Ig Henneman Sextet

Live at the Ironworks Vancouver
Wig 21

Charlotte Hug & Frédéric Blondy

Bouquet

Emanem 5026

By Ken Waxman

Q: What’s the difference between a dog and a viola? A: The dog knows when to stop scratching. Of all the stringed instruments extant, it’s the viola which gets the least respect, with this joke only one of hundreds about it.

Yet because of its unique intonation the viola has become a favored method of expression for inventive improvisers like the two on these discs. Certainly Zürich’s Charlotte Hug and Amsterdam’s Ig Henneman confirm the versatility of their chosen instrument.

Perfectly designed to confuse types whose allegiance is to contemporary so-called classical music are the selections on Bouquet by Hug and Paris-based pianist Frédéric Blondy. Both have enough academic expertise to work in the notated milieu, but the dozen tracks here are improvisations, off-handedly displaying exquisite technical smarts, while sympathetically cooperating to create sound pictures that are extravagant without being egocentric. Most tracks consist of inside and outside piano tropes that range from methodical to stratospheric, plus fiddle sweeps that encompass mangling, melding and mixing textures. The overlapping cadences create a genuinely moving program.

A track such as “Thalia remontant” for instance finds the pianist vibrating mini cymbals resting on the top of his instrument’s internal string set, complementing Hug’s low-pitched spiccato swipes. Moving away from steady rhythm, both apply more torque to their strings resulting in multiplied tremolo syncopation. In contrast, “Rosa moyesii” is completed with a (faux?) sexy sigh from Hug after the two have methodically exposed parallel tonal chords, with the violist’s instrument attaining cello-like resonance as she roughens her attack. Blondy is so skillful that on “Sombreuil” he creates a cavern-deep ostinato from pure pedal motion alone, and then uses broken-octave keyboard jumps to define a response to Hug’s melodic invention. Elsewhere embroidered textures oscillate so quickly and are so opaque that ascribing them to a particular instrument is nearly impossible.

The six Henneman compositions that make up Live at the Ironworks Vancouver include so-called classical references as well. Still, while the violist may include more melodic and metrical portions, discordant sounds aren’t rejected. Her international sextet includes bassist Wilbert de Joode and multi-reedist Ab Baars from the Netherlands; Berlin-based trumpeter Axel Dörner; and two Canadians: Montreal clarinetist Lori Freedman and Toronto pianist Marilyn Lerner.

Note the versatile turns on the final “A ‘n B”, with the exposition moving from straightforward swing, replete with graceful trumpet lines and contrapuntal cascades from Lerner, to tougher sequences when honking bass clarinet explosions from Freeman and angled riffs from the violist take over, only to combine with the others for a low-key ending. De Joode’s steady pumping personalizes the title of “Bold Swagger” as call-and-response patterns are created by string double-stopping plus vibrations from the horn section. Henneman’s gift for descriptive lines are on display with “Prelude for the Lady with the Hammer”, which could serve as a film noir theme. The circuitous melody underlines dramatic contrasts among the bassist’s stentorian slaps, the violist’s double-stopping bent notes, and some pseudo-romantic chording from Lerner, ending the piece with a restrained, lyrical respite. The group’s abstract turn arrives with the deceptively titled “Light Verse”. More like a dramatic epic, the juddering exposition include whinnying trumpet flutters, unaccompanied, altissimo reed squeals and jittery lines from Henneman. Luckily Lerner’s rolling bottom chords again hold things together.

These CDs confirms that the viola makes a perfect vehicle for advanced improvisation. More sessions like these, and eventually there may be a dearth of jokes like: Q: Why is a viola like a lawsuit? A: Everyone’s happy when the case is closed.

Tracks: Bouquet: La belle sultane; Oeillet parfait; Sombreuil; Cato’s Pink Cluster; Boule de neige; Rosa moyesii; Zéphirine; Minnehaha; Thalia remontant; Nova Zambla; Double Delight; Thor

Personnel: Bouquet: Charlotte Hug: viola and voice; Frédéric Blondy: piano

Tracks: Live: Tracks; Prelude for the Lady with the Hammer; Kindred Spirits; Bold Swagger; Light Verse; A ‘n B

Personnel: Live: Axel Dörner: trumpet; Ab Baars: tenor saxophone, clarinet, shakuhachi; Lori Freedman: bass clarinet, clarinet; Ig Henneman: viola; Marilyn Lerner: piano; Wilbert de Joode: bass

--For The New York City Jazz Record March 2013

March 5, 2013

Ig Henneman Sextet

Cut a Caper
Wig 19

Negotiating the boundary between noted and improvised music, Europe and Canada is the all-star sextet of Dutch violist Ig Henneman which is in concert at the Music Gallery June 24. The 10 limpid pieces by Henneman which make up this disc are interpreted by a drum-less ensemble whose particularized arrangements and advanced technical requirements suggest contemporary New music. But when Berlin-based trumpeter Axel Dörner gargles altissimo air through his horn or when the violist lets loose with airborne spicccato snatches, the formalism is left aside. As well, there may be canon-like voicing on Moot, but Charles Mingus-like echoes appear on Toe and Heel, while the title tune adds marching band hops to other sound tropes.

Part of this CD’s textural freedom must be ascribed to the alternately metronomic hammering or sly soundboard stretches from Toronto pianist Marilyn Lerner. Upping the CanCan quota is Montreal clarinet and bass clarinetist Lori Freedman, although pinpointing which bracing chalumeau snorts or altissimo split tone squeals arise from her horns rather than the clarinet of Amsterdam’s Ab Baars, who also exposes liquid tenor saxophone runs and narrowed shakuhachi puffs is nearly impossible. Follow Netherlander Wilbert De Joode holds the disparate sections together with steel-fingered string slaps that at points expand the polyphony with braced sul tasto or col legno slides.

Beside Cut a Caper, where Lerner’s percussive echoes could as easily fit a performance of Morton Feldman as Mingus, another stand-out track is Narration. With a post-modern novel’s non-linear form, this narration meanders among sections that highlight glottal echoes from the trumpeter, knife-sharp plucks from the violist, horns harmonized until their tones splinter into tongue slaps or intense trilling plus the bassist’s assured pedal-point ostinato.

--Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 17 #9

June 10, 2012

Mecha Fixes Clocks (Michel F. Côté)

À l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage
& Records ET 09

Atmospheric and ambient, but also audacious, Montreal percussionist/keyboardist and electronic manipulator Michel F. Côté uses a variety of sonic strategies to construct an exuberantly original nine-part sound world on “à l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage”. Accomplished in transforming directors’ and choreographers’ ideas into sound, as well as leading ad hoc bands such as this one, which generate a new meaning from his initials, the composer/arranger pushes and pulls the textures in a multi-stylistic fashion so that seemingly bland surfaces turn out to contain tough, multi-faceted cores.

