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Tony Malaby’s Apparitions – Voladores (CF 165)
New York-based tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby’s seventh album as a leader, Voladores, is named after the visually stunning Mexican dance troupes he saw while growing up in Tucson, Arizona. Inspired by their celebratory rhythmic fervor, he employs a dynamic dual drummer-based quartet on this date, revisiting the heavily percussive line-up of his 2003 sophomore release, Apparitions (Songlines).
Bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey return from the earlier session, with second drummer Michael Sarin replaced by percussionist and composer John Hollenbeck—the mercurial creative engine behind Malaby’s exotic Warblepeck (Songlines, 2008). Serving as colorist rather than polyrhythmic timekeeper, Hollenbeck’s kaleidoscopic accents augment Rainey’s propulsive trap set ruminations and provide rich harmonic detail to Gress’ melodious musings, expanding the group’s palette considerably. The rhythm section’s bustling, yet tonally harmonious undercurrent allows Malaby unprecedented freedom, similar to Coltrane’s later period work.
One of the most significant tenor saxophonists working today, Malaby’s singular technique makes him one of the foremost improvisers of his generation. Where many of his peers mistake histrionics for intensity, Malaby values subtleties in volume, timbre and tone above dexterity and speed. Though his melodious phrasing often careens at a quicksilver pace, his nuanced attention to detail sets him apart from the masses of post-Coltrane acolytes. His supple, breathy embouchure lends “Lilas” a sublime air of introspection, while the roiling turbulence of his taut intervallic cadences amplifies the jagged contours of “Old Smokey.”
Malaby reveals his plangent lyricism from the start, opening the session with a vibrant rendition of Ornette Coleman’s previously unrecorded “Homogenous Emotions.” Ripe with multiphonic soprano glissandos, sinewy arco drones and militaristic percussion retorts, the mysteriously ritualistic “East Bay” invokes the early experimental narratives of the AACM, establishing his aesthetic lineage with the sixties New Thing and seventies Loft Scene. “Dreamy Drunk” is similarly structured, a languid epic that ascends from bluesy ethereal discourse to impassioned, muscular collectivism.
The labyrinthine “Old Smokey” spotlights the rhythm section’s uncanny listening skills and intuitive communal discourse as they navigate intricate meters and modulating tempos, spurred on by Malaby’s increasingly frenetic tenor. Framed by Gress’ buoyant runs and Rainey’s acute sense of timing, Hollenbeck’s effervescent accents provide abstruse syncopation to “Los Voladores,” while his lilting melodica swells and clattering percussion underscore the loping funk vibe of the soprano-driven “Sour Diesel.”
Three brief group improvisations highlight the quartet’s congenial rapport, providing spare pointillist interludes that counterbalance the album’s dense episodic detours. Another stellar addition to an impressively diverse and expanding discography, Voladores is further proof of Malaby’s growing importance as an artist of note.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=35034
Samuel Blaser – Pieces of Old Sky (CF 151)
****
Il secondo album in quartetto di Samuel Blaser definisce in modo nitido il lavoro del giovane trombonista svizzero, che già aveva calamitato l’attenzione con il primo disco a proprio nome, 7th Heaven, con il formidabile Solo Bone, dove ha ribadito doti non comuni di solista, e lo stimolante Yay in duo con l’esuberante Malcolm Braff.
Blaser è ben focalizzato sulle proprie idee e la scelta di insistere sull’organico di trombone, chitarra, contrabbasso e batteria si dimostra ottimale per lo sviluppo di una musica dialogica, a maglie ampie, che sa essere meditativa, intensa e giocata con dinamica intelligenza tra composizione e improvvisazione. Tali motivi sono portati in questo disco ad un grado elevato di maturazione, equilibrio e personalità, centrando l’attenzione su una musica rarefatta e meditativa, sulla linea di una certa estetica sviluppata negli anni dal batterista Pierre Favre, compatriota di Blaser, con il quale il trombonista collabora in modo sistematico.
