Rodrigo Amado - This is Our Language (A Double Review)

Rodrigo Amado/Joe McPhee/Kent Kessler/Chris Corsano –This Is Our Language (NotTwo, 2015) *****

By Peter Gough

One recent September evening, my ears mostly deafened by the muscular performance of London Ontario’s legendary noise progenitors The Nihilist Spasm Band, I floated towards the bar and ordered a beer. Joe McPhee, who had guested that evening on pocket trumpet (and styrofoam cup) materialized to my left. I immediately introduced myself and gushed praise about his new release This Is Our Language on Poland’s venerable Not Two label, which I had received only a week or two earlier. Mr. McPhee’s eyes widened. “You have that?!” he asked incredulously. “I don’t have a copy yet. I’ve been on the road though, so maybe it’s waiting for me at home.” I explained that I’d been captivated by the beautiful album art on Rodrigo Amado’s website (www.rodrigoamado.com - who’s as capable a photographer as he is a musician), and had purchased it directly from label head Marek Winiarski.

The classic idiom, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” does not apply to this album. Even a cursory glance at This Is Our Language would stop a casual reader of this blog in their tracks. There’s clearly something special on offer here. A crisp block white typeface - the kind favored by Peter Brotzmann - announces the album title over a largely black background. The four musicians (leader Rodrigo Amado on tenor saxophone, Joe McPhee on pocket trumpet and alto saxophone, bassist Kent Kessler, and drummer Chris Corsano) are spotlit in a sparse, gentle yellow. The four figures are concealed and not immediately obvious - much like the ideas contained on the disc.

This Is Our Language is a natural extension of the similarly titled This Is Our Music by the Ornette Coleman Quartet (Atlantic, 1961). Amado’s group enjoys the same clairvoyant chemistry as Coleman’s did, and are no less equipped to deliver their message. Amado et al. summarize and expound upon the fifty-odd years of achievements in free jazz that have passed since Coleman’s opus. Ken Burns’ 2001 PBS miniseries Jazz may not have adequately covered the scope of this criminally neglected sub-genre, but fourteen years later, Amado has.

The album opens with Amado and McPhee slowly interlacing phrases in the aptly titled, ‘The Primal Word’, a sedate soundscape which mirrors the mysterious aura of the cover. Interactions liven with the inclusion of an inquisitive Kessler at the two-minute mark. ‘This Is Our Language’ begins with McPhee playfully imitating a swanee whistle, and Corsano leads us gracefully towards incendiary statements from both McPhee and Amado. The two summon the melodic auras of Don Cherry and Ornette Coleman while maintaining their own modern, pointed attacks. McPhee bubbles with youthful and joyous creativity, vocalizing into his horn, his moans blurring into smeared notes. The disc’s final track, ‘Human Behaviour’, draws on the duo interplay of McPhee and Amado that began the disc. At this point the group’s sound has blown wide open and the mystery is revealed, Kessler’s strings buzzing against the fretboard earnestly and without abandon. McPhee appears a final time delivering at first ringing, almost stately lines that eventually dissolve into spiraling, sonic spurts.

Lisbon’s Rodrigo Amado has chosen a crack team of improvisers with whom to present his vocabulary. With This Is Our Language, he has succeeded in uniting the varied parlances of creative musicians around the world. Over the span of forty-three minutes, Amado has condensed a diverse array of concepts that blossom and mature with each listening. This is a commanding and authoritative recording that should not be missed.

Rodrigo Amado/Joe McPhee/Kent Kessler/Chris Corsano –This Is Our Language (NotTwo, 2015) ****

By Martin Schray

This band has a long story. When Rodrigo Amado was  organizing two concerts associated with his photo exhibition at Museu da Electricidade, he decided to fulfill a long-standing wish.

For the opening, Amado played with his Motion Trio (Miguel Mira on cello and Gabriel Ferrandini on drums), augmented by Carlos Zíngaro, Rodrigo Pinheiro and Joe McPhee.

For the second concert, Amado conceived  a project that could also be taken into the studio involving McPhee – a strong influence – but since context is important, the other musicians were crucial. He chose Kent Kessler on bass as he’s  always  grounded and can  add a powerful groove, even “when things get radically abstract“, as he put it (he'd formed part of Amado’s earlier trio with PNL). And Kessler has known McPhee from the Brötzmann Chicago Tentet and Brötzmann’s quartet with Michael Zerang. If Kessler was the earth, Amado also needed someone who was the air, someone “to unbalance things, an acid element“. He chose  Chris Corsano, one of the most exciting and inventive drummers on the scene, who’s  been playing with McPhee in a splendid duo for a number of years.

As with all Amado’s music, the album is completely improvised, with no prior discussion. This Is Our Language starts with the drum-free  “The Primal World“ opening with Amado’s tenor, joined almost immediately by McPhee's alto. The pair slowly weaves an abstract blues pattern until Kessler's bass walks in. From there on the track retains a beautiful, balladesque atmosphere, with shades of “Round Midnight“ towards the end.

“Theory of Mind (for Joe)“ is a classic saxophone trio. Amado said that he started a tune with Kessler and Corsano and after very intense playing he kept creating spots for McPhee to come in. But he just watched the others and listened, with the kind of concentration that  felt as if he was playing with them – a silent contribution, hence the title “Theory of Mind, For Joe“.

The other three tracks are classic quartet pieces, sometimes with McPhee also on trumpet and driven by repetitive saxophone riffs (“Ritual Evolution“), sometimes presenting highly energetic high speed playing generating  exciting duos and solos (“Human Behaviour“, “This Is Our Language“).
The title of the album apparently refers to Ornette Coleman's This Is Our Music from 1961(with Coleman on alto, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums) and In All Languages (Caravan Of Dreams, 1987), since both albums have deeply influenced Amado’s music. But then again Amado and McPhee are also familiar with the musical language of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, obvious influences. Additionally, Amado stated that beyond the Ornette homage, the title is also “a reminiscence to the language of improvisation and to the absolute miracle that is to share a common and abstract language with other musicians and with it be able to build coherent forms and meanings - a language that is both common but also built from the highly individual and personal languages of each musician.“

In the end, the players selected were perfect for the music. McPhee and Amado have a similar approach:  both draw from tradition, the avant-garde and improv, and the result is a sensitive and expressive album

The album is available from www.instantjazz.com and www.downtownjazzgallery.com.

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Survival Unit III - Straylight (Pink Palace, 2015)

Survival Unit III - Straylight (Pink Palace, 2015) ****½

By Eyal Hareuveni

Straylight from Survival Unit III - the trio of legendary trumpeter-saxophonist Joe McPhee, cellist-guitarist Fred Lonberg-Holm and drummer Michael Zernag - celebrates ten years of working together. The trio was initiated by McPhee in 2004, as his third Survival Unit group, when all three played in Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet. This trio has toured extensively on both sides of the Atlantic and recorded this album, its fourth, in the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, IL, on September 2014.

These three resourceful and highly creative improvisers embody in their respective playing the true essence of freedom, whether we would title it 'free jazz' or 'free improvisation.' Their rich, individual languages, colorful imagination, great intuition and wise, dynamic interplay and lively sense of total freedom turn this live recording into a real gem. Already on the first extended piece “Blood of a Poet”, dedicated to New York-based poet Steve Dalachinsky, the trio follows its immediate instincts, adopting, developing and reconstructing brief ideas. This fast flow of ideas turns to be a loose, poetic narrative that stresses the strong, individual voices and at the same time the trio almost telepathic interplay. There is enough room for an intense, searching-scorching solo of Lonberg-Holm who adds electronics to his sonic palette, contrasted by a lyrical sax solo of McPhee and later by a fractured drumming of Zerang.

McPhee begins the second extended piece “If Not now…” with a commanding solo made of circular breathing on the pocket trumpet, filling the space with strange, agonizing voices. Zerang ornaments this intense, stream of breaths and shouts with light, percussive touches that become faster and more dense as the piece develops. Then Lonberg-Holm joins with his screaming, tenor guitar and ups the temperature into a fiery, wild one. This tight interplay disintegrates later on into spare breaths of McPhee,  experiments of Lonberg-Holm with electric guitar and electronics sounds and Zerang explorations of the skins and cymbals of his drum set. Eventually McPhee takes the lead with a moving sax solo that pierces Lonberg-Holm electric storm and Zerang ceremonial, Middle-Eastern-tinged percussion.  

