Ig Henneman Sextet

Live at the Ironworks Vancouver
Wig 21

Charlotte Hug & Frédéric Blondy

Bouquet

Emanem 5026

By Ken Waxman

Q: What’s the difference between a dog and a viola? A: The dog knows when to stop scratching. Of all the stringed instruments extant, it’s the viola which gets the least respect, with this joke only one of hundreds about it.

Yet because of its unique intonation the viola has become a favored method of expression for inventive improvisers like the two on these discs. Certainly Zürich’s Charlotte Hug and Amsterdam’s Ig Henneman confirm the versatility of their chosen instrument.

Perfectly designed to confuse types whose allegiance is to contemporary so-called classical music are the selections on Bouquet by Hug and Paris-based pianist Frédéric Blondy. Both have enough academic expertise to work in the notated milieu, but the dozen tracks here are improvisations, off-handedly displaying exquisite technical smarts, while sympathetically cooperating to create sound pictures that are extravagant without being egocentric. Most tracks consist of inside and outside piano tropes that range from methodical to stratospheric, plus fiddle sweeps that encompass mangling, melding and mixing textures. The overlapping cadences create a genuinely moving program.

A track such as “Thalia remontant” for instance finds the pianist vibrating mini cymbals resting on the top of his instrument’s internal string set, complementing Hug’s low-pitched spiccato swipes. Moving away from steady rhythm, both apply more torque to their strings resulting in multiplied tremolo syncopation. In contrast, “Rosa moyesii” is completed with a (faux?) sexy sigh from Hug after the two have methodically exposed parallel tonal chords, with the violist’s instrument attaining cello-like resonance as she roughens her attack. Blondy is so skillful that on “Sombreuil” he creates a cavern-deep ostinato from pure pedal motion alone, and then uses broken-octave keyboard jumps to define a response to Hug’s melodic invention. Elsewhere embroidered textures oscillate so quickly and are so opaque that ascribing them to a particular instrument is nearly impossible.

The six Henneman compositions that make up Live at the Ironworks Vancouver include so-called classical references as well. Still, while the violist may include more melodic and metrical portions, discordant sounds aren’t rejected. Her international sextet includes bassist Wilbert de Joode and multi-reedist Ab Baars from the Netherlands; Berlin-based trumpeter Axel Dörner; and two Canadians: Montreal clarinetist Lori Freedman and Toronto pianist Marilyn Lerner.

Note the versatile turns on the final “A ‘n B”, with the exposition moving from straightforward swing, replete with graceful trumpet lines and contrapuntal cascades from Lerner, to tougher sequences when honking bass clarinet explosions from Freeman and angled riffs from the violist take over, only to combine with the others for a low-key ending. De Joode’s steady pumping personalizes the title of “Bold Swagger” as call-and-response patterns are created by string double-stopping plus vibrations from the horn section. Henneman’s gift for descriptive lines are on display with “Prelude for the Lady with the Hammer”, which could serve as a film noir theme. The circuitous melody underlines dramatic contrasts among the bassist’s stentorian slaps, the violist’s double-stopping bent notes, and some pseudo-romantic chording from Lerner, ending the piece with a restrained, lyrical respite. The group’s abstract turn arrives with the deceptively titled “Light Verse”. More like a dramatic epic, the juddering exposition include whinnying trumpet flutters, unaccompanied, altissimo reed squeals and jittery lines from Henneman. Luckily Lerner’s rolling bottom chords again hold things together.

These CDs confirms that the viola makes a perfect vehicle for advanced improvisation. More sessions like these, and eventually there may be a dearth of jokes like: Q: Why is a viola like a lawsuit? A: Everyone’s happy when the case is closed.

Tracks: Bouquet: La belle sultane; Oeillet parfait; Sombreuil; Cato’s Pink Cluster; Boule de neige; Rosa moyesii; Zéphirine; Minnehaha; Thalia remontant; Nova Zambla; Double Delight; Thor

Personnel: Bouquet: Charlotte Hug: viola and voice; Frédéric Blondy: piano

Tracks: Live: Tracks; Prelude for the Lady with the Hammer; Kindred Spirits; Bold Swagger; Light Verse; A ‘n B

Personnel: Live: Axel Dörner: trumpet; Ab Baars: tenor saxophone, clarinet, shakuhachi; Lori Freedman: bass clarinet, clarinet; Ig Henneman: viola; Marilyn Lerner: piano; Wilbert de Joode: bass

--For The New York City Jazz Record March 2013

March 5, 2013

Ig Henneman Sextet

Cut a Caper
Wig 19

Negotiating the boundary between noted and improvised music, Europe and Canada is the all-star sextet of Dutch violist Ig Henneman which is in concert at the Music Gallery June 24. The 10 limpid pieces by Henneman which make up this disc are interpreted by a drum-less ensemble whose particularized arrangements and advanced technical requirements suggest contemporary New music. But when Berlin-based trumpeter Axel Dörner gargles altissimo air through his horn or when the violist lets loose with airborne spicccato snatches, the formalism is left aside. As well, there may be canon-like voicing on Moot, but Charles Mingus-like echoes appear on Toe and Heel, while the title tune adds marching band hops to other sound tropes.

Part of this CD’s textural freedom must be ascribed to the alternately metronomic hammering or sly soundboard stretches from Toronto pianist Marilyn Lerner. Upping the CanCan quota is Montreal clarinet and bass clarinetist Lori Freedman, although pinpointing which bracing chalumeau snorts or altissimo split tone squeals arise from her horns rather than the clarinet of Amsterdam’s Ab Baars, who also exposes liquid tenor saxophone runs and narrowed shakuhachi puffs is nearly impossible. Follow Netherlander Wilbert De Joode holds the disparate sections together with steel-fingered string slaps that at points expand the polyphony with braced sul tasto or col legno slides.

Beside Cut a Caper, where Lerner’s percussive echoes could as easily fit a performance of Morton Feldman as Mingus, another stand-out track is Narration. With a post-modern novel’s non-linear form, this narration meanders among sections that highlight glottal echoes from the trumpeter, knife-sharp plucks from the violist, horns harmonized until their tones splinter into tongue slaps or intense trilling plus the bassist’s assured pedal-point ostinato.

--Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 17 #9

June 10, 2012

Festival Report:

dOek's 10th Anniversary
By Ken Waxman

Unexpectedly but appropriately, Sean Bergin tenor saxophonist and tour-guide-for-the-day, added an extra stop to an afternoon bus tour of selected jazz clubs during Amsterdam’s 10th anniversary dOeK festival April 21-22. In front of a construction site on a narrow street beside a canal, which from 1974-2005 been home to the Bimhuis, the South African-born Bergin passed out noise-makers and lead the participants in a brief fanfare celebrating ground zero for advanced Dutch sounds,

The salute was doubly significant. Not only was that location progenitor of the spacious, soft-seated, harbor-front location of the new Bimhuis in which the two-day festival took place, but long-time Amsterdam resident Bergin, who during the bus journey entertained with quirky songs and stories about the city’s musical history while playing saxophone, penny-whistle and ukulele, is a representative of the foreign improvisers who have contributed to the city’s musical gestalt over the years.

Organized as a non-profit foundation promoting improvisation in the Netherlands, dOek’s global reach was emphasized during the fest with concerts that featured American, German and Australian musicians playing alongside their Dutch counterparts.

One of the most significant was WoKaLi that melded the verbalized whinnies, mumbles and rapid lip motions of local trombonist Wolter Wierbos, with the crisp, heel-of-hand key palming of pianist Achim Kaufmann and the hyperactive, irregular rhythms produced by vibrating tambourines, crumbling foil and slapping hard objects on drum heads from Christian Lillinger, both from Berlin. A staccato climax was reached as Wierbos’ slurs turned to tongue-grinds as the drummer beat on the hi-hat with a stick, while press-rolling as Kaufmann’s cascades kept the theme cohesive.

Oddly there was no piano present during the set by The Gap, a sextet organized by dOeK founding member Cor Fuhler, who has relocated to Sydney. Usually a keyboardist, Fuhler played guitar instead and was backed by Germans Axel Dörner on slide-trumpet and Jan Roder on bass; another dOeK founder, who now live in Berlin, reedist Tobias Delius; plus two Aussies: percussionist Steve Heather and vibraphonist Dale Gorfinkel, whose kinetic sound and light sculptures were on display on another floor of the Bimhuis. A suite of Fuhler-composed, airy, connected miniatures the pieces depended as much on Gorfinkel’s four-mallet rubs and slides on the metal bars and Heather’s soft, sensitive brush work. Ironically despite the Ur-modernist playing of Dörner, whose distanced breaths often seemed to leak back into his horn, the taunt voicing of vibes, guitar and Delius’ simple, flat-line clarinet could have been that of Lionel Hampton, Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman in the ’30s.

A more assertive bass-and-percussion team of dOeker, Amsterdam’s Wilbert de Joode and Chicago’s Hamid Drake demonstrated contemporary Dutch-American, with The Now quartet, with the front-line similarly divided between American flutist Nicole Mitchell and saxophonist Peter van Bergen from the Netherlands. That’s divided only in nationality, for the players are equally proficient in mixing multiphonics, minimalism and mellowness. Drake’s frame-drum rubs and occasional reggae backbeats didn’t prevent him from preserving a press-roll-and-rim-shot jazz pulse, while no matter how many bass face scratches or vibrating buzzes de Joode emphasized in solos, his sturdy walking was omnipresent. Meantime Mitchell matched lyrical glissandi with rougher piccolo tweets, while van Bergen moves between near New music spaciousness and mellow near-blues. Most notably cooperation is more notable as the flute, tenor saxophone and bass hold a single note between them as Drake decorates the background with hand drum pops.

A stirring Dutch-dOeK variant on another jazz style, the Tough Tenor tradition of the ‘40s and ‘50s was apparent at two funky, performance spaces during the afternoon club tour. At Kwikfiets, a combination café, art gallery and bicycle repair shop [!], reedist Ab Baars went mano-a-mano with Brazilian-born Yedo Gibson, backed by Finnish guitarist Mikael Szafirowski and drummer Gerri Jäger. Meanwhile at OT301, the former Netherlands Film Academy, now a club space with a bar and vegan restaurant, contrasting tenor saxophone stylists American John Dikeman, a dOeK member, and Delius were set off by Wierbos’ trombone.

Playing mostly Baars’ tunes, whose Dutch titles were humorously mispronounced by Gibson, the two tenors’ styles were distinctive even playing in lockstep. In steady rolling fashion the Brazilian’s snickering freak tomes encompassed reed bites and tongue stops, while the other played mid-range, excepting sporadic altissimo leaps. With Baars on clarinet, shaggy group harmonies approximated those of Tim Berne’s recent bands, especially when Szafirowski alternated finger slides and slashing distortion as the drummer produced unique rhythms, smacking wood blocks or bouncing bound straw on drum tops. Sticking to tradition, the band also alluded to Monk, Trane, “Lullaby of Birdland” and the blues.

So did Dikeman, Delius, and Wierbos. Sometimes in fact the trombonist’s cup-muted growls and Delius’ spacious vibrato sounded like they migrated from a foot-tapping Swing Era jam session even though the rhythm section included synthesizer and electric bass. Still the chief attraction was a rugged power engendered by the two tenor saxophonists. Playing originals ranging from approximation of gentle ballads to rocking bar-room stompers, the two, like Baars, Gibson and any number of other Amsterdam players maintained distinctive identities. In contrast to Delius’ studied classicism, Dikeman appeared comfortably wedded to an extension of Energy Music.

And if Energy Music was needed there was no better example than the sextet’s first tune, appropriately a kwela-influenced piece composed and recorded by Begin a few years ago. A go-for-broke workout, the dynamic performance combined a joyous African melody, staccato rhythm that were half Cape Town and half Chicago and snapping solos whose feeling for blues, jazz and the indefinable other went a long way towards defining the sounds that characterized the important anniversary of this festival.

--For New York City Jazz Record June 2012

June 5, 2012

Wolter Wierbos

Deining
Dolfijn Records DolFinj 02

Isaiah Ceccarelli

Bréviare d'epuisements

Ambiances Magnétiques AM 199 CD

Gord Grdina Trio

Barrel Fire

Drip Audio DA00651

Axel Dörner/Diego Chamy

Super Axel Dörner

Absinth Records 018

Something in the Air:

Dutch Improvisers and Friends in Toronto

By Ken Waxman

Accommodating and adaptable improvising musicians from the Netherlands are as open to out-of-country influences as working with players from different countries in Holland or abroad. Confident in their own skills, they see non-local musicians’ participation as additions to their music, not competition. These beliefs characterize two ostensibly Dutch ensembles in concert in Toronto this month: The Ex with Brass Unbound is presented by the Music Gallery at Lee’s Palace on May 18; while Ig Henneman’s Kindred Spirits Sextet at Gallery 345 May 19. Violist Henneman’s combo includes two Canadians, pianist Marilyn Lerner and clarinettist Lori Freedman plus German trumpeter Axel Dörner. Meanwhile the Brass Unbound, working with the guitar-heavy, Dutch anarchistic punk-jazzers The Ex, is made up of Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, American saxophonist Ken Vandermark and Dutch trombonist Wolter Wierbos. A careful listen to some of these players own CDs demonstrates the sort of adaptability that characterizes these Dutch-centred combos in general.

A series of duos, Wierbos’ Deining DolFijn Records 02 is most intuitive when the trombonist’s rugged and multiphonic timbres stack up against those from the reeds of Ab Baars, who coincidentally is a member of the Henneman band playing the following night. On Buitengaats, for instance, Baars’ altissimo irregularly vibrated warbling and fluttering cross tones come up against bugle-like chromaticism from the trombonist. This emphasis towards linearly connections works even more effectively on Op de Warf, as the play-anything drummer Han Bennink works his way around staccatissimo all around his kit – and the nearby floor – while tooting a harmonica and whistle blowing. Right beside him, and similarly intense is Wierbos using elephantine brays, capillary burbles and rubato snorts to eventually shift the tempo so the two end up swinging with identical microtones.

Baritone and tenor saxophonist Gustafsson, another of the Unbound hornmen, has had even more experiences trading licks with rock-influenced group – even in Canada. As a matter of fact, Barrel Fire Drip Audio DA00651 captures a raw face-off between the reedist and the Vancouver-based members of guitarist Gord Grdina’s Trio, including bassist Tommy Babin and drummer Kenton Loewen. Unfettered in his playing during all of the CD’s five tracks, Gustafsson snorts, slurs, stutters and spits out elasticized, almost never-ending glottal punctuation. Meanwhile Grdina counters – as the Ex’s guitarists do as well – with distorted reverb, harsh downstrokes and staccato bent notes as Loewen’s ferocious backbeat encompasses ruffs, rolls and ricochets. Bringing the same sort of nephritic gut-wrenching blasts to Enshakoota, a traditional Iraqi tune mostly limited to the splayed and coiled runs Grdina picks on oud, the saxophonist’s stentorian tones and the others’ contrapuntal responses also get an extended showcase on Burning Bright. As Babin’s fingers slither along his strings so that the notes fairly glisten and the drummer pounds and smashes relentlessly while swishing his cymbals, ringing guitar chords deconstructed with reverb and distortion are matched polyphonically with diaphragm-vibrated split tones and triple-tonguing from the saxman. Gustafsson’s ejaculated shrills and shaking vamps, Grdina’s skyward-chiming chording plus Loewen’s backbeat come as close to a definition of Heavy Metal Jazz as can be imagined.

If Gustafsson’s altissimo cries and renal grunts define unfettered excesses of one sort of Free Improvisation, then Kindred Spirit Dörner takes the opposite track with reductionist microtones, which favor sound exploration over melody. A convincing illustration occurs of this occurs on the appropriately titled Super Axel Dörner Absinth Records 018 with his duo partner Argentinean percussionist Diego Chamy. It’s near a solo showcase since Chamy spends more time mumbling and vocalizing while distractedly hitting percussion instruments than laying down a beat. To compensate the trumpeter pushes grainy, flat lines through his open horn without moving his valves so that these textures parallel, rather than blend with Chamy’s sonic expressions. With intermittent noises that sound variously like nakers being hit, the whirl of chukka sticks and the bouncing of a stick on cymbal tops from the percussionist – as well as rapid-fire Spanish statements – Dörner has plenty of scope to decorate the sonic grisaille in such a way that harmonic and rhythmic contours are nearly visible. At one point he alternates bright, open-horn blasts with tongue slaps against the mouthpiece, inflating agitato triplets to full-bore whistles. When discord suggests the drummer is eccentrically scrapping a putty knife against the drum’s rims, Dörner livens up the interchange with fortissimo brass blasts, immediately followed by extended circular breathing. This so vibrates the trumpet’s insides that partials and microtone are audible alongside brass textures. It’s this sort of instant response to non-pulsating beat that serves the trumpeter well in the Henneman sextet where the underlying beat is really supplied by the bass of Wilbert de Joode, who also featured on more than half of Wierbos’ CD here.

