Alister Spence/Raymond MacDonald

Stepping Between the Shadows
Rufus Records RF095

Toxvaerd/Anderskov

Phone Book

ILK 190 CD

From the time of Johnny Hodges’ work with Duke Ellington, and especially Paul Desmond’s with Dave Brubeck, the musical compatibility of alto saxophone and piano has been emphasized; and sometimes put in broader relief by featuring no other accompaniment.

Danes, alto saxophonist Laura Toxvaerd and pianist Jacob Anderskov express this in an exemplary fashion on Phone Book, interpreting four of the saxophonist’s graphic scores based on telephone book listings – city and country not specified. More freewheeling, Stepping Between the Shadows features seven free-form elaborations that link Australian keyboardist Alister Spence with Scottish alto saxophonist Raymond MacDonald. Each member of the two duos has extensive experience elsewhere. Anderskov has played with stylists such as reedist Chris Speed and drummer Gerald Cleaver plus lead his own group, while Toxvaerd front her own band and is also a part of one of Anderskov’s as well. Spence, who plays piano and prepared piano here has also worked with such musicians as bassists Joe Williamson and Lloyd Swanton. A founder of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, MacDonald has worked with individuals such as bassist Barry Guy and saxophonist Lol Coxhill.

Despite the four players’ ensemble-orientation, bass, drum and other instrumental textures aren’t noticeably missed on the Spence-MacDonald CD. With pedal force and key clipping, scuffs against the instrument’s outer wood and inner soundboard, as well as string twanging and vibrating, Spence is a percussive enough pianist to preserve a needed rhythm – although it is appropriately irregular. Some tracks such as “Northern Window (a)” are exercises in polyphonic parallelism, with MacDonald’s intense split tone and lengthy slurs matching similar staccato and agitated impulses from the pianist. Eventually the intervallic narrative settles on an interaction where the saxman’s vocalized tweets and speedy flutter-tonguing is sympathetically engaged by the pianist’s tremolo patterning.

Sharpness and toughness aren’t the only adjectives that could apply to the duo however. With dexterity and attention the two approach balladic status on other tracks, as the reedist’s level and restrained flat-line timbres operate in broken-chord agreement with the keyboardist’s kinetic, high velocity chords. There’s even a point within “Found On The Way (a)” that McDonald appears to be quoting “Body and Soul” before returning to his contrapuntal exposition alongside Spence’s low-pitched cadenzas.

Shaking and smearing tones, the saxophonist also, consciously or not, appears to play the head of “A Love Supreme” as the duo wraps up “Found on the Way (b)”. Other timbres “found on the way” include those from Spence’s full keyboard sweeps, with his fingers then burrowing into the piano’s innards for basso rumbles; as well as others which include MacDonald’s circularly breathed lines that intensify in fervor, in due course encompassing repeated trills and glottal punctuation.

Ostensibly more clinical in design, but as emotional in execution is Phone Book. Initially though it seems that despite graphical notation directions, Anderskov’s playing might be either too heavy handed or overly delicate. However Toxvaerd’s staccato extensions appear to encourage him to source irregular, yet sympathetic side ripples. By track 2, “Bark”, the resultant sounds undeniably reflect the title. Following a spectacular broken-chord piano introduction, Anderskov’s accompaniment is dynamic in its motion, while the saxophone lines first narrow to irregular trills then swell to stuffed judders. The ending highlights simple unison harmony.

Tellingly, “Fishbone”, the most impressionistic piece despite its skeletal title, lacks neither high-octave tone jumps from Toxvaerd nor percussive and angular keyboard jabs from Anderskov. However the descriptive mid-section is this side of Hard Bop, with the pianist seemingly quoting “Prelude to a Kiss” and the saxophonist responding with phrases that could come from pages of the Great American Songbook. Angular reed overblowing and keyboard picks and clicks finally situate the performance in the Free part of FreeBop.

“Cacklecabin”, the final track, comes across as less than a summation and more like a continuation of the compositional ideas which have been displayed earlier. Toxvaerd’s slurs and reed-bites get thinner and more mercurial; Anderskov’s expansive glissandi and tremolo chording cover all the keys. Plus irregular variations share space with more traditional ones with neither subsuming the other.

Overall, these are two high-class modifications of the alto saxophone-piano tradition that should probably lead to further encounters.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Phone: 1. Androidangle 2. Barking 3. Fishbone 4. Cacklecabin

Personnel: Phone: Laura Toxvaerd (alto saxophone) and Jacob Anderskov (piano)

Track Listing: Stepping: 1. TransHemispheric 2. The Distance From Here To There 3. The Places In Between 4. Found On The Way (a) 5. Found On The Way (b) 6. Northern Window (a) 7. Northern Window (b)

Personnel: Stepping: Raymond MacDonald (alto and soprano saxophones) and Alister Spence (piano and prepared piano)

February 22, 2013

Festival Report

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra Festival 5
By Ken Waxman

Brawny and gritty, Glasgow, Scotland`s largest city has been a shipbuilding, trading and manufacturing powerhouse since the Industrial Revolution. At the same time the grey northern port has had a long-established aesthetic side, characterized by the often imitated Arts and Crafts movement designs and structures of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928).

This blend of power and passion was reflected November 29 to December 1 as the city’s 24-member Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) celebrated its 10th anniversary and 5th annual festival with performances at the city’s downtown Centre for Contemporary Art by the whole band and various subsets; other Scottish improvisers; and guests including inventive saxophonist Evan Parker, irrepressible vocalist Maggie Nicols and polymath George Lewis utilizing trombone and computer.

Like Mackintosh’s architecture, which took into account the city’s unique character, “Tractatus”, Lewis’ GIO showpiece, was composed to reflect the GIO’s talents. Flowing with a swing undercurrent, the sequences moved the narrative weight from section to section with equality, encompassing bright and sprightly pulls and strokes from the six-piece string section; drummer Stu Brown’s inventive hand patting; flutter-tongued vamps from trumpeter Robert Henderson; a steady piano ostinato from Gerry Rossi; plus Nicols and vocalist Nicola MacDonald yelping and gibbering. Guided, rather than conducted by Lewis, the polyphonic piece allowed audacious exposure of varying orchestral colors, creating excitement through contrast not discord.

Even more site-specific was GIO guitarist George Burt’s “Three Envelopes for E. M.”, an extended suite which placed in an orchestral setting the recitation of translated poems by Edwin Morgan (1920-2010), Glasgow’s former poet laureate, by actor Tam Dean Burn. Bald-headed Burn’s gesticulating interpretation of the poems in guttural Scots-Gaelic was given particular weight by repetitive tremolo chords from the massed band members. Angled plucks and wood slaps from Burt plus stop-time pressure from bassist Armin Sturm and near Aylverian cries from tenor saxophonist Graeme Wilson helped convey Morgan’s street-wise toughness, while passages that harmonized three basses and one cello with Emma Roche’s peeping flute work underscored a certain delicacy, even if the words were incomprehensible for non-Glaswegians.

Great fun for the audience and musicians, but less substantial musically was “Some I Know, Some I Don’t” another GIO-commission from Jim O’Rourke. A Fluxus-lite game piece, the concept involved each musician following the directions printed on each playing card he or she picked. Although episodes where Lewis cited haggis as his favorite food; MacDonald exited briefly and returned with drinks for herself, Burt and pedal-point-line-emphasizing guitarist Neil Davidson; or Nicols cunningly using a cell phone to converse from across the orchestral semi-circle with GIO artistic director/alto saxophonist Raymond MacDonald’s cell were charmingly quirky, those players who intensified the sonic qualities of the commands fared much better. Cellist Peter Nicolson for instance defiantly scratched his strings to curtail a faux jazzy interlude from the two guitarists; Brown sourced unusual pings from his segmented cymbal tower; a small horizontal board among the strings helped pull ukulele-like tones from Catriona MacKay’s harp; while Lewis improvised using only his slide detached from the rest of his horn.

When it came to smaller groupings, nothing could surpass a set by pianist Alex von Schlippenbach Trio. Besides the hard-handed pianist, apt contributions came from relaxed, prepossessing drummer Paul Lovens, and endlessly inventive saxophonist Parker, who also duetted memorably with Lewis’ computer and diffidently become part of the GIO reed section at other times. Forty years of playing together means that trio cohesion was almost immediate; within five minutes the pianist’s percussive chording and Monkish asides, the drummer’s cymbal clatter and subtle length-wise stick rubs and Parker’s circular-breathed seemed as inevitable as tides on the River Clyde that bisects Glasgow. Surprises were present nonetheless: von Schlippenbach’s progress sometimes included left-handed note chopping and stride piano allusions, while the tenor saxophonist’s flutter-tonguing could be as melodic as it was multiphonic.

