Urs Leimgruber

Continuing his deep investigation of the soprano saxophone’s limits, Swiss reedist Urs Leimgruber expands his solo ruminations in this three-CD set to duo improvisations with other veteran improvisers from three countries. Also known for his membership in the OM trio with the late Barre Phillips and Jacques Demierre, Leimgruber’s partners for each CD here are Swiss vocalist (and musical saw player) Dorothea Schürch, who was part of the 6iX ensemble; German keyboardist Magda Mayas, who often works with Tony Buck and French bassist Joëlle Léandre, who has played with almost every important creative musican over the past half century.

The five creations which define the Swiss mix between the saxophonist and the vocalist rely for the most part on integrating Schürch’s widening and compressed ululations and Leimgruber’s reed techniques that range from elevated peeps to basement snorts and almost every timbre in-between. Also encompassed are broken-chord evolution, intertwined textures or solo forays. Variations include passages that range from consolidating harsh vocal squeals and yelping reed spits as on “#1 11:19” to quieter gentleness melding voice ostinato and high-pitched reed toots and swallows. Hollow tube resonations, toneless breaths and staccato tongue slaps are part of the saxophonist’s strategy, sometime projected intermittently. Affiliations from Schürch include mumbles, murmurs, back-of-throat gurgles and constipated retches. While her saw’s whistling vibrates are heard less prominently, the basis for Schürch-Leimgruber cooperation is in making vocal stylings a full partner in these creative expositions.

Because two instruments are used during the six Mayas-Leimgruber duos, the tonal parameters are different from the Schürch duets. But they’re not every day either, Matching the unconventional timbres the saxophonist draws from his horn, Mayas plays a vintage clavinet, whose pickups and mechanism involve rubber pads hitting the instrument’s string set, leading to vibrations that are more guitar-like than piano-sounding. At times the string accents and reed suckles and pitches are so similar that they could come from the same instrument. That doesn’t happen too often however since atypical reed trills usually define themselves with dissected or hollow timbres or even solitary whistles, while the clavinet properties also include tolling key patterns and crackling frails. The interaction is expressed at its greatest length on “#2 10:51” and “#6 10:05”. The latter emphasizes elongation as Leimgruber’s shofar-like reflective snarls squirm alongside Mayas’ twittering stops and string strums combining into a horizontal push. More segmented, “#2 10:51” depends on distant tensile clipping from the keyboard and aviary tongue stops and flattement from the saxophone. As Mayas’ comprehensive string slashes and guttural twangs ascend so do Leimgruber’s double tongued screeching flutters. The upshot angles the results into a kaleidoscopic tonal meld.

Probably because of their long history of playing together, the seven Leimgruber-Léandre duets come off best. Another factor may be the bassist’s idiosyncratic ability. Not only is she an exemplar of double bass versatility, perhaps even more so than the saxophonist and the keyboardist but her occasional individualistic vocalizing also means she expresses timbres reminiscent of Schürch. Whether these duets are low key or high energy, gentle or aggressive, fast or slow, the bassist’s clenched sweeps, stops and squeezes are carefully affiliated with the saxophonist’s trills, tongue stop, reed bites and wallowing low pitches. At the same time her string pumps, jabs and stops are usually layered alongside Leimgruber’s squeals and key percussion to end up with a horizontal, if somewhat extended and narrow, linear presence as they do on “#6 7:36”. The two’s mastery of call-and-response means that an evolving continuum is maintained even when her thick rhythmic stops and his intermittent bites and scoops lead to aggressive percussiveness or dot-dash-like segmented pointillism. At the same time her vocalese which encompasses murmurs and growls in a nonsense language to burst of bel canto lyricism provide a addendum to her spiccato and sul ponticello string slices and, in the case of “#5 6:33”, create new horizontal affiliations with the saxophonist when he joins her verbal outbursts with dog-like pants, animal snorts and aviary peeps.

Part of Leimgruber’s evolving definition of what soprano saxophone playing involves, the strength of the duos on Air Vol. 2 makes one wonder if, and hope that, more volumes of similar high quality will be created.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD1: 1. #1 5:24 2. #2 6:10 3. #3 4. #4 4:33 5. #5 6:33 6. #6 7:36 7. #7 8:39 CD2: 1. #1 8:50 2. #2 10:51 3. #3 3:12 4. #4 7:06 5. #5 9:38 6. #6 10:05 CD3: 1. #1 11:19 2. #2 5:49 3. #3 4:45 4. #4 8:23 5. #5 6:01

Personnel: Urs Leimgruber (soprano saxophone) with Joëlle Léandre (bass- CD1); Magda Mayas (clavinet-Cd2) and Dorothea Schürch (voice, singing saw- CD3)