Roscoe Mitchell

Quartet
Sackville SKCD2-3009)

Julius Hemphill

Roi Boyé & the Gotham Mintrels

Sackville SKCD2-3014/15

Oliver Lake/Julius Hemphill

Buster Bee

Sackville SKCD2-3016

George Lewis

The Solo Trombone Record

Sackville SKCD2-3012

Anthony Davis

Of Blues and Dreams

Sackville SKCD2-3020

Karl Berger & Dave Holland

All Kinds of Time

Sackville SKCD2-3010

Barry Altschul Trio

Brahma

Sackville SKCD2-3023

Something in the Air: Sackville Record’s Avant-Garde Releases Return

By Ken Waxman

Besides gaining a reputation for its demographically diverse and eminently liveable neighbourhoods, when it came to improvised music starting in the early 1970s Toronto was actually a world-class city in more than civic boosterism. That’s because on the initiative of photographer/musician Bill Smith, Sackville records was issuing LPs by some of the most significant avant-garde players from New York, Chicago and St. Louis. Recorded for the most part in local studios, these discs – and affiliated concerts – documented these emerging stylists and designated Toronto’s as part of the international free jazz firmament. Now Chicago’s Delmark label is distributing CD reissues of the original Sackville records.

Probably the most significant session was the label’s one two-disc package, saxophonist and flautist Julius Hemphill’s Roi Boyé & the Gotham Minstrels Sackville SKCD2-3014/15. It’s a solo session that’s a pioneering example of using multi-tracking to create a compelling audio drama. Best known as a founder of the World Saxophone Quartet (WSQ), Hemphill (1938-1995) was interested in programmatic story telling not reed bravado. One observation is that the often-delicate timbres of the reedist’s overdubbed flutes were showcased at a time when the cliché of advanced jazz imagined every player a discordant eardrum-assaulter. Even when playing astringent alto saxophone, as on the second track, Hemphill is so in control of his material that he doesn’t lapse into glottal punctuation. Instead he replicates a New York subway journey through an overdubbed choir of yelping saxophones. Exactly one year later, Hemphill and his WSQ colleague Oliver Lake recorded the duo disc, Buster Bee Sackville SKCD2-3016 in Toronto. As notable as their teamwork was, it lacks the revolutionary force of the solo set. On “Roi Boyé” for instance, Hemphill devotes the final track to a narrative about a black artist’s life in a materialistic society, punctuating his story-telling with harsh squeals, discordant whorls and split tones, Another track replicates a butterfly’s attraction through stacked and harmonized reed tones that meander linearly; while a third is practically a capriccio, with the theme bouncing along, propelled by carefully stacked, overdubbed horn vamps, while reed-biting and pressurized vibratos from the alto saxophone come in-and-out of aural focus for contrast; ending with a distinctive contralto textural upturn. Hemphill doesn’t neglect jazz’s bedrock, the blues, either. One extended piece positions a soulful alto saxophone riff, basso lip-bubbling from the flute and a heavily breathed soprano saxophone line that could come from a country blues harmonica, while discordant, pitches slide contrapuntally among them. Eventually the track reflects both the guttural despair and altissimo promise of the music.

Another pace-setting session took place a year earlier, with George Lewis’ The Solo Trombone Record Sackville SKCD2-3012 the first session under his own name by the musician now as famous for his computer-directed music as for his brass mastery. Audacious to the nth degree, the disc’s “Tonebursts” is another example of overdubbing. But while Hemphill was 39, with years of gigging behind him when “Roi Boyé” was recorded, Lewis was all of 24. In spite of his youth, the 20-minute track is another tour-de-force with the trombonist evidentially able to stylistically replicate key attributes of older brassmen, calling upon the color of Tricky Sam Nanton, the sophistication of Lawrence Brown and the speed of J. J. Johnson at will and blending them as needed. Here expressive lines are sometimes replaced by a sudden staccato brays, or mid-improv, a trombone choir harmonizes, with its parts segmented among bass trombone pedal-point, alto trombone open-horn linearity, and the highest textures strained though a cup mute. There are even times during which you could swear a supple saxophone is soloing accompanied by phantom guitar strokes. Besides expressive glissandi, timbres are sourced from deep within the trombone body; capillary lines are lobbed from one ‘bone to another; or rubato tones share space with polyharmonies and polytones. Eventually techniques such as oscillated mouthpiece kisses are replaced with resonating runs that maintain an almost conventional jazz-styled line while at the same time making room for growling ostinatos and altissimo cries. Lewis also provides a solo interpretation of “Lush Life”, but more impressive are other tracks such as “Untitled Dream Sequence”. Taken at the same tempo as that Billy Strayhorn classic, the piece’s note-slurping, double-tongued accents and speedy glisses from every part of the horn demonstrate that exciting improvisation doesn’t have to be fortissimo, super-fast or discordant.

Lewis was also more than just present a year previously when saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell’s Quartet on Sackville SKCD2-3009 was recorded live at Toronto’s long defunct A Space gallery. The momentous session not only captures a then-rare example of the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s saxophonist performing without the other band members, but puts him in an all-star context. Other quartet members are pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, probably the most respected Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians founder, and Detroit guitarist Spencer Barefield. Mitchell and Lewis expose sonorous counterpoint on one duo track and the trombonist alone turns Mitchell’s “Olobo” into another brass tour-de-force, blending a near ballad exposition with guttural sniggers, near-silent breaths and a coda of overblowing. Group dynamics are memorable as well. Sonic tension is almost visible on “Tnoona”. With the theme built up from the saxophonist’s tongue flutters and split tones, guitar vibration, Lewis’ sliding plunger work and Abrams’ focussed note clusters, it finally dissolves without release. Aleatory as suggested by its title, Mitchell’s “Cards” is the CD’s most fully-realized composition. Chromatic forward motion is due to the pianist’s expressive low-frequency runs, but the linear form is punctuated by Barefield’s oscillating amp reverb. Meanwhile Mitchell’s reeds bark with clown-horn-like blasts and dilating split tones, as the trombonist contributes plunger grace notes and discursive pedal point. A coda of stentorian guitar strums completes the improvisation.

Other 1970s group sessions involve a rare excursion into focused European improvisations on All Kinds of Time Sackville SKCD2-3010 by a duo of German pianist/vibist Karl Berger and British bassist Dave Holland, who now follows a more mainstream course; plus pianist Anthony Davis, best-known for operas such as X and Amistad, expressing himself with a suite and shorter composition backed by violin, cello and percussion. But it is Brahma Sackville SKCD2-3023 from 1980 which best demonstrates the musical future which was partially ushered in by these earlier discs. Led by veteran drummer Barry Altschul, the unusually constituted trio introduced two players now in the prime of their career: trombonist Ray Anderson and bassist Mark Helias. Improvising jazz is never static, and unlike uncompromising abstraction that characterizes earlier discs in this set, swinging elements are now mixed with the risk-taking solos. These rhythmic components still go far beyond the conventional. Altschul’s solo on the 17-minute title track may hit a groove, but his bulls-eye beat is amplified with timbre scrambles using mallets and sticks, ratamacues and drags on toms and snares, plus numerous interjections that bring in cymbal shaking, bell-tree resonation, waterphone scrapes, cow bell thwacks and shrills from slide whistles. The finale involves shaking a thunder sheet for fortissimo oscillations; the mid-section is based on a martial beat from the percussionist and wide-angled stops and thumps from Helias. Overall, this drum finesse is synchronized with elephant-like grunts from Anderson’s sousaphone when the brassman isn’t altering themes with flutter-tonguing, freak note whinnying and gutbucket slurs. Capable of smooth balladry on Altschul’s mid-tempo “Irina”, Anderson also whistles and slurs his way through his own Spanish-tinged “Con Alma de Noche” backed by woodblock bops and opposite sticking from the drummer. And he enlivens the bassist’s “Lism” with triplet-extended brassiness, allowing Helias to hand pump and sluice his way up-and-down the strings with guitar-like expressiveness as the stop-time tune evolves.

Advanced improvisations featuring out-of-towners, not to mention the burgeoning local free music community, continues to be recorded in the GTA. These historically important and musically impressive albums show how one series of discs successfully captured musical changes.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #10

July 12, 2011

George Lewis

The Solo Trombone Record
Sackville SKCD2-3012

Julius Hemphill

Roi Boyé & the Gotham Mintrels

Sackville SKCD2-3014/15

Oliver Lake/Julius Hemphill

Buster Bee

Sackville SKCD2-3016

Anthony Davis

Of Blues and Dreams

Sackville SKCD2-3020

Karl Berger & Dave Holland

All Kinds of Time

Sackville SKCD2-3010

Roscoe Mitchell

Quartet

Sackville SKCD2-3009)

Barry Altschul Trio

Brahma

Sackville SKCD2-3023

Something in the Air: Sackville Record’s Avant-Garde Releases Return

By Ken Waxman

Besides gaining a reputation for its demographically diverse and eminently liveable neighbourhoods, when it came to improvised music starting in the early 1970s Toronto was actually a world-class city in more than civic boosterism. That’s because on the initiative of photographer/musician Bill Smith, Sackville records was issuing LPs by some of the most significant avant-garde players from New York, Chicago and St. Louis. Recorded for the most part in local studios, these discs – and affiliated concerts – documented these emerging stylists and designated Toronto’s as part of the international free jazz firmament. Now Chicago’s Delmark label is distributing CD reissues of the original Sackville records.

Probably the most significant session was the label’s one two-disc package, saxophonist and flautist Julius Hemphill’s Roi Boyé & the Gotham Minstrels Sackville SKCD2-3014/15. It’s a solo session that’s a pioneering example of using multi-tracking to create a compelling audio drama. Best known as a founder of the World Saxophone Quartet (WSQ), Hemphill (1938-1995) was interested in programmatic story telling not reed bravado. One observation is that the often-delicate timbres of the reedist’s overdubbed flutes were showcased at a time when the cliché of advanced jazz imagined every player a discordant eardrum-assaulter. Even when playing astringent alto saxophone, as on the second track, Hemphill is so in control of his material that he doesn’t lapse into glottal punctuation. Instead he replicates a New York subway journey through an overdubbed choir of yelping saxophones. Exactly one year later, Hemphill and his WSQ colleague Oliver Lake recorded the duo disc, Buster Bee Sackville SKCD2-3016 in Toronto. As notable as their teamwork was, it lacks the revolutionary force of the solo set. On “Roi Boyé” for instance, Hemphill devotes the final track to a narrative about a black artist’s life in a materialistic society, punctuating his story-telling with harsh squeals, discordant whorls and split tones, Another track replicates a butterfly’s attraction through stacked and harmonized reed tones that meander linearly; while a third is practically a capriccio, with the theme bouncing along, propelled by carefully stacked, overdubbed horn vamps, while reed-biting and pressurized vibratos from the alto saxophone come in-and-out of aural focus for contrast; ending with a distinctive contralto textural upturn. Hemphill doesn’t neglect jazz’s bedrock, the blues, either. One extended piece positions a soulful alto saxophone riff, basso lip-bubbling from the flute and a heavily breathed soprano saxophone line that could come from a country blues harmonica, while discordant, pitches slide contrapuntally among them. Eventually the track reflects both the guttural despair and altissimo promise of the music.

Another pace-setting session took place a year earlier, with George Lewis’ The Solo Trombone Record Sackville SKCD2-3012 the first session under his own name by the musician now as famous for his computer-directed music as for his brass mastery. Audacious to the nth degree, the disc’s “Tonebursts” is another example of overdubbing. But while Hemphill was 39, with years of gigging behind him when “Roi Boyé” was recorded, Lewis was all of 24. In spite of his youth, the 20-minute track is another tour-de-force with the trombonist evidentially able to stylistically replicate key attributes of older brassmen, calling upon the color of Tricky Sam Nanton, the sophistication of Lawrence Brown and the speed of J. J. Johnson at will and blending them as needed. Here expressive lines are sometimes replaced by a sudden staccato brays, or mid-improv, a trombone choir harmonizes, with its parts segmented among bass trombone pedal-point, alto trombone open-horn linearity, and the highest textures strained though a cup mute. There are even times during which you could swear a supple saxophone is soloing accompanied by phantom guitar strokes. Besides expressive glissandi, timbres are sourced from deep within the trombone body; capillary lines are lobbed from one ‘bone to another; or rubato tones share space with polyharmonies and polytones. Eventually techniques such as oscillated mouthpiece kisses are replaced with resonating runs that maintain an almost conventional jazz-styled line while at the same time making room for growling ostinatos and altissimo cries. Lewis also provides a solo interpretation of “Lush Life”, but more impressive are other tracks such as “Untitled Dream Sequence”. Taken at the same tempo as that Billy Strayhorn classic, the piece’s note-slurping, double-tongued accents and speedy glisses from every part of the horn demonstrate that exciting improvisation doesn’t have to be fortissimo, super-fast or discordant.

Lewis was also more than just present a year previously when saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell’s Quartet on Sackville SKCD2-3009 was recorded live at Toronto’s long defunct A Space gallery. The momentous session not only captures a then-rare example of the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s saxophonist performing without the other band members, but puts him in an all-star context. Other quartet members are pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, probably the most respected Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians founder, and Detroit guitarist Spencer Barefield. Mitchell and Lewis expose sonorous counterpoint on one duo track and the trombonist alone turns Mitchell’s “Olobo” into another brass tour-de-force, blending a near ballad exposition with guttural sniggers, near-silent breaths and a coda of overblowing. Group dynamics are memorable as well. Sonic tension is almost visible on “Tnoona”. With the theme built up from the saxophonist’s tongue flutters and split tones, guitar vibration, Lewis’ sliding plunger work and Abrams’ focussed note clusters, it finally dissolves without release. Aleatory as suggested by its title, Mitchell’s “Cards” is the CD’s most fully-realized composition. Chromatic forward motion is due to the pianist’s expressive low-frequency runs, but the linear form is punctuated by Barefield’s oscillating amp reverb. Meanwhile Mitchell’s reeds bark with clown-horn-like blasts and dilating split tones, as the trombonist contributes plunger grace notes and discursive pedal point. A coda of stentorian guitar strums completes the improvisation.

Other 1970s group sessions involve a rare excursion into focused European improvisations on All Kinds of Time Sackville SKCD2-3010 by a duo of German pianist/vibist Karl Berger and British bassist Dave Holland, who now follows a more mainstream course; plus pianist Anthony Davis, best-known for operas such as X and Amistad, expressing himself with a suite and shorter composition backed by violin, cello and percussion. But it is Brahma Sackville SKCD2-3023 from 1980 which best demonstrates the musical future which was partially ushered in by these earlier discs. Led by veteran drummer Barry Altschul, the unusually constituted trio introduced two players now in the prime of their career: trombonist Ray Anderson and bassist Mark Helias. Improvising jazz is never static, and unlike uncompromising abstraction that characterizes earlier discs in this set, swinging elements are now mixed with the risk-taking solos. These rhythmic components still go far beyond the conventional. Altschul’s solo on the 17-minute title track may hit a groove, but his bulls-eye beat is amplified with timbre scrambles using mallets and sticks, ratamacues and drags on toms and snares, plus numerous interjections that bring in cymbal shaking, bell-tree resonation, waterphone scrapes, cow bell thwacks and shrills from slide whistles. The finale involves shaking a thunder sheet for fortissimo oscillations; the mid-section is based on a martial beat from the percussionist and wide-angled stops and thumps from Helias. Overall, this drum finesse is synchronized with elephant-like grunts from Anderson’s sousaphone when the brassman isn’t altering themes with flutter-tonguing, freak note whinnying and gutbucket slurs. Capable of smooth balladry on Altschul’s mid-tempo “Irina”, Anderson also whistles and slurs his way through his own Spanish-tinged “Con Alma de Noche” backed by woodblock bops and opposite sticking from the drummer. And he enlivens the bassist’s “Lism” with triplet-extended brassiness, allowing Helias to hand pump and sluice his way up-and-down the strings with guitar-like expressiveness as the stop-time tune evolves.

