Label Spotlight

SLAM Productions
By Ken Waxman

Serendipity not strategy led to the birth of the British label SLAM 23 years ago, which since that time, from its base in Abingdon, six miles south of Oxford, has grown to a catalogue of almost 160 releases from European, South and North American improvisers.

SLAM simply came about when journeyman multi-reedist George Haslam, who at 50 had played with everyone from ‘30s dance band trumpeter Nat Gonella to free music trombonist Paul Rutherford decided he wanted to release a disc of solo baritone saxophone improvisations. “I made a couple of LPs on Spotlite with my group, but I wanted to make a solo improvised recording and I knew this would not fit with Spotlite whose beginnings had been with Charlie Parker,” he recalls. “I spoke to Eddie Prevost [who runs the Matchless label] and others, coming to the conclusion that the best way to do this and have complete control, was to do it myself. Eddie advised me to do a CD, not an LP – which, in 1989, was excellent advice. In the event I recorded an album of solos and duos with Paul Rutherford called 1989 - and all that”.

The only idea was preserving his own work, he adds. “I had no intention of creating a new CD label. I played a concert in Oxford with [soprano saxophonist] Lol Coxhill, Paul Rutherford and [pianist] Howard Riley; Michael Gerzon made a beautiful recording and so I made the CD The Holywell Concert [1990]. Sometime later, Howard [Riley] approached me with a great recording by the quartet he co-led with [alto saxophonist] Elton Dean, asking if I would like to put it out ‘on your label’. I agreed and that was when the label was established.”

A one-man outfit, with Haslam preferring the title “sole proprietor”, SLAM soon grew exponentially as other musicians began offering him sessions to release. Not liking the clichéd “001”, his first CD was numbered “301” with a different numbering system needed for other release. UK musicians’ discs come out on the 200 series; the 400 series is for compilations; and 500 for non-UK artists. “One or two have slipped in the wrong series, purely by mistake,” he jokes.

Certainly there have been many CDs to deal with in nearly a quarter-century, during which Haslam has “built great working relations with studios, design artists, photographers, pressing and printing plants and legal advisors”. SLAM’s first non-British releases date from 1992 when Haslam was arranging a jazz festival in Oxford. Admiring the work soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, with whom he had previously played, had done with pianist Mal Waldron, he invited them to the festival. The recorded concert became Let’s Call This … Estee. Interestingly enough this was Haslam’s first meeting with Waldron, with whom he would record Waldron-Haslam in 1994, which remains one of the label’s best-selling discs.

Always a world traveler –Haslam often plays in Eastern Europe and South America, in the mid-‘90s SLAM gradually began putting out discs featuring the saxman with local players.

“Since around 2005, he elaborates, “I’ve been contacted by musicians from many different countries – always unsolicited and quite out of the blue. Where appropriate I have tried to present their music. I guess they see SLAM as active in the same area of music as themselves.”

One improviser who does is Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser, whose Solo Bone CD appeared on SLAM in 2008 and who is to record a new solo trombone album for the label at the end 2012. “Solo Bone was actually my very first solo concert I gave in Switzerland. It was recorded by Swiss radio and the results turned out so well that I decided to release it. I started shopping it around, but few labels were interested.One reason was due to the difficulties to sell such a challenging product. Unfortunately few people have an interest in listening to a trombone by itself. However, George automatically showed interest and asked me to send the recording. I heard back from him a couple of weeks after that telling me he loved it and that he wanted to put it out. I am really thankful George decided to release Solo Bone and even more happy to work with him on the following one. I guess George takes some risks to release this music. It’s challenging to put out free jazz music in today's market. Fortunately we still have people like George who continuously support our community.”

All discs that appear on SLAM in what Haslam calls a “joint venture” arrangement. Although he self-finances he own releases, other avenues such as recording grants available from the Arts Council of England were discontinued years ago. “Musicians need to find a level of funding which I put towards the costs of printing, pressing, licensing etc. The musicians’ financial input is expected to be returned through gig sales and royalties. I see SLAM sitting somewhere between a ‘self release’ and a signed up contracted operation. The musicians have complete control over the music, artwork etc., but hopefully benefit from being on an established label.”

Besides Haslam, who has appeared on about 40 of the imprint’s releases, SLAM’s the musician who has appeared on the most SLAM CDS is tenor saxophonist Paul Dunmall. “I knew George in the late ‘70s early ‘80s before he set up SLAM records when I played every Sunday night at the old fire station in Oxford,” recalls Dunmall. “George said he was going to start a label and when I recorded the double CD in 1993 that became Quartet, Sextet and Trio

I asked if he would be interested in releasing it. He agreed, and basically we have had a very good working relationship since then. Now sometimes I have a recording and think it would be perfect on SLAM. I don't remember him ever turning anything down that I have offered him. He does a very thorough job and really makes a lot of effort to get releases known in the press etc. Also he makes the business side of things very clear and he is a very honest man. He has a very open policy with his ideas of the music that will work on his label. It's not just improvised music, there's a huge variety of styles although of course it is jazz based somewhere along the line. SLAM really has had a huge impact on the improvised/jazz music scene especially here in the UK. You only have to look at his vast catalogue to see what a great job he has done.”

Dunmall, who started his CDR-only DUNS Limited label in 2000, says he did so to have discs to sell at gigs. “To release a CD back then was quite expensive, so I could probably just do one CD for SLAM a year if I was lucky, but with DUNS I could put out one CDR a month. But I think it was also important to have music released on established labels like SLAM. I hope the label keeps going for years to come. It will be tough, but George is a determined guy.”

Overall SLAM releases about six or seven CDs a year, with sales ranging from those which don’t reach three figures to those which sell about 1,000 copies or so. Besides Waldron- Haslam, the label’s other best sellers are Explorations … to the Mth Degree, a duet by drummer Max Roach and Waldron; and The Vortex Tapes, recorded at that London club by Dean in group featuring among others, bassist Paul Rogers, drummer Tony Levin and trombonist Rutherford.

Due to Prévost’s prescient advice there were never any SLAM LPs issued, although there were cassettes. “Last year I looked at producing an LP”, he reveals. “But the costs were quite high. I’d like to do it, apart from anything else the scope for artwork on a 12-inch sleeve is appealing,” he says. Digital downloads of 11 out-of-stock CDs can be ordered through iTunes, Amazon.co.uk and eMusic. As well, The Middle Half by the Esmond Selwyn Hammond Organ Trio is only for sale digitally. “Esmond’s first SLAM CD, Take That, sold out completely; his second The Axe, a collection of jazz standards on solo guitar, sold very few, in spite of rave reviews around the world. Esmond sells them by the dozen on his gigs,” te saxophonist explains. “When he came along with The Middle Half I discussed this with him. He wanted to stay with the label so we went for the digital release with limited quantity pressed for promotion and gig sales. It’s an experiment, but it’s too early to judge results, sales figures take months to trickle through.”

Among the sessions scheduled for release is what Haslam calls “a great new CD by Paul Dunmall playing Coltrane compositions. We sometimes take the masters too much for granted and it is good to be reminded of their contribution to the music.”

He adds: “When a recording is offered to me for release on SLAM, I listen to it and consider is SLAM the right place for it? I don’t have a style template to which the music must fit. There is a wide range of music on the label and the SLAM slogan has always been Freedom of Music. I remember many years ago playing a concert with Lol Coxhill; at one point he was asked to play a solo piece, He said he was going to play ‘Autumn Leaves’. ‘But this is a ‘free’ gig, Lol’ someone said. ‘So,’ said Lol ‘Am I free to play what I want?’ What ties the catalogue together, I hope, is the objective of a) preserving music which may otherwise be lost and b) making this music available to a listening public. To try to ‘educate’ or lead a public would be counterproductive but the music is there to be discovered.”

--For New York City Jazz Record August 2012

August 6, 2012

Van Hove/Dunmall/Rogers/Lytton

Asynchronous
SLAM CD 283

By Ken Waxman

An enviable instance of a so-called supergroup of European improvisers clicking in a festival setting, Asynchronous demonstrates what can be done in the familiar saxophone and rhythm section setting. It helps that each participant is a veteran, comfortable in many improv situations. Paul Dunmall, who plays tenor saxophone and border pipes here and 7-string bassist Paul Rogers are one-half of the cooperative British quartet Mujician, as well as leading their own bands. Antwerp-based pianist Fred Van Hove has been defining a Flemish variant on Free Jazz since before his participation in 1968’s Machine Gun; and Belgium-based, English-born drummer Paul Lytton is equally adaptable, having spent four decades time collaborating with stylists ranging from British saxophonist Evan Parker to American trumpeter Nate Wooley.

Proof of this cooperation is dazzlingly apparent during the CD’s almost 47-minute title track. As Dunmall spits out reed bites and split tones with his considerable body weight behind them, Van Hove counters with churning chording and equally kinetic runs. As the saxman’s glissandi become progressively glottal and atonal, the pianist reaches inside his instrument to animate the tightly wound strings with stops, strums and pops. Rogers’ thick pressure on the bass’s multiplied strings plus Lytton’s skittering drags and rebounds mostly hold the rhythm no matter how often the saxophonist’s timbres move from nephritic to altissimo. With the only momentarily release from the staccato, cascading sound textures, those few instances when Lytton strikes a small bell with a wire brush, the fortissimo and polyphonic performance ends as intensely as it began. Van Hove continues outputting pile-driver chords from; Lytton ruffs and press rolls; Rogers’ sul tasto slides; and, nearly engulfing then other tones, Dunmall’s staccato tongue slaps and multiphonic intensity.

