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Reviews that mention Martin van Duynhoven

Atomic School Days

Distil
Okka Disk OD 12073

Ab Baars Trio & Ken Vandermark

Goofy June Bug

Wig 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

November 9, 2008

Ab Baars Trio & Ken Vandermark

Goofy June Bug
Wig 15

Atomic School Days

Distil

Okka Disk OD 12073

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

-- Ken Waxman

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

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

November 9, 2008

Ab Baars Quartet

Kinda Dukish
WIG 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ken Waxman

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

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

November 12, 2006

Guus Janssen and his Orchestra

Dancing Series
Geestgronen

Leo Cupyers
Zeeland Suite & Johnny Rep Suite
Bvhaast

By Ken Waxman
May 30, 2005

Mythmaking abounds in improvised music – as much in European free sounds as in American jazz – after all, this genre has been the romantic music for more than 100 years.

Sadly, empirical research can reinterpret many of those fables as efficiently as it demythologizes other subjects. This brings up the tales of anarchistic Dutch jazz/free music. Since the majority of jazz fans – i.e. North Americans – didn’t start to pay attention to the Netherlands until late 1980s, it appeared as if the mixture of zany humor and serious musicianship that characterized high-profile aggregations like the ICP Orchestra and Willem Breuker’s Kollektief (WBK) was a universal concept. Later bands lead by composers like pianists Guus Janssen and Michel Braam seemed to confirm this.

In truth New Dutch Swing, as some call it, was the result of a painstaking musical process that matched the natural Calvinism of the Netherlands with provocations from American Free Jazz and the 1960s’ New Left. Simultaneously, Europeans had to evolve past their American musical models and sound pastiches to spin political instigation, Energy Music and 20th Century, so-called classical music into something original.

This involved a lot more than a single “Eureka!” moment, and you can trace this hit-and-miss evolution on the two CDs reissued here. Pianist Leo Cupyers, one of Breuker’s closest initial associates and co-founder of the Bvhaast label, reflects the growth pains of this maturing style in two landmark suites, recorded in 1974 and 1977 by similarly constituted septets. A generation younger, Janssen’s Dancing Series, recorded with an 11-piece ensemble in 1988, shows how this bravura procedure evolved and eventually intersected with assorted other sounds.

Just as the orchestral voicings of Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk hung over early New Thing advances, so, in a way, both these sessions pay homage to the ideas of both the WBK and the ICP’s chief conceptualizer Misha Mengelberg. Until he had a spat with Breuker, Cupyers was part of the WBK from its conception until 1979. Thus it’s no surprise to find Breuker, performing sideman duties featured on all tracks but two on the CD. Janssen, who has developed a parallel career as a so-called serious composer in the Netherlands, first had his talent confirmed by Mengelberg, with whom he studied in the 1970s. In fact, with its mixture of styles and jump cuts from one genre to another Dancing Series sound a bit like Mengelberg’s and Breuker’s earlier, more anarchistic compositions, not to mention John Zorn’s POMO pastiches, recorded around the same time.

From 1974, Johnny Rep Suite, the earliest tracks here, finds Cupyers leading a mostly WBK crew with the one ringer tenor saxophonist Hans Dulfer – Candy’s father – who doesn’t solo at all. The four tunes include a soccer anthem, driven by drummer Rob Verdurmen, plus other pieces that have more in common with American Free Jazz than the composer probably realized at the time. Most instructive are “Floris & Rosa”, “Kirk” and “Rank Jump” which join irregularly vibrated energy explosions with call-and-response reed lines and vocal screams. Mixing a faint flamenco beat and what sounds like “The Volga Boatman” into his solo on the second number, the pianist has to put up with a heavy drum backbeat and Breuker trying to emulate Rahsaan Roland Kirk playing two saxes at once. Sadly, unlike Kirk, he merely plays the theme on one sax and honks with the other.

Two humans playing one sax each – Breuker and altoist Piet Noordijk – fire trilling vamps and buzzing tongue flutters in broken octaves at one another on “Rank Jump”. Together they sound like what would have resulted if Ornette Coleman and one of his primary duplicators, say Byron Allen, had recorded together. Meanwhile Dufler and trombonist Willem van Manen expel the Netherlands’ version of circus sounds.