Advanced improvisations featuring out-of-towners, not to mention the burgeoning local free music community, continues to be recorded in the GTA. These historically important and musically impressive albums show how one series of discs successfully captured musical changes.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #10

July 12, 2011

Bert Turetzky/George Lewis/Vinny Golia

Triangulation II
Kadima #30

By Ken Waxman

As unruffled as any musical conversation among veteran players, the free improvisations which make up Triangulation II evolve with certainty and sophistication. Nonetheless with each player an old hand at pushing instrumental timbres to their limits, the results are anything but comfy. Multi-reedman Vinny Golia, trombonist George Lewis and bassist Bert Turetzky are so experienced at sonically depicting the seemingly impossible that they can do so at medium tempos and moderate volume. Plus these unorthodox techniques don’t stop them from creating harmonious musical relationships.

Turetzky, a retired UCSD music professor, who taught accomplished players such as David Izenson and Mark Dresser, pioneered solo recitals of contemporary notated music for double bass. Here, with his stentorian bowing or flashing spiccato, he sets up the other two’s improvisations then provides string-slapping continuum. Lewis’ contributions range from earth-shaking capillary growls and plunger cries to vocalized tremolo tones. His early association with Anthony Braxton serves him well when dealing contrapuntally or in harmony with Golia, who on this CD outlines breathy flute patterns, guttural contrabass clarinet roars and shrill, yet legato clarinet lines.

Although lacking the bassist’s col legno bow work or slide-whistle like squeals from Golia, which enliven a track like “Diversion a Tre”, two other tracks pinpoint the trio’s intuitive cooperation. “A Low Frequency Colloquy” is just that. Golia’s glissandi and Lewis’ brays sink to such a subterranean low that Turetzky’s pedal point soon prods them to alternate guttural tones with higher pitched shrills. However “Another Heated Conversation” with its mirrored triple-counterpoint, is heated in execution not anger. By the finale it’s nearly impossible to distinguish one instrument’s texture from another, with the trombonist trumpeting elephant-like, the bassist’s slapping his lowest tones and the reedman overblowing pressurized licks from two horns simultaneously.

As perfectly balanced as a triangle’s three sides, the performances are emotionally fulfilling as well.

Tracks: Reconaissance; Plenipotentiary Panache; Ballade; You Don’t Say; A Low Frequency Colloquy; Diversion a Tre; Another Heated Conversation (Thanks to M.W.); Up Is Down (Jan Sedifka R.I.P).

Personnel: George Lewis: trombone; Vinny Golia: woodwinds; Bert Turetzky: contrabass

--For New York City Jazz Record May 2011

May 16, 2011

Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories

Edited by Phillipp Schmickl
Impro 2000

ECM 40th Anniversary Catalogue

Edited by Kenny Inaoka

Tokyo Kirarasha

As globalization intensifies, American-birthed popular music forms – most especially Jazz and Improvised Music – have evolved far beyond their initial audiences, confirming one of the hoariest of clichés, that music is a universal language. Creative music of many stripes has for many years been often treated more seriously in Europe and Asia than in North America. Consequently to be truly informed about the breadth of musical sounds it helps to understand other languages besides English. That’s the challenge related to the valuable books here. Neither is published primarily in English, but both can serve as resources for followers of Jazz and Improvised Music, no matter their native tongues.

Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories is a celebration of the annual Konfrontationen festival which has taken place in Nickelsdorf, Austria near Vienna since 1979. Contributions to the volume in German, English and French are more a compendium of thoughts about improvisation and musical influences than a potted history of the festival. On the other hand, published in Japanese and English, the ECM 40th Anniversary Catalogue presents complete discographical information about every release put out by the influential German-based label from its first issue in 1969 to December 2009. Putting aside the language issue for the moment, each volume is profusely illustrated with beautifully realized black-and-white and color photographs.

As attractively presented as any catalogue can be, the ECM volume is published by a firm that has put out similar volumes on Blue Note records. Included is an entire section of six-to-the-page full-color photos of every ECM album cover. The remaining pages are devoted to detailed descriptions of every ECM and JAPO CD, LP and DVD then extant with cover pictures, personnel, recording dates and song titles included. Reviews of every disc by 11 commentators – in Japanese –are provided as well

While those who can’t read Japanese may miss out on the commentary, perusing the catalogue reveals many unexpected facets of Manfred Eicher’s label. His supervision and the engineering of Jan Erik Kongshaug may have created the sonically pristine, often imitated, though sometimes near-lifeless ECM sound; but ECM’s characteristic album cover art often masked unexpected efforts.

The catalogue does picture such ECM classics as Keith Jarrett’s Facing You (ECM 1017), The Sun Bear Concerts (ECM 1100) and Standards Vol. 1 (ECM 1255); Pat Metheny’s American Garage (ECM 1155), As Falls Wichita ... (ECM 1190), and Offramp (ECM 1216); plus Gary Burton & Chick Corea’s Crystal Silence (ECM 1024) and Jan Garbarek and The Hillard Ensemble’s Mmemosyne (ECM 1700/01 NS); but also noted are other efforts which many would think don’t fit the ECM mould.

Did you know, for instance that German saxophonist Alfred Harth was featured on the second ECM release, Just Music (ECM 1002) and saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Derek Bailey are on the fifth The Music Improvisation Company (ECM 1005)? While it may have seemed at times that the label was churning out endless series of guitar and/or piano dominated Chamber Jazz sessions, the ECM net has always stretched further. The label was recording a variant of World Music as early as guitarist Egberto Giasmonti Dança Das Cabeças (ECM 1089) in 1976; and first dabbled in so-called New music in 1978 with Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians (ECM 1129).

Furthermore ECM did more than provide a home for such accepted Jazz standard bearers as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeters Kenny Wheeler and Enrico Rava, saxophonists Charles Lloyd and John Surman, drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Paul Bley, to cite a few examples. Over the years it gave and continues to give exposure to quirkier, underappreciated or far-seeking avant-Jazz standard bearers from Europe or North America such as reedists Louis Sclavis, Gianluigi Trovesi, Hal Russell and Joe Maneri, trumpeter Tomas Stanko, pianist Marilyn Crispell, drummers Pierre Favre and Edward Versala, and Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble.

In contrast, Austria’s Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen has always been about presenting newer forms of Improvised Music. And the sometimes makeshift sonic conditions under which festival curator Hans Falb presents concerts may cause Eicher and Kongshaug a variant of apoplexy. Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories is a reflection of the festival itself. Collated like a scrap book, the text is broken up with posed, portrait and performance, contemporary and historical photographs of musicians who have appeared at Nickelsdorf over the years. Thus you can see what trombonist George Lewis looked like when he played the festival in 1985 or clarinetist John Carter’s jeans and white tie ensemble from 1983. At the same time there are portrait photos of saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell on the cover and bassist Joëlle Léandre inside.

This haphazard arrangement continues throughout the volume. Reminiscences of Nickelsdorf festivals past by the likes of electronics manipulator Christof Kurzmann, drummer Hamid Drake and Mitchell share space with such articles as an extensive discussion about improvisation with Léandre and Schmickl – printed in both French and German –and short biographical studies of brass man Clifford Thornton by his friend saxophonist Joe McPhee and DY Ngoy. Also published in both French and German is Alexandre Pierrepont’s extensive, if somewhat disjointed, musings on the history and influences of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (ACCM); while the verbatim dialogue between Falb and Evan Parker while unearthing some interesting gems about improvised music in Europe, reads more like the late-night ramblings of a couple of old friends than anything approaching rigorous scholarship.

Sometimes the choice of language puzzles as well. It’s understandable that the articles by drummer Paul Lovens and pianist Georg Graewe should be in German, their native tongue. But why is an article on the Romanian festival Jazz and More – strongly inspired by the Konfrontationen – in English, whereas the piece that precedes it, dealing with improvised music in Romania is only in German?

Despite these shortcomings, both of these volumes would make valuable if unusual additions to the book shelves of anyone interested in Improvised Music. And if a follower of this music can reads any one or more of the languages used in the books besides English, there are additional bonuses.

--Ken Waxman

March 14, 2011

Marina Rosenfeld/George Lewis

Sour Mash
Innova 228

Chris Brown/Pauline Oliveros

Music in the Air

Deep Listening DL 43-2010

John Zorn/George Lewis/Bill Frisell

More News For Lulu

hatOLOGY 655

Marilyn Crispell/ David Rothenberg

One Dark Night I Left My Silent House

ECM 2089

Guelph Jazz Festival Highlights

Extended Play

By Ken Waxman

Characteristically adventurous, the 17th annual Guelph Jazz Festival (GJF) September 8 to 12 presents respected sound explorers in novel musical situations.

Probably the most notable GJF visitor this year is American trombonist/composer George Lewis. On September 11 he’s part of a trio pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and multi-reedist Roscoe Mitchell on a double bill at the River Run Centre with the Sangam ensemble. Additionally throughout the festival, the MacDonald-Stewart Arts Centre hosts Ikons, which integrates computer software, created by Lewis, with Eric Metcalfe’s sculpture that reflect visitors’ movements. Sour Mash Innova 228, with Lewis and sound designer Marina Rosenfeld on dueling laptops, is an example of Lewis’ software programming, while More News For Lulu hatOLOGY 655, exhibits his trombone skill with guitarist Bill Frisell and alto saxophonist John Zorn.

Similar to Ikons, Sour Mash’s looped textures alter each time the composition is performed. On this version there’s no separation between the two creators’ input(s). Interspaced with episodes of sampled footfalls, mumbling voices and slide-whistle-like vibrations, the piece’s focus is on the sonic contrasts produced as both programs evolve simultaneously and languidly. Simmering and shimmying, buzzing sequences, blurry crackles and speedy whooshes share space with wind-chime-like pealing, watery bubbling and abrasive rustles. Defined with flanges and granulation, the processes evolve so that linkage is apparent, but with enough unexpected pauses, drones and beeps to keep the ever-shifting texture fascinating.

Equally fascinating is More News For Lulu. Here the trio provides an explicitly POMO take on 14 Hard Bop classics. Kenny Dorham’s Lotus Blossom for instance is reconstituted as Frissell’s gentle picking finally succumbs to the pressure from Zorn’s screeching altissimo runs and tongue slaps to introduce guitar neck-hand-tapping and amplifier buzzes. Meanwhile Lewis concentrates on a tremolo retelling of the head, which is eventually recapped by all three. Similarly Hank Mobley’s Peckin’ Time evolves in triple counterpoint with the saxophonist’s agitated lines mated with the trombonist’s moderato vibrations while the guitarist’s steady chording propels the narrative. Lewis’ strategy on other tunes such as John Patton’s Minor Swing consists of providing a huffing contrapuntal ostinato over which Zorn’s screeches thrust intensely. Braying upwards the trombonist eventually corner Frissell’s double-timed licks and the saxophonist’s split tones so that all three lines converge.

The pianism missing from this CD is present on One Dark Night I Left My Silent House ECM 2089 which matches pianist Marilyn Crispell with clarinetist David Rothenberg. Crispell plays solo in Cooperators Hall September 11. Here she tries various sonic strategies to partner Rothenberg, a philosopher/naturalist interested in bird songs. While no tone is wholeheartedly onomatopoeic, aviary allusions abound. On Still Life with Woodpeckers for example, Crispell strokes the piano’s inner strings and hits the instrument’s backboard and bottom frame with percussive taps as the clarinetist flutter tongues and chirps daintily. In contrast, on The Hawk and the Mouse, she sweeps across, plucks and strikes the strings as Rothenberg circles her cadences with growling obbligatos, snorts, honks and tongue slaps. Committed for the most part to parallel improvising, the two emphasize tonal connections. That’s why the moderato and andante Evocation references Impressionism, with the low-pitched reed line and the low-key octave patterning create what could be a neo-classical étude.

A so-called classical composer of the electro-acoustic variety, accordionist Pauline Oliveros plays twice at the GJF. On September 8, in Rozanski Hall, she and trio of Guelph musicians perform simultaneously via a telematic link with other improvisers in Bogotá, Colombia and Troy, N.Y. Then on September 11 at a yoga centre, Oliveros’ accordion timbres are transformed by using Expanded Instrument System (EIS) computer software. Examples of both her musical cooperation and programming skills show up on Music in the Air Deep Listening DL 43-2010. Here EIS and signal processing mutate the sounds from Oliveros’ conch shell, percussion and accordion plus Chris Brown’s piano. Recorded in real-time without overdubs, tracks such as Trohosphere demonstrate how granular synthesis comments on and alters the piano’s speedy glissandi plus slippery accordion smears. Spread across the audio surface, processed signals contrapuntally change the piano’s dynamics as well as adjust accordion timbres to staccato and dissonant. When auxiliary bellow pumps enter the mix alongside a flat-line conch drone, Brown almost replicates a formal composition, so intent is he on maintaining harmonic patterns without raising the volume. With the modifications sometimes depicting variants of previously sampled timbres, sharp string slaps and key pumps provide live tonal additions. Eventually the dense interface is resolved as quivering voltage ramps slide downwards, introducing octave jumps and pressure from both keyboards.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #1

September 3, 2010

John Zorn/George Lewis/Bill Frisell

More News For Lulu
hatOLOGY 655

Marilyn Crispell David Rothenberg

One Dark Night I Left My Silent House

ECM 2089

Chris Brown/Pauline Oliveros

Music in the Air

Deep Listening DL 43-2010

Marina Rosenfeld/George Lewis

Sour Mash

Innova 228

Guelph Jazz Festival Highlights

Extended Play

By Ken Waxman

Characteristically adventurous, the 17th annual Guelph Jazz Festival (GJF) September 8 to 12 presents respected sound explorers in novel musical situations.

Probably the most notable GJF visitor this year is American trombonist/composer George Lewis. On September 11 he’s part of a trio pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and multi-reedist Roscoe Mitchell on a double bill at the River Run Centre with the Sangam ensemble. Additionally throughout the festival, the MacDonald-Stewart Arts Centre hosts Ikons, which integrates computer software, created by Lewis, with Eric Metcalfe’s sculpture that reflect visitors’ movements. Sour Mash Innova 228, with Lewis and sound designer Marina Rosenfeld on dueling laptops, is an example of Lewis’ software programming, while More News For Lulu hatOLOGY 655, exhibits his trombone skill with guitarist Bill Frisell and alto saxophonist John Zorn.

Similar to Ikons, Sour Mash’s looped textures alter each time the composition is performed. On this version there’s no separation between the two creators’ input(s). Interspaced with episodes of sampled footfalls, mumbling voices and slide-whistle-like vibrations, the piece’s focus is on the sonic contrasts produced as both programs evolve simultaneously and languidly. Simmering and shimmying, buzzing sequences, blurry crackles and speedy whooshes share space with wind-chime-like pealing, watery bubbling and abrasive rustles. Defined with flanges and granulation, the processes evolve so that linkage is apparent, but with enough unexpected pauses, drones and beeps to keep the ever-shifting texture fascinating.

