Jazz and Improvised

In his 20 years in Toronto, Nick Fraser has become first-choice drummer for numerous bandleaders ranging from the post-bop mainstream to free improvisation. He’s done it with aggressive musicality and consistently inventive drumming, combining drive and subtlety. He has also recorded his compositions with his own quartet and the collective Drumheller. His latest CD will introduce his talents to a far wider audience: Too Many Continents (Clean Feed CF336, cleanfeed-records.com) appears on the most active free jazz label in the world and presents Fraser at the heart of a trio with expatriate Canadian pianist Kris Davis and saxophonist Tony Malaby, two key figures in current NYC jazz activity. The opening title track achieves near telepathic interaction, the group moving synchronously from delicate opening figures through a co-ordinated tumult of sound in which each throws more and more complex bits into the mix, eventually reversing the movement to ebb gradually to silence. Episodes of extended free improvisation are separated by Fraser’s compositions, among which the moody, corrosive Also stands out.

Canada rarely sees a jazz project as ambitious as Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal’s presentation of pianist-composer Marianne Trudel’s Dans la forêt de ma mémoire (ATMA Classique ACD2 2730, atmaclassique.com), a six-part suite for the 16-member orchestra recorded live with singer Anne Schaefer and trumpeter Ingrid Jansen as featured soloists with Christine Jensen conducting. Trudel might be new to writing extended works for a large ensemble, but there’s nothing here to show it. The work has strong themes and rich harmonies presented with vibrant brass and reed textures that spring from the traditions of composer/orchestrators like Gil Evans and Maria Schneider. Vent Solaire, the second movement, has a magisterial quality, enhanced by a moment when Trudel’s piano tremolos merge with the winds, while La vie commence ici has charging lines that demonstrate the precision of the all-star ensemble. Trudel and Ingrid Jensen provide plenty of individual highlights, but there are effective solo spots from trombonist Jean-Nicolas Trottier and bassist Rémi-Jean LeBlanc.

The cry, the shout, the laugh and the mutter of the blues have been part of jazz since its beginnings, not all jazz admittedly, but much of it and much of the best of it. Those tones are front and centre in Michael Bates’ Northern Spy (Stereoscopic 266-1, outsidesources.org) on which the Vancouver-born, Brooklyn-based bassist leads a trio with saxophonist (and former Vancouverite) Michael Blake and drummer Jeremy “Bean” Clemons, the latter providing some rock-solid, minimalist backbeats. It’s as visceral and soulful as one might expect of music inspired by Blind Willie Johnson, Otis Redding and John Coltrane. It also invokes saxophonist Julius Hemphill’s edgy Hard Blues. As the trio’s lead voice, Blake turns in a consistently masterful performance, stretching bop and blues to upper register multiphonic cries on End of History.

Jerry Granelli was a well-established drummer when he relocated to Halifax in 1987, and he’s been releasing adventurous CDs as a composer and conceptualist as well ever since. The latest is What I Hear Now (Addo Records AJR030, addorecords.com) by his Trio + 3. The basic group is Granelli’s trio with bassist Simon Fisk and tenor and soprano saxophonist Dani Oore, expanded with younger Haligonians, alto saxophonist Andrew McKelvey and trombonist Andrew Jackson, and topped off by Halifax-native Mike Murley. The four-horn front line balances sonic breadth with spontaneity. Mystery’s serene voicings lead to airy overlays and echoes among the saxophones, while Swamp’s combination of a rapid horn line and the rhythm section’s slow back-beat inspires a certain funky bluster from all the horns.

