Aram Bajakian – Dolphy Formations (s/r, 2016) ****

By Eric McDowell

What to expect when Aram Bajakian puts out a new album? While fans of the shape-shifting guitarist should know better than to be surprised, little of Bajakian’s work—whether with his groups Kef and Abraxas or on recent albums like there were flowers also in hell, music inspired by the color of pomegranates, or Dálava—predicts the direction he takes on Dolphy Formations, self-released late last year. In place of the rhythmically energetic virtuosic playing I often associate with Bajakian’s playing (not to mention Eric Dolphy’s), on his latest album he presents an hour-long meditation built of overlapping long tones, rich textures, and patiently sustained sonic tension.  Low on pyrotechnics, high on nuance, Dolphy Formations is one of those magic albums that warp the listener’s sense of scale, turning details as tiny as a single plucked guitar string into surprising, centering events.

It’s hard to discuss Dolphy Formations without invoking themes of meditation. Indeed there’s an element of ritual or ceremony to the album. For me it starts with the process of clearing some time, finding a place to sit still, and setting up my headphones—all this necessary, I think, to appreciate the subtlety to the music. The regularity and duration of the three Variations, with each coming to rest between 19 and 20 minutes, suggests a calm, measured exercise of attention. The improvisations themselves are based on Dolphy’s “synthetic” scales, passed from their originator to Yusef Lateef to Bajakian in a lineage of masters.

If meditation extends into the actual listening experience—I won’t try to speak for all listeners—it may be in the way the playing leads the ear without really taking it anywhere. Despite its three-part structure, this isn’t music of beginnings, middles, and endings, but a perpetual present continually refreshed. In achieving this remarkable effect, Bajakian is aided by cellist Peggy Lee and trumpet player JP Carter (together forming the Handmade Blade trio). Unlike more stereotypically monolithic drone music, here each instrument slides into prominence in relatively short cycles, creating gently sinuous patterns of rise and fall. While timbral intensity and tonal complexity make for moments of great tension, terms like climax and resolution don’t apply. Each new color, texture, or micro-event in the slowly unfolding process is just enough to occupy the attention without keeping it from letting go. None of this is to say that Dolphy Formations can’t bear a whole other, purely musical perspective of appreciation. Bajakian is a dedicated educator, and however you like to look at it, his music has plenty to teach.

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Aram Bajakian and Julia Uleha - Dálava (sanasar, 2014) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Dálava is an ambitious - and it seems - very personal project by husband and wife team guitarist Aram Bajakian and vocalist Julia Ulehla. It's a song cycle set to fragments and stanzas of poetry and verse recorded by Ulehla's great-grandfather Vladimir Úlehla in eastern Europe at the start of the 20th century. While the poems are set to music inspired by Moravian folk songs, they are performed with a free jazz ethos that straddles a line between folk and avant-garde.

The music is both ethereal and hard hitting. Bajakian's guitar slithers between sounds and scales that sets up at times a haunting atmosphere. Ulehla conveys the joys and struggle captured in the old songs. Though sung in Czech, the translations of the lyrics are printed in the CD case and a reading of them in English helps to deepen the listening experience. Timeless and to the point, the existential angst and small pleasures of life are laid out to the world again in the music Bajakian has composed:

'Eh, love, love, well, you're never stable, like water between the banks. Water flows, love ends, like dew on a clover'  - (Ej, lásko, lásko)

Ah, my god, how I have been wronged, but to who can I complain when I have no parents? In the cemetery in Strážnice there is a little bush, and there rests my old father. In the cemetery in Strážnice there is a gray dove, and there rests my dear mother.  - (Ach, bože muj)

Lyrics aside, the tunes are further brought to life by the group. Joining Bajakian and Uleha is Tom Swafford on violin, Skye Steeke on violin and Shanir Blumenkranz on bass and gimibri. You may recognize some of these names from some of Bajakian's other recordings on the blog - most particularly Kef and Axbraxas. Be rest assured their downtown ethos is fully intact and they interject the right amount of support and irreverence into the already evocative arragements. 

