JAZZ
WORD
Is Peter Evans the Future of the Trumpet?
February 8, 2010 - For someone who has only been on the scene for a short time, Queens. N.Y. York-based Peter Evans has quickly become one the most talked about and praised trumpeters on the progressive scene since arriving in New York six years ago with a classical performance degree from Oberlin Conservatory. Composer/keyboardist Eric Wubbels raves about the trumpeter’s solo double-CD in New Music Box, going into great detail about Evans’ technical prowess, comparing his command of solo technique to that of saxophonist Evan Parker and situating him firmly within the New music tradition. However Evans is more versatile than that. He’s also a charter member of bassist Moppa Elliott's so-called terrorist bebop band Mostly Other People Do the Killing, along with alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon and drummer Kevin Shea; performs Baroque music on piccolo trumpet; and is part of the improvising duo Sparks with bassist Tom Blancarte, and another one with fellow trumpeter Nate Wooley. READ
An obsession for the musicality of spoken language: Alessandro Bosetti
February 1, 2010 - Usually splitting his time between Berlin and Baltimore, Italian sound artist Alessandro Bosetti has evolved his musical output to such an extent, that he can now create live an electronic-oriented presentation involving what he calls his obsession with speech’s musicality. He also insists that he sees himself as much as a performer as a composer. Citing an exceedingly long list of influences and peers, Bosetti – who played soprano saxophone before he began concentrating on reductionist oscillations and lap-top wave-form manipulation – recalls that a performance he saw at 15 by soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, convinced him to become a musician, and that the most “awesome” music he had seen recently was by saxophonists Joe McPhee and Roscoe Mitchell. READ
Catching Up with Pianist Myra Melford
January 25, 2010 - Pianist Myra Melford is a busy woman. Not only does she teach improvisation at California’s Mills College, but she records frequently and find time to tour with her ensemble featuring trumpeter Cuong Vu and clarinetist Ben Goldberg. In this un-bylined interview with At Length, she speaks about her interest in world music and multi-media – characterized by studying the North Indian harmonium – plus collaborations with Butoh-trained dancers, poets and fine artists – and fields a query about women in music, pegged to her duo disc with fellow keyboardist Satoko Fujii. A streaming track of her playing with her new group – filled out by guitarist Brandon Ross , bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer Matt Wilson – is included. READ
Conceptualizing Free Improvisation with Trombonist Gail Brand
January 18, 2010 - Dealing with a hoary query about the existence of “free improvisation”, British trombonist Gail Brand turns this question posed by the Artistry21 Web site into an extended meditation on creativity. Brand, who during her 15-year career has already played with improvisers from the United Kingdom and the United States as different as vocalist Morgan Guberman, drummer Gino Robair, bassist Simon H. Fell and guitarist Derek Bailey, manages in her cerebral answer to make her points while citing the concept’s child-like simplicity, the role of music-makers in non-western societies and the socio-economic climate that encouraged free expression in late 1950s U.K. She also discusses such nitty-gritty concerns as the physical exertion of playing and the reflection needed to create exceptional sounds READ
Honoring Tenor Saxophone Elders: Kidd Jordan and Fred Anderson
January 11, 2010 - At 75, New Orleans’ Kidd Jordan and Chicago’s 80-year-old Fred Anderson – both tenor saxophone masters – are finally being recognized on the national jazz scene. A recent CD-DVD set, 21st Century Chase, proves they both are playing at top of their form(s). In this rumination on fame, Point of Departure’s Bill Shoemaker notes that despite both men’s long careers as improvisers and mentors in their native cities, they were so off-the radar that they only barely knew of one another and didn’t meet and start collaborating until the mid-1980s. This situation existed despite Anderson’s history as an long-time member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (ACCM), playing with the likes of drummer Hamid Drake and multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart, and Jordan’s close affiliation with AACM drummer Alvin Fielderand trumpeter Clyde Kerr Jr. among others. READ

KEN WAXMAN'S
REVIEW OF THE MOMENT
Read reviews of over 1,800 musicians

ASSIF TSAHAR

Ayn Le-any
Hopscotch 7

JORRIT DIJKSTRA
30 micro-stems
Trytone TT559-014

MARK WHITECAGE & HIS VIRTUAL COMBO
Ducks on Acid
Acoustics ELE 415 CD

Adding electronics to acoustic instruments has clearly redefined the idea of solo-improvised performances. Loops, delays, processing and the like mean that, for example, an inventive woodwind player can now create as singularly as he wants or exhibit all the applications and more that you would expect from an entire reed combo.

