Rhapsody's 2011 Jazz Critics' Poll

Individual Ballot
From Ken Waxman

1) Your name and primary affiliation(s) (no more than two, please)

2) Ken Waxman

Jazz Word (www.jazzword.com )

3) Your choices for 2011's ten best new releases (albums released between Thanksgiving 2010 and Thanksgiving 2011, give or take), listed in descending order one-through-ten.

1. World Saxophone Quartet Yes We Can Jazzwerkstatt JW 098

2. Gerald Cleaver Uncle June Be It As I See It Fresh Sound New Talent FSNT-375

3. Hubbub Whobub Matchless MRCD 80

4. John Butcher & Gino Robair Apophenia Rastascan BRD 065

5. Daunik Lazro/Benjamin Duboc/Didier Lasserre Pourtant Les Cimes des Arbres Dark Tree DT 01

6. Marc Ducret Tower Vol. 2 Ayler Records AYLCD 119

7. Mural Live at the Rothko Chapel Rothko Chapel Publications No #

8. Connie Crothers/Bill Payne The Stone Set/Conversations New Artists NA 1044 CD

9. Schlippenbach Trio Bauhaus Dessau Intakt CD 183

10. Jamaaladeen Tacuma/Ornette Coleman For the Love of Ornette JazzWerkstatt JW 090

4) Your top-three reissues, again listed in descending order

1) FMP In Rückblick In Retrospect 1969-2010 FMP CD 137 - FMP CD 148

2) Steve Lacy School Days Emanem 5016

3) Sun Ra College Tour Vol. 1 The Complete Nothing Is… ESP Disk4060

5) Your choice for the year's best vocal album

There is none – 99% of so-called vocal jazz is no more than often superior pop music, if that.

6) Your choice for the year's best debut CD

Jaruzelski’s Dream-debut Jazz Gawronski Clean Feed CF 211CD

7) Your choice for the year’s best Latin jazz CD

Agustí Fernández & Joan Saura Vents psi 11.01

N.B.: Why is there a Latin-Jazz category if there isn’t a category for other hyphenated jazz music such as Klezmer-Jazz, Pop-Jazz, Classical-Jazz etc.? An exceptional so-called Latin-Jazz CD should be a good Jazz CD overall. Therefore I have chosen the best 2011 improvised CD played by two Latins – that is residents of Spain.

January 20, 2012

RED Trio + John Butcher

Empire
No Business Records NBLP 37

Although it may be fanciful to suggest that this is British saxophonist John Butcher’s Hard Rock record, his playing is certainly more voluble, raunchy and strident than on the majority of his recent sessions.

It may be because on this three-track LP the master of cerebral understatement is matched up with a trio of Portuguese Gen Xes who in this context enliven the common piano-bass-drum trio with enough rough and physical textures to frighten fans that prefer impressionistic pastels. That’s rough, but not crude however, for pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro, bassist Hernani Faustino and percussionist Gabriel Ferrandini have demonstrated a sensitive interface on other discs.

Besides touring the Iberian Peninsula with Butcher, the Lisbon-based trio members have a working knowledge of Rock; have played as a group with American avant trumpeter Nate Wooley; and individually worked with other anything-but-shy improvisers such as saxophonist John Zorn (Pinheiro), saxophonist Jon Irabagon, (Faustino) and cornetist Rob Mazurek (Ferrandini).

Whatever it is, as early as the first track, Butcher lots loose with some thickly vibrating and splintering altissimo punctuation that`s a lot closer to 1960s Free Jazz expression than what he usually plays. Meanwhile Pinheiro, for one, spurs minimalism, instead studding his solos with swift soundboard echoes, internal string strumming and high-intensity chording. Similarly as the expositions are developed, there are times when slide-whistle-like shrilling is heard. With his saxophone mastery, Butcher could be adding an intense parallel line to his improvisations. Or, on the other hand, the screech could arise from Ferrandini’s percussion mastery, which includes hand-patting drags, rim shots and flams plus measured cymbal claps and stentorian thumps. Nonetheless it’s the pianist who is most percussive in his playing. Frequently tremolo and highly syncopated, his circular keyboard chording sometimes matches the saxophonist’s circular breathing. Other times he’ll focus on repeated, high-pitched key clicking or use pressure to expose the deepest vibrations from his instrument. For his part, Butcher stresses trills that are watery and murmuring at one point, yet ascend to staccato interstellar-space exaggerations at others. In a way odd man out, Faustino keeps time and stays out of the way.

Exposing individual variants of note distension early on, the four-way communication reaches a climax of cumulative tension on the final and title track. With the bassist finally asserting himself with sul ponticello and col leno swipes and the percussionist’s mallet-driven chops providing the backdrop, the more-than-23-minute exposition bounds from Butcher to Pinheiro and back again. The pianist’s chromatic keyboard work takes in tremolo cadences in the instrument’s lowest register until he breaks free for friction-laden episodes of syncopated string strumming. Meantime the saxophonist blasts out juddering multiphonics, slurring, stuttering and splaying broken chords. In short order the nearly three-dimensional polyphony reaches a crescendo of drilling reed bites and nephritic honks matched with keyboard claps, clips and smacks until both are cut off and the narrative is completed by an isolated string pluck from Faustino.

Likely to be a unique entry in both Butcher’s and the Red trio’s discographies, Empire is a wild ride that should be experienced by everyone.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Sustained 2. Pachyderm 3. Empire

Personnel: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); Rodrigo Pinheiro (piano); Hernani Faustino (bass) and Gabriel Ferrandini (drums and percussion)

December 25, 2011

Burkhard Stangl

Hommage à moi
Loewenhertz loew 020

Obviously no sufferer from false modesty, Viennese guitarist Burkhard Stangl showcases a cross section of his composition and improvisations from the late 1980s to some of his most recent on this provocatively titled three-CD set. Known for his contributions to flugelhornist Franz Koglmann’s projects, as well as his membership in Polwechsel, efzeg and different New music chamber ensemble, plus for creating the odd film score, Stangl is as versatile as he is prolific. With Stangl’s music ranging across genres, Hommage à moi, presents pieces performed by groups ranging from duos to combos to extended ensembles. Similarly tracks touch on electro-acoustic compositions; notated and improvised music; extended orchestral salutes to English lutenist Robert Dowland (1563-1641) and more contemporary influences and associates; plus miniatures for instruments such as church organ, voice, a recorder trio and vibraphone-guitar and bassoon-flute combinations.

Just as obviously some of the polymath’s creations are more substantial than others. But overall the 25 tracks provide a comprehensive sound-picture of one of the many contemporary musicians who refuse to be shoved into a singular pigeonhole. While there’s much to praise in the almost 3¼-hours of music here, the most affecting tracks seem be those created for diminutive quasi-improvised bands or larger ensembles spurred by soloists such as British saxophonist John Butcher or Austrian trombonist Radu Malfatti,

A solid, linear piece which seems to take its inspiration from the barely there, microtonal vocabulary developed over the years by Malfatti, “Konzert für Posaune und 22 Instrumente”, contrasts flat-line air dynamics and pressurized brass tones with the ensemble’s accelerating and vibrating tutti. Along the way, pyramidal reed trio split tones, heavily strained and vibrated brass tones as well as widely bowed or sul ponticello string settings define the orchestral arrangements. Individual highlights include piano note clusters, near-bottleneck guitar asides and most prominently the featured soloist’s incremental and widely spaced tongue slaps, guffaws, squeaks and hollow-air vibrations, sometimes in orchestral contexts; other time a capella.

Quixotically, “Concert for Saxophone and Quiet Players”, featuring Butcher and a stripped-down ensemble is actually louder than the trombonist’s concerto. On it, extended whorls of sound from the saxophonist, advanced with tongue flutters, reed buzzes and solid drones are contrasted with group work. The “quiet players” contributions include static crackles, dial-twisting quirks and field-recorded bird chirps from the turntablist and electronics manipulators; steady waves of flute flutters; and resonating and fading in-and-out of focus percussion beats. With granular processing and overdubbing, many timbres – including the saxophonist’s – are processed electronically as well as captured live.

Post-modern harmonization of 17th Century vocalization and 21st Century instrumentation, “My Dowland” puts countertenor Jakob Huppmann’s ethereal voice in the midst of romantically harmonized string progressions plus what sounds like sampled textures. Included are aviary chirps which become increasingly agitated as both Huppmann and the string section remain languid and moderato. In contrast metallic, methodical bass and guitar drones intersect with irregular saxophone vibrations, with a final variant extending the vocalized theme with string spiccato and turntable-created friction.

Shoter pieces are equally varied. “Ich weiss nicht, wie man die Liebe macht” for instance, played by trombonist Malfatti, Stangl on guitar and Gunter Schneider on guitar and banjo is a precise balancing act among wavering guffaws, carefully moderated bell-like signal-processed actions and two separate string parts. One plucks repeated and interchangeable patterns while the other stretches the licks ruggedly. Meanwhile “Ronron” with just Stangl and vibraphonist

Berndt Thurner is hyper-jazzy and chromatic. As the mallet man expands the tune lyrically, echoing, amp-distortions are skillfully added from the guitarist. On the other hand Klaus Filip electronic devices and ppooll process wave forms to such an extent on “Noiset No. 1” that when teamed with harsh guitar loops, unaffiliated watery tones turn to outer-space-like buzzes and screeches.

Overall, Hommage à moi makes the case that a composer/instrumentalist who is confident enough to create beguiling studies for three recorders or three a capella voices with the same skill that he brings to create the concentrated tension available from found sounds, electronics and conventional instruments pushed to their limits deserves to be celebrated. Once you hear these CDs, it may be more than the creator celebrating his talents.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD 1: 1. Kompositionen für Ensembles Compositions for Ensembles: 1. Concert for Saxophone and Quiet Players (2007) 2. WOLKEN.HEIM breathing/clouds 3. My Dowland 4. Los vestidos blancos de Mérida CD 2: 1. Angels touch 2. Ronron 3. For a Young Trumpet Player /Three Pieces for Organ: 4. Flickering Reticence 5. Madrigal (Gesualdo) 6. Inundation / Nine Miniatures 7. For Ginger 8. Concept piece no.40 9. O.T. 10. There’s a picture 11. Noiset No. 1 12. Schneeflocke 13. Good things come to those who wait 14. En passant 15. Come Heavy Sleep CD 3: 1. Konzert für Posaune und 22 Instrumente /Drei Lieder 2. Das Leben ist schoen 3. Ich weiss nicht, wie man die Liebe macht 4. Niemand hoert auf zu leben 5. Trio Nr. 1 6. Uratru – Neue Musik aus einer versunkenen Welt

Personnel: CD 1: 1. Extended Heritage Ensemble: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Angélica Castelló (block flute); dieb13 (turntables, computer and live processing); Eva Reiter (block flute, viola da gamba, small drum); Billy Roisz (electronics, small drum); Burkhard Stangl (guitar, vibes, small drum electronics and field recordings) 2. Angélica Castelló, Eva Reiter, Maja Osojnik (recorders, voices and audio feeds) 3. Add Jakob Huppmann (countertenor) 4. Add Yukari Hagino (C-flutes); Bernadette Zeilinger (alto flute); Gunter Schneider (guitar); Bernd Klug, Olga Schertsova (keyboard); Jakob Schneidewind (bass); Lea Bäumler, Reinhard Glätzle, Bernhard Rehn, Michael Scheed; Silvester Triebnig (percussion); Berndt Thurner: (electric percussion) and Julia Pallanch, Iris Nitzl (voices) CD 2: 1. Electro-acoustic composition 2. Berndt Thurner (vibraphone) 3. Gabriël Scheib-Dumalin (trumpet) 4. Burkhard Stangl (church organ and electronics) 5. Christoph Herndler, Josef Novotny, Burkhard Stangl (church organs played simultaneously) 6. Same as #4 7. Billy Roisz (electronics) 8. Vienna Radio Symphonie Orchestra [from CD] 9. Sound Art 10. Sound Art remix by TV POW 11. Klaus Filip (electronic devices and ppooll) and Stangl (electric guitar) 12. Christof Kurzmann (ppooll) and Stangl (Spanish guitar) 13. Kazu Uchihashi (guitar and electronics) and Stangl (electric guitar) 14. Josef Novotny (zither) and Stangl (piano) 15. Jakob Huppmann (countertenor) CD 3: 1. Ensemble Maxixe: Radu Malfatti (trombone); Rafael Grosch (oboe and English horn); Max Nagl (alto saxophone); Alain Wosniak (clarinet); Angelika Riedl (bassoon); Oskar Aichinger (piano); Gunter Schneider (guitar and banjo); Burkhard Stangl (stringed instruments); Joanna Lewis (violin); Sabrina Briscik (viola); Michael Moser (cello); Werner Dafeldecker (bass) and Charlie Fischer (percussion) 2. 3.4. Sainko Namchylak, Renate Burtscher, Eva Hosemann (voices) and Ensemble Maxixe 5. Radu Malfatti (trombone); Gunter Schneider (guitar and banjo) and Stangl (guitar) 6. Maura St. Mary (flute) and Judith Farmer (bassoon)

December 10, 2011

John Butcher & Gino Robair

Apophenia
Rastascan BRD 065

Tatsuya Nakatani/Michel Doneda

White Stone Black Lamp

Nakatani-Kobo Kobo-1

Ariel Shibolet/Haggai Fershtman

Happiness for Things Unseen

Kadima Collective KCR 29

Even when it comes to experimental sounds, certain stricture exist, which if not challenged threaten to straightjacket improvisers into pre-determined concepts. Consequently for the indolent or casual listener any saxophone and percussion duo is often slotted within the parameters set up more than 35 years ago by Americans John Coltrane’s and Rahied Ali’s Energy Music on one hand and Briton’s Evan Parker’s and Paul Lytton’s reductionist Free Music on the other.

It’s a tribute to these discs that while two out of three lean towards either side of the continuum, each is inventive enough to circumvent historical precedents. That said, it should also be pointed out that the straightforward and vigorous work done by Israelis Ariel Shibolet on soprano saxophone and Haggai Fershtman on drums was clearly spawned by the forceful time and rhythm bending of Trane and Ali. Equally, it’s hard to imagine the harsh squeals, scrapes, scrubs and shrills that constitute Japanese-American percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani’s encounter with French saxophonist Michel Doneda if Parker and Lytton hadn’t pioneered languid improv with a core of steel many years previously.

Heir to the more reserved sonic tradition from the United Kingdom, despite only one partner, saxophonist John Butcher, being British, and the other, percussionist Gino Robair, American, the third duo also manages to push sound walls out even further on Aprophenia. That’s because the saxophonist’s technical mastery is extended still further by the addition of motors on two of the four tracks, while Robair’s manipulation of his unconventional percussion collection using such add-ons as e-bows, polystyrene and a different sort of motor, gives him many more textures which to tap – sometimes literally. Another distinguishing feature of this disc is that many of the timbres appear as if they could come from either instrument whether eviscerated from within Butcher’s horn or stroked and scuffed from parts of Robair’s kit. When motors are in use, however, the reedist’s distinctive overblowing becomes louder, more tremolo and almost mechanical, while Robair’s patterns encompass jackhammer-like pressure, woody splatters and bell-like pops.

All acoustic, the Robair-Butcher interface is subtler, if no less striking. Here though there are more tandem agitato cadences, almost undifferentiated until the saxophonist reveals himself when occasional vibrated breaths break up the linear tone as on “Jirble”. Later turning from solipsism, his reed-biting chirps rise to skyscraper-elevated shrills while Robair smacks blunt objects on his drum tops. “Fainéant” on the other hand, finds disconnected circular rumbles from Robair gradually converging into a quivering texture, which helps push Butcher’s pressurized vibrations towards dog whistle-like yelps.

This method of expanding extended techniques into the realm of microtonal refraction is also exhibited by Nakatani and Doneda, who like the other transatlantic duo of Butcher and Robair have been concertizing together for about a decade. Doneda plays soprano and sopranino saxophones, while Nakatani’s kit is minimal, usually consisting of a horizontal drum, unlathed cymbal which is also used to scrape the drum top, home-made curved bows and some miscellaneous bells and finger cymbals. White Stone Black Lamp is a superior example of the duo’s long-time strategies. For instance the reedist’s tonal expansions take in many fowl derivatives, from individual duck-like squeaks to a crowd of stratospheric aviary whistles. Furthermore corkscrew-like flutter tonguing plus circular breathing give his acoustic saxophone(s) an expanded palate close to signal processing. For his part, the percussionist’s techniques usually centre on bravura scrubs that simultaneously echo the ratcheting timbres of both skin and metal. Bow pressure, cymbal clatter and drum rolls create additional polyphony.

A track such as “Moon is a Nail” for example, is built on sharp, reverberating friction on the percussionist’s part, which propels unyielding cymbal chafing and bell pings that subsequently moderates the saxophonist’s segmented reed whines. By the climax distinguishing whether squeaks arise from strident cymbal smacks or nasal reed bites is impossible. Because of their basic pinched quality however, Doneda’s sour split tones are identifiable on “Circle Lamp”, as are Nakatani’s drum-skin patting and cymbal vibrations. Nonetheless before the ragged saxophone tones dissipate from needle-thin to nothingness, a spiccato bow squeak creates undulating polyrhythms that unite both players.

Tellingly, such is the pace at which experimental music changes, that Shibolet’s and Fershtman’s 10 improvisations sound nearly traditional. Both Tel Aviv-based, the drummer has performed with children in schools and played with local avant-gardists such as bassist Jean Claude Jones and saxophonist Albert Berger. More travelled, the saxophonist has given concerts in Germany and the United States and played with musicians such as French bassist Joëlle Léandre and American pianist Scott R. Looney.

During the course of this CD, recorded live at two Tel Aviv performance spaces, the Israelis stretch the limits of their respective instruments’ techniques. Although their playing is more closely related to Energy Music than that of the duos on the other two discs, hard, fast phrasing isn’t their only stock in trade. A piece such as “Live at ‘The Box’ 2”, for instance, finds Shibolet using an intense singular tone on his soprano that reflects back into itself as he plays. As Shibolet involves himself in circular-breathed multiphonics, Fershtman’s response is couched in press rolls, ruffs and hollow cymbal clattering.

In a similar fashion, on “A Place for Cy Twombly” – one of the many tunes on three-related CDs the saxophonist has created honoring the late American painter’s art – Shibolet’s sound is staccato and sibilant. Whistling and buzzing split tones become watery as they imply bubbling circular patterns. Meanwhile the drummers scrapes his drums’ sides and rumbles stentorian pulses from their tops while shaking what sounds like a rubber hose in the air.

Nonetheless, the duo’s tougher and more pugnacious side is given an extended showcase on the more-than-27-minute first track. As Fershtman constant phrase-making have him come across as a kosher Elvin Jones, due to cross sticking, press rolls and frequent ruffs, Shibolet too goes through a variety of exercises that put him firmly in the Trane camp. Breaking away from parallel improvisation with drummer, the reedist squeals a bagpipe chanter-like tone which swells until pitch vibrations and note flurries are packed into each altissimo cry. Expanding the narrative so that note stuttering create sequences of split-tone reflux and strained slurs at several speeds and intensities, Shibolet only downshifts slightly near the end to meet the drummer’s ruffs, clatters and press rolls. Finally as Fershtman directly smacks his bass drum and toms, the saxophonist moulds a collection of reed bites into a stretched final riff.

Surprisingly the five tunes which close out the CD balance both reductionist Free Music and harder Energy Music – especially in the saxophonist’s playing. At times Shibolet’s ney-like tone renders multiphonic timbres in a single breath; elsewhere his output turns granular and congested. In most cases, his reed quivers hang in the air long after he stops playing.

No matter which saxophone-drum history you think each of these duos suggest, all have added enough originality to their programs to impress.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Apophenia: 1. Knabble* 2. Fainéant 3. Jirble 4. Camorra*

Personnel: Apophenia: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones plus motors*) and Gino Robair (energized surfaces)

Track Listing: White: 1. You Come With All The Insects 2. Circle Lamp 3. Butterfly Hesitant 4. Fagot 5. Moon Is A Nail 6. The Bee Is Short

Personnel: White: Michel Doneda (soprano and sopranino saxophones) and Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion)

Track Listing: Happiness: 1. Live at “The Box” 1 2. Live at “The Box” 2 3. A Place for Cy Twombly 4. Complete Darkness/bright light. 5. Requiem 6. Live at “Levontin7” 7. Movement 1 8. Movement 2 9. Movement 310. Movement 4

Personnel: Happiness: Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Haggai Fershtman (drums)

November 15, 2011

Rastascan

Label Spotlight
By Ken Waxman

“There was never a master plan, except to release music I enjoy and promote musicians I want to help”, says Bay area drummer Gino Robair when asked why he started Rastascan records in the early 1980s and has kept it going ever since.

Over the years the California imprint, named after the term “rasters” from television technology, has put out music on CD, LP, DVD and cassette, as downloads and even on flexi-disc, with sessions featuring artists ranging from Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker to lesser-known improvisers. “Unlike many labels that take a curatorial stance or try to ‘produce’ each record, I give the artists full control over the presentation of their work,” explains Robair. “They determine the look of the graphics, the order and choice of the music, the titles of the album and pieces. That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about running a label; seeing and hearing the full artistic statement that the object represents”.

Based in Redlands, Calif. in the early 1980s, Robair figured that starting a label was the only way to make the music he and his friends played available. Plus “my favorite artists had started their own labels: the Residents, Harry Partch, Charles Mingus, Carla Bley, Sun Ra,” he recalls. Lacking the funds to put out LPs, cassettes and one magazine- inserted flexi-disc were released on Rastascan. When the drummer relocated to the Bay Area in the late 1980s, he revived Rastascan with a 12-inch single featuring Robair, Braxton and guitarist Aric Rubin. “I pressed 500, but only about 125 got out; the remaining stock was accidentally destroyed by a distributor.”

Despite this setback, he pressed on with Rastascan, which to date has released 66 sessions from local and international players. Although early discs were by Californians such as reedist Randy McKean’s So Dig This Big Crux BRD 012 and the band Debris Terre Haute BRD 011, its international profile was established with Lower Lurum BRD 016 by German daxophone player Han Reichel, and still available as a download. “I enjoyed his music very much, but there wasn’t anything by him available in the U.S.,” recalls Robair. “So I wrote him asking if he’d be interested in sending me something to release. I was floored when he agreed.”

ROVA Saxophonist Jon Raskin, who has known Robair since 1986 and put out several CDs on Rastascan, notes how has the label supports a range of different sounds: “Rastasan includes works that have compositional elements as well those that range from studio manipulations and non-traditional music notation to more traditional music that has innovative improvisation. Gino supports the artist’s viewpoint and goals with his label, which is greatly appreciated when many labels follow an ideology.”

Being a label owner also allows Robair to match the format to the project based on such factors as recording quality, length of pieces, and potential audience. For example, Braxton’s Nine Compositions (DVD) 2003 BRD 060 is made up of tracks longer than a conventional CD can handle. “So rather than make a seven-CD box set that few could afford, I put it all on a DVD, which sells for a lot less and doesn’t require me to chop up the pieces between discs,” he explains. “It also allowed me to maintain high-resolution audio quality”.

In another example, The New Black’s White Album BRD 061 featuring Robair, guitarists Jeremy Drake and John Shiurba and David Rothbaum on analog synthesizer, is a double-LP, recorded direct-to-disc “because I felt that ensemble’s music would translate well to vinyl. And it gave us a chance to do a side of locked-loops, which we improvised.” Then there was the catalogue number, BRD 063, used for Robair’s opera I Norton; 1963 is the year he was born. “I’ve always admired how Saturn Records’ catalog numbers were numerologically important to Sun Ra”.

Despite Robair’s musical presence on about half of Rastascan’s releases, it’s anything but a vanity project. Such unique discs as Peter Brötzmann’s Sacred Scrape/Secret Response BRD 019 and Breaths and Heartbeats BRD 015 by the British Parker-Guy-Lytton Trio are in the catalogue. The former is notable for preserving the sound of a short-lived American trio headed by the German saxophonist; the latter because, contrary to his usual practice, saxophonist Evan Parker edited the pieces on it in a specific order. There was also a 10-year period during which none of Robair’s work appeared on the label. Then he figured “if I’m putting so much time, money, and effort into the label, I should also promote my own music”.

London based saxophonist John Butcher, who collaborated with the percussionist on New Oakland Burr BRD 051 and the recent Apophenia BRD 065, as well as releasing London and Cologne Saxophone Solos BRD 026 on Rastascan, explains his commitment: “In early 1996 I got a phone call from Bill Hsu, asking me if I wanted to play a concert in San Francisco. He also suggested I release a CD on Rastascan to coincide with the visit. I didn’t know the label, but it would pay production costs and a recording fee for me. Not being used to being paid to put out recordings, amongst other reasons, I accepted and met Gino when I played solo in San Francisco that summer. He handed me a box of London and Colognes. We got on and played together in various groupings when I went to the West Coast the next year, eventually settling down to a duo. He's great to play with and be with. He’s into music for all the right reasons, and has great energy.”

This energy includes the determination for Rastascan to continue releasing physical product even though some sessions are now available from on-line services. “I’m not anti-download: I just hate poor audio quality,” Robair explains. “We spend so much time and money recording music at as high a fidelity as we can afford, only to see it end up in a highly compressed format that someone listens to from a pinhole stuck in their ear. Imagine if the only way to experience a painting was by staring through a keyhole at a color photocopy of the original.”

However downloads remain a strategy for making out-of-print sessions available again, “since I’d rather spend the money on a new release”, he adds. Eventually as the Web’s speed and bandwidth increases, the drummer predicts that full-resolution digital audio will be distributed as easily as compressed formats are transferred today.

Until that happens, high quality Rastascan releases will be available in a variety of formats in limited editions and regular runs.

--For New York City Jazz Record September 2011

September 10, 2011

Festival Report:

Freedom of the City 2011
By Ken Waxman

Electronics, percussion and home-made instruments were prominently featured in many contexts during London’s annual Freedom of the City (FOTC) festival, April 30 to May 2. In spite of this, some outstanding performances involved the hyper-traditional piano or saxophone.

A snapshot of contemporary, mostly European, creative music, FOTC encompassed sounds as different as electronic processing from the likes of Adam Bohman and Lawrence Casserley; rarefied ensemble minimalism; unabashed free jazz from saxophonist Lionel Garcin’s and pianist Christine Wodrascka’s quartet; an entire evening devoted to the massive London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO); and pianist John Tilbury’s and bassist Michael Duch’s interpretations of Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman compositions.

Despite his air of sangfroid Catalan pianist Agustí Fernández created some of FOTC’s most emotional music during his solo set. Alternately tremolo and kinetic or gentled and understated, his cascading reverberations were produced from both inside and outside the piano frame. Repetitive, mid-range timbres were scratched on the inner harp or resulted from locked hands or forearm chording on the keyboard, with pedal pressing and bass clef ostinatos intensifying much of the vigor.

Accompanied by fellow Gauls Garcin, bassist Guillaume Viltard and British percussionist Tony Marsh, Wodrascka’s keyboard command was also outstanding. With patterned chording, positioned arpeggios and wide-ranging dynamics she maintained a high velocity narrative within an interface that, when the bassist struck his bow’s frog on the strings, the saxophonist tongue-slapped and the drummer thumped his sticks, seemed overwhelmingly percussive. Marsh’s shuffles and beats were normally unobtrusive, while Viltard’s sul tasto spanks involved the back as much as the front of the bass. Moving among soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, at points Garcin’s tones were almost identical to Viltard’s stops, elsewhere he projected aviary slurs, reed bites and stuttering reflux.

London’s John Butcher on soprano and tenor saxophone, in a trio with Berliners, percussionist Tony Buck and pianist Magda Mayas, and Oxford’s Tony Bevan playing bass saxophone in a duo with Orphy Robinson on steel drum, bells and marimbula, created more reed prestidigitation. As subtle as Garcin was strident, Butcher’s tessitura varied from chalumeau blows to coloratura circular breathing. Evolving in parallel to these vibrations, Buck’s cymbal scrapes and rim-shots revealed unique dissonance when paired with Mayas’ vibrations strings. Her marimba-like sounds resulted from see-sawing a wire among the piano’s internal strings or banging the instrument’s innards while pressing solidly on its pedals.

Manipulating his mammoth sax with the finesse of someone playing a recorder, Bevan spluttered out diaphragm vibrations that reflected the instrument’s ground-shaking power. It wasn’t all elephantine bellowing however. Supple breath and lip movement allowed for high-pitched staccato breaks and melodies puffed out with tenor saxophone-like facility and tone. Updating his simple instruments’ timbres, Robinson used them not as beat makers, but color-spreaders, resonating pliable vibrations and grace notes from the giant thumb-piano and staccato echoes from the steel drum.

An even wider range of unusual percussion textures was created in a first-time meeting of Steve Noble playing snare, cymbal and Chinese gong, and Paul Abbott using a self-invented collection of drums, cymbals, thunder sheet, different-sized speakers and a mixing board. Replicating the backbeat most drummers need a full kit to produce, Noble struck a small gong for emphasis, rubbed a cymbal onto his snare top, chafed drum heads with tambourines or used mallets to hammer an even smaller cymbal on a drum. Not only did he tap on drum rims, but cymbal sides as well. For his part Abbott responded with a looping electronic drone, interrupted only occasionally by feedback generated by enveloping a small speaker with a hollow floor tom.

In context, the playing of Robinson and Abbott offered more shading than that of France’s Toma Gouband. With a horizontal bass drum as a pedestal, he smashed together or smacked singly with drumsticks or a foot pedal a variety of rocks, stones and bricks, eventually hammering then with leafy tree branches.

Among other appealing uses of electronics was from the duo of veteran Cassidy, signal processing with keyboard and ipad, and young American bassist Adam Linson; plus a power trio made up of Bohman’s amplified objects, Pat Thomas’ synthesizer and Martin Hackett’s electronics. With signal-processed oscillations swelling in power while becoming more granular, Casserley’s strident and abstract textures created a context for Linson’s improvisations which often encompassing col legno sweeps and handfuls of strings pressed simultaneously. At some instances Casserley’s processes amplified bass thumps so that they sounded like marbles striking an unyielding surface; in others the bow movement and triggered sequences were indistinguishable. It was a credit to both players’ innate musicality that the oscillations helped the bassist’s narrative move forward.

Multiplying Casserley’s processes by three, arriving from different sound sources, gives an idea of the Bohman/Thomas/Hackett interface. With his synthesizer pre-programmed, Thomas improvised on the keyboard with free-jazz inflected glissandi, finger jabs and low-frequency vibrations that were somehow melodic at points. Hackett’s rising and falling ostinato cemented the triple connections, although occasionally interrupted by zigzagging outer-space-like whistling. With his table filled with miscellaneous gadgets including a water goblet and a light bulb, Bohman was the image of mad scientist at work even when he produced dense foghorn buzzes. This impression was intensified when he created the sets most stentorian moment, crossing wires for protracted feedback.

Those near-human cries emanating from Bohman’s electronics were paralleled by the retching, burbling, cawing, crying and other vocal extensions of Phil Minton, alongside German drummer Martin Blume and local cellist Marcio Mattos. Spasmodically jerking in his chair as his parlando encompassed mouth-and-throat extensions as characteristic as an old man’s wheeze, a young woman’s whispers and Bedlam shrieks, Minton’s individualized yowls made perfect sense in a concordance that included the cellist’s splayed plucks as well as the percussionist making points by smacking a bass drum, a cow bell and even a hollow wooden box. Minton’s vocalizing was better served in this context than the harmonies he directed from his eight-person, one-child, and one seeing-eye-dog Feral Singers which performed during an LIO interval. Like the orchestra itself, an all-star collection of top improvisers, the effect of both ensembles was that too many imaginative ideas were being offered up too quickly and too frequently from too many players, without proper differentiation or enough time to digest the individual creations.

Although billions throughout the world watched another event taking place in London that weekend: the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, FOTC remained an almost completely royalty-free zone. That is except for the sardonic comments of versatile trombonist Gail Brand. Flanked by drummer Mark Sanders’ subtle and clean technique and pianist Veryan Weston’s delicate clanking and busy chording, she climaxed a spectacular set by verbalizing her views. After slide-extended squeaks and snorts, sibilant tongue flutters, and long-breaths punctuated by the use of different mutes, she muttered “I hate the royal family”. Brand averred that she was further inconvenienced by city travel restrictions in place for crowd control during the days preceding the wedding. Luckily with FOTC, this audience could bypass those distractions to attend a notable musical happening.

--For New York City Jazz Record June 2011

June 10, 2011

David Sait

Sixty Interpretations of Sixty Seconds by Sixty Solo Improvisers
Apprise Records AP-04

As much a triumph of organization and timbral arrangement as music, this matchless CD is the result of a unique initiative by Toronto-based guzheng player David Sait. During 2009 and 2010 he solicited and collected original 60-second recordings from 60 improvisers he had played with or admired in the past, then knit the results into 10 separate tracks, each of which encompasses improvisations from six of the participants.

Considering that anyone hearing the results wouldn’t realize that each 60-second cut was recorded independently of the others, the suturing is almost faultless. Bearing in mind that contributions came from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Spain, Australia, Ukraine, France, Belarus, Finland, Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, Serbia, Ireland and Italy, the idea that cerebral improvising is universal suggests itself as well.

