10 Ches SmithLaugh Ash
Ches Smith
Pyroclastic Records PR 31 (pyroclasticrecords.com)

Proof positive that New York’s Ches Smith is more than an exceptional percussionist who plays with, among others, Marc Ribot and John Zorn, is this great sprawling CD highlighting his skills as composer and electronic programmer. 

Seconded by subsets of nine musicians, Smith’s tunes sew together a patchwork quilt of all of his interests encompassing voodoo; jazz and rock drumming; notated music harmonies from three string players; inventive use of studio samples and synthesis; improvisational passages from trumpeter Nate Wooley, clarinetist Oscar Noriega, flutist Anna Webber and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis; and singular or multi-tracked vocals from Shara Lunon that range from bel canto embellishments to sprechgesang.  

Constructed with faultless logic, disparate impulses are sutured without fissure so that on a track like Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom) string scratches are overlaid with reed flutters while Smith’s vibraphone reverberations harmonize with lyrical vocal recitation. Climax is reached when altissimo saxophone screams and triple tonguing is contrasted with a thick, processed bass and drum groove.

Clarinet riffs are prominent throughout. Noriega’s jaunty flutters add to the airiness of drum paradiddle and wordless scatting on Minimalism with the same clarity that his harsh clarion smears join trumpet triplets, programmed overdubbed vocals, unison strings and intense drum beats on Disco Inferred to inflate the resulting sound to almost orchestral capacities. 

Without neglecting percussion comprehension and connections, Smith provides another instance of how drummers’ rhythmic architecture also often make them sensitive and inventive composers. 

11 Richard Nelson DiissolveRichard Nelson – Dissolve
Makrokosmos Orchestra
Adhyaropa Records AR00053 (richardnelsonmusic.bandcamp.com/album/dissolve)

The realms of modern jazz and new-age classical, improvisation and composition mix and mingle for a unique sonic experience on composer, guitarist and bandleader Richard Nelson’s latest musical endeavour. Featuring a lineup of 15 talented musicians, including co-leader saxophonist Tim O’Dell, this record is the debut for a new and adventuresome group called Makrokosmos Orchestra. The album is set up essentially as a contemporary classical-jazz fusion symphony in three movements, each of them having their very own distinctive flavour and story. Not only do we see Nelson’s talents as a bandleader highlighted throughout the record, but also his experimental and progressive compositional style. 

What fascinates listeners is how Nelson has masterfully navigated both jazz and classical genres and brought aspects of both into his compositions, which are a completely seamless blend of the two. Take Dissolve as an example: winding bass lines and catchy drum grooves paired with a full, powerful orchestral sound, with feathery flute melodies and strong horn lines taking us into a world where new possibilities and opportunities of combining the old and the new are found. Improvisational sections with syncopated solos contrasted with beautifully written and thought-out cohesive parts within the pieces are what keeps the listener captivated, just waiting to hear what’s around the next curve. This disc would be perfect for those looking for an album that excites and draws in, that both energizes and allows for contemplation and reflection.

12 Disaster PonyDisaster Pony
Disaster Pony
Love Town Records LTR-003 (disasterpony.com)

Remaining sonically and aesthetically consistent while taking continual risks can be a difficult balancing act, yet Gordon Hyland’s Disaster Pony project seems to thrive on this razor’s edge. Much like the narrative one can glean from scanning its wonderfully bemusing track titles, Disaster Pony is equal parts pleasurable and unpredictable. Tracks like Fruit Flies in Cola are imbued with an infectious sense of humour and yet in the same breath will dismantle conventional wisdom on the dynamic range of a cello, completely rendering any timbral distinctions between instruments non-existent until all the ear is left with is a disarming, uncannily human cry. This instance of cellist Liza McLellan’s counterpoint with Hyland’s saxophone completely commands the listener’s undivided attention in a way the rest of the soothing ambient track does not and yet this climax was not reached abruptly. The old (scientifically-debunked) allegory about a frog in gradually boiling water applies to this album very well, as it is easy to get lost in the head-nodding grooves and gorgeous repeating sections, to the point where any drastic changes to the music are almost imperceptible as they occur. For the music to constantly operate on stealth-mode and flow this organically means that the hypnotic effect extends even to repeated listening.  Grab a book, hit the loop button and feel an afternoon slip away. Or, simply lean forward. Foreground or background, Disaster Pony is a form of time travel.

