OLIVIA BLOCK/KYLE BRUCKMANN
Teem
The duo of composer and sound artist Olivia Block and reedman/multi-instrumentalist and composer Kyle Bruckmann has been in the offing for a decade, though Teem is the first iteration on disc. Because of Bruckmann’s 2003 relocation to the Bay Area (Block resides in Chicago), the possibilities of real-time duets were extended to a cross-continental collaboration, one which took place over five years. Composition and the notion of instantaneousness – whether real or perceived – are funny things. Certainly, in this instance, there is both a real-time and a broad spatial concept of collaborating, and though fragments of “actual” duo improvisation are woven into Teem’s final fabric, much of the material was formed from a process of co-editing and mixing separately formed sounds/actions into the whole. That being said, the overall feel of this record and its four subdivided movements is very cohesive – collisions of close-miked scrabble with occasional piano clusters and Bruckmann’s high, split-toned oboe and cor anglais wail seem to occupy a common environmental impulse. Areas of contrast seem natural, such as the yawing horn, oboe and clanging (set to an almost baroque poise) fronting a scrim of piercing overtones and glitchy rustle in the first movement. It wouldn’t be an either/OAR release without the presence of field recordings; the label’s mode (or part of it, anyway) is the presentation of environmentally-derived sound sources, and both Block and Bruckmann include naked and processed nods to human, animal, and industrial in gauzes and terse asides to their electro-acoustic webs. Rarely does Teem approach “noise,” though there’s a dense introduction to its second movement. The sounds collected, presented and organized here are environmental in the truest, most non-ambient sense of the word, derived from relationships and experience, and that’s a wonderful thing.
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
Oomcycota
(Wodger)
Oomcycota is the second release on Steve Silverstein’s Wodger label to feature his own outfit, Christmas Decorations, which despite geographic challenges has been making music for the better part of a decade. Initially taking cues from post-punk, they have slowly morphed into an unclassifiable atmospheric/organic improvisation ensemble. In addition to Silverstein, the group features Nick Forte (ex-Rorschach), Peter Kerlin and Kurt Knuth. All three members work with a diverse range of electronic and acoustic instruments, though picking apart who does what isn’t really the point. While the improvisations are shorter and more condensed than on the preceding Far Flung Hum, Christmas Decorations’ approach remains curiously folksy, a front-porch or communal aspect that doesn’t always imbue contemporary electro-acoustic music. Zither, guitar, harmonica, contrabass, no-input mixing board, loops and percussion commingle in long, droning forms with occasional surges of activity, sometimes building into a rickety ramble as on the reverb-heavy toe-tap/clunk of “Notochord.” Christmas Decorations occupy a curious place in the pantheon of underground improvisation – they’re not naively throwing shit at the wall as, say, Tower Recordings or Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice, but their vaguely rock-informed verve sets them apart from the post-Bead Records aesthetic pool (which their improvisations sometimes recall). Still, there’s a decidedly on-the-sleeve glee of rattling collegno, patchwork electronics and mouth buzz, a discovery of both the oddness of sounds and ways to organize them into something cohesive, that is clear from tracks like “Hispid” or the shuffling goo of “Shale Hermit.” Music like this is what the small-run LP (as Wodger does it), CD-R, or cassette was made for – documentation of what lies around and underneath the left field. Hopefully, some people will pay enough attention that these documents remain heard.
SYLVIE COURVOISIER-MARK FELDMAN QUARTET
To Fly to Steal
(Intakt)
Pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier is one of those rare musicians who can bridge any perceivable gaps between open improvisation and contemporary classical music. Though the audiences for both seem to overlap, the academy hasn’t taken much notice (still), and to a point that’s perfectly fine. Courvoisier’s music (and that of regular musical partner, violinist-improviser Mark Feldman, also her husband) dovetails with post-serial composition while retaining a sense of structural organization that hits upon both freedom and arch rigor. To Fly to Steal adds the rhythm section of drummer Gerry Hemingway and bassist Thomas Morgan to the Courvoisier-Feldman duo, and among its seven pieces are three group improvisations as well as two each by the co-leaders. There’s a telling sign in Courvoisier’s opening “Messiaenesque,” its orchestral crash buoyed by a frantically eliding piano-violin line, group improvisation hinging on pizzicato snaps and collective clang. Feldman’s “The Good Life” merges an Eastern European rondo form with a swinging tempo section and a pointillist pulse, combining Bartok with Braxton. As precise as Feldman’s choices of “classicism” might be, leading to a staggering level of technicality, there’s an underlying slink and warmth to certain lines that recalls Leroy Jenkins. Courvoisier follows with a merging of insistent upward trills, clunky post-bop interpretations and a few classic Cecil-like rhythm-clusters. Rather than being an aesthetic entwining, Courvoisier and Feldman complement one another along a path of poised, dynamic execution and the genuine motion of immediacy. Romance and glacial events intersect in “Five Senses of Keen,” delicate strum and micro-prettiness supported by cymbal tap and woody pluck in a pensive disappearing act, peppered with odd-interval spikes. Ultimately, this is an excellent set of music and, for those who appreciate clear lines of organization in their abstraction, a most accessible entry into the worlds of these Downtown improvising composers.
