Dennis González/Yells at Eels

Cape of Storms
Ayler Records AYLCD-117

Over the past two decades Dallas-based trumpeter Dennis González has evolved two strategies in order to play advanced improvised music. Since he was the only so-called avant-grade musician in the city, he frequently invites out-of-town stylists to play with him. The other part of his plan has taken place literally on his home turf: he’s grown his own improvisers. The Yells at Eels’ band demonstrates this, since its rhythm section is made up of González’s sons, Aaron on double bass and Stefan on vibes and percussion.

Cape of Storms’ 10 sprightly, well-played tunes demonstrate the benefits of this policy, while confirming that the González siblings are on board for musical not nepotistic reasons. As an added bonus the González tribe is shored up by two distinguished visitors: Freebop saxophonist Tim Green from New Orleans and legendary drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo from Cape Town, South Africa. Thick muscular pacing from the bassist sets up many of the tracks, while Stefan González’s clattering vibraphone refraction, kalimba-like plucks or strokes from the djembe or other ancillary percussion, define many compositions’ rhythmic centres as effectively as Moholo-Moholo’s more traditional Jazz-based drumming.

For instance the undulating beat created by the three rhythm players on British saxophonist Jason Yarde’s “Tag” – the CD’s single tune not written by one of the Gonzálezes – matches Aaron González’s strums and steady walking with ruffs and flams from both drummers and finally brassy, triplet-leaden trumpet runs from Dennis González. Eventually the theme is resolved as trumpet yelps and double-tonguing rubato slurs from Green are matched with a low-pitched bull fiddle tone.

More use of the polyphonic skills available from all five players is made on the two variants of the Dennis González-composed title track. Green, who has recorded with pianist Mulgrew Miller in the past, makes his most affecting statement on “Cape of Storms I”. Following swaying octave runs from the bass and resonating lopes from the vibes, the saxophonist’s high-energy, Tranesque snorts deconstruct the exposition. The resulting miasma lasts until a flutter-tongued interjection from the trumpeter, subsequently echoed by the saxophonist, mutes the cacophony and finally buries it under a pseudo-martial beat from Moholo-Moholo.

Tackled a second time, this musical homage to the drummer’s Cape Town birthplace explodes with guiro-like rasps, the shaking of sleigh bells, the striking of a gong, concentrated drum ruffs and flams plus distanced cymbal reverberations, most courtesy of Stefan González. The tune only reveals it linear quality mid-way through when abrasive, adagio vibraphone rolls intersect with slurred plunger work from the trumpeter presaging a conclusive diminishing bass string thump.

Working together with multi harmonies and rhythms, the quintet confirms its flexibility with the concluding “Snakehandler”. Another Latinized composition by Dennis González, its arrangement demonstrates the similarities between beats from the southern United States and South Africa, especially when conga-like drum pops and pats complement patterns from Moholo-Moholo’s full kit. All of this serves as background to plunger work from the composer that could easily fit in among vamps from the brass section of a Salsa band. Contrast is provided by Aaron González’s straight-ahead string strums, carefully wedded to the contemporary Jazz tradition.

Someone who has accomplished the difficult task of becoming both musically unique and accommodating, on this disc – and most of his other CDs – Dennis González proves that his playing and composing can work in almost any context. And that takes place whether the other players come from thousands of miles away or from his own home.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Document for Walt Dickerson 2. Interlude: A Desert Hidden in the Waves 3. Tag 4. Interlude: Gecka 5. Cape of Storms I 6. Interlude: Internal Dialogue, Eternal Pulse 7. Tranquilidad Alborotadora I 8. Cape of Storms II 9. Tranquilidad Alborotadora II 10. Snakehandler

Personnel: Dennis González (Bb cornet, C trumpet, gongs, sleigh bells, shakers, pao do chuva and goat hooves); Tim Green (tenor saxophone and tambourine); Stefan González, vibraphone, drums, congas, balafon, djembe, roto-toms, temple bells, gongs, school bell and splash cymbals); Aaron González (bass) and Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums and voice)

March 24, 2011

Dennis González Connecticut Quartet

Songs of Early Autumn
No Business Records NBCD 6

Dennis González

A Matter of Blood

Furthermore Recordings 003

One of those unifying figures who maintains an enthusiasm for pure improvised music and encourages others, trumpeter Dennis González has been following this path towards experimentation almost single-handedly for over 30 years in his hometown of Dallas.

