Mark Solborg

Solborg 4+4+1
ILK 191 CD

Jacob Anderskov

Granular Alchemy

ILK 195 CD

By Ken Waxman

Recorded five days apart in Copenhagen in 2010, these CDs from two young veterans of the Danish improv scene, present differing versions of defining contemporary music. They also demonstrate the demand for the talents of tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed, featured on both discs. If the Brooklyn-based Speed doesn’t have enough to do stateside, helping to run Skirl Records and playing with many so-called downtowners, he frequently gigs in Europe. Connections go deeper than that, of course. Guitarist Mark Solborg and pianist Jacob Anderskov, the CDs’ leaders, earlier forged connections with Speed while working and studying in New York. Anderskov’s Granular Alchemy and Solborg 4+4+1 are among the dozens of musical projects in which each is involved.

The second CD with this band, the pianist’s session features four interlocking tracks, specifically composed for this configuration. More Americans, veteran bassist Michael Formanek and inventive drummer Gerald Cleaver complete the quartet. Overall Granular Alchemy is a fine example of high-quality no BS playing. More ambitious in scope, Solborg 4+4+, recorded during Copenhagen’s jazz festival, adds additional horn players to the guitarist’s basic quartet of saxophonist/clarinetist Anders Banke, bassist Jeppe Skovbakke and drummer Bjørn Heebøl for perfectly balanced, multi-hued compositions where each instrument fits snugly into a grander scheme. Joining the Solberg quarter are trumpeter Gunnar Halle, trombonist/tubaist Jakob Munck, alto saxophonist Laura Toxværd and saxophonist/clarinetist Torben Snekkestad plus Speed: thus 4+4+1.

In all honesty, despite his featured status Speed is more upfront on Anderskov’s session than on Solborg’s. Distinctly group music, consecrated to equilibrium, exposure of complex harmonies or contrapuntal patterns is more important than individual solos on the guitarist’s date. That said each of the reed soloists acquits him or herself admirably, with contributions ranging from harsh and squawking to smooth and swinging. Otherwise Munch’s mid-range trombone guffaws or distant tuba pedal points provide necessary contrast and continuum. “The Whispers” for instance is an atmospheric study that relies on unison sound modulations rather than groove or flashy solos. With the eight players harmonized and moving as one, only angular guitar jabs, swabbed bass strings and reed whistles pierce the dense arrangement. Eventually the narrative is deconstructed as discursive trumpet grace notes, a chalumeau bass clarinet line and slurred fingering from the guitarist jockey to end the piece. Throughout the disc, sympathetic polyphony is the compositions’ main component as balanced textures from a single player or groups of players are subtly added and quickly subtracted. Recapitulating the strategy in miniature, the concert climaxes with “Open Parenthesis (with BOB)”. Bouncing from a duet of focused guitar licks and mid-range sax smears to drum pops and cymbal clatters before horns play the exposition, bright clarinet split tones, explosive guitar flanging and splintering sax vamps create contrapuntal variations of the dense theme. Gradually descending reed quivers and bass plucks mark the thoroughly grounded ending.

If Solborg’s CD impresses due to predetermined patterns and formal balance, then Anderskov’s session does so because of its looseness. With the Americans all having worked in altoist Tim Berne’s combos among other situations, a familiarity of form and skills is shared. Cleaver’s bumping and smacking provides rhythmic variations, while Formanek’s tremolo pacing cements the bottom. Whether playing lyrical clarinet lines or vibrating rugged tenor saxophone fills, Speed maintains his individuality. Recurrently and with equivalent high energy, he frequently parallels the pianist’s staccato improvisations. Besides using repeated runs to match Speed’s shrills, at points Anderskov’s arpeggio sprinkling or sudden octave jumps complete a percussive sound collage otherwise consisting of the bassist’s stentorian slaps and the drummer’s ruffs and drags.

This integrated improvisation reaches a climax with the final “Suite: Wind/Skin”. Dramatically set up with passing chords from Anderskov, Cleaver’s unvarying thumps and Speed’s pressurized clarinet chirps, the narrative tension only dissipates when the pianist’s patterning halves the tempo to introduce the second theme. As the pianist piles tremolo chords on top of one other, Speed’s theme variations shrilly wheeze for emphasis. Exhibiting his most abstract work here, the reedist stretches the textures with strident glossolalia, until the pianist redirects the final section to moderated motion.

Whether you prefer your jazz free-form and energetic or stunningly built up from a palate of tonal colors, each of these mostly Danish CDs will satisfy. Plus on the evidence of his contributions to these dates, it’s understandable why Speed continues to rack up frequent flyer points with his European jaunts.

Tracks: Granular; Sediments; Sand; Metal; Suite: Wind/Skin

Personnel: Granular: Chris Speed: tenor saxophone and clarinet; Jacob Anderskov: piano; Michael Formanek: bass; Gerald Cleaver: drums

Tracks: 4+4: Mrs. Pedersen takes the Tram; 2620; Almost; The Whispers; Open Parenthesis (with BOB)

Personnel: 4+4: Gunnar Halle: trumpet; Jakob Munck: tuba, trombone; Laura Toxværd: alto saxophone; Torben Snekkestad: tenor, soprano saxophone, clarinet; Anders Banke: tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet; Chris Speed: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Mark Solborg: guitar; Jeppe Skovbakke: bass; Bjørn Heebøl: drums

--For New York City Jazz Record December 2012

December 10, 2012

Jacob Anderskov

Granular Alchemy
ILK 195 CD

Mark Solborg

Solborg 4+4+1

ILK 191 CD

By Ken Waxman

Recorded five days apart in Copenhagen in 2010, these CDs from two young veterans of the Danish improv scene, present differing versions of defining contemporary music. They also demonstrate the demand for the talents of tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed, featured on both discs. If the Brooklyn-based Speed doesn’t have enough to do stateside, helping to run Skirl Records and playing with many so-called downtowners, he frequently gigs in Europe. Connections go deeper than that, of course. Guitarist Mark Solborg and pianist Jacob Anderskov, the CDs’ leaders, earlier forged connections with Speed while working and studying in New York. Anderskov’s Granular Alchemy and Solborg 4+4+1 are among the dozens of musical projects in which each is involved.

The second CD with this band, the pianist’s session features four interlocking tracks, specifically composed for this configuration. More Americans, veteran bassist Michael Formanek and inventive drummer Gerald Cleaver complete the quartet. Overall Granular Alchemy is a fine example of high-quality no BS playing. More ambitious in scope, Solborg 4+4+, recorded during Copenhagen’s jazz festival, adds additional horn players to the guitarist’s basic quartet of saxophonist/clarinetist Anders Banke, bassist Jeppe Skovbakke and drummer Bjørn Heebøl for perfectly balanced, multi-hued compositions where each instrument fits snugly into a grander scheme. Joining the Solberg quarter are trumpeter Gunnar Halle, trombonist/tubaist Jakob Munck, alto saxophonist Laura Toxværd and saxophonist/clarinetist Torben Snekkestad plus Speed: thus 4+4+1.

In all honesty, despite his featured status Speed is more upfront on Anderskov’s session than on Solborg’s. Distinctly group music, consecrated to equilibrium, exposure of complex harmonies or contrapuntal patterns is more important than individual solos on the guitarist’s date. That said each of the reed soloists acquits him or herself admirably, with contributions ranging from harsh and squawking to smooth and swinging. Otherwise Munch’s mid-range trombone guffaws or distant tuba pedal points provide necessary contrast and continuum. “The Whispers” for instance is an atmospheric study that relies on unison sound modulations rather than groove or flashy solos. With the eight players harmonized and moving as one, only angular guitar jabs, swabbed bass strings and reed whistles pierce the dense arrangement. Eventually the narrative is deconstructed as discursive trumpet grace notes, a chalumeau bass clarinet line and slurred fingering from the guitarist jockey to end the piece. Throughout the disc, sympathetic polyphony is the compositions’ main component as balanced textures from a single player or groups of players are subtly added and quickly subtracted. Recapitulating the strategy in miniature, the concert climaxes with “Open Parenthesis (with BOB)”. Bouncing from a duet of focused guitar licks and mid-range sax smears to drum pops and cymbal clatters before horns play the exposition, bright clarinet split tones, explosive guitar flanging and splintering sax vamps create contrapuntal variations of the dense theme. Gradually descending reed quivers and bass plucks mark the thoroughly grounded ending.

If Solborg’s CD impresses due to predetermined patterns and formal balance, then Anderskov’s session does so because of its looseness. With the Americans all having worked in altoist Tim Berne’s combos among other situations, a familiarity of form and skills is shared. Cleaver’s bumping and smacking provides rhythmic variations, while Formanek’s tremolo pacing cements the bottom. Whether playing lyrical clarinet lines or vibrating rugged tenor saxophone fills, Speed maintains his individuality. Recurrently and with equivalent high energy, he frequently parallels the pianist’s staccato improvisations. Besides using repeated runs to match Speed’s shrills, at points Anderskov’s arpeggio sprinkling or sudden octave jumps complete a percussive sound collage otherwise consisting of the bassist’s stentorian slaps and the drummer’s ruffs and drags.

This integrated improvisation reaches a climax with the final “Suite: Wind/Skin”. Dramatically set up with passing chords from Anderskov, Cleaver’s unvarying thumps and Speed’s pressurized clarinet chirps, the narrative tension only dissipates when the pianist’s patterning halves the tempo to introduce the second theme. As the pianist piles tremolo chords on top of one other, Speed’s theme variations shrilly wheeze for emphasis. Exhibiting his most abstract work here, the reedist stretches the textures with strident glossolalia, until the pianist redirects the final section to moderated motion.

Whether you prefer your jazz free-form and energetic or stunningly built up from a palate of tonal colors, each of these mostly Danish CDs will satisfy. Plus on the evidence of his contributions to these dates, it’s understandable why Speed continues to rack up frequent flyer points with his European jaunts.

Tracks: Granular; Sediments; Sand; Metal; Suite: Wind/Skin

Personnel: Granular: Chris Speed: tenor saxophone and clarinet; Jacob Anderskov: piano; Michael Formanek: bass; Gerald Cleaver: drums

Tracks: 4+4: Mrs. Pedersen takes the Tram; 2620; Almost; The Whispers; Open Parenthesis (with BOB)

Personnel: 4+4: Gunnar Halle: trumpet; Jakob Munck: tuba, trombone; Laura Toxværd: alto saxophone; Torben Snekkestad: tenor, soprano saxophone, clarinet; Anders Banke: tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet; Chris Speed: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Mark Solborg: guitar; Jeppe Skovbakke: bass; Bjørn Heebøl: drums

--For New York City Jazz Record December 2012

December 10, 2012

Michael Bates

Acrobat: Music For, and By, Dmitri Shostakovich
Sunnyside SSC 1291

Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band

The Sweet Science Suite

Mutable/Big Red Media 003

Ariel Shibolet/Nori Jacoby

Scenes from an Ideal Marriage

Kadima Collective KCR 28

Adam Pierończyk

Komeda - The Innocent Sorcerer

JazzWerkstatt JW 104

Something In the Air: Improvisers’ Unexpected Inspirations

By Ken Waxman

Over the past few years as post-modernism has made anything fair game for musical interpretation, sophisticated improviser/composers have taken inspiration from the most unlikely sources, far beyond the motifs, historicism and pastels of earlier times. Canadian bassist in New York Michael Bates for instance, has organized a salute to Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), using his own music and variants on the modern Russian composer’s oeuvre. Iconoclastic American composer/saxophonist Fred Ho has produced a five-part suite honoring boxer Muhammad Ali (b. 1942) as a militant, outspoken fighter for social justice. The luminous canvases of American visual artist Cy Twombly (1928-2011) stimulate Israeli saxophonist Ariel Shibolet’s creativity, while Polish saxophonist Adam Pierończyk recasts in his own fashion the distinctive film scores of composer Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969).

Bates’ masterful arrangements on Acrobat: Music For, and By, Dmitri Shostakovich

Sunnyside SSC 1291 are so perceptive that during the course of nine tracks he almost reveals symphonic colors using only a top-flight quintet consisting of his double bass; the perfectly timed drums of Tom Rainey; Russ Lossing’s shuddering smears from electric and regular pianos; trumpeter Russ Johnson’s brassy blasts; and the fluid lyricism of Chris Speed’s sax and clarinet. This is apparent from the first track, Dance of Death, from Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor. Very quickly the bouncy melody is transformed with plunger trumpet work and well-modulated reed trills to a motif that’s as much 1970s’ Miles Davis as it is a mazurka. Later Silent Witness uses fusion references to atmospherically suggest the composer’s Stalin-era paranoia, with Speed’s singular reed slurs becoming progressively lower-pitched and tonal as Rainey`s drums smack and rebound while Lossing’s ratcheting licks make it seem as if he’s playing electric guitar not piano. Held together by Bates’ reliable thumping, the cacophonous final section gives way to repeated theme variations and conclusive keyboard echoes. Elsewhere, with music derived from the Russian composer’s work or not, the tunes use varied strategies. Intermezzos can be atmospheric and formal, with the reedist approximating oboe-like burrs and timed runs arising from Lossing’s acoustic instrument; as loose and swinging as a Benny Goodman-led combo; or exploding with tougher near-Jazz Messengers-like harmonies. Arcangela is another highpoint, allowing both Russes sufficient solo space. The pianist showcases a series of repeated glissandi centred by Bates’ stentorian pulse; while the trumpeter’s capillary slurs evolve into a quicksilver flow cushioned by harmonized keyboard and reed textures. All in all the wrap-around themes simultaneously celebrate Shostakovich’s intent while exposing improvisations that are true to jazz’s ethos.

