COXHILL/GJERSTAD/STEPHENS

This That and The Other
Loose Torque LT 003

By Ken Waxman

An aviary symphony, this CD matches two veteran European reed players on six longish explorations of the timbral qualities of high-pitched horns. Anchored only by the steadfast stopping of acoustic bassist Nick Stephens, England’s Lol Coxhill on soprano saxophone, and Norway’s Frode Gjerstad on Eb and Bb clarinets and alto saxophone, explore every nuance of staccato shrillness.

Although the reedists, in their first recorded face-off, are front-and-centre, it’s Stephens who earns MVP status. The bassist, who also recorded, mixed and edited the session before releasing it on his own label, utilizes nearly every bull fiddle technique available to both accompany the players singly, and serve as the glue holding together their improvisations.

Along the way he exhibits his own command of the big daddy of the string family. Leaping from vibrated shuffle bowing to thick pizzicato episodes of splayed rhythms and then back to tremolo col legno action – often on the same track – he provides the ballast that keeps the other two’s timbres from fixating on strident altissimo.

Most of the time Coxhill’s and Gjerstad’s reeds produce enough echoing tones to populate an ornithological pet shop. Penny whistles-like shrieks, tremolo spetrofluctuation and staccato wails are the common discourse of both, although there are points when the Norwegian adopts a more moderate tone. He almost touches on mellow when his lower-pitched Eb clarinet is in use.

At points layered dissonance seems to be the contrapuntal currency, yet there are other spots at which the Englishman’s tongue-stopping brays manage to suggest an obtuse complement to Gjerstad’s vibrations. Less frequently, it almost appears that the polytones complement and harmonize with each other – then it’s back to singular split-tones from the soprano, ascending past dog-whistle territory, and split-tone braying and tongue slaps from the alto saxophonist. All the while Stephens’ growling sul tasto patterning plus occasional waist and belly knocking holds down the bottom.

Admirable rather than gripping, THIS THAT AND THE OTHER exposes far too many fortissimo and agitato tones to really tell a story. Yet it does confirm the technical skills of all three players.

Track Listing: 1. This 2. That 3. This and That 4. This and The Other 5. That and The Other 6. This That and The Other

Personnel: Lol Coxhill (soprano saxophone); Frode Gjerstad (Eb and Bb clarinets and alto saxophone); Nick Stephens (bass)

August 14, 2006

Calling Signals

Dreams in Dreams
FMRCD177-i0805

Calling Signals
Calling Signals
Loose Torque LT 004

Band names are a convenience, usually created when players don’t want to call a group so-and-so’s quartet. Yet the designation can also be deceptive if the make-up of a group changes substantially without altering the name.

So it is with these CDs by two ensembles called Calling Signals. The quartet was initially put together following an all-day memorial concert for British drummer John Stevens by British bassist Nick Stephens and Norwegian reedist Frode Gjerstad, who had both played extensively with Stevens. The self-titled CD is a 1996 edition of the group with its founders joined by South African drummer Louis Moholo of Blue Notes fame and Dane Hasse Poulsen on guitars and effects, best-known for his association with French reedist Louis Sclavis.

Dreams in Dreams on the other hand, recorded almost 19 year later, adds two Norwegian musicians with different histories to the Stephens-Gjerstad duo. Accordionist Eivin One Pedersen, usually a pianist, was the original third member of Detail with Gjerstad and Stevens in 1981. Today he mostly composes for theatre and films and plays more mainstream jazz gigs. Paal Nilssen-Love, who began recording with Gjerstad in 1992, before he was 18 years old, has since gone on to be one of improv’s most in-demand percussionists, working with everyone from American multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee to the Scandinavian band Atomic.

Both CDs are notable, with the shorter Dreams in Dreams more so, perhaps due to the sonic familiarity expressed by the Stephens-Gjerstad-Nilssen Love coupling and the unusual textures from Pedersen’s squeeze box.

One of the most notable aspects of the first CD is how restrained – almost John Stevens-like – Moholo is in his accompaniment. The pitter-pattering cross shots and barely-there ruffs and flams relate only vaguely to the backbeat the drummer often used to power large ensembles like Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.

