Pierre Favre

Drums and Dreams
Intakt CD 197

Connie Crothers - David Arner

Spontaneous Suite for Two Pianos

Rogueart R0G-037

Pharoah Sanders

In the Beginning 1963-64

ESP-Disk ESP-4069

Various Artists

Echtzeitmusik Berlin

Mikroton CD 14/15/16

Something In The Air: Multiple Disc Sets for the Adventurous

By Ken Waxman

Defying doomsayers who predicted the death of the LP, the CD’s disappearance appears oversold. True music collectors prefer the physical presence and superior fidelity of a well-designd CD package and important material continues to released. Partisans of advanced music, for instance, can choose any one of these sets. The only saxophonist to be part of saxophonist John Coltrane’s working group, tenorist Pharoah Sanders is celebrated for his own highly rhythmic Energy Music. In the Beginning 1963-64 ESP-Disk ESP-4069, a four CD-package highlight his steady growth. Besides Sanders’ first album as leader, very much in the freebop tradition, as part of quintet of now obscure players, the other previously released sounds capture Sanders’ recordings in the Sun Ra Arkestra. More valuable is a CD of unissued tracks where Sanders asserts himself in quartets led by cornetist Don Cherry or Canadian pianist Paul Bley. The set is completed by short interviews with all of the leaders. Oddly enough, although they precede his solo debut, Sanders’ playing is most impressive with Bley and Cherry. With more of a regularized beat via bassist David Izenson and drummer J.C. Moses, Cherry’s tracks advance melody juxtaposition and parallel improvisations with Sanders’ harsh obbligato contrasted with the cornetist’s feisty flourishes; plus the darting lines and quick jabs of pianist Joe Scianni provides an unheralded pleasure. Bley’s economical comping and discursive patterning lead the saxophonist into solos filled with harsh tongue-twisting lines and jagged interval leaps. With Izenson’s screeching assent and drummer Paul Motion’s press rolls the quartet plays super fast without losing the melodic thread. Sun Ra is a different matter. Recorded in concert, the sets include helpings of space chants such as “Rocket #9” and “Next Stop Mars”; a feature for Black Harold’s talking log drums; showcases for blaring trombones, growling trumpets; plus the leader’s propulsive half-down-home and half-outer-space keyboard. Sharing honking and double-tonguing interludes with Arkestra saxists Pat Patrick and Marshall Allen, Sanders exhibits his characteristic stridency. Enjoyable for Sun Ra’s vision which is spectacular and jocular, these tracks suggest why the taciturn Sanders soon went on his own.

Partially in reaction to vocifeous American players like Sanders, by the 1970s European innovators developed a spacious and subdued take on improvisation. This can be sampled via the solo work of Swiss percussionist Pierre Favre, a model of taste and restraint on Drums and Dreams Intakt CD 197 is. Overall it’s 1972’s Abanaba which is the defining masterwork, with 1970’s Drum Conversation and 1978’s Mountain Wind, the build up and elaboration of maturity. Favre has such command of the sonorous properties of his expanded kit that he can use approximations of tones from unusual sources such as guiro, conches, unlathed cymbals, thunder sheets plus a regular kit without bombast or showiness. A track such as Kyoto is a fascinating duet between kettle drum and tuned gongs, expanded by Theremin-like resonations; while “Gerunonius” is an essay in abrasion, as textures created by sawing with a bow on drum rims are integrated with shakes, pops and pulls. “Roro” fastens on triple sticking at supersonic speeds, producing ringing tones from log drums, cymbals and gongs, while the final track demonstrates how aggression can be paced as bell trees ping and snares sizzle. CD1 establishes a framework for juxtapositions, with silences integrated with kinetic paradiddles and ruffs. Sounding at times like multiple players, Favre’s distinctive sounds are likely to arise by twisting mallets on aluminum bars as from blunt whacks on oversized gongs. By 1978, his rhythmic palate had expanded so, that he could replicate the sound of a telephone bell ring, Chinese temple bell with equal facility and without any loss in power.

This mixture of delicacy and strength is expanded to its pianistic limits on Spontaneous Suite for Two Pianos Rogueart R0G-037 These four CDs capture an entire recording session beginning with the evocative acceleration from feathery chording to anvil-like kinetic pressure on CD1, track 1, and conclude with key-clipping near player-piano continuum on CD4, track 7. Anyone who follow dual keyboardist like Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia or Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson will be staggered by the work here. Completely improvised, the nine interlocking suites expose almost all variations of what can be extracted from 166 keys. Technical wizardry plus jazz inflections are apparent in the playing of Connie Crothers and David Arner, yet focussed reductionism as well as spontaneity is also on tap. Piano guru Lennie Tristano’s most accomplished student, New York-based Crothers has recorder with jazzmen like drummer Max Roach. Up-state New York’s Arner is associated with choreographers such as Meredith Monk. Playing side-by-side with layered chords, palindromes or in counterpoint, the two evoke many aspects of piano literature while creating their own. For instance “The Hoofer” which bounces and taps as a terpsichorean fantasia is followed by “Blues and the Moving Image”. Despite low-pitched glissandi, this blues is polyrhythmic, depending on a dusting of high-frequency tremolo to provide the necessary emotion. “The Reckoning” is meditative and linear, while “Density 88X2” moves from jocular patterns to blunt syncopation. An extended sequence like “City Rhapsody” may unroll staccatissimo with soundboard rumbles and ringing cadenzas in equal measures, but it never unravels or loses connectivity. Overall the real connections this duo exhibits is with their own histories. Basso notes on “Swing Migration” and “Fool” both unearth Tristanto-like themes among the cumulative cascades and pitch-sliding vibrations.

With the German capital now home to a mass of creative musicians, it takes 40 selections on three-CD anthology Echtzeitmusik Berlin Miikroton CD 14/15/16) to try to define the scene. Although currents of free jazz, notated music, punk-rock and all sorts of electronic programming are universally accepted, echtzeitmusik is defined differently by each innovator. For instance the long pauses and foreshortened breaths from Robin Hayward’s microtonal tuba and intermittent plinks from Morten Olsen’s rotating bass drum on “Deep Skin” may come from the same reductionist base as “Versprechen” which mutates piano strings strums by Andera Neumann with linear trumpet breaths from Sabine Ercklentz. But the studio collage that’s Annette Krebs’ “In-between”, mutating ring-modulator whooshes, music samples and layered voices has little in common except density with Antoine Chessex’s “Errances” which inflates a single saxophone’s tremolo timbres to near organ-like cascades. So what defines the sounds? The key may be “Blues No. 5” by Perlonex. Guitar feedback, turntable scratches plus drum smacks and electronic quivers reach an intensity that equals the emotionalism of a blues singer. Consequently honesty and innovation supersede musical forms. Echtzeitmusik Berlin allows the listener to sample and choose.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 18 #4

December 15, 2012

Festival Report

Jazz Brugge 2012
By Ken Waxman

When a festival like Jazz Brugge 2012 takes place in a Belgium town, designated by UNESCO World Heritage for its picturesque canals and loving preserved medieval buildings, a certain amount of time and space dislocation can be expected. Considering that concerts (October 4 to 7) took place in the attic performance space of the 12th century Sint-Janshospitaal museum or in a massive or a smaller hall of the four-seating tier Concertgebouw, purpose built in 2002, this time-shifting continued. Additionally, three of the most insightful performances melded celebration of art from earlier century with perceptive improvisations.

Most spectacular was an afternoon Sint-Janshospitaal multi-media presentation by France’s Collective ARFI. As individual details or entire scenes from Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s A La Vie, La Mort were projected on a giant screen, four ARFI members – trumpeter Jean Mereu, soprano and alto saxophonist Jean Aussanaire, bassist Bernard Santacruz and Laurence Bourdin on the hurdy-gurdy – provided interpretations of the rampaging skeletons, prone townsfolk and bleak landscapes. A triumph of Folklore Imaginaire it confirmed the spiritual intersection between Danse Macabre and the harsh, cascading textures of improvisers like the Ayler Brothers.

As impressive, but less gruesome were two sets on the Concertgebouw’s main stages by French horn players whose bands respectively reinterpreted the themes of Italian Claudio Monteverdi, whose work led encompassed Renaissance to Baroque compositions; or pieces by 17th Century Italian Baroque composer Antonio familiar violin concerto, The Four Seasons.

With an ensemble consisting of; Gavino Murgia playing soprano saxophone and singing bass, Katharina Bäuml playing Renaissance double reed woodwinds, Bruno Helstroffer on theorbe, a medieval lute, lyric soprano Guillemette Laurens and Michel Godard playing tuba’s ancestor, the serpent, and electric bass, this was far from your typical jazz combo. Goddard`s arrangements expanded Monteverdi’s adaption of basso continuo and polyphony with subtle multiphonics and improvisations from all. For instance, Helstroffer’s slurred fingering or Murgia's agitated licks were thoroughly contemporary; while the bass’s pedal-point pattern provided linking rhythms as did Murgia subterranean rumbles. Serpent slurs frequently created sympathetic obbligatos for Laurens expressive singing, while the pairing of supple soprano sax trills and Bäuml’s piercing schalmei lines were as effective as if a clarinet or oboe was in use.

Saxophonist Christophe Monniot on the other hand played up the populist and universal appeal of Vivaldi; as a jazzman, however he used these motifs as reference points and leitmotifs as others would utilize Duke Ellington or Thelonious Monk material. Tubaist Michel Massot provided the rhythmic foundation along with Monniot occasionally invoking “air bass” by singing a bass line into the mike with appropriate hand gestures. Drummer Eric Echampard’s rolls, pardiddles and pops touched on both rock and jazz beats, pianist Emil Spányi spun out appropriate swinging asides, while the all-saxophone Quatuor Arcanes was on hand to recreate Vivaldi’s themes as well as face off individuality or harmonize distinctively to give context to Monniot’s solos on soprano, alto and baritone. Overall the idea of mutating a famous concerto to fit another context worked admirably. Try to extend the metaphor by also exposing pre-recorded voices discussing climate change in French didn’t.

Another missed opportunity – but one that was wildly popular with the audience – was the Monk’n’Roll concept of tenor saxophonist/clarinetist Francesco Bearzatti and his confreres of Giovanni Falzone, who played trumpet and electronics and led sing-and-clap alongs; electric bassist Danilo Gallo and drummer Zeno de Rossi. Although each of the players has broken himself in other contexts, and Monk’s themes are no more sacrosanct than Ellington’s or Vivaldi’s; unlike the sympathetic genre-melding of Goddard and Monniot, this was a cut-and-paste job. Explaining that as forty-something musicians their sympathies were as much with heavy metal as Monk’s music, the four proceeded to mash up Monk themes with rock standards such as “Iron Man”, “Immigrant Song” and “Walk on the Wild Side”. Trouble was that once the Monk head was played, the band related ignored it until recapped at the end, with the rest of the time consisting of common rock tropes. De Rossi pummeled a backbeat; Gallo output was crunchingly repetative; heavily processed, Falzone’s capillary flourishes borrowed from Miles Davis’ fusion period and while pogoing up-and-down like a Red Hot Chilli Pepper, Bearzatti’s reed smears –while miming guitar strums – attempted to channel the spirit of Jimmy Page.