Nevertheless the skills displayed are such, that four-part connectivity is never lost, making the date a tribute to both individual talents and group interaction.

Tracks: Asynchronous; Moves

Personnel: Asynchronous: Paul Dunmall: tenor saxophone and border pipes; Fred Van Hove: piano; Paul Rogers: 7-string bass; Paul Lytton: drums

--For New York City Jazz Record July 2011

July 7, 2011

Philip Gibbs/Paul Dunmall/Tony Hymas/Paul Rogers/Neil Metcalfe/Tony Levin

Mumuksuta
Duns Limited Edition DLE 066

Paul Dunmall/Chris Corsano

Identical Sunsets

ESP 4058

Van Hove/Dunmall/Rogers/Lytton

Asynchronous

SLAM CD 283

Straddling the sometimes artificially constructed divide that separates Jazz and Free Music is London-based woodwind player Paul Dunmall. He is able to creditably comport himself no matter the sonic situation in settings ranging from solo gigs to large ensembles. Three recent CDs demonstrate these skills in varied settings, only one of which is a bit louche.

One-quarter of the cooperative British quartet Mujician, Dunmall performs in top-form on Asynchronous, a live date with a similarly constituted band. Here Dunmall on tenor saxophonist is joined by Mujician-mate Paul Rogers, with his distinctive 7-string bass, as well as veteran Antwerp-based pianist Fred Van Hove, and English drummer Paul Lytton, a long-time collaborator of saxophonist Evan Parker. Young American drummer Chris Corsano plays with musicians inside and outside of Free Music, including Icelandic vocalist Björk. His no-holds-barred duet on Identical Sunsets, with Dunmall playing tenor saxophone and border pipes, can stand alongside the drummer’s other memorable CDs with Parker or American saxophonist Paul Flaherty.

On then other hand, with Dunmall moving among soprano and tenor saxophones, and bass clarinet, and surrounded by musical mates with whom he plays regularly, Mumuksuta should have been better than it is. Rogers and Mujician drummer Tony Levin are on board, and the sextet is filled out by guitarist Philip Gibbs, who has regularly worked with the saxophonist since at least the turn of the century; flautist Neil Metcalfe, who is part of both the London Improvisers Orchestra and Parker’s Transatlantic Art Ensemble; and pianist Tony Hymas, who has composed and performed notated string quartets, vocal music and music for dance, as well as working with leaders even more varied than Corsano’s, including vocalist Cleo Laine and bassists Bruno Chevillon. Mumuksuta’s shortcoming is that, not unlike many improv sessions, the band seems to puff, pull, push and propel timbres without much cohesion all during the first track. It’s not until Levin advances a hint of groove that the performance concentrates into a multi-faceted, if a bit overlong work.

With Identical Sunsets however, the time rolls by more productively as Corsano and Dunmall set up parameters following an interlude of multiphonic valve-pressured drones from the pipes and buzzes from drumsticks applied vertically to cymbals. Once the ground is furrowed, budding improvisation takes root with multiphonic expansions and contrapuntal pulsations from both men, each subsequent set seemingly fiercer than the one that preceded it. The saxophonist shrieks and shreds irregular tongue flutters as discordant ghost notes smears are wedged together rock-solidly and ricochet against the drummer’s hearty rebounds, drags and clip-clops. Lining up rough tongue squeezes, and melismatic runs pushed still further with diaphragm extensions, Dunmall’s creative furor is such that at points the drummer almost seems absent. And that’s just on “Living Proof.”

Luckily Corsano regroups with increased vigor on “Better Get Another Lighthouse” and elsewhere. Projecting an intermezzo of loosened lugs and intermittent bass-drum thuds, the percussionist paradiddles his snares, then answers those motions with hollowed thumps from the toms. Ultimately he builds up to cymbal slaps and hocketing resolutions, adding a few verbal cries. While these pressurized patterns are in the air, Dunmall extends and reaffirms his reed power with glossolalia, guttural snorts and glottal punctuation. Wisps of half-forgotten tunes appear for seconds during his chesty vibration and then vanish. By the climax the saxophone’s false register shrieks and screaming sound shards bond seamlessly with Corsano’s percussion rebounds.

If Corsano’s drum rumbles inflate with rock music’s heritage of beefy backbeats, then Lytton’s percussion discussion spread over his kit and various add-ons. is the epitome of European finesse. Although eminently capable of thick pounding when called for, say to counter fiercely accelerating licks from Van Hove, the drummer’s usual approach joins rasps, drags, strokes and flaps on a woodblock, unattached cymbals and drum tops, and with a judicious application of shuffle beats and rim shots calms down the fortissimo friction from other players.

All this is stunningly apparent during Asynchronous’ nearly 47-minute title track. Building on a foundation of thick stopping double bass lines, metronomic chording and swirling cadences from the pianist, plus wood pops and skittering textures from Lytton, Dunmall expels intense split tones with all his body weight behind them. Answered by continuous chording from Van Hove, the two continue to challenge each other in a broken-octave interface. As the saxman pumps out chorus after chorus of widely splayed guttural honks, the pianist moves from using contrasting dynamics on the keys to reaching inside the piano to stop, stroke and otherwise animate the strings. With Lytton maintaining some delicacy by rapping a small bell with a wire brush, Dunmall turns from nephritic pitch spreading to an unaccompanied version of boudoir slurs and tonguing. Establishing symmetry through Rogers’ passing thumps and the drummer’s flams and rebounds, Dunmall’s flashing altissimo runs and Van Hove’s kinetic cadences, the four reach a climax in due course. However while there is some tension-release at that point, it’s evident that they’ve paused to regroup. Soon, and until the conclusion, further connective and contrapuntal patterns emerge including pile-driver chording from Van Hove; ruffs and rebounds from Lytton; sul tasto runs and shuffle bowing from Rogers; and – surmounting all other textures – Dunmall spewing unconnected flutters and staccato tongue slaps.

Similar extended reed techniques enliven most of Mumuksuta; as do the others’ contributions. But it takes Levin’s toughened and resounding strokes, followed by Hymas’ concentrated note clusters to, on the second track, finally force the others to sharpen their textures. Before that it seems that “Yearning for Freedom” will remain just that, unfocused, meandering and inchoate. Luckily Levin’s Free Jazz variant of shock treatment rouses everyone from a collective stupor. Soon Gibbs is snapping single-line runs; the saxophonist’s expressive cadences burst out, fiddle-like sul ponticello squeaks arrive from Rogers’ hands and even Metcalfe, whose legato flute lines were previously almost jejune, shreds and sharpens his tone to strident peeps.

Even more appropriately, sounds on the remaining tracks, “One’s True Nature” and “From All Bondages” accurately reflect their titles. Levin’s flams and ruff in his solo concentrate the group improvisation as Rogers walks, Hymas comps, and Dunmall’s soprano saxophone cries are almost Country Blues-like. Unexpectedly the flutist too is emboldened, as he almost literally bites into his transverse instrument, squeezing out fierce flutters and octave jumps. Meantime Gibbs and Hymas intertwine guitar-picking fills and down strokes on wound piano strings.

Happily the final variant is even more spectacular, with Dunmall’s bass clarinet snorting out coarsened screams; rasgueado pulses from Gibbs; rubato cadenzas from the pianist; and the drummer managing to produce a conga-like rhythm. Appearing as if everyone wants a final lick before the end, taut variations of more extended techniques are exposed before low-frequency piano arpeggios signal completion.

Two hits and one near miss isn’t a bad record for someone who records as frequently as Dunmall. Perhaps more restraint and/or careful editing may have improved even the sextet CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Identical: 1. Identical Sunsets 2. Living Proof 3. Better Get Another Lighthouse 4. Out of Sight

Personnel: Identical: Paul Dunmall (tenor saxophone and border pipes) and Chris Corsano (drums)

Track Listing: Mumuksuta: 1.Yearning for Freedom 2 Desire to Free Oneself 3. One’s True Nature 4. From All Bondages

Personnel: Mumuksuta: Paul Dunmall,(soprano and tenor saxophones, Bb and bass clarinets); Neil Metcalfe (flute); Tony Hymas ( piano); Philip Gibbs (guitar); Paul Rogers (7-string bass) and Tony Levin (drums)

Track Listing: Asynchronous: 1. Asynchronous 2. Moves

Personnel: Asynchronous: Paul Dunmall (tenor saxophone and border pipes); Fred Van Hove (piano); Paul Rogers (7-string bass) and Paul Lytton (drums)

October 27, 2010

Van Hove/Dunmall/Rogers/Lytton

Asynchronous
SLAM CD 283

Paul Dunmall/Chris Corsano

Identical Sunsets

ESP 4058

Philip Gibbs/Paul Dunmall/Tony Hymas/Paul Rogers/Neil Metcalfe/Tony Levin

Mumuksuta

Duns Limited Edition DLE 066

Straddling the sometimes artificially constructed divide that separates Jazz and Free Music is London-based woodwind player Paul Dunmall. He is able to creditably comport himself no matter the sonic situation in settings ranging from solo gigs to large ensembles. Three recent CDs demonstrate these skills in varied settings, only one of which is a bit louche.