Intertwining horn work is another leitmotif of Henneman’s combo, and in Toronto, Dörner shares the front line with Baars and Montreal’s Freedman. This sort of timbre blending is a regular facet of the bass clarinetist’s performances. It can be sampled on Isaiah Ceccarelli’s dramatic Bréviare d’épuisements Ambiances Magnétiques AM 199 CD. Much different than the Henneman sextet’s jazz-oriented fare this session amalgamates the ecclesiastical and the atonal. Émilie Laforest and Josée Lalonde intone or vocalize Marie Deschênes’ texts, with distinctive sonic timbres heard alongside these lyric sopranos arising from Freedman’s and Philippe Lauzier’s bass clarinets, Pierre-Yves Martel’s viola de gamba and Ceccarelli’s percussion arsenal. The drummer’s most common strategy involves scrapping cymbals against drum tops, acoustically producing the sort of grinding and buzzing textures that otherwise would be associated with electronics. Meanwhile the cleverly harmonized singers personalize the poetic lyrics while stretching the songs with hocketing pitch variations. One standout passages occurs on La disparation est un mur de plus when the nearly vibrato-less parlando of one vocalist is cushioned by clarinet harmonies. During some pure instrumental passages the similarities between trilling reeds and stroked strings is emphasized as mutual tonal expansions appears to be both notated and aleatoric.

Performances by either the Kindred Spirits, the Ex or both, means exposure to noteworthy soloists as well as well-thought-out group conceptions. Torontonians get a rare chance to hear them both over a two-day period.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #8

May 11, 2011

Ab Baars

Time to Do My Lions
Wig 17

Linsey Wellman

Ephemera

No label No #

J D Parran

Window Spirits

Mutable 17539-2

Jason Robinson

Cerberus Rising

Accretions ALP51

Something in the Air: Solo Saxophone Sessions

By Ken Waxman

Solo performances are the true test of a musician’s mettle. If he or she can keep listeners’ interest throughout an exploration of an instrument’s limits, these skills can be utilized in any situation. Unaccompanied string recitals are as ancient as music itself, but only in the later part of the 20th Century did it become common for other instrumentalists to express their ideas singularly. Improvised music accelerated this process with significant solo saxophone recitals by the likes of Evan Parker and Anthony Braxton. Today seemingly every saxophonist records in a solitary fashion at least once, with these discs some of the better recent performances.

Veteran J D Parran has mastered most members of the woodwind family since the 1970s. On Window Spirits Mutable 17539-2 the American improviser plays unaccompanied alto flute, wooden flute, alto clarinet, clarinet and bass saxophone impeccably, with the last two particular standouts. Spearmanon and C80, for example, both enlarge the bass beast’s customary timbres upwards and downwards so that it sounds as comfortable and cleanly melodic expressing altissimo reed cries as earth-shaking blasts. On the former, constant flattement and an intense vibrato together smear tones all over the sound surface with the pulsating lines as balletic as they are elephantine. On the latter, as his clear-toned melodic extensions vibrate and rattle distinctively, Parran uses circular breathing to play entire chromatic runs in subterranean burps. Elsewhere, Emotions a clarinet showpiece, expresses a gamut of moods with parallel lines vibrating in counterpoint with one another, congruent but varied in pitch, tone or rhythm. Balladic at times, the spherical lines become polyphonic, creating multiple sonic colors which eventually blend with the initial narrative as the exposition loops back to the beginning.

Another reedist with extensive experience leading his own trio and as part of the ICP Orchestra is Ab Baars of the Netherlands. Time to Do My Lions Wig 17 finds the Amsterdam-based improviser playing clarinet, tenor saxophone and shakuhachi (Oriental bamboo flute). Like Parran, he has a distinctive solo voice on each instrument, yet is easily able to transfer the techniques from one to another. Case in point is Watazumi Doso, named for a legendary shakuhachi player but played on tenor saxophone. Not only does he invest the sax with non-Western rhythmic pitch and a narrow nasal sound, but his abrasive split tones sound like what would be produced by a blend of Energy Music and gagaku court music. At the same time Baars in versatile enough to invest The Rhythm is in the Sound, with a collection of abrasive multiphonics, dissonant plus inchoate squeaks, peeps and cries that are atonality incarnate. His clarinet lines are equally descriptive. Crisp reed bites and quivering, liquid runs blend on the title tune in such an unaffected manner that the piece advances linearly, despite the quivering altissimo screams punctuating the final section. A similar strategy appears on Rittratto dal mare a Anzio, where the finale of languid and breathy tones logically follows from the reed partials exposed as fortissimo squeaks and extended, quivering glissandi. Elsewhere shakuhachi lines are appropriately delicate and legato.

San Diego`s Jason Robinson introduces different textures to his timbral examination of the alto and tenor saxophones plus alto flute on Cerberus Rising Accretions ALP51. The 16 solo improvisations are frequently modified with effects and samples from musical software. Staying spontaneous, there are no edits or overdubs as Robinson alters his reed lines in real time. For instance the title track is quickly mutated from what could be the demarcated expression of a lone tenor saxophone to a variant of a saxophone choir, with the other overdubbed horns vibrating echo-chamber-like effects over which the first saxophone improvises. The reverberating reeds blurrily expose thematic variants sped up to cartoon music velocity, until legato sax timbres reappear and complete the narrative. Alternately, as on Serpentine Gaze, the saxophone’s wide vibrato is processed to such an extent that the higher-pitched results sound as if Ebb Tide is being played on a wind synthesizer. A genuine watery overlay is present on Rising Tide for Humanity as field recordings of thunderstorms and lapping waves share space with computer-processed buzzes, and then give way to staccato saxophone tones that reverberate on top of fan-belt like clangs from the software. Syrynx at the Edge of Nightfall on the other hand frames a lyrical flute line with whistling, echoing and wobbly wave forms. These computer pulsations stretch time by not only bubbling underneath, but also by commenting discordantly on the initial exposition.

The preceding elaborate reed reconfigurations make Ottawa-based alto saxophonist Linsey Wellman’s Ephemera No label No # seems almost quaint in its adherence to the initial unaccompanied saxophone strategies of the likes of Braxton and Parker. Unadorned except for his saxophone, Wellman uses repeated and carefully divided lines to vibrate split tones which are somehow both polyphonic and tonic. Using circular breathing he produces equivalent note clusters and glissandi that unroll as if his saxophone is a perpetual motion machine yet subtly vary in pitch, shading and emphasis. Systematically playing at a level of unabashed intensity, thematic variations aren’t neglected no matter how rough and staccato his performance. Moreover melodic inferences are never far from the surface, as on Track 9, where slurred textures and reed pressure quirkily hint at an atonal variant of Harlem Nocturne. As spectacularly, fortissimo and staccato cries, reed percussion and shaded multiphonics on Track 3, seem to be produced by sheer mouth, lip and breath control.

Wellman’s unvarnished, understated, perhaps by definition, Canadian, extended techniques suggest that his saxophone skills could eventually reach Baars or Parran level. His CD certainly confirms that plenty of sounds remain to be exposed in solo saxophone sets.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #6

March 9, 2011

ICP Orchestra

(049)
ICP 049

The Either/Orchestra

Mood Music for Time Travellers

Accurate 3285

Keeping a musical ensemble together for any length of time is an accomplishment. When it’s a 10 piece Improvised Music group, and the period is a quarter century, the achievement is even more remarkable. But that’s what Mood Music for Time Travellers celebrates: the 25th anniversary of the Massachusetts-based Either/Orchestra (EO). The EO’s potent mix of Jazz, Rock, Funk and more recently African influences, makes it unique among most American Jazz groups.

This sort of uniqueness is compounded, but expressed in other ways when compared to another long-established tentet, the Dutch Instant Composers Pool (ICP) Orchestra. That’s because that collection of Amsterdam’s most individualistic players has been navigating the choppy waters of Jazz and Improvised Music since 1969. Although over the years, the two bands have been training ground for players who have gone off to acclaim elsewhere, the reason both the ICP and EO remain going concerns, as these CDs demonstrate, is that many first-class players sign on for extended periods. Similarly both depend on the compositional and organizational skills of one man: saxophonist Russ Gershon in the EO’s case, and pianist Misha Mengelberg in the ICP’s. Six of the 10 compositions on the EO CD are Gershon’s; while Mengelberg is sole or co-writer of seven of 12 (049) tracks.

Because it’s part of a celebratory milestone Mood Music for Time Travellers also features guest appearances by a couple of EO alumni. However, while everyone gets proper blowing space, the nagging complaint about the CD is that no soloists are listed, a hindrance when the band has two trumpeters and three saxophonists. Otherwise the CD has few other faults.

Showing Gershon’s generosity – or sonic smarts – in fact, two of the most notable tunes, “Thirty Five” and “History Lesson”, are compositions of Rick McLaughlin, the band’s long-time bass player. Reflecting the EO’s collaborations in person and on record with different Ethiopian singers and instrumentalists, the first mixes Ethiopian modes with Jazz harmonies, while the latter salutes Nigeria’s best-known music star, Fela Kunti. With a theme expressed by every member of the band differently, high-pitched unison brass articulation, tough syncopated piano lines and slick doubled-tongued soprano saxophone lines stand out on “Thirty Five”. As for the latter piece, clanking piano runs and note clusters from Rafael Alcala, plus McLaughlin’s repetitive bass patterns set the pace, allowing space for a riffing saxophone solo from either a high-pitched baritone or mid-range tenor.

Perhaps as influenced by Duke Pearson and Duke Fakir as Duke Ellington, Gershon is an accomplished, if more funkified, composer himself. The first track, “The (One of a Kind) Shimmy”, is an unabashed boogaloo, for instance, encompassing piano chording that seems to have stepped out of “The Sidewinder”, call-and-response section work from mellow muted brass and tremolo shimmies from the composer’s soprano saxophone. Meantime, “The Petrograd Revision” takes it shape from African, Funk and the better parts of Jazz Fusion material. Melding Pablo Bencid’s back-beat drumming, a walking bass line, slapped conga drum rhythms, Alcala’s quivering organ timbres plus contrapuntal vamps from the horns, the tune ends up being simultaneously clean and funky. And there’s still room for Gershon’s exposition and a linear, graceful trumpet solo.

Funk may be absent from (049), but that’s one of the few genres upon which the band doesn’t touch. A group of individualized soloists, the ICP also has a string section – Mary Oliver’s violin and viola, Tristan Honsinger’s cello and sometimes Ernst Glerum’s arco bass – which the EO lacks. Plus with Honsinger and ICP co-founder drummer Han Bennink on board, disruptions are common along with unexpected musical avenues which suddenly leading to more exploration.

Consider “Busy Beaver”, for instance. Sounding for all intents and purposes like a jolly march perfect to be played by a European street band, the tune turns out to be a composition by pianist Herbie Nichols. Re-imagined by reedist Ab Baars, the performance includes trombonist Wolter Wierbos’ bell wiggles and plunger work, altered sul ponticello from the cellist that’s harmonized with Glerum’s ostinato and pops, plus slaps and rebounds from Bennink.

Mengelberg’s own “No Idea’, also takes on many shapes in an arrangement by reedist Michael Moore. At points an atmospheric ballad, the string section appears to be channeling mood music of the 1950s, as the horns riff harmonically and the composer plinks out Errol Garner-styled runs. Meanwhile on the other side of the bandstand, trumpeter Thomas Herberer’s half-valve effects seemingly exist on a different plane than the trombonist’s pedal point. Plus Bennink insists on steadily increasing clatters and bangs, as if he was Sonny Greer goosing an Ellington killer-diller.

At the same time the CD – which also includes a DVD track linking Amsterdam visuals to a jokey, swinging band improvisation – is studded with other musical references as well. The pianist spends one track mumbling to himself in Dutch – or is it double Dutch? – and another showing off his Monk-like chops. Honsinger and tenor saxophonist Toby Delius combine for one number that posits what would happen if cello lines were added to an R&B-like saxophone showcase. Additionally, Baars showcases mellow clarinet vibrations during his arrangement of Ellington’s “Sonnet in Search of a Moor”. Baars’ solo may be strictly in mid-1950s Jimmy Hamilton mode, but Glerum’s solid walking and string-popping suggests that of Wellman Braud, a ducal bassist from a much earlier Ellington epoch.

Perhaps this thoughtful mélange of styles frequently demonstrated is one reason for the long-term existence of both the American and the Dutch groups. Changing a slogan slightly to “if it sounds good, do it”, the ICP and EO apparently follow that dictum. By also adding unique elements that result from the players’ individual skills, both can create exceptional CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Mood: 1. The (One of a Kind) Shimmy* 2. Beaucoups Kookoo* 3. Coolocity; 4. Portrait of Lindsey Schust# 5. Ropa Loca# 6.Thirty Five* 7. Latin Dimensions* 8. The Petrograd Revision* 9. Suriname 10. History Lesson

Personnel: Mood: Tom Halter, Daniel Rosenthal (trumpet); Joel Yennior (trombone); Godwin Louis (alto saxophone); Russ Gershon (tenor and soprano saxophones); Charlie Kohlhase, Kurtis Rivers* ( baritone saxophone); Henry Cook# (flute); Rafael Alcala (piano and Hammond B3 organ); Rick McLaughlin (bass and electric bass); Pablo Bencid (drums) and Vicente Lebron (congas, bongos and percussion)

Track Listing: (049): 1. Niet Zus, Maar Zo 2.Wake-up Call 3. Sumptious 4. Hamami 5. Busy Beaver 6. Mitrab 7. The Lepaerd 8. Het Zoemen 9. Erma 10. No Idea 11. Sonnet in Search of a Moor 12. Steigerpijp

Personnel: (049): Thomas Heberer (trumpet); Wolter Wierbos (trombone); Ab Baars (tenor saxophone and clarinet; Michael Moore (alto saxophone and clarinet); Tobias Delius (tenor saxophone); Misha Mengelberg (piano); Mary Oliver (violin and viola); Tristan Honsinger (cello); Ernst Glerum (bass) and Han Bennink (drums)

February 22, 2011

Baars/Kneer

Windfall
Evil Rabbit ERR 10

Bertram Turetzky/Vinny Golia

The San Diego Session

Kadima Collective Recordings KCR 24

Although not as unusual as they would have been as recently as 20 years ago, duo sessions by woodwind players and bassists still necessitate having a bull fiddler participating who has seemingly limitless technique plus a bubbling fountain of ideas. The reason is simple, while the horn players has many keys he can sound – on more than one instrument on these discs – the bassist only has four tightly wound strings and a bow with which to work.

Luckily both bassists here are up to the challenge. Known for his skills in both the improvised and notated worlds, Bertram Turetzky easily complements Los Angles-based multi-reedman Vinny Golia’s work on The San Diego Session. Turetzky, who until his recent retirement, was a music professor at University of California, San Diego, uses a variety of instrumental feints and flourishes to mark his sonic territory. That isn’t surprising for a player whose versatility has allowed him to participate in sessions involving players as different as mainstream jazz pianist Mike Wofford and polymath trombonist George Lewis.

Recorded at almost the exact same time as the other disc but in Amsterdam, that is as close to the Atlantic Ocean as San Diego is to the Pacific, is Dutch bassist Meinrad Kneer. He proves to be as sonically adaptable as Turetzky on 11 instant compositions with Dutch multi-reedist Ab Baars. Baars, whose best-known affiliation is with the ICP Orchestra, brings his tenor saxophone, clarinet, shakuhachi and noh-kan to the session. Windfall demonstrates that this timbral collection didn’t faze Kneer. Versatility is his watchword. Although Kneer often records with prepared pianist Albert Van Veenendaal, he also works frequently with Jazz-Folk-Rocker guitarist Paul Pallesen and other leading lights of the Netherlands’ improv scene as saxophonist Tobias Delius.