Particular as well, if sometimes a bit inchoate, is Poulsen’s work. Fascinating when he uses rasgueado strums and flat picking to reach those areas beneath the bridge or, as on “Unanticipated Turns” outputs jangling timbres that sound as if he has loosened his strings, other strokes don’t offer the same allure. Distant reverb or scene-setting frails often fail to coalesce with the others’ sounds. In contrast, there’s a passage on “The Breeze and Us” where the polyrhythmic concordance suggests Moholo is playing a darbuka and Poulsen a kalimba.

Wedded more solidly towards Saturn than the savannah, Gjerstad’s skittering lines soar, slur and sideslip far from ethnic replication. “Dots and Dashes” may be the title which most accurately reflects his program. Using tongue stops and pitch vibrato, he coils and trills his way diagonally across flat-lined, single-string guitar licks and hand patting drumming. Meanwhile Stephens holds the beat with repeated plucks.

Sul tasto and sul ponticello coloring shares space with steady walking throughout, as the bassist alternates his role as a soloist of delicate dexterity with rhythm section mate for Moholo’s spare bounces and ride cymbal hacks. With the guitarist, there’s a dramatic passage on the almost 20-minute “Crossing the Bar” where Stephens’ spiccato pulse and double stops merge with Poulsen’s electonica-tinged reverb, as the saxophonist’s collection of lip trills and side-slipping obbligatos move to a climax.

Fewer emphasized climaxes and more moderato interchange is evident on Dreams in Dreams. Perhaps it’s the shifting sfmuto of color available from Pedersen’s accordion rather than a guitar, or the fact that the reedist concentrates on clarinets.

Interestingly enough, Nilssen-Love, who often works in bombastic punk-jazz contexts, here habitually moderates his expression to drum top pitter-patter and cross-handed cymbal expansion. There are points, in fact, where the layering becomes downright impressionistic.

Perhaps in response to the polyphonic curves vibrating from the accordion, the bassist’s contribution also becomes more horizontally ornamental– at least in contrast to his work on the earlier CD. That doesn’t mean however that regular walking bass lines and double stopping drones aren’t available from his four-strings. On “Dreams in Dreams”, for example, each note is patiently sounded until the result is a reverberating line that can stand up on its own – as the accordion tones shiver and cymbals quiver behind him.

On clarinet, Gjerstad doesn’t mute his timbre exploration either, sometimes playing faster and higher-pitched than the andante proceedings. Disconnected tongue-stopping slurs with jagged pitch oscillations are still on show, though frequently this meets a wash of solid, low frequency arpeggios from Pedersen that color the proceedings.

Recently the Norwegian keyboardist has started playing dates with his local group and you can hear him becoming more comfortable with rubato improv as the session proceeds. The penultimate track captures contrapuntal quivering timbres from Pedersen’s squeeze box engaging in call-and-response vamps with Stephens’ thumping bass lines. “Dreams in Dreams in Dreams”, the final – and longest track – appears to feature no clarinet, but Pedersen’s squeeze box as the lead voice, with bass and drum accompaniment. Using sliding octaves, studied repetition and high-intensity multi- voicing, he organically builds up to flourishes and cadences that suggest both jazz and European dance music.

Satisfying in exposing a Scandinavian stylist who should be more widely heard and with top-notch work from the other quartet members Dreams in Dreams is a keeper. Slightly less memorable is Calling Signals, although the CD adds a historical perspective to the featured musicians’ work.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Calling: 1. Fjord Deep, Mountain High 2. Threeways Meet 3. Crossing the Bar 4. Dots and Dashes 5. The Last Three Notes 6. Drum’n’Bass 7. Unanticipated Turns 8. The Breeze and Us

Personnel: Calling: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone); Hasse Poulsen (guitars and effects); Nick Stephens (bass); Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Dreams: 1. Dreams 2. Dreams in 3. Dreams in Dreams 4. Dreams in Dreams in 5. Dreams in Dreams in Dreams

Personnel: Dreams: Frode Gjerstad (Eb and Bb clarinets); Eivin One Pedersen (accordion); Nick Stephens (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love (drums and percussion)

July 7, 2006

FRANK GRATKOWSKI/DAMON SMITH/JEROME BRYERTON

The Voice Imitator
Balance Point Acoustics BPA 006

GJERSTAD/EDWARDS/SANDERS
The Welsh Chapel
Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1161

What do you get when you put a German and two Americans together in a small room or unite a Norwegian and two Englishmen? While those situations may sound like the set up for a joke from the Second World War, the correct answer, from the evidence of these CDs, is exemplary improvisation.