More praiseworthy initiatives were three duos linking jazz veterans with youngish players. One concert at the Concertgebouw’s Kamermuziekzaal united two Swiss players: pianist Irène Schweizer, 71 and soprano and tenor saxophonist Jürg Wickihalder, 39. One at Sint-Janshospitaal a day later matched British soprano and tenor saxophonist Evan Parker, 67, with Belgian bassist Peter Jacquemyn, 49; while Swiss percussionist united two Swiss players: pianist Irène Schweizer and soprano and tenor saxophonist Jürg Wickihalder, 39, another two days later in the same place, featured 75-year-old percussionist Pierre Favre, and fellow Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser, 31.

An object lesson on how actually to blend Monk tunes with others, the two joyously dipped in-and-out of “Ruby, My Fear”, “Little Rootie Tootie” and other Monkisms without altering the music’s flow. Originals mixed with allusions to Charles Mingus and Carla Bley, with Schweizer played with the economy that comes from of self-sufficiency, slipping in blues or boogie woogie references which vanished almost as quickly as they were heard. Able to produce Booker Ervin-like hollers or telescope his breaths, Wickihalder created meaningful comments whether he was, blowing two saxes at once to expose polyphonic contrast, blowing into the soprano’s bell instead of the mouthpiece, or disassembling his horns to display the sonic qualities of each part.

Conversant with every texture and timbre of the saxophone is Parker who produced to underline t the sonorous possibilities of both his horns as Jacquemyn, whose strikingly human-like wood sculptures were on display at Sint-Janshospitaal during the festival, ripped and hacked at plus slapped and scrubbed his bass’s strings. Sporadically inserting two bows behind his strings for reflective multiphonics when both were moved, Jacquemyn, frequently smacked his bow sul tasto, not only in the warm mid-range, but also sawing beneath the bridge and up near the scroll. Rarely evoking his characteristic circular breathing, Parker stuck to smears and reed bites, at points making two complementary trills to be audible. Although both played solo interludes, a characteristic connection appeared near the end as abrasive reed shrieks and frenetic string pumps settled into rapt coordination.

Synchronization was also much in evidence during the Favre-Blaser concert. Using sticks, brushes, mallets, and even curved bean pods to produce rhythms that contrasted or rumbled alongside the trombonist’s slide actions, the percussionist exudes a sense of relaxed swing no matter the tempo. It often seemed as if an invisible bassist was present as well. Eschewing melody shards and comfortable with a variety of mutes, Blaser intelligently uses silences to emulate the drummer’s pacing. Using lip pressure he produced tandem multiphonics; he sticks to breakneck boppy lines, moderated tremolo swing with the occasional plunger growls for emphasis. The two are separate enough in their playing to underline each player’s skills, but cohesive enough in their playing to come to many happy conclusions.

It was sets like this which emphasize the festival’s strengths. Unabashedly European, Jazz Brugge, takes place every second year, 88 kilometres northwest of Brussels. Meaningfully, it always provides a well-composed illustration of advanced continental improv at that juncture.

--For New York City Jazz Record November 2012

November 6, 2012

Label Spotlight:

Maya Recordings
By Ken Waxman

As much as anything else, the birth of Maya Recordings, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, was born from impatience. Swiss violinist Maya Homburger, who operates the boutique label with her husband, British bassist/composer Barry Guy, recalls that since at that time another label was slow in putting out Arcus, a recording by Guy and bassist Barre Phillips, they decided to do so themselves. By 2012 29 Maya CDs have been released, improvised as well as baroque music.

The two were already veteran musician when Maya was created. Zürich-born Homburger, for instance, has worked with ensembles such as Trio Virtuoso and Camerata Kilkenny; while London-born Guy is part of many free jazz aggregations and is the founder/artistic director of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LCJO). Maya was envisioned as a different sort of imprint, Homburger recalls. “We wanted to create a label where music, cover art and writing were all related and on the highest level. We wanted to have control over the look as well as the sound.”

As examples she points to Fizzles, Guy’s solo session, which not only benefitted from great care being taken with the sound recorded in a Swiss church, but was coupled with informative text f plus what she calls “an amazing cover painting by Fred Hellier”. More recently, The Musical Offering (J.S. Bach) by Camerata Kilkenny was the culmination of excellent recording and editing of the ensemble’s performance, a distinctive cover by Irish artist George Vaughan, text by David Ledbetter plus a specially commissioned poem by Fergal Gaynor. The label’s logo, based on a Maya Indian sculpture references both the Mayan people and Homburger.

Shortly after Arcus, Elsie Jo, a live concert by a sextet from the LJCO become the first CD specifically recorded for Maya. Since then at a rate of one to three a year, Maya has put out already recorded or newly created sessions by of baroque music plus combos featuring Guy. The bassist’s playing partners have ranged from Spanish pianist Agustí Fernández to saxophonists Parker and Swede Mats Gustafsson; while Homburger on baroque violin and in ensembles has recorded compositions by so-called classical composers and Guy. Dakryon is she, Guy and Swiss percussionist Pierre Favre interpreting work by17th Century composers H.I.F. Biber and Dario Castello. “My interpretation of Bach and Biber is very much influenced by the freedom I have experienced from and learned in the improvising scene,” Homburger explains.

Maya’s 20th anniversary celebration in September 2011 presented three days of concerts in the Swiss city of Winterthur. Among the perfumers were the Camerata; Homburger with Malcolm Proud on cembalo harpsichord; plus various trios, solos and duos featuring Guy, Parker, Gustafsson, Fernández, percussionists Lytton and Raymond Strid..

“I love the process of making a record, a real album; not just the iTunes adopted ‘one-track sensation’ bullshit,” affirms Gustafsson. “There’s recording the music properly, mixing, mastering, sequencing, cover art, design, liner notes etc., as well as dealing with the post-production issues such as selling the album and marketing it in a proper way. Maya Recordings has this level of quality all over the releases. The variety and flexibility of Maya Recording is also very unique, if you ask me, because it releases top-notch free jazz, contemporary music and out-of-control, fantastic baroque music. Biber’s Mystery Sonatas, in Maya Hombuger’s version, is one of the most amazing recorded music documents of the past 30 years ... I kid you not. And, of course, Barry Guy´s Fizzles is one of the most creative solo recordings in the history of improvised music. It’s totally DNA-changing. I’m very proud to be part of this, and that’s why I choose to work with them … as long as they want to work with me.”

Releasing CDs from two genres of music has never been a problem, Homburger affirms. “The mixture mirrors our touring and concerts. So everybody appreciates the label for exactly this. We know well in advance what we love, like Bach, Biber and the Parker/Guy/Lytton or the Tarfala trio, so there is never a shortage of projects for the label. We wanted to release the trios, quartets, duos and solos which were important at the time. And of course putting out discs of Bach, Bibber etc. has nothing to do with ‘vanity’.”

“Smaller labels are always nicer to work with, since you have a direct communication about all the details,” adds Gustafsson. “With larger labels too many people have opinions so it easily gets quite confused and non-creative.”

Unlike many boutique imprints Maya, based in Oberstammheim, Switzerland has a distribution agreement with Intakt, an established Swiss label. “I can’t remember when this started exactly,” Homburger admits. “Perhaps it was when we moved to Switzerland [in 2006] or partially in 2004. Now we have collaboration with Intakt on many levels, not just on distribution. One can see us as a sister company.”

Intakt and Maya are involved in many co-productions. For instance Harmos - Live at Schaffhausen, an Intakt DVD featuring the LJCO was co-produced and co-financed by Maya, as were the three CDs pianist Marilyn Crispell recorded for Intakt with Guy. “Hexentrio, the brand-new trio CD with Guy, Plimley and Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli is a co-production in every sense: organizing, editing, financing etc,” she adds.

Maya CDs are financed in different fashions. In the main, funds needed to pay for releasing live concerts of improvised music, comes from CD sales. “However studio recordings like Aurora, [with Guy, Fernández and percussionist Ramón López], and, of course, the baroque recordings are financed with the help of specific sponsors and also from our concert fees, our savings, and sometimes from sales of musical instruments,” Hombuger notes. As for the musicians themselves, the average form of compensation is mostly with CDs they can sell at gigs.

“The history of musician-owned labels is a proud one,” notes Parker who was involved with the launch of Incus in the 1970s and now runs his own psi imprint. “Barry and Maya have a specific musical agenda which relates baroque music to current music, especially improvised music. This gives their label a unique place in the overall scheme. Because they are practitioners, they’re sympathetic to the needs of their fellow musicians. Each [musician-owned] label allows the expression of an aesthetic that supports and perhaps illuminates aspects of the particular emphasis that each brings to the job.”

Switzerland, where Homburger and Guy moved to in 2006 after nine years in Ireland, has been beneficial both for the musicians and Maya Recordings. Besides giving the two more scope for concert and touring activities, the Swiss violinist states “as far as any business goes like designing, printing, distributing etc. this was a bit more complicated in Ireland. Basically loads of things in Ireland are not handled in the so-called Swiss efficient way.”

While pressing LPs for the collectors’ market remain one avenue left for Maya to explore, downloads of all the imprint’s CDs can be accessed through Proper Music, its United Kingdom distributor. Plus it isn’t standing still. Maya’s next release will be another major project: A live recording by the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra of Guy’s composition “Schweben.”

When it comes to the administrative side, Homburger admits that sometimes the temptation to turn the whole company over to Intakt exists. “But when we receive personal reactions via e-mails from wonderful fans of the music or label in many countries or when we have very special encounters after concerts during the stage sales of our CDs, we know once again that it’s worth all the effort,” she avers.

--For New York City Jazz Record May 2012

May 6, 2012

The New York City Jazz Record Interview

With Pierre Favre
By Ken Waxman

During a career of more than 55 years, Swiss drummer Pierre Favre, who turns 75 in June, has been a constantly innovating musician. One of the first Swiss players to embrace free music in the late ’60s, since that time he’s explored a variety of musical concepts from giving solo percussion concerts to composing notated works and collaborating with folkloric-influenced improvisers. Making a rare New York apperance this month, Favre plays three times in diffemt configurations during the two weeks Intakt Records curates The Stone.

The New York City Jazz Record: As a musician based in Europe, is it correct to suppose you don’t often play in New York or North America?

Pierre Favre: Yes, you’re right. I played in the United States most recently in 2000 with percussionist Fredy Studer. The first time was in 1968. I did a two-months drum clinic tour for Ludwig & Paiste with one in New York. All the great drummers like Sunny Murray, Tony Williams, Grady Tate, Andrew Cyrille, were there and I was so impressed because they were all very nice to me. I was even more impressed when Papa Jo Jones gave me a magical lesson at the end of the clinic The second time was when Percussion Profiles, including Jack De Johnette, David Friedman, Dom Um Romao, Fredy Studer, George Gruntz and me played the 1980 Monterey Jazz Festival; and the third time was a 1985 tour, including New York, with vocalist Tamia.

TNYCJR: You’re a self-taught drummer. Where is Le Locle, Switzerland where you grew up? And why were you attracted to the drums?