An artists and educator with a home studio, over time he has established links with similarly inclined players in New Orleans, California and in Europe. Recently in fact his gigs in the Eastern United States have become more frequent. These notable CDs, for instance – featuring two different sets of playing partners – are the results of the trumpeter’s recent eastward treks.

Although González brings the same distinctive mixture of melodic invention, high-class technique, contrafact creation and quote elaboration to both sessions, each is oriented towards a different configuration. It may be that A Matter of Blood has deeper Free Jazz blood lines, since one of the participants is bassist Reggie Workman, whose associations include membership in an early John Coltrane quartet. Pianist Curtis Clark spent time in Amsterdam and has recorded with everyone from fiddler Billy Bang to saxophonist Sean Bergin. Meanwhile drummer Michael T. A. Thompson has recorded with González in the past, as well as with bassist William Parker and saxophonist Kidd Jordan.

If Brooklyn-recorded A Matter of Blood is a Free Jazz variant on the Miles-Davis-with-rhythm-section concept, then the Connecticut-created Songs of Early Autumn relates to the two-horn-two-rhythm dates that became legion after the New Thing emerged in the mid-1960s. Among the other players here is Joe Morris, a long-time advanced guitarist who has turned himself into an estimable bassist. Saxophonist Timo Shanko was part of the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, while drummer Luther Gray has worked with pianist Steve Lantner and saxophonist Rob Brown.

On A Matter of Blood, the trumpeter’s lyrical qualities are brought out by the pianist’s light-fingered, romantic tendencies. But Workman’s powerful strumming as well as Thompson’s mixture of regular time-keeping plus bravura manipulation of various parts of his kit keeps any softening slides in check. The bassist’s double-stopped and carefully angled bass lines are most likely to set the scene, while octave jumps, key slides and tremolo invention are exhibited throughout.

González’s “Arbyrd Lumenal” for instance evolves in such a way that Clark’s patterning cadences are hardened with key fanning and picking so as to extend Workman’s muscular chiming and González’s double-tongued slurs. As the trumpeter moves up the scale chromatically he’s chased by cascading piano lines plus shuffles and bounces from the drummer. Workman’s ability to keep the beat while also creating sul tasto rubs are also highlighted. But this discordance leaves ample room for the trumpeter’s grace notes to sound with maximum lyricism.

“Chant de la Fée” in contrast is taken andante and fortissimo, built around stabbing piano keys, spiccato bass strings and brass reverb. As the composition’s evolving color scheme shifts, Clark’s pianism involves parallel construction where nearly every stroke is matched by another in a complementary key. Making his own way among this undertow of ringing arpeggios and reverberating soundboard textures, Thompson shakes and quivers small percussion implements as well as crash cymbals.

Collective culmination, each quartet member distinguishes himself on the title track. This collaboration involves Thompson’s thick rim shots and bass drum pumps; Workman’s doubled picking and carefully measured strokes; Clark’s cross-pulsed riffs which work up to sharp and kinetic chording; as well as González’s plunger riffs and undulating mellow timbres. Before the finale of downward shifting piano arpeggios mixed with flowing bass strokes, the trumpeter fires off triple-tongued, tremolo tones backed by the drummer’s opposite sticking and cymbal snapping.

Quixotically more atonal, yet more obviously wedded to the tradition, Songs of Early Autumn subtly bows to the song form as Energy Music. “Loft”, the very first tune, for instance, may balance on sharpened reed bites, screams and honks from Shanko; rebounds and ratamascus from Gray; and triple-tongued connections from the trumpeter, but González also manages to repeatedly work a few quotes from “April in Paris” into his solos.