Intensità contemplativa (mistica, come traspare da alcuni titoli) e capacità costruttiva che stupiscono in un musicista ancora sotto la soglia dei trent’anni. Sottili incanti che nulla spartiscono con certa musica estetizzante ed estatica proveniente dal nord dell’Europa, ma che trovano ragione nell’ampiezza dello spazio prospettico, nella profondità e convinzione poetica, nella capacità di scrittura del protagonista. Si ascolti a tale proposito il brano più serrato nel proprio intreccio, “Red Hook,” dove le linee si intersecano in fitto contrappunto, ricordando la scrittura di Braxton, ma imboccando poi strade originali.
Fondamentale l’apporto dei musicisti coinvolti, ai quali il leader chiede di amministrare uno spazio sonoro ampio, tridimensionale. Il formidabile batterista Tyshawn Sorey interpreta con naturalezza un ruolo di interlocutore al quale è concessa una maggiore densità di fraseggio, ma in modo delicato, filigranato, attento alle sfumature dinamiche sottili e alla logica del contrappunto spontaneo. Il bassista Thomas Morgan, unico superstite rispetto al precedente quartetto di una formazione in continuo divenire, si muove con felpata spazialità, mentre la chitarra di Todd Neufeld mostra empatia particolare nel rapporto con il trombone. La cosa spicca con evidenza in “Mystical Circle” e nei due “Choral”.
Blaser controlla da virtuoso il fraseggio agile e l’emissione multifonica, ma sceglie di limitare ogni eccesso, per concentrarsi sullo sviluppo di un suono d’insieme e sulla costruzione di linee e disegni densi di significato, che giungono al massimo dell’intensità in “Mystical Circle,” meditazione sospesa nel cuore dell’album.
http://italia.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=4619
Empty Cage Quartet – Gravity (CF 161)
****
The Empty Cage Quartet keeps releasing quality albums year after year. The band consists of Jason Mears on alto and clarinet, Kris Tiner on trumpet, Ivan Johnson on bass and Paul Kikuchi on drums, and has been performing for many years in the same line-up. This is without a doubt their most mature statement to date, with a self-assured delivery that goes beyond the common expectations about jazz. The band’s compositions are based on numeric concepts : “Calendric number sequences generate cyclical Tzolkien forms that combine and recombine, seeking an intuitive, organic union of numerological complexity and visceral groove”. That’s how Kris Tiner describes it in the liner notes, adding “We are not conceptualists”. And he is right. What counts is how the music sounds. All the rest are just methods to create new approaches, to open doors as yet unopened, to create new insights, to challenge existing patterns and notions. And that’s what this band does, creating layers of music around the core structures, improvising and expanding, delving into the new possibilities that are offered. The overall result is strong. Needs to be heard.
The downside of it is that it lacks the emotional drive and expressivity of the previous albums, as if the one goes at the expense of the other. Even if the approach is interesting, the intellectualisation of the music creates a little more distance with the listener. In that sense, their previous album “Stratostrophic” was stronger. But again, if you like the band, this is for sure one of their best so far. And don’t get me wrong : there is plenty of emtional delivery, yet it’s a little less of a strength. Infusing their new concepts with the sustained emotional power of some of their previous albums would work miracles. http://freejazz-stef.blogspot.com/
Charles Rumback – Two kinds of Art Thieves (CF 152)There has long been an interesting cross-pollination between Chicago’s younger jazz and improvising musicians and the “post-rock” scene that developed in the early 1990s, out of bands like Tortoise and The Sea and Cake. Chicago’s Thrill Jockey label has hosted releases from Rob Mazurek’s Chicago Underground projects and Exploding Star Orchestra (one of which was a collaboration with trumpeter-composer Bill Dixon), as well as veterans Fred Anderson and drummer Robert Barry. Stalwart Chi-town blues and jazz label Delmark has, likewise, released the music of Mazurek and Tortoise’s Jeff Parker alongside more strictly “jazz” young lions. Less well-known than some of his peers, percussionist Charles Rumback (originally from Wichita, Kansas) is one of the busiest avant-rock sidemen in the area, playing with L’altra, Via Tania, and the ambient-improvisation duo Colorlist; Two Kinds of Art Thieves is his debut as a leader.