PF: Le Locle a small town in the mountains of the French part of Switzerland. The first drummer I heard was Max Roach on the the Jazz at Massey Hall LP. It was rare at the time, but a friends of mine had the record and he played it over and over for me. Immediately I fell in love with the drums and spent all my time playing everything I heard and also listening to radio and records. Fortunately I had a good memory and could memorize almost anything very easily. I only had two LPs, both with Big Sid Catlett, who was my biggest influence, He was like a sorcerer, He was precise and fluent when he played time and when he played the melody his unexpected rim shots shaped it and made it swing. At that 1968 New York clinic I was taking to Tony Williams and he told me: ‘Big Sid Catlett was my biggest influence too’. Later on I liked Kenny Clarke and Philly Joe Jones, and of course Elvin Jones, Pete La Rocca, Billy Higgins ... Besides I was always trying things out. I could play simple rhythms for hours, just trying to swing.

By then I was living in Neuchâtel with my parents and I regularly jumped out of the window to go to the bars and try to sit in with dance bands coming through town. Finally, in 1955, one bandleader came to talk to my parents and they let me go to work full time in his dance band. At 17 I wasn’t allowed to play in bars yet, but that bandeader told my parents he’d watch out for me. In 1957 I auditioned for the radio orchestra in Basel. I couldn’t read a note but they liked me. I got the job, but I had to promise to learn how to read music.

In 1960 I left the orchestra and went to Paris for one year and then to Rome where I worked with the American Jazz Ensemble led by clarinettist Bill Smith and pianist Johnny Eaton. In 1961 I went back to Switzerland to work with my own trio. In 1962 I went to Munich playing in the TV orchestra, freelancing in the sudios and appearing frequently with people like Benny Bailey, Don Menza and Booker Ervin. In 1966 I came back to the Paiste & Sohn factory in Nottwil Switzerland as adviser to the Paiste brothers Robert and Toomas. My job was testing of cymbals and organizing drum clinics all around the world. It was a hard but very rewarding job, and I could finally devote myself to playing the way I wanted to. I stayed there until 1971when I moved to Zürich, where I still live.

TNYCJR: Hadn’t you already met pianist Irène Schweizer by that time? Wasn’t she also employed at Paiste & Sohn, supposedly as your ‘secretary’?

PF: I met Irène Schweizer in Zürich during a concert. She told me she was looking for a job,and I asked her to work for me as I needed a secretary. At first we would play together occasionally after work and after some time we were playing together every day.

TNYCJR: You were also one of the first European drummers to turn from American-influenced modern jazz to European-centered free jazz. How did this evolution occur? What change in musical thinking did that involve and what was the audience reaction to it?

PF: This is a quite complex story. Since I began to play I was following the path of American Jazz. This was OK, but I guess that I had enough of the idea people had which was: ‘you’re a pretty good drummer and musician, but any American showing up will be able to play you off the wall’ – and it’s still that way for many people in Europe. But the ‘60s was a period of change and we young people needed a deep breath. For me personally the free jazz idea allowed me to let everything out, who I am, where I come from, etc. It oppened new horizons, my musical breathing. I lived silence which I had not noticed before, dynamics, phrasing and a different sense of time. And all this could be experienced in front of an audience that gave you the chance to feel what is musically true and what isn’t.

TNYCJR: You and Schweizer recorded Santana, one of the early European free-jazz discs, with German bassist Peter Kowald. How did you get involved with him, and later other experimental players?

PF: Irène and I were playing a lot throughout Europe and so we met other musicians

looking for the same type of sounds. At first our bass player was Jiri (George) Mraz. Jiri wanted to emigrate to the US, so Peter took his place. Santana was our own production. We had only one-and-half-hours in the studio so we had to get it out. Through Kowald’s influence we became more loud and busy. I played mostly loud and very busy. But I enjoyed it, it felt like a young dog that you take out to let it run.

TNYCJR: Since then you’ve recorded solo percussion discs and ones with all-percussion ensembles. How do percussion performances differ from those in which you work with other instrumentalists?

PF: I actually started to play solo concerts during the time with Irène and Peter. I was including more cymbals and sounds in my drum set, but the day I brought a gong I figured that it was better for me to just play my drums. Then, boom, I thought: ‘OK, I’ll try all that stuff alone’. A few years later [1984] came Singing Drums for ECM [with Studer, Paul Motian and Nana Vasconcelos playing a variety of percussion instruments]. It was a challenge to compose a whole program for such great musicians. In a solo concert you carry the whole evening on your shoulders, the space belongs to you. When you play with more musicians you share that space, In a way you take a step back, you just play what has to be played. As a drummer you’re there to give pulse, dynamics, fire and color to the band.

TNYCJR: You also at one time played a very extensive kit. Do you still use that many rhythm makers or a conventional set up?

PF: Yes, there were times where I tried to play full melodies on the drums and I came on stage with all kinds of instruments, chromatic tuned gongs, a set of two octaves of tuned small drums ... so many things. Just a few days ago I was remixing my first solo albums and I was surprised how many sounds I could produce then. Since then my set has become simplified. It’s more concentrated; enough for what I have to say.

TNYCJR: Over the years you’ve been involved with musicians in other areas besides what we call jazz. How that involvement came about, why did it happened and what were the challenges and rewards?

PF: I’ve been so lucky that musicians have asked me to play with them at all times. Being curious to learn, I could hardly refuse. This is especially true for the classical music side. I was asked to play John Cage, Maurizio Kagel, Ernst Krenek, Arvo Pärt and others and I never turned down any of these propositions. It’s the same with the folkloric players, I met pipa player Yang Jing in Beijing, she wanted to learn how to improvise, so she came to Switzerland and we improvised. I also played many concerts with the great mridangam player from Madras T.V. Gopalkrishnan. I met bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi through the ECM record Once Upon A Time-Far Away In The South [1985], with [bassist] Charlie Haden and [trumpeter] Palle Mikkelborg. Dino and I also gave a magic concert in duo at the 2001 Willisau Jazz Festival. French vocalist Tamia and I spent many years togther playing, writing, rehearsing. With [Czech violinist/vocalist] Iva Bittova it was only a week but beautiful. I’ve always loved the voice, probably because it’s so near to the drums and also because I have a melodic nature. I always try to find some music where it’s hidden. But during all these years I also played jazz, worked with Albert Mangelsdorf and toured with Jimmy Giuffre, John Surman, John Tchicai and many more. I must add something very important. After having flown over all these different musical countries since 1966 I come back to jazz as what it is, great music, and with great respect and admiration for giants like Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Mingus, the great drummers, and so many others. You see, the jazz water tastes completely different to me now.

TNYCJR: Your Web page lists the compositions you’ve written since 1984. Is this a new development?

PF: Yes it’s certainly a new development for me. After all the improvising years I felt that it was time to drop the mask. I mean I don’t hide myself behind improvisation, but to write down something that should be played exactly needed courage. Usually drummers are rather scared to come up with written material. But composing regularly makes me more inventive on the drums and a better improviser.

TNYCJR: Your most recent Intakt CD, Le Voyage, involves a 10-piece ensemble, whereas most of your other work is with duos or trios. Are larger bands organized because of specific music you want to play or hear? Do you prefer to play in smaller groups?

PF: Some years ago I wrote the music for the group Window Steps, with bassist Steve Swallow, cellist David Darling, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and soprano saxophonist Roberto Ottaviano for ECM, and later Fleuve also for ECM with saxophonist/clarinetist Frank Kroll, tubaist Michel Godard, harpist Hélène Breschand, guitarist Philipp Schaufelberger, bassist Baenz Oester and electric bassist Wolfgang Zwiauer. These groups which toured, allowed me to hear music I hear but can’t play on the drums. Playing in duo is, of course, very interesting because it’s a dialogue, you listen and answer to one single voice. It’s perfect if you want to know somebody better. And don’t forget that bigger groups need much more work and more money.

TNYCJR: Today it appears that you mostly work with younger Swiss musicians. Is this strategy planned? How do you feel about younger generations of Swiss improvisers? What do they bring to the situation and how do you react musically?

PF: Yes in general it’s a planned strategy. I like to rehearse or, of course, improvise, and it’s difficult to get musicians to come to Switzerland, to rehearse for a few days; they usually come just for the job. But Switzerland is a small country and Swiss musicians can come to my house regularly. Younger players are very enthusiastic. In general they’re hard workers and are very skilled. We improvise, I write the music and they love to rehearse. I show them how to phrase dynamics, how to build a solo. I don’t ignore suggestions coming from any of them, but I work out with them how to make something out of their ideas. Of course talents are talents, the younger players are themselves; they’re not more or not less than the older musicians. The other point is that many of my older friends don’t play anymore – some have gone away.

TNYCJR: Any notable recordings and/or performances scheduled for 2012?

PF: Intakt will be releasing my first three solo albumss from 1971, 1972 and 1986 as a triple-CD set. The label will probably also release a CD of a concert with John Tchicai, Don Cherry, Irène Schweizer and Leon Francioli from the 1981 Willisau Jazz Festival. I’ll also tour with my new quartet The Drummers: Valeria Zangger, Chris Jaeger, Markus Lauterburg.

--For New York City Jazz Record March 2012

March 6, 2012

Pierre Favre

Le Voyage
Intakt CD 186

Italian Instabile Orchestra

Totally Gone

Rai Trade RTP J0021

Pierre Labbé +12

Tremblement de fer

Ambiance Magnétique AM 202 CD

Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band

Year of the Tiger

Innova 789

Something in the Air: Big Band Redux

By Ken Waxman

More than 60 years after the big band era, improvising musicians still organize large ensembles to take advantage of its wider scope and range of colors. Such is the versatility of the arrangements possible with large bands as these sessions demonstrate, that each sounds completely unique while maintaining the same excellence.

Over nearly 71 minutes on Totally Gone Rai Trade RTP J0021 the all-star aggregation of 17 of the country’s most accomplished players who make up the Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) demonstrate the combination of technical skills and rambunctious good spirits that has kept the band going since 1990. Unsurprisingly the climatic track, Ciao Baby, I’m Totally Gone/It Had to be You, is a case-in-point instance of the band’s expansive talents. Switching between timbral dissonance from squeaky spiccato strings and snoring brass slurs on one hand with sibilant, staccato section work that could have migrated from Fletcher Henderson’s band, the IIO’s texture is simultaneously mainstream and avant-garde. This is made clearest when a sequence of pure air forced from Sebi Tramontana’s trombone turns to plunger polyrhythm as he’s backed by harmonized reeds and strings, and ends with him vocalizing the second half of title backed by Fabrizio Puglisi’s key-clipping piano and Gianluigi Trovesi’s undulating clarinet obbligato. This sense of fun is also expressed on “No Visa”, a jazzy hoedown which leaves room for sul ponticello fiddling from violinist Emanuele Parrini, funky tenor saxophone vamping from Daniele Cavallanti, a brassy mid-range fanfare and the entire band vocally riffing in unison. This doesn’t mean that compositional seriousness isn’t displayed alongside the theatricism. The multi-tempo Gargantella, for instance is as much a nocturne as a capriccio. Here closely-voiced and massed horns and strings move adagio beneath strained brass notes and a snorting, altissimo showcase for baritone saxophonist Carlo Actis Dato until the tone poem is completed by polished, string movements given shape by the clattering cymbals and wood block pops of percussionists Vincenzo Mazzone and Tiziano Tononi.