That ad-hoc meetings can be as potent musically as the Schlippenbach Trio’s lengthy collaboration was also proven conclusively by some of the GIO’s duo and trio linkages as well as Nicols performance with Roche and bassist Una McGlone of The Rope & Duck Company. Roche’s staccato chirps or flat-line runs united disparate strategies as McGlone used two bull fiddles to catch up with Nicols’ unpredictable vocalese. Lying one bass on its side and distorting its tone with an electronic pickup, she smacked a mallet, a wire-brush or a triangle against the strings for distinctive textures; col legno pops and thick resonating stops. When she turned to accompanying the others with other upright bass strokes, Nicols became a show by herself. The vocalist’s split-second timing allowed her to slide from keening melancholy to Bedlam-like laughter instantaneously, using lyric soprano interjections and phrase and syllable mixing used to create rational-sounding tall tales that were more gibberish than Gaelic. If that wasn’t enough occasionally she kept the pace moving by creating her own version of the Highland fling, encompassing modern ballet-like steps and foot stomps.

Adding to the localized musical gestalt was a set by the newly formed 12-piece Shetland Improvisers Orchestra (SIO) which drove 400-plus miles to play at the festival. Hailing from a Scottish island so remote that the second language is Norn rather than Gaelic, the SIO’s music was closest to jazz as anything in the festival, especially when front-man Jeff Merrifield put aside his trumpet to produce some blood-curdling New Thing tenor saxophone screams, horn held aloft. Blending primitivist recorder timbres and hand-percussion interludes with low-key Bill Dixon-like orchestrations, electric fiddle sawing and soprano saxophone cries, the band later honored the late saxophonist Lol Coxhill with a melancholy slow-motion piece; touched on prog-rock and parceled out brief improvisations to matched duos from the ensemble.

Organized after a proselytizing visit by MacDonald and Burt a couple of months before the festival, the SIO could be the first of other improvising ensembles formed elsewhere in the country. If this happens, and the already innovative GOP keeps evolving at the same impressive pace as it has over the previous decade, Scotland may soon as be celebrated for its improvising musicians as much as for its ballad singers and distinctive bagpipers.

--For The New York City Jazz Record January 2013

January 6, 2013

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra

Improcherto (for HB)
Iorram GN 82

Waving the Saltire for musical if not geographic liberation in the northern part of the United Kingdom is the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO), which over the past decade has established itself as a potent force for free sounds. This CD finds the 18 piece ensemble – plus two ringers – exploring the concepts of graphic scores and conduction. Embracing the idea during an almost 40-minute sequence conceived of by GIO member and guitarist George Burt the ensemble wends its way through tricky section work and in the process honors the memory of Barbados-born Harry Beckett (1935-2010), a potent force in earlier British Jazz who straddled the divide between big band Jazz and Free Improvising – as does the GIO.

Veteran London saxophonists Evan Parker and Lol Coxhill are then two ringers here. But their presence is crucial since over the years both worked with Beckett. At the same time the arrangement is such that the GIO avoids emulating the mode of the slightly older London Improvisers Orchestra in which Parker and Coxhill regularly play. More crucially despite the instrument-affiliation of the dedicatee, Improcherto (for HB) is no brass showcase. Trumpeter Robert Henderson and trombonist Chris Barclay are the GIO’s only brass players and neither has an extended solo.

Instead Improcherto (for HB) is built up from a unique combination of juddering strings, impressionistic flute passages and vamping harmonies. With three percussionists and many horns framing his theme variations, the circular breathing and pressured vibrato from Parker’s tenor saxophone is appropriately situated. Following some cursory call-and-response, and as percussive ruffs and aviary-like background cries swell to a carefully paced crescendo, the narrative is handed off to soprano saxophonist Coxhill. His mercurial solo is soon breached, first by Henderson’s edgy triplets, then by single string strums from guitarist Neil Davidson and eventually by piano comping that introduces Raymond MacDonald’s reed variation. From that point on, MacDonald’s flutter-tonguing turns agitato as it’s mixed with insistent cello splays, staccato brass sways and clarinet peeps. A steadying pulse from bassists Una MacGlone and Armin Sturm hold the course while the other conducted sections melt into one another leading to a widening polyphonic climax. Pulling back slightly, the popping percussion, rasgueado guitar licks and reed snorts make room for Parker’s bravura improving that somehow manages to combine altissimo multiphonics with echoes of “Body and Soul”. Presaged by heraldic trumpet lines, the final variant bounces among woodwind key percussion, spiccato string spikes and drum rolls. The ending consists of vanishing yet lyrical flute blows.

While the specifics of the composition’s organic relationship to a graphic-score-directed concerto or its allusion to the skills of a departed trumpet stylist may a bit murky, the GIO proves itself a praiseworthy ensemble. Operating at the same exalted level as other contemporary improvising orchestras, the band indicates that more outstanding music lies in its future.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Improcherto (for HB)

Personnel: Robert Henderson (trumpet); Chris Barclay (trombone); Lol Coxhill (soprano saxophone); Raymond MacDonald (soprano and alto saxophones); Evan Parker (tenor saxophone); Graeme Wilson (baritone saxophone); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Emma Roche, Liene Rozite and Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); Gerry Rossi (piano); George Burt and Neil Davidson (guitar); Nikki Moran (viola); Peter Nicholson (cello); Una MacGlone and Armin Sturm (bass); Rick Bamford and Stuart Brown (drums) and Fritz Welch (percussion)

September 1, 2012

MacDonald/Fujii/Davidson/Tamura/Bancroft

Cities
Nu-Jazz NJGLO59-2

Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core

Stone Shift

RogueArt Rog-0025

Nearly ubiquitous internationally – or so it often appears – keyboardist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura are as likely to be found playing with their American combos or big bands as with a variety of other groups located in their Tokyo hometown.

Open to more musical experiences then those where they call all the shots, husband-and-wife Tamura and Fujii, who plays piano, synthesizer and accordion, may join other groups for short or extended periods. These superior CDs, recorded two years apart, demonstrate their adaptability. Cities results from a two-day Glasgow gig that joined the two with a trio of Scottish improvisers –saxophonist Raymond MacDonald, guitarist Neil Davidson and drummer Tom Bancroft – all of whom are as omnipresent in that city’s music scene as Tamura and Fujii are internationally.

Stone Shift is another matter. Together since the beginning of the century, saxophonist Larry Ochs and dual drummers Donald Robinson and Scott Amendola extend the textures of their Sax & Drumming Core band by adding Tamura and Fujii on a regular basis. Ochs, who wrote all the tunes here, now has more colors for his compositional palate, while making the band name slightly vestigial.

This is especially obvious on the title tune, subtitled “For Kurosawa” – doubtlessly honoring the Japanese director. After the two percussionists move spectrally across the sonic space with thumping patterns reminiscent of Taiko drumming, Tamura’s whinnying tremolos appear in double counterpoint with Ochs’ harsh, near-swallowed reed textures. Fujii plays a dual role – something that may have appealed to Kurosawa – alternating skittering synthesizer pedal point with organically thick piano runs. As the tune slithers along, and both of her keyboards move in a portamento fashion, strangled cries and capillary growls drop from the trumpet, matched by thin, almost-Asiatic repetitive trills from Ochs’ soprano sax. Finally the horns encapsulate their variations by intermingling squeezed reed chirps and burbling brass cries. All the while rough cymbal echoes, rattling snares and spacious rebound from Robinson and Amendola shore up the bottom. Finally, a wash of near-vocal synthesizer textures complete the aural picture.

The introductory “Across From Over”, which clocks in at more than 19 minutes, delineates all this and more, as the resonating cracks, ruffs, slaps and retorts from the dual drummers begin to suggest African and Native American percussion patterns. One man echoes Pharoah Sanders’ percussion-heavy forays of the 1960s, while the other suggests the Universal Indians motifs of the Ayler brothers’ percussionists of around the same time. In fact, intentionally or not, spluttering split tones at the top of Ochs’ range ejaculated with a tough tenor-styled thickness recall Albert Ayler’s soloing, while the trumpeter’s sluicing triplets and bent, whinnying notes are reminiscent of Donald Ayler’s limited style. “Across From Over” shouldn’t be confused with a period-piece salute however. Fujii’s two-handed synthesizer flutters and swift piano glissandi are definitely of this century though, while the tactile press rolls, breakneck ruffs, cross-patterning flams and polyrhythmic time dislocation from the drummers confirms the CD’s 21st Century origin.

Also very much in this century, and a testament to Scottish improvisers new-found sophistication, is Cities. Using only acoustic instruments – except for electric guitar – the nine tracks confirm how seamlessly Fujii’s and Tamura’s skills blend with those of others. Overall, the only downside here would be that the keyboardist’s familiarity with the inner working of the piano and its strings are such that it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint guitarist Davidson’s contributions in the mix. A further anomaly is that a burst of applause at the end of one track is the only one heard – an odd juxtaposition for a session recorded at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts.

