Albert Beger/Gerry Hemingway

There’s Nothing Better to Do
OutNow Records ONR 007

Matthew Shipp Trio

Elastic Aspects

Thirsty Ear TH 57202.2

ROVA Saxophone Quartet

A Short History

Jazzwerkstatt JW 099

Ballrogg

Cabin Music

Hubro CD 2515

Something in The Air: New Excitement at the Guelph Jazz Festival

By Ken Waxman

One of jazz’s watershed musical creations, John Coltrane’s 1965 performance of Ascension marked his committeemen to Free Jazz and has since served as a yardstick against which saxophone-centred large ensemble improvisations are measured. On September 7 at the River Run Centre’s main stage, one of the highpoints of this year’s Guelph Jazz Festival is a reimagining of Coltrane’s masterwork by the Bay area-based ROVA Saxophone Quartet and guests. Not only is the ensemble gutsily tackling the suite, but its arrangement take Coltrane’s all-acoustic piece for five saxes, two trumpets and rhythm section and reconfigures it so that ROVA’s four saxes, and one trumpeter interact with two drummers, two violins, electric guitar and bass plus electronic processing.

You can get an idea of ROVA’s style of sonic daring-do on A Short History Jazzwerkstatt JW 099. Referencing all sorts of reed writing from R&B vamps to atonal serialism, the 35-year-old quartet made up of soprano and tenor saxophonist Bruce Ackley, alto and sopranino saxophonist Steve Adams, baritone and alto saxophonist Jon Raskin and tenor and sopranino saxophonist Larry Ochs show its versatility throughout. Especially germane and related to Ascension, is a section on Part 2 of the Ochs-composed Certain Space sequence when he corkscrews an intense, stop-time solo into a strident collection of irregular polyphony and slap-tongue invention from the other saxes with the authority of Coltrane’s sax choir from 47 years earlier. That’s merely one highlight of this tour-de-force which outline’s the band’s other influences with tracks dedicated to improv pianist Cecil Taylor and notated composers Giacinto Scelsi and Morton Feldman. The Scelsi section dramatically contrasts bagpipe-like slurs from the soloists with impressionistic harmonies from the other reeds modulating through different modes and tones. Although other sequences in the Taylor section expose sinewy tessitura and staccato reed bites in call-and-response fashion, Part 3, for Feldman is unsurprisingly moderato and leisurely, introduced and completed by air blown through the horns’ body tubes without key movement, yet lyrically balanced throughout as each saxophone’s timbre is clearly heard within the close harmonies.

That same night, Ascension guitarist Nels Cline and others will join members of the Norwegian Huntsville trio at St. George’s Church for its unique mixture of improvisation tempered with electronic impulses and influenced by folk and rock music textures. Huntsville’s Ivar Grydeland, who plays electric, acoustic and pedal steel guitars plus banjo and electronics with bassist Tonny Kluften and percussionist Ingar Zach in that band, shows off his zesty mix of spidery licks, resonating twangs and droning pulses with Ballrogg, another Norwegian combo on Cabin Music Hubro CD 2515 With that trio filled out by alto saxophonist/clarinetist Klaus Holm, who adds electronics and field recordings to the mix, and bassist Roger Arntzen, the disc is a close cousin to what Huntsville creates, albeit with more overdubbing, and with Grydeland frailing his banjo as often as he strums his guitar, more country-folksy. Probably the most descriptive track is Sliding Doors which manages to deftly balance clarinet glissandi, ringing banjo flanges and a powerful walking bass line. Before the result takes on too much of a rural interface however, the trio’s juddering interaction is meticulously intercut with previously prepared jagged guitar flanges and sluicing bass lines.

There are no guitars in sight the next afternoon at a double bill at River Run Centre’s Cooperators Hall, although Miya Masaoka’s multi-string koto may make up for that as she plays with bassist Reggie Workman and percussionist Gerry Hemingway. A long-time festival visitor, Hemmingway’s recent CD with tenor and soprano saxophonist Albert Beger There’s Nothing Better to Do OutNow Records ONR 007 demonstrates the drummer’s skill in the sort of duo format that Coltrane excelled in during his latter career. The near-naked improvising of this first-time meeting between American drummer and Israeli saxophonist demonstrates the universality of expression, Using his hands as often as sticks and brushes, Hemingway is as likely to come up with a tom-tom rhythm, produce a ratcheting scratch on his kit’s sides or tap a small bell as he is to let loose with full-force ruffs and drags. Beger responds to these understated rhythms in kind, with hoarse-throated vibrations, ragged tongue fluttering or surprisingly aligned trills, which are as often chromatic as cascading. Using both his horns throughout, the saxophonist’s moderate tones can be graceful and emotional as Hemingway’s beats gracefully scurry around them. However elsewhere ragged, altissimo reed bites stridently operate in tandem with the drummer’s blunt flams and tough backbeat. With bravura timing the two show how easily they can move from cacophonous vibrations to an arrhythmic but bluesy output on Missing You or on the title track, speedily layering freak reed notes and circular slurs plus clashing cymbals and incisive shuffle beats into a parallel exposition that is as moving as it is staccato.

Negotiating the tightrope between staccato and lyrical in his playing is the forte of pianist Matthew Shipp, whose duo with saxophonist Darius Jones is the other half of the double bill at Cooperators Hall. Elastic Aspects Thirsty Ear TH 57202.2 with long-time associates bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey however, shows that Shipp’s improvising can be as mercurial in the standard jazz piano trio setting as well. With each of the 13 aspects of this suite stretching so that they adhere to one another, the effect is wholly organic, not unlike the recording of Ascension. With Dickey’s nuanced patterning and Bisio’s buzzing, often bowed, sometimes walking bass lines beside him, Shipp skillfully moves through the piano language. A track like Explosive Aspects balances on ringing, left-handed syncopation, while the subsequent Raw Materials evolves like a baroque invention with leaping, high-pitched notes carefully shaded as they jostle with pedal-point bass line until the theme finally break free into rubato pulsing. There are internal string plucks and harpsichord echoes in Shipp’s playing as well. With tremolo, lyrical and sometimes impressionistic patterning on show, the trio maintains the swinging centre of jazz while subtly or overtly charting new experiments and explorations.

Overall 2012 promises to be a banner year for the Guelph Jazz Festival. And that’s not even mentioning the dark-to-dusk Nuit Blanche late Saturday encompassing more unexpected sounds.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 18 #1

September 6, 2012

OutNow Recordings

Label Spotlight
By Ken Waxman

“Search for the sound you never stop hearing” is the motto of OutNow, a label launched last summer by three young Israel-born musicians, releasing six CDs simultaneously, with more skedded for 2012. The idea is to record innovative music, whether improvised or notated, electric or acoustic, and by younger or older creators.

The trio decided to follow this DIY approach, explains Brooklyn-based saxophonist and co-founder, Yoni Kretzmer, because, despite the multiplicity of labels, “there’s still a lot of music being missed and not reaching potential audiences. We try to create the right frame and aesthetic surrounding for any specific type of musical vision.” Similar to a live performance, he notes, OutNow CDs capture the music of the moment, which once preserved allows the artist to contemplate his or her next statement. “OutNow can also be seen as a kind of encouragement to get out of preconceived notions and conventions … Now,” he adds.

Besides Overlook by Kretzmer’s quartet, the first batch of OutNow CDs include three solo and group efforts by another of the imprint’s co-founders, Tel Aviv-based guitarist Ido Bukelman; plus two where New York drummer Ehran Elisha plays with veterans, either in Israel, with clarinetist Harold Rubin and his father, pianist Haim Elisha on East of Jaffa, or on Watching Cartoons With Eddie, with local trumpeter Roy Campbell. OutNow’s third partner, acoustic guitar player Yair Yona, who lives in Tel Aviv, will release his own CD later this year.

“I visit Israel during most summers and have always been active in music there,” elaborates Elisha. “I was inspired over the past two years by a new crop of players such as Kretzmer and Bukelman, and when they approached me with the idea of releasing music through this new label, I was happy to help. They have a great outlook with an earnest desire to document and promote what they release, be it work by others or work that they’re involved in themselves. The OutNow guys lobbied me hard to put out the [2008-recorded] project with Roy [Campbell], both because they loved the music but also clearly because this duo presented them with their first international artists. I felt it was the right time to do it, and that this label would respect the project's depth and integrity.”