The Norwegian-British concord involves veteran Nordic alto saxophonist Frode Gjerstad --who at one point led a band featuring the late British drum pioneer John Stevens -- and two players from a younger British generation. Singly and together Londoners bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders have played with many of the United Kingdom’s reed heavy hitters: John Butcher, Paul Dunmall and Evan Parker. When they connect with Gjerstad on these five instant compositions the result is superior Free Jazz.

To grasp the distinction between Free Jazz and Free Music all you have to do is listen to the second disc featuring another woodwind player with the initials FG. German reedist Frank Gratkowski never reaches the ecstatic heights of Gjerstad’s improvising, but his carefully modulated output meshes with that of his rhythm section to produce low-key group music. Gratkowski spreads his improvising among the alto saxophone, clarinet, and bass clarinet. His American confreres -- Bay area bassist Damon Smith and Chicago percussionist Jerome Bryerton -- are also closer to his age than the Brits are to Gjerstad’s. Furthermore the Yanks’ singular or collective experience with European reedmen such as Wolfgang Fuchs, Tony Bevan and Butcher has led them to synthesize European aesthetics in their work.

You can hear this most clearly on “Profound and shallow”, THE VOICE IMITATOR’S almost 25-minute core composition, which clocks in at more than twice the length of anything else on the CD.

Probably the most abstract of all the tracks, it features Gratkowski’s amplification of a single, growling reed whine on bass clarinet gradually reconstituting itself into a replication of the practice scale heard through the prism of sheets of sound. As swifter and swifter reed tones slide into one another then dissolve into bird-like squeaks, Smith holds things together with impressionistic bowed bass lines.

Limiting himself to single note excursions, Bryerton splashes out a pressure point on orchestral metal, ethnic percussion and Chinese cymbals, often emphasizing his points with mallets. At times, Gratkowski sounds a sonorous clarinet note that is echoed by the drummer’s cymbal top and strummed by the bassist. No one tries to outplay the other, though. All three are sidemen or all are soloists. Closely follow a single rhythm section solo phrase for example, and suddenly you realize that the bass and drums have turned to accompanying the reedist, who is warbling out a series of high-powered split tones.

Throughout the disc, silences are as important to the output as concentrated notes. Gratkowski hisses colored air through his mouthpiece then concentrate on mouth pulses, until occasional notes escape in between the air and spit tones. He overblows to expand his tone and mixes his output with reed kisses, tongue slaps, Bronx cheers, monkey-like gibbering and basso snorts that could come from a baritone. Moving in-and-out of false registers, he uses many of the techniques he’s developed for solo playing in this group situation.

Meanwhile Bryerton counters with rumbling drum rolls, abrasive scratches on his ride cymbal, shimmering sizzle cymbals and bull’s eye whacks on his Chinese gong. Some timbres seem to result from rim shots on the side of his drums or on wood blocks or from sounds created by hitting the cymbal holder or clamp rather than the instrument itself. More often than not on purpose, his time is beveled rather than operating in a straight line.

The dense blanket of pulses the bassist creates is used by the others as a launching pad for their improvisations. Sometimes, in fact, Smith even plays standard jazz time. Rarely, though, does he have a chance to display the sort of spectacular virtuosity he has shown on discs with Fuchs and the late bass master Peter Kowald.

The set up is a little less democratic on THE WELSH CHAPEL, where, without slighting the contributions of the rhythm section, it’s definitely the saxist’s show. Moreover, the sort of side-slipping, screeching alto tone Gratkowski sometimes exhibits on the first disc is stock in trade for Gjerstad in his many solos. Irregular honks, prolonged squeal, a Rudy Wiedoeft-wide vibrato and playing entire passages in dog whistle territory are favored.

Not that he’s an empty show-off though. On the rare occasions when the Energy music subsides to a less frantic pace, a strain of Nordic melancholy infects his solos. The Norwegian has played clarinet and bass clarinet on other discs, and while he’s listed as only playing alto saxophone here, some of the more vehement, tone-sliding passages sound like they may come from those wooden horns.

