Blistrap

On Stage
Setola di Maiale SM 1560

Weavels

At Nether Edge

Discus 34CD

Recorded by two ad hoc combos with different names, these releases actually each feature Sheffield-based multi-reedist Mick Beck, a different local guitarist and a third musician. That there is so much coherence in the playing despite On Stage being an out-and-out Free Jazz exploration and At Nether Edge more of a study in Free Music minimalism, is moreover a tribute to Beck’s talents and adaptability.

Initially a tenor saxophonist with the improvising big band Feet Packets, Beck has had long-time association with drummer Paul Hession and shorter collaborations with other local and international improvisers. Today he is as apt to be heard playing bassoon or whistles as the saxophone. This instrumental unconventionality is taken a step further on the Weavels’ CD, with the band otherwise consisting of Alex Ward’s guitar and Chris Cundy’s bass clarinet. Self-taught the bass clarinetist works in a variety of ad hoc situation as well as in a duo with pianist Pat Thomas. Equally proficient on clarinet, Ward is part of a singer/songwriter duo as well as working in improv situations with drummer Steve Noble and bassist John Edwards among others. Similarly, Jonny Drury, Blistrap’s Sheffield-based guitarist, is self-taught, with his collaborators ranging from improvisers to outside rockers such as Genesis P-Orridge. Swiss-born, Pordenone-based drummer Stefano Giust completes the band. With, like Drury, an interest in electro-acoustics, the drummer has worked with the likes of saxophonist Gianni Gebbia, and cellist Tristan Honsinger.

This electronic influence is obvious on the three extended improvisations that make up On Stage; so is what can be termed Giust’s overt Italianism. What that means is that at points during the performances it appears that the percussionist can restrain himself no longer and begins enthusiastically shouting, joined by verbal elucidation from the other as well. Not only is the outcome boisterous, but it’s also profoundly non-Anglo-Saxon.

Similarly non-phlegmatic and unrestrained is the trio’s playing. On tenor on the first track for instance, Beck creates a montage of multiphonic overblowing, rugged slurs, horking honks and Aylerian puffs. These are met by ruffs and drags plus ratcheting cymbal slaps from the drummer and an undertow of splayed flanges and oscillated amplifier-pushed pulsations from the guitarist. As the church-bell-like chiming from Giust mixes it up with slashing licks from Drury, Beck, unfazed, brings out his slides whistles for passages that sound like a child chortling then bites hard on his sax reed for altissimo squeals. A subsequent drum-led turn to straight time relaxes the tension.

Although the noise from a nearby radio or TV broadcast eventually leaks into the free-form wall-of-sound, the more-then-half-hour final track is even more spectacular. Drury’s slack-key-like exposition quickly melds with diaphragm vibratos from Beck and Giust’s pops and clicks, eventually creating a collection of mutual protoplasmic wiggles upon which the saxophonist deposits honks slurs and cistern-draining staccato bites. While the drummer’s speedy, but irregularly spaced pops and drags, involve all three in thick Energy Music, this concentrated mass is frequently interrupted by guitar reverb and striated reed notes. Midway though, the guitarist’s extruded tones meet the reedist’s ghost notes and pitch vibrations. Resolution finally arrives when saxophone’s chromatic tongue-stopping and lip-burbling plus the guitarist’s country-styled but linear finger-picking join Giust’s irregular patterning for climatic cacophony.

Insect music consisting of unconnected timbres and scattered tones is a clichéd description of the British branch of EuroImprov. However on At Nether Edge, recorded a year earlier than On Stage, the Weavels make a conscious effort to avoid emphasizing singular sounds. Additionally attempts are made to avoid the nether edges as well. Each player gets a solo track, with Beck’s the most noteworthy, as he spins his tones into a near-scherzo of deconstructed squeaks, reed bites and body tube rustling.

Still the Weavels’ watchword is textural collaboration, not blustering bravado. On “Sheep” for instance, Cundy’s slippery contralto lines intersect with pedal-point bassoon slurs on top of methodical strums from Ward. As the strings create a rhythmic bottom, the reeds tongue slap, snort, quack and finally harmonize in coloratura (clarinet) and chalumeau (bassoon) tones. Before disrupting their interaction with contrasting aviary cries, Beck manages to work in blurry slide whistle shrills and clown-horn-like beeps.

Further notable cooperation is demonstrated on “Geese” – is there an anthropomorphic theme here? As Ward decorates the theme with staccato plinks and plunks, Cundy and Beck delineate separate reed paths. Moving from flat-line respiration to overblowing and tongue-fluttering the clarinetist stakes out a territory that is easily separated from the bassoonist’s. Beck’s timbres dynamically evolve from lyrical burbling to short bursts of pressurized air, attaining sequences of pedal-point snorts that could come from a hippo lolling contentedly. Segmenting his mellow growls with the odd slide whistle shriek, the bassoonist helps make the piece’s final variant polytonal as the guitarist’s top-of-neck staccato strokes and the bass clarinetist’s snorts and tongue stops reach satisfying counterpoint.

Take your pick – or sample both – of the trios which create memorable Free Music here. Not surprisingly, it seems, the bonding factor is Beck’s matchless skill with saxophone, bassoon and most anything else he can put in his mouth.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Edge: 1. Geese 2. You’ll wake the Children 3. Weather Report 4. Term Time 5. Half Drawn Eye 6. Sheep

Personnel: Edge: Chris Cundy (bass clarinet); Mick Beck (bassoon and whistles) and Alex Ward (guitar)

Track Listing: Stage: 1. Untitled improvisations, Live @ The Klinker, London 2. Untitled improvisations _ Live @ Noise Upstairs, Manchester 3. Untitled improvisations, Live @ Grind Sight Open Eye, Edinburgh,

Personnel: Stage: Mick Beck (tenor saxophone, balloons and whistles); Jonny Drury (guitar and electronics) and Stefano Giust (drums, cymbals and objects)

July 27, 2011

Weavels

At Nether Edge
Discus 34CD

Blistrap

On Stage

Setola di Maiale SM 1560

Recorded by two ad hoc combos with different names, these releases actually each feature Sheffield-based multi-reedist Mick Beck, a different local guitarist and a third musician. That there is so much coherence in the playing despite On Stage being an out-and-out Free Jazz exploration and At Nether Edge more of a study in Free Music minimalism, is moreover a tribute to Beck’s talents and adaptability.

