VIJAY IYER

Reimagining
Savoy Jazz SVY 475

FIELDWORK
Simulated Progress
Pi Recordings PI 16

Keeping a whole hand firmly in post-bop contemporary jazz, a couple of fingers in more atonal pursuits as well as a couple more in the sounds of his South Asian heritage, New York’s Vijay Iyer is the very epitome of the modern mainstream pianist.

Self-possessed and unflappable, these CDs – recorded two months apart – reveal two Vijay Iyers. On REIMAGINING, the newest disc by his own band, he appears controlled and buttoned-down, as unhurried a stylist as Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan were in the 1950s and 1960s and possessing what (acoustic) Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock exhibited in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet as part of the cooperative Fieldwork trio on SIMULATED PROGRESS, he reveals a hitherto rough-hewn edge, laying into the keys with the heavy touch of a McCoy Tyner or a Cooper-Moore. Is the switcheroo part and parcel of the company he keeps?

The answer seems to be yes. His compositions for Fieldwork are nowhere near as restrained as the ones on REIMAGINING. More crucially, alto and sopranino saxophonist Steve Lehman and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee, who wrote the other tracks, are there to keep the pot boiling, and incidentally spur the pianist to tougher voicing when he plays. In contrast, all the compositions on the other CD – save John Lennon’s “Imagine” – are Iyer’s. The context may be more secure as well. He’s been playing with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa for nearly a decade and bassist Stephan Crump since 2000. Eighteen-year-old Marcus Gilmore is the combo’s drums phenom.

As an aside, since this CD was made Kavee has ceded the percussion chair to Tyshawn Sorey, who formerly played in Iyer’s own band. Considering the pianist is now the only remaining founding member of the combo – Lehman replaced tenor saxophonist Aaron Stewart – it’s an open question whether in future Fieldwork’s vibe will drift closer to that displayed by Iyer’s combo.

Right now its rough, in-your-face power explodes out of the speakers on most of the 11 tunes –one more than on REIMAGINING. Part of this force may be compensation for no bass player. But it may also be that, without his name above the title, Iyer feels he can be more experimental.

Certainly there’s nothing on the other CD that compares to “Infogee Dub”, a pressure-filled line, stretched taut with the tension from the pianist’s pedal point continuo. As Iyer maintains a dark chordal ostinato during the piece – with the very occasional cluster of higher notes – space is made for Kavee’s slicing and double bouncing drum undertones and Lehman’s limning of the serpentine theme. Together, the combination nearly creates waveform pulsations.

Multi-vibrated and often trilling, Lehman’s soloing too sounds looser than it is on sessions under his own name. On “Gaudi” for instance, he growls from deep inside his throat, finally hooking up with the pianist’s modal pummeling to create an atmosphere of suspended time. Wrapping Tyner and Dave Brubeck implications together, Iyer’s cadences and arpeggios are given further form by the drummer’s hard-edged splashed flams and compressed runs. In contrast, “Media Studies” floats on quivering reverb from Lehman’s horn, an intermittent drum beat and plink-plank piano patterning. Sputtering, the saxophonist’s pulses echo the pianist’s low-frequency runs.

Although there are sections of the tracks that are low-key, most of the playing is up tempo, with Iyer exhibiting cross patterning dynamics, left handed comping and scattered, tremolo lines, Kavee self-possessed with polyrhythmic bounces, cymbal crashes and tubular echoes, and the saxophonist ululates sorpranino trills or the splayed coarseness of a bopper like Jackie McLean.

Since most of Iyer’s dynamic modules are involved with rhythmic comping and near prepared-piano sound-making, it’s almost as if there’s another pianist with the same name concerned with tropes such as recontexturalizing a Beatles tune with high frequency, duple-metre arpeggio and, hard, jagged slurs from Mahanthappa on “Revolutions” – no prize for guessing which one.

Ditto for the light swingers that are “Cardio” and “Infogee’s Cakewalk”, with the former’s high-frequency kinetic cadences supposedly reflect North Indian timbres. Yet the pianist’s habit of propelling handfuls of notes and cascading chords seems to reflect the power of Tyner’s or Oscar Peterson’s mature style rather than Carnatic variations. Iyer’s allegro chiming, high-frequency vibrations and the saxophonist spinning out rubato whole notes on the latter, put one in mind of a Phil Woods collaboration with Flanagan, though Gilmore does slap out a cross-handed almost Native American rhythm on his part.

