Jazz and Improvised

Guitar in the Space Age
Bill Frisell
Okeh 88843074612 (okeh-records.com)

In a career spanning four decades, Bill Frisell (born 1951) has taken the idea of jazz guitar in very different directions, emphasizing sonic architecture and sustained tones in explorations ranging from free improvisation and noise music to traditional blues and folk, country and western and mainstream pop. Guitar in the Space Age is a direct invocation of the music that first influenced Frisell, the world of electric guitar instrumentals of the late 1950s and 1960s, spanning country, rock and its own genre, surf music.

Pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz extends Frisell’s fondness for bending, reverberant tones, suggesting the period song that’s key to this project may be one that’s not here: Santo & Johnny’s 1959 hit Sleepwalk. This is a sonic dreamscape, in which melodies like Surfer Girl are slowed down and magnified, with sound so rich and dense that Sputnik-era nostalgia (pedal steel virtuoso Speedy West’s Reflections from the Moon – almost C&W Sun Ra in its original form – and The Tornado’s Telstar) assumes cathedral-like dimension.

Frisell both reimagines this music and restores it, along the way touching on the fundamental synthesis of jazz and country in pieces like Merle Travis’ Cannonball Rag and Jimmy Bryant’s Bryant’s Boogie as well as invoking the broad sweep of the moral compass of the times, from the Byrds’ ringing arrangement of Pete Seeger’s Ecclesiastes-fuelled Turn, Turn, Turn to Link Wray’s juvenile delinquent anthem Rumble.

As the availability of music on different media continues to proliferate, the focus of the durable box set has become equally diverse. No longer does a multi-disc collection have to be definitive or far-ranging. As a matter of fact some of the best, like the ones discussed here, concentrate on certain sequences in an artist’s career.

Case in point is Discography (Jazz Werksttatt JW 150 jazzwerkstatt.eu), a four-CD collection of sessions from the 1980s and 1990s by German bassist Peter Kowald (1944-2002). Someone who began his career in the 1960s ground zero for European Free Jazz, over the years Kowald interacted with those playing mainstream and contemporary jazz as well as making forays into cross-cultural improv with non-Western players. His recorded career, with disc cover pictures and personnel, is outlined in the 210-page booklet included with the set. Still the focus of Discography is Kowald’s Free Jazz achievements. Right off the bat, Solo Improvisation Music on CD1 is a 35-minute tour-de-force from 1981 that captures his unvarnished inventiveness. Showcasing equal facility with fingers or bow, he moves seamlessly from strident smacks and slashing strums to a collection of spiccato rubs and rasps producing aviary-like shrills as well as mellow continuum. Discography also highlights the talents of Greek clarinetist/saxophonist Floros Floridis, a frequent Kowald playing partner. Compare how the two reacted without prevarication in different settings. A 1989 Athens session, for instance, emphasizes the music’s bop and blues roots, due to the inimitable time-keeping of American drum master Andrew Cyrille. At the same time as Kowald’s doubled strokes steady the beat alongside Cyrille, jocular intensity on tunes such as Nice Ending Folks! and Points Slashes Etc. is expressed by Floridis’ fluid clarinet flutters and vocalized blats from German trombonist Conny Bauer. Six tracks from the next year are more expansive since Kowald’s and Floridis’ partners are American French hornist Vincent Chancy and South African drummer Louis Moholo. Kowald’s careful note placement gives the proceedings a lighter feel as the four prove themselves on both spirited and sorrowful tunes. The Spell is one of the latter as Chancy’s facility emphasizes not only melancholic cries, but animates the tune through steady pacing. With verbal interjections from Moholo Mongezi is another standout since tough vibrations from the horn and Floridis’ saxophone reed bites work up to freneticism as pulsating power from the bass and percussion keep the narrative snappy. Even better is CD4 from 1997 where Floridis on alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet, Kowald and German percussionist Günter Baby Sommer – featured with the bassist on a long improvisation on CD1 – turn out 26 brief “Aphorisms.” Ranging from less than one minute to almost two and a half, the concise motifs express everything that others would need greater length to do. A track like Aphorismus III for instance features Kowald strumming what sounds like telephone-wire thick strings, Sommer pinging gamelan-like bells and Floridis’ smooth soprano sax surmounting both. Aphorismus XI is pure jazz with mountaineering thumps from the drummer, spiccato bass strokes and reed bites; while Aphorismus VI parallels clarinet tongue-slaps with bagpipe-like tremolos from the bass. Floridis’ alto saxophone tone can be as sharp as any bopper’s as it is on Aphorismus XVII; while percussion clip-clops are sophisticatedly smoothed into a connective exposition on Aphorismus XIX. The program ends with Sommer affectionately mocking Kowald’s chamber music-like sweeps and Floridis’ delicate clarinet lines with obtrusive Jew’s harp twangs.