To take one example, on “9”, the captured voices and textures processed from Ben Roberts’ altered turntables and cassettes in Spain, crackle in such a way that the linkage with Briton Helen Gough’s field recording is palpable. Then the distanced puffs and mouth kisses that characterize Argentinean trumpeter Leonel Kaplan`s improvisation segue into the old-time country music strokes from Canadian Gerry McGoldrick’s shamisen, bleeding into Ronny Kipper’s church organ fanfares in the U.K., and conclude with the pseudo cool and groovy rhythmic pulses created by the whistling and keyboard of Italy’s Alessando Alessandroni.

Premeditation did however go into the selection of tracks and musicians for each section by Sait. The string player, who has developed unique tunings for his guzheng, has in the past performed or recorded with among others, American percussionist Gino Robair – featured on this CD – British bassoonist Mick Beck and American guitarist Eugene Chadbourne – who aren’t. Initially contacting improvisers in batches, he analyzed the sounds that arrived, and, to ensure that the one style or instrumental family wasn’t over-represented, then decided on which other players to approach and include.

Catholic in final execution, so-called ethnic instruments such as Ukrainian tsymbaly and Greek oud share space with more conventional sound makers such as guitars, pianos and saxophones. Unusual juxtapositions illuminate the various tracks in addition, as when the pressurized breaths of American alto saxophonist Joe McPhee abut the kinetic, near-boogie-woogie tinkles of Canadian pianist Michael Snow; or when the decidedly primitive clicks of Ireland’s Rob Coppard’s dedicated bones segue right into the modernist, but still non-tonal scrapes and bumps from Sweden’s Johannes Bergmark’s platform; with both textures fluently complemented by the slide guitar styling of the U.K.’s Philip Gibbs. Sait himself has only one 60-second solo, his multi-stringed plucks and resonations positioned between American Susan Alcorn’s pedal steel guitar twangs and the accordion-like pulsing of Pekko Käppi’s jouhikko from Finland.

This experiment may or may not be repeatable. But it certainly supplies novel and notable listening material with this CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. 1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111, 111111 2. 2, 22, 222, 2222, 22222, 222222 3. 3, 33, 333, 3333, 33333, 333333, 4. 4, 44, 444, 4444, 44444, 4444444 5. 5. 5. 55, 555, 5555, 55555, 555555 6. 6, 66, 666, 6666, 66666, 666666 7. 7, 77, 777, 7777, 77777, 777777 8. 8. 88. 888, 8888, 888888, 888888 9. 9, 99, 999, 9999, 99999, 999999 10. 10, 1010, 101010, 10101010, 1010101010, 101010101010

Personnel: 1. Linsey Pollak (rubber glove bagpipes); 11. Chas Smith (copper box); 111. Rachel Arnold (cello); 1111 Fatima Miranda (voice and field recordings); Todd Taylor (banjo) 2. Yurko Rafaliuk (tsymbaly); 22. Jeff Albert (trombone); 222. Laure Chailloux (diatonic accordion) 2222. Leon Gruenbaum (samchillian) 22222. Leanid Narushevich (guitar); 22222, Araz Salek (tar) 3. John Oswald (alto saxophone); 33. Christine Sehnaoui (alto saxophone); 333. Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar); 3333. David Sait (guzheng); 33333. Pekko Käppi (jouhikko); 333333. Andrea Centazzo (gong) 4. Misha Marks (prepared guitar); 44. Joana Sá (piano); 444. Martin Grütter (piano); 4444. Paul Dunmall (soprano saxophone); 44444. Joe Sorbara (drums and percussion); 444444. Kyle Bruckmann (oboe) 5. Damon Smith (field recordings, 7-string double bass and laptop) 55. Lawrence Casserley (monoharp, breath and signal processor) 555. John Butcher (soprano saxophone controlled feedback and piano resonator); 5555. Tom Boram (analog modular synthesizer); 55555. Ignatz (guitar, voice and drum); 555555. Helena Espvall (cello and effects) 6. Tim Hodgkinson (clarinet); 66. Beatrix Ward-Fernandez (theramin); 666. Christian Munthe (acoustic guitar); 6666. Mia Zabelka (violin and effects) 66666. Rayna Gellert (fiddle); 666666. Tobias Tinker (harpsichord) 7. Periklis Tsoukalas (oud); 77. Michael Keith (ukulele); 777. Szilárd Mezei (viola); 7777. Gino Robair (metal, glass, plastic, stone and motors); 77777 Joe McPhee (alto saxophone and voice); 777777 Michael Snow (piano) 8. Rob Coppard (bones) 88. Johannes Bergmark (platform ); 88. Philip Gibbs (slide guitar); 888. Aaron Ximm (field recording with broken radio); 88888. Philo Lenglet (prepared acoustic guitar) 888888. Carmel Raz (violin) 9. Ben Roberts (turntables and cassette decks) 99. Helena Gough (field recording); 999. Leonel Kaplan (trumpet) 9999. Gerry McGoldrick (shamisen); 99999. Ronny Krippner (church organ); 999999. Alessandro Alessandroni (keyboard and whistling) 10. Olivia De Prato (violin); 1010. Heribert Friedl (chair); 101010. Robin Hayward (microtonal tuba); 10101010. Bruno Duplant (bass); 1010101010. Mike Smith (hurdy gurdy); 101010101010. Paulo Chagas (oboe)

January 28, 2011

John Butcher/Rhodri Davies

Carliol
Ftarri 220

Rhodri Davies/Michel Doneda/Louisa Martin/Phil Minton/Lee Patterson

Midhopestones

Another Timbre at19

Rhodri Davies/Stéphane Rives/Ernesto Rodrigues/Guilherme
Rodrigues/Carlos Santos

Twerf Neus Ciglau

Creative Sources CS 156 CD

When blazing new sonic trails it seems that Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies has a particular affinity for doing so alongside saxophonists, as these CDs recorded between 2007 and 2009 attest. Furthermore, listening to these sessions chronologically, it appears that Davies is becoming progressively more selfless with his timbral palate whether he’s joined by Japanese Onkyo practitioners or European formalists. Only on Twerf Neus Ciglau for instance, are the harp’s expected ringing tones heard. On the other CDs, unexpected textures produced by manual string preparations, electronics, an embedded speaker and other techniques associated with a pedal harp, a lever harp or an electric harp predominate.

Each setting is unique as well. Carliol is an exercise in individuality between the harpist and his long-time confrere and London-based saxophonist John Butcher. With France’s Michel Doneda in the reed chair, Midhopestones features the most unusual textures, probably because the other participants are Louisa Martin on laptop, Lee Patterson on amplified objects and processes plus distinctive English vocalist Phil Minton. Most traditional – in this context – of the discs is Twerf Neus Ciglau. Davies’ reed partner on this Lisbon-recorded session is French soprano saxophonist Stéphane Rives; electronics come from Carlos Santos, Ernesto Rodrigues plays viola, and his son Guilherme Rodrigues cello.

Rives’ tongue slaps and whistles work themselves into broken-octave concordance with the rustling and rubbed node variations from the strings. With Santos’ vibrating oscillations and flanging developing into undifferentiated drones, this locust storm of blurred buzzes is at points breached by the harp’s rasping strokes, sul tasto runs from the cello, wood-clacking chroamaticism from the string players or sonic wisps forced without key pressure from the saxophone’s body tube. As the cumulative, broken-chord exposition becomes louder it also becomes less cohesive, with rough timbres extruding every which way, until the piece concludes with a thinned, bubbling saxophone tone.

On the other hand, the sounds on Twerf… could be Heavy Metal compared to the British Folkie aesthetic that seems to characterize Midhopestones. Although identifying harp timbres are missing, so too, most of the time, are other individual traits – even Minton’s soundsinging. The vocalist’s unique tessitura only begins to assert itself during the lengthy “Crow Edge” and “Wharncliffe Side”, as it pushes aside electronic whizzes, harsh reed exhalation plus marimba-like wooden plops. Minton’s strained and nasally challenged falsetto gasps soon translate into nonsense syllables and mouth cackles, cries and burps. Similarly Doneda’s flat-line breaths are sturdily pushed through the horn’s body tube until unconnected grinds and thunderous sequences from the electronics supersede both men’s efforts.

By the final variant of “Wharncliffe Side” however, the concentrated and almost overbearing computer pulses clear away to reveal sweeping glissandi, rough strums and rebounds from the pedal harp; growling split tones and peeping tongue stops from the saxophone; and ghostly ululations from the top of Minton’s vocal range. With the resulting sounds resembling those created by slowing playback speed from 78 rpm to 33⅓ rpms, is the inspiring crescendo created live or pieced together through processing?

More affiliated with real time, the majority of Carliol’s improvisations are concerned with the application and extension of different saxophone and harp techniques. While the CD starts off with an engaged exercise in fortissimo feedback, the full extent of the partnership is expressed on subsequent tracks. “Ouse Poppy” for instance, which utilizes embedded harp speakers, contrasts the delays which resonate through the harp’s body with shrill peeps and beeps from the saxophone. As the tones subsequently thicken to near-chiaroscuro timbres, hand-tapped string extensions and reed split tones define each instrument’s individuality. “Lash”, on the other hand, molds portamento harmonies, staccato string strokes and rolled arpeggios from Davies into a sonic whole outlined against Butcher’s circular, signal processed-like chirps. Following broken-chord harmonies involving pressurized reed vibrations and percussive string thumps, the narrative diminishes, with extended squeaks as the coda.

Throughout this CD, differing harp processes move from flat-line pulses to energetic organ-like muliphonics to create symbiosis between strings and the saxophonist’s circular-breathed chirps, quacks and shrills. Although frequently mirroring the saxophonist’s multiphonic screams, Davies maintains individual harmonic intonation.

The Welsh harpist is constantly evolving new strategies to deal with unique and challenging situations. These CDs preserve literal records of how well he succeeds with each.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Carliol: 1. Pandon Bank 2. Lash 3.Gallow Gate 4. Scrogg 5.Ouse Poppy 6. Garth Heads 7. Distant Leazes

Personnel: Carliol: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones, plus feedback, motors and embedded harp speaker) and Rhodri Davies (pedal harp, lever harp with embedded speaker, electric harp and Aeolian electric harp)

Track Listing: Midhopestones: 1. Strines 2. Crow Edge 3. Wharncliffe Side 4. Deepcar

Personnel: Midhopestones: Michel Doneda (soprano saxophone); Rhodri Davies (harp and electric harp); Louisa Martin (laptop); Lee Patterson (amplified objects and processes) and Phil Minton (voice)

Track Listing: Twerf: I

Personnel: Twerf: Stéphane Rives (soprano saxophone); Ernesto Rodrigues (viola); Guilherme Rodrigues (cello); Rhodri Davies (harp and electronics) and Carlos Santos (electronics)

December 29, 2010

John Butcher/Claudia Ulla Binder

Under the Roof
Nuscope CD 1023

Quatre Têtes

Figuren

Creative Sources CS 146 CD

Born in southern Germany, but a Zürich resident since 1986, pianist Claudia Ulla Binder has evolved her own style of improvisation. Rather formal and cold, it seems to draw heavily on her background, which includes a Masters degree in Psychology, a later degree in classical piano – and perhaps the climate of northern Europe.

However these two recent CDs, while as rigorously structured as her earlier sets, appear to mark newfound relaxation. Under the Roof for instance finds her in the company of London-based saxophonist John Butcher, whose cerebral tonal experiments haven’t stopped him from being one of the most expressive of reedists. Open to every sort of free sound, his piano partners have ranged from Steve Beresford and Chris Burn of the United Kingdom to Italy’s Alberto Braida.

Binder’s playing also seems more flexible on Figuren since she’s only one part of a quartet. As unusually constituted, as only a European combo can be, Quatre Têtes is made up of Binder and Gabriela Friedli on pianos, the trombone and alphorn of Priska Walss and Susann Wehrli’s flutes and melodica. Recorded almost two years before the Butcher CD, the instrumental combination resulted from a melding of Binder’s duo with Wehrli – who also plays with laptopist Karin Ernst – and the Friedli/Walss group. Walss has also recorded with pianist Urs Voerkel, while Friedli has been featured in bands led by saxophonists Omri Ziegele or Co Streiff.

Still a double duo, along the lines of Ornette Coleman’s double quartet or Glenn Spearman’s double trio, means that the band excels in narratives that expose both the interaction of the established twosomes which cross four dissimilar sound expressions. A tune such as “Lavtina” for example is buoyed on understated stops and strums from both pianists. Then as the flute whistles and the trombone brays, one keyboardist expels arpeggio-like connections as the other produces cascading abrasions, slapping the back frame and bottom board of the piano. As extended brass slurs meld with flute trills, one pianist’s percussive ruffs meet the other’s tremolo runs, with the piece culminating in an across-the-mountain peak tattoo from the brass player.

Staccato and rubato melodica ejaculations combine in double counterpoint displays of brass noises which sound closer to frogs than formalism on “Penelope”. As mouth instrument expressions turn forte, so does the polyphonic bowing and strumming from two sets of internal piano strings. This roughness is welcome and defining, since elsewhere Wehrli’s flighty lyricism and one pianist’s preference for legato harmonies often creates tessitura which leans towards fantasias and chamber music-styled intermezzos.

Much more exhilarating are those occasions when methodical chording on the pianists’ part and the flutist’s downy spongy tones are set aside to expose unusual timbral explorations from all concerned. As the internal piano strings clatter, stretch and rebound, and either the alphorn or trombone rumble, blat and flutter-tongue, these tunes eschew decorative tendencies to become focused, taut improvisations.

Binder evidently brought this ruggedness to the 15 improvisations she recorded with Butcher. In addition, except for rare lapses, she concentrates on the piano innards. Exposing further partials and node dislocation, she excites the wound strings with an e-bow, as well as doing more expected string stopping and strumming.

Startlingly as well, this expressive toughness on her part brings out what can be described as melodic interludes from Butcher, whose raison d’étre has been to eschew Jazz saxophone conventions. Yet on a track such as “Raincoat”, what appears in response to Binder’s upfront chording, is a legato saxophone fill that almost updates Stan Getz’s style. Soon however granular tautness coarsens the throbbing lines so that his staccato playing evolves in double counterpoint to Binder’s wide-spaced cascading chords.

Contrast this with “Truss Joint”, the track that precedes it. Here, the saxophonist’s distanced obbligatos and squeaks encompass static-like pulsing, barely there split tones, mouthpiece kisses and aggressive reed bites. These are then reflected by Binder’s downward-sliding portamento runs plus her manual rubbing of the string set. E-bow quivering is evident on pieces such as “Lofty”, but the pianist’s node extensions don’t stop there. Fleetingly advancing keyboard notes after blocking the key pads, this frequently used strategy mixes well with Butcher’s understated breaths which at points appear to redirect timbres back up the body tube.

A few languid interludes depend on Butcher blowing steadily onto the piano strings themselves, creating tremolo statements. Other pieces are staccato and stentorian, where tongue slaps and split tones join kinetic piano glissandi. Friction and broken-chord concordance characterizes “Black Martin, Female” where bird-like pressurized reed trills twitter as additional resistance is engendered by the piano’s ricocheting string thumps. Meanwhile, a piece such as “Kestrel” demonstrates how note cascades from the thickly voiced piano keys become one with bent notes that result from continuous reed trilling.

Revealing tones that range from mah-jongg-piece-like clanks to etude-like cadences plus timbres from circular breathing to tongue and lip stops, the melds or dislocations add up to a meeting that is melismatic or singular at different points. And that happens whether the sounds are outlined s speedily, slowly, vociferously or tranquilly.

At a higher level of evolution than the quartet session, Under the Roof showcases two master instrumental explorers at top form. Quatre Têtes may not have reached that level. But considering the band members have had an additional four years to put their heads together since the CD was recorded, it’s possible their sound has become more sophisticated since Figuren.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Under: 1. Lofty 2. Troves 3. Umbrella 4. Coffer 5. Black Martin, Female 6. Black Martin, Male 7. Truss Joint 8. Raincoat 9. Cantilever 10. Fledgling 11. Topee 12. Housemice 13.Kestrel 14.Leak 15.Skylight

Personnel: Under: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones) and Claudia Ulla Binder (piano)

Track Listing: Figuren: 1. Beauty’s Biest 2. Flamingo 3. Lavtina 4. Läufer und Turm 5. Penelope 6. Myriapoda 7. Voyageurs 8. Waiting for Cary Grant 9. Knopf und Knopfloch 10. Anaphora

Personnel: Figuren: Priska Walss (trombone and alphorn); Susann Wehrli (flutes and melodica) and Claudia Ulla Binder and Gabriela Friedli (pianos)

November 21, 2010

Weightless

A Brush with Dignity
Clean Feed CF154 CD

Atonal, audacious and admirable, Weightless is an irregularly constituted quartet made up of four top-flight improvisers: two from England and two from Italy. Recorded during two German gigs, the polyphonic expression is the result of the almost familial musical relationship between bassist John Edwards and saxophonist John Butcher on one side and pianist Alberto Braida and drummer Fabrizio Spera on the other.

Over the past few decades Butcher has sonically matched wits with everyone from British guitarist Derek Bailey to French clarinetist Xavier Charles. Edwards, one of London improv’s go-to bassists, has played with personalities as different as British saxophonist Evan Parker and American drummer Sunny Murray, while Lodi-based Braida and Spera have separately or alone linked up with stylists such as Canadian bassist Lisle Ellis and German synth master Thomas Lehn.

Although there are intimations of electricity here, no instrument is plugged into a socket. Instead the pulsating wave forms come from Braida’s internal piano string- exciting, Butcher’s multiphonics and overblowing plus the panoply of tones and textures the other two extract from their instruments. Furthermore, while perfectly balanced throughout, this group interaction doesn’t mean that any of the players sacrifice their individuality.

Case in point: “Termo”. Inaugurated full force with sul tasto bass string bowing, snapping and rebounding drum pressure, reversible cascading piano chords and the saxophone emitting fierce bird-like cawing, antithetical roles evolve by the mid-section. While Butcher’s frenetic wide vibrato, spetrofluctuation and flutter tonguing work into an interlude of circular breathing that is both harsh and airy, Braida’s confined comping and near-meditative chording suggest unruffled continuity. Meanwhile Spera’s cymbal resonation and Edwards’ powerful thumps are tonal enough to keep the time measured. Nonetheless, tonality is also in the ear of the listener. Throughout, it’s not that others don’t accelerate to tension-laden, stop-time interpolations, or that the saxophonist limits his solos to smeared chirps, growls and tongue stops or echoes partial tone extensions.

“Centri” for instance, which unrolls for more than 29½ minutes, demonstrates all sorts of improvisational strategies. The exposition works its way from bass string pings and drumstick squeaks on cymbal tops to a chromatic narrative that mixes aviary pitch variations from the reedist, snare ruffs, near legato bass string bowing and a dramatic two-handed, piano key-pumping that is as much prepared as poramento. Diffuse, wide-bore reed patterns exhibited with the caution tourists use to cross Italian streets, precede an extended pause where Jekyll-and-Hyde-like Butcher appears to split into two saxophonists: one playing straight-ahead and the other sounding buzzing split tones.

As the two sides of his reed personality meld, the tune almost become a rondo, with Braida producing dynamic harmonies, Spera press rolls and pops, and Edwards picking and slapping his strings. By the time the saxophonist has progressed to guttural intensity and overblowing, the pianist’s staccato chording sounds as if he’s playing a pressurized version of “Chop Sticks”. A sudden cymbal smack unites this melody to the invention’s final section following a further protracted pause. As the saxophonist rolls unexpected phrases in his mouth as if savoring a sweet treat, the pianist strums and counters with dynamic note clusters. Hesitant nerve beats and ruffs from Spera underline Butcher’s irregular flattement and vibrated ghost notes as the others’ contribution to the final variant, collapses the theme into an overriding segmented buzz.

Inventive and perfectly balanced whether legato or staccato, with solo tones or with layered timbres, the communication among the four isn’t weightless, but weighty is a good sense. Hopefully an encore CD is in the offing.

- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Apre2. Centri 3. Vista 4. Termo

Personnel: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophone); Alberto Braida (piano); John Edwards (bass) and Fabrizio Spera (drums)

August 22, 2010

Festival Report:

Freedom of the City 2010
By Ken Waxman

“To Thine Self Be True” is lettered horizontally in careful script above the stage at Conway Hall in London’s Bloomsbury district, where London’s annual Freedom of the City (FOTC) festival took place May 2 and 3. Although related to the philosophy of the Ethical Society which built the edifice in 1929, the slogan can easily also be applied to five dozen or so improvisers featured at FOTC.

Organized about decade ago by saxophonist Evan Parker and AMM percussionist Eddie Prévost to showcase the city’s vibrant improvising scene, FOTC today welcomes as many tyros as veterans – and from the Continent and North America as well as the United Kingdom. Participants ranged from eccentric soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill, 77 and American trumpeter Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, 67, to young participants in Prévost’s weekly improv workshop and American brassman Peter Evans.

One first-class demonstration of FOTC’s mix’n’match philosophy was the set by London guitarist John Russell’s Quaqua, consisting of musicians he plays with elsewhere, but who never worked as a group. Besides Russell, pianist Chris Burns, synthesizer player Matthew Hutchinson violinist Satoko Fukuda and trumpeter Henry Lowther are British; alto saxophonist Stefan Keune is German and soundsinger Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg is from Brussels. Shifting among Russell’s licks that ranged from rhythm guitar strums to pinging twangs plus spiccato fiddle scrapes and buzzes and bell-like twitters from the synth, the ever-shifting interface made room for bursts of lyrical trumpet, unaccented air from the saxophonist – both sounds which are replicated by Hutchinson’s synthesizer – and slides, stops and strums from the piano’s internal strings created by fingers, mallets and an e-bow. Most expressive in reflecting the split-second decisions that go into group improvising was Van Schouwburg whose facial expressions contorted themselves differently whether he was soothingly lullabying, Apache yelling or duck quacking.

German vocalist Ute Wassermann was much less flamboyant but as expressive during her meeting with two British electronic manipulators – Adam Bohman and Paul Obermayer – plus percussionist Phillip Marks. Marks, a last-minute replacement for Obermayer’s FURT partner Richard Barrett, varied his output among rat-tat-tats, rim shots, snare pops and drum top rubs, leaving ample space for squeaks, crackles, hisses and reverberations from the electronics. Meanwhile Wassermann – whose vocal gymnastics ranged from mouth-widening cries and gurgles to bel-canto warbles – ensued that her improvisations were in synch with the others’ sonic shifts.

Percussion sounds were more upfront when South African Louis Moholo-Moholo and Briton Steve Noble combined behind trumpeter Smith. Although more jazz-oriented than most improvisations during FOTC’s 16 concerts, this was no Rich vs. Roach battle royal. Instead either could elaborate on any rhythm generated by the other, although Moholo-Moholo’s smacked ruffs and tympani-like resonations toughed the beat, which was nimbly redefined by Noble’s vibration of undersized cymbals on drum tops, swish through the air of what resembled palm fronds, or bongo-like pops with bare hands or wetted fingers. Blasting grace notes with a clear, bright tone or fluttering rubato through a Harmon mute, the trumpeter eventually settled on staccato and juicy bugle-like flutters after the drummers’ rhythms dislocated his sedate tongue flutters.

Smith’s musical adaptability was highlighted in two other situations: as featured soloist in a concerto backed by the 40-member London Improvisers Orchestra conducted by guitarist Dave Tucker; and as part of FOTC’s last set with clarinetist Alex Ward guitarist John Coxon, keyboardist Pat Thomas and drummer Paul Lytton.

Unlike the conductions and group improvisations that made up the remainder of the LIO’s set, which lurched from passages of controlled tutti cacophony to miniature set pieces for soloists such Charlotte Hug’s spirited, sawing violin runs or Coxhill’s understated off-centre lyricism, the Smith piece was as interconnected as Gil Evans’ arrangements for Miles Davis. Unruffled, Smith splintered timbres that floated as often as they popped, isolating his textures from the riffing reeds, lowing brass and the clamber let loose when three drummers, two electric guitars, two pianists, a vibraphonists and three electronics manipulators polyphonically sound simultaneously.

Before Smith and crew wrapped things up, other notable meetings included a set by the Stellari String Quartet of violinists Hug and Philipp Wachsmann, cellist Marcio Mattos and bassist John Edwards whose layered textures demonstrated that intersecting and combining well-designed arco and pizzicato run extends classic string ensemble strategies into atonality and multiphonics, while retaining moments of lyricism; and the duet between tenor and soprano saxophonist John Butcher and percussionist Mark Sanders. Switching from one horn to the other, and utilizing staccato pops, gravelly tones and a wide, round mouth vibrato, Butcher’s elongated flutters, reed bites, slaps and flutters enlivened the duet either mid-range, barely there or fortissimo. Meanwhile Sanders clattered, slapped and shook different parts of his kit, at one point stabilizing the interaction with military precision, anther not only whapping a small bell and wood block, but using them instead of sticks on drum tops.

Percussionist rather than drummer, Prévost played in two formations, most notably eschewing the standard kit for an enormous gong and ancillary cymbals in a set with baritone saxophonist David O’Connor, violinist Jennifer Allum and Grundik Kasyansky on electronics. With the saxman expelling high intensity, tongue slaps and fortissimo yelps; the fiddler striking her strings with the bow’s frog when not scrubbing them, and Kasyansky dislocating time with bursts of static, crackles and snatches of processed voices, Prévost maintained equilibrium, by sawing upon the gong or rubbing squeaking timbres from the tempered metal.

Parker played in a unique trio filled out by cellist Okkyung Lee and Evans – who used piccolo and regular trumpet in a solo set that opened FOTC; puffing, vocalizing, screaming and even melodiously sounding his horn(s) with effects and to spectacular effect. With Lee’s connective ostinato underneath, Evans’ phenomenal brass command was matched and reined in by Parker on tenor and soprano saxophone, demonstrating the ease in which tone splintering, circular breathing and flutter tonguing could be amplified with lyrical twitters and peeps. In double counterpoint the horn players both exercised super-fast tonguing or built gurgles, puffs and tongue clacks into a satisfying textural display.

Also satisfying was the concluding quintet set. Mixing metallic twang from Coxon’s guitar, a combination of breakneck piano runs plus jagged synthesizer pumps from Thomas and the steady clatter and cymbal scratches from Lytton, the developing stop-time improvisation finally reached a point of layered cacophony. But this wasn’t before Ward extended the sound palate from his purposely whiny lines and altissimo screams by blowing into his unattached mouthpiece. Meanwhile Smith used vibrato buzzes to propel soaring high-pitched triplets over the others’ sounds.

Told after the climatic finale that there was only time for a short tune, Smith theatrically unleashed a curt flourish of brassy insouciance and led the others off stage. Adding a particular brand of Yankee showmanship to the proceedings and confirming the slogan above the stage, the trumpeter summed up the proceedings and set the stage for future FOTCs.

-- For All About Jazz – New York June 2010

June 6, 2010

Polwechsel & John Tilbury

Field
hatOLOGY 672

AMM with John Butcher

Trinity

Matchless MRCD 71

Adding a new element to an established entity even in improvised music can be liberating, upsetting or something in-between. This thesis is demonstrated on these CDs, with, for a variety of factors, varying results.

On Field for instance, where the distinctive pianism of British keyboardist John Tilbury joins the Austrian-German-British Polwechsel quintet, the resulting sound field is enhanced. Trinity on the other hand is more problematic. Here British saxophonist John Butcher – who was a member of Polwechsel when the first CD was recorded – adds his reed style to sounds created by the long-standing AMM duo of Tilbury and percussionist Eddie Prévost. Oddly enough the triangle appears unbalanced not from Butcher’s novel contributions, but from a bewildering reticence on the part of Prévost. This is especially puzzling since the saxophonist and the percussionist recorded a notable disc in 2005.

Inheritors of Vienna’s reductionist musical tradition, plus sonic extensions where instrumentalists expand techniques to achieve the flexibility of electronics without plugging in, Polwechsel’s core duo has been together since 1993. Butcher joined Austrians, cellist Michael Moser and bassist Werner Dafeldecker in 1997, while percussionists Burkhard Beins from Berlin and Austrian Martin Brandlmayr made the band a quintet in 2005. If anyone’s textures could fruitfully expand this recognized sound, than Tilbury is the prime candidate. Long-time interpreter of scores by Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman, he has since the 1960s been a fellow traveler to the every-shifting AMM band – which arguably invented British lower case Free Music – and a member of it since 1980.

On Field his interludes or perhaps fantasias, involve sweeping power that builds up to thickening note clusters and patterns which are then interspersed among Butcher’s strained vibrations and angled, sul tasto rubs from Moser and Dafeldecker. Although like most of Polwechsel’s work, the overlay is definitely chiaroscuro, piano arpeggios plus resonating smack and scrapes from the percussionists expose additional polyphonic colors. Antiphonal and melismatic textures also arise from melding of the saxophonist’s burbling breaths and the pianist’s split-second string stops. By the finale of Moser’s “Place/Replace/Represent” simultaneous reverberations from clipped keys, sizzling cymbals and thumping bass drums reach an appropriate interface.

A windstorm of droning textures illuminates the Dafeldecker-composed title track with exposed partials encompassing Butcher’s peeping split tones, Tilbury’s abrasive keyboard thumps and hand-stopped strings plus grating rattles from the percussionists. Angled bow sweeps, reed cries and occasional piano plinks confirm the acoustic properties of the tune. But the concentrated multiphonics also suggests the sort of motor-driven blur the sextet can create eschewing electronics.

If the rhythmic pumps from the dual drummers are understated on this CD, then percussion expansions are reduced to micro-tonality on Trinity. In fact most of the time Butcher’s reed-biting buzzes or bird-like chirps plus Tilbury’s metronomic pounding, are more prominent than Prévost’s stick-on-cymbal slides or affiliated tam-tam-like plinks. Only a few times on “Conduit” and the other tracks are the percussionist’s rattles, rubs, resonation and ruffs as aurally apparent as the others’ timbres. Perhaps some of the slide-whistle-like shrills come from Prévost, but in the main the strident trills and tongue-flutters can be traced back to Butcher.

On a track like “One Tree Hill” Butcher’s twittering corkscrew flutters and wide-bore intense split tones plus Tilbury’s uneven liquid arpeggios and low-pitched pedal-pressured rumbling repeatedly create an airy, near lyrical interpretation. Yet while the saxophonist’s squeezed tones are almost matched by the percussionist’s thin abrasive scratches, only Prévost’s knife-edge-like cymbal scrapes complement the pianist’s unmistakable chording.

A memorable one-off collaboration for an ensemble that now operates without Tilbury – and Butcher – Field suggests a novel expansion to the Polwechsel oeuvre Meanwhile, although the saxophonist’s characteristic improvising introduces another element to the long-time AMM interface, the music on Trinity appears to be unsettlingly reductive this time out.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Trinity: 1. Meantime 2. One Tree Hill 3. Flamsteed 4.Conduit

Personnel: Trinity: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); John Tilbury (piano) and Eddie Prévost (percussion)

Track Listing: Field: 1. Place/Replace/Represent 2. Field

Personnel: Field: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); John Tilbury (piano); Michael Moser (cello); Werner Dafeldecker (bass) and Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr (drums and percussion)

February 16, 2010

AMM with John Butcher

Trinity
Matchless MRCD 71

Polwechsel & John Tilbury

Field

hatOLOGY 672

Adding a new element to an established entity even in improvised music can be liberating, upsetting or something in-between. This thesis is demonstrated on these CDs, with, for a variety of factors, varying results.

On Field for instance, where the distinctive pianism of British keyboardist John Tilbury joins the Austrian-German-British Polwechsel quintet, the resulting sound field is enhanced. Trinity on the other hand is more problematic. Here British saxophonist John Butcher – who was a member of Polwechsel when the first CD was recorded – adds his reed style to sounds created by the long-standing AMM duo of Tilbury and percussionist Eddie Prévost. Oddly enough the triangle appears unbalanced not from Butcher’s novel contributions, but from a bewildering reticence on the part of Prévost. This is especially puzzling since the saxophonist and the percussionist recorded a notable disc in 2005.

Inheritors of Vienna’s reductionist musical tradition, plus sonic extensions where instrumentalists expand techniques to achieve the flexibility of electronics without plugging in, Polwechsel’s core duo has been together since 1993. Butcher joined Austrians, cellist Michael Moser and bassist Werner Dafeldecker in 1997, while percussionists Burkhard Beins from Berlin and Austrian Martin Brandlmayr made the band a quintet in 2005. If anyone’s textures could fruitfully expand this recognized sound, than Tilbury is the prime candidate. Long-time interpreter of scores by Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman, he has since the 1960s been a fellow traveler to the every-shifting AMM band – which arguably invented British lower case Free Music – and a member of it since 1980.

On Field his interludes or perhaps fantasias, involve sweeping power that builds up to thickening note clusters and patterns which are then interspersed among Butcher’s strained vibrations and angled, sul tasto rubs from Moser and Dafeldecker. Although like most of Polwechsel’s work, the overlay is definitely chiaroscuro, piano arpeggios plus resonating smack and scrapes from the percussionists expose additional polyphonic colors. Antiphonal and melismatic textures also arise from melding of the saxophonist’s burbling breaths and the pianist’s split-second string stops. By the finale of Moser’s “Place/Replace/Represent” simultaneous reverberations from clipped keys, sizzling cymbals and thumping bass drums reach an appropriate interface.