More interestingly, later in the program, as the drummer cross patterns and cymbal crashes and the pianist flashes out concentrated and rhythmically charged arpeggios, Mahanthappa introduces his diaphragm vibrations and reed-biting obbligatos with nasal, shenai-sounding output.

Then there’s “Song for Midwood”, named for an area in Brooklyn known as Little Pakistan. Despite the implications of the title, there’s no false exoticism. Beginning with a strong bass line and dynamic overtones from the pianist, the theme is passed back and forth between the alto saxophonist and Iyer, eventually resolving itself with diamond-hard tone shards from Mahanthappa. Following basso profondo strummed patterns from Crump, the conclusion rests on chiming vibrations from Iyer that almost match Gilmore’s rim clicks.

If only a couple of the pieces didn’t end with very obvious fades, and there wasn’t an undercurrent of distraction in some of the playing elsewhere, REIMAGINING would be as memorable as SIMULATED PROGRESS.

As it stands, both together provider a fuller picture of Iyer’s maturing musical development.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Reimagining: 1. Revolutions 2. Inertia 3. Song for Midwood 4. Infogee’s Cakewalk 5. The Big Almost 6. Cardio 7. Experience 8. Composites 9. Phalanx. 10. Imagine

Personnel: Reimagining: Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto saxophone); Vijay Iyer (piano); Stephan Crump (bass); Marcus Gilmore (drums)

Track Listing: Simulated: 1. Headlong 2. Transgression 3. Tips 4. Telematic 5. Media Studies 6. Gaudi 7. Transitions 8. Peril 9. Reprise 10. Infogee Dub 11. Durations

Personnel: Simulated: Steve Lehman (alto and sopranino saxophone); Vijay Iyer (piano); Elliot Humberto Kavee (drums)

January 23, 2006

RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA

Mother Tongue
Pi Recordings PI 14

NED ROTHENBERG/SYNC
Harbinger
Animul ANI 104

Two variations on South-Asian musical culture point out not only its wealth, but also how it too can grow and change far beyond the somewhat arbitrary divisions between Carnatic and Hindustani sounds.

Notwithstanding HARBINGER’s use of a tabla, and that two of the musicians on MOTHER TONGUE are Indian-American, neither date has much to do with the traditional sounds of the subcontinent, nor depends on Eastern exoticism for its shape. Instead, separately, each is an example of individual intermingling of traditions with modern improvised music.

Alto saxophone Rudresh Mahanthappa, who is of Indian background, named the compositions on his CD after different Indo-Asian tongues to counter Americans’ ideas that his ancestral homeland has merely one culture and one language. Without knowing his agenda though, he, helped by pianist Vijay Iyer, another child of Indian immigrants, French bassist François Moutin and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee, whose mixed background is Italian-Spanish Nicaraguan/Russian-Jewish, MOTHER TONGUE can be enjoyed as pure jazz improvisation.

Sync’s operation is even more complicated. Although Samir Chatterjee plays tabla, a classical Indian drum, he varies his traditional patterns with jazz-inflected rhythmic variations. A teacher for the last 25 years, his knowledge of South and North Indian traditional music is formidable and by happenstance he plays in another improv trio with Mahanthappa and Iyer. Guitarist in Sonny Rollins’ band for six years, Jerome Harris also plays acoustic bass guitar here. Someone who has also gigged with musicians as different as trombonist Ray Anderson and the late saxophonist Julius Hemphill, Harris uses his acoustic guitar or acoustic bass guitar to add melodic as well as rhythmic color to the proceedings.

Meanwhile, Ned Rothenberg, whose playing partners have ranged from Japanese guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi to British saxophonist Evan Parker, contributes different contours from his Westernized clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone, plus the Japanese shakuhachi.

Mahanthappa, who produces his strongest vibrations from mid-range blowing, hits the ground running from his CD’s first track, with all the tunes his own compositions. Between Kavee’s shuffle beat, Iyer’s cross-handed chording and the saxman’s double-tongued trills, however, any alien concept is masked by swing.

