George Schuller's Circle Wide - Like Before, Somewhat After (Playscape, 2008) **½

It's a little unfair of me to judge a mainstream jazz album the way I'm going to do it, but well, I can't restrain myself, only because I want to make a few points about music in general. George Schuller is a great drummer and with this album he wants to bring a tribute to Keith Jarrett's American quartet of the 70s and early 80s, which was, also according to me, the pianist's most exciting period (with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian). Schuller's band consists of Donny McCaslin on soprano, tenor sax and alto flute, Brad Shepik on guitar, Tom Beckham on vibes, Dave Ambrosio on bass and Jamey Haddad playing percussion on a few tracks, all of them respectable musicians, and especially Shepik is one of my favorite guitar players, with a very broad technique and extreme lyrical fluency in his playing. Apart from two tracks by Schuller ("Dew Point" and "Back To School"), all pieces are Jarrett compositions.

The "Survivors' Suite" is one of my favorite Jarrett albums. The pianist is probably one of the few musicians who come to the same level as John Coltrane in terms of expansiveness of a performance, making it grand, universal, somewhere on another plane than usual music, and "The Survivors' Suite" epitomizes that, bringing music as hypnotic exaltation, a spiritual listening experience. Schuller's band tries its best with the composition, but instead of feeling alone in the universe as when listening to Jarrett, here you find yourself alone in your living room. Again, the music is reduced of its grandeur, and despite the band's efforts on "Part 1", it's only a bleak reproduction. The intro of "Part 2" is still OK, as long as only the bass and vibes are playing, but when sax, guitar and drums join, the whole thing collapses into mediocrity, and it becomes even worse when Shepik distorts his guitar sound (and again, Shepik is a brilliant instrumentalist, but not here!), leading McCaslin on for further complete destruction of the music.

"Encore B", in the Jarrett performance on "Eyes Of The Heart", an underrated album, is a long heartrending wonderfully beautiful and expansive tune, on which Jarrett plays soprano sax and Redman tenor, playing the tune with a powerful expressiveness : listen to the slight time differences between both musicians, the pauzes, the soaring improvisation by Jarrett over a loose rhythm, with a great free bop transition when Redman takes over. And indeed, this tune deserves more attention than it currently has, but the way it's played by this band the music sounds so domesticated, so reined in, reduced to the sequence of notes it is built with, devoid of tension, devoid of its paradox of sad musical joyfulness, ...

So, what's the problem?

One, on a personal note, you (I) know the original compositions so well that you identify with them, knowing them by heart, so any cover of the music is a little bit odd.

Two, in general, it is highly unlikely to bring a successful cover of the best music by the jazz giants. Anyone trying to cover Coltrane's "Love Supreme" is likely to fail, like anyone trying to cover Miles' "Bitches Brew", because the success of these tunes is so linked with the performance that brought it in the first place.

Three, the only way out of this risk, is to bring a cover which is so special, so personal and unique in its approach, that you (I) as a listener can still take something new away from it, or even add new perspectives when listening back to the original afterwards.

Four, and to make matters even worse, is that often covers like the ones on this CD drag these great tunes into the comfort of mainstream. They take out the stings and the claws, the rough edges and mold the music into something more accessible than the original.

Five, the problem is not only Schuller's. His band is fine, and they play well. It's just pointless from the listener's perspective.

Suppose that you copied a Rubens or a Picasso, with your more limited painting skills, as well as more limited artistic vision and personality, why would anyone come and look at your copy if they can see the original for the same price and effort?

The result is that the music, also here, is more old-fashioned than its original. It adds nothing new, it reduces musical wonder to a shallow interpretation, lacking character and inspiration, with no added value to the listener. One can only hope that Schuller's release will lead its listeners back to the original compositions.

The above does of course not apply to all covers, of course. Great compositions by Monk or Ornette Coleman can more easily be covered because the compositions are less intrinsically interwoven with the performance : it's more about the tune than about the playing. You can also have covers that play tribute as an act of just plain fun, think of Greg Bendian's "Mahavishnu Project" or Henry Kaiser and Wadada Leo Smith's Miles albums.

