Rhapsody’s 2012 Jazz Critics' Poll

Individual Ballot
From Ken Waxman

• Your name and primary affiliation(s) (no more than two, please)

Ken Waxman

Jazz Word (www.jazzword.com); The New York City Jazz Record

• Your choices for 2012's ten best new releases listed in descending order one-through-ten.

1. François Houle Genera Songlines SGL 1595-2

2. Fred Ho/Quincy Saul The Music of Cal Massey: A Tribute Mutable/Big Red Media 004

3. William Parker Centering: Unreleased Early Recordings 1976–1987 NoBusiness Records NBCD 42-47

4. Grutronic & Evan Parker Together in Zero Space psi 11.09

5. Frank Wright Blues for Albert Ayler ESP-Disk ESP-4068

6. Michel Doneda/Nils Ostendorf Cristallisation absinth Records 023

7. Josh Berman & His Gang There Now Delmark DE 2016

8. The Fish Moon Fish Clean Feed CF 254 CD

9. MMM Quartet Live at the Metz Arsenal Leo Records CD LR 631

10. Michael Bates Acrobat: Music For, and By, Dmitri Shostakovich Sunnyside SSC 1291

• Your top-three reissues, again listed in descending order

1. Graham Collier Relook: A Memorial 75th Birthday Celebration Jazz Continuum No #

2. Steve Lacy The Sun (1967-73) Emanem 5022

3. Mazette Watts & Company ESP-Disk 1044

• Your choice for the year's best vocal album

None

• Your choice for the year's best debut CD

1. Yoni Kretzmer Overlook OutNow Records ONR 002

• Your choice for the year’s best Latin jazz CD

1. El Ombligio Canción Psicotrópica Y Jaleo Festina Lente Discos FLD 015

January 11, 2013

François Houle

Genera
Songlines SGL 1595-2

François Houle/Benoît Delbecq

Because She Hoped

Songlines SGL 1592-2

Benoît Delbecq

Crescendo in Duke

Nato 4375

By Ken Waxman

Paris-based, but as likely to turn up on North American as European sessions, pianist Benoît Delbecq is the very model of a cosmopolitan improviser. Often working with prepared piano and/or electronics, Delbecq specializes in cutting-edge interpretations, but his limpid playing also relates to a tradition that takes in Steve Lacy and through him Duke Ellington.

Delbecq has worked with Vancouver-based clarinetist François Houle since the mid-‘90s and the temperate Because She Hoped is their third duo disc. Houle is the perfect match for the pianist. Dazzlingly interactive here, both allow sounds to evolve organically rather than calling attention to their prodigious techniques.

For instance, a live and a studio version of “Pour Pee Wee” are distinct. Houle smears intense reed variations atop Delbecq’s echoing key clicks during the 120-second studio piece. Three times the length, the live version is buoyant and swinging, even though the pianist includes staccato asides and Houle’s part encompasses astringent glissandi. The CD’s title tune demonstrates that interactive romanticism can arise from an exposition featuring tongue slaps and key clipping, while “Le Concombre de Chicoutimi” expresses a mood rather than a melody, with the clarinetist’s almost pure tones uniting with the pianist’s impressionistic harmonies. Paying homage to their ancestors, Lacy’s “Clichés” finds Delbecq’s marimba-like string pops perfect accompaniment to the jaunty theme elaborated by Houle. Ellington’s “The Mystery Song” is restructured with the clarinetist’s expressive glissandi paired with clavichord-like plinks. Houle’s fluid squeaks then confirm the piece’s airiness.

The hints of Ellingtonia displayed on Because She Hoped become a commitment on Crescendo in Duke. With a dozen participants besides Delbecq, Europeans such as clarinetist Tony Coe and percussionist Steve Argüelles, plus Americans, including saxophonist Tony Malaby and bass guitarist Yohannes Tonam, help honor jazz’s most celebrated canon. Rather than a program of greatest hits however, the pianist proclaims his individuality by concentrating on later period material, mainly taken from Ellington’s many suites.

While the featured soloists are often clarinetists – Kenni Holmen and Kathy Jensen as well as Coe – confirming the pianist’s links with Houle, Tona’s choice of instruments provides a clue to how Delbecq reconstitutes the Ducal charts. A veteran of Minneapolis’ funk scene, Tona plus acoustic bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel, Argüelles and drummer Michael Bland ensure the backbeat is powerful, confirming Ellington’s influence on R&B.

Those links are fundamentally emphasized during a performance of “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue”, famously played at Newport 1956 and the “Get with itness” sequence from The Goutelas Suite. A marvel of quickened tension, “Diminuendo…” is piloted by swaying, near-stride piano and a walking bass line, as Coe and Malaby alternate flutter-tongued solos and polyphonic obbligatos. Group hand-clapping heightens the pressure until harmonized horn lines provide the release. Stop-time excitement, “Get with itness” is notable for a saxophonist’s howling slurs and corkscrewed shrieks. Overall these frenetic interludes nicely contrast with the treatment of the suite’s other themes divided among fanfares, swing sequences and processional marches. Still, the only notable expression of Delbecq’s own expressive playing appears on interludes like “Fontainbleau Forest”.

A sideman rather than a partner on Genera, consisting of 10 Houle compositions, Delbecq’s presence confirms the sextet’s internationalism. Although New Yorker residents, bassist Michael Bates and drummer Harris Eisenstadt are Canadian like Houle. Trombonist Samuel Blaser is Swiss; while the sole American is cornetist/ flugelhornist Taylor Ho Bynum. Dedicated to group expression Houle’s writing, like Ellington’s, also aims to emphasize each soloist’s personality.

The title tune is a perfect instance of this, as the measured composition makes room for idiosyncratic expression without losing the harmonic thread. On it Blaser spews out sinewy multiphonics, Bates’ pulse includes guitar-like twanging and Eisenstadt hand pats reflect his study of African percussion. “Le Concombre de Chicoutimi” reappears twice. First it’s briefly heard as a study for piano key-clipping blended with cornet and clarinet slurs; secondly it grows to intermezzo length, as Ellington would often do with his sketches. Embellished with electronic quivers and string buzzes from Delbecq, Houle’s flutter-tongued reed lines gust upwards backed by ecclesiastical piano chords.