Most indicative of what the reedist is trying to do is “Telugu” and “Tamil”. Commencing with a rhythmic bass pattern from Moutin, pockmarked with piano fills, the first tune develops as Iyer’s high-frequency dynamics are interrupted by Mahanthappa’s solo which adapts a fruity vibrato with a singsong accented tang. These aren’t the sort of place specific timbres you’d hear from bansuri or venu flutes however, more like an uneasy mixture of Earl Bostic’s and James Chance’s tones. Eventually the snaky repetitive lines pushed by pedal point piano and echoing rat-tat tats from Kavee’s snare pulsate back to the initial jazzy head.

Despite its title, the other composition gets its shape from a combination of rim shot metallic action from Kavee, shaded and sharp notes from Iyer’s keyboard and soaring obbligatos from Mahanthappa. If you had to pick its genre, the phrase Heavy Metal Broadway style ballad comes to mind long before a resemblance to sounds from Sri Lanka. Moving forward constantly over the piano-drum action, the saxophonist’s buzzing tone gets deeper and his pitch sharper as he spills grace note over the piece, ending lockstep with Iyer.

Throughout his tone usually ranges from irregularly pitched to thin and grainy, although double and triple tonguing gives it more body when need be. Another construct is Mahanthappa’s mind-meld with longtime partner Iyer as he shows on the nearly eight minute “Circus” – which is not likely an Indo-Asian dialect. Vehement, resonating trills are met with assiduous piano lines, and soon the two are engaged in hocketing call-and-response patterns. However the pianist does have to rein in his cadences slightly, so as not to bury Moutin’s free flowing, spiccato solo in the middle.

If MOTHER TONGUE is good, then HARBINGER is outstanding, probably because the Sync three pack even more experience into their performance. Illuminatingly, the trio doesn’t limit itself to jazz and/or Indian musical references but draws on expanded textures.

“Kashmir”, written by Chatterjee, for instance, may feature a balladic undercurrent, and a tinge of unspecified non-Western sounds, but nothing really suggests the mountainous reality of the title. Harris’ fingerpicking guitar relates more to American folk music, while the harmonium-like buzz of unvarying sax line finally asserts itself in double counterpart to the strings. At the same time the membrane covered dayan and bayan rattle, thump and snap quietly behind, giving the lead instruments enough space in which to slur, flutter and meld.

These American folk influences come to the form often, most notably on the more-than-10½-minute “Phrygian Dreams”, and the almost 10-minute “Richie Havens”, enigmatically named for the singer/songwriter of the 1960s and both composed by Rothenberg.

His bass clarinet gets a workout on the first piece where its sonorous, reverberating tones are joined by plucked chromatic timbres from Harris that almost sound as if they’re coming from dulcimer or lute textures. Meanwhile, an asymmetric tabla rhythm provides a shifting base upon which the sluicing, glottal-stopping reed and the restful guitar licks extend the theme, with one often playing a phrase which is then echoed by the other.

When Chatterjee alters his touch so that only one of the two drums is in use, producing what sounds like mouth percussion pops, Harris continues with his slurred fingering, while Rothenberg outlines a lilting yet grainy exposition. As his coloratura vibrato toughens, the other varies his tabla beats as the piece takes on a low-pitched sonority to its end.

Instrumental virtuosity and the tabla’s intonation on the second tune bring not Havens, but the deceased fusion string explorer Sandy Bull to mind as the trio plays. Someone aiming for the great folk-jazz-world music fusion in the early 1960s, Bull’s work encompassed the almost pure chromatic picking the guitarist shows here. Forty years on however, the percussionist’s double timed and splayed paradiddles and rebounds are more sophisticated than those with which Bull was dealing. Chatterjee manages to get different beats and textures from the bayan and dayan separately and together. The smeary alto sax trills add another dimension to this composition, and by the finale, Harris’ waggish finger picking and string taps are more original that what was imagined in the folk era.

Rothenberg’s one shakuhachi outing, mixed with thumb-popping bass guitar work may be a little torpid and formalistic for the CD, though there’s no argument with his expertise –or that of either of the others.

Among themselves they produce tones that at various points range from flutter tongued, funky sax lines or fralicher phraseology from the clarinet; rhythmic chanting and hand-clapping or double-palmed percussive thump and resonation; and frailing drones or bouncing distortion from the strings.