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Conference Call - Poetry In Motion (Clean Feed, 2008) ****½

This is Conference Call's second studio release out of a total of five CDs, and it also celebrates the quartet's 10th anniversary, if you allow for the changes in drummers (from Matt Wilson over Han Bennink to George Schuller), and especially "Spirals : The Berlin Concert" is easy to recommend. The band consists of Gebhard Ullmann on reeds, Michael Jefry Stevens on piano, Joe Fonda on bass and George Schuller on drums, four musicians who've played in numerous bands and line-ups, and who clearly feel extremely comfortable together, both as performers and as composers. This CD has two compositions by each band member, except for one by Schuller, and still the music has an incredible unity in its variation. This is free jazz, for sure, but when I first listened to it, I was amazed by their daring mainstream influences (and yes, I find that's courageous at times, it requires openness of mind). "The Path" and "Back To School" for instance start off in a clear mainstream mood, melody and structure, but the musicians' sensitivities and breadth of scope are such that these are just the backbones for wonderful improvisations, which clearly go beyond the mainstream without losing the harmonic basis of the tune. Especially Schuller's "Back To School" brings some fantastic interplay and wonderful free soloing by Ullmann, for a melody which is extremely joyful in an overall sad environment, quite a compositional feat. It is followed by Jefry Stevens' dark and beautiful "Quirky Waltz", on which all four musicians push their instrumental skills to the limits : the bass clarinet is deep and low, alternated with light dancing, the piano haunting, the bass eery, and the percussion functional and sounding at times as glasses and bottles being collected in a bar. And you may expect anything from this band, on the last track "Desert ... Bleue ... East", a calm and free composition moves into the most energetic free environment and then back into bluesy piano notes with a flute sounding from a great distance in the background, and despite all the changes, it still is undoubtebly the same piece. It just illustrates that these four musicians know what music is about : powerful emotional expressiveness combined with musical inventiveness and group interplay. But the centerpiece of the album is Joe Fonda's "Next Step", which brings a repetitive hypnotic African rhythm for bass and drums, offering a great dialogue between piano and sax, that evolves quite brilliantly together with the rhythmic part, ending in an energetic bass solo. Highly recommended.

The album is dedicated to poet Tina Barr.


Listen to
The Shining Star
Poetry In Motion


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Nuts - L'Atelier Tampon Ramier September 2007 (Sans Bruit, 2008) *****

Here is one more album that really tickles every braincell of mine that is linked to enjoyment and pleasure, despite the music's inherent sadness. With a double trumpet front, a double drums rhythm section and a single double bass, with a mixture of French and Japanese musicians and one American, this CD delivers the goods. Benjamin Duboc on bass, Didier Lasserre and Makoto Sato on drums, Itaru Oki and Rasul Siddik on trumpet, flutes and other objects, play an exceptional kind of free jazz : totally improvised with a stunning power and cohesiveness. The album consists of two long tracks : "First Nuts" and "Nuts Society", which evolve as slowly, expansively, freely and subdued as possible. A flow of sounds, sad, inevitable, accentuated, muted, moves on like a river of emotions, flowing endlessly to the sea. There is no rhythm to discern, no melody to remember, yet there is a forward motion which is far more fundamental than rhythm, there are sounds and emotional outbursts which go beyond the remembrance of pure melody. But it's not all softness and quiet flow, there are some rapids, cascades and intense parts too, with all musicians unleashing their powers, yet always coherently, keeping focus, moving on in the same direction. It's music you want to hear over and over again, to experience now, as it is played, not as tunes in your head. The coherence of the five musicians' interplay for such a totally improvised piece is exceptional. At times "Other Dimensions In Music" comes to mind, or Wadada Leo Smith, or Daniel Carter, and these are great references. Brilliant!

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Avant Coast - Discussions (Avant Coast, 2008) ***

Avant Coast is a young free jazz band from the East Coast, with Larry Gelberg on baritone and tenor saxophones, Thom Keith on baritone and tenor saxophones, Tim Webb on bass, and Jared Steer on drums. The music they bring is free, relatively downtempo, but with a steady rhythmic pulse and great sax improvisations. The first track "Ole" is the John Coltrane composition, and while maintaining the Spanish rhythmic influence, the tune is more intimistic here, less expansive than Coltrane, but that would be a tough achievement for any sax-player. The second track is Mal Waldron's "The Seagulls Of Kristiansund", and is probably the highlight of the album, both for its sensitive and melancholy playing, especially powerful because of the depth of the two baritone saxes. The third piece, "The Agitator", composed by Keith, is uptempo, with a funky vamp, offering each musicians his solo moment, but above all demonstrating that they are able to create music with character. And that's possibly what they need to do more : create their own voice, dare go a little bit further into unchartered territories, but it's a nice debut.

