David Murray/Chico Freeman

With Özay
ITM Archives 920009

David Murray

Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club

Jazzwerkstatt JW 073

By Ken Waxman

Over the course of his career saxophonist David Murray has blown hot, cold, but mostly cool. Despite making hundreds of records, few are first class, although most reach a level of high competence. Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club – initially released in 1977 on India Navigation – is one of his best early discs, however. Meanwhile With Özay, from the 1990s, is a top-flight vocal CD, where despite the billing, Murray, Chico Freeman and other first-call jazzers provide sympathetic accompaniment to singer Özay.

A Turk living in Berlin, Özay Fecht is an accomplished actress, screenwriter and director, who also recorded jazz with heavyweights like saxophonist Steve Lacy and Jim Pepper. So with Kirk Lightsey and D.D. Jackson splitting the piano duties, bassist Calvin Jones and drummer Pheeroan AkLaff in the rhythm section and a guest shot by violinist Billy Bang, this CD is no vanity project by an actress pretending to be Lady Day.

Featuring only a couple of standards, the rest of the material includes sophisticated songs by the likes of pianist Dave Burrell and vocalist Bob Dorough plus a couple of numbers in Turkish. One features her scatting in double counterpoint with Bang’s sawing fiddle; another has lyrics by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. Impressively though, Fecht’s English delivery is either lyric soprano bubbly or husky as if channelling Marlene Dietrich.

Murray is in particularly fine form accompanying the later, as with Ben Websterish obbligatos on “Antiquated Love”. Bringing a gritty parlando to “Without Rhyme Or Reason” Fecht’s melismatic cries are matched by Murray’s squeaks and side slipping as well as Lightsey’s metronomic comping. Outstanding throughout, Lightsey steers a middle course between both saxophonists’ bar-busting improvisations and the tonal qualities needed to keep the tracks on an even keel.

More than 17 years earlier, Murray and company weren’t particularly interested in lyricism. But listening to the CD, it’s telling that in retrospect these Young Turks, though identified as avant gardists, were as committed to extending the jazz tradition as Özay and accompanists were in 1994.

In fact, the saxophonist’s “Bechet’s Bounce” is probably the most characteristic composition. The performance could fool any Dixielander into thinking it was Classic Jazz. Here ex-Air member Fred Hopkins slaps his bass à la Pops Foster; drummer Phil Wilson’s backbeat channel’s Zutty Singleton; and Lester Bowie’s open-horned trumpet lead is as jungle-like as anything recorded by Cootie Williams. Around Bowie’s tremolo flourishes and whinnying, Murray weaves high-pitched soprano saxophone vibrations. Performed in broken octaves, the theme is recapped before the turnaround, while the coda involves an old-time rim shot.

Also notable is “For Walter Norris”, an ode to the pianist who was on Ornette Coleman’s first LP. Composed by Butch Morris and related to “Lonely Woman”, the piece evolves as the closely pitched horns modulate atop Hopkins’ bowed bass line. Bowie’s hand-muted, mid-point solo drips with tenderness until the mood is breached by Murray’s rough-hewn split tones. This jagged-smooth dichotomy is maintained throughout with even Bowie’s smears and growls staying connective. Murray’s agitato squeals may be discursive, but they’re moderated by Hopkins’ strums and Wilson’s drags.

One certified classic, and a little-known jazz vocal gem, both CDs are worth investigating.

-- Ken Waxman

Tracks: Live: Nevada’s Theme; Bechet’s Bounce; Obe; Let the Music Take You; For Walter Norris; Santa Barbara & Crenshaw Follies

Personnel: Live: Lester Bowie: trumpet; David Murray: soprano and tenor saxophones; Fred Hopkins: bass; Phillip Wilson: drums

Tracks: Özay: Antiquated Love^!; Ancient Dancer+; Intuitively^!; En Güzel Deniz; Without Rhyme Or Reason^!; I See Your Face Before Me; I Thought About You (For Tom)+; Peaceful Heart/Gentle Spirit+; Istanblue*!

Personnel: Özay: David Murray^ or Chico Freeman+: tenor saxophone; Billy Bang: violin*Kirk Lightsey! or D.D. Jackson+: piano; Calvin Jones: bass; Pheeroan AkLaff: drums; Özay: vocals

-- For All About Jazz New York January 2011

January 8, 2011

Billy Bang

Prayer for Peace
TUM CD 018

By Ken Waxman

Prayer for Peace may be violinist Billy Bang’s most fully realized session, since it balances his influences with his present-day concerns. With the nearly 20-minute title track a major anti-war statement, other tunes pay homage to his childhood in Spanish Harlem, 1930s jazz fiddler Stuff Smith and Bang’s erstwhile employer Sun Ra.

With trumpeter James Zollar channeling Jonah Jones’ mellow, muted tone, pianist Andy Bemkey key clipping, a Major Holley-like rhythmic bass break from Todd Nicholson, and Bang’s curlicue stops and melodic extensions, the Smith-tribute, “Only Time will Tell” reaches the same level of enjoyable swing in which Smith specialized. Like the work of the older violinist as well, it entertains without pandering. Additionally, a number such as “Chan Chan”, which adds the vibrating friction promulgated by percussionists Milton Cardona and Joe Gonzalez, dazzles with shuffle bowing and spiccato runs from Bang plus brassy, plunger work from the trumpeter, who often also works in Latin-jazz settings.

Meanwhile “Jupiter’s Future”, honoring Sun Ra, mashes up different styles as Ra himself favored, with drummer Newman Taylor-Baker beating his snares and vibrating his cymbals as Bemkey’s chords like Bill Evans and Zollar’s shaking glisses and freak notes contribute to the this multiphonic time dislocation. Bang’s slippery flying staccato and triple-stopping bow pressure not only allows him to suggest an entire string section by himself, but also to output a flowing moderato ending.

But these tunes are ancillary to the major statement which is “Prayer for Peace”. Initially composed as part of a Peace Day remembrance of the Hiroshima bombing, the multi-part suite rests on irregular drags and cymbal splatters, a thumping bass line and vaguely Orientalized piano chords. Zollar initially elaborates the theme with bent tonguing and emphasized grace notes, with another variant showcasing sharp triple-stopping and shamisen-like plucks from the fiddler. A final thematic recap is more Europeanized, somberly dependent on descending, slurred fingering from the pianist.

This CD is both an enjoyable listen plus a major musical statement.

Tracks: Only Time Will Tell; At Play in the Fields of the Lord*; Dance of the Manakin; Prayer for Peace; Chan Chan*; Dark Silhouette; Jupiter’s Future

Personnel: James Zollar: trumpet and flugelhorn; Billy Bang: violin; Andrew Bemkey: piano; Todd Nicholson: bass; Newman Taylor-Baker: drums; Milton Cardona*: conga and percussion; Joe Gonzalez*: bongos and percussion

-- For All About Jazz New York November 2010

November 6, 2010

Roy Campbell Ensemble

Akhenaten Suite
AUM Fidelity 045

Named for Akhenaten IV, a fabled pharaoh who ruled Egypt around 1300 B.C., this seven-part suite, composed by brassman Roy Campbell premiered in this riveting live performance at New York’s Vision Festival. Although lodged firmly in the territory where modern jazz is tinged with Arabic echoes, the sensitivity of each player is such that trappings of mythologized exotica are avoided and replaced with first-class improvisational flights.

Serpentine themes that define many of the suite’s transitions are given impetus not only from Campbell – who manipulates tart trumpet expositions and gently muted flugelhorn coloration with equal finesse – but also by the contrapuntal spiccato sweep of Billy Bang’s violin. When Campbell’s distinctive half-valve effects aren’t paired in double counterpoint with Bang’s sobbing sul ponticello runs or hyperactive string multiphonics, then lower-keyed unison harmonies bond gentling trumpet runs with chiming vibraharp strokes from Bryan Carrott. Backbeat rhythms from drummer Zen Matsuura and springy double stops from bassist Hillard Greene pulse without becoming overbearing. Both keep the beat supple enough to undulate into different pitches and tones without it turning around or disintegrating.

If a short section involving Campbell dramatically sounding the Egyptian arghul, or single-reed cane clarinet, threatens to unbalance the improvisation-folklore mix, then Greene’s walking bass line from the bottom, followed by the layering of Bang’s discursive glissandi runs, and finally Campbell’s mid-range plunger gustiness, restore the equilibrium.

Like certain architectural feats of Ancient Egypt, Akhenaten Suite is memorable not for the potential aggrandizement that underlies building this musical monument, but for, in this case, the outstanding craftsmanship and talent that combined for its practical creation.

-- Ken Waxman

-- MusicWorks Issue #104

August 8, 2009

FAB Trio

Live In Amsterdam
Porter Records PRCD-4014

Revolutionary Ensemble

Beyond the Boundary of Time

Mutable MM-17532-2

Leroy Jenkins (1932-2007) and his direct successor Billy Bang (b. 1947) occupy unique niches in the history of advanced improvised music. Arguably the first person to fully integrate the violin into both the so-called New Thing and New music, Jenkins’ impelled the traditional instrument’s rhythmic and lyrical functions beyond those of mere lyricism or rudimentary swing. While the older string player turned increasingly towards formal composition in his final years, shortly afterwards Bang added an additional dimension of unvarnished rhythmic elasticity to Jenkins’ fiddle liberation.

These two CDs, recorded live at European concerts, demonstrate the pliable strategies both string players brought to in-the-moment creation – as well as the crucial distinctions between the two’s improvising ideas. Live In Amsterdam also appears to be a happier affair than Beyond the Boundary of Time, because it’s part of an onward direction for Bang and his FAB bandmates – bassist Joe Fonda and percussionist Barry Altschul. Beyond the Boundary of Time on the other hand, reunites Jenkins with bassist Sirone and percussionist Jerome Cooper, who as the Revolutionary Ensemble (RE) in the early 1970s made memorable, ground-breaking sounds before dissolving.

Unfortunately the five Warsaw-recorded tracks on Beyond the Boundary of Time, while sonically provocative, are weighted with the expanses that had grown among the trio members over the years. Sirone, whose solid strokes, woody slaps and dramatic double-stopping help expand the band’s palate, often could be creating separate musical tone poems to the others. That’s not surprising, since the long-time Berlin resident now leads his own band with a more conventional jazz instrumentation.

Cooper, whose chief focus since the dissolution of the RE has been solo work, arrives from a contradictory area. On “Le-Si-Jer”, for instance, separation among the three is expressed in more ways than the hyphens in the title. Following an ambitious spiccato wave from Jenkins and some sliding triple string actions and a capella plucks from Sirone, the percussionist seems to operate in a vacuum. Despite the bassist’s attempts at connective accompaniment, Cooper hammers and stings ballaphone timbres, wails and strains reed suction from the chiramia and mates processed keyboard lines with drum beats as if he was a one-man band.

As for Jenkins, his string stance takes two different directions. On “Improvisation II” there are points where his easy lyricism suggests sweet Stéphanne Grappelli-like glissandi rather than his expected strident col legno and flying spiccato runs. In contrast, a track like “Configuration”, which melds slinking arpeggios into a contrapuntal melody, proposes a theme that echoes, if it’s not directly linked to, earlier RE compositions.

All and all the most memorable trio work appears as the finale of the second improvisation. With the tempo boiling by degrees, Cooper’s rebounds and pop are finally matched with knife-edge sharp notes from Jenkins and guitar-like licks from Sirone. Sul ponticello and layered, the overlapping glissandi makes one regret that this was probably the trio’s final recorded stand.

Grappelli is the last violinist one would associate with Bang, whose modus operandi – at least since the leaving the chamber-oriented String Trio of New York in the 1980s – is merging a variant of Jenkins’ prodigious technical smarts with the free-for-all swing of both men’s fiddle forefather Stuff Smith.

Just like Jenkins’ and Smith’s identities were instantaneously recognizable when they played, so too is Bang’s personality when he solos. With sul ponticello runs, quadruple sweeps and crying stops, it often seems as if he’s taking apart his instrument as he plays it, or at least boring into its very wood, rosin and finish.

On this Amsterdam set his bravura strategy is alternately goosed and restrained by the rhythmic thrust of Fonda’s back-and-forth string slaps and Altschul’s drags with crash accents that announce the drummer’s commanding back beat. Overall the trio constructs massive slabs of broken octave melodies that give each enough room for solo invention, without hampering the group effort.

Probably the most spectacular example of that is the concluding “FabMusic Continuation/Spirits Entering”. Initially built on pizzicato plucks and shuffle bowing from Bang as well as cow-bell whacks and measured clip clops from Altschul, the almost 27½-minute piece spreads out metaphorically atop Fonda’s steady walking. Although Bang, for instance, metaphorically reaches the speed of light in his hocketing forays, he doesn't operate as a cynosure. As elastic as every vibration from any of the men is, the general forward motion of the piece is never lost. Also on show are moderato and andante stopping from Fonda, who brings every part of the instrument from the scroll to the spike in play to inflate the string manipulation. Not to be outdone Altschul’s kit reverberates with chiming cymbals and staccatissimo rumbles.

Developing an almost Gospel music-like hand clapping beat, the Bang-composed “Spirits Entering” is introduced as the track’s final variation, shifting the previously stop-time tempo with a series of alto saxophone-styled cries from the violinist. As the other two thunder, crash, stroke and slash contrapuntally, Bang’s strings explode with phrase after phrase, measure after measure and not after note, culminating in a final recapping of the head.

