Festival Report:

dOek's 10th Anniversary
By Ken Waxman

Unexpectedly but appropriately, Sean Bergin tenor saxophonist and tour-guide-for-the-day, added an extra stop to an afternoon bus tour of selected jazz clubs during Amsterdam’s 10th anniversary dOeK festival April 21-22. In front of a construction site on a narrow street beside a canal, which from 1974-2005 been home to the Bimhuis, the South African-born Bergin passed out noise-makers and lead the participants in a brief fanfare celebrating ground zero for advanced Dutch sounds,

The salute was doubly significant. Not only was that location progenitor of the spacious, soft-seated, harbor-front location of the new Bimhuis in which the two-day festival took place, but long-time Amsterdam resident Bergin, who during the bus journey entertained with quirky songs and stories about the city’s musical history while playing saxophone, penny-whistle and ukulele, is a representative of the foreign improvisers who have contributed to the city’s musical gestalt over the years.

Organized as a non-profit foundation promoting improvisation in the Netherlands, dOek’s global reach was emphasized during the fest with concerts that featured American, German and Australian musicians playing alongside their Dutch counterparts.

One of the most significant was WoKaLi that melded the verbalized whinnies, mumbles and rapid lip motions of local trombonist Wolter Wierbos, with the crisp, heel-of-hand key palming of pianist Achim Kaufmann and the hyperactive, irregular rhythms produced by vibrating tambourines, crumbling foil and slapping hard objects on drum heads from Christian Lillinger, both from Berlin. A staccato climax was reached as Wierbos’ slurs turned to tongue-grinds as the drummer beat on the hi-hat with a stick, while press-rolling as Kaufmann’s cascades kept the theme cohesive.

Oddly there was no piano present during the set by The Gap, a sextet organized by dOeK founding member Cor Fuhler, who has relocated to Sydney. Usually a keyboardist, Fuhler played guitar instead and was backed by Germans Axel Dörner on slide-trumpet and Jan Roder on bass; another dOeK founder, who now live in Berlin, reedist Tobias Delius; plus two Aussies: percussionist Steve Heather and vibraphonist Dale Gorfinkel, whose kinetic sound and light sculptures were on display on another floor of the Bimhuis. A suite of Fuhler-composed, airy, connected miniatures the pieces depended as much on Gorfinkel’s four-mallet rubs and slides on the metal bars and Heather’s soft, sensitive brush work. Ironically despite the Ur-modernist playing of Dörner, whose distanced breaths often seemed to leak back into his horn, the taunt voicing of vibes, guitar and Delius’ simple, flat-line clarinet could have been that of Lionel Hampton, Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman in the ’30s.

A more assertive bass-and-percussion team of dOeker, Amsterdam’s Wilbert de Joode and Chicago’s Hamid Drake demonstrated contemporary Dutch-American, with The Now quartet, with the front-line similarly divided between American flutist Nicole Mitchell and saxophonist Peter van Bergen from the Netherlands. That’s divided only in nationality, for the players are equally proficient in mixing multiphonics, minimalism and mellowness. Drake’s frame-drum rubs and occasional reggae backbeats didn’t prevent him from preserving a press-roll-and-rim-shot jazz pulse, while no matter how many bass face scratches or vibrating buzzes de Joode emphasized in solos, his sturdy walking was omnipresent. Meantime Mitchell matched lyrical glissandi with rougher piccolo tweets, while van Bergen moves between near New music spaciousness and mellow near-blues. Most notably cooperation is more notable as the flute, tenor saxophone and bass hold a single note between them as Drake decorates the background with hand drum pops.

A stirring Dutch-dOeK variant on another jazz style, the Tough Tenor tradition of the ‘40s and ‘50s was apparent at two funky, performance spaces during the afternoon club tour. At Kwikfiets, a combination café, art gallery and bicycle repair shop [!], reedist Ab Baars went mano-a-mano with Brazilian-born Yedo Gibson, backed by Finnish guitarist Mikael Szafirowski and drummer Gerri Jäger. Meanwhile at OT301, the former Netherlands Film Academy, now a club space with a bar and vegan restaurant, contrasting tenor saxophone stylists American John Dikeman, a dOeK member, and Delius were set off by Wierbos’ trombone.