Accommodating in his writing, Houle balances interludes of extended techniques with sequences that are more formally organized to maintain pacing. Exclamatory expositions can include discordant reed variations or jabbing keyboard pulses, while other themes approach bop, with Delbecq sprinkling arpeggios like Hank Jones and Bates’ producing a steady Mingus-like pulse. Displaying all Houle’s influences “Sulfur Dude” features an infectious head that keeps reappearing. Throughout the stacked horn harmonies and tremolo piano movements retreat so that Bynum’s cornet is showcased echoing repeated trills that are both hard-edged and exotic.

Tracks: Because: The Mystery Song; Pour Pee Wee; Le Bois Debout; Because She Hoped; Clichés; Le Concombre de Chicoutimi; Binoculars; Ando; Nancali (live); Pour Pee Wee (live)

Personnel: Because: François Houle: clarinet; Benoît Delbecq: piano

Tracks: Genera: Le Concombre de Chicoutimi I ; Essay #7; Guanara; Albatros; Le Concombre de Chicoutimi II; Old Paradigm; Piano Loop (for BD); Punctum II; Sulfur Dude; Mu-turn Revisited

Personnel: Genera: Taylor Ho Bynum: cornet, flugelhorn; Samuel Blaser: trombone; François Houle: clarinets; Benoit Delbecq: piano; Michael Bates: bass; Harris Eisenstadt, drums

Tracks: Crescendo: Bateau; Portrait of Mahalia Jackson; Portrait of Wellman Braud; The spring; Acht O’Clock Rock; Whirlpool; Goutelas Suite: Fanfare; Goutelas Suite: Goutelas; Goutelas Suite: Get with itness Goutelas Suite: Something; Goutelas Suite: Having At It; Blue Pepper; Tina; Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue; Fontainbleau Forest

Personnel: Crescendo: The Hornheads: Steve Strand and Dave Jensen: trumpet and flugelhorn; Michael Nelson: trombone; Kenni Holmen: tenor saxophone; Tony Coe: clarinet, soprano saxophone; Kathy Jensen: clarinet, baritone saxophone; Tony Malaby: soprano, tenor saxophones; Antonin-Tri Hoang: bass clarinet, alto saxophone; Benoît Delbecq: piano, prepared piano, electronics; Jean-Jacques Avenel: bass; Yohannes Tona: bass guitar; Michael Bland: drums; Steve Argüelles: drums, timbales, percussion, electronics

--For New York City Jazz Record November 2012

November 6, 2012

Michael Bates

Acrobat: Music For, and By, Dmitri Shostakovich
Sunnyside SSC 1291

Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band

The Sweet Science Suite

Mutable/Big Red Media 003

Ariel Shibolet/Nori Jacoby

Scenes from an Ideal Marriage

Kadima Collective KCR 28

Adam Pierończyk

Komeda - The Innocent Sorcerer

JazzWerkstatt JW 104

Something In the Air: Improvisers’ Unexpected Inspirations

By Ken Waxman

Over the past few years as post-modernism has made anything fair game for musical interpretation, sophisticated improviser/composers have taken inspiration from the most unlikely sources, far beyond the motifs, historicism and pastels of earlier times. Canadian bassist in New York Michael Bates for instance, has organized a salute to Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), using his own music and variants on the modern Russian composer’s oeuvre. Iconoclastic American composer/saxophonist Fred Ho has produced a five-part suite honoring boxer Muhammad Ali (b. 1942) as a militant, outspoken fighter for social justice. The luminous canvases of American visual artist Cy Twombly (1928-2011) stimulate Israeli saxophonist Ariel Shibolet’s creativity, while Polish saxophonist Adam Pierończyk recasts in his own fashion the distinctive film scores of composer Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969).

Bates’ masterful arrangements on Acrobat: Music For, and By, Dmitri Shostakovich

Sunnyside SSC 1291 are so perceptive that during the course of nine tracks he almost reveals symphonic colors using only a top-flight quintet consisting of his double bass; the perfectly timed drums of Tom Rainey; Russ Lossing’s shuddering smears from electric and regular pianos; trumpeter Russ Johnson’s brassy blasts; and the fluid lyricism of Chris Speed’s sax and clarinet. This is apparent from the first track, Dance of Death, from Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor. Very quickly the bouncy melody is transformed with plunger trumpet work and well-modulated reed trills to a motif that’s as much 1970s’ Miles Davis as it is a mazurka. Later Silent Witness uses fusion references to atmospherically suggest the composer’s Stalin-era paranoia, with Speed’s singular reed slurs becoming progressively lower-pitched and tonal as Rainey`s drums smack and rebound while Lossing’s ratcheting licks make it seem as if he’s playing electric guitar not piano. Held together by Bates’ reliable thumping, the cacophonous final section gives way to repeated theme variations and conclusive keyboard echoes. Elsewhere, with music derived from the Russian composer’s work or not, the tunes use varied strategies. Intermezzos can be atmospheric and formal, with the reedist approximating oboe-like burrs and timed runs arising from Lossing’s acoustic instrument; as loose and swinging as a Benny Goodman-led combo; or exploding with tougher near-Jazz Messengers-like harmonies. Arcangela is another highpoint, allowing both Russes sufficient solo space. The pianist showcases a series of repeated glissandi centred by Bates’ stentorian pulse; while the trumpeter’s capillary slurs evolve into a quicksilver flow cushioned by harmonized keyboard and reed textures. All in all the wrap-around themes simultaneously celebrate Shostakovich’s intent while exposing improvisations that are true to jazz’s ethos.

Transforming the sounds of another musician whose short-lived but prolific career defined Polish jazz, popular and even notated sounds for years after his untimely death is the task of Krakow-based tenor and soprano saxophonist Pierończyk on Komeda-The Innocent Sorcerer JazzWerkstatt JW 104 Luckily he has the help of Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras, countryman Łukasz Żyta on percussion, including typewriter [!] plus two American veterans, bassist Anthony Cox and tenor saxophonist Gary Thomas. Actually it’s Veras who often sets the pace, since his delicate nylon-string strumming brings a Bossa Nova-like lilt to, and encourages equivalent horn harmonies on, later-period Komeda tunes like After the Catastrophe. Two of Komeda’s best-known themes are treated most substantially by the quintet. Sleep Safe and Warm used in “Rosemary’s Baby” and Crazy Girl from “Knife in the Water”. Typewriter sounds produced by Żyta underlie contrasting rubato split tones from Thomas’ tenor and Pierończyk’s soprano sax obbligato during variants on the first tune. Meanwhile sul ponticello bass work make the theme more menacing, with the piece reaching a crescendo of sharp guitar licks and overlapping horn parts, drastically truncated as the sound of a typewriter’s carriage return completes the track. Bustling Cool Jazz-like harmonies give way to contrapuntal horn vamping, rapid twangs from the guitarist and broken-meter drumming on Crazy Girl. With the percussionist waving Latin percussion and Cox sliding up and down his strings, Thomas’ hard-toned blowing and Pierończyk’s parallel tongue fluttering define the song’s repeated motif, as the two reedits circle back to recap and draw out the initial head.