Case in points is a track like ferveur fossile, where chunks and clicks from signal- processed timbres splutter and shrill while commenting upon Gordon Allen’s irregularly vibrated trumpet lines and the twangs from Bernard Falaise’s guitar. Arco string runs maintain the theme, although variants become looser, more strident and discordant as they come in contact with the buzzing electronics. Other pieces offer interludes of pseudo classicism via Pierre Yves-Martel’s viol de gambe or Jean Derome’s harmonized bass flute, only to have them sabotaged by Lori Freedman’s harsh bass clarinet slurs or abrasive wood scrapes from the percussionist. Overall it seems that sonic disruption is as much a part of Côté’s compositions as legato continuum.

This post-modern strategy is sardonically confirmed on au-delà de l’espace des petits oiseasux and more obviously on the concluding entre idéal et mental. On that track, string-laden samples, likely sourced by turntablist Martin Tétrault from Gone with the Wind composer Max Steiner LPs, are interrupted by plinking from live string players, motor-driven whines and clanks plus the percussionist’s cross pulses and opposite-sticking beats.

--Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #10

July 12, 2011

Isaiah Ceccarelli

Bréviare d'epuisements
Ambiances Magnétiques AM 199 CD

Wolter Wierbos

Deining

Dolfijn Records DolFinj 02

Gord Grdina Trio

Barrel Fire

Drip Audio DA00651

Axel Dörner/Diego Chamy

Super Axel Dörner

Absinth Records 018

Something in the Air:

Dutch Improvisers and Friends in Toronto

By Ken Waxman

Accommodating and adaptable improvising musicians from the Netherlands are as open to out-of-country influences as working with players from different countries in Holland or abroad. Confident in their own skills, they see non-local musicians’ participation as additions to their music, not competition. These beliefs characterize two ostensibly Dutch ensembles in concert in Toronto this month: The Ex with Brass Unbound is presented by the Music Gallery at Lee’s Palace on May 18; while Ig Henneman’s Kindred Spirits Sextet at Gallery 345 May 19. Violist Henneman’s combo includes two Canadians, pianist Marilyn Lerner and clarinettist Lori Freedman plus German trumpeter Axel Dörner. Meanwhile the Brass Unbound, working with the guitar-heavy, Dutch anarchistic punk-jazzers The Ex, is made up of Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, American saxophonist Ken Vandermark and Dutch trombonist Wolter Wierbos. A careful listen to some of these players own CDs demonstrates the sort of adaptability that characterizes these Dutch-centred combos in general.

A series of duos, Wierbos’ Deining DolFijn Records 02 is most intuitive when the trombonist’s rugged and multiphonic timbres stack up against those from the reeds of Ab Baars, who coincidentally is a member of the Henneman band playing the following night. On Buitengaats, for instance, Baars’ altissimo irregularly vibrated warbling and fluttering cross tones come up against bugle-like chromaticism from the trombonist. This emphasis towards linearly connections works even more effectively on Op de Warf, as the play-anything drummer Han Bennink works his way around staccatissimo all around his kit – and the nearby floor – while tooting a harmonica and whistle blowing. Right beside him, and similarly intense is Wierbos using elephantine brays, capillary burbles and rubato snorts to eventually shift the tempo so the two end up swinging with identical microtones.

Baritone and tenor saxophonist Gustafsson, another of the Unbound hornmen, has had even more experiences trading licks with rock-influenced group – even in Canada. As a matter of fact, Barrel Fire Drip Audio DA00651 captures a raw face-off between the reedist and the Vancouver-based members of guitarist Gord Grdina’s Trio, including bassist Tommy Babin and drummer Kenton Loewen. Unfettered in his playing during all of the CD’s five tracks, Gustafsson snorts, slurs, stutters and spits out elasticized, almost never-ending glottal punctuation. Meanwhile Grdina counters – as the Ex’s guitarists do as well – with distorted reverb, harsh downstrokes and staccato bent notes as Loewen’s ferocious backbeat encompasses ruffs, rolls and ricochets. Bringing the same sort of nephritic gut-wrenching blasts to Enshakoota, a traditional Iraqi tune mostly limited to the splayed and coiled runs Grdina picks on oud, the saxophonist’s stentorian tones and the others’ contrapuntal responses also get an extended showcase on Burning Bright. As Babin’s fingers slither along his strings so that the notes fairly glisten and the drummer pounds and smashes relentlessly while swishing his cymbals, ringing guitar chords deconstructed with reverb and distortion are matched polyphonically with diaphragm-vibrated split tones and triple-tonguing from the saxman. Gustafsson’s ejaculated shrills and shaking vamps, Grdina’s skyward-chiming chording plus Loewen’s backbeat come as close to a definition of Heavy Metal Jazz as can be imagined.

If Gustafsson’s altissimo cries and renal grunts define unfettered excesses of one sort of Free Improvisation, then Kindred Spirit Dörner takes the opposite track with reductionist microtones, which favor sound exploration over melody. A convincing illustration occurs of this occurs on the appropriately titled Super Axel Dörner Absinth Records 018 with his duo partner Argentinean percussionist Diego Chamy. It’s near a solo showcase since Chamy spends more time mumbling and vocalizing while distractedly hitting percussion instruments than laying down a beat. To compensate the trumpeter pushes grainy, flat lines through his open horn without moving his valves so that these textures parallel, rather than blend with Chamy’s sonic expressions. With intermittent noises that sound variously like nakers being hit, the whirl of chukka sticks and the bouncing of a stick on cymbal tops from the percussionist – as well as rapid-fire Spanish statements – Dörner has plenty of scope to decorate the sonic grisaille in such a way that harmonic and rhythmic contours are nearly visible. At one point he alternates bright, open-horn blasts with tongue slaps against the mouthpiece, inflating agitato triplets to full-bore whistles. When discord suggests the drummer is eccentrically scrapping a putty knife against the drum’s rims, Dörner livens up the interchange with fortissimo brass blasts, immediately followed by extended circular breathing. This so vibrates the trumpet’s insides that partials and microtone are audible alongside brass textures. It’s this sort of instant response to non-pulsating beat that serves the trumpeter well in the Henneman sextet where the underlying beat is really supplied by the bass of Wilbert de Joode, who also featured on more than half of Wierbos’ CD here.