With rock-influenced electric piano and guitar prominent, Pierre Labbé’s 12-piece big band takes a different approach on Tremblement de fer Ambiances Magnétiques AM 202 CD performing a seven-part suite the saxophonist composed for a Montreal festival. A POMO sound essay, the composition is animated by contrapuntal clashes between sections which include four bowed strings, two brass, two reeds, plus guitar, piano, bass and percussion. Although linked, each track can be appreciated on its own. Despite its Arabic title, Le 2e Souk is actually a showcase for Jean Derome’s improvisations on successively, alto saxophone, flute and bass clarinet. Throughout his staccato peeps, sibilant slurs and flutter tonguing are matched by tremolo slides, sawing and scratches from the violinists, violist and cellist. Lavra, on the other hand masses Balkan-sounding string discord with irregular pulses from guitarist Bernard Falaise and drummer Pierre Tanguay as soprano saxophonist André Leroux carries the melody. Resolution comes when trombonist Jean-Nicolas Trottier abandons plunger tones to slurp his way up the scale, accompanied by the strings and pianist Guillaume Dostaler’s steady comping. Tanguay, whose hand taps are suitably exotic when playing darbuka, contributes muscular ruffs throughout. His steadying backbeat is particularly necessary on the final La Fille et la grenouille. Sounding like what would happen if a street-corner Sally Ann band wandered into a country music session, the tune mixes up the bugling from the brass players, rooster crows and spits from the reeds, a bow-legged rhythm with cow-bell pings from Tanguay, and Falaise contrasting his best pseudo-steel-guitar C&W twangs with the somewhat schmaltzy tutti horn lines.

Taking a different tack is percussionist Pierre Favre’s Le Voyage Intakt CD 186 which mutates standard big-band harmonies with unique sound blocks in the drummer’s compositions. Utilizing a saxophone choir of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone to create concentrated organ-like chord pulsations, Favre’s intermezzos parcel the solos out among guitarist Phillipp Schaufelberger, trombonist Samuel Blaser and clarinetist Claudio Putin. With the rhythmic thrust doubled by string bass and bass guitar, the results evoke baroque ballads as certainly as big band swing. An example of the latter is “Wrong Name” where Putin’s florid twitters trill chromatically, while around him harmonized reeds throb in unison, prodded from adagio to andante tempo by cross-patterning cracks and pops from the drummer. “Les Vilains” on the other hand could be modernized Renaissance court music, with the reeds playing formalized close harmonies as if they were a string quartet, with cascading and irregular timbres doled out from Schaufelberger’s harsh, slurred fingering. Favre’s sound architecture is most obvious on “Akimbo” where reed shading becomes sonically three-dimensional as the drummer’s clips emphasize the symmetry between the guitarist’s string snaps plus Blaser’s plunger grace notes.

Practically standing the big band tradition and its head, American gigantism is emphasized on Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band’s Year of the Tiger

Innova 789 since the Chinese-American composer bursts with so many sociological and musical tropes that a 21 musicians are needed to express them. A Marxist populist Ho packs within 70 minutes, a five-part suite honoring African-American big bands; a trio of Michael Jackson songs; the Johnny Quest TV show theme song; a couple of Jimi Hendrix hits; plus excerpts from his chamber opera featuring the band plus an adult and a children’s choirs. These extracts are notable for how he blends formalist bel canto singing with instrumental looseness from an improvising ensemble, whereas Ho’s arrangement of the Hendrix melodies play up their jazz-rock linkage as tremolo trombone slurs and roistering sax vamps parallel the double-tracked vocals. More seriously, adding an anti-capitalist recitation from poet Magdalena Gomez to Jackson’s Bad and Thriller, already evocatively sung by Leena Conquest, defines the werewolf and zombie sound effects within the context of mindless consumerism, mocked by guffawing brass and a slurping tenor sax solo. The CD’s heart is contained in the six selections of Take the Zen Train, which manages to reference both Pete Seeger and Duke Ellington. Using instrumental pulsations and layering, with bellowing brass reverb and tension-and-release variants plus the vibrancy of frequent tempo changes, Ho composes tonal portraits for his soloists. Outstanding are cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum’s whispering and peeping ballad feature; the stop-time slurs and gutbucket expansions from bass trombonist David Harris; plus an interlude which matches alto saxophonist Jim Hobbs’ reed masticating alongside the composer’s snorting baritone sax runs. Seeger’s left-wing orientation is apparent in some of the tune titles including Quarantine for the Aggressor. Whether used for program music or for timbral amplification, big bands remain a preferred form of expression for players and composers.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #9

June 5, 2011

ECM 40th Anniversary Catalogue

Edited by Kenny Inaoka
Tokyo Kirarasha

Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories

Edited by Phillipp Schmickl

Impro 2000

As globalization intensifies, American-birthed popular music forms – most especially Jazz and Improvised Music – have evolved far beyond their initial audiences, confirming one of the hoariest of clichés, that music is a universal language. Creative music of many stripes has for many years been often treated more seriously in Europe and Asia than in North America. Consequently to be truly informed about the breadth of musical sounds it helps to understand other languages besides English. That’s the challenge related to the valuable books here. Neither is published primarily in English, but both can serve as resources for followers of Jazz and Improvised Music, no matter their native tongues.

Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories is a celebration of the annual Konfrontationen festival which has taken place in Nickelsdorf, Austria near Vienna since 1979. Contributions to the volume in German, English and French are more a compendium of thoughts about improvisation and musical influences than a potted history of the festival. On the other hand, published in Japanese and English, the ECM 40th Anniversary Catalogue presents complete discographical information about every release put out by the influential German-based label from its first issue in 1969 to December 2009. Putting aside the language issue for the moment, each volume is profusely illustrated with beautifully realized black-and-white and color photographs.

As attractively presented as any catalogue can be, the ECM volume is published by a firm that has put out similar volumes on Blue Note records. Included is an entire section of six-to-the-page full-color photos of every ECM album cover. The remaining pages are devoted to detailed descriptions of every ECM and JAPO CD, LP and DVD then extant with cover pictures, personnel, recording dates and song titles included. Reviews of every disc by 11 commentators – in Japanese –are provided as well

While those who can’t read Japanese may miss out on the commentary, perusing the catalogue reveals many unexpected facets of Manfred Eicher’s label. His supervision and the engineering of Jan Erik Kongshaug may have created the sonically pristine, often imitated, though sometimes near-lifeless ECM sound; but ECM’s characteristic album cover art often masked unexpected efforts.

The catalogue does picture such ECM classics as Keith Jarrett’s Facing You (ECM 1017), The Sun Bear Concerts (ECM 1100) and Standards Vol. 1 (ECM 1255); Pat Metheny’s American Garage (ECM 1155), As Falls Wichita ... (ECM 1190), and Offramp (ECM 1216); plus Gary Burton & Chick Corea’s Crystal Silence (ECM 1024) and Jan Garbarek and The Hillard Ensemble’s Mmemosyne (ECM 1700/01 NS); but also noted are other efforts which many would think don’t fit the ECM mould.

Did you know, for instance that German saxophonist Alfred Harth was featured on the second ECM release, Just Music (ECM 1002) and saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Derek Bailey are on the fifth The Music Improvisation Company (ECM 1005)? While it may have seemed at times that the label was churning out endless series of guitar and/or piano dominated Chamber Jazz sessions, the ECM net has always stretched further. The label was recording a variant of World Music as early as guitarist Egberto Giasmonti Dança Das Cabeças (ECM 1089) in 1976; and first dabbled in so-called New music in 1978 with Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians (ECM 1129).

Furthermore ECM did more than provide a home for such accepted Jazz standard bearers as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeters Kenny Wheeler and Enrico Rava, saxophonists Charles Lloyd and John Surman, drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Paul Bley, to cite a few examples. Over the years it gave and continues to give exposure to quirkier, underappreciated or far-seeking avant-Jazz standard bearers from Europe or North America such as reedists Louis Sclavis, Gianluigi Trovesi, Hal Russell and Joe Maneri, trumpeter Tomas Stanko, pianist Marilyn Crispell, drummers Pierre Favre and Edward Versala, and Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble.

In contrast, Austria’s Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen has always been about presenting newer forms of Improvised Music. And the sometimes makeshift sonic conditions under which festival curator Hans Falb presents concerts may cause Eicher and Kongshaug a variant of apoplexy. Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories is a reflection of the festival itself. Collated like a scrap book, the text is broken up with posed, portrait and performance, contemporary and historical photographs of musicians who have appeared at Nickelsdorf over the years. Thus you can see what trombonist George Lewis looked like when he played the festival in 1985 or clarinetist John Carter’s jeans and white tie ensemble from 1983. At the same time there are portrait photos of saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell on the cover and bassist Joëlle Léandre inside.

This haphazard arrangement continues throughout the volume. Reminiscences of Nickelsdorf festivals past by the likes of electronics manipulator Christof Kurzmann, drummer Hamid Drake and Mitchell share space with such articles as an extensive discussion about improvisation with Léandre and Schmickl – printed in both French and German –and short biographical studies of brass man Clifford Thornton by his friend saxophonist Joe McPhee and DY Ngoy. Also published in both French and German is Alexandre Pierrepont’s extensive, if somewhat disjointed, musings on the history and influences of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (ACCM); while the verbatim dialogue between Falb and Evan Parker while unearthing some interesting gems about improvised music in Europe, reads more like the late-night ramblings of a couple of old friends than anything approaching rigorous scholarship.

Sometimes the choice of language puzzles as well. It’s understandable that the articles by drummer Paul Lovens and pianist Georg Graewe should be in German, their native tongue. But why is an article on the Romanian festival Jazz and More – strongly inspired by the Konfrontationen – in English, whereas the piece that precedes it, dealing with improvised music in Romania is only in German?

Despite these shortcomings, both of these volumes would make valuable if unusual additions to the book shelves of anyone interested in Improvised Music. And if a follower of this music can reads any one or more of the languages used in the books besides English, there are additional bonuses.

--Ken Waxman

March 14, 2011

Albert Mangelsdorff

Triplicity
Skip SKP 9052-2

Joe Fiedler

Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff

Clean Feed CF 049CD

Generally credited as the first European trombonist who by the 1960s had talents that were equal to or superior to American jazzers, Frankfurt native Albert Mangelsdorff (1928-2005) evolved from being a top-ranked bopper to flirting with the avant garde and fusion in the 1970s, The result by the time of his death, was a matchless amalgam of all those styles in his playing.

Although acknowledged as a major stylist as early as 1962, when he recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet’s pianist John Lewis, this CD by New York trombonist Joe Fiedler is the first recorder tribute the German master of multiphonics. It’s no macabre cash-in either. For Fiedler, whose experience encompasses bands as disparate as Latin- Jazz group Timbalaye, pianist Andrew Hill’s sextet and Philip Johnson’s Fast and Bulbous, recorded the just-released session in November 2003.