Only Cuypers is clearly his own man, with a Monkish piano exploration that includes pedal pumping and speed skating over the keys. A concluding duo with the drummer confirms this individualism, as he matches Verdurmen’s crashing cymbals with prepared piano-like action, soundboard string scratches and drumming on his instrument’s sides.

More audacious is the nine-part Zeeland Suite recorded three years later with mostly the same cast. The only changes are Martin van Duynhoven in for Verdurmen; Noordijk and Dulfer replaced by Bob Driessen on soprano, alto and baritone saxophones; and South African Harry Miller adding his bass to that of longtime WBK bull fiddler Arjen Gorter.

Both bassists are showcased on “Two bass shit” (sic), though the constantly hardening walking bass lines border on the Swing Era as much as the bebop tune parodied in the title. Cuypers’ piano voicing, set against the horn vamps brings up memories of Count Basie, not Bud Powell.

Enjoyable on the whole, Zeeland Suite’s one shortcoming is its constant musical shifts. A piece like “Memories” for instance, ratchets from mid-tempo Swing with Breuker’s bass clarinet in the lead, to a Phil Whitemanesque sweet ballad, to a finale that finds the reedist mocking the excesses of Energy Music, fragmenting his solo with body tube trilling and scratchy growls.

Intentional or not “Something else” cross breeds slick movie studio jazz with a feature for the ‘bone man where he mixes bebop’s speed with pre-modern coloration. Despite its title as well, “Joplin” is more Boogie than Ragtime with the pianist twisting out two handed bass lines and one of the saxmen – likely Breuker – using a dike-wide vibrato in a frenzied Illinois Jacquet homage. “No plooi at all Blues” is a cocktail lounge blues with the pianist’s licks more Floyd Cramer than Big Maceo Merriweather. Supplemental, almost-corny plunger tones from van Manen and a soprano sax solo that conjures up a vision of Sidney Bechet in a Nudie cowboy suit are added on top.

Then there’s the take on the classics – a long-standing WBK jape – entitled “Bach II and Bach I”. This gives the pianist scope to burlesque Baroque inventions and, before the sped-up tune ends with a contrapuntal dissolve, both soprano saxists build fruity glissandi to a double-tongued line mid-way between “Rhapsody in Blue” and a whine.

Even so, Cuypers’ own compositions – like Mengelberg’s and Breuker’s congruent attempts – sometimes end up more like Frankenstein’s monster than breakthrough experiments. But you can certainly praise him for musical audacity. By the time Dancing Series was recorded a decade later, POMO pastiche was expected as a matter of course from advanced bands from the Netherlands. In his case then, it’s a tribute to Janssen that some of his pieces sound as original as they do.

Using an expanded palate, the pianist has four orchestral sections at his disposal. Trumpeter Herb Robertson, trombonist Wolter Wierbos and hornist Vincent Chancey made up the brass section. Ab Baars on soprano and tenor saxophones and clarinet plus alto saxophonist Paul Termos are the reeds. Violist Maurice Horsthuis, cellist Ernst Reijseger and bassist Raoul van der Weide are the string contingent. Added are former ProgRocker Jacques Palinckx on guitar and Janssen’s brother Wim on percussion.

Janssen’s compositions also apportion more solo space than WBK or ICP numbers do, and the trombonist and alto saxist make the most of it. Best-know for his work with the ICP, Wierbos brings a distinctive primitivist-modern style to his outings. While Termos (1952-2003), who died of pancreatic cancer, was a longtime associate of Janssen, he’s mainly known as a notated chamber composer. Here, nonetheless, he plays whatever part is necessary to elevate the tune.

Consider and contrast “JoJo Jive” and “Mambo” for instance. On the former, the 11-pieces get a polyphonic sound not unlike Duke Ellington’s early Jungle band, most obviously borne on Wierbos’ tailgating trombone and in Baars’ spiky solos. Even though there’s a similarity between this tune and “East St. Louis Toodle-oo”, Janssen himself –like his mentor Mengelberg – solos with more modernist Monk-Nichols inflections, themselves extensions of Ellingtonia. Complementing these piles of ringing reed cadences and two-handed, flashing arpeggios are Termos’ alto – sounding like a florid and smooth Johnny Hodges – until he too initiates reed squirts and duck quacks.

Before the horse whinnying trombone coda, the entire horn section vamps, van der Weide slaps his bass like Pops Foster, the drummer produces heavy bass drum accents and snare tap dances, while the pianist breaks up the time.

