Ulrich Gumpert Workshop Band

Suites
Jazz Werkstatt JW 054

Looking for a personalized unbeatable definition of post-modern music? How about wanting to experience the compositions and arrangements of someone who has taken the mid-sized band concepts of Charles Mingus into the 21st Century? Guess what, the same person typifies both. It’s Berlin-based pianist/composer Ulrich Gumpert. Suites by his Workshop Band – note the echo of Mingus’ Jazz Workshop – is yet another exciting example of his talent.

For years a member and chief composer of Zentralquartett, the former East Germany’s most accomplished small group, Gumpert had been simultaneously writing and recording with a top-flight 12-piece Workshop Band. Suites however highlights the 63-year-old Gumpert’s accommodation with the generation of improvisers that followed his own, plus recognition of the economies of scale. The now eight-piece Workshop Band is populated by some of the most accomplished young Berlin-based improvisers including reedist Ben Abarbanel-Wolff, who works with bassist Sirone; drummer Michael Grenier who plays with saxophonist – and Zentralquartett member – Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky; Monks Casino bassist Jan Roder; and reedist Michael Thieke, part of the well-regarded Clarinet Trio.

Abarbanel-Wolff’s post-Aylerian cries and multiphonics supply the POMO fillip to the bulky Volkslieder melodies on which “Aus Teutschen Landen” is based. Taking a page from the sort of anthemic deconstruction favored by Carla Bley, the Thuringia-born pianist’s arrangement alternates straight renditions of the folk tunes with splashy solo deconstruction – in this case hard and heavy irregular diaphragm smears from the saxophonist. Added to the extended exposition are flute peeps, secondary stops and tonguing from other horns plus whinnying wah-wahs from trombonist Christof Thewes – who is part of another trio with Roder and Grenier. Overall the result sound like what would have happened if John Coltrane and Rashied Ali were duetting in front of an open window above a street on which a lederhosen-wearing brass band was marching past.

These tramping feet motifs are extended still further throughout the rest of the suite, which also makes allusions to specific periods in musical history. When call-and-response choruses, first just from Thieke’s clarinet and Martin Klingeberg’s trumpet, and then parceled out among members of the whole octet kick in, the overtones exposed could come from brass bands, classic jazz combos or even New music ensembles. Grenier doesn’t stint in exercising the wood block and sizzle cymbals; Arabanel-Wolff provides discursive squeals and flutter-tongued squeaks, while Hendrik Walsdorff’s alto punctuation lurches forward with honks and altissimo cries. Roder either advances timbres with crab-like spiccato, as if he was playing minimalist chamber music, or slaps his bass strings à la Pops Foster.

Eventually “Kommt, Ihr G’Spielen” neatly wraps all the sonic allusions up with sky-high brass triplets cutting through cumulative blaring measures plus broken-octave expositions. The trumpeter’s rubato breaks and jazzy shakes eventually creep from mid-range to a stop-time climax that also brings in the other horns.

The other suites here are just as impressive, especially the tripartite “Sinfonietta”, which glides moderato and andante from its dodecaphonic origins to a warmer and more dramatic interface. By mid-point the composition opens up into showcases for both Abarbanel-Wolff’s slash-and-burn reed overblowing and Thewes’ gutbucket and grainy chromatic cries – which are closer to Roswell Rudd than Gumpert’s Zentralquartett, confrere Conrad Bauer. Eventually the pianist’s own cadenzas signal a thematic shift which downsizes the band’s reverberating echoes and inaugurates hushed chords so that Roder’s contrapuntal string striations can be heard slowly transforming into moderato, Paul Chambers-like plucks, carefully designed so as not to upset the andante broken-octave line. A finale perfectly balances rutting horn trills and kettle-drum-like rolls which would sound at home in any Bavarian symphony.

No matter the ensemble size, it appears that Gumpert has the compositions and arrangements to produce memorable music.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Aus Teutschen Landen: 1. Es Fiel Ein Reif In Der Frühlingsnatcht 2. Tanz Mir Nicht Mit Meiner Jungfer Käthen 3. A) Der Maie Der Maie B) Es Sass Ein Schneeweiss’ Vögelein 4. Kommt, Ihr G’Spielen Sinfonietta: 5. Part I 6. Part II 7. Part III H-M Suite: 8. Part I 9. Part II 3. Tango

Personnel: Martin Klingeberg (trumpet); Christof Thewes (trombone); Michael Thieke (alto saxophone and clarinet); Henrik Walsdorff (alto saxophone); Ben Abarbanel-Wolff ( tenor saxophone and flute); Ulrich Gumpert (piano); Jan Roder (bass) and Michael Griener (drums)

July 13, 2009

REVOLUTIONARY ENSEMBLE

And Now
Pi Recordings PI 13

SIRONE
Concord
NotTwo MW 751-2

Picking things up from when they were “so rudely interrupted” 27 years ago, as the expression has it, the members of The Revolutionary Ensemble (RE) got together for concerts and recordings in mid-2004.

Their appearance at New York’s Vision Festival and this recording show that they’ve lost nothing in the intervening quarter century plus. In fact, the close cooperation between the three provide the sort of sympathetic interchange violinist Leroy Jenkins, sometimes, and percussionist Jerome Copper most of the time, has lacked in solo projects.

Bassist Sirone, now Berlin-based, is different. Never the most domineering of musicians, his low-key contributions to AND NOW… means he plays second fiddle literally to Jenkins and Cooper. However the co-op group does perform two of his compositions, most notably the final “Ism Schism”, whose deceptively simple melody won’t leave your mind after the CD has ended.