More chronologically limited, but even more spectacular in probing the boundaries of a jazz formation is Die Kunst des Trio 1-5 (BMC Records BMC CD 196 bmcrecords.hu). During the course of five CDs and a bonus DVD, Cologne-based pianist Hans Lüdemann works through programs involving five unique bass and drum teams. Able to express high-energy complexity and florid impressionism with the same finesse, Lüdemann’s trios showcase original compositions plus Hanns Eisler ballads from the latter’s Hollywood period. All 36 tracks, recorded at the same location, are performed acoustically aside from the sets with electric bass and percussion. Sophisticated in mining perceptive emotions with both acoustic and electronic keyboards, Rhythm Magic is Lüdemann’s weakest program. That’s because bass guitar sluices, percussion patter and staccato key flourishes excite only the tapping foot rather than the thinking brain. Conversely, Chiffre, featuring bassist/cellist Henning Sieverts plus percussionist Eric Shaefer, confirms the adage that the best is often left for last. Able to make the virtual piano as sensitive to cerebral explorations as the real McCoy, Lüdemann creatively exposes the tunes’ reflective innards on CD5. Slow paced Doux for example unites keyboard cascades with piercing multi-string actions that could come from a viola da gamba. Meanwhile the climatic minutes of Verioren that result from the pianist’s near-boogie-woogie patterning are cannily set up with bell peals and impressionistic multi-string vibrations at the top. This is the most impressive trio music, but there’s also much to be said for the pianist’s interaction with bassist Robert Landfermann and drummer Jonas Burgwinkel plus bassist Sébastien Boisseau and drummer Dejan Terzic. The first mixes kinetic piano lines, drum pumps and quirky bass voicing to extend the classic piano trio to include European tropes such as suggestions of baroque stylings plus electronic add-ons. Even better is the Boisseau-Terzic meeting. Dramatic and cerebral, sturdy bass lines and clattering drums aid the pianist’s careful pacing of particular themes. Paradoxically this strategy is impressive on Über den Selbstmord/Das ist gefährlich where Lüdemann sutures harmonic swing onto the Eisler song which starts the track. This type of transformative alchemy is extended throughout the nine tunes that make up Eisler’s Exile. Seconded by bassist Dieter Manderscheid and percussionist Christian Thomé, the pianist never neglects the romantic yearnings which inhabit the German composer’s original intent. At the same time he invests each track with sinewy swing.

In a technological age a boxed set takes on many meanings. For instancecornetist Taylor Ho Bynum 7-tette’s Navigation [Possibility Abstracts XII & XIII] (Firehouse 12 Records FH-12-04-01-019 firehouse12.com) is available as two CDs of a studio session and on a double LP as a live date. Different variations on Bynum’s Navigation composition, each package includes complimentary download codes to access digital copies of the other format. Using graphic and conventional methods to guide the improvisation, Bynum calls on tropes encompassing tremolo theme repetition and stop-time climaxes, plus intersection and interpolation of riffs and sudden narrative punctuation from a band that includes trombonist Bill Lowe, alto saxophonist Jim Hobbs, guitarist Mary Halvorson and bassist Ken Filiano with Tomas Fujiwara and Chad Taylor on drums and vibraphones. Comparing versions of March from the CD set demonstrates the group’s versatility. While it’s undisputedly the same tune, solo emphasis gives it novel allure in each instance. Introducing the second CD, March features sharp saxophone lines in violin register that quickly give way to scene-setting trombone slurs. From that point until the finale, the sequence takes on a New Orleans-like cast as two-beat drumming backs clanking guitar runs and taut cornet expositions. When March ends the first CD though, the quasi-Dixieland emphasis is downplayed for sophisticated solos. Hobbs’ wide glissandi limn the theme atop cohesive brass vamps, until a Halvorson-Bynum duo that simultaneously manages to suggest the power of early Louis Armstrong’s small groups while slyly interpolating bop modernism.

