Festival Report

The Guelph Jazz Festival
By Ken Waxman

A spectre was haunting the 2012 Guelph Jazz Festival (GJF), but it was a benign spectre: the ghost of John Coltrane. The influence of Coltrane, who died in 1967, was honored in direct and indirect ways throughout the five days of the festival which takes places annually in this mid-sized college town, 100 kilometres west of Toronto.

This year’s edition (September 5 to 9), featured two live performances of Ascension, Coltrane’s free jazz masterwork from 1965, one with the original instrumentation by an 11-piece Toronto ensemble at the local arts centre; the other on the main stage of the soft-seated River Run Centre concert hall featured the Bay-area ROVA saxophone’s quartet reimaging of the work, scored for 12 musicians adding strings and electronics to the basic ensemble.

Coltrane’s legacy was also apparent in the improvising of Reggie Workman, bassist in one version of Trane`s quartet, with the Brew trio with kotoist Miya Masaoka and percussionist Gerry Hemingway, as well as in the impassioned playing of alto saxophonist Darius Jones, whose duo with pianist Matthew Shipp split the bill with Brew during an afternoon concert in the River Run`s smaller concert hall. Coltrane’s commend of the saxophone was not only recalled in the wide ranging work of many other reedists present, including a trio of saxophonists in the jazz-jive-R&B Shuffle Demons band, one of the high points of the GJF’s 12 hours of free outdoor concerts in a large tent in front of Guelph City Hall, but in a more profound fashion by the incisive tenor soloing by Peter Brötzmann and Larry Ochs. Those two gigs were part of the more than six dozen other performances during the GJF’s third annual dusk-to-dawn Nuit Blanche extravaganza. The ghostly forms visible during Nuit Blanche, were those of festival goers moving at interval s among sites throughout the city ranging from art galleries, yoga studios to parks attending as many shows as possible.

True to the shape of the composition, Rova’s Electric Ascension – cornetist Rob Mazurek; saxophonists Larry Ochs, Jon Raskin, Steve Adams and Bruce Ackley; violinists Carla Kihlstedt and Jenny Scheinman; guitarist Nels Cline; Fred Frith on electric bass; drummers Hamid Drake; Ikue Mori and Chris Brown on electronics – used prompts and hand signals to pilot Trane’s amorphous score. With Drake’s backbeat plus Brown’s and Mori’s processed oscillations and juddering vibrations constant presences, the performance frequently was transported from dense tremolo crescendos for all, to measured solos, duos and trios. An impassioned, double-time alto solo for instance would be paired with opaque guitar distortion and sluicing electric bass runs; or a phrase would toggle between Mazurek’s looped triplets and Raskin’s stretched tongue stops; or unison guitar and violin plinking would presage a cacophonous sound-shard explosion

Frith’s characteristically witty guitar playing was better exposed during a Nuit Blanche show at the intimate Guelph Youth Music Centre (GYMC). Instrument resting on his knees, bare feet manipulating effects pedals, Frith pummeled and bowed his strings more often than he strummed them; showed drum stick between strings and the neck and used an e-bow to create chiming vibrating while picking up snatches of local radio programs. Although processing as well, Masaoka was similarly restrained at the Brew set, relying instead on her koto command able to replicate anything from harp-like glissandi to isolated guitar picking on her multi-string instrument; she even used chop sticks on the bridge for different effects. Committed to three-way dialogue, Hemingway smacked, rotated, patted and tapped his drums and cymbals. Meanwhile Workman maintained pulsating, jazz-defining bass lines when he wasn’t rubbing his strings or bowing and stroking them in one fluid motion. At one point he achieved a rhythmic effect knee-slapping and foot-banging.

Rhythmic beats were present in abundance during a well-attended church-basement set by Norway’s Huntsville – guitarist/banjoist Ivar Grydeland, electric bassist Tonny Kluften and percussionist Ingar Zach – joined by Cline and drummer Glenn Kotche. Although there were sequences during which Kluften’s pedal point joined Grydeland, jangling guitar runs or bowed banjo twangs plus Zach’s contrapuntal tap, wiggle and pops on miscellaneous percussion gave new impetus to the buoyant folk-like melodies the trio uniquely reconstruction. Cline and Kotche may have spent too much time in rock bands. Flashy and busy in the guitarist’s case or overwhelming percussive in the drummer’s, the two exacerbated a tendency to leadenness only lessened when Kotche withdrew for Zach’s beat manipulation and Cline concentrated on vibrating a shruti box.

Simple, folk-like melodies were also prominent during a morning recital at the (GYMC) by Scheinman and pianist Myra Melford. Melford frequently also squeezed accordion-like tremolos from a harmonium as Scheinman used glissandi friction and flying spiccatto to build up dramatic sequences from what sometime threatened to turn into a hoedown. But the detours away from fiddle tunes with accompaniment towards compositions that allowed the pianist to exhibit spiky intonation and a slippery blues time sense were more notable. Melford’s 12-bar command also appeared 24 hours later in the same location as her encore following a rapturously received solo piano showcased was a pumped-up version of honky-tonk. Her skill digging into blues chord progressions was as obvious as her playing of a series of emotional miniatures she previewed, composed to reflect a series of artist’s sketches. Using assertive elbow pushes on the keyboard plus jocular stops and variously weighted climaxes, she composed a series of interludes that threatened to fragment into dissonance but never did.

Another pianist skillful in exhibiting the broad strokes of dissonance is Shipp. His recourse to glistening arpeggio runs, processional chording, kinetic patterning and waves of impressionistic color was notable in itself. Evolving in parallel fashion to Jones’ reed invention was another highlight. With his all-encompassing and fluid blowing approaching the intensity of late Coltrane, Jones often compressed distended cries and altissimo screams into aggressive almost impenetrable glossolalia; elsewhere he built solos out of key percussion, distended slurps and reed bites or churned so many splintered runs that Shipp relied on foot pedal pressure to meet him.

Ochs and Brötzmann were two other extenders of Trane’s spirit, the former in a duo with Drake in a yoga studio and the latter with vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz at the (GYMC). Weaving his tenor or soprano saxophone above the packed crowd seated on the floor, Ochs mixed moderato and agitated tones as he slid from harsh reflux to shofar-like bays, swallowed breaths, vocalized altissimo riffs or nephritic cries. Connecting these disjointed vibrations, Drake used windmill-like patterning as he rapped on a wood block, strokes drum tops and cymbals with brushes and gauged exactly when to clobber his bass drum for maximum effect. If Ochs/Drake recalled Trane’s celebrated duets with Rashied Ali, then Brötzmann, who created an unparalleled Euroimprov variant around the time Ascension was recorded, boisterously pushed each one of its four horns to its limits backed only by an instrument he professed to dislike. Favoring four mallets, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz held his own however emphasizing his instrument’s chordal and percussive qualities. With marionette-like jerks, sometime balancing on one foot, the vibist rang out enough polyphonic chords or hard-hitting single notes to match Brötzmann, whether he was producing blues-based multiphonics from his alto, angled smears from his tárogató or stacking intense blasts ridden with even tougher split-tone shrieks from his tenor.

Like Coltrane or nearly every one of the featured performers at the 2012 festival, Brötzmann balanced absolute sound experimentation with sonic story telling. His breath-taking textural display helped pinpoint why the GJF has become a major international festival. Participants are now anxiously awaiting 2013’s edition to find out what the GJF’s significant 20th anniversary edition will highlight.

--For New York City Jazz Record October 2012

October 7, 2012

Kyle Bruckmann

On Procedural Grounds
New World Records 80725-2

Kyle Bruckmann’s Wrack

Cracked Refraction

Porter Records PRCD 4061

As improvised music’s pre-eminent – well let’s face it probably only – oboe and English horn specialist, Oakland, Calif.-based Kyle Bruckmann has been flexing his organizational muscles as a band leader and composer during the past few years. These recent CDs showcase these talents admirably along, of course, with his distinctive soloing.

Gigging with New music ensembles, the Stockton Symphony and many area regional orchestras plus a smattering of Rock and electronic music bands is how Bruckmann makes his living, but it’s with his own Wrack quintet that he expresses his own ideas. Mostly consisting of Chicago musicians with whom Bruckmann played before relocating to the Bay area in 2003, the band is filled out by one player, violist Jen Clare Paulson, who is mostly involved in notated music ensembles, plus three others – bass clarinetist Jason Stein, bassist Anton Hatwich and percussionist Tim Daisy – who usually work the Improv/Jazz side of the equation, with associates such as saxophonists Ken Vandermark and Dave Rempis.

Wrack’s strength is that nowhere does the band sound like it’s playing a Third Stream pastiche, alternating between so-called classical and Jazz licks. Instead inferences from both of these musical streams as well as some Rock rhythms, courtesy of Daisy’s frequent backbeat and Hatwich’s unstoppable time keeping, result in a distinct Wrack sound. If anything the tunes could be divided between fast and slow rather than in any other ways.

On the later Paulson’s legato playing seems to predominate. The concluding “NJBC” for instance is moderated and linear with underplayed, almost Early Music-like harmonies from the two strings and two other reeds, with additional melancholy tones added from Bruckmann. Yet when it comes time for her solo, the violist manages to be both impressionistic and spiky. Plus the tune is built around Daisy’s marimba pops.

Meantime speedy showpieces like “Ratchetforms” and “The Dishevelator” concentrate on reed glissandi and twittering, double bass walking plus rolls and ruffs from the drummer. Stop-time and staccato, the latter piece includes a barnburner of a solo from Stein that’s all reed bites and agitated lines spurred on by some hand-banging percussion from Daisy. The former includes some neo-classical lyrical passages all swallowed notes and pinched timbres; although there’s enough reed kisses, wah-wah effects and whistles to keep things from getting too sentient.

Notwithstanding, “Notwithstanding” may be the best example of Bruckmann’s mature writing style. With a formal exposition that’s echoed in the piece’s final strains, the tune allows for multiple variations that take the shape of everything from processional harmonies from the viola and horns contrasted with double-pumping bass and the drummer’s press rolls; to Bruckmann and Stein intertwining to create strange traffic horn-like peeps and twitters.

In a way Wrack writ large figures in the extended composition which gives Bruckmann’s other disc its title and longest performance. “On Procedural Grounds” is a recasting of a piece composed for a Chicago Sound Map Project, now featuring the five Wrackers plus the ROVA saxophone quartet as well as Tim Perkis and Gino Robair playing live electronics. For almost 29½-minutes the 11-piece ensemble slithers its way through an invention that adds the jittering, time-shifting output of Wracks’s front line to swinging interpolations from the rhythm section, spinning riffs from ROVA and crackling oscillations and flanges from the two dial twisters. With ROVA’s Larry Ochs interpolating a vamping tenor saxophone solo with slap-tongue insouciance to the proceedings, the composition’s reaches its first climax as yakety sax licks meet Daisy’s doubled ruff and cowbell emphasis. Intervals of watery electronics presage a steadying pulse as the slurping snorts from Jon Raskin’s baritone saxophone turn into altissimo smears giving way to a bass clarinet intermezzo that match up with bubbling and signal processed electronic impulses. From that point until a finale of processed electronic delays, bowed strings and cumulative reed glissandi, the theme bounces from one instrumental group to the next, encompassing reed bites, tongue slaps, spetrofluctuation, lumbering string strokes plus horn harmony which references the head.

Besides examples of Bruckmann’s solo and duo work, the other major track on the CD is “Tarpit” featuring the oboist with a different Bay area ensemble, including reeds, strings, electronics and percussion sections plus Robair on prepared piano. An accomplished percussionist, Robair uses staccato plucks, quivering string undertow and concussion smacks and strokes to create the leitmotif of the composition. Added to this are Kjell Nordesen’s drum top rubs and drags, tambourine shakes and signal processed drones which contrast with the violin, viola and cello’s legato harmonized lines. Eventually these polytonal and polyharmonic sound undulations reach a crescendo of concurrent expression until timbral reed flutters and granulation punctuate the mass process for a distinctive conclusion.