Intertwining horn work is another leitmotif of Henneman’s combo, and in Toronto, Dörner shares the front line with Baars and Montreal’s Freedman. This sort of timbre blending is a regular facet of the bass clarinetist’s performances. It can be sampled on Isaiah Ceccarelli’s dramatic Bréviare d’épuisements Ambiances Magnétiques AM 199 CD. Much different than the Henneman sextet’s jazz-oriented fare this session amalgamates the ecclesiastical and the atonal. Émilie Laforest and Josée Lalonde intone or vocalize Marie Deschênes’ texts, with distinctive sonic timbres heard alongside these lyric sopranos arising from Freedman’s and Philippe Lauzier’s bass clarinets, Pierre-Yves Martel’s viola de gamba and Ceccarelli’s percussion arsenal. The drummer’s most common strategy involves scrapping cymbals against drum tops, acoustically producing the sort of grinding and buzzing textures that otherwise would be associated with electronics. Meanwhile the cleverly harmonized singers personalize the poetic lyrics while stretching the songs with hocketing pitch variations. One standout passages occurs on La disparation est un mur de plus when the nearly vibrato-less parlando of one vocalist is cushioned by clarinet harmonies. During some pure instrumental passages the similarities between trilling reeds and stroked strings is emphasized as mutual tonal expansions appears to be both notated and aleatoric.

Performances by either the Kindred Spirits, the Ex or both, means exposure to noteworthy soloists as well as well-thought-out group conceptions. Torontonians get a rare chance to hear them both over a two-day period.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #8

May 11, 2011

Between the song form and the abstract sound world

Marilyn Lerner
A fine balance

BY: KEN WAXMAN

For MusicWorks Issue #107

“Part of me loves the song form and another part of me—just as large—loves abstract creative improvisation,” muses Marilyn Lerner as she restlessly walks around her cozy apartment on the third floor of a downtown Toronto home. That duality is why, more so than many other creative musicians, her life is all about integration and balance. Although the composer and pianist is equally at home with the creative energy between the two the breadth of her creativity involves more than that.

On the song-form side of the continuum, she performed and recorded as a member of the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, the Marilyn Lerner/Dave Wall Duo, and as a solo pianist on her Romanian Fantasies CD. Meanwhile on the improvised music front, she has been involved in projects that range from Cuban-inflected jazz with pianist Hilario Duran to New Music Improv group Queen Mab with clarinetist Lori Freedman. Wanting to expand her creative palate to include sounds in the environment, she started creating audio art in 1998. “It was a natural progression from my work with synthesizers and samplers," she notes. And, if all that wasn’t enough, in 2004, she satisfied an interest in psychology and inter-personal relationships by qualifying as a trained psychotherapist. Currently she meets with clients two days a week.

“Everything I do comes from the same wellspring of creativity,” she states one day in early winter, as she carefully sways back and forth in an overstuffed armchair. Nearby, a large computer work station shares space with a record player, books, CDs, wall mounted photos, and on the other side of the room, a galley kitchen. Although she resides on a street just north of Jean Sibelius Park and took classical piano lessons as a child in Montreal, ironically a career in notated music was never an option.

“In improvising I employ a myriad of internal resources to ultimately be in the moment,” she says, describing her process. Over the years her career has been dedicated to integrating her interests—most noticeably the lyrical and abstract tendencies. The genesis of this concept transpired during the formative years she spent in Winnipeg from 1987 to 2000.

“I began to discover who I was as an artist while living in Winnipeg,” she says reflectively. As a small, isolated city, with abundant arts funding, Winnipeg, she found, allowed creative people to be involved in more than one aspect of the arts. It was there for instance, that she began composing for film, theatre, radio, and television, started her affiliation with local poets, most notably recording two CDs with Patrick Friesen, and did her first radio-art collages.

Beginnings

While growing up in a Montreal suburb, she was always the pianist for high-school-theatrical productions, Lerner, fifty-three, says that initially she never imagined a career in music. Instead she studied psychology at Toronto’s York University for two years, only taking piano courses with Reginald Goddin “to keep my classical chops up.” Not that her dual musical tendencies weren’t already evident. As a child she filled notebooks with poetry and songs trying to write like Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro. Yet at the same time her earliest memories are of listening to the Jewish records that her father played on his weekly radio program “Songs of Our People.”

That wasn’t all though. As a youngster she explains, she was always “attuned to sounds.” Once as a teenager, listening to the transistor radio late one night in bed, she was revelling in what she thought was a fantastic drum solo. When it showed no sign of ending after 20 minutes, she turned on the light to find transmission had been stuck between two stations. “I call it my introduction to musique concrete,” she jokes.

As a self-confessed angst-ridden adolescent at York, she would stay up all night improvising on her dorm’s piano. Impressed by the university’s jazz curriculum, and drawn to the playing of pianist Bill Evans (“I thought that he sounded like Ravel . . . and that jazz was combining improvising and classical music”), she switched disciplines. Gigs on the local jazz scene with players such as flautist Jane Bunnett – working more often than not as an accompanist – occupied her time until she moved to Winnipeg.

Back to her roots

In a roundabout way, a Cuban recording project with Bunnett in 1997 led her back to Jewish and Yiddish music and to rediscovering her Jewish musical roots. While forging relationships with Cuban improvisers with whom she and Bunnett would record the CD Birds Are Returning, she was impressed that the players knew everything about the history of their island’s music. This awakened in her a desire to “know and play the music of my culture,” she recalls.

Soon after she formed the Klezmer band From Both Ends of the Earth, where she began adding her improvisations to the traditional tunes. Her duality, however, was further extended when the band played Toronto’s Ashkenaz festival. There she met performers who approached performing Jewish music in different ways. On the traditional side, there was New York-Yiddish vocalist Adrienne Cooper, with whom she has since worked steadily at Klezmer-oriented gatherings in North America and Europe. Here she consciously tries to preserve the essence of the melodies and rhythms of age-old material. On the other hand, her confidence in Klez-improv came from other Ashkenaz associates who were more exploratory such as New York trumpeter Frank London. He is as committed to jazz-improv as he is to Klezmer music and like Lerner was working to fuse the two. As part of her work in this genre, Lerner conducts her own classes that guide participants in creating free improvisations from standard Klezmer melodies. “No matter what style of music you play, improv can help you,” she states.

The most important musical development

While in Winnipeg Lerner became involved with what she calls her “most important musical development” – Queen Mab. Named after the fairy queen of dreams in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the duo initially came together after Lerner heard clarinetist Lori Freedman perform at a local new music concert. Moved by the vulnerability in Freedman’s playing, Lerner invited the woodwind player over to improvise. Each found the other’s skills complemented her own. Formally partnering in 1996, Queen Mab toured North America as a duo and became a trio with the addition of Dutch violist Ig Henneman after 2002. Since that time the group has toured Europe and North America as a trio. Henneman’s presence has also tipped Queen Mab more towards composition, rather than on-the-spot improv or sets based on singular concepts the players had agreed upon earlier. The trio’s most recent CD for instance, finds the three revisiting and improvising on Hector Berlioz’ “Queen Mab Scherzo”.

