Bagatellen

James Finn - Live at the Via Della Pace

Gingko Leaf 3

Concert-wise, there’s a certain cachet that comes from being shut down by the cops. It’s roots lie in the counter-establishment spirit of challenging music that balks conventional expectation whether via volume or content or both. A storied history exists when it comes to figuratively blowing the fuses and sending unreceptive onlookers clamoring for the exits.

Such was the scene when saxophonist James Finn and drummers Warren Smith and Newman Taylor Baker gigged at the Via Della Pace in Brooklyn this past May. I’ve never visited the venue, but Finn’s recollections on his website describe it as a small basement space beneath an Italian restaurant known for romantic dining and intimate atmosphere. The owner was presumably expecting one thing and the trio delivered something else entirely- an incantatory evening of free jazz that incited neighbors to complaining and the small audience in attendance to adulating. Someone called the fuzz and the lights came up, but not before an entire precious set made it to digital tape. The edited results reside on this slim-line CDR and they’re quite a ride.

Smith and Taylor-Baker make for a stunning team with a surplus of stamina shared between them. Separated into stereo channels (T-B on the right and Smith stationed left) each man respects the other’s space, but isn’t averse to regular overlap when it comes to shaping roiling currents around Finn’s ruddering horn. On the opening “Aubrush Variations,” an episodic improv that takes its inspiration from a sacred Moslem rug-weaving practice, the pair’s synergy is often downright scary. Reacting and adapting in the absence of Finn during the track’s middle section each drummer shapes solo statements that also cannily interlock in an undulating telegraphing conversation. Taylor-Baker starts on stuttering snare, Smith on rolling toms. A switch signaled by a resounding cymbal wash and it’s time for a call-and-response exchange between the two that makes resourceful use of sticks, brushes, palm edges and fingers. Finn navigates the first third of the piece on tenor, starting purposefully tentative, but swiftly building momentum as rhythms parse and implode around him. Soprano unsheathes for the final third, his straight horn retaining a striking limpidity of tone and syntax even in proximity to the most strenuously martial patterns from his partners.

“Adagio Reflections” generates an even greater density and velocity as Finn’s wailing tenor sluices down the stereo center between frothing drum cascades. Translated from its earlier tenor dialect on Plaza de Toros to flute-speak, “Toro Bravo” feels more ventilated in cast and countenance. Smith’s steady shuffling brushwork joins Taylor-Baker’s atmospheric cymbal and tom swells in further lending an airy agrestic ease to the interpretation. The concert concludes with another ceiling-scoring blowout inscribed with an appropriately epic title “Intercessions and Towards the Final Rose.” Finn’s soprano and tenor scales heights once again and the drummers operate in close league to further pulley and power his skyward spiritualized ascents. As if on cue the track concludes with the restaurant owner audibly and resignedly advising the band to cease and desist per constabulary order. Finn obliges and another chapter in his already colorful history is recorded into lore.

~ Derek Taylor

Sean Meehan - Sectors (for Constant)

SoSEDITIONS 802

The two discs of this solo set arrive entirely heat-sealed within a sheet of watercolor paper (fairly light, about 90 lb) measuring some 10 x 14 inches. One can rip apart the thin package or, more delicately, take a razor to the discs' perimeters and ease them out. The impressions made by the encased discs flatten out the otherwise textured paper, creating an appealingly sensuous contrast. As of now, having owned the release for four or five days, I've chosen to leave them intact.

Highly recommended.

Black Army Jacket - Closed Casket

Black Army Jacket
Closed Casket
Black Box Recordings 004

If Black Army Jacket are remembered for anything at all, it’s for being one of the dozens of bands drummer Dave Witte has passed through, including Human Remains, Discordance Axis, Melt-Banana, and currently East West Blast Test (his collaboration-by-mail with No Use For A Name’s Chris Dodge) and Municipal Waste. Witte is probably the greatest blast-beat player alive, a guy who manages to inject a surprising intricacy into a genre that all too frequently dissolves into mere bash-and-screech.

In addition to pounding the snare like a nail-gun set on full auto, Witte gets to play in a surprisingly groove-like manner for the first 14 tracks of this disc. Black Army Jacket didn’t reflexively take their grind to the same extremes that Discordance Axis, Circle of Dead Children, or Benumb explored, though they were certainly capable of sending listeners into moshpit spasms. They were a little more old-school than that, as influenced by Discharge as by Napalm Death. There are quite a few ear-catchingly punky riffs here, and many of the songs are slow enough that thrash-trained listeners will actually be able to decipher the lyrics, if they so choose.

Closed Casket is a gathering of 50 tracks from demo tapes, split EPs, compilations, and previously unreleased recordings. (The first seven songs on the CD, probably its greatest selling point, were supposed to be a 7” on Relapse Records back in 1999 or so, but the band broke up before that could happen.) If you’ve heard their 222 album or their split CD with Hemlock, both still available shockingly cheap on Amazon, or if you’ve always meant to check these guys out, or even if you just need one more memorial snapshot of late-90s underground East Coast grindcore, this disc will make you happy.

Gil Melle - Primitive Modern/Quadrama (Prestige)

Even by musicanly standards Gil Melle’s ego stretches capacious borders. The odor of the impresario is redolent throughout the self-penned liners to his Complete Blue Note Recordings (now lamentably out of print). In those pages he boldly claims ownership to a number of precedents: first Caucasian musician signed to Blue Note as a leader; inventor of the first prototype drum machine; first to incorporate electronics into a jazz setting through his pioneering ensemble the Electronauts; etc. All are boasts that whether true or false can’t help but carry a stale air of hucksterism. The notes to Primitive Modern are similarly pedantic, but they go into far greater detail toward substantiating Melle’s declarations of grandeur. His sage name-drops of Bartok, Lars Gullin and Herbie Nichols are not idle avowals. The music on the album and Quadrama, its companion in this two-fer, make a case for his prestigious musical place in unequivocal terms.

Melle’s modus is essentially one of potentially jarring juxtapositions: jazz swing with classical consonance and dissonance; simplified rhythmic meters with complex harmonic and melodic patterns, vice versa, and so on. The outcome of these cunning stabs at seemingly-incongruous synthesis is a portfolio of compositions that still possesses the ability to surprise and stimulate nearly a half century after its scripting. Outside the athletic oration of Melle’s throaty baritone saxophone, the chief reason for the albums’ success resides in the supporting cast assembled for the recording dates. Guitarist Joe Cinderella is an unsung revelation. His advanced harmonic sense equals any contemporaneous plectrist from Raney to Farlow on down and it’s combined with chance-taking brio and tonal incisiveness that make tracks like the intricate, rabbit-paced “Ironworks” such memorable excursions. Ed Thigpen’s eloquent showing on traps is strong point too. The accents and textures he achieves on the opening “Dominica,” augmenting his kit with various Melle-designed percussive devices to create an orchestral sound enhanced with surprising moments of dissonance, give the tune a forward-thinking resonance on par with the best Third Stream experiments of the era. Bassist Billy Phillips completes the group, unobtrusively shaping arco and pizz patterns that augment the unshakeable modernity of his colleagues.

A year later Melle hired session pros George Duvivier and Shadow Wilson for Quadrama with confrere Cinderella returning to the guitar stool. While not quite on the same rung of originality as its predecessor, thanks mostly to Melle’s mixing a pair of (beautifully-tweaked) Ellington standards with his own challenging pieces, the session still stacks favorably with the most adventurous jazz of the ’50s. Melle’s sojourn as a jazzman ended up relatively short-lived as he soon became distracted by full-time forays into the visual arts (both albums here showcase his own striking cover art conceptions). The urge to ponder what he would have come up with had he continued to rudder a jazz course is powerful. These early efforts remain vital representative heirlooms of a man who made it his mission to prove the pliable nature of the parameters of jazz.

[for a different take on the disc check out this Ron Wynn review]

(Various) Idroscalo d'Autore - Disco Compatto Numero Uno

(Various) Idroscalo d’Autore
Disco Compatto Numero Uno
Idroscalo

Pity the poor reviewer. Not only is he deluged with odd and difficult music from around the globe in innumerable styles and expected to be able to digest it all. No, that’s too easy. There have to exist labels who take a further step, releasing their product shrouded within an even more impenetrable umbra, giving out scant or conflicting information as to what you’re actually hearing. Does it matter? Not too much, all things considered; you still hear sounds and react to them. But it makes writing about the stuff just that much more of a thistle-infested undertaking.

Thistles. Not so bad an image for many of the tracks collected here in, though their thorniness is often counterbalanced by a degree of rhythm and, almost catchiness. Who’s responsible for a given piece, on the other hand, is open to question. Thirteen pieces by thirteen different individuals or groups, selections of relatively short duration (2-7 minutes) with a strong leaning toward the accessibly gnarly. The CD booklet lists the perpetrators in quasi-alpha order as follows: Anofele, Anton Nikkila, Domenico Sciajno, David Karpenter, Fabio Gionfrida, Kar, Justin Bennett, Mas, Maurizio Martusciallo, Nihil, Noitz, Resina and Tirriddiliu. Ah, thinks I, maybe this is the track order. But then I spy tiny script on the back of the CD following this roster: “this list is not the track list”. OK. Sciajno’s was the only name to register initially, though I subsequently learned that I had heard several others in various contexts. Not that this mattered. Could I mail the label and ask? Sure, but it seems to me that one should accept the presentation as offered. Besides, I imagine readers here in the know will quickly fill in the many gaps.

Of course, it wouldn’t be worth going through all this foofaraw if the music contained wasn’t good; and, by and large, it is. I’ll admit that, had it been presented as the work of a single musician or group, I don’t think I would have raised an eyebrow. There is something of a kindred strain at play in the pieces—all electronic, all fairly noise-oriented though with at least a passing glance here and there to rhythms and melodies. There’s not really a weak track around and several of the pieces are quite fine, beginning with the opening rumble, a cavernous, quietly volcanic work on through the equally mysterious and fascinating third track, continuing past the burbling, cantankerous fourth cut with its massive drones and inklings of industrial rhythms. Track ten, beginning with street recordings of a young child counting (in Italian, I think?) and progressing through a fractured soundscape of crowd noise, what sound like barely-registering-through-static trumpet bleats and other horn-like blares is my pick of this anonymous litter. The sheer welter of noise that’s eventually thrown up is as overwhelming as it is ecstatic. The twelfth cut is also very impressive, brooding and dead serious, soon generating a sputtering rhythm, vague, kora-like pluckings and an urgent whine. The final piece ushers things out with a steady, near dance beat, maybe causing one to think of an updating of the better, African-influenced Laswell or Hector Zazou/Bony Bikaye works from the 80s.

Whoever’s responsible for which pieces, this “No. 1 CD” is good listening.

Last Exit - Köln

UMS/Atavistic 252

At some point in his solo career Jaco Pastorius took to referring to his music as “punk jazz,” even going so far as to pen a composition under that name. Several posthumous compilations of his work have also curiously adopted the phrase as title. Not to knock Jaco, but the notion of him being poster boy for a punk aesthetic in jazz has always struck me peculiar, even a bit absurd, especially given his virtuosic conceits and highly honed chops. A far more germane vessel for that mantle is Last Exit, the liquor-swilling, stage-steamrolling foursome who shared a Sex Pistols-worthy existence of expectations-obliterating insurgency and excess for eight years. The felicitous teaming of Peter Brötzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Bill Laswell and Ronald Shannon Jackson made for a momentous occurrence that’s still sustains after-ripples of admiration and consternation to this day.