“The Welsh chapel: Part 3” has more than enough space to indicate how the trio setting plays out. With a wheezing bass line and drum and cymbal brush work underneath, Gjerstad first begins mutating and bending his alto work from trills to clenched squeaks and hollow whistles. The crack of a drumstick on the snare introduces speedier altered and slurred tones, violent triple tonguing and honking. Cycling through many keys and pitches, the saxman introduces a feeling of constant motion, using glosolalia as extreme as anything blown in the Energy Music years. Cymbals and cowbell pressure from Sanders and a vamping ostinato from Edwards move the accompaniment up a notch, as Gjerstad plows on regardless. Wiggling raw excitement, his staccato phrasing and foghorn honks seem to consume the music in one gulp.

A resonating bass solo plus indirect cymbal pings calm the presentation. Here in this lower-pitched, more pacific output is where Gjerstad sounds as if he’s playing a bass clarinet. With the rhythm section occupied with passing tones, he slides chromatically further down the scale, ending with a crescendo of trills matched by the drone of arco bass strings.

Perhaps due to the recording process, there always seems to be an echoing drone emanating from Edwards’ strings, unlike the clear sound of Smith produces form his axe. Be that as it may, the Englishman still produces timbres that range from ones that resemble Charlie Haden’s foursquare work with Ornette Coleman to steely, Dobro-like finger picking. Sanders, who isn’t adverse to exercising his cowbell, sometimes produces tones that sound as if miniature cymbals have been placed on top of his ride and sizzle cymbals. At times he also appears to be using his hands on the snare skin for a more African-style sound.

As for the Norwegian, between his swirl of shrieking high notes and wet bubbles of clearly emphasized split tones -- among other reed exercises -- he exposes a constant fount of ideas, confirming his leadership here, as well as his long tenure as an outside musician in his native country.

Choosing between two woodwind players with the initials FG who both work with bass and drums is impossible. In their hands-across-the-sea meetings both reedists expose two equally valid ways of creating improvised music on these fine CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Voice: 1. Three character attacks: Photographers 2. The prince 3. Profound and shallow Two instances of libel/one memory lapse: 4. Increased (a) 5. Increased (b) 6. Impossible

Personnel: Voice: Frank Gratkowski (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet); Damon Smith (bass); Jerome Bryerton (percussion)

Track Listing: Welsh: 1. The Welsh chapel: Part 1 2. The Welsh chapel: part 2 3. The Welsh chapel: Part 3 4. The Welsh chapel: part 4 5. The Welsh chapel: part 5

Personnel: Welsh: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet); John Edwards (bass); Mark Sanders (drums)

September 22, 2003

BRÖTZMANN/PARKER/DRAKE

Never Too Late But Always Too Early
Eremite MTE 037/038

FRODE GJERSTAD TRIO WITH PETER BRÖTZMANN
Sharp Knives Cut Deeper
Splasc (h) CDH 850

More than 35 years after he roared onto the international Free Jazz scene, German reedist Peter Brötzmann’s playing still seems as ferocious as ever. This is a good thing. For unlike some of his contemporaries who have settled into a sort of middle-aged timidness, the tenor saxophonist still improvises with the same intensity and commitment at 60 as he did when he was 25.

Those who now hear a newly toned down Brötzmann are also a bit deluded. For the saxman’s playing has never been out-and-out raunchy and, as these two -- actually three, one is a two-CD set -- sessions demonstrate, his creations, are as solid or as subtle as he wants them to be.

Furthermore, Brötzmann, whose very first trio -- with the late German bassist Peter Kowald and Swedish drummer Sven-Åke Johansson -- was an international affair, has continued to maintain his non-German connections. Case in Point, NEVER TOO LATE is a record of his American trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, while SHARP KNIVES adds Brötzmann to the working trio of alto saxophonist Frode Gjerstad of Norway, filled out by fellow Norwegians bassist Øyvind Stroresund and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love.

Dedicated to Kowald, who first explored the then new music when they were both teenagers in their hometown of Wuppertal, the tracks on NEVER TOO LATE are alternately as stormy as the music the initial trio first made, and as sombre as a threnody should be. Kowald died of heart failure in September 2002 between the recording and release of this live set.