In fact, despite a Tel Aviv base – the label’s launch party last August took place before a full house in that city’s Levontin 7 club – Kretzmer is adamant that OutNow isn’t an Israeli jazz label, but one that will produce music to “dialogue with others around the globe”. Furthermore, while the founders are all in their early 30s, and “feel that it’s more correct to try and put out stuff that comes from people more or less our age,” elaborates the saxophonist, “it’s clear that original personality and creativity aren’t always synonymous with ‘being young’ and that’s the stuff we’re really after.” That was the impetus behind releasing the Elisha projects as well as pressing a forthcoming duo disc by American drummer Gerry Hemingway and pioneering Israeli free jazz saxophonist Albert Beger.

“It’s rare on the planet to have a label whose aim it is to record real new music free from economical decisions,” reflects Berger from Tel Aviv. “And with this label managed by three of my best colleges and friends it was important for me to participate. I hope to record more for OutNow because its ideas fit the music I’m doing these days. Another important reason for me to participate is to support anything involved with experimental music in Israel. I’d like to see a community of musicians here supporting and playing their ‘truth’ with no compromises, similar to what happened with the AACM in the ‘60s in Chicago.”

Historically, it was the Israeli capital’s burgeoning free jazz scene that over the past decade drew the founders together in different bands and eventually led to OutNow’s birth. All three have recorded for other labels, with Bukelman especially involved in several projects. “One of the reasons to create a musician-run label is to have a convenient place to release your own music,” admits Kretzmer. “Ido is always working on several project simultaneously and we thought it would be great to present this whole body of work in one go.”

Division of tasks among the founders is hardly compromised by the US-Israel separation. The three e-mail on a daily basis and have frequent meetings via Skype. As for who does what, Yona does most of the e-mailing, public relations and digital work and deals with on-line commerce; Bukelman takes care of local logistics; and Kretzmer, plus his girlfriend Avital Burg, designs CD covers, flyers and ads. “All three of us take the curating and artistic decisions equally,” explains the saxophonist “We almost always agree and of course having someone in New York is an advantage.”

“The people who started Out Now are learning by doing, so what they lack in experience they make up for in their tremendous enthusiasm, devotion and commitment to the music,” affirms Elisha. “With OutNow it’s your project 100%. These guys are dedicated to championing work that excites and inspires them.”

As with many start-up labels, distribution is a challenge, but as Kretzmer notes “we do all the distribution ourselves, go down to the mail box and send CDs the old fashion way.” Stores in the US and Europe are contacted personally, the label’s Web site is “nicely busy” and downloads are now available on Bandcamp and soon on iTunes. Eventually OutNow would like to produce LPs as well as offer exclusive downloads of its artists’ live shows.

Right now the label’s appeal rests in its decision to allow musicians complete freedom. An artist brings it completed recordings, which may or may not be mixed and mastered, and OutNow pays for logistics, design, shipping and media and may soon begin mixing as well. Any profits go directly to the artist.

In the next little while, besides Yona’s and the Beger/Hemingway CDs, a second OutNow disc by Bukelman’s EFT (Electro Free Trio) with drummer Ofer Bymel and Daniel Davidovsky on electronics is scheduled for release as is a session by Kretzmer’s two-bass quartet featuring both Sean Conly and Reuben Radding plus drummer Mike Pride.

The one thing that’s certain about OutNow’s releases”, adds the saxophonist, “is that they’ll be many more. We’re definitely going to keep them coming at a high speed, one, two or three at a time.”

--For New York City Jazz Record February 2012

February 10, 2012

Slava Ganelin-Vladimir Volkov

Ne Slyshno
Auris Media Aum 012

Slava Ganelin-Neil Rothenberg

Falling Into Place

Auris Media Aum 007

Various

White Nights Festival Tel Aviv 2006

Kadima Collective KCR 11

Shibolet/Josephson/Baker/Looney/Smith

Untitled (1959)

Kadima Collective KCR 09

Secure in its position as the one true democracy in the Middle East, cosmopolitan elements in Israel have long encouraged the growth of an indigenous jazz scene. Only in the past decade-and-a-half however, have improvisers on the Israeli scene elicited more than local interest. At the same time, associations between many Israelis and musicians in other countries has meant that a Diaspora of improvisers from the Jewish state has set up shop – and garnered fulsome praise – in jazz capitals such as New York.

As the top-flight music on these CDs demonstrates, not every Israeli improviser has emigrated. However it’s also instructive to note that many of the most notable sounds here result from collaborations between Israeli players and outsiders. Plus with the still-young country actively encouraging Jewish immigration, some of Israel’s more advanced players have non-Israeli origins. To take three at random, baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein is originally an American; bassist JC Jones comes from France; and keyboardist Slava Ganelin’s Ganelin Trio was probably the most famous avant-garde ensemble in the Cold War era Soviet Block, before the Lithuanian Ganelin immigrated to Israel.

Still an internationalist, Ne Slyshno finds the veteran Ganelin hooked up with a former Russian, bassist Vladimir Volkov, whose past credits include work with the Moscow Composers Orchestra and Moscow Art Trio. Conversant with many styles of music, Volkov’s tough plucking and string-stopping resemble that of mainstreamers like Red Mitchell, while his sul ponticello slides and high frequency tremolo patterns are stylistically avant-garde. Someone who also performs traditional music on the viola de gamba, Volkov’s facility includes the ability to add Roma-like flying staccato runs to his solos.

Completed by short, quieter postludes, which allow Ganelin’s grand piano cadenzas to suggest both Artur Rubinstein-like romantic coloration and dynamics and the key-spanking and plinking that relate to Bud Powell’s bop advances, the improvisations at Ne Slyshn’s centre are both extensive and descriptive.

Instructively, no more than one-quarter of the second track passes before the pianist makes clear that despite his liking for contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, the swaggering echoes he uses distinctively distance him from the American’s concept. Furthermore among the gouts of notes exposed, his playing is still sensitive enough to make room for Volkov’s staccato squeaks on the higher-pitched strings. While Ganelin’s styling may be modern enough to include internal string scraping, manic boogie-woogie-styling and rough chiming notes appear as well. Then by the tune’s climax his Slavic balladic side asserts itself again.

When the two instruments couple on the third track, the bassist’s subterranean plucks are given added impetus by the pianist’s rolling chords patterns. In fact, Volkov’s double-stopping percussiveness when added to Ganelin’s cross-handed plinking and cymbal slaps – the pianist also plays percussion – almost transforms the two musicians into a bop trio. Just as quickly bird-screeching rappelling on the bull fiddle’s strings splinter the piano’s Europeanized melodies, leaving more space for bell-ringing and the squeaks of plastic toys. Ramping up his keys with foot pedal pressure to full Russian classical mode, Ganelin’s widely splayed forward motion is only moderated by Volkov’s modulated string slapping.

A year previously Ganelin met American multi-reedist Ned Rothenberg for a live concert in Jaffa. It foreshadowed some of his simpatico work with Volkov, but elsewhere seems more distant than any land-sharing proposal from either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Three of the first four numbers expose Rothenberg’s skill on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The fourth is a more-than-34-minute solo tour-de-force from Ganelin called “A Place With The Space”. It’s so self-contained, that “A Place With The Space” could be a Territories settler’s view of the rest of the country.

Throughout, Ganelin seem intent on not only on creating a fantasia of organic piano patterns, but also boost his admittedly rudimentary percussion skills. Later on, he confirm that his synthesizer is capable of replicating any timbre from that of the lumbering bassoon in Peter and the Wolf to thundering E. Power Biggs-like organ stops. Again creating a détente between Romantic-styled cadences and bebop runs on the piano, Ganelin’s pitch-sliding tones and soundboard vibrations are more descriptive than the thumping percussion or the swirling, blurred patterns from the synth.

For his part, Rothenberg, who has held his own in duets with British saxophone master Evan Parker among others, defines versatility. “The Foot In It” exhibits his tongue-slapping chalumeau register and widely spaced multiphonics on bass clarinet. “A Blue Dance” for clarinet shows how harsh trills, legato chirps and flutter tonguing can be built up into rhythmic refractions of continuous breathing with verbalized hocketing and expressive high pitches. Introducing the properties of his alto saxophone’s metal as well as its reed, “Wood In The Metal” is cumulative program of high intensity and extended pitches that by exposing every sibilant tone produce a sound midway between bagpipe chanter and a pan flute.

