Tony Bevan/Joe Morris/Tony Buck/Dominic Lash

Tony-Joe Bucklash
Foghorn FOGCD 016

NoReduce

Jaywalkin’

nWog Records NWOG 005

Pumped up past the expected, despite the common saxophone-guitar-bass-drums configuration are these CDs. Although each features an American playing with a European unit, the path to quality is achieved by different routes.

In one case perhaps visiting Boston guitarist Joe Morris could be the spark plug for the extended go-for-broke improvising on Tony-Joe Bucklash, since the three other British players have singly and together frequently recorded outstanding work in the past. Besides Morris, known for his association with the likes of bassist William Parker and saxophonist Joe Maneri, Oxford-based reedist Tony Bevan is not only one of the (few) masters of the bass saxophone, but equally proficient on tenor and soprano. Berlin-based Aussie drummer Tony Buck is a long-time member of the Necks; while bassist Dominic Lash is busy in both New York and London. Rather than Morris being the only special guest, this CD also marks the first recorded meeting by Bevan with both bassist and drummer.

Co-op band NoReduce on the other hand is a working group featuring three Swiss musicians and a New Yorker drummer, recorded in New York. Again, while drummer Nasheet Waits has gigged with everyone from pianist Jason Moran to saxophonist Sam Rivers, the young Europeans have extensive experience as well. A member of the Lucerne Jazz Orchestra, tenor saxophonist Christoph Irniger leads his own bands and works in many others. Bassist Raffaele Bossard has played with alto saxophonist Tobias Meier among others, while guitarist Dave Gisler works in many contexts.

Gisler doesn’t have the distinctive style of a Morris, yet in many ways his plasticity which range from methodical licks to buzzy lead guitar-like motions help the band’s slowly gelling definition. For instance his continuous chording sets the mood on “Playground” along with clip-clop drumming and a walking bass line. By the time Gisler introduces spidery double-string runs, the saxophonist has hardened the tone of his hitherto wispy blowing to expose repeated slurs which are met by guitar fills and cymbal crashes. There’s a similar strategy at work on “The Slope”, but it’s Bossard’s power plucks and Watts’ rolling drags and ratamacues which define the exposition. Meanwhile sharp guitar quivers and saxophone vibratos creating rougher theme variations, until the drummer’s climatic pops plus cymbal slaps propel the improvisation back to the head. On the other hand, “Morningside Road” features near-ethereal guitar and sax harmonies that before they circle back to linear reed sighs and guitar fills at the finale, open up the piece to staccato split tones from Irniger and tough bounces from the drummer.

If the still embryonic NoReduce suggests earlier quartet antecedents from Stan Getz and Jimmy Raney to John Coltrane and Elvin Jones as it defines its identity, the other quartet is fully committed to a Free Music ethos, but constructs an original identity within the genre. Pushing aside a tendency to overdo freneticism with bugle-call-like riffs from Bevan, strained tremors from Morris and protracted percussion emphasis, the four carve a polyphonic narrative from inchoate expansions by blending their parts in parallel patterning.

The quartet attains its most profound confluence on the more-than 35 minute “Out of the Rising Sun”. With Lash’s buzzing string slices and Buck’s crashes and bounces as a backdrop, Morris’ stressed strums test the limits of guitar experience, adding arpeggiated runs and hand pumps to his exposition. Meanwhile Bevan vibrates tenor glisses that are as abstract as they are stressed. Initially in broken octave concordance with the reed man, as the guitarist’s slurred fingering deconstructs his lines so they become narrower and spikier, Bevan counters with his big gun: the bass saxophone. Percussive, persuasive and pummeling his wind-breaking chalumeau and tree-top-high altissimo intensity repeatedly makes anything that could have been output by pioneering R&B honkers Leo Parker or Paul Williams seems like polite background music. Buck’s cymbal shattering and Lash’s brawny pumps join the multiphonic reed-masticator, nearly rendering the guitarist inaudible. When Morris finally asserts himself again his pile-driver plinks add the needed impetus to make the ending distinctive and satisfactorily collegial.

A fine first effort, Jaywalkin’ offer some perceptive tracks and solos, but lacks the self-possessed identity that a veteran troupe would have. If the band members stick together it will come. As for Tony-Joe Bucklash, this meeting is a representative instance of free-for-all improvising. But the same proviso stands. If the four can convene more frequently the result will probably even put this first-rate disc in the shade.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Tony-Joe: 1. Out of the Rising Sun 2. Into the Rising Sun

Personnel: Tony-Joe: Tony Bevan (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones); Joe Morris (guitar); Dominic Lash (bass) and Tony Buck (drums)

Track Listing: Jaywalkin: 1. Endangered 2. The Slope 3. Playground 4. Far Away But Close Enough 5. Dope Factory 6. Jaywalkin’ 7. Morningside Road 8. The Mouse

Personnel: Jaywalkin: Christoph Irniger (tenor saxophone); Dave Gisler (guitar); Raffaele Bossard (bass) and Nasheet Waits (drums)

April 16, 2013

Bevan/Bourne/Buck/Phillips

Everybody Else But Me
Foghorn Records FOG CD 015

Urs Leimgruber/Jacques Demierre/Barre Phillips

Montreuil

Jazz Werkstatt JW 125

Now 78, bassist Barre Phillips is one of those Americans who transferred the investigational skills he intuited playing with the likes of reedists Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Giuffre to Europe in the late 1960s. Like most Jazzmen, he was looking for steady work, but since that time he has helped create a distinctive European improv aesthetic. Based in southern France for the past 40 years, Phillips has worked with nearly every major European musical innovator from saxophonist Evan Parker to fellow bassist Joëlle Léandre.

The polyglot line-up of these releases demonstrates Phillips’ on-going creativity while interacting with musicians of different backgrounds. Although both CDs feature a saxophonist and pianist along with Phillips, each is rewarding in its own fashion. Closer to a regular Free Jazz session, Everybody Else But Me benefits from the powerful presence of Oxford-based polymath reedist Tony Bevan, who is equally proficient on soprano, tenor and bass saxophones. Pianist is Matthew Bourne, some 40 years Phillips’ junior; a Yorkshire-based keyboardist who has played with everyone from guitarist Franck Vigroux to percussionist

Andrea Centazzo. Drumming duties are handled by Aussie-in-Berlin Tony Buck, best-known for his membership in The Necks. Free Music rather than Free Jazz, Montreuil is a live Paris-recorded session featuring the bassist’s long-standing cooperative trio with two Swiss musicians: saxophonist Urs Leimgruber and pianist Jacques Demierre. Both men have long experience playing notated and other musics, and also work together in the band 6.

Buck’s polyrhythmic strategy is also what differentiates the quartet session from the trio CD. But almost from the first, when Phillip’s stentorian thumps join internal string strums from the pianist and down-turning tonguing from Bevan, it’s clear that this is no disc for the faint-hearted or fastidious. By the second track, “The Harrison Ford Chord”, intensity is apparent as Bevan’s soprano sax playing takes on lyricon-like qualities, with the resulting trills meeting up with buzzing double bass strokes while Buck rattles bells and other little instruments and Bourne advances low-frequency cushioning tones. Eventually as the pianist’s high-pitched key glisses and clips harden, the saxophonist immerses himself in circular-breathed, nearly endless timbral variations which narrow the exposition without constricting it, make split-second reference to other tunes, and finally restate the theme.

Using his bass sax, Bevan builds “The Tailor’s Pike” out of contrasting dynamics, as his buzzing glissandi soon divide into shaking and irregularly vibrated tongue slurs, while the other players stay in a moderato groove, defined by the bassist’s string rubs and the pianist’s intervallic, low-frequency cadenzas. Managing to stay true to his original experimental impulse Bevan wraps up with scads of tart-tongued multiphonics. Elsewhere though, in a sudden volte-face, his balladic delicacy, in tandem with Bourne’s comping brings to mind Gerry Mulligan’s work with Jimmy Rowles. Furthermore, despite its faux Film Noir title, “Farewell My Lovelies” is more of the same, with Bevan, now on tenor saxophone, appending folk-ballad references to diaphragm-pushed glissandi he’s outputting at three times the tempo of the others, while Bourne contributes tremolo runs and Buck jittery brush work.

By and large though, the almost 14½ minute title track may be the disc’s most defining moment. With each player given space to sonically expand, the exposition includes non-confrontational and clean cymbal and snare pushes from Buck; moderated harmonies from Bourne and first scrubbed, than plucked, double bass lines from Phillips. Lining up with the bassist’s thumping rhythm, Bevan spews out some Gene Ammons-like slurs, which fit the narrative perfectly, despite the more romantic concept the other three are advancing. More frenetic in its final section “Everybody Else But Me” wraps up with the bassist’s spiccato angling, the pianist’s tremolo runs plus harder smacks on the cymbals and snares, while Bevan’s rough and agitated altissimo split tones turn to frenzied reed bites and squealing obbligatos.

Even more proficient in freneticism than Bevan, Leimgruber’s improvisations on Montreuil four selections are in the main more contained and compliant. It may be that the absence of a drummer discourages excess, but it’s also that this trio isn’t aiming for unbridled Energy Music.

For instance the saxophonist’s entrance on “Further Nearness” is all upper-register, soprano saxophone squeaks and trills, the better to blend with the bassist’s’ bottleneck guitar-like arpeggios and sweeping staccato lines from the pianist. Only when Demierre turns to double-gaited pumps, soundboard echoes and wound, internal string plucking do harder snorts and reed bites come from Leimgruber. Moving to his horn’s upper register, Leimgruber’s aviary ghost notes brush against swaying and strumming double-bass lines. A conclusive variant finds the saxman displaying altissimo squeaks, reed sucking, nasal vibrations and half-swallowed timbres, the better to join with Demierre’s rubs and scrapes on the piano strings plus Phillips’ staccato sawing.

Leimgruber is more outgoing in his tenor playing, although he has been known to mute his bell against his trouser leg. Stuttering reed bites and a stuttering squeals spread out to a sour vibrato during “Northrope”, while the pianist caresses the keys with both hands while producing pedal point glissandi. For his part the bassist is involved with higher-pitched, spiccato textures plus rapping on the wood, which as the narrative extends, hardens to define the rhythm. A descriptive contrapuntal sequence finds the saxophonist turning to shriller, more atonal squeals, delineating his sounds from those of Demierre, whose stentorian chording becomes denser and thickens to such an extent that he’s soon hitting the keys with jackhammer intensity.

It’s a credit to the three that following the cramped cascades that characterize the former track, they can also showcase isolated timbres on “Mantrappe”. Leimgruber’s soprano line judders with kaval-like cross-blown patterns, Demierre’s sequence encompasses string plucks and stops, while Phillips’ sul ponticello bass line quivers. Building up to a contrapuntal collection of wood smacks from both bassist and pianist, the narrative is helped along by guttural tenor saxophone groans. A cacophonous middle section of reed glossolalia, bass string pumps and keyboard clips wedges more sonic timbres into the lines that could be imagined, gradually gives was to a withdrawing finale where the bassist`s buzzing ostinato underlines Leimgruber’s puffing spetrofluctuation and Demierre’s intermittent key clips.