Live In Amsterdam may be more viscerally exciting, but both CDs exposure top-flight violin-centred improvisations.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. FabMusic Opening 2. Go East/Da Bang 3. FabMusic Continuation/Spirits Entering

Personnel: Live: Billy Bang (violin); Joe Fonda (bass) and Barry Altschul (drums)

Track Listing: Beyond: 1. Configuration 2. Usami 3. Le-Si-Jer 4. Improvisation I 5. Improvisation II

Personnel: Beyond: Leroy Jenkins (violin); Sirone (bass) and Jerome Cooper (drums, bellaphone, chiramia and Yamaha PSR 1500)

July 13, 2009

Revolutionary Ensemble

Beyond the Boundary of Time
Mutable MM-17532-2

FAB Trio

Live In Amsterdam

Porter Records PRCD-4014

Leroy Jenkins (1932-2007) and his direct successor Billy Bang (b. 1947) occupy unique niches in the history of advanced improvised music. Arguably the first person to fully integrate the violin into both the so-called New Thing and New music, Jenkins’ impelled the traditional instrument’s rhythmic and lyrical functions beyond those of mere lyricism or rudimentary swing. While the older string player turned increasingly towards formal composition in his final years, shortly afterwards Bang added an additional dimension of unvarnished rhythmic elasticity to Jenkins’ fiddle liberation.

These two CDs, recorded live at European concerts, demonstrate the pliable strategies both string players brought to in-the-moment creation – as well as the crucial distinctions between the two’s improvising ideas. Live In Amsterdam also appears to be a happier affair than Beyond the Boundary of Time, because it’s part of an onward direction for Bang and his FAB bandmates – bassist Joe Fonda and percussionist Barry Altschul. Beyond the Boundary of Time on the other hand, reunites Jenkins with bassist Sirone and percussionist Jerome Cooper, who as the Revolutionary Ensemble (RE) in the early 1970s made memorable, ground-breaking sounds before dissolving.

Unfortunately the five Warsaw-recorded tracks on Beyond the Boundary of Time, while sonically provocative, are weighted with the expanses that had grown among the trio members over the years. Sirone, whose solid strokes, woody slaps and dramatic double-stopping help expand the band’s palate, often could be creating separate musical tone poems to the others. That’s not surprising, since the long-time Berlin resident now leads his own band with a more conventional jazz instrumentation.

Cooper, whose chief focus since the dissolution of the RE has been solo work, arrives from a contradictory area. On “Le-Si-Jer”, for instance, separation among the three is expressed in more ways than the hyphens in the title. Following an ambitious spiccato wave from Jenkins and some sliding triple string actions and a capella plucks from Sirone, the percussionist seems to operate in a vacuum. Despite the bassist’s attempts at connective accompaniment, Cooper hammers and stings ballaphone timbres, wails and strains reed suction from the chiramia and mates processed keyboard lines with drum beats as if he was a one-man band.

As for Jenkins, his string stance takes two different directions. On “Improvisation II” there are points where his easy lyricism suggests sweet Stéphanne Grappelli-like glissandi rather than his expected strident col legno and flying spiccato runs. In contrast, a track like “Configuration”, which melds slinking arpeggios into a contrapuntal melody, proposes a theme that echoes, if it’s not directly linked to, earlier RE compositions.

All and all the most memorable trio work appears as the finale of the second improvisation. With the tempo boiling by degrees, Cooper’s rebounds and pop are finally matched with knife-edge sharp notes from Jenkins and guitar-like licks from Sirone. Sul ponticello and layered, the overlapping glissandi makes one regret that this was probably the trio’s final recorded stand.

Grappelli is the last violinist one would associate with Bang, whose modus operandi – at least since the leaving the chamber-oriented String Trio of New York in the 1980s – is merging a variant of Jenkins’ prodigious technical smarts with the free-for-all swing of both men’s fiddle forefather Stuff Smith.

Just like Jenkins’ and Smith’s identities were instantaneously recognizable when they played, so too is Bang’s personality when he solos. With sul ponticello runs, quadruple sweeps and crying stops, it often seems as if he’s taking apart his instrument as he plays it, or at least boring into its very wood, rosin and finish.

On this Amsterdam set his bravura strategy is alternately goosed and restrained by the rhythmic thrust of Fonda’s back-and-forth string slaps and Altschul’s drags with crash accents that announce the drummer’s commanding back beat. Overall the trio constructs massive slabs of broken octave melodies that give each enough room for solo invention, without hampering the group effort.

Probably the most spectacular example of that is the concluding “FabMusic Continuation/Spirits Entering”. Initially built on pizzicato plucks and shuffle bowing from Bang as well as cow-bell whacks and measured clip clops from Altschul, the almost 27½-minute piece spreads out metaphorically atop Fonda’s steady walking. Although Bang, for instance, metaphorically reaches the speed of light in his hocketing forays, he doesn't operate as a cynosure. As elastic as every vibration from any of the men is, the general forward motion of the piece is never lost. Also on show are moderato and andante stopping from Fonda, who brings every part of the instrument from the scroll to the spike in play to inflate the string manipulation. Not to be outdone Altschul’s kit reverberates with chiming cymbals and staccatissimo rumbles.

Developing an almost Gospel music-like hand clapping beat, the Bang-composed “Spirits Entering” is introduced as the track’s final variation, shifting the previously stop-time tempo with a series of alto saxophone-styled cries from the violinist. As the other two thunder, crash, stroke and slash contrapuntally, Bang’s strings explode with phrase after phrase, measure after measure and not after note, culminating in a final recapping of the head.

Live In Amsterdam may be more viscerally exciting, but both CDs exposure top-flight violin-centred improvisations.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. FabMusic Opening 2. Go East/Da Bang 3. FabMusic Continuation/Spirits Entering

Personnel: Live: Billy Bang (violin); Joe Fonda (bass) and Barry Altschul (drums)

Track Listing: Beyond: 1. Configuration 2. Usami 3. Le-Si-Jer 4. Improvisation I 5. Improvisation II

Personnel: Beyond: Leroy Jenkins (violin); Sirone (bass) and Jerome Cooper (drums, bellaphone, chiramia and Yamaha PSR 1500)

July 13, 2009

Kidd Jordan

The Vision Festival New York
June 11, 2008

Figuratively – and usually single-handedly – carrying the banner for experimental Jazz in New Orleans for many years, tenor saxophonist Edward “Kidd” Jordan, 73, must have felt metaphorically out-in-the-cold on many occasions. But heat was certainly in evidence – literally and emotionally – mid-June in New York as a turn-away crowd helped celebrate the reedman’s Lifetime Achievement with a series of concerts.

Highlight of the 13th Annual Vision Festival that took place at the Lower East Side’s Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, the five sets honoring Jordan were hot – as was the venue. Despite a few strategically placed revolving fans, the temperature hovered around 35 degrees Celsius in the venerable space, with body heat from the packed audiences adding to the ventilation challenges.

Besides working as a sideman in Crescent City bands and an educator at Southern University, introducing generations of students – including his own children – to improvised music, Jordan has been playing “outside” since the 1960s, but wasn’t really recognized until collaborating with outsiders in the late 1970s. His most affecting work during the festival was with two of those ensembles.

Culmination of the evening was an incendiary workout between Jordan and another Free Jazz pioneer, 79-year-old tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson of Chicago backed by the unbeatable rhythm section of Chicago’s Hamid Drake on drums and New York’s William Parker on bass. Earlier there was as impressive a collaboration with some of Jordan’s Southern associates: pianist Joel Futterman from Virginia, New Orleans trumpeter Clyde Kerr, plus Parker and – subbing for indisposed Mississippi-based drummer Alvin Fielder – New York drummer Gerald Cleaver. As if he was playing at New Orleans’ Preservation Hall, Kerr remained seated on a chair throughout the set.

Perhaps the most notable part of this meeting was how seamlessly the full rounded tone of Kerr’s trumpet fit with Jordan’s split tones and frequent altissimo excursions, plus Futterman’s hunts, pecks and stops both inside on the piano strings and on the keyboard. Kerr’s burbling, heraldic timbres and carefully measured lines existed besides, but not quite in the same time-space as the other four. Yet even as Futterman jabbed the keys and Parker played sul tasto vibrations, Jordan made common cause with the brass man without altering his characteristic style. Knitting quotes from late period John Coltrane ballads and the familiar “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child” to Kerr’s grace notes, Jordan ensured harmonic inclusion, with the improvisation’s conclusion as tender as a lullaby.

The saxophonist’s gift for melodic interpolation was used even more effectively in the evening’s first set which matched his long-lined theme elaboration with the baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett’s high pitches. Backed by Dave Burrell pounding high frequency piano chords and Maynard Chatters stretching the piano strings, the baritonist however seemed to feel he had to mirror every one of Jordan’s excursions into altissimo, shrilling similar pitches on his larger horn. Rarely was the baritone’s basso timbre properly exploited. But again – with some help from Burrell’s boogie-woogie-like arpeggios – it was Jordan who kept the exposition on an even keel.

Segueing into “Body and Soul” references, he moderated the bigger saxophone’s altissimo blats. Following Chatters’ piano string scraping and Burrell’s song-like patterning, Jordan interpolated the hymn “Wade in the Water” into the mix, had the melody doubled with gospel chording from Burrell and finally had it accepted by a more relaxed Bluiett.

Jordan could relax himself in a later set of nimble swing that paired him with animated violinist Billy Bang, backed by Parker and Drake. With the bassist flaying his strings rhythmically and the drummer sounding a powerful backbeat, the bravura front line lobbed sound shards at one another – but shards that owed more to the blues than dodecaphony.

Often operating in double counterpoint, the two were a study in contrasts. Bang, who sometimes swayed in an Elvis-like snake-hipped dance as he double-stopped and picked at near warp-like speed, faced Jordan, who at one point sprawled on a nearby chair and fired off chorus-after-chorus of multiphonics and double tonguing while foot-tapping. With Bang replicating participation in a demented hoedown, the saxophonist varied his responses with Woody Woodpecker-like cries and staccato trills. Finally over a chorus of brittle, jagged sweeps from Bang, he shouted out a series of vocalized exhortations, which rather than being disruptive, fit jigsaw-puzzle-piece-like with the fiddler’s runs.

Jordan’s skills so energized Bang’s imagination, that in the late-night finale, after prowling the stage, he made an unannounced addition to the Anderson-Jordan quartet romp. So too, mid-way through that set, did another veteran Chicago tenor saxophonist, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre. Unlike Bang whose broken octave confrontation with Anderson and Jordan provided spirited contrapuntal lines to the dual tenor’s exposition, McIntyre merely vamped, and his sound was eventually subsumed beneath the churning Parker-Drake rhythm section.

Upfront Anderson and Jordan perfectly complemented one another. Despite the geographic gap, the two have worked frequently in a quartet configuration since the late 1980s, after discovering they were reedists of a similar age, who had been attempting similar experiments independently of one another. That night, preferring staccato breaks and splintered altissimo runs, the animated Jordan’s improvisations were easily distinguished from Anderson’s, whose meditative exposition is explicitly linked to the classic tenor saxophone tradition that encompasses Coleman Hawkins as well as John Coltrane.

Someone who bends into a semi-crouch when he plays, Anderson expanded his sounds with foghorn honks, while Jordan splayed split tones, alternating with sudden reed bites. With Bang playing near-saxophone-like lines as well, the three produced a series of chases and shouts. Eventually the tune turned towards steady blues progression as Parker walked and slapped and Drake thickly press rolled the beat. Diminuendo, the tune climaxed as the saxophone honked lustily and gradually more softly.

Each of these varied collaborations made it clear why Jordan had been honored. Although his saxophone conception takes its basic vocabulary from the advances of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, unlike some others he was quickly able to escape their influence and forge his own style. Another saxophone veteran of the 1960s, altoist Sonny Simmons who played in the next day, provided a contrasting example of someone who never escaped the Trane-Coleman trajectory.

Jordan, who wryly noted that if you live long enough you become appreciated, also deserved his accolades for passing on improvisation skills to further generations, even if – like his own sons, trumpeter Marlon Jordan and flutist Kent Jordan, who played less interesting contemporary sounds with their own band in a set honoring their father that night – the aim becomes professionalism rather than invention.

--Ken Waxman

-- For MusicWorks Issue #102

November 20, 2008

FAB (Fonda/Altschul/Bang)

Live at the Iron Works, Vancouver
Konnex KCD 5158

Thomas, Storrs and Sarpolas
Time Share
Louie Records 036

Filled with flowing fancy fiddling, these West-Coast recorded CDs showcase the initial and most recent violinist from the long-running String Trio of New York.

They offer much more than that, of course and despite a similarity in personnel, the discs couldn’t be more different. An Eugene, Ore.-native on visit to Corvallis, Ore., violinist Rob Thomas slides through a set of spontaneous compositions in the company of local drummer – and label owner – Dave Storrs, plus other New York visitors, fellow Pacific Northwest expat, bassist Dick Sarpola and his son, percussionist George Sarpola. Thus the TS&S name. Backyard snapshots in the booklet testify to the informality of the session: everyone is wearing shorts and sandals and a nearby table is heaped with chips, dips and soft drinks.

On the other hand, Thomas’ long-ago antecedent, Billy Bang, works over six compositions and improvisations with the other members of the jocularly and alphabetically designated FAB trio, in a Vancouver, B.C. concert. Besides B, or Bang, F is Joe Fonda, who has performed with players as varied as pianist Michael Jefrey Stephens and Chinese guzheng player Xu Fengxia; while A is legendary drummer Barry Altschul, who backed Anthony Braxton long before percussionist Sarpola’s birth.

Along with Leroy Jenkins, Free Jazz’s pre-eminent violinist, Bang’s list of collaborators ranges from the late Memphis saxophonist Frank Lowe – honored on the second tune here – to Chicago percussionist Kahil El’Zabar and New York bassist William Parker. Less high profile, Thomas, associate professor of Strings at Boston’s Berklee College, is also a member of drummer Greg Bendian’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, and has worked with The Jazz Passengers and The Soldier String Quartet.

Relaxing into the homey vibe, his playing on Time Share is noteworthy, but all-and-all there’s a certainly sameness to the five tracks. Storrs lays down a strong beat as does the bassist, but the ratcheting percussion from Sarpola Junior often sounds vestigial, while overall it’s often hard to distinguish the improvisations on one track from those on the next.