Somewhat anti-climatic, the set of short duets that follow merely gilds the two sonic lilies that are exhibited singly. More like jousts than meetings, the feeling persists that each player dons his technical armor as a way to push the other to react. Thus at one point flowery and extended European piano echoes lead to mellow bass clarinet runs, snorts and gentling coloration, with tongue slaps and arpeggios stretching to be more connective. Elsewhere, marimba-like internal piano string echoes underscore single, twittering shakuhachi lines.

A similar congruence, but not-quite connection, exists in the extended free improvisation from Ganelin, drummer Arkady Gotesman and Irish guitarist Mark O’Leary on White Nights Festival. Tel Aviv’s 12-hour musical marathon., the live performances mix’n’match Israelis and visitors in ad-hoc groups. With Gotesman laying down a low rumble and the pianist comping, the guitarist appears eager to break things up by varying what initially seems to be Tal Farlow-like picking with long-lined frails and rock-styled vamps. Meeting him with key patting and pounding plus disassociated runs, Genelin’s post-Energy music and O’Leary post-fusion sounds don’t really gel.

More sympathetic is the drummer’s low-key contribution to “German Poem”, which also features the walking bass of Shmil Frankel, off-centre tolling piano notes from Olga Magieres plus Harold Rubin’s recitation and rustic tongue slapping and twittering clarinet work. The instrumental section trumps the words however.

However on “Ship of Fools”, an interactive trio of saxophonist Horenstein, bassist Jones and Loic Kessous on computer sound processing, makes better use of bull fiddle and reed timbres. Content to process and spit back the purely instrumental tones, the computer only betrays its presence with the odd shuddering pulse. Overall, the piece is an essay in cooperation. Working up to high intensity, Jones ratchets his bow across the strings producing sul ponticello lines, rough strums and spiccato ricocheting. Meanwhile Horenstein snorts split tones from the baritone’s highest register, steady, low-pitched honks and tongue flutters. Eventually reached is an accord of tremolo tones that mulch portions of computer warbles, saxophone timbres and bass string thumps.

Other saxophonist on hand during White Nights include Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai and local Ariel Shibolet. Despite his long history in outside music, Tchicai’s trio with John Bostock on piano and Noam David on drums seems to meander towards adagio ballad territory except for the occasional off-kilter reed squeak. Similarly, Shibolet’s two brief tracks on soprano saxophone with Yoram Lachish’ electronics expose circular breathing and electronic shrilling, but never really gather momentum.

A more impressive showcase for Shibolet is Untitled (1959). Recorded around the same time as White Nights but in Oakland, Calif. it matches the soprano saxophonist with four of his Bay area contemporaries: trombonist Jen Baker, pianist Scott R. Loney – who also recorded, mixed and mastered the CD – bassist Damon Smith and vocalist Aurora Josephson.

All track titles are taken from paintings by Mark Rothko, with the sfumato coloration produced by all quintet members. For instance, “White, Yellow, Red on Yellow” gives Shibolet space for altissimo peeps and irregular vibrations as Baker’s ‘bone notes sluice downwards, Loney twangs and stops the piano’s internal strings and Smith slides acro tones back-and-forth. Eventually Josephson’s choked bel canto tones make common cause with the saxophonist’s circular breathing.

Braying slurs from Baker are the initial defining factor of the title track, soon joined by the saxophonist’s rolling tongue slaps. Double and triple tonguing to a multiphonic display, the trombonist eventually lets loosen with elongated and accumulated trills and tones, almost undifferentiated from Shibolet’s reed bites. Pitter-pattering keyboard lines and Smith’s thick slaps put the solos in context.

Other improvisations encompass air sax runs, keyboard arpeggios and vocal onomatopoeia from Josephson, though “Blue Cloud”, the almost 7½-minute longest track touches on New music. Tough bow slices and near-the-pegs plucks from Smith, crash-and-bang chording from Looney meet undulating wah-wah notes from Baker and colored air breaths and thick, irregular vibrato jumps from the saxophonist. Marshalling her collection of near-inaudible croaks and duck-like growls, Josephson’s quivering throat textures match extended trombone plunger tones and trilling grace notes from Shibolet.

Sanctions and settlements on the West Bank to the contrary, cooperation creates more evolution – musical and otherwise – than isolation. Each of these CDs demonstrates that, in a completely musical way, in one fashion or another.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: White: 1. Improv 1 2. The Holy Coordinator 3. German Poem 4. Untitled 1 5. Ship of Fools 6. Untitled 2 7. Free Improv 8. Improv 1 9. Anima 10. Summit for Albert Ayler

Personnel: White: 1. & 8 Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Yoram Lachish (electronics) 2. John Tchicai (tenor saxophone); John Bostock (piano) and Noam David (drums) 3. Harold Rubin (clarinet and voice); Olga Magieres (piano); Shmil Frankel (bass) and Arkady Gotesman (drums) 4. & 6.Wlodzimierz Kiniorski (tenor saxophone and flute); Rafal Mazur (bass) and Markek Choloniewski (electronics) 5. Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone); JC Jones (bass) and Loic Kessous (computer sound processing) 7. Slava Ganelin (piano and synthesizer); Mark O’Leary (guitar) and Akady Gotesman (drums) 9. Spheres Duo: Arnon Zimra (piano) and Zvi Joffe (vibraphone and percussion) 10. John Tchicai and Albert Berger (tenor saxophones); Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone) and Noam David (drums)

Track Listing: One: One Slyshno 1. (00:26) 2. (22:10) 3. (26:21) 4. (12:35) 5. (06:26)

Personnel: One: Slava Ganelin (piano and percussion) and Vladimir Volkov (bass)

Track Listing: Untitled: 1. Number 12 2. Homage to Matisse 3. Number 61 (Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue) [t,p,s] 4. Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange [t,p,s] 5. White, Yellow, Red on Yellow 6. Light, Earth and Blue 7. Ochre and Red on Red [t,p,b] 8. White Band (Number 27) [v.t] 9. Three Reds [v,s] 10. Blue Cloud 11. White Cloud 12. Four Reds [t,b,s] 13. Black, Ochre, Red and Red [t,b,s] 14. Red, Gray, White on Yellow 15. Red, Black, Orange, Yellow on Yellow 16. Untitled (1959)

Personnel: Untitled: Jen Baker (trombone); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Scott R. Looney (piano); Damon Smith (bass) and Aurora Josephson (voice)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. The Foot In It 2. The Place With The Space 3. A Blue Dance 4. Wood In The Metal 5. First Conversation 6. Steps In Time 7. Luminous Staircase 8. Glassland 9. Encore

Personnel: Falling: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi) and Slava Ganelin (piano, synthesizer and percussion)

March 20, 2008

Slava Ganelin-Neil Rothenberg

Falling Into Place
Auris Media Aum 007

Slava Ganelin-Vladimir Volkov

Ne Slyshno

Auris Media Aum 012

Various

White Nights Festival Tel Aviv 2006

Kadima Collective KCR 11

Shibolet/Josephson/Baker/Looney/Smith

Untitled (1959)

Kadima Collective KCR 09

Secure in its position as the one true democracy in the Middle East, cosmopolitan elements in Israel have long encouraged the growth of an indigenous jazz scene. Only in the past decade-and-a-half however, have improvisers on the Israeli scene elicited more than local interest. At the same time, associations between many Israelis and musicians in other countries has meant that a Diaspora of improvisers from the Jewish state has set up shop – and garnered fulsome praise – in jazz capitals such as New York.

As the top-flight music on these CDs demonstrates, not every Israeli improviser has emigrated. However it’s also instructive to note that many of the most notable sounds here result from collaborations between Israeli players and outsiders. Plus with the still-young country actively encouraging Jewish immigration, some of Israel’s more advanced players have non-Israeli origins. To take three at random, baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein is originally an American; bassist JC Jones comes from France; and keyboardist Slava Ganelin’s Ganelin Trio was probably the most famous avant-garde ensemble in the Cold War era Soviet Block, before the Lithuanian Ganelin immigrated to Israel.

Still an internationalist, Ne Slyshno finds the veteran Ganelin hooked up with a former Russian, bassist Vladimir Volkov, whose past credits include work with the Moscow Composers Orchestra and Moscow Art Trio. Conversant with many styles of music, Volkov’s tough plucking and string-stopping resemble that of mainstreamers like Red Mitchell, while his sul ponticello slides and high frequency tremolo patterns are stylistically avant-garde. Someone who also performs traditional music on the viola de gamba, Volkov’s facility includes the ability to add Roma-like flying staccato runs to his solos.

