-patters his notes, while the other appears to be applying a sharp knife to fishing wire to expose properly harsh tones.

The other duos are even more original. “Flapjack Blues” an outwardly directed, vibrating blues, finds Morgan’s glottal punctuation and reed-biting saxophone fills adding emotion to Kowald’s steady sawing, measured accompaniment. “Forgotten message” is brief – less than three minutes – and beautiful, with Goubeek’s emphatic bass clarinet tincture lower-pitched than the guttural murmurs and almost physically-present rustling form the bassist.

Nonetheless the CD is called Dubbel Duo for a reason. Like Coleman’s double quartet or saxophonist Glenn Spearman’s double trio, the intention is to produce as many variations in tone and timbre as can be imagined with similar instruments. Jacquemayn cheats a bit however, appending the crescendos of his accordion-like bandoneon to cushion the stark dissonance of the others. Played in a bouncy, Italianesque matter the squeeze box action softens the rough edges of spiccato, woody bass lines and harsh altissimo reed shrieks.

Putting aside guttural vocalizing and squeezed timbres, the four distinguish themselves – and distinguish individual textures – through the unique personality of singular and collective improvising.

“Side Streets in the Kasbah” for instance, reaches a point midway through when Jacquemayn’s formerly close-mouthed alto work suddenly spews out a bugle-like fanfare that’s picked up by Morgan who works his own variations on it. As the two reshape raw notes in turn – ending with a finale of harmonic interchanges – the double double basses keep up an undercurrent of sweeping sul tasto.

Similarly, “Romancing a Blue Whale, Parts 1 & 2”, gains its distinctiveness and odd title from the minutes of silence that fragment the two musical sections. Mouth shrieks and tonal squeezes then return as high-pitched aviary tones, elevated many degrees past bird-whistle territory, but extended, as they are in the first section, by an elegant, concentrated bottom from the bull fiddles, powerful and unvarying enough to suggest sequenced loops.

In the right company Kowald’s versatile individuality and powerful compatibility were properly showcased on disc. Different as night and day – or Belgium and Italy – these sessions capture two of these instances.

July 17, 2005

CAPOTE

Avenue X
Ninth World Music NWM 029 CD

THE WILD MANS BAND
The Darkest River
Ninth World Music NWM 027 CD

Difficult to imagine, but there are times during AVENUE X when the consolidated sounds of the Capote quartet are so harsh and brutal that in comparison the Wild Mans Band (WMB)’s output appears as restrained and serene as that of the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Not meant as a criticism, this state of affairs merely points out how effectively the vocabulary of pioneering fire-breathers like WMB’s reedman Peter Brötzmann and guest guitarist Pierre Dørge has permeated the fabric of modern improv. From the 1960s on, in the German saxophonist’s case and from the 1970s for the Danish guitarist, they and others proved that noise, speed and volume could just as easily be adapted to jazz as rock music.

The challenge then was having the taste and skill to deal with these add-ons. Subtlety may be lacking from both bands, but both make a go of not burying the improvisations under heavy metal.

A co-op effort between Brötzmann and Danes Peter Friis Nielsen on electric bass and Peter Ole Jørgensen on drums, WMB has a guest on each of its previous releases. Dørge, known for leading the New Jungle Orchestra is featured on this, the band’s third CD, but he played individually with the other three in concerts as early as 1989. His fiery lines and attainable effects mix with the saxman’s nephritic outbursts in the front line, while the bassist and drummer contribute what they can.

Reminding listeners that more Black Metal bands than jazzbos come from Scandinavia, Capote’s molten output could at times be termed Punk Improv or Heavy Metal Jazz, How does No Wave Improv sound?

Intimal to its sound is twin guitars of Copenhagen’s Jørgen Teller and Englishman Rex Casswell. Teller’s background includes what he terms “electroacoustics, black rock, free-form, improvisation, African guitar and rhythm, computer-music, drone-guitar and microtonality”. Casswell has been part of improv rock bands like Bark! and Stock, Hausen & Walkman.