One instance of the Baars/Kneer concordance occurs on “Bird Talk”, which links the bassist’s distanced creaks and shuffle bowing with shrill whistling and intermittent, high-pitched twitters with an Oriental cast, likely produced by Baars’ noh kan or bamboo transverse flute. By the piece's completion, the reedist’s biting shrills are matched by the bassist’s spiccato scrubs.

Similar strategies arise on tunes using more conventional instruments such as tenor saxophone on “The Pledge” and clarinet on “Insinuated Instability”. On the first, Baars’ initial flat-line undulations ascend to continuous harsh reed blasts as Kneer crunches and scratches andante lines – his stretched tessitura unperturbed by the saxophonist’s concentrated atonality. As a matter of fact, when Baars produces double, triple and quadruple variations on certain note clusters, Kneer does the same by using bow motions and concluding passages that are both legato and basso. On the latter tune it’s Baars’ moderato clarinet lines which have to catch up, as the bassist’s finger-style accompaniment blossoms first with strums and twangs and then with sawing, crackling, single-note resonation. Downshifting to a gentler output as he solos, the clarinetist manages to interest Kneer in what could be baroque inventions, ending the piece with warm, near pastoral counterpoint.

In truth, the most effective duets involve Baars’ tenor, including “The Staircase Incident”, where between Kneer’s thick string-stopping and the reedist’s jagged and harsh cries, it sounds as if the two – without drums and piano – are attempting a Monk quartet emulation, with the reeedist’s Charlie Rouse-styled lines responding to the unheard other members’ contributions.

Elsewhere the saxophonist can accelerate to Aylerian heights, piling great gouts of notes and extensions into every breath, featuring tongue stops as well as sudden leaps into the altissimo register, while the bassist bows muscularly alongside him. Other tunes suggest the distinctive textures British reeedist Evan Parker brings to tongue flutters and growling cries. But the Dutch players output is more measured, a contrast to the circular breathing of the British saxophonist. Baars’ change of pace is likely the result of the pitch-slides, slaps and col legno undercurrents from the bassist which ground and centre the other’s improvisations.

Someone whose instrumental command is as notable as Parker’s, but who spreads his expertise over a lengthening collection of reeds, is Golia. Some of his droned, tongued or vibrated timbres here can be attributed to such easily identifiable instruments as baritone saxophone or flute; others appear linked to unusual tonal extensions, produced by pushing expected reed properties to their limits, resulting in bagpipe-like textures or those which could be produced by two chromatic pipes blown simultaneously. No matter which texture appears, Turetzky has the appropriate response to it, either arco or pizzicato, and often in broken chords.

For instance “The Tzadik Dances” mates discursive resonations produced by spiccato and col legno pops against the wood of the bass with swells and squeals from the baritone saxophone. Even as Golia’s multiphonics expand and turn to overblowing honks, the shuffles and double-stopping from the bassist is joined by mouthed sighs, whistles and groans that soon vocally expand Golia’s bag of tricks. Eventually the saxophonist’s low-pitched twitters and snorts are matched by contrapuntal sul ponticello rubs and finalized by a tough wooden slap.

Turetzky’s voice-extensions are put to good use on “That One”, when Golia’s staccato, altissimo-register clarinet or sopranino lines narrow to rapier-thin vibrations and single note peeps. Bottom tones are created by the bassist’s harmonically sophisticated string plucks and wood punches, as well as verbal growls and yowls. Fittingly, harsh stops punctuate the improvisation as well as end it.

With Golia capable of sluicing from below-ground chalumeau snorts to skyscraper-jumping altissimo runs, often congruently, Turetzky’s staccato and spiccato string strategies are always at the ready. Should Golia suddenly surprise by unrolling stuttering split tones or masticated pressures, then the bassist’s technique allows him to create resonating squeaks or bumps depending on the context. “Reading Rumi” for instance, where the reedist’s texture begins with chanter-and-bellows-styled rumbles, continue with peeping flute variations and conclude with subterranean snores from the bass clarinet, don’t faze the bassist. Among sul tasto line curves, thumping friction and knife-sliding string patterns, every chord structure and melody suggestion is met.

Double bass and woodwind duos may still not be that common. Nevertheless with these CDs both Baars and Kneer plus Turetzky and Golia prove they can work magnificently.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Windfall: 1. The Staircase Incident 2. Ant Logics 3.Windfall 4. Wood-wind 5. Long Way Home 6. Bird Talk 7. Insinuated Instability 8. The Pledge 9. Eastern Rudiment 10. Into Philosophy 11. Target Practice

Personnel: Windfall: Ab Baars (tenor saxophone, clarinet, shakuhachi and noh-kan) and Meinrad Kneer (bass)

Track Listing: San Diego: 1. Confucian Conundrum 2.That One! 3. Reading Rumi 4. Meditations and Prayers 5. My Lady Nancy’s Dompe 6. The Tzadik Dances 7. Il Italiano in Turco 8. Phantasmagoria

Personnel: San Diego: Vinny Golia (sopranino and baritone saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet and flute) and Bertram Turetzky (bass and voice)

September 8, 2010

Han Bennink Trio

Parken
ILK 156 CD

Baars/Henneman/Megelberg

Sliptong

Wig 16

Drummer Han Bennink and pianist Misha Megelberg have been the odd couple of improvised music in the Netherlands for a half century. Stalwarts of Amsterdam’s long-constituted ICP Orchestra for almost that long, they have also been affiliated in a variety of bands with many estimable improvisers from both sides of the Atlantic. Still, the drummer and pianist are the classic confirmation of the expression opposites attracts.

Isolating one from the other as part of a trio as these CDs do, is more fascinating still. That’s because the discs put in boldest relief the individual qualities which combine to make up their particular partnership. Parken, recorded with two players less than half his age, offers Bennink, 67, full range for his kinetic, vigorous and sometimes bombastic percussion styling. Meanwhile Sliptong matches the indolent and lethargic keyboard patterns of Mengelberg, 74, with the sophisticated invention of two veteran improvisers.

On this session Mengelberg’s claims to be lazy and unprepared are negated as he imaginatively creates split-second responses to the scrubbed spiccato runs or sawing glissandi of violist Ig Henneman and/or the wavering slurs or altissimo squeaks on tenor saxophone, clarinet or shakuhachi from Ab Baars. While the reedist is a long-time member of the ICP Orchestra, the fiddler performs in a duo with Baars when not busy with other projects such as the otherwise all-Canadian Queen Mab trio. Facing this unanticipated dual onslaught, the pianist’s usual matter-of-fact comping turns to crackling angularity, with his cadences reflecting the Stride patterning that influenced his mentors such as Herbie Nichols and Thelonious Monk and, before that, Duke Ellington.

On the title track for instance, he uses pedal pressure and high-frequency cross- hand dynamics to accelerate in circular motions as Henneman shudders her strings with a sul ponticello rasp that reach ear-wrenching intensity while the saxophonist flat-lines distant reed breaths.

More instructive are how the trio approaches the congruent “Zee-engel” and “Is that Solly?” Surprisingly melodic on the former – which translates as angel shark – the pianist’s largo comments are still intermittent. He voices an occasional set of notes and then withdraws, leaving most of the space for the others. Baars’ false fingering on clarinet is distinctive as he manages the feat of pitching his notes higher than altissimo without ever becoming screechy. Henneman offers extended portamento, while Mengelberg balances the instant composition with methodical syncopation.

During the development of “Is that Solly?” – honoree unknown – Mengelberg is sufficiently aroused to clip-clop, pitter-patter and thump the keys, kinetically echoing the atonality of Monk and Cecil Taylor in his discursive strategy. This is in response to the violinist’s initial flying staccato and leads to Baars abandoning his smooth Ben Webster-like tenor lines for Aylerian squeaks and widely vibrated split tones. As Baars’ squeals and honks intertwine with Henneman’s whistling and sliding timbres, the keyboard trickster takes on a mainstream – for him – persona and outlines their dissonance with a largo and andante ending.

Bennink’s trickster persona and multi-percussion personalities are also on show on Parken. Eerily echoing the drummer’s long-time piano confrere, not only does Simon Toldam, the 27-year-old Danish keyboardist throw in the occasional Monkish runs, but the only non-group compositions played are by Duke Ellington or the Duke’s second-in-command, Billy Strayhorn.

Bennink – who worked with Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin as well as Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann – has the same sort of grasp of jazz history as Mengelberg, and isn’t afraid to show it. Consequently Toldam’s “Music for Camping” features passages that suggest the Benny Goodman Trio. Belgian clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst appropriates the melodic and undulating textures of Goodman, Toldam the cascading, undulating runs of Teddy Wilson and Bennink becomes Gene Krupa. Of course his faux Krupa is even showier than the original with ruffs, cymbals pops and drags speeding up the tempo after he proves his Swing styling with modest brush work and nerve beats. Still, when the pianist introduces a Boppier, arpeggio-laden line, Bennink bluntly and purposely turns to strokes and rebounds.

The three offer a sympathetic reading of “Fleurette Africane”, which Ellington famously recorded in a trio with Max Roach and Charles Mingus. Adding a reed part, Badenhorst trills somewhat squeakily; Toldam sympathetically vibrates his keys and Bennink is as steady as any Bop time-keeper, restraining himself to the occasional pop and smack.

Much more notable is a reading of Ellington-Strayhorn’s “Isfahan”, initially recorded by the entire Ellington orchestra. Simultaneously reverent and radical, the voicing and coloring are changed without perverting the thematic core. Providing variations before the theme, Toldam extends the unfolding performance with spiky chording, polyrhythms and close harmonies as Badenhorst trills lyrically on clarinet and Bennink rumbles and ruffs. When the familiar theme finally appears it grows organically from the preceding measures and is constructed out of piano glissandi and tongue-fluttering vibrations from the clarinetist.

If Parken does have a downside it’s the title track, that unconventionally but appropriately appears at the end. Qarin Wikström appears to sing in English. While “Parken” may demonstrate Bennink’s talent as a straight-ahead accompanist, it detracts from the session itself.

Antwerp-native Badenhorst now divides his time between Belgium and New York, so whether this session marks a beginning or a one-off is up in the air. Certainly it’s a fine indication of Bennink’s percussion skills away from the ICP Orchestra and the more frantic trappings of the avant garde. On the other hand, Since Henneman, Baars and Mengelberg all live in Amsterdam, Sliptong can be repeated.

Right now though both CDs are memorable contributions to each of the pianist’s and the drummer’s recorded canons.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Sliptong: 1. Leng 2. Sliptong 3. Mizu-iro 4. Fishwalk 5. Zee-engel 6. Is that Solly? 7. Misha started whistling 8. Oystercatchers

Personnel: Sliptong: Ab Baars (clarinet, tenor saxophone and shakuhachi); Ig Henneman (viola) and Misha Mengelberg (piano)

Track Listing: Parken: 1. Music for Camping 2. Flemische March 3. Lady of the Lavender Mist 4. Myckewelk 5. Isfahan 6. Reedeater 7. Fleurette Africane 8. After the March 9. Parken

Personnel: Parken: Joachim Badenhorst (clarinet and bass clarinet); Simon Toldam (piano) and Han Bennink (drums)

February 1, 2010

Baars/Henneman/Megelberg

Sliptong
Wig 16

Han Bennink Trio

Parken

ILK 156 CD

Drummer Han Bennink and pianist Misha Megelberg have been the odd couple of improvised music in the Netherlands for a half century. Stalwarts of Amsterdam’s long-constituted ICP Orchestra for almost that long, they have also been affiliated in a variety of bands with many estimable improvisers from both sides of the Atlantic. Still, the drummer and pianist are the classic confirmation of the expression opposites attracts.

Isolating one from the other as part of a trio as these CDs do, is more fascinating still. That’s because the discs put in boldest relief the individual qualities which combine to make up their particular partnership. Parken, recorded with two players less than half his age, offers Bennink, 67, full range for his kinetic, vigorous and sometimes bombastic percussion styling. Meanwhile Sliptong matches the indolent and lethargic keyboard patterns of Mengelberg, 74, with the sophisticated invention of two veteran improvisers.

On this session Mengelberg’s claims to be lazy and unprepared are negated as he imaginatively creates split-second responses to the scrubbed spiccato runs or sawing glissandi of violist Ig Henneman and/or the wavering slurs or altissimo squeaks on tenor saxophone, clarinet or shakuhachi from Ab Baars. While the reedist is a long-time member of the ICP Orchestra, the fiddler performs in a duo with Baars when not busy with other projects such as the otherwise all-Canadian Queen Mab trio. Facing this unanticipated dual onslaught, the pianist’s usual matter-of-fact comping turns to crackling angularity, with his cadences reflecting the Stride patterning that influenced his mentors such as Herbie Nichols and Thelonious Monk and, before that, Duke Ellington.

On the title track for instance, he uses pedal pressure and high-frequency cross- hand dynamics to accelerate in circular motions as Henneman shudders her strings with a sul ponticello rasp that reach ear-wrenching intensity while the saxophonist flat-lines distant reed breaths.

More instructive are how the trio approaches the congruent “Zee-engel” and “Is that Solly?” Surprisingly melodic on the former – which translates as angel shark – the pianist’s largo comments are still intermittent. He voices an occasional set of notes and then withdraws, leaving most of the space for the others. Baars’ false fingering on clarinet is distinctive as he manages the feat of pitching his notes higher than altissimo without ever becoming screechy. Henneman offers extended portamento, while Mengelberg balances the instant composition with methodical syncopation.

During the development of “Is that Solly?” – honoree unknown – Mengelberg is sufficiently aroused to clip-clop, pitter-patter and thump the keys, kinetically echoing the atonality of Monk and Cecil Taylor in his discursive strategy. This is in response to the violinist’s initial flying staccato and leads to Baars abandoning his smooth Ben Webster-like tenor lines for Aylerian squeaks and widely vibrated split tones. As Baars’ squeals and honks intertwine with Henneman’s whistling and sliding timbres, the keyboard trickster takes on a mainstream – for him – persona and outlines their dissonance with a largo and andante ending.

Bennink’s trickster persona and multi-percussion personalities are also on show on Parken. Eerily echoing the drummer’s long-time piano confrere, not only does Simon Toldam, the 27-year-old Danish keyboardist throw in the occasional Monkish runs, but the only non-group compositions played are by Duke Ellington or the Duke’s second-in-command, Billy Strayhorn.

Bennink – who worked with Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin as well as Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann – has the same sort of grasp of jazz history as Mengelberg, and isn’t afraid to show it. Consequently Toldam’s “Music for Camping” features passages that suggest the Benny Goodman Trio. Belgian clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst appropriates the melodic and undulating textures of Goodman, Toldam the cascading, undulating runs of Teddy Wilson and Bennink becomes Gene Krupa. Of course his faux Krupa is even showier than the original with ruffs, cymbals pops and drags speeding up the tempo after he proves his Swing styling with modest brush work and nerve beats. Still, when the pianist introduces a Boppier, arpeggio-laden line, Bennink bluntly and purposely turns to strokes and rebounds.

The three offer a sympathetic reading of “Fleurette Africane”, which Ellington famously recorded in a trio with Max Roach and Charles Mingus. Adding a reed part, Badenhorst trills somewhat squeakily; Toldam sympathetically vibrates his keys and Bennink is as steady as any Bop time-keeper, restraining himself to the occasional pop and smack.

Much more notable is a reading of Ellington-Strayhorn’s “Isfahan”, initially recorded by the entire Ellington orchestra. Simultaneously reverent and radical, the voicing and coloring are changed without perverting the thematic core. Providing variations before the theme, Toldam extends the unfolding performance with spiky chording, polyrhythms and close harmonies as Badenhorst trills lyrically on clarinet and Bennink rumbles and ruffs. When the familiar theme finally appears it grows organically from the preceding measures and is constructed out of piano glissandi and tongue-fluttering vibrations from the clarinetist.

If Parken does have a downside it’s the title track, that unconventionally but appropriately appears at the end. Qarin Wikström appears to sing in English. While “Parken” may demonstrate Bennink’s talent as a straight-ahead accompanist, it detracts from the session itself.

Antwerp-native Badenhorst now divides his time between Belgium and New York, so whether this session marks a beginning or a one-off is up in the air. Certainly it’s a fine indication of Bennink’s percussion skills away from the ICP Orchestra and the more frantic trappings of the avant garde. On the other hand, Since Henneman, Baars and Mengelberg all live in Amsterdam, Sliptong can be repeated.

