Mikolaj Trzaska/Olie Brice/Mark Sanders

Riverloam Trio
No Business Records NBLP 52/NBLP 53

Joe Hertenstein/Achim Tang/Jon Irabagon

Future Drone

Jazzwerkstatt JW 126

With experimenters such as Sonny Rollins, Peter Brötzmann and Ornette Coleman having pioneered the reed/bass/drum trio as a paramount improvisatory vehicle nearly a half century ago, mercurial efforts like these are almost expected in terms of Free Jazz elaboration. Yet such is the malleability of the process that each of these trans-nationalist efforts defines its strategy differently.

Consisting of five protracted and hectic instant compositions, the Riverloam Trio might be considered classic Free Improvisation. Upfront is Gdańsk-based alto saxophonist and bass clarinetist Mikolaj Trzaska, who has worked with Ken Vandermark, Brötzmann and others. And since the CD was recorded in Birmingham, England, there’s a top-flight British rhythm section on board. Drummer Mark Sanders has backed saxophonist John Butcher and pianist Veryan Weston among many others; and bassist Olie Brice is in ensembles with flautist Neil Metcalf and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock.

Recorded one month later in Köln, with seven of out of the nine briefer tracks, group compositions, Future Drone’s aim is somewhat different. It appears to be another in a series of recent CDs in which American tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon, best known for his membership in Mostly Other People Do the Killing, uses every sort of extended reed technique to demarcate his personal relationship to the instrument. German drummer Joe Hertenstein, now resident in New York, who composed two balladic tunes here, contributes sophisticated percussion backing, while veteran Köln bassist Achim Tang’s thick stopping maintains the CD’s centrifugal force.

For his part, Trzaska’s fully unencumbered free expression encompasses extended Aylerian glossolalia, with nephritic Brötzmannian extrusions his fall-back playing position. Intensity and tenacity are present in so many of his solos in fact, that at junctures the sidemen let off encouraging yells as if the reedist is a competitor in a particularly grueling sporting event. He also always seems to be playing. Even when he isn’t soloing, as in “Carnival of Shapes”, which begins with a short, shattering and resounding pattern from Sanders, Trzaska underscores the percussion exposition with a quivering, stratospheric reed hiss. More definitive is a track such as “Kornic”. Over its exposition Trzaska moves from exposing harsh saxophone extensions which sound as if he’s scraping his lung tissue each time he bites down on his reed; to mid-range bass clarinet puffs, made more exotic when altered with in-the-throat gargling. As Trzaska continues blowing, gradually adding layers of cries, shrieks and growls to his tone, Brice unleashes slapping, stentorian runs and Sanders more calming irregular ruffs. Later on, a slower-paced sequence is made unique by the percussionist’s measured marital accents, eventually redefining the tune despite Trzaska’s extroverted and aching multiphonics.

Unlike Sanders’ fiery whaps, Hertenstein’s most common drum trope is lightly popping bongo-like accents. Tang too can often be counted upon for a walking bass line. Meanwhile Irabagon often comes across like a member of a Doomsday cult, whining and screeching irregular altissimo and tremolo phrases as if there’s no tomorrow. By “Seven for Nothing” and “Rotten Strawberry” – the climatic tracks – however the band and saxophonist’s game plan becomes clear. With Irabagon on the former actually blowing obbligatos to Tang’s nuanced and almost unending stops, the drummer’s cymbal slaps and the bassist’s sul ponticello lines then give the saxophonist freedom to pursue his disconnected slurps and pitch variations. “Rotten Strawberry” brings the tactic to fruition. As Hertenstein rolls and Tang pumps, Irabagon becomes tone scientist of the tender fruit variety, vibrating, tonguing, tasting and savoring every sigh, honk, razz and whistle he extracts from the horn over and over again. This research continues for such a protracted period, that all the musicians start to laugh and the sequence is disrupted for a few measures to allow everyone to re-attain equilibrium. Finally with the drummer thrashing powerfully, Irabagon unleashes narrower and sharper tones which soar to triumphant bugle-like, battle cry vibrations.

Noteworthy examples of probing improvisational music, these sets also demonstrate that there are plenty of nuances left to explore in the reed-bass-drums configuration.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Riverloam: LP1: 1. Riverloam 2. Kornic LP2: 1. Ostrich Season 2. Carnival of Shapes 3. Sumac and Pokeweed

Personnel: Riverloam: Mikolaj Trzaska (alto saxophone and bass clarinet); Olie Brice (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums)

Track Listing: Future: 1. Future Drone 2. Panicballad 3. The Mirror 4. The Ticker 5. Two Days Ahead 6. Seven for Nothing 7. Rotten Strawberry 8. Ballad for Paul and Poo 9. Breaking a Vow

Personnel: Future: Jon Irabagon (tenor saxophone); Achim Tang (bass) and Joe Hertenstein (drums)

March 20, 2013

SFE

Positions and Descriptions
Clean Feed CF 230 CD

By Ken Waxman

For the past 20-odd years as “Butch” Morris has demonstrated conduction: structuring free improvisation using a specific series of hand gestures, many improvising ensembles have been created in his its wake. Whether groups use or not signals developed by Morris to rearrange and sculpt notated and non-notated music, conduction is part of their inventory. As these releases demonstrate however, it depends on individual musicians’ skills for a performance to be fully satisfying.

This is apparent on Verona, collecting two Morris-directed conductions from 1994 and 1995. While both involve 11-piece ensembles, the instrumentation in 1995 makes it more satisfying. The three parts of “Verona Skyscraper” vibrate with a lyrical exposition and juddering intensity that upstages the five parts of “The Cloth” from 1994. As two percussionists, a guitarist and two pianists stretch, smack and crunch a pulsating ostinato, distinctive solo interludes interrupt the cacophonous friction. Bill Horvitz’s guitar plinks are contrapuntally paired with one pianist’s key clipping or the aggression of the rhythm section is muted by Stefano Benini’s legato flute tone or contralto wisps from Marco Pasetto’s clarinet. Throughout, Zeena Parkins’ harp plinks are lyrical with a hard edge. As the massed instrumental textures quiver continuously, the stand out soloist is J.A. Deane on trombone and electronics. His braying plunger work cuts through harmonized woodwind extensions or the layered friction of piano strumming cadenzas. Eventually the full-force instrumental bubbles to a crescendo, then ebbs to signal the finale by shrinking to triangle pings and guitar plinks.

Although Deane also solos on “The Cloth”, the minimalist quivers predominating from dual cello string shimmies, low-frequency piano chording and gaunt oboe tones make the themes overly precious. When the downward pinches of Parkins’ harp stand out as disruptively staccato, the textural sameness of the other textures becomes apparent. Luckily by the time the carol-like “Omega” is played, sul ponticello strokes from the celli, and whacks from Le Quan Ninh’s percussion join barking trombone guffaws to angle at least this piece towards concluding excitement.

Flash forward 12 years and bassist/composer Simon H. Fell’s Positions and Descriptions owes as much to juxtaposition as conduction, although Steve Beresford s on hand to bring conduction clues to the 16-piece ensemble. The nine-movement suite is described as “a compilation … incorporating composed, pre-recorded and improvised elements”. With the pre-recorded sequences at a minimum, the tension engendered is between the composition’s notated and free-form sections. Early in the suite Tim Berne’s mercurial saxophone lines create free jazz interludes abetted by drummer Mark Sanders’ rim shots. Later, a chamber ensemble of clarinet and strings echo ornate textures as glockenspiel, vibes and bells jingle contrapuntally and a tubax burps. From a jazz standpoint, “Movt. III” is the most exhilarating track, with Sanders’ bass drum accents and Fell’s pumping strings leading the band though a vamp reminiscent of Count Basie’s 16 men swinging. In counterpoint clarinettist Alex Ward produces reed-biting shrieks and trumpeter Chris Batchelor brassy slurs. Before a cacophonous ending, pianist Philip Thomas and violinist Mifune Tsuji output a faux-schmaltzy tango. Preceding and following this, harp glissandi and baroque-styled trumpet maintain the composition’s formalistic aspects. Fell makes jokes as well. “Plusieurs Commentaires de PB pour DR [Description 5]” described as a “mini concerto for baritone saxophone”, only features the horn’s distinctive snorts when introducing the following “Movt. V”. Before that the piece involves flute whistles, piano key percussion and half-swallowed saxophone tongue slaps. The concluding “Movt. V” gives guitarist Joe Morris a dynamic showcase for kinetic string snaps. At the same time Fell has orchestrated sequences in which staccato string vibrations, woodwind smears and horror-movie quivers from the electronics arrive in sequence. Taken adagio, the finale involves every musician creating snarling dissonance.

Whether that last sequence actually involved conduction, giving top-flight soloists their head is evidentially as good a guarantee of quality music as theory.

Tracks: Positions: Movt. I [Positions 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4; Who’s the Fat Man? [Description 1]; Movt. II [Position 5]; FZ pour PB [Description 2]/Commentaire I de “FZ pour PB” [Description 3]; Movt. III [Positions 6-9]; Graphic Description 4; Movt. IV [Position 10]; Plusieurs Commentaires de PB pour DR [Description 5]; Movt. V [Positions 11-17]

Personnel: Positions: Chris Batchelor: trumpet; Jim Denley: piccolo, concert, alto and bass flutes; Andrew Sparling: Eb, Bb and bass clarinets; Alex Ward: Bb clarinet; Tim Berne: alto saxophone; Damien Royannais: baritone saxophone, Eb tubax; Mifune Tsuji: violin; Rhodri Davies: harps; Philip Thomas: piano and celesta; Joe Morris: guitar; Simon H. Fell: bass and electronics; Philip Joseph: theremin; Mark Sanders: drums; Joby Burgess: percussion; Steve Beresford: electronics and conduction; Clark Rundell: conductor

Tracks: Verona: Conduction No. 43: The Cloth; Via Talciona; Dust to Dust (part 1); Omega; Long Goodbye / Conduction No. 46: Skyscraper Mutiny; Crossdresser; Testament

Personnel: Verona: Conduction No. 43: J.A. Deane trombone/electronics; Mario Arcari: oboe; Riccardo Fassi and Myra Melford: pianos; Brandon Ross: guitar; Bryan Carrot: vibraphone; Stephano Montaldo: viola; Martin Schutz and Martine Altenburger: cello; Zeena Parkins: harp; Le Quan Ninh: percussion/Conduction No. 46: J.A. Deane trombone/electronics; Stefano Benini : flute; Marco Pasetto: clarinet; Francesco Bearzatti: bass clarinet; Rizzardo Piazzi: alto saxophone; Riccardo Massari and Myra Melford: pianos; Bill Horvitz: guitar; Zeena Parkins: harp; Carlo “Bobo” Facchinetti: drums; Le Quan Ninh: percussion

--For New York City Jazz Record January 2012

January 5, 2012

Kris Wanders Outfit

In Remembrance of the Human Race
Not Two MW-856-2

Kris Wanders-Mani Neumeier Quintet

Taken By Surprise

Not Two MW-861-2

Avant Jazz’s history is filled with unacknowledged legends and “what ifs”. Musicians, who didn’t get the right breaks, changed career plans for various reasons or became isolated, are legion both in North America and Europe.

One tantalizing thought is what if Dutch tenor saxophonist Kris Wanders, featured on both these notable CDs, had stayed in Europe instead of immigrating to Australia in the late 1970s? On evidence here, Wanders, an early member of the Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO), who often played with Peter Brötzmann, still has enough inventive grit and power in his playing to hold his own with anyone – including the seminal European Free Jazzers with which he trades licks on In Remembrance of the Human Race. Another question is what may have happened if Swiss drummer, Mani Neumeier, another early GUO member, had stayed with Free Music instead of founding pioneering KrautRock outfit Guru Guru? Judging from his well-paced, unpretentious playing on Taken By Surprise, recorded with Wanders and an Australian trio, his influence on percussionists may have been sizeable.

In the years since emigrating, the now Melbourne-based Wanders has been a one-man link to the European Free Jazz tradition and influenced locals such as percussionist Robbie Avenaim and bassist Clayton Thomas. The trio featured on Taken By Surprise operates at a similar high level as the Swiss drummer and Dutch reedist and includes Melbourne-based tenor saxophonist Brett Evans, Brisbane-based guitarist Yusuke Akai and bassist Rory Brown from Sydney.

Judging from Akai’s multi-fingered chromatic runs, slurred fingering and clanking twangs exhibited throughout the CD’s three frenetic tracks, his presence answers a secondary question: what would Wes Montgomery have sounded like playing with John Coltrane’s final quintet? The concept isn’t that far-fetched. Montgomery was for a short period part of an early Trane formation until economics curtailed the experience. But imagine hearing Montgomery’s inventions unhampered by Verve or A&M string sections and spurred by Trane, Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali. The potential evidence is here.

Cast in the Sanders role vis-à-vis Wanders’ Trane, Evans acquits himself admirably. Although it’s a bit difficult to determine who takes which saxophone solo, since both venture into altissimo glossolalia, pitch-sliding slurs and stop-time flattement. When the two blow parallel split tones with harmonic extensions reminiscent of Ascension, both are audible. It’s likely Wanders who throughout specializes in staccato and tremolo friction and Evans who adds snorting linear expansion. Moreover at times the saxophone recitation is so onerous with nephritic honks and node swelling, it sounds as if reeds could literally be splitting. Rather than being the forgotten man here though, bassist Brown’s timbral constructions include steadying pumps behind guitar and sax solos as well his own tough string skittering.

One of the present-day exemplars of that instrument, Brussels-based Peter Jacquemyn, who has played with everyone from saxophonist André Goudbeek to pianist Fred Van Hove, is the bassist on In Remembrance of the Human Race, recorded in Antwerp almost two years before the Australian CD. London’s Mark Saunders who has partnered saxophonists ranging from Evan Parker to John Butcher is on drums. And from Berlin, expansive trombonist Johannes Bauer, who regularly woks with a clutch of European bands, including ones with Parker and Brötzmann, fills out the group.

European Free Jazz of the highest calibre, the CD finds Wanders picking up the improvisational threads where he left them 30 years previously, unperturbed by blowing in such fast company. Probably the climax of the session arrives on “Uwaga” – how’s that for a late 1960s style Free Jazz title? Following some Morse-code-like spits from Bauer, the trombonist continues extending the sequence is a straight line as Wanders decorates the result with irregular vibrations, guttural snorts and broken-octave split tones. With Jacquemyn plucking away and Sanders rustling and bouncing, the piece opens up so that the trombonist’s relentless slurs and tongue stops now develop alongside the saxophonist’s jerky inflections, spiccato shrilling and tremolo vibrations. As both hornmen stretch their instruments sounds into vocalized tessitura, the bassist creates a third parallel line which is as arpeggio-modulated as it is friction-laden. Not to be outdone Sanders slides and scuffs on his drum tops and rings small bells. Meanwhile Bauer’s plunger tones become subterranean gutbucket, while conversely Wanders’ scratchy, squeezed runs range between inchoate and inclusive. Letting the saxman create a note-cluster pedal-point, the trombonist takes out the tune triple-tonguing, at first with agitated and then with mid-range timbres.

This sort of palpable exhilaration is present throughout the CD’s three selections. Bauer does provide a jape, when he finally enters the title track quoting Mercer/Arlen’s “Out of this World”, recorded by Coltrane, and which is perhaps a comment on how Wanders’ staccato tonguing, crying gurgles and intense overblowing reference Trane’s style. Earlier on Sanders has replicated kettle drums with his powerful tom whacks, as Jacquemyn’s wood-splintering rumbles and pumps are sufficient mates for the trombonist’s vocalized quacks. If that wasn’t enough, by the finale, the bass man sums up and redirects the near-supersonic forward rushing of all concerned by slicing the tension with a lyrical bowed bass solo.

Unacknowledged he may be, but with these releases Wanders proves that his tenure down under hasn’t lessened his experimental tendencies or sound searching. He can still hold his own with the best Europe has to offer. As well the newer CD introduces some expressive Aussie players and implies that Neumeier could still be a first-rate Free Jazz drummer if he wanted to move in that direction.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Remembrance: 1. In Remembrance of the Human Race 2. Uwaga 3. A Man’s Dream

Personnel: Remembrance: Johannes Bauer (trombone); Kris Wanders (tenor saxophone); Peter Jacquemyn (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums)

Track Listing: Taken: 1. Oxymoron 2. Taken By Surprise 3. Not On Radio

Personnel: Taken: Kris Wanders and Brett Evans (tenor saxophones); Yusuke Akai (guitar); Rory Brown (bass) and Mani Neumeier (drums)

December 30, 2011

Triatone

Airam Airun
Inquedanzas Sonores ISD-1039

Tejero/Carmona/Mattos/ Northover/Blunt

Progressions

No Label No #

Part of what may be called the Iberian Diaspora; Madrid-born reedist Ricardo Tejero has become a presence on the British Free Music scene since the turn of the century, following an apprenticeship in Spain during the 1990s. Now a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra, Tejero is an exploratory improviser who has managed to frame his work in a variety of smaller ensembles. Recorded nearly three years apart, these CDs not only pinpoint his growing audacity as a composer and improviser, but also note how he’s more willing to expose himself as a soloist.

His associates here are almost evenly split between Brits and Hispanics. On Progressions for instance, his confreres are Brazilian-born, long-time London resident bassist Marcio Mattos, who has regularly worked with veteran Free Musicians such as drummer Eddie Prévost. Barcelona-based, Madrid-born percussionist Javier Carmona collaborates with dancers as well as musicians such as guitarist John Russell. British saxophonist Adrian Northover is known for his membership in bands such as B Shops for the Poor and The Remote Viewers while Kenyan-born, London-based violinist Alison Blunt has worked with the likes of pianist Veryan Weston. Although bassist Pabo Pérez is little known, versatile drummer Mark Sanders has played with seemingly everyone on the British improv scene from trombonist Gail Brand to saxophonist Evan Parker.

A Free Music variant of the add-an-instrument showpiece pioneered by saxophonist Benny Golson and others, the pieces composed by Tejero for Progressions are supposed to use pre-arranged structures to create parameters within which the musician can improvise. Although ostensibly designed to provide players with the least number of restrictions, they just skirts gimmickry due to the strength of the playing. Tejero, a member of Musicalibre, the Spanish Improvised Music Association, introduces clarinet, alto and then tenor saxophone work on subsequent tracks. He plays notably enough when his linear twitters and sudden upward thrusts flow into a stratified form matched by Carmona’s resonating conga- like pump and Mattos’ solid plucking on a tune such as “Algarroba”. But the most revealing and dramatic use of the concept comes on the nearly 21-minute “Here Now” when all five participate.

