Ensemble Normand Guilbeault

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs
Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute

Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett

Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints

CJR 7

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

Mentors and heroes have been celebrated musically for years. In improvised music however, interpretations are more individual, the choice of honorees is quirkier, but the sounds are as impressive – as these CDs demonstrate.

Montreal bassist/composer Normand Guilbeault’s Ensemble has played the music of bassist/composer Charles Mingus (1922-1979) for years. Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185 CD finds the six man – and one woman, vocalist Karen Young – combo preserving Mingus’ purposely jagged stop-time themes and tempo switches. With Jean Derome’s snorting baritone saxophone and the broken phrasing of Mathieu Bélanger’s bass clarinet, the arrangements have more bottom. Young’s delivery adds emotion to a piece like “Weird Nightmare”, which benefits from Ivanhoe Jolicoeur’s whispering trumpet. Pianist Normand Devault consistently lays on the blues notes. Yet these link to the trumpeter’s sometime pre-modern plunger work and the steady pulse of drummer Claude Lavergne. The band proves that homage includes irreverence, when the pianist weaves a pastiche of other Mingus tunes into “Song with Orange”; and on “Passions of a Woman Loved”, the reeds quote “Tequila”

Joe McPhee’s Angels, Devils & Haints CJR 7 re-imagines the work of saxophone avatar Albert Ayler (1936 -1970). Besides two standards, the music is improvised. While Ayler’s themes were driven by thick percussion and raucous horns, McPhee plays alto or tenor saxophone or trumpet, backed by four bassists – Michael Bisio, Dominic Duval, Paul Rogers and Claude Tchamitchian.

Separated by heartfelt saxophone readings of “Goin’ Home” and “Ol’ Man River”, the outstanding originals capture the Ayler persona. “The Gift” is a pointillist exercise divided into saxophone tongue stops, flutter tonguing and frayed trills, while the bassists strike and slap cantilevered timbres, then divide into arco string stretches and pizzicato plinks.

The title tune is the real stunner. As the bassists thump or pluck to unify pedal point undertow, McPhee reed bites, squeals and chirps. When the bassists use tremolo pumps to meet the saxophonist’s slip-sliding smears, multiphonics are exposed.. McPhee then switches to spidery chromatic triplets on trumpet confirming underlying lyricism. Ultimately he returns to saxophone with ceiling-scraping altissimo. The finale finds the bassists’ portamento runs and McPhee’s floating and stuttering trills melding.

Four Torontonian and two Swiss honor Urs Blöchlinger on Tribute Pet Mantis Records PMR 004,The compositions of Blöchlinger (1954-1995) reflect the saxophonist’s sardonic humor and hint at the depression that lead to his suicide. Organized by bassist Neal Davis, plus two Swiss who worked with Blöchlinger – pianist Christoph Baumann and drummer Dieter Ulrich – the horn section is all Torontonians: trombonist Tom Richards plus reedists Peter Lutek and Kelly Jefferson.

Aylerian echoes animate Lutek’s nephritic cries, with Jefferson lyrical and Tom Richards as fond of plunger work as Jolicoeur. This is especially effective on the lurching theme of “King Arthur meets Hans Eisler in Hollywood”. The trombone blats, Lutek’s alto saxophone slithers and Jefferson’s soprano saxophone trills draw out the narrative. Davis’ walking, Baumann’s comping and Ulrich’s ruffs let the horns interject quotes from other tunes which are diaphanous enough to expose a climatic round of honks and peeps. “Kungusische Arbeitslied” layers themes in sequence. Contrapuntally contrasting trombone growls and reed chirps, the group switches to a marching band emulation following a drum roll. Sluicing horn lines quicken the pace as Ulrich nudges the melody with montuno rhythm. Baumann’s sprawling dynamics signal another shift and suddenly roles reverse. Lutek’s nasal alto, Jerfferson’s smooth soprano and Richards’ gutbucket trombone play the melody as the pianist’s key wandering replicate a fantasia. A bass string spank completes the tune.

Strangest acknowledgment is Hommage à Syd Barrett Imuzzic CRCD 0821. The Lyon-based i.overdrive trio honors Barrett (1946-2006), the songwriter/guitarist whose idiosyncratic tunes dominated Pink Floyd’s first LP before he left the group. With guitarist Philippe Gordiani using the pre-eminent rock instrument; trumpeter Rémi Gaudillat representing jazz sophistication; and drummer Bruno Tocanne weaving between the two, Barrett tunes are reinvigorated

“Astronomy Domine” balances Gordiani’s flanged and elongated riffs with melodiousness from Gaudillat and Tocanne’s mid-range banging. Distorted notes from effects pedals and whammy bars, plus prickly guitar licks are in the mix, but so are muted overtones and romantic obbligatos from the trumpet plus the drummer’s crunching rebounds and cymbal-splashes. Deference and deconstruction are realized with “Interstellar Overdrive”. Replicating the familiar riffs, Gordiani’s could be playing two guitars, while Gaudillat’s grace notes include a near-Arabic motif. Slurry brass triplets and staccato strumming combine for final redefinition.

The honorees aren’t around to hear these tributes, but each would be proud.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett
Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints

CJR 7

Ensemble Normand Guilbeaul
t

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs

Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute

Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

Mentors and heroes have been celebrated musically for years. In improvised music however, interpretations are more individual, the choice of honorees is quirkier, but the sounds are as impressive – as these CDs demonstrate.

Montreal bassist/composer Normand Guilbeault’s Ensemble has played the music of bassist/composer Charles Mingus (1922-1979) for years. Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185 CD finds the six man – and one woman, vocalist Karen Young – combo preserving Mingus’ purposely jagged stop-time themes and tempo switches. With Jean Derome’s snorting baritone saxophone and the broken phrasing of Mathieu Bélanger’s bass clarinet, the arrangements have more bottom. Young’s delivery adds emotion to a piece like “Weird Nightmare”, which benefits from Ivanhoe Jolicoeur’s whispering trumpet. Pianist Normand Devault consistently lays on the blues notes. Yet these link to the trumpeter’s sometime pre-modern plunger work and the steady pulse of drummer Claude Lavergne. The band proves that homage includes irreverence, when the pianist weaves a pastiche of other Mingus tunes into “Song with Orange”; and on “Passions of a Woman Loved”, the reeds quote “Tequila”

Joe McPhee’s Angels, Devils & Haints CJR 7 re-imagines the work of saxophone avatar Albert Ayler (1936 -1970). Besides two standards, the music is improvised. While Ayler’s themes were driven by thick percussion and raucous horns, McPhee plays alto or tenor saxophone or trumpet, backed by four bassists – Michael Bisio, Dominic Duval, Paul Rogers and Claude Tchamitchian.

Separated by heartfelt saxophone readings of “Goin’ Home” and “Ol’ Man River”, the outstanding originals capture the Ayler persona. “The Gift” is a pointillist exercise divided into saxophone tongue stops, flutter tonguing and frayed trills, while the bassists strike and slap cantilevered timbres, then divide into arco string stretches and pizzicato plinks.

The title tune is the real stunner. As the bassists thump or pluck to unify pedal point undertow, McPhee reed bites, squeals and chirps. When the bassists use tremolo pumps to meet the saxophonist’s slip-sliding smears, multiphonics are exposed.. McPhee then switches to spidery chromatic triplets on trumpet confirming underlying lyricism. Ultimately he returns to saxophone with ceiling-scraping altissimo. The finale finds the bassists’ portamento runs and McPhee’s floating and stuttering trills melding.

Four Torontonian and two Swiss honor Urs Blöchlinger on Tribute Pet Mantis Records PMR 004,The compositions of Blöchlinger (1954-1995) reflect the saxophonist’s sardonic humor and hint at the depression that lead to his suicide. Organized by bassist Neal Davis, plus two Swiss who worked with Blöchlinger – pianist Christoph Baumann and drummer Dieter Ulrich – the horn section is all Torontonians: trombonist Tom Richards plus reedists Peter Lutek and Kelly Jefferson.

Aylerian echoes animate Lutek’s nephritic cries, with Jefferson lyrical and Tom Richards as fond of plunger work as Jolicoeur. This is especially effective on the lurching theme of “King Arthur meets Hans Eisler in Hollywood”. The trombone blats, Lutek’s alto saxophone slithers and Jefferson’s soprano saxophone trills draw out the narrative. Davis’ walking, Baumann’s comping and Ulrich’s ruffs let the horns interject quotes from other tunes which are diaphanous enough to expose a climatic round of honks and peeps. “Kungusische Arbeitslied” layers themes in sequence. Contrapuntally contrasting trombone growls and reed chirps, the group switches to a marching band emulation following a drum roll. Sluicing horn lines quicken the pace as Ulrich nudges the melody with montuno rhythm. Baumann’s sprawling dynamics signal another shift and suddenly roles reverse. Lutek’s nasal alto, Jerfferson’s smooth soprano and Richards’ gutbucket trombone play the melody as the pianist’s key wandering replicate a fantasia. A bass string spank completes the tune.

Strangest acknowledgment is Hommage à Syd Barrett Imuzzic CRCD 0821. The Lyon-based i.overdrive trio honors Barrett (1946-2006), the songwriter/guitarist whose idiosyncratic tunes dominated Pink Floyd’s first LP before he left the group. With guitarist Philippe Gordiani using the pre-eminent rock instrument; trumpeter Rémi Gaudillat representing jazz sophistication; and drummer Bruno Tocanne weaving between the two, Barrett tunes are reinvigorated

“Astronomy Domine” balances Gordiani’s flanged and elongated riffs with melodiousness from Gaudillat and Tocanne’s mid-range banging. Distorted notes from effects pedals and whammy bars, plus prickly guitar licks are in the mix, but so are muted overtones and romantic obbligatos from the trumpet plus the drummer’s crunching rebounds and cymbal-splashes. Deference and deconstruction are realized with “Interstellar Overdrive”. Replicating the familiar riffs, Gordiani’s could be playing two guitars, while Gaudillat’s grace notes include a near-Arabic motif. Slurry brass triplets and staccato strumming combine for final redefinition.

The honorees aren’t around to hear these tributes, but each would be proud.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute
Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints

CJR 7

Ensemble Normand Guilbeault

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs

Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett

Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

Mentors and heroes have been celebrated musically for years. In improvised music however, interpretations are more individual, the choice of honorees is quirkier, but the sounds are as impressive – as these CDs demonstrate.

Montreal bassist/composer Normand Guilbeault’s Ensemble has played the music of bassist/composer Charles Mingus (1922-1979) for years. Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185 CD finds the six man – and one woman, vocalist Karen Young – combo preserving Mingus’ purposely jagged stop-time themes and tempo switches. With Jean Derome’s snorting baritone saxophone and the broken phrasing of Mathieu Bélanger’s bass clarinet, the arrangements have more bottom. Young’s delivery adds emotion to a piece like “Weird Nightmare”, which benefits from Ivanhoe Jolicoeur’s whispering trumpet. Pianist Normand Devault consistently lays on the blues notes. Yet these link to the trumpeter’s sometime pre-modern plunger work and the steady pulse of drummer Claude Lavergne. The band proves that homage includes irreverence, when the pianist weaves a pastiche of other Mingus tunes into “Song with Orange”; and on “Passions of a Woman Loved”, the reeds quote “Tequila”

Joe McPhee’s Angels, Devils & Haints CJR 7 re-imagines the work of saxophone avatar Albert Ayler (1936 -1970). Besides two standards, the music is improvised. While Ayler’s themes were driven by thick percussion and raucous horns, McPhee plays alto or tenor saxophone or trumpet, backed by four bassists – Michael Bisio, Dominic Duval, Paul Rogers and Claude Tchamitchian.

Separated by heartfelt saxophone readings of “Goin’ Home” and “Ol’ Man River”, the outstanding originals capture the Ayler persona. “The Gift” is a pointillist exercise divided into saxophone tongue stops, flutter tonguing and frayed trills, while the bassists strike and slap cantilevered timbres, then divide into arco string stretches and pizzicato plinks.

The title tune is the real stunner. As the bassists thump or pluck to unify pedal point undertow, McPhee reed bites, squeals and chirps. When the bassists use tremolo pumps to meet the saxophonist’s slip-sliding smears, multiphonics are exposed.. McPhee then switches to spidery chromatic triplets on trumpet confirming underlying lyricism. Ultimately he returns to saxophone with ceiling-scraping altissimo. The finale finds the bassists’ portamento runs and McPhee’s floating and stuttering trills melding.

Four Torontonian and two Swiss honor Urs Blöchlinger on Tribute Pet Mantis Records PMR 004,The compositions of Blöchlinger (1954-1995) reflect the saxophonist’s sardonic humor and hint at the depression that lead to his suicide. Organized by bassist Neal Davis, plus two Swiss who worked with Blöchlinger – pianist Christoph Baumann and drummer Dieter Ulrich – the horn section is all Torontonians: trombonist Tom Richards plus reedists Peter Lutek and Kelly Jefferson.

Aylerian echoes animate Lutek’s nephritic cries, with Jefferson lyrical and Tom Richards as fond of plunger work as Jolicoeur. This is especially effective on the lurching theme of “King Arthur meets Hans Eisler in Hollywood”. The trombone blats, Lutek’s alto saxophone slithers and Jefferson’s soprano saxophone trills draw out the narrative. Davis’ walking, Baumann’s comping and Ulrich’s ruffs let the horns interject quotes from other tunes which are diaphanous enough to expose a climatic round of honks and peeps. “Kungusische Arbeitslied” layers themes in sequence. Contrapuntally contrasting trombone growls and reed chirps, the group switches to a marching band emulation following a drum roll. Sluicing horn lines quicken the pace as Ulrich nudges the melody with montuno rhythm. Baumann’s sprawling dynamics signal another shift and suddenly roles reverse. Lutek’s nasal alto, Jerfferson’s smooth soprano and Richards’ gutbucket trombone play the melody as the pianist’s key wandering replicate a fantasia. A bass string spank completes the tune.

Strangest acknowledgment is Hommage à Syd Barrett Imuzzic CRCD 0821. The Lyon-based i.overdrive trio honors Barrett (1946-2006), the songwriter/guitarist whose idiosyncratic tunes dominated Pink Floyd’s first LP before he left the group. With guitarist Philippe Gordiani using the pre-eminent rock instrument; trumpeter Rémi Gaudillat representing jazz sophistication; and drummer Bruno Tocanne weaving between the two, Barrett tunes are reinvigorated

“Astronomy Domine” balances Gordiani’s flanged and elongated riffs with melodiousness from Gaudillat and Tocanne’s mid-range banging. Distorted notes from effects pedals and whammy bars, plus prickly guitar licks are in the mix, but so are muted overtones and romantic obbligatos from the trumpet plus the drummer’s crunching rebounds and cymbal-splashes. Deference and deconstruction are realized with “Interstellar Overdrive”. Replicating the familiar riffs, Gordiani’s could be playing two guitars, while Gaudillat’s grace notes include a near-Arabic motif. Slurry brass triplets and staccato strumming combine for final redefinition.

The honorees aren’t around to hear these tributes, but each would be proud.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints
CJR 7

Ensemble Normand Guilbeault

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs

Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute

Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett

Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

Mentors and heroes have been celebrated musically for years. In improvised music however, interpretations are more individual, the choice of honorees is quirkier, but the sounds are as impressive – as these CDs demonstrate.

Montreal bassist/composer Normand Guilbeault’s Ensemble has played the music of bassist/composer Charles Mingus (1922-1979) for years. Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185 CD finds the six man – and one woman, vocalist Karen Young – combo preserving Mingus’ purposely jagged stop-time themes and tempo switches. With Jean Derome’s snorting baritone saxophone and the broken phrasing of Mathieu Bélanger’s bass clarinet, the arrangements have more bottom. Young’s delivery adds emotion to a piece like “Weird Nightmare”, which benefits from Ivanhoe Jolicoeur’s whispering trumpet. Pianist Normand Devault consistently lays on the blues notes. Yet these link to the trumpeter’s sometime pre-modern plunger work and the steady pulse of drummer Claude Lavergne. The band proves that homage includes irreverence, when the pianist weaves a pastiche of other Mingus tunes into “Song with Orange”; and on “Passions of a Woman Loved”, the reeds quote “Tequila”

Joe McPhee’s Angels, Devils & Haints CJR 7 re-imagines the work of saxophone avatar Albert Ayler (1936 -1970). Besides two standards, the music is improvised. While Ayler’s themes were driven by thick percussion and raucous horns, McPhee plays alto or tenor saxophone or trumpet, backed by four bassists – Michael Bisio, Dominic Duval, Paul Rogers and Claude Tchamitchian.

