LARS-GÖRAN ULANDER TRIO

Live at Glenn Miller Café
Ayler aylCD 013

WBZ
Prima Ballerina
Ilk Music 117 CD

Veteran Scandinavian saxophonists are the focal point of both these trio sessions. But while PRIMA BALLERINA is the first document from a well-balanced Danish sax-bass-drums aggregation that has been playing together constantly since 2002, LIVE is a one-off club date that is actually a Swedish reedist’s first headlining session, and where his rhythm section partners are far better known then he.

Umeå-born alto saxophonist Lars-Göran Ulander’s day job is as chief jazz radio producer for the Swedish Broadcasting Corp. He also played in different bands over the years, most notably in the 1960s and 1970s with trombonist Lars Lystedt and pianist Per Henrik Wallin. But after 40 years of recording, this is the initial CD released under his own name. Look at his backing dream team however. Young Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love has in a short time become the go-to percussionists for leaders on both sides of the Atlantic from Chicago reedist Ken Vandermark to British saxophonist Evan Parker. As for Stockholm-native, bassist Palle Danielsson, he was a member of the touring bands of Americans, pianist Keith Jarrett and saxophonist Charles Lloyd in the 1970s, and now works all over Europe.

While the Ulander trio’s five compositions flow semi-smoothly, WBZ propels its eight tunes in jagged bursts and bites. WBZ’s experienced soloist is alto saxophonist Jesper Zeuthen, who has performed in Pierre Dørge’s New Jungle Orchestra and with Americans such as the late trumpeter Don Cherry. Almost 30 years younger than Zeuthen, bassist Jonas Westergaard is part of Canadian saxophonist Michael Blake’s band and played with Americans such as saxophonist Tim Berne. Drummer Peter Bruun is a member of the local band Radar and has recorded with saxophonists Blake, Chris Speed and others.

An autodidact who studied Schoenberg and Hindemith on his own, Ulander has the force of personality on this CD to pilot a mid-course between the 1970s northerly cool undulations that the bassist prefers and the harder-hitting and more abstract tropes of the drummer. On “Charles Mingus’ “What Love”, the set’s one non-original, he gets Nilssen-Love to slap and pat his accompaniment while using Danielsson’s double bass as if it was a second harmonized horn. With a surprisingly gentle touch, the bull fiddler maintains the rhythmic pulse as the saxophonist layers scads of pitch-sliding notes into his solo. Still, despite later rebounds and rim shots from the drummer, Ulander never loses his cool. Here, as elsewhere, even when harshly reed biting or squealing through his horn’s body tube his exposition rarely moves past andante.

Oddly enough, the one time his Nordic reserves snaps is when he unveils warbling Jackie MacLean-like note-spraying on the nearly 22-minute “Ionizacion – Varaciones E.V.” Double tonguing and utilizing altissimo smears, his playing energizes Danielsson, whose quick double-stopping relates more to Mingus on tunes like “Haitian Fight Song” then how he plays on this CD’s “What Love”.

Elsewhere Ulander impresses as he keeps up this balancing act that allows him to sound waves of harmonics that never reach multiphonic properties, as focused split tones and effortless obbligatos arrive with equal vigor.

If the nearly 75-minute LIVE is the Free Jazz equivalent of a double LP by Simon & Garfunkel or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, then WBZ’s disc is like hearing something by the Sex Pistols or the Ramones for the first time. Energetic and intense, the three manage to pack eight tunes into fewer than 35 minutes.

While all contribute to the excitement on PRIMA BALLERINA, titular frontman Zeuthen stands out. It’s not just that he plays the traditional solo instrument it’s also his unique tone on the alto saxophone. Closer in timbre to the soprano then the larger sax, he seems to use a combination of striated tones and choked pitches to create a distinctive, nasal sound that also resembles the ney or the musette.

Writhing, sputtering, fluttering and honking in false registers, his vibrations spur different responses from the other two. Sometimes Brunn rolls and thumps as if he was in a rock band, other times he turns to feathery brushes accompaniment to complement horn patterning and clean, ringing bass slides. Westergaard rarely backs up the others as much as he swells out restrained counterpoint usually in a tag-team with the saxman, but sometime with the drummer.

Occasionally, as on “Destruction Dirt Box”, Zeuthen alters the tonal centre to such an extent that without warning the descending bass line and slapped drum bits are playing at a slower pace then what went before, without turning the beat around. Then the reedist’s near palsied vibrato brings the tempo up again.

One of these sessions gives an under-acknowledged reed man his place in the sun. The other introduces a new hell-for-leather group of improvisers. Both are worth investigating.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Tabula Rasa G.M.C. 2, Intrinsic Structure I 3. What Love 4. Ionizacion – Varaciones E.V. 5. J.C. Drops

Personnel: Live: Lars-Göran Ulander (alto saxophone); Palle Danielsson (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

Track Listing: Prima: 1. Opti/Mopti 2. Prima Ballerina 3. Assembling 4. No. 4 5. Destruction Dirt Box 6. Kreutzer Valse 7. Den 8. Plage 8. Mask

Personnel: Prima: Jesper Zeuthen (alto saxophone); Jonas Westergaard (bass); Peter Bruun (drums)

April 17, 2006

PER HENRIK WALLIN

Burning In Stockholm
Atavistic Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP 249 CD

PER HENRIK WALLIN
The Stockholm Tapes
Ayler ayl CD-032

One of the most respected Swedish improvisers, pianist Per Henrik Wallin, born in Karlsborg in 1946, is young enough to be part of the first generation of players who adapted the advances of Free Jazz to their own purposes. At the same time he’s old enough to have internalized earlier traditions of jazz piano from stride masters like Willie “The Lion” Smith to Thelonious Monk’s rhythmic and time breakthroughs – and able to bring them out when he wishes.