In a similar fashion “Those Who Came Before” – how’s that title for a clue as to the musicians’ sentiments? – includes a hint of Spanish melancholy in the midst of Morris’ solo. Expanding verbal yodeling with mocking cries and dense reed-biting from his tenor saxophone, earlier on Shanko harmonizes his reed phrasing with smooth, grace notes from the trumpeter. When the tonal centre shifts to ragged-and-rough contrapuntal horn blowing during the instant composition’s mid-section, the two echo one another’s cries on top of triple-stopping from the bassist plus cymbal cracks from Gray. Moving into the home stretch, the piece is divided between double-stopped, bent and strummed notes from Morris and echoing flutters from both horns. The rubato and rococo concordance worked up by the saxophonist and trumpeter finds Shanko growls and flutter-tonguing paying homage to Albert Ayler, while González’s capillary narrative is more technically sophisticated than anything played by Donald Ayler.

Shanko’s frequent reaffirmations of Ayler’s influence throughout are tempered by his chromatic forays into perpendicular Latinesque runs – encouraged by rough tonguing from the trumpeter as on “Bush Medicine”. Completing the improvisations so that the tune ends up being more variations then theme Gray’s snare strokes and cross-sticking precede surging flutters from the trumpeter before the saxman snorts the head one final time. “Lamentation” is a group improv that slides from mellow to mercurial as González’s whinnies and tongue slaps and Shanko’s wiggles and slurs. After the horns circle each other concentrically they attain harmonic unison.

González’s more frequent forays away from his home base are beginning to produce a series of memorable collaborations with other players. On the evidence here, add two more dates to that collection.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Songs: 1. Loft 2. Acceleration 3. Bush Medicine 4. Idolo 5. In Tallation 6. Lamentation 7. Those Who Came Before 8. Loyalty

Personnel: Songs: Dennis González (C trumpet); Timo Shanko (tenor saxophone); Joe Morris (bass) and Luther Gray (drums)

Track Listing: Matter: 1. Alzar La Mano 2. Interlude: Untitled 3. Arbyrd Lumenal 4. Interlude: Fuzzy's Adventure 5. A Matter of Blood 6. Anthem for the Moment 7. Interlude: 30 December 8. Chant de la Fée

Personnel: Matter: Dennis González (C trumpet and B cornet); Curtis Clark (piano); Reggie Workman (bass) and Michael T. A. Thompson (drums)

December 27, 2009

Dennis González

A Matter of Blood
Furthermore Recordings 003

Dennis González Connecticut Quartet

Songs of Early Autumn

No Business Records NBCD 6

One of those unifying figures who maintains an enthusiasm for pure improvised music and encourages others, trumpeter Dennis González has been following this path towards experimentation almost single-handedly for over 30 years in his hometown of Dallas.

An artists and educator with a home studio, over time he has established links with similarly inclined players in New Orleans, California and in Europe. Recently in fact his gigs in the Eastern United States have become more frequent. These notable CDs, for instance – featuring two different sets of playing partners – are the results of the trumpeter’s recent eastward treks.

Although González brings the same distinctive mixture of melodic invention, high-class technique, contrafact creation and quote elaboration to both sessions, each is oriented towards a different configuration. It may be that A Matter of Blood has deeper Free Jazz blood lines, since one of the participants is bassist Reggie Workman, whose associations include membership in an early John Coltrane quartet. Pianist Curtis Clark spent time in Amsterdam and has recorded with everyone from fiddler Billy Bang to saxophonist Sean Bergin. Meanwhile drummer Michael T. A. Thompson has recorded with González in the past, as well as with bassist William Parker and saxophonist Kidd Jordan.

If Brooklyn-recorded A Matter of Blood is a Free Jazz variant on the Miles-Davis-with-rhythm-section concept, then the Connecticut-created Songs of Early Autumn relates to the two-horn-two-rhythm dates that became legion after the New Thing emerged in the mid-1960s. Among the other players here is Joe Morris, a long-time advanced guitarist who has turned himself into an estimable bassist. Saxophonist Timo Shanko was part of the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, while drummer Luther Gray has worked with pianist Steve Lantner and saxophonist Rob Brown.

On A Matter of Blood, the trumpeter’s lyrical qualities are brought out by the pianist’s light-fingered, romantic tendencies. But Workman’s powerful strumming as well as Thompson’s mixture of regular time-keeping plus bravura manipulation of various parts of his kit keeps any softening slides in check. The bassist’s double-stopped and carefully angled bass lines are most likely to set the scene, while octave jumps, key slides and tremolo invention are exhibited throughout.