Listen to 'Disaster Pony' Now in the Listening Room

13 James Brandon LewisTransfiguration
James Brandon Lewis Quartet
Intakt CD 400 (intaktrec.ch)

Putting an individual stamp on a common jazz grouping, tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and his quartet of pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Chad Taylor stretch the configuration’s parameters, but maintain steadying cadences that balance exploratory flights.

Backed by bass pops, supple percussion chops and keyboard dynamics, like John Coltrane before him, Lewis is free to open up improvisations that undulate and advance to reed cadenzas that roar, ripple and reverberate into split tones and harsh smears. Yet no matter how many textures he crams into his solos, as on the session defining Per 6, other players’ timbres are there not to harness invention, but to mix tradition with transfiguration. Ortiz outlines melodies as often as his modal time suspensions or rhythmic note sprinkles impressively challenge the saxophonist’s pivots to double-tongued altissimo on the balladic Trinity Of Creative Self or to preaching glossolalia on the intense Empirical Perception.

Never exceeding tasteful boundaries, Lewis’ saxophone control means that his onomatopoeic cries, bites and peeps are harmonized as well as transformative. He harmonizes with the others throughout, constantly returns to the theme by tunes’ conclusions and somewhat manages to quote Rhapsody in Blue during his solo on the title track.

Transfiguration is the band’s third outing, each of which is sturdier and tighter and more coordinated than the previous one. If this trend continues this may become the most significant jazz quartet of the beginning of the 21st century.

14 Satoko FujiiJet Black
Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio
Libra Records 203-073 (librarecords.com)

The paint chips and the frame splinters, allowing the textures to deepen, the gradient to sharpen. The level of tonal and timbral depth that has been achieved on this recording is incredible; you can constantly sense the impact of strings on neck, finger upon key, hammer upon trembling copper and reverberations within receptacle. So strikingly vibrant are the gestures of each musician, each exchange of spontaneous notions leaves the impression of rainfall on one’s shoulders. 

Yes, Satoko Fujii is a legend in the field of improvised music, but her playing and creative direction here pushes that stature into something that feels more meaningful and interpersonal. This is dialogue that lays the processes of its interlocutors bare, enticing the listener to guess and guess, but never making the anticipation laborious, only subliminal. 

During the first few minutes of Sky Reflection, Takashi Sugawa takes a simple extended technique – the act of dragging the horse hair of the bass bow perpendicular to the string rather than across it – and whips up a feast for the ear, a roaring sound vacuum populated with a bouquet of rasps and scrapes. It is out of this jagged tranquility that a secondary drone materializes, one that is low and drawing ever nearer. Ittetsu Takemura’s first drumstick drops, suddenly assuming the form of that tension created, while Sugawa’s arco dusts your spine. The paint deepens and the frame sharpens, allowing the textures to chip, the gradient to splinter.

As albums and live performances of creative music by solo instrumentalists become increasingly common, the novelty factor has almost completely disappeared. Instead the technical skills and original concepts of the players during these mostly improvisational sets become crystal clear, especially as the listener notes which strategies are used to create memorable sessions.

01 MonumentFor instance, MOnuMENT (Bush Flash Records BUFCD 2201 mariafaust.com) by Estonian alto saxophonist Maria Faust, was recorded within various spaces of Kuressaare, a 14th century castle on the Estonian island of Saaremaa. Yet not only do the 14 tracks reflect the spatial qualities of the Gothic structure, but her use of affiliated electronic pedals also allows her to multiply, meld and mutate her output so that the aural textures can sound like several saxophones. This is especially pronounced on Fox Hole, where rhythmic pushes and ambulatory motion integrate short and long reed tones to the extent that Faust sounds as if she’s a multi-pitched saxophone section on her own. Variations of this are heard elsewhere. Man consists of a tremolo organ-like pulse which inflates to bounce off the stone walls and concludes with massive pulses that sound like all the organ’s ranks are simultaneously in use. At other points she’ll render her tones into elevated-turret brief bites and squeaks that undulate separately and in tandem until they blow away; or as on Waltzing Dust, expose lyrical trilling whose gentleness contrasts with the thick immovable stones around her. On a couple of occasions, notably on Moat, she vocalizes through her horn, adding bel canto hums alongside reed smears. All these unique abilities are put to use in splendid fashion on Fort. The processed sounds make it appear as if an entire saxophone section from soprano to bass is riffing below her as Faust’s alto saxophone honks and tongue slaps are heard at the same time as vocalized whoops. Finally as the tones shriek upwards they ricochet against the ancient masonry, ricochet back and are embedded among the reed textures.

