Momentum 4: Consequent Duos 2015>2019 (Audiographic, 2019) *****

By Keith Prosk and Paul Acquaro

Momentum 4 is a box set of duo recordings by Ken Vandermark, recorded at the Elastic Sound Studios in Chicago in 2015 and 2019, and at NYC's Stone in January 2018. The idea was to capture rare duo performances - even if the musical relationships have been ago long established.

In our review, we have deviated from the order of the discs and begin with Keith's assessment of discs 2 and 3 where Vandermark is in duet with electronics player Ikue Mori and pianist Kris Davis. Then, we'll come back to my thoughts on his duets with drummers Paul Lytton and Hamid Drake, and finally bassist William Parker.

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What makes Vandermark so special is not just the distinctive character of his musicianship but his character itself, and the feedback loop between them. His writing articulates an openness to listen and to learn; his playing demonstrates it by giving others generous space and apt communication. The subversion of personal patterns is a constant motif. This creative giant, who should by now be comfortable and confident in every move, is in such a position exactly because he’s purposefully not. For this reason I gravitated towards these discs, which feature musicians that don’t have a decades-long rapport with Vandermark like Lytton, Parker, and Drake. Freely-played duos with less-than-familiar musicians seems like excellent laboratory conditions for witnessing the instant development of Vandermark.

Disc 2: Ikue Mori

Ikue Mori first played with Vandermark during his first Stone residency in 2016, documented on Momentum 1: Stone, with Nate Wooley and Joe Morris. It was a strong set among many strong sets, just like this one, which was recorded at Vandermark’s second Stone residency in 2018 (along with the Davis and Parker discs). For 46 minutes, split across two tracks, Mori is on laptop and Vandermark is on saxophone. Mori’s software and technique can generate a chimerical barrage of percussion, displaying many faces of beat and rhythm simultaneously, like a digital drumming hecatoncheires; pulses created by droning pitches’ oscillating frequencies, electric purrs and percussive flutters, glitched clicks and cavernous water drops, and more recognizable drum machine sounds can occur closely together. But the timbres are often soft and the volume is often low, so it feels non-aggressive. And though this seemingly living percussive environment sometimes flirts with becoming ambient, Mori avoids this with judicious strokes of sound surrounded by plenty of space. Perhaps because of its tirelessness, or perhaps because of its innumerable lines in contrast to the mostly monophonic sax, the software environment can feel like a wall which Vandermark throws himself against, starting the set with energetic bursts of varying technique as if to test it.. It’s difficult to tell whether my ear adapts or Vandermark does or both but, as the set continues, Vandermark’s own high pitch frequency oscillations, snaking sinusoidal multiphonic lines, and glitchy click and tongue slap pulses sync well with Mori, phasing in and out of counterpoint. It’s perhaps the most rhythmic set I’ve heard from this rhythmic saxophonist. Some other Vandermark characteristics, like his deep vibrato and moody, smoky, soulful melodies, are here, and there’s a couple stunning moments where Mori’s environment focuses into a booming four on the floor beat over which Vandermark rips loose a freeform freakout. Vandermark’s instrument allows greater agility in communication, but Mori’s software is surprisingly mobile itself, allowing a conversation as lively as the other acoustic sets here. My favorite thing Vandermark has released all year, and it’s been quite a year for him.

Disc 3: Kris Davis

Kris Davis first played with Vandermark in 2016 during the sessions for Sing Me Some Cry, with Eric Revis and Chad Taylor. They reunite here for their second recording, for 3 tracks across 53 minutes, with Davis on piano and Vandermark on all sax again. The chemistry of this set belies their time spent together. They are rapidly responsive to each other. Davis’ muted rhythms and hammered keys, beautiful boppy chords and melodies, free flights, thunderous reverberations, and clock strikes and twinkling glissandos inside the piano are matched well with Vandermark’s rhythmic clicks, sultry soul tunes, energetic free frenzies, and resonant vibrato. They follow each other’s ebbs and flows through volume, space, and time and also up and down their instruments registers like friends who finish each others sentences. It’s not just a communicative match, but Davis also seems to share Vandermark’s rhythmic essence and a similar inside-outside aesthetic. The set seems so natural, you’ll wonder why they didn’t start playing together sooner.

- Keith Prosk

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Disc 1: Paul Lytton; Disc 5: Hamid Drake

In the thoughtful booklet accompanying the box set, Vandermark talks about the impact that the work of the first generation of British improvisers, who broke free from the parameters of jazz and developed their own musical language, has had on him. Lytton’s history itself goes back to the late 60’s in London and he has a long history of playing with the musicians of from this movement. Vandermark recalls a particularly revelatory conversation with Lytton where he wanted to draw on what he had learned from the music, to which the drummer explained that the Saxophonist's playing "implied a beat."

It seems that if we were to look at the work - at least on these two discs and the one with William Parker, which I’ll get to in a moment - we are indeed contending with rhythmic instincts that are an integral part of the musician's DNA. This is also why I think I have always enjoyed Vandermark’s work so much. No matter how 'out there' he may get on the sax or clarinet, there is a still deep rhythmic notion that holds everything together. Starting this collection with the Lytton duo recording seems just right.

What you hear are a pair who have worked together - on and off - for two decades. Lytton and Vandermark recorded English Suites back in 1999 (Wobbly Rail), he appears on 2013’s Nine ways to read a bridge (Not Two) in a trio with trumpeter Nate Wooley/Vandermark, as well as on a 2004 Okkadisk release, CINC. There are others, but more important is what they are doing now (or rather, in 2015 when they met at the Elastic Sound Studios in Chicago), which is nothing less than captivating. Lytton's playing is crisp and urgent. He provides ample support for Vandermark to let loose with a fury of ideas. From the moment the first track begins something is happening. It’s a little tepid, maybe for 10 seconds, then the percussive roles begin, no straight ahead time, but an insistent pulse pushing the saxophonist. The communication between the two is audible, there are slight pauses, almost like Vandermark is turning to Lytton and asking “you good?” Their track, ESS3, which is the longest, plays strongly with the dynamics. A long stretch finds Vandermark working the periphery of his instrument, while Lytton provides small, nearly inaudible, accents. A brilliant start to the collection.

Hamid Drake is a sympathetic drummer. His work with William Parker stands in my mind as a one of the most important rhythm sections in contemporary free jazz, and it is interesting to hear the two of them working separately here with Vandermark. Interestingly enough, I believe that Vandermark and Drake's musical relationship is around the same length as Drake and Parker's, as Vandermark notes in the booklet, they first played together in 1994, which resulted in the DKV trio with bassist Kent Kessler. Interestingly, Vandermark and Drake have not play as a duo much until this session date at Elastic Sound Studio.

The long term relationship bears fruit on the closing disc of the set where the duo explores the full spectrum of sounds and approaches. From the opening bars, Drake plays with a calmer energy than Lytton - not to say he avoids faster tempos and denser patterns, but the approach is different. I especially like the exploratory part of the track ESS 2B, here Vandermark's clarinet tone is warm and reedy, though at some moments shrill, and Drake is deep in the background, providing choice accents. A similar moment occurs on ESS 2E, but this time Vandermark emerges from the search, delivering lithe and urgent melodic lines over Drake's expert accompaniment. In between, ESS 2D features the baritone sax, with Vandermark displaying his signature deep pocket - insistent, direct, and friendly - along side Drake's similarly earthy solid drumming.

Disc 4: William Parker

Save the best for last? Hard to say, as this is overall such a strong set of music, but the duet with William Parker is certainly a strong contender. Again the booklet, Vandermark discusses his association with Parker, mentioning how it goes back twenty years to when they worked together in Peter Brotzmann's Chicago 10tet. Parker is a bassist who, again to my mind, can hardly do wrong. His playing, like Vandermark's, is a mix of searching and driving. The 15 minute mark in the first track, Stone 3A, is tender and warm, Vandermark's clarinet is light and the bassist's double stops and gentle pauses give the moment a perfect blend of motion and support. Likewise, in the Parker penned track 'Eventual (for Sunny Murray)', which was delivered the month after the legendary drummer's passing, the mutual sense of loss is palpable as the duo digs deep into the sound textures, even during the pulsating moments. 