One might expect the gauzy, filmic textures of Colorlist to work their way into Rumback’s quartet music, so it’s somewhat surprising that Art Thieves is decidedly a jazz record, though the emphasis is on spare group improvisation. Rumback is joined here by alto saxophonist Greg Ward and tenorman Josh Sclar (and for two tracks, bassist Jason Ajemian) on six original compositions. Ten years ago, when Rumback was based in Lawrence, Kansas, his approach showed the influence of such diverse but equally intense sources as Brian Blade, Ben Perowsky and Han Bennink. The antics of bash have given way to a disappearing act, the drummer making laconic use of brushes and sleigh-bells, continually piling up economies around dovetailing alto and tenor. Sclar and Ward are an updated, free-time analogue to Warne Marsh and Gary Foster, cotton purrs and squeals merging into a singular voice. On “Manifesto,” gooey long tones from Ajemian’s bass bolster the pair as Rumback knits the air with mallets and bells. “Four Ruminations” merges slinky repetition in a dark groove behind the saxophonists’ unkempt keening, Ward’s alto rising quickly out of the ambience to chortle and declaim. One couldn’t ask for a stronger debut, and Two Kinds of Art Thieves is a welcome addition to the landscape of young Chicago improvisation.–
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2009/12dec_text.html#8
Zé Eduardo Unit - A Jazzar – Live in Capuchos (CF 155)
The trio of bassist-composer Zé Eduardo, drummer Bruno Pedroso and powerhouse tenorman Jesús Santandreu has been active on the Iberian scene for the better part of a decade, primarily as a vehicle for the leader’s arrangements of folk and popular song into open improvisational settings. Their Clean Feed debut, A Jazzar no Zeca (2002), was a setting of the anti-fascist songs of José Afonso; other recordings have focused on Portuguese cinema, and Live in Capuchos retains the cinematic tradition by including themes from cartoons The Simpsons and Noddy. I’ll confess a slight gag reflex was triggered by seeing Danny Elfman’s tune in the setlist, but it’s rendered barely recognizable across the track’s seven minutes, Santandreu digging into his Newk/Trane roots in a rollicking solo over a jolly, pliant bounce. There’s a shade of Rollins’ “I’m an Old Cowhand” here, and in fact the tongue-in-cheek trotting-out of a fairly insipid recent popular song is something Eduardo has in common with Rollins and Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
“Grandola” opens with a weighty plod before bass and tenor soar in delicate interplay; Eduardo’s bass takes a more central role than on previous dates, exhibiting affection for high-pitched pizzicato strumming, effortlessly shifting from fluttering abstraction to supple, folksy lilt. Pedroso, a longtime fixture on the Lisbon scene and a highly in-demand drummer, dissects marches into stabbing freedom, yet carries a loose backbeat just as easily. Thirty-odd years ago, a player cobbling together mainstream and free-jazz tenor influences wouldn’t have been something particularly interesting, but somehow the honesty of Santandreu’s approach is refreshing – especially because he’s not a technical showman but a compellingly virile student of the music. His sand-blasted honks and blats in “Dartacão,” coupled with fleet fingering and wide leaps, are an exciting reminder of what solid modern-jazz tenor playing is all about. Eduardo coined the verb “jazzar” to define what his group does – to make jazz, make immediate the legacy of popular and folk song, translating even the hokiest numbers into personal artworks. Live in Capuchos is a fine example of the Zé Eduardo Unit at work.–
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2009/12dec_text.html#8
Samuel Blaser Quartet – Pieces of old Sky (CF 151)
Pieces of Old Sky marks the second disc in barely as many years by trombonist Samuel Blaser’s quartet. The only returning member is bassist Thomas Morgan; Blaser is joined on these seven original compositions by percussionist Tyshawn Sorey and guitarist Todd Neufeld. The trombonist’s pedigree is strong – Swiss-born and working in both Brooklyn and Berlin, he’s won the Benny Golson and J.J. Johnson prizes and occupied trombone chairs in the European Radio Big Band and the Vienna Art Orchestra. One would assume that the natural choice following those exploits would be to assemble a top-rank contemporary hardbop group and play the shit out of some Jazztet-like charts. Not so Blaser; in addition to this staunchly open (albeit not “free”) quartet, he’s also released a disc of extended solo playing in the tradition of ‘bone abusers like Paul Rutherford and Günter Christmann, and performed in duo with veteran Swiss drummer Pierre Favre. Blaser’s tone is crisp and clean, but he has a strong command of multiphonics and a tendency to work long, low tones like a bass trombonist or tubaist.
