Bisio/Dyer/Osiel/Rosen

Jeong/Bisio Duo with Joe McPhee & Jay Rosen
Morning Bell Whistle Bright
ESP 5095

Although bassist Michael Bisio has been a mainstay of the improvised music scene for about three decades, his locus has also moved towards other situations. While the bassist has played with everyone from Matthew Shipp to Kirk Knuffke, he also had time to compose soundtracks for a couple of indie films, and on the evidence here also writes pieces that mix formal and free forms. Additionally he seeks new musical settings as often as he plays with familiar associates.

Morning Bell Whistle Bright is one of the latter. Half the disc is Bisio’s duo with Korean pianist Eunhye Jeong, while the remainder joins the duo to contributions from two of Bisio’s long-time playing partners, tenor saxophonist Joe McPhee and percussionist Jay Rosen. NuMBq however, which also features Rosen, marks another shift for the bassist. Mostly playing his compositions, the bassist and percussionist are joined in these interpretations by violist Melanie Dyer who has worked with Fred Ho and Charles Burnham and English hornist Marianne Osiel, who was part of Karl Berger’s Improvisors Orchestra.

Initially on the second disc the pianist and bassist are strong enough rhythmically and melodically to work on their own with Bisio’s clenched strokes and repeated strums preserving the percussive continuum as craftily as his sul ponticello string spans and sul tasto emphasis provide challenges to piano chording. Key clips, dynamic stops and feints plus sudden pitch jumps, backwards pivots and soundboard echoes are heard from Jeong as often as linear melodies are evoked. McPhee and Rose add that extra dimension, especially when the saxophonist’s hard blowing and dramatic cries provide a dollop of emotion to the proceedings. His passionate wails, scooped from deep within the horn’s body tube on “Disclosure” are answered by skips across the piano’s inner strings and low pitched chording by Jeong.

Breaking up the time with everything from a cowbell slaps, cymbal hisses and snappy shuffles, Rosen often partners with Bisio in a traditional rhythm section role. Yet his additional timbres further enliven the program. This encourages the pianist’s turn to pedal point rumbles and the bassist to sul tasto emphasis that thicken the exposition of “Superpreternatura”.  Elsewhere, when press rolls and metallic resonations perfectly underline piano key cascades, moderated string thumps and stretched out reed multiphonics on “Drinking Galactic Water” further illuminate the program.

This all comes to a head on the extended title track as barely there cymbal cracks, dramatic pedal pushed pianism and pinpointed string pressure squeeze the theme into narrow and narrower lines until McPhee’s mid-range honks logically reveal the gaunt exposition. Coupled with piano comping the result is a slurry progression on Jazz improvisation that gains strength as it unrolls.

The situation is much different – and with more delicate tones – on NuMBq, although the unique sonances from the viola and English horns are balanced by the bassist’s and percussionist’s booming extrusions. Harmonized and horizontal rather than helter-skelter, the best of Bisio’s writing equates without discontinuity such motifs as wide viola sweeps with double bass rumbles or lively horn flutters whose pinched expositions are fattened by Rosen’s cymbal pops and drum patterning. Additionally there are sequences in which Bisio’s descending stops and Dyer’s ascending strokes evolve in unison or complement one another in sequence.

Connection is advanced as early as “Elegy For MG”, the extended, introductory track, although the narrative is more energetic than elegiac. Roistering percussion clanks and martial press rolls plus a later linear continuum from the double bassist are expressed along with Baroque like horn trills and sections where bowed bass and viola textures harmonize. As Osiel’s horn’s angular rasp takes on a touch of melancholy, string lines ascend and thin out, while bell ringing leads to a final break up of the exposition into sound shards. Furthermore while the concluding “Improv #1091” is just that, among the horn’s nasal puffs, cymbal splatters and harmonized string pings, the result doesn’t sound that different from the composed material.

Throughout whether the timbres are mated or mixed, tracks move forward logically with the same strategies, Percusssion can thump in a regular fashion or break up the time; reed expansions can turn towards nasal pressure or natural prettiness; and whether spiccato and high pitched or swept with horizontal rubs the stops, twangs and drones from the string players contrast or connect with polyphonic power. Each track is centered enough so that reflection as well as rowdiness is ascribed, with motifs such as sandpaper percussion scrubs, col legno string smacks and thin reed cries are adjusted for maximum comprehension.

Bisio has demonstrated his skills in varied contexts over the past few years and shown how he can shrewdly adapt to each. Morning Bell Whistle Bright and NuMBq are two more exemplary  examples of his skills.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Morning: 1. Point Expands to World 2. And Then She Was There 3. Dusts into Substantiality 4. Points Multiply Constant Beauty5. Drinking Galactic Water 6. Morning Bells Whistle Bright 7. Disclosure 8. Jaybird 9. Superpreternatura 10. Coda for Tomorrow

Personnel: Morning: Joe McPhee (tenor saxophone [5-7, 10]; Eunhye Jeong (piano [except 9]); Michael Bisio (bass except 8]); Jay Rosen (drums [5-10])

Track Listing: NuMBq: 1. Elegy For MG 2. Broken Waltz 3. Going Home-Amazing Grace 4. Ac 2.0nu 5. Vib Gyor 6. Medicaid Melancholy 7. Densities Roy G Biv 8. Improv #1091

Personnel: NuMBq: Marianne Osiel (English horn); Melanie Dyer (viola); Michael Bisio (bass) and Jay Rosen (percussion)