González’s “Arbyrd Lumenal” for instance evolves in such a way that Clark’s patterning cadences are hardened with key fanning and picking so as to extend Workman’s muscular chiming and González’s double-tongued slurs. As the trumpeter moves up the scale chromatically he’s chased by cascading piano lines plus shuffles and bounces from the drummer. Workman’s ability to keep the beat while also creating sul tasto rubs are also highlighted. But this discordance leaves ample room for the trumpeter’s grace notes to sound with maximum lyricism.

“Chant de la Fée” in contrast is taken andante and fortissimo, built around stabbing piano keys, spiccato bass strings and brass reverb. As the composition’s evolving color scheme shifts, Clark’s pianism involves parallel construction where nearly every stroke is matched by another in a complementary key. Making his own way among this undertow of ringing arpeggios and reverberating soundboard textures, Thompson shakes and quivers small percussion implements as well as crash cymbals.

Collective culmination, each quartet member distinguishes himself on the title track. This collaboration involves Thompson’s thick rim shots and bass drum pumps; Workman’s doubled picking and carefully measured strokes; Clark’s cross-pulsed riffs which work up to sharp and kinetic chording; as well as González’s plunger riffs and undulating mellow timbres. Before the finale of downward shifting piano arpeggios mixed with flowing bass strokes, the trumpeter fires off triple-tongued, tremolo tones backed by the drummer’s opposite sticking and cymbal snapping.

Quixotically more atonal, yet more obviously wedded to the tradition, Songs of Early Autumn subtly bows to the song form as Energy Music. “Loft”, the very first tune, for instance, may balance on sharpened reed bites, screams and honks from Shanko; rebounds and ratamascus from Gray; and triple-tongued connections from the trumpeter, but González also manages to repeatedly work a few quotes from “April in Paris” into his solos.

In a similar fashion “Those Who Came Before” – how’s that title for a clue as to the musicians’ sentiments? – includes a hint of Spanish melancholy in the midst of Morris’ solo. Expanding verbal yodeling with mocking cries and dense reed-biting from his tenor saxophone, earlier on Shanko harmonizes his reed phrasing with smooth, grace notes from the trumpeter. When the tonal centre shifts to ragged-and-rough contrapuntal horn blowing during the instant composition’s mid-section, the two echo one another’s cries on top of triple-stopping from the bassist plus cymbal cracks from Gray. Moving into the home stretch, the piece is divided between double-stopped, bent and strummed notes from Morris and echoing flutters from both horns. The rubato and rococo concordance worked up by the saxophonist and trumpeter finds Shanko growls and flutter-tonguing paying homage to Albert Ayler, while González’s capillary narrative is more technically sophisticated than anything played by Donald Ayler.

Shanko’s frequent reaffirmations of Ayler’s influence throughout are tempered by his chromatic forays into perpendicular Latinesque runs – encouraged by rough tonguing from the trumpeter as on “Bush Medicine”. Completing the improvisations so that the tune ends up being more variations then theme Gray’s snare strokes and cross-sticking precede surging flutters from the trumpeter before the saxman snorts the head one final time. “Lamentation” is a group improv that slides from mellow to mercurial as González’s whinnies and tongue slaps and Shanko’s wiggles and slurs. After the horns circle each other concentrically they attain harmonic unison.

González’s more frequent forays away from his home base are beginning to produce a series of memorable collaborations with other players. On the evidence here, add two more dates to that collection.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Songs: 1. Loft 2. Acceleration 3. Bush Medicine 4. Idolo 5. In Tallation 6. Lamentation 7. Those Who Came Before 8. Loyalty

Personnel: Songs: Dennis González(C trumpet); Timo Shanko (tenor saxophone); Joe Morris (bass) and Luther Gray (drums)

Track Listing: Matter: 1. Alzar La Mano 2. Interlude: Untitled 3. Arbyrd Lumenal 4. Interlude: Fuzzy's Adventure 5. A Matter of Blood 6. Anthem for the Moment 7. Interlude: 30 December 8. Chant de la Fée

Personnel: Matter: Dennis González (C trumpet and B cornet); Curtis Clark (piano); Reggie Workman (bass) and Michael T. A. Thompson (drums)

December 27, 2009

DENNIS GONZÁLEZ NEW YORK QUARTET

NY Midnight Suite
Clean Feed 20

DENNIS GONZÁLEZ’S INSPIRATION BAND
Nile River Suite
Daagnim CD9

Products of a two-day bushman’s holiday in the Big Apple by Dallas-based trumpeter Dennis González, these CDs should irrefutably proves that non-New Yorkers can show Naked City denizens a thing or two.