Right now though both CDs are memorable contributions to each of the pianist’s and the drummer’s recorded canons.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Sliptong: 1. Leng 2. Sliptong 3. Mizu-iro 4. Fishwalk 5. Zee-engel 6. Is that Solly? 7. Misha started whistling 8. Oystercatchers

Personnel: Sliptong: Ab Baars (clarinet, tenor saxophone and shakuhachi); Ig Henneman (viola) and Misha Mengelberg (piano)

Track Listing: Parken: 1. Music for Camping 2. Flemische March 3. Lady of the Lavender Mist 4. Myckewelk 5. Isfahan 6. Reedeater 7. Fleurette Africane 8. After the March 9. Parken

Personnel: Parken: Joachim Badenhorst (clarinet and bass clarinet); Simon Toldam (piano) and Han Bennink (drums)

February 1, 2010

Ab Baars Trio & Ken Vandermark

Goofy June Bug
Wig 15

Atomic School Days

Distil

Okka Disk OD 12073

Without trying to make him sound celestial and selfless, Ken Vandermark is one of those rare musicians who is as comfortable in an ensemble as fronting one. Despite recording so often as leader, the Chicago-based multi-reedist is just as apt to show up on disc as an addition to an existing band or as part of a generically titled ensemble. That was happens on these two CDs.

Over the years, collaborations with Europeans have also proven to be particularly fruitful for the saxophonist and clarinetist’s musical growth. This is confirmed on Goofy June Bug and Distill with each offering a divergent – and equally notable – take on improvised and composed music.

Recorded live in Chicago, Distil showcases an octet comprised of the Norwegian Atomic band: trumpeter Magnus Broo, reedist Fredrik Ljungkvist, pianist Håvard Wiik bassist Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love; plus those members of School Days – made up of Vandermark, Håker-Flaten, Nilssen-Love and Chicago-trombonist Jeb Bishop – who aren’t in Atomic, as well as Norwegian vibist Kjell Nordeson. Nine long tracks on this two-CD set, composed by different band members, offers everyone a proper showcase.

Goofy June Bug on the other hand adds Vandermark to the established Dutch trio of fellow clarinetist Ab Baars, which also includes drummer Martin Van Duynhoven and bassist Wilbert De Joode. Except for one brief group improv, the compositions are mostly by Baars with Vandermark contributing three.

Perhaps it’s the freshness factor, but two of these tunes are among the CD’s stand outs. “Waltz Four Monk”, for example, salutes Thelonious without implicitly aping the pianist’s style. With De Joode walking and Van Duynhoven leaning hard and heavy on his kit, the polyphony from Baars’ tenor saxophone and Vandermark’s clarinet bonds, then divides as the later flutters into squeak territory and Baars double tongues and masticates the kind of robust split tones that could have frightened Charlie Rouse.

“Memory Moves Forward” is a different matter. During its slightly more than nine minutes, Baars’ lucent and wispy shakuhachi timbres intersect with Vandermark’s equally high-pitched clarinet lines supported by col legno bass runs and mallet-driven clangs from the drummer. Later on the clarinet dips into chalumeau territory, while Baars’ Orientalized wheezing create a wholly different mood, especially when Van Duynhoven accompaniment sounds as if the drummer is manipulating a taiko drum.

Not that Baars’ writing isn’t distinctive as well, especially when all four musicians all involved in those themes. “Then He Whirled About”, “Honest John” – saluting long-time Sun Ra tenor saxophone soloist John Gilmore – and the title track postulate POMO tough tenor roles. Yet with the drummer also gliding from Boppy cymbal-clanging to free form rat-tat-tats, the harmonic interchange between the saxophones doesn’t resemble that found in standard two-tenor combos like Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis or Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.

Contrapuntal riffs, squeezed split tones and stressed cries owe more to the younger Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders at their fieriest, with both Baars and Vandermark scaling the heights of glossolalia, layering rubato honking, low-pitched slithers and, on the title tune, some resemblance to bagpipes into their blowing. Even at their wildest the two manage to rein in enough to allow heads to be recapped on most tunes. Elsewhere Baars’ clarinet work is feathery and impressionistic enough to be completely distinct from his sax solos.

Distinctiveness is the order of the day on Distil as well, with the octet members gobbling up whole swathes of jazz history as they play and spewing them out in reconfigured and characteristic forms.

Broo’s “Ghosts and Spirits”, with its offhand reference to Albert Ayler’s tune, manages to feature most of the band members, but in a form that owes as much to Count Basie-like effortless swing as Ayler. Here, as elsewhere on the set, Bishop’s gutbucket smears are prominent as is Wilk’s key-clipping and Nordeson’s contrapuntal asides. Encompassing brassy tongue sprays from the composer and high-frequency organic runs, overall the track belongs to the pianist. Moving from recital-like arpeggios to slashing and splashing comping he circles the others with allegro, kinetic patterns, spraying disconnect timbres that easily meld with the horn sections’ call-and-response vamps.

Meanwhile on a tune like Bishop’s “Deadline”, Ljungkvist provides a demonstration of how he may be the only Texas tenor who was born in Norway, honking his way into multiphonics, matched by Vandermark’s R&B baritone sax whoops. Nordeson’s vibe underpinning could come from Bobby Hutcherson’s work behind Gracan Moncur III, with Bishop in the later role. Over the stop-time theme, the trombonist twists grace notes, blows tremolo clusters and works out a series of slide flourishes extended with hand-muted intensity. Building up to piston-like syncopation, Nilssen-Love’s concluding solo seems linked more to Jo Jones or Gene Krupa than the expected John Stevens or Milford Graves echoes.

Other anomalies such as Håker-Flaten’s pumping bass line and harmonized reed polyphony share particular spaces; so does the cross-pollination of elongated altissimo clarinet shrills, virile trombone snorts and sprays, plus gamelan-like tuned gong resonations from the drummer. Together they spotlight the ensemble’s versatility. At times as well, pedal-point baritone saxophone riffs and choked valve brass lines combine in double counterpoint only to be subdued by roistering drum beats and key-clipping piano for further thematic definition.

Impressively, the distillation of Atomic School Days doesn’t only register on the agitato and fortissimo scale however. The bassist’s “Irrational Ceremony” is a quieter and more impressionistic piece that unrolls unhurriedly and smoothly. Well-recorded like the rest of the set, the scene-setting results from clave-like concussion from Nilssen-Love, descriptive low-frequency chording from Wilk, spraying vibraharp pulses and harmonically vibrated horns interaction.

Another Bishop paradigm, his solo here sluices upwards to double-tonguing from moderato flutter tonguing and throat growling, as beneath him the rhythm section gradually time-shifts to a faster tempo. As Wilk fans his keys, the piece then opens up enough so that Broo can express chromatic coloration with a series of concentrated triplets and tongue curving inflections. Eventually the final variation manages to mix murky trumpet smears and discordant backbeat rhythms, Free Jazz and Swing Jazz simultaneously.

Vandermark is the link between the sessions, but it’s the contributions of all the players which make the discs memorable. Ironically, Vandermark’s activities as a talent spotter and catalyst may ultimately prove more fruitful than his forceful soloing and writing.

-- Ken Waxman

Track list: Distil: CD1: 1. Deadline 2. Irrational Ceremony 3. Visitors 4. Dark Easter CD2: 1. Andersonville 2. Fort Funston 3. Closing Stages 4. Ghosts and Spirits 5. Buñuel at the Coctail Party

Personnel: Distil: Magnus Broo (trumpet); Jeb Bishop (trombone); Fredrik Ljungkvist (tenor saxophone and Bb clarinet); Ken Vandermark (baritone saxophone Bb and bass clarinets); Håvard Wiik (piano); Kjell Nordeson (vibraphone); Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten (bass) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

Track list: Goofy: 1. Straws 2. Honest John 3. Losing Ground 4. Waltz Four Monk 5. Prince of Venosa 6. Then He Whirled About 7. Memory Moves Forward 8. Munmyo 9. Return 10. Goofy June Bug 11. Lunch Poem

Personnel: Goofy: Ab Baars (tenor saxophone, shakuhachi and clarinet); Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Wilbert De Joode (bass) and Martin Van Duynhoven (drums)

November 9, 2008

Atomic School Days

Distil
Okka Disk OD 12073

Ab Baars Trio & Ken Vandermark

Goofy June Bug

Wig 15

Without trying to make him sound celestial and selfless, Ken Vandermark is one of those rare musicians who is as comfortable in an ensemble as fronting one. Despite recording so often as leader, the Chicago-based multi-reedist is just as apt to show up on disc as an addition to an existing band or as part of a generically titled ensemble. That was happens on these two CDs.

Over the years, collaborations with Europeans have also proven to be particularly fruitful for the saxophonist and clarinetist’s musical growth. This is confirmed on Goofy June Bug and Distill with each offering a divergent – and equally notable – take on improvised and composed music.

Recorded live in Chicago, Distil showcases an octet comprised of the Norwegian Atomic band: trumpeter Magnus Broo, reedist Fredrik Ljungkvist, pianist Håvard Wiik bassist Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love; plus those members of School Days – made up of Vandermark, Håker-Flaten, Nilssen-Love and Chicago-trombonist Jeb Bishop – who aren’t in Atomic, as well as Norwegian vibist Kjell Nordeson. Nine long tracks on this two-CD set, composed by different band members, offers everyone a proper showcase.

Goofy June Bug on the other hand adds Vandermark to the established Dutch trio of fellow clarinetist Ab Baars, which also includes drummer Martin Van Duynhoven and bassist Wilbert De Joode. Except for one brief group improv, the compositions are mostly by Baars with Vandermark contributing three.

Perhaps it’s the freshness factor, but two of these tunes are among the CD’s stand outs. “Waltz Four Monk”, for example, salutes Thelonious without implicitly aping the pianist’s style. With De Joode walking and Van Duynhoven leaning hard and heavy on his kit, the polyphony from Baars’ tenor saxophone and Vandermark’s clarinet bonds, then divides as the later flutters into squeak territory and Baars double tongues and masticates the kind of robust split tones that could have frightened Charlie Rouse.

“Memory Moves Forward” is a different matter. During its slightly more than nine minutes, Baars’ lucent and wispy shakuhachi timbres intersect with Vandermark’s equally high-pitched clarinet lines supported by col legno bass runs and mallet-driven clangs from the drummer. Later on the clarinet dips into chalumeau territory, while Baars’ Orientalized wheezing create a wholly different mood, especially when Van Duynhoven accompaniment sounds as if the drummer is manipulating a taiko drum.

Not that Baars’ writing isn’t distinctive as well, especially when all four musicians all involved in those themes. “Then He Whirled About”, “Honest John” – saluting long-time Sun Ra tenor saxophone soloist John Gilmore – and the title track postulate POMO tough tenor roles. Yet with the drummer also gliding from Boppy cymbal-clanging to free form rat-tat-tats, the harmonic interchange between the saxophones doesn’t resemble that found in standard two-tenor combos like Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis or Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.

Contrapuntal riffs, squeezed split tones and stressed cries owe more to the younger Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders at their fieriest, with both Baars and Vandermark scaling the heights of glossolalia, layering rubato honking, low-pitched slithers and, on the title tune, some resemblance to bagpipes into their blowing. Even at their wildest the two manage to rein in enough to allow heads to be recapped on most tunes. Elsewhere Baars’ clarinet work is feathery and impressionistic enough to be completely distinct from his sax solos.

Distinctiveness is the order of the day on Distil as well, with the octet members gobbling up whole swathes of jazz history as they play and spewing them out in reconfigured and characteristic forms.

Broo’s “Ghosts and Spirits”, with its offhand reference to Albert Ayler’s tune, manages to feature most of the band members, but in a form that owes as much to Count Basie-like effortless swing as Ayler. Here, as elsewhere on the set, Bishop’s gutbucket smears are prominent as is Wilk’s key-clipping and Nordeson’s contrapuntal asides. Encompassing brassy tongue sprays from the composer and high-frequency organic runs, overall the track belongs to the pianist. Moving from recital-like arpeggios to slashing and splashing comping he circles the others with allegro, kinetic patterns, spraying disconnect timbres that easily meld with the horn sections’ call-and-response vamps.

Meanwhile on a tune like Bishop’s “Deadline”, Ljungkvist provides a demonstration of how he may be the only Texas tenor who was born in Norway, honking his way into multiphonics, matched by Vandermark’s R&B baritone sax whoops. Nordeson’s vibe underpinning could come from Bobby Hutcherson’s work behind Gracan Moncur III, with Bishop in the later role. Over the stop-time theme, the trombonist twists grace notes, blows tremolo clusters and works out a series of slide flourishes extended with hand-muted intensity. Building up to piston-like syncopation, Nilssen-Love’s concluding solo seems linked more to Jo Jones or Gene Krupa than the expected John Stevens or Milford Graves echoes.

Other anomalies such as Håker-Flaten’s pumping bass line and harmonized reed polyphony share particular spaces; so does the cross-pollination of elongated altissimo clarinet shrills, virile trombone snorts and sprays, plus gamelan-like tuned gong resonations from the drummer. Together they spotlight the ensemble’s versatility. At times as well, pedal-point baritone saxophone riffs and choked valve brass lines combine in double counterpoint only to be subdued by roistering drum beats and key-clipping piano for further thematic definition.

Impressively, the distillation of Atomic School Days doesn’t only register on the agitato and fortissimo scale however. The bassist’s “Irrational Ceremony” is a quieter and more impressionistic piece that unrolls unhurriedly and smoothly. Well-recorded like the rest of the set, the scene-setting results from clave-like concussion from Nilssen-Love, descriptive low-frequency chording from Wilk, spraying vibraharp pulses and harmonically vibrated horns interaction.

Another Bishop paradigm, his solo here sluices upwards to double-tonguing from moderato flutter tonguing and throat growling, as beneath him the rhythm section gradually time-shifts to a faster tempo. As Wilk fans his keys, the piece then opens up enough so that Broo can express chromatic coloration with a series of concentrated triplets and tongue curving inflections. Eventually the final variation manages to mix murky trumpet smears and discordant backbeat rhythms, Free Jazz and Swing Jazz simultaneously.

Vandermark is the link between the sessions, but it’s the contributions of all the players which make the discs memorable. Ironically, Vandermark’s activities as a talent spotter and catalyst may ultimately prove more fruitful than his forceful soloing and writing.

-- Ken Waxman

Track list: Distil: CD1: 1. Deadline 2. Irrational Ceremony 3. Visitors 4. Dark Easter CD2: 1. Andersonville 2. Fort Funston 3. Closing Stages 4. Ghosts and Spirits 5. Buñuel at the Coctail Party

Personnel: Distil: Magnus Broo (trumpet); Jeb Bishop (trombone); Fredrik Ljungkvist (tenor saxophone and Bb clarinet); Ken Vandermark (baritone saxophone Bb and bass clarinets); Håvard Wiik (piano); Kjell Nordeson (vibraphone); Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten (bass) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

Track list: Goofy: 1. Straws 2. Honest John 3. Losing Ground 4. Waltz Four Monk 5. Prince of Venosa 6. Then He Whirled About 7. Memory Moves Forward 8. Munmyo 9. Return 10. Goofy June Bug 11. Lunch Poem

Personnel: Goofy: Ab Baars (tenor saxophone, shakuhachi and clarinet); Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Wilbert De Joode (bass) and Martin Van Duynhoven (drums)

November 9, 2008

Ab Baars Quartet

Kinda Dukish
WIG 12

Not your father’s – or come to think of it your mother’s – Duke Ellington, Amsterdam-based clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Ab Baars has adapted 10 Ellington compositions for his quartet. More properly he’s performed major surgery on the tunes and reassembled them in such a distinctive way that it’s likely the composer may not have recognized his musical progeny at first.

Still, the approach taken by Baars and his fellow note surgeons – trombonist Joost Buis, bassist Wilbert de Joode and drummer Martin van Duynhoven – gives new life to the compositions, as if each has received a heart transplant. Personalities alter after operations like that, but considering most of the ducal cannon has remained beyond category since he wrote it, why not celebrate it deconstructed rather than copied note for note? The positive answer is on this disc.

Assiduous in noting every Ellington opus on which each of his “Kinda” recreations is based, the reedist also involves each of his band mates in the completed improvisation. Martin van Duynhoven, who is also a graphic designer, and de Joode, who plays in many bands such as pianist Michiel Braam’s, make up Baars trio and earlier helped rearrange music from American clarinetist John Carter and North American Indians. Buis, who also plays with Braam and leads the Astronauts, a band that celebrates Sun Ra’s Arkestra, knows how to rebirth music as well.