When this fourth installment of the Momentum series came out a few months ago, I quickly jumped at the chance to review it with my colleague Keith. I had thoroughly enjoyed the original set of recordings from Ken Vandermark's week at the Stone in January 2016 (and had had the chance to attend some of the concerts) and after the intensity of volumes 2 and 3, I was ready for more. Suffice to say, this is a heavy set of music, there is a lot to digest, and a lot to savor. I've had been listening to it for months now, repeatedly, and I hope you have been - or will soon be - as well.

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W-2 - Fanatics (Astral Spirits, 2017) ****

By Eric McDowell

Harsh, dense, uncompromising—it’s a shame we ground these descriptors into cliches before W-2 hit the scene. They won’t do us much good here, since falling back on the familiar is the last thing the Brooklyn-based synth/sax duo of Chris Welcome and Sam Weinberg is about. No, Fanatics is a work of constant invention, forty-eight blistering minutes of wide-awake improvised interplay. Like any machine left running on high, the album gives off a heat that teases the boundary between pain and pleasure, happily warm and white hot. Yet with this latest installment in their discography—their third album in this specific vein since just March of last year—the duo seems unlikely to burn out any time soon.

Whether the listener can keep up is another question, though what stake Weinberg and Welcome feel they have in the answer isn’t necessarily clear. Any attempts to boil the music down to simple emotional effects—anger or primal aggression seem obvious—are as unconvincing as the tired adjectives above. Instead, despite the urgency and immediacy of the music, there’s a self-consciousness about Fanatics that introduces a certain kind of distance into the proceedings. Perhaps it starts with the title itself: calling the album Fanatics spins the perspective on the duo’s fanatical improvising, pointing straight at it and casting a shadow of knowing performativity over a genre that’s so often celebrated for being “raw” or “authentic.” Track titles like “Beige and Distrustful” and “Decisive Profanity” suggest that Fanatics may be designed to disrupt, to shock by premeditation rather than by spontaneous enthusiasm. Even the pace at which they’ve been releasing material seems part of the act. And at a certain point, track after track, album after album, the unending intensity starts to feel almost like a test of sorts, if not a prank, pushing the limits not so much of what music can be or of what instruments can do, but of what even die-hard free jazz fans—that is, fanatics—will claim to enjoy.

Now wait: none of that’s to say that this album doesn’t test musical and instrumental limits (it does) or that no one will honestly enjoy it (I certainly do). After all, any effect or commentary—intended or imagined—would be dead on arrival if Weinberg and Welcome weren’t such formidable instrumentalists and improvisors. W-2 is a perfect name for the duo not just because it sidesteps some unwieldy alliteration but also because it encapsulates their incredible ability to “double” one another. Part of the magic is in their way of matching and complementing each other’s voices, from the earsplittingly shrill to the gutturally grating to the digitally gritty. But along with that, of course, comes good old-fashioned listening. Weinberg and Welcome respond to the second-by-second unfolding of each improvisation with ultra sensitivity, deftly chasing each other around every sonic corner. Listening closely, though, it’s actually not that hard to pull apart the strands, isolating Weinberg’s sometimes surprisingly melodic saxophone from Welcome’s nightmare video game stylings. Does doing so diminish the overall effect the duo is so skilled at crafting? Maybe, but perhaps that’s part of the point: to find in deconstruction a source of wonder.

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Bill Frisell / Thomas Morgan - Small Town (ECM, 2017) ****

By Paul Acquaro

I've always enjoyed guitarist Bill Frisell's duo work. His playing is always supportive, incisive, delicate, and persuasive, really everything a partner should be. Some collaborations that come to mind include his 1998 meet up with pianist Fred Hersch (Songs We Know), a 2006 rendezvous with Jack DeJohnette (The Elephant Sleeps but Still Remembers), his fascinating 1984 intersection with Tim Berne (Theoretically), and even his 1983 ECM debut In Line with bassist Arild Anderson. If I were to draw a similarity with Small Town, it would pass through all of these right back to the first one - the label and the instrumentation notwithstanding.

It's nice to see Frisell on ECM again (after the late 80s, he's been on the periphery, appearing on many albums) and in a duo with the prolific bassist Thomas Morgan, who, like Frisell, is quiet in person and exudes great warmth and humanity in his playing. Together they complete each other's musical sentences, hang off the ellipses, and have made an album that is at once trademark Frisell with its gentle questioning melodies and hints of American folk music, while sporting a hint of outside the line coloring hearkening back to compositions that appeared on albums like In-Line and the dissonant Americana laced This Land.

You don't quite know it until you hear the applause and glasses clink that Small Town was recorded live at the Village Vanguard in March of 2016. The sound is lovely and spacious, each note of the guitar rings clear and the use of dynamics are sublime, like on the tasty title track. The bassist fills the spaces between the guitarist's chords but not without creating his own moments of intrigue.

A thoroughly enjoyable album that pairs the master guitar-slinger with a more than up-and-coming and completely sympathetic bassist. Listening is like fulfilling a guilty pleasure without the guilt.

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Olie Brice / Achim Kaufmann - Of Tides (Babel Label, 2017) *****

By Rick Joines

The art critic Clement Greenberg, who championed the paintings of Jackson Pollock, argued that the value of a work of art depends on the artist’s realization of the virtues of the medium, which in “each art is unique and strictly itself.” Using his concept of “medium specificity,” Greenberg judges a painting by how well it actualizes the possibilities inherent in its materials. A painting is made of paint, thrown, dripped, or layered on canvas. The art is “about” nothing so much as the materiality of its making. A painting fails if it relies on specificities from other media to create an illusion of space, or dimension, or to tell a story. “A painting is not a picture of an experience,” says abstract expressionist Mark Rothko; “it is an experience.” Avant-garde art is inscrutable, indescribable, and its effect on its audience is visceral. If it triggers ideas or emotions, they unfold as ungovernable connotations peculiar to each of us.

Jackson Pollock, “Lavender Mist”

Olie Brice and Achim Kaufmann make avant-garde jazz with a similar intensity, movement, and spontaneity to Jackson Pollock painting. They play aggressively, percussively, with a no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners approach. Their music does not rely on coaxing an audience’s emotional reaction out of familiar themes or mere technical skill. Instead, they rely on the material bodies of the piano, the bass, and of themselves. Like Mola Ram in the Temple of Doom, they reach into the chests of their instruments and rip out their beating hearts.

Olie Brice

Olie Brice plays bass as if he’s jumped onto a bear’s back to throttle it but then tries to Greco-Roman wrestle it to the ground. It is mesmerizing because there is no way to predict who will win. His pizzicato pounds like a battering ram knocking down doors, or taps like a hammer on notes like nails. His bowing bounces and stutters, then soars and dives to rip open space. Few bassists leave me as awestruck as Olie Brice.

Grünen — Achim Kaufmann, Robert Landfermann, Christian Lillinger

Achim Kaufmann’s body of work demonstrates a pianist constantly exploring the possibilities of his medium. His two Grünen albums (with Robert Landfermann and Christian Lillinger) are especially fantastic. Kaufmann plays outside and inside the piano. Like a bowerbird’s nest, his piano is filled with an odd assortment of objects used to make the piano scream like an overdriven guitar, tinkle like a harpsicord or autoharp, or ring like a bell or glockenspiel. He is always moving up and down, reaching inside the piano, adjusting foreign objects, scraping, tapping, or strumming strings. Sitting before the keys, Kaufmann invents clusters and lines like a classical avant-garde pianist.