More importantly both Freedman’s and Lerner’s approach to performance changed as a result of the partnership. While the clarinetist’s playing moved further away from pre composed new music and closer towards organic improv, Lerner feels that she was affected even more. “I was at a point where I had a bad relationship with the piano,” she recalls. “Lori could bend notes and play things that made the brain vibrate, yet here I was with this elephant.” The transformation occurred, she says, when “I realized I was only playing one-quarter of the piano because I was only thinking of it as eighty-eight keys. Instead I got inside the piano to play – and by doing that was finally able to come back to the keys.”

With Henneman in Amsterdam, Freedman in Montreal, and Lerner in Toronto each also maintain a solo career. Then there’s Lerner’s psychotherapy practice. Returning as an adult to the life-long interest in psychology she left behind at York, Lerner says she now brings life experience to her practice. “Being in the moment with intention, listening deeply and responding—these attributes correspond exactly to my life as a musician and therapist,” she explains.

As someone who often finds herself lying in bed at night processing thoughts through music rather than words—“music to me is as natural as breathing,”—Lerner’s many roles satisfy her need for creativity in both the verbal and non-verbal realms.

At the same time the integration of these aspects of her life helps maintain the balance for which she strives. And each relates back to improvisation. “To me what makes a great improviser is personality: the ability to take the sum total of your experience and distill it. That’s your voice. That’s what I make my living doing. That’s what I live for.”

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Audio Art

“I’m a computer nerd,” admits Marilyn Lerner, “I like sounds and the process of weaving together and altering recorded sounds.” Having become familiar with synthesizers in 1970s, Lerner found that the potential existed for her to expand her sound palette. “With the advent of samplers I realized that I could use any sound I wanted—voices, foghorns, fireworks, sewing machines, you name it—and I wanted to experiment. It was a new frontier in which I could use my compositional skills.”

•In Lerner’s audio art as in the rest of her practice, her word-oriented and experimental-sound duality is invoked. Some of her works use samples generated from the piano’s keyboard and innards; others mix sampled sounds with extended piano techniques, and the altered voices of family members and others.

•Among them are the following:

• They're All in Families, (1998) was made with Sound Designer, exposed the rhythm of hatred by deconstructing a hate message left on a telephone answering machine.

• The Toll (2002) uses acoustic piano sounds Lerner recorded during a residency at Quebec City’s Avatar that were later assembled using Protools and a multitude of processors and finally spatialized by Darren Copeland using the Richmond AudioBox.

• The Vessel (2005) is a pastiche of archival recordings plus the voices of Lerner, her daughter, mother, father, and aunt edited to present an alternate family history.

• Backtalk (2009) is a soundscape composition that captures the rhythms of sewing machines, steam irons and scissors plus the voiced memories of Jewish, Italian, Korean, and Hispanic seamstresses.

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Two contrasting solo piano works

Each of Marilyn Lerner’s solo piano CDs explores in great musical detail one facet of her lyrical and abstraction duality. Luminance (Ambiances Magnétiques AM 115 CD), is a 2003 session concerned with the nuances of extended piano technique and microphone placement. Romanian Fantasy (Marilyn Lerner ML 001), is made up of 2005 and 2006 improvisations based on Eastern European Jewish melodies.

The outgrowth of a residency Lerner spent at Quebec City’s Avatar, an artist-run centre specializing in audio and electronic art, Luminance’s sixteen improvisations range from one minute to almost 11½. During the course of the two days of performance, Lerner improvised using different techniques on various parts of the piano keys; plucked, stroked and struck the internal strings; smacked the wooden sides of the instrument and performed after disengaging the hammers from the strings. To capture additional timbres, many different microphones were used during the sessions, positioned at various times behind the piano, close to the soundboard, over the bass strings, in the sound holes, near the tail piece and alternately in a small room nearby. “I had often been the victim of questionable piano miking in the past, so I decided to make microphone placement the creative focus of this project,” she explains. Some of these sounds were subsequently used to create The Toll, a piece of audio art (see sidebar one).

With a more conventional audio set up and recorded in four sessions in 2005 and 2006 in Toronto’s Glenn Gould studio, Romanian Fantasy consists of re-interpretation of 11 traditional melodies. Arranging and improvising on these almost-ancient airs took intense concentration, Lerner reports. “It was a tricky kind of re-composing because I had to dig deeply into the tradition. I had to figure out what to change and what to keep. To develop the focus I had to process the music inside me, come up with an exploration of the essence of each piece and stay true to the songs while putting myself in them.” At the same time Lerner, who listened to many early 20th Century versions of the pieces didn’t want to reproduce them or graft styles together.

Ken Waxman is Toronto-based, where he writes about jazz and improvised music. Much of his writing is archived at www.jazzword.com

July 3, 2010

Joe Giardullo Open Ensemble

Red Morocco
Rogue Art ROG-0012

Highly orchestrated, multi-faceted and engrossing, Red Morocco is a breakthrough large-form suite composed by veteran reed player Joe Giardullo. It rationally illustrates how his notated ideas can be interpreted by a group of 14 American and Canadian improvisers.

Largely self-taught as a composer and instrumentalist, Giardullo’s interest in musical creation was fed by an appreciation for Stockhausen, Berio and Indian music, study of George Russell’s Lydian Theory of Tonal Organization; plus playing situations with Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Lester Lanin (!) Peg Leg Bates (!!) Pauline Oliveros and others. It reaches inventive fruition with this 10-part creation.

Evidently skewed towards New music at first, by the end of the final, and incidentally, title track, the contributions of notable improvisers mean that those tilts towards formalism are surmounted. How else could it be, with sonic interjections from the likes of Joe McPhee on trumpet and trombone, cellist Daniel Levin, violinist David Prentice and Giardullo himself on sopranino saxophone, alto flute and bass clarinet? At the same time there’s no confusing the program with doctrinaire modern jazz, experimental or otherwise. Not only are there microtonal and/or legato undulation from the three fiddlers and two cellists, but the rhythm section lacks a double bassist and a traps drummer. Percussion is the province of Brian Melick using almost any instrument that can be whacked, scraped, scratched, ratcheted and shaken; plus the chiming resonation of David Arner’s xylophone.

Should a variant such as “Q-2G (e)” begin with near-rococo styling from massed strings, pitter-pattering xylophone keys, and curvaceous hide-and-seek saxophone and clarinet lines, then the track’s completion refers to a contrapuntal arrangement advanced on “OPD”, two tracks earlier. On the former, a perfect balance is realized between double and triple pizzicato string stopping and the crunch of reverb and distortion feedback from the dual guitars of Dom Minasi and Rich Rosenthal. Yet negating the rules of standard jazz-rock fusion, the guitar licks aren’t framed in an unvarying drum beat, but by the percussionists’ buzzing timbres, glockenspiel chiming, maracas shaking, plus brass slurs and hocketing from McPhee and trumpeter Gordon Allen.