Completed by short, quieter postludes, which allow Ganelin’s grand piano cadenzas to suggest both Artur Rubinstein-like romantic coloration and dynamics and the key-spanking and plinking that relate to Bud Powell’s bop advances, the improvisations at Ne Slyshn’s centre are both extensive and descriptive.

Instructively, no more than one-quarter of the second track passes before the pianist makes clear that despite his liking for contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, the swaggering echoes he uses distinctively distance him from the American’s concept. Furthermore among the gouts of notes exposed, his playing is still sensitive enough to make room for Volkov’s staccato squeaks on the higher-pitched strings. While Ganelin’s styling may be modern enough to include internal string scraping, manic boogie-woogie-styling and rough chiming notes appear as well. Then by the tune’s climax his Slavic balladic side asserts itself again.

When the two instruments couple on the third track, the bassist’s subterranean plucks are given added impetus by the pianist’s rolling chords patterns. In fact, Volkov’s double-stopping percussiveness when added to Ganelin’s cross-handed plinking and cymbal slaps – the pianist also plays percussion – almost transforms the two musicians into a bop trio. Just as quickly bird-screeching rappelling on the bull fiddle’s strings splinter the piano’s Europeanized melodies, leaving more space for bell-ringing and the squeaks of plastic toys. Ramping up his keys with foot pedal pressure to full Russian classical mode, Ganelin’s widely splayed forward motion is only moderated by Volkov’s modulated string slapping.

A year previously Ganelin met American multi-reedist Ned Rothenberg for a live concert in Jaffa. It foreshadowed some of his simpatico work with Volkov, but elsewhere seems more distant than any land-sharing proposal from either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Three of the first four numbers expose Rothenberg’s skill on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The fourth is a more-than-34-minute solo tour-de-force from Ganelin called “A Place With The Space”. It’s so self-contained, that “A Place With The Space” could be a Territories settler’s view of the rest of the country.

Throughout, Ganelin seem intent on not only on creating a fantasia of organic piano patterns, but also boost his admittedly rudimentary percussion skills. Later on, he confirm that his synthesizer is capable of replicating any timbre from that of the lumbering bassoon in Peter and the Wolf to thundering E. Power Biggs-like organ stops. Again creating a détente between Romantic-styled cadences and bebop runs on the piano, Ganelin’s pitch-sliding tones and soundboard vibrations are more descriptive than the thumping percussion or the swirling, blurred patterns from the synth.

For his part, Rothenberg, who has held his own in duets with British saxophone master Evan Parker among others, defines versatility. “The Foot In It” exhibits his tongue-slapping chalumeau register and widely spaced multiphonics on bass clarinet. “A Blue Dance” for clarinet shows how harsh trills, legato chirps and flutter tonguing can be built up into rhythmic refractions of continuous breathing with verbalized hocketing and expressive high pitches. Introducing the properties of his alto saxophone’s metal as well as its reed, “Wood In The Metal” is cumulative program of high intensity and extended pitches that by exposing every sibilant tone produce a sound midway between bagpipe chanter and a pan flute.

Somewhat anti-climatic, the set of short duets that follow merely gilds the two sonic lilies that are exhibited singly. More like jousts than meetings, the feeling persists that each player dons his technical armor as a way to push the other to react. Thus at one point flowery and extended European piano echoes lead to mellow bass clarinet runs, snorts and gentling coloration, with tongue slaps and arpeggios stretching to be more connective. Elsewhere, marimba-like internal piano string echoes underscore single, twittering shakuhachi lines.

A similar congruence, but not-quite connection, exists in the extended free improvisation from Ganelin, drummer Arkady Gotesman and Irish guitarist Mark O’Leary on White Nights Festival. Tel Aviv’s 12-hour musical marathon., the live performances mix’n’match Israelis and visitors in ad-hoc groups. With Gotesman laying down a low rumble and the pianist comping, the guitarist appears eager to break things up by varying what initially seems to be Tal Farlow-like picking with long-lined frails and rock-styled vamps. Meeting him with key patting and pounding plus disassociated runs, Genelin’s post-Energy music and O’Leary post-fusion sounds don’t really gel.

More sympathetic is the drummer’s low-key contribution to “German Poem”, which also features the walking bass of Shmil Frankel, off-centre tolling piano notes from Olga Magieres plus Harold Rubin’s recitation and rustic tongue slapping and twittering clarinet work. The instrumental section trumps the words however.

However on “Ship of Fools”, an interactive trio of saxophonist Horenstein, bassist Jones and Loic Kessous on computer sound processing, makes better use of bull fiddle and reed timbres. Content to process and spit back the purely instrumental tones, the computer only betrays its presence with the odd shuddering pulse. Overall, the piece is an essay in cooperation. Working up to high intensity, Jones ratchets his bow across the strings producing sul ponticello lines, rough strums and spiccato ricocheting. Meanwhile Horenstein snorts split tones from the baritone’s highest register, steady, low-pitched honks and tongue flutters. Eventually reached is an accord of tremolo tones that mulch portions of computer warbles, saxophone timbres and bass string thumps.

Other saxophonist on hand during White Nights include Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai and local Ariel Shibolet. Despite his long history in outside music, Tchicai’s trio with John Bostock on piano and Noam David on drums seems to meander towards adagio ballad territory except for the occasional off-kilter reed squeak. Similarly, Shibolet’s two brief tracks on soprano saxophone with Yoram Lachish’ electronics expose circular breathing and electronic shrilling, but never really gather momentum.

A more impressive showcase for Shibolet is Untitled (1959). Recorded around the same time as White Nights but in Oakland, Calif. it matches the soprano saxophonist with four of his Bay area contemporaries: trombonist Jen Baker, pianist Scott R. Loney – who also recorded, mixed and mastered the CD – bassist Damon Smith and vocalist Aurora Josephson.

All track titles are taken from paintings by Mark Rothko, with the sfumato coloration produced by all quintet members. For instance, “White, Yellow, Red on Yellow” gives Shibolet space for altissimo peeps and irregular vibrations as Baker’s ‘bone notes sluice downwards, Loney twangs and stops the piano’s internal strings and Smith slides acro tones back-and-forth. Eventually Josephson’s choked bel canto tones make common cause with the saxophonist’s circular breathing.

Braying slurs from Baker are the initial defining factor of the title track, soon joined by the saxophonist’s rolling tongue slaps. Double and triple tonguing to a multiphonic display, the trombonist eventually lets loosen with elongated and accumulated trills and tones, almost undifferentiated from Shibolet’s reed bites. Pitter-pattering keyboard lines and Smith’s thick slaps put the solos in context.

Other improvisations encompass air sax runs, keyboard arpeggios and vocal onomatopoeia from Josephson, though “Blue Cloud”, the almost 7½-minute longest track touches on New music. Tough bow slices and near-the-pegs plucks from Smith, crash-and-bang chording from Looney meet undulating wah-wah notes from Baker and colored air breaths and thick, irregular vibrato jumps from the saxophonist. Marshalling her collection of near-inaudible croaks and duck-like growls, Josephson’s quivering throat textures match extended trombone plunger tones and trilling grace notes from Shibolet.

Sanctions and settlements on the West Bank to the contrary, cooperation creates more evolution – musical and otherwise – than isolation. Each of these CDs demonstrates that, in a completely musical way, in one fashion or another.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: White: 1. Improv 1 2. The Holy Coordinator 3. German Poem 4. Untitled 1 5. Ship of Fools 6. Untitled 2 7. Free Improv 8. Improv 1 9. Anima 10. Summit for Albert Ayler

Personnel: White: 1. & 8 Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Yoram Lachish (electronics) 2. John Tchicai (tenor saxophone); John Bostock (piano) and Noam David (drums) 3. Harold Rubin (clarinet and voice); Olga Magieres (piano); Shmil Frankel (bass) and Arkady Gotesman (drums) 4. & 6.Wlodzimierz Kiniorski (tenor saxophone and flute); Rafal Mazur (bass) and Markek Choloniewski (electronics) 5. Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone); JC Jones (bass) and Loic Kessous (computer sound processing) 7. Slava Ganelin (piano and synthesizer); Mark O’Leary (guitar) and Akady Gotesman (drums) 9. Spheres Duo: Arnon Zimra (piano) and Zvi Joffe (vibraphone and percussion) 10. John Tchicai and Albert Berger (tenor saxophones); Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone) and Noam David (drums)