Davidson’s below-the-bridge sweeps and angular picking are obvious on “Two Blocks East” where they join with Fujii’s walking bass line and peal point pressure. As her patterning becomes thicker and louder, it’s contrapuntally challenged by reed bites from MacDonald and tremolo tongue motions from Tamura. Bancroft’s drumming has already accelerated from gentle sand-dance-like strokes to thick, resounding thumps in order to match the saxman’s masticated tones. Now the narrative foreshortens to make room for cawing reed lines, vibrating trumpet flourishes, guitar string snaps, pummeled piano runs plus hard ruffs and strokes from the drums. Turning moderato, repeated trumpet measures bring the band back to earth.

Weighty and frail timbres figure into other instant compositions, such as “Oxygenitis” and “Overload”. On the former Fujii’s sharp key stabs accompany light-toned flutters and lyrical vibrations from MacDonald, who almost sounds like a modernistic, Glaswegian Stan Getz here. Furthermore, his delicately tongued alto work includes constructing a buzzing obbligato to Tamura’s whirring grace notes. Then as Bancroft ruffles his drum tops, the pianist splatters note textures and yanks jagged asides from the instrument’s nether regions. More of the same, “Overload” features Fujii’s heavy chording moving crab-like on one line, as MacDonald and Tamura follow a parallel path in double counterpoint. The saxophonist irregularly vibrates and squeaks, while the trumpeter wah-wahs. This ends with both cascading notes. While Davidson’s occasional plinks add an additional sound layer, Bancroft’s rebounds and rumbles keep the improvisational edifice balanced.

Throughout these and the other tracks, the quintet runs through a litany of high and low frequency reed slurs, kinetic chording, internal piano string plinks, brass mouthpiece kisses and any manner of metronomic or broken-time strategies from the drummer. The cumulative results range from shrill to smooth, but few sounds are less than remarkable.

Extending their range and collaborations further, Tamura and Fujii prove that a mixed Japanese-Scottish session is only a bit les memorable than one featuring simpatico Japanese and American players.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Stone: 1. Across From Over 2. Abstraction Rising 3. Stone Shift (for Kurosawa)

Personnel: Stone: Natsuki Tamura (trumpet); Larry Ochs (tenor and sopranino saxophones); Satoko Fujii (piano and synthesizer) and Donald Robinson and Scott Amendola (drums)

Track Listing: Cities: 1. Navigation 2. Parallel Shapes 3. Overload 4. A Strange Prediction 5. Two Blocks East 6. Into the Diversion 7. Oxygenitis 8. How did I get Here 9. Euphoria

Personnel: Cities: Natsuki Tamura (trumpet); Raymond MacDonald (alto and soprano saxophones); Satoko Fujii (piano); Neil Davidson (guitar) and Tom Bancroft (drums)

February 16, 2010

Anthony Braxton + Italian Instabile Orchestra

Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) 2007
RAI Trade RTP J0013

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra

GIOPoetics

Creative Sources CS 114 CD

Creating large form improvisations involving groups of musicians in polyphonic agreement without losing the spontaneity implicit in smaller groups has long been a challenge for composers. Many methods have been tried in order to introduce and maintain sonic freedom when the ensemble is larger than the standard 16-piece Jazz band. These mostly European sessions outline two successful ways of doing so.

Consisting of many of that country’s most advanced players, the 17-piece Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) has been coping with this conundrum during its existence, playing compositions germinated by band members as well as creations for guest soloists such as pianist Cecil Taylor. For his part, American reedist/composer Anthony Braxton has also been dealing with the large-group challenge at least since the late 1970s. Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) shows how members of the IIO express themselves individually through the medium of four Braxton compositions – with the composer’s participation.

Much younger in conception, the 20-piece Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO), which successfully utilized a variant of the IIO-Braxton partnership when bassist Barry Guy worked with the band in 2005, resolves the large ensemble challenge in a different fashion. Rather than numbered compositions, here the GIO plays three short improvisations plus a so-called discretely structured piece by saxophonist and GIO member Raymond MacDonald

Each approach is equally valid as is the music on both CDs.

Although Braxton’s distance from Jazz – whatever the term means – is well known, his composing and playing is informed by Jazz> Considering that the IIO is made up of some of the peninsula’s most accomplished Jazz players, Bolzano may be the American’s most overtly Jazzy date in years. Unfortunately no soloists are identified. Although it’s pretty obvious that the distinctively rough and funky tenor saxophone of Daniele Cavallanti and jocular and pumping baritone saxophone of Carlo Actis Dato are featured, along with the sharp and serrated spiccato of Emanuele Parrini’s violin.

Layered and polyphonic, the Braxton scores list either towards notated formalism or looser Jazz-styled rhythms. It’s a credit to Braxton and the IIO that neither sonic strand is supreme – nor does either submerge solo or group free-form improvisation. More praxis than pastiche, the initial composition is hung on a series of stretched and swelling sound blocks, often with rococo-like clarinet warbling and string-section pulses sustaining the lyricism. The piece eventually opens up to reveal and then swiftly swallow distinctive solos. These include sharp, stop-and-start cello arpeggios; tenor saxophone tongue slaps and snorts; wood block thwacks and snare ruffs from the percussionists; plunger trombone and trumpet interpolation; Parrini’s overriding fiddle line; and expanded warbling grace notes from an alto saxophonist who may be Braxton, Eugenio Colombo or Gianluigi Trovesi.

Easing into “Composition No. 92 Part 1”, the beat is strong enough to suggest the Peter Gun theme. Horn glissandi and muscular rhythm section comping move the piece chromatically forward, as Giovanni Maier’s bass walks and Vincenzo Mazzone’s and Tiziano Tononi’s dual kits rumble, clatter and smack. Meanwhile one of the trombonists – perhaps Giancarlo Schiaffini – smears and brays raucously to match the triple-tonguing and vamping from Cavallanti. Eventually percussive rim shots and slaps plus metal-resonating reed bites from the tenor man lead to the becalmed patterning of “Composition No. 164 Part 1”.

Don’t imagine that the orchestral shifts are so obvious that the band dons alternate Count Basie-like or Arturo Toscanini-like coloration. But the textured mixtures are maintained throughout the performance as staccato and alternately smooth, thick and thin, as tough and tender passages complement and mirror one another. Feathery light trumpet spits meet thick reed vibratos; tick-tock, high frequency piano chords mix it up with lightly paced contralto clarinet and airy flute runs; and rattling percussion extensions face subterranean baritone saxophone and tuba growls. Often forte, mercurial string stops find their variations intercut with hocketing blasts and puffs from the horns.

If the IIO and Braxton deal with large-scale improv by alternately legato and staccato measures, plus solo and group passages, then the GIO – recorded less than two weeks earlier –follows a different game plan. Essentially the poetics here are group poetics, with no differentiation between soloist and accompanist. Simultaneously independent and interrelated, every sound appears at the same time. What that means is that ragged, jagged and abrasive cross currents mix sul ponticello below-the-bridge scrapes from the strings, split-tone chirps and ratchets from the reeds and bell-muted brass grace notes.

Solid, yet minimalist, the narrative is advanced in broken octaves with distant choked voicing, shuffle bowing and understated valve squeezes from the brass. Most characteristic is “I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen.” As a legato, sequenced flourish is introduced by trumpeter Matthew Cairns, the six strings scrub and rub bow patterns while the two drummers slap, stroke and drag pulses from their kits. Diminutive interludes encompassing George Burt’s acoustic guitar strums and MacDonald’s crying alto saxophone vibrations easily fade back into the sonic miasma of wood-splitting strokes from the bassists, discordant electric guitar lines and high-pitched flute peeps. No summation, the tune reflects the preceding piece and adumbrates the dissonant and dense movement that follows it.

