Kassap/Swell/Duboc/Taylor

With more constructive and productive cooperation that Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron ever imagined, this French-American quartet realizes an interactive improvised program that takes advantage of each individual’s skill. Not that it’s surprising since all are veteran creative players. Americans, trombonist Steve Swell and drummer Chad Taylor have worked with everyone from James Brandon Lewis and Jason Stein to Matthew Ship and Joe McPhee. Crossing the ocean clarinetist Sylvain Kassap and  bassist Benjamin Duboc have collaborated with sound explorers such as Daunik Lazro, Eve Risser, Baby Sommer and Hélène Labarrière.

Besides bring leadership skills to the date. quartet member contributes compositions. Swell and Kassap are the most productive with four each, but the strength of this perception is that there’s no platitudinal unanimity among the pieces. Cross overs however take advantage of individual talents. For instance Duboc’s “Marseille” and Swell’s “Urgent Dispatch” depend on the bassist’s James Jamerson-like affiliated ostinato. The former is a thumb-popping, cadenced thumping showpiece for the bassist, but linked to Taylor’s rebounds and double splashes cymbals along with horn vamps. Drum backbeats are also prominent on “Urgent Dispatch” along with string thwacks. Yet the track’s linear impetus depends on Swell sliding brassy ripples constantly upwards at wrap speed mixed with Kassap’s irregular reed vibrations and squeaky trills. Horizontal motion is preserved though, especially when the trombonist reveals connective descending brass snores.

As someone who moves between notated and improvised music, Kassap’s tunes reach a variety of moods. Gentle projections and deeply dug sweeps are featured in turn, with layered expositions as dependent on the others’ additions as his own. Several such as “Edges” and “Polyglottes” move along due to unique brass/reed tone intermingling. “Polyglottes” for example defines its narrative following an intertwining of the trombonist’s plunger slurs and the clarinetist’s wavering flutters before the powerful exposition is topped off with a vibrating bass string smacks. In contrast the random motion that defines the title track is adumbrated by another thickened string stop and characterized as curlicue reed flutters and strained tailgate brass notes in tandem define the theme.

Swell’s alternating excavation of half-valve tones, hollowing puffs or gutbucket-style tone wallowing is expressed elsewhere as are Taylor’s speedy shifts from clipping rim shots to simple back beats and triple stroked asides.

Since all of these extensions aren’t done simply for themselves but usually while connecting to others’ timbres, Edges is not only a notable instance of sophisticated improv, but also a lesson in cooperation that many countries – not just France and the U.S. –  could follow.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Crinière 2. Edges 3. 919 4. Marseille 5. 2 L8 4 U (or not) 6. Texture #7 7. Urgent Dispatch 8. Polyglottes 9. Texture #3 10. 991 11. Periscope (For Perry Robinson)

Personnel: Steve Swell (trombone); Sylvain Kassap (clarinet and bass clarinet); Benjamin Duboc (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums)