Schanzer/Speach Duo with guests

Celebrating and archiving a decade when the worlds of new notated music and free improvisation drew closer together is this two-CD set of 10 performances that strikingly illustrate the intermingling. Recorded in Brooklyn art spaces before the borough became the hip (in real estate terms) locus it is today; all tracks feature pianist Bernadette Speach and guitarist Jeffrey Schanzer. Part of the contemporary, so-called classical avant-garde, their collaborations here mostly encompassed players with whom they organized initiatives and concerts, most of whom hailed from creative music defined as Free Jazz.

Few fissures are apparent with the two as comfortable improvising alongside the likes of Wadada Leo Smith and Leroy Jenkins as the certified and academically oriented  players here.

Longtime Art Ensemble of Chicago member Lester Bowie is the only musician featured on two tracks, each of which expresses individual shadings. In trio form “The Villager” traces a passionate exposition with a touch of dissonance, initially linking romantic keyboard reflections with muted brass grace notes. As the trumpeter turns to bugling squawks and mutters into the horn’s body tube then ratchets to broiling triplets, Speech pirouettes to more expressive chording with the initial melodic impetus confirmed with late arriving guitar strums. Adding cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm on CD2’s “Improvisation”, the cellist first doubles Bowie’s elastic triplets and linear growls, then plucks and rubs his instrument’s strings alongside guitar strums. As the pressure intensifies stentorian piano rattles echo alongside the trumpeter’s gutbucket slurs and bent note emphasis.

No matter the circumstances Speech’s piano is prominent throughout; Speech’s guitar less so. This is a constant even when the playing is with someone more academic than avant garde. On the “Improvisation” with David Pleasant thumping conga drums, cymbals and tambourine, blowing aviary flute trills and advancing with laughter and gibbers, it’s methodical piano cascades and pinpointed chording that move the program in a horizontal manner. Meanwhile warmer single-string guitar vibrations add to the general percussion-transverse movement.

Matching dynamics and development, similar interactions with other multi-instrumentalists like Jospeh Jarman, show the duo’s responses when the partner add ecclesiastical and ethnic instruments and sequences to the mix. In fact his “Hollows Five: II – Sincere Words.

Can’t Compromise or Overpower” is inflated with yet other influence when Jarman’s alternating emphasis from temple bell tinkles on one hand and circular breathed alto saxophone and moaning bass variations on the other face a distinct challenge as the pianist makes low-pitch clunks and Moton Feldman-like continuous intermediacy her response.

However the most instructive challenge and shrewd resolution of contrasting variations come when Speech brings a toy piano to an extended meeting with Wadada Leo Smith’s koto, trumpet, mbira, harmonica and wooden flute on his “Rain Flowers, Vertical Spears and Diamond Sunrays”. Emphasising each instrument in term, rejoinders take on varied forms. Guitar picking joins Smith’s koto styling. But while the latter uses the Japanese string set as a percussion instrumentSchanzer becomes more lyrical. The trumpeter’s strategy of advancing half-valve effects and grace note bending is met by heavy chording from the pianist, while the guitar output become more percussive. Finally the other string instruments extend the theme first suggested by Smith’s thumb piano ostinato as he projects a distinct climax with harmonica huffs and thin wooden flute whimpers.

Live in Brooklyn 1992-2002 is doubly valuable. It’s not only a glimpse of Brooklyn creativity at a crucial time period, but also in preserving lesser-known musical interactions of those usually classified as Free Jazz players with others from the notated music avant garde. Hopefully more admixtures like this are still taking place.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD 1: 1. Improvisation 2. The Villager 3. Improvisation 4. Rain Flowers, Vertical Spears and Diamond Sunrays* 5. Improvisation CD 2: 1 Improvisation 2. Foreign Affair 3, Improvisation 4. Glove Quartet 5. Hollows Five: II – Sincere Words.

Can’t Compromise or Overpower

Personnel: Bernadette Speach (piano or toy piano*) and Jeffrey Schanzer (acoustic and/or electric guitar) with CD1: Oliver Lake (alto saxophone – track1); Lester Bowie (trumpet- track 2); David Pleasant (percussion, flute – track 3); Wadada Leo Smith (koto, trumpet, mbira, harmonica, wooden flute – track 4); Mark Dresser (bass- track 5) CD2: 1. Bowie, Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello – track 1); Alva Rogers (vocals- track 2); Leroy Jenkins (violin – track 3); Holland Hopson (soprano saxophone, electronics), John J.A. Jannone (electronics -track 4); Joseph Jarman (alto saxophone, flute, percussion -track 5)