Curiously, On Procedural Grounds is labeled “file under Classical/Contemporary…” although most of Bruckmann’s music is as aleatoric as it is notated. Perhaps some people are still leery of the J word. Whatever it’s labeled the music from oboist/English hornist/bandleader/composer results in two superlative CDS.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Cracked: 1. Exacerbator 2. Notwithstanding 3. Ratchetforms 4. Fair to Middling 5. The Dishevelator 6. A Shambles 7. NJBC

Personnel: Cracked: Kyle Bruckmann (oboe and English horn); Jason Stein (bass clarinet); Jen Clare Paulson (viola); Anton Hatwich (bass) and Tim Daisy (percussion)

Track Listing: Procedural: 1. Cell Structure* 2. On Procedural Grounds+ 3. Orgone Accelerator 4. Tarpit

Personnel: Procedural: Kyle Bruckmann (oboe, English horn and, electronics) with Matt Ingalls (clarinet with electronics); Wrack [Jason Stein (bass clarinet); Jen Clare Paulson (viola); Anton Hatwich (bass); Tim Daisy (percussion) and ROVA Saxophone Quartet [Bruce Ackley (soprano saxophone); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (tenor saxophone); Jon Raskin (baritone saxophone); plus Tim Perkis and Gino Robair (live electronics)+ or SFSOUND [Matt Ingalls (clarinet, bass clarinet); John Ingle (alto saxophone); Gino Robair (prepared piano); Benjamin Kreith (violin); Tara Flandreau (viola); Monica Scott (cello); Kjell Nordesen (percussion with electronics)

September 21, 2012

ROVA Saxophone Quartet

A Short History
Jazzwerkstatt JW 099

Ballrogg

Cabin Music

Hubro CD 2515

Matthew Shipp Trio

Elastic Aspects

Thirsty Ear TH 57202.2

Albert Beger/Gerry Hemingway

There’s Nothing Better to Do

OutNow Records ONR 007

Something in The Air: New Excitement at the Guelph Jazz Festival

By Ken Waxman

One of jazz’s watershed musical creations, John Coltrane’s 1965 performance of Ascension marked his committeemen to Free Jazz and has since served as a yardstick against which saxophone-centred large ensemble improvisations are measured. On September 7 at the River Run Centre’s main stage, one of the highpoints of this year’s Guelph Jazz Festival is a reimagining of Coltrane’s masterwork by the Bay area-based ROVA Saxophone Quartet and guests. Not only is the ensemble gutsily tackling the suite, but its arrangement take Coltrane’s all-acoustic piece for five saxes, two trumpets and rhythm section and reconfigures it so that ROVA’s four saxes, and one trumpeter interact with two drummers, two violins, electric guitar and bass plus electronic processing.

You can get an idea of ROVA’s style of sonic daring-do on A Short History Jazzwerkstatt JW 099. Referencing all sorts of reed writing from R&B vamps to atonal serialism, the 35-year-old quartet made up of soprano and tenor saxophonist Bruce Ackley, alto and sopranino saxophonist Steve Adams, baritone and alto saxophonist Jon Raskin and tenor and sopranino saxophonist Larry Ochs show its versatility throughout. Especially germane and related to Ascension, is a section on Part 2 of the Ochs-composed Certain Space sequence when he corkscrews an intense, stop-time solo into a strident collection of irregular polyphony and slap-tongue invention from the other saxes with the authority of Coltrane’s sax choir from 47 years earlier. That’s merely one highlight of this tour-de-force which outline’s the band’s other influences with tracks dedicated to improv pianist Cecil Taylor and notated composers Giacinto Scelsi and Morton Feldman. The Scelsi section dramatically contrasts bagpipe-like slurs from the soloists with impressionistic harmonies from the other reeds modulating through different modes and tones. Although other sequences in the Taylor section expose sinewy tessitura and staccato reed bites in call-and-response fashion, Part 3, for Feldman is unsurprisingly moderato and leisurely, introduced and completed by air blown through the horns’ body tubes without key movement, yet lyrically balanced throughout as each saxophone’s timbre is clearly heard within the close harmonies.

That same night, Ascension guitarist Nels Cline and others will join members of the Norwegian Huntsville trio at St. George’s Church for its unique mixture of improvisation tempered with electronic impulses and influenced by folk and rock music textures. Huntsville’s Ivar Grydeland, who plays electric, acoustic and pedal steel guitars plus banjo and electronics with bassist Tonny Kluften and percussionist Ingar Zach in that band, shows off his zesty mix of spidery licks, resonating twangs and droning pulses with Ballrogg, another Norwegian combo on Cabin Music Hubro CD 2515 With that trio filled out by alto saxophonist/clarinetist Klaus Holm, who adds electronics and field recordings to the mix, and bassist Roger Arntzen, the disc is a close cousin to what Huntsville creates, albeit with more overdubbing, and with Grydeland frailing his banjo as often as he strums his guitar, more country-folksy. Probably the most descriptive track is Sliding Doors which manages to deftly balance clarinet glissandi, ringing banjo flanges and a powerful walking bass line. Before the result takes on too much of a rural interface however, the trio’s juddering interaction is meticulously intercut with previously prepared jagged guitar flanges and sluicing bass lines.

There are no guitars in sight the next afternoon at a double bill at River Run Centre’s Cooperators Hall, although Miya Masaoka’s multi-string koto may make up for that as she plays with bassist Reggie Workman and percussionist Gerry Hemingway. A long-time festival visitor, Hemmingway’s recent CD with tenor and soprano saxophonist Albert Beger There’s Nothing Better to Do OutNow Records ONR 007 demonstrates the drummer’s skill in the sort of duo format that Coltrane excelled in during his latter career. The near-naked improvising of this first-time meeting between American drummer and Israeli saxophonist demonstrates the universality of expression, Using his hands as often as sticks and brushes, Hemingway is as likely to come up with a tom-tom rhythm, produce a ratcheting scratch on his kit’s sides or tap a small bell as he is to let loose with full-force ruffs and drags. Beger responds to these understated rhythms in kind, with hoarse-throated vibrations, ragged tongue fluttering or surprisingly aligned trills, which are as often chromatic as cascading. Using both his horns throughout, the saxophonist’s moderate tones can be graceful and emotional as Hemingway’s beats gracefully scurry around them. However elsewhere ragged, altissimo reed bites stridently operate in tandem with the drummer’s blunt flams and tough backbeat. With bravura timing the two show how easily they can move from cacophonous vibrations to an arrhythmic but bluesy output on Missing You or on the title track, speedily layering freak reed notes and circular slurs plus clashing cymbals and incisive shuffle beats into a parallel exposition that is as moving as it is staccato.

Negotiating the tightrope between staccato and lyrical in his playing is the forte of pianist Matthew Shipp, whose duo with saxophonist Darius Jones is the other half of the double bill at Cooperators Hall. Elastic Aspects Thirsty Ear TH 57202.2 with long-time associates bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey however, shows that Shipp’s improvising can be as mercurial in the standard jazz piano trio setting as well. With each of the 13 aspects of this suite stretching so that they adhere to one another, the effect is wholly organic, not unlike the recording of Ascension. With Dickey’s nuanced patterning and Bisio’s buzzing, often bowed, sometimes walking bass lines beside him, Shipp skillfully moves through the piano language. A track like Explosive Aspects balances on ringing, left-handed syncopation, while the subsequent Raw Materials evolves like a baroque invention with leaping, high-pitched notes carefully shaded as they jostle with pedal-point bass line until the theme finally break free into rubato pulsing. There are internal string plucks and harpsichord echoes in Shipp’s playing as well. With tremolo, lyrical and sometimes impressionistic patterning on show, the trio maintains the swinging centre of jazz while subtly or overtly charting new experiments and explorations.

Overall 2012 promises to be a banner year for the Guelph Jazz Festival. And that’s not even mentioning the dark-to-dusk Nuit Blanche late Saturday encompassing more unexpected sounds.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 18 #1

September 6, 2012

ROVA

Planetary
SoLyd SLR 0407

Exquisitely empathetic after having played together for more than 30 years, Bay-area-based saxophone quartet ROVA still operates in a fashion that is as vigorous as it is eloquent, as this CD demonstrates. More to the point it confirms the quartet’s interaction, when you realize that the program which fits together seamlessly, is sutured between three compositions recorded in 2009, and two – including the title track – created six years earlier.

Just as generic to the situation, is that in performance ROVA is never at a loss for unique modulations and blends to introduce to the sound. The reason is two-fold, except for one personnel change very early on, the members of ROVA: soprano and tenor saxophonist Bruce Ackley; alto saxophonist Steve Adams; tenor saxophonist Larry Ochs; and Jon Raskin, who plays baritone and alto saxophone here, have been together long enough intuit the others’ reed strategies, and are confident enough to allow the music to develop organically. Additionally, over three decades not only has ROVA involved itself in a variety of thematic material and with many guests, but also the quartet isn’t anyone’s solitary pursuit. Each saxophonist – Ochs more than the others – spreads himself among other bands.

To get an idea of the CD’s process, consider Ochs’ “Planetary”, which was conceived of as a game piece structured with improvisational cells. Its contents shift according to cues as well as responses to the other player(s)’ sonic colors. This strategy leads to single interpretations involving tongue slaps, split tones and key percussion before interludes reverberate into unifying polyphony. Although the sometimes simultaneous solos are sprawling and staccato these sour and dyspeptic pressurized vamps are only one part of the composition. When the four work up to undulating unison harmonies, the linear result puts the lie to anyone claiming experimental sounds can’t also be affecting and lyrical.

This is true too for the other Ochs composition and those written by Adams. Each is careful layered so that each tone from top to bottom is heard clearly in the mix, with treble whistling as audible as gruff snorts. For added liveliness there’s a hint of fralicher phraseology in Ochs’ tune “S”. As noteworthy, Adams’ “Parallel Construction #2” sympathetically harmonizes mellow tones. Again while individual expression incorporates pressurized double tonguing and broken glissandi, the composition takes on linear form when reeds vibrating congruently and collectively expose different tempi, times and pitches from New Thing echoes to martial music.

Although initially conceived of as a dance score, “Glass Head Concretion” by Adams, could be the most definitive track since there’s a distinctive part for each player. More remarkable is that by its conclusion the quartet manages to reach a three-dimensional concordance that is concomitantly studded with pressurized flattement and juddering split tones.

Familiarity actually breeds distinction in ROVA’s. So, it doesn’t seem a stretch to imagine that the quartet will continue to make music of this matchless quality for years to come.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Parallel Construction #1 2. S 3. Flip Trap 4. Glass Head Concretion 5. Planetary 6. Parallel Construction #2

Personnel: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (tenor saxophone) and Jon Raskin (baritone and alto saxophones)

December 15, 2011

ROVA

Planetary
SoLyd SLR 0407

Exquisitely empathetic after having played together for more than 30 years, Bay-area-based saxophone quartet ROVA still operates in a fashion that is as vigorous as it is eloquent, as this CD demonstrates. More to the point it confirms the quartet’s interaction, when you realize that the program which fits together seamlessly, is sutured between three compositions recorded in 2009, and two – including the title track – created six years earlier.

Just as generic to the situation, is that in performance ROVA is never at a loss for unique modulations and blends to introduce to the sound. The reason is two-fold, except for one personnel change very early on, the members of ROVA: soprano and tenor saxophonist Bruce Ackley; alto saxophonist Steve Adams; tenor saxophonist Larry Ochs; and Jon Raskin, who plays baritone and alto saxophone here, have been together long enough intuit the others’ reed strategies, and are confident enough to allow the music to develop organically. Additionally, over three decades not only has ROVA involved itself in a variety of thematic material and with many guests, but also the quartet isn’t anyone’s solitary pursuit. Each saxophonist – Ochs more than the others – spreads himself among other bands.

To get an idea of the CD’s process, consider Ochs’ “Planetary”, which was conceived of as a game piece structured with improvisational cells. Its contents shift according to cues as well as responses to the other player(s)’ sonic colors. This strategy leads to single interpretations involving tongue slaps, split tones and key percussion before interludes reverberate into unifying polyphony. Although the sometimes simultaneous solos are sprawling and staccato these sour and dyspeptic pressurized vamps are only one part of the composition. When the four work up to undulating unison harmonies, the linear result puts the lie to anyone claiming experimental sounds can’t also be affecting and lyrical.

This is true too for the other Ochs composition and those written by Adams. Each is careful layered so that each tone from top to bottom is heard clearly in the mix, with treble whistling as audible as gruff snorts. For added liveliness there’s a hint of fralicher phraseology in Ochs’ tune “S”. As noteworthy, Adams’ “Parallel Construction #2” sympathetically harmonizes mellow tones. Again while individual expression incorporates pressurized double tonguing and broken glissandi, the composition takes on linear form when reeds vibrating congruently and collectively expose different tempi, times and pitches from New Thing echoes to martial music.

Although initially conceived of as a dance score, “Glass Head Concretion” by Adams, could be the most definitive track since there’s a distinctive part for each player. More remarkable is that by its conclusion the quartet manages to reach a three-dimensional concordance that is concomitantly studded with pressurized flattement and juddering split tones.

Familiarity actually breeds distinction in ROVA’s. So, it doesn’t seem a stretch to imagine that the quartet will continue to make music of this matchless quality for years to come.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Parallel Construction #1 2. S 3. Flip Trap 4. Glass Head Concretion 5. Planetary 6. Parallel Construction #2

Personnel: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (tenor saxophone) and Jon Raskin (baritone and alto saxophones)

November 15, 2011

Rastascan

Label Spotlight
By Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--For New York City Jazz Record September 2011

September 10, 2011

ROVA & Nels Cline Singers

The Celestial Septet
New World Records NW 80708-2

A prime – and rare – case of parts actually adding up to a more impressive whole, The Celestial Septet joins two independently functioning improvising units into a first-class ensemble. Although both California-based ensembles, ROVA and the Nels Cline Singers, create impressive programs on their own, referencing sounds ranging from Energy Music to Noise Rock, this nearly 69-minute CD is open ended enough to provide a superlative environment for each band’s enhanced creativity.