Encompassing three tracks, the title tune begins with mournful clarinet tones from Brötzmann and restrained arco work from Parker. Unsurprisingly the reedist keeps the growled melancholy theme going for several minutes, only occasionally heading into higher, screech mode as the bassman produces thick and solid chords and Drake appears to be doing little more than merely touching the drums. Although an instant composition, the band probably decided to use it as a memorial since the subsequent solo by Parker, who also had a longtime association with Kowald, is rooted in the creation of simultaneous tones, overtones and undertones that the German bassist would have appreciated.

By the second track, Brötzmann on tenor, is keening like a traditional Muslim widow, sluicing out slipsliding shrills and overblowing tones. Drake has turned to harder rock-style drum beating, as the saxman seems to relinquish his control and turn to multiphonics -- if it’s possible to quadruple-tongue, he’s doing it. Finally, as the rhythm section gradually slows down then speeds up its accompaniment, the beat settles and the saxman’s irregular vibrato gets so frenzied that it almost seems as if he’s about to levitate. Ghost notes, false fingering, flutter tonguing combine as entire passages are taken in sopranissimo pitch. Soon the entire audience is screaming as Brötzmann honks out elongated tones to the climax.

“Half-hearted beast” seems almost anti-climatic in retrospect, with an re-energized reedman screeching a cappella as if he playing a hunting horn leading a charge at the foxes. Meanwhile, Drake’s free, but rhythmically powerful, rim shots complement Parker’s unvarying tone. Construction is almost pure soulful R&B, if you can accept that description of a German avant gardist’s work.

The first CD is pretty powerful as well, with Brötzmann’s renal cry announcing his presence almost from the beginning. Taking up the first four tracks of that disc, “Never Run but Go” finds the saxman rolling forward like a tank battalion, using his slightly nasal tone and split tones to push obstacles away. Not that the bassist and drummer are obstacles. Parker’s pizzicato pulse holds the beat to the road, while Drake uses cow bell, snare and ride cymbal to roll and slide out his All-American commentary on the blitzkrieg. Throughout the Chicago-based percussionist subtly alters the tempo underneath Brötzmann’s explosions.

Listen closely as well, and you’ll hear Parker quote from “Boogie Stop Shuffle” at one point. This is appropriate, since the New York-based bassist seems to have inherited its composer, Charles Mingus’ mantle not only as a first-class bassist, but also as an organizer and bandleader.

Although the emphasis here is on the reedist’s collection of nephritic cries and intestinal tones plus Drake’s roughs and drags, nothing seems to faze the bassist. By the end of the mini-suite, using his bow, he’s managed to get the others to halve the tempo to such an extent that the piece becomes almost quiet and reverent. Then again Brötzmann squealing in tongues is as close to “Taps” as Free Jazzers can play.

If that piece is quiet than “The Heart and the Bones” almost sounds like restrained BritImprov. After introducing the theme with abrasive steel wool-like string tones, Parker stands aside for muted squeals from Brötz and hand drumming from Drake. Soon the beat turns hypnotic as the bassist begins revealing the distinctive string sounds of the Donso Ngoni or Malian hunter’s harp. The coda relates a lot more to his pinpointed strums than the reedist’s squeals.

Recorded eight months later, SHARP KNIVES is a reunion of sort for Brötzmann and the veteran alto saxist, who recorded as a duo CD in 1998. Here, as a matter of fact, they start out this disc unaccompanied, with Gjerstad playing short nervous cadenzas on clarinet, while Brötz pushes out dark-colored continuum on bass clarinet. The German continues to go south with his sound as Gjerstad moves higher until all hell breaks loose with the entry of Stroresund and Nilssen-Love, pumped as if they have to run the four-minute mile.

Like Parker on the other disc, Stroresund holds the pulse, while Nilssen-Love, who has recorded with everyone from saxists Mats Gustaffson to Ken Vandermark, relies on press rolls to keep things on an even keel. Meanwhile the two woodwind players are getting louder, biting down on their reeds and vocalizing notes in the aviary range.