Listen and buy from CDBaby.

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Trio 3 - Live At The Sunset/Wha's Nine (Marge, 2008) ****

This is the 5th album by Trio 3, the great trio consisting of some of free jazz most longstanding musicians, Oliver Lake on alto sax, Reggie Workman on bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. With his 64 years, Lake is the youngest, Cyrille's 69 and Workman 71, but they are still going strong, with nothing left to prove, having played with such luminaries as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Julius Hemphill, Anthony Braxton. They call themselves "the group where music is the leader" and that is apparent not only from the playing itself but also from the compositions - there is no need for anything less than playing in the service of music : direct, full of fun, emotions and creativity. The great thing about the album is the absolute unrelenting energy these guys still muster, their attack is powerful throughout, even on the slower pieces as "Amreen" or "ZC", always rhythmic and melodious, never losing track of the theme. Apart from the title track, highlights on the album are the Reggie Workman composition "Willow Song", and Cyrille's "Striation", the latter a tune which kind of desintegrates but without losing its rhythmic base, and the last tune "Hassan" is the band at its best, going full force for a quite enthusiastic Parisian audience. The music itself is nothing new, nor is the performance itself, but the quality of these three musicians is so great, that the album is too. Great fun.


Watch a Trio 3 video clip


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Bill Gagliardi, Ken Filiano, Lou Grassi - KenBillou (CIMP, 2008) ****½

From the comments by Robert Rusch on the CIMP website, one could deduct that Bill Gagliardi (sax), Ken Filiano (bass), and Lou Grassi (drums), recorded sufficient material for a second CD, and after hearing this one, one can only hope that the second release is not too far away in the future. The three musicians represent everything that the label stands for : free, direct, uncompromising and technically great music, rooted in bop, with a strong emotional component. I wondered a long time why Robert Rusch always commented on the food eaten with the bands in between recording sessions in The Spirit Room and how the musicians all felt about the music. The answer, I think, is that CIMP music is characterized by this physical, emotional and relational aspect to it, that embraces all non-rational aspects in music. It is close, immediate, intimate, and this album is no different.

Last year, I was already quite enthusiastic about "Memories Of Tomorrow", and despite the more limited line-up, I am still as enthusiastic. The three musicians have this incredible drive, epitomized in the long "The Last Of The Beboppers", on which the sax screams and wails rhythmically and lyrically, and on which the bass and the drums keep pushing things forward, keeping up the speed and the momentum. Other tracks are more meditative, mid-tempo, expansive and lyrical, such as the title track, on which the arco bass and the plaintive sax conjure up a deep melancholy. The most beautiful track is the last one "Written In Water", on which the sax plays a stunning theme over a hypnotic rhythm.

I enjoyed every note on this record. Without a doubt one of the best sax trios of the year. Don't miss it.

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Mark Dresser, Ed Harkins, Steven Schick - House Of Mirrors (Clean Feed, 2008) ****½

It is great that musicians keep coming up with creative approaches to music. In "House Of Mirrors", Mark Dresser (bass), Ed Harkins (trumpets) and Steven Schick (percussion), go in search of planned rhythmic complexities and melodic improvisation, in itself an ambitious endeavour, yet in the hands of these three top musicians, it evolves into something combining the improvisational freedom and soulful intimacy of jazz, with the cerebral calculation of new music. Apart from the odd meters, tempo changes and rhythmic complexities, lots of attention is paid to the sounds of the instruments, leading to quite unexpected but refreshing ideas, such as the water percussion on "Osculla", to the use of various types of trumpet by Harkins and the "surrealist" pick-ups used by Dresser for his bass (for more insights into this 20 year science project of his, click here). The intense focus on the rhythm gives the music an angular immediacy, with no room for expansiveness or lyrical explorations, requiring extreme concentration from the three musicians to come up with new ideas all the time. Indeed, there does not appear to be one moment on the album where automatisms and practised phrases find a place. On the composed pieces, the music does not flow, it bounces, and the improvised tracks luckily bring the reverse : more flow and less rhythm, making the overall result sufficiently varied and balanced. But whatever the point of departure, every note sounds new and specifically construed, which, together with the strong rhythmic base leads to some hypnotic moments, especially the two longest pieces, "Xonia" and "Osculla". The various instruments act on exactly the same level to create the overall sound, and the traditional roles between melodic and rhythmic instruments are more often than not inversed, with the trumpet setting the rhythm and the percussion adding variation and color. Some tracks, such as "Rebus", are totally free improv, and it is even hard to distinguish which sound is produced by which instrument. Dresser had been tinkering with the idea of exploring this approach to music since 1999, when he got acquainted with Harkins' pedagogical book of rhythms. It took them almost nine years to bring the idea to fruition, and it's certainly one worth to further explore, but let's hope a little faster than nine years this time. The overall effect is clever, tight, refreshing, intimate and fragile music.