Mixing renowned (“Caravan” and “Prelude to a Kiss”) and unfamiliar (“Mr. Gentle and Mr., Cool” and “Half the Fun”) Ellington material, Baars keep the band members and the listeners on their aural toes. Because most of the pieces are restructured there’s no attempt to emulate Ellington soloists. But Buis’s growly plunger work throughout has been influenced by Tricky Sam Nanton, just as Baars’s spidery clarinet relates back to Jimmy Hamilton and his testosterone-fuelled tenor saxophone to Ben Webster.

De Joode shines on “Kinda Bear (Jack the Bear)”, the original of which Ellington wrote for Jimmy Blanton. Of course in this POMO recreation, the tune starts off like a cabaletta, before becoming a showcase for de Joode’s slap bass and wavering sul ponticello techniques. Interestingly enough “Kinda Braud (Portrait of Wellman Braud)”, written for another Ellington bassist, is more concerned with Buis’s gritty tailgate trombone work and van Duynhoven’s back beat than the steel-fingered bassist’s skills.

On some pieces Baars’ wiggling coloratura clarinet timbres play off against broken octaves from the growling trombone; on others an adagio melody calls forth braying trombone slurs and tough pecks from the tenor man. Meantime “Kinda Lafitte (Aristocracy à la Jean Lafitte)” has unison polyphony from the horns that suggest the New York Art Quartet. With the drummer rat-tat-tatting behind, the tenor saxophone’s honks are answered by plunger slurs from the bone man.

“Kinda Solitude (Solitude)”, the lead off number, may be the most upsetting for traditionalists. Mirrored by bowed bass, the tenor saxophonist shrieks harsh tones with a vibrato wider than either Sidney Bechet’s or Albert Ayler’s before relenting and spitting out the familiar melody.

No composer in jazz – no matter how exalted – warrants the museum treatment. Kinda Dukish ensures this doesn’t happen to Duke Ellington.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Kinda Solitude 2. Kinda Lafitte 3. Kinda Bear 4. Kinda Caravan 5. Kinda Gentle 6. Kinda Half 7. Kinda Harlem 8. Kinda Braud 9. Kinda Prelude 10. Kinda Perdido

Personnel: Joost Buis (trombone); Ab Baars (clarinet and tenor saxophone); Wilbert de Joode (bass); Martin van Duynhoven (drums)

November 12, 2006

Chris Abelen

Space
BVHaast

Lucas Niggli Zoom Ensemble
Sweat
Intakt

By Ken Waxman
November 28, 2005

Be careful when you count the number of musicians on these sessions. For while Space may seem to be by a 10-piece band and Sweat by a 12-piece one, each disc actually features an established improv combo expanded with the members of a contemporary chamber ensemble plus one additional idiosyncratic soloist.

As a consequence of these expansions, the composer/ band leader of each disc – Dutch trombonist Chris Abelen on Space and Swiss percussionist Lucas Niggli on Sweat – have a fuller palate of textures, colors, pitches and rhythms available. Both CDs are memorable, although Sweat has a slight edge. The cause may be that it’s a studio session, whereas Space was recorded live. Or it may be that Ensemble Neue Musik Zürich (ENMZ) is a closer fit with the drummer’s Zoom Ensemble plus British soundsinger Phil Minton, then the Zapp! String Quartet is with the trombonist’s quintet and special guest, clarinetist Ab Baars.

More crucially, with only six compositions to interpret – one of which is 18¼-minutes long – the Niggli-lead group has enough scope to stretch, in contrast to the Abelen crew, whose improvisations are wedged into 13 tracks that are mostly three to five minutes in length. Additionally, the execution of many of the compositions on Space resembles that of certain comedy sketches on Saturday Night Live: They start off well, but skimp on a finish.

Consider, for instance, “Clean”, “AB” and the title track on Space. Despite the second tune having his initials, Baars’ a cappella squeals aren’t dominant enough to escape the delicate ascending harmonies from the Zapp four – violinists Jasper le Clerq and Friedmar Hitzer, violist Oene van Geel and cellist Emile Visser. Percussionist Charles Huffstadt contributes concussive metallic pulses, but the end result is strangely inconclusive.

Similarly, the string quartet modulates circling spiccato pitches, while the rhythm section of guitarist Corrie van Binsbergen, bassist Wilbert de Joode and the drummer proffer a pulsating line, on “Clean”. Yet, just when this combination seems poised to make a definite statement, the selection ends.

As for “Space” the composition, harmonic congruence from the strings, and pinpointed licks from van Binsbergen take up whatever room is left over from de Joode’s thick-toned interface. Then Tobias Delius contributes emotional tenor saxophone slurs that are then answered by plunger work from Abelen. However despite the double-stopping and steady beat, the climax is again inconclusive.

Other pieces show more development. “Coda”, which oddly enough is the CD’s second-to-last track, finds Abelen constructing a Gil Evans-like backing for his chromatic explorations. The Tilburg-born brassman, who apprenticed in the larger groups of Willem Breuker, J.C. Tans and Eric van der Westen, displays his command of shifting textures to fame the band members here.

As his trombone sounds grace notes in higher ranges, the strings gradually ascend in octaves to accompany him. Although at one point he departs from his usual legato tone to indulge in prolonged double tonguing, overall his expositions never go beyond the bounds of good taste – sort of like a modern-day Eddie Bert or Frank Rosolino.

Happily, he’s able to get the ZAPP string quartet to swing on “Orange”, but considering all have backgrounds as improvisers, this is less of a struggle than it would have been for arrangers Evans or George Russell in the 1950 and 1960s. That tune, a pseudo-march, is driven by a military-like fanfare from Huffstadt’s snare and a thumping pulse from de Joode. Clarinet trills and vibrating cross lines from the guitar soar on top.

Both strings and guitar are featured on “GO”, where pizzicato settings are interrupted by low-pitched reverb from van Binsbergen, whose variations on the theme presage a horn-heavy countermelody. Built on a series of sonorous pitches “My Tie” gives Delius a chance to use smears squeals and tongue stops as tart rejoinders to the strings’ swelling harmonies. His irregular vibrations poke holes in the quartet’s lyricism, preventing the tune from becoming saccharine – and he concludes with a horse whinny.

Finally, “On the Beach” allows Baars and Delius – both on clarinet – to weave polyphonic tones that meander, jump, circle and occasionally meld for double counterpoint, balancing above alternating pizzicato and arco string tremolos.

As the title suggests, it may have necessitated more perspiration, but the two ensembles hang together more on Sweat then the two mixed groups on Abelen’s CD. Even if Minton’s theatrical retches, hiccups and groans are an acquired taste, together Zoom and the New music sextet sound more comfortable than the trombonist’s crew.

That’s because the drummer, in an Ellington-like fashion, tailors his compositions to the individuals within the group. Slick trombonist Nils Wogram and guitarist Philipp Schaufelberger – in his less rock-oriented moments – have shown their adaptability on earlier Zoom releases, as has new member Claudio Puntin, a clarinetist on a technical level with Baars. ENMZ’s tubaist Leo Bachmann is versatile enough to have released his own solo improv disc, with the other members – violinist Urs Bumbbacher, cellist Stefan Tuth, pianist Viktor Müller, flautist Hans Peter Frehner plus Lorenz Haas on vibraphone and percussion – similarly adaptable and seemingly unaffected by snobbism that often infects so-called serious musicians.

“Run and Rush” and “Fever” provide example of Niggli’s architecturally complete compositions. They’re also ones that contrast markedly with those of Abelen’s which lack resolution.

On the first piece, for instance, a near-impressionistic interlude of strings and flute follows measured guitar runs. These undulating string arpeggios are interrupted by a guitar vamp, which joined by piano and vibes, develops into a swing riff balanced on Bachman’s snorting patterns. As Wogram’s chromatic solo unrolls on top of skittering drums and walking tuba lines, Minton interjects dog barks and other odd noises. Midway through is a contrapuntal interlude, featuring a twittering flute and the clarinet playing Spanish-tinged scales, with the rhythm section, beefed up with pizzicato-playing Tuth. Echoing resonations from Haas’s vibes set up the concluding variation that features a pounding rock-like drum beat, distortions and surf runs from Schaufelberger, choked blats from the boneman and the vocalist perhaps unintentionally parodying a Heavy Metal singer’s unintelligible yowls.

“Fever” – not Peggy Lee’s hit – provides even more scope for Minton’s vocal ventriloquism following an instrumental exposition made up in equal part of rubato trombone lows, menacing, low-frequency piano chording, pastoral fluting and sul tasto strings. Displaying three of his many voices, Minton successively intones like a growling bass-baritone, as if he was a bel canto counter-tenor, and with strangled Donald Duck-like spittle. Soon he’s intoning in triple counterpoint with himself, as first stretched sul ponticello strings – deliberately dissonant – enter, followed by splayed guitar licks, rattling thumps from Niggli and pedal point bluster from Bachmann. Unexpectedly the composition shifts gears as perfectly formed guitar finger-picking from Schaufelberger, cross patterning dynamics from Müller and fowl-like quacks from Puntin’s clarinet loosen up and distort the sounds. Encompassing zart string-directed chamber harmonies, the last section reaches a conclusive crescendo.

In many ways, the other compositions serve as a series of postludes to “No Nation”, the 18¼-minute anthemic suite which opens the CD. Beginning with a compendium of pulses, sine waves and percussion accents, the initial moderato theme appears after a couple of minutes. First expressed with a hearty neo-bop, double-tongued solo from Wogram, the line expands with sonorous timbres from Bachmann and tick-tocking bounces and ruffs from Niggli. Eventually it opens up for a crooning vocal from Minton, the Perry Como of the avant garde.

Tension and release, impressionistic and improv lines define the composition from then on as plunger cries from the trombone, hard rock flams from the drummer and floating guitar runs contrast with the simple, sweet Cabaletta-like air that emanates from the ENMZ. Bachmann’s reverberations provide the continuo, matched by clanking cymbals and rim shots. As the tune’s shape alters, Puntin’s feathery double-tongued clarinet line appears to be injecting fralicher phraseology into the mix. With tuba tones, and clattering percussion swaggering in harmonic counterpoint finally superseded by throat gurgles, Bronx cheers and pseudo-scatting from Minton, the composition concludes with frailing hyper-kinetic cadences from Schaufelberger and a broad clarinet glissando, recapping the theme to end on a frantic note.

Examples of musical cross-fertilization from different genres and largish aggregations, both CDs offer intriguing compositional possibilities, although Sweat has more of a positive resolution.

November 28, 2005

COR FUHLER

Corkestra
Data 044

Quirkiest of the Netherlands’ collection of third generation improvisers, Amsterdam-based keyboardist Cor Fuhler strives to advance beyond the admixture of new classical, jazz and cabaret sound that characterize Dutch improv, especially when created by its best-known practitioners – Misha Mengelberg’s ICP Orchestra and Willem Breuker’s Kollektief.

Fuhler, who studied counterpoint with Mengelberg, has long dabbled in electronics, as well, adding string stimulators, self-made modifications and antiquated electronic keyboards to his presentations. Here, using the talents of his nine-piece so-called Corkestra, he intertwines unique electronic oscillations with timbres from expected – saxophone, flute, clarinet, bass, guitar – and unexpected – cymbalom, singing saw and hammer dulcimer – instruments. Reminiscent of some of John Zorn’s game pieces, he also divides the ensemble into sub-groups, while handing them a collection of riffs, vamps, and melody lines.

Top-flight improvisers, the band includes ICPer Ab Baars and Available Jelly’s Tobias Delius on saxophones and clarinets, contemporary classical flautist Anne La Berge, Ex guitarist Andy Moor, Necks percussionist Tony Buck, bassist Wilbert de Joode and traps man Michael Vatcher who work with everyone, plus cymbalom player Nora Mulder. Given the Fuhler motifs, the players then assemble, combine and superimpose solos and riffs on them, helping the pianist to create group or solo real time performances.

The result, recorded live, creates responses that run from admiration to queasiness. Sometimes the instant compositions sound like cartoon music from the Netherlands, other times like field recordings from some unknown country. Ruefully a few tunes resemble little more than a set of aural ingredients lobbed into a mixing bowl, but not given enough bonding material to set properly into an admirable form.

Regretfully Fuhler has also fallen victim to the more-is-more concept. Little damage would have been done to CORKESTRA by cutting out some of the 11 tracks and beefing up some of the others. At points it appears as if certain sounds, timbres or instruments are included because they were present in the studio rather than used to build up the musical interface.

Manipulating tonal vibrations from his organ, clavinet or piano, Fuhler can blend with either the oddball or the conventional instruments. The resulting generated textures thus resemble, on different tracks, the background music for the antics of perverted marionettes – he has written musical-theatre pieces – straight MOR sounds with massive organ tremolos swelling on top – Jimmy Smith he ain’t – or incidental big top music from a calliope.

Somehow vague Balkan inflections inhabit the tracks as well, no doubt brought forward by Vatcher hammered dulcimer and Mulder’s tabletop zither. But these are never overriding motifs, neither are the intimation of European mandolin bands created by spiccato, chromatic chording from Moor and DeJoode. Alternately, when all the string and pseudo string players unite, the abrasive effect is often that of sharp-teethed mice chewing on the music and the instruments – one octave at a time. More frequently the bassist lets loose with a vigorous crossbow-like twang, confirming his simultaneous foreground and background status. Distorted guitar flanging is at a minimum as well –

Moor is a group player, not a showoff. When it does appear, it’s in concordance with trebly electric piano fills.

Lack of brass means that when kiddie show-like marches appear they’re conveyed by clattering bounces from the two percussionists and soaring honks and smears from the two tenor saxophonists. Otherwise the saxophonists – inventive players both – are shamefully kept under wraps. More prominence is given to the clarinets combined in counterpoint with the flute for focused moderato cadences, accompanied by low- frequency organ licks.

For her part the flutist’s output ranges from high-pitched contrapuntal peeps to one section of a two-part composition where the pauses between her legato output, mixed with a bass drum march tempo and harpsichord-like fills suggests one of those instructive Meet the Orchestra compositions for children. Fuhler also performs the odd piano intermezzo, but is this a glimpse of post-modernism or burlesque?

What is apparent is that the one overtly electronic piece sounds like nothing more than loops of fluttering, shrilling sine wave that pitiably coalesce into a jello-like mass.

With as much to celebrate as condemn, CORKESTRA can charm Fuhler followers and be welcomed with cautious praise by others. Time for a studio session, Cor.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Zand I 2. Triangle Sun 3. Green Peppers 4. Zwerfduin 5. Lollipops/Woestijntrol 6. Dromedaris 7. Cosinus 8. Zand II 9. Zout I 10. Rockpool 11. Water Supply

Personnel: Ab Baars and Tobias Delius (tenor saxophones and clarinets); Anne La Berge (flutes); Cor Fuhler (organ, clavinet and piano); Andy Moor (guitar); Nora Mulder (cymbalom); Wilbert de Joode (bass); Tony Buck (percussion); Michael Vatcher (percussion, singing saw and hammer dulcimer)

June 6, 2005

ICP ORCHESTRA

Aan & Uit
ICP 042

Up to their old tricks, the 10 members of the Dutch ICP Orchestra prove once again that having a good time and swinging doesn’t mean that you have to give up artistic integrity. Similarly this 70-minute collection of compositions, mostly by pianist/leader Misha Mengelberg, twists enough POMO strands that the band’s position as an evolving workshop -- like Mingus’ bands, for instance -- remains constant.

This time out, you notice that American cellist Tristan Honsinger -- an on-and-off ICP member for years -- and trombonist Wolter Wierbos have moved into centre position in the band, sharing the most space with originals Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink. Yet the longest -- almost nine minute tune -- is written by and a showcase for trumpeter Thomas Heberer.

Adapting pre-modern as well as post-modern touches, the trumpeter’s “Let’s climb a hill” provides one glimpse into the ICP’s MO. Taken double time, the theme is a finger-snapping quasi-Swing Era riff. The tune finds Bennink sand dancing on the traps like a reborn Jo Jones -- that is when he isn’t producing a rickety-tick vamp as if he was a member of Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers. Mengelberg sticks to the leitmotif with heavy on the left-hand piano, while Wierbos’ plunger slurs are straight from the Tricky Sam Nanton bag. All this, of course, doesn’t prevent Honsinger interjecting harsh ponticello lines every so often. Meanwhile the composer and chief soloist soars with perfect timbre over the others, hitting some high-pitched vibrated notes that suggest Cat Anderson as well as Roy Eldridge. As the piece decelerates it climaxes with piano arpeggios and a reed vamp.