González, who is also a schoolteacher and a visual artist, runs a supportive co-op organization in Dallas and in the past has recorded with other advanced hinterland players like New Orleans saxist Kidd Jordan and Chicago bassist Malachi Favors. Taking two suites of compositions with him, the brassman plus local drummer Michael Thompson recorded these two CDs in two days with different bands of New York’s finest.

NY MIDNIGHT SUITE links the two with certified downtowners, who are also leaders on their own: tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and bassist Mark Helias. Longer and more ambitious NILE RIVER SUITE finds González and Thompson, in the company of players who often work with bassist William Parker: multi-reedist Sabir Mateen, recently rediscovered bassist Henry Grimes and brassman Roy Campbell, in whose band Thompson also plays. Both are impressive achievements.

More raucous, MIDNIGHT sounds like Ornette Coleman quartet with Don Cherry or Albert Ayler’s band with his brother trumpeter Donald. But González is a more sophisticated soloist than those men were, while Eskelin’s bent is to append Gene Ammons-like soulfullness to a modern overlay.

This is made most clear on “Dominant Fang”, whose antecedents include Latin ass well as freebop. It sometimes sounds as if what would happen if Sonny Rollins’ “East Broadway Rundown” was recast as a hip cop show theme. Here the tenor man double tongues and produces a crying tone, while González, staying in lockstep with him not only frequently reprises the theme but holds to a gentler, more graceful tone.

Meanwhile, the most descriptive part of the Suite, “Runaway Taxi Uptown” has a definite Manhattan vibe and almost replicates a cab ride. Centred on call-and-response between the saxist’s reed biting and the trumpeter’s high triplets, mellow smears and bent notes, it finds Eskelin deconstructing his tone as he ascends the scale. Behind them Thompson mixes his splintering bounces and flams with sandpaper-like incursions on his drumheads and Helias contributes arco punctuation. Ending finds González recapitulating the musical theme as Eskelin sources taxi honks.

On the other hand, “Angels of the Dark Streets”, Part II of the Suite and the unrelated, more-than 18 minute “Hymn for the Elders” showcases a more temperate, style, but with toughness still present. On the first, Eskelin unleashes an atonal, irregularly pitched trill that sounds as it comes straight from the sax bow. With Helias moving from walking bass line to spiccato and Thompson cymbal smashing, the trumpeter unleashes a clutch of triplets, which later on suggest “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. With the front line contrapuntal, both appear to be voicing different parts of the melody, as the saxist finally slows down to lower intensity slurred vibrations.

Polytonal counterpoint enlivens “Hymn” as well, as does unaccompanied cadenzas from Eskelin at the top, a resounding bass drum tone and ground bass lines from Helias. Spurting a few broken grace notes González moves lazily up the scale, encouraging the reedist to spew colored air, the drummer to scour his cymbal and the bassist to slide portamento across his strings. Harmonically muted legato tones from both hornmen gradually curve and double tongue to the quiet ending.

“The Nile Runs through New York (Part IB)” and The Nile Runs through My Heart (Part II)”, two parts of the Nile suite which also run into one another, demonstrate what the composer-trumpeter can do with additional aural colors. The entire CD was recorded the day following the previous session.

On the first tune, Mateen’s vamping flute and Grimes’ bowed bass buffer González’s bravura performance, which logically from the performer comes with a certain Spanish-tinged majesty. Muted, the trumpeter faces off with sluicing clarinet work from Mateen, whose flutter-tongued obbligatos add a certain folksiness to the proceedings. Using soaring moderato grace notes, the composer’s contrapuntal resolution ends the piece with a woody growl. Bridged by a slow-paced bass solo, the second track showcases Campbell amplifying González’s solo, but identifying himself by squeezing, staccato valve work, producing spirals of growls and bleats.