Be sure to check out this album, it is a refreshing take folk music, comprised of time tinted memories and remembered sounds set in a modern context. Just enjoy. 

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Aram Bajakian's Kef (Tzadik, 2011) ****½

 By Paul Acquaro

Picked by John Zorn for his new Spotlight series on Tzadic records, one suspects something interesting must be is going on with Aram Bajakian's trio. One spin of the Brooklyn based guitarists debut recording and these suspicions are confirmed. The songs on this album seductively, destructively and quite entertainingly blend passion, reverence and a little self-immolation. In the words of Zorn himself, "the music here rocks hard with exciting rhythms, searing guitar work and beautiful world music melodies, beautifully performed by a brilliant group of young lions."

Bajakian's choice instrumentation is slightly eclectic for a jazz group -- himself on acoustic and electric guitar, Tom Swafford on violin and Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz on acoustic bass, electric bass, oud, and gimbri -- but perfectly suited for the take on Armenian folk music that inspires and shapes both the music and the name of the group. Dialing up the snarl and twang, Bajakian's guitar brings some rock and good old NYC punk to the Middle Eastern themes. I hear echoes of Television and Ribot throughout, giving this recording a biting and satisfying edge.

Opening with 'Pear Tree', Bajakian spins a sensitive solo acoustic guitar piece that belies a classical grace and a hint of more exotic seasonings. Things really pick up on the next song, the ethnic rhythms support some sharp attacks as the driving theme gives way to some vicious improvisation between guitar and the violin. Proving mastery of the 'downtown' guitar solo implosion, Bajakian lets loose.

'Laz Bar' returns us back to stabler ground, the theme is folkier and gentler, but still insistent. However, along with then abandon, there are moments of restraint and beauty. The last three tunes, starting with 'Shish', seem almost like a suite. Fragile melodies intertwine with deliberate accompaniment, I even hear a hint of the Beatles in the brief '48 Days'. 'The Rota' is an lovely coda to the recording.

This is a very much a song driven affair. The improvisations are contained within the clever compositions, and the compositions are made of choice cuts of folk, jazz, and rock. To some degree I feel some kinship with the Cubano Postizos and Brad Shepik, Matt Kilmer and Peter Epstein's Lingua Franca, not so much in the actual tunes, but in the sensibilities and that certain sense of abandon and 'downtown' aesthetic. An album worth seeking out, and a musical vision with something going on.

© Paul Acquaro

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Dálava - The Book of Transfigurations (Songlines, 2017) ****

By Paul Acquaro

The core of the group Dálava is the husband and wife team of vocalist Julia Úlehla and guitarist Aram Bajakian. They released the first Dálava album in 2014 and like The Book of Transfigurations, it is an exploration of Moravian folk songs collected by Úlehla’s great-grandfather, sung in Czech, and set to the more contemporary downtown NYC sound cultivated by Bajakian. The care and concern put into crafting the music, stemming from Úlehla family roots, plus the adventurous compositions from Bajakian (who worked with Lou Reed, the rambunctious group Abraxas, as well as created the meditative Dolphy Formations) make for a potent combo. 

Let's jump right in on track three, 'Dyž sem já šel pres hory / The rocks began to crumble'. The words, translated are of a young man’s heartbreak, being torn away from the woman he want’s to marry because he’s being drafted to war … 

Get married my girl, my golden heart,
I am not allowed to take a wife
I received a note, a little note, note
I must go to war.