Whether your interest is ethnic music or improvisation, you’ll find much to relish on both these CD’s, especially Sync’s session.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Harbinger: 1. March Hair 2. Richie Havens 3. One-Oh-Nine 4. Phrygian Dreams 5. Miss Chief 6. Tsuruta Kinshi 7. Kashmir 8. Macrame

Personnel: Harbinger: Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone and shakuhachi); Jerome Harris (acoustic guitar and acoustic bass guitar); Samir Chatterjee (tabla)

Track Listing: Mother: 1. The Preserver 2. English 3. Kannada 4. Gujarati 5. Telugu 6. Circus 7. Konkani 8. Tamil 9. Malayalam 10. Change of Perspective

Personnel: Mother: Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto saxophone); Vijay Iyer (piano); François Moutin (bass); Elliot Humberto Kavee (drums)

April 25, 2005

VIJAY IYER

Blood Sutra
Artists House AH 09

MICHEL SCHEEN QUARTET
Dance, My Dear?
DATA 042

What a different a decade makes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

August 16, 2004

FIELDWORK

Your Life Flashes
Pi Recordings PI 05

RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA
Black Water
Red Giant RG 012

Sooner or later, with CD retailers subdividing even jazz and improvised music into smaller and smaller segments -- Afro Cuban, Asian improv, Jewish Alternative Movement, to mention three -- someone is bound to notice that two of the major soloists on these two discs have a South Asian background. But the quality playing and writing of alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa on BLACK WATER, and of pianist Vijay Iyer on both CDs, is much more responsible for the sessions’ universal appeal than their shared ancestry from the Indian subcontinent.

That said, Fieldwork, a collective trio filled out by tenor saxophonist Aaron Stewart and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee only obliquely suggests an Indian sound in a couple of the pianist’s compositions. Mahanthappa, on the other hand -- whose duo with Iyer as Raw Materials, draws on African-American and South Asian musical heritage -- is more upfront about his Indian ancestry. The CD title, black water or kala pani -- kala = black, pani = water -- is an idiomatic expression that was common in colonial India and the Indo-Caribbean regions referring to a loss of identity experienced upon leaving one’s homeland and crossing the black water of the ocean. Furthermore, the writing on BLACK WATER, and especially the alto saxophonist’s improvisations reference ethnic sounds and scales.

Fieldwork’s CD is one of those inside-outside sessions that should be regarded as modern mainstream if the neo-con influence hadn’t lowered the bar back to early 1950s standards a few years ago. Operating at a go-for-broke high energy level during all 10 compositions the cooperative equally expresses the talents of each member. Rare for a tenor saxophonist of his relative youth and lineage -- he has been featured in the bands of pianists Andrew Hill, Cecil Taylor and Muhal Richard Abrams as well as on a couple of reedist Anthony Braxton’s pieces -- Aaron Stewart sometimes exhibits a breathy Ben Webster-style tone as well as more modern influences. He has played with Iyer in saxophonist Steve Coleman’s group and in their co-op sextet.

Resourceful drummer Elliott Humberto Kavee was musical director for the San Francisco Mime Troupe and specializes in new works for dance and theatre. He has performed with musicians such as Taylor and Coleman plus saxophonists Francis Wong and Henry Threadgill. Iyer, who wrote eight of the 10 selections on YOUR LIFE FLASHES, not only leads his own bands, but worked extensively with Coleman and is also currently a member of saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory and poet Amiri Baraka’s Blue Ark.

Unbridled power is the first adjective you apply to Fieldwork as on many numbers Stewart fires off phrase after phrase, double and triple tonguing; Kavee exercises his cowbell, woodblock and cymbals without slackening the constant beat; and Iyer’s rhythmic thrust encompasses Thelonious Monk-style key clipping, rolling bass lines and sliding swinging forward motion. Is it any wonder that one of the tunes is called “Step Lively”? Still that’s a bit of a misnomer because the track sounds no more or less lively than many of the others.