There are five tracks on Of Tides. “Moss Grows in the Cracks” slowly accretes out of a slow droning. Kaufmann works inside the piano tapping, scraping strings like a guitarist doing a pick slide, echoing Brice’s arco. About half way in, Brice’s bass buzzes and vibrates so resoundingly, it’s a wonder it doesn’t fly apart. “The Rumble of Constant Adjustments” starts like a minor blues and becomes a twenty-three minute tour de force painted with everything on Brice and Kaufmann’s palettes. Brice’s walking bass lines wander behind Kaufmann’s rhythm and his dissonant, atonal chording. It is a showcase of the possibilities of their instruments and of the experience their playing can be. “Cogitations,” the short center piece, is meditative, contemplative, gentle and unhurried. It is the loveliest track and the one least likely to frighten the dog or cause your friends to call you “weird.” “To Heap,” as the title suggests, is an accumulation of sounds from Brice’s bass and Kaufmann’s piano that perhaps the instruments weren’t aware they were capable of making. It begins with Kaufmann’s heavy left handing and Brice’s throbbing pizzicato piling together in a scrum. Kaufmann’s prepared piano dopplers in and out of tune like an old juke joint vertical or the music on a slowly unwinding gramophone. He taps and plucks strings that ring like cymbals, or sing like violins, or drip like water on pipes knocking in an echoing underground tunnel. “To Heap” also features a three-minute sui generis bass solo. “Of Tides” closes out the album with Kaufman and Brice like the sea and wind contending. Brice’s bow bounces and skips across strings. Kaufmann’s piano peeks up, sounding like tubular bells that mutates into deep notes conjured darkly by his left hand. Half way in, waves of sound crash in stormy interplay. The song culminates in muted percussive chording from Kaufmann, playing the keys and inside the piano, reminiscent of both Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Like the tide, the music then recedes and washes out.

I am inordinately fond of Brice and Kaufmann’s Of Tides, and I am in utter admiration of Brice and Kaufmann’s playing. I have listened to Of Tides dozens and dozens of times, and it keeps yielding new things. Hearing it is, to me, like standing in front of a large-scale Pollock or Rothko. The effect is overwhelming—physically, intellectually, emotionally—yet without my being able to describe exactly why. Of Tides is by far the most compelling album I have heard in 2017.

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Latest Duos of Mats Gustafsson

By Eyal Hareuveni

Swedish sax-titan Mats Gustafsson's volume of activity, including the many albums that he constantly releases, in every possible format, competes only with the intensity of his playing. The recent duos from Gustafsson stress the rich spectrum of his art.

Mats Gustafsson & Craig Taborn - Ljubljana (Clean Feed, 2017) ****½

Ljubljana is the 400th release of the Portuguese label and it celebrates this occasion with a special vinyl album that documents the first ever musical meeting between Gustafsson and American pianist Craig Taborn at the 2015 edition of the Ljubljana Jazz Festival. Gustafsson referred to this meeting as “a kick in the ass”, even begged afterwards: “please, give me more challenges like this one, in order to keep my sanity!”

Ljubljana does sounds like a meeting where some mean blows and kicks were exchanged. A muscular wrestling of heavy-weights champions of spontaneous improvisations, both as serious as their lives. Gustafsson sets the confronting tone of the first side, “The Eyes Moving. Slowly”, with dense and volcanic attacks of his baritone sax. But just when it sounds likeTaborn surrenders unconditionally to Gustafsson's lava flow he surprises and turns the intense course to a sparse and reserved meditation. Even on these quiet moments, before both resume the dense and powerful interplay, the tone is raw and rough and far as possible from the refined and polished one that can be found on Taborn's ECM albums, including the new Daylight Ghosts.

After establishing their rapport, the second side, “The Ears Facing the Fantasies. Again”, offers an open exchange of ideas. Both sound as enjoying exploring each other’s territory, disrupting its sonic scenery, exchange themes and alternate between improvisation strategies, even bare some fragile, melodic qualities when Gustafsson picks the slide saxophone. Both correspond immediately to each other’s gestures and never exhaust this playful and demanding process. Needless to say, the neither Gustafsson or Taborn feel any need to compromise or blur their distinct, strong-minded personalities.

Mats Gustafsson/ Alfred Vogel - Blow+Beat (Boomslang, 2017) ***½

Gustafsson’s long-standing trio The Thing performed last August at Beazau Beatz, Austrian drummer Alfred Vogel's annual festival, located at the resort town Beazau, at the western tip of the Austrian border. Gustafsson spent the weekend at this town and after a decent rest joined Vogel for a short session that yielded Blow+Beat.

Gustafsson challenges Vogel already on the first piece, “Solid electric glitter”, with a massive torrent of fast breathes and blows that only gets more intense and mightier, about to drown anything in its manic drive. Vogel accentuates and colors these tsunamis of blows but there is nothing else that he can do. But on the following, “Our thoughts split”, the two explore more balanced and varied dynamics, beginning with negotiating muscular and highly rhythmic free jazz terrains and later, suddenly morphing to some intimate and sparse sonic searches.

After exploring these sonic poles, Gustafsson and Vogel are ready to expand the palette even more. The 18-minutes “Clean my house” is a masterful free-improvisation. Gustafsson sings beautifully like a free bird, full of passion and emotion, soars high and sketches imaginary, poetic routes while Vogel colors this sonic journey with clever, inventive percussive touches, solid as the earth pulse. The following, brief four pieces sound like ironic, playful comments on the previous dynamics. These concise pieces adopt a nouveau-punk mentality, stick only to the essentials and throw all the rest.

Mats Gustafsson & Joachim Nordwall - A Map of Guilt (Bocian, 2017) ***

This is the most experimental album of the three duos. John Nordwall is the founder of the experimental Göteborg-based label iDEAL Recordings. He has played electronics on the first albums of Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra (Exit!, Second Exit, Enter, 2013, 2014, all on Rune Grammofon). Gustafsson returned the favor and released for iDEAL Recordings one of his soon-to-be a collectors-items, a limited-edition solo 7’’ vinyl, Lap Dance/Table Solos (45 rpm, 2014, only 200 copies were printed on a “tasty” transparent vinyl).

Nordwall is credited with “guitar wanking” and “synth loving” while Gustafsson with “blowing stuff”, “organ surfing” and “piano mating”. The duo was recorded at the Viennese Garnison7 studio on January 2013. The short opening piece, “The smell on her arms”, sets the album eccentric atmosphere. It features Gustafsson breathing into the baritone sax and adds percussive touches with the sax keys while Nordwall colors the piece with subtle electronics sounds. The title piece is a 19-minutes atmospheric drone that offers waves and whirlwinds of troubled, distorted sounds, The other shorter pieces continue this minimalist-psychedelic vein but with more concrete and tangible, raw breathes through the sax and touches on the guitar strings, still maintain the basic, naked vibe of the opening piece. Only the last piece, “Marks covered by wet cloth”, is charged with a noisy urgency, much needed intense energy and even traces of fragmented, tortured melody.

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Latest from Dutch Guitarist Terrie Hessels (a/k/a Terrie Ex)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Ken Vandermark, in one of his road diaries last year (available on his Facebook and Instagram pages), wondered about the unique chemistry he has with Dutch guitarist Terrie Hessels - known also as Terrie Ex - his comrade in the quartet Lean Left. Hessels is a self-taught musician, founding member of the group The Ex, the head of Terp Records, which present new and vintage Ethiopian music as well as his improvised music.

Vandermark describes himself and Hessels as having opposing perspective to improvisation. Vandermark borrows Man Ray's assertion: "there are no problems, just solutions” to describe his perspective about the act of improvisation, meaning that improvisation is an equation based on narrative solutions to spontaneous musical problems, for example, A vs. B = C. Hessles, according to Vandermark, adopts Marcel Duchamp's response: "there are no solutions, because there are no problems.”

Hessels is not bothered by narrative solutions and instead opts for a series of apt provocations (and anyone who have seen Hessels plays live already experienced his wicked tricks), an improvising methodology that often circumvents the conventions of narrative expression entirely. As if Hessels adopts a secular interpretation of the Buddhist concept of Suchness, therefore A isn't even A to begin with, so it can't be "vs." anything, it just IS.