Pressure cooker pulses continue to appear for the remainder of the session, with Brötz’s taragto at times adding a bit of Eastern European color to the proceedings. For his part Gjerstad often clambers up the scale, spearing high pitched notes and operating in dog whistle territory. Together, the mixture of claxon calls and growling multiphonics from the two saxists often produces something that could be the soundtrack for feeding time at a zoo filled with particularly bad-tempered carnivores.

Everything reaches a climax in the final -- and longest -- track, when chalumeau clarinet tones matched with bowed bass lines are superseded by irregular drum beats and reed expositions that vary from whines to Bronx cheers. As the drummer channels Sunny Murray on rat-tat-tat snares and echoing cymbals, Brötzmann lacerates the melody, double and triple tonguing as if he was pulling notes straight from the very marrow of the saxophone. Gjerstad responds at higher intensity and higher pitch to such an extent that the dense notes and tones are packed tighter than the passengers in a Tokyo subway. With each woodwind note seemingly bent, simultaneous rattling drum and bowing bass push the tempo faster until the tune finally ends.

What’s left behind from the sax-created ostinato however is the promise that either of these veteran saxmen could have continued to blow all night.

As Kowald’s death at 58 proved, no one lives for ever. But on the evidence of these CDs, veterans like Brötzmann -- and come to think of it Gjerstad -- appear to have plenty of spunk left in them for many years to come.

-- Ken Waxman

Personnel: Never: Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, taragato, clarinet); William Parker (bass, donso ngoni); Hamid Drake (drums)

Track Listing: Never: Disc 1: 1. Never Run but Go I 2. Never Run but Go II 3. Never Run but Go III 4. Never Run but Go IV 4 5. The Heart and the Bones Disc 2: 1. Never Too Late But Always Too Early I 2. Never Too Late But Always Too Early II 3. Never Too Late But Always Too Early III 4. Half-hearted beast

Track Listing: Sharp: 1. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 1 2. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 2 3. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 3 4. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 4

Personnel: Sharp: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, clarinet); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, taragato, bass clarinet); Øyvind Stroresund (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

July 7, 2003

FRODE GJERSTAD

Last First
Falçata-Galia FALÇ-0007/0079

No matter how proficient the musicians are, every group takes time to find its particular niche and gel into a coherent whole. Especially vulnerable are diminutive groups such as trios, which alter considerably along with the players. No one, for instance, could confuse the Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Jim Hall and Ralph Peña with Giuffre’s trio featuring Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, or mix up Sonny Rollins’ recording with Ray Brown and Shelly Manne with his session with Henry Grimes and Pete LaRoca.

Norwegian alto saxophonist Frode Gjerstad has had to face this challenge a couple of times. His trio of the 1980 and 1990s with South African bassist Johnny Dyani and British drummer John Stevens had to be reconstructed after first one, than the other man died. Then his trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake couldn’t work frequently enough, since the American rhythm section was made up of two of in improv’s most in-demand players.

Now, for the first time in his life, the veteran woodwind player has a trio completed by fellow countrymen. Bassist Øyvind Storesund and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love are considerably younger than Gjerstad, but they proved their mettle with him on a recently released premium Cadence Jazz CD dedicated to Stevens.

LAST FIRST actually precedes that disc by about 10 months, and it’s fascinating to hear the group sound taking shape on it. Unlike Gjerstad’s other bands, which were by necessity long-distance affairs, this group has had time to develop through multiple gigs and rehearsals.

Interestingly enough, bassist Storesund, the least known group member, is more upfront on this completely improvised session then he would be later on. A rock-solid timekeeper like Parker, he’s the link between Nilssen-Love’s abstruse and refined percussion and the solo flights of Gjerstad on alto saxophone, alto flute and bass clarinet. You can hear the partnership locking into place midway through the proceedings. After the bassist sounds all his strings with an extended arco flourish, he’s met with a stick exploration of snare press rolls, rim shots and the occasional toe pedal bass drum hump, from the percussionist who ends this collaboration with a single cymbal sizzle.

While very much his own man -- he had to be since he was Norway’s entire jazz avant garde until this younger generation came along -- Gjerstad can move from sharp, reed biting trills in the highest register of the saxophone to barely accented breathy asides. Here, featured on the same instruments that were part of Eric Dolphy’s arsenal, he exhibits a distinctive personality on each horn.