Elsewhere, as on the more than 18 minute “Lyons in Lyon”, named for the altoist Jimmy and the French city, Grimes’ unvarying bass pulse sometimes threatens to push the band back to the anthematic 1960s. But Mateen’s raspy overblowing on alto and Campbell’s looping, vocalized triple tonguing prevents the tune from becoming too chant-like. Soon González adds wiggling counterlines to the other oracular horns, eventually leading one brassman to concentrate on the modulated mid-range as the other shrills higher notes. The bassist offers up a metallic, ponticello tone, Mateen vibrates clarinet pitches and Thompson’s rolls, flams and rebounds on snares and toms help the piece moderate and becomes softer with more unison octave harmonics.

Ultimately the CD is brought to the end with “Hymn for the Ashes of Saturday”. But it’s one religious song whose mixed secular/sacred reference includes a “Night Train”-like shuffle head that’s extended with march tempo rat-tat-tats from Thompson. Meanwhile, as González pecks ahead of the beat on his horn, the other horns riff behind him. Following a ratamacue-ready solo from the drummer that ratchets the wooden parts of his kit, the bands exits as the trumpeter plays a bugle-call-like reveille and Mateen twists and smears his reed into a double timed ending.

As the song goes, “If you can make it here/You can make it anywhere” and González has proven that statement with some help from the locals. Judging from his skills as a composer, arranger and player, what’s really needed is for New Yorkers and other urbanites to pay more attention to his scene in Dallas.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: NY: Suite: 1. (III) Sketch the Wings of Midnight 2. (II) Angels of the Dark Streets 3. (I) Runaway Taxi Uptown 4. Hymn for the Elders 5. Dominant Fang 6. New Short Song

Personnel: NY: Dennis González (trumpet); Ellery Eskelin (tenor saxophone); Mark Helias (bass); Michael Thompson (drums)

Track Listing: Nile: 1. Lyons in Lyon 2. Sand Baptist 3. The Nile Runs through New York (Part IA) 4. The Nile Runs through New York (Part IB) 5. The Nile Runs through My Heart (Part II) 6. The Nile Runs through Us All (Part III) 7. Hymn for the Ashes of Saturday

Personnel: Nile: Dennis González (trumpet); Roy Campbell Jr. (trumpet, pocket trumpet, flugelhorn and flute); Sabir Mateen (alto and tenor saxophones, flute, alto and Bb clarinets); Henry Grimes (bass); Michael Thompson (drums and percussion)

October 18, 2004

DENNIS GONZÁLEZ NEW SOUTHERN QUINTET

Old Time Revival
Entropy Stereo Records ESR 014

JEFF CHAN
In Chicago
Asian Improv Records AIR 0063

Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) exemplar, and its southern roots, underlines the creativity of the combos on both these discs.

Although only three of the nine players involved are AACM members -- the late trumpeter Ameen Muhammad, bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Alvin Fielder -- the cooperative archetype that the Chicago association feels must be mixed with creative improvised music is on show each time.

IN CHICAGO is another CD that mixes Windy City players with members of the Asian Improv (AI) movement, a musical co-op inspired by the AACM. OLD TIME REVIVAL, features trumpeter Dennis González, whose organization Daagnim tries for a similar, AACM-like supportive role in the Dallas music scene, exploring the collective southern identity of himself, two AACMers and two saxophonists. The musicians are better-known on this disc, but IN CHICAGO may have a slight edge, with organized arrangements on tap, rather than relying on solo luster as do many of OLD TIME REVIVAL’s tunes.

Case in point is “Centuries”, the more-than-12-minute final live cut on the Chicago disc. Purportedly inspired by a traditional rhythm from p’ungmul or Korean folk drumming, it still sounds like jazz, especially when Muhammad, known for his membership in saxophonist Ernest Dawkins’ bands, lets loose. Although you could link his brassy triplets to ceremonial heraldic trumpeting, it’s likely that no traditional Korean musician on either side of the DMZ exhibits as many bent notes and plunger expositions as this Mississippi-born improviser. Soon he’s adding jazz shakes and what could be piccolo-trumpet flourishes to his output. Chicagoan drummer Chad Taylor, who works in different bands featuring AACM guitarist Jeff Parker, offers up rim shots and a quivers from a tambourine lodged on his hi-hat, while carrying the beat on his ride cymbal.