With Mattos and Blunt both making use of skittering and juddering lines, the composer’s altissimo elaboration on tenor saxophone mixed with false register multiphonics from Northover’s soprano saxophone are properly balanced. Frequently avoiding sonic chaos, the five work through several sequences whereby different players shade the exposition in dissimilar ways. For instance, Tejero’s irregular vibrated reed trills mix with Blunt’s squeaking spiccato, while Mattos’ dobro-like plucks cozy up to Northover’s intense warbles. Eventually, following an intermezzo of snorting and sluicing split tones from the tenor saxophonist, rolls and ruffs from Carmona and the bassist’s bass string slaps, the cacophony reorients itself. Blunt, staccato lines work into double counterpoint with Tejero’s stacked harmonies as Northover’s horn provides terse, high-pitched commentary. The exposition is finally resolved with hints of Iberian rhythms and polyphonic riffing from the reeds.

Group tessitura is much more balanced three years later in the compositions and improvisations which make up Airam Airun. With Tejero adding penny whistle shrills to his clarinet and tenor saxophone soloing, hints of Latin rhythms and even the shape of half-heard pop songs sneak into the six showpieces. Tellingly the title tune, which is the only one composed by a single person – the bassist in this case – is also the only one wedded to Free Jazz. On it a sympathetic bass continuum and splayed percussion rebounds back a taut, magisterial reading of the head by Tejero on tenor saxophone. The piece’s originality is confirmed in its latter half however when methodical rasgueado from the bassist sets up a finale of dissolving clarinet licks.

More germane to the reedist’s evolution, are the treatments of “Sketches” and “Fliping Flute”. Despite its title, the second tune is apparently played on the clarinet, from which Tejero manages to coax a piccolo-like timbre. During this showcase for speedy and stuttering vibrations, he manages to impressively expose tonal variations between flutter tonguing and irregular reed slurs. Meanwhile Sanders’ drum set rattles and pops and Pérez pumps angled, spiccato lines. “Sketches” moves in unexpected fashion as well. With the bassist’s plucks and the drummer’s press rolls as ballast, the clarinettist evolves from highlighting irregular sound leaks to a mid-section of circular reed bites and frantic contralto split tones, ending with a reed climax that’s as legato as it is accentuated.

On the evidence here, sparked by sympathetic playing partners, Tejero’s skills are evidentially constantly evolving. Who know what progress may be charted on his next record?

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Airam: 1. Crunchy 2. Sketches 3. Vigo 4. Umia 5. Fliping Flute 6 Airam Airun

Personnel: Airam: Ricardo Tejero (clarinet, tenor saxophone and penny whistle): Pabo Pérez (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums)

Track Listing: Progressions: 1. El viaje de Amanda^ 2. Uno doble* 3. Algarroba* 4. Whip Leap+# 5. Here Now+#%

Personnel: Progressions: Ricardo Tejero (alto* and tenor+ saxophones and ^clarinet); Adrian Northover (soprano saxophone)#; Alison Blunt (violin)%; Marcio Mattos (bass and electronics [all tracks but 1, 2]) and Javier Carmona (drums and percussion [all tracks but 1])

December 15, 2011

Gail Brand & Mark Sanders

Instinct & The Body
Regardless Records R01)

Birgit Ulher/Lucio Capece

Choices

Another timbre at41

Rampersaud/Shaw/Martin/Neal/Krakowiak

Halcyon Science 130410

Barnyard Records BR0323

Rent Romus/Vinny Golia

Lords of Outland, Edge of Dark

Edgetone EDT 4112

Something in the Air: Brass-y Women Stand Up and Stand Out

By Ken Waxman

Enhanced freedom in music over the past 60 years has involved more than the addition of new instrumental techniques and compositional strategies. Recasting of gender roles has also taken place. No longer are women instrumentalists expected to play traditionally delicate female instruments such as violins or flutes; or those where they sit demurely such as the piano, harp or cello. This change is most obvious in improvised music, where the number of women who stand up to play has multiplied exponentially. Many have chosen to become brass players, adapting their skills to apparatuses which demands power and stamina.

Take Toronto trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud for instance. The high-quality improvising she exhibits on Halcyon Science 130410 Barnyard Records BR0323 in the company of saxophonist Evan Shaw, drummer Jean Martin, bassist Wes Neal and percussionist Tomasz Krakowiak doesn’t distinguish in any way between her talents and those of her colleagues. During seven group compositions, the quintet vaults back-and-forth from high-energy anthems to more cerebral explorations with equal skill. “Take me To Your Leader” is an example of the latter, as clattering friction from Krakowiak’s noise-makers evolves in stacked counterpoint alongside Shaw’s irregularly squeezed vibrations plus the mouthpiece suckles and tremolo emphasis of Rampersaud. Her rubato slurs and valve squeaks intersect perfectly with the baritone saxophonist’s tongued percussiveness as Martin’s ratamacues, pops and drags presage harmonizing vamps and a final quivering dissolve. Meantime the title tune and Dirigible move with a chromatic gait. The former resembles an Eric Dolphy line, with repeated climaxes interrupted by mid-range honks from Shaw and stuttering pitches from the trumpeter. “Dirigible” stacks timbres so that space between Rampersaud’s staccato and heraldic tone and Shaw’s juddering tempos are obvious. Still a near-bugle call on the trumpeter’s part in the final sequence signals a slowdown to barely there flutter tonguing on her part, accompanied by the reedist’s smooth obbligato, until together they dovetail into muted tones framed by drumstick-rubbing friction from the two percussionists

Atonal textures are even tougher and more staccato on Bay area saxophonist Rent Romus’ Lords of Outland quintet’s Edge of Dark Edgetone EDT 4112 But trumpeter CJ Bourque only really makes an impression on that instrument when she blends her tongued triplets and tremolo flutters with the reed work from Romus and Vinny Golia on pieces such as “Night Nova” and “Over the Rift”. Otherwise the emphasis is on Golia’s peeping piccolo intersecting with double tonguing from Romus, plus electric bassist Ray Shaeffer’s powerful plucks and pops on the former tune or Romus’ irregular split tones plus percussionist Philip Everett’s rolls, drags and smacks on the latter. That’s because Bourque performs another role here, patching in blurry whistles and wavering flanges from manipulated electronics, most noticeably on “Over the Rift” and “Edge of Dark”. Contrapuntal when needed and interactive at other junctures, these jittery and wiggling oscillations outline sequences like Golia’s low-pitched reed slurps, or high energy soprano saxophone lines from Romus, providing the unifying accompaniment that Bourque’s brass obbligatos do elsewhere. Overall, the CD’s texture is as dense and exultant as the fantasy writings which inspired it.

Electronic impulses in microtonal settings characterize the improvisations advanced by Hamburg-based trumpeter Birgit Ulher in a duo with Argentina-born reedist Lucio Capece, Choices Another Timbre at41. Reducing her horn’s output to muted shakes, buzzes and vibrations amplified by a radio set up, Ulher proves that cunning can be substituted for stamina to produce notable improvisations. With the timbres of Capece’s bass clarinet or soprano saxophone filtered by preparations as air is harshly forced through the body tube, Ulher’s capillary pressures and metallic reverberations produce sympathetic polyphony. “Chance”” is the most extended example, with both sound sources juddering and undulating as they combine for both chalumeau growls and strident squeals. With sonic suggestions of a hamster running on a wheel or of wisps of wind wafting upwards, the results are collective not individual. Although distinct strategies such as Ulher's use of a metal plate as a mute to create maximum vibrations, or Capece’s reed bites and tongue stopping elongating tones without resorting to electronics appear, fascination results from tracing the evolution of this disassociated and dissonant sound picture not the ending. Yet the bubbling, shaking, straining and squeaking eventually produce tones that are satisfyingly cumulative and cooperative.

There’s no hint of electronics in British trombonist Gail Brand’s duo with drummer Mark Sanders on Instinct & The Body Regardless Records R01). Plus her inventive attack is powerful enough to banish any thoughts of delicacy. Utilizing sudden brays and nephritic dips into the horn’s lowest tubing, she’s as comfortable with staccato line extensions as bulky plunger swoops. Meantime Sanders uses brushes-on-snares pressure, ruffs and rim shots to advance his part. “Under Orders” finds Brand slithering from one pitch to another and from loopy tailgate burlesque to rapid-fire slide stops without missing a breath. Sanders backbeats and rumbles are just as relaxed. Then on “Tread Softly …” as the drummer slaps and clatters, Brand trades high-pitched whinnies for emphasized pedal-point, blowing chromatically until attaining a variant of serene romanticism.

Women brass players may stand up to improvise. On the evidence of the work here, many also should do so to acknowledge applause.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 17 #3

November 5, 2011

Dreamtime

Double Trouble
Reel Recordings RR018/019/020

Unbeknownst to most Jazz fans the musical influence of the South African Blue Notes combo and Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) big band extended much further into Jazz’s lingua franca than evidenced by the groups subsequently led by the original expatriates. Part of the appeal of Dreamtime, for instance, founded in 1981 by three Englishmen and two London-domiciled expatriates – one Italian and one American – is the many of the themes pulse with that mixture of Townships and experimental sounds which characterized the BOB.

At the same time Dreamtime was a dream project for improvisers because of the consistency of musicianship among the band members, as these three examples of their work indicate. Disc One from a 1984 Jazz Festival features the initial line-up of trombonist and chief composer Welshman Nick Evans; Brooklynite-turned-Londoner Jim Dvorak on pocket trumpet; Italian bassist Roberto Bellatalla plus Britons drummer Jim Lebaigue and alto saxophonist Gary Curson. All except for the drummer worked with different South African ensembles, with all the horn players in BOB, and Evans in one Soft Machine line-up that also featured alto saxophonist Elton Dean, who apparently worked with every one of the players at times. That’s the reason why the final disc, featuring the original band augmented by pianist Keith Tippett, a sometime Dreamtime member, is particularly affecting. It’s a DVD of the sextet playing at an Elton Dean Memorial in 2006. In contrast, the club date from 1991, which is Disc Two, could be termed Double Dreamtime. Here the original five members are joined by a homologue on the same instrument: trumpeter Kevin Davy; trombonist Paul Rutherford; saxophonist Paul Dunmall; bassist Marcio Mattos and drummer Mark Sanders; each of whom has extensive experience in British groups on their own or alongside different members of Dreamtime.

Including compositions by other BOB members like trombonist Radu Malfatti and bassist Harry Miller plus a group improv titled “Bushman’s Dance”, the quasi-South African inflections are strongest on CD1. The most common motif is a hard-hitting groove built on call-and response vamps that usually involve plunger work from Evans, smears from Curson and brassy insouciance from Dvorak. A piece such as “Duos/Dalbe 345”, composed by Malfatti, who long ago abandoned this style for microtonalism, has a head that could have been written for a South African band, and leaves enough space for individual expression. By the finale drum rolls evolve into parade-ground raps from Lebaigue with earlier variants based around a clean trumpet lead, widely vibrated double-tongued fluttering from the saxophonist and Evans’ guffawing glissandi. On the piece, Bellatalla’s brisk finger-styled line is the connection. This skill is showcased even more on “Traumatic Experience” and “Careful Driver”. The former is a semi-swing tune with Evans maintaining the moderato link between sectional polyrhythm from the bass and drum and staccatissimo heraldic trumpet and top-of-range sax lines. More of a Bellatalla showcase, the latter has a repeated bass line which expands into swift arpeggio runs with hesitant asides. Meanwhile strident peeps and squeaks keep the stop-time exposition linear.

Seven years later at a London club, the doubled personnel demonstrates pleasing multiphonics at points; but with two drummers and six horns elsewhere move Dreamtime’s harmonies closer to the swollen brassiness of groups such as Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago. Luckily High Life influences mated with some Iberian tarantella suggestions and solos in the Albert Ayler tradition prevent the group from losing itself in Pop-Jazz.

While other tunes may highlight gutbucket brass cries, hocketing reed slurs plus contrapuntal rhythmic shakes, two of the bassist’s compositions are more indicative of the magnified band’s style. Working off Dunmall’s pedal point smears and triplet laden brays from Dvorak and Davy, “Call the Devil” is expressed in polyrhythms and polyharmonies until the main Mediterranean-styled theme appears midway through. Fiesta-like brassy, yet moving from chromatic to broken octave, the accompaniment is characterized by a walking bass line, strokes and bounces from the dual drum sets and tremolo trumpeting. The final variant downshifts to a splintered tenor saxophone solo and door-knocking percussion work soaring beside a pile up of irregular grace notes from the other horns, and ends with Afro-Cuban vocal “umphs”.

Stop-and-go, contrapuntal and dyspeptic, “And So Tibet” moves from stacked altissimo reed ejaculations and anvil-like percussion wallops to an overture of tutti slides plus whinnies that scatter colors and rhythms every which way. Redirected towards an Aylerian parade-ground-like routine by bugling from one trumpeter, the rhythm undulates enough to open up more space for Dvorak’s pocket trumpet triplets which lead the other horns upwards into skyscraper tones. The finale features the high-pitched brass screeching on top of thumping bass lines and gradually fading with marching-band-like echoes.

As for the DVD, captured more than 15 years after the initial session, it’s more akin to a bagatelle or a visual souvenir than a major statement. In truth the lachrymose performance by the Dreamtime quintet and Tippett may be more valued by completists who wish to be caught up in the poignant moment. For others the two audio discs are preferable. They exhibit music from a group of improvisers who, while never reaching first rank, produce (d) high-class work nonetheless.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD1: 1. Trunk Call 2. Tip of the Iceberg 3. Careful Driver 4. Duos/Dalbe 345 5. Bushman’s Dance 6. Traumatic Experience CD2: 1. Sierra Maestra 2. Loopin’ 3. Frogs 4. Call the Devil. DVD: 1. Abide With Me 2. Trunk Call 3. Call the Devil 4. And So Tibet

Personnel: Jim Dvorak (pocket trumpet and voice); Nick Evans (trombone); Gary Curson (alto saxophone); Roberto Bellatalla (bass) and Jim Lebaigue (drums) plus on CD2: Kevin Davy (trumpet); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Paul Dunmall (tenor and baritone saxophones); Marcio Mattos (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) plus on DVD: Keith Tippett (piano)

August 16, 2011

Festival Report:

Freedom of the City 2011
By Ken Waxman

Electronics, percussion and home-made instruments were prominently featured in many contexts during London’s annual Freedom of the City (FOTC) festival, April 30 to May 2. In spite of this, some outstanding performances involved the hyper-traditional piano or saxophone.

A snapshot of contemporary, mostly European, creative music, FOTC encompassed sounds as different as electronic processing from the likes of Adam Bohman and Lawrence Casserley; rarefied ensemble minimalism; unabashed free jazz from saxophonist Lionel Garcin’s and pianist Christine Wodrascka’s quartet; an entire evening devoted to the massive London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO); and pianist John Tilbury’s and bassist Michael Duch’s interpretations of Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman compositions.

Despite his air of sangfroid Catalan pianist Agustí Fernández created some of FOTC’s most emotional music during his solo set. Alternately tremolo and kinetic or gentled and understated, his cascading reverberations were produced from both inside and outside the piano frame. Repetitive, mid-range timbres were scratched on the inner harp or resulted from locked hands or forearm chording on the keyboard, with pedal pressing and bass clef ostinatos intensifying much of the vigor.

Accompanied by fellow Gauls Garcin, bassist Guillaume Viltard and British percussionist Tony Marsh, Wodrascka’s keyboard command was also outstanding. With patterned chording, positioned arpeggios and wide-ranging dynamics she maintained a high velocity narrative within an interface that, when the bassist struck his bow’s frog on the strings, the saxophonist tongue-slapped and the drummer thumped his sticks, seemed overwhelmingly percussive. Marsh’s shuffles and beats were normally unobtrusive, while Viltard’s sul tasto spanks involved the back as much as the front of the bass. Moving among soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, at points Garcin’s tones were almost identical to Viltard’s stops, elsewhere he projected aviary slurs, reed bites and stuttering reflux.

London’s John Butcher on soprano and tenor saxophone, in a trio with Berliners, percussionist Tony Buck and pianist Magda Mayas, and Oxford’s Tony Bevan playing bass saxophone in a duo with Orphy Robinson on steel drum, bells and marimbula, created more reed prestidigitation. As subtle as Garcin was strident, Butcher’s tessitura varied from chalumeau blows to coloratura circular breathing. Evolving in parallel to these vibrations, Buck’s cymbal scrapes and rim-shots revealed unique dissonance when paired with Mayas’ vibrations strings. Her marimba-like sounds resulted from see-sawing a wire among the piano’s internal strings or banging the instrument’s innards while pressing solidly on its pedals.

Manipulating his mammoth sax with the finesse of someone playing a recorder, Bevan spluttered out diaphragm vibrations that reflected the instrument’s ground-shaking power. It wasn’t all elephantine bellowing however. Supple breath and lip movement allowed for high-pitched staccato breaks and melodies puffed out with tenor saxophone-like facility and tone. Updating his simple instruments’ timbres, Robinson used them not as beat makers, but color-spreaders, resonating pliable vibrations and grace notes from the giant thumb-piano and staccato echoes from the steel drum.

An even wider range of unusual percussion textures was created in a first-time meeting of Steve Noble playing snare, cymbal and Chinese gong, and Paul Abbott using a self-invented collection of drums, cymbals, thunder sheet, different-sized speakers and a mixing board. Replicating the backbeat most drummers need a full kit to produce, Noble struck a small gong for emphasis, rubbed a cymbal onto his snare top, chafed drum heads with tambourines or used mallets to hammer an even smaller cymbal on a drum. Not only did he tap on drum rims, but cymbal sides as well. For his part Abbott responded with a looping electronic drone, interrupted only occasionally by feedback generated by enveloping a small speaker with a hollow floor tom.

In context, the playing of Robinson and Abbott offered more shading than that of France’s Toma Gouband. With a horizontal bass drum as a pedestal, he smashed together or smacked singly with drumsticks or a foot pedal a variety of rocks, stones and bricks, eventually hammering then with leafy tree branches.

Among other appealing uses of electronics was from the duo of veteran Cassidy, signal processing with keyboard and ipad, and young American bassist Adam Linson; plus a power trio made up of Bohman’s amplified objects, Pat Thomas’ synthesizer and Martin Hackett’s electronics. With signal-processed oscillations swelling in power while becoming more granular, Casserley’s strident and abstract textures created a context for Linson’s improvisations which often encompassing col legno sweeps and handfuls of strings pressed simultaneously. At some instances Casserley’s processes amplified bass thumps so that they sounded like marbles striking an unyielding surface; in others the bow movement and triggered sequences were indistinguishable. It was a credit to both players’ innate musicality that the oscillations helped the bassist’s narrative move forward.