As he heads into his seventh decade as a professional musician, Phillips can look back on contributions to many memorable sessions. These two, almost completely dissimilar exercises in advanced improvising show, that with the right partners, his high-calibre music-making continues unabated.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Everybody: 1. A Prolegomena 2. The Harrison Ford Chord 3. The Tailor’s Pike 4. Empty Hall Blues 5. It Never Entered 6. Everybody Else But Me 7. Farewell My Lovelies

Personnel: Everybody: Tony Bevan (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones); Matthew Bourne (piano); Barre Phillips (bass) and Tony Buck (drums)

Track Listing: Montreuil: 1. Further Nearness 2. Northrope 3. Welchfingar 4. Mantrappe

Personnel: Montreuil: Urs Leimgruber (soprano and tenor saxophones); Jacques Demierre (piano) and Barre Phillips (bass)

September 26, 2012

Sunny Murray/John Edwards/Tony Bevan

I Stepped Onto a Bee
Foghorn FGCD 014

Justly praised as a master improviser on bass saxophone – to be honest, competition is very slim – Oxford-based Tony Bevan is also a first-rate tenor saxophone soloist, something that hasn’t often been showcased in recent years. I Stepped Onto a Bee rectifies this omission with Bevan exercising his tenor chops on a six-part invention, working in tandem with London-based bassist John Edwards and legendary Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray now domiciled in Paris.

Edwards who has played with everyone from saxophonist Evan Parker to the Stellari String Quartet adds jabs, plucks and strums to the tracks here, while Murray, whose list of associates starts with pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Albert Ayler and goes on from there, is sympathetic in his backing, ranging from martial rat-tat-tats to bounces, ruffs and slaps. Above all though, it’s Bevan’s show, as he weaves variation after variation, using legato and extended techniques.

As is probably obvious from the punning title, the program is initially a contrafact of “You Stepped Out of a Dream”. But during the extended reed essay, the saxophonist also alludes to other American songbook standards such as “Bubbles, Bangles and Beads” and “Gypsy in my Soul”. Not that any of the melodies are ever exposed to full recognition as older tenor saxophone interpreters such as Dexter Gordon or Sonny Rollins would do. On the other hand, the wit of the proceedings, coupled with the intensity in Bevan’s playing, brings to mind some of Rollins’ mid-century sax-bass-drum milestones like Way Out West.

Further east and closer to the Atlantic in a London studio many years later, Bevan’s way-out playing not only showcases deep-breathing flutter tonguing and legato vibrations, but also come to junctures where his strained glossolalia and rough reed bites bring out his axe’s metallic properties. At the same time, while he may exhibit Aylerian altissimo cries or guttural foghorn blasts – he has quite a familiarity with in the saxophones’ basso regions – this is all done at an andante gait with balladic nonchalance.

The bassist thumps and slaps when needed, and adds arpeggio-laden interjections elsewhere. For his part Murray contributes irregular rolls and paradiddles at times; drags and bass drum pops at others; and brings forth beats as different as pseudo-waltz time and shuffles. Most instructively, while Bevan’s narrative includes pressurized Morse-code-like bites and intense growling friction in equal measure, the balance among the three never shifts. It may be Murray who slows down the tempo to medium, or Edwards whose plucks stabilize it, but overall the results are concurrently impressionistically emphasized and steely inventive

With high quality work like this on show throughout the CD, maybe Bevan should bring out his smaller horn in public more often.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. I Stepped Onto a Bee Part 1 2. I Stepped Onto a Bee Part II 3. I Stepped Onto a Bee Part III 4. I Stepped Onto a Bee Part IV 5. I Stepped Onto a Bee Part V 6. I Stepped Onto a Bee Part VI

Personnel: Tony Bevan (tenor saxophone); John Edwards (bass) and Sunny Murray (drums and voice)

December 25, 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

Sunny Murray/John Edwards/Tony Bevan

Boom Boom Cat
Foghorn FGCD 011

By Ken Waxman

Although Sunny Murray, the dean of American free jazz drumming, is the best-known player here, the success of Boom Boom Cat depends as much on the contributions of the other two musicians, who are more than mere sideman. Bassist John Edwards and saxophonist Tony Bevan are both an integral part of London’s free music scene, working with everyone from saxophonist Evan Parker to drummer Steve Noble.

Veterans of thrash-rock ensembles as well as low-key improv combos, the two confidently partner Murray, who now lives in Paris, every time he visits Great Britain. Despite being children when Murray redefined drumming in the mid-1960s with pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Albert Ayler, Edwards and Bevan are as confident in this context as any other. Bevan’s floor-vibrating bass saxophone gets a major workout on the shorter “Ballad for G”. But his deft manipulation of all its timbres, as well as those of the tenor and soprano saxophones, is brought into starker relief on the nearly hour-long title track.

Perhaps appropriately Bevan’s intense flattement, triple tonguing and pressurized split tones on tenor recall Ayler’s characteristic work, especially when the tempo solidifies into a child-like march. His glossolalia and tension-laden staccatissimo compact stentorian timbres into screaming altissimo and then splinter downwards as Edwards keeps the excitement on a rolling boil with buzzing string slaps. Meanwhile Murray’s muscular strokes, pops and rumbles advance with constant stick motion and a fluid, elasticized rhythm. Edwards leaning into the beat and exposing harsh passages from the bottom register underlines Bevan’s lyrical soprano saxophone interlude. Later, the bassist’s crying spiccato lines make common cause with the saxophonist as Bevan’s bass horn propels gusts of pedal-point multiphonics. Subtly backing all this with minimized polyrhythms, Murray confirms his mastery with traffic cop-like directions for the others and a conclusive snare whack.

Respected for his innovations and longevity, this CD demonstrates that with the right associates, Murray’s music is as contemporary as today.

Tracks: Boom Boom Cat; Ballad for G

Personnel: Tony Bevan: soprano, tenor and bass saxophones; John Edwards: bass; Sunny Murray: drums

-- For All About Jazz New York January 2011

January 8, 2011

Tony Bevan/Paul Obermayer/Paul Marks/Dominic Lash

A Big Hand
Foghorn FCGD012

Credited for having rescued the bass saxophone from the clown role in which it has been relegated since the 1920s, British saxophonist Tony Bevan usually works in the all-acoustic area with the likes of drummer Sunny Murray or guitarist Derek Bailey. While he has toyed with electronics in the past, A Big Hand is watershed recording for all concerned, since everyone involved is fully conversant with electro-acoustic improv. Bevan, who plays soprano, tenor and bass saxophones plus flute here, lined up a novel – for him– group of associates for the CD. For a start, electronic manipulator Paul Obermayer is in the long-established electro-improv duo FURT. Besides his acoustic work, drummer Phil Marks is also one-third of electronic combo Bark alongside Obermayer; while busy bassist Dominic Lash has recently been recording as part of a microtonal duo.

Almost without exception the tracks position Bevan’s abrasive, pressurized and often multiphonic variations from either measured biting tenor saxophone or guttural baritone saxophone alongside Obermayer’s wiggling and crackling aleatory impulses. Lash adds strokes raging from sul tasto rubs to out-and-out walking as Marks colors the proceedings with pumps, ruffs, methodical and irregular cymbal smacks plus rim shots.

Marks’ systematic percussion build up is obvious on “One Punch and Out”, where his rolls and wire-brush cymbal slaps mixing with Lash’s bass thumps and string swipes presage spetrofluctuation from Obermayer’s whiny wave forms and resonating bass sax blasts from Bevan. As Obermayer’s electronics separate into grinding and peeping bleeps and blips and the bassist’s friction plus drummer’s ruffs turn abrasive, the saxophonist showcases an extended series of altissimo cries plus almost literally chewable portions of chunky tongue slaps.

Similarly Bevan’s strained cries seem nearly never-ending when he displays them on “I Am Not a Lizard”. Here, tongue flutters and mercurial note clusters are echoed by Lash’s muscular string plucks and cymbal clacks, while the strident, signal-split flanges and keyboard styled rococo patterning and oscillations from Obermayer slide around the other sounds.

With the saxophonist’s often cavernously pitched split tones and reed biting presented as powerfully as if he was in an acoustic Free Jazz setting, most tracks are variations on this same theme. Bevan produces nephritic high-pitched squeaks in sympathy with Obermayer’s ratcheting oscillations or uses a stuttering chromatic run to intersect with booting bass-strings and electronically created clinking pianisms.

Still, as the quartet demonstrates on “Heart of Stone”, contrapuntal improvising doesn’t have to take place at a frenzied pace. With Lash’s stretched spiccato and Marks’ subtle press rolls and flams layering the background, Obermayer’s circuit-breaking pulsations meet up with Bevan’s carefully measured puffs and slurs. Concurrently, dramatic laptop processing further comments on the saxophonist’s moderato reed pressure and stops.

In truth, isolating CD highlights is difficult, since the entire program is at such a high standard. Overall, Bevan never lets the electronic impulses become intrusive enough to control the session. Instead computer impulses and extended instrumental techniques accent an already established conception. Taken together the variations provide new avenues for individual and group-focused improvisations.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Rock Me Baby 2. Heart of Stone 3. They Smell Like Giants 4. Lonely Girl 5. Box of Frogs 6. One Punch and Out 7. He’s Spartacus 8. Giants (of Jazz-Funk) 9. I Am Not a Lizard 10. Got You Sucker!

Personnel: Tony Bevan (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones and flute); Paul Obermayer (electronics); Dominic Lash (bass) and Phil Marks (drums)

November 21, 2010

Avram Fefer Trio

Ritual
Clean Feed CF 145 CD

Tony Bevan/Chris Corsano/Dominic Lash

Monster Club

Foghorn FGCD 010

Keune-Schneider-Krämer

No Comment

FMP CD 133

Pedants who classify Free Music according to countries or areas of origin will likely be flummoxed by this trio of saxophone-bass-drums sessions from the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. While each is striking, not one traffics in the clichés associated with regionally based sounds.

British improvisation, for instance, is often described as “insect music”, made up of miniscule, understated gestures and sounds. Monster Club – note the in-your-face title – is anything but that. Lead by reedist Tony Bevan, who has collaborated as much with pioneering Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray as Free Music forefather guitarist Derek Bailey, the sounds on the CD’s four tracks are often rip-snorting and riotous. Part of this may be attributed to Bevan’s young associates. Oxford-based bassist Dominic Lash not only works regularly with lower-case improvisers such as violinist Angharad Davies, but also with outgoing North Americans like cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and percussionist Harris Eisenstadt. Uncompromising saxophonist Paul Flaherty is a frequent playing partner for drummer Chris Corsano, part of the Sunburned Hand of Man avant-rock band.

Unlike the expected bellicose and shrieking interface pigeonholers associate with German Free Jazz, the Keune-Schneider-Krämer trio seems to take part of its orientation from the shaded timbre-stretching of classic U.K. Free Music. Tellingly, two of the band members’ closest associates are British: saxophonist Stefan Keune with guitarist John Russell and bassist Hans Schneider with cornetist Mark Charig. The bassist was also affiliated with pianist Georg Gräwe, as was drummer Achim Krämer. No Comment isn’t insect music either, however. There are enough spicatto lines, split tone and snare drum strokes to add a touch of mammalian interplay to the sounds. But the resulting mercurial blasts are tempered with restraint.

So too is the music of American multi-reedman Avram Fefer, who has played and lived in both Europe and the U.S. A duo partner of pianist Bobby Few, Fefer’s helpmates here are bassist Eric Revis, who oddly enough works regularly with mainstream saxophonist Branford Marsalis; and drummer Chad Taylor, a member of the Chicago Underground bands who has played with people as varied as multi-instrumentalist Cooper-Moore, guitarist Marc Ribot and saxophonist Fred Anderson.

To be more descriptive, Monster Club ’s most forceful performance is the 38-minute “This is Murder”. Beginning with almost off-mike sul ponticello strokes from Lash and leveraging drum head recoils from Corsano, it expands as Bevan blasts Bronx cheers, unearthly werewolf-like wails and subterranean slurs from his bass saxophone, settling the chromatic action into an adagio tempo. After parrying sideswipes from the bassist, Bevan moves the tempo to andante with a series of snorts that precede wriggling split tones and reed-biting stops. Fortissimo his largo timbres operating in double counterpoint with Lash’s strummed arpeggios as Corsano multiples his pardiddles, pops and ratamacues. As his sheets of sounds unroll with multiphonic theme variations, the saxophonist’s guttural yowls resonate and reflect back onto themselves, at least until Lash recreates the original head.