There’s an infectious joy about Oliver Gannon and Bill Coon’s Two Much More! (Cellar Live CL011815 cellarlive.com), the elite Vancouver guitarists commemorating the decade-old launch of their project Two Much Guitar! with a studio session accompanied by bassist Darren Radtke and drummer Dave Robbins. Gannon is a propulsive swinger with a fuller, bright, hard-edged sound who generates continuous melodic flow; Coon is a subtler, more elusive musician, floating over the beat with a glassy, slightly muted sound, more focused on harmonic invention. What matters most, though, is their evident pleasure in one another’s musical company as they alternately lead and accompany in a program studded with masterful renditions of classic songs, many of them ballads like Billy Strayhorn’s Chelsea Bridge, Johnny Mandel’s Emily and Ellington’s In a Sentimental Mood, before closing with Bobby Timmons’ Moanin’.

Another Vancouver guitarist, Tony Wilson, presents a dark vision of the city with his 6tet on A Day’s Life (Drip Audio DA01107, dripaudio.com), a musical complement to his eponymous 2012 novella about the lives of the homeless and addicted living in the Downtown Eastside. The opening title track has Wilson in a relatively consonant mood, stringing out bluesy melody in a classic jazz style. It’s a little harbinger of the music’s expressive depths or looming terrors to come, whether springing from the leader or from the torrents of sound produced by trumpeter JP Carter’s added electronics. Wilson’s compositional vision is fleshed out throughout by an outstanding band, whether it’s drummer Skye Brooks on The Long Walk or the strings of cellist Peggy Lee, violinist Jesse Zubot and bassist Russell Scholberg, all contributing to the piquant sweetness of Bobby Joe’s Theme.

New York Stories
Micah Barnes
LoudBoy ODCD02
(micahbarnes3.bandzoogle.com)

Micah Barnes has long established himself as one of the most engaging vocal performers and contemporary, jazz-infused tunesmiths on the scene today. Perhaps best known as a member of the iconic vocal group The Nylons, Barnes has also crafted a serious solo career by employing his considerable skills as a musician/keyboardist in conjunction with his sumptuous baritone voice, quirky narrative humour, showmanship and innate ability for direct emotional (and artistic) communication.

Barnes’ new recording is the result of many live performances that were focused on perfecting his original material prior to ever stepping into the recording studio – and the highly personal songs (of which three were co-written with J.P. Saxe and one with Russ Boswell) easily bring the rapt listener along for the wild ride. Barnes has surrounded himself here with a fine ensemble, including Michael Shand on keyboards, talented brother Daniel Barnes on drums and voice, the above mentioned Boswell on bass and voice and Saxe on vocals.

Top tracks include New York Story – a nostalgia-saturated valentine to the great city itself and the clever After the Romance (The Rent) – a character song in search of a Broadway show. Barnes’ voice has never been richer and more laden with experience, and his vocal control has never been more succinct, as illustrated by the bluesy standout Starting Tomorrow and the funky cool Harlem Moon. The heart-rending Some Other Man clearly establishes Barnes as a fine contemporary songwriter and the closing track, I’ve Been Awake Too Long evokes incredible, bittersweet longing.

Begin
Alister Spence; Joe Williamson; Christopher Cantillo
Alister Spence Music ASM 003 (alisterspence.com)

What world music really should be, this high-quality session involves the talents of multi-stylistic Australian pianist Alister Spence, subtle Swedish drummer Christopher Cantillo and authoritative Canadian bassist Joe Williamson. Now Stockholm-based, Vancouver native Williamson is part of this trio whose reference points are musically broad while lacking any affectation.

Constantly pushing each of the tracks forward, the pianist’s world view is as wide as the Australian outback, emphasizing attention to cultivated detail that melds Keith Jarrett’s exploratory feints, dynamic jabs à la Cecil Taylor and the bouncy playfulness of Paul Bley, usually simultaneously. Hear this at work on Place, where after probing piano innards and hammering the keys, Spence unexpectedly bursts out with a textbook definition of jazz swing. Consistently a group effort, though – even when Spence’s playing is at its most jaunty – his pointed improvising on Tip for instance is sympathetically extended with tap-dance-like clacks from Cantillo and Williamson’s bowed continuum.