Separated by heartfelt saxophone readings of “Goin’ Home” and “Ol’ Man River”, the outstanding originals capture the Ayler persona. “The Gift” is a pointillist exercise divided into saxophone tongue stops, flutter tonguing and frayed trills, while the bassists strike and slap cantilevered timbres, then divide into arco string stretches and pizzicato plinks.

The title tune is the real stunner. As the bassists thump or pluck to unify pedal point undertow, McPhee reed bites, squeals and chirps. When the bassists use tremolo pumps to meet the saxophonist’s slip-sliding smears, multiphonics are exposed.. McPhee then switches to spidery chromatic triplets on trumpet confirming underlying lyricism. Ultimately he returns to saxophone with ceiling-scraping altissimo. The finale finds the bassists’ portamento runs and McPhee’s floating and stuttering trills melding.

Four Torontonian and two Swiss honor Urs Blöchlinger on Tribute Pet Mantis Records PMR 004,The compositions of Blöchlinger (1954-1995) reflect the saxophonist’s sardonic humor and hint at the depression that lead to his suicide. Organized by bassist Neal Davis, plus two Swiss who worked with Blöchlinger – pianist Christoph Baumann and drummer Dieter Ulrich – the horn section is all Torontonians: trombonist Tom Richards plus reedists Peter Lutek and Kelly Jefferson.

Aylerian echoes animate Lutek’s nephritic cries, with Jefferson lyrical and Tom Richards as fond of plunger work as Jolicoeur. This is especially effective on the lurching theme of “King Arthur meets Hans Eisler in Hollywood”. The trombone blats, Lutek’s alto saxophone slithers and Jefferson’s soprano saxophone trills draw out the narrative. Davis’ walking, Baumann’s comping and Ulrich’s ruffs let the horns interject quotes from other tunes which are diaphanous enough to expose a climatic round of honks and peeps. “Kungusische Arbeitslied” layers themes in sequence. Contrapuntally contrasting trombone growls and reed chirps, the group switches to a marching band emulation following a drum roll. Sluicing horn lines quicken the pace as Ulrich nudges the melody with montuno rhythm. Baumann’s sprawling dynamics signal another shift and suddenly roles reverse. Lutek’s nasal alto, Jerfferson’s smooth soprano and Richards’ gutbucket trombone play the melody as the pianist’s key wandering replicate a fantasia. A bass string spank completes the tune.

Strangest acknowledgment is Hommage à Syd Barrett Imuzzic CRCD 0821. The Lyon-based i.overdrive trio honors Barrett (1946-2006), the songwriter/guitarist whose idiosyncratic tunes dominated Pink Floyd’s first LP before he left the group. With guitarist Philippe Gordiani using the pre-eminent rock instrument; trumpeter Rémi Gaudillat representing jazz sophistication; and drummer Bruno Tocanne weaving between the two, Barrett tunes are reinvigorated

“Astronomy Domine” balances Gordiani’s flanged and elongated riffs with melodiousness from Gaudillat and Tocanne’s mid-range banging. Distorted notes from effects pedals and whammy bars, plus prickly guitar licks are in the mix, but so are muted overtones and romantic obbligatos from the trumpet plus the drummer’s crunching rebounds and cymbal-splashes. Deference and deconstruction are realized with “Interstellar Overdrive”. Replicating the familiar riffs, Gordiani’s could be playing two guitars, while Gaudillat’s grace notes include a near-Arabic motif. Slurry brass triplets and staccato strumming combine for final redefinition.

The honorees aren’t around to hear these tributes, but each would be proud.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker
Not Two MW 789-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise

Greenleaf Music 09

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within

Leo CD LR 512

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations

Mode Avant 05

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations
Mode Avant 05

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker

Not Two MW 789-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise

Greenleaf Music 09

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within

Leo CD LR 512

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within
Leo CD LR 512

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker

Not Two MW 789-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise

Greenleaf Music 09

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations

Mode Avant 05

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise
Greenleaf Music 09

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker

Not Two MW 789-2

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within

Leo CD LR 512

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations

Mode Avant 05

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

Joe Giardullo Open Ensemble

Red Morocco
Rogue Art ROG-0012

Highly orchestrated, multi-faceted and engrossing, Red Morocco is a breakthrough large-form suite composed by veteran reed player Joe Giardullo. It rationally illustrates how his notated ideas can be interpreted by a group of 14 American and Canadian improvisers.

Largely self-taught as a composer and instrumentalist, Giardullo’s interest in musical creation was fed by an appreciation for Stockhausen, Berio and Indian music, study of George Russell’s Lydian Theory of Tonal Organization; plus playing situations with Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Lester Lanin (!) Peg Leg Bates (!!) Pauline Oliveros and others. It reaches inventive fruition with this 10-part creation.

Evidently skewed towards New music at first, by the end of the final, and incidentally, title track, the contributions of notable improvisers mean that those tilts towards formalism are surmounted. How else could it be, with sonic interjections from the likes of Joe McPhee on trumpet and trombone, cellist Daniel Levin, violinist David Prentice and Giardullo himself on sopranino saxophone, alto flute and bass clarinet? At the same time there’s no confusing the program with doctrinaire modern jazz, experimental or otherwise. Not only are there microtonal and/or legato undulation from the three fiddlers and two cellists, but the rhythm section lacks a double bassist and a traps drummer. Percussion is the province of Brian Melick using almost any instrument that can be whacked, scraped, scratched, ratcheted and shaken; plus the chiming resonation of David Arner’s xylophone.

Should a variant such as “Q-2G (e)” begin with near-rococo styling from massed strings, pitter-pattering xylophone keys, and curvaceous hide-and-seek saxophone and clarinet lines, then the track’s completion refers to a contrapuntal arrangement advanced on “OPD”, two tracks earlier. On the former, a perfect balance is realized between double and triple pizzicato string stopping and the crunch of reverb and distortion feedback from the dual guitars of Dom Minasi and Rich Rosenthal. Yet negating the rules of standard jazz-rock fusion, the guitar licks aren’t framed in an unvarying drum beat, but by the percussionists’ buzzing timbres, glockenspiel chiming, maracas shaking, plus brass slurs and hocketing from McPhee and trumpeter Gordon Allen.

Elsewhere muted trumpeting is cushioned in overtone layering from massed strings and horns, only to be interrupted by staccato discord from one violinist – plus a contrapuntal counter-line from McPhee’s trombone. Other places the two trumpets circle one another in different guises – one playing smooth connective grace notes and the other triplets in broken octaves – until they link and complement one another. Then there are spots where the two reedists divide their interaction between irregular vibratos, split tones and staccatissico tongue slaps, with this unfolding on top of wooden marimba-like pressures and whining string striations.

Red Morocco, the CD and “Red Morocco”, the composition concludes with xylophone and cello chipping tones at one another, following a moderato trumpet and reeds variation and two intermezzos: one for gentling violin and xylophone, and the other for tough sul tasto cello runs and squeaky violin double stopping.

Confirmation of Giardullo’s compositional skills, the CD is a memorable listening experience.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: 1. OPB 2. OPG 3. 2T(m) 4. Memory Root 5. OPD 6. NFRTT-1 7. Q-2G(e) 8. Calabar 9. Hikori 10. Red Morocco.

Personnel: Gordon Allen (trumpet); Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet and valve trombone); Joe Giardullo (bass clarinet, sopranino saxophone and alto flute); Lori Freedman (clarinet and bass clarinet); Rosie Hertlein, David Prentice and Michael Snow (violins); Daniel Levin and Martha Colby (celli); Steve Lantner (piano); Dom Minasi and Rich Rosenthal (guitars); David Arner (xylophone) and Brian Melick (percussion)

August 5, 2008

JOE MCPHEE/MATT SHIPP/DOMINIC DUVAL

In Finland
Cadence CJR 1186

BONI/LAZRO/MCPHEE/TCHAMITCHIAN
Next To You
émouvance émv 1023

By Ken Waxman

Recorded five months apart in 2004, these sessions confirm one again the apparently endless adaptability of multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. NEXT TO YOU is the first time the Poughkeepsie, N.Y. native has recorded with his French quartet after 12 years of its existence. IN FINLAND on the other hand is a classic one-off festival gig in Raahe, where pianist Matthew Shipp joins the long-established duo of McPhee and bassist Dominic Duval. Both have something unique to offer.

McPhee, playing soprano and alto saxophone plus pocket trumpet, is joined by bassist Claude Tchamitchian, known for his nuanced work with pianist Sophia Domancich; guitarist Raymond Boni, who works in duo with McPhee; and alto and baritone saxophonist Daunik Lazro, one of France’s leading reed experimenter. In a Montpellier studio, the quartet in various combinations plays nine pieces ranging in length from less than 90 seconds to almost eight minutes. Earlier in the year, the three Americans in Finland improvised on three long tracks of almost 33, almost 25½ and almost 15 minutes each.

Central player on the first CD is Boni. Heightening and lessening the harmonic tension with slurred fingering, flanged, rubato asides and droning amp effects, his harsh vibrations give added heft to the improvisations. Radiating from this hub are ground bass rhythmic licks from Tchamitchian, curving and reverberating alto saxophones vibrations and tongue slaps from one or both horn players, plus splattering bellows from Lazro’s baritone.

Geysers of murky low-pitched multiphonics are often worked into the mix by Lazro, which contrast nicely with McPhee’s triple tonguing on saxophone or circular grace notes on muted pocket trumpet. Boni also outputs resonating chromatic chording plus high-pitched, nail-scraping timbres, while the bassist moves from solid slap style to supplely manipulating his axe’s extremities.

Not surprisingly, innovation is the buzz word of the date. On “Straight Knife”, for instance, McPhee yodels timbres through his mouthpiece – perhaps sans reed – as if he was playing the Aboriginal didjeridoo. This splayed vibration picks up even more resonance as Boni clanks chromatic single notes behind him, Tchamitchian walks stolidly and Lazro adds further reed shading. Eventually the baritone meets McPhee’s horn for a session of surging call-and-response.

“Other Warriors” finds the bassist’s sul ponticello strokes and the guitarist’s rasgueado forming a backdrop for inspired overblowing by both hornmen. Before the technical extensions are superseded by a cataract of twisted and abrasive tones, the two play in double counterpoint. Lazro highlights pitch-sliding squeaks and swirls, while McPhee moves into Don Ayler territory with tongue-shredding vibrations.

None of McPhee’s trumpet work is that unconventional on IN FINLAND. For as far-flung as the three explorers set their long improvisations, each ricochet back to earth. The first tune features McPhee’s muted trumpet interpolation of “My Funny Valentine”, the next references “Blue Monk” in his soprano saxophone playing and the last features Shipp’s weighty voicing on “Summertime”.

Not that any of the main themes are contrafacts of those familiar songs. On the contrary, the CD is a controlled experiment with Shipp finding a place for his piano among the concentrated interaction that characterizes the Duval-McPhee partnership. You can see this as early as “Never Before”. As soon as McPhee enters playing unforced soprano saxophones lines, the bassist immediately harmonizes with the reedist. When the saxman’s line augments to hovering tongue-stopping obbligatos, Shipp turns to kinetic high-frequency cadences, first accompanied by the bassist, then superseded as Duval reverberates a flamenco-like solo of his own. The pianist’s insistence on pummeling cascades of chords is what causes McPhee – on pocket trumpet – to buzz out an almost abstract line then play that variant of “My Funny Valentine”. Its appearance confirms Shipp’s quickness as his response offers guitar-like arpeggios that contrast with the familiar melody. Deconstructing the tune at a quicker tempo, McPhee – now on saxophone – climaxes the performance with a nasal version of the head, soothing Duval’s sul tasto slashes and Shipp’s hard and high-frequency dynamics with repeated grace notes.

“Never Again”, the nearly 25½-minute second piece, finds McPhee swapping hummingbird-light trumpet emphasis for grainy split tones on the soprano, in response to Duval’s tenacious recreation of the “Blue Monk” melody half way through the piece. Cross layering both the main theme and its variations, and abetted by Shipp’s Monk-like stride piano interpolations, McPhee recaps the head for a proper finale. Beside him, Shipp flashily splinters dynamic chords, while Duval selflessly holds down the rhythm.

Memorable as first-time collaboration, the CD points out avenues the three can explore in the future. Meanwhile NEXT TO YOU confirms the American multi-instrumentalists simpatico interaction with his Gallic associates.

Track Listing: Next: 1. Folie Dure 2. The Last Border 3. Next To You 4. Shorty 5 One More Step 6. Other Warriors 7. Softitude 8. Straight Knife 9. Le Règne du Calamar Géant

Personnel: Next: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet, alto and soprano saxophones); Daunik Lazro (alto and baritone saxophones); Raymond Boni (guitar); Claude Tchamitchian (bass)

Track Listing: In Finland: 1. Never Before 2. Never Again 3. In Finland

Personnel: In Finland: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet and alto and soprano saxophones); Matthew Shipp (piano); Dominic Duval (bass)

October 2, 2006

JOE MCPHEE/JOHN SNYDER

Pieces of Light
Atavistic Unheard Music Series ALP 256 CD

By Ken Waxman

An interesting, but decidedly minor work, this reissue of a 1974 LP is mostly memorable as a record of multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee’s improvisational strength even at that early date.

Unfortunately partner John Snyder, using a model 2600 ARP synthesizer shows the limitations of early electronic apparatus. This is in contrast to McPhee, who at that early date was both experimenting with and refining the techniques he uses today; and trying others he would subsequently abandon such as playing on vestigial sound sources like e-flat alto horn, modified harp and wind chimes.

Snyder went on to record other sessions with McPhee in the 1970s, continued playing the synth into the 1990, as well as after 1986 performing on didjeridoo. Now he’s involved with a live radio-audio drama group. Rudimentary and elemental, how he was manipulating the synthesizer more than 30 years ago has about as much relationship to the multi-faceted sonic processing of today’s electronic-oriented improvisers as Bunk Johnson’s trumpet playing does with Miles Davis’ style.

Twittering, jiggling and resonating, the oscillations mostly resemble the sounds of exploding fire crackers, whizzing V-8s, short wave radio tuning static or outer-space rocket re-entry scenarios. Along with bamboo chimes, harp arpeggios and aviary chirps, the height of 1960s freak-out is reached on one tune where watery robotic wheezes from the synth back McPhee improvising on a smooth, moderato series of tremolo trumpet notes. Mixed with chromatic harp resonations, McPhee’s ethereal flute playing on another tune references a duet between an erhu and a dizi. And, in a foreshadowing of Snyder’s later preoccupation with the didjeridoo, his single-note basso accompaniment often resembles the sound of that distinctive aboriginal Australian pipe.

“Colors in Crystal”, the final tour-de-force is also the most definitive track. Here as static-enhanced flutters and cyclone-strength sine waves circulate, McPhee first produces bugle-like-call-to-colors from his pocket trumpet, then double-tongued triplets from the standard trumpet. As the synthesizer creates siren-like oscillations and thunder-like rumbles, he sounds both brass horns – sometimes simultaneously – with these broken octaves producing irregular distorted pitches and resonating honks. Turning from these near-mouthpiece-swallowing feats to tenor saxophone growls and rumbles, McPhee’s reed vibrations and subsequent yowls and swallows, find the keyboardist attempting straight comping then pyrotechnic wave form explosions. Unfortunately he then downshifts to distracted pinball arcade-like thumps which are at variance with the saxophonist’s abrasive squeaks and split tones.

PIECES OF LIGHT is one CD whose chief value is as an early example of McPhee’s talents. Still, by fluke, it also illustrates how far electronic-oriented music has evolved over the past 30 years.

