Moment's Notice Reviews of Recent Recordings
Robert Carl
Two versions of “A Clean Sweep” bookend the album. The version that opens the album is scored for one shakuhachi, played by Elizabeth Brown and what Carl calls “fixed media,” a set of recorded sounds that remains constant from performance to performance; Carl is the second shakuhachi players on the version that closes the album. Both versions explore the contrasts between the pellucid wisps of shakuhachi and the metallic ringing of an electronic drone. Brown is sufficiently captivating on her own; the articulation of each note is spot on as the piece shifts emotional bearings. Brown and Carl glide in each other’s wake on the two-flute version; they also manage to maintain the spaciousness of the solo version. Following the solo with “Bullet Cycle” proved to be seamless. The processed samples of bullet trains slowly become audible and tone-setting before they enter into slow back-and-forth dissolves with filtered modal chords. A trio of instrumentalists give the material a tangible improvised feel: vibraphonist Bill Solomon, who largely maintains the piece’s undulating pulses; cellist Katie Kennedy, who slips in and out of the mix with elegantly bowed phrases; and “percussive timekeeper” Sayun Chang, who minimally marks time with little instruments. However, they don’t convey a Japanese influence anywhere near as overtly and fluently as bassoonist Ryan Hare on “Brown Velvet,” a duet with laptop player Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn; Hare’s enveloping phrases, bent notes and multiphonics approximate the shakuhachi – its colors bleeding into the slowing descending drone – but not at the expense of diluting the bassoonist’s rich tone. The program is rounded out by “Collapsible Mandala;” conceived to be a sound installation, it is nearly a half-hour mix of vividly contrasting field recordings; a powerful listening experience despite being reduced to a stereo field.
John Coxon + Evan Parker + Eddie Prévost
Ernest Dawkins
Dawkins assembled a new group specifically for this project. It features trumpeter Corey Wilkes, pianist Willerm Delisfort, bassist Junius Paul and drummer Isaiah Spencer regaling in robust versions of well-known standards like “Central Park West” and “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise.” The quintet is frequently augmented by guest percussionists Ruben Alvarez, Greg Carmouche and/or Greg Penn, who bolster the proceedings with a variety of Afro-Latin rhythms. Additionally, Ben Peterson sits in on Hammond B-3 organ for a sublime rendition of “God Bless The Child.” Dawkins’ searing tone and quicksilver phrasing imbues the session with bold lyricism, whether the material is ballads, blues or bop classics. He establishes the set’s intrepid tone straight away with a soaring performance of John Coltrane’s “Mr. PC,” where his probing tenor salvos follow Wilkes’ equally virtuosic fanfares. It’s an interpretation that sets the stage for a series of spirited performances, including a bracing run through the bebop staple “Woody ‘N You” and an atmospheric reading of Wayne Shorter’s haunting “Footprints.” The nimble rhythm section invests each of these familiar tunes with an elastic sense of swing, highlighted by Delisfort’s gamboling filigrees, which are often buoyed by a battery of polyrhythmic percussion. Closing with a rhapsodic tear through Shorter’s enigmatic “Juju,” Dawkins’ multiphonic cadences careen over a churning, syncopated undercurrent, confirming the leader’s goal to reinvent beloved chestnuts in his own personalized style. While it’s not as conceptually daring as his albums with the New Horizons Ensemble or Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, the aptly-titled Afro Straight is nonetheless one of Dawkins’ most enjoyable recordings.
Morton Feldman
There are three key elements to “Crippled Symmetry”, each of which shape the listener’s perception of movement and time in subtly different ways. There are, of course, the core thematic kernels which are repeated with slightly graded changes of inflection and pacing. Then, there are the written parts themselves. There is no master score for the piece, but instead, three separate parts which the musicians must collectively superimpose. As such, no two performances are exactly the same with each part moving in and out of phase with an organic sense of intersection and flow. Finally, there is the instrumentation, with the use of flute, alto flute, and bass flute; concert piano and celesta; and glockenspiel and vibraphone allowing for shifting gradations of timbre which minutely shape the harmonic interactions of the trio. Blum, Vigeland, and Williams performed the premier of the piece and were also featured on the first recording, released on a currently out-of-print release on the HatNow label. So it was fitting that the three came together in June, 2000 to perform the piece in Buffalo at the 25th anniversary of the first festival that Feldman initiated for “Morton Feldman and Soloists.” This live recording is a worthy complement to their earlier studio recording, and one can hear three musicians, having fully internalized Feldman’s musical strategies, delve deeply into the expansive, 90-minute structure. In the liner notes, Blum mentions that the “magic moment” of occasion and ambience inspired them and that comes through in the hypnotic performance. The live recording loses a bit of the warm immediacy of the studio recording, but gains a sense of spatial presence which adds to the listening experience.
Michael Formanek
Manfred Eicher has an eye and ear for great bass players and it seemed rather likely that Formanek would eventually join the bassist leaders – Andersen, Bryars, Holland, Vitous, Weber, others – who’ve graced ECM. But it was the band that Michael put together for that first release that really clinched the deal. With Berne and the bassist were pianist Craig Taborn at his polystylistic best and drummer Gerald Cleaver, who promises to be the most-recorded and most creatively recorded percussionist of his generation. The dream band still sounded (to me) a little tentative on that first recording, perhaps not quite played-in. No such concerns with the mighty Small Places (which is another Formanek title, like Low Profile, which prompts a small, ironic smile). Rhythmically, it’s as tight as a submarine hatch. “Pong” is just a great line, an elastic ostinato with a lead pipe up the middle, and if that’s a mixed metaphor, this whole album is a deliciously mixed metaphor. The rhythmic discipline, enforced by Cleaver, means that the group can afford to play as openly as they do on “Wobble and Spill,” one of the bassist’s most inspired ideas. He and Berne retain the old empathy. I sense that the other’s playing has become second nature to them now. It sounds like that on the title track, which opens the set, and on “Rising Tensions and Awesome Light,” which is the closest thing to a Warren Zevon song in jazz you’ll ever (need to) hear, cracked but gracious. If you can find a better contemporary jazz composition and performance than “Seeds and the Birdman,” you’re obviously listening to more records than I am, and you probably don’t have much of a family life. It’s a stunning piece, as is the wonky ballad form of “Slightly Off Axis.” Taborn’s contribution is enormous. It’s as if the classic Ornette Coleman group suddenly found a pianist (and I don’t mean Paul Bley) who understood what the leader was all about. Since this is now established as a road band, it’s going to be fascinating (I’m writing in mid/late September) to follow the tour and hear tunes like the turbulent “Parting Ways” evolve on the stand. But for the moment, and if you miss the live dates, this has to be one of the most exciting records of 2012. I’m only saying “one of” because it is only late September, and there’s always the hope of something better still, but on this showing everyone else really should be back at school. |