As CONCORD, the most recent CD by his own band – recorded almost 12 months before the Ensemble reunion –shows, the bassist is most comfortable as a rhythm rock and accompanist. The compositions he wrote for the date illustration his strength – and each gives his young quartet members ample solo space.

No violinist in improvised music has as distinctive a timbre as Jenkins and the RE CD gives him plenty of space in which to exhibit it. As he shows most spectacularly on his own “Light” the idea is to use a combination of steady bow pressure and nimble neck finger actions to produce multiphonics and partials in higher octaves. Meanwhile Cooper produces rattles and shakes plus martial rat-tat-tats and Sirone contributes dogged sul tasto bowing.

More serious is “911-544”, Cooper’s almost 21-minute memory of the September 11, 2001 attack on Manhattan. Beginning with the vocalized statement “it was a day like today”, the piece soon opens up with a squealing ponticello fiddle abstractly double and triple stopping. After the violin timbres are doubled by the bass, Cooper first plays swirling piano lines, then hammers out echoing balaphone tones. Multi-directional, he expands the sonic with rattling chains, keyboard comping and smeared tones from the chiramia or Mexican clarinet.

Midway through a darting, jocular (Thelonious) Monk-like fantasia is fractured by nasal vibrations and trilling overtones from the violin. As Jenkins’ output becomes harsher and rougher with coarse double-stopped spiccato tones, rattling cymbals and prodded keyboard cadences combine for foreboding motions. Soon, the violinist is playing high, abrasive notes as if he’s dentist drilling to repair a nagging toothache. Regular fiddle pulses suggest calm after the conflagration, although Cooper’s drums, perhaps to compensate and show that not everything stopped with 9-11, are busier than before.

Sirone’s compositional gifts are emphasized both on “Berlin Erfahrung” and “Ism Schism”. The former extends Jenkins’ ponticello tone with repetitions, while the bassist’s wok is more felt than heard. The latter’s simple melody is based on double counterpoint from the strings. Here the violinist’s simple line variation move from almost chamber baroque to vibrato extensions that presage Billy Bang’s acknowledged musical debt to the older fiddler. Introduced at the top, the leitmotif appears throughout, and is recapitulated legato at the end.

Sirone’s sidemen on CONCORD are tyros compared to his RE associates, though tellingly, two play the same instruments as Jenkins and Cooper. Munich-born drummer Maurice deMartin studied at New York University with avant movers like the late Dennis Charles and Joey Baron, he has also worked with East European jazz- and folk-musicians. His countryman, violinist Ulli Bartel, studied at Boston’s Berklee College, composes for theatre and film projects and usually plays with more mainstream musicians.

Odd man out is Washington D.C. native Ben Abarbanel-Wolff, a saxophonist who has lived in Berlin since 2001. Someone who studied with master percussionist Milford Graves, he often works with Sirone.

On this, the bassist’s first CD under his own name in 23 years, the four hit the ground running with “Aisha’s Serenade”, the first and longest tune. A waltz that manages to be both freeboppish and country’n’western-like, it’s built on a lilting theme expressed by the saxophonist and fiddler. Almost immediately however Abarbanel-Wolff goes off on his own with slurs and trills in a gritty post-Sonny Rollins style, mixed with Aylerian overblowing. Sirone’s steady thump and de Martin’s rumble back Bartel adding tremolo country-like licks, though his tone would be a little thin for Nashville. Buzzing vibrations characterize the bassist’s interpolation and the piece climaxes with a brief drum solo featuring shaken claves.

From that point until the final tune that reprises the second one, all the compositions run right into one another without pause. Especially notable are “For all we don’t know” and “Swingin’ on a string of things/For Albert”, which one after another show off Sirone’s writer’s gifts. The first is pastoral, near baroque chamber piece, while the second, as can be guessed by the title, relates to those sessions saxophonist Albert Ayler made with Dutch violinist Michael Sampson.

Sounding as if Abarbanel-Wolff is playing the baroque flute and Bartel the viola d’amore, the former piece features the bassist’s lateral accompaniment giving Bartel space to vibrate a legato, unhurried and refined solo section. Eventually Abarbanel-Wolff proves it’s a saxophone in his hands, and begins growling. Standard drumbeats bisected by wood block, rattles and maraca shakes then moderate the reed squeaks.

Polyphonic harmonies characterize the violinist and saxman on the second number. Abarbanel-Wolff takes a winding, overtone rich solo, though even here his harsh double tonguing and glottal reed biting are more Rollins circa THE FREEDOM SUITE than Ayler. Bartel adds staccato, double-stopped vibrations, Sirone’s plucked accompaniment holds down the bottom and de Martin bounces and rebounds his drum beats. Finally the theme is recapitulated in Aylerian fashion.

AND NOW… proves that the Revolutionary Ensemble still work together excellently after all these years apart, and the ellipses suggest there’s more to come. Meanwhile CONCORD suggests Sirone isn’t doing too badly on his own.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Concord: 1. Aisha’s Serenade 2. You are not alone but we are few 3. For all we don’t know 4. Swingin’ on a string of things/For Albert 5. You are not alone but we are few/Reprise

Personnel: Concord: Ben Abarbanel-Wolff (tenor saxophone); Ulli Bartel (violin); Sirone (bass); Maurice de Martin (drums)

Track Listing: Now: 1. Berlin Erfahrung 2. Rumi Tales 3. 911-544 4. Light 5. Ism Schism

Personnel: Now: Leroy Jenkins (violin, harmonica and bells); Sirone (bass); Jerome Cooper (multi-dimensional drums, balaphone, cymbals, drum set, keyboard, chiramia, tonal activator, bass drum and sock cymbal)

April 4, 2005