Polished technique and prescriptive charts were affronts to the band philosophy. Energy, volume and crotch-of-the-pants improvisation trumped any sort of de rigueur template for song craft. Listening to Laswell stamp out industrial rhythmic slabs on the 6-string electric bass it’s evident that while Pastorius would school him summarily in the prowess department, the formers ferocious pile driver lines could just as easily clean Jaco’s clock and send him away shiner-eyed and reeling through funneled testosterone alone. Sharrock’s fire wire fretwork served as an inspired complement, spraying out in distortion-threaded arcs that rarely referenced anything resembling conventional chords. Jackson’s militaristic tattoos kept the tank trundling ahead at an earth-churning clip while Brötzmann shot salvo after salvo from the vehicle’s tenor-outfitted turret, his explosive rounds causing as much aural damage as the guitarist’s ground-based, shred-laced assaults.

Taped live in the German city of its title, the band’s debut is a vinyl-sized full frontal incursion pocked by moments of surprising restraint and space. “Hard School” sprawls out over the entire A-side, a surging improvisation that works off a succession of component team-ups and tight change-up rhythms. Early on, Brötzmann and Sharrock share a brief interlude only to have the intimacy shattered by the falling timber of Jackson’s sticks and the depth charge bombs of Laswell’s deep sea bass. Sharrock answers with a vaguely Eastern-structured shard, signaling a power trio segment sans Brötz that sounds like tautly-stretched steel cables snapping from moorings to wreak havoc on all in their path. The four players reconverge for an epic fulminating finish stoked by a loping heavy metal groove, Sharrock doling out white lightning distortion from the frets and Laswell locking on a mountain-moving bass line worthy of early Westbound Funkadelic.

Jackson’s “Brain Damage,” the only track on the album that approximates a song-based anatomy, staggers along as a slice of whiskey-headed back porch improv built initially on a stomping Mississippi Hill Country cadence. Brötzmann’s open-spigot saxophone sounds almost regal in comparison to the composer’s guttural Fat Possum-style glossolalia. Sharrock once again achieves the speed of an Ethernet connection, channeling a geyser of guitar data across the smoking surfaces of his strings at speeds almost too rapid to process. His solo builds swiftly to a closing blues coda pierced slivers of unexpectedly delicate melody. The album’s other tracks tick away in short order. “Taking a Beating” is all angry atonal colors and anarchic fisticuff aggression. Splinters of second line funk surface and submerge in the chicken-scratch picking, slap-palm plucking and slippery stereo drum syncopations of “Last Call” while “Dark Heart” allows Brötzmann and Sharrock one culminating chance to blow their respective gaskets before another Herculean groove congeals to take the whole conflagration out. All of Last Exit’s recordings are worth hearing, but their first undertaking remains the ordnance with the biggest, most memorable punch.

~ Derek Taylor

René Thomas – The Real Cat (Gitanes)

“All modern guitarists sound the same.” That blanket assertion comes from plectrist Bill Jennings who made a name for himself in the soul jazz bands of Willis Jackson and Jack McDuff. As a provable thesis his theory accumulates veracity much like a sieve holds water, but Jennings argument does ring true on some levels and in some instances. Take guitarist René Thomas for example. On the surface his sound is very much like that of contemporaries like Jimmy Raney and Tal Farlow. Versed in swing and bebop he quickly came under the spell of Django Reinhardt, adapting some of the gypsy’s fingerings to amplified hollow body and moving to Paris with the hopes of breaking the big time with his extrapolations. The aspirations never fully reached fruition, but he did find the time and means to cut a handful of records. The pair of sessions on this Jazz in Paris collection dates from ’54 and ’56. Originally released on the Parisian Barclay imprint, they visit the transplanted Belgian in the company of two small French combos. Both units are stocked with serviceable, if unmemorable players like pianist René Urtreger and drummer José Bourguignon, the latter a minor ace with the whisk brushes on tracks like the mellow “Someone to Watch Over Me.” The Lestorian tenor saxophones of either André Ross or Serge “Bib” Monville join the leader’s limpid single-note picking on ten out of sixteen numbers.

The songbook is mostly standard bop with pieces like “A Night in Tunisia” and “Lover Man” receiving earnest, ultimately debonair readings (on the latter tune a weird and fascinating moment arises where Thomas’ normally tractable phrasing frays and self-destructs). All are terse and sweet in execution, the longest clocking at a mere 4:48. Monville’s presence on the second date creates something of a poor-man’s facsimile of the far more influential concert sides Stan Getz and Johnny Smith cut for Roost a few years earlier. Thomas taped what was easily his finest session for Riverside a few years later with modernists JR Monterose and Hod O’Brien on the payroll. It’s a better record on almost pretty much every count, but this Continental compilation still possesses ample charms. The snapshot on the back of the digipack channels Thomas’ academic inclinations in humorous fashion looking as he does like the starch-suited love child of Woody Allen and Morton Feldman. He may have moved relatively little beyond the sway of his influences, but his chops were sufficient enough to save face on a regular basis as an improviser with something significant to say.

Unstable Ensemble - Embers

Family Vineyard 37

I once observed a father comfort a screaming child by having him listen to the dial tone. I was reminded of this about a third of the way into “Everything Vibrates,” the opening track on Unstable Ensemble’s third full-length, as guitarist Jason Bivins does a picture-perfect dial tone impression. I’m only certain it wasn’t authentic because the upper partials morph and swell, ultimately dominating the texture. There is something innocently exploratory in the gesture, a directness that encapsulates this disc and the band’s current approach to improvisation.

Over the course of its six-year existence, UE has undergone radical sonic changes to complement several personnel shifts. The music has evolved dizzyingly from the earthy immediacy and primal jazz-tinged noise of 17 ways, past the pointilistic but melodic peaks and valleys on Liturgy of Ghosts toward a kind of theatrical expressionism—sparse in the rhetoric of Eurofree improv but offering up refreshing glimpses of good old American post-rock. Embers is an album of gradualities, and while it certainly charts a new direction for the band, it also brings the diversity of the group aesthetic into sharp focus.

Take the beautiful title track, a two-minute gem that speaks hauntingly of jazz past and of things to come. The two percussionists (Ian Davis and Matt Griffin) clatter, roll and brush-stroke while Bivins lazily strums uhr-chords, distorted at their roots and droney in subdued early Pelt fashion. Saxman Marty Belcher glides along providing proto-cool and entirely appropriate anecdotal evidence, while behind it all, Eric Weddle’s no input mixing board can be heard humming and sizzling, giving the proceedings a strangely futuristic feel, as if we’re hearing a Wes Montgomery group long after apotheosis or decay.

On the flipside, “Better up North” chugs violently into life, Weddle staking out spacious but starkly rhythmic EAI ground. Bivins follows suit, distortedly creaking the ascent and joining the percussionists in some strangely militaristic pattern interplay. Only Belcher seems out of step here, speaking the outmoded melodic language of Liturgy until he is forced in line as the group erupts into a free-jazz march-squall. Here again, Weddle’s electronics are perfectly deployed, nauseatingly high frequencies only enhancing the vibe.

It is impossible, undesirable, to do verbal justice to the in-concert spontaneity captured on this disc. The two epic tracks work along similar lines and although they take longer to develop, concentration reveals new gestures on each listen. Topoi emerge and sublimate in stratified blocks, often with blurred edges, only to be subsumed again by the not unfriendly silence that pervades much of the disc. Apart from demonstrating Family Vineyard’s increasingly broad sonic palette, Embers is without question UE’s strongest and most coherent statement to date.

~ Marc Medwin

Nonpareil Ensconced in Magnetic Tape

Music collectors are a doomed lot. It’s a reverse kind of kismet I’ve known for a long while, but have become increasingly adept at keeping suppressed & out of mind. When I lived in Tucson, there was a guy I’d spot all the time along the circuit of record shops I’d visit every Tuesday & Friday after work. Stoop-shouldered, balding along the pate with a long, split-end infested, graying pony-tail in the back; bad floral print shirts with sweat stains blooming from the pits joining a below-the-waist ensemble of frayed cargo shorts, knee-high athletic socks and flip-flops. I surmised the cracked and taped sunglasses hiding his downcast gaze as the finishing touch to make it impossible to read which aisle he intended to shuffle down next or what used cd-spine he’d pinpointed amidst the masses.

Soon I started recognizing him right off the bat and I’m pretty sure the cognizance was shared. But no word was ever spoken between us, him bee-lining for one end of a store’s jazz section while I switched gears to try my luck at the other. Eventually I started to look at him as the visage of a possible future, the temporal denouement of a life spent fingering cardboard sleeves and plastic cases in an eternal search for fresh musical loot. Smugly, I decided that would never be me; that I would heed the harbinger of the hunchback and eventually give up collecting for some healthier, more sociable pastime. Well, it’s a decade on and I’m still in the game. No frizzled pony-tail to speak of and I still have all of my hair, but some recent news made me think back to the hunchback with a restored awareness of the futility of it all.

Here’s as good a juncture as any to thank Phil Freeman for hipping me to a momentous discovery, the true cynosure of this post, via his Running the Voodoo Down Blog. I did a quick spin by several jazz chat boards and found no mention of it within their pages, though something this big has surely been fomenting a fair share of buzz for awhile. In a stroke of luck that comes once in a lifetime, Jazz scholar Barry Kernfeld (a name unfamiliar to me) found himself privy to a mother lode of previously unissued Coltrane reel-to-reels, 35 of them to be exact, documenting music recorded under the aegis of Impulse! Records, 1962-64 by Rudy Van Gelder. He gained access to the trove through his position as historical consultant for last year’s Guernsey’s Jazz Auction and was commissioned to catalog it. The tapes were originally scheduled for auction on behalf of Coltrane’s first wife Naima and their two children, but upon learning of their existence Impulse! claimed ownership and issued an injunction to halt sale at the last minute. So they now sit in sequestered as the record company suits decide what to do with them.

Kernfeld’s abstract (originally written for the Gurnsey’s auction pamphlet & later pulled in the wake of the Impulse! interception) goes into juicy discographical detail about the find. His prose is far more lucid than mine with annotations that fill several scrollable pages. But of a few of the highlights titles include pristine stereo copies of master tapes to all 6 versions of the sextet rendering of A Love Supreme (all previously assumed lost to the world) and several reels that contain solo rehearsal segments of Coltrane working out ideas on tenor, soprano & piano, that’s right, solo Coltrane(!). Add to that a bevy of alternates and unissued titles including 9 new versions of “Impressions,” six of “All the Things You Are,” one of “Body and Soul” and the entire Coltrane/Johnny Hartman session on five reels preserved in what Kernfeld describes as resplendent fidelity.

Pretty astonishing stuff to say the least. But then why does the bonanza seem so bittersweet? I do a swift survey my storage shelves and between box sets and singles I tabulate nearly a hundred Coltrane cds in my collection. Assuming these epochal reels eventually receive the rightful reissue treatment they deserve that’s another dozen discs to acquire at a minimum. And two more Coltrane finds are hitting the music shop shelves this month and next: the Thelonious Monk Quartet Carnegie Hall concert on 9/27 and the Half Note set due to drop 10/11. With them trails the doggedly everlasting question how much ‘Trane is enough Trane? I can see the my old adversary the hunchback in my mind’s eye making the requisite visits to the brick & mortar shops on each respective street date, plucking sealed copies of each set from the racks and shuffling dutifully to the cash register. That hunchback is Me.

