Piotr Michalowski/Damon Smith

Udo Schindler/Paul Rogers
Ephemeral Locations
Confront Core 50

Amplifying the austere textures that come from improvising with only reeds and a double bass, two duos do so with a mixture of doubling and design. On How to Ripen in Ice for instance, one American Damon Smith, who has played with numerous global innovators relies on his double bass skill, while Polish-American Piotr Michalowski, also an acclaimed academic, divides his playing among bass and contralto clarinets, sopranino and soprano saxophones and Japanese Shinobbue flute. Similarly on Ephemeral Locations it’s German Udo Schindler, who brings clarinet, double bass clarinet, tenor saxophone and cornet to the one extended improvisation, while the UK’s Paul Rogers ups the rhythmic ante playing a 7-string double bass. Both veterans have collaborated extensively with an orchestra’s worth of fellow improvisers,

Starting off with Michalowskli’s wild reed cries on “Gripped by these Tics”, the extended first track, that are  quickly answered by carefully positioned thick stops from Smith, the two embark on a journey of discovery. Strums, stops and shuffles from the bassist repeat arco and pizzicato textures that resonate and rumble in order to connect with the reedist’s whorls and whirls encompassing squeaky doits and thinning smears. The climax is a connective throb from both sides.

Calm and commotion refract from most of the other tracks as the two reveal fragility from blending scratches and snorts and extract fortitude by stretching quieter and more delicate timbres. Along the way Michalowski on his own combines bass clarinet timbral fragments into circumscribed percussive motifs, while converting soprano saxophone flutters into tongue stopping to mate with Smith’s low-pitched sul ponticellos rubs so the resulting vibrations are both airy and aggressive.

Solipsism isn’t an option here either. Even as Michalowski moves from propelling staccato saxophone pitches to bass clarinet chalumeau on “Camouflage into Opposites”, it’s the intersection as Smith switches from shaking arco slices to a pizzicato throb, that lets the reedist’s honks predominate.

Eventually as the duo exposes tropes ranging from pressurized reed slurs and col legno string strokes or torques dual lyricism, they reach the concluding “How Not to Act”. Perhaps sardonically titled, this is a semi-groove piece with vibrating puffs from Michalowski and woody slaps from Smith. Sliding besides a walking bass line the reedist produces ascending trills, which eventually join bass stings for a unison lowing climax.

Wrapping their spontaneous extemporization in one nearly 51½ minute track, both players on Ephemeral Locations initially emphasize expansion and dissidence as Schindler’s clarion bites move up the scale to reed sucks, vibrating peeps and near-altissimo screeches. Rogers’ seesaw responses slip from below the bridge rubs to a lower-pitched continuum for balance. His contrapuntal tough twangs then speed up to mandolin-like plucks and string stops as Schindler’s tenor saxophone projections harden into tongue-slapping growls, jagged split tones and solid smears.

At the half-way point a more moderated interchange among reed kisses and arco string flutters soon reverses itself into wood-rending stretches from Rogers and reed blasts, followed almost immediately by plunger smears and horizontal breaths from Schindler’s cornet met nearly simultaneously by woody ripples and sul tasto rubs from Rogers instrument.

With the parameters of the program now established, Schindler roams through his reed collection, adding echoing double bass clarinet snores at some points and distended bites and yelps from the clarinet and saxophone elsewhere. These moves from ascending to descending multiphonic intensity are reflected by Rogers whose broken chord sweeps and buzzes fragment tones in kind while – likely because of his additional strings – he almost simultaneously taps out a connective ostinato. The climax intertwines sul tasto string strums and reed rasps that slide from strained squeaks to clarion grumbles and the closest to mellow the duo gets in their playing.

Overcoming the stark limitation of these programs with invention and multi-tasking, each duo makes a significant case for alluring free-form improv.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ripen: 1. Gripped by these Tics 2. Harmonize your Disintegration 3. Philosopher in Need of a Bed 4. Camouflage into Opposites 5. What you’ve Ruined 6. What you’ve let get Ruined (DS Solo 7. How Not to Act

Personnel: Ripen: Piotr Michalowski (bass and contralto clarinets, sopranino and soprano saxophones and Japanese Shinobbue flute) and Damon Smith (bass)

Track Listing: Ephemeral: 1. Ephemeral Locations

Personnel: Ephemeral: Udo Schindler (clarinet, double bass clarinet, tenor saxophone and cornet) and Paul Rogers (7-string bass)