Playing mostly Baars’ tunes, whose Dutch titles were humorously mispronounced by Gibson, the two tenors’ styles were distinctive even playing in lockstep. In steady rolling fashion the Brazilian’s snickering freak tomes encompassed reed bites and tongue stops, while the other played mid-range, excepting sporadic altissimo leaps. With Baars on clarinet, shaggy group harmonies approximated those of Tim Berne’s recent bands, especially when Szafirowski alternated finger slides and slashing distortion as the drummer produced unique rhythms, smacking wood blocks or bouncing bound straw on drum tops. Sticking to tradition, the band also alluded to Monk, Trane, “Lullaby of Birdland” and the blues.

So did Dikeman, Delius, and Wierbos. Sometimes in fact the trombonist’s cup-muted growls and Delius’ spacious vibrato sounded like they migrated from a foot-tapping Swing Era jam session even though the rhythm section included synthesizer and electric bass. Still the chief attraction was a rugged power engendered by the two tenor saxophonists. Playing originals ranging from approximation of gentle ballads to rocking bar-room stompers, the two, like Baars, Gibson and any number of other Amsterdam players maintained distinctive identities. In contrast to Delius’ studied classicism, Dikeman appeared comfortably wedded to an extension of Energy Music.

And if Energy Music was needed there was no better example than the sextet’s first tune, appropriately a kwela-influenced piece composed and recorded by Begin a few years ago. A go-for-broke workout, the dynamic performance combined a joyous African melody, staccato rhythm that were half Cape Town and half Chicago and snapping solos whose feeling for blues, jazz and the indefinable other went a long way towards defining the sounds that characterized the important anniversary of this festival.

--For New York City Jazz Record June 2012

June 5, 2012

Tone Dialing

Rigop Me
Evil Rabbit ER 07

The Flatlands Collective

Maatjes

Clean Feed CF 127 CD

Two complementary – and exemplary – looks at the compositional and improvisational skills of Jorrit Dijkstra, a transatlantic musician who frequently works with musicians both in his native Holland and the United States.

Now based in the Boston area, Dijkstra’s partners on Rigop Me are Dutch guitarist Paul Pallesen – in whose Bite the Gnatze, the saxophonist also plays – and Berlin-based, Melbourne-born drummer Steve Heather. Curiously enough, all the other members of The Flatlands Collective are Chicagoans – trombonist Jeb Bishop, clarinetist James Falzone, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Frank Rosaly – all part of that city’s explosion of now not-so-young improv talent. On Maatjes Lonberg-Holm also plays electronics, while Dijkstra plays lyricon and analog electronics as well as alto saxophone. However the sax is left in its case on Rigop Me as Dijkstra only works out on lyricon, loop machine and analog electronics.

Many of the tracks on that CD are built upon shattering electronic blasts that loop and pulse into a constant processed drone, leavened by clinks, flanges and claw-hammer banjo-like picks from the guitarist. Sometimes the timbres from each instrument are undifferentiated; other times sound(s) can be properly attributed. There are intermittent drags and bounces from cymbal, nerve beats from drum sticks and distorted downward runs from a potentially unplugged electric guitar. Most of the time, however, these textures are shrouded in part by flat-line static and crackling, as pinball-like smacks and celesta-type pings cumulate to waft across the full broadband spectrum..

Two divergent examples of this appear on “Fezex Me” and “Rigop Me”. Although eschewing the rock-star-like reverb he shows off elsewhere, the former is a Pallesen showcase. Here, his single-string picking and intense arpeggios are magnified with whirling e-bow pressure, as whooshes and crunches gradually move to the foreground as space-satellite signaling and quivering pulses fill all the remaining space. Eventually a combination of slurred string fingering and mouth-slapping, probably lyricon quacks lead to a diminuendo fade.