A windstorm of droning textures illuminates the Dafeldecker-composed title track with exposed partials encompassing Butcher’s peeping split tones, Tilbury’s abrasive keyboard thumps and hand-stopped strings plus grating rattles from the percussionists. Angled bow sweeps, reed cries and occasional piano plinks confirm the acoustic properties of the tune. But the concentrated multiphonics also suggests the sort of motor-driven blur the sextet can create eschewing electronics.

If the rhythmic pumps from the dual drummers are understated on this CD, then percussion expansions are reduced to micro-tonality on Trinity. In fact most of the time Butcher’s reed-biting buzzes or bird-like chirps plus Tilbury’s metronomic pounding, are more prominent than Prévost’s stick-on-cymbal slides or affiliated tam-tam-like plinks. Only a few times on “Conduit” and the other tracks are the percussionist’s rattles, rubs, resonation and ruffs as aurally apparent as the others’ timbres. Perhaps some of the slide-whistle-like shrills come from Prévost, but in the main the strident trills and tongue-flutters can be traced back to Butcher.

On a track like “One Tree Hill” Butcher’s twittering corkscrew flutters and wide-bore intense split tones plus Tilbury’s uneven liquid arpeggios and low-pitched pedal-pressured rumbling repeatedly create an airy, near lyrical interpretation. Yet while the saxophonist’s squeezed tones are almost matched by the percussionist’s thin abrasive scratches, only Prévost’s knife-edge-like cymbal scrapes complement the pianist’s unmistakable chording.

A memorable one-off collaboration for an ensemble that now operates without Tilbury – and Butcher – Field suggests a novel expansion to the Polwechsel oeuvre Meanwhile, although the saxophonist’s characteristic improvising introduces another element to the long-time AMM interface, the music on Trinity appears to be unsettlingly reductive this time out.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Trinity: 1. Meantime 2. One Tree Hill 3. Flamsteed 4.Conduit

Personnel: Trinity: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); John Tilbury (piano) and Eddie Prévost (percussion)

Track Listing: Field: 1. Place/Replace/Represent 2. Field

Personnel: Field: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); John Tilbury (piano); Michael Moser (cello); Werner Dafeldecker (bass) and Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr (drums and percussion)

February 16, 2010

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble

The Moment’s Energy
ECM 2066

John Butcher Group

Somethingtobesaid

Weight of Wax WOW 02

Now that a large portion of improvised music is deliberately moving further away from its swing-blues roots and into an accommodation with New music, a few far-sighted so-called classical festivals have made a place for improvisers. Tellingly, both these captivating CDs featuring ensembles performing large-scale compositions by significant British saxophonists, were commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. More importantly, neither work is a jazz-classical cameo, but expansive enough to allow the composers’ ideas to be figuratively painted on a larger canvas, using an extended sonic palate.

Although Evan Parker, who sticks to soprano saxophone on The Moment’s Energy, and John Butcher, who plays tenor and soprano saxophones plus samples on Somethingtobesaid, are probably the U.K.’s best-known Free Music saxophonists, the range and organization of the other instruments here highlights their differing approach to orchestral creativity. The Moment’s Energy, for instance, is an electro-acoustic exploration and to this end six electronics-manipulators are part of the group, in addition to percussionist Paul Lytton and violinist Philipp Wachsmann – two long-time Parker associates – utilizing live electronics. On the acoustic side, Barcelona’s Agustí Fernández plays both acoustic and prepared piano; New York’s Ned Rothenberg clarinet and bass clarinet; and Peter Evans, another American, trumpet and piccolo trumpet.

Along with Parker, bassist Barry Guy and shô player Ko Ishikawa produce singular acoustic tones. But during the course of the suite, sound processing, sampling remixing and layering predominates, emanating from Lawrence Casserley’s signal processing instrument, Joel Ryan’s sampler and signal processor, Walter Prati’s computer processor plus the live electronics of Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer – who perform as Furt – and the sound projection of Marco Vecchi.

Somethingtobesaid on the other hand is nearly all acoustic, despite Butcher’s pre-recordings, Thomas Lehn’s analog synthesizer, Adam Linson’s bass and electronics and Dieb13’s turntables. Performed live at Huddersfield, sonic pleasure derives from trying to decipher which pulses are created electronically and which are the product of sophisticated extended techniques from Chris Burn’s piano, John Edward’s bass, Clare Cooper’s harp and guzheng and Gino Robair’s percussion and so-called energized surfaces.

Energized is a fine overall description for the CD, consisting of one long improvisation/composition, since gestures encompassing rubs, scraps, shuffles, plinks and strokes – usually fortissimo and staccatissimo – are layered into the piece. From the very beginning unvarying synthesized and oscillated peeps and pumps – not to mention captured voice replayed from the turntable or pre-recordings – reflectively pulse alongside clipped and sul ponticello swipes, slaps and wood-rending sounds from the bassists and guzheng player, plus piano glissandi and buzzing reed partials and tongue slaps. Often the sonic tautness is such that when Butcher plays a few measures in the common saxophone range, backed by Edwards’ slap bass, the effect is as upsetting as if a Renaissance harlequin had made a brief appearance in a Sci-Fi tale.

Although a collective work, space is also made for individual expression that never quite become solos or duos in the traditional sense. Around the seventh track indicator, for example, Burn compresses choruses of cascading keyboard runs and sweeping portamento notes in order to harmonically face off with electronic pulses and voltage vibrations from Lehn’s synthesizer. Afterwards he abruptly pumps out some quasi-stride-piano runs to accompany Butcher’s quacking reed timbres.

Earlier Robair’s crashes, bangs, cymbal slaps and bell-pealing plus freight-train shrills and resonating vibraharp strokes break through the blurry sound field to challenge the super-fast dial-twisting, in-and-out-stop-start flutters, clangs and flanges from the turntable and synthesizer. His energized surfaces as well as Lehn’s ring-modulator-like whooshes also serve as backdrop for curt, sparrow-like sibilant tweets and caws from Butcher. Subsequent reed-biting vibrations hook up with clattering from hard objects placed on and swept aside from the piano strings plus echoing cymbal crashes

Whether involved in pumping counterpoint in front of dense signal-processed crackling or circular-breathing alongside tremolo piano runs, Butcher’s unshaken aplomb while playing directs than concentrates the layers chromatically. Finally the various pitches and tones complete the sound circle.

Mixing live and processed tracks, The Moment’s Energy – recorded one year earlier in Huddersfield as well – is no less notable. Neither is Parkers playing any less self-possessed and energizing. But the other acoustic instruments are prominent as well, slashing holes in the quivering electronic pulses for their instruments’ textures, without upsetting the electro-acoustic balance.

Moving through the sixth and seventh variations on “The Moment’s Energy”, for instance, Guy’s spiccato rubs and pops evolve in double counterpoint with Wachsmann’s sul ponticello scratches and squeaks. As the fiddler’s cumulative timbres roll from the strings, processing exposes parallel violin lines which double and intersect with Wachsmann’s live sweeps. Meanwhile as the vector changes, Guy’s plucks and wood shaking are mixed with equivalent electronic melodic pulses. Later, after triggering signal processing – that is so sophisticated that together with the piano and horns it creates a wide-screen-like cinemascope-like coloration – Evans slurs low-key grace notes and accelerating pitch-slides as fungible organ-like electronic tones pulse beneath him.

Shortly before that Fernández’s extended interlude mixes low-frequency keyboard pitter-patter with stopped and strummed internal string vibrations as clouds of humming electronics splutter beside him. Sailing along harmonically, the pianist also riffs and rustles the keys, the resulting sounds of which are accompanied by rubbed drum tops and cymbals from Lytton.

Fernández’s sparkling glissandi meld with growling and snorting electronic blurs plus variable pitches loop at the top of “The Moment’s Energy II”. But the other timbres soon recede as Rothenberg’s a capella vibrations on bass clarinet accede to flying tongue slaps and affiliated renal resonance. As the undercurrent of buzzing reverb and processed oscillations simmer, the clarinetist is briefly joined by diaphragm vibrato from Parker, and then Rothenberg moves forward with growls and smears alongside hissing, blurry electro pulses, a cascade of plucked stops from Wachsmann and Guy, as well as fleet glissandi from the pianist.

Already celebrated for his playing, the strength of Parker’s composition and presentation is confirmed on “Incandescent Clouds”, one of two tracks recorded live. Here, the staccato, polytonal interaction between bubbling electronics, piano patterning and clipped bass lines is no more or less vivid than what is played on the tracks that mix live improv and electronics.

One can only hope that Huddersfield will continue to commission magnificent larger-group creations such as these from committed improvisers. The first-class creations Butcher and Parker produce on these CDs confirm the wisdom of earlier initiatives.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Moment: 1. The Moment’s Energy I 2. The Moment’s Energy II 3. The Moment’s Energy III 4. The Moment’s Energy IV 5. The Moment’s Energy V 6. The Moment’s Energy VI 7. The Moment’s Energy VII 8. Incandescent Clouds

Personnel: Moment: Peter Evans (trumpet and piccolo trumpet); Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi); Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Ko Ishikawa (shô); Philipp Wachsmann (violin and live electronics); Agustí Fernández (piano and prepared piano); Barry Guy (bass); Paul Lytton (percussion and live electronics): Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instrument); Joel Ryan (sample and signal processing); Walter Prati (computer processing); Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer (live electronics) and Marco Vecchi (sound)

Track Listing: Somethingtobesaid: 1. (08.14) 2. (07.47) 3. (05.26) 4. (09.48) 5. (06.36) 6. (06.01) 7. (02.14) 8. (09.07) 9. (04.12)

Personnel: Some: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones and pre-recordings); Chris Burn (piano); Thomas Lehn (synthesizer); John Edwards (bass); Adam Linson (bass and electronics); Clare Cooper (harp and guzheng); Gino Robair (percussion) and Dieb 13 (turntables)

February 1, 2010

John Butcher Group

Somethingtobesaid
Weight of Wax WOW 02

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble

The Moment’s Energy

ECM 2066

Now that a large portion of improvised music is deliberately moving further away from its swing-blues roots and into an accommodation with New music, a few far-sighted so-called classical festivals have made a place for improvisers. Tellingly, both these captivating CDs featuring ensembles performing large-scale compositions by significant British saxophonists, were commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. More importantly, neither work is a jazz-classical cameo, but expansive enough to allow the composers’ ideas to be figuratively painted on a larger canvas, using an extended sonic palate.

Although Evan Parker, who sticks to soprano saxophone on The Moment’s Energy, and John Butcher, who plays tenor and soprano saxophones plus samples on Somethingtobesaid, are probably the U.K.’s best-known Free Music saxophonists, the range and organization of the other instruments here highlights their differing approach to orchestral creativity. The Moment’s Energy, for instance, is an electro-acoustic exploration and to this end six electronics-manipulators are part of the group, in addition to percussionist Paul Lytton and violinist Philipp Wachsmann – two long-time Parker associates – utilizing live electronics. On the acoustic side, Barcelona’s Agustí Fernández plays both acoustic and prepared piano; New York’s Ned Rothenberg clarinet and bass clarinet; and Peter Evans, another American, trumpet and piccolo trumpet.

Along with Parker, bassist Barry Guy and shô player Ko Ishikawa produce singular acoustic tones. But during the course of the suite, sound processing, sampling remixing and layering predominates, emanating from Lawrence Casserley’s signal processing instrument, Joel Ryan’s sampler and signal processor, Walter Prati’s computer processor plus the live electronics of Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer – who perform as Furt – and the sound projection of Marco Vecchi.

Somethingtobesaid on the other hand is nearly all acoustic, despite Butcher’s pre-recordings, Thomas Lehn’s analog synthesizer, Adam Linson’s bass and electronics and Dieb13’s turntables. Performed live at Huddersfield, sonic pleasure derives from trying to decipher which pulses are created electronically and which are the product of sophisticated extended techniques from Chris Burn’s piano, John Edward’s bass, Clare Cooper’s harp and guzheng and Gino Robair’s percussion and so-called energized surfaces.

Energized is a fine overall description for the CD, consisting of one long improvisation/composition, since gestures encompassing rubs, scraps, shuffles, plinks and strokes – usually fortissimo and staccatissimo – are layered into the piece. From the very beginning unvarying synthesized and oscillated peeps and pumps – not to mention captured voice replayed from the turntable or pre-recordings – reflectively pulse alongside clipped and sul ponticello swipes, slaps and wood-rending sounds from the bassists and guzheng player, plus piano glissandi and buzzing reed partials and tongue slaps. Often the sonic tautness is such that when Butcher plays a few measures in the common saxophone range, backed by Edwards’ slap bass, the effect is as upsetting as if a Renaissance harlequin had made a brief appearance in a Sci-Fi tale.

Although a collective work, space is also made for individual expression that never quite become solos or duos in the traditional sense. Around the seventh track indicator, for example, Burn compresses choruses of cascading keyboard runs and sweeping portamento notes in order to harmonically face off with electronic pulses and voltage vibrations from Lehn’s synthesizer. Afterwards he abruptly pumps out some quasi-stride-piano runs to accompany Butcher’s quacking reed timbres.

Earlier Robair’s crashes, bangs, cymbal slaps and bell-pealing plus freight-train shrills and resonating vibraharp strokes break through the blurry sound field to challenge the super-fast dial-twisting, in-and-out-stop-start flutters, clangs and flanges from the turntable and synthesizer. His energized surfaces as well as Lehn’s ring-modulator-like whooshes also serve as backdrop for curt, sparrow-like sibilant tweets and caws from Butcher. Subsequent reed-biting vibrations hook up with clattering from hard objects placed on and swept aside from the piano strings plus echoing cymbal crashes

Whether involved in pumping counterpoint in front of dense signal-processed crackling or circular-breathing alongside tremolo piano runs, Butcher’s unshaken aplomb while playing directs than concentrates the layers chromatically. Finally the various pitches and tones complete the sound circle.

Mixing live and processed tracks, The Moment’s Energy – recorded one year earlier in Huddersfield as well – is no less notable. Neither is Parkers playing any less self-possessed and energizing. But the other acoustic instruments are prominent as well, slashing holes in the quivering electronic pulses for their instruments’ textures, without upsetting the electro-acoustic balance.

Moving through the sixth and seventh variations on “The Moment’s Energy”, for instance, Guy’s spiccato rubs and pops evolve in double counterpoint with Wachsmann’s sul ponticello scratches and squeaks. As the fiddler’s cumulative timbres roll from the strings, processing exposes parallel violin lines which double and intersect with Wachsmann’s live sweeps. Meanwhile as the vector changes, Guy’s plucks and wood shaking are mixed with equivalent electronic melodic pulses. Later, after triggering signal processing – that is so sophisticated that together with the piano and horns it creates a wide-screen-like cinemascope-like coloration – Evans slurs low-key grace notes and accelerating pitch-slides as fungible organ-like electronic tones pulse beneath him.

Shortly before that Fernández’s extended interlude mixes low-frequency keyboard pitter-patter with stopped and strummed internal string vibrations as clouds of humming electronics splutter beside him. Sailing along harmonically, the pianist also riffs and rustles the keys, the resulting sounds of which are accompanied by rubbed drum tops and cymbals from Lytton.

Fernández’s sparkling glissandi meld with growling and snorting electronic blurs plus variable pitches loop at the top of “The Moment’s Energy II”. But the other timbres soon recede as Rothenberg’s a capella vibrations on bass clarinet accede to flying tongue slaps and affiliated renal resonance. As the undercurrent of buzzing reverb and processed oscillations simmer, the clarinetist is briefly joined by diaphragm vibrato from Parker, and then Rothenberg moves forward with growls and smears alongside hissing, blurry electro pulses, a cascade of plucked stops from Wachsmann and Guy, as well as fleet glissandi from the pianist.

Already celebrated for his playing, the strength of Parker’s composition and presentation is confirmed on “Incandescent Clouds”, one of two tracks recorded live. Here, the staccato, polytonal interaction between bubbling electronics, piano patterning and clipped bass lines is no more or less vivid than what is played on the tracks that mix live improv and electronics.

One can only hope that Huddersfield will continue to commission magnificent larger-group creations such as these from committed improvisers. The first-class creations Butcher and Parker produce on these CDs confirm the wisdom of earlier initiatives.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Moment: 1. The Moment’s Energy I 2. The Moment’s Energy II 3. The Moment’s Energy III 4. The Moment’s Energy IV 5. The Moment’s Energy V 6. The Moment’s Energy VI 7. The Moment’s Energy VII 8. Incandescent Clouds

Personnel: Moment: Peter Evans (trumpet and piccolo trumpet); Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi); Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Ko Ishikawa (shô); Philipp Wachsmann (violin and live electronics); Agustí Fernández (piano and prepared piano); Barry Guy (bass); Paul Lytton (percussion and live electronics): Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instrument); Joel Ryan (sample and signal processing); Walter Prati (computer processing); Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer (live electronics) and Marco Vecchi (sound)

Track Listing: Somethingtobesaid: 1. (08.14) 2. (07.47) 3. (05.26) 4. (09.48) 5. (06.36) 6. (06.01) 7. (02.14) 8. (09.07) 9. (04.12)

Personnel: Some: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones and pre-recordings); Chris Burn (piano); Thomas Lehn (synthesizer); John Edwards (bass); Adam Linson (bass and electronics); Clare Cooper (harp and guzheng); Gino Robair (percussion) and Dieb 13 (turntables)

February 1, 2010

John Butcher

Resonant Spaces
Confront 17

Accepting the challenge of solo improvising in selected parts of northern Scotland and the Orkney Islands, British saxophonist John Butcher evolves specific strategies that transform these sites into resonating showplaces. The result is as spectacular as it is unique.

Using either soprano or tenor saxophone acoustically, amplified or with feedback, Butcher takes into consideration the sites’ distinguishing natural or man-made characteristics. On “Close by, a waterfall” for instance, split tones, tongue slaps and reed bites are amplified in the Smoo Cave near Durness, so that the sibilant water pressures backdrop tonal reverb and oscillated buzzing. At the Wormit Reservoir near Fife, his circular breathing on soprano uses fortissimo multiphonics and disassociated pitch changes to reflect back upon the edifice’s stones, creating reverberating tones completely acoustically. Sometimes Butcher allows nature to take over, as when outside, he ceases his key percussion, letting gusts of wind blow through his saxophone.

Different saxophones suggest varied approaches at the same location. When Butcher plays tenor in Lyness’ oil tank, staccato timbres ricochet off the metal walls and are only gradually masticated into legato tones. Yet using soprano saxophone feedback, he seems to magnetizes all available aural space so the resulting trills adumbrate then echo the initial textures, creating a solid sound block.

Sculpting the sound available from these isolated spaces to his own specifications, Butcher proves that a committed improviser can use any acoustical properties to make original and memorable music.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For MusicWorks Issue #105

November 12, 2009

London & Glasgow Improvisers Orchestras

Separately & Together
Emanem 4219

London Improvisers Orchestra

Improvisations for George Riste

psi 08.06

Successfully guiding free-form improvisations and conductions utilizing the talents of independent musicians in a large orchestra is a challenge; trying to do the same with two outsized improvising ensembles can be foolhardy. Yet that memorable experiment is captured on Separately & Together, a two-CD record of a 2007 meeting between London’s 27-piece Improvisers Orchestra and Glasgow’s 17-piece Improvisers Orchestra. Separate sets by both bands are also featured.

Improvisations for George Riste is another notable achievement, since it gathers together four extended non-conducted improvisations from the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO), recorded in different configurations during 2003, plus one from 2007.

Subscribing to an antithetical set of dynamic, rhythmic, tonal and sonic considerations despite their numbers, there’s no way this combination of the LIO and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) creates a cumulative sound close to jazz’s most famous orchestral meeting: that of Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s big bands.

Despite intermixing both bands’ players the immediacy of individual performers is still as evident as it would be in solo flights from any Basie or Ellington bandsmen. For instance “1+1=Different”, which is built on an undertow and nearly physical feel of percussion rattling and thumping, the surging performance maintains its distinct character due to individual players’ strategies. Punctuating the massed drones, pauses and tutti cries among ever-shifting orchestral color fields, are spiraling saxophone spurts and rubato braying from the trumpets; Veryan Weston’s vertical, low-frequency piano chording that keeps the surging line from dissolving into stasis; plus Jackie Walduck’s vibraphone splashes; and a series of flute chirps from Emma Roche and Matthew Studdert-Kennedy that maintain legato formalism.

Meanwhile Catherine Pluygers’ keening oboe sets up the gradual introduction of vamps from the brass, which serve as connective tissue between three percussionists’ marital beats and distorted waves from three guitars, bouzouki, five violins and three celli. As distending string squirms and aviary-pitched reed breaths coalesce, Evan Parker’s elongated tenor saxophone line signals this conduction’s completion.

On its own, the smaller GIO defines itself as the equivalent of the rough-and-ready Basie Band in comparison to the LIO’s stately Ellington-like near-formalism. Whistling brass flutters, thick bass clarinet splatters and an overlay of sibilant flute pressure characterize the GIO’s performances, especially “Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy)”. Evolving from andante exposition to adagio summation, the orchestral coloration makes room for raucous alto saxophone blurts from Raymond MacDonald and fierce triplet exultation from trumpeter Robert Henderson, along with squeezed vocal lines courtesy of Aileen Campbell. Arriving at pseudo-Impressionism, the composition’s sonic tinctures change color gradually, as first one sound than another leeches from the performance like air leaking from a balloon – with the ending built around an assembly of gradually accelerating cello slices from Peter Nicholson.

Playing on its own, the LIO demonstrates how a nine-person string section, two electric guitars and unexpected instruments such as oboe and bamboo pipes can be used for jagged pitch-sliding and solo elaboration as well as scene-setting. Throughout, as the group alternates crescendos and decrescendos of cumulative group improvisation and individual solos, the idea remains that like some of Ellington’s work, the LIO’s overriding impulse is to highlight unique instrumental settings rather than insisting on scene-stopping dramatic statements. That said, most of the improvisations and conductions take full advantage of most of the instruments’ full ranges to add three- dimensional effects to any track’s overall grisaille. For instance John Rangecroft’s high-pitched clarinet glissandi is matched up against, and contrasted with, ratcheting vibraphone blows from Walduck.

Violinist Phil Wachsmann’s conduction, “On the Point of Influence” and the improvisation that precede it demonstrate how any LIO performance can be orchestral and scene-setting as well as contrapuntal, with mercurial solo edging. Layering stratum of instrumental color on top of one another, the piece quickly puts aside a cacophony of pulled, puffed and brayed horn timbres for more lyrical tone extensions. Saxophone obbligatos and heraldic horn parts operate in broken-octave congruence with one another, while sudden rubato trombone plunges from Robert Jarvis feed off an overlay of vibraphone notes and kinetic piano lines. With a wide spread of pizzicato and arco string chords, the ability exists to highlight sul ponticello roughness, traditional walking bass lines from David Leahy and Dominic Lash plus a final mournful cello extro. Further contrast arrives in a coda of brassy flourishes and clattering and popping rebounds from the percussionist.

Four years earlier, different manifestation of the LIO, numbering from 17 to 20 pieces, put together the tracks collected on Improvisations for George Riste. In a transatlantic version of CanCon, the title(s) celebrate then tenacity of Vancouver’s Riste, who refused to sell his 30-room downtown hotel to B.C. Hydro, despite the fact that the giant entity owned all the adjacent property and wanted to build an office tower there. Riste’s reason was altruism; his hotel provided clean, affordable rooms for locals.

Metaphorically it’s Riste’s individuality rather than his altruism that’s celebrated on this disc, since the performances give free reign to committed playing from a clutch of London-based improvisers. “Improvisations for George Riste 4” for instance – which was actually recorded one month after Separately & Together – suggests some of the late John Stevens’ work with expanded versions of the Spontaneous Musical Ensemble. While individuals and sections move to the forefront, never is the expected separation between soloist and backing ensemble emphasized.

Using contrapuntal bridges and broken-octave connections, the idea is to operate on a vector, working polyphonic variants into a cumulative and cooperative formula. A smaller string section of two violins and two celli sound both legato pitch-sliding and sul ponticello chords; twittering, balloon-like huffs from the four brass players ping-pong back-and-forth; while the four percussion-like instruments link ratamacues and drags into an unvarying bedrock crunch. Even tongue-slaps from one or more of the five reed players and braying trumpet blurts merely add to the sfumato tinctures. Eventually guitar lick distortions from John Bisset and Dave Tucker, plus feathery flute vibrations from Neil Metcalfe help cement the interface.

Similarly, “Improvisations for George Riste 1” proves that despite what in other circumstances could be attention-drawing cross-pulsed reed cries, sobs and gasps from the like of Parker, John Butcher, Lol Coxhill and Caroline Kraabel, the improvisation remains low-key and pianissimo. This time the polyphony is thick, but it isn’t so blanketing that individual contributions – ranging from Amy Denio’s sluicing accordion vibrations, Metcalfe’s piercing flute shrills and cumulative warbling reed swells – aren’t obvious.

Anyone interested in hearing 21st Century variations on orchestral improvisations would be wise to investigate these CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Improvisations: 1. Improvisations for George Riste 1 2. Improvisations for George Riste 2 3. Improvisations for George Riste 3 4. Improvisations for George Riste 4

Personnel: Improvisations: 1: Roland Ramanan (trumpet and wooden flute); Ian Smith (trumpet); Neil Metcalfe (flute); John Rangecroft (clarinet); Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Adrian Northover (soprano and alto saxophones); Caroline Kraabel (alto saxophone); John Butcher (tenor saxophone); Philipp Wachsmann (violin); Charlotte Hug (viola); B. J. Cole (pedal steel guitar); Steve Beresford (piano); Amy Denio (accordion and voice); David Leahy (bass); Tony Marsh (percussion); Orphy Robinson (percussion and electronics); Knut Aufermann (electronics) and Filomena Campus (voice) 2: Harry Beckett, Guillermo Torres and Ramanan (trumpet); Robert Jarvis (trombone); Catherine Pluygers (oboe); Rangecroft; Jacques Foschia and Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Coxhill and Adrian Northover (soprano saxophone); Sylvia Hallett and Wachsmann (violin); Beresford; Dave Tucker (guitar); Marcio Mattos (cello); Simon H Fell and Leahy (bass); Marsh; Adam Bohman (amplified objects) and Aufermann 3: Beckett; Smith; Guillermo Torres (flugelhorn); Jarvis; Parker; Northover and Kraabel (alto saxophone); Susanna Ferrar (violin); Fell; Tucker; Beresford; Annie Lewandowski (accordion and musical saw); Marsh; Bohman; Aufermann and Pat Thomas (electronics) 4: Smith; Metcalfe; Rangecroft Chefa Alonso, Coxhill and Northover (soprano saxophone); Simon Rose (alto saxophone); Ferrar; Ivor Kallin (violin and viola); Mattos and Barbara Meyer (cello); John Bisset and Tucker (guitar); Beresford; Jackie Walduck (vibraphone); Javier Carmona and Marsh (percussion) and Bohman

Track Listing: Separately: CD A: Impro intro 2. On the Point of Influence 3. PW to AW 4. Study for Oppy Wood 5. AW to AB 6. Hive Life 7. Too late, too late, it’s Ever so Late 8. Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy) 9. Stagione CD B: 1. Big Ideas, Images and Distorted facts 2. 811 joint response 3. 1+1=different 4. Outlaw

Personnel: Separately: London Improvisers Orchestra [Beckett, Ramanan, Smith (trumpet); Jarvis (trombone); Pluygers (oboe); Terry Day (bamboo pipes); Rangecroft (clarinet); Alonso, Coxhill, Northover (soprano saxophone); Kraabel (alto saxophone); Parker (tenor saxophone); Alison Blunt, Ferrar, Hallett, Wachsmann (violin); Kallin (violin, viola); Hannah Marshall, Mattos, Meyer (cello); Veryan Weston (piano); Bisset, Tucker (guitar); Walduck, (vibraphone); Leahy and Dominic Lash (bass);Carmona (percussion)] and Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra [Matthew Cairns, Robert Henderson (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Emma Roche, Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Raymond MacDonald (alto saxophone); Graeme Wilson (baritone saxophone; George Burt, Neil Davidson (guitar); Chris Hladowski (bouzouki); Peter Nicholson, cello; Una MacGlone, Armin Sturm (bass); Rick Bamford, Stuart Brown, percussion] and Aileen Campbell (voice)

December 18, 2008

London Improvisers Orchestra

Improvisations for George Riste
psi 08.06

London & Glasgow Improvisers Orchestras

Separately & Together

Emanem 4219

Successfully guiding free-form improvisations and conductions utilizing the talents of independent musicians in a large orchestra is a challenge; trying to do the same with two outsized improvising ensembles can be foolhardy. Yet that memorable experiment is captured on Separately & Together, a two-CD record of a 2007 meeting between London’s 27-piece Improvisers Orchestra and Glasgow’s 17-piece Improvisers Orchestra. Separate sets by both bands are also featured.

Improvisations for George Riste is another notable achievement, since it gathers together four extended non-conducted improvisations from the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO), recorded in different configurations during 2003, plus one from 2007.

Subscribing to an antithetical set of dynamic, rhythmic, tonal and sonic considerations despite their numbers, there’s no way this combination of the LIO and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) creates a cumulative sound close to jazz’s most famous orchestral meeting: that of Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s big bands.

Despite intermixing both bands’ players the immediacy of individual performers is still as evident as it would be in solo flights from any Basie or Ellington bandsmen. For instance “1+1=Different”, which is built on an undertow and nearly physical feel of percussion rattling and thumping, the surging performance maintains its distinct character due to individual players’ strategies. Punctuating the massed drones, pauses and tutti cries among ever-shifting orchestral color fields, are spiraling saxophone spurts and rubato braying from the trumpets; Veryan Weston’s vertical, low-frequency piano chording that keeps the surging line from dissolving into stasis; plus Jackie Walduck’s vibraphone splashes; and a series of flute chirps from Emma Roche and Matthew Studdert-Kennedy that maintain legato formalism.

Meanwhile Catherine Pluygers’ keening oboe sets up the gradual introduction of vamps from the brass, which serve as connective tissue between three percussionists’ marital beats and distorted waves from three guitars, bouzouki, five violins and three celli. As distending string squirms and aviary-pitched reed breaths coalesce, Evan Parker’s elongated tenor saxophone line signals this conduction’s completion.

On its own, the smaller GIO defines itself as the equivalent of the rough-and-ready Basie Band in comparison to the LIO’s stately Ellington-like near-formalism. Whistling brass flutters, thick bass clarinet splatters and an overlay of sibilant flute pressure characterize the GIO’s performances, especially “Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy)”. Evolving from andante exposition to adagio summation, the orchestral coloration makes room for raucous alto saxophone blurts from Raymond MacDonald and fierce triplet exultation from trumpeter Robert Henderson, along with squeezed vocal lines courtesy of Aileen Campbell. Arriving at pseudo-Impressionism, the composition’s sonic tinctures change color gradually, as first one sound than another leeches from the performance like air leaking from a balloon – with the ending built around an assembly of gradually accelerating cello slices from Peter Nicholson.

Playing on its own, the LIO demonstrates how a nine-person string section, two electric guitars and unexpected instruments such as oboe and bamboo pipes can be used for jagged pitch-sliding and solo elaboration as well as scene-setting. Throughout, as the group alternates crescendos and decrescendos of cumulative group improvisation and individual solos, the idea remains that like some of Ellington’s work, the LIO’s overriding impulse is to highlight unique instrumental settings rather than insisting on scene-stopping dramatic statements. That said, most of the improvisations and conductions take full advantage of most of the instruments’ full ranges to add three- dimensional effects to any track’s overall grisaille. For instance John Rangecroft’s high-pitched clarinet glissandi is matched up against, and contrasted with, ratcheting vibraphone blows from Walduck.

Violinist Phil Wachsmann’s conduction, “On the Point of Influence” and the improvisation that precede it demonstrate how any LIO performance can be orchestral and scene-setting as well as contrapuntal, with mercurial solo edging. Layering stratum of instrumental color on top of one another, the piece quickly puts aside a cacophony of pulled, puffed and brayed horn timbres for more lyrical tone extensions. Saxophone obbligatos and heraldic horn parts operate in broken-octave congruence with one another, while sudden rubato trombone plunges from Robert Jarvis feed off an overlay of vibraphone notes and kinetic piano lines. With a wide spread of pizzicato and arco string chords, the ability exists to highlight sul ponticello roughness, traditional walking bass lines from David Leahy and Dominic Lash plus a final mournful cello extro. Further contrast arrives in a coda of brassy flourishes and clattering and popping rebounds from the percussionist.

Four years earlier, different manifestation of the LIO, numbering from 17 to 20 pieces, put together the tracks collected on Improvisations for George Riste. In a transatlantic version of CanCon, the title(s) celebrate then tenacity of Vancouver’s Riste, who refused to sell his 30-room downtown hotel to B.C. Hydro, despite the fact that the giant entity owned all the adjacent property and wanted to build an office tower there. Riste’s reason was altruism; his hotel provided clean, affordable rooms for locals.