Multiplying Casserley’s processes by three, arriving from different sound sources, gives an idea of the Bohman/Thomas/Hackett interface. With his synthesizer pre-programmed, Thomas improvised on the keyboard with free-jazz inflected glissandi, finger jabs and low-frequency vibrations that were somehow melodic at points. Hackett’s rising and falling ostinato cemented the triple connections, although occasionally interrupted by zigzagging outer-space-like whistling. With his table filled with miscellaneous gadgets including a water goblet and a light bulb, Bohman was the image of mad scientist at work even when he produced dense foghorn buzzes. This impression was intensified when he created the sets most stentorian moment, crossing wires for protracted feedback.

Those near-human cries emanating from Bohman’s electronics were paralleled by the retching, burbling, cawing, crying and other vocal extensions of Phil Minton, alongside German drummer Martin Blume and local cellist Marcio Mattos. Spasmodically jerking in his chair as his parlando encompassed mouth-and-throat extensions as characteristic as an old man’s wheeze, a young woman’s whispers and Bedlam shrieks, Minton’s individualized yowls made perfect sense in a concordance that included the cellist’s splayed plucks as well as the percussionist making points by smacking a bass drum, a cow bell and even a hollow wooden box. Minton’s vocalizing was better served in this context than the harmonies he directed from his eight-person, one-child, and one seeing-eye-dog Feral Singers which performed during an LIO interval. Like the orchestra itself, an all-star collection of top improvisers, the effect of both ensembles was that too many imaginative ideas were being offered up too quickly and too frequently from too many players, without proper differentiation or enough time to digest the individual creations.

Although billions throughout the world watched another event taking place in London that weekend: the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, FOTC remained an almost completely royalty-free zone. That is except for the sardonic comments of versatile trombonist Gail Brand. Flanked by drummer Mark Sanders’ subtle and clean technique and pianist Veryan Weston’s delicate clanking and busy chording, she climaxed a spectacular set by verbalizing her views. After slide-extended squeaks and snorts, sibilant tongue flutters, and long-breaths punctuated by the use of different mutes, she muttered “I hate the royal family”. Brand averred that she was further inconvenienced by city travel restrictions in place for crowd control during the days preceding the wedding. Luckily with FOTC, this audience could bypass those distractions to attend a notable musical happening.

--For New York City Jazz Record June 2011

June 10, 2011

The Remote Viewers

To The North
RV8

Alesandro Sacha Caiani

Effecto Ludico

Silta Records SR0904

Blending a saxophone choir plus a rhythm section has been a popular method of producing multiphonic textures ever since the Swing Era. Extending the interaction to encompass atonality and polyphony resulted when bands such as the World Saxophone Quartet and ROVA worked with rhythm sections. Effecto Ludico and To the North are notable examples of European bands adapting and altering the style. Main mover in both ensembles is a tenor saxophonist, Milan-based Alesandro Sacha Caiani on Effecto Ludico and London’s David Petts on To The North. However the end results contain as many differences as similarities.

Caiani, who has done everything from working with American multi-reedman Sabir Mateen to writing for dance companies, has put together a suite of 10 compositions, designed to showcase the talents of his band. Most of its members are leaders on their own, having worked in situations ranging from adaptations of the sound-painting concept of live conduction (tenor and soprano saxophonist Biagio Coppa) to membership in ensembles such as the Italian Instabile Orchestra, or those led by pianist Uri Caine or drummer Zeno di Rossi (alto saxophonist and bass clarinettist Achille Succci). Furthermore, novel intonations are added to the tracks by sound designer Xabier Iriondo, who manipulates a shahi baaja or electrified Indian zither, fitted with typewriter keys to create pitch variations; and a mahai metak, which is a multi-string electric invention complete with control knobs and coiled pick up.

Veteran of Punk-Jazz aggregations such as B Shops for the Poor, Petts over the years has expanded and modified the initial all-saxophones Remote Viewers – always with his B Shops associate Adrian Northover along playing soprano saxophone – to now include one of British Improv’s most accomplished rhythm sections: bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders. Unlike Effecto Ludico, which flirts with sonic portraiture à la Ellington, To The North is more of a group effort, with fewer solos. Made up of seven asides and intermezzos the CD’s distinctive strengths are fully expressed by the ensemble itself, which also includes saxophonists Sue Lynch and Caroline Kraabel – the latter, like Edwards and Northover, a stalwart of the London Improvisers Orchestra – with Sanders and Rosa Lynch-Northover on marimba providing the unusual percussive textures, a variant of what Iriondo and percussionist Cristiano Calcagnile create on the other CD.

As necessary for group structure as the other players, bassist Silvia Bolognesi’s prowess on Effecto Ludico helps define the extended “On The Beat”, nominally a saxophone showcase, in addition to personalizing “Silvia”, a Succi composition named for the bull fiddler. On that track, her thumps, plucks, stops and slaps delineate the portrait which also includes a meandering tenor saxophone line plus hissing breaths and vibrating oscillations from the mahai metak. Later on, the drummer’s rolls and drags plus near-onomatopoeic bass clarinet runs frames Caini’s tough reed biting and bell-muting.

The tripartite “On The Beat” extrapolates cascading woodwind lines into a near-rondo, as tones are harmonically distributed among a snorting tenor saxophone ostinato and altissimo squeaks and peeps from the other horns. This lasts until the second section when Bolognesi’s double-stopping resonations presage bluesy low-pitched tenor trills and contrapuntal, blended horns spetrofluctuation. Resolution happens at an accelerated pace in the third part, as electronically shaped curves and distorted bleeps contrast with the thickened pedal-point.

Not to be outdone, Iriondo distinguishes himself on both his unusual instruments. At one point the shaahi baaja’s distinctive twangs are matched with stacked and vibrating reed tones; at another shimmering, sharply outlined flanges from the mahai metak meet Bolognesi’s scrubbed strings and Caini’s screechy altissimo. The mahai metak’s distinctive motor-driven pulse also complements Calcagnile’s rim shots and maracas shakes. After an episode of tonal hide-and-seek, the theme on the concluding “A Song” bounces between near-clichéd Italian lyricism and squealing staccato time-shifts until the horn-heavy band defines itself with a sandwich of stacked reed timbres. Spiky yet blended, each saxophonist’s lick is angled so it complements the others’.

A similar expression of reed multiphonics is expressed on To The North with a band of four, rather than three woodwind players. Taken to its logical conclusion on a piece such as “The Memorial”, the stretched saxophone timbres accelerate to a crescendo of polyphonic reed smears and split tones. Associated accompaniment takes the form of drum pops, shakes and flams propelled by body English plus atonal bell clangs.

Earlier, with the echoes of rock beats and the hint of processed field recordings poking out among concentrated reed harmonies, distinctive solos arise more readily from Edwards’ walking or pressurized twangs and Sanders’ click-clacking drum beasts than from individual horn players. Only occasionally does a chorus of squeaky, diaphragm-vibrated timbres from Northover, some jagged R&B vamps from Petts, or slick, spittle-encrusted vibrations from Kraabel assert themselves.

The concentrated reed harmonies on this CD are sympathetically arranged so that each timbral tincture is apparent, with little loss of spontaneity. Caiani’s compositions and arrangements are a bit looser. Taken on their merits nonetheless, each ensemble has created a notable multi-woodwind-and rhythm document.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: North: 1. Journey to the Border 2. The Lure of Heresy 3. Saturation Bombing 4. All the Conspirators 5. The High Place 6. To the North 7. The Memorial

Personnel: North: Adrian Northover (soprano saxophone); David Petts and Sue Lynch (tenor saxophones); Caroline Kraabel (alto and baritone saxophones); John Edwards (bass); Mark Sanders (drums) and Rosa Lynch-Northover (marimba)

Track Listing: Effecto: 1. Trio Starting 2. Duo Starting 3. A Storm 4. On the Beat 5. Achille 6. Biagio 7. Silvia 8. C.S.A. 9. X.B. 10. A Song

Personnel: Effecto: Achille Succi (alto saxophone and bass clarinet); Alessandro Sacha Caiani (tenor saxophone); Biagio Coppa (tenor and soprano saxophones); Xabier Iriondo (mahai metak and shaahi baaja); Silvia Bolognesi (bass) and Cristiano Calcagnile (drums and percussion)

April 13, 2011

Festival Report:

Freedom of the City 2010
By Ken Waxman

“To Thine Self Be True” is lettered horizontally in careful script above the stage at Conway Hall in London’s Bloomsbury district, where London’s annual Freedom of the City (FOTC) festival took place May 2 and 3. Although related to the philosophy of the Ethical Society which built the edifice in 1929, the slogan can easily also be applied to five dozen or so improvisers featured at FOTC.

Organized about decade ago by saxophonist Evan Parker and AMM percussionist Eddie Prévost to showcase the city’s vibrant improvising scene, FOTC today welcomes as many tyros as veterans – and from the Continent and North America as well as the United Kingdom. Participants ranged from eccentric soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill, 77 and American trumpeter Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, 67, to young participants in Prévost’s weekly improv workshop and American brassman Peter Evans.

One first-class demonstration of FOTC’s mix’n’match philosophy was the set by London guitarist John Russell’s Quaqua, consisting of musicians he plays with elsewhere, but who never worked as a group. Besides Russell, pianist Chris Burns, synthesizer player Matthew Hutchinson violinist Satoko Fukuda and trumpeter Henry Lowther are British; alto saxophonist Stefan Keune is German and soundsinger Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg is from Brussels. Shifting among Russell’s licks that ranged from rhythm guitar strums to pinging twangs plus spiccato fiddle scrapes and buzzes and bell-like twitters from the synth, the ever-shifting interface made room for bursts of lyrical trumpet, unaccented air from the saxophonist – both sounds which are replicated by Hutchinson’s synthesizer – and slides, stops and strums from the piano’s internal strings created by fingers, mallets and an e-bow. Most expressive in reflecting the split-second decisions that go into group improvising was Van Schouwburg whose facial expressions contorted themselves differently whether he was soothingly lullabying, Apache yelling or duck quacking.

German vocalist Ute Wassermann was much less flamboyant but as expressive during her meeting with two British electronic manipulators – Adam Bohman and Paul Obermayer – plus percussionist Phillip Marks. Marks, a last-minute replacement for Obermayer’s FURT partner Richard Barrett, varied his output among rat-tat-tats, rim shots, snare pops and drum top rubs, leaving ample space for squeaks, crackles, hisses and reverberations from the electronics. Meanwhile Wassermann – whose vocal gymnastics ranged from mouth-widening cries and gurgles to bel-canto warbles – ensued that her improvisations were in synch with the others’ sonic shifts.

Percussion sounds were more upfront when South African Louis Moholo-Moholo and Briton Steve Noble combined behind trumpeter Smith. Although more jazz-oriented than most improvisations during FOTC’s 16 concerts, this was no Rich vs. Roach battle royal. Instead either could elaborate on any rhythm generated by the other, although Moholo-Moholo’s smacked ruffs and tympani-like resonations toughed the beat, which was nimbly redefined by Noble’s vibration of undersized cymbals on drum tops, swish through the air of what resembled palm fronds, or bongo-like pops with bare hands or wetted fingers. Blasting grace notes with a clear, bright tone or fluttering rubato through a Harmon mute, the trumpeter eventually settled on staccato and juicy bugle-like flutters after the drummers’ rhythms dislocated his sedate tongue flutters.

Smith’s musical adaptability was highlighted in two other situations: as featured soloist in a concerto backed by the 40-member London Improvisers Orchestra conducted by guitarist Dave Tucker; and as part of FOTC’s last set with clarinetist Alex Ward guitarist John Coxon, keyboardist Pat Thomas and drummer Paul Lytton.

Unlike the conductions and group improvisations that made up the remainder of the LIO’s set, which lurched from passages of controlled tutti cacophony to miniature set pieces for soloists such Charlotte Hug’s spirited, sawing violin runs or Coxhill’s understated off-centre lyricism, the Smith piece was as interconnected as Gil Evans’ arrangements for Miles Davis. Unruffled, Smith splintered timbres that floated as often as they popped, isolating his textures from the riffing reeds, lowing brass and the clamber let loose when three drummers, two electric guitars, two pianists, a vibraphonists and three electronics manipulators polyphonically sound simultaneously.

Before Smith and crew wrapped things up, other notable meetings included a set by the Stellari String Quartet of violinists Hug and Philipp Wachsmann, cellist Marcio Mattos and bassist John Edwards whose layered textures demonstrated that intersecting and combining well-designed arco and pizzicato run extends classic string ensemble strategies into atonality and multiphonics, while retaining moments of lyricism; and the duet between tenor and soprano saxophonist John Butcher and percussionist Mark Sanders. Switching from one horn to the other, and utilizing staccato pops, gravelly tones and a wide, round mouth vibrato, Butcher’s elongated flutters, reed bites, slaps and flutters enlivened the duet either mid-range, barely there or fortissimo. Meanwhile Sanders clattered, slapped and shook different parts of his kit, at one point stabilizing the interaction with military precision, anther not only whapping a small bell and wood block, but using them instead of sticks on drum tops.

Percussionist rather than drummer, Prévost played in two formations, most notably eschewing the standard kit for an enormous gong and ancillary cymbals in a set with baritone saxophonist David O’Connor, violinist Jennifer Allum and Grundik Kasyansky on electronics. With the saxman expelling high intensity, tongue slaps and fortissimo yelps; the fiddler striking her strings with the bow’s frog when not scrubbing them, and Kasyansky dislocating time with bursts of static, crackles and snatches of processed voices, Prévost maintained equilibrium, by sawing upon the gong or rubbing squeaking timbres from the tempered metal.

Parker played in a unique trio filled out by cellist Okkyung Lee and Evans – who used piccolo and regular trumpet in a solo set that opened FOTC; puffing, vocalizing, screaming and even melodiously sounding his horn(s) with effects and to spectacular effect. With Lee’s connective ostinato underneath, Evans’ phenomenal brass command was matched and reined in by Parker on tenor and soprano saxophone, demonstrating the ease in which tone splintering, circular breathing and flutter tonguing could be amplified with lyrical twitters and peeps. In double counterpoint the horn players both exercised super-fast tonguing or built gurgles, puffs and tongue clacks into a satisfying textural display.

Also satisfying was the concluding quintet set. Mixing metallic twang from Coxon’s guitar, a combination of breakneck piano runs plus jagged synthesizer pumps from Thomas and the steady clatter and cymbal scratches from Lytton, the developing stop-time improvisation finally reached a point of layered cacophony. But this wasn’t before Ward extended the sound palate from his purposely whiny lines and altissimo screams by blowing into his unattached mouthpiece. Meanwhile Smith used vibrato buzzes to propel soaring high-pitched triplets over the others’ sounds.

Told after the climatic finale that there was only time for a short tune, Smith theatrically unleashed a curt flourish of brassy insouciance and led the others off stage. Adding a particular brand of Yankee showmanship to the proceedings and confirming the slogan above the stage, the trumpeter summed up the proceedings and set the stage for future FOTCs.

-- For All About Jazz – New York June 2010

June 6, 2010

Ken Vandermark/Barry Guy/Mark Sanders

Fox Fire
Maya MCD 0901

Testimony to the infinite adaptability of first-class improvisers is this two-CD live set. It captures the first-ever recorded meeting among veteran British Free Music bassist Barry Guy, peripatetic American multi-reedist Kern Vandermark and in-demand English drummer Mark Sanders, who mid-wifed the session.

Throughout the contours of 10 instant compositions from Birmingham and Leeds concerts in the United Kingdom, the three mate extended techniques, split-second timing, pitch and timbre augmentation plus subtle dips into the tradition. The result lodged firmly within the collegial spirit of Free Music, is also a wholly original variant.

Each improviser can call on musical history within the genre. Leader of large ensembles like his New Orchestra, Guy has for decades been one-third of saxophonist Evan Parker’s similarly constituted trio with drummer Paul Lytton. Adaptable in situations ranging from solo to big band work with Americans and Europeans, Vandermark – who here plays clarinet and tenor saxophone – has probably recorded more sessions in the past two decades as Guy has in his 40-year career. Meanwhile Sanders has partnered a clutch of saxophonists, including Parker, Tony Bevan and Paul Dunmall, plus bassists such as John Edwards and Simon H Fell.

The Leeds concert in particular features nods to the tradition in Vandermark’s fruity saxophone tone on “Fuggle” which he uses when he’s not exposing elongated burbles and reed bites. As his shrills spiral upwards into over-blowing and tongue mulching, Guy matches him with scrubbed or string-splintering textures. When the saxman blows across the reed exposing moist, staccato pecks, the bassist alternates between sul tasto slices and methodically picked chromatic patterns. Backing them both, Sanders confines himself to hand patterning and cymbal pings. Furthermore, when Vandermark switches to clarinet, he ensures that every partial and timbre is exposed staccatissimo and stop-time, with the vector reaching broken octave harmonies.

Thick sputtering waves of free-form multiphonics which Vandermark exposes on “Challenger” confirms Parker’s influence on him, and this resemblance is intensified by the drags, flams and ruffs of Sanders – who been part of some Parker formations – and Guy’s familiar thumps and strokes. Turning the piece into a bass-drum showcase for a time, the bassist’s knife-sharp movements encompass squeaks, slices and quivers on many strings simultaneously as the drummer reveals a constant hand-foot/smack-smash/roll-paradiddle percussion landscape. Although the tenorist’s return with grainy, textures then touches manages to suggest both “The William Tell Overture” and the bossa nova. Sanders’ rebounds manage to be both agitato and balladic, introducing a conclusive bass string snap.

Comparable in-the-moment communication takes place on the Birmingham-recorded tracks as well. The more-than 22½ -minute “Kwingyaw” for instance boasts stellar work from each. Beginning with a drum solo that includes cross pulses, rolls, backbeat strokes and bass drum whacks, the piece evolves intuitively as Guy’s beneath-the-bridge rasguedo takes on erhu-like echoes; and as Vandermark’s multi-directional note smears manage to be both fortissimo and staccato, oscillating between rasping abrasions and glottal punctuation. Speech-like inflections from all encompass inchoate reed squeals, pealing cymbal expression and spiccato triple-stopping. Expressing himself in a cornucopia of tongue slaps, fog-horn blats and extensive glossolalia, Vandermark’s sprint to low-pitched bites signal the piece’s conclusion as do speedy drum strokes and chromatic string strums. On other tracks, affiliated skitters, scatters and shakes from the drummer on skin, wood and metal, ensure that no matter how many floating altissimo squeals Vandermark packs into his circular breathing a foundation is maintained.