“The sparrows start waving their pyjamas [sic]”, the final number of Mengelberg’s six-part Picnic suite is another foot patter. Here the horns riff like the Savoy Sultans, the pianist is in a supple-fingered Teddy Wilson mode, one trilling clarinetist makes like Barney Bigard and Ab Baars or Toby Delius are in a burly, sideslipping Ben Webster role when one or the other solos on tenor saxophone. Yet the trombonist’s double-tonguing and the spiaccato glissandi from the strings don’t exactly mesh with the concept -- nor should they.

Additionally, there’s no sizzle cymbal or cowbell in earshot even on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Barbaric”, which smoothly works itself into a Count Basie-Benny Goodman combo groove. Yet while Carmichael may have appreciated the Joe Venuti-like solo from violinist Mary Oliver, he would have been flummoxed by the hard bop tenor saxophone line and rubtao trumpet solos in the middle of his song. Maybe he would have been tipped off that this wasn’t an altogether reverent reading when the trombonist’s solo seems a little too exaggeratedly “hot”.

Elsewhere, AAN & UIT features the strings and clarinets uniting for some chamber style tones on “Tijd voor de Quadrille” -- although that tune’s purity dissolves with a staccato trombone run and a finale more appropriate for a barn dance hoedown. Then there’s “Play some badminton” -- also part of the Picnic suite -- which mixes jolly, polka-like trombone blats, lighter-toned clarinet chirps, arpeggio string trio movements that seems to have migrated from a recital hall, and caustic, interpolated Monkisms from the pianist.

Mengelberg’s version of Monk’s piano clipping, octave jumps and forearm clusters are part of the sarcastic humor he introduces to these tunes. On “De Sprong, O Romantiek der Hazen”, for instance, he interrupts an essay in impressionistic piano chording for some screeching vocalizing -- has Bennink’s wildness finally got to him after all these years? Furthermore, roistering horn interjections complete with hocketing honks and a brassy counterline from Heberer interrupt -- likely on purpose -- the upbeat bounce the pianist brings to “A beautiful day”.

Incorrigible as always, Bennink’s off-centre, sometimes clip-clopping, and often too loud drumming is a feature of nearly every track. Laterally you can most easily note the rearrangement of priorities with the Honsinger composed “Ever Never”. At points it appears to be a record of feeding time at the barnyard with yelps, growls, baas, moos and yodels from the strings, horns, busy bass drums and cymbals. In contrast, it’s the pianist who seems restrained. He plays a straight thematic note grouping reaching high onto the keys for some slithering cadenzas. Following that, he appears to be marking time as the blaring horns and drums play circus-like music.

Have the inmates finally taken over the asylum, or is it all planned? You can find out by listening to this CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Aan & Uit 2. De Sprong, O Romantiek der Hazen Picnic Suite:

3. A beautiful day 4. Let’s go to the river 5. And have a Picnic 6. Play some badminton 7. Let’s go home before 8. The sparrows start waving their pyjamas 9. Tijd voor de Quadrille 10. Barbaric 11. Back to Lippiza 12. Va-et-vient 13. Ever Never 14. Waar bleef je? 15. Tuinhek 16. Opa 17. Let’s climb a hill 18. Aan & Uit

Personnel: Thomas Heberer (trumpet); Wolter Wierbos (trombone); Michael Moore (alto saxophone and clarinet); Tobias Delius, Ab Baars (tenor saxophones and clarinets); Misha Mengelberg (piano and vocals); Mary Oliver (violin and viola); Tristan Honsinger (cello); Ernst Glerum (bass); Han Bennink (drums)

December 6, 2004

VIJAY IYER

Blood Sutra
Artists House AH 09

MICHEL SCHEEN QUARTET
Dance, My Dear?
DATA 042

What a different a decade makes.

GenX pianist/composer Michiel Scheen and GenY pianist/composer Vijay Iyer have an almost diametrically opposed program of how to organize a standard saxophone and rhythm date. Many of the differences can be attributed to the fact that Amsterdam’s Scheen is in his early forties, while Iyer is merely grazing thirty.

Veteran of ensembles led by bassist Maarten Altena, violinist Ig Henneman and a playing partner of local and international musicians, Scheen brings a hard and heavy beat and a POMO cut-and-paste outlook to his nine compositions. With the CD listed as being by his quartet, as opposed to the other with Iyer’s name above the title, he also gives full range to his associates, all of whom are members of the Netherlands’ improv lab, the ICP Orchestra. They are steady bassist Ernst Glerum, freeform reedist Ab Baars and splashy drummer Han Bennink.

Lesser known, Iyer’s crew is rounded out by alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who has been the pianist’s partner since the mid-1990s; young mainstream drummer Tyshawn Sorey and bassist Stephen Crump, who usually works with drummer Bobby Previte. Someone, who has said he’s attracted to ritualistic and discursive music, Iyer’s 11 compositions tend to strain jazz conventions through the sieve of musical otherness. But these uncommon -- for jazz -- references are more allied to the rock and pop music influences of his suburban upbringing than any Carnatic melodies he would have heard as the child of Indian immigrants.

Exoticism too can be in the ear of the behearer. “Habeas Corpus” for instance, hints at non-Western musical modes, but the sounds appear to be more Native Indian than Carnatic or Hindustani. Here and elsewhere, Iyer flows his arpeggios and cadenzas across as the keyboard in the company of Sorey’s rumble and thump and Mahanthappa’s sandpaper abrasiveness. It’s reminiscent of the way McCoy Tyner played in the 1970s with saxophonists Joe Ford or Gary Bartz.

However it’s “Kinship” and “Because of Guns (hey joe redux)”, which best illustrate how successfully he can prepare a masala of different themes. On the former, a

pre-modern stride piano intro dovetails into free-flowing note clusters that presage an Art Blakey-like press roll from the drummer. Later, as Sorey continues to comment on each interpolated piano phrase, Mahanthappa pointedly flutter tongues a new melody.

Unlike his work on Iyer’s earlier quartet CD, Crump can actually be heard here and is even more of a presence on “Because of Guns (hey joe redux)”. Someone who plays electric bass with Previte’s the Horse, Crump uses his acoustic model to keep up a steady pulse on this track, which includes intermittent piano variations on the familiar “Hey Joe” riff. Although the concept limits the drummer to metronomic beats, it gives the saxman license to keen and squeal to his heart’s content, adding an unexpected R&B tinge to Iyer’s prancing over the keys as he elaborates the theme.

Several shorter tracks show off the softer, balladic style of both the reedist and pianist, although both seem most comfortable on tunes like the freeboppy “Imagined Nations” where Mahanthappa’s slithering split tones and Iyer’s flashing note clusters meet and extend.

Ballads aren’t really part of Scheen’s game plan, or that of DANCE, MY DEAR which offers up supersonic power almost from its first notes. As polyrhyhmically sophisticated as BLOOD SUTRA, the overall execution is much tougher than on the other CD. For a start Scheen’s touch is much harder than Iyer’s, while Baars’ bitten off notes and honking tones unintentionally put Mahanthappa’s in the shadows. Glerum is much more of presence than Crump, and anyone who has ever heard Bennink knows that while he may be approximately twice Sorey’s age, his stentorian output is that much more pronounced.

Scheen can improvise at warp speed if he’s so inclined, but his chief joy is knitting together freely phrased pulses into a distinctive movement that melds earlier jazz harmonies and rhythms with a 21st Century conception. That means that Baars can be as smooth as Ben Webster if needed; Glerum strum as forcefully as Paul Chambers on his side; and on the last tune, Bennink can create a darting, Baby Dodds-like cymbal sand dance.

But the key to the session come in the title tune and the two that bookend it. Reminiscent of the sort of slurred, boozy ballad as you could have heard at Minton’s in 1943 when Thelonious Monk was woodshedding his distinctive style, “Idols” -- a implicative title -- finds the pianist adopting the key clips and pressured touch of Monk and another 100% original Herbie Nichols. Meanwhile Baars tenor playing sounds as if it’s coming from a reed hewn out of oak and Bennink’s inverted shuffle rhythm arrives with power even Kenny Clarke would recognize.

Following is “Dance, my dear?” whose title in this context sounds not so much as an invitation as a challenge. Baars double-tongues the theme up the scale as the others pulsate different tones around him. Scheen even appears to be deconstructing “Blue Monk” as he rushes the tempo to fit the broken tones in between AB’s slurred phrasing.

“Non-circle agreeable” is even more ferocious. The saxman bites off jagged note fragments on top of rolling piano tremolos and searing snare and cymbal work from the drummer. Only Glerum stays true to the theme, holding the pulse as the others explode around him. Finally the pianist cuts the tempo allowing Baars’s slurs to ease into boudoir tenor territory.

Scheen may prefer a herky-jerky beat fill with broken chords compared to Iyer’s most restrained approach; and Baars favor sibilant twittered lines to Mahanthappa’s smoother approach, but both strategies are interpretations, not major improvisational disagreements. Each band has provided an age appropriate session for its generation and each CD can be explored with equal interest.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Dance: 1. Similarities 2. God in Heaven (stay!) 3. This time, it will last forever 4. Idols 5. Dance, my dear? 6. Non-circle agreeable 7. Patience 8. Subsequently 9. Summerwindow

Personnel: Dance: Ab Baars (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Michiel Scheen (piano); Ernst Glerum (bass); Han Bennink (drums)

Track Listing: Blood: Proximity (Crossroads) 2. Brute facts 3. Habeas Corpus 4. Ascent 5. When History Sleeps 6. Questions of Agency 7. Kinship 8. Stigmatism 9. That Much Music. 10. Imagined Nations 11. Because of Guns (hey joe redux) 12. Desiring

Personnel: Blood: Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto saxophone); Vijay Iyer (piano); Stephan Crump (bass); Tyshawn Sorey (drums)

August 16, 2004

AB BARRS TRIO PLUS GUESTS

Party at the Bimhuis
Wig 09

STATEMENTS EN MÉXICO
1er. Encuentro Internacional de Improvisación Libre
Jazzorca Records 014

Gatherings of old friends and new acquaintances, parties, if organized properly, can sometimes result in unique insights along with the good times. So it is with these two discs.

Recorded live in an Amsterdam club last year, PARTY AT THE BIMHUIS is the long overdue celebration of the 10 -- well, really 11½ -- year anniversary of reedist Ab Baars’ trio with bassist Wilbert de Joode and drummer Martin van Duynhoven. Befitting a milestone, the three invited a group of associates to help them celebrate, and the assembled partygoers played in various combinations ranging from duo to septet.

A more formal affair, the other CD, subtitled First International Encounter of Free Improvisers grew out of a series of five concerts and a workshop in Mexico City in 2000. The idea was to create mix and match ensembles from among the capital’s most experimental free jazzers and pure improvisers -- yes they exist there too. The “international” categorization came about when the locals were joined on some tunes by the German-born, New York-based Statements duo -- Hans Tammen on so-called endangered guitar and Ursel Schlicht on piano.

Baars, whose power and versatile improvising has also earned him a longtime berth in the ICP Orchestra, plays host to his boss, iconoclastic pianist Misha Mengelberg on a few tracks. Most revealing is a version of Thelonious Monk’s “Reflections” featuring the pianist and Baars’s trio. While Mengelberg’s jagged attack almost literally sounds like Monk -- complete with the stride piano inferences, Baars’s tenor work goes beyond that of Charlie Rouse’s the American pianist’s most constant reed foil. Although he lags behind the beat when soloing, his vibrato is shakier (on purpose) and wider than Rouse’s ever was, and unlike the American, he’s more abstract. He seems to be on the cusp of letting go each time he improvises a new phrase.

“GF”, another tenor feature, based incongruously on the opening of Beethoven’s Great Fugue for string quartet, shows off Baars’s growling honks and slightly tart delivery as he pokes into every nuance of the tune. De Joode starts the piece off with a furious, focused bass slap, then turns to standard time, while van Duynhoven varies his accompaniment from military pacing to a steady pulse.

Tart delivery also characterizes the work of Chicago tenorist Von Freeman, who gets the septet treatment on “Von”, written by Baars in his honor. Here van Duynhoven’s expansive drum solo filled with rolling paradiddles and ruffs points out that while he’s been recording in avant-garde circumstances since 1968, the drummer is easily able to work out in standard jazz time. Unison sax lines from Baars and early associate Mariëtte Rouppe van der Voort on alto saxophone -- she plays piccolo and flute elsewhere -- are actually a little farther out than Freeman’s blunt tempo when he digs into a tune. Interestingly as well, van der Voort touches the heart of improvisation in her solo, though her commitment to Chicago and Freeman isn’t as pronounced as Baars’s wavering growls. Violist Ig Henneman, the tenor man’s longtime partner, creates a circular and non-sentimental lines here to maintain the mood.

Known as much for his clarinet as his sax playing, Baars shows it off on “3900 Carol Court”, named for the home address of another mentor, the late Los Angeles-based reedman John Carter. Starting a cappella, his output highlights his control of the instrument that with equal facility can swoop from squeaking treetop notes in the coloratura register to woody chalumeau lines.

“Indiaan” (sic), another clarinet piece, features its composer, and an early employer of Baars, pianist Guus Janssen. Janssen, who shares a fascination with Native-American themes with the reedist, manages to burlesque Hollywood Indian music cliches with his left hand while improvising a new line on top of them with his right. Baars sounds out a mellow counter melody, while the rhythm section creates a polyrhythmic Pow Wow timbre, which the drummer begins with distinctive wooden percussion sounds.

A septet piece featuring Baars on clarinet and Rouppe van der Voort on bass flute reveals its dedicatee easily enough, since Baars, the composer, entitled it “A Portrait of Roswell Rudd”. Strangely enough though, the legato, adagio theme based around a subtle drumbeat and slithering viola line featuring no brass instruments. Instead, to the accompaniment of some miasmic Gil Evans-like chords from the horns and viola, the two pianists scoot and slither over the keyboards, with Janssen probably playing it more straight and stately and Mengelberg likely more skittering and spiky.

With 14 tracks packed into more than 73 minutes, the Free Improvisers party down Mexico way also allows every musician to participating in some way. Although like Baars’s session a brass free zone -- except for the odd interjection from the trumpet of organizer German Bringàs, who more often plays soprano or tenor saxophone -- a plethora of other instruments make their appearance.

Most free jazzy of the tracks is “Riesgo 13”, also the longest at more than 12 minutes. With the overblowing and multiphonics of Bringàs on tenor saxophone, Raúl Aranda on alto saxophone and Remi Álvarez on baritone saxophone -- not to mention the triple basses of Aron Cruz, Roberto Aymez and Miguel Rodriguez -- what results is ASCENSION/MACHINE GUN textures.

Starting off with what sounds like the ringing of an alarm clock bell, rolling percussion from Hernán Hetch continues throughout, with Bringàs’ reed smears and snorts making the first impression. Soon high-intensity Cecil Taylor-like pianisms from Schlicht are vying for sonic space with bass guitar thumb taps and Alejandro Sánchez’s wiggling, Billy Bang-type fiddle scratches. Pulsating unison tones, high-pitched violin glissandos and a pumping pedal-point bottom from Álvarez’s baritone bring the piece to a crescendo.

Mostly different personnel in another tentet make the final, barely four minute track another screaming free-for-all, although the distorted guitar picking from Tammen, Carlos Castillo and Salvador Cruz create a different texture and bring up memories of one of those Eugene Chadbourne-led electric avant-folk blow outs.

More importantly, the unjustly unknown-north-of-the-Rio-Grande Mexicans acquit themselves admirably in small groupings as well. “Riesgo 4”, for instance, finds the pianist playing cross handed tremolos and chords met by a continuous glissando from alto clarinetist Marcos Miranda. Meanwhile Walter Schmidt on bass guitar and Cruz scratch away with a combination of bottleneck slides and what sounds like the pressing heavy objects on the strings.