Track Listing: One: One Slyshno 1. (00:26) 2. (22:10) 3. (26:21) 4. (12:35) 5. (06:26)

Personnel: One: Slava Ganelin (piano and percussion) and Vladimir Volkov (bass)

Track Listing: Untitled: 1. Number 12 2. Homage to Matisse 3. Number 61 (Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue) [t,p,s] 4. Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange [t,p,s] 5. White, Yellow, Red on Yellow 6. Light, Earth and Blue 7. Ochre and Red on Red [t,p,b] 8. White Band (Number 27) [v.t] 9. Three Reds [v,s] 10. Blue Cloud 11. White Cloud 12. Four Reds [t,b,s] 13. Black, Ochre, Red and Red [t,b,s] 14. Red, Gray, White on Yellow 15. Red, Black, Orange, Yellow on Yellow 16. Untitled (1959)

Personnel: Untitled: Jen Baker (trombone); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Scott R. Looney (piano); Damon Smith (bass) and Aurora Josephson (voice)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. The Foot In It 2. The Place With The Space 3. A Blue Dance 4. Wood In The Metal 5. First Conversation 6. Steps In Time 7. Luminous Staircase 8. Glassland 9. Encore

Personnel: Falling: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi) and Slava Ganelin (piano, synthesizer and percussion)

March 20, 2008

Shibolet/Josephson/Baker/Looney/Smith

Untitled (1959)
Kadima Collective KCR 09

Slava Ganelin-Vladimir Volkov

Ne Slyshno

Auris Media Aum 012

Slava Ganelin-Neil Rothenberg

Falling Into Place

Auris Media Aum 007

Various

White Nights Festival Tel Aviv 2006

Kadima Collective KCR 11

Secure in its position as the one true democracy in the Middle East, cosmopolitan elements in Israel have long encouraged the growth of an indigenous jazz scene. Only in the past decade-and-a-half however, have improvisers on the Israeli scene elicited more than local interest. At the same time, associations between many Israelis and musicians in other countries has meant that a Diaspora of improvisers from the Jewish state has set up shop – and garnered fulsome praise – in jazz capitals such as New York.

As the top-flight music on these CDs demonstrates, not every Israeli improviser has emigrated. However it’s also instructive to note that many of the most notable sounds here result from collaborations between Israeli players and outsiders. Plus with the still-young country actively encouraging Jewish immigration, some of Israel’s more advanced players have non-Israeli origins. To take three at random, baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein is originally an American; bassist JC Jones comes from France; and keyboardist Slava Ganelin’s Ganelin Trio was probably the most famous avant-garde ensemble in the Cold War era Soviet Block, before the Lithuanian Ganelin immigrated to Israel.

Still an internationalist, Ne Slyshno finds the veteran Ganelin hooked up with a former Russian, bassist Vladimir Volkov, whose past credits include work with the Moscow Composers Orchestra and Moscow Art Trio. Conversant with many styles of music, Volkov’s tough plucking and string-stopping resemble that of mainstreamers like Red Mitchell, while his sul ponticello slides and high frequency tremolo patterns are stylistically avant-garde. Someone who also performs traditional music on the viola de gamba, Volkov’s facility includes the ability to add Roma-like flying staccato runs to his solos.

Completed by short, quieter postludes, which allow Ganelin’s grand piano cadenzas to suggest both Artur Rubinstein-like romantic coloration and dynamics and the key-spanking and plinking that relate to Bud Powell’s bop advances, the improvisations at Ne Slyshn’s centre are both extensive and descriptive.

Instructively, no more than one-quarter of the second track passes before the pianist makes clear that despite his liking for contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, the swaggering echoes he uses distinctively distance him from the American’s concept. Furthermore among the gouts of notes exposed, his playing is still sensitive enough to make room for Volkov’s staccato squeaks on the higher-pitched strings. While Ganelin’s styling may be modern enough to include internal string scraping, manic boogie-woogie-styling and rough chiming notes appear as well. Then by the tune’s climax his Slavic balladic side asserts itself again.

When the two instruments couple on the third track, the bassist’s subterranean plucks are given added impetus by the pianist’s rolling chords patterns. In fact, Volkov’s double-stopping percussiveness when added to Ganelin’s cross-handed plinking and cymbal slaps – the pianist also plays percussion – almost transforms the two musicians into a bop trio. Just as quickly bird-screeching rappelling on the bull fiddle’s strings splinter the piano’s Europeanized melodies, leaving more space for bell-ringing and the squeaks of plastic toys. Ramping up his keys with foot pedal pressure to full Russian classical mode, Ganelin’s widely splayed forward motion is only moderated by Volkov’s modulated string slapping.

A year previously Ganelin met American multi-reedist Ned Rothenberg for a live concert in Jaffa. It foreshadowed some of his simpatico work with Volkov, but elsewhere seems more distant than any land-sharing proposal from either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Three of the first four numbers expose Rothenberg’s skill on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The fourth is a more-than-34-minute solo tour-de-force from Ganelin called “A Place With The Space”. It’s so self-contained, that “A Place With The Space” could be a Territories settler’s view of the rest of the country.

Throughout, Ganelin seem intent on not only on creating a fantasia of organic piano patterns, but also boost his admittedly rudimentary percussion skills. Later on, he confirm that his synthesizer is capable of replicating any timbre from that of the lumbering bassoon in Peter and the Wolf to thundering E. Power Biggs-like organ stops. Again creating a détente between Romantic-styled cadences and bebop runs on the piano, Ganelin’s pitch-sliding tones and soundboard vibrations are more descriptive than the thumping percussion or the swirling, blurred patterns from the synth.

For his part, Rothenberg, who has held his own in duets with British saxophone master Evan Parker among others, defines versatility. “The Foot In It” exhibits his tongue-slapping chalumeau register and widely spaced multiphonics on bass clarinet. “A Blue Dance” for clarinet shows how harsh trills, legato chirps and flutter tonguing can be built up into rhythmic refractions of continuous breathing with verbalized hocketing and expressive high pitches. Introducing the properties of his alto saxophone’s metal as well as its reed, “Wood In The Metal” is cumulative program of high intensity and extended pitches that by exposing every sibilant tone produce a sound midway between bagpipe chanter and a pan flute.

Somewhat anti-climatic, the set of short duets that follow merely gilds the two sonic lilies that are exhibited singly. More like jousts than meetings, the feeling persists that each player dons his technical armor as a way to push the other to react. Thus at one point flowery and extended European piano echoes lead to mellow bass clarinet runs, snorts and gentling coloration, with tongue slaps and arpeggios stretching to be more connective. Elsewhere, marimba-like internal piano string echoes underscore single, twittering shakuhachi lines.

A similar congruence, but not-quite connection, exists in the extended free improvisation from Ganelin, drummer Arkady Gotesman and Irish guitarist Mark O’Leary on White Nights Festival. Tel Aviv’s 12-hour musical marathon., the live performances mix’n’match Israelis and visitors in ad-hoc groups. With Gotesman laying down a low rumble and the pianist comping, the guitarist appears eager to break things up by varying what initially seems to be Tal Farlow-like picking with long-lined frails and rock-styled vamps. Meeting him with key patting and pounding plus disassociated runs, Genelin’s post-Energy music and O’Leary post-fusion sounds don’t really gel.

More sympathetic is the drummer’s low-key contribution to “German Poem”, which also features the walking bass of Shmil Frankel, off-centre tolling piano notes from Olga Magieres plus Harold Rubin’s recitation and rustic tongue slapping and twittering clarinet work. The instrumental section trumps the words however.

However on “Ship of Fools”, an interactive trio of saxophonist Horenstein, bassist Jones and Loic Kessous on computer sound processing, makes better use of bull fiddle and reed timbres. Content to process and spit back the purely instrumental tones, the computer only betrays its presence with the odd shuddering pulse. Overall, the piece is an essay in cooperation. Working up to high intensity, Jones ratchets his bow across the strings producing sul ponticello lines, rough strums and spiccato ricocheting. Meanwhile Horenstein snorts split tones from the baritone’s highest register, steady, low-pitched honks and tongue flutters. Eventually reached is an accord of tremolo tones that mulch portions of computer warbles, saxophone timbres and bass string thumps.

Other saxophonist on hand during White Nights include Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai and local Ariel Shibolet. Despite his long history in outside music, Tchicai’s trio with John Bostock on piano and Noam David on drums seems to meander towards adagio ballad territory except for the occasional off-kilter reed squeak. Similarly, Shibolet’s two brief tracks on soprano saxophone with Yoram Lachish’ electronics expose circular breathing and electronic shrilling, but never really gather momentum.