Serendipitously, a set of never-before available tracks by a Mangelsdorff’s 1979 trio appears. Backed by veteran Swiss drummer Pierre Favre, known for his work with pianist Irène Schweizer; and Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, who now combines traditional folk music and improv; it’s the same configuration as Fiedler’s trio. The trombonist and his associates – bassist John Herbert, who also plays in Hill’s band and drummer Mark Ferber, who has worked with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith – are probably even younger than the Triplicity trio was in 1979. Yet a side-to-side comparison of the two CDs causes neither to suffer.

Ironically, it’s Fiedler, on the aptly-titled “Do Your Own Thing” and the exposition of “Mayday Hymn”, who plays the sort of unaccompanied, multiphonic extravaganza that the older trombonist perfected after his solo display at a 1972 Munich festival. On the first tune, Fiedler reveals grunting split tones, extended with passing vibrations while maintaining a polyrhythmic beat. Preceding the drummer’s and bassist’s entry with patterned hand drumming and sul ponticello strokes, on “Mayday Hymn”, the boneman unveils polyphonic excesses and subterranean growls, letting his abrasive grace notes flow into every sound crevice.

“Zores Mores” even goes further than Mangelsdorff could have imagined. Sounding as if his notes have been shoved through a sequencer – and highlighting with tremolo and legato – Fiedler appears to be playing in double counterpoint with himself. Many other tracks are free-bop lines par excellence, floating on Herbert’s stalwart walking and Ferber’s cadenced cymbal smacks and ratamacues. Combined with the trombonist’s sputtering textures, many of these compositions morph into finger-snappers.

Fiedler’s experience performing with Afro-Cuban stars such as Tito Puente and Nestor Torres also serves him well here, as he adds a Latin tinge to “Now Jazz Ramwong”, an Asiatic tinged piece Mangelsdorff wrote after a tour of the Far East. On top of Ferber’s cross-handed paradiddles, the brassman’s internalized rhythms intensify his blustery tones.

Moving from the honorer to the honoree, what strikes you most about Triplicity is how the trombonist mixes traditional roots with advanced techniques without calling undue attention to himself. And the bassist and drummer follow right along.

Take “Subconscious Skylark” for instance, where his note replication initially fastens on double counterpoint with Andersen. Then when the bassist turns to sul tasto bowing, Mangelsdorff introduces spittle-encrusted prestissimo tone rows, and then triple- tongued triplets and squeals. Favre contributes flashing polyrhythmic rustles as the bassist counters with rasgueado-like rhythms. Layering his pitchsliding solo with one curved triplet after another, the trombonist revels in brassy falsetto buzzes and vibrating triple tonguing. As cross patterns roll from the drum top, Mangelsdorff proffers a final recap of trills and plunger emphasis.

These techniques can also be put to use on more atmospheric numbers like “Green Shadows into Blue” or the raucous “Outhouse” – both written by the bassist. Nearly a nocturne, the first piece features Favre’s press rolls filling the space behind Andersen’s blunt slaps that flamboyantly stretch the strings, eventually revealing flamenco patterning. Confining himself initially to rubato romantic trills, the trombonist ends with a flurry of triple buzzed and tongued notes.

An odd blowsy, bluesy romp from someone identified with the glacial Scandinavian sound, “Outhouse” finds the bass man alternating between flat-picking claw-hammer licks and an extensive walking solo à la Scott LaFaro. Favre’s ruffs toughen the backbeat and among Mangelsdorff’s waterfall of sounds are buzzy chromatic triplets and quadruple-tongued grace notes. Elsewhere his split-tone response is such that without overdubbing the trombonist limns two parallel lines – vibrated, pedal-point tremolos alternated with higher-pitched brays.

However it’s with the 14-minute plus “Warbling Warbler” that Mangelsdorff really exhibits his skills. Based on birdsong which he recorded and listened to at various speeds, the piece is alive with presto and lento variations. As andante capillary tones echo past the slide into sine wave reverb and single-note extensions, he purrs triplets, occasionally hitting freak high-pitched notes – but not enough to create atonality. Meantime Andersen’s speedily keeps steady time, while Favre’s pummelling rolls and ratcheting cymbals add the necessary coloration. Introducing an assortment of cross-handed ruffs and flams, the percussionist joins with the andante walking bass lines to provide ballast behind the trombonist’s aviary-like triple tonguing and heavily vibrated growls. Considering the coda is a cistern-deep exhalation, perhaps some of the warblers were of eagle size or larger.

Triplicity is another reminder of the late German trombonist’s power, while Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff is a fitting memorial to a master stylist.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Triplicity: 1. Triplicity 2. Soulbird 3. Warbling Warbler 4. Outhouse 5. Virgin Green of Spring 6. Green Shadows into Blue 7. Subconscious Skylark 8. Brief Impressions of Brighton 9. Perpetual Lineations 10. Ancore Ex Tempore

Personnel: Triplicity: Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone); Arild Andersen (bass); Pierre Favre (drums)

Track Listing: Plays: 1. Wheat Song 2. Rip Off 3. Now Jazz Ramwong 4. An Ant Steps on an Elephant’s Toe 5. Mayday Hymn 6. Lapwing 7. Zores Mores 8. Wart G’Schwind 9. Do Your Own Thing

Personnel: Plays: Joe Fiedler (trombone); John Herbert (bass); Mark Ferber (drums)

November 12, 2006

JOE FIEDLER TRIO

Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff
Clean Feed CF 049CD

ALBERT MANGELSDORFF

Triplicity

Skip SKP 9052-2

By Ken Waxman

Generally credited as the first European trombonist who by the 1960s had talents that were equal to or superior to American jazzers, Frankfurt native Albert Mangelsdorff (1928-2005) evolved from being a top-ranked bopper to flirting with the avant garde and fusion in the 1970s, The result by the time of his death, was a matchless amalgam of all those styles in his playing.

Although acknowledged as a major stylist as early as 1962, when he recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet’s pianist John Lewis, this CD by New York trombonist Joe Fiedler is the first recorder tribute the German master of multiphonics. It’s no macabre cash-in either. For Fiedler, whose experience encompasses bands as disparate as Latin- Jazz group Timbalaye, pianist Andrew Hill’s sextet and Philip Johnson’s Fast and Bulbous, recorded the just-released session in November 2003.

Serendipitously, a set of never-before available tracks by a Mangelsdorff’s 1979 trio appears. Backed by veteran Swiss drummer Pierre Favre, known for his work with pianist Irène Schweizer; and Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, who now combines traditional folk music and improv; it’s the same configuration as Fiedler’s trio. The trombonist and his associates – bassist John Herbert, who also plays in Hill’s band and drummer Mark Ferber, who has worked with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith – are probably even younger than the TRIPLICITY trio was in 1979. Yet a side-to-side comparison of the two CDs causes neither to suffer.

Ironically, it’s Fiedler, on the aptly-titled “Do Your Own Thing” and the exposition of “Mayday Hymn”, who plays the sort of unaccompanied, multiphonic extravaganza that the older trombonist perfected after his solo display at a 1972 Munich festival. On the first tune, Fiedler reveals grunting split tones, extended with passing vibrations while maintaining a polyrhythmic beat. Preceding the drummer’s and bassist’s entry with patterned hand drumming and sul ponticello strokes, on “Mayday Hymn”, the boneman unveils polyphonic excesses and subterranean growls, letting his abrasive grace notes flow into every sound crevice.

“Zores Mores” even goes further than Mangelsdorff could have imagined. Sounding as if his notes have been shoved through a sequencer – and highlighting with tremolo and legato – Fiedler appears to be playing in double counterpoint with himself. Many other tracks are free-bop lines par excellence, floating on Herbert’s stalwart walking and Ferber’s cadenced cymbal smacks and ratamacues. Combined with the trombonist’s sputtering textures, many of these compositions morph into finger-snappers.

Fiedler’s experience performing with Afro-Cuban stars such as Tito Puente and Nestor Torres also serves him well here, as he adds a Latin tinge to “Now Jazz Ramwong”, an Asiatic tinged piece Mangelsdorff wrote after a tour of the Far East. On top of Ferber’s cross-handed paradiddles, the brassman’s internalized rhythms intensify his blustery tones.

Moving from the honorer to the honoree, what strikes you most about TRIPLICITY is how the trombonist mixes traditional roots with advanced techniques without calling undue attention to himself. And the bassist and drummer follow right along.

Take “Subconscious Skylark” for instance, where his note replication initially fastens on double counterpoint with Andersen. Then when the bassist turns to sul tasto bowing, Mangelsdorff introduces spittle-encrusted prestissimo tone rows, and then triple- tongued triplets and squeals. Favre contributes flashing polyrhythmic rustles as the bassist counters with rasgueado-like rhythms. Layering his pitchsliding solo with one curved triplet after another, the trombonist revels in brassy falsetto buzzes and vibrating triple tonguing. As cross patterns roll from the drum top, Mangelsdorff proffers a final recap of trills and plunger emphasis.

These techniques can also be put to use on more atmospheric numbers like “Green Shadows into Blue” or the raucous “Outhouse” – both written by the bassist. Nearly a nocturne, the first piece features Favre’s press rolls filling the space behind Andersen’s blunt slaps that flamboyantly stretch the strings, eventually revealing flamenco patterning. Confining himself initially to rubato romantic trills, the trombonist ends with a flurry of triple buzzed and tongued notes.

An odd blowsy, bluesy romp from someone identified with the glacial Scandinavian sound, “Outhouse” finds the bass man alternating between flat-picking claw-hammer licks and an extensive walking solo à la Scott LaFaro. Favre’s ruffs toughen the backbeat and among Mangelsdorff’s waterfall of sounds are buzzy chromatic triplets and quadruple-tongued grace notes. Elsewhere his split-tone response is such that without overdubbing the trombonist limns two parallel lines – vibrated, pedal-point tremolos alternated with higher-pitched brays.

However it’s with the 14-minute plus “Warbling Warbler” that Mangelsdorff really exhibits his skills. Based on birdsong which he recorded and listened to at various speeds, the piece is alive with presto and lento variations. As andante capillary tones echo past the slide into sine wave reverb and single-note extensions, he purrs triplets, occasionally hitting freak high-pitched notes – but not enough to create atonality. Meantime Andersen’s speedily keeps steady time, while Favre’s pummelling rolls and ratcheting cymbals add the necessary coloration. Introducing an assortment of cross-handed ruffs and flams, the percussionist joins with the andante walking bass lines to provide ballast behind the trombonist’s aviary-like triple tonguing and heavily vibrated growls. Considering the coda is a cistern-deep exhalation, perhaps some of the warblers were of eagle size or larger.

TRIPLICITY is another reminder of the late German trombonist’s power, while PLAYS THE MUSIC OF ALBERT MANGELSDORFF is a fitting memorial to a master stylist.