Yuji Takahashi - ATAK006

Atak 6

Composer/pianist Yuji Takahashi, born in 1938, came of age during the flowering of experimental electronic composition and studied for several years with Xenakis before becoming involved with explicitly politically oriented music in the 70s. He’s maintained a dual role as interpreter of music from Bach to Chopin to Rzewski to Zorn while also collaborating with musicians like Bailey, Frith and Yoshihide.

I often have some problems with this “school” of composers (whether or not they actually have any connection, I tend to group them conceptually)—people working with electronics in the 60s and 70s who emerged from academic and/or serial environments. Unlike Xenakis, who possessed both a superb ear for the nature of sounds themselves and an overarching sense of structure that, though often mathematically derived, usually had a powerful understanding of drama, I find many of these composers lacking in both. The electronic sounds chosen often have little resonance in and of themselves and their sequencing comes off as either disinterested or “dramatic” in a manner that’s essentially kitschy. There tends to be a dryness, an aloofness, that’s off-putting. Not that it’s usually so clear cut and some, like Raaijmakers or Koenig (among many others), fluctuate between an academic aura and more earthly, life-informed visceralness. To these ears, that’s slightly the case with this selection of Takahashi’s works for electronics, ranging chronologically from 1963 to 2005, though overall it’s a very satisfying collection.

Most of the pieces utilize text. The opening and most recently composed track, “gertrude – a portrait” mixes electronic sounds of a largely percussive nature with the composer’s reading of his own poem in homage to Gertrude Stein. As is everywhere the case on this disc, the music itself is vividly recorded, leaping almost sculpturally from one’s speakers. The percussive patterns (and some are notably rhythmic) blend with staticky patches and rough moans, the composer’s low, calm voice weaved through. It’s a solid work, the fractured nature of the collage-like music matching that of the text and, at four minutes, is of perfect duration. The next five pieces are a suite of sorts, combining improvised electronics with swatches of Russian poems and field recordings. The elements aren’t dissimilar from the first composition, but they’re more densely packed, rapidly leaping from one sound area to another. There’s arguably a little bit of “kitchen sink” approach here and I occasionally had the impulse to say, “Hey, slow down a bit and consider that last sequence!” but, apparently, that isn’t Takahashi’s way. Think of it as a melding of Richard Teitelbaum and Jon Oswald. The third in the series, “wktnwb” (all the sections bear such enigmatic titles), is especially impressive, its watery passages existing in dangerous-sounding apposition to the purely electronic ones.

“kumorinzets260795”, a live computer/sampler performance from 1995, lets a tad more air into the room and proceeds at a relaxed pace, though the samples employed get a little loopy, including what I’d almost bet were bits from Lester Bowie trumpet smears. As it progresses, layers accrete, kotos appear and a tasty sonic lasagna bakes for a minute or two before sparseness takes over again. “und flieder in die sonne”, a 1989 work reflecting on words from the end of Kafka’s life, is the most powerful piece presented here. At the beginning, a deep throb underlies bitterly spat out text, harsh whispers and small explosions of electronic noise. Later, a calmer voice is positioned against echoing bursts to disquieting effect. There’s a hint of George Crumb to be found; very enticing. It shuffles back and forth between the staccato nightmare and ringing, relative calmness until the territories ultimately collide and mutate into an altogether different Hell. The disc closes with Takahashi’s 1963 work, “time”, a sound-collage piece intended to portray 24-hour cycle in the life of a “salaried worker”. Using what appear to be field recordings of both industrial and natural origins, he combines them with playing on a porcelain percussion instrument invented by Junosuke Okuyama (who also worked with Toru Takemitsu). It’s another impressive track, again beautifully recorded, wherein the sequence of abstract, apparently unrelated sounds manage to convince the listener of their poetic logic. Whether or not the salaried worker would care is another question.

“ATAK006” (as near as I can gather, the disc’s title and its catalog number are identical) has a tinge of academe here and there, but fans of Raaijmakers and, to an extent, Xenakis should greatly enjoy it.

http://atak.jp/

Gerry Hemingway Quartet - The Whimbler

Clean Feed 40

With this latest offering for what might seem a standard-fare freebop quartet (reeds, brass, bass, percussion), drummer Gerry Hemingway retains the fluid swing, drive and humor that infused his early groups with trombonist Ray Anderson and/or altoist Tim Berne – this, in spite of the fact that his Guggenheim fellowship has afforded him the opportunity to record orchestral works, and his long tenure in the cooperative Anthony Braxton quartet captured simultaneous creation and destruction of walls between structured compositional and improvisational roles. The Whimbler, Hemingway’s second recording for Lisbon’s Clean Feed label, features a front line of semi-regular cohorts in tenorman Ellery Eskelin and bassist Mark Helias (who, with Hemingway and Ray Anderson, formed the BassDrumBone trio in the early ‘80s), along with trumpeter Herb Robertson, for a program of nine Hemingway compositions that evenly display the fruits of the percussionist-composer’s evolution.

“The Current Underneath” adds something slightly unexpected to the proceedings in Helias’ electric bass, providing a funky underpinning against a fluid, minimalist marimba/trap set vamp and a lilting tenor/trumpet theme that would not have sounded out of place on Andrew Hill’s Passing Ships (Blue Note), a densely layered composition that both stacks and weaves its subtle grooves thus sparing one’s brow. The single-note fade out, in fact, I am sure comes from somewhere on Wayne Shorter’s Schizophrenia (Blue Note, 1968). The follower, “Pumbum,” begins as fractured collective interplay, the fleet and facile tenor of Eskelin mating with darting trumpet lines, Hemingway’s brushes and a walking Helias ease the dog-and-gnat play into a loose boppish theme, every half-chorus or so a manner of playful collective rebellion ensuing. The delicate, tense theme of “Curlycue” yields to a loping off-meter walk, Eskelin’s earthy classicism given stretching room on the album’s longest track (indeed, most pieces are pronounced in their collective horn interplay), so too Helias’ soft, woody upright tone. Yet Hemingway’s compositions are a sure mating of disparities that, in hands other than his cohorts,’ might become obvious to the point of grotesques, but as on the title track, they are subtle: a twangy, almost cloying funk bassline is merged with an unabashedly jagged theme, its brief initial calls becoming additive lengthy lines that gradually pull apart. The care with which Eskelin and Robertson approach this material, never straying too far out in their improvisations and always keeping in a close, darting interplay retains both the integrity of the compositional framework (which, if not narrow, is at least always visible) and of spontaneity – even the rough-hewn seams are bridged together by necessity, gruff tenor and pointillistic brass stabs elemental if not formal.

All this is not to say that The Whimbler smacks of exercise and tiptoeing – to be sure, the music is far from a painstakingly-assembled miniature of what ‘creative music’ means – damned if the opening two tracks do not set any die-hard follower of line-walking, much less bar-walking freebop through a joyous modal maze. But the care with which disparity is approached – that is, making it seem less like conceptual tug-of-war and more like the natural pulse of human activity, and of life.

Anderson/ Drake/ Parker - Blue Winter

Eremite 47/48

According to Rick Lopez’s indispensable William Parker GIGography the bassist has been performing with Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake as a unit since the late 90s, but until recently none of the results were available in stores. Eremite steps in and stoppers the commercial gap with this two-disc digipack of a concert by the trio taped in Vermont in late ’04. Is wait to hear these three working collaborative magic in sliver platter form worth it? No surprise to the faithful, the short answer is that it most certainly is.

The first disc comprises a single 44-minute piece that opens to the quiet click of Drake’s rims. Parker’s amplified bull fiddle soon joins the drummer and Anderson’s fulsome tenor arrive close behind. The line voiced by the leader isn’t that far removed from the standard Fred phraseology, at least on the surface, but it’s an argot so tractable and visceral that harping on the presence of ample precedence seems both petty and pointless. There’s something comfortingly methodical in the trio’s playing, particularly in the case of Parker and Anderson who share a tendency to gravitate toward highly personal caches of pet progressions. The robust linear thrust of their improvisations, while habitual, fleshes the music with a heavy carapace of Soul.

Ostinato asides abound in the maze of Parker’s fervent plucks. His solo toward the mid-point of the first disc is full of bobbing clusters that dance off the strings in plump passels. Drake punctuates sparingly until another vampish groove hardens and Anderson returns, less animated than before, but no less rhythmically-attuned in his articulations. Parker’s tone congeals into a thick salve, coating the bottom bracket of the trio’s sound and shading the spaces between Drake’s rolling syncopations. Another acceleration in tempo and the three are soon sprinting along again at a raised clip, one that disperses into a protracted forum for Drake’s polyrhythmic expertise as sticks blur and a barrage of beats rain down from his kit. The percussion clouds part and the trio turns pensive. Drake wields wisking brushes, Parker tugs another corpulent line and Anderson blows slow and somber phrases that preface an the impending resolution that feels more like a case of opportune adjournment than clear-cut consensual dénouement.

The second disc contains the final two thirds of the concert parsed into three tracks. Anderson opens the action acapella, blowing arpeggiated variations on a recognizable blues-structured riff for the better share of five minutes. The piece expands with the entrance of Parker and Drake and the three alight for another epic expedition in rhythmically-responsive improvisation. Bass and drums dominate the next half dozen minutes locking and releasing on what reads like an atlas of smoothly morphing grooves. Episodes for Parker’s tightly threaded hummingbird bow, dense freer form trio interplay and pockets of hard finger-popping funk ensue as Drake calibrates his sticks to scrolling checklist of shifting meters and undulating beats.

The distances between the signposts sometimes stretch to indulgently lengthy spans, but the three never let the music devolve into circumlocutory tail-chasing. On the second track Parker sets down his bass and switches to the nagaswaram, his nasally muezzin tones overlapping with Anderson’s tapered tenor pitches to create some surprisingly adroit and lyrical harmonies reinforced by the trance-inducing pulse of Drake’s palpitating frame drum. Again, the trip suffers a shade from overly-ambitious mileage, but Parker proves a minor revelation on his double-reed, convincingly adept at working within its timbral confines and peripherally-skilled at prompting the saxophonist out of his comfort zone of stock phrases and patterns. The disc’s final piece finds the three players occupying similar rhythmically-infused space with some of the finest and most nuanced playing of the entire set. An inevitable ramp up by Parker and Drake, goads Anderson toward more booting saxophonics, but once again the end arrives with a dispersive sigh, not a declamatory bang.

Long form extemporization is one of the watch-phrases of free jazz. Numerous are the ensembles that stretch their material beyond the point of prudence, erring on the side of lassitude-heavy surplus when communal economy would serve their purposes far better. Anderson, Parker and Drake have the praxis of organic improv down to a naturalistic science. Together they largely sidestep the pratfalls of needless loquacity, turning in a generous concert that reflects their shared exalted status and points to a partnership possessing no portents of growing stale.

~ Derek Taylor

Point of Departure

No, I'm not leaving Bags. If it was earlier in the evening and there wasn’t an empty snifter by the side of my keyboard wafting lingering fumes of bourbon into my nostrils I might be able to muster a more creative title for this entry. But such is not the case so I’ll cut to the chase: just stumbled across Bill Shoemaker’s new online journal this morning. Point of Departure takes cues from several existing publications, but puts pleasant Shoemaker spins on them that I find pleasingly inviting.

