Territory Band 5 - New Horse for the White House

Okkadisk 12080

Ken Vandermark has never voiced qualms about challenging his audience. Whether it be a loyal fan base or critics out to question his contentions of a still vibrant future for free jazz. Among his mutable stable of ensembles, the Territory Band concept remains the most outwardly challenging venture. Loosely based on the early 20th century precedent of regional musicians gathering to merge their various styles, Vandermark has kept the large group template from growing stale. Recent releases have necessitated multiple-disc sets to catalog developments. New Horse for the White House represents the most industrious package to date by combining two studio-recorded sets with a third taped in concert at the Donaueschingen Festival and broadcast live over German radio.

The band’s fifth incarnation is a close cousin to its fourth with Johannes Bauer replacing the departed Jeb Bishop and Per-Åke Holmlander returning on tuba. Lasse Marhaug remains as the wildcard electronicist and a crew of European and Chicago stalwarts fills the remaining slots. Vandermark employs only baritone and clarinet, hanging up his tenor and leaving work on that horn to the able hands of Dave Rempis and Fredrik Ljungkvist. As in the past, the newly christened compositions stress intricate arrangements in conjunction with ample free-leaning improvisation.

“Fall With a Vengeance” extends appreciation toward South Korean cinema kingpin Park Chan-wook, its dynamic structure echoing the seething revenge-fueled fantasies of his films. Long sustained drones and sinister clattering percussion give way to abrupt explosions of horn violence, like a lone warrior wading through a gang of attacking thugs wielding nothing but a claw hammer. The piece’s second half shifts to a series of telegraphing duets between Marhaug and Baker, Bauer and Lytton, Vandermark and Nilsson-Love, Ljungkvist and Lytton and other contrastive dyads. Quite a ride, all in all.

Drafted with Mingus in mind, “Untitled Fiction” is similarly mercurial, starting with some fairly straightforward and boisterous ensemble swing and dispersing into a chamberish subset of clarinet, trumpet, piano and drums. Subsequent segments include a cataclysmic blowout powered by the phalanx of horns and a rug-pulling string of solos starting with Bauer in metallic texture mode that moves on another splinter squad of Marhaug, percussion and strings. The piece winds down with a loping slice of Mingusian blues balanced on Kent Kessler’s portly bass. It’s a piebald performance that probably would have had its dedicatee scratching his head in equal parts admiration and confusion.

The second disc contains two more mammoth slabs, “Corrosion” and “Cards”. The first takes some time in developing momentum, commencing with some neo-classical juxtapositions of tonality before finding legs on slippery rhythm laced by Marhaug’s textured electronics and a lamentative turn from Bauer. Another trap door opens and suddenly Kessler stands alone, his robust pizzicato plying forth in a transparent sea of low-volume studio buzz. Rempis and Ljungkvist join in short order, followed by Baker until the assemblage reaches small ensemble size. The additive game is reprised by another set of players and piece ends with a series of fleeting ensembles, silences and drones. At nearly a half-hour, “Cards” charts a course comparatively stocked in uncertainty, spontaneity and silence. The third disc contains live versions of all four previous pieces, each different enough from the studio takes to justify their inclusion.

This set took me numerous spins to decipher, my first few forays met by the sense that Vandermark and the band were relying too resolutely on eclectic shifts and jarring juxtapositions for their own good. That opinion has since transformed into a more predictable measure of pleasure gleaned from the music, intermittent foibles and all. It’s not conducive to casual or expedient consumption and that's a good thing. As long as Vandermark keeps throwing down musical gauntlets that refuse to condone listener complacency, I, and no doubt a multitude of others, will happily continue picking them up.

~ Derek Taylor