The short answer to this piece, “When?”, is an energetic free-jazz piece, fueled by Zernag massive drumming, manic bowing of Lonberg-Holm and a gentle, compassionate playing of McPhee.

Magnificent.

Survival Unit III – Straylight (Pink Palace, 2015) ****        

By Martin Schray

Survival Unit is a project by Joe McPhee and this is his third version of that group. The first version (unfortunately not documented) started in the late 1960s and early 1970s with McPhee on his own (on saxophone and on pre-recorded material) before there was a second version with Mike Kull (p), Byron Morris (sax) and Harold E. Smith (dr) (HatHut released a 1971 performance in 1996 on which the band was augmented by Clifford Thornton). In the early 2000s McPhee revived the band with new members (Fred Lonberg-Holm and Michael Zerang). Straylight is the fourth release by this trio and celebrates the band’s ten years anniversary.

On their first three albums you could find McPhee on pocket trumpet, alto and tenor and Lonberg-Holm on cello and electronics, on this one McPhee uses the soprano (and the pocket trumpet) and Lonberg-Holm is on tenor guitar for the first time which changes the band’s  approach to sound completely.

The album starts with “Blood of a Poet“ (for Steve Dalachinsky), a piece dedicated to the New York poet and friend of McPhee’s (he said that he attended almost all of his concerts in NYC). Dalachinsky performs regularly with free-jazz musicians, e.g. at the Visions Festival. His work is inspired by the beat poets, he likes to break rule of the language to create his own - which is the connection to Survival Unit III. The first part of the track is marked by heavy blues beat interruptions, Zerang almost plays time to McPhee’s wide trumpet bows and short soprano trills which Lonberg-Holm counters with wide and spacious notes. The second part features hectic bustle between the three instruments and sudden breaks: first McPhee is left alone and then Lonberg-Holm, who rubs and scratches the strings of the cello in front of electronic debris. McPhee tries to relieve the tension with a tender soprano melody but Lonberg-Holm and Zerang are not easily defeated, they bring in a blues riff which is put through the meat grinder. The end of the track is a violent mess which is stopped abruptly, as if someone had pulled the plug.

One of the band’s qualities is their great variety of styles - from call-and-response schemes to new classical music to rock-related material - as well as different atmospheres, something that is audible on this album as well, for example on the second and third track, "If Not Now …" and "When?" (obviously an allusion to Primo Levi’s novel about a band of Jewish partisans behind enemy lines in Russia and Poland – the partisans obviously being another survival unit). "If Not Now …" presents Lonberg-Holm on guitar and McPhee on trumpet, the latter also opens the piece. The band creates a very sombre and gloomy atmosphere first, Lonberg-Holm’s guitar style is very harsh and full of dissonant splinters, it sounds as if it was reigning glass. Zerang relentlessly pushes his fellow musicians with a dark drive on the toms in the first part, which underlines the brutality of the music.

If "If Not Now ..." represents the dark and violent passages of Levi’s novel, the last track points in a completely different direction - hope. "When?" shows the band’s interest in new baroque music, especially audible in Lonberg-Holm’s cello contribution.

Although they have been playing together for some time now, Survival Unit III is one of the most interesting projects on the scene. Hopefully, they will be together for ten more years.

The album was recorded live during a USA tour at the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign/Illinois on September18, 2014.

You can buy it from www.instantjazz.com and www.downtownmusicgallery.com or directly from the label on bandcamp.

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Stephen Haynes - Pomegranate (New Atlantis, 2015) ****½

Deep Listening: a Double Review by Eyal Hareuveni and Stef Gijssels

Cornetist Stephen Haynes' new album Pomegranate is a natural expansion of his work with his core trio, debuting in The Double Trio Live at the Festival of New Trumpet Music and continuing with Parrhesia (Engine, 2008 and 2010). It is also a tribute to Haynes’ mentor and about 40-years collaborator, master trumpeter Bill Dixon (Haynes played on Dixon last albums: 17 Musicians in Search for a Sound: Darfur, Aum fidelity, 2008; Tapestries for Small Orchestra, Firehouse 12, 2009; Envoi, Les Disques Victo, 2011). Dixon left specific instructions with regards to tributes: “If you want to pay tribute to me, you should (be) do (ing) your own works”. And as in the major works of Dixon it is mainly a communal, poetic sonic reflection about creating sound and feeding from sound; sound as an ever-changing, elusive entity; sound as something that resonates deeply in our souls open us to new experiences and sensations.

Haynes relies on the immediate interplay that is already have been solidified with his trio - guitarist Joe Morris and percussionist Warren Smith and augments the trio with double bass player William Parker and tuba player Ben Stapp. The addition of Parker and Stapp deepens the low end sound of the quintet, still, the percolating percussive touches of Smith, the subtle, muted blows of Haynes and Morris wise, angular lines keep it light and dynamic, defying any attempt to categorizes it. Haynes set the atmosphere for this new formed quintet to play as a democratic unit, with enough freedom to any musicians to alter the course of the music.

Pomegranate is developed as suite. It opens with the slow “Sillage” where Parker's dark bowed bass envelops the investigative, contemplative dynamics. It is followed by the African-tinged “Mangui Fii Reek (I am Still Here)”, where the unique telepathic understanding between Haynes and Morris shines, both continuing each other ideas even before they are fully formed. Later on the title piece Haynes and Parker share a dense, conversational interplay, beautifully intuitive and open-ended, shifting fast between moods and colors. The 17-minutes “Becoming” is a communal meditation on sounds and shifting dynamics, even Gamelan-sounding ones. The group returns to an African dance mode on “Crepuscular”, anchored by Parker and Smith hypnotic pulse. Only on the closing “Odysseus (Lashed to the Mast)” the accumulated energy of the group explodes with fast, fiery playing of all, transforming sounds into a means of release and freedom.

Highly recommended.

- Eyal Hareuveni

Stephen Haynes - Pomegranate

Trumpet and cornet player Stephen Haynes is one of those highly under-recorded musicians, but also a person who has great admiration for many other musicians, and lots of performance activities in various bands, and possibly all this leads to a humility which reduces his own published output. But when he does release music, it is of the best possible kind : high quality, strong musical vision and always in the company of great musicians. That was the case with "The Double Trio" from 2008, and "Parrhesia" from 2010, two easy to recommend albums.

On "Pomegranate", we find him again in the presence of Joe Morris on guitar and Warren Smith on drums and marimba, but with the addition of Ben Stapp on tuba and William Parker on bass. Quite a band!

Like in "Parrhesia", Haynes creates very light textures, with one or two instruments interacting, with precision and attention to the quality of the sound, with attention to little details. The musicians use their instruments also in a very sparse way. No sound is superfluous, no sound is a commodity, but they are all valuable elements in setting up the larger picture, a picture that is profound, both spiritually and emotionally, and a picture that despite its high level of improvisational abstraction is still extremely lyrical. And even when the trio has added bass and tuba to anchor the sound a little bit more, this does not increase the density of the sound, and at times even accentuate its apparent weightlessness.

The album is dedicated to Bill Dixon, Haynes' teacher, mentor and friend for many years.

"Sillage" starts with a deep almost primeval sound of bowed bass, tuba and drums, conjuring up sounds that defy categorisation, non-linear, dissonant, a-rhythmic, yet organically growing towards each other, growling as if something is coming to life.

"Mangui Fii Reek" is based on an African rhythm, solidly anchored by William Parker's bass, joyfully joined by sparse and fresh guitar chords and piercing trumpet tones, supported by rhythmic little percussion by Smith, but all of this in a very soft-spoken way, almost without weight despite the explicit rhythm, flowing forward naturally and gently.

"Pomegranate" is clearly written with Bill Dixon in mind, Haynes' long-time teacher and musical colleague and friend, with trumpet blasts that are short and determined, opening up the music to new possibilities also from the other musicians, leading to free form intensity. Bill Dixon had a certain austerity in his tone, which Stephen Haynes doesn't have.

"Becoming" a long and meandering song, with some trumpet sounds that are reminiscent of Lester Bowie, as is the case on "Crepuscular", which sounds again quiet and African, with William Parker Parker playing a steady vamp, supported by Smith on marimba and the trumpet sounds just marvellous, as is Joe Morris' precise playing.