Initially a tenor saxophonist with the improvising big band Feet Packets, Beck has had long-time association with drummer Paul Hession and shorter collaborations with other local and international improvisers. Today he is as apt to be heard playing bassoon or whistles as the saxophone. This instrumental unconventionality is taken a step further on the Weavels’ CD, with the band otherwise consisting of Alex Ward’s guitar and Chris Cundy’s bass clarinet. Self-taught the bass clarinetist works in a variety of ad hoc situation as well as in a duo with pianist Pat Thomas. Equally proficient on clarinet, Ward is part of a singer/songwriter duo as well as working in improv situations with drummer Steve Noble and bassist John Edwards among others. Similarly, Jonny Drury, Blistrap’s Sheffield-based guitarist, is self-taught, with his collaborators ranging from improvisers to outside rockers such as Genesis P-Orridge. Swiss-born, Pordenone-based drummer Stefano Giust completes the band. With, like Drury, an interest in electro-acoustics, the drummer has worked with the likes of saxophonist Gianni Gebbia, and cellist Tristan Honsinger.

This electronic influence is obvious on the three extended improvisations that make up On Stage; so is what can be termed Giust’s overt Italianism. What that means is that at points during the performances it appears that the percussionist can restrain himself no longer and begins enthusiastically shouting, joined by verbal elucidation from the other as well. Not only is the outcome boisterous, but it’s also profoundly non-Anglo-Saxon.

Similarly non-phlegmatic and unrestrained is the trio’s playing. On tenor on the first track for instance, Beck creates a montage of multiphonic overblowing, rugged slurs, horking honks and Aylerian puffs. These are met by ruffs and drags plus ratcheting cymbal slaps from the drummer and an undertow of splayed flanges and oscillated amplifier-pushed pulsations from the guitarist. As the church-bell-like chiming from Giust mixes it up with slashing licks from Drury, Beck, unfazed, brings out his slides whistles for passages that sound like a child chortling then bites hard on his sax reed for altissimo squeals. A subsequent drum-led turn to straight time relaxes the tension.

Although the noise from a nearby radio or TV broadcast eventually leaks into the free-form wall-of-sound, the more-then-half-hour final track is even more spectacular. Drury’s slack-key-like exposition quickly melds with diaphragm vibratos from Beck and Giust’s pops and clicks, eventually creating a collection of mutual protoplasmic wiggles upon which the saxophonist deposits honks slurs and cistern-draining staccato bites. While the drummer’s speedy, but irregularly spaced pops and drags, involve all three in thick Energy Music, this concentrated mass is frequently interrupted by guitar reverb and striated reed notes. Midway though, the guitarist’s extruded tones meet the reedist’s ghost notes and pitch vibrations. Resolution finally arrives when saxophone’s chromatic tongue-stopping and lip-burbling plus the guitarist’s country-styled but linear finger-picking join Giust’s irregular patterning for climatic cacophony.

Insect music consisting of unconnected timbres and scattered tones is a clichéd description of the British branch of EuroImprov. However on At Nether Edge, recorded a year earlier than On Stage, the Weavels make a conscious effort to avoid emphasizing singular sounds. Additionally attempts are made to avoid the nether edges as well. Each player gets a solo track, with Beck’s the most noteworthy, as he spins his tones into a near-scherzo of deconstructed squeaks, reed bites and body tube rustling.

Still the Weavels’ watchword is textural collaboration, not blustering bravado. On “Sheep” for instance, Cundy’s slippery contralto lines intersect with pedal-point bassoon slurs on top of methodical strums from Ward. As the strings create a rhythmic bottom, the reeds tongue slap, snort, quack and finally harmonize in coloratura (clarinet) and chalumeau (bassoon) tones. Before disrupting their interaction with contrasting aviary cries, Beck manages to work in blurry slide whistle shrills and clown-horn-like beeps.

Further notable cooperation is demonstrated on “Geese” – is there an anthropomorphic theme here? As Ward decorates the theme with staccato plinks and plunks, Cundy and Beck delineate separate reed paths. Moving from flat-line respiration to overblowing and tongue-fluttering the clarinetist stakes out a territory that is easily separated from the bassoonist’s. Beck’s timbres dynamically evolve from lyrical burbling to short bursts of pressurized air, attaining sequences of pedal-point snorts that could come from a hippo lolling contentedly. Segmenting his mellow growls with the odd slide whistle shriek, the bassoonist helps make the piece’s final variant polytonal as the guitarist’s top-of-neck staccato strokes and the bass clarinetist’s snorts and tongue stops reach satisfying counterpoint.

Take your pick – or sample both – of the trios which create memorable Free Music here. Not surprisingly, it seems, the bonding factor is Beck’s matchless skill with saxophone, bassoon and most anything else he can put in his mouth.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Edge: 1. Geese 2. You’ll wake the Children 3. Weather Report 4. Term Time 5. Half Drawn Eye 6. Sheep

Personnel: Edge: Chris Cundy (bass clarinet); Mick Beck (bassoon and whistles) and Alex Ward (guitar)

Track Listing: Stage: 1. Untitled improvisations, Live @ The Klinker, London 2. Untitled improvisations _ Live @ Noise Upstairs, Manchester 3. Untitled improvisations, Live @ Grind Sight Open Eye, Edinburgh,

Personnel: Stage: Mick Beck (tenor saxophone, balloons and whistles); Jonny Drury (guitar and electronics) and Stefano Giust (drums, cymbals and objects)

July 27, 2011

Grew Trio

It’s morning
Discus

Werchowska/Pontevia/Boubaker
Glotosifres
Creative Sources

By Ken Waxman
March 27, 2006

Whether it started with John Coltrane’s hour-long saxophone workouts in the 1960s, those extended Norman Granz-organized jam sessions in the 1940s, or, to go back further, Classic Jazzers taking chorus after chorus on standards like “When the Saints Go Marching In”, brevity has never been considered a virtue in improvised music.

This tendency was exacerbated with the invention of the lengthier and more expensive CD, as musicians previously able to say all they had to in 40-minute wedges, suddenly felt they had to lengthen each track to give the cost-conscious consumer an hour or more of music. Luckily that fad has lessened over the past couple of years, with astute performers acknowledging that quality wins out over quantity. These sessions by similarly constituted trios of musicians who live in different cities on either side of the English Channel provide the truth of that assessment.

Lancaster-based pianist Stephen Grew’s It’s morning, featuring bassoonist/tenor saxophonist Mick Beck from Sheffield and drummer Phillip Marks from Manchester, consists of eight compositions played in a mere 44½ minutes. Even more condensed, the three improvisations created by the co-operative trio of Paris-based pianist Nush Werchowska, drummer Mathias Pontévia of Bordeaux and alto saxophonist Heddy Boubaker, who lives near Toulouse, clock in at an economical two seconds less than 29 minutes. The playing standards of Werchowska/Pontevia/Boubaker’s Glotosifres and It’s morning are at such a high level however, that no listener should feel shortchanged by either set.