Formally tracking the linear progress of large group improvisation is probably as fruitless as trying to construct a historical time lines for any music. However listening to either or both of these notable sessions will show how performances by these particular formations are evolving on their own.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Bolzano: 1. Composition No.. 63 2. Composition No. 92 Part 1 3. Composition No. 164 Part 1 4. Composition No. 92 Part 2 5. Composition No. 164 Part 2 6. Composition No. 59

Personnel: Bolzano: Pino Minafra, Alberto Mandarini, Guido Mazzon (trumpets); Lauro Rossi, Sebi Tramontana and Gincarlo Schiaffini (trombones); Martin Mayes (French horn); Anthony Braxton (sopranino and alto saxophones); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone and Eb clarinet); Eugenio Colombo (alto saxophone, flute and bass flute); Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone); Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone); Emanuele Parrini (violin); Paolo Damiani (cello); Umberto Petrin (piano); Giovanni Maier (bass)and Vincenzo and Tiziano Tononi (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Poetics: 1. Apricot Path 2. Dog’s Got My Money 3. I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen 4. Distributed Talk

Personnel: Poetics: Matthew Cairns (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Raymond MacDonald (soprano and alto saxophones); Graeme Wilson (tenor and baritone saxophones); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); Emma Roche (flute and baroque flute); Nick Fells (shakuhachi); George Burt (acoustic guitar); Neil Davidson (electric guitar); Krzysztof Hladowski (bouzouki); Ernesto Rodrigues (viola); Guilherme Rodrigues, Jessica Sullivan and Peter Nicholson (cello); George Lyle and Armin Sturm (bass); Richard Bamford and Stuart Brown (drums and percussion) and Aileen Campbell (voice)

January 6, 2010

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra GIOPoetics
Creative Sources CS 114 CD

Anthony Braxton + Italian Instabile Orchestra

Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) 2007

RAI Trade RTP J0013

Creating large form improvisations involving groups of musicians in polyphonic agreement without losing the spontaneity implicit in smaller groups has long been a challenge for composers. Many methods have been tried in order to introduce and maintain sonic freedom when the ensemble is larger than the standard 16-piece Jazz band. These mostly European sessions outline two successful ways of doing so.

Consisting of many of that country’s most advanced players, the 17-piece Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) has been coping with this conundrum during its existence, playing compositions germinated by band members as well as creations for guest soloists such as pianist Cecil Taylor. For his part, American reedist/composer Anthony Braxton has also been dealing with the large-group challenge at least since the late 1970s. Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) shows how members of the IIO express themselves individually through the medium of four Braxton compositions – with the composer’s participation.

Much younger in conception, the 20-piece Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO), which successfully utilized a variant of the IIO-Braxton partnership when bassist Barry Guy worked with the band in 2005, resolves the large ensemble challenge in a different fashion. Rather than numbered compositions, here the GIO plays three short improvisations plus a so-called discretely structured piece by saxophonist and GIO member Raymond MacDonald

Each approach is equally valid as is the music on both CDs.

Although Braxton’s distance from Jazz – whatever the term means – is well known, his composing and playing is informed by Jazz> Considering that the IIO is made up of some of the peninsula’s most accomplished Jazz players, Bolzano may be the American’s most overtly Jazzy date in years. Unfortunately no soloists are identified. Although it’s pretty obvious that the distinctively rough and funky tenor saxophone of Daniele Cavallanti and jocular and pumping baritone saxophone of Carlo Actis Dato are featured, along with the sharp and serrated spiccato of Emanuele Parrini’s violin.

Layered and polyphonic, the Braxton scores list either towards notated formalism or looser Jazz-styled rhythms. It’s a credit to Braxton and the IIO that neither sonic strand is supreme – nor does either submerge solo or group free-form improvisation. More praxis than pastiche, the initial composition is hung on a series of stretched and swelling sound blocks, often with rococo-like clarinet warbling and string-section pulses sustaining the lyricism. The piece eventually opens up to reveal and then swiftly swallow distinctive solos. These include sharp, stop-and-start cello arpeggios; tenor saxophone tongue slaps and snorts; wood block thwacks and snare ruffs from the percussionists; plunger trombone and trumpet interpolation; Parrini’s overriding fiddle line; and expanded warbling grace notes from an alto saxophonist who may be Braxton, Eugenio Colombo or Gianluigi Trovesi.

Easing into “Composition No. 92 Part 1”, the beat is strong enough to suggest the Peter Gun theme. Horn glissandi and muscular rhythm section comping move the piece chromatically forward, as Giovanni Maier’s bass walks and Vincenzo Mazzone’s and Tiziano Tononi’s dual kits rumble, clatter and smack. Meanwhile one of the trombonists – perhaps Giancarlo Schiaffini – smears and brays raucously to match the triple-tonguing and vamping from Cavallanti. Eventually percussive rim shots and slaps plus metal-resonating reed bites from the tenor man lead to the becalmed patterning of “Composition No. 164 Part 1”.

Don’t imagine that the orchestral shifts are so obvious that the band dons alternate Count Basie-like or Arturo Toscanini-like coloration. But the textured mixtures are maintained throughout the performance as staccato and alternately smooth, thick and thin, as tough and tender passages complement and mirror one another. Feathery light trumpet spits meet thick reed vibratos; tick-tock, high frequency piano chords mix it up with lightly paced contralto clarinet and airy flute runs; and rattling percussion extensions face subterranean baritone saxophone and tuba growls. Often forte, mercurial string stops find their variations intercut with hocketing blasts and puffs from the horns.

If the IIO and Braxton deal with large-scale improv by alternately legato and staccato measures, plus solo and group passages, then the GIO – recorded less than two weeks earlier –follows a different game plan. Essentially the poetics here are group poetics, with no differentiation between soloist and accompanist. Simultaneously independent and interrelated, every sound appears at the same time. What that means is that ragged, jagged and abrasive cross currents mix sul ponticello below-the-bridge scrapes from the strings, split-tone chirps and ratchets from the reeds and bell-muted brass grace notes.

Solid, yet minimalist, the narrative is advanced in broken octaves with distant choked voicing, shuffle bowing and understated valve squeezes from the brass. Most characteristic is “I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen.” As a legato, sequenced flourish is introduced by trumpeter Matthew Cairns, the six strings scrub and rub bow patterns while the two drummers slap, stroke and drag pulses from their kits. Diminutive interludes encompassing George Burt’s acoustic guitar strums and MacDonald’s crying alto saxophone vibrations easily fade back into the sonic miasma of wood-splitting strokes from the bassists, discordant electric guitar lines and high-pitched flute peeps. No summation, the tune reflects the preceding piece and adumbrates the dissonant and dense movement that follows it.

Formally tracking the linear progress of large group improvisation is probably as fruitless as trying to construct a historical time lines for any music. However listening to either or both of these notable sessions will show how performances by these particular formations are evolving on their own.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Bolzano: 1. Composition No.. 63 2. Composition No. 92 Part 1 3. Composition No. 164 Part 1 4. Composition No. 92 Part 2 5. Composition No. 164 Part 2 6. Composition No. 59

Personnel: Bolzano: Pino Minafra, Alberto Mandarini, Guido Mazzon (trumpets); Lauro Rossi, Sebi Tramontana and Gincarlo Schiaffini (trombones); Martin Mayes (French horn); Anthony Braxton (sopranino and alto saxophones); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone and Eb clarinet); Eugenio Colombo (alto saxophone, flute and bass flute); Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone); Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone); Emanuele Parrini (violin); Paolo Damiani (cello); Umberto Petrin (piano); Giovanni Maier (bass)and Vincenzo and Tiziano Tononi (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Poetics: 1. Apricot Path 2. Dog’s Got My Money 3. I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen 4. Distributed Talk

Personnel: Poetics: Matthew Cairns (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Raymond MacDonald (soprano and alto saxophones); Graeme Wilson (tenor and baritone saxophones); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); Emma Roche (flute and baroque flute); Nick Fells (shakuhachi); George Burt (acoustic guitar); Neil Davidson (electric guitar); Krzysztof Hladowski (bouzouki); Ernesto Rodrigues (viola); Guilherme Rodrigues, Jessica Sullivan and Peter Nicholson (cello); George Lyle and Armin Sturm (bass); Richard Bamford and Stuart Brown (drums and percussion) and Aileen Campbell (voice)

January 6, 2010

London & Glasgow Improvisers Orchestras

Separately & Together
Emanem 4219

London Improvisers Orchestra

Improvisations for George Riste

psi 08.06

Successfully guiding free-form improvisations and conductions utilizing the talents of independent musicians in a large orchestra is a challenge; trying to do the same with two outsized improvising ensembles can be foolhardy. Yet that memorable experiment is captured on Separately & Together, a two-CD record of a 2007 meeting between London’s 27-piece Improvisers Orchestra and Glasgow’s 17-piece Improvisers Orchestra. Separate sets by both bands are also featured.

Improvisations for George Riste is another notable achievement, since it gathers together four extended non-conducted improvisations from the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO), recorded in different configurations during 2003, plus one from 2007.

Subscribing to an antithetical set of dynamic, rhythmic, tonal and sonic considerations despite their numbers, there’s no way this combination of the LIO and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) creates a cumulative sound close to jazz’s most famous orchestral meeting: that of Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s big bands.

Despite intermixing both bands’ players the immediacy of individual performers is still as evident as it would be in solo flights from any Basie or Ellington bandsmen. For instance “1+1=Different”, which is built on an undertow and nearly physical feel of percussion rattling and thumping, the surging performance maintains its distinct character due to individual players’ strategies. Punctuating the massed drones, pauses and tutti cries among ever-shifting orchestral color fields, are spiraling saxophone spurts and rubato braying from the trumpets; Veryan Weston’s vertical, low-frequency piano chording that keeps the surging line from dissolving into stasis; plus Jackie Walduck’s vibraphone splashes; and a series of flute chirps from Emma Roche and Matthew Studdert-Kennedy that maintain legato formalism.