The following duos of Hessels with close comrades, puts Vandermark's insight to the test.

Ab Baars + Terrie Ex - Shifting Sands (Terp, 2016) ****

Shifting Sands may look like is a meeting between two opposites - Baars, the elegant, soft-spoken and well-mannered gentleman and Ex, the former punk who acts like an outlaw who mocks any convention or norm. But there is more to the picture than such superficial images tell. Baars and Ex already recorded a duo album more than sixteen years ago, Hef (Terp, 2000) but their musical bond spans almost thirty years. Baars guested on The Ex albums (Joggers and Smoggers and Instant, Ex, 1989 and 1995), participated in an ad-hoc collaboration between the Sonic Youth, The Ex and Instant Composers Pool (ICP) (In the Fishtank 9, Konkurrent, 2002) and guested in Lean Leaf performances (Live At Café Oto - Day One, Kollaps, 2012) and the ones of The Ex Brass Unbound.

Both Baars - who plays here the tenor and soprano saxes, clarinet and the shakuhachi - and Ex are resourceful, highly inventive improvisers and apparently eccentric and quite stubborn characters. Even though both know each other quite well they still manage to surprise. The ten studio pieces, recorded on September 2015, sound as playful, witty dialogues, where both Baars and Ex attempt to outsmart the other’s thread of thought with playful and urgent ideas, sometimes even tease the other with an outrageous and totally provocative gesture. Still, the dynamics are emphatic, as an argument between loving friends that never gets out of hand, even in the most heated moments. Baars and Ex manage to express serene, Zen-like meditations on “Blow Hot and Cold” and the minimalist “Transmogrify”, sketch beautiful and reserved, poetic soundscape on “About-face” and suggest, a twisted yet catchy song on “Zij Toch Raar?”.

Terrie Ex & Paal Nilssen-Love - Schobberdebonk (Bocian, 2016) ****½

Ex and Nilssen-Love began playing together about ten years ago, first in Mats Gustafsson and Jim O’Rourke’s project Original Silence (The First Original Silence and The Second Original Silence, Smalltown Supersound, 2007), later on the short-lived trio OffOnOff (with Zu’s bass player Massimo Pupillo, Clash, Rune Grammofon, 2007) and solidified their musical bond in the Lean Left quartet (first presented as The Ex Guitars Meet Nilssen-Love/Vandermark Duo). Unlike Original Silence and OffOnOff, Lean Left is a working groups that already has released six album (the seventh one is due to be released soon). Ex and Nilssen-Love continued their extracurricular activity also outside the quartet. Schobberdebonk is their third duo album, following Hurgu! (PNL, 2011) and Gored Gored (Terp, 2013), and was recorded live at festival PiedNu at Le Havre, France on April 2015.

Ex and Nilssen-Love offer a different dynamics than the one of Baars and Ex. Nilssen-Love knows how to employ Ex great skills as a rhythm guitarist, his role in The Ex. Ex is a rhythm guitarist with highly imaginative concept of rhythm and time like no one else, but nevertheless, one that thrive on a hard, massive pulse, exactly the kind that Nilssen-Love keeps feeding him. Ex does not surrender easily to Nilssen-Love rhythmic attacks. He tries to suggest abstract, minimalist soundscapes, counter the pulse with loose strategy of tension building, color it with weird noises or suddenly steer it to other directions. But, finally, he interlocks with Nilssen-Love powerful blows. Then the two are simply irresistible. Nothing can stop their wild ride that ends, true to The Ex legacy, with a quote of an Ethiopian dance.

Terrie Hessels & Ken Vandermark - Splinters (Audiographic, 2016) ***½

Vandermark's collaboration with Hessels is far more expansive than the free-improvising Lean Left quartet. Vandermark played in The Ex's tours with the late Ethiopian sax hero Gétatchèw Mèkurya, and toured with The Ex Brass Unbound and The Ex as their unofficial fifth member.

The first three, shorter duets on Splinters were recorded at the Viennese club Blue Tomato on November 2015 and the fourth, 36-minutes one was recorded at Temporary Art Centre Eindhoven on September 2014. The four pieces are sonic metaphor of Splinters in a different languages: “Eclats” (French), “Astillas” (Spanish), “Hahen” (Japanese), and “Splitter” (German).

Vandermark's assertion about Hessels is almost self evident here. Vandermark likes to build a distinct momentum on every piece, even on the looser pieces, through repeated phrases and gestures and often gravitates towards driving rhythmic patterns. Hessels has a completely different way to connect with Vandermark's narrative, actually, many ways. Sometimes he sounds as an doubtful commentator, on other times he is a comic provocator and on most times he just crisscrosses Vandermark's linear path with sudden, chaotic detours, still, immediately answering Vandermark's ideas with his own concepts of rhythm and form. Strange as it may sound, Hessels and Vandermark connect in a very profound and powerful way. After playing and spending so much together they know each other inside out, and despite their totally contradicting improvisation strategies their interplay is natural, open, and rich with arresting sonic ideas, as if the whole is greater than the sum of their strategies.

See also Eric McDowell's review of Splinters here.

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The latest duets of Joe McPhee

Two new recordings of the legendary Joe McPhee, one a historic one and the other a current one, both with close partners and both position themselves as part of rich, open jazz continuum.

By Eyal Hareuveni

Joe McPhee / Raymond Boni - Live from the Magic City (Birmingham, Alabama) (Trost, 2016) ****½

This recording from 1985 is inspired by the immortal words of Eric Dolphy: “When you hear music, / After it’s over, / It’s gone, / In the air, / You can never / Capture it / Again”.

This duet with French guitarist Raymond Boni, one of the long-standing European comrades of McPhee since the early eighties and until these days, was recorded live at the Hulsey Recital Hall on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) campus on April 20, 1985. The university is known for the Civil Rights Movement struggle to open its gate to African-American students despite the outright racist policy of then Alabama Governor, George Wallace, during the sixties.

On this performance McPhee focuses on the soprano sax, adds raw electronics and recites poetry, while Boni plays on an effects-laden electric guitar. Their first set, a 35-minutes piece, is a free-associative improvisation that shifts instantly and organically between subtle and lyrical segments, sometimes abstract and atmospheric and even melancholic ones, to an intense, stormy eruptions. This piece sound not only as a meditation on Dolphy wise words about the one-time quality of such musical acts, but also as reflection on the total commitment and passion of such acts, common to the so just political struggles of the Civil Rights Movement.

The second set begins with McPhee reciting repeatedly Dolphy words, playing with the original syntax with vintage electronics, while Boni cleverly frames this flow of words and sounds with rhythmical, cyclical lines. When McPhee resumes playing his soprano sax their interplay becomes intense and fast, moving between furious to compassionate sonic poles. The last, shorter piece continues the muscular vein but spirals it to more extreme sonic terrains, sometimes playful and sometimes combative ones, as if sending a clear message that the struggle to win the heart of the Magic City has not been won yet.

Joe McPhee / Ingebrigt Håker Flaten - Bricktop (Trost, 2015) ****

Bricktop is one of many extraordinary figures in jazz history, even though most chances you have not heard much about her as much as you have heard about the Duke Ellingtons, the Jimmy Luncefords or the Fletcher Hendersons (to paraphrase a famous Cab Calloway saying). Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith aka Bricktop (1894-1984) was part of expatriate American community of musicians in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. She became there an iconic, legendary saloon keeper, singer, dancer, actress and entrepreneur who later owned of a club, the Bricktop. The club name was suggested by Cole Porter, who dedicated “Miss Otis Regatta” to her.

McPhee wanted to shed light on this sadly neglected era in the African-american cultural history, following historian William A. Shack Harlem in Montmartre: a Paris Jazz History (University of California Press, 2001). Shack described the work of “a select group of black Americans, without whom the collective voice of jazz music around the world would sound entirely different”.