In contrast, “Rigop Me” is a group effort that reveals surprising lyricism among the guitarist’s rasgueado, Dijkstra’s slide whistle-like shrills and restrained drum beats. Moving from anadante to adagio, the broken chords linger and expand underlining seemingly random snare drum beats with stretched pitch velocity. Finally the piece reaches a climax of ring-modulator-like clangs and undulating pitch adjustments.

Minimizing the electronic interface and doubling the number of players Maatjes – named for Dutch raw herring, a popular street snack – was recorded nearly two years later in 2008, following a European tour by the sextet. Building on this momentum, the program is mostly made up of Dijkstra’s compositions whose arrangements emphasize the formalized and programmatic. Group improvisations, “In D Flat Minor” especially, provide the exceptions, with that tune traveling through the peaks and valley of interchangeable riffs. Stuffed into it are lower-pitched saxophone tonguing, double-gaited swing from both string players and quasi oomph-pah-pah from the trombonist.

Bishop’s plunger tones and cries from the reed section chromatically balance a track like “Mission Rocker” so that the higher-pitched voices meld into pedal-point bends from bowed bass and cello. Shifting to an adagio section, Falzone’s liquid stop-starts take centre stage, as blustery ‘bone brays plus Rosaly’s drum rolls and pops hold the bottom.

In contrast, despite double-timed ruffs and beats from the drummer “Micro Mood” emphasizes a more formal, Europeanized lilt with cello sweeps and trombone pumps The contrapuntal melody breaks apart – and aided by synthesizer twists – turns and pulses back again upon itself. Furthermore, Phil’s Tesora is filled with bow-snapping sul ponticello lines from Lonberg-Holm, tension-building ostinato from Roebke and rappelling rim shots and bounces fragment the narrative enough so that the popping notes from the horns don’t control the tune. The weather further clears up with reed-biting clarinet blasts, braying trombone grace notes and background hissing and fluttering synthesizer reverb.

Dijkstra’s multi-faceted contrapuntal structure is best expressed on the climatic "Sirocco Song" as contralto clarinet provides strident contrast to the other horns. Then, after Bishop tongues fragments of the intricate melody, the cellist sounds a tremolo version of the same pattern. The lyricon’s warbling trill is seconded by clarinet chirps until the vector shifts to a horn trio. Finally, as Rosaly’s clipping rim shots and press rolls maintain the beat, an echoing finale is constructed out of a smooth clarinet obbligato and thick trombone mutterings.

Inventively transatlantic, Dijkstra’s music can be appreciated whether it suggests the flatlands of the Netherlands or Illinois.

-- Ken Waxman

Track listing: Maatjes: 1. Mission Rocker 2. Micro Mood 3. Partially Overdone 4. Maatjes 1 5. Druil 6. Phil’s Tesora 7. The Gate 8. Maatjes 2 9. In D Flat Minor 10. Scirocco Song

Personnel: Maatjes: Jeb Bishop (trombone); Jorrit Dijkstra (alto saxophone, lyricon and analog electronics); James Falzone (clarinet); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and analog electronics); Jason Roebke (bass) and Frank Rosaly (drums)

Track listing: Rigop: 1. Gumyt Me 2. Fezex Me 3. Rigop Me 4. Yoxia Me 5. Oemik Me 6. Ziyak Me

Personnel: Rigop: Jorrit Dijkstra (lyricon, loop machine and analog electronics); Paul Pallesen (guitar, banjo and effects) and Steve Heather (drums, percussion and sampler)

May 25, 2009

The Flatlands Collective

Maatjes
Clean Feed CF 127 CD

Tone Dialing

Rigop Me

Evil Rabbit ER 07

Two complementary – and exemplary – looks at the compositional and improvisational skills of Jorrit Dijkstra, a transatlantic musician who frequently works with musicians both in his native Holland and the United States.

