Two by Andy Biskin

One of the cataylsts in keeping a creative musical mind healthy is an eclectic interest in other avenues of artistic expression. In other words, all work and no play tend to make Jack Improviser a dull boy. Brooklyn-based clarinetist Andy Biskin has a healthy and inclusive appetite in this regard. Early 20th century cartoonists, Rube Goldbergian mechanics, anthropology and a stint as assistant to folklorist Alan Lomax have all shaped his singular musical vision. Two new releases on Strudelmedia swing the door wide on a bevy of Biskin’s other influences.

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Trio Tragico teams his clarinet with the trumpet of Dave Ballou and bass of Drew Gress. On the surface, Biskin’s 13 originals emit a strong bouquet of folksy chamber jazz, specifically the sort of hybridizations Jimmy Giuffre and Shorty Rogers were propagating at the close of the Fifties. Probe a bit deeper and the pastoralisms give way to a potent sense of contrapuntal acuity and marvelous degree of temerity. His compositions remind me of Steve Lacy’s writing in the attention to repetition and periodic use of pinpoint darting heads. The set features some of the strongest playing from Ballou that I’ve heard on record. His cool melodic lines braid with Biskin’s equally air-conditioned constructions. Any heat comes from sharply sliding pitches that occasionally skirt the fringes of shrill discordance, but always seem to rear back before tumbling into stridency.

The interplay between the players is deceptively even-handed and marked with asides into jocularity and humor. Biskin likens the trio to a “sad clown” and the sometimes Sephardic-inflected tunes reflect that same blend of blues and whimsy. It’s a sentiment mirrored in the cartoonish cover art depicting several kitschy slices of roadside Americana. There are spots where the economy and dryness of the acoustic instrumentation catches up with Biskin and a soporific quality manifests in the music. But the trio never lets the action list for long before lighting off collectively on another jaunt distinguished by tensile harmonies, more implied than overtly stated. This is a disc light on fulminating shrapnel, but rich in quiet contemplative creativity. It’s one I’ve found myself spinning with regularity, especially as a means of soothing the aural stressors of the daily car commute.

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Recorded nearly five years earlier in the spring of 2000, Early American marks a first in Biskin’s folio in the interpretation of another composer’s body of work. True to character, his choice of muse isn’t a typical one. Stephen Foster’s tunes, while etched indelibly several strata down in popular music, are largely sidelined these days outside of elementary school sing-a-longs. Biskin does the 19th century songsmith a gratifying turn without resorting to slavish reverence and Foster’s pieces receive an enthusiastic improvisatory retrofitting for the 21st century. It also helps that Biskin enlists a sharp ensemble to bring his project from page to platter. Guitarist Pete McCann, doubling on banjo, handles the strings quotient and brings with him a snappy country twang as well as a taste for hard rock tablature. Chris Washburne takes care of brass, trading between trombone and tuba as the situation dictates. John Hollenbeck holds down kit duties, coming on like a percussive synthesis of Cie Frazier, Gene Krupa and Jim Black.

Biskin originals mingle amongst the Foster pieces and the set, while sometimes calculatedly eclectic, delivers a cohesive album experience. There’s feeling of déjà vu when listening to Foster’s melodies in the same way a sing-songy Ayler theme can seem familiar. The whistleable kernels of “Camptown Races” and “Oh! Susanna” fit swimmngly with Biskin’s cool-toned clarinet and reveal themselves as surprisingly suitable vehicles for freer leaning swing. Some songs like lovely “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” are played relatively straight. Others like the jigsaw rendering of “There’s a Good Time Coming” impart Biskin’s Big Apple-bred philosophy of never staying in one idiomatic place for too long. The tune vacillates circus-style between a tuba and snare-grounded funeral march, an up-tempo polka detour, a rocking street band strut, and a Naftule Brandwein-worthy Klezmer freilach backed by Link Wray-style riffing on through a handful of other wildly divergent permutations. It’s a dizzying 6-minute encapsulation of his arranger’s imagination and a piece that takes several trips through to map thoroughly. Listening to Biskin milk these seminal slices of antique aural Americana and come up with personalized musical nectar of his own, it’s a small wonder someone didn’t beat him to the punch.

~ Derek Taylor