JOEL FUTTERMAN
Transition One: Solo Piano
Pianist and improviser Joel Futterman engages an extremely broad sense of the piano’s history and possibilities on Transition One, the seventh disc of solo piano music that he has released himself, following the six-disc set Creation (2008). Futterman is based in Virginia and is probably best known for his small-group collaborations with saxophonists Kidd Jordan and Ike Levin, and drummer Alvin Fielder, throughout the last two decades. Naturally, this is not that – solo piano music (or solo music of any stripe; and Futterman has also recorded solo music for soprano saxophone and Indian flutes) requires a dedication to exploring one’s own lexicon independently of immediate conversation. Futterman explores sound and the instrument in much the same way as he talks or deals with words – drawling romanticism, punchy barrelhouse, and passages of explosive density that nevertheless espouse a sense of utter clarity. Each of the three pieces here is completely improvised, without – as Futterman would tell it – any preconception.
Composing in the moment is, for some improvisers, a reworking of one’s art with a set structure to work within. For someone like Futterman, it is a blank-minded exploration of a lifetime of experience, craft, and performance. Assemblages of interdependent single-note thoughts eddy and dance, forming sharp rivulets and painterly crags, moving from sentences to paragraphs to words and isolated statements in a resoundingly physical conversation with the piano. Futterman is keyed into the tradition, and snatches of post-bop phrasing and lush, gospelized inflection imbue this piano-chase. Though logic is a part of Futterman’s freedom, surprise is an equal bedfellow – the closing four minutes of the opening movement being a case in point, as the pianist explores a viscous ballad, swirling maelstroms, and rolling fragments of Jaki Byard-like stride. Transition One is a tour de force of solo playing from one of the staunchest individualists in contemporary pianism.
VOX ARCANA
Aerial Age
Vox Arcana is a two-year-old trio and, though billed cooperatively between percussionist Tim Daisy (Vandermark 5), cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, and clarinetist James Falzone, this Chicago-based group is essentially Daisy’s first foray as leader and sole composer. On the standard kit, his approach has gotten more sensitive, as well as expansive, over the years, with an appreciation for sound dynamics and repetition that show a kinship with Swedish percussionist-composer Sven-Åke Johansson. While drawing from the New York School of composers and artists of years past, Aerial Age is most certainly a set of contemporary improvisation and exploits the considerable range of its participants as both soloists and group players.
“The Number 7” toys with minimalism, its initial salvo a short ascending phrase initiated by clarinet, and followed by cello and marimba. It becomes an inverted and slightly jumbled proposition broken up by terse, hushed micro-statements, followed by overlapping harangues of repeating forms and tone rows. Falzone is an excellent clarinetist, building upon Daisy’s written material in a way that both accentuates its rigor and follows a personal phraseology. One hears the high trills of modern classical foundations as well as the bent trills and dives of a player like Perry Robinson. The solo drum section that closes “Blue Space” is an indication of where Daisy’s improvisations are heading, drum-choir density mated to a compositional sense of restraint that recalls such diverse influences as Johansson, Pierre Favre and Thurman Barker. The tightly-wound mechanisms of “The Silver Fence” erupt into darting triple-play, at first clearly structural and at second glance (when cello and clarinet stretch over Daisy’s fluttering brushes), a conceit derived from openness and individuality. The oddest juxtaposition, however, is a loose third-stream swing that connects to a Mingusian push-pull midway through. While a contemporaneous trio like Vandermark’s Free Fall might loosely take as its model Giuffre, Bley, and Swallow, Vox Arcana curiously merges different threads of the composing-for-improvisers axis, bringing together modernist mobiles with a crisp and informed, freewheeling élan.