San Francisco-based soprano and tenor saxophonist Jeff Chan, titular leader of the date, begins playing straightahead, but ends up elaborating the theme in split tones, displaying an exaggerated vibrato that advances to double tonguing. In one bow to Orientalism, though, when Chan’s line faces counterpoint from Muhammad, the instrument the trumpet chooses to use to reply is a conch shell, which in this context has the timbres of a Korean sho.

Besides South-Asian influences the other leitmotif on the CD is from another son of the South, Fort Worth, Tex.’s Ornette Coleman, with at least two of the tunes resembling the work of the Texas saxophonist’s pioneering 1960s quartet. “Bells/Falling”, written like all the compositions but one here by Chan, has a definite Coleman-like head, taken andante. Here and on at other places on the CD, the arrangements are held together by the steady bass pulse of Tatsu Aoki. An organizer par excellence, he’s the link between AI and the AACM, working as bandleader or sideman with local luminaries like saxists Fred Anderson and Mwata Bowden.

On this disc his work isn’t showy, but holds the rhythmic centre, as on this tune, when Chan tries for a stoptime effect sounding out glottal honks, emotional, elongated smears and vibrating reed tones. When Muhammad isn’t commenting on Chan’s forays with his arsenal of little instruments, which seems to consist of bells, claves and even a tiny steel drum, he creates some of his most profound work. Using grace notes to go up the scale, he slurs out other tones and accentuates the output with hand plunger trills. Taylor keeps up constant pressure on snare top, Aoki walks, and the piece climaxes with brassy blasts from the trumpeter and the saxman trying out chesty variations on the theme.

Composed by another AIer, Francis Wong, with whom Chan plays in the Saxophone Summit, “Persistence of Vision” has a tint of Imperial Chinese processional music about it. With a sandpaper tone vibrations the tenorist advances the theme that is then commented upon by Muhammad. His squealing continuum and Taylor’s shimmering ride cymbal, plus ruffs and drags add an African element to the piece. Finally it downshifts before the end, its stately advance marked by deep bass line and guiro-like percussion scratches.

Unfortunately, Chan’s soprano sax work doesn’t measure up to his tenor sax playing or composing talents. On most of the tunes such as “Sunbeams”, his lines, whether legato or staccato, lines appear pretty unsubstantial. This forces the compositions to gain color from Taylor’s ride cymbal, Aoki’s time-keeping bass and the scratching, whistles and bird calls [!] from Muhammad’s little instruments.

In contrast there is plenty of multi-faceted reed playing exhibited on OLD TIME REVIVAL. New Orleans resident Tim Green weighs in with his saxello, tenor and bass saxophones, while North Carolina-born, New York dweller Andrew Lamb brings his tenor saxophone. Rhythm section is made up of Malachi Favors, who since he left Lexington, Miss. many years ago has made his reputation with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Ritual Trio and numerous other bands in Chicago. Drummer Alvin Fielder, who is also a pharmacist, spent only a few years in Chicago in the 1960s, though he did participate in many AACM sessions. Back in Jackson, Miss., he’s involved with most creative music ventures in the Deep South, usually involving AACM members, González and New Orleans saxist Kidd Jordan.

On this date, González, who is also a schoolteacher and a visual artist, appears to be so buoyed by the presence of so many exceptional musicians that he lets them solo to their heart’s content. But a string of solos is only impressive in certain situations, as on the title track.

A fast, vamping blues based on an infectious line driven by the bass and drums, the composition begins with a trilling, irregular cadenza from Green’s saxello, as the other horns riff in the background. His speedy solo is followed by strident triplets from González riding on the relentless rhythm of Fielder and Favors. Open-horned, the trumpeter then seems to be quoting spirituals, proving a gritty commentary on what he played previously. Then, as the horn riffing gets faster and faster until the end, a tenor saxist -- likely Lamb -- sounds out gospelly glossolalia, scooting up the scale and introducing multiphonic feints.