Still, as the old record guys used to say in the pre-CD days, “it’s all in the grooves”. In other words no quantity of mechanics will improve the work of a mediocre player, while the truly inventive will go beyond standard electronic settings to add more than a gloss of modernity to their improvisations.

Two of this trio of solo discs uses electronic attachments. The third, by New York reedman Assif Tsahar offers up three solo selections that are as naked as the photograph of the swimmer on the cover -- who may be the Israeli-American bass clarinetist and tenor saxophonist himself.

Each CD -- the others are by Boston-based, Dutch saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra and Jersey City, N.J. reedist Mark Whitecage -- is a heartfelt solo expression. Luckily, as well, their many virtues intrinsically relate to the men tonguing their reeds rather than to the doodads amplifying their output(s).

Tsahar, known for his downtown sympathies in bands with players such as drummer Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker plainly designed his CD around the second of the three untitled tracks. At almost 34½-minutes, this tenor saxophone feature is bookended by two trilling, bass clarinet split tone explorations of at about six minutes each. Think of them as the appetizer and desert to the entrée.

Meaty as all get-all, this main saxophone course shows how chef Tsahar can prepare an entrée without any sous-chefs onside. Often heavy on the seasoning, he mixes up some altissimo reed squeaks, dissonant claxon suggestions, basso circular tones and --most appropriately -- tongue slaps to spread over firm base of lightly accented notes in many patterns. Eventually these tone streams are succeeded by raggedly pitched blue notes, which begin to resemble human screams. A form of staccato (Middle Eastern?) blues, these shrieks bisect a speedy, jagged line which at times makes it sound as if he’s playing “Reveille” from deep inside his horn.

As Tsahar varies his vibrations, he bites hard on his reed, producing a tone as elevated as a standing rack of lamb, spicing it up with a few lungfuls of pure squeak. Then, as his vibrato widens, he adds balladic seasoning to the recipe, echoing inflections within his cylindrical tube. After a last minute addition in a high, false register, he proffers his creation with a few tiny reed breaths for proper presentation. Done like dinner, this long improv is just as nutritious and notable as a well-prepared meal.

More contemporary, Dijkstra structures his solo session using the musical versions of the microwave and food processor -- the lyricon, a pitch shifter and an analog modular synthesizer -- as well as the equivalent to the traditional carving knife: his alto saxophone. Outside of a few outmoded concepts about pure improvisation nothing gets carved up however. Part of Amsterdam’s improv scene since the mid-1980s, Dijkstra has worked with such Dutch masters as saxophonist Willem Breuker and pianists Guus Janssen and Cor Fuhler, as well as collaborating with the Vancouver, B.C. band Talking Pictures.

On his own, the sax man uses electronics judiciously, unlike trendy foodies who would rely on an electric knife when a sharp straight edge would do. Thus his brandishing of the lyricon, a primitive synthesized saxophone developed in the 1970s. On “Old Roman Road”, for instance, he manages to produce short, elastic tones that wiggle out of the instrument, creating irregular vibrations, which, coupled with reed percussion, seem to replicate gamelan or bell-like sounds.

While he also takes advantage of the lyricon’s lyrical (sic) attributes, Dijkstra also uses the novel sounds it can spew out to contrast with his sax tone. “Residence”, for instance, features an echo meeting up with the alto’s lower register. With electronics providing the mechanized continuum, he shouts and growls through his horn, whistles in its top range and expels continues boar-like snorts from the bottom. Guitar, electric organ and cello resemblances also appear.