"Odysseus" is intense, evocating the struggle of the Greek hero tied to the mast of his ship upon his own request so that he can listen to the sirens without risking his life.

Wow, I listened to this album a lot, and I will continue to do so. Its approach is innovative because of its highly open-textured and lightfooted nature, the tight interaction between five musicians who know exactly what do in this specific context, demonstrating the versatility of their skills, yet the real kudos should go to Stephen Haynes himself, not only for his superb playing but for his musical vision, which is all his own - despite the Bill Dixon tribute aspect - and his skill to have the other four musicians on the same wavelength to deliver this vision with such clarity and beauty.


- Stef

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Mette Rasmussen Chris Corsano Duo - All The Ghosts At Once (Relative Pitch Records, 2015) ****½

By Eyal Hareuveni

The Danish, Trondheim, Norway-based alto sax player Mette Rasmussen and American drummer have been performing as a duo continuously for the last two years. The duo's free-improvised music benefits from these gifted musicians accumulated experiences. Corsano's resume stretches from free jazz legends as sax players Joe McPhee, Paul Flaherty & Akira Sakata, noise masters as Bill Nace and C Spencer Yeh to avant-pop vocalist Björk. He represents the hyperactive, ecstatic pole in this duo. Rasmussen, now part of Mats Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra, has played with improvisers such as Rudi Mahall, Alan Silva, Ståle Liavik Solberg, and with her own Trio Riot, adds a more contemplative tone yet a highly commanding one and a sense of direction and narrative to this duo.

The debut album of the duo was recorded at I-Beam, Brooklyn, in October 2013. The interplay between Rasmussen and corsano sound organic, flowing and inventive, despite their different approaches. Already in the opening track. “Train Track”, Corsano sound as eager to dive deep into a primal, full-blown eruption of intense drumming while Rasmussen builds the tension patiently, exploring other options, before joining Corsano in an energetic ride towards the inevitable catharsis. Rasmussen minimalist sonic searches and her singing sound, especially on the short pieces, force Corsano to distill his ecstatic, powerful playing into nuanced, delicate gestures. But more often both establish a common ground in an intense forms of interplay as on the fiery “How Many of These Things Do We Need Anyway?”, challenging each other through brilliant, charismatic playing, reaching even moving, lyrical segments on the capricious and joyous “Exploding Foods”. Still, the duo expansive language seeks to liberate itself from any conventional forms of playing and searches for newer, free forms of playing, sketching abstract yet rich textures on “O Space Heater! My Space Heater!” and on the closing piece, “Yesterday’s Teenyboppers Are Today’s Republicans”.

Rasmussen's and Corsano's profound understanding of the liberating power of free, creative music is impressive. Strongly recommended.

Mette Rasmussen Chris Corsano Duo - All The Ghosts At Once ****½

By Paul Acquaro

From chirps to caterwauling, brushes to beatings, the debut recording from the duo of saxophonist Mette Rasmussen and drummer Chris Corsano is a dynamic and diverse affair.  In a sense, Corsano’s name on the credits is, to me, a stamp of quality assurance, and if you have not heard of Rasmussen yet, acquaint yourself now, she's a force of nature on the sax.

Though it starts with atmospheric jitters from the sax and the whale-song of the cymbals, the duo's output quickly picks up in intensity. Rasmussen's lines become explosive and powerful wails while Corsano's favors the low end rumble of the floor tom and kick drum. There is space between these lines too, and as the track progresses the two maneuver in concert, never overshadowing, never stepping on each other's toes.

'_____'s Lament' parts 1 and 2 (you get to fill in who is lamenting, I suppose) begins quietly. Corsano's snare suggesting a pulse and Rasmussen's sax a forlorn cry, the two short tracks show off the atmospheric side of the duo. But not for long. 'Contester' snaps back into fulminating form and the following 'How Many of These Things Do We Need' is almost like a series of musical questions. 'Dots (for Paul Flathery)' references one of Corsano's long term duetting partners.

What else is there to say? Put two fierce musicians together in a small room with good acoustics with bassist Max Johnson at the recording console and this is what you get - a mix of the beatific and the bombast, texture and trauma. Excellent.

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Devin Gray - RelativE ResonancE (Skirl, 2015) ****

By Tom Burris

From the outset, this rhythm section can do Henry Threadgill’s Zooid.  Devin Gray (drums) and Chris Tordini (bass) have that thing down pat.  Reedman Chris Speed and pianist Kris Davis are mixed in (mostly) separate channels and this works well, as they frequently play counterpoint with each other over the top of the amazing structural base.  I wish the soloists were completely isolated in separate channels. In the left channel you'd get something wonderful from a Davis trio – and then cut out the left channel and you could hear an amazing Speed-led group.  But we'll just have to be satisfied with the brilliant quartet.  

I’ll confess that I will check out anything with Kris Davis on it.  She’s an incredibly well-rounded player with a real understanding of what makes a composition, a group improvisation, and an arrangement work.  She is a perfect fit here.  Gray has written arrangements for each instrument that present a balance, not only between composition and improvisation, but between each player's contribution to the overall picture.  

On “Notester” the Zooid groove disappears, making for a more challenging – but no less enjoyable – listening experience.  Tordini and Davis lock especially well here to support Speed's flights.  Things get appropriately humid on “Jungle Design,” which also has a house-of-mirrors feel about it.  It's the first and only time the “balance” ideal becomes a bit claustrophobic.  “Transatlantic Transitions” returns to Zooid funk about two minutes in; and Davis and Speed lead the band through abrupt twists and turns.

The written bits – on the entire disc – are intricate and fascinating, like studying the insides of a finely crafted timepiece.  Delicate precision is key to the execution of this music.  Throw in a wild card like free improvisation and...  How do they make this work so well?

Nowhere is the tight balancing act more evident that on the title track, which compresses everything that is great about this band - and these songs - into 3.5 minutes of brilliance.  The interplay between Gray and Tordini leads the group to ecstatic – and briefly, improvisational - heights.  Who knew the avant garde could be so perfectly symmetrical?

By Paul Acquaro

Devin Gray's RelativE ResonancE is a well crafted experience. This new set from the NYC drummer and composer features Chris Speed’s precise clarinet, Kris Davis' adroit piano, Chris Tordini's supportive bass and Gray's skittering percussion. Together they create a package that is both sleek and full of energy.

If you only listen to the opening few minutes you may be tempted to think that RelativE ResonancE is a fairly straight-ahead jazz album. However, by the time you have reach the third track, 'Notester’, the room has opened up, revealing the swirling musical cosmos. Overlapping and concentric, the melodies and  rhythms coil around each other, building with intensity and emotion.

It seems that the combination of Davis and Speed is the linchpin. Speed's focus is key - he chooses his notes well and plays them with unwavering conviction. When Davis accompanies, like with the small splashes of sound on 'Jungle Design (For Hannah Shaw),’ or the syncopated comping on ‘In the Cut', it is always well executed, and when she leads, like on the chase between the group that begins 'Transatlantic Transitions', it is captivating. Gray and Tordini, of course, support the music expertly - for example the title track 'Relative Resonance (for Tadd Dameron)' is a showcase for the tight connection between the two musicians. Tordini is prominent in the mix, and his taught bass line outline the interaction between the drums and clarinet.

The songs often become knotty, circular events, and it is within these patterns and intertwining melodies that some excellent music is being made. RelativE ResonancE is an accessible avant-garde album with a vibrant pulse and a lot going on within ... listen again and again as it reveals itself.

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Joëlle Léandre & Vincent Courtois - Live at Kesselhaus Berlin 08.06.2013 (Jazzdor Series, 2014) ****

Joëlle Léandre & Vincent Courtois - Live at Kesselhaus Berlin 08.06.2013 (Jazzdor Series, 2014) ****

By Dan Sorrells

Live at Kesselhaus Berlin 08.06.2013 is the first in a limited edition of CDs produced by Jazzdor, a jazz promotion organization that puts on concerts and festivals in France and Germany. It’s an inspired summer’s night dance between Courtois’s cello and Léandre’s bass, and listening to the full performance, it’s easy to appreciate how it sparked the idea to share this music more widely with the Jazzdor Series.