Moving on from celebrating masterful musicians’ compositional influences to appreciating the political subtext of someone dubbed athlete of the century is The Sweet Science Suite Mutable/Big Red Media 003, a five-part suite Ho composed for his 19-piece Green Monster Big Band. An activist as well as a musician, Ho’s arrangements are as outstanding and unique as Ali’s boxing style. Unafraid of outside references, on Shake up the World, the piece’s staccato exposition quotes liberally from Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love for a proper period feel, although that theme is intertwined with vamping section work echoing the Count Basie band, a funky backbeat, fiery brass triplets and a slinky boppish tenor sax solo. Other variants, such as Rope-A-Dope frame Salim Washington’s muscular big-toned tenor saxophone in a lusty big band arrangement that’s part ballad and part free form. Still other tunes expose and bury references to interludes ranging from Chinese court music to American TV show themes, to speeding train-like riffs plus Charles Mingus’ particular blend of gospel and blues. Other examples of bravura (over) blowing include Ho double-tonguing a staccatissimo baritone sax interlude from pedal point to altissimo range that is outlined clearly among brass fanfares and gruff snorts from two bass trombones plus broken beats from percussionist Royal Hartigan. The climatic key to the suite is the constantly expanding No Vietnamese Ever Called me a Nigger, where Hartigan’s stylized gongs and hammered cross tones suggest the sounds of the Viet Nam War Ali avoided, costing him his championship status. Throughout the more-than-16½-minute narrative, sonic interpolations, encompassing split-second theme inferences, bluesy harmonies from the six-piece sax section, twanging guitar riffs, discordant trumpet blasts, pedal-point bass trombone snorts and a final, unexpected, smoothing coda describe the discordance of the era and its final resolution. This resolution, personified by abrasive guitar solos and split-tone reed explosions, leads to Worthy of Praises Most High, a concluding theme that acknowledges Ali’s undiminished skill. Triumphantly fortissimo and atonal, the finale highlights guitarist Amanda Monaco’s rock-like chording arching over sequences of juddering pitch dislocation from brass triplets until decisive orchestral calmness prevails.

In contrast to the other CDs’ inspirations, Shibolet’s Scenes from an Ideal Marriage Kadima Collective KCR 28 expresses in music his interpretation of Twombly’s acrylic and pencil painting of the same name. Part of a trilogy of CDs by the tenor saxophonist dedicated to the recently deceased visual artist, “Scenes” also features violist Nori Jacoby. Despite obvious differences, like partners in an ideal marriage, the timbres from Shibolet’s soprano saxophone and Jocoby’s viola are sometimes indistinguishable, especially when involved in intertwined dialogue. At times polyphonic, polytonal or polyharmonic the instruments’ textures mix without blending or losing individual identities. Masterful in his use of multiphonics, the reedist lip burbles, pushes unaccented air through his horn’s body tube, hums through his mouthpiece while sounding a tone, and squawks wet glissandi. Meantime the fiddler’s strategy involves sul ponticello scrapes, flying spiccato scrubs and jagged, angled vibrations. By the time the climatic second theme variant is heard, Shibolet’s pinched ney-like whistles and Jacoby’s sul tasto strokes surmount abrasive atonalism. The defining intermezzo is unexpectedly lyrical in contrast to the exposition, but doesn’t neglect pressure for prettiness. When each player’s timbres become as thin as pencil strokes, the subsequent split tones (from the saxist) and angled strokes (from the violist) stretch the sound without breaking it, and eventually combine for wide-bore smears which advance then conclude the recitation.

Sonic inspiration can come from anywhere. It`s up to the canny improviser to do the best he or she can with it, as these musicians demonstrate.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 17 #6

March 11, 2012

Bruno Tocanne

4 new dreams!
IMR label IMR 002

Brian Drye

Bizingas

NCM East Records NCM 40130

Moving along parallel yet singular paths, these quartet discs are united by imaginative borrowing from Rock-styled rhythms plus the tonal freedom offered by advanced improvisation. Simultaneously though both trombonist Brian Drye’s all-American combo and drummer Bruno Tocanne’s French/Swiss/Canadian group express a linkage to more traditional Jazz via their instrumentation. With a front-line consisting of harmonized trumpet (or cornet) and trombone, both bands are give new impetus to a instrumental blend that goes all the way back to Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory or Red Allen and J.C. Higginbotham, and was most effectively expressed in modern times by J.J. Johnson’s trombone in tandem with Nat Adderley’s cornet or Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet.

For a start, however, no one would confuse either band here with a conventional Jazz combo – for a start Bizingas features Jonathan Goldberger’s guitar or baritone guitar in the spot where Canadian Michael Bates’ bass does its work on 4 new dreams. But still, a buoyant variant of Hard Bop is expressed by Drye, Goldberger, cornetist Kirk Knuffke and drummer Ches Smith on the first CD’s “Guilty”, while an equivalent Johnson-Hubbard blend is brought to mind by French trumpeter Rémi Gaudillat and Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser interplay with Bates and Tocanne on the other disc’s punning “Van Gogh”.

On “Van Gogh”, the bassist’s super-fast walking and the drummer’s press rolls back up the two brass men flitting from allegro to andante tempo. During its course, Blaser, who often plays with drummer Pierre Favre, brays and tongue twists with freight-train whistles or plunger tones, while Gaudillat’s solo explodes with staccato triplets until the two splutter and sputter in tandem at the finale. Less intense than standard Hard Bop, “Guilty” balances on the rolls, pops and flams of Smith, who is also in the Good for Cows duo, and downward strums from Goldberger. Following an episode of staccato, slightly askew brass bites from both horn men, Smith intensifies the backbeat and a head recap flows organically from harmonized brass work.

At the same time, Tocanne, whose musical expressions is also exhibited in the Rock-Jazz Libre Ensemble and as part of pianist Sophia Domancich’s Jazz-Chamber trio, doesn’t allow 4 new dreams to be a one-trick pony. Gaudillat’s “Pass si simple” for instance has a New York Art Quartet feeling, with the composer’s triplet runs with popping accents and the drummer’s press rolls gradually liquefying into slurring tongue stops and asymmetrical drum beats. Contributing to the time fragmenting is mirrored rubato lines from Gaudillat’s trumpet and Blaser’s whinnying timbre stretching, mostly conveyed with the use of a plunger mute.