“Hickory” features the nervous tick created by a repeated, stuttering note, and, as the piece aims for staccatissimo, reed hiccups and scratched, yakety-sax tones vie for aural space with low register squeezes and smears.

Elsewhere the saxman comes up with a contrapuntal melody on one tune, with tongue slaps from one horn and legato lines from the other, then uses spetrofluctuation to comment on the proceedings. Still later, honks, key pops and brief unison legato lines play hide-and-seek throughout another theme, with Dijkstra alone coming across as ROVA or the World Saxophone Quartet.

Split-second electronic delay matched with a straight reading of the theme characterizes the expansive “Linea Recta”. Featuring breezy, electric piano-like glisses from the lyricon and more standard thematic material from other horns, the line gradually dissolves and become more abstract, like an instrumental reading of Alvin Lucier’s “I Was Sitting In A Room”. Referencing electric guitar treatments as well as the plugged-in piano, the tones eventually give way to the bubbling and snaps of unprocessed electronics.

If Tsahar ignores electronics and Dijkstra uses it for his own ends, Whitecage still seems to be experimenting. Granted that he’s working with more primitive equipment -- a pitch processor, delay and zoom, mostly triggered by his clarinet. Still, he appears to be more fascinated by the process than the result.

Throughout, there’s little graininess or extended tonal manipulation in his playing; he appears to be playing legato for the sake of legato and natural so as not to upset the electricity. Yet this approach is an anomaly compared to the excellent work he does with other improvising musicians like bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen.

At times, using a 1960s synthesizer that runs on a 9-volt battery, he come up with a sound that seems to be a combination of a syndrum and a Pong game. Other times it’s as if Eddie Harris, one of the first saxists to plug in a Varitone, has returned to life. All and all, the buoyant output here is more novelty and much less assured than his acoustic work. Sure, he can create the sound of a clarinet choir and toss lines back and forth between a live horn and electronics, but so can many others.

The most embarrassing track is called “DD’s Acid Trip”, where Whitecage uses his voice to create processed mumbles, retches and yowls that resemble the vocal cadences of Walt Disney’s favorite fowl. New gizmos -- to use his term -- aren’t needed to capture this on disc. Like acid trips themselves, the idea would probably have been better off left in the 1960s.

About the only really memorable track is “Transparency”. Here the reedist seems to not only be able to dart in and out of the soundfield playing live and accompanying lines simultaneously, but use white noise as a backup. There’s even a point mid-way through where it sounds as if he’s playing “Sweet Betsy from Pike” or another folk ballad. His variations on that theme show how he could eventually use his electronic set-up in a more sophisticated manner.

Whitecage has recorded many fine acoustic CDs with different bands, and as a player, he’s someone who should be investigated on those sessions, rather than this attempt at solo electronics.

When it comes to electronics, 30 MICRO-STEMS is a far superior use of contemporary treatments, while AYN LE-ANY is a fine solo outing that will interest many woodwind fanciers.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ayn: 1. Ayn Le-any 1 2. Ayn Le-any 2 3. Ayn Le-any 3

Personnel: Assif Tsahar (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet)

Track Listing: Ayn: 30: 1. Contrapunt #5 2. 30 micro-stems 3. Koot 4. Residence 5. Faster than my shadow 6. Old Roman Road 7. Contrapunt #8 8. Hickory 9. Linea recta 10. Mind the gaps 11. Transducer (Contrapunt #14) 12. Carpet

Personnel: 30: Jorrit Dijkstra (alto saxophone, lyricon, electronics)

Track Listing: Ducks: 1. Oleo 2. Simple Entry 3. Snip-it 4. See No Evil 5. Synare samba 6. Let’s Make Believe 7. Transparency 8. DD’s Acid Trip 9. Pong 10. Morning Mood 11. Really Two 12. Oleo

Personnel: Ducks: Mark Whitecage (alto saxophone, clarinet, electronics)

June 23, 2003