Metaphorically it’s Riste’s individuality rather than his altruism that’s celebrated on this disc, since the performances give free reign to committed playing from a clutch of London-based improvisers. “Improvisations for George Riste 4” for instance – which was actually recorded one month after Separately & Together – suggests some of the late John Stevens’ work with expanded versions of the Spontaneous Musical Ensemble. While individuals and sections move to the forefront, never is the expected separation between soloist and backing ensemble emphasized.

Using contrapuntal bridges and broken-octave connections, the idea is to operate on a vector, working polyphonic variants into a cumulative and cooperative formula. A smaller string section of two violins and two celli sound both legato pitch-sliding and sul ponticello chords; twittering, balloon-like huffs from the four brass players ping-pong back-and-forth; while the four percussion-like instruments link ratamacues and drags into an unvarying bedrock crunch. Even tongue-slaps from one or more of the five reed players and braying trumpet blurts merely add to the sfumato tinctures. Eventually guitar lick distortions from John Bisset and Dave Tucker, plus feathery flute vibrations from Neil Metcalfe help cement the interface.

Similarly, “Improvisations for George Riste 1” proves that despite what in other circumstances could be attention-drawing cross-pulsed reed cries, sobs and gasps from the like of Parker, John Butcher, Lol Coxill and Caroline Kraabel, the improvisation remains low-key and pianissimo. This time the polyphony is thick, but it isn’t so blanketing that individual contributions – ranging from Amy Denio’s sluicing accordion vibrations, Metcalfe’s piercing flute shrills and cumulative warbling reed swells – aren’t obvious.

Anyone interested in hearing 21st Century variations on orchestral improvisations would be wise to investigate these CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Improvisations: 1. Improvisations for George Riste 1 2. Improvisations for George Riste 2 3. Improvisations for George Riste 3 4. Improvisations for George Riste 4

Personnel: Improvisations: 1: Roland Ramanan (trumpet and wooden flute); Ian Smith (trumpet); Neil Metcalfe (flute); John Rangecroft (clarinet); Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Adrian Northover (soprano and alto saxophones); Caroline Kraabel (alto saxophone); John Butcher (tenor saxophone); Philipp Wachsmann (violin); Charlotte Hug (viola); B. J. Cole (pedal steel guitar); Steve Beresford (piano); Amy Denio (accordion and voice); David Leahy (bass); Tony Marsh (percussion); Orphy Robinson (percussion and electronics); Knut Aufermann (electronics) and Filomena Campus (voice) 2: Harry Beckett, Guillermo Torres and Ramanan (trumpet); Robert Jarvis (trombone); Catherine Pluygers (oboe); Rangecroft; Jacques Foschia and Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Coxhill and Adrian Northover (soprano saxophone); Sylvia Hallett and Wachsmann (violin); Beresford; Dave Tucker (guitar); Marcio Mattos (cello); Simon H Fell and Leahy (bass); Marsh; Adam Bohman (amplified objects) and Aufermann 3: Beckett; Smith; Guillermo Torres (flugelhorn); Jarvis; Parker; Northover and Kraabel (alto saxophone); Susanna Ferrar (violin); Fell; Tucker; Beresford; Annie Lewandowski (accordion and musical saw); Marsh; Bohman; Aufermann and Pat Thomas (electronics) 4: Smith; Metcalfe; Rangecroft Chefa Alonso, Coxhill and Northover (soprano saxophone); Simon Rose (alto saxophone); Ferrar; Ivor Kallin (violin and viola); Mattos and Barbara Meyer (cello); John Bisset and Tucker (guitar); Beresford; Jackie Walduck (vibraphone); Javier Carmona and Marsh (percussion) and Bohman

Track Listing: Separately: CD A: Impro intro 2. On the Point of Influence 3. PW to AW 4. Study for Oppy Wood 5. AW to AB 6. Hive Life 7. Too late, too late, it’s Ever so Late 8. Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy) 9. Stagione CD B: 1. Big Ideas, Images and Distorted facts 2. 811 joint response 3. 1+1=different 4. Outlaw

Personnel: Separately: London Improvisers Orchestra [Beckett, Ramanan, Smith (trumpet); Jarvis (trombone); Pluygers (oboe); Terry Day (bamboo pipes); Rangecroft (clarinet); Alonso, Coxhill, Northover (soprano saxophone); Kraabel (alto saxophone); Parker (tenor saxophone); Alison Blunt, Ferrar, Hallett, Wachsmann (violin); Kallin (violin, viola); Hannah Marshall, Mattos, Meyer (cello); Veryan Weston (piano); Bisset, Tucker (guitar); Walduck, (vibraphone); Leahy and Dominic Lash (bass);Carmona (percussion)] and Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra [Matthew Cairns, Robert Henderson (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Emma Roche, Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Raymond MacDonald (alto saxophone); Graeme Wilson (baritone saxophone; George Burt, Neil Davidson (guitar); Chris Hladowski (bouzouki); Peter Nicholson, cello; Una MacGlone, Armin Sturm (bass); Rick Bamford, Stuart Brown, percussion] and Aileen Campbell (voice)

December 18, 2008

Carl Ludwig Hübsch

Primordial Soup
Red Toucan RT 9331

Kartet

The Bay Window

Songlines SGL SA 1560-2

James Carney Group

Green-Wood

Songlines SGL SA 1566-2

Alberto Braida/Wilbert de Joode

Reg Erg

Red Toucan RT 9332

Butcher/Muller/van der Schyff

Way Out Northwest

Drip Audio DA 00272

By Ken Waxman

Music transcends borders, and so does music distribution in the Internet age. Couple this with the maturation of the Canadian improvised music scene and a new phenomenon is visible: CDs recorded elsewhere, but released by Canadian labels for international distribution.

This set of recent CDs recognizes the situation. Reg Erg and Primordial Soup, respectively recorded in Milano and Köln are on Montreal’s Red Toucan label. The Bay Window and Green-Wood, recorded in Paris and Brooklyn are products of Vancouver’s Songlines imprint. Way Out Northwest characterizes a similar trend. With Canadian musicians operating at high standard, foreign players come here to record. This CD captures London-based saxophone explorer John Butcher at a Vancouver gig with German bassist Torsten Muller, a British Columbia resident since 2001 and local drummer Dylan van der Schyff.

Free improv at its finest, Way Out Northwest highlights the simpatico interaction among the three that extends to mirroring of each other’s timbres. During the unbroken improvisation you wonder if certain sounds arise from the saxophonist’s sibilant vamps, the drummer’s friction against unyielding surfaces or the bassist’s sul ponticello movements.

While van der Schyff’s smacks, rebounds and struts evolve in parallel with Muller’s unconventional tuning that makes bass movements agitato and contrapuntal, Butcher uses tongue slaps, continuous breathing and glottal punctuation for a spiky reed recital. Multiphonics arise from both soprano and tenor saxophone, as key percussion and constricted snorts pushed through his horn’s body tube meld with the bassist’s wood-bending multiple stops and the drummer’s smacks and bounces. Although a composition like “magiC CloCk maCHine” evolves as a polyphonic cloud of cymbal slaps, multiple bass stops and a humongous sax vibrato, the three conclude this recital with a legato romp encompassing pulsating bass lines, press rolls and sibilant growls.

Expanding the musical palate by adding a piano, The Bay Window deals with shorter, less atonal compositions. North American connections exist for this Paris-based band as well. Pianist Benoît Delbecq recorded his solo CD in Vancouver, while bassist Hubert Dupont and Chander Sardjoe are in a quartet with New York saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Over 14 tracks, each member of the quartet impresses, with Dupont’s melodious note placement and tolling stops establishing the mood. Clattering and pumping cymbals, cowbell, snare and toms, the drummer keeps the saxophonist and pianist’s romanticism in check. Sequential organization makes “Chrysalide/Imago” a notable admixture of rondo and rhythm, as the saxman’s a capella intro gives way to the pianist’s impressionistic flourishes. “Y” proves how piano chording decorated with rolling cadences, note clusters and unexpected voicing can intersect with slices of flutter-tongued reed power.

Halving the personnel, but doubling the interplay, Italian pianist Alberto Braida and Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode are equally expansive on Reg Erg. De Joode has recorded with van der Schyff. Braida, recorded with Canadian bassist Lisle Ellis and plays with Butcher. Both have manifold technique that negates this reduced instrumentation, as their 10 duets show them systematically following each others’ impulses with radar-like communication.

On one nocturne for instance, Braida assembles low-frequency note clusters as de Joode bows intermittent tremolo runs; on another, thick bull fiddle intensity causes the pianist to octave jump into the darker textures of his instrument. Elsewhere Braida exposes key clipping and flowing arpeggios, while the bassist constructs solos from rubber band-like plucking or by tightening and loosening his strings.

Reg Erg’s climax is “Wadi”, where the pianist escalates from pedal-muted single notes to fanning chords that emphasize the instrument’s back frame and dampers. Compatible, de Joode’s buzzing arco lines are shaped sul ponticello so that his splayed, staccato dynamism meets Braida’s near-kinetic runs.

There’s no bass or piano on Primordial Soup. Instead this potage contains ingredients from four German improvisers – trumpeter Axel Dörner, reedist Frank Gratkowski, tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch and percussionist Michael Griener. Compositions snake from dodecaphonic to Dixieland with variations in-between.

Take “NCG 2270 Terrier”, for instance. Painted in broad strokes, it’s a half-Swing-half-march with a sharp tempo that features Gratkowski’s clarinet riding atop Hübsch’s pedal-point blasts, while Griener rattles and slap. Dörner’s legato counterline prods Hübsch to speed up the tempo until the reverberating line descends into cymbal resonation, trumpet grace notes and chalumeau reed slithers.

Collective and organic, the quartet’s massed improvisations occasionally foreshadow later tune development – with breaths, whines, pops, growls, crackles and brays on display. Gratkowski’s alto saxophone performs tongue jujitsu, while Dörner’s half-valve reverberations create double counterpoint with the reedist or peeping contrast to the drummer’s nerve beats.

Occasional cymbal raps and sandpaper-like scrapes from Griener enliven “NGC 2276 Inspektion”. Rubato and abstract, the composition surges rhythmically due to subterranean burps from Hübsch. Although the other horns appear to be vibrating underwater textures without valve or key movements, metallic cymbal friction and low-brass rumbles solidify the tune’s airiness.

Standing apart is keyboardist James Carney’s CD. The only American session, it features the largest band – a septet – and is the most committed to melody.

Coherent and episodically thematic, there’s also sameness to the eight tunes. Dependent on looping interface and head recapitulation, many call for a tough backbeat from drummer Mark Ferber, buttressed with Latin motifs. Some display an overabundance of California cool, especially when the sweetness of Peter Epstein’s soprano saxophone lacks contrast. Moving among acoustic and electric pianos and analog synthesizer, Carney’s versatility sometimes detracts. At points he key clips, at others outputs legato pianism or gospel-like runs. His comping is fine, if anonymous, but his voicing on electric piano, leans towards instrumental rock.

With his playing sometimes masked by tutti horns, bassist Chris Lightcap is prominent when he plucks excessively powerfully. Tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby’s chesty runs are put to their best use on the aptly named “Power” and “Half the Battle”, whereas trombonist Josh Roseman’s extended glissandi enliven “Willwaw”, making common cause with thumping bass and Carney’s piano, rife with short runs and trailing left-handed jumps

A microcosm of all that’s good and bad about Green-Wood is encapsulated on the melancholy “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving”. Trumpeter Ralph Alessi brings understated emotion to his solo, while Roseman’s chromatic plunger tones and strengthening piano chords force Ferber to apply calming cymbal expansions. Before the vamping horns introduce the climax, Carney’s light touch alters the theme with elongated or contracted notes, scrambling the original syncopation, without straying from tonality.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #7

April 1, 2008

Butcher/Muller/van der Schyff

Way Out Northwest
Drip Audio DA 00272

Kartet

The Bay Window

Songlines SGL SA 1560-2

James Carney Group

Green-Wood

Songlines SGL SA 1566-2

Alberto Braida/Wilbert de Joode

Reg Erg

Red Toucan RT 9332

Carl Ludwig Hübsch

Primordial Soup

Red Toucan RT 9331

By Ken Waxman

Music transcends borders, and so does music distribution in the Internet age. Couple this with the maturation of the Canadian improvised music scene and a new phenomenon is visible: CDs recorded elsewhere, but released by Canadian labels for international distribution.

This set of recent CDs recognizes the situation. Reg Erg and Primordial Soup, respectively recorded in Milano and Köln are on Montreal’s Red Toucan label. The Bay Window and Green-Wood, recorded in Paris and Brooklyn are products of Vancouver’s Songlines imprint. Way Out Northwest characterizes a similar trend. With Canadian musicians operating at high standard, foreign players come here to record. This CD captures London-based saxophone explorer John Butcher at a Vancouver gig with German bassist Torsten Muller, a British Columbia resident since 2001 and local drummer Dylan van der Schyff.

Free improv at its finest, Way Out Northwest highlights the simpatico interaction among the three that extends to mirroring of each other’s timbres. During the unbroken improvisation you wonder if certain sounds arise from the saxophonist’s sibilant vamps, the drummer’s friction against unyielding surfaces or the bassist’s sul ponticello movements.

While van der Schyff’s smacks, rebounds and struts evolve in parallel with Muller’s unconventional tuning that makes bass movements agitato and contrapuntal, Butcher uses tongue slaps, continuous breathing and glottal punctuation for a spiky reed recital. Multiphonics arise from both soprano and tenor saxophone, as key percussion and constricted snorts pushed through his horn’s body tube meld with the bassist’s wood-bending multiple stops and the drummer’s smacks and bounces. Although a composition like “magiC CloCk maCHine” evolves as a polyphonic cloud of cymbal slaps, multiple bass stops and a humongous sax vibrato, the three conclude this recital with a legato romp encompassing pulsating bass lines, press rolls and sibilant growls.

Expanding the musical palate by adding a piano, The Bay Window deals with shorter, less atonal compositions. North American connections exist for this Paris-based band as well. Pianist Benoît Delbecq recorded his solo CD in Vancouver, while bassist Hubert Dupont and Chander Sardjoe are in a quartet with New York saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Over 14 tracks, each member of the quartet impresses, with Dupont’s melodious note placement and tolling stops establishing the mood. Clattering and pumping cymbals, cowbell, snare and toms, the drummer keeps the saxophonist and pianist’s romanticism in check. Sequential organization makes “Chrysalide/Imago” a notable admixture of rondo and rhythm, as the saxman’s a capella intro gives way to the pianist’s impressionistic flourishes. “Y” proves how piano chording decorated with rolling cadences, note clusters and unexpected voicing can intersect with slices of flutter-tongued reed power.

Halving the personnel, but doubling the interplay, Italian pianist Alberto Braida and Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode are equally expansive on Reg Erg. De Joode has recorded with van der Schyff. Braida, recorded with Canadian bassist Lisle Ellis and plays with Butcher. Both have manifold technique that negates this reduced instrumentation, as their 10 duets show them systematically following each others’ impulses with radar-like communication.

On one nocturne for instance, Braida assembles low-frequency note clusters as de Joode bows intermittent tremolo runs; on another, thick bull fiddle intensity causes the pianist to octave jump into the darker textures of his instrument. Elsewhere Braida exposes key clipping and flowing arpeggios, while the bassist constructs solos from rubber band-like plucking or by tightening and loosening his strings.

Reg Erg’s climax is “Wadi”, where the pianist escalates from pedal-muted single notes to fanning chords that emphasize the instrument’s back frame and dampers. Compatible, de Joode’s buzzing arco lines are shaped sul ponticello so that his splayed, staccato dynamism meets Braida’s near-kinetic runs.

There’s no bass or piano on Primordial Soup. Instead this potage contains ingredients from four German improvisers – trumpeter Axel Dörner, reedist Frank Gratkowski, tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch and percussionist Michael Griener. Compositions snake from dodecaphonic to Dixieland with variations in-between.

Take “NCG 2270 Terrier”, for instance. Painted in broad strokes, it’s a half-Swing-half-march with a sharp tempo that features Gratkowski’s clarinet riding atop Hübsch’s pedal-point blasts, while Griener rattles and slap. Dörner’s legato counterline prods Hübsch to speed up the tempo until the reverberating line descends into cymbal resonation, trumpet grace notes and chalumeau reed slithers.

Collective and organic, the quartet’s massed improvisations occasionally foreshadow later tune development – with breaths, whines, pops, growls, crackles and brays on display. Gratkowski’s alto saxophone performs tongue jujitsu, while Dörner’s half-valve reverberations create double counterpoint with the reedist or peeping contrast to the drummer’s nerve beats.

Occasional cymbal raps and sandpaper-like scrapes from Griener enliven “NGC 2276 Inspektion”. Rubato and abstract, the composition surges rhythmically due to subterranean burps from Hübsch. Although the other horns appear to be vibrating underwater textures without valve or key movements, metallic cymbal friction and low-brass rumbles solidify the tune’s airiness.

Standing apart is keyboardist James Carney’s CD. The only American session, it features the largest band – a septet – and is the most committed to melody.

Coherent and episodically thematic, there’s also sameness to the eight tunes. Dependent on looping interface and head recapitulation, many call for a tough backbeat from drummer Mark Ferber, buttressed with Latin motifs. Some display an overabundance of California cool, especially when the sweetness of Peter Epstein’s soprano saxophone lacks contrast. Moving among acoustic and electric pianos and analog synthesizer, Carney’s versatility sometimes detracts. At points he key clips, at others outputs legato pianism or gospel-like runs. His comping is fine, if anonymous, but his voicing on electric piano, leans towards instrumental rock.

With his playing sometimes masked by tutti horns, bassist Chris Lightcap is prominent when he plucks excessively powerfully. Tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby’s chesty runs are put to their best use on the aptly named “Power” and “Half the Battle”, whereas trombonist Josh Roseman’s extended glissandi enliven “Willwaw”, making common cause with thumping bass and Carney’s piano, rife with short runs and trailing left-handed jumps

A microcosm of all that’s good and bad about Green-Wood is encapsulated on the melancholy “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving”. Trumpeter Ralph Alessi brings understated emotion to his solo, while Roseman’s chromatic plunger tones and strengthening piano chords force Ferber to apply calming cymbal expansions. Before the vamping horns introduce the climax, Carney’s light touch alters the theme with elongated or contracted notes, scrambling the original syncopation, without straying from tonality.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #7

April 1, 2008

Kartet

The Bay Window
Songlines SGL SA 1560-2

James Carney Group

Green-Wood

Songlines SGL SA 1566-2

Alberto Braida/Wilbert de Joode

Reg Erg

Red Toucan RT 9332

Carl Ludwig Hübsch

Primordial Soup

Red Toucan RT 9331

Butcher/Muller/van der Schyff

Way Out Northwest

Drip Audio DA 00272

By Ken Waxman

Music transcends borders, and so does music distribution in the Internet age. Couple this with the maturation of the Canadian improvised music scene and a new phenomenon is visible: CDs recorded elsewhere, but released by Canadian labels for international distribution.

This set of recent CDs recognizes the situation. Reg Erg and Primordial Soup, respectively recorded in Milano and Köln are on Montreal’s Red Toucan label. The Bay Window and Green-Wood, recorded in Paris and Brooklyn are products of Vancouver’s Songlines imprint. Way Out Northwest characterizes a similar trend. With Canadian musicians operating at high standard, foreign players come here to record. This CD captures London-based saxophone explorer John Butcher at a Vancouver gig with German bassist Torsten Muller, a British Columbia resident since 2001 and local drummer Dylan van der Schyff.

Free improv at its finest, Way Out Northwest highlights the simpatico interaction among the three that extends to mirroring of each other’s timbres. During the unbroken improvisation you wonder if certain sounds arise from the saxophonist’s sibilant vamps, the drummer’s friction against unyielding surfaces or the bassist’s sul ponticello movements.

While van der Schyff’s smacks, rebounds and struts evolve in parallel with Muller’s unconventional tuning that makes bass movements agitato and contrapuntal, Butcher uses tongue slaps, continuous breathing and glottal punctuation for a spiky reed recital. Multiphonics arise from both soprano and tenor saxophone, as key percussion and constricted snorts pushed through his horn’s body tube meld with the bassist’s wood-bending multiple stops and the drummer’s smacks and bounces. Although a composition like “magiC CloCk maCHine” evolves as a polyphonic cloud of cymbal slaps, multiple bass stops and a humongous sax vibrato, the three conclude this recital with a legato romp encompassing pulsating bass lines, press rolls and sibilant growls.

Expanding the musical palate by adding a piano, The Bay Window deals with shorter, less atonal compositions. North American connections exist for this Paris-based band as well. Pianist Benoît Delbecq recorded his solo CD in Vancouver, while bassist Hubert Dupont and Chander Sardjoe are in a quartet with New York saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Over 14 tracks, each member of the quartet impresses, with Dupont’s melodious note placement and tolling stops establishing the mood. Clattering and pumping cymbals, cowbell, snare and toms, the drummer keeps the saxophonist and pianist’s romanticism in check. Sequential organization makes “Chrysalide/Imago” a notable admixture of rondo and rhythm, as the saxman’s a capella intro gives way to the pianist’s impressionistic flourishes. “Y” proves how piano chording decorated with rolling cadences, note clusters and unexpected voicing can intersect with slices of flutter-tongued reed power.

Halving the personnel, but doubling the interplay, Italian pianist Alberto Braida and Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode are equally expansive on Reg Erg. De Joode has recorded with van der Schyff. Braida, recorded with Canadian bassist Lisle Ellis and plays with Butcher. Both have manifold technique that negates this reduced instrumentation, as their 10 duets show them systematically following each others’ impulses with radar-like communication.

On one nocturne for instance, Braida assembles low-frequency note clusters as de Joode bows intermittent tremolo runs; on another, thick bull fiddle intensity causes the pianist to octave jump into the darker textures of his instrument. Elsewhere Braida exposes key clipping and flowing arpeggios, while the bassist constructs solos from rubber band-like plucking or by tightening and loosening his strings.

Reg Erg’s climax is “Wadi”, where the pianist escalates from pedal-muted single notes to fanning chords that emphasize the instrument’s back frame and dampers. Compatible, de Joode’s buzzing arco lines are shaped sul ponticello so that his splayed, staccato dynamism meets Braida’s near-kinetic runs.

There’s no bass or piano on Primordial Soup. Instead this potage contains ingredients from four German improvisers – trumpeter Axel Dörner, reedist Frank Gratkowski, tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch and percussionist Michael Griener. Compositions snake from dodecaphonic to Dixieland with variations in-between.

Take “NCG 2270 Terrier”, for instance. Painted in broad strokes, it’s a half-Swing-half-march with a sharp tempo that features Gratkowski’s clarinet riding atop Hübsch’s pedal-point blasts, while Griener rattles and slap. Dörner’s legato counterline prods Hübsch to speed up the tempo until the reverberating line descends into cymbal resonation, trumpet grace notes and chalumeau reed slithers.

Collective and organic, the quartet’s massed improvisations occasionally foreshadow later tune development – with breaths, whines, pops, growls, crackles and brays on display. Gratkowski’s alto saxophone performs tongue jujitsu, while Dörner’s half-valve reverberations create double counterpoint with the reedist or peeping contrast to the drummer’s nerve beats.

Occasional cymbal raps and sandpaper-like scrapes from Griener enliven “NGC 2276 Inspektion”. Rubato and abstract, the composition surges rhythmically due to subterranean burps from Hübsch. Although the other horns appear to be vibrating underwater textures without valve or key movements, metallic cymbal friction and low-brass rumbles solidify the tune’s airiness.

Standing apart is keyboardist James Carney’s CD. The only American session, it features the largest band – a septet – and is the most committed to melody.

Coherent and episodically thematic, there’s also sameness to the eight tunes. Dependent on looping interface and head recapitulation, many call for a tough backbeat from drummer Mark Ferber, buttressed with Latin motifs. Some display an overabundance of California cool, especially when the sweetness of Peter Epstein’s soprano saxophone lacks contrast. Moving among acoustic and electric pianos and analog synthesizer, Carney’s versatility sometimes detracts. At points he key clips, at others outputs legato pianism or gospel-like runs. His comping is fine, if anonymous, but his voicing on electric piano, leans towards instrumental rock.

With his playing sometimes masked by tutti horns, bassist Chris Lightcap is prominent when he plucks excessively powerfully. Tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby’s chesty runs are put to their best use on the aptly named “Power” and “Half the Battle”, whereas trombonist Josh Roseman’s extended glissandi enliven “Willwaw”, making common cause with thumping bass and Carney’s piano, rife with short runs and trailing left-handed jumps

A microcosm of all that’s good and bad about Green-Wood is encapsulated on the melancholy “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving”. Trumpeter Ralph Alessi brings understated emotion to his solo, while Roseman’s chromatic plunger tones and strengthening piano chords force Ferber to apply calming cymbal expansions. Before the vamping horns introduce the climax, Carney’s light touch alters the theme with elongated or contracted notes, scrambling the original syncopation, without straying from tonality.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #7

April 1, 2008

James Carney Group

Green-Wood
Songlines SGL SA 1566-2

Alberto Braida/Wilbert de Joode

Reg Erg

Red Toucan RT 9332

Kartet

The Bay Window

Songlines SGL SA 1560-2

Carl Ludwig Hübsch

Primordial Soup

Red Toucan RT 9331

Butcher/Muller/van der Schyff

Way Out Northwest

Drip Audio DA 00272

By Ken Waxman

Music transcends borders, and so does music distribution in the Internet age. Couple this with the maturation of the Canadian improvised music scene and a new phenomenon is visible: CDs recorded elsewhere, but released by Canadian labels for international distribution.

This set of recent CDs recognizes the situation. Reg Erg and Primordial Soup, respectively recorded in Milano and Köln are on Montreal’s Red Toucan label. The Bay Window and Green-Wood, recorded in Paris and Brooklyn are products of Vancouver’s Songlines imprint. Way Out Northwest characterizes a similar trend. With Canadian musicians operating at high standard, foreign players come here to record. This CD captures London-based saxophone explorer John Butcher at a Vancouver gig with German bassist Torsten Muller, a British Columbia resident since 2001 and local drummer Dylan van der Schyff.

Free improv at its finest, Way Out Northwest highlights the simpatico interaction among the three that extends to mirroring of each other’s timbres. During the unbroken improvisation you wonder if certain sounds arise from the saxophonist’s sibilant vamps, the drummer’s friction against unyielding surfaces or the bassist’s sul ponticello movements.

While van der Schyff’s smacks, rebounds and struts evolve in parallel with Muller’s unconventional tuning that makes bass movements agitato and contrapuntal, Butcher uses tongue slaps, continuous breathing and glottal punctuation for a spiky reed recital. Multiphonics arise from both soprano and tenor saxophone, as key percussion and constricted snorts pushed through his horn’s body tube meld with the bassist’s wood-bending multiple stops and the drummer’s smacks and bounces. Although a composition like “magiC CloCk maCHine” evolves as a polyphonic cloud of cymbal slaps, multiple bass stops and a humongous sax vibrato, the three conclude this recital with a legato romp encompassing pulsating bass lines, press rolls and sibilant growls.

Expanding the musical palate by adding a piano, The Bay Window deals with shorter, less atonal compositions. North American connections exist for this Paris-based band as well. Pianist Benoît Delbecq recorded his solo CD in Vancouver, while bassist Hubert Dupont and Chander Sardjoe are in a quartet with New York saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Over 14 tracks, each member of the quartet impresses, with Dupont’s melodious note placement and tolling stops establishing the mood. Clattering and pumping cymbals, cowbell, snare and toms, the drummer keeps the saxophonist and pianist’s romanticism in check. Sequential organization makes “Chrysalide/Imago” a notable admixture of rondo and rhythm, as the saxman’s a capella intro gives way to the pianist’s impressionistic flourishes. “Y” proves how piano chording decorated with rolling cadences, note clusters and unexpected voicing can intersect with slices of flutter-tongued reed power.

Halving the personnel, but doubling the interplay, Italian pianist Alberto Braida and Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode are equally expansive on Reg Erg. De Joode has recorded with van der Schyff. Braida, recorded with Canadian bassist Lisle Ellis and plays with Butcher. Both have manifold technique that negates this reduced instrumentation, as their 10 duets show them systematically following each others’ impulses with radar-like communication.

On one nocturne for instance, Braida assembles low-frequency note clusters as de Joode bows intermittent tremolo runs; on another, thick bull fiddle intensity causes the pianist to octave jump into the darker textures of his instrument. Elsewhere Braida exposes key clipping and flowing arpeggios, while the bassist constructs solos from rubber band-like plucking or by tightening and loosening his strings.

Reg Erg’s climax is “Wadi”, where the pianist escalates from pedal-muted single notes to fanning chords that emphasize the instrument’s back frame and dampers. Compatible, de Joode’s buzzing arco lines are shaped sul ponticello so that his splayed, staccato dynamism meets Braida’s near-kinetic runs.

There’s no bass or piano on Primordial Soup. Instead this potage contains ingredients from four German improvisers – trumpeter Axel Dörner, reedist Frank Gratkowski, tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch and percussionist Michael Griener. Compositions snake from dodecaphonic to Dixieland with variations in-between.

Take “NCG 2270 Terrier”, for instance. Painted in broad strokes, it’s a half-Swing-half-march with a sharp tempo that features Gratkowski’s clarinet riding atop Hübsch’s pedal-point blasts, while Griener rattles and slap. Dörner’s legato counterline prods Hübsch to speed up the tempo until the reverberating line descends into cymbal resonation, trumpet grace notes and chalumeau reed slithers.

Collective and organic, the quartet’s massed improvisations occasionally foreshadow later tune development – with breaths, whines, pops, growls, crackles and brays on display. Gratkowski’s alto saxophone performs tongue jujitsu, while Dörner’s half-valve reverberations create double counterpoint with the reedist or peeping contrast to the drummer’s nerve beats.

Occasional cymbal raps and sandpaper-like scrapes from Griener enliven “NGC 2276 Inspektion”. Rubato and abstract, the composition surges rhythmically due to subterranean burps from Hübsch. Although the other horns appear to be vibrating underwater textures without valve or key movements, metallic cymbal friction and low-brass rumbles solidify the tune’s airiness.

Standing apart is keyboardist James Carney’s CD. The only American session, it features the largest band – a septet – and is the most committed to melody.

Coherent and episodically thematic, there’s also sameness to the eight tunes. Dependent on looping interface and head recapitulation, many call for a tough backbeat from drummer Mark Ferber, buttressed with Latin motifs. Some display an overabundance of California cool, especially when the sweetness of Peter Epstein’s soprano saxophone lacks contrast. Moving among acoustic and electric pianos and analog synthesizer, Carney’s versatility sometimes detracts. At points he key clips, at others outputs legato pianism or gospel-like runs. His comping is fine, if anonymous, but his voicing on electric piano, leans towards instrumental rock.

With his playing sometimes masked by tutti horns, bassist Chris Lightcap is prominent when he plucks excessively powerfully. Tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby’s chesty runs are put to their best use on the aptly named “Power” and “Half the Battle”, whereas trombonist Josh Roseman’s extended glissandi enliven “Willwaw”, making common cause with thumping bass and Carney’s piano, rife with short runs and trailing left-handed jumps

A microcosm of all that’s good and bad about Green-Wood is encapsulated on the melancholy “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving”. Trumpeter Ralph Alessi brings understated emotion to his solo, while Roseman’s chromatic plunger tones and strengthening piano chords force Ferber to apply calming cymbal expansions. Before the vamping horns introduce the climax, Carney’s light touch alters the theme with elongated or contracted notes, scrambling the original syncopation, without straying from tonality.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #7

April 1, 2008

Alberto Braida/Wilbert de Joode

Reg Erg
Red Toucan RT 9332

Kartet

The Bay Window

Songlines SGL SA 1560-2

James Carney Group

Green-Wood

Songlines SGL SA 1566-2

Carl Ludwig Hübsch

Primordial Soup

Red Toucan RT 9331

Butcher/Muller/van der Schyff

Way Out Northwest

Drip Audio DA 00272

By Ken Waxman

Music transcends borders, and so does music distribution in the Internet age. Couple this with the maturation of the Canadian improvised music scene and a new phenomenon is visible: CDs recorded elsewhere, but released by Canadian labels for international distribution.

This set of recent CDs recognizes the situation. Reg Erg and Primordial Soup, respectively recorded in Milano and Köln are on Montreal’s Red Toucan label. The Bay Window and Green-Wood, recorded in Paris and Brooklyn are products of Vancouver’s Songlines imprint. Way Out Northwest characterizes a similar trend. With Canadian musicians operating at high standard, foreign players come here to record. This CD captures London-based saxophone explorer John Butcher at a Vancouver gig with German bassist Torsten Muller, a British Columbia resident since 2001 and local drummer Dylan van der Schyff.

Free improv at its finest, Way Out Northwest highlights the simpatico interaction among the three that extends to mirroring of each other’s timbres. During the unbroken improvisation you wonder if certain sounds arise from the saxophonist’s sibilant vamps, the drummer’s friction against unyielding surfaces or the bassist’s sul ponticello movements.