For instance, all of the French CD is dedicated to the non-idiomatic timbres that can be expressed with these traditional instruments, not unlike the similarly consisted trio of pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, reedist Evan Parker and percussionist Paul Lovens. Even more so than Lovens, however, Pontévia, who plays a self-constructed drum kit, and has worked with well-known Gallic improv explorers like reedist Daunik Lazro and pianist Frédéric Blondy, doersn’t hit or pummel his drums as much as sweep and scrape different parts of it. Werchowska, a member of the Machine Gun rock band with Pontévia, stops and scours the piano action with preparations as often as she extracts contrasting dynamics from the keys, and Boubaker, who plays with dancers as well as fellow sound experimenters such as saxophonist Michel Doneda and bassist Barre Phillips, peeps, squeaks and vibrates timbres and counter tones from his instrument.

Although Glotosifres’ three instant compositions were recorded in two different locations five months apart, they fit together without a glitch. During the course of the performances Pontévia concentrates on irregular pulsations, concentrated rumbles, percussive slaps and cymbal pops. Frequently as well, he seems to be swiffering his drum tops. For his part, Boubaker whistles hazily, peeps and whines irregularly, and while leaving proper pauses during his solos, vibrates subterranean growls or muffles abstract trills.

Werchowska is a revelation. Often double-stopping or dynamically jumping across the keys in a Cecil Taylor-like fashion, she also strums heavy-handed cadences in response to Boubaker’s accelerating, irregular split tones. Triggering internal sonics as if she was back at the electric keyboard of her rock band, Werchowska uses paper, cardboard or a metal tool on the acoustic piano’s internal wound strings to produce deadened cadences at the same time as she voices the external keys.

With the three players’ distinctive output as often smoothed as ruffled, an organic synergy is present throughout.

You could say the same for the Grew Trio. Part of the intimacy can be ascribed to the band members’ five year history together and their many tours. Not that this is the members’ exclusive improvising outlet. Part of Manchester’s Free Music scene for nearly 20 years, drummer Marks is also a member of the band Bark! with guitarist Rex Casswell and sampler player Paul Obermayer. Beck, who recorded a fine duo session with Grew on Bruce’s Fingers, regularly plays with drummer Paul Hession and bassist Simon H. Fell. As for Grew, whose keyboard voicing here sympathetically focus on clarity and melodic episodes, he’s a former visual artist, whose move to Lancaster 12 years ago convinced him to redirect his energies into music. Since then he has developed own language of scales and patterns, created music for a dance company and played with saxophonists as different as Lol Coxhill and Andy Sheppard.

Although Grew’s piano is frequently as prepared, pulled and propelled as Werchowska’s, when using conventional techniques, he defaults towards hyper-kinetic, almost boogie-woogie and stride configurations. In some cases these melodic fills are used as a base on which to counter the snap of Marks’ drums or his cymbal resonations. Other times rapid cadenzas rattle the soundboard as well as the keys. Duetting with Beck’s tenor saxophone, Grew’s jumping external keyboard arpeggios and plucked wound internal strings bring forth double-tongued undulations and muscular, split-toned grunts from the reedist.

“Good form and a bit of ankst (sic)” introduces rococo harmonies from the pianist as Beck playing bassoon and whistles, snorts bull-moose cries from one and rooster-like crowing from the other. Darting back and forth across the keys, Grew’s response is high- frequency mainstream chording and wavering pulses. Throughout Marks clanks and pops different parts of his kit using the occasional rim shot for emphasis. Impressive as all this is – especially when Beck punctuates his solo with irregularly pitched split tones and a few mouthpiece kisses – the three seem to be improvising in broken octaves, parallel rather than in unison.

More memorable are the three penultimate tracks – “Getting Hungry” and “For Stalactites” which run into one another, and the second-to-last “Midnight Revels”. Eerily reprising the heights of Energy Music, the last piece showcases snorting tenor saxophone lines studded with repeated double-tongued groans and split tones. Rocketing to altissimo pitches and diving to glottal growls, the reedist’s zeal is equaled by Grew, who after a few showy glissandi pumps out flowing cadenzas of curlicue lines. Meanwhile the drummer rolls, rebounds and stays out of the way.

The connected preceding tunes build up from a combination of swiftly tongued foghorn-like tones from the bassoon and buoy-marking ratchets from the percussionist. Polyphonically it soon seems as if Marks is cuffing and agitating his bass and smaller drums while Beck tongue stops and shatters phrases, finally squealing double reed timbres that soar from altissimo to sopranissimo at full tilt. Grew enters in the second of the double-barreled numbers with strummed phrases and hesitant single notes reminiscent of a similar strategy used by minimalist John Tilbury. By this point playing on the rims and sides of his drums, Marks subsequent bell-ringing and snare-bumping provides the perfect coda to Beck’s expansive honk that climatically shreds into internal squeaks.

Precisely the proper length for what they set out to accomplish, both CDs confirm that a succinct improvised session – or two for that matter – is more stimulating than ones

drawn-out for no good reason.

March 27, 2006

ASAF SIRKIS & THE INNER NOISE

We Are Falling
Konnex KCD 5150

COMBAT ASTRONOMY
The Dematerialised Passenger
Discus 20CD

Reduced to cliché elsewhere, the jazz and improv part of jazz-rock fusion still survives in isolated corners of the music business. In the United Kingdom, one spot is London, another Sheffield, while in the United States there’s St. Paul, Minn. [!]

At least it would seem so on the evidence of these CDs. Israeli-born, London-based drummer Asaf Sirkis has put out the second CD by his Inner Noise trio, which he admits is as influenced as much by Weather Report and Allan Holdsworth as Sun Ra. A continuation of the band’s first CD, WE ARE FALLING differs since Steve Lodder is able to play a special midi keyboard with an organ feel and special keyboard set-up with bass pedals, instead of the church organ used on the band’s debut disc.

The eight Sirkis compositions that share a definite ProgRock feel, depend on their shape from the teamwork among his powerhouse drumming, Lodder’s squeezed and shaped churchy tones and finger-style soloing of guitarist Mike Outram. But heaviness sets in during the program as it appears that an overload of overwrought jazz-rock licks is masking the attempts at pure improv.

Even more aggressively industrially powered, THE DEMATERIALIZED PASSENGER is odder because it achieves these beat-laden effects with unconventional – for fusion – instrumentation. For a start there are no drums – the obvious beats appear to come from the bass guitar, electronics and programming of St. Paul-based James Huggett or the electronics of Sheffield’s Martin Archer.

Archer, whose usual milieu is thick, electronic-invented soundscapes, also plays alto and sopranino saxophones, bass clarinet and violin here, while Huggett also plays guitar. Other members of Combat Astronomy are two other Archer-associated BritImprovisers, Mick Beck on bassoon and Charlie Collins on flute. Here too the sheer brutality of the rhythm – electronically created or otherwise – almost severs any connections to Energy music top which the horns might aspire.

With his trio reconfigured because “not a lot of jazz clubs have a church organ,” admits Sirkis, the Inner Noise CD has enough outer noise on it to satisfy less subtle types. Still, Loddrer’s shimmering pulsations do give some compositions an ecclesiastical feel.

