Christian Meaas Svendsen & Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø: Solo Explorations

By Eyal Hareuveni

Norwegian double bass player Christian Meaas Svendsen and trombone player Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø recent solo albums feature both musicians as uncompromising explorers. Both have a clear, committed vision that strive to keep expanding their instruments sonic possibilities, in a highly impressive and original manner.

Christian Meaas Svendsen - Forms & Poses (Nakama Records, 2016) ****

Forms & Poses is the second solo double bass album of the prolific Svendsen, after W/M (Va Fongool, 2013). He plays in the free and modern jazz outfits - Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit, Mopti, Ayumi Tanaka Trio and the duo Duplex (with sax player Harald Lassen) and heads the new musicians-collective label Nakama Records.

As the title of this album suggests, it is focused on exploring the physical connection between the musician and the massive double bass, as well as the obligatory constant practice of a musician, as of any human being, who attempts to reach an open and profound awareness. For Svendsen this kind of practice is not only intellectual or physical one, but  a true spiritual work, as in Zen Buddhism meditation or Yoga practice.  "Practice every day, in every moment, always. Practice, practice, practice - and all is coming," he writes in his liner notes.

The first, 20-minutes “Vita” was recorded at the vibrant Vigeland Mausoleum in Oslo, a favorite recording place for some of the most adventurous local musicians, due to the 15 to 20 second natural reverb (double bass player Michael Francis Duch recorded there Tomba Emmanuelle, Sofa Music, 2015, and guitarist Stian Westerhus recorded The Matriarch And The Wrong Kind Of Flowers, Rune Grammofon, 2012). Svendsen describes this composition-improvisation as a “life-to-death journey through the very depths and heights of his instrument”. It is a ceremonial piece, that sticks to a basic repetitive and resonant pulse that Svendsen keeps expanding, coloring and manipulating it with great reserve and total command. Then the sonic outcome, with the dark, deep tones that keep multiplying into more and more overtones, offers a new realization of the double bass range and its hypnotic power.

The other three short pieces were recorded in the Rinzai Zen Center in Oslo. Each stresses a different aspect of Svendsen extended techniques.  “Aria prefix M-” is a gentle piece, developed with an eccentric harmonic abstraction. The title piece is a full body exploration - hands, feet, the whole body, and obviously the bows - of the double bass, divided into short excerpts, all highlight the rich range of the instrument. The final piece, “Chidori” turns the double bass into a kind of Hardanger violin, with endless sympathetic strings, that mimics a noisy choir of talkative, hungry birds.  

Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø - Melting Into Foreground (Sofa Music, 2015) ***½

Melting into Foreground is the second solo album of the experimental Nørstebø, following his self-titled one from 2011 (released on Creative Sources). Nørstebø plays in the free improvising Norwegian outfits Lana Trio, As Deafness Increases, Whirl and collaborates with Swedish master improvisers, drummer Raymond Strid and double bass player Nina de Heney (on last year acclaimed Oslo Wien, Va Fongool).

The first piece, “Internal Sources of Heat”, features Nørstebø exploring the whole sonic spectrum of the trombone, from abstract pure tones and almost silent microtonal sounds to noisy multiphonic ones, with no effects. He plays with focused control and measured reserve and shows a wise sense of using the resonant acoustics of the Capella Johannea in the Majorstuen church in Oslo, where this album was recorded. Nørstebø manages to transform the trombone in this piece into a unique sound generator, in a similar manner to the most experimental playing of British sax player John Butcher. All while balancing between intuitive following of the fleeting sounds and a linear construction of this piece.

On the second title track Nørstebø adds electronic drone stemming from a pre-recorded piece on at half-clarinet, later multi layered in irregular distances in order to create a natural kind of distortion, then slowed and pitched down many times until it sounded as a monochrome white noise. Nørstebø constructs the sonic palette of this piece carefully, mirroring the background manipulated sounds, sometimes quite noisy feedback ones, with a quiet, fragile play of the trombone ethereal overtones until all sounds blend into an arresting, nuanced texture.     