Meanwhile Catherine Pluygers’ keening oboe sets up the gradual introduction of vamps from the brass, which serve as connective tissue between three percussionists’ marital beats and distorted waves from three guitars, bouzouki, five violins and three celli. As distending string squirms and aviary-pitched reed breaths coalesce, Evan Parker’s elongated tenor saxophone line signals this conduction’s completion.

On its own, the smaller GIO defines itself as the equivalent of the rough-and-ready Basie Band in comparison to the LIO’s stately Ellington-like near-formalism. Whistling brass flutters, thick bass clarinet splatters and an overlay of sibilant flute pressure characterize the GIO’s performances, especially “Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy)”. Evolving from andante exposition to adagio summation, the orchestral coloration makes room for raucous alto saxophone blurts from Raymond MacDonald and fierce triplet exultation from trumpeter Robert Henderson, along with squeezed vocal lines courtesy of Aileen Campbell. Arriving at pseudo-Impressionism, the composition’s sonic tinctures change color gradually, as first one sound than another leeches from the performance like air leaking from a balloon – with the ending built around an assembly of gradually accelerating cello slices from Peter Nicholson.

Playing on its own, the LIO demonstrates how a nine-person string section, two electric guitars and unexpected instruments such as oboe and bamboo pipes can be used for jagged pitch-sliding and solo elaboration as well as scene-setting. Throughout, as the group alternates crescendos and decrescendos of cumulative group improvisation and individual solos, the idea remains that like some of Ellington’s work, the LIO’s overriding impulse is to highlight unique instrumental settings rather than insisting on scene-stopping dramatic statements. That said, most of the improvisations and conductions take full advantage of most of the instruments’ full ranges to add three- dimensional effects to any track’s overall grisaille. For instance John Rangecroft’s high-pitched clarinet glissandi is matched up against, and contrasted with, ratcheting vibraphone blows from Walduck.

Violinist Phil Wachsmann’s conduction, “On the Point of Influence” and the improvisation that precede it demonstrate how any LIO performance can be orchestral and scene-setting as well as contrapuntal, with mercurial solo edging. Layering stratum of instrumental color on top of one another, the piece quickly puts aside a cacophony of pulled, puffed and brayed horn timbres for more lyrical tone extensions. Saxophone obbligatos and heraldic horn parts operate in broken-octave congruence with one another, while sudden rubato trombone plunges from Robert Jarvis feed off an overlay of vibraphone notes and kinetic piano lines. With a wide spread of pizzicato and arco string chords, the ability exists to highlight sul ponticello roughness, traditional walking bass lines from David Leahy and Dominic Lash plus a final mournful cello extro. Further contrast arrives in a coda of brassy flourishes and clattering and popping rebounds from the percussionist.

Four years earlier, different manifestation of the LIO, numbering from 17 to 20 pieces, put together the tracks collected on Improvisations for George Riste. In a transatlantic version of CanCon, the title(s) celebrate then tenacity of Vancouver’s Riste, who refused to sell his 30-room downtown hotel to B.C. Hydro, despite the fact that the giant entity owned all the adjacent property and wanted to build an office tower there. Riste’s reason was altruism; his hotel provided clean, affordable rooms for locals.

Metaphorically it’s Riste’s individuality rather than his altruism that’s celebrated on this disc, since the performances give free reign to committed playing from a clutch of London-based improvisers. “Improvisations for George Riste 4” for instance – which was actually recorded one month after Separately & Together – suggests some of the late John Stevens’ work with expanded versions of the Spontaneous Musical Ensemble. While individuals and sections move to the forefront, never is the expected separation between soloist and backing ensemble emphasized.

Using contrapuntal bridges and broken-octave connections, the idea is to operate on a vector, working polyphonic variants into a cumulative and cooperative formula. A smaller string section of two violins and two celli sound both legato pitch-sliding and sul ponticello chords; twittering, balloon-like huffs from the four brass players ping-pong back-and-forth; while the four percussion-like instruments link ratamacues and drags into an unvarying bedrock crunch. Even tongue-slaps from one or more of the five reed players and braying trumpet blurts merely add to the sfumato tinctures. Eventually guitar lick distortions from John Bisset and Dave Tucker, plus feathery flute vibrations from Neil Metcalfe help cement the interface.

Similarly, “Improvisations for George Riste 1” proves that despite what in other circumstances could be attention-drawing cross-pulsed reed cries, sobs and gasps from the like of Parker, John Butcher, Lol Coxhill and Caroline Kraabel, the improvisation remains low-key and pianissimo. This time the polyphony is thick, but it isn’t so blanketing that individual contributions – ranging from Amy Denio’s sluicing accordion vibrations, Metcalfe’s piercing flute shrills and cumulative warbling reed swells – aren’t obvious.

Anyone interested in hearing 21st Century variations on orchestral improvisations would be wise to investigate these CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Improvisations: 1. Improvisations for George Riste 1 2. Improvisations for George Riste 2 3. Improvisations for George Riste 3 4. Improvisations for George Riste 4

Personnel: Improvisations: 1: Roland Ramanan (trumpet and wooden flute); Ian Smith (trumpet); Neil Metcalfe (flute); John Rangecroft (clarinet); Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Adrian Northover (soprano and alto saxophones); Caroline Kraabel (alto saxophone); John Butcher (tenor saxophone); Philipp Wachsmann (violin); Charlotte Hug (viola); B. J. Cole (pedal steel guitar); Steve Beresford (piano); Amy Denio (accordion and voice); David Leahy (bass); Tony Marsh (percussion); Orphy Robinson (percussion and electronics); Knut Aufermann (electronics) and Filomena Campus (voice) 2: Harry Beckett, Guillermo Torres and Ramanan (trumpet); Robert Jarvis (trombone); Catherine Pluygers (oboe); Rangecroft; Jacques Foschia and Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Coxhill and Adrian Northover (soprano saxophone); Sylvia Hallett and Wachsmann (violin); Beresford; Dave Tucker (guitar); Marcio Mattos (cello); Simon H Fell and Leahy (bass); Marsh; Adam Bohman (amplified objects) and Aufermann 3: Beckett; Smith; Guillermo Torres (flugelhorn); Jarvis; Parker; Northover and Kraabel (alto saxophone); Susanna Ferrar (violin); Fell; Tucker; Beresford; Annie Lewandowski (accordion and musical saw); Marsh; Bohman; Aufermann and Pat Thomas (electronics) 4: Smith; Metcalfe; Rangecroft Chefa Alonso, Coxhill and Northover (soprano saxophone); Simon Rose (alto saxophone); Ferrar; Ivor Kallin (violin and viola); Mattos and Barbara Meyer (cello); John Bisset and Tucker (guitar); Beresford; Jackie Walduck (vibraphone); Javier Carmona and Marsh (percussion) and Bohman

Track Listing: Separately: CD A: Impro intro 2. On the Point of Influence 3. PW to AW 4. Study for Oppy Wood 5. AW to AB 6. Hive Life 7. Too late, too late, it’s Ever so Late 8. Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy) 9. Stagione CD B: 1. Big Ideas, Images and Distorted facts 2. 811 joint response 3. 1+1=different 4. Outlaw

Personnel: Separately: London Improvisers Orchestra [Beckett, Ramanan, Smith (trumpet); Jarvis (trombone); Pluygers (oboe); Terry Day (bamboo pipes); Rangecroft (clarinet); Alonso, Coxhill, Northover (soprano saxophone); Kraabel (alto saxophone); Parker (tenor saxophone); Alison Blunt, Ferrar, Hallett, Wachsmann (violin); Kallin (violin, viola); Hannah Marshall, Mattos, Meyer (cello); Veryan Weston (piano); Bisset, Tucker (guitar); Walduck, (vibraphone); Leahy and Dominic Lash (bass);Carmona (percussion)] and Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra [Matthew Cairns, Robert Henderson (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Emma Roche, Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Raymond MacDonald (alto saxophone); Graeme Wilson (baritone saxophone; George Burt, Neil Davidson (guitar); Chris Hladowski (bouzouki); Peter Nicholson, cello; Una MacGlone, Armin Sturm (bass); Rick Bamford, Stuart Brown, percussion] and Aileen Campbell (voice)

December 18, 2008

London Improvisers Orchestra

Improvisations for George Riste
psi 08.06

London & Glasgow Improvisers Orchestras

Separately & Together

Emanem 4219

Successfully guiding free-form improvisations and conductions utilizing the talents of independent musicians in a large orchestra is a challenge; trying to do the same with two outsized improvising ensembles can be foolhardy. Yet that memorable experiment is captured on Separately & Together, a two-CD record of a 2007 meeting between London’s 27-piece Improvisers Orchestra and Glasgow’s 17-piece Improvisers Orchestra. Separate sets by both bands are also featured.

