Two from Ayler

The inexorable push towards commercial downloads in the music marketplace continues at an ever-accelerating pace. Ayler Records is one of the latest independents to embrace the technology. A new quartet of download-only releases fills longstanding numerical gaps in the label’s catalog with music that aligns with its well-established aesthetic of passionately played free jazz bridging European and American contingents.

Ayler 19

The Other Side presents Norwegian Frode Gjerstad in the company of two of his personal heroes, Hamid Drake and William Parker. Both were initially tapped in 1997 when the saxophonist won a national contest in his native country allowing him the opportunity to tour with players of his choosing. Several years and prodigious meetings later the three convened again for another tour, taking extra time in Chicago for a quick studio date. Four improvised pieces, each one affixed with a largely incidental title, follow the trio through a succession of temperaments and designs.

The lengthy “First Cut” seethes with a percolating tension, Gjerstad’s acerbic horn slicing at the undulating free pulse woven by his partners. Whinnies, stutters and trilling cries are all part of his hard-bitten parlance in conversation with Parker’s trampoline pizzicato. Drake’s snare tattoos signal a switch to semi-countable meter and Gjerstad’s alto rejoins with a string of steam-whistle legato strains. A rubber band bass ostinato, making full elastic use of Parker’s amplification shoots the trio in and out of a groove and despite Gjerstad’s spirited and nimble blasts, it’s the rhythm team that dominates for the remainder of the piece.

The title of “The Ballade” transmits its romantic traits in advance. Gjerstad concentrates on gauzy intonation and dilatory delivery while Parker and Drake go minimalist, relying on a shared canny sense of space. The bassist’s ensuing harmonics are pitch perfect, proof again of his enduring master status as manipulator of stretched horsehair and the drummer’s cymbal accents complete the semblance of some lost Mingus Workshop piece. The resultant mood is infatuation mixed with an emotional garnish of iron filings and broken glass. On the title track, Parker trades bass for a convincing turn on flute while Drake builds a breath-like perambulating beat on frame drum. Gjerstad alters his attack again, aerating his line in an overlapping rhythmic cycle that skirts the edges of soulful Jim Pepper-style R&B. The set wraps with Drake setting down his sticks and ceding time to tart-tasting duet piece for Gjerstad and Parker. The pair makes the most of it in a tangle of temerarious lines that goes on a bit too long, but still packs a potent heat.

Ayler 11

Joel Futterman leaves his curved soprano in its case and places sole emphasis on his primary instrument on the aptly titled Possibilities. Taped at two Virginia gigs in the summer of this year, the album touches the limits of traditional compact disc running time. Three parts clock at over a third of an hour apiece while the remaining four are mere minutes in length. Futterman has long drawn comparisons to Cecil Taylor in his heavily percussive and often punishing approach to the keyboard. Tumbling block chords dominate the opening minutes of “Part 1”, Futterman’s fingers moving in tsunami sweeps across the keys. Both hands target staggered trajectories and a stream of rippling stride-tinted rhythms results. Futterman’s right is particularly pugilistic, stabbing out repetitive riffs as the left anchors with pedal-dampened accents. A funky interlude eight minutes in references Monk through the looking glass of James Booker and once again callused tipped digits barely pause for rests. Later, his sprinting keystrokes virtually subsume in a rising storm cloud of pedal compression.

A strong sense of dynamics remains in place throughout the set with Futterman employing pedals to generate wide variations in tonal resonance and reach. The brief “Part 2” adds metallic bells to a sparse canvas of decaying string tones before another mammoth excursion on “Part 3” that opens with a stretch of surprisingly swinging barrelhouse rolls that swiftly turns ominous and rhapsodic. A sudden return to a crenellated stride pattern is checkered with disorienting freefall asides while ferocious strafing patterns in the middle of the piece show off diabolical complexity and power. Somewhat less cohesive in execution, “Part 4” includes extended preface of scraped strings that falls flat in comparison to the energized improvisations that follow. The gamble is better suited to the more economical “Part 6.”

Tedium and repetition are the archenemies of any solo recital and Futterman falls prey to both on occasion. At times, it’s as if he’s deliberately making a show of wrestling with his ivories, his command of their capabilities complete, but the desire to convey a sense of danger and drama overtly coloring many of his protracted volleys. The relentless acrobatics, while consistently impressive and sometimes even breathtaking, create something of an endurance test effect in places, but followers of Futterman will no doubt appreciate this extended engagement with the subject of their admiration.

Turning back to the lead topic of this piece, Ayler’s decision to enter the download arena is an inarguably sound one. Listeners with concerns over audio fidelity need not fret. The quality of content and ease of accessibility that defines these two releases suggests once again that the days of silver platter primacy may indeed be imminently finite.

~ Derek Taylor