Track Listing: Triplicity: 1. Triplicity 2. Soulbird 3. Warbling Warbler 4. Outhouse 5. Virgin Green of Spring 6. Green Shadows into Blue 7. Subconscious Skylark 8. Brief Impressions of Brighton 9. Perpetual Lineations 10. Ancore Ex Tempore

Personnel: Triplicity: Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone); Arild Andersen (bass); Pierre Favre (drums)

Track Listing: Plays: 1. Wheat Song 2. Rip Off 3. Now Jazz Ramwong 4. An Ant Steps on an Elephant’s Toe 5. Mayday Hymn 6. Lapwing 7. Zores Mores 8. Wart G’Schwind 9. Do Your Own Thing

Personnel: Plays: Joe Fiedler (trombone); John Herbert (bass); Mark Ferber (drums)

September 25, 2006

Barry Guy New Orchestra

Oort – Entropy
Intakt

Maya Homburger & Barry Guy with Pierre Favre
Dakryon
Maya

By Ken Waxman
September 11, 2005

Established as one of FreeImprov’s most accomplished composer/bandleaders as well as a major improvising double bassist, Barry Guy continues to extend his musical range.

Having slimmed down his main compositional tool, the 17-piece London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO) to the more compact 10 piece, all-star Barry Guy New Orchestra (BGO), Oort – Entropy shows how the group reconstitutes specific sounds. The idea is to expand musical elements initially conceived for Guy’s trio with American pianist Marilyn Crispell and British drummer Paul Lytton.

Dakryon, on the other hand, explores an even more diminutive facet of his art. A member of an Early Music ensemble early in his career, Guy extends those concepts on several tracks of this CD. Using themes written by composers H.I.F. Biber and Dario Castello in the 17th century, these performances are in part baroque showcases for Guy’s wife, Swiss violinist May Homburger. Filling out the nearly 75-minute CD are contemporary Guy compositions eliciting the skills of the husband-and-wife duo plus Swiss drummer Pierre Favre.

Favre, another first generation Free player, recorded as guest with the LJCO in 1995 – as did Crispell. On Dakryon, he contributes a concluding less-than-two minute percussion solo and on one track with just Guy. However, the most noteworthy trio outing is the almost 19½-minute title track which appends pre-recorded sounds to improvisations.

Beginning with sonorous bass plucks, spiccato swells and lower-case drum rumbles, “Dakryon” expands into swirling interface from Homburger, harder and stronger pizzicato pulls from Guy and rattling and extruded accents from Favre. With pre-recorded chiming accents ornamented with percussion and a near Middle-Eastern interlude of bowed and vibrated double bass notes, the fiddler then contemplatively sounds the melody as ring modulator gong-like signals multiply. Eventually faint drum thumps help bring the ethereal extensions to a logical conclusion.

Favre’s multi-timbral drum kit augmentation allow him to rattle bells, shake cymbals and bounce snares behind Guy’s measured, almost lute-like rasgueado bass work on “Peace Piece”. Impressionistic, Favre’s sympathetic mallet work frames the bassist’s chromatic plucks so that each note echo is like a thrust with a finely honed dagger – incisive, but with no jagged edges.

Much of the CD’s remaining time is taken up by Homburger or Homburger and Guy performing works by two 17th century composers, Bohemian H. I. F. Biber (1644-1704) and Venetian Dario Castello (? - 1658). Biber, whose work was also recorded by the two on Ceremony (ECM), is best-known for his so-called Mystery Sonatas from about 1676, five of which are handled here.

Those compositions, plus other baroque inventions by Castello, take advantage of the violinist’s exquisite tone and phrasing. Legato mostly, staccato and spiccato sometimes, Homburger does more than replicate the proper harmonies. Taking advantage of the composers’ demand for scordatura or re-tuning, she brings a semi-mystical emotionalism to the pieces. True to 17th century basso continuo, Guy interweaves distinctive harmonies, both arco and pizzicato, which reflect his contemporary mindset as well as appropriate baroque techniques.

Moving from the 17th to the 21st century, Oort – Entropy shows how the bassist gives all his soloists and ensemble scope to spontaneously expand past customary boundaries. This is where a cross-section of experiences and cultures comes into play, since nearly every improviser is a veteran from a different country.

Parker and Lytton’s long-time trio-mate, Londoner Evan Parker is featured on tenor and soprano saxophones. The other reeds are Swiss bass clarinetist Hans Koch, who collaborates with numerous other free improvisers, and Swedish tenor and baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, who is part of the GUSH trio with percussionist Raymond Strid, also featured here. Gustafsson and Swedish tubaist Per Åke Holmlander are part of Peter Brötzmann’s Tentet. German trombonist Johannes Bauer has played with everyone from Brötzmann to Australian violinist Jon Rose, while American trumpeter/flugelhornist Herb Robertson is now a member of drummer Gerry Hemingway’s quartet. Taking over BGO’s all-important piano chair from Crispell is Catalan Augustí Fernánderz, who has recorded with players as different in concept as reedist Parker and American bassist William Parker.

All stars are all right for a jam session, but it’s Guy’s framework which gives the 10 a structure within to operate. Especially when the pianist is most energetic, the performance relates to some of Cecil Taylor’s efforts with big bands. Other large groups brought to mind are Count Basie’s New Testament band – for the riffing saxes – Stan Kenton’s most jazz-like ensembles – for the flaunted brass passages – and most definitely Charles Mingus’ The Black and the Sinner Lady band, in the way the bass-lead ensemble leaps from dissonance to relaxation.

Nonetheless there are also plenty of surprises on tap as the three-part suite uncoils. True, Parker shows off his near-patented circular breathing, but there’s a point in “Part II”, where his introduction is positively Lesterian – as in Lester Young. Fernánderz may strum arpeggios and chord edgy tremolos, but he’s also capable of an andante fantasia, constant cadenzas and clinking single-notes.

Besides braying triplets, Robertson adds half-valve, hunting horn sonics that meld with penetrating tuba pedal tones. Plus the penultimate minutes of “Part III” feature Lytton and Strid eschewing their previous roles as colorists for a wholesale double drum volley, alive with paradiddles, rebounds and ruffs, as the horns blast vamps around them. Do you think they individually owned the famous Rich vs. Roach LP?

Koch’s individualistic slurs and snorts give the exposition many of its colors, suspended on top of buzzing notes and stop time emphasis from the brass. Meanwhile altissimo blusters or contrapuntal bass tones from the tuba depict the tincture of the final section.

All and all though, among the polyphonic interludes, Bauer emerges as the most consistently invigorating soloist. Like many post-Roswell Rudd stylists, he has one foot in the early gutbucket tradition and the other in post-modern New music. Balanced solidly by Guy’s architecturally-solid tonal centres that allow each instrument to be heard, he ascends with a series of buzzing and barking textures to a legato chromatic solo, then just as briskly drips burred notes one at a time as he descends the scale.

Depending on whether you want your Guy in a miniature setting or piloting a large, integrated ensemble, either CD – or both – can satisfy.

September 12, 2005

PIERRE FAVRE

Saxophones
Intakt CD 093

SCHWIMMER
7X4X7
Creative Sources cs013

Superficially, it would seem that the chief difference between the reed-and-percussion sessions that makes up SAXOPHONES and 7X4X7 is that the former includes a tuba player and one additional reedist.

Not so fast -- the conception and execution of these two CDs is so antithetical that they could come from completely different musical planets. Led by veteran Swiss percussionist Pierre Favre, SAXOPHONES is on the formal side of the improv world. It alternates readings of his compositions by the complete ensemble including the ARTE (saxophone) Quartett (sic) with tracks that showcase the drummer’s extraordinary solo traps work. Berlin-based Schwimmer, on the other hand, is a reductionist combo concerned with organization of sounds in space on the border of inaudibility.

Committed to choir-like harmonies, the classically oriented ARTE Quartett has collaborated with other jazz improvisers like American saxophonist Tim Berne and Swiss saxophonist Urs Leimgruber. French tubaist Michel Godard has worked in similar chamber situations with countrymen cellist Vincent Courtois and Dutch pianist Misha Mengelberg. One of Switzerland’s earliest free players, Favre has a longtime musical relationship with Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer, as well as many Italian, German and French players such as Godard.

The cast of characters on 7X4X7 represents a younger generation most stimulated by the differences between sound and silences. Milan-born soprano saxophonist Alessandro Bosetti plays with other microtonalists like American saxist Bhob Rainey and German prepared guitarist Annette Krebs. Munich-born flautist Sabine Vogel moves between New music, pop and a duo with Australian drummer Tony Buck. Clarinetist Michael Thieke has worked with American jazzers like drummer Jim Black plus reductionists like trumpeter Axel Dörner, who also plays with Bosetti. Nuremberg-born drummer Michael Griener has the widest experience, with gigs ranging from backing up mainstream jazz guitarist Herb Ellis to playing with Dörner.

Ellis’ licks will be the farthest thing from your mind on 7X4X7 however. If the longtime Oscar Peterson sideman’s leitmotif is bluesy swing, then Schwimmer’s is a shrill, almost ear-splitting tone that for 10 to 15 seconds at a time emanates from one or two of the reeds, pushing past dog-whistle territory into the realm of discomfort.

This happens most frequently on track four, though with all the piece about the same length, the piercing tone is about all that distinguishes it from the others, since all coalesce into one piece of absolute microtonal sound.

In between these shrill ear canal invasions as well as a feline hisses and simple puffs from the reeds, are extended screw tightening noises from Griener that lead to direct hits on cow bells, hollow wood blocks and rattling maracas. Although the occasional bounce, flam and press roll is heard, most of the drummer’s conception is as involved with extended techniques, as the reedists are. Among his creations are prolonged scratches on the ride cymbal top with a drum stick, a crumpling newspaper sound and extended timbres that result from using a wire brush for swizzle stick-like motions on parts of his kit.

Not to be outdone, the horns produce throat growls from within their body tubes, Bronx cheers, reed smears, tongue slaps, the sound of saxophone bells muted against trouser legs, hisses, irregular vibrations, key percussion false fingering and flattement. Squeaking mouse tones and chickadee squeals also arise in the flute and penny whistle-like textures from the clarinet. Combing in double or triple, often broken octaves, one reed can resonate with busy wasp stings, while the other produces deep throat gurgles. Together, triple counterpoint gives the three a wider, more dissonant sound, melding and increasing in intensity until all pitchslide into polyharmonic glissandi. Meanwhile, Griener repeatedly scrapes his cymbals.

Overall, the most distinctive -- and most frequent oral technique from the reedists -- is also the simplest: billowing pure colored air through the body tube without moving the instrument’s keys. The result can be a wisp, a gargle or a subterranean roar, at intervals accompanied by compact bell-ringing tones.

This reed group is most concerned with the atonal extensions and diatonic discord available with the horns. The classically oriented Arte Quartett, on the other disc, is most involved with reed choir harmonies.

Although other tracks may show off the quartet’s gorgeous dabs of close harmony to better effect, it’s on the more than 11-minute “Anecdote”, where everything falls into place. The composition extends the pulse created by Favre with hard felt tympani mallets on the floor tom and tambourine shakes from the hi-hat, with polyphonic meshed saxophone line and focused tuba blats. Slowed down to adagio, the pace then picks up when the higher-pitches reeds meet tuba pedal point and split apart following Favre’s irregular beats. Beat Hofstetter’s soprano saxophone then twitters and trills, Sascha Armbruster’s alto draws out a straight line and Godard plays descending triplets.