More than 30 years old, ROVA is improvised music’s pre-eminent saxophone quartet, promulgating creations that link Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor with Iannis Xenakis and Morton Feldman. As a unit or on their own, the four band members – Larry Ochs, Bruce Ackley, Jon Raskin and Steve Adams – have worked with everyone from composer/saxophonist Anthony Braxton to kotoist Miya Masaoka, plus bassist Lisle Ellis and guitarist Fred Frith. A newer configuration, where thankfully no one is a vocalist, the Nels Cline Singers, are headed by a guitarist who has plays with musicians as varied as multi-reedist Vinny Golia and the band Wilco. Drummer Scott Amendola is part of a couple of Ochs’ side projects as well as playing with guitarist Jeff Parker among others; while bassist Devin Hoff is as comfortable working in the avant drums-and-bass duo Good for Cows as with the Sling and Arrow band.

Centrepiece of the session is Ochs nearly 25½-minute salute to saxophonist Albert Ayler, who was known to vocalize himself on occasions. Ignoring the divide between the so-called front line and rhythm section here as well as on the other compositions, “Whose to Know” has a theme as connected to the unison horns’ andante slurs as Cline’s folksy, trebly connective licks. As the bent notes multiply as the performance picks up speed, the tune exposes layered overtones that are both chromatic and sfumato. With the other saxes riffing and stuttering, Ochs’ outlines the narrative, while Cline’s solo turns quicken from plinks to a staccato replication of Ayler’s wide-bore melisma, with the additional distortion available from slurred fingering and reverb. Down below the hocketing cacophony, Amendola ruffs, smacks and drags, while Hoff’s thick stopping and wood-knocking pulse creates a frame for the polyphonic saxophone coloring. Completing the exposition by the final variants, Cline’s now gentle picking and Hoff’s slithering bass slaps introduce conclusive electronic drones which complement screaming, splintering reed tones.

Electronic swirls and pulses are more prominent on the drummer’s portrait of “Cesar Chávez”, which matches Raskin’s baritone saxophone snorts and slurs with downward strokes and twangs from the guitarist. Eventually, following some sopranino shrilling, the otherwise bulky reed parts coagulate decisively into thick vamps that are reminiscent of unison bagpipes lines.

Far removed from the other pieces is Cline’s 16-minute “The Buried Quilt”, whose overriding characteristic is serenity. This is advanced by waves of understated signal-processing, chain rattles, ceremonial bell ringing and curlicue triple sopranino flutter tones. Episodes of fortissimo atonality involving tongue-swallowed reed runs, polyphonic snorts and heavily rubbed bass lines meld with the oscillated electronic pulses for massed, whistling and conclusive timbres.

A first-class achievement the performance on this CD may not be incontestably heavenly, but it’s certainly celestial.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Cesar Chávez 2. Trouble Ticket 3. Whose to Know (for Albert Ayler) 4. Head Count 5. The Buried Quilt

Personnel: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (alto and sopranino saxophones); Larry Ochs (tenor, sopranino saxophones); Jon Raskin (sopranino, alto and baritone saxophones); Nels Cline (guitars); Devin Hoff (bass) and Scott Amendola (drums)

July 8, 2010

Larry Ochs

The Mirror World
Metalanguage MLX 2007

Two profoundly different – and stirring – musical musings on the unique films of the late Stan Brakhage, saxophonist Larry Ochs’ compositions, which make up The Mirror World, sonically reach the sense of infinite variety which Brakhage achieved in his films. Neither a portrait of one cinematic creation nor designed as a soundtrack to any of Brakhage’s works, Ochs compositions stand on their own, positing as original ways of hearing sounds as the film maker found personal ways to communicate his version of seeing light.

Including notated music for a 14-piece, plus-two-interpolated-players ensemble, “Hand” includes conduction and improvisational cues. Piling tones one upon another, it resembles Klangfarbenmelodie, with several pitches expressing multiple tone colors. Impressionistic in parts, “Hand” encompasses the distinctive textural and vibrational tones available from reeds, brass, strings and electronics, extended by and resonating from the chromatic distortion of John Schott’s electric guitar and the alternately ringing, stately processional or, most originally, rub-board-like thuds of William Winant’s and Gino Robair’s percussion.

Closer to Energy music, “Wall” is less structured. At times dissonant stutters, pig-like squeals and telescoped multiphonics are expressed by the saxophones of ROVA – Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Jon Raskin and Ochs – joined by Winant and Robair’s steady skin pounding. Yet as the tune undulates through several sections, low-key intermezzos that match tam-tam and vibe concussions with reed division between an alto saxophone propelling the melody and a tenor sax trilling variations on it, are as prominent as slap-tongue baritone saxophone riffs and unvarying percussion ruffs, flams, rolls and cow-bell peals.

One of Brakhage’s stated goals was to organize light in the projected image to aesthetically equal the poetry, painting, and music that inspired him. Doubtless he would agree that The Mirror World achieves the same objective from a dissimilar starting point.

-- Ken Waxman

-- In MusicWorks Issue #102

November 20, 2008

ROVA

The Juke Box Suite
Not Two MW 786-2

Marc Baron/Bertrand Denzler/Jean-Luc Guionnet/Stéphane Rives

Propagations

Potlatch P107

Evan Parker & Ned Rothenberg

Live At Roulette

Animul ANI 106

With unaccompanied group reed sessions now commonplace in improvised music, the challenge remains to make them more than technical exercises. Each of these notable CD succeeds in doing so; but each does so in an individual manner.

As could be expected from its populist title, The Juke Box Suite is probably the most lyrical of the many CDs from the Bay area-based ROVA quartet, which arguably pioneered the four saxophone concept in improv. Propagations, on the other hand, features a quartet of young French saxophonists, who have only performed in this formation since 2003. Completely eschewing the song form, the group’s one long performance uses textures, layering and arrangements that use reeds as sound sources rather than melody extensions. A duo, rather than a quartet like those on the other CDs, Brooklyn-based Ned Rothenberg and London-based Evan Parker exhibit their mastery of the multi-reed form by blending different combinations of Rothenberg’s three reeds and Parker’s two on six live performances.

Each Parker-Rothenberg coupling produces a different sonic. The alto (Rothenberg) and tenor (Parker) saxophone mix on “Who Asked Racine”, for instance, ricochets between very brisk and very slack timbres. Intertwined, contrapuntal and augmented with held note that are hocketed or snorted, the continuous reflective lines seem initially to be only Parker’s. But following Rothenberg rappelling down the scale with accompanying trills, the extended timbres bring both to warm modulations by the conclusion.

Parker’s characteristic circular breathing on soprano saxophone gets a work out on “Brew for the Birds”, although Rothenberg’s tongue-slapping clarinet work reaches an equal level of high-pitched coloratura. The note aspiration is such that the two twitter and chirp counterlines at one another, eventually negating any spare pauses left in the interaction. The clarinetist’s whistling legato phrasing perfectly connects to Parker intense, staccato vibrations.

In contrast, “The Artist’s Response” with Rothenberg on alto saxophone and Parker on soprano saxophone opens up the sound field with overblown trills and tongue-stopping contrapuntal pulses. With the output expressed in polytones as well as palindromes, this curvaceous intermezzo features so many circling, winding and gradated timbres that not only is it difficult to distinguish one saxman from the other, but at times the two sound like an entire sax section.

That’s something that may not be as evident on Propagations, even though the all the horns for a saxophone section are present. It may be because each reedist has evolved both a microtonal and macro-tonal playing style. Alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler are in the minimalist Hubbub band, but Guionnet also plays Energy Music with The Fish, and Denzler has recorded with more outgoing types like pianist John Wolf Brennan. Alto saxophonist Marc Baron has recorded as part of clarinetist Louis Sclavis’ band. Only soprano saxophonist Stéphane Rives is a strict microtonalist – at least on record.

Nuanced and layered, the collective improvisation on this CD relies most frequently on breaths forced through the horns’ body tubes as well as the siren-like textures created by intense reed biting. As the moderato piece evolves, complex loops of sound are used in such a way that the tonal centre constantly shifts, subtly exposing shards, sparkles and sprinkles of multiphonics which are as much in the background as the foreground.

Individual saxophones announce themselves through peeps, glottal punctuation, key percussion and tongue slaps. But as much as fortissimo but brief reed squeals are the norm, so are extended pauses. Infrequently as well, the four take up the role of a conventional sax section with one soloist performing individual reed gymnastics as around him the other three undulate overtones that reach organ-like cushioning tones.

By the piece’s final variation the slowly oscillating pulses do reach past fortissimo to occupy the entire sound field. Coalescing as one solid mass, the timbre moves in a straight line, studded with balanced growls, flattement vibrato and pulsating glissandi. Eventually it seems as if all the oxygen remaining in the studio has almost been sucked into the bells of the horns.

After showcasing broken-octave accelerated tones from each saxophone in succession, the four reach a crescendo of irregularly vibrated quadruple counterpoint that then diminishes to a finale of barely-there body tube echoes, metallic puffs and ear-straining, ever-lengthening then conclusive silences.

Protracted silences aren’t really programmed on The Juke Box Suite, but you wouldn’t expect this from the seven tracks – all composed by alto and baritone saxophonist Jon Raskin – that honor Balkan, Afro-Cuban and African music, and individually one of the fathers of modern Brazilian music; a writer who was both a socialist and a Yiddishist; a Finnish folk super group; big city R&B and rock music; and a German-American minimalist painter.

With all due respect to the composer, the dedications in the titles seem to promise more disparity among the tunes than the music itself. That said, the seven are individually and collectively rhythmically exciting and improvisationally sophisticated. Listen, for instance to the striking polyphonic cries on “Juke Box Niggum” from either Bruce Ackley’s or Larry Och’s tenor saxophone, which creates dancing, ecstatic trills, ornamented by pumping slurs from Raskin’s baritone saxophone.

Contrast that with the singing sopranino lines and tenor saxophone obbligatos which push against one another contrapuntally on “Juke Box Choro”. Again the baritone provides the bottom, tenor and alto (Steve Adams), chime in with mid-range trills as Ochs’ sopranino outlines the fervently romantic theme. Then there’s “Juke Box Värtinnä”. A delicate, almost madrigal-like song, the arrangement isolates different timbres so completely that each saxophone can be identified within the polyphonic performance.

Oddly enough, the liveliest track, the nearly 10-minute “Juke Box Detroit” is dedicated to The White Stripes rather than more appropriately John Lee Hooker, the MC5 or Tamla-Motown. Still the urban grit of the city appears to be reflected in the baritonist’s tongue stops and slaps and the tenorist’s rapid-fire riffing. Finally after the other horns move in counterpoint to guttural bari riffs, the extended shout chorus climaxes with all the horns tonguing in different tempi, leading to a restatement of the melody – which is also deconstructed as it’s sounded.

Sophisticated, coalesced saxophone science – and art – is demonstrated on each of these notable discs.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Roulette: 1. Who Asked Racine? 2. Brew for the Birds 3. Stick, Twist or Bust 4. On Alto On Tenor 5. The Artist’s Response 6. On Core En Cours

Personnel: Roulette: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet) and Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone)

Track Listing: Juke Box: 1. Juke Box Afro Balkan 2. Juke Box Mambo 3. Juke Box Niggum 4. Juke Box Detroit 5. Juke Box Hang Up 6. Juke Box Choro 7. Juke Box Värtinnä

Personnel: Juke Box: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (sopranino and tenor saxophones) and Jon Raskin (alto and baritone saxophones)

Track Listing: Propagations: 1. Propagations

Personnel: Propagations: Stéphane Rives (soprano saxophone); Marc Baron and Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto saxophones) and Bertrand Denzler tenor saxophone)

January 31, 2008

Marc Baron/Bertrand Denzler/Jean-Luc Guionnet/Stéphane Rives

Propagations
Potlatch P107

ROVA

The Juke Box Suite

Not Two MW 786-2

Evan Parker & Ned Rothenberg

Live At Roulette

Animul ANI 106

With unaccompanied group reed sessions now commonplace in improvised music, the challenge remains to make them more than technical exercises. Each of these notable CD succeeds in doing so; but each does so in an individual manner.

