Rosa Luxembourg New Quintet

Night Asylum
NotTwo MW 832-2

Zed Trio

Lost Transitions

Ayler Records aylCD-102

Unfortunately a serious health problem means that Toulouse-based Heddy Boubaker is now going to express himself on other instruments than the saxophones he has been playing for the last decade or so. More’s the pity, since these recent CDs demonstrate that his sonic experimentation adds an eclectic focus to two different projects.

A concert organizer as well as a player, Boubaker’s collaborations have stretched from duos with committed improvisers such as trumpeter Birgit Ulher to those with spoken word artists, plus membership in electric Rock-oriented and even Arabic-styled bands. The heavy electric overtone exist again with Zed Trio, where his alto and bass saxophones are partnered with guitarist David Lataillade, who composes for dance and theatre companies, and percussionist Frédéric Vaudaux, associated with video, dance, sound poetry and sound painting. Vocal sounds as well as a larger number of participants distinguish Rosa Luxembourg New Quintet from the Zed Trio. That mixture of scat, mumbles, warbling and a metaphoric laryngoscope investigation come from Françoise Guerlin. Luxembourg’s guitarist/electric bassist Marc Perrenoud and percussionist Fabien Duscombs are part of the Phat trio with Boubaker; while on this CD the horn counterweight to Boubaker is Piero Pepin, a trumpeter, who elsewhere plays Jazz, fanfares and backs-up dancers and marionnette theatre.

Recorded a year before Lost Transitions, Night Asylum’s interpretation appears to play on both meanings of asylum. Certainly Guerlin’s Bedlam-styled vocalese on tracks such as “Don't Look Down” or “Fröhlich Kamerad” may be mistaken for field recordings from a mental institution. Swooping and screeching her timbres range from crone-like cackling angling upwards to aviary squeals on the former. In contrast “Fröhlich Kamerad” is taken super largo, giving ample space for the vocalist to duplicate another concept from those on the cusp of insanity: mumbling to oneself using nonsense syllables which in cadence sound like regular conversation until exposed by intent listening.

Countering this mixture of scat, speaking-in-tongues and onomatopoeia is a double counterpoint response from both horns on “Don't Look Down”. Pepin’s extended brassy slurs come from the Donald Ayler school of heraldic timbres, while Boubaker’s alto saxophone licks including honking flatulence and tongue pops. On the first tune, as Guerlin’s output reaches a climax of repetitive words and syllables, the saxophonist matches her lick-by-lick with hardening glossolalia and vibrating reed bites. Meanwhile Duscombs contributes rolls and clanking shuffles, and Perrenoud a sequence of electric bass licks. Resolution comes in the form of Pepin turning a short tremolo interlude into an obbligato, with the exposition completed by roughened overblowing from Boubaker, slaps and ruffs from the drummer and a conclusive buzzing from the bass. The other piece is distinguished by the pummelling, scraping and chiming from a group of small percussion instruments, with moderato flute tones harmonized with trumpet flutters, so that mumbled dialogue interjections become almost chromatic.

However “In The Night Asylum” appears to be the most affecting tune. That’s because the contrapuntal friction created by the instrumental parts suggests such an air of melancholy that Guerlin’s vocalization is put in the context of both refuge and unpredictability. With the trumpeter’s rough plunger tones and the saxophonist’s masticating lines vying for supremacy alongside parlando chirps and echoes from the vocalist, themes seem to criss-cross and oppose one another. However, when Pepin’s hand-muted bell slurps lead to what could be a punk-rock version of some national anthem, Guerlin’s repetitive “nos” are finally matched with a burbling version of what could be “Taps” from the hornmen.

Excerpt for one lyrical intermezzo that arrive late in the program, the emotions associated with “Taps” are banished from Lost Transitions. The only musical transitions heard would describe “Reveille” or “To the Colors” if translated to military brass band music.

Consider tunes such as “Lost Transitions” and “Acid Voodoo Dancing” for instance. On the later the guitar amp crackles as if involved in flanged synthesis, as Boubaker counters with pressurized runs and snorts that get harder and thicker as Lataillade’s flat-lined finger pops turn to subterranean slurs and Vaudaux adds hearty smacks on cymbals and drum tops. Finally the guitarist’s microtones help merge every player’s multiphonics into a climax of slowly subsiding passing tones. As for “Lost Transitions”, the contrapuntal showcase pits Lataillade’s staccato finger picking against diaphragm-forced bass saxophone lows. As Boubaker’s textures shatter into guttural burps and altissimo squeals it seems as if both his alto and his bass saxophones are in use. Eventually the reed actions drift away, revealing the guitarist’s sharp, twanging riffs.