The freely improvised duet veers from exacting, militant marches to flying pizzicato barbs to rich, sorrowful ballads. It’s a virtuoso exchange that wrings every drop of sound from the strings, a searing tour of talent and technique that’s as informed by classical poise as it is gritty blues and unruly free improvisation. Both players have deserved reputations as master musicians, and Live at Kesselhaus Berlin would serve as a perfect introduction to anyone unfamiliar: in its wildest flights and furthest reaches of tone and dynamics, it’s never anything less than spirited and lyrical.

I’ll admit to often feeling ambivalent about Léandre’s tendency to vocalize when she feels particularly moved by the music, but here it is electrifying. About 15 minutes into the performance, Courtois locks into a rapid, dizzying pizzicato figure that seems to lure the rhythm and blues from within Léandre’s heart. Though she progresses into increasingly gruff and strange vocal acrobatics, there’s such a streamlined energy being channeled through the performance that it’s hard not to share in the enthusiasm. Even Courtois feels compelled to let out a bark.

The two continue to slug it out (the label description says backstage they were “punch-drunk, like boxers who had gone at it blow by blow to the bell”), and as the finale nears Léandre’s sad aria returns over a bass drone, with wavering, theremin-like cello notes crying out overhead.  After rousing applause, the duo return for a varied encore that serves as a perfect distillation of the main performance. Live at Kesselhaus Berlin 08.06.2013 succeeds in snaring that elusive beast: the unique, undeniable high that accompanies the best improvised performances. We all may not have been fortunate enough to experience it firsthand, but this will certainly do. A great concert and a great way to kick off a record series.

Listen and purchase at Bandcamp.

Joëlle Léandre & Vincent Courtois - Live at Kesselhaus Berlin 08.06.2013 (Jazzdor Series, 2014) ****

By Alfonso Lex

When you speak of avant-garde music, typically the pitch is that it succeeds in what makes it individual. To everything there’s the romance of discovery and much of what makes abstract art so appealing is right there. While this does promote innovation and invention it can also be a bit of a toxic beginner’s trap. Restraint and context is the rarely acknowledged line that divides pioneering from ego. It’s not enough to merely be audacious, lest you descend into thoughtless contrarianism. It’s worth noting that experimental music is, by its nature, a contrary art form. Without proper acknowledgement of the standards you’re redefining your mission statement can get muddied and inscrutable.

On this album, the notion of contrasting your influences with your innovations is made more explicit than I can recall in some time. The bulk of this record’s 45-minute runtime is spent in atonality. Bass and cello compete in a sloppy, badly moderated dialogue where riffs and ideas consciously fail to coalesce. It’s aesthetically fascinating in a way a lot of improvised music is, but as the record presses on it becomes clear that Léandre and Courtois don’t want you to earn your viscera quite so easily. Punctuating throughout this piece are moments of almost blues-like melodic and rhythmic clarity, particularly when Léandre’s vividly soulful vocals come in. In these moments the instruments find the moderation they had only superficially hinted at before. They realign in stunning ways, bringing with them a discipline and intensity usually found in rigidly composed music. There are times when this album does feel as focused as a piece of contemporary classical music.

But what’s so striking is just how different this all feels. These moments of comparative normalcy are emphasized through just how palpable the transitions were. No single moment in this performance stands alone, it is through the inconsistencies of the movements that the vision of this project comes into focus. New concepts and melodies are introduced, they linger long enough to be established and then they’re contradicted. The paradigm perpetually rotates against an ever-increasing frame. You would ask what more they could do were you not so swept up in the vividness of the record’s immersions. Melodies are made all the sweeter by having been made to earn them and abstractions are made all the more curious by just how long we’ve been contemplating the melodies. It all feels very organic. It’s no chore following the musicians down these hoops and contours. It’s paced conservatively enough to make the experience more hypnagogic than proactive.

As a debut for the ongoing Jazzdor project, it’s an impressive first step forwards. On the bandcamp page that hosts the series, the marketing reads like the early pages of some bad noir screenplay. It admirably tries to find the narrative in the performance, but it misses the point. This music was not meant to be personified; it’s far too conceptual and broad to be about people. But then again, maybe it is. Maybe such a visceral celebration of inconsistency could be a stirring tribute to human nature. On second thoughts, that sounds right on the money.

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Max Johnson – The Prisoner (NoBusiness, 2014) ****

Deep Listening Weekend - Day 2

By Dan Sorrells

Looking back, Patrick McGoohan’s TV classic The Prisoner marked the point where the anti-establishment rebelliousness of 60s counter-culture started to sour into the paranoia of the 70s. Over the decades the show has remained tremendously influential, while the sort of surveillance society that it railed against is increasingly realized in our current hyper-digital, globalized world.

The concerns of The Prisoner are interesting in the context of Max Johnson’s namesake tribute album, performed by a quartet of Johnson, Ingrid Laubrock, Mat Maneri, and Tomas Fujiwara. As our anxiety grows about a modern culture that’s slowly warping into The Prisoner’s Village, we also live in a world that allows improvising musicians unprecedented means for inspiration and collaboration. As websites subversively build detailed profiles of all our likes and movements, The Prisoner’s musicians and I can go online and easily enjoy the cult British series made before any of us were born. As the NSA presses Google for warrantless information, Max Johnson can effortlessly send a promotional copy of his album to my GMail, and I can download it onto my computer within seconds.

But whatever the conditions for its conception, the music is what’s important. What makes The Prisoner a remarkable album is that Johnson’s loose compositions convey a certain narrative and drama all on their own, regardless of whether you’re familiar with the show that inspired them. And—just like the show—what they ultimately do best is imbue the listening environment with a sense of the uncanny, the queasy feeling that nothing is quite what it seems.

 “No. 6 Arrival/No. 58 Orange Alert” begins in a tentative, exploratory manner: low in volume, the music feels its way through unfamiliar territory, with long tendrils of strings reaching out through Laubrock’s hazy tenor and Fujiwara’s delicate percussion. It’s uneasy yet beautiful, slightly claustrophobic even as it picks up in volume and texture.  But before the piece comes to a close, the Orange Alert: Laubrock sounds a chiming alarm, and the music comes alive. It’s busy but short-lived, much like McGoohan’s first scuffle with the eerie Rover that can be seen chasing him across the album sleeve.

Elsewhere, “X04” has the jaunty swagger of the show’s jazzy interludes, while “No. 24 Hammer into Anvil” builds to a marching crescendo that erupts into a free improv workout. “No. 48 Living in Harmony” flirts with Alice Coltrane-style spiritual jazz, with some beautiful saxophone playing that calls to mind Pharaoh Sanders. Bolstered by Johnson’s thick, bowed double stops and Maneri’s skittering lines, the piece perfectly conveys the paranoid, suspicious nature of the show: beneath the placid melody, a dark undercurrent surges, the deep, uncertain flow that threatens the outwardly normal surface.

The Prisoner showcases music of many influences, but never blatantly declares itself to be any of them. The uncanny pseudo-familiarity is part of the fun. However untrusting No. 6 may have been of the others he enlisted in his escape attempts, Johnson can be assured he has a rock-solid crew of co-conspirators for his realization of The Prisoner. He’s proving to be a brilliant and surprising frontman as of late. To him I’ll simply say:

“Be hearing you.”

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Max Johnson – The Prisoner (NoBusiness, 2014) ****½

Deep Listening Weekend - Day 1

By Martin Schray

The Prisoner was a cult British TV series created by Patrick McGoohan, which has inspired metal and punk bands as different as Iron Maiden, XTC or The Clash. The plot is about a secret service agent who finds himself a prisoner in an isolated village after he decided to resign. The village, in which the individual is reduced to a number (the protagonist is No. 6), is controlled by a mysterious No. 1, although nobody gets to see him. The village is guarded by an elaborate surveillance system, including security personnel and a mysterious balloon-like device that recaptures – or kills – those who try to escape. The village administrators are various No. 2s, who are replaced constantly because of their futile attempts to find out about No. 6’s real reasons to resign. Aesthetically the series is a weird stylistic mix of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, Orwell’s 1984 and James Bond films, but even 45 years after it was created you can still feel its claustrophobic and Kafkaesque mood.