As could be expected from its populist title, The Juke Box Suite is probably the most lyrical of the many CDs from the Bay area-based ROVA quartet, which arguably pioneered the four saxophone concept in improv. Propagations, on the other hand, features a quartet of young French saxophonists, who have only performed in this formation since 2003. Completely eschewing the song form, the group’s one long performance uses textures, layering and arrangements that use reeds as sound sources rather than melody extensions. A duo, rather than a quartet like those on the other CDs, Brooklyn-based Ned Rothenberg and London-based Evan Parker exhibit their mastery of the multi-reed form by blending different combinations of Rothenberg’s three reeds and Parker’s two on six live performances.

Each Parker-Rothenberg coupling produces a different sonic. The alto (Rothenberg) and tenor (Parker) saxophone mix on “Who Asked Racine”, for instance, ricochets between very brisk and very slack timbres. Intertwined, contrapuntal and augmented with held note that are hocketed or snorted, the continuous reflective lines seem initially to be only Parker’s. But following Rothenberg rappelling down the scale with accompanying trills, the extended timbres bring both to warm modulations by the conclusion.

Parker’s characteristic circular breathing on soprano saxophone gets a work out on “Brew for the Birds”, although Rothenberg’s tongue-slapping clarinet work reaches an equal level of high-pitched coloratura. The note aspiration is such that the two twitter and chirp counterlines at one another, eventually negating any spare pauses left in the interaction. The clarinetist’s whistling legato phrasing perfectly connects to Parker intense, staccato vibrations.

In contrast, “The Artist’s Response” with Rothenberg on alto saxophone and Parker on soprano saxophone opens up the sound field with overblown trills and tongue-stopping contrapuntal pulses. With the output expressed in polytones as well as palindromes, this curvaceous intermezzo features so many circling, winding and gradated timbres that not only is it difficult to distinguish one saxman from the other, but at times the two sound like an entire sax section.

That’s something that may not be as evident on Propagations, even though the all the horns for a saxophone section are present. It may be because each reedist has evolved both a microtonal and macro-tonal playing style. Alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler are in the minimalist Hubbub band, but Guionnet also plays Energy Music with The Fish, and Denzler has recorded with more outgoing types like pianist John Wolf Brennan. Alto saxophonist Marc Baron has recorded as part of clarinetist Louis Sclavis’ band. Only soprano saxophonist Stéphane Rives is a strict microtonalist – at least on record.

Nuanced and layered, the collective improvisation on this CD relies most frequently on breaths forced through the horns’ body tubes as well as the siren-like textures created by intense reed biting. As the moderato piece evolves, complex loops of sound are used in such a way that the tonal centre constantly shifts, subtly exposing shards, sparkles and sprinkles of multiphonics which are as much in the background as the foreground.

Individual saxophones announce themselves through peeps, glottal punctuation, key percussion and tongue slaps. But as much as fortissimo but brief reed squeals are the norm, so are extended pauses. Infrequently as well, the four take up the role of a conventional sax section with one soloist performing individual reed gymnastics as around him the other three undulate overtones that reach organ-like cushioning tones.

By the piece’s final variation the slowly oscillating pulses do reach past fortissimo to occupy the entire sound field. Coalescing as one solid mass, the timbre moves in a straight line, studded with balanced growls, flattement vibrato and pulsating glissandi. Eventually it seems as if all the oxygen remaining in the studio has almost been sucked into the bells of the horns.

After showcasing broken-octave accelerated tones from each saxophone in succession, the four reach a crescendo of irregularly vibrated quadruple counterpoint that then diminishes to a finale of barely-there body tube echoes, metallic puffs and ear-straining, ever-lengthening then conclusive silences.

Protracted silences aren’t really programmed on The Juke Box Suite, but you wouldn’t expect this from the seven tracks – all composed by alto and baritone saxophonist Jon Raskin – that honor Balkan, Afro-Cuban and African music, and individually one of the fathers of modern Brazilian music; a writer who was both a socialist and a Yiddishist; a Finnish folk super group; big city R&B and rock music; and a German-American minimalist painter.

With all due respect to the composer, the dedications in the titles seem to promise more disparity among the tunes than the music itself. That said, the seven are individually and collectively rhythmically exciting and improvisationally sophisticated. Listen, for instance to the striking polyphonic cries on “Juke Box Niggum” from either Bruce Ackley’s or Larry Och’s tenor saxophone, which creates dancing, ecstatic trills, ornamented by pumping slurs from Raskin’s baritone saxophone.

Contrast that with the singing sopranino lines and tenor saxophone obbligatos which push against one another contrapuntally on “Juke Box Choro”. Again the baritone provides the bottom, tenor and alto (Steve Adams), chime in with mid-range trills as Ochs’ sopranino outlines the fervently romantic theme. Then there’s “Juke Box Värtinnä”. A delicate, almost madrigal-like song, the arrangement isolates different timbres so completely that each saxophone can be identified within the polyphonic performance.

Oddly enough, the liveliest track, the nearly 10-minute “Juke Box Detroit” is dedicated to The White Stripes rather than more appropriately John Lee Hooker, the MC5 or Tamla-Motown. Still the urban grit of the city appears to be reflected in the baritonist’s tongue stops and slaps and the tenorist’s rapid-fire riffing. Finally after the other horns move in counterpoint to guttural bari riffs, the extended shout chorus climaxes with all the horns tonguing in different tempi, leading to a restatement of the melody – which is also deconstructed as it’s sounded.

Sophisticated, coalesced saxophone science – and art – is demonstrated on each of these notable discs.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Roulette: 1. Who Asked Racine? 2. Brew for the Birds 3. Stick, Twist or Bust 4. On Alto On Tenor 5. The Artist’s Response 6. On Core En Cours

Personnel: Roulette: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet) and Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone)

Track Listing: Juke Box: 1. Juke Box Afro Balkan 2. Juke Box Mambo 3. Juke Box Niggum 4. Juke Box Detroit 5. Juke Box Hang Up 6. Juke Box Choro 7. Juke Box Värtinnä

Personnel: Juke Box: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (sopranino and tenor saxophones) and Jon Raskin (alto and baritone saxophones)

Track Listing: Propagations: 1. Propagations

Personnel: Propagations: Stéphane Rives (soprano saxophone); Marc Baron and Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto saxophones) and Bertrand Denzler tenor saxophone)

January 31, 2008

ROVA

The Juke Box Suite
Not Two MW 786-2

Marc Baron/Bertrand Denzler/Jean-Luc Guionnet/Stéphane Rives

Propagation
s

Potlatch P107

Evan Parker & Ned Rothenberg

Live At Roulette

Animul ANI 106

With unaccompanied group reed sessions now commonplace in improvised music, the challenge remains to make them more than technical exercises. Each of these notable CD succeeds in doing so; but each does so in an individual manner.

As could be expected from its populist title, The Juke Box Suite is probably the most lyrical of the many CDs from the Bay area-based ROVA quartet, which arguably pioneered the four saxophone concept in improv. Propagations, on the other hand, features a quartet of young French saxophonists, who have only performed in this formation since 2003. Completely eschewing the song form, the group’s one long performance uses textures, layering and arrangements that use reeds as sound sources rather than melody extensions. A duo, rather than a quartet like those on the other CDs, Brooklyn-based Ned Rothenberg and London-based Evan Parker exhibit their mastery of the multi-reed form by blending different combinations of Rothenberg’s three reeds and Parker’s two on six live performances.

Each Parker-Rothenberg coupling produces a different sonic. The alto (Rothenberg) and tenor (Parker) saxophone mix on “Who Asked Racine”, for instance, ricochets between very brisk and very slack timbres. Intertwined, contrapuntal and augmented with held note that are hocketed or snorted, the continuous reflective lines seem initially to be only Parker’s. But following Rothenberg rappelling down the scale with accompanying trills, the extended timbres bring both to warm modulations by the conclusion.

Parker’s characteristic circular breathing on soprano saxophone gets a work out on “Brew for the Birds”, although Rothenberg’s tongue-slapping clarinet work reaches an equal level of high-pitched coloratura. The note aspiration is such that the two twitter and chirp counterlines at one another, eventually negating any spare pauses left in the interaction. The clarinetist’s whistling legato phrasing perfectly connects to Parker intense, staccato vibrations.

In contrast, “The Artist’s Response” with Rothenberg on alto saxophone and Parker on soprano saxophone opens up the sound field with overblown trills and tongue-stopping contrapuntal pulses. With the output expressed in polytones as well as palindromes, this curvaceous intermezzo features so many circling, winding and gradated timbres that not only is it difficult to distinguish one saxman from the other, but at times the two sound like an entire sax section.

That’s something that may not be as evident on Propagations, even though the all the horns for a saxophone section are present. It may be because each reedist has evolved both a microtonal and macro-tonal playing style. Alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler are in the minimalist Hubbub band, but Guionnet also plays Energy Music with The Fish, and Denzler has recorded with more outgoing types like pianist John Wolf Brennan. Alto saxophonist Marc Baron has recorded as part of clarinetist Louis Sclavis’ band. Only soprano saxophonist Stéphane Rives is a strict microtonalist – at least on record.

Nuanced and layered, the collective improvisation on this CD relies most frequently on breaths forced through the horns’ body tubes as well as the siren-like textures created by intense reed biting. As the moderato piece evolves, complex loops of sound are used in such a way that the tonal centre constantly shifts, subtly exposing shards, sparkles and sprinkles of multiphonics which are as much in the background as the foreground.

Individual saxophones announce themselves through peeps, glottal punctuation, key percussion and tongue slaps. But as much as fortissimo but brief reed squeals are the norm, so are extended pauses. Infrequently as well, the four take up the role of a conventional sax section with one soloist performing individual reed gymnastics as around him the other three undulate overtones that reach organ-like cushioning tones.

By the piece’s final variation the slowly oscillating pulses do reach past fortissimo to occupy the entire sound field. Coalescing as one solid mass, the timbre moves in a straight line, studded with balanced growls, flattement vibrato and pulsating glissandi. Eventually it seems as if all the oxygen remaining in the studio has almost been sucked into the bells of the horns.

After showcasing broken-octave accelerated tones from each saxophone in succession, the four reach a crescendo of irregularly vibrated quadruple counterpoint that then diminishes to a finale of barely-there body tube echoes, metallic puffs and ear-straining, ever-lengthening then conclusive silences.

Protracted silences aren’t really programmed on The Juke Box Suite, but you wouldn’t expect this from the seven tracks – all composed by alto and baritone saxophonist Jon Raskin – that honor Balkan, Afro-Cuban and African music, and individually one of the fathers of modern Brazilian music; a writer who was both a socialist and a Yiddishist; a Finnish folk super group; big city R&B and rock music; and a German-American minimalist painter.

With all due respect to the composer, the dedications in the titles seem to promise more disparity among the tunes than the music itself. That said, the seven are individually and collectively rhythmically exciting and improvisationally sophisticated. Listen, for instance to the striking polyphonic cries on “Juke Box Niggum” from either Bruce Ackley’s or Larry Och’s tenor saxophone, which creates dancing, ecstatic trills, ornamented by pumping slurs from Raskin’s baritone saxophone.

Contrast that with the singing sopranino lines and tenor saxophone obbligatos which push against one another contrapuntally on “Juke Box Choro”. Again the baritone provides the bottom, tenor and alto (Steve Adams), chime in with mid-range trills as Ochs’ sopranino outlines the fervently romantic theme. Then there’s “Juke Box Värtinnä”. A delicate, almost madrigal-like song, the arrangement isolates different timbres so completely that each saxophone can be identified within the polyphonic performance.

Oddly enough, the liveliest track, the nearly 10-minute “Juke Box Detroit” is dedicated to The White Stripes rather than more appropriately John Lee Hooker, the MC5 or Tamla-Motown. Still the urban grit of the city appears to be reflected in the baritonist’s tongue stops and slaps and the tenorist’s rapid-fire riffing. Finally after the other horns move in counterpoint to guttural bari riffs, the extended shout chorus climaxes with all the horns tonguing in different tempi, leading to a restatement of the melody – which is also deconstructed as it’s sounded.

Sophisticated, coalesced saxophone science – and art – is demonstrated on each of these notable discs.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Roulette: 1. Who Asked Racine? 2. Brew for the Birds 3. Stick, Twist or Bust 4. On Alto On Tenor 5. The Artist’s Response 6. On Core En Cours

Personnel: Roulette: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet) and Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone)

Track Listing: Juke Box: 1. Juke Box Afro Balkan 2. Juke Box Mambo 3. Juke Box Niggum 4. Juke Box Detroit 5. Juke Box Hang Up 6. Juke Box Choro 7. Juke Box Värtinnä

Personnel: Juke Box: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (sopranino and tenor saxophones) and Jon Raskin (alto and baritone saxophones)

Track Listing: Propagations: 1. Propagations

Personnel: Propagations: Stéphane Rives (soprano saxophone); Marc Baron and Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto saxophones) and Bertrand Denzler tenor saxophone)

January 31, 2008

Evan Parker & Ned Rothenberg

Live At Roulette
Animul ANI 106

Marc Baron/Bertrand Denzler/Jean-Luc Guionnet/Stéphane Rives

Propagations

Potlatch P107

ROVA

The Juke Box Suite

Not Two MW 786-2

With unaccompanied group reed sessions now commonplace in improvised music, the challenge remains to make them more than technical exercises. Each of these notable CD succeeds in doing so; but each does so in an individual manner.