OMRI ZIEGELE WHERE’S AFRICA TRIO
Can Walk on Sand
(Intakt)
Where’s Africa (Intakt, 2006) was the first documented collaboration between Swiss saxophonist Omri Ziegele and the pianist Irene Schweizer in a program of music that reflected the diverse worldwide sources of creative music from Dollar Brand and Don Cherry to Ellington and Monk and beyond. Now, Ziegele and Schweizer have added South African drummer Makaya Ntshoko (a veteran of Brand’s early groups) to the equation on this latest set of originals and reimaginings. Brand and Gershwin enter the program, as do Mal Waldron, Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Ornette, and Oliver Nelson. Though she’s known more for her place on a post-Cecil axis and as one of the founding figures of continental European free jazz, Schweizer’s volcanism is tempered for clean, delicious swatches of post-bop and high life in Brand’s “Tyntiana,” taken at a fast and sunny clip with Ntshoko’s loose crack and the curling, breathy alto of Ziegele (who reminds one of Carlos Ward, albeit more sputtering in his loquaciousness).
“Soul Eyes” is a duo of parallels, opening with an extended, oblique alto cadenza, Ziegele’s piling trills obscuring thematic referents until Schweizer enters and they explore a push-pull of tripled cadence and wistful measurement. The pianist’s unaccompanied feature voices modern stride a la Solo Monk, but with a crystalline touch and sneaky arpeggios. The title track, as well as the two Dyani covers, feature fellow Swiss saxophonist Jürg Wickihalder, who adds a sugary pensiveness derived from a rather individual interpretation of Steve Lacy, to Ziegele’s peppery approach. It would be interesting had the set been a little more interwoven, because shorter themes like “Butch and Butch,” Ornette’s “Giggin’,” and McGregor’s wonderful “Andromeda” theme (rarely heard in such a stripped-down context) could do well in a Cherry-esque ragtag suite, not to mention Ziegele’s nutty alto-and-vocal take on “Summertime.” Can Walk on Sand is a finely uplifting slab of modern creative music, drawing from a mulitiplicity of traditions but remaining solidly its own.
KYLE BRENDERS
Ways
It’s extremely valuable to have the opportunity to hear a young compositional voice like that of Toronto-based and Wesleyan University-educated saxophonist Kyle Brenders. Because Canadian musicians rarely get the exposure in the States that they should, his Porter Records release (and third overall) should hopefully do something to change that invisibility. Brenders’ other recordings have been solo and in duet with the maestro, Anthony Braxton. He’s also a member of the Steve Lacy repertory ensemble, The Rent. Here, Brenders is joined by trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud, cellist Tilman Lewis, bassist Aaron Lumley, percussionist Brandon Valdivia and analog synthesizer artist Jonathan Adjemian on five sections of the Ways suite.
Like Braxton and Bill Dixon, Brenders’ music operates in a grey area between notated music and open improvisation, subtle coloristic variations on written events that move in gradual cycles. Brenders’ approach to the soprano is somewhere in between the fluttering and sometimes anguished highs of Braxton and the playful rhythmic clunk-and-whirr of Lacy. Coupled with the stately waver and microtonal chuffs of Rampersaud and tension generated by droning strings and sputtering analog electronics, the sextet’s music often recalls the most minimal examples of Feldman and Ferrari as well as pan-tempo improvised dirges. That’s not to say the music is structurally narrow; puckered kisses, clanging gongs, chattering strings and analog swoops make for a pockmarked landscape on the opening (second) movement. Indeed, Valdivia’s malleted knocks give an unsettling twist to cutting wind and string unisons, which move from staying a protracted course to crumbling and contorting in a few short measures. Improvised or written, Brenders is clearly a contemporary composer to watch.
LITTLE WOMEN
Throat
To look at the fervent year-end accolades heaped on alto saxophonist and improvising composer Darius Jones, one would think that the 31-year-old Brooklyn-based (and Richmond, VA native) is a rising star of mainstream jazz or hip modern-creative music. One would be sorely mistaken with that guess – the unbridled, balls-to-the-wall brand of free music that Jones plays wouldn’t have even scratched the bottom of the Down Beat reader’s poll forty years ago. Certainly free music is far more accepted now than it was in decades past, but to hear Jones’s work in the cooperative quartet Little Women (with tenor saxophonist Travis Laplante, guitarist Andrew Smiley and drummer Jason Nazary), no amount of preparation for sonic assault will do.
From the opening salvo of the seven-part title suite, it’s clear that staccato blasts are just a starting point. Throat takes as a reference point the free music/punk ethos of such ensembles as Rudolph Grey’s Blue Humans, or Last Exit with the bottom removed. The music is as top-heavy and wiry as the Contortions, and if no wave bands were more often driven by a fleet and jazz-informed drummer, that might be a little closer to what Little Women offer. After the opening section, Jones and Laplante lock horns in a sharp and barely distinguishable melee, minimalist riffage supported by gritty, buzzing guitar chunks and tumbling drums. Ecstatic overtone preaching, gentle ricochets and harmonic blocks make up the second part, a tenor-alto duo that jumps zealously over the bow. A lilting, flinty post-punk march appears in the fourth movement, kaleidoscopic cycles soon breaking down into detuned pummeling that, if the saxophones were replaced by lyrics, could fit on a Dream Syndicate LP. Clearly Little Women have done their homework, but luckily it’s easy to forget as the foursome blister into uncharted territory.