I know Bill’s writing only in passing from the various times I’ve had the pleasure of encountering it unexpectedly; most recently as part of the liner notes to Mark Dresser’s recent solo disc for Clean Feed. He always seems to balance a believable scholarly bent with a more colloquial style (a talent in common with folks like Kevin Whitehead, and our own Mr. Warburton). I also know that Bill took Al Jones under his wise writerly wing when the Bags founder was but an up and comer on the improvisatory music critic scene, offering sage advice, some of which ol’ Namor shared with me. One tip that I’ve still yet to completely assimilate is the sapient tactic of doling out the adjectival fireworks to the reader in small doses. Not shaking up the pop can and tearing off the pull-tab in the first paragraph, so to speak.

Anyway, the new (& so it seems inaugural) issue has some great stuff in it including a blindfold test with Louis Moholo-Moholo (when exactly was the master South-African percussionist’s surname doubled?), a lengthy reprinted interview with Keith Jarrett, obligatory cd reviews and a couple specialty sections, among them a version of Down Beat’s Vinyl Freak called (conveniently enough) Circle with a Hole in the Middle (this month featuring one of Sam Rivers’ Tuba Trio recordings- when are those classic platters going to find their way back into circulation? Paging Mr. Corbett…) and even more intriguing The Uh Uh Uhs (no relation to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), where Bill turns the lens inward on his peer group magnifying sun rays into either laudatory light or a concentrated beam of scorching castigating critique. Will PoD (an appropriately cyber-friendly acronym) give the better-established One Final Note a run for the improv e-mag prize. If early returns are any indication, mayhap so.

Birgit Ulher / Gino Robair - Sputter
Jimmy Ghaspery / Jason Bivins / Ian Davis - Impermanence
Carrie Shull / Tara Flandreau / Reuben Radding - The Branch Will Not Break

Birgit Ulher/Gino Robair
Sputter
Creative Sources
042

Jimmy Ghaphery/Jason Bivins/Ian Davis
Impermanence
Umbrella
UMR032

Carrie Shull/Tara Flandreau/Reuben Radding
The Branch Will Not Break
Umbrella
UMR030

Three releases that, to one extent or the other, straddle the boundaries between free jazz improvisation and eai in intriguing fashion, with enjoyable results for each.

“Sputter”, a collaboration between German trumpeter Birgit Ulher (a new name to me) and percussionist/electronicist Gino Robair is probably the most divorced from jazz-based improv of the three recordings although I think you can still, often, pick up structural elements that come more out of the tradition of call-and-response than out of the AMM, “listening without listening” school. Ulher operates in the post Dorner/Kelley world of brass players—any sound the trumpet is capable of achieving is fair game—though she alludes to the avant smears of Lester Bowie and even Don Cherry at times. Robair, here credited on “energized surfaces” and “voltage made audible” (I gather this doesn’t exclude items being hit once in a while), makes active conversation with her, the chittering, electronic bird flitting around the bell of her horn. There’s an incessant aspect to the “talking” that you’d be unlikely to hear in much eai and there are occasions when part of me wants to say, “Be quiet and listen for a minute” but that’s probably an unfair way to judge this music. As the album title implies, this is work of an aerated, effervescent nature, hearing and responding with quickness, jumpy even at its most inactive. As one warms to the approach, the last several tracks begin to work their logic and cause one to rethink the first pieces. The last cut in particular, the all too brief “Entelechy”, achieves a perfect balance, a fine conversation indeed.

The trio of Jimmy Ghaphery (tenor and alto saxophones, flute), Bagatellen’s own Jason Bivins (guitar) and Ian Davis (percussion) produce, perhaps not surprisingly given the instrumentation, the most overtly jazz-referential music of the three discs. Bivins, unlike in much of his playing with the Unstable Ensemble, here tends toward the use of clear, clean, watery notes sounding, on the opening track “Almost”, more than a little like the dreamy Robert Fripp of “Moonchild” (!!!) while on “Just” he briefly summons forth the spirit of Zoot Horn Rollo. Ghaphery often occupies the breathier reaches of his horns (though quite capable of more guttural, roaring work) while Davis, always a colorful player, is unafraid to inject the oddly buoyant, semi-regular rhythm into the mix, even nudging the band toward a degree of funk here and there. For all their ability to take things out into a fiery free jazz realm (“Nearly”), the trio seems most comfortable in an area between Jimmy Giuffre (hmmm….scarily close name, there) and eai, floating in a space not entirely abstract, grounded but open to more elusive possibilities. References flicker in and out (the end of “Close”, for instance”, is quite reminiscent of the final moments of the Art Ensemble’s “Fanfare for the Warriors”) but they’re slippery enough to serve as wise nods rather than distractions.

And I guess if there’s one disc here that carries a tinge of academe, it would be the one featuring the oboist/English hornist (Carrie Shull), the violist (Tara Flandreau) and the double bassist (Reuben Radding). Some of this creeps into the session which is otherwise a nicely raucous affair and if it leavens things a tad too much, well it’s a small flaw in a lively and vibrant recording. Double-reedists are rare enough in this music and Ms. Shull is a steady, unswerving presence, usually providing clear lines that beam through the thicket laid down by the strings, both of whom make wide use of extended techniques. Indeed, this particular combination of instrumental colors is attractive in and of itself. Radding’s arco work, in pieces like “Tell the Bees”, is wonderfully resonant and rich (sometimes his pizzicato recalls Dave Holland) while Flandreau effectively slithers and gasps atop. “In Fear of Harvest” begins with one of the loveliest moments on the disc, a dense, microtonal chord that sounds for all the world as though it escaped from Partch’s Chromolodeon; the entire piece consists of its attenuation and disappearance. The times the trio tones things down are when they lose their way somewhat and a vague academic aura manifests. Not too much, and there’s always something going on to keep one’s attention, but I got a little nervous. It ends with a lovely, brooding, almost romantic improvisation that sound a little like something Leroy Jenkins might’ve pulled off. A satisfying recording with several quite scrumptious highpoints.

Neil Feather — Revelation of an Anaplumb (Recorded Field Recordings)

Recorded Field Recording 001 (1999)

"The Anaplumb is a Bowling Ball Instrument with a complicated weight or "bob." This Anaplumb bob consists of a spring, three heavy vibrators at different speeds, and a large magnet. This bob hovers over another heavy magnet, creating a repellant and anti-gravitational force. The three vibrators vie for resonance with the string and the spring. The frequencies of the string and spring are determined by weight which is fluxed by the magnetic field. This is a finely balanced chaotic system." The Anaplumb, dilemma of jiggle to things without DNA, is, fear of not bouncing enough, a Bowling Ball Instrument, waiting for something not to happen, with a complicated weight or "bob", suffocating velvet mask, This Anaplumb bob, toe stuck in a machine that builds nothing, consists, the dilemma of stillness always a dance, of a spring, it's a recurring dilemma to eat stones, three heavy vibrators at different speeds, if it stopped we wouldn't notice, and a large magnet, one bark doesn't make a dog, This bob, was that enough?, hovers, it was like stubbing a toe but it didn't hurt, over another heavy magnet, it was an excuse not to scrape, creating, I don't know how to choose, a repellant and anti-gravitational force, dilemma of not stopping, The three vibrators, severe restrictions on puffiness, vie for resonance, it's more comforting than a host of other medium-sized objects, with the string, I don't know where to put my ears, and the spring, recurring dilemmas can be ignored, The frequencies, it's a recurring dilemma of bouncing too much, of the string, the alternative was stillness, and spring, I refuse to get upset when shrinking objects get larger, are determined, they told me it was okay to stick my ear there, by weight, the dilemma wasn't shared, which is fluxed, I rarely stooped over in the process, by the magnetic field, if it stopped we wouldn't notice, This, I am not jiggling, is, no jiggle lasts forever, a finely balanced chaotic system, I find jiggling difficult, the solution might lie in aggressive buzzing, The Anaplumb, nobody taught me how to jiggle, it was smaller than a whale but we couldn't measure the microscopic air pockets, and a large magnet, if it stopped we'd just start kind of aimlessly muttering, I'm willing to jiggle, This bob, there are no electric sidewalks in this part of town, alternatives prevailed, hovers, I don't know where to put my ears, it's a recurring dilemma of bouncing without funking, over another heavy magnet, nobody will just come up and stop any of us from jiggling, I don't know how to choose the angle, creating, there are no electric sidewalks in Baltimore, jiggling is almost always optional, a repellant and anti-gravitational force, necklaces that noone would wear, it's a recurring dilemma of how fast to walk, The three vibrators, alternatives prevailed, the anti-bouncing laws were discreetly repealed, vie for resonance, it's frankly okay to leave your ears at home, with the string, it was an excuse not to buzz, the request to stop wasn't clearly articulated, and the spring, I jiggle way more often than that, if it stopped we'd have nothing to talk about, The frequencies, I know where my ears are but I don't want to leave them there, not scraping a banana against a three-hundred gallon teacup, of the string, it's a recurring dilemma to not bounce enough, non-dildo vibrators are unlikely, I'm just gonna stick my ears there and call it a day, and spring, it was an excuse not to stroll along the ocean, the knob was stuck, are determined, if it stopped we wouldn't notice, by weight, the breathing will proceed regardless, I refuse to buzz on demand, which is fluxed, we can always choose the bottom one, palpations don't grow on trees, by the magnetic field, I don't know where to put my ears, I have just the spot for that, a stream is an accident if the earth is tilting in the right direction, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, there are no electric sidewalks in my home, the recurring dilemma of categorizing frequencies, The Anaplumb, I don't know how to choose, we all wish we could jiggle that way, back when those hominids were still around eight-hundred years ago this stainless steel park was a zoo, it's a recurring dilemma of re-entering the room, gravity and rigid objects are purely obedient, the observation of disobedience stymied by the act of observation, a Bowling Ball Instrument, which recurring dilemma should we suffer?, if it stopped we'd have to practice paradiddles, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, I don't know how to choose, everybody knows Swinging Steve, hands and fingers are like rusted rollercoasters missing unstrategically unplaced rails, gravity and rigid objects are purely obedient, the observation of disobedience stymied by the act of observation, with a complicated weight or "bob", I don't know where to put my ears, I know where my ears are, my ears are around here somewhere, if it stopped we'd have to start something else, I may or may not be jiggling right now, anaplumb, nobody taught me how to jiggle, bouncing is optional, before breaking it often worked, This Anaplumb bob, I moved my ears to the left but they are in the same place, a stream is an accident if the earth is tilting in the right direction, stopping is the problem of starting again, was that enough?, I'll just buzz later when I'm done waiting, consists of a spring, I don't know where to put my ears, ardent tools with no function, there are no electric sidewalks in this part of town, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, it's a recurring dilemma to bounce at all times, I don't care if you jiggle, three heavy vibrators at different speeds, the fine ridges of texture in the skin of an elephant cannot be seen without an elephant, if it stopped, not scraping a banana, I don't know how to choose, there's a power switch around here somewhere, a stream is an accident if the earth is tilting in the right direction, it was like stubbing a toe but it didn't hurt, a large magnet, we want to do something with our ears reasonably often, I don't know how to choose, I am not jiggling, if it stopped, alternatives prevailed, stopping is the problem of starting again, I'm not experiencing a power outage—how convenient, it was an excuse not to fall of the rails and get badly injured, I don't believe in ghosts even when they're etched in silver, I'll just move around occasionally, This bob hovers, I don't really need to choose, there are no electric sidewalks in this part of town, Jon Abbey likes this tone, I gather jiggling is not as popular in these latitudes, the fine ridges of texture in the skin of an elephant cannot be seen without an elephant, I haven't chosen anything, gravity and rigid objects are purely obedient, the observation of disobedience stymied by the act of observation, if it stopped we'd just be inept breakdancers, stopping is the problem of starting again, stopping is the problem of starting again, over another heavy magnet, stopping is the problem of starting again, Neil Feather, horses will jiggle but not reliably, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, I don't care if you jiggle, before breaking it often worked, the recurring dilemma of unceremonious buzzes getting lost, spectation is reasonable, it was like stubbing a toe but it didn't hurt, it worked at least once, I'm not sure where my ears are, creating a repellant and anti-gravitational force, if it stopped, I don't swim habitually, I heard that it worked at least once, I don't know where to put my ears, it's a recurring dilemma of not bouncing enough, I assumed it was working in the absence of any indication of what it was supposed to do, the alternative was stillness, some objects are not falsely labelled shrink-proof, The three vibrators vie, it's a recurring dilemma of severe restrictions on puffiness, I couldn't tell if it was an electric sidewalk because I was kinda doing a brisk jog anyway, there no are dilemmas but plenty of recurrences, the alternative was stillness, most requests are gently ignored, stopping is the problem of starting again, a box of those jiggles was lost somewhere during the delivery but it's okay because we have copies, resonance with the string and the spring, I don't care when you jiggle but just let me know about it, I refuse to get upset when shrinking objects get larger, there are no electric sidewalks in this part of town, those aren't dilemmas—just syllables, just stick my ears wherever they'll fit, I am not jiggling, if it stopped..., the expense of the electric sidewalks was prohibitive but they existed, alternatives prevailed, it's smaller than a whale but we couldn't measure the microscopic air pockets, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, it's way too easy to step off an electric sidewalk, it's a recurring dilemma of bouncing without advance notification, gathering materials and leaving them there to unbuild themselves into a vacuum for frozen stares, it's a recurring dilemma, it was like stubbing a toe but it didn't hurt, I'm glad I'm not the only one who occasionally fails to jiggle, The frequencies of the string and spring, the electric sidewalk never makes our hats blow off, one bark doesn't make a dog—you need a stomach, a few legs, a nose, a liver, and other stuff, one bark is one bark at most and possibly much less, I don't know how to choose, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, a stream is an accident if the earth is tilting in the right direction, speed 1, the recurring dilemma of unceremonious buzzes getting lost, there are no dilemmas in this part of town, I couldn't tell if it was an electric sidewalk because I was kinda doing a brisk jog anyway, the alternative was stillness and wasn't appealing 'round the clock, alternatives prevailed, it's a recurring dilemma to bounce, I refuse to ride an electric sidewalk without jiggling, if it stopped we wouldn't notice, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, arches are for bridges, was that enough?, fluxed by the magnetic field, alternatives paused before prevailing, if it stopped..., the expense of the electric sidewalks was prohibitive but they existed, there are no electric sidewalks in this part of town, how can you can tell if you're even jiggling in the first place?, I am a buzz detector with elbows and kidneys, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, we are not aware of any dilemmas, there are no electric sidewalks in this part of town, it was an excuse to rest uncomfortably, we were unable to attend any of the ceremonies for dearly departed jiggles, we were trying to find a place for our ears, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, This is a finely balanced chaotic system, alternatives prevailed but I didn't choose them, thanks for taking such good care of my ears even if they have lost their pink hue, it was like stubbing a toe in the slowest motion afforded by current technology, the dilemma of being interrupted by what you're in the middle of, it's a recurring dilemma to not bounce enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, there are no electric sidewalks that felt spongy enough, I may or may not be buzzing.