As could be expected from its populist title, The Juke Box Suite is probably the most lyrical of the many CDs from the Bay area-based ROVA quartet, which arguably pioneered the four saxophone concept in improv. Propagations, on the other hand, features a quartet of young French saxophonists, who have only performed in this formation since 2003. Completely eschewing the song form, the group’s one long performance uses textures, layering and arrangements that use reeds as sound sources rather than melody extensions. A duo, rather than a quartet like those on the other CDs, Brooklyn-based Ned Rothenberg and London-based Evan Parker exhibit their mastery of the multi-reed form by blending different combinations of Rothenberg’s three reeds and Parker’s two on six live performances.

Each Parker-Rothenberg coupling produces a different sonic. The alto (Rothenberg) and tenor (Parker) saxophone mix on “Who Asked Racine”, for instance, ricochets between very brisk and very slack timbres. Intertwined, contrapuntal and augmented with held note that are hocketed or snorted, the continuous reflective lines seem initially to be only Parker’s. But following Rothenberg rappelling down the scale with accompanying trills, the extended timbres bring both to warm modulations by the conclusion.

Parker’s characteristic circular breathing on soprano saxophone gets a work out on “Brew for the Birds”, although Rothenberg’s tongue-slapping clarinet work reaches an equal level of high-pitched coloratura. The note aspiration is such that the two twitter and chirp counterlines at one another, eventually negating any spare pauses left in the interaction. The clarinetist’s whistling legato phrasing perfectly connects to Parker intense, staccato vibrations.

In contrast, “The Artist’s Response” with Rothenberg on alto saxophone and Parker on soprano saxophone opens up the sound field with overblown trills and tongue-stopping contrapuntal pulses. With the output expressed in polytones as well as palindromes, this curvaceous intermezzo features so many circling, winding and gradated timbres that not only is it difficult to distinguish one saxman from the other, but at times the two sound like an entire sax section.

That’s something that may not be as evident on Propagations, even though the all the horns for a saxophone section are present. It may be because each reedist has evolved both a microtonal and macro-tonal playing style. Alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler are in the minimalist Hubbub band, but Guionnet also plays Energy Music with The Fish, and Denzler has recorded with more outgoing types like pianist John Wolf Brennan. Alto saxophonist Marc Baron has recorded as part of clarinetist Louis Sclavis’ band. Only soprano saxophonist Stéphane Rives is a strict microtonalist – at least on record.

Nuanced and layered, the collective improvisation on this CD relies most frequently on breaths forced through the horns’ body tubes as well as the siren-like textures created by intense reed biting. As the moderato piece evolves, complex loops of sound are used in such a way that the tonal centre constantly shifts, subtly exposing shards, sparkles and sprinkles of multiphonics which are as much in the background as the foreground.

Individual saxophones announce themselves through peeps, glottal punctuation, key percussion and tongue slaps. But as much as fortissimo but brief reed squeals are the norm, so are extended pauses. Infrequently as well, the four take up the role of a conventional sax section with one soloist performing individual reed gymnastics as around him the other three undulate overtones that reach organ-like cushioning tones.

By the piece’s final variation the slowly oscillating pulses do reach past fortissimo to occupy the entire sound field. Coalescing as one solid mass, the timbre moves in a straight line, studded with balanced growls, flattement vibrato and pulsating glissandi. Eventually it seems as if all the oxygen remaining in the studio has almost been sucked into the bells of the horns.

After showcasing broken-octave accelerated tones from each saxophone in succession, the four reach a crescendo of irregularly vibrated quadruple counterpoint that then diminishes to a finale of barely-there body tube echoes, metallic puffs and ear-straining, ever-lengthening then conclusive silences.

Protracted silences aren’t really programmed on The Juke Box Suite, but you wouldn’t expect this from the seven tracks – all composed by alto and baritone saxophonist Jon Raskin – that honor Balkan, Afro-Cuban and African music, and individually one of the fathers of modern Brazilian music; a writer who was both a socialist and a Yiddishist; a Finnish folk super group; big city R&B and rock music; and a German-American minimalist painter.

With all due respect to the composer, the dedications in the titles seem to promise more disparity among the tunes than the music itself. That said, the seven are individually and collectively rhythmically exciting and improvisationally sophisticated. Listen, for instance to the striking polyphonic cries on “Juke Box Niggum” from either Bruce Ackley’s or Larry Och’s tenor saxophone, which creates dancing, ecstatic trills, ornamented by pumping slurs from Raskin’s baritone saxophone.

Contrast that with the singing sopranino lines and tenor saxophone obbligatos which push against one another contrapuntally on “Juke Box Choro”. Again the baritone provides the bottom, tenor and alto (Steve Adams), chime in with mid-range trills as Ochs’ sopranino outlines the fervently romantic theme. Then there’s “Juke Box Värtinnä”. A delicate, almost madrigal-like song, the arrangement isolates different timbres so completely that each saxophone can be identified within the polyphonic performance.

Oddly enough, the liveliest track, the nearly 10-minute “Juke Box Detroit” is dedicated to The White Stripes rather than more appropriately John Lee Hooker, the MC5 or Tamla-Motown. Still the urban grit of the city appears to be reflected in the baritonist’s tongue stops and slaps and the tenorist’s rapid-fire riffing. Finally after the other horns move in counterpoint to guttural bari riffs, the extended shout chorus climaxes with all the horns tonguing in different tempi, leading to a restatement of the melody – which is also deconstructed as it’s sounded.

Sophisticated, coalesced saxophone science – and art – is demonstrated on each of these notable discs.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Roulette: 1. Who Asked Racine? 2. Brew for the Birds 3. Stick, Twist or Bust 4. On Alto On Tenor 5. The Artist’s Response 6. On Core En Cours

Personnel: Roulette: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet) and Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone)

Track Listing: Juke Box: 1. Juke Box Afro Balkan 2. Juke Box Mambo 3. Juke Box Niggum 4. Juke Box Detroit 5. Juke Box Hang Up 6. Juke Box Choro 7. Juke Box Värtinnä

Personnel: Juke Box: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (sopranino and tenor saxophones) and Jon Raskin (alto and baritone saxophones)

Track Listing: Propagations: 1. Propagations

Personnel: Propagations: Stéphane Rives (soprano saxophone); Marc Baron and Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto saxophones) and Bertrand Denzler tenor saxophone)

January 31, 2008

Jon Raskin

Quartet
Ratascan Records BRD 059

Cold Bleak Heat

Simitu

Family Vineyard FV41

Encapsulating the differences between West Coast and East Coast Free Improv, these quartet sessions illustrate how dissimilar sounding identically constituted combos can be.

Consisting of both compositional and improvisational material, the 12 tracks of Quartet are individually shaped by score and graphic elements organized by the band leader, long-time ROVA quartet member saxophonist Jon Raskin Rougher and wilder in contrast, Simitu’s six tracks seem to be nourished by the highly emotional and theatrical Energy Music which flourished in the 1970s.

Considering that one of Cold Bleak Heat (CBH)’s main voices – Connecticut-based saxophonist Paul Flaherty – has been immersed in this sort of ardent improvising since that time period, partially explains CBH’s emotional style. Theatricalism is added because two of the other band members – bassist Matt Heyner and drummer Chris Corsano – are immersed in indie-rock as well as improvisation. In contrast, trumpeter Greg Kelley is more often found in sound-oriented, lower-case improv circles.

Oddly enough Raskin’s Bay-Area-centred band mates have similar backgrounds. Trumpeter Liz Allbee plays in experimental rock bands; percussionist Gino Robair has recorded with everyone from minimalist free musicians and composer Lou Harrison to rock singer Ton Waits; while bassist George Cremaschi’s list of collaborators range from British saxophonist Evan Parker to rock/jazz guitarist Nels Cline.

Obviously such experienced folk provide positive input on Quartet. But it’s also clear that Raskin, who also composes for film and dance projects, and whose associates range from minimalist composer Terry Riley to jazzer Tim Berne, not only has a more singular vision than that which arises from CBH, but also has greater control of the material performed.

Consider pieces like “Qupe” and “African Tulip” for instance. On the former, staccato flights from both horn teeter on top of Cremaschi’s solid arco work, further colored by Robair’s tubular bell-like resonations. When the percussionist’s rhythm extensions turn to irregular flams and knocks and the bassist reverberates thicker pulses, the saxophonist’s response is outputting wide and shaking reed tones.

Although filled with unexpected bumps, the later tune is cohesively connective, as Robair’s nimble, ping-ponging strokes set up spurts of plunger tones from Allbee and tongue-stops from Raskin. After Allbee’s seconding obbligato is inflated into circular trills and bubbles, the saxophonist’s reed slurs and slurps combine with her vibrating tremolo tonguing to cement the previous divide into unison polyphony.

Probably the tracks which best illustrate the band’s strategy however are back-to-back “Kandinsky”, a Raskin composition and “Sounding Barometer Reading”, a group improv. Weighing the results, the creations defy anyone to distinguish the composer-defined from the instantly created pieces.

“Kandinsky” features Cremaschi’s bass-string stropping, Robair’s drumstick-on-cymbal grinding and spittle-encrusted braying from Allbee – all adumbrating the saxophone’s swoops and split tones. Introduced with a reed honk and a human laugh, the second tune merely boosts the textures available with a variety of brass kisses, growls and scrapes; tongue sprinting from Daffy Duck quacks to polar bear grumbles from the saxophone; and col legno bowing from the bassist. Would Robair’s perfectly pitched miniature bell and/or cymbal slaps that guide the animal-like trumpet brays and whistling reed bites sound any different if they were scored?

Although Cremaschi and Robair are listed as also using electronics, there are only a few instances when triggered, machine-created wave forms can be sensed.

Old School to the extreme, Flaherty probably would react like a medieval priest faced with a heretic if confronted with electronics. While Kelley and Heyner at least have worked out an accommodation to quasi-instruments such as laptop computers elsewhere, the fervor associated with CBH’s performance could literally overheat those plastic hunks into melt-down mode if machine-made kilowatts were introduced. Staccato, sibilant and studded with double and triple broken counterpoint lines crossing and re-crossing one another, at junctures each member of CBH is given enough space to express himself a capella before cumulatively weaving a polyphonic whole cloth.

The saxophonist’s repertoire encompasses double-tongued shattered intonation, conclusive foghorn swells, crying and cawing banshee timbres plus altissimo smears. Pressured triplets, Donald Ayler-like smears and hand-muted shrills are Kelley’s contribution; Heyner moves from pitch-stabbing chording and spiccato runs to ostinato thumps; while Corsano mulches the results of backbeat bounces, bass drum rumbling, paradiddle extension and cymbal clapping. Throughout, the quartet appears to be building up to – and descending down from – the more than 21½ -minute “Mugged by a Glacier”, which is rather like an extended crescendo mixed with slight balladic echoes.

With the piece initially adagio, Kelley’s Harmon-muted runs gradually stretch the tempo as Flaherty’s reed tone coarsens and smears. Plucking and pumping dense bull fiddle notes and percussion press rolls provide the ostinato as the brassman’s timbres dart bird-like among the stop-time, nearly solipsistic sound shards emanating from the saxophone. Warbling and burbling, as the tempo increases, the trumpeter injects open-horn triplets and the reedist snorts accelerated split tones. Backbeats and press rolls from Corsano are the bonding glue that keeps the horn textures from escaping into the ozone. Reshaping the others’ thematic contributions Heyner suddenly slows down the pace three-quarters of the way through for a high-pitched sul ponticello solo with razor-sharp strokes that almost slice through the strings as they’re manipulated. Flaherty then contributes a dramatic moderato reading of the head spelled by plunger tones from Kelley. Soon the four are back into high-speed chromatic echoes driven by rustle and pop from Corsano and steady pounding from Heyner.