One-quarter of the cooperative British quartet Mujician, Dunmall performs in top-form on Asynchronous, a live date with a similarly constituted band. Here Dunmall on tenor saxophonist is joined by Mujician-mate Paul Rogers, with his distinctive 7-string bass, as well as veteran Antwerp-based pianist Fred Van Hove, and English drummer Paul Lytton, a long-time collaborator of saxophonist Evan Parker. Young American drummer Chris Corsano plays with musicians inside and outside of Free Music, including Icelandic vocalist Björk. His no-holds-barred duet on Identical Sunsets, with Dunmall playing tenor saxophone and border pipes, can stand alongside the drummer’s other memorable CDs with Parker or American saxophonist Paul Flaherty.

On then other hand, with Dunmall moving among soprano and tenor saxophones, and bass clarinet, and surrounded by musical mates with whom he plays regularly, Mumuksuta should have been better than it is. Rogers and Mujician drummer Tony Levin are on board, and the sextet is filled out by guitarist Philip Gibbs, who has regularly worked with the saxophonist since at least the turn of the century; flautist Neil Metcalfe, who is part of both the London Improvisers Orchestra and Parker’s Transatlantic Art Ensemble; and pianist Tony Hymas, who has composed and performed notated string quartets, vocal music and music for dance, as well as working with leaders even more varied than Corsano’s, including vocalist Cleo Laine and bassists Bruno Chevillon. Mumuksuta’s shortcoming is that, not unlike many improv sessions, the band seems to puff, pull, push and propel timbres without much cohesion all during the first track. It’s not until Levin advances a hint of groove that the performance concentrates into a multi-faceted, if a bit overlong work.

With Identical Sunsets however, the time rolls by more productively as Corsano and Dunmall set up parameters following an interlude of multiphonic valve-pressured drones from the pipes and buzzes from drumsticks applied vertically to cymbals. Once the ground is furrowed, budding improvisation takes root with multiphonic expansions and contrapuntal pulsations from both men, each subsequent set seemingly fiercer than the one that preceded it. The saxophonist shrieks and shreds irregular tongue flutters as discordant ghost notes smears are wedged together rock-solidly and ricochet against the drummer’s hearty rebounds, drags and clip-clops. Lining up rough tongue squeezes, and melismatic runs pushed still further with diaphragm extensions, Dunmall’s creative furor is such that at points the drummer almost seems absent. And that’s just on “Living Proof.”

Luckily Corsano regroups with increased vigor on “Better Get Another Lighthouse” and elsewhere. Projecting an intermezzo of loosened lugs and intermittent bass-drum thuds, the percussionist paradiddles his snares, then answers those motions with hollowed thumps from the toms. Ultimately he builds up to cymbal slaps and hocketing resolutions, adding a few verbal cries. While these pressurized patterns are in the air, Dunmall extends and reaffirms his reed power with glossolalia, guttural snorts and glottal punctuation. Wisps of half-forgotten tunes appear for seconds during his chesty vibration and then vanish. By the climax the saxophone’s false register shrieks and screaming sound shards bond seamlessly with Corsano’s percussion rebounds.

If Corsano’s drum rumbles inflate with rock music’s heritage of beefy backbeats, then Lytton’s percussion discussion spread over his kit and various add-ons. is the epitome of European finesse. Although eminently capable of thick pounding when called for, say to counter fiercely accelerating licks from Van Hove, the drummer’s usual approach joins rasps, drags, strokes and flaps on a woodblock, unattached cymbals and drum tops, and with a judicious application of shuffle beats and rim shots calms down the fortissimo friction from other players.

All this is stunningly apparent during Asynchronous’ nearly 47-minute title track. Building on a foundation of thick stopping double bass lines, metronomic chording and swirling cadences from the pianist, plus wood pops and skittering textures from Lytton, Dunmall expels intense split tones with all his body weight behind them. Answered by continuous chording from Van Hove, the two continue to challenge each other in a broken-octave interface. As the saxman pumps out chorus after chorus of widely splayed guttural honks, the pianist moves from using contrasting dynamics on the keys to reaching inside the piano to stop, stroke and otherwise animate the strings. With Lytton maintaining some delicacy by rapping a small bell with a wire brush, Dunmall turns from nephritic pitch spreading to an unaccompanied version of boudoir slurs and tonguing. Establishing symmetry through Rogers’ passing thumps and the drummer’s flams and rebounds, Dunmall’s flashing altissimo runs and Van Hove’s kinetic cadences, the four reach a climax in due course. However while there is some tension-release at that point, it’s evident that they’ve paused to regroup. Soon, and until the conclusion, further connective and contrapuntal patterns emerge including pile-driver chording from Van Hove; ruffs and rebounds from Lytton; sul tasto runs and shuffle bowing from Rogers; and – surmounting all other textures – Dunmall spewing unconnected flutters and staccato tongue slaps.

Similar extended reed techniques enliven most of Mumuksuta; as do the others’ contributions. But it takes Levin’s toughened and resounding strokes, followed by Hymas’ concentrated note clusters to, on the second track, finally force the others to sharpen their textures. Before that it seems that “Yearning for Freedom” will remain just that, unfocused, meandering and inchoate. Luckily Levin’s Free Jazz variant of shock treatment rouses everyone from a collective stupor. Soon Gibbs is snapping single-line runs; the saxophonist’s expressive cadences burst out, fiddle-like sul ponticello squeaks arrive from Rogers’ hands and even Metcalfe, whose legato flute lines were previously almost jejune, shreds and sharpens his tone to strident peeps.

Even more appropriately, sounds on the remaining tracks, “One’s True Nature” and “From All Bondages” accurately reflect their titles. Levin’s flams and ruff in his solo concentrate the group improvisation as Rogers walks, Hymas comps, and Dunmall’s soprano saxophone cries are almost Country Blues-like. Unexpectedly the flutist too is emboldened, as he almost literally bites into his transverse instrument, squeezing out fierce flutters and octave jumps. Meantime Gibbs and Hymas intertwine guitar-picking fills and down strokes on wound piano strings.

Happily the final variant is even more spectacular, with Dunmall’s bass clarinet snorting out coarsened screams; rasgueado pulses from Gibbs; rubato cadenzas from the pianist; and the drummer managing to produce a conga-like rhythm. Appearing as if everyone wants a final lick before the end, taut variations of more extended techniques are exposed before low-frequency piano arpeggios signal completion.

Two hits and one near miss isn’t a bad record for someone who records as frequently as Dunmall. Perhaps more restraint and/or careful editing may have improved even the sextet CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Identical: 1. Identical Sunsets 2. Living Proof 3. Better Get Another Lighthouse 4. Out of Sight

Personnel: Identical: Paul Dunmall (tenor saxophone and border pipes) and Chris Corsano (drums)

Track Listing: Mumuksuta: 1.Yearning for Freedom 2 Desire to Free Oneself 3. One’s True Nature 4. From All Bondages

Personnel: Mumuksuta: Paul Dunmall,(soprano and tenor saxophones, Bb and bass clarinets); Neil Metcalfe (flute); Tony Hymas ( piano); Philip Gibbs (guitar); Paul Rogers (7-string bass) and Tony Levin (drums)

Track Listing: Asynchronous: 1. Asynchronous 2. Moves

Personnel: Asynchronous: Paul Dunmall (tenor saxophone and border pipes); Fred Van Hove (piano); Paul Rogers (7-string bass) and Paul Lytton (drums)

October 27, 2010

Keith Tippett Septet

A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor
Ogun OGCD 030

Elton Dean’s Ninesense

Happy Daze + Oh! For The Edge

Ogun OGCD 032

Although the principal lure of these two reissues may be the availability of prime slices of 1970s and 1980s British Free Jazz, unexpected revelations appear while listening. The facility of the session leaders and most sidemen on these discs by pianist Keith Tippett’s septet plus the ensembles led by saxophonist Elton Dean is widely known. But one musician whose talents seem to have slipped below the radar since that time is Welsh jazz trombonist Nick Evans.

Evans, who during those years was a valuable addition to bands ranging from bassist Graham Collier’s sextet, the Soft Machine, the Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) and alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana’s Diamond Express, is an ardent foil on both discs. Throughout the four-part suite which makes up most of Tippett’s CD, his smears and plunger techniques punctuate the development of horn different strategies. At another point, he expresses himself with gospelish ejaculations, blending with the double-tonguing and sibilant stops of tenor saxophonist Larry Stabbins, best-known for his stints with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. Similarly on the other CD, Evans often uses his chromatic smears or burnished tone elaboration to duet with Dean or Tippett.

Looser than the other session, and consisting of six tracks from a 1976 octet, and four from 1977 – which add Radu Malfatti as second trombonist – the entire Dean CD can be heard as a miniaturization of the work he and others were doing with BOB. Despite the presence of expatriate South Africans, drummer Louis Moholo and bassist Harry Miller, though, there are no overt influences from that country’s musics. Instead the emphasis is on jazz and blues, with Mongezi Feza’s “Friday Night Blues” the most obvious example.