~Michael Anton Parker

Two from (1.8)sec

Domenico Sciajno/Kim Cascone
A Book of Standard Equinoxes
(1.8)sec
002

dieb 13/Thomas Korber/Jason Kahn
Zircadia
(1.8)sec
003

“A Book of Standard Equinoxes” is a dense, solid, hour-long chunk of electronic improv from Sciajno and Cascone, beautifully shaped and intricately etched. The arc of the piece is, roughly, loud-soft- (coda) loud, beginning with an overlay of drones that tend to reside in the thinly metallic, like small steel balls circling inside metal bowls of various sizes. Throughout the work, subtle rhythmic elements emerge, small beeps, pops or hums that wink in and out but serve to propel the music along. The first third chugs along unstoppably, awash in detail, images flashing and disappearing as though you’re roaring down an illuminated tunnel. The central, quiet section, taking up perhaps a half hour, involves a bit of searching. It’s interesting: on its own this portion stumbles around a little bit and could be heard as unfocussed. But taken in context, as a bridge between the first and final moments of the piece, it works just fine, a lengthy period of readjustment and reflection between sonic onslaughts and always maintaining interest in its own right. Repeated listenings reveal far more going on that picked up at first as well as more interlocking of ideas than initially perceived. As the gears re-engage in the last several minutes, the Sciajno/Cascone motor churns back into overdrive and the work picks up velocity and a giddy, careening power, again concentrating their colors into the higher, shinier range but bathed in acid. A fine recording.

There’s a bunch of fine music on “Zircadia” also. My only complaint is the seemingly arbitrary way it’s been parcelled into eight tracks. Several of the cuts last right around five minutes and appear to have been culled from longer takes, ending abruptly or fading out for no apparent reason other than having reached some enforced duration. Perhaps Tomas can explain the modus operandi here. In any case, it serves, to this listener, as a stumbling block placed in the way of some otherwise strong, rich electronic improvisation from this trio, a yeasty mix of rumbles and burbles shot through with piercing tones and an implied rhythmic element somewhat more prominent than in the Sciajno/Cascone disc. The music in most of the pieces is more than enjoyable enough that one wants it to unfurl at an unhurried pace, not to be lopped off. Only one piece, the fifth track here (all untitled), breaks the 5-6 minute rule and pushes on for about ten and, no surprise, it’s the most successful, having time to achieve an individual form before being uprooted. It’s a gorgeous work, combining mysterious flutters with intense, feedback-level whines over a barely audible throb. I could’ve stood an hour or so of this! But, in context, it comes off as the one piece here that manages to exist for a natural life span. Still, “Zircadia” is also a good recording with plenty to chew on, despite my structural reservations.

These are the third and fourth releases by this fledgling Canadian label (site here), the previous two having been compilations. Excellent start—looking forward to more.

Paul Rutherford - Neuph

Emanem 4118

Albert Mangelsdorff’s passing earlier this year levied a heavy toll on the global brotherhood of improvising trombonists. Luckily, Paul Rutherford is still among the living and active. The two Europeans were separated by roughly a decade in age, but both delved heavily into multiphonics and built immeasurably on the language of the instrument. Mangelsdorff more on the jazz end of the gamut and Rutherford on the free improv side (though these distinctions are little more than lip service to sand-sketched boundaries that hold increasingly little credence these days).

Emanem has long championed Rutherford’s work. Seminal documents like Gentle Harm of the Bourgeois and Sequences 72 & 73, the latter set gathering revelatory evidence of Rutherford’s composerly skills, communicate the label’s lasting stewardship. This latest collection reissues the contents of an LP on the SFA originally released in 1978 and adds concert music from two years later that is of a different cast. The twist to the studio portion of the program lies in Rutherford’s shrewd application of overdubbing to multiply his horns into various ensemble combinations. Also notable is his use of euphonium on four tracks, and in two instances a trombone played back at double tape speed to create a tonal range closer to that of a trumpet.

The usual Emanem “File under:” directive typed in the traycard’s upper left hand corner reveals the puzzle at the heart of the original album pieces: “Improvisations for composer or compositions for improviser.” Which is it and from which frame of reference is Rutherford working out of. A better question, as intimated above, might be does it really matter? Composition certainly enters the picture on various pieces with the lines of sibling brass instruments diverging and overlapping in comparatively-orderly patterns that sound at times at least partially preconceived.

A Rutherford album wouldn’t be complete without some wry humor so to satisfy that requirement he includes the unsolicited and quite animated reactions of a yelping dog on “Paunch and Judies.” Martin Davidson’s notes relay the sad tale of her demise by tire tread subsequent to the session. Rutherford doesn’t shy away from including evidence of the effort expended in birthing his sounds either. Grunts, wheezes and coughs are recurring parts of the process, particularly on the solo pieces. “Yep 321” hinges on the garrulous chatter of a pair of euphoniums, their blustery tones twining in an expansive chamber-tinged conversation filled with flocculent asides. “Realign 4” convenes a closely-packed quartet of similarly talkative trombones flanked by the occasional clatter of metal slide percussion. The comparatively austere “Chefor” narrows the field down to a lone and lonely-sounding euphonium, though tape delay or echo gives the semblance of spectral second instrument in the snatches of silence between Rutherford’s phrases.

The program ends with more extant material from the fabled Pisa Improvisors Symposium of 1980 (a large corpus of which is also collected on Psi compilation of the same name) rendered by single trombone. While longwinded and somewhat circuitous in spots it’s a sensible addition and one that boosts the disc’s running time to a bounteous seventy-plus minutes. Mangelsdorff may be gone. But as these sounds demonstrate, Rutherford more than maintains the benchmark when it comes to bass clef brass improv.

~ Derek Taylor

Lars-Göran Ulander Trio – Live at Glenn Miller Café

Ayler 13

Sedona, Arizona is home to a series of peculiar structures. To the layperson eye they are little more than cobbled together cairns slowly crumbling to dust. But to the local populace of crystal-wearing, chakra-obssessed mystics these stone piles are focal points, dots on a metaphysical map where spiritual energy pools in abundance and believers gain regular ingress to other states of consciousness. To the jazz fan the imperfect analogues are legendary clubs, venues where doyens stride the stage and make history as they build on the music night after night. The Village Vanguard, The Velvet Lounge, The Bimhaus, these are but a few. Thanks to the assiduous efforts of Ayler Records the Glenn Miller Café is earning a ranking among the number.

Jan Ström refers to the Café as the label’s “number one ‘studio’.” That’s no errant boast given that at least seven of the imprint’s releases to date were birthed within its walls. I can’t help pondering what the cafés supper club friendly namesake would have thought of much of the improv-centric music radiating from the stage. Whatever his possible opinion of the place, the incongruity often makes for some delightful irony; especially when ensembles like the Lars Göran Ulander Trio are the purveyors for an evening. In common with certain others on the Ayler roster including Anders Gahnold and Martin Küchen, Ulander represents relatively obscure surname to most non-European jazz listeners. His work on the Ayler-released Per Henrik Wallin compilation The Stockholm Tapes helped reverse the tide of American anonymity, but those recordings dated from the 70s. This recent one connotes his commercial debut as leader and presents a saxophonist still in possession of considerable creative skills.