Now based in the Boston area, Dijkstra’s partners on Rigop Me are Dutch guitarist Paul Pallesen – in whose Bite the Gnatze, the saxophonist also plays – and Berlin-based, Melbourne-born drummer Steve Heather. Curiously enough, all the other members of The Flatlands Collective are Chicagoans – trombonist Jeb Bishop, clarinetist James Falzone, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Frank Rosaly – all part of that city’s explosion of now not-so-young improv talent. On Maatjes Lonberg-Holm also plays electronics, while Dijkstra plays lyricon and analog electronics as well as alto saxophone. However the sax is left in its case on Rigop Me as Dijkstra only works out on lyricon, loop machine and analog electronics.

Many of the tracks on that CD are built upon shattering electronic blasts that loop and pulse into a constant processed drone, leavened by clinks, flanges and claw-hammer banjo-like picks from the guitarist. Sometimes the timbres from each instrument are undifferentiated; other times sound(s) can be properly attributed. There are intermittent drags and bounces from cymbal, nerve beats from drum sticks and distorted downward runs from a potentially unplugged electric guitar. Most of the time, however, these textures are shrouded in part by flat-line static and crackling, as pinball-like smacks and celesta-type pings cumulate to waft across the full broadband spectrum..

Two divergent examples of this appear on “Fezex Me” and “Rigop Me”. Although eschewing the rock-star-like reverb he shows off elsewhere, the former is a Pallesen showcase. Here, his single-string picking and intense arpeggios are magnified with whirling e-bow pressure, as whooshes and crunches gradually move to the foreground as space-satellite signaling and quivering pulses fill all the remaining space. Eventually a combination of slurred string fingering and mouth-slapping, probably lyricon quacks lead to a diminuendo fade.

In contrast, “Rigop Me” is a group effort that reveals surprising lyricism among the guitarist’s rasgueado, Dijkstra’s slide whistle-like shrills and restrained drum beats. Moving from anadante to adagio, the broken chords linger and expand underlining seemingly random snare drum beats with stretched pitch velocity. Finally the piece reaches a climax of ring-modulator-like clangs and undulating pitch adjustments.

Minimizing the electronic interface and doubling the number of players Maatjes – named for Dutch raw herring, a popular street snack – was recorded nearly two years later in 2008, following a European tour by the sextet. Building on this momentum, the program is mostly made up of Dijkstra’s compositions whose arrangements emphasize the formalized and programmatic. Group improvisations, “In D Flat Minor” especially, provide the exceptions, with that tune traveling through the peaks and valley of interchangeable riffs. Stuffed into it are lower-pitched saxophone tonguing, double-gaited swing from both string players and quasi oomph-pah-pah from the trombonist.

Bishop’s plunger tones and cries from the reed section chromatically balance a track like “Mission Rocker” so that the higher-pitched voices meld into pedal-point bends from bowed bass and cello. Shifting to an adagio section, Falzone’s liquid stop-starts take centre stage, as blustery ‘bone brays plus Rosaly’s drum rolls and pops hold the bottom.

In contrast, despite double-timed ruffs and beats from the drummer “Micro Mood” emphasizes a more formal, Europeanized lilt with cello sweeps and trombone pumps The contrapuntal melody breaks apart – and aided by synthesizer twists – turns and pulses back again upon itself. Furthermore,"Phil’s Tesora" is filled with bow-snapping sul ponticello lines from Lonberg-Holm, tension-building ostinato from Roebke and rappelling rim shots and bounces fragment the narrative enough so that the popping notes from the horns don’t control the tune. The weather further clears up with reed-biting clarinet blasts, braying trombone grace notes and background hissing and fluttering synthesizer reverb.