Except for pro forma basement swoops, he usually concentrates on the highest registers of the bass clarinet and squeaks away. When he does that Storesund defines the pulse with mighty Walter Page-like bridge work, and Nilssen-Love, who has also put in time in saxist Ken Vandermark’s School Days quartet and as part of Swedish pianist Sten Sandal’s trio, decorates the proceedings with percussion filigrees. Elsewhere, bowed bass notes mesh with lower register clarinet tones to such an extent that you can’t tell which is the originating instrument.

Unsentimentally romantic on flute, there are times Gjerstad can blow multiphonics out of the metal tube; other times he produces a more traditional melody, most definitely as part of the mini-overture that opens this disc. Storesund works in the cello range at that point, while Nilssen-Love counters with a free jazz rumble, very much in the Stevens tradition, belying his ongoing experience with fusion bands.

On alto, the saxophonist unveils an improv vocabulary of tongue slaps and duck quacks, with protracted pauses to introduce the tracks’ different sections. At intervals Gjerstad’s conception involves forcing air through a tube like the most committed minimalist, other times he gets involved in fjord funk, honking away in what could practically be the tenor register. On a couple of tracks from the CD’s end he even sounds as if he’d like to start playing “Night In Tunisia”, as the three start grooving on quasi-Afro Cuban riffs.

Few bands appear as fully formed as Dolly, the sheep after a cloning experiment. But some lucky ones manage to avoid the fumbles and foibles associated with group birth pains. As this CD demonstrates, this trio was one of them.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Last First Part 1 2. Last First Part2 3. Last First Part 3 4. Last First Part 4 5. Last First Part 5 6. Last First Part 6 7. Last First Part 7 8. Last First Part 8 9. Last First Part 9 10. Last First Part 10 11. Last First Part 11 12. Last First Part 12 13. Last First Part 13

Personnel: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, alto flute, bass clarinet); Øyvind Storesund (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

June 22, 2002

FRODE GJERSTAD/JOHN STEVENS/DEREK BAILEY

Hello, Goodbye
EMANEM 4065

During the long period in the 1970s and 1980s when he was metaphorically alone in the wilderness, as practically the only advanced improviser in Norway, alto saxophonist Frode Gjerstad developed an extended playing relationship with British drummer John Stevens. However this recently discovered almost 73½-minute document is the only time the two worked in tandem with guitarist Derek Bailey.

Bailey, who is often as theoretical as Stevens was spontaneous, was along with the drummer an early BritImprov creator and worked with Stevens many times as a sort of “fellow traveler” to the drummer’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME). But this disc preserves the only meeting -- so far -- between the guitarist and the alto saxophonist. Recorded by Gjerstad on a portable DAT machine during a 1992 concert in his hometown of Stavanger, and computer-corrected in 2000, it’s an instructive example of how three originals can interact without giving up any of their individuality. Most of the tunes flow one into another, with the only real break occurring about 20 minutes after the three begin.

Throughout, Gjerstad casts out a long fishing line of tiny accented notes, while Bailey ranges up and down the strings, plinking and plucking resonating, sharply metallic phrases. At the same time, the ever-busy Stevens moves between cymbals and snare, placing accents with the accuracy of a pastry chef decorating a multi-layer cake. Sometimes, though, as in the middle of “Three Two Three One”, when Stevens lays out things get a little too weightless, with the feathery sax lines and string silences threatening to float away. Strangely enough that track ends with about two minutes of amplifier hum, which seems to be an enigmatic Bailey statement rather than a technical fault.

Perhaps to counter that, “Three by Three” -- the longest track --is much more aggressive, with Stevens occasionally spewing out a stream of off-key mini trumpet blats, Gjerstad elongating his alto lines, sometimes in counterpoint with the trumpet, and Bailey constructing some picked and strummed rhythmic backing. With the guitarist producing an improv version of power chording, Stevens is moved to ratchet up the backbeat while Gjerstad slides out some shards of pitch variations that more resemble the energy music of the 1960s than more restrained EuroImprov.