“Hymn for Albert Ayler”, González’s devotional piece written for a man who definitely knew his old time religion, features intimations of “Go Down Moses” in the trumpet solo. Slurred affirmation comes from one of the tenormen and powerful bass strokes amplify this. Soon the tenorist -- Lamb? -- expels an undulating Ayler-like cry, all guttural split tones, but with not as wide a vibrato as the deceased saxist exhibited. As the trumpeter tongues out an euphonious rubato trumpet solo that’s closer to Coleman associate Don Cherry than anything Don Ayler ever played, Green’s saxello produces sweeping bagpipe-like nasal, buzzing timbres. Propelled forward by the bassist and drummer, the piece ends with the brassman easing into gospel shouts again.

Green’s subterranean bass saxophone tones and Fielder’s bass drum toe pedal whacks personalize “Hordes of the Morning Star”. Although at first you can almost hear the pedal’s hard felt making contact with the drum skin, the versatile veteran is soon breaking up the beat with shuffles, ruffs and drags. Green doesn’t just use his dinosaur horn for low down effects either. Once he gets started he pumps out a variation on the theme, using false fingering and split tones to leap in tempo and introduce split-second, soaring screeches among the reverberating bass honks. While all this is going on, Lamb creates a vibrated tenor saxophone line touching on multiphonics, and González’s solo, studded with grace notes, is heavy on the Spanish tinge. Rat-tat-tats from Fielder’s snare bring everything together for a unison horn exit.

Perhaps the most complicated tune is written by Fielder, who like all the players except Lamb is a longtime associate of the trumpeter. His “Four Moods for Carol” appears to feature four-curlicue themes going at the same time. With the bass sax creating a snorting pedal point, the tenor contributes an irregular vibrato and the trumpeter blasts out a mellow chromatic line. Fielder then underscores the proceedings with oscillations from blustering wind chimes, log drum beats, the shimmers of a bell tree and the whistling draughts of an African whirl drum. Those percussion accessories may only be approximated, but he certainly internalized the AACM’s skill with little instruments.

Favors expresses himself in a focused, single-note, thumping bass solo, while one saxist varies from reed-biting, echoing extra tones to forcing pure, colored air through his horn’s body tube. After a clatter of rim shots, the composer creates a coda of marital bass drum beats and snare ratamacues.

Surprisingly, one of González’s longtime associates, isn’t present . But tenor saxophonist Charles Brackeen, is honored on “Document for Charles Brackeen”, a freeboppish line that features both reedists on tenor saxophone. One creates a double-time, slurred line that turn to emphasized screams, while the other enters with a sobbing portamento pattern that expands until split reed overtones make it more angrily staccato. One would expect Brackeen was capable of both of these techniques, as well as an innate soulfulness that explodes in the later part of the piece when Favors’ suddenly exposes a funky bass line that could underpin Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say”.

Listening to it and the other tunes on OLD TIME REVIVAL give you the feeling that at least where jazz/improv is concerned, the South will rise again.

Now all González has to do is to head into the studio with more focused arrangements to likely produce a session that’s not only very good, but as outstanding as IN CHICAGO.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Chicago: 1. ‘Round and ‘Round 2. Persistence of Vision 3. Sunbeams 4. Bells/Falling 5. Waiting 6. Twilight 7. Waiting (reprise) 8. Centuries

Personnel: Chicago: Ameen Muhammad (trumpet, conch shell and small percussion instruments); Jeff Chan (soprano and tenor saxophones); Tatsu Aoki (bass); Chad Taylor (percussion)

Track Listing: Old: 1. The Matter at Hand 2. Document for Charles Brackeen 3. Hordes of the Morning Star 4. Hymn for Albert Ayler 5. Four Moods for Carol 6. Old Time Revival

Personnel: Old: Dennis González (C, Bb, pocket trumpets); Andrew Lamb (tenor saxophone); Tim Green (saxello, tenor and bass saxophones); Malachi Favors (bass); Alvin Fielder (drums)

November 3, 2003