Fox Fire provides a classic example of a first-class, one-off trio formation. Plus the sounds captured on the disc guarantee that this combo will be fondly remembered even if the three never record together again.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD1: 1. Katsina 2. Up North 3. Kwingyaw (For T. D-E) 4. Revontulet 5. Northern Lights CD2: 1. Fuggle 2. Aquila 3. Challenger 4. Omega 5. Nugget

Personnel: Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Barry Guy (bass) and Mark Sanders (percussion)

February 11, 2010

Augustí Fernández & Ingar Zach

Germinal
Plasticstrip pspcd708

Augustí Fernández

Un llamp que no s’acaba mai

psi 09.04

Barcelona-based Augustí Fernández is probably the most accomplished and readily identifiable Spanish pianist since Tete Montolieu – although both he and Montolieu would likely prefer to be known as Catalans.

Each of these high-class sessions emphasizes Fernández’ inventive versatility. As a quick rule-of-thumb, Un llamp que no s’acaba mai involves more of his on-the-keyboard skills and Germinal his explorations beneath the lid – bowing and slapping the string mechanism from soundboard to speaking length.

His partner on Germinal is Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach, who now lives near Madrid, and like the pianist has concretizes with many European improvisers as well as maintaining membership in groups such as Huntsville and Magnetic North Orchestra. Fernández, who teaches improvisation at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, is also a member of bands lead by bassist Barry Guy and saxophonist Evan Parker. Coincidentally bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders, who back up the pianist on the other CD, frequently work with Parker as well.

Sonically more like twins of different mothers than pianist and percussionist, Fernández, and Zach as frequently expose the abrasive and percussive qualities of both instruments as they do their timbral and lyrical qualities. For instance Zach is more likely to gash his drum stick along the cymbal or chafe drum skins than output a steady rhythm. For his part, the pianist clips the keys, twangs and stops strings with implements that emphasize his instrument’s metallic qualities. Unspecified sound echoes and forceful reverberations are so common throughout that they not only extend the power of the interactions, but leave unanswered the question of which sound belongs to which instrument. In fact, Germinal is designed to aurally reflect Spain’s long-time underground anarchist tradition.

Fernández’ piano patterning on a track such as “Capaz de luz “evolves to nocturne-like reflective cadences from Morse-code-like single note and soundboard vibrations. Meanwhile Zach sympathetically produces an undercurrent of connective drones from his drum heads as well as resounding glockenspiel-like pings. Throughout the percussionist is given enough space to showcase unique processes. One for instance, finds him whacking unattached cymbals for maximum spatial effect, while the pianist saws on wound bass strings and unwound treble strings beneath the lid. These additional tones bounce back from the piano’s capotes and speaking length.

Sonic communication between the two reaches a climax on “Arcano”, where the joint output of blurry percussion stroking plus flanged whistles and node-enhanced key-stopping suggest the sort of broken-octave refractions usually only possible with electronics. As Fernández sets up shop beneath the piano lid, rubbing and pounding the bottom frame, string set and speaking length, Zach counters with bell-strokes, drags and rolls. Finally the pianist increases the tension with kinetic actions that appear to strip the finish from the internal mechanism only to settle into reflective silences at the end.

Recorded in concert surroundings, Un llamp que no s’acaba mai more closely relates to the standard jazz piano trio, with its four sections taken moderato and surprisingly legato. A piece like the first for example, deflects more towards Edwards’ bass than the drummer’s press rolls and cymbal scrapes or the pianist’s layered glissandi. Here the bassist’s sul tasto and sul ponticello string excavations expand into atonal pumping, scraping and scratching. The contrapuntal interludes are so discordant, that it takes reassuring low-pitched string taps from Edwards to specifically identify the bass.

As for the pianist, his output ranges from the near-formal, with recital-like portamento runs and arpeggio tinkling; to the most liberated, as he scratches the instrument’s wood inside and outside, and pummels the keys in kinetic response to the drummer’s cymbal strokes and hammering percussion. Sanders’ showcase is saved for “Quarto”, but even here he displays his wares without overpowering the others. In sync with Fernández’ high-pitched string-scraping – that replicates saxophone trills – and Edwards’ triple-stopping bowing, the drummer reverberates pops and paradiddles on cymbals, toms and snares, while thwacking his bass drum. With Edwards buzzing his strings in a spiccato manner and Fernández using pedal action to push his drones to an equivalent timbre, the three finally bond.

Pianism at its most assured, Fernández and associates bring complementary skills to the aural sound pictures.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Germinal: 1. Volutas 2. Hojarasca 3. Arcano 4. Es la nieve sobre et mar 5. Hidromiel 6. Capaz de luz

Personnel: Germinal: Augustí Fernández (piano) and Ingar Zach (percussion)

Track Listing: llamp: 1. Primo 2. Secondo 3. Tertio 4. Quarto

Personnel: llamp: Augustí Fernández (piano); John Edwards (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums)

September 26, 2009

Augustí Fernández

Un llamp que no s’acaba mai
psi 09.04

Augustí Fernández & Ingar Zach

Germinal

Plasticstrip pspcd708

Barcelona-based Augustí Fernández is probably the most accomplished and readily identifiable Spanish pianist since Tete Montolieu – although both he and Montolieu would likely prefer to be known as Catalans.

Each of these high-class sessions emphasizes Fernández’ inventive versatility. As a quick rule-of-thumb, Un llamp que no s’acaba mai involves more of his on-the-keyboard skills and Germinal his explorations beneath the lid – bowing and slapping the string mechanism from soundboard to speaking length.

His partner on Germinal is Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach, who now lives near Madrid, and like the pianist has concretizes with many European improvisers as well as maintaining membership in groups such as Huntsville and Magnetic North Orchestra. Fernández, who teaches improvisation at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, is also a member of bands lead by bassist Barry Guy and saxophonist Evan Parker. Coincidentally bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders, who back up the pianist on the other CD, frequently work with Parker as well.

Sonically more like twins of different mothers than pianist and percussionist, Fernández, and Zach as frequently expose the abrasive and percussive qualities of both instruments as they do their timbral and lyrical qualities. For instance Zach is more likely to gash his drum stick along the cymbal or chafe drum skins than output a steady rhythm. For his part, the pianist clips the keys, twangs and stops strings with implements that emphasize his instrument’s metallic qualities. Unspecified sound echoes and forceful reverberations are so common throughout that they not only extend the power of the interactions, but leave unanswered the question of which sound belongs to which instrument. In fact, Germinal is designed to aurally reflect Spain’s long-time underground anarchist tradition.

Fernández’ piano patterning on a track such as “Capaz de luz “evolves to nocturne-like reflective cadences from Morse-code-like single note and soundboard vibrations. Meanwhile Zach sympathetically produces an undercurrent of connective drones from his drum heads as well as resounding glockenspiel-like pings. Throughout the percussionist is given enough space to showcase unique processes. One for instance, finds him whacking unattached cymbals for maximum spatial effect, while the pianist saws on wound bass strings and unwound treble strings beneath the lid. These additional tones bounce back from the piano’s capotes and speaking length.

Sonic communication between the two reaches a climax on “Arcano”, where the joint output of blurry percussion stroking plus flanged whistles and node-enhanced key-stopping suggest the sort of broken-octave refractions usually only possible with electronics. As Fernández sets up shop beneath the piano lid, rubbing and pounding the bottom frame, string set and speaking length, Zach counters with bell-strokes, drags and rolls. Finally the pianist increases the tension with kinetic actions that appear to strip the finish from the internal mechanism only to settle into reflective silences at the end.

Recorded in concert surroundings, Un llamp que no s’acaba mai more closely relates to the standard jazz piano trio, with its four sections taken moderato and surprisingly legato. A piece like the first for example, deflects more towards Edwards’ bass than the drummer’s press rolls and cymbal scrapes or the pianist’s layered glissandi. Here the bassist’s sul tasto and sul ponticello string excavations expand into atonal pumping, scraping and scratching. The contrapuntal interludes are so discordant, that it takes reassuring low-pitched string taps from Edwards to specifically identify the bass.

As for the pianist, his output ranges from the near-formal, with recital-like portamento runs and arpeggio tinkling; to the most liberated, as he scratches the instrument’s wood inside and outside, and pummels the keys in kinetic response to the drummer’s cymbal strokes and hammering percussion. Sanders’ showcase is saved for “Quarto”, but even here he displays his wares without overpowering the others. In sync with Fernández’ high-pitched string-scraping – that replicates saxophone trills – and Edwards’ triple-stopping bowing, the drummer reverberates pops and paradiddles on cymbals, toms and snares, while thwacking his bass drum. With Edwards buzzing his strings in a spiccato manner and Fernández using pedal action to push his drones to an equivalent timbre, the three finally bond.

Pianism at its most assured, Fernández and associates bring complementary skills to the aural sound pictures.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Germinal: 1. Volutas 2. Hojarasca 3. Arcano 4. Es la nieve sobre et mar 5. Hidromiel 6. Capaz de luz

Personnel: Germinal: Augustí Fernández (piano) and Ingar Zach (percussion)

Track Listing: llamp: 1. Primo 2. Secondo 3. Tertio 4. Quarto

Personnel: llamp: Augustí Fernández (piano); John Edwards (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums)

September 26, 2009

Carlos Zíngaro/Dominique Regef/Wilbert De Joode String Trio

Spectrum
Clean Feed CF 110CD

ZPF Quartet

Ulrichsberg München Musik

Bruce’s Fingers BF 67

T.E.C.K. String Quartet

T.E.C.K. String Quartet

Clean Feed CF 089CD

Three plus one times two or two plus one times one. These may seem like ambiguous mathematical formulae, but they’re actually the personnel make-up of these exceptional string-informed CDs.

The “one” here, is Portuguese violinist Carlos Zingaro. His associates include three different bassists: American Ken Filiano (on T.E.C.K.), Englishman Simon H Fell (on Ulrichsberg) and on Spectrum, Wilbert De Joode from the Netherlands; two different cellists: London-based Marcio Mattos (on Ulrichsberg) and New York’s Tomas Ulrich (on T.E.C.K.); plus odd-ball instruments – for string groups – of drums (London’s Mark Sanders on Ulrichsberg); acoustic guitar (New York’s Elliott Sharp on Spectrum); and hurdy-gurdy (France’s Dominique Regef on Spectrum).

Divorced from the conventions of even modern chamber-music ensembles, the three CDs realize a variety of propositions, Each confirms that sophisticated, string compositions are still being crafted – even if the genesis involves instant composition; that profound string-oriented chamber pieces don’t have to be limited to the standard quartet instrumentation that has remained unchanged since the 18th century: first and second violin, viola, and cello; and that Zingaro’s inventiveness is unfazed by numerous situations.

The Lisbon-based fiddler, who has had lengthy or briefer associations with fellow sound explorers such as French bassist Joëlle Léandre and American composer Richard Teitelbaum plus developed scores for theatre, dance and film projects, adapts without strain to the presence of unconventional chamber music instruments.

Of course the percussive asides from Sanders are rather individual themselves, considering that the drummer usually makes a point finding a place for himself within other advanced settings, such as in saxophonist Evan Parker’s bands. Furthermore, on Ulrichsberg, the other three players use extended techniques and electronics to expose and alter the tessitura of the strings, exposing partials and overtones as well as the expected timbres and dynamics.

That frequently means that wood block pops, resonating configurations of bells and gongs plus cymbal clattering and the gentle patting of stretched skin tops replaces steady beat patterns on the percussionist’s part. This dovetails harmonically with the others’ output which includes angled spiccato from Zingaro; sul ponticello lines from Mattos – whose background includes work with dance companies and electronic ensembles – and low-pitched slaps and cumulative adagio sweeps from Fell, who has also composed notated works and is a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra.

The resulting striated polytones and abrasive string action provide intermittent thematic alteration to the sometimes chiaroscuro interface. Eventually though, as the strings’ timbres veer towards higher pitches and become more fragmented, the bassist’s pedal-point stopping leads to a harmonic convergence of four-way, multi-part affiliation.

Similar bonding strategies appear from the different cast on T.E.C.K., although the non-chamber quartet instruments are played by Sharp, a guitarist with extensive immersion in contemporary New music as well as blues and jazz; plus bassist Filiano, who not only plays in improvising groups with Zingaro and Portuguese reedist Rodrigo Amado but is bassist of choice for a number of American jazz men. Additionally, cellist Ulrich, the other string-slinger, holds his own in bands including the likes of Léandre and Zingaro.

T.E.C.K.’s nine selections provide additional wave form scope for everyone, especially the violinist, whose sounds often take on the trilling character of woodwinds. For his part Sharp’s protracted bottleneck-like rasps and chromatic rasgueado prove more rhythmic than anything Sanders projected on the preceding CD, while the larger stringed instruments pile on sul tasto strokes, thick and striated pitch-slides and tough, focused passing chords. The results range from discordant double-and-triple-stopping to a striated intermezzo of grinding oscillations, colored by splintered clinks and pinched, fortissimo runs.

When the four simultaneously decide to investigate the pizzicato mode, the resulting mash-up metaphorically at least suggests the sounds those swollen, 100-instrument balalaika or mandolin philharmonics of the late 19th or early 20th Century made. However the harsh resolution, broken octaves, down-stroked frail and snapped ricochets are definitely post-modern and 21st Century.

Highly rhythmic and rife with fiery cries that are equally POMO are the interludes from Regef’s hurdy-gurdy on Spectrum. Still when the chordophone instrument isn’t producing peeping spetrofluctuation as if Regef was playing a reed, or sounding organ-grinder-like tremolo drones, the hurdy-gurdy’s history as a vertical viola is evident. Regef, who has used the hurdy-gurdy to accompany singers as well as improvise with saxophonist Michel Doneda among others, impressively – and singularly – adapts the ratcheting recoils of his medieval-styled cranked instrument to modern times.

Here the hurdy-gurdy’s harsh whirring both contrasts and complements Zingaro’s sometimes sweetly legato pulses, while De Joode – who imperturbably plays with everyone from pianist Michiel Braam to saxophonist Ab Baars – merely digs into his instrument’s thick tones to keep the other two on an even keel. Regef’s almost oonomatopoeic impulses frequently swell to become both intense and opaque, which leads the others to create antipodal thumps and strokes.

With the hurdy-gurdy squeezes as pressured as they are buzzing, new strategies emerge. At one point Zingaro triple-stops a protracted pressured line that is as dense and staccato as Regef’s output, while De Joode thumps and walks his bass. These basso chords echo long enough so that they adhere to the cumulative sounds from the others.

Later, as constant chordophone drones reverberate on hard surface, creating a blurry, neo-primitive electro-acoustic texture, the response from the fiddler is lyrical and gently pitched to break up the nearly ceaseless continuum. Then the bassist responds with plucked jazz inflections including finger-tip taps and harmonically advanced bent notes. At the climax the hurdy gurdy’s reverberating overtones first resemble electronically-triggered oscillations, then dissolve into familiar organ-grinder tones, and are finally subsumed by the harmonic union of the real strings.

Whether modern chamber music or Zingaro’s advances are your chief interest, there is much to impress and edify listeners on these discs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Spectrum: 1. Spectra 01 2. Spectra 02 3. Spectra 03

Personnel: Spectrum: Carlos Zíngaro (violin); Dominique Regef (hurdy gurdy [or sanfona or vielle à roue]) and Wilbert De Joode (bass)

Track Listing: T.E.C.K.: 1. Levitation 2. Intuitive reduction 3. If not now, when 4. Ripples 5. Swapfield 6. Memory hanging 7. Hard evolution 8. Still not easy 9. As hard as it comes...

Personnel: T.E.C.K.: Carlos Zíngaro (violin); Elliott Sharp (National Tricone guitar); Tomas Ulrich (cello) and Ken Filiano (bass)

Track Listing: Ulrichsberg: 1. Ulrichsberg 1 2. München 3. Ulrichsberg 2

Personnel: Ulrichsberg: Carlos Zingaro (violin and electronics); Marcio Mattos (cello and electronics); Simon H. Fell (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums and percussion)

October 18, 2008

ZPF Quartet

Ulrichsberg München Musik
Bruce’s Fingers BF 67

T.E.C.K. String Quartet

T.E.C.K. String Quartet

Clean Feed CF 089CD

Carlos Zíngaro/Dominique Regef/Wilbert De Joode String Trio

Spectrum

Clean Feed CF 110CD

Three plus one times two or two plus one times one. These may seem like ambiguous mathematical formulae, but they’re actually the personnel make-up of these exceptional string-informed CDs.

The “one” here, is Portuguese violinist Carlos Zingaro. His associates include three different bassists: American Ken Filiano (on T.E.C.K.), Englishman Simon H Fell (on Ulrichsberg) and on Spectrum, Wilbert De Joode from the Netherlands; two different cellists: London-based Marcio Mattos (on Ulrichsberg) and New York’s Tomas Ulrich (on T.E.C.K.); plus odd-ball instruments – for string groups – of drums (London’s Mark Sanders on Ulrichsberg); acoustic guitar (New York’s Elliott Sharp on Spectrum); and hurdy-gurdy (France’s Dominique Regef on Spectrum).

Divorced from the conventions of even modern chamber-music ensembles, the three CDs realize a variety of propositions, Each confirms that sophisticated, string compositions are still being crafted – even if the genesis involves instant composition; that profound string-oriented chamber pieces don’t have to be limited to the standard quartet instrumentation that has remained unchanged since the 18th century: first and second violin, viola, and cello; and that Zingaro’s inventiveness is unfazed by numerous situations.

The Lisbon-based fiddler, who has had lengthy or briefer associations with fellow sound explorers such as French bassist Joëlle Léandre and American composer Richard Teitelbaum plus developed scores for theatre, dance and film projects, adapts without strain to the presence of unconventional chamber music instruments.

Of course the percussive asides from Sanders are rather individual themselves, considering that the drummer usually makes a point finding a place for himself within other advanced settings, such as in saxophonist Evan Parker’s bands. Furthermore, on Ulrichsberg, the other three players use extended techniques and electronics to expose and alter the tessitura of the strings, exposing partials and overtones as well as the expected timbres and dynamics.

That frequently means that wood block pops, resonating configurations of bells and gongs plus cymbal clattering and the gentle patting of stretched skin tops replaces steady beat patterns on the percussionist’s part. This dovetails harmonically with the others’ output which includes angled spiccato from Zingaro; sul ponticello lines from Mattos – whose background includes work with dance companies and electronic ensembles – and low-pitched slaps and cumulative adagio sweeps from Fell, who has also composed notated works and is a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra.

The resulting striated polytones and abrasive string action provide intermittent thematic alteration to the sometimes chiaroscuro interface. Eventually though, as the strings’ timbres veer towards higher pitches and become more fragmented, the bassist’s pedal-point stopping leads to a harmonic convergence of four-way, multi-part affiliation.

Similar bonding strategies appear from the different cast on T.E.C.K., although the non-chamber quartet instruments are played by Sharp, a guitarist with extensive immersion in contemporary New music as well as blues and jazz; plus bassist Filiano, who not only plays in improvising groups with Zingaro and Portuguese reedist Rodrigo Amado but is bassist of choice for a number of American jazz men. Additionally, cellist Ulrich, the other string-slinger, holds his own in bands including the likes of Léandre and Zingaro.