Perhaps the most remarkable facet of WE ARE FALLING is how unobtrusive Sirkis is. Combat Astronomy’s faux percussion pounds more relentlessly than any cross rhythm the live drummer creates. Often moving across the beat for bass drum emphasis or cymbal strokes, he works with a surprising lightness.

If only you could say the same for the others. Outram’s dependence on guitar hero showmanship, ringing distorted single notes, the whammy bar and the effects pedal hasn’t abated from the first CD. As for Lodder, his madrigal-like note sprinkles – or on the final track romantic full-fingered tinkling piano fills– are often superseded by quivering organ-like pulsations. This reaches a crescendo of sorts on the title track when he appears to have overloaded the keys with an upsurge of crashing chords whose genesis is Keith Emerson or E. Power Biggs showmanship, rather than layered Jimmy Smith-like organization. After a gap, the entire CD ends with one minute of fatuous keyboard noodling. Improvisation may be paramount here, but so is excess. Perhaps a rethinking of the concept and new configuration may be in order.

Pile driver, brutal and drone are the words that come to mind when considering the unyielding beat that seems to infect every one of the 10 compositions on the other CD. If Beck is given some space for a raucous bassoon line, for example, then head- banging thrashes and fuzz-tone guitar licks almost bury it. Collins tries out some buzzing and echoing flute tones late on the CD, in triple counterpoint with snorting bassoon and Archer’s melodic bass clarinet, but the percussion barrage becomes overpowering here as well.

Archer’s cross-cutting saxophone trills and tongue slaps plus spittle-encrusted pops bring an avant-garde interface to some tunes, but industrial style and strength guitar reverb triumphs over all else. There are times when the saxophonist’s reed bites almost resemble punker James Chance’s attempts at Free Jazz, but Archer has certainly proven his superiority to Chance many other places.

High octane performances and on a higher level than your average rock-fusion session, both CDs may only appeal to those who are keen on being bludgeoned by improv sounds.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Dematerialised: 1. Greedy Angels 2. Time Stamp 3. Body of Incus 4. Collapsing Runways 5. Orion 6. Sulphur (mercurated) 7. Bad Phaser 8. Serpents 9. The Dematerialised Passenger 10. Solar Guitars

Personnel: Dematerialised: Martin Archer (alto and sopranino saxophones, bass clarinet, violin and electronics); Mick Beck (bassoon); Charlie Collins (flute) and James Huggett (guitar, bass guitar, electronics and programming)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. Another Being 2. Life Itself 3. Galactic Citizen (Part 1) 4. Galactic Citizen (Part 2) 5. We Are Falling 6. The Bottomless Pit Surrounding You 7. Spirit 8. Ida & Dactyl (and Ghost of Dactyl)

Personnel: Falling: Mike Outram (guitars); Steve Lodder (keyboards) and Asaf Sirkis (drums and keyboards)

December 26, 2005

BAILEY/BECK/HESSION

Meanwhile, back in Sheffield
Discus 21CD

FREE BASE
The Ins and Outs
Emanem 4116

Free Improv merry-go-rounds, these CDs feature veteran players from the United Kingdom extending themselves in previously unrecorded trio formations.

Oversight and commitments to other groups are why, after a decade of existence, the fine Free Base trio debuts on record with THE INS AND OUTS. Conversely, MEANWHILE, BACK IN SHEFFIELD captures on disc a now-uncommon occurrence: the first live gig in a decade by that British city’s best-known native improviser: guitarist Derek Bailey, now a Barcelona-resident. He’s joined by local Mick Beck on tenor saxophone, whistles and bassoon, and drummer Paul Hession from Leeds. Both men have played individually with Bailey, but never recorded with him in this formation.

Each player on the other CD has a similar intertwined BritImprov history. After a stint in jazz-rock drummer Steve Noble was involved in a few of Bailey’s Company Weeks and more recently played in bassist Simon Fell’s quintet. Fell, Hession and Free Base’s alto and baritone saxophonist Alan Wilkinson form another longstanding Free Jazz trio. Before that, the ferocious reed-shredder was in Art Bart & Fargo with Hession and a member of Feetpacket with Beck.

Mario Mattos, who plays bass and electronics in Free Base, is as experienced a player on THE INS AND OUTS as Bailey is on the other date. The Brazilian-born bassist has worked with every other musician on both dates in some context or another, while Mattos’ other associations have ranges from pianist Chris Burn’s Ensemble to sessions with saxophonist George Haslam.

Despite this near incestuous relationship between the trio members, the final CDs are anything but interchangeable. Again, the divergence arises from the veteran members. Adding his solid bass work to the coarse textures spewed from Wilkinson’s reeds and the rumble and punch of Noble’s percussion, Mattos’ presence means that Free Base’s CD leans towards take-no-prisoners Energy Music. With eight long pieces allowed to germinate during this 72-minute studio session each player aptly defines his territory.

Recorded live – but with audience applause excised – the barely 53 minute MEANWHILE, BACK IN SHEFFIELD reproduces the concert exactly as it evolved. Bailey’s hyper-distinctive guitar phrasing is such that while Beck sometimes screams and squeals through both horns, and Hession unleashes fierce cross-handed textures, the fretman guides the improvisations. Oh course, whether this happens through tacit musical agreement, the force of Bailey’s personality or the others’ deference to an elder is open to interpretation.

Showpiece track is “After The Red Deer”, the nearly-33-minute opening salvo. Beginning with bird-whistle chirps from Beck and understates flams from Hession, it gains its shape from Bailey’s distinctive strums and string swipes. Soon the saxophonist’s sparrow peeps swell to crow-like caws as he tops off the body tube with glottal punctuation and tongue-fluttering.

With the drummer limiting himself to nerve beats and wooden concussions, the guitarist’s irregular patterns, scraping pulsation and quaking reverb match Beck’s spacious tone expelling, finally diminishing to trilling obbligatos from the reedist and claw-hammer picking from the guitarist. Asserting himself, Bailey chromatically works his way across his strings and frets, goading Hession to follow suit with snare press rolls, cymbal slaps and drumstick-across-the-metal squeaks.

Beck’s response in the improvisation’s penultimate minutes is to bring out his bassoon, showcasing basso quivers, and side-slipping sonority. Diminishing his own contribution to a dewy mist of spiky notes, the guitarist presages the ending with highly rhythmic chording.

Both other, shorter instant compositions feature more of the same, with Bailey and Hession sticking to spanked and tapped single note textures. Meanwhile Beck consolidates his sound, at one point spraying a wailing melody with one horn as he simultaneously peeps penny-whistle decoration. As a maximalist, his solos often consumes the entire sonic space.

You might say the same about Wilkinson’s harsh blowing on the other CD.