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Guitar Week Coda: Henry Kaiser & Gutbucket

As we wrap up another 'Guitar Week', we offer a small roundup as a coda. There are many more new releases and re-releases that deserve attention, but hardly the time to do it all...

Henry Kaiser - Nearly Extinct (Balance Point Acoustics, 2015) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Nearly Extinct is a survey of free jazz improvisational approaches, and an attempt to preserve the many styles that developed throughout the world during the latter half of the 20th century. Guitarist Henry Kaiser's quartet does this by referencing the approaches of the AACM, AMM, Free Jazz, Music Improvisation Company and many more. The conceptual map that adorns the cover of the album is a key to the music within and the album tracks do not represent so much songs but rather miniature explorations that underscore the synergistic magic of improvisation. Kaiser's guitar work is at times reserved and at others scorching, and Steve Parker's trombone can be raw and eviscerating as well a contemplative and relaxed - all of which can be heard in the 20 minute opener 'East Cape Yupik'. The group is rounded out by percussionist Chris Cogburn and bassist Damon Smith, and all contribute to this fascinating survey of the state of free improvisation.

Gutbucket - Dance (Gut Records, 2016) ****

NYC's Gutbucket is guitarist Ty Citerman, saxophonist Ken Thomson, drummer Adam D Gold and upright electric bassist Pat Swoboda who have been recording (in some form) as a group since 2001. Their latest, Dance, is a live album of new material recorded during a week-long residency at the Stone in NYC. Their music is definitely on the rock side of jazz-rock and their approach is energetic to say the least. The opener 'Luton' comes out swinging - or rocking - and doesn't let up as Citerman and Thomson spin out a tight melodic line with sporadic free explosions for a minute and half before Thompson delivers a frenetic solo. The follow up "Example" is even more intense, veering into metal. Citerman takes over half way through for a fiery dense solo. Later tunes, like 'Rum Spring' showcase a lighter side to the band, the writing careening back towards the modern jazz side of the jazz-rock line, but always sporting a tasty edge. 

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Fernando Guiomar & Paulo Chagas - Escape and Return (Zpoluras Archives, 2016) ****1/2

By Paul Acquaro

This new record from the acoustic guitar and woodwind duo of Fernando Guiomar and Paulo Chagas is an unexpected stunner. The opening track, 'Escape and Return' begins with a gentle folksy whimsy, but it hardly takes time for the two to dig in, and let loose with a fiery passion. Their paths interlock on the clear strong plucks of the guitar strings and incisive flute work. Tension rises between their notes, dynamics and dissonances, arpeggios and articulations, it's in the empty spaces that so much can happen - and does. 

After the recap of the opener with the track "Obtuse", they switch up instrumentation and "Mordacious" finds Chagas on clarinet, capitalizing on the woodsy sound of the instrument and spitting out bluesy lines over Guiomar's dense rhythmic comping. Mixing in moments of classical, klezmer, and swing, the short tune is a fun affair that sets the stage for melancholic "Sentimental". There is plenty more of course, for example "Nau dos Corvos", whose experimental demeanor runs the gamut from playful to alarming.

Recorded with great attention to clarity and detail, Escape and Return has that certain something that surprises and engages throughout.

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Henry Kaiser and Robert Musso - Echoes for Sonny (There, 2015) ****

By Paul Acquaro

For guitar fans - especially ones of crunchy electric jazz rock, Echoes for Sonny is must hear. The result of a collaboration between two veterans of the downtown New York City music scene, the album, a tribute to a mutual friend and influence, Sonny Sharrock, is a powerful and exciting tribute and a highly original album.