Featuring one original each from Bang and Fonda, plus four group compositions, the skills and techniques of the veteran players on Live however, not only demarcate tunes that reflect FAB’s identity, but also present them with a variety of musical strategies.

For instance the nearly 14-minute “Tune for Barry”, features the drummer’s terpsichorean exposition of extended nerve beats, press roll, flams, paradiddles and ruffs, expressed with cross sticking and counter-crosswise rhythms. Yet this percussion extravaganza merely sets up sprawling, sharp screeches from Bang’s violin, that quote “Take the A Train” in a flurry of flying triple stopping, as Fonda slaps his strings as accompaniment. Continuing to outline the ostinato, the bassist’s pulses underline the fiddler’s work, which tapped and plucked with either hand moves from claw-hammer-like banjo strokes to flanging vibrations

More low-key, “For Frank Lowe” is built up from a basso bottom and cymbal quivers to chromatic bull fiddle strums, serpentine sul ponticello lines from Bang and break beats from Altschul. Exhausting in the fashioning of unique oscillating lines in honor of his former combo-partner, Bang eventually picks up the tempo along with the number of strings he vibrates. Meanwhile Fonda walks powerfully and the drummer colors the proceedings. While almost turning around the beat with rim shots and shattering cymbal feints, he martially gooses the rhythm by the composition’s finale.

Often working in tandem with the bassist, Bang not only holds up his part in polyphonic exchanges, but also melds his tremolo movements so the ricocheting pumps and patterns take on koto-like echoes as well as the more common guitar and banjo suggestions.

Climax is achieved on “Song For My Mother”, the Fonda-penned, nearly 16-minute final track. An intermezzo of deep bass notes and slap rhythms, the composition finds the bassist working his way on the strings from the tuning pegs to below the bridge as Altschul bounds and bounces and Bang exposes erhu-like textures for theme variations. In near-hoedown mode, Bang’s playing is tonic, legato and dance-like, with Fonda shadowing his every time shift. Accentuating watery undulating lines as he concludes his solo, Bang allows the drummer’s low-key irregular beats and the bassist’s fading single strokes to make the final comments.

Featuring song titles even further out than FAB’s, you get the feeling that TS&S’ free-form antics resulted in track naming after the fact. As accomplished in instrument manipulation as FAB, the veteran trio’s polyrhythm and contrapuntal interaction keeps the five tunes from dragging, while tyro Sarpola judiciously adds sonic colors from what sound like lightly smacked bongo drums, rattled maracas and undifferentiated drum heads.

The most accommodating of pals, the bassist and drummer are similarly unobtrusive. Keeping the rhythmic emphasis going with pumping bass pulses and clattering pops and chops from the drum set, they allow Thomas to be the cynosure, while subtly guiding him away from exhibitionism.

On his own, the violinist adapts multiphonic sideswipes and carefully focused legit phrasing with the same ease. Frequently double-stopping, as on the title tune, he alternates breakneck pizzicato strumming with gypsy-fiddle-like spiccato at such blinding speeds that you often don’t realize he’s shifted from fingers to bow and vice-versa until that motion has already concluded. Allegro is a favored pace and agitato a preferred performance directive.

Throughout, whether Thomas shuffle bows, triple stops or saws staccato-like, Storrs plus Sarpola and son are there with the proper blunt rhythm or cascading vibration to frame his bravura patterning. Teamwork even allows for the subtle mitosis of the three dividing the beat into its component parts without altering the size and shape of the tune.

However as educational as it must have been to expose the younger Sarpola to profound free-form improv, and as much fun as it allowed the older musicians to renew their association in a smaller forum than Storrs’ Tone Sharks band, discipline is lacking. With every track a showpiece – especially for Thomas’ impressive technique – the ebb and flow goes missing.

Storrs describes it this way: “We talked about a session for a few years … And finally …we went out to the studio and played for a few hours.” Spectacular in some of the cooperation and soloing, a better strategy would have involved more shape and focus like FAB’s CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Time: 1. It’s Not Always Pretty 2. Clay Hippopotamus 3. Time Share

4. Tut Tut Tudala 5. Helping Hand

Personnel: Time: Rob Thomas (violin); Dick Sarpola (bass); Dave Storrs (drums); George Sarpola (percussion)

Track Listing: Live: 1. FAB 2. For Frank Lowe 3. B.B. 4. Tune for Barry 5. For Don Cherry 6. Song For My Mother

Personnel: Live: Billy Bang (violin); Joe Fonda (bass); Barry Altschul (drums)

November 7, 2006

Thomas, Storrs and Sarpolas

Time Share
Louie Records 036

FAB (Fonda/Altschul/Bang)
Live at the Iron Works, Vancouver
Konnex KCD 5158

Filled with flowing fancy fiddling, these West-Coast recorded CDs showcase the initial and most recent violinist from the long-running String Trio of New York.

They offer much more than that, of course and despite a similarity in personnel, the discs couldn’t be more different. An Eugene, Ore.-native on visit to Corvallis, Ore., violinist Rob Thomas slides through a set of spontaneous compositions in the company of local drummer – and label owner – Dave Storrs, plus other New York visitors, fellow Pacific Northwest expat, bassist Dick Sarpola and his son, percussionist George Sarpola. Thus the TS&S name. Backyard snapshots in the booklet testify to the informality of the session: everyone is wearing shorts and sandals and a nearby table is heaped with chips, dips and soft drinks.

On the other hand, Thomas’ long-ago antecedent, Billy Bang, works over six compositions and improvisations with the other members of the jocularly and alphabetically designated FAB trio, in a Vancouver, B.C. concert. Besides B, or Bang, F is Joe Fonda, who has performed with players as varied as pianist Michael Jefrey Stephens and Chinese guzheng player Xu Fengxia; while A is legendary drummer Barry Altschul, who backed Anthony Braxton long before percussionist Sarpola’s birth.

Along with Leroy Jenkins, Free Jazz’s pre-eminent violinist, Bang’s list of collaborators ranges from the late Memphis saxophonist Frank Lowe – honored on the second tune here – to Chicago percussionist Kahil El’Zabar and New York bassist William Parker. Less high profile, Thomas, associate professor of Strings at Boston’s Berklee College, is also a member of drummer Greg Bendian’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, and has worked with The Jazz Passengers and The Soldier String Quartet.

Relaxing into the homey vibe, his playing on Time Share is noteworthy, but all-and-all there’s a certainly sameness to the five tracks. Storrs lays down a strong beat as does the bassist, but the ratcheting percussion from Sarpola Junior often sounds vestigial, while overall it’s often hard to distinguish the improvisations on one track from those on the next.

Featuring one original each from Bang and Fonda, plus four group compositions, the skills and techniques of the veteran players on Live however, not only demarcate tunes that reflect FAB’s identity, but also present them with a variety of musical strategies.

For instance the nearly 14-minute “Tune for Barry”, features the drummer’s terpsichorean exposition of extended nerve beats, press roll, flams, paradiddles and ruffs, expressed with cross sticking and counter-crosswise rhythms. Yet this percussion extravaganza merely sets up sprawling, sharp screeches from Bang’s violin, that quote “Take the A Train” in a flurry of flying triple stopping, as Fonda slaps his strings as accompaniment. Continuing to outline the ostinato, the bassist’s pulses underline the fiddler’s work, which tapped and plucked with either hand moves from claw-hammer-like banjo strokes to flanging vibrations

More low-key, “For Frank Lowe” is built up from a basso bottom and cymbal quivers to chromatic bull fiddle strums, serpentine sul ponticello lines from Bang and break beats from Altschul. Exhausting in the fashioning of unique oscillating lines in honor of his former combo-partner, Bang eventually picks up the tempo along with the number of strings he vibrates. Meanwhile Fonda walks powerfully and the drummer colors the proceedings. While almost turning around the beat with rim shots and shattering cymbal feints, he martially gooses the rhythm by the composition’s finale.

Often working in tandem with the bassist, Bang not only holds up his part in polyphonic exchanges, but also melds his tremolo movements so the ricocheting pumps and patterns take on koto-like echoes as well as the more common guitar and banjo suggestions.

Climax is achieved on “Song For My Mother”, the Fonda-penned, nearly 16-minute final track. An intermezzo of deep bass notes and slap rhythms, the composition finds the bassist working his way on the strings from the tuning pegs to below the bridge as Altschul bounds and bounces and Bang exposes erhu-like textures for theme variations. In near-hoedown mode, Bang’s playing is tonic, legato and dance-like, with Fonda shadowing his every time shift. Accentuating watery undulating lines as he concludes his solo, Bang allows the drummer’s low-key irregular beats and the bassist’s fading single strokes to make the final comments.

Featuring song titles even further out than FAB’s, you get the feeling that TS&S’ free-form antics resulted in track naming after the fact. As accomplished in instrument manipulation as FAB, the veteran trio’s polyrhythm and contrapuntal interaction keeps the five tunes from dragging, while tyro Sarpola judiciously adds sonic colors from what sound like lightly smacked bongo drums, rattled maracas and undifferentiated drum heads.

The most accommodating of pals, the bassist and drummer are similarly unobtrusive. Keeping the rhythmic emphasis going with pumping bass pulses and clattering pops and chops from the drum set, they allow Thomas to be the cynosure, while subtly guiding him away from exhibitionism.

On his own, the violinist adapts multiphonic sideswipes and carefully focused legit phrasing with the same ease. Frequently double-stopping, as on the title tune, he alternates breakneck pizzicato strumming with gypsy-fiddle-like spiccato at such blinding speeds that you often don’t realize he’s shifted from fingers to bow and vice-versa until that motion has already concluded. Allegro is a favored pace and agitato a preferred performance directive.

Throughout, whether Thomas shuffle bows, triple stops or saws staccato-like, Storrs plus Sarpola and son are there with the proper blunt rhythm or cascading vibration to frame his bravura patterning. Teamwork even allows for the subtle mitosis of the three dividing the beat into its component parts without altering the size and shape of the tune.

However as educational as it must have been to expose the younger Sarpola to profound free-form improv, and as much fun as it allowed the older musicians to renew their association in a smaller forum than Storrs’ Tone Sharks band, discipline is lacking. With every track a showpiece – especially for Thomas’ impressive technique – the ebb and flow goes missing.

Storrs describes it this way: “We talked about a session for a few years … And finally …we went out to the studio and played for a few hours.” Spectacular in some of the cooperation and soloing, a better strategy would have involved more shape and focus like FAB’s CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Time: 1. It’s Not Always Pretty 2. Clay Hippopotamus 3. Time Share

4. Tut Tut Tudala 5. Helping Hand

Personnel: Time: Rob Thomas (violin); Dick Sarpola (bass); Dave Storrs (drums); George Sarpola (percussion)

Track Listing: Live: 1. FAB 2. For Frank Lowe 3. B.B. 4. Tune for Barry 5. For Don Cherry 6. Song For My Mother

Personnel: Live: Billy Bang (violin); Joe Fonda (bass); Barry Altschul (drums)

November 7, 2006

AHMED ABDULLAH’S EBONIC TONES

Tara’s Song
TUM CD009

KAHIL EL’ZABAR'S RITUAL TRIO/BILLY BANG
Live At The River East Art Center
Delmark DE-566

Recorded in different cities seven months apart, these CDs are connected by the presence of violinist Billy Bang and a profound respect for all variations of Black improvised music.

In addition to two originals by Brooklyn-based trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah, Tara’s Song is a compendium of hip heads from Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and others. In many ways a showcase for the percussion implements of Chicago’s Kahil El’Zabar, Live At The River East Art Center, takes its inspiration from the drummer’s twin influences, Pan-Africanism and the city’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

Neither CD lacks animation, and it’s a tribute to the Ebonic Tones that the nine songs the band plays in a studio don’t sound any less “live” than the five recorded by the Ritual Trio in concert. If there’s any overriding complaint about either session it’s that both groups adhere a little too closely to the timeworn head-solo-solo-head formula. But what they lack in original arrangements, they more than make up with polyrhythmic fire.

Although Bang is odd man out in two more-or-less established bands, he has such a long history with most of the other players as to fit tongue-in-groove when the music starts. He and Adullah were both in the Sun Ra Arkestra for a time and first recorded together more than 20 years ago. Drummer Andrei Strobert, who is also a producer and recording engineer, recorded Sun Ra, among many other musicians; and even bassist Alex Blake, best-known for his 30-year association with pianist Randy Weston, played with Ra at one point. Detroit-born baritone saxophonist Alex Harding is younger than the others, but besides his other gigs is a member of the post-Ra Arkestra under Marshal Allen’s direction.

Bang’s association with the Ritual Trio goes back to another live recording date with the band in 1994, since then he has often played in duo and other situations with leader El’Zabar. One of Chicago’s master improvisers, tenor saxophonist Ari Brown can hold his own with anyone from AACMers, pianist Muhal Richard Abrams to reedist Anthony Braxton, and excitingly often combines tones with Bang’s lines here. Bassist Yosef Ben Israel, who usually powers Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons band, has replaced the late Malachi Favors in this group. Favors is saluted in two of the compositions here.

Favors’ main group, The Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC) was one of the first to reflect the AACM ethos and the primacy of jazz that wasn’t made in New York. Instructively, Abdullah who states that “I have never believed in any one city being the origin of this music” pays tribute to a clutch of modern thinkers from elsewhere on TARA’S SONG.

Not only does the band honor Fort Worth, Tex.-born Coleman, Memphis-born Frank Lowe – another long-time Bang associate – and Ra whose roots were variously Birmingham, Ala., Chicago and Saturn, but it also doesn’t neglect less acknowledged traditions. “Iko Iko”, the traditional New Orleans chant, featuring Abdullah on trumpet and vocals, continuo honks from Harding and Bang sounding as if he’s playing a Caribbean mandolin, is a rousing postlude. More pointedly the program begins with a respectful reading of Pensacola, Fla.-born Gigi Gyrce’s “Sans Souci”. Underappreciated in the 1950s, Ebonic Tone’s arrangement shows off the swinging sophistication of this bop-tinged original.