On the other hand, Bates’ weighty guitar-like twangs coupled with a sturdy back beat make “Alicante”, another of the trumpeter’s compositions, resemble an updated New Orleans funeral march. Here Gaudillat’s gentle capillary tones are mirrored by Blaser. Taking the conception further, Bates’ andante-paced “Voodoo” matches the composer’s weighty ostinato strums with Tocanne’s taps and pops, allowing space for the trumpeter most elaborate solo of the session. During its course, Gaudillat moves from bent-note flutter tonguing to stop-time open horn sweeps, finally mellowing to the extent that his emphasized grace notes mate with the bassist`s linear pedal point.

Similar eclecticism characterizes the sounds from Drye’s long-constituted New York-based quartet. Perhaps that should be expected from the trombonist, who also plays piano and synthesizer here, and whose gigs have ranged from those with the Klezmer Brass and drummer John Hollenbeck to backing up singers ranging from folkie Joan Baez to Motown’s the Four Tops.

Folk and Klezmer influences are MIA here, but there’s a touch of R&B in the compositions, all written by Drye. Strongly in evidence on “Money Market”, for instance are a shuffle beat from Smith and block chords from the baritone guitar of Goldberger, who has performed with trumpeter Ron Miles and drummer Jim Black. As the piece evolves, the guitarist’s concentrated rasgueado, broken up with flanges, sounds alongside shaking, descending valve work from the two horns which culminates in bleats, brays and tongue tricks.

In contrast a tune such as “Stretched Thin” is just that, initially built around the trombonist’s meandering, whole scale exploration, accompanied by pointed glockenspiel bounces from the percussionist. Dazzling affirmation of the theme from Knuffke, who is also a member of drummer Matt Wilson’s band, takes the form of reverberating grace note slurs and open-horn flourishes. Climatically, the piece attains its greatest coherence as hand-muted trombone blasts are paralleled by the cornet line at the same time as guitar licks slide from exposing clinks and knob twisting to micro-tonality. Hard-pounding drum beats and guitar power chords are the novel back-up to harmonized brass lines on the introductory “Tagger”, on which Knuffke’s fluttery obbligato presages the turnaround and head recap; while “Farmer” is a through-composed semi-ballad that unrolls slowly, and is built around Drye’s downward moving key-clipping and Knuffke’s upward tongue quivers.

In a textural reversal, “Untitled Moog Anthem”, the CD’s finale ignores the brass blend almost completely for a backbeat-driven riff. Here strident guitar fills that bounce from Rockabilly to Psychedelic share space with analog synth work which resembles radio dial twisting.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 4: 1. Birthday Memorial 2. In a Suggestive Way 3. Van Gogh 4. Waiting For … 5. Shape 6. Alicante 7. Interlude 1 8. Voodoo 9. Interlude 2 10. Le singulier au pluriel 11. Pass si simple 12. Le present du vindicatif

Personnel: 4: Rémi Gaudillat (trumpet and flugelhorn); Samuel Blaser (trombone); Michael Bates (bass) and Bruno Tocanne (drums)

Track Listing: Bizingas: 1. Tagger 2. Money Market 3. TMT 4. Iluminum 5. Pastoral 6. Sifting 7. Stretched Thin 8, Guilty 9. Farmer 10. Untitled Moog Anthem

Personnel: Bizingas: Kirk Knuffke (cornet); Brian Drye (trombone, piano and synthesizer); Jonathan Goldberger (guitar and baritone guitar) and Ches Smith (drums, glockenspiel)

July 17, 2011

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Live in New York
Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4

Andy Milne-Benoît Delbecq

Where is Pannonica?

Songlines SGL SA-1579-2

Harris Eisenstdat

Guewel

Clean Feed CF 123 CD

RIDD Quartet

Fiction Avalanche

Clean Feed CF 121 CD

EXTENDED PLAY: Canadians at Home and Aboard

By Ken Waxman

Ancient but apt, the saying “you can take a boy out of the country, but can’t take the country out of the boy” is more accurate if the country is Canada and the “boys” are male and female musicians in the United States. No matter how busy they are, improvisers are always ready to play north of the border. Last month, for instance, Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based drummer Harris Eisenstadt played two Toronto shows in one day before continuing an American tour.

Being Canadian doesn’t mean cutting yourself from other interests as Eisenstadt demonstrates on Guewel (Clean Feed CF 123 CD. Named for the Wolof word for griots, the band – cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, trumpeter Nate Wooley, French hornist Mark Taylor and baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton – plays the drummer’s arrangements of West African pop music and ceremonial rhythms which he learned overseas. The tunes contain elements of southern dance tracks and brass band marches. Each horn man has the melodic smarts to meld with Eisenstadt’s multi-faceted drumming, producing catchy yet non-simplistic tunes. With his hunting horn sonorities, innate lyricism and pumping vamps, Taylor is a standout. The sympathetic arrangements stack horn parts atop one another in such a way that every solo becomes almost three-dimensional. Should a tune like Rice and Fish/Liti Liti begins mellow and impressionistic, then a drum beat signals a timbral shift with Taylor’s jujitsu tongue-fluttering matched with near Mariachi-styling from the other brass players. N’daga/Coonu Aduna transcends its marching band flavor as Sinton riffs harshly, accelerating to whoops and brays, while the meandering brass trill rococo detailing around him and Eisenstadt clatters, pops and ruffs.

Another notable reedist is Canadian turned Brooklynite Quinsin Nachoff, featured on bassist Michael Bates’ Outside Sources Live in New York (Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4 Another Brooklyn-Canadian, Bates studied double bass at Banff Centre for the Arts and the University of Toronto. Other players are trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis. Playing all Bates compositions, the band is straight-ahead enough to maintain a swinging pulse, yet imaginative enough to give everyone free range for creative expression. Nachoff for example, punctuates one tune with gradually accelerating glissandi; Johnson another with high-pitched triplet tonguing. A bravura performance on Damasa finds everyone discovering theme variants. Johnson offers tremolo vibrations; Nachoff snuffled and exhaled split tones; Bates chiming runs and Davis opposite sticking plus blunt backbeats.