You can hear that on these CDs made up of previous unreleased live sessions by two different Wallin trios in what was arguably his most influential period of the late 1970s, early 1980s. A serious accident in 1988 sidelined him for a while, but he was back in form by the end of the last century, recording with a young firebrand like saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and winning a top Swedish jazz prize in 2003.

Each threesome represented here couldn’t be more different. Recorded in 1975 and 1977, THE STOCKHOLM TAPES finds the pianist in his original bass-less trio, featuring low-key drummer Peter Olsen and alto saxophonist. Lars-Göran Ulander, now chief producer for Swedish Broadcasting Corp.’s jazz department. Recorded in 1981, BURNING IN STOCKHOLM features Wallin in a more familiar trio setting. However rather than his usual bassist Torbjörn Hultcrantz, the pianist and his longtime drummer Erik Dahlbäck are joined by expatriate South African Johnny Dyani (1945-1986), whose experience encompassed work with the British Brotherhood of Breath band and American trumpeter Don Cherry.

“Jive in July -75, Live” and “This Time Is Next Time Now”, THE STOCKHOLM TAPES’ final selection, contains the meat of session, especially where Ulander is concerned. Improvising in a classic Ornette Coleman mold on the former, the saxman’s playing is alive with acrid, writhing lines double- and flutter tongued. As his ideas flow, he narrows his tone so that darting semitone and sudden overblowing are on show. Out of admiration or respect, Wallin doesn’t even begin playing until the first tune is one-third over.

At that point the interaction intensifies. Left-handed ripples from the pianist meet wavering split tones, false fingering and vibrated pitches from the saxophonist, as Olsen smacks his snares and toms and rattles his cymbals. Although Ulander’s tone turns legato and moderato for a time three-quarters of the way through, the final section resonates with a cappella body tube squeaks, with the final 90 seconds pinponging between shrilling abstract multiphonics and stentorian resonation.

More of the same feeling enlivens “This Time Is Next Time Now”. But on this tune, as the reedist spurts and honks sideslipping note examinations, the pianoman responds with pile driver left handed chords followed by right handed glancing key tinkles. Here the post-Trane echoes are paramount, as Ulander’s sharp, snapping note accents accelerate to glossolalia. Wallin’s rejoinder somehow manages to combine McCoy Tyner-like modal action, Monk-like key pummeling and two-handed Jerry Lee Lewis-like rocking boogie piano.

In contrast however, the first selections, recorded two years later, seem wan. For some reason the saxist spends most of his time twittering, with the drummer contributing muffled paradiddles at key points. Chameleon-like, Wallin leaps from influence to influence throughout, showcasing tough, modal Tyner-like styling, Dave Brubeckian hammering, whirling Keith Jarrett-inflected harmonies and passages that could be from MAIDEN VOYAGE-era Herbie Hancock. Other influences that surface include arpeggio-rich cadences played with Art Tatum-like speed, and a sub-theme that threatens to become “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”.

All this free association pianism is put to good use accompanying the odd crunching rumble from Olsen and Ulander’s altissimo excursions and peeping phrasing. But Wallin reaches even further into his bag of tricks for the 49-minute TGV ride that is BURNING IN STOCKHOLM.

Challenged by drummer Dahlbäck’s doubled bounces and cymbal rattles plus Dyani’s vigorous string repercussions, Wallin’s soloing is more complex, and references so many influences that at times listeners could be playing name that tune, style or pianist.

Beginning with circular, near-modal runs that reflect Tyner, he quickly introduces two-handed contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, just as swiftly superseded by flashing octaves that don’t neglect the piano’s lower quadrant. Overcoming the bassist’s plucked accompaniment he briefly inveigles a roosty version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, and then gradually abstracts the melody. On top of Dyani’s steady pulse he puts many notes to use, suggesting then offhandedly moving past fragments of many jazz standards, “Misty” and “Lullaby of Birdland” among them.

Dahlbäck’s minimalistic rolls push Wallin into full gospel mode for a couple of minutes, then he moderates down to stab out more standard hard-bop lines in a Ray Bryant-Ramsey Lewis fashion. Turning to a stride section, modernized with broken chords, Wallin’s versatility forces the drummer to sound his cowbell and lay on the back beat, aided by the slightly over-recorded bass line. One-third of the way through, Wallin reintroduces the theme, first with bebop runs, then hammered out gospelish, and finally with a boogie-woogie tinge. Cascading into variations on “America” from West Side Story, he coats the melody with an overlay of cascading notes, adding pedal pressure as Dyani offers his theme variations.

Barely skirting Oscar Peterson-like cross handed excesses, Wallin slows down to walking bass and ornamental semi-stride jabs before trying out a ballad interlude in the piece’s penultimate minutes. Swirling around the bassist’s double stops and the drummer’s press rolls, he progressively accelerates the tempo, suggesting that Peterson and Taylor’s styles aren’t that dissimilar. Monkish key clipping presage a false climax, with the finale a “Hymn To Freedom” style flourish that brings out rapturous applause.

No misnomer, the trio was certainly “burning in Stockholm”, with this CD and the other, confirming that these hitherto unknown works by Wallin deserves to be heard.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Burning: 1. Burning In Stockholm

Personnel Burning: Per Henrik Wallin (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass); Erik Dahlbäck (drums)

Track Listing: Tapes: 1. E.V. 2. Wuppertal 3. A Jive in July -75, Live! 4. This Time Is Next Time Now

Personnel: Tapes: Lars-Göran Ulander (alto saxophone); Per Henrik Wallin (piano); Peter Olsen (drums)

April 4, 2005