Taking this download concept one step further, the 15-piece Belgian jazz-rock-experimental big band the Flat Earth Society (FES) has come up with FESXLS (Igloo IGL 257 fes.be/indexEN.html). The three-CD package includes two discs celebrating the Flemish orchestra’s – and guests’ – recent projects; a single CD, featuring tracks from the more rock-oriented X-Legged Sally band that evolved into Flat Earth Society; plus 12 (!) download codes allowing the listener to get digital copies of additional albums. Even without the digital discs, the physical package is fascinating. Over the course of 19 tracks on X-Legged Sally 1988-1997, the listener can track how the shifting personnel of the group, always led by multi-instrumentalist/composer Peter Vermeersch, gradually shifted from a defiant vocal and instrumental combo, influenced by Frank Zappa and other avant-rockers, into a high-energy instrumental group whose staccato expositions melded jazz-influenced soloing, rock energy and instrumental chops. Mutating into the FES, the contemporary CDs, Boot & Berg and Call Sheets, Riders & Chicken Mushroom are even more striking. Although its Flemish libretto may be difficult for those who don’t know the language, the sheer musicianship of the FES matched with soprano Rolande Van der Paal shines through the language barrier on Boot & Berg. A multimedia retelling of the Titanic tragedy on the 100th anniversary of that disaster, Vermeersch’s music introduces motifs from nautical melodies, hard rock, Count Basie-like-swing and so-called classical counterpoint which scene-set, then integrate Van der Paal’s lyric soprano within the exposition. Particularly expressive during an intermezzo where cracked instrumental tones shade the vocalist’s sophisticated cabaret-style declarations, booming and whistling textures from the band emphasize the emotions involved as much as Van der Paal’s bel canto delivery. A different matter Call Sheets, Riders & Chicken Mushroom is 15 FES live tracks, with featured spots for guest improvisers such as American pianist Uri Caine, Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger and Belgium’s most famous jazzer, harmonica player Toots Thielemans. While the quiet-jazz setting of Hilton’s Heaven, Thielemans’ first outing, is all smooth harmonica reeds cushioned by muted horns and vibes, Zonk puts him in a novel setting. Like what a Basie band standard would sound like if played by a heavy metal band, the tune finds the harmonica master expanding on cues from the jagged vamps until the piece is taken out with a graceful trumpet solo. The Caine track is even weirder since during Fes 9 the urbane keyboardist takes a solo that mixes bop with Little Richard-like excess and ends with some pseudo-ragtime, as plunger trombone smears and swelling organ riffs explode around him. At the same time this CD confirms that FES can easily be appreciated on its own. In Between Rivers for instance is a standout ballad that manages to shoehorn accordion tremors into an Ellington Jungle Band-style arrangement as reed flutters and warm brass slurs keep the narrative comfortable.

There’s evidently sufficient saxophone talent in Canada now that we export it with some regularity. Three émigré reed players have recently released CDs of interest.

Toronto-born Andrew Rathbun has spent the past decade playing and studying in New York City, recently joining the Jazz Studies department at Western Michigan University. On Numbers & Letters (Steeplechase SCCD 31781 steeplechase.dk), Rathbun is an adroit stylist on tenor and soprano, composing memorably playful lines (the compositions here are inspired by his two young children) and developing them with fleet, sometimes abstracted, sometimes effervescent lines. The interval leaps of Etude can suggest the influence of the late Kenny Wheeler with whom Rathbun has recorded, and there is a similar lyricism and facility in developing complex, ambiguous moods. Rathbun has put together a superb band for the recording, building upward from the mobile, shifting drumming of Bill Stewart and the bass of Jay Anderson to virtuosic pianist Phil Markowitz, the three creating ongoing stimulation for Rathbun’s forays.

Anna Webber is a young composer, flutist and saxophonist who has already become a presence in forward-looking circles in Brooklyn and Berlin. Her latest recording, Simple (Skirl 027 skirlrecords.com), was composed during solitary days on Bowen Island off the coast of her native British Columbia. While the music sounds inspired, you’ll listen in vain for mimetic sea sounds and easy tranquility: Webber’s music is complex, angular and sometimes downright spiky; her inspirations funneled through her own edgy sensibility and the creative processes of her playing partners here, pianist Matt Mitchell and percussionist John Hollenbeck. The results are episodic pieces that are never less than structurally sound and loaded with sudden turns, whether composed or improvised. Webber’s tenor saxophone twists with compound emotion through the taut 1994, while her flute weaves through Simplify, Simplify with scintillating precision.