Neufeld’s guitar playing here has a dustbowl sensibility suggesting filmic folk-rock, and stands in stark relief to the slush and poise of the leader’s phrasing; the results recall the grainy distance of the Nels Cline Singers. The lengthy title piece offers a field of mournful strums, mallet wash and loose pizzicato outlines, a windblown landscape that sets the stage for an oddly precise bluesiness. Following the leader’s cleaned-up “Everywhere”-like statement, guitar and bass draw around each other, teasing out Spanish-tinged moments and borough skitter. Sorey’s suspensions and bombs are placed with muscular exactitude, a grand component of this modern tone poem. Blaser’s sound is totally his own, rich and deep and with a curiously Latinate musk; his heady and romantic storytelling fills in the atmospheric holes left by the ensemble.
“Red Hook” is given a knotty run-through, before Sorey and Morgan untie those knots and make new ones of their own. Sorey is one of those drummers who changes moods with such deftness and speed that one might miss the initial structure of an idea, since it’s quickly replaced by its reconfigurations. All that technique might be tiring if it weren’t part of a larger purpose, and the duet he performs with Blaser midway through is full of such natural, song-like flutter that mere “exactitude” doesn’t matter. “Mandala” returns to the approach of the opener, blues-rock flecks fleshed out with a bit of Mangelsdorff growl that falls away into spare, front-porch detail. Unlike a lot of young upstarts with jazz chops to spare, Blaser is equally convincing working in more exploratory, collectivist forms of improvisation, and the results on Pieces of Old Sky are thoroughly convincing.–
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2009/12dec_text.html#8
Tony Malaby’s Apparitions – Voladores (CF 165) ****
One of New York’s most in-demand sidemen since he hit town in 1995, Arizona saxophonist Tony Malaby quickly established himself as a consistently satisfying bandleader and recording artist, serving up one solid release after another. Having weighed in earlier this year with the fiery Paloma Recio, Malaby caps 2009 with a follow-up to 2003’s Apparitions, which introduced a unique bass-and-two-drummers format. Returning from that session are bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey, charismatic players who have logged countless hours together. The trump card here is second drummer John Hollenbeck, whose melodica and vibraphone provide new foils for the leader’s hearty flights.