None of the other tunes maintain this fortissimo intensity for such an extended period, but the cumulative effect of the three-part interface is staggering. However, among Corsano’s flams, rebounds and rolls, Lash’s boiling sprawls and plucks plus Bevan’s spectrofluction, glossolalia, reed bites and guttural pumps, a satisfying concurrence is attained. Apparent too is the band’s distinctive originality.

Similarly Fefer’s aural trio essay manages an attachment to both the pre- and the post-Free Jazz tradition. As a matter of fact, the top of “Club Foot”, featuring Fefer’s curvaceous soprano saxophone line and Taylor’s tambourine-enhanced strokes, sounds like a variant on “Night in Tunisia”. In between episodes of triple-tonguing timbral variations from the reed man, who could be playing a musette, Revis’ solid resonation and Taylor’s press rolls and bass drum smacks lead to a set of phraseology variations from Fefer than to a higher-pitched recap of the head.

This parallel strategy is apparent in other tines such as “Feb. 13th” and “Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing” as each trio member adds something unique to the improvisations. The former for instance, with Fefer on tenor saxophone, approximates a balladic mode. Thick, connective bass lines plus cymbal slaps and rim shots confidentially frame the reedist’s honks as well as his double-and-triple tongued extensions and key pops.

“Sheep” on the other hand, features smoothly vibrated flutters from Fefer using a juicy, lyrical tone. Additional reed heft arises when he blows his alto and tenor saxophones simultaneously. Untangling the lines as he blows – with reed-biting forays into the altissimo range – Fefer builds to a climax of sharp, staccato notes that fade into Revis’ straight-ahead walking and Taylor’s back beat clip clops.

Although the German trio here functions as democratically as the other two, Krämer’s percussion forays give it a distinctive feel. Many times his mallet-on-metal resonations sound as if they’re reverberating from a gong or bell tree rather than from conventional cymbals.

Similarly, Schneider eschews walking about 90 per cent of the time, preferring to make his points with arched sul tasto lines, scrubbing sul ponticello extensions and double-stopped and double-pumped emphasis. A track like “Details” for example, depends on the bassist’s abrasive string-scrubbing and strongman-like swipes, as the drummer replicates a creaking door hinge and the saxophonist puffs out squeals, singular reed bites and spetrofluctuation.

“Rough Edges” – which provides a succinct description of most of the tracks on No Comment – finds Keune on baritone saxophone, mixing strident cries and bell-muted, chalumeau snorts. At times he could be playing duets with himself. Meanwhile Krämer accelerates his thwacks and snaps with flams, drags and ruffs, allowing the reedist free range to busy himself with Brötzmann-like slap-tonguing and overblowing.

Interconnected, the three sonically sum up their philosophy, with a noticeable level of concordance on “Rapid Movement”, the CD’s final track. Krämer pings his cymbals and pops his drum tops so they resemble conga drums; and Schneider vibrates tremolo sul tasto patterns. Meanwhile Keune’s vocalized overblowing reaches such a state of timbre-straining that the fear arises that he will push himself into squeaking solipsism. Just in the nick of time, Krämer’s rattling and rebounds bring the reedist back into the orbit of the other two’s lines and all reach a trembling, abrasive climax.

Geographic divisions are pushed to one side on these CDs, as each trio produces outstanding work.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ritual: 1. Testament 2. Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing 3. Ritual 4. Feb. 13th 5. Blinky Polermo 6. Club Foot 7. Ripple 8. Outspoken 9. When the Spirit Moves You

Personnel: Ritual: Avram Fefer (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones and bass clarinet); Eric Revis (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums)

Track Listing: Monster: 1. I Think That’ll Be OK … 2. Monster Club 3. This is Murder 4. You’re Telling Me!

Personnel: Monster: Tony Bevan (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones); Dominic Lash (bass) and Chris Corsano (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Comment: 1. In Layers 2. Handpicked 3. Brushes 4. Raw 5. Rough Edges 6. Splinters 7. Details 8. Chunks 9. Mesh 10. Spick and Span 11. Rapid Movement

Personnel: Comment: Stefan Keune (sopranino, tenor and baritone saxophones); Hans Schneider (bass) and Achim Krämer (drums and percussion)

August 3, 2009

Keune-Schneider-Krämer

No Comment
FMP CD 133

Tony Bevan/Chris Corsano/Dominic Lash

Monster Club

Foghorn FGCD 010

Avram Fefer Trio

Ritual

Clean Feed CF 145 CD

Pedants who classify Free Music according to countries or areas of origin will likely be flummoxed by this trio of saxophone-bass-drums sessions from the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. While each is striking, not one traffics in the clichés associated with regionally based sounds.

British improvisation, for instance, is often described as “insect music”, made up of miniscule, understated gestures and sounds. Monster Club – note the in-your-face title – is anything but that. Lead by reedist Tony Bevan, who has collaborated as much with pioneering Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray as Free Music forefather guitarist Derek Bailey, the sounds on the CD’s four tracks are often rip-snorting and riotous. Part of this may be attributed to Bevan’s young associates. Oxford-based bassist Dominic Lash not only works regularly with lower-case improvisers such as violinist Angharad Davies, but also with outgoing North Americans like cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and percussionist Harris Eisenstadt. Uncompromising saxophonist Paul Flaherty is a frequent playing partner for drummer Chris Corsano, part of the Sunburned Hand of Man avant-rock band.

Unlike the expected bellicose and shrieking interface pigeonholers associate with German Free Jazz, the Keune-Schneider-Krämer trio seems to take part of its orientation from the shaded timbre-stretching of classic U.K. Free Music. Tellingly, two of the band members’ closest associates are British: saxophonist Stefan Keune with guitarist John Russell and bassist Hans Schneider with cornetist Mark Charig. The bassist was also affiliated with pianist Georg Gräwe, as was drummer Achim Krämer. No Comment isn’t insect music either, however. There are enough spicatto lines, split tone and snare drum strokes to add a touch of mammalian interplay to the sounds. But the resulting mercurial blasts are tempered with restraint.

So too is the music of American multi-reedman Avram Fefer, who has played and lived in both Europe and the U.S. A duo partner of pianist Bobby Few, Fefer’s helpmates here are bassist Eric Revis, who oddly enough works regularly with mainstream saxophonist Branford Marsalis; and drummer Chad Taylor, a member of the Chicago Underground bands who has played with people as varied as multi-instrumentalist Cooper-Moore, guitarist Marc Ribot and saxophonist Fred Anderson.

To be more descriptive, Monster Club ’s most forceful performance is the 38-minute “This is Murder”. Beginning with almost off-mike sul ponticello strokes from Lash and leveraging drum head recoils from Corsano, it expands as Bevan blasts Bronx cheers, unearthly werewolf-like wails and subterranean slurs from his bass saxophone, settling the chromatic action into an adagio tempo. After parrying sideswipes from the bassist, Bevan moves the tempo to andante with a series of snorts that precede wriggling split tones and reed-biting stops. Fortissimo his largo timbres operating in double counterpoint with Lash’s strummed arpeggios as Corsano multiples his pardiddles, pops and ratamacues. As his sheets of sounds unroll with multiphonic theme variations, the saxophonist’s guttural yowls resonate and reflect back onto themselves, at least until Lash recreates the original head.

None of the other tunes maintain this fortissimo intensity for such an extended period, but the cumulative effect of the three-part interface is staggering. However, among Corsano’s flams, rebounds and rolls, Lash’s boiling sprawls and plucks plus Bevan’s spectrofluction, glossolalia, reed bites and guttural pumps, a satisfying concurrence is attained. Apparent too is the band’s distinctive originality.

Similarly Fefer’s aural trio essay manages an attachment to both the pre- and the post-Free Jazz tradition. As a matter of fact, the top of “Club Foot”, featuring Fefer’s curvaceous soprano saxophone line and Taylor’s tambourine-enhanced strokes, sounds like a variant on “Night in Tunisia”. In between episodes of triple-tonguing timbral variations from the reed man, who could be playing a musette, Revis’ solid resonation and Taylor’s press rolls and bass drum smacks lead to a set of phraseology variations from Fefer than to a higher-pitched recap of the head.

This parallel strategy is apparent in other tines such as “Feb. 13th” and “Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing” as each trio member adds something unique to the improvisations. The former for instance, with Fefer on tenor saxophone, approximates a balladic mode. Thick, connective bass lines plus cymbal slaps and rim shots confidentially frame the reedist’s honks as well as his double-and-triple tongued extensions and key pops.

“Sheep” on the other hand, features smoothly vibrated flutters from Fefer using a juicy, lyrical tone. Additional reed heft arises when he blows his alto and tenor saxophones simultaneously. Untangling the lines as he blows – with reed-biting forays into the altissimo range – Fefer builds to a climax of sharp, staccato notes that fade into Revis’ straight-ahead walking and Taylor’s back beat clip clops.

Although the German trio here functions as democratically as the other two, Krämer’s percussion forays give it a distinctive feel. Many times his mallet-on-metal resonations sound as if they’re reverberating from a gong or bell tree rather than from conventional cymbals.

Similarly, Schneider eschews walking about 90 per cent of the time, preferring to make his points with arched sul tasto lines, scrubbing sul ponticello extensions and double-stopped and double-pumped emphasis. A track like “Details” for example, depends on the bassist’s abrasive string-scrubbing and strongman-like swipes, as the drummer replicates a creaking door hinge and the saxophonist puffs out squeals, singular reed bites and spetrofluctuation.

“Rough Edges” – which provides a succinct description of most of the tracks on No Comment – finds Keune on baritone saxophone, mixing strident cries and bell-muted, chalumeau snorts. At times he could be playing duets with himself. Meanwhile Krämer accelerates his thwacks and snaps with flams, drags and ruffs, allowing the reedist free range to busy himself with Brötzmann-like slap-tonguing and overblowing.

Interconnected, the three sonically sum up their philosophy, with a noticeable level of concordance on “Rapid Movement”, the CD’s final track. Krämer pings his cymbals and pops his drum tops so they resemble conga drums; and Schneider vibrates tremolo sul tasto patterns. Meanwhile Keune’s vocalized overblowing reaches such a state of timbre-straining that the fear arises that he will push himself into squeaking solipsism. Just in the nick of time, Krämer’s rattling and rebounds bring the reedist back into the orbit of the other two’s lines and all reach a trembling, abrasive climax.

Geographic divisions are pushed to one side on these CDs, as each trio produces outstanding work.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ritual: 1. Testament 2. Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing 3. Ritual 4. Feb. 13th 5. Blinky Polermo 6. Club Foot 7. Ripple 8. Outspoken 9. When the Spirit Moves You

Personnel: Ritual: Avram Fefer (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones and bass clarinet); Eric Revis (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums)

Track Listing: Monster: 1. I Think That’ll Be OK … 2. Monster Club 3. This is Murder 4. You’re Telling Me!

Personnel: Monster: Tony Bevan (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones); Dominic Lash (bass) and Chris Corsano (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Comment: 1. In Layers 2. Handpicked 3. Brushes 4. Raw 5. Rough Edges 6. Splinters 7. Details 8. Chunks 9. Mesh 10. Spick and Span 11. Rapid Movement

Personnel: Comment: Stefan Keune (sopranino, tenor and baritone saxophones); Hans Schneider (bass) and Achim Krämer (drums and percussion)

August 3, 2009

Tony Bevan/Chris Corsano/Dominic Lash

Monster Club
Foghorn FGCD 010

Keune-Schneider-Krämer

No Comment

FMP CD 133

Avram Fefer Trio

Ritual

Clean Feed CF 145 CD

Pedants who classify Free Music according to countries or areas of origin will likely be flummoxed by this trio of saxophone-bass-drums sessions from the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. While each is striking, not one traffics in the clichés associated with regionally based sounds.