Saxophonist Peter Van Huffel has followed a similar path from Kingston, Ontario to New York and on to Berlin. On Bite My Blues (Clean Feed CF302CD cleanfeed-records.com), he leads his Berlin-based band Gorilla Mask in performances at Toronto venues Emmett Ray and Tranzac, recorded during a 2013 Canadian tour. While Van Huffel often works in chamber-like textures, Gorilla Mask is a visceral band driven by pounding, industrial polyrhythms and electronics provided by Roland Fidezius on electric bass and effects and Rudi Fischerlehner on drums. Van Huffel uses the dense undergrowth and his truncated, machine-gun themes to propel furious alto saxophone improvisations, spiralling across registers with blistering intensity, creating varied, complex lines. Within this assault, some fascinating changes of pace that reveal Van Huffel’s specific roots: on the lyrical Broken Flower, his keening saxophone wail invokes Albert Ayler’s ballad performances, while Fast and Furious shows roots in Ornette Coleman.

That saxophone emphasis continues with two new releases on Toronto’s Addo Records. Alto and soprano saxophonist Tara Davidson’s Duets (AJR026 addorecords.com) explores what may be the most challenging of improvising formats with six different collaborators. There are two pieces with each partner, one a Davidson composition, the other her collaborator’s. Davidson combines forethought with an ability to work keenly in the moment. What’s surprising is both the variety of approaches and the sustained creativity. Interests in unusual modes link cellist/bassist Andrew Downing’s Kontrbas Semaisi to pianist David Braid’s two-part Lele’s Tune, while Davidson’s duets with tenor saxophonists Mike Murley (her first saxophone teacher) and Trevor Hogg possess subtleties of harmony, timbre and line that suggest affinities with the fertile saxophone partnership of Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. Turning from her usual alto, Davidson’s most lyrical moments come on soprano saxophone, including the exchange of glassy, wispy sounds with guitarist David Occhipinti on his Silver Skates and the melodic effusion of For Glenda with pianist Laila Biali.

Eli Bennett is a 25-year-old Vancouver-raised tenor saxophonist who has been piling up awards for several years while attending Toronto’s Humber College jazz program. He arrives with the endorsement of numerous senior saxophonists, including Chris Potter, Cory Weeds and the producer of his debut CD, Kirk MacDonald. The enthusiasm is understandable given the general level of Breakthrough (Addo Records AJR024). His key influence is apparently John Coltrane, evident in the beautiful metallic tone and gauzy highs of the reflective Forever as well as a run-through of Coltrane’s Giant Steps. It’s tempered by Bennett’s enthusiasm for R&B-flavoured soul jazz, bringing a quotient of funky licks and sonic grit to originals like Let’s Roll and the highlight of the CD, the majestic and earthy title track, where all of his virtues come together. He’s ably accompanied by an excellent Toronto rhythm section of D’Arcy Myronuk on piano and Fender Rhodes, bassist Jon Maharaj and drummer Fabio Ragnelli.

Carol McCartney has been a vocalist to seek out since her 2007 debut A Night in Tunisia, declaring with its title a devotion to jazz more demanding than many singers will risk, stretching from standards and ballads to the demands of bop. The breadth of her repertoire and the quality of her soaring alto voice are evident on her latest CD, Be Cool (Moxy 014, carolmccartney.com) where she stretches from the Joni Mitchell-composed title track to Duke Ellington’s Tulip or Turnip and Wes Montgomery’s West Coast Blues. She’s joined by stellar musicians, including guitarist Lorne Lofsky, drummer Terry Clarke, bassist Kieran Overs and tenor saxophonist Chris Robinson, with pianist Brian Dickinson and Rick Wilkins providing arrangements. McCartney’s scatting on Almost Twelve makes the bossa nova a standout. 

Silent Partner
John MacMurchy (johnmacmurchy.com)

Very often I receive a CD with all original material and it raises a warning flag. Will there be melodic and harmonic content that will stand a lot of re-listening? In this case I have no such doubts. Silent Partner is a thoroughly enjoyable program of original compositions played by groups of varying sizes and including contributions by Bruce Cassidy, flugelhorn and EVI, pianist Mark Kieswetter, guitarist Dan Ionescu, Ross MacIntyre, bass, Daniel Barnes, drums, and Alan Hetherington, percussion. They all make valuable contributions to the success of this recording.

As I mentioned the songs are all MacMurchy originals. He has a beautiful sound on clarinet and his compositions, whether ballad or up-tempo, are little gems. I particularly enjoyed the somewhat melancholy “The Stars Were Out Of Order” and “A Good Day To Be Happy.” In fact listening to this music helps to make it a good day. A superior recording by superior musicians. I highly recommend this CD.