Depending on the person’s preference for musical structure and reason or deconstruction and passion, either session should impress the Free Jazz listener. While each illustrates a contradictory approach, perhaps geographically located, both are equally valid.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Quartet 1. Cracked Earth 2. Sounding Barometer Reading 1 3. African Tulip 4. Swing Sing 5. Kandinsky 6. Sounding Barometer Reading 2 7. Post Card 2 8. Ceilometer Reading 9. Post Card 1 10. Bleckner 11. Disdrometer Reading 12. Qupe

Personnel: Quartet: Liz Allbee (trumpet and percussion); Jon Raskin (alto and baritone saxophones); George Cremaschi (bass and electronics) and Gino Robair (percussion and electronics)

Track Listing: Simitu: 1. The Voice of the People is the Voice of God 2. Should We Destroy the Hubble? 3. Mugged by a Glacier 4. A Pound Cake 5. A White Bandaged Head in the Shadow of Death 6. To Understand All is to Forgive All

Personnel: Simitu: Greg Kelley (trumpet); Paul Flaherty (alto and tenor saxophones); Matt Heyner (bass) and Chris Corsano (drums)

January 20, 2008

Cold Bleak Heat

Simitu
Family Vineyard FV41

Jon Raskin

Quartet

Ratascan Records BRD 059

Encapsulating the differences between West Coast and East Coast Free Improv, these quartet sessions illustrate how dissimilar sounding identically constituted combos can be.

Consisting of both compositional and improvisational material, the 12 tracks of Quartet are individually shaped by score and graphic elements organized by the band leader, long-time ROVA quartet member saxophonist Jon Raskin Rougher and wilder in contrast, Simitu’s six tracks seem to be nourished by the highly emotional and theatrical Energy Music which flourished in the 1970s.

Considering that one of Cold Bleak Heat (CBH)’s main voices – Connecticut-based saxophonist Paul Flaherty – has been immersed in this sort of ardent improvising since that time period, partially explains CBH’s emotional style. Theatricalism is added because two of the other band members – bassist Matt Heyner and drummer Chris Corsano – are immersed in indie-rock as well as improvisation. In contrast, trumpeter Greg Kelley is more often found in sound-oriented, lower-case improv circles.

Oddly enough Raskin’s Bay-Area-centred band mates have similar backgrounds. Trumpeter Liz Allbee plays in experimental rock bands; percussionist Gino Robair has recorded with everyone from minimalist free musicians and composer Lou Harrison to rock singer Ton Waits; while bassist George Cremaschi’s list of collaborators range from British saxophonist Evan Parker to rock/jazz guitarist Nels Cline.

Obviously such experienced folk provide positive input on Quartet. But it’s also clear that Raskin, who also composes for film and dance projects, and whose associates range from minimalist composer Terry Riley to jazzer Tim Berne, not only has a more singular vision than that which arises from CBH, but also has greater control of the material performed.

Consider pieces like “Qupe” and “African Tulip” for instance. On the former, staccato flights from both horn teeter on top of Cremaschi’s solid arco work, further colored by Robair’s tubular bell-like resonations. When the percussionist’s rhythm extensions turn to irregular flams and knocks and the bassist reverberates thicker pulses, the saxophonist’s response is outputting wide and shaking reed tones.

Although filled with unexpected bumps, the later tune is cohesively connective, as Robair’s nimble, ping-ponging strokes set up spurts of plunger tones from Allbee and tongue-stops from Raskin. After Allbee’s seconding obbligato is inflated into circular trills and bubbles, the saxophonist’s reed slurs and slurps combine with her vibrating tremolo tonguing to cement the previous divide into unison polyphony.

Probably the tracks which best illustrate the band’s strategy however are back-to-back “Kandinsky”, a Raskin composition and “Sounding Barometer Reading”, a group improv. Weighing the results, the creations defy anyone to distinguish the composer-defined from the instantly created pieces.

“Kandinsky” features Cremaschi’s bass-string stropping, Robair’s drumstick-on-cymbal grinding and spittle-encrusted braying from Allbee – all adumbrating the saxophone’s swoops and split tones. Introduced with a reed honk and a human laugh, the second tune merely boosts the textures available with a variety of brass kisses, growls and scrapes; tongue sprinting from Daffy Duck quacks to polar bear grumbles from the saxophone; and col legno bowing from the bassist. Would Robair’s perfectly pitched miniature bell and/or cymbal slaps that guide the animal-like trumpet brays and whistling reed bites sound any different if they were scored?

Although Cremaschi and Robair are listed as also using electronics, there are only a few instances when triggered, machine-created wave forms can be sensed.

Old School to the extreme, Flaherty probably would react like a medieval priest faced with a heretic if confronted with electronics. While Kelley and Heyner at least have worked out an accommodation to quasi-instruments such as laptop computers elsewhere, the fervor associated with CBH’s performance could literally overheat those plastic hunks into melt-down mode if machine-made kilowatts were introduced. Staccato, sibilant and studded with double and triple broken counterpoint lines crossing and re-crossing one another, at junctures each member of CBH is given enough space to express himself a capella before cumulatively weaving a polyphonic whole cloth.

The saxophonist’s repertoire encompasses double-tongued shattered intonation, conclusive foghorn swells, crying and cawing banshee timbres plus altissimo smears. Pressured triplets, Donald Ayler-like smears and hand-muted shrills are Kelley’s contribution; Heyner moves from pitch-stabbing chording and spiccato runs to ostinato thumps; while Corsano mulches the results of backbeat bounces, bass drum rumbling, paradiddle extension and cymbal clapping. Throughout, the quartet appears to be building up to – and descending down from – the more than 21½ -minute “Mugged by a Glacier”, which is rather like an extended crescendo mixed with slight balladic echoes.

With the piece initially adagio, Kelley’s Harmon-muted runs gradually stretch the tempo as Flaherty’s reed tone coarsens and smears. Plucking and pumping dense bull fiddle notes and percussion press rolls provide the ostinato as the brassman’s timbres dart bird-like among the stop-time, nearly solipsistic sound shards emanating from the saxophone. Warbling and burbling, as the tempo increases, the trumpeter injects open-horn triplets and the reedist snorts accelerated split tones. Backbeats and press rolls from Corsano are the bonding glue that keeps the horn textures from escaping into the ozone. Reshaping the others’ thematic contributions Heyner suddenly slows down the pace three-quarters of the way through for a high-pitched sul ponticello solo with razor-sharp strokes that almost slice through the strings as they’re manipulated. Flaherty then contributes a dramatic moderato reading of the head spelled by plunger tones from Kelley. Soon the four are back into high-speed chromatic echoes driven by rustle and pop from Corsano and steady pounding from Heyner.

Depending on the person’s preference for musical structure and reason or deconstruction and passion, either session should impress the Free Jazz listener. While each illustrates a contradictory approach, perhaps geographically located, both are equally valid.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Quartet 1. Cracked Earth 2. Sounding Barometer Reading 1 3. African Tulip 4. Swing Sing 5. Kandinsky 6. Sounding Barometer Reading 2 7. Post Card 2 8. Ceilometer Reading 9. Post Card 1 10. Bleckner 11. Disdrometer Reading 12. Qupe

Personnel: Quartet: Liz Allbee (trumpet and percussion); Jon Raskin (alto and baritone saxophones); George Cremaschi (bass and electronics) and Gino Robair (percussion and electronics)

Track Listing: Simitu: 1. The Voice of the People is the Voice of God 2. Should We Destroy the Hubble? 3. Mugged by a Glacier 4. A Pound Cake 5. A White Bandaged Head in the Shadow of Death 6. To Understand All is to Forgive All

Personnel: Simitu: Greg Kelley (trumpet); Paul Flaherty (alto and tenor saxophones); Matt Heyner (bass) and Chris Corsano (drums)

January 20, 2008

ROVA

Totally Spinning
Black Saint BS 12026-2

Always improvised music’s second best-known saxophone quartet, the unWSQ perhaps or maybe more appropriately the Rolling Stones to the World Saxophone Quartet’s Beatles, Bay area-based ROVA has maintained an impressive consistency over the years.

Unlike Mick, Keef and the boys – and unlike some of the WSQ’s more populist recent projects – ROVA’s commitment to constant experimentation has kept it from becoming complacent or slipping into expected patterns. Almost 30 years on, the band still remains as vital as ever.

There’s also plenty of ROVA music to be experienced, as this session demonstrates. Recorded in 1996, but newly released, it finds the quartet members – soprano saxophonist Bruce Ackley, baritone saxophonist Jon Raskin, Steve Adams on soprano and alto saxophones and Larry Ochs on sopranino and tenor saxophones – in a particularly rhythmically driven mood.

Intentionally or not framed by eight minute plus introductory and concluding tracks, the four reedists use the eight compositions to highlight their individual and collective flexibility. Harmonically sophisticated as well as highly metrical, these tunes and others showcase a variety of riffs, vamps, call-and-response cross-patterning plus double-up-to-quadruple counterpoint.

The offbeat harmony doesn’t preclude theme and variation, and theme recapitulation, yet during these episodes, the players also illustrate unison honking and snorting, fluid trills, fortissimo broken octaves and tongue slaps. Looking for a link to the tradition? There are many passages throughout when Raskin tongues a snorting ostinato, and another hornman – usually Ochs on tenor or Adams on alto – vibrates higher-pitched split tones around it.

With echoes of other timbres ranging from granular R&B-style pedal point baritone saxophone honking – on “Preshrunk” – to slinky “Pink Panther”-like swelling alto saxophone split tones – on “Stiction” – ROVA subverts the standard parts of the compositions with extended reed techniques. Swelling contrapuntal lines and spetrofluctuation make their appearance more often than mellow obbligatos and close harmonies.

Although pointed nasal soprano lines and hocketing tenor side-slipping get better showcases elsewhere, the lengthiest pieces are the nearly eight-minute “Cuernavaca Starlight for Charles Mingus”, a straightforward tribute to the bassist-composer who always knew how to voice reeds, and the almost 16-minute episodic “It’s a Journey, Not a Destination”.

Playing up Mingus’ debt to Duke Ellington, the close-harmony interpretation on the first tune almost turns the piece into an outside concerto for Harry Carney’s baritone – with Raskin doing the honors – while the higher-pitched horns unite for a smeary approximation of another favorite Ducal device – the clarinet trio. Mid-range and comfortable, the piece allows for metallic reverberation as well as trilling polyphony.

More overtly contrapuntal as well as polyphonic, “It’s a Journey, Not a Destination” knits notes into a fabric of sharp, emphasized reed timbres. Moving horizontally most of time, the spinning and sprawling contrapuntal melody leaves enough space for a series of solos. First there’s clean, clear a capella from Adams’ alto, then that’s gradually doubled by the cello-like resonance of Raskin’s baritone. Ochs and Ackley riff in unison, until the call-and-response section opens up into snorting baritone pedal point, stuttering, biting tenor lines and glottal tongue-stops and slips from the others. Peeping snaps from the sopranino, plus tongue slaps and stretched tones from lower-pitched saxes give way to up-the-scale rappelling scampers and rhythmic note clusters. Climatically, the interconnected, almost impressionistic harmonies reflect back to the introduction before reaching a suitably lyrical finale.

No leftover blast from the past, Totally Spinning is vital music that can be heard in any year.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Let’s Go Totally Spinning 2. Stiction 3. Radar 11/19/01 4. Cuernavaca Starlight for Charles Mingus 5. Kick It 6. It’s a Journey, Not a Destination 7. Preshrunk 8. Radar, Version 731

Personnel: Bruce Ackley (soprano saxophone); Steve Adams (soprano and alto saxophones); Larry Ochs (sopranino and tenor saxophones) and Jon Raskin (baritone saxophone)

October 3, 2006

ROVA:ORKESTROVA

Electric Ascension
Atavistic ALP159CD

Giving the symbolic finger to the museum-quality preservationists who make up most of jazz repertory companies, Rova, the Bay Area sax quartet, has audaciously created its own version of “Ascension”, John Coltrane’s seminal work from 1965. Then as further nose-thumbing to the crowd that prefers polite Duke Ellington or Miles Davis-Gil Evans style recreations, the band plus eight helpmates, has conflated the piece still further into a noise and electronic extravaganza.

What’s more, this is the second time the Rova crew has honored “Ascension”. In 1995, adding a rhythm section and additional stellar soloists such as trumpeter Raphe Malik and the late tenor saxophonist Glenn Spearman, the band created a lengthy acoustic version of Trane’s original suite. Still convinced that “Ascension” is a master work that deserves to be played even more often, Rova members Larry Ochs and Jon Raskin decided on another go round, radically changing the instrumentation without losing the composition’s essence.

Nonetheless, nay-sayers may wonder why another run at the piece is necessary. No one seems to question the seemingly endless re-recordings of Beethoven symphonies and other classics of so called serious music. Then when it comes to jazz, recording more of Ellington’s, Monk’s Mingus’ or Goodman’s most popular compositions doesn’t seem to bother anyone either. In terms of Coltrane however, while different versions of “Giant Steps” and “Equinox” are de rigueur for many sax men, “Ascension” still frightens.

After all the recording was the only time Trane surrounded himself with a large group of younger Free Jazz improvisers and it signaled for the hard-bop sentimentalists that the John Coltrane of “My Favorite Things” and the BALLADS LP had changed forever.