British improvisation, for instance, is often described as “insect music”, made up of miniscule, understated gestures and sounds. Monster Club – note the in-your-face title – is anything but that. Lead by reedist Tony Bevan, who has collaborated as much with pioneering Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray as Free Music forefather guitarist Derek Bailey, the sounds on the CD’s four tracks are often rip-snorting and riotous. Part of this may be attributed to Bevan’s young associates. Oxford-based bassist Dominic Lash not only works regularly with lower-case improvisers such as violinist Angharad Davies, but also with outgoing North Americans like cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and percussionist Harris Eisenstadt. Uncompromising saxophonist Paul Flaherty is a frequent playing partner for drummer Chris Corsano, part of the Sunburned Hand of Man avant-rock band.

Unlike the expected bellicose and shrieking interface pigeonholers associate with German Free Jazz, the Keune-Schneider-Krämer trio seems to take part of its orientation from the shaded timbre-stretching of classic U.K. Free Music. Tellingly, two of the band members’ closest associates are British: saxophonist Stefan Keune with guitarist John Russell and bassist Hans Schneider with cornetist Mark Charig. The bassist was also affiliated with pianist Georg Gräwe, as was drummer Achim Krämer. No Comment isn’t insect music either, however. There are enough spicatto lines, split tone and snare drum strokes to add a touch of mammalian interplay to the sounds. But the resulting mercurial blasts are tempered with restraint.

So too is the music of American multi-reedman Avram Fefer, who has played and lived in both Europe and the U.S. A duo partner of pianist Bobby Few, Fefer’s helpmates here are bassist Eric Revis, who oddly enough works regularly with mainstream saxophonist Branford Marsalis; and drummer Chad Taylor, a member of the Chicago Underground bands who has played with people as varied as multi-instrumentalist Cooper-Moore, guitarist Marc Ribot and saxophonist Fred Anderson.

To be more descriptive, Monster Club ’s most forceful performance is the 38-minute “This is Murder”. Beginning with almost off-mike sul ponticello strokes from Lash and leveraging drum head recoils from Corsano, it expands as Bevan blasts Bronx cheers, unearthly werewolf-like wails and subterranean slurs from his bass saxophone, settling the chromatic action into an adagio tempo. After parrying sideswipes from the bassist, Bevan moves the tempo to andante with a series of snorts that precede wriggling split tones and reed-biting stops. Fortissimo his largo timbres operating in double counterpoint with Lash’s strummed arpeggios as Corsano multiples his pardiddles, pops and ratamacues. As his sheets of sounds unroll with multiphonic theme variations, the saxophonist’s guttural yowls resonate and reflect back onto themselves, at least until Lash recreates the original head.

None of the other tunes maintain this fortissimo intensity for such an extended period, but the cumulative effect of the three-part interface is staggering. However, among Corsano’s flams, rebounds and rolls, Lash’s boiling sprawls and plucks plus Bevan’s spectrofluction, glossolalia, reed bites and guttural pumps, a satisfying concurrence is attained. Apparent too is the band’s distinctive originality.

Similarly Fefer’s aural trio essay manages an attachment to both the pre- and the post-Free Jazz tradition. As a matter of fact, the top of “Club Foot”, featuring Fefer’s curvaceous soprano saxophone line and Taylor’s tambourine-enhanced strokes, sounds like a variant on “Night in Tunisia”. In between episodes of triple-tonguing timbral variations from the reed man, who could be playing a musette, Revis’ solid resonation and Taylor’s press rolls and bass drum smacks lead to a set of phraseology variations from Fefer than to a higher-pitched recap of the head.

This parallel strategy is apparent in other tines such as “Feb. 13th” and “Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing” as each trio member adds something unique to the improvisations. The former for instance, with Fefer on tenor saxophone, approximates a balladic mode. Thick, connective bass lines plus cymbal slaps and rim shots confidentially frame the reedist’s honks as well as his double-and-triple tongued extensions and key pops.

“Sheep” on the other hand, features smoothly vibrated flutters from Fefer using a juicy, lyrical tone. Additional reed heft arises when he blows his alto and tenor saxophones simultaneously. Untangling the lines as he blows – with reed-biting forays into the altissimo range – Fefer builds to a climax of sharp, staccato notes that fade into Revis’ straight-ahead walking and Taylor’s back beat clip clops.

Although the German trio here functions as democratically as the other two, Krämer’s percussion forays give it a distinctive feel. Many times his mallet-on-metal resonations sound as if they’re reverberating from a gong or bell tree rather than from conventional cymbals.

Similarly, Schneider eschews walking about 90 per cent of the time, preferring to make his points with arched sul tasto lines, scrubbing sul ponticello extensions and double-stopped and double-pumped emphasis. A track like “Details” for example, depends on the bassist’s abrasive string-scrubbing and strongman-like swipes, as the drummer replicates a creaking door hinge and the saxophonist puffs out squeals, singular reed bites and spetrofluctuation.

“Rough Edges” – which provides a succinct description of most of the tracks on No Comment – finds Keune on baritone saxophone, mixing strident cries and bell-muted, chalumeau snorts. At times he could be playing duets with himself. Meanwhile Krämer accelerates his thwacks and snaps with flams, drags and ruffs, allowing the reedist free range to busy himself with Brötzmann-like slap-tonguing and overblowing.

Interconnected, the three sonically sum up their philosophy, with a noticeable level of concordance on “Rapid Movement”, the CD’s final track. Krämer pings his cymbals and pops his drum tops so they resemble conga drums; and Schneider vibrates tremolo sul tasto patterns. Meanwhile Keune’s vocalized overblowing reaches such a state of timbre-straining that the fear arises that he will push himself into squeaking solipsism. Just in the nick of time, Krämer’s rattling and rebounds bring the reedist back into the orbit of the other two’s lines and all reach a trembling, abrasive climax.

Geographic divisions are pushed to one side on these CDs, as each trio produces outstanding work.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ritual: 1. Testament 2. Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing 3. Ritual 4. Feb. 13th 5. Blinky Polermo 6. Club Foot 7. Ripple 8. Outspoken 9. When the Spirit Moves You

Personnel: Ritual: Avram Fefer (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones and bass clarinet); Eric Revis (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums)

Track Listing: Monster: 1. I Think That’ll Be OK … 2. Monster Club 3. This is Murder 4. You’re Telling Me!

Personnel: Monster: Tony Bevan (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones); Dominic Lash (bass) and Chris Corsano (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Comment: 1. In Layers 2. Handpicked 3. Brushes 4. Raw 5. Rough Edges 6. Splinters 7. Details 8. Chunks 9. Mesh 10. Spick and Span 11. Rapid Movement

Personnel: Comment: Stefan Keune (sopranino, tenor and baritone saxophones); Hans Schneider (bass) and Achim Krämer (drums and percussion)

August 3, 2009

Gyldene Trion

Live at Glenn Miller Café Ayler Records aylCD-079

Sunny Murray/John Edwards/Tony Bevan

The Gearbox Explodes!

Foghorn FGCD 009

Stark examples of the fissure that in many cases separates younger musicians from slightly older ones, the ironic situation pinpointed in these releases is that in some cases it’s elders who are willing to try more experiments in their playing than their junior counterparts.

Both of these saxophone-bass-and-drums CDs provide interesting listening, but if one is expanding the improvised music tradition, the other is merely extending it. What’s paradoxical is that The Gearbox Explodes! includes sounds from a saxophonist in his fifties, a bassist in his forties and a drummer heading for his seventy-first birthday. Meanwhile members of the Gyldene Trion are in their twenties and thirties.

There may be a certain geographical poignancy here too since Gearbox drummer Sunny Murray, an American Free Jazz pioneer who now lives in Paris, often played in Stockholm – where Live at Glenn Miller Café was recorded – with leaders such as pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Albert Ayler years before any one of the Gyldene Trions was born.

Murray’s associates on Gearbox recorded at “live at St. Domincs (sic) Retreat Working Mans (sic) Club Newcastle Upon Tyne” are both from the United Kingdom. Tenor and bass saxophonist Tony Bevan is someone whose interpretative work with players like guitarist Derek Bailey created to a new roll for the giant saxophone in Free Music. Versatile and solid, bassist John Edwards is a frequent associate of saxophonists ranging from Evan Parker to John Butcher. As for Murray, he has been the epitome of the Free-Jazz drummer for almost 50 years. Excerpts from this concert appear in Antoine Prum’s documentary film Sunny’s Time Now as well.

On the other disc, tenor and baritone saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar is a multiple jazz poll winner in Sweden, who has played with wide-cross section of musicians ranging from pianist Ran Blake to the Norrbotten Big Band, while bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg and drummer Daniel Fredriksson are part of his working quintet. The rhythm section also plays in Copenhagen-based Italian saxophonist Alberto Pinton’s Quintet, and additionally Fredriksson and Kullhammar are members of Zetterberg’s perhaps sardonically named Hot Five

While the Murray Trio’s three long tracks are evidently long improvisations, the Gyldene Trion stick to songs. Kullhammar and Zetterberg each contribute a line, with the other tracks – Thelonious Monk’s “Friday The 13th” and “Stuffy Turkey” and the standard “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes” – augmenting the saxophonist’s stylistic resemblance to Sonny Rollins. On the other CD, playing tenor, Bevan too seems to be emulating Rollins, although his free-form innovations relate to Rollins most experimental period. Bevan however is also no one but himself on bass sax.

Having toured as a trio three years earlier, Murray, Edwards and Bevan are comfortable in each others’ company – with no one (i.e. Murray) pulling rank due to fame or age. There are some drawbacks in this however, since it seems as if each man must take a lengthy solo on each track. Considering each one is operating at the top of his game however, most of the solos are memorable themselves.

On the title tune, for instance, Bevan’s Rollinesque trills, honks and spetrofluctuation gradually build up to renal cries and extended half-swallowed broken tones. Meanwhile Edwards’ double thumping and stroking intensifies to such an extent that the resulting tone adumbrates Murray’s time-keeping. This includes flams and duple time resonations, spectacular cymbal resonation and press rolls. The finale is parceled out among staccato strums from Edwards and march-tempo tongue slaps and smears from Bevan.

More impressive is “Right On Guys”, with a percussion introduction by Murray which encompasses snare and tom tom rat-tat-tats, skittering paradiddles plus rattling and reverberating cymbal snaps. By the time Bevan and Edwards enter they have to work energetically and percussively just to keep up with Murray. The saxophonist tries out reed bites, forced air snarls and molten phrasing to highlight a theme awash with growling note clusters.

Strumming clawed handful of strings and pounding the instrument’s wood for additional reverberation, Edwards’ solo evolves in unison with Bevan’s work and at such fervor that the later is soon triple-tonguing and using glottal punctuation to vigorously push the thickening results decisively. Murray’s rebound introduce a slight Latin tinge, but as soon as Bevan brings out the bass saxophone for round after round of fortissimo gravelly timbres and Edwards responds in kind with spiccato-slicing, the older man simply lays out. With the reed output a mix of mine-shaft-deep honks and squealing tongue slaps and the bass centred on arco double-stopping, Murray mumbles “right on guys” and lets them take the tune out.

Melody and energy aren’t a problem for the Gyldene Trion. But somehow the compositions’ solid centres appears to be missing among the sluicing and snorting altissimo saxophone lines, the drummer’s cymbal smashes, press rolls and drags and the bassist’s sul tasto thumps. Unhurried, “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes”, for instance, has a basically conservative structure firmly rooted in the 1960s. As for the Monk tunes, in the trio’s interpretations, the little-heard “Stuffy Turkey” could be a Swing era throwback, while the treatment of “Friday the 13th” transforms it into a literal finger-snapper. Fredriksson’s drum head popping and snapping and Zetterberg’s a capella triple stopping output enough power. But when coupled with Kullhammar’s theme variations and quotes, the effects skirt Monk’s originality. As for band’s originals, ones such as the bassist’s “Hurricane Ann” merely serve as a showcase for his moderato walking and the saxophonist’s unaccompanied trills.

