Luca Tilli/Sebi Tramontana/Steve Beresford

Joe Fiedler Trio 2.0
Dragon Suite
Multiphonics Music MM 010

What sets apart these fine trombone and strings trio sets is more than instrumentation and that Dragon Suite’s musicians are all American and those on Flying Slippers European. With its close-knit arrangements and compositions, all by New York trombonist Joe Fiedler, the suite has a firm Jazz direction. Meanwhile the other CD is fully immersed in improvised music.

That shouldn’t be a surprise since Flying Slippers’ trio consists of two Italians, cellist Luca Tilli and trombonist Sebi Tramontana, and one Brit, pianist Steve Beresford, who between them have played with a cross section of the continent’s defining improvisers, including Marrio Schiano, Evan Parker and Giancarlo Schiaffini. Veterans as well, the Dragon Suite musicians are guitarist Peter McCann, who among many other gigs has been in the Maria Schneider Orchestra; drummer Michael Sarin who has worked with Mark Helias among others; and Fiedler, who besides an association with Sesame Street (!) and other gigs has led his own combos for two decades.

That experience is obvious with this trio disc. For no matter how involved with expanded and open capacities Fidler and McCann are in their improvisations, the tracks are in the main foot tapping and responsive. Sarin’s ability to maintain a focused shuffle or backbeat as the tunes express different inflections throughout is another asset. From “Tone Grazing”, the first tune on, the uncommon sound blend gives the disc a distinctive sound. Suggesting rockabilly and reggae at various junctures, the guitarist’s twangs and whammy bar stylings also pivot to hard rock and country and western affiliations. Meanwhile the trombonist’s guttural puffing and gutbucket smears keep Jazz inclinations obvious.

Elsewhere McCann use of what sounds like a guitar synthesizer allow him to project tremolo tones that could come from an electric organ adding pulsating echoes to Sarin’s rhythmic rat tat tats and Fielder’s multiphonics, that encompass squeezed triplets, vocalized flutters and half-valve slides. Besides more rhythmic tunes that depend on winnowing cries and swift brass bites and stutters, a couple come across like Bop ballads, with straight-ahead themes distinguished by Harmon muted trombone lines, which sometimes are blended with guitar strums or low string double bass mimicry and cymbal slaps. Swifter tunes include these nuances as well to balance sound modifications in proper combinations.

This skill is reflected in the featured, three-part “Dragon Suite”. The synthesizer blends, stops and bass lines from McCann vibrate alongside Fiedler’s stuttering multiphonics and single note puffs that are gradually rearranged into a guttural melody that emphasizes high pitches before outlining the theme. The concluding “Dragon Suite – Be” resolves these contradiction, relaxing into from Sarin’s paradiddle splashes; McCann’s connective string strums; and Fiedler’s muted brass portamento that climaxes with careful descending trombone smears..

The turns towards discordance reined in on Dragon Suite are given full reign on Flying Slippers, but with touches of humor that temper free music’s harder edges. Beresford adds toy piano clicks, metronome ticks, ratcheting turns, harmonica sniffs and a few wood smashes to comping that varies from low-pitched hard pounding to top of the scale key tinkles. At the same time Tramontana’s guttural snores, half-valve bites and plunger gargles are further fragmented with vocalized inner tube yelps. While mostly used as accents, these techniques are also integrated within a fluid exposition that sutures a touch of linear swing to the improvisations. This is most notable in the penultimate  “Flying Slippers Parte 5” when Tilli’s woody string pops provide a spiccato pulse to an exposition that judders between creamy and choppy at the same time as the trombonist’s portamento flutters are surmounted by stopped-key syncopation from the pianist.

While the free form improvisation here may be more overt than the Fiedler Trio’s equivalent, there’ are no formless detours . In spite – or it because of – energetic keyboard clinks and plinks, sawing cello string rubs and aviary-like brass sighs, a connection between Tramontana’s brass flutters and Beresford single string strums outlines the theme, which is obliquely referred to during the course of the multi-part improvisation.

Completely opposed methods of creating targeted trombone trio music, both groups have created equally inventive and similarly innovative sounds.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Dragon: 1. Tone Grazing 2. Bird Song 3. Dragon Suite – Know 4. Dragon Suite – Do 5. Dragon Suite – Be 6. Pittsburghermeister 7. What Herb Said 8. Song For Norm 9.  Set The Tone.

Personnel: Dragon: Joe Fiedler (trombone); Pete McCann (guitar) and Michael Sarin (drums)

Track Listing: Flying: 1. Flying Slippers Parte 1 2. Flying Slippers Parte 2 3. Flying Slippers Parte 3 4. Flying Slippers Parte 4 5. Flying Slippers Parte 5 6. Flying Slippers Parte 6

Personnel: Flying: Sebi Tramontana (trombone); Steve Beresford (piano and little objects) and Luca Tilli (cello)