Other tunes confirm this link between the primeval and the progressive. Lowe’s “Nothing but Love”, for instance, is suspended between Second Line march and dance-like calypso with a back beat. Blake appears to be playing an electric bass, Strobert contributes binary bounces and Harding’s solo includes cunning, understated flutter-tonguing and snorts. “Blue Monk” gets an almost Dixieland arrangement with the fiddler double stopping and the horn men crating tremolo obbligatos.

Even a nearly 13-minute version of Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” is launched with Latinesque, matching band beats and call-and-response patterns between trumpet and violin. Given enough space, Harding growls and keens, thrusting out repeated altissimo runs if he was jazz-R&B bari man Leo Parker; while the trumpeter brassily breaks the melody into partials and squeezed counter tones and Bang plays either country hoedown vibrations portamento or double- and triple-stopping sweeps and swoops.

Abdullah’s “The Cave” takes all these influences one step further. Programmatic, throughout it’s almost 14½ minutes, the theme redeploys from languendo to agitato and back again, with some of the voicing reminiscent of the low-flame tone poems saxophonist Gyrce used to write for himself and trumpeter Art Farmer. Earthier than Gyrce, the baritonist creates a guttural , raspy tremolo solo – without neglecting the basso timbre of the beast – while the trumpeter’s double-tongued, chromatic flourishes take nothing from Farmer. Then there’s Bang’s slithering, triple-stopping movement. By the finale, it’s obvious this cave encompasses Sun Ra-like polyharmony, as well as spikier, serpentine solo lines.

Bang’s bravura and virtuosity is confirmed on the fewer, longer selections of the other CD. With El’Zabar exercising himself on congas, kalimba and ankle tambourine however, the roots on display take in African counter-rhythms as well as polyphonic complications. Several of the compositions gain their shape from El’Zabar’s thumb piano, with off-kilter torque from Bang and slurry tremolo lines from Brown.

Since both the introductory “Big M” and the final “Oof” are written for and dedicated to Favors, the trio’s new bass man, Israel may have felt a draft. But he maintains an unruffled composure throughout and unhurriedly exposes hidden parts of the bull fiddle below the bridge and elsewhere when he takes his solo on the last number.

Like Abdullah, El’Zabar sings enthusiastically if not always melodiously, though his raison d’etre is rhythm not the poetics of Ra which the trumpeter quotes. Sometimes, the percussionist’s vocalizing is a tinge unsettling as when his grunts and whines accompany the saxophonist’s Tranesque exploration of the theme on the percussionist-penned “Return of the Lost Tribe”.

Here and on his own “Where Do You Want To Go?” Brown’s half-Swing Era smoothness and half-South Side AACM atonality harmonizes and amplifies Bang’s brazen sawing. The second tune is notable not only for Brown’s integration of licks from “Afro Blue” into his solo, but also for a dynamic display of concussive polyrhythmic strength from the El’Zabar on congas.

More a foot-tapper than a dirge, “Oof” knits together many of the themes which characterized Favors’ life with the AACM and AEC. Besides Israel’s abrasive runs, there’s more kalimba layering, and times when the violinist shrills double- and triple-stops with the saxophonist playing sensitive accompaniment – then they reverse roles. On his own, Brown buzzes double tones like an old-time blues singer, only gradually making the sounds broader and deeper. He’s joined by El’Zabar incessantly repeating “big Favors” and other phrases with different inflections and volumes, as if he was a gospel preacher, feeling the spirit in the midst of a sermon.

Both captivating CDs offer views of advanced/traditional Black improvised music, with Tara’s Song having a bit of an edge because its arrangements allow a multiplicity of voices to be heard more clearly.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Tara: 1. Sans Souci 2. Lonely Woman 3. Tara's Song 4. Nothing but Love 5. Tapestry 6. Blue Monk 7. Fate in a Pleasant Mood 8. The Cave 9. Iko Iko

Personnel: Tara: Ahmed Abdullah (trumpet and vocals); Alex Harding (baritone saxophone); Billy Bang (violin); Alex Blake (bass); Andrei Strobert (drums)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Big M 2. Return of the Lost Tribe 3. Where Do You Want To Go? 4. Be Exciting (Kahil Testifies) 5. Oof

Personnel: Live: Ari Brown (tenor saxophone); Billy Bang (violin); Yosef Ben Israel (bass); Kahil El’Zabar (drums, percussion and kalimba)

January 16, 2006

Ann Arbor’s Edgefest expands in its Ninth Outing

for CODA

Participants, including members of Chicago’s AACM, representatives of Montreal’s Musique Actuelle scene and a New York-based musician and hybrid instrument designer who’ll jam with a golf club and an umbrella, will all take part in Ann Arbor, Michigan’s ninth annual Edgefest, October 19 to October 22.

Taking place in a medium-sized college city, home to the University of Michigan, about an hour’s drive west of Detroit, Edgefest has steadily expanded from its one-day debut to the four-day 2005 festival. Besides American musicians, particular emphasis is on innovators from the music scenes in Holland and Quebec. This year, for instance, Claude St-Jean’s Les Projectionnistes is the featured Quebec ensemble – its second Edgefest appearance – with saxophonist Tobias Delius’ Quartet – including cellist Tristan Honsinger and drummer Han Bennink – representing the Netherlands.

Les Projectionnistes’ second CD will be released in time for Edgefest, and its celebration at the festival may include an expanded band line-up. Besides the Delius Quartet, filled out by Amsterdam-based, Icelandic bassist Valdi Kolli; Dutch trombonist Wolter Wiebos will appear opening night as a member of German tubaist Carl Ludwig Hubsch's Longrun Development of the Universe trio.

American-based performers, include a group fronted by AACM mainstays, saxophonist Ed Wilkerson, Jr. and flautist Nicole Mitchell; drummer/vibraphonist Kevin Norton’s Bauhaus Quartet; legendary bassist Henry Grimes’ trio with saxophonist Andrew Lamb and drummer Newman Taylor Baker; and the all-star FAB: bassist Joe Fonda, drummer Barry Altschul, and violinist Billy Bang. Hybrid instrument designer Ken Butler brings his self-constructed axes from Manhattan to jam with a contingent of local musicians for one show, with other players from the Ann Arbor-Detroit axis featured on other shows, including an all-star nonet.

Both festival venues – the Kerrytown Concert House, which is the organizer and presenter of the festival – and the Firefly Club, are within easy walking distance of each other in pedestrian-oriented Ann Arbor. Each can seat about 110 people. Total festival attendance is usually in the 600-person range, with all-inclusive festival passes on sale for a reduced fee.

Featuring afternoon educational workshops at the concert house throughout the festival, Edgefest is supported by a local businesses and some government funding. As Festival director, David Lynch says: “despite its small size, Edgefest brings a bit of an international perspective to Ann Arbor.

“It’s nice to have musicians from Montreal and Amsterdam sharing the festival stages with musicians from New York City and Chicago, “he adds. “Perhaps it’s one small strike against cultural isolationism.” Check www.kerrytownconcerthouse.com for updates.

-- Ken Waxman

September 12, 2005

Billy Bang

Vietnam: Reflections
Justin Time Just 212-2

A refinement rather than a squeal to violinist Billy Bang’s highly praised Vietnam: The Aftermath, this CD extends his cathartic musings on his Southeast Asian war experiences by adding traditional sounds from two Vietnamese performers to those created by his freebop ensemble. Probably the foremost clue to his conception is that tunes entitled “Reconciliation1” and “Reconciliation 2” take up one-third of the disc.

On the former and elsewhere, the vocals of Co Boi Nguyen and the stroked dan tranh – or plucked zither – textures from Nhan Thanh Ngo provide distinctive patterns which the other musicians use to their advantage. While there is an Oriental cast to some of the themes in the Bang-crafted originals, this isn’t some so-called world music match-up. Bang and company – some members of whom like trumpeter Ted Daniel, drummer Michael Carvin, percussionist Ron Brown and conductor Butch Morris are also Nam veterans – are jazzmen first.

Thus Carvin’s shimmering cymbal work and Daniel’s open-horned patterning come from that background; so does Curtis Lundy’s walking bass lines and John Hicks’ bluesy piano fills. Brown varies his percussion patterns on the traditional “Trong Com”, yet despite Nguyen’s vocalizing, Bang’s distinctive plucking and plinking makes this cheery rice harvest song sound like it came from the fields of North Carolina, not those of North Vietnam.

Along with Bang’s sharp tone with its double-stopping sharp glissandi and speedy spiccato, it’s Daniel’s sweet-and-sour open-horn that gives pieces such as the title tune their unforced power. The fiddler may say that during his tour of duty “the rhythm of machine guns is what I heard”, but with versatile sidefolk like these, he has transformed that nightmare into another CD suite that ranks alongside his earlier triumphs and includes a message of reconciliation and renewal.

-- Ken Waxman

September 7, 2005

SIRONE BANG ENSEMBLE

Configuration
Silkheart SHCD 155

More a series of concertos for four instrumentalists than a relationship or arrangement, CONFIGURATION, recorded live in New York late last year, is a confirmation of the power of three veteran, so-called avant-garde players and the introduction of a talented tyro.

Still vibrant, despite the desires of neo-cons to banish them from jazz history, violinist Billy Bang, 57, bassist Sirone, 64, and saxophonist Charles Gayle 65, are as inventive and technically adroit as they were when they first began making noise –sometimes literally – in the 1960s and 1970s. New kid on the block – who holds his own here – is New Jersey-based drummer Tyshawn Sorey, 22. Although not arranged in the bebop sense, the six pieces on this CD, recorded downstairs at CBGBs, offer a lot more than a customary string of round robin solos. Singularly, or in duos, the four not only exhibit instrumental prowess but link disparate sections without ever losing the compositional thread.

Especially noteworthy are the tunes written by Sirone, still closely identified with the Revolutionary Ensemble. Someone like Charles Mingus or Thelonious Monk, who prefers to constantly discover new tints in his compositional colors, two of his three were also recorded 18 months previously in his adopted hometown by the Berlin resident’s own quartet. His last piece – the title tune – is a typically good-humored, stop-and-go set ending blues with funky solos all around. But “We are not alone, but we are few” and “I Remember Albert” are more profound statements.

Dramatic and atmospheric, they, like most of the other tracks here, feature Gayle on alto sax instead of his customary tenor. Producing undulating timbres on top of quasi-ceremonial drum beats and bowed pedal point from the composer, Gayle’s textures get wider, louder, higher-pitched and more abstract as the piece unrolls. On his side Bang’s lines surge to join in double counterpoint with Sirone’s, at and points it appears as if each is sounding the same note – basso in the bassist’s case and treble in the violinist’s. As Gayle twists and turns out pitch vibrations, Sorey first accompanies him with funeral taps, then the oscillation of a drum stick scraped across the ride cymbal, and finally bass drum whaps and the odd snare flam. Before the morose theme is reprised, the saxman has worked himself into a frenzy of double tonguing.

Appropriately returning to tenor saxophone for “I Remember Albert”, Gayle produces quivering and gritty Albert Ayler-sounding output before working deeper into his body tube with a wide vibrato, irregular pitch and harsh overtones. Sorey exposes his inner Sunny Murray with simple, door-knocking beats as Sirone’s wide harmonic intervals fill up the few spaces left empty. Virtually channeling Ayler, Gayle’s buzzy, flutter tonguing is transformed to unmodified glossolalia. Wavering, buzzing and purring, his quick overblowing brings forth answering bumps and thumps from the bassist and jangled snares and rim tops from the drummer. Diverging from the reedist’s line, Bang’s pizzicato runs – triple and quadruple stopped – ring out with tremolo multiphonics. Following a splashy cymbal touch, the last section of the piece downshifts to a moderato, strumming bass solo, backed by carefully measured flams from the drummer, until the head is recapped for a final time.

The head-solo-head construction on “…Albert” isn’t recapitulated elsewhere, with most of the other compositions relying on audacious unaccompanied sections from each player. This is most elaborately expressed on Bang’s almost 16-minute “Jupiter’s Future”. At one point for instance, the composer produces spiccato harmonies at the top of the violin’s range, rippling, swirling and extending vibrating nodes to such an extent that it sounds like he’s shredding his strings, causing him to shout in elation or frustration. Buzzy alto saxophone lines from Gayle are enlivened by doits, squeaks, extreme multiphonics or pitch vibrations, with these extended techniques exhibited a cappella, or in duet with screechy fiddle or low-pitched bass wing. Sorey’s extravagant solo outing encompasses cymbal shuffles, nerve beats and tattoo on snares and toms until his rumbled cross pulses and accent turn to blunt triplets and rolls.

Whether you’re a longtime follower of any of the old hands or want to discover a new drummer, this CONFIGURATION is a CD worth investigating.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Jupiter’s Future 2. Freedom Flexibility 3. We Are Not Alone, But We Are Few 4. I Remember Albert 5. Notre Dame de la Garde 6. Configuration

Personnel: Charles Gayle (alto and tenor saxophones); Billy Bang (violin); Sirone (bass); Tyshawn Sorey (drums)

August 29, 2005

AHMED ABDULLAH’S DISPERSIONS OF THE SPIRIT OF RA

Traveling The Spaceways
Planet Arts Recordings 100324

Hagiography constantly becomes more prevalent in jazz as the number of venerated figures grows and their time of prominence recedes. Almost from its first recordings, the music featured sessions idolizing past heroes, but over the past 20 years the practice has almost kept pace with Hollywood biopics.

How then can you distinguish between a meaningful tribute, which includes this CD, and slapdash homage? Well, for a start, it helps if the protagonist has some real association with the honored figure, as trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah did, being part of various Sun Ra Arkestras over a 20 year period. More generically the venerator should offers more than a replay of the honoree’s sounds, bringing something unique and original to the project. Abdullah has done that as well. He and tenor saxophonist Salim Washington have created new arrangements of familiar and obscure Ra material and have appended to it has stronger singers plus dramatic recitations by poet Louis Reyes Rivera

There’s a continuum here as well. Besides Abdullah, violinist Billy Bang, trombonist Craig Harris, and bassist Radu Oluwu Ben Judah all worked for Ra at one point. Plus baritone saxophonist Alex Harding, the trumpeter’s associate in the Nam quartet, has been a member of the post-Ra Arkestra. The other participants are second trumpeter Owuor Arunga, guitarist Masujaa, drummer Cody Moffett, Miles Griffith on vocals and Monique Ngozi Nri contributing vocals and poetry.

To get an idea of what can be done, listen to the band’s recreation of “Enlightenment”, for many years an Arkestra standard. After Arunga, a student of Abdullah’s at Manhattan’s New School, limns the melody with molasses-like languorousness, Harding’s deep-pitched ostinato and finger picking guitar from Masujaa introduce the familiar animated theme. Bang’s subsequent solo makes it sound as if he’s playing call and response with different parts of his fiddle, as the mixed vocalization from Abdullah, Griffith and Ngozi Nri sounds less like Ra’s Ethnic Space Voices and more like The Platters. An interlude of apocalyptic-oriented poetry from Reyes Rivera modifies the Ra-penned lyrics until ukulele-high pitched guitar and baritone sax lows recapitulate the theme.

Other achievements include “Love in Outerspace” and “Dancing Shadows. The first gives the tune an R&B feel with a shuffle drum beat and solid bass patterns and whose highlights are an emotionally overblown sax solo from Washington plus chromatic fills from Abdullah, An unrecorded, little-played Ra composition, the second tune sounds like space-age Fletcher Henderson dance music mixed with Freebop and other influences. As Harding’s stentorian phrases provide the underpinnings, Harris unveils gravelly plunger work, and Moffett rattles his brushes and sticks as if he was powering a Basie small group, Bang’s solo appears to come from an earlier time when country hoe-downs met backwoods blues. Ending with call-and-response between the horns, the piece is cut off with a brass whinny.

The CD’s standout is Abdullah and Washington rearrangement of “21st Century” as a three-section suite. Throughout a total of 13¼ minutes, different soloists move forward. These include Bang at his most characteristic, sounding glissandi cat gut shrieks and lively double-stopped slides down the scale; boppish trumpet and baritone saxophone vocings that reference the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams combo more than Ra; and multiphonic screams from Washington’s horn, superseded by what could a brass band fanfare. Vocally, Griffin mixes song and commentary à la Leon Thomas; and Reyes Rivera contributes more poetics.

Not everything works however. Ngozi Nri, for one, is a better singer than a poet, and “East of Uz”, another unknown Ra line, seems to mix simplistic poetics from Reyes Rivera with awfully conventional mainstream charts. Abdullah’s andante showcase could have come from bopper Kenny Dorham rather than any enlightened Ra soloist, and it isn’t helped by Moffett’s hesitant rattling and stomping drumming.

Adding things up however, the plus usually overcome the minuses in this salute to the musician who had a massive influence on the trumpet’s life. “Celebrating our ancestors is what makes us whole”, he has written, and TRAVELING THE SPACEWAYS is an appropriate tribute.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. We Traveling the Spaceways 2. 21st Century Part 1 3. 21st Century Part 2 4. 21st Century Part 3 5. Dancing Shadows 6. Love in Outerspace 7. Enlightenment 8. East of Uz 9. New Horizons 10. They Plan

Personnel: Ahmed Abdullah (trumpet and vocals); Owuor Arunga (trumpet); Craig Harris (trombone); Salim Washington (tenor saxophone); Alex Harding (baritone saxophone); Billy Bang (violin); Masujaa (guitar); Radu Oluwu Ben Judah (bass); Cody Moffett (drums); Monique Ngozi Nri (vocals and poetry); Miles Griffith (vocals); Louis Reyes Rivera (poetry)

April 18, 2005

BILLY BANG

Sweet Space/Untitled Gift
8th Harmonic Breakdown HB 8005/6

Fusion of two Billy Bang LPs originally issued on the Anima label plus four previously unreleased tracks, this two-CD set proves once again that a lot of excellent, advanced music was being made out of the media spotlight in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

While the focus then may have been on the discredited jazz-rock movement and emerging Young Lions, Free Jazz/Loft Movement veterans like Bang and crew were obstinately cutting out-of-the-ordinary sessions that, like Julius Hemphill and David Murray’s records of the time, contained basic swing roots fused with atonal solos.

Backing came from musicians who had been and would be influential into the 21st century. SWEET SPACE features pianist Curtis Clark, now an expatriate in the Netherlands; early Art Ensemble associate drummer Steve McCall (1933-1989); plus then cornetist, and later conductionist Butch Morris, and his late (1937-2002) brother, bassist Wilber. Sax duties are divided between altoist Luther Thomas formerly of the Black Arts Group (BAG) in St. Louis, now another European expatriate, and Memphis-born tenorman Frank Lowe, who co-led the Jazz Doctors band with Bang before his death in 2003.

UNTITLED GIFT features only Bang, bassist Morris, drummer Dennis Charles (1933-1998), a Free Jazz pioneer who played with Cecil Taylor around the same time in the 1950s when the quartet’s final member, Don Cherry (1936-1995) on pocket trumpet, flute and bells, first became a member of Ornette Coleman’s legendary group.

Find of the session is SWEET SPACE’s four additional tracks, which boost the first disc to nearly 76 minutes. More historical than musically interesting -- although they do add to Thomas and Lowe’s relatively sparse discography -- they’re alternate versions of the issued tracks with slightly different solos. You can note the relative position of the Free Jazzers compared to the major label-associated fusioneers and neo-cons, though. Sound on this session, recorded live in 1979 at NYU’s student center, is somewhat wonky compared to what big time labels provided. Both versions of “A Pebble is a Small Rock” and “Loweski for Frank” feature off-mic saxophone solos that are almost obliterated by Charles’ booming drums in the foreground.

That shouldn’t discourage listeners though, since the first piece, a sort of New Thing rondo has one of the catchiest heads you’ll hear outside of a late night session of Kansas City jazz, while the second highlight’s Butch Morris’ burgeoning skill as an arranger.

Following a dedicated preamble by Wilber Morris that feeds into a Swing piano line, the initially released version of “A Pebble” introduces the riffing theme with triple counterpoint from saxes, cornet and violin. As the piece unrolls in both versions, the lines keep circling back to the initial contrapuntal theme. With Clark comping behind him, Bang’s first solo quickly evolves from floating, legato to syncopated ponticello lines. Thomas than provides his variations, all irregular altissimo timbres, and before Lowe’s impressive, but distantly recorded string of highly arpeggiated screeches and slurs, Clark appends dynamics with a light touch. Bisecting each solo is a return to tremolo variations on the theme. The main difference between this one and the previously unreleased version is a shot postlude consisting of a bass and drums shuffle and a lyrical piano interlude.

Harsh counterpoint from the front line above bass and drum riffs make an even closer connection between the unreleased version of “Pebble” and some of BAG founder Hemphill’s compositions that are atonal, yet bluesy. Lowe’s honks and whistling smears are more pronounced, if no louder here, as are abstract, locked-hand patterns from Clark. Ending with a final, foot-tapping reprise of the theme, atonal polyphony from all hands, leads to protracted audience applause.

Both versions of the title track mate wah-wah cornet lines with mosquito-droning jettes from the violin that presage ferocious, overblown sax solos with hocketing strings and background militaristic drumbeats. As Bang foreshortens his upper partials for timbres that sound like duck quacks, Lowe peeps out split tones. Morris’ rippling muted brass squeaks are more prominent on the previously released version of the tune as are Bang’s double stops. There are times, in fact, when the orchestration resembles the violinist’s “Outline No. 12”, recorded in 1982 with a 12-piece ensemble including Lowe, Murray and the two Morrises. That composition’s repetitive motif, which may have had its genesis in this piece, also heralded Anthony Braxton’s later series of Ghost Trance compositions.

Twenty or so years ago however, Morris was more of a player than a conductor as he demonstrates on the two versions of “Loweski for Frank”. His high-pitched solos include descending triplets and whinnies, not to mention points where his open horn lead could take its place in a Dixieland ensemble. Bang double and triple stops with a syncopated undercurrent, sort of like a modern version of his early idol Stuff Smith, while the rhythm section vamps like updated Count Basie small group.

Partnered with a completely different pocket trumpet man on UNTITLED GIFT, who also plays yokube flute, congas and bells, Bang reveals a hitherto unacknowledged folkloric bent. Of course by 1982, Cherry had spent at least a decade attuning himself to different world musics, and this unaltered reissued CD reflects that. As nods to both Cherry’s past and present the disc include two Coleman tunes, two by Bang and one by the brassman himself.

Instructively, Cherry’s effort, “The Kora Song” sounds no more or less ethnic than anything else on the CD. Plus Bang and Morris’ combined eight strings are still 13 short of the harp-like kora -- although between the fiddler’s gentle, yet distinctive jettes and the bassist’s rhythmic strength they easily approximate the African harp’s intricate style. At the same time, Cherry’s flattish, wavering tremolo-tongued lead owes more to the trumpeter’s Los Angles upbringing than Lagos griots.

Despite Charles’ Virgin Island birth and fondness for traditional Caribbean melodies, his work throughout, especially in his introductory solo on Bang’s nearly 12-minute “Maat”, is strictly improv. On that cut, his snare’s rolls and rebound plus bass drum pressure that uses positioned foot pedals is this side of hard bop, while Morris adds a walking bass line. Breaking out from initial front-line tremolo multiphonics -- with double and triple stopped staccato syncopation -- Cherry follows with triplet bounces and echoes, then plays a bebop riff that’s picked up and mutated with plucked lower-pitched variations by the bassist. Rim shot action and a drum tattoo from Charles softens into unison trumpet and violin harmonics that reprise the theme.

Oddly, it’s Bang’s transparently titled “Echovamp 1678” that sounds most like so-called World Music. Marked by an almost danceable beat, plus miscellaneous bells and percussion echoes, the tune evolves from a prelude of unison screeching multiphonics to arching wiggling triplets from the fiddler. Soon exotic, bird-whistling counter harmonies arise from Cherry to meet Bang’s solo that’s more dulcet than usual. That doesn’t last long since the slurred, metallic string clips he produces make it appear as if he’s playing the erhu or two-stringed Chinese fiddle. When Bang completes his constriction of the scale, the tune slows down to moderato, with the quartet cooperation suggesting Cherry’s tenure with Coleman -- with the violinist in the Coleman role.

Bang’s violin playing would never be confused for Ornette’s though, as he proves on those two Coleman tunes, using extra bow pressure to stretch the partials.

At the same time, these short, but respectful run-throughs aren’t the be-all and end-all of the session as they would be on many discs by Young Lions that appeared during that time.

In contrast to those, SWEET SPACE/UNTITLED GIFT proves once again that you may have to hunt to hear the best music. Since these sorts of sounds stands the test of time, sessions like these can also be appreciated years after they were made.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Sweet Space: 1. Previously Unreleased Version of A Pebble is a Small Rock 2. Previously Unreleased Version of Sweet Space 3. Previously Unreleased Version of Loweski for Frank (T.F.R.) 4. Previously Unreleased Version of Music For The Love of It 5. A Pebble is a Small Rock 6. Sweet Space 7. Loweski for Frank (T.F.R.) 8. Music For The Love of It

Track Listing: Untitled Gift: 1. Echovamp 1678 2. The Kora Song 3. Maat 4. Levitation for Santana 5. Focus on Sanity

Personnel: Sweet Space: Butch Morris (cornet); Luther Thomas (alto saxophone); Frank Lowe (tenor saxophone); Billy Bang (violin); Curtis Clark (piano); Wilber Morris (bass); Steve McCall (drums)

Personnel: Untitled Gift: Don Cherry (pocket trumpet, flute and bells); Billy Bang (violin, yokube flute, congas and bells); Wilber Morris (bass); Dennis Charles (drums)

March 7, 2005

FAB

Transforming the Space
CIMP #284

MALCOLM GOLDSTEIN/MATTHIAS KAUL
Christian Wolff: Bread and Roses
Wergo WER 6658 2

Combining the timbres from the violin and percussion symbolically characterizes the miscegenation that has defined modern music since at least the beginning of the last century. There’s probably a no more European instrument than the violin, or a more African one than the drum. Thus contemporary musical history involves a gradual rapprochement between those two powerful sources.

Take the results of manipulating these two sounds and find the midpoint where notated scores meet free improvisation means that the mixture becomes even more volatile and rewarding. That’s precisely what these two CDs set out to do.

Interestingly enough, both come from supposedly diametrically opposite sources. FAB’s Billy Bang (violin) and Barry Altschul (drums) -- aided by a distantly recorded bassist Joe Fonda -- are out and out Free Jazzers, working their magic on six original compositions. Vermont-based violinist Malcolm Goldstein and German percussionist Matthias Kaul are from the New music side of the fence and on the 13 tracks here interpret five compositions by American composer Christian Wolff.

Wolff, whose improvisational experience included music making with the British band AMM, created pieces whose shape gives the performers enough latitude to distend the written score. Goldstein, who has collaborated with sonic seekers raging from composer John Cage to Canadian percussion John Heward and German bassist Peter Niklas Wilson, is an old hand at these sorts of improvisations. A bit younger, Kaul, whose coworkers have included such composer/performers as John Zorn, Carla Bley and Slovenian trombonist Vinko Globkar is easily able to do the same.