Elsewhere muted trumpeting is cushioned in overtone layering from massed strings and horns, only to be interrupted by staccato discord from one violinist – plus a contrapuntal counter-line from McPhee’s trombone. Other places the two trumpets circle one another in different guises – one playing smooth connective grace notes and the other triplets in broken octaves – until they link and complement one another. Then there are spots where the two reedists divide their interaction between irregular vibratos, split tones and staccatissico tongue slaps, with this unfolding on top of wooden marimba-like pressures and whining string striations.

Red Morocco, the CD and “Red Morocco”, the composition concludes with xylophone and cello chipping tones at one another, following a moderato trumpet and reeds variation and two intermezzos: one for gentling violin and xylophone, and the other for tough sul tasto cello runs and squeaky violin double stopping.

Confirmation of Giardullo’s compositional skills, the CD is a memorable listening experience.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: 1. OPB 2. OPG 3. 2T(m) 4. Memory Root 5. OPD 6. NFRTT-1 7. Q-2G(e) 8. Calabar 9. Hikori 10. Red Morocco.

Personnel: Gordon Allen (trumpet); Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet and valve trombone); Joe Giardullo (bass clarinet, sopranino saxophone and alto flute); Lori Freedman (clarinet and bass clarinet); Rosie Hertlein, David Prentice and Michael Snow (violins); Daniel Levin and Martha Colby (celli); Steve Lantner (piano); Dom Minasi and Rich Rosenthal (guitars); David Arner (xylophone) and Brian Melick (percussion)

August 5, 2008

Bernard Falaise

Clic
Ambiances Magnétiques AM 174

Jean Derome et les Dangereuz Zhoms

To Continue

Ambiances Magnétiques AM 172 CD

Collage, parody, homage, elements of electronics, improvisation and composition enliven these energetic CDs, products of Montreal’s ever-pliable Musique Actuelle scene. Strongly influenced by – but not quite – jazz, the discs announce their distinctiveness by adding tinctures of rock music, studio wizardry and poetry.

Although saxophonist and flautist Jean Derome and trombonist Tom Walsh appear on both sessions, the individual discs are as dissimilar as they are notable. To Continue is the reunion CD – after a decade-long hiatus – of Les Dangereuz Zhoms (DZ), playing eight new Derome compositions. On the other hand, Clic’s 13 miniatures highlight the versatility of Bernard Falaise, who manipulates stringed instruments, keyboards and percussion. Also heard – besides Derome’s vibrating altissimo tones and Walsh’s gutbucket growls – are trumpeter Gordon Allen’s brassy flourishes and clarinetist Lori Freedman’s chalumeau elaborations. Meanwhile Jean Martin’s sympathetic rhythmic underpinning was wedged in from a separate session, as were the spidery strokes of Julien Grégoire’s marimba.

Ranging from pieces written for chorographers to a homage to composer Franco Donati, Clic announces its versatility with subsequent tracks, which, for example, mate a lyrical, madrigal-style horn line with drum backbeats, wooden marimba strokes and folksy mandolin licks; add slinky, electric trumpet pops to chromatic banjo fills and a stop-time section from electric guitar and bass; or mate percussive shuffle rhythms, dense horn vamps, and a fruity saxophone vibrato that would fit 1960s’ mood music. Among bottleneck guitar licks, reed spetrofluctuation, pseudo-African drum flams and Mariachi-styled trumpeting, Falise also japes on the tonal similarities among spoken word, penny whistle and calliope sounds.

To Continue showcases words as well. Some are sung lyrically in French by electric bassist Pierre Cartier, in counterpoint with pianist Guillaume Dostaler’s strummed chords and Derome’s slurry split tones. Conversely the title track feature a unison recitation of an English poem by the entire band, interspaced with tail-gate trombone lows, serpentine saxophone trills and honky-tonk keyboard jumps.

Versifying is one thing, but “Prières” – or prayers – is a summation of the DZ’s individuality. Languid and processional, it moves from a piano fantasia to distinct horn palindromes interspaced among the backbeats and military press rolls of drummer Pierre Tanguay. As metronomic piano clinking extends the pace, soprano saxophone timbres resemble both a bagpipe chanter and human laughing. Skirting contrapuntal trombone asides, the diminuendo variation decelerates the tempo, stressing Derome’s conclusive flute burble and a fierce drum whack. Words and music meld perfectly on both CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #8

May 1, 2008

Jean Derome et les Dangereuz Zhoms

To Continue
Ambiances Magnétiques AM 172 CD

Bernard Falaise

Clic

Ambiances Magnétiques AM 174

Collage, parody, homage, elements of electronics, improvisation and composition enliven these energetic CDs, products of Montreal’s ever-pliable Musique Actuelle scene. Strongly influenced by – but not quite – jazz, the discs announce their distinctiveness by adding tinctures of rock music, studio wizardry and poetry.

Although saxophonist and flautist Jean Derome and trombonist Tom Walsh appear on both sessions, the individual discs are as dissimilar as they are notable. To Continue is the reunion CD – after a decade-long hiatus – of Les Dangereuz Zhoms (DZ), playing eight new Derome compositions. On the other hand, Clic’s 13 miniatures highlight the versatility of Bernard Falaise, who manipulates stringed instruments, keyboards and percussion. Also heard – besides Derome’s vibrating altissimo tones and Walsh’s gutbucket growls – are trumpeter Gordon Allen’s brassy flourishes and clarinetist Lori Freedman’s chalumeau elaborations. Meanwhile Jean Martin’s sympathetic rhythmic underpinning was wedged in from a separate session, as were the spidery strokes of Julien Grégoire’s marimba.

Ranging from pieces written for chorographers to a homage to composer Franco Donati, Clic announces its versatility with subsequent tracks, which, for example, mate a lyrical, madrigal-style horn line with drum backbeats, wooden marimba strokes and folksy mandolin licks; add slinky, electric trumpet pops to chromatic banjo fills and a stop-time section from electric guitar and bass; or mate percussive shuffle rhythms, dense horn vamps, and a fruity saxophone vibrato that would fit 1960s’ mood music. Among bottleneck guitar licks, reed spetrofluctuation, pseudo-African drum flams and Mariachi-styled trumpeting, Falise also japes on the tonal similarities among spoken word, penny whistle and calliope sounds.