A more impressive showcase for Shibolet is Untitled (1959). Recorded around the same time as White Nights but in Oakland, Calif. it matches the soprano saxophonist with four of his Bay area contemporaries: trombonist Jen Baker, pianist Scott R. Loney – who also recorded, mixed and mastered the CD – bassist Damon Smith and vocalist Aurora Josephson.

All track titles are taken from paintings by Mark Rothko, with the sfumato coloration produced by all quintet members. For instance, “White, Yellow, Red on Yellow” gives Shibolet space for altissimo peeps and irregular vibrations as Baker’s ‘bone notes sluice downwards, Loney twangs and stops the piano’s internal strings and Smith slides acro tones back-and-forth. Eventually Josephson’s choked bel canto tones make common cause with the saxophonist’s circular breathing.

Braying slurs from Baker are the initial defining factor of the title track, soon joined by the saxophonist’s rolling tongue slaps. Double and triple tonguing to a multiphonic display, the trombonist eventually lets loosen with elongated and accumulated trills and tones, almost undifferentiated from Shibolet’s reed bites. Pitter-pattering keyboard lines and Smith’s thick slaps put the solos in context.

Other improvisations encompass air sax runs, keyboard arpeggios and vocal onomatopoeia from Josephson, though “Blue Cloud”, the almost 7½-minute longest track touches on New music. Tough bow slices and near-the-pegs plucks from Smith, crash-and-bang chording from Looney meet undulating wah-wah notes from Baker and colored air breaths and thick, irregular vibrato jumps from the saxophonist. Marshalling her collection of near-inaudible croaks and duck-like growls, Josephson’s quivering throat textures match extended trombone plunger tones and trilling grace notes from Shibolet.

Sanctions and settlements on the West Bank to the contrary, cooperation creates more evolution – musical and otherwise – than isolation. Each of these CDs demonstrates that, in a completely musical way, in one fashion or another.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: White: 1. Improv 1 2. The Holy Coordinator 3. German Poem 4. Untitled 1 5. Ship of Fools 6. Untitled 2 7. Free Improv 8. Improv 1 9. Anima 10. Summit for Albert Ayler

Personnel: White: 1. & 8 Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Yoram Lachish (electronics) 2. John Tchicai (tenor saxophone); John Bostock (piano) and Noam David (drums) 3. Harold Rubin (clarinet and voice); Olga Magieres (piano); Shmil Frankel (bass) and Arkady Gotesman (drums) 4. & 6.Wlodzimierz Kiniorski(tenor saxophone and flute); Rafal Mazur (bass) and Markek Choloniewski (electronics) 5. Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone); JC Jones (bass) and Loic Kessous (computer sound processing) 7. Slava Ganelin (piano and synthesizer); Mark O’Leary (guitar) and Akady Gotesman (drums) 9. Spheres Duo: Arnon Zimra (piano) and Zvi Joffe (vibraphone and percussion) 10. John Tchicai and Albert Berger (tenor saxophones); Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone) and Noam David (drums)

Track Listing: One: One Slyshno 1. (00:26) 2. (22:10) 3. (26:21) 4. (12:35) 5. (06:26)

Personnel: One: Slava Ganelin (piano and percussion) and Vladimir Volkov (bass)

Track Listing: Untitled: 1. Number 12 2. Homage to Matisse 3. Number 61 (Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue) [t,p,s] 4. Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange [t,p,s] 5. White, Yellow, Red on Yellow 6. Light, Earth and Blue 7. Ochre and Red on Red [t,p,b] 8. White Band (Number 27) [v.t] 9. Three Reds [v,s] 10. Blue Cloud 11. White Cloud 12. Four Reds [t,b,s] 13. Black, Ochre, Red and Red [t,b,s] 14. Red, Gray, White on Yellow 15. Red, Black, Orange, Yellow on Yellow 16. Untitled (1959)

Personnel: Untitled: Jen Baker (trombone); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Scott R. Looney (piano); Damon Smith (bass) and Aurora Josephson (voice)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. The Foot In It 2. The Place With The Space 3. A Blue Dance 4. Wood In The Metal 5. First Conversation 6. Steps In Time 7. Luminous Staircase 8. Glassland 9. Encore

Personnel: Falling: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi) and Slava Ganelin (piano, synthesizer and percussion)

March 20, 2008

Various

White Nights Festival Tel Aviv 2006
Kadima Collective KCR 11

Shibolet/Josephson/Baker/Looney/Smith

Untitled (1959)

Kadima Collective KCR 09

Slava Ganelin-Vladimir Volkov

Ne Slyshno

Auris Media Aum 012

Slava Ganelin-Neil Rothenberg

Falling Into Place

Auris Media Aum 007

Secure in its position as the one true democracy in the Middle East, cosmopolitan elements in Israel have long encouraged the growth of an indigenous jazz scene. Only in the past decade-and-a-half however, have improvisers on the Israeli scene elicited more than local interest. At the same time, associations between many Israelis and musicians in other countries has meant that a Diaspora of improvisers from the Jewish state has set up shop – and garnered fulsome praise – in jazz capitals such as New York.

As the top-flight music on these CDs demonstrates, not every Israeli improviser has emigrated. However it’s also instructive to note that many of the most notable sounds here result from collaborations between Israeli players and outsiders. Plus with the still-young country actively encouraging Jewish immigration, some of Israel’s more advanced players have non-Israeli origins. To take three at random, baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein is originally an American; bassist JC Jones comes from France; and keyboardist Slava Ganelin’s Ganelin Trio was probably the most famous avant-garde ensemble in the Cold War era Soviet Block, before the Lithuanian Ganelin immigrated to Israel.

Still an internationalist, Ne Slyshno finds the veteran Ganelin hooked up with a former Russian, bassist Vladimir Volkov, whose past credits include work with the Moscow Composers Orchestra and Moscow Art Trio. Conversant with many styles of music, Volkov’s tough plucking and string-stopping resemble that of mainstreamers like Red Mitchell, while his sul ponticello slides and high frequency tremolo patterns are stylistically avant-garde. Someone who also performs traditional music on the viola de gamba, Volkov’s facility includes the ability to add Roma-like flying staccato runs to his solos.

Completed by short, quieter postludes, which allow Ganelin’s grand piano cadenzas to suggest both Artur Rubinstein-like romantic coloration and dynamics and the key-spanking and plinking that relate to Bud Powell’s bop advances, the improvisations at Ne Slyshn’s centre are both extensive and descriptive.

Instructively, no more than one-quarter of the second track passes before the pianist makes clear that despite his liking for contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, the swaggering echoes he uses distinctively distance him from the American’s concept. Furthermore among the gouts of notes exposed, his playing is still sensitive enough to make room for Volkov’s staccato squeaks on the higher-pitched strings. While Ganelin’s styling may be modern enough to include internal string scraping, manic boogie-woogie-styling and rough chiming notes appear as well. Then by the tune’s climax his Slavic balladic side asserts itself again.

When the two instruments couple on the third track, the bassist’s subterranean plucks are given added impetus by the pianist’s rolling chords patterns. In fact, Volkov’s double-stopping percussiveness when added to Ganelin’s cross-handed plinking and cymbal slaps – the pianist also plays percussion – almost transforms the two musicians into a bop trio. Just as quickly bird-screeching rappelling on the bull fiddle’s strings splinter the piano’s Europeanized melodies, leaving more space for bell-ringing and the squeaks of plastic toys. Ramping up his keys with foot pedal pressure to full Russian classical mode, Ganelin’s widely splayed forward motion is only moderated by Volkov’s modulated string slapping.

A year previously Ganelin met American multi-reedist Ned Rothenberg for a live concert in Jaffa. It foreshadowed some of his simpatico work with Volkov, but elsewhere seems more distant than any land-sharing proposal from either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Three of the first four numbers expose Rothenberg’s skill on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The fourth is a more-than-34-minute solo tour-de-force from Ganelin called “A Place With The Space”. It’s so self-contained, that “A Place With The Space” could be a Territories settler’s view of the rest of the country.