Equally fascinating is More News For Lulu. Here the trio provides an explicitly POMO take on 14 Hard Bop classics. Kenny Dorham’s Lotus Blossom for instance is reconstituted as Frissell’s gentle picking finally succumbs to the pressure from Zorn’s screeching altissimo runs and tongue slaps to introduce guitar neck-hand-tapping and amplifier buzzes. Meanwhile Lewis concentrates on a tremolo retelling of the head, which is eventually recapped by all three. Similarly Hank Mobley’s Peckin’ Time evolves in triple counterpoint with the saxophonist’s agitated lines mated with the trombonist’s moderato vibrations while the guitarist’s steady chording propels the narrative. Lewis’ strategy on other tunes such as John Patton’s Minor Swing consists of providing a huffing contrapuntal ostinato over which Zorn’s screeches thrust intensely. Braying upwards the trombonist eventually corner Frissell’s double-timed licks and the saxophonist’s split tones so that all three lines converge.

The pianism missing from this CD is present on One Dark Night I Left My Silent House ECM 2089 which matches pianist Marilyn Crispell with clarinetist David Rothenberg. Crispell plays solo in Cooperators Hall September 11. Here she tries various sonic strategies to partner Rothenberg, a philosopher/naturalist interested in bird songs. While no tone is wholeheartedly onomatopoeic, aviary allusions abound. On Still Life with Woodpeckers for example, Crispell strokes the piano’s inner strings and hits the instrument’s backboard and bottom frame with percussive taps as the clarinetist flutter tongues and chirps daintily. In contrast, on The Hawk and the Mouse, she sweeps across, plucks and strikes the strings as Rothenberg circles her cadences with growling obbligatos, snorts, honks and tongue slaps. Committed for the most part to parallel improvising, the two emphasize tonal connections. That’s why the moderato and andante Evocation references Impressionism, with the low-pitched reed line and the low-key octave patterning create what could be a neo-classical étude.

A so-called classical composer of the electro-acoustic variety, accordionist Pauline Oliveros plays twice at the GJF. On September 8, in Rozanski Hall, she and trio of Guelph musicians perform simultaneously via a telematic link with other improvisers in Bogotá, Colombia and Troy, N.Y. Then on September 11 at a yoga centre, Oliveros’ accordion timbres are transformed by using Expanded Instrument System (EIS) computer software. Examples of both her musical cooperation and programming skills show up on Music in the Air Deep Listening DL 43-2010. Here EIS and signal processing mutate the sounds from Oliveros’ conch shell, percussion and accordion plus Chris Brown’s piano. Recorded in real-time without overdubs, tracks such as Trohosphere demonstrate how granular synthesis comments on and alters the piano’s speedy glissandi plus slippery accordion smears. Spread across the audio surface, processed signals contrapuntally change the piano’s dynamics as well as adjust accordion timbres to staccato and dissonant. When auxiliary bellow pumps enter the mix alongside a flat-line conch drone, Brown almost replicates a formal composition, so intent is he on maintaining harmonic patterns without raising the volume. With the modifications sometimes depicting variants of previously sampled timbres, sharp string slaps and key pumps provide live tonal additions. Eventually the dense interface is resolved as quivering voltage ramps slide downwards, introducing octave jumps and pressure from both keyboards.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #1

September 3, 2010

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois
Leo CD LR 535

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions

RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel

Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere
Ambiance Magnétique AM 184

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois

Leo CD LR 535

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions

RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel

Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel
Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois

Leo CD LR 535

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions

RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions
RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel

Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois

Leo CD LR 535

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Musica Elettronica Viva

MEV 40
New World Records 80675-2

Consisting of a nucleus of academically trained composers who promoted free improvisation and group interaction, Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) was the sort of musical aggregation that could only have been born in the 1960s.

Yet as this absorbing four-CD set of MEV performances – from its beginning in 1967, to its 40th anniversary – proves, the group’s triumphs are musically sophisticated as well as sociologically notable. Willingly subsuming the vaulted tradition of a single composer into group interaction, MEV’s most notable pieces added the smarts of jazz improvisers and the sonic versatility of increasingly complex electronic instruments to the compositional stew. Furthermore, the group has survived all these years because it never allowed electronics to submerge its initial humanistic and populist approach.

Founded in Rome by three American composers studying in that city: Alvin Curran (b. 1938), Frederic Rzewski (b. 1938) and Richard Teitelbaum (b. 1939), MEV members were at that time some of the few so-called serious musicians performing for young hippies and politicos in that city’s coffee houses, universities, factories and open- air plazas. Audience participation in these free-form extravaganzas was a norm, although the first-class tracks on this set showcase only professionals.

For more than 30 years, probably the most important MEV fellow traveler was expatiate American soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy (1934-2004). Paris-based Lacy’s experience in first Dixieland and then Free Jazz not only added a lyrical construct to the group’s performances but replaced a reliance on electronics with masterful acoustic techniques. Another valuable associate was trombonist Garrett List (b. 1943). An American though Belgium-based, List is more affiliated with theatre pieces and New music than jazz, but his erudite instrumental control strengthens the performances still further on the pieces on which he’s featured.

Ironically, “Stop The War”, recorded in 1972 without Lacy but with percussionist Gregory Reeves and Karl Berger on marimba as well as List, Curran, Rzewski and Teitelbaum, is the most jazz-like – as well as the most programmatic – track. Commenting on the Viet Nam war, the output from the synthesizers used by Curran and Teitelbaum is almost visually descriptive. There are fortissimo allusions to explosions, jagged beeps, watery whooshes and short-wave-like static. Meanwhile List honks and slurs, Berger whaps his wooden keys to produce full-force reverberation, Reeves taps out an intermittent marital beat and Curran’s piccolo trumpet asides add to the contrapuntal timbres that underlie the performance. Among the broken octaves and split tones, Rzewski provides his own commentary with metronomic piano chording. Among the recognizable melodies he plays are a sardonic “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and a concluding “Taps”.

Lacy, who appears on tracks recorded in 1982, 1989 and 2002, gives even more focus to the proceedings. By that point the core trio had graduated from using such jerry-built instruments as home-made synthesizer, a thumb piano attached to motor oil can and an amplified glass plate with springs to using poly Moogs, modular synthesizers and microcomputers. Yet during a more-than 87-minute performance from 1982, stretched over the first tracks on two discs, the soprano saxophonist’s straightforward acoustic exposition encourages everyone to substitute shape for self-indulgence

Tentatively and authoritatively affiliated staccato timbres from saxophone and trombone (List) not only provide obbligato reflections of one another, but are captured and processed by the electronics. Added to this is Rzewski’s processional prepared-piano chording. Eventually the aggressive thumps, clanks and pulsated textures from the blurry synthesized flutters are pushed to one side. Eventually the trombonist’s braying plunger work and the saxophonist’s concentrated split tones join Curran’s raucous piccolo trumpet for a definite, raucous finale.

Even more breath-taking is Lacy’s final recorded appearance with MEV in 2002. By this time samplers and Max/MSP real-time digital manipulating programs were the norm for Curran and Teitelbaum. Yet the shimmering wave forms still don’t dominate. The acoustic side, which includes Lacy’s soprano, List’s trombone and Rzewski’s piano is further strengthened by the addition of George Lewis (b. 1952), equally proficient on trombone and computer. Meanwhile the other two use the electronic interface and programmed applications to create unique sampled and reprocessed sounds. At one point, dexterously harmonized horn parts share space with sampled snatches of cantorial chants and a loop of vernacular street phrases.

Meanwhile Lacy’s discursive reed outlines the double-stopped theme as Rzewski kinetically vibrates cadenzas with sympathetic soundboard echoes. As the electronics shimmer in wave-modulated bursts, the pianist’s burlesque arpeggios turns serious, backing up interaction among Curran braying shofar tones, chirping soprano saxophone trills and arching trombone slurs. By the time the head is recapped at a slightly slower tempo, List has even movingly growled the lyrics of “You Are My Sunshine.”

Completing the set are a quiet, almost completely electronic track by the core trio from 2007 and a 30-minute free-for-all from 1967 that added a vocalist and tenor saxophonist. Every track balances anarchy and formalism to create something more then improvised, electronic or so-called serious music. MEV performs sui generis modern music period.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #10

July 3, 2009

Sonic Geography: Munich

For MusicWorks Issue #103
BY KEN WAXMAN

Mammoth beer-drinking establishments and meticulously maintained older structures of all sorts are the images that resonate most strongly about Munich, Germany’s third-largest city. All year Munich’s outdoor beer gardens – one of which holds 8,000 [!] people – are packed with folks enjoying the traditional one-litre (die mass) glass of beer and chowing down on regional specialties such as Weißwürste (white sausages), Leberkäs (baked sausage loaf), and sweetish chewy pretzels, while listening to brass bands. Annually the 16-day Oktoberfest adds about 17 million visitors to the Bavarian capital’s nearly 1.5 inhabitants.

Bombed during the Second World War Munich is the only major German city to painstakingly preserve its pre-war street grid, while rebuilding older structures such as those on the shopping streets around Marienplatz square exactly as they were beforehand. There daily, to glockenspiel accompaniment, miniature enameled cooper figures jerkily move along a platform jutting from the town hall’s clock as they have since the 19th Century.

This innate conservatism extends to the music scene. Munich supports an inordinate number of “official” classical ensembles, but there’s little interaction among musicians involved in different genres. “Most of us are separated into small, locked circles,” explains Hannes Schneider, one of the founders of Offene Ohren e.V., which organizes improvised music concerts. “For instance, people in the experimental [composed] new music scene have a yearly one-night festival, but remain closed to dialogues with us.”

Meanwhile the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, located in the modern Gasteig centre that seats 2,400 people is financed by the city of Munich; the Bavarian State Opera and the Bavarian State Orchestra, headquartered at the Nationaltheater where several of Richard Wagner's operas were premiered, are funded by the state of Bavaria, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s primary concert venue is the Herkulesaal, a former royal residence. Except for isolated New music programs, the official ensembles also cleave to traditional sounds. It’s the same story with the Munich Symphony, Orchestra of Gärtnerplatztheater, the Rundfunkorchester and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. “The majority of people go to the symphony not to listen but to be seen,” Schneider explains.

However, arranging concerts which take place in a variety of performance spaces far from the main city centre, the non-profit association whose full name is Offene Ohren e.V. – Freunde der improvisierten Musik or Open Ears – Friends of Improvised Music attempts to counter this situation.

Pointing to the city’s Englischer Garten, one of the world’s largest green spaces, established in 1789 as a pioneering example of urban planning, the influential Der Blaue Rider group of expressionist painters in the early 20th century, and the Bayrische Akademie der Wissenschaften founded in 1759, Schneider maintains that groups like the Offene Ohren aim to reach Munich’s hidden progressive side. Equally strong however, is the area’s right-wing past. The beer hall where Adolph Hitler staged his unsuccessful 1923 putsch still does roaring business and pre-1945, Munich was known as Hauptstadt der Bewegung or “capital of the Movement”, since it was where the Nazi party was organized. “But”, pleads Schneider. “Don’t reduce an 850-year-old city to a few years of recent history”.

Those recent years though have been pretty mainstream even when it comes to non-concert hall music. For pop, the city is most famous for disco diva Donna Summer’s 1970s hits created by a Munich-based writing-producing team. Meanwhile Unterfahrt, the city’s major jazz club, has for almost a decade mostly booked smooth, contemporary jazz groups.

Besides Offene Ohren, only the International Composers & Improvisers (ICI) ensemble promotes experimental music. Directed by trombonist Christopher Varner, ICI has since the late 1990s, collaborated with international improvisers such as American trombonist George Lewis and Dutch drummer Han Bennink. Today it hosts concerts at the Schwere Reiter, in a suburban factory-like space not far from Schloss Nymphenburg (Nymphenburg palace). Performance lofts are difficult to find, divulges one musician, because with so much of pre-war Munich devoted to agriculture, large industrial buildings are rare.

Offene Ohren has similar experiences: many of its earliest gigs took place in an out-of-the-way bar, which had fallen out-of-favor as a pick-up spot. With the improvised music crowds the largest the owners had seen [!] the venue was secured for a time. “Nearer the [Munich city] centre, all real estate is supposed to generate revenue per square metre,” notes Schneider. “Our advantage,” he jokes “is that our target group is not likely to reside where this big money circulates.”

Recently though, many Offene Ohren concerts are held at the t-u-b-e gallery for radiophonic art, installations and audio, supported by Munich’s Cultural Office and Bavarian Radio. These shows have featured such improvisers as French bassist Joëlle Léandre, British pianist Chris Burn and Bennink among many others. Yet separation even exists between Offene Ohren and ICE bookings. “There is some exchange, but we still have our own circuits,” admits Schneider.

Further maintaining its own agenda, Offene Ohren recently turned down an opportunity to present improvised music in Munich residents’ most popular entertainment venues. “We [Offene Ohren] were approached last year by some beer garden owner to organize the mid-day music in a beer hall, and we refused,” Schneider relates. “People there like the music easy and predictable to help them get drunk. It’s the wrong place for us.”

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Ken Waxman writes in Toronto about jazz and improvised music for local and international publications. This is the latest in his ongoing series of reports on the sonic geography of selected European cities

March 23, 2009

Alexander Von Schlippenbach-Globe Unity Orchestra

Globe Unity - 40 Years
Intakt CD 133

Schlippenbach Trio

Gold Is Where You Find It

Intakt CD 143

More than 70 years old, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach is one more proof of Steve Lacy’s adage that “free jazz keeps you young”. A professional musician since 1962, Berlin-based Schlippenbach has maintained his level of creativity in various contexts, most prominently in the trans-European Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO) and his trio with saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens.

Consistency may be another attribute of quality as well as metaphoric youthfulness, since these CDs – one celebrating the GUO’s 40th birthday and the other recorded in the year of the Schlippenbach Trio (ST)’s 35th anniversary – confirm that the pianist and his associates are still on top of their game(s).

Taking them one by one, death and disagreements have taken their toll on the GUO’s personnel, but the 15-piece aggregation – sans bass player like the ST – holds to the high standards set by its predecessors. Mixing older compositions with newer pieces, such as the pianist-composed title track, solo space is given to every band member, who range from GU veterans such as trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and multi-reedist Gerd Dudek to newbies such as American trombonist Jeb Bishop and French trumpeter/flugelhornist Jean-Luc Capozzo.

Some of tracks are practically bagatelles, with the real meat in the more lengthy explorations. Still there is period charm in the rhythmic punctuation, complete with screaming high-note trumpet lines – likely from Capozzo – that enliven “Bavarian Calypso”’s cacophonous polyphony. Plus “Nodago”, a reflective showcase for Wheeler, who composed it, proves that the old Woody Herman-Stan Kenton-style big band backing can be legit. Nonetheless, the late British trombonist Paul Rutherford manages to counter nostalgia here with a burbling multiphonic solo that contrasts contralto and basso tones.

A close cousin to the calypso is Steve Lacy’s “The Dumps”. Thelonious Monk-like in its interpretation it features oomph-pah-pah brass, slithering reed timbres and high-frequency rolling chording from Schlippenbach. Here Dudek expels a continuously breathed circular soprano saxophone solo with more grit than Parker brings to similar outputs. Bishop’s slippery slide positions and tongued pressure layer the backing along with Capozzo’s mouse squeaks and behind-the-beat grace notes, which are given further impetus by Lovens’ cymbal spanks and rim shots. In contrast, Dörner’s concluding knitted capillary tones appear to leech sound as much from metal stress and throat scraping as from what is pushed through the bell.

Another showcase, Wilem Breuker’s “Out of Burtons Songbooks”, from 1973, makes obvious the GU’s early style-spanning. The processional piano introduction could have been lifted from a chamber recital, while Schlippenbach’s subsequent exchanges with Dudek outline the sort of interdependent dissonance that seems a lot closer to Joe Henderson’s and Herbie Hancock’s work for Blue Note, then contemporary European experimentation. In-the-moment interface is thus left to Bishop and bass clarinetist Rudi Mahall’s whack-a-mole-like duet, where smears, vibratos and trills in all registers are immediately answered and intensified.