New York-based bassist Max Johnson, a man who has collaborated with artists as various as Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, The Butthole Surfers, Vernon Reid and several bluegrass (!) bands, has been fascinated by this series since he was a kid. But when he decided to compose a suite based on the series he was obviously not interested in interpreting or using the original score, which rather reminds of classic 1960s spy movie soundtracks. Instead Johnson tried to capture the above-mentioned atmosphere.  Even structurally he tried to transform the concepts, the “intricate webs weaved throughout the show, [the] loose ends that never get tied up, and huge questions that are never answered” into music. The music has an episodic character: Johnson said that “some of the tunes represent little moments or episodes, while the beginning and end of the suite signify bigger parts of the story.”

And the album is indeed bookended by the longest tracks, “No. 6: Arrival/No. 58: Orange Alert,” and “No. 2: Once Upon a Time/No. 1: Fallout.”  The first one introduces us to the world of the prisoner and sets the tone for the album – it is a gloomy and oppressive world and the musicians use long, deep and dark tones to illustrate this. The long and almost ethereal beginning is destroyed with a siren-like call by Laubrock’s sax which forces the group to test out the boundaries of the composition – just like No. 6 trying to escape from the village. The latter closes the album with a two-part finale (like the series). Part one begins almost melancholic, as if there was a certain nostalgia in the face of the near end, but the final part (like the episode) flows into chaos with Laubrock and the strings battling wildly and Fujiwara soloing (one of the great moments of the album, since it represents the brutality and action of the last part of the show as well) before the whole piece evolves into a funeral march meandering in a classic bebop improvisation – a final hint to the series when the protagonists finally manage to leave the village.

These two tracks are like blueprints for the other compositions. “No. 12: Schizoid Man/Gemini,” an episode when No. 6 is replaced by a spooky look-alike in order to crash his self, focuses on Maneri’s viola and Laubrock’s sax stalking each other mysteriously. And one of the more brutal episodes – “No. 24: Hammer Into Anvil”, in which a paranoid, sadistic No. 2 has taken over – begins with a painful sax call, before there are high-pitched scratching and straining tones from the viola, which leads to a pure free jazz fight in its last few minutes. It’s my favorite part on the album.

One of the most famous quotations of the show—“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered”—is like a motto for Max Johnson’s music: It is hard to pigeonhole this music, it is programmatic and notated yet free and excessive at the same time. And with Ingrid Laubrock on tenor saxophone, Mat Maneri on viola and Tomas Fujiwara on drums, he simply has a great band.

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Joe McPhee – Nation Time: The Complete Recordings (1969-70) CD box set (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2013) *****

A Deep Listening Weekend

By Martin Schray

In yesterday’s review of Joe McPhee’s four albums he recorded for CjR, I already remarked that I consider ”Nation Time“ a landmark recording. From the very first moment you have no chance to escape: “What time is it?” shouts Joe McPhee at the beginning of the title track. He is at the top of his voice (actually even beyond), and the audience responds enthusiastically: “Nation Time!” (a reminiscence of a Amiri Baraka poem). Plain and simple call and response! And it was time for the black US community to show a new self-consciousness.

The music reflects this new attitude: sweaty, greasy funk riffs, attacked by free post-Coltrane sax cries, Fender Rhodes chords, heavily overblown parts close to sheer ecstasy pay tribute to McPhee’s great idols of that time: Albert Ayler and James Brown. McPhee puts the phrase “Move your ass and your mind will follow” into practice, his band plays pure dance floor stuff - this is great fun, charged with a political message. And he had a great band with Mike Kull (p, Fender Rhodes), Tyrone Crabb (b), Bruce Thompson (tp), Ernest Bostic (dr) and Otis Greene (as),  Herbie Lehman (org) and Dave Jones (g) on the best track of the album, “Shakey Jake”. The raw energy of this piece, for example in the guitar solo, is like a soundtrack for the social reality in the urban ghettos of the late 1960s and early 70s. It’s black power at his best, although the other two tracks were live recordings while this one was recorded in a studio.

It was a shame that this album was hard to get for such a long time which makes this release all the more important. Around the original re-mastered album this release contains twelve tracks of the “Nation Time” sessions, which were previously unreleased, and “Black Magic Man”, another McPhee album which was hard to get (originally released on the Swiss Hat Hut label in 1975) and which is here available on CD for the very first time.

From a musical point of view the live recordings at The Paddock, a local bar, are the most insightful ones, even if the sound quality is not the best – but you can hear how the audience reacts to this hot brew. The band plays an early – actually half-baked - version of “Nation Time” here, but you can already feel the raw power of the track, since it rather concentrates on bass and drums giving the rhythm section a lot of solo activity. And the addictive sax riff is already there. The other Paddock track is untitled and also gives us an idea of the forthcoming direction of McPhee’s band – soul jazz with a thick organ groove, the music which became fashionable in the 1980s and 90s under the label “acid jazz”, only that Mc Phee played a rougher version of it. The tracks recorded at Vassar College, which are on the same CD, show a completely different Joe McPhee: the one on trumpet who is deeply influenced by Miles Davis and who plays standards like “Milestones”, “My Funny Valentine” and “Bag’s Groove”. “My Funny Valentine” has become a track that has accompanied McPhee throughout his career and it is particularly interesting to compare this version with his recordings with Trio X (there on sax), where he deconstructs the tune and where he literally lays open the skeleton of it, while he plays it rather traditionally here. If this album was released separately I would probably only recommend it for McPhee experts but on the other hand it gives great insight into the development of his musical concept during McPhee’s Poughkeepsie years.

A real treat are “The Vassar Sessions, 1970”, six unreleased live tracks which present the whole musical cosmos of McPhee’s in these days and a notion where the journey would go after “Nation Time”. As an echo of the free funk days you can find his version of James Brown’s “Cold Sweat”, and if Brown’s original is already raw and tough, McPhee strips the track to the bone - again with the “Nation Time” line-up, who act like a free jazz band playing funk (and not the other way round).  Then there is a ballad like McCoy Tyner’s “Contemplation”, shaken by bumpy rhythms and powerful piano chords, which display a spirituality McPhee has elaborated during his career, or a Miles Davis Quintet tribute like “Spring Street”. Both tracks hint that McPhee might want to go more in the jazz direction. Completely out of the blue a track like “Hymn of the Dragon Kings” pops up – wild, pure free jazz, brutally puzzling, almost inaccessible and hard to listen to on the surface, but actually a highlight of the whole set, adding one instrument after the other to an unheard cacophony before the whole improvisation goes down in a piano trio swing thing – but then again this is also an indispensable element of McPhee’s musical world. It is a track which was originally released on “Black Magic Man”. “Sunshowers” intensifies the impression that he is back in the free jazz field since it sounds like an FMP track of these days, but then the album closes with a very mellow untitled track dominated by a Latin atmosphere, which might be a bow for his Bahamian background.

Another result of these sessions was “Black Magic Man”, an album that – according to McPhee - “wasn’t even supposed to be on a label”. But Werner X. Uehlinger, a Swiss man working for Sondells Pharmaceuticals, which had offices in New Jersey, asked McPhee if he could put it out. Uehlinger was so impressed by McPhee’s music that he decided to found HatHut to publish his music (although McPhee denies that) – and his first release was “Black Magic Man”. Although this is completely different music than “Nation Time” because McPhee wanted to add some freer elements, the band is the same: Mike Kull (p), Tyrone Crabb (b), Bruce Thompson (perc) and Ernest Bostic (dr). The album starts with the title track, and before Kull and Crabb join in McPhee and Bostic fight a real battle, they keep attacking each other, and then the whole track goes totally mad – best classical free jazz at the height of its time. But the central piece is “Song for Lauren”, a hymn-like, highly spiritual composition somewhere between Coltrane, Sanders and Ayler – and one of McPhee’s most heartfelt ones. The album presents two shorter alternative takes, with Kull on Fender Rhodes instead of the piano and without the free jazz part of the version of the original album. The result is that the spiritual effect is much less in the foreground and the piece is less abstract and chaotic but also less gripping. The final track is the already mentioned “Hymn of the Dragon Kings”.

“Nation Time – The Complete Recordings” is luxuriously packaged, with a booklet containing an extensive conversation between John Corbett and Joe McPhee and many previously unpublished (and wonderful) photographs, which provide the historical context of the recording.