Improvisations for George Riste is another notable achievement, since it gathers together four extended non-conducted improvisations from the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO), recorded in different configurations during 2003, plus one from 2007.

Subscribing to an antithetical set of dynamic, rhythmic, tonal and sonic considerations despite their numbers, there’s no way this combination of the LIO and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) creates a cumulative sound close to jazz’s most famous orchestral meeting: that of Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s big bands.

Despite intermixing both bands’ players the immediacy of individual performers is still as evident as it would be in solo flights from any Basie or Ellington bandsmen. For instance “1+1=Different”, which is built on an undertow and nearly physical feel of percussion rattling and thumping, the surging performance maintains its distinct character due to individual players’ strategies. Punctuating the massed drones, pauses and tutti cries among ever-shifting orchestral color fields, are spiraling saxophone spurts and rubato braying from the trumpets; Veryan Weston’s vertical, low-frequency piano chording that keeps the surging line from dissolving into stasis; plus Jackie Walduck’s vibraphone splashes; and a series of flute chirps from Emma Roche and Matthew Studdert-Kennedy that maintain legato formalism.

Meanwhile Catherine Pluygers’ keening oboe sets up the gradual introduction of vamps from the brass, which serve as connective tissue between three percussionists’ marital beats and distorted waves from three guitars, bouzouki, five violins and three celli. As distending string squirms and aviary-pitched reed breaths coalesce, Evan Parker’s elongated tenor saxophone line signals this conduction’s completion.

On its own, the smaller GIO defines itself as the equivalent of the rough-and-ready Basie Band in comparison to the LIO’s stately Ellington-like near-formalism. Whistling brass flutters, thick bass clarinet splatters and an overlay of sibilant flute pressure characterize the GIO’s performances, especially “Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy)”. Evolving from andante exposition to adagio summation, the orchestral coloration makes room for raucous alto saxophone blurts from Raymond MacDonald and fierce triplet exultation from trumpeter Robert Henderson, along with squeezed vocal lines courtesy of Aileen Campbell. Arriving at pseudo-Impressionism, the composition’s sonic tinctures change color gradually, as first one sound than another leeches from the performance like air leaking from a balloon – with the ending built around an assembly of gradually accelerating cello slices from Peter Nicholson.

Playing on its own, the LIO demonstrates how a nine-person string section, two electric guitars and unexpected instruments such as oboe and bamboo pipes can be used for jagged pitch-sliding and solo elaboration as well as scene-setting. Throughout, as the group alternates crescendos and decrescendos of cumulative group improvisation and individual solos, the idea remains that like some of Ellington’s work, the LIO’s overriding impulse is to highlight unique instrumental settings rather than insisting on scene-stopping dramatic statements. That said, most of the improvisations and conductions take full advantage of most of the instruments’ full ranges to add three- dimensional effects to any track’s overall grisaille. For instance John Rangecroft’s high-pitched clarinet glissandi is matched up against, and contrasted with, ratcheting vibraphone blows from Walduck.

Violinist Phil Wachsmann’s conduction, “On the Point of Influence” and the improvisation that precede it demonstrate how any LIO performance can be orchestral and scene-setting as well as contrapuntal, with mercurial solo edging. Layering stratum of instrumental color on top of one another, the piece quickly puts aside a cacophony of pulled, puffed and brayed horn timbres for more lyrical tone extensions. Saxophone obbligatos and heraldic horn parts operate in broken-octave congruence with one another, while sudden rubato trombone plunges from Robert Jarvis feed off an overlay of vibraphone notes and kinetic piano lines. With a wide spread of pizzicato and arco string chords, the ability exists to highlight sul ponticello roughness, traditional walking bass lines from David Leahy and Dominic Lash plus a final mournful cello extro. Further contrast arrives in a coda of brassy flourishes and clattering and popping rebounds from the percussionist.

Four years earlier, different manifestation of the LIO, numbering from 17 to 20 pieces, put together the tracks collected on Improvisations for George Riste. In a transatlantic version of CanCon, the title(s) celebrate then tenacity of Vancouver’s Riste, who refused to sell his 30-room downtown hotel to B.C. Hydro, despite the fact that the giant entity owned all the adjacent property and wanted to build an office tower there. Riste’s reason was altruism; his hotel provided clean, affordable rooms for locals.

Metaphorically it’s Riste’s individuality rather than his altruism that’s celebrated on this disc, since the performances give free reign to committed playing from a clutch of London-based improvisers. “Improvisations for George Riste 4” for instance – which was actually recorded one month after Separately & Together – suggests some of the late John Stevens’ work with expanded versions of the Spontaneous Musical Ensemble. While individuals and sections move to the forefront, never is the expected separation between soloist and backing ensemble emphasized.

Using contrapuntal bridges and broken-octave connections, the idea is to operate on a vector, working polyphonic variants into a cumulative and cooperative formula. A smaller string section of two violins and two celli sound both legato pitch-sliding and sul ponticello chords; twittering, balloon-like huffs from the four brass players ping-pong back-and-forth; while the four percussion-like instruments link ratamacues and drags into an unvarying bedrock crunch. Even tongue-slaps from one or more of the five reed players and braying trumpet blurts merely add to the sfumato tinctures. Eventually guitar lick distortions from John Bisset and Dave Tucker, plus feathery flute vibrations from Neil Metcalfe help cement the interface.

Similarly, “Improvisations for George Riste 1” proves that despite what in other circumstances could be attention-drawing cross-pulsed reed cries, sobs and gasps from the like of Parker, John Butcher, Lol Coxill and Caroline Kraabel, the improvisation remains low-key and pianissimo. This time the polyphony is thick, but it isn’t so blanketing that individual contributions – ranging from Amy Denio’s sluicing accordion vibrations, Metcalfe’s piercing flute shrills and cumulative warbling reed swells – aren’t obvious.

Anyone interested in hearing 21st Century variations on orchestral improvisations would be wise to investigate these CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Improvisations: 1. Improvisations for George Riste 1 2. Improvisations for George Riste 2 3. Improvisations for George Riste 3 4. Improvisations for George Riste 4

Personnel: Improvisations: 1: Roland Ramanan (trumpet and wooden flute); Ian Smith (trumpet); Neil Metcalfe (flute); John Rangecroft (clarinet); Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Adrian Northover (soprano and alto saxophones); Caroline Kraabel (alto saxophone); John Butcher (tenor saxophone); Philipp Wachsmann (violin); Charlotte Hug (viola); B. J. Cole (pedal steel guitar); Steve Beresford (piano); Amy Denio (accordion and voice); David Leahy (bass); Tony Marsh (percussion); Orphy Robinson (percussion and electronics); Knut Aufermann (electronics) and Filomena Campus (voice) 2: Harry Beckett, Guillermo Torres and Ramanan (trumpet); Robert Jarvis (trombone); Catherine Pluygers (oboe); Rangecroft; Jacques Foschia and Harrison Smith (bass clarinet); Coxhill and Adrian Northover (soprano saxophone); Sylvia Hallett and Wachsmann (violin); Beresford; Dave Tucker (guitar); Marcio Mattos (cello); Simon H Fell and Leahy (bass); Marsh; Adam Bohman (amplified objects) and Aufermann 3: Beckett; Smith; Guillermo Torres (flugelhorn); Jarvis; Parker; Northover and Kraabel (alto saxophone); Susanna Ferrar (violin); Fell; Tucker; Beresford; Annie Lewandowski (accordion and musical saw); Marsh; Bohman; Aufermann and Pat Thomas (electronics) 4: Smith; Metcalfe; Rangecroft Chefa Alonso, Coxhill and Northover (soprano saxophone); Simon Rose (alto saxophone); Ferrar; Ivor Kallin (violin and viola); Mattos and Barbara Meyer (cello); John Bisset and Tucker (guitar); Beresford; Jackie Walduck (vibraphone); Javier Carmona and Marsh (percussion) and Bohman

Track Listing: Separately: CD A: Impro intro 2. On the Point of Influence 3. PW to AW 4. Study for Oppy Wood 5. AW to AB 6. Hive Life 7. Too late, too late, it’s Ever so Late 8. Seven Sisters (for Barry Guy) 9. Stagione CD B: 1. Big Ideas, Images and Distorted facts 2. 811 joint response 3. 1+1=different 4. Outlaw

Personnel: Separately: London Improvisers Orchestra [Beckett, Ramanan, Smith (trumpet); Jarvis (trombone); Pluygers (oboe); Terry Day (bamboo pipes); Rangecroft (clarinet); Alonso, Coxhill, Northover (soprano saxophone); Kraabel (alto saxophone); Parker (tenor saxophone); Alison Blunt, Ferrar, Hallett, Wachsmann (violin); Kallin (violin, viola); Hannah Marshall, Mattos, Meyer (cello); Veryan Weston (piano); Bisset, Tucker (guitar); Walduck, (vibraphone); Leahy and Dominic Lash (bass);Carmona (percussion)] and Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra [Matthew Cairns, Robert Henderson (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Emma Roche, Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Raymond MacDonald (alto saxophone); Graeme Wilson (baritone saxophone; George Burt, Neil Davidson (guitar); Chris Hladowski (bouzouki); Peter Nicholson, cello; Una MacGlone, Armin Sturm (bass); Rick Bamford, Stuart Brown, percussion] and Aileen Campbell (voice)

December 18, 2008

The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra with Barry Guy

Falkirk
FMR CD 168-i0706

La Pieuvre

Ellipse

Helix LX 002

Ever since American Butch Morris introduced the concept of using “conduction” to help improvising ensembles express musical ideas without formalistic structures, the model has been tested over the past two decades by a variety of ensembles in different parts of the world.