Despite its sardonic title, “Hysteric Meditation” initially provides the tempo change that distinguishes it for the other tunes. So lyrical – in this context – that Boubaker could be Stan Getz and Lataillade Jim Hall, the saxophone’s treble tone and single-note string sounding sets up an almost-soothing harmonic interchange. That is until the later part of the piece explodes with intense false register vibrations on the saxman’s part met with equally aggressive twangs roaring from wah-wah pedal and slurred fingering from Lataillade. A finale of ragged shrills redefines the piece as Boubaker ends his solo with a medley of Aylerian-Dolphyesque altissimo screams, as ragged and frenzied as the exposition was smooth and relaxed.

From the evidence here, it would appear that Improvised Music may be losing an original, committed and exciting reed stylist if Boubaker’s diagnosis is final. Hopefully he’ll soon be able to express himself with equal facility on another instrument. Stay tuned.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Lost: 1. Dubai on Fire 2. Narcissique 3. Near the End 4. Zed Leppelin Crash Test 5. Message of Peace and Happiness 6. Lost Transitions 7. Cruce la Frontera 8. Acid Voodoo Dancing 9. Hysteric Meditation 10. Slices of Terrific Flux Bop

Personnel: Lost: Heddy Boubaker (alto and bass saxophones); David Lataillade (guitar) and Frédéric Vaudaux (drums)

Track Listing: Night: 1. Don't Look Down 2. Episodes 3. Fröhlich Kamerad 4. A Matter Of Tactic 5. Order Prevails In Berlin 6. In The Night Asylum 7. An Amusing Misunterstanding

Personnel: Night: Piero Pepin (trumpet, melodica, toy piano, percussion and objects); Heddy Boubaker (alto saxophone, flutes, percussion, gaïta and objects); , Marc Perrenoud (guitar and electric bass); Fabien Duscombs (drums, percussion and objects) and Françoise Guerlin (voice and objects)

June 27, 2011

Kahil El’Zabar’s Infinity Orchestra

Transmigration
Delmark DE 576

Groove is the one word you associate with most of the endeavors of Kahil El’Zabar. Yet while the Chicago-based percussionist has had past experience playing R&B and African music, his rhythmic mobilization is overt, but never simplistic. That’s because as a long-time member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), he has also absorbed the concepts of such cerebral thinkers as pianist Muhal Richard Abrams. Taken in their entirety therefore, the sounds of El’Zabar’s many bands meld elements of both impulses. What results is a POMO variation that unites the sacred and the secular, a concept which has long characterized Black Vernacular Music.

All that said the instrumental make-up of these two fine live CDs couldn’t be more different. Hot’N’Heavy, for instance, is the newest variant of the drummer’s 30-year-old Ethic Heritage Ensemble (EHE). Usually consisting of two horns plus El’Zabar’s percussion, this session not only adds new brassman Corey Wilkes – a trumpeter and flugelhornist who is now also a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago – but is one of those occasions when a chordal instrumental – Fareed Haque’s guitar –carries part of load. Haque, who leads his own fusion group, has played on-and-off with the EHE since the late 1990s. That’s around the period when alto and tenor saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, leader of the New Horizons Ensemble, also became the band’s sole reed player.

If this, the first CD recorded in El’Zabar’s own Chicago loft space goes down like a smooth American burgundy, then Transmigration can be compared to the effect of a large quantity of a much different carefully fermented vintage. Recorded in Bordeaux, France the year before Hot’N’Heavy, it features that city’s 39-piece Infinity Orchestra running through five El’Zabar compositions arranged by the percussionist or keyboardist Robert Irving III. Solos are divided among members of the orchestra or 2005’s version of the EHE, which then featured the percussionist – who has taught and performed at Bordeaux’s local music academy since the early 1980s – Dawkins, and Joseph Bowie on trombone and percussion.

Bowie’s showcase, “Return of the Lost Tribe” frames the boneman’s butterfat thick chromatic tone in an arrangement that’s half Gil Evans-like pastel and half hip-hop vinyl scratching plus cross-patterning percussion. As the trombonist splashes out a series of widening blats and concludes with a harshly buzzing upwards squeak, he’s echoed by pitch-sliding tones from the massed horns and vocal exhortations from El’Zabar. Succeeded by Dawkins’ reed splintering tenor saxophone cries and hand-clapping from the band members, the tune undulates to its conclusion on a sea of djembe and balafon-rhythm-filed passages.