McPhee celebrates this kind of borders melting of jazz with a like-minded partner, Norwegian double bass player Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, with whom he has collaborated countless times before, performing and recording with The Thing. The two also recorded a duo album before, Brooklyn DNA (Clean Feed, 2012), dedicated to another distinct jazz continuum of a specific place and era, the jazz clubs of Brooklyn. Bricktop was recorded live at the Okka Fest 2015 in Milwaukee.

The interplay between the McPhee - playing only on the tenor sax - and Håker Flaten, as can be expected, is organic and deep. They move as one powerful entity. They begin with an extended, emotional blues, “Harlem”, with McPhee playing soft, meditative blows while Håker Flaten adds measured, rhythmical muscular attacks on the bass. “Bricktop” has even more serene, chamber tone. Håker Flaten attacks on the bass here are more minimalist and restrained and leave enough space for McPhee to gently dance around him. Only on the shorter “Montmartre” McPhee and Håker Flaten engage in a furious and intense interplay for a short time, before resuming the peaceful, majestic spirit of this beautiful recording.

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Just the two of us

The final installment of duo's week...

By Paul Acquaro

Trevor Watts & Stephen Grew - Con Fluent (FMR, 2016) ****

Saxophonist Trevor Watts has had a wonderfully creative and imaginative musical career, from his early exploratory work with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, to his groups Amalgam, Moire Music, and beyond. On Con Fluent, he continues his restless journey in a duo with Stephen Grew, a pianist who is also deeply embedded in the U.K.'s improvised music scene.

On Con Fluent, the two are a virtual duo. Grew sent a recording of a few improvised sets to Watts to play over. The results are sublime and had the information about the overdubbing approach not been revealed, one probably would not have expected it. For example, 'Sadness of Rhyme' is a complex dance, with deep pockets of silence and delicate interactions that feel spontaneously exacted with no deference to the time and space between them. Another track, 'The Lit and Phil Chair' begins with a powerful burst of saxophone over low scrapings of the piano's strings. On 'Ask Later' it all comes together as the clever 'composition' from Grew swirls together with Watt's saxophone in a a 15-minute mini-epic that ranges from introspective to exuberant.

Alexander Hawkins & Evan Parker - Leaps In Leicester (Clean Feed, 2016) ****

How inappropriate would it be not to follow with this duo release from fellow SME alumni and saxophonist Evan Parker with UK-based pianist Alexander Hawkins? Parker and Hawkins have collaborated before, but the very fine Leaps in Leicester is a first for them as a duo. Overall, it's an accessible and enjoyable album, comprised of four tracks just teeming with life and variety.

Hawkins has a sharp attack, his approach is percussive and decisive. Parker, on tenor sax, plays with a crisp tone and fluid approach, filling the space between the notes and taking full advantage of the musical base that the piano provides. The opener 'Jump Start' begins with a spaciousness that grows denser over time. The second track 'Gambade' also has a quiet start, key-clicks and light prepared piano plinks appear like the first faint stars in the night sky. As the song goes on, ever more constellations appear and the vibrant cosmos is slowly revealed. 'Shimmy (for Tony Marsh)' is a 30-minute track dedicated to the renowned percussionist who passed away in 2012. The track begins reflectively with a lovely intertwining of Parker and Hawkins melodic lines, the track then begins picking up a great deal of intensity, even when Hawkins drops out and all the focus falls on Evans tenor.

This is a wonderfully diverse and dynamic collaboration, it sports a really clever title to boot!

JC Jones & Yoni Kretzmer - Esoteric Duos (OutNow, 2016) ***½

This rich double-CD was released earlier this year and features a series of duos anchored, on disc 1, by Israel-based bassist JC Jones, and on disc 2, by NY/Israel-based saxophonist Yoni Kretzmer. Their collaborators are bassists Barre Phillips, Mark Dresser, Reuben Radding, Sean Conly, Damon Smith, Pascal Niggenkemper, woodwind player Steve Horenstein, and violinist Carmel Raz.

The album begins with Jones and Horenstein working the low-end, rumbling to life with key clicks and percussive slaps of the bass strings. A flurry of notes erupts from the sax as the two then deliver an evolving duet of incredibly condensed energy. The bass-on-bass duet with Phillips - also firmly in the low register - is full of percussive chatter and rhythmic inventions. 'Mark Dresser,' the third track leans on elongated tones and experimental melodies, building to a feverish climax. Skipping ahead to Kretzmer's duos, the first one is 'Trumpets,' and it's out there! Buzzing and sputtering, it's a bit like a fight between a UFO and a bee. The trumpet here is Pascal Niggenkemper's unusual bass work. On 'A Day Later,' Kretzmer opens the floor for frequent collaborator Reuben Radding, whose pizzicato playing seems to cast a calm over the track. The penultimate 'Drinking Song' with Sean Conley, kicks off with a boppish line that always seems poised to explode, yet keeps itself together. Of note are the two collaborations between Kretzmer and Jones. On disc 1, Kretzmer plays rapidly and tunefully over Jones' solid accompaniment. On disc 2, they are focused on exploring the outer limits of their instruments.

This album is a must for bass lovers, especially the esoteric ones!

Chris Cretella and Lou Guarino - Suspicious Diversions Questionable Amusements (s/r, 2016) ****

Suspicious Diversions Questionable Amusements is the result of an excellent pairing of two new Englanders who bring a deep knowledge to their spontaneous collaboration. Guitarist Chris Cretella has studied with (among others) Joe Morris and Anthony Coleman, while trumpeter Guarino cites the friendship and guidance Wadada Leo Smith.

The first track, 'Thunder Plunge' features the trumpet/guitar duo sounding nothing like a trumpet/guitar duo. Cretella's guitar is processed to the point of being an electronic blip while Guarino plays long sputtering tones. It feels very unusual - a true testament to their creativity. Track two, 'Razor Jarts' features more conventional sounds, but the melodic ideas are wholly original. Seemingly parallel in their play, a deeper listen reveals a great deal of interaction and sparks from colliding ideas. Throughout, the duo demonstrates a genuine gift playing off, and listening to, each other. This is one that keeps growing more interesting on each spin.

Markus Stockhausen & Florian Weber - Alba (ECM, 2016) ****

This piano and trumpet duo's austere debut album is simply and utterly gorgeous. Aside from the crystalline production qualities that make an ECM recording so, both the compositions and the free improvisation that fill the tracks of Alba are lyrical and poignant. The two German musicians, trumpeter Markus Stockhausen and pianist Florian Weber, have apparently worked together for six years, at first incorporating electronics but eventually jettisoning all they could for the pure acoustics.

The opening 'What Can I Do For You?' is a rubato and expressive piece. It moves slowly, taking several pregnant moments of near silence to manifest, but when it does, it foreshadows the winsomeness to follow. The pace quickens a bit on 'Mondtraum', and by the third track 'Surfboard,' the duo is scuttling about unabashedly, with Weber providing the prominent theme, which Stockhausen helps with brief accentuation and shadowing of the melody. Each track - and there are many with 6 minutes being the longest - possesses a unique quality and differing approach, each one offering an interesting diversion.

Alvaro Domene & Briggan Krauss - Live at the Firehouse Space (Iluso, 2016) ***½

Something cool about the Firehouse Space in Brooklyn is that it really is an old firehouse. Now a private residence that opens its doors to creative music, it's a treat just to visit. The music of saxophonist Briggan Krauss and guitarist Alvaro Domene added some additional experimental luster to the space when they performed the music found here in June of this year.

The opener, 'Minimum Height to Ride,' is actually the bulk of the recording at 44 min, while the second track, 'The Sophomaniac,' seems to be a 4-minute encore. The atmosphere the duo develops is enveloping, the slow ooze at the start is created by Krauss' intensely rhythmic phrases and Domene's deliberate chordal movement. The fog burns off quickly though as the two engage in an intensely percussive passage that raises the tempo and quickens the pulse. Throughout the performance, they move seamlessly from sound-sculpting to earth-scorching,

Miguel Crozzoli & Pablo Díaz - TIERRA (NendoDango Records, 2016) ****

This duo recording builds on the hallowed template of saxophone and drum duo, the format that John Coltrane and Rashied Ali created in 1967, and that many others, like Paul Dunmall and Tony Bianco have sought to perfect, and that now these two young Argentinian improvisers are making their own. Miguel Crozzoli has studied both in Argentina and in Canada, developing a robust approach to free playing that is informed, melodic, and fierce with thoughtful precision. Diaz is an integral member of the SLD Trio, an educator, and an expressive and empathetic partner on Tierra.