Transforming the sounds of another musician whose short-lived but prolific career defined Polish jazz, popular and even notated sounds for years after his untimely death is the task of Krakow-based tenor and soprano saxophonist Pierończyk on Komeda-The Innocent Sorcerer JazzWerkstatt JW 104 Luckily he has the help of Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras, countryman Łukasz Żyta on percussion, including typewriter [!] plus two American veterans, bassist Anthony Cox and tenor saxophonist Gary Thomas. Actually it’s Veras who often sets the pace, since his delicate nylon-string strumming brings a Bossa Nova-like lilt to, and encourages equivalent horn harmonies on, later-period Komeda tunes like After the Catastrophe. Two of Komeda’s best-known themes are treated most substantially by the quintet. Sleep Safe and Warm used in “Rosemary’s Baby” and Crazy Girl from “Knife in the Water”. Typewriter sounds produced by Żyta underlie contrasting rubato split tones from Thomas’ tenor and Pierończyk’s soprano sax obbligato during variants on the first tune. Meanwhile sul ponticello bass work make the theme more menacing, with the piece reaching a crescendo of sharp guitar licks and overlapping horn parts, drastically truncated as the sound of a typewriter’s carriage return completes the track. Bustling Cool Jazz-like harmonies give way to contrapuntal horn vamping, rapid twangs from the guitarist and broken-meter drumming on Crazy Girl. With the percussionist waving Latin percussion and Cox sliding up and down his strings, Thomas’ hard-toned blowing and Pierończyk’s parallel tongue fluttering define the song’s repeated motif, as the two reedits circle back to recap and draw out the initial head.

Moving on from celebrating masterful musicians’ compositional influences to appreciating the political subtext of someone dubbed athlete of the century is The Sweet Science Suite Mutable/Big Red Media 003, a five-part suite Ho composed for his 19-piece Green Monster Big Band. An activist as well as a musician, Ho’s arrangements are as outstanding and unique as Ali’s boxing style. Unafraid of outside references, on Shake up the World, the piece’s staccato exposition quotes liberally from Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love for a proper period feel, although that theme is intertwined with vamping section work echoing the Count Basie band, a funky backbeat, fiery brass triplets and a slinky boppish tenor sax solo. Other variants, such as Rope-A-Dope frame Salim Washington’s muscular big-toned tenor saxophone in a lusty big band arrangement that’s part ballad and part free form. Still other tunes expose and bury references to interludes ranging from Chinese court music to American TV show themes, to speeding train-like riffs plus Charles Mingus’ particular blend of gospel and blues. Other examples of bravura (over) blowing include Ho double-tonguing a staccatissimo baritone sax interlude from pedal point to altissimo range that is outlined clearly among brass fanfares and gruff snorts from two bass trombones plus broken beats from percussionist Royal Hartigan. The climatic key to the suite is the constantly expanding No Vietnamese Ever Called me a Nigger, where Hartigan’s stylized gongs and hammered cross tones suggest the sounds of the Viet Nam War Ali avoided, costing him his championship status. Throughout the more-than-16½-minute narrative, sonic interpolations, encompassing split-second theme inferences, bluesy harmonies from the six-piece sax section, twanging guitar riffs, discordant trumpet blasts, pedal-point bass trombone snorts and a final, unexpected, smoothing coda describe the discordance of the era and its final resolution. This resolution, personified by abrasive guitar solos and split-tone reed explosions, leads to Worthy of Praises Most High, a concluding theme that acknowledges Ali’s undiminished skill. Triumphantly fortissimo and atonal, the finale highlights guitarist Amanda Monaco’s rock-like chording arching over sequences of juddering pitch dislocation from brass triplets until decisive orchestral calmness prevails.

In contrast to the other CDs’ inspirations, Shibolet’s Scenes from an Ideal Marriage Kadima Collective KCR 28 expresses in music his interpretation of Twombly’s acrylic and pencil painting of the same name. Part of a trilogy of CDs by the tenor saxophonist dedicated to the recently deceased visual artist, “Scenes” also features violist Nori Jacoby. Despite obvious differences, like partners in an ideal marriage, the timbres from Shibolet’s soprano saxophone and Jocoby’s viola are sometimes indistinguishable, especially when involved in intertwined dialogue. At times polyphonic, polytonal or polyharmonic the instruments’ textures mix without blending or losing individual identities. Masterful in his use of multiphonics, the reedist lip burbles, pushes unaccented air through his horn’s body tube, hums through his mouthpiece while sounding a tone, and squawks wet glissandi. Meantime the fiddler’s strategy involves sul ponticello scrapes, flying spiccato scrubs and jagged, angled vibrations. By the time the climatic second theme variant is heard, Shibolet’s pinched ney-like whistles and Jacoby’s sul tasto strokes surmount abrasive atonalism. The defining intermezzo is unexpectedly lyrical in contrast to the exposition, but doesn’t neglect pressure for prettiness. When each player’s timbres become as thin as pencil strokes, the subsequent split tones (from the saxist) and angled strokes (from the violist) stretch the sound without breaking it, and eventually combine for wide-bore smears which advance then conclude the recitation.

Sonic inspiration can come from anywhere. It`s up to the canny improviser to do the best he or she can with it, as these musicians demonstrate.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 17 #6

March 11, 2012

Mike Westbrook

Westbrook-Rossini
hatOLOGY 661

Uri Caine

The Othello Syndrome

Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2

Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer

Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation

Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001

Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici

Jugendstil

ESP-Disk ESP 4048

Notated Music and Improvisation: Extended Play

So-called classic music and jazz have had an uneasy relationship since the beginning of the last century. Notated musicians yearned for jazz’s rhythmic and improvisational freedom, while jazzers coveted orchestral colors and financial support.

Until the late 20th century, most adaptations of each other’s music by jazz or classical players were misguided attempts at popularity. Now a new generation of musicians is comfortable in both idioms. On the improvised music side – as these CDs indicate – performers subtly subvert notated themes producing statements that draw from both strains while adding something extra.

Interestingly, three of the discs here – Mike Westbrook’s Westbrook-Rossini hatOLOGY 661, Uri Caine’s The Othello Syndrome Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2 and Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer’s Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation

Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001 – were commissioned by European festivals eager for original takes on traditional themes. The third – Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici’s Jugendstil ESP-Disk ESP 4048 includes a five-part suite influenced by Elliott Carter, who turns 100 December 11.

Reminiscent of the composer’s clear-textured chamber works, the “Carter Variations” played by clarinetist Chris Speed, saxophonist Chris Cheek and bassist/composer Stephane Furic Leibovici replicate Carter’s complex counterpoint. Surging on carefully modulated, well-spaced lines, the program hitches intertwining woodwind harmonies with the bass’s chromatic percussiveness. With organized dissonance expressed by shrilling diaphragm vibrato and adagio glissandi, string pops keep the presentation on even keel.

Clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre is another influence, as “Three Kinds of Folk” salutes his chamber-jazz. With Leibovici producing guitar-like arpeggios, the tonal centre shifts constantly throughout the exposition, development and recapitulation. Even more impressive is “Les Nuits de la Chapoule”, a clarinet and tenor saxophone concerto. Lustrous and liquid, the composition encourages Cheek’s altered pitch vibrations.

More elaborate is Westbrook-Rossini, performed by two saxophones, two brasses, drums, vocalist Kate Westbrook, and the leader/arranger playing piano and tuba. Someone who composes for classical ensembles, big bands and theatre companies, Westbrook took Gioacchino Rossini’s opera William Tell, as his source material – five versions of the “William Tell Overture” are featured. He then contorted others of the composer’s works into the project.

“The Barber of Seville Overture” for instance, finds Peter Whyman shading the his alto saxophone tone as if playing a musette, while the cascading theme displays such dance rhythms as the gigue, the hora and the cha-cha. “L’amoroso E Sincero Lindoro” uses heraldic trombone tones, parade-ground drumming and high-frequency piano chording to introduce Kate Westbrook’s vocals, backed in double counterpoint by rumbling tubas. After swelling harmonies back Whyman’s spiky reed bites and Westbrook’s strummed chords, the track concludes with Kate Westbrook growling syllables in concert with piano syncopation. The most notable “William Tell Overtures” utilizes tuba pumps, sopranino saxophonist Lindsay Cooper’s stop-time Dixieland breaks and slapping drum beats.

An affectionate parody, Pierrot Lunaire plays up the melodramatic and cabaret roots of Arnold Schoenberg’s Expressionist cycle of recitations with music. Sometimes sounding like an adults-only Peter and the Wolf, the two woodwinds, three strings, piano and percussion are as prominent as the satiric yet harrowing narration by male soprano Markus Weiser. Switching from first to third persons and modulating his voice so it resembles a yearning lover, a crotchety elder or a sinister villain, Weiser’s theatricalism personalizes the German lyrics. Along the way his bel canto tone vibrates or stutters contrapuntally along with Maurice de Martin’s vibraharp strikes, Frank Gratkowski’s coloratura clarinet timbres and Friedl’s slapped piano keys. With sporadic pauses as well as cooing orchestral cries, Zeitkratzer’s version honors a composer who stated that in a valid performance “the tone color means everything and the notes nothing”.

Most elaborate of the discs is Othello, created for the 47th Biennale di Venezia. Featuring trumpet, clarinet, violin, drums, guitar, bass, electronics, four vocalists and Caine on keyboards, it’s a idiosyncratic take on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera. Segueing from one interlude to another this Syndrome is conveyed through ever-shifting orchestrations and Caine’s pianism, sequentially tremolo and jazzy or chromatic and dramatic.

Enveloping traditional material from soprano Josefine Lindstrand as Desdemona and lyrical violinist Joyce Hammann, the suite includes a dense electronic soundscape; a street-wise recitation by Julie Patton; and a stop-time “Drinking Song” conveyed by guitarist Nguyên Lê’s amp-distorted licks, plunger breaks from trumpeter Ralph Alessi and Achille Succi’s laughing clarinet lines. “The Lion of Venice” references New Orleans, with a jerky Second Line beat, vamping horns and lavish piano flourishes.

R&B songwriter/vocalist Bunny Sigler assays Othello with emotional verve. Pitch-sliding over trumpet obbligatos, slippery clarinet vamps or chunky beats, his new English lyrics transcend language, while his tessitura expresses yearning and anguish at suitable interludes.

Each of these projects confirms that the jazz-classical rapprochement exists by intricately crafting new forms.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #4

December 3, 2008

Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici

Jugendstil
ESP-Disk ESP 4048

Mike Westbrook

Westbrook-Rossini

hatOLOGY 661

Uri Caine

The Othello Syndrome

Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2

Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer

Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation

Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001

Notated Music and Improvisation: Extended Play

So-called classic music and jazz have had an uneasy relationship since the beginning of the last century. Notated musicians yearned for jazz’s rhythmic and improvisational freedom, while jazzers coveted orchestral colors and financial support.

Until the late 20th century, most adaptations of each other’s music by jazz or classical players were misguided attempts at popularity. Now a new generation of musicians is comfortable in both idioms. On the improvised music side – as these CDs indicate – performers subtly subvert notated themes producing statements that draw from both strains while adding something extra.

Interestingly, three of the discs here – Mike Westbrook’s Westbrook-Rossini hatOLOGY 661, Uri Caine’s The Othello Syndrome Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2 and Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer’s Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation

Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001 – were commissioned by European festivals eager for original takes on traditional themes. The third – Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici’s Jugendstil ESP-Disk ESP 4048 includes a five-part suite influenced by Elliott Carter, who turns 100 December 11.

Reminiscent of the composer’s clear-textured chamber works, the “Carter Variations” played by clarinetist Chris Speed, saxophonist Chris Cheek and bassist/composer Stephane Furic Leibovici replicate Carter’s complex counterpoint. Surging on carefully modulated, well-spaced lines, the program hitches intertwining woodwind harmonies with the bass’s chromatic percussiveness. With organized dissonance expressed by shrilling diaphragm vibrato and adagio glissandi, string pops keep the presentation on even keel.

Clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre is another influence, as “Three Kinds of Folk” salutes his chamber-jazz. With Leibovici producing guitar-like arpeggios, the tonal centre shifts constantly throughout the exposition, development and recapitulation. Even more impressive is “Les Nuits de la Chapoule”, a clarinet and tenor saxophone concerto. Lustrous and liquid, the composition encourages Cheek’s altered pitch vibrations.

More elaborate is Westbrook-Rossini, performed by two saxophones, two brasses, drums, vocalist Kate Westbrook, and the leader/arranger playing piano and tuba. Someone who composes for classical ensembles, big bands and theatre companies, Westbrook took Gioacchino Rossini’s opera William Tell, as his source material – five versions of the “William Tell Overture” are featured. He then contorted others of the composer’s works into the project.

“The Barber of Seville Overture” for instance, finds Peter Whyman shading the his alto saxophone tone as if playing a musette, while the cascading theme displays such dance rhythms as the gigue, the hora and the cha-cha. “L’amoroso E Sincero Lindoro” uses heraldic trombone tones, parade-ground drumming and high-frequency piano chording to introduce Kate Westbrook’s vocals, backed in double counterpoint by rumbling tubas. After swelling harmonies back Whyman’s spiky reed bites and Westbrook’s strummed chords, the track concludes with Kate Westbrook growling syllables in concert with piano syncopation. The most notable “William Tell Overtures” utilizes tuba pumps, sopranino saxophonist Lindsay Cooper’s stop-time Dixieland breaks and slapping drum beats.