LORENZO SANGUEDOLCE / MICHAEL BISIO
Live at the Yippie
Saxophone-bass duets aren’t exactly common in the world of free improvisation, though recently a few stunning examples have been waxed, namely the fine program of Monk tunes by bassist Dominic Duval and saxophonist Jimmy Halperin (Monk Dreams, No Business, 2009). Michael Bisio and Duval are birds of a feather, so to speak – muscular players whose conception supports and accents the whole while also being forceful enough to be visible on the front line. Bisio called Seattle home for years, but has recently begun teaching at Bennington College in Vermont (also home to Milford Graves and, formerly, Bill Dixon). On this No Business vinyl-only release, he joins (now Brooklyn-based) Italian saxophonist Lorenzo Sanguedolce for the improvisation “Stract,” a piece that stretches across two sides recorded live at the Yippie Cafe in the East Village.
The bassist and saxophonist make a good pair, Sanguedolce’s tone and phrasing a gruff and husky amalgam of lofty, jumping honks and wandering, flinty tendrils. Bisio’s relentless pizzicato is a motorik foil and inspires some rather fleet runs from Sanguedolce, a loose and sanded-down boppishness that while not entirely “clean” is certainly inspired. Bisio’s solo at the end of side one piles on the bebop phraseology toward doubled-up mass, a la Peter Kowald in a mind-melting vertical-time improvisation. The second half begins with a soaring exploration of long tones, arco moving from low drone to high harmonics alongside Sanguedolce’s quavering upward flights. A nod to John Tchicai appears in heavy-footed repetition and cyclical phrases, as bass and tenor join and part in a dance of affinities both fleeting and solid. It will be interesting to hear where Lorenzo Sanguedolce goes next, but Live at the Yippie is an exciting representative slice of his music.
BLAISE SIWULA / DOM MINASI
Live at the Mat Bevel Institute
Available as a download-only release from the Istanbul-based re:konstruKt label, this set of saxophone and guitar duets was recorded at Tuscon’s Mat Bevel Institute and features four compositions by Siwula and three by Minasi. Siwula is no stranger to such a pared-down context and along with a previous collaboration with Minasi (Duet, self-released) he has worked in similar fashion with guitarists Bern Nix, John Gilbert and Carsten Radtke. The breath-and-strings format stretches from Lee Konitz and Billy Bauer in the 1950s to the famed Anthony Braxton-Derek Bailey recordings on Emanem and Victo of the 1970s and 80s, and Live at the Mat Bevel Institute straddles both areas equally and fluidly.
Personally, my hearing of Minasi’s work has mostly been in larger ensembles, ranging from saxophonist-composer Joe Giardullo’s large ensemble Red Morocco (Rogue Art, 2007) to unruly string quartet music (Konnex, 2009). In such a naked setting, the particular qualities of his playing begin to stand out – purring, soft dissonances and a melding of individual, almost microscopic actions into a canvas of pure sound. That said, as a composer and player, his gentle swing is, while at times necessarily fractured, also wryly compelling. In “Strange,” as Siwula’s squeaky alto harmonics find a notch to hold onto, Minasi teases out a regular resonant thrum, a deep thwack that acts almost like the painterly clusters of a bassist, even with twangy detours into a backwoods wire farm. While not as beholden to leaps, bounds, and maddening choices as Braxton, Siwula’s effervescent phrasing becomes a full stream of forward motion that recalls the (slightly) elder reedman’s reverent plow-through of the standard repertoire. “What Monk” begins with clomping gestures that intertwine, spiraling upward in clunky and gooey pirouettes. “The Day after Next” finds Minasi applying a bit of dustbowl distortion behind the more spacious, wide-vibrato playing that Siwula brings to the fore. Excellent stuff and very much recommended.