Kullhammar’s “Snake City Rundown”, named for the area in which he lives, is probably the best performance. On top of dense andante lines from the bassist, he snorts, sallies, cries and rumbles, repeatedly emphasizing similar phrases and resonating note clusters. Still the saxophonist’s point of reference appears derivative, though here it’s John Coltrane rather than Rollins.

Obviously those who follow Swedish jazz more carefully and fans of the Gyldene Trion members’ other bands may give the performance a higher grade. But matching man-against-man, singly and together, the judgment remains that more experienced players who have slogged out endless nights on the bandstand – such as Sunny Murray’s three – can impart a few lessons to younger improvisers.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Gearbox: 1. Right On Guys 2. Hold It Right There 3. The Gearbox Explodes!

Personnel: Gearbox: Tony Bevan (tenor and bass saxophones); John Edwards (bass) and Sunny Murray (drums)

Track Listing: Live: 1. The Night Has A Thousand Eyes 2. Hurricane Ann 3. Stuffy Turkey 4. Snake City Rundown 5. Friday The 13th

Personnel: Live: Jonas Kullhammar (tenor and baritone saxophones); Torbjörn Zetterberg (bass) and Daniel Fredriksson (drums)

July 30, 2008

Sunny Murray/John Edwards/Tony Bevan

The Gearbox Explodes! Foghorn FGCD 009

Gyldene Trion

Live at Glenn Miller Café

Ayler Records aylCD-079

Stark examples of the fissure that in many cases separates younger musicians from slightly older ones, the ironic situation pinpointed in these releases is that in some cases it’s elders who are willing to try more experiments in their playing than their junior counterparts.

Both of these saxophone-bass-and-drums CDs provide interesting listening, but if one is expanding the improvised music tradition, the other is merely extending it. What’s paradoxical is that The Gearbox Explodes! includes sounds from a saxophonist in his fifties, a bassist in his forties and a drummer heading for his seventy-first birthday. Meanwhile members of the Gyldene Trion are in their twenties and thirties.

There may be a certain geographical poignancy here too since Gearbox drummer Sunny Murray, an American Free Jazz pioneer who now lives in Paris, often played in Stockholm – where Live at Glenn Miller Café was recorded – with leaders such as pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Albert Ayler years before any one of the Gyldene Trions was born.

Murray’s associates on Gearbox recorded at “live at St. Domincs (sic) Retreat Working Mans (sic) Club Newcastle Upon Tyne” are both from the United Kingdom. Tenor and bass saxophonist Tony Bevan is someone whose interpretative work with players like guitarist Derek Bailey created to a new roll for the giant saxophone in Free Music. Versatile and solid, bassist John Edwards is a frequent associate of saxophonists ranging from Evan Parker to John Butcher. As for Murray, he has been the epitome of the Free-Jazz drummer for almost 50 years. Excerpts from this concert appear in Antoine Prum’s documentary film Sunny’s Time Now as well.

On the other disc, tenor and baritone saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar is a multiple jazz poll winner in Sweden, who has played with wide-cross section of musicians ranging from pianist Ran Blake to the Norrbotten Big Band, while bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg and drummer Daniel Fredriksson are part of his working quintet. The rhythm section also plays in Copenhagen-based Italian saxophonist Alberto Pinton’s Quintet, and additionally Fredriksson and Kullhammar are members of Zetterberg’s perhaps sardonically named Hot Five

While the Murray Trio’s three long tracks are evidently long improvisations, the Gyldene Trion stick to songs. Kullhammar and Zetterberg each contribute a line, with the other tracks – Thelonious Monk’s “Friday The 13th” and “Stuffy Turkey” and the standard “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes” – augmenting the saxophonist’s stylistic resemblance to Sonny Rollins. On the other CD, playing tenor, Bevan too seems to be emulating Rollins, although his free-form innovations relate to Rollins most experimental period. Bevan however is also no one but himself on bass sax.

Having toured as a trio three years earlier, Murray, Edwards and Bevan are comfortable in each others’ company – with no one (i.e. Murray) pulling rank due to fame or age. There are some drawbacks in this however, since it seems as if each man must take a lengthy solo on each track. Considering each one is operating at the top of his game however, most of the solos are memorable themselves.

On the title tune, for instance, Bevan’s Rollinesque trills, honks and spetrofluctuation gradually build up to renal cries and extended half-swallowed broken tones. Meanwhile Edwards’ double thumping and stroking intensifies to such an extent that the resulting tone adumbrates Murray’s time-keeping. This includes flams and duple time resonations, spectacular cymbal resonation and press rolls. The finale is parceled out among staccato strums from Edwards and march-tempo tongue slaps and smears from Bevan.

More impressive is “Right On Guys”, with a percussion introduction by Murray which encompasses snare and tom tom rat-tat-tats, skittering paradiddles plus rattling and reverberating cymbal snaps. By the time Bevan and Edwards enter they have to work energetically and percussively just to keep up with Murray. The saxophonist tries out reed bites, forced air snarls and molten phrasing to highlight a theme awash with growling note clusters.

Strumming clawed handful of strings and pounding the instrument’s wood for additional reverberation, Edwards’ solo evolves in unison with Bevan’s work and at such fervor that the later is soon triple-tonguing and using glottal punctuation to vigorously push the thickening results decisively. Murray’s rebound introduce a slight Latin tinge, but as soon as Bevan brings out the bass saxophone for round after round of fortissimo gravelly timbres and Edwards responds in kind with spiccato-slicing, the older man simply lays out. With the reed output a mix of mine-shaft-deep honks and squealing tongue slaps and the bass centred on arco double-stopping, Murray mumbles “right on guys” and lets them take the tune out.

Melody and energy aren’t a problem for the Gyldene Trion. But somehow the compositions’ solid centres appears to be missing among the sluicing and snorting altissimo saxophone lines, the drummer’s cymbal smashes, press rolls and drags and the bassist’s sul tasto thumps. Unhurried, “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes”, for instance, has a basically conservative structure firmly rooted in the 1960s. As for the Monk tunes, in the trio’s interpretations, the little-heard “Stuffy Turkey” could be a Swing era throwback, while the treatment of “Friday the 13th” transforms it into a literal finger-snapper. Fredriksson’s drum head popping and snapping and Zetterberg’s a capella triple stopping output enough power. But when coupled with Kullhammar’s theme variations and quotes, the effects skirt Monk’s originality. As for band’s originals, ones such as the bassist’s “Hurricane Ann” merely serve as a showcase for his moderato walking and the saxophonist’s unaccompanied trills.

Kullhammar’s “Snake City Rundown”, named for the area in which he lives, is probably the best performance. On top of dense andante lines from the bassist, he snorts, sallies, cries and rumbles, repeatedly emphasizing similar phrases and resonating note clusters. Still the saxophonist’s point of reference appears derivative, though here it’s John Coltrane rather than Rollins.

Obviously those who follow Swedish jazz more carefully and fans of the Gyldene Trion members’ other bands may give the performance a higher grade. But matching man-against-man, singly and together, the judgment remains that more experienced players who have slogged out endless nights on the bandstand – such as Sunny Murray’s three – can impart a few lessons to younger improvisers.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Gearbox: 1. Right On Guys 2. Hold It Right There 3. The Gearbox Explodes!

Personnel: Gearbox: Tony Bevan (tenor and bass saxophones); John Edwards (bass) and Sunny Murray (drums)

Track Listing: Live: 1. The Night Has A Thousand Eyes 2. Hurricane Ann 3. Stuffy Turkey 4. Snake City Rundown 5. Friday The 13th

Personnel: Live: Jonas Kullhammar (tenor and baritone saxophones); Torbjörn Zetterberg (bass) and Daniel Fredriksson (drums)

July 30, 2008

Bruise

With Derek Bailey
Foghorn Records FOGCD006

Perhaps the most unintentionally shocking part of this 2004 live London gig by the British Bruise band joined by guitarist Derek Bailey is its cost, reprinted on the back CD cover: “₤5/₤3 concessions”.

While a bargain for the audience, it proves once again that no matter how well-known someone like the guitarist was in the improv world, he was still doing local gigs for the equivalent of the price of a beer a little more than a year before his death at 75. Obviously no one ever got rich – or is it comfortable, in both senses – playing improv.

At this same time Bailey probably participated in this 70-minute session because of his respect for the participants, who richly deserve it. Bass saxophonist Tony Bevan, who has single-handedly rescued the largest member of the saxophone family from the clutches of the Moldy Figs, first played with the guitarist in the 1980s. Sound collage creator Ashley Wales is part of electro-acoustic sessions involving equally famous first-generation improvisers like British saxophonist Evan Parker and Dutch drummer Han Bennink.

Singly and together, bassist John Edwards and percussionist Mark Sanders have backed up BritImprov heavy hitters ranging from Parker to saxophonist John Butcher. Orphy Robinson, who plays steel drum, marimba, percussion, electronics and trumpet here, subtly and without showing off, often adds funk and African inferences to his more sophisticated note selection.

The likelihood is that Bailey worked with all the others beforehand in some combination or other. Or maybe he didn’t. Bailey had a reputation for improvising with everyone and anyone, preferably for the first time. Often this all-inclusive impulse served him badly and on some record dates you can hear him picking away oblivious to all around him. Luckily this isn’t one of those.

As always Bailey sounds unmistakably like himself, using the non-idiomatic style that he arguably invented. At points he appears to be tapping or rattling his strings; at others stroking a cluster of legato notes; and elsewhere seemingly wiping and cleaning the guitar neck or space below the bridge – musically, and in the context of the improvisation of course.

By the final more-than-34-minute track, perhaps impassioned – or irritated –

by the vibrating samples and effervescent wave forms from Wales, the guitarist’s pin-point notes turn to distorted flanges, as if he was practicing for a Yardbirds’ rave-up. While this is going on the bassist and drummer develop their accompaniment from low-key, stop-and-start to delineate a speedy walking bass line and rhythmic drum-stick rattles.

Still earlier Robinson shows off blustery trumpet tones slowly submerged by shrieking and twittering machine modulations. One early climax is reached however, when Bailey’s single string snaps and resolute flat picking attains double counterpoint with Bevan’s lip bubbling and snorts.

Throughout, the saxophonist’s purpose-built honks join knife-sharp rasgueado from the guitarist to build up the intensity. Most of this takes place on top of horizontal wave forms from Wales’ soundscapes and a percussion display from Sanders that swiftly evolves from bounces and rebounds to heavy, anvil-like beats. When one series of sounds resembles the sweeping textures of a violin recital, can it be attributed to electronic legerdemain or to stroking spiccato lines from Edwards’ bass?

All and all, between Bevan’s masticating basso slurs and altissimo cries, Bailey’s string bending and chiming frails plus off-centre pitch molding from the others, the applauding audience obviously had a great time – at bargain prices. So will the listener.

In sympathetic, challenging company on one of his last sessions, Bailey rose to the occasion to help define his brand of improvisation – as did his five confreres.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Search 2. Locate 3. Destroy

Personnel: Tony Bevan (bass saxophone); Derek Bailey (guitar); John Edwards (bass); Mark Sanders (drums and percussion); Orphy Robinson (steel drum, marimba, percussion, electronics and trumpet); Ashley Wales (soundscapes and electronics)

July 21, 2006

Tony Bevan

Bruised
Foghorn Records

Floros Floridis
F.L.O.R.O. III (Further Lines Over Rough Options)
j.n.d. re-records

By Ken Waxman
August 8, 2005

Unlike rockers, classical recitalists and even mainstream jazzers, committed improvisers have a compulsion to constantly involve themselves in novel situations with new players or new instruments. For them, repetition is the same as stasis.