A contrapuntal showcase it features Miller walking, concluding martial beats from Moholo and Dean stretching his alto tone into an approximation of Hank Crawford’s at his funkiest. Similarly the tempo on “Seven for Lee” quickens into unrelieved tension as low-pitched polyphony churns steadily, only parting long enough for a stuttering, musette-like solo from Dean as well as brassy stream-rolling blares from trumpeter Harry Beckett’s open horn.

Throughout, call-and-response strategies from the horns, Moholo’s blunt rolls and cymbal pops, plus connective piano vamps provide power to impel heavy-duty swinging, although the time is left elastic enough for the soloists’ full expression, alone or in formation. Tippett’s high-frequency key-fanning is matched with bowed bass lines for example; or braying brass blasts meet up with the pianist’s swirling and strummed chording.

“Forsoothe” is one interlude constructed out of strangled cries from the brass plus continuously moving squeaks and peeps from the reeds. These successfully combine into denser and thicker textures, relived only by brassy smears from Evans which churn underneath double-tongued trills from Dean’s saxello. Without copying any particular saxophonist featured in Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, Dean’s tongue expansions here are still Mingusian in execution. This relationship to the American bassist is also expressed six years later by Dean and Tippett, not only most obviously in Tippett’s dedication to Mingus, but in allusions to the American’s compositions and arrangements during the course of “A loose kite in a gentle wind…” suite.

Despite modal styled percussive playing from the pianist that recalls McCoy Tyner; staccatissimo vibrations and trills from Dean that are equally Trane-like; multiphonic tonguing from Evans and quirky Kerry Dance-like terpsichorean pulses from the whole ensemble, the pieces don’t really lock into place until the two middle sections, even when performed full-blast, as it is during the suite’s nearly 28½ minute first section.

Oddly unlike Part 1, which has enough flattened keyboard patterns, soaring brass flourishes and speedy rhythmic tutti passages – plus enough false ending to suggest an unfinished symphony – Parts 2 and 3 are both more descriptive. More reflective in execution, Tippett uses Part 2 to create Duke Ellington-like mini-concertos for selected soloists, with Dean, cornetist Mark Charig and himself taking the Johnny Hodges, Rex Stewart and Ellington roles. Tippett’s variants are the most atonal, with internal string twanging, choked arpeggio runs and chordal patterns skirting the progressively louder horn parts, while following and foreshadowing Charig’s and Dean’s more lyrical work. Sequentially developed, the brass man’s exposition is near bel canto and contrasts with the multi-hued tones that have been parceled out to other members of the band. As for Dean, playing alto saxophone, despite the occasional near altissimo squeak, he shades his solo in mid-register to most properly harmonize with the band.

Instructively as well, the contours of Stabbins’ tenor saxophone solo in Part 3 with its sibilant stops and sharp single note emphasis, plus the stop-time smears from the brass also bring Mingus to mind. However Tippett confirms his compositional originality later in the piece. Unlike any Mingus trope, the steady bass and drum patterning here move the tune from andante to allegro as the sax lines became less stable and more violent and are finally answered by heraldic high-pitched cornet work and cunning trombone blasts.

Leaders such as Tippett and the now deceased Dean, as well as others, including Collier and bassist Barry Guy, helped outline a distinctive path for modern British jazz starting in the late 1960s. But sessions like these recall that the transformative skills of their sidemen were as necessary for this step forward as the leader’s musical visions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Loose: 1. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 1 2. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 2 3. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 3 4. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 5. Dedicated to Mingus*

Personnel: Loose: Mark Charig (cornet and tenor horn); Nick Evans (trombone): Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone*); Larry Stabbins (tenor and soprano saxophones); Keith Tippett (piano); Paul Rogers (bass) and Tony Levin (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Happy: 1. Nicrotto* 2. Seven for Lee* 3. Sweet F.A.* 4. Three for All* 5. Dance 6. Forsoothe 7. M.T. 8. Friday Night Blues 9. Prayer for Jesus

Personnel: Happy: Mark Charig (trumpet and tenor horn); Harry Beckett (trumpet and flugelhorn); Nick Evans and Radu Malfatti* (trombone); Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

June 11, 2010

Ensemble Normand Guilbeault

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs
Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute

Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett

Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints

CJR 7

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett
Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints

CJR 7

Ensemble Normand Guilbeaul
t

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs

Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute

Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute
Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints

CJR 7

Ensemble Normand Guilbeault

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs

Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett

Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

Joe McPhee

Angels, Devils & Haints
CJR 7

Ensemble Normand Guilbeault

Hommage à Mingus: Live at Upstairs

Ambiance Magnétiques AM 185

Davis/Ulrich/Baumann/Lutek/Richards/Jefferson

Urs Blöchlinger Tribute

Pet Mantis Records PMR 004

i.overdrive trio

Hommage à Syd Barrett

Imuzzic CRCD 0821

Extended Play: Honoring Musical Influences

By Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #2

October 6, 2009

QUARTET NOIR

Lugano
Victo cd 096

SCHLIPPENBACH/DUNMALL/ROGERS/BIANCO Vesuvius
SLAMCD 262

Serendipitously recorded eight days apart, these mixed Euro-American quartet CDs with similar instrumentation couldn’t be more different – and that statement encompasses a lot more than personnel or geography.

Matching one of the founders of German Free Jazz with three younger, London-based improvisers is VESUVIUS, an all-out recording session firmly in the Energy Music genre. LUGANO, which is described as “a suite in three movements”, is as much minimalism as Free Improv, with the three Europeans and one American consolidating a series of understated timbres and waveforms into a collection of tones. Amazingly – or perhaps not – both CDs reach the goal of positive music making, though admittedly LUGANO’s are more micro.

Quartet Noir’s partnership goes back at least to 1998, though French bassist Joëlle Léandre, Swiss drummer Fritz Hauser and his countryman, tenor and soprano saxophonist Urs Leimgruber earlier played together in a trio formation. Léandre has also partnered American pianist Marilyn Crispell in other circumstances. LUGANO germinates slowly as if it was a blossom slowly unfolding.

Speed up the camera work, like a Walt Disney nature film showing flowers blooming in seconds, and simultaneously crank up the volume, and you replicate the other CD. A first-time recording in this configuration, it hooks up British tenor saxophonist Paul Dunmall and bassist Paul Rogers – two-quarters of the Mujician band – with German pianist Alexander Von Schlippenbach, whose usual reed partner is Evan Parker. Extra man is New York-born, London-based drummer Tony Bianco. Considering Bianco is probably the only percussionist to have backed blues-rocker Edgar Winter, rock’n’roller Chuck Berry and pianist Keith Tippett – Mujician’s leader – he’s obvious up for anything.

And up he has to be in this fast company. The four hit the ground running – like Israeli commandos during the Entebbe raid – and don’t let up during the two, more-than- 29 minutes and almost-35 minute, selections that make up VESUVIUS.

From the beginning Von Schlippenbach kinetically chords cadenzas on the piano keys plus stretching and scraping the internal mechanism, as Dunmall honks, smears, slurs and spits glottal timbres. As the saxman continuously outputs altissimo trills and honks plus tart split tones, Rogers involves himself with patterned strums and their echoes, as well as harmonic finger-picking, done a cappella. Midway through the first piece the pianist’s cascading pedal-propelled fills are backed by cymbal slaps and layered flams and ruffs from the drummer

On both tracks Dunmall stretches and varies the tempos as the backing from Rogers – with whom he sometimes plays in duo – moves from strumming and bridge rattling to rubber-band like plucks. Once Von Schlippenbach sets up a combination of external organic melody and scraping and stopping of the internal string nodes, the staccato movement brings forth irregular arco pulsing from the bassist and a splayed vibrato from the saxman. Although the pianist is interconnecting chords and notes like a metronome, he’s knowledgeable enough about keyboard dynamics that each note is outlined and voiced properly no matter how quickly he plays. By the final variation of the second tune, as Rogers’ bass notes rise from cross-sticking fury caused by the pressure on Bianco’s kit, they form a level ostinato on which Dunmall’s flutter-tongued and pitch-vibrated improvisations meet up with the adagio ricochets from the piano’s stopped internal strings and outward tremolo notes.

Evolving with as many silences and pregnant pauses as notes, LUGANO’s first section may be almost 32 minutes long, but it’s likely that the band on VESUVIUS sounds as many notes in five minutes of either of its improvisations as Quartet Noir does on this, the CD’s lengthiest track. Throughout the Noir four seem to rely on timbres that are sensed as much as heard.

The overriding sonic at the beginning is a splintered whistle from Leimgruber’s reed that connects organically with sul ponticello and skittering bass movements and agitato drum rumbles, rim shots and bounces. With the sideband signals vibrating as much as the expressed textures, the track nearly concludes before a recognizable reed arpeggio is heard. Although Crispell strums the odd chord, her contribution is so low frequency as to seem unvoiced.

Throughout, the four sometimes reconfigure themselves into two duos – drums and piano plus sax and bass – until Part III. Finally the scrapes and stops on cymbal tops and cascading piano glissandi that have infrequently appeared before, transform from disconnected tones into melody. Nut-cracker-like pops from the drummer and Madwoman-like, speaking-in-tongues from Léandre suddenly solidify. As the bassist harmonizes in a cracked bel-canto voice along with louder, serpentine split tones from Leimgruber, Hauser spatters beats from his cymbals and Crispell contributes chordal excursions externally and from inside strings that sound as if they’re propelling cymbals placed on top of them. Then everything fades away.