An affectionate parody, Pierrot Lunaire plays up the melodramatic and cabaret roots of Arnold Schoenberg’s Expressionist cycle of recitations with music. Sometimes sounding like an adults-only Peter and the Wolf, the two woodwinds, three strings, piano and percussion are as prominent as the satiric yet harrowing narration by male soprano Markus Weiser. Switching from first to third persons and modulating his voice so it resembles a yearning lover, a crotchety elder or a sinister villain, Weiser’s theatricalism personalizes the German lyrics. Along the way his bel canto tone vibrates or stutters contrapuntally along with Maurice de Martin’s vibraharp strikes, Frank Gratkowski’s coloratura clarinet timbres and Friedl’s slapped piano keys. With sporadic pauses as well as cooing orchestral cries, Zeitkratzer’s version honors a composer who stated that in a valid performance “the tone color means everything and the notes nothing”.

Most elaborate of the discs is Othello, created for the 47th Biennale di Venezia. Featuring trumpet, clarinet, violin, drums, guitar, bass, electronics, four vocalists and Caine on keyboards, it’s a idiosyncratic take on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera. Segueing from one interlude to another this Syndrome is conveyed through ever-shifting orchestrations and Caine’s pianism, sequentially tremolo and jazzy or chromatic and dramatic.

Enveloping traditional material from soprano Josefine Lindstrand as Desdemona and lyrical violinist Joyce Hammann, the suite includes a dense electronic soundscape; a street-wise recitation by Julie Patton; and a stop-time “Drinking Song” conveyed by guitarist Nguyên Lê’s amp-distorted licks, plunger breaks from trumpeter Ralph Alessi and Achille Succi’s laughing clarinet lines. “The Lion of Venice” references New Orleans, with a jerky Second Line beat, vamping horns and lavish piano flourishes.

R&B songwriter/vocalist Bunny Sigler assays Othello with emotional verve. Pitch-sliding over trumpet obbligatos, slippery clarinet vamps or chunky beats, his new English lyrics transcend language, while his tessitura expresses yearning and anguish at suitable interludes.

Each of these projects confirms that the jazz-classical rapprochement exists by intricately crafting new forms.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #4

December 3, 2008

Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer

Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation
Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001

Mike Westbrook

Westbrook-Rossini

hatOLOGY 661

Uri Caine

The Othello Syndrome

Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2

Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici

Jugendstil

ESP-Disk ESP 4048

Notated Music and Improvisation: Extended Play

So-called classic music and jazz have had an uneasy relationship since the beginning of the last century. Notated musicians yearned for jazz’s rhythmic and improvisational freedom, while jazzers coveted orchestral colors and financial support.

Until the late 20th century, most adaptations of each other’s music by jazz or classical players were misguided attempts at popularity. Now a new generation of musicians is comfortable in both idioms. On the improvised music side – as these CDs indicate – performers subtly subvert notated themes producing statements that draw from both strains while adding something extra.

Interestingly, three of the discs here – Mike Westbrook’s Westbrook-Rossini hatOLOGY 661, Uri Caine’s The Othello Syndrome Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2 and Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer’s Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation

Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001 – were commissioned by European festivals eager for original takes on traditional themes. The third – Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici’s Jugendstil ESP-Disk ESP 4048 includes a five-part suite influenced by Elliott Carter, who turns 100 December 11.

Reminiscent of the composer’s clear-textured chamber works, the “Carter Variations” played by clarinetist Chris Speed, saxophonist Chris Cheek and bassist/composer Stephane Furic Leibovici replicate Carter’s complex counterpoint. Surging on carefully modulated, well-spaced lines, the program hitches intertwining woodwind harmonies with the bass’s chromatic percussiveness. With organized dissonance expressed by shrilling diaphragm vibrato and adagio glissandi, string pops keep the presentation on even keel.

Clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre is another influence, as “Three Kinds of Folk” salutes his chamber-jazz. With Leibovici producing guitar-like arpeggios, the tonal centre shifts constantly throughout the exposition, development and recapitulation. Even more impressive is “Les Nuits de la Chapoule”, a clarinet and tenor saxophone concerto. Lustrous and liquid, the composition encourages Cheek’s altered pitch vibrations.

More elaborate is Westbrook-Rossini, performed by two saxophones, two brasses, drums, vocalist Kate Westbrook, and the leader/arranger playing piano and tuba. Someone who composes for classical ensembles, big bands and theatre companies, Westbrook took Gioacchino Rossini’s opera William Tell, as his source material – five versions of the “William Tell Overture” are featured. He then contorted others of the composer’s works into the project.

“The Barber of Seville Overture” for instance, finds Peter Whyman shading the his alto saxophone tone as if playing a musette, while the cascading theme displays such dance rhythms as the gigue, the hora and the cha-cha. “L’amoroso E Sincero Lindoro” uses heraldic trombone tones, parade-ground drumming and high-frequency piano chording to introduce Kate Westbrook’s vocals, backed in double counterpoint by rumbling tubas. After swelling harmonies back Whyman’s spiky reed bites and Westbrook’s strummed chords, the track concludes with Kate Westbrook growling syllables in concert with piano syncopation. The most notable “William Tell Overtures” utilizes tuba pumps, sopranino saxophonist Lindsay Cooper’s stop-time Dixieland breaks and slapping drum beats.

An affectionate parody, Pierrot Lunaire plays up the melodramatic and cabaret roots of Arnold Schoenberg’s Expressionist cycle of recitations with music. Sometimes sounding like an adults-only Peter and the Wolf, the two woodwinds, three strings, piano and percussion are as prominent as the satiric yet harrowing narration by male soprano Markus Weiser. Switching from first to third persons and modulating his voice so it resembles a yearning lover, a crotchety elder or a sinister villain, Weiser’s theatricalism personalizes the German lyrics. Along the way his bel canto tone vibrates or stutters contrapuntally along with Maurice de Martin’s vibraharp strikes, Frank Gratkowski’s coloratura clarinet timbres and Friedl’s slapped piano keys. With sporadic pauses as well as cooing orchestral cries, Zeitkratzer’s version honors a composer who stated that in a valid performance “the tone color means everything and the notes nothing”.

Most elaborate of the discs is Othello, created for the 47th Biennale di Venezia. Featuring trumpet, clarinet, violin, drums, guitar, bass, electronics, four vocalists and Caine on keyboards, it’s a idiosyncratic take on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera. Segueing from one interlude to another this Syndrome is conveyed through ever-shifting orchestrations and Caine’s pianism, sequentially tremolo and jazzy or chromatic and dramatic.

Enveloping traditional material from soprano Josefine Lindstrand as Desdemona and lyrical violinist Joyce Hammann, the suite includes a dense electronic soundscape; a street-wise recitation by Julie Patton; and a stop-time “Drinking Song” conveyed by guitarist Nguyên Lê’s amp-distorted licks, plunger breaks from trumpeter Ralph Alessi and Achille Succi’s laughing clarinet lines. “The Lion of Venice” references New Orleans, with a jerky Second Line beat, vamping horns and lavish piano flourishes.

R&B songwriter/vocalist Bunny Sigler assays Othello with emotional verve. Pitch-sliding over trumpet obbligatos, slippery clarinet vamps or chunky beats, his new English lyrics transcend language, while his tessitura expresses yearning and anguish at suitable interludes.

Each of these projects confirms that the jazz-classical rapprochement exists by intricately crafting new forms.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #4

December 3, 2008

Uri Caine

The Othello Syndrome
Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2

Mike Westbrook

Westbrook-Rossini

hatOLOGY 661

Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer

Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation

Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001

Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici

Jugendstil

ESP-Disk ESP 4048

Notated Music and Improvisation: Extended Play

So-called classic music and jazz have had an uneasy relationship since the beginning of the last century. Notated musicians yearned for jazz’s rhythmic and improvisational freedom, while jazzers coveted orchestral colors and financial support.

Until the late 20th century, most adaptations of each other’s music by jazz or classical players were misguided attempts at popularity. Now a new generation of musicians is comfortable in both idioms. On the improvised music side – as these CDs indicate – performers subtly subvert notated themes producing statements that draw from both strains while adding something extra.

Interestingly, three of the discs here – Mike Westbrook’s Westbrook-Rossini hatOLOGY 661, Uri Caine’s The Othello Syndrome Winter & Winter W&W 910 135-2 and Reinhold Friedl/Ensemble Zeitkratzer’s Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Cheap Imitation

Zeitkratzer Records ZKR 001 – were commissioned by European festivals eager for original takes on traditional themes. The third – Speed/Cheek/Furic Leibovici’s Jugendstil ESP-Disk ESP 4048 includes a five-part suite influenced by Elliott Carter, who turns 100 December 11.

Reminiscent of the composer’s clear-textured chamber works, the “Carter Variations” played by clarinetist Chris Speed, saxophonist Chris Cheek and bassist/composer Stephane Furic Leibovici replicate Carter’s complex counterpoint. Surging on carefully modulated, well-spaced lines, the program hitches intertwining woodwind harmonies with the bass’s chromatic percussiveness. With organized dissonance expressed by shrilling diaphragm vibrato and adagio glissandi, string pops keep the presentation on even keel.

Clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre is another influence, as “Three Kinds of Folk” salutes his chamber-jazz. With Leibovici producing guitar-like arpeggios, the tonal centre shifts constantly throughout the exposition, development and recapitulation. Even more impressive is “Les Nuits de la Chapoule”, a clarinet and tenor saxophone concerto. Lustrous and liquid, the composition encourages Cheek’s altered pitch vibrations.

More elaborate is Westbrook-Rossini, performed by two saxophones, two brasses, drums, vocalist Kate Westbrook, and the leader/arranger playing piano and tuba. Someone who composes for classical ensembles, big bands and theatre companies, Westbrook took Gioacchino Rossini’s opera William Tell, as his source material – five versions of the “William Tell Overture” are featured. He then contorted others of the composer’s works into the project.

“The Barber of Seville Overture” for instance, finds Peter Whyman shading the his alto saxophone tone as if playing a musette, while the cascading theme displays such dance rhythms as the gigue, the hora and the cha-cha. “L’amoroso E Sincero Lindoro” uses heraldic trombone tones, parade-ground drumming and high-frequency piano chording to introduce Kate Westbrook’s vocals, backed in double counterpoint by rumbling tubas. After swelling harmonies back Whyman’s spiky reed bites and Westbrook’s strummed chords, the track concludes with Kate Westbrook growling syllables in concert with piano syncopation. The most notable “William Tell Overtures” utilizes tuba pumps, sopranino saxophonist Lindsay Cooper’s stop-time Dixieland breaks and slapping drum beats.

An affectionate parody, Pierrot Lunaire plays up the melodramatic and cabaret roots of Arnold Schoenberg’s Expressionist cycle of recitations with music. Sometimes sounding like an adults-only Peter and the Wolf, the two woodwinds, three strings, piano and percussion are as prominent as the satiric yet harrowing narration by male soprano Markus Weiser. Switching from first to third persons and modulating his voice so it resembles a yearning lover, a crotchety elder or a sinister villain, Weiser’s theatricalism personalizes the German lyrics. Along the way his bel canto tone vibrates or stutters contrapuntally along with Maurice de Martin’s vibraharp strikes, Frank Gratkowski’s coloratura clarinet timbres and Friedl’s slapped piano keys. With sporadic pauses as well as cooing orchestral cries, Zeitkratzer’s version honors a composer who stated that in a valid performance “the tone color means everything and the notes nothing”.

Most elaborate of the discs is Othello, created for the 47th Biennale di Venezia. Featuring trumpet, clarinet, violin, drums, guitar, bass, electronics, four vocalists and Caine on keyboards, it’s a idiosyncratic take on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera. Segueing from one interlude to another this Syndrome is conveyed through ever-shifting orchestrations and Caine’s pianism, sequentially tremolo and jazzy or chromatic and dramatic.

Enveloping traditional material from soprano Josefine Lindstrand as Desdemona and lyrical violinist Joyce Hammann, the suite includes a dense electronic soundscape; a street-wise recitation by Julie Patton; and a stop-time “Drinking Song” conveyed by guitarist Nguyên Lê’s amp-distorted licks, plunger breaks from trumpeter Ralph Alessi and Achille Succi’s laughing clarinet lines. “The Lion of Venice” references New Orleans, with a jerky Second Line beat, vamping horns and lavish piano flourishes.

R&B songwriter/vocalist Bunny Sigler assays Othello with emotional verve. Pitch-sliding over trumpet obbligatos, slippery clarinet vamps or chunky beats, his new English lyrics transcend language, while his tessitura expresses yearning and anguish at suitable interludes.

Each of these projects confirms that the jazz-classical rapprochement exists by intricately crafting new forms.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #4

December 3, 2008

ZENO DE ROSSI SULTRY

Plunge
El Gallo Rojo 314-6

Organizing a quintet of top-flight Italian and American improvisers, Verona-based drummer Zeno de Rossi’s Sultry has created an unpretentious, yet musically sophisticated session not unlike what labels like Blue Note and Riverside used to turn out with conspicuous regularity in the 1960s and 1970s.

Not that PLUNGE is in any way a throwback. But de Rossi, who composed half of the 10 tracks here, has played in so many groups from standard piano trios to Klezmer bands, that he has amassed a post-modern sensibility that can mix wit, rhythm and swing with spectacular soloing. A finger-snapper, this CD also exudes enough pure joy that you know the musicians had as good a time recording the tunes as the listeners will hearing them.

Alive with solipsistic chord layering from one of Anthony Coleman’s four keyboards, slashing dissonant riffs from guitarist Enrico Terragnoli and some tenor saxophone honks from Chris Speed, the band pushes Duke Pearson’s “Cristo Redentor” –

a funk-jazz hit for trumpeter Donald Byrd in the 1970s – into the 21st Century. Coleman’s work with John Zorn and Speed’s with Tim Berne has obviously made them comfortable with this sort of role playing. Meanwhile the Italians – including bassist Stefano Senni – with that country’s long tradition of opera buffo and theatrical comedy take to the concept naturally as well.