If this piece sounds like Paul Whiteman at his loosest – an admitted influence on Cupyers and Breuker as well – then “Mambo” could be right out of Perez Prado’s book. With Termos coming on like the lead player with Machito and Wim Janssen hitting his cowbell and applying friction to other Latin percussion, the rest of band vocalizes Indian war whoops – and ersatz Spanish interjections.

On top of a shifting rhythm, Termos extends his solo in double-time. Of course the rub and rattle of the percussion and the vamping call-and-response in double or triple counterpoint from the sections don’t mask the tune’s POMO characteristics. Janssen for one, melds allegro rhythmic vibrations and a right-handed, Latinesque melody that’s as Monkish as it is montuno. Leaping gnome-like over the keys, he pumps the beat more rapidly, racing along the keys from the very highest level to the lowest.

Although at almost 12½ minutes, the performance is overlong, Janssen maintains excitement in its penultimate minutes by banging conga-like on the wood of the piano’s back and bottom frame, soundboard and trusses, an – emulated? – technique favored by Cuypers as well. Finale is a thematic reprise by the pianist followed by rest of band, climaxed with a high-pitched flourish from all concerned.

Elsewhere the orchestrations are organized to produce versions of everything from a weaving fox trot to two versions of punk rockers’ leaping pogo dance, with most tunes the musical equivalents of cinematic film cuts, replete with many false climaxes. Janssen also isn’t afraid to expose other band members’ talents, often playing off different sections and pressing contrapuntal lines against one another. Palinckx’s distorted flanging has as much prominence at one point as the Horsthuis-lead collated strings – sounding out a legato melody – do at another. Former Arkestra-member Chancey has scope for his burnished tone, but most of the other oral oscillations include reed and brass mouthpiece kisses, braying trombone timbres, trumpet triplets and quaking reed lines.

To boot, the pianist, whose own output includes knuckle-dusting high frequency action, isn’t averse to compositionally exploiting the false fingering and ghosts tones of the horns as well as the sul tasto, sul ponticello and just plain instrument rib and belly scratching actions of his string players.

In hindsight, though, Dancing Series’ weakness is that by 1988 these pastiches were usually predictable in most Netherlands’ improv sessions, with Cuypers’ hit-and-miss creations replaced by POMO professionalism. Perhaps that why younger Dutch players are now exploring pure swing, electronica and formal composition.

Still both these discs are valuable souvenirs of – and contain memorable sounds from – two specifically historical musical times and places.

May 30, 2005

Willem Breuker Kollektief

With Strings Attached
Bvhaast

i compani
Fellini
icdisc.nl

By Ken Waxman
February 7, 2005

Tributes, recreations and interpretations appear to fascinate advanced improvised musicians in the Netherlands even more so than in other places. Part of the reason is that instead of numberless CDs dedicated to Miles, Monk and Ellington, Dutch jazz and improv players and composers extend their accolades to other spheres.

Saxophonist Bo van de Graaf for one, has made the cornerstone of his work with the i compani band, multi-media tributes to Italian director Frederico Fellini and Nino Rota, who composed most of the soundtracks for that director’s films. Featuring rearrangements of Rota tunes, plus original works by van de Graaf and other members of the 11-piece ensemble, Fellini demonstrates how you can honor your influences without having to be a slave to existing material.

With Strings Attached goes even further. Consisting of a never-before-released performance of a new piece by the Norwegian composer Alfred Janson as well as a series of reissued numbers from 1982 to 1995, it’s part of Willem Breuker’s ongoing determination to carve a unique niche for himself in the world of modern music. Featuring a more-or-less consistent line up of about 10 musicians plus an orchestral-sized string section of violas, violins and cellos, it’s not quite jazz, but certainly not so-called classical music either.

Compositions designed to illustrate Breuker’s distinctive worldview, the material is a mixture of familiar and out-of-the-ordinary. The pieces include George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, Erik Satie’s “Parade”, “Metropolis”, by Paul Whitman’s arranger Ferde Grofé, Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas’ “Sensemayá”, plus Leroy Anderson’s novelty “The Typewriter”. Then there’s the premiere of the collaboration with Janson. “Passacaglia Vendetta”, features the whole 18-piece group with the composer himself sitting in on accordion [!] and vocals [!!] and the other chief soloists Norwegian trumpeter Ole Edvard Antonsen, who works in both improvised and notated music, Breuker on soprano saxophone, and Kollektief (WBK) member Alex Coke on tenor saxophone.