Knowingly attuned to one another’s strategies and willing to mix up the performances to make them new, Williamson, for example, often uses a resolutely steady bass line to second the pianist’s widely spaced spikes and winnowing plucks on Fetch before Spence cunningly recaps his intro. Elsewhere, as on Allow, each rhythm partner uses static drum buzz or string pulls to create edginess on this warm balladic track. Other times as cymbals swirl and drum tops are scrubbed, Spence and Williamson expose nearly identical timbres, balancing inside-piano string strums and unforced bass string plucks.

With even more unexpected approaches they can utilize on this disc’s lucky 13 tracks, the hope is that this trio didn’t just Begin but will continue to make CDs like this for a long time.

Just as international improvisers sometimes find a more welcoming atmosphere for their sound experiments in Canada than at home, so too have Canadian record labels become a vehicle to release notable free music sessions. Attesting to this openness, two of the most recent discs by British saxophone master Evan Parker are on Canadian imprints. But each arrived by a different route. One of the triumphs of 2014’s Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec, this performance of Seven by Parker’s ElectroAcoustic Septet (Victo 127 victo.qc.ca) is available on Victo, FIMAV’s affiliated imprint. Consisting of one massive and one shorter instant composition, Seven literally delineates the electro-acoustic divide. Trumpeter Peter Evans, reedist Ned Rothenberg, cellist Okkyung Lee and Parker make up the acoustic side, while varied laptop processes are operated by Ikue Mori and Sam Pluta, with George Lewis switching between laptop and trombone, with his huffing brass tone making a particular impression during a contrapuntal face-off with Parker’s soprano saxophone during Seven-2. At nearly 46 minutes, Seven-1 is the defining work, attaining several musical crests during its ghostly, meandering near-time suspension. Allowing for full expression of instrumental virtuosity, dynamic flutters, flanges and processes, the laptoppists accompany, comment upon or challenge the acoustic instruments. Alternately wave form loops and echoes cause the instrumentalists to forge their reposes. Plenty of sonic surprises arise during the sequences. Undefined processed-sounding bee-buzzing motifs, for example, are revealed as mouth and lip modulations from Evans’ piccolo trumpet or aviary trills from Rothenberg’s clarinet. In contrast the electronics’ crackles and static are often boosted into mellower affiliations that sound purely acoustic. Eventually both aspects meld into a climax of bubbly consistency with any background-foreground, electro or acoustic displays satisfactorily melded. More percussive Seven-2 has a climax involving fragmented electronics pulsating steadily as first Evans, then Rothenberg and finally Parker spill out timbres that confirm formalism as much as freedom.

While Seven’s domestic release seems almost mandatory, Montreal-based Red Toucan’s decision to release UK-recorded Extremes (RT 9349 symaptico.ca/cactus.red) demonstrates its commitment to this music. Parker on tenor saxophone, alongside Paul Dunmall, another intense British tenor specialist, plus American drummer Tony Bianco, offer a three-track masterclass in free-form improvisation. With the drummer keeping up a constant barrage of smacks, whacks, ruffs and pops in the propulsive Elvin Jones tradition, the saxophonists dig into every variation and shading of reed and metal tones like an updated John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. Unlike the maelstrom of bedlam-like expression in which some sound explorers operate, however, Dunmall and Parker play with relaxed intensity. This isn’t a cutting contest either, but a demonstration of how saxophonists can function as separate parts of a single entity. With the final Horus especially adding affirming motes to the jazz tradition via glossolalia and faint echoes of Sonny Rollins’ East Broadway Rundown, each player maintains his individuality no matter how many harsh snorts or siren-pitched expressions are unleashed. Parker’s tone is distinguished by lighter vibrations and swifter split tones while Dunmall’s timbres are darker and grittier. With intuitive timing the tenors attain concluding connection, showcasing rowdy theme variations on the 30-minute-plus title track and polyphonic expressiveness on Horus. Overall, the result is head expanding, not head banging.