To Continue showcases words as well. Some are sung lyrically in French by electric bassist Pierre Cartier, in counterpoint with pianist Guillaume Dostaler’s strummed chords and Derome’s slurry split tones. Conversely the title track feature a unison recitation of an English poem by the entire band, interspaced with tail-gate trombone lows, serpentine saxophone trills and honky-tonk keyboard jumps.

Versifying is one thing, but “Prières” – or prayers – is a summation of the DZ’s individuality. Languid and processional, it moves from a piano fantasia to distinct horn palindromes interspaced among the backbeats and military press rolls of drummer Pierre Tanguay. As metronomic piano clinking extends the pace, soprano saxophone timbres resemble both a bagpipe chanter and human laughing. Skirting contrapuntal trombone asides, the diminuendo variation decelerates the tempo, stressing Derome’s conclusive flute burble and a fierce drum whack. Words and music meld perfectly on both CDs.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #8

May 1, 2008

Jean Martin & Evan Shaw

Piano Music
Barnyard Records BR0303

Lori Freedman & Scott Thomson

Plumb

Barnyard Records BR0305

New music often needs new record labels and new venues, and so it is with the expansion of improvised music in Toronto. Case-in-point: Barnyard Records, which has produced these fine CDs and which is named for the Barnyard Drama band co-led by percussionist/label honcho Jean Martin and vocalist Christine Duncan.

Barnyard is no vanity boutique project however. Although Martin is featured on 10 duets with alto saxophonist Evan Shaw on Piano Music – with perversely no keyboard within earshot – Plumb, an investigation into depth exposures, showcases Montreal clarinetist Lori Freedman and Toronto trombonist Scott Thomson. Thomson curates Somewhere There, an intimate new space in Parkdale where many creative musicians perform.

Illustrated with a wrench on its cover, Plumb would have been better served with a plumber’s helper. During the nine duets, both players tug unexpected timbres from the depths of their instruments. The products of breath-play, lip and tongue contortions as well as unusual fingering, the improvisations are studded with chortles, buzzes, brays, whinnies, growls, rumbles and warbles. Although pressurized overblowing and jagged multiphonics are frequent, so are connective harmonies.

Their skills are such that, for instance, on “Leak” Freedman’s sounds both tonal and atonal, constricting her split tones as she plays, while Thomson constructs a counter-line of echoing, double-tonguing. Adding the instruments’ wood and brass properties as sound sources, sibilant tongue-slaps and stops from the clarinet evolve in double counterpoint with the trombone’s low-pitched slurs and whistles, altering the tonal centre as a finale.

Plenty of slurs and growls arise on the other CD, which is paradoxically more jazzy and more electronic than Plumb. Martin’s and Shaw’s interplay is in Energy Music mode, despite sampled background reed echoes that further bond the players. Someone with mainstream as well as experimental credentials, Martin is an accomplished time-keeper, though the time-feel is hardly standard. Encompassing martial thumps, press rolls, and cymbal resonation he creates whichever beat best encourages Shaw’s story telling. Meanwhile split-tones, reed-biting trills and aviary cries are favored by the saxophonist.

“Rattlebag Jimmy” is the most spectacular version of this strategy. Shaw alternates between altissimo squeals and mid-register lyrical phrasing, as Martin brings nerve beats, bell and triangle pings into the mix. Eventually this broken octave exposition allows Shaw space for closely-packed, glottis-expanded reed cadences.

While conventional farming may be in decline, the produce from this musical barnyard appears healthy and flourishing.

-- Ken Waxman

March 2, 2008

Lori Freedman & Scott Thomson

Plumb
Barnyard Records BR0305

Jean Martin & Evan Shaw

Piano Music

Barnyard Records BR0303

New music often needs new record labels and new venues, and so it is with the expansion of improvised music in Toronto. Case-in-point: Barnyard Records, which has produced these fine CDs and which is named for the Barnyard Drama band co-led by percussionist/label honcho Jean Martin and vocalist Christine Duncan.

Barnyard is no vanity boutique project however. Although Martin is featured on 10 duets with alto saxophonist Evan Shaw on Piano Music – with perversely no keyboard within earshot – Plumb, an investigation into depth exposures, showcases Montreal clarinetist Lori Freedman and Toronto trombonist Scott Thomson. Thomson curates Somewhere There, an intimate new space in Parkdale where many creative musicians perform.

Illustrated with a wrench on its cover, Plumb would have been better served with a plumber’s helper. During the nine duets, both players tug unexpected timbres from the depths of their instruments. The products of breath-play, lip and tongue contortions as well as unusual fingering, the improvisations are studded with chortles, buzzes, brays, whinnies, growls, rumbles and warbles. Although pressurized overblowing and jagged multiphonics are frequent, so are connective harmonies.

Their skills are such that, for instance, on “Leak” Freedman’s sounds both tonal and atonal, constricting her split tones as she plays, while Thomson constructs a counter-line of echoing, double-tonguing. Adding the instruments’ wood and brass properties as sound sources, sibilant tongue-slaps and stops from the clarinet evolve in double counterpoint with the trombone’s low-pitched slurs and whistles, altering the tonal centre as a finale.

Plenty of slurs and growls arise on the other CD, which is paradoxically more jazzy and more electronic than Plumb. Martin’s and Shaw’s interplay is in Energy Music mode, despite sampled background reed echoes that further bond the players. Someone with mainstream as well as experimental credentials, Martin is an accomplished time-keeper, though the time-feel is hardly standard. Encompassing martial thumps, press rolls, and cymbal resonation he creates whichever beat best encourages Shaw’s story telling. Meanwhile split-tones, reed-biting trills and aviary cries are favored by the saxophonist.

“Rattlebag Jimmy” is the most spectacular version of this strategy. Shaw alternates between altissimo squeals and mid-register lyrical phrasing, as Martin brings nerve beats, bell and triangle pings into the mix. Eventually this broken octave exposition allows Shaw space for closely-packed, glottis-expanded reed cadences.

While conventional farming may be in decline, the produce from this musical barnyard appears healthy and flourishing.

-- Ken Waxman

March 2, 2008

Extended Play

Indie Jazz from Montreal and Toronto
Reviews by Ken Waxman

John Stetch Trio

Bruxin’

Justin Time JTR 8525-2

Arkana Music

Hyprovisation

Arkana MusicAM0001

See Through Trio

Our Own Devices

See Through Music No #

Mélanie Auclair

Décor Sonore

Ambiance Magnetique AM 158

Jean-Marc Hébert

L’Autre

Malasartes Musique MAM 004

Avi Granite

6 Red Tree

Pet Mantis Records PMR 003

Fulfilling, extending or adapting accepted styles to unique ends are the strategies of the players featured on this set of notable jazz and improvised music releases. A perhaps obvious sub-theme is the geographical necessity of migrating to major music centres. Although all the CDs were recorded either in Montreal or Toronto, most of the participants aren’t natives. But the availability of gigs in major cities serves as sufficient lures.