Rounding out the quartet is American freeform alto saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan whose improv associates have included Britons, guitarist Keith Rowe and drummer Paul Lytton as well as German synthesizer manipulator Joker Nies. Drumming is handled by P.O. Jørgens, a member of Cockpit Music, a local band that plays in a similar style. Jørgens uses the name Jørgensen in WMB and seems to revel in the confusion this creates.

There’s nothing refined about Capote. With almost the same instrumentation as the Dave Clark 5, the four race through nine tunes in less than 44 minutes, with no more pauses or downtime than the Ramones brought to their oeuvre. Although there are some intimation of turntable scratching and vinyl hisses on the first and some subsequent numbers, this above all is a guitar band the same way as Wishbone Ash was.

Overall, the most common licks are the irregular pulsation of feedback-laden strings and amplifiers. There’s enough shrieking guitar feedback to impress Merzbow followers, including noisy, buzzing textures and echoes coupled with phaser drones and buzzes that jump from axe to axe. With the drummer’s power pushing right behind them, the two fretmen strum, drone or cascade distorted guitar lines. Without pausing they apply metal bars, capos, e-bows and other implements to the strings to produce acicular tones -- and don’t forget the circuit-breaking buzzes that come from the amps -- plus judicious use of the delay pedal.

One person who does have to pause for breath, though, is saxist Morgan, Most of the time his growling obbligatos, traffic horn squeaks, snaky sax trills, smears and flattement are much closer to Albert Ayler than say, Paul Desmond. Less so-called jazzy than most of his other sessions, at points here his work seems to fit in the mold of No Waver James Chance -- if Chance had more technique and command of his instrument. Among techniques on show are reed chomping and note retching plus inchoate screams. Throughout, his tones are as jagged as barbed wire and as piercing as if they’re being pushed through a strainer.

Jørgens hold up his end with noisy textures that include internal squeaks, heavy press rolls, smashed cymbals and general beat mongering. But true to his improv origins there’s never the mindless pounding you associate with rock music.

On THE DARKEST RIVER, he under his homonymic percussion name -- offers drags, wiggle ratamacues, bounces and rebounds. There are ride cymbal shivers on show and sometimes he almost produces a Native American pow-wow beat. Meanwhile Nielsen maintains the shifting pulse with some rumbling pulsation, buzzes, double stops or thumb pops as needed.

Dørge moves from speedy jazz-rock licks, a fuzztone buzz reminiscent of the beginning of “Day Tripper” and guitar hero histrionics to strategies that would more comfortably fit in the improv world. He creates refractive textures with his phaser and often colors the tunes with polyphonic smears. He strokes high up on the fret board and under the bridge for maximum spikiness and in the penultimate minutes of one tune unleashes some sliding blues-based licks.

Showpiece for the CD is the more than 19-minute “Bioluminescence”. Slower-moving, almost balladic, it centres on the saxman’s snaky ney-like alto playing and slurred, shivering guitar chords that could easily come from an oud. Here Brötzmann snakes his way around the others’ parts, intersecting, but not colliding with the bassist’s steady pulse, the drummer’s thumping cross rhythms and the guitarist’s Arabic-sounding strums. True to form, he sounds out pitch vibrations -- overblowing into the altissimo range -- as well as a steady, renal tone which brings out polyrhythmic cross sticking from Jørgensen and finger picking from Dørge.

This is just a momentary respite, however. “Dead Water,” the almost nine-minute blow-out that follows, has Brötzmann, on woody taragot, double-tonguing, slurring, crying and overblowing as per usual, expelling sound as much from his belly and bowels as his throat and lungs. Dørge too turns up his volume knobs and pedals to meet the saxman’s ejaculations with broken counterpoint of jarring pulse, finally downshifting to feedback drones.

Overall, Longtime Brötzmann followers may link this version of WMB to the co-op Last Exit of the 1980s. Nielsen may be a better bassist than Bill Laswell, but Dørge and Jørgensen, respectively, aren’t the individualists the late Sonny Sharrock and Ronald Shannon were.