“Cristo Redentor” could also serve as a musical metaphor for the session, since the only throwback PLUNGE resembles is of an era when records could be sophisticated and popular at the same time.

Be aware that if De Rossi writes a tune like “Tina”, which shows off his Latinesque drum rattling, Terragnoli double stopping like George Benson and contrapuntal organ washes mid-way between Jimmy Smith and a Bar Mitzvah band, it’s done with respect and admiration. Sure it could be the soundtrack for a slinky Italian sex-Noir romp of the 1960s, but the composer opens the tune up enough to include a complicated finale that takes in dissonant fuzz-tone guitar and a wah-wahing sax line. It’s the same with his “Petunia”, which heavy on the drum backbeat and Coleman’s whining Wurlitzer, creates a line that could underscore any “twist party” in those same films.

POMO touches characterize other tracks as well, including a sampled snatch of dialogue about drumming from the film Man With A Golden Arm; “Singer”, which doesn’t sing, but melds church-like organ riffs and chalumeau reed trills into a near Baroque melody that explodes into in back-beat drumming and high-pitched guitar string distortions as a climax. Then there’s De Rosi’s “Zakaz”, whose Middle Eastern cast is advanced by snake-charmer pulses from Speed’s clarinet and the drummer’s own ratchet clicking and hand drumming, but subverted by Coleman’s spacey electric piano comping whose link is with Miles Davis’ BITCHES BREW not the Maghreb.

PLUNGE’s entire premise is emphatically set out with Speed’s composition of the same name that serves as the introductory and title track. A stop-time vamp with the composer in honking Stanley Turrentine mode and Coleman channeling Big John Patton, it effectively sets the stage for the proceedings.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Plunge 2. Tina 3. The Daniel Quinn Theme 4. Audio Bongo 5. Zakaz 6. Freezy 7. Fujiyama 8. Petunia 9. Singer 10. Ida y Vuelta 11. Abracadabra 12. Cristo Redentor

Personnel: Chris Speed (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Enrico Terragnoli (guitar [except tracks 4-6, 11]); Anthony Coleman (Hammond A-100 and Vox organs Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes electric pianos); Stefano Senni (bass); Zeno de Rossi (drums and percussion)

March 20, 2006

Full Metal Klezmer

Shachor
El Gallo Rojo

Meshuge Klezmer Band
Treyf 1929
El Gallo Rojo

Switters
The Anabaptist Loop
Improvisatore Involontario

By Ken Waxman
February 20, 2006

Why do Italian improv-Klezmer bands exist, you may ask? Well – to answer a question with a question – why not? Musicians of Southern European heritage have been a mainstay of jazz since its beginning and been part of American popular music since its beginning, so why shouldn’t they get involved in the newest variant of Klezmer sounds?

This mixture of melancholy plaints and energetic dance rhythms that solidified into modern Klezmer in the late 19th and early 20th century is a close cousin to similar effects in such celebratory Italian dance forms as the tarantella. Plus, now that John Zorn and other Radical Jewish composers make a case for the sonic universality of stylized Ashkenazi musical forms, Klezmer has become deracinated, with adherents and performers in locations such as Japan where there have never been Jewish communities. Thus finding two Klezmer CDs, where most of the players involved aren’t even Italian-Americans, but Italians, merely provides another example of Europeans re-importing a cast-off musical culture and reintegrating it with new improv strategies of the Old World.

Each aggregation here has chosen to approach the music differently.

The six-piece – and guests – Meshuge Klezmer Band (MKB) is superficially more traditional. Treyf 1929 turns age-old melodies into the soundtrack for a fanciful New York ghetto tale, the details of which unfortunately are printed only in Italian in the CD booklet. Extending traditional melodies with post-modern timbres, a few American avant-Klezmerites lend their talents to the band for added verisimilitude.

Made up of some of Italy’s most versatile improvisers, the five-piece Full Metal Klezmer (FMB) band – along with a few special guests – decidedly goes one step further. On Shachor, nine original tunes, mostly composed by guitarist Fabio Basile, are shoehorned into time-honored Klezmer forms, then expanded with samples, synthesizer licks, rock beats, electronics and Free Improv layering.

One of FMB’s main soloists is Sicilian saxophonist Gianni Gebbia, who over the years has made a point of collaborating with advanced American improvisers as well as Europeans. The Anabaptist Loop features him and the other members of the Switters trio, using different rhythms and sound strategies to produce an aural picture of images inspired by the works of novelist Tom Robbins and Wu-Ming. Klezmer’s mixed secular-religious texts are replaced by post-modern prose strategies.

Guitarist Basile and drummer Zeno De Rossi are the two constants between FMB and MKB, Yet like the pseudonymous Wu-Ming they’re also tricksters who take on many guises. The drummer has recorded straightforward jazz dates with Brooklyn-based clarinetist Chris Speed and Trieste-born pianist Giorgio Pacorig, both featured on Shachor, as well as adding percussion to the Mickey Finn experimental string quartet. Basile, who also plays bass, has been featured on TV broadcasts and teaches guitar techniques.

Treyf 1929, is divided into Side A and Side B, with the performances underlined by the intermittent crackle of ancient 78s. Crafting a sound world as stylized as primitive Traditional Jazz records – or field recordings of Italian folk songs, come to think of it – allows the Yiddish airs sung by cantor Samuel Malavsky to be integrated with contemporary charts. Besides a core group of Basile, De Rossi, alto saxophonist Roberto Lancai, violinist Maria Vicentini, bassist Stefano Corso and accordionist Andrea Ranzato, other soloists include Americans, trombonist Dave Harris, second guitarist Pete Fitzpatrick of Naftle’s Dream and Klezmatics’ trumpeter Frank London.

More in-your-face, Shachor’s core ensemble is De Rossi on mellotron, organ, samples and drums; Basile on guitars and glockenspiel; Gebbia on alto saxophone, flute and jew’s harp; Pacorig on electric and acoustic pianos, organ, synthesizer and samples: Enrico Terragnoli on bass and samples; plus special guests that include Speed, Lancai, and Rimini-born Vincenzo Vasi on theremin.

With unvarying personnel for all its 17 tracks, The Anabaptist Loop highlights the talents of Gebbia, who plays alto and sopranino saxophone plus flute; Vasi – a jazz-rocker, who also works as an engineer – on bass and theremin; and Catania-born drummer Francesco Cusa who has recorded with DJs Max & Fab and as part of the Trinkle Trio with guitarist Paolo Sorge and French tubaist Michel Godard.

Reminiscent of Zorn’s experimental pastiches on albums like The Big Gundown in his pre-Radical Jewish Culture period, Shachor includes two give-away references to Zorn. Vocalist Claudia Bidoli dramatically whispers properly existential French lyrics on the title track, backed only by Terragnoli’s bass and De Rossi’s brush work until a finale that explodes into frenzied sax shrieks. Gebbia’s sputtering sax lines, Basile’s Telestar-like guitar vamps and Pacorig’s smudged Hammond organ daubs are even more over-the-top on the sythn-driven treatment of “Tema Per Le Goff”, by Ennio Morricone, one of Zorn’s favored composers.

As for the rest of the CD, no one would ever confuse FMK with an orthodox Klezmer band. As a matter of fact, except for the very occasional snatch of shetl intonation, the band’s language is atonal postmodernism rather than Yiddish. Take “Ruach”, composed, like all but two of CD’s tunes, by Basile. Before he vibrates some Spaghetti Western lead guitar, the composer gets to twang a Jew’s harp, De Rossi cross- patterns a military tattoo, and Gebbia leaps between winnowing, low-pitched flute lines and plaintive jungle-like sax honks.

Speed’s Klezmer-inflected clarinet mixes with Gebbia’s alto for a fralicher interlude on “Beth-Shemesh”, following glockenspiel resonation from Basile and Pacorig’s smokey organ-licks. By the ends however Yiddish dance rhythms predominate.

Elsewhere, poppy mellotron lines, snaky theremin trills and flanged guitar licks join with beats and samples to multiply the 21st century musical references. On his own Gebbia’s reed work range from shredded Jmes White-like punk jazz to vibrato-laden velvety phrasing reminiscent of the techniques of the late Fausto Papetti, Italy’s MOR sax maestro.

He gets even more scope in the freer circumstances of the Switters Trio, and 17 tracks on which to soar. Here echoes of early Ornette Coleman are more apparent in his soloing, especially when the bassist and drummer produce electric beats reminiscent of Prime Time. Vasi’s contrapuntal thwacking and finger popping helps keep the pulse moving, while Cusa’s percussion patterns incorporate Latin time signatures, folkloric dance suggestions, feather-light brush work, cymbal spinning and slapping plus the ratcheting and rattling of bells, drum tops and maracas.

Every so often the simple rhythm takes on Italian horror movie soundtrack mutations with the music interrupted by rhythmic lip smacking, ghoul-like throaty growls and gulps and spittle encrusted basso snorts. With Vasi responsible for oscillating theremin pulsations, Cusa producing conga-like resonation from his kit as well as time-keeping, and Gebbia’s outflow ranging from diaphragm vibrations, sexy, double-tongued peeps and glottal punctuation, the additional vocal color is probably a group effort.

So too is Treyf 1929, with the MKB so committed to recreating the circumstances of its imaginative primordial tale, that the music exists on top of the intermittent crackle of ancient 78s. Not only does the first track begin with the sound of a photograph needle hitting the groove, but the CD concludes with the lifting of a tone arm.

Along the way MKB bows to Klezmer machers as different as Mickey Katz and Naftule Brandwein. But the Verona-based band doesn’t let the joyous polyphonic cacophony interfere with musicianship. With 18 musicians participating at different times, stand-outs include trombonist Harris mixing staccato double-tonguing with vibrating pulsations from the accordion of Andrea Ranzato or Abe Yabloner on “Grandma’s Draidel”, and London’s lowing shofar blows colored by contrapuntal echoes from the other horns and frailing guitar lines.

Want a quick definition of post-modernism or primitive-futurism? Just listen to Brandwein’s “Oy Tate S’iz Gut”. Before sliding in a contrafact of “Caravan”, Ziggy Ellman-like freyleich trumpet lines face off against JB-like funky electric bass beats. Then, possibly through contact with the Ellington-Tizol line the brass turns to Bubber Miley influenced Jungle style plunger tones.

Orthodox, conservative or reform, however your taste runs in improv-inflected, European-style dance-like music, you’ll likely find something to appreciate on every one of the innovative CDs here.

February 20, 2006

THE CLAUDIA QUINTET

Semi-Formal
Cuneiform Rune 217

Establishing himself as an in-demand percussionist and band leader, New York-based John Hollenbeck usually has several parallel projects on the go. While being on-call in both his roles for associates as different as Meredith Monk, pianist Fred Hersch, the Bang on a Can All-Stars and even Klezmer Madness proves his adaptability, it sometimes adds unforeseen pressures to his own bands.

Thus while The Claudia Quintet, which has been together since 1997, is a cohesive ensemble, you sometimes get the feeling that a few too many influences are on show. Subsequent tunes ping-pong from New music inflections to Middle Eastern slurs and from contrapuntal jazz time to floating Klangfarbenmelodie that abuts AMM-like minimalist territory.

Additionally, the instrumentation here can sound excessively lightweight. Voicing clarinet, accordion, vibraphone, bass, and percussion, plus keyboards and guitar makes a few pieces appear as if they’ve just escaped from a George Shearing or Cal Tjader record; certainly no one seems to be raising a sweat. Additionally, bassist Drew Gress may play with nearly everyone from Tim Berne to Hersch, but overall SEMI-FORMAL lacks low-pitched foundations.

Gress’s unexpected lateness is the subject of an unneeded in-joke before the music begins on “Drewslate”, while Hollenbeck’s unfortunate tendency towards preciousness portends New Age as much as New music vibrations on several shorter tracks. Furthermore, either he or reedist Chris Speed reverberates soundboard echoes on “Kord”, one of the so-called bridge pieces. But this alternating of silence and sound resembles nothing s much as the style of AMM’s John Tilbury writ small.

Other pieces are more commendable. Speed who has enlivened combo sessions by pianist Myra Melford and Berne among others, contributes harder-edged tenor saxophone lines to “They point…glance…whisper…then snicker…”, the CD’s more-than-9½ minute longest tune. His often-altissimo timbre presages tougher and rougher cross rhythms from the drummer and repeated organ-like keyboard vamps from Ted Reichman, who otherwise sticks to screeching and smearing accordion vibrations. Gress walks his bass and even vibist Matt Moran, whose background includes ethnic bands and minimalism, varies the shimmers and quivers that characterize his work throughout. Eventually the theme is recapped on top of gradually accelerating clarinet and drum timbres and the tune ends with the buzz of the vibraphone motor.

Reichman, whose accordion prowess has perked up sessions lead by avant-Klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer, composer Anthony Braxton and popster Paul Simon pumps resonating tones through tempo changes and acts as focused continuum on other tunes. His soaring meshed tones on “Guarana” expand the variations driven by Speed’s saxophone overblowing to join Moran’s vibes in suggesting a Milt Jackson small group –

if Bags had made common cause with pioneering jazz accordionist Art Van Damme. Bottom tones are still infrequent however, unbalancing the selections.

Even as uncharacteristic a track as “Limp Mint” whose subdivided 12/8 pulse gives it a Middle Eastern as well as improv base, seems only to be rooted during Gress’s bass solo, but the deep groove is sorely tested with contralto clarinet trills, andante vibe runs and sawing and buzzing cymbal work.