For instance the almost 13½-minutes of “Absolute Xero” [sic], finds him spewing out a series of irregular, nearly reed-melting pitch variations and multiphonic variations. As Noble pounds his drum tops and exercises the rivets on his pang cymbal, Mattos quickens his pace from slurred fingering to spiccato tones, eventually resorting to a combination of triple stops and string riffs. As animalistic cries fly from Wilkinson’s horn, Noble proactively bangs his drum stick together as if they were castanets and smacks single tones from the cymbals and the wooden parts of his kit. Appearing to be burrowing ferret-like within the kit, this resolution coupled with the bassist stretching and scratching his lines sul tasto serves as the climax, with a simple reed timbre as the coda.

Tunes such as “I Wak [sic] On (for John Lester)” and “Sortie” – unsurprisingly the final number – show off the Free Jazz-oriented disparity between Free Base’s conception and Bailey, Beck and Hession’s model. The former begins with a single boppish whack from Noble and swamping bass runs from Mattos, which sets up distinctive sonorous coloring from Wilkinson’s baritone. Initially favoring a legato approach to the larger horn, eventually Wilkinson turns to reed-biting in false registers and bell-muting stops. Measured panting grunts that seem to emanate from his horn’s bow rather than the mouthpiece, allows him to he produce two different reed textures and a satisfactory climax.

Rubato low-pitched horn obbligatos that despite extended timbres almost sound Mainstream characterize “Sortie”. Could the saxman have internalized Gerry Mulligan’s smoothness? Behind him Noble pops his toms and vibrates cymbal tops as Mattos quietly plucks his base. Then as the tonal centre shifts, the reed lines shatter, side-slip and smear. Sul ponticello sweeps and drum beats delivered with strength and passion are the responses of the other two. Conclusive penny whistle-like shrills from the saxophonist, a rare dip into electronic pulses from the bassist, and bravura floor tom ruffs and constant cymbal pounding combine for a concluding crescendo.

Many improvisers from the United Kingdom are interconnected through similar playing experiences. Yet these CDs prove that when it comes to free sounds different groups easily create textures as distinctive as the country’s topography.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Meanwhile: 1. After the Red Deer 2. Raining 3.Buckets

Personnel: Meanwhile: Mick Beck (tenor saxophone, bassoon and whistles); Derek Bailey (guitar); Paul Hession (drums)

Track Listing: Ins: 1. Trepid (09.14) 2. Sea Frett (05.5 3. Absolute Xero 4. Skzypce 5. Kissing the Shuttle 6. Soup Song 7. I Wak On (for John Lester) 8.Sortie

Personnel: Ins: Alan Wilkinson (alto and baritone saxophones); Mario Mattos (bass and electronics); Steve Noble (percussion)

December 5, 2005

MILO FINE/MICK BECK/PAUL HESSION

Motion Ejecta
Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1164

An Anglo-American concordance, this CD celebrates a reciprocal idea exchange between three men who help nurture free improv scenes in their hometowns.

It’s also a musical souvenir from an American abroad, in this case Minneapolis, Minn.’s drummer/clarinetist Milo Fine, who works with two Englishmen -- Leeds-based drummer Paul Hession and Sheffield reedist Mick Beck -- as if they constituted a regular group, rather than participants in a second meeting. Fine played with the others at guitarist Derek Bailey’s Company Week in 1988. Miraculously on the tracks here, the three pick up the musical thread as if there was no 15-year hiatus.

Because of his location, the drummer/reedist is an old hand at instant sound transactions. At home in the Twin Cities with guitarist Steve Gnitka, he’s welcomed guests ranging from French saxist/clarinetist André Jaume to multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee for improv sessions.

MOTION EJECTA is a bit different. It’s one example of the 16 gigs he participated in England during a 6½-week period in 2003, he also traded licks with a clutch of Brit improvisers including Bailey, drummer Roger Turner and bassist Tony Wren. His interaction with Beck and Hession was particularly simpatico though, perhaps because he has worked out cooperative strategies for reeds and drums for the past 20-odd years. Hession has also worked with McPhee as well as such distinct personalities as bassist Simon H. Fell and baritone saxist George Haslam. Beck’s playing partners range from Bailey to Fell and way beyond.

Most breathtaking -- literally -- of the collaborations here is the more than 34-minute “Point 1”, though the strategies developed show up on the shorter tracks as well. Each man expresses his individual approach, but there are also times when not only isn’t it clear whether it’s Fine’s or Beck’s reed playing or Hession or Fine using the drum set, but also as to which instrument a particular sound should be ascribed.

Elephant-trumpeting lines first arise from Beck’s tenor saxophone as bird-like chirruping obbligatos from Fine’s clarinet curve around it. Intense, Beck is soon biting off great hunks of double-stopping tones as Hession works his way around the rims and other portions of his kit with flams, bounces and rebounds and Fine twitters away in treetop high freak registers. Then Beck brings out his bassoon, and its droning, grumbling ejaculations push everything else out of the way. Able to double -- and triple -- tongue on a double reed, he creates dissonant textures you wouldn’t associate with the usual orchestral instrument; at points it almost sounds like a pizzicato bass. Beck’s repetitive obbligato so energizes Fine, that he too spritzes Aylerian trills and cries that would be defined as ponticello if they came from strings.

Hession’s -- and perhaps Fine’s -- cymbals set off a distant, understated whir as Beck sounds both his double reed and whistle in tandem, creating a primitive Rahsaan Roland Kirk-like depiction. Scooping notes from his body tube, he vibrates his lips and diaphragm, mating extreme flattement with half-yelled cries. A return to tenor for a duet with Hession is soon scotched as Fine adds his clarinet, so that the meshed reed textures sound as if they come from the bellows of an accordion.

Moving between legato smoothness, circular breathing and reed barks, the British reedist sets an almost impossibly high criterion for the American. But Fine soon introduces obtuse wiggling tones and offbeat smears to meet Beck’s ascending glottal tongue stops until the two reach a polyphonic harmony of broken octaves with the clarinet squeaking simian-like and the saxophone muzzily honking. Skirting stop time by a ligature length, the drummer’s polyrhythms bring them closer together. Unconventional as the other two in his playing, Hession spanks rim shots that sound like reed tongue slaps pushing both hornmen up and down the scale, to end with glottal stops.

Shorter -- a more than 17 minutes and an almost 5½-minute condensations of the first track -- the other two pieces extend and amplify the cooperation that developed among the three and are from another concert recorded two days later.

Perhaps this CD was a one-off meeting for a few gigs. But it captures exhilarating and extraordinary intercommunication.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Point 1* 2. Adelphi 1 3. Adelphi 2

Personnel: Milo Fine (Bb and Eb clarinets, drums*); Mick Beck, tenor saxophone (bassoon, voice, whistle); Paul Hession (drums)

November 15, 2004

KOPINSKI & KONIKIEWICZ

Zone K
SLAM CD 252

BECK/HESSION/THOMAS
The three b’s
fencing flatworm recordings ff019

Putting electric keyboards into a trio with reeds and drums can sometimes overbalance the sonority, so that it moves away from pure improv and closer to rhythmic simplicity. Because the gizmos are set up to hold and accentuate notes, it appears to be easier to create riffs, vamps and blends then investigate more cerebral experiments. This tendency can be further exacerbated if the keyboardist’s playing partners lean towards simpler syncopation as well.