While van der Schyff’s smacks, rebounds and struts evolve in parallel with Muller’s unconventional tuning that makes bass movements agitato and contrapuntal, Butcher uses tongue slaps, continuous breathing and glottal punctuation for a spiky reed recital. Multiphonics arise from both soprano and tenor saxophone, as key percussion and constricted snorts pushed through his horn’s body tube meld with the bassist’s wood-bending multiple stops and the drummer’s smacks and bounces. Although a composition like “magiC CloCk maCHine” evolves as a polyphonic cloud of cymbal slaps, multiple bass stops and a humongous sax vibrato, the three conclude this recital with a legato romp encompassing pulsating bass lines, press rolls and sibilant growls.

Expanding the musical palate by adding a piano, The Bay Window deals with shorter, less atonal compositions. North American connections exist for this Paris-based band as well. Pianist Benoît Delbecq recorded his solo CD in Vancouver, while bassist Hubert Dupont and Chander Sardjoe are in a quartet with New York saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Over 14 tracks, each member of the quartet impresses, with Dupont’s melodious note placement and tolling stops establishing the mood. Clattering and pumping cymbals, cowbell, snare and toms, the drummer keeps the saxophonist and pianist’s romanticism in check. Sequential organization makes “Chrysalide/Imago” a notable admixture of rondo and rhythm, as the saxman’s a capella intro gives way to the pianist’s impressionistic flourishes. “Y” proves how piano chording decorated with rolling cadences, note clusters and unexpected voicing can intersect with slices of flutter-tongued reed power.

Halving the personnel, but doubling the interplay, Italian pianist Alberto Braida and Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode are equally expansive on Reg Erg. De Joode has recorded with van der Schyff. Braida, recorded with Canadian bassist Lisle Ellis and plays with Butcher. Both have manifold technique that negates this reduced instrumentation, as their 10 duets show them systematically following each others’ impulses with radar-like communication.

On one nocturne for instance, Braida assembles low-frequency note clusters as de Joode bows intermittent tremolo runs; on another, thick bull fiddle intensity causes the pianist to octave jump into the darker textures of his instrument. Elsewhere Braida exposes key clipping and flowing arpeggios, while the bassist constructs solos from rubber band-like plucking or by tightening and loosening his strings.

Reg Erg’s climax is “Wadi”, where the pianist escalates from pedal-muted single notes to fanning chords that emphasize the instrument’s back frame and dampers. Compatible, de Joode’s buzzing arco lines are shaped sul ponticello so that his splayed, staccato dynamism meets Braida’s near-kinetic runs.

There’s no bass or piano on Primordial Soup. Instead this potage contains ingredients from four German improvisers – trumpeter Axel Dörner, reedist Frank Gratkowski, tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch and percussionist Michael Griener. Compositions snake from dodecaphonic to Dixieland with variations in-between.

Take “NCG 2270 Terrier”, for instance. Painted in broad strokes, it’s a half-Swing-half-march with a sharp tempo that features Gratkowski’s clarinet riding atop Hübsch’s pedal-point blasts, while Griener rattles and slap. Dörner’s legato counterline prods Hübsch to speed up the tempo until the reverberating line descends into cymbal resonation, trumpet grace notes and chalumeau reed slithers.

Collective and organic, the quartet’s massed improvisations occasionally foreshadow later tune development – with breaths, whines, pops, growls, crackles and brays on display. Gratkowski’s alto saxophone performs tongue jujitsu, while Dörner’s half-valve reverberations create double counterpoint with the reedist or peeping contrast to the drummer’s nerve beats.

Occasional cymbal raps and sandpaper-like scrapes from Griener enliven “NGC 2276 Inspektion”. Rubato and abstract, the composition surges rhythmically due to subterranean burps from Hübsch. Although the other horns appear to be vibrating underwater textures without valve or key movements, metallic cymbal friction and low-brass rumbles solidify the tune’s airiness.

Standing apart is keyboardist James Carney’s CD. The only American session, it features the largest band – a septet – and is the most committed to melody.

Coherent and episodically thematic, there’s also sameness to the eight tunes. Dependent on looping interface and head recapitulation, many call for a tough backbeat from drummer Mark Ferber, buttressed with Latin motifs. Some display an overabundance of California cool, especially when the sweetness of Peter Epstein’s soprano saxophone lacks contrast. Moving among acoustic and electric pianos and analog synthesizer, Carney’s versatility sometimes detracts. At points he key clips, at others outputs legato pianism or gospel-like runs. His comping is fine, if anonymous, but his voicing on electric piano, leans towards instrumental rock.

With his playing sometimes masked by tutti horns, bassist Chris Lightcap is prominent when he plucks excessively powerfully. Tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby’s chesty runs are put to their best use on the aptly named “Power” and “Half the Battle”, whereas trombonist Josh Roseman’s extended glissandi enliven “Willwaw”, making common cause with thumping bass and Carney’s piano, rife with short runs and trailing left-handed jumps

A microcosm of all that’s good and bad about Green-Wood is encapsulated on the melancholy “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving”. Trumpeter Ralph Alessi brings understated emotion to his solo, while Roseman’s chromatic plunger tones and strengthening piano chords force Ferber to apply calming cymbal expansions. Before the vamping horns introduce the climax, Carney’s light touch alters the theme with elongated or contracted notes, scrambling the original syncopation, without straying from tonality.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #7

April 1, 2008

John Butcher

The Geometry of Sentiment (2004/6)
Emanem 4142

Martin Küchen

Homo Sacer

SOFA Sillón 4

Urs Leimgruber

13 Pieces for Saxophone

Leo Records CD LR 498

Soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone pulsations along with modulated feedback and literal instrument deconstruction are featured in various permutations on this trio of top-flight solo discs from European practitioner of reed wizardry. The paramount non-specialist appeal of these sessions is tracing how individualistically each old hand – or should that be fingers and mouth – approaches his art.

Swiss-born Urs Leimgruber is also known for his work with the likes of French bassist Joëlle Léandre and French pianist Jacques Demierre; Küchen is a Swede who is in the Exploding Customer quartet and other bands; John Butcher of the United Kingdom is a Londoner, who has traded ideas with a multitude of improvisers in North America, Europe and Japan.

Over the past two decades Butcher has developed several performance strategies for the multitude of solo concerts he gives each year. Besides seeking to sustain spontaneous creations that avoid expected routines, he has experimented with semi-compositional ideas, close-miking and amplified feedback from the saxophone, and creating solos that take into account the characteristic of certain acoustic spaces. All these approaches are illustrated on The Geometry of Sentiment. Three of the tracks come from performance venues in London or Paris, while the others involve respectively, an enormous geometrical locale created from a former stone mine in Japan, and an abandoned, near-cylindrical gas storage facility in Germany.

Tunnel-like, the cylindrical space used on “Trägerfrequenz” in Germany not only isolates supportive timbres that reflect Butcher’s initial escalating slurs, but bounce them back as a secondary parakeet-like whistle that almost replaces the initial tone. Eventually harder and shriller vibrations are revealed as reverberating, tunnel-elongated reed bites and tongue slaps.

Similarly, Butcher takes full advantage of the polyphonic air pockets and echoes exposed during his two Japanese performances. Still with his conception more sequenced and polyphonic, his playing attains a different form, especially on “Second Zizoku”. Using multi-thematic line, variations transform from a simple forward-moving harmonic structure to fortissimo snorts and slurs plus rough key pops. They quicken into colored air and blurry arpeggios, and conclude with triple-tonguing and squeaking overtones, some of which vibrate up into dog-whistle territory.

“A Short Time to Sing” recorded in London not only highlights tongue-slapping effervescent reverberations, but also showcases key percussion that contrapuntally becomes as necessary to the performance as the reed tones themselves. Eventually amplified feedback triggers piercing whistles that ricochet into themselves for additional sonics.

The other standout is “Action Theory Blues” – which is no more a blues than General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, is a democrat. Instead the piece twists and turns a simple melody every which way to eviscerate its very innards. Repeated staccatissimo lines and note clusters move in a circular fashion sometimes creating rubber-heel-on linoleum squeaks that gradually fade into oscillated flat lines.

Also moving from one saxophone to another – alto and baritone (plus pocket radio) in his case –is Küchen. Despite the overtly politicized titles of his five-track program, the reedist insists that his music isn’t programmatic. One has to take him at his word, although many may figure that the pressured overblowing, buzzing reed textures and resonating percussiveness of the tracks here expose anarchistic rage and disgust.

Küchen is definitely humanistic though, as you can hear on “Xuan Ngoc, 23rd of September 1966, in the Evening (Music for Solo Dance)”. Named for a Vietnamese woman whose village was bombed during the Viet Nam war, the nearly-19-minute piece begins with rotating, fortissimo friction and air blowing that is gradually exposed as human sounds when you hear the saxophonist pause and take breaths. Using connective whistles and minimal throat, lip and embouchure movements, the track accelerates to a crescendo of sound loops that could be produced by Küchen blowing through a didjeridoo. Following a two-minute pause, which is then punctuated by a buzzing undercurrent, fortissimo triple-strength expelled air is inflated into a concentrated sound mass made up of reed tones, overtones and undertones. At points reducing the output to mere partials and adding sibilant, guttural pulsations, the finale is marked by rolling circular breathing.

Ngoc eventually married a GI, and became Americanized, but didn’t come to terms with her past until she returned to Viet Nam in the late 1990s. Whether her story intersects with this improv is an open question.

Similar descriptive titles characterize the other tracks. But to return to the realm of absolute music, the important conduit here is Küchen’s reed versatility. The final track for instance features him manipulating reed-and-key percussion and tongue clicks in such a heavily rhythmic manner that he could be playing darbuka drum. Additionally, the constant sound patterning frequently moves from andante to staccato, as if a triggered by an external force. Another track polyphonically matches flutter-tongued smears and a pastoral line so that an antiphonal third sound stream is produced. On the other hand, the first track illuminates such abrasive tongue and breath friction that it’s as if the reedist is trilling his cadences backwards, up from the bell into the saxophone mouthpiece.

In comparison, and using only his tenor saxophone, Leimgruber offers variations on the solo theme with 13 numbered tracks. At various junctures many touch upon the extended techniques used by the other two saxophonists. All in all however, perhaps because of its stark presentation, 13 Pieces for Saxophone appears to be advertising itself as a technical tour-de-force, more attuned to testing the instrument’s limits than in story-telling. Not that this is a drawback if the listener treats the CD as a sort of an aural New Novel, putting aside plot and description for rigorous textural analysis. That said, and to extend the literary metaphor still further, different stylistic patterns are exhibited on different tracks of this collection of short stories.

The final track for instance is an exercise in trenchant pointillist smears and interval dividing, where the echoing tongue slaps, reed bites and corkscrew modulations appear to unroll in different tempos, pitches and degrees of loudness, before concluding with a double-tongued, low-pitched tone. In contrast, “Three” features penetrating piping at a more elevated timbre than a sopranino saxophone produces, simultaneously showcasing enough graduated pitches and tones for an aural ornithological study.

“Eight” exposes staccato and reductionist tongue chirps and rubato overtones. But rather than sounding aviary, these timbres vary between those heard when a plastic toy is squeaked and those of fingers scraping a balloon. Almost visually acrobatic, “Six” has Leimgruber improvising in the fashion of an off-kilter whirling dervish, with his repetitive Orientalized split tones vibrating and oscillating in such a manner that it seems as if a dancer’s circular friction would appear if they were transformed into visuals. Sliding from long tones to semi-tones to quarter tones, the climax involves extended held notes, circular breaths and a conclusive upward trill.

Conversely, “Nine” is built on a single, unbroken screechy line plus singular key percussion manipulation. It’s as if a one-string Afro-Brazilian berimbau was backing a singer whose shrill variations included microscopic oral examinations of the tiniest interval of single breath undulation. Finally there’s “Seven”, the CD’s longest track at nearly 8¾ minutes. Multiphonics turn to multi-tones after a while as the austere, near-silent colored air puffing at the beginning adapts to this refraction. Pitch-sliding pitches expose sopranino-like trills, guttural snorts and choked off timbres.

Adolphe Sax likely didn’t imagine the uses his invention could be put to in a solo context – which, in a way, confirms the historical worth of each of these sessions. However, while this trio of sound explorers readily illuminates the methods by which saxophones become sound chameleons, a familiarity with absolute and abstract music is necessary for full enjoyment.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: 13: 1.One 2. Two 3. Three 4. Four 5. Five 6. Six 7. Seven 8. Eight 9. Nine 10. Ten 11. Eleven 12. Twelve 13. Thirteen

Personnel: 13: Urs Leimgruber (tenor saxophone)

Track Listing: Homo: 1. Imperial Music XVI 2. The Infliction of Death 3. Homo Sacer (…and suddenly the Bridge over Troubled Waters stood all in flames) 4. Xuan Ngoc, 23rd of September 1966, in the Evening (Music for Solo Dance) 5. Killing the Houses, Killing the Trees (Imperial Music XX)

Personnel: Homo: Martin Küchen (alto and baritone saxophone and pocket radio)

Listing: Geometry: First Zizoku 2. Second Zizoku 3. A Short Time to Sing* 4. But More So 5. Action Theory Blues 6. Soft Logic 7. Trägerfrequenz

Personnel: Geometry: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones and amplified feedback*)

January 11, 2008

Urs Leimgruber

13 Pieces for Saxophone
Leo Records CD LR 498

Martin Küchen

Homo Sacer

SOFA Sillón 4

John Butcher

The Geometry of Sentiment (2004/6)

Emanem 4142

Soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone pulsations along with modulated feedback and literal instrument deconstruction are featured in various permutations on this trio of top-flight solo discs from European practitioner of reed wizardry. The paramount non-specialist appeal of these sessions is tracing how individualistically each old hand – or should that be fingers and mouth – approaches his art.

Swiss-born Urs Leimgruber is also known for his work with the likes of French bassist Joëlle Léandre and French pianist Jacques Demierre; Küchen is a Swede who is in the Exploding Customer quartet and other bands; John Butcher of the United Kingdom is a Londoner, who has traded ideas with a multitude of improvisers in North America, Europe and Japan.

Over the past two decades Butcher has developed several performance strategies for the multitude of solo concerts he gives each year. Besides seeking to sustain spontaneous creations that avoid expected routines, he has experimented with semi-compositional ideas, close-miking and amplified feedback from the saxophone, and creating solos that take into account the characteristic of certain acoustic spaces. All these approaches are illustrated on The Geometry of Sentiment. Three of the tracks come from performance venues in London or Paris, while the others involve respectively, an enormous geometrical locale created from a former stone mine in Japan, and an abandoned, near-cylindrical gas storage facility in Germany.

Tunnel-like, the cylindrical space used on “Trägerfrequenz” in Germany not only isolates supportive timbres that reflect Butcher’s initial escalating slurs, but bounce them back as a secondary parakeet-like whistle that almost replaces the initial tone. Eventually harder and shriller vibrations are revealed as reverberating, tunnel-elongated reed bites and tongue slaps.

Similarly, Butcher takes full advantage of the polyphonic air pockets and echoes exposed during his two Japanese performances. Still with his conception more sequenced and polyphonic, his playing attains a different form, especially on “Second Zizoku”. Using multi-thematic line, variations transform from a simple forward-moving harmonic structure to fortissimo snorts and slurs plus rough key pops. They quicken into colored air and blurry arpeggios, and conclude with triple-tonguing and squeaking overtones, some of which vibrate up into dog-whistle territory.

“A Short Time to Sing” recorded in London not only highlights tongue-slapping effervescent reverberations, but also showcases key percussion that contrapuntally becomes as necessary to the performance as the reed tones themselves. Eventually amplified feedback triggers piercing whistles that ricochet into themselves for additional sonics.

The other standout is “Action Theory Blues” – which is no more a blues than General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, is a democrat. Instead the piece twists and turns a simple melody every which way to eviscerate its very innards. Repeated staccatissimo lines and note clusters move in a circular fashion sometimes creating rubber-heel-on linoleum squeaks that gradually fade into oscillated flat lines.

Also moving from one saxophone to another – alto and baritone (plus pocket radio) in his case –is Küchen. Despite the overtly politicized titles of his five-track program, the reedist insists that his music isn’t programmatic. One has to take him at his word, although many may figure that the pressured overblowing, buzzing reed textures and resonating percussiveness of the tracks here expose anarchistic rage and disgust.

Küchen is definitely humanistic though, as you can hear on “Xuan Ngoc, 23rd of September 1966, in the Evening (Music for Solo Dance)”. Named for a Vietnamese woman whose village was bombed during the Viet Nam war, the nearly-19-minute piece begins with rotating, fortissimo friction and air blowing that is gradually exposed as human sounds when you hear the saxophonist pause and take breaths. Using connective whistles and minimal throat, lip and embouchure movements, the track accelerates to a crescendo of sound loops that could be produced by Küchen blowing through a didjeridoo. Following a two-minute pause, which is then punctuated by a buzzing undercurrent, fortissimo triple-strength expelled air is inflated into a concentrated sound mass made up of reed tones, overtones and undertones. At points reducing the output to mere partials and adding sibilant, guttural pulsations, the finale is marked by rolling circular breathing.

Ngoc eventually married a GI, and became Americanized, but didn’t come to terms with her past until she returned to Viet Nam in the late 1990s. Whether her story intersects with this improv is an open question.

Similar descriptive titles characterize the other tracks. But to return to the realm of absolute music, the important conduit here is Küchen’s reed versatility. The final track for instance features him manipulating reed-and-key percussion and tongue clicks in such a heavily rhythmic manner that he could be playing darbuka drum. Additionally, the constant sound patterning frequently moves from andante to staccato, as if a triggered by an external force. Another track polyphonically matches flutter-tongued smears and a pastoral line so that an antiphonal third sound stream is produced. On the other hand, the first track illuminates such abrasive tongue and breath friction that it’s as if the reedist is trilling his cadences backwards, up from the bell into the saxophone mouthpiece.

In comparison, and using only his tenor saxophone, Leimgruber offers variations on the solo theme with 13 numbered tracks. At various junctures many touch upon the extended techniques used by the other two saxophonists. All in all however, perhaps because of its stark presentation, 13 Pieces for Saxophone appears to be advertising itself as a technical tour-de-force, more attuned to testing the instrument’s limits than in story-telling. Not that this is a drawback if the listener treats the CD as a sort of an aural New Novel, putting aside plot and description for rigorous textural analysis. That said, and to extend the literary metaphor still further, different stylistic patterns are exhibited on different tracks of this collection of short stories.

The final track for instance is an exercise in trenchant pointillist smears and interval dividing, where the echoing tongue slaps, reed bites and corkscrew modulations appear to unroll in different tempos, pitches and degrees of loudness, before concluding with a double-tongued, low-pitched tone. In contrast, “Three” features penetrating piping at a more elevated timbre than a sopranino saxophone produces, simultaneously showcasing enough graduated pitches and tones for an aural ornithological study.

“Eight” exposes staccato and reductionist tongue chirps and rubato overtones. But rather than sounding aviary, these timbres vary between those heard when a plastic toy is squeaked and those of fingers scraping a balloon. Almost visually acrobatic, “Six” has Leimgruber improvising in the fashion of an off-kilter whirling dervish, with his repetitive Orientalized split tones vibrating and oscillating in such a manner that it seems as if a dancer’s circular friction would appear if they were transformed into visuals. Sliding from long tones to semi-tones to quarter tones, the climax involves extended held notes, circular breaths and a conclusive upward trill.

Conversely, “Nine” is built on a single, unbroken screechy line plus singular key percussion manipulation. It’s as if a one-string Afro-Brazilian berimbau was backing a singer whose shrill variations included microscopic oral examinations of the tiniest interval of single breath undulation. Finally there’s “Seven”, the CD’s longest track at nearly 8¾ minutes. Multiphonics turn to multi-tones after a while as the austere, near-silent colored air puffing at the beginning adapts to this refraction. Pitch-sliding pitches expose sopranino-like trills, guttural snorts and choked off timbres.

Adolphe Sax likely didn’t imagine the uses his invention could be put to in a solo context – which, in a way, confirms the historical worth of each of these sessions. However, while this trio of sound explorers readily illuminates the methods by which saxophones become sound chameleons, a familiarity with absolute and abstract music is necessary for full enjoyment.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: 13: 1.One 2. Two 3. Three 4. Four 5. Five 6. Six 7. Seven 8. Eight 9. Nine 10. Ten 11. Eleven 12. Twelve 13. Thirteen

Personnel: 13: Urs Leimgruber (tenor saxophone)

Track Listing: Homo: 1. Imperial Music XVI 2. The Infliction of Death 3. Homo Sacer (…and suddenly the Bridge over Troubled Waters stood all in flames) 4. Xuan Ngoc, 23rd of September 1966, in the Evening (Music for Solo Dance) 5. Killing the Houses, Killing the Trees (Imperial Music XX)

Personnel: Homo: Martin Küchen (alto and baritone saxophone and pocket radio)

Listing: Geometry: First Zizoku 2. Second Zizoku 3. A Short Time to Sing* 4. But More So 5. Action Theory Blues 6. Soft Logic 7. Trägerfrequenz

Personnel: Geometry: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones and amplified feedback*)

January 11, 2008

Martin Küchen

Homo Sacer
SOFA Sillón 4

Urs Leimgruber

13 Pieces for Saxophone

Leo Records CD LR 498

John Butcher

The Geometry of Sentiment (2004/6)

Emanem 4142

Soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone pulsations along with modulated feedback and literal instrument deconstruction are featured in various permutations on this trio of top-flight solo discs from European practitioner of reed wizardry. The paramount non-specialist appeal of these sessions is tracing how individualistically each old hand – or should that be fingers and mouth – approaches his art.

Swiss-born Urs Leimgruber is also known for his work with the likes of French bassist Joëlle Léandre and French pianist Jacques Demierre; Küchen is a Swede who is in the Exploding Customer quartet and other bands; John Butcher of the United Kingdom is a Londoner, who has traded ideas with a multitude of improvisers in North America, Europe and Japan.

Over the past two decades Butcher has developed several performance strategies for the multitude of solo concerts he gives each year. Besides seeking to sustain spontaneous creations that avoid expected routines, he has experimented with semi-compositional ideas, close-miking and amplified feedback from the saxophone, and creating solos that take into account the characteristic of certain acoustic spaces. All these approaches are illustrated on The Geometry of Sentiment. Three of the tracks come from performance venues in London or Paris, while the others involve respectively, an enormous geometrical locale created from a former stone mine in Japan, and an abandoned, near-cylindrical gas storage facility in Germany.

Tunnel-like, the cylindrical space used on “Trägerfrequenz” in Germany not only isolates supportive timbres that reflect Butcher’s initial escalating slurs, but bounce them back as a secondary parakeet-like whistle that almost replaces the initial tone. Eventually harder and shriller vibrations are revealed as reverberating, tunnel-elongated reed bites and tongue slaps.

Similarly, Butcher takes full advantage of the polyphonic air pockets and echoes exposed during his two Japanese performances. Still with his conception more sequenced and polyphonic, his playing attains a different form, especially on “Second Zizoku”. Using multi-thematic line, variations transform from a simple forward-moving harmonic structure to fortissimo snorts and slurs plus rough key pops. They quicken into colored air and blurry arpeggios, and conclude with triple-tonguing and squeaking overtones, some of which vibrate up into dog-whistle territory.

“A Short Time to Sing” recorded in London not only highlights tongue-slapping effervescent reverberations, but also showcases key percussion that contrapuntally becomes as necessary to the performance as the reed tones themselves. Eventually amplified feedback triggers piercing whistles that ricochet into themselves for additional sonics.

The other standout is “Action Theory Blues” – which is no more a blues than General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, is a democrat. Instead the piece twists and turns a simple melody every which way to eviscerate its very innards. Repeated staccatissimo lines and note clusters move in a circular fashion sometimes creating rubber-heel-on linoleum squeaks that gradually fade into oscillated flat lines.

Also moving from one saxophone to another – alto and baritone (plus pocket radio) in his case –is Küchen. Despite the overtly politicized titles of his five-track program, the reedist insists that his music isn’t programmatic. One has to take him at his word, although many may figure that the pressured overblowing, buzzing reed textures and resonating percussiveness of the tracks here expose anarchistic rage and disgust.

Küchen is definitely humanistic though, as you can hear on “Xuan Ngoc, 23rd of September 1966, in the Evening (Music for Solo Dance)”. Named for a Vietnamese woman whose village was bombed during the Viet Nam war, the nearly-19-minute piece begins with rotating, fortissimo friction and air blowing that is gradually exposed as human sounds when you hear the saxophonist pause and take breaths. Using connective whistles and minimal throat, lip and embouchure movements, the track accelerates to a crescendo of sound loops that could be produced by Küchen blowing through a didjeridoo. Following a two-minute pause, which is then punctuated by a buzzing undercurrent, fortissimo triple-strength expelled air is inflated into a concentrated sound mass made up of reed tones, overtones and undertones. At points reducing the output to mere partials and adding sibilant, guttural pulsations, the finale is marked by rolling circular breathing.

Ngoc eventually married a GI, and became Americanized, but didn’t come to terms with her past until she returned to Viet Nam in the late 1990s. Whether her story intersects with this improv is an open question.

Similar descriptive titles characterize the other tracks. But to return to the realm of absolute music, the important conduit here is Küchen’s reed versatility. The final track for instance features him manipulating reed-and-key percussion and tongue clicks in such a heavily rhythmic manner that he could be playing darbuka drum. Additionally, the constant sound patterning frequently moves from andante to staccato, as if a triggered by an external force. Another track polyphonically matches flutter-tongued smears and a pastoral line so that an antiphonal third sound stream is produced. On the other hand, the first track illuminates such abrasive tongue and breath friction that it’s as if the reedist is trilling his cadences backwards, up from the bell into the saxophone mouthpiece.

In comparison, and using only his tenor saxophone, Leimgruber offers variations on the solo theme with 13 numbered tracks. At various junctures many touch upon the extended techniques used by the other two saxophonists. All in all however, perhaps because of its stark presentation, 13 Pieces for Saxophone appears to be advertising itself as a technical tour-de-force, more attuned to testing the instrument’s limits than in story-telling. Not that this is a drawback if the listener treats the CD as a sort of an aural New Novel, putting aside plot and description for rigorous textural analysis. That said, and to extend the literary metaphor still further, different stylistic patterns are exhibited on different tracks of this collection of short stories.

The final track for instance is an exercise in trenchant pointillist smears and interval dividing, where the echoing tongue slaps, reed bites and corkscrew modulations appear to unroll in different tempos, pitches and degrees of loudness, before concluding with a double-tongued, low-pitched tone. In contrast, “Three” features penetrating piping at a more elevated timbre than a sopranino saxophone produces, simultaneously showcasing enough graduated pitches and tones for an aural ornithological study.

“Eight” exposes staccato and reductionist tongue chirps and rubato overtones. But rather than sounding aviary, these timbres vary between those heard when a plastic toy is squeaked and those of fingers scraping a balloon. Almost visually acrobatic, “Six” has Leimgruber improvising in the fashion of an off-kilter whirling dervish, with his repetitive Orientalized split tones vibrating and oscillating in such a manner that it seems as if a dancer’s circular friction would appear if they were transformed into visuals. Sliding from long tones to semi-tones to quarter tones, the climax involves extended held notes, circular breaths and a conclusive upward trill.

Conversely, “Nine” is built on a single, unbroken screechy line plus singular key percussion manipulation. It’s as if a one-string Afro-Brazilian berimbau was backing a singer whose shrill variations included microscopic oral examinations of the tiniest interval of single breath undulation. Finally there’s “Seven”, the CD’s longest track at nearly 8¾ minutes. Multiphonics turn to multi-tones after a while as the austere, near-silent colored air puffing at the beginning adapts to this refraction. Pitch-sliding pitches expose sopranino-like trills, guttural snorts and choked off timbres.

Adolphe Sax likely didn’t imagine the uses his invention could be put to in a solo context – which, in a way, confirms the historical worth of each of these sessions. However, while this trio of sound explorers readily illuminates the methods by which saxophones become sound chameleons, a familiarity with absolute and abstract music is necessary for full enjoyment.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: 13: 1.One 2. Two 3. Three 4. Four 5. Five 6. Six 7. Seven 8. Eight 9. Nine 10. Ten 11. Eleven 12. Twelve 13. Thirteen

Personnel: 13: Urs Leimgruber (tenor saxophone)

Track Listing: Homo: 1. Imperial Music XVI 2. The Infliction of Death 3. Homo Sacer (…and suddenly the Bridge over Troubled Waters stood all in flames) 4. Xuan Ngoc, 23rd of September 1966, in the Evening (Music for Solo Dance) 5. Killing the Houses, Killing the Trees (Imperial Music XX)

Personnel: Homo: Martin Küchen (alto and baritone saxophone and pocket radio)

Listing: Geometry: First Zizoku 2. Second Zizoku 3. A Short Time to Sing* 4. But More So 5. Action Theory Blues 6. Soft Logic 7. Trägerfrequenz

Personnel: Geometry: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones and amplified feedback*)

January 11, 2008

Contest of Pleasures

The Albi Days
Potlatch P205

Just as members of the European Union are gradually adopting shared principals, so the members of Contest of Pleasures (COP) – from different countries –subordinate individual techniques to a group style. Comfortable utilizing the acoustics of a space, multiple mics and post-performance editing to shape and blend their reductionist improvisations, the three have produce a memorable aural soundscape here.

A step forward from COP’s first CD in 2000, The Albi Days illuminates how French clarinetist Xavier Charles, German trumpeter Axel Dörner and tenor and British soprano saxophonist John Butcher use wave form modulations and extended techniques as a matter of course. Encompassing pressured staccato timbres plus elongated rumbles and slurs, the five layered, all-acoustic improvisations take on quasi-electronic timbres, especially when hissing flutters and video-game-like fusillade is heard. Very occasionally the three unite for triple counterpoint, three part harmony or startlingly – in Dörner’s or Butcher’s case – let loose with identifiable brassy grace notes or reedy tongue slaps.

Most of the time on these five vegetable-titled tracks however, the instruments are exfoliated sound sources manipulated so that pitches could come from anywhere – or nowhere. Blocked valve techniques and pure air forced through the lead pipe characterize the trumpeter’s contribution along with steady mouthpiece osculation. As for the reedists, watery whistles, key percussion and snorted vibrato, plus out-and-out overblowing are just the beginning of their techniques.

Invariably not only is the note sounded, but so are its ancillary metallic reverberations. Creating their own versions of sequenced feedback with tremolo slurs, the trio also exposes digging-animal scratches, floor-to-ceiling echoing buzzes and the sound of a tennis ball being battered back-and-forth and stretched rubber hitting a solid surface.

Most dramatic are the passages that conclude “Winter Squash” where focused reed growls and blocked valve output build to shattering crescendo then shrivel into nearly inaudible heard tongue slaps and bell squeaks. Careful listening to the CD’s gradually unrolling textures repeatedly reveals further unique sequences.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Les Oignons 2. Garden Cress 3. Winter Squash 4. Karfiol 5. Les Cornichons

Personnel: Axel Dörner (trumpet); Xavier Charles (clarinet) and John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones)

November 17, 2006

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Horn_Bill: Reed Solos
Matchless MRCD63

By Ken Waxman

An extended sonic essay in 21st Century reed techniques, HORN_BILL is an unaltered depiction of unaccompanied solos by five British sax players and a Berlin-based clarinetist. Absorbing in its audacity, this two-CD set captures the players not only eschewing melody, rhythm and harmony for silences and trifling breath dynamics, but in essence negating – with one significant exception – expected reed sounds.

The exception is tenor saxophonist Lou Gare’s “Saxophony”. A Free Music pioneer as a member of AMM up to the 1970s, Gare’s jazz-related variations have a title that perhaps unconsciously reflects some of the spectacular showcases of pioneering American sax popularizer Rudy Wiedoeft (1893-1940). As solipsistic as the others’ solos, his mellow tone is reminiscent of Coleman Hawkins’, with the variations played allegro with a wide, smeary vibrato and what seem to be a compendium of boppish licks. Although Gare exposes some falsetto note clusters, most of the time he lapses into almost pre-modern jazz riffs as if he was one part of a fanciful big band reed section. Most tellingly, just before the finale, he suddenly begins playing variations on “Lover Man”.

If Gare relates to the jazz reed tradition, then tenor saxophonist Nathaniel Catchpole alto saxophonist Seymour Wright – the two youngest players – are firmly post-jazz, with timbres attached to the sonic found in free improv and electronica.

On the nearly 19-minute “Maurice Brinton”, for instance, Catchpole, who with Wright and others was in the band 9!, sticks to laminal abstractions that start tremolo and altissimo and expand to strident discordance. Confining himself to constricted timbres, he stretches every impulse to its threshold, resulting in multiphonic drones that pack every sonic space. Wright, who has also recorded with sampler player Yann Charaoui, takes less time to sew together tongue slaps, flattement and mouth percussion to create cylindrical tones that sounds like hamsters laboring on a treadmill. Protracted silences separate that reed strategy from the second track which involves a series of fowl-like honks centred in the saxophone’s gooseneck that suggest a goose’s cries themselves. These shrieks are followed in quick succession by hissing air that take on metallic components and conclusive tongue percussion that sound as if Wright is spitting into the mouthpiece without the reed.

Clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski, who frequently plays solo or in the company of fellow Teutonic explorers like trumpeter Axel Dörner and sampler player Boris Baltschun is a Continental brother to Catchpole. However he maintains his individuality by concentrating on wide, intense chalumeau vibrations. Especially on the lengthier of his two German-titled tracks, the body tube vibrations take in the complementary node patterns for each sound he makes. After unattached breaths rotate to smears and drones, his intermittent wave-form pulsations resemble both pure electronica and veteran Evan Parker’s circular breathing reed style.

This precisely too is what Parker, the London-based soprano saxophonist does on his 19-minute “Solo for Hugh Davies”. Without appearing to take a breath, Parker commences and concludes fortissimo, thrusting reed bites, glottal punctuation and squeaks through his horn’s bell, as the tone gets progressively more unstable the longer and louder he plays. Able to encompass the ancillary passing tones along with the original notes, there are only minor variations in tone, timbre and pitch throughout, until a concluding expelling of air.

Unlike Parker’s monochromic attack, John Butcher aims for sfumato coloration, polyphonically introducing different forms of attack during his nearly 18¾ minute “291/5” – though determining whether each strategy takes up 291 divided by five measures or 58.2 notes in impossible to determine. Beginning with key and mouth percussion, he concentrates on the speedy cyclical rotation of tongue slaps and stops plus abrasive oscillated breaths. As the node-vibrate picking up buzzy overtones, percussive key slaps provide secondary accompaniment. Soon his fortissimo pitches turns grainy and staccato, alternately inflating and narrowing. After five minutes of that, he turns to legato reed exposition. Eventually the reintroduction of rhythmic tongue slapping is joined by starling-like aviary twitters with a slide whistle fillip. Additional reed kisses surmounted by key and nail percussion finally dissolve into echoing bow tones and flanged, fluttering reverb.

The opposite of “easy listening” HORN_BILL must be approached with caution by the uninitiated. But those who revel in this sort of experimentation will be amply rewarded for perseverance.

Track Listing: CD1:1. Maurice Brinton 2. All Wright! 3. Saxophony CD2: 1. Manchmal glaube ich schon, daß es überhaupt keine Liebe mehr gibt 2. Ich kann im Fortschritt keinen Fortschritt sehen 3. 291/5 4. Solo for Hugh Davies

Personnel: Disc1. 1. Nathaniel Catchpole (tenor saxophone); 2. Seymour Wright (alto saxophone); 3. Lou Gare (tenor saxophone); Disc 2. 1. & 2. Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet); 3. John Butcher (tenor saxophone); 4. Evan Parker (soprano saxophone)

October 2, 2006

NEWS FROM THE SHED

News From The Shed
EMANEM 4121

By Ken Waxman

Twenty years after the News From The Shed quintet was first constituted and about a dozen since it stopped playing concerts for good, a CD like NEWS FROM THE SHED takes on historical as well as musical importance.

Released as an LP on reedist John Butcher’s own Acta label in 1989, the session confirmed that the second generation of British Free Improvisers had established themselves as firmly as the first. Perhaps it’s comparable to HORACE SILVER AND THE JAZZ MESSENGERS or Max Roach and Clifford Brown’s DAAHOUD of the 1950s, which served notice of a hard bop renaissance spearheaded by younger players.

This comparison is more apt then hyperbolic. For just as those 1950s sessions included veterans from the preceding era – drummer Art Blakey on the first and drummer Roach on the second – so not all the members of News From The Shed are neo-tyros. While Britons Butcher on soprano and tenor saxophones, Phil Durrant on violin and electronics and guitarist John Russell were just beginning to be noticed on their own, Austrian trombonist Radu Malfatti and German drummer Paul Lovens had decades of high-profile playing under their belts with, in the brassman’s case, the London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra (LJCO) and Brotherhood of Breath (BOB), and in the percussionist’s various projects with pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach.

Additionally, the CD, which has been beefed up with four previously unreleased tracks is now also as historical as say a Louis Armstrong Hot Five recording or perhaps one by a 1940s Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie combo. Put simply, FreeImprov doesn’t sound this way any more. NEWS FROM THE SHED has a sort of staccato excitement encompassing raucous sonic vibrations which Malfatti, for one, has completely rejected. In 2006, both the saxophonist’s and the guitarist’s improvising is now more distilled and concentrated than it was in 1989 and Durrant focuses more on synthesizer and sampler software as well as site-specific projects. Only Lovens, in bands with von Schlippenbach and reedist Evan Parker, is basically still refining his mature style.

What this means is that while some of the oscillating whistles and triggered wave forms that would characterize the reduced parameters of late 20th Century improv appear, the dissolving silent pauses that make up early 21st century reductionist sounds are conspicuous by their absence. The pauses here are silences or quiet, not exaggerated statements given the same value as sound.

This is most noticeable on “Sticks and Stones’, where mid-way through the obvious wave-form reverberations from Durrant are treated as a reason to mute, not cease the others’ improvisations. Around it Butcher continues to sound double-tongued fluttering, Russell strummed guitar licks, Lovens claw-like cymbal scratches and Malfatti back-of-the-throat rubato plunger tones.

Similarly, on “Whisstrionics”, sharp, triggered pulses from Durrant are only one part of the sound picture. Also contributing in broken cadences are restrained, contrapuntal reed blowing, hocketing drum smacks and rubtao triplets that contrapuntally accelerate to ghostly shrieks and peeps.

Meanwhile, anyone familiar with the trombonist’s wholehearted adoption of the minimalist ethos might be tempered to wonder if he had a more raucous twin brother with the same name in the 1980s. Not as outgoing as his LJCO or BOB playing, there’s still a point on the newly released “The Clipper” that his plunger work is so raucous that it almost moves into tailgate territory. Not to be outdone, the saxophonist adds tongue slaps, the guitarist splayed flat picking and the drummer bangs his cymbals and drum tops.

It’s a good thing tracks like that were preserved, for Russell, who was in the midst of an apprenticeship in drummer John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, is frequently odd man out here when it comes to volume.. Corresponding to the violinist and electronic-manipulator’s struggle to be heard, only a few of the acoustic guitarist’s delicate below the bridge chromatics are audible. He fares better when he bears down with blunt, concentrated strumming.

As for Butcher, his polyphonic multi-tonguing, extended split tones fluttering irregular vibrations mixed with episodes of circular breathing mark the codification of his mature style. On this CD, however, the emphasis is on harmonic parallelism with the others’ extended technique. Today he’s more likely to play solo, with broadening electronic pick-ups or as a part of much smaller bands.

These various strategies reach a crescendo on the appropriately titled “Weaves”. Here Russell’s constant rasgueado complements sul ponticello shrilling from Durrant’s violin and slap, snaps and smacks from Lovens’ bells, drum tops and unselected cymbals. Meantime Malfati produces sniggling tremolo slides and Butcher pitch vibrated overblowing.

A mixture of old news and new news, NEWS FROM THE SHED is still good news.

Track Listing: 1. News from the Shed 2. The Gabdash 3. Reading the River 4. Kickshaws 5. Everything Stops for tea 6. Sticks and Stones 7. Weaves 8. Whisstrionics 9. Mean Time 10. Pepper’s Ghost 11. The Clipper 12. Coracle 13. Crooke’s Dark Space 14. Inkle

Personnel: Radu Malfatti (trombone, zither and accessories); John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Phil Durrant (violin and electronics); John Russell (acoustic guitar); Paul Lovens (selected drums, cymbals and saw)

August 21, 2006

POLWESCHEL

Archives of the North
Hatology 633

By Ken Waxman

Situated even more so than previously within its own unique sound world, the now five-man Polwechsel mixes reductionist techniques and inchoate electronic tinctures with the autonomy of FreeImprov to make its point

On this CD, the Austrian-British band changes direction by adding two percussionists – Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr – to an aural concept that previously was advanced by Polwechsel founders, Werner Dafeldecker on bass and cellist Michael Moser and given auxiliary tinctures when London-based reedist John Butcher joined the ensemble at the beginning of the century.

True to its initial impulses though, Beins, who has partnered with everyone from British guitarist Keith Rowe to vocalist Phil Minton; and Brandlmayr, who is in the Trapist trio which explores similar territory; aren’t percussionists in the conventional sense – at least if that’s measured in beats, flams or paradiddles. Instead both men inject barely pressured, stretched tones from their kits – long, hocketing cymbal vibrations, patterning wooden rim shot snaps, drum top scrapes and friction plus chains rattling and the rolling of blunt objects.

Interlocking with these impulses are Butcher’s distinctive tongue fluttering and stops, singular tone warbling, and multiphonic note expansion. Dafeldecker adds precise arco string movements and more concentrated dense hums, plus occasional, and often seemingly random, pizzicato string strums. Additionally, Mosher outputs electronic impulses from his computer from time-to-time. Yet the crackling reverb and input signal- crossing is introduced with the same lapidary care as the reedist brings to his wind-chime-like trills or the bassist does to his droned undercurrent.

Essentially the concept, like similarly distinctive tone distribution from England’s AMM or Australia’s The Necks is inimitable – improvisation following its own reductionist strictures. This way, the underlying and overlaid pulses are as liable to result from polyphonic interaction among subsets of acoustic instruments as from wave form oscillation produced electronically.

Zart as well as staccato, yet characterized at points with authoritative undulation arising from strummed chords and reed-linked ghost-note obbligatos, the sound appears and vanishes according to its own logic. Of and in itself and apparently timeless, ARCHIVES OF THE NORTH marks a stimulating next step in Polwechsel’s evolution.

Track Listing: 1. Datum Cut 2. Mirror 3. Core Cut 4. Magnetic North 5. Site and Setting

Personnel: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Michael Moser (cello and computer); Werner Dafeldecker (bass); Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr (drums and percussion)

August 14, 2006

Sealed Knot

Unwanted Object
Confront

Davies/Hayward/Ekhardt/Capece
Amber
Creative Sources

The Cortet
HHHH
Unsounds

By Ken Waxman
October 9, 2005

Visions of formally attired symphonic types producing shimmering glissandi, or alternately of Harpo Marx manhandling the luminescent strings, remain in most folks’ minds when they think of harpists. That may be why the 47-string symphony harps or smaller 34-string Celtic harps are usually musically underrepresented except for their coloration qualities.

Welsh harp-slinger Rhodri Davies may be the antidote to all that. Born in Aberystwyth, he has played the harp since the age of seven, and was educated enough in standard techniques to easily work in the so-called classical, pop and traditional fields. Slotting himself as an experimenter, however, he’s spent the past decade investigating electro-acoustic environments, adding noise, silence, textures and abstraction to his sound through preparations, detuning, bowed and e-bowed strings. The connective thread among these discs, he’s matched with different international ensembles on each.

Unwanted Object – which begs the question of which unwanted object is being described – is a trio session with British bassist Mark Wastell, who plays cello and vibrating surfaces in other circumstances, and German percussionist Burkhard Beins, a veteran of sessions with other new minimalists such as guitarist Keith Rowe and tubaist Robin Hayward. British-born, Berlin-resident Hayward himself joins Davies on Amber, as do two lesser known players. Argentinean in Paris, Lucio Capece plays bass clarinet and soprano saxophone. Someone who studied with French reedist Louis Sclavis, he moves between improvised and notated music, most prominently with the Q-O2 Ensemble directed by violist Julia Eckhardt, who is also featured on this disc. As well as performing chamber music and in contemporary music ensembles, Belgian Eckhardt improvises with veterans of that genre such as Beins.

Davies’ long-time associate, British tenor and soprano saxophonist John Butcher is featured on HHHH, in a quartet filled out by German analogue synthesizer player Thomas Lehn, who plays in a duo with Butcher, as well as with larger bands. Fourth member is prepared piano master Cor Fuhler of the Netherlands, who leads his own nine-piece Corkestra and is also part of numerous smaller groupings.

Divorced from the other two sets, the all-strings Unwanted Object is also the most abstract. Successor to a 2001 CD on Meniscus where Wastell concentrated on cello, its four untitled tracks deal with the friction generated from the abrasions forced on cymbals, drum tops, rims, strings, tuning pegs, and the ribs, belly and sides of the instruments. Beins isn’t the only percussionist either, considering that the drone Wastell produces from his four thick strings plus Davies’ rough harp string sounds are extended with cymbals, sticks, tambourines and other metal objects.

With the percussionist’s splayed beat sometimes amplified and sometimes superseded by squealing pulses that resemble clanging bell interference and hollow tube exorcism, the three work their way to the tension-enveloped, almost 13½-minute final track. Here the oscillating cymbal shrills, ostinato bass pulses and crinkle of balled aluminum foil from the harp strings that have lurked as an undercurrent since the beginning combine and expand.

Scraped low-pitched harp string sul ponticello roughness is followed by vigorous plucks from the bass and what sound like marbles thrown against strings or gyrating on drum tops. As pulses in triple counterpoint get louder and more insistent, hissing flutters and motor-drive suggestions add a robotic presence. Finally lower case cymbal slaps and chromatic harp runs transform the scratchy murmuring into a solid mass, superseded by a coda of percussion thumps and singular chapel bell-like peals.

Elsewhere, timbre mutation distinguishes Amber from the other quartet CD, since the number of add-ons and attachments in use dwarfs the extended techniques Eckhardt adapts for her fiddle. Transforming his horns into unharmonious sound objects, Capece mixes individual extended techniques with instruments prepared with ping pong balls, water, different kind of paper, fragments of plastic bottles, analog electronic setups and other objects. As for Hayward, he twists and blocks his valves and bell in such a way that the subsequent pressure leaks give his lumbering brass unique and distinctive tones.

Scope is available for all these strategies in the more-than-32½-minute first – of two – tracks. Muted, stopped tones from sibilant reeds and buzzing valve tones join with droning string resonation to overcome a rumbling pitch and condense into a wider and more viscous sound. Together the Bronx cheer-like reed pitches and breakneck sul ponticello string sweeps accelerate into electronic-mimicking whirls that grind like the motor on a conveyer belt.

Soon the harp’s pizzicato plinks swell and are extended by abrasions and thumps from wooden sticks inserted among them. Simultaneously, tuba growls are blocked with twisted spit valves, while on the reed side, measured tongue slaps and key pops turn into strangled cries and pitches, and then coalesce into a concentrated tone block. Eventually the spherical drone is pierced by earth-shaking tuba vibrations and Capece sucking and kissing his reed. Two-thirds of the way through, a sound variation on a rolling marble – from the reedist’s body tube? – presages a quiet interlude which is then interrupted by wood-rendering string yanks that gradually reach a crescendo of rattling, scratching and shrilling uneven tones, and which are sustained by blocked-valve flatulence and mallets tapping strings for new resonances.

Inflating the capacity and impermeability of horn vibrato, irregularly pulsed spiccato motions from the strings add double counterpoint in the final section allowing the irregular pulse subsides into silence.

Wobbly string clatter, lathe-turning buzzes, cross-blown reed puffs and twisted valve redirection are the second piece’s only distinguishing features from the first. Overall though, appreciation of both it and the entire CD demands a blind adherence to the necessity of group creation.

HHHH’s four tracks showcases sonic textures no less complex or coagulated than on Amber, but the individuality of the four players is more evident. Perhaps that’s because it features some of Europe’s most accomplished free improvisers

“RH”, at less than three minutes, for instance, fades seamlessly into slide whistle textures from Fuhler preparations, as Lehn’s synth beeps and peeps, Butcher interjects lip bubbling and quacking, and Davies ratcheting textures and side slaps. When these string sounds become accompanying plinks they’re twinned by distinctive trills from Butcher’s reed.

Conversely, the saxman’s grainy resonating trills are matched with jagged harp abrasions, droning ostinato pulsation from Lehn and inside piano crunches from Fuhler on “HN”. As circularly vibrated notes from the saxophone are transformed into tongue slaps, Bronx cheers and glottal punctuation, Davies finds space to showcase splayed chromatic lines as well as rattling tambourine friction among his strings. Meantime Lehn pulsates a steady continuum of bottom scraping sputters.

All and all, the remainder of the CD appears to frame “TH”, which at a touch over 24 minutes is obviously HHHH’s centrepiece. Crinkly reed chirps and harp plinks convene with synthesizer sine waves and banjo-like internal string flails from Fuhler to begin the piece. Instructively, the scraped and buzzing harp and piano string shrills soon appear almost as oral as Butcher’s aviary twittering and irregular pitch vibrations.

Eventually, soprano saxophone vibrations soar over chromatic harp arpeggios and the keyboardist punching high frequency textures from wound soundboard strings. Not content with that, Fuhler is soon scraping both gentle sawing and broad-axe tones from the piano’s internal strings as he’s simultaneously sweeping his hands over the external keys without depressing them. Lehn responds with high-pitched, bird-like chirping, Butcher with bubbly, wet overblowing and Davies with accented patterning that sounds as if he’s striking his strings with a mallet. The marimba-like vibrations produced amplify not only the note but their overtones as well.

Virtually comping – in the jazz sense – Fuhler’s fills encourage Butcher to create intensity driven reed bites that take on Woody Woodpecker cadences and Davies’ striated cymbal to scour the harp string. As accelerated multiphonics from the soprano saxophone combine with grinding drones from the synthesizer, the effect is that of extenuated and continuous sine waves. Merged in broken octaves, Davies’ harp string battering and Butcher’s flutter tonguing define detailed absorption, until a shrill twitter from Lehn gives the instant composition concluding punctuation.

HHHH may be the primary example of the many strategies of an improvising harpist. Still each of these discs offers many characterizations of Davies’s unique and considerable skills.

October 10, 2005

Another Memorable Total Music Meeting

for CODA

Gradually returning to fiscal health – its artistic vigor has never been in doubt – the 37th annual Total Music Meeting will take place November 3 to November 6 at the Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur in Berlin’s now fashionable Kreuzberg.district. Concerts begin at 8 pm and feature three to four performances each night.

Although the program has not yet been officially announced, participants definitely include British saxophonists John Butcher and Evan Parker; Americans like trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Gino Robair, the Loos ensemble from the Netherlands; the trio of Swiss saxophonist Urs Leimgruber, American bassist Barre Phillips and French pianist Jacques Demierre and German musicians like trumpeter Axel Dörner, drummer Günter Baby Sommer and multi-reedist Wolfgang Fuchs. Attendance per night is usually in the 300 person range.

Began in 1968 and running concurrently with the more mainstream Berlin Jazz Festival, the TMM is organized by a committee made up of Fuchs as artistic director, counselor G. Fritze Margull and Helma Schleif of FMP Free Music Production, who oversees the organization and the program. These three took the helm in 2000 to broaden TMM’s profile by presenting acoustic, electro-acoustic and electronic ensembles from all over the world, showcasing young improvisers as well as master musicians, and by extending the program with workshops, lectures, panel discussions and exhibitions.

That was the same year when the festival, which over the years has presented a virtual who’s who of improvised music from German bassist Peter Kowald and pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach to Canadians, pianist Paul Plimley and the Glass Orchestra, was shortened to three days as its subsidy was slashed. A more serious setback occurred in 2003 when Berlin cut off all funding. Subsidized by FMP and helped by world-renowned musicians, working for a fraction of their fees, TMM survived. Although a lump sum subsidy from Berlin is available this year, for its long-term survival the festival is also involved in fund-raising and the sale of art created by Kowald, Max Neumann, Hanns Schimansky and Urs Jaeggi and others.

This artistic component is further emphasized in 2005 as the Galerie Landesmuseum will be open until midnight during all four days, so that concertgoers also have the opportunity to view its various expositions.

As in the past, every TMM concert will be recorded for potential CD release, a situation which over the years has not only resulted in the preservation of a marathon series of concerts by Cecil Taylor in 1988, but also landmark gigs such as Fuchs’ King Übü Örchestrü’s 20th anniversary celebration and Butch Morris’ Berlin Skyscraper conduction.

With improvised music “a never ending work-in-progress and a celebration of musical creativity and spiritual power” by players prepared to live his and her music”, notes Schleif, “the TMM contributes by giving a large number of musicians a platform to perform and present their state of the art.”

-- Ken Waxman

September 7, 2005

John Butcher

Cavern with Nightlife
Weight of Wax

By Ken Waxman
March 7, 2005

Exposing new challenges and resolutions, Cavern with Nightlife is yet another object lesson in the evolving sound odyssey of British saxophonist John Butcher.

Already master of the solo and duo session, he expands the expected palate on these five tracks recorded in Japan. Using both soprano and tenor saxophone the first four pieces have him utilizing the acoustic resonance of Utsunomiya City’s Oya Stone Museum to conjure up enhanced, ever-shifting aural reflections, in the process often creating enough textures for a battalion of reed players. With this huge former lava quarry 60 metres underground and taking up an area of 20,000 square metres, massive reverberations are available. Recorded in a new Tokyo club, the CD’s final track is a first-time meeting between Butcher, adding amplified feedback to his tenor saxophone output and Toshimaru Nakamura, whose preferred axe is the no-input mixing board.Beginning with a great, bubbling gout of sound on “Ideoplast”, the first track, Butcher shapes stentorian reverberations with growls and tongue slaps. Soon he’s circular breathing a solid line of muffled vibrations, constructing his solo one slap at a time. Inert node extrapolation and other timbres attach and detach themselves as he plays. Climax is a sibilant wavering line following triple-stopped tonguing.

Mutated dog-like yips and whistles enliven “Mustard Bath” giving the impression that Butcher’s sax is simultaneously the pooch and someone calling the mutt. Beginning with a nearly unending volley of spewed notes sounds burrow into the gooseneck to acoustically resonate every unpolished node.

Despite its infelicitous title “Ejecta” doesn’t showcase spittle, but the convergence of echoing multiphonics first singular then solidified into another dense display. Encompassing reed percussion that resembles a double bass tone, growls and bites are inhaled and expelled, taking on the variable properties of repetition, pinpoint tongue slaps and glottal punctuation. Sped up and jarring, the finale discloses a series of discordant graceless (sic) notes whose resonation is distended by the properties of the stone and air around them.

If the first two-thirds of the CD captures Butcher’s accommodation with the results of disturbed nature, than “Practical Luxury”, the more-than-19-minute final track shows how Butcher confront mechanics and electricity. Since Nakamura, who abandoned the guitar in 1998 for this adapted set up and has since duetted with the likes of guitarist Keith Rowe, and turntablist/guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama, expresses himself through silences and muffled loops, the saxman also becomes the locus of the piece.

One part of Butcher’s oral strategy is to unleash tongue oscillation, rolling colored air and buzzing a continuum, so much so that you often have to remind yourself that it’s tenor saxophone he’s playing. Coleman Hawkins wouldn’t recognize the tone. Than again Hawkins never improvised alongside another musician whose stock in trade is often unfocused scrapes, clanging, bell-like signals and sine wave jiggles and twitters.

Butcher’s muted tongue-stops and resonant lip vibratos extrude even more starkly when the mixing boardist’s contributions centre on metal-upon-metal scratches, thinly distributed fluttering and echoing signals. With Nakamura’s timbres usually felt more than heard, they just as regularly appear to melt into general ambiance.

Using split-second response and silences to his advantage, the saxman is nothing but subtle, usually constructing his solos out of ghostly diaphragm vibrations and delicate tongue stopping. By the end Nakanura’s boosted and stretched waveforms pulsate to near-ambient space as Butcher propels a climax out of strident wheezes and extensive, rumbling key percussion.

Prepare another accolade to reflect the reedist’s steadily lengthening collection of mastered challenges.

March 7, 2005

JOHN BUTCHER/GINO ROBAIR

New Oakland Burr
Ratascan BRD 051

PAAL NILSSEN LOVE/MATS GUSTAFSSON
I Love It When You Snore
Smalltown Supersound STS 063 CD

Stripping down to essentials, intrepid improvisers find solos and duos present unvarnished sounds with the fewest possible obstructions.

Especially popular are discs that match a single reedist with a single percussionist to see what sparks fly. Participants in these two short CDs recorded around the same time have frequently been involved in similar situations. While all four have the scope to display outstanding, extended techniques, nowhere is there a feeling that these aren’t just new notches in the players’ belt. They may be impressive to newbies, but they’re not near any of the player’s highest standard.

British saxophonist John Butcher and Bay-area percussionist Gino Robair score higher, but only because their instrumental range is wider. Butcher plays tenor and soprano saxophones, either acoustically or through amplified feedback, while Robair expresses himself on cymbals, toy reed, styrofoam, faux dax, ebow snare and motors. Still the varied textures they can bring to the performance are dissipated over 16 [!] tracks on the little more than 40-minute CD.

Clocking in at 32 minutes, the other session shoehorns seven tracks performed by Swedish baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Norwegian percussionist Paal Nilssen-Love onto the disc. Throughout, the pattern seems to be the saxist expelling massive sprays of buzzing, reed-biting mouth percussion, heavy on the vocalized vibrato as the drummer responds with cross sticking bounces and rolls in a variety of tempos.

Gustafsson, whose international reputation includes membership in Barry Guy’s New Orchestra and a partnership in different combos with American saxist Ken Vandermark, wastes no time showcasing his collection of intense tongue slaps, growling mouth percussion, glottal tongue stops and intense overblowing. Often his grunting effort is such that it appears as if he’s trying to resolve an intestinal blockage as he plays.

Meanwhile Nilssen-Love, who has backed a clutch of reedists including Butcher and Vandermark, gives as good as he gets.

His irregular patterning includes such extensions as focused cymbal or triangle pops, cymbal scrapes, rim shots, concentrated snare pressure, sudden breaks into march tempo, resonating cymbal lines, a split-second excursion into montuno and single bell-like peals.

Typical of the duet is “Shake Off”, where Gustafsson’s split tone slurs into false registers lead to bubbling lip smacks, pops and key percussion. Nilssen-Love soon picks up the pace with ratamacues, matching the reedman honk for honk and snort for snort. Moving from march time with inverted sticking, he makes a rapprochement with the saxist’s splintering tone by the end.

Deplorably that description could apply to most of the other tunes as well. I LOVE IT WHEN YOU SNORE could have benefited from variations in time and tempo.

Persistent sameness weakens some of the tracks on NEW OAKLAND BURR, as does the feeling that a few of the shorter ones are little more than experiments in technique. “Slug Tag’ for instance, focus on a drumstick scratch on the cymbal that with waves of widened reed tones resolves itself as a variation on ear-splitting heavy metalism. “Tucking” is little more than one minute of sluicing tones from Robair’s styrofoam leavened by harmonic breaths from Butcher; and “Pudsey Surprise” could be 44 seconds of someone blowing through a comb and tissue paper.

Far more toothsome are tracks like “One side is with a pea, the other pealess” -- who thinks of these titles? -- and “Blagovest”. The first features what are evidentially Robair’s motor dragging on top of an inflexible surface, with Butcher’s tongue slaps, doits and tongue stops providing the percussion rhythm. Robair then counters with what sounds like a robotic Bronx cheer, if a Robot did that while electricity passes through its body. Finale is the reedist’s circular breathing, plus squalling buzzing whistles from somewhere.

“Blagovest” showcases those abrasive tissue paper timbres from Butcher that link with Robair producing more lacerating tones from his toy reed, faux dax or air filled cheeks. Soon the squeals and shrieks are so incessant and higher-pitched that you’re reminded of feeding time at the puppy mill. Taking the animal metaphor farther, Butcher seems to be pulling duck calls from his reed.

“Fid” finds Butcher -- likely helped by electronics -- creating double counterpoint with himself,. Two melodies from this single source are displayed on top of undulating drones from Robair’s percussion collection. With a cornucopia of multiphonics multiplying to fill every aural space, the reverberations that remain when the track end are like those you still hear after a heavy metal guitarist has switched off his amp after a blistering solo.

Still other improvisations are illustrations of their titles, as “Cajun Squeal” which matches Butcher’s concise trilled timbre with the squeaking of Robair’s dax -- or is it a plastic toy? -- and “Whine Model” that may use a sequencer to split a continuous feedback shrill so that it becomes louder and more rasping.

Again, many of these trompe d’oreille have been exhibited elsewhere.

Completists and committed followers of these men’s works, singly or together may rate the discs higher. From this perspective, however, both CDs offer up good, but not great work. The later can be found elsewhere.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Burr: 1. Throat rust 2. Poundering 3. Wrong and Home 4. Slug Tag 5. Tucking 6. Pudsey Surprise 7. Cajun Squeal 8. Whine Model 9. Fid 10. Snub 11. 20p Uncle 12. Peal 13. Blagovest 14. Vug 15. One side is with a pea, the other pealess 16. Louche

Personnel: Burr: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones plus amplified feedback); Gino Robair (cymbals, toy reed, styrofoam, faux dax, ebow snare, motors)

Track Listing: Snore: 1. I Love It 2. Come Lie Closer 3. Face Make 4. Lightning Bug 5. Shake Off 6. Snarcus Brutalis 7. When You Snore

Personnel: Snore: Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone); Paal Nilssen-Love (percussion)

November 15, 2004

JOHN BUTCHER/CHRISTOPHER IRMER/AGUSTÍ FERNÁNDEZ

Clearings
ART.CappuccinoNet 008

Trans-European improv, CLEARINGS showcases a meeting of minds among musicians from three different countries with three distinct approaches to free music. Resulting in a substantial program of melding timbres, the CD confirms that only in a liberated musical situation like this could disparate styles meld.

As a matter of fact, if there was ever a complete misnomer, then it’s the title of the second track, “Bumpy Ride”. Here and elsewhere, the distinctive smeary trills of Britain’s John Butcher morph into wiggling irregular vibrations and join the speedy spiccato bowing of Germany’s Christoph Irmer and the dissonant, uneven note clusters of Spain’s Agustí Fernández sans bumps.

Both with classical training, pianist Fernández and violinist Irmer have recorded together before, while Irmer has also played with American bassist Dominic Duval and two of the pianist’s collaborators German bassist Peter Kowald and American flautist Jane Rigler. Fernández’s partners have ranged from American bassist William Parker to British reedist Evan Parker. Butcher who is universally acknowledged as the most important sax explorer since Parker, seems to have played with nearly everyone in improvised music from American drummer Gerry Hemingway to German synthesizer whiz Thomas Lehn.

There are no electronics in use on this session that took place in the same Hamburg studio where the Beatles recorded as Tony Sheridan’s sidemen in 1961, nor do the techniques of pop ever interfere. Instead instant compositions like “Fire Stack” are featured. Here reed key pops, tongue slaps and colored air mix it up with ponticello bowing and the literal scratching of the fiddle’s wood. Meanwhile Fernández forages in the piano innards, eventually encouraging legato glissandos to turn into straightforward harmonics -- which brings forth sibilant duck-like quacks from Butcher.

Although there are times throughout when the two traditional instruments seem headed towards a formal recital stance, extended saxophone technique gets them back into the free music arena.

Among the processes on offer are Fernández slapping and stopping the action of the piano strings, battering the keys with dynamic pressure, sounding the occasional bent note and leaping hopscotch-like over the keyboard. Irmer laterally saws away at his strings so that the tone begins to resemble that of a whining human voice. And he also creates elongated grating string pitches to accompany repeated piano arpeggios or irregularly pitched penny whistle vibrations from Butcher. As well as creating tiny, multi-note bird tweets from his soprano, the reedist at points also smears and snorts tenor sax lines.

“Siege” is a summation of many of these patterns, featuring the three polyphonically sounding out three separate but complementary lines. Measured violin harmonies, rumbling, bass piano lines and atmospheric horn honks combine with a minimum of friction.

Perhaps the summation of the trio’s work comes on the aptly-named, longest track, “Prophecy”. As Butcher’s blaring spetrofluctuation, key pops and extended grainy slurs meet Fernández’s syncopated tremolos and high frequency chording and Irmer’s staccato fiddle lines that build makes the prophecy of a Pan-European music a reality.

At least in that neck of the improv woods, that prophecy seems to have been realized.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Entrance 2 Bumpy Ride 3. Owl of Minerva 4. Mirror images 5. Siege 6. Some time ago 7. Crystal Cube 8. Traps of Silence 9. Haunted Place 10. Fire Stack 11. Prophecy 12. Fizzy Drive 13. Farewell

Personnel: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); Agustí Fernández (piano); Christoph Irmer (violin)

June 28, 2004

NO SPAGHETTI EDITION

Real time satellite data
SOFA 513

CHRIS BURN’S ENSEMBLE
Ensemble at Musica Genera 2002
Musica General MG 006

Overcoming the challenge of fomenting non-idiomatic improvisations in the gray area between composition and improvisation has been a preoccupation of inclusive European musicians for the past few decades. Making that concept work in the field between electronic and handmade sounds preoccupied them in the 1990s. In the 21st Century, as these two consummate CDs demonstrate, the most accomplished instrumentalists are able to wrap all these tendencies into a program that can be performed by larger bands -- six and eight musicians are featured in the sessions here.

Xenophobes may dispute it, but another reason these performances are so memorable is that the improvisers, whether British, Welsh, French, Greek, German and Norwegian -- to rhyme off the nationalities on both discs -- have really developed a Pan European sonic sound. This mastery of the notated, improvised and electro-acoustic means that an ensemble such as the Oslo-based No Spaghetti Edition can alter its composition each time out, adding new sound sources to plectrumist Ivar Grydeland, bassist Tonny Kluften and percussionist Ingar Zach who make up the core group. Similarly Chris Burn’s usually all British Ensemble is this time filled out by French clarinetist Xavier Charles and Greek cellist Nikos Veliotis. It’s a concept that could give anti-EU British Tories conniption fits.