Overall, the combination of the drummer’s signature bounces, gyrating accordion patterns, rattling vibes and Speed’s quivering reed command isn’t unpleasant. Hollenbeck fans should be pleased. But others may require more focus and for contrast, some lower, darker colors.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Major Nelson 2. Drewslate 3. Kord 4.They point…glance…whisper…then snicker… 5. Bindi binder 6. Susan 7.Two Teachers 8. Growth 9. Limp Mint 10.Guarana 11. Where's my mint? 12. Boy with a bag and his guardian elephant 13. Minor Nelson

Personnel: Chris Speed (clarinet, tenor saxophone, piano and Casio SK1); Ted Reichman (accordion, keyboards and acoustic and electric guitars); Matt Moran (vibraphone, keyboards and baritone horn); Drew Gress (bass, guitar and pedal steel guitar); John Hollenbeck (drums, percussion, piano, keyboards and fan)

February 13, 2006

JOHN HOLLENBECK LARGE ENSEMBLE

A Blessing
OmniTone OTI 15209

Already praised as a first-class drummer, composer and combo leader, John Hollenbeck now shows that he can handle the writing, arranging and guiding of an 18-piece ensemble as fluently as his other talents.

Since for all reports his drumming is a clear-headed and multi-directional as it is on A BLESSING, is it any wonder that his employers have ranged from mainstreamers Bob Brookmeyer and Lee Konitz, more advanced players like Brad Shepik and Jorrit Dijkstra plus New Music doyen Meredith Monk?

True to his influences, which include rock music and more conventional so-called classical music sounds, Hollenbeck’s treatment of a large ensemble’s energy and force is far different than standard big band writing and instrumentation.

Although his brass section has as many trumpets and trombones as Stan Kenton’s or Duke Elington’s bands, his five-piece reed section includes one member doubling on baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, another – Chris Speed from the drummer’s Claudia Quintet (CQ) – playing only clarinet, one tripling on flute, soprano and alto saxophones and two others tripling on tenor and soprano saxophones plus English horn. The rhythm section has his CQ pal Matt Moran playing mallets (sic) and Kermit Driscoll on what sounds like electric as well as acoustic bass. Added to many of the tracks is the vocalizing, wordless or otherwise, of another longtime Hollenbeck associate, Theo Bleckmann, whose distinctive voice has been featured with Meredith Monk’s Vocal Ensemble since 1994, as well as in projects for Mark Dresser, Dave Douglas and other jazzers.

A fantasia with words, the first and title track, features Bleckmann’s countertenor in parlando, reading the words to a blessing printed on the Mass card at Hollenbeck’s grandmother’s funeral. With resemblance to a nocturne going even further to encompass the sensitive, low-frequency piano work of Gary Versace and the reedy harmonies of the English horns. At the same time as these instruments produce hushed dynamics, the bassist and drummer provide understated bop-like bounces. Following a variation where reeds tones resemble a mixed choir of human voices, the finale involves a stop-time section with staccato horn lines floating on top of polyrhythmic emphasis. Coda involves Bleckmann’s impassioned singing mixed with quivering instrumental textures.

In contrast, “Abstinence” is driven by an electric bass continuo which contrasts with a main theme made up of half-speed piano arpeggios and muted trombone glissandi. After one ‘bone rams out plunger tones on top of trilling and vibrating reed lines, a polyrhythmic variation is introduced with a balanced drum beat and walking bass. As this variation gradually supersedes the original theme of carefully harmonized voices, tougher vamps from Hollenbeck and Driscoll build up to a climax of rock band-like vamps and downward cascading textures from the piano. The ending features Sun Ra Arkestra-like space ship launching and landing sound approximations.

Although Hazrat Inayat Khan’s words sung by Bleckmann on the final “The Music of Life” are a little too utopian, low key and stamped with vocal-recital purity, the quivering woodwind backing and single note piano timbres give it some life, as does the singer’s postlude of gargling throat textures.

Throughout the CD, the compositions at various times include wavering rubato massed horn lines, sideslippoing English horn obbligatos, staccato and forte brass explosions, Africanized percussion ruffs, bounces and drags, and a cross section of harmonies and counter-themes.

Not your father’s big band, A BLESSING is also notable for its absence of drum pyrotechniques. So good in his other roles here, Hollenbeck likely figured he didn’t have to show off his already acknowledged skills.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. A Blessing 2. Folkmoot 3. RAM 4. Weiji 5. Abstinence 6. April n Reggae 7. The Music of Life

Personnel: Tony Kadleck, Dave Ballou, Jon Owens, Laurie Frink (trumpets); Rob Hudson, Kurtis Pivert, Jacob Garchik, Alan Ferber (trombones); Chris Speed (clarinet); Ben Kono (flute, soprano and alto saxophones); Dan Willis and Tom Christensen (tenor and soprano saxophones and English horns); Alan Won (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet); Gary Versace (piano); Matt Moran (mallets); Kermit Driscoll (bass and electric bass); John Hollenbeck (drums); Theo Bleckmann (voice); J.C. Sanford (conductor)

November 14, 2005

CHRIS SPEED’S YEAH NO

Swell Henry
Squealer SQLR 040

Known for his incisive soloing with prototypical downtown groups lead by the likes of altoist Tim Berne’s and pianist Myra Melford, reedist Chris Speed, seems most concerned with lyricism, Balkan inflections and ambience here.

Not a smooth jazz record, the less than 39-minute session could easily be confused for a soft-rock outing by members of a metal band eager to display their chops in a quieter setting. Cumulatively the 10 tracks offer little more than music that could be played for dancing and background during a semi-hip wedding in Manhattan’s East Village or Brooklyn’s Park Slope.

Yeah NO includes drummer Jim Black and electric bassist Skuli Sverisson, who along with Speed and guitarist Hilmar Jensson – guesting on one track – operate in similar, though rockier territory in the drummer’s AlasNoAxis band. Additional dense harmonies are slathered over most of the tracks by Rob Burger’s accordion and/or Jamie Saft’s mellotron or Wurlitzer electric piano. Remaining member is trumpeter Cuong Vu, who despite membership in Pat Metheny’s most recent touring combo, manages to do something more with jazz-rock interface on his own CDs.

Saft’s mellotron noodling is particularly unfortunate, since when it’s featured, the band leans into King Crimson territory. In fact nearly all of the undulating keyboard textures create similar harmonics, smoothing out the few spiky impulses Vu’s double-tongued plunger growls or Speed’s barnyard squeaks proffer. With the themes nearly indistinguishable from one another, solo work is often reduced to breaks among collective coloration.

Electrified, sluicing bass lines and shuffle beats from the drums are the most common accompaniment. Nadir is reached on a couple of tunes where impudent polyphony from the horns gives way to a steady almost monochromatic line centred around a folkie guitar, picked clawhammer style and sounding as if it was break time at an Eagles concert. Since no acoustic guitarist is listed, no individual blame can be ascribed.

In short, SWELL HENRY is more “no” than “yeah”.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. She Has Four Thorns* 2. Last Beginning* 3. Born in the Air*+ 4. Camper Giorno+ 5. Cloud Stopper 6. Flanked^ 7. He Has a Pair of Dice 8. Dead Water* 9. Staircase Genius*# 10.Kip Files$

Personnel: Cuong Vu (trumpet); Chris Speed (tenor saxophone, clarinet and Casio); Rob Burger (accordion*); Jamie Saft (mellotron+); Wurlitzer electric piano^); Hilmar Jensson (guitar#); Skuli Sverisson (electric bass); Jim Black (drums); Speak & Spell (program$)

May 30, 2005

MYRA MELFORD’S THE TENT

Where the Two Worlds Touch
Arabesque AJ0159

THE FONDA/STEVENS GROUP
Twelve improvisations
Leo CD LR 394

Building on jazz’s standard two-horns-and-rhythm combo format, these CDs impress by showing how the players manage to make things new by tweaking sounds to match their own aspirations.

A team for over 20 years, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens and bassist Joe Fonda do this by not only insisting that all the sounds on their CD be completely improvised, but by adding another voice to the line-up. French alto and baritone saxophonist Daunik Lazro is one of that country’s foremost experimenters, working in contexts as varied as solo recitals and bands with saxophonist Michel Doneda and Joe McPhee. Here his unique articulation and sound sources add another dimension to that supplied by the pianist, bassist, long-time drummer Harvey Sorgen, and endlessly inventive trumpeter Herb Robertson, who has worked with Fonda and Stevens in various bands, on-and-off for more than a decade.

Pianist Myra Melford approach to the situation is a bit different. Following her Fulbright scholarship-sponsored, nine-month residency in Calcutta, this session finds her integrating the sounds of Northern India on harmonium with her own influences which range from distinctive poetics to salutes to earlier jazz heroes. Furthermore, her band, The Tent, melds sidefolk from her earlier combos. Trumpeter Cuong Vu and bassist Stomu Takeishi -- who are both in Vu’s trio -- join with busy Manhattan reedist Chris Speed and drummer Kenny Wollesen who has played with John Zorn.

Encompassing sampled traffic noises and vocal exhortations recorded in Calcutta, “No News At All” is the only track that directly refers to Melford’s experience on the subcontinent. But the accordion-like repetitive riffs she produces on the harmonium and the drummer’s backbeat color that so-called exotica in a different way. So do Vu’s brassy squeals and Speed’s clarinet trills, both of which end in sibilant whistles. If anything the end product resembles a jolly tarantella more than Hindustani music. Not only that, but any time Takeishi is front and centre, his flat picking, thumb pops and flailing confirms that these are bass guitars he’s playing not a sarod or an acoustic stand up bass.

Harmonium timbres may be on display in a viscous mixture with a clarinet reed on the nearly 12 minute “Where the Ocean Misquotes the Sky”, but that doesn’t stop Melford from eventually switching to high frequency piano tone clusters to emphasize the theme. Shortly after that, her cascading overtones and modal attack introduce pure swing accompanied by press rolls from the drummer and a walking bass line. Earlier, any eclogue resemblance is lost among the trumpeter’s glottal smears and slurs. With the horns playing double counterpoint quietly in background, the pianist gradually gooses the tempo to a satisfactory conclusion.

Or listen to “Brainfire and Buglight” where a jagged swaying and hocketing tenor line mixes it up with irregular note clusters from the piano, electric bass blasts that sound like tuba toots, and rolls and flams from the drummer. As Speed becomes more aggressively abstract, and Vu adds quacking runs and basso pedal tones, Melford keep everything together with glissandi.

Summation of all this is “Hello Dreamers (for Lester Bowie)”, which celebrates the pan musicalism of the late Art Ensemble trumpeter. Beginning with Vu approximating Bowie’s sour tone, varied drum work and a massed polyphonic horn line soon double the tempo to a more ambulatory, almost joyous pace. Following Speed’s exhibition of double tonguing and split tones, Melford turns to key clipping for a spell. Then she slows the tempo down to a two handed quasi boogie-woogie exercise, propelling cascading note clusters into different tempos and harmonies. Enlivened by a splayed Rent Party beat, the piece reaches a galloping climax, then reprises the melancholy section at the top.

At home or abroad, the power of improvised music means that you can be celebratory even in the midst of sorrow.

Alive with a dozen improvisations to Melford’s eight, Fonda, Stevens and crew have more scope in which to exhibit their talents. Additionally, while these may be TWELVE IMPROVISATIONS, they’re definitely not 12 pieces of indulged abstraction. Veterans, each member of the quintet knows what he can do, and gets enough space to do it within a group context.

Take, “Distant Voices,” at almost 9½-minutes the longest track. Here modulated stick pressure and knuckle duster rolls from Sorgen lead into ponticello bowing from Fonda and the continuous spew of accented timbres from Robertson. As Lazro adds harmonic color, the trumpeter’s lines get more expressive and legato. Soon the brassman is chromatically severing single notes as Stevens accompanies him with church-like low frequency chords. Lazro, now on baritone, smoothly resonates underneath, as Robertson decorates the line with stairstep obbligatos.

The Frenchman’s bari can squeal as well as snort as he demonstrates on “Talking Drum”, most of which is taken up by Sorgen doing just that. Lazro double tongues searing altissimo squeaks that are later amplified by Robertson’s quivering valves. Meanwhile the percussionist resonates, rattles and rolls as if he was playing a bata or a darbuka, using his palms, fingers and palms more than his sticks.

Robertson and he exhibit classic teamwork between brassy triplets and pardiddles and flams on the aptly named “Call and Response”. Throughout the CD, the trumpeter seems to be functioning at a level even higher than in years past, having finally exchanged European expatriate life for the United States.

Two example of this are “Extracurricular Activity” and “The Meeting”. The former finds Stevens’ high frequency, circular piano accents succeeded by split-second, tongue stopping blasts from Lazro and exaggerated wah-wah blowing from Robertson in Clyde McCoy mode.

More serious, the latter sets up a series of meetings among the group members. Concerned with cascading chords and right-handed plinking, Stevens pushing broken note patterns into a swinging centre meets rumbles, glances and bounces from Sorgen. Then Harmon-muted tones from Robertson meet sharp slurs from Lazro’s alto, As the trumpeter maintains his feathery timbres, staying concise and concentrated, Lazro moves to split tones and lip vibrations.

Sometimes the sounds move far beyond the expected. Arco bass lines and pronged internal piano string constraint on “In the Distance” are succeeded by what could be electro-acoustic oscillation and distortion mated with buzzing brass tones. As Fonda cushions everyone with arco bustles both high-pitched and lower, Lazro adds altissimo flutter tonguing. Finally the resolution appears in Stevens rubbing the internal piano strings with a light, cylindrical object as Robertson continues twittering short phrases on his own, as if he was a homeless person mumbling to himself.