ZONE K and THE THREE B’S -- both recorded live -- show what can and can’t be done in this format. The later is more thought provoking because the trio members choose the experimental over the popular every time. Not that, except for a couple of instances, that there’s anything cheap or pandering with the first CD. However both impressionistic accompaniment and obstreperous rock rhythms are emphasized over unreserved improvisations.

In a way this shouldn’t be a surprise. Two of the players --- alto and tenor saxophonist Jan Kopinski and drummer Steve Harris -- have been part of Nottingham, England’s almost quarter-century old Free/Funk/Punk Jazz quintet Pinski Zoo. The third, Polish keyboardist/pianist Wojtek Konikiewicz, who also composes in genres including orchestral, chamber, electronic and what he calls Progressive Jazz -- wasn’t that Stan Kenton’s catchphrase?-- has toured on-and-off with Pinski Zoo since 1987.

The basic tension in Pinski Zoo has always been the conflict between Kopinski’s impassioned, Coltranesque extemporizations on tenor saxophone and the basic rock pulse set out by Harris and others. Konikiewicz’s presence seems to overweigh the equation. As one of Warsaw’s busiest and most versatile performers his dexterity in so many genres may it difficult to track down the inner musician.

On “Troika”, for instance, the thematic funk he produces from the keys comes complete with a heavy bass line, which when coupled with on-the-beat percussion bring to mind Georgie Fame at the Flamingo or Graham Bond at the Roundhouse. Later on, his wah-wah clavinet textures seem to have migrated from a 1970s Herbie Hancock date, along with Harris’ bounces and ruffs. It gets so that Kopinski on alto sax takes on a Dave Sanborn persona, with nothing to relieve the buttery-smooth R&B smudges but a few half-hearted reed screams.

Although Kopinski manages to stick to tenor, the penultimate and final numbers don’t fare that much better. Both include an earsplitting buzz, which one would hope is a mixing board malfunction rather than the height of Polish electronica -- no joke, or offence intended -- with Harris accentuating every beat he can and Konikiewicz’s oscillating keyboard thumps. Well-modulated themes and long-lined cadenzas from the saxman sound as if they were created in isolation, with the endproduct conjuring up a picture of John Coltrane in a studio with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer. The overall result is too rough to be radio friendly, but too smooth to be truly exciting.

Nadir is reached on “Impresja XV”, however, a solo feature for Konikiewicz. On acoustic grand piano his chameleon-like style is on full display. As flowery as it’s impressionistic, his strummed tremolos and extended arpeggios seem to change influences on almost every note, calling forth suggestions of Keith Jarrett [!], Art Tatum [!!], Frédéric Chopin [!!!], and Floyd Cramer [!!!!].

Thankfully the two first -- and longest -- tracks are much better. They may even save the disc for Kopinski fans. The saxman, whose allegiance appears to be with the modal Coltrane and earlier tenor men, spins out some smooth counterlines here, double timing in the lower register of the horn. Harris’ drumming is steadier, exhibiting a bopper’s reliance on cymbals, drum rolls and bomb dropping, and Konikiewicz’s comping encompasses modal runs, steady vamps and chromatic fills.

Funk and pop seem to be the farthest thing from the minds and instruments of the all-British trio on THE THREE B’S. For a start, while keyboardist Pat Thomas may have grounding in other styles, his major alliance is to FreeImprov in the company of practitioners such as drummer Tony Oxley, Swiss violist Charlotte Hug and the Norwegian-British co-op, No spaghetti edition. Another longtime improviser, drummer Paul Hession has been part of The Anglo-Argentine Jazz Quartet with saxophonist George Haslam, and in many of bassist Simon H. Fell’s projects. Reedist Mick Beck has worked with pianist Stephen Grew and Fell, playing both tenor saxophone and bassoon, both of which are on display here.

If there’s an unfortunate aspect to this disc is that the applause is bluntly truncated at the end of each track. Who knows, though, it could have gone on for many minutes, since Beck, Hession and Thomas were in fine form on that night in Leeds.

Certainly Thomas skronks out sharp, amplified tones almost from the first second, quickly converting them into supersonic, Sun Ra-like outer space timbres. Meanwhile Beck squeezes out a protracted bassoon line that sounds as if it’s levitating him from the stage, and Hession uses bare sticks as well as toms and snares for rhythmic impetus. As the sonorous double reed blows resolutely it surmounts a steady drum roll, bell-like clinks from the cymbals and keyboard glisses. When Thomas’ output begins to resemble that of a No Wave guitarist, Hession adapts the sort of Post Rock beat that ZONE K aimed for and missed. The entire rave up ends with Beck honking away on his sax then mumbling through the mouthpiece.

“Boracic lint” finds Thomas’ tremolo bass line suggesting Jimmy Smith’s fancy footwork on the organ pedals, while Hession’s rock-solid beat meets a bassoon pedal point ostinato and reed solos in the cello range. Then on “B arty”, the colored air moving through the amplified bassoon sounds like a combination of racing car acceleration and a sitar with loosened strings. Sine wave pressure from the keyboard is interrupted by pre-recorded voices from a radio talk show, with other portions of the program popping in and out of the subsequent cacophony. A shimmering keyboard pulse then melds with crashing drumbeats until both are surmounted by jagged, offcentre tenor saxophone cries.

Finally the most versatility shows up on “B party”, where samples of Country-Pop tunes vie for aural supremacy with what could be the output from a penny whistle and a musette. Soon hollow drum sounds meet Beck seemingly playing “Reveille”, then constant runs and squeals give way to what appears to be the sounding of an unaccompanied Indonesian gong. Horn honks, ascending space ship shudders and what could be the fretting of a mechanized banjo end the piece.

Nearly 46 minutes of first-class improv, THE THREE B’S is a session that should be sought out. It proves irrefutably that the mechanized weaknesses of the electrical keyboard can be overcome by the right people.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Zone: 1. Corner jam 2. Night to dream 3. Troika 4. Impresja XV 5. Trinity Meet 6. Pool Fool

Personnel: Zone: Jan Kopinski (alto and tenor saxophones); Wojtek Konikiewicz (piano, keyboard); Steve Harris (drums)

Track Listing: Three: 1. B hind 2. B patient 3. B party 4. B arty 5. Boracic lint 6. B ware of the ***

Personnel: Three: Mick Beck (tenor saxophone, bassoon); Pat Thomas (keyboards, samples); Paul Hession (percussion)

October 6, 2003

IMPROVISERS 1988-1998

By Jo Fell
Bruce’s Fingers 42

Lively arts of about the same vintage, photography and improvised music seem to have a potent relationship to one another. Think of how our view of early jazz and blues performers like King Oliver, Fats Waller and Blind Lemon Jefferson has been influenced by how they appear in their pictures. There are even a few, like the legendary New Orleans cornettist Buddy Bolden, who only exist in one snapshot and old-timers’ memories.