Throughout, Ganelin seem intent on not only on creating a fantasia of organic piano patterns, but also boost his admittedly rudimentary percussion skills. Later on, he confirm that his synthesizer is capable of replicating any timbre from that of the lumbering bassoon in Peter and the Wolf to thundering E. Power Biggs-like organ stops. Again creating a détente between Romantic-styled cadences and bebop runs on the piano, Ganelin’s pitch-sliding tones and soundboard vibrations are more descriptive than the thumping percussion or the swirling, blurred patterns from the synth.

For his part, Rothenberg, who has held his own in duets with British saxophone master Evan Parker among others, defines versatility. “The Foot In It” exhibits his tongue-slapping chalumeau register and widely spaced multiphonics on bass clarinet. “A Blue Dance” for clarinet shows how harsh trills, legato chirps and flutter tonguing can be built up into rhythmic refractions of continuous breathing with verbalized hocketing and expressive high pitches. Introducing the properties of his alto saxophone’s metal as well as its reed, “Wood In The Metal” is cumulative program of high intensity and extended pitches that by exposing every sibilant tone produce a sound midway between bagpipe chanter and a pan flute.

Somewhat anti-climatic, the set of short duets that follow merely gilds the two sonic lilies that are exhibited singly. More like jousts than meetings, the feeling persists that each player dons his technical armor as a way to push the other to react. Thus at one point flowery and extended European piano echoes lead to mellow bass clarinet runs, snorts and gentling coloration, with tongue slaps and arpeggios stretching to be more connective. Elsewhere, marimba-like internal piano string echoes underscore single, twittering shakuhachi lines.

A similar congruence, but not-quite connection, exists in the extended free improvisation from Ganelin, drummer Arkady Gotesman and Irish guitarist Mark O’Leary on White Nights Festival. Tel Aviv’s 12-hour musical marathon., the live performances mix’n’match Israelis and visitors in ad-hoc groups. With Gotesman laying down a low rumble and the pianist comping, the guitarist appears eager to break things up by varying what initially seems to be Tal Farlow-like picking with long-lined frails and rock-styled vamps. Meeting him with key patting and pounding plus disassociated runs, Genelin’s post-Energy music and O’Leary post-fusion sounds don’t really gel.

More sympathetic is the drummer’s low-key contribution to “German Poem”, which also features the walking bass of Shmil Frankel, off-centre tolling piano notes from Olga Magieres plus Harold Rubin’s recitation and rustic tongue slapping and twittering clarinet work. The instrumental section trumps the words however.

However on “Ship of Fools”, an interactive trio of saxophonist Horenstein, bassist Jones and Loic Kessous on computer sound processing, makes better use of bull fiddle and reed timbres. Content to process and spit back the purely instrumental tones, the computer only betrays its presence with the odd shuddering pulse. Overall, the piece is an essay in cooperation. Working up to high intensity, Jones ratchets his bow across the strings producing sul ponticello lines, rough strums and spiccato ricocheting. Meanwhile Horenstein snorts split tones from the baritone’s highest register, steady, low-pitched honks and tongue flutters. Eventually reached is an accord of tremolo tones that mulch portions of computer warbles, saxophone timbres and bass string thumps.

Other saxophonist on hand during White Nights include Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai and local Ariel Shibolet. Despite his long history in outside music, Tchicai’s trio with John Bostock on piano and Noam David on drums seems to meander towards adagio ballad territory except for the occasional off-kilter reed squeak. Similarly, Shibolet’s two brief tracks on soprano saxophone with Yoram Lachish’ electronics expose circular breathing and electronic shrilling, but never really gather momentum.

A more impressive showcase for Shibolet is Untitled (1959). Recorded around the same time as White Nights but in Oakland, Calif. it matches the soprano saxophonist with four of his Bay area contemporaries: trombonist Jen Baker, pianist Scott R. Loney – who also recorded, mixed and mastered the CD – bassist Damon Smith and vocalist Aurora Josephson.

All track titles are taken from paintings by Mark Rothko, with the sfumato coloration produced by all quintet members. For instance, “White, Yellow, Red on Yellow” gives Shibolet space for altissimo peeps and irregular vibrations as Baker’s ‘bone notes sluice downwards, Loney twangs and stops the piano’s internal strings and Smith slides acro tones back-and-forth. Eventually Josephson’s choked bel canto tones make common cause with the saxophonist’s circular breathing.

Braying slurs from Baker are the initial defining factor of the title track, soon joined by the saxophonist’s rolling tongue slaps. Double and triple tonguing to a multiphonic display, the trombonist eventually lets loosen with elongated and accumulated trills and tones, almost undifferentiated from Shibolet’s reed bites. Pitter-pattering keyboard lines and Smith’s thick slaps put the solos in context.

Other improvisations encompass air sax runs, keyboard arpeggios and vocal onomatopoeia from Josephson, though “Blue Cloud”, the almost 7½-minute longest track touches on New music. Tough bow slices and near-the-pegs plucks from Smith, crash-and-bang chording from Looney meet undulating wah-wah notes from Baker and colored air breaths and thick, irregular vibrato jumps from the saxophonist. Marshalling her collection of near-inaudible croaks and duck-like growls, Josephson’s quivering throat textures match extended trombone plunger tones and trilling grace notes from Shibolet.

Sanctions and settlements on the West Bank to the contrary, cooperation creates more evolution – musical and otherwise – than isolation. Each of these CDs demonstrates that, in a completely musical way, in one fashion or another.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: White: 1. Improv 1 2. The Holy Coordinator 3. German Poem 4. Untitled 1 5. Ship of Fools 6. Untitled 2 7. Free Improv 8. Improv 1 9. Anima 10. Summit for Albert Ayler

Personnel: White: 1. & 8 Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Yoram Lachish (electronics) 2. John Tchicai (tenor saxophone); John Bostock (piano) and Noam David (drums) 3. Harold Rubin (clarinet and voice); Olga Magieres (piano); Shmil Frankel (bass) and Arkady Gotesman (drums) 4. & 6. Wlodzimierz Kiniorski(tenor saxophone and flute); Rafal Mazur (bass) and Markek Choloniewski (electronics) 5. Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone); JC Jones (bass) and Loic Kessous (computer sound processing) 7. Slava Ganelin (piano and synthesizer); Mark O’Leary (guitar) and Akady Gotesman (drums) 9. Spheres Duo: Arnon Zimra (piano) and Zvi Joffe (vibraphone and percussion) 10. John Tchicai and Albert Berger (tenor saxophones); Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone) and Noam David (drums)

Track Listing: One: One Slyshno 1. (00:26) 2. (22:10) 3. (26:21) 4. (12:35) 5. (06:26)

Personnel: One: Slava Ganelin (piano and percussion) and Vladimir Volkov (bass)

Track Listing: Untitled: 1. Number 12 2. Homage to Matisse 3. Number 61 (Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue) [t,p,s] 4. Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange [t,p,s] 5. White, Yellow, Red on Yellow 6. Light, Earth and Blue 7. Ochre and Red on Red [t,p,b] 8. White Band (Number 27) [v.t] 9. Three Reds [v,s] 10. Blue Cloud 11. White Cloud 12. Four Reds [t,b,s] 13. Black, Ochre, Red and Red [t,b,s] 14. Red, Gray, White on Yellow 15. Red, Black, Orange, Yellow on Yellow 16. Untitled (1959)

Personnel: Untitled: Jen Baker (trombone); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Scott R. Loney (piano); Damon Smith (bass) and Aurora Josephson (voice)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. The Foot In It 2. The Place With The Space 3. A Blue Dance 4. Wood In The Metal 5. First Conversation 6. Steps In Time 7. Luminous Staircase 8. Glassland 9. Encore

Personnel: Falling: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi) and Slava Ganelin (piano, synthesizer and percussion)

March 20, 2008

Jean Claude Jones with Friends

Jean Claude Jones with Friends
Kadima Collective

J.C. Jones with Friends
Duos II
Kadima Collective

Ariel Shibolet
Metal Tube & Consciousness
Leo Records

By Ken Waxman
September 5, 2005

Boasting – if that’s the right word – the only flourishing Free Improv scene in the Middle East, except for some faint stirrings in Lebanon, Israel is beginning to amass a number of improvisers able to hold their own in any context.

Already a few of the more adventurous have become better known, as they, like countless players before them from many countries have emigrated to larger music centres. Reedists Assif Tsahar and Ori Kaplan have made their mark in New York, while fusion-oriented drummer Asaf Sirkis has become recognized in London.