Improvisations also include variations on jazz’s bedrock, with “Front and Center” a finger snapping blues piano showcase, complete with rolling drumbeats and walking bass. Andante, Stevens reveals his inner Red Garland and Fonda displays a bass line that would do Milt Hinton proud. Only at the very end does Lazro contribute dissonant split tones and irregular vibrated slurs and cries.

If the CD has a weakness, it’s that the final track founders on slow moving hard handed descending piano tones and a whiny, vibrated trumpet egress. Considering what went before the CD should end with a flourish not a whimper.

Still one lapse can be forgiven.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Worlds: 1. Eight 2. Where the Two Worlds Touch (for Andrew Hill) 3. Brainfire and Buglight 4. Where the Ocean Misquotes the Sky 5. Secrets To Tell You 6. Everything Today 7. Hello Dreamers (for Lester Bowie) 8. No News At All

Personnel: Worlds: Cuong Vu (trumpet); Chris Speed (clarinet and tenor saxophone); Myra Melford (piano and harmonium); Stomu Takeishi (electric and acoustic bass guitar); Kenny Wollesen (drums)

Track Listing: Twelve: 1. Ostrich 2. The Meeting 3. Electricity 4.In the Distance 5.Talking Drum 6. Extracurricular Activity 7. Front and Center 8. Call and Response 9. Dante’s Inferno 10. Distant Voices 11. Bariphonics 12. Trance

Personnel: Twelve: Herb Robertson (trumpet); Daunik Lazro (alto and baritone saxophones); Michael Jefry Stevens (piano); Joe Fonda (bass); Harvey Sorgen (drums)

August 30, 2004

POING

Giants of Jazz
The Legendary Royal Records RR 90 210

THE CLAUDIA QUINTET
I, Claudia
Cuneiform Rune 187

Hand another accolade to 30-something musicians -- they’ve finally liberated the accordion.

Once the preserve of polka bands -- or worse -- Lawrence Welk’s champagne music, the reedy sound of the bellows and keys has made distinct inroads into contemporary improv in the hands of stylists from both Europe and North America. Two of the most accomplished -- Oslo’s Frode Haltli and New York’s Ted Reichman -- help shape the sound of these two bands.

Although a further question uniting both these discs is how much of the material is written and how much improvised, I CLAUDIA and GIANTS OF JAZZ, are as different as their formations. On the later, Haltli is part of the five-year-old Poing trio, which play the works of contemporary Norwegian composers with improvised sections. Besides recording with the improv No Spaghetti Edition ensemble in Oslo, the accordionist has performed as a soloist with several orchestras in Europe and Asia. Both bassist Håkon Thelin, who is part of the contemporary music Oslo Sinfonietta, and reedist Rolf-Erik Nystrøm stand more often on the legit side of the fence. Obviously then, the CD title is more tongue in cheek than descriptive.

I CLAUDIA on the other hand is the second CD by the six-year-old Claudia Quintet playing pieces by John Hollenbeck. The percussionist moves in New music, jazz and improv circles and his music and sidefolk reflects those parameters. He has gigged with the Village Vanguard Orchestra, trumpeter Cuong Vu and composer Meredith Monk among many others. Reichman has played with reedists Anthony Braxton and David Krakauer, while bassist Drew Gress has worked with jazzers as mainstream as pianist Fred Hersch and as out as altoist Tim Berne. Vibist Matt Moran’s collaborators include bassist Mark Dresser and violist Mat Manner, while reedman Chris Speed has worked with Berne and pianist Uri Caine.

All of which means that even if a piece such as “Adowa” is supposed to be programmatic enough to echo West African funeral sounds, the bouncy drums, bass and vibe rhythms suggest a funkier Modern Jazz Quartet, while Speed’s clarinet spits out mid-range growling obbligatos. Meanwhile, the countermelody from the accordion slides from Parisian music hall to Balkan country dances in the space of a couple of minutes.

Similarly, “Arabic” may offer up a whirling dervish circumnavigation from Moran’s wooden marimba that moves into gamelan territory and irregularly vibrated clarinet trills. But sounds from the accordion keys and the trap set are strictly straightahead. Propelled on high frequency, growling dynamics from Reichman’s bellows the tune moves from adagio to andante with single note contributions from vibe mallets and clarinet reeds.

Most other tunes are based on the shared harmonies available when mouth reeds and manipulated reeds are voiced together, with the end products individually encompassing bleak, reverberating (Morton) Feldmanesque space, organ-like ecclesiastical suggestions that border on plain song and ringing repeated note patterns. Along the way the unique timbres of the squeeze box -- spurred by irregular beats from Hollenbeck’s snare, toms and bass drum, twist themselves into what could be wind whistling tumbleweed accents, Old Country bouncy czardas or drones that could be produced electro-acoustically.

With the colors bouncing with reed glissandos and fourfold mallet reverberations, even the nine-minute salute to Hollenbeck’s comfy naptime “Couch” includes an almost marital drumbeat along with the gliding cushions of clarinet lines and accordion crescendos.

Over in Norway, Poing’s compositional forays are weakened by being subdivided into too many short sections. Eivind Buene’s “Seven Types of Ambiguity”, for instance, ostensibly unrolls over six tracks, as does Knut Olaf Sunde’s “(<>)”. [phew!]

The later comes across better, since among the stop-and-start variations, Nystrøm offers a soprano sax solo at the top and a baritone sax line at the end that provides different tonal qualities. Meanwhile, as he moves from key pops and swirling, whistling trills, Haltli introduces whirling and wavering multiphonics. Thelin’s bass stays pretty much in the background, however. At points, as well, the reedy squeezebox and the literal reed sound so similar that it’s often impossible to distinguish one from the other. Luckily as the timbres echo back-and-forth the sax slides from penny whistle territory to harsh lower-case lines as the accordion stays mid-range, producing a keyboard related continuum.

Nystrøm’s alto gets a workout on the former tune, with tongue slaps, irregularly vibrated notes, alp-horn like resonation and whirled split tones that reach falsetto and above. Meanwhile the accordion buffers the reed clicks with systematic, pulsating keyboard pressure.

Elsewhere on the disc, the few times when Thelin promulgates a more powerful bass line the reverberations make Poing resemble another unconventional improv trio -- Australia’s The Necks -- while the droning pulses of the accordion can sometimes make the ear think it’s hearing electro-acoustic tones. A bonus video track is alternately bleak and spacey. The dissonant sound is distanced from the visuals which alternate between primitive performance, band standing around shots and updated, pseudo psychedelica that resembles computer screen savers.

Most instructively, the Øyvind Torvund-penned title track is about as far as a recreation of the styles of say, Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker -- to pick two “giants of jazz” at random -- as can be imagined.

When Thelin’s abrasive bowing, encompassing both legato and ponticello techniques, is added to Haltli’s bumpy vibrated overtones and Nystrøm’s braying, back of the throat growls the effect is what could be expected if Pauline Oliveros and Albert Ayler were put in charge of the band at Bedlam. Classic Jazz it ain’t. But as the unstoppable lumps, thumps and bumps are exposed in an orgy of fleet-fingered high- intensity keyboard smears and squealed sax cadenzas, Poing proves that its Euro creations are unidentifiable enough to bob up with a singular individuality in the sea of modern improv.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Giants: 1. Essential Extensions 2.-7. Seven Types of Ambiguity 8. Fisk i kjerka 9*. - 14#. (<>) 15. Giants of Jazz

Personnel: Giants: Rolf-Erik Nystrøm (soprano*, alto and baritone# saxophones); Frode Haltli (accordion); Håkon Thelin (bass)

Track Listing: I: 1. just like him 2. Opening 3. “arabic” 4. The Cloud of Unknowing 5. Adowa (for gra) 6. “… can you get through this life with a good heart?” 7. Misty Hymen 8. couch

Personnel: I: Chris Speed (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Ted Reichman (accordion); Matt Moran (vibes); Drew Gress (bass); John Hollenbeck (drums)

May 10, 2004

PACHORA

Astereotypical
Winter & Winter W&W 910 082-2

BOBBY PREVITE & BUMP
Counterclockwise
Palmetto PM 2091

Fans who complain that improvised music is too cerebral and not concerned enough with rhythm should hear these sessions led by drummers usually confined to the avant-garde side of the spectrum.

Although both are literal dance parties -- in the 1950s definition of the term -- each is different as well. ASTEREOTYPICAL shows what happens when you give three American and one Icelandic musicians license to create a sound animated by the traditional music of Eastern Europe, especially the Balkans. Conversely, COUNTERCLOCKWISE, featuring five Americans of a slightly earlier vintage than the dewy-cheeked Pachora crew, plays improv informed by the sort of R&B licks leader Bobby Previte probably heard growing up in Niagara Falls, N.Y. in the 1960s.

While often compared to a fanciful Balkan wedding band, Pachora has more influences than that. Rock/pop arrives through the bass guitar and electric bass of Icelander Skúli Sverisson and the electric saz of guitarist Brad Shepik, who played with the Tiny Bell Trio and Babkas. The plectrumist also adds South Asian intimations through his use of the droning tambura. Reedist Chris Speed and drummer Jim Black, both of whom were in Tim Berne’s bands have strong jazz influences. Black, who creates even rockier textures in his own groups, breaks up the rhythms here by his use of cowbells, bell trees, selected and unselected cymbals and other percussion. He also adds unique pianica tones to some of the backgrounds, suggesting both the harmonica and the accordion.

Additionally, Speed, whose alto saxophone is featured in bands like Myra Melford’s, stick exclusively to clarinet here, likely for purported authenticity. What results however when his reed tone is mixed with the pianica and strings isn’t Balkan, but sounds that are more related to joyous freylech melodies, that are to Klezmer what czardas are in Hungarian music and the jig in the music from the British Isles.

There are times, however, when this not-quite-ethnic strategy falters. Usually those tunes features overly busy drumming from Black -- some of which sounds as if his instrument of choice is the telephone book -- and when Shepik’s nylon string guitar forays resemble those acoustic intermission fillers so loved by overly-loud heavy metallers.

Still, most of Pachora’s tunes feature Speed’s uninflected, clear-toned clarinet playing the melody, mostly in contralto, but occasionally in chalameau register, with the beat promulgated by Sverrisson’s bass arsenal. With the freylech undercurrent in accordion washes, and rock interjections arriving though Hendrixian fuzz-laden guitar leads and buzzing amps, the challenge is for the musicians to not sound like the hippest ethnic wedding band in the world.

With what appears to be almost literal balalaika and dumbeck backing -- probably courtesy of the saz and baritone guitar -- “Howl” avoids this, with Black’s rhythms relating more to Persian or Dervish music that anything further west. Then there’s “Rider”, when dual guitars and tabla sounds from Black’s knurly percussion implies that raga rockers have drifted into the souk. Speed dissolves his Eastern European trills into split reed tones, Shepik tries some fancy triple-lined flat picking and Black appears to be doing the near impossible, playing a dumbeck and regular drum kit simultaneously. The “Little Theater” celebrated on the tune of that name seems to include performers who need a belly dancing melody arising from reed contralto trilling and dancers who need andante polkas and mazurkas created by buzzing triplets from the guitar players.

Although Pachora may appear to be playing at an ethnic wedding, Bump seems to spends its time in an ghetto honky tonk where funk-soul aggregations induce folks onto the dance floor.

That means that erstwhile Lounge Lizard and Jazz Passenger trombonist Curtis Fowlkes come across like the a blend of the JBs’ Fred Wesley and The Crusaders’ Wayne Henderson; Marty Ehrlich who is usually a high-brow alto saxophonist channels The Crusaders’ Wilton Felder and the JBs’ Pee Wee Ellis; Zony Mash mainman keyboardist Wayne Horvitz becomes The Crusaders Joe Sample; veteran electric bassist Steve Swallow cops Bootsy Collins licks; and in his playing Previte himself recalls the early, unclichéd style of the JBs’ Clyde Stubblefield and The Crusaders’ Six Hooper.

Don’t think that Bump has suddenly morphed into a funk/fusion band though. Despite the funk trappings, Previte is still the same musician who has written notated music for films, orchestras and the Moscow Circus and worked with thorny downtown noisemakers like John Zorn, Elliot Sharp and Berne. So while something like “And the Wind Cries-Mademoiselle Katherine” may reference Jimi Hendrix’s “And the Wind Cries Mary”, its lockstep rhythm function and extended horn sounds recalls Miles Davis’ “Mademoiselle Mabry” as well.

Additionally, “Bobby's Next Mood”, the longest track, initially skates along on a reggae-like beat courtesy of Swallow’s four square rhythm and key clips from Horvitz. However by the time Fowlkes has revealed his inner Rico Rodriguez and Ehrlich is sounding out long-lined altissimo trills, the piano output has turned impressionistic with turnaround meeting the bassman’s linear attack. Other tunes feature charts that lead the horns up in incremental pitches, the trombonist constructing a complete countermelody to what the others are playing, and the pianist erecting some high intensity fantasias, slipsliding from sharps to flats and back again while ranging all over the keyboard.

As for the short “soul interludes” here, they seem to be area code salutes to the down-and-dirty sounds produced in Detroit, Columbus, Ohio, New York, the East Bay area, Chicago and several unidentifiable spots. Most of the time Ehrlich and Fowlkes play unison passages with more sophistication than the Tower of Power horns, including rare forays into plunger mute territory for the ‘bone man and writhing split tones from the saxist.

Unfortunately, the final number -- which adds Zony Mash guitarist Timothy Young to the band -- is an oddly unfinished pastiche of atmospheric sliding guitar chords, ascending horn charts, and left handed nightclub piano sounds. After two full minutes of silence at its end, the tune reappears filled with recurrent R&B changes, tinkling, right-handed fills and pitch-and-catch riffs from the horns. At this point it literally lives up to the CD title since the concluding notes in that track seem to fit -- counterclockwise -- right into the first notes of track one.