Linchpin of the session is “For 1, 2 or 3 People” in 10 separate sections, with Kaul cranking the hurdy-gurdy as well as playing percussion and Goldstein vocalizing -- well sort of -- as well as fiddling. The ratcheted buzzing of string friction from the hurdy-gurdy actually extends the assembly line of abrasive scratches that make up the violinist’s part on these tracks. At the same time, though, between the murmured nonsense syllables and alpine yodels and growls, you hear Goldstein’s extensive violin technique that allows him to suddenly sound out a single emphasized line as well as its vibrations.

On their normal instruments, Goldstein and Kaul don’t so much play together as improvise or read in parallel, a distinctive difference from the close cooperation among the FAB three. They also make more use of silence then the American trio does. Applying torque to his arco lines, either high up, almost near the pegs or bandsaw-like across all four strings, Goldstein is able to move from a sonority that’s almost textbook legit to a shrilling in the furthest reaches of experimentation. And all this is done in the time it takes to gliss from one note to another. Elsewhere he demonstrates protracted string swoops, split-second pizzicato plucks, and concentrated mouse squeaks and bird chirrups.

For his part, Kaul moves from applying gentle pressure on unselected and attached cymbals and creating miniature pealing bell noise to scraping a drum stick right on top of a heavy brass cymbal, formulating press rolls and kettle drum resonation and unveiling an unvarying assembly line of rhythmically resonating wood -- drum stick upon drum stick. Finally, on “Edges”, the scrapes, clawing and plucking become even more diffuse with Kaul introducing gamelan-like timbres and Goldstein somehow managing to replicate harmonica inflections.

Solo, the shrill modernism and double stopping the violinist displays during “For 2, or 3 People” turns to primitive Americana as he elaborates the theme of the CD’s title composition. Playing legato, but with enough dissonance to herald his reconstitution of the melody, Goldstein manages to simultaneously recreate the old ballad and comment on it.

Using only the snare drum for his solo feature, “Exercise 27”, Kaul, like a New music Max Roach, uses brushes for polyrhythmic slides and scrapes. With the sensitive recording equipment picking up his every nuance, he whistles at, blows on and rubs other spots than the drum head using the metallic results as counterpoint to decidedly non-militaristic rat tat tats.

Violinist Bang’s storied Viet Nam experience notwithstanding, the only militaristic influences in FAB’s campaign experience is the time spent as foot soldiers in the jazz wars. Collectively the three have been in the biz for a good 75 years, leading their own bands and working behind such leaders as Anthony Braxton and William Parker, to pick two at random.

This connection to history is made most obvious on Altschul’s “For Papa Jo, Klook & Philly Too”, where the thoroughly modern trapsman salutes and recreates approximations of the styles of some of his predecessors: (Papa) Jo Jones, Kenny “Klook” Clarke and Philly Joe Jones. Defiantly anachronistic when expressing the emulations, Altschul soon extends his skills into the 21st century in this finger-snapper. He’s backed by a walking, but distant Fonda and an unrestrained Bang, using short bow strokes like an updated Stuff Smith.

On his own “Tales from Da Bronx” -- home borough of the fiddler and percussionist -- Bang starts off playing slowly than in lockstep with Fonda. He accelerates to a swinging bounce complete with sprawling screeches, vocal encouragement from the bassman and heavy bass drum thumps plus surging snare rolls from Altschul. Coda is an extended legato string fantasia. Squirming, squeaking, near-atonal glissandos and multi-stops characterize most of Bang’s work elsewhere, with the string high jinks aurally suggesting the picture of a whirling dervish fiddler.

Bang’s dissonant output can be used in many ways as he demonstrates on Fonda’s more than 16½-minute “Song for My Mother”. Here his abrasive runs turn into string kisses, then almost classically cliched buzzing bee tones. With the drummer playing as softly as he can, enlivening the proceedings with the odd rim shot, you can usually hear sporadic ringing notes from Fonda’s bass and his verbal encouragement to himself. As the piece gets faster and more orotund, Bang sweeps out some shrill triple stops and Altschul drops a few bass drum bombs.

As you can see musical miscegenation like this produces some of the most memorable and thought-provoking sounds. And that description characterizes both these sessions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Transforming: 1. Be Out S’cool 2. The Softness of Light 3. For Papa Jo, Klook & Philly Too 4. Tales from Da Bronx 5. Song for My Mother 6. Coligno Battatta

Personnel: Transforming: Billy Bang (violin); Joe Fonda (bass); Barry Altschul (drums)

Track Listing: Bread: For 1, 2 or 3 People: 1. I (violin and percussion) 2. II (voice and hurdy-gurdy) 3. III (violin and percussion) 4. Exercise 27 (Snare Drum Peace March) For one, two or three People: 5. IV (violin solo) 6. V (violin and hurdy-gurdy) 7. VI (percussion solo) 8. VII (voice and body duo) 9. Bread and Roses (for violin solo) For 1, 2 or 3 People: 10. VIII (violin and percussion) 11. IX (violin and percussion) 12. X (violin and percussion) 13. Edges (violin and percussion)

Personnel: Bread: Malcolm Goldstein (violin and voice); Matthias Kaul (percussion, voice, hurdy-gurdy)

December 29, 2003

WILLIAM PARKER

Scrapbook
Thirsty Ear THI 57133.2

William Parker’s name may be above the title, but as the subtitle -- violin trio -- makes clear, the spectacular success of this CD rests in the bow and four strings of Billy Bang.

Legitimate successor to the mantle of Stuff Smith as jazz’s most original string soloist, New York-based Bang’s output has been inconsistent since he first came to prominence in the late 1970s with the String Trio of New York. But everything must have been in alignment on this date as Bang cuts loose on a half-dozen of Parker’s compositions, backed by the New York bassist and Chicago drummer Hamid Drake.

On “Singing Spirits”, which Parker dedicates to Charles Mingus, not only are the creations of his fiddle speech-like, but instrumentally the phrases are tougher than any gang-associated rapper could even hope to equal. At time Bang’s tone is so abrasive that it sounds as if he’s cutting into the wood and the catgut to slice out the music. Never a believer in proper violin timbre, his lines are even more dissonant here as he aims for the spirit beneath the music. At times he sounds like the type of country violinist who recorded with Mississippi blues pioneer Charlie Patton or perhaps an African one-string fiddler. Yet Parker’s string progression and the color from Drake’s press rolls and cymbal power, cut that primitivism with the sophistication of a modern improviser.

Parker describes “Dust on a White Shirt” as a “square dance song”. It’s more like a country and western blues, though, sort of what would happen if country fiddler Johnny Gimble knew Stanvinsky or if Muddy Waters and Anton Webern got together at a barn dance. Piercing at times, Bang’s tone sounds that way in order to allow him to play as quickly as he needs. Most of the time he seems to go beyond portamento and never take the bow off the strings, while Drake provides the rhythmic bounce. Countrified all right, at one point it seems that the violin lines and Parker’s solid bass pulse are sounding out “Turkey in the Straw”.

“Sunday Morning Church” is the bassman’s real showcase however. As secular as it is sacred, the polyphonic, more than 11½-minute composition mixes a tough ostinato from Parker and Bang’s melancholy violin line. The fiddler spends so much time figuratively speaking it tongues though, that sometimes it seems he’s sounding two violins simultaneously. Meanwhile the bassist revels in the resonation he can get from the lowest part of his instrument, never pretending that he’s playing a cello or a bass guitar. Eventually the tune resolves itself into a cousin of one of John Coltrane’s single chord vamp pieces, in near inert tempo.

On other tracks on the CD based, says Parker, on memories and images from dreams, Bang trade fours with Drake, but the overriding auditory image he suggests is that of a string quartet made up of four violinists, each quadruple stopping with solos in palatable screech mode.

Want a bang up demonstration of the skill of Parker of a composer and/or Bang has a soloist? SCRAPBOOK is the CD for you.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Scrapbook 2. Sunday Morning Church 3. Singing Spirits 4. Dust on a White Shirt 5. Urban 6. Holiday for Flowers

Personnel: Billy Bang (violin); William Parker (bass); Hamid Drake (drums)

September 22, 2003

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Live from the Vision Festival
Thirsty Ear THI 57131.2

The next best thing to being there, this combination CD and DVD package offers a distillation of some of the outstanding performances from last year’s Vision Festival in New York’s Lower East Side. Lacking the name recognition of Newport, Montreux, or any other capitalist entity-associated international star festival, in its less than 10 year existence, Vision has still promulgated a unique artistic vision.

Built around the vision of bassist William Parker, it’s a place where pioneering avant gardists from the 1960s mix it up with younger players who are carrying on experimental ideals. It’s cross-cultural, national and international as well, with the musicians showcased on this session arriving from Germany, Korea, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, Valencia, Calif., New Orleans… and Brooklyn,

Substantiating his ubiquity, Parker holds down the bass chair on five of the nine tracks --in five different bands, Fellow bull fiddle masters Tyrone Brown, Reggie Workman and the late Peter Kowald are represented as well.

Longest performance, at more than 11 minutes, is “Crepuscule IV in Powderhorn Park”, which reunites three founding members of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music who now reside in different parts of the country. Minneapolis-based Douglas Ewart shows up with his reed collection -- some of which are homemade -- to improvise with the woodwinds of Brooklyn’s Joseph Jarman. From California, Wadada Leo Smith adds his trumpet to the duo, and the three members of the front line are backed by the unbeatable rhythm section of Chicago’s Hamid Drake and Parker.

Perhaps it’s the strength of the go-for-broke rhythm of the bassist and drummer, but the performance is more convincing than some recent CDs by each of the front line partners. Expelling a mixture of gritty bluesiness and elegant, brassy grace notes, Smith states the theme, which is then elaborated by Jarman’s soprano saxophone. Using whistles and straining his notes sharply to make a point, the saxman turns rubato with a brief stop-time section, which is then echoed by Ewart’s tenor sax undertow and Parker’s perfectly proportioned bass line. Finally the three horns conclude triple forte, with Drake’s rolling roughs giving them enough leverage on which to soar.

The same rhythm team backs up tenor veterans Kidd Jordan from New Orleans and Chicago’s Fred Anderson. Each pushing 70, the extended multiphonics they propel from their horns often mix with a primeval funkiness, hinting at how Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis might have handled Free Jazz. At a little more then four minutes though, “Spirits Came In” is barely long enough to let everyone feel the spirit.

Almost double in length, but flashing by at supersonic speeds is “Bangart 100”, performed by unconventional fiddler Billy Bang, World Saxophone Quartet anchor, baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett, and contemporary composer Jin Hi Kim on Korean komungo. With his unaccompanied attack as reminiscent of hoedown as Heifetz, here Bang’s technique keeps up with his emotionalism. Working the opposite end of his horn’s palate, Bluiett ignites basement tones, altissimo wild pig squeals and growling feline feints. Keeping this all-together fingerpicking on her multi-stringed traditional instrument is Kim.

Other highlights include the definition of “Existence” provided by the duo of Dave Burrell on piano and bassist Brown. Cognizant of jazz history, like the late Jaki Byard, Philly’s piano pride mixes several of the music’s key streams on his keyboard. Initially he outputs high frequency, percussive cadenzas that are as far out as anything practiced by the New Thing, which counted Burrell as a member for his work with Archie Shepp. Later, providing fills behind Brown’s ringing tones, he shows off his lyric side that characterized him as a “song man” when he played with David Murray.

Then there’s Kowald’s stinging, more then 10½-minute solo “Improvisation”. Sometimes appearing to make his bass talk in several voices, the German maestro wraps together pizzicato buzzing strings, vocal drone and some grating, yet impressive arco thrusts into a characteristic show-stopping display.

Running down the outstanding merits of every track would be pointless, since each offers a different perspective on modern free sounds. The weakest piece, in fact, is also the first: “Truth Is Marching In”. Not the Albert Ayler standard, this reunion tune by alto saxophonist Jameel Moondoc’s Muntu quartet, featuring trumpeter Roy Campbell, drummer Rashid Bakr and bassist Parker seems, like the composition’s title, to be more caught up in New Thing revivalism than inventing the music anew. But isn’t nostalgia one construct of reunions?

Couple the more than 70½-minutes of music with the images available on the DVD and you’ll yearn to be in attendance at the Fest next time it takes place. Making light of geography, this VISION package means you can experience some of festival highlights at home.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing:1. Truth is Marching In 2. Existence 3. Bangart 100 4. Crepuscule IV in Powderhorn Park 5. Speech of Form 6. 45 Hours 7. Synchronicity 8. Sprits Came In 9. Improvisation

Personnel: 1. Muntu: Roy Campbell (trumpet); Jameel Moondoc (alto saxophone); William Parker (bass); Rashid Bakr (drums) 2. Dave Burrell (piano); Tyrone Brown (bass) 3. Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone); Billy Bang (violin); Jin Hi Kim (komungo) 4. Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet); Douglas Ewart (bass clarinet, clarinet, tenor saxophone); Joseph Jarman (alto clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, bass flute, alto saxophone); William Parker (bass); Hamid Drake (drums) 5. Mathew Shipp (piano); Mat Manner (viola); William Parker (bass) 6. Rob Brown (alto saxophone); Karen Borca (bassoon); Reggie Workman (bass); Newman Taylor Baker (drums) 7. Ellen Christi (vocals); Rolf Strum (guitar); William Parker (bass); Hamid Drake (drums) 8. Kidd Jordan; Fred Anderson (tenor saxophones); William Parker (bass); Hamid Drake (drums) 9. Peter Kowald (bass)

June 16, 2003

TRI-FACTOR

If You Believe…
8th Harmonic Breakdown 8THHB 80004

KAHIL EL’ZABAR
Love Outside of Dreams
Delmark DG-541

Leading two regular bands obviously isn’t enough for Chicago-based multi-percussionist Kahil El’Zabar. Not only has he written poetry and film scores, taught at nearby universities and initiated arts presentations, but he’s also put together a series of ad-hoc musical groups.

