Daniel Levin Quartet - Some Trees

hatOLOGY 632

When it comes to young, up and coming improvisers, the old axiom “out of sight, out of mind” regrettably all too often applies. Take cellist Daniel Levin. Don’t Go It Alone, his 2002 debut on Joe Morris’ Riti imprint, generated significant ripples with its cogent blend of chamber music and free jazz rendered by unusual instrumentation. I enjoyed the disc a lot, but as so often happens, Levin’s name soon submerged in the stream of subsequent releases that crossed my cluttered desk.

Four years later comes the follow-up. Same instrumentation --both Morris, on bass, and vibraphonist Matt Moran are back-- but with a crucial change in personnel as Nate Wooley replaces Dave Ballou on trumpet. The swap is a good one as Wooley’s palette of tonal pigments, akin in breadth to that of Paul Smoker, widens the band’s color scheme even further. Levin sounds better than ever, segueing from melodic lead to harmonic commentator with ease, his pitch choices precise and incisive.

Morris sticks predominantly to pizzicato, tugging deep reverberating tones from his strings. In sections, as during the length of “Zolowkski,” he’s stuck plucking an incessant ostinato but his more complex patterns on other pieces prove more than utility hitter status. Liner scrivener Art Lange likens Moran to both Bobby Hutcherson and Teddy Charles and I think they’re both apposite points of comparison. His mallets regularly leaven and temper the harsher sonorities of the ensemble, tracing a luminous nimbus around the music’s edges. Levin employs his four voices in a highly malleable manner, teaming players together in catalytic collisions such that the music rarely rests or welters.

Five original compositions combine with a trio of covers. The four playfully distill Dolphy’s “Out to Lunch” down to less than half its original length with Levin and Wooley handling melodic angles while Morris and Moran percolate at their flanks. A tangle of contrapuntal lines materializes with density and multiplicity that belies the band’s modest number. Without formal percussion or piano presence, the music feels even more rousingly untethered. Steve Lacy’s “Wickets” is less promising at first, the tune’s giddy head sounding a bit crumpled under the band’s muscular manhandling, but Wooley’s dive-bombing solo, peppered with metallic bursts, saves the day and leads into a vertigo-inducing arco turn from the leader.

The disc’s title piece ominously echoes Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,” and features swathes majestic harmonic congruence between Levin and Moran, the latter working his pedal to create scintillating sustains while the formers aerated arco sails alongside. Coleman’s “Morning Song” closes the set out with Moran holstering his mallets and leaving the remaining three to build a memorable improvisatory edifice from the tune’s intrinsic solemnity. Levin once again demonstrates a sterling command with bow and the piece serves as a satisfying culmination. Now that I’m reacquainted with Levin, I don’t intend on letting my radar on his activities lapse again.

~ Derek Taylor

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