Still the GU’s 21st Century identity is made clearest on the pianist’s title composition. Fabricating the piece from drum pops, brass plunger tones, slurred reed chirps, zig-zag trumpeting and irregular triplets from the piano, serendipitously its resolution involves members of the ST. Schlippenbach is appropriately staccato and cross-handed in his playing; Lovens wallops cracks, drags and crashes his percussion; while Parker unleashes hummingbird-swift sliding, slurping and triple tonguing. Trombonist George Lewis’ side-to-side slurs and doubled tongue flutters extend the line still further.

Gold Is Where You Find It’s title tune provides an equivalently definitive description of the 21st Century ST. Coupled with the subsequent “K. SP”, it exposes the trio strategy of tick-tock wooden drags and positioned licks plus cymbal pops from Lovens; echoing strummed piano chords plus bowed, twanged and stopped prepared piano strings from Schlippenbach; and squeezed irregular note clusters and unstated squeaks and breaths form Parker.

Like the GU, the trio improvisations obliquely refer to antecedents as well as the future. For instance, there’s a section on “Three in One”, when Schlippenbach’s key-clipping is so obviously Monk-like – the American pianist is an admitted influence – that Parker’s continuously uncoiling chirps and split-tone asides start to resemble the tenor saxophone styling of Johnny Griffin. Meanwhile the pianist circles through a variety of chord and cluster coloration as cascading high-energy feints and fills share space with wriggling note clusters and off-handed patterns.

“Cloudburst” – not the Lambert-Hendricks & Ross vocal showcase – in instead a moody nocturne where circumspect tenor saxophone timbres meet rebounds, pops and temperate cymbal lacerations, with the tune accelerating in andante increments, until it climaxes in kinetic cadenzas from Schlippenbach as well as tough saxophone cadences from Parker.

Finally there’s “Z.D.W.A.”, the impressive group improvisation that begins this recital. Balanced on Lovens’ distinctive locution of rolls and rebounds plus irregular cymbal shattering, the pianist expresses himself in different styles and tempos. Moving from dreamy romanticism to rolling stride in his solos, bass pedal pressure and chord clusters gradually give way to playful double-timing. Similarly Parker’s tongue-slapping and tone-scraping attain his characteristic line-and-pattern extensions before downshifting with the others to cumulative silence.

Extrapolating Parker’s composition title “Three in One”, the Schlippenbach Trio has maintained its power over many years by sympathetically amalgamating each other’s skills. What’s more, even with a constantly shifting cast, the Globe Unity has performed a similar task. Perhaps then it’s this organizational flair, along with his choice of compositions, and situations that welcome new ideas, which accounts for the pianist’s musical youthfulness.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Globe: 1. Globe Unity forty years 2. Out of Burtons Songbooks 3.Bavarian Calypso 4. Nodago 5. The Dumps 6. The Forge

Personnel: Globe: Axel Dörner (trumpet); Jean-Luc Capozzo, Manfred Schoof and Kenny Wheeler (trumpet and flugelhorn); George Lewis, Paul Rutherford, Johannes Bauer and Jeb Bishop (trombone); Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (clarinet, alto saxophone and flute); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Gerd Dudek (soprano and tenor saxophones, clarinet and flute); Rudi Mahall (bass clarinet); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano) and Paul Lovens and Paul Lytton (drums).

Track Listing: Gold: 1. Z.D.W.A. 2. Slightly Flapping 3. Amorpha 4.Gold is Where you Find it 5. K. SP 6. Monkey’s Fist 7. Lekko 8.Cloudburst 9. Three in One 10. The Bells of St. K.

Personnel: Gold: Evan Parker (tenor saxophone); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano) and Paul Lovens (drums).

November 25, 2008

Variations on a Theme

Guelph Jazz Festival Musicians On Their Own
Extended Play

Barry Guy/Mats Gustafsson/Raymond Strid

Tarfala

Maya MCD0801

Junk Box

Cloudy Then Sunny

Libra Records 203-019

John Zorn

News For Lulu

hatOLOGY 650

Matana Roberts

The Chicago Project

Central Control CC1006PR

Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet

Tabligh

Cuneiform Rune 270

AMMÜ Quartet

AMMÜ Quartet

PAO 50030

Healthy in its adolescence, the Guelph Jazz Festival (GJF) has become Ontario’s pre-eminent festival for improvised music. Now in its 15th year, the GJF presents improvisers in concerts, workshop and symposia. An appealing factor for listeners is that GJF concerts highlight only one of the versatile musicians’ many activities. Recent CDs capture other aspects.

Take British bassist Barry Guy, at Guelph with violinist Maya Homburger and bass clarinetist Jeff Reilly. Except for Guy’s string prestidigitation, that chamber-improv is nearly the opposite of the go-for-broke Energy Music on Barry Guy/Mats Gustafsson/Raymond Strid, Tarfala Maya MCD0801. Two high-octane Swedish players, saxophonist Gustafsson and percussionist Raymond Strid complete the band.

Spewing accentuated timbres, Gustafsson’s cries and snorts demand muscular retorts from the bassist. On the title track Guy uses guitar-like arpeggios to match the saxophonist’s echoing split tones, wrapping the friction of individual string pressure into a contrapuntal response. Strid’s rim shots and rattling snares provide the rhythmic glue. Eventually Guy’s harsh twanging plus abrasive sawing at strings near the scroll move the saxophonist’s smears, flattement and flutter-tonguing into contrapuntal counterpoint.

Chromatic bass thumps and conga-like pops from the percussionist push Gustaffson’s extended glossolalia from discursive to convergent on “Icefall”. Guy’s ostinato underpinning and Strid’s pats and pumps neutralize Gustafsson’s honks and tongue slaps into a diminuendo conclusion.

Resolving the clash between rough and gentle voicing, staccato and legato pitches also characterize Junk Box’s Cloudy Then Sunny Libra Records 203-019. Two members of the trio, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura play the GJF. A composer-arranger, Fujii explores new territory on this CD, using graphic notation to spur the improvisations. Junk Box’s third member is American drummer John Hollenbeck, capable of rhythmic interaction ranging from rattles and pumps from tam-tams and marimba to full military press rolls and bass drum thwacks.

On “One Equation”, Tamura uses split tones and triplets to create a call-and-response section all by himself, as Fujii plays the tremolo melody in tandem. “Opera by Rats” emphasizes piano pedal action as the theme shifts from Bop to Stride, while the trumpet brays and Hollenbeck snaps cymbals and pops snares. This popping serves as a coda to “Back and Forth”, which also describes the trio’s tonal connection. Tamura’s timbre is French horn-like as he echoes Fujii’s phrases, and the track concludes with cascading piano chords draping themselves over the others’ note clusters.

There a similar interchange among alto saxophonist John Zorn, trombonist George Lewis and guitarist Bill Frisell on News For Lulu hatOLOGY 650. This 1987 reissue is different, yet somewhat similar to the three sets of Radical Jewish Culture Zorn is presenting at GJF this year. Rather then re-interpreting and re-conceptualizing Jewish melodies, Lulu does the same for Hard-Bop classics. Yet as devotional or freylach-like ditties are transformed with percussion, electronics and electric guitars by Zorn at GJF, this CD performs a similar conversion as raucous blowing vehicles become recital-ready.

Both the guitarist and trombonist – who have performed at Guelph – are responsive enough to keep things moving, despite the lack of a rhythm section. Surprisingly, it’s often Lewis’ gutbucket braying which holds the pieces together from the bottom. “Venita’s Dance”, has the trombonist comping as the guitarist loops licks that turn to single-note filigree. Later Zorn steadily peeps and Lewis chromatically exposes the head. “Funk in Deep Freeze” isn’t funky, but instead finds Frisell distorting country-styled licks, Lewis roughening his tone and Zorn’s alto texture slinky and airy.

“Sonny’s Crib” plays up gospel inflections with the two horns passing on the theme like relay runners. Zorn double times, Lewis plays rubato variations and Frisell picks out blues tonality until the introduction is recapped by the altoist. “Melody for C” with conclusive organ-like reverb from Frisell, provides an opportunity for three-part harmony, with the trio’s improvisations divided into fuzzy multiphonics.

Matana Roberts also twists the jazz tradition, but less radically. The alto saxophonist, who brings her Coin Coin Continuum to the GJF, celebrates her own home town on The Chicago Project Central Control CC1006PR. Other Chicagoans contribute: drummer Frank Rosaly, bassist Josh Abrams, guitarist Jeff Parker – whose band Tortoise is at Guelph this year – and veteran tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson. In 2002 Anderson, played an incendiary GJF set with Kidd Jordan. Saxophonist Jordan (see Whole Note Vol. 13 #9) plays Guelph again this year.

In the same league as the Jordan-Anderson meeting, Roberts a capella duet with Anderson features swirling staccato lines intersecting contrapuntally – finally reaching rapprochement. On “Nomra”, she and Parker prove that free improvising can be low-key and supple, highlighting resonating guitar licks and tasteful saxophone arpeggios. Tunes are tougher elsewhere. “Exchange”, built on a walking bass line and the drummer’s repeated flams showcases Parker’s distorted flanges and bottleneck-sharp runs that contrast with Roberts’ fruity tone and slide-slipping vibrato. “Thrills” is a POMO blues with the saxophonist rooster-crowing and double-tonguing, Parker snapping delayed echo and Rosaly smacking the backbeat.

Pianist Vijay Iyer produced The Chicago Project and he’s at GJF 2008 with DJ Spooky. But it’s electric piano and synthesizer he brings to trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet CD Tabligh Cuneiform Rune 270. Drummer Shannon Jackson and bassist John Lindberg are equally “Golden”.

Atmospherically referencing Fusion, but with simplistic beats leeched out, the disc’s color comes from Iyer’s Fender Rhodes pulsations. Strumming cadenzas backed with swaggering synthesizer drones, Iyer lets Jackson’s solid ruffs and Lindberg’s four-square rhythm anchor the compositions. On top of this ever-shifting bottom, Smith arches long-lined slurs and unhurried grace notes. Replicating a bugler’s tattoo, on “Rosa Parks”, or a bellicose call-to-arms on “DeJohnette”, the trumpet’s lines encompass high-pitched brassy trills and sputtering Bronx cheers. Extended essays in improvisations, Tabligh’s tunes bond fragmented brass slurs, cross-handed rim shots, kinetic piano cadences and string scratches into throbbing instant compositions.

Instant composition describes the music of Holland’s Instant Composers Pool (ICP), in residence at the GJF this year. But the creative ferment generated by the band is equally expressed when ICP band members work in smaller groupings. One is AMMÜ Quartet’s AMMÜ Quartet PAO 50030. Raucous drummer Han Bennink – with the band for 35 years – and unflappable violinist Mary Oliver – a 10-year ICP veteran – join forces with Munich-based cellist Johanna Varner and trombonist Christopher Varner. The Varners produce the sort of timbres Oliver and Bennink hear in the ICP from trombonist Wolter Wierbos and cellist Tristan Honsinger.

Never one to play presto when he can play staccatissimo, or pianissimo when fortissimo can be sounded, Bennink continually clinks, clanks, bangs, whacks and thwacks. So it’s instructive to hear his duets with the trombonist. Varner ejaculates speedy, emphasized brays, moving from vocalized syllables to tongue stops and alp-horn-like flutters. Amazingly this results in textures that fit hand-in-glove – or mute-in-bell –with the drummer’s bomb-dropping bangs and cymbal crashes. On their duet Oliver squeaks and spatters sul ponticello as the cellist responds with strums and shuffle bowing.

This comfortable creativity amplifies when the four play together. On “Improvisation II”, the trombone’s contrapuntal buzzes and the violin’s spiccato runs chase one another as the cellist double-stops and Bennink jabs and rebounds. As the strings distort into double counterpoint, the trombonist puts aside distended subterranean timbres for dog-whistle shrilling. Other times the drummer’s kettle-drum-like resonation faces legato coloration from the cello; alternately, wide, chromatic notes from the trombonist complement string-stropping from Oliver. Stop-time and polytonality characterize “Ammü”, although pitch clusters from the strings and horn can’t overcome Bennink’s frenetic time-keeping.

GJF audiences, exhilarated by what they hear live can be equally impressed by these CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #2

October 8, 2008

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet

One Dance Alone
Songlines SGL SA1571-2

Paul Bley

12+6 In A Row

hatOLOGY 649

Lisle Ellis

Sucker Punch Requiem

Henceforth Records 104

Radio I-Ching

The Fire Keeps Burning

Resonant Music 004

Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff

Zemlya

Leo Records CD LR 507

Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds

Extended Play

By Ken Waxman

Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators.

One of the music’s distinctive stylists with profound effects on jazz’s evolution from the early 1950s-on was a Montreal-born pianist. No, not that one … but Paul Bley. Bley’s associations with reedists Ornette Coleman and Jimmy Giuffre put him in the midst of first Energy Music than Free Form experiments. A reissue from 1990, 12+6 In A Row hatOLOGY 649 is not only a milestone in Bley’s evolution, but point out another development the pianist helped to initiate: partnership with like-mind Europeans. Bley’s associates here are Austrian flugelhornist Franz Koglmann and Swiss reedist Hans Koch. The title’s inferences to 12-tone rows are realized with sparse contrapuntal harmonies, broken counterpoint and skittering runs from the pianist, tongue slaps and chalumeau vibrations from Koch’s bass clarinet and chromatic lip burbles from Koglmann.

Yet obtuse formalism doesn’t overshadow jazz roots. Bley’s “Solo 2” includes right-handed bass syncopation, and there’s an excursion into waltz time on “Duo 2”. Meanwhile “Solo 6” channels boogie-woogie forefather Jimmy Yancy, in a Europeanized fashion, with Bley bearing down on the keys, while simultaneously tinkling higher pitches. Koch’s nasal bass clarinet encompasses a solipsistic line on “Trio 3”; while the piano-less “Duo 3” highlights intersections between Koglmann’s brassy, triple-tonguing and overblown split tones from Koch’s alto saxophone. Fulfillment of the notated-improvised mandate is obvious on pieces like “Trio 5” which harmonizes distanced piano patterns, smeary reed obbligatos and airy brass nodes.

Bley was well-established as Vancouver bassist Lisle Ellis was making his first U.S. forays in the 1970s. Over time Ellis established himself in partnerships with California-based players like pianist Mike Wofford and flutist Holly Hofmann or East Coasters like trombonist George Lewis and saxophonist Oliver Lake. Now a New Yorker, Ellis’ Sucker Punch Requiem, Henceforth Records 104 subtitled An Homage To Jean-Michel Basquiat, ruminates on the short life and creative sensibilities of the visual artist. Utilizing electronics and sound design as well as his bass, Ellis admixes Susie Ibarra’s percussion arsenal plus the vocal tones, sound samples and processing of Pamela Z. with instrumental contribution from his bi-coastal associates

Structured like a traditional mass, but with layers of sonic contributions, the program includes the musical equivalent of sfumato and grisaille painterly effects. While rough, meandering and a bit unfinished – like Basquiat’s art – the end product is true to the painter.

With an exposition and theme recapitulation that mirror one another, encompassing ghostly cries, street sounds and mumbling voices plus pulsating electronic wheezes, the purely instrumental passages still tell most of the story. Especially important are processional piano chording, aviary flute asides and the thick motions of Ellis’ plucked strings. Declarative alto saxophone, cocooning trombone slurs and watery flute burbles are often played off against one another, as are Ellis’ mellow arco lines, Wofford’s e hunt-and-peck comping and Ibarra’s pings, flams and rolls.