As unable to remain complacent in its achievements as Coltrane was in his, the four members of Rova – soprano saxophonist Bruce Ackley, alto saxophonist Steve Adams, tenor saxophonist Ochs and baritone saxophonist Raskin – have never shied away from a challenge and they meet this one with skill and equanimity. Replacing Coltrane’s ensemble of five saxes, two trumpets, piano, two basses and drums are Rova, Tin Hat Trio member Carla Kihlstedt on violin and effects; Jenny Scheinman on violin, Wilco and Vinny Golia associate Nels Cline on guitar; Fred Frith, who has worked with Ochs on many projects as a guitarist, on electric bass; and the Bay Area’s paramount Free Jazz drummer Don Robinson, a longtime associate of Spearman. Additional rhythm and noise comes from New Yorker Ikue Mori on drum machines and sampler, Japanese-based electro-acoustian Otomo Yoshihide on turntables and electronics and Chris Brown, Ochs’ associate in the band Room, with electronics.

So what’s the result? Well for a start, Robinson’s offbeat patterning and percussion exploration is as important – perhaps even more important – for this “Ascension” as Elvin Jones’ drumming was for the original. Not a polyrhythmist like Jones, he nonetheless serves as this creation’s heart beat. As distorted echoes from the electronics mix with multiphonic vibratos from the strings and power shifting from the saxophones, it’s Robinson’s accented bounces, ruffs and rebounds that serve as bonding glue.

Another standout is Raskin. With many of the sax passages and solos constituted in screaming altissimo here, his basement tones maintain their individuality, and there’s even a point midway through, when his tremolo snorts mix it up with the rough snickering of Yoshihide’s pulsating sine waves to stretch the sound development. It sort of makes you wish a baritonist like Charles Davis or Pat Patrick had made the original date.

Definitely finding a place for themselves on this one are the violinists. Scratching and side-slipping, both fiddlers make full use of sul tasto and sul ponticello runs to mark their sonic territories, sometime adding to the slurred fingering of the other strings with pizzicato fills. Scheinman has a particularly satisfying exchange with Ackley at one point, as she turns from speedy multiphonic bowing to shrilling upper partials, while he works out sour soprano tone variations. All the while Frith is proffering a thick, steadying bass pulse and Robinson detonating disconnected drum cadences and bell ringing.

Distinctive in a sideman’s role that gives him proper strictures, Cline contributes cascades of slurred fingering and pinpointed tones, infrequently using knob-twisting and whammy bar finesse to cut through the hiss and flutter of the electronics. His judicious use of distortion extends his flat picking, while the final section has him pumping out a melodic line which builds up to Spanish-styled rasgueado before the final appearance of the tune’s head. Instructively, Adams use rapid-fire phrasing and split tones to make his point against Cline’s chromatic picking. But this is merely more double counterpoint, like Ochs’ squealing exchange with scratchy violin jettes.

Ochs himself has some irregular pitched, reed-splitting demonstrative outbursts, emphasizing the honking potential of his axe with glottal punctuation. Together the four saxes push the material every which way, though true to their role as preservationists, theme snippets appear every so often.

Anti-electronic traditionalists shouldn’t despair either, since the most noticeable electronic interface occurs when curved oscillations from either Brown or Yoshihide answers Cline’s quivering semi-tones built up with delay and slurred fingering, or when Mori adds her drum-machine textures to the acoustic ones created by Robinson’s kit.

As a postlude, drums and guitars produce longer and broader strokes, violins and higher-pitched electronics shrill like the missing brass of the original LP, and everyone joins with the sax choir to gather the disparate strands for a climatic finale.

More please.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Ascension, Parts 1 through 13

Personnel: Rova: Bruce Ackley (soprano saxophone); Steve Adams (alto saxophone); Larry Ochs (tenor saxophone); Jon Raskin (baritone saxophone); plus Carla Kihlstedt (violin and effects); Jenny Scheinman (violin); Nels Cline (guitar); Fred Frith (electric bass); Don Robinson (drums); Ikue Mori (drum machines and sampler); Otomo Yoshihide (turntables and electronics) and Chris Brown (electronics)

October 10, 2005

ROVA: ORKESTROVA

An Alligator in Your Wallet
EWE

By Ken Waxman
December 27, 2004

Limited to Japanese distribution, An Alligator in Your Wallet is an important CD because it provides new evidence for what already should be regarded as truisms.

One is that the usually self-contained Bay area saxophone quartet ROVA can smoothly function as the sax section in any sized ensemble. The other is that pianist Satoko Fujii, who divides her time between Tokyo and New York, is a versatile enough composer to utilize the idiosyncrasies of these musicians in more experimental pieces than she usually writes for her own bans and combos.

A motley crew of the West Coast’s best improvisers, the 12-piece Orkestrova includes trumpeter Darren Johnston, veteran Michael Vlatkovich and Tom Yoder on trombones, violinist Carla Kihlstedt and Scott Amendola on drums and electronics. Added are Fujii, her husband and playing partner, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, Angelo-turned-Brooklynite bassist Ken Filiano, and ROVA itself. That’s Bruce Ackley on soprano and tenor saxophones, Larry Ochs on sopranino and tenor saxophones, Jon Raskin on baritone saxophone and Steve Adams -- who wrote the two pieces here not from Fujii’s pen -- on alto saxophone and bass flute

Interestingly enough, for a musician who is a member of the best-known, so-called avant-garde sax quartet, it’s Adams’ pieces that inch closest to pure swing. His “Chuck”, for instance, is a bluesy romp that at times sounds as if it’s being played by Count Basie’s horn section. The more-than-16 minute composition is borne on call-and-response riffing from the reeds as well as Fujii’s outgoing arpeggio-rich soloing until it splinters into individual solos. Backed by walking bass and syncopated drumbeats, for instance, the composer frolics, slithers and squeals when it’s his time in front of the mic.

After that, Ackley produces reed blasts that match up with Yoder’s full plunger mode output, their duet mirrored later at a wavering, slower tempo by resonant licks from Raskin paired with breezy grace notes from Johnston. Polyphonic horn expansion then gives way to a perfectly executed ‘bone display by Vlatkovich that’s simultaneously clean and funky. As the piece reaches its climax, bravura hocketing and humorous broken octaves from all the horns meld, than fade away.

“Survival (in Five Acts)” -- Adams’ other contribution -- is a touch more extended than the former tune. It showcases his sonorous bass flute that presages a symphonic melding of timbres cushioning sweet, vocalized smears and wavering broken chords from the horns. Ominous sounding in parts, the line is extended with metallic electronic-like oscillations, with the constriction burst by Ochs’ twittering altissimo tone, high-pitched string-stretching from Filiano and irregular piano pulses. As Ochs continues to double and triple tongue, Kihlstedt’s jettes turn spiccato and pantonal lines sluice back and forth. Polyphonic sax timbres slow the tune down back to an echoing bass flute solo that reshapes the theme as the finale.

Fujii’s compositions are another matter. Experienced in creating for large groups --she leads both a Japanese and an American big band -- she manages the incredible feat of crafting dual-purpose pieces. Their performance seems to showcase screaming free-for-alls that you’d expect from other Energy Music classics such as Ascension or Machine Gun, while calling on the disciplined harmonies of a drilled modern swing ensemble like Gerry Mulligan’s legendary Concert Jazz Band. Certainly the first track, “A Lion in your Bag”, has all those attributes.

Characterized by a firm tempo, reminiscent of one of Anthony Braxton’s early marching band-style pieces, the title tune places jittery, flutter tonguing from Ackley on top of a malleable bouncing vamp from the other horns. As the trombones lob rubato grace notes at one another, Amendola’s percussion texture resembles big top circus music. Whinnying, whistling trumpet lines precede reed riffs and foretell a high-pitched, brassy ending.

Most atonal of the lot is the almost 10-minute “A Zebra on Your Roof”, where percussive rolls and flams plus massed reed section vamps follow almost otherworldly electronic oscillation. As the horn parts augment in volume, other timbres turn subservient to sul ponticello sweeps from the fiddler. In opposition Adams -- on alto -- produces smeary, circular, runs, while other hornmen assert themselves through determinedly vibrated lines. Pulsating piano chording that churns beneath all the other parts, mixed with faux-romantic violin tones, together suggest a chamber music concerto. That is until slammed percussion rhythms meld and mutate the shifting theme. Putting all classical references aside, the climax finds the brass heading towards Cat Anderson-like screeching tremolo territory.

Worth seeking out, the CD confirms the multi-faceted skills as players and orchestrators of both ROVA members and Fujii herself.

December 27, 2004

HENRY KAISER/WADADA LEO SMITH/YO MILES!

Sky Garden
Cuneiform Rune 191/192

One of the most memorable -- if not the most memorable -- tributes to Miles Davis, the exultant Yo Miles! band makes its case for a variety of reasons.

First of all, it leaves the BIRTH OF THE COOL and ALL BLUES emulation to the neo-cons and instead concentrates on Davis’ little-appreciated 1971-1975 electric period. Second, unlike younger fusion bands that have recorded embarrassingly overwrought electric Miles imitations, Yo Miles! bandleaders -- guitarist Henry Kaiser and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith -- are old enough to have heard the sounds when they first appeared. Third, the two and their sidefolk approach the concept languidly, having worked on and refined their ideas -- while involved in other projects -- since 1998.

Like Davis, Kaiser and Smith mix musicians from both jazz and rock on this two CD set -- big name musicians at that. Danish tenor and soprano saxophonist John Tchicai, for instance, was an early New Thinger; alto saxophonist Greg Osby an early M-Baser; keyboardist Tom Coster played with Santana, and drummer Steve Smith was in the band Journey. Plus tabla player Zakir Hussein -- featured on two tracks -- and the ROVA saxophone quartet -- featured on one -- don’t exactly show up on every studio session.

The strength of the musicianship is such that SKY GARDEN was recorded live off the floor directly to stereo DSD. Unlike Davis, however, what was recorded is what you hear. No Teo Macero or Bills Laswell types edited and reorganized the sounds afterwards.

This non-linear approach gives the minimum of 10 and maximum of 16 players two CDs of more 75 minutes each in which to uncoil. However SKY GARDEN’s strength is also its weakness, because there’s only so far you can go with electric guitars, electric keyboards and a drummer leaning on the backbeat. That’s why the most memorable tracks are those which bring Smith and Kaiser’s individual musical personalities forward.

Smith’s composition “Who’s Targeted” at first depends on chunky rhythm guitar line and clanging tabla manipulations from Hussein, who founded Shakti with ex-Davis guitarist John McLaughlin. But very soon the output moves past jazz-world music fusion. Kaiser, whose associations have included folk-based pickers like Amos Garrett and David Lindley plus ethnic musicians from Hawaii and Madagascar begins stretching his guitar intervals to suggest mountain-music flailing. Adding to this primitivism, Mississippi-born Smith, whose exposure to rural music precedes his academic prowess and gigs with experimenters like Anthony Braxton, wriggles out an echoing timbre that could come from an melodica or even a Mississippi trumpet: the harmonica. As the almost 21½-minute tune sinuously slithers from mid-tempo to adagio and into prestissimo, mutated Farfisa organ-like nodes mix it up with cowbell and hollow log drum beats as well as something that could be a bean bag shaken with a metal stick -- South Asian percussion perhaps?

Hussein’s tabla pulse is maintained, as are Kaiser’s licks which seems to recall cowboy as well as rockabilly tones. As he picks southward, Smith’s grace notes also descend and both mix it up with the sine wave loops from the electronic keyboards. By the end you’d swear Kaiser is playing a steel guitar, while the finale is signaled with a definite woodblock whack from one of the drummers.

That’s also one of the few definite end points in any of the compositions, for most of the tracks mesh seamlessly together with no pauses.

Another standout, this time written by Davis with some help, is the more-than-10-minute “Sivad/Gemini Double Image/Little Church”. Gorgeous, legato reed harmonies from ROVA give the piece some added spaciousness, especially at the very end when vibrations shift polyharmonically from Tchicai’s tenor saxophone to the saxophone quartet. Earlier Kaiser’s bent note flanges move into psychedelic territory then dissolve into note shards as the beat is maintained by the twin, burbling keyboard runs of Coster and Mike Keneally. Unlike his work other spots, Steve Smith’s drumming is comfortably sympathetic, suggesting the attack he used in Journey can sometimes be altered.

Then there “Great Expectations”, which at almost 35½-minutes, would have been an entire LP in itself 30 years ago. Climax and resolution here is a set of duets -- some between the tabla and the trumpet and the others between the tenor sax and the tabla. Smith and Hussein are at it almost from the beginning, trading fours and eights --or is it fives and sevens plus half tones -- as soon as the piece begins. Soon, the trumpet’s plunger tones are submerged by electric piano runs, a steady funk rhythm from bassist Michael Manring and clunky, feedback-laden guitar runs by the three guitarists. This expanding tonal color easily distributes the themes among several different instruments.