Track Listing: 1. Prologue/Twelve 2. Shadow Sculptures 3. Les Heroes Sont Fatigues 4. Red Giant 5. Windows in Dreams 6. Colors in Crystal

Personnel: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet, trumpet, flugelhorn, e-flat alto horn , tenor saxophones, flute, modified Nagoya harp, ceramic wind chimes, bird chimes, bamboo wind chimes and voice); John Snyder (ARP synthesizer)

September 25, 2006

PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET

Be Music, Night
OkkaDisk OD 12059

This CD may ruin saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s long-held reputation as the ferocious, hard-hearted wild man of Free Jazz.

For the entire hour-plus CD by the German reedman’s mostly Chicago-based band is designed as homage to American poet Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972). Additionally, the longest – more than 42 minutes – of the three tracks features mellifluous-voiced Welsh poet Mike Pearson integrated into the ensemble reading selections from Patchen’s work that are, for all intents and purposes, love poems.

Patchen, an Ohio-born versifier who lived all over the United States, was a Beat fellow traveler, with a musical quality in some of his poetry. Even before similar experiments by Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Alan Ginsberg, in the late 1950s he recorded LPs reading his verse accompanied by improvising jazz combos. In a way this CD is an extension of those experiments.

Framed by an all-instrumental prelude and even shorter postlude, BE MUSIC, NIGHT unfurls like a tone poem for chamber orchestra. Of course with the massed talent on display – three reeds, two brasses, two strings and two percussionists – the layering provide more than interludes. Mixing brass slurs and pedal tones, expressive reed continuo and stop-time percussion forays, the framing instrumental passages manage to be both lyrical and polyphonic.

Furthermore, to put to rest another Free Jazz myth, the German reedist’s playing has never been as coarse as his detractors insist. As long ago as 1984 he recorded a solo CD, since reissued as 14 LOVE POEMS PLUS 10 MORE (FMP CD 125), which featured improvisations inspired by Patchen’s “14 Love Poems”.

Multiplying the interpretations of the poet’s lyrics nine-fold here, much of the instrumental elucidation depends on tutti passages or impetuous and unexpected fortissimo ejaculations. Besides the horn brays and slurs, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm is particularly effective in transforming his four strings into an electric guitar spraying discordant effects pedal timbres.

Almost deliberately old-fashioned at times, as if Pearson was reading Elizabethan sonnets, the verse is mixed with tender nocturne-like pitches that are almost as honeyed as the poet/actor’s near whispered tones. But romantic language doesn’t have to bring forth banal responses. Among the textures advanced by the saxophonists – most obviously Brötzmann, though Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark clarinet passages are noticeable as well – are tongue slaps, vibrating key clicks and pops and slurred cries. Also especially effective are the grace notes buzzed by trombonist Jeb Bishop, whose valve-and-bell expansion often partners Pearson’s recitation.

An unexpected pleasure all around, BE MUSIC, NIGHT should appeal to those interested in dramatically recited poetry, those fascinated by the admixture of words and music, and those whose understanding of emotionalism encompasses sound and silences as well as lyrics.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Be Music, Night Part 1 2. Be Music, Night Part 2 3. Be Music, Night Part 3

Personnel: Joe McPhee (trumpet and alto saxophone); Jeb Bishop (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (alto and saxophones, bass clarinet and b-flat clarinet); Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet); Ken Vandermark (baritone saxophone and b-flat-clarinet); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello); Kent Kessler (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love and Michael Zerang (drums); Mike Pearson (voice)

January 2, 2006

JOE MCPHEE

Remembrance
CJR-5

“We pretty much play whatever we want to play ... and you can call it whatever you want,” declares multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, before he and two cohorts launch into “Remembrance (closing) for Steve Lacy”, which winds up the notable series of improvisations on this CD.

A succinct definition of Free Music, serendipitously the statement also sums up the circumstances of this October 2001 gig in Seattle. Affected by post 9-11 nerves saxophonist Charles Gayle cancelled a scheduled duo performance with bassist Mike Bisio. The last minute solution was adding the bassist to the already touring duo of McPhee, who had often performed with Bisio, and French guitarist Raymond Boni, a musical partner of the reedist for about 25 years. Not only did the three meld into one unit, but one track also involves Boni in an unrehearsed duet with Seattle poet Paul Harding.

Harding, an unreconstructed Beat with a heavy Brooklyn accent, singsongs his way through his own “This Is Where I Live”. It’s a poem replete with pop culture references and lists of Black Music heroes, is interesting rather than profound, and doesn’t detract from the inspired instrumental music on the other tracks.

“Remembrance (closing) for Steve Lacy”, takes its dedication to the then dying saxophonist, and midway into the piece McPhee on soprano feeds fragments of “Blue Monk”, written by one of Lacy’s major influences, into the musical mix. McPhee’s sound magnetism is such – and his improvisation so one of a piece – that you don’t realize that he’s switched to the reed from pocket trumpet until the first choruses have sounded. From then on he carries on with slurry reed spits, split tone patterns and expansive cries that range from shrills to honks and seem to be hollowing out the insides of the horn.

Steady strumming from Boni and solid walking from Bisio are the responses. But earlier, as McPhee sparks fortissimo and discordant brass notes, the guitarist displays concentrated chromatic patterns, until the trumpet’s sinuous melody is matched with flowing chromatic finger picking.

This more-than-16-minute instant composition is a perfect postlude to the almost 23 minute “Remembrance (opening)”. Thick with a patina of peril and anticipation, the exposition evolves into contrapuntal cross strumming from Boni and meditative soprano saxophone vibrations from McPhee. But it’s first defined by a strained timbre that eventually resolves itself as a sul ponticello line from Bisio. Exhibiting commanding rasgueado, the guitarist falls back for the bassist’s arco expanded tones as the reed texture shreds into curlicue slurs and atonal trills and squeaks.

Moving to a keening, scraped metallic tone, which seems to take as much from the ligature and the mouthpiece as from the reed, McPhee separate the nodes into Aylerian bites as ringing finger patterns echo from both string players. Penultimate development features snapping single-string action from Boni as McPhee unveils a fresh counter theme on trilly pocket trumpet, that’s part Andalusian and part Don Cherry, eventually concluding with ney-like rubato glisses from the soprano.

On the evidence of this CD, “… call it whatever you want” must also mean that unplanned accidents can also create great music.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Remembrance (opening) 2. This Is Where I Live 3. In The End There Is Piece 4. Remembrance (closing) for Steve Lacy

Personnel: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone); Raymond Boni (guitar); Michael Bisio (bass); Paul Harding (spoken music)

December 26, 2005

Hallwalls' New Home

For CODA

A unique arrangement between an American folk-punk singer-songwriter and a longtime bastion of experimental arts means that Western New York’s centre for creative music will have a new, architecturally impressive home in downtown Buffalo by October, 2005.

Hallwalls, a nonprofit arts organization, which for more than 30 years has been the place where innovative art, film and music – especially non-mainstream jazz – has been presented, moves into the expanded first-floor and basement-level facilities in a historically preserved church as a tenant of Righteous Babe Records (RBR). RBR is the folk-punk mini conglomerate that has grown out of the successful career of singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, a Buffalo native, will have its offices on the second floor.

The new facility’s projected opening was pushed back for a few months last year when a combination of planning and political hassles, since resolved, caused work that began in July 2003, on the historic, formerly dilapidated Asbury Delaware church to be put on hold. Work steamed ahead again in late March of this year. However, Hallwalls vacated its former premises in mid-2004 and since then has presented programs in a variety of ad-hoc locations, which for jazz has included small clubs and larger art galleries.

But the wait will be worth it, says Edmund Cardoni, Hallwalls’ executive director. The almost $10 million (U.S.) RBR is pouring into the building adds state-of-the-art energy efficient facilities such as a geothermal heating and cooling system; underground power lines; and a custom-designed elevator lifted by hydraulic systems housed below the basement floor. A specially designed glass, steel, and copper stair-tower addition will be the main entrance for both Hallwalls and RBR’s offices. Care has also been taken so that these necessary improvements don’t disturb the restored façade of the building listed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks.

As an added bonus, three concert spaces of various sizes, including a venue with a maximum capacity of 1,200, will be available. “The seating will be flexible, not fixed,” explains Cardoni. “The floor will be open, for sitting in seats, standing, dancing, sitting at tables, whatever the event needs.” Over the years Hallwalls’ has drawn audiences of several hundreds to see bands ranging from Peter Brötzmann’s Tentet and the Sun Ra Arkestra, as well as smaller crowds for bands by multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee and saxophonist Charles Gayle, to mention two. “We believe the sky's the limit at the church, with no dilution of quality or dulling of edge.” he adds. “We can expand the audience for the music we love to a degree not possible at the former location or by wandering around from space to space like gypsies.”

Hallwalls’ relocation costs of $425,000 (U.S.) are covered by a successful capital campaign, with 86% from individual and corporate donations plus local and national foundation grants. An addition 14% came from New York state, mostly in the form of a Capital Aid grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

-- Ken Waxman

July 1, 2005

PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET

Signs
Okkadisk OD 12048

MS4
PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET
Images
Okkadisk OD 12047

More than five years after it was first organized, German reedist Peter Brötzmann’s mostly Chicago-populated Tentet has become a welcomed presence on the international improv scene.

In the tradition of the Globe Unity Orchestra -- of which Brötzmann was also a member -- the reed-heavy band plays long, involved compositions more concerned with spur of the moment interpretation than elaborate arrangements. Yet, as this matched set of live and studio material demonstrates, the 10-piece band actually sounds best when organized patterns and section work are added to the massed firepower.

Overall, the tentet is most impressive as a full-fledged band. Yet only Ken Vandermark takes full advantage of its varied colors on his more than 37-minute “All Things Being Equal” on IMAGES. Most ambitious and the longest tune on either disc, its overture is made up of gathered horn cadenzas, resonating hand drumming from Hamid Drake and a walking bass line from Kent Kessler. Soon second drummer Michael Zerang pounds out a counter rhythm and, in sections, the brass and reeds pile on top of one another polytonally.

Irregular backing figures from the band, give Joe McPhee’s trumpet the space to push out higher notes with flutter tongue ornamentation. Next up, saxist Mars Williams sprays a circular set of splayed, staccato notes before the theme is reprised for the first time. The split tone sopranino solo continues abstractly -- falling from pinched altissimo to unrefined low timbres -- as the dual drummer pitter-patter and pop behind him. Then, from among the polyphonic harmonies appear sul tasto tremolos from cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, muted wah-wah trumpet counterpoint, and a gentle pastoral eclogue from the others.

Trombonist Jeb Bishop introduces rubato slurs that bounce off trumpet trills and spiccato sweeps from the strings. Blowing harshly, he gets most of his individualism from echoes. Following is a series of tongue slaps plus key percussion and glottal punctuation from Swede Mats Gustafsson or Vandermark on baritone. Adding lip-smacking verbal tones to ponticello bass movements and hand drumming, this orchestral formation adds up to the DKV trio writ large. Then, trilled slurs from the trumpeter, snaky chalumeau lines from Brötzmann’s clarinet and ride cymbal patter from Zerang are added.

The clarinet’s spittle squeaks soon meet up with baritone snorts and staccato interpolations from the brass. Pushed to a quicker tempo by two drum kits’ rough smears and irregular flutter-tonguing invigorate the reeds as Bishop’s slide ranges over the thematic variations. The climax refreshes all concerned, as horns, percussion and strings meld into a miasmic legato howl, with an Ornette Coleman-like folksy finale arriving with polyphonic counterpoint.

Inspirational in their own way, the other tunes pale in comparison to this one, with the exception of Brötzmann’s title track on SIGNS. But even here, the piece that’s almost exactly half the length of “All Things Being Equal” is most convincing because most of the players get to strut their stuff. With polyharmonic and polytonal passages reminiscent of John Coltrane’s “Ascension” or Brötzmann’s “Machine Gun”, there are instances of the band members improvising every which way as their dissonant textures mass then explode -- a musical foliage of smears, burrs, cries, hoots and snorts. Electrified -- but playing acoustically -- Lonberg-Holm rampages out flat-picked notes as the horns join for hocketing, squealing pantonality.

A double-tongued alto solo from Williams vibrates its way into R&B territory, trailed by battering percussion and stentorian runs from the two baritone saxists. Finally, after Brötzmann snakes out some nasal tarogato notes complete with glissandi, chesty-toned fortissimo reeds circle back to riff counterthemes and the cellist scrapes his strings as if he was severing them at the bridge.

Individual passages stand out elsewhere, but all the other tunes are made up of little more than isolated passages from different instruments with no attempt to bond them into a whole. Impressive they may be, but when soloists are heard a cappella or as duos in isolation, they raise the question of what the other band members were doing -- and why they were present at all. The other glaring oversight here is proper identification of soloists. Much of the description above is based on knowledge and guesswork.

Followers of any of the musicians may rate these sessions more highly -- and there’s certainly nothing second-rate or offensive about them. It merely seems that with the massed talents on display from Chicago and Europe -- not to mention upstate New York’s McPhee -- much more could have been done in terms of arrangements and organization.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Signs: 1. Bird notes (for Bengt Nordström) 2. Six Gun Territory 3. Signs

Track Listing: Images: 1. All Things Being Equal 2. Images

Personnel: Signs and Images: Joe McPhee (trumpet); Jeb Bishop (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, A clarinet, tarogato); Mars Williams (sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones); Ken Vandermark(tenor and baritone saxophones, Bb clarinet); Mats Gustafsson (tenor and baritone saxophones); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello); Kent Kessler (bass); Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake (drums)

December 6, 2004

JOE MCPHEE/JÉRÔME BOURDELLON

Manhattan Tango
Label Usine 1008

MALIK/MCPHEE/ROBINSON
Sympathy
Boxholder BXH 045

Different instruments are featured -- including a drum set on the trio session -- but the two CDs here still offer up slices of chamber improv featuring Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. His presence alone is a guarantee that proceedings will be out-of-the-ordinary, although none of the other participants are particularly mainstream.

SYMPATHY’s mainman is Vermont-based trumpeter Raphe Malik, an associate of pianist Cecil Taylor and the late saxophonist Glenn Spearman. Bay area drummer Donald Robinson -- who also played with Spearman, as well as bassist Lisle Ellis and saxophonist Larry Ochs -- is the third partner.

Recorded in the Apple, MANHATTAN TANGO features McPhee, limiting himself to pocket trumpet, plus Jérôme Bourdellon on a variety of flutes. Active in left-wing politics, Nancy, France-resident Bourdellon also plays with vibraharpist Alex Grillo and the large Philharmonie du Bon Vide.

Unfortunately his side of the musical equation isn’t as strong as McPhee’s. While McPhee, Malik and Robinson are united in their dissonance, Bourdellon’s flute is sometimes a bit too sweet and legit sounding. In fact, when the flautist expels purring grace notes on his own, he could be in the midst of a pastoral eclogue, evoking lovelorn shepherds and springtime.

That type of sound has its place, but here it suffers from its near unctuousness. Too often, as on the title tune, McPhee takes on both thematic and rhythmic function, while whistled air from the flute merely decorates the proceedings. Using single pecks, McPhee adds a brassy eruption to his solo that finally spurs gritty cross blows from the flautist. Ending his solo with tongue stops and an almost foot-tapping beat, the trumpeter allows the piece to dissolve by squeezing out unattached tones.

Elsewhere, Bourdellon’s dulcet bass flute accompaniment on other numbers similarly bends towards purring grace notes, even as the trumpeter snickers through his bell and exhibits rhythmic peeps. With McPhee’s trumpeting reminiscent of Bill Dixon’s style: stretches of pure air are mixed with clenched throat timbres, the contrast with Bourdellon’s often pretty playing can be off-putting.

Only on a couple of tunes does Bourdellon’s fripple frippery move away from delicacy and ascend to a growl. He adds a final double counterpoint to McPhee’s vocalized opera buffo cries and squealing howls, on “Pearls for Swine”. Then on “White Street, 17th”, both men take off on shrill, polyphonic broken note patterns. After the flautist’s twitters complement the trumpeter’s tongue-stopped slurs, the latter’s cushion of broken arpeggios prevents what threatens to develop into an offbeat version of “All Blues”. Casting aside melded harmony, McPhee retains the rhythmic bottom as the flautist hits discordant higher notes.