Although there are those who might question just how different “conduction” is from a Count Basie band head arrangement or a one of Charles Mingus’ scores that was transmitted orally to his sidemen, the theory appears to be helpful in allowing bands of 20 or so musicians to create notable semi-improvised/semi-composed structures. Falkirk and Ellipse provide two of the more impressive, recent examples of this trend, and also illustrate by their differences how nothing involved with Free Music is accepted dogma.

For a start, the 19-piece The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) is directed by a guest, British bassist Barry Guy – who also solos on the nearly 65½ minute CD – along with his wife, baroque violinist Maya Homburger. Founder of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO) in the early 1970s, Guy has years of experience in motivating large groups of improvisers.

Unlike the long-established LJCO, made up of many of Britain and the Continent’s most accomplished Free Jazzers however, the GIO is a more amorphous proposition. Only formally constituted in 2002, members of the orchestra come from jazz, contemporary classical, avant-pop and sound art backgrounds. It’s a tribute to Guy’s skills as an orchestrator – and the adaptive talents of GIO members – that the group is able to create a notable version of Guy’s “Witch Gang Game” – plus a shorter improvisation – after only a week of workshops and rehearsals with the composer. Consisting of an interpretation of panels from Scottish artist Alan Davis’ graphics, “Witch Gang Game” is no traditional score.

Similarly, La Pieuvre’s nearly 68-minute “Ellipse” has a comparable thematic genesis. Inspired by bandleader/guitarist Olivier Benoit and choreographer David Flahaut, the idea is for each musician to use the beats of his or her own heart as individual metronomes to establish a polyrhythmic response to the evolving six-note theme “conductated” by Benoit. Based in Lille, France, the 23 members of La Pieuvre (“octopus” in English) came from as diverse backgrounds as the GIO members – rock, Free Jazz, contemporary classical music and electronics. Together since 1999, and again akin to the GIO, the group has evolved different programs and played with a variety of guest soloists. On his own Benoit has also recorded with the likes of alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and pianist Sophie Angel.

Back in Scotland, “special guests” Homburger and Guy receive no special consideration from the other musicians and are well-integrated within the performing unit. From the beginning of this polyphonic treatment of “Witch Gang Game” as a matter of fact, the ricocheting cymbals and constant rumbles from the drums of Mike Travis plus the dissonant honks, squeals, squeaks and split tones from the five reed players are more prominent than the guests’ contributions.

From the margins to the centre, the piece evolves with hocketing textures and murky glossolalia from the horns snaking among screeching triplets from the brass as well as the hissing, striated fripples of flutists Emma Roche and Matthew Studdert-Kennedy and Nick Fells’ shakachi. Only occasionally is the dense, intertwined output interrupted for a wooly, extended bass clarinet solo from John Burgess or wordless vocal obbligatos from Nicola MacDonald.

A wider and more spacious secondary theme borne by spiccato strings makes its appearance mid-way through the piece, although it’s almost overwhelmed by a near-symphonic vamp from the slurping and snorting horns. Adumbrating a distinctive crescendo that slides from andante to adagio, a resonating phrasing from trombonist George Murray introduces a stop-time, Swing-like section complete with bomb-dropping drumming and walking basses.

Resembling the strategies of Scottish-born vocalist Maggie Nicols, MacDonald’s verbal asides are a compendium of cackles, giggles, cries and caws in a mixture of English and Gaelic. Throughout, her verbal elaboration evolves above undulating connective choruses, vibrating multiphonics and blaring brass.

Eventually reaching a climax of suddenly piqued and undulating passages, the cacophony gradually subsides as first the parlando vocalizing then the shaking continuously breathed horn section’s tones slowly fades. A further variation, characterized by isolated chromatic slurs, brays, mumbles and swipes, leads to a finale of sliding reeds and brass plus the drummer expanding his backbeat rhythms to foreground rebounds, pressured slaps and reverberations, leaving a coda of a single cymbal smack remain hanging in the air.

Meanwhile, as the verisimilitude of braying, snorting, growling and rumbling instruments produce a high frequency electrical storm of instrumental textures, the texture of “Ellipse” is initially so opaque that it suggests a cardiac artery blockage rather than a pulse.

However like displaying the results of a chest X-Ray, the unfolding licks and sibilant sprints from three guitarists bring the next variation into aural focus – louder and more united. Piano plinks, brass slurs and saxophone smears languidly introduce the theme in broken octaves and soon the associated pulses are evident, ascending to thick, tension-filled phrases without release or respite.

Before the main motif is developed in the defining third variation, pitches and themes are distributed among several non-connective instruments. As the reeds and brass move in parallel broken octaves, high-pitched shrilling from vocalist Marie Richard is isolated as the entire performance is supported by blacksmith-like thwacks from drummers Nicholas Chachignot and Peter Orins.

Like Guy’s understated work with the GIO, Benoit’s impressionistic arranging skill is brought in into boldest relief in the third variation. With the repetitive percussion strokes nearly overpowering, it takes a few seconds to realize that almost simultaneously a contrapuntal response of slippery, slurry horn breaths can be heard, repeatedly playing a single, metronomic phrase. Polyphonic and polytonal, the shifting timbres move from one section to the others, not as call-and-response, but splayed and hocketing. While the percussion pedal point almost never varies, the response from the other instruments becomes livelier and more rhythmically rubato. Soon, as one drummer maintains his steady strokes, the other varies his ostinato with rebounds and ripples, at the same time as chromatic pressure from the strings pick up the basic six-note motif. When the massed horn sections intersect with the other groups, the resulting relentless pulse soon begins to resemble that of a TGV train hitting top speed. Heart beats and train pulses become interchangeable with the percussionists and bassists thumping like an aorta, and the lowing, pumping and trilling of the horns replicating the train’s bells and whistles. Eventually it takes a final trumpet flourish and a trombone bray to loosen the agitated sonic tension created by the crescendo.

This release into single notes introduces the concluding section, which with the groaning of the low-pitched brass, and shimmering cymbals, exposes the layered polyharmonies among the instrument to such an extent that the defining motif seems to have to surreptitiously snuck back into the foreground. Shriveling into near inaudibility, the now largo theme is stretched, and then vanishes beneath a single guitar string snap into ear-straining silence as the piece concludes.

Intelligent use of space, silence and cerebral improvisation characterizes each of these CDs. Both add something notable while extending the idea of large ensemble-conduction.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ellipse: 1. Ellipse

Personnel: Ellipse: Richard Cuvillier (cornet); Christian Pruvost (trumpet); Bruno Cheynier (trombone); Claude Colpaert (trombone and gamelan); Martin Hackett (melodica); Michael Potier (saxhorn); Yanik Miossec (clarinet); Guillaume Tarche (soprano saxophone); Laurent Rigaut (alto saxophone); Michel Stawicki (tenor saxophone); Vincent Debaets (baritone saxophone); Martin Granger and Franck Lambert (synthesizers); David Bausseron, Ivann Cruz and Philippe Lenglet (guitars); Antoine Rousseau and Stéphane Levêque (bass guitars); and Pierre Cretel (bass); Peter Orins and Nicolas Chachignot,(drums); Patrick Guionnet and Marie Richard (voices) plus Olivier Benoït (direction)

Track Listing: Falkirk: 1. Improvisation 2. Witch Gong Game 11/10

Personnel: Falkirk: Robert Henderson and Matt Cairns (trumpets); George Murray (trombone); Emma Roche (flute and baroque flute); Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); Nick Fells (shakachi); Daniel Padden (clarinet, percussion and voice); Pete Dowling (alto saxophone); Raymond MacDonald (alto and soprano saxophone); John Burgess (tenor saxophone and bass clarinet); Graeme Wilson (tenor and baritone saxophone); Bill Wells (keyboard); George Burt and Neil Davidson (guitars); Peter Nicholson (cello); Una MacGlone and George Lyle (bass); Mike Travis (drums) and Nicola MacDonald (voice) plus Maya Homburger (baroque violin) and Barry Guy (bass)

December 28, 2007

La Pieuvre

Ellipse
Helix LX 002

The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra with Barry Guy

Falkirk

FMR CD 168-i0706

Ever since American Butch Morris introduced the concept of using “conduction” to help improvising ensembles express musical ideas without formalistic structures, the model has been tested over the past two decades by a variety of ensembles in different parts of the world.