Úlehla’s voice is haunting, there is a compressed urgency and a folksiness that doesn’t quite settle into, or leave, your ears. Bajakian delivers slashing guitar work that captures the internal tearing apart by conflicting romantic and patriotic loves. On the next track, 'Co ste si mamičko za dům stavjat dali / Iron bars, iron lock’, Úlehla’s voice is front an center, while an accordion provides appropriately forlorn accompaniment:

What kind of a house did you build for yourself, mama
Neither windows nor doors, only walls

On a later track, 'Okolo Hradišča voděnka teče / He's bringing something for me’, the music swells from quiet reflection into a wrenching explosion of sound. Such contrasts of old and new, and stylistic juxtapositions make the album compelling, while the language leaves many listeners simply hanging onto the expressive emotion of Úlehla’s voice rather than the meaning - the translations, invoking timeless themes, are provided within the accompanying booklet. 

The Dálava band is comprised of Vancouver musicians: cellist Peggy Lee, bassist Colin Cowan, accordionist/keyboardist Tyson Naylor, and drummer Dylan van der Schyff. This isn’t the group that recorded the first album, which was drawn from the guitarists New York City groups. Bajakian and Úlehla have been living in BC for the past several years. While the downtown vibe was mentioned earlier, it is a not omnipresent, rather a calm, assured, expressiveness permeates the album. Check it out - listen closely and let time collapse around you.  

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Aram Bajakian - there were flowers also in hell (self released, 2014) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

Use Aram Bajakian's there were flowers also in hell to kick off your next party. Put on 'Texas Cannonball' and watch as your guests begin to dance. A little later in the tune they may be tempted to get stoned, but they'll soon be dancing again, albeit perhaps just a little slower. In fact, your guests won't even notice the seque into the next track. The gorgeous 'Loutone' picks up on the previous song's theme and then proceeds to deconstruct it into a buzzing, shimmering, and ultimately blazing tribute to Lou Reed.

Each listen to there were flowers also in hell reveals new layers and ideas. Track three, 'Requiem for 5 Pointz', the controversial industrial building featuring a graffiti exhibit that was whitewashed over by the owners in their effort to turn it over to developers late last year, is an evocative solo guitar piece in the vein of Anders Nilsson's Night Guitar or Marc Ribot's Silent Movies. This reflective piece is followed up by the feisty Eastern-tinged 'Orbisonian'. The laid back ballad 'Sweet Blue Eyes' is just bursting with melody, and somehow, in some non-sensical, completely unwarranted way, keeps suggesting to me certain moments from 'Don't Let Me Down'. 'Rent Party' may be the most infectious song of all - a dark groove, blues-like changes, and a serious dose of sludgy post-rock all in the span of 5 minutes. To think, I'm only half way through this album!

there were flowers also in hell is a strong musical statement by Bajakian, an inventive guitarists who has worked with Diana Krall and Lou Reed, and is member of the powerful group Abraxas. The band on this record includes bassist Shahzad Ismaily from Ceramic Dog and drummer Jerome Jennings.

Bajakian describes it a blues album on his website. That's a nice an open term for the music - it's downtown New York, it's blues, it's rock, it's guitar, it's free-jazz, and it's quite enjoyable.

Give the album teaser a try:

Purchase through Bandcamp:  http://arambajakian.bandcamp.com/

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Guitar Week - Day 1: Bajakian / Bjorkenheim / Hammond / MacKay / Valdes

Comes the end of the year ... a time of best of polls, the guilt and regret of not being able to cover all of the wonderful music that has come out during the year, and a guitar week!

By Paul Acquaro

Aram Bajakian - Music Inspired by the Color of Pomegranates (s/r, 2015) ****½

This is the soundscape for the day after. It doesn't really matter the day after what, rather it's the feeling of waking up to a day, the outside world remote and kept that way, the mind and body disengaged in the best way possible. This album captures that vague feeling so well, so stark, so reflective, yet at the same time so warm and human.

Guitarist Aram Bajakian was inspired to create this album after watching an Armenian movie The Color of Pomegranates. Feeling a connection with the film, he constructed this evocative soundtrack layering on acoustic and electric guitars. Relying on long repetitive classical motifs and thoughtful legato lines, the music is impossible not to float in and savor.