A quartet of the Statements duo, Bringàs on soprano sax and drummer Carlos Bonequi finds the four in EuroImprov territory on “Riesgo 10” with the tune based around short, left-handed fantasias from the pianist, splayed distorted fingering from the guitarist and stroked percussion lines. Meanwhile the reedist interrupts with flutter tonguing and irregular vibrations, then with quacking and honking that get more repetitive, but mellifluous at the same time. Finally Bringàs evokes closure with dog whistle squeals.

Featuring just Tammen, Aranda and Álvarez, “Riesgo 1” finds the guitarist supplying the continuum with electronic buzzes and e-bow torquing, while the reedists produce droning, over-miked curls that move from tongue slaps to alp horn yodels. “Riesgo 12” with Bringàs and Miranda joining the guitarist finds the German-American exploring the sound field available from his axe neck and behind the bridge until he creates buzzing, shorting and modulating feedback tones. One reedman plays straight lines, while the other overblows so much so that at points a dense bagpipe timbre is created and at others shrill, but melodic tones echo back and forth from one to the other.

In a more modern vein, Mario de Vega’s sampler faces off against Tammen’s electro-impulses on “Riesgo 7” to create tones that appear to be a combination of Star Wars and seashore explorations. Between the growls, sine wave movements and electronically tinged static, the plectrumist uses quick, pinprick flat-picking to make space for himself among video game noises that crash, bang and aurally explode.

More universal than Mexican, the only geographical musical references appears on “Riesgo 5”, which adds Schlicht and Francisco Bringàs on tabla to the guitar/sampler duo. Here what appears to be pealed bells, scraped guitar strings and powerful piano pressure syncopate forward in ringing octaves to makes short work of some sampled, whiny Tejano tunes.

STATEMENTS also features memorable clavichord-like dampened action solos from the pianist and industrial strength responses from the guitarist in duo. Besides being a disc which features two musicians who record too infrequently, singly or together, the main reason to investigate this session is to familiarize yourself with the flourishing talents of some Mexican improvisers.

Baars’s party disc is yet another confirmation that cosmopolitan improvisers are numerous on the Continent -- as most people now know. The other CD shows that first-class thinkers and players don’t stop at the United States’ southern border.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Party: 1. 3900 Carol Court 2. GF 3. Indiaan+ 4. Party Talk#*^ 1 5. A Portrait of Roswell Rudd#*+^ 6. Party Talk 2# 7. Von#*+^ 8. Party Talk#+ 3 9. Whispers of Horsemeat# 10. Reflections^ 11. Enter from the East#*+^

Personnel: Party: Mariëtte Rouppe van der Voort #(alto saxophone, piccolo and flute); Ab Baars ([all tracks but 4 and 8] clarinet and tenor saxophone); Ig Henneman* (viola); Guus Janssen+ (piano); Misha Mengelberg^ (piano); Wilbert de Joode ([all tracks but 4 and 6] bass); Martin van Duynhoven ([all tracks but 4, 6, 8, 9] drums)

Track Listing: Statements: 1. Riesgo 1^& 2. Riesgo 2*+ 3. Riesgo 3~ 4. Riesgo 4* 5. Riesgo 5*@ 6. Riesgo 6+^& 7. Riesgo 7@ 8. Riesgo 8*^~ 9. Riesgo 9* 10. Riesgo 10*+ 11. Riesgo 11@ 12. Riesgo 12+ 13. Riesgo 13*+^&~ 14. Riesgo 14*+@

Personnel: Statements: Marcos Miranda (clarinet, soprano saxophone [tracks 12, 14]); German Bringàs (soprano and tenor saxophones, trumpet) +; Raúl Aranda (alto saxophone)&; Remi Álvarez (baritone saxophone)^; Alejandro Sánchez (violin)~; Salvador Cruz (acoustic guitar [tracks 4, 14]); Carlos Castillo (electric guitar [tracks 11, 14]); Hans Tammen (endangered guitar[all tracks but 4, 6, 8]); Ursel Schlicht* (piano) Walter Schmidt (bass guitar [track 4]); Arón Cruz [tracks 6, 13], Roberto Aymez [tracks 2, 6, 13], Miguel Rodriguez [tracks 8, 13](bass); Carlos Bonequi [track 14], Hernán Hetch [tracks 2, 3, 13] (drums); Francisco Bringàs ([tracks 5, 11, 14] tabla); Mario de Vega (sampler)@

February 23, 2004

ICP ORCHESTRA

Oh, My Dog
ICP 040

MYUMI PROJECT BIG BAND
Rooted: Origins of Now
Southport/Asian Improv S-SSD 0092

Performing with a mid-sized band of improvisers is widespread because it provides freedom both for the composer(s) and the players. Nine plus instruments often provide enough variations to illustrate a writer’s vision; and with fewer than 12 bandmates, musicians can contribute much more than if they’re mere section placeholders.

Small big bands can also be used to express radically different concepts as these skilled CDs demonstrate. Together for almost 30 years, the Dutch ICP Orchestra has featured many different soloists over time, but with laissez faire direction coming from pianist/composer Misha Mengelberg, there’s a consistency there. Tatsu Aoki’s Myumi Project, on the other hand, is mostly a recording ensemble, put together to give flesh to the bassist/composer’s musical portraits of Asian American improvisers in particular and Asians in North America in general.

One of the reasons the ICP has lasted so long is Mengelberg’s anarchistic view of music and refusal to assert himself as leader except by example, a strategy Duke Ellington operated with as well. Then again you wonder if Duke would have had as his closest associates and longest lasting member of the band someone like drummer Han Bennink, who often plays too loudly and seems to relish upsetting regular routines.

OH MY DOG is unique, however because it’s one rare instance where Bennink is forced into a secondary role. That’s because among the many exceptional soloists who now make up the ICP is cellist Tristan Honsinger. A longtime expatriate American who has cycled through the band before, not only is the cellist responsible for the linked compositions that make up the back half of the CD, but between his wild string forays -- arco and pizzicato -- and vocalizations, he makes the usually conspicuous drummer become just another one of his straightmen -- and woman.

Beginning with “Oh my Deer!” and compressing five tracks into a sort of mini-suite, the cellist has the band referencing many countries, styles and musical history. The first tune, for instance starts off with some laughing Classic Jazz trombone smears courtesy of Wolter Wierbos, with the sprightly melody advanced by Honsinger and violinist Mary Oliver sounding as if it’s being played by The New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra. It’s probably versatile Ab Baars who produces the Johnny Dodds-style clarinet lines here, while Bennink reveals his inner Baby Dodds as a two-beat specialist.

A romp between Wierbos and trumpeter Thomas Heberer runs the tune right into the next that features the cellist slicing sounds out of his strings, Satchmo-high brassy notes from the trumpeter and discordant wails from the horn section. Reconstituting the ensemble as a marching band on “Out back/Chickadee”, Honsinger interrupts the musicians’ with a chorus of whistling and growls. This, in turn introduces “Sparking”, that seems unable to make up its mind whether it’s a cha cha or a mazurka. Oliver bends enough notes to send them bouncing all over the place, while Bennink indulges himself in rim shots and the trumpeter appears to presage a bullfight.

All this attains its head in the title tune where the scraped strings play one melody bisected by that pseudo marching band ensemble puffing out “La Marseilles” or perhaps its cousin, “Ghosts”. Following nonsense curses -- in Italian? -- in Dutch? -- someone replicates the sound of a dog barking as Honsinger tells the story of walking through the woods, unsure of what animal he sees. Is it “oh my deer” or “oh my dog”?

That a performance like this fits right into the CD program without an eyebrow being raised shows just what Mengelberg has created with the ICP. Various band members take on different persona during the rest of the CD, with the most impressive exhibitions of polyphonic pandemonium appearing on two group instant compositions: “Travel Agent and the nearly 15½-minute climax,” Happy dreams”.

On the former, it almost appears as if the band is warming up, until Ernst Glerum’s bowed bass and fiddle intimations from Oliver lead the pianist to express himself in full Cecil Taylor keyboard-punishing mode. Vocal cries and slurred whoops from Baars’s tenor can’t disguise the romantic theme, which flirts with modified waltz time. As always, Bennink is banging away as if he’s a little boy trying to get past a locked door, Heberer slurps out some sweet Harry James-like tones and Michael Moore provides a fruity, Earl Bostic style alto solo.

“Happy dreams”, on the other hand, is all plucks, purrs, growls, trills, whines and toots. The strings play staccatissimo, the trombone and saxophones pump out bent notes and switch in and out of movie matinee-style accompaniment, Mengelberg turns to low intensity playing, creating overtones so supine that even the dampers buzz. Duetting with Bennink, who shakes gong and bell tones from his kit, the pianist counters with cascading single notes and a final Chopinesque cadenza.

If OH, MY DOG is disorderly, then ROOTED is just the opposite, depending as it does on one man’s -- Tatsu Aoki’s -- compositional conception. Japanese-born, but a resident of Chicago for nearly half his life, Aoki has established longtime playing situations with such Association for the Advancement of Creative Music as drummer Famadou Don Moye, tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and baritone saxophonist Mwata Bowden, the last of whom is featured on this disc.

More catholic than ICP projects, this and other Asianimprov projects mix Oriental and Afro-American roots sounds with new ones created when these cultures melt into one another in North America.

Throughout, Aoki uses, and with three others plays, traditional taiko drums, using its ritualistic sound as a continuum. As early as “Part One: Now”, though the sound is interrupted by floating trumpet lines from the late Ameen Muhammad, best known for his association with Ernest Dawkins’ bands, and rhythmic swing from saxophonists Taku Akiyama and Toru Hironaka. Bowden’s Aboriginal digeridoo soon adds a sound distinct from all others, eventually adding to the undercurrent as drums turn to jazz time and the sax and trumpet combine for boppish swing.

Elsewhere, as on “Part Three: 1.5 Generation”, a generic Asian pantatonic scale played by taku or rei bells, gives way to unvarying bass work from Hiroshi Eguchi that reconstitutes the tune as a funky foot tapper. Muhammad gracefully bends notes, Bowden honks out some gritty asides and drummer Mia Park lays on the rock-like rhythm. As the saxman and hornman continue to trade slurred, irregular tones, the unvarying taiko-led percussion beat begins to resemble that of Native American music, and violinist Jonathan Chen adds some electric manipulation.

By the same logic, while Chen’s violin intro on “Part Two; Origin” is based on traditional Chinese music, the result sounds almost Eastern European. The following, highly rhythmic bass solo has the delicacy of a kayagum, but the strength of Oscar Pettiford’s lines. Saxophone expositions chase each other though the piece over a walking bass line, followed by another digeridoo interlude. Wadaiko or Japanese percussion allusions arise from the massed drummers as one bassist -- Aoki likely -- produces bottleneck guitar like pulses. Finally the whole thing ends on an elongated digeridoo tone.

By the time “Part Four: ... of Now, As Well” arrives, you’re so used to the musical disconnect, that when Yoko Noge, who is a Chicago-based blues vocalist, sings the traditional “Jongara Buchi” in Japanese backed by additional violin, cello and taiko accompaniment, it doesn’t sound strange at all. Soon the irregular beat turns to steady jazz time and the horn section begins passing a riff around. Muhammad has a fine, brassy solo as the consolidated percussion put you in mind of primitive washboard bands at times and sophisticated mega-kit rockers at others. Before the tune ended with accelerated percussion rhythm, a disco whistle has been blown, a baritone line has snaked through the proceedings and there’s been a slap-bass break and suggestions of arco filigree.

Small big bands, big ideas: Aoki and Mengelberg easily show what can be done with the right musical ideas -- and right sidepeople -- on these CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Dog: 1. Write down exactly 2. A close encounter with Charles's Country Band 3. Precise dimensions and weight 4. A la Russe 5. Travel agent 6. Ham on air 7. Hand and checked luggage 8. Oh my Deer! 9. Wild turkey 10. Out back/Chickadee 11. Sparkling 12. Oh my dog! 13. Happy dreams

Personnel: Dog: Thomas Heberer (trumpet); Wolter Wierbos (trombone); Ab Baars (clarinet, tenor saxophone); Michael Moore (clarinet, alto saxophone); Mary Oliver (violin and viola); Tristan Honsinger (cello); Misha Mengelberg (piano); Ernst Glerum (bass); Han Bennink (drums)

Track Listing: Rooted: 1. Part One: Now 2. Part Two: Origin+ 3. Part Three: 1.5 Generation 4. Part Four: ... of Now, As Well* 5. Origin: Chamber Version+

Personnel: Rooted: Ameen Muhammad (trumpet, percussion); Taku Akiyama (alto saxophone); Toru Hironaka (tenor saxophone); Mwata Bowden (baritone saxophone, digeridoo); Jonathan Chen (violin, electronics); Tomoko Hayashida (cello*); Satoru Iga (bass*); Hiroshi Eguchi (bass); Tatsu Aoki (bass+, taiko); Ryan Toguri, Hide Yoshihashi and Jason Matsumoto (taiko drums); Mia Park (drums); Yoko Noge (vocal)

June 30, 2003

CHRIS ABELEN

Proost
Bvhaast CD 0202

There’s something -- and hope it isn’t economics -- which finds so many outstanding performances by improvisers from the Netherlands, organized around “little” big bands. Sure, smaller and larger combinations turn out memorable work, but when exceptional Dutch improv first comes to mind so do Misha Mengelberg’s ICP Orchestra, Willem Breuker Kollektief’s and, more recently Michael Braam’s Bik Bent Braam and the ensembles led by Martin Fondse.

Since so many of these bands are the vision of one person, writing and arranging for 10 to 12 players allows room for Holland’s idiosyncratic soloists, with just enough musical heft on tap to move the sessions past blowing sessions or free-for-all improvisations.

We know of these particular groups because most of them have existed in one form or another for many years, yet other players have dabbled in that formula as well. PROOST is the result of that dabbling; a record of a one-off, 10-piece group put together on the second last day of 1992 by trombonist Chris Abelen. Abelen, who has since made his reputation with a quintet, has sat on tapes of this, in-retrospect, all-star session fore more than a decade. The lukewarm audience reception at the time made him undervalue the performance.

Indeed, it does have its weaknesses. But since his newfound faith in the program that spurred its release means that the trombonist will probably never organize a group like it again, it’s tantalizing to hear how a set of first-class players interprets the eight tunes. Written for Breuker’s year-end Klap op de Vuurpijl festival, the tentet members include big (modern) band veterans like Abelen, as well as types whose first allegiance is to repertory jazz, Klezmer, fusion or free music.

“Bus”, for instance, has the sort of jaunty, semi-classical lilt that you would expect from the ICP or maybe Globe Unity, complete with slowly syncopating ticking clock rhythms from drummer Michael Vatcher, a long-time associate of ICP reedist Michael Moore. Yet it’s another ICP stalwart, clarinetist Ab Baars, who is featured here. Working in a quiet neo-bop mode, he echoes 1950s New York mainstay Tony Scott. Until some split reed dissonance and intentional squeaks are introduced, Baars sticks to the coloratura range, as his bent notes are framed by a horn choir.

These 1950s echoes seem genuine, for Abelen’s writing on the title track sounds like it could have come from some of the advanced composer/arrangers of that time like Teddy Charles, Gil Evans or George Russell. Here, though, the alto line which seems to slide between acrid no-compromise swing and honeyed movement, isn’t played by Phil Woods or Gigi Gryce, but Paul Termos, who has experience in bands led by Mengelberg and bassist Maarten Altena. He starts with sharp freebop trills that morph into overblowing and shrill claxon calls. Bomb dropping and cymbal pinging, Vatcher stays with him every step of the way, but referencing the same era. So does the straightforward foursquare work of Wibert de Joode, one of the country’s most accomplished bass masters. The bassist whose experience encompasses bands led by Abelen, Baars, Braam as well Yank avant-gardists like saxophonist Charles Gayle links the rhythm of the 1950s with the virtuosity of the 1990s.

Not to be outdone, fusion rears its head on frisky “Sem”, in the person of guitarist Corrie van Binsbergen. Someone who since the mid 1980s has worked in pop contexts as well as doing jazz gigs with Abelen, she starts off playing near acoustically, eventually rocking out, adopting stout Johnson Brothers-style guitar licks to the attendant music. Other horns provide the backing riffs, but her chief spur in all this is the tuba of Larry Fishkind, usually found in Klezmer settings.