Local players such as tenor saxophonist Arnaud Rouanet – who has adopted Energy Music to his own ends – clarinetist Jean Dousteyssier – whose split-tone texture owe little to his classical background – and the note clusters and focal-point comping of pianist Olivier Soubles, make favorable impressions at various junctures as well. Sadly, despite the near-relentless beats from the percussionists, rapping and vocalizing by designated band members makes it abundantly clear why English has remained the paramount language of popular music.

More Bordeaux-based players get exposure on the mammoth “Speaking in Tongues”, a nearly 25-minute tour-de-force which begins with a vamping balafon interlude from El’Zabar and opens up into a piano-led big band chart with contrapuntal riffing from each of the orchestra’s sections. Tenor saxophonist Karlis Vanags slides a few reed bites and honks into his otherwise mid-range exposition, while trumpeter Piero Pepin manages to be both languid and impetuous, with in-your-face ornamental note expansion segmenting his rubato phrase-making.

With 12 [!] percussionists available to provide the bottom, the undulating stop-time arrangement works its way up to a crescendo of harmonized broken chords, showcasing Pepin’s whinnying stratospheric grace note exploration. Before the diminuendo finale that involves brassy triplets, Soubles feeds a series of organic note clusters to introduce upticking saxophone solos.

El’Zabar’s decades of teaching two months a year at Bordeaux’s Academy of Music and this stint as artist-in-residence proves that he has the skills to allow a massive ensemble to swing with a certain freedom. Nowhere however does it seem that any one the 39 natives – or the guests – can forget his academic training long enough to delve into unfettered improvisation.

Just as rhythmically propulsive, but freer in conception, is the quartet work on Hot’N’Heavy. On the five tunes here, El’Zabar favors the conga-like textures of his earth drum and his resonating berimbau. Decidedly freeboppish – and practically mainstream – when improvising on both his saxophones, Dawkins plays early John Coltrane to Corey Wilkes’ late period Miles Davis.

Favoring electronic pick-ups which often make his solos sound like flanging guitar-pedal extensions, the trumpeter also references the tradition, as when a quote from “Summertime” sums up his solo on “Major to Minor”, which otherwise has been characterized by ornamental triplets. The percussionist’s popping, pumping, vocalizing and cop-whistle shrills fill out much of the remaining space along with the guitarist’s claw-hammer-style variations.

Switching between electric and acoustic axes, Haque quietly accompanies El’Zabar’s chanting with folksy block chords. But when Wilkes spits out blurry oscillations from both his horns simultaneously, the guitarist uses slurred fingering coupled with rhythmic licks à la Herb Ellis to make his own point.

Ringing flamenco-style strumming from the guitarist, looser guttural cries and glottal tension-filed overblowing from the reedist characterize other tracks. So do hand percussion thwacks that are as much moderato as montuno. Yet they allow El’Zabar to highlight the African heritage of Afro-Cuban rhythms.

Probably the most realized tune is “MT”, which honors the recently deceased trumpeter and AACM stalwart Malachi Thompson. On top of shekere textures and a kalimba ostinato from the percussionist, Haque introduces ice-pick sharp licks, Dawkins produces split-tone arpeggios from his alto sax and Wilkes melds high-pitched chromatic coloration and open-horn hand-fanning. Ending with a triumphant tonal upturn, El’Zabar preceding foot stomps, vocalizing and highly percussive kalimba solo suggests what could have happened if Lionel Hampton had been a showman in South West Africa.

For AACM and El’Zabar followers, both CDs offer more instances of the percussionist’s rhythmically showy, yet imaginative musical sound. The quartet session may have a smidgen of an edge over the big band though, since it’s more recent and was recorded in the trapman’s home-town space.

--Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Transmigration: 1. Soul to Groove 2. Speaking in Tongues 3. Transmigration 4. Nu Art Claiming Earth 5. Return of the Lost Tribe

Personnel: Transmigration: Joseph Bowie (trombone); Ernest Dawkins (alto and tenor saxophones) and Kahil El’Zabar (kalimba) plus the Infinity Orchestra: Fabien Deyts, Piero Pepin, Vincent Fauguet and Dominique Darrouzet (trumpets); Jérémi Ortal, Guillaume Ballin and Guillaume Pique (trombones); Norris Kolmanis and Benôit Berthe (saxophones); Ilyes Ferera (alto saxophone); Arnaud Rouanet, Karlis Vangas and Marc Closier (tenor saxophones); Grat Martinez (baritone saxophone); Jean Dousteyssier (clarinet); Christian Patzer (flute); Olivier Soubles (piano); Clément Billardello and Xavier Corpis (guitars); Xavier Hayet (bass); Hervé Mignon (electric bass); Philippe Gaubert, Yoann Sheidt and Antonin Mallaret (drums); Marianne Thiebaut, Boudji Abasse and Manue Peran (djembes); Yacouba Silla (djembe and balafon); Yvan Chambard (balafon and percussion); Nicolas Perrin (dj turntablist); Stépane Castanet (dj); Nathalie Gaucher and Taro Ochiai (vocals) and Bindi Mahamat and Rémi Bernis (vocal rap)