Listen to “Shakey Jake” here:

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Joe McPhee - The CjR Years 1969-1974 (Bo’ Weavil, 2014)

A Deep Listening Weekend

By Martin Schray

There is no doubt that Joe McPhee is one of the greatest musicians in the field of free jazz and improvisation which is why it is particularly interesting to have a look at his first albums.

Before we have a look at these recording it is necessary to have a look at Joe McPhee’s biography. He was born in November, 1939 in Miami to a family of Bahamian background. As a child, he was taught by his father, who was an amateur musician, to play the trumpet and to read music, so McPhee’s biggest early influence became Miles Davis. When he came to New York City in the mid1960s he played with Clifford Thornton but then he heard Albert Ayler play and was fascinated by his sound.
The legend goes that he borrowed a saxophone and played it the same evening in a gig.

At that time Joe McPhee lived in Poughkeepsie/New York, where he met the painter Craig Johnson by chance in 1965. Johnson worked as a guest-house secretary at a monastery nearby. Four years later Johnson, who was a great jazz fan, convinced McPhee to record in the monastery’s refectory because he thought that the acoustics were so good there. That was the place where they recorded “Underground Railroad”, McPhee’s first album under his name; and in order to distribute the music also CjR (short for Craig Johnson Records) was born, a label for which McPhee released three more LPs, “Nation Time” (1970), “Trinity” (1971) and “Pieces of Light” (1974), before he recorded another four CDs for them: “Remembrance” (2005), “Port of Saints” (2006, “Angels, Devils and Haints” (2009) and “First Date” (2013). The first four LPs were released in very small numbers and were hard to get (especially on vinyl), now Bo’Weavil has managed to make them available again.

And what a real gift it is to listen to this music!

Even at the beginning of his career McPhee disintegrated traditional compositional schemes and freed the instruments of their traditional roles, it was a real emancipatory act, his whole musical approach was modified because he also wanted to make a political statement. Not only was he deeply influenced by Albert Ayler’s expressive and hymnal sound and his spiritual and blues background but he also used African and Caribbean fragments in his music.

All four albums are completely different, which shows one of Joe McPhee’s basic principles: He is rather interested in sounds, once he said in an interview that he collected sounds and that he had always been interested in the nature of sounds, you could even say that he has an architectural idea of sound. Also, you can see his absolute awareness of form which enables him to improvise freely and without bias, as if the music is looking for its ideal form while he is playing.

“Underground Railroad“ (*****) was named after a network that helped slaves to escape from the South to the North and Canada, which existed between 1780 and 1862. In the liner notes for this edition Joe McPhee said that he wanted to make a clear political statement about civil rights and freedom from an historic African American perspective which is why he decided to choose these titles for the album (which is also subtitled „Dedicated to the Black Experience on Planet Earth“) and the single compositions. The band is Joe McPhee (tp, pocket cornet, ts), Reggie Marks (ts, fl, ss), Tyrone Crabb (b), Ernest Bostic (dr, vib) and the title track starts with a drums solo by Bostic before the rest of them get started with pure, excellent free jazz. On the flipside McPhee’s approach changes – another common ground of these albums. One of Joe McPhee’s virtues is not to follow just one idea, instead he offers several possibilities as to music, structure and sound. “Harriet”, the first track on the B-side is named after one of the most prominent figures of the fight for human rights: Harriet Tubman, a former slave who managed to escape and returned several times to the South to help others. The piece is of the utmost beauty, it recalls the pain and the suffering of slaves, and it is full of respect for Tubman’s courage and her achievement. The last track, “A Message from Denmark” is dedicated to a slave revolutionary called Denmark Vesey and it is like a combination of the other two tracks. Moreover, McPhee includes a “A Love Supreme” reminiscence, bowing down in a musical way before the great late John Coltrane as well as Martin Luther King.

McPhee could have established his position with another similar album but according to his credo to depict various approaches he chose to put aside his Albert Ayler and Miles Davis influences to present music which is rooted knee deep in soul and funk, in other words: James Brown. For “Nation Time“(*****) he took Tyrone Crabb und Ernst Bostic from the “Underground Railroad“ sessions and added Mike Kull (piano, e-piano), Bruce Thompson (dr, perc), Dave Jones (g), and Herbie Lehmann (org) to create one of the hottest soul jazz albums ever made. A piece like “Shakey Jake“ presents a certain consolidation as to rhythm and harmony, from which the other two compositions - “Nation Time” and “Scorpio’s Dance” - depart up to a point where beat and tonality almost dissolve. It seems as if the album displays the perspectives jazz was going to offer in the next few years.

Also, for his third release McPhee remains true to his principles and does something unexpected -  on the one hand he returns to his roots but on the other hand he continues to expand the political concept of his music. Even in the titles of the tracks “Trinity” (*****) refers to the holy trinity of the blues (“Ionization”), the New Orleans approach of improvisation (“Delta”) and the Ayler brothers (“Astral Spirits”).

For this purpose McPhee replaced Ernest Bostic on drums by Harold E. Smith and kept Mike Kull on piano and e-piano (actually he also wanted to have Tyrone Crabb on bass again but he decided to quit in order to join politics). Smith added very powerful rhythms and beats to the music, making it sound even more energetic and forceful, which can be heard in the duo beginning of “Ionization”. However, the key track is “Delta” combining free jazz with the beginning of improvisation, blues-like fragments and riffs at the end of the track and a sound that reminds clearly of Albert and Donald Ayler.

Three years later McPhee came up with “Pieces of Light” (****) and once again he proves his ability to surprise. He plays saxes, trumpet, flute, and a Nagoya harp on this album but what is new is that he is joined by Chris Snyder on synthesizer, at a time when electronics and jazz rarely came together. Again McPhee plays with something which is actually irreconcilable, at least at that time, and guides the way for the music to come. Again the titles are symbolic (“Shadow Sculptures” and “Crystal of Light”) with which McPhee combines phenomena of oppositional fields of perception, he focuses on an synaesthetic effect of music in which sounds become visible. Once again the music is not about the concrete tones and sounds of “real” instruments compared with “unreal” disembodied electronic sounds – it is McPhee who is always interested in varying his own sound.

The LPs were also available in a wooden box set with silk screen back and front, including bonus silk screen prints, and full artwork covers. It was limited to 100 copies only (the box is sold out at the source).

The LPs are exact represses of the original artwork and were actually limited to 500 and still available at absolutely reasonable prices at the label.

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Deep Listening Weekend: Peter Brötzmann, Jason Adasiewicz, John Edwards & Steve Noble

Peter Brötzmann, Jason Adasiewicz, John Edwards & Steve Noble - Mental Shake (Otoroku, 2014) ****

By Matthew Grigg

I have had the very real pleasure of attending performances at London's Cafe Oto on a semi regular basis over the last 5 years (I say semi regular as I've never lived closer than 200 km from the venue). I have also had the pleasure of reliving many of these fine concerts, as I was fortunate enough to have been present at the recording of 5 of the 9 releases on Otoroku (Cafe Oto's in house record label) to date. Man, how I wish I'd been there for the 10th. Having initially played together in 2010 (immortalised on inaugural Otoroku release 'The Worse The Better') as part of his first residency at the venue, Mental Shake, Otoroku's newest offering, reprises Broetzmann's UK trio with John Edwards (Bass) & Steve Noble (Drums), with the addition of Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone.

Whilst anyone with even a passing interest in English Free Improvised music can't help but be aware of omnipresent Edwards and Noble, I'll admit to being slow on the uptake with Adasiewicz. Initially hearing him on Harris Eisenstadt's fine 2006 sextet recording 'The Soul and Gone', followed swiftly by his inclusion in Rob Mazurek's world(s) beating Exploding Star Orchestra, it wasn't until the relative space afforded him by 2011's Mazurek helmed Starlicker trio that I truly grasped his approach to the vibes. The larger group settings had demonstrated his melodic and rhythmic sophistication (he started life as a drummer), but couldn't do justice to the total commitment with which he attacks the instrument. The vibes are often struck hard as possible, eliciting overtones which are usually considered "undesirable" and dampened by those seeking to articulate "correctly". To that end, his recent association with Broetzmann seems a natural fit, both men forcing sounds from their instruments through sheer strength of will.