More recently, the moody introspective photos of Herman Leonard, all pinpoint details and curling cigarette smoke, defined Bebop for many people. The bright, outdoor portraits of William Claxton did the same for Cool Jazz.

New music calls for new photographic thinking, however, and that’s what Jo Fell presents in this short volume of 34 high-quality reproductions. Using only available light and non-intrusive techniques, Fell depicts a cross-section of British improvisers in performance from 1988 to 1998.

Along the way, she makes it a point to try to capture the creative process and the intersection of performer and instrument itself, rather than creating strict portraits of the players in these mostly black and white shots. Thus saxophonist Mick Beck is rendered as a giant hand filling the frame pressing on different keys. In the shadows, mouth open, hands on his hips, singer Koichi Makigami resembles an Inuit sculpture. In one color photo bassist Simon H. Fell’s upper body seems to be made of Plasticine as it’s captured in the act of movement; and one stark shot of violinist Phil Wachsmann emphasizes the illumination on his fiddle, his bow and his bald pate.

Fell isn’t the only photographer working this way of course. Toronto’s Susan O’Connor has also built up an impressive inventory of available-light performance photos; and obviously there are others. Still as Mao Tse-tung once stated, let a thousand flowers bloom. Let many photographers capture improvised music at its most free and preserve it as Fell has done. Certainly anyone interested in the look and feel of so-called BritImprov during that crucial decade would be wise to investigate her book.

-- Ken Waxman

January 27, 2003

Simon H. Fell

Composition No. 30.
Bruce’s Fingers BF 27

The compositions and performance of British bassist Simon H. Fell on this two-CD set may be the long-awaited physical flowering of Gunther Schuller’s and John Lewis’ ideas from the 1960s. Fell may also have taken those theories even further.

In the early 1960s, Schuller, a modern composer, French hornist and head of Boston’s New England Conservatory; and Lewis, pianist and music director of the Modern Jazz Quartet; conceived of Third Stream music that would combine elements of music’s first and second streams of classical music and jazz. They recorded a few albums and even put together a mixed jazz and classical ensemble called Orchestra USA.

Due to hostility from so-called serious musicians these experiments came to an abrupt end shortly afterwards. Faced with rock’s hegemony, non-pop music was occupied with survival for the next 20 or so years. So it wasn’t until composers like Anthony Braxton John Zorn and Muhal Richard Abrams on the American side and Barry Guy and Alexander von Schlippenbach at the European end started writing for larger ensembles that the Third Stream term again came into use.

More inter-genre contacts seemed to be possible in Europe, probably due to an interest in improvisation from younger musicians of both schools. But despite many attempts, the number of successful so-called Third Stream pieces remained small. At least that is until Fell came along. Although he would probably bristle at the Third Stream label, the bassist has for many years tried for, as he terms it, “a blurring of distinctions between jazz, improvised and classical musics”.

The more than two hours of studio-based assemblages that make up this session are his most exciting fusion yet. Not only do improvisers, a big band and a chamber ensemble interact, but considering that there are loud, speedy solos from at least three electric guitarists, elements of rock enter into the mix as well. Plus there’s also a bit of tape manipulation and transmutation.

With 42 players involved at various times the listener really does need the CD booklet, where Fell outlines his musical philosophy and how some parts of the composition, which is also subtitled Compilation III, came together. Especially valuable, due to the combinations and recombinations involved, is the jewel box insert which serves as a sort of scorecard, noting by exact time and position on each track, which musician is involved in which improvisation. Some of the improvisations are completely free; others are based on graphic or verbal suggestions. Most of the remaining music is notated.

Notated and manipulated, it should be added. For while all the parts were recorded live, the sessions took place during a four-month period in 1998 with not everyone assembled in the same place at the same time. Thus there will be portions where a musician will be soloing over the pre-recorded sounds from another section of the suite. Probably the most memorable example of this comes on “Part 3: Blues”, the creation of which Fell directly relates to the influence of Charles Ives, Charles Mingus and John Cage. With written sections suggesting Mingus’ gospel-oriented tunes, the duo improvisations were constructed in a unique fashion. Tenor saxophonist Mick Beck performed his solo while listening to a recording of the orchestra rhythm section through headphones. Synchronously Paul Hession produces a percussion program in reaction to Beck’s improvisations, but deliberately without headphones, can’t hear the rhythm section work to which the saxophonist is reacting.

Beck and Hession are merely two of Fell’s long time associates who add heft and highlights to the written composition. Another is contrabass clarinetist Charles Wharf. Often paired with a bassoonist and/or a contrabassoonist to fabricate a concrete-like bottom, when his tone isn’t subterranean, it screeches from the unwieldy instrument’s highest register. Other standouts include drummer Mark Saunders, whose solo section in “Part 4: Rhythm” with brass and string backing, allows him to ranges all over his kit, sounding crash cymbals, hi-hat, snare rims and a wood block and getting a bongo-like tone from one of his attached drums.

There’s also vibist Orphry Robinson, who is usually found in less experimental contexts. On “Construct 3”, for instance he unveils some swinging mainstream style-bar vibrations which nicely contrast with the cymbal on drumstick screeching and irregular rhythms of both Hession and Sanders. But considering that Fell is noted as playing with both men at the same time you probably wonder which sounds are live and which are Memorex. “Interlude”, also featuring Robinson, is a subdued swinger whose vibes-and-bass lilt brings to mind Red Norvo’s trio with Mingus or George Shearing’s quintets. Fell writes, perhaps jokingly, that he wrote it by applying tone row to a chorale by J.S. Bach. Since Bach’s work was also a frequent inspiration for the MJQ’s Lewis, maybe Third Stream connections assert themselves without the composer realizing it.

When guitarists Colin Medlock and Stefan Jaworzyn are given their heads, however, the results differ. In the former case screaming solos often resemble the most high-octane fuzztone creations of arena rock heroes like Eric Clapton and Alvin Lee. For the later, while his Jimi Hendrix-like firepower is put to good use, as in the composition’s very first track, by the final number his frantic jazz-rock flat picking has been framed in a context of an orchestral free-jazz blowout, almost the way Larry Coryell was integrated into Jazz Composer’s Orchestra (JCO) pieces in 1968. Unlike the JCO piece though, all this happens in the background is one episode of pretty string and woodwind laden medieval sounding music is succeeded by frighteningly intense orchestral sounds that could easily have been the soundtrack for a Hollywood suspense film of the early 1950s.

