A Dunmall Deuce

Paul Dunmall

Solo Tenor

Duns Limited Edition 50

Dunmall/Dean/Rogers/Levin

Elton

Duns Limited Edition

Paul Dunmall’s CDR label has reached its fifty-first release, the two most recent of which are some of the most important. Since 2000, Duns has been the place to find Dunmall and his companions in many fascinating situations, featuring solo and group improv in concert and studio environments. The latest offerings show just how much Dunmall’s approach to playing has changed, as well as presenting him in two markedly different and chronologically disparate settings.

Duns 50 is Dunmall’s first solo tenor record since 1986’s Soliloquy for Matchless, which also employed overdubs. In fact, the title track to that disc is featured again here in a kind of semi-allegiant fantasy as Solo Tenor’s centerpiece. The other three tracks on this comparatively brief excursion are dedications, obviously evoking shades of Braxton’s For Alto even though the music couldn’t be more different from that formative date.

Dunmall’s solo playing, of which there has been more and more of late, relies primarily on space and harmony. It’s almost as if he’s working over a series of changes that don’t exist, or exist only in his mind. He and I discussed this, agreeing that it was always a part of his approach, but now, extra-musical devices have been all but stripped away. They are not absent, as you’ll still hear occasional multiphonics and more infrequent squawks and honks inherited from first-gen New Musicians; these are subdued, incorporated into a vision that I hear as romantically meditative. Orientalisms abound, microtonal vibratos that bespeak the East while avoiding un-necessary specificity. Lightning-fast phrases are often repeated, achieving a kind of trance state—check out parts of “Dedicated to Toby Delius” for such concerns. However, many passages are languid, single tones hanging over a void of comfortable silence, as in the opening of “Soliloquy.” The disc exudes space, and the results are mesmerizing and rewarding.

Duns 51 is a 1997 Vortex gig, where the much-missed Elton Dean joins Dunmall, Paul Rogers and Tony Levin. I’d forgotten how purely visceral Dunmall’s 90s playing could be, having lately been so focused on his more recent work. Torrents of notes, a wall of sound and some fantastic blowing from all are the order of the day. The forty-minute opener (can such an epic really be an opener?) is broken into alternating blocks of dynamically shifting improv, usually cued by Levin. The second track, shorter and somewhat more dynamically restricted, brings intense communication and interplay, one fantastic moment occurring when the group kicks into a modal blues-based … thing? We really get to hear how close a partnership Dunmall and Dean had, how near to composed some of their dialogue sounded. It’s an extremely diverse show, well chosen as Dean was in fine form throughout, making it a fitting testament to his incredible musicianship.

Thanks should go to Dunmall for making this great music available and I look forward eagerly to the next batch of Duns releases.

~ Marc Medwin