Guitarists Henry Kaiser and Robert Musso grace the back cover of the CD jacket, standing under the Sonny Sharrock Way street sign in Ossining, NY. Both had worked with the influential free-jazz guitarist in the 80s and 90s. Musso as a part of the group Machine Gun and Kaiser on various tours. On this album, they are joined by third guitarist Nick Didkovsky, bassist Jesse Kraków and drummer Weasel Walter

They begin with a version of the catchy - yes catchy - 'Promises Kept' from Sharrock's masterful Ask the Ages album (just given a re-release). After the rousing intro, delivered with all the crunch and verve one could want, the quintet dives into free playing that goes from melodic shards to avant-metal shredding. There are two other Sharrock penned songs on the album, 'The Echoes' and 'Many Mansion', the rest are originals credited to the entire group. 'Raga Mishra-Musso' follows the fiery opener with a exploratory introduction of intersecting modes that coalesces into a layered epic. The penultimate 'Off-Axis' is a captivating track, with the three guitarists creating a sticky web of sound for the listener to get entangled in.

Excellent, energetic, and enjoyable, Echoes For Sonny is the kind of tribute that draws from the source, then goes beyond.

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Marek Kadziela Adhd – In Bloom (ForTune, 2016) ***½

By Chris Haines

In Bloom has a somewhat more post-modernist feel to it than most modern jazz albums. This is nothing particularly new or surprising as a lot of modern jazz can be very eclectic in its range of influences. However, this particular album by Marek Kadziela’s Adhd seems to change its focus on style and form from track to track, not that this is a negative thing or done in a clichéd way.

To illustrate my point, the first track ‘Be-Bop Maker’ is as it suggests a piece of bop influenced music, ‘Rocky, Rolig!’ has a swing inflected rhythm, ‘May for MP’ displays a ‘cool’ vibe, whilst ‘Impro I & II’ contain the harsher avant-garde sounds. Then there’s the contemporary solo guitar etude of ‘Edithtiude’ with it’s quasi-classical picking technique, and the smoochy ballad of Thelonius Monk’s ‘Ask Me Now’, with it’s inclusion of an old radio broadcast complete with radio static and crackling sounds to conjure up a bygone era. In some settings this could come across like the band is trying too hard to show-off their diversity, which in itself can become a creative trap that skilled and talented musicians can fall into. But with Marek Kadziela at the helm the separate styles and elements, which could easily have been a disparate set of approaches, all come through Kadziela’s musical prism that gives the music a unified whole.

The group is a quartet of guitar, bass clarinet, double bass, and percussion with saxophone & trumpet guesting on some tracks. The sound of the album with it’s close-miked horns also gives it a slight flavour of retro-sound, making it more contemporary in it’s sound properties with older classic recordings and some of the styles that the pieces on the album clearly signpost. Others may hear it differently, but it’s interesting to note that’s how I felt about it and how certain sounds can point to similar or even non-similar experiences because of the way it makes us feel.

Overall this is a good album and it has been interesting to follow Marek Kadziela’s musical development over the last few years with albums such as Hunger Pangs, and 10 Little Stories, with Ksawery Wójcinski, having come before. In Bloom, in some ways, is a more mature statement of intent and it will be interesting to see where the guitarist goes from here.

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Marc Ducret Trio + 3 – Métatonal (Ayler, 2015) ****½

By Chris Haines

Recorded live in December 2014 at Le Triton, France, over several nights, the Marc Ducret Trio (Bruno Chevillon – Double Bass, Eric Champard – Drums & Marc Ducret – Electric Guitar) are joined by a horn trio of Fabrice Martinez – Trumpet, Christophe Monniot – Saxophones and Samuel Blaser – Trombone. The five tracks that make-up the album consist of a good balance of pre-composed and improvised material.