Credited with playing pocket trumpet as well as soprano saxophone on SYMPATHY, McPhee’s brass work is hard to detect. Perhaps it’s because Malik improvises in a similar dissonant fashion during the almost 75½-minutes of the CD. There is a point on “Hypersonic”, when a more hesitant brass sound is heard in contrast to a subsequent trumpet flourish. But considering McPhee then enters with a straightforward saxophone line and Malik’s trills gracefully morph into slurs and repeated note patterns, exact identification is certain.

Most of the time Malik’s solos revolve around brassy trills and soaring triplets. On pieces like “Resolving a Quote”, he aims for a hip Cat Anderson-like elevated attack without heading into screech mode -- and this locks perfectly in with Robinson’s steady cymbal work and press rolls. Meanwhile McPhee responds with nasal, double-tongued split tones, more Steve Lacy than John Coltrane.

Reference can linked to Evan Parker’s style as well, when McPhee produces abstract, machine-like circular breathing at certain points. Slurred, sideslipping obbligatos present no challenge him either, but when McPhee breaks up his solos with extended techniques, they’re often played moderato, eschewing speedy histrionics.

On tunes like “Motivic” furthermore, both horns appear as two sides of a single coin, with the metallic properties of each stressed. A form of double counterpoint, the piece retains its shape as the saxist plays long solid tones and the trumpeter blurred, higher-pitched fractions.

Throughout, Robinson is the soul of restraint, moving seamlessly from gentle triplets to bell-ringing play-by-plays and open-handed strokes that could as easily come from a bata or other African drum.

The cooperation comes to fruition on “Escape Route”, the final and longest track. Malik builds his solo out of ascending grace notes, Robinson subdivides the rhythm into bounces, flams and cymbal sticking, while McPhee bends his notes into prolonged curlicues. When he breaks up the reed line into irregularly vibrated partials, Malik expels a lightly muted obbligato behind him, while the drummer follows a third tempo that easily intersects with the other two. Polyphonically the three are like musical fraternal triplets, following each other around, while melding with one another’s lines to make a whole.

Confirmation that in the right circumstances, with a similar understanding of melody and time lines, geographic separation means little, the trio CD should impress those who know all three musicians. Properly challenged Malik turns out some of his most advanced playing since his days working alongside Spearman, as does Robinson.

McPhee confirms his versatility on both discs. As for Bourdellon, technically there are no complaints. Perhaps in circumstances with more instruments present than just one other horn, he would abstain from playing pretty. It will be instructive to hear his next outing.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Tango: 1. Business Hour 2. Pearls for Swine 3. White Street, 17th 4. a.k.a.l.h. 5. In the Noiseless Loft 6. Come Back Ella 7. Mystery “J” 8. Manhattan Tango

Personnel: Tango: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet and voice); Jérôme Bourdellon (piccolo, C and bass flutes)

Track Listing: Sympathy: 1. Testament 2. Resolving A Quote 3. Velocity 4. Space March 5. Hypersonic 6. Motivic 7. Untitled Dialogue 8. Call and Response 9. Escape Route

Personnel: Sympathy: Raphe Malik (Bb and C trumpets); Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone); Donald Robinson (drums)

November 8, 2004

FONDA/MCPHEE/WHITE/KARETNCK

Heat Suite
Konnex KCD 5122

JIM RYAN’S FORWARD ENERGY
The Concept
Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1162

Think of Energy Music in the United States like the committed American Left.

Although denounced as an unfashionable anachronism or a contemptible spent force by bombastic conservative commentators, grass roots organizations unexpectedly assert themselves at the local or national level when events swing too far towards the Right.

It’s the same thing with so called Energy Music, Free Jazz or what in the 1960s was called the New Thing. Always treated with contempt by the established mainstreamers of the day, it was derided as a passing fad almost from the time it was first heard. Today jazz’s neo-cons call it old hat with the same disdain that political neo-cons dismiss the New Deal and the unionization.

But as these two CDs, recorded in different parts of U.S. reveal, although a so-called underground movement, Energy Music, like a belief in social justice, has more adherents than most realize. It flourishes in its own enclaves and comes front and centre when least expected.

HEAT SUITE, for instance, is a showcase for Western Massachusetts’ creative improvisers’ scene. Two of the musicians -- percussionist Ben Karetnick and saxist Cliff White have mostly a local reputation, though Karetnick, an organizer as well as a creative drummer has worked with folks like New York multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter and Vermont trumpeter Raphe Malik. Ashfield, Mass.’s White was featured on the first record by bassist Joe Fonda. Fonda, a voluble, committed stylist, who now works in bands with pianist Michael Jefrey Stevens and violinist Billy Bang, among others, returned to the area for this gig.

Another distinguished participant is upstate New York’s Joe McPhee on tenor and soprano saxophones and pocket trumpet. Someone who has been propagating free music since his first record in the mid-1960s, McPhee is a citizen of the world, as apt to add his horns to an established jazz group in France as an ad-hoc situation in the U.S.

Lesser-known, perhaps because of their California location, are the five members of Jim Ryan’s Forward Energy band. Bay area-based Ryan, who plays alto and tenor saxophones, is a poet and writer who was drawn to Free Music in the 1970s. Since then he’s performed with veteran jazzers like trumpeter Eddie Gale and drummer Donald Robinson as well as younger improvisers like the ones here. Bassist Adam Lane is the best known sideperson, having worked extensively with Danish reedist John Tchicai. Pianist Scott R. Looney, who also recorded, mixed and mastered this CD, has worked with British bass saxophonist Tony Bevan and locals such as bassist Damon Smith. Both tenor saxophonist Alicia Mangan and drummer Marshall Trammell have been in bands led by altoist Marco Eneidi.

If there’s a difference in approach to these slabs of Free Music, it’s that contrary to stereotypes of the frenzied East and the laid-back West, it’s the Massachusetts four who mix gentle, nearly pastoral passages with hearty New Thing skronk on this four-part suite. Meanwhile the Ryan five are unreconstructed Energy players from the start of The CONCEPT to its end, nearly 71 minutes later.

Although divided into four tracks, HEAT SUITE is really one continuous live performance that shows off the talents of each of the participants. Especially impressive is “Part3”, for Fonda’s formidable technique. Humming and barking exhortations as he solos -- like a combination of Jack Kerouac and Slam Stewart -- Fonda rattles timbres near the tuning pegs, then moves up and down the strings, thumping, bumping and walking. At points it sounds as if he’s doing a literal tap dance on the wood, but it may just be another percussion entry from Karetnick.

To add to the interest, the drummer rattles a few chains, slithers over his drum tops and amplifies his flams and rolls in true post-modern style. Yet when he uses sturdy cylindrical sticks on the snare or sounds the sizzle cymbals with wire handled brushes, he develops a Big Sid Catlett Swing Era cadence. Meanwhile White moves from staccato baritone basement blasts to smearing, pitchsliding higher tones. McPhee contributes broken chords in the form of chromatic trumpet runs and finesses a dramatic extended grace note at the end.

On the other pieces, White’s output on any of his three horns ranges from squeals in the altissimo range to lowdown, echoing honks and continuous flutter tonguing. With pitch vibrato and split tones, he sometimes creates ney-like timbres. Whether he’s using his pocket trumpet, soprano or tenor saxophone, McPhee fuses his output to that of the other hornman so that the harmonies fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces. At the beginning White’s dulcet lines meet up with sluiced, delayed notes from McPhee, playing trumpet with quicksilver grace. In the last section, a duet features the two hornmen moving from bucolic, unison harmony to a pitchsliding circle of blats and honks from tandem saxes, with the odd tongue slap thrown into the mix for good measure. Fonda’s polyrhythmic pedal point keeps things together. More sensed than heard throughout, Fonda’s dense bass underpinning is one of the secrets of the session’s success, along with Karetnick’s bouncing motions.

Things are a little more hard core on the Oakland, Calif. session, with wild and wooly unrelentless smears and honks, flutter tonguing and skyscraper altissimo heard

from beginning to end. Ryan and Mangan continuously demolish anything as mundane as bar lines and tempos, squeezing as many timbres as they can into each sound. Adding whistling doits, false fingering and exploding tones to just about everything they play, it’s often hard to tell the saxes apart. When one reedist honks like a foghorn it’s probably Mangan’s tenor, and those shrill police whistle tones are probably from Ryan’s alto.

Lane holds up his part of the rhythm section with energetic, prestissimo resonation and double-stopped woody ponticello, while Trammell’s conga-like polyrhythms and ringing cymbals help as well. Looney’s most impressive display occurs on “How Are You”, where between Trammell’s bashing and Lane’s walking bass, he rappels over the keys at warp speed. Using contrasting dynamics to expose the vibrations and overtones on the keys, he often dips inside the frame to stop the action. By the end he has taken tremolo playing to its logical, exciting conclusion.

Of course the showpiece is the more-than-25 minute title track, Energy Music by definition. Starting with an a cappella pulsating trill from Ryan on tenor, the next notes slide into the basement and continue in the foreground or background as he tune unrolls. As Mangan produces screeching altissimo lines and the rhythm section thumping continuum, Looney unleashes repetitive, high frequency stride cadenzas and broken chording, as if he was a modern version of Cal Cobbs, Albert Ayler’s favorite pianist.

Like Fonda on the other disc and Jimmy Garrison’s steadfast accompaniment in John Coltrane’s larger band works, Lane’s patterns cement the content of this piece. As the ostinato surges, the other players create waves of sound that escalate up to the peak of inventiveness and fall down from the precipice without losing dynamism or fervor. You get a mental picture of the five driving bumper cars in a carnival ride, joining together in twos and threes, then splitting up and going their separate ways again.

With unvarying sizzle cymbal resonation, triple stopped shuffle bowing and harpsichord-like wire scraping from the strings, the composition reaches a crescendo that features Ryan overblowing an auxiliary version of his original theme, then whittling down the sound to a single tone.

Like the Left, Energy Music still lives and thrives.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Concept: 1. Oaktown Sunrise 2. The Concept 3. Bird Watchers 4. How Are You 5. Wisteria

Personnel: Concept: Jim Ryan (alto and tenor saxophones); Alicia Mangan (tenor saxophone); Scott R. Looney (piano); Adam Lane (bass); Marshall Trammell (drums)

Track Listing: Heat: 1. Heat Suite Part 1 2. Heat Suite Part 2 3. Heat Suite Part 3 4. Heat Suite Part 4

Personnel: Heat: Joe McPhee (tenor and soprano saxophones, pocket trumpet); Cliff White (alto, tenor and baritone saxophones); Joe Fonda (bass, flute, voice and percussion); Ben Karetnick (drums and percussion)

June 28, 2004

STEVE LACY

The Beat Suite
Sunnyside/Enja SSC 3012

DEEP LISTENING BAND/JOE MCPHEE QUARTET
Unquenchable Fire
Deep Listening DL 19-2003

Blending music and texts -- either poetry or prose -- has never been a particularly easy task, especially when the music involved is improvised. Yet for the past 50 years at least, variations of the concept have been tried with various degrees of success.

Among his other sonic inquiries, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy has turned his hand to text-based material for many years; he has been able to utilize the voice of his partner Irene Aebi as his speaker/vocalist since the late 1960s. THE BEAT SUITE is his most recent grapple with the concept -- and one that is particularly apt. The words, which intermingle with the music here, were written by 10 of the most accomplished Beat versifiers. All had or have an affinity for improvised music and most were known personally by either Lacy or Abei.

Iconoclastic Pauline Oliveros is another all-out experimenter, but from the so-called classical aide of the divide. Justly celebrated for her early experiments with microtonalism and electroacoustics, she has in recent years concentrated on her unique theory of Deep Listening, embracing structured improvisation, and begun regularly collaborating with non-academic improvisers such as bassist Barre Phillips, percussionist Susie Ibarra, and on this CD, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee.

Basically, the three members of Oliveros’ Deep Listening band and the members of McPhee’s quartet singly and together take turns musically commenting on the images suggested by Rachel Pollack’s prize-winning speculative fiction novel, Unquenchable Fire. During the course of the five tracks, Pollack herself reads excerpts from the book. These are amplified by sounds from Stuart Dempster’s trombone and didjeridu, David Gamper’s flutes, keyboard and electronics plus Oliveros on accordion. McPhee on soprano saxophone, alto clarinet and Casio digital horn, his longtime associate Joe Giardullo on flute, bass clarinet plus cellist Monica Wilson on cello and drummer Karen Jurgens are featured as well.

Musically the results are striking; vocally a little less so. While the imagery of Pollack’s utopian feminist fable is imposing, her curiously flat, sometimes stumbling delivery suggests that perhaps a trained actor or singer would better have expressed her thoughts. Luckily the suppositional notions are enough to launch nonpareil improvisations.

The 3rd Movement, for instance, purports to be a true history of the city of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., coincidentally McPhee’s hometown. Pollock’s tale involves the town’s creation by 12-foot giants who changed colors according to the seasons and, after a catastrophe, shrunk the inhabitants who were visited by travelers from a multi-tiered UFO who landed and helped the townsfolk build homes and set up a government. The fable encourage the woodwind players to introduce discordant Albert Ayler-style type multiphonics, which are soon battling for space with legit, legato cello line.

Soon the squeals fade into a one solid quivering mass as McPhee and Giardullo begin vocalizing from within their horns’ body tubes. Joined by plunger tones from Dempster’s trombone, the Casio-inflected Bronx cheers, shorter squeaks from the other reed and irregular drum beats, begins to resemble an approximation of a conversation between mechanized dwarfs and outer space denizens. Adding to this combination of rustic Americana and otherworldliness are irregular, double-quick, Silent Movie house electronic keyboard chords, where high-frequency vibrations echo other vibrations, and what could result from slowing down a scratched LP of circus music. As McPhee’s Aylerian soprano moves centre stage, wildly offbeat drumming and cartoon-like mouse peeps erupt around him.

An earlier movement that references birds, ashes and children’s fingers, which turn to sticks to beat away time, is amplified with didjeridu pitches which appear to be moving through a cistern. As their textures become more craggy and distant, wiccan-like accordion key frights mix it up with growling animalistic tones and vocalized syllables being electronically swabbed through the Aboriginal horn and flute. Soon these tiny segments of chirping flute and accordion pitches reconstitute themselves into a solid, oscillating, single sound mass, midway between the experiments of Tony Conrad and AMM.

Other interconnections are less obtuse. A revolution predicting horse who tells his tale to two women from Cleveland -- Ayler’s hometown, by the way -- calls forth straightforward whinnying from the soprano sax, then bass clarinet curls that follow the sax lines like colts chase after one another in a field, and is amplified by woodblock clip-clops. Later, when Pollack’s description of a subway ride turns to a voyage of visionary content, the emotion is amplified by a single crimped flute line that melds with bowed cello lines and expanded accordion keyboard colors. By the time a caramel-smooth clarinet line succeeds this, the sound is almost too romantically pastoral.

More manifestly the verbalization of the title in the 4th Movement brings forth an undulating massed sonic outpouring from horns and keyboards closely akin to what Sun Ra called a space chord. Supplanted by s a romantic cello interlude and a trilling soprano sax line, outlined by distant cymbal pops and board smashing crashes, tiny, nervous Balkan-sounding squeeze box tones enter the sound field along with what could be the parody of a keyboard exercise. As the tone shards accumulate into a dense, resonating line, low frequency piano glissandos and Casio-created slide whistle bird chirps flit-in-and-around the solid tone as outer space-like whooshes end the piece.

Much more down to earth, even when personalizing idiosyncratic symbolism is turned into an art song-like display, THE BEAT SUITE also has its drawbacks related to its non-instrumental portions. Lacy warns from the top that “This is highfalutin’ material. It’s not for everybody.” Yet the 10 interpretations sometimes seem to further muddy characteristic prose.

Abei has the not completely enviable task of “singing” free verse, sometimes with phrases or entire poems repeated for emphasis, and with her voice usually in concert with Lacy’s improvisations. The end result frequently fails to adequately demarcate poems that are serious and those that are humorous. Too many of the tracks sound too similar, while Abei’s British-accented, high-pitched readings can remove the meanings of the words.