In some cases talented and/or lucky improvisers also move to the United States, which even in the 21st century accrues additional status – and greater musical opportunities.

Edmonton-born pianist John Stetch, a New York state resident, is an example of such a talented émigré. His Bruxin’ is a new take on the classic jazz piano trio tradition, with the keyboardist backed by bassist Sean Smith and drummer Rodney Green. Like most stateside Canucks, Stretch doesn’t downplay his identity, and at least two of his compositions –“Inuit Talk” and “The Prairie Unfolds” – have titles that resonate more north of the 49th parallel than south of it. The first is a foot-tapping march whose repeated vamp makes the tune cool but not cold. The later is as spacious as its title, building warmly voiced, glistening arpeggios before ebbing into double time riffs and bass thump.

But perhaps the most definitive performance is “Rectangle Blues”, which the pianist has been improvising on since his first CD. Encompassing key clipping and keyboard-wide jumps, it fits securely in the groove especially when Stetch and Green trade fours at the finale.

Similarly constituted is Arkana Music’s Hyprovisation with pianist Ali Berkok, bassist Gord Mowat, drummer Jake Oelrichs plus alto saxophonist Mark Laver. First organized when the saxophonist and pianist immersed themselves in new techniques while attending the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2005, the Toronto-based combo depends on the two’s Paul Desmond-Dave Brubeck-like partnership. Berkok – who wrote all the tunes – exhibits an easy swing throughout, while Laver’s airy obbligatos are usually pretty straightahead. Probably the most interesting track is “Through Sacco’s Eyes”, where a line of cadences arrive from the pianist, while the saxman flutter- tongues and hardens his vibrato as the rhythm section maintain a steady beat.

A different side of Laver is on display on the See Through Trio (STT)’s

Our Own Devices, a chamber-jazz excursion that’s probably the most notable disc here. STT also showcases pianist Tania Gill, who sometimes plays with Oelrichs, plus subtle bassist Pete Johnston, a Windsor, N.S.-native, who, like the saxophonist, is working on his doctorate. Johnston, who composed 10 of the 12 tracks, voices each instrument equally, negating the front line-rhythm section dichotomy. Tunes range from cabaret-styled tangos to speedy rhythmic romps which show off Laver’s split tones, slurs and tongue flutters. Gill’s versatility allows her to output pseudo-rags at one points, legato formalism at others plus the bouncy tick-tock that characterizes her own “Bicycle”. Polyphonically coalescing throughout, STT impresses without pushing its collective voice beyond moderato and andante.

Even more non-categorical are the timbres and textures exposed on cellist Mélanie Auclair’s Décor Sonore, another aural stunner. Leading a seven-piece ensemble including clarinetist Lori Freedman and guitarist Antoine Berthiaume as well as musicians manipulating a laptop, a foley for sound effects, and a piano, plus narration, the Drummondville, Que.-born, Montrealer uniquely melds music and everyday sounds. With the 20 tracks encompassing, foley-created scrapes and squeaks and non-specific buzzes and wheezes as well as trilling chalumeau split tones, hollow wood cello thumping and under the bridge finger-picking, the results touch on musics New, free, concrète and folkloric. Most notable is an unintentional four-track intermezzo (“Le fils”, “Les volets mous”, “Mes cerf-volant” and “Dream alarm” which uses the cello’s shuffle bowing with a thick vibrato to joins floating, tongue-stopping reed lines, string plinks, tangled ring modulator clangs, natural thunder approximations into agitato but exhilarating patterns.

This folkloric bent, but with Asiatic and Arabic influences, is taken one step further by guitarist Jean-Marc Hébert’s Autre. Hébert, who studied classical guitar at the University of Toronto in the 1980s, orients his Montreal playing towards World Music-fusion in groups such as Ragleela and Africa Musique. The CD’s seven tracks temper European folksiness with harsher Third World textures. Hébert’s single-string frailing and picking often suggests the additional overtones available from exotic strings, while Marie-Soleil Bélanger, who also plays in Ragleela, is able to display splayed and flanged bow movement, whether playing erhu or standard violin. Pierre Tanguay, one of Montreal’s most versatile rhythm players, adds his drums and “body percussion” throughout, creating tunes that reference droning ragas, serpentine Arabic melodies and formal Cantonese operas as well as western sounds.

Although some of the tunes exhibit a certain sameness in theme-variation-and-recapitulation, the standout is “Asie Mineur”, where the percussion beats could come from tablas or talking drums, the strings’ chromatic runs from a sarod and the shrill string sluicing from the Indian classical fiddle. In addition rock music-like backbeat and note spraying improvised solos are also prominent.

In sharp contrast, Toronto guitarist Avi Granite’s 6 Red Tree eschews non-Western influences for those of contemporary jazz. But still each of the 10 tracks offers unexpected enhancements from members of the sextet. Building up from the tough rhythms and near tom-tom-like rim shots of drummer Nick Fraser and the steady lope of bassist Neal Davis, there’s enough space for the front line, which includes keening vibrato runs from tenor saxophonist Jonathan Kay, acrid undertones from alto saxophonist Chris Roberts and the reverberations and shifting, tongue-fluffing of trombonist Tom Richards. Polished and professional, Granite sounds most solid when involved in subtle dual voicing of chromatic guitar runs with trilling horns. Throughout, no one slips too far outside, with the few shrill and off-centre textures very much a sideshow to the swinging main event.

These six CDs prove that thinking players can use different aural road maps to arrive at many destinations of similar musical significance.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 13 #5

February 1, 2008

THIN AIR

Queen Mab Trio
Wig 14

Performance: ****

Sound: ****

Expanding their Canadian New music duo overseas, Montreal-based clarinetist Lori Freedman and Toronto pianist Marilyn Learner added violist Ig Henneman five years ago to make Queen Mab a trio; and this CD is a potent affirmation of that decision.

Consisting of four Henneman compositions, two each by the others and one group improvisation, Thin Air’s music is loosely based on the Queen Mab scherzo from Hector Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet, the trio says.

No obvious linkage exists, but, for instance, Freedman’s “Hersenspinsels” contrasts a melancholy nocturne of struck piano chords with a scherzo-style theme from buzzy bass clarinet and see-sawing viola. Unrolling polyphonically the striated reed vibrato and tremolo strings eventually take on rondo qualities, while Lerner strokes her instrument’s internal strings. Similarly, Henneman’s “Drums and Trumpets” relates to the French composer’s programmatic ideas without using either named instrument. Emphasizing the clarinet’s metallic body tube reverberation as well as the reed, Freedman’s altissimo overblowing attains the braying qualities of a brassy horn. Meanwhile the pianist’s key strikes and string stops provides the percussion. Eventually the fortissimo piece vibrates towards an unexpected crescendo of tonality.