That moods seem to stay intact during “Two Three Two Three” with a saxophonist-indicated head of long-lined slurs that almost sounds South American. Immersed in his kit, Stevens keeps the rhythm jumping from snares, toms and cymbals and back again, while, as if reacting to the challenge, the guitarist matches both of them with a busy barrage of single notes. Here and elsewhere, using his amp’s and pedal’s capacity and creative feedback, Bailey proves that the booklet description of him playing an amplified guitar is no misnomer.

All in all, HELLO, GOODBYE is much more than the historical souvenir of a unprecedented one-off meeting. Although reminiscent in part of some of SME sessions with the same line-up and a few of Bailey’s saxophone face-offs, the creations are given a fresh twist from Gjerstad’s ingenuity.

Thus the disc becomes triply valuable. It’s another report on the talents of a highly inventive drummer; a supplementary CD of the underrecorded Gjerstad’s work; and as a reminder that no matter how many sessions he plays, when faced with improvisations --and improvisers -- at his level Bailey will pilot his work up to yet another level.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Hello 2. Three Two Three One 3. Three by Three 4. Two Three Two Three 5. Penultimatum 6. Goodbye

Personnel: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone); Derek Bailey (guitar); John Stevens (percussion, mini-trumpet)

December 17, 2001

FRODE GJERSTAD

The Blessing Light: For John Stevens
Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1126

To mix a couple of metaphors: Frode Gjerstad is a throwback finally able to benefit from the fruits of his labors.

In other words, the Norwegian reed man is a go-for-broke, emotive stylist, whose impassioned reed forays call to mind iconoclastic free jazz forefathers like Ornette Coleman or Charles Tyler rather than the hushed chamber timbres of many of his northern European peers. Furthermore, after spending nearly two decades limited to playing with foreign musicians, because only they were sophisticated enough to grasp the nuances of his sound, he's finally put together an all-Norwegian working band. But the veteran improviser had to himself organize and lead the Circulasione Totale Orchestra of very young Norwegian musicians to finally find local playing partners to fill out his trio.

Yet just as Coleman's bands took on a confident supple maturity once he was able to fill them with young musicians he personally taught the ins and outs of his

Harmolodic theory, so this impressive band is easily the equal of any other Gjerstad three. Considering the reedist's playing partners have memorably included the likes of bassists Johnny Dyani, Kent Carter and William Parker and his preferred drummers were John Stevens and Hamid Drake this is high praise indeed.

Poignantly, the music is dedicated to the Stevens, who with an elder's sagacity and guile similarly guided a clutch of young musicians through the intricacies of free music. Gjerstad's relationship with the British percussionist, which started when the two began playing together in 1981 and lasted until Stevens' death in 1994, was important for social as well as purely musical reasons. Not only did it introduce the saxman to audiences beyond Norway, but it literally reassured him that he wasn't deranged in following his own muse, despite what seemed to be the opposition of every other established jazz musician in his native country.

As for the playing on this live session, the reedman is as powerful as always, turning out elongated lines of nearly limitless inspiration, with multiphonics able to suggest two horns at once. His alto tone can range from the highest canine-calling territory to protracted mid-range cries that will probably remind folks more of delta floods than fjords. As speedy in execution as a bebopper, he never lets an expected phrase fall where an unanticipated twist will make the music that much more exciting.

Bassist Øyvind Storesund, who cites Parker and Jamaaladeen Tacuma -- a former Coleman sideman -- as inspirations, is a powerful time keeper, who seems to operate full-throttle at all times. Probably the trio member who shouts encouragement throughout, he's traditional enough to work his bull fiddle as a double bass. Eschewing high string cello-like forays or bridge filigrees, he has an impressive, deep, dark tone that ties every disparate phrase together and helps to steamroll each tune forward.

Known to North Americans for his work with forceful saxophonists Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love has been a part of disparate bands in his native land and recently put out an impressive solo disc on the SOFA label. Here, though, he's merely an unshowy part of a team, keeping the relentless rapid pace going with little feints, jabs, rolls and stresses. Ranging all over the kit, he restricts himself to the rhythmic function, only occasionally moving forward for a tom tom exploration or a sticks on snare display.

All in all, an impressive piece of work from musicians whose country too often is off the jazz radar screen.

--- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. For John Stevens Part 1 2. For John Stevens Part 2 3. For John Stevens Part 3

Personnel: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, clarinet); Øyvind Storesund (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

September 10, 2001