Alexander Hawkins Trio

Designers
Designers
We Jazz WJCD47

Blue Lines Trio
Chance and Change
Casco Records 008

Fournier/Walton/Maroney
O KOƩMOƩ META
RogueArt ROG-0120

By the time in the late 1950s when Ahamad Jamal and Oscar Peterson both refigured their combos by substituting a drummer for a guitarist, piano-bass-drums had become a standard Jazz and improvised music ensemble. More than 60 years later inventive players are still showing that notable use can still be made from this now time-tested configuration. Following the chamber-improv pioneered by Paul Bley’s and Bill Evans’ trios piano groups have become either raucous or restrained. These notable sessions provide examples of each.

Take the Designers group, made up of Finnish pianist Aki Rissanen, Belgian bassist Joachim Florent and Australian drummer Will Guthrie, all based in France. Individually members have worked with Verneri Pohjola, Clément Janinet or Clayton Thomas, and bring a multiplicity of collective and unique tropes to each track. While the compositions are all the bassist’s, this is a cooperative trio with necessary contributions from all three members. Certainly Rissanen’s multi-fingered, pumped-up variations are often featured, whether it’s on the disc’s infrequent slow and atmospheric tunes like the title track with its minimalist echoes, or on more accelerated expositions like the lengthy “Procession”. Reflecting the title, just past the tune’s turnaround, the designated keyboard advance is decorated with double bass stops. Beginning and ending with ringing keyboard chording and presto prods, Guthrie’s thumps and slaps further define the narrative.

The drummer’s rumbles, ruffs and rebounds are featured throughout, usually to pace the eight compositions along with the bassist. As for Florent, when he isn’t helping to develop the tune with line crunches or double stopping he cycles through a variety of effects. Climaxing with methodical mooring on “Moulindjek” for instance, he initially matches the pianist’s flowing glissandi with thin Hardanger-fiddle-like arco emphasis. He can also turn around to help propel the quickly accelerated swing rolled out by Rissanen’s emphasized key clipping on “Engrenages”, or meet percussion pumps with triple-stopping and thumping pizzicato interlude. All in all this trio has designed a well-fit garment of tripartite expression.

Expanding this vein of flowing and whimsical humor are the 15 (!) selections performed by the Amsterdam-based Blues Lines Trio. Most selections were composed by the two Dutch members, pianist Michiel Scheen and bassist Raoul van der Weide, with Australian-in-the-Netherlands drummer George Hadow contributing to them and the nine improvisations which make up the rest of the disc. Veteran members of the city’s advanced music gestalt, the trio begins with the kinetic and near-honky-tonk bounce of “Diddleville” and keeps up the dynamic all the way through. This piece like others centres around the bassist’s spiccato sluices, the drummer’s springy shuffles and the pianist’s emphasized chords and stop-start pulsations. Like Thelonious Monk, whose unexpected angular asides he sometimes emulates, Scheen also brings puckish humor to the selections. It’s reflected in some tracks where the group fools the ear by seeming to settle on one tempo, then suddenly detours to another. This is also reflected in the final untitled selection, 37 seconds of silence followed by three seconds of piano-led swing. While tracks distinguish among composition titled with words and improvisations designed by four numbers, the group brings the same sort of propulsive energy to all. So a droning bass line and squirmy keyboard patterns balanced on drum smacks and press rolls, with some electronic crackles thrown into the mix, may characterize an improv. Yet compositions such as “Clouds And Sunny Chunks” and “Vacuumville”. evolves with the same power. On the first, hard drum smack introduce bright piano patterns that turn back onto themselves before moving forward. A walking bass line begins the oblique “Vacuumville” which then slides down the scale as it’s joined by percussion pops. Meantime the pianist squirms bent notes into a stop-time interlude that completes the piece with staccato snaps and pedal pumps. Probably the most effective demonstration of the group’s strategy appears on “Improvisation 2159” where the pianist knits kinetic chords into plinking variations, followed by col legno bass pressure from van der Weide and Hadow’s slaps and pops. Just when it appears the definitive narrative has been established, Scheen vibrates his solo into a semi-ragtime diversion that balanced the initial linear motion until the ending.