Transitions are evident on “Las Pulgas (Repelling Ghosts)” and “For Blues and Other Spells”. The former gives space to Lake’s multiphonic narratives, Ibarra’s backbeat plus sputtering basso flue and crystal-clear piano notes which bond several thematic variations. Encompassing textbook Hard Bop – including press rolls and cymbal-resonating drum breaks – the later evolves with multiphonics, once Lewis’s smeary theme is succeeded by a double counterpoint duet from Hoffman’s toughest blowing and Lake’s reed-twisting. Conclusion is a piano-bass double nocturne that owes more to sonatas than the blues.

If Ellis’ homage showcases musical tangents consider Radio I-Ching’s The Fire Keeps Burning, Resonant Music 004.Among the composers represented are jazzers Thelonious Monk and Roland Kirk, Arab stylist Hamnza El Din, Hollywood’s Alfred Newman and country picker Jimmie Driftwood. The trio relies on Dee Pop’s drums and percussion, Don Fiorino’s guitar, lap steel and mandolin and the saxophone and electronics of Andy Haas. Ex-Torontonian Haas was a member of 1970s New-Wave rock band Martha & The Muffins before moving to New York.

Ching’s strength lies in adapting its instruments’ textures to unexpected ends. For instance, while Haas’ triple tonguing on El Din’s “Gala 2000” relates to Arabic properties, Fiorino produces a lotar-like pulse by using claw-hammer banjo licks. Newman’s “Moon Over Manakoora” gets the Hawaiian lounge treatment, with slack key resonations, chuffing and chiming from Pop and syrupy sax trills. Meantime Kirk probably never imagined his “Volunteered Slavery” would include junkeroo steel drum echoes with metallic steel guitar riffs elaborating the theme. Alternately Driftwood’s folksy tune gets an injection of guitar distortion and sax squeals. Eclecticism has its own rewards, however. as the trio proves on the original “Good Evening Mr. Dammers” named for a punk-rocker. Rather than punk, the sound is that of surprise with chirping reed lines doubled by electronics, sharp finger picking and conga drum pops.

Moving from eclecticism to experience, Canadian improvised music’s Brangelina is Vancouver-based married couple cellist Peggy Lee and drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Lee is featured in pianist Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet on One Dance Alone, Songlines SGL SA1571-2, a charming excursion into chamber jazz featuring cornetist Ron Miles and bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck. It was recorded in Seattle, as was Zemlya, Leo Records CD LR 507, which puts van der Schyff’s drums, percussion and laptop with Irishman Mark O’Leary’s guitar and electronics plus the viola and processing of Winnipeg-born, American-resident Eyvind Kang.

As filled with pulsating and triggered oscillations as the other CD offers pastoral suggestions, Zemlya doesn’t overuse electronics. In fact when Kang picks his fiddle mandolin-like, the three approximate the sound of a rural string band. Other tunes have Carnatic overtones.

“Story of Iceland Part II” and Sorcery” bring the partnership into focus. Multi-faceted, the later features rim shots and cymbal slapping from the drummer, scrapped and strained spiccato viola lines and spidery riffs from the guitarist extended with whammy-bar finesse. While O’Leary picks angled timbres above and below the bridge, Kang slashes jagged runs, and van der Schyff adds burbling basso electronics. Elements of staccatissimo stop-time lead to a climax of fiery timbral dislocation, abated by snare pounding, with the 10 strings reaching such whirling dervish-like speeds that they almost sonically blur.

More balladic “…Iceland” evolves from van der Schyff’s ruffs and in sympathy with Kang’s contrapuntal plucks. Folksy, chromatic, and splintered with irregular drum beats, the theme produced by O’Leary’s finger-style runs is surrounded by Kang’s rococo detailing.

Chamber jazz is the watchword for the Gravitas Quartet, with intermezzos and interludes more common than riffs or vamps. Yet recital-friendly instrumentation and bucolic licks can’t mask the hard-centre of Horvitz’s compositions, nor their jazz antecedents. “A Walk in the Rain” for instance, adds Lee’s sul ponticello squeals and Schoenbeck’s burbling accents to the swinging call-and-response between trumpet tongue flutters and slippery piano licks. It ends with sped-up bassoon riffs and harmonic piano swells, which then reverse themselves into Chopinesque keyboard chording and double-reed breaths.

This CD’s neither-fish-nor-fowl program keeps the tracks interesting. With eclogue-like formalism never fully accepted, many parts are gently subversive. For every bit of open-horned, romanticism from Miles, there’s a matching squeak from Lee; and for every moderato vibration from Schoenbeck, there’s astringent dynamics from Horvitz.

These Canadian-affiliated CDs are memorable outings. The inadvertent irony is that only Lee and van der Schyff haven’t had to immigrate to build careers.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #10

July 9, 2008

Radio I-Ching

The Fire Keeps Burning
Resonant Music 004

Paul Bley

12+6 In A Row

hatOLOGY 649

Lisle Ellis

Sucker Punch Requiem

Henceforth Records 104

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet

One Dance Alone

Songlines SGL SA1571-2

Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff

Zemlya

Leo Records CD LR 507

Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds

Extended Play

By Ken Waxman

Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators.

One of the music’s distinctive stylists with profound effects on jazz’s evolution from the early 1950s-on was a Montreal-born pianist. No, not that one … but Paul Bley. Bley’s associations with reedists Ornette Coleman and Jimmy Giuffre put him in the midst of first Energy Music than Free Form experiments. A reissue from 1990, 12+6 In A Row hatOLOGY 649 is not only a milestone in Bley’s evolution, but point out another development the pianist helped to initiate: partnership with like-mind Europeans. Bley’s associates here are Austrian flugelhornist Franz Koglmann and Swiss reedist Hans Koch. The title’s inferences to 12-tone rows are realized with sparse contrapuntal harmonies, broken counterpoint and skittering runs from the pianist, tongue slaps and chalumeau vibrations from Koch’s bass clarinet and chromatic lip burbles from Koglmann.

Yet obtuse formalism doesn’t overshadow jazz roots. Bley’s “Solo 2” includes right-handed bass syncopation, and there’s an excursion into waltz time on “Duo 2”. Meanwhile “Solo 6” channels boogie-woogie forefather Jimmy Yancy, in a Europeanized fashion, with Bley bearing down on the keys, while simultaneously tinkling higher pitches. Koch’s nasal bass clarinet encompasses a solipsistic line on “Trio 3”; while the piano-less “Duo 3” highlights intersections between Koglmann’s brassy, triple-tonguing and overblown split tones from Koch’s alto saxophone. Fulfillment of the notated-improvised mandate is obvious on pieces like “Trio 5” which harmonizes distanced piano patterns, smeary reed obbligatos and airy brass nodes.

Bley was well-established as Vancouver bassist Lisle Ellis was making his first U.S. forays in the 1970s. Over time Ellis established himself in partnerships with California-based players like pianist Mike Wofford and flutist Holly Hofmann or East Coasters like trombonist George Lewis and saxophonist Oliver Lake. Now a New Yorker, Ellis’ Sucker Punch Requiem, Henceforth Records 104 subtitled An Homage To Jean-Michel Basquiat, ruminates on the short life and creative sensibilities of the visual artist. Utilizing electronics and sound design as well as his bass, Ellis admixes Susie Ibarra’s percussion arsenal plus the vocal tones, sound samples and processing of Pamela Z. with instrumental contribution from his bi-coastal associates

Structured like a traditional mass, but with layers of sonic contributions, the program includes the musical equivalent of sfumato and grisaille painterly effects. While rough, meandering and a bit unfinished – like Basquiat’s art – the end product is true to the painter.

With an exposition and theme recapitulation that mirror one another, encompassing ghostly cries, street sounds and mumbling voices plus pulsating electronic wheezes, the purely instrumental passages still tell most of the story. Especially important are processional piano chording, aviary flute asides and the thick motions of Ellis’ plucked strings. Declarative alto saxophone, cocooning trombone slurs and watery flute burbles are often played off against one another, as are Ellis’ mellow arco lines, Wofford’s e hunt-and-peck comping and Ibarra’s pings, flams and rolls.

Transitions are evident on “Las Pulgas (Repelling Ghosts)” and “For Blues and Other Spells”. The former gives space to Lake’s multiphonic narratives, Ibarra’s backbeat plus sputtering basso flue and crystal-clear piano notes which bond several thematic variations. Encompassing textbook Hard Bop – including press rolls and cymbal-resonating drum breaks – the later evolves with multiphonics, once Lewis’s smeary theme is succeeded by a double counterpoint duet from Hoffman’s toughest blowing and Lake’s reed-twisting. Conclusion is a piano-bass double nocturne that owes more to sonatas than the blues.

If Ellis’ homage showcases musical tangents consider Radio I-Ching’s The Fire Keeps Burning, Resonant Music 004.Among the composers represented are jazzers Thelonious Monk and Roland Kirk, Arab stylist Hamnza El Din, Hollywood’s Alfred Newman and country picker Jimmie Driftwood. The trio relies on Dee Pop’s drums and percussion, Don Fiorino’s guitar, lap steel and mandolin and the saxophone and electronics of Andy Haas. Ex-Torontonian Haas was a member of 1970s New-Wave rock band Martha & The Muffins before moving to New York.

Ching’s strength lies in adapting its instruments’ textures to unexpected ends. For instance, while Haas’ triple tonguing on El Din’s “Gala 2000” relates to Arabic properties, Fiorino produces a lotar-like pulse by using claw-hammer banjo licks. Newman’s “Moon Over Manakoora” gets the Hawaiian lounge treatment, with slack key resonations, chuffing and chiming from Pop and syrupy sax trills. Meantime Kirk probably never imagined his “Volunteered Slavery” would include junkeroo steel drum echoes with metallic steel guitar riffs elaborating the theme. Alternately Driftwood’s folksy tune gets an injection of guitar distortion and sax squeals. Eclecticism has its own rewards, however. as the trio proves on the original “Good Evening Mr. Dammers” named for a punk-rocker. Rather than punk, the sound is that of surprise with chirping reed lines doubled by electronics, sharp finger picking and conga drum pops.

Moving from eclecticism to experience, Canadian improvised music’s Brangelina is Vancouver-based married couple cellist Peggy Lee and drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Lee is featured in pianist Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet on One Dance Alone, Songlines SGL SA1571-2, a charming excursion into chamber jazz featuring cornetist Ron Miles and bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck. It was recorded in Seattle, as was Zemlya, Leo Records CD LR 507, which puts van der Schyff’s drums, percussion and laptop with Irishman Mark O’Leary’s guitar and electronics plus the viola and processing of Winnipeg-born, American-resident Eyvind Kang.

As filled with pulsating and triggered oscillations as the other CD offers pastoral suggestions, Zemlya doesn’t overuse electronics. In fact when Kang picks his fiddle mandolin-like, the three approximate the sound of a rural string band. Other tunes have Carnatic overtones.

“Story of Iceland Part II” and Sorcery” bring the partnership into focus. Multi-faceted, the later features rim shots and cymbal slapping from the drummer, scrapped and strained spiccato viola lines and spidery riffs from the guitarist extended with whammy-bar finesse. While O’Leary picks angled timbres above and below the bridge, Kang slashes jagged runs, and van der Schyff adds burbling basso electronics. Elements of staccatissimo stop-time lead to a climax of fiery timbral dislocation, abated by snare pounding, with the 10 strings reaching such whirling dervish-like speeds that they almost sonically blur.

More balladic “…Iceland” evolves from van der Schyff’s ruffs and in sympathy with Kang’s contrapuntal plucks. Folksy, chromatic, and splintered with irregular drum beats, the theme produced by O’Leary’s finger-style runs is surrounded by Kang’s rococo detailing.

Chamber jazz is the watchword for the Gravitas Quartet, with intermezzos and interludes more common than riffs or vamps. Yet recital-friendly instrumentation and bucolic licks can’t mask the hard-centre of Horvitz’s compositions, nor their jazz antecedents. “A Walk in the Rain” for instance, adds Lee’s sul ponticello squeals and Schoenbeck’s burbling accents to the swinging call-and-response between trumpet tongue flutters and slippery piano licks. It ends with sped-up bassoon riffs and harmonic piano swells, which then reverse themselves into Chopinesque keyboard chording and double-reed breaths.

This CD’s neither-fish-nor-fowl program keeps the tracks interesting. With eclogue-like formalism never fully accepted, many parts are gently subversive. For every bit of open-horned, romanticism from Miles, there’s a matching squeak from Lee; and for every moderato vibration from Schoenbeck, there’s astringent dynamics from Horvitz.

These Canadian-affiliated CDs are memorable outings. The inadvertent irony is that only Lee and van der Schyff haven’t had to immigrate to build careers.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #10

July 9, 2008

Lisle Ellis

Sucker Punch Requiem
Henceforth Records 104

Paul Bley

12+6 In A Row

hatOLOGY 649

Radio I-Ching

The Fire Keeps Burning

Resonant Music 004

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet

One Dance Alone

Songlines SGL SA1571-2

Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff

Zemlya

Leo Records CD LR 507

Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds

Extended Play

By Ken Waxman

Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators.

One of the music’s distinctive stylists with profound effects on jazz’s evolution from the early 1950s-on was a Montreal-born pianist. No, not that one … but Paul Bley. Bley’s associations with reedists Ornette Coleman and Jimmy Giuffre put him in the midst of first Energy Music than Free Form experiments. A reissue from 1990, 12+6 In A Row hatOLOGY 649 is not only a milestone in Bley’s evolution, but point out another development the pianist helped to initiate: partnership with like-mind Europeans. Bley’s associates here are Austrian flugelhornist Franz Koglmann and Swiss reedist Hans Koch. The title’s inferences to 12-tone rows are realized with sparse contrapuntal harmonies, broken counterpoint and skittering runs from the pianist, tongue slaps and chalumeau vibrations from Koch’s bass clarinet and chromatic lip burbles from Koglmann.

Yet obtuse formalism doesn’t overshadow jazz roots. Bley’s “Solo 2” includes right-handed bass syncopation, and there’s an excursion into waltz time on “Duo 2”. Meanwhile “Solo 6” channels boogie-woogie forefather Jimmy Yancy, in a Europeanized fashion, with Bley bearing down on the keys, while simultaneously tinkling higher pitches. Koch’s nasal bass clarinet encompasses a solipsistic line on “Trio 3”; while the piano-less “Duo 3” highlights intersections between Koglmann’s brassy, triple-tonguing and overblown split tones from Koch’s alto saxophone. Fulfillment of the notated-improvised mandate is obvious on pieces like “Trio 5” which harmonizes distanced piano patterns, smeary reed obbligatos and airy brass nodes.

Bley was well-established as Vancouver bassist Lisle Ellis was making his first U.S. forays in the 1970s. Over time Ellis established himself in partnerships with California-based players like pianist Mike Wofford and flutist Holly Hofmann or East Coasters like trombonist George Lewis and saxophonist Oliver Lake. Now a New Yorker, Ellis’ Sucker Punch Requiem, Henceforth Records 104 subtitled An Homage To Jean-Michel Basquiat, ruminates on the short life and creative sensibilities of the visual artist. Utilizing electronics and sound design as well as his bass, Ellis admixes Susie Ibarra’s percussion arsenal plus the vocal tones, sound samples and processing of Pamela Z. with instrumental contribution from his bi-coastal associates

Structured like a traditional mass, but with layers of sonic contributions, the program includes the musical equivalent of sfumato and grisaille painterly effects. While rough, meandering and a bit unfinished – like Basquiat’s art – the end product is true to the painter.