Varying pitch and intensity, sometimes evoking middle eastern flavored modes and using short melodic passages, Bajakian employs drone tones and rhythmic repetition to great effect. Listen to 'Nothing but Suffering' for an example, or the haunting 'Refuge'.

This is a beautiful recording with 21 short song vignettes presenting a range of emotion and approaches all showing off Bajakian at his contemplative best.

Raoul Bjorkenheim Ecstasy - Out of the Blue (Cuneiform, 2015) ****½

Guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim's tone is pretty identifiable. It's laser pointed but fuzzy, tough but brittle, and his group Ecstasy brings out the best of his playing. In my review of the first album by the group, a reader suggested a close connection with Bjorkenheim's earlier with with his group Krakatau. Like with that ensemble, Bjorkenheim is working with a quartet that features a range of woodwinds and percussion instruments, listening to Matinale (ECM, 1994) from Krakatau, one can hear the biting guitar work juxtaposed with the world music influences. With Ecstasy, we hear the intervening years of working with the power trios of Scorch and with Blixt honing the focus and ferocity of his playing. Ectasy is the work of Bjorkenheim on guitar,  Pauli Lyytinen on saxophonist, Markku Ounaskari on drums, and Jori Huhtala on bass.

A long intro of guitar, bass and drums kicks off  'Heads & Tails', setting up the entrance of the saxophone. Lyytinen first appears shadowing Bjorkenheim's fluid lines before breaking off into a solo that seems to hold back just a bit. However, the restraint doesn't last long, soon Lyyntinen is on a mission, his playing contrasting with Bjorkenheim's fragmentary comping. 'Quintrille' is a modern jazz piece that takes off with a catchy riff and continues in a breezy jazz rock vein. A highlight of the album is 'Uptown', in which Bjorkenheim makes great use of his jagged tone over a skittering beat. The sax and guitar meet in hard charging a duel. The quick 'Roller Coaster' has a melody that reminds me a bit of a theme that could have appeared in a Return to Forever tune (I mean this a good way). Like the aforementioned work by Krakatau, there are moments here where the textures and rhythms of world music shine through, adding depth to the guitarists musical statements.

Bjorkenheim's latest delivers on a great jazz rock filled vision. Like the surreal cover of horse and rider entering a kitchen, the guitarist brings and element of surprise to the table in his juxtaposing of rock, jazz, and free elements.

Ross Hammond - Mean Crow (Prescott Records, 2015) ****

Sacremento based guitarist Ross Hammond, a prolific musician who released the refreshing solo acoustic album Flight earlier this year, just can't keep away from the harder stuff. His previous quartet and sextet albums have explored  the avant-garde and avant-rock and since the solo recording, he has released two improvised rockers including Lowburn with Steuart Liebig and Jon Bafus and now the lean trio Mean Crow.

Mean Crow is a meeting with two Washington DC based musicians that has yielded an energy filled noise drenched tape/digital release that is worth a half hour of your time time on earth to hear. It begins with dense smears of crunch and fervor, and only lets up to switch gears between dense noise, rapid fire single note lines.

Recorded live at the Back Alley in Washington DC during the Fall of 2014, the group is Hammond on guitar, Luke Stewart on bass and Nate Scheible on drums. After the expansive Humanity Suite and Flight, it's great to hear Hammond so fired up and fierce!

Hammond has taken an interesting approach to releasing music as well, setting up a subscription service where for $25 a year you get a deep dive into his work.

Bill MacKay's Darts and Arrows - Altamira (ears&eyes Records, 2015) ***½

A review of Bill MacKay's work appeared a few months back during a series on some duo releases. On that recording, he was very much in a reflective Americana mode, trading off with bassist Mat Lux. On this recording with his group Darts and Arrows, MacKay doesn't loose the reflective quality but there are certainly many more intense moments with a much expanded instrumentation.