More for your feet than your head, ASTEREOTYPICAL and COUNTERCLOCKWISE show that accomplished improvisers can get down if they wish. Let’s just hope they continue to intelligently experiment as well as showcase dance rhythms.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Astereotypical: 1. Romanics 2. Bushka Lounge 3. Klink 4. Snap 5. Push 6. Howl 7. Drifting 8. Little Theater 9. Nyla 10. Rider 11. Silencio 12. Mexahata

Personnel: Astereotypical: Chris Speed (clarinet); Brad Shepik (tambura, electric saz, nylon string guitar); Skúli Sverisson (acoustic bass guitar, electric bass, baritone guitar); Jim Black (drums, percussion, pianica)

Track Listing: Counterclockwise: 1. 877-Soul 2. Counterclockwise 3. 614-Soul 4. Bobby's Next Mood 5. 111-Soul 6. Patricia 7. 312-Soul 8. And the Wind Cries Mademoiselle Katherine 9. 498-Soul*

Personnel: Counterclockwise: Curtis Fowlkes (trombone); Marty Ehrlich (tenor (saxophone); Wayne Horvitz (piano); Timothy Young (guitar)*; Steve Swallow (electric bass); Bobby Previte (drums)

July 28, 2003

ANDREW DRURY

A Momentary Lapse
Innova 581

You may well ask, after hearing this excellent CD, who Andrew Drury is and why he isn’t better known?

Answering the first question is easier than dealing with the second. The New York-based drummer/composer has played with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and reedist Vinny Golia, among others, created and photographed site-specific drum solos in desert and mountain settings, led junk percussion workshops and recorded two earlier CDs. Yet not only are his percussion skills up to snuff, but on evidence of the tunes here, he’s a sophisticated modern composer as well. He mixes the sense of rhythm and sensitivity that characterizes drummer-composers like Max Roach and Gerry Hemingway with voicing and arrangements that connect sophisticated EuroImprov sensibility with New World swing.

Drury is also the least known musician on his own session. Bassist Mark Dresser has performed with everyone from Anthony Braxton to Gerry Hemingway; violinist Eyvind Kang is a John Zorn associate; one reedist, Briggan Krauss, has worked with Satoko Fujii; the other, Chris Speed has been in bands led by Tim Berne and pianist Myra Melford; and Melford herself holds down the piano chair.

In simple, unfettered melodiousness, as a matter of fact, some of Drury’s tunes are reminiscent of those recorded by Melford’s The Same River, Twice quintet featuring Speed. This comparison is meant in the best possible way, since Melford’s compositions were some of the best of the late 1990s. Of course with both violin and bass Drury goes the pianist one better, intelligently integrating two, often arco, string styles into his compositions. And what compositions they are.

For instance, on “Some Powerful Woman/Why” the theme is first suggested with pizzicato violin lines, tremolo piano chording and floating clarinet tones -- the linkage a common classical chamber music configuration. Then, as the melody advances, sawing, reverberating double-stopped bass tones back up wavering, high-pitched reed lines, intermittently interrupted by single whacks on a gong and echoing tiny cymbal scratches. After the winnowing tones of the clarinet-string-piano trio alternate so-called classical and so-called World music, the penultimate section introduces a swinging modern jazz feeling. While the fragility of the semi-classical lines is maintained, heavier snare and bass drum accompaniment harden the theme.

Drury also knows how to inaugurate a session, as he does with the almost 11-minute “The Schwartzes”. Built on Dresser’s repeated bass vamp and understated piano fills from Melford, the rollicking theme is reminiscent of some of those free-for-alls indulged in by the Italian Instabile Orchestras. Performing at his most swingingly rhythmic, Kang takes an andante, slipping, sliding and stopping glissando solo. Drury counters with a steadfast beat, as the horny goat sounds of Krauss’s clarbone, which resembles a bagpipe, spew out more tonal colors. Following some circling piano octaves and writhing, high-pitched reed honks and trills, the theme is reprised then taken out with squeaks from Kang and hearty Bronx cheers from the reedists.

In contrast “Växjö Kollektiv” with its rococo violin and arco bass beginning, features sophisticated writing for strings, which Drury knows how to integrate into a performance without sounding artificial. An acclivity of different string and woodwind tones propels the melody until it’s taken up and given rhythmic impetus by the alto saxophone. Mellow tenor saxophone and granular violin lines toy with the theme, then Melford slides out some two-handed, mainstream chords and Drury offers sedate stick work. Finally the theme, in an aeronautical tempo, reappears once again, and fades into a thicket of quasi-baroque string and woodwind sounds.

Drury is also capable of writing mordant, Kurt Weill-style cabaret material as he shows with “Guanajuato”. Here pumping piano fantasias mix it up with resonating staccato timbres from clarinet, tenor sax and strings. Then, over a background of asymmetrical drumbeats, each musician’s part seems to separate itself from the others and go its own way. Following a forceful guitar-like flat picking episode from Dresser, the theme reappears until it’s completed with forward-moving horns and strings plus jagged drum beats.

Elsewhere, Melford shows that she can slide over the keyboard with a bluesy updating of Red Garland’s touch as easily as she can produce the sympathetic vibrations that characterize McCoy Tyner’s attack. One clarinetist can suggest a musette-like tone, while the other flirts with micotonalism. And Kang’s interpretations range from pizzicato plucks that recall South American Indians to electrified double stopping that could be related to Jean Luc Ponty’s work, if the Frenchman had more taste and restraint.

Still, all of these talents are in the service of Drury’s exceptional compositions, which prove tune after tune that melding Eurocentric formality and American syncopation can be as smoothly put to use by an undersung Yank as better-known Continentals.

Evidence here indicates that the playing and writing Drury demonstrations on this CD is no momentary lapse. Although there’s every probability that he will produce more exceptional music in the future, right now, you have this CD to seek out and admire.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. The Schwartzes 2. Salal 3. Växjö Kollektiv 4.Coplais 5. Geek’s Revenge 6. Some Powerful Woman/Why 7. Anniversary of a Non-Marriage 8. Guanajuato 9. Keep the Fool

Personnel: Briggan Krauss (alto saxophone, clarinet); Chris Speed (tenor saxophone, clarinet); Eyvind Kang (violin); Myra Melford (piano); Mark Dresser (bass); Andrew Drury (drums)

July 21, 2003

DE AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND

Limonchiki
Knitting Factory KFW-300

SLAVIC SOUL PARTY!
In Makedonija
Knitting Factory KFW-310

Paradoxically, as the twin vises of globalization and the commercial American entertainment industry tighten their grip on the world, traditional music has never been more popular. But examples of so-called World Music lose their validity if they’re merely held up as examples of what they were (conservative) and what they’re not (American) rather than evolving with time. Evolution doesn’t mean adding rock beats and sing-a-long choruses either.

No, evolutionary traditional music is made up of sounds that adapt to and from other idioms the way the wold’s most popular -- and sophisticated -- traditional music, jazz, has done so. There are examples of that sort of admixture on these two discs, which also highlight the universality of the sounds they contain. Although musicologists could probably enumerate the many differences between Balkan and Klezmer music, they sound pretty similar here. Not only that, but both bands spotlighted set themselves up as purveyors of goodtime music, characterized by simple bouncy melodies that are heavy on the brass and percussion and both groups feature accordion players. With more members, the De Amsterdam Klezmer Band (DAKB) produces a fuller sound, but the ethnic percussion of Slavic Soul Party (SSP)’s leader Matt Moran gives that group more rhythmic heft.

Neither band is ethnically pure either. DAKB, for instance, is made up of seven Dutch musicians, none one of whom seems to have Jewish roots, playing Ashkenazi Eastern European dance music mixed with Gypsy and circus influences for an American record-buying audience. Meanwhile Slavic Soul Party (SSP) is made up of four Americans and one Bulgarian-American musicians, all educated in jazz improvisation, who not only create their own rendering of a Balkan music band, but traveled to Macedonia to play and record there.

While the gesture may seem somewhat analogous to the actions of British rock bands that toured North America in the mid- and late 1960s playing their interpretations of American blues and R&B, SSP’s gesture was much more benign. For a start the Balkan state wasn’t a source of ready income the way the U.S. turned out to be for British bands. Plus, the members of SSP seemed genuinely interested in taping their music at its source. And they appeared to be welcomed by the traditional musicians they jammed with -- an example of which is on the CD -- and audiences they encountered. Furthermore, while all the other tunes performed were written by a local composer, SSP appends a version of Duke Ellington’s “Blue Pepper”, which fits hand-in-glove with the Balkan compositions here.

No musical carpetbaggers, all the SSPers had already exhibited their commitment to diverse music. Moran, whose understanding of the local offcentre rhythms is so profound that he can add a South Asian or jazz beat to the proceedings, is active as a performer and teacher on the American folk music scene. He has also worked with American jazz composer/bandleaders like bassist William Parker and pianist George Russell. Fluent in both Gypsy music -- through the band Pachora -- and jazz, clarinetist Chris Speed has also been featured in the bands of altoist Tim Berne and pianist Myra Melford among others. Accordionist Ted Reichman has had a long association with composer Anthony Braxton and recorded with him as well as drummer John Hollenbeck. Fluent in rock as well as jazz, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring is also a Jazz Passenger, while trumpeter Rossen Zahariev has a jazz and classical background and has recorded with drummer Bob Moses.

To extend the music, throughout the disc, the five mix jazz techniques such as call-and-response and quick tempo changes with adaptations like blasting open horn brass work, staccato and smeared reed bites, chromatic keyboard swells and slides plus adapted ethnic percussion. On the last track, Reichman and Moran even trade licks with local clarinetist Irfan Malik. Singing is done by locals.

DAKB is another matter. Together since 1996, and like SSP available for weddings, parties and street festivals, the group is made up of musicians who adapted brass band, pop and Roma influences to Yiddish festive music from Eastern Europe. Playing with much more legitimate technique than Moran and crew, they offer the same sort of jolly recklessness on their tunes. But in the speed of execution and expected instrumental arrangements, with seemingly every cry and slide in place, the band reflects its position, coming to sounds that are separated more than two degrees from their own experience.

With the majority of compositions here originals, each player gets the proper sound dimensions down pat and carefully fits his improvisations within the broader context, with the bass and accordion doing yeoman work carrying the beat in the absence of percussion. Plus the accordionist and the horns shown their versatility in adapting to different contexts.

However, there are times where the vocal renditions, especially in the traditional tunes, bring to mind the efforts of 1960s revival country blues and old-timey music performers. Here are young, 21st century, urban, sophisticated musicians trying to recreate the sounds of primitive, persecuted, mostly rural 19th century songsters. In truth members of DAKB may be too technically aware and too removed from the roots to replicate the pertinent emotions. Authenticity shouldn’t be a fetish, and obviously a style of music can’t evolve if improvisation isn’t allowed, but rote performances are less obvious when words aren’t involved. Many times, in fact, the vocalists here sound as if they’re primping for a cabaret or music hall performance, rather than expressing the joys or heartbreak of a afflicted people.

Both geographical areas and people celebrated by DAKB and SSP have had their share of strife. So if you accept the exceptional work of the musicians here as non-specific productions and performances you’ll be well satisfied. Putting aside all agendas both bands have created fine party records -- with SSP having the slight edge -- that with good fun and good musicianship -- are sure to enliven any non-mainstream fete.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Slavic: 1. Is this your first time in Makedonija? 2. Ševa 3. Dafino Vino 4. Dance the Dust Up 5. Derive Ro 6. Leventikos 7. Zajde zajde* 8. Koutsos 9. All Up and Down 10. Romanian Holiday 11. Trite Puti 12. (Let’s just call him) Pavlos 13. Blue Pepper 14. The wedding next door/Paidushko+

Personnel: Slavic: Rossen Zahariev (trumpet); Curtis Hasselbring (trombone); Chris Speed (clarinet); Ted Reichman (accordion); Matt Moran (drums, tapan, darabouka, snare, riq); except:* Angele Dimovski (kaval); Jovanche Dimovski (voice); Biljana Dimovski (accordion); + Irfan Malik (clarinet); Reichman ; Moran

Track Listing: Limonchiki: 1. Di Naie Chuppe 2. Nadja 3. Der Terkishe Yale We Yove Valenstein Nigun# 4. Matrosi^ 5. Chajes 6. Limonchiki 7. Der Mame ist Gegangen^ 8. Odessa Bulgarish^ 9. De Vuurvareter Van Sassari -10.Noushka* 11. A Chassid in Amsterdam# 12. Nanos 13.Mala Loka+&

Personnel: Limonchiki: Gijs Levelt or Sjors Pancraz +(trumpet); Joop van der Linden (trombone); Janfie van Strien (clarinet, sopranino saxophone); Wim Lammen (alto saxophone)&; Job Chajes (alto saxophone, vocals#, bass*); HenkJan van Minnen (accordion); Jasper de Beer (bass, banjo*); Alec Kopyt (percussion, vocals^)

June 15, 2002

ZENO DE ROSSI

Sultry
Splasc(h) CDH 831.2

From his picture in the booklet, drummer Zeno de Rossi looks to be young enough to still be deciding exactly which personal vision of jazz he’s going to adopt. From the evidence of this CD he’s still trying many roles on for size.

Someone with varied experience, which encompasses membership in groups as seemingly irreconcilable as Bachelor’s Dream with a Hammond organist; the Meshuge Klezmer Band; and Django’s Jungle, with a violinist, accordionist and American Chris Speed on clarinet; his choice of musical costumes appears to be pretty broad. That’s probably why this session under his leadership is pleasing, but not momentous. It doesn’t seem to offer a clear diagram of who Zeno de Rossi jazzman, is.