Thus these two CDs find accomplished reedists who have recorded noteworthy acoustic duo and trio discs, setting up more of a challenge by welcoming more musicians and electronics. Frankly, the end products aren’t as satisfying as earlier, all-acoustic dates, but the players have to be commended for their audacity and refusal to stand pat.

A resident of Thessaloniki, multi-reedman Floros Floridis has been the lonely crusader for Free Improv in Greece for years. He and pianist Sakis Papadimitriou recorded the country’s first outside jazz LP in 1979. Since then he’s been involved with a variety of local and international players, ranging from Germans, bassist Peter Kowald and percussionist Günter “Baby” Sommer to American guitarist Nicky Skopelitis and Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz. Along the way he’s written music for radio, theatre and film.

Oxford, England–based saxophonist Tony Bevan is a crusader like Floridis. But with the BritImprov scene a little more welcoming than the one in Greece, the campaign he’s waged is for the acceptance as of the unwieldy bass saxophone as a flexible improvising tool, liberating it from its status as a Dixieland clown. To that end he’s turned out dazzling CDs with the likes of British guitarist Derek Bailey, Chicago trombonist Jeb Bishop and American Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray.

Adding additional instrumental voices to the arena as Bevan has done for the six tracks of Bruised and Floridis has on the 15[!] pieces on F.L.O.R.O. III, overloads the result away from unadulterated improv and towards textures, patterns and beats. Taken as a whole, the consensus is that neither Bevan, who plays tenor and bass saxophones on his CD, nor Floridis – whose instruments include soprano and alto saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet, wooden flute, voice, as well as it seems synthesized strings and keyboard samples – gets enough solo space.

Portentously the British saxophonist’s associates are not only bassist John Edwards and percussionist Mark Sanders, who appear on a high percentage of BritImprov dates, but also Orphy Robinson, playing vibraphone, marimbula (sic), steel drum, percussion and electronics and Ashley Wales of the SpringHeel Jack duo on soundscapes and electronics.

Third outing for the F.L.O.R.O. crew – each time with a different English translation of the abbreviation – the woodwind player here matches bassist Nektarios Karatzis and drummer Nikos Psofogiorgos from F.L.O.R.O. I, with guitarist Babis Papadopoulos from F.L.O.R.O. II. Since electric piano, celli, strings, brass and electric bass are also listed, overdubbing and other studio wizardry distinguishes this outing from the earlier ones.

That’s a shame, since the most memorable parts of this CD are those when Floridis blows unfettered. These tracks aren’t untouched Trad Jazz either. On “F1” for instance, his full-bodied moderato clarinet trills are entwined with secondary lines from a ghost clarinetist twittering in a higher register. Managing the double tracking, rather than being controlled by it, the clarinetist, bassist and drummer replicate the gentle swing of say, Buddy DeFranco with Red Mitchell and Shelly Manne, adding a walking bass line and bop cymbal snaps. Plus the piece is free enough to have a rondo as the coda.

“Basses Duo”, as the title suggests, offers up two Karantzises, one playing arco, the other pizzicato. Harmonizing at points, the double bass action also gives the reedist scope for pitch-vibrated glissandi, altissimo trills and tongue slaps. Similarly, “Celli Duo”, an impressive bass clarinet feature.

When everything is aligned properly the additions can help. “Chaos 3”, for example, links steady, unflashy drumming with stark electronic textures that take on movie monster-like sounds. Flordis’ best improvising of the disc occurs here as he spits out lightly accented and pitch-vibrated tones, twitters and overblowing.

Psofogiorgos isn’t always that diffident, however. On the aptly titled “Nice Groove” and several other tunes, pounding rhythms make common cause with meandering double bass thumps, knob-twisting guitar reverb and sprinkled accents from the Fender Rhodes. At times resembling a Hellenic version of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, only the saxist maintains the improv context with either well-modulated, bass clarinet double-tonguing, warbling alto saxophone lines or meandering soprano sax fills.

Things are even less impressive elsewhere. On one track an overlay of shifting synthesized strings seems to be a on a different plane than Flordis’ supple clarinet tone. Another, made up of squealing saxophone vamps, rattling drum bits and thumping drums sounds like rock music. A coupling of primitivist wood flute and quivering hand drums on “Bariloche 2” provides so-called World Music echoes without follow through.

World Music emulation isn’t one of the shortcomings of Bruised, but overall the forthright singularity Bevan elsewhere brings to his improvising is muted by accommodation with soundscapes and offbeat percussion textures.

On the more than 17-minute “Leviathan”, for instance, the saxophonist doesn’t truly make his presence felt until about four minutes before the conclusion and that’s with singular, trilled understated lines. Preceding this are oscillating electronic shimmers, raindrop-like click clacks from wooden objects, arco bass lines and steady steel drum patterning. Bevan’s earlier input is made up of circular growling sounds, but taken as a whole the track lists towards Spring Heel Jack’s wave form experiments.

“Taxi dance” and “Tempranillo” provide a more rewarding amalgamation of the acoustic and electronic interface. On the first Bevan – on tenor – reveals an unexpected kinship to Lester Young’s playing as he trills steady cadences over what sound like a meeting between echoing harmonica, jangling maracas and a resonating steel drum. Following a concise arco bass intro, Bevan downpedals his reed overblowing to a display of circular breathing, segmented with distinct whistles and unique harmonies.

“Tempranillo” is 11-minutes of jumbled references. At one point Robinson’s key-ringing vibraphone echoes speed along like the work of a modernist Terry Gibbs, while Mark Sanders demonstrates his skills with cross-handed percussion patterning. These clattering polyrhythms in turn spur Bevan from playing gentle swinging tones to launching tough, staccato sheets of sound where squeals and irregular pitch vibrations lead to short bitten-off notes.

Working Wales’ soundscapes into the aural picture on the title track provides more scope for everyone. Edwards creates a guitar-like a flat-picking bass line, after unveiling a chiming, arco counter pattern to Bevan’s mid-range bass sax expansions. As velvety pedal tones turn abstruse and dissonant, electronic sound patterns, including what sounds like the repetitive clanking of a metallic wind-up toy, expand. Relaxing into this backing, the saxophonist becomes more assured. Turbulent and contrapuntal, he adds altissimo cries to his solo.

Linking the need for musical innovation with the freedom to fall short in execution, Bevan and Floridis must be commended for exploring new territory with these discs. Folks familiar with their work will no doubt revel in the novelty and virtuosity displayed on some of the tracks here. But those coming to the music for the first time would be better off seeking out earlier small group outings by Bevan and/or Floridis before tackling these sessions.

August 8, 2005

Sunny Murray/John Edwards/Tony Bevan

Home cooking in the UK
Foghorn

By Ken Waxman

November 29, 2004

Deeply felt music transcends arbitrary definitions attached to terminology, generation or nationalism. You can hear that clearly on this standout live session by three exceptional improvisers.

What could cause disquiet is that two of the players -- bassist John Edwards and saxophonist Tony Bevan -- are baby boomers and committed British Free Music players. Part of that sometimes-insular scene, they often work with guitarist Derek Bailey, major domo of that genre, who insists on Free Music’s distance from Jazz. Yet the third participant in this series of first-time meetings, recorded on tour in Britain, is 67-year-old drummer Sunny Murray. Not only is Murray, who lives in Paris, a jazzman without compromise, but he was one of the men who helped birth the so-called New Thing. He held the drum chair with both Cecil Taylor’s and Albert Ayler’s trios in the mid-1960s and afterwards led or participated in a clutch of sessions that defined so-called Energy Music.

Be that as it may, everything musical meshes on the three long tracks found here. For someone who participated in creating the style also stuck with the label Fire Music, Murray is still a remarkable subtle percussionist, sensitive to every shade and nuances in the others’ players. Bevan and Edwards’ output, while non-idiomatic, has the toughness that moves it about as far away from the precious, so-called insect music of doctrinaire BritImprovisers as Murray’s is from bebop.

That said, the centrepiece of the CD is the nearly 29-minute title tune, which at times takes on freebop configurations. But it’s just one of the references that show up as the bubbling foghorn-like bluster of Bevan’s buzzing bass saxophone finds common ground with Edwards’ sul tasto arco patterns and Murray’s barely-there cymbal and drum top rattles.

Shunned by most musicians except for Adrian Rollini (1904-1956), the unwieldy bass sax gives Bevan and unprecedented range -- and he makes the most of it. Double tonguing and smearing, he blasts stentorian honks from his horn’s bottom range, produces snappy doits and slides from its mid-register, and ejaculates irregularly vibrated split tones from its screaming top range. Dexterous as well as glottal, at several points he moves into Sonny Rollins’ tenor saxophone-like mode for split seconds, often sounding as if he’s playing parts of half-forgotten jazz standards without revealing the shape of the melody. Other time he introduces buzz-saw obbligatos in false registers that lacerate any stray notes and chords that fall in their way.

Unable to match Bevan’s aural authority, the bassist and drummer take a different tack, projecting strength from understatement. Murray wipes the toms and spanks the snares with pixie-light jumps more often than he crashes and rolls. Edwards strums with a 12-string guitar-like intensity, and at one point introduces languid ponticello lines that shuffle accelerated and decelerated timbres from the strings. He even plays some modern jazz-inflected walking bass. Other times, his rattling, buzzing lower strings can mirror in almost verbal unison the reverberating snorts of Bevan’s reed beast.

Although the reedist’s serpentine circular-breathed melodies and altissimo triple tonguing confirm his versatility throughout, he lets loose with protracted sepulchral blasts just before the finale to ultimately remind you that he’s playing the low-pitched sibling of the saxophone family.

Earlier, Murray supplies an object lesson in Free Jazz drumming, applying just enough torque to vary the rhythm from flams, drags and forced ratamacues, clattering the cymbals. Then the saxman responds by sprays stuttering split tones at him.

“Split Decision”, the final track with Bevan on tenor saxophone, is more fervent than the others, with the reedman’s snaking tone and false fingering moving over time from double-tongued moderato to dog whistle screeches and grainy, speedy overblowing. As the saxman speeds up his output so do the other two -- and Edwards promptly strokes an assembly line of bass tones from his axe. As he boots the bull fiddle’s output still further, Bevan sounds nearly frenzied and almost ragged, spitting into the reed and mouthpiece without waiting for each sound to exit the bell. Finally the bassist modulates down to near silence, Murray repeatedly crashes his cymbal -- then produces a conclusive press roll.

A fine trio effort, the CD should impress most listeners, no matter on which side of the Free Jazz-Free Music line they may stand.

November 22, 2004

DEREK BAILEY/SHAKING RAY LEVIS

Live at Lamar’s
Shaking Ray Records SRR CD-003

LIMESCALE
Limescale
Incus CD 56

Getting a handle on Derek Bailey’s recorded and performing output is like trying to grab Jell-O with a catcher’s mitt -- some sticks, but most slips away. The length and breath of the British guitarist’s almost 40 years of musical associations just as a committed improviser is staggering in breadth and unconventionality.

Bailey has said that he considers ad-hoc musical activities essential, and he always appears to be ready, willing and able to play with anyone at any time. Over the years his partners have ranged from those as recognized as fellow EuroImprov theorizers such as drummer Tony Oxley and saxophonist Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann to unique throw downs with a potpourri of lesser-known solo players, dancers, DJs and even head-banging rhythm sections.

These two CDs fit snugly into the later exploratory category. While some may find it odd that he’s on a live date recorded in Chattanooga, Tenn. with a weirdly named local duo, in fact Shaking Ray Levis’ Dennis J. Palmer on synthesizers and Bob Stagner on percussion are veteran improv associates. Not only have they worked with Bailey previously, but they were also the first American group on his record label.