This is especially unfortunate on “In the Pocket”, since Anne Waldman and Andrew Shelling’s words are rife with jazz references from song titles to the namechecking of saxophonist Art Pepper. Happily Abei makes no attempt at jazzy scat singing, nor do the horns start quoting jazz riffs, but the steady walking bass line from Jacques Avenel and characteristic boppish bomb dropping from drummer John Betsch cry out for a clearer verbal acknowledgement of the theme.

When it comes to personalizing “Jack’s Blues”, a poem by Robert Creeley, who has had empathy with jazz -- and jazz musicians -- for decades, the quartet gets together to play a real blues behind Abei. This comes complete with horn riffs, a curt shuffle from the drummer and pizzicato picks from the bassist.

Lacy’s tart tone and trombonist George Lewis’ higher pitched, lustrous plunger work can’t really bring enough life to Bob Kaufman’s “Private Sadness”, the longest and slowest moving of the poems And Abei’s non-American accent really does her in here.

Much more palatable are the tunes when you can ignore the lyrics and hear her voice as merely a third part of the front line. This is particularly effective on Lew Welch’s “A Ring of Bone”, where her accented rolling “r”s create musical onomatopoeia. Of course the real show is the Lewis and Lacy act. Here, for instance, the trombonist first slides down to mid-tempo notes then squeezed up to soprano range to introduce Lacy.

Much more emphatic is the ‘boneman’s plunger work on William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch”, where his sweet tone underlines Burroughs’ brutal images. Soon his protological plunger tones, reminiscent of Quentin Jackson’s, push Lacy to buzz his reed and Betsch to emphasize press rolls and cymbal pressure. When the wah-wah timbres appear a second time they give Abei’s singing of “Who are you?” at the end an Alice in Wonderland fillip.

All and all though, Gregory Corso’s “The Mad Yak” is most transparent vocally, since the New York poet was most close to everyday speech in his writing. It’s also probably the only track that doesn’t demand the listener read the words as lyrics are being vocalized. Here, as well, Lewis shows off some hand-muted, arching tonal effects while Lacy supplies reed snorts, spetrofluctuation and mouth noises

Although the Oliveros-McPhee experiment with prose usually come across better than the Lacy-Abei poetry recreation both discs are still notable. Both should interest

those whose ardor encompasses literature as well as improvised music.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Beat: 1. Wave Lover 2. Song 3. Naked Lunch 4. Private Sadness 5. A Ring of Bone 6. The Mad Yak 7. Jack’s Blues 8. Agenda 9. In the Pocket 10. Mother Goose

Personnel: Beat: George Lewis (trombone); Steve Lacy (soprano saxophone);, Jean-Jacques Avenel (bass); John Betsch (drums); Irene Aebi (vocals)

Track Listing: Unquenchable: 1. Intro 2. 1st Movement 3. 2nd Movement 4. 3rd Movement 5. 4th Movement

Personnel: Unquenchable: Deep Listening Band: Stuart Dempster (trombone, didjeridu); David Gamper (flutes, keyboard, electronics); Pauline Oliveros (accordion); Joe McPhee Quartet: Joe McPhee (soprano saxophone, alto clarinet, Casio digital horn); Joe Giardullo (flute, bass clarinet); Monica Wilson (cello); Karen Jurgens (drums); Rachel Pollack (reading)

January 19, 2004

JOE GIARDULLO 4TET

Now Is
Drimala DR-03-347-02

ALBERTO PINTON/FREDRIK NORDSTRÖM
Dog Out
Moserobie MMPCD 013

Splitting combo leadership between a couple of sax players has been a jazz natural ever since the days of Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt in the late 1940s. With another reedman on side, not only is there a second horn to add polyphonic harmonic and tonal emphasis to a session, but dividing up the front line between two woodwind players seems to free the reed soloist even more than if his running buddy was playing a different instrument.

To prove this, both Italian-born, Stockholm-based sonorous reed specialist Alberto Pinton and soprano saxophonist Joe Giardullo from upstate New York have never sounded so relaxed as on they do on their respective CDs here. Naturally it helps that Giardullo’s front-line comrade-in-arms is veteran Joe McPhee, who is equally proficient on reeds and brass. Pinton’s partner is Fredrik Nordström, a Swedish inside-outside alto and tenor saxophonist, who in his more mainstream offerings almost gives the Young Lions a good name. More experimental here, his reed tones blend well with the subterranean earth shakers from Pinton’s baritone and C-melody saxophones and clarinet.

Linking the two sessions as well is the identical setup of both quartets. Two reeds, bass and drums bring to mind Ornette Coleman’s group with Dewey Redman, while McPhee’s excursions on pocket trumpet -- a dead giveaway -- and flugelhorn, references Coleman’s classic quartet with Don Cherry. Style throughout is definitely Freebop and its derivatives, or what should be regarded as modern mainstream 45 years after Ornette’s initial recording.

More closely linked to that style, and its even more traditional precursor Hard Bop, Pinton, Nordström and company have enough familiarity with these and other aspects of modernity to keep the 11 tracks on the CD percolating at a steady boil. Each tune is short enough so that it doesn’t wear out its welcome. The bari man has created similar programs on his own band’s CDs featuring American trumpeter Kyle Gregory and Italian drummer Roberto Dani. Nordström has record with other Scandinavians like bassist Palle Danielsson and trumpeter Magnus Broo. Bassist Mattias Welin has played with Broo, Canadian trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and local twin-neck guitarist Mattias Windemo who also employed drummer Jon Fält, who is featured here.

Interesting enough, although the composer credits are split between the two leaders, it’s Welin’s sluicing, deep-toned bass work that set up many of the tunes. When he does get a solo, as on the title tune, his work is solid, powerful, but not particularly adventurous. Charlie Haden he’s not. Yet his consistent steadfastness here, linked with colorful bounces from drummer, allows the tenor man enough freedom to get into high screech mode and Pinton to double tongue on what sounds like C-melody.

On baritone, as on “TT Rider” a shifting, pseudo-blues, Pinton honks out slurry, staccato timbres like Ur-bopper Leo Parker or Stitt. Still the snaky lines of Nordström, the tune’s composer, soon ratchet up to Albert Ayler-like multiphonics not Ammons-like smoothness. Mellowness is reserved for pieces like “Piece of Change”, featuring Pinton’s light, coloratura clarinet lines that are effectively doubled by Nordström’s alto and advanced by Fält’s irregular percussion accents. This tune could be heard as close cousin to West Coast experimental jazz of the mid-1950s as played by reedman Jimmy Giuffre.

The influence of Eric Dolphy, another Californian, features in Nordström’s playing, especially on alto. This is most apparent on “The Tiny Mite”, where the Dolphyisms even seems to affect Pinton’s baritone runs. Elsewhere the riffing teamwork brings to mind Gerry Mulligan’s band with Zoot Sims, though Pinton is more of his own man than a Jeru follower. His echoing, tart-toned undulations find their outlet in shrilling high notes as well as the more familiar pedal point rhino-like snorts.

On the other session, McPhee’s many instruments means that the Giardullo Four have more colors with which to play, though the leader himself sticks to Steve Lacy-influenced soprano saxophone. The saxman, who has played in Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening Band as well as many times with McPhee, is one of those whose recording career hasn’t kept up with his history. He’s certainly old enough to remember Lacy’s quartet LPs with Cherry in the early 1960s.

Indeed, his and McPhee’s brass work on “Now Is”, the first and longest tune could almost fit onto one of those discs. Inchoate trills and squeals intersect, the two ascend the scales together, then plunge south, as McPhee’s brassy flashes and Giardullo’s honklets define the tune. However bassist Mike Bisio and percussionist Tani Tabbal make up a more sophisticated rhythm section than Lacy and Cherry would have had in 1960.

West Coaster Bisio, whose associations include work with local heroes trumpeter Rob Blakeslee and violinist Eyvind Kang, not only creates pizzicato thwacks behind the soloists, but can just as easily spin out mid-range, cello-like arco figures. Tabbal, who has worked with saxists Roscoe Mitchell and James Carter, not only shows off his press rolls and time-keeping, but off-kilter, mellifluous echoing bounces from the djembe or hourglass shaped West African drum.

“O.A.O.L”, a trio outing for Giardullo, Bisio and Tabbal is introduce by a melancholy bass line with a “Played Twice” inference, barely there brushwork from the drummer and a smoothly accented legato tone from the saxman. Slowly undulating up and down the bridge, Bisio picks carefully selected notes and double stops, linking with Giardullo in such a way that the endproduct sounds like Haden’s duets with Coleman. Not to be outdone, “Close” is a McPhee-Tabbal duet with the later percussively hand drumming and the former producing muted chromatic grace notes.

Other times, triple-tongued trumpet tones and whispery, airy soprano sax trills meet buzzy, rubato fingering. Or with both front liners on sopranos the result resembles two chirping squirrels chasing themselves around the tree that is the darkening and modulated bass line. Tabbal extending the vibrations with wire brushes on cymbals and what sounds like marbles being rolled on drum tops, getting the reedists to breath bent tones that are more dissonant than atonal.

This session can likely only be accessed on the Internet at www.drimala.com, while DOG OUT’s Swedish CD won’t exactly be at your local Wal-Mart either. But both are worth seeking out to hear memorable reed work.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Now: 1. Now Is 2. Spin 3. Conference 4. SCINT 5. O.A.O.L. 6. Spring Theory 7. Close

Personnel: Now: Joe McPhee [except 2 & 5] (pocket trumpet, flugelhorn, soprano saxophone); Joe Giardullo [except 7](soprano saxophone); Mike Bisio [except 8](bass); Tani Tabbal (drums and djembe)

Track Listing: Dog: 1. Cold Talk 2. Dog’s Right 3. The Group 4. Piece of Change 5. The Tiny Mite 6. The Freezer 7. Numerology 8. Even Sven 9. TT Rider 10. For Us Three 11. Wonderland Ballroom

Personnel: Dog: Fredrik Nordström (alto and tenor saxophones); Alberto Pinton (baritone and C-melody saxophones, clarinet); Mattias Welin (bass); Jon Fält (drums)

December 15, 2003

JOE MCPHEE/BILL SMITH ENSEMBLE

Visitation
Boxholder BXH 034

LEO SMITH/BILL SMITH ENSEMBLE
Rastafari
Boxholder BXH 035

Long before its present infamy -- for Americans -- as home for runaway TV and movie productions and North American SARS headquarters, hipper types knew that Toronto was a welcoming refuge for U.S. jazzers -- from the most traditional to the most avant garde.

For the later, one particular purple patch began in the mid-1970s, when local Sackville records first took it upon itself to document the work of American experimenters such as multi-reedist Anthony Braxton. The label’s commitment to the style continued into the early 1980s -- it has since turned more mainstream -- when these memorable discs were cut. Woodstock, Vt.’s Boxholder label has reissued both CDs. Other outside Sackville sessions from the same time are being reissued in limited editions by the Toronto label itself.

One of the reasons Toronto was so popular among improv experimenters was that the visiting musicians could work as part of a sympathetic group of players organized by writer/photographer Bill Smith, who was an avant saxophonist as well as editor and art director of Coda magazine.

Interestingly enough, although the core group of Smith, violinist David Prentice and bassist David Lee are augmented by percussionists on both these CDs, the usual band that toured with these and other American hornmen was drummerless. True to their desire to experience new modes, no musician complained, and you wonder if the success of that configuration encouraged the Americans and Europeans who now play sans percussion to give it a try.

VISITATION is the more impressive of the two discs simply because it was one of the first that showcased the mature style of multi-hornman Joe McPhee. The Poughkeepsie, N.Y. native had been recording since 1967, but it was only around this time and in collaborations with Europeans that the saxophonist and brass player evolved from being a New Thing-oriented energy player to unveiling his unique style.

“Ghosts”, a version of Albert Ayler’s famous composition, shows this most clearly. Although the line-up superficially resembles that of Ayler’s rendition on LIVE IN GREENWHICH VILLAGE with its prominent strings, this version is no cacophonous blowout. Instead the track begins with whacks from drummer Richard Barnard’s bells, cymbals and little instruments, straight plucked octaves from Lee and a massive arpeggio attack from Prentice, who now crafts violins as well as plays them.

Eventually, McPhee’s tenor saxophone begins elaborating the familiar theme and is met with thumping drums plus soaring glissandos from both string players. Following growls and whining multiphonics, the tenor man reprises the lurching melody staccato.

Other tracks show off descending string textures that resemble Anton Webern-like chamber music leavened with Free Jazz inserts, when the bowing bassist and violinist produce defiantly atonally piercing shrills. On others saxophone McPhee produces rolling spit tones, yet on pocket trumpet at one point he double-tongues what could almost be a bebop line with the power and facility of a Dizzy Gillespie.

The session culminates in McPhee’s “Eleuthera”, blending strings and reeds into a faux classical homage, until Prentice heads for his fiddle’s highest pitch, squawking out his notes. Lee holds down the bottom, contouring grace notes in the background, while Smith and McPhee overblow in Aylerian fashion.

Shorter, with only four tracks to McPhee’s six, and vibraphonist Larry Potter in for drummer Barnard, RASAFARI is inviting, but not as cohesive as VISITATION. It’s probably because a then pre-Wadada Leo Smith has never been as focused in his music as McPhee is and was. Dizzy Gillespie Chair at the California Institute of the Arts, over the years Smith has been involved with electronics, spoken word, early sound experiments with the likes of Braxton and violinist Leroy Jenkins and recently a Miles Davis tribute disc with guitarist Henry Kaiser.

Involving himself with what he called multi-media Ritual Drama pieces at that juncture, the CD compositions -- granted only one of which is written is written by trumpeter Smith -- seem to meander from one style to another.

Written by Leo Smith, the title track, celebrates his conversion to Rastafarianism, and begins with the brassman’s brief vocalization of the title. A polyrhythmic piece, played andante to largo it’s carefully arranged so that the five musicians orchestrate the tonal qualities of many more. It helps, of course, that Lee plays cello as well as bass here; Bill Smith plays sopranino and soprano saxophones plus alto clarinet; and Smith solos on trumpet, flugelhorn, and percussion. At times the musicians move together for certain passages; other times each is completely on his own.

At points mellow flugelhorn grace notes mesh with the violin’s tone; elsewhere high-pitched pocket trumpet notes blast into the stratosphere. With the rhythmic underpinning again carried by the bassist, Bill Smith plays a sweet, almost semi-classical line, and Potter’s exuberant vibes reverberates in a metallic Khan Jamal-(early) Bobby Hutcherson style.

Elsewhere though, the vibes playing is so gentle and laid back that Gary Burton comes to mind; or purring trumpet lines brushing against the pulsating metal bars suggest Miles Davis with Milt Jackson. Some tunes find Smith confining himself to chirping slurs from the sopranino; and nowhere here does Prentice drop his semi-classical mode to add the same ragged, semi-roughness he exhibits with McPhee.

Pointedly, “Rituals”, a nearly 12-minute composition of Bill Smith’s, is imbued with a Third Stream cast, featuring silence broken by distant, fragrant strings and an alto clarinet line that moves portamento as it’s doubled by abstruse brass. Slow moving, with a steadily shifting background motif, the tune features string parts that are more dissonant than atonal, plus meshed reed and vibe sections that are infrequently pierced by extended, plunger grace notes supplied by trumpeter Smith.