Davis is also part of the RIDD Quartet on Fiction Avalanche (Clean Feed CF 121 CD with CanCon provided by his spouse Kris Davis, who studied at the U. of T, and the Banff Centre. Outstanding on 10 group compositions, solos are weighed among Davis’ sensitive drumming, sweeping colors from distaff Davis, Reuben Radding’s tough, but restrained bass, and the kinetic runs of saxophonist Jon Irabagon. On Fiction Avalanche, the pianist percussively chords a counter melody that extends rasping bass slides and flattened reed vibrations. Monkey Catcher is a screaming blues expanded by Irabagon’s fortissimo split tones, yet tamed by Davis’ chord progression, key-clipping and flailing. Sky Circles is both atmospheric and lyrical. In unison the saxophonist’s buzzy trills and the pianist’s comping outline the theme. Segmented by winnowing squeals from Irabagon, the pianist moors the improvisation while advancing the theme chromatically.

Double the number of pianos appears on Where is Pannonica? (Songlines SGL SA- two1579-2 It was recorded at the Banff Centre by Paris-based Benoît Delbecq who also participates in Vancouver’s Creative Music workshop, and Torontonian Andy Milne, who studied at York and Banff before heading south. Delbecq admits that he couldn’t always distinguish his touch from Milne’s during the playback, but the usual division of labor finds him manipulating inside strings and using electronic loops, while Milne’s stays the acoustic course. Bouncing off each other’s ideas, the impression the two give is of subtle invention. Still each can surprise with the use of spiky patterns and percussive note clusters. Dividing the composing chores as well, the molded and layered tunes are paced so that when they unwind the polytonal qualities available from the soundboard and other innards decorate the keyboard’s strums and resonations. Probably the best number is Milne’s two-part Water’s Edge. Demonstrating quick-moving, overlapping tremolo lines, the piece modulates from andante to allegro and is harmonized by default. Spacious with cascading portamento, sharpened key jabs glance off bell-pealing-like string plunks.

Fine efforts all, these CDs preview what you’ll hear next time one of these expatriates gigs in Toronto.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #3

November 2, 2009

Harris Eisenstdat

Guewel
Clean Feed CF 123 CD

RIDD Quartet

Fiction Avalanche

Clean Feed CF 121 CD

Andy Milne-Benoît Delbecq

Where is Pannonica?

Songlines SGL SA-1579-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Live in New York

Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4

EXTENDED PLAY: Canadians at Home and Aboard

By Ken Waxman

Ancient but apt, the saying “you can take a boy out of the country, but can’t take the country out of the boy” is more accurate if the country is Canada and the “boys” are male and female musicians in the United States. No matter how busy they are, improvisers are always ready to play north of the border. Last month, for instance, Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based drummer Harris Eisenstadt played two Toronto shows in one day before continuing an American tour.

Being Canadian doesn’t mean cutting yourself from other interests as Eisenstadt demonstrates on Guewel (Clean Feed CF 123 CD. Named for the Wolof word for griots, the band – cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, trumpeter Nate Wooley, French hornist Mark Taylor and baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton – plays the drummer’s arrangements of West African pop music and ceremonial rhythms which he learned overseas. The tunes contain elements of southern dance tracks and brass band marches. Each horn man has the melodic smarts to meld with Eisenstadt’s multi-faceted drumming, producing catchy yet non-simplistic tunes. With his hunting horn sonorities, innate lyricism and pumping vamps, Taylor is a standout. The sympathetic arrangements stack horn parts atop one another in such a way that every solo becomes almost three-dimensional. Should a tune like Rice and Fish/Liti Liti begins mellow and impressionistic, then a drum beat signals a timbral shift with Taylor’s jujitsu tongue-fluttering matched with near Mariachi-styling from the other brass players. N’daga/Coonu Aduna transcends its marching band flavor as Sinton riffs harshly, accelerating to whoops and brays, while the meandering brass trill rococo detailing around him and Eisenstadt clatters, pops and ruffs.

Another notable reedist is Canadian turned Brooklynite Quinsin Nachoff, featured on bassist Michael Bates’ Outside Sources Live in New York (Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4 Another Brooklyn-Canadian, Bates studied double bass at Banff Centre for the Arts and the University of Toronto. Other players are trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis. Playing all Bates compositions, the band is straight-ahead enough to maintain a swinging pulse, yet imaginative enough to give everyone free range for creative expression. Nachoff for example, punctuates one tune with gradually accelerating glissandi; Johnson another with high-pitched triplet tonguing. A bravura performance on Damasa finds everyone discovering theme variants. Johnson offers tremolo vibrations; Nachoff snuffled and exhaled split tones; Bates chiming runs and Davis opposite sticking plus blunt backbeats.

Davis is also part of the RIDD Quartet on Fiction Avalanche (Clean Feed CF 121 CD with CanCon provided by his spouse Kris Davis, who studied at the U. of T, and the Banff Centre. Outstanding on 10 group compositions, solos are weighed among Davis’ sensitive drumming, sweeping colors from distaff Davis, Reuben Radding’s tough, but restrained bass, and the kinetic runs of saxophonist Jon Irabagon. On Fiction Avalanche, the pianist percussively chords a counter melody that extends rasping bass slides and flattened reed vibrations. Monkey Catcher is a screaming blues expanded by Irabagon’s fortissimo split tones, yet tamed by Davis’ chord progression, key-clipping and flailing. Sky Circles is both atmospheric and lyrical. In unison the saxophonist’s buzzy trills and the pianist’s comping outline the theme. Segmented by winnowing squeals from Irabagon, the pianist moors the improvisation while advancing the theme chromatically.

Double the number of pianos appears on Where is Pannonica? (Songlines SGL SA- two1579-2 It was recorded at the Banff Centre by Paris-based Benoît Delbecq who also participates in Vancouver’s Creative Music workshop, and Torontonian Andy Milne, who studied at York and Banff before heading south. Delbecq admits that he couldn’t always distinguish his touch from Milne’s during the playback, but the usual division of labor finds him manipulating inside strings and using electronic loops, while Milne’s stays the acoustic course. Bouncing off each other’s ideas, the impression the two give is of subtle invention. Still each can surprise with the use of spiky patterns and percussive note clusters. Dividing the composing chores as well, the molded and layered tunes are paced so that when they unwind the polytonal qualities available from the soundboard and other innards decorate the keyboard’s strums and resonations. Probably the best number is Milne’s two-part Water’s Edge. Demonstrating quick-moving, overlapping tremolo lines, the piece modulates from andante to allegro and is harmonized by default. Spacious with cascading portamento, sharpened key jabs glance off bell-pealing-like string plunks.

