Roundhouse Quartet

A self-contained and distinct ensemble, the Roundhouse Quartet exemplifies the type of grass roots improvisers who extend creative music without venturing far from their initial locus. That place is New Haven, Con., but unlike other locals like Wadada Leo Smith and Gerry Hemingway, the four are pretty much unknown on the international Jazz scene.

Roundhouse members who play on the disc’s three instant composition are Michael Paolucci, a teacher and drummer with bands like Nardy Boy; electronics musician Conor Perreault is also co-organizer of the local Elm City Noise festival; guitarist Bob Gorry who has worked with Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes; and clarinetist/flutist Diane Buettner, played with Smith, Joe Fonda and others who in the 1980s and has returned to music after a hiatus.

Interlocking sound currents on these extended pieces overlap influences and inflections, but rarely feature expected timbres. Gorry’s interpretations encompass delicate finger-picking, twanging frails and swelling strums. Mostly favoring her soprano and bass clarinets over ethereal flute trills, Buettner adeptly mixes slurry honks and chalumeau register drones with clarion shakes, squeaks and tongue stops. A colorist, Paolucci’s percussion regiment includes minimized clips, clanks and nerve beat as well as rasps across stationary cymbals and idiophone shakes. Along with a continuous ostinato of watery burbles, Perreault’s voltage contributions move from echoing sputters and crackles to near opaque drones. Also featured are embedded interludes of wavering voices and sounds, which are fragmented and processed so that except for brief phrases they resemble vibrations rather than realized intrusions.

While the final “Behind the Shed” includes a cut off snatch of straight-ahead playing, the majority of the tunes are concerned with contrapuntal or layered textures. These can blend wave form jiggles and stops with measured guitar licks or set up parallel expositions where disassociated percussion rumbles, guitar flanges, and reed flutters are lined up alongside shaking oscillations and transforming hisses.

It’s obvious that the Roundhouse Quartet has created an autonomous and self-sustaining approach to free music, perfected and performed here. As it stands its vivid enough. But perhaps the next challenge should be to expand the process with collaborations outside its sonic and geographical comfort zones.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Haymaker 2.  Lock Up 3. Behind the Shed

Personnel: Diane Buettner (bass and soprano clarinet and flute); Bob Gorry (guitar); Michael Paolucci (drums) and Conor Perreault (electronics)