Elisabeth Harnik / Michael Zerang

Phil Haynes-Michael Jefry Stevens

Music for Percussion and Piano

Arc Records No #

About 30 years separate these newly released piano-percussion duets. But while both are of similar merit, the two have little in common. A set of 19 improvisations by Brooklyn neighbors during the early 1990s Music for Percussion and Piano features keyboardist Michael Jefry Stevens, known for his work with Conference Call and drummer Phil Haynes who has played with the likes of Dave Liebman. Despite Free Music explorations, Haynes and Stevens are still wedded to the expected sounds at that time. Recorded in 2019 in Ljubljana, Dream Disobedience features American drummer Michael Zerang, associated with many Chicago innovators and Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik, who plays with Joëlle Léandre. Their synergy is expressed in textural bending where the piano’s impact is more frequently related to percussion than melody.

Spontaneous and simple, it takes a few of the mostly brief improvisations for Stevens and Haynes to become comfortable with the paradigm. Set as a suite with a prelude and postlude, their roles are initially traditionally delineated. Formalism is mixed with expressiveness on the pianist’s part as he runs through various pitches and tempos and, beside key clips and stops, projects repeated patterns to advance melodies and swing. As classicist as the other, the drummer repeats rumbles rattles and ruffs to underline rhythm and push forward expositions. Breakthrough arrives in mid-session on tracks such as “Recapitulation” and “Three Ironies”. Exhibiting contrasting dynamics on the first, Stevens swarms into pressurized emphasis and quick leaps from one side of the keyboard to the other. Moving his lines backwards and forwards during “Three Ironies”, the pianist’s seriousness mixes with slickness as a series of falling notes create a distinct theme which is doubled with drum clatter and cymbal cracks. Maintaining gravity Steven backs away from the theme with woody key clicks. From that point on tradition is secondary. Kinetic keyboard sweeps and cascades alternate with sequences where the piano key are barely brushed, with reverberation string vibrations and even music-box-like echoes. Expressed is an allegro interface which can suggest a ballad at one point and a chipper rhythm motif at another. Haynes’ beat attributes remain understated and allied most of the time. That is except for a sequence on “Akimbo”, where his clip-clops, doubled ruffs and battering-ram-like pumps are emphasized in counterpoint to Stevens’ pedal pushed darkened tones plus dynamic keyboard stabs and string slices. While the postlude bring the program back to some of the ideas advanced in the prelude, those sequences that precede it give a better idea of the duo’s contributions. Almost opposite in sound, “Dance” is shaped by intermittent but powerful cymbal clatters that surround fine-boned key clipping that becomes more forceful as it ends. On the other hand “Coda” is as languid as the previous track was lively, with Haynes confining himself to nerve beats and rim slaps and Stevens creating a processional narrative including tones echoing from the piano’s soundboard.

Flash forward to another century and Harnik and Zerang base their single 35¼-minute improvisation on the multiple textures that can be extracted from both instruments without emphasizing their melodic (piano) or rhythmic (drums) parameters. At the beginning timbres are barely audible with Harnik strumming internal piano strings and stopping keys while Zerang rubs drum tops, smacks single tones on the bass drum and shakes bells. This strategy that encompasses hunt-and-peck piano clips, percussion shuffles and hit-hat zings eventually comes to a head at the half-way point as the pianist intensifies her gentle pulses to create a defining exposition which is seconded by singular ratchets from Zerang. With thematic memory remaining throughout the rest of the performance, Harnik explores the most percussive part of her instrument, pulling textures from wound strings set, piano harp, backboards and capotes, striking the outside wood and latterly tickling the keyboard. As a prelude to the final sequence, she then reverses course and outputs kinetic and staccato variables with a Free Jazz emphasis as Zerang reverberates sound pulses beside her. Extending the line as far as possible, both textures meet half-way and the piece winds down and ends.

Equally valid, Music for Percussion and Piano is cerebral in-the-moment sounds that were an un-mined gem until recently. Meanwhile Dream Disobedience shows that in exploratory times a keyboard-drums duo can create further advanced and unforeseen timbres.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Music: 1. Prelude 2. Agitated 3. Agitated Two 4. Two 5. Ballades 6. Atmospheres 7. Atmospheres II 8. Recapitulation 9. Three Ironies 10. Atmospheres III 11. Duality 12. Continuance 13. Bounce 14. Music Box 15. Akimbo 16. Air 17. Dance 18. Coda 19. Postlude

Personnel: Music: Michael Jefry Stevens (piano) and Phil Haynes (percussion)

Track Listing: Dream: 1. Dream Disobedience

Personnel: Dream: Elisabeth Harnik (piano) and Michael Zerang (drums)