Of the two pieces that may have some reference to Diasporic themes, only one, “Generations” was written by the pianist; the other, “Mosaic” is a Stewart line. The first, a flowing andante melody is based around the dark coloration of the piano’s bass cadenzas, using lots of sustain pedal. Kavee’s ride cymbal pressure signals the frequent tempo changes, while Stewart’s solo is all straightahead.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who has studied composition with Abrams, and internalized the Chicago master’s ancient-to-future ethos, “Mosaic”, Stewart’s R&B- styled piece sails along on heavy drumbeats. It’s modern, but like its title takes in influences from the street as much as the academy. Iyer’s busy piano work is filled with nervous energy, exhibiting locked hands choruses as the tune gets faster and more relentless as it goes along. Elsewhere the pianist’s blizzard of right-handed notes offers up Taylor inferences, or maybe echoes of legendary West Coast pianist Horace Tapscott who is honored in the final piece. That tune is also the only time that Stewart finds it necessary to move into reed screech mode.

The other notable composition is Iyer’s “The Inner World”, which is the closest to a ballad the trio comes to on this disc. Slower moving and initially framed by unison tenor sax and piano, two themes often appear at the same time. One emerges from Stewart’s long-line legato tenor solo; the other is double-timed by Iyer’s piano.

All and all, YOUR LIFE FLASHES is a dazzling debut session. Still if Fieldwork is going to continue to evolve and impress in the future, some of its nervous energy must be muted. Maybe next time out a few ballads and/or more dissonant material could be explored as well.

Replace Stewart with Mahanthappa and add French bassist François Moutin, who works steadily with pianist Martial Solal and saxophonist Michel Portal, to the remaining two musicians and you have the cast of characters for BLACK WATER.

Obviously the main change results from the leader’s overt emphasis on his South Asian roots. These roots are obviously entwined with American jazz, however. After all, New York-based Mahanthappa isn’t someone like Kadri Gopalnath, an Indian saxophonist who has adopted the horn to traditional Carnatic music. Mahanthappa, who teaches at The New School University, has had extensive experience working with definite jazzers like saxophonists David Murray and Coleman plus drummer Jack DeJohnette. As a matter of fact, his distinct tone seems to echo the styles of Swing master Pete Brown and soul jazz’s Cannonball Adderley. At the same time, though, here his heritage is never denied.

“Balancing Act”, an apt title and like all the pieces written by Mahanthappa, makes this dichotomy clear from the CD’s first notes. Starting with what sounds to Occidental ears like a sharp snake-charming tone from the sax, the composition soon develops jazz-wise as Iyer’s comping and Kavee’s beat move it into the driving mainstream tradition. Here, as elsewhere the pianist adopts a predominant, contemporary Chick Corea/(acoustic) Herbie Hancock style. Perhaps, too, his playing is more conventionally “jazzy” on this CD to counter the saxman’s ethnic tendencies.

“Joe Made the Face” is nearly eight minutes of near bebop, with Kavee forging a shuffle rhythm, Moutin walking the bass in its lower regions and some rhythmic polyphony from the pianist. Working in his horn’s lower regions well Mahanthappa almost sounds as if he’s playing a tenor, producing speedy sheets of sound that still would have been welcoming to players like Adderley. Moutin and Kavee even trade fours at the end of “What’s a Jazz?” after the drummer with his agitated cowbell and bass drum routine suggests an updated Buddy Rich. Meanwhile Iyer speeds out rubato arpeggios and the reedist gets into the soprano range but with an emphasis on split tones.

Conversely, “Viraha”, a Sanskrit word describing grief due to separation from one’s lover come across as a South Asian “I Cover the Waterfront”. On this simple ballad, Mahanthappa adopts a Middle Eastern musette-like tone which again contrasts with Iyer’s accelerated many keyed voicings, Kavee’s cymbal sizzles and Moutin’s low-key accompaniment. Here, as elsewhere, the head is even reprised before the end.

“Faith (intro)” and “Faith” move right into Carnatic territory, or at least that part of the geographic area that shares real estate with John Coltrane’s more mystical works like “A Love Supreme”. Smearing his vibrato and overblowing, the saxophonist maintains the spiritual tone throughout, as Iyer’s chords turn to cadenzas, Kavee exhibits some expansive hi hat and pang cymbal work and Moutin triple stops for his most expressive --and impressive -- work on the disc.

But what should one make of “Simonize”? Mahanthappa sounds as if he’s playing bagpipes until he gets into split tones; Kavee snakes out foot-tapping rhythms then some press rolls; and Iyer exposes his pulsating Latinesque persona as he and the saxophonist play with then reprise the theme. Is this song related to yet another black water Diaspora?