With an exposition and theme recapitulation that mirror one another, encompassing ghostly cries, street sounds and mumbling voices plus pulsating electronic wheezes, the purely instrumental passages still tell most of the story. Especially important are processional piano chording, aviary flute asides and the thick motions of Ellis’ plucked strings. Declarative alto saxophone, cocooning trombone slurs and watery flute burbles are often played off against one another, as are Ellis’ mellow arco lines, Wofford’s e hunt-and-peck comping and Ibarra’s pings, flams and rolls.

Transitions are evident on “Las Pulgas (Repelling Ghosts)” and “For Blues and Other Spells”. The former gives space to Lake’s multiphonic narratives, Ibarra’s backbeat plus sputtering basso flue and crystal-clear piano notes which bond several thematic variations. Encompassing textbook Hard Bop – including press rolls and cymbal-resonating drum breaks – the later evolves with multiphonics, once Lewis’s smeary theme is succeeded by a double counterpoint duet from Hoffman’s toughest blowing and Lake’s reed-twisting. Conclusion is a piano-bass double nocturne that owes more to sonatas than the blues.

If Ellis’ homage showcases musical tangents consider Radio I-Ching’s The Fire Keeps Burning, Resonant Music 004.Among the composers represented are jazzers Thelonious Monk and Roland Kirk, Arab stylist Hamnza El Din, Hollywood’s Alfred Newman and country picker Jimmie Driftwood. The trio relies on Dee Pop’s drums and percussion, Don Fiorino’s guitar, lap steel and mandolin and the saxophone and electronics of Andy Haas. Ex-Torontonian Haas was a member of 1970s New-Wave rock band Martha & The Muffins before moving to New York.

Ching’s strength lies in adapting its instruments’ textures to unexpected ends. For instance, while Haas’ triple tonguing on El Din’s “Gala 2000” relates to Arabic properties, Fiorino produces a lotar-like pulse by using claw-hammer banjo licks. Newman’s “Moon Over Manakoora” gets the Hawaiian lounge treatment, with slack key resonations, chuffing and chiming from Pop and syrupy sax trills. Meantime Kirk probably never imagined his “Volunteered Slavery” would include junkeroo steel drum echoes with metallic steel guitar riffs elaborating the theme. Alternately Driftwood’s folksy tune gets an injection of guitar distortion and sax squeals. Eclecticism has its own rewards, however. as the trio proves on the original “Good Evening Mr. Dammers” named for a punk-rocker. Rather than punk, the sound is that of surprise with chirping reed lines doubled by electronics, sharp finger picking and conga drum pops.

Moving from eclecticism to experience, Canadian improvised music’s Brangelina is Vancouver-based married couple cellist Peggy Lee and drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Lee is featured in pianist Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet on One Dance Alone, Songlines SGL SA1571-2, a charming excursion into chamber jazz featuring cornetist Ron Miles and bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck. It was recorded in Seattle, as was Zemlya, Leo Records CD LR 507, which puts van der Schyff’s drums, percussion and laptop with Irishman Mark O’Leary’s guitar and electronics plus the viola and processing of Winnipeg-born, American-resident Eyvind Kang.

As filled with pulsating and triggered oscillations as the other CD offers pastoral suggestions, Zemlya doesn’t overuse electronics. In fact when Kang picks his fiddle mandolin-like, the three approximate the sound of a rural string band. Other tunes have Carnatic overtones.

“Story of Iceland Part II” and Sorcery” bring the partnership into focus. Multi-faceted, the later features rim shots and cymbal slapping from the drummer, scrapped and strained spiccato viola lines and spidery riffs from the guitarist extended with whammy-bar finesse. While O’Leary picks angled timbres above and below the bridge, Kang slashes jagged runs, and van der Schyff adds burbling basso electronics. Elements of staccatissimo stop-time lead to a climax of fiery timbral dislocation, abated by snare pounding, with the 10 strings reaching such whirling dervish-like speeds that they almost sonically blur.

More balladic “…Iceland” evolves from van der Schyff’s ruffs and in sympathy with Kang’s contrapuntal plucks. Folksy, chromatic, and splintered with irregular drum beats, the theme produced by O’Leary’s finger-style runs is surrounded by Kang’s rococo detailing.

Chamber jazz is the watchword for the Gravitas Quartet, with intermezzos and interludes more common than riffs or vamps. Yet recital-friendly instrumentation and bucolic licks can’t mask the hard-centre of Horvitz’s compositions, nor their jazz antecedents. “A Walk in the Rain” for instance, adds Lee’s sul ponticello squeals and Schoenbeck’s burbling accents to the swinging call-and-response between trumpet tongue flutters and slippery piano licks. It ends with sped-up bassoon riffs and harmonic piano swells, which then reverse themselves into Chopinesque keyboard chording and double-reed breaths.

This CD’s neither-fish-nor-fowl program keeps the tracks interesting. With eclogue-like formalism never fully accepted, many parts are gently subversive. For every bit of open-horned, romanticism from Miles, there’s a matching squeak from Lee; and for every moderato vibration from Schoenbeck, there’s astringent dynamics from Horvitz.

These Canadian-affiliated CDs are memorable outings. The inadvertent irony is that only Lee and van der Schyff haven’t had to immigrate to build careers.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #10

July 9, 2008

Paul Bley

12+6 In A Row
hatOLOGY 649

Lisle Ellis

Sucker Punch Requiem

Henceforth Records 104

Radio I-Ching

The Fire Keeps Burning

Resonant Music 004

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet

One Dance Alone

Songlines SGL SA1571-2

Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff

Zemlya

Leo Records CD LR 507

Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds

Extended Play

By Ken Waxman

Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators.

One of the music’s distinctive stylists with profound effects on jazz’s evolution from the early 1950s-on was a Montreal-born pianist. No, not that one … but Paul Bley. Bley’s associations with reedists Ornette Coleman and Jimmy Giuffre put him in the midst of first Energy Music than Free Form experiments. A reissue from 1990, 12+6 In A Row hatOLOGY 649 is not only a milestone in Bley’s evolution, but point out another development the pianist helped to initiate: partnership with like-mind Europeans. Bley’s associates here are Austrian flugelhornist Franz Koglmann and Swiss reedist Hans Koch. The title’s inferences to 12-tone rows are realized with sparse contrapuntal harmonies, broken counterpoint and skittering runs from the pianist, tongue slaps and chalumeau vibrations from Koch’s bass clarinet and chromatic lip burbles from Koglmann.

Yet obtuse formalism doesn’t overshadow jazz roots. Bley’s “Solo 2” includes right-handed bass syncopation, and there’s an excursion into waltz time on “Duo 2”. Meanwhile “Solo 6” channels boogie-woogie forefather Jimmy Yancy, in a Europeanized fashion, with Bley bearing down on the keys, while simultaneously tinkling higher pitches. Koch’s nasal bass clarinet encompasses a solipsistic line on “Trio 3”; while the piano-less “Duo 3” highlights intersections between Koglmann’s brassy, triple-tonguing and overblown split tones from Koch’s alto saxophone. Fulfillment of the notated-improvised mandate is obvious on pieces like “Trio 5” which harmonizes distanced piano patterns, smeary reed obbligatos and airy brass nodes.

Bley was well-established as Vancouver bassist Lisle Ellis was making his first U.S. forays in the 1970s. Over time Ellis established himself in partnerships with California-based players like pianist Mike Wofford and flutist Holly Hofmann or East Coasters like trombonist George Lewis and saxophonist Oliver Lake. Now a New Yorker, Ellis’ Sucker Punch Requiem, Henceforth Records 104 subtitled An Homage To Jean-Michel Basquiat, ruminates on the short life and creative sensibilities of the visual artist. Utilizing electronics and sound design as well as his bass, Ellis admixes Susie Ibarra’s percussion arsenal plus the vocal tones, sound samples and processing of Pamela Z. with instrumental contribution from his bi-coastal associates

Structured like a traditional mass, but with layers of sonic contributions, the program includes the musical equivalent of sfumato and grisaille painterly effects. While rough, meandering and a bit unfinished – like Basquiat’s art – the end product is true to the painter.

With an exposition and theme recapitulation that mirror one another, encompassing ghostly cries, street sounds and mumbling voices plus pulsating electronic wheezes, the purely instrumental passages still tell most of the story. Especially important are processional piano chording, aviary flute asides and the thick motions of Ellis’ plucked strings. Declarative alto saxophone, cocooning trombone slurs and watery flute burbles are often played off against one another, as are Ellis’ mellow arco lines, Wofford’s e hunt-and-peck comping and Ibarra’s pings, flams and rolls.

Transitions are evident on “Las Pulgas (Repelling Ghosts)” and “For Blues and Other Spells”. The former gives space to Lake’s multiphonic narratives, Ibarra’s backbeat plus sputtering basso flue and crystal-clear piano notes which bond several thematic variations. Encompassing textbook Hard Bop – including press rolls and cymbal-resonating drum breaks – the later evolves with multiphonics, once Lewis’s smeary theme is succeeded by a double counterpoint duet from Hoffman’s toughest blowing and Lake’s reed-twisting. Conclusion is a piano-bass double nocturne that owes more to sonatas than the blues.

If Ellis’ homage showcases musical tangents consider Radio I-Ching’s The Fire Keeps Burning, Resonant Music 004.Among the composers represented are jazzers Thelonious Monk and Roland Kirk, Arab stylist Hamnza El Din, Hollywood’s Alfred Newman and country picker Jimmie Driftwood. The trio relies on Dee Pop’s drums and percussion, Don Fiorino’s guitar, lap steel and mandolin and the saxophone and electronics of Andy Haas. Ex-Torontonian Haas was a member of 1970s New-Wave rock band Martha & The Muffins before moving to New York.

Ching’s strength lies in adapting its instruments’ textures to unexpected ends. For instance, while Haas’ triple tonguing on El Din’s “Gala 2000” relates to Arabic properties, Fiorino produces a lotar-like pulse by using claw-hammer banjo licks. Newman’s “Moon Over Manakoora” gets the Hawaiian lounge treatment, with slack key resonations, chuffing and chiming from Pop and syrupy sax trills. Meantime Kirk probably never imagined his “Volunteered Slavery” would include junkeroo steel drum echoes with metallic steel guitar riffs elaborating the theme. Alternately Driftwood’s folksy tune gets an injection of guitar distortion and sax squeals. Eclecticism has its own rewards, however. as the trio proves on the original “Good Evening Mr. Dammers” named for a punk-rocker. Rather than punk, the sound is that of surprise with chirping reed lines doubled by electronics, sharp finger picking and conga drum pops.

Moving from eclecticism to experience, Canadian improvised music’s Brangelina is Vancouver-based married couple cellist Peggy Lee and drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Lee is featured in pianist Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet on One Dance Alone, Songlines SGL SA1571-2, a charming excursion into chamber jazz featuring cornetist Ron Miles and bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck. It was recorded in Seattle, as was Zemlya, Leo Records CD LR 507, which puts van der Schyff’s drums, percussion and laptop with Irishman Mark O’Leary’s guitar and electronics plus the viola and processing of Winnipeg-born, American-resident Eyvind Kang.

As filled with pulsating and triggered oscillations as the other CD offers pastoral suggestions, Zemlya doesn’t overuse electronics. In fact when Kang picks his fiddle mandolin-like, the three approximate the sound of a rural string band. Other tunes have Carnatic overtones.

“Story of Iceland Part II” and Sorcery” bring the partnership into focus. Multi-faceted, the later features rim shots and cymbal slapping from the drummer, scrapped and strained spiccato viola lines and spidery riffs from the guitarist extended with whammy-bar finesse. While O’Leary picks angled timbres above and below the bridge, Kang slashes jagged runs, and van der Schyff adds burbling basso electronics. Elements of staccatissimo stop-time lead to a climax of fiery timbral dislocation, abated by snare pounding, with the 10 strings reaching such whirling dervish-like speeds that they almost sonically blur.

More balladic “…Iceland” evolves from van der Schyff’s ruffs and in sympathy with Kang’s contrapuntal plucks. Folksy, chromatic, and splintered with irregular drum beats, the theme produced by O’Leary’s finger-style runs is surrounded by Kang’s rococo detailing.

Chamber jazz is the watchword for the Gravitas Quartet, with intermezzos and interludes more common than riffs or vamps. Yet recital-friendly instrumentation and bucolic licks can’t mask the hard-centre of Horvitz’s compositions, nor their jazz antecedents. “A Walk in the Rain” for instance, adds Lee’s sul ponticello squeals and Schoenbeck’s burbling accents to the swinging call-and-response between trumpet tongue flutters and slippery piano licks. It ends with sped-up bassoon riffs and harmonic piano swells, which then reverse themselves into Chopinesque keyboard chording and double-reed breaths.

This CD’s neither-fish-nor-fowl program keeps the tracks interesting. With eclogue-like formalism never fully accepted, many parts are gently subversive. For every bit of open-horned, romanticism from Miles, there’s a matching squeak from Lee; and for every moderato vibration from Schoenbeck, there’s astringent dynamics from Horvitz.

These Canadian-affiliated CDs are memorable outings. The inadvertent irony is that only Lee and van der Schyff haven’t had to immigrate to build careers.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #10

July 9, 2008

Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff

Zemlya
Leo Records CD LR 507

Paul Bley

12+6 In A Row

hatOLOGY 649

Lisle Ellis

Sucker Punch Requiem

Henceforth Records 104

Radio I-Ching

The Fire Keeps Burning

Resonant Music 004

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet

One Dance Alone

Songlines SGL SA1571-2

Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds

Extended Play

By Ken Waxman

Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators.

One of the music’s distinctive stylists with profound effects on jazz’s evolution from the early 1950s-on was a Montreal-born pianist. No, not that one … but Paul Bley. Bley’s associations with reedists Ornette Coleman and Jimmy Giuffre put him in the midst of first Energy Music than Free Form experiments. A reissue from 1990, 12+6 In A Row hatOLOGY 649 is not only a milestone in Bley’s evolution, but point out another development the pianist helped to initiate: partnership with like-mind Europeans. Bley’s associates here are Austrian flugelhornist Franz Koglmann and Swiss reedist Hans Koch. The title’s inferences to 12-tone rows are realized with sparse contrapuntal harmonies, broken counterpoint and skittering runs from the pianist, tongue slaps and chalumeau vibrations from Koch’s bass clarinet and chromatic lip burbles from Koglmann.

Yet obtuse formalism doesn’t overshadow jazz roots. Bley’s “Solo 2” includes right-handed bass syncopation, and there’s an excursion into waltz time on “Duo 2”. Meanwhile “Solo 6” channels boogie-woogie forefather Jimmy Yancy, in a Europeanized fashion, with Bley bearing down on the keys, while simultaneously tinkling higher pitches. Koch’s nasal bass clarinet encompasses a solipsistic line on “Trio 3”; while the piano-less “Duo 3” highlights intersections between Koglmann’s brassy, triple-tonguing and overblown split tones from Koch’s alto saxophone. Fulfillment of the notated-improvised mandate is obvious on pieces like “Trio 5” which harmonizes distanced piano patterns, smeary reed obbligatos and airy brass nodes.

Bley was well-established as Vancouver bassist Lisle Ellis was making his first U.S. forays in the 1970s. Over time Ellis established himself in partnerships with California-based players like pianist Mike Wofford and flutist Holly Hofmann or East Coasters like trombonist George Lewis and saxophonist Oliver Lake. Now a New Yorker, Ellis’ Sucker Punch Requiem, Henceforth Records 104 subtitled An Homage To Jean-Michel Basquiat, ruminates on the short life and creative sensibilities of the visual artist. Utilizing electronics and sound design as well as his bass, Ellis admixes Susie Ibarra’s percussion arsenal plus the vocal tones, sound samples and processing of Pamela Z. with instrumental contribution from his bi-coastal associates

Structured like a traditional mass, but with layers of sonic contributions, the program includes the musical equivalent of sfumato and grisaille painterly effects. While rough, meandering and a bit unfinished – like Basquiat’s art – the end product is true to the painter.