Dijkstra’s multi-faceted contrapuntal structure is best expressed on the climatic "Sirocco Song" as contralto clarinet provides strident contrast to the other horns. Then, after Bishop tongues fragments of the intricate melody, the cellist sounds a tremolo version of the same pattern. The lyricon’s warbling trill is seconded by clarinet chirps until the vector shifts to a horn trio. Finally, as Rosaly’s clipping rim shots and press rolls maintain the beat, an echoing finale is constructed out of a smooth clarinet obbligato and thick trombone mutterings.

Inventively transatlantic, Dijkstra’s music can be appreciated whether it suggests the flatlands of the Netherlands or Illinois.

-- Ken Waxman

Track listing: Track listing: Maatjes: 1. Mission Rocker 2. Micro Mood 3. Partially Overdone 4. Maatjes 1 5. Druil 6. Phil’s Tesora 7. The Gate 8. Maatjes 2 9. In D Flat Minor 10. Scirocco Song

Personnel: Maatjes: Jeb Bishop (trombone); Jorrit Dijkstra (alto saxophone, lyricon and analog electronics); James Falzone (clarinet); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and analog electronics); Jason Roebke (bass) and Frank Rosaly (drums)

Track listing: Rigop: 1. Gumyt Me 2. Fezex Me 3. Rigop Me 4. Yoxia Me 5. Oemik Me 6. Ziyak Me

Personnel: Rigop: Jorrit Dijkstra (lyricon, loop machine and analog electronics); Paul Pallesen (guitar, banjo and effects) and Steve Heather (drums, percussion and sampler)

May 25, 2009

WILL GUTHRIE

Building Blocks
Antboy Music

INGAR ZACH
Percussion Music
SOFA

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Berlin drums
Absinth

By Ken Waxman

September 14, 2004

Antipodean and Northern European drummers are the focus of these essays in solo percussion. But the sociology of why these particular stick men should choose to go it alone is not part of this study. What is generic is how similarly -- and how differently -- six improvisers choose to pursue a solo course.

If there’s one process in common, it’s that all add a physical codicil to their regular kit. Thus, whether they say so or not, it appears as if some sort of electronic interface meets the trap set. Most open about it are Amsterdam-based, Melbourne-born Steve Heather -- featured on Berlin Drums -- and Norwegian Ingar Zach. Heather, who often works with keyboardist Cor Fuhler and reedist Jorrit Dijkstra, uses a sampler as well as found percussive objects, while Zach -- who plays with everyone from Swiss violinist Charlotte Hug to British guitarist Derek Bailey -- extends his drums and percussion with gongs, motors and a zither.

Berlin-based Eric Schaefer, an Eno look-alike who has worked with the chamber ensemble Camera Obscura as well as with jazzers like reedist Gebhard Ullmann, also relies on the zither for extra timbres. Meanwhile Will Guthrie, who still resides in Heather’s hometown, features motor-based toys and machines plus electronics in his improvisations. Only Burkhard Beins, the fourth participant in Berlin Drums, who collaborates with guitarist John Bissett and Keith Rowe; and Aussie in Berlin, Tony Buck known for his work with The Necks, claim they limit themselves to acoustic objects that can be hit.

Appreciation for the end result can also be limited by length, and here Zach is at a disadvantage. His recital, recorded live in an abandoned Oslo chocolate factory lasts almost 44 minutes. Guthrie’s combination of live and studio tracks is longer, but divided into three parts. Meanwhile each Berlin drummer is showcased on a separate three-inch mini-CD, the longest of which reads out at less than 22 minutes.

Perhaps to overcome this perceived attention span demand, the Oslo-resident introduces as many different tones and timbres as he can and only gradually augments his sounds from indistinct rumbles that result from the kit moving along the tattered floorboards to stentorian rain storm and grinding industrial replications.