Adapting genres and form to their own ends, the three switch roles as traditionalists and experimenters throughout, with most tracks containing dissonant and staccatissimo as well as legato and adagio passages. Sweet trills plus guttural honks and tongue slaps co-exist from the reedist, just as flying staccato, col legno stops and graceful cadenzas do for the violist; while metronome-like piano pounding is as common as flowing accompaniment from the pianist.

Overall, Thin Air is an impressive essay in modern music. Furthermore, the genre in which the trio can best be slotted is secondary to its noteworthy compositions and performance.

--KEN WAXMAN

-- OPUS Volume 30 No. 3

October 20, 2007

Lori Freedman

3
Ambiances Magnétiques AM 157 CD

Recorded over three days, 3 showcases three sets of compositions interpreted by three dynamic trios, whose only constant is Montreal-based clarinetist and bass clarinetist Lori Freedman.

Sounding arcing timbres, harsh spit tones, rhythmic tongue slaps, rotund chalumeau vibrations and moist glissandi, Freedman molds her impressive technique to reflect each situation. However only two parts of this triple header attain the highest score. Most memorable are her five interchanges with the off-kilter folksiness of René Lussier’s guitar and the pulsating crackles of Martin Tétreault’s turntables; as well as her chamber group-like interplay on four tracks with Nicolas Caloia’s thumping bass and Danielle Palardy Roger’s ever-shifting, understated percussion.

Sweeping, twangy vibrations and kazoo-like squeaks from respectively, Rainer Wiens’ prepared guitar and Jean Derome’s alto saxophone upset the triangular game plan though. Too many reed buzzes and trills contrapuntally piled on top of one another relieved only by reverberating strums weaken those four selections.

But two outta three ain’t bad, with the remaining threesomes superlative. Roger’s rattles and inventions plus Caloia’s blunt string-stopping and sawing deftly fuse with Freedman’s vibrated flutter tones to resolve compositions from atonally to connective, horizontal interaction.

Most protuberant of the triptych meetings are those with Lussier-Tétreault. With the turntable’s shrill whistles, hissing static and metrical scratches bushing against the guitar’s chromatic snaps and crashing rasgueado, the mood is definitely POMO. Utilizing this droll interaction, the clarinetist regularly knits the strands together with mellow vibrated pitches which succinctly complete the tripartite musical impulses.

-- Ken Waxman

For Whole Note Vol. 12 #4

December 6, 2006

Hubbub/The Queen Mab Trio

Goethe Institut • Toronto

Consolidation and fragmentation were on show at Toronto’s Goethe Institute on Tuesday night as the fifth edition of the VTO Festival concluded on a musical high note – or more properly several of them

Coupled for the performance was Hubbub – alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet, tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler, pianist Frédéric Blondy, guitarist Jean-Sébastien Mariage and percussionist Edward Perraud – a quintet from France on its first North American tour; and The Queen Mab Trio, made up pf Toronto pianist Marilyn Lerner, Montreal reedist with Lori Freedman and violist Ig Henneman from the Netherlands.

Playing second, after a break, the Hubbub set was enthralling, as the five consolidated different tones and textures in such a way that the quintet became one 10- handed organism that breathed as one. Dense, quivering vibrations characterized much of the work. Furthermore, except for a brief section at the end when the saxes combined for a stentorian, dissonant expiration, Guionnet and Denzler restricted themselves to cross blowing and flutter tonguing, with the former often pulsating a single tone and the later whistling across his reed as if he was playing a flute.

That left the focus on the guitarist and more spectacularly on the pianist and drummer. Another minimalist proponent, Mariage works the peripheral real estate on his axe, only coming into contact with the centre strings for zither-like plucks, finger taps, e-bow rubs or resonating and quivering pulses produced with other objects besides his guitar pick.

Blondy accumulated a jumble of foreign objects as well – empty soft drink cans, drum sticks, felt tip mallets, toothpick-thin sticks and rubber balls – and spent the bulk of his time laying siege to the piano’s innards. At times it seems as if he was engrossed in a game of table hockey or bocce ball, so concentrated was his attention on the divisions between the key frame and speaking length. Often he swabbed and scraped the strings, other times he ricocheted sounds from them.

Not to be outdone, Perraud spread his collection of percussive adds-ons across the tops and sides of his standard kit. He struck small bowls and miniature unattached cymbals on his drum heads and rasped on his ride and cup cymbals with what seemed to be a mini band saw. Sometimes he would smack than quiver a large cymbal in the air fro added resonance; often he would drag a drum stick across his snare; and once he let loose with a colossal bass drum whap as wake-up punctuation.

Working up to a climax of undifferentiated, near electronic textures, the bubbling reed tones, piano chording, sawing guitar strings and percussion punctuation harmonized into an all-encompassing buzz that then dissipated to silence.

Working through a series of eight, shorter pieces inspired by the work of 19th Century French composer Hector Berlioz, Queen Mab’s opening performance was more fragmented, never quite reaching the level of time suspension created by Hubbub. Outputting deliberately jagged and discordant phrasing, the three supplely shaped extensive classical training to produce exactly the extended techniques needed for individual effects. Unlike Blondy, Lerner was rarely inside the piano, except for the odd pluck, although she probably played standing more often than sitting. Her strategy involved producing cross-handed romantic-style arpeggios when needed, pseudo nursery rhyme exercises at other times, pounding chordal clusters for emphasis or chilly single notes to add space.

As well as extended jettés and designated spiccato timbres, which sometimes seemed to be deliberately mocking the idea of “classical” fiddle soloist, Henneman often put aside her bow. Flat picking her viola strings as if it was playing banjo, she was occasionally joined in double counterpoint by Lerner’s frailing piano strings. Gesticulating, twisting and putting plenty of body English into her movements as she played, Freedman was most noticeable, whether playing clarinet or bass clarinet.

Favoring unattached notes, she pushed squat and foghorn-pitched sounds from her bass clarinet, flutter tongued or, at times, deliberately screeched for effect. On clarinet, her pitched patterns giggled if needed, while elsewhere she used key percussion to expand a composition’s bottom. Moving with herky-jerky, marionette-like motions, at points she muted the bell against her leg to create a pressurized sound that would extend tongue slaps.

Demonstrating two versions of modern chamber-like music, Queen Mab’s formalism and Hubbub’s transcendentalism etched a truly memorable experience for the audience members canny enough to spend the evening with them.

-- Ken Waxman

May 24, 2005