With an exposition and theme recapitulation that mirror one another, encompassing ghostly cries, street sounds and mumbling voices plus pulsating electronic wheezes, the purely instrumental passages still tell most of the story. Especially important are processional piano chording, aviary flute asides and the thick motions of Ellis’ plucked strings. Declarative alto saxophone, cocooning trombone slurs and watery flute burbles are often played off against one another, as are Ellis’ mellow arco lines, Wofford’s e hunt-and-peck comping and Ibarra’s pings, flams and rolls.

Transitions are evident on “Las Pulgas (Repelling Ghosts)” and “For Blues and Other Spells”. The former gives space to Lake’s multiphonic narratives, Ibarra’s backbeat plus sputtering basso flue and crystal-clear piano notes which bond several thematic variations. Encompassing textbook Hard Bop – including press rolls and cymbal-resonating drum breaks – the later evolves with multiphonics, once Lewis’s smeary theme is succeeded by a double counterpoint duet from Hoffman’s toughest blowing and Lake’s reed-twisting. Conclusion is a piano-bass double nocturne that owes more to sonatas than the blues.

If Ellis’ homage showcases musical tangents consider Radio I-Ching’s The Fire Keeps Burning, Resonant Music 004.Among the composers represented are jazzers Thelonious Monk and Roland Kirk, Arab stylist Hamnza El Din, Hollywood’s Alfred Newman and country picker Jimmie Driftwood. The trio relies on Dee Pop’s drums and percussion, Don Fiorino’s guitar, lap steel and mandolin and the saxophone and electronics of Andy Haas. Ex-Torontonian Haas was a member of 1970s New-Wave rock band Martha & The Muffins before moving to New York.

Ching’s strength lies in adapting its instruments’ textures to unexpected ends. For instance, while Haas’ triple tonguing on El Din’s “Gala 2000” relates to Arabic properties, Fiorino produces a lotar-like pulse by using claw-hammer banjo licks. Newman’s “Moon Over Manakoora” gets the Hawaiian lounge treatment, with slack key resonations, chuffing and chiming from Pop and syrupy sax trills. Meantime Kirk probably never imagined his “Volunteered Slavery” would include junkeroo steel drum echoes with metallic steel guitar riffs elaborating the theme. Alternately Driftwood’s folksy tune gets an injection of guitar distortion and sax squeals. Eclecticism has its own rewards, however. as the trio proves on the original “Good Evening Mr. Dammers” named for a punk-rocker. Rather than punk, the sound is that of surprise with chirping reed lines doubled by electronics, sharp finger picking and conga drum pops.

Moving from eclecticism to experience, Canadian improvised music’s Brangelina is Vancouver-based married couple cellist Peggy Lee and drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Lee is featured in pianist Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet on One Dance Alone, Songlines SGL SA1571-2, a charming excursion into chamber jazz featuring cornetist Ron Miles and bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck. It was recorded in Seattle, as was Zemlya, Leo Records CD LR 507, which puts van der Schyff’s drums, percussion and laptop with Irishman Mark O’Leary’s guitar and electronics plus the viola and processing of Winnipeg-born, American-resident Eyvind Kang.

As filled with pulsating and triggered oscillations as the other CD offers pastoral suggestions, Zemlya doesn’t overuse electronics. In fact when Kang picks his fiddle mandolin-like, the three approximate the sound of a rural string band. Other tunes have Carnatic overtones.

“Story of Iceland Part II” and Sorcery” bring the partnership into focus. Multi-faceted, the later features rim shots and cymbal slapping from the drummer, scrapped and strained spiccato viola lines and spidery riffs from the guitarist extended with whammy-bar finesse. While O’Leary picks angled timbres above and below the bridge, Kang slashes jagged runs, and van der Schyff adds burbling basso electronics. Elements of staccatissimo stop-time lead to a climax of fiery timbral dislocation, abated by snare pounding, with the 10 strings reaching such whirling dervish-like speeds that they almost sonically blur.

More balladic “…Iceland” evolves from van der Schyff’s ruffs and in sympathy with Kang’s contrapuntal plucks. Folksy, chromatic, and splintered with irregular drum beats, the theme produced by O’Leary’s finger-style runs is surrounded by Kang’s rococo detailing.

Chamber jazz is the watchword for the Gravitas Quartet, with intermezzos and interludes more common than riffs or vamps. Yet recital-friendly instrumentation and bucolic licks can’t mask the hard-centre of Horvitz’s compositions, nor their jazz antecedents. “A Walk in the Rain” for instance, adds Lee’s sul ponticello squeals and Schoenbeck’s burbling accents to the swinging call-and-response between trumpet tongue flutters and slippery piano licks. It ends with sped-up bassoon riffs and harmonic piano swells, which then reverse themselves into Chopinesque keyboard chording and double-reed breaths.

This CD’s neither-fish-nor-fowl program keeps the tracks interesting. With eclogue-like formalism never fully accepted, many parts are gently subversive. For every bit of open-horned, romanticism from Miles, there’s a matching squeak from Lee; and for every moderato vibration from Schoenbeck, there’s astringent dynamics from Horvitz.

These Canadian-affiliated CDs are memorable outings. The inadvertent irony is that only Lee and van der Schyff haven’t had to immigrate to build careers.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #10

July 9, 2008

A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music

By George E. Lewis
University of Chicago Press

Home from his studies at Yale University in 1971, trombonist George Lewis was walking to his parents’ home on Chicago’s South Side when he heard unusual sounds coming from a nearby brick building. Peering inside he saw a group practicing what he calls “fascinating” music. Asking if he could attend future rehearsals, Lewis was grudgingly welcomed into what he soon found out was the disciplined but inventive milieu of the Association of the Advancement Musicians (AACM).

Shortly afterwards he became a member, and subsequently an official of the organization, founded by a group of Chicago’s most accomplished, jazz-directed improvisers in 1965. Forty-three years later the AACM – which one European critic describes as “a guarantee of quality” for improvised music – is recognized world-wide as “the first [successful] avant-garde co-operative in the United States”. A music professor at New York’s Columbia University, Lewis uses his insider’s perspective to write this comprehensive history of the organization. Knitting together 92 interviews and extensive research, A Power Stronger Than Itself stands out as exemplary jazz scholarship that also appeals to the non-academic.

Basically, the reason why the AACM has managed to survive into its fifth decade, while similar organizations have disappeared, is because as Lewis writes, “the collective conception that dominated the AACM both institutionally and artistically challenged the commodification of individuality itself – the ‘star system’ with its sharp division between ‘leader’ and ‘sideman’ that has been authoratively written into the discursive cannon of jazz”.

That doesn’t mean that some AACM members aren’t internationally renowned – reedists Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams come to mind. It’s just that the association’s growth has always been predicated on its collegial connection with the working class Black community of Chicago’s south side where it spawned. AACM members still promote its original nine-point program from 1965 that promises to stimulate cultural tradition, increase employment opportunities for creative musicians, provide composers’ workshops, like the one that impressed Lewis, and operate a school for aspiring musicians. AACM bands such as reedist Ed Wilkerson’s 8 Bold Souls and flautist Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble are still a constant Chicago presence.

However Lewis also notes that as significant for the ACCM’s survival, and its influence – which has gone past jazz’s boundaries to affect what he calls “whiteness-based” musics such as rock and so-called classical – is the decision from the beginning to emphasis the primacy of original music and the composer. Many first-generation AACMers – including, Lewis, Abrams, Braxton, violinist Leroy Jenkins, reedists Henry Threadgill, Joseph Jarman and others who left Chicago and formed a New York chapter in 1982 – deal with idioms that move across genres. Involved with theatre, poetry, sound collage and multi-media, the post-modern art music composed by these individuals is as likely to include references to minimalism and neo-classicism as the jazz tradition. As Lewis writes: “AACM musicians felt that experimentation in music need not be bound to particular ideologies, methods or slogans.” Musically, the AACM’s paramount contribution to experimental improvised music is a sense of dynamics. Unlike the New York-based New Thing of the 1960s, “the Chicago people got intense, but they also got soft and they were also incorporating other sounds into their music,” Lewis quotes Mitchell saying.

Describing the parallel development between the self-described “more conservative” Chicago-based AACM and the experimental New York wing is another way in which this volume supersedes earlier studies of the association. Lewis does situate the AACM in relation to other avant-garde collectives such as New York’s Jazz Composers Guild, St. Louis’ Black Artists Group and Los Angeles’ Underground Musicians Association (see Musicworks #96). He outlines how a supportive group of writers, music presenters and record labels allowed the collective to become better know. Braxton, Jenkins and the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEOC) – which included Jarman and Mitchell – gained greater recognition during a two-year, late-1960s relocation to France.

However the French romanticizing a link between the association and radical Black Nationalism was discursive. These players’ intra-musical experiences plus resentment from Chicagoans, who felt that the AEOC was monopolizing the AACM, necessitated a separate New York chapter.

A Power Stronger Than Itself is also universal enough to deal with topics usually ignored by others. Lewis’ penultimate chapter itemizes how the ACCM has finally evolved from being a literal “old boy’s club” into addressing its gender imbalance. From first-hand accounts, he doesn’t sugar-coat the situation that initially any female musician had a hard time being accepted into the AACM, and that it wasn’t until 1992 that Samia, become the association’s first all-woman band. Even today female AACM members are more the exception than the rule, although Nicole Mitchell is the association’s co-chair

Recalling his experience and those of his AACM peers such as Braxton he also exposes the barriers that Black composers like themselves face when they write music outside the codified jazz tradition. Neither fish nor fowl, their creations are rejected by jazz purists for not swinging or being blues based, and by the classical establishment for being African-American, even he says, in the so-called downtown New music world. Such aids to experimental composers as university professorships, endowed chairs, performance ensembles and electronic music studios are monopolized by musicians hostile to improvisation and African American music.

Although he was only one of three African American composers affiliated with important experimental efforts such as 1992’s New Music, New York, since then the subsidy situation has improved, with several AACM composers are beneficiaries of major fellowships. Slightly beyond this volume’s purview, grant politics should be examined in the context of post-modern music in 21st Century. However readers of A Power Stronger Than Itself discover how the AACM, a grass roots association, evolved to participate in these discussions.

Considering that an AACM-organized, 50-member ensemble was available to play Abrams’ orchestral composition as part of the association’s 40th anniversary celebrations in Chicago, composers and performers from the ACCM will sure to be involved in whatever constitutes modern music for decades to come.

-- Ken Waxman

In MusicWorks Issue #101

July 2, 2008

STEVE LACY

The Beat Suite
Sunnyside/Enja SSC 3012

DEEP LISTENING BAND/JOE MCPHEE QUARTET
Unquenchable Fire
Deep Listening DL 19-2003

Blending music and texts -- either poetry or prose -- has never been a particularly easy task, especially when the music involved is improvised. Yet for the past 50 years at least, variations of the concept have been tried with various degrees of success.

Among his other sonic inquiries, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy has turned his hand to text-based material for many years; he has been able to utilize the voice of his partner Irene Aebi as his speaker/vocalist since the late 1960s. THE BEAT SUITE is his most recent grapple with the concept -- and one that is particularly apt. The words, which intermingle with the music here, were written by 10 of the most accomplished Beat versifiers. All had or have an affinity for improvised music and most were known personally by either Lacy or Abei.

Iconoclastic Pauline Oliveros is another all-out experimenter, but from the so-called classical aide of the divide. Justly celebrated for her early experiments with microtonalism and electroacoustics, she has in recent years concentrated on her unique theory of Deep Listening, embracing structured improvisation, and begun regularly collaborating with non-academic improvisers such as bassist Barre Phillips, percussionist Susie Ibarra, and on this CD, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee.

Basically, the three members of Oliveros’ Deep Listening band and the members of McPhee’s quartet singly and together take turns musically commenting on the images suggested by Rachel Pollack’s prize-winning speculative fiction novel, Unquenchable Fire. During the course of the five tracks, Pollack herself reads excerpts from the book. These are amplified by sounds from Stuart Dempster’s trombone and didjeridu, David Gamper’s flutes, keyboard and electronics plus Oliveros on accordion. McPhee on soprano saxophone, alto clarinet and Casio digital horn, his longtime associate Joe Giardullo on flute, bass clarinet plus cellist Monica Wilson on cello and drummer Karen Jurgens are featured as well.

Musically the results are striking; vocally a little less so. While the imagery of Pollack’s utopian feminist fable is imposing, her curiously flat, sometimes stumbling delivery suggests that perhaps a trained actor or singer would better have expressed her thoughts. Luckily the suppositional notions are enough to launch nonpareil improvisations.

The 3rd Movement, for instance, purports to be a true history of the city of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., coincidentally McPhee’s hometown. Pollock’s tale involves the town’s creation by 12-foot giants who changed colors according to the seasons and, after a catastrophe, shrunk the inhabitants who were visited by travelers from a multi-tiered UFO who landed and helped the townsfolk build homes and set up a government. The fable encourage the woodwind players to introduce discordant Albert Ayler-style type multiphonics, which are soon battling for space with legit, legato cello line.

Soon the squeals fade into a one solid quivering mass as McPhee and Giardullo begin vocalizing from within their horns’ body tubes. Joined by plunger tones from Dempster’s trombone, the Casio-inflected Bronx cheers, shorter squeaks from the other reed and irregular drum beats, begins to resemble an approximation of a conversation between mechanized dwarfs and outer space denizens. Adding to this combination of rustic Americana and otherworldliness are irregular, double-quick, Silent Movie house electronic keyboard chords, where high-frequency vibrations echo other vibrations, and what could result from slowing down a scratched LP of circus music. As McPhee’s Aylerian soprano moves centre stage, wildly offbeat drumming and cartoon-like mouse peeps erupt around him.

An earlier movement that references birds, ashes and children’s fingers, which turn to sticks to beat away time, is amplified with didjeridu pitches which appear to be moving through a cistern. As their textures become more craggy and distant, wiccan-like accordion key frights mix it up with growling animalistic tones and vocalized syllables being electronically swabbed through the Aboriginal horn and flute. Soon these tiny segments of chirping flute and accordion pitches reconstitute themselves into a solid, oscillating, single sound mass, midway between the experiments of Tony Conrad and AMM.

Other interconnections are less obtuse. A revolution predicting horse who tells his tale to two women from Cleveland -- Ayler’s hometown, by the way -- calls forth straightforward whinnying from the soprano sax, then bass clarinet curls that follow the sax lines like colts chase after one another in a field, and is amplified by woodblock clip-clops. Later, when Pollack’s description of a subway ride turns to a voyage of visionary content, the emotion is amplified by a single crimped flute line that melds with bowed cello lines and expanded accordion keyboard colors. By the time a caramel-smooth clarinet line succeeds this, the sound is almost too romantically pastoral.

More manifestly the verbalization of the title in the 4th Movement brings forth an undulating massed sonic outpouring from horns and keyboards closely akin to what Sun Ra called a space chord. Supplanted by s a romantic cello interlude and a trilling soprano sax line, outlined by distant cymbal pops and board smashing crashes, tiny, nervous Balkan-sounding squeeze box tones enter the sound field along with what could be the parody of a keyboard exercise. As the tone shards accumulate into a dense, resonating line, low frequency piano glissandos and Casio-created slide whistle bird chirps flit-in-and-around the solid tone as outer space-like whooshes end the piece.

Much more down to earth, even when personalizing idiosyncratic symbolism is turned into an art song-like display, THE BEAT SUITE also has its drawbacks related to its non-instrumental portions. Lacy warns from the top that “This is highfalutin’ material. It’s not for everybody.” Yet the 10 interpretations sometimes seem to further muddy characteristic prose.