Following the creation of a tugboat whistle by gliding a stick along a snare top, cymbal shimmers and rolling metallic screeches enter the soundscape. Oscillating cathedral organ-like tones mix with approximation of bells pealing as looping sine waves -- sounding somewhat like a mini dust buster -- make their presence felt. Soon you can make out other percussion entries real and imagined. There’s what could be the swish of a swizzle stick and the vibrating friction of a glass armonica. Cymbals are rapped and zither strings resonate. Then what could be the rumble of thunderclouds becomes louder and more threatening. After the storm subsides into press rolls, a single thwack on a cowbell plus melodic xylophone or glockenspiel inflections appear.

All the while, a hypnotic, electro-acoustic drone, sort of like what the band AMM produces, comes in and out of focus; sometimes in front of the other instrumental sounds, sometimes just behind them. Other reverberations include a gong smash that would impress J. Arthur Rank, a shrill whistle, sharp knife stropping and wooden thwacks on drum rims.

Are the motors creating what could be inside piano rumble mixed with jackhammer tones? And when this timbre quickly gives way to diffuse vibrations from other parts of the kit, and are succeeded by a crescendo of motorized tones should you link the sound to what you’d hear from the assembly line of a sawmill or other heavy industrial outlet? Introducing a touch of primitivism, abrasive ratchet and woodblock scrapes are subsumed by the diminuendo of the lockstep motor, with the performance ending as wetted fingers stroked on a taut drum skin create faux Swiss alp horn tones.

Guthrie, who is also involved in dance, film, theatre and jazz projects, creates a similar panoply of real and imagined sounds on the two longer tracks of his CD.

The more than 22-minute “Westspace”, done live, finds similar electronic drones throughout. Beginning with creaking door squeaks and bell-like ring modulator input, he’s soon mixing regular paradiddles, ruffs and flams on the snares and tom toms with bounce pressure on what sounds like tam tams, gongs and a bell tree. Using loops to make the bell ringing more clangorous and insistent, he ends up with an aural percussion picture midway between the vibrations from Roscoe Mitchell’s percussion cage and the resonation from Ellen Fullman’s bronze wire long string instrument. Slapping away the ultimate reverb, the piece dissolves into silence.

A similar AMM-influenced electronic wash covers the 19½-minute “Blanket” where the buzzing drone from a ride cymbal is extended with sampling and vibrating loops. Not only does a spinning wheel of flanged metallic tones meet a resonating drum beat, but the thunder storm, turbo accelerations and cathedral bell ringing seems to have migrated over from Oslo to Melbourne. However, the concluding manipulations bring the sounds of scraped and gyrating items on an immovable surface, upfront.

Guthrie’s homeboy Heather has a completely antithetical approach to the others’ conceptions. His “Electric Bongo Bongo” features a near hand-clapping beat with enough bass drum accents to move into a disco. The rhythmically powerful sampled beats aren’t that simple however, since they have to vie for aural space with what sounds like tambourine oriented reverb, burbling dentist drill drones and other tones that resemble paper being crumbled, drum top cleaning cloth echoing swipes and raps on the wooden sides of the kit.

In contrast Aussie-turned Berliner Buck turns out the most dissonant, yet individualized program in his one-second-over-21-minute disc. His European residency has resulted in close associations with unique sound seekers like German minimalist trumpeter Axel Dörner. Melding scraped ratchet or güiro timbres with the undertow of electronic buzzes, it appears he’s scratching and shifting all sorts of items along and over the sides and tops of the drums.

The only drummer here who seems to vary his drum beats with cross sticking, at points he doubles the tempo and uses the bass drum punch as punctuation. When he’s not exploring its sections as if he was loosening and tightening the connectors in his kit as he plays, he could be dropping and picking up chains, rotating them on drum tops and using the top of a drumstick to scratch out elephant trumpeting tones on a cymbal. Building up to locomotive-like blaring, he uses mallets and sticks to eventually resonate individual kit parts, letting the natural vibrations serve as a climax and coda.