Joining Ulander in the trio are two seemingly incongruous compatriots. My experience with Palle Danielsson is pretty much limited to his work on various ECM outings, mostly in the company of talented, but sometimes overly-sedate pianist Bobo Stenson. Paal Nilssen-Love frequently represents the other side of the coin, a powerhouse drummer comfortable in the company of Brötzmann and Gustafsson and one who a breaks a heavy beading sweat every time behind his kit. The two players meet beautifully in the middle between their respective poles, Danielssonn producing a full-bodied tensile thrum when it comes to pizzicato and Nilssen-Love favoring nuance as much as brawn in his myriad rhythms. Ulander trolls the lower regions of his alto, brushing the tenor range with a tone furrowed by emotive veracity.

“Tabula Raasa G.M.C.,” first of three lengthy collective improvisations, finds the three reaching a flexible consensus that sustains for nearly the entire set. The Mingusian anthem “What Love” serves as a fitting median piece. The leader engages Danielsson in a dialogue worthy of the source incarnations, mixing dialects of Dolphy and McLean in a continuation of a conference initiated on the earlier, enigmatically-titled “Intrinsic Structure I.” Sprawling in scope, “Ionizacion- Variaciones E.V.” borrows kernels from Varese’s epochal percussion ensemble piece and injects slivers of jazz time. All three tracks feature propulsion-packed, texture-stacked solos by Nilssen-Love. Ulander’s own “J.C. Drops” closes the concert and he shows an even stronger abiding influence of Art Pepper in his velocious, often piercing lines.

Add Ulander’s name to those of others like James Finn, Bill Gagliardi and Stephen Gauci, saxophonists of the far-better-late-than-never fraternity who are finally receiving some measure of their due. And thanks to the Glenn Miller Café, a venue slowly accruing legendary status, for help making it happen.

~ Derek Taylor

Advice: Go to rock gigs

Spent last night watching a few rock bands in the company of a few dozen other people in a private space below the radar of mass culture. The bands were excellent. I was very happy. Are you nonplussed yet? Yes, the truth is that this a rather common scenario in many parts of the world. In fact, it has been a somewhat routine scenario even for myself in the past year or two. I hardly think it's sensible to go running to the Bags blog to report on every good show I see, especially because I go to an awfully large number of gigs, and when it comes to non-earth-shattering rock bands, I really don't think too many people here will be interested enough. So I try to restrict my post-gig blatherings to a modest number and make them count for something a little bit beyond the gig itself. The fact is I've never stood up and said "hey, I saw these bands and they were great and the people there were swell and life is a bundle of joy". Besides thinking it might be worth saying that at least once on a somewhat random occasion as a snapshot of a certain segment of current society, the gig last night crystallized a pretty significant idea that's been lollygagging about my mind for a good while. So while I have every intention of telling you how Trilobite, Stay Fucked, Wolf Vs., and People rocked hard and good in Philly last night, first allow me to make a sweeping demographic pronouncement I think you ought to know about even if you don't give a flying hootenanny about a bunch of underground rock bands.

It goes something like this. There's this whole mess of twenty-something persons in the world today who are broadly immersed in avant-garde music culture, often heavily investing themselves in the creative improv scene, and you know what really ticks our clock more than anything else? Rock 'n' Roll. Yes, I would like to frankly assert that we prefer to rock. Hard, at that. It's our music and we're not rocking out because we don't know any better, which is not to say that doesn't nail down a rather bloated demographic neighbor of ours. At this point I should start defending myself against accusations of utter inanity. After all, you might be thinking "sheeeit, who don't jam on some ______ [Kinks, Rush, Pixies, Fugazi, At the Drive-In, whatever] as a matter of course?". Rock music has been a mass culture presence since its aesthetic codification a half-century ago. It's an oversized umbrella of folk music in the musicologically worthwhile sense of the term. Its role in the lives of a certain massive segment of society hardly needs to be mentioned. Actually, I think obvious things can often be the most worthwhile to mention, but rock in all its cultural generality and inevitability is not what I'm talking about here.

I recently stumbled across a wonderful term for what I am talking about. Smart rock. Straightforward, functional, pragmatic, unassuming, unpretentious, it's a term too humble to even pay etymological homage to, but thanks to whoever had the good sense to slip it in somewhere. It's tempting to talk about "avant-rock", but it's too narrow for my purposes here; there's no avant-gardism in a lot of the creative, enjoyable rock music I'm celebrating today. It's simply beside the point for most people. "Postmodern DIY rock" really nails it down for me, but I'm not gonna lug that around. Matters of idiomatic specificity are really quite irrelevant to the smart rock scene I'm starting to grasp these days. I see people just as happy to enjoy the alternately twee and ugly detachment-rock of Deerhoof, the boyish, naive-prog Robert Wyatt / Gastr del Sol / ELO stylings of Make A Rising, or the not-far-at-all-from-Yngwie-Malmsteen prog-shred of Behold... The Arctopus. After all, these and so many other bands offer a wealth potential enjoyment we have no reasons to forego. There's also a sense of sociological unity as a grass roots subculture.

As I get sucked further and further into the creative rock doings of the era, a certain sociological pattern is continually reinforced. Basically, I go to these vaguely post-punk marginal rock gigs and sometimes it seems like half the people in the room would be happy to spend the whole night chatting about Xenakis, Bailey, Braxton, Kelley, Frith and similar worthy topics of avant-garde music. Rock music is often dismissed as a kind of mindless pleasure by avant-garde listeners who feel protective of their seriousness and resort to rickety fences like "art vs entertainment". The fact is that there is an incredible level of sophistication among the people I routinely encounter at rock gigs revealing their aesthetic home turf in the world of raucous guitars and pounding rhythms. I'm not talking about one or two eccentrics here; I've encountered dozens of people who fit this demographic, both musicians and listeners. Our roots and hearts belong to rock music, but we all inevitability explore aesthetic alternatives, often to the point of being fully functioning creators or sustainers of musics like non-idiomatic free improv, jazz, academic notationalism, etc. We are frequently seduced by the aura of high-art respectability that surrounds these self-consciously creative activities. We are biased by the aesthetic value systems of social institutions like universities. In the case of jazz, we're often inspired by the sociological symbolism of the ascendence of African-Americans to the status of society's master artists and feel a calling to stand on their shoulders. Most of all, though, at critical points in our formative years, we are exposed to the vast world of aesthetic options and become driven by the sheer inertia of excitement as we have profound aesthetic experiences in new and inviting domains. And in some cases, like mine, there are simply aspects of rock culture that we find objectionable enough to be soured to the notion of actively participating.

In practice, we all find our art consumer lifestyles scattered across the typical eclectic expanse of musics in the Zornian era. But when it comes to subcultural affiliations, there really is a confluence of factors that segment musics and require some consistent choices to participate in one versus another. Besides simple taste, there's the pull of a specific social milieu, the effects of relying on certain informational channels, and the inertia of acquiring a certain set of skills or knowledge as a musician or listener. So some of us more or less abandon an active participation in rock culture, while of course reserving a certain segment of our listening diet for it. I feel that's what happened to me. I got so immersed in jazz and creative improv, not to mention the usual mix of other stuff, in my late teens that I pretty much didn't have any time or interest to sustain my youth passions for various forms of rock, especially metal. My aesthetic options were expanded by college radio (where I discovered free jazz, Stockhausen, Indian music, gamelan, etc) and chance fruits of investigations into the post-prog avant-garde (like discovering the astoundingly rich world of music related to Henry Cow, Cuneiform Records, etc via its tenuous links to Yes, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, etc). Once I found a niche in the creative improv community in the course of ordinary sensible living—going to gigs, doing radio shows, developing friendships, writing reviews, etc—rock music became aesthetically and sociologically superfluous and started carrying an expensive opportunity price tag.

So then a strange thing happened almost five years ago. I'd heard a reference here and there to some kind of unique and great hardcore band called Melt-Banana, but I'd pretty much ignored it because for several years I'd been devoting approximately zero attention to aggressive rock music (for me the best umbrella term in contexts where the differences between metal, punk, hardcore, grindcore, etc are irrelevant, which is almost every context I find myself in) and I was at the height of my intense and moderately snobbish preoccupation with avant-jazz. But still these things register in the back of my mind, and when I watched one of my favorite avant-garde improv saxophonists (John Dierker) perform (in duo with Jack Wright) wearing a Melt-Banana t-shirt one day, later hearing anecdotes about their amazing concerts attended by all sorts of people I routinely rubbed elbows with in the experimental music scene in Baltimore, I started to have some serious symptoms of left-out-of-the-party syndrome. It seems I follow a three-rec rule of thumb of sorts: if about three people independently express passionate feelings about a band, then I finally get off my arse and at least make a modest effort to check them out. Having never lost my hankering for all things fast and brutal, I couldn't stand my curiosity any longer and I bought a copy of Melt-Banana's live-in-the-studio classic on Tzadik (which is, incidentally, in my opinion the greatest rock album ever recorded). I couldn't believe what was coming out of my speakers. It was like a dream come true, the music of the spheres. Within ten minutes I knew the course of my life would be permanently altered and I had gone online and ordered every Melt-Banana album I could find. The great potential of aggressive rock music had been finally been fulfilled and I was apparently the last person in the world to find out about it. I made up for lost time rather agressively, playing that disc about a hundred times in that first week alone. In the ensuing years I found myself attending Melt-Banana concerts and meeting a whole new community of music junkies. I would always ask the knowledgeable folks whether they knew of any bands even remotely similar to Melt-Banana. I was hungry for more of this music. To this day, I've still never uncovered anything remotely comparable to Melt-Banana in idiom, quality, or innovation, but in the course of looking I've discovered a lot of amazing bands and their associated thriving smart rock scene.

I suppose I always knew there was a thriving creative rock underground, but it seemed a nearly futile exercise to stay apprised of it unless one was willing to let it dominate their art consumption lifestyle. It seemed like there was this ridiculous overabundance of underground rock music and a constant stream of gigs in all sorts of unappealing locations, and no reliable, centralized way to filter out the pointless rubbish and stay hip to the good stuff. You'd pretty much have suffer through unbearably many hours of disposable rock filler to get those few morsels. The most artistically vital bands would typically toil away in complete obscurity in their own micro-scene apart from each other, and finding out about them was rather like playing the lottery. I can't begin to recount the bands I've learned about years after they did their thing, and the number of opportunities I would've had to be part of their creative culture right in my own backyard so to speak. Even to this day the really important rock music I've been digging often suffers from an absurd lack of exposure. The potential audience for the music just doesn't know it exists and doesn't know there's a gig down the block that would blow their minds. The situation is the opposite of creative jazz and improv in most ways. You can pretty much just learn about a certain manageable list of musicians, labels, and publications and feel confident you're catching the vast majority of jazz and improv worth checking out. It's a very tightly connected and self-aware international subculture, whereas creative rock is an incredibly fragmented and localized bevy of subcultures. Even with the internet now, the situation has only improved a little bit. How do you find out about the great rock music of the day? Pitchfork? The Wire? Other publications? That'll get you about 5% of it if you're lucky, while drastically misleading you as often as it helps. Actually, in a way the information is really out there on internet publications, but there are literally hundreds you'd have to read to get the scoop, so it's really still just word-of-mouth and dumb luck for the most part. Even after several years of modest efforts to pay attention to rock music, I'm still only scratching the surface of the tremendous wealth of creative rock music I've missed just in the past decade alone.