http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/music/81183/tony-malabys-apparitions-voladores-album-review#ixzz0ZltxpThs
Transit – Quadrologues (CF 143)
Et la même invention, aussi : dans le déploiement d’une musique en équilibre toujours précaire et qui fait de son état vacillant le premier de ses atouts (Strata), sur l’air latin flirtant avec le minimalisme de Walking on Fire ou encore sur de lentes progressions affirmant davantage au fil des secondes, jusqu’à changer une mollesse d’abord revendiquée en morceau d’épaisseur irrésistible (Meeting Ground, The Science of Breath). Jusqu’au bout, Transit invente en quartette vigoureux mais distant, si ce n’est en conclusion, sur Myrtle Avenue Revival, pièce dont le free fantasque évoque Don Cherry (Wooley aux avant postes) histoire de finir sur un grand hommage. http://www.lesondugrisli.com/
WILL HOLSHOUSER TRIO + BERNARDO SASSETTI – Palace Ghosts And Drunken Hymns (CF 160)
Holshouser and Sassetti had shared a stage for the first time in 2004, this album coming five years later as an expected corollary of that initial meeting. The accordionist and the pianist penned the entirety of the program, except for Carlos Paredes’ “Dança Palaciana” which opens the CD. The line-up is completed by Ron Horton on trumpet and David Phillips on bass. Portugal’s musical roots, landscapes and urban environments are admittedly an essential influence on this work, which alternates moments of wholehearted joy – characteristically expressed by odd-metered tunes and folk-ish themes led by Holshouser’s accordion – and pensive reminiscences in which Sassetti’s piano emerges with the customary assortment of introspective melancholy but – a bit of a revelation here – also with a measure of discordant diversity, exemplified by the angular figurations of “Irreverence”. The most lyrical traits, though, emerge courtesy of Horton, whose lines produce immediate images of vulnerability enriched by a rare quality of perceptive self-discipline, letting him appear as the real lead figure in this circumstance. Phillips is a clever, ever-efficient supporter, furnishing the interplay with unambiguous contrapuntal suggestions that help the music to remain anchored to a reality that often tends to be forgotten in such kind of context. A brilliantly rendered example of instrumental narrative mixing popular and experimental factors.
http://temporaryfault.blogspot.com/2009/12/odd-couple-of-great-releases.html
Stuart Broomer
Contributor: All About Jazz-New York; Musicworks; Point of Departure; Signal to Noise; Toronto Life.
SIXTEEN FAVORITE NEW RECORDINGS OF 2009
Derek Bailey & Agusti Fernandez A Silent Dance (Incus)
Samuel Blaser Quartet Pieces of Old Sky, Clean Feed (CF 151)
Anthony Braxton/ Maral Yakshieva Improvisations (duo) 2008 (SLYD Records)
John Butcher Group somethingtobesaid (Weight of Wax)
Circulasione Totale Orchestra bandwidth (rune)
Marilyn Crispell Live at Nya Perspektiv Festivals (Leo)
Die Enttäuschung (Rudi Mahall, Axel Dörner, et al.) Die Enttäuschung (Intakt)
Peter Evans Nature/Culture (psi)
Fast ‘n’ Bulbous Waxed Oop (Cuneiform)
John Hébert Byzantine Monkey (Firehouse 12)
Komeda Project Requiem WM Records
Joëlle Léandre / George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt)
Tony Malaby’s Apparitions Voladores, Clean Feed (CF 165)
Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble The Moment’s Energy (ECM)
Eddie Prévost/ Ross Lambert/ Seymour Wright Invenio ergo/sum (Matchless)
John Zorn O’o (Tzadik)
NINE FAVORITE HISTORICAL RECORDINGS OF 2009
Bobby Bradford Extet Midnight Pacific Airwaves (Entropy Stereo)
Anthony Braxton Creative Orchestra (Köln)1978 (hatOLOGY)
Joe Bushkin/ Stuff Smith Live Embers & Violin Solos (AB Fable)
Scott LaFaro Pieces of Jade (Resonance)
Django Reinhardt Postwar Recordings 1944-1953 (JSP)
Sun Ra Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold (ESP)
Sun Ra Live in Cleveland (Golden Years)
Horace Tapscott The Dark Tree (hatOLOGY)
Charles Tyler Saga of the Outlaws (Nessa)
http://www.jazzhouse.org/diary/2009/12/stuart-broomer-25-favorite-cds/