A trio concerned with the linkage between notated and improvised sounds is Lisbon-based, EarNear; its self-titled debut CD appears on the Rimouski-based TourdeBras label (TDB90012 CD tourdebras.com). Conversant in many genres, violist João Camões, pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro and cellist Miguel Mira expose textures unique and unexpected for a chamber ensemble. Although strident, speedy and high pitched much of the time, generic continuum is maintained with Mira connectively thumping out what would be the bassist’s role in jazz. On the other hand barbed wire-like sharpened sweeps from Camões, plus inner piano plinks, plucks and crackles confirm the modernity of the performance on tracks such as Airfoil. The responsive nature of the trio’s narrative is such though, that even Gõmbõc, the lengthiest and most cerebral performance, is tempered with sympathetic piano chording and bass string pressure. This leads to a tonal resolution of what begins as a cacophonous battle, with rugged low-pitched string scrubbing on one side and euphonious textures expressed in bell-like, near-harpsichord vibrations on the other.

Golden State II’s (SGL 1610-2 songlines.com) situation is atypical since drummer Harris Eisenstadt is a Canadian and Songlines is a Vancouver imprint. But Eisenstadt is based in Brooklyn and other members of this working quartet – bassist Mark Dresser, bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and clarinetist Michael Moore – are Americans, natives of California: the Golden State. Here much of the emphasis builds on the divergences between Schoenbeck’s rhinal smears and Moore’s honeyed trills. For example, Agency, a near blues, validates the bassoon as a frontline instrument with hard gusts from Schoenbeck’s horn doubled by Moore as the theme is propelled by rim shots and double bass stops. A Kind of Resigned Indignation is an analogous showcase for Dresser’s profound facility, as he moves from sul ponticello minutiae to focused walking, maintaining bedrock toughness while spurring the others. Defining chamber jazz much differently than EarNear does, the drummer’s knocks and sweeps give the CD a rhythmic base propelled with sophisticated understatement. Animatedly reaching a climax of suspended time on Seven in Six/A Particularity with a Universal Resonance, the quartet blends reed smoothness, curlicue percussion pops and string sweeps into a distinct chromatic form. The result is as mellow, unhurried and sunny as the Golden State or Vancouver.

Canadian labels’ openness to experimentation goes back at least to the early 1970s, with Sackville’s series of Toronto-recorded original sessions featuring then-emerging players from Chicago and New York. Reissued with two additional tracks, 1974’s Trio and Duet (Sackville/Delmark SK3007 delmark.com) hints at why Anthony Braxton’s vision may have been too difficult for some jazz fans of the time. Accompanied by bassist Dave Holland and playing alto saxophone on five tracks, Braxton creates his own variations of standards. While his stripped-down performances may appear slightly frenetic compared to mainstream versions, despite solid timekeeping and a triple-slicing showcase from the bassist on You Go to My Head, the melody remains. If tracks such as Embraceable You or On Green Dolphin Street include more altissimo slurs or squeaking sheets of sound than were common four decades ago, in 2015 the versions would frighten only the most hidebound neo-cons. Yet if Braxton’s standards side was accepted he turns around on what was the LP’s other side and creates a 19-minute modernist piece titled HM-421 (RTS) 47, featuring himself on clarinet, contrabass clarinet, chimes and percussion, Leo Smith on pocket trumpet, trumpet, flugelhorn and percussion plus Richard Teitelbaum on Moog synthesizer, with textures the keyboardist pioneered as a member of Musica Elettronica Viva. Spatial and carefully sequenced, the Moog’s flanges set up a juddering, staccato ostinato over which Smith and Braxton layer muted peeps and stentorian puffs plus chime and conga-like pumps. Yet even if Teitelbaum’s oscillations resemble a Model T warming up rather than the futuristic electronics of today, the graceful playing expressed by all means that at this early date Braxton and the others had perfected the subtle art of matching electronic and acoustic textures without conflict.

The brilliance of this CD substantiates Sackville’s vision. It also suggests that years from now the concept of Canadian labels releasing foreign-sourced experimental music will more likely be praised for foresight rather than eccentricity.