In response, the percussionist showcases ratcheting bounces and cymbal splashes, which precedes the horns meshing into a jolly jig-like interface deepened by brassy pedal point blasts. With Favre sounding as if his drum polyrhythms come from barehanded pressure, the soprano sax shrills out some double-tongued atonal lines until all combine for a march-like finish.

Buzzing cymbal textures introduce resolute, massed four-part harmonies on “Passages”, with the Arte Quartett members functioning like the interconnected parts of a Swiss watch. This polyharmony also serves as a buffer for Godard’s most impressive showing -- moving andante as he builds up the multi-colored, low-pitched shades of his horn. Favre’s drumbeat is there, but is so subtle that not one of the sweet sounds is disrupted.

Versatile inventiveness characterize the veteran percussionist’s solo tracks, which of course are part of percussion DNA that that feeds younger traps men like Schwimmer’s Griener. During the course of those displays, Favre uses tympani mallets, brushes and drum sticks to create tones that include prestissimo patterns on tubular bells, an underlay of snare rumbles, rattles on bell trees and tam tams, isolated nerve beats, bongo drum intimations and flams on steel-drum-like tuned snares.

Sounds that resemble nakers or small medieval kettledrums appear as do lathed cymbal snaps and resonation that could come from circular saw motions. Don’t forget as well that Favre can also easily play a swing beat.

Approaching percussion and reeds from different angles, these fine CDs highlight the tremendous variety of what gets classed as so-called jazz or improvised music. It’s the listeners who benefit from this versatility.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Saxophones: 1. Sito 2. Solar Wheel 3. Music 4 & 7 4. Stampede 5. Anecdote 6. Les Jeux Sont Fait 7. Lea 8. Options 9. Passages 10. Hippopotamus 11. Saxophones

Personnel: Saxophones: Michel Godard (tuba and serpent); Pierre Favre (drums and percussion); Arte Quartett: Beat Hofstetter (soprano saxophone); Sascha Armbruster (alto saxophone); Andrea Formenti (tenor saxophone); Beat Kappeler (baritone saxophone)

Track Listing: 7X4X7: 1. #1 2. #2 3. #3 4. #4 5. #5 6. #6 7. #7

Personnel: 7X4X7: Sabine Vogel (flute); Michael Thieke (clarinet); Alessandro Bosetti (soprano saxophone); Michael Griener (percussion)

December 27, 2004

KEN HYDER/VLADIMIR MILLER

Counting On Angels
SLAM CD 251

IRENE SCHWEIZER/PIERRE FAVRE
Ulrichsberg
Intakt CD 084

Pity the poor bass player.

Over the past couple of decades improvisers have distanced themselves still further from the so-called jazz scene by playing in different configurations. One of the most common scenarios is jettisoning the bassist of the standard jazz trio and recording with just piano and drums -- the way masters of the Stride piano did in the 1920s.

No one is likely to confuse COUNTING ON ANGELS or ULRICHSBERG for a Willie “The Lion” Smith session, but neither will they mistake one for the other. Adapting distinct roots to the creations at hand, both piano-percussion duos have come up with equally memorable CDs.

Scots drummer Ken Hyder and British-Russia pianist Vladimir Miller had to travel further to create their duo conception however. Although the CD was recorded in London, it reflects their experience playing with local musicians in the former Soviet Union, from Leningrad to Vladivostok and from Arkhangelsk to Tuva. More importantly, both come to this amalgam of stripped down improv and Russian near-classicism honesty.

Brought up in the West, Miller now divides his time between Russia and his home in London. He has worked extensively in Russia, led The Moscow Composers Orchestra on several tours and played with locals like former Ganelin Trio percussionist Vladimir Tarasov. Similarly, after mixing Scottish traditional folk music with jazz in bands like Hoots and Roots with singer Maggie Nicols, Hyder has been a regular visitor to another northern area -- the then U.S.S.R. -- especially Siberia -- since 1990. Besides playing with Miller in different bands, he has also studied throat-singing and local shamanic music.

Both Swiss, pianist Irène Schweizer and drummer Pierre Favre’s association goes back further still -- to 1966 to be exact. Two of the first Swiss players to bring an original perspective to what was then called Free Jazz, each has worked with numberless musicians over the years. Schweizer even recorded a set of bass-drum albums several years ago.

Named for the Austrian festival at which it was recorded, ULRICHSBERG is a continuous live performance without cuts or omissions. Almost from the inaugural notes of the aptly titled “Twin dialogue” -- the first cut -- you can hear the communication in phrasing and polyrhythms that results from each partners knowing the others’ moves intimately. At the same time, since the two don’t often play together -- sometimes for years at a time -- what Favre describes as the “risk” that keeps “living communication” vital, is as present as the skill they express in dual improvising.

As mercurial on this track as elsewhere on the CD, Schweizer concentrates on harsh contrasting dynamics, building up counter themes and counter melodies with both hands as she plays. You never forget that she has 88 keys and two clefs with which to work. High frequency tremolos appear and octaves flash by as she works her way up and down the keyboard. Meanwhile Favre rolls and thunders right beside her. As she moves to a walking bass, honky tonk-like collection of flying polyrhythms, the drummer seems to be staying out of her way but is actually constructing subtle rhythm patterns behind her. The climax finds her displaying characteristic duple time and exaggerated repeated note patterns.

Duple time variations are also put to good effect on “Ulrich, Ulrich, der Wagen bricht!”, which is dedicated to the late German bassist Peter Kowald, who worked with both duo partners. Attacking the keys and soundboard with primordial power, Schweizer produces additional vibrations with nearly every note. Building up the tension, she then gears down to right-handed, adagio tremolos, coloring the delicate skeins with grace notes. In sympathy, Favre murmurs peacefully from wood blocks and cymbals.

The pianist’s pulsating syncopation can appear with pressure as tough as anything Cecil Taylor or McCoy Tyner would create, or, in contrast, be expressed as an understated sprightly air as on “Waltz for Lois”, the set’s encore performance. Highlighting unique swing based on internal logic and feathery left-handed dynamics, at one point it appears as if Schweizer would like to start playing the intro to “House of the Rising Sun”. On this piece, Favre mixes things up with bass drum accents. Elsewhere he uses rebounds and wood-on-wood drumstick nerve beats to meet Schweizer’s speedy glissandos and skittering ployrhythms.

Mallets struck on the sides and rims of his kit provide some of the accompaniment for “Unwritten messages”, as Schweizer metaphorically converts her piano to a chordophone. With harp-like arpeggios she plucks the inside piano strings with her fingers, resonating tones from the soundboard and finally letting the overtones subside to silence.

Perhaps reflecting the more bellicose qualities the Scots and Russians supposedly possess more than the Swiss, the other CD has much less understated and low frequency improvising than ULRICHSBERG.

On the suitably bellicose “Siege of Leningrad”, while Hyder creates quasi-martial snare drum beats from what seems to be the centre of his snare, Miller’s heavy touch builds power chording to flashing arpeggios. Soon he’s laying siege to the 88 keys in quadrants, working his way up the scale emphasizing both single notes and their sympathetic vibrations. Miller operates with the left-handed power of a boogie woogie pianist, while Hyder decorates the siege with cymbal smacks and rim shots.

“Bell-like rebounds and ruffs give an offbeat color to the metronomic forward motion of the piano on “Russian Rivers”, as the pianist sounds a complex up-and-down tempo throughout. With Hyder’s press rolls parying the thrusts of Miller’s coordinated pounding, the pianist showcases a dynamic duplex scale with all its overtones with one hand, and something that veers perilously close to “Chopsticks” with the other.

Not all the aural Slavic landscapes are that bleak however. Every bar doesn’t reflect slurred fingering keyboard fantasia or belligerent and accelerating percussion beats either. Dazzling hard and heavy piano etudes recall half-remembered Tin Pan Alley standards on “Obshennia”, while the playful “Russian Dolls” features high intensity chording played over clockwork-like shuffle rhythm. The later has the touch of pre-modern jazz about it, with broken time signatures and eccentric cadences moving to a grandfather clock-like beat from Hyder. The whole thing is cut off with second hand precision at the end.

Romanticism, that also purportedly inhabits the Russian soul, is dramatically exposed on “Angel’s Son”, the more than 13-minute longest track. Miller tries out a two-handed, quasi-Swing style replete with strummed chords and doubled overtones, then builds up Chopinesque patterns of uneven note clusters. Hyder intermittently strokes his snares and cymbals, and maintains his version of a swinging pulse with rebounds, ratamacues and doubled bass drum entries. Finally the pianist unfolds arpeggios like so many flower pedals, sweeping over the keys with a featherlight touch.

On paper two piano-drums duos may seem similar. On CD, owing to the talent of the four performers, the results are as different as the politics of Russian and Switzerland.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Counting: 1. Hear the Fear in the Dark Forest 2. Angel’s Son 3. Siege of Leningrad 4. Russian Dolls 5. Sayan Flying 6. Russian Rivers 7. Obshennia

Personnel: Counting: Vladimir Miller (piano); Ken Hyder (drums)

Track Listing: Ulrichsberg: 1. Twin dialogue 2. It’s about time 3. Ulrich, Ulrich, der Wagen bricht! (dedicated to Peter Kowald) 4. Unwritten messages 5. Nomades 6. Waltz for Lois

Personnel: Ulrichsberg: Irène Schweizer (piano); Pierre Favre (drums)

April 19, 2004

MANFRED SCHOOF

European Echoes
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 232CD

ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACH
The Living Music
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 231CD

Multi-reedman Peter Brötzmann always insists that when pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and trumpeter Manfred Schoof first heard his pioneering free jazz band in the mid-1960s “they just laughed their asses off. At that time they played the Horace Silver-style thing”. But, by the end of the decade as Brötzmann widened his circle to include other experimenters like Dutch drummer Han Bennink and worked with American jazzers like trumpeter Don Cherry and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, his fellow Germans began to come around as well.

They began to come around to such an extent that by 1969 Schlippenbach and Schoof were recording the outside session showcased on these discs, both of which featured international casts, definitely including Brötzmann and Bennink. Since that time the pianist has maintained his free jazz affiliation, most notably in a long-running trio with British saxophonist Evan Parker, who is also on EUROPEAN ECHOES. The trumpeter, on the other hand, sticks more to a mainstream style, when he isn’t writing and playing contemporary classical music.

Recorded first THE LIVING MUSIC was an indirect nod to Julian Beck’s experimental Living Theater group that had recently set up shop in Europe. It was also a smaller-sized version of Schlippenbach’s on-again-off-again-massive Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO), with British trombonist Paul Rutherford and Bennink joining the five Germans players.

In a way it’s those two, as well as Brötzmann, who are most impressive on this session. The trombonist who had already worked with London’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble and GUO and would go on to play throughout Europe, is credited with the invention of trombone multiphonics. Here his avant-gutbucket tone intertwines among the other instruments, stylistically neighing in his way like Tricky Sam Nanton did with Duke Ellington’s band. Using what sound like a regular kit expanded with a marimba, a thumb piano, a massive Oriental gong and who knows what else, Bennink has more percussion on hand than Ellington’s flashy Sony Greer ever had.