Darts and Arrows is MacKay - guitar, Ben Boye - keys, Kyle Hernandez - bass, and Quin Kirchner - drums with guest appearances by Renee Baker (viola) & Nick Mazzarella (alto sax). Their overall sound is improve laden Post-Rock with a strong folk-rock infusion. The songs are melodic nuggets, more complex instrumentals than typical rock tunes and more inside than say a free-jazz blowing session. Sometimes slow and unfolding like the opening song, sometimes churning ('Demons'), and other times just absolutely perfect ('Look Out'), there is an engaging diversity among a fairly consistent sound.

MacKays' guitar sound is that lovely balance between clean and crunch and the Fender Rhodes adds a nice shimmer. Check out the Latin tinged 'Molasses Tragedy' for a great example of the album's nicely balanced and edgy mix.

Harvey Valdes - Roundabout (s/r, 2015) ****

I didn't expect this ... knowing New York based guitarist Harvey Valdes' work primarily from his album with Blaise Siwula and Gian Luigi Diana Tesla Coils which worked in a completely improvised and somewhat noisy setting. On Roundabout however, Valdes are treated to sublime finger picked arrangements of standards like 'All the Things You Are' (which really only offers whispers of the well worn tune) and 'In Your Own Sweet Way' by Dave Brubeck (whose lush unhurried arrangement begs repeat listenings).

On Roundabout, Valdes embraces the whole instrument in his arrangements. It's not so much the sense of space between the notes that one savors but rather the beautiful density of the chord voicings, droplets of harmony notes, and interweaving melodic lines.

This is one for the guitar aficionados, it's not out-there, but its carefully arranged songs are stunningly beautiful.

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Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz : Abraxas: The Book Of Angels Vol. 19 (Tzadik, 2012) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz's interpretations of John Zorn's second Masada book is a raucous one that is full of energy and urgency. In fact, the Tzadic website describes it well as the "most primal and tribal installments in the Book of Angels series"

This power quartet of sorts is Blumenkranz on the gimbri - a bass-like instrument from Morocco, Aram Bajakian and Eyol Maoz on very electric guitars, and Kenny Grohowski on drums. Sharing in some of the energy and rawness of Marc Ribot's Asmodeus, Abraxas devilishly mixes the dark klezmer melodies and rhythms with full on free-punk-jazz energy.

However, it would be quite wrong to lump the whole affair under a label like punk, which can suggest a certain well worn consistency. Songs like 'Yassreil' is atmospheric and mysterious, 'Muriel' blistering, and the 'Nahuriel' begins with a prog-rock like set of riffs before devolving into a whorl of distorted guitar. Suffice to say, at the tunes all have their own identity within an approach that is insidiously infectious.

Perhaps the relative simplicity of the gimibri could be seen as the core of the recording. It has three strings, one of which is a drone, and overall lends itself well to the looping bass lines of the songs. It is from these lines that Bajakian and Maoz spin feral melodies and Grohowski pushes them along deftly, like on 'Nachmiel', which starts with a comfortable melody and soon evolves into a multilayered free-rock affair.

There is a certain consistency to the music, there is a certain amount of cohesion that connects this book of songs, and there is a wonderful contrast between the delicately melodic and thrillingly thrashing.

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Die Glorreichen Sieben: Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World (Boomslang Records, 2013) ****

By Martin Schray

I have always wondered if it was possible to combine Neil Young and free jazz, two of the musical loves of my life – but somehow I couldn’t imagine how you could do this. Kalle Kalima (g), Flo Götte (b), Christian Lillinger (dr, perc) and Alfred Vogel (dr, perc) have tried it and the result works in a really surprising way. The trick is to use two drummers instead of two guitars. While Neil Young knows how to use Crazy Horse, maybe the best-oiled machine in rock, as a backing band to display his orgiastically meandering solos, Die Glorreichen Sieben (The Magnificent Seven) are a unit of equal soloists who put the emphasis on the rhythm section, deconstructing and re-constructing some of Young’s greatest hits like “Zimtmädchen” (Cinnamon Girl), “Welt – Rocken” (Rockin’ in the Free World), “Heart of Gold”, After the Goldrush” or “Like a Hurricane”.