Their music draws from the 'spiritual' well, as their every note seems to form from somewhere deep and intangible, rising to the surface in expressive waves. Crozzoli's playing flows smoothly, though with unexpected intervals. Diaz's drumming roots the melodies and occasional bursts with an ever-shifting palate of rhythmic texture. A stand out track is 'Ritual', in which the tension is created subtly between the two players. 'Dudas Cruciales' also maintains the tension but works though a whole host of other exciting musical ideas along the way.

Enrique Norris & Paula Shocron - Sono-Psico-Cosmica (NendoDango Records, 2016) ****

I'll wrap up this long, but hardly exhaustive, review of duo recordings with the utterly satisfying Sono-Psico-Cosmica from Buenos Aires based musicians Enrique Norris and Paula Shocron. Shocron is the vibrant pianist and percussionist from the SLD Trio (with Pablo Diaz), and Norris, who also plays a remarkable cornet, leads his own trio. The two come together to create some musical magic on this recording from a 2014 concert.

Starting with a co-credited 'El Grill Cosmico', the two use their pianos to create in a single voice - completing each other's thoughts and accentuating each other's ideas, it's a truly collaborative effort. In spite of the conscientious space between notes, the intensity grows throughout the track. The Shocron credited follow up is the smokey 'La Puerta R' and features Norris on the cornet. The twin piano line-up returns for an intense and abstract take on the Charles Mingus classic 'Orange was the color of her dress, then silk blue'. The moods and intensity vary from track to track, and it wraps with a spirited take of 'Monk's Dream'. Pure pleasure to hear!

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Paul G. Smyth & Chris Corsano - Psychic Armour (Weekertoft, 2016) ****

By Lee Rice Epstein

There are a few different ways of getting into Paul G. Smyth and Chris Corsano’s new duet album, Psychic Armour. One is taking Smyth’s tri-partite, fractured-sphere cover design as some Venn diagram of the pianist, drummer, and listener each having their own personal heads cracked open. Another is cranking up the volume so the duo’s rumbling, staccato attack floods the space around you like a suit of armour. And one is just setting all these possible meta-references aside and taking in the wide-ranging duo in all its glory.

Recorded in April 2015 at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland, Psychic Armour is the duo’s debut recording. I’m familiar with Corsano from his many albums, including duets with Joe McPhee, Paul Flaherty, and Mette Rasmussen, but Smyth was new to me. Nevertheless, his playing is dynamite.

The album is a deep conversation in three parts: Corsano’s cymbal tap signals the beginning of “Taming In the Power Cut,” a sequence of spiraling riffs, from both players, that neatly dovetail for a full five minutes before the duo switches gears. Letting in space and silence, Smyth crafts a soft-edged melody of sorts that evoked, yes, Cecil Taylor and also Myra Melford. As with the two giants, there’s a painterly quality to Smyth’s playing, whether a series of quick pointillist runs or textured washes of sound. This second layer comes to the fore on “The Through Line,” during which the pair creates a tense fog of long metallic tones and ringing chords. And then comes the massive title track, “Psychic Armour.” In sustained improvisation, the duo builds, recedes, chases tangents and digressions, and drifts to both the upper and lower registers. Then, about 10 minutes into the 30-minute track, Corsano drops out for an extended solo from Smyth. During the next several minutes, Smyth slows the pace considerably, tracing an abstract line. It’s a beautiful, sensitive solo, which, after a few minutes, Corsano lifts up with a percussive backdrop. There’s a bright, celestial quality to this section, almost as if they’re slyly tipping hats in the direction of psychic. It sets the stage nicely for both Corsano’s solo turn and the all-out, full-speed run that finds the duo chasing each other to the finish. The echoey silence that follows sounds like the room catching its collective breath, before whooping applause rushes in.

Video from 30 April 2015, Kevin Barry Room, National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland:

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Kris Davis - Duopoly (Pyroclastic Records, 2016) ****

By Lee Rice Epstein

Kris Davis has pulled off a massive trick with Duolopy, cleverly blowing up the duo setting and reassembling the pieces into a thrilling collage. Davis, who has been praised several times on the blog (a sample: her trio, her quintet, her octet Infrasound, and her improvising trio with Ingrid Laubrock and Tyshawn Sorey, Paradoxical Frog), appears to have entered a period of tremendous creativity. For Duopoly, she takes the fairly standard piano duet and places it into 4 instrumental pairings (piano plus guitar, piano, drums, and reeds), divides those into 8 separate duos (Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez, Billy Drummond and Marcus Gilmore, and Tim Berne and Don Byron), then duplicates each duo to create an additional 8 free improvisations. The pairings and sequencing pretty much need to be exactly right for the album to work, and I’m happy to report they work exceedingly well.

A great deal has been made of Davis and Taborn’s collaboration on Davis’s original, “Fox Fire.” And their pairing is indeed magical—sadly, I missed seeing them perform here in LA earlier this year, but I’ve heard their live performances are incredible (see below for video from this fall’s tour). But I haven’t seen as much written about Davis and Sanchez, who present a slightly thornier duet on Sanchez’s “Beneath the Leaves.” It’s a marked contrast to Davis and Taborn’s playing, and both performances serve to highlight the strengths in the other. Not surprisingly, both pianists duets with Davis got me thinking about a Taborn-Sanchez duo. Each has such a singular approach to the piano, and Davis successfully bridges the performances by drawing on Taborn and Sanchez’s tenderness and technique in equal measure.

It’s interesting to have Berne and Byron paired as the reed players for this outing. Again, Berne’s initial duet, on Davis’s “Trip Dance for Tim,” is a lovely dance between the two. And Byron’s clarinet on “Prelude to a Kiss” is dazzling. The four tracks that form this center turning point, the previous two plus Davis’s improvised duets with Byron and Berne, are quite possibly the highlight of an album stuffed with highlights. Berne’s plays a bright, keening solo during the improvisation, steering Davis to a pounding finish that echoes to a silence, which gradually builds back up to full volume in Davis and Gilmore’s improv.

Just one more pairing I want to highlight: Davis and Frisell. As I alluded to in my review of Andrew Cyrille’s quartet album, Frisell is back in a big way. His playing on these two albums is some of his best in a long time, and credit to Davis for the collaboration and inspiring some lovely playing from him. Their closing duet opens with some airy chords from both, sustained notes weaving together to create a textured backdrop. It’s a thoughtful closing statement and a bit of a tease, at barely three minutes, as the album glides to its finish on a gentle, quick fade.

When I first saw the lineup, there were surprises aplenty. Where I had expected to see Laubrock, Rainey, Halvorson, Alessi, and others, ultimately Davis paired herself with musicians she hadn’t yet recorded with. Instead of revisiting collaborations I’d come to appreciate, a deep well of possibilities opens up on Duopoly, and although I haven’t read anything to indicate more may be coming, I already have a personal wish list of unique pairings I’d love to hear on future volumes.

Kris Davis and Craig Taborn live at The Kennedy Center, October 3, 2016:

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Tim Daisy – October Music Vol. 2: 7 Compositions For Duet (Relay, 2016) ****½

By Tom Burris

Two years have passed since the first volume of Tim Daisy's October Music, a very sturdy group of seven duets that provide the conceptual foundation for this new volume. At first glance, the new collection almost reacts against the former. Most of the new compositions are skeletal - almost sketches - that are strong and inspiring; but are such a 180 degree turn away from the earlier careful constructions they come as a bit of a shock. On the surface, the themes are almost Ayler-ish: very sturdy compositions that function like a quick shot of whiskey, there to help the players build up enough nerve to be free and blow their asses off for awhile.

