Hery Paz

Expanding his improvisational interests, Cuban woodwinds player Hery Paz broadens his stripped-down Free Jazz iterations by adding electronics, ethnic instruments, spoken word and visuals. The last isn’t obvious in an audio medium; the penultimate luckily brief for non-Spanish speakers, but the other inputs extend his timbral considerations.

Aiding Paz, who plays tenor saxophone, flute, piano, suona and claves, are two Portuguese, percussionist Pedro Melo Alves, who leads own groups and has played with the likes of Ra Klam Bob Mosesand Mark Dresser; and keyboards and self-built and modified electronics player João Carlos Pinto, who is also in the Almeida/Carlos duo; plus Demian Cabaud, who has worked with Ohad Talmor and Leo Genovese among others on double bass, flute and bombo legüero.

Cabaud’s flute trills are only prominent on “Música y Silencio”, with most of the tune given over the Paz’s elevated reed squeaks and slurred notes and Alves’ metronomic and clock-ticking emphasis. It ranges from drum smacks to marimba pops and thunder sheet vibrations, that follow nearly rhymed group vocalizing. Otherwise it’s Paz’s flute interjections which put equal emphasis on feathery trill or strident buzzes.

Although distinctive timbres from the  shaken ethnic idiophones are full integrated into the performances, voltage embellishments make more of an impact. Especially on the introductory “Azul” and the concluding “Deidad y Poder”, the programmed whizzes, hisses and whooshes insinuate themselves among acoustic textures, intensifying the drama.

“Azul” mates the oscillating knob-turning vibrations with nearly unbroken saxophone squalls and renal honks. These then transform into soaring reed cries and echoes as the bassist’s pressurized string scrubs are knitted alongside the percussionist rim shots, nerve beats and unattached cymbal pops. On “Deidad y Poder”, unaccompanied reed sears create antiphony as they rupture into separate flattement and doits, adumbrating later timbral extensions from keyboard spills and emphasized clanging, rattling and pumping idiophones extensions. Moving past vocalized yells, the piece climaxes with thick concentrated reed breaths.

A new variation on committed improvisation, Fisuras is a logical extension of the expressive playing  and conceptualizing Pazz has already proficiently expressed.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Azul 2. Fig. 1 3. Música y Silencio 4. Golopes 5. Solo por Hoy 6. Deidad y Poder

Personnel: Hery Paz (tenor saxophone, flute, piano, suona, claves, voice); João Carlos Pinto (keyboards, electronics); Demian Cabaud (bass, flute, bombo legüero); Pedro Melo Alves (percussion) and Maria Mónica (visuals)