In truth, when bands such as Capote have cornered the market on aggression, Brötzmann’s playing with the WMB is more engaging than it was in the 1980s.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Avenue: 1. Exigency 2. Somatization 3. Antenna 4. Heavy pitch 5. Radar 6. Zita 7. Tolerance 8.Gletscher 9. Ataxia

Personnel: Avenue: Jeffrey Morgan (tenor saxophone); Rex Casswell and Jørgen Teller (guitars); P.O. Jørgens (drums)

Track Listing Darkest: 1. Eastern Messenger 2. Old Mens Pleasure 3. The Darkest River 4. Aeolus 5. Nostromo 6. Bioluminescence 7. Dead Water 8. Rafting

Personnel: Darkest: Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet and taragot); Pierre Dørge (guitar); Peter Friis Nielsen (electric bass); Peter Ole Jørgensen (drums)

November 22, 2004

BERT WILSON/JEFFREY MORGAN

Take No Prisoners
Konnex KCD 5115

Should there ever be a New Thing Revival along the lines of the New Orleans Revival of the 1940s then saxophonist Bert Wilson could be prime candidate to be its Bunk Johnson.

Like the legendary trumpeter from New Iberia, La., Wilson has since 1980 lived far away from mainstream jazz centres in Olympia, Wash., and plays in a style as true to what was recorded on ESP-Disk as Johnson was to pre-Swing Era traditional jazz. At 64, the alto and tenor saxophonist is even a decade older than Johnson was when he was fitted with new dentures and rediscovered in 1940. As for historical connections, if Johnson played with Bolden in New Orleans before the First World War, Wilson fittingly jammed with John Coltrane’s expanded sextet in Los Angles in 1966.

That sojourn in L.A. unfortunately, limits these comparisons. Unlike Johnson, who never recorded and was out of music before he was found and displayed as the genuine jazz article to fight the bebop heresy, Wilson, who has used a wheelchair since a childhood bout with polio, has lived in New York as well as L.A. Wilson actually recorded on ESP-Disk, with percussionist James Zitro and saxist Sonny Simmons, has made other recordings and played at many jazz festivals.

Besides, Wilson, a self-aware, jocular type, doesn’t want to be displayed as anyone’s genuine jazzer. Being confined to a wheelchair was, in one sense, a blessing, he’s said, for it gave him all the time in the world to practice. Someone who can reach five to six octaves on the saxophone, he’d rather play than do anything else.

He certainly shows his stuff on this duo, which is doubly impressive since his pianist partner here is Spokane, Wash.-born Jeffrey Morgan. Peripatetic Morgan, who has lived in Cologne, Germany since 1991, is a saxman himself, whose most recent achievement is a fine duo disc, TERRA INCOGNITA, with British drummer Paul Lytton. However he played piano before the saxophone and TAKE NO PRISONERS is like those LPs that featured bassist Charles Mingus on piano -- a rare opportunity to hear an accomplished stylist translate his skills to another medium.

Maybe there are still some parallels to Johnson’s unvarnished Classic Jazz, however. This 73¾-minute session isn’t for jazz dilettantes. It’s six shots of long form improvisation with each man pouring his all into and through his instrument. Even for the committed it may best be experienced in small doss rather than in one sitting.

Wilson, for example, spends many passages on the longest -- nearly 15 minute -- title track squealing away altissimo. Along the way he adds sideslipping obbligatos, flutter tonguing and spetrofluctuation. Still, for all his extended techniques, he never sounds as if he’s at a loss for ideas, nor, no matter how hard he blows, do the tones ever sound forced. Morgan too shines, playing perhaps with a more powerful touch than usual since his instrument is an old upright. Creating allegro fantasias, he pushes uneven note clusters against a small thematic grouping, or flashes octaves over the keys.

Meanwhile, boiling repetitive overtones, minute vibrations, yelps and cries characterize the reedist’s work, which at times reaches an Aylerian march tempo. Wilson’s more versatile than many would suspect, though. By the piece’s end, duck-like quacks give way to tones that would be balladic in a different context, and he ends with a sweeping legato slur that reference pre-modern tenor titans like Ben Webster.