Helsinki-born Kalle Kalima uses Neil Young’s typical elements, the open chords and his typical guitar sound, he also lets the solos breathe, never denying the folk element in Mr Young’s music. The most beautiful example for this approach is “After the Goldrush”, which sounds as if Bill Frisell had adopted it.

Essential to Young’s music is the feeling of vastness and freedom and Alfred Vogel said that Die Glorreichen Sieben also wanted to create this by putting Christian Lillinger’s drums on the right channel and his own on the left. He said that they wanted to create a deep and wide carpet of sound, an enormous texture. In between there is Flo Götte’s bass, which is a mixture of Billy Talbot’s stoical Crazy Horse bass figures and Frank Sampedro’s rhythm guitar.

Sometimes it seems as if the band had to dig deep to find the melodies and riffs which are covered by a thick layer of dust (it takes three minutes in “Zimtmädchen” and “Rockin’ in the Free World” is hardly recognizable) but as soon as they have found them they crumble to dust again (for example in “Like a Hurricane”), which doesn’t matter because the band uses the originals only as an impulse to ride into different directions in order to discover what kind of country you can find beyond the fence.

A very interesting album for fans of Bill Frisell’s Americana albums (e.g. “Good Dog Happy Man”), Marc Ribot or Aram Bajakian’s “there were also flowers in hell”. And of course for Paul.

Watch “Heart of Gold” here:

The album is available on CD and as a download via the website: http://www.traps.at/boomslang

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Guitar Week: Abraxas - Psychomagia (Tzadik, 2014) ****

By Martin Schray

When I was 17 and learned to play the guitar I was fascinated by jazz rock and especially guitarists like John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, Al Di Meola, and Larry Carlton because I was impressed by their technical abilities. My love for jazz rock or fusion didn’t last long, though, since I thought it was too often about displaying these skills instead of concepts, spirituality, subtle ideas and sound - as David S. Ware once put it (although I still like some early McLaughlin and Coryell recordings).

On the other hand I have always loved John Zorn and it was obvious that his idea of fusion was different and off the beaten paths. For Psychomagia he has used non-musical – in this case philosophical and cinematic - sources like the medieval Dominican friar, pantheist philosopher, poet and astronomer Giordano Bruno and avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (mainly known for his surrealistic western “El Topo”). Psychomagia is a part of Zorn’s Masada Book Two – The Book of Angels series, a circle for which he has composed hundreds of tunes, and which he has realized with artists as different as the Masada String Trio, the Ben Goldberg Quartet, Pat Metheny or The Dreamers. For the compositions on this album he has chosen Abraxas, a band including Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz (b), Kenny Grohowski (dr) and Eyal Maoz and Aram Bajakian on guitars. It is their second album for Zorn after The Book of Angels Vol. 19.

What distinguishes Zorn’s tunes from ordinary fusion is his wild mixture of styles and his postmodern approach mixing surf sounds (“Metapsychomagia”), playful country miniatures (“Sacred Emblems”), heavy rock (“Circe”), references to his own works like The Gnostic Trio’s In Lambeth (“Squaring the Circle”), math rock and Moonchild echoes (“Celestial Mechanism”), psychedelic art rock (“Evocation of the Triumphant Beast”), mad jazz rock (“Four Rivers”) or almost sparkling new age textures (“Anima Mundi”). However, all these tracks are true Zorn compositions interwoven with Near Eastern melodies, western soundscapes and jazzy wackiness and Abraxas play these pieces with the abrasive, breathtaking energy of a monstrous jam session. The musicians never consider technical skills as ends in themselves, they always serve the compositions.

Psychomagia is a High Mass for guitar freaks, fans of the music of Frank Zappa and for those who like the harsher sides of Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot.

Watch the excellent ”Four Rivers“ video here:

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