Setting aside my personal path and these secondary issues, the main point at hand is that there's a very tangible demographic of astute, serious, creative people well-versed in non-rock musics who nonetheless feel that rock music is their music, and potentially offers as much artistic fulfillment as the other options they've considered. It's basically just being honest about their personal cultural experience and not trying to simulate the cultural experience of others who've been elevated to the status of cultural models. Many of us are part of a backlash against jazz culture, massively disillusioned that we've cast our lot with a cookie-cutter proliferation of musicians with degrees, pedigrees, credentials, resumes, etc who perpetuate extremely conservative and formulaic aesthetics under a facade of entitlement to an ever-undernourishing slice of the officially sanctioned pie of Tradition and Innovation. It's the same damn 12 notes over and over again, the same damn Euro-centric timbres, the same expressive solos in polite alternation, and the same facile interjections of vocabulary derived from 60s free jazz, free improv, academic music and other musics they feel the need to express their appreciation of without contributing to in any way. In the smart rock scene we find inspiring creative autonomy and a more digestible ratio of passion to careerism. We've figured out which tiny segment of the jazz world is really worth paying attention to and that's plenty enough. I personally believe jazz is a flourishing and vital art form—look no further than the last Vinny Golia Quintet release for some of the greatest jazz music ever made—but when compared to rock music the filler/gem ratio is about the same and at their best there's no difference in artistic sophistication. In other words, there's really no reason for a creative young person to pursue jazz if they can find equal creative satisfaction from the music that's closer to their hearts and cultural roots. Further, in practice the level of creativity in rock culture is vastly higher than jazz culture. Rock is a profoundly malleable form and a moist vat for homebrew aesthetics.

One trigger for these thoughts was meeting and chatting with Hank Shteamer at the gig last night. Besides being one of the most delightful people I've met in ages, I was fascinated to learn of his great connoisseurship of jazz and improv alongside his avid participation in the creative rock scene. Here's a guy who plays drumkit in a very unpretentious, straightforward aggressive rock band with a creative math rock edge while keeping well abreast of developments in avant-garde music. He even has some impressive writing to his credit, as I learned today by visiting Dusted and reading his excellent pieces, especially a thoughtful feature on Ken Vandermark. When we chanced upon the topic of Darin Gray I discovered that Hank was the wordsmith behind the fine Signal to Noise article I recall enjoying about the monstrously talented bass guitarist of the monstrously great Grand Ulena. In his own band, Stay Fucked, Hank finds creative fulfillment by accepting the constraints of a specific rock idiom. And for me as a listener last night, I found aesthetic fulfillment by accepting the same constraints and relishing the nuances that made Stay Fucked sound a cut above other bands of their ilk. It was a killer set, but more on that below. I hope Hank will forgive me for singling him out like this, but to my way of thinking he's a good example of the demographic I'm trying to bring attention to. Hank, me, and a good many other people in that room last night are truly tuned into rock music as a serious creative medium that holds its own against any other musical form.

It would be bad form to offer all these sweeping generalities without a clutch of further concrete examples to enjoy gravity with. I've seen more momentous gigs in recent memory, but last night was a real pleasure worth documenting and a sort of an ideal typical example of what I've been talking about. The evening started off with a brief set by George Korein's Trilobite. I'd never seen George perform before, but he's one of the ubiquitous eccentric connoisseurs of the experimental music scene in Philly who's been collaborating with Colin Marston in the production of schizo noise rock and ambient electronic splattering for several years as Infidel?/Castro!, and I'd listened to his new weirdo pop studio opus under the Trilobite moniker/persona. I feared the worst. My recounting of the set wouldn't have stretched past one sentence here if my fears were even vaguely justified. Turns out that George is a convincing vocalist and frontperson with some great boyish wails and slinky contortions up his sleeve. I was impressed. What's more, he'd gotten two entirely competent (a vast understatement in the case of Evan Lipson) musicians to play electric guitars (one bass and one tenor) alongside his vocals and laptop beats and samples, so it sounded more or less like a real band. Instrumentally generic, but at the service of solid songwriting. Goofy, naive, but solid and pleasant. You know, potential and all that. I had to listen to George's album again today after chatting with some friends about it last night after the gig. We all agree it's a ridiculous train-wreck of shameless and cheesy post-teen exuberance rendered with considerable studio panache, but specific opinions range from heralding it as an immersive pop masterpiece to conceding it would be a left-field retro 80s/90s/yesterday pop stunner if it were massively edited down to about 45 minutes or so. As far as my opinion, George has some serious producerly chops and an expansive, uncannily astute musical understanding easily discovered by querying his reaction to any music, especially after a gig, and for all its embarassing, awkward earnestness and solipsism, if the listener makes the required giant leap of entertainmental acceptance, the Trilobite album reveals itself as a tour de force of polished electro-pop genre-hopping. His new Infidel?/Castro! two-disc release is really nice too, edgy ambient excursions with some noise and media splat spicing, even flirting with some smart rock stylings here and there.

Stay Fucked was up next, a trio in the classic format of drumkit (Hank), electric bass guitar (Ben), and electric tenor guitar (Joe). This was a really pleasant surprise for me, because the band had a tight, dirty, heavy sound that made me think of the mighty Jesus Lizard and they also did some great math rock tricky stuff, which I'm a total sucker for. I also thought of the stunning math rock and metal masters The Fucking Champs, but I swear it had nothing to do with the similarity in names, which I only just noticed right now typing this. Honest. But keep in mind that my knowledge of recent rock music is so meager that when I say band x reminds me of band y, it's based on a woefully impoverished similarity metric. In any case, Stay Fucked really sounded like a mighty and powerful creative aggressive rock band on a good night. So I was a lucky guy to be there. Maybe you can start to understand my titular advice above: go to rock gigs. It's great! Well, you have to pick the right ones of course, but there are people who will be happy to help you out with this. I would definitely go to see this band again sometime, because it just felt really good. Previously a strictly instrumental unit from what I'm told, Hank has adopted a headset microphone to add some minor vocals into the sound.

Philadelphia's Wolf Vs did an extremely short set (couldn't've been more than 10-15 minutes) next. Bear in mind that anything I say about these guys is going to be seriously biased because these are people I hang out with on a regular basis. Far from hyping them, I have a bad habit of dismissing the project as a private workshop for the musicians to woodshed in the skronky free jazz and free rock hybrids characteristic of the late 80s Knitting Factory scene. You know, free jazz saxophone with some post-Sharrock guitar and energetic drumming. Maybe a little avant-funk in the mix. It's a kind of retro bombastic improv, but I personally have a taste for this kind of thing and the fact is these guys always come up with an impressive performance. Since it's very much a secondary project for the musicians, I always think it's gonna be a sloppy, amateurish mess when I see them, but to be completely honest, they always sound quite good! I tend to be an excessively harsh critic towards my own friends, but if I didn't know these guys and just walked in on a show, I'd think they were a really exciting band worth checking out in their own right and not just as an opening act. I don't know how they pull it off, but they wind up getting into some pretty hot vamps, unison themes, and math rock morsels in their sets despite a paucity of rehearsal and a lack of unified aesthetic inclinations among the members. I have to extend a compliment to the group for playing such a short set last night. They weren't especially well prepared but played a really forceful, hot piece, quitting while they were ahead instead of indulging in potentially lackluster jamming to stretch the set out to typical lengths.

Saxophonist Dan Scofield is really a talented hard blowing cat who's been working his craft in all sorts of situations around Philly in the reasonably active scene vaguely connected with the Sun Ra and post-60s jazz crowds. The lineup has been changing a bit here and there, and this was the debut of a new version after a twin-guitar phase with avant-shred prodigy Alex Nagle ran its course. To the core of guitarist/violinist Jesse Moynihan (who did some wild and great electric violin freakout soloing last night), drumkitter Julius Masri, and Scofield, they've added bass guitarist Evan Lipson to make it a quartet.

Evan's a good example of a career-minded general-purpose avant-gardist (studies with Mark Dresser, Robert Black, Michael Formanek, wide-ranging immersion in everything under the sun, etc) with massive technical and conceptual chops starting to find their way in the world. In fact, Evan and guitarist Mary Halvorson were the only examples in last night's crowd of this somewhat rare breed of musician heavily drawn to the creative rock world while simultaneously being leading lights of their generation of up-and-coming torch-bearers of post-jazz and improv aesthetics. They're the real heroes of the future avant-garde, musicians with the talent and personal vision to operate without relying on formulas and predetermined career paths. It's impossible to predict what they have in store for us in the coming decades, but I'm sure it will rock pretty hard sometimes. In fact, I've found Mary's experiences as a recovering-jazzer/improvisor and reawakened rocker strikingly close to my own, modulo not being a musician. It's hard to resist being taken under the wing of Anthony Braxton and having all sorts of great opportunities to explore post-jazz and free improv in the burgeoning Wesleyan/Brooklyn scene, but Mary has gotten a better grasp of her aesthetic calling after gaining some distance from her university days and coming to terms with the profundity she experiences in The Melvins, Deerhoof, Jesus Lizard, etc. From where I'm standing these days, that's good news. Really the last thing the world needs is another excellent jazz musician. We sure could use more avant-informed creative post-rockers though.

This brings us to the final act of the evening, People. It was certainly my main reason for attending, as I've had their debut album in heavy rotation for many months and I was keen on finally getting to see Kevin Shea in action on the drumkit. As it were, I'm apparently the only person in the Western world who's never heard his acclaimed and supposedly archetypically math-rocking erstwhile band Storm and Stress. People's self-titled platter is just what I've been craving these days: a set of catchy, creative, twisted avant-pop numbers heavily focused on vocals and songcraft. Really, the fact is that there's not much of this sort of thing in the world. It's a glaring gap in the world of music. Oh yeah, my cravings also required some kind of mathy or proggy edge to the proceedings. People delivered the goods big time and it's the kind of album that I wish people would've told me about back in the days when I was hopelessly out of touch with the rock world. If your interest in rock music can only stretch to a handful of albums per year, I'd say this is a good candidate for your attention. Their set last night sounded pretty much like the album with the great bonus of seeing Kevin go bananas pretty much non-stop. They've got a sound unlike anything else I've ever heard. Kevin goes bananas on drumkit and Mary Halvorson plays simple slowish guitar parts and sings catchy pop songs on top of it. I'd call it downright swank if it weren't so ugly and dissonant. I think the goal for an avant-pop ensemble should be to do everything possible to jeopardize and deconstruct the basic functionality of catchy pop tunes without actually losing that functionality. People's songs are highly memorable and addictive. Mary's singing is real singing, not the mumbly background half-speaking of a lot of 90s guitar rock, and it has some pretty powerful moments—she wailed so hard a few times the PA speakers were generating beats. Overall, I guess you could say her singing is kind of pretty and that she sings well. So, yes, the music is pretty and memorable. On the other hand, there's only a faint synchronization between Kevin's speed splatter chaos and Mary's bright and shiny dirges. It's really a pretty inaccessible sound for all its buried pop splendor.

