Michel Doneda

Josh Sinton
b.
Form is Possibility fpcd 02

Erin Rogers
2000 Miles
Relative Pitch RPR 55005

Darius Jones
Raw Demon Alchemy
Northern Spy NS141

Now that a solo reed session has become so common that many adventurous saxophonists try it at least once, the shock of the new is no longer there. Yet creating a solo album means that cerebral and spatial considerations must be astutely considered and balanced.

Take Josh Sinton’s b. disc for instance. The New York-based baritone saxophonist, part of the Ideal Bread band, uses his years of improvisational experience to probe all aspects of the large horn, with the nine selections as concerned with silences and clarion-and-above tones as the expected subterranean ones. So even though the session begins with the saxophonist projecting a roomy detonation that replicates Pepper Adams’ Hard Bop pressure, other sequences are more subtle. For example, at points “b.1.iv, despite its broken octave development and single note extension, has an exposition that sidles towards “Bag’s Groove”. Additionally a track as exploratory as “b.2.iii” , which ends with squeaky spetrofluctuation, includes linear motion which paces the harsh doits and body tube yells that inflate to a crescendo of wide dissonance. More common strategies mate dog-whistle elevated timbres with windy reed sucks, togue slaps and key percussion. But as much as the narratives are fragmented and pinched, a linear undercurrent remains. The longest and shakiest expression of this balance occurs on “b.1.iii” as renal growls and triple tongue reflux alternate as they move up and down in pitch, and after dissolving into atom-sized bites, climax as Sinton blow out pure unaccented air in a linear fashion until the end. The saxophonist completes his thoughts and reflects the session’s introduction on the concluding “b.2.v” by ending a collection of altissimo bites and clarion smears with honks that reflect the first track’s Hard Bop echoes.

Far removed from Hard Bop is French soprano and sopranino saxophonist Michel Doneda. Besides playing with everyone from Lê Quan Ninh to Jonas Kocher, Doneda has made solo saxophone inventions part of his oeuvre for many years. On Path Under he brings his horns to the Sarou forest for five intense improvisation that are more atonal than agrarian. The prevailing outdoor winds and crunch of footfalls on stony paths are heard, but the overriding perception is of reeds, wood and metal projected as they’re stripped to their essence. Concerned with propelling dissected timbres in a complete fashion, Doneda sometimes uses circular breathing, but is more often concerned with exposing split tones, tone vibrations and sudden concentrated breaths, some of which involved two distinct complementary lines from the soprano. As reed tones become wider they also elongate so that with doits, the whooshing air is projected to reach top-of-range multiphonics. As siren-like reed dissonance jaggedly intersects with the textures of crackling twigs and gravelly thicket shifts, only harsh tonguing and metallic refraction distinguish the crafted instrument from the countryside timbres. The extended concluding track, played on sopranino saxophone, intensifies the natural/improvised schism-connection. Doneda launches arabesques and arches reed motifs that are easily higher-pitched than any bird song. Descending to scooped snarls, leaf swishes and other natural movements also reference a path through the forest, Eventually a decisive meld of spittle-encrusted reed flattement and outdoor air currents become a connective climax.

Doneda’s forest improvisation were recorded near Drôme in France’s Southeastern alps regions, while the six tracks that make up 2000 Miles were recorded in a similar distant environment: the family home of soprano and tenor saxophonist Erin Rogers, near Blackfoot, Alberta, population about 392 and as the title says, 2000 miles from New York city, where Rogers now lives. A member of groups like thingNY and the New Thread Quartet, Rogers is immersed in notated music, but this disc is pure improv. Many of the tunes are pointillist, but without abandoning grit. One, such as “Township Road 494”, may be built up from an amalgam of gentle puffs and ancillary slides. But the result is measured carefully in dual twin tones that intersect for Arcadian blowing. Other tunes inflate into wider pressurized volume wavering as on “North Star” where spiky bites precede high-pitched clarion buzzes and peeps. Still other tracks add nephritic scoops, shaking breaths and splayed note clusters to make their points. Eventual amalgamation includes body tube echoes and key percussion. All these experiments presage “New Moon”, the almost 19-minute final track. With lanky and squealy pitches reaching an epitome of harshness, the theme emphasis the metal of the saxophone until an interlude of circular breathing moves the emphasis back to the reed. This multiphonic feat continues until the conclusion as it alternates with hard bites, altissimo shakes and key percussion.

Rogers’ disc isn’t the only one with dedicated titled tracks, so does Raw Demon Alchemy, New Yorker Darius Jones’ alto saxophone tour-de-force. Unlike the others however, his solo interpretations are of compositions by Jazz icons Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and Roscoe Mitchell, hip-hop electronic conceptualizer Georgia Anne Muldrow and of all things, “Beautiful Love” written by Young and Van Alstryne and introduced in 1931 by the orchestra of Wayne King, “the waltz king”. While Jones does emphasize some wide-open fruity tones in this rendition, his intro sounds like more like “Meet the Flintstones” and the continuation deconstructs the melody into bellowing scoops and a burlesque theme variation at the end. Jones, who has worked with William Parker, Matthew Shipp and others, knows his Jazz history and creates unique variations of these Free Jazz classics. Most potent are his handling of Mitchell’s “Nonaah” and Ra’s “Love In Outer Space”. Masticating the first with continuous reed bites, the saxophonist rumbles bottom tones and barks high-pitched ones, then pauses to expose them one note at a time. Slithering up and down horn pitches, Jones sometimes repeats the same pattern over and over for additional emphasis. By the finale he has created an entire new and longer theme that extends logically from the initial one. Drawn out with an expansive horn exposition, “Love In Outer Space” moves to a slower-paced narrative as Jones’ timbres continue to descend to tenor sax-like pitches. Continuing in broken octave elaboration, passages are squeezed or split until a doit moves note dissection at the highest pitch. Unexpectedly the final sequence recalls the near-mellow melody which is subtly rephrased until a final showy honk.

More than a fad, solo saxophone recitals are now an accepted part of creative music. Each of these discs shows how it can be done.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: b.: 1. b.1.i 2. b.1.ii 3. b.1.iii 4. b.1.iv 5. b.2.i 6. b.2.ii 7. b.2.iii 8. b.2 1v 9. b.2.v

Personnel: b.: Josh Sinton (baritone saxophone)

Track Listing: Path: 1. Path Under 1 2. Path Under 2 3. Path Under 3 4. Path Under 4 5. Path Under 5

Personnel: Path: Michel Doneda (soprano and sopranino saxophones) –

Track Listing: 2000: 1. Waxing (Home I) 2. North Star 3. Angelface 4. Township Road 494 5. Home II 6. New Moon

Personnel: 2000: Erin Rogers (soprano and tenor saxophones)

Track Listing: Demon: 1. Figure No. 2 2. Sadness 3. Beautiful Love 4. Nonaah 5. Love In Outer Space

Personnel: Demon: Darius Jones (alto saxophone)