Within a little more than one week in October 2004 two methods of modern quartet improv were exposed on these discs. Each is equally valid.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Vesuvius: 1. Salamander 2. Leviathan

Personnel: Vesuvius: Paul Dunmall (tenor saxophone); Alexander Von Schlippenbach (piano); Paul Rogers (7-string A.L.L. bass); Tony Bianco (drums)

Track Listing: Lugano: 1. Lugano (suite en 3 movements)

Personnel: Lugano: Urs Leimgruber (tenor and soprano saxophones); Marilyn Crispell, (piano); Joëlle Léandre (bass); Fritz Hauser (drums)

May 29, 2006

PAUL DUNMALL MOKSHA BIG BAND

I Wish You Peace
Cuneiform RUNE 203

Unquestionably a 50th birthday present to himself – and his listeners – there’s a tendency to hear I WISH YOU PEACE as an attempt by British saxophonist Paul Dunmall to sum up his musical experiences after a half century of life. Yet it’s a much a reflection of the present and future as the past.

Writing the three-part suite at a time when the war in Iraq was in full battle mode, Dunmall’s spiritual preoccupations seem a bit overcome by bellicose motifs in this recording, initially premiered on BBC Radio 3. Still the title reflects the reedman’s desire for humankind to achieve a non-war-like serenity.

As for the band’s name – Moksha is a Hindu word meaning the final liberation of the soul. It references the sort of transcendental conscientious Dunmall and others first experienced in the 1960s and have migrated to the 21st Century. Like certain orchestral showcases for saxophonists recorded at the time by Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane and Archie Shepp, “I Wish You Peace” is very much a concerto for Paul, with the ever-inventive saxophonist taking the greatest amount of solo space.

The most prominent secondary voices belong to Dunmall’s associates in small groups. The rest of Mujician, bassist Paul Rogers, drummer Tony Levin and especially - pianist Keith Tippett make the most obvious contributions, as do Philip Gibbs on guitar and autoharp, drummer Mark Sanders and guitarist John Adams who often play in the saxophonist’s trio. Giving Dunmall the space to improvise, conductor Brian Irvine is along to direct the horns: Gethin Liddington and David Priesman on trumpets; Hilary Jeffery, Paul Rutherford and Chris Bridges on trombones; plus Simon Picard and Howard Cottle on tenor saxophones.

Part Two makes the most use of the other players. Parting the smeary horn and brass hocketing, Tippett offers up a brief improv that bounces between a montuno section and near bop, while Dunmall’s concise tenor statements unfold on top of bounces and flams from Levin and Sanders. Later, either Gethin Liddington or David Priesman trade snaking restrained trumpet lines with variegated, cross dynamics from the pianist. Hummingbird swift chromatic runs and slurred high-pitched variation are then exhibited by one of the brassmen, almost a cappella. Subsequently Gibbs or Adams moves up front for Wes Montgomery-like thick octave runs. When the guitarist’s output turns more abstract with counterlines and thumb pops, Dunmall, who has been involved in offbeat theme development throughout, turns to exploded multiphonics, as the two turn into a 21st Century Jim Hall and Sonny Rollins duo. Massed horn interludes sneak in and out of the audio picture just behind the two, climaxing in unison dissonance.

Part Three’s finale is somewhat similar, with seemingly every instrumentalist twisting, turning and screaming at top volume before the piece is cut off. Earlier, however, this cut has exhibited the most 1960s-like echoes. Tippet slathers prepared piano stops from inside his instrument, one of the guitarists produce a vague sitar-like tone and the section’s beginning is almost electronic, featuring a droning strings section with a ponticello bowed bass line on top.

Comparable to his work on Part Two and unlike the warm, Coleman Hawkins-like tenor tones he floats in the first part, Dunmall’s solos are in 1960s mode as well. Howling and pitch shifting, he works his way from screaming altissimo to the bottom of the bow snorts with almost Tranean intensity using smears, doits and glottal punctuation. Along with these staccato flutter tonguing, the section features high-frequency piano comping, chiming and shuffling extended chromatic guitar lines, and times when the other horns combine step by step into a unison climatic harmonic interface.

With textures and timbres often felt as well as heard, Dunmall’s three-part suite manages to replicate the cacophony of war in such a way that the individual expression of the composition gives hope that peace will arrive. What a birthday celebration it is.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. I Wish You Peace Part One 2. I Wish You Peace Part Two 3. I Wish You Peace Part Three

Personnel: Gethin Liddington, David Priesman (trumpets); Hilary Jeffery, Paul Rutherford, Chris Bridges (trombones); Paul Dunmall (soprano and tenor saxophones); Simon Picard, Howard Cottle (tenor saxophones); Keith Tippett (piano); John Adams (guitar); Philip Gibbs (guitar and autoharp); Paul Rogers (bass); Tony Levin and Mark Sanders (drums); Brian Irvine (conductor)

April 4, 2005

PAUL RUTHERFORD TRIO

Gheim
EMANEM 4107

Undisputed master of the Free Improv trombone, Britain’s Paul Rutherford has somehow never become as well-known as his compatriots like Americans Ray Anderson and Roswell Rudd or Continental Europeans such as Albert Mangelsdorff of Germany or Wolter Wierbos of the Netherlands.

Perhaps it’s because Rutherford’s most celebrated period of creativity that encompassed his pioneering solo LP, THE GENTLE HARM OF THE BOURGEOISE, and his membership in the Iska 1903 trio with violinist Philipp Wachsmann and bassist Barry Guy, came in the early 1970s, a particularly fallow time for Free Improv. Born in 1940, he was a little too young to be New Thinger and a little too old to be celebrated when fresh-faced younger improvisers made a modest splash in the 1990s.

Still Rutherford continued and continues to play inventively, as this reissued, plus CD proves. The first tracks, which are in essence one long improvisation from a 1983 British jazz festival were originally issued as an Ogun cassette -- doesn’t that sound antebellum-like now. Added are three never-before-released tracks by the same trio recorded six months later, including one on which Rutherford plays euphonium. All this brings the single CD to a thrifty music-for-money length of almost 77 minutes.

Besides Rogers’ darting tongues and ever-flowing stock of ideas, GHEIM valuably offers revealing exposure to his accompanists. Bassist Paul Rogers, now best-known for his membership in pianist Keith Tippet’s Mujician and long-time partnership with reedist Paul Dunmall, was playing on one of first recordings. A bit under-recorded in the live portion, he more-or-less functions as the trombonist’s alter ego, extending Rutherford’s ideas with an instrument close in pitch to the ‘bone. Known as a jazz-rocker, drummer Nigel Morris, who had studied with Philly Joe Jones and John Stevens -- Rutherford’s early employer in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble -- is sensitive to the leader’s moves and breaks up the time with a variety of stratagems. Unhappily he has been absent from the BritImprov scene since the early 1990s.

Pivotal to all this is, of course, “Gheim 1” and “Gheim 2”, which together add up to 49½ minutes -- longer than most LPs of the time. Intentionally (free) jazzier than most of Rutherford’s music, the piece allows the drummer to call upon more of his Jones than his Stevens’ lessons. His specialties here are rim-shot accents and splashy cymbal colors. Rogers confines himself to powerful strums and pointed spiccato.

Probably cognizant of the supposed limitations of his instrument, Rutherford himself is a marvel, turning well-modulated lines into elongated, buzzing lip exercises and circular burrs plus burbling wheezes. Two-thirds of the way through the first track his theme variations turn to repetitions of unabashed echoing tones until he begins snorting out tuba-like notes to meet Morris’ rumbles and rolls. Next strategy is to smoothly sail into a chromatic pattern that sluices from mouse squeaks to boar snorts, adding odd cries and tongue juxtapositions.

Hi-hat action from the drummer and scraped lines from the bass underlie the garbled shouts that help ease the trombone into a more balladic section that is “Gheim 2”. When he can be heard, Rogers ingenious counterlines almost become secondary brass shouts, as his arco slashes meld with fluttering trombone tonguing. Getting louder as he improvises more quickly, Rutherford tinges his solo with some J. J. Johnson-like triplets, repetitive trills and booming blasts. Morris freely works his way around his kit, adding a vaudevillian buck and wing beat to the music hall allusions that peer from Rutherford’s solo. As Rogers’ stopped counter motifs add further bass color, the trombonist accelerates to scoops and articulated flutter tonguing that brings the piece down to low tones and ends it to enthusiastic applause.

Rogers’ double-stopping plucks and pounces are clearer on the studio tracks as is his Rutherford-mirroring tone strategy. Then when he solos, sliding busy fingers up-and-down the bass’s neck, the situation reverses and the trombonist uses plunger variations to accompany the bassist.

With the euphonium solo not sounding that much different than his slide work, “Crontak” is more memorable since Rutherford develops contrapuntal lines echoed by rattling drum tops and cymbals plus squeezed string timbres from Rogers. Constructing an arco counterpoint that’s midway between harmonica tones and tuning up, the bassist slyly comments on the trombonist’s glistening obbligatos in the tune’s final section.

Trombone fanatics will likely be lining up for this disc.

_- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Gheim 1 2. Gheim 2 3. Brandak 4. Crontak 5. Prindalf

Personnel: Paul Rutherford (trombone and euphonium*); Paul Rogers (bass); Nigel Morris (drums)

March 14, 2005

WILLIAM PARKER/AD PEIJNENBURG

Brooklyn Calling
Dino CD 32004

PAUL DUNMALL/PAUL ROGERS
Awareness Response
Emanem 4101

Familiarity and novelty are the two strategies that can work equally well in improvised music. That’s why CDs with almost the same personnel can sound so different.

Consider the depth of penetrating understanding that goes into the duo session by two Englishmen, multi-reedman Paul Dunmall and bassist Paul Rogers, and contrast it with the interactive first-time meeting between American bassist William Parker and Dutch reedist Ad Peijnenburg. Similar on the surface, both discs define cooperative duo playing. But both arrive at that concordance differently.

Longtime members of Mujician with pianist Keith Tippett and drummer Tony Levin, as well as mates in larger bands led by Dunmall and Tippett, the reedist and bassist first recorded as a duo in 1988. Giving Rogers an opportunity to show off his A.L.L. 6-string bass, each track on AWARENESS RESPONSE features Dunmall on a different horn: border bagpipes, tenor or soprano saxophone.

In contrast, except for one track playing sopranino, Eindhoven, Holland-based Peijnenburg sticks to his main horn, the baritone on the other five tracks. Founder of the international saxophone sextet The Six Winds, which has included Danish altoist John Tchicai and Washington, D.C. tenor man Andrew White among others, Peijnenburg’s other main band features South African percussionists Thebe Lipere and Louis Moholo.

With no strings attached to his improv conception since the mid-1970s, the Dutchman altered his game plan and toured and recorded with Parker for the first time late last year. Someone whose range of activities have included partnerships with nearly every major contemporary saxman from New York’s Charles Gayle to Chicago’s Fred Anderson, Parker was an easy fit. As a first-time duo session, though, his and Peijnenburg’s playing is a lot more cheerily anarchistic than Dunmall and Rogers’ methodical sound triptych,

Featuring his main axe -- the tenor -- on the second track, Dunmall honks out scattered tone patterns as Rogers responds with guitar-like flat picking that glides from the centre up to the tuning pegs. When the saxman moves into reed-biting, squealing and squeaking with an intensity vibrato, Rogers follows suit, producing banjo-like flailing, rapid runs and careful finger picks. As the tenorist rasps out irregular pulses, circular trills and obbligatos, the bassist creates an accompanying pattern filled with double and triple stopping and circular strums. Using string snaps, slurred fingering and staccato stops, Rogers ends with a crescendo of rotating thumb picking that could have fit in with such British folk-rock bands of the 1970s as Pentangle -- if it played free improv.

Throughout both men seem to be playing all the time, and this carries onto “Pressure Response”, Dunmall’s bagpipe feature and “Precious Response” for soprano saxophone. On the later, under-the-breath trills and fibrous obbligatos soon lighten as Rogers creates voluminous, abrasive spiccato tones. Once the arco bowing take on locomotive power with ponticello accents, the saxist exposes trilling ghost notes that soon meld with Rogers’ output. When Dunmall’s swelling smears and twitters get louder and faster, they’re pushed aside by triple stopped basso and forced intermittent timbres from Rogers that are as diffuse as they are continuous.

Arm-operated bellows for his south Scotland bagpipes give Dunmall viscous waves of sound on “Pressure Response”, to which Rogers responds col legno and sul ponticello. With one set of responses woody and the retorts booming as well, the textures become almost too thick here. Finally the bassist surmounts the vibrating, buzzing tones with an impressionistically tinged legato line that soars above the pipes’ pressure.

Reed-biting and kazoo-like timbres make Peijnenburg’s sopranino saxophone playing stand out on “Streetwise”, even on the freewheeling improvisations that make up BROOKLYN CALLING. As a matter of fact, quick chirping twists and vibrated flutter-tongued turns so take up the circus music reminiscent melody, that Parker’s strumming almost fades into the background.

This isn’t the case on other tracks such as “Many Things”, where by the last third the bassman’s ponticello tones and vocalized shouts of “where’d he go” presage harsher, sharper and spikier bent notes from the bull fiddle and some tandem string stretching and syllable scatting. The piece begins with tough, repeating Aylerian glossolalia from the baritone as Parker constructs a bouncing pulsation beneath it. When Peijnenburg introduces irregular pitches and flutter tonguing, the bassist, pizzicato, begins accelerating the tempo in miniature motions so that it’s soon moving one-and-one-half speed quicker than before. Martial reveille, doits and growls enter the air from the sax, which leads to Parker’s spiky scatting.

“Clear Stray” is almost 15 minutes of elongated wind tunnel exhortations from baritone sax, while “Notes from Heaven” offers nearly 20 minutes of mellow, subterranean baritone lines. On the first the saxman uses the trick of creating a bugle-like martial anthem and wriggles the notes every which way as he plays mid-range variations on the theme. His snarling repeated note pattern start to sound like “Mad Lad” saxophonist Leo Parker’s seminal blues-bop from the 1940s as bassist Parker -- no relation -- responds with bouncing, staccato arco lines. On the second piece, the bassist moves from sul tasto to widely-spaced plunks to constrained walking bass, the better to deal with the baritonist’s output, which interspaces snorts, deep, metallic resonating body tube vibrations and renal constraint.

“Pretty Easy”, the concluding track, even shows the two operating in an avant-garde balladic mode -- sort of an updated Harry-Carney-meets-Milt-Hinton fashion.

When Peijnenburg’s subterranean tones dissolve into pure breaths at the end, the newly minted duo have proven they can handle any time and tempo and make it interesting -- as do the two Pauls on the other CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Awareness: 1. Pressure Response* 2. Priceless Response+ 3. Precious Response#

Personnel: Awareness: Paul Dunmall (border bagpipes*, tenor+ and soprano# saxophones); Paul Rogers (A.L.L. 6-string bass)

Track Listing: Brooklyn: 1. Notes from Heaven 2. Many Things 3. Streetwise* 4. Clear Stray 5. Pretty Easy

Personnel: Brooklyn: Ad Peijnenburg (sopranino* and baritone saxophone); William Parker (bass)

August 9, 2004

PAUL DUNMALL/PAUL ROGERS/KEVIN NORTON

Go Forth Duck
CIMP #296

PRESENT TENSE WITH PAUL DUNMALL
Infinity Calling
Foxy Productions Foxy 203

Fusion, jazz’s equivalent of the f-word, has its negative reputation because of the bombastic technique exhibited by most of its practitioners, especially those from the rock side of the fence. So when a quick-witted, almost highbrow CD like INFINITY CALLING comes along, you’re loath to describe it as a fusion effort, even though the three members of the Bristol, England band Present Tense don’t shy away from the label.

Not that anything from guitarist Philip Gibbs, percussionist Marco Anderson and synthesizer whiz Ben Williams is particularly restrained, but the three are aided and abetted by the saxophones of Paul Dunmall, one of that country’s most accomplished improvisers in any idiom. He confirms that reputation on GO FORTH DUCK, a non-electric, non-fusion effort whose three overlong selections match Dunmall on reeds and bagpipes with long-time associate Paul Rogers on six-string bass and American Kevin Norton on vibes, percussion and drums.

On his solo sessions, with his octet and as part of the co-op Mujician with Rogers, the reedist has shown that he can play at great length without lacking ideas or stamina. He has to on the quartet CD to hold his own among a panoply of electric and percussion instruments.

Gibbs, who often works with Dunmall in lower-key situations, shows that he can emit as many fuzztones and distortions as any ProgRock idol, strum with yeoman’s strength in the rhythm guitarist’s roll, and create funky bass-guitar-like vamps when needed. Distorted, spaceship invader lines are often his stock in trade, especially when they meet up with polyrhythmic rumbles, smacks and rebounds from Anderson.

Someone whose background includes stints in rock bands, the Happy End Big Band, as a session player for pop and Bhangra dates and as house writer for an ad agency, the drummer easily moves from tempo shifting output to more abstract rumbles and pops. His triggered loops and sonic landscapes provide many of the panoramic background textures, as do Williams’ synthesizers and sequencers.

Not content with relying on burbling synthesizer washes and electronic wiggles to decorate and frame the compositions, Williams uses the organ settings of his instruments to solo as well. The results are varied. Sometimes the Morse code pulsation remains in cushioning mode; other times, as on “Augermentative”, he provides Jimmy Smith-like, soulful pulsation, letting out his pedal stops and slurring away.

This casts Dunmall, on tenor, in the soulful Stanley Turrentine role, but since the saxman at one point traded blues licks with Johnny “Guitar” Watson, he’s perfectly at hone, double tonguing and smearing -- letting his solo spin out into snorts and a bouncy counter motif. Gibbs contributes chicken scratching rhythm work and Anderson busily paradiddles and press rolls.

Introducing Brian Augur-type rumbling organ lines, Williams and the others reorganize the nearly 17-minute title track around distorted lead guitar licks, heavy on the wah-wah pedal, plus steady two-handed, martial-style drum work. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the thunder and lightning exploding behind him, Dunmall is unperturbed, growling whole notes out of middle register, unspooling tough tones, and squealing his way up to altissimo and shrill pitches above that, while sneaking into every crevice of the tune.