The great irony of the group is that Mary is a sick guitar virtuoso bound to eventually make her way into the league of Nels Cline, Joe Morris, Christy Doran, Marc Ducret, etc, but in this group she gives no hint of it whatsoever and focuses on emotionally ambiguous chordal mushrooms within the technical reach of your local Jack and Jane rock guitar hack. I'm heavily biased towards the clean, spiky sound Mary exemplifies in her playing with Trio Convulsant, and I gobble up the occasional squiggles and darts in People songs, so my enthusiasm for the group is not unqualified given my guitar preferences, but at the same time I dig the unique moods that Mary's guitar playing generates here, and the total package is certainly a winner given I've found myself drawn back to the disc again and again. When it comes to these mixed feelings, I think what it boils down to is that I'm a huge fan of the Partridge Family and I really wish People would move their sound more in that direction. That's really my sound. I have a rough time with all this noisy, weird rock stuff. A mix of The Partridge Family and math rock. That's what I really want. While I'm at it, I want a math rock band with a Motown-styled vocalist. And all rock bands should have a balloon section to cover my rub/squeak quota. They should also have guest accordionists and bagpipers. Beggars can't be choosers, so in the meantime I'm really quite content with People. I don't want to mince my words here. This is one of the best creative rock bands on the planet right now and I seriously recommend lowercase people to lend an ear to uppercase People. In terms of songwriting style, vocals, and guitar timbres (but definitely not drumkit style), I'm occasionally strongly reminded of Thinking Feller's Union Local 282, in my opinion one of the all-time great rock groups of any era. I'd go so far as saying TFUL282 were The Beatles of the 90s!

What I really mean to talk about here is how Kevin is a monster, a beast, on the drumkit. One of the things I like most about modern society is the existence of drumkitters who go bananas. I drool over Hella, Yowie, Ahleuchatistas, and other holy grails of avant-rock. Fast=good. Crazy=better. Breakbeaty=best. Drumboey=I-fainted-and-left-a-pool-of-saliva-on-the-floor. But I'd really rather talk about The Partridge Family or how Trio Convulsant's Sister Phantom Owl Fish is one of the most profoundly beautiful and poetic records of the past decade I wish I could play everyday if I didn't have such an endless stream of other music I feel obligated to listen to instead. I've talked enough already though.

So, yeah, go to rock gigs. It can be great. I used to avoid them at all costs because of my passionate objections to loud volumes. Nowadays I just compromise more often and usually it's a low-budget, grass-roots situation where the volume is entirely reasonable due to the limitations of available equipment. These are the best gigs. I think Henry Flynt was on-the-money when he said: "Rock-pop became uniformly loud in a way which was vulgar, mechanical, and bloated". My great fantasy is that every rock band in the world would just turn way down and stop amplifying drumkits. One of the most inspiring live music experiences I've ever had is seeing Eugene Chadbourne and Paul Lovens do a cover of The Byrds' "So You Want To Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" at a volume so miraculously faint it could've been leaking from a house across the street. Playing loud all the time is like playing a C note all the time instead of using other pitches. This continues to be a major issue for me as I dabble in the rock scene more and more. I've seen performances (e.g. Melt-Banana) turn to utter worthless shit because of over-amplification, and it's business-as-usual for rock culture. Nobody questions it. Nobody takes a stance. Then (admittedly musically fantastic) dumbasses like Lightning Bolt fetishize their sado-masochistic excesses. In the end, my allegiance is first and foremost to non-idiomatic free improv on acoustic instruments, especially in a lowercase vein. When I recommend going to rock gigs, I don't mean everyday. And bring earplugs. And complain when you have to use them.

~Michael Anton Parker
September 4, 2005

Charles Earland - Leaving This Planet (Prestige)

Earland, better known as The Mighty Burner, made a name for himself via a handful of soul jazz ventures in the late 60s. These early sessions offered a blend of flashy B-3 fireworks and an emphasis on baroque feeling over polished functionality. At the dawn of the Sunshine decade his projects for Prestige veered into some fairly adventurous directions, ensnaring rock, Latin, electronics and even free jazz in a widely cast net. This disc reissues what is arguable prize of the bundle, a concept album that takes its primary cues from fusion and science fiction. Earland espouses a manifesto in common with the more accessible sides of Sun Ra. Surrounded by a nest of then-cutting edge consoles that includes ARP and Moog synthesizers, clavinet, electric piano and organ; he leads a revolving studio band through an episodic cosmic melodrama. The sphinxlike Dr. Patrick Gleeson, a colleague of Earland’s on other records of the era, aids and embellishes from his own ARP and Moog amalgamation. A core flight crew of Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Dave Hubbard, Mark Elf and Larry Killian mans the mothership. Guests like Eddie Henderson, Eddie Arkin and Brian Brake bolster the band in other key soloist slots. Oddly enough there’s no bassist. Earland himself handles that chore, his pedals working overtime so that a conventional upright presence isn’t even missed.

As the undisputed blue chips in the horn section, Henderson and Hubbard display their indefatigable chops on nearly every track. No matter how grandiose and congested the backdrops become, the saxophonist’s machete-sharp tenor still manages to slice through with a postbop phraseology punctuated by emotive honks. Hubbard triggers the boosters numerous occasions too, his rocket-tail runs arcing above the tangled nebula of wah-wah guitars, aqueous recombinating keyboards and slippery funk beats. The other Hubbard and Henderson (Dave and Eddie, respectively) hold their own, but are continually outclassed by their frontline peers. The title cut sets the mood as a perfect opener. Rudy Copeland’s pinched, entreating vocals sketch the skeletal plot points of a dystopian futurist fantasy as the ensemble quickly achieves escape velocity from a socially and environmentally blighted Earth. “Warp Factor 8” layers strata of heavy vamping guitars and keys in a call and response between rhythm section and horns. Other tunes like “Asteroid” and “Mason’s Galaxy” advance the extraplanetary fixations even further. There’s even room for amped-up readings of Hubbard’s “Red Clay” and Henderson’s “No Me Esqueca” in the capacious 79-minute flight plan. The package presents a rare instance where a Prestige two-fer arrives with its original program completely intact without the usual excising of a track or two due to time constraints. Not everything works at an exemplary level, but the overall trip remains a damn engaging and entertaining one just the same.

Is it dated? Definitely. But among Earland’s early oeuvre it’s virtually guaranteed to please.

Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show

Near as I can figure it started in my parents’ purple Econoline van on road trips crisscrossing the Pacific Northwest and points East. My dad by-passed the 8-track revolution in sound and went straight for the new-fangled technology of car stereo cassette decks. Tapes purchased at Cellophane Square (the local brick & mortar) or dubbed-direct from his precious collection of vinyl served as our family soundtracks on the open road. Jim Croce and James Taylor were regulars in the rotation. Abba and (cringe) George Winston arrived a little later, but from the start the staples were always Cat Stevens and especially, Neil Diamond. I was weaned on albums like Touching Me, Touching You, Tap Root Manuscript and Hot August Night, the distances between destinations and rest stops peeling away to the strains of Neil’s acoustic guitar and the populist pathos of his often instantly hummable songs.

It’s that history and heavy sense of nostalgia that made the prospect of gratis tickets to hear & see the man in person last night an inescapable draw. Taking the Target Center stage for the second of two sold out nights, Neil turned the acoustically-cavernous 19,000-capacity arena into the Diamond Dome. Our seats were behind the stage and to Neil’s sequined and rhinestone-studded back, but surprisingly close just the same. An elaborate array of catwalks allowed him to roam the stage full-circle addressing the audience from all sides as the whim struck him and a several-story tall video screen brought him even more up close & personal. I counted fourteen pieces in the band including: three guitarists; a bassist (doubling on upright and electric); trap drummer; conguero; synth; electric piano; four-piece horn section of baritone, tenor, trumpet and trombone; and a trio of back-up singers to further sweeten the pot with a dose of Southern Soul.

Now in his mid-60s --visibly long in tooth and gray in mane-- age has caught up with him. Twin Miracle Ears™ plugged into each auditory socket and a paunch that hung in a prominent bulge over his belt further belied the mileage on his frame. But the energy and brio funneled into his numbers swiftly contravened any seeming frailty or impending enervation. The hits spooled out in steady succession. A booting version of “Cherry,” an alternately tender and ballsy reading of “Play Me,” and sassy and stripped down take on “Love on the Rocks.” Neil gripped his wireless mic and purposefully strode the stage, dramatic sweeps of his free hand engendering roaring applause and shouts of adulation from the sea of humanity around him. At one point he even stopped the momentum, pausing to issue the declaration: “I want you to turn to the person on your right, whoever they may be, and tell them “I love you.”” Then a surprise twist as the video screen started scrolling through a montage of still photographs of 19th century immigrants, a telltale sign that what is normally a show-stopping finale would come early. The cheesy keyboard line flanked by horns, the iconic image of a soaring bald eagle and suddenly Neil was waist deep in a grandstanding ebullient “America,” the crowds swept up in the jingoistic kitsch (myself included) shouting the lyrics and grinning at the naïve irony of it all.

“Home, to a new and a shiny place
Make our bed, and we'll say our grace
Freedom's light burning warm
Freedom's light burning warm…”

The band missed nary a beat in all the bombast, functioning as a well-greased and highly polished juggernaut even when parsed by a hydraulically-equipped stage apparatus that deposited its members at fluctuating elevations. Neil switched gears again moving from a funky “Forever in Blue Jeans” replete with swiveling geriatric hips to a sentimental “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” in duet with one of the back-up singers that couldn’t help but elicit a resounding “where the hell is Barbara when you need her?” from my gay friends. Another Neil misstep came with the ambitious, but ultimately foolhardy attempt to interpret a segment of his Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite to the arena concert milieu. Visuals of a color-saturated sunrise and a lone gull riding the crosswind currents of a white-cap frosted coastline accompanied the treacly metaphysics-saddled lyrics and the whole exercise deflated into a gassy debacle.

Fortunately, the damage wasn’t unrepairable and Neil was soon back on track with a string of blockbusters including: “Holy, Holy,” “Sweet Caroline,” which spawned an ecstatic audience response on par with the earlier “America,” and a reach way back into the song satchel for “I’m a Believer.” Swiches flipped on the band platforms, all but a handful descended out of view into the bowels beneath the stage and Neil took the next few tunes with minimal support, shouldering his trusty acoustic and starting the mini-‘unplugged’ set with a ruminative “Glory Road” reflecting back on the turbulent 60s as a time when he blossomed into a songwriter and decided on the path that would take him to his present iconic status. The remainder of the show rounded the final stretch with another liberal dose of classics as “Shiloh,” “Soolaiman,” I Am, I Said” and “Cracklin’ Rosie” rolled out to ever increasing audience sycophancy and excitement.

Seemingly absent were new tunes penned by Neil for his upcoming album produced Rick Rubin. If they were buried in the set, I missed them. But the influx of new material almost seems like a sacrilege given the weight and worth of what precedes it. The line between self-caricature and self-exaltation is a fine one, sometimes monofilament thin, just ask Tom Jones. Neil Diamond walks the tightrope with an expert step. In all the pomp and circumstance of his career there’s so much room for sanctimonious critique, from the self-professed fifty-something Diamond-heads who come to supplicate at the altar of Neil dressed in sweater vests and khaki Dockers™ to the merch table overflowing with all manner of Neilobilia. But Neil Diamond is of that special pop star ilk blessed with an impervious reflexive shield that bends any critical pointed finger back upon its owner. He’s achieved such a stature and scope that any negative ink might as well be invisible. Slings and arrows continue to bounce harmlessly off his persona, and the millions of dollars in concert revenues that serve as tithes each year offer all the proof necessary that his precious stone continues to shine.