More notable is the creation of Limescale, a cooperative group featuring Bailey on side with two British Free Jazzers -- clarinetist Alex Ward who is also part of bassist Simon Fell’s SFQ band -- and bass saxophonist Tony Bevan, who in his solo and trio outings has created a modern voice for the unwieldy beast usually confirmed to Dixieland bands. But it’s the other two participants who really show Bailey’s acceptance and courage. Fancifully named T.H.F Drenching improvises on the Dictaphone (sic), while Sonic Pleasure hits the bricks in a way most striking unionists wouldn’t recognize.

Unmasked, the two actually come from other musical areas that admix with jazz and Free Improv. Sonic Pleasure -- real name Marie-Angélique Bueler -- is a Manchester-based composer of so-called serious music, who has tested her improv chops with Fell and woodwind master Mick Beck. A fellow Mancunian, T.H.F Drenching is the stage name adopted by Stu Calton, guitarist in alt-pop band Pence Eleven, when he creates freely improvised musique concrète with his Dictaphones. He too has had improv experience with Fell, Beck and trombonist Gail Brand, who is also part of SFQ.

Back in the U.S.A., despite some sonic overlap between Bailey’s electric guitar and Palmer’s synthesizer, the sounds are more-or-less clearly delineated. Still there are points where it appears as if being near the birthplace of Southern Fried Boogie Rock adds a harder and more metallic cast to the guitar’s solos. He won’t be mistaken for Duane Allman, but then again he’s never been mistaken for any other guitarist during his more than 50 years professional career.

On “Dietrichson”, for instance, the distorted oscillations from his volume pedal eventually mate with the distended reverb washes arising from Palmer’s synth. No beat monger, Stagner varies his strokes from standard time to irregular beats, occasionally crackling the ride cymbal for effect. Sanguine, with stuttering rhythm guitar chording elsewhere, there’s one section just before the end where it appears as if Bailey is using delay to transform himself into a flat-picking guitar army as Palmer lays on the organ chords.

A churchy organ riff completes the penultimate section of “Catfish Night” as well, but for most of the tune the keyboard man relies on less conventional tumult. There’s the spinning massed drone that seems to include the whap of a fan belt that he often shows off. However, that sound often resolves itself into atmospheric rocket launching suggestions and burbling space tones when the guitarist goes the opposite route, worrying single notes with Appalachian thoroughness. If Palmer extends his undulating sound base, Bailey merely uses his reverb to amplify top-of-fretboard investigations and Old-Timey flailing, letting the synth create the feedback that by rights should come from his effects pedal. The distortion pedal is only on tap at the end, raising the volume for some buzzing feedback, complementing similar wavering aural data from the keys, and completing the rhythmic thump from Stagner. Before that, the drummer mostly confines himself to cow bell pealing, brush strokes on the hi-hat and friction between two wooden drumsticks.

Throughout this concise CD of a little less than 27¾ minutes, the mood reflects the more mellow properties of Free Improv.

LIMESCALE would never be described that way. There’s so much happening at the same time during the six titles on the disc, that at intervals it appears as if there’s no central focus at all. Luckily Bailey & Co. are able to keep these tendencies in check.

One of the overriding truisms on this almost-61-minute CD, is how absolutely distinctive and individualistic Bailey’s guitar licks are. There’s never any doubt as to who is holding the plectrum. Conversely it’s surprising how conventional Dictaphone and brick sounds appear in this context. Drenching’s appliance simply becomes another horn along with the two reeds; while Pleasure’s bricks provide the rhythm, with her technique striking them the way a percussive vibist like Lionel Hampton or Terry Gibbs would treat his axe. Resonating rattles and crashes put her output midway between that of a limited drum set and a vibraharp with the motor turned down very low.

The only real departure from this occurs on “Charity singles ball”, the CD’s longest track. Here there are points when the chiming tones of the masonry resemble those from glass test tubes, a carillon, or a wooden desk. Meantime the horn section is respiring out a Greek chorus of honks, with Drenching adding a queer, high-pitched vocalization to Ward’s shrill timbres ranging from double-tongued trills to upper register screeches on top of multiphonic, huffing mouth percussion from Bevan. Irregular staccato picking is Bailey’s contribution, at least before he ends the tune with arching feedback distortion, while Pleasure somehow replicates the sound of log drums and unselected cymbals spinning on the ground.

Elsewhere it’s probably the Dictaphone noises that suggest the squeals of a miniature pooch, the gasping of a monkey, and sibilant Daffy Duck timbres. That links the fowl trills, ear splitting whistles and frequent elongated squeals to clarinet territory. That is, except for a time when Ward creates a liquid laughing solo, expanded with key clicks and ghost notes on “The army stuffing its drum”, and on “French archive”, where his tone turns so legato that it almost resembles that of an outside Buddy DeFranco.

If there’s one disappointment here it’s that far too often Bevan’s parts seem limited to puffing out subterranean rhino snorts, creating split-toned, liquid raspberries evidentially forced from the bow of his horn, or producing rhythmic tongue slaps to emphasize the beat. Segregating him in traditional bass territory means that the octave jumps and higher-pitched pyrotechnics he’s displayed elsewhere are kept under wraps.

Then again, there may be enough cacophony on call, considering that when Drenching’s Dictaphone manipulation doesn’t result in either a whistling wind section role -- shared with Ward’s unattached gooseneck altissimo blowing -- it exhibits the static oscillation of mass-produced office machinery. Drenching’s heavy-breathing mouth refrains passed though the miniature item could be dispatches from Bedlam as well, and perhaps that’s all the anarchy in the U.K. the five wanted on the session.

Between the anvil-like offbeat rhythm of the bricks plus the horns’ shrieking undulations when colored noises aren’t being forced through them, this could be the perfect soundtrack for a very British political demonstration. Yet whether he’s playing expressive rhythm guitar fills or sounding out irregular tones from beneath the bridge, Bailey, in contrast, goes about his job as distinctively, competently and unperturbed as an old time Bobbie.

As a left winger Bailey would likely despise the comparison. But that’s what happens when you, like the Bobbies, have evolved a distinctive persona unaffected by the different situations in which you’re found.

It’s also why investing in these examples of Bailey’s collaboration is as valuable as picking up any of his other CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Lamar’s: 1. Dietrichson 2. Catfish night

Personnel: Lamar’s: Derek Bailey (guitar); Dennis J. Palmer (synthesizers); Bob Stagner (percussion)

Track Listing: Limescale: 1. Bürger plus 2. French archive 3. The army stuffing its drum 4. Charity singles ball 5.Academy now! 6. Titles by drenching

Personnel: Limescale: Alex Ward (clarinet); Tony Bevan (bass saxophone); Derek Bailey (guitar); T.H.F Drenching (Dictaphone); Sonic Pleasure (bricks)

November 17, 2003

ERIC BOEREN

Soft Nose
Bvhaast CD 1501

BEVAN/BISHOP/ZERANG/EDWARDS
Nham
Foghorn Records FOGCD03

Back when the CD first came on the market, one of its heralded advantages was longer running time. No longer would creativity have to be limited to 45-odd minutes of music, abruptly bisected when one LP side ended.

Putting aside the anomaly that many pop bands still struggle to fill CDs with 10 three-minute tracks, even improvised musicians sometimes find that inspiration runs out before the time limit. What that means is that less-than-satisfying CDs of up to 75 minutes are being released that could have been classic sessions if 10 to 20 minutes had been shaved off the playing time.

Cornettist Eric Boeren’s SOFT NOSE is a case in point. No failure, but no masterwork either, it’s a respectable-enough inside/outside date by two horns and two rhythm playing a combination of originals by Boeren and Ornette Coleman. In this case, over 65 minutes of this minimal instrumentation and these tonal colors is a pretty long haul. Maybe it would have worked better if all the Coleman lines had been eliminated.

No bandwagon climber, Boeren, a longtime member of the Available Jelly band, has been involved in interpreting the American alto saxophonist’s compositions for more than a decade. But considering that his tunes resemble those of Coleman’s, there are times here when it seems that the same melody is being played over and over again in three to four minute bursts.

Calling on the combined talents of multi-woodwind player and Available Jelly leader Michael Moore, astute bassist Wilbert de Joode, who often works with clarinetist Ab Baars, and Holland’s clown prince of percussion, Han Bennink, Boeren has the talent and instrumentation of Coleman’s classic quartet down pat. With the drummer’s and reedist’s experience in the anarchistic ICP Orchestra and his own background in rural fanfare bands, the four are able to internalize the march tempos and quasi vaudeville that highlighted many of the Texas-born saxophonist’s tunes.

It’s no problem for a brass band graduate to play rhythmic triplets or a bugle-like vamp; to call on his extensive jazz history to slap on a Harmon mute for more lyrical passages; or to brassily gleep and beep like a frenzied Energy player when he wants. Creating trilling yakkity-sax lines, R&B honking or squeaking away on a quasi-Dixieland sounding clarinet doesn’t phase Moore either, who has played many strange gigs since he left his native California to live in Holland almost 25 years ago. Furthermore, as these compositions often encompass free forms, near show music, Cool Jazz lightness, proto-freebop as well as march tempo, the drummer can show off his versatility -- but thankfully not his shtick. Foot-lifting martial beats, irregular free jazz pulses and Gene Krupa-like swing revival press rolls appear if needed. As for De Joode, he’s a straightahead, pizzicato tower of strength at all times, as Charlie Haden was in the Coleman group. Yet he’s also able to scrape out arco runs and create bass percussion like David Izenson, another Coleman confrere did in his time with the American saxist.

Still this compendium of effects becoming wearying in the short salvos of condensed compositions. More to the point, during the two extended numbers -- of more than 18 and more than 12 minutes respectively -- the effect is further weakened by shackling Boeren and Coleman compositions together, as well as adding -- in the former -- Eubie Blake’s “Memories of You”. Although Moore can channel Artie Shaw on clarinet and Boeren use a cup mute for some sweet Swing, the transitions are awkward, as if the compositional vehicle was going from a dirt road onto a superhighway and back again.

Rather than this pastiche, British-based saxophonist Tony Bevan comes up with, fewer tunes and one which are more varied in tempo and color on ‘NHAM. The five instant compositions give enough breathing space on a CD of a little more than 55½-minute duration for mutual discovery and ingenuity to be on tap as well. Unlike the Boeren Four, which have been playing as a unit for four years, this was a first meeting between two Brits -- bassist John Edwards is the other -- and two advanced Chicagoans -- trombonist Jeb Bishop and percussionist Michael Zerang.

Recorded in London just before the quartet’s mini-tour of England was completed, the strength of the CD shows in each musician feeling out the quirks and reflexes of the others and piling on various challenges to see what develops.

No Jazz At The Philharmonic contest of strangers, each musician has had some contact with at least another one of the four before this date. Tenor and bass saxophonist Bevan, who leads a British trio with Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders, had played and recorded with Bishop and Zerang in Chicago a years earlier. Zerang, who has played with musicians as varied as Chicago veteran tenor man Fred Anderson and Swedish reedist Mats Gustafsson, has worked in a trio with Bishop and bassist Kent Kessler, while both he and the trombonist are part of German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s Tentet. Bishop’s experience also included membership in saxophonist Ken Vandermark’s quintet, while Edwards has worked with other impressive saxists like Evan Parker and Elton Dean.

Although there are some march tempos on display here, this is much more a free improv session than Boeren’s disc, with the only signpost for comparison, the 1960s New York Art Quartet with saxist John Tchicai and trombonist Roswell Rudd. Bishop whose tongue flutters and growls frequently suggest that older ‘bone man is in good company, few contemporary innovative brass stylists can escape Rudd’s influence.

