Grid Mesh

Platz/Goldman/Carniaux
With Orbit
Withorbit Music No #

Having a guitar as the only chordal instrument in a band puts extra pressure on the other players, yet by applying original perceptions a quartet from Berlin and a trio from Rhode Island overcome this supposed drawback. A free-flowing instance of Free Jazz, Four is the newest CD by the long-constituted combo made up of saxophonist Frank-Paul Schubert, drummer Willi Kellers and guitarist Andreas Willers, all of whom have played with a cross-section of German improvisers from Peter Brötzmann to Olaf Rupp. Added is Christof Thewes, who replaced the band’s original trombonist, the late Johannes Bauer. Meanwhile Jeff Platz, With Orbit’s guitarist has intersected with both Euro and Yank players including Damon Smith and Jan Klare. Drummer Max Goldman has been part of many New York bands, while reedist Brndan Carniaux is a Rhode Island-based player and educator.

Because Grid Mesh includes an additional instrument it means that the quartet’s procedure allows for contrapuntal lines encompassing reed split tones and brass plunger development to propel polyphonic expositions atop string twangs and drum patterning. During the four tracks, which are really one long improvisation, Willers multiplies his guitar into many guises. Projecting Rock-like fuzz tones or dulcimer-like folksy strokes when not creating connective strums, he also isolates what would be double-bass parts with low string strokes and thumb pops. The introduction to “Archer” for instance involves him playing both roles with piercing flanges and low-pitched rumbles. However arena rock cascades soon subside into logical connections with Kellers’ constant clatter and rebounds, although the horns soon accelerate into back-and-forth brass bellowing and reed flutter tonguing. Kellers creates African hand pumps or fat percussion grooves at certain points, but mostly rhythmically moderates the narrative flow. Both horn players also slide through different pitches with siren whistles or basso slurs from Schubert’s saxes and Willers’ trombone as apt to take on burnished mellophone-like as blowsy gutbucket slurs.

The four work the live program up to the concluding “Welder”, which they expand with arc welders’ intensity and attention to detail. As Schubert tries out siren shrills and rooster-like crowing, the narrative becomes more diffuse and louder as the guitarist adds slicing riffs, the drummer ruffs and cymbal slashes and the trombonist harsh metallic smears. Finally reed bites, brass burbles and string pops combine to slowly deflate the polyphonic connection into silence.

Somewhat more stripped down and evolving at a more leisurely pace, With Orbit’s trio still builds to the same level of pressurized intensity as Grid Mesh on the trio’s later selections. Initially the sequences combine slick guitar slaps, shaking percussion pops and reed smears. Working forward from crowded and nearly opaque textures including organ-like tremolo tones from Platz, themes lighten and become more horizontal as they vibrate among hi-hat clips, pointed guitar strokes and darkened reed slurs. Shuddering barbed guitar licks, arrhythmic drum clangs and fragmented reed cries on “Throughout Always” foreshadow the diffuse timbres of the final four tracks. Drums rumbles, sax yowls and guitar shakes advance through strident sequences to create an exposition that is more distant yet strangely more rugged, in the penultimate “Memory Planks”. As the program thickens with clusters of percussion pumps and the reed surges, the guitarist cannily disrupts the mood with Morse-code-like jabs. “Irreversible”, the final and most extended track lives up to its name by referring both to the slower narratives that begin the disc as well as the fragmenting dissonance that characterize the final few. The finale is irreversible by that point since any recapitulation of the trio and session’s languorous beginnings suggested by Carniaux’s moody chalumeau-register clarinet is splintered by hard drumming and guitar strategies that encompass speedy frails that want to slide intro Rock territory.

Piano or double bass connections aren’t needed for either of these sessions to arouse. With Orbit does so from following a game plan the logically moves from traditional to atonal. Grid Mesh does so by shaping extended improvisations into a program that emphasizes a collection of sympathetic sound colors.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Four: 1. Builder 2 Miner 3. Archer 4, Welder

Personnel: Four: Christof Thewes (trombone); Frank Paul Schubert (alto and soprano saxophones); Andreas Willers (guitar) and Willi Kellers (drums)

Track Listing: With: 1. Lost To History 2. Schirm 3. Vanish Mode; 4.Throughout Always 5. The Vulgar Crowd 5. Hand Made House 6. Memory Planks 7. Irreversible

Personnel: With: Brendan Carniaux (tenor saxophone) and clarinet); Jeff Platz (guitar) and Max Goldman (drums)