More crucially, others – some of whom immigrated to Israel from elsewhere – are involved with creating a vibrant homegrown scene. That’s where the Kadima Collective comes into the picture. With funding from the United States, Kadima, under the de facto leadership of Tunisian-born, French-raised, Berklee College grad, bassist Jean Claude Jones, promotes concerts and produces CDs in its own studio with the aim of connecting creative local improvisers with one another. Kadima’s first two CDs feature players duetting with Jones, who has been associated with the Jazz Department of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance since 1987.

On hand are a violinist from the United States, a Norwegian-born cellist, a veteran South African born poet and clarinetist, Sabra musicians who emphasize either vocals or woodwinds, and one ringer: American bass clarinetist and alto saxophonist Ned Rothenberg. Soprano saxophonist Ariel Shibolet, one of the three impressive reedists featured on the two discs – alto and baritone saxophonist Gal Lev and flautist Albert Berger are the others – has recorded own solo session, Metal Tube & Consciousness.

Performances on the Kadima CDs range from divine to dreadful, with most listing towards the former attribute. Unfortunately, a minority of the participants sound undisciplined rather than free, as if this is their first experiment in free improv. Most of the spoken word/vocal performances are a bit abstruse as well, relating more to dadaesque sounds or Beat jazz-and-poetry than hard core improv. Linked to the tradition of Allen Ginsberg, Jaap Blonk or Shelley Hirsch, these verbal/vocal performances are a bit remote from the other improvisations.

On the plus side, the one foreigner, Rothenberg, recorded live, doesn’t mute his ideas in this context. There’s no hesitancy in his fantasia of multiphonics, overblowing and other extended techniques. A world traveler who has performed in Russia, the Baltic states, South Korea and Japan, and whose collaborators have included tabla player Samir Chaterjee and British reedist Evan Parker, playing in Israel is merely another surmountable challenge for him. Jones, who has improvised with saxophonists as different as Arnie Lawrence, Dave Liebman and Stan Getz, is comfortable in this setting as well.

On “Petit Echo”, for example, Jones thumps spiccato lines and squeaks from his strings to meet Rothenberg’s wiggling freak notes and curlicue double tonguing and snorting. Further harsh tones from the reedist are met with reverberating pulsations. Then “Pizsa” begins with pitched intensity from Rothenberg’s tongue fluttering and Jones’ strummed bass lines. When the American begins a sprightly melody in a higher node, the Israeli fingerpops behind him. Later, there’s a comb-and-tissue-paper roughness in the reedist’s tone as he pushes and pulls doubled timbres up and down the scale. That’s perfectly matched with banjo-like clanking and what appears to be a drum stick bopping on Jones’ bass strings.

Former American, Klezmer violinist Daniel Hoffman doesn’t come across as impressively. His two improvisations with Jones are mostly concerned with the sort of trilling-sparrow pitches that can be produced by undulating bow pressure on the highest partials. Thus Jones provides low-pitched tremolo undertones on one tune and doubles the fiddler’s line in the upper register on the other.

Norwegian-born cellist Yuval Mesner, whose experience encompasses stints in World music, flamenco-jazz and rock bands, fares much better. Apparently emboldened by his touring experience, he embraces atonality, stabbing the strings for harsh notes, moving past standard tuning for elevated tones and is unafraid of staccato squealing. Contrapuntally, the bassist counters with partials and quarter tones at points tapping his strings, and evolving in curving, double-stopping unison with the cellist.

With a similarly eclectic background as lead singer in a progressive rock band and as a member of vocal ensemble, Maya Dunietz’s three improvisations reveal a surprisingly adept pianist. Still, there are times her five fingered rumbles and darting dynamics hint at avant-garde parody. Especially in the second improvisation when her hyper-kinetic cadences seem to roister into a stupefied quasi-Ragtime, following an episode of tiny animal scratches from the bassist, you apprehensively wonder if she’s spoofing or serious.

The third improv underscores the question as she skips arpeggios across the keys like a child skimming a stone across the water. Piling on as many note clusters and octave runs as possible, she adds childlike Wicked Witch of the West vocal noises. All this is in response to sweeping portamento from Jones that appears to allow his axe to moo, bovine-like.

Someone whose jazz experience has encompassed gigs with New York-based saxman Kaplan, pianist Daniel Sarid and Albert Berger, who is featured on one long improvisation on disc one, percussionist Hagai Fershtman appears to be more about body English than subtlety on his three duets with Jones. As the bassist also uses electronics here, his spiccato soloing is sometimes jumbled among glass-splintering timbres. Responding with quick action from bells, cymbals and ratcheting percussion, the whirl-drum echoes Fershtman produces suggest African rather than Middle Eastern roots.

Overall, however, for elevated jazz/improv essence the individual duets between Jones and the three Sabra reedmen – Berger on flute, Shibolet on soprano saxophone, and, most impressively, on eight tracks split between the two discs, Gan Lev on alto and baritone saxophones – are most satisfying.

Usually a saxophonist, whose most recent CD is dedicated to Steve Lacy, Berger concentrates on lower-pitched, mouth-breathing flute vibrations on his track. Alternating vocal cries and fripple-blocked textures, his tone is both dense and stately. Vibrating stark, gong-like sine waves and bell-like pulsations, Jones’ electronics throb beneath the flute lines, and he also adds bass continuum. Next time it would be advantageous to hear Berger on saxophone though

Commanding saxophone presence arises from Lev, a former member of the Israeli Saxophone Quartet, who has performed with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. “Snake Me”, on the second CD, is one definite performance where he blows not only saxophone but home-made didjeridoo. Soon doubled timbres split into higher-pitched elephant –trumpeting mixed with percussive rumbling from his other horn. Using sympathetic flattement he makes the vibrating lines more sonorous, somehow simultaneously honking a Klezmer-like line. When he isn’t providing a cushioning obbligato for himself, the bassman’s deliberate plucking fills the bill, sometimes sul tasto, sometimes sul ponticello.

It’s not only Lev’s full-bodied baritone sax growls that impress, but – as he shows on “Improvisation No. 3” on the first disc -- his commanding alto saxophone presence. Here he reaches a crescendo of rough, yet placid alto textures that appear to double tongue into bagpipe chanter suggestions. Trebling tones in staccato counterpoint with themselves, probably some of the extra high-pitched colors arise from the bassist’s electronics. In the mean time, the bull fiddler seems to be occupied with creating pedal point accompaniment.

A decade younger than Lev, Shibolet is also a member of the Tel Aviv Art Ensemble, a local Free Jazz band. On the first disc here his two short selections are dedicated to the late German bassist Peter Kowald, whose solo work as well as his virtuosity affected him as much as they did Jones. The later may be using piezo pickups to extend the rough edges of his strings so as not to replicate the Kowald style, even though most of his work here encompasses swiped textures. For his part, Shibolet blows pure colored air through his horn, the better to emphasize its metallic qualities. Elsewhere he uses tongue slaps and barking shrills.

Those sorts of actions appear in abundance on Metal Tube & Consciousness, his solo CD, along with other extended techniques such as gravelly throat crackles and whistled watery tones. Those show up on “Field n.1”, along with polyphonic scratched and scraped metal and a short coda of bubbly blowing. Besides patches of circular breathing Shibolet climbs the scale – with a pinched ney-like tone on “For Bach III”; turns a piercing and vibrating arched pitch into a shofar suggestion on “Black Stone On A Plate”; and somehow manages to imply the ruggedness of an atonal Gaelic ballad with dissonant circular breathing on “Slow Irish Circles”.

Metal Tube’s opening track, “Slow Change, Slow Development” is an almost 10- minute tour de force of glottal punctuation with vibrato and tonguing changes. Pushing his output into split tones, midway through, Shibolet’s single horn creates a constant ostinato interrupted at time by higher-pitched trills. It’s as if he had a chanter as well as a reed, expanding on the bagpipe emulations Lev produces on his Kadmina duets. Squeaking and pushing out serpentine lines, Shibolet constructs entire phrases in altissimo without losing the thread of the melody, climaxing by producing two circular-breathed lines which seem to fill all the sound spaces.

“Epilogue”, the 16th and finale tune is just that. Focusing on producing unvarying straight lines that add a certain gravitas to the proceedings, this theme echoes the first track. Both a postlude and a summing up of what went before, it rounds the improvisational circle with a smooth legato conclusion.

On the evidence here, Israeli free musicians seem as advanced sonically as their society as a whole is socially. Shibolet has made his global debut. Now what’s needed is more CDs from him and a few more, widely distributed discs by a selection of the musicians in the Kadima Collective.

September 5, 2005