At the same time this is no tribute record. The conception is transmogrification not emulation. On the nearly 11-minute “Relics” and elsewhere, for instance, Zerang is as apt to sound a doorbell peal from his cow bell for emphasis, than play elsewhere on his kit, while buzzing bass lines and colored noises being pushed through the horns have the same legitimacy as more conventional soloing would. Here Edwards bows up a storm before Bishop’s elongated slide pitches give way to waves of bitonality as the trombonist sounds several notes at once. Bevan’s monster sax makes its appearance as well, almost chomping through the foliage as it takes centrestage. Using circular breathing, honks and trills, the reedist produces note flurries that are usually likened to bird in smaller horns, but resemble donkey brays from his instrument of choice. Finally adagio, Bevan ends the tune with an elongated honk that takes up most of the available soundfield.

No tribute to crooner Crosby, “Bing” is instead a slow-moving showcase for the lockstep meshing of Bishop’s plunger tones and what sounds like Bevan on ascending and descending tenor saxophone runs. With a strong pizzicato undertow and accents and suggestions from every part of the drummer’s rig, Edwards and Zerang are in constant motion, as much a part of propelling the composition as the front line.

Almost 23 minutes long, the title track, which celebrates a gig in -- and an old joke about -- Cheltenham that apparently creates mirth in the United Kingdom, serves as the session’s centre. True to their respective cultures, Bishop, plunger mute in place, darts in and out of the themes like a possum, while Bevan on chirping tenor, burrows inside them like a hedgehog. Matching cries and trills, the two suggest the mammals at the height of nocturnal playfulness. Meanwhile Zerang produces constant drum rolls and Edwards slaps his bass strings.

Soon the trombonist is tonguing deep into his mouthpiece or clipping off staccato slide runs as Edwards bounces his bow onto his strings for more of a percussive sound and Zerang turns to brushes and cymbal movements. Splitting apart and joining together as they improvise, Bevan and Bishop, to extend the animal metaphors, sometimes work like a tandem carriage team or speed off like racing fillies. Unobtrusively Zerang quietly changes tempos several times, speeding it up at one point with drum work that sounds like the clip clop of horses’ hooves. Languidly decreasing in speed and volume, space appears for Edwards’ arco bass thrusts and the drummer’s speedy percussion stresses and cymbal scratches. Finally all this gives way to rolling split tones and smears from the trombonist, tongue slaps, false fingering and reverberating reed whistles from the saxophonist and ends with drum stick upon drum stick punishment.

Two quartet sessions and two examples of a mixing European and American musicians are showcased on two discs. But the lesson seems to be that appropriately timed free improv wins out over truncated or protracted compositions -- at least in these circumstances.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Soft: 1. Soft nose 2. Ciz 3. Mr & Mrs People 4. Moon Inhabitants/Memo/Memories of You/Soft nose 5. For Rosa 6. As we see fit 7. Bosch/Alpha 8. Chips 9. Charmes 10. Swizzle 11. Eos 12. I heard it over the radio

Personnel: Soft: Eric Boeren (cornet); Michael Moore (alto saxophone, clarinet, alto clarinet, contralto clarinet); Wilbert de Joode (bass); Han Bennink (drums)

Track Listing: 1. “Nham: 1. Running with scissors 2. Relics 3.Scraps 4.’nham 5. Bing

Personnel: ‘Nham: Jeb Bishop (trombone); Tony Bevan (tenor and bass saxophone); John Edwards (bass); Michael Zerang (drums, percussion)

September 16, 2002

PETER KOWALD/DAMON SMITH

Mirrors - Broken But No Dust
Balance Point Acoustics BPA 001

TONY BEVAN/DAMON SMITH/SCOTT R. LOONEY
The sale of tickets for money was abolished
Balance Point Acoustics BPA 002

It's altogether fitting that Bay area bassist Damon Smith has put out a duet session with German bassist Peter Kowald as the first release on his own label. After all it was exposure to Kowald's DUOS: EUROPA LP in 1994 that convinced the young musician to sell the fender bass he had been playing in punk and art rock combos to concentrate on double bass and creative improvised music.

Since then, after extensive formal and informal studies, he has begun to establish himself as an in-demand stylist, collaborating with dancers, actors and poets and a variety of musicians. These have included Americans of such different temperaments as Miya Masaoka Marshall Allen and John Tchicai plus Europeans ranging from extrovert Gianni Gebbia to minimalists Wolfgang Fuchs and Boris Hauf.

Nearly 30 years the American's senior, Kowald was around for Continental free improv's genesis and flowering along with the likes of Peter Brötzmann and Evan Parker. Always ready to trade ideas with others, the bassist has made a practice of working with U.S. as well as European players.

Smith's studies have obviously paid off, for the CD sounds much more like a father-son meeting than equivalent sessions with real life relatives Dewey and Joshua Redman or Peter and Caspar Brötzmann. Not that it's a clone act; it's just that the two bull fiddle specialists have a similar powerful attack and conception.

Often working in unison, it's a compliment to Smith to say that it's almost impossible to distinguish his lines from those of Kowald, who had already recorded his first important session four years before the American was born. Pulling, pushing and extracting sounds from the strings, wood and pegs, the two lead their instruments through various states of loudness and silence, interchangeably using bows as well as fingers, without the common cop out of one playing arco while the other sticks to pizzicato and vice versa.

Instead the passages range from microscopic pointillistic examinations to nailing great swaths of melody onto the air. Every bass sonance you can imagine is here, as well as tones that resemble those produced from guitars, violins as well as oddities like bagpipes or baroque flutes. The final track even ends with one of the musicians -- Kowald perhaps -- gutturally vocalizing in unison with the notes he creates on the bass like a free jazz Slam Stewart.

Put together in a somewhat more conventional configuration, the other CD offers a program of instant compositions from Smith, Oakland, Calif.-based Scott R. Looney on prepared piano and live electronics, and British bass saxophone champion Tony Bevan, exactly as it unrolled in the studio.

Bevan, a full-fledged evangelist for the low-pitched beast has concentrated exclusively on that little-used woodwind since 1994, playing with the likes of Steve Beresford, John Edwards and Mark Sanders. Looney who has a background in interactive electronics as well as formal composition, jazz and improv has worked with Leo Smith, Eddie Gale and the Oakland Electroacoustic Quartet.

Although only three men were present in the studio, their flexibility and versatility meant that there is at least double the number of sounds you would expect on offer. Bevan is as apt to head off on an altissimo flight as he is to unleash a subterranean rumble or literally blow hot air through the cylindrical metal. Smith can create cello, not to mention violin and viola string approximations, when he's not using his instrument as a bull fiddle. At times, as on "Debris of a mask factory", his attack is so ferocious that he appears to be bowing more than one instrument. Looney's prepared piano and electronics multiply the potential keyboards and string sets he has at his fingertips. There are times, in fact, such as on "Brilliant result of 30 or 40 drawings" where it seems either the piano's entrails or the bass' surface approximate the sound of an entire percussion ensemble.

Often the players play unexpected roles as well. On "Sacred drawing of lots", for instance, Bevan takes up the constant bass rhythm as Smith soars into viola range. When the saxophonist alternates stratospheric reed biting with what sounds like duck calls, Looney somehow manages to approximate accordion tones. While all this is going on, Smith's bow appears to be marching up and down one of those long strung wires so beloved of minimalists.

Other times, as on "Preferred to scribble a brief argument", Looney somehow manages to induce conventional pianisms, electronic bell ringing and internal clinking to appear at the same time. And this is right after the three have created what could be termed an outside swing session with Bean's sax blats, some flowing bass asides and a few right-handed pinched notes from the piano put into the mix.

Bevan and Looney duetting may not exactly remind you of Gerry Mulligan and Tommy Flanagan either, but the two know how to chase each other like fox and hare on "To accept errors is not to contradict fate". Here the pianist works curt, nervous notes from his keyboard as the saxophonist blows out long-lined harmonic interludes. However "An adverse drawing might mean mutilation", Bevan's duo with Smith, sees him spouting great gouts of notes as the bassist saws bass clef lines with the delicate finesse of a bass flautist.

Take your pick of either session. With strong work like this, it would seem that the future of Left Coast, leftfield bass playing is in good hands -- and bow -- with Damon Smith.

-- Ken Waxman

Mirrors:

Track Listing: 1. Broken mirrors Part 1 2. Broken mirrors Part 2 3. Reflections on April 28th 2000 4. Reflections on April 28th 2000 4 5. Reflections on April 28th 2000 5 6. Reflections on April 28th 2000 6 7. Reflections on April 28th 2000 7 8. Reflections on April 28th 2000 8 9. Reflections on April 28th 2000 9

Personnel: Peter Kowald, Damon Smith (basses)

Tickets:

Track Listing: 1. Custody of an enemy 2. Brilliant result of 30 or 40 drawings 3. Debris of a mask factory 4. Sacred drawing of lots 5. An adverse drawing might mean mutilation 6. To accept errors is not to contradict fate 7. Time limit of 1 hour or 1 century 8. Preferred to scribble a brief argument 9. Quapha - fissures in a dusty aqueduct 10. Peaceful shadows of a room

Personnel: Tony Bevan (bass saxophone); Damon Smith (bass); Scott R. Looney (prepared piano, live electronics)

October 8, 2001

TONY BEVAN

Nothing Is Permanent But Woe
Foghorn Records FOG CD 002

Maybe if someone has contacts in the spirit world, we may able to find out if Adrian Rollini is smiling or rotating in his grave. Rollini (1904-1956) was jazz's best-known -- and practically only -- bass saxophone player during his heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. Since then this bulky giant, pitched an octave below the tenor saxophone, usually only makes an appearance as a huffing, puffing replacement for the tuba in Dixieland combos.

At least, that is until British saxophonist Tony Bevan adapted the bass sax as his horn of choice in 1994. Since then, the former tenor saxophonist, who was born about one month after Rollini died, has literally had his hands full. For a start he created a niche for the unwieldy beast in ad hoc groupings with the likes of sound singer Phil Minton, composer/pianist Steve Beresford and other members of the open minded U.K. improv community. Then in 1998, he had the audacity to release a CD made up of nothing but bass sax solos.

As much a crusader as his countryman Richard the Lionhearted, Bevan is sticking with his horn of choice and has just come up with this exceptional trio session. Listening to the disc proves that his agility with the monster horn is such that it often seems as if he's playing a baritone or even one of the junior members of the saxophone family.

While he doesn't neglect the subterranean rumble that can tumble from his instrument, he can, as he demonstrates on track 2, construct entire passages in the altoissimo range. Leaping from one edge of the scale to the other with ease, he always creates full-bodied improvisations, perhaps aided by the elongated size of his bell.

And that's not the limit of how he's trained his favored woodwind. During the course of the session, he demonstrates its versatility by producing sounds that resemble birdcalls, a didjeridoo, an underwater oxygen tank and, by using split tones, two or three pitches at once.

Throughout, he's aided by the inventiveness of bassist John Edwards and percussionist Mark Sanders, who over the past little while have become the "outside" Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb for 21st Century British improvisers. Such outstanding saxophonists as Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall and Elton Dean have already benefited from their talents and they bring a cohesive teamwork and empathy to this date.

On track 4, for instance, while the saxman swirls out a constant stream of legato lines -- which literally sound as if they're being played by a baritone saxophone -- Edwards counters with string pulling intensity from his axe. Or listen to track 3, where the saxman's sepulchral tone is matched with the funeral sound of mallets hitting cymbals. Often the three operate at an exciting level of breakneck interaction that gives new meaning to the phrase swinging intensity. It's obvious that none is at lost for ideas during the more than 69-minute session.

Perhaps Adrian Rollini (RIP) is smiling after all.

-- Ken Waxman

Personnel: Tony Bevan (bass saxophone) John Edwards (bass) Mark Sanders (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Nothing Is Permanent But Woe 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

April 24, 2001