But that's not it. This isn't a free-for-all blowing session at all. These are compositions, no matter how minimal. There is definitely a frame for the contents of each duet; but the structure is more flexible than before. It's as if the duet is being put in the position of becoming the composition. Daisy is simply creating the conditions for this to happen. Hear me out: listening is the most important part of improvisation; and the same is true in conversation. So if the art of listening changes a conversation, can it do the same for a composition? It's almost as if the written structure remains implied even after the theme is dismissed, the same way implied rhythm is present in many instances of unmetered time. In this way it is possible that Daisy is as much director as composer of these pieces. I don't have any answers; but the questions surrounding Daisy's intentions make my head swirl like his melody lines.

Nothing can prepare you for the opener, “Radiant.” The track makes several jarring cuts between an impassioned vocal loop, a garage band blasting out a one-chord riff, and Andrew Clinkman's face-melting guitar noise. This is followed by “Type-M,” which features Mars Williams on soprano sax and percussion. Again, the cuts are jarring between sections. When the duo begins to improvise after the theme, the sound lurches this way and that, as if they are becoming disoriented by all of the sudden movement. There is a softer, exotic sounding middle section which falls into a collage of percussion and squeak toys – before lurching into a wild shrieking finale.

Cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm joins Tim on the prickly “Black Mountain,” featuring a tip-toeing theme that alternates Fred's catchy pizzicato plucking with Tim's melodic brushes-on-metal-bowls. After the niceties are out of the way, Daisy and Lonberg-Holm hurl all the cats and bedpans into the grand piano. There is a movement toward conventional structure along the way, but it is quickly tossed aside. Then the musicians take quick turns at the theme and the piece ends abruptly. There is only one track more “out” than this one, and that is “Wires and Static” with Aaron Zarzutski on synth and percussion. It's a really fascinating piece, subtle and almost purely sound-based. I'm not certain if there is a technically composed theme here; but there is definitely a conceptual one. This piece is also a great example of how expansive and playful Daisy's music has become over the last couple of years.

Ryan Packard plays on the drum duo “Songs For Dancers,” which features a theme that is free, thoughtful and purposeful. The interplay is playfully serious and confounds observations as quickly as they arise. Daisy plays a similar theme on the boppish “Tandem,” featuring trumpeter Russ Johnson, who turns out to be a fascinating match for Daisy. “Seeing” with bassist Clark Sommers closes the disc with a slow, loping theme. He and Daisy take turns at being the “leader” on winding lines that have become a Daisy trademark. The improvised section is short, but just the perfect length to change your perspective before flipping the theme back on you. The winding melody placed at the end of the disc is familiar and comforting – but you arrive here with new ears. October Music Vol. 2 isn't a sequel. It's a deeper cut.

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Sabir Mateen & William Simone – JOYS! (577 Records, 2016) ****

By Tom Burris

This room recording of reed master Sabir Mateen & percussionist (and electronics knob-twiddler) William Simone is edited from a live performance that took place in Bologna, Italy at an unspecified time and location. It's a lo-fi document, but as the music itself often sounds like early John Gilmore recordings with Sun Ra's Arkestra (when it works) or Arthur Doyle jamming with Throbbing Gristle (when it works even better), the thin audio quality augments the sci-fi-on-your-grandma's-black-&-white feel of Simone's electronics, which sometimes sound like a ping-pong tournament in outer space. His drums often sound like cardboard boxes and buckets – and they may very well be! And even that works here too, as on “Sant' Isaia Stroll,” where the flatness of the drums is matched with the cheap drum machine from the first Royal Trux album to accompany Mateen's Dolphy-esque clarinet clatter. This track alone manages to sound like a Nepalese snake-charmer scene in an Afrofuturistic No-Wave film. (Who doesn't want that to exist?)

There are two centerpieces to this disc. The first, “The World of W & S,” is a showcase for the duo, displaying nearly everything they can do in a relaxed manner. During the long buildup, Mateen moves from tenor sax to flute (which is uncredited in the liner notes for some reason) and Simone moves gradually from his Space Invaders game toward the drums. Mateen's flights here run from ethereal to downright manic, as Simone seems to delight in attempting to throw Mateen off his game by switching up the beatbox rhythms. The second centerpiece is the title track, on which there is a dense wall of electronic sound standing behind a constantly moving minimalist foreground. The track seems to inhabit the same headspace – but not necessarily the sound of – modern heroes of Afrofuturism such as Black Spirituals and Moor Mother. Mateen's Jackie-does-Bird runs on soprano sax really heat up Simone whose clave-and-cardboard beats run through a succession of infectious grooves.

Mateen also manages to get in some piano work, on which he aggressively prods and pokes the keys in futile attempts to push Simone into a meaningful conversation on the album's weakest track, “Cosmic Dance.” “A Call For All Angels” finds Mateen again on flute, but switching over to sax on the last couple of minutes. This track absolutely confirms that Mateen and Simone are children of Ra (if there were any doubts). If the angels don't respond to the low-rent “Rated X” groove served up here, they aren't goddamn angels anyway.

Note – 577 Records is hosting the Forward Festival this weekend in Brooklyn. If you are in NYC, this appears to be the place to be. Link: http://www.577records.com/forwardfestival/
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Tashi Dorji & Tyler Damon – Both Will Escape (Family Vineyard, 2016) *****

By Tom Burris

Following on the heels of this summer's “Live at The Spot +1” cassette release on the Astral Spirits label, Both Will Escape both refines and expands on the duo's promise and power.  Separately, Tashi Dorji (guitar) and Tyler Damon (percussion) are forces of nature.  Together, the combination of Dorji's high-end metallic  power-tool skree and Damon's manic-but-earthy hippie clomping are a perfect pairing.  Each has a musical spoon in the other guy's soup to begin with, resulting in a collaboration that seems almost brotherly.  Different interests and approaches, same dynamic makeup.

Opening with a percussion invocation, Damon plays a melodic groove on metal bowls and drums onto which Dorji's delay-drenched treble plucking easily hops.  A deity appears in the form of a loop of pulsating noise, which sends Dorji off to build a wall of sonic plaster & casts Damon in a total blur of freedom.   (I swear the first 8 minutes pass in about a minute and a half.)  Damon experiments on the last few minutes of the track with chains and silverware and metal bowls and car keys and Allen wrenches while Dorji gradually winds down the metal drilling.  I have no idea how these guys manage to make this clanging metallic shrapnel sound warm and inviting, but they certainly make it so.  Must be some magic brother shit.

On “Two Rabbits” Dorji shoots off a monstrous two-note attack Glenn Branca would be proud of, then launches into a full-scale onslaught as one-man-army Damon unleashes his complete arsenal.  Everyone is dead by the 3.5 minute mark.  So much for warm and inviting.  The subsequent dirge begins with a behind-the-bridge, early-Sonic-Youth loop to which Damon adds a wash of cymbals.  Dorji improvises some pretty-ish chords over it, slowly building another wall as Damon attempts to cover every piece of his drum kit simultaneously.

Take Leah-era Magik Markers & add Adris Hoyos and you have the jumping-off point for the first half of the glorious stare-into-the-sun beauty of “Gate Left Open,” which begins the B side.  Halfway through Dorji takes a solo skronk fest, all bedpans and ice picks.  Bad Moon Rising loops enter along with deceptively light grooving from Damon.  Again, Dorji adds chords and Damon picks up the pace until the piece concludes with a sudden and perfect crash.  Then straight into the spindly and prickly “Kudzu Weave,” Damon joins Dorji's cut-up loop by putting emphasis on various aspects of the groove with playful brushwork.  An inspired turnaround happens via some backwards looping from Dorji while beautiful waves of percussion roll into shore, moving the music into territory usually associated with Matthew Bower or Marcia Bassett.  Absolutely stunning.

Dorji is clearly the leader on this session; but earlier this year I saw Damon play with Manas (Dorji's duo with drummer Thom Nguyen) at The Spot and Damon steered the ship for most of the set – and the result of this dynamic  shift was every bit as exciting as the music on Both Will Escape.  I'd say expect great things, but they're already happening.  Magic brother shit has arrived.