Track Listing: Hot: 1. Major to Minor 2. MT 3. Hot ‘N’ Heavy 4. There Is a Place 5. Black as Vera Cruz

Personnel: Hot: Corey Wilkes (trumpet, flugelhorn and percussion); Ernest “Khabeer” Dawkins (alto and tenor saxophones and percussion); Fareed Haque (electric and acoustic guitars) and Kahil El’Zabar (drums, earth drums and kalimba)

November 8, 2007

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble

Hot ‘N’ Heavy: Live at the Ascension Loft
Delmark DE 574

lo

Groove is the one word you associate with most of the endeavors of Kahil El’Zabar. Yet while the Chicago-based percussionist has had past experience playing R&B and African music, his rhythmic mobilization is overt, but never simplistic. That’s because as a long-time member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), he has also absorbed the concepts of such cerebral thinkers as pianist Muhal Richard Abrams. Taken in their entirety therefore, the sounds of El’Zabar’s many bands meld elements of both impulses. What results is a POMO variation that unites the sacred and the secular, a concept which has long characterized Black Vernacular Music.

All that said the instrumental make-up of these two fine live CDs couldn’t be more different. Hot’N’Heavy, for instance, is the newest variant of the drummer’s 30-year-old Ethic Heritage Ensemble (EHE). Usually consisting of two horns plus El’Zabar’s percussion, this session not only adds new brassman Corey Wilkes – a trumpeter and flugelhornist who is now also a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago – but is one of those occasions when a chordal instrumental – Fareed Haque’s guitar –carries part of load. Haque, who leads his own fusion group, has played on-and-off with the EHE since the late 1990s. That’s around the period when alto and tenor saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, leader of the New Horizons Ensemble, also became the band’s sole reed player.

If this, the first CD recorded in El’Zabar’s own Chicago loft space goes down like a smooth American burgundy, then Transmigration can be compared to the effect of a large quantity of a much different carefully fermented vintage. Recorded in Bordeaux, France the year before Hot’N’Heavy, it features that city’s 39-piece Infinity Orchestra running through five El’Zabar compositions arranged by the percussionist or keyboardist Robert Irving III. Solos are divided among members of the orchestra or 2005’s version of the EHE, which then featured the percussionist – who has taught and performed at Bordeaux’s local music academy since the early 1980s – Dawkins, and Joseph Bowie on trombone and percussion.

Bowie’s showcase, “Return of the Lost Tribe” frames the boneman’s butterfat thick chromatic tone in an arrangement that’s half Gil Evans-like pastel and half hip-hop vinyl scratching plus cross-patterning percussion. As the trombonist splashes out a series of widening blats and concludes with a harshly buzzing upwards squeak, he’s echoed by pitch-sliding tones from the massed horns and vocal exhortations from El’Zabar. Succeeded by Dawkins’ reed splintering tenor saxophone cries and hand-clapping from the band members, the tune undulates to its conclusion on a sea of djembe and balafon-rhythm-filed passages.

Local players such as tenor saxophonist Arnaud Rouanet – who has adopted Energy Music to his own ends – clarinetist Jean Dousteyssier – whose split-tone texture owe little to his classical background – and the note clusters and focal-point comping of pianist Olivier Soubles, make favorable impressions at various junctures as well. Sadly, despite the near-relentless beats from the percussionists, rapping and vocalizing by designated band members makes it abundantly clear why English has remained the paramount language of popular music.

More Bordeaux-based players get exposure on the mammoth “Speaking in Tongues”, a nearly 25-minute tour-de-force which begins with a vamping balafon interlude from El’Zabar and opens up into a piano-led big band chart with contrapuntal riffing from each of the orchestra’s sections. Tenor saxophonist Karlis Vanags slides a few reed bites and honks into his otherwise mid-range exposition, while trumpeter Piero Pepin manages to be both languid and impetuous, with in-your-face ornamental note expansion segmenting his rubato phrase-making.