T.E.C.K.’s nine selections provide additional wave form scope for everyone, especially the violinist, whose sounds often take on the trilling character of woodwinds. For his part Sharp’s protracted bottleneck-like rasps and chromatic rasgueado prove more rhythmic than anything Sanders projected on the preceding CD, while the larger stringed instruments pile on sul tasto strokes, thick and striated pitch-slides and tough, focused passing chords. The results range from discordant double-and-triple-stopping to a striated intermezzo of grinding oscillations, colored by splintered clinks and pinched, fortissimo runs.

When the four simultaneously decide to investigate the pizzicato mode, the resulting mash-up metaphorically at least suggests the sounds those swollen, 100-instrument balalaika or mandolin philharmonics of the late 19th or early 20th Century made. However the harsh resolution, broken octaves, down-stroked frail and snapped ricochets are definitely post-modern and 21st Century.

Highly rhythmic and rife with fiery cries that are equally POMO are the interludes from Regef’s hurdy-gurdy on Spectrum. Still when the chordophone instrument isn’t producing peeping spetrofluctuation as if Regef was playing a reed, or sounding organ-grinder-like tremolo drones, the hurdy-gurdy’s history as a vertical viola is evident. Regef, who has used the hurdy-gurdy to accompany singers as well as improvise with saxophonist Michel Doneda among others, impressively – and singularly – adapts the ratcheting recoils of his medieval-styled cranked instrument to modern times.

Here the hurdy-gurdy’s harsh whirring both contrasts and complements Zingaro’s sometimes sweetly legato pulses, while De Joode – who imperturbably plays with everyone from pianist Michiel Braam to saxophonist Ab Baars – merely digs into his instrument’s thick tones to keep the other two on an even keel. Regef’s almost oonomatopoeic impulses frequently swell to become both intense and opaque, which leads the others to create antipodal thumps and strokes.

With the hurdy-gurdy squeezes as pressured as they are buzzing, new strategies emerge. At one point Zingaro triple-stops a protracted pressured line that is as dense and staccato as Regef’s output, while De Joode thumps and walks his bass. These basso chords echo long enough so that they adhere to the cumulative sounds from the others.

Later, as constant chordophone drones reverberate on hard surface, creating a blurry, neo-primitive electro-acoustic texture, the response from the fiddler is lyrical and gently pitched to break up the nearly ceaseless continuum. Then the bassist responds with plucked jazz inflections including finger-tip taps and harmonically advanced bent notes. At the climax the hurdy gurdy’s reverberating overtones first resemble electronically-triggered oscillations, then dissolve into familiar organ-grinder tones, and are finally subsumed by the harmonic union of the real strings.

Whether modern chamber music or Zingaro’s advances are your chief interest, there is much to impress and edify listeners on these discs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Spectrum: 1. Spectra 01 2. Spectra 02 3. Spectra 03

Personnel: Spectrum: Carlos Zíngaro (violin); Dominique Regef (hurdy gurdy [or sanfona or vielle à roue]) and Wilbert De Joode (bass)

Track Listing: T.E.C.K.: 1. Levitation 2. Intuitive reduction 3. If not now, when 4. Ripples 5. Swapfield 6. Memory hanging 7. Hard evolution 8. Still not easy 9. As hard as it comes...

Personnel: T.E.C.K.: Carlos Zíngaro (violin); Elliott Sharp (National Tricone guitar); Tomas Ulrich (cello) and Ken Filiano (bass)

Track Listing: Ulrichsberg: 1. Ulrichsberg 1 2. München 3. Ulrichsberg 2

Personnel: Ulrichsberg: Carlos Zingaro (violin and electronics); Marcio Mattos (cello and electronics); Simon H. Fell (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums and percussion)

October 18, 2008

T.E.C.K. String Quartet

T.E.C.K. String Quartet
Clean Feed CF 089CD

Carlos Zíngaro/Dominique Regef/Wilbert De Joode String Trio

Spectrum

Clean Feed CF 110CD

ZPF Quartet

Ulrichsberg München Musik

Bruce’s Fingers BF 67

Three plus one times two or two plus one times one. These may seem like ambiguous mathematical formulae, but they’re actually the personnel make-up of these exceptional string-informed CDs.

The “one” here, is Portuguese violinist Carlos Zingaro. His associates include three different bassists: American Ken Filiano (on T.E.C.K.), Englishman Simon H Fell (on Ulrichsberg) and on Spectrum, Wilbert De Joode from the Netherlands; two different cellists: London-based Marcio Mattos (on Ulrichsberg) and New York’s Tomas Ulrich (on T.E.C.K.); plus odd-ball instruments – for string groups – of drums (London’s Mark Sanders on Ulrichsberg); acoustic guitar (New York’s Elliott Sharp on Spectrum); and hurdy-gurdy (France’s Dominique Regef on Spectrum).

Divorced from the conventions of even modern chamber-music ensembles, the three CDs realize a variety of propositions, Each confirms that sophisticated, string compositions are still being crafted – even if the genesis involves instant composition; that profound string-oriented chamber pieces don’t have to be limited to the standard quartet instrumentation that has remained unchanged since the 18th century: first and second violin, viola, and cello; and that Zingaro’s inventiveness is unfazed by numerous situations.

The Lisbon-based fiddler, who has had lengthy or briefer associations with fellow sound explorers such as French bassist Joëlle Léandre and American composer Richard Teitelbaum plus developed scores for theatre, dance and film projects, adapts without strain to the presence of unconventional chamber music instruments.

Of course the percussive asides from Sanders are rather individual themselves, considering that the drummer usually makes a point finding a place for himself within other advanced settings, such as in saxophonist Evan Parker’s bands. Furthermore, on Ulrichsberg, the other three players use extended techniques and electronics to expose and alter the tessitura of the strings, exposing partials and overtones as well as the expected timbres and dynamics.

That frequently means that wood block pops, resonating configurations of bells and gongs plus cymbal clattering and the gentle patting of stretched skin tops replaces steady beat patterns on the percussionist’s part. This dovetails harmonically with the others’ output which includes angled spiccato from Zingaro; sul ponticello lines from Mattos – whose background includes work with dance companies and electronic ensembles – and low-pitched slaps and cumulative adagio sweeps from Fell, who has also composed notated works and is a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra.

The resulting striated polytones and abrasive string action provide intermittent thematic alteration to the sometimes chiaroscuro interface. Eventually though, as the strings’ timbres veer towards higher pitches and become more fragmented, the bassist’s pedal-point stopping leads to a harmonic convergence of four-way, multi-part affiliation.

Similar bonding strategies appear from the different cast on T.E.C.K., although the non-chamber quartet instruments are played by Sharp, a guitarist with extensive immersion in contemporary New music as well as blues and jazz; plus bassist Filiano, who not only plays in improvising groups with Zingaro and Portuguese reedist Rodrigo Amado but is bassist of choice for a number of American jazz men. Additionally, cellist Ulrich, the other string-slinger, holds his own in bands including the likes of Léandre and Zingaro.

T.E.C.K.’s nine selections provide additional wave form scope for everyone, especially the violinist, whose sounds often take on the trilling character of woodwinds. For his part Sharp’s protracted bottleneck-like rasps and chromatic rasgueado prove more rhythmic than anything Sanders projected on the preceding CD, while the larger stringed instruments pile on sul tasto strokes, thick and striated pitch-slides and tough, focused passing chords. The results range from discordant double-and-triple-stopping to a striated intermezzo of grinding oscillations, colored by splintered clinks and pinched, fortissimo runs.

When the four simultaneously decide to investigate the pizzicato mode, the resulting mash-up metaphorically at least suggests the sounds those swollen, 100-instrument balalaika or mandolin philharmonics of the late 19th or early 20th Century made. However the harsh resolution, broken octaves, down-stroked frail and snapped ricochets are definitely post-modern and 21st Century.

Highly rhythmic and rife with fiery cries that are equally POMO are the interludes from Regef’s hurdy-gurdy on Spectrum. Still when the chordophone instrument isn’t producing peeping spetrofluctuation as if Regef was playing a reed, or sounding organ-grinder-like tremolo drones, the hurdy-gurdy’s history as a vertical viola is evident. Regef, who has used the hurdy-gurdy to accompany singers as well as improvise with saxophonist Michel Doneda among others, impressively – and singularly – adapts the ratcheting recoils of his medieval-styled cranked instrument to modern times.

Here the hurdy-gurdy’s harsh whirring both contrasts and complements Zingaro’s sometimes sweetly legato pulses, while De Joode – who imperturbably plays with everyone from pianist Michiel Braam to saxophonist Ab Baars – merely digs into his instrument’s thick tones to keep the other two on an even keel. Regef’s almost oonomatopoeic impulses frequently swell to become both intense and opaque, which leads the others to create antipodal thumps and strokes.

With the hurdy-gurdy squeezes as pressured as they are buzzing, new strategies emerge. At one point Zingaro triple-stops a protracted pressured line that is as dense and staccato as Regef’s output, while De Joode thumps and walks his bass. These basso chords echo long enough so that they adhere to the cumulative sounds from the others.

Later, as constant chordophone drones reverberate on hard surface, creating a blurry, neo-primitive electro-acoustic texture, the response from the fiddler is lyrical and gently pitched to break up the nearly ceaseless continuum. Then the bassist responds with plucked jazz inflections including finger-tip taps and harmonically advanced bent notes. At the climax the hurdy gurdy’s reverberating overtones first resemble electronically-triggered oscillations, then dissolve into familiar organ-grinder tones, and are finally subsumed by the harmonic union of the real strings.

Whether modern chamber music or Zingaro’s advances are your chief interest, there is much to impress and edify listeners on these discs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Spectrum: 1. Spectra 01 2. Spectra 02 3. Spectra 03

Personnel: Spectrum: Carlos Zíngaro (violin); Dominique Regef (hurdy gurdy [or sanfona or vielle à roue]) and Wilbert De Joode (bass)

Track Listing: T.E.C.K.: 1. Levitation 2. Intuitive reduction 3. If not now, when 4. Ripples 5. Swapfield 6. Memory hanging 7. Hard evolution 8. Still not easy 9. As hard as it comes...

Personnel: T.E.C.K.: Carlos Zíngaro (violin); Elliott Sharp (National Tricone guitar); Tomas Ulrich (cello) and Ken Filiano (bass)

Track Listing: Ulrichsberg: 1. Ulrichsberg 1 2. München 3. Ulrichsberg 2

Personnel: Ulrichsberg: Carlos Zingaro (violin and electronics); Marcio Mattos (cello and electronics); Simon H. Fell (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums and percussion)

October 18, 2008

Bruise

With Derek Bailey
Foghorn Records FOGCD006

Perhaps the most unintentionally shocking part of this 2004 live London gig by the British Bruise band joined by guitarist Derek Bailey is its cost, reprinted on the back CD cover: “₤5/₤3 concessions”.

While a bargain for the audience, it proves once again that no matter how well-known someone like the guitarist was in the improv world, he was still doing local gigs for the equivalent of the price of a beer a little more than a year before his death at 75. Obviously no one ever got rich – or is it comfortable, in both senses – playing improv.

At this same time Bailey probably participated in this 70-minute session because of his respect for the participants, who richly deserve it. Bass saxophonist Tony Bevan, who has single-handedly rescued the largest member of the saxophone family from the clutches of the Moldy Figs, first played with the guitarist in the 1980s. Sound collage creator Ashley Wales is part of electro-acoustic sessions involving equally famous first-generation improvisers like British saxophonist Evan Parker and Dutch drummer Han Bennink.

Singly and together, bassist John Edwards and percussionist Mark Sanders have backed up BritImprov heavy hitters ranging from Parker to saxophonist John Butcher. Orphy Robinson, who plays steel drum, marimba, percussion, electronics and trumpet here, subtly and without showing off, often adds funk and African inferences to his more sophisticated note selection.

The likelihood is that Bailey worked with all the others beforehand in some combination or other. Or maybe he didn’t. Bailey had a reputation for improvising with everyone and anyone, preferably for the first time. Often this all-inclusive impulse served him badly and on some record dates you can hear him picking away oblivious to all around him. Luckily this isn’t one of those.

As always Bailey sounds unmistakably like himself, using the non-idiomatic style that he arguably invented. At points he appears to be tapping or rattling his strings; at others stroking a cluster of legato notes; and elsewhere seemingly wiping and cleaning the guitar neck or space below the bridge – musically, and in the context of the improvisation of course.

By the final more-than-34-minute track, perhaps impassioned – or irritated –

by the vibrating samples and effervescent wave forms from Wales, the guitarist’s pin-point notes turn to distorted flanges, as if he was practicing for a Yardbirds’ rave-up. While this is going on the bassist and drummer develop their accompaniment from low-key, stop-and-start to delineate a speedy walking bass line and rhythmic drum-stick rattles.

Still earlier Robinson shows off blustery trumpet tones slowly submerged by shrieking and twittering machine modulations. One early climax is reached however, when Bailey’s single string snaps and resolute flat picking attains double counterpoint with Bevan’s lip bubbling and snorts.

Throughout, the saxophonist’s purpose-built honks join knife-sharp rasgueado from the guitarist to build up the intensity. Most of this takes place on top of horizontal wave forms from Wales’ soundscapes and a percussion display from Sanders that swiftly evolves from bounces and rebounds to heavy, anvil-like beats. When one series of sounds resembles the sweeping textures of a violin recital, can it be attributed to electronic legerdemain or to stroking spiccato lines from Edwards’ bass?

All and all, between Bevan’s masticating basso slurs and altissimo cries, Bailey’s string bending and chiming frails plus off-centre pitch molding from the others, the applauding audience obviously had a great time – at bargain prices. So will the listener.

In sympathetic, challenging company on one of his last sessions, Bailey rose to the occasion to help define his brand of improvisation – as did his five confreres.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Search 2. Locate 3. Destroy

Personnel: Tony Bevan (bass saxophone); Derek Bailey (guitar); John Edwards (bass); Mark Sanders (drums and percussion); Orphy Robinson (steel drum, marimba, percussion, electronics and trumpet); Ashley Wales (soundscapes and electronics)

July 21, 2006

NICK STEPHENS SEPTET

Live at the Plough Stockwell
Loose Torque LT007

FAST COLOUR
Antwerp 1988
Loose Torque LT001

Two vibrant snapshots of London Jazz in the late 1980s, early 1990s, these discs show that just before the Limey version of Young Lions appeared, musicians of many different schools had developed a rapport with one another.

By this time jazz-rockers, Free Musicians and boppers had been coexisting for a good many years, while the Brits had the added advantage of having internalized the Kwela and Township Jive rhythms expatriate South Africans players brought with them to the British jazz scene, after they fled Apartheid.

Probably the best-known of these expatriates was saxophonist Dudu Pukwana (1938-1990), featured on ANTWERP 1988 and celebrated with “Do Do That Dudu That You Do” on LIVE AT THE PLOUGH STOCKWELL. When the bands on both sessions adapt African-influenced patterns, they’re not doing it for novelty. Trumpeters John Corbett and Harry Beckett, trombonist Annie Whitehead and saxophonist Evan Parker had been part of South African pianist Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath with Pukwana, while bassist Nick Stephens and drummer John Stevens had long-time working relationships with the altoist.

Ironically with such heavy hitters as Parker, Pukwana and Stevens (1940-1994) on board, the Antwerp CD appears to be a unique all-star date, with the two CD-set merely the approximation of a typical two-set Saturday night pub gig. Not exactly... The tightness of the septet, which played at Stockwell’s The Plough every Saturday night, make this session the equal of the other, since Fast Colour rarely worked with Parker and Pinise Saul, who was also vocalist in Pukwana’s Zila band.

While Whitehead, Corbett, who also played in the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, and saxophonist Chris Biscoe, a long-time associate of pianist Mike Westbrook, are proven qualities, and drummer Mark Sanders, featured on two tracks, would go on to record with the likes of Parker, one of the outstanding soloists is the little-known Jerry Underwood.

Underwood, who died in 2002 at 45, worked with avant-folkies like John Martyn, and in Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle as well as doing improv gigs. His solos throughout are impressive, especially on “One for Ron/Cunning Mingus”, dedicated to Ron Herman, who played alongside Stephens and Stevens in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and (obviously) bassist Charles Mingus. Revealed is an unapologetic, feet-planted-on-the-floor hard blower in Underwood, who spins guttural sounds, phrases and lines to their logical conclusion without showboating. He’s sort of the Brit equivalent of the late John Stubblefield, another powerful, but underappreciated tenorist, who worked with Mingus and the Mingus Big Band.

While Saul’s throat-twisting glossolalia, anti-Apartheid chanting, whistling and screams are a vital part of the performance, the preponderance of vocals frequently makes it seem as the band is backing the vocalist, rather than the singer being one part of the ensemble.

Luckily there’s enough instrumental prowess on display to more-or-less make up for that. Whitehead confirms her skills with a few muted, flutter-tongued excursions that manage to be both tailgate colorful and bebop slick. With no sign of his Free Music persona in evidence, Parker is content to play second fiddle … er, saxophone … to Pukwana. When he does solo, Parker’s jagged timbres are firmly in the Free Jazz realm. Meanwhile, Stephens keeps up a steady beat, faithful to Township Jive as well as Jazz conventions.

As for Stevens, his loose-wristed, foot-pumping outings, especially on “John Dyani’s Gone”, are undertaken with locomotive style power, revealing the inner Buddy Rich that seems to have hidden inside the innovative Free Jazzer. Beckett’s double-tongued, soaring obbligato to the drum work is particularly apt, as he matches the percussionist phrase for phrase, smear for smear, no matter the tempo.

One was never exactly sure how much of Pukwana’s mature style came with him from South Africa and how much grew organically from the confluence with advanced Free Jazz stylists in the United Kingdom. Here his percussiveness in false registers is on display as well as intense, raspy irregular vibrations that at points mirror Eric Dolphy’s advances.

Recorded more than a year later, on the evidence of his compositions for his own septet, Stephens also appears to have internalized the adapted South African cross rhythms to his own end for LIVE AT THE PLOUGH STOCKWELL. While several of the tunes have punning pseudo-African titles such as “No Me Degas Nada”, the strength of the performance comes from this Anglo-African admixture, with band voicing and sudden tempo changes.

Besides the brassy enthusiasm of individual horn soloists, some of most pointed bonding material comes from British-based Peruvian guitarist Mano Ventura. Mixing stinging jazz runs with Latin-styled rhythms, his string expansions complement the soloists or the rhythm section, depending on the circumstances. The only distraction – almost understandable in a 1990 context – comes from his over-reliance on too bright George Benson-like octave runs.