Another impressive session, which should appeal to jazzers of many ethnicities, the only drawback in BLACK WATER, is that with a singular front line the alto man has a heavy burden to carry by himself. Maybe next time out Stewart should be invited along as a guest to take some of the burden off Mahanthappa’s reeds and embouchure.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Your: 1. In Medias Res 2. Accumulated Gestures 3. Sublimation 4. Generations 5. Mosaic 6. Sympathy 7. Step Lively 8. Horoscope 9. The Inner World 10. Path of Action (for Horace Tapscott)

Personnel: Your: Aaron Stewart (tenor saxophone); Vijay Iyer (piano); Elliot Humberto Kavee (drums)

Track Listing: Black: 1. Balancing Act 2. I Like It When You Play the Blues 3. Viraha 4. What’s a Jazz? 5. Rejoice 6. Simonize 7. Joe Made the Face 8. Are There Clouds in India? 9. The Crossing 10. Faith (Intro) 11. Faith

Personnel: Black: Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto saxophone); Vijay Iyer (piano); François Moutin (bass); Elliot Humberto Kavee (drums

January 22, 2003

ROSCOE MITCHELL & THE NOTE FACTORY

Song for My Sister
PI Recordings 103

Avant garde jazz fans who remember the 1960s and 1970s have the tendency to come on like moldy figs when they compare the activities of many highly celebrated younger players with the accomplishments of their elders.

Case in point is this CD. For while a few youngsters have been over-praised for merely mastering the intricacies of a particular jazz style -- be it hard bop, modal or even a hip hop take on the New Thing -- reedist Roscoe Mitchell, 62, showcases a lot more.

Mitchell, who plays soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, flute, bass recorder, great bass recorder and percussion on this disc, has also written a set of unmistakably modern tunes that touch on playful R&B, precise swing, Third World anthems, jagged contemporary composition and even Early music. Assisted by eight young and veteran improvisers -- and four more for the “classical” piece -- Mitchell easily slides from one stance and style to another without ever losing his identity or resorting to tonal impersonation.

Pretty impressive for someone who was one of the founders of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in the mid-1960s and has been making impressive records on his own and as a members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago since that time.

Now a resident of Madison, Wisc., Mitchell has recorded with The Note Factory twice before, but only bassist Jaribu Shahid has been on all three discs. In the decade since the first CD, the band has grown from six to nine pieces, with new, impressive players joining. Especially prominent on his recording debut with this group, is Chicago trumpeter Corey Wilkes, whose contributions range from Harmon-muted whispers to brass band cadenzas.

New pianist Vijay Iyer leads his own bands around New York, while returning pianist Craig Taborn has gone from working with Young Lion James Carter to becoming a part of saxophonist Tim Berne’s electric trio. Bassist Leon Dorsey and drummer Vincent Davis have played and recorded with Mitchell in different configurations, while Shahid, guitarist Spencer Barefield and drummer Gerald Cleaver came out of Detroit subterraneous avant jazz scene.

Perhaps the best way to analyze a disc like this is to point to the two most unusual compositions. For a start there’s the almost 11½-minute “Wind Change”, a piece which evolved organically from a set of cards Mitchell developed to help beginning improvisers study. Switching between notated and improvised sections, and with the addition of Anders Svanoe on clarinet and bass clarinet, Willy Walter on bassoon, Janse H. Vincent on violin and Nels Buttmann on viola, the ensemble resembles a chamber orchestra. Except it’s a chamber ensemble where reverberations from Cleaver’s marimba, and bell shaking from Davis, make the more “legit” instrumentalists create sharp-angled sections, rife with the pizzicato string plucks. Meanwhile, Mitchell’s so-called classical sounding flute arches over the proceedings.

Equally unusual, “this”, recasts one of the composer’s chamber pieces written for a baritone vocalist, with Mitchell’s great bass recorder filling the singer’s role. Regarding Early music as yet another way to transmit his sound into another sphere, the saxophonist, a card-carrying member of the American Recorder Society, melds the canyon-wide, but limited range of the recorder with other sounds. In the end, the batter of marimba glissandos, muted trumpet lines, cello-like arco bass tones and shaken and stirred exotic percussion, end up with a product sounding like a Westernized version of gamelan orchestra music. Then there’s “The Megaplexian”, featuring Mitchell and the two percussionists improvising on instruments he invented for a special concert commission. Sounding like a combination of glockenspiel, vibes, wind chimes and bell tree, the megaplexians impart both an otherworldly and Third World feel to the composition. It also showcases the two pianists using a thicket of whole notes, bent notes and a few glisses.