Abei has the not completely enviable task of “singing” free verse, sometimes with phrases or entire poems repeated for emphasis, and with her voice usually in concert with Lacy’s improvisations. The end result frequently fails to adequately demarcate poems that are serious and those that are humorous. Too many of the tracks sound too similar, while Abei’s British-accented, high-pitched readings can remove the meanings of the words.

This is especially unfortunate on “In the Pocket”, since Anne Waldman and Andrew Shelling’s words are rife with jazz references from song titles to the namechecking of saxophonist Art Pepper. Happily Abei makes no attempt at jazzy scat singing, nor do the horns start quoting jazz riffs, but the steady walking bass line from Jacques Avenel and characteristic boppish bomb dropping from drummer John Betsch cry out for a clearer verbal acknowledgement of the theme.

When it comes to personalizing “Jack’s Blues”, a poem by Robert Creeley, who has had empathy with jazz -- and jazz musicians -- for decades, the quartet gets together to play a real blues behind Abei. This comes complete with horn riffs, a curt shuffle from the drummer and pizzicato picks from the bassist.

Lacy’s tart tone and trombonist George Lewis’ higher pitched, lustrous plunger work can’t really bring enough life to Bob Kaufman’s “Private Sadness”, the longest and slowest moving of the poems And Abei’s non-American accent really does her in here.

Much more palatable are the tunes when you can ignore the lyrics and hear her voice as merely a third part of the front line. This is particularly effective on Lew Welch’s “A Ring of Bone”, where her accented rolling “r”s create musical onomatopoeia. Of course the real show is the Lewis and Lacy act. Here, for instance, the trombonist first slides down to mid-tempo notes then squeezed up to soprano range to introduce Lacy.

Much more emphatic is the ‘boneman’s plunger work on William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch”, where his sweet tone underlines Burroughs’ brutal images. Soon his protological plunger tones, reminiscent of Quentin Jackson’s, push Lacy to buzz his reed and Betsch to emphasize press rolls and cymbal pressure. When the wah-wah timbres appear a second time they give Abei’s singing of “Who are you?” at the end an Alice in Wonderland fillip.

All and all though, Gregory Corso’s “The Mad Yak” is most transparent vocally, since the New York poet was most close to everyday speech in his writing. It’s also probably the only track that doesn’t demand the listener read the words as lyrics are being vocalized. Here, as well, Lewis shows off some hand-muted, arching tonal effects while Lacy supplies reed snorts, spetrofluctuation and mouth noises

Although the Oliveros-McPhee experiment with prose usually come across better than the Lacy-Abei poetry recreation both discs are still notable. Both should interest

those whose ardor encompasses literature as well as improvised music.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Beat: 1. Wave Lover 2. Song 3. Naked Lunch 4. Private Sadness 5. A Ring of Bone 6. The Mad Yak 7. Jack’s Blues 8. Agenda 9. In the Pocket 10. Mother Goose

Personnel: Beat: George Lewis (trombone); Steve Lacy (soprano saxophone);, Jean-Jacques Avenel (bass); John Betsch (drums); Irene Aebi (vocals)

Track Listing: Unquenchable: 1. Intro 2. 1st Movement 3. 2nd Movement 4. 3rd Movement 5. 4th Movement

Personnel: Unquenchable: Deep Listening Band: Stuart Dempster (trombone, didjeridu); David Gamper (flutes, keyboard, electronics); Pauline Oliveros (accordion); Joe McPhee Quartet: Joe McPhee (soprano saxophone, alto clarinet, Casio digital horn); Joe Giardullo (flute, bass clarinet); Monica Wilson (cello); Karen Jurgens (drums); Rachel Pollack (reading)

January 19, 2004

GARY HASSAY/ANNE LEBARON

Blackwater Bridge
Drimala DR 02-347-02

JASON ROBINSON
Tandem
Accretions ALP 025CD

Making a list of dedicated harpists who excel in -- or even play -- free form music doesn’t take too long. In improvised music, for instance, there’s Briton Rhodri Davies and American Zeena Parkins and … Davies and Parkins. In jazz there was Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane and, … unsurprisingly, Ashby and Coltrane.

However BLACKWATER BRIDGE, an exacting duo disc featuring alto saxophonist Gary Hassay, definitely adds harpist Anne LeBaron to that stellar company. Considering the unadorned musical circumstances here, her work may be even more noteworthy. After all, solo saxophone doesn’t provide much back up.

LeBaron, who is also a composer and educator in California, has been experimenting with her axe since the 1970s and has played and recorded with other visionaries like pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and guitarist Derek Bailey. Hassay, from Allentown, Penn., has been involved in free music since the late 1970s and collaborated with a host of like-minded musicians, most notably as part of the Ye Ren trio with bassist William Parker and percussionist Toshi Makihara. Yet a two-person session like this throws a musicians’ talents, skills and weaknesses in even bolder relief, with only one partner upon whom to rely

Saxophonist and flautist Jason Robinson approaches TANDEM, his duo disc in a completely different manner. Insisting that the CD “attempts to prove that the ‘duo’ is a floating signifier, a word without a fixed meaning”, he has lined up an octet of different confreres playing in wildly different idioms including jazz, ambient, electronic and New music to prove his point. Whether he succeeds in making his case over the almost 80 minute of the session, depends on his partner of the time. Certainly it proves the adaptability of Robinson, whose experience encompasses work on Anthony Davis’ jazz-based opera Tania, touring with funk bands and theatre groups, and who is working towards a PhD in music at the University of California in San Diego.

Dealing first with the fixed duo of Hassay and LeBaron, it’s definitely her show all the way. While the alto saxophonist often moves between energy tones and silences, using chirps and double tonguing, he seems to be repeating the same pattern in the background. It’s one part 1960s Energy Music, one part hushed BritImprov, with both parts monochromic.

Meanwhile LeBaron displays a lot more than the usual glissandos we associate with harps. She buzzes like an electric guitar, uses her lowest strings for string bass ostinato, clawhammers out a few banjo notes and produces tones as harsh as nails scratching across a blackboard. Perhaps it’s the use of sound sculpture that allows her to create this way. Certainly on “Betty’s Place” at points she seems to be ringing bells, exploring a prepared piano, and -- if it’s possible -- even bouncing objects off her strings. Because of this challenge as well, Hassay is roused from his usual adagio pace up to andante for a few minutes. However on “FRISSON” when what appears to be the sounds of a squirrel scurries up and down the strings are succeeded by a real dance melody from the harp, he seems to squelch the excitement with a prolonged renal honk.

Most illustrative is the longest and most abstract track “G, K and the Lady Gray”, which goes from barely audible to high energy in slightly more than 11 minutes. As the harpist plucks strings and crashes cymbals, Hassay breathes out chirping reverberated grace notes, often squeaking in hummingbird range. After a passage where it literally appears as if she’s creating delicate court music from a Chinese guzheng, LeBaron begins double timing, strumming away as if she had a folksy 12-string guitar. Hassay counters with a loud heavy vibrato as the sound field subsides to mere colored noises and offhanded plucks. Elsewhere, LeBaron works up a chorus of multi-string strums as if she was an entire Mexican Mariachi band, saws across her string as if she was powerfully attacking a jazz bass, and comps behind the saxist’s note holding and reverberated honks the way a hard bop pianist feeds the soloist.

Despite the many-stringed instrument’s reputation, LeBaron has no fear of diatonic discord on these 10 tunes and that’s what makes the CD so fascinating.

Robinson’s 14 (!) compositions are a different matter. With so many duo -- and in one case trio -- partners, there are times TANDEM comes across as a student study, with the doctoral candidate apparently interested in emphasizing every musical genre with which he’s proficient.Unfortunately quantity doesn’t equal quality -- although standards are high throughout -- but there are times you feel like shaking the tenor man by the shoulder and suggesting that he concentrate on one thing.

Seemingly the most realized track here, “C.T.” -- possibly dedicated to Cecil Taylor -- is at more than 19½-minutes the longest by about 10 minutes. A duet between Robinson on tenor saxophone and composer/academic Davis on piano, it’s an extensive composition that resembles those duets Archie Shepp did with Horace Parlan or those David Murray did with Dave Burrell a lot more than anything ever recorded by the real CT. A kaleidoscope of different moods, it develops as Robinson begins sonically testing the parts of his horn, and Davis offers a quasi-classical interlude, all chords, rambling arpeggios and pinpoint single notes. Then as the piano man turns to minor key, bluesy ivory tickles, mainstream sax tones appear only to vanish within multiphonics and extended honks. Robinson’s unaccompanied section seems to centre around circular rolls of single notes mixed with overblowing, a more radical imagining than what some solo reedists like Anthony Braxton have produced. While this double solo -- which is what “C.T.” is rather than a duo -- is ultimately satisfying, many of the other tracks seem to speed by for no other reason than to show off the saxman’s adaptability.

The tracks with Marcelo Radulovich’s crackling static samples and buzz of electronics, for instance, allow the saxophonist to highlight his skills, and his own sampling to such an extent that what could be a penny whistle, a pastoral flute and some happy-sounding clarinet appear and disappear. In this robotic context, there are times his saxophone seems to be shaking and echoing with a pseudo-Varitone attachment. Meanwhile the trilling sax lines coupled with the metallic whirring of Hans Fjellestad’s analog synthesizer makes it sound as if the two are in literal interstellar space rather than expanding on the Rashied Ali-John Coltrane album of that name.

That album was probably the inspiration for “In The Tradition” with drummer Nathan Hubbard. The percussionist creates megarhythms of flams, rolls and paradiddles, while the saxist honks, swoops and overblows, until both subside into some sort of electronics. Veteran free bassist Peter Kowald, on the other hand, uses his voice and bow(s) to amplify the tones from his bull fiddle so that by the end it appears that he and Robinson on tenor saxophone are two parts of the same instrument.

Duets with trombonist/educator George Lewis are more democratic, but then again the ‘bone man has plenty of experience with this in his work with reedists like Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, among others. He pulls out his vocabulary of lip smacks and blows, infinite slide positions and huffing and puffing from within the horn. At times trombone-amplified verbal mumbles and Donald Duck-like squawks serve as his contribution. Robinson answers with trills, growls, multiphonics and protracted tongue slaps. Both tunes end with the professor and graduate student throwing phrases back and forth as if in negotiation for a mark on a thesis paper.

Maybe TANDEM could be heard as part of that thesis process. Then again perhaps Robinson’s doctoral studies are more focused. This is a good album for those who want to investigate every facet of Robinson’s music. It certainly suggests that once he finally decides what he wants to do when he grows up, the result will likely be memorable.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Backwater: 1. Raudeluna, Before a Full Moon 2. Memoire Involontaire 3. For Giaccomo 4. When Marcia Speaks 5. Betty's Place 6. Never Told Tales 7. G, K and the Lady Gray 8. FRISSON 9. She, Has Say 10. Joe Knows

Personnel: Backwater: Gary Hassay (alto saxophone); Anne LeBaron (harp, Harry Bertoia sound sculpture, percussion)

Track Listing: 1. Now and Here* 2. A Song for Tomorrow&# 3. Hogs and Swine+ 4. Same Old Station (SOS)*~ 5. C.T. 6. Discrete Jungle~ 7. Dark Matter# 8. In the Tradition^9. Birdrock Dub$ 10. Telepatheomatic@ 11. Tea with George+ 12. Sblat& 13. Black Market Higgle@ 14. Tbone For Two$

Personnel: George Lewis (trombone)+; Michael Dessen (trombone)$; Jason Robinson (alto and tenor saxophones, flute, clarinet, live electronics) Anthony Davis (piano)*; Marcelo Radulovich (guitar, samples, electronics)~; Peter Kowald (bass)#; Stephanie Johnson (electronics)&; Nathan Hubbard (percussion, live electronics)^; Hans Fjellestad (analog synthesizer)@

November 4, 2002

ANTHONY BRAXTON

News from the 70s
Felmay/Newtone FY 7005

With his MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” and his tenured position at Wesleyan University now part of his storied past, it would seem that Anthony Braxton has attained the respect he deserves as an academic and a serious American composer. However, a document like this CD -- or “text” as the academics would term it -- serves as a reminder of how he achieved what he did.

Organized by Italian jazz writer Francesco Martinelli and consisting of almost 75 minutes of tapes from Braxton’s private tape stash, the newest track dates from 1976 and the oldest from 1971. Braxton’s improvising and band leading is emphasized as much as his composing here, and hearing him in contexts ranging from solo to quartet you quickly pick up on the skill, technique and intensity that drew people to him in the first place. Hitherto-unknown compositions and new versions of older compositions are exposed, as are unique or under-recorded partnerships.

Case in point is “Composition-2”, which features Braxton on sopranino, clarinet, piccolo and alto saxophone, flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler and two French musicians better known for their New music leanings and film scores than for improvisations. Yet it was performances like this with pianist Antonine Duhamel and bassist François Mechali which helped make Braxton’s name in France. And it’s easy to see why.

Even without a percussionist, the four are able to formulate a lively theme stretched over a walking bass line and sharp piano overtones that almost sound like vibes. When he briefly gets the solo spotlight, in fact, Duhamel displays a tone that could easily have come from a player piano. Canadian-born, British-domiciled Wheeler, who since then has reverted to his persona as the cautious, colorist of shades of gray, which first got him noticed in mid-1960 Britain, surprises as well. When he’s not working in duple counterpoint with the reedman, he offers up some high-pitched Don Cherry-like note substitutions and explorations.

For his part Braxton, who jumps back-and-forth from one horn to another, takes solos that seem to be one-third Charlie Parker, one-third Eric Dolphy and one-third New Thing madman. It’s hard to link that energy to the comfortable, bespectacled pedagogue he now chooses to portray.

There’s no mistaking that a percussionist is on hand for “Composition 23E” and “Four Winds”, however, with New Yorker Barry Altschul behind the traps. A freebopper par excellence, he hits everything he can -- including what sound like bells and triangles -- when he gets a chance. Showiness and overwhelming aren’t part of his vocabulary, however. As a mater of fact adding his timekeeping on the cymbals plus the occasional press roll to Dave Holland’s low toned, steady bass lines throughout and you’d think you were listening to a bunch of beboppers.

Well, at least until you got to the front line. On the first tune Wheeler strains notes into the stratosphere, while on the second, trombonist George Lewis adds a brassy fillip to the proceedings when he’s not modulating in unison with Braxton. Lightly inflected, Braxton’s sopranino playing sounds very much of the 1970s here as well, with modulations that suggest Wayne Shorter or Dave Liebman more than John Coltrane.

Holland also exhibits his cello prowess on “Composition-1”, a track left off the recording of the reedist’s epochal 1972 concert at New York’s Town Hall. In a more than 14-minute duet with Braxton, who takes the black stick from a warm, low tone to squeaky upper register vibrations, Holland holds his own, both with bow and fingers. At times he produces sonorous passages of almost meltingly legitimate tones.

Completed by two examples of Braxton’s solo alto saxophone work, this CD, despite its definitely non-archival sound, is both musically and historically fascinating. Braxton apparently has more unreleased tapes. Perhaps it’s time for a second volume.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Composition 23E*#+ 2. Composition 8C 3. Composition -1# 4. Composition -2% 5. Composition 8G 6. Four Winds^#+

Personnel: Kenny Wheeler (flugelhorn)*; George Lewis (trombone)^; Anthony Braxton (sopranino, clarinet, piccolo, alto saxophone); Antonine Duhamel (piano)%; François Mechali%, Dave Holland# (bass); Barry Altschul (percussion)+

January 24, 2002