Dividing his contribution into seven sections gives Schaefer more improvisational scope, yet most of the time his pitter patter paradiddles, snare rat tats and cymbal buzzes aren’t that different from what the others create. Ingenuity is most apparent on the three-part “Don’t tell Morton”. Here his combination of zither and percussion manages to produce celeste-like, high-pitched plucked textures. Further on, what could be keyboard manipulated church bells resonate in tandem with wooden stick reverberations and the splish splash on cymbal tops.

Beins’ oddly titled “Nadir” begins inventively as a thin midst of cymbal drizzle commingles with flutters of sequenced sounds. He too appears to be tossing percussive items on the floor, at least until a feedback-rich electrical outlet sound interrupts the impulse. Shrilled sequencer timbres get louder in the penultimate moments, cutting in and out of the watery drumbeats. Coda is the sound of small bell repeatedly tinkling.

Six percussionists, six ways of handling the kit, and all worth examination should new approaches to the drum set hit it off with your listening program.

September 14, 2004

WHIT DICKEY/TRIO AHXOLOXHA

Prophet Moon
RITI CD 006

TONE DIALING
Elektrodoki
No Label No #

Putting together an improvising trio featuring saxophone and drums with guitar as the only chordal instrument creates a combination rife with potential hazards. Luckily Trio Anxoloxha includes Joe Morris, an inventive artisan, whose skills encompass knowledge of bass and banjo techniques, while Tone Dialing extends its musical menu with electronic attachments.

Ahxoloxha is a palindrome invented by its leader, drummer Whit Dickey to describe how the group works together, balanced on all sides. Dickey, whose experience encompasses the bands of pianist Matthew Shipp and tenor saxophonist David S. Ware; and alto saxophonist Rob Brown, who has also played extensively with Shipp and bassist William Parker, come to the drummer’s project from the core of New York’s so-called ecstatic jazz movement. Connecticut-based, Morris may not live near Ground Zero, but much of his playing history is with similar experimenters there and in Boston.

His separation may account for the CD’s only drawback. Morris is such an original player that his creativity outranks what comes from the other two. Each is a fine musician, but unlike the guitarist, their solos fit securely into the niche of what paradoxically could be described as traditional experimental sounds.

More prosaically named, the Amsterdam-based Tone Dialing trio also seems more evenly balanced. However like the division in Ahxoloxha, two of its members are from one place, the third from elsewhere. Reedman Jorrit Dijkstra has been an active Amsterdam improviser for almost 20 years. He has worked with locals bandleader Willem Breuker and pianist Guus Janssen, as well as American trumpeter Herb Robertson and Vancouver-based Talking Pictures. Also from the Netherlands, Paul Pallesen often combines banjo and guitar with electronics and works in folk-oriented groups as well as in improv outfits with Dijkstra, pianist Cor Fuhler and others. Australian percussionist Steve Heather arrived in Amsterdam from Melbourne in 1995. Since then he used his drums, triggered samples and a junkyard full of percussion in groups with Fuhler, soundsinger Jaap Blonk and violinist Jon Rose.

Dealing first with the five tracks recorded in the centre of the universe, you find Dickey, Brown and Morris pursuing different stratagems over the course of shorter or longer pieces. Oddly enough, although his tone appears to be an amalgam of late bebop and Ornette Coleman, Brown’s attack here is reminiscent of the work of a non-sax-playing jazzer. Swing trumpeter Roy “Little Jazz” Eldridge -- who come to think of it did record with Eric Dolphy and once jammed with Coleman -- always had a pugnacious side to him, often expressed in a melodramatic, screechy tone. Although a much more linear player, Brown’s vibrato seems to head skywards with the same regularity as “Little Jazz”’s, whether he’s playing a quasi-ballad like “Telling Moment” or exercising his reed on the nearly 19-minute title track.