Present Tense isn’t all ghost town whistles, lowing Pharoah Sanders-like honks, backbeats and sizzle cymbal resonation, though. Anderson’s reverberating Tibetan bowl and unselected cymbals, extended with loops and cymbal scratches are front and centre on “C-Thing”, for instance. Soon legato tenor sax tones, swoops and obbligatos succeed those sounds, as percussive pings and accents provide the backdrop. Gibbs outputs echoing fills as Dunmall flutter tongues in front of a deep cushion of organ tones. Finally, as the saxman twitters and overblows, bowl percussion and circuitous keyboard tones return.

With this CD a fine -- can one say -- fusion effort, it will be interesting to see how Present Tense fares when Dunmall’s mixture of rubato dexterity and imperturbable smoothness is replaced by another soloist’s input.

Exposing another part of his personality on the other CD, Dunmall’s hard bopper-like ability to play all night, is put to a test on the title track. At more than 36½-minutes, it’s longer than most hard-bop LPs. However, he and his confreres manage to make the piece seemingly fly by in an instant, with no sense of boredom, repetition or overreaching. Still the mind-meld is so pronounced on this track, that it puts the other two numbers into the also-ran category.

Beginning with a moderato, shuffled arco bass line and clattering cymbals, a clear tenor line soon sinuously adds the timbres of a musette. A dusting of vibe mallet tones allows the buzzing of Rogers six-string to provide the bass line, as Dunmall smears and trills in coloratura range. Before the reedist turns to split tones, the bassist has gone from ponticello motion to exposing deep tones, as Norton, on drums, flams and bounces

Bustling with the same speed and energy he brings to INFINITY CALLING, the saxman then double tongues and vibrates new lines as he works his way around the reed, adding a grating, kazoo-like tone. With the bassist moving back-and-forth and side-to-side on his axe, Norton chimes in with metallic side shots and ride cymbal shakes as Dunmall extends and intensifies his reed patterns.

Moving from a bouncing spiccato pulse, Rogers works on the space beneath his instrument’s bridge producing deadened, shifting semitones. As the strings are both pulled and scraped, the percussionist offers up rim shots and tiny mallet tips on metal keys plus rolling snare and ride cymbal motions. These encourage Dunmall to introduce Trane-like overblowing. Soon the grainy smears become so jumbled and siren-like that they start to resemble some of Arthur Doyle’s more obtuse outpourings, like a man muttering to himself.

Ultimately the piece reaches a crescendo with thumping double stopping from the bass, flashing gyrations from rim tops and vibes from the percussionist and the saxman producing quacking granulated lines and squealing tongue slaps.

“Come Back Weirdness Day”, with its steady arco pulse and Uillean pipe bellows serves as intermission until the regrouping on the almost 24-minute “I Am Not a van (Ofocals)”. Alive with speedy bowing from Rogers, pitch vibrations from Dunmall and glissandos from Norton’s vibes, it still can’t measure up to the tour-de-force on track one. Perhaps it’s because the saxist plays whole passages in squeaky altissimo, that the bassist at one point sounds as if he’s playing the introductory riff to “Bag’s Groove” and that the drummer seems to be attacking his kit none too gently.

Granted that exceptional skills are on show, though, with Rogers, for example, simultaneously squealing his top strings and dragging his bow across the bottom ones so that single-handedly he becomes a string quartet. Yet the overall impression left is of motifs unraveling at a modest pace, with all the playing, including Dunmall’s doits, growls and smears a touch unfocused.

Probably by playing it in two separate sitting, one for track one, the other for the remaining two. GO FORTH DUCK will be more memorable. As it is, both CDs confirm Dunmall’s talents in disparate settings. They also confirm that done right, neither fusion nor abstract are four letter words.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Infinity: 1. Yo Bloop! 2. Infinity Calling 3. Augermentative 4, An Act of Mindless Charity 5. C-Thing 6. Memory Refit 7. Ring Fence

Personnel: Infinity: Paul Dunmall (tenor and soprano saxophones); Ben Williams (synthesizers and sequencers); Philip Gibbs (fretless and standard electric guitars); Marco Anderson (drums, percussion, Tibetan bowls, Reaktor loops and sonic landscapes)

Track Listing: Go: 1. Go Forth Duck 2. Come Back Weirdness Day 3. I Am Not a van (Ofocals)

Personnel: Go: Paul Dunmall (soprano and tenor saxophones and border bagpipes); Paul Rogers (A.L.L. 6-string bass); Kevin Norton (drums, marimba and percussion)

July 12, 2004

COSMOLOGIC

Syntax
Circumvention Music 035

GIANLUCCA PETRELLA
X-Ray
AUAND 001

Quartets prominently featuring a trombonist, Gianluca Petrella’s Italian/English combo and the all-American Cosmologic co-op share more similarities than differences.

Proving once again improvised music’s universality, this congruence wouldn’t be that apparent at first blush. After all, Cosmologic’s members are youngish academics as involved in electronics, chamber and World musics as jazz, while the Europeans are veterans of the Continental jazz scene. One, British bassist Paul Rogers, is practically a grizzled graybeard, best known for his membership in Mujician, the longstanding Brit improv band featuring veteran pianist Keith Tippett. Still, both groups’ sound comes from that general unspecified mode with as many echoes from outwardly directed freebop as out-and-out Free Jazz blowing.

Recorded live in San Diego, Calif., where reedman Jason Robinson and drummer Nathan Hubbard are members of the Trummerflora Collective, a creative music organization, the band on the first disc gets much of its impetus from trombonist Michael Dessen. Dessen, who has recorded with flautist Yusef Lateef and as part of pianist Anthony Davis’ opera Tania, is a clean, ultramodern soloist whose execution while far from gutbucket doesn’t preclude emotion. In that way his presentation is close to that of Bari, Italy-born Petrella. A conservatory graduate, his experience encompasses small group work with trumpeter Enrico Rava and membership in the Orchestre National de Jazz.

Many of the pieces on the American disc are set up with tonal contrasts between Dessen and Robinson, who brings a similar conception to his reed playing. Heading up Circumvention Music as well as doing other projects, the reedman has worked with reggae singer Eek a Mouse, the La Jolla Symphony, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and more expected improvisers like trombonist George Lewis, Davis and the late bassist Peter Kowald.

On this CD, the reed-brass partnership sometimes take on the fleet trapping of how trombonist J.J. Johnson and saxist Clifford Jordan used to manufacture swinging cool-bop lines. Funk is sometimes mixed with the Californians’ fleetness, though, as on “A Secret No One Knows II”, where Robinson screeches away at breakneck speed like a New Thing Johnny Griffin, while Dessen appear to expending no spit as he manipulates his slide into a lazy counterline at half speed.

Dessen begins “Artichoke Clock” by squealing off-kilter tones from his bell, meeting thick blasts from Robinson’s sax that dissolve into the hiss of colored air, giving the trombonist time to sound the theme. Soon he’s going down the chromatic scale in single notes as Robinson works his way upwards the same way. After bouncing tones off one another, the rhythm section finally comes in, spurring the front line to combine and play sharper and more staccato lines.

Percussionist Hubbard, who studies the rhythm traditions of the Caribbean, South America, West Africa, Eastern Europe and Indonesia, over time cranks up his beat work on snares, bass drum and toms then pulls out a clattering collection of so-called little instruments. Meanwhile bassist Scott Walton, whose playing partners include Lewis, Davis and a New music ensemble, as well as performance artists and poets, produces abrasive steel wool-like swipes on his bass strings, then turns microtonal, cramming more notes into his output, which also never loses the foot-taping beat. Also not lost is the quick darts of Dessen’s slide that sneaks in between the bass and drum excursions.

“Metal Tears” and “Circle Syntax”, which combine without a break, showcase Walton’s shaken and stirred bass work most prominently. Launching a languorous blues progression at one point, speedy arco work elsewhere and combining low notes from his bottom strings into a buzzing, connective melody, he holds his own with Hubbard. The percussionist mixes irregular, mallet-driven drumbeats and echoing cymbal pops, brushing cymbals, broadsword wooden block whacks and what appears to be American Indian-influenced snare work. Harmon-muted legato line slurs and growls on the former tune, then produces some Harmon-muted legato line on the later tune, though there also seems to be hints of Robinson’s electronics and Dessen’s bell as well.

“Ten Directions” is an apt name for the final tune, since the electronic hints from the reedist become a single, unvarying tone as Dessen vibrates his shaker and Hubbard creates an African log-drum pulse. Robinson’s delicate flute work, unveiled for the first time, really only becomes interesting when doubled by electronics wheezes however.

Moving from proximity to the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, a similar mixture of primitive and modern impulses appears on “Araucanos”, X-RAY’s last track. Written by Argentian-Italian woodwind player Javier Girotto, it features the piping sound of the quena, a traditional flute of the Andes. When trombonist Petrella picks out the theme the quena whistles on top of it for a time, until Girotto switches to soprano to better blend tones and offer a surface for overblowing. He holds one long note until the conclusion, as the trombone rhythmically fills the rest of the aural space.

Although its 11 selections add up to a shorter running than SYNTAX, X-RAY is an enhanced CD with embedded photos and two video tracks from the studio. Plus Girotto isn’t the only sideman who impresses.

Drummer Francesco Sotgiu, who has also played with the likes of Rava, multi- reedman Gianluigi Trovesi and American pianist Mal Waldron, is both powerful and inventive, not letting the time-keeping need mute his freedom to invent new patterns and rhythms. His barn-burning work on Rogers’ “Crunch”, the “jazziest” tune on the disc, also finds the bass man speedily brandishing his five-string, standup axe like a bass guitar. An extended bari buzz constitutes the coda.