True to their solidifying musical personalities, these reissues by Smith and McPhee are valuable because they catch the featured musicians at transitional points in their careers. They should also remind increasingly xenophobic Americans just how much good music -- jazz and otherwise -- was produced -- and still comes from -- north of the 49th parallel.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Visitation: 1. Exuma 2. Eleuthera 3. Home at Last 4. Ghosts 5. If I Don’t Fall 6. A-Configuration

Personnel: Visitation: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet, flugelhorn, soprano and tenor saxophones); Bill Smith (sopranino, soprano and alto saxophones) David Prentice (violin); David Lee (bass); Richard Bannard (drums)

Track Listing: Rastafari: 1. Rastafari 2. Ritual 3. Madder Lake 4. Little Bits

Personnel: Rastafari: Leo Smith (trumpet, flugelhorn, harmonica, percussion); Bill Smith (sopranino and soprano saxophones, alto clarinet) David Prentice (violin); David Lee (cello and bass); Larry Potter (vibraphone)

August 4, 2003

EVAN PARKER/JOE MCPHEE

Chicago Tenor Duets
OkkaDisk OD 12033

BARRY GUY-EVAN PARKER
Birds and Blades
Intakt Double CD 080

Two more aural essays on the subtle art of the duo, these CDs feature three improvisers who long ago proved that they can hold their own in musical situations involving any size of band.

Connection between the two discs comes from the presence of British saxophonist Evan Parker, who with his philosophical theories and technical mastery has been producing intelligent commentary on reed advancement since the mid-1960s. On BIRDS AND BLADES, A two-CD set recorded in Zürich in 2001, he’s partnered with longtime confrere bassist Barry Guy. Another cerebral experimenter, the bassist and the sax man have worked in contexts from big bands to duos for years, with their first duo meeting taking place in 1981.

On hand for CHICAGO TENOR DUETS, which (no surprise) was recorded in the Illinois city in 1998, with Parker featured exclusively on tenor sax -- he also plays soprano on the double disc -- is American Joe McPhee. Intellectual in a similar fashion to his Brit counterparts, the reedist recorded a trio -- all soprano saxophones -- session with Parker and French player Daunik Lazro in 1995. Over the years he has also had separate dual sax meetings with American Joe Giardullo, Lazro and another French highbrow, woodwind stylist André Jaume.

More than a rematch, CHICAGO TENOR is set up as an experiment to see what unique dialogue(s) can arise from using the lower-pitched woodwind, now that the two have investigated its higher-pitched sibling. The results will only upset those with an outmoded view of the so-called avant garde. There may be squeaks, squeals, multiphonics and a variety of extended techniques on show, but overall, the axe’s entrenched definition is amplified and only slightly redefined.

In this series of 11 duets, motifs including rolling tones, circular chases and unison smears are more prominent than endless circular breathing -- a Parker specialty. At times the two sound like one man -- Rahsaan Roland Kirk, perhaps -- playing two saxes simultaneously, at other times they elaborate the same line, creating octaves apart from one another.

Otherwise, Parker and McPhee are two reedmen soloing in the same place at the same time, but not playing together. There are points where what they do can be visually compared to an amoeba, with their sounds glancing off on another, then splitting apart within milliseconds. Harmonically, the reedists can twin one another, or singly create cavernous fog horn sounds, buzzing lines, hisses of pure air or harsh key-popping mouthpiece percussion.

All in all they seem to gain strength and confidence as the session proceeds almost chronologically, with “Duet 8” and “Duet 11” -- each just a little less than 11 minutes -- their most concentrated showcases. The former finds them spewing out double honks that blend into one whole tone, but played enough apart so you know two horns are involved. One then offers up twittering and trilling buoyant reed slides, while the other ripostes with squealing split reed tones and rolling tongue slaps. Staccato pinpoint notes soon meet key pops until the duo joins again for unison air hisses.

“Duet 11” finds both venturing into buoyant, so-called BritImprov territory with near inaudible sighs. These are succeeded by growling undertones and adagio buzzing acoustic drones, as accented notes cycle back and forth. The climax comes when Parker introduces circular breathing, with a basso countermotif from McPhee existing until they join together for a coda.

McPhee and Parker’s meeting also isn’t a sparring match, neither is the duo with Guy and Parker. Although the results on the one live and one studio session that make up BIRDS AND BLADES, usually whirl by at an speedier and more strident pace than what was created by the tenor tandem, this two-CD set is another heartfelt dialogue.

Peculiarly, the seven studio-recorded instant compositions are listed as being by Guy-Parker; in contrast the four live tracks that appear to have been created by Parker-Guy. Whether this is a musical version of political correctness or an indication of which player contributes the most to each group of tunes is uncertain. Surely the idea of a duo is that neither partner is paramount.

Moving from nomenclature to sounds, the live tracks run a minimum of slightly more than 14 minutes to more than 19 minutes. As Parker notes, the great length results from a fear of finding out the audience isn’t enjoying itself. Fat chance. Take “Circling” -- an appropriate description of just about everything played on all three CDs -- for instance.

A mixture of notated and improvised sections, like everything else the duo plays, it begins with Parker’s nearly patented circular breathing reconstructing itself as the sound of a flock of chirping feathered creatures, filling the sky with different melodies and tones. Squeals and strums then arise from Guy’s bass as he rubs, picks and forcefully pulls at the four strings. His constant arco motion melds with cheeping, flute-like reed wiggles from Parker, occasionally interrupted for quick dives into the bass clef.

Eventually, as the saxophonist continues to slipslide out of time, producing great gouts of notes, and as the bassman alternately plucks and bows a corresponding number of tones, you feel your head and solar plexus spinning as the two seem to be sucking all the oxygen out of the air. Just as it seems that you can’t accept any more soprano saxophone trills and near-the-pegs string bowing, the tempo abates to adagio, with the piece concluding with serene concert bass bowed lines.

Even on the seven studio compositions, the duo’s command of their respective instruments, and the resulting extended techniques are such that the absence of drums isn’t noted. Parker can produce quick, clean squeaks as readily as rolling purrs from his horns and Guy is as apt to create fingerpicking clawhammer banjo notes as abrasive, many-stringed bowed sounds.

As a matter of fact, on the title tune and longest track, the bass seems to morph into a chamber-filling mythical string quartet, though Guy’s delivery is speedier and more metallic than that mixture of violins, viola and cello would create. Meanwhile, the mid-range trilling sounds from Parker’s soprano sax describe a perfect Catherine Wheel of sound. Falling in and out of congruence, as the reedist’s conveyer belt of sounds appears, Guy breaks up the aural pattern with a series of tiny changes -- bowing deep into the bass clef, at one point, sneaking in quick, classical cello-like associations at others, and turning to mandolin-like flat picking elsewhere.

In this partnership of more than 20 years, each instrumentalist can improvise on his own, sometimes together, but often apart as the tune unravels. This relationship and the one with Parker and McPhee are probably the only non-exploitative examples of separate but equal that has existed since the time of Booker T. Washington.

Jointly and singularly, the improvisers featured on these three discs reconfirm that musical elasticity can be built into even as simple a structure as a duo.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Chicago: 1. Duet 2 2. Duet 3 3. Duet 4 4. Duet 5 5. Duet 6 6. Duet 7 7. Duet 9 8. Duet 8 9. Duet 11 10. Duet 12 11. Duet 13

Personnel: Chicago: Evan Parker and Joe McPhee (tenor saxophones)

Track Listing: Birds: CD 1: Studio 1. Alar 2. Swordplay 3. Cut and thrust 4. Froissement 5. Coulé 6. Barrage 7. Birds and blades CD 2: Live 1. Angulation 2. Circling 3. Point in line 4. Lunge

Personnel: Birds: Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Barry Guy (bass)

June 23, 2003

TRIO-X

In Black and White
Cadence Jazz Records JR 1144

MARK WHITECAGE TRIO The Paper Trail
Acoustics #ELE 413CD

Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when New York jazzers wanted the perfect rhythm section, they usually made sure it included virtuosic bassist Paul Chamber and inventive drummer Art Taylor, or at least one of them. The same sort of situation seems to exist in advanced improvisational circles today, with bassist Dominic Duval and percussionist Jay Rosen, singly and together contributing their talents to numberless CDs.

Additionally, like Chambers -- linchpin of Miles Davis’ quintet/sextet -- and Taylor -- who frequently gigged with Thelonious Monk -- Duval and Rosen are also charter members of several longstanding bands, two of which are featured here. The CDs show how the two can adapt to the needs of different front-line partners, which in these cases are multi-reedman Mark Whitecage in a studio situation; and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee on two live dates.

Duval and Rosen’s tongue in groove relationship is most noticeable on “Blood at the Root”, the more than 16½-minute climax of a Trio-X performance at Ann Arbor, Mich.’s Edgefest in 1999. A speedy Free Jazz tune that brings out screaming multiphonics, repeated renal smears and mewling split tones from McPhee’s tenor saxophone, these actions never faze the two rhythm players. Even as the saxophonist honks and smears in an almost Aylerian dementia, Duval’s flailing bass line and upfront string bending meld with Rosen’s press rolls, snare tattoo and ride cymbal exercises to hold the beat steady.

Speed and vibrations aren’t all the two can offer either. The three preceding numbers are all in yearning, balladic mode. On the nearly 14-minute “‘Round Midnight and Later,” McPhee elaborates a classic, smooth, swooping Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster style, breathing out tiny phrases until he starts elaborating variations on the theme. Until then, Rosen has only interposed tiny cymbal shakes and muted snare and tom rumbles. Just before Duval begins a double-stopping variation on “All Blues” -- and he’s never sounded more like Chambers than here -- the saxman works his way up to full, screeching altissimo. As pure glossolalia replace sheets of sound, the other two are on his notes like guard dogs on an intruder. Bombs drop from Rosen’s bass drum and Duval strums as if he was guiding a 12-string guitar. Finally, with no return to the initial theme, the track ends with the bassist’s return to the Chambers-like pizzicato lines.

Duval’s melodic gifts are spotlighted on “Going Home”, famously recorded by Albert Ayler in 1964. Powerfully bowing on the melancholy spiritual’s theme, the bassman’s work is decorated by the percussionist merely touching what appear to be a bell tree and a glockenspiel. Earlier, the saxman’s wheezing thematic exposition becomes secondary once the melody migrates to the bass’s four strings.

Even more spectacular is the trio’s rendition of the nearly 18-minute “Sida’s Song”, recorded two years later at New York’s Vision Fest. Unsheathing his trumpet for the only time on the CD, McPhee’s fanfare of accented notes meets an andante sweep from Duval’s bow. Swapping plunger mute for saxophone, McPhee’s abrasive, Sonny Rollins-like vibrato is met with what appears to be targeted hand drumming from Rosen. As the saxman expels gut vibrations from deep inside his diaphragm, Rosen creates equine clip clops, then enough bass drum pedal action and duple metre snare action to suggest a Frankenstein monster meld of Buddy Rich and Elvin Jones. Downshifting to repeat the same simple six-note theme, McPhee almost literally cries through his mouthpiece, clears out for a Duval pizzicato excursion, then emulates that pattern as a coda.

A different woodwind partner doesn’t lessen the accomplishment of the rhythm duo as you’ll hear on Whitecage’s CD recorded in 1995 and most easily available by e-mail at rozmark@bellatlantic.net. Like McPhee, a frequent visitor to Europe, the Jersey City-based saxophonist and clarinetist is a couple of years older than the other reedist and more pre-Free Jazz statements come out in his playing.

You can hear this most clearly on “The Connecticut Solution”, an almost nine-minute clarinet feature. Sticking mostly to the coloratura register, Whitecage manages to be experimental and traditional simultaneously. Triple-tonguing and bending his output elastically, he moves from proto-bop Tony Scott territory, through more formal Swing era pitches, works for a time in Middle Eastern snake charming mode adds a sad, Klezmer-like tinge and double-times at the end. Duval backs him with understated Jimmy Garrison-like thumps, while Rosen mostly restricts himself to bell ringing.

There’s no such restrain on “Rebate” and the other foot tappers on the CD, Here and elsewhere the percussionist displays his ratcheting cymbals, side of drums rim shots, bass pedal and what’s apparently a bicycle horn (!) and a disco whistle (!!) to direct the tunes. Whitecage’s pinched Ornette-style line on the alto is perfect for these pieces, all of which were composed by him anyway.

At the same time, the saxman’s unique sense of melody -- or is it humor -- asserts itself in his choice of quotes on other compositions. “CHEESE” -- all caps for some unexplained reason -- is a mid-range Coltrane style romp with some exaggerated flurries of notes interrupted by snatches of “As Time Goes By” and “Pretty Baby”, for example.

Then there’s “Like A Spring Day”, which has a theme reminiscent of both R&B sax honkers and “A Love Supreme”. Midway through the altoist comes up with a nearly measureless section of freebop cadenzas that suggest how Eric Dolphy -- one of Whitecage’s admitted influences -- would have sounded had he lived a couple more decades. But that ghostly influence shares reed space with funky tongue slaps straight out of the Hank Crawford/“Fathead” Newman soul school. Here the rhythm section demonstrates its still-maturing empathy by mostly staying out of the way. Duval lets out a few half-hearted plucks and Rosen limits himself to accented percussion.

Interested in some examples of the art of one of the 21st century’s best rhythm teams? How about some tight trio work featuring two experimental, but very grounded sax men? Here are two CDs that deliver all of that and more.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Black: 1. God Bless the Child 2. ‘Round Midnight and Later 3. Going Home 4. Blood at the Root 5. Sida’s Song 6. Wait Until Evening

Personnel: Black: Joe McPhee (trumpet, tenor saxophones); Dominic Duval (bass); Jay Rosen (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Paper: 1. Something About J.C. 2. The Connecticut Solution 3. Rebate 4. High Tech #8 5. Split Personality 6. Like A Spring Day 7. CHEESE

Personnel: Paper: Mark Whitecage (soprano and alto saxophones, clarinet); Dominic Duval (bass); Jay Rosen (drums and percussion)

March 24, 2003

MANERI ENSEMBLE

Going To Church
AUM Fidelity AUM 024

MAT MANERI
Sustain
Thirsty Ear THI 57122.2

Substantial slices of Maneri music, these two new CDs prove that while violist Mat Manner has internalized the quirky cogitation and execution of his father, reedist Joe Maneri, he’s not adverse to testing out some ideas of his own in different contexts.

Father-son improvisers are nothing new on the jazz scene and have ranged from boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons and his funky tenor saxophonist son Gene Ammons to mainstream pianist Ellis Marsalis and his progeny. But few offspring are as inculcated in his father’s music, as Mat -- born in 1969 -- who began playing music with his father when he was only seven. It’s hardly necessary to point out that Joe -- born in 1927 -- was no mainstream Marsalis. A jobbing musician for years with an interest in ethnic, microtonal and 12-tone composition as well as jazz improvisation, his talent finally got him a gig teaching theory and composition at Boston’s New England Conservatory in 1970. But his single-mindedness left him unrecorded until his belated emergence in the mid-1990s.

Initially, and probably still, a member of most of his father’s Massachusetts-centred bands, Mat moved to New York by the late 1990s and deepened his relationship with likes of pianist Mathew Shipp, bassist William Parker and guitarist Joe Morris among others.

Here, although the two CDs initially sound similar, the differences are apparent on close listening. CHURCH is almost classical in its instrumentation and orientation, while the use of electric keyboards and a domineering bassist and drummer makes SUSTAIN more tonally dense.

Secularists shouldn’t be frightened by the title on the Maneri Ensemble’s CD, by the way. No one sings any hymns or passes the collection plate. Some improvisers have said that “jazz is my religion”, and the house of worship here is a similar structure to the devotional space players like Frank Wright, John Coltrane and Albert Ayler aspired to and often inhabited.

Unlike those frenzied, ecstatic players, however, the elder Maneri’s worship is done in the context of restrained chamber improv, with even the drummer’s contribution -- from longtime Maneri associate Randy Peterson -- characterized by irregular pulses, unobtrusive rhythms and a quill-like gliding touch.

At more than 31½ minutes, “Blood and Body”, the first track, is obviously the central offering at this free jazz altar. Chief priest Joe Maneri directs the liturgy with his collection of sacred objects -- the clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone. Omitting pious solemnity, the reedist elaborates the theme at different times, keeping the congregation in the same place in the hymnbook with off-centre, elongated trills and guttural smears. At points he begins his sermons in the chalumeau register than, as he feels the spirit, raises his voice ‘way past coloratura and into squeaks, screeches and begins almost speaking in tongues.