Tchicai’s double tonguing and finger vibrations meet up with carefully positioned smacks from the tabla until a choppy bass guitar run leads onto another section. Smith’s slowly descending trumpet runs make themselves heard again, joining Hussein for a set of stop-and-start note sprinkling. Cymbals shading and an organ vamp percolate behind them until Tchicai’s sourer version of what would have been Wayne Shorter soprano saxophone line intrudes. With a heavier backbeat from the percussionists expanding, Coster’s low-intensity slides and glissandi flash and octave jump to keep things interesting. Eventually, the finale is reached with speedy tabla strokes and Smith backing out of this climatic duet with animalistic flutter tonguing that turns softer and mellower.

Just as long as ostinato bass lines, lead guitar exhibitionism that could have come from Santana and Ten Years After at Woodstock and this-side-of circular-motion hit everything Heavy Metal-like percussion dramatics are kept to a bare minimum Yo Miles! succeeds on its own terms.

When excess reaches the surface, however, the reasons for jazz-rock fusion’s rapid decline to irrelevance are highlighted. Luckily that happens infrequently. Instead the listener is usually treated to slippery, elastic guitar runs; trumpet lines distorted through a wah-wah pedal, percussion tones that are so subtle they could be played with a whisk broom and broken octave polyphony and buzzing cadenzas from Tchicai and portamento alto saxophone smears from Osby. There’s even a point on “Miles Star” where the muted trumpet and nonchalant electric piano fills presage jazz-inflected slurred thumb picking that could come from Wes Montgomery and probably come from Dave Creamer in his one appearance, rather than Kaiser, Keneally (who is playing second keyboard) or Chris Muir.

Died-in-wool Davis and fusion fans will probably treat this, the band’s second album in five years as the aural equivalent to touching part of the shroud of Turin. It definitely puts lesser fusion syntheses to shame. But with both discs adding up to a total of 2½ hours, judiciously, exploration of a couple of tracks at a time will probably make more of an impression for most listeners.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Disc 1: 1. It’s About That Time/The Mask 2. Jabali (part I) 3. Shinjuku 4. Great Expectations# 5. Directions Disc 2: 1. Sivad/Gemini Double Image/Little Church* 2. Miles Star^ 3. Who’s Targeted?# 4. Jabali (part II) 5. Willie Dixon 6. Cozy Pete

Personnel: Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet and electric trumpet); Greg Osby (alto saxophone); John Tchicai (tenor and soprano saxophones); Henry Kaiser and Chris Muir (electric guitars); Mike Keneally (electric guitar and keyboards); Dave Creamer (guitar)^; Tom Coster (keyboards); Michael Manring (bass); Steve Smith (drums and electric guitar); Karl Perazzo (percussion); Zakir Hussein (tabla and percussion)#; ROVA [Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs, Jon Raskin (saxophones)]*

November 22, 2004

ALESSANDRO BOSETTI/MICHEL DONEDA/BHOB RAINEY

Placés dans l’air
Potlatch P103

ROVA
Resistance
Victo cd 086

Once thought outlandish, all saxophone bands have become so commonplace in improvised music that it takes real inventiveness to differentiate any reed collective from others. PLACÉS DANS L’AIR and RESISTANCE manage to overcome this maxim, but in entirely different ways.

Actually, the superiority of the second CD shouldn’t surprise anyone: it’s by ROVA, the Bay area-based sax quartet, which has been operating in this configuration since 1978, constantly evolving and innovating. Organized as temporarily as ROVA is long standing, the trio of soprano saxophonists on the first CD is a one/off meeting among three experimental reedists: Paris-based Michel Doneda, Milan-based Alessandro Bosetti, and Bhob Rainey from Boston. Their disc succeeds because they manage to fuse their individual low-key approaches to the horn so that it appears to take on the characteristics of one immense reed instrument.

Each comes from the silence/sounds side of the improv continuum. Rainey, for instance, is part of the nmperign duo with experimental trumpeter Greg Kelley and has also collaborated with theremin master James Coleman and fellow reedist Jack Wright. Longtime innovator Doneda has worked with soundsinger Beñat Achiary, percussionist Lê Quan Ninh and fellow saxist Daunik Lazro. Member of the multi-European improvising group Phosphor, Bosetti even spent some time in the mid-1990s in the Takla Wind Quartet.

Don’t expect any conventional blending or harmonies on this disc’s more than 41½-minute continuous performance, however. Numerous and varied pitches, tones and resonances come to the fore, but the conventional sound of a soprano saxophone isn’t among them. The one strategy that seems consistent, however, is for one musician to take what in other circumstances would be called the lead, with the other two, doing what elsewhere would be called accompaniment.

Among the techniques on show are the hiss of whistling air, reverberations that could come from blowing through a plastic pipe; trumpet-like plunger spetrofluctuation; and bubble-blowing vibrations. Often each saxophonist will create more than one line himself, so there are periods when it seems that there are nine reed sounds -- echoing sounds, overtones and undertones -- floating through the air. Although aviary chirps and duck call tones fit into the scheme, swing and animation don’t. All the improvisations are linear, but often inert, moving ahead by expelled mouth pressure, not through rhythmic movement.

There are portions where the output is so hushed that even with your playback volume cranked up to maximum, it appears as if an ear trumpet could be called into play. Other times the three saxmen combine to come up with piercing, grating, reed-biting whistles that are nearly ear splitting. These segments can be so off-putting that they can put your teeth on edge -- the approximate place where Bosetti, Doneda and Rainey’s choppers are anyways.

Add to all this a reliance on slap tonguing, growls, shrills at the tippy-top of the already elevated soprano pitch, reed kisses, vibrato-laden breaths, key-popping percussion, growling rumbles and split-second snarls that could come from a trapped feral animal and acceptance of the end result on the trio’s terms is mandatory. Yet if you put aside ideas of how reeds should sound and embrace the ugly beauty of the performance you’ll be audibly rewarded.

After more than a quarter century of inventiveness, ROVA insists that you accept the band on its terms as well. Individually, and as a group, the four has worked with everyone from trumpeter Dave Douglas and pianist/electronic composer Chris Brown, to fellow saxophonists Anthony Braxton and the late Glenn Spearman. Along the way the group has tried out many musics for size. Furthermore, as these performances from 1997 (the title track) and 2002 (the two others) attest, the Californians also often offer the listener more aural signposts than the trio on PLACÉS DANS L’AIR.

Case in point is tenor and sopranino saxophonist Larry Ochs’s “The Drift”. Referencing blues, hymns and shouts it initially couples restrained blues pattern from the sopranino with an euphonious balladic melody. Soon one of the tenor saxists -- either Ochs or Bruce Ackley -- and baritone saxist Jon Raskin steps forward for a series of swinging exchanges that bring to mind baritonist Hank Crawford and tenor man David “Fathead” Newman’s work with Ray Charles band in the early 1960s.

Riffing big band horn section allusions aside, the result is such that you can actually tap your foot to the proceedings. However before the listener gets too comfortable with the pseudo-Count Basie groove, razor sharp tones help to break up the rocking rhythm into more POMO reed separations. Soon the piece is unrolling altissimo, and off beats are added to the constant rhythm. The tenor continues with his solo, the baritone provides the ostinato underneath, and after a series of honks and trills, the tune ends with unison crescendo.

At once more abstract and more traditional, “Resistance”, a group instant composition, may include pre-recorded sax quartet samples to add to the sound picture at times. But elsewhere there’s an alto saxophone solo -- probably played by Steve Adams -- which seems to be built around standard changes, and which is surrounded by the other horns emulating the close harmonies of backup singers in a doo-wop group.

Although more concerned with pitches, tones, rests and vibrations than Bosetti, Doneda and Rainey, the quartet -- and its sampled brothers -- can combine rhythmic key- pad percussion, squealing tones, tugboat-whistle shrills and a cross section of tongue slaps to recreate gridlock traffic sounds. At the same time, as elsewhere, one member will usually take what could be called the lead -- say Raskin sustaining pedal point continuum -- the others will move in and out of the backing formation, taking turns using honks and harmony to cushion or comment on the purported front line. Sometimes the bari masticates great chunks of bottom-feeding tones and other times the soprano and sopraninos combine to produce a flock of swirling, bird-like vibrations. At intervals one saxman squeezes out an achingly pure tone as the other reeds snort, honk and expectorate.

Wadada Leo Smith’s 22-minute “the M’ad Din”, with portions inspired by graphic symbols in the Koran, coalesces all these influences, adding an additional tinge of Middle-Eastern exoticism. Introducing some elevated muezzin-like tones at the top, the composition soon finds the four moving back and forth between harmonies reminiscent of a society band’s reed section and individual lines.

Anything but discordant, a burbling baritone vibrato can be followed by a piercing sound resembling that of a Persian ney. Combined, overlapping, reed barbershop quartet harmonies realign themselves in a horizontal line, with each sax man contributing in turn. Throbbing, repeated soprano tones will be interrupted by a sprightly child-like theme, or a legato, very legit-sounding reed combination will morph into Swing band sax section riff patterns. By the end, protracted, smeared baritone sax cries meet the sopranino ney-pitched phrasing, while tonal, harmonic combinations lead to a multi-varied ending.

ROVA’s members would probably be surprised to hear their music referred to as traditional, but in comparison to Bosetti, Doneda and Rainey’s it is. What this means, though, is that there’s a choice of discs here for reed appreciating improv types -- whether they’re really adventurous or really, really adventurous.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Placés: 1. Placés dans l’air 1 2. Placés dans l’air 2 3. Placés dans l’air 3 4. Placés dans l’air 4 5. Placés dans l’air 5

Personnel: Placés: Alessandro Bosetti, Michel Doneda and Bhob Rainey (soprano saxophones); Pierre-Olivier Boulant (subjective stereophonic recording)

Track Listing: Resistance: 1. Resistance 2. The Drift 3. The M’ad Din

Personnel: Resistance: Bruce Ackley (soprano and tenor saxophones); Steve Adams (soprano and alto saxophones); Larry Ochs (sopranino and tenor saxophones); Jon Raskin (sopranino, alto and baritone saxophones)

July 21, 2003

ROVA

As Was
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 216 CD

Founded at around the same time as the World Saxophone Quartet in the late 1970s, ROVA has always existed as a sort of the Bizarro West Coast twin to the that woodwind ensemble.

Yet today, when all-saxophone groupings are as commonplace as self-important pronouncements from Wynton Marsalis, listening to this 1981 disc shows exactly how ROVA defined itself and has since managed to evolve. Open to influences as varied as 20th Century classical music, avant garde jazz and rock music, ROVA often produced a devil may care cacophony that was as consistent as it was exhilarating.

As the WSQ became more and more "jazzy" in the 1980s, recording an album of Duke Ellington tunes and gaining the ultimate accolade of being included in the updated Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, ROVA maintained its singular path.

You can hear it on this CD, which chronologically, was its sixth session. "Under the Street Where You Live", a completely improvised piece dedicated to Albert Ayler, is supposed to be a vehicle for Ochs on tenor saxophone. But the baritone saxophone ostinato and the soprano saxophone filigree decorations are such that when the tenor man gets into dog whistle territory, the other reeds are there to propel the tune forward.

Then there's the almost 19 and one half minutes of "Paint Another Take of the Shootpop". Honoring both French composer Oliver Messiaen and soul shouter Otis Redding, it's a mixture of composed and improvised sections, referencing Dixieland polyphony and Gaelic naturalistic mysticism, with parts for nearly every one of the quartet's doubles and triples. Note this composition was put together years before the likes of Don Byron and John Zorn routinely offered up similar morsels of pomo commingling.

Midway through the tune, Raskin explodes with such roughhouse baritone sax lines that molten lava seems to spurt from the instrument's bell. Then the piece divides with the baritone and tenor sticking to the bottom and the soprano and alto on top, with the horn aurally somersaulting one over another.

Finally, despite its Beatlesque dedication -- "for Mr. Kite" -- "Daredevils" actually opens with what sounds like a baroque fanfare. Wisely reprogrammed on the reissue to the beginning from the end of the disc, it now serves as an aperitif to what will be served afterwards. This likely through-composed number depends on the four horns hiding and seeking one another out with melodies and countermelodies. Artfully blended throughout, it on a sustained unison grace note.

In the 20 years since AS WAS was recorded, ROVA has maintains its high standards and exploratory ways. The only shift in personnel has seen another multi-reedist Steve Adams stepping in for Andrew Voight in 1988. Anyone interested in the band -- or merely the joy of sax -- would be well advised to investigate this session.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Daredevils 2. Quill 3. Escape From Zero Village 4. Under the Street Where You Live 5. Paint Another Take of the Shootpop

Personnel: Jon Raskin (soprano, alto and baritone saxophones, clarinet); Larry Ochs (sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones); Andrew Voigt (sopranino, soprano and alto saxophones, flute); Bruce Ackley (soprano saxophone, clarinet)

March 19, 2000