Besides his regularly constituted Ethnic Heritage Ensemble (EHE) and Ritual Trio, he also organized the Bright Moments combo filled with Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians veterans and recorded exciting projects with 1960s tenor masters like Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp. Now these CDs showcase him in two more bands. Tri-Factor is a regularly constituted co-op trio, filled out by baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett and violinist Billy Bang. The other combo disc is more of bittersweet affair. A reunion between El’Zabar and a former duo partner, extensively recorded tenor saxophonist David Murray, it’s also the final recording session for bassist Fred Hopkins, who died at 51 of heart and liver disease a few months after the session.

Along with Hamid Drake, El’Zabar is part of the Chicago percussion tradition that encompasses mastery of many more drums than the standard trap kit. As a matter of fact, his most impressive rhythmic thrust comes on African hand drum or kalimba. Connect the Africanisms suggested by those instruments and his vocals to a stringed instrument and a horn and you get the basic thrust of both these discs.

Best-known for his tenure in the Wold Saxophone Quartet, which also includes Murray, Bluiett’s experience encompasses St. Louis’ Black Artists Group (BAG), R&B gigs and three years with bassist Charles Mingus. Most distinctive of modern violinists Harlem-raised Bang was a founding member of another collective, The String Trio Of New York. Since the 1980s he has played in variety of contexts from modern classical, to straightahead, to outside Energy music with the likes of tenor man Frank Lowe and bassist William Parker.

IF YOU BELIVE… gets it strength from the tension that must be resolved among Bang’s off-centre formalism, Bluiett’s blues roots and El’Zabar, whose rhythms may suggest African rain forests, but whose singing and lyrics reference sanctified gospel. This push-and-pull can most easily be heard on the first and final tracks. A churchy, hand clapper, the title track works up from an echoing vocal refrain courtesy of the percussionist and roadhouse honks from Bluiett’s axe. Bang is smack dab in the middle, ornamenting sax lines with string sweeps or scratching out an approximation of one-string African fiddles Elsewhere, “Urban Bush People”, offers an El’Zabar vocalized chant that is half work song and half-enraged Gil Scott-Heron. Driven by the a repetitive sax riff and hand percussion, with everyone humming the soulful melody, the percussionist sings about “living in the streets of concrete” where “if we don’t start screaming all of our children will be gone”.

Cast in the form of moderato lullabies, numbers, such as “Baby K For Kasan” and “San San For Kasan” spread a warm blanket of kalimba notes over the melodies, with digit power giving the thumb piano the sound and texture of a marimba. Here the overlay of baritone lines and fiddle ornamentation helps to add warm and fuzzies to the tune.

Not that the three have lost their edge however. Bluiett’s “Wide Open Country Style” owes a lot more to Art Blakey than bluesman Blind Blake and is merely one step removed from hard bop. Additionally, the saxman’s ability to create freakish high notes in altissimo range followed by mining shaft deep swoops call to mind early R&B honkers who elaborated on “The Hucklebuck”.

Finally there’s “It Went Somewhere Else”, a free jazz blow out, reminiscent of 1960s Energy Music, with El’Zabar feeding press rolls and bass accents to the others from his kit; Bang snaking up and down the strings; and Bluiett, reverting to his BAG days, speedily screeching in both registers.

Partnering with men whose experience ranged from the formal -- Hopkins’ membership in Air, Murray’s Octets and big bands -- to the free -- the bassist’s duo with drummer Steve McCall, Murray’s duos with El’Zabar or pianist Dave Burrell -- the percussionist on LOVE .. appeared to be ready for anything. Armed with a set of his original tunes, some of which had been recorded in duo with Murray or by the EHE, the idea seems to be to throw everything up in the air and see what developed.

For a start, though, listeners shouldn’t hear this session as some sort of Hopkins memorial disc. Busy as only a prodigal (musical) son can be in his hometown, the bassist certainly didn’t figure this would be his final session. His solid bass line can be heard throughout, but he’s not really featured. In fact, there are times he lays out completely or can’t be heard over the clamor of the more powerful axes.

With the percussionist more often behind the kit than not, El’Zabar plays a series of shuffles, flams and paradiddles to back up Murray’s swaggering tenor saxophone forays and mournful bass clarinet. Although only one number definitely references Duke Ellington, with “Take The A Train” quotes, the saxist appears to be in a ducal mode. On that tune he spears enough high notes to have made Ellington’s coloratura trumpet specialist Cat Anderson jealous and elsewhere his throbbing inflections recall Paul Gonsalves, whose tenor tonalities with the Duke were as likely to suggest R&B and jump bands as Coleman Hawkins or Chu Berry. On “Nia”, an EHE favorite, he comes up with enough overblown screeches, trills and honks show how much New Thing tenorists took from Gonsalves’ sound as well as from the more expected Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane influences. On other tunes, Murray’s reed-biting saxophone forays and El’Zabar’s thumb piano lines produce enough reverberations from two acoustic instruments to make proponents of electronica seem foolish in their reliance on wires and dials.

When he’s not biting off arpeggios on his horn(s), Murray also vocalizes along with El’Zabar, most notably on his own “Song For The New South Africa”. The two do well as rhythm singers, but neither Luther Vandross nor Usher should lose any sleep over their crooning. Lyrics awash with the sentiments of peace and love figure strongly in the final tune, which is also the title of Murray-El’Zabar duo disc. Although he uses a lot of slap tonguing and key pops, Murray’s bass clarinet solos also have a spiritual quality here, amplified by the percussionists unbroken hand drumming and call-and-response vocals.

With a Pentecostal preacher’s vocal delivery and the large licorice stick providing the chorus, the power of the piece really revolves around Hopkins’ wide-sweeping bass work. Probably his most assured playing on the CD, it’s good to know that the bassman went out on a strong note the last time he entered the recording studio.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: If: 1. If You Believe 2. The Sequence of our Hearts 3. Dark Silhouette 4. Without Blame 5. Baby K For Kasan 6. Wide Open Country Style 7. San San For Kasan 8. It Went Somewhere Else Now 9. Internal Offerings 10. Urban Bush People

Personnel: If: Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone, bamboo flute); Billy Bang (violin); Kahil El’Zabar (drums, hand drums, kalimba, bellaphon, vocals)

Track Listing: Love: 1. Love Outside of Dreams 2. Song for a New South Africa 3. Song of Myself 4. Nia 5. Meditation for the Celestial Warriors 6. The Ebulllient Duke 7. Fred 8. One Wold Family

Personnel: Love: David Murray (tenor saxophone and bass clarinet); Fred Hopkins (bass); Kahil El’Zabar (drums, African drums, thumb piano)

October 28, 2002

FULLY CELEBRATED ORCHESTRA

Marriage of Heaven and Earth
Innova 567

GOLD SPARKLE BAND
Fugues and Flowers
Squealer Music SQLR 035

Gerry Mulligan may get credit for inventing the so-called pianoless quartet in modern jazz but it was Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz band of the early 1960s that really established it as a viable aggregation.

Having ingenious soloists like cornettist Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell on board, Coleman on his Atlantic LPs proved that lacking a chordal instrument did nothing to weaken a band’s internal dynamics, as long as the mixture of talent and compositions was maintained.

Forty years on, this sound is as familiar as that of a classical string quartet or a rock Power Trio, with literally thousands of groups having embraced it. Two of the impressive younger bands in the style are the represented on these live CDs. Just as instructively, both come from places other than New York’s jazz epicentre.

Boston-based, the grandiloquently named Fully Celebrated Orchestra (FCO) recalls the old jape about the Holy Roman Empire, which, we were told was neither holy, Roman nor an empire. As a quartet -- initially a trio from 1987 until cornettist Taylor Ho Bynum joined in 1999 -- FCO is certainly no orchestra. And considering avant jazz’s limited support, it likely isn’t fully celebrated as well.

Instead, the group, whose repertoire is written by leader/alto saxophonist Jim Hobbs, is a rough-and-ready gang fully in the Coleman mould. Bassist Timo Shanko who also regularly works with local guitar star Joe Morris, has been with the band from its beginnings, while drummer Django Carraza joined in 1991.

Thoughout the writing of Hobbs, who has also played with Morris, not to mention metal band, Death’s Head Quartet, is strongly influenced by Coleman’s compositions. However, here he manages to include enough so-called world melodies and scales plus funk rhythms to attract the rock crowd as well as hardcore jazzophiles. Recently he also received a new work grant from Chamber Music America/the Doris Duke Foundation to create an original piece for the band.

The leitmotif of the tunes is to develop a simple head as a launching pad for heartfelt blowing then restate the head. At times, Hobbs, whose solos are usually made up of repeated note patterns cleaves to the absolute lowest register of his horn, leading to speculation that some of the notes may comes from a tenor saxophone. Other times, as on “Jaya” he produces a high, lonesome, arcing sound as if he was an Appalachian hollerer, which is given added poignancy by minimal bass and drum accompaniment. Drummer Carranza gets to show his stuff elsewhere, however, most notably on the Balkan-flavored “Aware of Vacuity”, where his quirky offside conception manages to simultaneously suggest jazz and Middle Eastern time. Holding to unvarying patterns, Shanko stays in the background as least aggressive member of the group.

Rustic settings and the blues may be brought to mind by “Ol’ Sow Rooted ‘em Up”, which recalls Coleman lines like “Folk Tale” or “Blues Connotation”. But while Hobbs may use smears and trills to try to approximate Hank Crawford-style soul, Bynum, who has recorded impressive sessions with cellist Jeff Song, is a little too sophisticated to get into the alley. In essence his tone suggests Charlie Shavers’ polite approach to blues. He sounds more comfortable melding with the saxophonist on the unison coda, and on other tunes uses techniques like valve shakes to express emotions.

Still, as long as this band of unreconstructed urbanites doesn’t try to don metaphoric overalls, they sound impressive. The overall sound picture here is of a mature band, confident in its role and ready to bring its message to a larger public

This unprejudiced audience FOC attracts often comes from college radio and the uncommitted indie-rock crowd to which Gold Sparkle Band (GSB) also appeals. A tale of two cities, trumpeter Roger Ruzow continues to reside in Atlanta, the band’s initial home base, while reedman Charlie Waters, bassist Adam Roberts and percussionist Andrew Barker now make Brooklyn their home. While Waters and Barker have become part of bassist William Parker’s Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra among other Big Apple aggregations, the quartet still isn’t really a New York band as this CD shows. Lengthy “Motor City Fugue”, for instance, was recorded in Atlanta, while the rest of the tunes were recorded in Chicago.

Paradoxically, GSB seems both more traditional and more outside than FOC. Some of the heads the band plays -- all but two written by Waters -- resemble Jazz Messenger themes, while some of the solos -- again mostly by the reedman -- seem to take as much from the modern, European, so-called classical tradition as jazz.

It’s this tradition which is most apparent in his clarinet playing. On alto, Waters’ vernacular, like that of Hobbs comes mostly from Coleman, with some Eric Dolphy thrown in for good measure. Even more noteworthy, though, is the playing of trumpeter Ruzow, potentially the most interesting brass stylist to come from Georgia since trombonist J.C. Higginbotham in the 1930s. Trained as a bassist, Ruzow only began playing trumpet professionally with the formation of GSB in 1995.

Perhaps it’s this novelty which still enlivens his solos. Certainly his admixture of melodic, open horn forays, muted asides and a repertoire of squeezed out smeary tones, flutter tonguing and whistles creates a unique niche.

These qualities are put to particular use on “Second City Fugue (Subject)”, where his mid-register double-timing suggest Klezmer music -- or perhaps trumpeter Ziggy Elman, who had traces of that style in his trumpet work with Benny Goodman. Unison sounds come from a combination with Waters’ alto, though the duck quacks heard seem to arise from the clarinet reed. Waters also seems to unveil snake-charmer’s flute on “Second City Fugue (Counter-Subject)”, which when mated with Roberts’ quick walking bass suggests Charles Mingus’ 1960 quartet with Dolphy and Ted Curson as much as Coleman’s “Focus On Sanity”.

All techniques are rolled togeher on the almost 25½ minute “Motor City Fugure”. At different times, the band members split into trios, duos (trumpet-drums and clarinet-bass) and even go solo, with Barker finally able to bang different parts of his kit and Roberts given a little more arco leeway and room for some string struming. At one point the saxist introduces reed-biting foghorn squalls from his alto, at another exhbits sweet, almost-traditional New Orleans-style clarinet, while the rest of the group lays out. Not to be outdone, Ruzow exhbits a panoply of effects himself that range from burnished muted lines to military brass band flourishes and rollicking spit tones.

Both FCB and GSB give you new faith in modern improvised music’s consistent rejuvination. Plus each of the eight musicians involved is young enough to get even better in writing and playing. There may be a time, in fact, that singly or together FCB or GSB may be synonymous with A-1.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Marriage: 1. Succubusology 2. The Kelpi 3. Ol’ Sow Rooted ‘em Up 4. Jaya 5. A Tree is Me 6. Aware of Vacuity 7. Reconciliation of Heaven and Earth

Personnel: Marriage: Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet); Jim Hobbs (alto saxophone); Timo Shanko (bass); Django Carraza (drums)

Track Listing: Fuges: 1. Zodiac Attack 2. Second City Fugue (Subject) 3. Fugues (Answer) 4. Second City Fugue (Counter-Subject) 5. Holiday For Flowers 6. Motor City Fugue

Personnel: Fuges: Roger Ruzow (trumpet); Charlie Waters (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute); Adam Roberts (bass); Andrew Barker (percussion)

July 13, 2002

MARILYN CRISPELL

Live In Berlin
Soul Note SN 120069-2

Listening to this disc almost 20 years after it was recorded in a Berlin concert you can hear how much pianist Marilyn Crispell has changed -- and remained the same -- since that time.