Like Greer, he uses it judiciously, however, smashing, banging and thumping enough to bring the discordant darker toned instruments together. At times, though, when the pianist attacks the keyboard with particular ferocity, Bennink become even more bellicose, becoming Sunny Murray to Schlippenbach’s Cecil Taylor.

However, since he began playing professionally almost at the same time as CT, Schlippenbach is more a Thelonious Monk man. As a matter of fact, his introductory solo on “Tower” has a pianistic conception that’s definitely Monk-like. Furthermore, despite Brötz’s overblowing -- no Charlie Rouse he -- and Bennink’s relentless pounding, the pianist’s nearly 11½-minute composition sounds like one of the tunes recorded by those mid-sized Monk ensembles.

Schlippenbach’s cadences and arpeggios are less adventurous elsewhere, especially when Schoof, on cornet, takes the lead. Influenced at that time as much by Ted Curson and other freeboppers as Cherry, the brassman’s “Wave” suggests The Jazz Messengers playing Ornette Coleman. Vying with swinging, foreground percussion, Schoof’s solo is all flourishes, fanfares and note building, facing counterpoint from the saxophone section and Rutherford’s smeared lines. Elsewhere, the British brassman combines with Bennink for exercises in free march time and otherwise -- perhaps aided by Niebergall’s little-heard bass trombone -- stacks up against the buzzing saxophones and relentless percussion with elongated tones that sometimes sound like the braying of animals.

Throughout, Brötzmann is a holy terror, pumping out notes as if from a machine gun and asserting himself more than anyone else. On one occasion he explodes into a cappella multiphonics, then works his way down his horn, tossing out variations on the theme as he goes along. Although as part of the Schoof Quintet and later on with his own band and work with Lacy, Luxembourg-resident Michel Pilz would be quite well known, he’s oddly reticent here. Only on the cornettist’s Stan-Kenton-meets-Don-Cherry arrangement of “Past Time” do his tart clarinet tone make any impression.

On the other hand, nearly every one of the 16 musicians present gets some solo space on EUROPEAN ECHOES, another of Atavistic’s FMP Archive Edition, recorded two months after Schlippenbach’s CD under Schoof nominal leadership.

It seems nominal because a soon a the fist drum beats echo through the studio, by means of the dual percussion of Bennink and Swiss drummer Pierre Favre, it’s obvious that this almost 32-minute composition is going to be some wild ride. Appropriately named, the disc features all the player on the first CD save Pilz plus Parker and German tenorist Gerd Dudek on saxophones; Italian Enrico Rava and Dane Hugh Steinmetz on trumpets; Fred Van Hove from Belgium and Irène Schweizer from Switzerland on pianos; British guitarist Derek Bailey and bassists Peter Kowald from Germany and Arjen Gorter from Holland.

With the examples of controlled chaos that other large ensembles like New York’s The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, GUO and Brötzmann’s “Machine-Gun” band already created, this disc is most valuable providing aural views of important EuroImprovisers early in their career. Diffident Bailey, for instance, creates some wild, almost rock-oriented electric picking here with such vigor that it overwhelms the dual drummers. A far cry from his present persona as a balladeer, Rava produces some brassy, Don Ayler-like shakes. Meanwhile the triple keyboardists seem to be reconstituted as Cecil Taylor triplets, although during the course of the piece, one -- likely Schweizer -- offers up some inside piano harp glisses, along the lines for which she would later be better known.

Another small big band session that may have been on everyone’s mind at the time was John Coltrane’s less-than-five-years-old ASCENSION. Facing off against one another with cymbals and snares, flams, press rolls and march beats, Favre and Bennink are no Rich vs. Roach but suggest Elvin Jones times two. Additionally, some of the piano chording relates more to McCoy Tyner’s work with Trane than Taylor’s. All three trumpeters appear to be trying to see who can squeal the highest in bugle range as the theme is elaborated, though the plucked bass parts -- when they surface from the din -- may be more advanced than what Art Davis and Jimmy Garrison played on ADSCENSION. Dudek, Parker Brötzmann too generate enough screaming split tones to match Trane’s, Archie Shepp’s and Pharoah Sanders’ multiphonics on ASCENSION, often spitting out several bent notes simultaneously. Finally, as musical shards explode all over like bombs at an anarchist rally, the massed ferment builds to a combative crescendo, ending with the sustained single cymbal echo.

Too young or distanced to have experienced the excitement of 1960s’ Free Jazz? These two discs are the next best thing to being there.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: European: 1. European Echoes Part 1 2. European Echoes Part 2

Personnel: European: Manfred Schoof, Enrico Rava, Hugh Steinmetz (trumpets); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Peter Brötzmann, Gerd Dudek (tenor saxophones); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone); Alexander Von Schlippenbach; Fred Van Hove, Irène Schweizer (pianos); Derek Bailey (guitar); Peter Kowald, Arjen Gorter (basses); Buschi Niebergall (bass and bass trombone); Han Bennink, Pierre Favre (drums)

Track Listing: Living: 1. The living music 2. Into the Staggerin 3. Wave 4. Tower 5. Lollopalooza 6. Past time

Personnel: Living; Manfred Schoof (cornet and flugelhorn); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (tenor and baritone saxophones); Michel Pilz (bass clarinet and baritone saxophone); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano and percussion); J.B. Niebergall (bass and bass trombone); Han Bennink (drums and percussion)

December 16, 2002

PIERRE FAVRE/TINO TRACANNA

Punctus
Splasc(H) Records CDH 817.2

Saxophonist Tino Tracanna obviously believes in the old adage that if first you don't succeed, try again.

The 45-year-old multi-reed player who has led his own groups, written for dance performances and been a member of brassman Paolo Fresu's combos, tried something a little different in late 1999 when he negotiated an only partially successful duo session with bassist Paolino Dalla Porta.

After that, the Bergamo, Italy-based, musician waited little more than half a year before heading into the studio with a different partner with much better results. Of course it helped that his partner here is 64-year-old Swiss percussionist Pierre Favre, who has worked with everyone from mainstreamers Chet Baker and Dexter Gordon to free improvisers Evan Parker and Peter Kowald. Astute and adroit, his 1990 duo with countrywomen pianist Irène Schweizer is the exemplar that Tracanna should have been aiming for in the first place.

So how palatable is this Italian sausage topped with Swiss cheese? Quite tasty, though with the average cooking time of about three minutes, some additional simmering might have been appreciated.

A sprightly skip for soprano and snare, at 1:37 "Punctus #3", for instance, is veritable fast food -- one good bite of melody and it's gone. Also, while few recipes are completely original, that tune and others like it, especially "Line Blues Line" sound a little too close to the saxman's acknowledged influence Steve Lacy and by extension the compositions of Lacy's former boss Thelonious Monk. This emulation is thrown into even bolder relief when the two tackle a quick theme and variation run through of Monk's "Misterioso".

Shadowed every step of the way by snares, tom toms, woodblocks and cymbals and bringing his tenor saxophone into play, Tracanna fares better on the this-side-of-outside "Punctus #4". Burly baritone saxophone's pratfalls and a harder drum attack make "Punctus #5" work. And, while the soprano may be on show in "Punctus #7" Favre's rolling patterns, that resemble Native American drumming, create something original by the end of the piece.

Even more auspicious are those tunes that give fuller reign to Favre's talents. On the percussionist's own composition "Dance and counterdance" -- at 7:25 the longest track on the CD -- he has the space to perform what sounds like a quiet tap dance on his kit. Tracanna also appears relaxed enough to switch from his excitable soprano to more moderated tenor saxophone tones, accompanying what appear to be shakers, cowbells, a family of cymbals and the percussionist's distinctive gigantic snare.

Tracanna fares much better in a drum duo than he did with a bassist, but PUNCTUS still isn't perfection. Maybe if he finds yet another instrumentalist who wants to go mano a mano with him, he may prove the truth of another expression: third time lucky.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Punctus #1 2. Clusone 3. Line Blues Line 4. Meditabonda 5. Punctus #4 6. Punctus #7 7. Pavia 8. Misterioso 9. Dance and counterdance 10. Punctus #3 11. Eterninnna 12. Punctus #5 13. Punctus #2 4. Punture

Personnel: Tino Tracanna (sopranino, soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones); Pierre Favre (percussion)

March 19, 2001

STEFANO BATTAGLIA/PIERRE FAVRE/MICHAEL GASSMAN

When We Were
Splasc(h) Records CDH 690.2

STEFANO BATTAGLIA/PIERRE FAVRE
Omen
Splasc(h) Records CDH 691.2

Never has the expression "three into two doesn't go" had more resonance than with these two CD.

Recorded for Swiss radio on the same day in 1997, probably hours apart, the OMEN session is an accomplished example of what can be achieved in the moment by two skillful improvisers. In contrast the trio session resembles background music.

Unlike pop, which can revolve around endless injected patches of sound and rhythm goosing up a product at a later date, true jazz records depend on inspiration. And it can vary from hour to hour and even from minute to minute. Inspiration is in the studio on the duo CD where the two instrumentalists intertwine, despite the nearly 30 year age difference between them. Then again even at his age, Battaglia, the Italian pianist who wrote all the music, has already recorded 30 CDs, while Swiss drummer Favre's 45 year playing career has allowed him to rise to any challenge.

"Crossing", for instance is prodded along with the constant forward motion of Favre's percussion accents, spurring rapid-fire keyboard stabs, which almost launch into avant garde territory. "Danse", on the other hand, is more subtle, a lightly swirling recitation that calls on Battaglia's background in Bach and baroque music, with the drummer barely there until the entire tune resolves itself into a Middle Eastern-style dance.

WHEN WE WERE is a different matter. What was exploratory with two becomes almost rote with three, even through all the music was freely improvised in the studio. Perhaps it's the input from Swiss trumpeter Gassmann, whose muted Chet Baker meets Miles Davis influences seem a little too close to his lips on most of the disc. Only on tunes like "The Stage Is Ours" and "I Said What?" does he exhibit enough grit and strength to put flesh on those ethereal bones.

If subdued sounds are your preference, you may find something in the trio session. But the Battaglia/Favre partnership is the real treasure from a Swiss vault.

-- Ken Waxman

Were: Track Listing: 1. Story 2. Code And Disorder 3. When We Were 4. Mater 5. New Horizon 6. For You 7. The Stage Is Ours 8. Like Tears In The Rain 9. I Said What? 10. The Beauty Inside 11. Processione 12. Sooner, Later 13. Final Hour

Personnel: Michael Gassmann (trumpet); Stefano Battaglia (piano); Pierre Favre (percussion)

Omen: Track Listing: 1. Landing 2. Omen 3. Marionette 4. Danse 5. Moth In the Amber 6. Cry 7. Gestural 8. Crossing 9. Ashokh

Personnel: Stefano Battaglia (piano); Pierre Favre (percussion)

September 20, 2000