Beginning a cappella, Brown trills and smears his notes with a real fury, moving ever upwards with shaking, renal squeals. Busy on snare and cymbals, Dickey is unobtrusive however. Throughout the CD he never asserts himself, although he wrote all the tunes. In contrast, Morris definitely sounds like Morris, first constructing carefully emphasized fills and relying on straightahead comping. His entire mid section output is constructed in stop time, lazily appearing to move at half-speed as Brown huffs, puffs and tries to blow the tune down around him.

Later on “Riptide” the fret man appears to be flat picking in such a way as to tie a circular knot around Brown’s histrionic tone. As Dickey bangs out a few bass drum pedal accents and the saxophonist’s playing gets denser, Morris improvises in parallel lines that seem to progress without crossing or melding with the others’ sounds. Although at one point he does produce chicken scratches at warp speed, most of time he’s content with single-note pinprick overtones, occasionally sliding into the space beneath the bridge. This one and other tracks fade out as the three are still playing, leading to the suspicion that conclusive endings were lacking.

On other CDs Morris has begun using acoustic bass, banjo and banjouke, and while none of these instruments are present here, such techniques as lower-paced rhythms or high-pitched flailing torque up his performances on PROPHET MOON.

Meanwhile, a continent away, Pallesen brings his banjo, plus guitar and effects to ELEKTRODOKI. It’s all the better to mate with the sounds emanating from Heather’s percussion and sampler collection and Dijkstra’s alto sax and lyricon, an analog electronic wind synthesizer.

Both bizarre -- for improv at least -- axes get a workout as early as track #1, with tremolo distortion and tongue slaps meeting stuttering electronic fuzz and the intermittent pluck of bass strings. Lyricon-created duck quacks vie with straight, theme-advancing lines, while effects allow Pallesen to alternately showcase harsh, lofty electric guitar notes and what appear to be high-frequency pressure fingering from an electric piano. Sounding at times like he’s rolling dice on his drum heads, Heather also triggers samples from his kit, which produce paper crinkling tones and percussion-like clatter. Lyric tones are smeared out by the sax man before the ending, with a 30-second coda that replaces intermittent machine-like buzzes with spacey floating tones.

While the sounds on other tracks suggest that a rock band -- or maybe a highly electrified version of Aussie improvisers The Necks -- have made it to outer space, most of the music is more earthbound. On track #5, for example, the flailing tones of a tenor banjo meet manipulated lyricon squeaks, as what sounds like the echoes of a chugging toy locomotive provides the percussion element. Elsewhere the drummer smashes his cymbals with blacksmith’s strength, while what could be tones from manhandled chopsticks, sea shells, garbage can lids and mushroom boxes are overlaid on corpulent, funky electronic pulses. As finger picking emphasizes the guitar line, the music builds up in intensity, appending lighter-than-air alto effects and off-kilter, drum patterns. Before it ends with an intermittent buzz, you hear chiming guitar lines and clinking synthesizer wiggles.

Another aural metaphor appears at the end of track #4 with what sounds like a motor running down. Before that sharp metallic sounds -- from percussion samples? -- chirping corkscrew twists -- from a reed? -- and pulsating static resolve themselves into a simple beat.

Although merely LP length -- 34:09 -- this disc is worth investigating. But one would hope Tone Dialing gets a larger scope to express its ideas in future. As for Ahxoloxha, its CD will no doubt attract Morris fans. Too bad his soloing couldn’t have inspired the other trio members to more inventive work.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Prophet: 1. The Word On The Street 2. Prophet Moon 3. Trial By Fire 4. Riptide 5. Telling Moment

Personnel: Prophet: Rob Brown (alto saxophone); Joe Morris (guitar); Whit Dickey (drums)

Track Listing: Elektrodoki: 1. #1 - 11:25 2. #2- 3:44 3. #3 - 1:19 4. #4 - 5:15 5. #5 - 8:05 - 6. #6- 3:58

Personnel: Elektrodoki: Jorrit Dijkstra (alto saxophone, lyricon, analog electronics) Paul Pallesen (guitar, banjo, effects); Steve Heather (drums, percussion, sampler)

May 19, 2003