Steve Swell & Dave Taylor - Double Diploid

CIMP 352

Dual trombone dates aren’t an anomaly at CIMP. There have been some epic meetings over the years, those between Steve Swell and Roswell Rudd and Nils Wogram and Konrad Bauer to name two. Double Diploidmarks the second match-up of Swell and bass trombonist Dave Taylor. Considering their musical personalities on record, Swell would seem to be the candidate for straight man to Taylor’s comedian, but neither man fits comfortably into such a classifiable box. This intricately engineered and executed disc finds each running the gamut of talents in the company of two drummers of equivocal stature. The band makes use of a veritable mountain of equipment, mainly percussion of various shapes, sizes and applications. The trombonists’ impressive cache of mutes and mufflers widens the palette even more. Taylor and Swell occupy stereo right and left while Warren Smith and Chad Taylor set-up their sizeable shared wares in the center. Other peripheral equipment comes into play as on the opener “Geological Time Line” where two metronomes set up a layered drone against the tinkle of mbiras and the throaty drawl of brass. Taylor holds his screwball tendencies somewhat in check, but they rise up in full effect on the title piece, a loose Altmanesque rondo of Hippocratic recitations blended with bells, shakers and the dour drawl of trombone that leaves the unsavory image of aging semen stuck in the mind’s craw.

A mouthful in both title and content, Swell’s “Aural Evidence expressed within a narrow space of now” juxtaposes a boisterous opening with a middle that brings to mind the sort of ominous free-floating pieces Grachan Moncur III used to deploy in the company of Bobby Hutcherson for Blue Note in the Sixties. The dueling vibraphones of Smith and Taylor that occupy the composition’s closing half contrast beautifully with the dark muted riffing of the brass. Similar in basic structure, “Cessation of Your Expectation” plays Smith’s amplified planks off Taylor’s jowly, avuncular horn before segueing into a luminous duet section for the percussionists. The prevalence of vibes and even balafon (borrowed from William Parker) brings a great deal of tonal color to the table, painting in watercolors to the higher viscosity charcoal and pastels of the brass. The kit work of Smith and Taylor proves just as savvy, with beats rolling off sticks and mallets in a multiplicity of directions, particularly on the joyous, African influenced “For Oumou, With Love”, the sort of percussion feast that satisfies both the hips and the head. Taylor even goes one better on “Buy You” playing the two instruments simultaneously and the trombones engage in a loquacious exchange filled with slurred drawls and smudged slides. This is definitely a disc where headphones or a high end audio system is almost mandatory in order to fully appreciate the music, but that hopefully won’t act as a deterrent as what’s here is well worth exploring.

~ Derek Taylor