Throughout the eight tracks the septet delivers the type of closely arranged bravura performance that’s polyphonically sophisticated yet rhythmically open. Who knows, with a few of the tunes replete with insistent stay-in-your-memory hooks, the audience at the Plough may have been moved enough to execute the odd dance step to the foot-tapping rhythm. Linking the performance to horn-resplendent Yank funksters like Kool and the Gang or Earth, Wind and Fire, the crowd may not have realized that some of the United Kingdom’s most accomplished jazzers were letting their hair down – if they had any – with this gig. Consciously or not, through the musicians’ unshowy use of extended techniques, the two-CD set also points out the links between improv and so-called more popular forms such as funk and kwela.

Anyone interested in a peek behind the scenes at what went on during a top-quality British jazz pub gig in the late 1980s/early 1990s would be wise to seek out LIVE AT THE PLOUGH STOCKWELL. Understanding that the emphasis on ANTWERP 1988 is directed towards a variant of South African jazz, not cerebral BritImprov for which Parker and Stevens are best known could draw you to that disc as well.

-- Ken Waxman

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Track Listing: Fast: 1. Now Time 2. Way It Goes 3. John Dyani’s Gone 4 Don’t Throw It Away 5. Mbizo 6. Way It Goes/Now Time

Personnel: Fast: Harry Beckett (trumpet); Annie Whitehead (trombone and voice); Dudu Pukwana (alto and soprano saxophones); Evan Parker (tenor saxophone); Nick Stephens (bass); John Stevens (drums); Pinise Saul (voice)

Track Listing: Plough: CD1: 1. Just One Ornetto 2. Do Do That Dudu That You Do 3. Fayzed 4. No Me Degas Nada CD2: 1. West 11# 2. One for Ron/Segue 3. Cunning Mingus# 4. In Off*

Personnel: Plough: John Corbett (trumpet); Annie Whitehead or Alf Waite# (trombone);

Chris Biscoe or Paul Mason* (alto saxophone); Jerry Underwood (tenor saxophone); Manno Ventura (guitar); Nick Stephens (bass); Brian Davison or Mark Sanders* (drums)

December 5, 2005

SCHLIPPENBACH TRIO

Compression: Live at Total Music Meeting 2002
a|l|l 011

EVAN PARKER/MARK SANDERS/JOHN COXON/ASHLEY WALES
Trio with Interludes
Treader trd002

Free Music’s paramount concern is in constantly making it new. Incongruously, though, this freshness as often results from the faith improvisers have in the abilities of longtime collaborators as from musicians experimenting with new players and novel instruments.

COMPRRESSION and TRIO WITH INTERLUDES aptly demonstrate these opposing stratagems in discs featuring veteran BritImproviser Evan Parker. The first is yet another masterful performance by Parker on soprano and tenor saxophones and the two German musicians who have made up this trio since the early1970s: pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens on selected drums and cymbals.

The other matches Parker and British percussionist Mark Sanders, with whom he has recorded in other circumstances, with John Coxon on Roland MKS 80, grand piano, harpsichord, National Trojan guitar and riveted tambour. Coxon and Ashley Wales make up the electronic remix duo Spring Heel Jack, which has put together some cut’n’paste sessions for Parker and other British and American improvisers in the past. Yet this sound investigation has Coxon and his somewhat idiosyncratic instruments joined with the other two to make up an improvising trio on seven tracks. Six intermingled interludes sound as if Coxon plus Wales on piano, bass drum, riveted tambour and flannel (sic) are performing their version of studio improv without imput from the other two.

Despite the 12 notated cues, COMPRRESSION is one continuous performance from the 2002’s Total Music Meeting in Berlin and shows what can be accomplished when the improvisers involved know each other’s every move. Parker, von Schlippenbach and Lovens collectively do what they do best, and like, say, a Modern Jazz Quartet performance – although a lot less formal – you simply add another chapter to the volume that has been their collective legacy since the 1970s.

Passing what in conventional music would be the lead role between the saxophonist and the pianist, Parker on tenor saxophone slashes through the polyphonic barrier with snarky hard blowing and split tones, molding themes and variations as he sees fit. Double-tonguing, it often seems as if two separate reed lines are being developed and harmonized, a technique he carries over to the soprano, though the smaller horn also encourages breathtaking circular breathing, shading every note as the swerving long-lined smears and arpeggios permeate von Schlippenbach’s and Lovens' vibrant contributions.

More melodic than he has been in the past, the pianist varies his touch from feather-light to anvil-hard at different points. Sometimes he comes up with recital-fashion low-frequency chording, other times his contrasting dynamics are such that he appears to be finding the sort of hyperkinetic contrasting dynamics that characterized many early Free Jazz keyboardists.

Improvising in broken octaves and polyharmonically hasn’t altered von Schlippenbach’s links to the tradition, however. If his cadences seem to arise from a prepared piano at points, his note clusters also take on the pulses of raggy Stride other places – his admitted influence Thelonious Monk was a Stride man himself. Logical internal swing is always present, and there’s a point right near the top where for a brief moment it sounds as if he’s quoting from “Just a Gigolo”, coincidentally a tune Monk recorded as a solo feature.

Content to bell-ring and cymbal-resonate for propulsion, most of the drummer’s accompaniment centres on timed clatters and thumps. There’s also a point where it appears that Parker’s narrowness of tone has thinned to such an extent that it’s been reduced to pennywhistle-like shrills. But considering Lovens’ singing saw can produce similar timbres, very likely the carpenter’s tool made an unexpected stage appearance. As that pitch enters the sound field the result is sort of reductionist polyharmony. Whether voiced that way or with frantic polyphony, the end result impresses both the audience and the listener.

Equally impressive is the work on TRIO WITH INTERLUDES, though, to be honest, most of the interludes that clock in around the one minute mark could have been excised. With one exception, they’re reminiscent of commercial breaks on television dramas, interludes which display Coxon’s and Wales’ prowess with legato grand piano chording, sluiced electronic intervals or scraped steel guitar whines, but which are vestigial to many tunes’ plot lines.

Far more germane is how Parker’s protracted circular breathing and harsh vocalized slurs, a well as Sanders’ wriggling cymbal licks and drum rolls are combined with live and processed oscillations for novel and imaginative textures. At points the cross-modulation and filter resonance causes Coxon’s analogue synthesizer to produce irregular, mosquito-buzzing timbres on its own. More commonly, sluicing or slurred reed tones match up with resonating plucks from the electrified harpsichord or float upon clouds of organ-setting resonances.

Another strategy is when low-frequency, mechanized wave forms are replaced by squirming calliope-patterning from the keys – the better to mix with light snaps and back-of-brush taps from the drummer and in counterpoint with lips smacks and cheeky thwacks from the reedist. Some of the foghorn slurs heard may be Parker in the flesh, yet others are electronic interface, reflecting back his already-created saxophone lines into the mix.

While glottal punctuation, irregular body tube vibrations and tongue slaps can alternately collide with or maneuver through cymbal clacking and irregular ruffs from Sanders as well as the careening caffeinated runs from and fluttering waves of Game boy-like clamor from Coxon, congruence puts the tones to better use.

On one, more-than-8½-minute track, the contrapuntal qualities are brought into highest relief. Sideboard distortions are patched with keyboard arpeggios so that the resulting warm bubbling tones meet head on with rappelling overblowing that produces skittering growls. When the drummer’s off-handed cymbal thwacks are added, the layering adds up to perfect cohesion regardless of its electronic or acoustic qualities.

Previously Parker’s electro-acoustic adventures have taken place in larger group contexts, but the seven trio improvisations here prove he can work in diminutive fashion as well. Furthermore, the dozen tracks of COMPRRESSION demonstrate that his acoustic interface hasn’t suffered either.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing Compression: 1. Yes Bishop... yes, yes! 2. Variations on G 3. All the Things You Are (Paraphrase dvs/pi) 4. Tantrum 5. Ayre 6. Bang In... 7. Bird of the Year 8. Compression 9. Glow 10. Singles 11. Insistence 12. It had to be

Personnel Compression: Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano); Paul Lovens (selected drums and cymbals)

Recorded live at Total Music Meeting 2002

Track Listing: Interludes: 1. 4.14 2. 1.03 3. 7.42 4. 1.13 5. 8.33 6. 1.30 7. 7.02 8. .41 9. 7.53 10. 04.50 11. 2.48 12. 1.10 13. 3.22

Personnel: Interludes: Evan Parker (tenor saxophone); John Coxon (Roland MKS 80, grand piano, harpsichord, National Trojan guitar, riveted tambour); Ashley Wales (piano, bass drum, riveted tambour, flannel) and Mark Sanders (drums and percussion)

and percussion)

September 26, 2005

LONDON IMPROVISERS ORCHESTRA

Responses, Reproduction & Reality
EMANEM 4110

Outgrowth of a Butch Morris-led conduction that took place in London a few years ago, the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) has evolved into a once-a-month gig where some of the British capital’s best improvisers get together to try out new ideas.

Involving a revolving cast of 30-plus players as well as different conductors and composers, the LIO has taken on an identity far beyond that of a BritImprov kicks band. However as these seven tracks, recorded at 2003’s and 2004’s Freedom of the City festivals demonstrate, the outcome is still inconsistent.

Corralling three dozen top players into a somewhat regimented atmosphere to play exacting compositions as well as improvisations can be a struggle – ask pioneers like Alexander von Schlippenbach or Carla Bley who did so in the past. So while six conducted-compositions and a free improvisation are featured here, in truth the pieces that are most notable are those which revolve around a strong soloist or soloists rather than rigid, non-developmental leitmotifs. This concept may be anathema to the collectivist impulse that has traditionally characterized BritImprov, but larger groups call for different strategies.

“Ism”, for example, conducted by electronic manipulator Pat Thomas, could almost be Free Jazz. Here the creative shape revolves around tenor saxophonist John Butcher’s winnowing slurs and smears plus trombonist Alan Tomlinson’s pedal-point plunger blasts and snorts, rather than the agitato overtones from the massed instruments around them. Including hyper-kinetic piano cadences at the finale, polyphonic string crescendos as well as triple counterpoint from the drums, the orchestra’s most important function is as a framing device.

“Wit’s End,” conducted by Dave Tucker – which in many ways begins as a concerto for Paul Rutherford’s trombone – develops in a similar fashion. Moving among harsh vamps from the horns and percussion, the trombonist shuffles and smears his timbres, later vocalizing to match the oscillations from B. J. Cole’s pedal steel guitar. Other influences surface as the almost-12½-minute composition develops, most noticeably the avant spin Orphy Robinson gives the traditional steel pan and the wave forms bouncing from interference to accompaniment from Adam Bohman’s so-called amplified objects. More conventionally, the LIO here includes legato orchestral string parts that only touch on dissonance and some call-and-response riffs from soprano saxophonist Tom Chant and trumpeter Roland Ramanan.

By replicating writ large the gullet gymnastics of guest vocalist Jaap Blonk, from the Netherlands, “Hearing Reproduction 5 – conducted by Caroline Kraabel – impresses as well. Spiccato string stops, hocketing irregular horn lines, aviary squeaks from the flutes and blacksmith-like thumps from the percussionists match if not mirror the retching, growling, barking and throat gurgles that characterize Blonk’s sound.

Elsewhere, compositions designed to showcase the smallest fraction of a musical idea in one case or elongate a non-linear, so-called script of timbres rather than thematic development really only come alive when the strictures are ignored. Developing almost rococo detailing of various orchestral tones after the swaying, slapping and scraping of plunger trombone and shivering electronics helps one. Pizzicato violin strums, low-frequency tremolo patterns from both pianists and a crescendo of pitch-sliding semitones from the brass liven things up for the other. But until a fade, most LIOers appear to be patterning rather than playing.

These and other tunes capture some fine playing, but singularly, rather than as part of a larger grouping. Hunting horn–like harmonies from the trombones, reverb from two guitarists and portamento chording from dual pianos were no doubt exciting to play and convincingly exciting for the live audience. But minus visuals some of the sounds come across as a cross between polytonal advancement from dedicated free players and a parody of a symphony orchestra at rehearsal.

A valuable listen for those curious about how analytical musicians labor to solve the conundrum of multi-person improvisation RESPONSES, REPRODUCTION & REALITY offers practical evidence of what does and doesn’t work.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Wit’s End 2. Improvisation Panels (1) 3. Hearing Reproduction 5* 4. Proceeding 6 5. Responses 6. Ism 7. Fantasy and Reality

Personnel: [tracks 1 & 7]: Harry Becket and Roland Ramanan (trumpets);

Robert Jarvis and Paul Rutherford (trombones); Neil Metcalfe (flute); Catherine Pluygers (oboe); Terry Day (bamboo pipes); John Rangecroft (clarinet); Jacques Foschia and Harrison Smith (bass clarinets); Tom Chant, Lol Coxhill and Adrian Northover (soprano saxophones); Caroline Kraabel (alto saxophone); Evan Parker (tenor saxophone); Susanna Ferrar, Sylvia Hallett and Phil Wachsmann (violins); Charlotte Hug (viola); Marcio Mattos (cello); B. J. Cole (pedal steel guitar); Dave Tucker (guitar); David Leahy, John Edwards and Simon H. Fell (basses); Tony Marsh and Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums); Orphy Robinson (steel pan); Adam Bohman (amplified objects) [tracks 2 - 6]: Harry Becket, Ian Smith and Roland Ramanan (trumpets); Robert Jarvis and Alan Tomlinson (trombones); John Rangecroft (clarinet); Jacques Foschia and Harrison Smith (bass clarinets); Tom Chant, Lol Coxhill and Adrian Northover (soprano saxophones); Caroline Kraabel (alto saxophone); John Butcher (tenor saxophone); Susanna Ferrar, Sylvia Hallett and Phil Wachsmann (violins); Charlotte Hug (viola); Marcio Mattos (cello); Dave Tucker and Keith Rowe (guitars); Steve Beresford and Veryan Weston (pianos); David Leahy, John Edwards and Simon H. Fell (basses); Tony Marsh, Mark Sanders and Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums); Pat Thomas (electronics); Jaap Blonk (voice)*

September 26, 2005

Tony Bevan

Bruised
Foghorn Records

Floros Floridis
F.L.O.R.O. III (Further Lines Over Rough Options)
j.n.d. re-records

By Ken Waxman
August 8, 2005

Unlike rockers, classical recitalists and even mainstream jazzers, committed improvisers have a compulsion to constantly involve themselves in novel situations with new players or new instruments. For them, repetition is the same as stasis.

Thus these two CDs find accomplished reedists who have recorded noteworthy acoustic duo and trio discs, setting up more of a challenge by welcoming more musicians and electronics. Frankly, the end products aren’t as satisfying as earlier, all-acoustic dates, but the players have to be commended for their audacity and refusal to stand pat.

A resident of Thessaloniki, multi-reedman Floros Floridis has been the lonely crusader for Free Improv in Greece for years. He and pianist Sakis Papadimitriou recorded the country’s first outside jazz LP in 1979. Since then he’s been involved with a variety of local and international players, ranging from Germans, bassist Peter Kowald and percussionist Günter “Baby” Sommer to American guitarist Nicky Skopelitis and Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz. Along the way he’s written music for radio, theatre and film.

Oxford, England–based saxophonist Tony Bevan is a crusader like Floridis. But with the BritImprov scene a little more welcoming than the one in Greece, the campaign he’s waged is for the acceptance as of the unwieldy bass saxophone as a flexible improvising tool, liberating it from its status as a Dixieland clown. To that end he’s turned out dazzling CDs with the likes of British guitarist Derek Bailey, Chicago trombonist Jeb Bishop and American Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray.

Adding additional instrumental voices to the arena as Bevan has done for the six tracks of Bruised and Floridis has on the 15[!] pieces on F.L.O.R.O. III, overloads the result away from unadulterated improv and towards textures, patterns and beats. Taken as a whole, the consensus is that neither Bevan, who plays tenor and bass saxophones on his CD, nor Floridis – whose instruments include soprano and alto saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet, wooden flute, voice, as well as it seems synthesized strings and keyboard samples – gets enough solo space.

Portentously the British saxophonist’s associates are not only bassist John Edwards and percussionist Mark Sanders, who appear on a high percentage of BritImprov dates, but also Orphy Robinson, playing vibraphone, marimbula (sic), steel drum, percussion and electronics and Ashley Wales of the SpringHeel Jack duo on soundscapes and electronics.

Third outing for the F.L.O.R.O. crew – each time with a different English translation of the abbreviation – the woodwind player here matches bassist Nektarios Karatzis and drummer Nikos Psofogiorgos from F.L.O.R.O. I, with guitarist Babis Papadopoulos from F.L.O.R.O. II. Since electric piano, celli, strings, brass and electric bass are also listed, overdubbing and other studio wizardry distinguishes this outing from the earlier ones.

That’s a shame, since the most memorable parts of this CD are those when Floridis blows unfettered. These tracks aren’t untouched Trad Jazz either. On “F1” for instance, his full-bodied moderato clarinet trills are entwined with secondary lines from a ghost clarinetist twittering in a higher register. Managing the double tracking, rather than being controlled by it, the clarinetist, bassist and drummer replicate the gentle swing of say, Buddy DeFranco with Red Mitchell and Shelly Manne, adding a walking bass line and bop cymbal snaps. Plus the piece is free enough to have a rondo as the coda.

“Basses Duo”, as the title suggests, offers up two Karantzises, one playing arco, the other pizzicato. Harmonizing at points, the double bass action also gives the reedist scope for pitch-vibrated glissandi, altissimo trills and tongue slaps. Similarly, “Celli Duo”, an impressive bass clarinet feature.

When everything is aligned properly the additions can help. “Chaos 3”, for example, links steady, unflashy drumming with stark electronic textures that take on movie monster-like sounds. Flordis’ best improvising of the disc occurs here as he spits out lightly accented and pitch-vibrated tones, twitters and overblowing.

Psofogiorgos isn’t always that diffident, however. On the aptly titled “Nice Groove” and several other tunes, pounding rhythms make common cause with meandering double bass thumps, knob-twisting guitar reverb and sprinkled accents from the Fender Rhodes. At times resembling a Hellenic version of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, only the saxist maintains the improv context with either well-modulated, bass clarinet double-tonguing, warbling alto saxophone lines or meandering soprano sax fills.

Things are even less impressive elsewhere. On one track an overlay of shifting synthesized strings seems to be a on a different plane than Flordis’ supple clarinet tone. Another, made up of squealing saxophone vamps, rattling drum bits and thumping drums sounds like rock music. A coupling of primitivist wood flute and quivering hand drums on “Bariloche 2” provides so-called World Music echoes without follow through.

World Music emulation isn’t one of the shortcomings of Bruised, but overall the forthright singularity Bevan elsewhere brings to his improvising is muted by accommodation with soundscapes and offbeat percussion textures.