A basic conflict between the title and some of the tunes offers some clues to the situation. SULTRY suggests a torrid explosion of molten sensuality, but few of the tunes -- all of which have the drummer’s compositional input -- attempt to reflect this. Yet at the same time, the de Rossi combo -- mostly a trio with Speed and bassist Stefano Senni, augmented to quartet size with additional bassist Giovani Maier on five tunes -- attempts to honor seven American jazz giants by playing their compositions.

In what reads like false humility, in the booklet de Rossi offers “apologies” to Don Cherry, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk. New versions of jazz masters’ works don’t call for apologies -- and indeed the band’s performances are lightly pulsating and workman-like if nothing else -- if they do, they shouldn’t be recorded in the first place.

The other overriding weakness here is the length and number of the CD selections. Of the 14 tracks, 12 are in three to four minute range. While brevity might be the soul of wit, that last word isn’t improvisation. Surely de Rossi should have had enough faith in himself and his musicians’ talents to let them play on past the not quite 6½ minute mark, at which the longest tune -- by Ellington no less -- clocks in. The jazz giants he honors would have done no less.

Despite all this, there are still plenty of good things here.

Dividing his time about 50-50 between clarinet and tenor saxophone, Speed, best known for his work with the likes of saxophonist Tim Berne and pianist Myra Melford, acquits himself admirably on both horns. His so-called downtown orientation doesn’t appear to have prevented him from coming up with a sturdy Swing-to-Bop sax style on many tunes that’s more reminiscent of the likes of Ike Quebec or John Hardee than reedists who congregate below New York’s 14th Street. He even manages to sustain an a cappella coda on one tune without bringing the wrath of the reed gods down upon himself. At times biting his reed to create vibrations and overtones, on clarinet Speed can birth a light, floating Jimmy Giuffre-style tone without often getting into uncomfortable cockatoo territory and use echoing multiphonics elsewhere for some woody, lower register extravagance.

A powerful take-charge drummer, de Rossi appears to know instinctively when to stick to the cymbals with bass drum boots for accents and when to rely on nothing more than rims shots to get his ideas across. Each of his originals is built on quasi-Latin beats, usually resembling slow-burning hand clappers. Featured bassist Senni, who appears to have played with nearly every Italian jazzer as well as Americans like trumpeter Randy Brecker and tenor man Steve Grossman, contributes his own well-modulated, romping line and acquits himself competently in the Mingus role on a couple of tunes. When both bull fiddlers are on board they take turns playing acro and pizzicato, with one mountain- climbing up the peak of the bass’s neck, and the other applying weightlifter’s pressure to keep the rhythm, going.

Notwithstanding its title, the weather here isn’t too hot. In fact there’s nothing here will scorch you or cause discomfort. At the same time, though, the music isn’t burning hot or blazing like the sun the way the best jazz created by de Rossi’s heroes was. It’s certainly nothing to apologize for, but next time out, with a little more thought, perhaps de Rossi will reveal his own personality.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Railway Junction 2. Mob Job 3. Sultry 4. Elephantasy 5. Hot* 6. Driva Man* 7. Souther 8. Torrid 9. Fleuette Africaine [African Flower] 10. [Justice] Evidence 11. Weird Nightmare* 12. Miss Ann 13. Sergio* 14. Humid*

Personnel: Chris Speed (tenor saxophone clarinet); Stefano Senni (bass)[all tracks except 8]; Giovanni Maier (bass)*; Zeno De Rossi (drums)

March 22, 2002

JOHN HOLLENBECK

No Images
CRI Blueshift 2002

JOHN HOLLENBECK
Quartet Lucy
CRI Blueshift 2003

JOHN HOLLENBECK
The Claudia Quartet
CRI Blueshift 2004

Moving among improv, big band jazz, New music and song-based material, percussionist/composer John Hollenbeck has made a name for himself in New York over the past half-decade. During that time, Hollenbeck, who also has a master’s degree from Rochester’s Eastman School of Music has worked with folks as varied as dancer/composer Meredith Monk, arranger Bob Brookmeyer, “downtown” trumpeter Cuong Vu and Klezmer brassman Frank London.

Taken together, these three new CDs impressively illuminate the diversity of his compositional and playing skills. But enough insubstantial music appears on them to prevent coming up with the highest rating for the entire oeuvre.

Most problematic, especially from a jazz point of view, is the Quartet Lucy disc. Even acknowledging that the drummer has characterized his vision as taking in elements of both jazz and classical music -- and what a murky Third Stream that is to swim in -- most of the tunes of this project seem too precious and wimpy.

Chief irritant is the singing voice of Theo Bleckmann, an acquired taste at best. With a timbre that resembles that of a counter-tenor or a castrato, he adds even more of a lacy front parlor feel to the 10 tunes here. Defenders would point out that the song-oriented results are skewed more towards the concepts of Meredith Monk rather than Thelonious Monk or the Monkees. But the frothy sheen of slow-moving wordless vocalizing and continuous held notes lean more towards easy listening.

When words are added to the equation, as on “The Music of Life” and “Dreams for Tomorrow” the banalities of the sentiments don’t help. On the latter, which Bleckmann begins singing in a more conventional register, returns to the castrato region once Skuli Sverrison begins plucking his bajo sexto. Sverrison’s ethereal, Pat Metheny-style electric bass forays don’t help other numbers, nor do Dan Willis’ contributions on very legit-sounding English horn and flute.

The main argument against this session is that these saccharine touches detract from Hollenbeck’s pointed percussion excursions most of the time. It’s hard to know whether “Jazz Envy” with its go-man-go electric bass work, tough tenor sax solo and stiff drum beat is supposed to be a parody of the music, like John Zorn’s “Jazz Snob Eat Shit” t-shirt. If it is, parodying the music with a 19th century concept doesn’t prove much.

More of a showcase for the percussionist’s versatility is NO IMAGES, which features him in five different situations in six tracks. Very quickly passing over another track with Bleckmann and even sparser accompaniment, your ears should be directed to “The Drum Major Instinct”, Hollenbeck’s major achievement. Conceived of during his final year at Eastman, the nearly 25 minute long composition pairs the taped voice of Martin Luther King Jr. with three trombonists and the drummer. Functioning as both the church choir and a congregation energized by King’s sermon, the bones add rumble, slur, flutter and plunger sounds to his works, following the pitch and cadence of the minister’s voice.

Vehement in execution as King denounces the war in Vietnam and the White Citizens Council with equal fervor, the trombone choir and drums not only recall those sounds provided by a Sanctified combo, but the emotions stirred up the statements. Direct, percussive and to the point, Hollenbeck’s writing and playing makes concrete the link between the sermon’s title and his art.

Almost as impressive are the tracks which feature the drummer dueting with either tenor saxophonist Dave Liebman or tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, or those two plus tenor saxophonist Rick DiMuzio.

Top rank here should go to the mano-a-mano stop-and-start blow out with Eskelin. Using his deep breathing, abstract tones -- and overtones -- to spur the drummer to investigate all parts of his kit from miniscule cymbal and triangle tickles to protracted press rolls and bass drum accents. With a harder, heavier tone than Eskelin and an approach that’s closer to the Energy music of the 1960s, Liebman growls, squeals and frog marches through the tempos as the drummer tastefully smashes and bangs at full speed and strength to keep up.

Variegated tempos and techniques enliven the more than 10 minute “Bluegreenyellow” as Hollenbeck sticks to a pulsating rhythmic line with percussive accents to face off against all three saxes at once. Parrying and thrusting, each reedman takes turns stepping up front to solo, with the others acting as a sort of Greek chorus. All and all the satisfying outcome sounds vaguely martial, though it does end rather suddenly.

For pure consistency, the music of the Claudia Quintet, which performs well-received club gigs throughout Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is most convincing. But even here a certain sameness creeps into the almost 68 minutes of the disc.

While some of the city’s most accomplished downtowners are featured -- reedman Chris Speed, accordionist Ted Reichman, vibist Matt Moran and bassist Drew Gress -- the George-Shearing-meets-the-Bowery band could do with some tougher charts and execution.

“Thursday 11:14am (grey)”, for instance, the longest track, is suffused with the sort of echoing melancholy you can find around Ground Zero these days. Between the languorous clarinet tones, tiny drumbeats and the shimmer of vibes using almost no vibrato, the effect is almost lighter than air. In the end the tune moves so slowly that you can almost sense it vanishing into thin air.

Oddly, considering its usual place in an ensemble, it’s the bass solo in “No D”, which speeds up the tempo and pushes the vibes and drums into more regular foot-patting rhythm after Hollenbeck and Moran individually have turned out restrained percussion prologues. Speed’s spikier tenor sound and Reichman’s swirling keys and bellows add to the new mood. On “Visions of Claudia” the clarinetist toys with multiphonics after he’s stated the melody in mid-register. Hollenbeck’s military-style tattoo advances the tune, with accordion chords cushioning the exposition.

This triptych of releases certainly illustrates the three faces of John and what he can do is in his many personas. Portending well for the percussionist’s future as a multi-talent, they suggest that tying all the personalities together may one day allow him to aurally paint his masterpiece.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Claudia: 1. meinetwegen 2. a-b-s-t-i-n-e-n-c-e 3. Love Song for Kate 4. Thursday 7:30pm (holy) 5. Thursday 11:14am (grey) 6. Thursday 3:44pm (playground) 7. Burt and Ken 8. ...after a dance or two, we sit down for a pint with Gil and Tim... 9. No D 10. Visions of Claudia

Personnel: Claudia: Chris Speed (clarinet, tenor saxophone); Ted Reichman (accordion); Matt Moran (vibraphone, percussion); Drew Gress (bass); John Hollenbeck (drums, percussion)

Track Listing: Lucy: 1.Vanishing Lucy 2. ethel 3. Foreva 4. materna 5. dreams for tomorrow^ 6. Constant Conversation (8:29) 7.Chapel flies* 8. jazz envy 9. Vira-folha* 10. The Music of Life

Personnel: Lucy: Dan Willis (tenor and soprano saxophone, flute, English horn); Jonas Tauber (cello)*; Skuli Sverrison (electric bass, bajo sexto)^; John Hollenbeck (drums, percussion, piano, berimbau^); Theo Bleckmann (voice, piano^)

Track Listing: No: 1. Bluegreenyellow#^+& 2. Without morning 3. Liebman/Hollenbeck Vignettes+ 4. The Drum Major Instinct*~ 5. Eskelin/Hollenbeck Vignettes^ 6. No images$

Personnel: No: Tim Sessions*, David Taylor*, Ray Anderson* (trombones); Rick DiMuzio#, Ellery Eskelin^, David Liebman+ (tenor saxophones); Ben Monder (guitar%); John Hollenbeck (drums, percussion, laughter samples and autoharp with portable fan$); Theo Bleckmann (voice%); Martin Luther King Jr. (voice on tape~)

January 8, 2002

SATOKO FUJII

JO
Buzz zz76008

Like many young pianists faced with the looming reflections of giants such as Evans, Tyner, Taylor, Bley and Jarett, Satoko Fujii must confront musical schizophrenia. Should she perform in a fragile, introspective style or let herself be completely free? Unfortunately, it would seem that small group and solo work brings out her quiet side, which isn't all that distinctive.

That's why this album plays to her strengths. Working as part of a 15-piece ensemble, the pianist, who divides her time between New York and Japan, is able to become just one part of the mix, leaving the stronger statements to more extroverted players. More tellingly, she wrote six of the eight compositions. And the pulsating big band writing, built on ascending motifs, belies the delicacy of some of her solo work.

One person who won't be accused of delicacy is her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, who likely takes most of the trumpet solos. It's probably him who provides the aggressive push on tunes such as "Reminiscence" and "Kyu", as well as the slower section and pseudo bugle calls on "Sola".

A strong rhythmic pulse is maintained by drummer Aaron Alexander and Stomu Takeishi, who seems to be playing electric bass most of the time. Together with baritone saxophonist Mike Sim, they give the frequently atmospheric music a good bottom on which to build the solos.

Surprisingly --or perhaps, more tellingly -- there's nothing particularly "Oriental" about Fujii's writing or that of Tamura, who was responsible for the other two tunes. Sure, there may be a vague Japanese inflection in the middle section of Tamura's "Okesa-Yansado", that feature heavy emphasis from Alexander and a slippery solo from one of the saxophonists; while "Wakerasuka" balances some single note Cecil Taylor-like keyboard frills with bass riffs, a fleet low-down trombone solo and vocal exhortations from the band that may be in Japanese -- but that doesn't make it Asian. Instead the music sounds like modern, big band writing along the lines of Gil Evans or Carla Bley.

And the session seems to be invigorating as well. Some of Fujii's best work may come on "Around The Corner", where subdued inner-piano explorations are backed with shimmering, ascending horn cushions.

The chief weaknesses of this session could perhaps be chalked up to reticence. Many of the tunes, like the child-like "Jasper" never seem to develop and are cut off before they make a statement. And, of course, not identifying the soloists is frustrating, when you don't know, for instance, which reedist is upfront on "Around the Corner".

All and all, though, JO is a solidifying of Fujii's skills, which hopefully will be applied to her next disc in a more intimate context.

Jack Walrath, John Carlson, Dave Ballou, Natsuki Tamura (trumpets); Curtis Hasselbring, Joe Fiedler, Joey Sellers (trombone); Oscar Noriega (alto saxophone, bass clarinet), Briggan Krauss (alto saxophone), Chris Speed (tenor saxophone, clarinet); David Castiglione (tenor and soprano saxophones); Mike Sim (baritone saxophone); Fujii (piano); Stomu Takeishi (bass); Aaron Alexander (drums)

-Ken Waxman

January 5, 2000