Fine efforts all, these CDs preview what you’ll hear next time one of these expatriates gigs in Toronto.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #3

November 2, 2009

RIDD Quartet

Fiction Avalanche
Clean Feed CF 121 CD

Harris Eisenstdat

Guewel

Clean Feed CF 123 CD

Andy Milne-Benoît Delbecq

Where is Pannonica?

Songlines SGL SA-1579-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Live in New York

Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4

EXTENDED PLAY: Canadians at Home and Aboard

By Ken Waxman

Ancient but apt, the saying “you can take a boy out of the country, but can’t take the country out of the boy” is more accurate if the country is Canada and the “boys” are male and female musicians in the United States. No matter how busy they are, improvisers are always ready to play north of the border. Last month, for instance, Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based drummer Harris Eisenstadt played two Toronto shows in one day before continuing an American tour.

Being Canadian doesn’t mean cutting yourself from other interests as Eisenstadt demonstrates on Guewel (Clean Feed CF 123 CD. Named for the Wolof word for griots, the band – cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, trumpeter Nate Wooley, French hornist Mark Taylor and baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton – plays the drummer’s arrangements of West African pop music and ceremonial rhythms which he learned overseas. The tunes contain elements of southern dance tracks and brass band marches. Each horn man has the melodic smarts to meld with Eisenstadt’s multi-faceted drumming, producing catchy yet non-simplistic tunes. With his hunting horn sonorities, innate lyricism and pumping vamps, Taylor is a standout. The sympathetic arrangements stack horn parts atop one another in such a way that every solo becomes almost three-dimensional. Should a tune like Rice and Fish/Liti Liti begins mellow and impressionistic, then a drum beat signals a timbral shift with Taylor’s jujitsu tongue-fluttering matched with near Mariachi-styling from the other brass players. N’daga/Coonu Aduna transcends its marching band flavor as Sinton riffs harshly, accelerating to whoops and brays, while the meandering brass trill rococo detailing around him and Eisenstadt clatters, pops and ruffs.

Another notable reedist is Canadian turned Brooklynite Quinsin Nachoff, featured on bassist Michael Bates’ Outside Sources Live in New York (Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4 Another Brooklyn-Canadian, Bates studied double bass at Banff Centre for the Arts and the University of Toronto. Other players are trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis. Playing all Bates compositions, the band is straight-ahead enough to maintain a swinging pulse, yet imaginative enough to give everyone free range for creative expression. Nachoff for example, punctuates one tune with gradually accelerating glissandi; Johnson another with high-pitched triplet tonguing. A bravura performance on Damasa finds everyone discovering theme variants. Johnson offers tremolo vibrations; Nachoff snuffled and exhaled split tones; Bates chiming runs and Davis opposite sticking plus blunt backbeats.

Davis is also part of the RIDD Quartet on Fiction Avalanche (Clean Feed CF 121 CD with CanCon provided by his spouse Kris Davis, who studied at the U. of T, and the Banff Centre. Outstanding on 10 group compositions, solos are weighed among Davis’ sensitive drumming, sweeping colors from distaff Davis, Reuben Radding’s tough, but restrained bass, and the kinetic runs of saxophonist Jon Irabagon. On Fiction Avalanche, the pianist percussively chords a counter melody that extends rasping bass slides and flattened reed vibrations. Monkey Catcher is a screaming blues expanded by Irabagon’s fortissimo split tones, yet tamed by Davis’ chord progression, key-clipping and flailing. Sky Circles is both atmospheric and lyrical. In unison the saxophonist’s buzzy trills and the pianist’s comping outline the theme. Segmented by winnowing squeals from Irabagon, the pianist moors the improvisation while advancing the theme chromatically.

Double the number of pianos appears on Where is Pannonica? (Songlines SGL SA- two1579-2 It was recorded at the Banff Centre by Paris-based Benoît Delbecq who also participates in Vancouver’s Creative Music workshop, and Torontonian Andy Milne, who studied at York and Banff before heading south. Delbecq admits that he couldn’t always distinguish his touch from Milne’s during the playback, but the usual division of labor finds him manipulating inside strings and using electronic loops, while Milne’s stays the acoustic course. Bouncing off each other’s ideas, the impression the two give is of subtle invention. Still each can surprise with the use of spiky patterns and percussive note clusters. Dividing the composing chores as well, the molded and layered tunes are paced so that when they unwind the polytonal qualities available from the soundboard and other innards decorate the keyboard’s strums and resonations. Probably the best number is Milne’s two-part Water’s Edge. Demonstrating quick-moving, overlapping tremolo lines, the piece modulates from andante to allegro and is harmonized by default. Spacious with cascading portamento, sharpened key jabs glance off bell-pealing-like string plunks.

Fine efforts all, these CDs preview what you’ll hear next time one of these expatriates gigs in Toronto.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #3

November 2, 2009

Andy Milne-Benoît Delbecq

Where is Pannonica?
Songlines SGL SA-1579-2

Harris Eisenstdat

Guewel

Clean Feed CF 123 CD

RIDD Quartet

Fiction Avalanche

Clean Feed CF 121 CD

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Live in New York

Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4

EXTENDED PLAY: Canadians at Home and Aboard

By Ken Waxman

Ancient but apt, the saying “you can take a boy out of the country, but can’t take the country out of the boy” is more accurate if the country is Canada and the “boys” are male and female musicians in the United States. No matter how busy they are, improvisers are always ready to play north of the border. Last month, for instance, Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based drummer Harris Eisenstadt played two Toronto shows in one day before continuing an American tour.

Being Canadian doesn’t mean cutting yourself from other interests as Eisenstadt demonstrates on Guewel (Clean Feed CF 123 CD. Named for the Wolof word for griots, the band – cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, trumpeter Nate Wooley, French hornist Mark Taylor and baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton – plays the drummer’s arrangements of West African pop music and ceremonial rhythms which he learned overseas. The tunes contain elements of southern dance tracks and brass band marches. Each horn man has the melodic smarts to meld with Eisenstadt’s multi-faceted drumming, producing catchy yet non-simplistic tunes. With his hunting horn sonorities, innate lyricism and pumping vamps, Taylor is a standout. The sympathetic arrangements stack horn parts atop one another in such a way that every solo becomes almost three-dimensional. Should a tune like Rice and Fish/Liti Liti begins mellow and impressionistic, then a drum beat signals a timbral shift with Taylor’s jujitsu tongue-fluttering matched with near Mariachi-styling from the other brass players. N’daga/Coonu Aduna transcends its marching band flavor as Sinton riffs harshly, accelerating to whoops and brays, while the meandering brass trill rococo detailing around him and Eisenstadt clatters, pops and ruffs.