As a matter of fact Veliotis’ harsh cello tones, combined with the scrapes and rasps inflicted on the copper and steel strings during Burn’s inside piano forays and by Welsh harpist Rhordi Davies on his instrument, provide the six pieces with a distinctive percussive plait. Adding to the mesh, is the characteristic understated reed tones of long-time Burn associate saxophonist John Butcher, extended still further by the textures arising from the synthesizer and electronics of Mathew Hutchinson, who is often found in a New music context when not improvising with Burn and Butcher.

Take “Rotacja”, built around droning, ostinato electronics interrupted by echoing reedy buzzes from both woodwinds and rasping string swells and koto-like scrapes from the string players. Using brief silences as time-outs, these periods of sound respite are usually brought to an end by the sudden full-force smash on piano keys or cello strings plus the vociferous warbling of shrill, aviary reed multiphonics.

Except for “Qpdbqp”, an almost 8½-minute Veliotis-composed example of one dense languidly moving single tone, ensemble or Burn-created pieces revolve around grating clawhammer picking or harsh flat picking from the strings, as well as ear-splitting squeals, pitch distortions and distended mouthpiece raspberries from the oral instruments.

Never letting the listener forget for a moment that the non-reeds can be heard as metal objects, the compositions seem to revel in harshness, with instruments appearing to be beaten with whatever blunt object is available to create more sound sources. As reed chirps meld with undulating electric-motivated buzzed synthesizer tones, you can also sometimes hear eccentric scraped lines that reconstruct themselves into resonating bottleneck-like tones.

Though you would think that guitarist and banjoist Grydeland would indulge in similar outlandish techniques, neither he, Kluften, Davies nor German inside-piano specialist Andrea Neumann are that up-front in their contributions to the Spaghetti octet CD. Instead, except for some distinctive below-the-bridge exploration from the guitarist, thumps from the bassist’s sticks and rubber band preparations and characteristic inside-piano string sweeps they stay in the background. In the foreground are tones produced by Charles -- who also introduces wavering harmonica timbres where appropriate -- fellow Frenchman Michel Doneda on soprano and sopranino saxophones and the trumpet and electronics of Germany’s Axel Dörner, who also often plays with Burn and Butcher.

A mixture of very short -- five of the 12 tracks are less than two minutes -- and very long -- two are respectively almost 21 and nearly 30½ minutes each -- REAL TIME SATELLITE DATA isn’t as satisfying as the other CD. Over the course of more than 72½ minutes some of the impressive dense harmonies are dissipated. Not that the improvisations are ever less than convincing however, but eliminating the shorter tracks may have been a better idea.

Consider the more than half-an-hour in which “Who is changing places” develops. Beginning almost inaudibly, the sound field first blossoms with unidentifiable scratches and saxophone tongue slaps, tiny hollow rolls from the percussionist and oscillations and buzzes from electronics. Following an ascending line of static, undulating mouth timbres constitute themselves into snarls and scratches that resemble the panting sounds a dog makes when he wants to get outside. As the underlying programmed tone expands from just below regular hearing to slightly louder, bass fiddle power plucks meet billowing chromatic trumpet growls, interspersed with minute glockenspiel thwacks. Defining leitmotif of this instant composition is the constant circular breathing tones from the horns, distributed in such a way that you can hear the individual nose and mouth breaths that soon start to resemble a hospital patient’s oxygen tube. Finally the infirmary-like stillness is shattered by the sidewalk drill rattling of cymbals and bells and a collection of airy blown noises and reverberating growls that could signal quitting time at a metal fabrication factory.

Just as impressive, though more morbid, is the almost 21-minute “In gasping death”, which depends on percussionist Zach’s versatility. It begins brutally enough with long, sibilant reed tones, brassy chromatic trumpet runs and the snap of drumsticks. Following guitar flat-picking, bass plucks and what in other circumstances could be a whirl drum sound, repeated gagaku-like court music from bells and metals are heard. Before the bells take on regular cathedral-like cadences, it appears as if small objects are being rolled on the floor and along it, as an assembly line of electronic rumbles comes to the fore. Abrasive drum scrapes, rubbed cymbals and kettledrum thwacks break up rolling drones from the reeds and dense sine wave movements. By the end, an assembly line of buzzes, crackles and cracks from the electronic impulses and scraping reed split tones are succeeded by polyphonic human-sounding shrieks that give way to an inside piano string sweep.

Although some of the shorter tracks evidently seem to centre more on resonating furniture-moving timbres than concise improvisational extensions, taken a few at a time, they can provide pleasure as well.

Pan-European and Post-Modern at the same time, and despite some personnel crossover, the octet and sextet here provide subtly distinct and equally legitimate examples of 21st Century creativity.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ensemble: 1. Zaczac 2. Rotacja 3. Qpdbqp 4. Strach Na Wroble 5. Kontynuowac 6. Konczyc

Personnel: Ensemble: Xavier Charles (clarinet); John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Chris Burn (piano); Nikos Veliotis (cello); Rhordi Davies (harp); Mathew Hutchinson (synthesizer and electronics)

Track Listing: Real: 1. Soon, too soon 2. In gasping death 3. Micro warehouse 4. Micro luggage 5. Micro control journal 6. Mini systems 7. Macro photography 8. Macro investors 9. Super systems 10. Who is changing places 11. Super position 12. Super opposition

Personnel: Real: Axel Dörner (trumpet and electronics); Xavier Charles (clarinet and harmonica); Michel Doneda (soprano and sopranino saxophones); Andrea Neumann (inside piano); Ivar Grydeland (guitar and banjo); Rhordi Davies (harp); Tonny Kluften (bass); Ingar Zach (percussion )

February 16, 2004

JOHN BUTCHER

Invisible ear
Fringes 12

ANTHONY BRAXTON
Solo (Milano) 1979
Golden Years of New Jazz GY 20

When visionary Anthony Braxton ushered in the idea of solo saxophone sessions with FOR ALTO in 1969, he probably never released how many contemporary reedists would follow his lead.

Today it seems that nearly every modern horn player, excluding the so-called Smooth Jazz fraternity, has tried his or her hands -- or more rightly fingers -- at the concept with mixed results. Luckily the CDs here feature the work of two stylists who thrive on solo playing, because they’re internalized its inherent challenges, beyond novelty. Instructively, as well, the discs also show how unique applications have altered underlying concepts.

SOLO (MILANO) 1979, for instance, finds Braxton, playing only alto saxophone, still basing his improvisations on an extension of the jazz and standards tradition. In contrast, on INVISIBLE EAR, British soprano and tenor saxophonist John Butcher uses

close-miking, multi-tracking and amplified/feedback to abstract his already more experimental conceptions.

Not that the limited-edition CD is an unalloyed triumph. While “What remains” and “Atelier”, the two multi-tracked sax tracks, are the most pleasing to the ear, they also sound the most conventional. The later, especially, which piles soprano sax lines upon soprano sax lines to create impressionistic overlays of sound, makes you wonder how much different the end product would have been if the three lines had been played by three different, but coordinated saxists. The former features five tenor and three sopranos buzzing like hummingbirds from different parts of the sound spectrum.

“The importance of gossip”, which highlights amplified/feedback saxes and a Korg synthesizer, offers up more tones, timbres and hisses. With flattement and key percussion bubbling out from all the instruments simultaneously, alternate shrill and growling tones are smoothed out by rolling feedback.

Rolling out appears to be the key description here, for whether it’s double-tongued fast slurred tones or pure colored air going through the body tube to produce breath overtones and whistles, Butcher uses the same limber technique. On “A controversial fix for....” rolled air takes harsh growled, split tones and directs it so the sound doubles and takes on expansive accordion properties which reflect back on the primary timbres.

Meanwhile close-miked experiments result in tracks where reed squeals take on the persona of a drumstick scraped on a cymbal or key pops recreate what could only be termed the crumbling of tissue paper. The amplified soprano on “Sprinkler” gives more body to Butcher’s distinctive tongue-slapping and key popping tones as splayed fingering and flutter tonguing are partnered by percussive mouth sounds, key movement clicks and a few reed squeals. Then there’s the unvarying droned feedback on “Magnetic bottle”, where the shaking, doorbell-like buzzing distorts the reed output so that it appears that a second tenor saxophone or perhaps a bagpipe from outer space is present.

“Streamers” is most memorable track, not so much for the feedback, which only appears to be triggered at the end, but for the deliberate manipulation of the keys, isolating each note and producing vibrations of the vibrations of the vibrations. Sometimes, between key manipulation and breaths through body tube, some would be hard pressed to swear that the sound came from a tenor saxophone if it wasn’t noted on the sleeve.

There’s no question that Braxton is playing alto saxophone on his disc, though, and he even includes one jazz standard and Tin Pan Alley ballad to prove he was in the tradition, an expression that in 1979 hadn’t yet taken on retrogressive Marsalis-like overtones. His treatment of “Out of Nowhere” is fascinating, since he deconstructs the verse before he introduces the familiar chorus. Despite some double tonguing, his treatment of “I Remember Clifford” seems a little too respectful, however. Listen closely and you’ll hear a foot tapping beat and he makes sure to reprise the head after he concludes his variations.

“Composition No. 77b” and “Composition No. 106m” which begin and end this live concert are both taken pretty legato and with unthreatening timbres. Slides, slurs and repetitive passing tones don’t mask the references to half-forgotten bebop lines that poke through. You’d listen in vain for similar suggestions on Butcher’s disc.

Don’t forget, however, that this concert was taped more than 20 years before the other CD, so what may sound balladic in 2003, may have been almost as frighteningly unfamiliar to the audience as his methodology experiments. Many of those are on display as well. A couple of tunes have Braxton producing canon-like stair step cadenzas or pieces that begin with low-pitch growling honks that dissolve into higher-pitched multiphonics, complete with hearty tongue slaps.

As Butcher and others would do later on, “Composition No. 8h” finds Braxton dealing with circular flutter tonguing, repeated split tones and slurred lines so that the first lines are extended by the second ones and echoed with wavering multiphonics. “Composition No. 8g” features internal body tube squeaks and throat shouts, while flattement is used to advance and vibrate different note patterns.

“Composition No. 8h” may even be a textbook example of Braxton’s style at the time. Beginning in a straight line, but with glottal honks and repetitive overblowing, he soon cleaves the sound so that it appears he has two horns -- one high, smooth and legato, the other low, harsh and staccato --, that then change places for a time. High-intensity harsh honks, squeals and trills mean that the piece ends faster, more abstract and more dissonant than it began without every losing the audience’s concentration.

These sessions by a solo pioneer and a sonic explorer will likely interest more than just reed freaks.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Invisible: 1. Swan style 2. Cup anatomical 3. What remains 4. Streamers 5. A controversial fix for.... 6. ....shrilling reed freakout 7. The importance of gossip 8. Dark field 9. Bright field 10. Magnetic bottle 11. Sprinkler 12. Atelier

Personnel: Invisible: John Butcher (close-miked soprano saxophone [tracks 1, 2, 8, 9], multi-tracked saxophones [tracks 3, 12)], amplified/feedback tenor saxophone [tracks 4, 5, 6, 10)], amplified/feedback soprano saxophone [track 11], multi-tracked feedback saxophones and Korg synthesizer [track 7])

Track Listing: Solo: 1. Composition No. 77b 2. Composition No. 119a 3. Composition No. 8g 4. I Remember Clifford 5. Composition No. 99L 6. Composition No. 8h 7. Out of Nowhere 8. Composition No. 8i 9. Composition No. 99m 10. Composition No. 106m

Personnel: Solo: Anthony Braxton (alto saxophone)

December 1, 2003

JOHN BUTCHER/MIKE HANSEN/TOMASZ KRAKOWIAK

Equation
Spool/Field SPF 303

ANDY MOOR/JOHN BUTCHER/THOMAS LEHN
Thermal
Unsounds u04

Like the fabled jazz gunslingers of the 1960s -- saxophonist Sonny Stitt comes most readily to mind -- free music practitioners have become inured to travelling -- regularly moving from town to town and country to country to play their music.

Unlike those 1960s jazz sharpshooters, who roamed like solitary quick draw artists in the Old West, rounding up a posse of backing musicians to support them in taming the music when they arrived in a location, free improvisers are more syndicalist. Rather than seeing themselves as a single playing with a group of deputized accomplices, they integrate themselves into the posse to produce group music.

That’s the case with British saxophonist John Butcher -- a well-known itinerant musician -- on these CDs. THERMAL finds him trading licks with Andy Moor, guitarist for Dutch anarcho punks the Ex, and German synthesizer virtuoso Thomas Lehn. EQUATION hooks up Butcher with two Torontonians, percussionist Tomasz Krakowiak and Mike Hansen, who is also a visual artist, manipulating an old-fashioned, school-issue record player. Both CDs not only pinpoint Butcher’s versatility in different situations, but also highlight new performers adding their skills to the ongoing improv gestalt.

This many years down the road, of course, the British reedist usually offers a distinctive outlay of notes and tones, which is why it’s so interesting to hear him with diverse partners.

Alive with the sort of sonic melding which leaves the listener wondering who exactly played what, Butcher appears to be using more outlandish extended techniques. That means that split tones, whistles, circular breathing, flattement, tongue slaps and key pops are just the beginning of his output. His irregular vibrations often make it seem like he’s playing a duet with himself as frequently as unconnected horn parts appear for a second and then vanish.

Also notable is Hansen’s choice of the prosaic record player, rather than the sleek, techno turntable as his instrument of choice. More than a contrast in terminology, his seasoned, school-issue machines seem to come with a layer of classroom dirt that when amplifies through the system create a static-pitted continuum beneath Butcher’s improvisations, the way Keith Rowe’s lap guitar drones do in AMM’s sessions. At times, in fact, it appears as if Hansen’s manipulating the stylus on the turntable itself to get original sounds. Seldom does he indulge in hip-hop LP scratching, and only then as a rhythmic counterpoint to some of Butcher’s steady multiphonics

He does play records every so often however. On the fifth part of the first suite, for example, playing an LP backwards so its output turns to a sort of maniacal laughter, or sliding one section of an LP at what could be 78 rpm, bisecting Butcher’s trilling multiphonics that soon turn to speedy tongue slaps and irregularly vibrated, elongated pure reed tones. Later the saxist introduces a complete set of circular breathing exercises, moving up the scale as he spews out one whole note after another.

Elsewhere, seconds of recorded classical music apparently played at the wrong speed for seconds brings out a burst of spetrofluctuation from Butcher’s horn that soon turn into wavering tones. At another point the recorded phrase “Keep goin’ baby” is repeated a couple of times following a Butcher showcase. He had been breathing sounds through nose and diaphragm, mixing in tongue slaps and honking echoes plus granulated spit tones.

Ground-down dirt and mechanized static from a record player can aurally redefine itself as a sort of electronic pulse that appears in-and-out of hearing range. Or at least it seems this way on the final track. Here the reedist lets loose with prolonged reed kisses, hisses air through his body tube without moving the keys and, closely miked, seems to have invested as much in nose as mouth breathing. Finally after the expelled sound increase in intensity and depth, he frees it from amplified turntable rumble and vanishes into silence.

Before this happens there has been a hint of scratched percussion timbres from

Krakowiak’s kit. That hint, unfortunately is the session’s one deficiency. By accident or design the percussion is mostly lost within the mix. There are times as on the penultimate track when it appears as if Krakowiak’s about to drape himself over different sound sources à la the Spontaneous Music Ensemble’s John Stevens, but that impulse vanishes as quickly as it appears. Otherwise some miscellaneous crackles, crinkles and crumbles can be ascribed to him. There are point when the sound of a drum stick being dragged across a cymbal -- an old improv trick -- can be heard; as can a splatter of quick percussion taps; a single drum roll and the appearance of a bell-like tones and syncopated rattles elsewhere. Perhaps too it’s he who appears to be stroking a balloon for new textures as well. But his other contributions are absent or unheard.

Recorded in Amsterdam, the other CD avoids this percussion conundrum altogether by not employing a stick man. Yet Lehn produces enough keyboard pressure and Moor -- who comes from rock music -- creates enough driving bass notes on his six-string to almost replicate a drum beat.

This rhythm is apparent on “Broken Fighter Plane” where the synthesizer provides the ostinato on which Butcher’s bird-like chirps and vibrato rest. By the time the tempo has worked its way up to presto, Butcher is wriggling out elongated whole tones, Lehn is crashing out freight-train powered chords that are half electric piano and half drum set, while Moor is firing focused guitar treatments into the stratosphere.

Earlier “Once Gravity Strikes for Real” appears to have guitar lines that escaped from “Purple Haze”, while Lehn’s output approximates that of a video game soundtrack. Among these oscillating synthesizer waves and later rhythmic bass line from Moor, the reedist amplifies his aviary chirps so that the flock’s volume is intense enough to compete with the mechanized drone and sine wave from Lehn.

Real musique concrète, “Teeth” begins with the grating clamor of what sounds like all the instruments being pushed across the studio floor. Soon afterwards, Lehn seems to lean into his keyboard forearm first as the guitarist creates some slack key picking. Butcher’s lofty sax tones take on pinched ney or musette qualities. Then after what appears to be the recording of card shuffling, Moor replicates a bass string emphasized psychedelic freak-out solo, followed by breakneck percussion that make one think Lehn created it on plastic milk cartons. Finally, the machinery rumble and what could be the sound of a bow raking the guitar strings subsides as Butcher’s soprano soars over the synth vibrations.

Then there’s “Pan Asian Love Buds” -- who comes up with these titles? -- where Butcher’s sweet legato tone soon turns gritty as he meets mirrored faux Hawaiian guitar lines from Moor. As the plectrumist begins pounding and emphasizing certain strings, Butcher uses sibilant overblowing to amplify his tone. When the six-string output gets even speedier, he triple tongues and introduces mouth percussion.

Not that everything here is shrill and clamorous. On “Imperfect Vehicle” -- is that a jokey or a descriptive title? -- Butcher expels a stream of circular breathes that only swell in volume as Moor’s unvarying strumming dissolves into spiky sound shards. Soaring and peeping, the reedist maintains his clear tone even as the synthesizer output reaches a crescendo.

EuroImprov animal-like clawing sounds are front and centre on “Gongs not Bombs”. But Lehn soon alters those scrapes to produce drum machine-like pulses, perfect accompaniment to the saxist’s key clicks and tongue slaps that resolve themselves into a jerky, Morse code replication . Meanwhile Moor’s wavering plucks seem to come from purposely-loosened guitar strings.

Fourteen tracks of inventive interaction, THERMAL offers one example of how recently acquainted musical gunslingers tackle improvisation. The two suites on EQUATION offer another scenario in the new sheriff and posse mode. Both are worth your scrutiny.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Equation: Noise Temperature Suite: 1. Part 1 1. Part 1 2. Part 2 3. Part 3 4. Part 4 Standing Wave Suite: 6. Part 1 7. Part 2 8. Part 3 9. Part 4

Personnel: Equation: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); Mike Hansen (record player); Tomasz Krakowiak (percussion)

Track Listing: Thermal: 1. Thermal 2. Once Gravity Strikes for Real 3. Miss Universal Happiness 4. Weak Alarm 5. Tongue 6. Broken Fighter Plane 7. Pan Asian Love Buds 8. Gongs not Bombs 9. Cat Funeral 10. Quarry Traffic 11. Imperfect Vehicle 12. Graphite 13. Teeth 14. Thomas Builds a Shelter

Personnel: Thermal: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); Andy Moor (guitar); Thomas Lehn (analog synthesizer)

September 15, 2003

JOHN BUTCHER & JOHN EDWARDS

Optic
Emanem 4089

Never one to shy away from a challenge, British saxophonist John Butcher has plunged into a farrago of collaborations during his career, in groups ranging from duos to biggish bands.

Recently he’s recorded two fine improvisations with percussionists -- American Gino Robair and Canadian Dylan van der Schyff. So, perhaps in the spirit of English fair play, this admirable CD was recorded at two concerts with a fellow Brit, bassist John Edwards. The result spotlights the reedist’s improv strategies, as well as the bassist’s response to them.

Not that this should be regarded as a sax plus one session. Edwards, whose experience encompasses work with other modern saxmen like Paul Dunmall, Tony Bevan and Evan Parker, confidently holds his own with Butcher. You can’t build a skyscraper after all, if the foundation isn’t solid.

Centrepiece of the CD appears to be “Cocktail Bar”, a 27-minute performance recorded in Brussels. Obviously the length and space gives the saxman plenty of scope for his tools -- and tricks -- of the trade.

Beginning with a protracted, glottal trill that is as distinctively his as similar tones announce Parker’s sax alchemy, Butcher’s raucous, staccato lines appear to rattle the bass’s body as much as his saxophone’s. As Edwards plucks out a response, the saxophonist generates circularly breathed notes that echo and divide themselves infinitesimally. Soon growls and tongue slaps meet Edwards’ arco runs and multiple string whacks, produced with the force laborers bring to pounding in circus tent poles.

Seizing the initiative, the bassist creates the ghoulish sound of a door slowly creaking open in a haunted house, causing Butcher to cheerfully triple tongue the aural creation of a flock of birds, rather than the bat cries you would expect. Improvisations continue moving horizontally as tweeting mouthpiece tones give way to a few bars of legato as Edwards manhandles new accents and patterns up and down his strings. Blithely squealing sopranissimo with a pitch Maynard Ferguson gets at the top of his trumpet’s range, Butcher then somehow manage replicate the sound of wire brushes on a snare drum.

Dedicated plucks add to this resonant episode, with constant string buzzing providing an elongated tone. Butcher introduces reed kisses with such ardor that it seems as if he may pull the wood up into his windpipe. Elongated slurs succeed this, with Edwards pulling similar sonics from his strings. The ending mates a spacious vibrato with air-raid siren style drones

That’s another key to this performance. Not only does Butcher’s technique allow him to use overtones to create the illusion of playing more than one sax at a time, but Edwards’ skill mates his output so closely to the saxman’s, that occasionally they seems to be playing the same instrument.

Five tracks recorded the next year in Barcelona offer variations on the first performance, with the two even more expansive after a year’s growth. On “Plate XI”, for instance, Butcher’s reed whistles appear so sonorous that you could swear the sound of a toilet flushing is heard. Edwards maintains his shifting pulse and even slaps his bass à la Pops Foster at one point. Throughout, Butcher’s wiggling, circular trills move from high-pitched to near soundlessness, including a point at which his reed squeals approximate the sound a brassman gets from merely blowing into his mouthpiece. As the bassist strings out low-level cadenzas, his creation and the saxman’s cricket-like chirps get thinner, finally fading away with reverberations as if they had vanished down a mouse hole.

Itemizing the woody rasps, split tones and multiphonics that Butcher creates -- and the filigree of arco or pizzicato tones which Edwards sews into a bolster on which to display them -- would be pointless. Needless to say, the height of inventiveness is maintained throughout both performances. One would also suppose that the title is apt, as it suggests the listener create mind pictures while listening to the disc.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Cocktail bar 2. Panel 5 3. Grottes 1 4. Plate XI 5. Interior II

Personnel: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); John Edwards (bass)

July 21, 2003

NO SPAGHETTI EDITION

Pasta Variations
SOFA 509

JOHN BUTCHER/PHIL MINTON
Apples of Gomorrah
GROB 429

The glue -- or maybe it’s the spittle -- that holds these two sessions together is the oral work of British performer Phil Minton. One hesitates to call him a singer since his vocal tones seem to range from improvising instrumental emulation to aural recapitulation of all the intonation related to the Seven Ages of Man. And all that is mixed with cartoon character voices, operatic snatches and animal calls.

While individually cogent, each CD is distinct. On PASTA VARIATIONS, Minton mixes it up with the one British -- Pat Thomas on keyboards and electronics -- and five Norwegian members of No Spaghetti Edition, the improv group with a constantly shifting line-up. APPLES OF GOMORRAH, on the other hand, is a duo session, with a longtime associate, soprano and tenor saxophonist John Butcher. Each disc is impressive in its own way.

Constantly experimenting, Minton was involved with Bob Ostertag’s electronic piece, SAY NO MORE, as long ago as 1983, so facing Thomas’ instrumental advances, plus oddball instruments like Håkon Kornstad’s fluteonet and Frode Haltli’s accordion causes no terror. Or if it does his vocal forays don’t sound any different than when he’s improvising with more conventional instruments. The key thing here is that he adapts to his new partners and they to him.

For instance, on the more than 14 minute “PVD”, Thomas’ mellotron-like sound mixes with elongated “ahs” and “oohs” from Minton and fluteonet whistles from Kornstad, who also leads his own modern mainstream trio. Matching guttural mumbles and sighs that could emanate as easily from an inmate of Bedlam as a cartoon pirate are the woodblock and cymbal caresses from drummer Ingar Zach, who has duetted with British guitarist Derek Bailey among others. Thus, Minton turns into a rhythm singer. But, trouble is, as the accordion vamps and tenor saxophone tones speed up, so must Minton and soon he’s almost yodeling in triple time. Bassist Tonny Kluften, who with guitarist Ivar Grydeland has recorded with British drummer Tony Oxley, holds onto the rhythm, allowing the vocalist to exhibit what could be a wordless counter tenor madrigal interacting with bird-like saxophone trills and buzzing electronic static. Soon, as on some other tracks, Minton’s yowling is almost buried beneath accordion tremolos and fulsome guitar licks.

Earlier, the saxophonist has added some tongue slaps and key pops to his improvisations to match Minton clamor to clamor, while Haltli, whose experience encompasses Norwegian folk and classical music, turns his expressiveness into a key pressing frenzy. As for Thomas, his sudden electronic explosions and car crash stops find modernistic keyboard runs turning to repeated, rubato fingering. At times, his piano sounds almost boppish when meeting Minton’s quacking duck sounds head on.

“PVE”, the disc’s 17½-minute tour de force, finds all hands on deck and heading in different directions. Mechanical clicks flow out of Thomas’ machines, Kornstad circular breathes out some split-tone shrills, Kluften plucks his bass loudly, and Zach alternates his accents from hi hat to bass drum pedal. Meanwhile Minton’s liturgical-style chanting soon turns to frenzied, high-pitched, near screams and Haltli uses tremolos to coat the process in an harmonic batter, while only a single percussion tone can be heard.

The saxophonist soon begins flutter tonguing, the percussionist worries the rims and sides of his drums and Grydeland scratches out tiny patterns on his strings. Finally, the squeezebox’s bent notes reconfigure themselves into a folkish melody amplified by the slurp of electronics and whistling reeds. Swelling to a crescendo the release is a coda of deflating electronic sounds and Alzheimer-like mumbling from Minton.

Nearly three years earlier, Minton and Butcher, who had been associated since earlier in the decade, and who toured in a quartet filled out by pianist Veryan Weston and percussionist Roger Turner, went into a London studio and turned out 17 tunes in less than 44½ minutes. Intentionally or not, the sacramental suggestions of the other disc are resurrected here with Minton’s vocal contortions alluding to Ashkenazi davening, the muezzin’s calls to prayer and Georgian chants.

Considering that many more of the sounds take place more in his lips and mouth than vocal chords, some references may be more obtuse than others. Also noteworthy as the CD evolves, is how the sounds and tones of the improvising voice and improvising horns begin to resemble one another. On “Common cleavers”, for instance, Minton’s speedy glossolalia is virtually indistinguishable from Butcher’s soprano reed biting, with the later’s whiplash notes seemingly driving the vocalist to aural orgasm. “Wormleaf”, however, finds Minton puffing out basso notes of pure air, while it sounds like Butcher is inflating a balloon with his reed. Soon as the voice bounces from high to low tones, interspersed with growls, the sax delivery becomes all lips and tongue and spit.

Sometimes, as when Minton appears to be retching or producing what in other circumstances would be an infant’s cries or the sound of an indisposed feline, his delivery can be a little hard to take. But that’s why Butcher is onboard. Since the ear will accept extended instrumental techniques more readily than speaking in tongues, the listener can accept his atonality more readily than Minton’s Grand Guignol-like sounds. At those times the sacramental sounds reassert themselves as well. All you have to do is remind yourself that qualification for Christian sainthood in early days usually involved some sort of gruesome torture and death. Think of Minton’s creations as the soundtrack of those endeavors.

At the same time, if you can pull away from the vocal sounds -- easier for some than others -- you can note that Butcher can twist key pops and squeaks into a melody and extend multiphonics to such an extent that he can sound the overtones of two or three notes while pressing only one key. Like an experienced soul singer such as Wilson Pickett, who can produce several notes from one falsetto cry, Minton’s ghostly screams are capable of the same methodology. During “Itchgrass”, an oratorio of low-grade crying, he goes so deep into his chest and throat that the echoing vocal overtones make perfect counterpoint to Butcher’s honks, hums and tongue slaps.

If your idea of singers’ improvising is hearing someone scat in the middle of “Route 66” or draw out the syllables on “My Funny Valentine” then run away from these discs. But if you want to hear how a voice can range between operatic soaring and loony- bin mumbles while holding its own with top instrumentalists, then seek them out. Even if you’ve never experienced Minton’s bastard art before, you may surprise yourself by becoming an enthusiast.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. PVA 2. PVB 3. PVC 4. PVD 5. PVE

Personnel: Håkon Kornstad (tenor saxophone, fluteonet); Frode Haltli (accordion); Pat Thomas (keyboards, electronics); Ivar Grydeland (guitar); Tonny Kluften (bass); Ingar Zach (percussion); Phil Minton (voice)

Track Listing: 1. Dead men’s Bells 2. Common Cleavers 3. Sprangletop 4. Joyweed 5.

Caper Spurge 6. Wormleaf 7. Itchgrass 8. Sticky Willie 9. Nodding thistle 10. Fairy Cheeses 11. Herb Twopence 12. Sauce Alone 13. Nodding spurge 14. Cuckoo’s Stockings 15. Bachelor’s Buttons 16. Beggar’s Lice 17. Loosestrife

Personnel: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophone); Phil Minton (voice)

February 3, 2003

Simon H. Fell

Composition No. 30.
Bruce’s Fingers BF 27

The compositions and performance of British bassist Simon H. Fell on this two-CD set may be the long-awaited physical flowering of Gunther Schuller’s and John Lewis’ ideas from the 1960s. Fell may also have taken those theories even further.

In the early 1960s, Schuller, a modern composer, French hornist and head of Boston’s New England Conservatory; and Lewis, pianist and music director of the Modern Jazz Quartet; conceived of Third Stream music that would combine elements of music’s first and second streams of classical music and jazz. They recorded a few albums and even put together a mixed jazz and classical ensemble called Orchestra USA.

Due to hostility from so-called serious musicians these experiments came to an abrupt end shortly afterwards. Faced with rock’s hegemony, non-pop music was occupied with survival for the next 20 or so years. So it wasn’t until composers like Anthony Braxton John Zorn and Muhal Richard Abrams on the American side and Barry Guy and Alexander von Schlippenbach at the European end started writing for larger ensembles that the Third Stream term again came into use.

More inter-genre contacts seemed to be possible in Europe, probably due to an interest in improvisation from younger musicians of both schools. But despite many attempts, the number of successful so-called Third Stream pieces remained small. At least that is until Fell came along. Although he would probably bristle at the Third Stream label, the bassist has for many years tried for, as he terms it, “a blurring of distinctions between jazz, improvised and classical musics”.

The more than two hours of studio-based assemblages that make up this session are his most exciting fusion yet. Not only do improvisers, a big band and a chamber ensemble interact, but considering that there are loud, speedy solos from at least three electric guitarists, elements of rock enter into the mix as well. Plus there’s also a bit of tape manipulation and transmutation.

With 42 players involved at various times the listener really does need the CD booklet, where Fell outlines his musical philosophy and how some parts of the composition, which is also subtitled Compilation III, came together. Especially valuable, due to the combinations and recombinations involved, is the jewel box insert which serves as a sort of scorecard, noting by exact time and position on each track, which musician is involved in which improvisation. Some of the improvisations are completely free; others are based on graphic or verbal suggestions. Most of the remaining music is notated.

Notated and manipulated, it should be added. For while all the parts were recorded live, the sessions took place during a four-month period in 1998 with not everyone assembled in the same place at the same time. Thus there will be portions where a musician will be soloing over the pre-recorded sounds from another section of the suite. Probably the most memorable example of this comes on “Part 3: Blues”, the creation of which Fell directly relates to the influence of Charles Ives, Charles Mingus and John Cage. With written sections suggesting Mingus’ gospel-oriented tunes, the duo improvisations were constructed in a unique fashion. Tenor saxophonist Mick Beck performed his solo while listening to a recording of the orchestra rhythm section through headphones. Synchronously Paul Hession produces a percussion program in reaction to Beck’s improvisations, but deliberately without headphones, can’t hear the rhythm section work to which the saxophonist is reacting.