Moving from half-valve notes to the top of his horn’s range, trumpeter Roy Campbell sometime exhibits his plunger tone as the best way to illuminate a counter motif parable. The percussionist provides some ride cymbal and ratamacue accompaniment. Meanwhile bassist Barre Phillips, a habituated true believer from his days 40 years ago with clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre up to his recent collaboration with saxist Evan Parker, sometimes allows himself the suggestion of walking bass. More frequently, though, his benediction involves guitar-like strums from the top of his strings or genuflecting arco devotion. Since the stately procession is andante most of the time, pianist Mathew Shipp’s right hand is often raised from tinkling his keys, when he isn’t suggesting a spinet’s tone or producing heartfelt ecclesiastical chords.

As for the son, his interaction with his father occurs most often with multiple forays from his five or six-string violas. His arco innovations encompass triple stopping and portamento, though at times, father and son become one as his tone merges with serpentine alto saxophone split tones. These appear to inhabit the atmosphere midway between the creations of Eric Dolphy and a viola’s singular tone.

Both remaining tunes build on the scripture articulated on “Blood and Body”. There are more Gabriel-like brass blasts from Campbell, sacramental funeral march note displays from Shipp, multiple string exposure from Phillips and the younger Maneri and pure-toned hisses and dissonant colored noises from Maneri senior, as his smearing vibrato gathers the musical supplicants together for devotion.

If two figures from the blessed Trinity are present on GOING TO CHURCH, then SUSTAIN may be said to introduce the third, the Holy Ghost, in the person of soprano saxophonist Joe McPhee.

Avoiding blasphemy, it should be noted that at 63 McPhee is old enough to have interacted with the high priests of Energy Music such as Coltrane, Ayler and Ornette Coleman. But over the years his improvising has gone from Old Testament fire-and-brimstone to the understated New Testament sound he exhibits here.

Featuring beside McPhee and the son an entirely new set of converts, this CD features four major tracks plus five tunes titled with some variation of “Alone” that are example of solo prayers. The soprano saxist, for instance, showcases forward moving legato lines that range between glottal interior horn sounds and circular breathing exercises. On his own, drummer Gerald Cleaver, whose past associates have included saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and bassist Mark Helias, creates electronic sounding percussion sounds reminiscent of the early work of Brits Paul Lytton and Tony Oxley.

Secularism is represented here by the shimmering wah-wah keyboard excursions of Craig Taborn, who often plays with altoist Tim Berne. Avoiding Herbie Hancock-like, 1970s-style electric piano wiggles his refractive tones blend well with McPhee’s soprano. On acoustic piano though, his touch relates back to Thelonious Monk. However at one point on “Nerve”, someone, either Taborn or triple-stopping Maneri creates a constant, angled tone that seems to come straight from the mixing board, bringing with it early fusion memories of Mahavishnu’s Jerry Goodman or the Fourth Way’s Michael White. Cleaver’s polyrhythmic beat is many steps ahead of what those bands produced however, while McPhee’s pitch sliding and the frantic, nearly atonal skittering from Taborn’s keyboards proves that nothing here is an exercise in nostalgia.

Similarly no one would confuse William Parker’s deep-bottomed acoustic bass with that from a whiny electric model. Sometimes sounding as if he’s working in two clefs simultaneously, he uses his fingers to blend rhythmically with the drums and keyboards at times, or his bow to expand the string section with Maneri elsewhere.

Examined carefully, the CD is a polyphonic house of mirrors. It’s animated with sounds that encompass everything from what appears to be PVC pipe echoes, irregular drum shards, the rubbing and drone of the electric keyboard and massed strings. It’s also as much of a secular triumph for the younger Maneri as the other CD confirms the jubilant spirituality of his father.

-- Ken Waxman

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Track Listing: Going: 1. Blood and Body 2. Before the Sermon 3. Going To Church

Personnel: Going: Roy Campbell (trumpet); Joe Maneri (alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet); Mat Maneri (viola); Matthew Shipp (piano); Barre Phillips (bass); Randy Peterson (drums)

Track Listing: Sustain: 1. Alone (Origin) 2. In Peace 3. Alone (Construct) 4. Sustain 5. Alone (Unravel) 6. Nerve 7. Alone (Cleanse) 8. Divine 9. Alone (Mourn)

Personnel: Sustain: Joe McPhee (soprano saxophone); Mat Maneri (violas); Craig Taborn (keyboards); William Parker (bass); Gerald Cleaver (drums)

January 22, 2003

GIARDULLO/MCPHEE/BISIO/TABBAL

Shadow & Light
Drimala DR 02-347-01

Isn’t there some cliché that states that “out of great tragedy comes art”, or something like that? Well that’s only partially true. Art shackled to the reflection of a cataclysmic event is as likely to appear as a polemic or agit-prop. Having the right opinions or feeling strongly about a situation doesn’t automatically elevate your creation to a masterpiece. Any number of folk ditties or punk rock snarls can be cited as evidence.

Sometimes -- though not always -- purely instrumental music will offer enough distance from the event to raise the believability stakes. Certainly the four veteran improvisers represented on SHADOWS & LIGHT show this. Strictly by chance, the recording session for this CD was scheduled for September 11, 2001 in upstate New York. After jazz economics convinced them not to cancel -- bassist Mike Bisio, on tour with other band members, lives in Seattle -- the group went along and recorded some of the most moving, yet joyful music to reflect the events of that day. Yet because these men are thinking improvisers rather than propagandists, the emotions have to be intuited from the impassioned playing, not descriptive titles or shouted slogans.

Like a suite, the almost 55-minute CD starts off with muted, near inaudible exhalation from Joe Giardullo’s bass clarinet gradually turning to rodent-like cries and echoing multiphonics, until snare rattles from drummer Tani Tabbal signal the rest of the band’s entry and the second tune begins.

“Cries, Whispers and Cries” builds up from this near silence to cacophonous lines from each instrument playing at the same time. Giardullo introduces vaguely Oriental-sounding trills on soprano saxophone, Joe McPhee counters with tough tenor asides, Tabbal weighs in with subtle percussion suggestions, as the piece is built around and extended with an extended pizzicato vamp from Bisio.

The bassist, who has recorded duet sessions with both McPhee and Giardullo in the past, gets the spotlight to himself for “In the End There Is Peace”. A continuous arco showcase which begins with him approximating what could be extended reed techniques, advances to a centre section of variegated pitches that sound as many strings as possible, and ends with a mournful bass line that suggests repose.

Subtle too, is the solo work of Tabbal on “Question of Time”. This brief -- a little more than 4½ minute -- percussion workout demonstrates that each part of the kit can be highlighted without appreciably increasing the volume of attack. His playing almost seems to be taking place in slow motion, with each gesture relaxed enough to appear to be recorded underwater, so deliberate and specific does it seem. A Detroit native, who has played in the bands of saxophonists James Carter and Roscoe Mitchell, Tabbal didn’t realize how far from peaceful his personal 2001 would be. A couple of months after this session, he underwent 12 hours of surgery to remove a benign, grapefruit-sized cranial tumor. He is now said to be recovering well with his playing skills undiminished.

McPhee too is the master of oblique references as on “City on the Edge of Forever”, a duet with Bisio at his melancholy best. Here, his choked pocket trumpet tone hangs for a time in the air before detonating into screeching debris. Sadness becomes almost palpable as the bassist’s produces low, legato tones. If he’s ethereal on brass, then elsewhere McPhee can also be hard-bodied and raucous on tenor saxophone, which he plays with a pronounced vibrato. This split-horn personality doesn’t pose a problem for the others, especially Giardullo and Bisio who with bassist Dominic Duval perform regularly with McPhee as Bluette.

Giardullo too is able to represent distinctive differences on each of his chosen instruments. For the day at hand, probably the most appropriate sound appears on “Well of Souls”, where to the accompaniment of Tabbal’s West African percussion, the curving tone of his shenai allude to the ritualistic incantation you may hear on a field recording of Arabic trance music. Despite the blame being apportioned to Muslims during that hysterical day, that timbre should remind everyone that universal music could overcome political and sociological differences.

In the end, while it’s apparent that SHADOWS & LIGHT, which can only be found at www.drimala.com, isn’t program music per se, surely it provides an earnest sound picture of 9-11. Listen to it as an exceptional musical experience, not as anything else.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. One Moment and the Next 2. Cries, Whispers & Cries 3. City on the Edge of Forever 4. Twilight at Noon 5. In the End There Is Peace 6. Well of Souls 7. Question of Time 8. Shadow and Light

Personnel: Joe Giardullo (C flute, bass clarinet, shenai, soprano saxophone); Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet, tenor saxophone); Mike Bisio (bass); Tani Tabbal (drums, percussion, udu drum, djembe)

June 22, 2002

PETER BRÖTZMANN TENTET PLUS TWO

Short Visit To Nowhere
Okka Disk OD 12043

PETER BRÖTZMANN TENTET PLUS TWO
Broken English
Okka Disk OD 12044

Three years after it was first organized and a year after it first toured, Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet (Plus Two in this case) displays, in these 2000 recordings, that it has become an exemplary example of how to adopt free improv to large aggregations.

With a mixed cast of seven Chicagoans, three members from New York state, a Swede and Brötzmann, a German, it has all the firepower of a traditional big band with its eight horns. Plus, the three-man string section and two percussionists ensure that not only is its bottom covered -- so to speak -- but that the strings can alternately meld with the horns or shore up the rhythm section. Also, while the German reedman wrote two of the compositions, he’s democratic enough to make room for one piece each by Chicago multi-woodwind player Ken Vandermark, Swedish reedist Mats Gustafsson and Chicago cellist/violinist Fred Lonberg-Holm.

The brass section is made up of New York trumpeter/flugelhornist Roy Campbell, Chicago trombonist Jeb Bishop and Poughkeepsie, N.Y.’s Joe McPhee, who put his saxes aside to concentrate on trumpet and valve trombone. Vandermark’s closest associate Kent Kessler and Manhattanite William Parker, who has a long history with Brötzmann, combine on basses; while Michael Zerang on drums and Hamid Drake on drums, frame drum and voice --both from Chicago -- handle the percussion chores.

Experienced with many large European aggregations, most notably the pan-European Globe Unity Orchestra, Brötzmann appears to know how much freedom to give his posse of star soloists and when to rein them in. On both discs, for instance, you hear a lot more than you would in a conventional jazz big band where star soloists taking their turn at the mike while the remainder riff anonymously. Sure, there’s plenty of solo space available -- how could it be otherwise with the shortest tune more than 13 minutes and the longest almost 43 (!) -- but there are also definite group passages.

Take “Stonewater” on BROKEN ENGLISH, which expanded by another six minutes since it was first recorded in concert at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle in 1999. Intense, stratosphere blats from the massed horns serve as connective leitmotifs once the piece gets going. New is a six-minute intro that finds Drake chanting and playing hand drum. Then, after some tarogato puffs from Brötz, all hell breaks loose in such a way that it must have brought back fond memories of the in-your-face opening of the tenor man’s 1968 MACHINE GUN. As the succeeding soloists take centrestage, er… studio, the saxes provide their avant version of a Count Basie horn section, chugging away in the background.

As this piece -- and the others on the two CDs -- unrolls, however, the major criticism of the session is evident as well. With no identification of soloists, one can only make educated guesses as to who plays what. Before Kessler and Parker combine for some saw-toothed buzzing, the guttural sax tongue slapping you hear probably comes from Gustafsson, while the pastoral clarinet portion is likely Vandermark’s work. After a quasi-Dixieland interlude heavy on liquid clarinet lines and pointed trumpet, not to mention Gustafsson using his baritone to make like bass sax blaster Adrian Rollini, the speedy yet gravelly ‘bone lines probably come from McPhee’s valve.

Eras and styles blend as well. For example, when the walking basses and bomb dropping bass drum section make up one pulse, the massed sax section functions as stalwart, bar-walking R&B honkers. Finally one -- Brötz (?) -- breaks free from the pack for an extended a cappella stop time solo that goes from screaming altissimo split tones to gut-wrenching overblowing. Eventually scraped arco strings give way to a toboggan ride of brass slides and slurs, and the tune culminates in a Mingusian crescendo.

Or take Lonberg-Holm’s “Lightbox”. Beginning with a muted trumpet -- probably played by Campbell -- McPhee and Bishop soon come on like an up-to-date Jay & Kai, romping through slide and valve positions until pizzicato strings give way to the massed cacophony of many reeds. After that there’s a sax face off, with one exploring every extended aviary technique to build to a crescendo, while the other -- apparently Gustafsson -- produces a funk thump that could fit in the bands of James Brown or Ray Charles. Pseudo-human cries, courtesy of the reeds, and arcing orchestral brass sum up the tune, which after several false endings stops on a dime -- or maybe a Euro.

Strangely enough, Williams’ “Hold That Thought” on the same CD sounds more like a revved up Ellington band than the Gustafsson piece named for the Duke that follows it. Of course, with what is likely Vandermark’s Klezmer-like clarinet passages, it would be an Ellington who was as familiar with (old) Odessa as New Orleans and know Bialystok as well as Baltimore. There’s also a Latin influence, with sections where the horns seem to play “La Cucuracha”. Campbell’s notes sail on top of the charts the way trumpeter Cat Anderson’s did with Ellington, while Bishop’s double-time plunger work, calls forth answering chords from the band like Tricky Sam Nanton’s did from the Duke’s Jungle band. Call this mainstream with avant-flourishes

Mention should also be made of the arrangement for “Short Visit To Nowhere”, one CD’s more-than-25-minute title track. Although there are a good number of scratches from the strings, bleats from the saxes and smears from the brass, there’s still room for what sounds like an electric guitar working out of a Jimi Hendrix bag, which is probably Lonberg-Holm on fiddle. The German saxophonist’s writing allow different sections of the group to be emphasized at different times. For instance, stroked buzzes coalesce into the creation of avant string trio, modulating up and down the stops at one point; and a modern reed battle between what’s probably Williams’ squalling alto and Brötz or Vandermark’s unhurried clarinet lines erupt at another point.

One could go on and on. While it’s frightening to think how good the Brötzmann band of any size must sound now, with two more years together, it’s easy to praise both of these CDs. Although available singly, they’re actually one of a piece, the way the cover photo on each can be joined to make one consistent image.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Short: 1. Hold That Thought 2. Ellington 3. Short Visit To Nowhere 4. Lightbox

Track Listing: Broken: 1. Stonewater 2. Broken English

Personnel on both discs: Roy Campbell (trumpet, flugelhorn); Joe McPhee (trumpet, valve trombone); Jeb Bishop(trombone); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, clarinet, tarogato); Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone, clarinet); Mars Williams (alto and tenor saxophone); Mats Gustafsson (tenor and baritone saxophones); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello, violin); Kent Kesler (bass); William Parker (bass, log drum); Michael Zerang (drums); Hamid Drake (drums, frame-drum, voice)

June 7, 2002

JOE MCPHEE

Mister Peabody Goes To Baltimore
Recorded 005

JACK WRIGHT/BOB FALESCH

Clang

ZeroEggzie Ox-2bdf

Synthesis has characterized improvised music over the past couple of years, as new media has finally caught up with its true reach. Unlike multinational corporations that use convergence and globalization as code words for ensuring their products are forced upon the masses in the strip malls of the entire world, improv actually is a global phenomenon.

Today, the growth of the Internet plus the ability to create less expensive CDs has allowed the isolated pockets of like-minded performers to get in contact with one another and their listeners. Audiences may still be tiny by pop music standards, but players and venues now have an easier time communicating with one another. Most importantly, with the creation of many improv festivals in North America and Europe, musicians can have something resembling a career, if they’re willing to always be on the road and to sell their CDs from the stand.

Two of the front-line soldiers who are finally reaping some rewards for their decades-long perseverance are saxophonist Jack Wright, 59, of Boulder, Colo., and Poughkeepsie, N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, 62, who is as well-known as one can be in this genre.

McPhee, on pocket trumpet, alto and tenor saxophone is the featured performer on all four tracks of MISTER PEABODY, recorded live at Baltimore’s High Zero Festival in September 2000. The first and longest -- more than 33½ minute -- is a meeting between him and Wright on alto and tenor saxophone, seconded by the electronics of Ian Nagoski. Playing his reeds plus piano, a couple of months later, Wright recorded several sessions in duo with Chicago-based metaPianist Bob Falesch both in his hometown and Falesch’s. The crisp, clean results are found on CLANG.