The Aylerian cast is even more prominent on “Centari” with Wilson and Morgan dredging up memories of New Thing saxophonist Albert Ayler and his closest keyboard associate Call Cobbs. Here Morgan sound as if he’s turning out mutant boogie woogie, while Wilson’s initial foghorn shrills soon turn into dog whistle shrieks. True to his own tuning system, he has the tendency to propel unrelated melodies into the middle of his solos that somehow fit perfectly with the irregular vibrations. If he’s biting his reed while playing, it seems as if he will devour it in the middle of a solo.

Wilson’s most varied work comes on “Poltergeist Meditations”. Beginning with an extended nephritic roar, he then reaches higher and higher pitches, seemingly just to prove that he can do so. He can, as well, smoothly sound entire well-modulated legato passages and timbres that appear to arise from the bottom of his sax bow -- so thick are they with undersea-like notes. Coda is made up of the reedist wheezing out staccato high notes then blowing air through the body tube and gooseneck without moving the keys.

Interestingly enough, while the two often appear to take off in different directions, they end up coming together at just the right note, courtesy of Wilson’s experience and the appropriate piano technique of Morgan. It ranges from punishing the lower-pitched keys with pedal pressure, rolling out speedy arpeggios and stroking the internal strings on the soundboard.

All in all, perhaps the disc is mis-titled. “Take No Prisoners” may be a bit too bellicose for what the two do. What they actually create, as the final tune says, is “Lightning, Thunder and Rain” merely using acoustic instruments and their combined talents.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Sky Dive 2. Take No Prisoners 3. Centari 4. Fast Break 5. Poltergeist Meditations 6. Celestial Spheres 7. Lightning, Thunder and Rain

Personnel: Bert Wilson (alto and tenor saxophones); Jeffrey Morgan (upright piano)

May 31, 2004

PAUL LYTTON/JEFFREY MORGAN

Terra Incognita
(Konnex)

PAIR A’ DICE
Near Vhana
(Ninth World Music)

By Ken Waxman

May 24, 2004

Buoyed by appreciative, knowledgeable audiences, American improvisers have taken up residence in Europe for greater or lesser periods since the 1920s. The trend intensified after the Second World War when Bop-to-Swing stylists including saxophonists Johnny Griffin and Charlie Mariano, trumpeter Bill Coleman and drummer Kenny Clarke, among many others, moved to the Continent. Fusion and contemporary jazz’s neo-conservatism later forced experimenters such as drummer Sunny Murray, bassist Barre Philips and alto saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan to make similar trips.

Probably the least known of the group, Spokane, Wash.-born Morgan has lived in Cologne, Germany since 1991. Involved with interdisciplinary work as director, choreographer, technical designer and actor as well as with free music since the mid-1970s, he’s played with the likes of British guitarist Keith Rowe and the late German bassist Peter Kowald.

A multi-directional player like fellow West Coast reedists Bert Wilson, Wally Shoup and Vinny Golia, Morgan is open to many styles and procedures, as you can hear on these two CDs recorded in his adopted hometown six years apart. In 1997 the saxist hooks up with Joker Nies, a Dortmund, Germany-born real time manipulator and circuit bender for nine electro-acoustic performances that link his alto with Nies’ synthesizer, Midiotics and Omnichord as the duo Pair a’ Dice. Terra Incognita features some electronic impulses as well, but the chief fascination lies in hearing Morgan match wits and licks with veteran Free Music percussionist Paul Lytton.

Maybe it’s the years of different collaborations that have taken place since the earlier date, but Morgan sounds more comfortable with Lytton than with Nies. Additionally, most of the nine pieces on Near Vhana find the reedist adopting a searing, paint peeling tone that often lurches into dog whistle territory.

For his part, Nies’ weapons of mass dissemination move between autoharp-like strums from the Omnichord to alternating impulses that arise when he touches sensitive points on the live circuit boards with electrodes made of upholstery nails. Nies, who has also improvised with British saxophonist John Butcher and locals like trombonist Paul Hubweber, not only bends sounds manually, but uses a flexible, self-created, real-time MIDI-program as well.