Very much a product of the epoch, the band is performing a version of energy music, not unlike that practiced by tenor saxophonist John Coltrane’s quartet -- one of her acknowledged influences -- with Crispell in the McCoy Tyner or Alice Coltrane role and violinist Billy Bang taking on the Trane mantle. At the same time, having a violin as a solo voice brings up memories of those groups featuring fiddlers like Ramsey Ameen and Leroy Jenkins and led by Cecil Taylor, another Crispell totem.

That’s one way the pianist of today differs from the one of 20 years ago. The Taylor influences were a lot stronger in 1982. But even then, as when she embarks on a marathon solo in the midst of “ABC” you still note separation from Taylor. Crispell’s improvising is that much warmer, lush and romantic. You can definitely hear her bedrock classical training as well and use of a lot of right-handed chordal work. Overall, though, her touch is also much, much lighter than Taylor’s.

What is notable as well is how she -- and by extension her bandmates -- have become more conscious of space and silence since then. Throughout the nearly 46½ minute performance here, no one seems to stop playing for a minute, with everything done at double or triple speed.

Not that you’d want them to slow down. At the height of his early effervesce then, Bang is constantly on. Virtuosic in his way as Isaac Stern or Jascha Heifetz were in theirs, he spends most of his time exploring the stratosphere. Often creating tones that literally sound like saxophone smears, he’s a master of the speedy glissando, double and triple stopping as often as humanly possible. However, at one point, during a duet with bassist German Peter Kowald, he begins scratching his strings in such a way that it appears as if he’s ready to lead a hoedown.

Later on “Burundi” Bang starts the proceeds with an unaccompanied solo that suggests the sounds of paper bags exploding and tissue paper being torn shredded, then introduces a round robin of double stops, swing time and alternating bowing and string finger plucks. Could you expect any less from a man who was the linchpin of ensembles as different as Sun Ra’s Arkestra, the String Trio of New York and pioneer New Thing saxophonist Frank Lowe freebop quartet?

Kowald too brings heavy credentials to the session. The second most famous free improviser from Wuppertal, he had already played with the cream of European improvisers. Over his nearly 40-year history he has been in bands as large as Globe Unity Orchestra and as small as duos. More self-effacing than you would imagine, except for some great swathes of cello-like arco swoops on the first number, he mostly confines himself to producing a steady, almost traditionally jazzy, accompanying pulse.

Chief revelation here is American drummer John Betsch, who has been valuable part of saxophonist Steve Lacy’s different aggregations since 1989, and who also played with folks as different as New Thinger Archie Shepp, bluesman John Lee Hooker and folk rocker Tim Hardin. On “Burundi”, he almost stops the show with a spectacular yet quiet and unshowy drum display. Using his snare, toms, rims, cymbals almost equally, only rarely does he ratchets things up a notch with bass drum foot thumps.

Crispell, of course, more than holds her own. Still best known for a decades-long collaboration with Anthony Braxton, most famously as a member of his quartet a few years after this date, “ABC” is titled after that composer/multi-instrumentalist. Even at this early date, however, she was her own woman, fitting as easily in this free-for-all energy jam fest as with Braxton’s more complicated, cerebral scores. Always plowing forward she makes an impression with a modal interlude on the last tune, alternating treble suggestions with her own manner of sneaking into the bass keys for emphasis.

On “Chant” -- like the other two numbers, her own composition -- there’s a point where the bassist and drummer seem to fade into the background and she and Bang perform as if they were Heifetz and Vladimir Horowitz in recital. As the violinist races from one pitch and tempo to another, she come up with different shadings from her 88 keys. Together and apart simultaneously, each is a soloist, yet both are accompanists.

This disc has always had a reputation as one of Crispell and company’s early milestones. Historical listening does nothing to dispel that.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. ABC (for Anthony Braxton) 2. Chant 3. Burundi

Personnel: Billy Bang (violin); Marilyn Crispell (piano); Peter Kowald (bass); John Betsch (drums)

May 10, 2002

THE MUSIC ENSEMBLE

The Music Ensemble
Roaratorio Roar 03

History, especially jazz history, is a set of shared anecdotes and popular assumptions usually organized years after the fact. This approach’s shortcomings are made clearest when conjecture is transformed into cant, as was demonstrated by Ken Burns’ JAZZ series. Musical history -- especially one as complex as improvised music -- can’t easily be reduced to a theory of great men and neat transitions. Pesky details on the margins mess up these neat concepts, just like an exceptional jazz solo plays with the criterion of a conventional melody.

Which brings us to the slice of musically important history that is this CD. Recorded in 1974 and 1975, when conventional narratives would tell us that nothing else was happening on the jazz scene but pop-jazz-fusion and bebop revivalism, here’s the sounds of a precisely integrated, so-called avant garde band playing as if it was 1965 or even 1995. Not only that, but of the six performers, three would be celebrated as standard-bearers of New York-centred ecstatic jazz by the late 1990s.

Billy Bang, long before he joined the String Trio of New York, demonstrates his unique approach to the violin. Daniel Cater, decades way from being a linchpin of TEST and other Manhattan bands is here playing different saxophones, flutes and percussion. Bassist William Parker, who even then had already recorded a notable session with tenor man Frank Lowe, was beginning a career that would make him the most ubiquitous musician and organizer of present day free music.

Drummer Peter Baird, who recorded the session, is now involved with other music. However bassist Herb Kahn --who is only on the first track -- and trumpeter Malik Baraka, who died soon afterwards due to a drug habit, are merely names.

Considering the sound was captured in two different New York area schools on a cassette recorder with a single stereo mike, except for some sections, it’s surprisingly clear and immediate. In fact, the only really negative aspect of this disc is that the improvisations on it have remained unreleased for more than a quarter of a century.

Made up of a core group of committed musicians, The Music Ensemble practiced regularly and intensively. It shows. At least the four joint tracks on this CD sound like compositions with definite themes, sections and codas, not as excuses to jam or grandstand.

Throughout Baraka, whose tone is thin technically, but expressive, sort of like Donald Ayler’s, blends impressively with others in the front line. Whether he’s wreathing in counterpoint around the surprisingly Bird-like alto lines of Carter on the nearly 32-minute “Stance Dance (Courage)”, creating a third meshed part with Bang and Parker’s strings or moving harshly and straightahead on “Arithmetical Mystic” he definitely has something to say. It’s a shame we’ll never know if his vocabulary would have developed further.

Even then Carter was versatility personified. Besides his outstanding saxophone work on the disc, his ethereal flute work on “Echoes Wind Transpire” is so close to Bang’s fiddling that it’s sometimes hard to distinguish one from another. Some of the massed percussion bottom favored by inside/outside performers of the time likely comes from his hands and wrists as well.

Bang can be romantic in sections as on “Echoes”, or slash away on the top of his range on “Stance”, as Parker’s bow scrapes the bottom lines. Responsible for keeping the forward motion of the tunes going despite the dense, buzzing concentration of the front line, Parker does so powerfully and memorably. Only rarely does he step forward, though, as he does on “Stance” where he delivers a lilting cello-like aside. Meanwhile unheralded Baird extends the percussive carpet with steady strokes from all over his expanded kit, sometime accenting the bass drum as on “Radiatory Fineness” or bringing out the tablas on “Stance” for contrast.

Don’t look for some of these musicians or the session to be noted in the next boilerplate jazz history or TV special. But do try to find this CD to get an insight into how --and when -- the music really evolved and changed.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Stance Dance (Courage)* 2. Arithmetical Mystic 3. Echoes Wind Transpire 4. Radiatory Fineness

Personnel: Malik Baraka (trumpet); Daniel Carter (alto and tenor saxophones, flutes, drums percussion); Billy Bang (violin, percussion); William Parker, Herb Kahn* (bass); Roger Baird (drums, percussion, tablas, flutes)

February 8, 2002

KAHIL EL'ZABAR/BILLY BANG

Spirits Entering
Delmark 533

Representing the New York and Chicago tradition of African American improvised music, violinist Billy Bang and multi-percussionist Kahil El'Zabar have been playing in tandem on and off for the past 25 years.

Both obviously enjoy working together because each sees himself as part of a continuing musical lineage. Alabama-born, Manhattan-raised Bang, 53, developed his lyrical, rhythmic and dramatic conception not only by internalizing the innovations of free violinists Leroy Jenkins and Ornette Coleman, but also by accepting the entire hot fiddle lineage typified by Eddie South and especially the iconoclastic joker, Stuff Smith.

Six years younger than Bang, born and raised in the Windy City, El'Zabar is yet another active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Still, Chicago's musical economics and AACM contacts has meant his workmates have varied from veterans such as bassist Malachi Favors and saxophonists Fred Anderson to youthful street rhythm specialists. Easily able to produce a flowing, neo-bop approach with his trap set, he's also a specialist in exotic rhythms and ethnic percussion following study with African percussion gurus in Ghana a few years ago.

Serious as they are, the percussionist and violinist are also intrinsically theatrical enough to carry out solo showcases as well as dyad dates like these. "Old Time Religion" here offers a clear glimpse of their methods.

The venerable, ante-bellum hymn is transformed by an improvisation that reduces it to its simplest components, while subtly reshaping it. Vocalized by El'Zabar in a slurred mutter that suggests early slave songs, the steady rhythm he pounds out on conga drum alludes to Acid House as much as the Ashanti. Bang, meanwhile, slides out variations on the theme, first arco, then plucked from the strings of his highly distinctive, amplified, ivory-colored fiddle.

When he really gets excited, as on the title tune, the violinist starts repeating the motif, worrying it along with staccato pulls then elongating it with long legato lines. Getting into the top of his instrument's range, he forges a call-and-response section that makes it appear he's trading fours with himself. All the while, the percussionist is being the perfect accompanist, moving the beat along on toms, snare, bass drum and cymbals.

"Song of Myself" on the other hand, comes across as a bare bones violin concerto with drum accents. However further tracks give El'Zabar his head -- and hands -- and allow him to improvise on the African mbiri, thumb piano and Brazilian birimbau.

Not that everything here is copacetic. Bang and El'Zabar have played together in the percussionist's Ritual Trio or in larger groups, so sometimes they appear to leave too many unfilled spaces. "Love Outside of Dreams", for instance, which initially comes across the way committed beboppers would treat a standard tune, as the drummer time keeps, soon dwindles into schmaltzy violin lines that are only partially redeemed by Bang's coda of lively pizzicato plucks.

Having another partner or two on board would have probably prevented the two from trying absolutely everything on this CD, including some conceptions that obviously don't work. Still one can't complain about what's not there. As an accomplished duo disc, this CD certainly merits your attention.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Spirits Entering 2. 2 Was Now 3. Sweet Irene 4. Love Outside of Dreams 5. The Dream Merchant 6. Song of Myself 7. The Ituri Fantasy 8. Old Time Religion 9. Golden Sea

Personnel: Billy Bang (violin); Kahil El'Zabar (drums, percussion, birimbau, thumb piano)

October 15, 2001

BILLY BANG

Big Bang Theory
Justin Time JUST 135-2

Was it pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams who said he didn't want his music to be described as "avant garde" anymore because labeling it that way was "a kiss of death"?

Whoever it was, inventive violinist Billy Bang, who heads this exemplary album, could testify to the truth of that statement as well. One of the two prominent fiddlers -- Leroy Jenkins is the other -- who stripped the instrument of enough of its innate "prettiness" to let it hold its own with the iron men drummers and horn players of the early 1970s, Bang was never exclusively an avant gardist.

His 1982 Outline No. 12, for horns and strings, for instance, explored some of new music/improv parameters that concerned folks like Anthony Braxton and Butch Morris later on. His stint with Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio revolved around a funky groove and his stints in the jazz chamber group The String Trio of New York, and Bill Laswell's rock-oriented Material pinpointed his virtuosity

So while uninformed neo-con jazzers still whine about his pinched tone and pillory him for "avant garde" leanings, CDs like this one and his earlier sessions for Justin Time show that among his many other attributes, versatile Bang can output pure swing when he sets his bow to it.

In fact, the careful listener would note that this quartet's heartfelt rhythm and relaxed tunefulness, call up the image of no one more than trickster Stuff Smith -- mainstream jazz's violin clown prince of the 1930s to 1960s. And no one ever attacked Stuff for being "far out".

Bang et. al score in any number of ways throughout the more than 66 minutes of this disc. They're reverently spiritual on the traditional "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," low-down enough on El'Zabar's "Contrary Motion", and in-the-pocket when liming Freddie Hubbard's 1970s anthem "Little Sunflower." Unspectacular but steady bassist Lundy and pianist Pope each contribute a jaunty blowing piece, while Moffett -- today's drummer-of-choice -- supplies whatever accents are needed.

Furthermore, while Bang's five originals may be a little more astringent and spiky than what aging young lions play in trendy jazz & cigar boîtes, there's probably nothing so "oddball" enough there send his critics scurrying back to their National Reviews or following e-trades on NASDAQ.

Probably the most noteworthy is the violinist's brief, but heart-felt spoken word salute then string solo requiem for Denis* Charles, another non-idiomatic improviser who died a couple of years ago.

Charles who was best known -- or perhaps most criticized -- as Cecil Taylor's first drummer, never let the jazz fashion police get to him. He was playing powerfully until the very end. With BIG BANG THEORY we can probably be confident that Bang will go out the same way.

-Ken Waxman

Track listing: 1. Contrary Motion 2. At Play In The Fields Of The Lord 3. Big Bang Theory 4. Theme For Taraby 5. Silent Observation 6. One For Jazz (For Dennis* Charles) 7. Sweet Irene 8. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 9. Saved By The Bell 10. Little Sunflower

Personnel: Billy Bang (violin); Alexis T. Pope (piano); Curtis Lundy (bass); Codaryl Moffett (drums)

April 22, 2000