Listen to 'MOnuMENT' Now in the Listening Room

02 AvivaSimilar in conception to Faust’s disc, but recorded in an urban space in Stockholm is Split Series Vol.2 (Frim Records FRIM 6 frim-stockholm.se). Australian clarinetist Aviva Endean’s What Calls in the Quiet (Moths and Stars live set) takes up one extended track with a local turntablist improvising on the other. Adding sounds from field recordings, lo-fi electronics, plastic pipes and her voice to her reed, metal and wood expertise, Endean literally inflates the textures of her concert program. Thus she’s able to apply more tones to her exposition than would emanate from a clarinet even with her experience using extended techniques. With the electronics creating a rumbling echo as a continuum, she stretches pure air squeezes, chalumeau-sourced reflux and shaky clarion flutters into a polyphonic exposition which is further intensified with the overtones of pre-recorded flute trills. Maintaining symmetry among the elements, the performance pivots at one moment into rattling cogwheel resonation which overcomes the voltage murmurs, or at the next to delicate, almost ethereal reed purrs. At mid-point an interlude of almost-endless circular breathing manages to be sturdy and straight-ahead, watery and bubbling and chirping and hissing in turn without upsetting the track’s linear flow. By the finale the unexpected rarity of the emphasized timbres during her recital which mates motor-grinding buzzing with airy squeezed split tones confirms singular sound logic – in both senses of the word.

03 SummerAn even more precious demonstration of singular and atypical musical logic come from German- Japanese Eiko Yamada whose understated recital on soprano and bass recorders during This Summer (Hitorri 959 hitorri.bandcamp.com/album/this-summer) sounds nothing like the jaunty peeps usually heard from this simple antique woodwind played by amateurs or school children. Working her way from tonelessness to emphasized breaths, shaking hisses and metallic drones Yamada moves between the instruments, emphasizing thin penny-whistle-like tweets from one and basement level drones from the other. While her timbral detours include almost perfect replication of the sounds of nesting birds or spittle-encrusted flatulence whose reverberations could come from a kazoo, her flat-line exposition maintains consistency. Ingeniously by the improvisation’s final section she manages to output two interlaced but distinctive tones, a growly hum which resembles a motor-turning mechanism and an airy ethereal murmur. With the dual accents evolving in broken octaves maintaining individual tones as well as merging intermittently, her woodwind control is demonstrated. The singularity is confirmed when the piano plinks and patterns that join her second recorder recital seem entirely superfluous.

04 Nicole RampersaudSolo explorations with horns doesn’t stop with woodwinds either. Using electronics and extended techniques, both Nicole Rampersaud and Hilde Marie Holsen create uncommon and cerebral paths for their trumpets. An ex-Torontonian, now-based in rural New Brunswick, Rampersaud’s 11 tracks on Saudade (Ansible Editions 008 ansibleeditions.bandcamp.com) are each invested with the same invention and proficiency no matter the length. While electronics allow her to flange, double track, overlap and deconstruct timbres, she doesn’t depend on plugged in extensions to create. Probably the best examples of this are the three sequential Concurrent Panoramas. Beginning with bagpipe-like timbres respired in and out into a portamento melody, the affiliated bass drone creates an ostinato, as splices of sour notes, flattened tones and half-valve whines judder decisively above it. By Concurrent Panorama 3, the resolution involves piccolo-trumpet elevated triplets intersecting with an oboe-like snarl as the stop/start waveforms vibrate below to cushion the elevated brass layer above. This layering and overlapping live and processed timbres is another method of expression, as is when Rampersaud cunningly integrates static crackles into the expositions. Suggestions of mellow French horn-like tones, ascending bugle-like peeps and tuba-resembling burps highlight some of the other tracks. So do unexpected turns, as on Nor Foresaking where sudden brass peeps cut across an aural landscape, already defined by overlapping and suturing distant cries and patterns. Rampersaud can build an entire track out of mouthpiece spits and horn shakes as on Erasure. Or in contrast, complete the session with the extended Interstitials that builds a sound edifice from human and processed whistles, concentrated toneless breaths and watery valve flutters until it climaxes and vanishes. Each piece confirms that a specific trumpet vocabulary is being defined and disseminated.