The Spot 2015, same show Astral Spirits released

Manas Trio, The Spot 2016

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Kirk Knuffke & Whit Dickey – Fierce Silence (Clean Feed, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

It wasn’t until I saw him live at the Lilypad in Cambridge, MA earlier this fall that I began to fully appreciate what Kirk Knuffke and his cornet bring to the scene. In that space, free of distractions, Knuffke’s playing revealed itself in all its earnest lyricism, eschewing shows of bravura for a reserved deliberateness that—like the work of Morton Feldman, or the friendship of a shy person—asks you to lean in a little closer before showing you why you won’t want to pull away.

True, there may be other aspects to Knuffke’s playing, but it’s this understated sensibility that the cornetist brings to Fierce Silence. Beyond drummer Whit Dickey, the invisible third member of this duo is—you guessed it—the negative space they invite into their improvisations. Yet the silences never feel staged, or used merely to heighten the playing when it resumes, because they’re integrated into Knuffke and Dickey’s overarching sensibility. Across ten pieces totaling just 45 minutes, for his part Knuffke favors sustained husky notes and miniature squeaks, rasping muted tones that shimmer in their metallic vibrations. His on-again, off-again melodies are like sweet hard candy rolled around the mouth, always dissolving. A perfect complement in this situation, Dickey can drum on the one hand with the freestanding melodicism of Max Roach or on the other with a net-like looseness, stirring up subtly swinging grooves that support without subordinating.

If you liked Row for William O., Knuffke’s duo album with Michael Bisio, you’ll want to hear Fierce Silence. All we can hope for next is a Knuffke/Bisio/Dickey trio…

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Ken Vandermark- Three Duos

Ken Vandermark & C. Spencer Yeh – Schlager (Systems vs. Artifacts/Audiographic Records, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

It should come as no surprise that, despite its title, there’s nothing easy, catchy, or sentimental about Schlager, Ken Vandermark’s recent duo album with C. Spencer Yeh. Recorded a year ago at The Sugar Maple in Milwaukee with Vandermark on reeds and Yeh on voice, violin, and electronics, this is, rather, music that makes you sit up, lean in, and—maybe puzzled, maybe disconcerted—listen more closely. It’s also music of enormous variety, thanks as much to the range of instruments on the stage as to versatility and inventiveness of the two musicians playing them. But at the same time it’s not music that’s wry for wryness’s sake or diverse for diversity’s. Instead what Vandermark and Yeh manage to do in just under forty-five minutes is develop their own musical lexicon—challenging, harsh, playful, and emotional all at once—and with it shape a novel listening experience that asks no less than it gives.

They start from the ground up. Schlager opens with a pair of tracks called “Song for Milwaukee,” one for voice and one for clarinet. The first offers ten minutes of percussive pops, crackles, and swishing sounds (generated, presumably, by Yeh alone) that first defy expectations (“song”? “voice”?) but then organize themselves into a kind of coherence, whether we’re tracking pitches (bass thumps vs. sharper slaps) or comparing what we’re hearing to known, everyday sounds (popcorn popping, sure, or stormy weather). Without completely abandoning the percussive spirit of the opener, Vandermark’s companion contribution adds color, cycling through all manner of clarinet sounds from low drones to breathless runs. Centerpiece “Occidental Geography,” builds again, with Yeh scribbling out upper-atmosphere wisps on the violin while Vandermark blows gales on tenor sax; finally together, the improvisers prove perfectly paired, knowing, with the naturalness of breathing, just when to come together and when to drift apart. The track’s climactic sparring session is so good that they had to leave in the audience’s applause (complete with awed laughter). But Schlager’s final two tracks are worth hanging around for, especially “Unbearable Distances,” where we’re treated not only to some judicious looping of Vandermark’s clarinet but also to Yeh’s extraordinary vocal technique, here extremely physical, from blubbering lips to gagging sounds—noises that, if not for the performer’s sheer virtuosity and intentionality, would run a serious risk of becoming silly. Re-contextualized, in other words, they work in new ways. And that’s what this music is all about—making noise and taking risks for open ears. 

Ken Vandermark & Lasse Marhaug – Close Up (For Abbas Kiarostami) (Systems vs. Artifacts/Audiographic Records, 2016) ***½

As the first duo encounter of long-time collaborators Ken Vandermark and Lasse Marhaug, Close Up seems appropriately titled. Indeed, immediacy and intimacy are some of the characteristics that help bring coherence to this wide-ranging 40-minute improvisation, recorded live in Oslo and mastered by Marhaug himself. At the same time, the title is also a reference to Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s 1990 film of the same name. Troubling the line between fiction and reality, the eponymous film tells the true story of a man whose attempt to impersonate the filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf lands him in prison. How exactly the music works as homage to Kiarostami’s film is anyone’s guess—perhaps a futile endeavor, anyway, in light of our comments-section discussion of What Thomas Bernhard Saw last year. (I’ve just deleted my own pretentious and longwinded attempt at speculation.) Bottom line: set aside some time to check out the film, which is by all accounts a masterpiece, and in the meantime check out the album, which is at the least a worthwhile installment in Vandermark’s latest trio of duo releases.

Fans of Marhaug’s 2014 meet-up with Dave Rempis, Naancore, might find Close Up a little too gentle, not quite blistering enough. But don’t take that to mean this is an easy listen, or even a painless one. There’s plenty here to clear a room, starting with the twittering whine and jackhammer sounds that open the set, or the blasts of static that come a few moments later. In the video footage of the concert it’s unsettling to watch Marhaug’s expressionless face, fixed under his uncompromising dome, as he shreds digital fabric with the twist of a few knobs. (NB: Although the video is of interest, for the audio quality, Marhaug’s mastering makes a world of difference.) Vandermark is no slouch himself, showing off his ability throughout—whether he’s on tenor, bari, or clarinet—to call or even raise whatever high wire bet Marhaug throws down. While much of Close Up resides in tense spaces of extremity and contrast, there are moments of sudden unity—Vandermark and Marhaug falling into a pulse, nurturing each other’s half-hatched ideas, or stopping short together—that remind us that not just anyone (indeed, almost no one) can do this stuff. They’re moments that remind us to salute the masters, no matter the occasion.

Ken Vandermark & Terrie Hessels – Splinters (Systems vs. Artifacts/Audiographic Records, 2016) ****

Rounding out Ken Vandermark’s recent triple release of live duo albums on his Systems vs. Artifacts imprint is Splinters, with guitarist Terrie Hessels. Like Lasse Marhaug, Hessels is a familiar stage-mate for Vandermark in larger settings, as with The Ex or the Lean Left quartet with Andy Moor and Paal Nilssen-Love.

With Splinters, we finally get a title that—without irony or layered allusion—simply seems to describe the music at hand. In fact, each of the four tracks reiterates this sonic metaphor in a different language: “Eclats” (French), “Astillas” (Spanish), “Hahen” (Japanese), and “Splitter” (German). And for good reason: the only thing continuous about these improvisations is their duration over time, or else their endless restlessness. Listening closely to Schlager, Close Up, and Splinters all in a row, it’s possible to catch on to some of Vandermark’s favorite moves and allow them to build a kind of structure, through repetition, across the three albums—from slap tongue ostinati and churning pulses to silky clarinet runs and airy tenor drones, to say nothing of the unrestrained blowing. But like Vandermark’s other duo collaborators, Hessels keeps things unpredictable. Often in these improvisations he favors claustrophobic textures, dense clanging, sudden stabbing notes, and the friction of the pick against the string. (It can be hard to know quite what he’s doing; one video of the guitarist with Han Bennink shows Hessels dragging his headstock across the stage.) This way, he makes moments of calm truly count, as on “Splitter” when his guitar resonates like the tolling of distant bells, or groans like the sound of ice under stress. Of course even then, we get the sense everything’s about to shatter back into fragments.

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