UNCLE WOODY SULLENDER / SEAMUS CATER
When We Get to Meeting
(Dead CEO)
Woody Sullender has taken the American folk music milieu into a unique area that dovetails with skittering free improvisation and sound environments. Sullender spent time teaching in the sound department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and currently resides in Brooklyn – yet he’s been somewhat removed from any “scene” in either city. On When We Get to Meeting, the first vinyl offering on Sullender’s Dead CEO imprint, the banjoist is joined by harmonica blower Seamus Cater on a series of duo improvisations. Harmonica and banjo naturally call to mind the tropes of front-porch odes and dusty rambles, so the format is perfect for extended sonic exploration. Cater approaches the harmonica in a non-melodic fashion, for the most part, exhaling long and low tones or hitting high pitches reminiscent of bowed cymbals or electronics. The swarming plucks and needling attack from Sullender’s earlier recordings isn’t really the focus here; the pair approach funereal ballads and rumbling uptempo blues with homegrown minimalism and a treacherous, woozy push-pull. The “mouth organ” aspect of the harmonica is explored in Cater’s weighty, dramatic phrasing on “While Sails Billow,” thin electronic wisps and occasional banjo progressions commenting, fleshing out and massing together. Sure, Sullender is still a hell of a string player and the hyperactive whine of yore returns from time to time, but whether ornamental or stripped-down, it’s clear his concept has matured. When We Get to Meeting is an incomparable set, and however one chooses to classify the music of Sullender and Cater, it’s absolutely gorgeous and unique.
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Treader Duos
(Treader)
The image embossed on the cover of Treader Duos (as with all Treader releases, a cuddly critter in gold foil) is rather fitting: a hedgehog, as spiny as the music contained therein. Because reeds and percussion duos are some of the most naked and vital in this music, and because most of them tend to run out of steam before the record button has been stopped, Treader has seen fit to release a disc of three separate duets, all hovering just beyond the twenty minute mark. Most of the participants have appeared on the label’s previous releases, and these combinations are rather striking – John Butcher and Mark Sanders, clarinetist Alex Ward and Roger Turner, and John Tchicai and Tony Marsh.
Recorded in a London church, the sound here is wide-open and dynamic, natural space occasionally overcoming subtlety but leaving honesty and exuberance untouched. Clarinetist Alex Ward has recorded in the Barkingside group with pianist Alexander Hawkins, as well as with guitarist Duck Baker and solo on Treader. His playing neither smacks of Giuffre nor Perry Robinson, echoing instead the pops and whirligigs of Steve Lacy, warbling and goading the angsty clang and thrash of Turner, who mostly operates in high gear save for a section of gestural scrapes accompanied by clarinet mouthpiece. Butcher brings both tenor and soprano to the opening “Tooth Pivot,” a dance of poised stabs and short melodic fragments threaded together, the saxophonist’s harmonics fluttering and trilling in large areas framed by Sanders’ accented patchwork.
Despite having worked with drummer greats like Milford Graves, Louis Moholo, Don Moye and Makaya Ntshoko, “We Dare to Sing” is the first recording I can think of where Tchicai spars in such a wide-open context. The reedman opens the piece with a vocal invocation underpinned by agitated brushwork, before entering into jittery and quixotic tenor purrs, his cadence as jaunty as ever. There’s a burnished quality to his wails, voice slightly gravelly but as stripped-down and open as the sinewy curls of his phrases. Marsh is an excellent support, weaving deceptively simple polyrhythmic phrases underneath the elder statesman. Treader Duos is a varied and beautiful set not to be missed.
KATHERINE YOUNG
Further Secret Origins
I’m not sure if it’s right to say that Katherine Young is the Anthony Braxton of the bassoon – probably better to say that she’s a “restructuralist master” of the instrument and/or the Katherine Young of the bassoon. Indeed, she’s worked extensively with Braxton as well as in ensembles directed by composers Andrew Raffo Dewar and Matthew Welch (both also Wesleyan & Braxton alums). Further Secret Origins is Young’s first disc under her own name, presenting seven compositions for bassoon and (occasional) electronics that are both sprawling and economic. The bassoon is really taken to a direct and contemporary point on this recording, and there is no effort made to turn the instrument into something that it isn’t, whether plodding through a maddening pulse track with wonderful cyclical blats and a whimsical multiphonic line on “Patricia Highsmith” or engaging gargled harmonics in concert with rhythmic taps and indeterminate whir on “Elevation.” Certainly Young can produce masses of unruly sound that sometimes recall Braxton’s work on the contrabass clarinet, from hot low outpourings to twittering upper-register whine. A mildly irregular beat and low, uneven tones create much of the landscape on the quarter-hour “For Autonauts, for Travelers,” stark wisps and garish asides stitched into a knotty and unsettling mood. Koan-like quips rest atop looped (and bassoon-generated) rhythms on “Relief,” eventually drawn out into a series of overdubbed tones that waver, buzz, and pucker the ear. Raw and peerless, Katherine Young’s bassoon landscapes deserve serious recognition and study.