Creating equivalence from 11 composition-improvisation on Carnival Celestial that range from reflective to rash is the UK’s Alexander Hawkins. Most depend on his defined pianism plus timbral infusions from synthesiser and sampler. Joined by long-time associates bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis, both of whom, along with Hawkins inject percussion resonations however, he uses the hardware sparingly. Most crucially the three players lock individual outputs into place as they open up the music to diverse layers that exposes where light and darkness, gentle clicks and hardened clips overlap. Some tunes are simple and effective, dependent on cymbal splashes and horizontal string pulses, that join with cerebral piano templates to make their points. Others are more complex. “Sarabande Celestial” for example, begins with a walking bass line on top of programmed whooshes which are then pushed aside for a lyrical piano exposition. Drum top brush sweeps help slow the pace to adagio, as Hawkins methodically examines each note and chord to come up with a mixture of Monk and Evans timbres, while synth lines judder alongside. While electric noodling adds a pointillist sheen to some of the tracks, sparingly emphasized sampling subtly come into play elsewhere. On the initially gentle “Puzzle Canon” as drum nerve beats and bass string stretches gradually work their way into a groove, the piano portion consistently jumps from basement pitched variations to melodic interludes, with the switches and samples making it seem as if two pianos are playing. With such tropes used, the ingenious way that Hawkins can intensify keyboard pressure without calling attention to it; open up piano chording to slip and slide upwards; or settle on one perfectly rounded note are highlighted. So too is Charles’ easy slide from power plucks to expressive bowing as on “Rupture”; or Davis’ command of shuffles, distant drum echoes and hard pumps without breaking up the tunes’ flow, allowing piano stops and patterns to realize the narratives. Overall this unsegmented trio music and it must be heard that way.

Descending southwards to minimalism is the trio of Americans, pianist Denman Maroney and bassist Scott Walton and French drummer Denis Fournier. Their nine pure improvisations call on the deep listening skills of the three who have worked with textural innovators such as Larry Ochs, Hans Tammen and Bernard Santacruz. Without rhythmic or harmonic bases, the band depends on in-the-moment group think to preserve linear logic in their pieces while expressing varieties of unforeseen asides. One important part of this is Maroney’s use of the hyperpiano. This means that while he creates expected singular pulses and connected glissandi among other tropes from the keyboard he rubs internal strings to produce a abrasive, metallic whine almost simultaneously. Easily distinguishable as well are Walton’s tough, unyielding bass plucks, although Fournier’s rhythmic sensitivity is expressed with gentle clatters, rolls and crunches coordinated with the others’ procedures.

“KM #8” is the most obvious expression of the hyperpiano’s scope. Jangling metallic vibrations emanate from the piano’s innards as fragmented broken chords are advanced on the keyboard. Walton’s thoughtful and lower-pitched string stroke affiliate with subtle percussion pressure to complete the narrative. “KM #4” confirms the close relationship between these improvisations and notated chamber music. Underlined by a moderated drone, a hiss from dual stroked strings and percussion clanks arise at the top. However the trio reveals its free-improv origins as Walton’s torqued bass line then revolves back and forth and the pianist lightens the mood with pumping piano chords. Other tracks confirm the group’s relation to free music and Jazz as when Maroney surges through keyboard motifs with Monk-like key clanking, sometimes reaching a Cecil Taylor-like intensity and matches them with drum subtleties that range from martial suggestions to delicate pitter-patters or splattering linear rushes. There are even sequences where the pianist’s multi-fingered prestissimo dynamics zooming from one side of the keyboard to the other could be designated as Free Jazz. Walton’s guitar-like strums on “KM #3” suggest this context, especially when mated with bass drum shakes and piano expressions that blend lively broken chord swing at the same time as backboard resonations. Jazz techniques also allow Maroney at points to illuminate a section with celeste-like delicacy, Walton to carefully limit his string strokes and Fournier to contrasts elevated cymbal splashes with refined pats from the rest of his kit. Refined or rough each of these piano trios have worked out impressive and unique variations on this standard instrumentation.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Designers: 1. Lebanon 2. Moulindjek 3. Procession 4. Folk Song 5. Engrenages 6. Point Ligne Sur Plan 7. Tintinabulisme 8. White Keys

Personnel: Designers: Aki Rissanen (piano); Joachim Florent (bass) and Will Guthrie (drums)

Track Listing: Chance: 1. Diddleville 2. Improvisation 2153 3. Iggy Abdul 4. Improvisation 2155 5. Culture Boy 6. Improvisation 2154 7. Improvisation 2152 8. Traces 9. Improvisation 2156 10. Vacuumville 11. Improvisation 2158 12. Improvisation 2159 13. Clouds And Sunny Chunks 14. Improvisation 2161 & Home 15. Untitled

Personnel: Chance: Michiel Scheen (piano); Raoul van der Weide (bass, crackle box, sound objects) and George Hadow (drums)

Track Listing: Carnival: 1. Rapture 2. Puzzle Canon 3. Fuga, The Fast One 4. Canon Celestial 5. Rupture 6. Sarabande Celestial 7. Unlimited Growth Increases The Divide 8. If Nature Were A Bank, They Would Have Saved It Already 9. Carnival Celestial 10. Counterpoint Celestial 11. Echo Celestial

Personnel: Carnival: Alexander Hawkins (piano, synthesiser, sampler and percussion); Neil Charles (bass and percussion) and Stephen Davis (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: O: 1. KM #1 2. KM #2 3. KM #3 4. KM #4 5. KM #5 6. KM #6 7. KM #7 8. KM #8 9. KM #9.

Personnel: O: Denman Maroney (piano); Scott Walton (bass) and Denis Fournier (drums)