On the other hand there are tunes like “Step One, Two, Three”, which comes across as half hard bop and half Middle Eastern court music. As the dual pianos sound out the infectious descending push-and-pull theme, Mitchell lets loose with some updated Swing tenor, so that you get an image of a college football half-time band marching through the narrow streets of the Casbah.

Not that more traditional music is neglected either. “Count-Off” is a rollicking, modern R&B type tune featuring a fruity Earl Bostic-style alto saxophone snaking through the music, with some Harmon muted tones from Wilkes, chordal guitar fills from Barefield and old-timey piano tinkles from one -- both? -- of the keyboardists. Then there’s the title tune, honoring Mitchell’s late sibling, but which comes across as bluesy rather than mournful. Displaying the saxophonist’s hard tenor tone, muted work from Wilkes, both basses walking and a waterfall of dual piano notes, it’s half modal and half freebop.

Age may have to withdraw for beauty sometimes. But in music the truly talented can produce beauty with intelligent content, because of their age and experience.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Song for My Sister 2. Sagitta 3. This 4. When the Whistle Blows 5. The Megaplexian 6. Step One, Two, Three 7. The Inside of the Star 8. Wind Change* 9. Count-Off

Personnel: Corey Wilkes (trumpet); Roscoe Mitchell (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, flute, bass recorder, great bass recorder, percussion); Craig Taborn and Vijay Iyer (pianos); Spencer Barefield (guitar); Jaribu Shahid and Leon Dorsey (basses); Gerald Cleaver (marimba, percussion, drums); Vincent Davis (drums, percussion); plus on*: Anders Svanoe (clarinet and bass clarinet); Willy Walter (bassoon); Janse H. Vincent (violin); Nels Buttmann (viola)

September 9, 2002

YURI HONING

Seven
Jazz in Motion JIM 75086

VIJAY IYER
Panoptic Modes
Red Giant RG011

Practically a jazz cliché, the sax and rhythm quartet has been a staple of the music since the late 1940s and early 1950s, when it became the favored compact configuration for modernists to tour from town to town.

Since that time every major improviser, definitely including such iconoclastic figures as John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and, surprisingly, even Anthony Braxton, David Murray and Evan Parker has played and recorded in that formation from time to time. So the challenge facing someone is how best to adjust the quartet setting to his or her own ends.

These accomplished discs by a young Dutch tenor saxophonist and an even younger American pianist present two accommodations to the form that has almost as much history associated with it as a Civil War battlefield.

A thoroughly-schooled musician whose CDs have featured him collaborating with everyone from iconoclastic pianist Misha Mengelberg to players drawn from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for a ballad album, saxophonist Honing, 37, links up with three hoary veterans of the jazz wars here. Step forward pianist Paul Bley, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian.

Meanwhile pianist Vijay Iyer, 29, who regularly worked in Steve Coleman’s band and with Roscoe Mitchell’s the Note Factory and who has an interdisciplinary PhD in music and cognitive science from University of California, Berkeley, tries to reflect his South Indian classical (Carnatic) background in his music. He fills out his quartet with other younger players, including longtime associate alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who plays Paul Desmond to Iyer’s Dave Brubeck or perhaps it would be hipper to say Charlie Rouse to Iyer’s Thelonious Monk.

Ironically enough, there are times on SEVEN when it appears as if Honing is vying to capture Desmond’s tongue-in-cheek designation of himself as “world’s slowest saxophonist”. Awash in the glacial tempos and formal presentation that the other quartet members have toyed with for years, you suspect that he’s using the session to experiment with extended techniques. Adopting a sharp, almost alto-like tone throughout, the tenor man can be heard indulging in spetrofluctuation, intensity vibrato and airy hiss at different times.