On the more than 17-minute “Leviathan”, for instance, the saxophonist doesn’t truly make his presence felt until about four minutes before the conclusion and that’s with singular, trilled understated lines. Preceding this are oscillating electronic shimmers, raindrop-like click clacks from wooden objects, arco bass lines and steady steel drum patterning. Bevan’s earlier input is made up of circular growling sounds, but taken as a whole the track lists towards Spring Heel Jack’s wave form experiments.

“Taxi dance” and “Tempranillo” provide a more rewarding amalgamation of the acoustic and electronic interface. On the first Bevan – on tenor – reveals an unexpected kinship to Lester Young’s playing as he trills steady cadences over what sound like a meeting between echoing harmonica, jangling maracas and a resonating steel drum. Following a concise arco bass intro, Bevan downpedals his reed overblowing to a display of circular breathing, segmented with distinct whistles and unique harmonies.

“Tempranillo” is 11-minutes of jumbled references. At one point Robinson’s key-ringing vibraphone echoes speed along like the work of a modernist Terry Gibbs, while Mark Sanders demonstrates his skills with cross-handed percussion patterning. These clattering polyrhythms in turn spur Bevan from playing gentle swinging tones to launching tough, staccato sheets of sound where squeals and irregular pitch vibrations lead to short bitten-off notes.

Working Wales’ soundscapes into the aural picture on the title track provides more scope for everyone. Edwards creates a guitar-like a flat-picking bass line, after unveiling a chiming, arco counter pattern to Bevan’s mid-range bass sax expansions. As velvety pedal tones turn abstruse and dissonant, electronic sound patterns, including what sounds like the repetitive clanking of a metallic wind-up toy, expand. Relaxing into this backing, the saxophonist becomes more assured. Turbulent and contrapuntal, he adds altissimo cries to his solo.

Linking the need for musical innovation with the freedom to fall short in execution, Bevan and Floridis must be commended for exploring new territory with these discs. Folks familiar with their work will no doubt revel in the novelty and virtuosity displayed on some of the tracks here. But those coming to the music for the first time would be better off seeking out earlier small group outings by Bevan and/or Floridis before tackling these sessions.

August 8, 2005

PAUL DUNMALL MOKSHA BIG BAND

I Wish You Peace
Cuneiform RUNE 203

Unquestionably a 50th birthday present to himself – and his listeners – there’s a tendency to hear I WISH YOU PEACE as an attempt by British saxophonist Paul Dunmall to sum up his musical experiences after a half century of life. Yet it’s a much a reflection of the present and future as the past.

Writing the three-part suite at a time when the war in Iraq was in full battle mode, Dunmall’s spiritual preoccupations seem a bit overcome by bellicose motifs in this recording, initially premiered on BBC Radio 3. Still the title reflects the reedman’s desire for humankind to achieve a non-war-like serenity.

As for the band’s name – Moksha is a Hindu word meaning the final liberation of the soul. It references the sort of transcendental conscientious Dunmall and others first experienced in the 1960s and have migrated to the 21st Century. Like certain orchestral showcases for saxophonists recorded at the time by Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane and Archie Shepp, “I Wish You Peace” is very much a concerto for Paul, with the ever-inventive saxophonist taking the greatest amount of solo space.

The most prominent secondary voices belong to Dunmall’s associates in small groups. The rest of Mujician, bassist Paul Rogers, drummer Tony Levin and especially - pianist Keith Tippett make the most obvious contributions, as do Philip Gibbs on guitar and autoharp, drummer Mark Sanders and guitarist John Adams who often play in the saxophonist’s trio. Giving Dunmall the space to improvise, conductor Brian Irvine is along to direct the horns: Gethin Liddington and David Priesman on trumpets; Hilary Jeffery, Paul Rutherford and Chris Bridges on trombones; plus Simon Picard and Howard Cottle on tenor saxophones.

Part Two makes the most use of the other players. Parting the smeary horn and brass hocketing, Tippett offers up a brief improv that bounces between a montuno section and near bop, while Dunmall’s concise tenor statements unfold on top of bounces and flams from Levin and Sanders. Later, either Gethin Liddington or David Priesman trade snaking restrained trumpet lines with variegated, cross dynamics from the pianist. Hummingbird swift chromatic runs and slurred high-pitched variation are then exhibited by one of the brassmen, almost a cappella. Subsequently Gibbs or Adams moves up front for Wes Montgomery-like thick octave runs. When the guitarist’s output turns more abstract with counterlines and thumb pops, Dunmall, who has been involved in offbeat theme development throughout, turns to exploded multiphonics, as the two turn into a 21st Century Jim Hall and Sonny Rollins duo. Massed horn interludes sneak in and out of the audio picture just behind the two, climaxing in unison dissonance.

Part Three’s finale is somewhat similar, with seemingly every instrumentalist twisting, turning and screaming at top volume before the piece is cut off. Earlier, however, this cut has exhibited the most 1960s-like echoes. Tippet slathers prepared piano stops from inside his instrument, one of the guitarists produce a vague sitar-like tone and the section’s beginning is almost electronic, featuring a droning strings section with a ponticello bowed bass line on top.

Comparable to his work on Part Two and unlike the warm, Coleman Hawkins-like tenor tones he floats in the first part, Dunmall’s solos are in 1960s mode as well. Howling and pitch shifting, he works his way from screaming altissimo to the bottom of the bow snorts with almost Tranean intensity using smears, doits and glottal punctuation. Along with these staccato flutter tonguing, the section features high-frequency piano comping, chiming and shuffling extended chromatic guitar lines, and times when the other horns combine step by step into a unison climatic harmonic interface.

With textures and timbres often felt as well as heard, Dunmall’s three-part suite manages to replicate the cacophony of war in such a way that the individual expression of the composition gives hope that peace will arrive. What a birthday celebration it is.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. I Wish You Peace Part One 2. I Wish You Peace Part Two 3. I Wish You Peace Part Three

Personnel: Gethin Liddington, David Priesman (trumpets); Hilary Jeffery, Paul Rutherford, Chris Bridges (trombones); Paul Dunmall (soprano and tenor saxophones); Simon Picard, Howard Cottle (tenor saxophones); Keith Tippett (piano); John Adams (guitar); Philip Gibbs (guitar and autoharp); Paul Rogers (bass); Tony Levin and Mark Sanders (drums); Brian Irvine (conductor)

April 4, 2005

SFQ [SIMON FELL QUARTET/QUINTET]

Four Compositions
Red Toucan RT 9376

Over the past 20 years, Yorkshire bassist Simon H. Fell has segmented his work between writing large scale compositions for massive orchestras of horns, strings, brass, percussion and electronics and playing bass as part of turbulent improv combos -- usually in trios with a saxophonist and drummer

Four Compositions, a two-CD set, appears to be an almost wholly successful attempt to reconcile the formal and audacious parts of his musically schizophrenic personality. As a matter-of-fact, while the first disc, subtitled “Three Quintets” shows how far he has evolved in creating for his by then-established quintet, “Liverpool Quartet”, for an even smaller group confirms that accomplished creations can result from an even-more-relaxed milieu first time out.

Most impressive is the work of French hornist Guy Llewellyn. A specialist in contemporary classical performance, who has also worked with such Fell associates as drummer Paul Hession and saxist Alan Wilkinson, he brings the flexibility and colors of a slide trombone to his work here. Sharing the front line is clarinetist Alex Ward, who often works in duo with drummer Steve Noble, featured on the other disc. Ward whose playing partners have ranged from Britimprov godfather guitarist Derek Bailey to Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore is capable of pulling as many twisted notes from his ebony stick as Llewellyn can muster from his horn’s tubing. Drummer and electronics manipulator Mark Sanders is first call for many Britimprov situations, in combos led by saxists such as Paul Dunmal, for instance, or as part of the band Lunge, with trombonist Gail Brand, who also plays on CD1.

Oddly enough, while Fell in the notes maintains that the pieces written for the concert in Liverpool captured on the second CD, reflect a move away from jazz to connect with contemporary classical and experimental music, some of the tracks appear more overtly jazzy than the pieces on disc one. Especially obvious is the transparently titled “GM2 Blues” which floats on a Mingusaian bass line from its composer. Taken staccatissimo it’s most notable for a near-gutbucket solo from Llewellyn that somehow polyphonically intermingles the influences of Kid Ory and George Lewis. Ward’s high-pitched trilling often in harmony with curt, mellow horn lines, only adds to this, as do Sanders’ snare drum and hollow hand percussion accents. Most audible here than anywhere else, Fell contributes pedal point action to fling the piece forward.

“GM3 Rhythm” also reflects its title, as horn lines coalesce into a jaunty air that features steady rhythmic accompaniment from the drummer’s rumble and bounces plus a walking line from the bass. Although the harmonies break apart as the tune unrolls, neither the hornist’s twisted triplets and buzzes nor the clarinetist’s double-tongued, stray cat-like yowl detract from its unhurried pace and connection.

Notwithstanding sequenced fluttering from Sander’s electronics, this jazz/improv disposition remains throughout the second two-thirds of the disc in pieces like “Quartet” and “Liverpool 2”. The latter features reverberations distorting bass drum pedal pressure and hi-hat volleys with doorstopper resonation. Yet these and subsequent polyrhythmic snaps and taps from rims and cymbals conform easily with the others’ output. Ward shrills chirped notes, Llewellyn’s thunderous lower-pitched one and Fell’s ponticello sweeps fit it all together. Finally, there’s a coda of mewling smears from the clarinet, lip-buzzing police siren obbligatos from the horn and the drummer melds the textures with nearly weightless pings on his cymbals, likely produced by striking with the telescoped wire strands of brush handles. “Quartet”, with its whistling breaths and bleats from the French horn, reed-biting, purring whines and wiggles from the clarinet and ringing buoy approximations from the drummer works into a finale that’s all intermittent reed vibratos.

“Kandinsky Lines”, the final track also has much more to do with the timbres produced by the pizzicato and arco bass then the brush strokes of a painting. With the virtuosity you associate with jazzers, Fell bends spiccato playing and jettes to his purposes, creating tones from the four-string reminiscent of those you’d get from an upended guitar. Turning to the bow, his theme variations become more serene, finally mixing it up with elongated clarinet glissandi and plunger horn textures. With Sanders staying very much in the background, Fell’s echoing sul tasto and sul ponticello rhythms define the closing, with a coda made up of reed trilling, French horn vibrations and drum set tapping and popping.

His working group up until then, the quintet featured on CD1 intensifies the favorable impression it had already made with 2001’s THIRTEEN RECTANGLES on Bruce’s Fingers. Fell -- obviously -- and Ward are both present, along with trombonist Brand and drummer Noble. A prime addition is a pianist Alex Maguire, a longtime mate of Noble’s, whose other associations include Netherlands-based bands led by reedists Michael Moore and Sean Bergin.

“Gruppen Modulor 2” in five sections, is the core of this performance, with Fell likening this “nearer to modern jazz”, 24-minute plus composition influenced by Stockhausen, George Russell and architect Le Corbusier.

Architecturally, this sound edifice seems to have been reconfigured out of many already existing structures. Beginning in the house of jazz, the first few minutes are vaguely reminiscent of Mingus’ “Boogie Stop Shuffle” with walking bass, extended flams and snare beats from the drums and carefully voiced, unison horn slurs and trills. As the clarinetist double tongues in the altissimo register, pedal pressure emphasis from the piano and metronome-like time keeping from percussion keep things on an even keel.

One third of the way through the variations take the form of ascending plunger notes from Brand and tap-dancing-like timbres from Noble’s brushes and snares. Soon sharp slurs and growls deliberately twirl in a form of brassy resonation from the ’bone, as Ward’s low-key, but polyphonic obbligatos suggest a double horn blend more related to Classic than so-called modern, jazz.

As the drummer maintains a uniform pulse, non-jazz, but still syncopated movements appear, as Maguire’s earlier comping takes on denser overtones causing Brand to relax into longer lines as well. Fell’s contribution takes the form of oscillating pedal point bowing, producing enough further theme variations that recapitulation of the initial theme almost passes by unnoticed. Finale features unforced piano keyboard dusting and lightly propelling trombone tones.

“Composition No. 40.5d: Trapped By Formalism 2” the almost 12½-minute piece with its mouthful of a title that precedes “Gruppen Modular” is called “probably the most notation-intensive piece in the quintet’s repertoire”. But even here the band’s familiarity with improv and jazz forms prevents it from being “trapped by formalism”.

Although the episodic first few minutes may relate to New music, a few bars after that the piece has opened up into semi-swinging calls-and-responses from the horns, high intensity piano tinkling, walking bass and downshifting drum beats. And it continues this way.

Showy, 19th century style piano cadenzas lead to whizzing contralto reed lines and modified plunger marching-band cadences as rattled and snapped clave notes rebound from the drum kit. Can it be cowbell rapping that’s heard as well? Should the trombone buzz and snicker, then the piano reverts to semi-romantic cadenzas. Further on, hard and heavy low-pitched brass grace notes mesh with the drummer’s backbeat, while a languid trombone line precede a loping section from all concerned -- although Noble does sound as if he’s playing kettle drums. Brief single-note keyboard accents and vibrated horn harmonies make up the coda.

Putting aside rhetoric, these five and four-person aggregations appear to give composer Fell the perfect vehicles for his neither-fish-nor-fowl compositions that call on more than the jazz and improv traditions. On these CDs of exhilarating writing and performance, the quartet has a slight edge. Secondly, the creations also whet the appetite for further large-scale works from the composer.

-- Ken Waxman

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Track Listing: Disc one: SFQ1 - Three Quintets 1. Composition No. 50: Köln Klang 2. Composition No. 40.5d: Trapped By Formalism 2 3. Composition No. 62b: Gruppen Modulor 2: 3.1 Statement 1 3.2 Statement 2 3.3 Interlude 3. 4 Blues (Statement 3) 3.5 Coda Disc two: Composition No. 70: Liverpool Quartet 1. Liverpool 1a 2. Liverpool 1b 3. GM2 Blues 4. Quartet 5. Liverpool 2 6. GM3 Rhythm 7. Kandinsky Lines

Personnel: Disc one: Gail Brand (trombone); Alex Ward (clarinet); Alex Maguire (piano): Simon H. Fell (bass); Steve Noble (drums) Disc two: Guy Llewellyn (French horn); Alex Ward (clarinet); Simon H. Fell (bass); Mark Sanders (drums and electronics)

January 31, 2005

AVRAM FEFER

Shades of the Muse
CIMP #286

ROLAND RAMANAN
Shaken
EMANEM 4081

Matching a horn with a chordal instrument, bass and drums has long been an accepted jazz strategy. But as Free Jazz has muted into Free Music, fresh front lines have replaced the horn-and-guitar or horn-and-piano set up. Case in point these two CDs, one British, and one American, both of which feature a cellist upfront.

Firmly in the new tradition that welcomes new sounds, SHADES OF THE MUSE, the Yank disc is the fourth recent session lead by multi-reedist Avram Fefer. Here he’s partnered by cellist Tomas Ulrich plus Ken Filiano on bass and Jay Rosen on drums, all experienced in the karma of exploratory playing. Across the pond, SHAKEN is the debut disc for trumpeter Roland Ramanan, a full-time educator as well as a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO). His crew of veterans and fellow LIO members is made up of Marcio Mattos on cello and electronics, Simon H. Fell on bass and percussionist Mark Sanders.

Especially when it comes to the understated virtuosity exhibited by the trap men, both sessions are impressive examples of current group improvisation. Fefer’s crew is slightly more palatable though, since its shorter CD has fewer arid spots than Ramanan’s virgin effort.

Unlike some tyros the trumpeter doesn’t try to pack everything he knows into the disc, changing chameleon-like from track to track. Distinctively part of the BritImprov subset, SHAKEN is above all a group effort, with the leader careful to give full scope to the others’ talents. Improvising in different combinations, the disc probably could have been tightened by dropping the one track that features wooden flutes throughout.

One track that’s welcome for its inclusion, though, is literally called “Worth Remembering”. Highlighting a meeting of comparable musical minds, the piece starts with expertly vocalized brassy smears and stresses that meld with solid back up from the plucked cello. Purring brass trills then set up the momentum that welcomes the bass and drums playing an advanced version of jazz time. Soon buzzed rubato output from Ramanan meets long-lined string accompaniment that moves from pizz to arco and back again in split seconds. Finally after he searches his embouchure for le note juste, the brassman ends with high-in-the-valves note scraping mirrored by scratched bird-like whistles from the cello. The triumph here is that it’s often difficult to tell which note arises from the string set and which from the brass bell.

Other all-hands-on-deck pieces don’t reach those heights, as they’re allowed to go on far too long. “Before”, for instance, clocks in at nearly 11 minutes, with part of the space given over to Ramanan’s Amazonian flute intonation, a let down after you hear his brassy, chromatic trumpet lines that are seconded by wiggling drum bits and bell pealing plus legato cello slashes. When the trumpeter introduces half-squealing breaks, cello sutures become more diffuse and dissonant. Like Mikes Davis in the mid-1970s Ramanan holds onto his grace notes as the accompanying undertow from the others becomes wider and more diffuse -- Fell drones out the continuum as electronics apparently extend Mattos’ cello tone.

Experienced in group situations such as pianist Chris Burn’s Ensemble and drummer Eddie Prévost’s quartet, the cellist easily adapts to the unpretentious, jazz-like beat from Sanders, speedily triple-stopping and sounding out short, melodic fills. The trumpeter responds in kind, letting himself go by arching out a brazen, high-pitched solo that includes a screaming, descending pitchslide. There’s no egg shell walking here.

Here and on “The that’s that”, where Ramanan’s instructions direct the number of notes played in a set sequence and how many times the sequence is repeated. Sanders, who has backed up soloists like reedists John Butcher and Evan Parker, shows that he can create polyrhythms as easily from the sides and rims of his kit as the tops. He also colors the proceedings by popping sudden shattering tones from tiny unmatched cymbals, not unlike what Rosen does on the other CD.

On this and other pieces, Ramanan offers up matchless open horned tones, while the others construct irregular pulses around him. Elsewhere his idea pool includes fluttering rubato lines, strangled cries, mouthpiece French kisses and extended Harmon muted tones doubled with arco bass color Of all the musicians, Fell, whose writing includes extended compositions and who has played with most of the major BritImprov stylists, seems the least assertive.

You wouldn’t say that about Filiano on Fefer’s CD. But at the same time SHADES OF THE MUSE is also a group effort, with each man contributing to the overall sound picture. The bassist, whose longtime association has been with California multi-reedist Vinny Golia, easily adapts himself to Fefer’s four horns, providing a jazz-like pulse when needed and more obtuse timbres where they fit. More of a melodist than Ramanan, the reedman has the knack of composing pieces whose themes stay in your head for a while after you’re heard them. He does so in a variety of styles as well, without compromising his playing.