With 12 [!] percussionists available to provide the bottom, the undulating stop-time arrangement works its way up to a crescendo of harmonized broken chords, showcasing Pepin’s whinnying stratospheric grace note exploration. Before the diminuendo finale that involves brassy triplets, Soubles feeds a series of organic note clusters to introduce upticking saxophone solos.

El’Zabar’s decades of teaching two months a year at Bordeaux’s Academy of Music and this stint as artist-in-residence proves that he has the skills to allow a massive ensemble to swing with a certain freedom. Nowhere however does it seem that any one the 39 natives – or the guests – can forget his academic training long enough to delve into unfettered improvisation.

Just as rhythmically propulsive, but freer in conception, is the quartet work on Hot’N’Heavy. On the five tunes here, El’Zabar favors the conga-like textures of his earth drum and his resonating berimbau. Decidedly freeboppish – and practically mainstream – when improvising on both his saxophones, Dawkins plays early John Coltrane to Corey Wilkes’ late period Miles Davis.

Favoring electronic pick-ups which often make his solos sound like flanging guitar-pedal extensions, the trumpeter also references the tradition, as when a quote from “Summertime” sums up his solo on “Major to Minor”, which otherwise has been characterized by ornamental triplets. The percussionist’s popping, pumping, vocalizing and cop-whistle shrills fill out much of the remaining space along with the guitarist’s claw-hammer-style variations.

Switching between electric and acoustic axes, Haque quietly accompanies El’Zabar’s chanting with folksy block chords. But when Wilkes spits out blurry oscillations from both his horns simultaneously, the guitarist uses slurred fingering coupled with rhythmic licks à la Herb Ellis to make his own point.

Ringing flamenco-style strumming from the guitarist, looser guttural cries and glottal tension-filed overblowing from the reedist characterize other tracks. So do hand percussion thwacks that are as much moderato as montuno. Yet they allow El’Zabar to highlight the African heritage of Afro-Cuban rhythms.

Probably the most realized tune is “MT”, which honors the recently deceased trumpeter and AACM stalwart Malachi Thompson. On top of shekere textures and a kalimba ostinato from the percussionist, Haque introduces ice-pick sharp licks, Dawkins produces split-tone arpeggios from his alto sax and Wilkes melds high-pitched chromatic coloration and open-horn hand-fanning. Ending with a triumphant tonal upturn, El’Zabar preceding foot stomps, vocalizing and highly percussive kalimba solo suggests what could have happened if Lionel Hampton had been a showman in South West Africa.

For AACM and El’Zabar followers, both CDs offer more instances of the percussionist’s rhythmically showy, yet imaginative musical sound. The quartet session may have a smidgen of an edge over the big band though, since it’s more recent and was recorded in the trapman’s home-town space.

--Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Transmigration: 1. Soul to Groove 2. Speaking in Tongues 3. Transmigration 4. Nu Art Claiming Earth 5. Return of the Lost Tribe

Personnel: Transmigration: Joseph Bowie (trombone); Ernest Dawkins (alto and tenor saxophones) and Kahil El’Zabar (kalimba) plus the Infinity Orchestra: Fabien Deyts, Piero Pepin, Vincent Fauguet and Dominique Darrouzet (trumpets); Jérémi Ortal, Guillaume Ballin and Guillaume Pique (trombones); Norris Kolmanis and Benôit Berthe (saxophones); Ilyes Ferera (alto saxophone); Arnaud Rouanet, Karlis Vangas and Marc Closier (tenor saxophones); Grat Martinez (baritone saxophone); Jean Dousteyssier (clarinet); Christian Patzer (flute); Olivier Soubles (piano); Clément Billardello and Xavier Corpis (guitars); Xavier Hayet (bass); Hervé Mignon (electric bass); Philippe Gaubert, Yoann Sheidt and Antonin Mallaret (drums); Marianne Thiebaut, Boudji Abasse and Manue Peran (djembes); Yacouba Silla (djembe and balafon); Yvan Chambard (balafon and percussion); Nicolas Perrin (dj turntablist); Stépane Castanet (dj); Nathalie Gaucher and Taro Ochiai (vocals) and Bindi Mahamat and Rémi Bernis (vocal rap)

Track Listing: Hot: 1. Major to Minor 2. MT 3. Hot ‘N’ Heavy 4. There Is a Place 5. Black as Vera Cruz

Personnel: Hot: Corey Wilkes (trumpet, flugelhorn and percussion); Ernest “Khabeer” Dawkins (alto and tenor saxophones and percussion); Fareed Haque (electric and acoustic guitars) and Kahil El’Zabar (drums, earth drums and kalimba)

November 8, 2007