Some solos are no more than repeated patterns pushed in proper order up the scale. On others, his passive, nagging presentation sounds as if it’s more related to showcasing classical saxophone structures than improvised music, although it’s almost irrefutable that all the tunes are instant compositions. Maybe one should hear his duets with Bley, who does have a degree from Julliard -- and so much else -- as preparation for his meeting with the Concertgebouwers that took place after this CD was recorded.

Maybe part of the seeming disconnect results from the fact that subtle percussionist Motion, powerful bassist Peacock and Bley first recorded together in 1963 (!), two years before the saxist was born. It may not have been meant that way -- or it may have been a deliberate compliment -- but much of the time Honing appears to be following Bley’s lead, filling in the spaces left for him, and not the other way around.

Letting loose only seems to occur to the saxist when the bassist adopts a steady -- and standard -- quicker 4/4 pattern on one piece and on the final piece when Bley unveils some this-side-of-prepared piano solos. Facing off against a conception that’s all metallic chord substitutions, internal string mutes and reverberating tones, Honing responds with deeper, more virile playing, though it must be admitted that it’s still pretty deliberate sounding.

Coming from a different time and place, the Iyer four are nothing but exuberant, with drummer Derrek Phillips, who regularly works with alto saxophonist Greg Osby, alone expending more energy on the first number that Motian seems to have done during the entire other CD. Each quartet member seems to have chops to burn, but because they labor as a working group, that sense of disengagement that is sometimes apparent in the Honing session is missing here.

One reoccurring motif is the frequent blending of tones that occurs between saxophone and keyboard. Another is that while they take most of the tunes at a breakneck pace, they dissipate the tension with slinky, slower motions for the codas.

Although Iyer, who is the son of Indian immigrants, raised in upstate New York, emphasizes his South Asian roots, the language of jazz is paramount here. “Configurations”, for instance, which is supposed to reflect rhythmic progressions from that subcontinent, appears to take more from a Spanish tinge and McCoy Tyner’s modal work. “Father Spirit”, on the other hand, features Iyer playing what sounds like quirky Herbie Nichols-like lines, with Mahanthappa interjecting gingerly, one phrase at a time. The aviary-like reverberating arcs the saxist uses here are effective, as is most of his playing, except for the few times when for some reason, he adopts a pinched, adenoidal tone.

Iyer’s note-spinning, speedy vamps that appear from either his left or right hand also serve him well throughout the disc. Especially if the saxophonist, who made a reputation for himself in Chicago before moving to New York, really digs into the music, or Phillips starts to imagine himself as Elvin Jones, and begins overplaying his hands.

The only time this technique isn’t completely accurate is with “Circular Argument”, conceived of as a Monk tribute. Almost a parody of what a swinging nightclub tickler would have played in the 1930s, Iyer is too much the modern, educated pianist and the band too wedded to straightahead swinging to reflect Monk’s individuality. Plus here and on the next piece the saxophonist shows that he’s much happier spewing out sheets of sound than subordinating himself, as Rouse did to Monk’s vision.

Bassist Stephen Crump, who usually works with drummer Bobby Previte, is the only musician who suffers almost silently here. Frequently kept in the background by the sheer volume of the others -- especially Phillips -- his few solos reveal a strong, but rather prosaic timekeeper.

In short, these CDs prove that in the right hands -- and feet and mouths -- sax-and-rhythm quartet sessions are still a viable option for many musicians, with Iyer’s more focused effort having a slight edge. If neither of them move into the winner’s circle of memorable dates produced by Coltrane, Murray or even Stan Getz or Zoot Sims, both leaders are still young enough to likely appear with great sessions in the near future.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Seven: 1.One note out 2.Yasutani 3.Hell’s Kitchen 4. Bley Away 5. Lost Virginity 6. Once is Twice 7. Vertical

Personnel: Seven: Yuri Honing (tenor saxophone); Paul Bley (piano); Gary Peacock (bass); Paul Motian (drums)

Track Listing: Panoptic: 1. Invocation 2. Configurations 3. One Thousand and One 4. History is Alive 5. Father Spirit 6. Atlantean Tropes 7. Numbers (for Mumia) 8. Trident: 2001 9. Circular Argument 10. Invariants 11. Mountains

Personnel: Panoptic: Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto saxophone); Vijay Iyer (piano); Stephan Crump (bass); Derrek Phillips (drums)

April 12, 2002