The almost 21-minute showpiece leads the band into new territory, since Janson’s accordion playing and vocals add a folkloric quality to a score already informed by his background as a jazz pianist and orchestral composer. Playing triplets, but with a legato tone, Antonsen’s horn provides counterpoint to Janson’s primitivist squeeze box textures. Brass flutter tonguing arches on top of orchestral harmonies, then the composer’s veloce but rubato accordion slurs presage orchestral passages built up like a renovator’s addition to a small house.

Breuker’s atonal, double-tongued sax solo is first framed in horn riffs, then polyharmonic string passages that soon descend to syrupy romanticism. Antonsen’s muted, half-valve solo is backed by a swinging band section that could have come from the pen of Neil Hefti, and soon he’s slurring out rubato grace notes. With the Norwegian brass man cast as Buck Clayton, American Coke, a legitimate Texas tenor, snorts and blasts, loosening the tune from its formalism, and introduces an accordion solo that’s all extended reed sounds. Oscillating string lines frame the trumpeter’s conservatory-oriented flares, but its brassiness is buried under cat yowling string dissonance. With drummer Rob Verdurmen pressing the backbeat, the level of excitement and controlled chaos rises -- closer to “Rites of Spring”, than “Ascension” -- as sound shards break up, reaching a climax of spraying contrapuntal discord that finally relaxes into harmonic orchestra color as the finale.

“Passacaglia Vendetta” is an important reification of the band’s status in premiering New music compositions. But Breuker seems to want it all. The other 20th century pieces on the CD appear to have been picked to situate the WBK within a certain tradition. Outside of the “The Typewriter”, which is pure good-humored fun, the other pieces stride the fine line between composition and improvisation and sometimes fall over into the legit area, with a results that are more serious than may have been imagined.

Especially noteworthy is Breuker’s championing of work initially played by Paul

Whitman’s symphonic jazz band of the 1920s. For a start, pianist Henk de Jonge, a powerful two-handed player proves himself a better soloist than most classical formalists when it comes to “Rhapsody in Blue”. With a swinging left hand, control of dynamics and the ability to add a Latinesque tinge to interpolations of cascading arpeggios, he brings a quirkiness to the melody and the WBK responds in kind. Plus Breuker gets to play the famous descending gliss that launches the piece.

“Metropolis” is more problematic. Because Grofé was a professional dance band arranger, he tried to knit too many musical strains into this semi-classical fantasia from 1928. This is symphonic jazz that gives equal prominence to a tinkling celeste (de Jonge) and raucous tuba (Bernard Hunnekink). Transitions are often awkward, some of the string climaxes sound as if they come from Silent Movie cartoon soundtracks, and de Jonge’s low frequency piano playing awash with over-emphasized dynamics occasionally resembles the style of Frédéric Chopin more than Ferdinand LaMonthe aka Jelly Roll Morton.

Symphonic, quasi-Dixieland, the score often has the band breaking into a fox trot, while 19th century style romantic strings dripping emotionalism and zart face off against Broadway theatre-type themes and staccato novelty percussion. At one point, for instance, the strings are outlining a quasi-romantic passage while the pianist gets hot on “Japanese Sandman”.

Not only do these Liberace-like tinkles distract, but half way through, Breuker on lead vocal and others must pretend to be the Rhythm Boys with Bing Crosby and do some rhythmic scatting.

Theme recapitulations come from a Dixieland trumpet and clarinet duo, rasping brass, mulched reeds and tuba burps, plus pit orchestra harmony. By the finale, the simple call-and-response section and variations show their age, with frantic bass drum and cymbal smashes and over-the-top flying grace notes, polyrhythms and counter harmonies on show, rather than smooth section work. Before a finale of sweeping, string harmonies, overt orchestration is transparent, its diffuse textures suggesting a movie score.

The Satie recreation, with its oddball instrumental passages and room in the score for sirens, gunshots and the like, may be interpreted by the WBK with more confidence, since its European avant-garde conceptions are close to what Breuker himself often creates. When polyharmonic and polyphonic climaxes feature everything from pistol discharges and typewriter clacks, the Kollektief’s links to vaudeville and the Art Ensemble’s tradition of little instruments are never clearer. Referencing “The Marine Hymn”, a waltz and a hornpipe in its penultimate selection also make more natural transitions than those in Grofé pastiche of Hot Jazz. Additionally, the speedy orchestration features the strings in a finale of straight sweeps.