Given that Broetzmann and Adasiewicz have played extensively as a duo in the last year or so, it’s interesting that the most intimate dialogue throughout is between Noble and Adasiewicz, the vibes quickly finding space amongst the percussion's off kilter swing. Time and again Adasiewicz dances in the pockets of the groove, or sustains gong-like tones, realising Taylor''s "eighty-eight tuned drums" approach albeit for only thirty-seven 'drums' of the vibraphone. Edwards is endlessly inventive with impeccable decision making, his choices are always the most obliquely correct answer to whatever questions are asked of him, exploring the full range of musical and timbral possibilities of his instrument.

Broetzmann is lyrical and incendiary throughout, dividing his time between saxes, clarinet and taragoto. Derek Bailey once claimed Broetzmann is one of only three musicians who "can play free jazz…. When you play with those guys you know you're playing free jazz. It's free and it's jazz", and much of the feel of this record is of the trio playing behind Broetzmann, lending an almost classically 'leader and side-men' sensation to the date. The saxophonist is one of the most singular voices in improvised music and the engagement feels largely on his terms, rather than any of the trio going toe-to-toe with him. It’s not until 25 minutes in that he chooses to relate to the trio from their position, inviting himself into a relatively delicate moment with carefully selected gravelly clusters, before turning the music on its head and launching into patented Broetzmann wax-melting flight. The heights he soars to are rarely witnessed from a ground take-off, the juxtaposition with the moments prior only serving to demonstrate just how rarified the air is up there. 

Finally, the quartet fall into the misshapen elliptical swing Noble & Adasiewicz have been flirting with throughout, only to pull the tune apart from within, until the traces that remain are finally allowed to come to rest. To quote Bailey again, "Don't ask me to explain it. I don't know how. All I know is it just fucking feels like free jazz."  


Peter Brötzmann, Jason Adasiewicz, John Edwards & Steve Noble - Mental Shake (Otoroku, 2014) ****½

By Martin Schray

Last year Paul and I visited the Á L’arme festival in Berlin, where Peter Brötzmann (saxes, clarinet, tárogató), Jason Adasiewicz (vibes), John Edwards (bass) and Steve Noble (drums) were the top act of the first day. And hell yeah – the first 20 minutes belong to some of the greatest free jazz moments I have ever seen! Brötzmann, who started on tenor, played as if he had eaten John Coltrane for dinner, never have I heard him with so much spirituality in his tone. Additionally, Adasiewicz, who looked like a young Evan Parker acting like Edward Scissorhands gone mad, was twitching spastically before he came up with reverberating structures which were like a spider’s web for the notes the others were ejecting. It gave me goosebumps.

A few days later the quartet played London’s Café Oto and everything was quite different. The idea with which they came up was to turn the Berlin set upside down - like a Baselitz painting.  Brötzmann decides to hurl out his typical wake-up call on the tárogató, which  clearly creates a more disrupted atmosphere. Edwards and Noble display a jungle rhythm, while Adasiewicz adds sparse chords, into which Brötzmann sinks his teeth like a shark into a seal. It is an almost reluctant but also very concentrated beginning for which the tension is built up by Noble and Edwards.

Like in the Berlin gig there is sheer breathlessness in the first eleven minutes, albeit totally different; again it’s Noble and Edwards who decide where to go then - with Noble being a drummer who seems to be able to challenge Brötzmann like no other at the moment. Only in the last part - when Brötzmann is back on tenor and where he spits, squeals, yells, roars, and overblows in his typical manner - the band is in total trance like in the first part of the Berlin concert, totally free, like a wave shortly before it breaks.

As if this isn’t enough the last five minutes are some of the most beautiful moments I have ever heard of a Brötzmann band - and he lets  this beauty shine (usually he likes to destroy it).  All of a sudden the Berlin spirituality shines through, Noble holding a steady beat which he puts to the edge as if he was tempted to drop it (but he doesn’t). At the very end they enjoy pure ecstasy with Adasiewicz providing the stuff to get high, it is him who gives this great trio the extra tone color that makes this recording exceptional. He is the one who builds cathedrals of sounds, and although he is a hard vibraphonist (Matthew is right here) he can also play beautifully, tender, and even melodic.

I listened to this album a lot and if you do this very concentrated, it is absolutely entertaining and can give you pure joy - there are parts to which you could even dance (the first and the last seven minutes). Brötzmann, the old snake charmer on acid, sometimes sounds as if he was 30 again.

You can listen to it here.

Available from Instantjazz.

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The Nels Cline Singers - Macroscope (Mack Avenue, 2014) ****

Deep Listening Weekend

By Filip 'Booka' Bukrshliev

Nels Cline and especially The Nels Cline Singers are hard to pin-point to a certain genre. In fact they are like 13 different musical styles happening at the same time. Maybe that’s why people tend to put them in the jazz corner. The more I delve into the Nels Cline musical universe the more I realize that he is by no means a jazz guitarist … but I know I speak in everyone’s name here when I say that we’re more than honored to welcome Nels Cline and his Singers in the jazz corner.

Besides all that wide range and genre-hopping madness, The Nels Cline Singers albums are all about continuity. I always perceived them like the focal point for everything that is Nels Cline, all of his musical incarnations put together in one pot. So, to those who paid attention to Nels Cline in the past few years, Macroscope should come with no surprises, as in fact – Macroscope is the most logical continuation of the Nels Cline Singers discography, as a brilliant refinement of what was presented on 2010’s Initiate. And yet again – Macroscope is all about surprises! To be more perplexing – The Nels Cline Singers on Macroscope devise a pattern of continuous surprise, where they get you almost too easy.

The only way to explain that brilliance is to go along with a few tracks, no matter the fact that I despise the “track by track” reviews. Take for instance the first track “A Companion Piece”. It starts slowly, with swelling guitar textures, a calm but somewhat mysterious Bill Frisell-ish atmosphere. You gladly kick into the mellow groove, it’s all around you. And then, just when you’ve realized that you could do this all day, the Singers go behind your back and turn the tune into a massive blow-out, with Nels Cline riding a huge solo as only he knows how to, rolling the song downhill with no breaks. A pure adrenaline rush, and the surprise element is unparalleled.

Then we have “The Wedding Band”. It starts with some joyous percussion, which initiates different textures to gradually form a very ecstatic festive atmosphere. The trio then concludes that momentum in rich style, you get something like a chorus, with grand harmony and a beautiful slide-ish guitar sound, and just when you start to think this song will finish like an Oscar winning motion picture – the Singers launch the song into deep space. I mean literally, that’s the only way to explain that part – the sound of a spaceship launching into the unknown.

Another notable surprise at the end of the album is the song “Hairy Mother”. At the beginning they come at you with some proto-punk / industrial “huge drums pounding”, just to suddenly change the context as the guitar enters, which eventually will turn the song into fuzzy garage riff-fest. Definitely the most “rocking” number in the Singers’ catalogue.

That surprise pattern is presented on every track on Macroscope. The Singers mastered the play with context almost to perfection, although there was a last minute change in the trio’s line-up  (Trevor Dunn on bass instead of Devin Hoff) they have never sounded so natural and at ease. They had some forced elements at the previous albums but all that impurities are gone now. Even the track “Red Before Orange” which is essentially a youtube jazz guitar backing track with Nels Cline soloing over, in the context of the album, reaches out with something to say. As all the Singers albums there is a big palette of guests on every track, who augment the background with all the different textures, making this the most complete album in the Singers discography.

From all the guitarists in the world Nels Cline deserved bigger recognition the most. I’m glad that Wilco enabled him that. He’s a really unique voice on the guitar, and with his unusual guitar upbringing - at all time he offers the listener a different perspective to the way guitar should played. Macroscope will please his old and new listeners.

Highly recommended!


The Nels Cline Singers: Macroscope (Mack Avenue, 2014)

By Martin Schray

My pal Peter is a free jazz fan, a real aficionado, he can never get enough of this music, and he also admires Frank Zappa. So I thought the new Nels Cline Singers album might be interesting for him. When we met lately he said that he almost always likes my recommendations but that he can’t do anything with this album, that it was neither fish nor flesh, it was too inconsistent for him.