The album literally kicks-in with ‘Dialectes’, the trio power housing a strong and hammering sound with Ducret’s guitar producing a repetitive sustained siren-like sound whilst the industry of Eric Champard’s drumming keeps the textural intensity through the rhythm, which gradually falls away to a much sparser sound world of cymbals, wandering bass line and a sympathetic and freely improvised lead line from the guitar. The piece eventually picking-up it’s intensity with the trio rocking-out towards the end of the track. Not much is heard from the horns during this first piece for the trio, but apart from that there is much in this first piece that gets played out over the rest of the album.

The pieces on Métatonal appear well structured in form, moving from more worked through elements to sections where the musicians get to roam more freely creating quite clearly defined sections within the music which is also highlighted between the strong contrasts in texture and dynamic range. Intricate and spidery single lines are also juxtaposed against full-on slabs of rock, riffs and noise-based materials. The solid and dexterous bass playing of Bruno Chevillon holds the pieces firmly in place through different tempi and time signature changes with the horns embellishing the music with their presence more as an elaborate ornamentation in an orchestral sense rather than an integral part of the group’s music. This is not to say that the horn section are superfluous add-ons, as Samuel Blaser’s searching trombone solo illustrates in ‘Kumiho’, clearly taking centre stage both musically and structurally within the piece, not to mention Monniot’s saxophone dialogue with Ducret in the same piece. However, the horns presence is cleverly utilised to bring another dimension to the trio’s playing offering a much wider array of sound and colour over the course of the album and only being used to provide that in a compositional sense. Because of that there is an emphasis on structure throughout the album, but this in no way bogs down the individual playing, particularly that of Ducret whose guitar playing is completely on form, weaving his atonal (or metatonal) lines into a magical web of free complexity. The third track ’64…’ includes the Bob Dylan tunes ‘The Times They Are A Changing’ and ‘Wigwam’, the latter eventually being used as a solid backdrop for the horns to swarm over whilst dovetailing and overlapping their phrases. Whilst the former sounds completely refreshed and vibrant with it’s African-esque rhythmic accompaniment, horn-led chorus and extended harmonies.

This is a highly original album that does not return to well-worn formats when seeking structural unity, but instead finds a good musical balance between grounded form and more inspirational moments. The recordings are excellent and the balance between the instruments is that of studio quality with the vibrancy of a live recording. This is a fantastic album from the guitarist, which clearly contains his vision as well as his excellent playing.

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Julian Lage Trio - Arclight (Mack Avenue, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

I don't think you can find a better example of flow then in the sinuous lines of Julian Lage's electric guitar. A razor thin Telecaster tone slithers out of the speakers at the start of 'Fortune Teller' and refuses to leave thereafter.

The smart fusiony opener gives way to the ebullient old-timey 'Persian Rug' - a song performed by Jack Teargarden. A few months ago in an interview with Lage, he spoke about this record (he was fresh off recording it then) and mentioned his fascination with the "pre-great American songbook" - as he described it - tunes from the 20s and 30s that were 'the wild-west' of songwriting, before the styles and formulas set in. It's obvious he enjoys teasing out these traditions and giving them a good workout.

His bandmates are bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wolleson. Two of the key figures in bringing this type of folk-tinged modern jazz to life. Between the two, they have an extensive working relationship with almost everyone it seems - like Bill Frisell, Jim Hall, and many more - and they certainly bring their well-honed sensibilities to bear.

The track 'Supera' is a great example of the group's grasp on the ephemeral nature of this light-hearted and deep-rooted music. Breezily, the Latin-tinged tune builds from Wolleson's economically placed beats. 'Stop Go Start' gets into some more atmospheric ramblings, happily coloring outside the lines. One could go on and on, as there is much to describe, but suffice to say, Arclight is a great recording and a primer on just how a good a guitar trio can sound.

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Ross Hammond and Sameer Gupta - Upward (Prescott, 2016) ***½

By Paul Acquaro

Last year's Flight found guitarist Ross Hammond in a contemplative mood - documenting his solo guitar works. This year, he has teamed up with tabla player Sameer Gupta to expand that vision with an ear towards the more rhythmically complex.