Another notable reedist is Canadian turned Brooklynite Quinsin Nachoff, featured on bassist Michael Bates’ Outside Sources Live in New York (Greenleaf Paperback Series Vol 4 Another Brooklyn-Canadian, Bates studied double bass at Banff Centre for the Arts and the University of Toronto. Other players are trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis. Playing all Bates compositions, the band is straight-ahead enough to maintain a swinging pulse, yet imaginative enough to give everyone free range for creative expression. Nachoff for example, punctuates one tune with gradually accelerating glissandi; Johnson another with high-pitched triplet tonguing. A bravura performance on Damasa finds everyone discovering theme variants. Johnson offers tremolo vibrations; Nachoff snuffled and exhaled split tones; Bates chiming runs and Davis opposite sticking plus blunt backbeats.

Davis is also part of the RIDD Quartet on Fiction Avalanche (Clean Feed CF 121 CD with CanCon provided by his spouse Kris Davis, who studied at the U. of T, and the Banff Centre. Outstanding on 10 group compositions, solos are weighed among Davis’ sensitive drumming, sweeping colors from distaff Davis, Reuben Radding’s tough, but restrained bass, and the kinetic runs of saxophonist Jon Irabagon. On Fiction Avalanche, the pianist percussively chords a counter melody that extends rasping bass slides and flattened reed vibrations. Monkey Catcher is a screaming blues expanded by Irabagon’s fortissimo split tones, yet tamed by Davis’ chord progression, key-clipping and flailing. Sky Circles is both atmospheric and lyrical. In unison the saxophonist’s buzzy trills and the pianist’s comping outline the theme. Segmented by winnowing squeals from Irabagon, the pianist moors the improvisation while advancing the theme chromatically.

Double the number of pianos appears on Where is Pannonica? (Songlines SGL SA- two1579-2 It was recorded at the Banff Centre by Paris-based Benoît Delbecq who also participates in Vancouver’s Creative Music workshop, and Torontonian Andy Milne, who studied at York and Banff before heading south. Delbecq admits that he couldn’t always distinguish his touch from Milne’s during the playback, but the usual division of labor finds him manipulating inside strings and using electronic loops, while Milne’s stays the acoustic course. Bouncing off each other’s ideas, the impression the two give is of subtle invention. Still each can surprise with the use of spiky patterns and percussive note clusters. Dividing the composing chores as well, the molded and layered tunes are paced so that when they unwind the polytonal qualities available from the soundboard and other innards decorate the keyboard’s strums and resonations. Probably the best number is Milne’s two-part Water’s Edge. Demonstrating quick-moving, overlapping tremolo lines, the piece modulates from andante to allegro and is harmonized by default. Spacious with cascading portamento, sharpened key jabs glance off bell-pealing-like string plunks.

Fine efforts all, these CDs preview what you’ll hear next time one of these expatriates gigs in Toronto.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #3

November 2, 2009

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker
Not Two MW 789-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise

Greenleaf Music 09

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within

Leo CD LR 512

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations

Mode Avant 05

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise
Greenleaf Music 09

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker

Not Two MW 789-2

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within

Leo CD LR 512

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations

Mode Avant 05

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within
Leo CD LR 512

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker

Not Two MW 789-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise

Greenleaf Music 09

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations

Mode Avant 05

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

John Heward-Joe McPhee

Voices: 10 Improvisations
Mode Avant 05

Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke

Tiebreaker

Not Two MW 789-2

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

Clockwise

Greenleaf Music 09

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert/ Jean-Jacques Avenel

Within

Leo CD LR 512

Expatriates or homebodies, Canadian improvisers interact with many first-class players from and in any country. The results can be imposing, even if there’s nothing intrinsically Canuck about the music.

Take the Jeb Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Jason Roebke CD, Tiebreaker, Not Two MW 789-2. The crowd at this Krakow, Poland date probably thought they were applauding three Americans. Yet while astute trombonist Bishop and solid bassist Roebke are both Chicago-based, versatile drummer Eisenstadt is a Toronto native now in New York.

Bishop’s gutsy slurs and growls lock in place so completely with Roebke’s steady walking and Eisenstadt’s rumbling, funky beats that other instruments aren’t missed. While some tracks may be snappier, the key performance is the almost-39-minute medley that seamlessly links two of the trombonist’s compositions, one by the drummer and another by the bassist.

As the tunes flow into one another, Bishop’s buzzing grace notes elongate into brays, strengthened by Eisenstadt’s drags and rim shots. Moving to “Double Dog”, the second tune, brass chromaticism turns to horn whistles and squeaks, until the drummer’s cymbal embellishments signal the shift into his own “How Are You Dear”. Bishop’s lip burbles personalize the tender line, while adding vocalized tessitura. The bassist’s “Northstar” brings out trombone snorts and tongue gymnastics, answered with fidgety arco sweeps and timed drum strokes. The four compositions fit together as effectively as the players improvise together.

Another essay in co-operation is Clockwise Greenleaf Music 09 by Michael Bates’ Outside Sources, a long-standing quartet. Like Eisenstadt, bassist Bates and tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Quinsin Nachoff are ex-Torontonians now Brooklynites. Americans, trumpeter Russ Johnson and drummer Jeff Davis, join them to create notable sounds.

Steadfastly tonal, the bassist’s nine compositions flit among polyrhythms, waltz time, odd bar lengths and multi-part counterpoint to tell stories ranging from emotional balladry to rhythm dissertations. Bates’ admiration for composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich is expressed most profoundly on “The Russian School”, a nocturne with its drama and passion channeled through Nachoff’s saxophone. As the saxophonist’s guttural lines augment in pitch and strength, they transform into coarse, excited cries, as trumpeter Johnson’s muted harmonies add placid coloration. Balanced on top of the bassist’s fierce string-thumping, the tune darken, deepen and is resolved with a steadying confluence of measured sul tasto sweeps from Bates and flutter tonguing from Nachoff.

Nachoff confirms his clarinet credentials on “Fellini” and “Lighthouskeeping”. Stop-time, the later tune allows him to vibrate the pitch-sliding theme contrasted with parallel staccato trumpet, bass and drum intonation. Before the piece concludes diminuendo, both horns interlace with flowing flutter-tonguing. Like its namesake’s films, “Fellini” is buffo and sensuous, as waltz time advances slinky reed motions, ruffs and bounces from Davis and the trumpeter’s half-valve ornamentation. Eventually back-and-forth theme splintering resolves the tonal divide.