That same back-to-the-future mixture also sets up “Mis”, the CD’s longest track as well as Abelen’s feature for himself. Here though, while Fishkind’s sepulchral tuba line rumbles through the brass basement, the trombonist’s 1930s-style plunger showcase takes place among rim shots from the drummer and countermotifs from the reeds. Ending open-horned as he ascends the scale and references a ‘bone sound a few decades more contemporary, the backing he has written for himself reflects sophisticated progressivism.

PROOST isn’t without its faults however. “Bob in China” (sic), the final piece is rife with faux Orientalisms, including a gong sounded at the top and in the coda bookending a theme that is more vaudeville Chinese than a legitimate Sino-sound. Furthermore, a few too many of the other pieces appear to merely end with the soloist or band suddenly stopping, as if ideas had been exhausted, instead of those concepts being followed to a logical conclusion.

Still, even if the CD isn’t at the highest rank it will appeal to those who can’t get enough of mid-sized EuroImprov bands and those interested in hearing trombonist Abelen in a different context.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Modder 2. Bus 3. Mis 4. Scale 5. MF-2Hd 6. Proost 7. Sem 8. Bob in China

Personnel: Eric Boeren (trumpet); Chris Abelen (trombone); Larry Fishkind (tuba); Ab Baars (clarinet); Paul Termos (alto saxophone); Frans Vermeerssen (tenor saxophone); Eckard Koltermann (bass clarinet and bass saxophone); Corrie van Binsbergen (guitar); Wibert de Joode (bass); Michel Vatcher (drums)

February 17, 2003

AB BAARS

SONGS
GeestGronden CD GG 22

Usually when European improvisers say they’re going to be playing American music, their frame of reference is some style of jazz or blues. But Dutch woodwind master Ab Baars and his trio have tapped the primeval root source. All of the tunes here refer to Native Americans, while 10 out of 13 are authentic Indian songs arranged for jazz trio.

What results is both though-provoking and musically satisfying for good reason. If impressive improvised projects could result from mixing the music at various times with Norwegian folk songs, German art music or Brazilian pop songs why not from the music of a people, which over the years has been as, alienated and discriminated against as the African-Americans who created jazz? Several jazzmen had part Native American parentage, among them trombonist Big Chief Russell Moore and bassist Oscar Pettiford. But tenor saxophonist Jim Pepper’s jaunty “Witchi-Tai-To” was one of the few attempts to improvise on Aboriginal themes.

Baars, who is probably best known for his membership in the ICP Orchestra, has never been one to shirk challenges. Another of his trio discs salutes the music of clarinetist John Carter. A collector of authentic Native American music, on this CD he avoids the stereotypical pulsation Hollywood westerns have linked to Indian music. Jazman Tony Scott would recognize this music long before horse opera hero Randolph Scott.

Much of it has an outside cast as well. “Aotzi No-otz”, for instance, a Cheyenne victory song, features a chirping, reed-biting section from the clarinetist, as the bassist and drummer produce moccasin-light backing. Speedy tempos and go for broke soloing link this more cerebral application to Energy Music’s glory days on ESP-Disk. That’s fine as well, since veteran percussionist Martin van Duynhoven, was one of the few Europeans to record for that legendary label, in a quartet session with trumpeter Nedley Elstak in 1968.

No matter the fashion, van Duynhoven was no random banger those many moons ago, and today he’s even more laid-back. On “Klawulacha”, a Kwakitul dance song, he restricts himself to striking hollow sticks, while Baars on tenor is acting as if Albert Ayler grew up in that tribe and bassist Wilber de Joode bows out some harsh dissonant notes. Other time, as on “Wai-Kun” the drummer offers up some subtle, circular percussion as Baars, in unison with de Joode’s walking bass, picks out the theme on toy xylophone.

The bassist, who has worked with nearly everyone in Holland from drummer Han Bennink to cornettist Eric Boeren, is equally strong playing arco and pizzicato. Plucking away, he and the saxophonists toss lines in the hocketing play-party song “Jeux” with no difficulty, while “Wolf Song” an unaccompanied reading of a Dakota power melody is an unpretty examination of its underlying power at the bull fiddle’s highest pitch.

Bringing his most minimal treatment to clarinet on “Meshivotzi No-otz”, a Cheyenne lullaby, Baars alternately squeaks and blares out some barely audible tones, which languidly protracts its ending as if he had just recounted a bedtime tale for children. Earlier, on Guus Jansen’s “Indiann”, after making the most of false fingering, he seems to be savoring the theme as he rolls it around on his reed.

On tenor, he isn’t afraid to tackle jazz’s most-famous pseudo-Redskin piece either: Ray Noble’s “Cherokee”. But during the almost nine-minute deconstruction of the tune, he and the other musicians use its chords for open-ended improv, with Baars tongue slapping or whinnying and van Duynhoven going to war with his toms. Finally the very familiar melody is played for all of 20 seconds at the end.

Musical shading, not musical imitation, is what makes this collection of SONGS work so well. With well-thought-out arrangements and the smarts of committed improvisers, the three show how well Aboriginal sounds can be adapted and transformed into impressive improvisations.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing:1.Wai-Kun 2. Indiaan 3. Klawulacha 4. Hevebe Tawi 5. Cherokee 6. Wolf Song 7. Maliseet Love Song 8. Jeux 9. Clayaquot War Song 10. Aotzi No-otz 11. Meshivotzi No-otz 12. Dsichl Biyin 13. The Indians

Personnel: Ab Baars (clarinet and tenor saxophone); Wilbert de Joode (bass); Martin van Duynhoven (drums, percussion)

September 2, 2002

ADAM JAMES WILSON

Unify
No label No #

TERRIE EX /AB BAARS
Hef
Atavistic ALP 130 CD

Finding something original to say using the most popular instrument in the world -- the guitar -- has become progressively more difficult over the past few years. With the six string utilized by everyone from rock journeymen to folk performers and classical recitalists, improvised musicians have to work out new strategies fore themselves.

Luckily, especially in its electric configuration, the guitar is versatile enough to respond to different touches as the youngish string slingers on these CDs demonstrate. New Yorker Adam James Wilson’s disc is a group essay in microtonal dissonance. While Terrie Ex, from Holland, hooks up with reedist Ab Baars to demonstrate how unadorned punk-style guitar can fuse with free jazz woodwinds.

Wilson, until recently a Boston resident, is aiming for pan-tonal, spontaneous group compositions. That’s sort of a convoluted way of saying that the aim of the 12 numbers on this CD is to mix traditional modality with atonality, as is found in much of the work of reedman/New England Conservatory teacher Joe Manner, one of Wilson’s acknowledged influences.

Dissonance creates a larger yet quieter sound. Although four other musicians participated in the sessions, only two -- flutist Arto Artinian and violinist Kat Hernandez -- appear to assert themselves on nearly every track. Conservatory-trained pianist Jonathan Vincent hardly makes his presence felt, while percussionist Aaron Trant, who frequently plays solo recitals and premieres so-called serious compositions, never resorts to anything as déclassé as a regular beat.

Bulgarian-born, New York-based Artinian, whose formal studies of composition and computer music lead him to pure improv, often utilizes extended techniques of high-pitched aviary peeps and claxon-like reverberations, often bringing to mind Robert Dick. Taking into account the change from saxophone to flute, he, Hernandez and Wilson sound like the British improvisers John Butcher (soprano saxophone), Phil Durrant (violin) and John Russell (acoustic guitar) on “Stark”. This too is one of the few times Vincent is really audible, producing some dark, left-handed rumbles.

“The Slow Crucible” on the other hand, finds the flutist, who at one point studied in Bulgaria, playing very non-Western sounding lines, which appear to be more Carnatic than Balkan. Here the guitarist’s tuning experiments make it appear as if he’s tinkling on a celesta. Meanwhile “Two Plus One”, which is a flute-guitar duet despite the title, is one of those numbers this side of stasis, where the clunk of individual notes is crystal clear as is the air hiss, creating a piccolo-like sound from Artinian.

Hernandez is a former Detroiter, who has also played with other young experimenters like pianist Dan DeChellis and drummer Jeff Arnal. Here she frequently uses a taut, mewling tone to better mix with Wilson’s single-note forays. On “Turn Away,” however, when the indistinct plinks and clinks of the guitar are succeeded by some muscular fretting, the fiddler rips out some uneven cat scratches as the flute probes atonality. The effect is if the band had suddenly turned to Heavy Metal.

That noise-making side of the group is even more evident on “Under Your Thumb”, with a title that could, be a tribute to or a dig at the Rolling Stones. Hernandez begins harshly scraping away like an eneverated Billy Bang, Trant bears down on his drum set and Wilson produces a buzz of pure feedback. Only Artinian continues sounding constant flute arpeggios. The best way to find this disc, by the way, is on the guitarist’s Web site: www.Adamjameswilson.com.

If Wilson treats his electric instrument as a microtonal paintbrush, then Ex wields his axe as a sound source. Part of Holland’s best-known anarcho punk band, whose members, à la The Ramones, insist their last names are all Ex, the guitarist’s jazz connections came about long before he started playing. His jazz-loving father named him after American vibist Terry Gibbs.

Ex (the band) first collaborated with manic Dutch drummer Han Bennink; later (guitarist) Ex recorded a strong duo disc with the drummer. Following that, the plectrumist put together this CD with Baars, best known for his membership in the ICP Orchestra. With all the tunes except for the title track lasting between 35 seconds and four minutes, the result is not unlike what a meeting between saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Johnny Ramone could have produced. It’s loud, abrasive and riveting.

Accelerator of the ICP engine with his distorted sax overtones and stuttering clarinet lines, Baars usually takes centrestage here. Spewing out trills and multiphonics from his horns, the reedman spurs Ex to match his circular breathing and the guitarist does with bell-ringing tones, rat-like string scratches and amplified power chords.

Not all of this recital finds the two ranging from microtones to maxi tweets however. Sometimes Ex’s guitar, intentionally or not, threatens to go out-of-tune, and on “Yselyk”, for example, his echoing tones suggest a steel guitar that’s being investigated by a denizen of the Third World. Then on “Grameel”, Baars’s prickly alto cries are met with steady guitar strumming that sounds as if it came from a Western movie soundtrack.

Both “M. Ali I” and “M. Ali II”, which seem to be named for heavyweight Muhammad Ali, which offer consistent and intense low-toned vibratos from the reedist on clarinet, may live up to their honoree, as Ex appears to be punching to strings to get a particular sound. Then on “Pets -> Knerp” the guitarist hammers on his bass strings as Baars plays, framing his solo in ascending and descending single note architecture.

All of this seems to be a preliminary bout for the title track -- shades of Ali -- where the saxist overblows hard enough to produce two separate sounds simultaneously, soon answered by guitar power chords. When Baars squeals away at the top of his instrument’s range, then dive bombs into the sax’s bottom notes, Ex moves between hearty chording and stroking steel strings for a unique timbre. Finally the piece ends as Baars produces a child-like trill backed by what sound like Ex’s palms hitting the strings.

All the musicians on these CDs may be young, but there’s nothing childish about their performances. Both discs offer different solutions to the challenge of creating unique guitar sounds.

- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Unify: 1. Unify 2. Steam Engine 3. Brooklyn 4. Cry for Me 5. Somnambulus 6. Diminuendo 7. Stark 8. Two Plus one 9. Turn Away 10. The Slow Crucible 11. Under Your Thumb 12. Until The Beginning

Personnel: Arto Artinian (flute); Kat Hernandez (violin); Adam James Wilson (fretless guitar); Jonathan Vincent (piano); Aaron Trant (drums)

Track Listing: Hef: 1. Oud Over 2. De Yzeren Tulp 3. Stokdutter 4. Hamergaar 5. Yselyk 6. Termiet 7. Kryzeltamden I 8. Kryzeltamden II 9. M. Ali I 10. M. Ali II 11. Grameel 12. Grampel 13. Pets -> Knerp 14. Hef

Personnel: Hef: Ab Baars (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Terrie Ex (guitar)

July 27, 2002

MISHA MENGELBERG

Solo
Buzz ZZ 76012

ICP ORCHESTRA
Jubilee Varia
hatology 528

Comparisons are odious, but if anyone could be characterized as the Thelonious Monk of Europe it would be Dutch pianist/composer Misha Mengelberg. Headman of the little recorded Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, he's also the theoretician behind the creative musical irony which underlines much of what we know as post modern Dutch --and by extension -- European jazz.

Suddenly, though, we have two ways to appreciate Mengelberg's art, discs that could be the 1990s versions of MONK'S MUSIC and THELONIOUS HIMSELF. In fact, on the orchestra CD, you could even say that the pianist has his own Art Blakey in long-time drummer-collaborator Han Bennink and, to stretch the point even further, his own John Coltrane in saxophonist/clarinetist An Baars.

But comparisons can only go so far. Mengelberg can merely be compared to Monk because like Thelonious he never imitates anyone else. A 65 year old European, he's steeped in the classical tradition that naturally inhabit his creations, the same way gospel songs and stride piano are sewn into Monk's musical fabric.

This is more obvious on SOLO, where a certain half-serious Continental formalism creeps into some of the performances, where it gets mixed with an early Tin Pan Alley sensibility. "Koekoek", for instance, is much closer to a 18th century jig than a 1920s slow drag and "Wok Afhaal" almost sounds like a piano lesson gone mad, with Mengelberg leaping from the very highest to the very lowest keys of the instrument. "Knebus", on the other hand -- although much more outrightly harmonious -- resembles Monk's takes on early 20th century pop songs.

Is the intentional literal heavy-handedness on "Salz" intended as a salute to Monk? Maybe. In particular sections there the pianist almost sounds as if he's physically bending the keyboard to follow his ideas. Still, it resembles Thelonious' conception a lot more than "Bill Evans En Dàn" sounds like Bill Evans. And what about "Boezimann"? Although it look as if it's named for Mengelberg's one time trio partner, saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, the improvisations here move back and forth from blues to pseudo show tune music, not exactly the German saxophonist's forté.

Possibly it's best not to try to understand Mengelberg too quickly, but instead listen to the album repeatedly to probe its nuances.

The situation get a little more complicated on JUBILEE VARIA, since Mengelberg is not only a soloist and composer, but also the ringmaster of a circus tent full of distinctive -- and pretty anarchistic -- personalities. Consider the trumpet asides and consistent string undertones that sound like a buzzing refrigerator which underline the most tender passages on "A Bit Nervous Jealous? Me?" or cellist Reijseger suddenly deciding his instrument is a guitar and starting to pluck it that way on "Next Subject". Later on the same tune Wierbos injects a few horse whinnies into his solo before concluding with some velvety phrases. Moreover are those snatches of a Kurt Weill opera coming from the strings on the same tune, or is it a Dutch version of a hoe-down? Here at last Baars gets to let loose on a bombastic Trane-ride, but the explosions are on the traditional clarinet, not the modern jazz-associated saxophone.

Plus there's always Bennink with whom to contend. Rhythm may be his business, but that doesn't mean that there has to be any particular pattern other than his own talents to what he plays. Some might even claim that he goes out of his way to confuse the frontline with odd emphasis and unexpected snare drum attacks. Thus, since the soloists themselves are told to only use Mengelberg's tunes as guides for their own desires -- this is the instant composers pool after all -- something like "Rollo I" may end up barely resembling the Teutonic tango melody that Heberer is trying to play at the beginning.

The composer himself is guilty of sonic subterfuge as well. Note the crafty, out-of-left-field accents he tosses into "Rollo I" and how he feints, fades and frolics when facing Bennink alone on "Jubilee Varia 1".

Like Monk's music in general, anything put on disc by Mengelberg and the ICP Orchestra is a rare commodity that should be treasured. Discover that yourself.

-- Ken Waxman

Solo: Track Listing: 1. Boodschappenlijst IV 2. Koekoek Richard Wagner Gewidmet: 3. Reef 4. Knebus 5. Salz 6. Ik Heb Een Turquoise Muts 7. Wok Afhaal 8. Bill Evans En Dàn 9. Boezimann

Personnel: Misha Mengelberg (piano)

Jubilee: Track Listing: Jubilee Varia Suite: 1. 2. 3. Jealousy Suite: 4. A Bit Nervous Jealous? Me? 5. Next Subject 6. Rollo I

Personnel: Thomas Herberer (trumpet); Wolter Wierbos (trombone); Ab Baars (clarinet, tenor saxophone); Michael Moore (clarinet, alto saxophone); Ernst Reijseger, Tristan Honsinger (cello); Misha Mengelberg (piano); Ernst Glerum (bass); Han Bennink (drums)

September 20, 2000