Although there are those who might question just how different “conduction” is from a Count Basie band head arrangement or a one of Charles Mingus’ scores that was transmitted orally to his sidemen, the theory appears to be helpful in allowing bands of 20 or so musicians to create notable semi-improvised/semi-composed structures. Falkirk and Ellipse provide two of the more impressive, recent examples of this trend, and also illustrate by their differences how nothing involved with Free Music is accepted dogma.

For a start, the 19-piece The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) is directed by a guest, British bassist Barry Guy – who also solos on the nearly 65½ minute CD – along with his wife, baroque violinist Maya Homburger. Founder of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO) in the early 1970s, Guy has years of experience in motivating large groups of improvisers.

Unlike the long-established LJCO, made up of many of Britain and the Continent’s most accomplished Free Jazzers however, the GIO is a more amorphous proposition. Only formally constituted in 2002, members of the orchestra come from jazz, contemporary classical, avant-pop and sound art backgrounds. It’s a tribute to Guy’s skills as an orchestrator – and the adaptive talents of GIO members – that the group is able to create a notable version of Guy’s “Witch Gang Game” – plus a shorter improvisation – after only a week of workshops and rehearsals with the composer. Consisting of an interpretation of panels from Scottish artist Alan Davis’ graphics, “Witch Gang Game” is no traditional score.

Similarly, La Pieuvre’s nearly 68-minute “Ellipse” has a comparable thematic genesis. Inspired by bandleader/guitarist Olivier Benoit and choreographer David Flahaut, the idea is for each musician to use the beats of his or her own heart as individual metronomes to establish a polyrhythmic response to the evolving six-note theme “conductated” by Benoit. Based in Lille, France, the 23 members of La Pieuvre (“octopus” in English) came from as diverse backgrounds as the GIO members – rock, Free Jazz, contemporary classical music and electronics. Together since 1999, and again akin to the GIO, the group has evolved different programs and played with a variety of guest soloists. On his own Benoit has also recorded with the likes of alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and pianist Sophie Angel.

Back in Scotland, “special guests” Homburger and Guy receive no special consideration from the other musicians and are well-integrated within the performing unit. From the beginning of this polyphonic treatment of “Witch Gang Game” as a matter of fact, the ricocheting cymbals and constant rumbles from the drums of Mike Travis plus the dissonant honks, squeals, squeaks and split tones from the five reed players are more prominent than the guests’ contributions.

From the margins to the centre, the piece evolves with hocketing textures and murky glossolalia from the horns snaking among screeching triplets from the brass as well as the hissing, striated fripples of flutists Emma Roche and Matthew Studdert-Kennedy and Nick Fells’ shakachi. Only occasionally is the dense, intertwined output interrupted for a wooly, extended bass clarinet solo from John Burgess or wordless vocal obbligatos from Nicola MacDonald.

A wider and more spacious secondary theme borne by spiccato strings makes its appearance mid-way through the piece, although it’s almost overwhelmed by a near-symphonic vamp from the slurping and snorting horns. Adumbrating a distinctive crescendo that slides from andante to adagio, a resonating phrasing from trombonist George Murray introduces a stop-time, Swing-like section complete with bomb-dropping drumming and walking basses.

Resembling the strategies of Scottish-born vocalist Maggie Nicols, MacDonald’s verbal asides are a compendium of cackles, giggles, cries and caws in a mixture of English and Gaelic. Throughout, her verbal elaboration evolves above undulating connective choruses, vibrating multiphonics and blaring brass.

Eventually reaching a climax of suddenly piqued and undulating passages, the cacophony gradually subsides as first the parlando vocalizing then the shaking continuously breathed horn section’s tones slowly fades. A further variation, characterized by isolated chromatic slurs, brays, mumbles and swipes, leads to a finale of sliding reeds and brass plus the drummer expanding his backbeat rhythms to foreground rebounds, pressured slaps and reverberations, leaving a coda of a single cymbal smack remain hanging in the air.

Meanwhile, as the verisimilitude of braying, snorting, growling and rumbling instruments produce a high frequency electrical storm of instrumental textures, the texture of “Ellipse” is initially so opaque that it suggests a cardiac artery blockage rather than a pulse.

However like displaying the results of a chest X-Ray, the unfolding licks and sibilant sprints from three guitarists bring the next variation into aural focus – louder and more united. Piano plinks, brass slurs and saxophone smears languidly introduce the theme in broken octaves and soon the associated pulses are evident, ascending to thick, tension-filled phrases without release or respite.

Before the main motif is developed in the defining third variation, pitches and themes are distributed among several non-connective instruments. As the reeds and brass move in parallel broken octaves, high-pitched shrilling from vocalist Marie Richard is isolated as the entire performance is supported by blacksmith-like thwacks from drummers Nicholas Chachignot and Peter Orins.

Like Guy’s understated work with the GIO, Benoit’s impressionistic arranging skill is brought in into boldest relief in the third variation. With the repetitive percussion strokes nearly overpowering, it takes a few seconds to realize that almost simultaneously a contrapuntal response of slippery, slurry horn breaths can be heard, repeatedly playing a single, metronomic phrase. Polyphonic and polytonal, the shifting timbres move from one section to the others, not as call-and-response, but splayed and hocketing. While the percussion pedal point almost never varies, the response from the other instruments becomes livelier and more rhythmically rubato. Soon, as one drummer maintains his steady strokes, the other varies his ostinato with rebounds and ripples, at the same time as chromatic pressure from the strings pick up the basic six-note motif. When the massed horn sections intersect with the other groups, the resulting relentless pulse soon begins to resemble that of a TGV train hitting top speed. Heart beats and train pulses become interchangeable with the percussionists and bassists thumping like an aorta, and the lowing, pumping and trilling of the horns replicating the train’s bells and whistles. Eventually it takes a final trumpet flourish and a trombone bray to loosen the agitated sonic tension created by the crescendo.

This release into single notes introduces the concluding section, which with the groaning of the low-pitched brass, and shimmering cymbals, exposes the layered polyharmonies among the instrument to such an extent that the defining motif seems to have to surreptitiously snuck back into the foreground. Shriveling into near inaudibility, the now largo theme is stretched, and then vanishes beneath a single guitar string snap into ear-straining silence as the piece concludes.

Intelligent use of space, silence and cerebral improvisation characterizes each of these CDs. Both add something notable while extending the idea of large ensemble-conduction.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ellipse: 1. Ellipse

Personnel: Ellipse: Richard Cuvillier (cornet); Christian Pruvost (trumpet); Bruno Cheynier (trombone); Claude Colpaert (trombone and gamelan); Martin Hackett (melodica); Michael Potier (saxhorn); Yanik Miossec (clarinet); Guillaume Tarche (soprano saxophone); Laurent Rigaut (alto saxophone); Michel Stawicki (tenor saxophone); Vincent Debaets (baritone saxophone); Martin Granger and Franck Lambert (synthesizers); David Bausseron, Ivann Cruz and Philippe Lenglet (guitars); Antoine Rousseau and Stéphane Levêque (bass guitars); and Pierre Cretel (bass); Peter Orins and Nicolas Chachignot,(drums); Patrick Guionnet and Marie Richard (voices) plus Olivier Benoït (direction)

Track Listing: Falkirk: 1. Improvisation 2. Witch Gong Game 11/10

Personnel: Falkirk: Robert Henderson and Matt Cairns (trumpets); George Murray (trombone); Emma Roche (flute and baroque flute); Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); Nick Fells (shakachi); Daniel Padden (clarinet, percussion and voice); Pete Dowling (alto saxophone); Raymond MacDonald (alto and soprano saxophone); John Burgess (tenor saxophone and bass clarinet); Graeme Wilson (tenor and baritone saxophone); Bill Wells (keyboard); George Burt and Neil Davidson (guitars); Peter Nicholson (cello); Una MacGlone and George Lyle (bass); Mike Travis (drums) and Nicola MacDonald (voice) plus Maya Homburger (baroque violin) and Barry Guy (bass)

December 28, 2007