05 EdiacaraNorwegian Holsen’s three improvisations on Ediacara (Pelun PELUN CD 001 hildeholsen.com) contain similar resourcefulness and creativity as Rampersaud’s and as much use of extended techniques and electronic processing as on the Canadian’s disc. However, where Rampersaud’s formulations are usually sparse and pointed, Holsen’s are packed and more lyrical. This is especially true of the concluding Ordovicium, where from the top watery textures are mixed with tongue stops that reference mechanized pulsations. Although the multiphonics become increasingly claustrophobic so that textures begin to resemble those of an orchestral choir, timbres reflecting back onto themselves with vinyl needle-drop lacerations are eventually superseded by a mellow tone. The finale is as simple and moderated as it is linear. It’s the same with the other pieces, especially the protracted title track. Extended and uncommon brass techniques are exhibited and share space with hisses, crackles and static from the electronic oscillations. No matter how many turns there are to polyphonic timbres resembling shrill sirens, French horn-like mid-range notes or Baroque trumpet-like dusky tones – as well as tongue stops, squeaking triplets and distended breaths – they’re underscored by moderated textures. Evolution may be in broken octaves, but overall the stacked timbres are often rearranged into narratives that reflect melodiousness as well as multiphonics.

Each of these discs reflects how different musicians probe the intricacies of solo productions. Their sophistication in process and performance augurs well for many other players to make similar sound odysseys.

Record producer Zev Feldman has emerged as a leading figure in archival jazz, uncovering, restoring and releasing materials with a variety of labels, including Resonance, Jazz Detective and Elemental, often geared to Record Store Days for vinyl LP releases with CDs following shortly thereafter. For Spring of 2024, he has outdone himself, with a bevy of previously unknown recordings that cover a 40 year span of jazz history, with an emphasis on pianists, from Art Tatum to Sun Ra to Mal Waldron to Kenny Barron, and saxophonists as well, from John Gilmore with Sun Ra to Steve Lacy and Yusef Lateef. 

There’s something about the breadth of jazz, its musicians, audiences, histories and generations, that these sets reveal. While Tatum and Sun Ra might seem highly dissimilar, they were born within five years of each other: each entertains, one with flamboyant virtuosity and good manners; the other hectoring, shocking, pontificating. As brilliant as their divergent creations are, the music is immediately accessible. The others -- Waldron, Lacy, Lateef and their associates – are concert artists, almost anonymous apart from the music they create here, not coincidentally, for Belgian and French audiences.   

01 Art TatumArt Tatum, virtually a transcendent pianist, can be introduced anecdotally. Fellow pianist Fats Waller once remarked of his presence, “God is in the house tonight.” A teenage Charlie Parker purportedly worked as a dishwasher at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem to hear Tatum nightly. He also lends his name to the “tatum”, defined as the fastest pulse present in a piece of music. While best known for his solo recordings, Tatum worked frequently in a trio format, as heard on Jewels in the Treasure Box: The 1953 Chicago Blue Note Jazz Club Recordings (Resonance R3C-2064 3LPs/3CDs  resonancerecords.org). The sidemen supply comic interpolation as well as musical support. On I Cover the Waterfront, guitarist Everett Barksdale slyly inserts Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, while bassist Slam Stewart, renowned for playing arco while humming in unison an octave higher, suddenly interpolates London Bridge. The music covers a broad musical and emotional range, but it’s essentially celebratory. Tatum possesses a joyous command of musical materials, happily doubling tempos, slowing to a dirge, then throwing in tumbling keyboard-long runs or brilliantly precise boogie-woogie. The trio achieves some remarkable three-way play on a blistering rendition of St. Louis Blues