On the title track conversely, Girotto appears to be playing “The Volga Boatman” at half speed while Petrella produces slurry chromatic breaks and Rogers decorates their work with chordal accompaniment. Clinking tones, then fingerpicking, characterize the bassist’s work on Girotto’s “Grandes Amigos”, which is obviously titled in Spanish, not Italian. Playing the hard-boppish line in lockstep, the two horns then split apart with the baritonist providing the basso continuum and the trombonist wiggling out some grace notes.

The most overtly outside piece is Rogers’ “Ra”, which may or may not be named for the Arkestra leader. Almost a dirge, it features odd squeaking sounds from bassist as he slides up and down his fretboard, asymmetric drum beats, percussive key pops from the saxist and unconnected trombone pulses. This suggests that the composition should be dedicated to Saturn’s most famous musician even if that wasn’t the original idea.

Without resorting to any of the clichés or the mindset of the neo-cons, two similarly constituted quartets have managed to produce completely different but equally impressive CDs. Forget commercial labeling, this is real contemporary jazz.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Cosmologic: 1. Restless Years 2. Mr. Hubbard’s Shock Installation 3. Artichoke Clock 4. Birdrock Dub 5. A Secret No One Knows II 6. Metal Tears 7. Circle Syntax 8. Axis 9. Ten Directions

Personnel: Cosmologic: Michael Dessen (trombone, bell, shakers); Jason Robinson (tenor saxophone, flute, electronics); Scott Walton (bass); Nathan Hubbard (percussion)

Track Listing: X-Ray: 1. Broken Head 2. X-Ray 3. G8 4. Femtosecond 5. Crunch 6. Reflex 7. Double Fin 8. Ra 9. Improvisi-zation 10. Grandes Amigos 11. Araucanos

Personnel: X-Ray: Gianluca Petrella (trombone); Javier Girotto (baritone and soprano* saxophones, quena*); Paul Rogers (five-string bass); Francesco Sotgiu (drums)

June 9, 2003

MUJICIAN

Spacetime
Cuneiform Rune 162

Together for almost a decade and a half, the sound of the British quartet Mujician, is, if anything more exhilarating than it has ever been.

Working within the instrumental parametres of the standard post-bop combo -- piano, bass, drums and saxophone -- the band situates itself in a space midway between what could be called BritImprov and American energy music. In other words, while some sections of the more than 72½ minutes of music on this disc are given over to microscopic instrumental evisceration through extended technique and emphasis, others spew out molten-hot slabs of intense, protracted, multi-faceted free jazz assertions.

Also you could say that there’s bit of false advertising in the compositions’ timing. Although the disc purports to be a record of the group improvising in 15 small sections, none over 10 minutes long, aurally the pieces combine into two long explorations of about 31½ and 39½ minutes respectively. Not that this makes much of a difference, because the raison d’être of Mujician, since its birth in 1988, has been how seamlessly one tune flows into the next. And this disc is no exception.

Consider the seven sections of the title track, for instance, as at one point Paul Dunmall’s sonorous soprano saxophone travels from the Far East to the Middle East. First it resembles ceremonial flute played in Oriental court which is mixed with an echoing gong sound from drummer Tony Levin, then a few minutes later vocalizes muezzin-like cries that join pianist Keith Tippett’s modal piano chords.

With his playing quiet and well modulated in certain sections, at times you’re caught by surprise when the sax man starts duetting with himself -- quickly tossing out one line and almost immediately answering it. On tenor, a solo that begins with key pops and slap tonguing can turn seriously virtuosic, as he uses circular breathing to boomerang his tones backwards as if they’d just hit the walls of a squash court. Later, when the saxophonist holds a note for an inordinate length of time, the drummer uses his palms to suggest tabla-like sounds on his snare, as the pianist alternates repeated keyboard clusters and inside piano explorations. Not to be outdone, throughout bassist Paul Rogers either uses elongated finger gestures to dexterously speed up and down his instrument’s neck or turns to pure power chording, plucking and tugging accompaniment from its deepest regions.

Moving from pacific spiritualism to modal frenzy and back again appears to be little more than a stroll along the garden path for this band.

“Exquisitely Woven Spiritual Communication”, offers more of the same, which each “mujician” given space to shine. Veteran of solo piano concerts, a studio membership in King Crimson and numberless collaborations over the past 30 years, here Tippett goes hyperpiano specialists like Denman Maroney one better, producing fleet, quirky string slides as if he was playing a harpsichord. Elsewhere he appears to be burrowing away inside the instrument’s delicate mechanism when he’s not strumming the strings and sounding the keys at the same time.

Most senior improviser by almost a decade, Levin had prime mainstream experience with the likes of tenor man Zoot Sims and flugelhornist Art Farmer before committing himself fully to free music. Here, for the sake of the instant composition, he bangs out a military tattoo at one point and what could be the resonance of a kettle drum at another, contrasting them with barely audible percussion underscoring and near-ceremonial cymbalism.

In tandem, there are times the four can create their own U.K. rendering of the classic John Coltrane quartet. Tippett’s swirling, modal piano references McCoy Tyner; Rogers, who is better-known for having worked alongside the likes of saxophonists Lol Coxhill, and Elton Dean, than American freeboppers, alternately walks, strums and bows like a Jimmy Garrison clone. Meanwhile Dunmall, who actually did accompany Alice Coltrane at one point, spews out reed flotsam and jetsam like Trane at his most experimental; while Levin, who grew up with the style, becomes as fast and furious as Elvin Jones.

But that’s where the comparison, breaks down however. Rogers, who often uses a stand up six-string bass is more supple than Garrison. Levin, who makes it apparent in other contexts, offers more than just Jones’s raw power. Tippett is, paradoxically, at times either a lighter-toned or more robust sounding keyboardist than Tyner. And Dunmall has his own method of reed, mouthpiece and body emphasis.

So don’t fasten on American models. Pick up this CD for Tippett’s two handed pianism, which flow from European classicism as well as jazz, and Dunmall’s range of honks and individual sheets of sound, to name two of its virtues.

Quartet or not, it’s no second coming of any other combo, but a new example of Mujician music pure and simple. That’s what makes listening worth your while.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Spacetime 1. - 7.; Exquisitely Woven Spiritual Communication 8 - 15.

Personnel: Paul Dunmall (soprano and tenor saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Paul Rogers (bass); Tony Levin (drums)

March 22, 2002

JOHN STEVENS

Live at The Plough
Ayler Records aylCD-007

Two of the most fervent of England's first generation free jazz/improvised music experimenters, drummer John Stevens (1940-1994) and alto saxophonist Mike Osborne (b.1941) aren't as well known as they should be for a variety of reasons.

Stevens, who for 30 odd years until his death directed various versions of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME), one of the seminal experiments in defining BritImprov, was a famously irascible character. A chameleon who could be playing super sensitive near soundless improv with partners like saxophonist John Butcher or trumpeter Kenny Wheeler one day and raucous jazz rock with lesser musicians the next, Stevens managed to alienate as many players as he inspired. More clearly jazzy, Osborne, who worked over the years in circumstances as varied as Mike Westbrook's big band and an all saxophone group with John Surman, was one of the U.K.'s "farthest out" freebopers in the 1970s. Unfortunately part of that "outness" resulted from a steadily worsening mental illness, which finally forced him to cease playing about a year after this live session was taped in 1979.

Third participant is bassist Paul Rogers -- possibly on his first recording -- who, happily, in the years since has gone from strength to strength, interacting with a variety of Continental and British improvisers, most notably as one-quarter of Keith Tippett's Mujician.

Folks familiar with the SME, Mujician and the players' other credentials may be surprised by some of the sounds created here. Recorded in a London pub, likely in an afternoon or early evening session, it seems like an exercise in Name That (Bop) Tune. Jumbling together heads from John Coltrane, Jackie McLean, Ornette Coleman, "Cherokee", "Suimmertime", snatches of popular tunes and jazz standards, the trio often seems to be struggling to get the attention of a crowd less than interested in the music. Pointedly Stevens asks for the jukebox to be turned off "please" at one juncture, while the burble of conversation continues unabated during Rogers bass solo on "Plough Story," which consists mostly of variation on Oscar Pettiford's "Blues In The Closet".

Resorting to dog whistle altissimo passages and repeatedly holding notes is Osborne's strategy for the gig. Then on the more than 23 minute "MO Recapulations (SIC)", the saxman seems to be quoting whatever is suggested by random phrases. "It Don't Mean A Thing", "Stranger In Paradise" and "Giant Steps" all make appearances. Meanwhile Stevens' heavy, tub thumping rhythm and fake book bop licks are as far away from the SME as The Plough was from the Barbizon Centre.

All in all, followers of any of these musicians -- most especially Osborne -- will welcome this rare "in-the-tradition" glimpse into their thought processes. But the inattentive audience and the boxy, tubby recorded sound often works at cross-purposes to what the trio was trying to achieve.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Blue Rondo 2. Plough Story 3. Carrousel 4. Cherokee 5. Summertime 6. The Restart 7. MO Recapulations Personnel: Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Paul Rogers (bass); John Stevens (drums)

April 29, 2001