Interestingly enough this is just what I like about Nels Cline, and as Booka already said you can’t pin him down to a certain style, actually he feels at home in almost every genre. He is the one who makes Wilco so exceptional (which other rock band affords a free jazz guitarist?), he plays duos with Thurston Moore, Elliott Sharp or Vinny Golia, with Carla Bozulich he recorded a remake of Willie Nelson’s classic Red Headed Stranger, he plays in several larger formations, he has his trio and he is the head of The Nels Cline Singers (who ironically hardly sing).

In an interview Cline said that he “was a rock and roll kid, but after hearing Coltrane and Miles and Weather Report, then Indian music and Nigerian pop (…) purism just was not possible.”

Macroscope is Cline’s musical world in a nutshell, in which he displays his mastership in creating sound and genre bastards, it’s a buffet of delicious dishes and you are free to pick your favorite stuff. You can choose between “Red Before Orange”, a super-laid-back George Benson number that changes to mean Larry Coryell sounds – and back. Or “The Wedding Band”, which is based on Indian raga percussions combined with a thin guitar sound which is alienated through different effects and loops, a track moving to and fro without a concrete center, like an echo in the jungle – and the whole things ends in an Allman-Brothers-like melody. On “Respira” the Singers even “sing” and Cline displays his Brazilian influences (Baden Powell), which he combines with tricky west coast fragments. And “Climb Down” sounds as if it was produced by techno-dub sound wizard Adrian Sherwood.

If you ask yourself how weird it can get you have to wait until the end of the album. The last three songs, “Seven Zed Heaven”, “Hairy Mother” and “Sascha’s Book of Frogs” are the highlights of the album. “Seven Zed Heaven” starts like a King Crimson rocker and turns into weird Miles Davis psychedelia. Then the track immerses into crude guitar strumming which becomes a mysterious drone (my favorite moment of the whole record). “Hairy Mother” is nightmarish electric rattling, redeemed by monstrous prog rock guitar lines – imagine the Mothers of Inventions had joined The Mars Volta for a session. As if that all was not enough, the last song, “Sascha’s Book of Frogs” is a complete mystery. An acoustic bass battles with seemingly random electronics and jazzy guitar lines, which become more and more fragmented before Cline puts them through the grinder.

This album could have been a mere mind game devoid of any musical soul – but it is not. It’s a very good record because the intellectual musical textures do not end in themselves, it is always about the music.
Macroscope is the band’s sixth album. They are Cline on guitars, Trevor Dunn on bass (he replaced original member Devin Hoff) and Scott Amendola on drums, and on this album they are augmented by Cline’s wife Yuka C. Honda on keyboards, Zeena Parkins on harp, and Cyro Baptista and Josh Jones on percussion.

”Macroscope“ is available as a CD and a download. Mack Avenue also releases a vinyl version of the album presenting a different sequence of the tracks minus “Canales’ Cabeza,” “Hairy Mother” and “Sascha’s Book of Frogs.”

Listen to “Companion Piece” here:



Macroscope can be bought from the label and will be on sale Tuesday, April 29th.

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Made to Break: Cherchez La Femme (Trost, 2014) **** ½

A Deep Listening Weekend
                                           

By Filip 'Booka' Bukrshliev

I would never throw the word noise in the mix when talking about Made to Break. I might try “a fairly modern, electro-acoustic jazz quartet with wider sound affinities than a regular one” but noise… never. Cherchez La Femme is the third Made to Break album, the first recorded inside a conventional studio space. It features the same line-up, the same idea and structure. And it’s like nectar from a beautiful flower, not noise… you schmucks!

As I’ve said, not much has changed from Provoke and Lacerba [Clean Feed / 2013] in terms of the overall approach and structure, but the studio environment does its job quite well and we have the most detailed Made to Break record – sound wise. The quality of the recording is astonishing, and that really contributes for many, many crucial details in the quartet sound to be easily noticeable, and the listener is provided for the first time with the complete picture of the quartet. Not that Provoke and Lacerba are bad records or they are badly recorded (they were in my top-10 list for last year) but since hearing Cherchez La Femme I think that Made to Break is an idea fully realized in the studio space, with the complete sound spectrum and all the high-definition details. Because it’s not the Vandermarkian brute riffing force that is the most important thing in this quartet (although that part of his playing on the record is the most inspired in recent years) it is the overall crazy rollercoaster of dynamics they possess. The seamless transfer from hard-hitting to extremely vulnerable, is not an easy task for it to be captured on tape, especially in a live environment. Here is where Cherchez La Femme shines.

This is the most inspired Vandermark record in recent years. A complete picture and rigorously developed aesthetic, a process that started years back with formations like Spaceways Inc, Powerhouse Sound and more recently – The Frame Quartet. Cristof Kurzmann’s “electronic noise textures and post-processing” is the main gem here. It opens up a whole new world of texture and sound, with almost endless possibilities. He can oscillate between bringing contrast with low rumble in the background, or to process the sound of the saxophone out in the open, and he plays this role wisely – a treat that inspires the rest of the quartet. Vandermark seems to be at ease in this surrounding, with his solos and improvisations being very light-footed to go anywhere.

I perceive it as a futuristic urban soundtrack, with the concrete blocks, the smoke, the glass, the quiet – the loud. It’s overwhelmingly gray in one point, but then in the next one – here comes Mr. Vandermark’s saxophone to bring lightness through the fog. Simply put - there is a whole lot of content through the entire trip from point A to point B in every track on this album, and the replay value is insane.

You can buy it from www.instantjazz.com.   

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Made to Break: Cherchez La Femme (Trost, 2014) ****½

A Deep Listening Weekend 
We haven't had a weekend in a while where two reviewers give their opinions on an album back to back on a weekend. We're happy to present it this Saturday and Sunday with Made to Break's Cherchez La Femme...

By Martin Schray

Very often the tracks in improvised music are named after they were written or improvised, so sometimes a certain kind of philosophy is imposed on the music after the actual creation. Made to Break have used philosophical backgrounds on their albums “Lacerba” (futurism) and “Provoke” (a dedication to influential geniuses of the 20th century) and now they are combining dedication and philosophy again. What is new is the fact that it seems that the music is philosophy set to music – and not the other way round.

The French phrase “Cherchez la femme” is often mistakenly thought to refer to a man’s attempt to “look for a woman”, which is what it means in English. In fact, the phrase expresses the idea that the source of any given problem involving a man is liable to be a woman (especially if there was a crime). But Made to Break - again Ken Vandermark on saxes, Christof Kurzmann on electronics, Devin Hoff on bass and Tim Daisy on drums - use this phrase to trace women’s influence on contemporary art, especially music, painting and photography.

Sans Serif starts with a heavy funk rock riff by Daisy, Hoff and Vandermark, as if The Minutemen met James Chance. All of a sudden it is replaced by a meditative part for which Hoff’s monstrous vibrating bass chords are resolved by Kurzmann's electronic psychedelia. He creates a world of textures and repetitive samples, the track gets some air before the third part steps back to the beginning’s funkiness and it is again Hoff’s thumping bass which keeps the whole thing going. Sans Serif is obviously a musical reminiscence of Miles Davis’s fusion era (for which he was inspired by his wife Betty Davis) and Sleater Kinney’s feminist grunge iconoclasm.

Capital Black is dedicated to two abstract expressionist painters: Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell. Daisy and Vandermark start with a few brushstrokes creating fine lines on the musical canvas, especially Daisy’s drums sound like an upright bass - before Hoff creeps in almost unnoticed. It is a tender and delicate interaction, even balladesque … and then the music almost disappears. It is Kurzmann who throws in mean dubs, the atmosphere gets very gloomy – as if the color black hasn’t been used before so that they can now use it extensively.

The Other Lottery starts with helicopter noises as if we were in a jungle war zone. Susan Meiselas, who is one of the two photographers this composition is dedicated to (the other one is Helen Levitt), took pictures in Guatemala and Indonesia (among others). Compared to the other two pieces Made to Break present a highly fragmented track here, it is like a world torn apart. Only at the end Devin Hoff takes over the steering wheel and brings the band back on track again: dirty, plain, sweaty, down-to-earth funk rock - like Levitt’s and Meiselas’s street photography.

Booka (who's review posts tomorrow) said he cannot stop listening to this album – so do I.

“Cherchez La Femme” is available on vinyl (without The Other Lottery), CD and as a digital download.

You can buy it from www.instantjazz.com.  

You can download and listen to “Cherchez La Femme” here.

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