Beck and Hession are merely two of Fell’s long time associates who add heft and highlights to the written composition. Another is contrabass clarinetist Charles Wharf. Often paired with a bassoonist and/or a contrabassoonist to fabricate a concrete-like bottom, when his tone isn’t subterranean, it screeches from the unwieldy instrument’s highest register. Other standouts include drummer Mark Saunders, whose solo section in “Part 4: Rhythm” with brass and string backing, allows him to ranges all over his kit, sounding crash cymbals, hi-hat, snare rims and a wood block and getting a bongo-like tone from one of his attached drums.

There’s also vibist Orphry Robinson, who is usually found in less experimental contexts. On “Construct 3”, for instance he unveils some swinging mainstream style-bar vibrations which nicely contrast with the cymbal on drumstick screeching and irregular rhythms of both Hession and Sanders. But considering that Fell is noted as playing with both men at the same time you probably wonder which sounds are live and which are Memorex. “Interlude”, also featuring Robinson, is a subdued swinger whose vibes-and-bass lilt brings to mind Red Norvo’s trio with Mingus or George Shearing’s quintets. Fell writes, perhaps jokingly, that he wrote it by applying tone row to a chorale by J.S. Bach. Since Bach’s work was also a frequent inspiration for the MJQ’s Lewis, maybe Third Stream connections assert themselves without the composer realizing it.

When guitarists Colin Medlock and Stefan Jaworzyn are given their heads, however, the results differ. In the former case screaming solos often resemble the most high-octane fuzztone creations of arena rock heroes like Eric Clapton and Alvin Lee. For the later, while his Jimi Hendrix-like firepower is put to good use, as in the composition’s very first track, by the final number his frantic jazz-rock flat picking has been framed in a context of an orchestral free-jazz blowout, almost the way Larry Coryell was integrated into Jazz Composer’s Orchestra (JCO) pieces in 1968. Unlike the JCO piece though, all this happens in the background is one episode of pretty string and woodwind laden medieval sounding music is succeeded by frighteningly intense orchestral sounds that could easily have been the soundtrack for a Hollywood suspense film of the early 1950s.

Other times soloists will step out from the big band to play at various time -- in one trumpeter’s case -- bits reminiscent of mainstreamer Clark Terry, hard bopper Freddie Hubbard or impressionistic Kenny Wheeler, introducing either brassy fanfares or delicate half-valve trills depending on the section.

Fell who at various times also contributes a Cagean interlude on prepared piano and some eccentric New music-like harpsichord, doesn’t lose his jazz bone fides either. It’s his bass line that often shapes both the written and non-written parts of the suite, while on the “Trio” track his arco sweeps match the miscellaneous percussion soundings from Sanders and tenor saxophonist John Butcher’s phrase shifting and split tones.

With further notated and improvised techniques, including a synchronous tutti, variations on a chromatic scale, a six chord fanfare and many others in use during the session’s 125 minute playing time, musical examination and explanation could go on in a review three times this length.

However to fully understand the CDs, note another question Fell once asked in an interview. “Why can’t you have great jazz, great improvisation and great contemporary classical music all at the same time?”

Why not indeed? He has certainly proven that the theorem is possible with this impressive session.

-- Ken Waxman

Gary Farr, Tony Rees-Roberts, Joanne Baker (trumpets); Paul Wright, Carol Jarvis, Matthew Harrison (trombones); Andrew Oliver (tuba); David Tollington, Tim Page (French horns); Nikki Dyer (piccolo, flute); Sam Koczy (oboe); Becky Smith (clarinet); Charles Wharf (contrabass clarinet); John Butcher(soprano, tenor saxophones); Carl Raven (soprano saxophones, clarinet); Simon Willescroft (alto saxophone); Hayley Cornick (alto saxophone, flute); Mick Beck, Kathy Hird (tenor saxophones); Alan Wilkinson (baritone saxophone); Jo Luckhurst (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet); Irene Lifke (violin); Mark Wastell, Matthew Wilkes, Kate Hurst (cellos); Justin Quinn (acoustic guitar); Stefan Jaworzyn, Colin Medlock, Damien Bowskill, Andrew Stewart (guitars); Rhodri Davies (harp); Thanea Stevens (dulcichord); Fardijah Freedman (harpsichord); Guy Avern (piano, bass guitar); James Cuthill (prepared piano); Opry Robinson (vibes); John Preston (bass);Simon H. Fell (bass, prepared piano, harpsichord); Paul Hession, Mark Sanders (drums)

January 13, 2003

BUTCHER/MASASAOKA/ROBAIR

Guerrilla Mosaics
482 Music 482-1013

A first-time collaboration between a well-travelled British saxophonist and two Californians proves that improvisational cohesiveness and empathy are often little affected by geographic distance and instrumental suitability.

While London-based reedman John Butcher’s instruments -- soprano and tenor saxophone -- are often seen as germane to improv as freedom, the others’ choices are a bit less common. Bay area percussionist Gino Robair also works out on such unusual noisemakers as the faux dax, bowed metal, and motors -- all late 20th century inventions. Meanwhile Brooklyn-based Miya Masaoka, plays not only one of the most traditional of Japanese instruments -- the 21-string koto -- but its 21st century cousin, the laser koto, with MIDI-triggering. This allows her to often double and triple the sound she produces.

Butcher and Robair have played together as a duo, most notably on the limited edition LIVERPOOL (BLUECOAT) CONCERT, recorded a few months before this June 2000 date. Meanwhile, the kotoist, who was originally trained as a pianist, has adopted her ancient instrument to work with the likes of experimenters like trombonist George Lewis, saxist Larry Ochs and jazz drummer Andrew Cyrille.

Using technology created for her at STEIM in Amsterdam and San Francisco, Masaoka amplifies the koto’s range with sounds that are reminiscent of an orchestral harp, a bottleneck blues guitar and a jazz double bass. Mixed with Robair’s junk percussion and Butcher’s duck quacks and aviary whistles, sometimes it seems as if the session is taking place in a location midway between the Imperial Court and a chicken coop.

Masaoka’s brawny plucking means that on tunes like “Glyph” she can use her lowest strings to perform as if bassist Ray Brown segued into some genteel gagaku court music, only to reverse herself by the end with clawhammer finger picking more reminiscent of the Appalachians then Mount Fuji. While all this happens, Robair strokes metal with a violin bow, while Butcher appears to be blowing his sax underwater through a snorkel. At the end the saxman’s well-articulated gritty horks are succeeded by high-pitched long-lined cadences.

The mixture of primitivism and modernity exemplified by the trio is given more play on “Recept”, where Robair’s irregular blows on his varied percussion and metals are matched with a highly mechanized yawning cartoon monster growls, probably from Masaoka’s laser treatments, while the saxophonist showcases mini-circular breathing, creating a constant underlying drone. Elsewhere, it seems that Masaoka’s ability to manipulate the moveable bridge of the instrument to change the length of the vibrating strings to produce otherworldly sounds, includes radio wave-like static that is by design neither oriental or occidental. Cohesive tongue slaps and prolonged internal reed dialogues radiating chameleon-like from Butcher’s reed mastery show that he isn’t limited to a formal Euro improvisation either.

All of this dexterity comes together on “Ariation”, the final and longest tune. Here Butcher’s wiggling, rolling, foghorn arpeggios fervidly build in intensity as the percussionist thumps his drums, rings bells, crashes hand cymbals together and appears to vibrate his faux dax for additional notes. Throughout, the koto’s plucks match his facility as the saxophonist’s key pops balance heavy electronic strums or fingerpicking guitar patterns.

A fine effort by all concerned.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Lish 2. Ouzel 3. The dodge 4. A wing 5. Glyph 6. Dipper 7. Recept 8. Cae 9. Mosaic 10. Covert 11. Sloots 12. Ariation

Personnel: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Miya Masaoka (21-string koto and laser koto); Gino Robair (percussion, faux dax, bowed metal, and motors)

October 28, 2002

JOHN BUTCHER & GINO ROBAIR

Liverpool (Bluecoat) Concert
Limited Sedition LS026

Brevity, it’s said, is the soul of wit. Yet, as this singular duo CD proves, it can also be the font of improvisation. After listening to the slightly more than half an hour of interaction between reedman John Butcher and percussionist Gino Robair that is this limited-edition disc, you realize that the duration couldn’t and shouldn’t be lengthened.

That’s because the British saxophonist and American drummer did all that was necessary in the time allocated to them at this concert situation in the Beatles hometown of Liverpool, England. By this time, having matched wits -- and often spit -- with a panoply of British, North American and Continental improvisers, London-based Butcher knows the drill. Using either soprano or tenor saxophone he creates whizzing reed trills, elongated sonic echoes, split tones and flutter tonguing on these tracks, broken up with key pops and the occasional note fart. When Robair brings his junk shop collection of percussion instruments into play, Butcher then decides how best to respond, and the improv dance continues.

Oakland, Calif.-based percussionist Robair, who has worked with improvisers as different as multi-reedman Anthony Braxton and turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, plus frequently with Butcher, easily gets with the program as well. Using tools that include styrofoam, a faux dax, an e-bow snare and motors as well as more (un) conventional percussion, over the course of four tracks here, he scraps, scratches, strokes, whizzes, twists and turns out an entire sound field from his instruments. Leaving very few aural spaces unaccented, the two players fabricate tones that, on the last track for instance, resemble motors grinding, garbage cans being dropped, and cash registers ringing. The climax, -- probably from Butcher’s reed -- transmutes what could be feline wailing into a hiss of pure white sound.

Other members of the animal kingdom aren't neglected either, with the saxophone producing, with almost note-perfect replication, tiny bird sounds on the third track, while the bow of Robair’s faux dax and fizzing styrofoam generate aviary cries that could be linked to larger fowl on the second. Both men have, in the past, relied on electronic aids, but this live performance shows that they’re perfectly capable of creating these sounds in real time.

In short (sic), Butcher and Robair have come with another fine, if abbreviated session. If you want to consider another condensed situation though, only 241 numbered copies of this CD-R have been burned. That means the best -- if not the only -- way to get your hands on it is at www.limitedsedition.com.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. One 2. Two 3. Three 4. Four

Personnel: John Butcher (tenor or soprano saxophone); Gino Robair (percussion, styrofoam, faux dax, e-bow snare, motors)

May 17, 2002

CHRIS BURN/JOHN BUTCHER/RHODRI DAVIES/JOHN EDWARDS

The First Two Gigs
EMANEM 4063

Good things often come in small packages.

A vest pocket version of the octet/nonet Ensemble, British pianist Chris Burn has been leading on-and-off since 1984, this quartet on its maiden voyages seems more focused than the larger group, perhaps because each of the musicians has to assert himself even more in a more compact situation.

Recorded in two different London clubs in sessions four months apart, to be honest, the performances here don’t sound at all like that of four musicians groping towards a common modus operandi. Perhaps it’s because each has some sort of playing experience with at least one of the others.

John Butcher, acknowledged as one of improv’s paramount saxophone explorers, has been associated with Burn and Ensemble since the late 1970s. Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies is another member of Ensemble and has recorded with the saxophonist on other occasions. And John Edwards may be the busiest free music bassist in London, having recorded with the likes of pianist Veryan Weston and saxophonist Evan Parker as well as Butcher among many others.

Thus all that really appears to be needed in these six longish tracks that run from 6½ minutes to a little more than 16 minutes is for the musicians to find a comfortable place, unpack their axes start playing. United in their singularity, each seems to pride himself on producing the most unusual and hithertofore unheard sounds from his instrument.

Not that novelty for the sake of novelty is being indulged. Instead, to mix a metaphor, the four see (hear?) their instruments as blank canvases on which they can project any innovative and fresh sound they want, regardless of how the instrument is supposed to sound. Identifying the source of one tone or another then becomes the listener’s challenge, with some easier to classify than others.

Sometimes, as on “The Remove”, Butcher will produce enough echo himself to make it appear that he’s improvising in a hollow cistern or long tunnel, while “Souvenir de Docteur” begins with what sounds like Edwards sawing his bass in half. In the same piece Burn appears to be playing on prepared piano strings, unlike the misnamed “Low Standard” -- it isn’t -- where you wonder whether the percussive tones arise from the pianist or the harpist.

Elsewhere, as on “High Standard”, Butcher supplants his aviary whistles and chicken clucks with a session of billowing trills, then uses circular breathing to hold one note and its resulting overtones for a protracted period as the string section bows and wiggles around it.

Summing up all that comes before and goes afterwards, “Scharlachglut”, the longest track, has time to develop from a low-key interlude to a louder, speedier mid section before fading to silence. As it develops, metallic scratches give way to what appear to be someone -- perhaps Davies -- seemingly scrubbing clothes on a washboard. For luck, or just color, Edwards begins to knock on the wood of his bass, while the clank of foreign objects announce that the piano has been prepared for a percussion function. Introducing soprano reed quacks, the saxophonist joins Burn in duet, while something that resembles the sound of grain being rolled around on the table enliven the keystrokes. With Butcher alternating among vibrato-reed kisses, key pops and subterranean tongue flutters, Edwards plucks a short counter melody.

Now that Burn and Co. have put together an Ensemble that’s compact enough to be cost-effective for notoriously cash-strapped avant music presenters, hopefully the four will play many more than these first two gigs. That way we can hear many more remarkable CDs like this one.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Low Standard 2. High Standard 3. The Remove 4. Scharlachglut 5. Russelliana 6. Souvenir de Docteur

Personnel: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Chris Burn (piano and percussion); Rhodri Davies (harp); John Edwards (bass)

January 15, 2002

PAUL DUNMALL/JOHN EDWARDS/JOHN BUTCHER

Hit And Run
FMP CD 116

PAUL DUNMALL/PAUL ROGERS
Alien Art
DUNS Limited Edition 008

Despite equal billing for all three musicians, except for its final five minutes, HIT AND RUN isn't a trio session at all. Instead it features bassist John Edwards doing yeoman service in duets with two of his British countrymen who happen to be some of the most accomplished reedists on the planet: John Butcher and Paul Dunmall.

Each of the meetings, however, is as different as the bearded, heavyset Dunmall and slimmer, clean-shaven Butcher are from one another. Dunmall's "Gaulstones" is a gaudy free-for-all featuring him on two different bagpipes and soprano saxophone; while Butcher's "Rhymes" is divided into four shorter rhymes, with him moving effortlessly from soprano and tenor saxophone and back again. What they share in common is excellence.

Dunmall's bizarre title is a reference to the circumstances of the duet. Edwards was pressed into service, after the reedman's regular duo partner, bassist Paul Rogers, was laid up in his home in France following a gall stone attack. Rogers was on his feet though, nearly two years later in Bristol, England for the concert that makes up ALIEN ART.

On the first CD, interestingly, enough, the bagpipe ends up being the most sonorous instrument on its title track and only trio outing. A low-caloric desert after the man-sized, more than 35 minute helpings of woodwinds and bass than proceed it, the piece features Dunmall tooting away on pipes, Butcher's warbling split tones and Edwards using guitar fingerings to match them both in fervor. Resolving itself as quickly as the incident it's named for, at the finale the high intensity track almost develops into a wee Scottish reel.

Earlier on, Dunmall suggests what would have happened if circular breathing had been adopted as enthusiastically by traditional Scottish musicians as improvisers. Certainly the instrument's chanter and bag gives him a lot more leeway for the almost infinite technique he had developed for the pipes over the proceeding decade.

To counter this virtuosity, Edwards appears to be calling on not only his playing experience with multiphonics maven Evan Parker, but earlier percussive methodology developed in art-rock bands. Like American William Parker, he seems to prefer the darker, more threatening bass regions, either sawing away with his bow or yanking the string hard enough to create basso overtones.

Not likely to be mistaken for a member of the Black Watch who limits himself to "Amazing Grace", Dunmall often suggests such non-Western instruments as the shehnai and the musette in his playing, creating two melodies at once, the first with the chanter and the second with the drone. Questions sometime arise as to whether a sound originates from this distinctive pipe command or from Edwards' percussive playing.

The bassist does get a section to express himself first arco then pizzicato, but only after the bagpipes have held one tone seemingly ad infinitum. That bull fiddle solo is also a prelude to Dunmall bringing out his soprano, which in this context suddenly sounds so establishment, even though he introduces double-timing, slap-tonguing and liquid sprints up and down the horn.

There's no mistaking that Butcher is playing saxophones on the almost 37 minutes of the next track, but his technical mastery of the soprano and the tenor is such that sometimes you can't pinpoint a pitch to its origin. Dissonant to the point that you're always conscious that he's playing a metal instrument, Butcher completely controls the sound centre, using flutters, reed bites, slap tonguing and even duck quacks to move things along.

These attacks bring out reverberating overtones from Edwards in the bass' highest register, but when Butcher turns to shrill pitches that sound as if they're produced by the mouthpiece alone, Edwards starts to bang away at the bass strings. Thumps and bumps from the instrument, turn it into percussion, while Butcher twins a min foghorn then creates what appear to be ferocious lion snarls, reed kisses and mouthpiece buzzes. Pure release and depletion suggest themselves in equal measures at the end.

Flash forward to Bristol in 2001 and you find double-barreled Dunmall reunited with his Mujician playing partner Rogers. More of a light-fingered bassist than Edwards, Rogers' playing is also closer to his folk and jazz roots. Whether it's true or not, Bristol's Victoria Rooms sound a lot smaller than Berlin's Podewil, where the first CD was recorded; certainly the performance here is more claustrophobic.

This time Dunmall, especially at the beginning playing soprano, takes a lot more of the air, filling every sound hole with some phrase or another; Rogers functions more as an accompanist. As the saxophonist introduces circular breathing and English ballad motifs that lead him to echoing split tones and violin-like tones, the bassist turns to bowing in an elevated register to sound more than one string at a time.

Negating its appellation, the CD's title track features Dunmall back on bagpipes, but with such naturalness that any alien appearance is banished. Using the penny whistle-like chanter to approach jazz duet territory, his instrument's attachments allow him to hold notes even longer, creating natural overtones and multiphonics. Soon he's producing his own backing ostinato, conjuring up mythical highlands, as Rogers ranges up and down the face of the bass. Eventually, however, the bassist begins to bow some classical sounding themes, too reminiscent of the concert hall setting, before he accelerates into jazz movements.

With Dunmall back on sax, the two undertake a protracted call-and-response routine, with the saxophonist biting his reed more than his lip and Rogers' fingers able to suggest the string bass, a supple guitar and wooden body percussion.

Both CDs are worth investigation, with both recommended to those who can't get enough of Dunmall's inventive reed investigations. In terms of variety, though, three musicians at the height of their powers trump two.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Hit: 1. Gaulstones Rhymes: 2. Knotted 3. Plotted 4. Dotted 5. Spotted 6. Hit And Run

Personnel: Hit: Paul Dunmall (border and Northumberland bagpipes, soprano saxophone); John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); John Edwards (bass)

Track Listing: Alien: 1. One Noise Away 2. Alien Art 3. Big Knows

Personnel: Alien: Paul Dunmall (bagpipes, soprano saxophone); Paul Rogers (bass)

November 12, 2001

GINO ROBAIR

Buddy Systems
Meniscus Records MNSCS 003

For an artist, putting together a compilation of selected duos and trios over a four- year period can sometimes result in sins of inclusion rather than omission. This 74 minute souvenir of Bay Area percussionist Gino Robair's partnership with 10 local and international improvisers comes awfully close to that weakness a couple of times, but manages to finally negate those flimsy spots with superior execution.

Robair, a long time member of the Splatter Trio, with a hefty background in improv, electronic music and straight composition has amassed so many playing buddies that he apologizes in the booklet for not including more of them here. He made the right choices to maintain the proper variety, though. Additionally, by playing not only what he terms meta-percussion, but also theremin, he can amplify the proceedings past any lesser ideas from his guest(s).

Most of the time, the most powerful work here comes when the percussionist is challenged by equally forceful personalities. For instance, when he joins Bay Area clarinetist Dan Plonsey or British tenor sax explorer John Butcher -- plus computer whiz Tim Perkins -- the results are memorable in different ways. Plonsey's seemingly ceaseless circular blowing sets up a challenge, to which the percussionist responds in kind, bringing out the heavy artillery in terms of cymbals, snare and bass drums so that the reed assault is tempered. On the other hand, Butcher's flutter tonguing and ascending breath control matched with Perkins' whooshes, buzzes and rumbles allows Robair to gently color the outcome.

Nevertheless, the percussionist is too self-effacing on "Tonal Vibrations", recorded with Oakland, Calif.-multi instrumentalist Oluyemi Thomas. Thomas' soprano saxophone and clarinet are so upfront that until Robair finally asserts himself with a steadfast beat, the track begins to more resemble a solo reed(s) showcase than a duo excursion.

A similar conundrum presents itself when Robair, on theremin, begins playing off against the turntables and CD players of Japanese experimenter Otomo Yoshihide. "Inappropriations" allows the two to create an accelerated soundscape of humorous robotic intensity. But "Lead me Lord", which adds Splatter sidekick Myles Boisen on CD player to the duo nearly drowns under a cacophony of sounds which resemble a vacuum cleaner, agitated bird calls, satellite signals and snatches of a religious song. Only when the pre-recorded tune creates a bedrock theme do the instrumental pieces fall into place.

Surprisingly, considering how well the similar, spacey tones of his theremin mesh with the dusky string research of Birmingham, Ala.-violin ace LaDonna Smith on "A Mysterious Vision", their other duet, "Sklarking" ranks as the disc's least successful effort. Throughout, the two seem so intense in hitting the highest-pitched, squeakiest notes in dog whistle territory that listening becomes irritating rather than intriguing.

All in all, though, the few missteps are overcome by the better material. In fact, this disc may lead you to others where Robair plays with the same musician(s) all the way though.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Tangle 2. Inappropriations* 3. Balek Scales 4. Reckless & Sinful Extravagance 5. A Mysterious Vision* 6. Integument 7. Trnava 8.Adytum 9. Sklarking*

10. Tonal vibrations 11.Dark Pleasures 12. Lead Me, Lord* 13. Ceromancy 14. Integumentation

Personnel: Gino Robair (bowed, struck and motorized percussion, theremin*) with Dan Plonsey [track 4](clarinet); John Butcher [track 1](tenor saxophone); Oluyemi Thomas [track 10](soprano saxophone, alto clarinet, percussion); Dave Barrett [track 8] (saxes, saxcello); Carla Kihlstedt [tracks 3, 11] (violin); LaDonna Smith [tracks 5, 7, 9, 13] (violin, viola, voice); Myles Boisen [tracks 8, 12] (doubleneck guitar, bass, CD player); Matthew Sperry [tracks 3, 11] (bass); Tim Perkis [tracks 1, 6, 14](computer, synthesizer); Otomo Yoshihide [tracks 2, 12] (turntables, CD players)

October 29, 2001

JOHN BUTCHER

Music on seven occasions
Meniscus Records MNSCS 004

JOHN BUTCHER/DYLAN VAN DER SCHYFF
Points, snags and windings
Meniscus Records MNSCS 010

As amiable as he is adventurous, British saxophone explorer John Butcher rarely misses an opportunity to collaborate with similar intrepid musical explorers. Comfortable in a variety of formations, the two accomplished discs here highlight his duet work.

A superb pair, the main difference between them is choice of partners. MUSIC ON SEVEN OCCASIONS is just that, recorded over a three year period in the 1990s in different American and British studios, featuring nine partners plus four solo saxophone interludes. POINTS, SNAGS AND WINDINGS, on the other hand, has one fewer musician on board then there are nouns in the title. It's a record of duets between Butcher and Vancouver, B.C.-based percussionist Dylan van der Schyff, done last year in Vancouver.

The soprano and tenor saxophonist's improvising is always at a consistently high level and part of the fascination of these discs is to see how he reacts to different situations. Interestingly enough, despite the nine partners, OCCASIONS come across as unified as the other disc. In fact, by beginning and ending with a percussion-saxophone duet it almost becomes an infinite circle, a continuum of improvisation that starts up again after it seems to end.

More of a serial monogamist than a swinger -- in both senses of the word -- Butcher connects with the other players here on a level that, in non-musical circumstances, would be passionate. Each determines the rhythm of the other and parries and thrusts as hard or softly as warranted. Plus being considerate music lovers, neither climaxes until the other has come to a certain point as well.

Thus while the soprano entwines Jeb Bishop's macho plunger trombone notes in delicate, romantic lacy tones on "The Late Approach", swaggering, tenor saxophone ejaculations characterize Butcher going mano-a-mano with inventive percussionists Michael Zerang on "Cold That Bites".

Growling split tones enable the saxman to hold his own with the Bay area's Gino Robair, whose whacked out percussion and preparations often come on with the force of the U.S. Calvary swooping down on an armed Indian camp in a Western movie. Back in England, long time cohort, pianist Veryan Weston's rolls out a chord carpet for Butcher's elongated, reverberating multiphonics or on "Sea They Think They Hear" a miniature, sprightly sax ditty. Then, German tube terror Thomas Lehn's synthesizer rumbles, blasts and silences are met with nearly continuous, high-pitched, single note gyrations.

Coming across like an old married couple, compared to the numerous one night stands that make up the other CD, Butcher and van der Schyff's alliance proves just as arousing. Part of the Canadian group Talking Pictures, and a veteran collaborator with other improvisers, including his wife, cellist Peggy Lee, the percussionist knows when to be gentle in musical congress and when to be rough.

"Recent Realism", for instance, with Butcher on tenor, builds up to a mass of rapid percussive thrusts from the drummer with echoing double tonguing from Butcher. Between the saxophonist vibrating extended timbres that reverberate against the alloy of his horn and the steady scratch of sticks from the percussionist's cymbals, tunes like "Early Animation" and "Points" include enough heavy metal to attract the Kiss Army. Meanwhile "Under Glass" is one part breathy subterranean reed rumbles and one part restrained percussive interludes. It could be preserved in the museum case the title suggests to showcase the limits of volume and silence improvisers use.

Improv can be very low key as well, as the two demonstrate on "Attempted Delivery". Van der Schyff organizes one of the those busy solo forays, which sound as if the percussionist is using sticks and brushes to search through every part of his kit for a misplaced note, while Butcher contributes a series of tones that go from barely audible to full force.

Looking for the real deal in creative musical satisfaction? Go no further than here. Butcher's two sessions offer a veritable Kama Sutra of improv positions. The one you prefer will likely depend on your taste for variety and how agile you want each performance --and performer -- to be.

-- Ken Waxman

Seven:

Track Listing: 1. Phlogiston 2. Caloric 3. Late Impromptu 4. 1rst singularity 5. 2nd singularity 6. Routemasters 7. Sea They Think They Hear 8. Gil thread dream 9. Anomolies in the customs of the day 10. The Step Sequence 11. The Late Approach 12. The Interior Design 13. The Only Way Out 14. 3rd singularity 15. 4th singularity 16. Cold That Bites 17. Shadow play* 18. Clackchat

Personnel: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones) with: Gino Robair [tracks 1, 2] (percussion and preparations); Alexander Frangenheim [track 3] bass); Veryan Weston [track 6, 7, 8] piano); Thomas Lehn [track 9] synthesizer; John Corbett [track 10] guitar; Jeb Bishop [track 11] trombone; Terri Kapsalis [track 12] violin; Fred Longberg-Holm [track 13] cello; Michael Zerang [tracks 16, 17, 18] multiple percussion, tubaphone*

Points:

Track Listing: 1. Early Animation 2. Windings 3. Pool Lights 4. Recent Realism 5. Points 6. Snags 7. Under Glass 8. Incision 9. Attempted Delivery 10. Spills 11. Combat

Personnel: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones); Dylan van der Schyff percussion)

October 1, 2001

JOHN BUTCHER/ALEX DÖRNER/XAVIER CHARLES

The Contest of Pleasures
Potlatch P 201

One of the difficulties in recording improvised music, as some practitioners have pointed out, is that you're making a permanent record (sic) of something that existed only in the moment. Furthermore, when the metaphoric snapshot which is a CD is released, it only reproduces the sound of the instruments, not the shape or acoustical properties of the room in which the recording takes place. What's more, a truism derived from jazz notes that music, which impresses a live audience often, loses its impressive immediacy when pressed onto that small circular disc.

The three musicians and one sound engineer who produced and preserved the performance on this nearly 53-minute CD have tried to deal with these challenges. Unfortunately, it would seem that this first time meeting of these exceptional improvisers in the 12th century Chapelle Saint-Jean in Mulhouse, France in the summer of 2000, ended up confirming rather than negating these concepts.

While it would seem that the weathered stone walls of the chapel gave German trumpeter Axel Dörner, British saxophonist John Butcher and French clarinetist Xavier Charles the chance to meld their sound into a sort of ethereal choir of muted pitches, that is where it seems to stay. Uniting in a democratic coalition shouldn't mean that individuality of expression is lost. But, except for the odd distinct note or tone, that is what seems to have happened here. There is some exceptional melded playing throughout, but with such a cast of characters what else would you expect?

Dörner, who has worked with such musicians as trombonist George Lewis and drummer Paul Lovens and in aggregations like Fred Van Hove's 't Nonet and The London Jazz Composers Orchestra is widely credited with creating a new future for the trumpet. Butcher, probably the only British improv saxophonist good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Evan Parker, has played with Dörner in other circumstances, as well as with numberless other top improvisers. Charles not only toils as an improvising clarinetist, but also as an electric bassist and noise maker with bands like Silent Block, and furthermore has immersed himself in electronics.

However most of the improvisations on this disc seem to be circling onto themselves. Butcher contributes multiphonic tones, Charles ranges between a chirping upper register and snatches of chalumeau, while Dörner expels tiny, floating tones. Completely selfless, except for the odd key click or throaty growl, you often can't tell which sound comes from which instrument. As one, the three spend many minutes muting themselves to try to arrive at near stillness. Then, suddenly, they combine for an ear wrenching ascending timbre that appears to expand in volume for many minutes, before subsiding again into near silence.

Charting the slow moving circumference fascinates when you hear it on the first track. Yet, as the disc continues, it appears that that's all that was decided in this first meeting. At times, in fact, you feel that potential tunes or melodies have been negated just to preserve the intertwined pitches. Listening to each track separately could be more gratifying, to try to understand how the three collectively create. But since each improvisation seems to pose and solve the same equation that too may be ultimately limiting.

In the past, bands like AMM has proven that much can be done with such minimalist conceptions. In fact, longtime followers of any of the three musicians and this sort of bloodless instant composition may rank the disc higher.

But for most, it would seem that while the contest has been properly delineated, the pleasure has been denied.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Pamplemousse 2. Quetesch 3. Loganberry 4. Greenengage 5. Kumquat

Personnel: Alex Dörner (trumpet); Xavier Charles (clarinet); John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones)

June 7, 2001

JOHN BUTCHER/GINO ROBAIR/MATTHEW SPERRY

12 Milagritos
Spool Line SPL 109

British sonic explorer John Butcher is one woodwind player who has worked assiduously on discovering every last sound he can pull out of the innards of his horns, most notably when he produces a solo session.

Mouthpiece mavens may drool when given something to like that to absorb, but others may find his interactions with other players easier to swallow. You won't think his skilled saxophone spewing all wet if you can hear it amalgamating with the deft improvising of other musicians.

This CD is particularly noteworthy since Yanks make up the other two thirds of this trio. Oakland, Calif.-based Gino Robair has internalized the British multi vibrational concept of folks like AMM's Eddie Prevost, and uses a melange of percussion to comment on the proceedings, rather than functioning as a timekeeper or a rhythm machine. Matthew Sperry of Seattle, Wash. has worked singly and together with Butcher and Robair since the late 1990s, and brings a thorough understanding of the bass as a solo as well as an accompanying instrument to the session.

Preeminently group music, 12 MILAGRITOS gives the saxophonist the proper canvas on which to express his reed brush strokes. Not that he's the only artist here. Like sculptor's associates who simultaneously work on different parts of a statute to produce the three-dimensional representation, each man contributes to the concoction, negating the hierarchical concept of soloist with rhythm section. Often the result is one of those improvisations where the precise sound source for many notes is difficult to determine. Most of the 12 pieces unroll at a frantic speed, yet with every gesture microscopically clear.

Playing either tenor or soprano saxophone, Butcher constructs little dramas out of slap tonguing, false fingering and foghorn-like reverberations. Frequently his tone could be all encompassing enough to seemingly fill an entire wind tunnel by itself; other times it may dissolve into random reed buzzes, or even what sounds like a factory gate whistle or extended passages on comb-and-tissue-paper. This way he's frequently not only able to play the note, but suggest its undertones and overtones as well.

Ignoring straight time and much of his kit, Robair concentrates on scraping his cymbals with a bow, producing triangle-like vibrations, striking wood blocks, and knocking out subterranean percussion rumbles. Sticking in most cases to the lower register of his instrument and the arco mode, Sperry creates counterpoint to the others. At times his attack is so forceful that you envision the bass bridge shaking with his exertion.

Although sometimes Sperry seems to be banging his fist to or palm to create percussive tones from the bass, he didn't have to knock on wood for luck on this date. With three experienced improvisers on tap, the entire project not only commands attention, but also hangs together as if the group performs every day as an ensemble.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Ave 2. Nervio 3. Labio 4. Cerebro 5. Bizaro 6. Codo 7. Garganta 8. Mano 9. Brazo 10. Pelo 11. Dedo 12. Pie

Personnel: John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxophones); Matthew Sperry (bass and preparations); Gino Robair (percussion, bows and motors, ebow snare, faux dax)

March 8, 2001