Wright followed a meandering pathway to free improv, as did McPhee. The pride of Poughkeepsie honed his appreciation for John Coltrane and Albert Ayler while in American army bands, then gradually shifted his emphasis from Black nationalist-tinged free jazz to pure improv while laboring for 18 years in the mailroom of a nearby steel plant. Initially another Coltrane follower, Wright, abandoned music and his middle class position as a history teacher to devote himself to revolutionary Marxism for a time in the 1960s. When existing society showed no inclination to be overthrown, he re-embraced music, eventually devoting himself exclusively to free improv.

Economy of scale is another favorable attribute of this music: A solo concert can be just as legitimate as a group improvisation. In Baltimore, for instance, McPhee created an affecting performance on muted pocket trumpet that literally defined homelessness, as it was recorded on that city’s Howard Street Bridge with the whiz of moving traffic providing the backdrop.

Improv also thrives on collaboration as these two disks aptly demonstrate. On two shorter tracks recorded in Baltimore, McPhee plies his trade with Boston theremin maestro James Coleman and locals Jerry Lim on one, and percussionist Sean Meehan plus Michael Johnsen’s self-built and conventional instruments on the other.

Coleman’s spacey whooshes and crackles add a warm aural glow to the proceedings as Lim worries and taunts his strings, making the most of electricity, and at one point even conjures up dobro-like tones. Uncharacteristically aggressive on tenor saxophone here, McPhee honks and hoots, goosing the performance until the theremin begins trilling and bleeping as the saxophonist spits out more yelps and wails. When Coleman starts playing a coda that’s all soft wiggles and buzzes, McPhee produces a dissonant, room-filling tone of his own.

Highflying trumpet cadenzas and vocalized honks from the alto saxophone serve McPhee in good stead on the other meeting. Here he faces the scratches and screams of Johnsen’s invented electronics and the chirps of his musical saw (!). Meanwhile percussionist Meehan stays pretty much in the background except for the occasional snare tickle or rim shot. Literally vocalizing through his sax after exhibiting a command of multiphonics, leavened by a few honest-to-goodness honks and buzzes, McPhee gets still louder when it’s apparent that he’s up against the clamor of electronics that almost conquers the ear canal. Holding a pulsating blue note until the fade, however, the saxist manages to create a melody amidst the cacophony.

Dealing with the Wright stuff calls for a different strategy, however, so McPhee sticks to brass smears as the saxman produces a steady, multi-colored noise of hiss, key pops and throat glossolalia. A vocabulary of tongue slaps, jungle moans, guttural baritone-like tones, reed squeaks and elongated blats also issue from Wright’s horn. Yet after a period of appearing to be tearing the instrument apart with tempering buzzes and shrieks McPhee counters with the cleanest of clear brass tones --- trumpet was his first instrument after all.

Finally as Nagoski’s sound force grows louder and oscillates up the scale, providing an all-encompassing electronic blanket, both horns intertwine. Almost instinctively ceding alternate clefs to one another as they duet, there are times when the two mouth instruments almost seem to be one.

Melding into one musician also almost happens on a single track on CLANG where Falesch and Wright both play quartertone regular piano. Each follows sweeping arpeggios with metallic string stretches. On the other tunes though, they merely complement one another on their respective instruments. Like Wright’s story, the keyboardist’s musical history is as unique as his axe. After a 20-year career as an electrical engineer, Falesch finally began performing music on laptop computer-based systems in 1997, then turned to keyboard in 1999. Later he designed the software program to create, sample and tweak the sort of patterns he needed to play free music.

In truth, Falesch’s metaPiano in user transparent and in his hands at least could certainly pass for the real thing. Here the perpetual motion keyboard machine easily matches the aviary crowing, prolonged reed trills, trenchant growls and split second flutter tonguing Wright uses for note delivery. Other times as the saxophonist makes a solo out of single-note slap tonguing and sonorous vibratos, the pianist responds with left-handed palm clusters on one side of the box and right-handed finger tinkles on the other, eventually smashing out intense chords as Wright harshly probes the stratosphere. If phase shifting exists, conceivably what Wright does can be described as pitch shifting.

Perhaps it’s the presence of Falesch, or maybe a grudging acceptance of the non-unconventional that Wright has developed over the years, but there are even points when some tunes here appear to be dispassionate and almost sylvan. Certainly his customary harsh tone seems to be upholstered with tranquility. By the same token he can’t let this long-lined sensitivity go too far and can’t stop himself burlesquing what has gone before with some claxon-like kazoo resonances at the end.

Anyone needing proof that hinterland free improv is alive and thriving in the Internet age need look no farther than these discs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Peabody: 1. Before The Fall+*~ 2. Night of the Krell+%# 3. Klatu@^ 4. Homeless+

Personnel: Peabody: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet+, alto saxophone%, tenor saxophone@, voice); Jack Wright (alto and tenor saxophones)*; Jerry Lim (guitar)^; Sean Meehan (percussion)#; Ian Nagoski (electronics)~; Michael Johnsen (self-built electronics, musical saw, soprano saxophone)#; James Coleman (theremin)^

Track Listing: Clang: 1. Hard won 2. Clang 1 3. Bee in your Boppet 4. Prelude and Fluke 5. a Quarter-tone past the outstretched Muscle* 6. 2nd School in Vienna 7. Metamorphosis of a Pun 8. Clang 2

Personnel: Clang: Jack Wright (alto, tenor, and soprano saxophones, piano*); Bob Falesch (metaPiano, piano*)

April 5, 2002

Trio X

On tour … toronto/rochester
Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1134

Accurately named, this cooperative group shouldn't be thought of as Joe McPhee's trio. For the contributions of bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen -- the Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones of American new jazz -- are as important to the success of this CD as the work of multi-instrumentalist McPhee.

Recorded live, mostly in Toronto, this nearly 74-minute session shows how the three can transfix audiences by working together to recast what's usually thought of as familiar material in such a way that so-called standards are made new. Plus, at the same time, the original tunes they perform contain enough interlocking compositional edges so that they're easily attached to a musical whole.

The most affecting piece is "Trail of Tears", an almost 22 minute threnody for American Indian saxophonist Jim Pepper (1941-1992) best known for his composition "Witchi-Tai-To". Fittingly, there's no attempt to replicate any of the aboriginal rhythms that enlivened that tune. In fact, the only recognizable line that's introduced at different times, is Stephen Sondheim's bittersweet "Send in the Clowns".

Relating to the jazz and Tin Pan Alley tunes that proceed "Trail", the point is made that every song can be a standard and in the right hands Sondheim's melody is no less legitimate than the Thelonious Monk piece which begins this recital and vice versa.

Meanwhile, in this performance, McPhee's tenor saxophone seems to be going through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's many states of grief. At first playing quietly and understated like the sniffles of a weeping widow, he's soon biting the reed and heading into altissimo territory, keening like a wailing lover at a public burial ceremony. After literally screaming linked notes through his horn with the sort of intense glossolalia you would expect from an out-of control-mourner, he turns to Sonny Rollins-like swoops that uses "Send"'s distinct melancholic line to signal calm and acceptance.

As all this is going on, Duval has been alternately speeding up and slowing down the beat, constructing a solo out of powerful basso thumps, and generally supplying the combination solo and accompaniment you'd expect from two basses. His screeching arco interlude, heightening McPhee last statement of the Sondheim theme, suggests defiance rather than capitulation. Similarly, Rosen chimes in using cymbal smashes, repeated snare patterns and even a triangle accent to second either the saxophonist or the bassist.

"Try A Little Tenderness" is tweaked in the same sort of way, but the performance suggests that the trio was thinking of Otis Redding's frenzied version rather than Frank Sinatra's more restrained one. Beginning with a tough bass solo extracted from the instruments bowls and extended with echoing electronics, muted percussion response appear long before the familiar melody asserts itself. Throughout Duval's and Rosen's respective pile driver strums and military-style tattoos succeed in kicking away any sentimentality the ballad still possess when played in McPhee's slurred mid range tenor tone.

An introduction of paradiddles, rolls, wood clicks, bass drum whumps and cowbell hits from Rosen that are answered by screams and whistles from the crowd announce that "My Funny Valentine" isn't going to be coddled either. As Duval's fingers work their way from the north to the south and back again on the bass, McPhee begins a saxophone solo that gradually turns into the well-known theme. If the drummer's percussion bombs later upset the equilibrium, then the reedman's pocket trumpet allows him to caress the theme as tenderly as if it was played by Miles Davis.

A non-musical complaint: CJR rightly concerns itself with the music above all else, leaving packaging a bare bones affair. But bare bones shouldn't mean neglecting important information. On the CD McPhee is noted as playing "sax". Actually he uses his tenor saxophone throughout, as well as taking forays on pocket trumpet on two of the five tracks.

Originality, versatility and effortless musicianship add up to produce the entity that's dubbed Trio X. But the three do so much on the session, maybe the band should be renamed Trio X, Y & Z.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Monkin' Around 2. Try A Little Tenderness 3. My Funny Valentine 4. Trail of Tears 5. Old Eyes

Personnel: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet, tenor saxophone); Dominic Duval (bass); Jay Rosen (drums)

September 3, 2001

JOE MCPHEE

Trinity
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 214 CD

At this point in his career it's time to "out" Joe McPhee. It turns out that the cerebral multi-instrumentalist, best known for his pioneering compositional interactions with equally highbrow Europeans, had a past association with rough trade.

Well, maybe not rough trade so much, but as this CD demonstrates, rough edges. For in 1971, when this reissues was first waxed in a church parish hall, McPhee appeared to be screaming saxophonist, very much in the Pharoah Sanders mold, working out with bombastic drummer Harold E. Smith and sensitive pianist Mike Kull.

Clearest evidence for his New Thing personality comes forth on the almost 29 minute "Ionization", where like saxophonist Albert Ayler, he seems to take the horn out of his mouth every so often to let out a vocal scream. Heck, such is the ever-ascending intensity in the studio at that time that it's surprising more people weren't screaming; you may be tempted to do so at home.

Another lost talent, Kull surprisingly uses his solo space to go against the pure power emanating from Smith and McPhee. Concentrating on left-handed lines, he creates a fluent, well-balanced oasis of calm that gradually swells in intensity as time goes on. For a time it even leads the saxophonist towards a balladic "Forest Flower"-style gentleness. An evocative trumpet, a vocalized gospel-like cadenza, bells and some melismatic saxophone concludes the tune.

Peaceful "Astral Spirits" is a threnody for the then-recently deceased Ayler. Kull's resonating, decorative electric piano reflects Ayler's final work and Smith tries to operate at a lower sound level. Meanwhile McPhee tries to honor both Ayler brothers by playing pocket cornet --with trumpet overdubs -- like Donald Ayler and soprano saxophone.

"Delta" is a brooding piece that gives off the feeling of the blues, without following a strict 12-bar format. Over a carpet of electric piano and drums, McPhee's muted trumpet and tenor saxophone tells the story in turn, drifting from harsh, staccato cries to relaxed, down-home tale spinning.

A fascinating glimpse McPhee's background that was formerly known by very few, TRINITY may shock his present fans. But it's certainly worth exploring if you want to take a trip on a 1970s time machine and/or admire the beginnings of the all-around musician he eventually became.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Ionization 2. Astral Spirits 3. Delta

Personnel: Joe McPhee (soprano and tenor saxophones, trumpet, pocket cornet); Mike Kull (piano, electric piano); Harold E. Smith (percussion)

April 24, 2001

JOE MCPHEE/HAMID DRAKE

Emancipation Proclamation
Okka Disk OD 12036

Recorded in front of an enthusiastic Chicago crowd two years ago, this CD is an object lesson in how to create an effective program of free music.

Of course it helps that the participants are two of the most accomplished players in that idiom. There's Hamid Drake, MVP (most valuable percussionist) for everyone from bassist William Parker to saxophonists Fred Anderson and Peter Brötzmann; and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, who over the past three decades has turned out an impressive body of work while remaining true to his own vision.

One of the first Americans to forge lasting links with sympathetic European improvisers, McPhee is probably the only musicians who excited others to such an extent that two different record companies -- CJR and HatHut -- were initially created to release his work. The pride of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. is self-effacing enough in both his trumpet and tenor saxophone work. Yet deep listening to the shape of his solos on tracks like "Mother Africa" pinpoints the enthralling qualities within the music. His work suggests as much as it expresses, never hammering a point when a pinprick will do. Yet he doesn't shrink from volume if it's needed.

Furthermore, his sound is certainly wedded to the music's roots; no matter how far out he might seem to some. In another time and place, his solo saxophone encore, "Hate Crime Cries", could be pure rural blues, as McPhee forces cries as anguished as a Delta songster's story through reed and metal. Earlier, his hushed version of Billie Holiday's signature tune, "God Bless the Child", subtlety backed by Drake's brushes, proves that something heartfelt and romantic can be created without resorting to syrup. Immediately afterwards, on the title track, he unleashes a molten sound-slab of tenor energy as intense as anything heard in Free Jazz's 1960s heyday.

No basher, Windy City homeboy Drake scatters his accents with the precision of a surgeon performing a biopsy. In fact, the difference between his precise drum accompaniment to the tenor madness of "Emancipation Proclamation" and dry cymbal and snare tap dance he uses to amplify McPhee's pinched, breathy trumpet on "Mother Africa" is merely one of volume.

By the CD's end, the listener will likely be as enthused as the Midwestern audience.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Crises and Whispers 2. Mother Africa 3. God Bless the Child 4. Emancipation Proclamation 5. Hate Crime Cries

Personnel: Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet and tenor saxophone); Hamid Drake (drums, percussion)

January 25, 2001

JOE MCPHEE

Nation Time
Atavistic/Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP 205 CD

This reissued CD is going to shock a lot of people who think they know all about Joe McPhee.

It turns out that the cerebral composer and multi-instrumentalist, best known for exemplary, European-inflected chamber-jazz excursions in the 1980s and 1990s, had a completely different earlier history.

NATION TIME, recorded in 1971, reveals McPhee's talents as a Black nationalist-rooted souljazzer whose compositions were as embedded in the cadences of electric pianos and electric basses, as the mature McPhee revels in pure improv. Exposing the saxophonist/trumpeter's inner Shaft doesn't diminish him as a musician, however. As a matter of fact, this session fits right in with what was the mainstream of roots-jazz at that time. Like Panasonic, it may even have been slightly ahead of its time.

Take "Scorpio's Dance," for instance, with its then-fashionable astrological title. A group composition, it meanders from ruminative trumpet and bowed bass to out-and-out tenor saxophone and drum blow outs, mirroring the sort of lightening quick compositional changes in which the McPhee of today revels.

Other tracks are more of their time. "Nation Time," for example, with its shouted call-and-response demand for a separate black nation, seems to be as influenced by James Brown's "Say It Loud (I'm Black and Proud)" as the McPhee of the 1980s was by clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre. Percussion-driven and colored by electric piano washes and electric bass slides, its simple repetitive riff was part of the common musical gestalt of the time, which culminated in ur-fusion efforts like Herbie Hancock's HEADHUNTERS. Still, the gritty skill McPhee exhibited in his barnstorming tenor breaks is a lot more accomplished than the wispy sax baths that would characterize jazz-rock by the middle of the decade.

"Shakey Jake", augmented by three extra musicians is even simpler. A free form, all out funk workout, it could slip into any one of today's so-called Acid Jazz samplers without altering a bar. Even here, though, the saxophonist doesn't let the cascading blues guitar riffs or constant backbeat drumming cheapen his solo excursions.

This CD may pinpoint the only time McPhee could be confused with Superfly. But, all things considered, it's still a memorable session. And it's certainly something that deserves to be heard.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Nation Time 2. Shakey Jake* 3. Scorpio Dance

Personnel: Joe McPhee (tenor saxophone and trumpet); Mike Kull (piano and electric piano); Tyrone Crabb (bass, electric bass, trumpet); Bruce Thompson and Ernest Bostic (percussion) plus [on *] Otis Greene (alto saxophone); Dave Jones (electric guitar) and Herbie Lehman (organ)

July 22, 2000