With less of an agenda than Breuker’s CD, Fellini’s sole aim is to honor van de Graaf’s influence one more time. The band has been performing a Fellini/Rota program since 1985, along with other projects that included a stint, from 1989 until 1997, accompanying the Theatre of Utrecht’s celebrated International Christmas Circus, and a 1997 multi-media production called Gluteus Maximus, whose central theme was buttocks.

Van de Graaf has also played in trombonist Chris Abelen’s 6-tet, the Bik Bent Braam big band and in a trio with pianist Michiel Braam and i compani’s drummer Fred van Duynhoven. Van Duynhoven was part of violinist Ig Hanneman’s Tentet. Martin Van Duynhoven -- relationship with Fred unknown -- who plays electric drum set here, has worked with everyone from pianist Misha Mengelberg to reedist Ab Baars. Pianist and Wurlitzer organist Jeroen van Vliet plays in bassist Eric van der Westen’s band. Other band members are trumpeter Jeroen Doomernik, Frank Nielander on alto and tenor saxophones, Tessa Zoutendijk on violin, Hans Hasebos on keyboards and samples, Carel van Rijn on bass, Pieter Douma on bass guitar and vocalist Simin Tander.

Dispensing with the latter first, boasting a delivery that moves from little girl-like warbling to lyric soprano, Tander is rather underutilized, unless you understand Italian. Mostly she functions the way Laura Biscotto did on John Zorn’s The Big Gundown, which reinterpreted Enrico Morricone movie scores incidentally. She provides breathy, kitschy “sexy Italian vocals” and recitations.

Other places the exaggerated focus of the entire group is weakened with faux swing violin parts, curt rhythms and a Latinesque dance routine that collectively ends up sounding more like dramatic cues than composition.

To be honest when the bands strays farthest away from Rota’s somewhat baroque and overwrought themes with its original arrangements it sounds best. Case in point is the almost 11½-minute, five-part “Dolce Vita Suite”, and van der Graaf’s reworking of the main themes from “La Strada” and “Milano e Nadia”.

Drawing as much on the (Dutch) fanfare as the (Italian) banda tradition, for the first, the band blends walking bass and comping piano with long, clean staccato lines from an altoist. Along the way it moves from Rome to a “Parisian Thoroughfare” via suggestions of Charles Mingus and Max Roach, and ends with some fruity tenor sax lines, plunger brass and rippling piano arpeggios that wouldn’t be out of place in a pre-war Berlin cabaret.

The cabaret influence is also felt on “La Strada”, as a speedy tarantella-like tune built on high-pitched clarinet and wah-wah trumpet features the rhythm section aiming for a rock’n’roll beat. Fellini’s most instrumentally impressive track, it showcases van Vliet applying darker, low frequencies with heavy pressure to the piano keys and both [?] drummers showering hard and heavy rebounds and clattering ratamacues before ending with press rolls.

Another 1960-composed artifact, “Milano e Nadia” features mocking riffs from the horns, a bluesy piano section and abstract counterlines from the trumpet that lob bent notes into the stratosphere. When the double-timed, strummed chords from the piano pair up with shimmering electric keyboard waves, the variations nearly push the theme into indolent near stasis. It’s then up to a smeared soprano saxophone to loosen up the sounds. Changing character completely “Milano...” is taken out with some forced Bubber Miley-like blusiness from Doomernik.

Other pieces depend more on skittering piano chords, sampled accordion and electronics, brassy trumpet pops, dance rhythms and either galloping or rubato reed vibrations.

Overall, if the vocals and some of the more frantic output are put to one side, Fellini’s almost 69 minutes provide the more consistent vista. Still the more than 76 minute panorama that is With Strings Attached shows that after more than 30 years on the road, Breuker and the Kollektief are still after new challenges.

February 7, 2005

AB BARRS TRIO PLUS GUESTS

Party at the Bimhuis
Wig 09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

February 23, 2004

AB BAARS

SONGS
GeestGronden CD GG 22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ken Waxman

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

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

September 2, 2002