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Michael Adkins Quartet - Rotator (Hatology, 2008) ****

This is the second album by tenor saxophonist Michael Adkins and it is a winner. Accompanied by stellar musicians as Russ Lossing on piano, John Hebert on bass and Paul Motian on drums, the quartet brings very intimate structured post-bop improvisations. Apart from the compositions which seem to hesitate between tradition and novelty, and apart from the high quality improvisations you can expect from such a band, Adkins' tenor itself is the great joy of this album. He has a very traditional tone, going back to the late 50s, sounding like Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins even, full, warm, and eloquent, creating an intimacy which brings you back to the sentiments of dark bars on desolate evenings, where the only hope of any human warmth can come from the deep musical voice of this tenor, so recognizable, so true in its emotions, so rich in its subtleties and phrasings, that your spirits will be lifted again ... And yet it is not all mood, the music is also about form, about rhythm and interaction, and with these four musicians it all seem to happen just by itself, without any effort. A little too sweet to my taste at times, but a great album by objective criteria.

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Feuermusik - No Contest (Standard Form, 2008) ***½

Feuermusik ("fire music" in German), is a Canadian duo with Jeremy Strachan on woodwinds and Gus Weinkauf on percussion. I don't know anything about these musicians nor about their band. I downloaded their CD from eMusic, and these are unfortunately downloads (still!) without liner notes or any further information. On myspace they describe themselves as "trash-can-busted-up-broken-reed-blues", and that does not do the music much justice. True, many of the tunes are very direct, joyful, almost funky pieces, reminiscent in their almost musical innocence and naive approach of the Swiss Lucien Dubs trio, including the heavy rhythmic sax playing and the very polyrhythmic percussion. But that's only how it starts, then some tracks play with clearly orchestrated and overdubbed pieces (since there are no credits to other musicians, that's what I assume), creating a more African feel in the melodies and the counterpoint, especially on "Nearness/Distance". These guys are at their best when they keep it simple, and often the overdubs become a little too much, but it's great fun listening to. And in these sad days, that is a welcome break.

Listen and download from eMusic.

Watch their clips on Youtube (not exactly a performance in Carnegie Hall, but so much the better!).




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Paulo Curado - The Bird, The Breeze And Mr. Filiano (Clean Feed, 2008) ****

This is the fourth Clean Feed release on which Paulo Curado contributes, on alto or flute, and here as the leader of a trio format, with Bruno Pedroso on drums and Mr. Filiano on bass, for what seems to be eleven improvisations. I say "seems to be", because at times it's hard to believe that it is improvised. Each piece has its own angle, its own logical flow, which remains present throughout the piece even if there is no clear theme or melody, although on some tracks, such as "Escondidas", a kind of theme emerges from the improvisation. Ken Filiano is without a doubt one of the best bass players around, not only because of his technical skills (his arco playing is unbelievably precise), but because of the feeling he puts into it, often bluesy, with lots of soul, and because of his creative musical approach, mixing new forms with old feelings, or old forms with new emotional experiences, and any other combination of this. Listen to his solo piece "As If", where he has a captivating dialogue between arco and pizzi. And Paulo Curado is in the same league, which makes this a great fit. He's a cautious, gentle player, with a warm tone, very creative in his phrasing, which is sometimes very jazzy, and at other times more easily catalogued as avant-garde. Bruno Pedroso, acting as "The Breeze" in the title, plays very open, following the music well, creating the right percussive backdrop to create depth to the music, without falling into rhythmic patterns in the "open" pieces and very dynamic on the more boppish tunes. His duet with Curado on "Pequenos Duendes" is a real delight of interplay. There is lots of variation on this CD, strong musicianship, and great music, with the long "Por Fim Assim" as my favorite.


Listen to
Triptico
Novos Mundos Para O Joâo

Listen and download from eMusic.

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