“Gates of Baghdad”, for example, an improvised piece with group notation, relies on the natural mournfulness produced by the arco cello and bass to suggest uncertainty, with the downcast mood commented upon with an irregular pulse and short bell peals from Rosen. As Fefer’s reed intermittently squeals and squawks turn to spetrofluctuation, ghost note vibrations and body tube trills, the percussionist does some of his best work on the CD, with cymbal crashes aimed with the precision of smart bombs and short, swift flams and ruffs. Working with other advanced woodwind players like Joe McPhee and Ivo Perelman has given Rosen a second sense in how to complement such reed flurries.

Ulrich, whose background includes time with Perelman, as well as the likes of drummer Kevin Norton and frequent Rosen partner, bassist Dominic Duval, works in perfect counterpoint to the horn man. By the end his complementary lines ease Fefer’s trills and double tonguing into one intense, elongated note.

“Shepp in Wolves’ Clothing”, honoring saxophonist/educator Archie Shepp, with whom Fefer recorded in Paris, is a buoyant tune linked as much to Shepp’s appreciation of Classic Jazz as his New Thing advances. A nearly 14-minute foot tapper carried on the walking bass and drum’s shuffle rhythm, it features a polyphonic tenor line and blue notes from the cello. Sounding more like Rahsaan Roland Kirk then Shepp at one point, the reedist solos on both his saxophones at once, creating a growly semi-atonal tone from one and a strained, vibrated split tone buzz from the other. With the tempo halved for a sliding bass solo backed by tingles from bells and unselected cymbals, the head is reprised just before the end with the piece going out with a final sax honk.

Cello and reeds voiced together means that a couple of the other tunes resemble the sort of bouncy West Coast pieces turned out in the mid-1950s by drummer Chico Hamilton’s band, the first to feature a cello in the front line. “Oblique Departures” is most notable for Filiano’s solo in a traditional Paul Chambers mode, while the balladic “Love Crept In (Again)” showcases Fefer’s smooth, liquid tone on the clarinet.

Finally Fefer’s versatility comes to the fore on “Brother Ibrahim”, a reminiscence of his trip to Morocco. Mixing Arabic and Eastern European influences, it exhibits a pinched reed tone that could come from a musette that expands to squealing and triple tonguing. It’s as if Booker Ervin had traveled to the Middle East. While Rosen plays a fast shuffle and Filiano navigates the beat, the strings appear to move from oud-like bowed lines to jaunty, freylach-like melodies. Ulrich skims across the strings with a high-pitched whine reminiscent of what Billy Bang can do with a fiddle, and his variations prepare the way for a reprise of the theme.

A fine effort, Fefer is definitely fashioning an unshakable identity. Meanwhile Ramanan’s CD is strong enough to suggest that just a little tweaking and shaping is needed in his concept to turn out as memorable a disc as the other.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Shaken: 1. Before 2. The next 3. Showers 4. Break 5. A kiss 6. Promised 7. The that’s that 8. Of a handshake 9. Worth remembering 10. Forgotten

Personnel: Shaken: Roland Ramanan (trumpet, wooden flutes); Marcio Mattos (cello and electronics); Simon H. Fell (bass); Mark Sanders (percussion)

Track Listing: Shades: 1. Shepp in Wolves’ Clothing 2. Love Crept In (Again) 3. Gates of Baghdad 4. Oblique Departures 5. Brother Ibrahim 6. BC Reverie 7. Sacred Passage (for Syma)

Personnel: Shades: Avram Fefer (tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet); Tomas Ulrich (cello); Ken Filiano (bass); Jay Rosen (drums)

March 8, 2004

RILEY/SANDERS/STABBINS/WREN

Four in the afternoon
Emanem 4067

HOWARD RILEY/LOL COXHILL
Duology
SLAM CD 249

One of the significant British musicians involved in the transition of the sound from jazz to Free Jazz to Free Improv, and all its variations, pianist Howard Riley has a vastly lower profile than many of his compatriots.

The 60-year-old pianist, who has taught at the Guildhall School of Music and London’s Goldsmiths College since the late 1960s, may be in fans’ consciousness for his work in the London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO) or for his early trio with bassist Barry Guy and drummer Tony Oxley. Yet besides that he has led a band with altoist Elton Dean and recorded scads of discs, solo and with partners like American pianist Jaki Byard.

Celebrity may be fickle, but Riley’s reputation as a musician’s musician is brought into clearer focus on two recent discs featuring him in the company of old associates. FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON gives the pianist free reign in a band featuring veteran saxophonist Larry Stabbins, 53, best-known for his pop/jazz band Working Week, but whose freer associations included pianist Keith Tippett’s big bands, a trio with drummer Louis Moholo and Mama Lapato with bassist Tony Wren. Wren, 55, a founding member of the London Musicians’ Collective, who has been involved with free music since the later 1960s is present here as well, as is young’un, percussionist Mark Sanders, who has played with everyone on the British scene from Evan Parker to John Butcher.

DUOLOGY, as the title makes clear, is a two-man meeting from a few months later, featuring Riley matching wits with soprano saxist Lol Coxhill. Coxhill, 71, who may be BritImprov’s most versatile player, has a playing history that encompasses everything from memberships in early Beat group and big dance bands to punk rock gigs and improvisations with guitarist Derek Bailey.

In the quartet formation, some of the pianist’s most imposing playing comes on “Where are the snows…” and “Rough crossing”. The latter, which is also one of the few places Wren’s strumming bass work has proper presence, frames Riley’s keyboard in arco rubs and what sounds like Sanders manipulating the claves. With an expansive, sliding tone he works his way allegro up the scale until it sounds like two pianists collaborating harmonically. Feathery chording arises from one hand and a complete secondary, but complementary melody from the other. Double tonguing, Stabbins on soprano then enters, chirping out fast runs which turn to a sepulchral serpentine tone to meet the pianist’s splashing runs. His radiating arpeggios, spread still wider with pedal pressure, convinces the saxman to introduce some novel Evan Parker-like wiggles. As Stabbins mouse-squeaks his output down to silence, Sanders’ kit rumbles and pinpoints sections with rim shots.

No mere celebration of yesteryear, the balladic “snows…” feature allegro pianisms and sparkling Pan-flute-like tones, with both soprano sax and piano chasing each others’ tails like small pooches. As Riley plays a seesaw rhythm in a more conventional jazzy style, Stabbins responds with trilling double tonguing so that the vibrations from each note sound again and again. Understated, Sanders hi-hat whacks and drum rolls reference modern jazz as well.

“Transcension”, which give you an idea what the 1963 John Coltrane quartet would have sounded like with Rachmanioff in McCoy Tyner’s seat, features thick, high frequency chording on Riley’s part which meet shrilling multiphonics from Stabbins that rebound into false registers. Meanwhile the drummer drives his cymbals and snare to their limits. The pianist’s seemingly endless supply of energy serves him well, as his pounding arpeggios meet Sanders’ efforts and Stabbins’ piercing cries.

Elsewhere the pianist constructs single-note moves as if he playing chess, coming up with sweeping piano chords or doubled tremolos, depending on whether the saxman is in full Albert Ayler Free Jazz mode or turning out low energy tenor sax blowing as if he was a POMO Stan Getz. Riley’s bebop underlay serves him well in the second situation, even if the reedist’s well modulated, mid-range tones become spikier and more staccato and introduce ear-splitting freak notes. Twinkling right handed arpeggios matched with comprehensive chordal harmonies then cause Stabbins to downpedal his shrieks to trills.

It’s almost the same on “Game of two halves” -- the longest track at 17 minutes plus -- where Stabbins’ contributions range from chesty honks to disconnected renal squeaks, smears and runs. Flashing arpeggios, extended contrasting dynamics and circular high frequency cadenzas from the piano mold the instant composition into a whole, leaving space for cross-metered drumming and barely audible arco bass scratches.

Holding his own in the company of three old friends could almost be heard as Riley’s preliminary bout for a mano-à-mano face-off with Coxhill, whose 50 plus years of playing experience make the pianist appear a tyro. Not that there’s any animosity between the two, who have worked occasionally as a duo for more than a quarter century. It’s just that Riley must play chameleon piano to match Coxhill’s “Zelig”-like soprano saxophone.

Take the almost 18 minutes of “Two Timing”, which begins with the reedist vibrating shrill tones as if his axe possessed an electronic attachment, while Riley runs adagio through the piano’s insides. The pianist’s low frequency fantasia expands into what could be the sound of an army of elves traipsing over the treble keys as Coxhill alternately blows raspberries from his reed or pumps honks from deep within his bow. Soon waterfalls of notes seep across the key bed, with pedal work extending the tones still more. Coxhill’s tone becomes higher and more grating in screech mode, as Riley creates a pedal point bottom while commenting cross-handed on the other’s exposition. When the saxman turns to absolute split tones, including duck quacks, cries and a section where he holds onto one note for an ear-splitting half-minute or so, the pianist flashes arpeggios that head into low frequency unfolding harmonies.

And so it goes. Throughout, each appears to be playing different, intersecting melodies without contact, until midway through Coxhill unveils a phrase that’s echoed by Riley. Although the sorpranoist does reference Middle-Eastern musette-like tones, slurred fingering and twittering freak notes and the keyboardist responds with full European classical techniques, you sense a underlying concordance. By the end there are intimations that the two are skirting half-forgotten Broadway show tunes and Riley is torquing his notes so that there’s the suggestion of stride piano downbeats. Finally, recalling the beginning, Coxhill reintroduces slurred twittering and Riley dampens the strings as he pummels them with his other hand.

Despite their status as card-carrying avant-gardists, both players have enough grounding in the jazz tradition that other mainstream implications peep out among their experimentation. On “Exemplary”, for instance, you hear both feral cries from Coxhill’s slurred trills and a glissando that appear to have migrated over from “Rhapsody In Blue”. “Broom Dust” may depend on the contrasting dynamics of light-fingered, right hand work from Riley, but he gets into a mainstream mode when Coxhill changes from a smeary, mid-tempo line with ney-like qualities to spraying out a section that’s seems to want to be “Rock Around The Clock”.

“Say No” begins with what sounds like Riley sounding out a syncopated “Three Blind Mice”, emphasizing different note clusters, then operating cross handed, with digits seemingly leaping into forgotten corners, spearing a single note here-and-there, then bringing them forth for individual examination. Coxhill’s rasping kazoo sound from his sax also has off-kilter Swing underpinning. Listen carefully enough and you’ll likely hear the shades of boppers Sonny Stitt on sax and Barry Harris on piano hovering in the improvisations.

The autumnal creativity of the likes of Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins should long ago have put to rest the shibboleth that jazz is a young person’s art. Riley’s cascading triple glisses and full-fledged, double-timed triple forte expositions, plus Coxhill’s investigations of bow-ratting claxon calls power on one hand and entry into traffic policeman’s reed whistle territory on the other, proves that non-traditional expansion of the language is possible in improv despite moving into pensionable territory. So does the work of the other slightly younger -- and in Sanders’ case very much younger -- musicians on the other disc.

Both overlong -- more than 72 minutes each -- CDs offer amply opportunity to examine this phenomenon, and to discover or rediscover Riley’s talents.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Four: 1. A soft day 2. Game of two halves 3. Where are the snows... 4. Rough crossing 5. Blue dark 6. Embarrassment of witches 7. Transcension

Personnel: Four: Larry Stabbins (soprano and tenor saxophones); Howard Riley (piano); Tony Wren (bass); Mark Sanders (percussion)

Track Listing: Duology: 1. Breaking the habit 2. Solo for Lol 3. Exemplary 4. Blankets 5. Say yes 6. Say no 7. Big pond 8. Eat my hat 9.Two timing 10. Hearing is believing 11. Duology 12. Broom dust

Personnel: Duology: Lol Coxhill (soprano saxophone); Howard Riley (piano)

November 3, 2003

FRANK GRATKOWSKI/DAMON SMITH/JEROME BRYERTON

The Voice Imitator
Balance Point Acoustics BPA 006

GJERSTAD/EDWARDS/SANDERS
The Welsh Chapel
Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1161

What do you get when you put a German and two Americans together in a small room or unite a Norwegian and two Englishmen? While those situations may sound like the set up for a joke from the Second World War, the correct answer, from the evidence of these CDs, is exemplary improvisation.

The Norwegian-British concord involves veteran Nordic alto saxophonist Frode Gjerstad --who at one point led a band featuring the late British drum pioneer John Stevens -- and two players from a younger British generation. Singly and together Londoners bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders have played with many of the United Kingdom’s reed heavy hitters: John Butcher, Paul Dunmall and Evan Parker. When they connect with Gjerstad on these five instant compositions the result is superior Free Jazz.

To grasp the distinction between Free Jazz and Free Music all you have to do is listen to the second disc featuring another woodwind player with the initials FG. German reedist Frank Gratkowski never reaches the ecstatic heights of Gjerstad’s improvising, but his carefully modulated output meshes with that of his rhythm section to produce low-key group music. Gratkowski spreads his improvising among the alto saxophone, clarinet, and bass clarinet. His American confreres -- Bay area bassist Damon Smith and Chicago percussionist Jerome Bryerton -- are also closer to his age than the Brits are to Gjerstad’s. Furthermore the Yanks’ singular or collective experience with European reedmen such as Wolfgang Fuchs, Tony Bevan and Butcher has led them to synthesize European aesthetics in their work.

You can hear this most clearly on “Profound and shallow”, THE VOICE IMITATOR’S almost 25-minute core composition, which clocks in at more than twice the length of anything else on the CD.

Probably the most abstract of all the tracks, it features Gratkowski’s amplification of a single, growling reed whine on bass clarinet gradually reconstituting itself into a replication of the practice scale heard through the prism of sheets of sound. As swifter and swifter reed tones slide into one another then dissolve into bird-like squeaks, Smith holds things together with impressionistic bowed bass lines.

Limiting himself to single note excursions, Bryerton splashes out a pressure point on orchestral metal, ethnic percussion and Chinese cymbals, often emphasizing his points with mallets. At times, Gratkowski sounds a sonorous clarinet note that is echoed by the drummer’s cymbal top and strummed by the bassist. No one tries to outplay the other, though. All three are sidemen or all are soloists. Closely follow a single rhythm section solo phrase for example, and suddenly you realize that the bass and drums have turned to accompanying the reedist, who is warbling out a series of high-powered split tones.

Throughout the disc, silences are as important to the output as concentrated notes. Gratkowski hisses colored air through his mouthpiece then concentrate on mouth pulses, until occasional notes escape in between the air and spit tones. He overblows to expand his tone and mixes his output with reed kisses, tongue slaps, Bronx cheers, monkey-like gibbering and basso snorts that could come from a baritone. Moving in-and-out of false registers, he uses many of the techniques he’s developed for solo playing in this group situation.

Meanwhile Bryerton counters with rumbling drum rolls, abrasive scratches on his ride cymbal, shimmering sizzle cymbals and bull’s eye whacks on his Chinese gong. Some timbres seem to result from rim shots on the side of his drums or on wood blocks or from sounds created by hitting the cymbal holder or clamp rather than the instrument itself. More often than not on purpose, his time is beveled rather than operating in a straight line.

The dense blanket of pulses the bassist creates is used by the others as a launching pad for their improvisations. Sometimes, in fact, Smith even plays standard jazz time. Rarely, though, does he have a chance to display the sort of spectacular virtuosity he has shown on discs with Fuchs and the late bass master Peter Kowald.

The set up is a little less democratic on THE WELSH CHAPEL, where, without slighting the contributions of the rhythm section, it’s definitely the saxist’s show. Moreover, the sort of side-slipping, screeching alto tone Gratkowski sometimes exhibits on the first disc is stock in trade for Gjerstad in his many solos. Irregular honks, prolonged squeal, a Rudy Wiedoeft-wide vibrato and playing entire passages in dog whistle territory are favored.

Not that he’s an empty show-off though. On the rare occasions when the Energy music subsides to a less frantic pace, a strain of Nordic melancholy infects his solos. The Norwegian has played clarinet and bass clarinet on other discs, and while he’s listed as only playing alto saxophone here, some of the more vehement, tone-sliding passages sound like they may come from those wooden horns.

“The Welsh chapel: Part 3” has more than enough space to indicate how the trio setting plays out. With a wheezing bass line and drum and cymbal brush work underneath, Gjerstad first begins mutating and bending his alto work from trills to clenched squeaks and hollow whistles. The crack of a drumstick on the snare introduces speedier altered and slurred tones, violent triple tonguing and honking. Cycling through many keys and pitches, the saxman introduces a feeling of constant motion, using glosolalia as extreme as anything blown in the Energy Music years. Cymbals and cowbell pressure from Sanders and a vamping ostinato from Edwards move the accompaniment up a notch, as Gjerstad plows on regardless. Wiggling raw excitement, his staccato phrasing and foghorn honks seem to consume the music in one gulp.

A resonating bass solo plus indirect cymbal pings calm the presentation. Here in this lower-pitched, more pacific output is where Gjerstad sounds as if he’s playing a bass clarinet. With the rhythm section occupied with passing tones, he slides chromatically further down the scale, ending with a crescendo of trills matched by the drone of arco bass strings.

Perhaps due to the recording process, there always seems to be an echoing drone emanating from Edwards’ strings, unlike the clear sound of Smith produces form his axe. Be that as it may, the Englishman still produces timbres that range from ones that resemble Charlie Haden’s foursquare work with Ornette Coleman to steely, Dobro-like finger picking. Sanders, who isn’t adverse to exercising his cowbell, sometimes produces tones that sound as if miniature cymbals have been placed on top of his ride and sizzle cymbals. At times he also appears to be using his hands on the snare skin for a more African-style sound.

As for the Norwegian, between his swirl of shrieking high notes and wet bubbles of clearly emphasized split tones -- among other reed exercises -- he exposes a constant fount of ideas, confirming his leadership here, as well as his long tenure as an outside musician in his native country.

Choosing between two woodwind players with the initials FG who both work with bass and drums is impossible. In their hands-across-the-sea meetings both reedists expose two equally valid ways of creating improvised music on these fine CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Voice: 1. Three character attacks: Photographers 2. The prince 3. Profound and shallow Two instances of libel/one memory lapse: 4. Increased (a) 5. Increased (b) 6. Impossible

Personnel: Voice: Frank Gratkowski (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet); Damon Smith (bass); Jerome Bryerton (percussion)

Track Listing: Welsh: 1. The Welsh chapel: Part 1 2. The Welsh chapel: part 2 3. The Welsh chapel: Part 3 4. The Welsh chapel: part 4 5. The Welsh chapel: part 5

Personnel: Welsh: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet); John Edwards (bass); Mark Sanders (drums)

September 22, 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