The duo has a sound that perhaps recalls a bit of Ralph Towner circa Solo/Trios (ECM, 1973) and maybe a bit of Steve Tibbets' acoustic work on Big Map Idea (ECM, 1994). However, those are just mere associations, as Hammond's approach is uniquely his own blend of roots and influences. While Upward is wholly original, it is also somehow familiar, there is something deeply satisfying about the rich acoustic sounds of the acoustic 12-string's open tuning and slide work ringing out along side the clear precise tones of the tabla.

The album is a mix of worlds - a mélange of Americana and excellent neo-traditional sounding percussion work. The tracks pour forth like a crystal clear brook passing swiftly over rocks rounded over by time's eternal flow.

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Jeff Parker / Rob Mazurek - Some Jelly Fish Live Forever (Rouge Art, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Is there reason to buy new vinyl? Is there any reason not to just stream an album, and never to feel that physical artifact, born from the blood, sweat, and tears of so many, working so hard, to bring to life?

I think you know my answer.

Holding guitarist Jeff Parker and Cornetist Rob Mazurek's vinyl only Some Jellyfish Live Forever, I have the gatefold open in my hands and am reading Alain Drouot's no-nonsense liner notes. Referencing the duo's associations through the years in several Chicago based groups and then delving into the subject of immortal jellyfish, it is pure joy.

I had first heard about this recording last year from Mazurek and had been looking forward to it since. And, I'm not disappointed. Mazurek is all acoustic, leaving behind the electronics that have permeated a significant body of his work, and while Parker's guitar is fed through various effects, his sound and approach never overpower. The two blend nicely, creating a series of soundscapes in which the guitar lays the ground work while Mazurek delivers lovely austere melodies.

What a pleasure to stop and listen to this album - the sound so organic and textural. It moves slowly, slyly, without hurry. The duo's music still tingles in my ear as the record runs out and the non-automatic tone arm of my record player delivers a pop as sure as a breath. As I put down the big white album jacket, after reading the liner notes and checking out the photos, a small download card tumbles out. I look at it - is it worth it?

Available at Downtown Music Gallery.

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Burkhard Stangl / Steve Bates - Hopefullessness (The Dim Coast, 2015) ***½

By Eyal Hareuveni

Austrian Burkhard Stangl and Canadian Steve Bates do play electric guitars, but both experiment with the guitar's sounds, expanding its sonic outputs with electronics (and Stangl also adds CD player). Stangl belongs to the Viennese alternative musicians collective Klingt, known for his work with fellow Austrian sonic explorers Christian Fennesz and Christoph Kurzmann and with British sax innovator John Butcher. Bates collaborates with other like-minded experimentalists, researching sounds, its boundaries and borders, sounds in conflict, sounds in space and in time. The two have performed together with local Canadian sound artists as part of the 2012 events of the Suoni Per Il Popolo festival and a year later in Vienna with local like-minded improvisers.

Hopefullessness was recorded in Bates Home base, Montréal, and released on his own label, The Dim Coast. It offers three improvised perspectives about sculpting sounds produced with electric guitars and enhanced by electronics. The first, short “Two” contrast Bates turbulent, dense drone of distorted, noisy guitar sounds with Stangl's gentle, sparse melodic guitar line. The 20-minute contemplative “One” revolves around Stangl's sustained, resonant somehow bluesy kind of strumming disturbed occasionally with Bates' abstract sounds and static noises, that slowly attract more momentum and volume. This piece is developed patiently as a mysterious, multi-layered atmospheric texture. The last piece, the 17-minutes “Three”, summarizes this arresting meeting. It weaves gently Stangl wise manner of creating a rich, non-linear narrative out of fractured, sudden strumming of the guitar, often gravitating towards sparse melodic patterns, with Bates spicing up the texture, first with pure static sounds, and later by intensifying its course with parallel, distorted guitar lines.

Highly original.

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