Featuring a similarly other-directed saxophonist and a solid bassist, but in trio form, Within Leo CD LR 512 provides a variation on this theme. Alto saxophonist Francois Carrier and his long-time associate, drummer Michel Lambert, are Montréalais, but bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel is French.

Like Tiebreaker, Within captures a first-time alliance that sounds as if the players have worked together for years. The three parts of the 60-minute improvisation, recorded at the Calgary Jazz Festival, depend on mind-melding between the guest and the long-time duo. Avenel’s spiccato thumps help stretch the thematic line to its furthest without shattering, whenever Carrier’s spetrofluctuation and reed-biting threaten to do so. In the tune’s mid-section however, the saxophonist’s slithery, human-sounding cries make common cause with each musician in turn. His contrapuntal interlude with Avenel features ground bass sweeps and col legno sawing used as connective tissue to bond with Carrier’s curt squeaks and flutter tonguing. A similar strategy is apparent on the Lambert-Carrier duets. The drummer’s opposite sticking and ratamacues subtly counter Carrier’s blustering pressure that metaphorically follows every note with an exclamation point. Expanding the time frame the drummer creates kalimba-like plinks and tam-tam resonations. His Asiatic echoes moderate Carrier’s strained Arabic textures so that the resulting timbres simultaneously resemble a gagku orchestra concertizing and Bird and Bags in a bop improvisation. In his duets with Carrier, Avenel’s tremolo plucking allows the saxophonist’s tensile reed-biting to downshift, creating a climatic section that is stately, harmonic and discreet.

Montreal-based visual artist John Heward organized a similar meeting with Poughkeepsie N.Y. multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Matching Heward’s drums and kalimba with McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone Voices: 10 Improvisations Mode Avant 05, aurally illuminates Heward’s skills and the extent of McPhee’s instrumental virtuosity. As comfortable in microtonal New music situations as screaming Free Jazz blowouts, except for some watery bluster from McPhee’s saxophone, Voices’ powerful improvisations angle more towards the later than the former.

McPhee’s tenor talents allow him to glide from harsh hocketing to portamento slurs in nanoseconds during “Improvisation 9”. When he reorients the line by blowing colored air through the instrument’s body tube, Heward’s response encompasses frame drum-like resonation and individualized strokes. Beginning the track with bugle-like emphasis in double counterpoint with Heward’s press rolls, the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation ceases by the climax. Completing the “Reveille” inference at the top, his final notes suggest “Taps”, with the drummer’s strokes appropriately martial.

Equally impressive on the trumpet, McPhee chromatically emphasizes various textures where appropriate. He brings an understated 1950s-Miles-vibe to “Improvisation 2” as his muted grace notes, coupled with Heward’s kalimba plucks, conjure up an African savannah as much as an American night club. Matched in broken-octave story-telling, Heward’s drum tops bangs and cymbal smacks complement McPhee near-static internal horn breaths and plunger squeaks.

These CDs don’t make the self-defeating case that Canadian improvisers are good enough to play with outsiders. Instead they confirm that this mixture of locals and others creates a common musical ground notable by any criteria.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 14 #3

November 1, 2008

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

A Fine Balance
Between the Lines BTLCHR 71211

Prime believer in the DIY-ethos, New York-based (since 2002), British Columbia-born bassist Michael Bates composed 10 memorable themes for himself and three fellow Canucks for this debut CD. Singly and together they confirm that Bates has a mature control of various idioms, whether the influences come from mainstream jazz, advanced free improvisation or Prokofiev.

A deconstruction of the Russian composer’s “Cello Sonata in C major”, that track features Bates’ clean arco work; brassy fills from trumpeter Kevin Turcotte; a quasi-martial beat from drummer Mark Timmermans; and harsh, contrapuntal overblowing from tenor saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff.

Elsewhere the saxophonist’s stuttering split tones and wind tunnel-like slurred notes make perfect harmonic sense playing off against the trumpeter’s brassy rubato style. Together they enhance Bates’ often slinky and layered themes. As well as funky stop-time showcases, the bassist – who lopes pizzicato lines as craftily as he modulates arco fills – also creates pastoral interludes, personified by Nachoff’s lyrical, clarinet. Some tunes reflect both strands.

Episodic and showcasing different tempos and intensity, “Coppertone” for instance, moves from florid flourishes advanced by Turcotte to chromatic honking and flattement from the saxophonist. Including a fleeting Thelonious Monk quote, the penultimate section gives the drummer space to trade fours with the others.

By the time the almost nine-minute-track ends, it confirms the bassist’s fine balance and ability to create multi-thematic compositions. The listener can only lament that Bates is another example of Canadian brain drain – improvised music division.

-- Ken Waxman

For Whole Note Vol. 12 #2

October 3, 2006

Michael Bates’ Outside Sources

A Fine Balance
Between the Lines BTLCHR 71211

Prime believer in the DIY-ethos, New York-based (since 2002), British Columbia-born bassist Michael Bates composed 10 memorable themes for himself and three fellow Canucks for this debut CD. Singly and together they confirm that Bates has a mature control of various idioms, whether the influences come from mainstream jazz, advanced free improvisation or Prokofiev.

A deconstruction of the Russian composer’s “Cello Sonata in C major”, that track features Bates’ clean arco work; brassy fills from trumpeter Kevin Turcotte; a quasi-martial beat from drummer Mark Timmermans; and harsh, contrapuntal overblowing from tenor saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff.

Elsewhere the saxophonist’s stuttering split tones and wind tunnel-like slurred notes make perfect harmonic sense playing off against the trumpeter’s brassy rubato style. Together they enhance Bates’ often slinky and layered themes. As well as funky stop-time showcases, the bassist – who lopes pizzicato lines as craftily as he modulates arco fills – also creates pastoral interludes, personified by Nachoff’s lyrical, clarinet. Some tunes reflect both strands.

Episodic and showcasing different tempos and intensity, “Coppertone” for instance, moves from florid flourishes advanced by Turcotte to chromatic honking and flattement from the saxophonist. Including a fleeting Thelonious Monk quote, the penultimate section gives the drummer space to trade fours with the others.

By the time the almost nine-minute-track ends, it confirms the bassist’s fine balance and ability to create multi-thematic compositions. The listener can only lament that Bates is another example of Canadian brain drain – improvised music division.

-- Ken Waxman

For Whole Note Vol. 12 #2

October 3, 2006