02 Sun RaGenius can have different periods of gestation, witness the contrasting cases of Tatum and Sun Ra. While decades separated their styles and celebrity, Sun Ra was only five years younger than Tatum, an obscure record producer and bandleader in Chicago when Tatum played at the Blue Note. After extended stays in Montreal and New York and permanent relocation to Philadelphia, Sun Ra occasionally returned to Chicago for triumphant performances, as evidenced by Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago 1976-1977 (Jazz Detective DDJD-013 deepdigsmusic.com). Sun Ra was undoubtedly a genius, mixing musical and theatrical elements into a bizarre pageant that threw multi-hued lights on the African experience in America. For a period of some four decades, from the mid-1950s to Sun Ra’s death in 1993, Sun Ra and John Gilmore worked together, somehow Sun Ra’s mysterious electronic keyboard fantasias and prophetic pronouncements both contrasting and fusing with Gilmore’s hard-edged, intense tenor saxophone, his work particularly prominent here, rooting the music in urban reality. There’s also the collective squall of several alto saxophonists (among them Marshall Allen, the band’s current leader, who recently turned 100), percussionists and singers, totalling 19 in all. The sets are presented in reverse order, an early evening set from 1977 preceding a final set from 1976. The polyrhythmic Ankhnatan, first recorded in the 1950s, successfully encapsulates big band swing, funk and free jazz, while Ebah Speaks in Cosmic Tongue, a solo encore by trumpeter Akh Tal Ebah, is a manic vocal feature ranging from glossolalia to gospel to screaming, all propelled by the shouting audience.

03 Mal Waldron Steve LacyAs long-term American expatriates in Europe, pianist Mal Waldron and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy worked together often, clearly complementing one another’s incisive minimalism and dark lyricism. However, The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental 5990446: 2LPs/2CDs elemental-music.com) has even more to recommend it than usual: the presence of visiting New Yorkers, every bit their equals, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille providing special stimulus. These are forceful performances, intense examinations of well articulated themes. Disc One is about roots, with Waldron’s What It Is and Lacy’s Longing alternating with Thelonious Monk’s Epistrophy and Monk’s Dream. It’s rock-solid music with every element sculpted in the compound legacies of bop and blues, each one focussed with watchmaker precision, with Lacy’s devotion to Monk’s music particularly apparent. Disc Two is highly exploratory. Workman’s Variation of III begins with an extended bass solo that develops a range of techniques, the instrument seemingly in dialogue with itself. Cyrille, too, creates tremendous drama, by contrasting volumes, densities and timbres. What comes through strongly here is a collective economy, even in free improvisation.

04 Yusef LateefYusef Lateef was a musician in whom immediate roots and visionary possibilities were always intertwined, from blues-drenched passion to explorations of alternative rhythms and pitches, even integrating Middle Eastern strings and reeds on his recordings from 1957. His studies in world music dovetailed with his work throughout a lengthy career as performer, composer and educator. Atlantis Lullaby: The Concert in Avignon (Elemental 5990450 elemental-music.com) was recorded for broadcast in 1972. Lateef’s huge tenor saxophone sound is apparent on the modal Inside Atlantis, the soulful Yusef’s Mood and the ballad I’m Getting Sentimental Over You, while several tracks stretch toward India. Contributing much to the music’s overall quality, its blend of polish, vitality and invention, is the band, Lateef’s working quartet from 1971 to 1975. Pianist Kenny Barron contributes several compositions, including the extended, constantly shifting The Untitled. Bassist Bob Cunningham is an exceptional soloist, with Roy Brooks’ exotic Eboness a feature for his creativity with bowed harmonics. Drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, a model of support, comes to the fore playing Indian flute on Lowland Lullaby, a duet with Cunningham. 

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