Unlike some of the other pieces which seem to ricochet from Game Boy beeps, squeaks and growls to electronically oscillating thwacks and thumps, more impressive duo concordance appears on “Ten Spregs”. Here Morgan’s flutter tonguing and slurs reach such an epoch of multiphonics that it’s as if two saxophonists are playing. As Nies pumps out spacecraft-like blasts that downshift to bell-like tinkles and resonating electronic sounds, Morgan responds with waves of spiky, nasal overblowing, mixed with high pitched, diffuse squeals. Before he ends the piece with a honking split tone that is reminiscent of Peter Brötzmann’s free-for-all introduction to “Machine Gun”, Nies own tones are extended with whistling impulses.

“Cirey Jets” is designed as a face off between bubbling jaw harp sounds from Nies’ Omnichord and watery, glottal notes from Morgan’s sax. With a cauldron of synthesizer effects boiling underneath, the reedist turns to spetrofluctuation, irregular vibrations and obtuse flutter tonguing in the sax’s highest range to reify his humanity.

Elsewhere, Nies’ constant percussive timbres start to resemble the incessant drumbeats of the Energizer Bunny as Morgan’s tones divide between an ear-splitting squeal and an expansive basso drone. Real-time processing suggests retreating footsteps, ray gun ejaculations and looping arpeggios that turn to percolating pops. When that happens, tongue slaps and undulating squeaks from the horn give way to aggressive noises that suggest Morgan is eviscerating his axe with a blunt knife. These go beyond harshness to what sounds like solid, ECT-induced screams.

On the other disc however, Lytton, whose reed duet partners have included Chicago’s Ken Vandermark, as well as most consistently, London’s Evan Parker, trades licks with a Morgan whose playing has now moderated beyond the altissimo -- or is it sopranissimo -- vamps he often exhibited with Nies. Furthermore, most of this Anglo-American meeting takes place during the four-section title suite.

Beginning with “Tunneling”, Lytton’s understated exposition includes the gentle drubbing of plastic practice pads, rubbing resonating tones from what could be glass test-tubes and somehow appearing to resonate string pitches from his cymbals. Morgan’s refined response involves producing individual trilled notes and circularly breathed coos and slurs.

Subsequent brassy buzzes, watery Bronx cheers and falsetto, bird-like tones from the top of his reed’s range show that the saxist hasn’t altogether abandoned his aggressive attack. But the six years plus that have passed since the first CD have moderated brutality with other extended techniques. Cylindrical growls are now what he exhibits most. And they fit perfectly with Lytton’s chain rattling, top of cymbal rubs and bell pealing tones.

By the time the two approach the appropriately entitled “Cross Hatched”, Morgan is bouncing reverberations and irregular vibrations from deep within his horn’s body tube, the better to match the percussionist’s nail-against-the-blackboard rasps and those thwacks on his snare and floor tom’s sides. At points Lytton appears to be scratching on a güiro, at another instant rolling unidentified small instruments on the floor, and later still, spanking conga drums with callused fingers. Morgan’s responses are burr-like growls, irregular split tones and an episode where he seems to be breathing air in-and-out of the sax without touching the keys.

Climax of the suite finally arrives with Lytton apparently banging on everything within reach one stroke at a time -- and that includes snares, toms and bass drum, a cow bell and what sounds suspiciously like a metal garbage can lid. Morgan’s response is an individual adaptation of Parker’s famous circular breathing technique, gutturally blowing and almost speaking simultaneously as sliding overtones extending his output.

Later, Lytton’s adoption of oscillating impulses on “Moth Wing Attachment” augments low-pitched resonation from the bass drum plus cymbal scrapes that turn the output into an assembly line of wavering tones. Unlike his frenetic response to Nies, Morgan takes this occasion to dissolve his sibilant timbres down to mere breaths. Growls, honks, squeals and overblowing only return to his vocabulary when the drummer creates an abrasive screech chord with a drumstick on his ride cymbal, then adds a steady clip-clop from his snare tops.

Overall it would seem that distance, maturity and increased playing opportunities are helping Morgan define the individual style he masterfully exhibits on Terra Incognita. Hopefully with the forceful improvising that he exhibits now internalized, the main terra that he will continue to be incognita won’t be North America.

May 24, 2004