Other times soloists will step out from the big band to play at various time -- in one trumpeter’s case -- bits reminiscent of mainstreamer Clark Terry, hard bopper Freddie Hubbard or impressionistic Kenny Wheeler, introducing either brassy fanfares or delicate half-valve trills depending on the section.

Fell who at various times also contributes a Cagean interlude on prepared piano and some eccentric New music-like harpsichord, doesn’t lose his jazz bone fides either. It’s his bass line that often shapes both the written and non-written parts of the suite, while on the “Trio” track his arco sweeps match the miscellaneous percussion soundings from Sanders and tenor saxophonist John Butcher’s phrase shifting and split tones.

With further notated and improvised techniques, including a synchronous tutti, variations on a chromatic scale, a six chord fanfare and many others in use during the session’s 125 minute playing time, musical examination and explanation could go on in a review three times this length.

However to fully understand the CDs, note another question Fell once asked in an interview. “Why can’t you have great jazz, great improvisation and great contemporary classical music all at the same time?”

Why not indeed? He has certainly proven that the theorem is possible with this impressive session.

-- Ken Waxman

Gary Farr, Tony Rees-Roberts, Joanne Baker (trumpets); Paul Wright, Carol Jarvis, Matthew Harrison (trombones); Andrew Oliver (tuba); David Tollington, Tim Page (French horns); Nikki Dyer (piccolo, flute); Sam Koczy (oboe); Becky Smith (clarinet); Charles Wharf (contrabass clarinet); John Butcher(soprano, tenor saxophones); Carl Raven (soprano saxophones, clarinet); Simon Willescroft (alto saxophone); Hayley Cornick (alto saxophone, flute); Mick Beck, Kathy Hird (tenor saxophones); Alan Wilkinson (baritone saxophone); Jo Luckhurst (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet); Irene Lifke (violin); Mark Wastell, Matthew Wilkes, Kate Hurst (cellos); Justin Quinn (acoustic guitar); Stefan Jaworzyn, Colin Medlock, Damien Bowskill, Andrew Stewart (guitars); Rhodri Davies (harp); Thanea Stevens (dulcichord); Fardijah Freedman (harpsichord); Guy Avern (piano, bass guitar); James Cuthill (prepared piano); Opry Robinson (vibes); John Preston (bass);Simon H. Fell (bass, prepared piano, harpsichord); Paul Hession, Mark Sanders (drums)

January 13, 2003

MICK BECK/STEPHEN GREW

Picture August
Bruce’s Fingers BF 34

EMMANELLE CISI/PAOLO BIRRO
Hidden Songs
Splasc (H) CDH 756.2

Two musicians, two instruments, two countries and two completely different approaches to improvisation are reflected on these two CDs. Ostensibly avant garde, the British improvisers on PICTURE AUGUST have actually created music that’s pretty accessible if you give it a chance. Meanwhile, although HIDDEN SONGS is undoubtedly a relaxed ballad session, the Italian musos challenge the casual listener to find the familiar songs’ buried in their hidden melodies, harmonies or forms.

On his duo session, reedist Mick Beck, best-known as a ferocious tenor saxophonist who has worked with the likes of bassist Simon H. Fell and guitarist Derek Bailey, ups the ante and doubles his reeds by playing bassoon on two numbers. Putting the instrument to uses that its orchestral makers probably never imagined, Beck produces sounds that range from the reverberations of a bull moose’s cry to the kazoo-like squeaks of shredding comb-and-tissue-paper. Proving he can play those Tubby-the-tuba low notes, the saxophonist mostly lets the instrument’s natural echo illuminate the pieces. Meanwhile Grew, who has developed own language of scales and patterns, created music for a dance company and played with saxophonists as different as Lol Coxhill and Andy Sheppard, pretty much goes his own way. However his exposition is formal and sometime heavy-handed, where Beck’s tone is playful and comic.

The natural acoustical feel of the chapel where this session was recorded sometimes give you the feeling that in his work Grew is a few notes away from playing “God Save The Queen” or some Anglican hymn. Bringing a celeste-like sound to some of his higher keyboard excursions, his steady rolling accompaniment is most prominent on “Upflucht”. Turbulently squeezing out distorted burrs and smeary spit, Beck attacks the tune with ascending reed trills. The saxophonist’s open mouthpiece key pops on “A good ballad” (sic) suggest how an inebriate would sound playing -- or spraying -- this slack tempo piece. Meanwhile, Grew accompanies him with odd note clusters.

Earlier, on “Molten metal”, the saxman’s collection of growling toots actually gets the pianist to not only go two-fisted on him, but figuratively dig his right hand into the keyboard to create his own trills and some harp-like glissandos.

A memorable showing all round.

Much further south and on the European continent, tenor saxophonist Emanuele Cisi and pianist Paolo Birro have come up with a CD of original songs based on pieces by Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Johnny Green and David Raskin. Transmutating the work of these prime tunesmiths may be challenging, though it seems counterproductive, considering the fine work the Turin-born saxist and pianist from Noventa Vicentina turn in on the two tracks written by other composers. J. J. Johnson’s “Lament” is nicely caressed by Cisi, while Birro produces near-stride piano. Then on Kurt Weill’s “This Is New”, the tune moves along on nicely balanced sax lines and left-handed keyboard coloration.

Ballad masters like trumpeters Enrico Rava and Paolo Fresu who have recorded with the saxophonist may have given him the idea for the tempos. While the pianist, who also has a band performing Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Brazilian ballads, worked as part of backing unit for American altoist Lee Konitz, who does this kind of reharmonization as a matter of course.

Overall, the restrained, lilting and luscious sound puts one in mind of those 1970s duo sessions tenorists Stan Getz or Zoot Sims did with pianist Jimmy Rowles. With the operative word here “beauty”, the two frequently join for some unison blends although plenty of breathing space is left in the arrangements. And, although some passages sound like a turnaround waiting for a tune to happen, happy melodies abound. One just wishes that the duo was as interested in instrumental exploration as much as breeziness.

While the session can be recommended to those whose instrumental interest falls into the background category, they may be a little put off, as well. By proving their musicianship by masking these standards in their own compositions, Cisi and Birro may actually anger those who will find the session too avant garde, since paradoxically, they won’t recognize all the tunes.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Picture: 1. Upflucht 2. Is there a race against time 3. The giant and the actress* 4. Molten metal 5. Extract from an abstract* 6. A good ballad 7. Think and whistle 8. Little drummer boy

Personnel: Picture: Mick Beck (tenor saxophone, bassoon*, recorders); Stephen Grew (piano)

Track Listing: Hidden: 1. Do You Remember Me? 2. Aural 3. This Is New 4. Homework 5. End 6. Weatherproof 7. Deeper 8. Lament 9. Out of the Moon

Personnel: Hidden: Emanuele Cisi (tenor saxophone); Paolo Birro (piano)

October 21, 2002